Love Kills

by Edna Buchanan

  Her hair was now steel gray, but the large bones did not appear shrunken.

  The detectives explained who they were and why they had come.

  “Nine years ago,” Stone said, loosening his collar in the oppressive heat, “everybody believed that your son, Spencer, jumped bond to avoid trial in Miami. But that wasn’t true. He’d been murdered. His body was recently discovered and positively identified.”

  She nodded, eyes alert and interested.

  “He didn’t run away,” she said. “I always knew that.” Despite the heat, she hugged her arms as though cold. “But I wouldn’t blame anyone for fleeing that city. From what I have seen, your South Beach is a modern Sodom and Gomorrah.”

  “It can be pretty wild,” Stone admitted.

  She focused on the young black detective. “Do you read your scripture, son?”

  “Yes, ma’am. My grandmother, who raised me, wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  Smiling approvingly, she offered advice.

  “Take and lead the righteous. Flee that wicked place before the reign of fire, when dead bodies will lie stacked in the streets.”

  “It is getting harder to raise kids there,” Burch said mildly. He gazed at the ceiling. “Look at that,” he said. “That’s why it’s so hot in here.” The air-conditioning vent was closed.

  “I can fix it in a minute,” he said, looking for something to stand on.

  “No!” she said quickly. “I like it this way.”

  “Sorry,” he said. “I thought it seemed a little uncomfortable for you.”

  “We know you must find it difficult to discuss your son’s death,” Stone said, “but we hoped you could help us.”

  She nodded, picking up a small Bible. “Spencer was my firstborn.”

  “We need to find a woman with whom he had a relationship. Her name may begin with the letter M.”

  She stared at them.

  “Do you know her?” Burch said. “Perhaps a girlfriend, an old flame, a common-law wife?”

  She continued to stare and then broke into laughter. She laughed and laughed. “What makes you think any woman would have him?” she finally gasped. “He hated women. He had no romantic relationships and no wife, common-law or otherwise.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Stone said. “We spoke to your daughter, Sheila, earlier today. She indicated that as well.”

  The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Thou shalt hate the whore.” Voice rising, she spit out the words. “Make her desolate and naked, eat her flesh and burn her with fire!”

  “I take it you two aren’t close,” Burch said.

  “When I had a stroke, she seized the moment of my weakness and put me here, against my will.” Her hands gripped the armrests of her wheelchair.

  “This does seem to be some distance from home,” Burch said. “Is there a rift in the family?”

  “My grandson,” she muttered, “was the only one worth saving.”

  They could barely see her eyes in the shadows. “How about some light?” Burch reached for the drapery cord.

  “No!” She flung an arm in front of her eyes and shrank in her chair. “Don’t open it. I’m sensitive to bright lights.”

  Burch dropped the cord and pulled a chair up close to hers.

  “Do you recall the last time you saw Spencer?” he asked.

  She nodded, smiling.

  “When and where was it? Did the two of you enjoy a good relationship?” Stone asked.

  She looked nostalgic, as though recalling good times.

  “We want to find out who killed him and why,” Burch said.

  She blinked, as though surprised that they had missed the obvious. “He was the devil,” she said, her voice flat and matter-of-fact. “He was Satan, with all his power, his signs, and his lying wonders.”

  The detectives exchanged glances.

  “Somebody had to stop him.”

  “Who did?”

  She raised her chin expectantly, smile chilling, her eyes still in shadow.

  “Have you ever been to Miami?” Burch asked softly.

  “Once.” She smiled demurely. “Somebody had to do the Lord’s work.”

  The silence was electric. He took a deep breath. “Were you alone?”

  “We drove. My grandson—Sheila’s boy, Roland—had just graduated from high school. My gift to him was a road trip to Florida for the two of us. His mother allowed it. He was happy to come.”

  “Before we go any further,” Burch said, “I’d like to advise you of your rights.”

  She listened, looking bored.

  “Do you understand?”

