Investing in Murder

By E.J. Lister

George Town, Grand Cayman Island:

Amid the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, Cincinnati Delsol amassed a fortune investing dead people’s money. She then set sail to pursue an enigmatic mission in South America, never reaching her destination; her Benetti Vision motor yacht with $650M aboard simply vanished.

Chicago, USA:

Jayson L. Riley lost his investment savings, his reputation, and his way of life. Now, he must solve the mystery behind the disappearance and the murder of four of his offshore-clients—all good-looking, wealthy young men—or lose the one thing he has left in life: a dream of freedom. While adversaries on two shores plan to arrest him on murder and fraud charges, clues to locating the yacht and the money slowly emerge. But two things stand in the way of his freedom: a sociopath and a psychopath…

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jun 28, 2017
• ISBN: 9781387065325

Book preview

Investing in Murder

Investing in Murder

by Edmund Lister

Investing dead people’s money is a high-risk strategy…

George Town, Grand Cayman Island

Amid the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, Cincinnati Delsol amassed a fortune investing dead people’s money. She then set sail to pursue an enigmatic mission in South America, never reaching her destination; her Benetti Vision motor yacht with $650M aboard simply vanished.

Chicago, USA

Jayson L. Riley lost his investment savings, his reputation, and his way of life. Now, he must solve the mystery behind Cincinnati’s disappearance and the murder of four of his offshore-clients—all good-looking, wealthy young men—or lose the one thing he has left in life: a dream of freedom. While adversaries on two shores plan to arrest him on murder and fraud charges, clues to locating the yacht and the money slowly emerge. But two things stand in the way of his freedom: a sociopath and a psychopath…

Prologue

George Town, Grand Cayman Island – Friday, June 6, 2008

No one paid any attention to the chic middle-aged woman as she disembarked her yacht and entered a dark-green Mercedes sedan, except to stay out of her path like a hurricane.

As her driver raced through the city streets, she speed-dialed her phone and wrapped it around a high cheek bone. Did you make the transfer? she whispered.

Yes, a mellow voice replied, but you’ll have to wait for the cash—

She cut him off with Latina temper. "You listen to me pretty-boy, if my money isn’t in my hands by noon tomorrow you’ll wish you’d never met me." She snatched a pair of designer sunglasses from her face and shoved them in her burgundy hair.

"I already wish I’d never met you, puta, he snapped. You’ll get the cash when it’s clean."

The clouds opened up. Within seconds the tropical downpour turned torrential. The air shattered like glass, spraying pellets of tempered water against the Mercedes painted steel and chrome. She glared in the rearview mirror, her dark eyes transfixed on her driver’s anxious expression. She covered the mouth piece and screamed, Pull over moron! Then she cupped the phone to her ear. I’m running late, she explained. Can you pick up our friend at the airport?

A static moment followed as she fumbled a Rothmans out if its pack, picturing him seated in his custom red leather chair behind the Bridge—a circular glass and chrome desk where large flatscreen monitors and TV screens displayed real-time stock quotes and up-to-date news reports. He was wearing a headset; she could hear his manicured fingernails dancing across a keyboard.

She lit her smoke.

What flight—

The one-twenty, she interrupted. American Airlines, from Chicago. She exhaled a short spiral of smoke. He’s bringing a friend. Someone just for me. You can look, she teased, but don’t touch. The residual bourbon enhanced her amusement. She laughed and coughed smoke from her lungs, sinking her phone to her chest, clamming it closed with trembling hands, as though it were a velvet ring box.

PART ONE

One

Chicago – Monday, December 1, 2008

He entered the downtown office tower in the predawn light and marched straight past Security with a latté in one hand the Chicago Tribune in the other and a hunting rifle tucked under his arm. Twenty-six steps and sixteen seconds later an empty express elevator swallowed him up like Jonah. He punched the sixty-first-floor button, crooked his arm and glanced at his chromium Insync watch. It took four seconds to accelerate through two mezzanine levels where cafes and shops were located, another sixteen seconds until the carriage braked to full stop. He squeezed his solid frame through the retracting doors, made a quick left, then hoofed it down a narrow hallway directly into the lens of a ceiling-mounted security camera.

