Suitable for Framing

by Edna Buchanan

  “Miss Mayberry?” Chills rippled along my spinal column.

  “That’s her, yeah. The one who wouldn’t sell out.” She picked up a flashing line.

  “What was Trish doing with her?”

  She shrugged, then put her hand over the mouthpiece. “She felt sorry for the old lady, who kept asking for you, and offered to help if there was anything she could do.” Gloria returned to her phone conversation.

  I literally ran to the elevator. I’d been a fool for not staying in closer contact with Margaret Mayberry. What had Howie said? That we were his only friends. Then I had let him down. He had only one friend left in the world.

  No police car outside now. The shades were all down.

  Miss Mayberry took a long time to answer. “Your friend is already here.” She spoke through the screen, new worry lines creasing her worn face. I nearly pushed my way through the door.

  Howie and Trish sat facing each other across the wooden dining room table. Both looked startled. He still wore his Star Trek T-shirt, though it looked freshly laundered.

  “Howie!” I felt weak with relief, then had the urge to shake him until his teeth rattled. “Where have you been?” I walked over and gave him an awkward hug. He felt tense in my arms, then hugged me back, hard. “I was so worried.”

  “Britt,” he said, eyes filling.

  I turned on Trish. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “I know what you’re trying to accomplish, Britt. You want to help this boy, and so do I.” Her voice was warm, her face sincere.

  Miss Mayberry and Howie looked at her, then me, not sure what was happening.

  “I’m scared,” Howie told me. “That’s why I been trying to reach you. I know the police’ll shoot me on sight. Will you help me surrender?”

  “It’s the only way,” Miss Mayberry said, her jaw firm.

  I nodded, then turned to Trish. “We really don’t need you involved. We can handle this.”

  “Britt,” she said persuasively. “What you’re doing is admirable. Absolutely noble. You’re trying to save this”—she smiled gently at Howie—“young man. I’m on your side. That’s why I came.”

  “Butt out, Trish. Bad things happen to people you try to help. Forget you were ever here, go back to the office, and let us work this thing out.”

  She searched each face and saw no encouragement.

  “If that’s the way you want it, I’ll go. But I’d still like to help.”

  “We’re okay,” I said.

  She stood and walked to the door, no longer smiling. Little trouper that she was, she gave it one last shot. “You’re making a mistake.”

  “She’s trouble,” I explained, after she had gone. “We have trouble enough.”

  I took the chair Trish had occupied, directly across from Howie. I leaned forward. “You were there.”

  He nodded silently. Miss Mayberry stood in a supportive position directly behind his chair, her hands on his shoulders.

  “Who did the shooting?”

  “FMJ,” he mumbled. “He smoked the dude and the cop. I never had no gun.” He looked startled. “You didn’t think it was me!”

  “No,” I said reassuringly. “Never did. I just wanted to hear it from you. What were you doing with them?”

  “They wanted me to help ’em get some cars. We was going to the shopping center to find a Taurus. Then one passed in traffic and FMJ say, ‘Let’s take that one.’ I said, ‘No, man. Let’s find one parked. Plenty out there.’ But he wanted that one. I said, ‘Don’ shoot the gun, man. I don’ want any trouble.’ He laughed. He don’t listen. Then that cop showed up. Everybody flashing iron. I seen the bullets flying by. Didn’t know whether to jump out and run or stay in the van. If I stay, I get shot. If I run, I get shot. Scared to do it, scared not to do it. I just froze. I wanted to get outa there.”

  “Where are they?”

  “I don’ know, man.” He was wringing his hands. “I don’ want to know. Last time I seen ’em was in Hialeah. I took off. I shoulda stayed at the Crossing. I wanted to be there, to go to school. But I hadda leave.”

  His eyes flicked up at Miss Mayberry, who appeared unaware of his reason for running.

  “Now they gonna kill me.” His eyes were pleading. “I know the cops are gonna kill me.”

  “No, they won’t,” I said. “I’m not sure how we should do this. Maybe we should have a lawyer surrender you. I could go out and call one, maybe a public defender, and ask him to meet us here.”

