Who is Russell? I wondered. After belatedly learning the truth about my father’s death in Cuba thirty years ago, that he had not abandoned us, my mother had finally grieved, and then begun to heal and build a social life. These days, it was far busier than mine.
Moments after I brought Bitsy back inside, there was a knock at the door. She’s here! I thought in a moment of panic. I’d hoped to freshen my lipstick and comb my hair. I will never be the fashion plate she would like, but it makes her happy if I appear to be trying.
“You’re early,” I cried, throwing open the door.
“For what?” asked Mrs. Goldstein, my landlady.
“I thought you were my mother,” I said, relieved. “She’s on the way. I’m making tea.”
“Oh.” Her eyebrows lifted. She looked serious. “So, I won’t stay. But there is something you should know, Britt. I need only a minute. Then I’ll bring some rugelach to go with the tea.”
I smiled expectantly.
“It’s not easy, Britt. When Hy and I settled here we thought this is where we would stay for the rest of our lives. Where else?” She shrugged.
I felt my smile fade. “What are you saying?” My knees suddenly felt weak.
“What can I say? We’re not renewing any more leases. Fair, it’s not. But every day, they knock at our door, they call, they stuff letters in the mailbox.”
“You’re not…?” I couldn’t bring myself to say the words.
“The real estate agents, the developers. They’ve got us fuhshimmeled; they don’t stop. One wants to convert this place into condos. His fuh-cocktuh vision is apartments ‘for the young, hip, and edgy.’ This is what he tells us. Another is buying up everything around us. He wants this piece to complete a parcel for his project.”
“What project?” I whispered.
“A Home Depot.”
“Oh, no,” I pleaded. “You can’t.”
“Who would believe the money? More than we ever dreamed this place could be worth. Leave, we would never. But to live here now is so expensive. Oy! Our taxes are up; so is the insurance—the windstorm, the homeowner’s, the flood, the liability—and the utilities. Every storm season, double and triple. Soon we’ll have to raise the rent so much most tenants can’t afford to stay. Then, maybe, we would break even. To live our lives out in this place we love is what we wanted. So, who can afford it?”
“You can raise my rent,” I babbled. “I’m back to work now.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Tomorrow it’s not, or next week. But it’s a matter of time. Not a long time. We didn’t want to tell you, especially now. We looked forward to you coming back. But fair we have to be. Don’t say anything. We didn’t tell the other tenants yet, but they see the handwriting on the wall.”
“What will you do?”
She shrugged. “What can you do? We don’t feel old. But some days…With the storms, the repairs, the new city codes, it’s harder to take care of everything here. To go to a place for people our age we’d hate. They’re all so old. Century Village is not for us.” She looked miserable. Her faded blue eyes were bright with tears. “But there is a place upstate, near Ocala, that sounds nice.”
I wanted to protest, to say, But you’ve lived in Miami Beach since you met and married. More than sixty years. You’re part of this city’s history; it’s part of yours. Your roots, the story of your life is here.
I didn’t.
Instead, I took her hand. “The most important thing is to do what’s best for you both. The happiest home I’ve ever had is this one, and that’s because of you. I love you two. I wish we could live this way forever, but we both know nothing is forever.”
I smiled and hugged her, when what I really wanted to do was scream, stamp, and weep hysterically. I blew my nose as she hurried back across the courtyard for the rugelach.
The hand-painted table looked nice. My grandmother’s china teapot, the fragile cups, the dainty spoons and tiny sugar cubes, with Mrs. Goldstein’s baked treats the pièce de résistance.
My stomach rumbled. I hadn’t eaten since morning and felt ravenous. I decided to treat myself and order a pizza later. The promise of an entire mushroom pizza all to myself was a comfort.
My mother was actually late. In a hurry. Hair sleek, heels high, skirt short. We fell into each other’s arms at the door. Then she took an uncertain step back, stared at me for a long moment, and screamed.
CHAPTER SIX
“Good God, Britt! Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant!”
I shrugged. “I didn’t want you to be upset.”
