Contents Under Pressure

by Edna Buchanan

  I showered, dressed, put on some lipstick, ran a comb through my hair, and headed out. Helen Goldstein, my landlady, was watering her flower beds with a hose.

  “You came home late last night.” She smiled playfully, her face hopeful. The Goldsteins had been married for nearly sixty years, and she was always asking when I would bring home a nice man. I always replied that I would have to find one first, and that was not easy because she had apparently snatched up the last one.

  “I know, I worked late,” I called, as I hopped in my car. She looked disappointed, and waved me on.

  Miami police headquarters squats like a fortress at the edge of Overtown, a mammoth five-story rectangle, its concrete facade covered by red clay colored tiles. Local law mandates that a percentage of the cost of all public buildings be set aside for artwork. As a result, a huge and colorful abstract, handpainted by a French artist on Italian tiles, dominates the gradually escalating walkway to the main entrance. The cops hate it. They favor artwork that is more humanistic and easier to understand, like sculptures of policemen helping little children or of fallen heroes. Squinting at the colors, painfully bright in the glare of the morning sun, I understood their objections.

  The accident bureau was an L-shaped office tucked into a corner of the main floor. An officer I didn’t know was manning the unit, seated at a desk in front of a giant street map of the city pricked by red pins marking the sites of fatal accidents, yellow pins indicating injuries, and blue pins denoting hit-and-run investigations. Huge clusters of multicolored pins at certain intersections were enough to make me want to change my usual driving habits and detour for miles if necessary. This office was devoted to the deadliest and most destructive force in South Florida, the motor vehicle. Here, the officers had selected their own artwork. Framed photo enlargements of the city’s most spectacular smashups hung from every wall, impossible to ignore. The motorist impaled on a pipe when he smashed into a plumbing truck was my candidate for the photo most likely to stimulate the use of bus passes.

  I identified myself and asked to see a copy of the report on D. Wayne’s accident.

  The officer in charge shook his head, eyeing me lazily up and down. “I’m not authorized to release information,” he said, as if I should know better than to ask.

  This was ridiculous. “Accident reports are public record,” I explained.

  He was unimpressed. A small, self-satisfied smile played around his lips as he shook his head again, slowly this time, for emphasis. “My sergeant is at a staff meeting. I do nothing without his say-so. You’ll have to wait until he’s here.”

  “Okay, I’ll be back.” I crossed the lobby to the Public Information Office for my usual check of the log and a computer printout of police reports from the night before. When the new station was built, public information was on the fourth floor near the chief’s office. But allowing reporters access to the fourth floor to obtain their bleak one-paragraph press releases full of mindless police jargon gave them the opportunity to detour to more interesting upper-floor offices such as Robbery, Homicide, and Internal Affairs—where real news, juicy stories and good quotes could be ferreted out The brass caught on fast, lopped off part of the vast lobby and converted it into a PI office. They hoped that reporters grounded in the lobby would remain content with what the department chose to tell them. Some actually are.

  On the left side of the PI office was a media room, furnished with two desks, telephones, and stacks of police reports and arrest forms. A huge replica of the Miami police uniform shoulder patch dominates one wall. Blue-bordered, with a palm tree at the center, it is a favorite backdrop for TV reporters who like to shoot their interviews in front of it.

  I settled down at a desk and sighed. Police reports were far more fun to read when the officers wrote them by hand. Computer programs do not provide for unusual color, details, or theories, or the personalities of the writers. These reports all read alike, gray and uniform. What a pity.

  Several still managed to pique my interest. More Miamians had been left in the dark by people who stole the copper wiring out of streetlight poles. The thieves invaded the maintenance boxes, snipped the wires, did the same at the next light, and pulled the loose wires through the underground tubes between the poles. Then they stripped off the insulation and melted down the copper wires to sell to scrap metal recyclers. You would think thieves so savvy and industrious would be capable of landing real jobs, I reflected as I read. But more than $154,000 worth of wiring had disappeared, and nothing seemed to cut the losses. As a last resort, city administrators had ordered the streetlights left on all day—a shocking waste of city money, I thought. But forcing the thieves to tamper with hot wires seemed to be the only way to stop them.

