Garden of Evil

by Edna Buchanan

“Yellow Rose,” Tex moaned fondly, on seeing Lottie. He blinked and winced painfully. The two cops helped him to his feet as he studied the carpet beneath them, his handsome face bewildered. “I thought my back was to the wall,” he mumbled, “but that was the floor…”

  He eased over to sit on the bed, wincing again when he saw it already occupied by the blonde model, who looked equally dazed.

  “Who’s that?” he croaked to Lottie. “Never saw her before in my life.”

  “Sure,” she replied quietly. “You’ve gotta talk to these detectives, darlin’.” He focused on them, slowly, with great effort.

  “You turned me in to the cops?” he asked in hurt disbelief.

  “Tex, honey.” Her voice dripped syrup. “Now, why would I turn you in to the police? Bustin’ up ain’t no crime. No crime at all,” she said succinctly. “They just need to ask you about a woman.” She swallowed hard, struggling to keep it together.

  “You’re the only woman, darling. Whoops.” He lurched, unsteady, to his feet. “Got to go talk on the big white telephone,” he mumbled, bouncing off the wall as he made his way into the bathroom.

  Ojeda jerked his head at Simmons. “Take care of him. Hold his head, then throw ’im in the shower.”

  “Why me?” Simmons grumbled, as he opened the bathroom door to the sounds of retching.

  After establishing that Tex had met the Dutch model only a few hours earlier, at Bash, they flushed her pot and put her, protesting, into a taxicab driven by a Jamaican in dreadlocks.

  Tex’s cuts and bruises were unrelated to his encounter with the serial killer. “I ate the asphalt,” he recalled, thoughtfully fingering a scrape on his chin. Clad in a terrycloth bathrobe, his curly hair was still wet from the shower.

  “’Member the other day,” Lottie prompted, “we wuz catching up and I told you all about my friend Britt here?” He squinted up at me. “Well, then you went and talked to somebody in a bar ’bout her, didn’t you?”

  “You shot me down, Yellow Rose, you shot me down,” he protested plaintively, eyes swimming. “I was hurting and all alone.”

  The detectives finally asked Lottie to step outside, to prevent personal feelings from inhibiting his answers. “The only woman I ever loved. There she goes,” he crooned as she left, her eyes reddening. “She’s walking away.”

  His memory improved after the door closed. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “I think I ’member her. Real sweet little thang, a honey babe. A blonde?” He looked up at the detectives questioningly.

  “You tell us,” Ojeda said.

  “Maybe dark-haired, or one-a them funky shades they use now. Hard to tell under them colored lights. But she was a doll baby, can tell ya that. What happened? That guy didn’t hurt her, or nothing?”

  “What guy?” the detective asked with interest.

  “Some chubby fella. I’da cleaned his clock, ’cept I was so bummed. My woman had just dumped me.” He sighed. “I was hurting, hurting bad, and this gal was real sweet. Good listener. I was telling her all about Yellow Rose, how she shoots pictures for the newspaper and all, and somehow Britt’s name came up. I said she just happened to be a friend of a friend. This gal was a good talker, real curious, a big fan of the newspaper.

  “We was hitting it off. So it surprised me when this other dude come outa the VIP room and starts coming on to her. I’da kicked him from here to Kansas, ’cept she starts flirting back. Finally she says, ‘So long, sugar,’ pecks my cheek, and takes off with ’im. Shoulda seen ’im, proud as a puppy with two tails. Didn’t boost my morale any, I tell ya. Guy was kinda pudgy, red-faced. Big spender, bragging ’bout his brand-new Jag, could be what attracted her. I was so bummed, so down and out of it…I jus’ let her go.”

  Forehead in his hands, he looked green around the gills.

  “Mighta been the first smart move you made lately,” Ojeda said. “All I know is you’re the first witness we’ve got who had a good look at this suspect and can put her and one of her victims together right before a homicide. I know you don’t feel so good right now, but you’re alive. He ain’t. She’s the Kiss-Me Killer—and he’s lying dead on the sand. If he did have a new Jaguar, she’s probably driving it. What’d she look like? What name was she using? What was she wearing?”

