Act of Betrayal

by Edna Buchanan

  “Here’s what I’ve got,” announced PIO Sergeant Danny Menéndez, who approached, notebook in hand. Drawn to the new source of information, the wave of reporters turned like the tide away from Yates, who seemed relieved. Homicide detectives had “ascertained,” Menéndez said, in the stilted jargon apparently required of police spokesmen, that “the victim” had been the target of many threats in past months after his editorials on immigration, open trade with Cuba, and other controversial topics. Police had kept a watch order on his house because of threats. The dead man’s name had not yet been publicly released, pending official identification and notification of his next of kin, but everybody in the press pack knew it. The victim, Menéndez said, had waved at a female employee, a secretary, the woman I had spoken to, as he stepped into his Mustang. He closed the door, turned the ignition key, and the car exploded. The horrified woman and other witnesses had seen dark smoke arid flames. The car’s hood had been hurled a hundred feet in the air before landing on the building’s roof.

  I left the crowd, trailing after Yates for one last question. “You think this is an isolated incident or the start of something?” The last wave of bombings had ended almost eighteen months earlier.

  “How would I know?” he said, already weary of the press, including me. He paused. “I hope we don’t see more. Last thing we need is another bomb boom. But this stuff brings out all the kooks, people who in the dark recesses of their minds always had the desire to do this type of thing.”

  Almost every organization or leader in the exile community had felt the sting of Alex’s commentary. I hoped his death was unrelated to exile politics. I have no patience with people who think the way to free Cuba is to blow up South Florida. Their reasons are obvious. It’s safer. My father would probably be alive today had he conducted his anti-Castro missions on Flagler Street instead of in the Sierra Maestra mountains of Cuba.

  There was a flurry inside the roped-off crime scene. A bomb squad tech had discovered something in the rear seat of a car with blown-out windows, parked three slots away from the Mustang. Alex’s right hand. It had to have been close to the bomb, I thought, shivering, to be torn off and hurled so far.

  Back at the office, I settled in at my desk and checked the folder in my top drawer. Miami terrorist groups amuse themselves by issuing official communiques sentencing their enemies to execution, then distributing the names to the media. Occasionally somebody on one of the death lists is killed or injured. Alex’s name did not appear on any of them. Then I called a roster of Cuban exile leaders and politicians for their comments on his demise.

  “A brave man,” the mayor called him. “A martyr.”

  I called Juan Carlos Reyes, powerful leader of the Grupo para la Libertad de Cuba and a frequent target. An outspoken and macho veteran of Brigade 2506, the exile force that landed at the Bay of Pigs in 1961, he is now a highly successful businessman and a behind-the-scenes political power. I had to persuade a receptionist and then a secretary to be put through to him.

  “His voice will be missed,” Reyes said with resonance. “I did not always agree with Alex—but many voices are what makes this country great.”

  “A warrior, who died for his beliefs!” boomed Jorge Bravo. “Another martyr killed by assassins while trying to free Cuba from the tyrant’s grip!” Bravo, an aging freedom fighter, had never stopped launching clandestine missions to liberate his homeland.

  Recently he had been fighting not only Castro, but the FBI as well. Agents were constantly on his case for violations of the U.& Neutrality Act, which prohibits military expeditions from U.S. soil against countries not at war with the United States.

  The cops had trucked the shattered Mustang to the medical examiners office, where Alex’s body could be removed and the car examined in air-conditioned comfort, under high-intensity lights, away from prying eyes, crowds, and cameras. They said the bomber had apparently planted his deadly device beneath the hood in broad daylight in the station parking lot. Yet no one reported seeing a thing.

  At sunset, I raced down to Dinner Key where Miami Fire was fighting a huge blaze that burned a forty-five-foot commercial fishing vessel down to the waterline. It was late when I finished the story, but I had promised to meet Lottie for a drink and a bite to eat at the South Pointe Seafood House. My appetite had died in the parking lot with Alex Aguirre and I was weary, but Lottie had stuck by me when I was in trouble and I had to be there for her.

  Her troubles were not as frightening as mine had been. Hers, as usual, involved a man, or the absence of one.

