“What did you do with it?”
“Put it in my pocket. It felt heavy. I wanted it gone. It was late, I wasn’t allowed out, or to leave the kids alone, but I wanted it gone. I ran down the street with it. It was raining hard. I was scared. I just wanted to get rid of it.”
“What a stand-up little kid you were,” I said, imagining a frightened eleven-year-old on a cold and wet Christmas Eve, out in the dark alone, on a mission to dispose of a murder weapon. “Too bad there wasn’t a cop around, you could have given it to him.”
“If I’da seen a cop, I’da run the other way.” She frowned. “I was scareda cops.”
“What did you do? Think it might still be wherever you left it?” How amazing it would be if, after fourteen years, we found the murder weapon—and the eyewitness who could put it in the killer’s hand.
“I was half drowned and crying,” she went on. “Scared my mama would come home while I was gone and I’d get a whupping. Used to be a bar down by Fourteenth Street, on the corner. Think they called it the Circus. It’s not there anymore.
“I was looking for the Salvation Army box across the street, looked like a red brick chimney. A man used to ring the bell and people would drop in money. The gun was still wrapped up in the T-shirt. I was gonna drop it in there. Thought they’d know what to do with it. But the chimney box was gone.
“Nobody around except a car outside the bar, engine running, steam rising off the hood. A lady in the passenger seat was waiting on the driver to come out. She called me, like; ‘Whatchu doing out here in the rain, child? Where’s your mama?’ I had to get home. I didn’t know what else to do. I just handed it to her. ‘Here,’ I said. ‘Merry Christmas.’ She started to say something. But I ran, faster than I ever had in my life. Didn’t stop until I got home. Thought I’d never catch my breath again.”
“Do you know who she was? Did you ever see her again?”
She shook her head. “Pretty, probably in her thirties. Had on dangly earrings, all rhinestones. Seemed nice. She was a grown-up; I wouldn’t know her again if I saw her. I smelt liquor on her breath when I walked up close to the car.”
“What happened when Mad Dog realized the gun was gone?”
“He didn’t come back till next morning. Searched his whole room, then the rest of the house, my room too. Acting wild, kept saying he was looking for something, throwing things around. Twisted my arm and asked me if I took anything out of his room. I said I didn’t know what he was talking about. He probably believed me because I had never lied to him before. That was the first time. He asked me if any of the other boys had come back over when he wasn’t home. I said I didn’t see nobody. Sometimes,” she said, eyes grave, “when it’s important enough, I think Jesus forgives a lie.”
“Absolutely,” I said. “I’m sure.”
“All of them acted crazy after that night. Andre came over, started crying and punching at the wall. Kept saying it wasn’t right, wasn’t fair.”
“What do you think he meant?”
She shrugged. “Everybody heard ’bout those kids being shot. It was all over the TV. First time I ever saw Mad Dog and his friends watch the news. They stuck close to home for a while, kept to themselves. ’Cept Cubby; he disappeared. Moved away. Never saw him again till the other night. Man looks good. Has a nice wife.”
“Right,” I said. “I like her too. Did you ever ask your brother point-blank if they did it?”
“Once or twice. Denied it, slapped me for asking. Kept saying not to talk about it to nobody. But I used to think about it,” she said, “specially around the holidays. Now that I’m a mother myself, it’s been coming back to me more often. I got kids, two of them. Sometimes I just lie awake at night, thinking about the mothers. With what happened on nine-eleven, it seems like evil is overtaking the world, like the prophecies in the Bible.”
“Would you discuss this with a detective?”
“No!” She stepped back, almost knocking over a leggy, wide-leafed philodendron in a plastic pot. “This is just between us, Shelby to Britt. You know that. I been wanting to tell somebody for a long time, just didn’t know who. Sister or not, it’s dangerous. I’ve got my own kids to think about. And my mother would never forgive me for making more trouble. If they knew I told somebody, I wouldn’t have a family, maybe not even a life.”
