Chapter 7

After blowing off steam at the range, they'd grabbed some lunch to eat at Chris' and Rita's desks while they went back over their notes. They were trying to figure out the geography of the murders—had the perp suddenly expanded his territory and, if so, why? Or had they gotten it wrong all along? As they were running through scenarios, Rita's cell phone rang. She looked at the screen, but didn't recognize the number.

"This is Sergeant Lance," she said neutrally, answering the call on the third ring.

"Uh, is this Rita? From Night Moves?"

"Yes," Rita said quickly, her voice softening a bit. She recognized Tina's voice on the other end of the line.

"Uh, hey. This is Tina. You know, from this morning?" Rita couldn't tell if the girl was just nervous or really thought Rita would have forgotten her already. One of the many problems with so many of her cop colleagues calling street kids "throwaways" is that the kids themselves started to believe it was an accurate assessment of how memorable and important they were, or weren't.

"Yeah, Tina. What's going on. Everything okay?"

Hearing who it was on the other end of the phone, Chris and Devon fixed their gazes on Rita, hopeful Tina was calling with a clue and not to tell them someone else had gone missing.

"Uh, yeah. Fine, I guess. Yeah. I mean everything's fine…." Tina seemed uncharacteristically nervous. "So, um, I found someone who saw Liz after she and I split up last night. Our friend Switch? He um, he saw her walking near North Flagler and… and he saw her get into a car." Tina's voice was flat. Rita couldn't quite tell if she was high or just shutting down emotionally from all the stress from the loss of her friends.

"Tina, that's great. That's really good news." Rita flicked the cell phone up so that the earpiece stayed close to her ear, but the mouthpiece was at the top of her head, half buried in her hair. "Tina found a witness!" She said quietly but excitedly to Chris and Devon. They gave each other a near-silent high-five, and turned back to watch Rita talk to Tina. Rita swung the phone back down so Tina could hear her again as she spoke. "Where are you? Is Switch there with you now? We'll come meet you."

"No!" Tina jumped. "No. He won't be seen with you. Not after all this crazy shit that's gone down. He's not gonna risk being seen with any cops."

Rita was about to argue with the girl, but she could hear someone talking to her in the background. Tina responded, but the voices were muffled. Clearly Tina had put her hand over the mouthpiece so Rita couldn't make out what was being said. Based on the tone of their voices and the few words that weren't totally garbled, it sounded like Tina and whomever she was with were having some sort of mild disagreement. After a few seconds, Tina's voice came through the phone clearly again.

"He says he'll talk to you now. On the phone. But that's it."

"Okay. Good. Thanks, Tina. You did …" Rita's words trailed off as she heard a young man's voice closer to the mouthpiece. Tina had handed Switch the phone, not waiting to hear whatever Rita had to say to her. For her part, Rita grabbed a pen and note pad and Chris and Devon swarmed to either side of her to see the details as she took them down.

"Yeah?" A thin male voice drawled impatiently into Rita's earpiece. He didn't sound old enough to be out of middle school, but Rita assumed he was at least in his late teens if he was hanging out with Tina and her friends.

"You're Switch?" Rita asked.

"The one and only."

"And you saw Liz last night, and the car she got into?"

Switch sighed into the receiver, as though Rita were wasting his time. "Yep."

Rita gritted her teeth and counted silently to three. Keeping her tone bland she asked, "Can you tell me what time you saw her? And where she was when she got into the car?"

"We ran into each other outside the gas station near 8th Street, off North Flagler. It was… I dunno… 11, I guess. Maybe. Maybe 11:30."

"And is that where she got into the car?" Rita was trying to pin down any details this kid would commit to.

"No. We walked for a few minutes. She traded me some food she'd bought at the gas station for a cig. We walked over to Flager, up by the condos."

"So you were heading north?" Rita tried to sound conversational.

"Yeah I guess. Whatever. Liz was late meeting Tina. She was heading wherever they were supposed to meet."

