Suitable for Framing

by Edna Buchanan

  “You think they’re alive?” I asked.

  “Don’t know. I’ve encountered Janice before and she seems to be a good enough mother. I don’t think she would deliberately hurt them, but she has a short attention span and if she walked off and left them in danger, you know, anything can happen out there.”

  She glanced toward the scruffy neighborhood of migrant and low-income housing and the dusty strip of all-night bars and tacky stores along Homestead Avenue where it cuts through strawberry, pole bean, and tomato fields. Roughneck kids congregate in the convenience store parking lots.

  Worry flickered in the cop’s honest brown eyes.

  “If her mother was home when Janice went out to the store, why did she take the babies along? Wouldn’t it be easier to leave them at home? Babies don’t travel light.”

  “Janice is eighteen now. Since she was twelve she’s had a habit of going to the store and disappearing for a day or two. Apparently that’s how she got pregnant in the first place. So the mother makes her take the babies with her. She thought it made her more likely to come home. Up to now, it’s worked.”

  “Can I talk to her?”

  “Be my guest.” She shrugged. “Better do it now, because if we don’t come up with something soon we’re going to take her in for a statement just in case. Can you believe it? She remembers what they were wearing but not where she left them. Sad,” she said, “some people try and never can have a baby. And she has two of them. That’s not for publication,” she added.

  “Right.”

  While cops and neighbors searched, Janice sat, knees apart, on a threadbare sofa watching Oprah on TV.

  Two pink plastic barrettes held back her dishwater-blonde hair except for stringy bangs over a sloping, wedgelike forehead. The indistinct features of her pink, pudgy face were clean and makeup-free, although her short ragged fingernails had been painted orange. She looked potbellied in baggy slacks. Her worn shoes didn’t match, but the socks did.

  Her small blue eyes were placid, unlike those of a mother whose helpless babies were hungry and lost.

  A stranger in her living room did not seem to interest her, and she kept her eyes on the flickering screen as I introduced myself.

  “Remember when you went to the store yesterday, Janice?”

  That got her attention. “I didn’t lose the money,” she said, turning to face me.

  “That’s good.” I smiled.

  “Do you remember where you saw the twins last?” Her eyes roved back to the television screen. I thought I’d start at the beginning. “You bought cigarettes and a can of soda, right?” Her eyes wandered my way again. “Did you leave the babies with anybody after you left the store?”

  “I didn’t lose the money.”

  The babies’ future, if any, seemed bleak to me.

  “Were they crying when you left them?”

  She regarded me seriously for a moment. “If they’re not wet you burp them.”

  “Makes sense to me.”

  It seemed she had taken a ride with somebody whose name she could not quite recall, in a car she could not quite describe.

  We went round and round for a while until Officer Watson appeared in the doorway and motioned for me to join her. “Anything?” she said.

  “She didn’t lose the money.”

  “I could have told you that.” She sighed. “We’ve got people canvassing. No luck so far. I’m gonna take her to the station for a statement. Come on, Janice,” she said to the woman on the sofa. “Let’s go for another ride.”

  “Should we bring a bottle for the babies?” She frowned and surveyed the room as though trying to remember something. “Where did I put the bottle?”

  “Where did you put the babies?” Watson said. “That is the question. Bring a sweater, Janice, it’s cold at the station.”

  “Am I in trouble?”

  “I don’t think so.” Her voice was sympathetic. “We just need to find the twins. You have to try to remember.”

  I gave Watson my card, home number scrawled on the back, and extracted her promise to call me the minute any new information surfaced. The babies’ grandmother, a heavyset middle-aged woman with a heart condition and thick glasses, gave me a good snapshot of Cindy and Mindy, two little Kewpie dolls. Then she left to knock on doors and help in the search. Too bad they don’t have Lojack systems for babies, I thought.

  Back at the office I spotted Trish alone at her desk, giving me the opportunity to ask what I had wondered about all day.

  “Great work on Linwood,” I said. “Helluva job.”

  Smiling, she looked up from her screen. “Thanks. That means a lot coming from you, Britt.”

  “How did you hear about it? I didn’t have a clue.”

  “A good source.” She pushed her hair out of her eyes and stretched her back, catlike.

  “Who?”

  She leaned forward. “Can you keep a secret, Britt?”

  “Sure.” I nodded.

  “Well, so can I.” She stared up into my expectant eyes, expression righteous, a note of finality in her voice.

  “But you know I would never repeat—”

  “Why, Britt, I was sworn to secrecy. You would never reveal a source, would you?”

  “You’re right,” I said lamely.

  She was. Her word was good and she was keeping it No way to fault someone for that but I felt frustrated and annoyed.

  Being accosted by Janowitz on the way back to my desk didn’t improve my frame of mind. “How does it feel to be scooped by the new kid on the block?” He grinned.

  “Don’t mind a bit,” I lied jauntily. “Especially when it’s a friend.”

  Howie had left a phone message, with no return number. My frustration mounted when I called Youth Hall and they gave me a runaround. Finally I got through to Linda Shapiro, the director.

  “You know that because of confidentiality we are not even authorized to confirm that a particular individual is here,” she said, in her infuriating bureaucratese.

