Nobody Lives Forever (2 page)

The digital alarm read 4:18
A.M.
when Rob Thorne awoke. He had been dreaming he was Officer Thorne, snappy in dark blue, rolling from his patrol car, diving for cover, under fire, emerging heroic, lives saved, just like the cops on television, just like Rick, the cop who lived next door. Admirers were crowding, reaching to shake his hand. The chief stood by, smiling, with a medal … Rob lay there for a moment, sorry to be awake. Then the rising and falling sound of a burglar alarm pierced his consciousness. Dogs were barking.

Was it a prowler? He slid from between the cool sheets and padded to his bedroom window. He cranked open the jalousies to hear the night sounds above the hum of the air conditioner. The commotion seemed to be coming from a distance, perhaps the next island. Wind or heat lightning often triggers home and car alarms. The keening sounds carry across the water. He rubbed the back of his neck sleepily and wondered if anybody had called the police.

Then he saw it. At first he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. But no. A slim, dark figure silhouetted, standing motionless next to some trees. He blinked, then strained to see, but it was gone. Changing position, he moved closer to the screen. There it was, near the rock garden next door. Something stealthy, moving closer to Rick's house.

Laurel Trevelyn, Rick's new girlfriend, was home alone. The windows were dark, Rick's car absent from the driveway. A tip-off to a prowler—an invitation. Rob turned quickly toward the phone, bashing a bare toe painfully on the night table in his haste. Hobbling, he reached for the receiver to call Laurel, but he could not see to look up the number and did not want to switch on a light. Somebody was lurking down there in the dark. Laurel was alone, and Rick had asked him to look out for her.

Rob pulled on a pair of cutoffs, snatched a baseball bat from the corner of his room and flew barefoot to the rescue. What a good thing it was that he had
not
gone with Rick, he thought as he ran down the stairs. Just a few hours ago he had been disappointed. He had become a police buff, clamoring constantly to ride along as an observer with Rick and his partner, Jim Ransom, on the midnight shift in homicide. Both detectives had tried to discourage him.

“Shake your family tree, kid. If no Julios fall out, forget it,” Jim had said. “A name like Thorne gives you chances of zilch and zero, thanks to some federal judge and affirmative action. They're promoting nothing but Latinos, blacks and women. You're young, you're smart, stay in school. Find something with a future.”

But he had persisted, asking to join them that very night, a Friday, with no classes in the morning. Rick had stopped him midstride. “Listen, kid, I need a favor. There's been a prowler in the neighborhood. Keep an eye on things, will you? Watch out for Laurel until I get a chance to beef up security around here. Okay?”

“Sure, sure, Rick.” Though disappointed, Rob was secretly pleased to be trusted with the assignment. Now he was elated. Had he gone, he would have missed this. He had been trying to impress Laurel since the day she had moved in, lithe and graceful in cutoff blue jeans, long legs tanned, her hair tawny and sun streaked. He had even fantasized about what might happen if she and Rick ever split. The way Rick goes through women, who knows, he thought. She is closer to my age than his.

He burst out the back door, taking a deep breath as the warm air enveloped him. Blinking in the dark, he sprinted toward the rock garden, holding the bat in front of him, clutched in both fists, ready to swing. The fleeting shadow moved quickly now. “Halt!” he shouted. “Stop right there!”

Moving faster, the figure crashed through a hedge, plunging into the shrubbery on the far side of the house. Rob heard the footfalls now, somebody running hard through a small grove of orange and grapefruit trees next to the Singer home. Adrenaline pumped through his veins as he took off in pursuit. He knew he would have no trouble overtaking his quarry. He was fast and in good shape and knew the neighborhood like no prowler could. Thrilled, he felt this was what it must be like to be a cop. There was no doubt in his mind now about his future.

Ahead, the runner hesitated, blocked by a six-foot fence of unfinished lumber. Realizing that the pursuer was gaining, the shadowy figure turned and dashed toward the bay. Rob quickly changed direction. He had the prowler trapped between him and the water. Too bad Rick could not see him now.

The moonlight exposed a flash of pale skin and movement in a dark mass of sea grapes at the edge of the bay. “Come out of there, you bastard!” He lunged and caught a shoulder, but in a frenzy of thrashing, the prowler wrenched away.

