[Deborah Jones 01.0] Miami Requiem

by J. B. Turner

  ‘I don’t know who I can trust. It’s like how I felt back in San Francisco after the‌—‌’

  ‘Okay, honey, this is what you do. You pack your bags and get back to Miami, right now, and you tell your boss everything, okay?’

  Deborah sobbed. ‘I don’t know if I can do this. He said that one of the boys that raped me is living in Miami.’

  ‘If you’re being threatened, maybe it’s a good idea to back off.’

  ‘I can’t. I wanted this story.’

  ‘Then you’ve got to find the strength to go on. You can do it. There’s nothing you can’t achieve, girl, you hear me? You’re going to do it.’

  ‘I’m not tough like you.’

  ‘Think of your daddy, Deborah.’

  ‘What’s he got to do with this?’

  ‘Remember you told me about him in Mississippi during the civil-rights marches?’

  ‘So?’

  ‘He didn’t back down, did he?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘They spat on him, but he kept on marching. Marching for the right to vote… Marching for the right to exist as an equal. To exist as a human being.’

  Deborah felt ashamed of the fear she felt. ‘I’m not him.’

  ‘I’m not saying you are. But if you want to do this, seems like you’ve got to come out of your shell and show them what you’re made of.’

  ‘I’m not as brave as my daddy. I’m not brave at all.’

  ‘You’re tougher than you think.’

  Suddenly Deborah felt less afraid. ‘Okay. Thank you, Faith. You’re a real friend. I’ll call you when I get back home.’

  • • •

  Deborah checked out of the deluxe hotel immediately, and was soon heading back along Alligator Alley as an orange sun blazed above the Everglades.

  How did Richmond know where she was staying? Was he still in there? Was he watching her now? It was like something out of a creepy late-night horror film… finding him sitting downstairs like he owned the place.

  Deborah bit her lower lip and wondered if anyone had followed her. She glanced in her rearview mirror, but there was no sign of a red Chevy.

  She switched on the car radio and the swaggering hip-hop of Mary J. Blige pounded out into the sultry air. And she felt better.

  Ahead of her, Deborah saw a young girl lean out of her father’s pick-up and wave a small stars-and-stripes flag. The reminders of 9/11 were never far away. Americans felt patriotic like never before, stoked up by the government and people like Senator O’Neill who demanded astronomical levels of military spending to defend the homeland. Whether it would stop another attack was a moot point.

  She put her foot on the accelerator.

  Deborah’s cell phone rang. She turned down the pounding music and picked up the phone from the passenger seat, keeping one hand on the wheel.

  Classical music played in the background and a man was laughing. Then he said, ‘Slow down, bitch! We can’t keep up. You hearin’ me, nigger bitch?’

  19

  Two hours later, Deborah’s car screeched into the underground garage below her Miami Beach condo. Her mind was still racing and her heart seemed to alternate its beats.

  She cut the engine and wondered if someone really had followed her.

  Could they be watching her now?

  Deborah scanned the other vehicles dotted around the shadows of the concrete catacomb. Shiny BMWs, Jaguars, Escalades and Hummers in neat rows.

  She sat still, locked in her car, watching and waiting. Where were the valet-parking guys when you needed them? Probably stuck in their booth at the Collins entrance. The strange thing was that the place was usually bustling with them, keen to pick up healthy tips from her well-heeled neighbors.

  She hated these places. It reminded her of a bizarre and scary moment when a young addict‌—‌the only son of a woman who attended her father’s church‌—‌mugged her father while he walked back to his car. She reckoned her fear of underground parking zones could all be traced back to that incident.

  Deborah gripped the wheel, trying to pull herself together.

  Don’t let your imagination run wild. But her deepest fear was nearing the surface. A fear she’d only told her therapist. The fear that the two boys who raped her might one day track her down.

  Deborah closed her eyes and tried to let her muscles relax, something she practiced in cognitive therapy classes. It took a few minutes but, as if by magic, the waves of anxiety seemed to subside.

