Despite, or perhaps because of, the reforms, the police department was colder and more paranoid than ever after the riot. When I called for simple information on a homicide, I was told that the chief had issued an order. Any officer I contacted for information was instructed to refer me to the PIO, and then write a memo on when and why I called. Cops hate paperwork, so relations with many of my sources were effectively chilled.
The department was making it tough on both me and McDonald. That became more clear than ever when he showed up unexpectedly at my door one night with Chinese food, a bottle of Dom Perignon, and a need to talk.
He wore a handsome new sports jacket, a shirt the color of his eyes, and the silk briefs I had given him for Valentine’s Day. He had good news and bad news. He had scored among the top ten on the lieutenant’s test and was elated. I thought I knew what was coming. “There is one thing that would reduce my chances right now to less than zero,” he said. “You know what it is?”
I nodded and put down my champagne glass, sorry now that I had lit the candles for atmosphere.
“If we should be seen together,” he said.
“Well, we’re not exactly gamboling naked up Flagler Street,” I said. “Where would anyone see us?”
“If I was just spotted coming out of here…”
“So now they are spying on the private lives of would-be lieutenants?”
He shrugged, slightly sheepish. “You never know what IA and those guys assigned to background checks will do. This means a lot to me. And I know you don’t like sneaking around like this.”
“Oh, so this is for my benefit?” I didn’t like the sound of my own voice, but I said it anyway: “Ambition can be overpowering.”
He looked pained. “Things change, everything is cyclical.” He reached out across the table and chucked my chin. “We just have to cool it for awhile, Britt. It’s not forever. The brass changes, things blow over. Better times will come.”
He wanted to stay longer, but I saw him to the door and kissed him lightly on the cheek. “It’s been real,” he said softly.
“Very real,” I said miserably.
There was one plus. I ripped the damn cuckoo clock off the wall and let Billy Boots and Bitsy have at it until they killed the cuckoo and the Tyroleans. Then I gave it to Goodwill Industries.
With all the truly important and tragic events in life, I refused to let myself be too bummed by a busted romance. After all, I told myself, I am sick of buying my dating clothes in the lingerie department. It would be nice to someday actually date a man who was unconcerned about taking me out in public, who might even be proud to be seen with me. It would be nice someday, though I wasn’t quite ready yet.
Work, as always, was my solace. If I stayed busy enough, there was no time to think. There were rewards from communicating with vast numbers of readers, even if you couldn’t communicate well one on one, up close and personal.
And things did change. Working late one night, finishing a story about a snorkler attacked by a shark, my phone rang. A wail from the jail: Pete Zalewski, as gloomy as ever. “I’m worried about my mother,” he began.
“Well Pete, all of us lucky enough to still have them worry about our mothers. I worry about my mom too. Nobody ever gets any younger…”
“The SWAT team has her trailer surrounded.”
“What?”
“She just shot my stepdaddy with a shotgun, blasted him right out the screen door.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, just talked to my cousin Frankie,” he whined. “I’m afraid the cops are gonna shoot her, Britt.”
“Hold on.”
I grabbed Ryan’s phone and called Miami PIO. He was right. Pete’s mother had been holding off SWAT for four hours. They hadn’t even been able to get close enough to drag her dead husband off the doorstep.
“You’re right, Pete. What should we do?”
“If I could just talk to her. She must be off her medication again, or drinking. Booze don’t mix with it. I could always communicate with her better than anybody in the family. I’ve always been her favorite, Britt.”
I wondered darkly what her least favorite child was like.
“Does she have a phone?”
“No, just a pay phone at the manager’s office.”
“Okay, give me that number. I’ll try to get hold of the cops at the scene.”
I called and asked for the homicide sergeant in charge.
He got on the phone. I told him who I was.
“Call PIO,” he said, and hung up.
I dialed back. He snatched up the phone. “Goddamn it, stop tying up this line and call PIO,” he said.
“Look,” I said tersely. “I didn’t call to ask you anything. I called to tell you something. Something you may find helpful.”
“I’m listening. I got to write a goddamn memo now anyhow.”
“The woman under siege in the trailer, I have her son, her favorite son, on the other line. He can probably talk her out of there without anybody else getting hurt.”
“How quick can he get here?”
“Well, sergeant, that’s the problem…”
Lottie and I were in a hurry to get out to the trailer park. The infernal newsroom elevator took forever. “What we really need,” she said, jabbing the button viciously, “is to have ‘em install a fire pole so we could just slide right down to our cars in the parking lot.” Sounded good to me.
We arrived at the SWAT scene just a few minutes before a squad car pulled up with Pete. He was happy to see us, happy for a break in his dull jail routine, and happy to see his mama, even under the circumstances.
The cops wouldn’t let him enter the trailer, for fear they’d have two murder suspects holed up. But when she heard Pete was outside, she quickly agreed to drop the shotgun and came out, stumbling over her late husband, still sprawled on the doorstep, in her haste.
