Shadows

by Edna Buchanan

  Silence at the other end of the line. Stone could hear the man breathing. “Let me tell you about a Miami police officer by the name of Ray Glover,” he said quietly. “I think he tried to investigate my parents’ case on his own and stumbled into something.”

  When he finished, Anderson sounded excited. “You’ve gotta get on the horn and talk to Ashton Banks, the cold case investigator who took my place. Ash will be super-interested in your information. This opens everything wide up again. We couldn’t make the original homicide case without your parents’ testimony, but if this all pans out, we could still prosecute them for conspiracy, the murders of your folks, and if what you suspect about Officer Glover is true, we could nail ’em for that as well. Those sonsabitches ain’t home free yet.”

  “Where are the suspects? You sure they’re still alive?”

  “One of the original trio died awhile back. Natural causes. The other two are still around, about sixty years old now. One has a son, a sergeant on the same goddamn police department. Give Ash a call, hear? Got a pencil? I’ll give you the direct line.”

  CHAPTER 18

  Stone thought the number was a direct line but a woman answered.

  He assumed she was a secretary, identified himself, and asked for Ashton Banks.

  “You’re talking to her.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t know you were a woman.”

  She laughed. “I know far more about you, Detective Stone, than you do about me. I’ve been waiting on your call.”

  “You spoke to Anderson?”

  “Certainly did. He burned up the phone lines after you two talked. That old warhorse is ready to abandon retirement, charge back in to work, and commandeer his old desk. He’s on his way down here right now to lend a hand. Let’s talk.”

  She wanted copies of both files, Glover’s and his parents’.

  “Is your grandmother still living?”

  “Saw ’er this morning. She gave me a box of my father’s old papers. That’s where I found Anderson’s number.”

  “Good, I’ll come on down there and take her statement.”

  “I’m not too sure about that,” he said. “She’s pretty gun-shy, close-mouthed about the past. Gran raised me. We’re close and she worries. She’s getting on in years. She’s fragile and I don’t want her stressed out or put at any kind of risk.”

  “I’ll be gentle,” she said confidently. “She may be more help than you realize. I can be down there in a day or so. We can get to work, brainstorm, and I can take her statement.”

  “Look, I’m closer to her than anybody in the world. If I can’t persuade her to talk to me about it, what makes you think she’ll talk to you?”

  “Because I’m not closer to her than anybody in the world.”

  “Like I said, I don’t want her put at risk.”

  “She’ll be protected.”

  “That’s what they told my parents.”

  “I need to come anyway so we can get this show on the road. Overnight me copies of both files. I’ll read them on the way. How’s Thursday?”

  “Great.”

  He hung up the phone and whispered, “Thank you, Jesus.”

  CHAPTER 19

  “It’s something I always wanted to see,” Burch said.

  “Me, too,” Nazario said. “I read a book about it when I was a kid.”

  “Look, is that it?”

  “It’s a lot smaller than I thought it would be.”

  The detectives had arrived at the San Antonio airport too late to drive to Summer Nolan’s ranch outside the city, so Burch had asked the taxi driver to drop them at a hotel near the Alamo.

  The historic landmark, surrounded by desert willows, live oaks, cedar elms, and redbud trees, was closed for the night, but lights blazed outside at two A.M. and throngs of people stood gazing at the old fort. The two detectives joined them.

  “Are you Texans?” asked a tall man in his twenties, wearing a plaid shirt and blue jeans.

  He seemed genuinely sympathetic when they said they weren’t. “Too bad,” he said.

  “You visit here often?” Burch asked.

  He nodded. “I try to drive down from Dallas at least twice a month. I just like to be here.”

  People were always there, he said, no matter the time, day and night.

  “That’s nice,” Nazario said later. “The way people treat it like a shrine, with respect. No graffiti. No garbage. Nobody selling cheap T-shirts. If the Alamo was in Miami, you know what would stand on that site now—the sixty-story Alamo condominiums.”