  But she remained in her car for the next ten minutes. Looking for any suspicious movements in the deep shadows. But there was nothing. Just concrete, chrome and steel.

  ‘This is stupid, Deborah,’ she said aloud and opened the door, wincing at the noise of the mechanical locking system.

  The glass doors that led to the elevator were around fifty feet away. She started walking, the noise of her shoes echoing around the concrete walls.

  Her gaze darted from side to side.

  She glanced up. Closed-circuit television cameras strafed the area.

  Thank goodness, at least the cameras would track her movements.

  Deborah quickened her step. It seemed to take forever just to walk that short distance, but she made it and pushed open the doors. The elevator door was open.

  Excellent. She wanted to get back to the safety of her apartment.

  She punched in number 33. Nothing. She tried again. Still nothing. She stood and waited for the doors to close. These things happen, just relax. She stared at the button as if it had a mind of its own for what seemed an eternity. She punched it again. The doors remained open.

  Goddamnit.

  Deborah glanced up at an elevator camera. It’d never happened before.

  Just then, voices… Voices that sounded like they came from the garage. Men’s voices. The men were arguing. Her stomach knotted as the footsteps got closer. Voices louder.

  Goddamn this elevator.

  She punched the button again and closed her eyes. Please don’t let this happen, she thought. Please just shut.

  ‘Come on!’ Deborah jabbed the button repeatedly. It seemed to have frozen. She looked up again at the camera and showed her palms.

  She imagined a bored round-the-clock security guy sat at his monitor in the bowels of the huge tower, watching reruns of a ball game, eating doughnuts. And never checking his monitor.

  Two men walked towards the doors. Both were white and wore good suits and sunglasses, black shoes polished to a deep shine. They weren’t talking anymore.

  ‘Goddamn it, close.’ She punched in the number 33 with the knuckle of her index finger. The door shut.

  Deborah felt like sinking to her knees as the elevator climbed quickly. She arrived at her floor and stepped out, rummaging through her bag for her front-door key. Her hands were shaking.

  She gripped the key tight and slid it into the lock. The sound of the deadbolts unlocking first time was reassuring. She opened her door, secured it behind her in the blink of an eye and listened for the special locks to click back into place.

  Safe at last.

  Deborah was okay, high up above Collins. Immediately, she felt the apartment’s air conditioning brush her hair and chill her hot skin. She didn’t need a therapist to tell her that her home had become her sanctuary since she’d moved to Miami. She’d read too many stories about women being raped in their own homes to take security lightly. She figured it was better to be safe than sorry.

  She turned on some Louis Armstrong. ‘Basin Street Blues’ blasted out in all its jazzy glory. She felt better.

  Good old Satchmo. Her musical tastes were, by and large, more country-oriented. Willie Nelson a particular favorite, and Gram Parsons . .. But she did like her father’s tastes as well. Traditional jazz, Paul Robeson, gospel. The occasional R&B, like Mary J., was the exception.

  She switched on her lamps and they cast a reassuring soft jade light around the room. Then she went into her
bedroom to check her e-mail.

  Nothing. Good. She needed some time to breathe.

  Deborah shut the blinds and took off her clothes. Her muscles ached. An early night sounded like a good idea. She thought of calling Sam or Faith, just to let them know that she was back in Miami, safe and well, but she was too tired. She’d call them in the morning.

  Then she remembered that her story about Jimmy Brown was going in the following day’s paper.

  Like all journalists, she couldn’t wait to see the story in black and white, with her byline beside it.

  She’d have to thank Manhart for that. With a bit of luck, he might have some more information relevant to the case. Anything that kept the story in the public eye, and concentrated people’s minds on the imminent execution of William Craig, had to be worthwhile.

  Richmond could threaten her all he wanted, but she wasn’t going to back down.

  Deborah caught her reflection in the full-length mirror beside her wardrobe. She turned sideways and glanced at her profile. Despite her figure, what she saw depressed her.

  When would she be able to face having a boyfriend? Brett hadn’t wanted her when he’d found out. Would anyone else? Probably not when they saw her body.

