Authors: Edna Buchanan
Love Kills (16 page)
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“What's
your
reason, Britt?” he asked later. “I need to be a part of all this for Suzanne. But you'd be happier and more comfortable at home right now, with your family and the baby's father.”
“He's no longer in the picture.” My voice suddenly sounded weary.
His eyes widened.
“Not by choice,” I said quickly, and then I told him, unloaded everything: about McDonald's death and my escaping Miami to mourn the past, and how, in doing so, Marsh Holt, his doomed bride, and I had passed like ships in the night. About my anger and self-doubt when I learned the truth, and my determination to seek justice by exposing him in print.
He nodded, eyes shiny. “The minute I saw you, I sensed we shared a common denominator. People who've never suffered tragedy don't understand. But we do, don't we?”
We talked half the night. He was haunted.
“Suzanne used to dream of falling. She'd wake up with a gasp. What do you think that was,” he asked plaintively, “precognition? Some kind of warning? A sign that evil was singling her out?”
“Dreams of falling are common, but I don't rule out anything,” I said, thinking of my Aunt Odalys, who dresses only in white and calls upon the spirits of the dead.
Lacey gave me his bed and made up one for himself on his study couch.
When trying to piece a complicated story together, I love to brainstorm with a good detective, or Lottie, or my landlady, or, believe it or not, a bright and interested editor. Lacey was perfect: quick, imaginative, and totally committed.
“Holt's MO, faked honeymoon accidents, is brilliant.” I recapped for him what I'd discovered so far, as he threw a thin beige blanket across the couch.
Lacey listened, eyes sick. “When I saw Marsh at Suzanne's funeral, I thought he was careless with the life of my girl. But I never dreamedâ”
“Exactly. He's a hell of an actor. Until now nobody's ever doubted his gut-wrenching performance as the bereaved bridegroom. It's Oscar-worthy. He has the role down pat.”
“Because he's had so much practice. What do we do next?” Lacey asked, before we said good night.
“I wish I knew.”
He kissed my cheek, a sweet and innocent kiss like that of a kid brother.
I know Fred Douglas too well, knew what he'd say, and that I didn't want to hear it. So I called early, more than an hour before he'd be at the office. I planned to leave a sorry-I-missed-you, things-are-fine message, breezy and brief, just enough to buy me some time. I was shocked when he answered his telephone.
What the hell is he doing there at 7
A.M
.? I wondered, dumbfounded, indignant, and totally caught off guard. Sure enough, he began to fire questions at me. I didn't lie, but ducked a few.
I could hear the frown in his voice. The man knows me too well. “Sounds like you're not accomplishing anything you couldn't do from here,” he correctly concluded.
I denied it. “I still have more leads to run down before I come back.”
“Okay, but wrap it up and come on in. Try to catch an afternoon flight, tonight at the latest. See you in the newsroom tomorrow bright and early.”
I hung up, disheartened. My cell rang immediately, so quickly I thought Fred had called me back. Instead, it was the lift operator from the Colorado ski resort, with good news, I prayed, just in the nick of time. I didn't want to go back to Miami, not today.
“That couple you wanted to talk to,” he said.
“You remembered their names?” I wanted to cheer as I groped for a pen.
“No.”
“Oh.”
“But I remembered that they're members of a ski club. The Miami Ski Club.”
“Miami?” The witnesses I needed belonged to the Miami Ski Club, one of the largest in the country. And I was in Baton Rouge.
Fred's right, I thought regretfully. Time to go home.
Lacey arrived back from the Café du Monde with a sack of beignetsâsweet sugary pastriesâand containers of rich, steaming café au lait. I broke the bad news as we ate.
He called his boss to say he wouldn't be in, and we used the little time left to collect quotes and local color for my story.
We visited Suzanne's grave at the local cemetery and the places she frequented during her short life, the school she attended, the church where her wedding and funeral were held just days apart.
Lacey introduced me to a few of her friends, all of whom embraced him fondly. Her maid of honor let me borrow a wedding picture. A complete set of wedding photos, Holt with each blushing bride, would provide powerful art for the story.
