Miami, It's Murder (26 page)

Loose and friendly, he looked more slim now than skinny. In his blue jeans and Miami Hurricanes T-shirt, he exuded a wholesome collegiate appearance.

“I'm so glad to meet you, Bobby,” I said. “I want to talk to you about what happened twenty-two years ago.”

He nodded slightly, looking thoughtful. “I'd like that.” Stepping back, he opened the door wide. “I wondered why nobody came sooner. Come on in.”

Tense and thrilled, I followed. He still limped, favoring his right leg. Along one side of the room was a worktable on which a small radio and a toaster were disassembled. There was a soldering iron, a voltmeter, tweezers, long-nose pliers, screwdrivers, transistors, capacitors, and wires. The furniture was simple and inexpensive. I sat on the couch, placed my notebook on the coffee table in front of me, and uncapped my pen.

He sat in a brown leatherette chair across from me, his expression open and earnest, happy to see me. I scarcely knew where to start.

“Bobby, I know you still remember after all these years, and I want you to tell me about Mary Beth's murder. It's important.”

“I know.” He paused for a moment, then rested his head in his hands. “I didn't mean to kill her.”

Stunned, I managed to whisper, “Well, why did you? Let's talk about it.”

He raised his eyes, speaking softly, the fingers of both hands intertwined, elbows on his knees. “She kept screaming and screaming. She wouldn't stop, and this guy was coming on a bicycle. I had to keep her quiet. I didn't want anybody to know. So I did it. He went on down the bike path and never saw us.”

I pried my tongue loose from the roof of my mouth. “Fielding,” I said. “Fielding came back and found her body.”

Bobby nodded, one hand kneading the other in his lap.

“All these years, you never told anyone?”

He looked shy. “My mom didn't want me to. She said they'd put me in jail and I'd never see her again.”

“You were only a child,” I said. “I'm sure that wouldn't have happened.”

He wrinkled his brow, his expression curious. I looked around.

“What kind of work do you do? Do you have a job?”

He studied the floor. “Not exactly. My mom always wanted me to stay home since it happened, so I wouldn't get in any more trouble. But I fix things for people, for neighbors.”

He indicated the worktable, where he had apparently been occupied before I arrived.

“It's hard to get things fixed these days,” he explained. “My mom says we're a throw-away society. Nobody wants to fix anything, they just encourage customers to buy new toasters, tape recorders, radios. Everybody has small appliances that don't work, that with minor repairs would be as good as new. I have a knack for it, my mom says. I'm good at figuring out how things work. That's what I do.”

“You're right,” I said. “I tried to get a steam iron repaired once, and I couldn't find anybody to do it. They all said it wasn't worth it, I should buy a new one.”

“Betcha I coulda fixed it,” he said proudly.

I was like a duck, calm on the surface, paddling like crazy underneath.

“Bobby,” I said, leaning forward, “I think it's good for you to talk about Mary Beth Rafferty. It's time. Everybody will feel better, especially you. You could finally put it behind you.”

He nodded pensively, then his expression changed.

A sound or perhaps a presence startled me. Or maybe it was the look of guilt in Bobby's eyes. We were no longer alone.

A woman stood behind me, to my left, in the doorway to what I assumed was the kitchen. The other person in the picture taken twenty-two years ago. Bobby's mother was no longer pretty and plump. Heavyset now, she wore her shoulder-length hair caught in a net and pulled back. It was dyed black, each strand the same flat dark shade. She looked in her mid-fifties, though she might have been slightly older. Her slacks stretched taut across heavy thighs, and a plastic ID badge from Morningside Elementary School was pinned to her white blouse.

I wondered how much of our conversation she had overheard. The hostile look in her eyes was not promising. Mouth open, she was panting slightly as though from overexertion.

“Is this your mom?” I said, trying to project an innocent, friendly impression as I beamed, stood, and extended my hand.

“Who is she, Bobby?” She remained in the doorway, ignoring me, staring accusingly at her son. “What are you doing?” She directed her questions at Bobby, as though I weren't there.

“She wanted … to know about Mary Beth,” he sputtered, his voice defensive. “She's from the newspaper.”

Not exactly the words I would have chosen.

“What have you done?” she exploded.

“Hi,” I said. “Your son and I were just chatting, Ms. Van de Hyde. I'm working on a story about Mr. Fielding, the candidate. There was a tragedy today, someone was shot—”

“How dare you sneak into my house and badger my son!” Her tone was protective, and she took an angry step forward.

