So they had one personal murder and one probable nonpersonal murder occurring around the same time and in the same house.

  Despite all the reasons why it could have never gone down that way, Decker was now thinking one thing.

  We have not one but two killers. And as implausible as it sounds, I don’t think either one knew about the other.

  Chapter 29

  A​T AROUND HALF PAST TWELVE a Mercedes sedan pulled into the home’s wraparound driveway and came to a stop. A man in his early seventies with neatly trimmed white hair and wearing a blazer and dark slacks got out from the rear driver’s side. He was around six feet tall and thin. A tall, slender woman in her late fifties with long silvery hair and dressed in a billowy navy blue skirt and long-sleeved white blouse climbed out of the rear passenger side.

  The driver clambered out, popped the trunk, and pulled out two rolling suitcases.

  The man tipped him and took the suitcases.

  As soon as the Benz pulled off, Decker steered his rental into the driveway.

  He got out and said, “Mr. and Mrs. Perlman?”

  Mr. Perlman turned to him. “Yes? Who are you?”

  Decker held out his credentials. “Amos Decker with the FBI.”

  Mrs. Perlman glanced sharply at her husband. “FBI? What is going on, Trevor?”

  Trevor glanced toward the house. “My God, what’s happened? Have we been robbed?”

  Decker drew closer. “No. But a crime was committed next door.”

  Both Perlmans looked around. “Which neighbor?” he said.

  “Julia Cummins. Can we go inside and talk about this?”

  “We just got back from a long trip,” protested Trevor, indicating the suitcases.

  “It won’t take much time. Just a few questions.”

  Trevor said resignedly, “All right.”

  The interior of the home was spacious, with a flowing floor plan, lots of neutral colors, and an abundance of rear windows opening out to views of the Gulf beyond.

  Decker noted the costly furnishings and oil paintings on the wall and the sculptures resting on pedestals, and thought that, unlike Doris Kline, the Perlmans had the money to keep their home up.

  On the wall were photos of the Perlmans on a sailboat and another of Trevor Perlman at the wheel of a cabin cruiser with a captain’s hat worn at a jaunty angle. They looked happy and carefree. When he glanced over at them now, they looked anything but.

  Trevor put the suitcases in a corner and turned to his wife. “Maybe some coffee, Maya?” He looked at Decker. “Would you like some?”

  “Thank you, yes.”

  After the coffee was made and given out, they sat on the lanai, where, with the press of a button by Trevor, a wall of glass opened up.

  “Nice place,” commented Decker.

  “We like it,” said Trevor. “Now, you mentioned a crime?”

  “Yes, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but it was a double homicide at Judge Cummins’s home. She and her bodyguard were killed.”

  Maya gave a little shriek and nearly spilled her coffee. Trevor stared blankly at Decker, as though he could not have possibly just said what he had.

  “Julia…was…killed?” said Trevor.

  “Yes. And her bodyguard, Alan Draymont.”

  “Oh my God,” wailed Maya. She stood up, staggered, and fell back onto the sofa with her eyes shut.

  “Maya!” cried out her husband. “Maya!” He gently smacked her cheeks and glanced at Decker.

  “Water, there’s a fridge right over there.”

  Decker grabbed a bottle of cold water. With her husband’s aid, Maya had come around and sat up. She drank the water and her color returned.

  “I…I need to…compose myself.”

  “Of course,” said Decker.

  Trevor helped her from the room and then came back to the lanai and sat down.

  “My wife and Julia were very…close.”

  “So I understand. I’m sorry.”

  “Do you…what in the hell happened?”

  “As I said, someone killed her and her bodyguard. We have no suspects yet. How long have you and your wife been out of town?”

  “For the last week. We were visiting some of Maya’s children in New York. From her previous marriage,” he added.

  “When was the last time you spoke to or saw Judge Cummins?”

  Trevor put his coffee cup on a side table. “I think I saw her a couple of days before we left. Just in passing. Just to say hello. Maya may have seen or talked to her before we left.” He looked up at Decker, his face taut. “How…was she…killed?”

  “I can’t get into that. I understand that you recommended Gamma Protection Services to Judge Cummins?”

  His voice breaking, Trevor said, “Y-yes, w-we did.”

  “Why was that?”

  He sipped his coffee and composed himself. “Maya was a lawyer. A defense attorney. No lawyer wins every case. One she lost involved a man accused of sexually assaulting his wife and children. He was sent to prison. But he got out about six months ago. He apparently didn’t think Maya had done a good enough job. He made threats. He even came by the house a couple of times. We got a restraining order. But he broke it. So we hired Gamma.”

  “Was it Alan Draymont?”

  “I…I don’t know. What does he look like?”

  Decker produced a picture on his phone. “This is him.”

  Trevor looked at it and shook his head. “I don’t know. It might be him. But it was more than one person. After a while, they blur together.”

  “I can understand that. How long did you have protection?”

  “For about a month, I think.”

  “What happened to your wife’s old client?”

