Her Cop Protector Read online

  Dean rubbed his chin, thinking. “So you liberated these illegal birds so they could fly free again.”

  “Of course not. Releasing them without a safe harbor plan could harm them.” She bit her bottom lip and looked down. “Actually, I should go help that clod before he harms one. He has no idea how to handle birds.”

  “And you do?”

  “Yes.” She leaned forward. “Can you arrest him?”

  “Like he said, for what?”

  “For selling illegal—”

  “I think you know I can’t do that.”

  She sat back and crossed her arms. “An arrest would teach him a lesson.”

  “Not my job.” Although, considering his forced time with rookie Sanchez, maybe lessons were his job. “So, who released the birds? That’s the crime I’m investigating.”

  “I don’t know who he was. Some customer in the shop. I never saw him before.”

  “Give me a description.”

  She shrugged. “I barely looked at him. Maybe fifty or sixty, bald. Taller than me, maybe six feet. Really thin.”

  “Not bad for barely looking at him,” Dean said. “So, what happened?”

  “When that jerk grabbed my arm— Hey, that’s a crime.” She sat up straighter. “Assault.”

  “Do you want to file charges?”

  She leaned back, glancing toward the outer room. “Let me think about that.”

  “Go on. The owner grabbed you...”

  June Latham rubbed her arm with long, graceful fingers. Dean followed her movements, noting with disgust a red mark where someone had taken a stranglehold on her body. No question the area would bruise. He also noted well-toned biceps and triceps and wondered where she worked out.

  “He wanted my phone. He wouldn’t let go of me. We argued. Suddenly a macaw flew over my head. When I turned, I saw this customer opening all the cages and urging the birds to escape.”

  “So you maintain you had nothing to do with releasing the birds.”

  She raised her chin. “I never lie.”

  “Good to know,” he said, closing his notepad, believing she told the truth today. But everybody lied on occasion. “You’re free to go.” Review of the video surveillance would reveal if there had even been a crime.

  She didn’t move. “You’re not going to do anything about the smuggled birds, are you?”

  “I wish I could.” See, now, there was a lie. Although he’d love to score points with this tall, blonde goddess, he was a homicide cop, not a bird savior.

  “Do you know that wildlife smuggling is the third largest illegal trade in the world economy? Only drugs and weapons are bigger.”

  Actually, no, he didn’t know that little factoid. But of course she didn’t lie. “So take your proof to Fish and Wildlife.”

  “You know the birds will be gone by the time they act.”

  “I can’t help that.”

  “You could impound the birds as evidence.”

  Dean assessed the woman before him. So here he had a true bleeding-heart activist. A rare breed these days, thank God, because they were nothing but a giant pain in the ass. “When I talk to Mr. Glover, will he admit the birds are illegal?”

  “No.”

  “Then it’s your word against his.”

  “But remember I have proof,” she said, holding up her phone. “And I repeat, you could take the birds into protective custody pending investigation.”

  A bunch of shrieking, pooping birds in the Miami Beach Police Station? Yeah, that’d get him out of his lieutenant’s shit can.

  Dean handed her his card. You never knew. Maybe she’d call. “Let me talk to the owner. I’ll document your allegations in my report, but that’s the best I can do.”

  “That’s the best you can do?” Disdain laced her words. “Really?”

  Dean stood. Not likely she’d be calling. “You’re free to go, Ms. Latham.”

  “But the birds aren’t.” With a final frosty glare, she moved toward the door.

  * * *

  JUNE DESCENDED FROM the rear exit of a county bus at her stop on Brickell Avenue. The monstrous vehicle belched poison out its exhaust pipe, changed gears with a low rumble and lurched north toward downtown Miami.

  She removed her cotton sweater, thankful for the hot August sun to thaw out her supercooled skin. Bus drivers in Miami always kept their AC at arctic levels, since hot air blasted their faces at each stop. Her shoulder muscles relaxed as she breathed the salty fragrance from nearby Biscayne Bay. Dwarfed by scores of surrounding condo towers, she walked the landscaped path toward the Enclave’s entrance. At least she was home.

