Cold Case Squad

by Edna Buchanan

  Like clockwork, Greg Everett calls breathlessly minutes later. He sounds excited. “Your subject is leaving the building. Said she was going to the post office.”

  “What’s she got with her? Is she carrying anything?”

  “Just a purse and a manila envelope.”

  “Okay, stay on it and ring me the minute she comes back.”

  “Another thing,” he said. “It might be important. She said she’s taking a trip, to Miami.”

  “Excellent. Good work, Greg.”

  I fight it but can’t resist calling Connie.

  The answering machine picks up. “Hi, sweetheart,” I say. “I’m out of town on a case, but I’ll be back in Miami tonight. I miss you, babe. I really do. We’ll be snowed under by paperwork and meetings tonight, but let’s talk first thing tomorrow. I miss the hell out of you. Can’t wait to tell you all about this case. Kiss the kids for me. Love you, honey.”

  I realize I haven’t thought of Maureen since I left Miami. I think of Connie and the kids all the time. Nothing like distance to clarify things. I love my wife. I hope she still loves me.

  Full of energy and hope, I shave, shower, and drink coffee.

  Greg calls at eleven. Big Red is back. She told him she bought a bathing suit. You can’t say the woman isn’t talkative. My life would be simpler if all witnesses were so talkative.

  Women. They never cease to amaze me. Their priorities boggle my mind. Two cops are about to escort her back to Miami to discuss three homicides, a wrongful execution, and numerous other little escapades, including armed robbery and arson. So how does she cope? She buys a bathing suit.

  I call her. She babbles about wanting enough time to have her hair done. “Lots of hairdressers in Miami,” I say. She tells me about the bathing suit, too. I can’t imagine it being a pretty sight, but she goes on about it being adorable, something about a tank. I don’t know if she’s describing the suit or what she looks like in it.

  She asks about publicity. Thinks it will enhance her plans for a show biz comeback. “You saw Chicago, didn’t you?” she demands.

  I say I don’t see many movies but she wheedles out of me a promise that I won’t let anybody snap her picture before she sees a good hair colorist. Jo Salazar, the prosecutor, and my lieutenant, also female, I say, will understand completely and guide her in that department.

  Nazario is taking Terrell’s photo to police headquarters to be copied. I need to buy souvenirs for Connie and the kids, but I can do that at the airport.

  “I’ll go baby-sit Big Red until we leave,” I say. “I don’t want her having any second thoughts at the last minute.”

  He drops me off in front of the Silver Briar.

  Something is missing from the pink marble lobby. Greg, the security guard, is not at his post. Goddamn that kid! AWOL, just when I’m about to write him a to-whom-it-may-concern letter recommending he be leapfrogged to the head of the academy’s waiting list because of his diligent assistance to out-of-town police officers.

  Probably just a bathroom break, but it pisses me off.

  I take the slow-moving elevator to floor four.

  A loud radio blares from inside Big Red’s apartment, but she doesn’t answer, despite my hammering with her lion’s-head door knocker. Must be in the shower. I should’ve called first.

  I try the knob. The door opens.

  I call out her name and step inside.

  A trunk and a matched set of expensive leather luggage stand just inside the door, ready to go.

  The shower isn’t running. “Desiree!”

  I turn off the loud radio and step into her bedroom. Clothes are strewn about. Drawers hang open. She packed in a hurry. “Desiree! Linda!”

  She’s not in the bathroom.

  Alarmed, I pull out my cell, hit Nazario’s number, and head for the kitchen as it rings. I pass the large gilt-framed oval mirror and in it glimpse a reflection, something terrible behind the bar. A pale, bare foot, her shoe beside it. The once-white carpet now crimson. She’s sprawled on the floor, her head resting against the wall. I rush to find a pulse. Her skin is still warm. But half her face is gone.

  “Goddamn it!” I shout.

  I hear a click, turn, and recognize an older Charles Terrell in the instant before he shoots me in the chest. I see the flame and feel the impact before I hear the shot. The force of the bullet knocks the wind out of me. My knees buckle. I reach for my gun as I fall, but he lunges forward and shoots me in the head.

