Act of Betrayal

by Edna Buchanan

  After our wild ride the day before, I probably wouldn’t be tete-a-teteing with Jorge Bravo anytime in the immediate future, if he had one. At least not if I could help it,

  Luckily my beat was not busy, the only story that of a two-hundred-pound woman in trouble. After a night of drinking and arguing with her one-hundred-twenty-pound boyfriend, she had passed out and fallen on him. When she awoke she found him crushed to death beneath her. She told police it was an accident. Arrested for manslaughter and overcome by grief, she fell back in a dead faint, pinning to the wall the officer attempting to handcuff her. Four other cops fought to free him as he screamed, “Get her off me! Get her off me!”

  I went back to the office, pounded out the story, then called Reyes. Gilda, his secretary, said he was out and would not be in the office all day. As I wondered whether I was being blown off, she added that he was addressing a luncheon meeting of Cuban business leaders at the Intercontinental Hotel, and then had trade commission meetings scheduled with out-of-town associates at the Sofitel Hotel near the airport. His schedule was jammed until after an 8 P.M. interview with Telemundo, the Spanish-language television channel.

  “If you really want to catch him,” she confided, her tone warm and friendly, “your best bet would be at the luncheon, before or after his talk. You will find him in the Grand Ballroom.”

  “Think he’d mind?”

  “For you, Ms. Montero? Not at all.”

  The Intercontinental stands like a sentinel on the bay, at Chopin Plaza, once the site of a concert bandshell. Flags from a host of nations hung limp in the hot, muggy air as I searched for a parking meter. I hate leaving the T-Bird with a valet, even though that strip of meters delivers a notoriously fast count to hapless motorists, who pay a quarter for a scant fifteen minutes and usually wind up with eighteen-dollar parking tickets anyway.

  Add this to traffic jams, voice mail, and the heat, and it’s a wonder that more people don’t buy high-powered rifles and barricade themselves in tall buildings.

  I overfed the meter and walked through the huge lobby, airy, full of greenery and the vibrant work of Florida artists. The paintings made me think of Vanessa Clower, although none looked like her work. An entire wall of the high-ceilinged Grand Ballroom was glass with a view of Biscayne Bay and the port.

  Before seeing him, I heard the mellifluous voice of Juan Carlos Reyes. He stood at the podium, in front of a microphone, addressing an overflow crowd seated in metal chairs, as waiters in an adjacent room placed breadbaskets, napkins, and water glasses on the luncheon tables.

  I stood quietly near the draped entrance to listen. His dark eyes roved the room, adding to the intensity of his words. Before I could even pick up the gist of his comments, something about lessons learned in his youth in military school in Cuba, his eyes swept across my side of the room, then quickly returned, focusing his powerful gaze upon me. His white teeth flashed in an intimate smile and a few members of his audience glanced curiously my way.

  “I must interrupt my prepared comments, mis amigos, for we have an unexpected and honored guest in our midst.”

  I looked over my shoulder. Nobody there. Flushed, I fought the urge to hotfoot it right out the door. I must have looked like a startled rabbit caught in headlights. Our eyes locked. He was talking about me, to me.

  “Our brother Antonio Montero, who fought against the tyranny of Fidel Castro and communism and died for Cuba, has remained with us always, in spirit. Executed by Fidel’s firing squad, he now lives on among us in the flesh.” Reyes’s deep and passionate voice picked up fire and volume as he gestured toward me.

  “Ésta es la hija de Tony Montero. Because of Castro she grew up without her father. But he would be proud of her, as we should be.

  “She is our daughter now,” he boomed, arms outstretched. “Ella es nuestra hija ahora.”

  I swallowed, as they began to applaud and cheer, louder and louder, as they got to their feet, standing to attention, some saluting, placing their hands over their hearts.

  This was totally beyond the realm of my experience. Tears stung my eyes. Nobody cheers for police reporters. I am far more accustomed to running for my life from the good citizens of Miami when they are hurling rocks and bottles, or arguing with cops who threaten to arrest me at crime scenes.

