by P J Parrish
“A stuffed monkey?”
“Yeah. Some old raggedy thing her grandma made for her before she croaked.”
Louis took a step back, suddenly anxious to get the hell out of here. Nancy Buckle watched him, the humidity starting to melt her makeup.
“If you see her,” Nancy said, fanning herself, “don’t tell her where we are now. Tell her I’m dead or something.”
Louis stared at her.
“I don’t want her coming around here, you know?”
Louis picked up the next folder off the car seat. Paula Berkowitz. Disappeared in 1965. She had been twenty, but still living at home with her parents on Pine Island. She had worked as a checkout girl at the Winn-Dixie on Stringfellow Road. Her parents reported her missing on a Sunday morning in July after they discovered an open window and untouched bed in her bedroom. The only thing missing, besides Paula Berkowitz, was one small suitcase.
The Lee County Sheriff’s office, which had taken the call, had chalked it up as a runaway. Louis could tell that much from the paucity of information in the old report. The parents had insisted their daughter would never run off, but Louis knew what the police did -- that kids often did things mothers and fathers never saw coming.
He rechecked the address he had for Clara and Ed Berkowitz. Lucky for him, they were still living in the same house after twenty-two years. He pulled up to the neat bungalow and cut the engine. As with Nancy Buckle, he was counting on catching the Berkowitzes off-guard. People had a way of saying things they didn’t intend to if you caught them unprepared.
He rang the bell. A moment later, the door opened and a woman of about sixty answered the door. She was small, with a neat nest of gray hair, and blue-gray eyes, which looked out at Louis suspiciously.
“Mrs. Berkowitz?”
She nodded, half hiding behind the door.
“I’m an investigator working for the Fort Myers police,” Louis said. “I would like to talk to you about your daughter Paula.”
“Paula was not my daughter,” she said. “My name is Ruth. Paula was my niece. I was married to her father’s brother, Harvey.”
“Are her parents home?” Louis asked.
“They’re gone,” she said. “Passed in eighty-one and eighty- three.”
“I’m sorry.”
“They left us this house,” Ruth said. “My husband, Harvey, passed in eighty-five. I live here alone.”
Louis didn’t say anything, disappointed. Ruth Berkowitz pushed open the screen. “It’s awfully warm today. Why don’t you come inside?”
Louis stepped in, grateful for the cooler air. He pulled out his notebook.
“Would you like to sit down?” Ruth Berkowitz asked. “I was about to have an iced tea and I can make one for you.”
Louis hesitated, looking at Mrs. Berkowitz’s eager face. It was plain that the woman wanted some company. “That would be nice, thank you,” Louis said.
He followed her into the small living room. It was done in bright blues with dozens of pieces of old blue and white china hung on the walls and lining shelves. A blue parakeet was chirping in its cage by the window. Mrs. Berkowitz disappeared into the kitchen and came back with two tumblers of iced tea. Louis took his glass and thanked her. The tea had a sprig of fresh mint in it.
“Mrs. Berkowitz —-” Louis began.
“Call me Ruth, please.”
“Ruth,” Louis said, setting the glass on a coaster. “Did your sister and her husband talk about Paula’s disappearance much?”
Ruth sat down in a blue wing chair, holding her glass. “In the early days, after her disappearance, they did.”
“So they never thought she left on her own?”
“Clara never saw Paula for the way she was, not even after the thing in high school.”
“What thing?”
Ruth hesitated then took a sip of her iced tea. “It was cruel, you know, one of those things kids do. Some boys made up a game where the loser had to take the homeliest girl to some dance. Paula was the girl they chose. She found out later.”
Louis was writing.
“She was overweight, you see,” Ruth went on. “She had a sister who was thin as a stick, and well, you know, in the sixties, thin was everything. All the girls wanted to look like Twiggy.”
“Paula worked at the grocery store, right?” Louis asked.
