Cold Case Squad (32 page)

Before they arrived, he drove quickly through the immediate
neighborhood, hoping to find someone who had seen his grandmother. Then
to the grocery store where she shopped, and past the library.

No luck. Tears stung his eyes. He made a U-turn to join the other
units already at the house.

A lumbering Metro bus blocked his lane of traffic, then stopped,
belching poisonous clouds of dirty exhaust. Frustrated and panicky, he
leaned mercilessly on the horn, then angrily swerved around the bus. A
diminutive passenger stepped off.

She carried a shopping bag and wore a wide-brimmed hat to keep the
sun off her face.

He hit the brakes, then pulled to the curb. "Gran! Are you all
right?"

"Sonny, was that you blowing the horn back there?" She frowned.
"What ever happened to your manners? That's not how I raised you."

He hugged her so hard she complained. "Are you trying to crush my
ribs?"

"Where were you, Gran? I was really scared."

"Sonny, you know that on the third Tuesday of the month I always
work over at the Baptist church kitchen, making pies for the Wednesday
night bake sale. I've been doing it since you were a teenager. I'm
worried about you, boy." She frowned again. "Your memory isn't what it
used to be."

"Come on." He opened his car door for her.

"I kin walk the rest of the way."

"People are looking for you all over town. I'm embarrassed. Get in
the car, please."

The intruder had placed the note on her bed sometime after 7 a.m.
when she left. She swore she'd locked the door. The cell phone was in
her purse. She had never turned it on.

The crime lab took the note, printed on lined yellow paper.

Nothing was missing. Despite her protests, Stone packed her a bag
and took her to stay at his apartment in North Miami. She hadn't been
there in some time.

"Sonny? When did you vacuum and dust this place last?"

"I've been busy, Gran."

Despite her even more vigorous protests, he left her his off-duty
gun. "You know how to use it, Gran. Point and shoot. If you do have to
use it, don't stop. Empty it."

Stone was back at the office updating Riley about Yitzhak Friedman
when Emma interrupted, her expression odd.

"You need to take this call, Lieutenant."

Riley picked up. "Nazario?" Her face changed. "Wait a minute, wait a
minute, I can't understand you."

"Something wrong?" Stone said.

"Pete, Pete, slow down," she said.

Nazario was gasping as though he'd been weeping.

"We got Terrell," he said, voice breaking. "But he shot Burch."

She gasped, the color drained from her face.

"How bad? Oh God. Where? Okay, okay." She scribbled notes as he
spoke. "All right. All right, I'll handle everything. Hang in. The
world is on the way."

She buried her face in her hands for a brief moment, then took a
deep breath.

"Burch was shot," she said briskly.

"How bad?" Stone said.

Emma stood whimpering beside them, both hands over her mouth.

"Critical. Took two, in the chest and the head. He's in surgery. I
have to report to the chief and go tell Connie. I also have to let
April Terrell know that it's time to tell her kids."

"What should I do?" Stone demanded.

"Exactly what you've been doing," she said. "They're in Maine,
you're here. You're making headway on an important case. Don't stop."

She pulled on her jacket, then turned, frowning. "There is one
thing. Nazario said something about a cat. Burch wanted you to feed it.
It's at the place where he's been staying."

"Sure." He was stunned.

The news hit Homicide like a thunderbolt.

A deputy chief, the department's chaplain, a captain, and Jo Salazar
arranged to catch the next flight.

Connie Burch answered the door.

She had yellow spatters on her T-shirt and jeans and a paintbrush in
her hand.

"Hey, K.C." She stepped back and looked around her. "What do you
think? They call it Monet yellow. You think it's too bright for the
foyer?"

Something she saw in Riley's face made her stop, lips apart. Her
eyes widened.

"Connie, I know you and Craig are on the outs and not together right
now. But I wanted to tell you myself…"

"No." Connie began to shake her head. "No. He's all right. He's
coming home tonight."

"No, Connie, he's—"

She dropped the paintbrush and clamped both hands over her ears. She
continued shaking her head.

"—been injured. It's very serious. He's critical."

