Miami, It's Murder (27 page)

I prayed Bobby was behind the wheel.

I took a deep breath. “Bobby,” I called feebly. “Bobby, help me.”

No answer, but the car slowed down.

My voice grew stronger. “Listen to me, Bobby. You were a juvenile. If you had told the police what happened when Mary Beth died you might have spent a little time in custody. At worst, until you were eighteen. But you'd be free now. Free of your mother, with a life of your own.”

Something slammed hard against the back seat and the car swerved sharply. The sudden movement combined with the exhaust fumes made me nauseous.

“Shut up!” Mildred Van de Hyde screamed. “Shut up!”

My blood froze, my stomach churning.

“I have a gun!” she shouted, her voice full of fury. “Shut up, bitch, or I'll pull over and empty it into the trunk.”

I closed my eyes, sweat and tears flooding my face.

Godammit, I thought, I never let anybody drive my T-Bird. I was glad she had to drive without air-conditioning.

She slowed to a stop, probably for a traffic light. I kicked and pounded my fists as hard as I could to attract attention, hurling myself against the trunk lid. My chances of survival if I fell into traffic would be better than at our destination.

No more stops. We were on the expressway. Traffic sounds around us. What if we had an accident? What if the car caught fire? Forcing claustrophobic thoughts from my mind I worked on freeing my ankles.

The early edition must be on the street by now. Did anyone miss me? The woman at the wheel must suspect that my hands were free. Surprise would have worked to my advantage. Still might. When she opened the trunk, it would be just the two of us. If I could burst out like gangbusters and run, she wouldn't catch me. Age and weight were against her. Did she really have a gun? Mine was at home, with my beads and
resguardo,
I thought bleakly. At least it was not in the glove compartment where she could find it and use it against me.

My ankles loose at last, I massaged my fingers and toes and found my right shoe, which had come off. I tried to stretch my muscles and prepare for what was to come. My shoulder hurt but the bleeding had stopped.

Something dug into my back. The tire iron. My fingers closed around the cool metal.

Traffic noise faded. We bounced down what must be an unpaved road. The car finally stopped, engine off. Silence, just the creaks and cooling-down sounds of the T-Bird. I held my breath, listening.

Finally, she moved about in the seat, got out, and slammed the door. I braced, gripping the tire iron, dread growing inside me. Then I heard another car, another door slamming. My heart quickened, then sank. It was Bobby.

Still two against one. He must have followed in their car. I listened hard but couldn't quite make out their words. Then the voices grew louder, coming closer.

I braced again, gritted my teeth, adrenaline pumping, the tire iron in both hands.

Another false alarm. The driver's side door crunched open, but no one got in. What was going on? The engine sprang to life and the car lurched forward, though I was sure no one was at the wheel. The car took flight and the front end dropped into space. I heard laughter. When I heard the splash I knew what they had done.

Suddenly the T-Bird was sinking in water. I remembered the remains of Paul Eldridge in his long-sunken car and panicked. I had lost the tire iron and groped for it in a frenzy. A world away, I heard car doors slam, an engine start and race away.

The T-Bird floated, nose down. I heard water rushing into the passenger compartment. Sobbing, I finally found the tire iron, reached up, and frantically pried at the catch on the trunk lid with the tool's tapered end. Water rose around me. The back end slowly began to settle and the water showered in from around the trunk seal.

I pushed with one final effort, shoulders against the lid, and the trunk sprang open, yawning wide, air and water falling across my face. For a moment I was not sure it had opened. Darkness still enveloped me like a hood. Then I saw stars twinkling in the night sky above and the moon trapped in the tangled branches of distant treetops. In water up to my armpits, I leaned forward and kicked free of the car as it descended like an elevator on the way down.

My T-Bird gurgled, bubbled, and was gone, leaving little whirlpools behind. Kicking harder, I grasped the stems of straggly growths on the bank, to avoid being sucked down with it. My right foot gained purchase on a piece of shale jutting from the gravelly bank. My shoulder burned, I was shaky and exhausted, and my wet clothes seemed to weigh a ton.

Fingers clawing at the earth and the grassy out-croppings on the steep bank, I heard whimpering and stopped to listen before realizing it was me. I choked into a fearful silence, the night heavy and hushed around me. I had to be sure they were gone. I scarcely breathed as, slowly, the night sounds disrupted by the intrusion resumed.

