Shadows (23 page)

“The woman played God, handing out babies like puppies, without home studies or references,” Burch told Riley at an early morning squad meeting. Only Nazario was present. Stone and Corso were still at the hospital.

“She even adopted out three unrelated infants as triplets, according to news stories from the eighties. One had surgery at age nineteen and needed blood. That's when they found out they weren't related. Not to their parents or each other. Up to then they didn't even know they were adopted. When they tried to locate their birth mothers, they discovered they had no traceable past.

“Either the doctor kept all her records in her head, or they disappeared after her murder. Nobody complained at the time of the adoptions. Being an unwed mother wasn't a badge of honor like it is today. It was a scandal back in the fifties and sixties.”

“So where do we stand?” Riley asked.

“We know Wentworth and Pierce Nolan knew each other—maybe were even boyfriend and girlfriend for a time in high school. Our best lead to a possible relative of one of our Baby Does is a Miami kid who filed a police complaint against the doctor a week before her murder. The hard copy was cross-filed in Records, under her name.

“Teenage kid walks into the station to report that Dr. Wentworth is arranging the adoption of his girlfriend's baby without his consent. Claims to be the father. The girl's underage. The officer writes a report and notes that the kid himself can be charged with statutory rape if her parents want to prosecute.

“Don't know if anybody looked into it. Wentworth is killed a few days later. The kid's name surfaces that first day as one of many suspects. His parents claim he was home with them at the time of the murder. Pierce Nolan is killed the next night. And that's all she wrote. His case is so high profile that all available manpower is assigned to it and the Wentworth investigation winds up on a back burner.

“Nobody ever seems to connect the two. The victims and the methods are totally different. She's a shady lady doctor with past abortion arrests and a thriving black-market adoption practice. She's savagely beaten in what looks like a crime of passion. He's a highly respected pillar of the community, shot in a cold, calculated ambush by a killer lying in wait.

“We didn't connect them either, at first. We checked the old homicide logs for similar cases, but all Wentworth's entry said was ‘middle-aged white female beaten to death in her home.' Had it mentioned that the crime scene was also an adoption clinic and a home for unwed mothers, it would have got our attention.

“Donald Wentworth, the ex-husband, is still alive. He and the doctor had been divorced for years at the time of her murder. He'd remarried and said he didn't know much about what she was doing. A niece of hers, Pauline Rahming, nineteen, also lived and worked at the clinic. She discovered her aunt's body. She's still around as well. So is Ralph Plummer, the kid who filed the police complaint. Owns that Ford dealership up in the north end, near Aventura.”

“Talk to him first,” Riley said. “See if he'll give us a DNA sample. Then look up the niece. See what she knows. What did Wentworth's scene look like?”

“Bloody. Nobody else there when her body was found. No unwed mothers upstairs. No babies in the clinic. No prospective parents waiting in her office, which is where she was killed. Looked like the killer didn't bring a weapon, just used whatever was handy at the scene. She was kicked, stomped, bludgeoned with everything but the kitchen sink. Even slammed over the head with a manual typewriter.

“Funny, the crime scene photos show an empty birdcage broken on the floor. No bird. Just a cage.”

“The fact that the doctor paid off cops for protection might account for the lack of follow-up,” Riley said. “An in-depth investigation might have turned the spotlight on things the department didn't want the public or the press to know.

“Hey, look who's here!”

Stone and Corso had stepped off the elevator. Both looked exhausted.

“How's Ashton?” Riley said.

“If there are no complications, it looks like she'll make it,” Stone said. “The doctors say she was lucky, the bullet slid right between her ribs. Otherwise chunks of broken bone would have pierced her lungs. She lost a lot of blood.”

“And your grandmother?”

“Shaken up, worried about Ash, glad it's over. Talked to her a little while ago. She's back in her kitchen, making soup to take to the hospital.”

“What about the suspects?”

“Remember, I'm the guy who spotted 'em.” Corso beamed.

“Did they cop? How are the interviews coming?” Burch asked.

“Good.” Stone poured himself a cup of coffee, then sank wearily into a chair. “Ernest Lee Evans opened his eyes in cardiac intensive care, thought he was about to meet Jesus, and confessed. He threw the others under the bus.”

“Joke's on him,” Corso said. “Dumb son of a bitch didn't die. He's already out of ICU, handcuffed to a bed in the jail ward.

“His statement'll stand the hair up on the back of your neck. Said they read in the paper that morning about a rash a armed robberies at small businesses, so they decided to kill the victims at work, make it look like a robbery.

“The night they did the killings at Stone's Barbecue, Evans and his partner planned to go over to Stone's house and kill the whole family. What spooked 'em and made 'em think better of it was Officer Ray Glover. Right after they leave, guns smoking, they see his patrol car whip around the corner in the rain and pull up in front of Stone's.