  She twisted sideways so she could see the half-inch-wide vertical scars that ran the length of her back…

  They’d never go away. Clawed into her skin by the sadistic rapist’s nails as he took her from behind. Branded for life. What man could possibly find her attractive?

  Her gaze dropped to her small brown belly. She patted her stomach and shook her head. Soccer wasn’t enough‌—‌she needed to start doing sit-ups. Her slight physique had come under sustained attack from the combination of rich five-star hotel cooking and fast food eaten on the run as she drove up and down Florida.

  In the huge bathroom, the music still played, part of the hi-fi electrics hooked up by the developer when the tower was built. Deborah ran her tub and splashed in eucalyptus bubble bath. She stayed with the trumpet playing of old Satchmo and let the music sweep over her.

  The bathroom was steaming up. Just the way she liked it.

  The music reminded her of a trip to New Orleans with Brett. Late-night drinks on Bourbon Street as they soaked up the vibes. It also reminded her of New Year’s Eve in front of a roaring fire as Daddy entertained family and friends, the music and warm aura of love all around. Happier days.

  Deborah tied back her hair and checked the temperature. She didn’t know one woman on the planet who didn’t enjoy soaking in a huge bath.

  The sheer pleasure.

  The bubbles were up to her chin and the warmth eased her tight lower-back muscles. It seemed an age since she’d had a spare evening without work or commitments. She knew that her fellow journalists thought she was a naive workaholic, but she couldn’t change. As it stood, her work ethic was one of the few things she still had.

  Deborah wondered if her attitude was anything to do with her schooling at the exclusive Woodland Hills Baptist Academy. Even then she had striven to be top of the class, thanks in part to her father.

  ‘We’ve got to work harder, think quicker, and aim higher so white people don’t do us down,’ he would say. She learned all about the Selma civil-rights march with Dr King at the head of the rally. Her mother showed her terrible pictures of her father. Blood ran down his face‌—‌he’d been beaten by the billy clubs of the white police force for daring to challenge the Jim Crow laws. ‘Don’t you ever forget, child, y’hear?’ How could she? Segregation, she was told, was the work of the devil, but her father stressed that white people were not the enemy. ‘They are our brothers and sisters. Together we shall overcome.’

  Sorry if I hurt you, Daddy. Please forgive me, Momma. Even after two years, the rape still made Deborah feel like the guilty party. The soiled girl. The soiled virgin.

  Was it possible that her father’s health suffered as a direct consequence of her rape? She remembered the shock of seeing him in his hospital bed with his twisted mouth. Her mother told her one night that he couldn’t cope thinking that his beloved daughter had been drugged and raped. Two days after he was told, she said, he had the stroke. Maybe it was just coincidence, but Deborah didn’t think so. Maybe that was one of the reasons she’d been so keen to settle out of court.

  Waves of tiredness swept over her and she drifted away. All of a sudden, Deborah heard the ‘You’ve got mail’ voice from her computer.

  Just leave it. It would still be there in the morning.

  She waited for a couple of minutes and tried to empty her mind of the investigation. It didn’t work.

  Was it Sam Goldberg? Could be urgent.

  Groaning at her own diligence, she stepped out of the bath. She realized she was her own worst enemy. She wrapped herself in a white terry robe and padded across the hardwood floors of her bedroom in her bare feet, leaving a trail of foam in her wake.

  Deborah leaned over and scanned her in-box. The new e-mail message was from ‘National desk’.

  Strange.

  Deborah never, as a rule, opened e-mails without knowing exactly where they came from. She assumed it was something Frankie Callaghan wanted to talk to her about. The subject was entitled ‘Photo you might find interesting, Deborah.’

  She maneuvered the mouse and clicked to ‘open’. Her gaze locked on to the image and her brain struggled to process the signals.

  It didn’t seem possible.

  She shook and started hyperventilating. Relax, Deborah. Relax just like the therapists told you.

  Stumbling backwards, she knocked over her computer seat. She sat down hard on the floor and stared transfixed at the image on the screen. A photo of her naked and patting her stomach‌—‌taken only minutes before.