  “He attacked someone living in his halfway house and nearly killed the guy. He’s back in prison awaiting another trial. Hopefully, this time they put him away for good.”

  “Do you think your wife is up to talking with me now? It’ll save me having to come back.”

  “Let me check.”

  He went off while Decker finished his coffee. He rose and walked around the lanai.

  Decker hadn’t owned a home since the one his family had been killed in. After that, he’d ended up basically living in a cardboard box in the back of a Walmart parking lot for a longer time than he cared to remember. You never think that would happen to you, until it did. And then your thinking changed measurably to, I’m never going to get out of this nightmare.

  He had gained a hundred pounds from eating crap and not exercising at all. He could barely stand with the extra weight. And the only thing that saved him from remaining on the streets and probably dying there was waking up one day, seeing the cardboard ceiling of his “home,” and realizing how ashamed his wife and daughter would be of him.

  His recovery had not happened overnight. It had taken nearly a year. During that time he had gone to live at a local Residence Inn, and used the dining area as the office of his fledgling detective business.

  When the first few clients came to him, he knew they were repulsed by what they saw in him. A huge, hulking, not overly clean man with a thick beard and nothing approaching an outgoing and engaging manner. The only thing that saved him was the fact that Decker was damn good at his job. He could figure out just about anything.

  I hope that holds for this case.

  “Agent Decker?” said a woman’s voice.

  He turned to see the Perlmans at the entrance to the lanai. Trevor was holding his wife’s hand. She looked pale but collected.

  “I’m sorry about…what happened earlier.”

  “No need to apologize. It was a shock, I know. I won’t take too much more time. Just a few questions if you’re up to it.”

  They sat down across from him.

  “When was the last time you saw or spoke to Judge Cummins?”

  “I talked to her on the phone right before we left for New York, so about nine days ago. I was just giving her our travel details, in case of emergency. We always did that with each other.”

  “And the last time you actually saw her?”

  “A couple of days before that. We had a drink, down near the courthouse.”

  “Did she seem okay, nothing troubling her?”

  “No, she was fine.”

  “You practiced at that court?”

  “Yes, but never before Julia, of course.”

  “I understand from your husband that a former client threatened you?”

  “Yes, Gerald Garvey. He’s the sort that gives defense attorneys a bad name. I knew he was guilty, but he was entitled to legal representation. I got him a sweetheart deal, but he didn’t see it that way.”

  “And you hired Gamma Protection?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did you hear of them?”

  “I think it was someone at the courthouse. Plus, they’re a well-known firm.”

  “Did you know Alan Draymont? Your husband didn’t know if he was one of the people who guarded you.”

  Decker held up the picture of Draymont.

  “Yes, he looks familiar. But, as you alluded to, there were several different people who protected us. Men and women. I don’t remember all their names. They had credentials and everything, and we were sent a secure email with their names and pictures to verify their identities.”

  “Can you look up those emails?”

  Trevor interjected, “Surely, you can get those details from Gamma?”

  “You’d think, wouldn’t you? But they’re having some personnel problems right now.”

  She said, “I can look later. Right now, I just need to go lie down. This has been a terrible shock.”

  She rose and her husband stood with her. “I think that’s all for now,” he said.

  He escorted Decker to the door and closed it firmly behind him.

  Decker took in the sunshine and felt the warmth and heard the ocean and then the thwack of a golf ball from somewhere. On a cart path that cut through the trees, two people in their sixties rode past on bikes and waved at another couple drifting by from the other direction on their spiffy, decked-out golf cart. They all looked happy, content.

  Decker walked back to his car.

  I’m never moving here.

  Chapter 30

  AS HE WAS ABOUT TO drive off, his phone buzzed. He didn’t recognize the number.

  “Decker.”

  “Please hold for Ms. Roe.”

  A moment later a familiar voice said, “Mr. Decker, it’s Kasimira Roe. I wonder if we can meet?”

  “I’m game. We didn’t really finish the first time, did we?”

  “No, we didn’t.”

  “At your office?”

  “No, at my home. It’s on Miami Beach. I’ll switch you back to my assistant and she can provide the address.”

  “When?”

  “As soon as you can get here.”

  “Anything particular you want to discuss?”

  “Just get here as soon as you can. I’ll transfer you back.”

  Decker got the address, plugged it into his phone, and set off once more for Miami.

  * * *

  The high-rise looked ultramodern and expensive and super chic, thought Decker, which meant he hated it. He half expected Justin Bieber, or some other young celebrity he really knew nothing about, to walk out dressed in torn jeans that cost more than Decker had in his checking account and jump into a Lamborghini.

  He cleared security after both the guard and concierge ran unimpressed gazes over his rumpled and distinctly uncool clothes and deeply scuffed shoes.

  And this is my nice stuff.

  He rode the elevator up and walked to a double set of white doors at the end of a wide hall.

  He knocked, and the door was immediately answered by a young woman in a maid’s uniform.

