Love Kills

by Edna Buchanan

  Not as bad as no honeymoon at all, I thought.

  Just as Skelly O’Rourke broke his promise to me, I broke mine to the Hansens. I had promised to call them immediately with any news, good or bad. I couldn’t. Let the son they never had break the bad news, the hunk who vowed to take care of their only daughter.

  Life, I thought, is just one broken promise after another….

  Lottie’s telephoto lens captured Marsh Holt, wearing borrowed sunglasses, being assisted off the chopper at the hospital, a thin blanket wrapped around his shoulders.

  After I was certain the parents had been told the bad news, I called.

  “Marsh thinks she’s gone. He was there,” the weeping father said. “We’re praying for a miracle.”

  “Until you hear otherwise, there’s always hope,” I said.

  The hospital refused to put calls through to the survivor from anyone but immediate family. The patient had been admitted for overnight observation, a spokesman said, adding that he would probably be released the following day.

  A hospital source gave me his room number. Checkout time was 11 A.M. I showed up at ten.

  I carried a clipboard and a manila envelope and tried to blend into the hospital setting. A Channel 7 camera crew had invaded earlier, trying to interview the Honeymoon Survivor, as he had been dubbed on the eleven o’clock news, but had been nabbed by hospital security and escorted off the premises.

  My worry was that Holt might have been moved to another room as a result. The door stood ajar. I knocked and then, heart pounding, stepped inside.

  He was alone, staring absently out a window at the deep blue water of sparkling Biscayne Bay.

  I had pictures of Holt but was not prepared for his striking physical presence. His muscular body made the hospital bed look small. His curly hair was dark, eyelashes long, his tan bronze. I’d seen his expression of numb disbelief many times before, lately in my own mirror.

  His sunburned lips were cracked and peeling and he wore several days’ stubble, the only outward signs of his ocean ordeal.

  I bustled into his room and smiled.

  “I brought you something,” I said.

  “Are you from administration? I’m being released.”

  I wasn’t sure if the husky rasp in his voice was raw emotion or the effects of salt water on his throat.

  “I was on the island about the same time you were,” I said. “A friend and I found your camera on the beach, washed up on the reef. Twenty-four frames had been shot. My friend’s a photographer. When we got back, she had them developed.”

  He looked confused.

  “We had no way to return them. But when I saw the Coast Guard bulletin I knew they would be important to you and Vanessa’s parents. I’ve already sent them a set.”

  His dry lips parted but he said nothing, so I babbled on.

  “You probably don’t want to look at them now, but when you feel up to it—”

  He ignored my words, took the proffered envelope, tore it open, and began to shuffle through the pictures, lingering over a laughing photo of the two of them on the beach. Eyes swimming, he swallowed hard.

  “You found our camera,” he said, voice still raspy. “Nessa was upset when we lost it.” He raised wet eyes to mine. “These are the last—” His voice broke.

  “I’m a reporter,” I confessed, “for the Miami News. Here, I brought you a copy of the story in today’s paper. A photographer and I flew with the Coast Guard on one of their search missions. When we pinpointed where we’d found your camera, it helped narrow the search. Thank God you’re safe.”

  “Thanks for helping,” he said bleakly.

  “I’d like to talk about what happened.”

  He looked puzzled when I opened my notebook. “But why…?”

  “Your survival’s a miracle. People care. It’s news.”

  “News,” he said bitterly, “that I couldn’t save my wife?”

  “It’s not your fault. The sea can be treacherous.”

  He nodded. “The day was beautiful, exactly what we’d imagined. We joked that we’d never go home, just keep sailing away forever. Together.”

  He studied the photo of her waving, in her white shorts and crop top, legs tanned, hair caught in a playful ocean breeze.

  “What happened?”

  He described a moonless night in the Atlantic and sheer terror. As Vanessa fixed dinner in the galley, he went topside to check a fish pot they had in the water for lobsters and a net for stone crabs. The wind velocity picked up. He saw the swells begin to build. Within minutes it was a full-blown squall with earsplitting thunder and lightning.