"So did the car pull up to both of you?" Rita was being gentle, trying to keep the kid on her side, keep him feeding her information. Meanwhile, Chris was getting impatient. He was looking at her, making motions like he was casting a fishing rod, silently pleading with her to "hook" the info and reel this guy in. Lipschitz, who'd noticed their interest in Rita's call, had joined the group, and he put a strong hand on Chris's shoulder. Chris looked up and the Cap just shook his head, saying quietly, "patience, Lorenzo. Let the woman work."

Rita kept her full attention on Switch's voice on the other end of the line as he said, "Shit no. I wish it had…." His voice turned angry and he paused briefly, but he didn't make Rita beg him for details. Instead he continued, "I was heading back down to the library, near 2nd, to hook up with some friends. So Liz kept going up Flagler, after I turned back toward town. And I was walking, like, a block or two, and I heard a car slow down. I looked back at Liz… I don't know why, really… but I looked back and saw her leaned over, talking through the window… to the guy driving."

"Did you get a good look at the car? Or the guy?" While her eyes got wide with anticipation, Rita's voice stayed completely even. The resolve that had come over her at the beach this morning had her focused. She was excited, yes, but she knew they were still a long way from catching this guy.

"I walked part way back, just to see. But Liz was a smart girl; I thought she could take care of herself." Switch's tone had gone flat, like Tina's.

Rita waited.

"It was a blue car," Switch said, finally deciding to answer the question he'd been asked.

"Blue?" Rita was thrown.

"Yeah. Dark blue."

"You're sure it was blue, not black?" Rita didn't want to irritate the boy, but this was important.

"Yeah. Look, he was right under a streetlight. Dumb shit. So, yeah, I saw the car good. It was dark blue. BMW. 7 series maybe. Maybe a 5. H4B something…."

"H4B… wait, you mean you got a plate number?" Now Rita was excited.

Lipschitz threw his head back and both arms up in the air, turning 180 degrees, his back facing his detectives. Then he pivoted back around and smacked his forehead with the palm of his hand. If he lived to be a hundred, he would never get over witnesses who wasted time stringing you along with useless bits of information when they were sitting on gold. Panning for the gold was part of the art of the job, sure, but it didn't make it any less exasperating on a case this big.

"Yeah. Not all of it. I mean, I don't remember all of it, but that was the first part." Switch inhaled sharply; Rita guessed he was smoking. To her surprise, he kept talking. "At first she seemed nervous talking to him, but then, like, she seemed fine. Relaxed. Whatever he said, she got in the car. He didn't, like, force her or anything."

"Could you hear anything they were saying?"

"No. Like I said, I wasn't that close." Sullen teenage annoyance had taken over his voice again.

"Did you see him at all? Did he see you?"

At this, Switch paused. Unnerved perhaps by the possibility of having been spotted. "Looked like a white dude. Maybe. Maybe a Hispanic. He had slicked back hair anyway. That's what I remember. I don't know if he saw me… Listen. I don't know anything else. I gotta go."

Rita could hear the phone dropping away and Tina came back on the line. The girl ended the call quickly, but not before Rita impressed upon her the need to call her if Switch said or remembered anything else.

As she hung up the phone, all of the other detectives started talking at once. Finally Rita was able to silence them. "It was a blue car, not a black one. Maybe that's why Liz felt safe getting into it? I don't know what the guy said, but he must have convinced her that he wasn't our perp. But we got a partial plate…"

"Yeah, we heard. We're running it now." Chris was working furiously on his computer while the Cap and Devon stood somewhat helplessly at either side.

"Yes!" Chris half jumped out his seat. Cracking his neck and pointing at the screen in front of him he said, "we got you, you S.O.B." His eyes were twinkling with the adrenaline rush he got when he and Rita were hot on a case. "Check this out, Sammy. Carlos Ortega."

"Ortega?" Rita's eyes went wide again, in recognition of a big fish in their small pond.

Chris was nodding, still reading further down the records he'd pulled up. "That's right, Sam. Carlos Ortega, the no-good son of everyone's least favourite State Senator: Thomas Whitman." Chris was shaking his head.

Lipschitz held his stomach. "Great," he muttered. "A politician's son." Indigestion was already settling in.

