Page 80 of Sunset Beach
“That’s me,” Hernandez said. She handed Drue another folding chair. “You can sit here, ’til my husband gets here. He’s still at work.”
“Thanks for seeing me—” Drue started.
“Hang on.” The detective cupped her hands around her mouth as a makeshift megaphone.
“Choke up on the bat, Dez,” she yelled. “Come on now. Swing from your hips.”
Drue turned and watched as the boy squared himself in front of home plate. He looked smaller than the other players, whom she judged to be maybe ten or eleven. His white pants drooped over the tops of his red-and-white-striped socks, and the batting helmet seemed comically oversized for his head.
The pitcher was a tall, lanky black kid who rifled a fast ball at the batter. The kid whiffed at the first pitch.
“That’s okay,” Rae called. “Wait on it. Just keep your eye on the ball.”
The kid whiffed a second time, and his mother groaned. “He’s swinging too early,” she muttered. “We’ve told him and told him…”
On the third pitch the kid connected, hitting the ball with a resoundingthwack,sending it spinning toward left field.
“Whoo-hoo!” Rae Hernandez jumped to her feet, pumping her fists in the air. “Way to connect, Dez!” She was, as advertised, short and stocky,her muscled legs tan in contrast to the white shorts and tennis shoes she was wearing.
“Great hit,” Drue said. “Your son looks like a real ballplayer.”
The detective took her seat again. “That idiot coach keeps messing with his swing. It’s making us crazy.” She turned to Drue, sliding her sunglasses down her nose. “Okay. Talk. You’ve got twenty minutes before the game begins.”
“I really appreciate your seeing me,” Drue started.
“You can thank Yvonne. I talked to her today after you called. She seems to think you can help her case against the hotel. Plus you were kind to Aliyah. That’s the only reason you’re here. That and the fact that you claim to have new information. But before we get started, let me ask you something. Are you like Jimmy Zee’s assistant or something?”
“You know Zee?”
“Every cop in town knows him,” Hernandez said. “My husband worked with him at the St. Pete PD, before Zee retired.”
Drue chose her words carefully. “We work together. He’s training me to do investigative work.”
She made a sour face. “Just be sure you don’t take any ethics lessons from him.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Drue asked.
“Zee has a fast and loose relationship with the finer points of the law,” Hernandez said. “But he knows people, so he gets away with stuff.”
“I talked to Lutrisha Smallwood,” Drue said eagerly.
“The gal who found the body? Not exactly the most helpful witness.”
“She was afraid of repercussions from hotel management, I think. She still is. Did you know she’d gone back to work there?”
“That’s news,” Rae said. “I thought she was working in the bakery at Publix.”
“She told me she couldn’t get enough hours there,” Drue said. “She also said that the hotel manager called all the housekeepers into a meeting not long after Jazmin’s murder, to tell them that Yvonne’s lawsuit against the hotel could force the hotel into bankruptcy. Which spooked everybody more than they already were.”
“Those bastards,” Rae said. “They stonewalled our investigation every way they could. I can’t prove they destroyed crime scene evidence before we got there, but I’ve always believed somebody did. What else did Lutrisha tell you?”
“For starters, she admitted that she and Jazmin were closer than she originally let on when she was interviewed by the police.”
“Big surprise,” Rae said.
“She told me that she’d sometimes cover for Jazmin, when she was going on a date. Instead of going home to shower, she’d shower and change in a vacant room at the hotel, which was a firing offense. She said Jazmin’s boyfriend had once worked at the hotel, but left to take a job at another motel. Have you talked to him?”
“Jorge? Yeah. But he had an alibi for the night of the murder. He works at the front desk at the Silver Sands.”
