The Memory Killer

by J. A. Kerley

  “That’s grim, Ava.”

  “I can check with the CDC to see if there’ve been any poisonings reported nationwide. That might take a few days.”

  “I can put the word out locally.”

  Both avenues would likely dead-end like the others, but we were running out of streets. I thanked her and started away, but paused.

  “The last time we spoke, you told me Jeremy’s being controlled by his past was about over. Care to elaborate?”

  She held out her wristwatch like it was in countdown mode. “I said the time to that moment was countable in hours.”

  “You did, indeed. And?”

  “I guess there are now fewer of them.”

  I walked out to the parking lot and called Gershwin, who was in his daily meeting with the pool investigators, checking input, trying to find new ways to get the info out on Donnie, and generally doing heavy-duty legwork.

  “Anyone send out info on Donnie to county agriculture agents, people like that?” I asked.

  “Uh, it’s not exactly top of mind, Jefé. Why?”

  “An idea sparked by Dr Davanelle. We’ve sought input from every urban venue from Orlando to Key West, nothing. Let’s e-mail a packet to every ag agent and farmer’s co-op in South Florida. The folks in Resources can get you listings.”

  “You think Donnie’s next move is rustling cattle?”

  “We’ve turned over every other stone, might as well blanket the countryside with Donnie’s pix. Ask about any strange poisonings that might have cropped up over the past couple–three years. Plant-based toxins in particular. Animal deaths, human poisonings – anything. Check with rural hospitals, clinics, anything medical.”

  “You got it, Kemo Sabe.”

  “You up for a late breakfast after you get that done?”

  We met up at a Southern-style diner south of downtown, scratch biscuits, gravy to make you weep. We ate, drank coffee, and pored over our notes. I studied the jumble in my open briefcase. “What are we missing? What am I missing?”

  Gershwin looked at me over a honey-dripping biscuit the size of a hockey puck. “It worries me, too, Jefé. I go over the stuff at home, a different vic every night.”

  “Who was last night?”

  “Brian Caswell, Brianna.”

  “You find any new stone to turn?”

  He sucked honey from a glistening thumb. “Remember the guy who reported Caswell as a missing, Mitchell Peyton? He had some old videos of Brianna starting out. I dunno, rehearsals or whatever. We never checked them out.”

  I nodded. “We passed because we figured we’d nail Donnie fast. And stuff that old wouldn’t be relevant.”

  “Well?”

  “It’s probably still not relevant, but let’s have Peyton give us the Brianna retrospective.”

  50

  Debro sat in his vehicle on the wide avenue bordering a side of Miami-Dade General Hospital. The engine was running to keep the AC cranking and the sizzling midday sun made it necessary for Polaroid sunglasses when whipping the field glasses between his lap and his eyes, sneaking glances at the employees’ entrance to the facility.

  Patrick White worked twelve-hour shifts, six a.m. until six p.m. That was for three weeks, with the fourth week off. White took his lunch at 11.30 a.m., returning at 12.10. You could set a clock by the little bitch. When researching White, Debro had considered taking him during his lunchtime walk, but deemed it too dangerous. Debro had made himself impossible to see, and continued success depended on his invisibility. It was his shield, his armor.

  Today, he simply wanted to see White. To refresh his memory of the man’s cruelty. And to savor what was inevitable. The employee door opened and Debro flicked his glasses to his eyes as a trio of female nurses stepped from the building. False alarm. He scanned the glasses up to the fourth floor, the wing where White worked, studying the windows one by one.

  Come out, come out wherever you are …

  The glasses paused at the fifth window from the end of the building. Where Kempie had been kept, little Jakey-boy Eisen probably still next door … guess they didn’t have a tongue ward … And there, the third window? That had been the room holding the One That Got Away, the spitting, stuttering Derek Scott. “Duh-Duh-Derek,” Debro chuckled, shaking his head.

  He raised the glasses anew. Let’s see … he didn’t know where Dancing Boy Harold was kept, but wouldn’t it be cool if he shared a room with Eisen … and Prestwick makes three? Debro wondered if he could visit them. It would be easy to pull off once he—

  Motion! Debro pulled the glasses to the side. Patrick White was stepping from the door. He held it open for a couple of other employees, then took out his phone, checked for messages, tucked it back. White paused for a moment, looking like a lost child. He took a deep breath and leaned forward, starting to jog to the street. Patrick’s butt was small and tight in the blue scrubs, and Debro made a mental note to stop at Walgreen’s for more K-Y.