  The tribute seemed endless. I stared at the floor. Then, unconsciously mimicking my father’s pose in Bravo’s photo, I raised my head and stared boldly back at Reyes. He looked startled for a moment, but his voice gave no hint.

  “His daughter,” his electronically enhanced voice whispered over the din, “our daughter now.”

  I wished my mother could have been there, could have heard. I wished I had been more fashionably dressed instead of in my slacks, shirt, and old navy blazer. I retreated to the ladies’ room to blow my nose and wipe my eyes. By the time I returned to the Grand Ballroom, everyone was being seated for lunch. Ripples of applause followed as I skirted the tables and approached Reyes, now surrounded by local politicians and influential businessmen. I thanked him on behalf of my father; he smiled warmly and invited me to join him.

  “I must get back to work,” I said, declining. “I hoped for a quote on your feelings about the AFC raid on the Cuban coast.”

  “An unfortunate situation,” he said solemnly. “The end is near for Castro, and emotions run strong in our exile community. But our actions must reflect intelligence and a respect for the laws of this country.”

  Those around him seemed to agree.

  “And,” I added quietly as the others found their seats, “I wondered if your assistant had determined whether or not he can locate my father’s diary. Bravo insists it recently arrived in Miami with some rafter.”

  Reyes lifted his eyebrows, sadly shaking his head. “The ravings of a lunatic. You have seen the results of his handiwork. His motives are inexplicable. But I have good news. Wilfredo left me a memo this morning. He has been studying inventory lists and believes that the files and boxes we seek are in the warehouse. It was used for storage during the transition when we moved to our larger offices.” He glanced at his watch. “He planned to personally go there this afternoon.”

  My heart leaped. “Thank you,” I said fervently. “This means a great deal to me.” He kissed my hand, eyes boring into mine.

  Still riding high, I found a message from Hal waiting when I got back to the office. I decided to call him after the parents’ meeting that night, when we would have time to talk. Suddenly hungry, I ate a News cafeteria tuna sandwich at my desk while writing the follow on Bravo’s incursion into Cuban waters.

  I answered some mail, reread my missing-boy stories and all my notes, then headed out to the Randolph house. The streets sweltered with shimmering heat radiating upward from the pavement. I envied Lottie and Stosh, cruising a calm summer sea surrounded by sky and clouds.

  The Randolphs lived in Miami Shores, in a modest home with a flat roof, a lush green lawn, green shutters, and creeping vines on a latticework arbor framing the carport. A spacious screened L-shaped Florida room wrapped around the side of the house and was comfortably furnished in white wicker, but too hot to use this time of year.

  The meeting took place in the living room-dining room area. Cassie had brewed a large sweaty pitcher of iced tea and there was an industrial-sized coffee urn that suspiciously resembled the one in the waiting room at the Quicky Lube her husband managed.

  “Are you hungry?” Cassie asked. “I have cake and doughnuts for later, and Andrea Vitale is bringing cookies.” I bet I know what kind, I thought.

  Charles’s dog, Duke, who must have claimed some golden retriever or Irish setter in his lineage, barked halfheartedly each time the doorbell rang, then padded dutifully to the door, claws clicking on the terrazzo floor.

  He would sniff each new arrival, then return to his mat near the kitchen door, gazing at us balefully as if to say that no matter how many people arrived, the most important one was still missi
ng. I wondered how long dogs remember. I was sure that Bitsy still grieved for Francie.

  The Metro-Dade police department had sent a representative, a dapper, clear-eyed young detective named Simmons.

  Vanessa Clower wore a figure-hugging white cotton jumpsuit and strings of multicolor beads. Her ex-husband, Edwin, arrived five minutes after she did and sat next to her on the floral cotton couch. He wore a suit, a tie, and a hopeful expression.

  One out-of-town family, the parents of Watson Kelly from Gary, Indiana, was represented by the fathers cousin, a postal worker in Holiday, a Tampa suburb. He had driven across the state for the meeting.

