He angrily paced the conference room.
“Dyson understood every word we said, so what does he do? Tries to kill my partner right in front of me. What’d you expect me to do? How’d you all be looking at me now if I didn’t do shit? Damned if I do and damned if I don’t. Jesus, cops can’t win around here.”
No one looked sympathetic. “A shooting might be justifiable. It’s the quality of the shooting that’s in question,” Riley said coldly.
“After all I went through, all I did today?” He reacted with righteous indignation. “I almost had a goddamn heart attack when I see Pete, here, go car-surfing right in front of me. And then he’s laying in the street. Gave me a flashback to a fatal accident I handled once.
“A kid body-surfing on the roof of his buddy’s moving car flies off and smashes his head against a guardrail, like a broken egg. His pal, who was driving, said they’d seen car-surfing on some TV show and decided to try it.”
He waggled a finger at Nazario, who stared back sullenly.
“It’s the law of inertia. Unless you are secured to a moving object, like a car, you will continue moving forward at the same speed the car was going after the driver hits the brakes. That’s why we have seat belts.”
Assistant State Attorney Jo Salazar popped her head in the door. She needed help assembling the litany of charges which would be filed against Dyson Junior. A city attorney assigned to risk management was also en route.
The young patrolman, Corso’s driver in the pursuit, was eager to assist. He’d already written a stack of traffic citations and was becoming creative. “How about driving while handcuffed? Is that illegal?” he asked the prosecutor, as she settled in.
“That’s the least of Mr. Dyson’s troubles,” Salazar said cheerfully.
She huddled later with K. C. Riley in the lieutenant’s office. Old friends, they had gone through the police academy together.
“Cops are usually terrible marksmen,” Salazar noted, as they discussed Corso. “They’re notoriously poor shots.”
“I know,” Riley replied, “but he didn’t hit the unmarked once after emptying his gun at it. And I’ve heard he’s famous for cheating at the firing range. It’s probably the only way he can qualify. Rumor has it that when he finishes shooting and walks down to count the hits, he takes along a thirty-eight-caliber pencil to punch holes in the paper target. Nobody’s ever written him up, but there’s a lot of talk.”
“The city may be liable for damages today, but it could’ve been a helluva lot worse.” Salazar said, running well-manicured fingers through her curly brown hair. She shook her head. “It’s a miracle nobody’s dead.”
“Tell me about it,” Riley said grimly. “It could’ve been the stuff of nightmares. Corso always lands on his feet, but not this time. He’s used up all nine lives.”
“The screw-up fairy has visited us once again, as you all know,” Riley said later, at the team meeting. “The city’s looking at a myriad of civil lawsuits. Thank God for Stone.” She nodded in his direction. “Good job. I don’t even want to think about how much worse it might have been.” She glared at Corso.
“Excuse me for not grandstanding in front of the camera on that TV chopper.” He lurched to his feet as if to storm out of the room.
“Sit down,” Riley said coldly. “Nobody else in this room grandstanded out there today. What you saw from your fellow detectives was old-fashioned common sense and good police work.
“The only way we pull this caper out of the crapper is to solve this case. Even that’s no guarantee, after today. We need to focus, focus, focus,” she said. “Find Spencer York’s motel. Re-interview his bondsman. Talk to the radio reporter who interviewed him. See what he remembers.”
“I had something working this morning,” Stone offered, “before all hell broke loose. There may have been another South Florida child snatch almost a year before Jason was taken from Brenda Cunningham in Miami. It was a Fort Lauderdale case. The mother died.”
The room was silent.
“It’s not one York would’ve bragged about. The death was ruled accidental. It’s not clear how the case slipped through the cracks. The victim, Sarah Ann Shields, had moved to Lauderdale from Pine Bluff, Arkansas, with her three-year-old son, Patrick. I talked to an old neighbor this morning. He told police he heard the mother’s screams around noon. Took him awhile to pull on some clothes and step out. A car he didn’t get a good look at took off, burning rubber. Then he saw Shields stumbling, sobbing, hands to her eyes. She staggered to her own car and drove away erratically at a high rate of speed. Hit the curb, he said, and was all over the road.
