Miami, It's Murder

by Edna Buchanan

  “By the way,” she called, as I stalked away. “It is important to remember that when you are out in public you represent this newspaper.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’m glad to see you taking more pains with your appearance.” She eyed my outfit and nodded smugly. “Very nice.”

  Jesus! I thought.

  I immediately went over her head, knowing she’d hate me for it and I’d pay later. Fred Douglas happened to be in his office, unusual for a Saturday.

  “She’s got a point,” he said without conviction, evading my eyes. Loyal to the core, he backs up his people. But he is also fair and reasonable.

  “Not in this instance,” I said coolly. “Of course we’re not working for them. But catching this rapist is a community effort, and part of the story is that the police have installed a special hot line.” I avoided mentioning that it had been set up solely in anticipation of the story.

  Fred busily rearranged the papers on his desk. He looked noncommittal.

  “The story says help is needed to identify the rapist, then describes him,” I went on. “Without the number, how on earth will a reader with a tip find the right cop to give it to? There are twenty-seven police departments and six thousand cops in Dade County. You know what will happen. All the readers who want to help will call us instead of them.” I turned to gaze meaningfully at Gloria, the city-desk clerk, talking innocently on the telephone, two lines blinking on hold. “We’ll need a few other people to help Gloria answer phones. Hundreds of calls will come in for days. A lot of them will write, we may need to add somebody in the mail room—”

  “Okay, okay, Britt,” he said, trying to sound impatient as he raised both hands in surrender. “I get the point. No need for overkill.” I returned to my desk and acted busy, pretending not to notice as he went to the city desk and told them the number should go back into the story for the final.

  I couldn’t wait to get to the office Sunday. The cops had more than eighty calls by 11 A.M. We would get the spillover, people who don’t talk to the police, who prefer a reporter, or who found the hot line busy. I already had a stack of messages, and my phone was ringing when I arrived. I crossed my fingers and snatched it up.

  The caller sounded middle-aged and dead serious. She was sure she had seen the rapist. I opened a fresh notebook, pencil poised.

  “A month ago,” she said breathlessly, her voice dropping. “I don’t want you to use my name, of course.”

  “Where was this, what happened?” I asked, taking notes.

  “On I-Ninety-Five. I was driving north, to the Sawgrass Mills Mall. His car pulled up in the lane next to me. The way he looked at me, I’ll never forget it. When I read the story this morning I knew it had to be the same man.”

  “What else did he do?”

  “Uh, nothing. I took the exit and he kept going.”

  “All right. What kind of car was he driving?”

  “It wasn’t new, it wasn’t old. It could have been Japanese or German, but I’m not sure.”

  “Did you get a tag number?”

  “No.” She sounded slightly irritated at my foolish question. “I was busy driving. I called you instead of that police number. I didn’t want them coming out to my house for my neighbors to see or anything, but I’m sure it was him. I’ll never forget the look on his face.”

  “Thanks for calling.”

  “I thought it was the right thing to do,” she said.

  At least she wasn’t tying up the hot line and making the police hate me, I thought. I shuffled hopefully through the messages, skipping optimistically to one that read Woman says she knows how to catch the Downtown Rapist.

  The elderly voice who answered quavered slightly but sounded sincere. “I’m so glad you returned my call,” she said eagerly. “There was a case just like this one a few years ago, on Columbo, or maybe it was Kojak. They solved it and caught the man, I just don’t remember exactly how. But if you contact the network and get them to show you a copy of that episode, the police could see how they did it.”

  “Columbo, or maybe Kojak,” I repeated, eyes closed.

  “Or was it Perry Mason?” she said slowly. “Wait, no, I think it was probably Kojak, on CBS, or maybe it was NBC. I remember it distinctly. Did you get that?”

  “Yes, thank you very much.”

  “Glad to help.”

  The next woman divulged the name of the man she said was the rapist and the address where police could pick him up at that very moment if they hurried. He was her former son-in-law, who incidentally had not made his court-ordered child support payments since the fall of 1991, though he had money enough to buy a new red TransAm and live in a fancy apartment. He was of Polish extraction, born in Detroit, and looked nothing like the composite.