“Upset?” Her eyes looked wild. “How could you? What were you thinking?” She raised her voice. “Did you think at all? This is not the life I wanted for you, ever! How could you be so reckless?”
“I’m sorry.”
“What are you going to do?” She paced my apartment, shoulders rigid, lips pressed tightly together, trying not to lose control.
“I think that’s obvious.” Truthfully, nothing was obvious to me at the moment. I was still trying to wrap my brain around the news that soon I wouldn’t even have a place to live.
“I wouldn’t wish your situation on my worst enemy,” she said bitterly. “I’ve lived it. Do you realize how difficult a life it is? I did it myself.”
“No, you didn’t,” I protested. “Not really. My grandmother mostly raised me. But don’t worry, I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen this time.”
She frowned, scrabbling in her handbag for a cigarette. “What on earth are you talking about? Your grandmother is dead.”
“You’re the grandmother.”
Her eyes opened wider, as she unleashed another hysterical tirade. “How could he? How could you? Why?”
“This wasn’t deliberate, Mom. We were in the islands. McDonald proposed. I said yes. Remember, we called you? We were so happy, so relaxed. This wasn’t intentional.”
“It’s utterly insane. It’s not how I raised you!”
“I love him, Mom.” I tried to speak rationally, softly, calmly. The last thing I wanted was to argue with her. “Please listen. When McDonald was killed, I almost asked if they could remove semen from his body so I could be inseminated. Believe it or not, the thought actually crossed my mind.”
She stared at me as though I were an insane stranger.
“Maybe I was crazy with grief, but I’d read about the procedure. It’s been done. But as much as I wanted a part of him to live on, I knew it was selfish. No child should be deprived of the stability of a two-parent home or the chance to know his father. I remembered how hard it was to grow up without my dad. But then, a few weeks after the funeral, I discovered it had happened anyway. There must be a reason. That’s why I left for a while, to try to sort it out.”
“What will you do?” she demanded. “How will you live?”
“I don’t know, exactly.”
“You’ve ruined your life! Your youth, your education, your future! It’s ruined. You’ve flushed it all down the drain!”
She began to weep. Then she grimaced and gently touched my face. “You didn’t use sun protection either!” she cried accusingly. “First you ruin your skin, then your entire life.”
She teetered dramatically across my small living room on her stilettos, flung herself onto my couch, and pounded the pillows hysterically.
Billy Boots watched in horror, poised for flight, back arched, hair standing on end.
Bitsy rolled over and exposed her belly, totally vulnerable, as if to say, Kill me now. I shared both their reactions.
“How can you embarrass me this way?” she shrieked.
“That’s it, isn’t it? It’s all about you.”
She turned off the tears, sat up abruptly, and snatched her cell phone. Was she dialing 911? Turning me over to the police?
“Who are you calling?”
“Russell, he’s waiting,” she whimpered. She hiccuped and blew her nose. “I have to let him know I’m not coming. That I have a family emergency
and can’t leave.”
The horror was all mine. She plans to stay?
“No, no, no! Don’t let me spoil your evening or his. It’s not fair. Don’t do that! And I don’t want to argue, Mom. I’m not up to it.” I collapsed into my favorite armchair, suddenly exhausted. “I’ve had some other bad news. And I need some sleep. I have to work in the morning.”
She cut off her cell call before it connected. “Are you all right?” For the first time, she showed concern rather than anger. “You can’t keep that job, Britt,” she added. “It’s too dangerous for a woman in your condition.”
“Believe it or not, Mom, cops, firefighters, soldiers, and astronauts all have babies. I even know some reporters who are mothers.”
“How can you do this to me?” she whimpered.
I gave her a quick hug, stopped arguing, and began to get ready for bed, hoping it would convince her to go meet her date. She soon wiped her eyes, repaired her makeup, and recombed her little-Dutch-girl haircut.
“We need to talk more about this, Britt,” she said, before leaving.
“Mom?” I said, as she reached the door.
