Miami, It's Murder

by Edna Buchanan

  “It would be easier,” I said, deadpan, “if you just adopted me.”

  Despite his smoking, drinking, and eating habits and the jacket that was now two sizes too big, Dan’s body language belied his physical condition. He still looked sound as I watched him cross the parking lot to his car, his tread steady and determined.

  He waved and I felt comforted. His spirit was still strong.

  It had been a long week. After leaving Dan, I went to the Spa, worked out on the Nautilus machines, and repeated body sculpture exercises with five-pound hand weights until I ached. Then I took to the beach and swam, arching my back, floating face up, cooling off, drifting and drinking in the pink skyline, the art deco hotels in ice-cream colors with their rounded corners, spires, parapets, and porthole windows, framed by sparkling shades of turquoise and green. No sharp edges are visible from out beyond the breakers, surrounded only by clouds and water. The city glowed softly, like a magic place in a fairy tale.

  My plan was to stay home, read, and retire early. Instead, edgy and restless, I called Lottie, who was still at work. She would be home by seven, she said, early for her. Taking Bitsy with me, I stopped at La Esquina for takeout, then drove to Lottie’s place. I left the food in the car and we walked, exploring the neighborhood while waiting. Lottie showed up only twenty-five minutes late, surprisingly prompt for a newspaper employee. It’s impossible to escape a newsroom on time. I met her there in the lavender twilight with the package of savory-smelling warm food.

  “Hey, girl, whatcha doing here?” she asked as she hauled her gear out of the car. “Ain’t this your night off? Where are all the men in your life?”

  “Same place as yours, I guess.”

  She let us in the front door. Lottie’s house is an experience, furnished and decorated with mementos collected during two decades of world travel as she captured dramatic and historic events on film, living on the road, out of a camera bag. She was always thinking ahead to the day she would decide to settle in one place and sink roots. I’m grateful that she chose Miami.

  She switched on the lights. She looked grimy and weary, and her freckled face was smudged.

  “You look like you had a hard day.”

  She put her things down and gave me a baleful look.

  “I’m fine,” she reassured me. “But you won’t believe what happened to me. I feel like I been shot at and missed, shit at and hit. Promise to post my bond? It will be necessary if I ever get my hands on that slimy little turd, Eduardo.”

  Her clothes looked like she’d been mud wrestling. “You got all messed up like this on one of his society shoots?”

  She shot me a steamy glare, still too irate to speak. Without comment I carried the food into her bright and cozy kitchen, opened the refrigerator, perused the contents, and poured her a glass of cold white wine.

  “Here,” I said. “Why don’t you drink this and take a shower while I warm up the food?”

  “Wow,” she said gratefully, “this must be what it’s like to have a house husband. That’s what we need, guys to pamper us and our stuff.” She sipped gratefully, closed her eyes for a long moment, then disappeared into the bathroom.

  I transferred the arroz con polio and plantains to her cookware, then zapped them in the microwave. By the time I set out her Wonder Woman place mats and her Fiesta dishes, she had emerged wearing a thin robe of Haitian cotton, barefoot, pink-faced, her copper-colored hair wet and a soft tawny towel draped over her shoulders.

  “Now,” I said, refilling her wineglass. “What did Eduardo do?”

  “It all started—” Her mouth was full of chicken. “Ummm, this is heaven.” The chicken oozed flavor, mingled with caramelized onions, roasted sweet peppers, and occasional green peas nestled in yellow saffron rice kissed by garlic and a taste of sherry. “Where’d you get this, La Esquina?”

  I nodded as she continued.

  “It all started with me shooting the ground-breaking of the Cleveland Indians’ new spring training stadium down in Homestead this morning.”

  “What was Eduardo doing—”

  “Wait.” She held up her hand and swallowed a sip of wine. “I was just getting started. Coming back I hear an emergency call, a possible suicide, on the scanner. Guess who?”

  “Dunno, I’ve been out of the loop today.” I bit into a crunchy circle of plantain and nearly swooned. I had no idea how hungry I was. “Who?”

  “Little Muffy, Dieter Steiner’s fiancée.”

  “Is she okay?”