  I didn’t know whether to put down my pencil or jam the point into my jugular. I hoped the readers calling the cops had more substantial clues.

  To my relief, a story tore me from the telephone. The police had found something in the water off the Venetian Causeway.

  Police divers often plumb the waters around bridges for weapons deep-sixed by fleeing felons. They find lots of tin cans, junk, and old tools. This was something bigger, spotted with the naked eye by the captain of a passing tour boat: a car submerged in forty feet of water just off the causeway.

  A broad-shouldered blond man in an immaculate white uniform stood apart from the tight circle of cops, firemen, and divers. He was impossible not to notice.

  “You Coast Guard?” I asked, picking my way over coral rock and brushy outgrowths.

  He shook his head, flashing a killer smile. “I’m Curt Norske, captain of the Sea Dancer.”

  “I remember your dad,” I said, with a surge of memory. His father, a Miami pioneer, was city manager years ago. Well respected and forward-thinking, he had retired before I joined the paper and died several years later. The Sea Dancer, berthed at Bayside, cruised Biscayne Bay and the residential islands on sightseeing tours several times a day. I introduced myself.

  “So you’re the one who writes those stories. I read all your stuff. You’re good. Had no idea you were so young and photogenic. Why aren’t you on TV?”

  “Because I write for the newspaper.” Was he putting me on? He sounded serious and had a gorgeous smile. Of course, this man was trained to charm tourists.

  “Captain Norske—”

  “Call me Curt.” His hazel eyes, flecked with gold, remained focused on me, despite the sounds of passing traffic and the shouts of the cops, the divers, and the wrecker driver, who was backing his truck up to the water’s edge.

  The connection and the energy it generated between us stirred something so basic that I automatically reminded myself to stay professional. “Curt, did you spot the car, or was it a passenger?”

  “It was me,” he said. “I take her through the drawbridge here at least twice a day. Never noticed a thing. Today, the light was just right, the water super clear—and the wreck may have moved, shifted on the bottom, probably during that bad thunderstorm Friday night.”

  I remembered it. Bitsy and Billy Boots had been huddled together under the bed when I burst in, drenched and windblown after the short dash from the car.

  “Had a Japanese tour group aboard, so I dropped a buoy to mark the spot, took the tourists back to the dock, reported it, and drove back over here to show the cops the right place.”

  A diver in a wet suit emerged, saying that the car was overturned, its roof crushed. There didn’t seem to be anyone inside.

  This car, savaged by saltwater corrosion, had obviously been there for a long time. Scores of stolen and abandoned automobiles are reclaimed from the depths of greater Miami’s hundreds of miles of waterways every year. Divers had attached a line to this one and were ready to bring it out.

  “Better move back a little,” Curt warned. “You don’t want to be too close in case that cable snaps.” He touched my back, guiding me to a safer
vantage point, an odd sensation. The most attention I usually get at a scene is cops and firemen cursing and yelling at me to move back.

  Yanked by the wrecker from the floor of Biscayne Bay, the rusted hulk emerged, oozing mud and water. It came to rest on dry land for the first time since being abandoned by some thief or insurance-hungry owner. “Looks like a Chevy Malibu!” a policeman yelled.

  The tag was bent, oxidized, and coated with silt. The diver bent to study the plate, rubbing off some gunk with his hand. An older, heavyset cop in uniform yanked open the driver’s door to look for identification. “It’s an ’eighty-seven Florida tag,” the diver said.

  “Christ!” The cop jumped back from the car as though startled by something terrible. He had been. What looked like a piece of cloth was still tangled in the fastened seat belt. The driver. He had obviously been there for years.

  The older cop stepped our way. He had his hand on his chest. “Jesus,” he said, “I didn’t expect that. Looks like somebody’s been missing a long time.”