  I found her waiting behind the Seafood House, sitting cross-legged on one of the rocks overlooking the waters of Government Cut. She was stirring a frozen margarita and wearing a T-shirt that said SOUTH BEACH, WHERE THE WOMEN ARE STRONG AND THE MEN ARE PRETTY.

  “What do you hear from Stosh, the Polish Prince?” I asked, joining her.

  Stosh Gorski is a lawyer she had met in court while shooting pictures during a high-profile murder trial. His client was charged with fatally battering his wife and his mother-in-law with a ballpeen hammer. The jury didn’t believe the defendant, and I suspected that his lawyer wasn’t exactly credible either.

  Lottie, long divorced and childless, yearns for a family. An award-winning photographer, she has worked all the hot spots of the world and shot history in the making. She has dodged bombs and bullets and fended off passes from lecherous foreign dictators.

  Now she wants to settle down and play house, but the Polish Prince has problems committing and showing up when promised.

  “Hasn’t called me since last Friday,” she said miserably. Out in the midnight-blue waters of the cut, the lights of a freighter moved east toward the Gulf Stream and ports unknown. “Last time we talked he said he was gonna break off with someone he had been seeing before me, said he had to let her down easy.”

  “That’s good,” I said.

  She sipped her margarita, gazing at me balefully over the rim of her glass. “He’s letting her down so easy that they spent the weekend at Sugar Loaf Key.”

  “That’s bad. You sure?”

  She nodded and got to her feet. “He wasn’t home all day Saturday, or Saturday night, so I called his condo down there,” she explained, as we wandered inside and found a small table. “A woman answered and I hung up.”

  “Oh, Lottie. I’m sorry. Maybe it was the cleaning lady.”

  She stared at me. “I heard Julio Iglesias in the background. Stosh’s version of music for lovers only. He played the same CD on our big night, a real mountaintop experience, by the way,” she added wistfully.

  “If you can’t trust him, it’s better to know now.”

  A waiter interrupted, taking our order for another margarita and a glass of wine for me.

  “I know, I know.” She sighed. “You’re right. But that man sure charged my batteries.”

  “You knew he had a rep as a lady-killer.”

  “Yeah, but sometimes they meet the right woman and settle down. Look at Hugh Hefner.” Her eyes were hopeful.

  “Maybe,” I said, “when he’s sixty-two and has had a stroke.”

  She plucked her icy drink off the waiter’s tray, took a large gulp, sniffed, and changed the subject. “Damn shame about poor Alex. Bombs are the worst, worse than snakes in the garbage. Hope all that Cuban crap ain’t starting up again. I had a weird dream the other night. I woke up and everybody in Miami was named Raul.”

  “That was no dream,” I said flatly. “It’s true.”

  She laughed like the old resilient Lottie.

  “Whatcha hear from McDonald?”

  “Got a letter from Louisville the other day.” I paused to sip my wine. “Nothing that would curl your toes. I think he’s afraid to put anything in writing.”

  My main man, Miami Homicide Lieutenant Kendall McDonald, was furthering his education at the Southern Police Institute for four months, a major career break for a man with his ambition. Our off-and-on r
omance, periled mostly by career clash, seemed on at the moment. We were muy simpáticos, a thousand miles apart.

  “He said I should feel free to date others while he was gone,” I added.

  “Either he’s cocksure of himself or he wants to cut a swath without guilt among the Kentucky belles.”

  “Thank you very much. I thought I came here to cheer you up, but now I’m depressed.” I checked my watch. “I can’t really stay. I’ve got an early start tomorrow, and so do you. Can you drive?” I asked, as she emptied her glass. “How many of those have you put away?”

  “I’m okay. If a cop stops me, I hope he’s husky and handsome.”

  We walked out into the starry night together. The late scene on South Beach was just getting under way, a Felliniesque sideshow of disturbed youth, drag queens, and go-go dwarfs, the unconcerned targets of a black-bearded, wild-eyed, Bible-clutching street preacher. He stood on a bus bench, legs apart, arms raised, railing to the open sky that God would soon destroy us all for our decadence.