  “I answer to a higher power,” she said. “Spencer was evil, the beast with the lion’s mouth. I told my grandson that we were posting his uncle’s bond as a surprise, so they could get to know each other.”

  “So Roland went to the bondsman?”

  She nodded. “That boy could always be relied upon to do as he was told.”

  “Who shot Spencer?”

  “I did, for the glory of God. My grandson helped me put Spencer into the car and dug the grave. I told him it was the right thing to do, and he was a good and obedient boy. But later, he disobeyed me and told his mother, who turned on me. She’ll pay for her sins with her life.” She tapped her Bible ominously. “Just like the others.”

  The detectives stared.

  “I brought them into this world,” she said loudly, “and I can take them out of it. I can put them in the ground.”

  “Not in our jurisdiction,” Burch said. “It’s against the law.”

  “Not God’s law.” She leaned forward as if to confide a secret. “I saw the sign of the beast in my youngest son when he was only two. He had the devil in him. God wanted him cast into the bottomless pit, into perdition! So I dropped him in the well. He wailed all the way down, then cried and splashed for a while. Then he was quiet.” Her smile was radiant. “God was unpleased and later revealed to me that Spencer was the devil himself!”

  “I see.” Stone nodded. “When Spencer wrote letters or sent messages, how did he address you?”

  “Never Mother. Just M.”

  Stone slipped out to call local police for a stenographer. Burch stayed in her room, to stoke the fires and keep them burning.

  After the stenographer arrived, they talked for hours.

  “No wonder the woman doesn’t have a roommate,” Stone said later, as they walked down the hall, weary, dehydrated, and overwhelmed by the smells of urine, disinfectant, and bad food.

  “They’ll probably find her incompetent to stand trial,” Burch said. “And the juvenile, the grandson, was just the gravedigger and the front who posted Spencer’s bond. The statute of limitations lapsed on him a long time ago. Poor kid had a helluva graduation trip.”

  “Yeah,” Stone said. “Most high school grads get to go to Disney World or Aruba.”

  “Instead, she takes him on a journey to commit murder in the name of God.”

  “It’s the in thing right now, all over the world,” Stone said bleakly.

  “Wonder when we should expect the reign of fire?”

  “Don’t joke about that, Sarge. It gives me the creeps.”

  “I think Corso’s the devil, myself,” Burch said thoughtfully.

  “You want to shoot him? Or bury him?”

  “I’ll toss you for it,” Burch said. “Seriously, he’s already buried. No way Corso can beat the jackpot he’s in now. He’s done, finito. Hopefully, if he’s not suspended as we speak, his sorry ass is already back in uniform pounding a beat. How much you wanna bet?”

  “You know he always comes out smelling like a rose,” Stone said. “The guy’s got nine lives.”

  “He’s used ’em all up. He beats it this time, it’s proof he’s the devil.”

  “Then we will have to kill him.”

  They called K. C. Riley at home late that night after interviewing Roland Whitaker. The young firefighter held nothing back. He remembered all the horrifying details he’d wished he
could forget.

  Sworn to secrecy by his grandmother, he had become withdrawn, unpredictable, and prone to angry outbursts. He had gone from being a typical wholesome teenager to a young man suffering from guilt, bad dreams, and flashbacks of that nightmarish trip. The story eventually unfolded during counseling with his concerned parents. They immediately cut off all ties with Roberta and then considered their heart-wrenching dilemma. If they exposed his grandmother, Roland might face the trauma of a murder trial, public scrutiny, and possible criminal charges.

  As they agonized over what to do, the decision was taken out of their hands.

  As next of kin, Sheila was notified when Roberta was found unconscious. When it appeared that her mother would survive the stroke, Sheila found the most distant nursing home in the region and placed her there, in a prison of her own.

  Slowly, through therapy, Roland had gotten his life back on track.

  “With all the possible suspects, who’da thought the mystery woman was York’s own mother,” Riley said. “But it all fits. Crime scene has confirmed that he was murdered in his motel room. Luminol picked up blood on the floors, the walls, and the furniture: Spencer’s blood type. There’s no doubt that DNA will confirm it’s his. Nice work. Damn. What a case.”