  Lottie looked disgusted. “She’s about the only one. Despondent little rich girl says nobody loves her, she wants to die, and roars off in her expensive sports car. Her parents panic and call the cops, who spot and chase the car, trying to save her. She runs that gorgeous Jag into a ficus tree just off San Souci Boulevard. Two police cars, sirens whooping and wailing, speed to her rescue and collide with each other. The sight of two wrecked squad cars causes a chain reaction involving six other cars and a beer truck. Traffic jams both ways, for miles. When I leave my car on the shoulder to go shoot pictures, some French Canadian in a rental car, busy gawking at the mess, rear-ends it.”

  “Oh, no! I didn’t see any damage when you pulled up.”

  “It ain’t bad,” she said, with a dismissive gesture. “Just the rear bumper.”

  “Is Muffy all right?”

  “Good as ever. Got out of the car under her own power, complaining that the sirens startled her into hitting the tree.”

  “Bet they charged her, didn’t they?”

  “Buncha traffics, then took her off to County for a psychiatric evaluation. Probably sitting in some posh psychiatric hospital by now.” Lottie leaned back in her chair and reached again for her wineglass. “Then I get sent out to the Haitian demonstration.”

  “Didn’t know one was scheduled.”

  “Wasn’t, it was impromptu. Didn’t even have a permit. They was marching to protest the batch of boat people the government sent back this morning. Had to be ninety-eight degrees out there. I had to run to keep up with them for four or five blocks, lugging that forty-pound camera bag.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut, massaging her temples. “Got the damnedest headache.”

  “Stress,” I commiserated.

  “No, the smoke.”

  “What smoke?”

  “Didn’t get to that part yet. The Reverend Julian St. Pierre and his followers decided to burn the President in effigy at the new Haitian Refugee Center.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Yep, but the thang wouldn’t bum until one of ’em tossed gasoline on it.”

  “Oh, no.” I guessed what happened next.

  She nodded. “It got away from ’em. Two of ’em went to the burn center, and about a dozen went to jail. The fire trucks had trouble getting through because police had closed off the street to contain the demonstrators. By the time they arrived the roof was already involved and we had ourselves a three-alarmer. Lordy,” she said, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “Burning buildings always do something bad to my sinuses; my head’s been aching ever since.

  “I was filthy, sweaty and smelly, smoky and sooty. I walked in water. My feet and my good boots got soaked—”

  “Why didn’t you wear your fire boots? You had all your gear in the car, didn’t you?”

  “A-course, but it was five blocks away. I never expected them Haitians to set themselves and their own center afire. It all happened so fast, who the hell had time to run back to the car, for Jesus’ sake?”

  “But Eduardo?”

  “I’m getting to him,” she said peevishly. “I’m getting to that slick bastard. Had to lay the groundwork first. I’m back at the paper, busy as hell, my darkroom as backed up as a cheap toilet, when Gretchen calls.” We exchanged a meaningful glance at the dreaded name. “Eduardo needs me right away to shoot pictures at some society cocktail party for visiting Latin American dignitaries to kick off Hispanic Heritage Week.”

&n
bsp; “Why you?”

  “Villanueva was assigned but got stuck in traffic somewhere on another job. I got elected because I was dumb enough to pick up the phone in the darkroom. Gretchen and me, we get into it pretty good over the phone, but Eduardo is bitching and moaning on the other line that he needs a photographer right away.”

  “Did she see you?”

  “No.” Lottie looked puzzled at my question. “I was back in the darkroom.”

  “Good.”

  “This was a private cocktail party before a big black-tie event. And Britt, I don’t have to tell you how those people overdress. The women are all gussied up in long gowns. And there I am in the Embassy Room at the Intercontinental, dirty and sweaty, ashes and smoke in my hair, my feet soaking wet and sooty.”

  “Caramba. Oh, Lottie!”

  “I felt like Little Orphan Annie.”

  I couldn’t picture Lottie, five feet eight inches tall with unruly red hair, as Little Orphan Annie, but I nodded, making sympathetic noises.

  “What did you do?”

