A Dark and Lonely Place (7 page)

The other line rang, the county shift commander, as promised. He could only divulge, he said, that both individuals he’d mentioned were indeed Miami-Dade deputies.

John thanked him for his courtesy.

“They’re here,” J. J. sang out. He wagged his phone at John.

John took it. “Should I send ’em up?” asked the officer at the front desk. A wounded rookie, on light duty, he had walked into a fast-food joint for coffee during an armed robbery. The gunman saw his uniform, panicked, and fired a shot, which struck the patrolman’s right big toe. On crutches, he was manning the front desk on a slow Sunday night.

“No,” John said. “Keep them where they are. They are male and female, correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Race?”

“Caucasian.”

“Both?”

“Affirmative, sir.”

“Can you describe the female without them hearing you?”

“Yes, sir.” He dropped his voice. “Five feet seven, a hundred forty-five, brown, and dirty blond.”

“And the male?”

“Late twenties, six foot, two twenty, brown and black, a mustache, wedding ring.”

“Keep them there. We need to arrest them for impersonating police officers and attempted kidnapping.”

“Should I request backup, sir?” he whispered.

“Are they armed?”

“Affirmative.”

“Use caution. I’ll be right down.” John heard shouts in the background. “What’s going on?”

“Civilians in a dispute, sir.”

“Shit!”

“A homeless individual, sir, came in to report an assault. Two tourists just arrived to report her purse stolen and recognized the homeless . . . uh, urban outdoorsman, as the offender who took it. He denies it, says they assaulted him without provocation.”

“Hang tight.”

John snatched up his radio. “Stay,” he told Laura. “Keep working with the artist.”

Her eyebrows lifted.

“I’ll be back.” He tossed her his handcuffs, which she caught gracefully on the fly. “If anybody tries to take you out of here, for any reason, cuff yourself to that desk and scream like a banshee for me and Joel Hirschhorn, your lawyer.”

The mere mention of Hirschhorn, a high-profile criminal defense lawyer, gave most cops and prosecutors pause for thought.

“Can you do that?”

“Joel Hirschhorn,” she repeated. The defiance in her eyes moved him. He’d seen that look before.
Who the hell is she?

He hit the button, saw the elevator was in the damn lobby, and radioed for all available officers in the building, relatively deserted on weekends, to respond to the lobby on a 3-15, assist an officer.

Two sharp reports rang out seconds later. They weren’t backfires from the nearby I-95 overpass. He hit the stairwell running.

CHAPTER FIVE

H
e heard seven more gunshots as he hurtled down the stairs, followed by the dreamlike echo of the dispatcher’s cool voice.
“Shots fired in the station lobby.”

He took a deep breath, slid the Glock from his shoulder holster, and burst out of the stairwell.

The rookie lay sprawled behind the front desk bleeding from the head, gun belt empty, weapon gone, his crutches at odd angles beside him.

A civilian couple had taken cover, crouched nearby. The pair John wanted had fled.

A gap-toothed, whiskered derelict, face bloodied, hands in the air, his shoes duct-taped to his feet, shuffled toward John as he ran toward the doors that opened onto the parking lot.

“Leon!”

“Hi, ya, Johnny.”

A habitué of Bayfront Park, Leon was a CI of John’s, a man who saw everything and forgot nothing. “Wasn’t me!” he cried. “I didn’t do it!”

“I know that, Leon. Where’d they go?”

“Thataway.” He jerked his thumb toward the parking lot. “Their car?”

“White, four-door, yellow county plates. Said they wuz cops! First time I ever seen cops shoot at each other on purpose!”

John heard him over his shoulder. Already out the door, he saw the car lurch across a sidewalk at the far end of the lot and bump down a curb to escape.

“That’s them!” Leon shouted. “Get ’em, Johnny!”

John radioed as he ran. “Shots fired. Officer down! In the station
lobby. The subjects’ 2009 white Ford Crown Vic, with county plates, is southbound on Northwest Second Avenue. Occupied by a white male driver in his twenties and white female passenger. Use caution. Both are armed police impersonators.”