  “Too bad Britt isn’t around to write the story,” Stone said, on the extension. “Anybody hear from her?”

  “I need to talk to you about that. She’s left you some messages.”

  “We’ll be back tomorrow,” he said. “We’re arranging for Roland, the fireman, to give us a formal statement.”

  “York’s whole family is cooperating,” Burch said. “I’ll call ADA Salazar tonight, run everything by her. Anything new at home plate?”

  Riley paused. “Yeah, there is. I planned to wait till you two got back. I wanted to see your faces, and didn’t want to spoil your trip.”

  “Spit it out.”

  “Yeah,” Stone said. “Don’t leave us hanging.”

  “It’s Dyson Junior. Guess who he is? The Human Fly, the burglar who climbs tall buildings; that damn kid is the thief that’s been Miami’s most wanted for the last six months. Witnesses, including that actress, all came forward after his picture was on TV and in the papers. We got ’im. When they served a warrant, they found all kinds of evidence and stolen property.

  “Corso’s a hero. The mayor wants to give him the key to the city. There’s a picture of him on the front page of this afternoon’s paper with Irma Jolly, the senior citizen whose ear he nearly shot off. He has his arm around her and she’s gazing up at him like he just rode in on a white horse. The woman hasn’t had this much attention in eighty years. She’s loving it. She wants to adopt him.

  “Nazario wants to put his gun to his own head.”

  “So do I,” Stone said. “Kill me now.”

  “Told you he was the devil,” Burch said.

  BRITT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  A heavy rain pounded the roof, rattling the shutters as I worked feverishly on the story, listening, hoping for a footstep at the door yet fearing the sound, hoping that Riley would keep her promise and call me back.

  When I finished, I attached the photos with detailed captions, added a cheerful See you soon! and, with a great sense of relief, e-mailed the entire package to Fred.

  At least I tried to send it.

  “Not now,” I moaned, as my laptop froze. “Don’t crash on me now. Please, not now.” When you are desperate and need it the most, modern technology never fails to turn on you. Nothing I tried worked.

  I had saved the package on a CD. Little good that did. There was no Sir Speedy, Office Depot, or FedEx box just down the block.

  Lacey’s laptop! I thought. Brilliant. Where is it? I tossed the entire cabin but didn’t find it. Frantic, I closed my eyes to visualize him as he walked out the door, playing the scene over and over in my mind. He wasn’t carrying it. But he had it when he arrived. I stumbled out to the Ford through the rain. I found nothing beneath the driver and passenger seats. But when I reached under the backseats, there it was. “Thank God,” I murmured, praying I could make it work.

  I opened it on the table beside my worthless piece of crap.

  The screen blossomed to life, then requested the password. Son of a bitch.

  I typed in variations of John Lacey’s name and the company that employed him. Access denied. I tried the word novel, then Suzanne. That one worked.

  “Thank you, Lacey,” I murmured. “Thank you, Suzanne.”

  Hearing her name brought flashbacks, terrible images of her fragile body shattered on the canyon floor. “You are not forgotten, Suzanne,” I whispered. “I promise, you are not forgotten.”

  I transferred the contents of the disk into the laptop and then opened his e-mail, using the same password. Thank God Lacey was consistent. I prayed to see him alive again.

  I sent everything to Fred.

  Your message has been sent.

  I sighed with relief. Then sent the same package to Detective Sam Stone. He had never called me back.

  Neither had K. C. Riley. I don’t know why that surprised me. What should I expect? I regretted begging for her help, giving her that satisfaction.

  Except for the baby I carried I was completely alone here, closer to Russia and North Korea than to Miami and Cuba. How surreal is that? I wondered. I began to wish that I’d learned the baby’s sex. This isn’t fair, I thought. None of it is fair.

  Lacey’s e-mail had dozens of saved messages, both sent and received. I clicked on one at random and blinked as it opened, startled by the intimate and personal content.