  “You’re starting to sound like Kiki,” Burch said.

  “She grows on you,” Nazario said.

  San Antonio was as hot as Florida, even hotter, as they drove out to Summer Nolan’s ranch in the morning, but this heat felt dry and invigorating, not like Miami’s humid, soggy, wet blanket.

  What took their breath away was Summer Nolan.

  “You’re Summer?” Nazario said when she opened the door.

  “Yes.” The same spirited girl in the old photographs, the same lush dark hair, pillowy lips, high, chiseled cheekbones, and brilliant blue eyes.

  She hadn’t aged. Burch decided it must be a top Hollywood secret, how to stay young and beautiful forever. “You’re exactly like your pictures!” he exclaimed.

  She laughed. “That’s the other Summer. My mother. I’ll get her.”

  Summer Nolan, the original, still looked good for a woman her age. She wore silver and turquoise jewelry, an Indian-style skirt, and a peasant blouse.

  “I saw one of your movies,” Nazario said as she led them into an air-conditioned patio with spectacular views. “You were on the wagon train and the Indians—”

  “The best thing I can say about that one is that we shot it on location not far from here. That’s how I fell in love with this part of the country.”

  “Must a been quite a career,” Burch said.

  “Not really,” she said easily. “It was actually mediocre, thanks in no small part to my mother. She didn’t want an actress in the family. She always has to be queen bee, the center of all attention. She even sued to stop me from using my own name and called gossip columnists and casting directors to spread malicious rumors about me.” She sighed. “Acting was good therapy for me when I needed it most.”

  Though friendly, she remained vague and evasive about the past, until Burch mentioned the Peeping Tom.

  Her body froze, her blue eyes widened.

  “His name is Ronald Stokoe. He went on to build a longtime career as a sex offender.”

  “Did you arrest him?” she whispered.

  “No,” Burch said.

  “Why not!” Fists clenched, she sprang from her chair at the handcarved wooden table. “Why didn’t you?”

  She stared at them, then slumped back into her chair and folded her hands in her lap. “Guilt is such a terrible thing.” Her voice cracked. Tears sparkled, caught in her heavy, dark lashes. The tilt of her head, the mournful, downcast look, reminded Burch of her image in the forty-year old funeral photo that had appeared in the newspaper. The grieving wife and daughters of the deceased.

  “I’ve lived with guilt my whole life,” she said, her voice a monotone. “It’s like a shadow you can never shake, no matter what you do, who you love, or what you accomplish. It’s always there, just over your shoulder.”

  “You felt guilty?” Burch said.

  She nodded slowly. “I knew a stranger was out there,” she said, her words a shaky whisper. “Sometimes I could hear him breathing. I wasn’t afraid. He was my audience and I danced, I performed for him. I was a foolish, romantic young girl with a head full of fantasies—that I was Salome, Jezebel, Mata Hari.

  “He killed my father when he came home and caught him watching me that night. I’ve always known it was my fault.” She stared at them accusingly. “Why didn’t you arrest him?”

  “He didn’t do it,” Burch said.

  “My God in heaven! If he didn’t, who did?”

>   “We don’t know. Your Peeping Tom was a witness. He saw the killer run.”

  “Oh my God!” She rested her head on the table and began to weep. “Oh my God! I can’t believe it,” she gasped between sobs. “I knew it was my fault but couldn’t tell. I was too ashamed. My father was murdered because of me. I felt so guilty.”

  “You were wrong,” Burch said solemnly. “We want to find the man who did kill your father. Maybe you can help. And as a mother, you know how important it is to identify those little babies and give them proper burials. It’s the right thing to do. We still need to know how they figure into the case, whether they were even related to the murder.”

  “My mother always believed they were.” Summer wiped her eyes with her fingers.

  “Do you know how they got into the cellar?” Nazario asked.

  She nodded, eyes regretful. “We put them there.”

  “Wait a minute,” Burch said. “‘We’?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ma’am,” Nazario said quickly. “I have to advise you of your rights before you say anything more.”