  There were reports of more robberies by police impersonators, which was old news by now. The criminal element among the most recent tidal wave of refugees was thrilled to discover that police supply stores would sell uniforms, walkie-talkies, and handcuffs to any one who walked in off the street.

  The most intriguing overnight robbery report was a new assault by the biting bandit. He had struck again, savagely tearing off a victim’s right ear with his teeth as he robbed him. The MO was familiar. In at least twelve attacks in recent weeks, victims had lost wallets, jewelry, and chunks of arms, hands, and shoulders. One lost a ring finger.

  I called upstairs to robbery. The detective was still there, with an artist who was preparing a sketch of the bandit. If it looked good, we could have it for the early edition, he promised. The investigator sounded grim. “He’s still out there, and we think he’ll bite again.”

  They had a few new clues. A forensic dentist had examined the victim’s wounds, and concluded that the robber had a severe overbite. He would be able to match the bandit’s incisors to tooth marks he left behind, but they would have to catch him first—then pry open his mouth to take a wax impression. Little tasks like that make me glad I’m not a cop.

  I forged around and found the Sunday night log. The entry for D. Wayne Hudson’s case looked ordinary. A 317 (an accident with injuries), involving one car. A black, male motorist fled from the police, crashed, and was taken to County Hospital for treatment of his injuries. He had been charged with traffic offenses and fleeing the officers. Curiously, the log didn’t mention any stolen car or “armed and dangerous felony suspect.”

  I returned to the accident bureau, still manned by the same officious cop, and asked again for a copy of the report on D. Wayne Hudson. “As I told you before,” he said, “I’m not authorized to release a thing.”

  “Can I talk to your sergeant?”

  “He’s still unavailable.”

  “When will he be back?”

  “No way to tell.” The smile lurked on his face. He was enjoying this: Some people love to say no. I stomped heatedly out to my car in the parking lot, fished a public records request form from a folder I keep handy in the backseat, filled in the blanks, and stalked back inside. “This is for you,” I said, presenting it to him with a smile of my own.

  He looked puzzled, studied it, and no longer seemed so pleased with himself. Florida has one of the best public records laws in the nation. Bureaucrats who refuse to provide documents that are public record face suspension, removal, or impeachment, and can be charged with a first degree misdemeanor. The language on my form said as much, and definitely captures the attention of recalcitrant recordkeepers.

  Police records can be withheld during an open criminal investigation—but in this case, I figured, the only potential suspect was deceased and would therefore never be charged with a crime, if one had occurred.

  “I’ll be back in an hour or so to look at the report,” I told him.

  He shrugged nonchalantly, but something in his eyes had changed. I saw him reach for the phone as I flounced out the door.

  I drove over to Esquina De Tejas for Cuban coffee and a pastele de guayaba, a crisp flaky pastry with sinfully sweet guava and cream cheese fil
ling. Another plus about this job is that when I lack enough sleep, I can eat anything without gaining weight. The first swallow of thick black Cuban coffee sent a shudder through me, and suddenly I felt truly awake and full of fire.

  Maggie, the comfortably plump and motherly waitress, kept up her usual chitchat, all the advice any one could want, and more. “Such a pretty girl, with that face, that blond hair, those green eyes, but too skinny. You should eat more.”

  Luis, the young counterman, shimmied to the internal rhythm of a merengue beat and began the usual questions. “When will Fidel fall?”

  “I wish I knew,” I said, shrugging.

  “How do you think it will be?” he said eagerly.

  “Maybe it will be a bloody coup, like in Romania.”

  He liked that one, slicing a forefinger across his throat as he nodded, looking pleased. “I hope they cut off his head.” His eyes then took on a wary expression, I knew what would come next; the question I hated.

