“It fits,” she said. “All was not forgiven after Prohibition ended in 1933. The feds still wanted to prosecute Nolan for the deaths of the two lawmen killed in that gun battle off the Jersey coast. Federal murder warrants had been issued. Old records show several attempts to serve the outstanding arrest warrants on him. He would have been taken to New Jersey to stand trial. He faced the death penalty or life in prison.
“He knew he couldn’t dodge federal agents forever. So, in 1936, Captain Cliff started the rumor that he and the Sea Wolf had been lost off the Cuban coast. Then he went off to join the Irish members of the International Brigade and fight fascism in Spain.”
“That sounds pretty far-fetched,” Nazario said. “A good old boy. A South Florida pioneer going to—”
“No, it isn’t,” Kiki said confidently. “Nolan was born in Ireland. Even though his parents brought him to America as a child, he still had relatives there, had cousins in the Brigade. It makes perfect sense. He must have felt that by the time the war ended, things would have blown over here and he could come home. His wife, Pierce Nolan’s mother, must have been in on it. Cliff wouldn’t have left his wife and young son alone, wrongly believing he was dead. Pierce and his family might have known his father was still alive as well.”
“So, why didn’t he come back?”
“I think he may have been killed. A number of the Irish soldiers died in that war. I’m looking for casualty lists now. I’m so excited, Pete. It’s a major find, the last chapter of a major saga of early Miami finally unfolding.”
“Good for you, Kiki. We’ll bounce it off the family. I’ll let you know. Can’t wait to see you. I’ll call you from the road.
“What a woman,” he said, hanging up. “And she cooks, too.”
“Nice try,” Burch said en route to the airport. “Wrong mystery. Wish you’d put her to work on a case we need to solve.”
“To her, a Miami historian, this is big, very big. How often do you get to solve a seventy-year-old mystery?”
“How often do we get to solve anything? That’s our problem. If nothing else,” Burch said grudgingly, “maybe we can use it on Diana Nolan as an icebreaker.”
Between business travelers and families bound for Disney World, the Orlando flight was full.
An energetic little boy behind them tapped Burch on the shoulder to announce that he was four.
“He’s really only three and a half.” His father frowned apologetically as he tried to restrain the squirming child in his seat.
“Why does he do that?” his mother asked peevishly.
“He’s in a hurry to be a big boy,” Burch said. “Right, son?”
“Vincent,” the father warned when Burch again turned his back, “you’re bothering that man in front of you. Next time he’ll turn around and smack you—and I’ll let him.”
“Vincent,” they heard the man say minutes later, “they’re going to make you get off the plane and leave me and your mom here alone. You don’t want that, do you?”
The flight was only thirty minutes, less time than it had taken to pass through airport security.
During the approach to the Orlando airport, they saw hundreds and hundreds—thousands—of what looked from the air like blue roofs, tarps covering damage to homes as far as the eye could see. Some blue roofs were in huge clusters in a single development, with adjacent developments almost unscathed, indicating the erratic paths of whirlwinds spun out of the storm—or the shoddy work of certain builders. A few roofs were covered with new wood, under reconstruction, but very few. Brown forests of uprooted trees were everywhere.
“Look at all that misery down there,” Burch said.
“We could be next,” Nazario said grimly.
“It’s not if,” Burch said, “it’s when.”
They shared the restless anxiety of all Miamians, living on the edge, knowing that today is borrowed time and tomorrow is uncertain.
“How often can you dodge the bullet, or catch it in your teeth?” Burch said. “Something will zero in on us, sooner or later. Mother Nature on a rampage, out of the sea or the sky, lightning, hurricanes, or tornadoes, terrorists at the Turkey Point nuclear plant or the port, or El Loco with a gun. Sooner or later, something’s coming for us.”
Behind them, Vincent apparently committed some unforgivable infraction. “Okay, Vincent.” The father’s voice was raised. “Get off the plane. Now. You heard me.”
“This,” Burch said, “I gotta see.”
The detectives could discern no sign of storm damage at the airport. An ultramodern monorail whisked them into the terminal through a lavishly landscaped Disney-like vista. The Villages was more than an hour’s drive away, but near the car rental counter, they spotted a driver holding up a VILLAGES SHUTTLE sign.
From his running commentary en route, they learned that the Villages had its own radio station, daily newspaper, several movie theaters, nine golf courses (two of them championship), six supermarkets, hard- and soft-top tennis courts, archery and air-gun ranges, banks, a hospital—and a hospice.
Every evening, free entertainment in the town square, ranging from jazz to country-western to rock and roll. Residents boarded trolleys, drove golf carts or their own cars, and could choose from more than 250 clubs and activities.
The most popular sports, the driver confided, were bowling, golf, and pickleball, a fast-paced cross between Ping-Pong and tennis.
The local lifelong learning college offered year-round classes on any subject one could want, without tests or stress.
“The energy here is unbelievable,” said the silver-haired driver as they passed Rollerbladers in their eighties and seniors waterskiing without boats, clinging to electric pulleys as they skimmed across a controlled water course.