“Her speeding car slammed into a bridge abutment near Las Olas Boulevard a few minutes later. She was ejected. No seat belt. Massive head trauma. Witnesses said she was screaming, swerving, and weaving through traffic right before the crash. The child seat in her car was empty.
“What’s that sound like to you? The medical examiner noted an odor on her body, thought it might have been Mace. It wasn’t a robbery. Her purse was found back at her place.
“The same neighbor swore he heard her kid, the three-year-old, playing outside his window earlier that morning. Unfortunately, that neighbor, a junkie, wasn’t considered credible, and when the ex-husband was contacted in Arkansas a few days later, he said his son was safe with him. He said Sarah had returned the boy a week or so earlier because he had legal custody.
“They ruled it accidental. She’s a traffic statistic. I’m thinking dirty. It’s possible that Spencer York paid her a visit. He might have snatched Patrick, and the mother died chasing him, trying to rescue her son.”
“Jesus,” Riley said. “Any paper trail?”
Stone shook his head. “If it was York, I can’t find a record of his usual legal papers faxed to the local cops or the FBI.”
“That just may mean he saw the accident and wanted to distance himself,” Burch said.
“Or maybe somebody didn’t want to complicate their investigation of a simple one-car traffic fatality,” Nazario said.
“The victim?” Riley asked.
“Twenty-seven, a registered nurse. Just moved to Lauderdale a few weeks earlier. She’d interviewed at a few local hospitals but hadn’t accepted a job offer yet. Didn’t know anybody here. Wanted a fresh start. Relatives in Arkansas wrote several letters to the Lauderdale police, alleging foul play and asking for an in-depth investigation. They had no proof and no witnesses but insisted that Patrick had been in Lauderdale with his mother. When the call came that she’d been killed in an accident, the first thing they asked was, ‘Where’s her boy?’
“‘What boy?’ the Lauderdale cops say. They check, and Patrick is safe and sound in Arkansas with his father.”
“Sounds like a motive to me.” Riley toyed with her grenade-shaped paperweight. “Find out more about her family, especially the letter writers, and her possible love interests.” She sighed. “This case has more twists and turns than a snake.”
“And enough suspects to fill the Orange Bowl,” Burch said.
BRITT
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Arizona deputy who initially responded to the scene of Suzanne Holt’s fatal fall was not happy to see me.
He wore a bored expression beneath his Stetson. “I told you on the phone the other day, ma’am. That case was an accidental death, relatively routine. We see ’em frequently.”
He turned sullen when I insisted on seeing the file.
“The medical examiner, somebody from homicide, and me, we all agreed. I been doing this for twenty-two years. Can’t tell you how many cases like this I’ve seen, too many to count. Even if you installed railings and posted warning signs everywhere, which you can’t because it would ruin the scenic wonder of Mother Nature’s masterpiece, tourists would still find ways to kill themselves. It’s the nature of the beast.”
He slapped the thin file folder down in front of me and leaned back in his chair, a bit red in the face, one leather-booted foot
up on his desk as though challenging me to find a flaw in their expert opinions.
For a death case, the file seemed pretty thin to me. Ignoring his hostile glare, I examined it slowly.
The photos were the centerpiece, the last moments of a brief marriage about to end badly. Very badly.
They had used a disposable camera, as in Vanessa’s case. Marsh Holt, I thought, clearly belonged to the Dixie-cup throwaway generation. Disposable cameras. Disposable brides. Several pictures had been shot at other spectacular locations, some apparently taken by fellow tourists who had obligingly photographed the happy couple. Suzanne’s head barely reached Holt’s shoulder.
A petite gamine with huge expressive eyes, pretty hands, and long graceful fingers, she sat alone at a rough-hewn log table in a picnic area surrounded by giant trees, her notebook open before her. Did her notes describe the splendor of her surroundings? Was she entering intimate secrets into the journal of a young bride? Were they fragments of a poem in progress?