  “Said ’er name was Keri, or Kelly. Somethin’ like that. Nice body.”

  “What did she look like?”

  “Really nice body. Wearing one of them little…” —his hands moved clumsily in a circular gesture—“you know, one of them little sexy things.” He squinted up at them, red-eyed. “Nicely built. Friendly. Liked drinking tequila, liked to talk. Real sweet little thang. You say he’s dead?”

  The dead man was Tommy Karp, age forty-five, the self-proclaimed “King of the Night,” a club and events promoter on South Beach. His 1999 black Jaguar, credit cards, and digital cell phone were missing.

  By midmorning, Sonny’s Mercedes surfaced on the third level of a South Beach parking garage near the club where Karp and the killer met.

  “A motherless child,” Dr. Schlatter said thoughtfully, when I called to pick her brain. “How interesting. Serial killers—usually male, of course—are more likely to grow up with absentee fathers and domineering mothers. Hmmm….

  “Maternal separation can profoundly affect brain chemistry in the young,” she said, “with lifelong consequences. Studies on Romanian orphans in state institutions showed dramatic results, with extremely high levels of stress hormones. Other studies revealed that the brain cells of baby animals deprived of a mother’s nurturing touch and loving care may actually commit suicide. Did she say at what age she lost her mother?”

  “All she said was ‘little kid.’” I wondered if any of this really applied to homicide. I hadn’t heard about any Romanian orphans on killing sprees.

  “Did you ask about her father?”

  “No. I’ll try if she calls again.”

  “She will, I think, unless other circumstances intervene. Sounds like you’ve done an excellent job in establishing rapport. Good work. Try to make her feel you share things in common. Did you mention my name, give her my number?”

  “There was no time.”

  “She has so much anger in her,” the doctor mused.

  I didn’t need a shrink to tell me that.

  “Her selection process is quite remarkable,” she went on. “The way she spared the first more sympathetic, more attractive, and less threatening man and took the other. Clearly her victims are not selected at random but must meet certain specifications to fit her fantasies.”

  “Think I have anything to worry about?” I felt embarrassed to ask, but my fears the night before had been real.

  “Probably not. You’ve stroked her ego and she would consider you a confidante, the vehicle by which to tell her story. She wants to use you. But I would advise extreme caution. She’s volatile, totally unpredictable, and homicidal.”

  Schlatter agreed that the killer probably did not know where I lived, since Tex did not.

  “It’s just her way of keeping you off balance,” the doctor said.

  “She talked about a face-to-face meeting.”

  I heard a passionate little intake of breath. Either the idea took her breath away, or a donut had crossed her field of vision. “Feel free to suggest my office,” she said quickly.

  Tex, still hung over, worked on a composite with a police artist. But too many beautiful women had crossed his path as he partied his way through South Beach thinking of only one. Every sketch looked like Lottie. Ojeda was furious.

  The massive manhunt came up with nothing. South Beach is full of beautiful girls in bustiers and leather skirts. Promiscuous, hard partying, and hard drinking, the Kiss-Me Killer had fit right in, disappearing into the atmosphere of sexual abandon, foam parties, and drugs.

  I was on the phone, trying to reach Tommy Karp’s ex-wife in New York for more background on him, when Gloria, the city desk clerk, said I had a call transferred from the sports department.
/>   “It’s me,” the killer said abruptly, taking me totally by surprise.

  I pushed the button. The phone man had said the system might be in place by this afternoon, but could it trace a call transferred through the sports department?

  “Do you ever sleep?” I asked.

  “I took a nap,” she said, “but I’m wired. Fired up. Hear all the bullshit they’re sayin’ on TV? See the news at noon? That skinny prick from Channel Seven had the balls to call me every man’s worst nightmare. What the hell does he know? Some ugly-ass piece of shit from the Chamber of Commerce or someplace said I was scum. That black guy on Channel Ten called me ‘a homicidal hooker.’ Where do they get that shit? Hooker?” Her voice rose as she worked herself into a fury. “They don’t even know who I am! I’m gonna tell you what it’s really like! I want everybody to know.”

