Nobody Lives Forever

by Edna Buchanan

  “What?”

  “Tomorrow, the hospital.”

  “It’s a private hospital,” Feigleman said soothingly. “You have your own room, your own color TV, arts and crafts if you care to participate, and I’ll see you there every day.”

  “I don’t want to go to prison.” Her voice had dropped to a whisper, and she looked stricken.

  “You won’t.” Sloat’s words rang with confidence. “Never happen. Tomorrow you kiss this place good-bye for good.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  He leaned forward, his smile almost a leer. “The treatment for multiple personality disorder is psychotherapy, individual analysis for each of the personalities, with fusion the ultimate goal.”

  She still looked confused.

  “Do you realize how long that will take?” Feigleman said. “Years and years.”

  “During that time,” the lawyer continued, “you will be incompetent to stand trial. Under Florida law, when a defendant is not declared competent after five years, all charges are dismissed—forever. That’s not all.” His shiny fingernails tapped a burnished leather folder. “I’ve done my homework. Should you go to trial, you stand an excellent chance of acquittal. There are precedents. An Ohio man with twenty-four personalities was found innocent, by reason of insanity, of kidnapping, raping, and robbing three women. In another case, a California man was acquitted of killing his wife after his doctors convinced the jury that the crime was committed by one of the husband’s separate identities, not him.”

  “Young lady,” Feigleman said, “you don’t have a worry in the world.”

  “Except,” Sloat said, “maybe, who plays you in the movie. You’re going to be a celebrity.”

  Both men laughed, caught up in their own excitement.

  Laurel stared at the floor.

  Her eyes darkened as she raised her head. Her elbow found the table, her fist balled under her chin. The other hand was open and on her hip.

  “What happens to us if this fusion therapy works?” the husky voice asked.

  The two men exchanged glances, and Feigleman hesitated a moment. “After the problems of each personality are solved in analysis, all are eventually absorbed into a single well-rounded individual.”

  “Who is the one who survives and keeps control?”

  “I think the answer to that will come later, during therapy,” the doctor said uneasily.

  “Remember,” Sloat said quickly, “the course we are taking means treatment and hospitalization rather than prosecution and imprisonment.”

  His client nodded. “One more thing.” Doctor and lawyer sat at attention. “Jennifer wants her Teddy and her blankie. She says she can’t sleep without them.”

  “Teddy and blankie,” the lawyer repeated solemnly, jotting it down in a notebook. When he looked up again, his client’s body language had assumed a straight-backed, prim posture. Staring with distaste at a rude word some other inmate had scrawled in pencil on the smooth tabletop, she tried to rub it clean with her handkerchief, then stared at the two men.

  “What about my right to the house? That is my home.”

  The lawyer nodded and scribbled another note. “That may be a touchy matter since you were not married and the relationship was of relatively short duration.”

  “The man made me promises,” she snapped. “We were living as man and wife.”

  “I have an associate whose specialty is domestic litigation, and I’ll have him check into it. We’ll make sure that any interests you have are protected.”

  “I think that about does it,” Feigleman said cheerfully.

  Sloat nodded and snapped his briefcase shut. “It’s been a long day.”

  The two men pushed back their chairs. Laurel stared in panic, then looked wildly around her at the colorful cartoon-character murals on every wall.

  “Please don’t leave me alone here. I’m scared,” she said.

  “This time tomorrow, you will be in your own room with all the comforts of home,” Feigleman said. He spoke the words slowly and soothingly.

  “It’s max security of course,” Sloat added. “Otherwise the judge never would have agreed, but it’s comfortable.”

  “Comfy,” Feigleman said, his pink skin flushed above the bowtie.

  “Don’t go,” she pleaded, half rising and reaching out to them.

  “Everything will be fine,” Sloat said. “Compared to what most cop killers face, you are going to come out way ahead of the game.”

  “I’m not a cop killer!” She shook her head and slumped back into her chair.

  “Of course not,” Feigleman said gently.

  “You couldn’t help yourself,” Sloat crooned.

  “I’ll look in on you tomorrow after you’re settled at the hospital,” the doctor said.

  She did not answer. She huddled in the chair, weeping like a brokenhearted child. The two men moved to the door, and Sloat punched the buzzer. “Shall we stop somewhere for a drink?” the lawyer asked.

  “By all means. I think the occasion calls for one.”

  A corrections officer let them out of the locked interview room, removed his handcuffs from his belt and manacled Laurel’s left wrist to the arm of her chair. “A matron will be back for you in a minute,” he told her.

  Alone in the room, Laurel wept aloud, venting her misery and hopelessness. Eventually the tears subsided and the room grew quiet.

  The slumped figure straightened and stretched. The right foot tapped speculatively. Jangly metallic sounds, as the handcuffs fell away from an arched wrist. Pacing the room now. No one coming.

