“Maybe I could come by for coffee or a drink,” she said, as though she’d read my mind. “Just you and me.”
“We could talk,” I said, wondering wildly what to do if she agreed.
She chortled slowly. “See the TV tonight? Even the mayor spoke the truth about Sonny—’cept he didn’t know anybody would eavesdrop. What a hoot.” Her voice faded as though she had turned away from the phone, attention diverted. By what? I wondered. I thought I caught a snatch of distant music in the background.
“We had that information,” I said. “Our photographer heard him say it at the funeral home, but my editors wouldn’t let me use it in the story.”
“Them assholes again. Ever notice how men do not listen to you unless you got something they really want or you’re jammin’ the barrel of a gun up the side of their head?”
The image chilled my blood.
“Oh, they listen then. You get their absolute attention then.” She sighed, expelling a short impatient breath. “I guess you’ll probably hear ’bout it soon enough.”
“What?” I scribbled in my bedside notebook in case the recorder failed.
“Somethin’ that’ll win you points with all your police friends.”
“They are not my friends.”
“Oh, sissy, don’t gimme that. Think I’m stupid? When you’re sleeping with the captain, the one that’s out of town? Hell, I know all about it. Chapter and verse.”
“About what?” My mind reeled. What was she saying? Was she tapping my phone?
“Never mind, sweet sister. I’m watching you. Just remember, I know a whole lot more than you think.”
“What do you mean?” I demanded. “How did you…?”
“Like that sporty little T-Bird you drive?” she said. “And don’t git me started on Lance Westfell, the big movie star you dated when he was makin’ a flick down here. Now tell me, what is that man like in bed? We got to have a heart-to-heart, a blow-by-blow, pardon the expression, ’bout that sometime.”
“How…?” I gasped, speechless.
“Tol’ ya, sugar. Where you think I’m calling from? Know that pay phone down the street? I can almost see your front door from here.”
Pulse pounding, I swallowed hard. I knew the phone. If she was there, I could see her from outside. My eyes darted toward the door. Perhaps police were listening, they don’t always follow the rules. Maybe…if only…
She sighed, the long-drawn-out sound of a much maligned woman, overworked and misunderstood. “I met another asshole tonight.” She sounded exasperated. “Yep, this town is full of ’em. They’re everywhere.”
“What happened?” I asked. Ojeda had said to relate on a personal level. Hell, this was entirely too personal already. “Are you all right?”
“Why, thank you, Britt, for askin’. Nobody ever does. The son of a bitch tried to slip drugs in my drink, Blue Nitro. You know, the one that’s like Ecstasy, but you come down faster. That stuff’s dangerous. Makes you warm and tingly all over at first; then it heightens your sexual response, then you could die: I caught him, a-course. Shoulda known better. I mean, he’s ’sposed to be a big hotshot sophisticate, one of South Beach’s suave and urban beautiful people.”
“You get around,” I said. “Didn’t take you long to learn the lay of the land.”
“Sure. Oh, yeah. Don’t take me long to settle in, feel at home, get to meet and greet, find out people’s stories.”
“So how did this date go?” I stared at the door, knowing what was out there.
“The son of a bitch was like a dog after a piece a meat. Once he got the scent he was all over me. You know how they get. Pawing at your nipples, sucking on your neck.”
“How is he?” My voice was thin and uncertain.
She made a derisive little sound. “Well, his pulse is a damn sight slower.” She paused. “His pulse rate is like”—she stopped to think, then, and erupted with a gurgling laugh at her own joke—“maybe, zero.”
“But why…?” I whispered, stomach churning.
“He deserved it.”
“Did the others deserve it too?”
“They had their problems.”
“Do you?”
“Don’t we all?”
“God didn’t intend this for you,” I said quietly. “You’re somebody’s child; you must be breaking your mother’s heart.”
“Don’t you bring up God to me—or my mother—ever!” Her voice rose. “You got no business…. Why, I worshiped that woman. When she walked out of a room, the light went with her. She’s dead. My life woulda been a whole lot different if she hadn’t been taken from me when I was just a little kid.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It must have been rough on you.”
