Randy White - Everglades

I felt like bawling, but Tomlinson got the reaction from me he wanted. I chuckled, feeling the pressure dissipate slightly. “I don’t know what to do,” I said. “I feel utterly helpless.”

He replied, “Have you noticed? In the last year or so, you’ve begun to react to events in an emotional way rather than an analytical way. I know how painful that must be. But I think it’s a good thing for you as a person.”

“Oh yeah? I don’t. I think it’s silly, childish and irrational. What we need to do right now is talk about Sally, not me. And Frank, too.”

In a musing tone, Tomlinson said, “Did you know that the outdoor temperature can be estimated to within a couple of degrees by timing the chirps of a cricket? You count the number of chirps in a fifteen-second period, and add thirty-seven to the total. It doesn’t work in winter. Anytime else, though, the result will be very close to the actual Fahrenheit temperature.”

“If that’s supposed to mean something, you’ve completely lost me.”

“It means you’re right. It’s time to be analytical. Time to start counting the chirps. There has to be some way we can help them now.”

So we drank our beers and discussed it. Tomlinson said perhaps the first thing we should do is contact any family members we could find and offer our assistance.

That made sense.

DeAntoni had told me that he lived alone, not even a cat, but he’d also had an aunt who lived in New Jersey.

I said, “Presumably, she’s already been notified or they wouldn’t have released Frank’s name. When I talk to the detective, I’ll ask for her number. We can call and offer whatever help she needs. A guy like him, he’s got to have a lot of friends. People are going to need to be contacted; a funeral arranged.”

I also knew that Sally had a cousin she was very close to. Belinda Carmel was her maiden name, but she’d married and moved to Big Pine Key.

Tomlinson said, “You find out about the aunt. I’ll go back to the marina and hunt around on the Internet. I should be able to track down the former Belinda Carmel. If someone hasn’t been screwing with my system again.”

At the marina, Mack keeps a little office where the liveaboards can plug in their computers.

I said, “Someone’s been using your iBook?”

“No. I’ve been hacked. Someone got my password. Now I’m getting all this weird right-wing mass e-mail crap. How to build bombs. I’m suddenly on the mailing list of blasting cap manufacturers. Greenpeace and Aryan Nation bullshit.”

A joke, I told him.

He said, “If it is, I don’t find it very funny.”

Detective Fran Podraza called me about an hour later. I was impressed by his professionalism and his attention to detail. After I told him who I was and what I did for a living, he asked for confirmation info-address, Social Security number and mother’s maiden name-before he gave me the phone number for Frank’s New Jersey aunt.

Then he said, “So we’ve got a double homicide and an apparent kidnapping. Right now, we’re working on the premise that it was probably a robbery that went bad. We know that Mr. DeAntoni was a licensed private investigator, contracted by an insurance company. We know that Mr. Marinaro was Mr. DeAntoni’s landlord.”

Which is when he gave me the additional data about Marinaro-a seventy-six-year-old man with no law-enforcement experience.

I felt like throwing the phone across the room.

Podraza continued, “Other than that, we don’t have a lot. So any information you can provide might be helpful.”

I told him everything I knew. Started with how I knew Sally, how I met Frank, about the break-ins she suspected and about Frank calling me on Wednesday, asking for help setting up some kind of trap.

“Why would he call you if he’d only known you for a week?”

“I guess he thought I was the dependable type.”

Podraza said, “Any idea what kind of trap it was he had planned?”

“He talked about doing some kind of long-distance surveillance. But that was if I agreed to help. With a man as old as his landlord, I have no idea how he would have tried to work it. Knowing Frank, though, he wouldn’t have put an older guy in harm’s way. My guess is, Frank would have left Mr. Marinaro in the car while he staked out the house. Maybe inside, maybe outside.”

Podraza told me that made sense, because inside the Lincoln Town Car, on the front seat, they found a. 45 caliber Blackhawk revolver registered in Frank’s name.

“Maybe he left it with Mr. Marinaro so he’d have a little extra protection.”

Podraza had already told me that he was aware that, on three separate occasions, Sally had notified his department that she suspected someone was breaking into her house. He also knew that her dog had drowned in her own pool.

I said, “So why are you working this as a robbery?”

He said, “This early in any investigation, you begin with what is most probable. Statistically, the most likely scenario. Then you begin to eliminate things. I try to work from the general to the specific. We find two bodies in the truck of a car, both men shot a single time behind the right ear, the wallets and watches of both men missing. Someone surprised them. Someone robbed them.

“Inside, the house has been trashed. Drawers ripped out, no jewelry or cash left in the place. And the lady of the house is missing. There are other, more specific indicators that I’m not going to tell you about. But go ahead. Toss out another scenario if you want.”

I liked this man. I liked his precise, methodical thought process. His friendly, easygoing manner was, of course, a device. Perpetrators often contact the police, pretending to have information. In fact, they are trying to find out how the investigation is going.

Podraza was playing good cop; my affable equal trying to solve a crime. In actuality, he was giving me plenty of room to trip myself up; to hang myself if I was involved with the murders.

I said, “Okay. Here’s one possibility. You’ve got a freak. Some kind of sexual pervert, and he’s become fixated on Sally Minster. He figures out her alarm system, and begins to break into her house on an occasional basis. That kind of pathology is well documented. Men like that, they go through underwear drawers; part of the fantasy process. It’s a form of sociopathic behavior that’s not uncommon.”

Podraza said, “You say you’re a marine biologist. Mind if I ask how you happen to know all this?”

“I don’t have a TV. I read a lot. But let me finish-I’m thinking this through as I go along. Okay, so you have a sexual freak who knows the house well. Violence is probably also part of his fantasy component-he’s armed. Check Frank’s background. He was an All-American wrestler. Olympic class. The freak had to surprise him, and he had to already have a gun. There’s no other way he could have gotten Frank taped and into the back of his own car without a gun.”

“A three-time All-American,” Podraza said. “It’s in his bio. He was one very impressive guy.”

“Yeah, I agree. Okay, so the freak surprises Frank and Sally. Or they surprise him. Either way, the freak’s suddenly got witnesses, and he has to get rid of them. He wants to keep the cops off the trail as long as possible, so he makes it look like a robbery.”

Podraza replied, “That’s plausible. I’ll keep it in mind. Like I said, we’re just getting started. Going from the general to the specific. You get a multiple crime like this, it’s usually because someone not very smart to begin with behaves in a really stupid way. Murder is rarely a complicated or well-thought-out crime, Dr. Ford.”

For some reason, that keyed a little light switch in my brain. What if exactly the opposite were true? I don’t believe in conspiracy theories. If I ever meet more than two people who can keep a secret, maybe I’ll begin to give them some consideration. But what if the murders, the disappearances, were all part of some larger objective or pattern?