Act of Betrayal

by Edna Buchanan

  My phone startled me. The newsroom was deserted, except for a cleaning man shampooing a carpet in one of the executive offices. It was after one o’clock in the morning. I answered, expecting a cop or a fireman with news of a late-breaking story.

  “What are you still doing there?”

  “Lottie? Where are you?”

  “Down at the port, can you come git me?”

  “Sure.” It was only five minutes away. “But where’s Stosh?”

  “Come git me. I’ll tell ya then. Everybody’s leaving, it’s dark as hell over here, and I’m loaded with money.”

  “I’ll be right there.” What the hell, I wondered, hanging up. I left my desk the way it was, grabbed my car keys, and took off. Didn’t have to wait for an elevator, it was waiting for me. I love the News building when it is empty, and that dizzying high that comes after inhaling your first breath of hot, moist night air after so many hours in an over-air-conditioned, unnaturally frigid building. Head spinning, I slid into the T-Bird and drove with the windows wide open until my bones warmed and I began to perspire.

  The other passengers had gone. Lottie stood alone, a tall silhouette in the dark under a sapphire sky. I didn’t see the black Jaguar.

  “Thanks, Britt.” She settled in the front seat with an apprehensive glance behind us. “Thank God that woman’s finally gone.”

  “What woman? Where’s Stosh? What the hell is going on?” I demanded, and swung into a U-turn. “Is he swimming back from Freeport?”

  “He didn’t go.” She spoke calmly and didn’t look heartbroken.

  We were sailing across the Dodge Island Bridge between the port and downtown. “What do you mean he didn’t go? I saw you both board that ship.”

  “Yeah, but, as you know, even though you don’t need a passport, you need to show two forms of ID, driver’s license, birth certificate, voter’s registration. When they ask us for it, Stosh pats his pockets. Whoops, he says, he left his wallet in the car and has to run back to the Jag for ID. He did, and the man did not come back. The Gettaway sailed without him. At first I thought he had to be on board somewhere, that he must be with the purser being processed.”

  “I don’t believe it! What could have…”

  “I saw the parking lot from the upper deck after we moved away from the pier. His car was gone. He hightailed it outta there like a lynch mob was on his tail.”

  “That’s awful! What on earth would make him … Were you two having an argument?”

  “Nope.” She thought a moment. “Nothing. I did make a joke. When the captain greeted us, I asked him if he performed marriages on the high seas. He just laughed.”

  “But it was right after that?”

  She nodded. “Not long. I’m surprised he didn’t pass you like Mario Andretti as you was leaving.”

  “Do you think what you said could be the reason?”

  “Don’t know, and don’t wanna know. Could not care less.”

  “It had to be awful. What did you do?”

  “Wasn’t half bad, Britt. I mean, it wasn’t no transatlantic cruise. I ate till I thought I would burst. Played shuffleboard with a buncha young medical students and toured Freeport with a nice family from Austin. Bought some perfume and a bottle of duty-free rum. On the way back I tried my hand at roulette in the casino and won twenty bucks. That’s when I started watching folks playing the slots. Never play those badger games myself, just watched. Some woman from Chicago had been playing one since morning. Never even went ashore. Eight hours she’d been feeding that machine, and nothing.”

  “Humph, like the parking meters down at Chopin Plaza.”

  “Exactly. Finally she takes a break to go to the ladies’ room. Without even thinking I drop fifty cents in the slot and it belches up money, money, money! Red lights and sirens, just like a vice raid.”

  “You won!”

  “Five thousand big ones,” she said, speaking slowly, emphasizing each syllable.

  “Five thousand dollars? Great! I love it! Oh, Lottie!”

  We high-fived.

  “That woman from Chicago comes back spitting fire. Real mouth on her. Coulda swallowed the devil with his horns on. Screeching like a stuck pig that I took her machine. Still at it when we docked, following me down the gangplank yelling: ‘That’s my money! That’s my money!’ Shoulda heard her.”

  “Did you give her any?”