He tried to read the tag number as the car fishtailed into a sharp turn, then he took cover as the passenger side window slid down. He saw the muzzle flashes. Two rapid shots. One flew over his head; the other pinged off the bumper of an SUV two slots away. He returned fire twice as the car accelerated almost out of range. Both shots hit the rear window. Tires squealed. The car swerved hard to the right. The driver fought for control and won. The big engine whined as he floored it and they were gone.

John radioed the direction of travel, then walked back to the station lobby, not even breathing hard. In combat, pursuits, and dangerous encounters, time slowed, the world looked brighter, and everything became crystal clear. It had always been that way for him.

The first thing he saw, despite the chaos in the lobby, was the memorial plaque for the thirty-six Miami police officers killed in the line of duty. It now hung at an odd angle. A stray bullet had slammed into it just beneath the name of the city’s first fallen officer, J. R. Riblet, shot June 2, 1915, in a bloody gun battle on a dusty street just blocks from where the station now stood.

John stood, eyes riveted to the name of the long-dead hero. He felt the heat of that day so long ago, heard the shots, and then the screams. He blinked, turned, and breathed a sigh of relief.

The rookie was sitting up. He’d looked bad at first, sprawled out and bleeding from the ear, but was now complaining loudly, a good sign. The bullet had nicked his earlobe, which bled profusely, then it slammed into the City of Miami crest on the wall behind him.

No new name would be added to the list of fallen officers—at least not tonight.

PART TWO

CHAPTER SIX

1895, WEST FLORIDA, NEAR THE MOUTH OF THE CALOOSAHATCHEE RIVER

H
e first saw her at the little wooden schoolhouse in the clearing. John was seven and Laura five. Four of his siblings were sisters, so he was convinced he knew everything about girls. But she was not like them. She confounded him, ignored him. But when he’d give up and stop seeking her attention, she’d cut her bright blue eyes at him, flash a smile, then turn, or run away quickly.

Rain or shine, Miss Helen Peters, the sweet-faced schoolmistress, would ring the big brass bell that signaled the start and the close of the school day. The desks of her twenty-four students, ages five to sixteen years old, faced her and a blackboard at the front of the room.

The children were as wild as young hawks, most of them the progeny of pioneers who’d lost everything in the Civil War and migrated to Florida to start over. Some parents were outlaws on the run from the law. Others were restless souls seeking new experiences, challenges, and frontiers.

Life was difficult.

World powers—Spain, France, England, and the United States—had all tried and failed to tame Florida’s wild frontier. Its rugged, brawling pioneers relied on their marksmanship, their fishing and trapping skills—and their will—to survive. Most raised large families. So who could blame Miss Peters when her gold-rimmed spectacles skidded down her nose in the moist heat and classroom chaos and she occasionally called a student by the name of a sibling or a cousin, nephew, or uncle.

She never mistook John Ashley for anyone else. One didn’t need a teaching certificate to recognize a leader. Everyone knew his name. Like his siblings, he was well behaved, kind, and respectful to elders. Quick and gregarious, high-spirited and mischievous, he was, above all, loyal to his family and friends.

Little black-haired, blue-eyed Laura Upthegrove ran fast, played hard, and competed fiercely with bigger, older peers. She never whined, shed a tear, or fussed about a scraped knee, torn dress, or muddy shoes. Her sole, secret embarrassment was that, sometimes, under pressure, she’d hiccup.

She ignored John each morning when the children surrounded the iceman’s horse-drawn wagon. The children begged for chips as the man hacked ten pounds of ice off a two-hundred-pound block. Laura shared hers with his horse as the boys competed to carry the ten-pound chunk of ice to the water cooler and communal cup at the back of the room.

At recess, their game of choice was crack the whip. It was exciting, dangerous, and best of all, forbidden. Adults hated the game. So while Miss Peters graded papers at her desk, a big boy would seize another’s hand and the whip would swiftly assemble. The boys raced to form a line, like boxcars behind a locomotive. The last one was the caboose, usually a slower, slightly built small boy who tried not to look terrified as the leader took off at a dead run.

The boys sprinted behind him, dragging each other along the zigzag course set by the leader. Their speed accelerated. Hands tightened. Arm sockets strained until a sudden hairpin turn cracked the whip. Boys flew through the air, feet lifted off the ground. Some slammed into trees, poles, or the wooden fence, resulting in broken teeth, smashed noses, and torn clothes. The runner at the tail end bore the brunt of it all.

