The Bone House Part 5

'I saw your mother in a movie last night.'

It was an innocuous comment for her to make, but every time they deviated from work talk, he felt gravity again, as if the two of them were circling the black hole. He recognized it was a big leap for Lala even to say it, and he wondered if she had an ulterior motive.

'Yeah? Which one?'

'Sapphirica.'

Cab nodded. 'That was twenty years ago. I was on set with her when she filmed that one in Italy. It won a special jury prize at Sundance.'

'Did you travel with her a lot growing up?' Lala asked.

'Yeah, it was like being an army brat without the guns.'

'You look a lot like her,' she told him.

'Thanks.'

'So why aren't you an actor like her, anyway? You've got the looks for it.'

'My head kept getting cropped out of the frame.'

Lala laughed, but it was hollow. She went back to her phone as if he'd dismissed her with an expletive, rather than a joke. He thought about saying something more, but he didn't. He was his mother's son.

Tarla Bolton was a fierce loner, and so was Cab. She'd never married and never even acknowledged the man who got her pregnant. He didn't know who his father was, although he had narrowed the field to a few likely candidates based on the film she was making at the time he was conceived. He'd never asked her for the truth.

Cab had never married either, although he'd got close. Once. Her name was Vivian Frost. Vivian was the reason he made a point of never trusting anyone. She was the reason he was always running.

Cab took a seat at the patio table opposite Ronnie Trask and pushed the chair back to make room for his long legs. He squinted up at the sky and wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. 'G.o.d, this heat, huh?'

The bartender sucked on his lower lip and drummed the gla.s.s tabletop with his nails. 'Yeah.'

'I'm Cab Bolton. Naples Police.'

'Ronnie Trask. Naples bartender.' He added, 'What kind of a name is Cab?'

'Born in one,' Cab said. 'Oh.'

'You work here at the hotel, Ronnie?'

The man drained a last swallow from his Aquafina. 'Yeah. I work nights, I work afternoons, whenever they slot me in. c.r.a.ppy schedule. I sleep somewhere in the middle.'

'You always work at the bar?'

'Yeah.'

'So tell me what happened last night.'

Trask shrugged. 'I closed up the pool bar at one o'clock. I was cleaning everything up. It must have been close to one thirty when I saw a teenage girl in a bikini on the far side of the terrace. She went through the palm trees out to the beach. End of story.'

'Was anyone else around? Employees or guests?'

'Nah, once the booze shuts down, the guests go to bed. I was the only one out here.'

'Tell me about the girl.'

'What about her? She was a cute kid. Young.'

'Was she alone?' Cab asked.

'Yeah, she was alone.' 'Did you talk to her?'

Trask scowled and got defensive. 'Hey, I told you she was on the opposite side of the terrace, didn't I? How was I supposed to talk to her?'

Cab let the man stew before he went on. 'You could see her clearly, though?'

'Clear enough, sure.'

'Could you see what she had in her hand?'

'Like what? She wasn't carrying anything.'

'So where'd she get the wine, Ronnie? We found a bottle of wine with the body.'

Trask tugged at his goatee. 'Oh, yeah. She had a bottle of wine with her. I forgot that.'

Cab slid a pen from inside his suitcoat pocket. He reached across I he table and rolled Trask's empty water bottle toward him with the cap of the pen. 'We're testing the wine bottle we found near the body for fingerprints. I think we'll test your water bottle, too.'

Trask cursed under his breath. 's.h.i.t. OK. I sold her the wine.'

'She was sixteen.'

'I didn't know she was underage.'

'You already said she looked young.'

'f.u.c.k it,' Trask breathed. 'So what, man? She gave me thirty bucks. These kids down here will always find a way to score booze, you know? Why shouldn't I get a slice? The hotel writes it off as breakage, and everyone's happy.'

'Not Glory Fischer. She's not happy, she's dead. Had she been drinking before you sold her the wine?'

Trask shook his head. 'She looked sober enough.'

'Did you help her drink it?'

His eyes widened. 'Say what?'

'Did you have a drink with her? Did you go with her to the beach?'