  Jesus, do they really still make them wear that get-up?

  The woman asked Decker to take his shoes off, which he did reluctantly, since his socks were not in the best shape and then there was the smell. He had always had sweaty feet. And the humidity here didn’t help matters.

  She led him down a plushy carpeted corridor that was outlined with soaring white columns. A wall of windows looked over the ocean. The other walls were covered with what looked to be some serious artwork.

  The maid knocked on a door at the end of the hall, and a woman’s voice said to come in.

  Decker stepped into the small, intimate room with cushy furnishings and a gas fireplace that he imagined didn’t see much work in this climate.

  Roe rose from her chair. She was dressed in a white pleated skirt and dark blue jacket with a white blouse peeking out from underneath. Her shoes were flats. Her hair was tied back in a bun. She shook his hand and asked him if he wanted anything.

  “Information,” he replied as he sat down across from her.

  “I checked you out, Mr. Decker. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “I would’ve been surprised if you hadn’t, knowing the business you’re in.”

  She smiled and it was a pretty smile, he thought, lots of teeth and more girlish than professional woman. “May I be frank?”

  “I prefer it, since I always am.”

  “You were described by just about everyone I talked to as possessing a motor that just won’t quit, a deep desire to get justice. And for also being a royal pain in the butt.”

  “My language about myself wouldn’t have been nearly as polite.”

  The girlish smile faded, and the professional shield came down. “Alice Lancer has not been located.”

  “That’s right. Do you know a woman named Patty Kelly?”

  “I don’t believe so, no. Why?”

  “She’s Judge Cummins’s secretary. Looks like she’s done a runner, too.”

  She looked genuinely startled. “Do you think it’s connected to Alice’s disappearance?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I would think you can’t rule it out at this point.”

  “Did you find a record of any threats against the judge? Or any reason why Cummins needed protection?”

  “My people are looking at our records. But any disclosure has to be cleared through our legal counsel.”

  “But I was hoping for some professional courtesy. I came all this way, after all. At your invitation.”

  “Um, I’m going to have a glass of wine if you’d care to join.”

  “Never got into wine. But if you have beer?”

  She rose, opened a glass door set in the cabinet, took out a bottle of open red wine, grabbed a glass from the overhead cabinet, and poured out a goodly portion into her wineglass. “Dos Equis okay?”

  “Fine.”

  She pulled a bottle of beer from the fridge, poured it into a glass, and handed it to him. She resumed her seat and took a sip of her wine. “My father was the one who got me into wine.”

  “They made wine in Czechoslovakia?”

  “No, in California. My father immigrated there initially. As a teenager he worked in a vineyard for two years to earn money for college. Then he came east, went to college, joined the Secret Service, and then left to build what eventually became Gamma Protection.”

  “Sounds like he was quite a force of nature.”

  “He was.” She stared out the window. “And I miss him dearly.”

  “I’m sure. So, you wanted to meet?”

  She looked back at him, an expression on her face Decker couldn’t really read. “I understand that a wad of old Slovakian money was found in Alan Draymont’s throat.”

  Decker sat up straighter and eyed her, barely concealing the anger he was feeling. “And how did you find that out?”

  “I know that you’re upset by that. But I have resources everywhere, it’s just the nature of the business I’m in.”

  “Resources are one thing, getting confidential information about an ongoing federal criminal investigation is something else.”

  “Is it true?” she asked.

  “What if it were? What would that tell you?”

  “You already know of my father’s connection to that country.”

  “But even if he had any enemies, your father is beyond their reach. And why take it out on Draymont in any case?”

  “As to your first query, Gamma and my father were interchangeable. He may be gone, but the company is still there.”

  “So they want to destroy the company your father built, you mean?”

  “It could be. It’s certainly one possibility.”

  “And as to my second query?”

  “I don’t know why they would target Alan Draymont. My initial thought was the most obvious. That the real target was the judge and he died defending her.” She glanced up at him. “Could that still be true?”

  “Anything’s possible.”

  “But you think it unlikely?”

  “With the cash in the throat? I doubt they just happened to be carrying expired Slovakian currency when they showed up at the judge’s house to murder her.”

  “But it could be a device to throw you off the scent. To distract?”

  “They would have to know Draymont was guarding her, and they might have known who employed him. How well-known was your father’s background, that he came from Czechoslovakia?”

  “Well-known enough. We have the clock in our office.” She attempted a smile.

  For Decker, this was an exercise in futility, since he already believed that there were two unrelated killers at the house that night. But he also might be wrong about that.

  “Then your theory is that someone wanted to get back at Gamma. So they killed Draymont, stuffed his mouth with Slovakian money, then killed the judge to take out the witness?”

  “It’s one possibility,” she replied.

  “Why target Draymont? Out of all the agents you have? And why kill him when he’s on assignment, which means they might well have to kill the protectee, too?”

  She sipped her wine and looked thoughtful. “I know it might seem implausible when you say it that way.”