Time on the Wire (5 page)
Authors: Jay Giles
Hanna started to reach for her cell.
“You can call from my office if you’d like,” Childs offered pointing to a door behind the registration counter. “Down the hall, second door on the right.”
“Thanks,” Hanna said, pleased to have a little privacy. In Childs’ office she used the phone on Childs’ large mahogany desk, had information connect her.
“Belgravia and St. James.” The receptionist said so fast it almost came out as one word.
“Joanne Perlman, please”
“Who’s calling?”
“Hanna Chance.”
A commercial for a beauty cream started playing. A melodious husky-voiced woman was saying she looked ten years younger.
Under her voice was a soothing music track. The soothing music and announcer stopped abruptly.
“Perlman.”
“Ms. Perlman, this is Hanna Chance. I’m a FBI agent assign—”“FBI? Why are you calling me?”
“Ms. Perlman, have you visited Sarasota, Florida recently?”
“No. Why?”
“You didn’t buy a Mercedes here in Sarasota in order to meet Jens Beck?”
“You’ve got the wrong person.”
“You’ve been in New York all week?”
“Yes.”
“Can you verify that?”
“Absolutely. What’s this about? You’re beginning to frighten me.”
“Someone, calling herself Joanna Perlman and saying she was from your agency, is a person of interest in one of our investigations.
Ms. Perlman, have you been the victim of identity theft?”
“No.” Perlman’s voice was high, anxious. “What did she have of mine? What did she do?”
“At this point, all I can say is that this woman posed as you and we’re looking for her. Let me give you my name and number.”
Hanna rattled it off. “Thanks for your help.”
“Wait—” she heard Perlman say before she rang off. Hanna felt for her. The call had to be unsettling.
Again, she dialed information, had them connect her.
“Mercedes Benz of Sarasota.” This receptionist had a perky ring to her voice.
“This is Agent Hanna Chance of the FBI, I need to speak to Mr. Miles Marin, please.”
“I’m sorry, he’s gone for the day. Can someone else help you?”
“It’s important I speak with him. Do you know where he can be reached?”
“I’m sorry, we’re not allowed to give out home numbers.”
“Then you better connect me with your boss.” With a click, Hanna was on hold. No commercial this time. It was a PBS station playing something symphonic Hanna couldn’t identify.
“This is Larry Jarsman. I’m the owner of the dealership. How can I help you?”
Hanna identified herself, again, explained her need to talk to Miles Marin.
Jarsman gave her Marin’s address, phone number, and a bit of advice. “You won’t be able to reach him. He’s running.”
“Running?”
“You know, exercising. He goes on long runs.”
“Good to know, Mr. Jarsman. What else can you tell me about Mr. Marin?”
Jarsman didn’t answer immediately. Hanna sensed he was choosing his words. “Miles is different; he’s his own person,” he said finally. “But he’s a good person. You must need his help, because I know Miles, and he sure as hell hasn’t done anything wrong.”
Hanna heard the conviction in Jarsman’s squeaky voice. “Thank you, Mr. Jarsman. The Bureau appreciates your cooperation,” she said and rang off. She dialed the number Jarsman had given her. It rang three times, went to voice mail.
“This is Miles. You know what to do.”
Hanna didn’t leave a message. She replaced the receiver in the cradle, returned to the outer office, shared what she’d learned with Casper and Bayer. As she finished, she held up the slip of paper with Marin’s address. “How far is this?” She asked Bayer.
Bayer stepped forward for a better look, squinted. “That’s not on Longboat, not in my jurisdiction. It’s on Anna Maria Island, should be before you hit Cortez Road and the bridge over to Bradenton. Take you fifteen minutes.”
Hanna’s gaze shifted to Casper.
“Why don’t you talk to Marin,” he said after glancing at his watch. He took a card from his wallet, handed it to Gerhardt. “If you should hear from Mr. Beck or anyone about Mr. Beck, call me at that number. We may be in touch with more questions as the investigation continues.”
Gerhardt nodded.
He’ll be by the phone 24/7 Hanna thought.
“Quint, we’ll keep you in the loop on this. Thanks for getting us involved so quickly.” Casper reached for his hat. If he left now, it would take him forty-five minutes to get to his appointment. It wouldn’t do to be late.