  From Suzanne, I thought. I know people who have kept messages from dead loved ones on their answering machines for years. They cling to that final connection.

  The e-mail was a love letter. So were most of the others. Their audacious language and lush overripe endearments titillated the voyeur in me. The lovers’ wild libidinous energy, their passionate, poetic, and lyrical prose, exposed a relationship fraught with erotic drama, angst, and storm-tossed sperm. My jaw dropped as I read.

  Streaks and pricks of light exploded like fireworks in my brain. I felt as though I were drowning.

  This must be a feverish dream, I thought. I reread a number of the messages in stunned disbelief. Was I delirious? Delusional? Totally irrational? No. The truth was perfectly clear. The lovers who exchanged these passionate letters were John Lacey and Marsh Holt.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I stared zombielike at the computer screen, then scrambled into the bathroom to be sick.

  I sat gagging on the side of the old-fashioned claw-footed tub, gasping for breath and coming to terms with the fact that in this strange place, surrounded by hostile strangers, I was the only one I could trust.

  My last hope was gone. Nobody was coming. No rescue. No knight on a white horse. It was up to me.

  I forced myself to eat something. There were sourdough rolls and canned soup in the cupboard. I fixed a sandwich and heated some soup, a strange breakfast. I added a tablespoon of blackberry brandy to the soup, hoping to calm both myself and the baby.

  In Miami, I kept a gun in the glove compartment of my T-Bird. Having it now would be a comfort. Why, when I need it most, is it always out of reach? The rain had finally stopped. I slipped an oversized loden-green sweater on over my maternity jeans, replaced Lacey’s laptop under the backseat, along with the fireplace poker, then drove back down the mountain toward Holt’s cabin. According to the car radio, the temperature was 51.

  I parked off-road within walking distance and trudged through the damp woods. I sat on a fallen tree trunk and watched the cabin through the binoculars.

  Within twenty minutes, Marsh Holt appeared on the front porch. He bent and stretched for several minutes, scanning the road and surrounding woods as he exercised and limbered up. I held my breath. He didn’t see me.

  He seemed to be waiting for Nancy, who appeared within minutes. They spoke briefly and went back in
side together. Five minutes later they reappeared, wearing backpacks and hiking gear.

  They skirted the side of the cabin and struck out to the west. After a few minutes, I followed.

  Nancy’s bright red sweater helped me keep them in sight, but their pace was brisk and I found it difficult to keep up.

  No sign of Lacey. Just thinking of him set my mind and pulse racing. He and Holt obviously shared a long-term relationship; their letters made that clear. How? When did they hook up? What was Lacey’s real relationship with Suzanne? Why did he sacrifice her to his lover’s murderous scheme?

  Greed, I thought. The money. Their exchanges included numerous references to their long range goal, the time when they would be free at last to enjoy each other and their future together, financed by the dead brides’ assets and life insurance proceeds.

  Up ahead, the newlyweds paused several times, to photograph wildlife, to taste and collect wild berries and native foliage. Even with those welcome breathers, I was panting and relieved when they finally stopped for lunch beside a wide and fast-moving, rocky stream.

  I watched, careful not to be seen. They took pictures. Nancy waving, in her red sweater, her short blond hair bright next to the shining water. The hair prickled on the back of my neck as she posed. What if…? What would I do? What could I do? This was insane.

  They packed up, on the move again. But my heart sank. It looked as though they were about to use slippery rocks as stepping stones to cross the rushing rain-fed stream, a feat I was loath to attempt. The water roared, the current swift and powerful. Who would rescue me if I fell?

  Nobody. I couldn’t risk it. I had to find a safer place to cross before I lost them. Which way? I ventured downstream. Wrong choice. The sound of rushing water built to a crescendo. Sure enough, cascades, rapids, and sharp drops appeared up ahead. Frustrated, I turned to go back and saw Nancy, about seventy feet away.

  She stared, then shrieked and charged me, running full tilt, screaming and waving her arms.