“But not for long. Two months later it was stolen from his office, probably by another client. The gun was found six months later in a dead man’s hand after a drug-related shooting in El Portal. Lucky us. Miami-Dade police departments dump their confiscated firearms into the ocean seven miles offshore once a year—except for little El Portal, just north of here. In an effort to raise funds, they keep the best weapons to sell. And”—he flipped the page of his small notebook—“they sold this one”—he looked up and smiled—“to a police officer.”
The missing murder weapon sought for all those years was owned by a cop.
“Who is he?” I asked.
“He was a Broward County sheriff’s deputy,” Stone said, “now deceased. Killed in an on-duty crash during a high-speed chase six years ago. His widow sold it. The new owner registered it, according to computer records. Guess I’ll pay him a call.”
“Where?” I asked. “Here in Miami?”
He nodded.
“Amazing how guns resurface,” Nazario said. “As far as we know it’s been stolen three times.”
“Today,” Stone said, “ballistics can compare every confiscated gun to all our open shooting cases in a matter of minutes. But back then they’d only run ballistics at the request of a detective who thought a particular weapon might be linked to one of his cases.”
“If we find the gun,” Nazario said, “we need the witness to put it in their hands that night.” His questioning eyes held mine.
I promised I’d talk to her.
Burch, they said, planned to brief the state attorney later in the day. This news put him in a stronger position to delay prosecutorial pursuit of Sunny.
Everything might work out, I thought. Back at the office, I called my friend Debbie, a Department of Corrections spokeswoman in Tallahassee.
“What do you know about a new early-release program?” I asked. “There’s a former prisoner—”
“You too?” She sounded harried. “Everybody’s been calling about that one. In fact, I just went over it in detail with another reporter from your paper. A guy named Janowitz.”
Sure enough, the story was on the news desk’s budget.
To allay prison overcrowding, a federal judge had ordered that for every new inmate sentenced to prison, one had to be released. One in, one out. After the state had lost its appeal, hundreds of inmates had been released, with more to come.
A hell of a story.
I called Onnie to explain and make plans for later.
“I don’t like guns, Britt. Guns have no eyes, no friends. You never know if they’ll protect your life or take it.”
We bickered about the pros and cons of gun ownership, as newsroom staffers began to cluster around Gretchen’s terminal at the city desk. The paper must have won an award, I thought. But no one was smiling. The faces were somber, shocked.
I told Onnie I’d call her back.
Lottie rushed to my desk as I hung up. Her face was flushed, tears in her eyes. “It’s Ryan,” she said. “He has leukemia.”
17
It was the worst kind, according to our research in the library: hairy-cell leukemia.
Ryan was too young. Too special. Too good. We all echoed the same words.
We partied in his hospital room that night: Lottie, Janowitz, even Onnie. Others from the newsroom, the photo department, and the library brought books, cards, and copies of the paper. Ryan didn’t look scared. He smiled a lot. He had taken voluminous notes while conferring with his doctors that afternoon. He had even seen the enemy, his own cells, under a microscope. He knew all his options and exhibited a reporter’s keen curiosity about the illness, the possibilities, his prognosis, the treatments.
We put on a brave show. Reminded Ryan how he’d once been given up for lost at sea, yet survived. How he always landed on his feet. How he was tough, his doctors brilliant, the medications new and sophisticated; how he’d be swell. We even rolled the patient in the next bed over to join us. We told stories and jokes and laughed, as his phone rang, over and over. I’d brought a bottle of cognac. Nurse Nancy found us little paper cups, and we all drank. Even Ryan’s doctor appeared and took a medicinal taste.
Ryan would start a course of treatment, injections of powerful medications, later in the week. We were cheerful, laughing and talking too loudly as we left.
We were all swell. Not until nearly halfway home, stopped at a traffic light, did I rest my forehead on the steering wheel and cry.
The light changed and horns blared. Gritting my teeth, I blew my nose, and at the next light I called the Cold Case Squad. Sniffing, I asked for Stone. “What happened? Did you get the gun?”
“You sound terrible, girl. You coming down with a cold?”
“No. I’m allergic—to bad news,” I said. “That’s why I called you. Give me some good news.”
“Sorry to disappoint, but you better pop some anti-histamine pills. The most recent owner says the gun was stolen out of his car three weeks ago.”
“Oh, no! You’re not serious. Did he report it?”
“Nope. Claims he didn’t miss it at first. Forgot to take it out of the glove box when he left his car to be serviced. Didn’t realize it was gone until a few days after he got the car back. Went back to his mechanic, who denied seeing it. He’s a long-time customer of the guy and didn’t want to make accusations until he was sure. Checked with his wife, searched his house, his garage. Said he kept hoping it would turn up.”
I groaned.
“Sat down with the man and went back over his schedule, hour by hour, day by day. The car was never out of his control at any other time. His security system self-locks. Nobody else had his keys except the day it was serviced. The gun was there when he checked his service agreement the day before. I’m running checks on everybody employed at the garage. I’ll rattle their cages in the morning.”
“What are the chances…?”
“We might still get lucky.” He didn’t sound optimistic.
