Nobody Lives Forever

by Edna Buchanan

  Jim’s reply was scathing. “A helluva lot better man than you would consider themselves damn fortunate.”

  Twenty-Nine

  Dusty did as always when troubled. She pulled on a T-shirt and shorts and drove to the beach. The weather wavered between beautiful and threatening, a kaleidoscope, sharp bursts of blue sky and green water, changing form and color into gray sky and slate sea. The day mirrored her life lately, bright moments of passion and exhilaration evolving, swiftly into dull heartache and frustration.

  Her spirits had soared, knowing it was not over forever with Rick after all, pleasure heightened by the quick solution of the Vandermay case, one of those puzzles that starts out complex, then suddenly fits together with ease, click, click, click. She should have known such a roll could not continue. Winning steaks never last. But what the hell was happening now? She was baffled. After their night together, she was certain Rick would go on wanting her. At least for as long as they were in close proximity, working together. Dusty was a realist. She knew that if her job was in jeopardy, the relationship could be too. They were perfect together, but out of sight is out of mind. What was wrong? Was it something she had done? Or not done? Was he having a case of the guilties? Or trouble with Laurel? She had been totally unable to read him. Jim seemed just as puzzled, although by now he must know what the hell is going on.

  She could not resist. She parked her red Datsun near the boardwalk, dropped a quarter into a pay phone and dialed homicide, willing Jim to answer. If anyone else did, she would hang up. She did not want her voice recognized and her name called out within Rick’s hearing. She hated callers who hang up. She hated herself.

  Jim did not answer. “It’s me,” she said miserably. “Can you talk?”

  “Not exactly,” he said.

  “Rick’s there?”

  “You bet.”

  “Am I in some kind of trouble?”

  “Could be, but no sweat,” he said, not unkindly.

  “Whatever it be, I isn’t guilty,” she wailed in a mock lament.

  His only reaction was a grunt. The situation must be worse than she thought.

  “Well,” she said briskly. “Whatever it is, put in a good word for me. You still are my buddy, aren’t you?”

  “Count on it.”

  “I’m off to the beach,” she said with false gaiety, and hung up.

  She wanted to cry. Instead she took a deep breath. She would use the energy to burn calories, give her heart and lungs a good workout and refuse to think about it, she decided, sniffling a bit. Son of a bitch, she thought. Whatever it was, she would know soon enough. What was that old prayer AA uses? “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the widsom to know the difference.” Later, she decided, she would pamper herself with a long hot bath and a good dinner, maybe even cheesecake, without guilt, if she worked out hard enough. Hell, it’s a day off, she thought and vowed to enjoy it, no matter what. Pressing her hands against the seawall, she leaned into it, stretching her hamstring muscles, then trotted down onto the sand.

  It was a Winslow Homer sort of day, she thought, brilliant blues, muted greens and a wash of gray along the shoreline. Running on the beach always instilled in her a sense of freedom and well-being. A gusty northeast wind kicked up low clouds of gritty sand that discouraged sunbathers, so the beach was almost all hers. She watched the surf evolve to a phosphate green. A wall of white fleecy clouds tumbled together on the endless eastern horizon.

  She began to run south, barefoot in the wet sand, the wind at her back. A cruise ship, probably the Emerald Seas, was sailing out the channel into open ocean from the port of Miami, bound for fun and frolic in the Bahamas. She smiled wistfully. Once she and Rick had talked about escaping for a weekend in the islands. Someplace remote and lazy with white sugar beaches and no telephones, where they would not have to see anyone or dress up, a hideaway for swimming in crystal-clear water, basking in the tropical sun and making love. What had gone wrong?

  She let the wind and the salt sweep the clutter of the past few days from her mind and concentrated on the slap of her feet on the hard wet sand, her breathing and the sound of the wind in her ears.

