Love Kills (4 page)

 

I found Lottie sipping herbal tea, back in the photo bureau.

“Hey. You developed the pictures! Where are they?”

“Mornin' to you too,” she drawled, and put down her mug.
DON'T LET THE BASTARDS GET YOU DOWN
was lettered on the side.

“You see Fred?”

“I'm back on the job.”

“You go, girl.”

“The pictures. Where are they?”

She dropped a few enlargements in front of me, a copy of the bulletin-board photo on top.

“My favorite,” she said.

“Nice job. You do these this morning?”

“Nope. Walgreens one-hour service, last night.”

The next picture was Lottie, one hand on her hip, the other holding a conch shell to her ear like a telephone.

The last was me, leaning against the trunk of a palm tree.

“What's on the others?”

She shrugged. “A couple of tourists.”

“Let's see. Maybe I'll recognize them.”

“Doubt it.” She shook her head and turned away.

“Where are they?” I began to paw impatiently through the other photos on her desk.

Reluctantly, she handed me a folder. “Recognize anybody?”

I shuffled through them like a deck of oversized playing cards, glimpsing freeze-framed moments in the lives of happy strangers. I looked more closely at the handsome couple.

“Betcha they're newlyweds. Look, you can see their wedding rings. Crap! They lost their honeymoon pictures!”

The photos had been shot on a white-sand beach and aboard a trawler, probably a forty-footer. No one else in sight, just the two lovers, radiating the white-hot fire of passion and adventure at starting their life together cruising through paradise.

Tears stung my eyes.

Had events played out differently, that might have been Kendall McDonald and me embarked on our own tropical honeymoon.

“One of 'em musta dropped the camera overboard or lost it in the sand,” she said. “It wasn't likely, but I checked all the wedding pictures that ran for the last five weeks, just in case. Didn't see their faces. No way to identify 'em. But ain't he a hunk?” She picked up a glossy print. “Would've been nice to return these. I blew 'em up trying to make out the boat's name or registration number. No luck. They could be from anywhere.” She shook her head, slipped a wide shot under the magnifier, and flipped on the light.

I peered over her shoulder. A pretty girl with long, flowing sandy-colored hair waved at her husband from aboard their boat, her radiant smile frozen in time, her tan golden, her shorts white, with a red crop top.

“Nice shots, but not one at the right angle,” Lottie grumbled.

“No big deal.” I sounded morose. “At least they still have each other.”

She heaved an I-told-you-so sigh and cut her eyes at me. “Damn. I didn't want you to see 'em.”

“Life's not fair,” I murmured.

“It ain't. Never was. But like they say, ‘You can sum life up in three words: It goes on.'”

“I wish I hadn't come back,” I whispered. “I don't know if I can do this, Lottie. Maybe I should move in with my mom for a while. Find a job someplace else, maybe another state.”

“Think your life's a living hell now? Try moving in with that woman for a while. Not that I have anything against her, bless her heart, but you know your mother. And sure, it really makes sense to move to a town where you have no friends, no sources, and no clue how to find Main Street. That sound like a plan?”

I blew my nose.

She scowled. “Would you just quit that, Britt? Now?”

“What?” I brushed my leaky eyes with my fingers.

“Your poor-pitiful-me routine. It's getting old fast.”

My jaw must have dropped. She looked serious.

“Get over it and get on with your life! Think about something, or somebody, else for a change. Everybody since Adam and Eve has had loss and heartache. If it ain't hit 'em yet, it's headed right at 'em, barreling straight down that highway from hell. As my Aunt Paula always said, ‘Any day you wake up on the right side of the dirt is a good day.'

“Whenever life went straight to hell in a handbasket, you always knew where to find Aunt Paula: in her kitchen, fixin' the world's best biscuits and spoon bread. That's how you survive. Do what you do best. Don't run away.”

She dropped her voice and leaned forward to make her point.

“Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, that's a journalist's job. You know it, Britt. It's what you do best. McDonald didn't fall in love with some whiny-ass little crybaby. He fell for a strong, self-reliant woman. So would you please do me a personal favor and start acting like one?” She waited for an answer, arms crossed, lips pursed, her freckled face grim.

“How could you?” I was shocked. “You're my best friend.”

“Damn straight. Who else would tell you?”

“Thanks so much for your concern,” I snapped, and marched off in a snit.

She called my name but I didn't look back.

 

I picked up my mail and messages, still stung by Lottie's mean-spirited lack of sympathy. My resentment spilled over and focused on whoever had been using my desk, my space, my direct phone line. The intruder had added insult to injury by dumping the contents of my desk drawers into storage boxes stacked on the floor in a nearby hall. I was lucky they hadn't been discarded with the trash. In no mood to tippy-toe, I grimly reclaimed my turf. I swept the squatter's notebooks, papers, and personal items off my desk into two cardboard boxes from the wire room. What new hell was this? Today, many reporters file their stories from out in the field while others work from home. There is no shortage of newsroom desks. Whoever had invaded my space had to know it was mine.

That person had answered my phone and talked to my sources. The mail and notebooks I examined identified the guilty party: Nell Hunter. With not-so-gay abandon, I tossed her belongings aside and replaced them with my own.

Later, as I read through my mail and messages, she appeared, clutching a notebook, in a big hurry.

“Excuse me,” she said, in her chirpy little voice. “I'm on deadline.” Her sweeping gesture suggested I vacate at once.

I gazed up at her placidly.

“This is my desk.” Her chirps grew impatient.

“No,” I said, smiling sweetly. “It isn't.”

“Britt?”

“That's right.”

Her brown eyes widened in shock. “I didn't recognize you,” she blurted. “Nobody mentioned you coming back. I've been using your desk. It's just so…so convenient.”

“I'm sure.”

“Do you mind?” She gestured again, as though I were a pesky rodent.

“Yes,” I said. “I do.”

She focused on my desk and looked alarmed. “My notes?”

“In one of those boxes over there, I think,” I said vaguely, and made a little gesture of my own before turning back to my reading.

She was still standing there, open mouth revealing shiny little white teeth, when I glanced up moments later.

“Nell? Would that be your car parked in my space under the building?”

Her face reddened. “I'll move it right after I turn in my copy.”

When I looked up again she was crouched, her peasant skirt collecting dust from the floor, as she furiously ransacked one of the boxes, searching for her notes.

“Nell?”

She glanced up warily.

“Did you take any messages for me?”

She sighed bitterly. “Call the Cold Case Squad.”

“Grrreat to have you back,” Ryan murmured, from the desk behind me. “Welcome home, Britt.”

Lottie had been right about one thing. My overstuffed mailbox yielded at least two calls apiece from each member of the Cold Case Squad: Sergeant Craig Burch, Detectives Stone, Nazario, and Corso, and—the most recent—their lieutenant, K. C. Riley. Hers was more a command than request:
Britt: Call me or Burch, ASAP.

 

The barricades, detours, and torn-up streets made the short trip to Miami Police Headquarters torturous. But I practically sang as I turned and twisted through traffic. I was home, on my beat. I turned my dashboard scanner up full blast, immersing myself in the endless chatter of police calls, trying hard to think of nothing else.

Once there, I took a deep breath and walked into the lobby, plunked my purse onto the X-ray machine's conveyor belt, and stepped through the metal detector. The desk sergeant called homicide to announce my arrival, listened for a moment, eyeing me idly, and hung up.

“They're expecting you.” He signaled another officer, who used his key card to activate the elevator for me.

As I approached the Cold Case Squad's cubicles, Lieutenant Riley emerged from her office. Fit and tanned, as usual, she looked even thinner than I remembered. Her dark blond hair hung almost straight, shoulder length, with a slight natural wave. She saw me and stopped abruptly.

“Hey, Lieutenant.”

She stared for a long moment.

“You're full of surprises, aren't you, Montero?” Her face reddening, she wheeled, returned to her office, and firmly closed the door.