“I didn't sneak in,” I said evenly, trying to stand my ground and still sound reasonable. “I'd really like very much to sit down and talk to both of you.”

“Why?” Her suspicious eyes measured me, taking in the notebook on the coffee table, my car keys on the sofa where I'd been sitting.

“I'm a reporter for the
News
.” I dug in my pocket and offered my card.

If she throws me out, I worried, she'll probably see that nobody gets near Bobby for another twenty years.

“You have no right to come in here. We're not interested in any story,” she said sharply, ignoring the card in my outstretched hand.

“I think it might be good for your son.” I looked to him for support, affirming my fears. At my first exchange with his mother he had begun to rise from his chair, then froze halfway in a semicrouched position, eyes darting between us. The poor soul literally didn't know whether to sit down or stand up. So much for enlisting his aid to convince his mother that the three of us should have a cozy chat.

“I know what's good for Bobby,” she said, voice suddenly resigned. “But he can do whatever he likes. I have groceries to put away.” She smiled, looking almost hospitable. “Perhaps we can talk another time.” She turned and disappeared into the room from which she had come.

Surprised and relieved, I returned to the sofa. Bobby had sunk back into his chair, eyes shifting nervously between me and the kitchen door.

“Bobby, it's okay.” He either didn't hear or didn't believe me. The best move would be to get him the hell out of here, I thought. “Let's go out somewhere for a cup of coffee or a sandwich. Would you like that? I saw a Denny's just a couple of blocks away.” I snatched up my car keys. Once in the car I wouldn't stop at the neighborhood restaurant, I'd suggest another place where there was no danger of his mother barging in on us, perhaps close to police headquarters.

I smiled at Bobby, wondering why my suggestion caused such a look of horror on his face. The flash in my peripheral vision told me it was not what I had said but something he saw behind me.

She moved amazingly fast. Pain seared my left shoulder just below the neck. The woman had a butcher knife! Had I not turned, the blade would have caught me in the spinal column at the base of the skull.

My cry was more in shock than pain. The sleeve of my cotton dress was wet. Flinging myself back, I rolled to the side in an attempt to evade the slashing blade, leaving a smear of blood on the sofa cushion.

“What are you doing?” I cried, staggering to my feet, the coffee table between us.

Breathing hard, she stood with legs apart, eyes bright with anger, the knife still clutched tightly in her hand.

“Are you crazy?” I reached with my right hand and touched my left shoulder. Blood dripped down my arm. “Bobby?” I turned to him for help.

He sat mesmerized, wide eyes on his mother.

“You're not writing a story,” she hissed, spitting venom. “You think I spent my life protecting my son so you could waltz your ass in here and send him to jail?”

Fear made my knees shake. I stepped back, hands raised waist high in front of me. Still in his chair, Bobby looked agitated. “It wasn't my fault!” he cried.

Both were between me and the door. “No one would hurt you,” I said weakly. “You were a child. You wouldn't go to jail.”

“A hospital, Bobby, they'd put you in a hospital with crazy people. You'd never get out.” Her eyes remained on me.

I turned to Bobby, whose face was flushed. “If you had talked to the police when it happened you'd be free now, you'd have a normal life.”

His eyes looked wild. He opened his mouth to say something, and I broke past him for the door.

“Get her, stop her, Bobby!” she howled.

I stumbled against him, shoving him back into his chair as he rose, regained my footing, and reached the door. I turned the knob, fumbling frantically. It wouldn't open.

Bobby sprang to his feet, his mother screaming orders. We grappled at the door, and when he raised his right hand, I saw he had snatched a hammer from his worktable.

The blow glanced sideways off my forehead, buckling my knees. Darkness closed in, then receded as I fought to stay conscious. I sank to the floor, Bobby on top of me, shoving me back, straddling my body, pinning my shoulders.

I saw his mother's scuffed Nikes rapidly approach at eye level and knew she was going to kill me, plunge the knife over and over into my body.

“No!” I gasped. His knee in my midsection, fists on my shoulders, he looked up at his mother, the eyes of a child seeking approval. They focused, along with mine, on the knife in her hands.

“The carpet,” she said tersely. “We don't want her to ruin the carpet. Get the tape,” she said. “Hurry!”

I felt the pressure relieved as he got up, but, before I could react or inhale a full breath, a crushing weight forced the air out of my lungs with a
whoosh.

