Florida Heatwave (13 page)

I pictured the brutal hours of long workout sessions with Faustus, the former Marine drill sergeant, that would end with me collapsed in the gym, soaking wet with sweat, gasping for air. As much as I hated the time with him, there was no arguing with the results—in just three months I had dropped thirty pounds, and four dress sizes. I’d never thought of myself as overweight, but Susanna kept reminding me that the camera would add at least ten pounds, so I just did as I was told and continued to starve myself.

Even though I was just thirty-seven years old, Susanna insisted I have Botox injections to eliminate the tiny lines under my eyes—in the age of HDTV it was impossible to hide any flaws. My skin was exfoliated so often that I feared I would look like a Brazilian rain forest that had been stripped bare; my hair was cut, styled and colored; I even had Lasik surgery so I could do away with my glasses. Susanna had insisted that I give away all my clothes, and advanced me money for a new wardrobe. I felt as if I’d been on an episode of
What Not To Wear.
In six months, I was reborn as Mary Mahoney.

Susanna and I had decided that the quickest and most effective way for me to break into the very crowded mystery field—South Florida was teeming with mystery writers—was to write gritty, police procedurals type books, hardcore novels. I intended to make Dennis Lehane, George Pelecanos, James Ellroy, et al seem as if they were writing young adult mysteries.

After much thought, I came up with the character of Miranda Maples—a private investigator-cum-forensic-scientist investigator. Miranda would be cast in the role of the classic private eye—a disillusioned loner who lived by her own moral code, shunning normal convention. All that, however, did not preclude her from being a knockout: tall, blond, busty, brainy and leggy, who dressed in killer designer outfits. In her role as a private investigator, Miranda would look into the circumstances under which victims had been murdered, while in her role as a forensic investigator, she would analyze the physical evidence at a crime scene to recreate how, exactly, it had been that the victim had met his or her fate. Miranda’s dual occupations gave her plenty of opportunities to get involved in a world filled with blood and gore. No case, no details, would be considered too gruesome or chilling for Miranda Maples. After all, this was the world of
C.S.I.,
and readers would expect details. I read periodicals, publications and journals that had to do with forensic investigations. I came across an interesting tidbit: Sherlock Holmes was considered to be a forensic investigator.

To this day I still don’t really know how she did it, but Susanna somehow managed to talk Tom Albion, the editor-in-chief of Edgar Books, into offering me a three-book contract, for a series featuring Miranda Maples. Not just that, but the contract was worth the staggering, unheard of sum of one and a half million dollars; as my literary agent, Susanna’s fee was fifteen percent of that—a tidy sum.

Susanna had flown me up to New York to meet with Tom. I was to bring the first ten chapters of the first book, plus detailed synopses for the next two. The original plan had been for me to meet Tom at his office in the morning, but, somehow, the ten o’clock meeting had segued into lunch. (Was it my new wardrobe? The Botox? The veneers? The body Faustus had carved out for me?) By the time I left, Tom had read the first ten chapters of the first book as well as the synopses of the other two—I had ended up with a three-book contract worth millions. It had all been quite unorthodox—books were not purchased that way. Susanna’s plan had worked.

The first book involved Miranda investigating a shooting. Writing the book was easy enough—my skills had been honed by producing all those romance novels—but it had been the scenes where the actual murder took place that were challenging. If readers were going to believe Miranda as a private investigator as well as a forensic science investigator, those were the scenes that had to be the best. I must have written and rewritten those scenes dozens of times, but instead of improving, they worsened.

I had exhausted all my options as to doing any more research: I had
In Cold Blood
practically memorized and could even quote verbatim from certain passages; had watched hours upon hours of movies that dealt with the subject; downloaded documentaries about killings (Discovery Channel, A&E, and the Learning Channel were invaluable); had ridden along with police officers to crime scenes,
etc.

