Cold Case Squad (6 page)

Connie always had her quirks, they were part of her charm. I played
left end on the varsity football team at Miami Senior High. She
transferred in from Homestead High in her sophomore year, made
cheerleader right away. Short with shiny dark hair and bright brown
eyes, exactly my type. We were inseparable from day one. The guys were
all jealous. Later she pinned the badge on my uniform when I graduated
from the academy and stepped into the whirlwind. Tough time to be a cop
in Miami. Opposing armies in the cocaine wars invaded the city. We had
the Mariel boatlift, Rastafarians, Santeria, and the cocaine cowboys.
They all came together like the perfect storm, bringing riots and the
highest murder rate in the nation. More than 630 men, women, and
children murdered in a single year, more than a quarter cut down by
automatic weapons.

Scores of cops were lost to bullets, stress fatigue, drugs, or
corruption. A lot of people were killed. Some are still walking around.
Money and temptation were everywhere. Guys from my academy class were
arrested for everything from drug trafficking to rape to racketeering
and murder.

Writers said Miami was like Dodge City, the Wild West. They were
wrong. Dodge City was never as violent as Miami.

I couldn't have survived it all without Connie. Once I got into
homicide, I was never home. A few times we talked about taking the kids
and getting the hell out. But we hung in. We are natives. I loved the
job. We loved Miami and each other. Then, seven years and three kids
into the marriage, I caught a case that changed it all. Teenagers
abducted on a first date. Both shot in the head. Sunny, the girl, about
the same age my Jenny is now, was raped. She barely survived. Ricky
Chance, the boy, died. For weeks I went home only to shower and change.

The case consumed me. So did a woman. Her name was Maureen, a major
wreck on my highway to happiness.

Maureen Hartley, the wounded girl's mother, isn't even my type. Tall
and blond with classic features, she dresses and moves like the top
model she once was. She is as cool as Connie is hot. But something
about her touched my soul.

I cared.

Her daughter's pain hurt her. So did her marriage to a rich and
manipulative man. I wanted to save her. At the very least I wanted to
solve the case, to give her and her daughter peace of mind. I couldn't
even do that. I tried to drink away the frustration of my failure.

I didn't find the killers, didn't get the girl, and nearly lost my
marriage.

She and the case haunted me, until a twist of fate fourteen years
later. I was assigned to the Cold Case Squad, living a normal family
life for the first time in years, when a reporter's tip reignited the
old investigation. This time, against all odds, we solved it. When I
saw Maureen again, the feelings were still there. She left her husband
for a time. I didn't know where it was all going but never had the
chance to find out. Like so many abused wives, she went back to the son
of a bitch. Maybe he brainwashed her, or maybe she likes the lifestyle
and the big bucks.

Connie went ballistic, totally haywire, imagining far more than ever
happened.

A year ago we had talked about act two, anticipating our lives when
the kids were grown up and out.

Now I'm the one who's out. Without my job, I'd have no reason to
wake up in the morning. My job matters, it's important, it makes a
difference. Or does it? Is it seeking justice for others and saving my
sanity or is it ruining my family?

I rewind history as I toss and turn.

Connie is different these days. I'm beginning to suspect menopause
is an aggravating factor. She's only in her forties, but her mother
went through the change early. I've heard them discuss it enough.
Witnessed a few of her mother's outbursts and hysterical tantrums. If
that isn't it, I must have caused my wife a helluva lot more pain than
I realized all those years. Or is it Miami madness?

I never used to think it affected us natives, but there could be
exceptions. People come to Miami and bizarre things happen. The
temperature soars, the barometric pressure drops, the full moon rises,
and people who are normal and otherwise rational start to use poor
judgment, really poor judgment. They suddenly conclude that outrageous,
dangerous, and deadly schemes are excellent plans.

Take the student helicopter pilot who made his first solo flight
into a high-security prison to rescue a notorious murder suspect. Or
the guys who tried to smuggle drugs into Miami in a surplus Russian
submarine. Sure.

Or the Cuban exiles who believed they were sending Fidel Castro an
important message by firing a bazooka at a Polish freighter docked at
the Port of Miami.