“Shocked to see anybody arrive so fast, they figure a witness must a seen 'em and called the police, so they panic and beat feet back to Mississippi.

“When they heard recently that Sam Stone tried to contact Asa Anderson at the federal prosecutor's office in Mississippi, they regretted not going to the house to finish the job that night.

“They assumed Stone here was the witness, that he'd been at the Barbecue that night, a little kid in the back room, or hiding under a counter, that he might a seen 'em and that his grandmother hadda know everything.”

“Did they kill Glover?” Riley asked.

“Yeah. He was working it, even showed up in Mississippi trying to solve the case on his own, so he hadda go. They went to Immokalee, ran him down, backed over 'im, even kicked 'im a few times to make sure he was dead.”

“And the leak?” Riley asked. “How did they know…”

“Evans confirmed what Asa Anderson already suspected,” Stone said.

“Yeah,” Corso said. “One Mildred Johnson, the nice, motherly, talkative, longtime legal secretary and office manager in the criminal division of the U.S. Justice Department's Southern District of Mississippi, talks to her younger sister, Sheila, every day. Sheila Evans. Married to Ernest Lee Evans's brother, Earl, a Bigby, Mississippi, fireman.”

“I
knew
it,” Riley said, squeezing the hand grenade. “Son of a bitch.”

“The suspects had an open pipeline. Every time a word about the case came up in that office, she hit the horn to her sister. She's in custody, being interviewed as we speak. The federal magistrate here has ordered these guys held without bond until a hearing next week.”

“Nice work,” Riley said. “Now let's close the other one and make it two for two.”

“Never satisfied,” Corso muttered indignantly, “no matter how hard you work, no matter how much you give 'em.”

“So let me get this straight,” Burch said as he drove north on Biscayne Boulevard. “You had Fleur, Kiki,
and
a nurse up there? Ain't it getting a little crowded?”

“Kiki left,” Nazario said morosely, “before the nurse arrived.”

“Oh, so what's nursie like?”

“Hefty black lady in her fifties.”

“Thank God for small favors. What'd I tell you when the Adair girl first showed up?”

“I know, I tried. But she's on a downward spiral. The kid needs therapy, rest, and some self-esteem.”

“None a that is your responsibility.”

“How can you turn your back on a slow-motion train wreck? That's what watching her is like.”

“Humph. Hear Corso claim credit after all Stone's work?”

“Yeah, typical. Riley knows better. But Corso made a good catch. Hears the description and there's the car right in front of 'im.”

“Strictly coincidence, always in his favor. Guy leads a charmed life.”

 

A huge two-story-high American flag hung limp in the airless humidity, signaling Ralph Plummer's Bayside Ford.

Sleek, shiny machines, including a new low-slung Thunderbird, gleamed on the showroom floor. Heady new-car aromas from SUVs, pickups, convertibles, and sedans permeated the air. Plummer's office was on a second-floor level, overseeing the showroom below.

His attractive, well-groomed secretary spoke with a British accent. His office was immaculate.

So was he. A tall and muscular, still-handsome man, Ralph Plummer wore a short, neat beard. His piercing dark eyes remained clear and intense at age sixty-one.

He held the business card Burch had given his secretary. “I was almost expecting you,” he said gravely. Despite his sad demeanor, Plummer's handshake was firm, his attitude friendly.

“We're not here to buy a car.”

“I know.” He nodded. “I planned to call you.” He sighed and sat down behind his desk. “I read the newspapers. Those dead infants found at the Shadows.” His well-manicured fingertips formed a pyramid and he stared at the floor. “I hate to say it, but there's a possibility, a good one, that one of those children, one of those babies, might be my son.”

He raised his eyes and stared at them bleakly.

“Tell us what brings you to that conclusion, Mr. Plummer,” Burch said.

“Call me R.J.” Plummer lined up three identical pencils in a precise row on his desk as he chose his words. “It's difficult to accept, but the time frame is accurate. I've agonized about their discovery since the first news story. It would explain a lot. The minute I heard about it…” He paused to press an intercom and asked his secretary to hold all calls.

“To put it bluntly, it would explain why I never found my boy. Over the years I've spent a fortune on private investigators. I've listed his place and date of birth on every Web site that helps to reunite adoptees with their natural parents. Nothing. Now I suspect that the reason I never found him was because he was no longer in this world to find. That he's been dead from the start. A bitter pill to swallow.”

“Would you be willing to give us a DNA sample? Then you'll know for sure,” Burch said.

“Of course,” he said. “Thank God for the technology. It will either give me closure or the impetus to keep on searching.”

“The child's mother was a Lorraine Conrad?” Burch asked.