  “But this is different, goddammit,” I snapped, tired of being jerked around. “I’m the one who brought him in. He just got there, and I want to make sure he’s okay. I’m only returning his call.”

  She paused. “If, as you say, someone did call the <>News from this facility, that is something we will have to investigate internally.” Her tone was officious. “You may not be aware of the fact that telephone privileges are earned here and are not extended to anyone for at least seventy-two hours after their arrival. Even then, calls are strictly limited to next of kin. Parents only. Sorry, Britt, I cannot confirm that we even have such a person here.”

  There was no persuading her. Seething, I slammed down the phone. Wait until she wants something, I thought viciously. I dialed Rakestraw and was told he was gone for the day. “Will you buzz him at home and ask him to give me a call?” Normally that’s no problem.

  “You know we can’t do that,” said the officer who answered.

  “Come on,” I coaxed. “You know it’s done all the time.”

  “Sorry.” The chief was furious at the News, so suddenly everybody was operating strictly by the book. I found Rakestraw’s beeper number in my Rolodex and called it, punching in my own.

  I sat there fuming, but he didn’t call back. Poor Howie, I thought. He must feel abandoned.

  “What’s wrong, Britt?” Trish stopped at my desk.

  “Oh, just one of those days,” I muttered. “This job is enough to make you want to put on a postal uniform and pick up an automatic weapon.”

  “You okay? Anything I can do?”

  “No, but thanks.”

  I called Watson at the county’s south substation. The hunt for the twins was still on. She promised again to call me at once with any developments. Here I was feeling sorry for myself, and those poor helpless babies were lost out there. I wrote the story for the final and told the desk I would keep tabs on it until the local secti
on locked up at 1 A.M. Where were they? I wondered. When would they be found? Would they be found? The mysteries I hate most are those that are never solved. They haunt you forever.

  Chapter Twelve

  Something had happened during the night. The subtle shift from rainy season to winter had begun. The hot moist south-southwest Caribbean winds that soak up even more moisture from the Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Everglades had surrendered to northern currents, which had started to push south. Tornadoes spun up and down the coast sinkholes opened in the far north lanes of the Interstate, and the dawn was cool and less humid.

  I called Watson’s south district number at 5:30 A.M. She wasn’t in yet and there was no news in the search for the twins. I pulled on shorts, my Miami Heat T-shirt and running shoes, clipped my beeper to my waistband, and trotted two blocks to the boardwalk. Jogging the 3.2-mile round-trip was easier than two days earlier, when I had returned with my hair drenched. I ran at a steady pace, as the sea evolved from green to blue to silver under low-flying, fast-moving clouds. I warmed up fast, but other locals wore sweats and one elderly early bird even toddled along swathed in a winter coat. The temperature drop had little effect on the few tourists out that early. Peeled down to their swimsuits, they were hitting the beach as though it were the Fourth of July at Coney Island. They were paying winter rates for a bronze glow and would get it, by God, even if it was really windburn.

  The hush before dawn was glorious as I thudded into the homestretch, ocean on one side, oceanfront hotels and their gleaming turquoise pools on the other. Something dark rode in the sky high over a ship on the horizon miles off the coast, perhaps a blimp tethered to the ship below.

  I slowed down and another jogger, lean, in his fifties, drew abreast.

  “What is that out there?” We both stared.

  Occasionally blimps or weather balloons escape the weather stations in the Keys.

  “I don’t know.” He resumed his pace. “Didn’t even notice it.”

  No one else seemed to either. Sometimes it seems like that is how I spend my life, I thought, looking for something strange on the horizon. Look hard enough, and it is always there.

  I went home and took Bitsy around the block. She felt the weather change too, prancing exuberantly. Then I showered and sliced a tiny banana into my cereal. Thanks to Mrs. Goldstein’s green thumb, a cluster of banana trees thrives along the east side of our building, producing hands of fruit so heavy that the trees must be propped up for support. Sweeter and more delicious then any supermarket variety, they have a single drawback. They all ripen at once. What do you do with fifty or sixty ripe bananas? She shares the bounty.

  I scanned the paper while eating breakfast. Trish had made front page again with her follow on the Linwood story. She had had a good run with it Coverage would now pass into the hands of the reporter assigned to the courts. I had to admit she had done a hell of a job. My twins story was on local and I winced. Whoever was in the slot had cropped the picture badly, trimming it just beneath their chins as if to eliminate numbers there. It looked like a police mug shot of tiny incorrigibles, as though the accompanying headline should read ESCAPED INFANTS ON RAMPAGE. I wondered where they had spent the chilly night.

  I took a short cropped jacket to wear over my shirt and slacks and made Rakestraw’s office my first stop. I was waiting, dander up, when he arrived, unshaven, harried, and preoccupied.

  “Calm down, calm down,” he said. “Everything is fine. Moving along on schedule.”

  “Howie tried to call me, Rakestraw. They wouldn’t let me get back to him. I don’t even know if he’s okay.”

  “He’s fine. Saw him yesterday. There was a hearing, and the judge ordered his evaluation. Once he gets the report he’ll place him right into the Crossing. No problem.”

