Chapter 7
Friday, April 30, 1999
1:07 pm
>>>>>>>

"That settles that," Cassy said as she hung up the phone. She was seated on the corner of the table in the interrogation room cum command center.

"Settles what?" Tom asked as he looked up from his lap top.

"We have a connection between the cases. Almost all of the victims were approached in the weeks leading to their deaths about becoming a model. Only one victim didn't mention being approached, but she might have just not mentioned it to anyone since she was new to the area and didn't have a boyfriend or girlfriend or family nearby. That was the woman in Stuart. Miami is having a composite drawn up, it seems that the boyfriend of their victim saw the woman who was recruiting his girlfriend to become a model. They're going to email the picture to you once it's complete. Now all we need to do is figure out why these women. I'd really love to have a decoy but we don't have that kind of time," Cassy carefully avoided any mention of Virginia.

Tom had been stiff and short with her ever since she had told him she had recognized the beloved fiancé's voice as the tipster from a few morning's ago. Cassy could hardly blame him and secretly commended him for his restraint. Cassy knew she herself would have gone ballistic on him had he suggested her lover was a suspect on a case. In fact, she once had. But the accusation was out there and she could hardly take it back now. Nor could she have him involved in that part of the investigation, it was too close to home for him. She either had to farm out the work secretly to someone else or ask him to step aside. Cassy doubted Tom would voluntarily step aside while his fiancé was investigated. She would need to keep him occupied with other things.

"You wanted to see me St. John?" Detective David Sykes of Lauderdale-by-the-Sea stuck his head into the interrogation room.

"Yeah, can you give me a minute?" Cassy asked him. Well, that decision was out of her hands now.

"You got it babe," Sykes winked and ducked his sandy brown head back out of the room.

"What's going on Cassandra?" Tom looked at his partner suspiciously.

"I'm going to ask him to look into the modeling world for us to see if there is a real connection or just a complete ruse," Cassy steeled herself from Tom's reaction.

"And why can't we do that?" he bit out.

"Because of Virginia. This might hit too close to home and you might be recognized. I need for you to step away from this part of the investigation and focus on the real perpetrator," Cassy admitted.

"So you still think my fiancé is involved in this? I can't believe you St. John," Tom slammed his palm on the table and stood up.

"I might have been hasty in thinking it was Virginia, but she is a model and it could be someone she knows or knows you," Cassy prevaricated, but she didn't feel good about it.

"When this comes to a dead end I expect you to apologize to both of us. I'm going to get some lunch!" Tom warned before storming out of the room.

"The day I apologize to that shrew," Cassy said aloud once he was out of earshot.

"What shrew?" David Sykes returned. "Sorry, I saw your partner storm out and thought you might be ready for me."

"Just a disagreement on a direction this investigation is taking. You'll understand in a minute. I need you to help me with something," Cassy looked him squarely in the eye, forgetting to wonder where her partner was going.

Sykes was suitably warned by her firm demeanor. He had known from the first moment he heard her voice over the phone that she was a force to be reckoned with.

"What do you need me to do?" he asked, a rakish tilt to his grin. He loved nothing more than a challenge. With a quick study of the woman standing in front of him he amended his thoughts.

'Almost nothing,' his twinkled at the thought, and he knew that his temporary boss knew just what he was thinking and was amused by it.

>>>>>>>>

Tom was still furious an hour later when he arrived back at the Department. Still furious with himself.

Despite his avowed denials of Cassy's claim that Virginia had given him the tip and might know someone involved with the crime, inside he couldn't dismiss her out of hand. Cassy was too good an investigator and too loyal a partner to be either so grossly mistaken or to have made up something this serious out of spite, even if she was insanely jealous of her ex-husband's future bride, which she wasn't anyway. What made him even angrier was that he had been wondering whether Virginia would keep something like this from him ever since Cassy brought it up.

He was even angrier that his suspicions had let him back to their apartment where he had looked through Virginia's private things for some sign of her involvement. His heart sank even further as he remembered what he had found. A few packets of unlabeled powder that tasted suspiciously like cocaine and a few months worth of birth control pills along with a receipt indicating that one packet missing. They had agreed when they had gotten engaged to try for a baby.

'Could Cassy be right?' the thought physically sickened him.

He had to look into this, but for personal not professional reasons. He would let Cassy pretend to believe that he didn't know what she and Sykes were up to and he would engage in his own investigation of Virginia. It was a decision he had made back in their bedroom but couldn't admit to himself until now.

'To clear her,' he tried to convince himself as he pulled out his cellular phone and initiated a background check on the woman he had already vowed to love and trust for the rest of his life.

It wouldn't be the first time that vow had been broken would it?

