Cane and Abe

by James Grippando

  “Who sent you these photographs?”

  “I don’t know who sent them, Abe. They were in our mailbox. No postage, no address. Just the blank envelope. Obviously, it was someone who thought I should know.”

  My first thought was the law firm, Carmen’s theory about retaliation from BB&L, but the immediate problem had nothing to do with who had sent the envelope. Angelina was quick to remind me.

  “What difference does it make, Abe? Is that you with Tyla, or isn’t it?”

  “Yes. We had dinner. We’re not in bed.”

  “You might as well be. Look at the pictures! Look at how you’re looking at each other! That woman is five seconds away from crawling under the table and—”

  “Angelina, stop!”

  We were both getting loud, and I was losing. Angelina turned and stormed down the hallway. Part of me wanted to call out to her and fix this right now, but I let her go. The door slammed at the end of the hallway. The living room went silent. I gathered up the shards of glass from the carpet and laid them beside the rest of the broken wineglass on the table. The envelope was inches away, calling to me.

  If BB&L was playing games, I wanted fingerprints to prove it. I used a napkin to pick up the envelope by its corner, letting the photographs slide onto the cocktail table without touching them. The first one was identical to the one I had seen in Carmen’s office, a frame from a security video at the Orlando restaurant. Still using the napkin, I went through the stack, confirming that all six were a match for the others. At photo number six, however, I did a double take. There was a noticeable smudge. I looked closer. It was a black smudge. And it was right over Tyla’s face. I lifted the corner of the photograph, and tiny black speckles ran to the bottom of the photograph like sand spilling downhill. I froze.

  It was ash. Black ash smeared on Tyla’s face.

  It was suddenly hard to breathe. With great care, so as not to disturb any more of the ash, I lowered the corner of the photograph until it lay flat on the table. Slowly, I backed away and got my cell phone. I dialed Carmen at home.

  “Hey, it’s Abe. About those photographs of Tyla and me.”

  “It’s taken care of, Abe. You don’t need to be worrying about this at home.”

  “No, this is important,” I said, catching my breath. “They’re not from BB&L.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Before the osso buco was cold, our house was a crime scene.

  I was convinced that the photos were from Tyla’s killer, which meant that a serial killer had stood on our front porch and reached into our mailbox. The photographs and envelope were bagged and sent to the lab. The mailbox was dusted for fingerprints. Our driveway was checked for tire tracks; the yard and walkway, for footprints. A uniformed police officer was parked on our street, keeping an eye on our house, and he would remain there overnight. It was every prosecutor’s worst nightmare that his work would put his family in danger, and I wasn’t taking any chances.

  Angelina kept to our bedroom. She didn’t answer my knocks, but Rid was able to get through to her, and he was talking with her privately, taking her statement. The front door was wide open, members of the forensic team coming and going, when Agent Santos arrived. Her attention was immediately drawn to the broken wineglass on the cocktail table. I had prosecuted enough domestic violence cases to know how that must have looked.

  “A little accident,” I said.

  “I see.”

  “Just some spilled wine.”

  She didn’t answer. I was beginning to think that the stars had aligned against any hope of regaining her trust.

  Rid entered from the hallway and joined us in the living room. The statement he’d take from Angelina was on his clipboard.

  “Not much to add,” he told us. “The envelope was in the box with the rest of the mail. She’s sure that she checked the mail yesterday and it wasn’t there, so we can focus on the last twenty-four hours when talking to neighbors about anyone they might have seen.”

  Santos took the clipboard and gave it a quick once-over. “I saw ash only on the last photo,” she said. “Did you ask if she brushed off any of the others?”

  “She didn’t,” said Rid. “In fact, she had no idea what I was talking about when I mentioned ash. She never got to the last photo. After the third one, she ran to the bathroom and vomited.”

  That hurt. As if I needed to feel worse than I already did.