"Step-son, actually, Cap." Rita filled in some details. "If I remember the society pages correctly, Whitman married way up the social ladder when he married into the Ortega family. They're old Palm Beach money. Cuban originally; been here forever. His wife was a rich widow with a teen-age son, and old man Whitman got major sympathy points for taking the kid in even though he was kind of a wild child."

Chris was still reading the screen and his voice dripped with irritation. "Man, this guy is a piece of work. 28 years old now. He's been arrested for possession. Drunk and disorderly. Reckless driving. Battery. Says here one woman even accused him of sexual assault. Huh!" Chris snorted in disgust.

"And let me guess, Sam. All the charges have been dropped." Rita knew the routine. Whitman was one of the most powerful men in the state of Florida's political machine.

"Like a hot potato, Sam." Chris mimed the action as he looked up at his partner.

Donovan had come into the squad room, hoping for an update on the case. Chris, Rita, and Harry were giving him accusing looks.

"What?" he snapped. "Do I have food on my face or something?"

"We have a suspect, George." Rita filled him in on what they'd just learned. As she finished, all four of the cops were looking at Donovan, as if demanding some account of why Ortega was still on the street.

"Dammit. Why does it have to be Ortega? You guys," he was pointing at Chris and Rita, "need to handle this with kid gloves. You hear me?"

Harry was getting his back up, preparing to read George the riot act, but the Assistant District Attorney kept talking, trying to prevent Harry from interrupting him.

"I get it. Believe me. And I want this guy. I've got a file on him the size of which you wouldn't believe. But I can't make anything stick. Either mommy's money or daddy's connections get him off the hook before I can haul him into court." George was throwing his hands up in disgust now. "The last time you all picked him up," he pointed vaguely around the squad room, "we got this close to nailing him. But the judge let him out without bail thanks to Whitman's influence, and good ol' Carlos skipped the country. Took a long trip back to the homeland to wait for things to cool down. Meanwhile, his mommy and step-daddy gave a cool million to Wrong-Way Conroy's re-election campaign, and suddenly, next thing I hear, we're not interested in pursuing the case." George snorted. Steam might as well have been coming out of his ears.

Chris turned to Devon, who was frantically scrolling through files on her iPad. "How does Miami fit into all of this?"

It was Donovan who answered. "I've heard rumors Ortega had upped his game. Moved into drug trafficking. He was splitting his time between here and there."

Devon was nodding, still rapidly scanning whatever files she'd pulled up. "That's what I've got to." She was shaking her head as she said with mocking understatement, "our friend Carlos has been a very bad boy. According to the reports the DEA has shared with us, they've been trying to build a case against him for facilitating a new coke pipeline they'd picked up intel about." She paused, scanning and scrolling. "Mmm. Mmm. Looks like they were getting pretty hot on his heels. Then nothing." She looked up, making eye contact with the crew around her. "That could account for the break. He kills the two young women in Miami. Then the DEA is getting close on the drug stuff. So he takes off or lays low for awhile. And then he comes to Palm Beach."

"For what, though?" Chris asked, thinking out loud. Working out the possible scenarios.

"Meet some buyers? Or try to drum up new business? Devon mused.

"If things were too hot in Miami, maybe he comes here to throw the DEA further off the scent," Harry was sounding more and more like the New York cop he had been for years. "Guy figures DEA's too stupid to track him an hour up the coast."

"That fits," Donovan said. "There were rumors Carlos had some drug connections here. Not small fry, either."

"Sounds like the DEA thought he looked good for brokering some deals between some Columbian suppliers and Miami importers," Devon filled in. "Maybe he then tries to double down and make the deal between the importers and the buyers here in Palm Beach as well. Cut out the middle man and double his money."

"Which has the added bonus of getting him out of Miami even longer, hoping the drug and murder trail there goes cold," Rita played out the end of the scenario.

"Well he's here now," Harry said slowly, looking meaningfully at Chris and Rita. "So let's find him before he slips the country again or God forbid kills another kid." His voice was rising to emphasize his seriousness. "Well what are you waiting for?" He looked at each of the detectives. "Find him!" With that, Harry grabbed at his now thoroughly inflamed stomach and turned toward his office, anxious for a Rolaid or three.