“Happened a long time ago. I was just a little kid. Anyhow”—she sniffed impatiently—“you want the scoop on this asshole tonight or not?”
“Tell me,” I said.
“Well,” she began casually, “if you wanna eyeball this dude ’fore the circus starts, he’s right where I left ’im at, far as I know. If the tide ain’t washed him out while we been chit-chattin’ here. Hell.” She laughed, slow and relaxed. “He could be halfway to Cuba by now. And he ain’t swimming, either.”
“Who is he?” I whispered, eyes closed.
“Nobody now. See, met him at this South Beach club. I’m already talking to somebody, but he muscles in, gets pushy. Tries doping my drink, then wants me to walk down the beach with him in the moonlight. Only he ain’t much on walking and there ain’t no moon, ’cept for his own fat ass. Wants to stop and get it on at one-a the cabanas at the Sea Sprite.
“We got what we wanted. Him first. Then it’s my turn. He seen the gun—you ever see a fat man run? Really comical. Arms swinging back and forth like he’s running fast but his legs and ass ain’t keeping up?”
“Nobody heard you?”
“If they did, they didn’t check it out. Everybody’s inside, air conditioners blastin’ this time-a year, I guess. He was huffing and puffing too much to do a lotta yelling, and we wuz down by the water where the breakers boom. God, I love the ocean,” she said dreamily. “Shot ’im through a cushion from one-a the lounges. Muffled the noise some. I have to say, despite the conditions, I’m a helluva shot. So that’s it. There’s your story. Gotta go now. Places to go, people to see.”
“Wait! When can I interview you?”
She paused. “I may be a fool for askin’, but ain’t that what we just done?”
“No, I want your story. You, your background, what you’re thinking, how this all began and why. Your side.”
“Maybe later. Gotta go. Why don’chu head on down to the beach by the Sea Sprite and check ’im out?”
She hung up. I scrambled from my bed and dashed barefoot to the door. Stepping gingerly into the jasmine-scented night I stared out into the darkness, then trotted toward the street, straining to see. Nobody at the pay phone on the corner, no car leaving, no footsteps retreating.
An electric current of fear surged through me as some small nocturnal creature skittered through the cherry hedge. I backed toward my door. I hadn’t noticed before that the streetlight at the curb was out, plunging the block even deeper into darkness on this moonless night.
I retreated inside and bolted the door. Call return said only that the killer had called me from a “private number.”
I punched in the number for Miami dispatch.
“Patch me through to Detective Ojeda!” I told the operator, breathless. “This is an emergency!”
“Your IBM number?”
“I’m not a police officer. This is Britt Montero from the Miami News.”
She paused. “He’s not on duty. You have to talk to PIO.”
“No, no, PIO is closed at this hour. Don’t—” She had transferred the call. It rang in an empty office.
The Sea Sprite was only a few minutes away, at Collins and the ocean. I pulled on shorts, a T-shirt, and sneakers, snatched up my notebook, and ran for the car. Bit
sy, still a police dog at heart, squeezed out the door with me, scrambling into the front seat, eager for action, her exhilaration in stark contrast to the dread in my belly.
Fumbling with the phone, I dialed 911.
“Miami Beach Police. What is your emergency?”
“There’s been a homicide!”
“What is your location?”
“I’m in my car, on the way to the Sea Sprite Hotel.”
“Your name?”
“Britt Montero, from the Miami News.”
“The media?” She sounded dubious.
“Somebody’s been shot! Send a car.”
“What is the location?”
“Somewhere on the beach near the Sea Sprite.”
“What makes you think there’s been a shooting?”
“I got a call. Just send a car!”
“Did you see a victim?”
“No,” I said. “Send a car! Send homicide!”
“You heard gunshots?”
“No.”
“What is that location?”
