Suitable for Framing (8 page)

The guard said no.

No sign of Ellie in the laundry room. Nothing.

While Trish comforted Ellie's husband, whose name was Ben, I decided to do a floor-by-floor down to the street.

“Wait.” Trish took me aside, her face intent. “Let's brainstorm, Britt. Her husband says she has a bad hip and tires easily, but didn't take her cane. You know”—light gleamed in her gray eyes—“little children missing from home are usually found much closer than anybody expects.”

True. I had covered my share of stories where searchers beat the bushes miles away for a tot who was home all along, hiding in a closet or at the bottom of a murky family pool.

“Let's remember that advanced Alzheimer's patients are like little kids.” She turned calmly to the husband. “What's your apartment number, Ben?”

He gestured to an open door halfway down the hall. “Five-fourteen.” His voice trembled.

“Let's start there.”

Made sense to me. Neat apartment, drapes drawn, television still blaring to an empty room, prescription medicine neatly arranged on a kitchen counter. We checked beneath the bed and in every closet and cabinet, as Ben flailed his arms frantically, insisting, “I looked! I looked! She's not here. Ellie. She could be in the ocean. Ellie,” he moaned. “It's my fault.”

We found a stack of adult diapers in the bathroom, more evidence that late-stage Alzheimer's patients are like helpless children. She was not in the apartment.

Undaunted, Trish led us back out into the hall. “I want to check the storage bins under the stairs,” she said, moving quickly toward the fire exit.

She propped open the fire door and we descended a flight. Beneath the stairwell were numbered and padlocked storage lockers for residents. “These padlocks all seem intact.” Trish's voice echoed in the poorly lit stillness. I held Ben's arm tightly on the stairs. This was a bad idea, I realized. What if he falls? What if somebody closes the fire door, trapping us? Most victims of geriatric dementia wander away in search of their primary caretaker. She wouldn't look for Ben down here.

“Here's one without a lock.” Trish's voice came from below. The hinges of a wooden door protested loudly.

“Omigod, omigod, she's here! Britt! She's here!”

I clung to Ben as we scrambled down the last few steps. Trish was on all fours, reaching into the tiny space, no more than 22 inches wide, by about 28 inches high and not quite 24 inches deep. The missing woman filled the cubicle, curled into a fetal position, knees beneath her chin.

“Ellie!” Ben sat down hard on the stairs, out of breath and panting.

I rushed to help Trish, who had tugged the woman's arm and now grasped her beneath the shoulders, trying to free her from her small prison.

“She must have shut herself in there and couldn't get out,” Trish said, grunting. “There's no latch on the inside.”

“It had to be stifling,” I said. “There's no ventilation.”

The woman lay supine, her blue dress rumpled and soaked by sweat and urine, bare feet still inside the enclosure. “Jesus, she's not breathing!” Trish's face was white.

I slipped my fingers into the groove at the woman's neck. Her skin felt clammy, her lips looked blue. “I don't feel a pulse!”

Trish knelt and turned the woman's face to one side to clear her airway in case it was blocked. Her fingers explored the slack mouth and gingerly removed a set of false teeth.

I shivered and turned to Ben, trying to sound calm. “Go upstairs now and dial Nine-one-one. Be careful and don't fall, but hurry.” I helped him to his feet and propelled him up the stairs. Thank God it was only one flight.

Trish pinched the woman's nose, took a deep breath, and began mouth-to-mouth, covering the bluish lips with her own, forcing air into the woman's lungs. I straddled the still body and began closed heart massage.

“One-one hundred, two-two hundred, three-three hundred, four-four hundred, five-five hundred. Breathe!”

I felt her breastbone and fragile rib cage, like that of a delicate bird, beneath the heel of my hand as I tried not to press too hard. I had heard horror stories about overzealous rescuers breaking bones, crushing ribs.

“One-one hundred, two-two hundred, three-three hundred, four-four hundred, five-five hundred. Breathe!” Trish lifted her face, inhaled a deep breath, then began again as I counted. “One-one hundred, two-two hundred…”

Once when Trish came up for air, she gasped, “Is he calling rescue?”