There was scrabbling among branches close to the ground. Rob grasped a kicking foot by the ankle, and they grappled in the dark. “Hell, you're just a kid,” he said, in disgust and disappointment. He stepped back and shouted a warning.

“Come out, or I'll shoot.” He had no gun, but it sounded good. He liked the timbre, the authority in his voice. Stepping forward, he raised the bat to his shoulder, swinging it like a shotgun at the prowler. The branches parted in bright moonlight. Rob's mouth dropped open, his eyes widening in surprise. The sound was like a clap of thunder. A bullet caught him square in the chest, knocking him off his feet.

Thrashing and small snorting sounds telegraphed the short-circuitry of his nervous system. Then they faded, until the moon's reflection was the only light left in his wide-open eyes.

Prowlers are low priority, usually gone by the time police arrive. Patrol Officer Mary Ellen hoped this one would not be. She did not mind getting all sweaty in a foot chase—or involved in an arrest and its time-consuming paperwork. Probably some dicky waver, she thought. Men—fed up with them and the current sad state of her love life, she would almost enjoy catching some peeper with his pants down. Oddly enough, the call was right on Rick's block, a few doors away from the very man who had left her with the blues. She floored it, holding back on lights and siren. If a prowler was lurking and she did not nail him, it would not be her fault. This was her last night on patrol before transferring back to homicide. Maybe she could end it by presenting Rick with his very own neighborhood flasher.

She was just half a mile away when the dispatcher reported possible gunfire at her destination. Shit, she thought, uptight homeowners shooting at shadows. Miamians are so well armed that police officers must always assume that everybody has a gun, including the victims, the witnesses, passersby and, of course, the perpetrators.

She flicked on the siren, hoping they would all hear it and throw down their weapons. No need for a noiseless approach now.

Lights shone from several houses on the block. Officer Dustin saw no one as she stopped in front of the address where the call had originated. She unsnapped her holster, then saw a middle-aged woman in a nightgown running across a lawn toward her. She was screaming. Oh Lord, Officer Dustin thought, somebody's been hit. Dammit!

Homicide Sergeant Rick Barrish and Detective Jim Ransom were looking for a man who had run a footrace for life and won, sprinting out the front door of the drug house an instant before it exploded. Somebody else, not quite as fast on his feet, was dead, still buried in the smoldering wreckage.

The detectives swung by Woody's all-night grocery and snack bar to shoot the breeze with whoever was out and about in Overtown at that hour.

J. L. Sly was holding forth on the street corner outside, his coffee-black skin aglisten in the heat. Despite record-breaking temperatures, he wore an immaculate white sport coat and crimson trousers over a short, spare frame that moved with a fluid, almost catlike grace. Oozing confidence and good cheer, he eased inside to join them.

“My man!” he greeted Rick. They exchanged a high five, then Sly dropped into a crouch, a martial arts position. His slender hands sliced and swept the air in swift circular motions. “What under the full moon brings my friends to this black hole between heaven and earth?”

“Business,” Jim said, his tone officious. “You heard the crack house blew up, right?”

“Thunder and sorrow.” Sly intoned the words, speaking them slowly and nodding solemnly. “I am quick to seek knowledge that I was not born possessing.”

Jim looked pained. “I am quick to kick ass when somebody jerks me around.”

“Words of wisdom soar higher, on stronger wings than words of war,” J.L. informed him. He turned to Rick, with a flourish. “Your friend does not reach out to embrace the sparrow with the folded wing, the symbol of inner peace.”

“Nope. He's never been accused of it,” Rick said, grinning. “How goes it, J.L.? You aren't terrorizing Overtown with your king fu, are you?”

Sly danced lightly around the far larger detectives, feinting and dodging. “I am not certain if I am a man dreaming that I am a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming I am a man.”

“Just don't get your ass in trouble with that stuff.” Rick's deep-set gray eyes glowed against his bronzed cheeks, his tone was good-humored and friendly. He lowered his voice. “We would like to talk to the individual who bailed out just before the roof went up.”

Sly stepped closer, speaking softly. “Street name Blinky, usually present at the Nairobi Stereophonic Diner.”

“Thanks, buddy.”

“Like a drifting cloud—I ask for nothing. I want nothing.”

“You'll get nothing from me,” Jim muttered. His jowls bore a dark stubble. Burly and built like an aging linebacker, he wore the prisonlike pallor of a man who sleeps by day and works at night.