  2

  I drove home, fed Bitsy and Billy Boots, then walked the dog around the block through the soft, moist summer air. Billy Boots meowed at us from the lighted front window of my apartment as we rounded the corner. Helen Goldstein, my landlady, cracked her jalousie window to call a greeting. Light and shadow flickered behind her in the darkened living room. She and her husband must have been watching TV from their twin recliners. “You won’t forget your promise, Britt, will you?”

  “Have I ever?” I sang back.

  “We knew we could count on you. Good night.”

  I smiled and waved as she cranked the window shut. What promise? I tried to recall our recent conversations. At eighty, that good woman’s memory was sharper than mine. Hell, I thought, whatever she wants, she’s got it. Her homemade chicken soup and chocolate chip cookies had sustained me through more than one crisis.

  Channel-surfing through late newscasts confirmed that every competitor in town had shot better bombing footage than WTOP-TV, the scene of the tragedy.

  Trying to sleep, I wondered what went through Alex’s mind the moment his world exploded. Did he have the time, even a split second, to think?

  Did he know he was a dead man?

  My alarm interrupted dark dreams before dawn. I slipped out of my apartment into shadow and trotted two blocks of deserted streets under a damp and streaky sky to where the sea foamed silver on a misty gray beach. As I jogged, my footsteps dull thuds on the boardwalk, the solemn predawn hush erupted in a sunrise that burst over the horizon like a brass band playing a John Philip Sousa march.

  My spirits soared with the rush. So did my steps. More than ever now, I understand what a great gift each day is. I ran down the stairs to the sandy beach, stopped to catch my breath, took off my shoes, and combed the turquoise surf for shells tossed ashore by the dredging for a beach renourishment project. Sand oozed between my toes, sun-warmed water and the sea’s insistent pull tugged at my ankles. Ships dotted the horizon beneath the sharply drawn edges of stacked clouds that could be signaling the tropical wave of thunderstorms and squalls predicted by forecasters. They had been monitoring the system’s path as it drifted across the Cape Verde Islands off West Africa and traversed the Atlantic and the Caribbean, headed for the Gulf of Mexico.

  The threat that such a wave will spawn tropical storms grows more ominous as summer wears on, but most of the seventy-five to one hundred twenty-five a year do not amount to anything and experts saw no danger signs in this one.

  Treasure hunting amid the bubbling rollers and spin-drift, I tossed back shells still occupied and filled the pockets of my shorts with those that were vacant: sea-smoothed lightning whelks, shiny lettered olives, and fanlike scallops. I hated to leave, but now I was running late. Back at my apartment, I emptied my pockets, rinsed the shells, and left them on the drainboard to dry while I showered. I slipped on a cool cotton dress, swallowed some orange juice, marched Bitsy around the block, and made some quick calls to the cop shops.

  A Miami midnight-shift detective about to go off duty disclosed an intriguing tidbit: a discovery a week earlier, west of the city, on a rutted din road in the Everglades. A car. Blown to bits. The county had handled it. Nobody hurt. No big deal at the time. Now it was. The shattered car was a stolen Mustang identical to Alex Aguirre’s. The bomber or bombers had practiced.

  Several years earlier, a union official had escaped a bombing, maimed but alive, because the device had been placed on the wrong side of his car’s firewall. This careful killer wanted to be absolutely accurate.

  Hopefully, the charred metal shell in the Glades would yield some clue. Police seemed to have no other promising leads.

  After the phone checks, I drove directly to the office to work the bomb follow for the early edition. The medical examiner said Alex had suffered fatal injuries but did not die instantly. He had inhaled soot and smoke from the fire in his last moments. At thirty-four, he had seemed to enjoy good health. I learned something he never knew. The main artery supplying blood to the left side of his heart was almost completely blocked by plaque deposits. Alex was a prime candidate for a major coronary, or would have been had he lived long enough.

  A reader interrupted, calling to complain about the crack addict who stole her checks, stripped clean her bank account, and pawned her television. She demanded to know why he had been released on bond.