“Yes, response time should be only a few minutes.”

We kept on. It seemed surreal, this almost mechanical teamwork in the shadows of a musty stairwell. The food, music, and camaraderie shared minutes ago seemed like a distant dream.

“Getting anything?” Trish gasped.

I searched for a pulse. Nothing.

“Keep going,” I said. “Keep going. At least till they get here.”

It went on forever. Slowly I began to realize that we were alone in the semidarkness with a corpse. This wasn't working. She was lost. We were going to fail.

“One-one hundred, two-two hundred…” I forced myself to think only of the counting.

Somebody gasped and gagged. I thought it was Trish.

“She's breathing! Britt, she's breathing!”

Right then, as I found a thin, reedy pulse, there was a clatter at the top of the stairs. Voices, a beam of light from above.

“They're here,” I said. “Thank God.”

By the time the medics loaded up Ellie for the ride to the hospital she was thrashing, muttering, “No, no, don't, don't.”

“Good job,” the rescue lieutenant said. “What the hell were you doing here anyway, Britt?”

“Visiting,” I said, grinning. “If not for Trish here, we never would have found her.”

Trish and I high-fived and climbed the stairs arm in arm, both weak-kneed and shaky.

Our food remained on the table precisely as we had left it which never would have been the case with the bold cat and the ravenous little dog at my place. We both reached for our wineglasses.

Trish wiped her lips with her napkin. “Whooh!” she said, and shuddered.

“You were great. What a gutsy thing to do, Trish. Even medics won't use mouth-to-mouth anymore with everything that's out there.”

Her eyes were solemn. “A life is a life, Britt; you can't just watch it slip away.”

We drank to that.

“I'm sorry our dinner is spoiled,” she said. “We'll have to do it again.”

“The next one's on me. But don't expect me to cook. We'll go to my favorite Cuban restaurant.”

“Can't wait. But there's still dessert. We've earned it.”

We nibbled poached Bosc pears, buttery and elegant on pink paper doilies, and sipped a fragrant tea from delicate porcelain cups.

It was over tea that I remembered. “Before everything happened you were about to tell me why you're afraid to go back home.”

“It was a man,” she whispered.

“A bad romance?”

“This was no romance. Except in his mind.” She put down her cup. “A stalker situation. The man had a fixation. I felt flattered at first but when I turned him down he wouldn't stop, wouldn't leave me alone.”

“But they have stalker laws now.” My voice rose in indignation.

“Try telling that to small-town cops when the suspect is the only son in a socially prominent politically influential family. They wouldn't, couldn't, do a thing, they said, as long as he committed no crime. The man was obsessed.” Her eyes looked haunted. “Middle-of-the-night phone calls, driving by my place, pulling into my driveway at all hours. I'd look up in a restaurant or a store—and there he'd be, staring, big as life, an odd smile on his face. I couldn't go out. I was scared to death of him,” she said bitterly. “My only option was to run.”

A not-so-old fear scorched my soul. This time, the fear and indignation was for her, not me. “God, Trish, I know what you went through. Only people who live through it know what it's like.” I touched the dream catcher suspended from the chain around my throat. “It happened to me. It was horrible. He was a rapist. Thank God he's in prison and will be for a long, long time, God and the parole commission willing. Even though I know where he is, I still have trouble walking into a public rest room alone. That was his MO; he cornered me in one. I'll never forget it.”

She leaned forward intently. “We're so much alike, Britt, it's eerie. My stalker is capable of something just as scary, or worse.” Tears glittered in her eyes. “Before I left he was writing ugly, obscene letters—and I found out he had bought a gun.

“However.” She smiled, chin up. “Yours will grow gray behind bars, and mine's more than a thousand miles away. His name is Clayton Daniels. He doesn't know where I am, and I aim to keep it that way. That's why I can't go back. I've got to make it here.”

“You will, Trish, for sure.”

“From your lips to God's ears.”

As I left the building I met Ben returning from the hospital, accompanied by a married daughter who lived in Surfside. Ellie was going to be all right, or at least as all right as she would ever be.