  A crime scene photographer entered the living room, begging our pardon. I moved our group toward the kitchen, allowing Santos to enter first, managing to get a couple words in privately with Rid on the way.

  “How’s Angelina?” I asked.

  “Drunk as a skunk.”

  “You think she’ll talk to me tonight?”

  “I’d wait till the morning if I were you.”

  I trusted his read, and I wondered if we all might be working till morning. Technically, I was off the Cutter investigation task force, but the photos had drawn me back in, at least to this limited extent. We took seats at the kitchen table, and I was about to pick up the conversation, but Rid went in another direction.

  “Man, it smells awesome in here. Is that oxtail?”

  “Veal shank,” I said. “Angelina’s an amazing cook.”

  “You’re a lucky guy, Abe,” said Santos.

  “I know I am. I may not deserve her, but I’m a good husband.”

  “I hope you work it out,” she said, nothing snarky about it. “I mean that.”

  “Thank you.” Maybe those stars were realigning after all. Or she was playing good cop/bad cop all by herself.

  “So what’s really up with this ash?” asked Rid.

  “I have no doubt the lab will confirm that it’s sugarcane,” said Santos.

  “Let’s assume it does,” I said. “In terms of profiling, do you consider the ash on the photo to be the equivalent of the signature in the Palm Beach County murders?”

  Santos thought carefully before responding. “First off, I can say that we are never going to know whether there was ash on Tyla’s actual face.”

  “Have you given up hope of recovering the rest of her body?” I asked.

  “Not entirely, but we’re coming up on six full days. With predators, parasites, and the general acceleration of decomposition in the Everglades, it’s unlikely we’ll find skin, let alone traces of sugarcane ash.”

  “Let me ask my question a different way, then,” I said. “Is the photograph enough for you to officially say that Tyla is victim number five for Cutter?”

  “I would be leaning more in that direction if Tyla were white and had a black boyfriend, like the other victims.”

  Rid rose to check out the platter of osso buco on the counter. “Interracial thread is still there. Tyla’s a black woman who has hooked up with white guys.”

  I did not let on that Carmen had told me about Tyla and Brian Belter. “I assume you mean me ten years ago,” I said.

  “Right, sorry,” said Rid.

  “Whoever, whenever,” said Santos. “The fact remains that we have our first black victim, with no way to know if ash was smeared on her face like the previous white victims.”

  Rid grabbed a fork. “Can I try some of this?”

  “Go for it.” I kept my focus on Santos, who in my opinion was being too cautious. “If I were still on the case, I’d have no problem arguing to a jury that this is the work of the same killer.”

  “His lawyer would point out that the photo came five days or more after Tyla was murdered,” said Santos. “Almost like an afterthought.”

  “What do you mean, an afterthought?”

  “I can’t rule out a copycat killer,” said Santos. “You heard the medical examiner describe how different Tyla’s wounds were from those of the victims in Palm Beach County. So let’s say we have a copycat who watches the news and decides that attacking victims with a machete is Cutter’s signature. He whacks his victim on the neck and disposes of the body in the Everglades. Afterward, he somehow
learns that Cutter’s signature isn’t the use of a machete, that it’s ash on the victim’s face. What can our copycat do? Well, one option is to send photographs to the lead prosecutor’s house with ash smeared on Tyla’s face.”

  “How would he find out that ash was the signature? That’s been kept under wraps.”

  “Our task force is growing, the number of people in the know is increasing, media attention is expanding, leaks happen.”

  “I see your point,” I said. “But that raises another question. Whether we’re talking about Cutter or a copycat, how did he get those photographs of Tyla and me off a restaurant security camera in the first place?”

  “I’m working with FDLE and the Orange County Sheriff’s Department on that. But there’s only one way the killer would have known that Tyla was having dinner with a white man on that night at that restaurant. He must have been stalking her.”

  “All the way back to September?” asked Rid.

  “It’s not unusual,” said Santos. “I’ve looked inside the computers of serial killers and found photos of victims going back years.”