  “Or you could jus’ take me in there like last time. They all know you…”

  “They wouldn’t hurt him in front of a newspaper reporter,” Miss Mayberry said.

  “I’m just concerned about getting stopped on the way. They might not believe we were coming in.” It didn’t seem quite kosher after the gigantic manhunt to simply drive him to headquarters and stroll up to the desk sergeant. We probably wouldn’t get that far. They all had his picture. Maybe it would be better to approach a traffic cop on the street and quietly ask him to take Howie in. Or…

  “I know a cop we can trust.”

  Howie shot me a quick look, probably thinking of Rakestraw.

  “Not him. A lieutenant in homicide. His name is McDonald. I’ll call him and ask the safest way for us to do this.”

  “I don’t have a phone,” Margaret Mayberry reminded me.

  “Where’s the nearest pay phone?”

  “Next door, on the second level of the parking garage.”

  “Okay,” I said, fumbling in my purse for change. “I’ll run over there. If he’s not in, I’ll call the public defender’s office. In fact, the more I think about it, maybe I should call and talk to them first.” I pushed back my chair.

  “SEND OUT THE HOSTAGE. RELEASE MARGARET MAYBERRY. SEND HER OUT NOW.” The booming voice seemed to be all around us, like the voice of God in that Moses movie.

  We stared at one another. “It’s them!” Howie leaped to his feet.

  I dashed to the window and peeked from behind the shade.

  “Oh, shit!” I said. It was the goddamn police SWAT team. “Well, now we don’t have to worry about how to go to them,” I said, hoping I sounded confident. “They’ve come to us.”

  Miss Mayberry’s hand was over her heart. I hoped she wouldn’t have a stroke.

  “Trish!” I said. “Goddamn, I’d like to slap the spit out of her. Nobody else knew Howie was here, right?”

  “Nobody,” Miss Mayberry said.

  “SEND THE HOSTAGE OUT NOW!”

  Good grief. “They must think you’re being held hostage,” I said.

  “Humph. That’s ridiculous.” She snorted.

  “Wish you had a phone,” I said, “we could dial Nine-one-one and explain. In fact, if you had one, they would have called us by now, to negotiate.”

  “INSIDE, SEND OUT THE HOSTAGE. SEND OUT THE WOMAN NOW!”

  I peeked out again. Cops in SWAT fatigues were all over the place. The street was barricaded and the entrance to the parking garage closed. Nothing but cops scurrying in crouched positions carrying M-16s, armed for bear.

  Now I knew the same sinking feeling the James boys felt, and Butch and Sundance in Bolivia, and O.J. in his Bronco. Maybe I have no sense of adventure, but I didn’t like it one bit.

  The little reading lamp on Miss Mayberry’s desk went out. So did the dining room light overhead.

  She and Howie looked startled. The room was shadowy with no lights and the shades drawn.

  “They cut off the electricity. They always do that. I’m not sure why.”

  “They gonna kill us all!” Howie said, terrified.

  “This is ridiculous,” Miss Mayberry snapped. “I’ll take care of them.” Her dander up, she marched to the front door, threw it open, and stepped out on the porch, ramrod straight, an imposing figure in her flowered housedress.

  “You—” She got no further.

  The wind was knocked out of he
r before she could utter another word. Two SWAT members rushed the porch, grabbed her from either side, and hustled her away, out of the line of fire.

  There was no time to think. Glass shattered with a blinding flash and an earsplitting explosion. All I could think of was Hiroshima. I hit the pine floor, curling instinctively into a fetal position, hands over my eyes. I heard Howie screaming. Or maybe the screams were mine. My ears rang, I opened my eyes but couldn’t see, and I smelled smoke.

  My mind raced. It had to be a stun grenade, used to disorient barricaded bad guys. But another sound rapidly followed, a gunshot, from behind the house, then a thunderous barrage from all sides. Glass broke and bits of furniture and debris fell around us. Howie was right. They were trying to kill us!

