Miami, It's Murder (23 page)

“Think he'll admit to anything, Britt?” Fred asked doubtfully.

“Despite what's he done, he's an honest man who never lied to me. I think he feels justified. The worst he might do would be to lose his temper and refuse to talk to me at all.”

“Even if he denies everything, which is likely, his involvement in all those cases makes a hell of a story.” Fred nodded. “Think we can arrange a picture of that bottle cap? Think anybody else has seen how he marks them?”

“Probably everybody who knows him. I'll try to interview him in the morning.”

I made my last two calls from home that night.

McDonald was working late, compiling statistics to use in the new budget proposal for homicide. The best cops are promoted and don't do police work anymore, I thought. He sounded businesslike, his professional mode. “I just have one question,” I said.

“Sure, Britt.”

“How did Dan react when you told him about Farrington?”

“What are you talking about?” He sounded genuinely bewildered.

“Farrington, the contractor who got cemented into a pillar out at the new shopping center.”

“That wasn't our case. It's the county's.”

“I know, I know,” I said impatiently. “But you heard about it, knew he was the suspect in Dan Flood's old case, and called to tell him, right?”

“I still don't know what the hell you're talking about, Britt. I've been meaning to call Dan but, remember, I told you: I haven't spoken to the man in weeks and definitely not about some county case.”

“Oh. Guess I was mistaken. Thanks, McDonald.”

Dan answered on the first ring. He sounded glad to hear from me. “I need to see you.”

“Any time, Britt. Lunch on your day off?”

“No, I'd like to make an appointment to interview you, tomorrow.” Did my voice reveal the guilt I felt?

He paused. “Since when do you need an appointment to see me?”

“I wanted to make sure you were available.”

“Like I said, any time. What kind of interview?”

“About your old cases. Can I come to your house? Ten o'clock?”

“Okay with me.” He sounded puzzled, or was it cautious? “Hope you don't shock easy.”

“Why would I be shocked?” My throat felt dry.

“My pad ain't exactly
House and Garden,
you know.”

“Nothing should shock us anymore. Remember, you told me that once.”

“Right.”

I slept poorly, anticipating our meeting. Did Dan suspect? Was he able to rest? Was Hector Ugalde enjoying his nights in jail? Finally it had to be time to get up. Dragging myself into a sitting position, I stared in disbelief at my digital clock. Four
A
.
M
. Damn, I thought, rubbing my eyes, I got more rest when the rapist was still on the prowl.

I dressed carefully the next morning, as though for a date. It was a date of sorts; Dan was my old friend.

I wore my favorite blue blazer. I still wore my Aunt Odalys's beads and pinned the
resguardo
to my underwear. Maybe they had become a habit. Maybe I wanted my luck to last.

I left the gun behind.

In all the years I had known Dan, I had never visited him at home. I parked in front of the pretty little house precisely at ten. It was a bit neglected perhaps, but a happy family had obviously lived there and loved it. An overhang near the front door protected an area with metal tracks on the ground to accommodate bicycles. Summer heat had decimated once-well-kept flower beds. The hedges looked overgrown. A huge ficus was spreading its branches dangerously close to the roof, and an avocado tree needed pruning.

His car, the Buick, was in the drive.

I stared morosely at it for a moment, then rang the doorbell.

He opened the door, blinking in the sunlight. The belt of his sports slacks looked loose, and he wore house slippers. His eyes looked puffy, and when we hugged, his body felt frail and breakable in my arms, so different from the strapping bear of a man he had been.

“Knew you'd be right on time,” he said, smiling broadly. “Reporters always show up on time, one of the things I learned from you.”

He stepped back, hands on my shoulders, peering into my eyes, then touched his grizzled fist gently to my chin.

“You look okay, kid. You had me worried there, with that freak running around.”

The living room was comfortable with natural-colored furniture, bookcases, and now-empty planters. An overflow of old newspapers rose from a chair, but otherwise everything looked neat.

“Take off your jacket and stay awhile. Can I get you anything?” He looked like the anxious host. “Coffee?”

“No, thanks, unless you're having some.”

“Sure thing, we can sit here.” He indicated the dining room table and slowly padded into the kitchen. He saw me notice his floppy slippers and looked embarrassed.

“My ankles and my feet were swollen this morning, can't even get my shoes on. How do ya like that? Must be my medication.”

I nodded. “So how is retirement?”

He set a brimming mug in front of me and another in front of his chair. “I shoulda picked up some donuts or something.”

“No, thanks, I had breakfast.”