The chopper crashed, breaking the pilot's ankle and the escaping
convict's front teeth. The Russian sub was seized. So were the exiles
when a taxi driver ruined their getaway by refusing to allow a bazooka
in his cab.

I lie wide awake in the dark, checking off a mental list of other
cases of Miami madness. None I can remember affected natives.
Eventually it occurs to me that this is not putting me to sleep, which
I desperately need. I pad out to the kitchen for another beer as a
lonely wail shatters the night.

He runs inside when I open the door, jumps right onto the bed, and
curls up, purring. I resign myself to his company. Then I must have
dropped off because the next thing I know, the feathery branches of the
wild tamarind tree outside the window are drenched with sunshine,
occupied by screeching birds, and I am late for work.

Nazario sipped a
cortadito
from a tiny paper cup as Stone
accessed the Miami-Dade County marriage license database.

"Damn waste of time," Stone muttered.

"Hey, we got to keep the boss happy."

"Impossible with that woman."

"Women always complain more," Detective Joe Corso said from an
adjacent desk. "Why do you think they call it bitching?"

"Lie low, Corso," Stone warned him, punching computer keys. "Don't
let her drag you into this one. She in yet?"

"Don't see her." Nazario craned his neck. Riley's office looked
empty and the civilian secretary, at her own desk, was happily chatting
on the phone. "Nah, Emma looks too relaxed."

"Got a hit." Stone chortled. "Here's the widow. Whoa. Once, twice,
three times."

"What's her story? She a serial bride?" Nazario peered over his
shoulder.

"Must keep trying till she gets it right." Data flashed across the
computer screen. "Here we go. Marriage License issued to Natasha
Tucker, twenty, and Charles Vincent Terrell, thirty-four, almost
fourteen months before his flame-out in May of 'ninety-two. The widow
Terrell, now twenty-two, and a Martin Asher, age forty-one, apply for a
marriage license on November twenty-seventh, 1992."

"Six months a widow. That's all?" Nazario wiped a fleck of coffee
foam from his mustache and leaned over Stone's shoulder. "Thought that
arson investigator said she took it hard."

"Must have bounced back. Maybe she doesn't like living alone. Look
at this one. Natasha Tucker Terrell Asher, twenty-five, and Daniel P.
Streeter, fifty-four, issued a marriage license on January fourth, of
'ninety-five."

"She digs older guys. This broad ever get a divorce? Or do they all
spontaneously combust?"

"We'll see in a sec." Stone's fingers flew.

"Wouldn't that be something?" Nazario said. "The lieutenant keeps
yapping for results. How cool would it be to give her a black widow?"

"No such luck." Stone scrolled through new data. "Husbands two and
three must have safer hobbies than tinkering with old cars. Two
divorces on record.
Nada
in the marriage department since
'ninety-nine. She must be footloose and single these days. Let's check
property records. Whoa, the Streeter house was assessed at two point
six mill. Looks like she kept it, then sold it for three point one.
Shows a Gables by the Sea address now. Same as her current driver's
license."

"No wants, no warrants," he said, accessing records. "Some traffic.
Speeding tickets galore. Likes the fast lane."

"Hmmm. Busted. Twice. Both retail theft, shoplifting. Saks and
Neiman
Marcus. The little lady's got sticky fingers."

"Sells a house for more than three mill and she's boosting from
stores?"

"Fast lane, what can I say? Risk taker, klepto, or just a thief.
I'll get copies of the reports."

"Hey," Nazario said. "Look who finally showed up. Where you been,
Sarge?"

"Call your wife," the tiny middle-aged secretary sang out.

Craig Burch looked pained. "Yeah, right away," he said.

"What's that smell?" Stone asked.

Nazario's nose wrinkled, his eyes narrowed.

"Jeez, you smell it, too?" Burch said. "My efing Blazer stinks. Made
my eyes water driving in. Started last night, but it's worse now. Like
something died in there."

"You check under the hood?" Nazario said.

"Nah, but I pulled the seats out, checked the floorboards. Thought I
musta spilled something from the fast-food joint. Don't know what the
hell it is."

