Cold Case Squad

by Edna Buchanan

  “The department has someone who can help you with that.” She called Padron.

  The SWAT team battered down the door and swarmed Nelson’s Little Havana apartment. It was strangely empty. Even the furniture was gone. Neighbors had not seen his wife and children for at least two days.

  Using the work schedules and logs found in his van, Riley marked the locations of all the landscaper’s regular jobs on the big wall map in Homicide. Then she flagged the intersection where he’d been spotted by Officer Santiago.

  Despite the wounded pedestrian, the shattered windows, and a dozen car crashes, Joe Padron had issued a press release identifying Fermin Santiago as an alert and heroic cop nearly killed in a single-handed attempt to abort the kidnaping of a multimillionaire’s wife.

  Santiago, that screw-up, Riley thought in disgust, would probably make officer of the month.

  Computing times and distances, she concluded that if Nelson had taken Natasha to a job site, it was probably the San Souci Towers. Information had a listing, but it was only a sales office.

  The huge, nearly finished high-rise was empty, with no crews working. Riley reached the architect and the contractor, who gave their permission to search. The contractor met police at the site with elevator remotes that would allow them access to all floors. No sign of Natasha.

  “Check every closet, every storage space, every garbage chute,” Riley told half a dozen cops. “Don’t forget the elevator shafts. Start at the bottom, work your way up. I’ll start at the top and meet you in the middle.”

  In a fortieth-floor penthouse garden, she found a discarded pair of pruning shears and Natasha’s other high-heeled sandal.

  Riley called her name. Her voice echoed in the emptiness.

  The unoccupied structure was otherwise silent except for the eerie wind off the water.

  Riley took the staircase to the roof and ran across along the south side. Nothing.

  The wind whistled and picked up. The view was spectacular from the top. To the south she could see halfway to Homestead; the bay sparkled to the east, as did the azure sea and a panoramic vista of city skyline sprawled out to the west.

  Riley trotted along a wide wraparound terrace near the empty shell of a rooftop pool.

  “Natasha! Natasha! Can you hear me?”

  Riley stepped to the edge to check the ground, the construction equipment below, and the roofs of smaller ancillary buildings. Nothing. Where the hell could she be without her dress?

  Kathleen Constance Riley tasted the sweet summer wind, drank in the reddening horizon, and forgot Natasha for a moment. Instead, she stood poised at the edge, thinking how glorious it would feel to step off to ride the wind currents like a lonely bird in a vast blue sky. She took a deep breath.

  Someone called out her name. A stranger holding an elevator remote waved from the far side of the roof. He’d emerged from the same stairwell she had used. Fit and trim, with prematurely gray hair, he wore a neatly pressed gray suit and once-shiny shoes now coated with construction dust.

  She stood and watched him approach.

  “Conrad Douglas, FBI,” he said. “Any word on Natasha Ross?”

  “Where were you when we needed you, out at the reservation? Now I know how General Custer felt.”

  “I hear it was more a standoff than a massacre.”

  “Only because the hostage saved herself. She was too efficient,” Riley said wistfully. “I would have liked to have talked to the man.”

  “What are his chances?”

  She shook her head. “They’ll do another scan in twenty-four hours, but initial neurological testing showed no brain activity.”

  “From what I hear, that was this guy’s normal condition.”

  She grinned in spite of herself. They stood silhouetted against the open sky high above the city, the wind riffling through their hair.

  “What’s your interest? There’s no evidence she’s been taken across state lines and there’s been no ransom demand.”

  “Between us for now?” he said.

  She nodded.

  “We first became aware of Natasha Ross about a year and a half ago. She’d called immigration to turn in a household worker she wanted deported for pissing her off. A savvy agent there took a harder look at her and called us. We’ve had her under loose surveillance ever since.”

  “Must have been extremely loose or we wouldn’t be here.”

  “We only checked intermittently on whether she appeared to be in contact with her father.”

  “You know where her parents are?” Riley said, interested.

  “Not exactly. But we’d like to.”