As I was about to make my flight reservation, Dr. Clark Wilson, the nationally known forensic photo analyst, touched base. “This is extremely interesting,” he said. “What time did you say these photos were taken?”
“Four o'clock in the afternoon,” I said. “She fell shortly after four
P.M
., according to the police report. The nine-one-one call was logged at four-oh-eight. The last photo, the one in which she stands closer to the edge, was two or three seconds before she fell.”
“Nonsense.”
“Excuse me?”
“Those pictures obviously were not shot when the photographer claims. They could not have been. On that date, at that time, the sun and the shadows were not in those positions at that locationânot at four
P.M
., three
P.M
., or even noon. Those photos were taken at eleven-thirty-five
A.M
., give or take a minute.”
“Can you really be that precise?”
He was certain.
Excited, I called Arizona.
The deputy was not impressed. The medical examiner found Dr. Wilson's findings “curious.” Neither considered it sufficient proof of anything other than the fact that the shaken bridegroom may have been mistaken about the time he took the pictures.
They stonewalled, but my story was coming together. This was crucial. Dr. Wilson, foremost in his field, published in prestigious journals, had testified as an expert witness in major cases nationwide. How could his findings be ignored?
I called Liz, the
News
researcher. The night before, Lacey and I had brainstormed, trying to determine where Holt had gone by tracking his past patterns. Our admittedly vague conclusion was that he had probably headed north. But where? I asked Liz to search for a paper trail and suggested that his destination might be a northern city.
“He seems to like to go north in the summer and south in the winter,” I said.
“Who doesn't?” she said.
I reluctantly booked a 7
P.M
. flight back to Miami.
The Hansens called as I checked out of my motel. Vanessa's father sounded confused, his voice shaky, as though he had aged dramatically in the brief time since we first spoke.
“I have something for you.” He went on to describe his trip to the post office in laborious detail. The punch line? Holt had not filed a change of address.
Next, Hansen had visited the apartment house where his daughter had planned to live with her new husband. He spoke to the owner and several neighbors. Holt had confided to each of them, they said, that he could not bear to remain in Boston without Vanessa. His only plan, he told them, was to drive long enough to distance himself from his memories.
His grief so touched the building's owner that, in an uncharacteristically generous gesture, the man returned the couple's security deposit along with half the first month's rent.
Another profitable performance by Marsh Holt, the actor, I thought, with a sigh.
“So then we stopped to have lunch at the Fireside,” Hansen was saying, his voice querulous. “Do you know it?”
“No, sir.” I checked my watch. “I'm not familiar with Boston.”
“An excellent choice. They have a very nice menu.”
That reminded me that I was hungry. Again. I peered into the empty bakery bag, seeking crumbs.
“My wife ordered the fish, I had chicken. Right after we ordered, she said, âIsn't that Bob Feldman sitting over there?' She was right. He waved and came over to offer his condolences. He was at the funeral, but there was such a crowd. We asked him to sit.”
My eyes began to cross. I had a plane to catch.
“Vanessa had a little IRA,” he rambled on. “You know, an Individual Retirement Account. Bob set it up for her. He's been our financial adviser since she was a little girl. Marsh cashed it in. Bob said it took a little time to get the paperwork done. But he wired Marsh the money, $26,552, on Monday.”
I dropped the beignet bag and sat up straight, fingers tightening on the phone. “Where? Did he say where he sent it?”
“To a bank in Minneapolis. Marsh gave him the account number.”
“You're absolutely sure?”
“That's what Bob told us.”
“See if he can give you the name of the bank and the address of the branch it went to.”
I called Liz on our way to Lacey's apartment to pick up my laptop. “Holt may be in Minneapolis. He was there a few days ago to pick up some money.”
We were about to head for the airport when Liz called back, twenty minutes later.
“Minneapolis,” she said. “You were right.”
“Is he still there?”
“Definitely.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“He wouldn't miss his own wedding.” Marsh Holt, she said, had applied for a marriage license.
I repeated her words aloud. Lacey and I stared at each other. His hands shook.
“Who's the unlucky lady?”
“A Nancy Lee Chastain, age thirty-four. Want me to transfer you to the city desk?”
