McDonald showed up and we gravitated across the crowded room to each other like heat-seeking missiles. If the other detectives were surprised to see us together in a social setting, they didn’t show it. The enthusiastic crowd eventually dwindled, departing for dinner or local nightspots. Sunny’s mother hugged her goodbye, their two blond heads close together.
“I’m sure you want to spend time with your friends tonight,” I heard her say. “And Daddy has an early surgery.”
I glanced around as they left, but Burch was gone.
The glowing gallery operator pronounced the evening “an absolute triumph, a huge success!” To celebrate, six of us—Nazario and Sunny, McDonald and me, and Lottie with a Vanity Fair magazine writer she met at the opening—repaired to the nearby South Beach club where Sunny’s neighbor, Jimmy, played in the band.
Sunny actually got a drum roll on arrival. Excited and elated, she was more talkative than I’d seen before. “It was good to see Craig Burch again,” she said, sipping more champagne. “He’s aged. I almost didn’t recognize him.”
“I think he has a crush on your mother,” I said. “Did you see how he looked at her tonight?”
“Old news,” she murmured. “It’s mutual. My parents used to fight about it. I even fantasized about her dumping my father and Craig Burch being my stepdad someday. I think she did, too. But she never had the guts.”
“Wow. She actually considered divorce?”
She nodded. “She even left once, but dad got her back. He’s a control freak, a manipulator. He controls her, controls Tyler; he’d control me if I let him. That’s one reason I escaped to Italy and then never moved back home. He never liked any of my friends or any choice I made. He didn’t even like poor Ricky, whom everybody really loved. He was such a neat kid.”
Nazario took her to the dance floor. Her arms around his neck, slow dancing, they were oblivious when McDonald whispered something that made my pupils dilate and took my hand, and we left.
“Won’t it be nice,” he said, buttoning his shirt before dawn, “when I don’t have to leave, because when we wake up together, we’ll be home.”
“Our home.” I smiled and nodded back to sleep. The dream overtook my bliss like a horror movie scenario. Terrified people fleeing a deadly dark cloud of smoke and debris from a collapsing tower. Hellish blackness accelerating behind them as they ran for their lives. Then that face in the crowd. The young woman who walked as others ran. More and more slowly as screaming people streamed around her, until they were gone. And the blackness was no longer smoke, but a towering dark and angry sea. Alone, hair whipping in the fierce wind, she stopped to turn, about to embrace the evil gaining on her. Run! Run! I tried to scream. She haunted me still. But in this dream the woman who walked into the dark sea was Sunny.
19
Too much champagne, I thought, my visions of disaster now accompanied by a throbbing headache. I pulled on shorts and a T-shirt and jogged to the boardwalk. Running on the boards bounced my brain against my aching skull, so I ran beside the sea instead, on hard-packed sand at surf’s edge. Laughing seagulls gliding overhead, the dramatic pink and gold morning sky, and a lilting breeze off the water all lifted my spirits as I bobbed and weaved to thwart the incoming waves in foamy pursuit of my running shoes. I stopped to snatch up a shiny shell tumbling in the surf. A perfect cowrie, speckled and exotic. My Aunt Odalys used them to divine the future. I thought of calling her but dismissed the idea. I knew my future. Sighing with happiness, I yearned to immerse myself in the warm salt water. Mornings like this recharged the batteries of my soul. I wished McDonald were there to share it.
I showered and then scanned the morning paper over coffee. In a follow-up to his story on the state’s early-prison-release program, Janowitz had listed the names, crimes, and original sentences of released convicts from Miami.
I spotted Edgar’s name, Onnie’s husband, along with a few others I recognized, then gasped aloud. Ronald Stokes. Mad Dog. Free! He must have known when I was there. That accounted for his smug, arrogant attitude.
I lunged for the phone, hit star 67 to keep my name and number off her caller ID, and asked for Shelby when a man answered.
“She’s not here,” he said gruffly, children crying in the background.
“When do you expect her?”
“Who wants to know?”