Plummer smiled ruefully. “Sweet Lorraine. The first girl I ever loved. The love of my life. Nothing, nobody, ever affects you as much as your first love. I was sixteen when we had sex. She was fifteen. I remember that first time like it was yesterday.”

“Teenage hormones,” Burch said. “Passions run high.” His heart sank as he thought of his daughters, Jennifer and Annie, and his boy, Craig Jr.

Plummer reminisced from behind his desk. “It was summer.”

Damn, Burch thought. Could a told you that.

“I loved that little girl. The sweetest thing. Long golden brown hair all the way down her back, soft and silky with all kinds of highlights from the sun. Still young enough not to know how beautiful she was.

“It was the first time for us both. We'd been going steady for six months. I knew we would do it. Not if, just a question of when and where. I'd been reading everything I could find on the subject. Some neighbors had pitched a tent in their backyard. I don't even remember why now. But they weren't home.

“It was dark. It was late. We were lying in there on a blanket. She let me take off her clothes. I could feel the heat rise off her body. After that, we did it every chance we got.

“We stayed lucky for about a year. Had our ups and downs, little spats and scares, but then she got knocked up right around her sixteenth birthday. I was seventeen then. Her parents had an absolute fit.”

“Let me ask you something,” Burch said, arms folded. “You'd been having sex with their teenage daughter for a year and her parents had no clue? How'd you pull that off?”

“You know how it is.” Plummer smiled and hitched his shoulders. “They trusted us, and when there's a will, there's always a way.

“My parents were upset, too, just furious, but once they calmed down, they agreed to sign for us to get married. Said we could have the baby and live with them until we finished school and got on our feet. But her parents would have none of it. Took her out of school and wouldn't even let me see her.

“Abortion was still illegal back then. They persuaded her to give up the baby for adoption. That was my child. My firstborn. There was no way they could take that baby away from me, I thought. But I was wrong. I was a minor, I had no rights. I'd always been able to talk my mom and dad into anything. But they wouldn't listen this time. Both sets of parents got together and agreed. Mine told me her parents had the legal authority and there was nothing we could do. They were probably secretly relieved. They said it would give us better starts in life, better futures. But what about my child's future? I never forgave them.

“When I heard they'd sent Lorri to Dr. Wentworth's clinic, I went there and tried to see her. The doctor said Lorri didn't want to see me. I knew that was a lie, but she called the police. A couple of officers ran me out of there, warned if I came back I'd go to jail. Hell, I was hoping to get into a good college, maybe get a draft deferment and stay outta Vietnam.

“It didn't surprise me to read years later that those cops were on the doctor's payroll.

“I never even saw my son. Not once. Tried for years to find him. But the goddamn doctor was dead and didn't keep any fucking records. I hired private detectives. Even took blood tests a couple of times to see if maybe they had found my son. They never did.

“I always looked for him among young people on the street. Wondered if I would spot him in a crowd. I'd look in the mirror and wonder if he was wondering, looking in a mirror somewhere, too. Does he have my eyes? Is his smile like mine? Does he have Lorraine's golden brown hair?

“She was beautiful. We were like Romeo and Juliet. Star-crossed lovers. They shouldn't have kept us apart.”

“Did you ever see her again?” Nazario asked.

“Hell, yeah.” Plummer tossed it off like an afterthought. “We got married as soon as she was eighteen. But it was never the same. The moment had passed. We had three other kids, two girls and a boy, stayed together nine or ten years, then divorced. Bitch took me for a lotta money.

“It would have been different,” he said, “if we'd been allowed to stay together from the start, when the magic was still alive.”

“Where's your ex-wife now?” Burch said.

He shrugged. “Living up in Boca Raton, working as a bookkeeper.”

“Do you have any idea who killed Dr. Wentworth?”

“No. The morning after it happened, a detective came to our house. My folks nearly had heart attacks. But they confirmed that I was home when it happened.

“Had the doctor lived, I might a found my son. What about the babies, Detectives? Lorraine only saw our son once, but she swore to me on the Bible that he was beautiful, perfect, and healthy. How did he die? Did Wentworth kill them?”

“We're not sure yet. They're still doing tests,” Burch said.

“I don't understand.” Plummer rose from his desk, walked to a window, and stared out at passing traffic. “Why would she kill them? Babies were her bread and butter, her source of income. She profited from their adoptions. Why would she hurt them?”

“All I know is that crib death ain't contagious,” Burch said. “Did you know Pierce Nolan?”

He turned to look directly at them. “I knew of him. He was a prominent, big-time man about town, but I never met him. His murder was the talk of Miami, stayed on the front pages for a long time. If one of those infants is my son, I'd like to know how the hell they wound up at his place.”

“Good question.”