  The table made a scraping sound when dragged over to the window. The chair on top. The latch. The screen screeched slightly as it was pushed out of place.

  Alex swung his legs out the window, clung for a moment to the dusty sill and then dropped easily to the wet grass. He landed in a crouch. Free again, in the warm and moonlit night. The smells of mowed grass and rain were in the air. He breathed deeply, drinking it in, almost greedily. He stood and wiped his hands on his jeans. No one in sight. Did they think he was stupid? He knew what fusion therapy meant. The doctor wants to kill me, he thought.

  But he won’t get the chance. Alex listened again to the endless whispering in the palm trees. Darkness always gave him a sense of freedom, especially on this night. Breaking out of a place is almost as exhilarating as breaking in, he thought. He felt no remorse. They were all so stupid.

  Alex smiled at the thought. He trotted down the small landscaped slope toward the street, then froze like a shadow, his skin prickling. Smile gone, his eyes probed the darkness. He raised his head and sniffed the air like some wary nocturnal animal seeking the source of danger. Something stirred in the bushes between him and the street. A familiar figure slowly straightened to full height and brought up the long gun from behind dense shrubbery.

  Oh shit, Alex thought, bushwhacked He was waiting for me. Sharp sounds of metal on metal, as Rick pumped a round into the chamber, the sliding action of a Remington twelve-gauge shotgun, police issue. Nowhere to run. Alex shook his head slowly.

  “Wait!” he shouted.

  Unforgiving eyes never wavered.

  They all screamed, as the night dissolved into a deadly burst of light.

  Acknowledgments

  For their support, friendship and inspiration, I am indebted to Dr. Joseph Davis, D. P. Hughes, Sergeant Gerald Green, Major Mike Gonzalez, Lieutenant Edward Carberry, Joel Hirschhorn, Rose Klayman, the Reverend Garth Thompson, Sergeant Christine Echroll, Walter Wilson, Mike Baxter, David Thornburgh, Officer Lori Nadelman and the library staff at The Miami Herald.

  Special thanks to Michael Congdon, my agent and good friend, for his guidance.

  And to Peter Osnos, my editor, Mitchell Ivers, Amy Roberts and all the people at Random House.

  More from Edna Buchanan

  Edna Buchanan’s police-beat stories won her a 1986 Pulitzer Prize
in journalism. Nobody Lives Forever is her third book and first novel. As crime reporter for The Miami Herald she has covered over five thousand violent deaths, three thousand of them murders. She lives in Miami Beach with her dog, Rocky Rowf, and her five cats, Misty Blue Eyes, Flossie, Baby Dear, Sharky and Kim.

  Britt Montero Mysteries

  Contents Under Pressure

  The first novel in Pulitzer Prize-winning Edna Buchanan’s riveting Britt Montero series.

  Meet Britt Montero, a crime reporter for a major Miami newspaper. She practically sleeps with a police scanner by her bedside. She’s smart—and reckless—enough to pursue a story no matter where it takes her.

  When a high-speed police chase leads to the death of a black football hero, Britt discovers that what seems like a cut-and-dry case is actually an intricate web of racially charged violence. As the city she loves explodes into a major riot, Britt is caught-up in life-threatening events that bring the case to its shocking twist.

  Miami, It’s Murder

  Edna Buchanan weaves a tale about the murderous streets of Miami, and how the predator can quickly become the prey.

  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.

  Pursuing a lead, Britt follows the trail of a serial rapist. Enraged by her stories, the rapist is soon the one trailing her. Tensions mount as Britt fights to uncover the truth with all the odds stacked against her.

  Suitable for Framing

  Edna Buchanan returns with another tale of violence and murder on the streets of Miami.

  A mother and child are the recent victims of a fatal hit-and-run. Miami crime reporter Britt Montero witnesses the tragedy and relentlessly pursues the story. At the same time, trouble lurks in the newsroom. A new, ambitious reporter covets Britt’s job. Britt begins to suspect that her rival’s “breaking news” stories may not be what they seem. As she investigates, Britt herself becomes the prime suspect in a shocking murder. Faced with losing more than just her job, Britt is left fighting the most desperate deadline of her life.

  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?

  Margin of Error

  Pulitzer Prize-winner Edna Buchanan’s heroine Britt Montero once again delves into Miami’s dark side of obsession and murder.

  Crime reporter Britt Montero’s dreams have been haunting her. She had to shoot a man to save her own life, and the memory of it is torturing her. Meanwhile, a major Hollywood actor strides into the newsroom—and Britt’s life—hoping to do research for the character he portrays: a secret agent undercover as a Miami crime reporter. An obsessed madwoman stalks the star, and mysterious mishaps, accidents, and deaths push Britt and the star closer together. Both are menaced by the stalker. Or is it someone else who is determined to sabotage the film and kill the star?

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