  “She told my detectives she was born in Iowa, but we couldn’t find any record of her there. Where is she from?”

  The FBI agent smiled. “Croatia.”

  “Get out, as in Yugoslavia?”

  “Istria actually. On the northern Adriatic in northwest Yugoslavia. That’s where she was born.

  “After the Russians and before Milosevic, a lot of bad things happened in the former Yugoslavia. Her father was responsible for the majority of them. He was in charge of the military, left a lot of corpses behind in mass graves. Torture, rape, you name it, he did it. He bailed out when the regime changed and left a lot of people looking for him. He, his wife, and their daughter, Natasha, age two at the time, made it to this country using false passports. They moved around a lot, but did eventually settle in Iowa, of all places. Fourteen years ago Croatian agents, still hunting him after all these years, got a line on his whereabouts. They wanted him arrested, extradited, and tried for war crimes. But before that could happen he disappeared again. The family had relocated in the past when investigators got too close. But this time Natasha was nineteen and chose not to go with them. Guess she didn’t see much future in it. She changed her name, took off on her own, and wound up in Miami.”

  “Where she met Charles Terrell,” Riley said.

  “Husband number one, who may, or may not, be dead.”

  “Right, we’re thinking not. So what’s her real name?”

  “Dubravko,” he said. “Gabriella.”

  “Does Milo Ross know?”

  “Apparently not.”

  “Looks like the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” Riley said. “Think she’s in touch with her parents? That it might have something to do with all this?”

  “Not as far as we can tell. This caper looks strictly domestic.”

  Douglas smiled at Riley, then flung his arms open wide to the pink and gold sunset across the Everglades. “I love it! Only in Miami could a pregnant Miccosukee Indian cave in the skull of a Cuban exile wanted for snatching a native of Croatia. By God, I love this place!”

  His words echoed in the wind around them.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Big Red’s hair was shot with gray. She’d put on pounds, lots of pounds. Her thick face looked jowly beneath heavy makeup and her tortoise-shell eyeglasses and comfortable slippers gave her a matronly appearance. Linda Pickett, aka Linda Ballard, Desiree, and Big Red, was age thirty-seven when she left Miami; she was close to fifty now and looked every day of it.

  She studied them speculatively, a drink in her hand.

  Burch flashed his badge.

  “From Miami, right?” She smiled. “What the hell took you boys so long? I’ve been expecting you for a good ten years.”

  “We’ve been busy, Linda,” Burch said.

  “Call me Desiree. That was my stage name.”

  She had a sultry Mae West delivery and her double-wide hips still had a sexy twitch as she led them into her parlor. But she was hardly the heartbreaker, the seductress, the bombshell sweetheart and companion in crime they had expected.

  “So, Desiree, anybody else here?” Burch’s eyes roved the premises as they followed her into a white-carpeted room, its windows framed by lush layers of velvet drapes with fringed gold-tasseled valances.

  “So, Sergeant, who were you expecting?” She cocked her head coyly.
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  “I think you know.”

  “It’s just little ol’ me,” she said, “and my bottle of good scotch.” The ice tinkled in her glass as she sipped. “Care to join me?”

  “Thanks, but we’ll pass for now. We’re here on business.”

  She settled in a mauve lounge chair, crossed her fleshy legs, and waved them toward an overstuffed couch.

  “So am I busted?” Her posture was casual and there was an earthy bravado to her voice, but the eyes behind her glasses looked resigned and weary.

  “In a matter of speaking,” Burch said.

  “How bad is it?” She shook a cigarette loose from a pack on a small marble-topped table beside her and lit it with a ceramic table lighter. Her hands were steady. “How much trouble am I in?”

  “That’s entirely up to you,” Burch said. “Where is he?”

  She thoughtfully smoked her cigarette, as though she hadn’t heard.

  “You know who I’m talking about. When did you last see Charles Terrell?”

  “Didn’t you hear? He died. A long time ago, back in Miami.”

  “We know better.”

  “To tell you the truth,” she said, smiling gently, “I haven’t seen Buddy for years.”

