It had been a while since he’d cruised this stretch of Biscayne. He was here now because of Leslie Levine. Over the weekend, while Frank and Magnuson were making a mess of things on Prince Key, Marta had sacrificed Sunday, going to the office, where she’d spent the morning online, then worked the phones and tracked through Levine’s records, which eventually pointed to this kitschy dive along a polluted stretch of Little River.
First, she discovered Leslie’s paychecks were automatically deposited in her bank account, and that account used a post office box up in Aventura for a home address. She used the same PO box for tax returns and other assorted mail. Cash payments for the mail drop. Dead end there.
Her driver’s license showed an address in Kendall, but according to the apartment manager, Leslie had moved out a year earlier. No forwarding address. When Marta asked the apartment manager if Leslie had any friends, anyone who might know her current whereabouts, the lady told Marta no friends ever stopped by. Not even men friends? Marta asked her. No men. And as Marta was about to end the conversation, the woman said, well, one woman used to visit pretty regular. You wouldn’t call her a friend. What would you call her? Marta said. Her mother, the manager said.
Mother? Yeah, yeah, her name was Geraldine. She and the manager had gotten friendly, what with Geraldine hanging around so much.
Why was she hanging around? Marta asked.
Babysitting, the manager told her. Babysitting Leslie’s daughter, Julie, cute as a speckled pup.
Geraldine Levine. Julie.
Did the apartment manager know how Marta could locate Leslie’s mother? Well, yes, she’d visited Geraldine once. Last time she saw her, Geraldine lived in an efficiency attached to Motel Blu up near Little Haiti. But the manager didn’t feel safe in the neighborhood and never returned.
Sheffield could understand why. It was a dodgy section, trying hard to catch the next fashionable wave, but not there yet. Not even close. The pedestrian traffic alone, a steady stream of greasy-haired guys pushing grocery carts and a sauntering parade of scrawny ladies in leopard-skin spandex, was reason enough for Kendall apartment managers to stay away.
No one came to the door of Geraldine Levine’s apartment. Sheffield knocked again, then worked his way around the small concrete structure, peeking through the venetian blinds, seeing only a small room cluttered with plastic toys and stuffed animals.
On the grassy bank next to the Little River, he found Leslie’s mom. She was sitting in an aluminum chair reading a paperback while a baby lay awake in a shaded bassinet beside her. The kid wasn’t a year old, but she had a wild patch of Leslie’s auburn hair, and her serious, deep-blue eyes peered with interest at Sheffield as he came up beside Geraldine’s chair.
Geraldine’s hair was bleached a harsh yellow, the roots showing gray at the part. She wore a pair of white shorts and a tight green top and no jewelry or makeup. A woman in her early fifties with the look of someone with a seriously misspent youth. Battered by too much sun, too much booze, too many nights she’d rather not remember.
“Hi, Julie,” Frank said.
The kid kept looking up at Sheffield until he made a goofy face and she grinned and gurgled something. Geraldine dog-eared a page and shut her book and laid it in her lap. But didn’t turn around.
Sheffield drew out his ID, squatted next to her chair, and presented it.
“A croc ate her,” Geraldine said, eyes on the dark-green water. “She’s gone and not coming back. That means I’ll be raising this beautiful girl myself. Which is okay, I’m not complaining. Not every mother gets a second chance.”
And for the next half hour that was all Frank Sheffield could get from her. Versions of that same statement no matter what question he posed. As if she’d rehearsed the speech, knew that Frank or someone like him was coming to ask for Leslie’s whereabouts. A tough nut who would never crack.
Marta was right again. The reason someone went to the trouble to stage her own death was to be considerate. To create a cover story that could be told to a child who would one day grow up and ask the inevitable question: Where’s Mommy?
* * *
So he could take Monday off, Claude Sellers pulled two ten-hour shifts on the weekend, going over various assault scenarios with his security squad. They did walk-throughs on all the attack plans Nicole had raised in their tabletop meeting with Sheen from NRC and Special Asshole in Charge Sheffield. Claude knew these predrill exercises with his team were total bullshit, but he needed to cover his ass for the inevitable inquiry that would follow the force-on-force exercise, after it went kablooey.
He knew what the real plan was, and exactly how he was going to foil it single-handedly. He also knew how he was going to keep Nicole out of the action. No heroism gold medal for her. Fuck Nicole. He was cutting the broad loose.