Not even stopping to shower and change out of my sweaty clothes, I sat in front of the computer and began typing. Three hours later, having made no progress, I walked over to the liquor cabinet in the corner of the living room, and poured myself a stiff drink of Jack Daniels—then another. I did not stop until I had drunk four glasses—neat, no ice. The liquor hit me hard, and almost immediately the room started spinning around. I carefully made my way to the sofa, and lay down.

Less than a minute later, I threw up on myself, but I was so drunk that I couldn’t move. I must have lain there for a good hour, with vomit all over me—bile mixed in with Jack Daniels—a horrible stench, one I thought I would never have to smell again. Slowly, painfully, I forced myself to get up from the sofa and gingerly made my way into the bathroom where I stripped off my clothes and threw them into the trashcan. There was no way I was ever going to wear them again.

I turned on the shower, ran the water as hot as I could stand it, and stood under it for a good five minutes. For once in my life, I was going to take my late mother’s advice. “Arlene, in life, if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.”

Susanna wanted me to write a realistic murder scene? Well, I was going to do just that. I, who was so law abiding that I’d never even left my car in a ‘handicap parking’ zone, was going to commit a murder, the only way to be sure to accurately describe it.

Could I really do it? Kill someone in cold blood—for money? I had no illusions about the reason why. There was no way I could return to living hand to mouth over a garage apartment; I could kiss my apartment goodbye; there would be no more Botox, highlights, three hundred dollar haircuts; weekly manicures and pedicures; veneers,
etc.
I would watch as my face and body returned to its pre-Mary Mahoney appearance.

I may have been desperate, but I wasn’t stupid or foolhardy. I had to be very careful not to get caught, but with meticulous planning, I was confident I could do it. The difficult decision made, I felt a calm come over me, and I was able to sleep the night through for the first time in weeks.

The next morning I went for an early morning run on the beach followed by a swim in the ocean. It wasn’t even eight o’clock when I sat down at the computer. I broke down the plan into three separate but equally important components. First, I had to find a victim, someone whose disappearance would not arouse suspicions; second, I had to find a place where I could kill the victim in exactly the same way the murderer did in the book without being detected; and third, I had to find a place to dispose of the body without being seen. Each of those would present a challenge, to be sure, but nothing that I couldn’t handle with careful preparation.

I began by logging on to the official Web site for the Everglades National Park, a place I had visited on several occasions. The park was truly enormous, comprised of over one and a half million acres—one hundred and twenty miles long; fifty miles wide—by anyone’s calculations, a vast, lush wetland area offering many places in which to dispose of a body. I read about the many species of animals that lived there—American crocodiles, bobcats, panthers, wild boars, vultures, etc.—most, if not all, that would doubtless be happy to be offered a tasty meal. The park was open twenty-four hours a day—good for me—but it was constantly patrolled by officers from the National Park Service—not so good.

After finishing the research on the Everglades, I next turned to finding a place where I could commit the murder in privacy—a place close to the entrance to the park. I sure as hell did not want to be driving around unfamiliar roads with a body in the trunk of the car and concluded that entering the park from the south would be best, at Florida City.

Florida City was a known dropping off point for drugs—principally marijuana—being flown into the state on small planes prior to being distributed around the country. The marijuana came in large bales, so I assumed that the drug dealers would need a secure, private location to divide up the shipments—just as I did. I Googled information about Florida City, and found that there were what seemed an unusually high number of storage units—all offering privacy and security—around the entrance to the park. Perfect. I wrote down the telephone numbers and addresses of a couple of them.

As far as finding the victim, well, that would have to wait.

After a late lunch—low fat tuna salad and water—I gathered the supplies I would need for my research: a small Igloo cooler filled with several bottles of water; two cans of mosquito repellant; a pair of top of the line binoculars, and, of course, maps of the area. I got into my Land Rover (I owed two months on it, so it was dangerously close to being repossessed) and set off for Florida City.