“He could still be alive, for God’s sake!” I hung up, frustrated. Yet as I raced toward the recently refurbished Sea Sprite Hotel, I also felt a guilty sense of relief. This was still my story. I still led the pack.
I checked the glove compartment at the next stoplight. My gun was still there. I left it unlocked, floored the gas pedal, and ran the red light.
I parked at the foot of the street, as close as possible to the sandy beach. No police. Few people in sight, only a city street-sweeping machine grinding its way slowly up Collins Avenue. A strolling couple, arms intertwined, meandered at a distance. Overhead, a giant jet rumbled out of sight. It was impossible to see where black sea ended and fathomless sky began. A single light blinked in the distance, a freighter far out at sea.
If no dead man was here, this was a trick to lure me out alone. I took the gun with me, its dead weight uncomfortable in my waistband. “Come on, Bits,” I said, comforted by the sound of my own voice and her company.
We trotted up the stairs to the boardwalk, paused to scan the beach, then jogged down the other side. I moved quickly toward the water, eyes straining, relying on Bitsy to bark if someone was waiting.
In the dunes, I nearly stumbled over lovers on a blanket, in lusty flagrante delicto, naked bodies glistening in the dim light from the hotels and condos behind them. The one on top cursed. The other man gave a small startled yelp.
“Sorry,” I said, and kept moving.
I spotted the lounge cushion first, discarded in a patch of sea oats, burn marks radiating from a jagged hole in the center. Then, at the edge of the surf, where breaking waves foamed across hard packed sand, I saw a smooth curve of pale skin, like the carcass of a beached sea creature tossed earthward by the sea. The man’s trousers, attached to only one ankle, were already afloat, swept back and forth by the action of the waves. The incoming tide had cleansed the blood from his head wound, which now resembled a grotesque third eye in the center of his forehead. Bitsy stopped two feet from the corpse. Daintily avoiding getting her paws wet, she watched me over her shoulder, waiting expectantly.
I used the cell phone, scooped up my dog, and ran back the way we came.
“You should get dressed,” I told the lovers. “The police are coming.”
Ojeda, Simmons, and two burly task-force detectives were furious. Not only was I already at the scene, but so was Lottie and the Miami Beach police, who had also called in the FBI, even though the feds had not assumed jurisdiction. The victim, and possible clues important to the case, were saved from the tide, but not from the first two cops to arrive. Tracking through existing footprints, they caught the dead man’s ankles and dragged him halfway up the beach. One picked up the lounge cushion I had been careful not to touch, handed it to another, who lobbed it to a third, who tossed it to the newly arrived sergeant, who stashed it in the trunk of his cruiser.
Lottie had appeared, hair wild, sans makeup, minutes after I called her. I shivered in the T-Bird, despite the 94-degree predawn temperature, replaying in my mind what the killer said about McDonald, Lance Westfell, and me. Only the detectives would hear the tapes tonight, but transcripts would be made and circulated through that rumor mill of a department. Copies would go to other law enforcement agencies, including the Beach. They would become part of police, prosecution, and state court records, accessible to other reporters. The transcript could be published nationwide. I thought about McDonald, returning from D.C., hoping to be appointed major. I thought about his career and mine, and our reputations.
Lottie was shooting pictures before the tide could obliterate the footprints and drag marks. I joined her and pressed my house key into her hand.
“You’ve got to do this for me,” I whispered. “The killer knows all about me. It’s on the telephone tape, next to my bed. Go there now. Erase it. Make sure the whole thing is blank.”
“You sure?” Her honest brown eyes were troubled.
“Absolutely. I took notes. Erase it all. I’ll tell ’em it was a mistake. Take Bitsy along. I’ll say you took her home for me.”
“You got it.”
She stuffed my keys into the pocket of her jeans and took Bitsy’s leash.
“And, Lottie,” I added, as she turned to go, “you can listen to it first.”
“I was gonna anyhow.” She trotted up the sand, Bitsy running to keep pace with her long legs.
There was a brief flurry of excitement when the lovers on the beach informed the cops about a strange woman they had seen, but it was me.