The drive home took only five minutes. A storm was brewing over the Everglades, dark clouds mounting. The distant thunder sounded like cannons in a war that was drawing closer. I ignored it. Exhausted, well fed, and righteous, I slept like the dead.

I slowed down to a crawl every time I passed the Edgewater, scanning the streets for Howie. Slim chance in a fat city, but two nights later there he was. I wasn't sure it was him at first. He stood at the front door of an elderly woman who was the last holdout against the big-time developers. She had lived there all her life, but her small wooden frame house now resembled a toy, dwarfed by the looming walls of the towering shopping center and high-rise hotel complex surrounding it. Miami pioneer Margaret Mayberry resisted when developers planned the project more than two decades ago. They bought up the necessary properties. Everybody had a price. Then they approached Margaret Mayberry. When she declared she would never sell, they assumed she was simply a shrewd negotiator.

Condescending at first, they humored her. Eventually patience wore thin, they got tough, played hardball, and threatened to have her house condemned. She didn't cave; she simply dug in, so they redoubled their efforts. They sweetened the pot, offering $1 million and the lot of her choice, to which they would move her cottage at their expense. She took a broomstick to the lawyer who brought the offer.

Eventually they came to realize that she was not only serious but as tough as the indestructible Dade County pine her father had used to construct the only home she had known. Bleeding cash, their project stalled. They redesigned the north end of the complex around her property, with the parking garage entrance next to the porch where she loved to sit in the evening, sipping iced tea. She continued to live there, but instead of bay breezes, a steady stream of traffic now flows by her door and the scent of star jasmine has been replaced by exhaust fumes.

Howie stood on the front porch, speaking through the screen to Margaret Mayberry. She opened the door and handed him a small package. Eagerly he took it, bounded down the stairs, and trotted into the parking garage without a look back. My antenna rose. What was this streetwise little jitterbug from Overtown up to with this octogenarian Miami pioneer? Was he ripping her off? Shaking her down? Intimidating her? I swung the T-Bird into a U-turn and trailed him into the garage. The computerized time clock spit out a cardboard ticket and the mechanical arm lifted. The center's north side was nearly deserted at that hour, and he was easy to spot once my eyes grew accustomed to the light.

He had stepped onto an elevator. I parked nearby, punched the button, and the twin elevator promptly arrived. At the lower mall level I leaned out, didn't see him, and continued on to the upper mall. It wasn't even Halloween yet, but many stores were already decorated for Christmas. As the door slid open, I glimpsed him stepping into a stairwell, still carrying the package. I called out his name too late.

I hurried across the mall, pushed the door open, and heard his footsteps on the stairs above. I closed the heavy door behind me, slipped off my shoes, and padded up the stairs after him. He quickly outdistanced me, ascending flight after flight Eventually another door creaked open, then clanged shut. I got there breathing hard. The door was marked
NO EXIT
. A crumpled fold of cardboard kept it from locking. I hesitated for a moment then cracked it open. Night sky glowed above, scattered stars awash in moonlight. This was the roof of the mall-garage-hotel complex. The top tier of the eight-story parking garage was to the south, empty and vacant. The mall is never that full. Downtown did not rebound the way the developers had hoped. The hotel draws mostly conventions, some South American tourists, and local business meetings and banquets.

I opened the door wider. No one in sight. I stepped out. The air was cool and the surroundings quiet a silent world above the chaos and crowds below. Lights to the north seemed to be the hotel laundry, which opened out onto the roof. The view was superb. The Julia Tuttle Causeway, a beaded string of glittering lights, stretched across Biscayne Bay to the east. The blue-and-white Bacardi building stood sentinel at the northwest. To the immediate southeast lay my home away from home, the Miami News building. I could see the lights of the fifth-floor newsroom I had just left. Downtown, to the southwest, the Centrust Tower stood bathed in brilliance, gleaming against the night sky. The complex beneath my feet stretched for an entire block and its vast roof seemed to be a connected labyrinth of small stairwells, all sorts of structures, and vents, sheds, and rooms for maintenance of air conditioners and utilities. Most were obviously no longer used, lots of little staircases to nowhere. Bordering this city block in the sky was an eleven-foot fence. The top three feet of wire angled inward. This fence was not designed to keep intruders out; it had been constructed to deter jumpers, people intent on suicide leaps. How many ways can people be protected against themselves? I wondered. Where had Howie gone? I slipped my shoes back on and walked across the roof to a metal door, which I opened. The narrow staircase inside led to a huge, unused, and rusty exhaust fan. I backed out and the door thudded closed behind me. Glancing about, I began to feel uncomfortable at being alone. But I wasn't, was I? Howie had to be here somewhere.