“I understand. But the gun is very important. If we could just track it down…”
“What happened to the girl? The one who lived?”
“Deaf in one ear from the bullet wound, she’s an artist now. The dead boy’s parents couldn’t handle the loss and got divorced. He was their only child.”
Her eyes misted as I slipped my notebook into my pocket.
“Thank you,” I said. “You were a wonderful child, so brave. You still are.” We hugged. She smelled like baby powder and Spearmint chewing gum.
“You be careful,” she said. “They thought nobody remembered, that it was over. Now they’re all hinky again, calling Cubby, fighting with each other, and talking ’bout you.” There was genuine concern in her eyes. She checked her watch. “My husband is real close to my brother and my cousin. He wouldn’t be happy if he knew I was here.”
“Is there any good time for me to call you?”
She shook her head emphatically. “Between the answer machine, caller ID, and the kids who might pick up the phone…. No. Besides, there’s nothing else I can say.”
“But what if I need to touch base with you?”
“If it’s urgent and you really need to reach me, I drive my oldest to school, first grade at Banyan Elementary, drop her off at seven-thirty every morning. I drive a beige Hyundai. I always get out and watch until she’s inside the building.”
I jotted that down.
I called the office on the way to police headquarters.
The news was not great. The hospital had admitted Ryan for tests. He sounded weak but chipper, when I got through to him. He was worried.
“Don’t let anybody else use my desk, Britt. They’ll mess it up and I won’t be able to find anything. Or my chair; don’t let them fool around with my chair. I finally got it adjusted perfectly. And would you check my mailbox for messages?”
I promised. “What do the doctors say?”
“Not much, just that my blood count is low. They’re doing more tests tomorrow.”
“You’re anemic,” I said. “That explains everything. You don’t eat right, you don’t get enough sleep. That’s why you’re anemic. Want me to call your folks?”
“Naw, I don’t want to worry them. Remember how upset they were when I was lost at sea?”
An assignment from Gretchen had turned into near disaster when she sent Ryan to do a first-person account of what it was like to be a Cuban refugee adrift on a tiny raft in the shark-infested Florida Straits. The plan went awry; he was lost and presumed dead after a huge air and sea search—and came home a hero. Lottie and I met him at the airport. You never realize how much you cherish your friends until you think they’re gone.
We said goodbye as I parked outside police headquarters.
Craig Burch and Sam Stone looked startled. “How the hell did you get in here without an escort?” Burch asked.
“Everybody knows I’m on the story,” I said. “They’re so used to seeing me now, I’m like a piece of the furniture.”
“Don’t count on it,” Burch said. “Thanks to you we’re back on Riley’s shit list. What the hell have you been doing?”
“Helping you,” I said, put off by his attitude. “Wait till you hear the latest.”
He rolled his eyes at Stone. “Do we need your help? Did Custer need more Indians?”
“What’s wrong now?” I asked impatiently. His foul mood was bringing me down. “If you recall, you’re the guys who asked me to do a little legwork.”
“Heather Chance gave me a call.” He glared at me sternly as though I were an errant child.
“So?” I shrugged, trying to keep the annoyance out of my vo
ice. “She promised not to make a pest of herself this time.”
He and Stone exchanged baleful looks. “Right. Unfortunately, I wasn’t here, so she asked to talk to my supervisor, to thank her for reopening the case.”
“Damn.” I dropped into the chair beside his desk. “She didn’t shoot the poor woman down, did she?”
“No way. Riley’s too smart for that. She just said, ‘You’re welcome,’ and then blindsided me when I walked in the door. Didn’t know what hit me.”
“Where is she?” I stole a guilty glance over my shoulder. Her office looked dark.
“Slammed out of here ten minutes ago. Think I’d be standing here talking to you if she was around?”
“Sorry,” I said. “But I have something that will make you boys feel better fast.”
“What, you pushing Prozac?” Stone said.
“Maybe she’s getting outa town, way outa town,” Burch said. “Becoming a foreign correspondent.”
“Not funny, when I’ve got the cure for what ails you,” I said. “A witness.”