“No,” I said quickly. “Don't tell them you talked to me. Find out everything you can about the bride. I'll call you back in an hour.”
“Do we still go to the airport?” Lacey asked. “Are you really leaving?”
I nodded. “Can you call the airline for me?” I said. “Cancel my flight to Miami and find the next one to Minneapolis.”
I punched numbers into my cell phone. Onnie wasn't at her desk in the library. I waited while someone went to find her.
“There's a Minneapolis flight leaving in ninety minutes,” Lacey said. “It's not direct. You have to change planes twice.”
I checked my watch. “Can we make it?”
“It'll be close.”
“Book me a seat in coach,” I said.
Onnie picked up as I heard Lacey confirm my flight. “Two seats in coach,” he said.
“Britt?”
“Right here, Onnie, I was distracted for a second.”
I asked her to e-mail me the names and telephone numbers of as many Miami Ski Club members as she could find.
Lacey was tossing underwear and toiletries into a duffel bag.
“Why don't I just leave them on your desk?” Onnie said. “I hear you'll be back in the office tomorrow.”
“E-mail them,” I said, after an awkward pause.
“Or maybe not,” she said. “I'll get right on it.”
“Do me a favor. Don't tell anybody in the newsroom that we talked.”
She sighed. “Okay. My lips are sealed.”
I called Liz from the car on the way to the airport.
“Nancy Lee Chastain started out as an anonymous food critic,” she said. “She is now the star of her own local cable TV show on food, catering, and entertaining.”
“Has she been featured in a newspaper or magazine in the last six months?”
“How'd you guess? The
Pioneer Press
did a huge profile with color art. It started on the front of the style section, then jumped to an entire page inside. Nice space.”
She gave me the name and phone number of the bride's parents.
“One other thing, Britt. Better step on it. The wedding's tomorrow.”
I repeated her words. We were already speeding, but Lacey's Chevy convertible leaped forward as he floored it.
MIAMI, FLORIDA
No one who met him seemed to forget the Custody Crusader.
Andy Raddis, a silver-haired veteran newsman at WAVE radio, which broadcasts from a waterfront station on the 79th Street Causeway, remembered the man well. He told Sam Stone that when he walked his guest to the exit after their interview, Spencer York paused to carefully scrutinize the parking lot before stepping out.
“Expecting someone?” Raddis had asked, assuming York was watching for his ride.
“When you do live radio,” the Crusader said meaningfully, “you never know who, or what, might be waiting for you outside.”
“I thought the guy was just being melodramatic.” Raddis shrugged. “He was kind of over-the-top, if you know what I mean.”
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On the other side of the city, Burch and Nazario, who had refused to go home despite his battered knees and aching hip, found the Sea-something Motel.
In a city where skylines evolve overnight, it seemed miraculous that the Sea Voyager still stood nine years later, was still run down and had the same manager.
“What are the odds?” Burch said. “Maybe we're getting lucky.”
“About time,” Nazario said, limping.
The manager, a seedy, slightly built man with greasy hair, feigned ignorance.
“You remember,” Nazario coaxed. “Spencer York, the Custody Crusader, the guy who made all the newspapers when everybody and their brother was looking for him. He stayed here.”
“Oh, yeah,” the manager said reluctantly. “That guy. The Crusader. He was here. He took off on me, still owes on the bill.”
“We're thinking he didn't take off voluntarily, like everybody thought at the time,” Nazario said. “We're thinking he ran into trouble.”
“Any of that trouble happen here?” Burch asked.
“No, no. No trouble here.” The manager's lazy left eye wandered.
“That's funny. We heard you do have trouble here,” Burch said. “In fact, so much trouble, the city threatened to shut this place down as a public nuisance last year. You almost lost your license to operate. You're on probation. Any more trouble and you're out of businessâ¦. And failing to cooperate with a homicide investigation? Now, that's trouble. Big-time trouble, right here, right now.”
“What do you need?” he whined. “I never refused to cooperate.”
“Good,” Burch said. “I'm glad we understand each other.”
“Being that Mr. York left here unexpectedly,” Nazario said, “we assume he left his things behind in his room. What happened to them?”
“That was a long time ago.” The manager looked uneasy.