A small structure stood in what appeared to be a seldom-used rooftop corner. It had apparently housed an air-conditioning system at one time. The door stood slightly ajar. For a split second I thought I glimpsed a light. Perhaps it was metal reflecting light from the outside. The interior was in total darkness as I pulled open the heavy door and leaned in for a better look.

An earsplitting cry pierced the dark, and a blade flashed as a shadowy figure lunged toward me.

“Howie!” I cried out, stumbling backward, heart pounding. Off balance, I fell, sprawling flat on my bottom as my attacker loomed over me.

Legs apart, he stood poised like a warrior, a spear grasped in his right hand. Moonlight glistened off the blade.

“Who … Britt? Is that you? What are you doing here?”

“Howie?” I gasped, heart palpitating. “You scared the hell out of me! What is that thing?”

His left hand reached out and helped me to my feet. No longer menacing, he looked sheepish and embarrassed. Though my knees were shaky, I sensed that I had scared him as much as he had scared me.

“Whatcha doing here? Man.” He shook his head. “I don't believe this, man. I coulda hurt you.”

He leaned the weapon against the wall.

“What
is
that thing?”

“My protection,” he mumbled, trying to regain his usual attitude. The weapon was a stick about three and a half feet long with a wicked-looking knife taped and wired to the tip. The makeshift spear appeared to be fashioned from a broom handle. I wondered if it was the same one Margaret Mayberry had used on the developers' lawyer.

“How the hell you get up here? Whatcha doing here anyway?”

“Looking for you,” I snapped, brushing off my skirt. “You promised to stay in touch, remember? But you never called, you never wrote.”

“You followed me,” he said accusingly.

“You got it Now what are you doing up here?”

He gazed past me at the purple haze hovering over the neon-lit city. “This is my pad, man. This is where I stay.”

“You live here?”

“What's wrong with that?” he said arrogantly, arms crossed, legs apart. His voice thinned. “You ain't gonna tell anybody, are you?”

“I guess I've got no reason to, but how do you … how can you…?” At a loss for words, I gestured at the small cubicle behind him.

“Come on in. I'll show you.”

He acted house-proud. As I followed him inside, he snatched up something he didn't want me to see and shoved it behind a small shelf. An army-surplus sleeping bag lined one wall of the cell-size cubicle. An electrical outlet accommodated a small lamp and a hot plate. A small stock of supplies sat on a makeshift shelf. There was a plastic water jug, instant coffee, and crackers. T-shirts, sweatshirts, and jeans were neatly folded. Socks rolled into little bundles. A milk crate to sit on. A stack of paperbacks, mostly science fiction, and a battered well-used
American Heritage Dictionary
.

“Not bad,” I said. “My first apartment was an efficiency.”

“The price is right.”

“How long have you been up here?”

He paused. “'Bout a year and a half. Came here when I was fourteen.”

“That long! Oh, Howie. You mean you haven't been going to school? It must get hot as hell up here.”

“It ain't too bad. 'Fore that I stayed in a car for a while and in an empty house. Want some coffee?”

“Sure.” I sat on the milk crate and watched. He filled a small metal pan with water from the jug and set it on the hot plate.

“It ain't bad at all.” He measured instant coffee into two plastic mugs. “It's not the heat, it's the humility. That door face the bay. When I prop it open there's always enough breeze to make sleeping tolerable.” He opened a jar crammed with paper packets of sugar and powdered cream, probably from the food court in the mall. “Sometimes storms come barreling across the bay shooting big bolts of lightning. Sound like a war in outer space. The rain sprays in on my bedroll. I thought it would be a bitch up here when it was hot, but ain't nothing. Winter be something else. When I first moved up here it got real cold one night, bad-ass cold. Down to the thirties. Shoulda seen me shivering and shaking up against that wall.”

