Photos of Colleen had been published in the sports sections of numerous newspapers, including a great shot of her and her favorite horse clearing a high hurdle in competition at Madison Square Garden.
So did the killer discover his victims in newspaper stories? A chilling thought. I have always believed that a news story reporting a success or personal achievement is a gift to the subject and an inspiration to readers. Rare, often once-in-a-lifetime occurrences, they are proudly included in résumés and scrapbooks. They are framed and hung proudly in family homes. Loved ones cherish them.
Eventually, obituary writers will see a feature and include the information in your final story. Or a police reporter like me will find it and include the good with the bad to balance the story of your arrest, conviction, or bad ending.
A famous jewel thief once confided to me that he found the names and smiling faces of his victims on the pages of glossy magazines that report on the social lives of the very rich.
Could reporters like me be helping a killer target his victims?
I was about to leave when I heard from Liz. “He spent a year in Amsterdam.”
I caught my breath. “Did he get married there?”
“I’m still checking. But he went there on his honeymoon. A girl he met in Canada.”
“Is she alive?”
“No, she fell down a flight of stairs. By accident.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
“There’s another one,” I told Lottie. “Number six. The wedding was in Ontario. Her name was Alice.”
“Was?”
“Has anybody ever survived a honeymoon with him?”
Lottie had come to my place. We ordered pizza, and I tossed a big green salad. Daintily, she lifted the lid on the still-warm pizza box and did a double take. “Anchovies?” She wrinkled her nose. “Neither of us likes anchovies.”
“I ordered that half for me. Just felt like anchovies for a change.”
“Uh-huh.” She cut her eyes at me.
“I’m not some crazed mother-to-be suffering from hormonal cravings,” I said quickly. “Can’t I try something different?”
“I’m not saying a thing.”
She opened a light beer and I sipped ginger ale.
“Read this.” I handed her Suzanne Chapelle’s prize-winning short story.
The protagonist of “A Fish for Benji” was a small boy who lived on the bayou with his dirt-poor parents, a harsh mother, and an abusive father. Poignant and rich in atmosphere, with a frightening undercurrent, the story was clear evidence of the young author’s promise. Lottie put down her slice of pizza after the first page and read straight through without a word.
“Wow,” she said, as she finished.
“Talk about lost potential,” I said, scooping ice cream into a soup bowl. “Suzanne Chapelle wrote that at age nineteen. Who knows what she would have written at twenty-five, thirty, or forty-five? Imagine all the poems, books, and stories no one will ever read.”
“It ain’t right,” she said. “What is that?” She squinted at the bowl in front of me.
“Chocolate-chip mint. Want some?”
She wrinkled her nose. “No. Not with pizza and beer. Marsh Holt should be the poster boy for capital punishment. Nobody deserves it more.”
“So many jurisdictions are involved.” I paused and licked the spoon. “Remember the cross-country murder sprees of serial killers Ted Bundy and Christopher Wilder and Andrew Cunanan? Their faces were on the network news every night. Wanted posters everywhere. Everybody knew who they were. But nobody knows Marsh Holt is out there. Nobody’s even aware of the murders. Somebody has to put it all together first; then a cop somewhere will arrest him and a prosecutor will actually take one of these cases.”
“Only one way to do it,” she said. “Lay it all out in the newspaper, chapter and verse. Once his name hits the headlines, big-name prosecutors will fight to nail his ass.”
I nodded. “That’s why I’m going to Arizona first thing tomorrow.”
The bell interrupted as I packed the next morning. Expecting Mrs. Goldstein, I threw the door open.
My heart sank. It was my mother, bright and shiny as a new penny, in a little navy bouclé suit with white piping and shiny gold buttons.
“Hi there.” I kept my voice cheerful. Chaos and angst were the last things I needed at the moment. I knew if I became crazed, I’d forget something important, and I needed to make every minute of this trip count. I already felt extremely self-conscious in my mother’s presence. Though I’ve never lived up to what she believes is my fashion potential, I’ve always confidently argued the point. But looking in the mirror now…
“You should have called,” I said, smiling. “I would have had breakfast ready. Come on in. You’re just in time for coffee.”