Nazario rolled his eyes. "Uh-oh, you think…"

"Wait till you hear what we've got on Meadows." Stone tore himself
away from the computer monitor. "Crime scene photos from all the cases…"

"Meadows?" Burch lowered his voice. "I thought you two are supposed
to be busy on Terrell, so we can get Riley off our asses."

"We're on it, Sarge," Nazario said.

"Uh-oh," Stone muttered.

Riley stood over her secretary, outside her office door. She wore a
crisp tailored shirt, fitted beige slacks, a matching jacket, and a
frown. "Would you call public works and find out what the hell is going
on in my neighborhood? Ask if there's a boil water order."

"Tap water brown again?" Emma pursed her lips and' reached for her
city phone directory.

"No, pink this time." Riley sighed. "Ran a load of wash this morning
and my sheets and underwear all came out pink."

"What color were they before?" Burch grinned.

"Pale pink or flamingo?" Nazario winked. "Inquiring minds want to
know."

Riley didn't smile back. "Step into my office, and bring the Terrell
file. Is that it? Is this all?" She plucked the folder off Nazario's
desk. "Never mind. I'll look at it myself."

She took it into her office, hung her jacket on the back of her
chair, and settled behind her desk flipping slowly through the contents.

Occasionally she raised her eyes to the framed photo atop the
bookcase next to the door. Two people aboard a boat. Blue sky above,
liquid sky below. She was wearing cut-off shorts, a bathing suit top,
and sunshine in her hair. Laughing as she held up a puny grouper.
Kendall McDonald grinned beside her. He wore a Florida Marlins cap. His
right hand rested on her shoulder. Had she ever really been that happy?

"What?" she snapped, as Emma cracked the door open.

"Public works," she said. "Red dye. They used it in routine tests,
but somehow it seeped into one of the water plants. Three-quarters of a
million households south of Okeechobee Road affected. Not harmful,
according to them."

Riley looked pale beneath her tan as she waved the detectives into
her office. Burch, with the most rank, took the only chair. Stone and
Nazario slouched against the wall near the door, arms crossed.

"We'll talk to Terrell's widow, the second wife, today and check the
neighborhood for witnesses who still live there," Stone said.

"Good." Riley toyed with a paperweight, a metal replica of a hand
grenade. Her eyes looked red.

"The guys are also making progress in Meadows."

She raised an eyebrow.

"Stone's been all over the crime scene photos." Burch cocked his
head at the lanky black detective.

"Right," Stone said. "The victims were all found in their beds.
Sheets stretched tight at the bottom, precisely folded over. All were
identically made up. The way they teach the military or hospital
workers to make beds."

Burch shrugged. "Maybe the vics were all good housekeepers following
Martha Stewart's rules."

"Stewart wasn't a household word when he started killing, Sarge. And
no senior citizen makes their bed like that. It's damn uncomfortable,
especially for the elderly. Too tight, it cramps up their feet. I used
to visit my grandfather in the hospital. He and his roommate were
always asking me to loosen up the sheets."

"It's also obvious that the guy hung around, felt at home, cleaned
up."

"You mean he washed up, took showers after the murders?" Riley
frowned.

"Maybe that, too. But I mean the scenes, the victims' bedrooms. Spit
and polish, just like the beds. The photos show the rest of the rooms,
except for the kitchens, cluttered, a little messy. Typical of older
folks. They accumulate things over the years, hate to throw anything
out, and no longer have the strength and stamina for heavy-duty
housework."

"And the kitchens?" Riley asked.

"Spotless. You could eat off the floor. Most seniors, especially the
women, focus more on the living room once they're frail. They like to
keep that nice, in case company comes."

"True." Nazario nodded. "You see that on so many DOA scenes."

"He might even have cooked a meal. In the last several cases, where
the garbage hadn't been collected yet, there were fresh eggshells."

Riley looked impressed. "So, in addition to wiping down whatever he
touches, he may cook and clean house?"

"Looks possible."

"When you find him, bring him over to my place before you book him,"
she said. "My terrazzo floors are a bitch to polish."

"Sure," Burch said, "but the deal is, he has to kill you first."

"Nice try, but I'm not his type. Not on Medicare yet. Good work. But
make Terrell top priority," she added, "until we know what we have
there."