>>>>>>>>

"Good work," Harry complimented his detective team after he finished reading through the summary they had put together on the modeling scam connection in the case. He looked at them over his glasses for a second when neither preened at their superior's rare expression of a job well done. Something was still brewing between them, he thought as he noticed that they sat stiffly and did not look at each other.

'It's been this way ever since Tom was shot eight months ago,' he shook his head in exasperation. They had always been an explosive pair, but ever since Tom had recovered their bouts had increased in frequency and intensity, just as it had when they were married. 'Stubborn fools.'

But since it wasn't interfering with the investigation he wasn't going to bring it up again. Afterwards though...

"Has Miami sent over the sketch yet?" he asked out loud.

"No sir, as soon as its here we'll pass it out," Cassy answered for them.

"So you've broken up the investigation?" Harry asked.

"Yes, Cassy is heading up the teams to look into the model angle and I'm supervising the search for our druggist," Tom explained smoothly, as if he had agreed to the plan in the first place. He didn't look over when Cassy shot him a questioning glance, but he felt an increased pressure in his chest. He and Cassy knew each other too well to be able to fool each other for long. She knew he was up to something as surely as he knew she was.

'God, how did we get to here?' he wondered to himself, suddenly feeling the chasm between him and Cassy for the first time since their divorce. He hadn't even noticed it widening. But how wouldn't it after he got engaged to someone else?

Harry's continued speaking brought him out of his reverie.

"Good, the Mayor doesn't want another body turning up on the Atlantic seaboard. Not in Palm Beach or anywhere else since we're a head of this investigation. Unless of course it's out-of-state, because then it will be the FBI's problem. What about the suspects that have been questioned?" Harry asked.

"Nothing yet. We're still looking at professionals, but we've widened the look at non-professionals that work the type of crowds that go to these raves. We have a couple of people looking at the campuses here and in Miami. The FBI has agreed to lend us some agents from the Miami office so we can cover more ground before Monday and the state police, county sheriffs and all of the prosecutor's offices are now lending a hand," Cassy finished.

"Good, good," Harry dismissed them with a wave of his hand. His butt was in a sling if another body washed up, now he had to go brief the commissioner and the mayor. Even the Governor was interested in this case now.

Seeing his pained expression the seasoned team didn't loiter.

>>>>>>>>

"Tom, I need to show you something," Cassy told him before they reentered the interrogation room.

"Yeah?" he looked at her warily.

"The picture came from Miami. I had it directed to my inbox instead, but didn't have a chance to show it to you before Harry called us in," Cassy led him back into the empty room and to her laptop. She stood by and waited for him to take a seat at the table before calling up the email.

Tom's eyes closed when he saw the sketch. The resemblance to his Virginia was uncanny.

"Maybe she was really scouting for models," Tom said half-heartedly.

Cassy heard the edge underlying his words and placed her hand on his shoulder, about to offer him comfort.

Tom pulled away violently and stood up.

"Is this what you wanted?" he accused, knowing his words were unfair even before they left his mouth. But he was unable to stop himself. He had been wanting to lash out at Cassy for so long. The almost constant disputes they had been engaging in over the past week hadn't begun to scratch the surface of his resentment towards her. Or what he thought was resentment.

"Is this why you were brought into my life? You've done nothing but ruin it from the first day we met. You break my heart and betray my trust and now you're doing your best to ruin my relationship with Virginia. Just as you've ruined every relationship since we met! You talk too much about your partner Tom. You're partners with your ex-wife Tom? Why do you call her when I'm in the bathroom Tom? It's done. After this case Harry's going to have to find someone who's willing to work with you!"

As Tom slammed out of the room David Sykes entered whistling under his breath.

"I didn't mean to eavesdrop..." he began to apologize.

"But you could hear him down the hall," Cassy struggled to hide her hurt. "Seems to be a common occurrence lately. We're under a lot of pressure. What did you find out?"

"Well, Virginia Mason became Virginia Archer in 1991 by marriage to a Marcus Archer, who by all records I've found is not dead. In fact she and her husband are currently on Key Nuevo, a private gambling casino in international waters off Florida. She has worked on occasion as a model but her usual employment is as a con woman. Her husband, get this, dropped out of pharmacy school in 1984," Sykes looked up from the file in his hand.

Cassy sat down with a stunned expression on her face. It was all too easy and too pat.

"Where did you find this information?" she finally asked.

"Not through usual channels. Through the usual channels I came up with a rap sheet as long as my arm for," David flipped a few pages, "solicitation, prostitution, fraud, rubber checks and some petty crimes. Her husband has a similar rap sheet. Apparently he's not shy about pimping out his wife. I had to tap into some other sources for the connection with Mundson, the owner of Key Nuevo. Not a savory character. I'm not sure where your partner fits into the plan, all I can assume is they wanted a source in the police department. I suggest you ask your IT department if Tom's computer has made some unusual access recently into departmental databases or other systems Tom might have access to."