  He did so, and she waived her right to have an attorney present.

  “I have nothing to hide anymore,” she said softly.

  Tears streamed down her face as she spoke.

  “It was the day after the funeral. My mother hadn’t slept. She was restless, shaky, crazed by grief and disbelief, desperate to know why it happened and filled with a manic energy. She hated the publicity, the police, the pity. And I couldn’t talk to anyone. I was desperate to keep her from finding out it was my fault.

  “She began to go through my father’s things, tearing them apart, looking for answers, for a sign, for anything.

  “She found two keys and a receipt for a storage unit he rented a few days before his death. She didn’t want to tell anyone until she saw for herself what was in there. We all had to go. She was afraid to leave any of us alone.

  “I don’t know what she thought she would find. I don’t think she knew, either. It was one of those storage places in an industrial area, a loading dock and a row of cubicles, each about the size of a small room. Spring and I went inside with her. Sky was somewhere out by the car. Brooke was behind us, at the door. She had allergies and was afraid there might be dust inside.

  “The only thing there was a padlocked wooden box, about the size of a hope chest. My mother used the second key to open it.

  “I was right beside her when she saw them. So was Spring.

  “‘Oh my God! Oh my God!’ she said. ‘Girls, you have to help me!’ She slammed the lid down and locked it so Sky and Brooke wouldn’t see what was inside. Then she backed the car up close to the unit. Spring and I helped her put the box in the trunk of our car and we took it home, to the Shadows. My mother sobbed and shook all the way. We helped her carry it down to the cellar.

  “She kept telling us to be brave, to be strong. No one must know about it, she said. It would ruin us, our reputations, the family name, forever.”

  “Did she know where the box, the babies, came from?”

  “She assumed the worst, that my father was responsible, he’d been unfaithful, a pervert, a baby killer who’d somehow brought on his own death. I never told her his murder was my fault.

  “A few days later, she suddenly announced that we had to leave the Shadows. Immediately. That day. We packed up a few things and left. As far as I knew, they were still down there, in the cellar. All these years.

  “As soon as we left, she began to accuse my sisters and me of terrible things. She was horrible to Sky. Her treatment of him became worse and worse as he got older because he looked just like my father. I knew I deserved the abuse but the others didn’t. Poor Sky,” she said mournfully.

  “Spring has always had sexual hang-ups because of the things our mother accused us of. I think she and Brooke always suspected that our mother killed our father because of what was in the box. Brooke was always very fragile, physically and mentally. I kept my guilt to myself. Lord knows what poor Sky thought, if anything. He was just a little boy.”

  She agreed to a DNA test. “Do they have to draw blood?” She shuddered. “I hate needles.”

  “No, it’s much simpler,” Burch assured her. “A crime lab technician from the local police department will just swipe a Q-Tip inside your cheek, between the gums and your teeth, and seal it in a glassine envelope. It’s called a buccal smear. Then we’ll take it back to Miami for testing.”

  They arranged to have a court reporter from the local state attorney’s office take Summer Nolan’s statement recounting how the infants’ makeshift coffin was moved to the Shadows.

  “Did I commit a crime?” she asked at one point.

  “Technically, yes,” Burch said. “But nothing that would have been prosecuted, even then. It’s a misdemeanor to interfere with a dead body, but you were a juvenile at the time. We just want to put a record together in the event that someone is eventually prosecuted. We don’t even know yet how they died.”

  “There’s another mystery I hoped you might clear up,” Nazario said. “Captain Clifford Nolan.”

  “My grandfather,” she said. “He died when my father was a still a small boy.”

  “Lost in a storm off the Cuban coast?”

  “No.” She smiled wryly. “Halfway around the world. I know you won’t believe this, but he was killed in the Spanish Civil War in 1937, at the battle of Jarama, trying to stop the fascists’ march on Madrid.”

  “I do believe it,” Nazario said.