  “They’re grasping at straws,” he said, speaking of the missing boy’s parents. “They said to tell you all that they’re willing to come down if you think there is something, anything, that they can do here.”

  That last collect call from their son had come from a pay phone at a downtown shopping arcade, a former movie theater, gutted and rebuilt into a miniplaza with electronics and health food stores, card and souvenir shops, and fast-food outlets.

  Emily and Michael Kearns sat in chairs six feet apart, rarely connecting with a look or a word. When they spoke it was to someone else, not each other. He looked fidgety and uncomfortable, while she appeared almost unnaturally chipper and eager. My guess was that he didn’t want to be there and she had had to persuade him.

  The Swedish consul had sent an aide to represent the country and the family of the missing exchange student, Lars Sjowall.

  Andrea Vitale arrived last, fifteen minutes late. Probably had trouble finding her way out of Bramblewood, I thought. She planned to go right to work from the meeting and looked pretty in her nurse’s uniform, but even pudgier than when we had first met. She was carrying a large platter of oatmeal raisin cookies on a paper doily covered with plastic wrap. Everyone was introduced, and Cassie Randolph poured iced tea.

  I had expected the meeting to be awkward at first, with a somber or angry mood, but a spirit of instant camaraderie prevailed. Eager ideas and an air of optimism swept the room. Sharing lightens the load, I thought. It had to be exciting, after all their waiting, for something to finally be happening. Attention from both the media and the police validated their loss, an added bonus.

  At times everyone spoke at once, comparing notes, dates, and pictures. They galvanized into action; Emily Kearns, a former secretary who now handled the business side of the family nursery business, took notes. The minutes of the meeting would be distributed to all the parents, particularly those unable to attend. Edwin Clower would provide unlimited use of fax and Xerox machines and a business phone number for tipsters. Vanessa would design a color poster bearing all the boys’ pictures and combining the reward offers. “News of one could lead to all of them,” she said.

  Detective Simmons, clean-shaven, short-haired, and boyish, though a twelve-year police veteran, took the floor to announce that the department was taking the investigation seriously and—based on the recently added cases, whether related or not—was forming a Missing Boys Task Force. The task force would include a detective from each local department with a case. Everyone applauded. An almost party atmosphere reigned. Cassie served the doughnuts, a chocolate cake, and Andrea Vitale’s cookies.

  Even Michael Kearns looked content, digging into his chocolate cake. Notebook in my lap, pen in hand, I studied them and knew the truth. Suddenly sick, I was afraid I was going to retch. The iced tea I had swallowed had turned to battery acid in my stomach. The only face in the room I could bear to look at was Simmons, who sat comfortably in his shirt and tie at the dining room table. My thoughts were reflected in his eyes, the look I’d seen in so many cops’ eyes before.

  They’re all dead! I wanted to scream. Not one is ever coming back. Oh my God, I thought. They’re dead.

  Preoccupied with the Cuban business, my mother, my father, my own personal life, I hadn’t been thinking clearly.

  Each of the boys has probably been dead since the day he vanished. One person is responsible. Serial killers are nearly always loners. This one is still out there.

  There are no coincidences. The smartest cop I ever knew once told me that. Nobody could hold that many kids. Any time this many are missing, they are all dead. I had been denying what my subconscious and my intuition had told me from the start, when I had mentioned both Bundy and Wilder to Fred, trying to spark editorial interest in the story.

  The chatting and laughter and optimism in the room ebbed and flowed around me as though I were drowning. How many of them were also in denial?

  I wanted to warn them: They are not coming home. Accept it now. Grieving is easier than being left in limbo, better than holding your breath when the phone or the doorbell rings, or searching the faces in every crowd of strangers. Hope ages fast. The most devastating truth is better than keeping life and emotions on hold forever. Better to grieve, close the book, and go on.

  I took deep breaths to settle my stomach. The light hurt my eyes and my head throbbed. “What’s the matter, Britt?” Andrea Vitale asked, concern in her voice. “You look pale.”

  Her son was one of the last to die, I thought. Only missing five months. All eyes turned to me now.