  The Calypso Dancer bucked, rocked, and bounced. He secured things on deck, thought he smelled gas, and called down, telling Vanessa to turn on the blowers so the bilge fan could clear out the air.

  He started down but there was an almost immediate explosion and fire. He shouted for her to stay calm and raced up the companionway for a fire extinguisher mounted next to the flying bridge near the helm. A gigantic wave swept him overboard as he reached for it. Water poured into the boat and gushed up from the bilges. Vanessa, still trapped below, was swallowed by the dark sea as the Calypso Dancer swiftly sank. He found himself alone in steep swells, calling her name, in shark-infested waters hundreds of miles from Miami. He came upon the tiny lifeboat amid the floating debris, then rode that tossing raft for three days beneath a blazing sun.

  “I knew she was dead,” he said, voice ragged. “But at times I felt her there with me. I talked to her.”

  The crew of a passing freighter spotted Holt and radioed the Coast Guard.

  “You were lucky. You were far north of the usual steamship routes, which limited your chances of rescue.”

  “Lucky?” The word was a hollow echo.

  Uh-oh. Dreaded squishy sounds approached from behind me, the rubber soles of comfortable white nursing shoes on the hospital floor.

  She wore an Aha! expression, eyeballed my notebook, and demanded my identification. Lip curling with unconcealed contempt, she scrutinized the photo on my press card.

  I sighed. I admit it is not flattering. Shot on a rainy, blustery, bad-hair day, I resemble a bedraggled spaniel.

  “You’ll have to leave, miss. Now.”

  The patient and I exchanged glances.

  She tapped her foot.

  “It’s all right,” he protested. “We were talking.”

  “Hospital policy—” she began.

  Holt was about to be released anyway.

  “Where are you going?” I asked him, after she left in a huff. I wondered if she’d be back with security guards.

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “I don’t have a credit card or a red cent. Not even shoes. Vanessa’s dad is wiring me some cash.”

  I said I’d drive him to Western Union and then to a hotel.

  I picked him up on the ramp downstairs. Despite his protests, he arrived in a wheelchair pushed by an attendant half his size.

  “How can I go home without her?” Exhausted, he leaned back in the passenger seat of my T-Bird. “But I have to,” he murmured, answering his own plaintive question. “I’m worried about Nessa’s parents. They wanted to catch the next flight, but I told them there’s nothing they can do here. She has asthma and he had bypass surgery last year. I don’t know how they’ll survive this, how any of us will. They’re like my own parents, but they probably hate me now.”

  “They say you’re the son they never had.”

  Holt was to make his official statement to the Coast Guard, he said, and meet with a representative from the charter boat company. Then he would arrange his flight home to Boston.

  “Sorry to be so much trouble,” he said, as we left the Western Union counter at the big supermarket on the bay, “but you’re the only person I know in Miami. I’ll take it from here. I can catch a cab outside.”

  I insisted on delivering him to a downtown hotel, close to the News building and the Miami Beach Coast Guard station.

>   “I still want to talk to you about Vanessa. Can the Miami News buy you dinner tonight?”

  “I can’t let you do that.”

  “I won’t. My expense account will. That’s what it’s for.”

  I was touched by his loss. The sad, handsome man moved me. He reminded me of myself. Moreover, the tragic sea saga of the star-crossed lovers was a helluva story. Who better to write it than me?

  We stopped at the News building, where Lottie snapped a few shots of Marsh Holt, still unshaven, eyes haunted. He used the phone on her desk. American Express would deliver a new card to his hotel by morning. A Boston neighbor agreed to go to Holt’s apartment and overnight him some ID so he could board the flight home. The sea had swallowed his driver’s license and passport.

  “What a hunk.” Lottie whistled under her breath while he made calls. “And it looks like he’s single now.”

  “Good grief, Lottie,” I said, offended.