Their faces changed as I filled them in, without using Shelby’s name.
“She’s scared, afraid to talk to you. But she can confirm a lot of things.”
“Did she say where they got the gun?” Stone asked eagerly.
“B and E of a house. Thought it went down in Miami Shores four days or so before that Christmas Eve.”
“Excellent,” he said. “Miami Shores has only about ten thousand population. Can’t be many guns taken in burglaries there during that week. Let’s just hope the gun was legal and the victim reported it. If we can locate the police report, get the serial number, we can see if it’s surfaced anywhere since. Might still be out there, recoverable. If your witness can put it in their hands that night—we might have something to run with.”
“She was only a little kid at the time,” I said. “I’m not sure if she can ever be persuaded to testify, but she might. If not, it might give you enough to flip one of the others.”
“How come this witness never spoke up before?” Burch asked.
“She’s grown now, a mother herself. Her conscience has been bothering her.”
“Funny how people suddenly discover their conscience,” he said, “once they have kids.”
“She’s also depressed, apprehensive about nine-eleven and the war.”
“Who isn’t?” Stone said.
“How nice of our legal system back then to turn Mad Dog loose on the community for the holidays,” Burch said. “Merry Christmas, Miami.”
“Yup, sent him home angry, hopped up on teenage testosterone, and out of control,” Stone said.
“Sounds like he’s the shooter,” I said. Now that Riley knew, I asked them, did we still need to withhold the information that Coney was a suspect? “I can use it in my next story,” I said.
Burch shrugged. “Riley’s gonna make us miserable anyway. Why the hell not?”
“Way to go,” Stone said. “She’ll take the bows when we close it.”
Visiting hours were over by the time I found Ryan’s hospital room. His roommate, an elderly man, was dozing, but Ryan was awake, halfheartedly watching talking heads dissect gloomy news on CNN. He looked tired but seemed happy to see me.
He flicked off the TV. “What a weird war,” he said. “Bam! Boom! Bombs away, take that. Now, here’s some lunch.”
He felt better, he said, but still didn’t know when he could go home. I kissed his cheek and delivered his mail, along with a stack of magazines I’d picked up at a newsstand on the way, Esquire, Time, and Playboy. “Thought you might want something to read,” I said, “or pictures to look at.”
“You should see some of the nurses here,” he said, with a low whistle. “I love nurses: their white uniforms, all starchy and clean, and those little white squeaky shoes. This place is full of them.”
“Not surprising,” I said, “since this is a hospital.”
Lottie, Villanueva, and Howie Janowitz had visited earlier. Lottie had brought cheerful sunflowers in a tall blue vase and a bakery box of chocolate chip cookies.
A big shiny-green plant from the paper had a card signed From the Newsroom. And there was a giant fruit basket filled with gourmet biscuits, sausages, and cheese—from the firefighters union, Ryan sheepishly admitted.
“I’m big with the fire department,” he said. “Their PIO called to say they entered my story in a national contest.”
I helped myself to an apple. “You mind?”
“Naw, guess you’re entitled, since you actually wrote it. But hands off the chocolate-chip cookies.”
He was wan but smiling when I left, enthusiastic about a pretty young nurse who’d popped in to say I had to leave. She’d promised to look in on him again before her shift ended.
“She’s so cute,” he whispered, after she left. “Single, too. I think she likes me.”
“Who wouldn’t?” I said.
I drove home listening to the chatter on my police scanner and wondering why young Andre Coney had wept and punched walls in apparent rage and frustration after the crime. Did he actually have a conscience as a lad? His later record reflected no such hint. Perhaps it was fear. The possibility of a homicide rap will give even hard-core adult criminals bad cases of the heebie-jeebies. Maybe he was afraid the missing murder weapon would resurface, leading police to him. Or was it something else? Most of all I thought about the little girl Shelby Fountain had been, the woman she had become, and how life can be so damn hard for good people trying to do the right thing.
