Suitable for Framing

by Edna Buchanan

  “Miguel says she dove for cover the moment he arrived.”

  He turned his back to me and faced the window, gazing off into the distance. After a long moment, he returned and sat at his desk, face stern.

  “Have you mentioned this to anyone else?”

  “No. I thought I should talk to you first.”

  “Good, because I don’t want this bandied about. I’ve seen cases of newsroom rivalry and petty jealousy before, Britt, but this”—he shook his head again—“this is totally out of hand.” He shook a warning finger at me. “I don’t want you starting rumors or suggesting something this preposterous to anyone.”

  “I didn’t. Miguel himself is saying this.”

  “Of course, what else is he going to say?” His voice was hard. “He’s certainly not going to stand up in court and say that he stalked his stepson to the cemetery and pulled a gun, intending to murder him in cold blood along with anybody else who stood in his way. Nonsense. He and his attorney are going to concoct a defense, an excuse for his crime, and the way to do that is to blame someone else. It’s always somebody else’s fault.”

  I opened my mouth, and he held up his hand to stay my protest.

  “That family was on record, in police reports, long before either Trish Tierney or you knew they existed. Those two then bought guns intending to use them, and they did. I will not have the integrity of one of my reporters and this newspaper impugned, especially from within.”

  I nodded, swallowed the lump in my throat, and walked back out into the newsroom.

  I called Marty in Chicago and left a message on his machine. “I need your help,” I said. “Call me.”

  I was fighting for both job and reputation now. The only way to win is to know the enemy.

  Scattered applause rippled across the newsroom. It had actually come from jaded newshounds, acknowledging Trish’s buoyant entrance. She blushed modestly and settled in at her desk. The woman had become a media heroine. There was talk of a book contract and according to the newsroom grapevine she had met with a New York literary agent. Gretchen trotted back to Trish’s desk, and I saw them laughing and chatting.

  Marty returned my call and I filled him in, speaking softly so no one would hear. Mercifully, Ryan had wandered back to where half a dozen people ringed Trish’s desk, probably gossiping about the celebrities she had met in the greenroom.

  “Sounds like you’re hip deep in shit,” Marty said.

  “I’ve stepped in it this time,” I acknowledged. “I need all the help I can get. What else do you remember about her? How the hell did she get this way? Did she pull the wings off flies as a child? What did she do then, step on ’em? What can you tell me?”

  “Actually, no more than what I mentioned at dinner. Let me think about it, make a couple of calls, and see what I can find out.”

  “Bless you, Marty.”

  I escaped the office then and headed over to Miami Beach police headquarters to check out some missing persons cases for a project I had in mind.

  Fluffy mountains of clouds drifted lazily across a bright and beautiful sky. There is a fall and a winter in South Florida. The light becomes less harsh, more subtle, the greens less vivid. The sky is softer, the sunsets earlier, the dawns more misty. The temperature was a comfortable 72 as I drove across the causeway, windows down, enjoying the strong, frolicking breeze that stirred up whitecaps on the bright blue bay.

  The high-pitched emergency tone on my police scanner jolted me back to reality. That shrill sound signals pain, open wounds, and broken hearts, alerting the street fighters assigned to hold back the tide of crime, death, and disorder. So often it comes too late.

  This was the one everybody dreads. “Three-fifteen. Shots fired. Officer down, at Northwest Second Avenue and Twenty-fifth Street.”

  My fingers spasmed around the steering wheel. Shit, a cop shot. I wheeled into a U-turn, hit the gas, and pushed a button to lock in the frequency on my dashboard scanner. Reports came fast and furious, a cool voice, controlled hysteria.

  “A second victim.”

  “Rescue dispatched on a three.”

  “At least four subjects fleeing west in two vehicles.”

  “The officer involved is city, off duty.”

  My mind’s eye saw the complaint-room personnel clustering around the dispatcher listening. A van loaded with sightseeing tourists ambled along in front of me at a maddening twenty-five miles an hour. I swerved around it, passing on the wrong side. No policeman would stop me on traffic charges. Every cop in town was either on the way or glued to a radio, waiting to hear every bit and piece of information: the condition of the officer, the description of the suspects, and which way they had headed.