The mother-son reunion was sweet. Lottie got great pictures. The cops were so touched they let the two of them ride back to jail in the same patrol car, so they could catch up on family news.
Danny Menendez was there. He was on call, and would be writing the press release. He looked friendly for a change. “Nice work, Britt. Homicide told me how you helped them out. Changed your mind about cops, huh?”
“Do you hear that?” I muttered to Lottie as we climbed into the car. “Cops!”
“To them, you’re either for ‘em, or against ‘em,” she said, “no middle road there.”
“It’s like they’ve never heard of such a thing as objective reporting.”
On the way back to the office, we talked about my love life, or lack of it. The split with McDonald, I tried to convince myself and Lottie, was actually a blessing. “Neither of us is likely to change jobs. He was right about that.”
“Maybe it only tasted so sweet because it was forbidden fruit,” she said.
“You may be right. If we had been free to see each other in public and talk openly about everything, including our work, maybe there would have been no magic.”
“I know you’ve been burned,” Lottie began carefully. “But I do have good news. Don’t ask me why, but Steve and Larry are still interested. They want to take us to the opera, the opening night of Carmen, at Gusman Hall. With Marilyn Home!” She whistled under her breath. “You know how hard it is to get opening-night seats? People actually leave them in their wills. They stay in families for generations. Opera patrons sit in the same seats their mamas and daddies sat in years ago.”
“How did Larry and Steve ever get tickets?”
“Some client of Larry’s is going to Houston for heart surgery and owes him a big one. Can’t you just see us now, all gussied up and in high cotton, mingling with everybody who’s anybody?”
“I really don’t think so…”
“Look, it’s high time somebody took you out and showed you off in public. This is big time, the place to see and be seen.”
>
“Damn straight,” I said, suddenly buoyed by the idea. “Okay, let’s go.” Maybe it was the euphoria, the exclusive story and pictures we had just aced, thanks to Pete. “Sure, I’m game. Larry is a nice guy”
“Hallelujah! And remember, this is it. Our last chance. World War III can break out, but nothing is gonna make us cancel. We don’t show up this time, and we can forget these guys.”
“You’re right,” I said, warming up to the idea. “They have been pretty understanding. Let’s be there with bells on!”
We spent the rest of the ride back to the office conspiring about what to wear.
Larry was in black tie when he picked me up on the big night. He looked pretty spiffy, except for the pale blue cummerbund. Steve was waiting in the car. As he drove his BMW, Larry squeezed my hand and explained the difference between term and whole-life insurance so well that, for the first time, I actually understood it. I may have been too enthusiastic, because he continued on into annuities.
Lottie met us at the box office. She had had to work that day, so she dressed at the paper and drove over. She looked great, her red hair ruly for a change, and swept up. It was one of the few times I have seen her in high heels instead of cowboy boots. She wore green velvet and long, glittery earrings that swept her freckled shoulders, and carried a dainty little evening bag.
Larry and Steve were taking us dancing at Regine’s at the Grand Bay afterwards. I wore a bright pink satin evening skirt with a big blousy white top with a wide collar and a matching jeweled belt and evening bag, courtesy of my mother’s professional discount.
Our seats were great, up front in Row D. I have always loved Gusman Hall, smack in the heart of downtown Miami. My mother saw Elvis perform there when she was a teenager in the fifties.
The place opened in 1926, when theaters were built like palaces, and it is a grand and gaudy piece of Miami history, with marble floors, gilded gates, and travertine walls. A philanthropist who had made his millions in condoms saved the place from demolition in the seventies, and converted it to a concert hall named after himself.
The interior resembles a courtyard in Seville. An archway frames the stage, stars twinkle, and clouds float across a deep blue ceiling. It was the perfect setting for Carmen, a story that was right up my alley, a Spanish tale of love and violence.
The audience settled down as the Prelude began, a happy, bustling tune that set a sunny scenario for the brooding action to follow.
By the time the impertinent Carmen was conning the hapless Don José into helping her escape instead of hauling her off to jail, my beeper had begun to chirp. I knew I shouldn’t have brought the darn thing. Force of habit. I caught Lottie’s warning eye, reached into my evening bag, flicked the switch to off, and left it that way.
During Carmen’s fiery gypsy song in the next act, Lottie’s beeper sounded. I was surprised she even had it with her. Our dates exchanged concerned glances, and an elegantly dressed couple in the row in front turned to give us cold stares. Lottie turned it off and made no move for a telephone. This was our night. Larry put his arm around me and I smiled, as Don José pleaded piteously with Carmen, who stamped her foot angrily and insulted him.
At intermission we strolled out to the lobby, mingled with the beautiful people, and drank champagne. Several of Miami’s ten best-dressed women, in all their finery, greeted Lottie with glad cries, as though she was an old friend. We hurried back to our seats as the lights flashed.