's.h.i.t, no,' he hissed.

'Word is, you do well with the girls who come down here, Ronnie.'

'Yeah, well, I don't do jailbait.'

'So you did know she was underage.'

'Oh, for Christ's sake, sure I did. Big deal. I didn't go to the beach with her. I took her money, opened the bottle for her, and she went off off by herself. That's all. That is by herself. That's all. That is all all.'

Cab heard the panic in Trask's voice. 'What did the girl say to you?' 'Nothing. She wanted a drink. That's it.'

'Did she say why she was out there?'

'No, man, no.'

'How did she behave?'

'What do you mean?'

'I mean, how was she acting? Upset? Happy? Angry?'

Trask ran his hands over his slicked-back hair. 'Oh, h.e.l.l, I don't know. She was kind of flirty, you know, the way teenagers are. Smiling at me. Adjusting her bikini. Acting all girlish. I think she figured she could tease the wine out of me.'

'Did you take that as an invitation?'

'Huh?'

Cab leaned across the table. 'Did you a.s.sume she wanted s.e.x?'

'Look, whatever she wanted, I didn't give it to her.'

'OK, Ronnie. How long was she at the bar?'

'A couple minutes, no more. She bought the wine, and she headed down to the beach.'

'Did you see anyone else after the girl showed up?' Cab asked. 'Did anyone follow her?'

Trask shook his head. 'n.o.body.'

'You didn't see anyone else outside?'

'I left right after the girl did. My shift was over. I locked up, and I cleared out.'

'What about before she arrived? Did anyone go past you out to the beach during the half-hour you were cleaning up?'

Trask stared at the sky, as if he was hoping he would remember someone, but he came up blank. 'I didn't see anybody.'

'So you were the only other person out there with the girl who was murdered.'

'Hey!' he barked. 'I'm telling you, I left. I didn't follow her, and I didn't see anybody else. The clerk behind the desk saw me leave through the lobby. You can ask her. h.e.l.l, you've got hotels up and down this beach. Anybody could have done this.'

Cab knew that Trask was right. That was what worried him. Beach bodies meant thousands of suspects. If you didn't get lucky with forensics or witnesses, it was almost impossible to make a case. He thought about Glory Fischer on the beach. And about Mark Bradley. He'd hoped Trask would have spotted Bradley outside, or at least mentioned someone matching Bradley's description. He could have prompted Trask by mentioning the yellow tank top, but he guessed that the bartender would take that tidbit of information and spit it back the way jail- house informants do, to give Cab whatever he wanted to hear. Yellow tank top? Yeah, come to think of it, I did see someone out there wearing something like that.

'Did you recognize the girl?' Cab asked Trask.

'What do you mean?'

'She was at the hotel for several days. Had you seen her before last night?'

He nodded. 'Actually, yeah.'

'You sound pretty sure. This place was crawling with teenage girls this week.'

'Well, she almost knocked me over.'

Cab c.o.c.ked his head. 'When was this?'

'Friday night. I was bringing a case of wine to the pool bar from the restaurant, and out of nowhere, this girl sprints past me. I mean, there I was big as life, but it was like she didn't even see me. I almost dropped the bottles. p.i.s.sed me off. You want to shout at these kids sometimes, but the hotel won't let you do that.'

'Why was she running?'

'I don't know.'

'Did anyone else run after her?'

Trask shook his head. 'Nope. There were people milling around down by the event center, hitting the bathrooms, going outside to smoke, that kind of thing. No one paid any attention to the girl, as far as I could tell. She just came at me down the corridor past the outside windows like some bat out of h.e.l.l.'

'She came toward the lobby from the event center?'

'Yeah.'

'That's where they were doing all the dance compet.i.tions, right?'

'Yeah, I guess.'

'Did she stop and talk to you when she ran into you?'

'No, she kept going. I dodged out of the way, and she didn't apologize or anything. She looked really freaked.'

'Excuse me?'

'Freaked,' Trask told him. 'Scared. She was crying. It was like she'd seen a ghost.'

Chapter Seven.