I sighed as I parked, relieved to be home. I needed to sleep, to crash for a week, to wake up forgetting this day ever happened. A note hung on my door. What now? Had the building been condemned? I wondered bitterly.
“Please join us for tea or a glass of wine when you get home.” I recognized my landlady’s handwriting.
The Goldsteins are more than friends and always a comfort. Maybe they had somehow heard about Ryan.
I hesitated outside their door. Laughter and voices from inside signaled company. Happily married for sixty years, the woman is a dedicated matchmaker. What if the visitor was some man she wanted me to meet? Red-eyed, with cognac on my breath, I felt miserable and looked worse. I tiptoed away, as the curtains moved and someone peered out a front window.
“There she is now!” my landlady cried.
Too late.
“I thought I heard a car,” she said. “So, you finally decided to come home.”
I started to say I couldn’t join them, but the words stalled in my throat as the door opened wide.
Major Kendall McDonald sat drinking coffee and eating her famous bundt cake.
I blinked as Mrs. Goldstein herded me inside.
“What are you doing here?”
“Visiting old friends.” He smiled. “And waiting for you.”
He had dropped by the night before as well, he said. Bitsy had barked, but I wasn’t home. When I wasn’t home tonight either, he intended to leave his card, but sharp-eyed Mrs. Goldstein had invited him in.
I drank a glass of Manischewitz and nibbled a piece of cake.
He looked wonderful, though a bit thinner in civilian clothes, his off-duty gun in his waistband. The only person on the planet I would have been happy to see that night.
Mrs. Goldstein was absolutely giddy and totally without subtlety. “It’s wonderful to see you two together again,” she said as we bade them good night.
“It is,” he said. His hand lightly touched the small of my back.
“You should have
called,” I murmured, as she closed the door.
“There are some things I don’t like to talk about on the telephone.”
We kissed, soft and slow. Then I sighed, leaning against his chest, home at last, at least for the moment.
“I presume you’re aware that Mrs. G is peering from behind the blinds,” he said.
“I know,” I murmured. “You’re making her very happy. The woman lives for romance.”
“Let’s make her day,” he said, and kissed me again.
I fumbled with my keys as I unlocked the door. Bitsy greeted McDonald with wild enthusiasm; Billy Boots stared from the sofa. “What brings you over to the Beach?” I asked.
“You.” He took in the familiar room with pleasure, as though he felt at home.
“If it’s about K. C. Riley,” I said wearily, “she thinks—”
“I know. I told her it wasn’t true. It’s not like you.”
“How awkward,” I said.
“That’s how it’s always been with us,” he said, “our jobs in the way, pushing us apart. We have to make it happen.”
“Make what happen?”
“Us. I miss us.” His silver-blue eyes were dead serious. “You and me. I did a lot of thinking, up in New York at Ground Zero and since I came back. It’s time to decide what’s really important and commit to it. If that’s what you want.”
I hugged him tighter. “You know how I feel.”
“It’s time, Britt, our time. Before either of us does something stupid. Life is uncertain. All I’m sure of is that I want to spend it with you. We can work out whatever happens.”
He sat on my sofa, long legs stretched out in front of him. I curled up next to him.
“It’s always been you, since the night we met,” he said. “Remember?”
“Who could forget? Our eyes met across a bloodstained barroom floor the night the bartender at the Reno got shot.”
“A great story for our grandchildren someday.”
“But what about Riley? I thought you—”
“She knows. In fact, she told me that if it was right I should go for it.”
“The woman hates me.”
“No. I don’t know why you two never hit it off. Kathy’s a good friend, a stand-up woman in a tough high-stress job.”
“I know,” I said, feeling guilty.
We connected as though we had never been apart. I told him about Ryan. He told me what it had been like in New York.
“Working homicide for so long,” he said, “I thought I’d seen everything, but to be there was unbelievable. Beams that were standing in the subway below the site were once part of the seventy-first floor of the World Trade Center. You would find a hand, a finger, or a foot and wonder if they belonged to a person whose picture you saw on a poster or somebody whose grieving family you met at a memorial. The anger, the helplessness, the devastation. So much in life seems insignificant now.”
Later, as we clung to each other, he said, “Let’s run away, Britt. Escape to one of the islands, maybe St. Thomas or Tortola. Just fly in for a few days. Get away from it all.”
“When?” I stretched sleepily.
“I wish we could go now. But we’re working on next year’s budget.”
“And I have this story,” I said. “Let’s do it as soon as your budget and my story are a wrap. We’ll flee like fugitives. Travel light. No phones, no beepers, no deadlines.”
“You and me, alone,” he said.
“It sounds like heaven,” I said wistfully.
We slept tangled in each other’s arms.
He left at dawn to feed his own dog, a hound named Hooker, and prepare for another early budget meeting.
I luxuriated in bed, praying it wasn’t all a dream. Eventually I stirred, showered, and dressed, loving the fact that life for me was about to change forever.
At the gallery in South Beach, a sturdy crew of workmen with heavy equipment was tackling the monumental task of installing Sunny’s sculptures.