Did she ever have trouble deciphering her own notes? I wondered.
Only two pictures had been taken at the site where Suzanne plunged to her death.
In the first, Suzanne, a wisp of a girl one tiny step from eternity, stood smiling, her back to the precipice and to a broad vista of unparalleled beauty: rocky chasms, towering clouds, windy ridges, red limestone walls, plateaus, and a distant valley.
In the final photo she stands closer to the edge, as the deputy succinctly pointed out with his ruler. She smiles, seconds from death, waving shyly to the serial bridegroom, the last man she ever loved.
“You think he told her to step back, closer to the edge?”
“Hell, no!” I got the distinct impression he yearned to rap my knuckles with his ruler. “He warned her not to. She wouldn’t listen. Laughed at ’im and did as she pleased.” His body language and tone of voice implied that most women, present company in particular, deliberately ignore sound advice when they hear it.
“She kep’ telling ’im to try to get all the scenery behind her into the picture. Then she moved closer to the ledge. Right after he pressed the shutter she turned to look at the view, lost her footing, and was gone.”
“He didn’t happen to capture that moment?”
“No, ma’am. The poor man dropped his camera and didn’t even think to pick it up again. We found it lying out there. I’ve never seen a man lose it the way he did, the poor bastard. Only married three days. He’ll never get over it.”
“He got over it enough to remarry only six months later.”
“I ’member you saying something to that effect on the phone. Sounds like rebound to me. Happens to a lot of people who experience the sudden shock of losing a loved one.”
“And the new wife died on her honeymoon too, in an alleged boating accident.”
The big man leaned forward, the leather around his waist creaking ominously, a glint as sharp as an ax blade in his steely eyes. “Lady, I have no idea what happened in somebody else’s jurisdiction. All I do know for sure is what happened here on my turf. This young woman died in an accidental fall, thoroughly investigated by top-flight professionals. Our conclusion was unanimous. Go talk to the medical examiner if you like.” He gestured broadly toward the door, inviting me to do so. “But she ain’t gonna tell you nothing different.”
I asked for directions to the medical examiner’s office.
He followed me out to my rental and tipped his hat as I slammed the door. “Sorry you came all this way for nothing, ma’am.”
I saw him at his desk, on the telephone, as I drove out of the parking lot and away from the long barrackslike building.
The medical examiner was expecting me. Dr. Daphne Faircloth was middle-aged and simply dressed with short, curly blond hair.
The honeymoon photos were the centerpiece of her file as well, along with a copy of the magazine that published Suzanne’s short story. A brief biography of the young writer appeared on the contributors’ page, along with her photo, a head shot, dominated by her big, soulful dark eyes. Wispy tendrils of soft short hair framed her delicate face.
The medical examiner’s photos revealed that Suzanne’s hands and fingers were torn, her nails all broken, as she must have clawed at the rugged cliff face during her plunge. Cause of death was massive head and chest trauma. There were multiple fractures.
“Typical. Little doubt that it was an accident,” Dr. Faircloth said. “No foul play suspected.” She folded her hands serenely on her desk in front of her.
They appeared much older than her face. The woman must have had some serious plastic surgery, I thought. At first glance, she appeared to be in her forties but was more likely sixty, unless her hands went out in the sun a lot more than she did.
“All her injuries were typical of such a fall.”
“What about the toxicological screen? Did she have drugs or alcohol aboard?”
“A very small amount of alcohol. The husband stated that she drank a glass of wine with lunch at noon. She was small in stature, but I don’t believe it played a role. The accident occurred about four P.M., enough time for it to be metabolized.”
The doctor apologized, saying she was due in court on another matter and had to excuse herself.
I asked for copies of the two photos taken at the site of Suzanne’s fall, and her assistant provided them.
From my motel room, I placed a call to Miami, not to anyone I’d promised to call; I needed to talk to Detective Sam Stone at the Cold Case Squad.