  “Buddy?”

  “His nickname growing up. You didn’t know that? His childhood friends and high school chums all called him Buddy. That’s how he was introduced to me. I met him through one of them.”

  “So you two were pretty tight.”

  “We had our thing, but came to a parting of the ways. Too hot not to cool down. Like the song says. You know how it is.” The pain in her eyes looked real.

  “How long, exactly, since you’ve seen him?”

  She shrugged. “Four, maybe five years. Seems a lot longer in this burg. I miss Miami. A lot. Hear the nightlife’s hot these days.”

  “Your Aunt Sylvia tipped you off that we might be paying you a visit, didn’t she?” Nazario said.

  Desiree snorted in derision and sipped her drink, leaving a crimson lipstick smear on the rim. “Actually, she thought she had you snowed. Thought you believed her. But I knew better. If you went to the trouble to find her, you wouldn’t buy it. You have to give Syl credit for trying. How is she? How’d she look? I miss that crazy old broad. Closest thing to a mother I ever had.”

  “Living the good life, thanks to you,” Nazario said. “Doesn’t use her cane anymore. I think she’s got a boyfriend.”

  “Too bad she’s going to jail,” Burch said.

  “What do you mean?” Startled, Desiree sat up straight. “She had nothing to do with anything.”

  “She lied to us,” he said. “And she’s an accessory.”

  “No way.” She set her drink down on the marble-top table with a loud crack and got to her feet. “She’s an old lady. Had a tough life. Don’t drag her into anything.”

  The detectives exchanged glances as she paced.

  “Maybe we should talk,” Burch said casually. “See what we can work out.”

  “You could be in a world of trouble,” Nazario said.

  “I know.” She stood at the window, her back to them. “I’da been a helluva lot happier to meet you boys three years down the road.”

  “You studying law?” Nazario said.

  “I miss Florida. I’m lonely here.” She hugged herself as though chilled. “I wanted to go back. So I bought a sit-down with a local lawyer a couple of years ago to check out my options. There is no statute of limitations on murder. But he said if I was charged as an accessory, which would be likely, there’s a fifteen-year statute of limitations. Three more years and I’da been home free.”

  “Unless the charge was homicide.”

  “I didn’t kill anybody.” She returned to her chair and drained her drink. “Sure you boys don’t want to join me?”

  “No thanks, but you go ahead,” Burch said. “Enjoy it while you can.”

  They joined her at a small bar in a far corner and watched her fix a drink, light on the ice, heavy on the scotch.

  “We know the Place Montmartre murders are connected,” Burch said.

  She paused. “I wasn’t there that night. I didn’t know anybody would get hurt.”

  “But you were at Terrell’s house just before the garage went up.”

  “Like hell.”

  “See, Desiree, that’s what’s going to make things difficult between us,” Burch said. “Nobody ever got a sweetheart deal by lying to us.”

  Nazario nodded. “We’ve got you on tape.”

  Her eyes widened. “Tape? You’re bullshitting me.”

  “Remember the kid’s birthday party across the street?” Burch said. “Somebody videotaped it. We got the tape and, what do you know, there you are, plain as day, across the street behind the wheel of that van.

  “Lie to me one more time, Linda, and you sleep in the local lockup tonight and every night until you’re extradited to Florida. And I make a phone call that says Aunt Sylvia sleeps in the Dade County Jail tonight.”

  Tears flashed in her eyes. She jerked off her glasses and dabbed at them with a paper bar napkin, smearing her mascara.

  “It’s not fair.” She sniffed. “I was almost glad to see you. I want to go home to Florida.”

  “If you don’t like it here,” Nazario said, “how come you never packed up and left?”

  “It’s not that easy. Buddy’s a control freak. Always has to be in charge. I gave up my career for him. Don’t smirk, Sergeant. I made damn good money. Then, when I’m past my prime, he finds somebody younger. What kind of work could I get now? This apartment, my car, everything, it’s all in Buddy’s name. He doles out the money.”

  “So you do know where he is.”