She bustled inside, lugging several bulging shopping bags, put down her packages, and opened her arms. I was up for a hug.
“I apologize for the last time I was here,” she murmured in my ear. “You just caught me at a bad moment, totally off guard. This was nothing I ever expected.”
“Me either,” I said truthfully.
She declined coffee. She wanted to drop something off on her way to work.
“Your last months will be during the hottest, ickiest weather, the dog days of summer,” she said, moving her packages to the couch and the coffee table, “so I brought a few things to help see you through. Come on,” she coaxed, “have a look.”
I tore away tissue paper and began to unwrap bundles. Clothes! Maternity clothes! I dove into the bags with glad cries. Her timing could not have been better. This was Christmas morning and my best birthday all wrapped up in one.
Despite her superb fashion sense, I was never comfortable having my mother choose my clothes. But at the moment I was running out of big safety pins, had nothing to wear, and neither time nor money to shop, and the problem was fast approaching critical mass. It’s not easy to be optimistic when your fat pants are too tight.
I wanted to weep at the cool, crisp white eyelet blouse paired with both black slacks and a skirt, each with cleverly designed waistbands designed to expand with your own. Best of all were the blue jeans. I didn’t know such garments existed. They were classic jeans in every way, except for the elastic panel across the belly.
This was my surprise introduction to the architecturally engineered world of maternity wear. My mom had unexpectedly come through, big time.
I stripped off my baggy T-shirt and drawstring slacks and went into a try-on frenzy. Four or five different tops, mix-and-match combinations, cool, crushable, and as fashionable as such garments can aspire to be. We ooohhed and ahhhed and shrieked and laughed like schoolgirls, until she was hiccuping and I was absolutely giddy.
She spotted my half-packed suitcase as we transferred my new wardrobe to the bedroom closet. I said I was traveling to report a story and would be back soon. It seemed best not to delve into detail. She asked only whether it was safe and I assured her it would be.
She urged me to call her frequently. “One more thing,” she said. “Is my grandchild a boy or girl?”
She had actually managed the word grandchild without choking up. Go, Grandma.
“Definitely one of the above,” I said. “I didn’t look when they did the sonogram. I don’t want to know.”
“But why?”
“The whole thing has been a surprise.” I shrugged. “I just decided to keep it that way. I’ll know soon enough.”
She pondered that for a long moment. “That means the layette is limited to yellow, mint green, or white.” She tapped a manicured fingernail against her chin. “Unless, of course, we shop at the last minute, right after delivery.”
I nodded guiltily. I hadn’t been entirely truthful. Knowing that the baby was she or he would make this child an individual, a real person with wants, needs, and a future. That seemed too daunting right now. I needed our connection to remain abstract for a little longer. When push came to shove, so to speak, it woul
d be real for the next twenty years. For life, probably. I hear one never ceases being a mom.
My own mother, who now sat across from me, her expression concerned and eager, busily scribbling lists of what we needed in her Daily Planner, was proof of that.
When she began to check off items like receiving blankets and baby monitors, I realized how little I knew.
“I have a lot to learn,” I admitted.
“Me too.” She touched my cheek. “We’ll learn together.”
After she left, I unpacked my big T-shirts and baggy pants and happily replaced them with my new duds.
Lottie noted my good spirits when she came to drive me to the airport. “I knew you’d lose the blues once you got back to work and into real life.”
She also insisted I call to fill her in on my progress every day. If I keep all my promises, I thought while boarding my flight, I’ll have no time to work. I’ll spend my days on the phone instead, dutifully checking in with Fred or the city desk, my mother, Mrs. Goldstein, Lottie—even Ryan.
Oddly enough, at the moment I just felt incredibly grateful that they cared.
COLD CASE SQUAD
MIAMI, FLORIDA
Detective Pete Nazario, on the phone at his desk, scowled and tried to tune out Joe Corso’s unsolicited personal advice to fellow detectives.