  “Two subject vehicles fleeing west in a blue van and a white Ford Taurus taken from the civilian victim.

  “Subjects armed with an automatic weapon. Appeared to be a nine-millimeter Beretta, fifteen-shot. Use caution. A second subject is armed with a short-barreled shotgun. The officer’s service revolver is also believed taken.”

  “Where’s rescue?” shouted the young voice of an officer, possibly first at the scene. His anguish and panic chilled my bones. This was no false alarm. Communications from officers arriving were fragmented and stress-filled. They never sound rattled or emotional on the air—unless a cop is shot. I wondered if it was someone I knew. I thought of Kendall McDonald.

  “The officer involved was off duty in his personal vehicle.”

  Somebody breathing hard, trying to piece chaos together, reported: “Apparently he had left the station and came upon a carjacking in progress.

  “Subject number one is described as a white Latin male, approximately seventeen to eighteen years of age, black hair shaved straight across around the ears with a ducktail at the bottom, approximately five feet four inches, one hundred twenty-five pounds, wearing baggy black jeans low on his hips, boxer shorts showing underneath, an oversize plaid shirt, high-top sneakers, and a Raiders cap. He is armed with an automatic handgun.”

  Away from the mike, you could hear his rapid questions to witnesses providing the descriptions he fed into the radio.

  “Reference the officer shot: subject number one is the shooter. He is driving a vehicle described as a late-model white Ford Taurus, partial Florida tag E echo, D delta, last seen proceeding west on Northwest Two-six Street from Second Avenue. This vehicle was taken from the civilian victim who—uh—looks to be a Forty-five at this point.”

  Forty-five means dead. I tried to scribble notes with my right hand, the left on the wheel as nth, 12th, 13th streets flashed by.

  “Subject number two is described as a white male, late teens, possibly Latin, five feet nine inches, a hundred and fifty pounds, black baseball cap, oversize dark pants, black T-shirt with large white letters, DON’T ASK ME FOR SHIT, black high-top sneakers. This subject is armed with what appeared to be a sawed-off pump shotgun with a homemade pistol grip. Driving a blue Dodge van, last seen westbound on Northwest Two-seven Street from Second Avenue.

  “Subject number three: black male, five feet ten inches, skinny, approximately one forty pounds, jeans, wearing a dark T-shirt with some sort of design or logo on the front. He is the right front passenger in the blue van driven by the subject armed with the shotgun.

  “Subject number four, a black Latin male, five seven, one-eighty pounds. Dark pants and black Malcolm X shirt…”

  Suddenly gripped by a growing dread, I knew who they probably were. “Howie, don’t be with them,” I breathed, my eyes searching side streets as much for them as for oncoming traffic.

  “I think I have an ID on the subjects.”

  It was Rakestraw’s voice on the radio.

  “The shooter is believed to be the same subject involved in numerous carjackings, ram-and-robs, and smash-and-grabs. He is armed and considered extremely dangerous. The subject is Gilberto Sanchez, d.o.b. October fourteen, 1976. Last known address, Twenty-four seventy-five Northwest T
wenty-seventh Avenue. Current wants on felony murder, numerous charges of aggravated assault, armed robbery, burglary, and sexual assault.”

  I didn’t even know about that last one.

  The scene was alive with sirens, medics, cops, and a growing number of bystanders.

  As I pulled up a policeman ran toward my car, screaming at me to move it I did. At times like this, you don’t argue with the cops. I parked a short block away and trotted back on foot.

  The officer lay sprawled on his back next to a red Mustang standing with the driver’s door open in a traffic lane. Arms flung out at his sides, he wasn’t moving, but he was the center of furious activity by medics.

  His skin looked dusky. A paramedic frantically squeezed a vinyl bag, forcing fluid to flow faster through an IV into his body. An endotracheal tube had been inserted down his throat to push oxygen into his lungs.