“Alice Courtney. I’m a guidance counselor at Banyan Elementary,” I lied.
“Don’t know where she’s at,” he said, and hung up abruptly.
I dialed the squad. Stone answered.
“Did you hear?” I said.
“Yeah,” he said grimly. “Got a copy of the report this morning.”
“What report? You mean the story in the newspaper?”
“Let’s start over,” he said patiently. “You first. Tell me what you’re talking about, then I’ll tell you what I’m talking about.”
“Mad Dog got early release. He’s out! Probably here in Miami, God knows where. The last thing he said to me was to tell Sunny he’d see her again, soon.”
“Why do you think we were all there last night? The art world isn’t exactly our milieu.”
“You knew? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Excuse me. Who said we had to brief you on everything? We’re actively looking for him, to have a chat. Keep missing him by minutes. Helluva thing, they’re all scot free, with no supervision, no control, no nothing.”
“Did Sunny know that’s why you were all there?”
“No. She doesn’t want protection, thinks she has nothing to fear because she’s not working with us. Maybe she’s right.”
“Now,” I said. “Your turn. What were you talking about?”
“Shelby Fountain, Mad Dog’s sister. She’s missing.”
“Missing?”
“Walked to church for choir practice night before last. Hasn’t been seen since, her husband says. When she didn’t come home, he found out she never showed at the church. Filed the report last night. Missing Persons copies them to Homicide. I saw it this morning.”
Dread curdled the coffee in my stomach. “That was only a few hours after I talked to her. She had to get off the phone in a hurry. She’d never leave her kids without a damn good reason,” I said, truly alarmed. “You think her own brother would hurt her? Or Reverend Wright?”
“Not a clue. Let me know ASAP if you hear from her,” he said.
While I’d been happily drinking champagne at Sunny’s reception, Shelby was alone in the dark somewhere, like that scared little girl so many years ago.
I checked the office for messages. Two from Abby Wells.
“My husband’s been very upset, because you keep leaving messages,” she said.
“Has Cubby heard from Mad Dog?” I asked.
She hesitated. “I think Charles has been talking to him.”
“And what about his sister, Shelby?”
“I think I met her at the funeral home,” she said.
“That’s her,” I said. “She’s missing. Disappeared the night before last, on her way to church. She has children.”
“That’s terrible, she seemed so nice. What could have happened to her?”
“Maybe Cubby has a clue.”
“I doubt that. He’s been upset. Two detectives came up here to talk to him. He hasn’t gone to work since. What’s going on?”
“Do you know what he told the detectives?”
“The same thing he told you. He didn’t—they didn’t—kill or rape anybody. He finally refused to speak with them anymore. My God, this is all so horrible! He drove down to Miami to talk to his old friends and came back even more upset.”
“What about the Reverend Wright?”
“He’s been calling as well. Was with them the other day. What’s going on?” she pleaded.
“You love him, Abby. You’re the only one with his best interests at heart. It’s time to convince him to tell everything he knows.”
“He was so young then, Ms. Montero. I’m sure t
hat if anyone got hurt it wasn’t intended; he wouldn’t, he couldn’t have—”
“Somebody did.”
“I’ll talk to him. I promise.”
Lottie, Onnie, Janowitz, and I visited Ryan. The news was good: The doctors had balanced his medication and he felt better. Onnie had her restraining order and had pleaded with her former mother-in-law to intercede with Edgar. So far so good.
I left the hospital and drove toward home, listening to music, Kendall McDonald on my mind, telling myself that someday soon all would again be right with the world. A flock of night birds flew in a darkening sky, my spirit soaring with them.
Flashing red lights ahead, on the Boulevard, brought me back to Planet Earth with a thud. I killed the music and switched on my dashboard scanner. A minor accident, no serious injuries. Headed home, I locked in on the Beach frequency. The usual: a brawl spilling out of a South Beach club into the street, shoplifters on Lincoln Road, and a pedestrian hit on Collins Avenue. A hazardous-materials squad reported that it had identified the contents of a suspicious envelope reported by a jittery homeowner as a free soap-powder sample. The first officer at the scene of a 45, a dead body, came on the air excited, to change the signal to a 31, a homicide. The address, an old hotel in North Beach.