“I’m in Arizona,” I told him, “and I need a favor.”
“We’re busy right now, Britt, really busy.” He sounded uncharacteristically harried and impatient.
“I’ll keep it brief. What’s the name of the forensic photo analyst you used in that case last year?”
“Dr. Clark Wilson at the University of Minnesota.”
“Thanks. Have you had a chance to take a look at the scuba-diving death of Gloria Weatherholt yet?”
“The sergeant mentioned it, but like I said, we’re swamped.” He sounded exasperated and I could hear people calling his name in the background.
“What’s going on there?”
“I can’t go into it,” he said, “but believe me, it’s been a helluva day.”
“Please don’t forget about Gloria Weatherholt.” I sighed. “I know nobody wants to reopen a closed case, but I’m sure she was murdered and I really need your help.”
“Right.”
My timing was bad. He was preoccupied, and I knew I didn’t have his attention.
“Do what you can, when you can,” I pleaded.
“I’ll talk to you later, Britt. Hang in and be careful.”
“You’re implying that I’m not?”
“I think the answer to that is obvious.”
“That’s something I’d expect from Corso, not you. But I did walk right into it.”
“Sorry, Britt. I’ll get to it as soon as I can.”
I hung up, concerned about the barely controlled chaos behind him. What was I missing in Miami? Too busy to think about it, I called Dr. Wilson, drove to a FedEx office, and overnighted the photos. Two hours later I boarded a flight to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Suzanne’s hometown.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
His name was John Lacey. His light brown, slightly shaggy hair framed a boyish face, though he was in his mid-twenties. His was a face that would look boyish even at age seventy.
His words were soft, his manner gentle. He wore blue jeans and a T-shirt that said BELIEVE.
I met him at a coffee shop in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
His name had surfaced in a newspaper search I did on Suzanne Chapelle. Almost a year before she married Marsh Holt, Suzanne Chapelle and John Lacey had been forever linked in print—their engagement announcement in the Baton Rouge Advocate.
Lacey was also a would-be writer, advertising copy by day, moonlighting on the Great American Novel at night.
I said I was a reporter who wanted to talk to
him about Suzanne.
He loved the girl, he said, and absentmindedly lit a cigarette. I frowned. Normally I don’t object, but now I had good reason.
“Smoking is bad for your health.”
“Life is bad for your health,” he said, his sad face somber.
Then it suddenly occurred to him why I had objected, and he quickly stubbed out the smoke, amid a flurry of apologies.
His hands trembled slightly when he spoke Suzanne’s name. They met as barefoot preschoolers in the same neighborhood. They had loved each other since they were ten years old and in the same English class. The teacher encouraged Suzanne to read her poetry aloud. Soon, he too began to write poetry, despite teasing from the other boys. He and she came from poor families and they ate together in the free lunch program.
“We’d meet at lunch and after school to read each other’s stuff, make up stories, and talk,” he said, as I nibbled on a slice of coffee cake.
Suzanne’s father died when she was twelve. Her mother remarried twice: badly. For most of their teens, Suzanne Chapelle and John Lacey had only each other.
He went off to New York to seek his future but returned in less than a year. They missed each other too much. They became engaged. Then she won the contest and her story was published. A lengthy letter from an admiring reader arrived soon after. The writer was new to Baton Rouge, had read and was moved by her story, and hoped to discuss it further over coffee or a drink.
“Her first fan letter,” said Lacey, whose sentences tended to trail off into silence when speaking of Suzanne. She was flattered that a stranger admired her work. Lacey wondered if the man had seen her picture in the newspaper or magazine and whether she was what he really admired.
“I sensed it,” he said. “On that first day, before they ever met. It was like hearing the distant thunder of a storm coming your way, leaving you nowhere to run. The literary references he used, and the way he understood her story, impressed her so much that she called to thank him. That’s all she intended to do. Call, chat, thank him, and politely decline the invitation. But whatever he said during that call made her want to meet him.
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