Ruth frowned. “She did? Oh, wait...now I remember. Yes, at the Winn-Dixie. Clara thought if Paula had her own money it would boost her self-esteem. I knew it would take more than fifteen dollars a week to do that, but I couldn’t tell Clara that.”
Louis thought about his next question carefully before he asked it. “Did she ever try to commit suicide?”
Ruth’s little eyes widened. “Heavens, I don’t think so. I’m sure Clara would have told me.” She paused. “But then again, maybe not. Back then, we didn’t talk about things like that much.”
“Do you know if she had any close friends?”
Ruth shook her head. “I was living in Minnesota then. I didn’t know Paula well. I’m sorry.”
“Maybe a boy? One boy who she was close to?”
“I would’ve heard. Paula getting a boyfriend would’ve been big news to Clara.”
“Is there anything else you can think of that might make a difference?” Louis asked.
Ruth thought for a minute, her finger on her powdered cheek. “I do know Paula desperately wanted children. When my daughter had her children, Paula would send her all kinds of baby things. She spent all of her work money on a baby she would never probably even meet.”
Ruth looked up at Louis. “Kind of sad, isn’t it?”
Louis pulled the Mustang into a driveway at 336 Isle of Capri Boulevard, stopping behind a monstrous RV with Florida plates. The RV was four times the size of the Chevy van that sat next to it, and much newer.
Louis climbed out of his car, and walked along the side, checking out the inside. It was prettier than most homes. Bags of groceries sat on the counter.
He looked up at the house just as a woman came out the front door. She was carrying a box of kitchen pans and utensils. She was probably forty-five, with a trim, tanned body. Her shoulder-length blond hair looked like satin and swung in sync with her hips as she walked. She saw Louis and stopped.
“Can I help you?”
“Louis Kincaid. I’m a private investigator. I’m looking for Julie Plummer?”
“I’m Julie,” she said, coming forward slowly. She stopped at the RV door.
Louis opened the door for her. She hesitated then set the box down just inside the door, turning to face him.
“Thanks.” She brushed her hair back. “Now, what exactly are you investigating?”
“The disappearance of Mary Rubio. You were listed as the reporting party on the police report.”
Julie looked at him blankly.
“Mary Rubio. The report says you were her foster mother.”
“Oh...Mary. Yes, I remember.”
How could she forget her so easily?
Julie brought up a hand to shield her eyes from the sun as she stared at Louis. “Why are you asking about Mary after all these years?”
“Her disappearance might be related to a new case,” Louis said. He pulled out his notebook. “Can you tell me anything about her? How she disappeared, her habits...”
Julie’s thin brows knitted into a frown, bringing a wrinkle to her otherwise placid face. “I only had Mary for a few months.”
“What was she like?”
Julie hesitated. “She was trouble. She was strange, emotionally unstable, disruptive, and depressed. In the short time I had her, she tried to harm herself at least a dozen times.”
“How?”
“She’d cut herself, on the arms and thighs. Once she pushed a lit cigarette into the back of her hand.”
“Did she ever try to harm anyone else?”
“No, just herself. Sometimes she would scream at the other kids for no reason. One time, she tied one o
f our toddlers to a chair and tried to force-feed him some oatmeal. Strange.”
“What was her background?”
“Before us?” Julie pushed her hair back from her face. “Well, she was born to an alcoholic mother, who started pimping her out at twelve for drug money. She ran away the first time at thirteen and again at fourteen. That’s when DCF pulled her into the system. We were her fifteenth foster home in two years. One family only kept her six hours.”
Louis looked up from his notebook, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “When did she go missing?”
“Actually, she ran away. Sometimes I give the kids a break and don’t report them right away. DCF slaps them down pretty hard when they take off on their fosters. They do it a couple of times and DCF pulls them out and sends them to detention.”
“Did you give Mary a break that night?”
Julie sighed. “She was so emotionally draining, it was ruining the family.”