Sly smiled sweetly at the glowering detective. “A log that floats in the water forever will never become a crocodile.”

“What the hell?” said Jim, but Sly was already outside, melting into a late-night crowd that parted respectfully before him.

“J.L.'s okay,” Rick said, grinning.

“Sure, except he's walking around using up oxygen that some useful creature could be breathing.”

The store's fluorescent lights interfered with reception on Rick's walkie, a handheld police radio. Static was breaking up a machine-gun-fast exchange of transmissions. He stepped closer to the door, coffee cup in one hand, the other holding the radio to his ear to hear the action.

A 330—a shooting—with a possible 45—a death—on the island, in his neighborhood.

Rick drove. Jim clung to the dashboard and worked the radio, trying to glean more from dispatch. The first uniform was at the scene. “That's Dusty's unit,” Jim said with a sidelong glance at Rick. Fire rescue was also present. The shooting victim was a young white male, apparently dead at the scene. That was all.

“Sounds like one of the neighbors popped your prowler. Saves us the trouble. We can chalk up one for our side. Street justice, my favorite: swift and sure.” Jim grinned at the thought, even as hot coffee slopped over his fingers from the Styrofoam cup he struggled to steady.

The ten-minute drive took less than five. Rick's usual commute home was short and scenic. Life on San Remo, one of the residential islands clustered between Miami and Miami Beach, gave him the best of two worlds, a small, quiet neighborhood with tree-lined suburban streets, just four miles of bridge and blue water from downtown Miami's metropolitan skyline and modern police headquarters. The security and tranquility had become important when he and Laurel had decided to play house. Their whirlwind romance had surprised his friends, who had doubted that at age thirty-six he would ever relinquish the life of a high-performance ladies' man. They were still taking bets. Dusty had been the most recent of a long line-up of women loved and left.

Rick hoped Jim was right about the shooting. He almost believed it until he swung the unmarked car into his own driveway and heard the screams.

They did not come from Laurel. His searching eyes quickly found her, alone on the outer rim of chaos, huddled barefoot on a small stone bench six feet from their front door, knees drawn up, head down, her hair wet. His long legs covered the distance in a few quick strides. “You okay, babe?” He pulled her close in a hug. She did not resist or respond. “What the hell happened?”

She raised amber eyes blank with shock and bewilderment, her face pale and sickly under her suntan. “I don't know what happened,” she whispered. She resembled a lost child about to cry. “It's Rob.” She gestured toward the Thorne home, her hand trembling.

“Oh, shit.” Rick squeezed her shoulder, then stepped toward the source of the screams, his heart sinking. The dead boy's mother was struggling to escape the restraining arms of her husband and a police officer. Blood stained the front of her nightdress. Her flailing arms reached out to her son.

A paramedic turned away from the corpse, caught Rick's eye and shook his head. “No way, Sarge. Nothing we could do.”

“He was gone when I got here, Rick.” Mary Ellen Dustin swallowed the feelings that still surfaced when she saw him. “I thought I felt a faint, thready pulse for a few seconds.” She shrugged hopelessly. “Maybe it was wishful thinking. He's so young. I would have called the squad anyway. You know”—she lifted her eyes toward the mother—“more for her, than him.”

Rick nodded. “What have you got so far, Dusty?”

“Several people heard the shot.” She sounded professional and impassive. “As you know, the victim lives two houses north of the scene. Somebody called in a prowler report. I was en route when another caller reported shouts and running. Apparently the victim came out with a baseball bat to try to stop somebody and walked right into it. Nobody here saw what happened, or the shooter. We've got no weapon, no description. Nobody heard a car. The offender may still be in the area. I secured the scene and set up a perimeter.”

Laurel appeared next to them, wearing bedroom slippers and clutching a pink wrapper around her. In the pulsing red and blue lights from half a dozen patrol cars, her blond hair streaming, she looked about sixteen years old.

“Step back, please, miss…” Dusty's voice trailed off as Rick folded a comforting arm around Laurel's shoulders.

He introduced them.

Dusty smiled and said hello. So this is the one, she thought bleakly. Of course—the perfect cheerleader: fresh and young and beautiful, even with no makeup, in the middle of a lousy night.

“Sorry, I should have realized, Laurel.” Dusty stared. “Your hair is wet.”

“I—I was in the shower when it happened.”