He made it halfway to his corner office before someone noticed him—an attractive, shy, junior accountant whose name he’d forgotten. She stopped dead in her tracks, stuttered, …Sir? He passed her by, increasing his gait.

A quick left into a common area, ascetically furnished for nervous clients to pace, where flatscreen TV monitors hung from ceiling mounts at odd angles like windows-to-the-world through CNN, BBC, JSC, and a cartoon channel. Someone’s idea of a joke. The décor, designed to reduce tension, had a Zen atmosphere to it—flowing fountains, reflective music, dried flowers, the aroma of eucalyptus. Cruel kindness, he thought. No one gave a damn about tension, stress or heart failure. It was all about risk and reward. A price to pay for a wealthy lifestyle. Some people died for it.

But no one was dead, yet.

He knew by the time markets opened the hallways would be packed with people anxious to know if their retirement dreams were dead—November 2008 was not at all a good time for financial advisors, worse yet, investors—causing some overzealous individuals to experience heart failure.

A right, then a quick left through a vacant reception area to a bulletproof security door. He clamped the rim of the latté in his teeth and rooted inside his coat for his strangling ID lanyard.

His was the first office on the right, directly across from the war room. He entered, kicking the door closed behind him.

The rifle—a Kenny Jarrett-modified Remington Model 700, .30/06—was sheathed in an army green canvas and leather case. He released it from under his arm, bouncing it onto a brown leather sofa. Set the latté and the newspaper on his workstation, pulled out of his coat and tossed it on an antique barrel chair, then he blew out a breath, combing his fingers through a mat of sand-colored hair that neither obeyed company policy nor the law of gravity.

In the years before the market crash, he’d traveled south at Thanksgiving to relax by the beach at his favorite resort and go diving with friends away from the cold and wind. This year, he’d given in to his father’s request to stay home, to go hunting at the family cabin. A chance for father and son to try to work things out.

He dropped into the leather executive chair behind his workstation and in the dim light, proceeded to power-up his computer.

After the usual corporate login, password verification, and security protocols executed, the screen flickered. Three icons splashed up on the screen. He clicked an icon labeled Transys, tapped the touchpad twice, checked his watch.

Three seconds passed before a secure web-based app opened with a warning: You have 15 seconds to acknowledge.

Family is important, even for an only child. Especially when it just might be the last time he’d see his parents alive before escaping the life his father had created for him—wanting and having, power and greed, money and status; a game played out in real-life, where stakes are high and the risks were hidden behind three generations of the Riley financial dynasty. A person in his position could hide anything behind that name.

He used the first eight seconds to calculate the revolving password by adding a series of numbers to the precise time on his watch. The next four seconds he used to type the password and hit the Enter key. The remaining three seconds the system used to verify the password.

The family cabin had grown over the years like the towering Eastern White Pine separating it from neighboring cornfields and rundown farms and trailers and the village trash who gawked as they drove by in their beat-up Chevrolets and Fords and Massey Ferguson tractors. It sat high on eighty acres of woodland bordering the Sugar River, ninety minutes northeast of Chicago: a three-generation getaway with fourth-generation potential.

Login Successful.

He tugged the neck of his wool sweater and took a deep breath, positioning his fingers on the keyboard. Almost immediately a list of names and account numbers appeared on the screen.

Father and son had spent the first day of the Thanksgiving Season at the cabin together, traipsing through the woods with their rifles. They’d argued most of the afternoon on news of the global financial crisis, followed by idle chatter and the forecasted weather—no argument there; they’d both agreed it was unseasonably cold, with wind and snow warnings threatening to create uncivilized hours of communication and power outages. The conversation shifted to yield predictions and forecasting commodity prices, which circled them right back to where they’d begun when they’d first set out to kill something.

Between twilight and sunset, almost a full twenty minutes, they’d discussed his radically-changing personal life.

He scrolled down the alphabetic list of records until he reached the only surname beginning with R, he then transferred $12.7M from an offshore investment account on Grand Cayman Island to a bank in Chicago.