  “Nobody’s heard your side,” I agreed. “Let’s tell it.”

  “Damn right. Face-to-face, you and me, one on one. No tricks, no games, no cops.”

  “That can be arranged,” I said, voice calm, but so giddy I nearly fell off my chair. “I’ll have to talk to my editors.”

  “Those assholes again.”

  “Right. My bosses.”

  “There’s protection, laws for reporters, right? It’s like talking to your lawyer or priest. Nobody, not even the cops, can make you tell anything confidential. Right?”

  “Good reporters go to jail before giving up a news source,” I said. “You name the time and place.”

  I closed my eyes to block out Gloria, who was waving that I had another call.

  “Now, I’m only gonna talk to you. Private, one on one—me to Britt. You can bring one of them little computers with you, a laptop.”

  “Sure, I can do that.”

  She spoke rapidly, words tumbling over one another. She sounded manic, probably using drugs. I heard a TV in the background.

  “All this pressure, this whole thing, is driving me nuts. You’ll get the exclusive. I’m sick of this shit on TV. They don’t know squat.”

  “I believe you.”

  “Got that right,” she muttered. “Talk to your editors, do what you have to do. I’ll put it all together. I have to think. Be around, call you later. I might have something else to tell you.”

  I recoiled. “Wait,” I said. “What do you…” But she was gone.

  Ojeda and Simmons played the tape in a conference room.

  The call had come from Tommy Karp’s digital phone, according to call return. The system, now in place, could not pinpoint its location. The detectives arranged to have his phone disconnected, hoping she would switch to a land line.

  “I’ll go meet her,” I told them. “I want to do it.”

  “I don’t like it,” Ojeda said. “But it could be the only way to get the break we need. We could set a trap.”

  The chief agreed. Ground rules would not include me interviewing her first. They would swoop down to make the collar the moment she appeared.

  “We’ll do everything we can to protect you,” Ojeda said, “but you’ve gotta listen to us, do exactly what we say, and forget any crazy stunts. You can talk to her all you want after she’s in jail.”

  “Oh, sure, as if she’ll speak to me after I lead her into a trap.”

  I had nearly forgotten the other call Gloria had signaled me about. McDonald was late for a session by the time I called him back. No time to explain. I could fill him in later.

  “Two more days,” he said cheerfully, “and I’ll be ringing your doorbell.” I heard the smile in his voice.

  Suddenly I wanted to blurt, Come back! Now, before it’s too late, before I’m sucked into something way over my head. I swallowed the words, and the moment passed. Was it because there was no time to explain, or because I knew he would object?

  “Hey,” I murmured, instead, “be cool on the road, sweetheart. No picking up hitchhikers or pretty women in distress.”

  The two detectives and their lieutenant met with my editors and Mark Seybold. I had already briefed Fred. Nobody smiled. Eyes troubled, they spoke as though I wasn’t there.

  “My concern is obviously the safety of the reporter,” Fred began.

  “Normally we wouldn’t ask a civilian to take this kind of risk,” the lieutenant said, “but we’ve got nothing else. Saying that our only hope is that next time the killer will make a mistake is acknowledging that there will be a next time, another victim. Nobody wants that.”

  Harvey Holland, the publisher, shook his head. “It’s one thing to send reporters and photographers into war zones, but it’s another to dangle a reporter as bait.”

  This, I kept thinking, is the story of a lifetime.

  “It would help us immensely,” the lieutenant said earnestly. “This investigation has already cost taxpayers more than a million dollars, including rental cars for detectives, overtime, and sophisticated lab tests. More than seven hundred people have been interviewed statewide, thousands of leads followed. And this is the best we’ve got.”

  “Speaking of money,” Gretchen said, frowning, “what if this should lead to an arrest? What about the reward? Could a reporter claim it?”

  “If a staff member became eligible, it would have to go to charity,” Holland said dismissively.

  “Of course.” I shrugged. I never gave the reward a thought.