  “You should have told me. I would have come to the hearing. I don’t want him to feel like I abandoned him. I wanted to tell him that I got his stuff—”

  “It was unofficial, in the judge’s chambers. If it makes you feel any better, Britt, I’ll have them let him give you a call later today. I’ve got more pressing problems at the moment. Looks like FMJ shot a Brazilian tourist in the ankle last night and took his rental car.”

  “Where?”

  “Right here in Overtown.”

  “What was a tourist doing there?” Overtown’s desolate and often explosive inner-city streets are not included in the usual tourist itinerary.

  “Claims he was lost. Maybe he was trying to score some dope. Who knows.”

  “The heat from city hall and the Chamber of Commerce will give you all the overtime you need.”

  “Yeah, but OT won’t do us much good unless we can put our hands on that little street slug. This case, however, is different from all the others. FMJ turned eighteen yesterday.”

  “Hell of a way to celebrate.”

  He opened a fat folder and handed over black-and-white photos of FMJ, front and side views, from a freshly printed stack. “For you,” he said, “hot off the press. This is his first felony as an adult. Put it in the paper, Britt. Run it big.”

  “Great! Wish we’d done this weeks ago. How come you didn’t answer your beeper last night?”

  “Oh, Christ, did you try to get me? I shut it off when I put in the new battery and forgot to turn the damn thing back on.”

  “I need your home number,” I said. “The office wouldn’t call you, ’cause the chief is in a snit at the media.”

  Reluctantly, he recited the number. “But I’d appreciate it if you’d use the beeper if you need to get in touch. My home phone is a last resort, in a real emergency. Okay? Things are tough at home. We’ve been having some problems, because of the hours and all. The wife wouldn’t appreciate any strange women calling right now.”

  I promised. Cops’ wives endure more than their ration of grief. I always explain who I am and why I’m calling. Sometimes that’s not enough.

  I checked my own beeper to be sure it was working, in case Watson had news about the twins, and called the office for messages. There were none.

  Rakestraw walked out with me on his way to PIO with FMJ’s pictures. “Met your friend. She’s sure something else,” he said admiringly.

  “Who?”

  “That other reporter. One that did the story on Linwood. Sure pissed off the chief. Reminds me of you. Said she’s a good friend of yours.”

  “Well, we didn’t grow up together or anything. She’s from Oklahoma. Smart as hell.”

  “Real friendly. Ran into her in the elevator. Told her how you caught the Fly for us a coupla years ago.”

  I smiled fondly at the recollection. A slightly built armed robber who wore big prescription eyeglasses had terrorized small businesses. One victim swore the holdup man looked “like a fly,” with his skinny neck, high-pitched voice, small chin, and those oversize thick lenses. Sure enough, when the police artist finished his sketch, the suspect did resemble a fly. The cops stood around squinting at it, expressing serious doubts as to its accuracy. My editors were equally dubious, but the victims insisted that was him.

  We called him the Fly when we ran it. The paper hit the street and phones rang off the hook. Everybody who knew the man knew exactly who we were talking about. Quickly nabbed, he did, indeed, look like a fly. The headline was: SWAT TEAM CORNERS FLY. The department had actually even thanked me for my help on that one.

  I laughed. “What’d she say?”

  He rubbed his whiskers and thought for a moment. “Said she’d like to compete with you on the same story to see who did better. I’d like to see that myself.”

  I laughed uneasily, wondering if he had quoted her accurately. “Well, you won’t. We’re on the same team. We’re out to beat the competition, not each other.”

  I continued my rounds, rolling into the office about 2 P.M., an hour before the street deadline. I had FMJ’s mug shot and a story on his new victim and felt pretty good.

  Bobby
Tubbs was in the slot.

  “We need to run this guy’s picture as big as we can,” I urged.

  “Not our job, Britt,” he cautioned. “We’re not cops.”

  “I know,” I said, exasperated. “But this kid is a one-man crime wave. A time bomb. He drove the hit-and-run car that killed that little boy, and he’s the one who’s been kneecapping drivers, including several tourists, one of them this morning.”

  He curiously scrutinized the picture I had handed him.

  “I know it’s only a mug shot, but will you try to give it the best play you can?”

  “We’ve got some great art for the street,” he said enthusiastically.

  “What?” I picked up a red grease pencil and flipped FMJ’s photo over to print his name, Gilberto Sanchez, clearly on the back.

  “The babies. The missing twins’ reunion with their mother and grandmother. Great stuff.”

  I did a double take.

  “The twins? They found them? They’re safe?”

  “Yep, both okay.”

  “Who’s doing the story?”

  “Trish.” His round blue eyes were serene.

  “What? That’s my story!” I spun around and saw Trish, briskly working at her terminal. “The cops were supposed to call me when they found them.”

  Tubbs stared up, bland and innocent. “Guess she got a call.” He shrugged. “You weren’t here. You were busy, out on something else anyway.”

  I stormed back to Trish’s desk, slowing only long enough to check that I had no messages from Watson.

  She greeted me with a smile. She wore ice blue, nearly as pale as her gray eyes. “Hi, Britt, I was looking for you. Did you get the age of the babies’ grandmother?”