Corso’s dubious beneficiary was Sam Stone, whose romance with a young U.S. Justice Department investigator appeared to be growing serious.
“Kid, lemme tell ya one of my unbreakable rules of life. This one’s right at the top of the list: Never buy a ring for a woman!” Corso nudged Nazario, still on the phone. “Ain’t that right, Pete?”
Emma, the lieutenant’s tiny middle-aged secretary, peered disapprovingly over her little spectacles.
“Why not?” Stone asked.
“Simple. When you never buy a ring for a woman, you never buy a ring for the wrong woman.”
“That explains your popularity with the opposite sex,” Burch said, from his desk.
Stone frowned. “What are your other unbreakable rules for life?”
Corso ticked a few off on his thick fingers. “Always lock your car. Never sign or tear a check out of the book until you fill out the stub—”
“See, those two make sense,” Stone said, “unlike that first one.”
“Take it from me, kid, from a man who learned the hard way. Never buy a ring for a woman.”
“Found ’im!” Nazario ended his phone conversation with a jubilant grin. “Dyson Junior works at a Sunny Isles tattoo parlor. Just talked to Lou, the manager. The kid’s there right now.”
“Let’s go see what his story is,” Corso said. “I’ll tell you my other unbreakable rules of life on the way.” He pointed his finger like a gun at Stone as they left. “Bro, heed my good advice. Don’t wanna have to say ‘I told you so.’”
Lou, the manager, a muscular shiny-domed man, was a dead ringer for Mr. Clean except for the tattoos covering his thick arms and burly neck. His body was a walking, talking billboard for his business. He summoned Dyson from a back room.
Colin Dyson Jr. had inherited his father’s shifty black eyes and shaggy unibrow. Tall and wiry, he wore distressed blue jeans, a green and brown camouflage T-shirt with HA, YOU CAN’T SEE ME printed on the front, and had wavy dark hair to his shoulders. A multicolored tattooed cobra wound around his right arm from his wrist to his bicep, where its open mouth exposed fangs and a darting red tongue.
Nazario introduced himself and Corso. “Is there a place we can talk for a minute?”
“I don’t talk to cops,” Dyson said sullenly.
“It’ll only take a couple minutes,” Nazario said affably.
Dyson arrogantly flipped back his hair and turned away.
“Guess you’d rather talk to us downtown,” Corso said.
With that, Dyson spun without warning and shot out the front door of the tattoo parlor as though the starter pistol had just been fired for the fifty-yard dash and he was the favorite to win.
“Hey, get your ass back here!” Corso yelled.
He and Nazario exchanged resigned glances, and Corso took off after him.
“Me cago en su madre,” Nazario said, and followed.
Dyson darted out onto busy Collins Avenue, dodging heavy traffic. Corso followed, huffing and puffing by the time he reached the far curb.
Nazario outpaced him, sprinting just a few feet behind Dyson, who cut across a fenced-in construction site and ran down toward the beach. Construction workers began to shout.
As the sand slowed Dyson down, Nazario tackled him and wrestled him to the ground. Dyson cursed, kicked, and flailed as Corso, red-faced and panting, fumbled for his handcuffs and piled on.
“That’s the kid from the tattoo parlor across the street!” a construction worker yelled.
“Hey!” another shouted at them. “Whadaya doin’?”
“Let ’im go!” A burly worker in a hard hat charged in their direction.
“Police!” Nazario flashed his badge as Corso cuffed Dyson’s hands behind him.
The converging construction workers pulled up short to watch.
“What’d he do?” one asked.
“Nothing! I didn’t do anything!” Dyson yelled, as the detectives lifted him to his feet.
Curious beachgoers began to gather.
“Let’s get him outa here,” Corso muttered, doing a double take at two teenage blondes in bikinis.
They marched Dyson back across Collins Avenue in handcuffs, a chorus of boos trailing behind them.
“You couldn’t just answer a coupla questions like a gentleman,” Corso complained, still breathing hard. “You’re lucky I don’t rip the coconuts right off your palm tree for this little stunt. You just made things a helluva lot harder for yourself, kid.”