The woman was crouched on my chest, pinning my arms at odd angles. I couldn't breathe, much less scream. My lungs cried out for air, and I felt excruciating pain where she had stabbed me. Their voices sounded distant; I couldn't make out the words. The knife flashed above me as I winced and closed my eyes expecting to feel the blade. Nothing. I opened my eyes. She was using it to slash lengths of black plastic electrical tape from a roll. She began wrapping it around me, covering my mouth. I was swimming just this side of consciousness when the weight lifted from my chest and I was rolled over. My face lay against the fuzzy fibers of the carpet.

As my ankles and wrists were bound, somebody's fingers ran lightly, exploring up my leg to my inner thigh. I wanted to scream but couldn't. I was still trying with all my being to catch my breath.

Bobby's feet emerged from a bedroom. He was carrying a pink chenille bedspread that dragged across the carpet like a flowing robe. “Here.”

I heard her grunt. “Lay it flat.” They spread it out on the floor as I strained to watch, trying to raise my head. I was rolled up in the spread, dragged across the floor, and shoved into the bottom of a closet. The door closed and it was dark.

My legs were bent uncomfortably under me and the lint from the spread made my eyes tear and blink. I lay there in shock, catching my breath, trying to think. Would anyone look for me? Could anyone find me? There was no way anybody heard my few brief screams. Would they kill me? My eyes burned with tears. The woman is crazy, I thought. Could she be that crazy? My shoulder ached.

Dan was wrong all along. So was I. Was he still alive? How long would I be? With bitter irony I remembered the red and white beads tossed carelessly onto my dresser, the
resguardo
cast aside.

Would anyone miss me before it was too late? Who would know where to look? Onnie had no reason to remember the address she had looked up for me, much less divulge it to the city desk. I had warned her not to say she had heard from me.

The ebb and flow of voices continued for a time outside my small dark prison. A door slammed. The house was silent. What if they were leaving town and going into hiding? How long before anybody came? Too long. Too late for me.

My left leg numbed, as though asleep, but there was no way in my cramped position to relieve the pressure. After what seemed almost an hour later I alerted to a sound. My ears strained, every nerve ending tensed. A door slammed. Footsteps. The closet door opened, then closed again.

Minutes later it opened again and I was dragged out. They will kill me, I thought, and I can do nothing. Dragged by my feet through the house, over the threshold, bounced down three steps, I whimpered into the tape covering my mouth. Then I was lifted by two people and slung unceremoniously into something. The bedspread had come loose and was tossed on top of me. Hands forced me down. A lid slammed shut. I was in the trunk of a car.

Pitch dark and cramped, it smelled of stale air and exhaust fumes. I suddenly thought about my laundry, left in the dryer. Billy Boots and Bitsy hadn't been fed since morning. Would I ever see them again?

I tried to roll into a more comfortable position and my face pressed against something with the faint aroma of suntan oil, sand, and salty sea. My beach bag. I was in the trunk of my T-Bird! Somebody slid into the driver's seat. The car rocked gently. The door slammed. I heard the rattle of keys.

The engine started and the T-Bird backed out. Where are they taking me? I wondered, as panic overwhelmed me. Only one person had climbed into the car. If it was Bobby, I could try to reason with him. But I had to get the tape off my mouth first. I've seen some agile police prisoners maneuver handcuffed wrists down under their feet and bring their hands up in front. Bracing against the spare tire's raised wheel well, I tried again and again, until I thought I had dislocated both shoulders. My shoulder ached and bled. Not enough room for the necessary contortions. I had to try something else.

I was bound and gagged with electrical tape, relatively pliable and stretchy. Free of the bedspread, I could try to work on it. The tape wound around my wrists and ankles had already loosened slightly, so that it was not cutting off circulation.

I remembered that inside the trunk lid were cutouts with relatively sharp metal edges. Rolling onto my stomach, back aching in the cramped quarters, shoulder on fire, I lifted my wrists, groping. When I found one of the cutouts, I began sawing the tape against it.

The position was so uncomfortable that I had to stop after two or three minutes. Hyperventilating, I couldn't breathe. I squirmed until my head rested on my beach towel. I visualized it to calm myself:
MIAMI BEACH
in big blue letters, with a huge smiling dolphin. What would my father do? Never surrender, I knew that. He had engineered an escape for himself and other political prisoners from the infamous Isle of Pines prison. If he could do it, so could I.

I went back to work, sawing my wrists against the metal, trying to create as little noise and motion as possible. A loop of tape gave way. The rest slackened and unraveled. I manipulated my wrists and it fell away. My freed hands tore at the tape covering my mouth. I gratefully inhaled gulps of air and exhaust fumes for several minutes, licking my dry lips. The tape hung limply around my throat. I wished my Aunt Odalys's beads hung there instead.