  “Don’t you want to try the cake? It’s made from scratch,” Cassie said warmly.

  Her son, I thought, welcomed into the world after four miscarriages. The boy who never walked out the door without kissing her good-bye. My God, they’re all dead.

  “I have to go,” I said, and stood so suddenly that my notebook fell to the floor. “Have an early deadline.”

  Simmons walked me out to the car, probably to be sure that I would mention his department’s deep concern for these parents and their sons. “Who will the task force report to?” I asked him.

  “Murphy.”

  “The homicide commander.”

  He nodded. “But that doesn’t mean…” he began perfunctorily.

  I returned his nod, got into my car, and looked up into his boyish face. We both knew.

  I drove back to the paper, a lump in my throat. How many? I wondered. How long has this been going on?

  I called Onnie in the library to find me everything and anything she could on pedophiles. “Oh, Jesus,” she said, “what happened?”

  “Just research,” I said wearily. “I’m trying to figure out what’s going on.”

  “You don’t sound good, Britt.”

  “I don’t feel good.”

  Hal had left another message. I was in no mood for flirtatious happy talk, and he sure as hell would not be turned on by my current state of mind. How do you talk to a normal civilian about something like this? Only somebody in the business would understand. I wished for Kendall McDonald and his arms. He could hold me, we could exchange ideas. I could pick his brain and find warmth and comfort in his body. I missed Dan Flood, a street-smart detective, a source and a friend, now dead.

  Lottie and I could have brainstormed, but she was at sea and in love. Having a wonderful time. She and the Polish Prince were probably cuddled in a chaise longue on deck under a romantic blanket of stars. I felt so lonely.

  First I wrote the story about the meeting. The news peg, of course, was the formation of the Missing Boys Task Force, a smart political move. Before the parents’ group could organize and publicly accuse the police of being unresponsive, uncaring, and slipshod, the department had defused the situation. Now that they had stepped in to the rescue, it would be nonproductive to ask where they had been all this time. I hoped the task force would be more than a token. We had to find the bodies. Once they were found, their families could join the Parents of Murdered Children, begin to heal, and focus on lobbying for victims’ rights, tougher laws, and proper punishment. Simmons’s assignment was a good sign. I knew him to be thorough, conscientious, and meticulously organized. The department has to do this right, I thought; they can’t afford not to.

  I turned in the innocuous story on the meeting and plunged int
o the research Onnie had brought. The divorced mother of two young boys, she had gingerly placed the printouts and clippings on my desk as though eager to go wash her hands.

  My headache worsened as I read through them. Five years earlier several small black boys, street kids from poor homes, had turned up in Miami canals. The first had been mauled by a gator. His head and legs were missing. Police and a medical examiner believed he was killed by the animal while playing on the canal bank, even though the canal was miles from the eight-year-old’s home. The second was nude but so decomposed that it was impossible to determine his cause of death. He might have drowned while skinny-dipping, detectives theorized. The next two were found more quickly. The bodies were still fresh, one discovered by a fisherman, the other by snake hunters, ten days apart. The boys had been sexually assaulted and fatally beaten. The killer was never identified. In the hue and cry of publicity and the intense manhunt that followed, he had vanished. He either died, moved on, got into therapy, or was arrested for some other crime. There were no new cases.

  The man responsible for the missing boys was obviously not the same. The ages and the profile of the victims were different. Serial killers usually select victims from their own race and these boys were well hidden, unlike the others, simply discarded, tossed down a canal bank when their killer had finished with them. Charles Randolph and the other missing boys, all tall for their ages, healthy and agile, could not all have been snatched off the street. They must have gone willingly with their killer.

  The numbers were staggering as I read the latest research. I knew that the United States leads the world in the production of serial killers. But just two short decades ago it was believed that there were approximately twenty roaming the country at any one time, trolling for victims. Sociologists now estimate that there are as many as five hundred out there hunting other humans like animals. Either our reporting and tracking have become considerably more accurate, or our society is creating monsters at an accelerated rate.