Cabin fever can affect even the most affluent. When the internet and cellular services went down his parents had had enough. They’d packed up and left him alone with his dog, Jeep.

With only his Satphone to communicate with the outside world, he’d embraced the quiet time: to read, to work on his exit strategy. But the solitude ended abruptly when an urgent request in the early morning hours of the new month had him rushing back to the city, dressed to kill.

The transfer took less than three minutes.

Jayson L. Riley, rebellious and handsome heir to the Riley financial dynasty, glanced at his watch and grinned, cracked his knuckles and blew out a breath. And in a dry voice, he whispered to himself, Twenty-two minutes to spare.

Two

Grand Cayman Island – Monday, December 1, 2008

Jett Ryerson lay shivering, face-down on a massage table at Dorothy’s—a 4-star tropical beach resort somewhere over the rainbow—, naked and exposed, cold and vulnerable, facing huge financial losses.

He needed to think.

In the past six months, Jett’s investment portfolio had lost significant value, and his gambling debts were mounting.

His masseuse placed several hot stones on his lower back and haphazardly arranged them. Each stone radiated waves of energy through dark skin and tissue, searing his muscles, instantly relaxing them. With a deep breath, he inflated his lungs until they almost burst, deflating them through his nares like a punctured tire, and thinking back on better times.

When Jett first announced his gay relationship his father cut him out of his life, out of his will, and out of the family business. So he’d moved to Miami where he’d gambled away much of his savings before finding a job as an underwater welder. The job paid well but fell short of his gambling addiction. What he’d needed was a way to make real money…fast; and lots of it. The opportunity found him two months later at a poker table in the VIP lounge of the Grand Royal Casino on Grand Cayman Island. In less than two years he’d climbed to the top of the food chain. Now, with his recent stretch of bad luck, he’d lost his grip.

The sounds of seagulls and waves etched on a souvenir CD played monotonously on a portable stereo through speakers placed too close to his head. He couldn’t think.

A mellow voice whispered, Feeling better?

Jett turned his head away from the voice and stared out through the open-air deck of the Caribbean cabana and beyond, where white foam on emerald-green waves rolled up on the shore carrying remnants of a distant Category 2 hurricane. He watched as bits and pieces of debris splashed up on the white sandy beach. A yellow dive-fin washed up, only to be clawed back out to sea with the receding tide. The wind picked up and clouds thundered in, dimming the natural light, intensifying the glow of scented candles flanking the entrance in wrought iron stands. He succumbed to the gray dawn shadowing the interior of the small cabana.

He closed his eyes.

The 4-star resort on the shores of Grand Cayman Island quietly became a favorite destination for gay men, most of whom travelled to Grand Cayman Island to manage their offshore investment accounts—often extending their stay to enjoy the island’s casinos, diving destinations, and electrifying nightlife—where 600 banks and trust companies, including forty-three of the world’s largest banks, did business. The hurricane season extends from June to the end of November, posing a threat to its visitors. But this year, a greater threat loomed over them. 

The stones on his back were no longer hot. He wondered what good they were doing. The more he thought about it, the more he wondered why he’d chosen a hot stone massage in the first place.

What he needed was a drink.

He flinched when warm oil that smelled of Jasmine drizzled across his buttocks and trickled down between his butt-cheeks like butter melting on freshly-baked pumpernickel.

Relax, the voice whispered.

How can I relax? he moaned. In the last four weeks, I’ve lost twenty-six percent of my investments.

It’s a tough time for everyone, Jett, the voice explained. You’ll just have to ride-out the storm.

A chill run up his spine. His voice trembled when he spoke. Well…I’ve decided to hold my investments stateside…and take my chances. I don’t want to risk losing everything. He turned his head and rested his chin on the edge of the table, opening his eyes. On the thatched wall in front of him, he could see a large shadow looming over him like a thundercloud. The shadow stilled. Its voice lowered. So you had Jayson Riley transfer all your assets this morning.