I stood there for a moment, and then Craig Burch glanced up from his desk. “Hey, guys, cancel the Amber Alert!” he boomed. “Look who's here!”

“Holy shit.” Corso rolled his eyes.

Emma, the lieutenant's secretary, clasped her hand over her mouth.

“
Dios mío
,” Nazario said.

“This is a surprise, Britt,” Stone said. “But it's good to see you.”

“You rang?” I said.

“Yeah, more than once,” Burch said. “We need to talk to you.”

“About?”

“The last time you saw Spencer York.”

“He's turned up?” I grinned in spite of myself, elated at the prospect of a good story my first day back on the job. “Where's he been?”

Their expressions told me.

I sighed and lost the grin.

“Dead?” I couldn't imagine him dead. The man was bigger than life, though it wasn't a stretch to imagine killing him.

I'd even fantasized about it once myself.

“Let's talk.” Burch jerked his head toward the conference room.

I followed, despite reservations. The good news was that it wasn't a room where suspects are interviewed.

Nazario politely pulled out a chair for me.

“My editor wanted to know if the paper's lawyer should talk to you first. Do I need him?”

“Your choice,” Burch said.

I studied their faces. Curious, noncommittal, even friendly. Typical detective faces.

“You may have been the last person to see him alive,” he said.

“So he
is
dead.”

“Oh, yeah,” Burch said.

“Very.” Corso plopped his thick torso into a chair directly across the table.

I thought for a moment. “The last time I ever saw or heard from him was the day he was released from jail. I interviewed him just before he jumped bond and took off.”

“It looks less like he took off and more like he was taken out,” Burch said. “How'd that interview of yours come about? Was he pissed off at you?”

That would make sense to most people, since Spencer York's arrest was the direct result of a story I wrote about him.

“No, oddly enough. The publicity thrilled him, he wanted more. The guy had a humongous ego. Loved to be the center of attention. He looked forward to his trial, couldn't wait. Said he planned to represent himself. He was so elated at the prospect I almost felt sorry for the prosecutors. That's why it surprised me when they said he jumped bond and skipped town. What really happened to him?”

They told me.

“So he was here all along.” I imagined him in the ground just west of Miami, oozing body fluids, his flesh slowly decomposing into Everglades muck as a clamoring world searched everywhere else for him.

“Sure it's him?”

They nodded.

“Did the ME determine a cause?”

The detectives exchanged glances.

“GSW,” Burch said.

“What kind of gun? Did you find the bullet?” I flipped open my notebook. “Casings? Caliber? Any suspects?”

“We're the ones asking questions here,” Burch said. “We're not giving interviews.”

“He was a bad man. Nobody liked him,” I offered.

“An understatement if I ever heard one,” Burch said.

Spencer Nathan York was America's most prolific kidnapper. A hired gun for divorced fathers, he called himself the Custody Crusader and was a combative foe of what he described as a growing tide of feminism that had swept over the family courts, depriving fathers of their rights.

He had tracked his clients' ex-wives to twenty-five states and abducted more than two hundred children, whom he returned—to their fathers.

He saw himself as a hero. Instead of a Superman cape he wore faded army fatigues, thick glasses, and a graying crew cut. His crusade, he said, was to change the judges, the courts, and the laws that were unfair to men.

He offered his services to fathers whose ex-wives had moved out of state with their children. He'd advise the dads to file for custody, alleging that the mother had absconded with the youngsters, denying the fathers their court-mandated visitation. When the mothers failed to appear for court, the local family court judges usually granted the fathers' custody petitions.

The Custody Crusader would then track down the mothers and snatch their children.

I was a cub reporter, shuffling through routine Miami police reports, when an unusual incident caught my eye. The complainant was one Brenda Cunningham, age twenty-five and divorced, a relatively new resident from Arkansas. As she removed grocery bags from her ten-year-old Chevy outside her rented Miami duplex, a beefy middle-aged stranger in camouflage attire burst through the hedge and snatched up her three-year-old son, Jason.