“What the hell’s the matter with you? You trying to sabotage the entire case? Trying to win a Pulitzer at our expense?” Ojeda was steamed. “You shoulda called us first. You never, ever shoulda come out here alone. Now the Beach has screwed up the scene and we got the FBI homing in. What do you want to bet, when we track her down, they’ll try to steal our arrest. What the hell were you thinking?”
“I did try to call you,” I said for the second time.
“I know. Dispatch dropped the ball at shift change. But that’s no excuse….”
“I had to know,” I said. “I wasn’t even sure there was a body. If so, he might still be alive. It seemed right at the time.”
“Well, it sure as hell wasn’t. If we’re going to cooperate on this,” he said, “you’re not supposed to think. You call us and we tell you what to do. You got the tape?”
“Back at my apartment. She really got me rattled. Claimed to know where I live. I don’t know if she was blowing smoke or not, but she even told me what kind of car I drive.”
He shot me a sharp look, his brow beaded with sweat. “How could she know that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Something here you’re not telling us?”
I shook my head.
He looked around. “Where’d your pooch go? I suppose he peed on the body too; everybody else did.” He stopped to glower at a Beach cop sipping a soft drink from a vending machine outside the cabanas. “Nice to know that if our victim and killer shared refreshments from that machine before things turned nasty, their prints are now obliterated.”
“She,” I said numbly. “Her name is Bitsy. She didn’t pee on the body. She was Francie’s.”
He gave a little nod of recognition. “I remember.”
“Lottie took her home for me.”
“To your place?”
“Yes.”
“So the killer may know your address and you send your friend there alone. Very nice. The redhead with the camera don’t need any enemies as long as she’s got you for a buddy. See?” He turned to his partner. “This is why amateurs should stay outa this business. Let’s go get that tape.”
I promised the Beach cops I would come to the station shortly to make a statement.
Lottie answered my door all smiles. She had combed her hair and brewed coffee. Bitsy greeted the cops like long-lost friends and the atmosphere was cozy, until they played the tape and heard nothing but t
he hiss of the machine.
“You sure nobody was in here after you left?” Ojeda thundered.
“The dead bolt was locked when I got here,” Lottie said primly.
“I’d been sound asleep,” I explained, hoping to sound sincere. “I’d given up; I didn’t think she’d call. I don’t know, I must have pushed the wrong button. I could have sworn the tape was rolling. But don’t worry, she said she’d call back, and my notes are still here.” Luckily, only I could decipher them. I read them a censored version and promised a transcript.
The pay phone down the street proved to be out of order, so she had not called from there. She doesn’t know where I live, I thought, relieved.
“Probably trying to psych you out,” Ojeda said. “Every place on the beach has a pay phone down the block. She’s being cute, but to be on the safe side we probably oughta move you outa here.”
I opted to stay, refusing to be run out of my own space.
“We can ask the Beach cops for a watch order,” Simmons said.
“Of course you know what that means,” Ojeda added. “You live or die on your own.” He ran his hand through his hair. “We need to know how she picked up that other stuff about you.”
Seated across from him at my dining room table, Lottie raised her hand like a schoolgirl.
“I think I know,” she said. “I’m sorry, Britt.”
We all stared.
“Who do we know,” she asked, her stricken eyes on mine, “that’s been partying hard in South Beach for the past thirty-six hours and probably still is? Who do we know who would spill his guts to some sexy stranger in a bar? Who do we know with diarrhea of the mouth and poor judgment to boot?”
“Who?” Ojeda and Simmons chorused.
“Tex,” Lottie and I said. “Tex O’Rourke.”
They found Tex facedown on the floor of his Sunny Isles motel room. He was alive but wished he wasn’t. Still reeking of booze, he was suffering from the mother of all hangovers.
A leggy blonde passed out half naked on his bed woke up to drawn guns. A model from Amsterdam, she had a purse full of pot and a passport showing she’d arrived in the USA just two days earlier.
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