Jett sighed and crossed his arms in front, laid his head inside their fold. He took a deep breath and slowly exhausted his reply. I was—

Suddenly something solid struck him between his shoulder blades, so violently he felt his vertebrae crack. Pain exploded in his neck and arms as he strained unsuccessfully to raise his head. His screams gurgled in a gush of blood from his punctured tongue. Again he was struck, more viciously than the previous attack. Pain seared through his guts, compressing his pelvic muscles into adrenaline-wrenched spasms. Every inch of his skin constricted around his muscles and organs, offering what little protection it could from the final blow, when everything went black.

The emergency room in the George Town hospital buzzed with anticipation. Soles of nurses’ and doctors’ shoes covered much of the bloodless green-and-white checker floor. The excitement burst into applause when a local philanthropist stepped into the spotlight.

Danny Leighton, a successful corporate investor at the Sentinel Investment Bank, presented the George Town Hospital with a personal check for two hundred fifty thousand dollars to upgrade emergency room equipment, which, as he’d put it, investing in the latest technology can mean the difference between life or death. It was the second time in eleven months he’d gifted a large sum of money to the hospital, claiming his good fortune could only be enjoyed through sharing.

Danny possessed an innate talent for market predictions, yet his skill at poker dwarfed it, adding thousands each month to his cash portfolio. Each year he donated twenty percent of his winnings to the community, making him a very popular young man in George Town. Unlike his unpopular years, growing up in the U.K.

The hospital staff applauded as Danny shook hands with the Administrator. A flash photo stilled the moment for the local periodical.

Growing up the only child of a working-class single mother and dealing with an identity crisis had left Danny struggling to find his place in life. His physical appearance and personality attracted several acquaintances, but his character repelled those who tried to establish a meaningful relationship. The one person who did manage to break through Danny’s character disappeared shortly after their first sexual experience. Danny dealt with the loss and the haunting emotions by retreating to his bedroom. He’d spent the remainder of his teenage years on his computer with a keen interest in software development. He would later attend the London School of Economics, earning his first million developing a secure wire-transfer system for an international financial institute. He’d named it Transys. Not long after, he’d relocated to the Caribbean, establishing a political joint-venture business and residence in Cuba and working part-time as an offshore corporate investment advisor on Grand Cayman Island.

From across the room, Danny’s psychotherapist stood motionless with a Plasticine expression she’d molded with a thumb and a forefinger pressed firmly to her lips. She replayed bits and pieces of private conversations she’d had with him during a recent visit. She wondered if his generosity evolved from guilt, or low self-worth, or both. She thought about his first visit, and his most recent, and the three visits in between. There had been no progress: his body showed up but his mind stayed home. She’d scheduled four additional one-hour sessions with his consent.

He’d declined the psychiatric evaluation.

Three

Chicago – Monday, December 1, 2008

The latté was an extra-large, contained in a white paper cup with plastic lid and a recycled corrugated cardboard sleeve to protect delicate fingers. A luxury at $4.95. Jayson set the latté down on the corner of his angular workstation and divided the newspaper—business first, personal second.

He studied the investment section, sipping the latté down to the last bubble, then he read the latest news on hurricane Paloma.

The reports had weakened as rapidly as Paloma itself had after passing over Cuba. It stalled out over the Atlantic on November twenty-eighth. A brief report finalized the cost of the damage, both in the Cayman and in Cuba, clearly demonstrating that the affluent stood a better chance of surviving a hurricane than those less well-off.

As an investment strategy, tracking storms was a relatively low-risk, high-returns method of predicting financial losses and gains on the commodities market—Paloma had destroyed eighty percent of the sugarcane industry in Cuba.

After scanning the weather forecast and reading Leo’s weekly horoscope, he set the paper aside and reached for the mail overflowing its tray. A Caribbean vacation brochure caught his attention; it was addressed to him directly. And whoever had sent it, knew his middle name; a name he wasn’t especially fond of. Intrigued, he flipped through pages containing glossy photos of five-star hotels, diving destinations, seafood restaurants owned by world renowned chefs. He laughed when he read an article highlighting offshore banking strategies to avoid taxes. But not jail, he thought.

He flipped the brochure over, instantly recognizing the colorful photo on the back cover.

His heart skipped a beat.