Groceries scattered as she screamed and rushed to save her child. As she and the stranger scuffled over Jason, her ex-husband, James, emerged from a parked car across the street. Seeing him only made the terrified young mother more frantic.

The Crusader sprayed her with Mace and announced that he was taking legal custody of Jason. Blinded and hysterical, she continued to fight. Her ex-husband dashed to join the fray, and the two men escaped with the shrieking child, leaving the mother bruised, battered, and temporarily blind.

She and neighbors called police.

Before a patrolman arrived, however, the police chief's legal office and the local FBI received faxed copies of the father's official custody order. The Crusader followed up with telephone calls on his way out of town to confirm that the faxes had been received, knowing that at that time local police departments would not become involved in interstate custody disputes.

The police officer who responded to Brenda's plea for help said there was nothing he could do. Her problem was a civil matter she had to resolve in family court. He noted in his report that the child was safe with his father, who had legal custody in their home state of Arkansas. Neither the police nor the FBI intervened. Nobody opened a kidnaping investigation.

Spencer Nathan York, the Custody Crusader, was not difficult to locate. He included his name, address, and Texas telephone number with the legal papers he had faxed to authorities. I suggested I interview him, and my editors sent me to Texas.

Notorious criminals can be downright charming, colorful, and charismatic. That explains how they get away with their bad behavior long enough to become notorious. That was not the case with the Custody Crusader. He was rude, crude, and obnoxious. He called the divorced mothers bad parents, greedy sluts, and loose women who frequented bars, drank alcohol, and cavorted with strange men instead of devoting themselves to raising their children. Women, he warned, had far too many rights. His crusade was for change.

I also managed to interview Jason's father and was permitted to watch—from a distance—as the little boy happily romped with his new puppy in his paternal grandparents' walled-in backyard.

Jason's mother, Brenda, a waitress, could not afford to wage a legal battle back in Arkansas. However, my story created a stir, arousing the ire of Miami women's groups and the state attorney, who charged York with felony assault and reckless child endangerment during his skirmish with Brenda.

The Custody Crusader did not fight extradition. His asking price for a child snatch was $5,000 a head plus expenses. But most working fathers are cash-strapped after contentious divorces, and York actually received little or nothing for most abductions. His motives were altruistic, he insisted, not financial. He did it, he said, for the cause. He operated on a shoestring and was broke.

That is why those familiar with the case were surprised when York's $20,000 bond was posted and he was released pending trial.

“We're interested in that last interview with him,” Burch said. “Where was it? Was he alone or was someone with him? Did he mention any threats or express concern about his safety? Did he say where he was going when you two parted company?”

“He called
me
,” I said. “I think it was just as he was being released. As I recall, it sounded like jail noises in the background. I was surprised he had bonded out. He wanted to fill me in on the latest developments in his case. My editor told me not to meet him alone somewhere, since my story had resulted in his arrest. I didn't anticipate any problem but suggested he come to the paper, and he did.

“He was alone. Couldn't have been happier, couldn't hide his excitement. He loved playing martyr for the cause. He'd demanded a speedy trial and was counting the hours. Wanted TV and the wire services to report his rants about discrimination against divorced fathers. The man loved to talk, loved it even more when somebody paid attention and took notes. I asked how he managed to post bond. He said he didn't. He bragged it was from a donor, a supporter who admired his work. We talked. Had coffee. I wrote the story.”

“What was the last thing he said to you?” Stone asked.

I thought about it, then remembered. “He asked when the story would be in the paper. I said, ‘Probably tomorrow.' Then he walked out of the newsroom and off the map. I never saw him again. I was surprised he didn't call after reading the story.”

The prosecutor had pleaded for a higher bond, calling York an itinerant kidnapper and a flight risk, but the judge had set it at the minimum. Nobody expected him to post it.