“So,” he said. “Didn't know which cases you were interested in so I got out the old scrapbooks.” Half a dozen were stacked on a footstool next to a chair. “The wife and daughter kept 'em,” he said, looking sheepish. “Clipped out every newspaper story that mentioned my name and some that didn't. All the old cases. The last one's not quite up to date. My last year on the job.” He sat down heavily and gazed fondly at me. I felt ashamed and devious. This was horrible, but I had to go through with it.

I placed my tiny tape recorder next to the sugar bowl and pressed the record button. “Do you mind?”

He shook his head, eyes searching mine. “Where were we?”

“Retirement,” I said brightly, and sipped my coffee.

“Well,” he said, without hesitation, “it's like cutting an umbilical cord. All of a sudden you're on your own, not a part of mother city anymore. Never occurred to me all those years, but it was a cozy feeling to be with the department, with insurance, retirement, everything taken care of for you. Like a spoiled kid who leaves home, you have to sink or swim on your own. You feel a little apprehensive about leaving the family that took care of you for thirty years.” He grinned. “That's not for publication. I wouldn't admit that to anybody but you.”

Reaching behind him for an ashtray, he took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and shook one loose. “You mind?”

“Only on your account.”

“Speaking of retirement: you know, Irene and me, we had it all planned out.” He lit up, his hand shaky, and took the first puff, exhaling a thin stream of smoke through his nostrils. “We were thinking ahead. Bought a piece of property up in the mountains, in Carolina. Were gonna build the year before I retired. The plans are still around here someplace. It was gonna have a separate bedroom and bath for the kid when she came to visit.” He sniffed and drank his coffee. “Things never turn out the way you plan.”

“Seems that way,” I said softly.

“Gotta tell ya, I miss the job. Catching bad guys, arresting people, catching couples making love at three
A
.
M
. in the woods, seeing all this flesh jumping around in a car in the dark.”

He grinned wickedly.

“It was a good run. We closed a lotta good cases. Remember that Jane Doe that went unidentified for six months, we finally made her and nailed the boyfriend up in Georgia?”

“The one where you finally matched the dead woman's fingerprint to one on an employment application?”

“That's it!” His eyes lit up. “He'd told her family she'd met some guy and run off on him in Miami.”

“Great case. He still in jail?”

“Should be. He got the twenty-five-year mandatory minimum. That one's in there with the others.” He gestured toward the scrapbooks as memory kicked in. “You know, it always bugged me that we never solved the Susan Stratford case. That one happened around the same time.”

“The one where the girl's car was abandoned in the shopping center parking lot and she was found miles away, stabbed to death in a woods?”

“Right. Had to be a chance encounter, somebody she ran into shopping that day. Remember, she bought a shirt for her dad?”

“His birthday.”

“Your memory is as good as mine.” He sighed regretfully and shook his head. “Always thought we could have solved that one. Had to be something we missed. It disturbed me a lot, Britt.” He massaged the loose folds of skin on one side of his face with his fingers. “I often felt I let those victims down. I was supposed to do my thing. Maybe I should have done it better. I did what I could, but a lot of times the courts or the circumstances just weren't there.” He looked wistful.

“You gave it your best shot. Nobody worked harder than you,” I said. “You're not responsible for the system. It leaves a lot to be desired, but it's all we've got.”

His eyes hinted at thoughts unspoken. “The more I look back on the injustice, the wounds and the scars, the more hung up I get about the system, the department, things left undone.”

“Sometimes you just have to leave it to God.”

He scoffed, his smile bitter. “I didn't vote for God. If that freaking Marielito or anybody else did something terrible to you or someone else I cared about now, I would want to kill him. I wouldn't want to see the victim run through that meat grinder they call the system. The fairest way is to kill him and spare the victim all that crap.”

He watched, waiting, as I stirred my coffee.

“I never thought I'd hear you advocate street justice.”

“Yeah, I've arrested people myself for taking the law into their own hands. I got personally caught up in cases when I carried a badge, but I never thought about killing the bad guys. Not once. Never even thought about it. But now, at this stage of life—”

He shrugged.

“What exactly are you working on, Britt?” He raised his coffee mug.

“A story about what you've been doing in retirement.”

He put the cup down.

“You've been keeping busy.” I stated it as a flat fact, not an accusation.

“Yeah.” His eyes held mine without wavering.

“I talked to Ruby Creech last night.”

Dan shifted his gaze to a point somewhere over my left shoulder, the muscles in his jaw working. “She covered up for that son of a bitch all those years,” he said finally.

“She was surprised to hear you'd retired, seeing as how you'd been sitting on their place around the time he died.”

His expression went from bitter to bleak.

“Farrington, who wasn't supposed to be found, was shot with a thirty-eight similar to a detective special. The person who did it dropped something at the scene. Amazing, how in all that cement they found it.”

He took a deep breath.

“McDonald didn't tell you he was dead, though you knew all about it when I called.”