I took my foot off the gas reflexively and swerved north, my mind racing.
The twenty-minute drive took ten, while garbled radio transmissions confirmed my worst fears. Homicide was en route. One victim: an apparent tenant in the building. No next of kin was present.
Three patrol cars and a growing knot of curious neighbors and passersby out front. I abandoned the T-Bird in a loading zone and ran into the building.
The door to Sunny’s apartment stood wide open. A young police officer stopped me.
“Hey, Britt, you can’t go in there.”
I turned to argue and saw the corpse on the stairs.
20
“Where’s Sunny?” I gasped.
Jimmy, the sax player, lay sprawled on the stairs faceup. Blood leaked from a hole in his chest. It ran down his outflung arm, dripped off the edge of the open banister, and splashed in huge drops onto the faded lobby carpet.
Sunny sat hunched in a chair in her studio. A patrolman bent over her, barking questions into her bad ear. There was blood on her blouse.
“Is she all right?” I asked.
“Outside, you have to wait for PIO.” The cop gestured impatiently toward the street.
“No, I want her here,” Sunny said, raising her head.
The cop paused, then nodded.
I held her hand as she answered him, numb and dry-eyed, hesitating from time to time, eyes focused on nothing. Was she reliving that long-ago night, the young cop who took notes? She’d been working, she said. Heard the saxophone earlier. Didn’t notice exactly when it stopped, but at some point thought she heard someone at her door. She called out, asked who was there. No answer. Moments later, she thought she heard a door slam. From her studio windows she saw a car accelerate and drive off at a high rate of speed. She couldn’t see the make, model, or color through the picture window in the dark but did note that it was missing a taillight. She called upstairs to ask Jimmy if he’d heard anything. He didn’t answer then, or a short time later when she tried again. She decided to check, stepped out into the lobby, key in hand, and saw him. She ran up the stairs. A bloody, frothy foam bubbled from his mouth. She couldn’t find a pulse.
I stayed while she answered the same questions and more from the homicide detective.
Jimmy had mentioned a sister in Chicago. She knew of no other relatives or any enemies. He wasn’t into drugs, though he might have smoked marijuana. He was not a heavy drinker or gambler. Did not appear to have many girlfriends, in fact was awkward with women. No, she didn’t think he was gay. He did not flash money or jewelry. He was basically a quiet and mellow man who loved to play music.
“I’m so glad you were here,” she told me later, head on my shoulder. “It’s all…you remind me so much of Kathy. You’re like her.”
“Kathy?”
“The policewoman who stayed with me after Ricky was killed.” She wiped her eyes. “Kathleen Riley.”
“Oh. Right.” I should have realized, I thought. “She’s still trying to protect you, Sunny.”
Nazario filled the doorway moments later, out of breath, hair disheveled, face stricken.
“¡Dios mio! Why did you not call me?”
He conferred privately with the Beach detective and then told Sunny to pack a bag.
He insisted on taking her to her parents, to a hotel, to his place, to my place, anywhere she wanted to go.
She refused. “My things, my work. I can’t pack it up and take it with me. I can’t let fear run my life.”
Nazario worked the radio, issuing a BOLO—Be on the Lookout—for Mad Dog, his cousin Stony, Cubby Wells, and the Reverend Wright to be stopped and brought in for questioning only.
The streets would be unpleasant tonight for anybody with a busted taillight.
Sunny and I drank herbal tea as she cried for her good neighbor: his talent, his kindness, his friendship.
When I left, Nazario and the Miami Beach detective were taking an increasingly exasperated Sunny through a painstakingly precise minute-by-minute reconstruction of her movements during the past two weeks. I shared her exasperation. How, I wondered, would that help? Sunny wasn’t a suspect. Why weren’t they out on the street instead, beating the bushes, finding the bad guys?
