She's Not There by P. J. Parrish Page A

said. “Keep the change.”
    Buchanan eased out of the taxi and it sped away, leaving him in the dark drizzle. Beyond the ten-foot chain link fence, he could see the misty glow of security lights falling on the rows of cars and SUVs like moonlight on tombstones. A small warmer yellow light deeper in the lot pulsed brighter for a second as a door opened and then closed.
    Buchanan heard the man’s footsteps before he saw him. A flashlight shined in Buchanan’s eyes and he blinked.
    “You Buchanan?”
    “One and the same.”
    Buchanan heard the jingle-clank-creak of the fence unlocking and opening. As he went through, he caught a glimpse of a fat man in a dirty Dolphins cap and orange plastic rain poncho. After leaving Tobias at the restaurant, Buchanan had called his contact at the Fort Lauderdale PD, who had told him the impound guard was good, that he’d let him in for fifty bucks. Buchanan was having trouble remembering the impound guy’s name.
    Quirk . . . that was it.
    “Listen, Mr. Quirk—”
    “Quark. The name is Quark, like the subatomic particle.”
    “Okay, Mr. Quark. I’m here to see a car.”
    “Yeah, Larry told me. The Mercedes SL that came in yesterday. So where’s my Christmas present?”
    Buchanan pulled an envelope from his pocket and handed it over to Quark. The man peeked in the envelope and then slid it into his pants pocket.
    “Follow me.”
    Quark clicked on his flashlight again, and Buchanan followed him along the line of cars. The first few rows were all in good shape: Toyotas towed from parking lots, Escalades seized in drug raids, and Lexuses lost to loan default. But the farther they went into the lot the worse the cars looked until they deteriorated into crumbled masses of metal.
    Quark stopped and pointed the flashlight beam. “There she is.”
    The car was wedged between two other wrecks—a Kia and an accordioned Ford Fiesta. It was small, about the size of a Miata, and though the grill was damaged, the distinctive Mercedes emblem was still visible.
    Something was itching at Buchanan’s memory, something from his Google of Alex Tobias. “Can I have your flashlight?” he asked Quark.
    Quark handed it over, and Buchanan trained it on the car’s side. He couldn’t see the doors, but he knew what he was looking at—a Mercedes 300SL gullwing.
    That’s what Buchanan had been trying to remember. His Google of Alex Tobias had revealed that Tobias had paid $800,000 for the gullwing at an auto auction. It was the kind of collectible car you didn’t even drive on city streets. What was Amelia Tobias doing driving it out in the Everglades?
    It started to rain.
    “You about done here?”
    Buchanan looked back at Quark, turtled down into his poncho.
    “No, I’m going to be a while.”
    “Well, I’m going back to my office. Make sure you drop the flashlight off before you leave.”
    Quark left and Buchanan looked back at the Mercedes. The passenger side appeared intact. The driver’s side had taken the brunt of the damage, and its front fender was smashed, the headlight broken. The Mercedes was wedged smack up against the wrecked Ford so there was no way to see inside. Buchanan climbed on top of the Kia. He had to lie down on the hood to angle the flashlight beam into the car’s interior.
    The light picked up the glitter of glass from the broken driver’s-side window. There were brown smears on the tan bucket seat and on the dashboard—dried blood, Buchanan guessed. When he moved the flashlight beam, he saw the spider crack in the windshield over the steering wheel.
    Buchanan started to get up but then stopped. Suddenly he was seeing what wasn’t there.
    Seat belts.
    The gullwing was a classic car, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t be retrofitted with seat belts, even though any such alteration would diminish the car’s value. With no seat belt to stop anything, Amelia Tobias’s head had smashed into the windshield.
    Again, the question: What was she doing driving a car