  “No. Enough cash to support me and pay Sylvia’s bills is wired to my checking account once a month. The deal is, if I leave town or take off on my own, the money stops. I can’t sell this place or even take out a loan on it. For his protection, he said. He was afraid I’d go back to Florida and blow his cover.

  “The man likes being legally dead.”

  “So your bank records would track back to him?”

  She shook her head. “A third party, a lawyer I think, wires the money. Buddy’s a very careful person. I don’t have a dime that he doesn’t know about and he could cut off in a heartbeat. Even if I landed a job that could support me, which ain’t easy at my age, what about Sylvia? That place she lives in costs a bundle. Her income from Social Security is only about five hundred a month. She’d be out on the street. So would I.”

  Burch frowned. He thought he’d been clever, using Aunt Sylvia to pressure Desiree. But Charles Terrell had thought of it first.

  “Look, Desiree. You’re not our prime target. Nobody wants to see you in prison for the rest of your life. He’s the one we want. We’d need your cooperation for a successful prosecution. You have strong cards you haven’t even played. Tell us what you can offer. We’ll pass it along to the prosecutor.”

  “The way I see it, you’d be happier back in Florida instead of alone up here,” Nazario said.

  “I’d love to see Sylvia and my old friends,” she said earnestly. “I thought it would be different with Buddy. He was the one. I was crazy about him. He wasn’t happy, in a dead-end situation. Paying child support, in a bad marriage, in over his head financially.

  “Chris, who owned the Montmartre, introduced me to Buddy. They went way back together, to high school. I’d known Chris for years. He trusted me. I’d been in his office after hours lots of time. I knew he kept a major stash up there. Money he couldn’t deposit in banks for obvious reasons. He was a player, trafficking drugs, into extortion, robbery, and everything else you can do to make a dirty buck. Buddy had pharmaceutical connections and supplied him with pills—Quaaludes and methamphetamines. He and I used to joke about the big bucks Chris kept in the safe. Next thing you know, Buddy wasn’t joking. He came up with a scheme. It meant the two of us could start a new life together, far away.

  “I
didn’t think anybody’d get hurt at the Montmartre. Buddy set up a deal to deliver some ’ludes. Instead, he was gonna rob Chris, fake his own death a few hours later, and we’d be out of there. All our troubles behind us. It was foolproof.” She shrugged. “Even if Chris sent his goons to the widow to look for his money, she didn’t know anything.

  “I wasn’t a bad person. It’s like they say: When you dance with the devil, you don’t change the devil, the devil changes you.”

  “Who was the man who burned up in the garage?” Nazario said.

  “I didn’t know his name. Only saw him once. Buddy said he was perfect, a wanderer who arrived in Miami alone. Somebody who wouldn’t be missed.

  “He was a drifter, a drinker, showed up at the drugstore looking for work or a handout. Buddy befriended the guy, said he’d help him get off the booze and make some money. He used him for backup at the Montmartre that night, then set him up in his garage. He was a boozer, no family.”

  “This the guy?” Burch handed her Michael Hastings’s photo.

  She squinted at it for a long moment.

  “Mighta been.” She shrugged. “Not a face you’d remember.” She handed it back.

  “That day, when I picked Buddy up at his house, I didn’t know that Chris and the girl were dead. She was only a kid. When I found out, I was shocked, but I was already in too deep, and I loved him.”

  “Did you know that another man was convicted of the murders at the Montmartre?” Burch asked.

  “No.” Her eyes widened. “Are you sure?”

  “You expect me to believe that you never heard that somebody else took the fall?”

  “Who?”

  “Some poor schmuck who got thrown out of the club a couple nights before the murders.”

  “Jesus. Well, they’ll have to let him out now, won’t they?”

  “A little late for that, Desiree. Regardless of what some people think, wrongful convictions, especially those that lead to wrongful executions, are big deals for prosecutors and for us, very big deals. How is it you never heard the news about the arrest, trial, or conviction? Was it your terrible judgment or a complete lack of morals that stopped you from saving him?”