“It’s like Disney World for retirees,” Nazario said.
“Or the Evil Empire,” Burch said. “Listen to this.”
He read a list of residents’ rules and requirements from a brochure. “No fences, no hedges more than four feet tall. No boats, trailers, or disabled cars allowed in a driveway for more than three days. No clotheslines, etc., etc.”
The Villages sprawled into three counties, with fifty thousand residents already, the driver said. New houses were being built at a rate of four hundred a month. “A few weeks ago you could see a lake right over there.” He pointed to a row of new homes. “But this new section went up in front of it overnight. Now you wouldn’t even know there was a lake.”
The detectives took the trolley to the address of Spring Nolan Grayson and her husband, a retired insurance executive. The sprawling house, a top-of-the-line model called the Sanibel, according to the brochures, had a golf cart outside and twin Lincolns in the garage.
Spring Nolan’s hair was a soft salt-and-pepper. Wearing casual golf clothes, she looked like the mother of the girl she had been, the one the detectives had seen only in old photos.
She knew about the dead infants from the news accounts, she said.
“I have no idea who they might be.”
“You can appreciate, I’m sure, that we’d like to return them to their families for decent burials,” Birch said.
They talked in a screened-in lanai with a view of a serene lapis lake beneath a Wedgwood sky.
“Ask my mother how they got there,” she suggested sweetly.
“Are you saying she knows?” Nazario asked.
“I can’t speak for her,” she said.
“Did your family have problems before the murder?”
“That’s the hell of it. I didn’t think so. Our childhood seemed idyllic until that moment. Everything after the loss of my father—the change in my life, the changes in my mother—was shocking, so totally out of character with all that happened before.”
“How did your mother change?” Burch asked.
She sighed and rolled her eyes, as though she didn’t know where to begin. “From a vibrant, vivacious, warm, and outgoing woman, which is how I remembered her, to a vicious, paranoi
d, accusatory, abusive…I can’t even go on.” She held up her hand for a moment, as though shielding herself from her own dark thoughts. “I don’t want to be upset.”
“Did your father ever molest you, any of your siblings, or your friends?” Burch asked.
“Never!”
“Do you believe the others will give us the same answer?”
“Of course! Though, as I said, I can’t speak for anyone else. Brooke is emotional, so weak and impressionable that if she’s told anything often enough, she’ll believe it.”
“Do you have any theories about where those infants came from?”
“I don’t think I should answer that, gentlemen. I’m doing my best to be helpful and courteous, but both my therapist and my husband felt I shouldn’t even see you. Stirring up old wounds and painful issues from the past isn’t healthy. Anytime I hear from anyone in my family, it’s a definite setback.”
“Is that why Sky left?”
“My brother was lucky in that respect, yet in another way, I always pitied both him and Brooke because they’re the youngest. They had less time during their formative years with both parents and a lifestyle both healthy and perfect. It was a time when the future held nothing but promise. Then it changed, and as a result, none of us ever achieved our full potential.
“Brooke fancies herself a fashionista, a businesswoman, owns some little boutique that couldn’t survive without financial help from our mother. She’s never mustered enough strength to cut the apron—or purse—strings. Never will.
“We were all affected by what they now call post-traumatic stress disorder. They had no name for PTSD then.”
“Did you know that a Peeping Tom was stalking your sister Summer in the months before the murder?” Burch asked.
“No!” Her hand flew to her heart.
“He watched her through her bedroom window. He was there that night.”
“Did he kill my father?” She looked pale.
“No,” Burch said. “We believe he was a witness. He saw it happen.”
“Who did he say did it?” She leaned forward, eyes intense.
“We don’t have a positive identification of the gunman yet.”
“It was a man?” Her voice dropped to an incredulous whisper. “A man shot my father?” She looked stunned.
“You thought it was a woman?”
She said nothing for several moments, processing the information.
“We never knew.” She regained her composure, her true emotions behind a bland, courteous, and evasive mask.
“The prowler who was peeping at Summer said he thought she knew he was watching her. Did she ever confide in you that she thought someone was out there?”
“No. But I wouldn’t be surprised.” Her lips curled into a sneer. “Summer the exibitionist. She always danced as though no one was watching. Everyone did, of course. No one could take their eyes off her. She thrived on attention.”
“Did some acting, I hear.”
“Nothing of any note.”
“One more thing,” Nazario said. “Was the family aware that your grandfather, Captain Cliff Nolan, fought in the Spanish Civil War, that he wasn’t lost earlier, off the coast of Cuba, as people believed?”
Her sudden peal of high-pitched laughter startled them both. She clapped her hands in girlish excitement. “Oh, how rich, how wonderful! Please do be sure to tell my mother you know that!”
“We may be back,” Burch said at the door.
She did not answer. She had turned away, still laughing.
CHAPTER 17
Stone waited five minutes, then redialed.
“You telling me you’re a ghost? Who the hell are you?” Anderson’s voice shook with anger.
“I told you. You’re welcome to call me back at Miami P.D. Check with my sergeant or my lieutenant. I need to know why my father had your name and telephone number back in 1987, shortly before he and my mother were murdered.”