  Curt and I watched solemnly. Covered with barnacles and sea growth, the still-dripping hulk sat on the bank of the bay surrounded by uniforms and detectives. The missing man’s wallet was still inside what remained of his trousers. “We’re gonna have to let it dry out before we try to find any ID in it,” the cop said. No sign of foul play. A simple accident. The car had been buffeted about on the bottom by storms and strong tides. They were lucky to have found it.

  A family is spending this Sunday afternoon somewhere, I thought, unaware that a missing loved one is about to come home.

  I asked the cop handling the report where he’d be and arranged to call him later.

  “You’re not leaving?” Curt said.

  I nodded. “Back to the office.”

  “I was hoping you’d come over to Bayside for the afternoon tour on the Dancer. No charge. You ever take one of our cruises?”

  I smiled. “No, that’s something the tourists do. Just like native New Yorkers never visit the Statue of Liberty. Only newcomers take the tours, the rest of us are too busy making a living.”

  He stared down at me. “Did you say you’re a native, Britt?”

  “Born here.” I nodded. “So was my mom.”

  “Mine too. Wonder why it took so long for us to meet? It’s about time. Realize how rare we are? Nobody was born in Miami, at least almost nobody. Come aboard the Dancer this afternoon. I’ll show you our home town like you’ve never seen it.”

  I smiled. “I can’t today, but maybe another time—”

  “You’ll love it; it’s relaxing away from the murder and mayhem. You can have a drink. We have a bar aboard.”

  The man was persuasive. I considered his motives.

  “I won’t write a story about it,” I warned. “No free publicity. Unless, of course, the boat sinks and dumps a load of screaming tourists in the bay, or the passengers riot and start throwing each other over the side, or they all evacuate except the captain, who goes down with the—”

  “I catch your drift.” He grinned. “I know the stories you write. Think I’d invite somebody like you for publicity? I don’t ever want you to write about me or my business.”

  We both laughed, our eyes connecting again with a certain sizzle.

  “I just want to see you,” he said.

  I didn’t notice the Jeep Cherokee pull up and stop on the bridge. Great timing for Kendall McDonald to walk back into my life.

  “Britt!” The familiar voice took me by surprise.

  “I didn’t think lieutenants worked on weekends,” I said inanely, struggling with the sense of confusion his presence always elicited.

  “I’m off, but I was in the area, heard it on the air, and came by.” Lean, long-legged, and as attractive as ever, he wore an open-necked shirt and chinos. Buenísimo. He studied Curt curiously.

  “They found the remains of the driver,” I babbled. “It’s apparently been there for years.”

  “That’s what I hear. You the one who spotted it?” he said to Curt.

  They exchanged names and shook hands like old friends. As Curt explained again how he had sighted the car, another police cruiser wheeled off the road to join the scene. “Careful,” he murmured, taking my arm as if I was some breakable china doll. McDonald’s eyes flickered, noting the gesture.

  “We were just leaving,” Curt told him.

  McDonald turned and barked irritably at the heavyset cop who was trying to read the vehicle identification number off the rusted car.

  “Valenti, why isn’t this scene roped off?”

  “Well—uh, we just recovered the vehicle,” the startled cop said. “Appears to be an accident.”

  “Cordon it off,” McDonald said brusquely, his electric blue eyes snapping, as though irate at the hopeless incompetence surrounding him. Why this sudden fixation with yellow crime-scene tape? I wondered.

  His attention returned to us.

  “We appreciate it if witnesses speak to a detective before talking to the press,” he said coolly. He motioned with his hand-held radio, directing Curt over to the marked patrol car.

  “What?” I yelped indignantly. “All he did was spot the shadow of a car underwater. He’s no witness. It’s an old accident.”

  “You know better, Britt,” he said, turning to me, “than to talk to the witnesses before we do.”

  “No, I don’t,” I muttered. I was surprised by his attitude. Our encounters at the station and at crime scenes since our breakup had been all business, but civil and polite.

  “We were having a private conversation here,” Curt said. His friendly demeanor was fading. “Come on, Britt, I’ll walk you to your car. Then I have to get back to Bayside.”