  What a disastrous morning. And she’d accomplished nothing.

  Actually, she’d succeeded in something: stressing out an already traumatized group of birds.

  She rubbed her arm, which still ached where that horrible man had squeezed. And the gorgeous raven-haired cop, Detective Hammer, had seemed more interested in ogling her than doing his job. Picturing his handsome face with its I’ve-seen-it-all-before expression, she wanted to dismiss him from her thoughts but couldn’t. There had been something about him, something darkly vital that warned her as surely as the noisy bell at the pet shop.

  Of course she’d email her photos to Agent Gillis, but by the time Fish and Wildlife noticed, the birds could be shipped to California.

  Would Glover harm them? She hated to think he’d dispose of living creatures to avoid a fine. But why wouldn’t he? He obviously didn’t care that intelligent animals had been wrenched from their jungle homes, shipped under dreadful conditions a thousand miles away and then cooped up inside a tiny prison. And to think she’d even helped round up the darlings and placed them back in jail so Glover couldn’t break a wing, the whole time acutely aware of the detective’s intense blue eyes scrutinizing her movements. Hammer had even helped her corner one African gray parrot.

  So she’d only made matters worse for the birds. Maybe she should listen to Agent Gillis and stop her commando raids to gather proof. Unless...well, maybe Glover wouldn’t be so quick to deal with poachers next time one approached him. That was something, wasn’t it?

  Something, not much. But no, she couldn’t stop. She had to try.

  The condo’s automatic doors whooshed open, and she entered the chilly elegance of the Enclave’s lobby.

  “Why such a sad face, Junie?”

  Jerked from her tumbling thoughts, she nodded to Magda, the condo’s dark-haired, eagle-eyed concierge seated in her usual spot behind the sleek oak counter.

  “My goodness,” Magda continued in her lilting accent, “you look like the condo association made you get rid of Lazarus.”

  Alarm shot down June’s spine. Nothing happened in this thirty-story building that Magda didn’t know about first. “Has there been another meeting? What have you heard?”

  Magda held up long, manicured fingers. “I was kidding.”

  June blew out a breath. Not funny, but Magda couldn’t know how worried she was about that rumor. Among others. “Good.”

  Magda leaned forward, resting on her forearms. “So, what’s wrong, sweetie?”

  “Just a rotten morning,” June said. The less said about her investigative activities, the better.

  “Were your buses late again?” Magda persisted.

  “Actually, the system stayed on schedule today.”

  Magda shook her head. “I don’t know how you manage to get around Miami on a bus.”

  “You just have to make that commitment,” June said and then added with a grin, “and allow enough time.”

  “I need my car. Will your uncle be at the Labor Day party this year?”

  “He hasn’t decided.” June removed her key from her purse and stepped to the bank of mailboxes on the wall left
of Magda’s position. “The weather’s been great in New York, so he’s not sure he wants to come when it’s so humid here.”

  “So, when was the last time you drove the Cobra?”

  June paused in removing mail from her slot. When had she last driven Uncle Mike’s antique gas-guzzler? She’d promised to fire it up at least once a week. She grabbed mail and stuffed it inside her bag. “Thanks for the reminder. Guess I’m going down to the dungeon later.”

  Magda’s face wreathed in a maternal smile. “I know you hate the parking levels.”

  “What would I do without you, Maggie Mae?”

  Magda blushed, looking pleased. “Oh, you do fine, Junie.”

  “The jury is still out on that. Will I see you at the pool later?”

  “Of course,” Magda replied, buzzing June through the security door to the elevators.

  Stepping inside a waiting car, June punched PH and swiped her fob to allow the elevator to ascend to the thirtieth floor. She closed her eyes as she was gently swept upward—like the wings of a bird flying up to her private aerie in the sky.

  No, she reminded herself, opening her eyes. Her uncle’s aerie. A temporary refuge. She must never forget this luxury didn’t belong to her. Not anymore. Not for a long time.

  And really nothing had ever been hers. Greed had been her parents’ downfall. Had she once been like them? She couldn’t remember.