She turned and gazed at me in my baggy pajamas—actually an old large Miami Dolphins T-shirt over a loose drawstring bottom—then closed her eyes for a moment, as though the sight was too much to bear.
“You can forget the form-fitting sheath with my name on it.”
Even she had to smile, if only for a moment.
Restless after she left, I remembered the box of McDonald’s things in the bottom of my hall closet. I suddenly wanted to hold something that had belonged to him. They were mostly books, a few novels, an autobiography of Chuck Yeager. At the bottom was his Miami High School yearbook.
I thumbed through the pages, eager to see how McDonald looked as a teenager. Here was something to show our child someday.
His youthful clear-eyed look and familiar smile took my breath away. Friends, fellow students, and teachers had signed the book, but there was only one notation on the page with his high school picture. The writing was graceful, legible, in blue ink. Always in my heart, Love, Kathy.
The signature was followed by the outline of a tiny heart pierced by an arrow.
I swallowed and stared at it for a long time.
Her photo was on another page. Blonder and sweet-faced, with eyes full of fun, she was somebody I probably would have liked had I known her back then. No hint in that tender young face of the strong woman she would become, wearing a badge and a gun.
Wait for me. Love, Ken, he had written.
Turning the pages, I picked out their faces in group shots. Found one of her at bat in a softball game. He played football.
Kendall McDonald and Kathleen Constance Riley, voted most glamorous couple, said the caption under a photo of them together.
They wore the flirtatious electric glow of teenage sweethearts. I recognized the look. I’d seen it just hours ago in her office, in that fishing photo shot nearly two decades later.
Under his picture it said Most likely to be found with Kathy. Beneath hers, Most likely to be found in Kendall’s convertible. I closed the book.
My eyes flooded. How I envied all those years, all the history they had shared.
I forgot the pizza, stuffed my miserable face with rugelach, brushed my teeth, and fell into bed. I stared at the ceiling and then tossed and turned, as dark shapes crept in between the sheets with me. Jumbled horrors I couldn’t quite recall ended in a flaming encore performance of my recurring dream. I woke up dazed and disoriented, a displaced person who didn’t belong here or anywhere.
Without turning on the lights, I wandered outside with Bitsy and Billy and sat on a cold stone bench in the courtyard. The seductive scents of night-blooming jasmine, gardenias, and home filled the inky darkness before dawn. Home. My home. For how long? I wondered. Imagining this garden, this abode I loved, a denuded and barren construction site stung like a knife wound to my heart. Where will I go? I wondered. What can I do?
I searched the sky for comfort, cat purring in my lap, little dog at my feet. Like people, earthbound landmarks age and disappear, despite our struggles to save them, I thought. Only the heavens remain constant.
Venus, the morning star, rose in the northeast as I watched Aries the Ram pursue Pegasus, the winged horse, across the eastern sky. Eventually, familiar sounds returned me to earthly matters, the plop of morning papers hitting the ground.
COLD CASE SQUAD
MIAMI, FLORIDA
“Could’ve knocked me over with a feather when she walked in here.” Corso grinned. “Who knew?”
“Not Riley, that’s obvious,” Burch said. “See the look on her face? One look at that belly bump and she locked herself in her office. She was so hot to move on the York case, to find out what Montero knew, but she just turned around and closed her door.”
“Have to hand it to Britt for coming back here. Took a lot of nerve,” Stone said quietly.
“Nobody ever said she didn’t have chutzpah,” Corso said. “Wonder what she and Riley talked about in there.”
“Didn’t take long, whatever it was,” Burch said.
“McDonald sure had a way with the ladies,” Nazario said.
“The whole damn thing is awkward,” Burch said. “I’ve only seen that look on Riley’s face twice. The last time was when McDonald got killed. The other was way back when that dentist shotgunned his seven-year-old kid in the face to spite his ex-wife.
“I drank for four straight days after that one myself. Couldn’t stop seeing it. When his father racked one into the chamber and aimed the gun at him, the kid was scared and covered his eyes with his hands. His little fingers wound up embedded in what was left of his face.”