Hand over hand, aching all over, I dragged myself up and finally collapsed, panting, onto solid ground in a bed of weeds. Somehow I forced myself to my feet, shivering in the heat, chilled to the bone.

They were gone. They got away. Anger and indignation replaced my weariness. They think I drowned. That they're home free. I'll show them, I thought, knees shaking.

Dark woods surrounded me. I had no idea where I was. This looked like one of the state water management district canals that crisscross the Everglades. They have imaginative names like C-54 and C-115. This one could be in west Broward, through it was probably Dade County. It didn't seem that we had driven much more than twenty-five minutes, maybe less. Time moves slowly when you are afraid and in the dark.

The dirt road was barely discernible in the shadows. If I followed it, a main drag could not be far off. I tried to wring out my skirt as best I could. My feet slipped around on the slick soles of my wet sandals and made squeaky sounds as I walked.

I rubbed my shoulder, which still oozed blood. I'll need a tetanus shot, I thought, hating the idea. Soaking wet and filthy, I wondered if any motorist would help me. I would soon find out. If no one picked me up, I might be able to persuade somebody to call the police. There might be a house or even a gas station just beyond the trees, I thought hopefully.

I took one last look at the eddies still rippling the smooth surface of the canal in the moonlight. Some water management canals are thirty feet deep. My T-Bird. The best car I ever had. I turned and began to stumble down the road in the dark.

The wary middle-aged couple who eventually picked me up were quite relieved to drop me at a pay phone on Krome Avenue, the first vestige of civilization coming east out of the Everglades.

A patrol car arrived in minutes. I told them that Bobby and his mother got away. They told me different.

Detectives heard I was missing after the early edition hit the street. At the hospital, Dan told them I went to find Bobby. They were at the Van de Hyde house when he and his mother showed up. Once separated, Bobby couldn't confess fast enough.

I asked about Dan.

Visitors are permitted in intensive care for the first ten minutes of each hour. He opened his eyes when I touched his hand. He looked gray and absolutely helpless. I didn't look so hot myself.

He squinted. “Happened to you?” His words were as dry as leaves.

As I told him everything, some of the light came back into his eyes.

“Oh, no. Jesus,” he groaned when I told him Bobby had killed Mary Beth Rafferty. “All this time, I thought—”

“The important thing is, it's solved now. There
is
justice.”

A nurse wanted me to leave.

I said goodbye. My ear to his lips, Dan whispered, “I'm on the ropes. This is it, kid.”

“Go for the light, Dan,” I said, “go for the light.”

He wanted to say one more thing. I leaned over him.

“I'm gonna beat the system,” he gasped, attempting a grin. He was right.

He slipped away four hours later at 3
A
.
M
., before murder charges could be filed.

I've thought a lot about Daniel P. Rood since his death, mostly remembering conversations and memorable moments. How he would use the radio mike in his car like an electric razor to make me laugh, and how it never failed. How I had run into him late one night in a twenty-four-hour drugstore, big and hulking, fresh from a gang murder, poring over Mother's Day cards, actually reading the verses, before selecting the perfect endearment for his wife. How he swerved to avoid the migrating land crabs one night when I rode with him as an observer. How he had helped a young reporter on stories she never could have nailed down otherwise.

How he had spent his entire life believing in the system, deciding only at the end that it didn't work.

We have all lost something. Nobody but Dan remembered so many old murder mysteries that might still be solved one day, stories that might have endings if only someone cared and persisted long enough. He was a bridge back to another era, when Miami was another world, before the mass immigration, before the drug wars, before affirmative action. But like the dinosaur, he was doomed to extinction.

My T-Bird was recovered from the canal several days later, a total loss. Lottie was a comfort. “It ain't nothing but a thang,” she said when I wept. She was right and I knew it. Seeing my car again made me realize once more how lucky I am to be alive. Life is a death-defying experience. My tears were for more than that piece of metal. My ruined car was a symbol of everything lost that summer.

Fred Douglas called me into his office when I returned to work. He looked somber, a sheaf of official-looking papers on the desk in front of him. “Britt, both the Miami and Metro-Dade police departments have filed formal protests with the managing editor about your behavior.”