"I really wanted to be wrong about this," all hurt and anger on her own account had fled now that she was faced with the perfidy Tom was victim to. And she would have to be the one to break it to him.

Well, he already hated her, she thought philosophically.

>>>>>>

Tom, however, was not without his own resources and had come up with much the same information that Sykes had.

"At least I won't have to force Cassy to make an apology," he thought bitterly, even as he blocked out the hurtful things he had flung at her a short while ago. Now was not the time to worry about that or his badge. He had a water taxi to get.

>>>>>

"She's been getting into databases I know Tom would have no reason to look at," Cassy confirmed as she hung up the phone.

"What if she's been drugging him? The long term effects of this stuff is just as bad as too much at one time," Sykes's partner Jack Herrera hypothesized.

"It would explain why a sharp cop like Ryan was taken in by this con woman, other than the obvious reasons," the leer in Sykes's voice was obvious.

Cassy rolled her eyes. She couldn't understand how men could be so taken with the wrapping of the package they missed what was inside.

"Can we keep this quiet until it checks out?" Cassy looked at the two officers she had taken into her confidence. The last thing she wanted was for Tom's humiliation become common knowledge among the massive task force they had assembled and the press. IF Virginia wasn't involved all of this would go away. If it wasn't...Cassy didn't even want to think about it. Tom wouldn't want her help anyway, he had made that abundantly clear.

>>>>>>>
Key Largo Water Taxi

Tom knew from years on the force that Mundson didn't let just anyone onto his island and he probably wouldn't want a Palm Beach police officer nosing around. But he had some business with his fiancé and her husband.

Tom let out a harsh laugh at the appellation.

The woman he had trusted with his heart, the woman he had trusted. What a joke.

He had accused Cassy of ruining his life but it seemed that he had managed just fine all on his own. He had known that his friends and his ex wife had never warmed up to Virginia, and in fact he had taken Cassy's instant dislike of the woman as a reason to get even more serious with the woman than he might not have otherwise. It was almost a relief to be able to admit it now. After being shot and finding his wedding band under his pillow, obviously placed there by his distraught ex wife he had waited around for weeks for some sign from Cassy that she had regretted their hasty and passionate decision to end their marriage. That she wanted and was willing to try again. Instead he watched her continue her pattern of heated, short-term love affairs. Then he had met Virginia.

A beautiful and sexy beyond words and intelligent woman who seemed to adore him. And Tom wanted to be adored. And he wanted to make sure that Cassy knew about it.

She professed to want the same things Tom wanted, a home, family and security.

He had been an easy mark.

He wondered as he looked at his shaking hands whether he had also been drugged. He should have sent those packets to the lab instead of sticking them in a file in his desk.

>>>>>>>

"Where's Tom now?" Harry asked.

"I haven't seen him in a few hours and he isn't answering his phone," Cassy sounded as worried as she felt. None of his team had seen him either.

"He's probably trying to protect his fiancé's reputation," Harry mildly rebuked his officer for not telling him of her suspicions earlier. Now he had a renegade lead detective.

"Or if he's found out about her himself he's gone to try and find her himself, to convince her to give herself up," Cassy said grimly.

"Key Nuevo," Harry slammed his fist on the desk. "If they're not the perpetrators on this case there will be hell to pay for all of us disappearing."

"You're coming too?" Cassy wasn't really surprised. Harry was their friend as well as their boss.

"Damn right I am. The Governor wants the state to take lead in the case and I've resisted. This might be the perfect time to hand over the reins and slip off. I'll make a few phone calls. I'm going to have to tell them about Virginia and Archer and ask them to keep quiet," Harry told her.

Cassy wanted to argue but couldn't.

"I'll wait a few hours before informing them," Harry whispered conspiratorially.

"Good," Cassy stood up and walked out of the office, trying not to think too hard about whether any of them would have badges when all of this was over.

>>>>>>>>

"You're risking your badges if you come. We're not going to tell the Sheriff's office about them until we have a chance to check it out ourselves," Cassy warned Sykes and Herrera.

"He's a fellow officer," Sykes wouldn't be dissuaded from coming with Harry and Cassy.

Cassy was glad to have the back up. If Mundson was in on the plot there was no telling what kind of reception they might get. Cassy had a strong suspicion, however, that Mundson was not aware of the murders whatever else he might be into with the Archers. Gangsters usually didn't involve themselves in serial murders.

End of Chapter 7