  Her hair whipped against her face. The pink Art Deco tower of South Pointe rose in the distance. She fought intrusive thoughts of Rick and headquarters by counting the freighters and fishing boats and the occasional sail rising where the sea meets the sky.

  The light changed in an instant, scattering seabirds before it. Stormclouds, dark and ominous, were boiling up in the west, moving swiftly, spirited squalls heralding their arrival. The few sunbathers fled, their beach towels and blankets flapping uncontrollably in the gathering storm. Summer lightning pirouetted crazily across the western sky. The wind and the dropping temperature made running and breathing easier. She was able to pick up speed, pumping hard.

  She welcomed the storm without fear, in no mood for caution. Lightning lit up the west again, closer now, over Miami. It will strike in the same place twice—or more, she thought, remembering the man struck by lightning more often than anyone else who ever lived. A park ranger, he had drawn lightning to him like a magnet. He had survived seven strikes before committing suicide.

  Fatal lightning strikes more often in Florida than any other state, but she knew that in Miami people stand a far greater chance of being murdered. She had handled several lightning deaths during her police career. Life can be so deadly and so unpredictable, she thought, like this city she loved. What was it Jim always said about death? It’s the last thing you do, when it’s the last thing you want to do. She remembered the men caught on the golf course by a storm. Nine people or so. Only one hit. The small change in his pocket was blackened by the electrical charge. The worst, she thought, was near the Japanese Garden on the MacArthur Causeway. Tourists and their six-year-old son walking, snapping pictures. The boy ran ahead, chasing a squirrel. The sky was still postcard-perfect blue, although a summer storm stalked the horizon. The boy was hit, the parents spared. He died after weeks in a coma. She remembered the others, ticking them off in her mind. The teenager carrying a boom box that apparently lured the fatal strike. The old man fishing from his small boat. The lightning that killed him danced right up the fishing line and the pole he was using.

  Shaken survivors had described to her the tingling, the hair on their arms and the backs of their necks standing on end in the split second before the fatal strike. It is not the voltage but the amperage that kills. A quarter of an amp at precisely the right moment will stop your heart.

  She had read all the police brochures and booklets advising Miamians how to protect themselves against a welter of perils, including the murderous side of Mother Nature. One dealt with lightning, sternly warning those caught out in the open not to seek shelter beneath a tree during a storm but to lie facedown in a ditch. Dusty had never met anyone who had done so. She imagined a golfer shouting to his partners, “Hey, guys, looks like a storm, let’s go lie facedown in a ditch.”

  The thought made her smile. Another flash, closer now, over the bay. Out of control, she thought. That was why she was so upset. Her life seemed out of control. She was accustomed to being in charge. After what had happened back in Jericho she had sworn that her life would never slip out of control again.

  Turning at South Pointe, she plunged headlong into the wind without stopping, retracing her steps north. Salt air stung her face, along with tears, and she felt chilled despite the exertion. Roiling clouds were dumping their rain at sea in a solid gray wall visible from the shore. The sun suddenly broke through as the fickle storm briefly battered the beach with high winds again, then sailed swiftly to the southwest. Breathing hard, she saw a brilliant green-yellow-pink rainbow appear in a wide arc over the eastern horizon, across a bottle-green sea that faded to pale jade at the water’s edge.

  She slowed her pace to absorb the colors and the beauty. A light rain was falling, as sof
t and sweet as a baby’s kiss. It felt cleansing and warm on her skin. As she gazed up in awe, the rainbow doubled into a second, wider arc sweeping across the entire horizon in breathtaking splendor.

  Miami, with its stunning rainbows, storm and summer sunsets, this is where I belong, she thought. I belong with Rick too. The double rainbow was an omen. She had ridden out the storm and was still strong, still on her feet. Things can’t be all that bad, she told herself. It will be all right. It will.

  She carried that thought with her.