  • • •

  Deborah stood on her balcony, arms folded. Her cozy bathrobe had been abandoned for the emotional armor of jeans, sneakers and an oversized T-shirt. She gazed out into the darkness of the Atlantic. She’d been violated.

  Through the half-open French doors lay her living room, a hive of activity, with the incessant buzz of uniformed Miami Beach police and cold-eyed detectives who talked loudly into their cell phones.

  It was a relief to see Sam Goldberg push his way through the throng. She immediately felt guilty for thinking negative thoughts about him, back in Naples.

  ‘I came as quick as I could.’ He stepped onto the balcony, his tie askew. ‘What the hell happened?’

  ‘Someone got hold of my private e-mail address.’

  One of the detectives shouted out, ‘Found them!’

  Deborah and Goldberg went back into her living room, where the younger of the two detectives waved some wires which hung from three square-shaped black plastic devices, each less than an inch long. He handed them to the man leading the investigation, Lieutenant Jonny Hernandez. The Latino cop turned to Deborah, his eyes fierce and brown. ‘You know why someone would wanna bug and film the inside of your home?’ It was like something out of Watergate.

  Deborah felt her legs nearly give way. She glanced briefly at Goldberg. Anxiety clouded his eyes.

  ‘This is a video transmitter and receiver, Miss Jones,’ Hernandez said. ‘It’s an XLT-900. Professional. Battery-operated, range up to one thousand feet, built-in antenna and real good resolution. Private investigators like these babies. Some people use them to watch their cruisers, y’know, outside their house.’

  ‘Someone has broken into my house? And bugged me? Where did they put them?’

  ‘Inside three specially designed smoke detectors.’ People were spying on her as she was naked? It was sick.

  Deborah closed her eyes. ‘This is too much. I feel so stupid for not noticing anything.’

  ‘You weren’t supposed to. Someone’s beamed back a real-time picture to their computer, then they’ve e-mailed it back to you. These guys are pros, believe me.’

  20

  Next morning Sam Goldberg sat at a sidewalk
table outside the News Cafe on Ocean Drive as the sun blazed down. He was nursing the hangover from hell. His pounding headache was compounded by thoughts of the latest development in Deborah’s investigation. He’d called her first thing, asking her along for an informal chat about the sequence of events. What he hadn’t told her was that late the previous night he’d spoken to Donovan and they’d agreed that she’d be pulled off the story for her own good.

  She’d hate him for that. But it had to be done.

  Goldberg brushed some croissant crumbs off his chinos and dark blue Ralph Lauren shirt. On the table in front of him was an untouched espresso to help wake him up when his stomach got over the croissants, a large glass of water with ice and a slice of lemon, and a copy of that day’s Herald. The front page was dedicated to Deborah’s story on the statement given to Miami Beach police by Jimmy Brown, alleging that he had heard Joe O’Neill telling his father that he had raped a girl. Even Donovan was blown away by the story.

  Goldberg’s head felt like someone was drilling inside it and his throat was like sandpaper. Why did he drink so much? Why couldn’t he be like his father? Goldberg senior was a man who enjoyed one malt whisky and a bottle of Schlitz on a Saturday night, content to sit at home with Sam’s mother and watch sitcoms.

  Goldberg picked up the water and noticed how his hand shook. He needed to cut down. His doctor had warned him often enough. He took two large gulps of water which momentarily quenched his thirst. Shit, this was ridiculous. It wasn’t that long ago, shortly after his wife died, when he’d had to go to the doctor’s after starting to piss blood. Afterwards he altered his lifestyle briefly. But now the pull of the liquor was as great as ever.

  He gazed across Ocean Drive, towards the beach. A few people were already enjoying the sun. A young couple were playing volleyball, watched over by a lifeguard lounging in the sand. Driving past only a few yards from him, a flashy car with a bass-heavy sound system pumped out Snoop, disturbing his thoughts on this Saturday morning.

  What he wouldn’t give to disappear for a few months. Maybe that was what he needed most. A long vacation to recharge his batteries. He was running on empty, using alcohol to smooth over the cracks.