The lobby crime scene was still roped off. Jimmy’s body still sprawled on the stairs, now covered by a plastic sheet. One of his flip-flops had flown off when he fell back. I stood there for a moment, then made the sign of the cross for a man who awoke that day unaware he was about to become a case number.
It was already midnight. In the rush of my arrival, I’d left my cell phone in the car. I’d only driven a block before it rang.
“Britt!” She sounded nearly hysterical. “I’ve been trying to call you for hours!”
“Shelby! Is that you? Where are you?”
“A Denny’s on Thirty-sixth Street.” She sounded near tears. “I can’t go home. I need to talk to that policeman. Right now!”
“Okay! Okay! Stay there.”
“No. It’s too bright. All lit up. Somebody will see me.”
“Where?”
“I’ll walk over to Miami Avenue. By those old apartment houses. Remember the one that burnt, across from the liquor store? I’ll watch for your car. Is Stone coming?”
“I’ll call him,” I said. “Be careful. I’m on the way.”
When Stone answered the beep and said he’d be there in ten minutes, I was already speeding west on the causeway.
As I crossed the Boulevard headed for the avenue, a police cruiser passed me doing at least seventy, sirens and lights flashing. Did Stone overreact and dispatch a patrol car? No, I thought. He was too cool for that. Two more speeding patrol cars raced after the first. A fire rescue unit in full emergency mode barreled along Northeast Second Avenue, air horn and sirens sounding. It lumbered through the red light and turned west, hogging the road. We were all headed in the same direction.
What was the big emergency? All the noise will surely spook Shelby, I thought, annoyed. The woman wanted to remain low-profile, have a secret meeting. The chorus of oncoming sirens around me could wake the dead. I prayed she wouldn’t panic, run, and get lost again. I cursed impatiently under my breath, willing them to veer off, to go to their emergency.
They didn’t.
My next reaction was a sick sinking feeling. My destination and theirs were the same.
The liquor store’s shattered plate-glass window looked as though it had exploded. A middle-aged man moaned, rocking back and forth amid broken glass shards on the sidewalk, clutching his bloodied ankle with both hands.
A paramedic jumped off the rescue truck and ran to another form in the street nearby. He took her pulse, then got to his feet. His body language sai
d there was none.
I ventured close enough to see the silver cross on a chain around her neck, then walked away, nauseated and trembling.
“Is that her?” Stone asked, from behind me.
He must have arrived before I did. He held his radio.
“Yes,” I whispered. “That’s Shelby.” I clutched at his arm, my heart constricted. “Have them do something! They’re not even working on her! They didn’t even try! They can bring her back! They bring back people with no pulse all the time.”
“The back of her skull is missing, Britt.” His jaw tightened. “She’s DRT: dead right there.” Turning away, he spoke into his radio. “We’ve got a guy who took one in the ankle, and a kid around the corner who got one in the gut.”
I stopped breathing. “A kid?”
“Teenager,” he said. “Looks like a local gangbanger.”
“Probably a drive-by,” a young officer in uniform said. “We got us a little turf war in progress on the east side.” He studied me, puzzled. “How’d the press get here so fast?”
Too late to file a story tonight. The paper had gone to bed. Not even TV had come out to this scene. Uniforms appeared convinced this was another drive-by shooting, the wounded teenager the intended target and the others innocent victims caught in the crossfire. The teen, en route to surgery, refused to talk to police.
The liquor store had just closed for the night, the manager said. As he locked up, his storefront exploded and he went down, hit in the ankle. He saw very little but thought all the gunfire came from one car. A second vehicle may have been involved, he wasn’t sure. The man had worked a twelve-hour shift. He’d been tired and hungry. Now he was in pain. He didn’t know Shelby, had never seen her before.
Stone followed me as I left.
“Bad night,” he said, leaning in my car window.
I nodded numbly.
“Looks like somebody made a try at Sunny tonight,” he said, “but her neighbor interfered and bought it instead. Now we’ve lost our witness. Both were threats to our suspects. You might be considered one as well. Be careful until we round up all the players.”
The Ice Maiden Page 21