“Uh-oh,” Nazario said.
Riley had emerged from her office. “Did the reporter know anything?” she asked briskly.
“Nothing we didn’t already know,” Burch said. “She talked to York at the paper. He was alone, mentioned no names. His immediate plans were to find himself a cheap room and hit the law books. She didn’t think he’d run. He was high on publicity, couldn’t wait to play Perry Mason at his own trial. We’ll do a supplement.”
The quiet Cuban-born detective is blessed with an uncanny talent invaluable to an investigator, even though it does not provide probable cause for arrest, or testimony admissible in court. His colleagues swear that he always knows without fail when somebody is lying.
She turned to Nazario. “What did your built-in shit detector say?”
“What Britt said was true,” Nazario said. “In all the time we’ve dealt with her, she never lied. This was no different.”
Riley folded her arms and perched casually on the corner of Burch’s desk. “So who would’ve guessed? Any of you know she was pregnant?”
They all denied it.
“A surprise to us,” Corso said. “We had nothing to do with it.”
She nodded, eyes hollow. “So where do we stand on Spencer York?”
“Talked to Brenda Cunningham,” Stone said. “Brenda Cunningham Grokowski. Resides in Oregon with her second husband, Mike, a long-distance trucker. Has two more kids, little girls. Hasn’t been able to afford to go back to court to fight her ex for the boy’s custody. Hasn’t seen Jason since he was four. He’s a teenager now.”
“How’d she react when she heard York was dead?”
“With relief. Said she would’ve killed him herself back then if she’d had the chance. She’s still angry that he never went to trial for the assault on her and Jason.”
“Just when did she meet Mike the trucker?” Riley asked thoughtfully. “Was he Brenda’s man of the moment when she was roughed up by our victim?”
“Nope,” Stone said. “Claims she had no boyfriend at the time. Had casually dated a co-worker at IHOP. With her son gone and no trial on the horizon once York disappeared, she got depressed, lost her job, and was about to be evicted. Did a stint as a topless dancer at the Pink Pussycat. Not her finest hour
. When a friend, another dancer, moved to Oregon, she went along, sort of spur-of-the-moment, she said. They shared the cross-country drive. She landed a job in Portland, found Jesus, and met the trucker in church. Said he’s never been to Florida.”
“Check him out anyway,” Riley said. “See if that’s true, if he has a rap sheet, or ever owned a gun. What about her ex, Jason’s father?”
“Called the guy,” Nazario said. “Says he’s not sorry he had his kid snatched. Has no clue who wasted York or why. Suggested we check Brenda’s boyfriends.”
“Anything else?”
He nodded. “I’m looking into York’s last confirmed sighting. When he left the News building, he went over to WAVE radio to be interviewed by a talk-show host. Listeners called in, including somebody from a support group for divorced dads. He invited the Custody Crusader to speak at their meeting the following night.
“His bondsman says he established back then that York did address that dinner meeting of Fathers First. They met once a month. The News story on York appeared in that morning’s paper. They had a full house. I can’t find anybody who saw him after that. Two weeks later, he failed to appear at a pretrial hearing.”
“So his killer nailed him between the meeting that night and his missed court appearance,” Riley said. “Leaves us with a two-week window.”
“I’m thinking,” said Burch, “that he had to be killed closer to the night he met with the fathers. York wasn’t shy. He was a big-mouthed son of a bitch who craved attention and was on a roll. Yet nobody heard anything from him after that night.”
“The group’s defunct,” Nazario said, “but I’m looking for a membership list from back in the day.”
Burch stopped by Riley’s office before going home. Still at her desk, she was poring over old reports.
He noted the framed photograph, still in a prominent place on her bookshelf: Riley and Kendall McDonald at a department fishing tournament.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Sure. Have to admit that one took me aback. Would’ve been nice to have a heads-up. Thanks for asking. First thing in the morning,” she said without a pause, “have Stone check other Florida jurisdictions for custody snatches during that two-week window.”
Love Kills Page 6