Louis waited for her to continue. She let out a breath, almost as if she were embarrassed to say anything more.
“Okay, yes, the minute I discovered her gone, I was on the phone. Sometimes you can do only so much for these kids.”
Louis heard a dog bark and looked to the house. He could see a huge golden retriever pushing at the screen door.
“Ruffus! Stop that!” Julie shouted.
“So Mary was a lost cause?” Louis asked.
Julie was looking at the dog. It was going nuts, jumping up, yelping. “Damn it, Ruffus!” Julie yelled. “Gene! Gene, come get the damn dog!”
“Mrs. Plummer —-”
Julie’s face snapped back. “What?”
“Mary Rubio...you considered her a lost cause?”
Julie swept back her hair. “In my book, yes. This job is hard enough, what with all the problems these kids have. Having a Mary Rubio in a house full of these kinds of kids only complicates the situation.”
The dog was still barking. “Look, I’ve got to go,” Julie said. “We’re getting ready to go to Disney World.” She started toward the house. “Gene! Come get your dog!”
“Mrs. Plummer?” Louis called out.
She stopped halfway to the house and looked back impatiently. “What?”
“Did you ever hear from Mary again?”
Julie shook her head. “I would be the last person she would contact. She knew she wasn’t part of our family and never would be.”
Louis walked back to the Mustang and got in. He was about to start the engine when the front door of the house opened. A pack of kids came out, ranging in age from about five to fourteen. Louis knew they were all foster children, and it wasn’t just because they didn’t resemble Julie Plummer. They had a look about them, a darkness in their eyes and an odd tentativeness to their steps that didn’t match their brightly colored summer clothing or the shine of their freshly scrubbed faces.
These kinds of kids...
He put both hands on the wheel, watching Julie herd them into the RV.
Foster homes. He’d had five in less than two years.
Summer, 1967. A house on Strathmoor in Detroit. One of those big red brick places with one apartment upstairs and one down. The man had been called Moe, but all Louis could remember clearly was a house littered with Pabst beer bottles, dirty clothes, and hungry children. He could remember, too, the closet. And an old black leather belt, marked with the flesh of children.
Louis closed his eyes.
Then came one hot day when Moe loaded them all into the station wagon and announced they were going on a trip.
What's the matter with you, Louis? You don’t want to go to Whitmore Lake?
I want to go home.
You ain’t got a home no more.
I want my mama.
Well, your mama didn’t want you. Now get your sorry black ass in that car or I’ll lock you back in the closet and leave you here alone again.
Louis opened his eyes, started the Mustang and drove off, watching the pack of kids in the rearview mirror.
CHAPTER 21
Louis slowed the Mustang for a traffic light and reached down to flip open the Angela Lopez file on the seat. Like the others, it was pathetically incomplete.
Her last address had been listed as Building D, Farm Workers Village. He passed through Immokalee and continued south on 29, finally spotting the sign for the village.
It was nothing more than a stark gathering of white cinder block buildings baking in the sun. Brown-skinned children played in the yards, their feet and legs covered in dust. Thin curtains floated from open windows, and a red, green and white Mexican flag hung from a railing, the only splash of color against a plain white canvas.
He stopped the car and got out, taking Angela’s file with him. A Hispanic woman hanging T-shirts on a sagging clothesline turned to look at him.
He took off his sunglasses and smiled, but the woman’s face only grew harder.
“Good afternoon. Do you speak English?” he asked.
The woman shook her head and mumbled something, turning back to her laundry. He slipped the picture of Angela Lopez from the folder and held it out to her.
She glanced at it. “Vete,” she muttered and turned her back.
Louis looked around. A small pack of children had gathered around his Mustang. The top was down and the kids were running their hands over the blue vinyl seats. A young woman was pushing a crying baby in a rusty stroller across the asphalt street. She passed an old man sitting on an overturned plastic bucket under a leafless frangipani tree. Louis could see that the man’s eyes were focused on him.