  “Why is the News so anti-Cuban?” His expression was intent, accusatory.

  “I’m Cuban and I work there.” Why me? I wondered, irritably. “Maybe the people who say those things are the anti-Cubans.”

  “You hear it every day, on the radio, the News is soft on Castro. You print only what the Cuban government feeds you. You do not do enough to expose the atrocities…”

  “Don’t believe everything you hear on the radio, Luis. You think I would work there if the paper was soft on Fidel? My father…”

  “Don’t listen to him, Britt,” Maggie interrupted. “He’s been running around the Everglades in the hot sun too long, training for the invasion. Too many guns were fired too close to his head, and now he is loco.”

  I bought another sweet pastry to go, and made my getaway, back to the paper. When I arrived, I stopped in at the photo department.

  “You know I’m on a diet,” Lottie wailed when I placed the paper bag in front of her. Her protest finished, she eagerly unwrapped it. “What, you only brought one?’’ She plugged in the kettle she kept on her desk. “Tea?”

  “No thanks, I just had two cups of Cuban coffee.”

  “Gawd.” She wrinkled her nose, teeth on edge. “I wouldn’t sleep for five days. Only Latinos can drink that stuff. Your stomachs must be stronger than anybody else’s. Well, Britt, you missed it all last night. I finally met Steve, your friend Larry’s buddy, and I think I’m in love. We have to date these guys. We’ve been putting them off for weeks.”

  She pulled a mug from her desk drawer, poured boiling water over an herbal teabag, and stirred in a spoonful of honey.

  I was not enthusiastic. I had met Larry while working on a story. One of his clients had heavily insured and then murdered his bride, hardly the sort of first encounter that leads to romantic fantasies. Besides, his favorite topic of conversation was tax-deferred variable annuities. My personal life is a battlefield littered with the corpses of once-promising relationships, casualties of my job. I had come close to marriage once, with Josh, the college sweetheart who had followed me home from Chicago. But he disliked Miami, and sharing me with the police beat. Somehow the job, with its deadlines and long, unpredictable hours, always interferes with romance. The two seem unable to peacefully coexist. So right now, I give work priority.

  “You know how tough it is for us both to be off at the same time,” I told her, “and, anyway, I don’t think I’m interested.”

  “Well you sure put a rise in his Levis.”

  She daintily polished off the pastry and licked the flakes from her fingers.

  “It’s bad policy to date men you deal with on the job,” I said righteously, my usual response.

  “Get real, it’s not like Larry’s a source or somebody you work next to every day of the world. That was a one-shot story. Simple. He sold the life insurance policy; you covered the murder.”

  Lottie shrugged it off as though it was the most natural equation in the world. Two plus two, life insurance equals murder. Her tea smelled like orange peel. As she sipped it, I could read the lettering on the side of her mug: “Make a Cop Come. Dial 911.”

  “Hell-all-Friday, you’d think that rascal would have waited more than two weeks after the policy was signed a’fore he killed his wife. His IQ must be the same as his shoe size. What is really amazin’ is that he nearly got away with it,” she continued, brushing crumbs off her blouse. “All Larry did was confirm that spanking-new insurance policy. Your story and the arrest saved a bundle of his company’s money. He owes you a few big nights on the town. Besides, you’re always working. If you don’t date anybody you meet on the job, you’ll die an old maid. That’s what it will say on your tombstone, ‘Single But Successful.’ I bet you were here ‘til one o’clock this mornin’. Nice stories, by the way.”

  “Nice pictures.” We grinned at each other.

  Whatever else we share or don’t, we are both news junkies, hooked on adrenaline. Lottie is divorced, and has been for years, no children. At age thirty-nine, she is eight years older, almost four inches taller, and twenty pounds heavier than I am. Fearless and dedicated, with a Texas twang in her molasses-smooth voice, she has covered Colombian earthquakes, fire fights in El Salvador, and, wearing a scarf across her face against the stench, photographed the endless corpses in Jonestown. Lottie captures the heart-stopping moment, the football at the fingertips, life and death in America’s most violent city. Nobody does it better.