“They were his personal belongings,” Burch said. “Selling them or converting them to your own use would be illegal. Help yourself to somebody else's property, and that's trouble.”
“He hardly had anything,” the man babbled, suddenly talkative. “We don't exactly get the high rollers, the big spenders. The guy had nothing worth taking.”
“Where is it?”
The manager's eyes shifted toward a small office just off the lobby. “He had one of those little portable typewriters. When I packed up his room, I put it to use in there.”
They trailed him into his cluttered office.
“Whadaya know,” Burch said. A battered little Smith-Corona sat on an old desk.
“That's it.” The manager shrugged. “Take it. You can hardly find ribbons for it anymore.”
“What else?” Nazario said.
The manager shrugged. “Buncha junkâpapers, notebooks.”
“Sounds like evidence to me,” Burch said.
“Right, Sarge. Important evidence,” Nazario agreed.
The manager scratched the dark stubble on his chin with a grimy fingernail. “Might be a box back in the storage room,” he said. “I thought he might show up sometime, looking for it. I don't remember tossing it. Maybe it's still in there.”
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The storage room, the size of a walk-in closet, was dirty, full of cobwebs, and smelled musty.
The manager had to stoop and slip in sideways. He began to move old lamps, luggage, and boxes, raising clouds of dust as he worked his way toward the low sloped ceiling at the far end. The detectives stood outside and watched.
“I think I got it,” he called, coughing in the dust.
His eyes watered as he stepped squinting into the brilliant sunlight, clutching a cardboard storage box.
“That's it?” Nazario said. “Anything else?”
“Nope. That's all. You can see. Here, I marked the date on the box and wrote âone of one.' So there'd be no mistake if he came back. See that? My handwriting. âOne of one.'”
They went back to his air-conditioned office and wrote him a receipt for the box, its contents, and the typewriter.
“Let me ask you something, pal,” Burch said. “When it was all over the TV and the newspapers that York had jumped bond, and the police, the state attorney's office, and his bondsman were all looking for him, how come you didn't drop a dime and let them know where he'd been staying?”
“They were looking for him,” the manager said matter-of-factly. “He wasn't here at the time. He was missing here too. What good would it have done?”
“Let's see his room,” Nazario said.
“What good is that gonna do now?”
“Maybe we want to conduct a séance,” Burch said, “so we can ask him what the hell happened.”
“If the bad thing that happened to Spencer York took place in that room, we have sophisticated forensic techniques that might still provide us with evidence,” Nazario explained.
Room 8B was currently unoccupied. The room air conditioner was off and the sickeningly sweet odor of bathroom disinfectant mingled with the faint smell of mildew.
Burch kicked up the corner of a stained throw rug.
“From the quality of the housekeeping, we're sure to find evidence,” Burch said. “York's socks are probably still under the bed.”
“Gimme a break,” the manager whined. “This ain't the Fountainebleau. Who are you, the cleaning police?”
“Lock up the room,” Nazario said. “Don't rent it out until we get a crime-scene truck over here.”
“You're serious?”
“Absolutely.”
“Can you ask them to park around back? It doesn't look good out front. It's bad for business. I mean, I
am
cooperating.”
“We'll see,” Burch said. “We have a few more questions. Did you have any robberies, violent crimes, here at the motel back around that time? Any other guests go missing?”
“Some people skip, don't want to pay the bill. But nobody that I remember back then ever reported getting robbed. A lotta guys will pick up a girl in a bar, bring her back to his room, and then wake up and find her gone with his watch, his wallet, and sometimes his car. Most don't report it. They're embarrassed or afraid their old lady'll find out. But nothing where anybody gets hurt.”
“What about visitors?” Burch said. “You ever see York with anybody?”
“Right around the time he took off, he shows up one night with another guy, a businessman type. They hoist a few drinks in the lounge, do a lot of talking, like they're making a deal.” He shrugged.
“I don't remember seeing 'im after that. You saw the date on the box. I always wait three days before I consider them gone. So he came back with that guy three nights before the date on the box.”
“That would be Dyson,” Nazario said. “The night of the meeting.”
“What about women?” Burch asked. “York ever have a woman in his room?”