Sunny and the gallery owner, a middle-aged woman with platinum hair, black garments, and a tiny teacup of a dog that she wore like an accessory, were supervising placement of the pieces. Nazario was already there.
I felt giddy, my heart light. Everything looked and felt different. Love lifts you up. I even convinced myself that Ryan’s diagnosis had to be a mistake. A snafu in the lab or a bad joke. Who could be sick on a day so full of Miami’s glorious light?
Sunny looked serious. Stressed about the show, I assumed. I was wrong.
“Somebody vandalized the rental truck,” she said quietly, as soon as Nazario moved out of earshot. “We used it to move the smaller pieces yesterday. I parked it at the loading dock outside the dining room.” She lowered her voice even more. “I sleep in there, Britt. I’m only half deaf and a light sleeper, but I didn’t hear a thing.”
“What happened?” I asked, thinking of her brother, Tyler. “Were the tires flattened?”
“Slashed to ribbons, all of them. Smashed all the windows with a pipe or something and cut into every surface with something sharp. I don’t know why I didn’t hear anything. I had to rent another truck this morning.”
“You called the police?”
“I had no choice,” she murmured. “The rental company required a police report for insurance purposes.”
“Did they mention any similar cases last night? Teens on a rampage?”
She shook her head. “Not that they knew about.”
“What did Nazario think?”
“He didn’t. I handled it.”
“You didn’t tell him? Why not? He can help.”
“Britt, I don’t want that kind of relationship. I don’t want him to see me as a woman in distress, somebody who needs to be rescued.”
“Oh, swell,” I said, exasperated. The woman was serious. “Sunny, we all need rescuing sometime.”
She shook her head as Nazario reappeared with Cuban coffee for us and the crew.
When his cell phone rang a short time later, she was out on the sidewalk supervising the unloading of a large piece.
“Stone did it!” he told me, jubilant. “He found the gun! The mechanic’s assistant gave it up. And it’s the one! The serial numbers are right. We’ve got it! We’ve got it!”
“Cool,” I said. “I’ll try to talk to the witness. I wonder what Sunny will say?”
He shook his head. “I’m not telling her. Don’t want to distract her now. This,” he said, gesturing around the gallery, “is too important to her.”
These two could be candidates for a daytime soap opera, I thought. Passion, dark secrets, and hangups from the past, with neither party confiding in the other.
The workmen lugged the huge piece inside, wrappings falling away as they positioned it in its designated spot. The sculpture was striking. Unlike most of Sunny’s other work, which was graceful and romantic, these figures were fierce, almost threatening. Drawn to it, I watched the workmen clear the debris from around the base, then caught my breath.
My jaw must have dropped because the gallery owner materialized next to me, still cradling the tiny dog under her arm.
“Impressive, isn’t it?” she said. “The moment I saw the slide, I knew we had to have it. It’s an earlier work that Sunny wasn’t particularly keen on exhibiting. Actually, it’s reminiscent of the early Etruscans. Quite religious, but a pessimistic crowd. They believed that demon armies constantly menace the souls of the dead.”
“And these would be the demons?” I asked, gazing at the chiseled figures forever captured and trapped in stone.
“Well, you wouldn’t want to run into these fellows in a dark alley. Clearly this was influenced by the artist’s studies in Italy,” she said cheerfully, before flitting off to confer with the caterer.
I tugged at Sunny’s sleeve. “The men in this piece. Who are they?”
She looked up at them, her blue eyes unflinching. “No one in particular. I rarely use models. I made them up.” She shrugged and hurried off
to examine the catalogs just delivered from the printer.
Had real-life nightmares haunting Sunny’s subconscious emerged in her work? Chills rippled down my arms as I stepped closer. The leader in the tortured sculpture had raised, grape-like scars extending from his throat down to his private parts. The profile of another was a relatively good likeness of Mad Dog. Two were less recognizable, but the remaining figure, the largest, stood out in excellent detail. I knew that face. The fifth suspect? He had to be the one.
18
I found him at an inner-city church where clothes are collected for the poor and the homeless fed. Pleased to see me, he was ready, as always, to pontificate for print.
“You never mentioned that you grew up with Andre Coney,” I said.
The Reverend Earl Wright removed the cigar from his mouth, licked his lips, and frowned. He wore a clerical collar and highly polished shoes with his well-cut suit.
“It wasn’t relevant.” His eyes darted to a trio of elderly volunteers sorting bags of donated clothing nearby. “I would speak out as strongly against the unjust death of any brother.”
“You and Coney, Mad Dog, his cousin Stony, and Cubby Wells—you were running mates in those days.”
“We were all young once. Hadn’t seen Andre in years. Wish he’d come to me for help,” he said piously. “I could have set him right with God Almighty and with himself.”
“You remember the Christmas Eve rape and murder,” I said quietly.
A dangerous light flickered in his eyes. He consulted his gold watch.
“If there’s nothing else I can help you with, the Lord’s work is always waiting to be done.”
“Why not set things right for yourself with God by confessing the truth?”
He reacted, as though slapped. “You are wrong! I hope you are only misguided,” he said softly, “but I warn you, you’re treading on dangerous ground.”
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