  Gershwin called Peyton, who was a booking agent for a cruise line and on his day off. He professed delighted at displaying his collection of Brianna memorabilia and was all smiles when we arrived, ushering us into his home. The ashtray formerly holding the joint was now squeaky clean and the room smelled of clove incense.

  I sank into Peyton’s couch, Gershwin taking a lounger. Peyton checked a date on a DVD, pulled it from the case and slipped it into the player. “This is early, when Brianna was just getting started. It’s from a dumpy club up by Fort Pierce.”

  Segments of Caswell’s performance appeared on the fifty-inch screen, a younger Caswell mimicking various female celebs. It was pretty bad overall, missed lip-sync cues, clumsy moves, odd costume choices – although the Madonna bit seemed dead-on, the silver cones, maybe.

  “The camera’s all on Brian,” I said. “We’re interested in audience shots.”

  Peyton sighed, addressing a Philistine. “You need to get a sense of who Brianna is. Her drama, her feeling, her heart.”

  I bit my tongue and sat back, thinking if Caswell had a hundred followers as devoted as Peyton, he’d never buy a drink again. We finished the recording and Peyton slipped another disk into the player. “This is classic,” he said, picking up the remote. “Some day the History Channel will be bidding on it.”

  “And it is …?” I said.

  “When Brianna started developing Ivana Tramp. Prepare to be blown away.”

  A shaky shot of a stage, Caswell entering as Elton John’s “The Bitch is Back” blasted from the sound system, hips in full-swing sashay. He wore a red sequined gown slit high up one side, silver high heels, a wig the color of polished brass, and enough jewelry, bangles, extended nails and make-up to make Dolly Parton envious.

  Caswell had been working on his craft. The moves were fluid, the persona hugely outsized but controlled. It was basically off-color jokes and insults – religion, culture, sex, much of the humor gay-oriented and beyond my ken – but the crowd seemed wildly appreciative, noted by both the laughter and the faces when Peyton panned the crowd.

  “You’re showing more audience in this one,” Gershwin said to Peyton.

  “To get their reaction. This is when Brianna learned to play them. To make them howl. Isn’t she the Bitch Queen deluxe?”

  “Can you pause on audience scenes?”

  “Sure.”

  “How many fags does it take to screw in a light bulb?” Brian or Brianna or Ivana asked.

  “How many?” the crowd yelled.

  “Two. One to hold the bulb and the other to smear KY on the threads.”

  Caswell mimed the bulb-greasing action to roars of laughter. The camera panned to the audience and Peyton hit pause. We scanned for anyone resembling Donnie Ocampo. Most faces were in shadow or backs turned to us, the room maybe three dozen round tables glutted with beer bottles and drink glasses.

  “Anything?” I asked Gershwin.

  “Nada.”

  Peyton continued and the camera returned to Brian or Brianna or Ivana. He wa
s striding across the stage with a hand porched over the lavishly decorated eyes, staring past the lights into the crowd. “You, in the blue shirt, stand up so we can see you, girl.”

  The camera highlighted a rope-thin man in a blue shirt and chinos doing a who-me? gesture as his tablemates push him to standing. He’s at least six-six in height, a beanpole.

  “Well, well, well … what do we have here?” Caswell mimed putting a phone to his ear. “Hello, Oz? Did you lose your scarecrow?” Laughter. Peyton stopped the scene and we studied the crowd. No Ocampo look-alike. The motion re-started with Caswell studying the man. “You know, if dicks followed body type, you’d have a two-foot soda straw.”

  “Be nice!” someone yelled, sounding good-natured and half-drunk. “Don’t be such a bitch!”

  “Who yelled that?” Brianna pouted. “Be brave and tell Mama.”

  “Him,” someone yells. “The guy in back.”

  The camera panned over the crowd and zooming in in a halting motion. I saw a guy sitting at a table alone, heads turning his way. “Freeze,” I said. Gershwin and I leaned in to look at faces in the crowd. It was mostly the backs of heads.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Keep going, Mitch.”