  Lottie is funny and full of life, more outgoing than I am. I always wished that I was taller, like her statuesque five-eight, that my hair was thicker, my hips thinner, and that I had a more ready laugh, like hers.

  “Let’s make a definite date with these guys,” she was urging.

  “What does his buddy do?”

  “Something in sales and marketing. They actually seem normal.” She raised an eyebrow significantly and leaned back, her hand-tooled leather cowboy boots up on the desk, red hair unruly, her smile smug. “I feel like a whole woman again. I got my IUD put back.” Her drawl became more pronounced when she was relaxed.

  “Normal guys … I wouldn’t know what to talk to them about,” I said. “Pete Zalewski is the only man who has been calling me lately.”

  Lottie frowned. “I thought he was in jail.”

  “He is.”

  “Gawd, that looney tunes. Why do you waste your time talking to him?”

  I had no answer. Feeling wistful, I signed and glanced restlessly at the clock. Lottie picked up on my anxiety.

  “Bummer about D. Wayne. I photographed him once at the Orange Bowl; nobody else could scramble the way he could. He completed thirty-one out of thirty-nine passes that day. What the hell happened to him?”

  “I don’t know. I’m going back over there now to see the accident report. Some guy at the station really jerked me around this morning, until I laid a public records request on him.”

  “Good for you. Go get ‘em, Britt. I’ve got something you can take along. I made extra prints of Officer Ted in action yesterday.” She handed me a manila envelope. “Give Ted my best when you give him these, or maybe I’ll do it myself. Is he married?” she asked slyly. Lottie is a survivor, full of hope. Ready to settle down and have children, she is impatient. If the right man doesn’t come along soon, she might just start without him.

  I told her Ted was a family man.

  “Heeelll,” she said, the only person I know who regularly wrings two syllables out of that word. “Well, his wife and the kiddies will love the pictures, and he will, too. Hee, hee, it doesn’t hurt to have a friend over at the Miami Police Department.”

  It sure didn’t. Lottie is savvy about cultivating sources. Unlike most photographers, she is as interested in the story as the picture. She always wants to know everything. If you don’t know the story, you don’t know what the picture is. She is always optimistic and resourceful, a woman who, if cast ashore alone on a desert island, would build a house with a guest room. I promised to thi
nk about us seeing Larry and Steve, and checked my desk on the way out.

  The usual melange of messages waited, from sports fans wanting to talk about D. Wayne and from unhappy inmates at the Dade County Jail, including two from Pete Zalewski. He was eager, no doubt, to unload on me more of his tearful talk about Patsy, the lost love of his life.

  Many people I meet are fascinating in the way that something ugly or evil fascinates. I often talk to criminals even when not working on specific stories about their crimes. We each satisfy a need in the other: theirs is to be listened to, mine is curiosity. How did they get that way? What overpowering force drew them to disaster and will continue to do so, no matter what? Were they born with it, or was it something that overtook them along the way?

  Our talks are often disturbing, but I learn a great deal from them. Yet it is never enough. I guess my hope is to one day ask the right question and hear the answer that somehow makes sense out of all the terrible things people do to each other—and themselves.

  In the meantime, patient listening occasionally paid off with a good news tip from behind bars. However, Pete Zalewski’s poor-pitiful-me refrain was growing a bit thin. If Patsy was the light and great love of his life, he should have refrained from choking her. Now he was growing increasingly apprehensive about his upcoming murder trial, with good reason; I doubted a jury would buy his defense—that he only killed Patsy because she wanted to be put out of the misery of her life, on the streets since age fifteen. Pete wanted assurance that his day in court would turn out fine. He would not get that from me. I never lie to anybody behind bars, or to any source, for that matter. I am straight with them, and expect them to be straight with me.

  At police headquarters, I spotted Ted in the parking lot and overtook him. It looked almost as though he tried to avoid me.