  What did it matter anyway? Nothing she remembered from her idyllic childhood had been real.

  CHAPTER TWO

  DEAN RUBBED EYES strained from watching grainy surveillance video and leaned back in his chair. He’d played the bird-shop security video four times since returning to the station. It backed up June Latham’s version of events.

  She and the mystery man hadn’t entered the premises together. He’d released the birds while the owner confronted June. She never spoke to the guy before he rabbited out of the store.

  Dean lifted his mug from the table and swigged cold coffee. Why the hell did the guy open those cages? Maybe he got religion from the sight of Ms. Latham and decided to help her cause. Dean snorted. That was as likely a reason as any. Who knew why citizens did anything anymore?

  And why did he give a fig about June and her smuggled birds? He’d told his rookie the review was good training. Yeah, right.

  “I don’t see a crime to investigate,” Sanchez said beside him.

  “Not by the woman,” Dean said.

  “Glover won’t be happy.”

  Dean nodded, remembering the shop owner’s sputtering outrage when June walked free. Hell, even if he tracked down this bird liberator, what would be the charge? A misdemeanor—malicious mischief or some such nonsense. Hardly worth the police’s time. “He’ll get over it.”

  “Do you think Glover’s birds are illegal?”

  “Who knows?” Dean shrugged. What he really meant was Who cares? “Not our jurisdiction. But I told the woman I’d send my report to Fish and Wildlife.”

  A grinning Detective Lloyd Miller entered the viewing room with a steaming mug and glanced at the scene frozen on the monitor. Dean knew what Miller saw. Escaped parrots covering the floor and shelves of the North Beach Pet Shop.

  “Whoa, Hawk. So the rumor is true. You got yourself a serious situation here. Birds on the lam, huh?”

  “Haven’t you got somewhere else to be, Miller?”

  “And here I come with a sincere effort to help your new case,” Miller said with an injured air. “My seven-year-old daughter has a little green parakeet named Birdie Bird. I’m offering her expert assistance with this bird caper.”

  Sanchez snickered.

  Dean gave Miller the finger. He should be used to the mocking. The entire station had been riding him since the lieutenant busted him back to patrol. Didn’t matter what case he caught, his fellow officers loved to remind him how low he had sunk.

  Miller sat down and raised his mug toward the viewing screen. “I say blast those felonious birds from the air with your rifle. Tough shot, I know, but you’re just the man for the job.”

  “Are you really as good a shot as they say?” Sanchez asked.

  “Oh, he’s good,” Miller replied. “State champion. And very quick on the trigger, right, Hawk?”

  Dean squeezed his mug, staring at his trigger finger. Best not to react. The less he said in response to this schoolhouse shit, the quicker the shit would end.

  “It’s why we call him Hawk,” Miller added.

  “I’ve never taken a shot that wasn’t righteous,” Dean told Sanchez.

  “Not even the Wilcox kid?” Sanchez asked.

  Dean leveled a look at the rookie. Damn rumors. “The Wilcox ‘kid’ was eighteen going on thirty-five with a rap sheet three miles long. He threatened his two young hostages with a semiautomatic.”

  “And you took him down?”

  “Something like that,” Dean said, shoved paperwork on the bird-shop case into a file. He’d been right to take that shot. He didn’t regret a damn thing he’d done that day—only Lieutenant Marshall’s decision to punish him for acting before the captain’s go-ahead. But his lieutenant hadn’t been on scene. Marshall didn’t see what Dean saw through his scope.

  Had he been too quick? No frigging way. The way he saw it, only the bad guy died that day. He should have gotten a commendation, not reassignment.

  Lieutenant Marshall entered the viewing room carrying a slip of paper. Dean sat up, glad he hadn’t made his thoughts verbal.

  “Your lucky day, Hammer.” Marshall handed Dean the assignment sheet. “We got a body in the Sea Wave Hotel on Ocean Terrace, and I got nobody else to send. Take Sanchez. And don’t shoot anyone.”