  I can’t feel my hands or feet. It’s as though a red-hot railroad spike has been pounded into my skull between my eyes. Pain impulses travel up and down my spinal cord, relayed from one nerve cell to the next by chemical messengers to the brain. I feel like I have been doused with gasoline and set on fire.

  He takes my gun, cell phone, and identification. My eyes stay closed. To open them would only invite another bullet.

  I think he is gone and I am alone.

  I smell spilled blood and know that it’s mine.

  She’s dead, I think, as I drift away. It’s my fault. I’m dying and it’s my fault. I was so stupid.

  The room is quiet. Blood bubbles up out of my chest. I try to sigh but it is too difficult to breathe.

  My future slips away. All behind me now. Here I am in the valley of the shadow. I think of my wife and my children.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Horns blared and brakes screeched as Nazario accelerated into a U-turn. All he’d heard on the cell phone was Burch’s shout and what sounded like gunfire.

  Burch didn’t answer when he called back. Nazario called local police. He blew three red lights leaning on the horn, abandoned the rental on the sidewalk, and sprinted into the lobby.

  He cursed, skidding on the marble floor, when he saw the security post unmanned. The guard must be with Burch. What went wrong?

  He punched the elevator button half a dozen times and had turned to take the stairs when it arrived. He burst out on the fourth floor, gun in hand.

  The door to Desiree’s apartment stood ajar. He kicked it open and proceeded cautiously. “Sarge?” He took another step inside.

  “¡Dios mío! ¿Que pasó?”

  Eyes darting, gun ready, he knelt beside Burch, whose shirtfront was soaked with blood. So was the carpet beneath him. Blood gushed from a head wound as well. Multiple gunshot wounds. He felt for a pulse. “Sarge! Sarge!”

  Burch’s eyelids fluttered. He tried to say something. “Tell my wife I love her.”

  “Son of a bitch, tell her yourself. Hang on. Help is on the way.”

  He’d left his cell in the car. He dove on the wall phone behind the bar and saw Desiree.

  No dial tone, wires cut.

  He raced through the apartment, kicking open the doors. No one else there. He dashed out into the hall. The other tenants on the floor were gone, the guard had said. The elevator indicator showed it was in the lobby. Faster to take the stairs.

  He charged down the dimly lit stairwell, taking two and three steps at a time. He stumbled over something at the second-floor level and nearly plunged headlong. Greg, the security guard. The kid who wanted to be a cop. His skin already growing cold. Shot in the back of the head.

  Nazario hit the pavement running.

  “Three down, one is a police officer suffering from multiple gunshot wounds!” He was still shouting into his cell phone when the first Portland squad car pulled up.

  “No. No. No.” Nazario tried to deny what he knew was true as he paced the street, cleared of traffic for the rescue helicopter.

  Strapped to a backboard, his skin paper white, Burch was brought out of the building by medics. He wore a neck brace and had intravenous lines in his arms.

  “I can’t go with you, Sarge,” Nazario said in his ear. “I’ll find Terrell. Then I’ll be there. Hang in.”

  There was no response.

  The chopper spiraled into the air, higher and higher, a vanishing speck in a gray sky.

  Big Red and Greg Everett woul
d wait for the morgue wagon.

  Where is Terrell? He couldn’t have struck this quickly if he lived out of town, Nazario reasoned. He had to have been here already. Big Red must have called him. To say goodbye or to warn him.

  “¡Que es estúpida!” Surprising Terrell let her live this long. He only had a five-minute head start. Where is he? Burch is dying, Nazario thought. How did he allow this to happen? To Burch. To the kid, the newlywed security guard with ambitions to be a cop. To Big Red, who would never see the Miami sky again. How many victims now? Where is Terrell? Something Big Red said last night. About strip clubs. Strip clubs. He thought of Floria and tears stung his eyes. Big Red said spending time at a club is cheaper than dating or marriage. Buddy still feels that way. That’s what she said.

  Present tense. Present place.

  Nazario gave Terrell’s general description to the lieutenant in charge of the crime scene.