“You could freeze up here.” The indignation in my voice reminded me of my mother.

“Freeze to death in Miami?” He lifted a skeptical eyebrow.

“Not literally, but we do have one of the highest death rates from hypothermia in the United States. That's when your body temperature drops enough to kill you.” The burner in the hot plate glowed red in the semidarkness. He had had to unplug the lamp to use it. “Up north, people know enough to seek shelter when it's cold. But in Florida, homeless people stay out on nights when the temperature drops to the thirties or forties. People can easily die of hypothermia, especially if they're in poor physical condition.”

He did not seem alarmed.

“You like the pink ones, the blue ones, or the real sugar?” He sifted through paper packets, the perfect host.

“The real stuff,” I said. “I think those others are bad for you.”

While he was busy with the coffee, I snaked my hand behind the shelf to see what he had stashed there. His secret was odd-shaped and plastic: a battered replica of the U.S.S.
Enterprise
from the original
Star Trek
movie. One of the two warp nacelles was broken off.

I slipped it back into place and focused on the boxy bluish package taken from the old woman. “I saw you with Margaret Mayberry,” I said casually.

He turned, a steaming cup in his hand.

“You're not running some scam on her, are you?”

“Gimme a little credit.” He shook his head, offended at my foolishness. “No way. She a stand-up old lady. All alone. Like, I help her out sometimes, clean around her yard, fix anything she need around her house. Make sure nobody mess with her. She's my cover. I used to get hassled by security down in the mall sometime. Now the man stop me, ask what I'm doing here all the time, I say I work for Miss Mayberry. Everybody know her.”

Tenderly, he placed the bluish box between us, his face eager. Up close, I saw what it was: Tupperware.

“I don't 'cept no money from her, but sometimes…” He opened the box with a greedy flourish of anticipation. Half a dozen homemade brownies nestled on napkins inside.

He passed me one, along with a mug of coffee.

“Mmmmm.” I savored the first bite.

“You should try her banana bread,” he said, mouth full. “That's real bad.”

It felt cozy up here atop Miami in the evening breeze with steaming coffee and rich chocolate treats. Almost like camping out.

“What is it with that thing you almost impaled me on?” I said.

“As you can see”—he gestured with a half-eaten brownie—“I'm not real big. One night some dude grabbed me by my shirt collar, took me by the throat, and pulled a blade on me.” He paused and sighed. “No way to win a knife fight,” he said softly. “Too damn close. It don't pay. Only place anybody win a knife fight is in a Hollywood movie. Make-believe. So I put together my protection. You do whatcha gotta do.”

“You'd be better off living with your own folks. What about your mom?”

“She don't worry about nothing 'cept where to score 'nother hit of crack. I ain't seen her in six months.”

I sighed. “What about your grandparents?”

“The big dirt sleep. They dead, man.”

“Your father?”

“Dead too.” He tossed it out casually, almost too casually. “Got blowed away by a shotgun. I was six years old, sitting on my front steps. Seen the whole thing. Cut right in half. DOA.”

“Robbery?”

He shook his head. “They was arguing over drugs.”

“My dad got shot too.”

His head came up. “No sh.…”

I licked the chocolate off my lips. “Yeah, I was three years old. I didn't see it like you did. He was Cuban, a freedom fighter. Went down there on a mission and got caught. Castro had him executed by a firing squad.”

“What about your mother?”

“She's still pissed off at him for getting killed—and at me too, because I remind her of him. We have a lot in common, Howie.” I glanced at his library. “I love reading too.”

“You got a good job?” he said curiously, more a question than a statement.

I nodded. “You still taking cars?”

He stirred restlessly and looked uncomfortable. “Sometimes I need the bread, but I don't get greedy. If I need transportation I can borrow a car from here”—his head angled toward the parking garage—“but then I just leave it parked somewhere, I don't sell it. Sometimes”—he grinned wickedly—“I take one, bring it back, park it on a different level.”