A photo of the Grand Hotel George Town—the same hotel where he’d been introduced to a woman named Cynthia Nadia Delsol (a.k.a. Cincinnati)—covered the entire back page.

For thirteen months, before Cincinnati disappeared without a trace, they’d maintained a professional relationship centered on a wicked investment strategy he’d designed to help her acquire the wealth and status she’d needed to pursue an enigmatic mission in Venezuela.

The missing person file on Cincinnati contained three pages of his vague account of the events leading up to their final meeting and the forty-eight hours they’d spent together before disembarking her yacht in George Town the night of June eighth. The local police were unable to solve the mystery of Cincinnati’s disappearance after she’d set sail the following morning. Jayson remained a key person of interest—the last one to see her alive, just hours before she’d departed with almost his entire investment savings—in what the police described as a suspicious disappearance.

He blew out a breath and sailed the brochure across the room for two points.

As he tore open an envelope from an offshore credit card company, his intercom buzzed. Startled, he leaned into his desk and punched the speaker button with an index finger.

Mr Riley, Mr Baker is here to see you.

Shit.

He stared at the empty space in the open Day-Timer on his desk. No excuse came to mind. He sighed, I’ll be right there, he said, wondering what kind of trouble his friend had gotten himself into this time.

The reception area was yearend busy with insatiable investors and their upper-class clients and all the suits looked the same. Jayson surveyed the room across sagging shoulders until he zoomed-in on a partial of Henry’s baby face, back against the wall, eyes down, seated under an original oil painting of a dead relative.

He took a step.

The crowd opened up like a zipper as he crossed the floor and stepped into Henry’s personal space. Hello, Henry.

Henry jumped to his feet, holstered his BlackBerry. A strained expression creased his forehead under locks of honey-colored hair. He looked older than his thirty-eight years. Jayson shook Henry’s hand with a lawyerly grip, analyzing the body language. I thought you were in New York? he said.

Henry coughed into his elbow. I just returned, he said, tugging at the cuff of his trench coat.

Jayson smirked, gesturing to his friend’s face. It must have been hot. Nice tan.

Henry blushed, giggled like a schoolgirl.

Jayson released his grip on Henry’s sweaty hand and tipped his head toward his office. Come on in, he said. You’re lucky, I wasn’t supposed to be in today.

Henry took a seat in a leather armchair in front of Jayson’s desk, made small talk about the early winter, shared his opinion on the state of the economy. Then, as if he’d only just noticed, he commented on Jayson’s attire, suggesting perhaps he should have chosen a sage-colored sweater with leather elbow pads, to go with the beige hunting pants, as if deer were fashion-conscious.

Jayson listened halfheartedly while securing the rifle in a specially designed fireproof-wall-safe concealed behind a dark oak wall panel. In it were two other rifles of a similar caliber, both belonging to his grandfather, plus stacks of file folders containing clients’ account certificates and investment bonds. He locked the safe, turned and said, So what’s up, Henry?

Henry cleared his throat, said, You’d better sit down, Jay.

Jayson felt his stomach tighten for the second time since the day began. Two things went through his mind. The first, an ongoing legal dispute he’d been having with a client who’d threatened to sue. The second, his ex-wife, a cop with Chicago P.D. He sat down, weaved his fingers together, studied Henry’s serious expression, said, What’s going on, Henry?

Henry dropped his head. It’s about Cincinnati.

Jayson swallowed hard. They’ve found her?

What’s left of her. Henry looked up, his face wrinkled with more bad news. Six months dead, Jay.

Jayson shuttered. Blood rushed to his face and burned his cheeks. He pushed out of his chair and paced across a black-mile to the tinted windows cornering his office from floor to ceiling. He stared out across the Great Lake, rubbing three days of whiskers shadowing his round dimple chin, mentally calculating. He closed his eyes, willing himself to be wrong. "You mean, as in that weekend?"

Exactly.

Every muscle in Jayson’s body tensed. He kicked the wastebasket across the floor. It bounced off a small bronze statue of a brown bear gifted by a wealthy Canadian client. The contents of the wastebasket spilled out and the brochure slid across the black Italian marble. He watched it settle, facedown under the antique leather barrel chair. There is no such thing as coincidence. He rubbed his forehead. I can’t believe it. After all this time.