  “Did you see him?” the lieutenant asked.

  “No, but it’s him.”

  The lieutenant was furious. Out-of-town cops had no business taking police action on his turf, he said, without being accompanied by one of his own.

  “We didn’t take any police action,” Nazario explained. “We were just talking to a witness. Can you call in somebody from Vice? ASAP? They would know this guy.”

  “We need to handle this crime scene first. You stay put,” the lieutenant ordered. “We’ll want to take a statement from you.”

  Nazario couldn’t wait.

  “You ever work Vice? This is a twelve-year-old picture. He could look a lot different now.” He paced the sidewalk, flashing Terrell’s photo at the uniforms.

  “Hey, look at this!” a weathered patrolman said. Another peered over his shoulder.

  “Sure thing, that’s him.” The second one nodded.

  “Who?”

  “Josh Ellis. Owns a restaurant and the Candy Stick Lounge, a strip joint over on the waterfront. First exit before the seaport.”

  Nazario walked to his car. He gently eased the rental around the block out of sight, then floored it.

  Too early for entertainment at the Candy Stick. The big double doors out front were locked, but a side door to the bar was open.

  Only one person in sight, a man cleaning up behind the huge horseshoe-shaped bar. He was thin and acne scarred, with straight black hair worn too long.

  “I need to talk to the boss,” Nazario said. “Is Josh here?”

  “Nope.” The bartender pushed his hair out of his eyes and squinted at him. “Hasn’t been here today.”

  He was lying.

  “Okay, I’ll leave the message with you.” Nazario motioned, as though about to whisper something confidential.

  When the man leaned forward, Nazario caught him by the neck and shirtfront and dragged him across the bar. He wrestled him into the women’s restroom and left him handcuffed to a pipe.

  The office marked PRIVATE was at the back, behind a door, sturdy, reinforced, and locked. Nazario heard someone moving about inside, drawers opening and closing.

  He returned to a box he’d seen on the wall near the stage, yanked the fire alarm, and took a position beside the office door.

  The deafening alarm was overridden by a computerized voice warning patrons to leave the building at once. After a moment or two the sprinkler system sputtered, then kicked in. Water jets sprayed from the ceiling.

  A bolt disengaged and a man stepped out of the office. Charles Terrell, aka Josh Ellis, was a few pounds heavier and a dozen years older than in the photo. He had a suitcase in his left hand and a gun in his belt. “Manny!” he shouted. “What the hell’s—”

  Nazario jammed his gun to the side of Terrell’s head.

  “Maricón,” he muttered. “Please reach for your weapon so I can shoot you now.”

  “What is this, a robbery?” Terrell raised his hands, feigning innocence.

  “Sí, a robbery. At the Place Montmartre in Miami Beach. You remember it, the one with the ten-foot blonde outside. Put your hands against the wall.” Nazario took Terrell’s gun. He patted him down, ignoring the cold spray that drenched them both.

  “I’ve never been to Miami. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Then why is my sergeant’s badge case in your pocket? Hijo de puta.”

  Terrell suddenly spun away, darted through the door to his office, and tried to slam it shut. Nazario lunged forward and wedged a foot inside. He slammed his full weight against it as Terrell let go. Nazario stumbled inside, splashing through water over his shoe tops.

  Terrell had backed off to snatch another weapon, Burch’s gun, off his desk. He pointed it at the detective.

  “Gotcha,” Terrell cried, eyes bright. “Don’t move,” he said. “Drop it. Now!”

  Nazario stared at him, then dropped it. The gun plopped into the water at his feet.

  “I want you to tell me something.” Terrell seemed almost preternaturally calm. He wasn’t even breathing hard. “Tell me what the hell happened? Why, after all these years? It was foolproof. Perfect. How did you know?”

  “Your ex-wife, April, came in. Said she saw you.”

  “Mystic Seaport! I should’ve killed the bitch then! I could have. I followed them, saw where they were staying. I should have killed the bitch!”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “The goddamned kids were there.”

  “You know there are more coming behind me. A lot more.”