  Still blinded, as though by a thousand flashbulbs exploding in my face, I crawled, trying to inch my way in the general direction of the kitchen as china crashed and pictures flew off the walls. I felt the slick linoleum under my hands and knees, bumped into a cabinet, opened it, and scooted inside among the bottles of furniture polish and boxes of soap power. I pulled the door closed behind me. There was a metal pipe in the middle and I clung to it, eyes closed. I was cringing under the sink like a palmetto bug fleeing the exterminator.

  Overhead, dishes and flowerpots crashed into the sink and to the floor around me. It seemed to go on forever.

  Trish, I thought bitterly. Trish is responsible. Lord knows what she told them. The barrage suddenly stopped. The silence was deafening.

  “Howie?” I muttered, and tentatively pushed the cabinet door open a few inches, afraid they’d begin firing again. I heard shouts outside. I thought I heard Miss Mayberry screaming.

  I crawled out and sat whimpering on the kitchen floor. A broken ceramic figurine that looked like a duck lay shattered beside me.

  I picked up the head and began to sob. I knew I had to go back into the other room. I was afraid of what I would find. They were shouting now, to come out. Those bastards, I thought. Those bastards.

  My eyes burned and stung from the smoke. I crawled to the doorway. Amid the smoke and shadows, I saw Howie where he had fallen, his head and shoulders propped against the bullet-riddled couch. His arms were bent at the elbows and I saw his left hand jerk.

  “Howie, Howie, Howie,” I crooned, scrambling, half crawling, to his side. His Star Trek shirt was torn and bloodied. I couldn’t tell how many times he’d been hit. His eyes had that lonely look I had seen the first time I visited his rooftop home. The mischievous glint was gone.

  Dammit, I thought, weeping. It’s not fair. He’s been alone all his life.

  He sure as hell was not going to die alone. “I’m here, sweet boy,” I said. I gathered him into my arms and held him.

  That was how they found us.

  Chapter Sixteen

  They pieced the scenario together quickly. When the stun grenade was hurled, a SWAT sergeant in cumbersome gear was clambering over the chain-link fence that separated the Edgewater property from the back of Miss Mayberry’s. Startled by the flash and explosion, he lost his footing and squeezed the trigger of his nine-millimeter Glock. A single silver-tipped slug slammed into the ground. The edgy troops poised out front assumed somebody had shot at them and returned fire en masse.

  It happens.

  Miss Mayberry’s long-dead pioneer father had saved my life by building his house of solid Dade County pine in which the resin was allowed to harden, making the wood impervious to fire, termites, and bullets. The only slugs that had invaded the interior of the house had smashed through windows and the screen door.

  By the time they burst in Howie was dead in my arms and I was just—resting, too exhausted to lift my head.

  Rescue checked me out. Only minor cuts and scratches. I had to give a statement at police headquarters.

  “How could you?” raged the captain, a huge former motorman whose gut now obscured his belt buckle. McDonald, Rakestraw, the SWAT lieutenant, and two other detectives were there. “You know better!”

  “I was doing my job,” I retorted. “There were no weapons. He was a scared juvenile. He trusted you.” I glared at Rakestraw. “He trusted us. He was mishandled the first time he tried to come in and work within the system. I didn’t know where he was today until I got there myself. He wanted to surrender and we were trying to figure the safest way to do it when you … you killed him.” I fought to keep my composure. My ears were still ringing, and I ached to get my hands on Trish.

  “You seem to forget,” the captain snarled. “A good police officer was killed.”

  “But not by him,” I said.

  “Did he say where they were?” He pushed his thick, beery face close to mine.

  “Why don’t you ask him?” I said bitterly.

  “A lot of mistakes have been made on both sides,” McDonald said gently. “But we’re on the same side, Britt You want them off the street as much as we do.”

  I bit my lip to keep it from trembling. I’d be damned if I’d let them see me cry. “Howie said he last saw them in Hialeah. He didn’t say exactly when or the address. You didn’t give him the chance.”

  The SWAT lieutenant grew red in the face but said nothing.

  “Is Miss Mayberry all right?”

  “She’s fine,” Rakestraw said. “She’s giving her statement now.”

  “You sure messed up her house.”