  “I’ve prosecuted a few of them,” I said. And hearing myself say that raised my concerns for Angelina once more. “Not to change the subject, but I know we have a squad car on our street overnight. What are we doing long-term? God forbid if the message being sent here is that my wife is next on the list.”

  Santos shook her head. “Angelina doesn’t fit the victim profile. She’s not a white woman dating a black man or a black woman who dates white men.”

  “I don’t take huge comfort in that,” I said.

  Rid was still at the counter, his mouth full. “We can get increased patrol in this neighborhood, Abe. That’s no problem.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Good sticky rice,” he said.

  “It’s mushroom risotto.”

  The landline rang. It was on the counter right next to Rid. “You want me to get this?” he asked.

  “Who is it?”

  Rid checked the caller ID. “It’s you,” he said.

  “Let it go,” I said.

  “Yeah, I don’t answer your calls either.”

  The ringing stopped. “It’s J.T.,” I explained. “He lives in the apartment Samantha and I used to live in. He has no credit. All the utilities are still in my name.”

  The ringing resumed.

  “It’s you again,” said Rid.

  “Leave it.”

  “Okay, but if you call one more time, I’m going to have to take you downtown for stalking yourself.”

  “Very funny,” I said, but the joke suddenly took on a different twist. The elephant in the room was that those photographs of Tyla and me, our dinner last September, couldn’t be viewed in isolation. She had followed up with phone calls to my cell. The records showed five from her prepaid phone. Maybe not enough to constitute “stalking,” as Rid had joked. But I was suddenly wondering if there had been others. Tyla had a persistent personality. She wasn’t the type to dial a man’s cell, get no response, and leave it at that. I wondered if she had tried more than just my cell. My old number, for instance, which was the only number she would have retrieved through directory assistance if she had asked for the listing for Abraham Beckham. The home number for Angelina and me was listed under her name.

  A third round of ringing started on the landline.

  “Okay, that’s it,” said Rid. “You’re under arrest.”

  I pushed away from the table and answered. The voice on the line was calm by J.T. standards.

  “Hi, Abe. The judge said I could visit the old man once a week during house arrest. Can we go tomorrow?”

  The “old man” was my father-in-law, Luther Vine. “Sure,” I said. “We can do that. I’ll be right over.”

  “No, not tonight. Tomorrow,” said J.T.

  It was a long shot, but I was eager to get over there and check J.T.’s answering machine—my old answering machine. “I understand,” I said. “I’ll be there in a few.”

  I hung up and apologized to the Cutter team in my kitchen. “Stay as long as you need. I have to go.”

  Santos watched me, and Rid made himself a plate, as I headed out the door.

  Chapter Fifteen

  J.T.’s apartment was a short car ride from my house. Our conversation on the landline had clearly confused him, so I called him on the way and explained what was going on.

  “What answering machine?” he asked.

  J.T. had no clue, which came as no surprise. He’d been living in our old apartment for over a year and had only recently mastered the coffee machine. Forget the computer. And an answering machine?

  “I actually don’t trust them,” said J.T.

  I didn’t even ask.

  The machine was connected to the landline on the kitchen counter. It was a bit of a dinosaur in the world of voice mail, but I’d changed very little about the apartment Samantha and I had shared, so the answering machine remained. The digital memory was completely full. You have eighty-seven new messages, the mechanical voice informed me.

  J.T. had truly never checked the thing. The newest message was about a month old. The oldest “new message” went back more than a year, to his first day in the apartment. I should have started at the most recent and worked backward. Instead, I ventured into the most dangerous territory of all: old messages that had been played long ago but not erased, messages from Samantha to me. Some were random gems, just the sound of her voice. “Abe, why aren’t you answering your cell? Call me.” Others made me smile all the way to my toes. “It’s eleven o’clock, do you know where your wife is? Work. So sorry, baby. Don’t wait up.” One tugged at my heartstrings. “Hi sweetie, are you there? It’s me. Pick up if you can hear me . . .”

