Free Miami Midnight by Maggie; Davis

Morgue, Gabrielle. The newspaper morgue . Down on the third floor.”
    The whole city room staff kept their heads down. But they were grinning.
     
    The newspaper morgue, where clippings and microfilm records of Times-Journal back issues were kept, was a windowless, frigidly air-conditioned room that somewhat resembled the actual Dade County morgue downtown. It was made even more morguelike by bleak fluorescent lighting and a grim-faced middle-aged woman who greeted Gaby as though news of her incompetence had already filtered down.
    “Photographic is looking for you,” she said as Gaby signed in to use the files. “Want me to call Crissette Washington back and tell her you’re down here?”
    Crissette, Gaby remembered, had offered to give her a ride home because her mother’s aged Cadillac was in the shop again. She told the morgue supervisor she’d appreciate the call, and went into the file room.
    There were two systems in the Times-Journal ’s morgue. Old metal bins held file folders of clippings of the newspaper’s earlier issues. The daily editions since 1979 were on microfilm. Researching James Santo Marin wasn’t going to be easy, she thought, sighing. She didn’t even know what year to begin with. It would probably help to know how long the Santo Marin family had been in Miami.
    The first wave of Cuban exiles had arrived in the States in the 1960’s. But Gaby remembered someone telling her the Santo Marin export-import company had had a Miami branch office long before that. Still, looking for a story through back editions of the Times-Journal was a lot better than the daily struggles with her writing. At least researching was something she knew.
    Gaby began with the current week’s editions, but after a half hour of monotonous sliding of microfilmed pages through the viewer she began to lose the edge of her concentration. Then the front page of the Modern Living section came up with the story she was looking for. It was four years old, she saw, checking the dateline, and the headline was something of a surprise. “Miami Roots Still Here For Cuba’s Santo Marins.”
    “Goody,” Gaby murmured.
    Center page was a photograph of all three Santo Marins in the spectacular white living room of their just-completed palatial art deco estate in Coral Gables four years ago. The original photograph was in color; the microfilm reproduction was more muddy than usual. But James Santo Marin was certainly recognizable, tense and smolderingly good-looking in a dark business suit, standing behind the white sofa where his sister and mother were seated.
    Gaby examined the women. Señora Estancia Santo Marin with her dark hair and exquisite Castilian features looked beautiful and young enough to be her son’s sister. The sister herself, identified in the cut line below the photo as Pilar Antonia Santo Marin had, in spite of her lovely face, the pale, overshadowed air of one who had lived all her life in the brilliance of her mother’s beauty.
    She could relate to that, Gaby thought. Pilar Santo Marin was pretty, but not pretty enough. And had lived all her young life with the spotlight on her glamorous mama.
    Gaby sat back in her chair and studied them thoughtfully. The two women were sleek, perfectly coiffed, with great lidded dark eyes, the very picture of upper-class latinas . Behind them, James Santo Marin looked down his nose at the camera with the scowling, impatient expression of someone too busy to be having his picture taken.
    According to the Times-Journal article, the Santo Marins had been rich in Cuba, but they’d grown even richer in the States. James Santo Marin had taken over the family business on the death of his uncle and was a millionaire several times over. He had been named Young Hispanic Businessman of the Year, and served on numerous Miami area banking boards. The mansion he’d built on the shore of Biscayne Bay had been designed by a famous Argentinian architect.
    The so-called “Prince of Coral