The woman who had posed as Joanna Perlman was dressed in tennis whites, hair hidden by a white visor. She sat at a wrought iron table in a snack area adjacent tothe tennis courts, her racket on the chair next to her, a bottle of blue Gatorade on the table in front of her. From where she sat, she could easily watch the comings and goings of the Gulf Beach office. She raised a small portable phone to her ear. “They’re leaving now.”
She heard a soft Ping sound, before the man said, “You’re sure it’s the police?”
“Definitely.”
“Then we’re ahead of schedule. That’s good. Ping Go ahead and leave.”
“Okay.” She hung up, watched the car drive off, stood, brushed off her rear end. That chair had been hard, uncomfortable, and her derriere had been on it far too long. She walked leisurely to her car, drove off.
An hour after leaving the Gulf Beach, Casper sat perched on the edge of a doctor’s examination table. The examining room was just big enough for the table, a single chair, sink, and cabinet. On the walls were framed drawings of Florida shore birds. Blinds were drawn over the room’s lone window.
There was a quick knock and the door opened. A burly, stoop-shouldered man in a long white lab coat entered and quietly closed the door behind him. He had disheveled brown hair, a bushy brown beard, intelligent brown eyes. In his beefy hand was a manila folder that contained Casper’s file. “How are we today, Mr. Casper?” He asked, not looking at Casper, but at his file.
“I’ve got a couple of spots I’d like you to look at, Dr. Wasserman,” Casper said.
Wasserman put the chart down, began washing his hands in the sink. Casper had first been seen by the Dermatologist eight months earlier in the Doctor’s Hospital ER. Casper had acute sun poisoning.
His condition was so bad Wasserman, who wasn’t taking new patients, agreed to treat him.
“You’ve been staying out of sun?” Wasserman turned off the tap with his elbow, dried his hands.
“I don’t go outside between 11:00 and 3:00, I wear my hat whenever I’m outside, and I use the cream you recommended.”
Wasserman’s beard moved as he smiled. “Good. You’re still on the same blood pressure medications?”
Casper ticked them off. “Norvasc, Lisinopril, and Hygroton.”
Prior to his trip to the ER, he hadn’t been aware that one of the side effects of these medicines was extreme sun sensitivity. The more you took—and Casper took a lot—the more sensitivity you experienced. For Casper, with his fair complexion, it was a nightmare. He could be inside and burn from the sunlight coming in a window.
Wasserman looked at Casper’s chart. “Your blood pressure is 210 over 120?”
The nurse had noted it when she’d taken his vitals.
“What had it been?”
“Oh, close to 400.”
“Take your shirt off, please.”
Casper did. Wasserman put on what looked like giant magnifying glasses and began inspecting the skin on Casper’s head, shoulders, back. He ran his fingers over spots, his touch surprisingly soft and gentle. “Where are the spots you mentioned?”
Casper showed him. Two of the spots were nothing. The third, on the top of his ear, was skin cancer.
Wasserman took off that spot, one on the neck, and a mole on Casper’s back that looked like it was changing. As he worked, he said, “This blood pressure medicine is working? You’re not having angina, are you?”
Casper stiffened. “When I exercise, I sometimes get a little burning sensation in my chest,” he said hesitantly.
“Have you told your cardiologist?”
“I don’t have one.”
“Who prescribed your blood pressure medicines?”
“My GP in New York.”
Wasserman finished the mole, took off his magnifying glasses, moved around the table to face Casper. “What you’re describing is indicative of a blockage. You need to be seen by a cardiologist.” He pulled a prescription pad and pencil from his lab coat pocket, wrote something, tore it off, handed it to Casper. “This is the number for Dr. Gouch’s group. They’re excellent. I’ll see you again in three months. Good day, Mr. Casper.” The big man stepped gracefully out the door, shutting it gently behind him.
Casper sat there stunned. He couldn’t have heart problems. Not now. Not when he needed to concentrate on the Beck kidnapping. Slowly, he put his shirt back on, made his way out to the lobby, booked his follow-up appointment.
By the time he reached his car in the parking garage, he’d decided Wasserman had been wrong. What he was feeling couldn’t be heart. Sure, he’d had the burning sensation when he’d been on the elliptical strider at the gym, but it hadn’t stopped him. He’d gone six miles. If he had heart problems, how could he go six? He put the slip of paper with Gouch’s number in his wallet, got out his Blackberry, texted Chance. Status of Beck matter?