  * * *

  DEAN TURNED ONTO Ocean Terrace and drove past a boarded-up art deco hotel on North Beach. If you asked him—and of course no one ever would—he considered its design as good as anything on South Beach. Not for the first time, he wondered why the beautiful people flocked to Ocean Drive seven miles south but avoided Ocean Terrace. Same beach, same architecture. But a homeless population wandered here instead of gorgeous European models.

  A sleek twenty-five-story high-rise towered over the smaller historic gems, its shadow momentarily blocking the relentless August sun. Someone had tried to turn the neighborhood before the great economic bust. It’d happen eventually. Someday this area would become a gold mine for a brilliant developer with good timing.

  But right now the only thing open was a half-assed surf shop instead of a celebrity-owned gourmet restaurant.

  Across the street, Dean noted a large woman, hair covered with a bright yellow turban, sitting on a wheeled walker facing the dunes. Huge tortoiseshell sunglasses hid most of her face. Her head swiveled as she followed the police cruiser.

  He also spotted a cart decorated with wooden and beaded jewelry on the wide sidewalk close to the dunes. Where was the owner? He or she would have to be found and interviewed.

  “There it is,” Sanchez said, pointing to a three-story structure with faded pink and aqua paint. The roof featured a stair-step roofline, leading to a spire at the apex. Neon signage announced they’d arrived at the Sea Wave Hotel.

  “I see it,” Dean said. Maybe five or six onlookers stood behind the crime-scene tape that blocked entrance to the hotel’s lobby. Filthy clothing, backpacks and a couple of shopping carts told Dean these were street people.

  He continued his assessment as he braked to a stop in front of the Sea Wave. Not many people around. Pitiful few tourists—but of course South Florida was in the middle of the mean season.

  The heat enveloped him like a wet sponge when he exited the air-conditioned cruiser. Not even 11:00 a.m. and already sweltering. He smelled the ocean—and damn if he couldn’t actually hear the crash of waves. You didn’t get that on Ocean Drive.

&nbs
p; “Jeez, it’s hot,” Sanchez said.

  “That’s why we live here, genius,” Dean said, still evaluating the scene. The subject hotel sat in the shadow of two larger properties, the one to the right part of a well-known hotel chain and better maintained.

  Dean stared at the dirty glass block and one oversize porthole window in the hotel’s facade. A series of streamlined balconies wrapped around the sides of the structure. Satisfied he understood the setting, he stepped onto the hotel’s wide, covered porch, where he was met by a young male uniformed officer whose badge read Robert Kinney. Dean had seen him around but didn’t know him.

  “You first on the scene?” Dean asked.

  “Right,” Kinney said with a nod.

  “What have we got?”

  “Body on a balcony on the second floor. Gunshot wound to the head.”

  “Who called it in?”

  “Multiple 911 calls. A single shot was heard at 7:18 a.m.”

  Damn early in the day for a murder. “Any witnesses?”

  “No.”

  “What else?”

  The officer checked his notes. “The vic is one John Smith from Tulsa, Oklahoma.”

  “John Smith? You’re kidding me, right?”

  Kinney shrugged. “The room is registered to John Smith. Room twenty-two.”

  “Okay. My partner and I will check the scene. You and other officers begin interviewing bystanders and determine if anybody saw anything.”

  Dean entered the lobby and scanned its contents. Along the south wall, a sparse breakfast buffet on a long table. Straight ahead, stairs covered with filthy carpet led to a hall and rooms. To the right of the stairs was the front desk, where the only other occupant, a thirtysomething heavyset clerk, leaned against the counter, watching him. The way the guy rubbed his dark beard told Dean the clerk was plenty rattled. A surveillance camera hung over the desk.

  Dean nodded at the clerk and proceeded up the stairs, followed by Sanchez. The carpet, which Dean noted was full of sand, covered the same cracked pink terrazzo as the lobby.

  The door to unit twenty-two stood open. Dean looked through the room onto the balcony, where the medical examiner, Dr. Owen Fishman, a good man he’d worked with before, looked to be finishing up with the body. Dean nodded to himself and he pulled on latex gloves and cloth booties over his shoes. Excellent. He’d have control of the scene soon. The forensics team was still maybe ten minutes out.