  “Nope. Not with her attitude. I’m quitting the game while I’m ahead. No more gambling or Stosh Gorski.”

  “Good idea,” I solemnly agreed.

  “I shoulda done it before, but if I had, I wouldn’t have won. Had he come aboard and stayed, I wouldn’t have won. I wouldn’t even have been playing, not a machine anyway. I should thank him. But I won’t. I ain’t so bad off. He never was a plumb truthful critter, always foil of balooey. Deep down I knew it.” She leaned back and sighed. “Greenbacks in my jeans sure ease the pain.”

  “What are you going to do with it, after you buy me breakfast?”

  “Been thinking about some white-water rafting, a painting by that Hainan artist down by the river, some new camera equipment.”

  I told her what I believed about the missing boys.

  “Glory, Britt, I assumed you’d figured that out. Ain’t no secret summer camp out there for lost boys. Little ones might git sold off to chicken hawks, sent south of the border. Ain’t no way big boys like that could be controlled by anybody for so long.”

  We drove up the Boulevard, deserted at that hour except for the hookers staring hollow-eyed from shadowy street corners.

  “How come you’re so good at judging character when it comes to news but not in your personal life?”

  “Ain’t that true of all of us?”

  She was right. I wondered about Hal and Kendall McDonald.

  “Men give love because they want sex,” she was saying. “Women give sex because they want love. That’s the difference between men and women. Ever notice how when we talk about our love lives, it’s always about a man? Singular. All most of us want is one good man. But when men talk, it’s about women. Plural. They want as many as they can git.”

  “Did you really love him?”

  “I guess I was in love with the idea.”

  I sighed. “All day long I was envying you and Stosh out there together on the water.”

  “Never take anything for granted, Britt.” She leaned her head back on the seat and closed her eyes. “In this life nothing is ever really what it seems to be.”

  17

  I called Dr. Rose Schlatter in the morning. A bosomy blonde in her early fifties, she favors big dangly earrings, low-cut blouses, and outdated makeup. Her eyeshadow is thick and blue, her lipstick bright and smeary. She resembles an aging barmaid or your favorite waitress. She is actually a psychiatrist who directed a once-praised treatment program for convicted sex offenders at the state hospital.

  The program lost its funding, shut down in a clamor precipitated by an unfortunate incident involving hostages, escapes, and assault. Currently she evaluates defendants in criminal cases, conducts a solo practice, and lobbies tirelessly for revival of her defunct program.

  Rose Schlatter seemed pleased to hear from me. “Sure, I have time, Britt, if you don’t mind listening to me chew my breakfast while we talk. Just let me get my doughnut and coffee.”

  “What kind of doughnut?” I hadn’t even thought about breakfast.

  “Jelly, sorry I can’t offer you one.”

  “Me too.” I was suddenly hungry.

  “I have a jailhouse interview at ten. That handsome young weight lifter from the Grove, the fellow who chopped his girlfriend into little pieces last year because she was the devil? He’s back from Chattahoochee. They say he’s competent now. We’ll see.”

  Her voice sounded younger than her years and had the slightly breathy, girlish quality of a Marilyn Monroe imitator. I waited while she lowered the volume on her TV and brought he
r breakfast to the telephone. She had read the stories and listened intently to my theory, that a serial sex killer had made the missing boys disappear.

  “I was thinking the same thing myself,” she said matter-of-factly. “Probably somebody narcissistically wounded in childhood, probably obsessive-compulsive. Since he’s been successful this long, he must keep himself under control to some degree, rather than displaying an increasingly more apparent personality disorder dysfunction.”

  “You’ve interviewed so many sex offenders,” I began carefully. “I just wondered whether you recall anyone obsessed with boys who might match that specific profile?”

  She laughed gaily. “Nice try, Britt. But you know I couldn’t reveal it even if I did. Doctor-patient confidentiality.”

  Even if it would save lives? I wanted to argue, but didn’t. No point when I wanted her help. “So you think that the killer is sexually attracted to boys who fit the same physical description?”