She yelped once, like a frightened puppy. "Where is he?"

"Still in Maine. He was shot."

Connie took a deep breath and wiped her hands on her jeans. "How do
I get there?"

"Are you sure?" Riley said, surprised.

"I love him."

"Mom?" Jennifer stood in the hallway.

"Jenny, get the kids, we're going to your dad."

"All right," Riley said. "Let me try to get you on the same flight
as the assistant chief, Jo Salazar, and the others."

The flight left in little more than an hour. The airport was half an
hour away.

Riley worked the phone. Talked to the chief, to the airline.

"We have to go," she said. They went as they were, with no time to
pack anything. Connie had a credit card, but only forty dollars in
cash. Riley emptied her wallet, gave Connie what money she had, then
piled them into her car. She slapped the blue light on the dashboard
and raced toward the airport.

A police escort, sirens screaming, picked them up at the entrance
ramp to the Palmetto Expressway.

The last Riley saw of them, they were running down the concourse,
hand in hand.

Riley intercepted April Terrell as she arrived home from work. They
talked, seated on stone benches at a shaded round table in the
courtyard of the apartment building where she lived.

"I'm so shocked and sorry about Sergeant Burch. He seemed like a
wonderful man." April wept. "To think that Charles is alive and did all
these monstrous things. The kids… It breaks your heart all over again.
You don't know what it's like to lose the man you love, first to
another woman, then to death, and now to this new nightmare. You have
no idea—"

"Actually," Riley said, "I do. We share something in common." She
unloaded, blurted out the whole story. "You see, the man I loved didn't
love me, or maybe I'll just never know if he did or not because I lost
him to another woman, and then he was killed."

"McDonald gave his life," she said at the end, "to save a little kid
who will probably grow into a worthless drug user like his father.
You've got your children. I have nothing."

"That's not true." April wiped her eyes. "You have something
positive to hold on to. You're in a position to be a force for good in
that child's life, to help keep him from becoming a bad man like his
father. If someone like your McDonald gave up everything to save him,
that's exactly what he'd expect you to do."

Riley stared for a long moment. "You're right, April. You're
absolutely right."

The news was too much for Stone to process. Riley had appeared so
cool, so professional, while he wanted to break things, to punch out
walls. He had to do something. Take action. There was nothing.

Detective Ron Diaz called. "Helluva thing about Burch. He gonna make
it?"

"We're waiting on word from the hospital. I just called again and
they won't tell us a damn thing."

"You still want a heads-up on the homicides of elderly females found
at home in bed?"

"Definitely."

"We just got us one. I'm en route. The uniform at the scene said
it's weird. She's laid out on her bed wrapped in a white sheet. Looks
like the mortician's already been there. That's what he says."

The house was a faded peach color and in a state of disrepair.

"She was a nice lady, never bothered anybody," a neighbor was
telling a patrolman out front.

Stone knew. When he walked in the door, he knew. His mind flashed on
the photographs of previous crime scenes. Interchangeable with this one.

Her faded, neatly trimmed hair was spread out across the pillow. Her
nails had been clipped.

Evelyn Symons, eighty-one, a widow, had lived alone for almost two
decades.

"This one's mine."

"Be my guest," Diaz said. "Anything you want me to do before I
split?"

"I need the chief medical examiner and Ed Baker from the crime lab.
Nobody but Baker. Call him at home if you have to."

Stone pulled on a pair of latex gloves. Gently he moved the woman's
head to one side. He knew they would be there before he saw the
particles of soil in her hair and on the pillow.

Baker, the crime lab chief, arrived, short, silver-haired, and
no-nonsense.

"It's him," Stone said. "The one we talked about."

Baker nodded and went to work. Using a mega brush, without bristles,
he lightly dusted the dead woman's bruised throat with magnetic
fingerprint powder, then lifted the powder with tape.

"Anything?" Stone asked.

Baker studied the tape, then shook his head. "No ridge detail at
all. Just a blurry smudge, the outline of a finger."

Stone sighed. "Like the others. Okay, you know what I want now.
We've talked about it enough. This is it. It's time to try. They say it
can be done."