  The camera resumed with Brianna’s hand over her eyes again. “Who said that? Oh, stand up back there, hon. Lemme look at you.”

  The camera swooped to the back table and I saw only the shadow of a figure stand slowly, exhorted by nearby patrons. It was a big person, heavy.

  “Oh, wait,” Ivana said. “I need to see you better.” She reached into her purse and retrieved outsized reading glasses, put them on. “Wide-angle lenses,” she said to hoots of laughter. She turned back to her target. “I’m not saying you’re heavy, dearie … but do you use a cast-iron toilet?”

  Howls and heads craning to see the unfortunate subject. No one was there, the guy had moved or booked. Ivana mock-confided to the front row. “Have any of you people heard the rumor? Fat people don’t fuck … they dock.”

  The camera again drifted over the crowd. “Wait,” Gershwin said. “Stop. Back up a few frames.” Ziggy popped from his chair, walked to the monitor, tapped the screen.

  “Anyone you know, Boss?”

  I leaned forward to focus on a big guy in a tank top, with heavy arms and blond hair. His hand crossed the forearm of a young man beside him, both laughing like it was a shining teeth competition.

  “My, my,” I said. “Rodrigo Figueroa. Our big gay-bashing boy from Missing Persons.” I turned to Peyton. “You know that guy, Mitch?”

  Peyton nodded. “That face is hard to forget. He’s been at a couple shows up by West Palm. And I think in Tampa. Is it important?”

  “It’s certainly interesting,” I said.

  51

  We bolted from Peyton’s place with a bag of suppositions in hand, ending at a Po’ boy shop run by an expatriate Louisianan named Big Ted. I ordered fried shrimp and Gershwin boiled shrimp and we drank sweet tea and huddled like gamblers figuring odds on a horse they’d never noticed until it blazed into view an hour before.

  “Figueroa’s about the size of Donnie Ocampo,” Gershwin said. “Six three or four.”

  “Barrel chest, wide shoulders. It fits.” I held my hands wide, like Derek Scott had done in describing his attacker. “The guy’s almost the exact size of the orderly Scott thought was built like Donnie.”

  “Plus Figueroa tried to block us from the case.”

  I nodded, stacking more wood on Figueroa’s fire. “When it was unsuccessful, he asked Roy to be kept copied on the files, in the loop.”

  “He knew where our eyes were, who we were scoping out.”

  “There was the way he bolted when White and I entered his department, like maybe White knew his secret life.” Another log for the stack.

  “But he called Roy when Eisen showed up. Why?”

  “Simple, Zigs,” I said, chopping more fuel for the blaze illuminating Rodrigo Figueroa. “Rowdy Roddy made himself look good, maybe even pumping Roy for any additional info. It didn’t do anything to harm him.”

  “The face, though. It’s not much like the pictures.”

  “Figueroa’s face is distorted. Maybe the jet-ski accident, whatever, he got banged up so badly that we’re seeing a reconstruction.”

  “Nice place for Donnie to hide. In the police force.”

  “If it’s him. Big if, Zigs.”

  But I felt a bonfire burning in my gut and my heart. We had a convincing suspect, the first one in two weeks of slogging. Had the Invisible Man finally shown himself on a two-year-old tape?

  “He’s the kid of a MDPD captain.”

  “Someone adopted Donnie. Cops can do those things, too.”

  “Figueroa’s working now. We take a look at where he lives, you think?”

  I made the motion of separating blinds with my fingers. “Maybe take a peek in the window and see if he’s got guests.”

  Rodrigo Figueroa lived in a trendy apartment complex a little below Hollywood, landscaped grounds, big bright pool, central clubhouse. “I used to date a woman who lived here,” Gershwin said. “It’s singles-ville, the units off central courtyards. That’s Figueroa’s wing over there, all studio apartments. Tiny. No way to get a captive to the place, and nowhere to keep them.”

  “Then if he’s our boyo, he’s got a hidey-hole somewhere. Let’s see where Roddy-boy heads after work. It may be time for him to water his livestock.”

