Island of Bones(30)

Louis moved on, walking a wide circle around the reporter. He heard her sign off. Heather Fox. That was it.

“Mr. Kincaid? Louis Kincaid?”

He heard footsteps behind him and turned just as she came up to him. He glanced at the camera. The red recording light was off.

“Are you involved in this case?” Heather Fox asked.

“No.”

She swept back her hair with red-nailed fingers. “Then why are you here?”

“Donuts,” Louis said.

She laughed, and he walked away.

Inside the door, he pulled off his sunglasses. The air- conditioning felt good against his face and he took a second to let it soak in. He waved to the female uniform behind the glass and mouthed Horton’s name. She smiled and buzzed him in.

Horton’s door was open and he was standing behind his desk reading something. He looked up when Louis approached.

“Hey, Kincaid, good timing. Come on in. We ID’d the Jane Doe.”

“I heard outside,” Louis said. “How’d it happen?”

“Mel found a BOLO from Fort Lauderdale police. That’s where she’s from. The parents came in last night. Mel’s questioning them right now.”

Horton’s eyes drifted to the door and Louis instinctively knew the chief had been the one who had broken the news to the parents. Horton hadn’t foisted the job off on some Fort Lauderdale cop. He had made the call himself.

“How’d they take it?” Louis asked.

Horton shook his head slowly. “The mother’s in shock, I guess. The father —-” Horton let out a breath. “He started screaming at me about the cops and the judges letting animals run loose on the streets, that sort of shit.” Horton sat down in his chair behind the desk. “Man, I want this guy caught, whoever it is.”

Louis rubbed a hand over his face. “Chief, there’s something -—”

Landeta came in, moving right to Horton’s desk. He didn’t see Louis hanging back by the door.

“No way this girl was a runaway,” Landeta said.

“How do you know?” Louis asked.

Mel spun to face Louis. He gave him a look of contempt and turned back to the chief.

“The parents spend the winter in Lauderdale then go to their home in North Carolina for the summer,” Landeta said. “They left Lauderdale on April second and the daughter stayed behind in the condo. She was a student at Nova University and was supposed to fly back north when she finished the spring semester.”

“When did they last talk to her?” Horton asked.

“A couple of weeks later,” Landeta said. “The father took off to France on business in early May, and the mother joined him there a week later. They were going to be in Europe all summer on vacation. The mother said she talked to the daughter just before she left. The mother called a couple of times while they were in Europe but always got the answering machine. Said she didn’t think it was strange.”

“That explains why no one came forward,” Horton said.

Mel nodded. “The mother finally got worried enough to call the condo and have somebody go up and check. Then they called the cops, who found out the girl hadn’t been to classes in four weeks. They found her car in the campus lot. It was unlocked and there was some blood inside. That’s when the BOLO went out.”

“Did the parents know she was pregnant?” Horton asked.

Landeta shook his head. “The mother was pretty shocked when I told them. She told me the daughter had a fiancé up in North Carolina, a med student named Jeremy Maynard.”

“Any chance this Maynard guy is the father?” Louis asked.

Landeta didn’t even look back at him. “Maynard said the last time he saw Shelly Umber was at Christmas. I called up to Duke and talked to some doctor who said Maynard is doing his residency at the university hospital there. It keeps him too busy to take a shit let alone fly down to Lauderdale and shoot his girlfriend.”

“How did he take it?” Louis asked.

Landeta turned. “Who?”

“Her boyfriend.”

Landeta stared at him for a moment. “How do you think?”

“Hey, look, man —- ” Louis began.

Horton sat up in his chair. “Save it. What else, Mel?”

“The parents say she was a great kid, good student, homecoming queen, the whole shot. She was also an athlete who made all-state lacrosse team in high school and liked to ski and hike. All she wanted to do was finish college, become a pediatrician, marry Dr. Jeremy, and climb Mt. Everest someday.”

“Family have any connections here?” Horton asked.

“No,” Landeta said. “They’ve never set foot in Fort Myers before and I get the feeling they never want to come back.”