On his drive back to Bureau headquarters, a few musical notes from his cell let him know he’d received a text. After he’d parked the car, he read: Search started for Perlman. On way to Marin interview.
Casper remained sitting in the car, tapped out a text message to O’Neil about the kidnapping: Promising new matter, today. High-level Mercedes executive kidnapped. Looks like what I’ve been waiting for.
O’Neil replied: A quick resolution would be impressive.
It was almost 4:30 as Hanna drove her yellow Mini Cooper with the black and white checked top to the address she had for Miles Marin.
It was a scenic ride, much of it down Longboat Key’s main road—Gulf of Mexico Drive. On either side, were expensive condos and houses with carefully tended grounds. Every now and then, between the buildings, she’d catch a glimpse of the blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
After six months in Sarasota, Florida still felt exotic to her. She’d grown up in Boston, the youngest of three children. Her father was a CPA, her mother a violinist with the Boston Pops. Hanna inherited her father’s gift of numbers, none of her mother’s music ability. She was intensely competitive—she had to be to hold her own with her two brothers. That competitive drive had served her well. She’d graduated third in her class at Wharton with a degree in international finance, gotten her CPA. After 9-11, she’d joined the FBI, graduated fifth in her class at the Academy, and worked at Bureau headquarters on white collar crime.
Hanna’s experience in Washington hadn’t been good. She’d been treated as the girl and given menial tasks. When an opportunity for a financial analyst/field agent became available in the Sarasota office, she’d jumped on it. Already, she’d investigated construction bid rigging, tracked the movement of drug money through Florida banks, handled two bunko matters, and now, a kidnapping.
At the northern tip of Longboat, she crossed the bridge to Anna Maria. On her left, a mile-long stretch of public beach gave way to a motley collection of honky-tonk structures—rentals units, souvenir shops, pizza places, bars. She slowed the Mini, watched for Marin’s house number.
His address indicated he was on the beach side of the street. Hanna didn’t see his house number on her first drive by. Or her second. On her third pass, she decided it had to be a square lime-green, cinder-block building with a large sign at the roofline that read Capt. Blackie’s Seafood Grille and Tiki Bar and featured the countenance of a bearded pirate holding up a martini glass. Cute.
The parking lot was empty, with the exception of an older Jeep parked by the building. Hanna parked next to it. Near the front of the Jeep, a green and white striped awning fluttered over a heavy wooden door. As Hanna walked the short distance to the doorway, she was aware of the smell of the Gulf, the sound of the surf, the grit of sand under the soles of her shoes. This place was right on the water, waves breaking just fifty feet away. Hanna rang the bell, took her Bureau ID from her purse.
The door opened halfway, revealing a tall man with kind brown eyes, an amused grin on his face. His black hair was stylishly cut, worn brushed back. He had on a tee-shirt, cargo shorts, and was holding a spatula. “Can I help you?”
“I’m looking for a Mr. Miles Marin.”
“You found him.”
Hanna held up her ID so he could see it. “I’m Agent Chance with the FBI, and I need your help answering a few questions.”
“Sure,” the man said and opened the door wider for her to come in.
Hanna stepped in, her gaze taking in the space. She’d expected a run down beach bar, what she saw was a sophisticated Manhattan-style loft apartment.
Marin held up the spatula. “I’m in the middle of cooking something. You mind talking in the kitchen?”
“Not at all,” Hanna said and followed him to a kitchen where something was simmering in a wok on a Viking range.
“Plenty here for two if you’re hungry,” he offered.
Hanna wasn’t particularly hungry, nor would she have accepted food on duty; however, she was curious. It smelled delicious, looked awful. “What is it?”
He grinned. “A high-protein meal, mostly soy, noodles, lot of organic seasonings. It’s a dish I learned in Morocco, although I make it without the goat meat.”
Hanna’s nose wrinkled involuntarily.
His grin broadened. “Yeah, I didn’t much care for goat, either.”
This wasn’t the way Hanna had planned for this interview to start. She cleared her throat, “If it’s all right, I’ll just ask you a few questions while you continue.”
“Ask away.”