Henry swiveled in his chair. The Queen’s Royals are investigating, he said. "They want you back in the Cayman, asap.

Shit. A bead of sweat trickled down his neck. He tugged at the collar of his wool sweater. If the Royals are investigating, they must suspect she’d been murdered.

You’re right, Henry said, scrunching his face. He rubbed his chin. "Are you sure she didn’t tell you anything?" he asked, as if he already knew the answer.

Jayson thought back to that weekend on the yacht in Dagger Inlet, recalling Cincinnati’s conversation concerning her political strategy, holding one particular detail in his head, then he simply replied, No. He squeezed his eyes shut and massaged them with a thumb and forefinger. I told you before— He paused, refocused his vision. For a moment he felt disorientated. He sat down. We talked about investment opportunities, third world economics, politics... His words trailed off. He lowered his head, buried his face in his hands, spoke through his fingers. We anchored at Dagger Inlet, went diving, explored the caves.

"Dagger?"

Jayson jerked his head up. What about it?

That’s where her body surfaced.

Jayson felt his heart try to escape his chest. "You sure about that?" he said.

Yes, Jay. The sergeant made it very clear, emphasizing Dagger Inlet in an objective statement during our phone conversation. In italics, if you know what I mean. He shrugged. It makes sense, though.

Jayson shot Henry a hard look. What makes sense?

It connects all the dots. You mentioned Dagger Inlet to the local police during the initial interview. It’s pretty thin, but the fact is you spent the weekend at the very place where her body surfaced, and no one can verify they’d seen her return to George Town…anyway, like I said, it’s pretty thin.

Jayson huffed. Biscuit thin, Henry. You know as well as I do we weren’t alone on the yacht. Even her Italian chef came to say goodbye when we disembarked together in George Town.

Henry raised his eyebrows. Italian chef? You never said he was Italian.

Jayson combed his hair back with his fingers and spoke to the floor. What difference does it make, Henry? All I’m saying is…plenty of crew saw us together when I left the pier that night.

Although six months had passed since that weekend, the residual effect still rattled him like a reoccurring nightmare. In addition to the Italian chef, with level-one English, four young male crew members shared their social space—the pilot, a deckhand, a divemaster, and a bodyguard. He didn’t remember their names, except that the pilot’s nickname was Naut.

The divemaster was the only one to disembarked with Jayson in George Town on the night of June eighth, the night he’d said goodbye to Cincinnati at the end of Pier 2 between 21h30 and 22h00. The initial report concluded her yacht, Sea-no-Evil, took on 12,000 gallons of diesel fuel and 3,600 gallons of water and transferred a sea container of supplies on the morning of June ninth, then set sail at 09h40 heading due south. A witness recalled seeing the bridge flag waving colors she didn’t recognize. No navigation charts were filed nor were the names of those on board recorded prior to departure.

ShipTrac reported the yacht, identified only as 0143B, disappeared off the radar at 02h18 on June twelfth—185 nautical miles southeast of Honduras, speculating Hurricane Dolly capsized her, although no oil spill was ever reported, and no remains ever turned up on any shores. Cincinnati and her crew had simply disappeared without a trace.

When Cincinnati disappeared, her account at the Sentinel Bank in George Town had its assets frozen. Only one other person had access to the $3.2M dollars.

Henry reaffirmed what Jayson had been thinking. Well, he said, that’s all fine and good, except the crew disappeared with her and the yacht. And until the Royals find one of them, you really don’t have an alibi.

Jayson sat forward on the edge of his chair, staring down at his khaki-colored hiking boots. So what happens if I refuse to go?

Henry shrugged, said matter-of-factly, They’ll come and get you.

Jayson jerked his head up. That’s bullshit! Unless they’ve got probable cause, they can’t just walk in here and extradite me back to the Cayman. He stood up, rubbed the back of his neck, crooked his head.

Exactly what I told them, Henry said.

Jayson quit massaging the tension in his neck, leveled his line of sight on Henry. So…what’d they say?