  And then there was the dagger to the heart. “Abe, I hate to do this, but can you move our dinner reservation to tomorrow night? Dr. Berch wants me to drive all the way over to Jackson for a couple of tests, and seven o’clock tonight is the only time the lab can squeeze me in this week on short notice. I’m sure this is nothing, but Dr. Berch is such a nervous Nellie that she’s even got me worked up. I’ll make it up to you. Promise. I love you. Happy anniversary.”

  So there it was: the pain-in-the-neck doctor ordering the abundance-of-caution test that would mark the beginning of the long and painful road to the point of no return. Funny thing was, the first time I’d listened to that message, I’d taken Samantha’s word at face value and agreed that it was probably “nothing.” A few weeks later I would be glued to cancer websites, learning that mammograms missed plenty in women with denser tissue, and praying that Samantha wouldn’t be another number in the grim statistical fact that black women were twice as likely to develop triple-negative breast cancer and twice as likely to die from it before the age of forty. Knowing all that, and knowing how the story would end, I could hear the concern in Samantha’s voice on this replay of the old message on our answering machine. Samantha had known something was wrong with her. So wrong that she’d canceled dinner on our wedding anniversary.

  “Me again, Abe.”

  I froze. Tyla Tomkins’ voice was coming from my old answering machine.

  “You obviously have chosen to ignore my messages, but this is not a ruse that I’m playing to hook up with you. This is real. I said more than I should have said in my last message. This is damaging to my firm and my client. I’m trusting you to be discreet, so please delete this message and the other ones I left on your cell. If you don’t want to talk to me, that’s fine. But at least have the sense to follow up with that old cane cutter I mentioned in the last message. He knows everything.”

  There was silence, but the message wasn’t over. Finally, her voice returned with one last thought: “Angelina, you don’t know me and I don’t know you, but if you pick up this message, I’m not an old girlfriend trying to hit on your husband. Please make sure Abe gets this. It’s important.”

  End of message, the machine told me. I rewound to get the date and
time: December 12; 8:31 p.m.

  I hit stop and grabbed a pen and paper from the junk drawer to create a timeline. I didn’t have the exact dates in my head, but I knew from the prepaid phone record that the last of the four deleted messages on my cell phone had been the first week of December. This message asked me to delete the earlier ones. They in fact had been deleted, and I knew I was going to have a tough time convincing anyone that I had not deleted them.

  I replayed Tyla’s message and wrote it out verbatim in longhand, jotting down a few notes and questions as well. I had more questions in my head, and I hoped to find a more recent message from Tyla that might provide some answers. It took nearly half an hour to play through to the last message. The memory card had reached maximum capacity on December 29. It was all solicitation calls after December twelfth; nothing more from Tyla.

  J.T. entered the kitchen and went to the refrigerator. “I’m out of everything,” he said, holding the door open. “Can you go to the store for me tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, sure, J.T.—I’m going to have some people come over here tonight and pick up this machine.”

  “I’m going to bed.”

  “You go ahead.”

  “Did you find what you were looking for?”

  The notepad was still on the counter, and I glanced at the message from Tyla that I’d written out in longhand. “I honestly don’t know what I found.”

  The answer seemed to satisfy him. J.T. went to bed. I dialed Rid on my cell, so eager to talk to him that I was counting the rings. But something made me hang up before he answered. It bothered me that there was still so much ice to thaw between me and the FBI, and if it was melting away at all, progress was glacierlike. My first call about this breakthrough had to be to the right person.

  I dialed Agent Santos.

  I was recording Tyla’s message on my smartphone when Santos knocked on J.T.’s door.

  I had replayed it several times while waiting on Santos. Suddenly, a terrifying image popped into my head, an old Mission Impossible moment of the answering machine sizzling and self-destructing before my eyes, taking Tyla’s message with it. The smartphone backup kept me from self-destructing.