The state attorney was apoplectic when York failed to appear for his next pretrial hearing. Women's groups and female politicians raised hell when York could not be found. So did male politicos eager to court women voters. The Miami Police Department endured media scrutiny and high-profile criticism for their insensitive response to Brenda Cunningham's call for help and their handling of the case. In the next election the judge was replaced by a woman who ran against him.

The story took on a life of its own as cops and prosecutors waged a nationwide manhunt for the elusive fugitive. Rewards were offered. But as the years slipped by, the furor simmered down, sliding from the front to the back page and then out of the newspaper and out of public consciousness altogether.

“So, he talks to you and you write a story that lands him in jail. So when he bonds out, the first thing he does is talk to you again?” Corso said. “Was this guy a glutton for punishment, or what?”

“No. He wanted to use me—and the newspaper—for publicity. You know the type. My story brought him the attention he wanted, but celebrity is a double-edged sword. It also resulted in his arrest. But he was convinced his trial would make him and his cause famous.”

“Have to agree with the guy on some things,” Corso said. “But he must've had delusions of grandeur, thinking if he changed the system he'd be the patron saint of divorced dads.”

“It goes without saying that he probably had a bad experience in divorce court himself,” Burch said.

“In that first interview, in Texas,” I said, “he vaguely alluded to a long-ago divorce but didn't go into detail.”

“Did he say where he was going when he left the paper?”

“All I know is that he intended to stay in Miami, study Florida law, and prepare for trial. He asked for directions to the University of Miami law library.”

“Where was he staying?”

I shrugged. “Up till then, Dade County Jail. Said he had to find a cheap place, a rooming house or motel.”

“Did he mention any names, people he knew here? Anything more about the good Samaritan who posted his bond?”

“No. I tried to call the guy for comment, but as you know, he used a false ID with a nonexistent address.”

“You have any ideas about who killed York?”

I shook my head. “I assume you've spoken to Brenda.”

“Stone's talked to her,” Burch said.

“She wouldn't have been able to post his bond,” I said. “She worked at a local IHOP. If she'd had any money, she would have hired a lawyer to get her son back. I tried to call her after York was declared a fugitive. Her phone was disconnected. A neighbor said she left town.

“I didn't like Spencer York,” I said, realizing as I heard my own words that it was not the wisest comment under the circumstances. “I mean, I liked the fact he'd still talk to me and probably would continue to do so, no matter what I wrote about him or how much trouble it caused him. He didn't care what anybody wrote about him as long as they spelled his name right. We had no quarrel. He was happy. And so was I, for my own reasons. I was a rookie reporter. My interview with the Custody Crusader was one of my first stories picked up by the wire services. Larry King even talked about it on his show.”

The detectives appeared unimpressed.

“How did you make positive ID?”

“Dental. Finally found a dentist he'd used in Waco,” Burch said. “His sister still lives there. Agreed to give us a DNA sample if we needed it. He was her only sibling, but they apparently weren't close. Seemed relieved to hear he wasn't coming back.”

The detectives asked me to include their phone number in the story with an appeal to anyone who might have information.

“Thanks, Britt,” Stone said. “It took a lot of nerve for you to come back here like this.”

I shrugged, my personal and professional thoughts all jumbled together. What could I say?

K. C. Riley was still in her office as I left. I wanted to stop and say hello, but she didn't look up. From where I stood, she looked red in the face. I knew why, but I knocked anyway, then tentatively edged her door open.

She looked up at me and sighed. “What is it?”

“Thought I'd say hello.” Our eyes met.

“Well, just look at you,” she said, leaning back in her chair. “Bigger than life and back in town.”

I did a double take at the framed photograph in a prominent place on her bookshelf. I had seen it before but was surprised to see it still displayed in her office. Blue sky above, liquid sky below. Two people aboard a boat. She was one of them, sunshine in her hair, in cut-off shorts and a bathing suit top. Laughing as she held up a puny grouper. Major Kendall McDonald, my fiancé, stood grinning beside her, wearing a Florida Marlins baseball cap, his right hand on her shoulder.