  “I asked you to wait over there,” McDonald said.

  Both men seemed to swell, sizing each other up as if in some primal testosterone-fueled territorial dispute.

  The tension was obvious and the cops, firemen, divers, and wrecker crew all paused to watch.

  “I have all the respect in the world for the police,” Curt said pleasantly. “Help ’em out every chance I get. But I’m due back to work right now. Officer Valenti there has my name and all the information he needs. Call me if you need me, detective.”

  “That’s lieutenant,” McDonald corrected, whipping out his business card.

  Curt studied it blandly. “Here, have one of mine.” He smiled and presented a gold-embossed card to McDonald. “That’s captain. Captain Curt Norske.” I bit my lip, admiring the gleam in his eye.

  We strolled toward my T-Bird, leaving McDonald scowling at Curt’s card. Then he wheeled and began berating Officer Valenti, who didn’t deserve it.

  We said nothing until I unlocked my car.

  “What’s wrong with that guy?” Curt muttered under his breath. “Did he forget that cops are supposed to protect and serve, not hassle and pester?”

  I laughed. “He’s not always that bad.”

  “Now, about your phone number…” He paused, expectantly.

  I hesitated. I am a professional, and I was on the job. “You can always reach me at the paper,” I said, digging in my pocket for my card.

  “Here’s my number, any time.”

  Taking a gold pen from his breast pocket, he scrawled across his card and watched me read it.

  “Sure you can’t come cruising this afternoon?”

  “I have to go back to the office.” I slid into the car and started the engine. “But I really would like to, one of these days, captain. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do.”

  “Deal. I’ll be waiting.” He turned and strode back to his car, a white Eldorado convertible.

  Kendall McDonald looked my way as I pulled out. I hit the gas a shade too hard, and my tires spit up a cloud of dust and gravel along the side of the road.

  For the first time I felt more anger than sense of loss after seeing him. He had dumped me in order to make lieutenant. How dare he act
so snotty and officious? I liked the cool way Curt had handled him. I smiled to myself, then settled back into reality: the Downtown Rapist, messages stacking up on my desk, and a long-dead driver in a rusted waterlogged car.

  Less than an hour later, one mystery was solved by a phone call from my favorite tipster. “Had a hell of a time getting through, Britt,” Dan said. “Got a hot story for you.”

  I love it when somebody says that to me. I know it’s crazy, but nothing turns me on more than stories. No wonder my mother despairs of having grandchildren.

  “Hear about the car they fished outa the water off the Venetian today?”

  “Yes, I already know about it.” I riffled through a stack of messages. “I was there.”

  “Yeah, but do you know who that was behind the wheel?”

  “Who?” I put down the messages and picked up a pen. “You know who it was?”

  “The news on the radio said the driver was still strapped into a Chevy Malibu with ’eighty-seven tags.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Paul Eldridge, an old missing persons case of mine. Disappeared in the spring of ’eighty-seven, driving his ’85 blue Malibu from Miami Beach to Miami.”

  “Wow!” I said. “Right time, right place. Sure sounds like ’im.”

  “There are dental records they can match up, if there’s enough left,” he said.

  “The entire jaw was there,” I told him.

  Eldridge, Dan said, had attended a bachelor party for a buddy that night, a co-worker about to be married. A dozen friends did a little drinking and a lot of joking as they watched a strip show at a club on the Beach. At 2 A.M. Eldridge climbed into his car and drove off into a light rain, evaporating like the mists rising off the city’s wet and steamy pavement.

  His family—wife, parents, and in-laws—had reported him missing at once. They had hired private detectives, passed out flyers, offered rewards, and called the police every day for months. He reappeared in their fantasies, suffering from amnesia. In reality, he missed his friend’s wedding, his baby girl’s first tooth, Christmas, his own wedding anniversary. In their hearts his loved ones had come to know they would never see him again. They always insisted that he must have met with an accident or foul play. After years passed without a trace, when his bank accounts and credit cards remained unused, Dan, a bit dubious at first, had tended to agree.