14
Lottie sashayed down the hall, a stack of photos in her hand, as I checked my mail next morning.
“What are you doing?” she demanded. “Nobody opens their mail anymore, not without gloves and a space suit.”
“I do. I wouldn’t miss my crank mail for the world,” I said. “I just called the hospital. A stranger visiting the patient in the next bed answered and said Ryan had been wheeled away for more tests. Have you talked to him today?”
“Yup,” she said. “He’s in love. Hope nurse Nancy don’t break his heart.”
“Let’s treat them to dinner at his favorite place when he gets out,” I said. “Think she’ll come?”
“Sure. I’m up for that,” she said. “I just wish they’d quit messing with him and let him go home before he catches something. Hospitals are full of sick people. You know doctors, they’re like policemen; no bad situation they can’t make worse.”
“For sure,” I said. “It sounds like they’re running every test in the book. CYA, I guess. Scared of being sued if they miss something.”
She pulled up a chair and began to spread out her photos. “Hell-all-Friday, Britt, why didn’t you tell me Sunny had cheekbones to die for? Did you know her mother modeled? And guess who showed up during the shoot? Detective Pete Nazario, scampering around underfoot like a lovesick Chihuahua.”
“Sunny Hartley?” I blinked. “You shot Sunny’s picture?”
“Yup. Not for our piece, for the Lively Arts section on Sunday. She’s hot. Thought you knew.”
I didn’t. She read me the art critic’s lead:
“The Miami art scene, once a cultural wasteland, is now alive with hot young emerging artists.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“He’s featuring Ten to Watch, the top ten twenty-and thirty-something artists,” she said. “Whole package is gonna run in color on the front of the Arts and Entertainment section. Sunny’s near the top of the list. Her first big show is about to open at a South Beach gallery.
“Sorta camera-shy at first,” she said, “but loosened right up once we started discussing her work.”
“She never said a thing about it,” I said, vaguely troubled. The pictures were stunning. Sunny, pensive and sophisticated, posing with her cold stone statues, her hair loose, strong body lithe and graceful.
“Ain’t she a natural?” Lottie said, peering over my shoulder.
“You can make anybody look good,”
I murmured.
“Sure don’t hurt to start with a face like that. Most young artists would kill to get this kind of exposure. This’ll be a surefire career booster. Big-time.”
“Did you talk about the case?”
“Nope. The assignment had nothing to do with it. Didn’t want to bring it up unless she did. Don’t even know if she knows I know.”
Sunny, I thought, surprising as usual. “What was Nazario doing there?”
“Helping out with the lights, equipment, and all. But he’s definitely got eyes for her. Sparks flying, hormones jumping. Ain’t love grand?”
Later in the day, a judge refused again to reduce bond for Hector Gomez, the shopkeeper—in part, I was sure, because the Reverend Earl Wright led raucous demonstrators in a noisy protest outside, then filled every seat in the courtroom.
Andy Maguire was off, so I covered it. The defendant, in a rumpled oversized jail uniform, gave me a hopeful sad-eyed nod as he scanned the gallery for a friendly face. His wife, a small round woman, caught up with me in the corridor outside.
“Hector talked to you. You saw him,” she pleaded. “Please tell them he never meant to hurt nobody. Tell them my husband is not a bad man.”
“I’m sure he isn’t,” I said. “Have the public defender, your lawyer, check out the story in tomorrow’s paper. There will be some details on the dead man’s character.”
Her eyes brightened. “Then, you think, they will let Hector come home?”
I sighed. “I don’t know.” Probably not, I thought. “But your lawyer might find it interesting.” I told her not to worry, easy for me to say, then watched her walk the gauntlet alone, past the angry, shouting protestors outside.
I wrote the story identifying the dead burglar electrocuted in Gomez’s shop as a suspect under investigation in the old Christmas Eve rape and murder.
I already had a quote from Heather Chance, so I called Sean Chance as well. His new wife answered. She insisted on knowing my business with her husband before letting me talk to him.
The Ice Maiden Page 16