  She slurped her coffee, evoking the image of the thick pink smears that stained her cup whenever we chatted in the courthouse coffee shop.

  “Power may be what he seeks.” She cleared her throat and smacked her lips. “The exercise of power may be even more important to him than his sexual needs. Murder is the ultimate expression of power. How many victims did you say? At least twelve? I’d love to meet this man,” she said, sounding like a schoolgirl yearning for an introduction to a rock star.

  “Of course we’d want to do a complete workup: a neurological exam, electroencephalogram, chromosome count—all those good things—and see if any organic brain disease exists.”

  She stopped to gnaw her jelly doughnut.

  “Based on what little we have, what can you tell me about this man?” I sounded like someone consulting a crystal-ball gazer or an astrologer. I hoped her reply would not be as nebulous.

  “He must feel a great need to be loved and admired, probably can be very charming on the surface. God,” she said, chewing hungrily, as though the thought had just occurred to her, “they’re all charming.” She swallowed. “If they weren’t charmers they couldn’t get away with what they do long enough to become serial killers. But underneath that charming veneer is a refrigerator that doesn’t defrost. No guilt, no remorse. He somehow justifies his behavior. The only real remorse I’ve ever seen in any of them is that they’re sorry, sorry they got caught. If what we suspect is true, the man we’re talking about is apparently able to control and manipulate his environment. If he’s married,” she said thoughtfully, “he’s most likely a wife-beater.”

  Married. That hadn’t even occurred to me. “If he is, don’t you think his wife must know?”

  “She probably knows he’s violent and off-center,” she said, chewing, “but not the degree of his aberrant behavior. Life is probably more pleasant for her after a murder; it takes some of the pressure off her. The patterns of serial killers are cyclical, you know, like menstrual cycles.

  “One other thing, Britt, he probably collects mementos, souvenirs. Anything from his victims’ jewelry, to teeth, to body parts. He may take photos, videotapes, or recordings of their pleas for mercy for use in his masturbatory fantasies later.”

  My stomach churned as she masticated with relish, apparently devouring the last of her doughnut.

  “The last victim I’m pretty sure of was five, six months ago. You think he’s stopped?”

  “Oh, this fellow probably won’t stop until somebody stops him.” She sounded cheerful. “He must pay attention to the news and he’s probably not thrilled about the Task Force you wrote about in this morning’s paper, but he won’t quit. He may even enjoy matching wits with the police. I’ve got to run, even though Mr. Buff, the Body Builder, isn’t going anywhere—not yet, anyway. You know how they are, these offenders get surly if you keep them waiting. They’re so impatient. No impulse control. That’s pan of their problem. Anything else you need, Britt?”

  “The killer’s name and current whereabouts would be a big help.”

  She laughed. “Call me anytime, Britt, just remember whenever you attribute anything in print don’t neglect to mention the program, and that I was the founder and director. I’m still trying to regain our funding. You know what a worthy program it was.”

  I remembered the nurse held hostage by the patients Dr. Schlatter was “rehabilitating,” the mother and seven-year-old girl they abducted, and the fear generated in neighborhoods surrounding the hospital, but I kept my yap shut.

  “And, Britt, if they should identify a suspect in this case, please call me right away. Day or night. You have my home and beeper numbers. I sure would love to get to know this fellow.”

  Why did I suspect that Dr. Schlatter enjoyed her job way too much?

  The phone rang the instant I hung up. I half expected Dr. Schlatter, with a new flash of insight or some juicy tidbit she’d neglected to mention.

  “Britt, is that you? Where have you been?”

  “Hi, stud,” I murmured, in my best try at sultry, embarrassed that I had neglected to return Hal’s calls.

  “I thought you dumped me.”

  “Are you kidding? It’s been really hectic. I’ll tell you all about it when I see you.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Just now? I was talking to a … a source.”

  “You didn’t forget the inquest tomorrow, did you?”

  “No way. Two o’clock, right? We’ll be there with bells on. Lottie’s coming too. I’ll meet you outside the courtroom.”

  “Good.” He lowered his voice. “I miss you.”