  Before leaving I told them, “I know who called it in to you. Trish Tierney is directly responsible for Howie’s death. And she nearly got me killed too.”

  They exchanged puzzled looks.

  “It was her, wasn’t it?”

  “Who?” said the captain.

  “Don’t give me that,” I said angrily. “I know what Trish did.”

  Back at the office I told my bosses what she had done, how she had tipped the police with the lie that Miss Mayberry was being held hostage and failed to mention my presence, obviously hoping to see me blown away along with Howie.

  “Those are serious accusations, Britt.” Fred Douglas and John Murphy, the managing editor, were clearly uncomfortable.

  They summoned Trish, who waltzed in prim and proper, lying through her teeth as I glared. She appeared shocked at the suggestion. “I consider Britt a mentor. I would never, ever do such a thing.” She had returned to the paper, she swore, and had spoken to no one about the Mayberry house.

  “I knew Britt was inside,” she concluded. “She asked me to keep a confidence and I respected her wishes.”

  Before leaving Murphy’s office she stopped in front of the chair where I sat, put her arms around my shoulders, and gave a gentle squeeze. “I’m so sorry. You must be very upset. Poor Britt,” she murmured. I wanted to scream and shake the truth out of her. Instead I remained rigid.

  Speechless, I saw the look in their eyes. They believed her. Were they blind?

  “Ask the police,” I blurted, voice quaking. Probably more to pacify me than to seek the truth, Murphy put a call in to the chief. We waited in uncomfortable silence. The chief called back with an answer in less than ten minutes.

  I scarcely breathed while they spoke briefly. Murphy thanked him profusely, apologizing for the trouble, and cradled the phone.

  “You are mistaken, Britt. Trish was not responsible. I think we all owe her an apology.”

  “What do you mean? Incoming calls are taped; they must have her voice on tape.”

  He shook his head. “There is no tape. The call that led the SWAT team to the Mayberry place came into the complaint room from inside police headquarters.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “The chief has investigated. The number called was a line used only by police officers. The caller was a male, obviously a policeman, using police terminology.”

  “Who? What policeman?”

  “They don’t have a name. It’s possible they won’t. All the complaint-room clerk can recall is that the officer reported that the suspect in the Mc
Coy murder had broken into the Mayberry house and was holding the owner hostage. He said SWAT should be mobilized; then he either hung up or was cut off.

  “They acted on it, since the information came from within and a check with the lead investigator confirmed that the woman knew the suspects. It was just presumed that the caller himself was en route to the scene. A radio car went by, saw the shades drawn, which was unusual according to the investigator, and they mobilized.”

  “I don’t believe it,” I murmured, confused.

  “This professional rivalry—this cat fight—has got to stop.” Fred looked exasperated. “Britt, why don’t you take some time off?”

  “You may be right.” I got to my feet, smiling sheepishly. “Maybe I misjudged, jumped to conclusions. I don’t need time off. I just need to get back to work.” I excused myself and stepped out into the newsroom.

  Why argue? Without proof, I’d only succeed in convincing them that I was crazy or obsessed. Maybe I was.

  As I passed her desk on the way back to mine, Trish looked up and smiled. I smiled back, my heart hollow.

  I couldn’t shake the feeling that my world was on a collision course with disaster.

  “A reporter touches lives,” I told Marty, as I fought tears. “It’s not supposed to be fatal.”

  “You did the best you could for him, Britt. At least you cared. Nobody else did. We both know the system sucks, and you’re not to blame for that.”

  “She manipulated it, Marty, the way she did the Rosado family.”

  “Speaking of Trish,” he said, “I haven’t been able to come up with much yet. The guy I know at her last paper is out of town on vacation. I’m still trying to reach him. Ran her job, credit, and college applications, and checked her hometown newspaper and cop shop for basic bio. Trish N., born November 23, 1968, oldest of two, dad a furniture manufacturer, mom dabbles in real estate until the kid brother is born, when Trish is about six. Baby brother is sick from day one, not expected to make it Congenital heart defect, has surgery three times by the time he’s four years old.