  Thirty

  Dusty reluctantly kept the appointment with Dr. Feigleman. She dreaded and resented it. Seeing a shrink was, to her, a sign of weakness. On the farm where she’d grown up, back in Jericho, you did not whine, or cry, or run for help when things went wrong. You worked through it, you carried on. Strong and self-disciplined, she kept her secret hurts to herself.

  She hoped all the people she worked with would not learn about her session with the shrink. Feigleman was not famous for keeping secrets. Though in private practice, he was also consultant to the department. His quotes about the problems of police officers appeared regularly in the newspapers, and he often granted radio and television interviews. He never mentioned names, but everybody always seemed to know who he was talking about and who was seeing him. Dusty did not want to become a case study for one of the many articles he wrote for police and FBI journals.

  Feigleman did not see officers at headquarters, in order to preserve their privacy. His office was located in a medical building, but it was near the justice complex, and there is no more fertile ground for gossip than the police community. Talk about little old ladies, Dusty thought, cops are the worst of all.

  She cringed inwardly at the touch of Feigleman’s cool but clammy skin as they shook hands. His mustache was neatly combed, and his face over the bowtie was attentive and almost too eager. She made it clear that the session was not voluntary on her part and she considered it unnecessary.

  “The first step to solving our problems,” he said cheerfully, “is to confront them.”

  She did not answer, and he began to discuss stress management, stress overload, conflict management, chronic tension and burnout.

  “People change when they become police officers,” he concluded, folding his hands in front of him. “You become tough and hard and cynical, because you must. It helps you to survive, but sometimes you find yourself behaving that way all the time and it becomes a problem.”

  “But if you became emotionally involved with all the things you see on the job, you’d wind up in a padded cell.”

  “Are you ever afraid?”

  “Of course. Anybody who’s not afraid is a fool. It’s cops who are not afraid, who think they will live forever or who become complacent and fatalistic, who get hurt or killed. Fear is your best friend. The trick is that you can never show it.”

  “Any job-related personal difficulties?”

  “I like to handle my own problems.” She knew as she spoke the words that she’d said them too quickly, too sharply. He seemed pleased and waggled a warning index finger at her.

  “That is typical of the subculture police officers belong to. Emotional problems are seen as weaknesses, and therefore a threat to your macho image as ‘the crime fighter.’ ”

  “I like to think of it as being grown up,” she said sweetly.

  “Any problems with alcohol?”

  “I drink socially, but no problem.”

  “How much do you drink?”

  “Wine, with dinner.”

  “How much wine?” He was trying to appear casual.

  “Doctor, there is no problem there, I can assure you.”

  “Are there ever mornings after when you can’t remember what happened the night before?”

  “Good God, no. Maybe sometimes I wish I could forget.” She could not resist that little self-deprecatory remark, though she knew she should have. He scribbled something on a yellow pad in front of him.

  “Sex problems?”

  “Only lack of. I’m single, doctor, with no immediate prospects.”

  “Do you have a problem relating to men?”

  “Not as much a problem as most men have relating to a woman who carries a badge and a gun and can put them in jail.”

  The way he fidgeted and rubbed his smooth hands together while discussing her sex life made her uncomfortable. He was obviously eager for something kinky, something to write about in his next article.

  “How’s your relationship with your father?”

  “It was fine.”

  “He’s no longer with us?”

  “He lives in Iowa, still operates the farm where I grew up. I haven’t been back there for some time.”

  “Is there some reason?”

  She hesitated. “Yes,” she said. “I love Miami.”

  “It isn’t much like Iowa, is it? Working in homicide, how do you manage to cope with the horrors you encounter daily, such as opening the freezer in that suspect’s apartment the other day?”

  She suddenly realized that her arms were tightly folded in front of her, body language that must make her look defensive, like a suspect, for God’s sake. She quickly unfolded them and for a split second was not sure what to do with them. She wished she had accepted the coffee he had offered when she arrived. A cup would have been something to hold on to. She placed her hands demurely in her lap. “As a professional,” she said carefully, “you can’t express emotion, disgust or anger, but as a human being, you do have feelings. I try to convert that energy into motivation, to get the job done, to solve the case, to seek justice for the victim. And I try to work off the physical stress with exercise. Want to see my bicep?”