"If you arrest him," Donovan said severely to Chris and Rita, "make sure you have evidence that'll stick. I'm not losing my career over this." He turned and headed for the doors as Chris, somewhat helpless and annoyed, yelled at his back, "thanks for the support, George." Rita just shook her head. "Let it go, Chris."

They knew this was good, though. They could feel it. The pattern worked; it connected the dots. It put Carlos in the right place, and he was just the kind of stand up guy who would go in for murder. They still didn't have a motive for the particularly gruesome nature of the crimes, or why he was targeting kids, but it felt right.

From the records they had on Ortega, they were able to pull a last known address for one of his connections here in Palm Beach, a low level mob lackey with more ambition than brains by the name of Jack Vermosse. Vermosse was a former business partner of Donnie "Dogs" DeBarto who had fallen out of favor with DeBarto over Vermosse's handling—or mis-handling—of some black market electronics business in Palm Beach. Donnie ran a tight ship, and Vermosse was a no-class-having punk who'd made the mistake of insulting Donnie while trying to cheat him in a business deal. Because of this, Donnie may have let it slip to the lovely Rita—the cop for whom he had such a tender spot—that Carlos and Vermosse had chatted the last time Ortega was in town. This information may, or may not, have come at the cost of another dinner date with the genial mobster. Rita certainly wasn't going to confirm anything of the sort in front of Lipschitz, who also did his best not to ask too many questions to which he didn't want to know the answer.

With Donnie's information and the address they pulled, Chris and Devon took off in search of Ortega by way of Vermosse, while Rita went to find Tina to see if she or Switch recognized the photos of Orgeta and Vermosse they'd pulled from the computers. It was still possible Vermosse was their killer and not Ortega. She kind of hoped so, because the less-well-connected were easier to convict. But she'd soon enough learn they weren't going to get that lucky. Rita was just leaving the motel where Tina was more or less in hiding and drowning her fears in marijuana and cheap beer when her cell phone rang.

"Tell me you found him, Sammy," she said, having seen Chris' name on the screen.

Vermosse was last known to be living below his means in a bungalow near Lake Park, which is where Chris and Devon had just been. "No Vermosse or Ortega, Sammy. Not yet. But we did see Vermosse's ex-girlfriend. I gotta say… she didn't seem too unhappy about his being gone."

"Does she know where he is?" Rita asked hopefully.

"Not exactly. But she did say that Vermosse has been spending a lot of time lately with"

"Oh let me guess, Sam," Rita broke in, "with Ortega?"

"Ding, ding, ding. Sammy, you're very good at this." Chris was smiling widely now. He and Rita were closing in. And any playfulness back in Rita's game made him a very happy man.

"Well let's hope we find Vermosse soon, with Ortega," Rita said. "I'm tired of him being three steps ahead of us."

"I hear you, Sammy. You get anywhere with Tina?"

"She can't be sure about either guy, but she thought Ortega looked a bit like the man she saw. And she certainly looked like she'd seen the devil when I showed her his picture."

"Well he is a handsome one. And we may be in luck. Vermosse's ex said Ortega was staying a friend's house, up near Juno Beach."

"Nice friends," Rita said. Juno Beach was one of the ritzier neighborhoods in town, which was saying something in Palm Beach.

"Well," Chris said in mock sympathy, "we wouldn't want the young man to have to suffer."

"No, Sammy. We wouldn't want that." Neither one could muster much sympathy for the rich and badly behaved. They didn't mind the rich per se, just the ones who thought that having money bought them out of the need to play by the rules. That is, most of them. "You have an address in Juno Beach or a name for these friends of Ortega?"

"We're working on it now. You want to meet us near the credit union off Route 1, in Juno Ridge, and we'll head up from there?"

"On my way, Sammy." Rita clicked off the call and jumped into her car. If traffic stayed light, she could be there in fifteen minutes. They were going to nail this bastard, and she wanted to be the first one through the door when they did.