  “My mother wouldn’t allow his name to be spoken in our home. She considered him scandalous. Only her relatives were respectable. But my father and I were close and we shared secrets. I was the oldest, his favorite. When I turned sixteen, he gave me a few old love letters his father had written to his mother from the front, and the medal she was sent after he was killed. My mother would have destroyed them, given the chance. My father knew I’d keep them.”

  “Did you?” Nazario asked.

  She nodded. “They contain nothing of great historical import, mostly about how he missed her, my father, Miami, and the Shadows. He believed he was doing the right thing, that the war was for a noble cause and he was making amends for anything he’d done before. If the federal authorities believed him dead he thought he, and the charges against him, would be forgotten and he could eventually come home. There wasn’t a great deal of communication between Washington, D.C., and Miami at the time. His plan might have worked, but the false report of his death became a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

  Nazario told her about Kiki Courtelis.

  “Have her call me,” Summer said. “I’ll share whatever information I have.”

  As the detectives left, she asked a question of her own. “What do I do now? The secrets I kept burned holes in my heart for my entire adult life. All those years wasted. Where were you? Why didn’t you come sooner?”

  Craig Burch replied with another question. “Why the hell didn’t you tell the truth that night?”

  She nodded. “I was afraid my mother would hate me forever but, of course, she did anyway. I feel free now. The burden’s been lifted from my shoulders, but now I want to know who did kill my father, and why.”

  “So do we.”

  On the way to the airport, Burch said to Nazario, “Let’s see what little brother knows.”

  “I never knew the Cincinnati airport was in Kentucky.” Burch scowled down at peaked rooftops in dark shades of gray, unlike Miami’s pastels. Below, a tug pushed a huge barge up the Ohio River.

  “Look at the traffic!” Nazario said.

  “Where?”

  “There isn’t any!”

  Nowhere in sight was anything like Miami’s wall-to-wall gridlock.

  To reach Oxford, Ohio, they had to drive though parts of Indiana and Kentucky with rolling hills, bright blue-green grass, and small brick-trimmed houses set back from the road behind sweeping lawns.

  Sky Nolan had fled his past, taking refuge in
rural farm country with maple trees, sheep, cattle, silos, and corn and soy bean fields.

  As their rental car roller-coastered up and down steep hills and around blind, hairpin curves, the detectives, accustomed to South Florida’s flat terrain, grew queasy. The rental actually seemed airborne at times, until Burch ordered Nazario to pull over and relinquish the wheel.

  Sky Nolan, now in his early fifties, met them in a crowded coffee shop frequented by students. A youth at the counter wore a T-shirt proclaiming that MIAMI WAS A UNIVERSITY WHEN FLORIDA BELONGED TO SPAIN. Beneath, in smaller letters: Miami University Oxford, Ohio Established 1809.

  Sky was handsome and easygoing, with a smile like his father’s.

  “Ironic, isn’t it?” he said after shaking hands. “This is a college town. Miami University, the closest I’ve come to Florida since age nine.”

  He apologized for meeting them in a public place.

  “One of my hard-and-fast rules for years,” he explained. “I don’t let my family, or any discussion about them, into my home. Self-defense.”

  A local teacher and football coach, he’d married late, he said, and still had three young children at home. “Luke, the oldest, is nine, the same age I was when I lost my dad.”

  “It took guts, real character, to just walk away from your family’s money,” Nazario said.

  “It was survival. Believe it or not, I was nearly thirty before I realized that to survive, both mentally and physically, I had to walk away from all of them. Not walk, actually, run. Took me another ten years to get my act together and start building a normal life.”

  “How much do you remember about your childhood?” Nazario asked.

  “That my mother was crazy about my father—until he died. Then she was just crazy. She hated him, really hated him. Maybe because he’d left her alone with us, or for some more sinister reason. Unfortunately, I looked just like him. Same smile, same eyes. That didn’t bode well for our relationship.

  “I remember the night it happened like it was yesterday. I was in the cellar with a lantern, playing pirate in the tunnel.