  He smiled, his long fingers forming a pyramid in front of him. “Am I that intimidating? You’re acting like a little girl sent to the principal’s office.”

  “Maybe I feel like the little girl sent to the principal’s office for no good reason.”

  “Do you like your life? Is it good?”

  “Almost,” she said, and smiled wistfully. “Only one thing missing, and I’m working on it.”

  After she left his office, he glanced at what he had scribbled on his notepad: “Needs to get laid.” Chuckling, he tore off the page, crumpled it and tossed it into the wastebasket.

  Dusty strode into homicide, relieved that the session was over. A message was waiting.

  J.L. had called, wanting her to meet him “in the garden with the Fat Man.”

  “Can you make any sense of that?” asked the puzzled secretary who took the message.

  “Yeah.” Dusty smiled. “When did this come in?”

  “Ten, fifteen minutes ago.”

  It was a short drive to the Japanese Garden on Watson Island, just off the MacArthur Causeway. Donated to the people of Miami by a friendly Japanese industrialist years ago, the garden is just minutes from downtown. The perfect place to meet a confidential informant, centrally located and safe. The only other visitors are strangers. Out-of-towners. Local people almost never visit their own tourist attractions.

  A small, open-sided teahouse and a pagoda grace the garden, but the centerpiece is a giant stone statue of Hotei, the incarnation of happiness. The Fat Man. Rub his big round belly, so goes the tradition, and good fortune will find you.

  The garden was one of J. L. Sly’s favorite haunts. He was practicing his kung fu moves at the edge of the reflecting pool.

  “Miss Dustin, or should I say Miz Dustin, or perhaps Detective Dustin?” Loquacious as usual, he wore a white shirt open at the throat and white trousers.

  “Just Dusty,” she sighed. “We’ve known each other long enough, J.L. Once you read somebody their rights and put them in jail, I guess you’re on a first-name basis.”

  “Dwelling upon the flaws in the universe can lead to bad karma.”

  “I’d glad it’s behind us,” she said. “No hard feelings?”

  “It was but a
moment in infinity.” They strolled together over the small wooden bridge. “But something is troubling you.”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “You may hide something from the world but nothing from a true friend of the spirit.”

  She sighed aloud. “It’s a long story that neither you nor the spirits want to hear.” They sat on a stone bench shaded by a silver buttonwood.

  “Perhaps I can brighten the day of one so beautiful.”

  “Try me.”

  “At the occasion of our last meeting, after the unpleasantries we have all put to rest, I recall your partner referring to two gentlemen of the Colombian persuasion, one of whom might have certain characteristics about his countenance.”

  “You mean a singed face.” Dusty was suddenly all attention.

  “You are full of wisdom, as well as beautiful.”

  “You have a line on where they are?”

  “Indirectly. A certain lady of their acquaintance has come to my attention.”

  “Where can we find her?”

  “In business at the Jolly Roger Motel and Dream Bar on Biscayne Boulevard. The name is Little Bit. She has been heard to discuss a number of encounters with the two gentlemen in question, both before and after one of them lost all the hair on his face in an unfortunate mishap. She entertained them at a location shared by a brief acquaintance of mine. He was extremely uncommunicative. He wore a tag on his toe.”

  “Bingo! Thank you, J.L.,” she said fervently.

  “And now, tell me what dark cloud has cast its shadow across your countenance? Is there some dragon I can slay, some wrong I can right, in order to restore your smile?”

  “No, this information sounds good. It really helps. The rest I have to take care of myself. But thank you.”

  “If happiness be your destiny,” he told her, “you need not be in a hurry.”

  She brightened. “You know, you’re beginning to make sense, J.L. That probably should worry me.”