  “Widowers who were happily married almost always marry again soon,” she argued. “That’s a fact of life.”

  I gave Holt the name of a downtown men’s store near the hotel, dropped him off, and drove home to freshen up before meeting him at six.

  I called Holt’s room from the lobby. When he didn’t pick up for a long time I began to fear he was out there, lost and vulnerable, wandering Miami’s mean streets. But he answered and finally arrived in the lobby minutes later. He’d shaved and changed into a new blue shirt and casual slacks.

  He turned the head of a pretty young desk clerk when he walked by.

  “I’m not sure this is a good idea,” he said, as we pulled off the ramp. “I don’t feel up to being around people.”

  “You’ll be okay. I won’t keep you long.”

  We found a back table at Joe Allen’s. Unlike many local restaurants, there is no water view, the food is good, and the place is frequented more by residents than tourists.

  He ordered Jack Daniel’s, I had ginger ale. He had begun to sound better. He had a rich and mellifluous radio voice. “You’re missing dinner with your family tonight,” he said.

  “I don’t have a family. Yet.”

  He gave me an oddly knowing look.

  “Tell me more about Vanessa. What’s she like?”

  I am always careful to refer to the recently deceased in the present tense when talking to survivors. Hearing a loved one referred to in the past tense for the first time often results in an emotional meltdown best avoided—unless, of course, you are a crass television reporter whose goal is to make people cry on camera. Besides, no body had been found. Until you know the worst, you can continue to hope.

  He hesitated, brow furrowed.

  “How did you meet?” I asked.

  He nodded slightly. “I was alone in Boston, didn’t know a soul. The city is famous for being musically rich. So I picked up a ticket and went to the symphony. That was the first time I saw her, in that bright beautiful hall. She was seated with her cello, up front, close to the conductor. The lights glinted off her hair. She was wearing a simple long black dress, with sleeves down to the elbow.

  “She looked so graceful, making music that was so grandiose and spectacular. I kept watching her, couldn’t take my eyes off her, and thought about her later. Kept hearing that lush romantic music and seeing her face as she played. I wished I knew how to meet her. It seemed like a dream when I did.”

  “How did you manage it?”

  “Went back to see a rehearsal two days later. She looked different, more approachable, wearing blue jeans and a ponytail. I overheard the musicians talking. She was part of a chamber music group that was to perform at a museum fund-raiser later in the week.

  “There were just four of them at the museum that night, two violins, a viola, and the cello. They played light, cheerful, optimistic music from Beethoven and Haydn, the sort of music that lifts the spirits—and the wallets—of subscribers, donors, and philanthropists.

  “I saw her outside afterward, wrestling her instrument into her car. The bumper sticker said ‘Music Is Magic.’ I offered to help. We were in public, on a crowded street, otherwise I’m sure she wouldn’t have talked to me. I said I’d heard her play. She said she’d seen me inside. I was flattered that she’d noticed me. She said it was because I was the only person who appeared to be listening. Everyone else was busy mingling, chatting, drinking, ignoring the music. I said that surprised me, and she laughed again. There’s a special warmth in her laugh.

  “‘That’s our fate at these gigs,’ she said. ‘We’re just there to be background music.’

  “I invited her for a drink. She said no, but I did persuade her to give me her number.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, his expression pained. “If she’d blown me off, she’d be alive. I was the worst thing that ever happened to her.”

  “I know how you feel,” I murmured sympathetically.

  “No,” he said sharply, “you don’t.” His eyes flashed. “You couldn’t possibly. You may experience a lot in your line of work, Ms. Montero, but you have no idea what it’s like to find your soulmate—and then suddenly she’s gone.”

  My lips felt dry. “You’re wrong, Mr. Holt. I know exactly what it’s like.”

  He stared at me, stony eyed.

  “My fiancé and I returned home from a trip to the islands, planning our wedding. He was killed in an explosion and fire a few hours later. I couldn’t work, couldn’t think. That’s why I went back to the islands, to feel closer to him and our best times, while trying to figure out how to live in a world without him.”