  Across the intersection a man lay in a gigantic sea of blood that had gushed into the gutter and down the street for half a block.

  The scene looked like a battlefield, on a beautiful sunlit Miami morning.

  Lieutenant Kendall McDonald was already there, conferring with other arriving brass. I saw Rakestraw too. I knew what he was thinking.

  “Can you tell me anything, McDonald?”

  He stepped briefly away from the others. “We don’t know much yet.”

  “What happened?”

  “The officer is a rookie, worked the midnight shift, got off this morning, and was running a few errands on his way home. Drove up on one in progress. The victim was struggling with the carjacker. Apparently he tried to intervene and they shot him.”

  “Where is he hit?”

  “In the chest.”

  “Was he wearing his vest?”

  McDonald shook his head.

  “It was lying on the front seat, next to him. He was still wearing his uniform pants and a T-shirt.”

  I read the irony in his eyes. After a midnight tour of duty in this violent city, a cop takes off his bulletproof vest to drive home on a beautiful day and meets a kid with a gun.

  “Who is he?”

  “The officer’s identity can’t be released until his family is notified.” He dropped his voice. “It’s McCoy, first name Dana. A rookie. Don’t print it until we give you the go-ahead.”

  “Right. Wasn’t he the hero in that fire a couple of months ago?”

  “That’s him.”

  I nodded. “We have his picture.” I remembered the youthful grin. On routine patrol, McCoy had spotted a predawn fire, rescued the occupants of a second-floor apartment, then saved the owner of a ground-floor store who had dashed inside for his business records.

  “Married? Children?”

  “Don’t think so. Better check with PIO, they’ll pull his jacket.”

  “Age?”

  “Twenty-three. Top man in his academy class last year.”

  “Who called it in?”

  “He had his radio and hit the emergency button. Said he’d been hit and gave the address, but it was garbled, sounded like Forty-fifth instead of Twenty-fifth. The dispatcher couldn’t raise him again. A couple minutes later a civilian called it in.”

  “What happened to the other victim? Where was he hit?”

  “The leg. We think it’s the subject who’s been knee-capping drivers and taking their cars.”

  “A fatal leg wound?”

  “Hit the major artery in his thigh, the femoral artery. He was struggling; then he ran, bled to death in a couple of minutes. By the time anybody got here, it was too late.”

  Any suspects in custody?”

  “No. But we will.” His voice had the bitter ring of certainty.

  McDonald radioed orders to clear intersections in the path of the rescue van carrying the wounded officer to the trauma center, and I started looking for witnesses.

  “It was pretty wild when the shooting started,” said a young shoe salesman, who had been on his way to work. “It sounded pretty much like the shootings on TV, but a lot louder.”

  As the wounded motorist struggled for possession of his Taurus, the officer had ordered FMJ, if he was indeed the shooter, to drop his weapon. McCoy had apparently held his fire because of innocent bystanders. When FMJ started shooting at the officer, the bleeding motorist ran and passersby scattered. The officer did manage to squeeze off a couple of rounds before being hit.

  When he went down, another suspect ran to snatch up the cop’s gun. Then both cars took off.

  “I saw the guns and told everybody to take cover,” said a grandmotherly school crossing guard with a curly perm. “There were people waiting for a bus, people walking down the street, business people on the way to work.

  “They just stood there and looked at me. I had to scream at them. I yelled and blew my whistle. Finally I had to run toward them—into the line of fire—to get them to move.” Trembling, she seemed more shaken by the public’s indifference than by her own close call.

  She and other witnesses had heard McCoy shout, identifying himself as a police officer. FMJ knew he was shooting a cop.

  Police were stringing yellow crime-scene tape, forcing me and other reporters back down the street in the general direction of my car. “You know who it was,” muttered Rakestraw, after shepherding several witnesses to a car to take to the station. “And who was with ’em.”

  “You think it was Howie.” I hated saying it out loud.

  “Without a doubt.”

  “No way to be sure.”

