LITMIR.BIZ

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eat both him and his sidekick Simmons for breakfast, complete with Louboutins and fancy briefcases. She was also confident she could keep Talbot Lunders’s pretty face off at least the front page of the paper and maintain the low profile the State Attorney was trying for. It was a fair assumption that if the cameras weren’t in court this afternoon the matter wasn’t on their radar.

      Unlike other ASAs who saw certain cases as a means to make a name for themselves outside of the office, Daria was no media hound. If Lunders didn’t end up pleading out — like 90 percent of cases that passed through the system — when it came down to trying him, she wasn’t going to do it on live TV and in the court of public opinion, which could fuck up any verdict, as O.J. Simpson’s prosecutors could attest. She reasoned that as long as she didn’t go looking for press, the press wouldn’t come looking for her. Or Talbot Lunders. There were too many other headlines to chase. Too much other gory bad news going on worldwide for the people to revel in their morning cups of joe.

       Unless …

      Unless someone led the reporters and their boom mikes straight to a story that had everything the public at large wanted to read about in super-sized portions — perverted sex, brutal murder, and Birkin bag money. And kept harping on it until someone with a press badge finally paid attention.

      Daria saw the train-wreck coming up ahead if Manny followed this breadcrumb trail laid by the defendant’s sniffling, sexy mother. It had been a decade since the serial killer Cupid had stalked his comely victims from happening ‘it’ clubs on Miami Beach, and yet his crimes still defined Miami to the world — as much as celebrities, yachts, teal water, and Cuban refugees did. Then there was Picasso, another monster who had hunted and killed young runaways in South Florida, commanding headlines and craziness a couple of years ago. And of course, the high-profile murder of Gianni Versace by a serial killer a few steps from the white sands of South Beach in 1997. Versace’s murder and the ensuing week-long hunt for Andrew Cunnanan had spawned an international feeding frenzy that had lasted for months on end. Three relatively recent, bloody blemishes on the suntanned reputation of a cosmopolitan city that drew an outrageous number of tourist dollars to its golden beaches, beautiful hotels and happening nightlife. It wouldn’t be good PR if news got out that not only was there yet another sadistic killer in the city, but speculation existed within law enforcement that that killer was still at large, trolling for victims at the hot spots that the tourists and their money loved to frequent, making chilling videos of his conquests.

      She nibbled on a thumbnail, staring all the while out the window at the jail where Talbot Lunders was being held. She had a terrible habit of imagining the worst-case scenario of any situation and then multiplying it exponentially until she imagined herself right out of a job and facing eviction from her apartment for nonpayment of rent.

      The truth was, if this case did become a circus like Cupid or Versace, or worse, a completely bungled O.J. Simpson that she couldn’t control, she knew she’d never get Collier’s seal of approval. And while that might not force her butt out on the streets, it certainly wouldn’t put her in the running for Chief of Sex Batt, or any other unit for that matter. She’d be a pit prosecutor for ever. A lifer stuck in neutral. Like a Hollywood actress that only got one shot at the box office, she knew she had only one chance to get this right. That meant she had to retain control over her case and make sure that whatever Manny Alvarez was doing to allay the fears his own conscience was conjuring up, it didn’t become public knowledge and it didn’t interfere with her prosecution.

      She checked her watch: almost eight. The day was gone and she still had a ton of shit to do. The sun was starting to set over the Everglades, casting the jail in an ethereal, tangerine glow. If you hadn’t noticed the razor wire and barred windows, and you didn’t know there were violent, depraved rapists and murderers being housed inside, from a distance, in this light, one might think the normally dingy, unimpressive jail building looked inviting. Like Dracula’s castle about twenty minutes before sundown.

      She was reaching for the top file in her inbox when the time bomb Manny Alvarez planted in her brain suddenly went off. A barrage of unanswerable questions cut through her stream of consciousness like shrapnel: What if it did turn out to be more than a distracting, consensual sex-slave video that Abby Lunders had thrown at them? What if there actually was something to this crazy ‘other killer’ theory Momma Lunders was alleging? What then?

      She pulled a hand through her hair and took a deep breath.

      There was no way her tired brain could even begin to wrap itself around the exponential multiplication of that worst-case scenario …

      11

      The grand jury deliberated for thirty minutes before unanimously voting to indict Talbot Lunders for capital murder. While the indictment itself might not have come as a surprise, the speed with which it was delivered did; Manny hadn’t even made it back to his office when Guy Kuzak called him. He could only hope the rest of this case would move as expeditiously through the system, yet still he couldn’t seem to shake the ‘calm before the storm’ feeling in his gut. Holly’s murder had been a chest-thumper from the second her body was fished from the dumpster — starting with the sad demise of Papi Munoz. And if yesterday’s meeting with Mami Lunders was any indicator, he should probably be running to the pharmacy to stock up on antacids.

      He sat at his desk now, twisting his mustache, studying the still photo of Jane Doe he’d pulled from the video, searching for tattoos, birthmarks, discolorations — anything at all that might make her more readily identifiable in a ViCAP entry than, ‘blonde-haired, green-eyed, white female, approximate height between 5'2" and 5'6"; approximate age between twenty and thirty years’.

      He was probably clutching at straws, trying to determine who this girl was. The overwhelming fact of the matter was that she could be anyone. And she could be from anywhere. He wasn’t sure if he should start his search for her in Florida, or halfway across the globe in Greenland …

      The numbers on missing persons were mind-numbing. Nationwide, almost a million people each year were reported missing to police — most of these were teens or young adults, like Jane Doe. That averaged to around 2,300 people, each and every day. And that wasn’t accounting for the throwaways — the poor souls who nobody gave enough of a shit about to report them missing when they didn’t make it home. He was no expert, but Manny had heard estimates as high as another million or so throwaways that never made it into a police report. That sad fact alone made the prospect of combing through a haystack of missing person reports not just daunting, but probably useless. And if those were the US figures, Manny couldn’t begin to imagine what the global number of missing persons might be. Which was probably why he was sitting at his desk, hours after the grand jury, still pulling on his mustache and still staring at the same nasty photo, trying to come up with a game plan to find a girl who may or may not be missing, and/or who may or may not be the victim of a sexual assault, and/or who may or may not be a homicide victim.

      Mike Dickerson planted half a droopy butt cheek on the edge of his desk. He was munching on a bag of Cheetos. ‘Watcha doing, Bear?’ he asked, in between crunches. The air smelled like fake cheese and Old Spice. ‘Your face is all twisted up. You look constipated.’

      Manny groaned and stretched. ‘Arrgh … I got a puzzle to solve here, Pops. Problem is, I only got one piece and I ain’t got no idea what the picture on the box even looks like.’

      ‘That don’t sound good.’

      ‘Nope, it don’t.’

      ‘Okay, now stop talking in Chinese riddles and tell me what the fucking problem is. Is that it?’ Mike asked, nodding at the photo. ‘Is that your puzzle piece?’

      ‘Yup.’

      ‘Nice. Perky tits; they look natural. Now, is this a case you’re working or is that a girlfriend you need advice with?’

      ‘You’re a hoot. It’s a case. I think. Not sure, actually. But it definitely ain’t a girlfriend, you sick geezer.’

      ‘I was gonna say

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