  “I sneaked in a side door and hid behind the areca palms, miserable, lurking back there trying to signal Eduardo, who’s all duded up in black tie, to steer the ambassador and the other fat cats whose pictures he wants in my direction so I can shoot them from behind there without showing myself.”

  I nodded, made sense.

  “But did Eduardo cooperate? Did he give me a break? Oh, no. He makes a big deal, giganto fuss, gets everybody’s attention, announces my presence, ignores the fact that I’m trying to whisper and hush him up. Then when he drags me out, insisting that I mingle and shoot candids, he suddenly sees—or smells—my clothes, backs off, and pretends not to know me, like I’m some homeless person. It was humiliating, Britt. I mean, I’m no complainer. I never mention that my arm has been numb for two years and that my neck is permanently stiff from lugging heavy camera equipment. He didn’t have to do that.”

  “I know, I know,” I soothed. “Women in this business have to be tougher. Eduardo could never handle the things you do.”

  “Damn straight. Look at you, Britt. You almost got killed in the last riot. A friend dies in your goddamn arms, and what did you do? Went back to the paper. Look at us. Cramps, PMS, whatever, we’re out there. We don’t blow deadlines, we don’t complain or ask for special treatment.”

  True. No excuses for a woman struggling to make it in a male-dominated profession.

  “Eduardo will pay,” I promised. “He’ll get his. Meanwhile, guess who I ran into?”

  She scrutinized me for a long moment through sly half-closed eyes. She reads me like a book. “Some man,” she said. “That cop. McDonald. He’s back!” She perked up, instantly interested.

  “Not exactly.” I told her what a jerk McDonald had made of himself.

  “So who was this new fella?”

  “The captain of the Sea Dancer.”

  “Curt Norske? Hot! Hot! Hot! That man is so hot, you have to stop, drop, and roll!”

  “You know him?”

  “Sure, shot his picture once, on some story. Nearly melted my camera lens. Some charity party on his boat. Big blond hunka burning love. Gorgeous smile.”

  “That’s him. Did he make a pass?”

  “Polite and friendly, but he sure didn’t invite me on no private cruise or ask for my number.”

  “It’s not a private cruise, just a free one. I couldn’t believe how McDonald acted.”

  “Sure showed his ass, didn’t he? He don’t want anybody else honeyfuggling around you. I knew it. I told you. He sees you with somebody else and gets as red hot as the doorknob to hell. Sure, he landed the job he wants, but it cost him. That badge ain’t gonna keep him warm on a cold night. Bet he’s on your answering machine already.” Her expression was hopeful.

  “Not too many cold nights in Miami.” I sighed, picking at my yellow rice. I shook my head. “It didn’t work then, Lottie. It wouldn’t work now.”

  We settled in her comfortable living room, feet up, drinking wine, the TV on, volume low, Bitsy in my lap. Lottie’s dog, Pulitzer, a sleek greyhound that she saved from being destroyed after he could no longer race, curled up in front of her chair.

  “What’s this?” I said, studying a tiny replica of a 1940s jukebox that sat on her coffee table.

  “A radio,” she said. “Lights up when the batteries are good. Got it from a mail order catalog.”

  She looked embarrassed, gesturing toward a stack of colorful catalogs in a magazine rack next to the couch.

  “I never get a chance to shop,” she said, as I picked one up. “So after a tough day like today, I sit here alone with my credit card, thumbing through those catalogs. Lordy, you order once and they send you a buncha new ones every day. Anyhow, I have a glass of wine or two and the next thing I know I’m dialing some eight-hundred number, ordering some doodad or another. You can call ’em twenty-four hours a day,” she said brightly. “It don’t matter how late. Then, a-course, by the time it comes in the mail I cain’t even remember what I ordered. It’s a surprise package waiting when I get home. Like Christmas. Though some of it is pretty weird”—she frowned—“and when I open the package I wonder why in hell I sent for it.”

  She looked a bit miffed at my expression.

  “We all have our little weaknesses and idiosyncrasies,” she said, shrugging. “We all get lonesome.”

  “Look at this,” I said. “These don’t look half bad.” I showed her some of the silk flower arrangements in the catalog I was leafing through.