The sun was just beginning to set when I arrived at the entrance to the Everglades National Park. I stopped at the small wooden building, paid the entry fee, and entered the preserve. I drove around for a while, before turning off at the Royal Palm section of the park, a freshwater slough that, at first glance, seemed to suit my needs just about perfectly. The specific area that I was interested in could not be easily seen from the paved road; additionally, there was a medium sized pond nearby—murky, algae filled water that, with any luck, was teeming with hungry crocodiles and crabs; and, just in case those did not do the job, there were vultures perched on the bare branches of the tall trees in the distance, an area referred to as a cypress dome. After marking the exact place on the map on my lap, I turned the car around, and got back on the main road.

Once outside the park I went looking for the storage units. The first one was located on an unpaved side street, behind a six-foot-tall concrete wall topped with concertina wire. As I drove by it, I was able to count ten rows of room-sized steel units, the doors all secured with large steel locks. I parked the car just behind a large eucalyptus tree, a spot that allowed me to observe the entrance to the units, but still remain unnoticed. For the next three hours I sat in the car, watching the gate to see how much activity came in and out, but no one entered or exited the enclosed facility during that time. This place was so perfect that I did not bother checking out the second one.

I had left the most difficult—and disagreeable—task for last: finding the victim. Having decided earlier that a homeless person would come as close as possible to the “ideal” victim, I planned on driving to the two shelters I had read about on Google, but, fortunately, I did not have to do that as, on my way there, I had passed a food store in front of which were eight or ten men lounging about, drinking from cans in paper bags, and smoking cigarettes. I pulled into the parking lot adjacent to the store, where I could have an unobstructed view of them without being noticed. From their demeanor—chain-smoking and drinking steadily—and unkempt appearance I felt I could safely assume they were homeless drifters.

I studied each and every one of them, trying to assess which one would best serve my needs. Although I was small of stature, thanks to Faustus’s brutal workouts, I was very physically fit. Still, I did not think I could carry a person much larger than myself, especially as dead weight was much heavier than live. After calculating their weights, I decided that the youngish looking man with longish blond hair cut into a mullet, who was wearing cut-off overalls, would be the most easily manageable. Having made my pick, I headed back to South Beach.

I would have liked to have had more time to refine my plan, but I did not have that luxury. Susanna was now threatening to come down to Miami four days from now. That, and the fact that I kept getting messages from the management company of my building demanding payment of the fees—this morning I had received a registered letter.

The next morning, using a disposable cell phone and giving a false name, I phoned the number listed for the storage unit in Florida City, and informed the manager I was interested in renting one of their larger units for a year. I told him would be wiring the money from a Western Union office and that I would call him in a few hours to make sure the transaction was complete, at which time he could give me the unit number. I would be supplying my own lock. The manager must have been used to having customers rent units that way, because he did not ask a single question—he just gave me the wiring instructions to the bank.

To be sure the conditions were the same, for the next three days I drove to Florida City at the exact same time I planned to commit the murder and ran through the plan. Sure enough, nothing ever changed: the entrance to the Everglades National Park was always open; there was no activity at or around the storage unit; and the same group of men loitered outside the food store. On the second day, I went to a Home Depot about one hour south of Miami, and, using cash, bought the items I needed. At a uniform store in West Miami, I purchased protective clothing. In Florida City, I went inside the storage unit I had rented, and checked it out. The space was perfect. I set the items I had purchased at the Home Depot for the following night in one of the corners, and left.

I must not have been as cool, calm, and collected as I had thought I was because I had the weird sensation that I was being followed. The feeling was so strong that I kept checking in the rearview mirror, but I could not spot anyone. Besides, who would be watching me? I hoped my nerves were not getting the better of me.

That last night, I could not manage to get more than a few minutes of rest at a time. Could I really murder someone in cold blood just to be able to correctly describe a scene in a book? Finally, just as dawn was breaking, I managed to sleep for two hours without interruption. After a morning swim and run on the beach I sat down in front of the computer in a last ditch effort to write a plausible scene, but as before, that eluded me. The day crawled by.