  I commiserated. “Is he your only child?”

  “Oh, no.” My question seemed to please her. “He’s only one of five. Let me tell you about them.”

  I regretted opening the door as she launched into her miseries. Her eldest, she said, was “a Jesus freak,” devoted to an obscure wandering cult. Another suffered emotional problems because she was gay; number three was a skinhead unable to sustain a relationship or a job. The fourth, a compulsive spender, was divorcing, and the fifth, of course, was now free on bond.

  “Maybe they’re going through stages,” I offered lamely, wishing my mother could hear this. She might appreciate her only child.

  “The baby is thirty-three.” Her voice was cold.

  “My age,” I commented, for lack of anything else to say.

  “At least you have a job.”

  “That I do, and let me tell you, work isn’t everything.” Look who’s talking, I thought, as I flipped through my Rolodex for the family counseling hot line number. I doubted she would dial it. She sounded as though she relished her soap opera life.

  Then Lottie called, elated. Her suspicions about the Polish Prince were all “a misunderstanding,” and we conferred about what she should wear on their date that night. I shuffled my mail as we talked, hoping without luck for a letter from Louisville. “If you wear the gauzy black one,” I cautioned, “don’t wear the cowboy boots.” The lobby receptionist signaled me and I told Lottie I had to go. I had a visitor.

  “I’m not expecting anybody,” I said, irritated. “I’m working on a story for the street. Who is it?”

  “Think his name is Randolph, third time he’s been here. You weren’t in before.” She lowered her voice sympathetically. “I couldn’t steer him to anybody else. Said he had to see you.”

  Was her sympathy directed at him or me? I made an impatient sound. “Tell him I’m too busy … Then I hesitated, put the phone back to my ear, and added, “To see him for more than a few minutes.”

  The best stories sometimes walk in when you least expect them, I told myself, hoping my visitor was not some madman who would need to be hosed down and hauled away by security. He stepped into the huge newsroom looking bewildered, glancing around uncertainly, a lanky hard-boned man with thinning light-color hair. He wore work pants, glasses, and a crisp white shirt with QUICKY LUBE embroidered in red on the breast pocket. My heart sank when I saw his eyes. Reporters know the look. The eyes are a dead giveaway: wide, brightly burning, darting in search of help. These people are easy to spot; they haunt the newsrooms of the world, clutching
stacks of file folders and spilling dog-eared papers from worn manila envelopes.

  Obsessed by lost causes, they fight city hall, the government, and their own families, and believe in elusive conspiracies. One brittle and aging mother remains adamant that her daughter’s death decades ago was no drug overdose, as ruled, but a murder conspiracy. Another still sues her ex-husband, a former judge, for broken promises, twenty-two years after their divorce. Every newsroom has its regulars, steered by the savvy to the newest, unsuspecting staff members.

  I steeled myself. This face was not familiar, but it wore the look. Sometimes a real story comes with the obsession.

  He scanned the newsroom, his eyes focusing on me. I smiled and stood up, vowing not to spend a lot of time. I saw the folder under his arm as he eagerly approached and groaned “Oh, no,” without moving my lips.

  “Mr. Randolph,” I said heartily, two-faced as hell. He hesitated as I extended my hand. His knuckles looked raw, an angry pink, as though scrubbed too long and too hard with harsh soap that had nonetheless failed to remove the permanent grime line beneath his fingernails. Hesitation past, his handshake was solid.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I just left work. They said I should ask for you.”

  “They?” I motioned to the chair next to my desk and he sat.

  “My brother, Nick, and his wife.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “He said you were the one who worked on that story about the little Rafferty girl.”

  “Mary Beth Rafferty.” I nodded. Not only did I lose a friend while working on that story, I lost my car and nearly my life.

  “The murder that was solved after all those years.” He swallowed. “I’m hoping you can help me.”

  My phone rang and I scooped it up, smiling apologetically.

  A Florida highway patrolman with details about an overturned truck on the Palmetto Expressway. Owned by a company that cleans septic tanks, it had dumped a full load across four lanes. I winced. A sticky situation on one of the summers steamiest days.