"I've been waiting for the chance," Baker said.

He swabbed the dead woman's throat to lift the remaining fingerprint
powder.

"It'll take a little time," he told Stone.

"The sooner the better."

He and the crime technicians worked long into the night examining
firsthand what Stone had only seen before in photos.

Before going home at dawn, he asked for surveillance on Friedman.
"Bring him in," he urged, distributing his photo at roll call. "If he
loiters, or lollygags, or spits on the sidewalk, bring him in. Better
yet, if he does spit on the sidewalk, collect it and bring it to the
lab."

At several food establishments inspected by Friedman, Stone learned
the
mashgiach
was not a popular man. Irate owners dreaded his
visits. Nothing they did was good enough. He had them jumping through
hoops to remain certified. "He finds violations no one else can see,"
one complained. "You follow his rules and then,
nu
? He sees
something else. I wouldn't wish him to inspect my worst enemy."

Stone took copies of Friedman's printed forms and notices to
document examiners. They called the printing extremely similar to that
on the note left on his grandmother's bed, but the experts could not
swear to an absolute certainty that the same man wrote both. The note
was brief. Handwriting would have been easier to identify.

Stone studied the surveillance reports and monitored Friedman's
habits. Which is what put him in an unmarked car outside a kosher deli
on Forty-first Street in Miami Beach. Friedman ate lunch there as
usual. He emerged drinking an orange soda. As usual, he dropped the
bottle into a Dumpster as he approached the parking garage.

The Dumpster had been emptied that morning.

Friedman stepped into the parking garage elevator.

Stone went Dumpster diving.

He zipped the nearly empty bottle into an evidence bag for Baker,
the crime lab genius.

When the results came back, Stone cheered. He handcuffed Friedman at
a restaurant he was inspecting.

"What did he do? Take a bribe?" the manager asked. "It wouldn't be
the first time."

"No," Stone said, after informing Friedman of his rights. "He
murdered ten women."

"Ten?" the manager asked. "Where did he find the time?"

"I've done nothing wrong," Friedman said. "You know nothing. There
are certain laws, religious laws…"

"How about the one in Exodus: 'Thou shalt not kill.' "

Stone thought he had never felt better, but then came the icing on
the cake, a call from Nell Hunter.

"Hey, Sam Spade. Heard you made your big arrest. Cool. Knew you'd do
it. What's the real story?"

As chirpy as ever, she sounded cuddly and cute, friendly and warm,
then bewildered.

"What did you call me?" she demanded just before he hung up. "A
llama?"

WEEKS LATER

I don't mind the crying baby, or the kid kicking my seat back. I
could do without the sneezing, coughing passenger blowing his runny
nose a couple of rows back. But I love them all. I'm going home, the
luckiest man alive.

The slug that slammed into my chest and tore through my lung made a
bigger hole when it exited my back. It
grazed
a rib, which
accounted for the burning sensation. The deformed bullet wound up lying
on the rug. They said I was smart to drop and play dead. I didn't say I
wasn't playing. The immediate ouch took me down for the count.

Terrell's intended coup de grace, the gunshot to the head, tore a
hole in my scalp and actually left a groove in my skull. It bled like
hell. A small contusion and some swelling of the brain cleared up. The
doctors say that a mere fraction of an inch more, and I would have
wound up permanently brain damaged or even more permanently dead. What
can I say about trauma centers and their staffs? They are the reason
the homicide rate has gone down. They drag people like me back from the
brink every day.

Nazario stayed with me, so did Connie and my kids. They flew back to
Miami just two days ago to get ready for my homecoming. Home.

"Look at that, Sarge," Nazario says. The pilot is circling out over
the ocean to approach the city from the east. I see Miami's vast sprawl
and unearthly light as we swoop down through the clouds toward home.
Home.

I look for the sun and the shadows fall behind me.

Terrell is fighting extradition and the inevitable. I don't know if
he will be tried up in Maine or in Miami first. When they do bring him
back, I hope to be part of the welcoming committee.