Dan stood up abruptly, startling me. Without a word, he shambled into the kitchen. I heard the refrigerator door open and close. He came back carrying a can of Budweiser and sat down again.

“I'm the last one you're interviewing, right?” He popped open the beer.

I nodded, a lump in my throat.

“See,” he said, staring at the label on the can. “I know how you operate. I've watched you long enough. I ever tell ya, I always thought you shoulda been a cop? Would have made a great partner.”

“If you had spaced them out more, I might never have caught on,” I said quietly.

“I would've, but I didn't have the luxury of time.” He leaned forward as though it was important for me to believe him. “You know I always cared about the job—”

“About justice.”

“But in the end I realized there is no justice in the system.”

“But why? How could you?”

“How could I not?” His voice became intense. “There is only one type of permanent rehabilitation for creeps like them, and that's death.” The little wheels turned in the tape recorder. He stared at them and repeated the thought as if to be sure the machine got it right. “Death is the only known sure rehabilitation. This was preventive: proactive police work instead of reactive.”

“But why you?” I said, anguish in my voice.

“I have nothing to lose.”

“What about your reputation, the commendations?”

“That's right, I did good. And this was the last good thing I could do in my career. I always tried to stay in touch with victims and their families, to let 'em know somebody still remembered. This was the last thing I could do for them.”

He took a pull on his beer, then licked his pale lips. “Sometimes life boils down to law and order versus justice. And some of it was probably spite on my part.”

“How so?”

“I'd see some son of a bitch who should be sitting on Death Row and think, ‘No way is that bastard gonna outlive me.' I wanted to read their obituaries before they read mine, okay? The best revenge is outliving the scum.”

Perspiring, he winced, right hand to his chest, as though in pain.

“Are you okay?”

“As okay as I'm ever gonna be.” His voice was a gasp.

“Can I get you something?”

“A glass of water.” Fumbling with the pills in his pocket, he withdrew a small brown bottle with the telltale lid.

I went into the kitchen, ran a cool glass of water, and brought it back. He put two tiny white pills under his tongue and closed his eyes.

I sat and waited while they dissolved, absorbing through the mucous membranes under his tongue. After several moments he opened his eyes, with a shaky sigh.

“Feel better?”

“In a minute. The nitro works pretty fast.” His pale face slowly reddened to a flush.

“They're for chest pain,” he explained. “I've got it all, nitro, digitalis, diltiazem, aspirin, digoxin, Lasix, Capoten, Maalox. I'm a walking, talking drugstore.”

“Maybe your medication is what caused you to—”

His gaze was scornful. “You know how I hate that. People blaming what they did on broken homes, bad childhoods, booze, drugs. It's all bullshit. We do things because we want to. No excuses.”

“But in your condition, how were you able to physically—”

“The gun. I was a cop, so they never really thought I'd do it. Thought I was hassling 'em.

“Creech was pissed as hell, but he finally agreed to put on his old lady's lingerie, at gunpoint. I'd seen two of those cases over the years, so it wasn't hard to set up. I'd seen her leave, I'd been surveilling them and knew their habits. Knew how much time I had.”

I sat stunned, unable to speak.

“Same with Farrington. He climbed up on that catwalk, bitching and moaning, swearing to file a complaint with IA in the morning. Didn't compre why we were going up there. Made him jump and shot him as he fell.

“Had some chest pains, the angina. Had to take a couple of nitro pills. I got shaky and fumbled the bottle, lost the top. It rolled off and I didn't see where it went. They found it, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“They know who it belongs to?”

“Not yet.”

“You're probably the only person who woulda recognized it.”

“What about Steiner? How'd you rig the wires?”

He did a double take, raising his eyebrows. “You think I did him?” His voice was full of wonder, his expression incredulous.

“You didn't?”

He shook his head, with a snort that came close to a laugh.

“You know I don't lie to you, Britt. Closest I ever came was to hint that Ken had tipped me about Farrington, but, if you remember, I didn't actually say it.” He aimed his index finger at me like a gun. “I didn't do Steiner. The dumb son of a bitch did himself. It was so appropriate.” He smiled like a church deacon, inspired by a sermon. “That's what gave me the idea. So you thought I did him!” He gloated. His expression said I wasn't so smart after all.

He saw me check the recorder, then licked his lips. “When you gonna run this story?”

“It has to be lawyered first.”

He gave a short, ironic bark. “Why? I'm gonna sue you? Did you forget? We're friends.”

“The paper has to have the lawyer go over a sensitive story like this. It'll probably run Sunday.”

“This week?” He looked startled.

I nodded.

“That soon?” He seemed lost in thought.

He put both elbows on the table after a moment and leaned toward me.