Nazario radioed for a patrolman with a cage car to transport Dyson to the station.
“Sorry ’bout that.” The tattooed manager watched Nazario shake beach sand out of his jacket. “I shoulda warned ya, the kid’s a little edgy.”
Corso put Dyson in the back of their unmarked.
“A marked car is on the way,” Nazario said. “Let’s sit ’im on the curb till it gets here.”
“Nah, he’s cuffed. He’s okay in here.” Corso slammed the door.
Nazario emptied the sand out of his shoes one at a time.
Corso was at the Coke machine, and Lou was asking Nazario when he could expect Dyson to return to work, when their car started and began inching away from the curb.
“Hey! ¡Para, hijo de puta!” Nazario yelled, and ran toward the unmarked Ford. “Stop! Stop right there!”
“Oh, shit!” said Lou, the tattoo parlor manager.
Corso dropped his Coke can. “Son of a bitch!”
Nazario ran into the street in front of the car, hands up like a traffic cop. “Hold it! Hold it!”
Dyson saw a break in traffic and floored it.
The car knocked Nazario off his feet. He landed on the hood, his face hit the windshield, and he stared for a long moment into the driver’s eyes. Neither blinked. Dyson stomped the brakes and Nazario rolled off the hood into the center lane, motorists swerving to avoid his prone body.
“Son of a bitch!” Corso pulled his gun, loped into the street, waved traffic away from Nazario, who wasn’t moving, took a shooter’s stance, and opened fire. He didn’t stop squeezing the trigger until his eighteen-shot Glock automatic was empty.
Brakes squealed. A cabbie driving a family of Chinese tourists to the airport swerved onto the sidewalk and slammed into a power pole. Pedestrians and construction workers dove for cover. Lou, the tattoo parlor manager, hit the sun-baked pavement. Bullets flying, he answered his own question about Dyson’s return to work.
“Not soon,” he muttered.
“Shots fired! Officer down!” Corso radioed, requesting backup and rescue.
The fading echoes of gunfire were followed by piercing screams from a restaurant and the front porch of a reti
rement hotel down the block.
His still-smoking gun in his hand, Corso knelt beside Nazario.
“Pete, Pete? You okay?”
“I think so,” the detective said. “I didn’t want to get up with all the cars and bullets flying by. Tell me all that shooting wasn’t you, Joe. It wasn’t you, was it? Say it ain’t so.”
“Damn right it was me. That son of the bitch tried to kill you with our own goddamn car.”
“Oh, shit! Coño, que mierda.” Nazario struggled to get up.
“Don’t move, Pete. Wait for rescue.”
“No, I’m okay. Get me the hell out of the street.”
Corso helped him to the sidewalk. Nazario hunched his shoulders at the curb and shook him off.
“What the hell happened?” he demanded. “You cuffed him behind his back.”
“The son of the bitch has gotta be double-jointed,” Corso said, “some kinda contortionist. He musta stepped through the cuffs, got them in front of him, climbed over the front seat, and started the car.”
“You left the keys in it? What about your unbreakable rule of life? Goddammit! Comemierda, le diste un tiro al carro nuestro. You shot our car?”
“Musta hit it a dozen times,” he said.
“I don’t think so. I’ve seen you at the range,” Nazario said, disgusted.
“You must be in shock,” Corso said. “Musta hit your head.”
K. C. Riley burst out of her office. “Shots fired at that tattoo shop! Corso’s on the radio. He sounds okay but we have an officer down.”
“Pete’s the only one with him.” Stone reached for his jacket.
“Oh, no!” Emma, the lieutenant’s secretary, gasped and covered her mouth with her hands.
They all stared at one another.
“Let’s get out there,” Riley said.
“I hope Corso didn’t do any shooting,” Burch said. “I couldn’t believe he qualified last time I saw him at the range.”
The patrol car Nazario had requested to transport Dyson screeched to the curb. “Let’s go!” Corso told the rookie behind the wheel.
Love Kills Page 12