  She looked over my shoulder. “Funny, with all the tropical flowers here, I still miss the evening primrose, the tufted Indian paint, the bluebonnets and bluebells from back home,” she said wistfully. “And look at you, you’ve been hung up on that blue-eyed devil for too long. You’ve got to get out, Britt, take this boat captain up on his offer. See more men.”

  “I had lunch today with Dan Flood,” I offered.

  “Nice.” She rolled her eyes. “But I mean somebody who’s more than an old friend, somebody your age, with a life expectancy of more than six months. How is Dan doing, by the way?”

  “He’s depressed, living in the past. He’s on a lot of medication. I’m worried about him. I just hope he’s not suicidal.”

  “Poor Dan. Who wouldn’t be, facing a death sentence?”

  “You never know, Lottie. A doctor sent my great-granddad to Miami to die of TB when he was twenty-six—and the man lived to be ninety-two. Dan Flood may fool the doctors and outlive us all.”

  Lottie looked doubtful but raised her glass. “To Danny’s health,” she said. “You catch the Downtown Rapist yet?”

  “Hey, look at that,” I interrupted. The handsome face of Eric Fielding had flashed on the screen. “Turn up the sound.”

  A paid political commercial. We watched in silence as he spoke sincerely into the camera. The perfect politician: perfect haircut, perfect profile, perfect jacket slung over his shoulder, the state capitol behind him.

  “Think he really did it?” Lottie said, her glass in her hand. “The little girl’s murder, I mean. Mary Beth … what was her name?”

  “Rafferty. Mary Beth Rafferty.” I nodded. “I sure do.”

  “Too bad,” she said quietly. “ ’Cause I think he’s gonna make it. He’s got a lot more money, political support, and charisma than the other guy.”

  I shuddered involuntarily at the thought as we watched the unfolding images on the screen, Fielding smoothly addressing a classroom full of eager children about their future and that of our state. These children never heard about Mary Beth, who lost her future twenty-two years ago when this man was a teenager.

  “The cops were convinced he got away with murder. The fact that he then had the chutzpah to go into law and politics made it even harder for them to swallow.”

  “What is it with this state?” Lottie said, the wine slowing her words and thickening her drawl. “Since I’ve been here we’ve had t
he governor they called the Prince of Darkness ’cause he looked like Dracula, then the country bumpkin—and now it looks like we’re gonna have a man who committed murder. I kinda miss Dracula.”

  “He wasn’t that bad,” I agreed. I checked the time on Lottie’s wall clock, a grinning ceramic cat with big eyes that rolled back and forth with each movement of its pendulum tail, proof of another catalog shopping spree, no doubt. “I’m keeping you up,” I said. “You’ve had a long day.” I put down my wineglass. “I better head home while I can still drive. They’re cracking down, and I’d sure hate to get picked up DUI.”

  “The cop who busted you would probably be named officer of the month. You can stay in the guest room if you like.”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Let Bitsy drive.”

  “I’m fine.” I really was. She had consumed most of the wine.

  She leaned back, closing her eyes wearily. “Thanks for coming, Britt. Go ahead, just leave me for dead. I’ll be okay.”

  Chapter 8

  Awash in a flood of dead-end calls and letters about the Downtown Rapist, I welcomed my turn at Take Two, a regular Friday feature. T2 is an update on a story or newsmaker now faded from the headlines. Sort of a “Did you ever wonder whatever happened to …?” Some reporters gripe when assigned to do a T2, but not me. Like real life, journalism is full of unfinished stories. I am always curious about the people whose names and faces are splashed across newspaper pages, and T2 is a handy excuse to look them up and see what their post-headline lives are like.

  My topic of choice, of course, was an update on the Mary Beth Rafferty case. I bounced it off Fred Douglas.

  “You want to identify a rising political star, a candidate for our state’s highest office, as a suspect in an ancient murder that happened when he was a child?” His voice climbed to a crescendo.

  “A teenager,” I said quickly, sitting on the edge of a chair in his office. “He was a teenager.”

  “Number one, the case is too old. Most of our readers don’t even know it happened. Two, Fielding has an unblemished record and was never publicly linked to the murder.”