  “That’s why we’re taking a boat ride.”

  He snatched up his suitcase and motioned toward a back exit with the gun.

  They had almost reached the door when Nazario tripped over something hidden in the ankle-deep water and fell. Terrell cursed. “Get up, you clumsy son of a bitch. Hurry!”

  As he rolled over, Nazario kicked Terrell’s legs out from under him. He landed on his back and elbows and dropped the gun.

  Nazario piled onto him. They thrashed about in the water until the detective wrestled him to his feet and caught him in a choke hold. His right arm under Terrell’s jaw, he turned sideways to avoid the man’s flailing arms and applied pressure. He grunted as his bicep cut off the artery on the right side of Terrell’s neck. His forearm squeezed the artery on the left, stopping the flow of blood to the brain.

  He continued squeezing after Terrell went limp. He debated whether to stop.

  He did. Terrell slid, unconscious, to the floor.

  Nazario groped in the cascading water for the gun and picked it up. “Son of a whore,” he said. “Si te mueves te mato. If you move I’ll kill you.”

  Sirens converged as both the fire department and police arrived.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Rabbi Mordechai Waldman sounded breathless, speaking rapidly into the phone. “Samuel, I checked with the national rabbinical council, as you asked. The cities where the women were murdered all share the same chief mashgiach. For the last twenty-five years he has traveled periodically to each one, to inspect the kosher establishments and instruct the new mashgiachim.

  “His name is Yitzhak Friedman. His home address is in Fair Lawn, New Jersey, but they say he is here in Miami now.

  “Do you think…?”

  Stone felt a surge of adrenaline. Friedman’s age, fifty, put him in the right age group. He was staying at a small kosher hotel in Miami Beach.

  Elated, he called his grandmother. He’d been doing so several times a day since the news story. This morning she hadn’t answered. He assumed she was in the yard or with a neighbor. He tried again. No answer.

  He called the cell phone he’d given her. Either the battery was dead or the phone was turned off. He had told her to keep it in the charger, but she thought it foolish.

  “If somebody wants to call me and I’m not home,” she argued, “they can call me later.”

  She thought that people who used cell phones on the street, in shopping malls, or in their cars were foolish, with delusions of self-importance.

  He called her
next-door neighbor, who hadn’t seen her all day. The neighbor checked and called back. Gran didn’t answer the door.

  Alarmed, he thought of sending a zone car by, but what if something had happened to her?

  He went himself.

  Nothing looked unusual as he parked the car. But his chest tightened as he took the front steps two at a time.

  He fumbled with his key, then realized it was because the door wasn’t locked.

  “Gran!” The cottage was silent. Nothing out of place. The kitchen immaculate. The pictures back in their frames.

  Heart pounding in his throat, his dread mounting, he went to her bedroom. “Gran.”

  He stood in the doorway. There was something on her bed. Knees weak and trembling, he leaned on the door frame for support.

  She wasn’t there. It was a note in unfamiliar block letters.

  “See how easy. You know nothing.”

  Where was she? He tore through the rest of the house, calling her name, checked the yard. No sign of her, or her purse, or the cell phone.

  He called Riley, trying to sound calm and keep his voice from trembling.

  She issued a BOLO and dispatched the crime lab. She was on the way.

  Before they arrived, he drove quickly through the immediate neighborhood, hoping to find someone who had seen his grandmother. Then to the grocery store where she shopped, and past the library.

  No luck. Tears stung his eyes. He made a U-turn to join the other units already at the house.

  A lumbering Metro bus blocked his lane of traffic, then stopped, belching poisonous clouds of dirty exhaust. Frustrated and panicky, he leaned mercilessly on the horn, then angrily swerved around the bus. A diminutive passenger stepped off.

  She carried a shopping bag and wore a wide-brimmed hat to keep the sun off her face.

  He hit the brakes, then pulled to the curb. “Gran! Are you all right?”

  “Sonny, was that you blowing the horn back there?” She frowned. “What ever happened to your manners? That’s not how I raised you.”

  He hugged her so hard she complained. “Are you trying to crush my ribs?”