  “Likewise.” Call waiting clicked in. “You have nothing to worry about. See you then.” I pressed the button.

  “Montero?”

  “Jorge?”

  “Si. We have it! Antonio’s diario.”

  “What?” My heart stuttered in my breast.

  “At least we know the place to find it, the whereabouts of Armando Gutiérrez. Meet me at José Marti Park and we will go there together.”

  Oh, sure, I thought, frowning at the phone and the man at the other end. What kind of scam was this?

  “Fifteen minutes,” he said urgently.

  “Wait, don’t hang up, Jorge.” What if Reyes was wrong? “You must realize that I wouldn’t get into a car with you again under any circumstances.” I’d rather sky-dive without a chute. “Ever.”

  “This balsero will be reassured if you are present, and you will see that I have spoken the truth to you and that the liar is Juan Carlos Reyes.”

  “How about if I meet you there?”

  “To divulge his whereabouts over the telefono would endanger his life.”

  “Give me a street corner”—I sighed—” within walking distance.”

  He conferred in rapid Spanish with someone else. “Okay,” he said. “Meet me at Northwest Seventh Street and Second Avenue. Pronto.”

  I sighed. Why did I feel like a kamikaze pilot?

  “I have to run out for a little while,” I told Gretchen, as I passed the city desk.

  “But Britt, the staff meeting is at two, to discuss hurricane assignments.” The storm had stalled at sea, feeding on the heated water, picking up strength. Now officially a hurricane, it had swung slightly to the north and was whirling west like so many storms that barrel down the alley, a wide path through the Caribbean toward the Gulf of Mexico. Florida’s peninsula juts out into the alley like a sore thumb. As a result, more than sixty hurricanes have slammed into the state with wild winds and storm surges that have killed more than 3,500 people over the past hundred years. Enough to excite editors and weathermen even though the odds were on our side.

  “I’ll be back,” I said, not even slowing down.

  I parked nearby, watching for especialista Luisa or a counterpart. I paced the scorching pavement, then stood there sweating and feeling stupid. If I missed the damn hurricane meeting I’d wind up with some assignment nobody else wanted, sitting alone in some R
ed Cross Shelter with ten thousand bologna sandwiches as the storm petered out over North Carolina or somewhere in the Caribbean.

  Had this been a better neighborhood, I could have cooled my heels in the frosty draft escaping from some air-conditioned storefront, but the buildings here were old, un-air-conditioned, or abandoned. Several old apartment houses had been condemned, boarded up, then reclaimed by the homeless. There was a pawn shop that welcomed customers with barbed wire and steel shutters, a few boardinghouses, a couple of small hotels with laboring air conditioners, and rooms that rented by the hour.

  I checked my watch, decided to give him five minutes more, looked up, and saw Bravo climb out of a blue Dodge across the street, a clunker I’d seen go by a few minutes earlier. The car raided off; I couldn’t see if Eloy was behind the wheel. I didn’t care. I never wanted to see either one of them again. Did my father experience the same reservations every time he ran with this crowd?

  Bravo beckoned impatiently as I crossed the street toward him. “¡Apúrate!” He jabbed at the pavement with his cane as I fell into step beside him. “Here.”

  We walked into the Bradley Hotel. If anything, the lobby was hotter and more sweltering than the street. A ceiling fan with a broken blade hung still and lifeless. The metal legs of the few pieces of vinyl furniture were corroded by the dampness. A few listless residents watched an old TV plugged into the wall with an exposed cord apparently gnawed by rodents. The picture was blurry, but the sound blared. Trailer-park types on some daytime talk show were divulging the intimate secrets of their bizarre private lives. They seemed entirely normal compared to some of the people Id met lately.

  A mountain of a man sat behind the desk sweating profusely. His grimy short-sleeved shirt hung open, exposing bristly hair and a raised red scar on his chest, either heart surgery or an old knife wound. Only his thick eyebrows acknowledged our presence, lifting slightly, as Bravo and I approached. He probably assumed we wanted the bridal suite.