  “I don’t feel right, encouraging a reporter to do this so we can have the story,” Murphy, the managing editor, said. “Nor do I feel right saying she can’t do it. It’s more an individual moral choice, a weighing of the pros and cons.”

  “We can’t allow reporters to become swept up in their own stories, to lose their detachment,” Fred argued.

  “The goal we should all have,” Ojeda said, “is to take this murderer off the street before she kills again.”

  “We’re not the police, that’s not our job,” Murphy said.

  “But you always say,” I told him, “that journalism is personal—that a single reporter, a single edition, a single story can make a crucial difference.”

  “If you’re going to quote me, Britt, quote me accurately. I believe I said the toughest, wisest, and best journalism,” he said gruffly, then turned to the lawyer. “You’ve been quiet up to now, Mark. Give us your opinion.”

  All eyes on him, Mark Seybold took a deep breath, as I held mine. He removed his gold-rimmed spectacles and began slowly to polish the lenses with his handkerchief.

  “I would say the newsroom has almost no standing here to take a position one way or the other. It’s not a question of journalistic ethics. This should be between the police and the reporter, to consider the pros and cons and make an informed judgment. You’ve got a great story with or without this, Britt. If you want to help the police bring in a dangerous killer, do it as a person, not as a reporter. That said”—he paused, eyes troubled—“I tend to envision worst-case scenarios. This scares me. The police always say nothing will go wrong—but as we know, it almost always does. Not as general consul for this newspaper, but as your friend, I would point out that you’re not trained to do this. As your friend I would try my damnedest to talk you out of it.”

  The cops fidgeted in their seats, eager to interrupt, argue and rebut.

  “Hear me out,” he said, stopping them. “You, Britt, have got to ask these detectives all the tough questions.”

  In the end it was my choice.

  Ten

  NOW WE WAITED FOR THE KILLER’S CALL. SWAT, the police chopper, and the undercover detectives were poised and ready to roll. I was to deal for as much time as possible and refuse any location impossible to surround or surveil. The police did not want me out of their sight for a moment.

  The hours crept by.

  Ojeda and Simmons stared in dismay at the contents of my refrigerator, or lack thereof, then tried to sleep on folding cots in my living room. The phone rang once, and I thought my heart or bladder would burst as we scrambled. Despite the hurt in her voice, I asked my mother not to call
again until I finished my current project, adding that I loved her and would explain later. I took a call from McDonald in my bedroom, door closed. I told him I was tired when he asked what was wrong. No lie there, though I did neglect to mention the detectives in the next room. Primed for the trip home, he talked about new grant possibilities, new colleagues in Washington, and urged me to get some rest.

  Caffeine, adrenaline, and the delivered pizza took their toll. Padding barefoot into my dark kitchen for a glass of warm milk at 4 A.M., I found a shadowy presence at my kitchen table. Ojeda couldn’t sleep either.

  “What do you think motivates her?” I murmured, as we shared the last of the milk. “Why kill total strangers? What turned her into a monster?”

  “I don’t know, and I don’t care,” he said. “I don’t need to know what makes her kill or if it can be cured. All I want to know about her is information that helps me identify her and apprehend her. I want to arrest her, and convict her. That’s my job. It’s not up to me to figure out what makes her tick. I really don’t give a shit.”

  I wanted, needed, to know it all, as though the answer would place everything into perspective and I would be able at last to figure out why people do the things they do to each other. I went back to bed and left him alone in the dark, both of us awaiting the call that did not come.

  Had she changed her mind? Was this all a game to her? Had she left town?

  The detectives trailed me to the office next morning and Simmons fetched our breakfast from the cafeteria. It was Ryan’s day off so they ate at his desk. Then they waited, feet up, perusing out-of-town newspapers.

  I worked on other stories but found it hard to focus. I kept checking the time. Where was she?

  At 10:30 A.M., Gretchen, cool and crisp in black and white linen, sauntered over to my desk. “I guess you’re not as plugged in as you thought.” She shrugged smugly and handed me a slip of paper. “The police desk just called. The Beach had another one.”

  “Another homicide?” The detectives were on their feet.