  “It’s over for him now. Any dream he had of cutting a deal is down the toilet. Nobody’s gonna give him a break.”

  “He was coerced into running from the Crossing. They threatened Miss Mayberry. If he was with them today, a big if, he was coerced. We don’t even know—”

  “We’ll know pretty quick. Once we start showing mug shots to the witnesses.” He walked away.

  I called the office. Gretchen wanted to know if I needed help, if she should assign someone. I told her no, I could handle it. Then I went to the hospital, arriving in time to speak to the doctor. He was brief.

  “The bullet struck his heart. When fellow officers and paramedics arrived he was beyond all help, but they tried. At the trauma center we immediately opened his chest and tried to clamp the aorta, but when we did, we found that the bullet had demolished the coronary artery and left a large hole in the myocardium. Every time his heart beat, blood pumped into his chest. It was very apparent there was nothing that could be done.”

  If Howie was there, I thought numbly, his life is finished too.

  Chapter Fifteen

  McCoy was a rookie, a youthful hero who had not lived long enough to make mistakes, to burn out, to become jaded or calloused or bitter. He had never let anybody down. Maybe he never would have. The promise was gone. Emotions ran high. When a cop gets shot, they all take it personally. More than a hundred officers from other departments joined the manhunt Wearing strips of black mourning tape across their badges, they searched buildings and fields with helicopters and dogs, stopping scores of suspects. All-points bulletins were issued for FMJ, positively identified by eyewitnesses as the killer.

  “He’s in a frenzy, like a shark,” Rakestraw said, as I took notes, for attribution. “We need to get him off the street. Right now. He’s extremely dangerous.”

  Not for attribution was his answer to my question about the sexual-assault charges.

  “His sister.”

  “The pregnant one? Is he the…”

  He nodded.

  Was there any crime FMJ had not committed? Police set up a tip line urging the public to call. Rewards were offered. There were rumors that FMJ had been seen in Ocala, on I-95 headed for Georgia, at the downtown Greyhound bus station, and at the Port of Miami, and one sighting reported him at the airport wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase.

  Witnesses were pretty sure that J-Boy was the one with the shotgun. They were not so def
inite about Howie, but Rakestraw was convinced. Bulletins were issued for both, “wanted for questioning.”

  FMJ’s mother publicly urged his surrender. Her listless performance on TV didn’t reflect much hope that he would heed her words. Why would he start now?

  I prayed Howie would call. He must be so scared, I thought. If the cops found him first he could be killed, especially if he was still with the others, known to be heavily armed. I focused, concentrated, willing him not to stay with them. I went by Miss Mayberry’s house twice. Once Rakestraw’s car was outside; another time a patrol unit was parked in front. I didn’t intrude. Besides, I didn’t look forward to explaining to that good woman how our high hopes had gone so wrong.

  Edgy days went by with no news. The perimeters of the manhunt spread, all the way up the eastern seaboard to Union City, New Jersey. My gut feeling was that they were still in Dade County. They were Miami street kids; they knew no other place. This was their turf. FMJ’s business must be shot to hell, I thought. No chop shop would deal with him now.

  Several times that week Trish offered to help in the continuing coverage, but I politely declined. This was one story she wasn’t going to muscle in on.

  Gradually, with no new developments, the coverage began to wind down. I took a day of comp time, preferred by the newspaper’s bean counters in lieu of overtime, then came in late the following day.

  “You had a visitor,” said Gloria, the city desk clerk. “She was here several times yesterday and again this morning.” She shrugged. “Nobody told me you were taking comp time and I thought you’d be in.”

  “I left a note. Who was it?”

  “An old lady.” She riffled impatiently through the pink message slips on her desk.

  “Did she say what she wanted?”

  “No,” Gloria frowned. “I can’t find it Trish must know. She was talking to her, about an hour ago.” We both scanned the newsroom for Trish. She wasn’t there.

  “What did she look like?”

  “You know the woman, what the heck is her name?” She shook the pencil in her hand as if the motion would stimulate her memory. “You know, lives over there in that little house by the Edgewater.”