Anderson paused for a long moment.
“I’ll be damned. I do recollect now that they had a little boy. That you?”
“Right. Detective now, on the Miami PD Cold Case Squad.”
“Humph. Time sure flies. Had me going for a while. What can I do for you?”
“We’re investigating my parents’ case. It’s still open. How did you know my father?”
“You mean your folks’ homicide wasn’t solved?” He sounded surprised. “I understood at the time it was a robbery. Some stickup men that had been hitting small businesses. That’s what I was told by your homicide investigators.”
“No. It’s still open. The robberies were solved but this case was unrelated.”
“Damn. Wish I’da known that. Sorry for my initial reaction to you. Thought it was some kind a sick practical joke. That case has always been a sore spot for me. A real piece a bad luck.
“We put a helluva lot of time and work into it. It was really going somewhere. Your folks had agreed to talk to me, to give statements and then testify at trial in an old case.”
“What kind of case?”
“Homicide. You know there’ve been a string of civil rights–era cases reopened and successfully prosecuted in recent years—the church bombing that killed those little girls in Birmingham, the murder of Medgar Evers in Jackson, Mississippi.
“Your folks were the only hope we had of putting together a successful prosecution in another one. I worked with a task force in the civil rights section of the criminal division. Took us quite a while to track them down. We were elated after I talked to your dad. I was delayed a couple a days in getting down there. When I did, I learned they were both gone, killed during an armed robbery at their business. I met briefly with the detectives.”
“There’s no mention of that in the case file.”
“Guess they didn’t think it relevant to their investigation.”
“You sure you had the right people?” Stone asked, puzzled. He had thought he knew everything about his parents. “What kind of homicide are we talking about?”
“Let me verify who I’m speaking with first and I’ll tell you.”
Anderson called back minutes later through the main Miami Police line.
“We were trying to reopen a 1972 case. During that summer of ’seventy-two, civil rights volunteers from all over had come here to launch a voter registration drive in the black community. The local Ku Klux Klan types resented the Freedom Riders from out of state, said outside agitators had no business coming in to stir up trouble. Things got pretty hot.”
“Wait a second,” Stone said. “I remember, that’s how my mom and dad met. She and some classmates from New York had gone down to Mississippi to help. My father and a few friends went up there as well. They met in Mississippi. They had a lot in common. Both had taken part in demonstrations, sit-ins, wade-ins at segregated beaches, that sort of thing. After that summer, I don’t think they were ever as involved. But I never heard anything about a murder. What were the facts?”
“A black man, a young fellow from Pennsylvania, was dragged from his car and shotgunned. The suspects were three white police officers.”
“Oh.” The word sounded hollow.
“The rights workers used to travel together for protection. Four cars in a convoy were headed for the county seat to open the registration in the morning. They’d already been threatened by police, who’d ordered them out of town, escorted them to the city limits. Three of the cops continued to follow them in two patrol cars.
“When they stopped the third car, occupied by Ernest Wendall Hill, age twenty-one, on an isolated stretch of road, the drivers of the first two carloads fled. The fourth vehicle was occupied by Sam Stone and his then-girlfriend, Annie Oliver. Stone pulled over, unwilling to leave their friend behind. They saw Hill dragged out of his car. They witnessed him being beaten, kicked, and then dragged to a ditch at the side of the road where he was shot multiple times. Stone drove off in a panic. If he hadn’t, he and Annie probably would have wound up in the ditch t
hat night, too, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
“But they saw it and could identify the killers. They were the same cops who had stopped and threatened them earlier. They fled in fear, went to Miami. They were scared. Can’t say as I blame them. Who do you go to when it’s the police doing the killing?
“Investigators learned over the years that the police officers were responsible and there’d been talk, rumors of witnesses. We were itching to prosecute. Put a cold case team together and worked it by process of elimination. Contacted every civil rights organization and former volunteer we could find, checked marchers’ names in newspaper accounts, books, documents, jail logs, and hospital records. A tedious process.
“Eventually we honed in on Samuel Stone. And, lo and behold, the former Annie Oliver, the second missing witness, was now his wife. I spoke to your dad at length twice, and once with her. They felt safer, given the years and the geographic distance, but were still reticent, said they had a family now, and mentioned you.
“I promised to protect them if they would give sworn statements and testify at the grand jury and at trial. They said they could identify the officers, had even heard them call one another by name. Guess you don’t forget those things, even after fifteen years. When I first made contact with your dad, he promised to discuss it with his family, his wife and his mother.
“He called back and said they had all agreed it was the right thing to do. They hoped to see justice. Our office was jubilant. We had such high hopes of making that case. Can’t tell you what a blow the loss of your parents was to us.”
“You weren’t suspicious that they were killed right after they agreed to cooperate?”
“Seemed like a tragic twist of fate at the time,” Anderson said. “After all our efforts to find them. I hear what you’re saying now, man, but it was fifteen years after the fact and a world away. No way the suspects could have known the Stones were about to become a threat to them.”
“How can you be so sure? Can you be certain there was no leak in your office?”
Shadows Page 15