“That same night, when I took out the trash, I heard a voiceâa woman's voiceâin his room.”
“Did you see her?” Nazario asked.
“No, who am I? The sex police? You know what we've got walking round this neighborhood.”
“Did you recognize her voice? Was she somebody who frequents this place?”
“Hard to say. I don't think so.”
“Did it sound like a friendly encounter? Sex? An argument? Confrontation?”
“I didn't listen.”
“That night,” Nazario said, “York was flush. We know for a fact that he came back here carrying a lot of moneyâin cash.”
The manager's eyes lit up. “How much?”
“Several thou.”
“I never saw any of it.”
“Sure he didn't ask you to line him up with some of the local talent?” Burch asked.
“No way! I'm no pimp, if that's what you're asking. The guy had his own connection.”
“What makes you say that?” Nazario asked.
“He was only here a few days from outa town, but he had several calls from womenâ
a
woman. I think it was always the same one.”
“She leave a name?” Nazario asked.
“Don't think so. Just asked me to ring his room. When he didn't answer, she'd call back and say, âTell him I called,' but she wouldn't leave a name. She said he'd know.”
The detectives exchanged glances. “She ever call, looking for him again, after he left?” Nazario asked.
“Nah, not that I remember.”
“Aha!” Burch said, as they stashed the cardboard box and York's portable typewriter in the trunk of their unmarked. “The mystery woman did exist.”
“The manager was telling the truth,” Nazario affirmed. He could always tell.
“Who the hell is she?”
“At least we've got it narrowed downâ¦to half the population.”
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“Yo, you guys been dumpster diving?” Corso greeted Nazario and Burch as they arrived with the old typewriter and the dusty storage box.
“These,” Burch said, “are Spencer York's personal effects, everything he left behind at his motel. The manager boxed it up and never told a soul.”
“Do tell.” Corso meandered over to the desk as Nazario lifted the lid off the cardboard box.
“Christ.” Corso quickly stepped back. “That dust and mildew'll set off my allergies. Sorry, I can't give you a hand.”
As Burch and Nazario sorted through the items in the box, Stone stepped off the elevator.
“Hey, Sarge. I think there's a woman in the picture.”
Burch and Nazario reacted. “What makes you say that?”
“I just reinterviewed the bail bondsman. The front man who posted York's bond had to confer during the transaction with whoever actually put up the money. He made a couple of calls. The bondsman swears he was talking to a woman. Thought he even heard the guy call her
ma'am.
At one point, he said he had to call 'er back again. Maybe she was somebody's secretary. Or she mighta been the one who wanted him back out on the street. The bondsman says the bagman looked young, but his Florida driver's license, which later proved to be fake, gave his age as twenty-two.”
“Maybe things are coming together,” Burch said. They brought Stone up-to-date as the three pored through the musty contents of the box. Local bus schedules. An old Betty Friedan paperback, with a number of the early feminist's passages highlighted in yellow.
“Look at this!” Burch said. “A receipt from Home Depot for a tarp. Odds are it was the one he was wrapped in. Dated the day he was last seen. What'd I tell you?” He turned to Nazario. “He was killed in that room.”
“Credit card?” Stone asked.
“We should be so lucky. Paid for it in cash.”
There were local business cards, including Dyson's, the radio newsman's, and some they recognized as members of Fathers First.
At the bottom: a black-and-white composition book.
Nazario whistled as he flipped through the pages.
“Looks like a diary and a list of his expenses. Where did that nurse killed in Lauderdale come from?”
“Pine Bluff, Arkansas,” Stone said.
“Bingo! York bought gas there, on a date about a year before Cunningham.” Nazario quickly turned to the last few entries.
“Listen to this.”
Even Corso rolled his chair closer, forgetting his allergies.
“â
M must be in Miami. Haven't had a sure sighting, but I can sense her. Almost smell her.
'”
“That's the date he bonded out of jail.”
Nazario turned the page. “Next day. â
M. Did she follow me here? That crazy bitch. What does she want from me now? Will it ever end? I could cut her heart out.
'”
“That's somebody he had a history with,” Burch said.
“Sounds like me and my ex-wife,” Corso said.