  We found Figueroa’s lime-green Dodge Charger in the MDPD garage and parked between it and the exit. He exited precisely at 5.02, one of a long line of departing employees. Gershwin had grabbed a nondescript sedan from the motor pool and hung a half-block back as Figueroa burned his tires north.

  “In a hurry,” Gershwin said.

  Rush-hour traffic poured from every direction, but Gershwin had a New York cabbie’s gift for slipping between vehicles with millimeters to spare. Rain started, the hard and straight stuff that turns the world gray, but Figueroa was as slowed by the rain-addled traffic as we were, so the tail held.

  “He’s not going home,” I said when Figueroa passed his exit.

  The Charger veered from the four lane and Gershwin slowed as Figueroa pulled to a liquor store. We entered the lot and headed to the side. A minute later Figueroa was exiting, hunched against the rain with a bagged six-pack under his arm.

  “Looks like our boy’s gonna relax with a few brews,” Gershwin said. “And maybe some friends, you think? Unwilling friends?”

  We followed our bent-faced boy to a neighborhood between Tamarac and Oakland Beach where he entered the driveway of a single-story ranch, white with yellow trim, a pretty place, with neatly sculpted bushes interspersed with palmettos. We passed the house just as Figueroa pulled into a three-sided carport beside a tan Prius.

  “What’ll we do, Big Ryde?”

  “The house is too open to scan. Let’s check his wheels for anything with DNA.”

  “Gotta be a comb in there, given that mop on his head.”

  It was almost as dark as night, purple-black thunderheads dumping at a two-inch-an-hour rate. We swung to the curb and scanned the neighboring houses. When no eyes seemed at windows, we sprinted to the carport.

  “Crap,” I said. “My slim-Jim’s in the Rover.” I was referring to the strip of notched metal used to pop locks. Gershwin grabbed the door handle and opened the door. Unlocked. We looked at one another.

  “Musta been in a real hurry to get inside, Jefé.”

  “Let’s grab and git.”

  Gershwin dove into the front and I took the back. Unfortunately, Figueroa seemed real prissy about his ride, the interior showroom-clean, not so much as a candy wrapper.

  “Got anything?” I whispered.

  “Ashtray’s clean, nothing on the floor. I’m looking for blond hairs.”

  The carport lights came on and a voice yelled, “Get your hands in the air, you fucks!”

  Busted. I wondered if the carport had a sensor. We rose to see Fi
gueroa in the doorway, a small, cocked revolver in his hand as his eyes registered Gershwin and me.

  “What the hell are you doing in my car?”

  I climbed out with my hands in front at shoulder height, Gershwin doing the same. We were ten feet from his trigger finger.

  “It’s cool,” I said.

  The muzzle raised from my belly to my head. “No, it’s not cool. What are you doing in my car?”

  “We’ve got your DNA, Donnie,” I told him. Better if he thought we already had him nailed. “It’s over. You’ll just make it worse.”

  The lopsided face twisted further. “Who’s Donnie? What the fuck you mean, DNA?”

  “Dude, we already checked it,” Gershwin said, following the narrative. “Positive. We were getting a back-up sample. If you go in with us, we’ll keep you safe.”

  I’d never seen a face appear so confused. But he was Donnie Ocampo, right? He had to be good at faking it.

  “Make some fucking sense!” he yelled. The muzzle didn’t waver.

  “We saw you at a gay bar, Rodrigo,” I said. “Watching Brianna Caswell perform.”

  He looked like I’d reached across a dozen feet and punched his gut. “Gay bar? It wasn’t me … no, I mean, I-I was undercover.”

  “No … we’re saying we know who you are. It’s over. Put down the piece and we can—”

  He stared, his lopsided face a mix of fear and flat-out confusion.

  “Who do you think I am?”

  “Donnie Ocampo.”

  It took a three-count to sink in. Figueroa looked about to faint.

  “You think I’m the guy abducting those men? FUCK!” he screamed. “FUCK FUCK FUCK. You bastards. That’s why you’re here?”

  He’d gone from anger to confusion to fear and now, resignation, shoulders slumping, head shaking. The gun lowered. I was getting the same feeling I got when entering Gary Ocampo’s room to arrest him. Like something was hideously awry.

  He said, “I’m putting the piece away, though I should probably shoot your goddamn kneecaps off. You’ve fucking ruined my life.”