One scorching day during John and Laura’s second school year, a whip formed like a sudden storm. Duncan Moody, an oversized thirteen-year-old with wild red hair and a mean streak, was the leader. John Ashley landed the solid third position behind him despite his tender age.

His adrenaline soared, until he spotted the hapless soul in last place. Laura, then six, was the caboose.

“Wait!” John shouted. “There’s a little girl at the end!”

“She wants to do it,” other boys protested. “Not our fault.”

“Nobody forced her.” Duncan grinned wickedly.

Laura, in a blue dress, had taken the hand of an eight-year-old, who was clearly relieved to be last no longer.

“It’s not right!” John relinquished his coveted spot, broke the chain,
and trotted indignantly to the end of the line. Boys hooted and hollered as he passed.

“Let go, Laura,” he said quietly. “You might get hurt.”

“I am
not
a little girl. I can do this.” The fear in her eyes betrayed her words.

“No. You can’t!” he said. “You’re a girl. You’re too little. You’re only six.”

“Almost seven!” she blurted. Her face flushed, she aimed a kick at his ankle, but he jumped back.

“No, you’re not! You just had a birthday.” Why, he wondered, is she so stubborn?

Duncan pawed the ground like a maddened bull about to charge.

She gritted her teeth. “Get away from me, John Ashley.”

She knows my name, he thought, taken by surprise.

He reached for her hand to take the tail-end position himself, but she evaded his grasp.

“What’s wrong with you?” he muttered.

“Don’t touch me, John!”

She had said it again. He was elated. She knew who he was after all.

He scowled darkly at the boy beside her. The youngster’s eyes widened. He quickly shook Laura off and took John’s hand.

A gaggle of girls shrieked from the sidelines as Laura reached for John’s free hand, which he snatched away,

Duncan took off, and the whip lurched forward.

John glanced back at Laura, a mistake. She smiled. He was yanked into a sprint as he smiled back. “God help me,” he murmured, echoing words his mother often uttered.

It’s not so bad, he thought, an instant before the whip cracked and he hurtled face first into the sharp corner of the outhouse.

Everyone crowded around him, except Duncan, who strutted like a rooster.

Dazed and bleeding from the nose and a deep gash above his right eye, John tried to look nonchalant and scrambled to his feet. His arm throbbed painfully.

Laura pushed her way through the others and took his hand. Tears glistened in her bright blue eyes. “Does it hurt?” she whispered woefully.

“No.” He glanced about jauntily, his vision blurred by the bleeding.

“Let’s get some ice,” she said, and led him to the schoolhouse door.

Miss Peters glanced up from her desk, pushed up her spectacles, and jumped to her feet. “Mercy! What happened to you, John?”

His shirt and trousers were bloodied. So was Laura’s dress, but she didn’t seem upset. She’s not like other girls, John thought.

“He played crack the whip,” Laura said mournfully, her sad eyes downcast. “I told him to stop, ma’am.” She shook her head. “He wouldn’t listen.”

“Boys never do,” the teacher said sharply.

John’s startled glance at Laura splashed blood onto the pine floor.

She smiled sympathetically.

The teacher had him lie on the floor, his head back as Laura applied cold compresses to his injuries, none of which seemed serious.

Her patience tried, Miss Peters sent a note home with him. He had failed to listen to her, behaved recklessly, and ignored warnings from a concerned fellow student. “John” she wrote, “is clearly capable of better.”

Leugenia, his mother, wept. Joe Ashley vowed to march his son out to the woodshed and whup him with his belt, then winked at John, as the boy’s mother turned away in despair. He’d been injured by his own bad behavior, his father said, which was punishment enough.

Miss Peters disagreed. She kept John after school for weeks to clean erasers, empty wastebaskets, and tidy up. Laura chose to stay and help as well. The teacher was pleased. That girl’s positive influence would surely keep John Ashley out of future trouble.

From then on, when he had no pressing chores or afterschool errands—and even when he did—John and Laura would meet on the bank of the Caloosahatchee River.

By age nine, he could play a spirited version of “Dixie” on his older brother’s banjo. He focused on his finger work and his singing. But she’d distract him. She danced with such abandon, skirt swirling, shoes pounding the damp riverbank, that she’d eventually collapse, panting on the ground in front of him.