  Holt said nothing for a long moment. “I’m sorry. When you said you had no family yet, I thought you were one of those career women who choose to become a single mother, to raise a child without a father.”

  “I couldn’t do that.” I shook my head. “It’s unfair. I lost my father very young, but I have a few vivid memories. Our child won’t even have that…. I related to what you said because he would still be alive had he not been with me that day. But you can’t second-guess life. You can’t beat yourself up for events you can’t control. I can share two things I’ve learned the hard way: Running away doesn’t help but talking about it does.”

  He exhaled audibly, then shoved his barely sipped drink aside. “I don’t think either of us is very hungry,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  We walked the pink neon streets of South Beach and talked for hours.

  “Vanessa gave me a crash course in the three Bs.” He smiled at the memory. “Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. She believes that making music that’s hundreds of years old sound fresh and new is like dipping into eternity. She says playing a Beethoven string quartet is unlike anything else a human being can experience.

  “She taught me so much about her world. Some people start each day with calisthenics, speed walking, or a morning jog. But did you know that Pablo Casals began each day by playing one of the six suites for unaccompanied cello? She loves to tell me those stories.”

  At the tender age of ten, Vanessa attended the pre-college conservatory at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. “‘Music calls you,’ she always says. ‘You don’t call it.’ She always knew exactly what she wanted to do with her life. You can feel her passion.

  “Music was a tough rival. The two of them had a long history. She was only five when she started to play. When we began to see each other, I had to convince her that she wasn’t cheating on her art.”

  “How could she play the instrument so young?” I asked. “Her cello must have been bigger than she was.”

  “I asked the same question. Who knew there are tiny little cellos for tiny little kids?”

  Strolling amid visitors, tourists, and strangers on the street, I learned more than I ever expected to about the musical instrument that he compared to a resonant tenor voice.

  Vanessa’s cello was made of maple, from Bosnia. Professional cellists pay for two seats when they fly.

  “The instrument is cumbersome, but I’d never c
omplain,” he said. “We always joke that if she’d played the flute, we never would have met.”

  Their wedding march was Mendelssohn’s from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. At the reception they waltzed to Strauss.

  I told him how I met then–homicide sergeant Kendall McDonald across a bloodstained barroom floor after a shooting. How we’d fallen in love despite the obstacles our conflicting careers created. How we had split up and reunited.

  And how it ended. How Onnie and her son, Darryl, six, were stalked by her abusive ex-husband, Edgar, after his premature release from prison. Mother and son hid out in my apartment while McDonald and I vacationed in the islands.

  “Couldn’t she have gone to the police?” Holt asked.

  “She tried. She did everything right. They advised her to take out a restraining order against him. She did. The problem is that a restraining order is just paper, and paper can’t stop a bullet or a deranged man. He followed them back from church and burst into my apartment to take Darryl.

  “Onnie tried to stop him and they struggled. My dog, Bitsy, a little dog with a big dog’s heart, attacked Edgar, who stomped and kicked her, breaking several bones. Edgar left Onnie on the floor, battered and bloody, and took Darryl, who was kicking and screaming.

  “McDonald and I arrived home shortly after, totally unaware of what had happened. All I wanted was to show off my engagement ring. We found Onnie hurt and terrified. Edgar had called from his mother’s house warning that he’d kill Darryl if she called the police. She knew he was crazy enough to do it. The three of us drove over there. Edgar’s distraught mother came running out. She said he’d sloshed gasoline all over her living room and was threatening to ignite it, to kill himself and Darryl. There was no time to wait for SWAT, a hostage negotiator, or the fire department. McDonald went inside.

  “Moments later, Darryl flew out the front door screaming for his mother. He leaped into her arms as the house erupted with a gigantic roar. The roof lifted, the windows shattered, and fire shot from each opening as a ball of flame hurtled out the front door with a loud whoosh.

  “Darryl was safe. No one else escaped.”