I rolled my eyes and opened my mouth to protest, but Fred held up his hand.

“I'm not finished.”

I shifted impatiently in my chair. My shoulder ached under the bandage. As he shuffled the papers, my eyelid began to twitch.

“So has the state attorney.” As I began to react, he stopped me again.

Lord, what next? I thought.

“So has Eric Fielding's office.”

“Fielding!” I yelped. “He should be grateful, for God's sake. He was a suspect for more than twenty years. We proved he didn't kill that little girl. He should love us.”

“He's not grateful that you did it now, during his campaign.”

“So?”

“No denying he was the suspect, but it was never reported in the media and the voters didn't know it. Now he's been publicly linked to the case and the world knows he was a suspect. Even though he's cleared, he feels the connection taints him in the eyes of some voters.”

“He should love us,” I repeated indignantly.

“He doesn't. The police and the state attorney are mad as hell that you didn't bring all your information and suspicions to them so they could have—”

“I know, I know,” I said impatiently. “Anything else?” I rubbed my eyelid, beginning to feel really irritated.

“One more thing,” he said, consulting the papers in front of him. “You have a ten percent raise effective in this week's paycheck.”

I stared at him. “I'm not due for my annual increase until May.”

“This is a merit raise, but don't discuss it in the newsroom, for pete's sake. The consensus upstairs is that when the cops and the politicians are all furious enough to lodge complaints, we know you're out there doing the job.”

I thanked him, rose to leave, and then stopped. “What did you tell them?”

“Who?”

“When they complained. What did you tell them?”

“That an editor would counsel you. Consider yourself counseled.”

“Okay.”

“One more thing,” he said. “Take the rest of the day and tomorrow off, comp time.”

“This all right with Gretchen?”

“We'll make it all right.”

“You sure? She wanted me to help with the weather story. Janowitz is on vacation, and the first hurricane of the season is out there somewhere.”

“Don't worry about the storm, Britt. Miami hasn't had a hurricane in thirty years.”

“Okay, I can use the time, gives me a chance to car-shop.”

I stepped back out into the newsroom.

Lottie was waiting, leaning on the edge of my desk, long legs crossed, arms folded. “You hear Bobby had a court appearance this morning? He's being held without bond. Hopefully they'll put him in a cell with the Downtown Rapist.”

Poor Bobby, I thought. “Even behind bars he's probably freer than he's been for a long time,” I said, gathering up my things.

“Where you headed?”

“I'm off,” I said. “Taking a cruise.”

“Hell-all-Friday, it's about time you took a vacation.”

“Don't get excited. It's no big deal.”

She looked puzzled.

“It's not a long cruise, just around Biscayne Bay. Didn't you notice? There's a full moon tonight.”

She smiled and winked. “Bon voyage, Britt.”

I am grateful to Dr. Charles Wetli, Dr. Steve Nelson, Dr. Roger Mittleman, Dr. Richard Souviron, Dr. Lee Hearn, and Dr. Joseph H. Davis, along with his colleagues Norman Kassoff and Veronica Melton; my creative and caring friends Marilyn and Ed Gadinsky, Ann and D. P. Hughes, Renee Turolla, Peggy Thornburgh, Pearl Thornburgh, Norma Thornburgh, and especially David M. Thornburgh. Thanks to Metro-Dade's best and brightest: Bud Stuver, Sergeant Christine Echroll, and Detective Rick Kology; and the city's finest: Major Mike Gonzalez, Sergeants Louise Vasquez and Jerry Green, Lieutenant Robert Murphy, and Officer Lori Nadelman. I am indebted to Dr. Bernard Elser, Rafael Martinez, M.A., M.S.Ed., and Dr. Julia Morton of the University of Miami for their expertise and their willingness to share it, and to Miami
Herald
star staffers Arnold Markowitz, Gene Miller, and Bill Rose and the
Herald
library crew, along with some of Miami's greatest natural resources: historian Dr. Paul George, photojournalist Bill Cooke, and Diane Montane of Exito. I also want to thank Mike Baxter, Otto Morales-Rubic, and the Rev. Dr. Garth Thompson, saviors of my hard drive and my sanity; my talented editor Leslie Wells of Hyperion; and Michael Congdon, my agent.

My life has such a wonderful cast of characters.