He started toward the man. The man watched him approach, his cigarette dangling loosely in his short fingers.
“Do you speak English?” Louis asked.
The man nodded slowly.
Louis held out Angela’s picture. “Do you know this girl?”
The man looked at it for a long time then pointed across the street to a red and white cinder block building with a tin awning. “There.”
Louis crossed the road, pausing outside the store. The hand-painted letters outside the store read JUAN’S PLACE and under that, CAMBIAMOS CHEQUES.
Louis pulled open the flimsy screen door and walked in, taking off his sunglasses. A ceiling fan turned slowly above, stirring the heavy air that smelled of frying food and spices.
A Hispanic man sitting at a table looked up at him. A woman came out from behind the counter, wiping her hands on a towel.
“You lost?” the man asked.
Louis shook his head. “I’m trying to find out about this girl,” he said, holding out the photo.
Neither the man nor woman said a word. The man was gripping a can of Tecate beer. He raised it slowly and took a drink.
“She’s been missing for almost four years,” Louis said. “Her name is Angela Lopez.”
Louis saw something pass over the woman’s face, something buried and painful that she was trying hard not to let surface. She turned away.
The old man said something to her in soft Spanish. The only thing Louis could make out was the name “Rosa.” With a glance back at Louis, she disappeared into a room in the back. The man looked back at Louis.
“Why are you here? Why do the cops come now?” he asked.
“I’m not a cop.”
“No difference,” the man said. “Angela has been gone three years. No one cares now. Go away.”
When Louis didn’t move, he waved his hand. “Go. No one here wants to talk to you. Go. Vete!”
Damn it.
Louis put Angela’s picture back in the folder. He hated dead ends. He hated it when people wouldn’t talk to him. He hated having to go back to Fort Myers with no new information.
Landeta’s voice was there in his ear. Come on, Rocky, you can do better.
Louis pushed open the door and walked back out into the hot sun. The kids at the Mustang scattered when they saw him coming. He reached in and grabbed the files on the other girls and went back into the store.
The woman was back behind the counter and glanced up at him. She said something softly in Spanish to the man, who silenced her with a raised hand.
“Why are you back?” the man asked Louis.
“Whoever took Angela took other girls,” Louis said. He went to the table and laid Cindy Shattuck’s photo in front of the man.
“This girl disappeared in 1964,” Louis said.
He set Paula’s and Mary’s photographs down. “These girls disappeared in 1965 and 1973.”
Then he set down Angela’s picture. “Angela Lopez, disappeared 1984.”
The man’s eyes went from the pictures up to Louis’s face. “Why are you doing this?” he asked.
“Because you need to know that Angela is not the only one.”
The man’s black eyes rose to Louis’s face. “She is dead,” he said.
“Probably,” Louis said. “But we haven’t found her. We haven’t found any of these girls, except one.”
“Which one?” the man asked.
Louis looked down at the last photo in his hand. It was a facial shot of Shelly Umber taken at her autopsy.
“This one. They found her in Pine Island Sound a few weeks ago. She’s probably victim number six.”
The man took a drink of his beer then spoke quietly. “Angela worked in the fields with her father. But sometimes she worked here to make extra money,” he said. “She left early one day in July.”
The woman was watching, silent.
“Why?” Louis asked.
“She met a boy.”
“From this area? From Immokalee?”
“Fort Myers,” the man said, pulling Angela’s picture toward him. “She told us he was going to take her to lunch in the city.”
Louis was thinking about Emma Fielding, the missing woman from 1953. Frank would have been young and handsome enough to lure her to her death. But by 1984, he was in his mid-fifties. No way he could have been mistaken for a boy.
“Angela called him a boy, not a man?” Louis asked.
“Yes, a boy. That is what she said.”
“Did she tell you his name?”
The man shook his head “I do not remember, but I know it was a good Hispanic name.”