The musicians stamped their feet and the maestro readied his music, but the curtain was briefly delayed. The lights came back up, setting the audience abuzz as the elegantly garbed general manager of the Greater Miami Opera stepped on stage.
“A short announcement,” he said. “The police and fire department have asked us to advise members of the audience to avoid south Biscayne Boulevard when they exit this evening.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw Lottie, who had been whispering intimately in Steve’s ear, straighten in her seat. Her eyes looked alert and wary, like those of a startled deep woods creature.
“It seems there’s a little problem at the port,” the manager continued. “A fire out of control and the possibility of explosions due to the fuel storage tanks there.”
Lottie and I exchanged glances.
“So motorists who intended to take the MacArthur or Venetian Causeways home are advised that both bridges will remain closed, and that they should detour west to 1-95 and take 112 back east to the Tuttle Causeway. Now,” he gestured expressively, “back to Bizet’s Carmen.” He stepped offstage as the lights went down and the curtain rose.
Carmen contemptuously told Don José to go home. She was about to have her cards read, her fortune told. The future would not look good.
I leaned forward slightly, looking across Steve to sneak a peak at Lottie. Our eyes met in a meaningful glance.
“Excuse me. Powder room,” I whispered to Larry, who stood to let me by. People behind us murmured in annoyance.
Lottie emerged from the auditorium two minutes later, eyes sweeping the lobby for me. Elegant and ladylike we minced to the Flagler Street exit, glanced over our shoulders to be sure we were out of sight of the audience and our dates, and broke into a run.
“Where’s the car?” I panted.
“Across the street in the parking garage, first level.”
She paused at the curb to pull off her high heels. “Dang it, these dadblasted things were killing me.”
“Can you shoot color for the front page?”
“Yep, I’ve got color negative PPC film in the car. I can push it two stops in the processor.”
She tossed me the keys, and I slid into the driver’s seat of her new white company Chrysler.
“Watch out for this car, Britt. You know all the heat that came down on us about the others.”
“It wasn’t our fault”
She nodded, and slammed her door. “Larry and Steve,” she mourned, as I threw it in reverse. “They will never understand this.”
The tires whined down the curving ramp to the street.
“They weren’t our types anyway.”
“You’re right Britt. Wow! Will you look at that!” Flames were clearly visible at the port, towering into the night sky, reaching for the moon. As I turned onto Flagler, we could still hear the strains of the orchestra mingled with the music of sirens converging from all directions. An engine company honked its air horn, roaring by us on the wrong side of the road. My pulse quickened.
“Look like the county and the Beach are responding too, under the mutual aid pact,” Lottie said. She slipped off the long, glittery earrings, tossed them into the backseat, and checked her cameras. “I’ll radio the city desk and let them know we’re on it.”
“They must have put out a general alarm.” I hit the gas, trailing in the wake of an aerial truck roaring straight across the bridge to the port. “Find out how much time we have until the final.”
“Right,” she said.
I caught my own image in the rearview mirror, the flames and flashing fights reflected in my eyes, and I smiled.
“You know, Lottie, you were right. It really did me good to get out.”
Acknowledgments
I had a little help from my friends. I am grateful to Dr. Steve Nelson and Dr. Joseph H. Davis; to Ann and D. P. Hughes; to Miami’s finest: Sergeants Jerry Green and Roberson Brown, Lieutenant Robert Murphy, Major Mike Gonzalez, and Officer Lori Nadelman; to the Miami Herald’s library staff, Herald attorney Sam Terilli, and Herald writers: Liz Balmaseda, Arnold Markowitz, Lisa Getter, Joan Fleischman, and Fabiola Santiago; to the Rev. Garth Thompson; my sharp-eyed compadres: Marilyn Lane, Cynnie Cagney, Lloyd Hough, and Marshall Frank, and, especially, to the talented Leslie Wells, an editor you can trust.
More from Edna Buchanan
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Miami crime reporter Britt Montero has a lot on her hands. She’s investigating a series of bizarre deaths involving sex, electrocution, and freshly poured concrete. As if that isn’t enough, there’s the long unsolved murder of a young girl that may implicate the front-runner in the governor’s race.
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Act of Betrayal
The Britt Montero series continues with this thrilling installment from Pulitzer Prize-winner Edna Buchanan.
When Miami crime reporter Britt Montero reports a missing teenager, she discovers that the case may be related to a string of unsolved disappearances. As Britt delves into the baffling case, an old mystery opens new wounds: she unexpectedly meets two men who knew her deceased father. Through them, Britt learns that he left a diary identifying the man who betrayed him. But the diary isn’t easily possessed; anyone who finds it seems to be marked for murder. At the height of a terrifying category five hurricane, Britt needs to face the man who betrayed her father in order to uncover more than one truth, but will her hunger for justice turn her into the next victim?
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