“At this hour?” Dusty looked at her quizzically.

“The dead boy is our next-door neighbor,” Laurel crooned softly, then buried her face in Rick's shoulder and wept.

“I know.” Dusty continued to watch Laurel, her eyes curious, until Rick impatiently signaled her to continue her preliminary report. She had little more. “I got here within five minutes. It looks like he took one square in the chest.”

“See if the bridge tender saw anything suspicious, coming or going, call the ME, get K-9, and request the lab unit with the high-intensity lights.” Rick scanned the neighborhood with new eyes. “It's black as hell out here,” he announced, as though seeing it for the first time. The lack of traffic and the feeble glow of the charming, widely spaced, old-fashioned street lamps had always been appealing, compared to the relentless orange glare from the sodium-vapor anticrime lights downtown. He had never before scrutinized the street where he had grown up through the clinical eyes of a homicide detective evaluating a crime scene.

“I already asked, the lights are in use,” Dusty said.

“Then get a fire truck and the chopper. There are lots of places to hide around here,” Rick snapped. “Nobody comes on or off the island unless they live here. No sightseers. Check out anybody walking on the causeway and anything that looks out of place in the neighborhood. Check the cab companies for pickups in the vicinity.”

Two other uniforms swiftly cordoned off the area with yellow crime-scene tape. Rick stepped inside, focusing his flashlight on the baseball bat beside the body. If the bat or the grass beneath it was bloodstained, it might mean the kid had connected, they might be looking for an injured suspect. It would be something.

But there was nothing. He examined the body briefly, struggling to block images of the gap-toothed tyke who had trailed him and other big boys around the neighborhood, the clowning teenager with a mouth full of metal and a growing fascination for police work, the kid eager to be a cop like him. The shoeless, shirtless corpse sprawled toes-up on the grassy lawn resembled none of those memories, but Rick knew this would remain his clearest, most painful recollection, the one that would haunt him—forever. His face grim, he walked to the rescue van where the parents clung to each other. The man stared at Rick, hope fading in his eyes.

Rick had spoken to survivors, next of kin, hundreds of times. It never gets easier, he thought, only more difficult. They had never been his next-door neighbors before.

“Helen. Dan.” He stepped directly in front of them, deliberately blocking their view of the body, forcing them to focus on him. “It's true. Robbie was shot, and he's dead. There was nothing anybody could do to save him. We don't know who did it yet, but I assure you we will do whatever it takes to find out. You know I'm your friend. You can count on me now more than ever.”

The woman moaned.

“Time is important here,” Rick told them. “I want you to be strong, to put your grief aside, so you can help us to do the right thing.”

“What can we do?” the father asked in a monotone.

“Do you know what Robbie saw?”

“We didn't even know he went out.” The father's voice was flat and hollow.

“What was he doing out here?” the mother asked, her voice rising. “What was he doing? What was he doing?”

Rick knew. The knowledge tasted bitter in his mouth. The kid would have been safer in a police car with him than home asleep in his own bed. If only he had stayed there, safe in his own bed.

Neighbors helped the parents back into their home. Rick walked calmly to the car, wheeled and slammed his right fist into a treetrunk. He welcomed the pain.

“Damn palm trees. That one was asking for it.” Jim loomed behind him, matter-of-fact and down-to-earth. “It looks like there was a little wrestling match. Let's get the lab to try to lift prints off the body.”

A long shot, but it had worked before. In two of the partners' prior cases a killer's fingerprints had successfully been lifted from the skin of a victim. A rapist who had killed a young girl had left a thumbprint on her ankle. The technique is most successful on women because their skin surfaces are smoother and less hairy. In the second case, however, an identifiable fingerprint was found on the forearm of a man who had struggled with his killer.

“We've got people canvassing. So far nobody heard a car or a boat take off. I asked for a printout of all the burglars who work the islands and the beach.”

“What if this isn't a burglary, Jim?”

“Then unless we get lucky, we've got a real whodunit. But what else could it be? Who else but a burglar would be sneaking around here at four
A
.
M
.? Damn shame, Rick. He was a good kid. He woulda made a helluva cop.” Jim shook his head. He found little to admire in life anymore, but he had liked the young man, whose eager and intelligent interest had flattered him. The aging detective nodded toward the Thorne home, now ablaze with lights. “He the only kid?”