"Well…they didn’t give me any details, but they did say the evidence they had was incriminating."

Jayson returned to the window, looked out at nothing in particular.

He felt ill. Incriminating, he thought.

His next thought: DNA, which was ridiculous, too much television. His second thought: fingerprints on a murder weapon, which was crazy, too many crime novels. If the Royals did have incriminating evidence it wouldn’t be physical. He thought about the emails he’d exchanged with Cincinnati days before she’d disappeared. He thought about the investment strategy he’d devised for her. He thought about the money, then his mind went blank.

Snow swirled around the building in bursts of white eddies. Dark clouds hung low over the surrounding city—a reflection of his diminished spirit. He wiped the sweat from his brow with his sleeve.

When he turned away from the dreariness Henry’s thumbs were dancing around on his BlackBerry. He waited, observing Henry’s obsession with modern technology and commerce—his expensive Giorgio Armani suit accented by a gold tie clip inlaid with diamonds matching the links on the cuffs of his white Polo shirt. The Rolex he wore belonging to a set of business and casual. His polished Gucci shoes with substantial heels to heighten his pretty-boy appearance.

Henry finished texting and stood up, holstering his phone. He cleared his throat as if to speak, but didn’t.

Jayson noticed a slight redness in Henry’s dark eyes. He guessed it was jetlag. Henry didn’t drink.

Henry headed for the door. Let me know when you’re prepared to go, he said. I’ll make the arrangements.

Jayson pulled his wool sweater off over his head and tossed it on the chair and combed his hair back with his fingers. I want you to go with me, Henry. It sounds like I’m going to need a good lawyer.

Henry turned, smiling. He looked five years younger now. I was planning on it, he said. I’ll book us in at Dorothy’s.

Four

Grand Cayman Island – Monday, December 1, 2008

The autopsy discovery investigation revealed that the body of a middle-aged female dragged to the surface in Dagger Inlet suffered a beating before being submerged. Her right leg was grotesquely dislocated. The splintered remains of the fibula protruded through the rubber dive suit she wore—which appeared sealed to her limbs and torso like rubber paint. Her hands and feet were skinned to the bone with bits of muscle and tendons connected by organic elastic threads. Evidence suggested she’d been anchored in shallow water—the amount of decay was consistent with the warm brine of the coastal inlet. Exposure to the tropical water and its arthropods had removed any trace of facial tissue.

Her teeth were perfect.

A lone pathologist had her hands in the corpse cutting ribs with a pneumatic grinder when two detectives from the Queen’s Royal Cayman Police activated a pair of glass doors. Jimmy Chrysler and Samara Ohayashi (Sammy O) entered the white ceramic-tiled discovery room with thirty-seven years of combined experience, separated by thirty-four years of maturity.

Ammonia fumes and trace chemicals of death halted their advance. They detoured to the disposable mask dispenser.

Jimmy held a papery mask against his face with fat fingers, his nose stretching its delicate fabric. When the grinding ceased he said nasally, Hello, Terry.

She didn’t look up when she replied, Jimmy. Sammy. I’m not finished with her yet.

Jimmy was no stranger to the young woman, whose vocals were confident, whose words were sparse. He apologized. Sorry, Terry. Sammy couldn’t wait.

Sammy secured the surgical mask over his small facial features without taking his eyes off the discovery table. He gawked with almond-shaped eyes at the decomposing corpse.

Molecules of invisible gas evaporated from the rotting tissue like the Texas heat on an asphalt two-lane. A silent exhaust fan in the ceiling filtered the fumes through a UV light and a carbon scrubber, venting them out into the atmosphere where they would eventually mix with the scent of the Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet down the street. Sammy asked, with morbid humor, Where’s her face?

Terry looked up. Her jade-green eyes appeared magnified behind a pair of clear goggles. The green surgical mask she wore outlined her fine facial features. Her scrub cap held most of her mahogany-blond hair in place. A small beauty mark at the corner of her left eye confirmed her identity. She ignored Sammy’s query, looked over at Jimmy, said, The body is literally being held together by the rubber dive suit.

Jimmy gave a nod. He glanced at the lead weights on the dive belt