Hanna pulled a pad of paper and a pen from her purse. “I understand you recently sold a car to a Joanna Perlman?”
Miles made a face as he spooned the contents of the wok onto a plate. “Oh, boy. I knew that woman was trouble.”
“How so?” Hanna asked.
“Let’s go into the dining room.” He turned off the gas burner, indicated the direction with a nod of his head. Hanna followed him to a room off the kitchen that overlooked the beach. When they were seated, he told her a story of Perlman’s offer to buy the most expensive car on the lot in exchange for a meeting with Beck.
“So the last you saw of her was when she picked up the car?”
Miles nodded. “Yeah, she was going to meet Beck for lunch.” He finished the last of his meal, put his plate to the side, leaned forward.
“So what happened? Why are you here?”
“Beck and Joanna Perlman left together after their lunch and haven’t been seen since. His assistant Mr. Gerhardt reported him missing.”
Miles sat back in his seat. “Maybe they just went off somewhere together. She was pretty attractive.”
Hanna shook her head. “We don’t think so. Gerhardt said they were due to fly out today, and he’s insistent that Beck would never have missed the flight.”
“You think he’s been kidnapped?”
“That’s why the FBI is involved, yes. It would help us if you could look at our photo databank of women matching this Joanna Perlman’s description.”
“So Joanna Perlman wasn’t really Joanna Perlman?”
Hanna shook her head. “I talked to the real Joanna Perlman in New York. She’s never been to Sarasota, was pretty freaked out about all this.”
“I’ll bet.”
“Mr. Marin, could—”
“Miles.”
“Miles, could you be at our offices at 8:00?”
“Sure,” Miles said agreeably.
Hanna handed him a card with the address of the Bureau office.
“I’ll look for you at 8:00.” Hanna closed her notebook, stowed it in her purse, stood. “Thanks for your time and your help, Miles.”
Miles stood. “Sorry, I couldn’t interest you in dinner.”
“My loss. I didn’t expect Capt. Blackie’s to specialize in Moroccan cuisine.”
He smiled good-naturedly. “I should never have left the sign up.
You wouldn’t believe the number of people who think this is still a restaurant or want to stop in for a drink.”
“So this was a restaurant?”
“Yeah, Capt. Blackie’s was a great tourist hang out until it got clobbered by a hurricane five, six years ago. Caved in the whole front of the place, the roof fell in, about the only thing left undamaged was the wall facing the street, and of course, the Capt. Blackie’s sign.
The owner, Eduardo Perez, was a good customer of mine at Mercedes. Ed’d rebuilt the place twice before after storms and just wasn’t up to doing it again. He sold it to me for $200,000. That’s a sweetheart price for beachfront property, even if it was a pile of rubble.”
Hanna had been looking around as he talked. The wall facing the beach was all tinted glass. In front of the window wall, the living room was filled with an eclectic mix of furniture. Hanna could see a long black leather sofa, some interesting looking side chairs. On one sidewall was a huge TV screen, on the other an equally large map of the world.
Miles must have seen her looking at the map. He smiled, walked over to it. “You might enjoy this.” Hanna followed him. The map was six-feet tall, at least ten-feet wide, marked with different color push pins. “Each of these pins mark a spot I’ve traveled.”
He pointed a pin at the top of Africa. “That’s where I picked up tonight’s dinner recipe.” He pointed to another pin off the coast of Thailand. “Great place for scuba diving. You would not believe all the varieties of brightly colored fish.” He pointed to two other pins.
“These mark the start and end of the Great Wall of China. We walked the length of it.”
“So all these pins are places you’ve been?”
“The red ones, yes. The silver ones are places I’m researching.”
Hanna nodded. “What was your favorite trip?”
He pointed to a pin in Tanzania. “I’d have to say it was celebrating New Year’s Eve at the top of Mount Kilimanjaro. It was a spectacular climb, and the view from the top was breathtaking.”
“So how often do you get to go on trips like that?”
He laughed. “Not as often as I’d like.”
Hanna watched him as he talked. He was animated, articulate, caught up in sharing something he enjoyed. Sure, he was a sales guy, so he was outgoing. Most guys wilted when they learned Hanna was FBI. Not this one. Hanna hadn’t expected a car salesman to be this dimensional, this interesting.
In fact, on her ride back to the office, she decided he’d been hitting on her.