Nobody Lives Forever (8 page)

Rick, Dusty and Jim sat in the sudden silence without speaking for a moment. Dusty finally said, it softly, as if to herself. “Everybody has to be a hero sometime.”

The weekend death toll mounted. So did the paperwork. Miriam Kelton, night investigator at the Dade County Medical Examiner's office, grabbed a quick sandwich and nibbled it at her desk.

She buzzed the morgue for Lester, one of the attendants. “They're bringing in another one,” she said, swallowing a small bite of ham and cheese on rye bread, “a traffic dispute.”

Dr. Lansing popped out of his office. It had been a long hard night, and he had already vowed to never ever be stuck again with weekend duty during the full moon.

“What's cooking?”

Miriam had the sweet face and curly perm of a grandmother who would look more at home baking cookies. She clucked and shook her head at each day's new collection of corpses as though they were errant children. She compiled the case histories and efficiently completed the voluminous paperwork the rascals generated. In stern, maternal fashion, she also handled the grief-stricken, angry and/or crazed next of kin who arrived to claim their dead. Paid a pittance by the county, she was worth her weight in gold.

More exasperated than weary, she peered up from behind the stack of multicolor folders: red for murder victims, green for suicides, blue for traffic fatalities and orange for the still-unclassified casualties of life in Miami, the riddles yet to be unraveled.

“Well, a relative of that Latin fellow has been driving me crazy, calling every five minutes wanting the body released.”

“Which Latin is that?”

“That Juan Doe killed in a street fight in Overtown by that martial arts expert. He has been identified,” she said, waving a red folder, “as José López-Gómez. And the family wants the body. They don't want an autopsy, but I told them it's required and they'll just have to wait.”

Lansing, still wearing a bloodstained lab coat, took the file. As he thumbed through the papers inside, he absently picked up the remaining half of Miriam's sandwich, took a bite and chewed thoughtfully as he read.

“We know very little about him,” Miriam said. “He had a very high body temperature when they brought him in, even though he'd been dead for several hours by the time he got here.”

The phone bleeped. Miriam answered and rolled her eyes at Lansing. “López-Gómez,” she whispered. “I'm sorry,” she said into the phone. “I went over this with you before, sir. We can't just send your brother to the funeral home. There must be a post to legally establish the cause of death…”

As Miriam listened to the man's protests, Lansing opened the door to the morgue and its odors, none of them pleasant, then stopped and gestured, offering to return her sandwich. “No, no,” she waved him off, “you finish it. I wasn't hungry anyway.” She covered the mouthpiece with one hand, “Don't forget, Doctor, they still want you out at the scene of that traffic dispute. They last called about twenty minutes ago, you should get over there.

“I'm sorry, señor,” she spoke into the telephone as the doctor departed. “We understand how you feel, but that is the law in this country. These things must be handled according to the law.”

When their shift ended the three detectives went directly to the Metro Justice Building for court. They joined the cops, crooks, witnesses and victims, prosecutors and probation officers, defense lawyers and do-gooders, courtroom observers, reporters and ne'er-do-wells, in all various stages of impatience, apprehension and agitation, all trying at the same time to push past the metal detectors guarding the entrance.

Dusty attended a bond hearing for J.L. Jim and Rick were due at a pretrial hearing in one of their homicide cases. A little girl had stepped off a yellow school bus half a block from home. She never got there. Five days later she was found in a toolshed behind a vacant house three miles away. The condition of her body made it impossible to determine whether she had been raped. But she was nude, her clothing and school books missing. She was ten years old.

From a nearby dumpster, the detectives had fished a pair of bloodstained trousers stamped in the waistband with the name of the linen company that supplied them to an industrial cleaning firm. Rick and Jim traced the trousers to a man named Harry Roper. The little girl had stepped off the school bus at 3:25
P
.
M
. Roper had been ejected from a bar a block and a half away at 3:00
P
.
M
. the same day. He had a history of sex offenses.

The evidence was all circumstantial, but taken in for a statement. Roper broke down, cried and confessed. He never meant to hurt her, he said, he simply could not control himself when he drank.

As the detectives sat in a crowded courtroom waiting for the judge to take the bench, a tall, well-tailored figure conferred conspicuously with a court reporter. His dark hair and glossy fingernails were perfectly sculptured. Not a crease marred the lines of his well-cut Armani suit, and his custom-made shoes gleamed as if the soft leather were caressed nightly by somebody hired to do the job. Norman Sloat exuded success and confidence, along with a restless air of repressed energy and aggression.

“Wonder what the hell he's doing here?” Rick said quietly. “Hope it's not our case.”

“Doesn't matter, it's open and shut,” Jim said and yawned.

“Nothing is open and shut with Sloat.”

The lawyer's talent for publicity and for freeing his clients bordered on legerdemain. For one major murder trial, he had retained a professional astrologer to assist in jury selection. The voir dire sounded like singles' bar dialogue. Each potential juror was asked his or her sign, to be charted for compatibility with the defendant's horoscope. The press loved it.

The bar association did not, vowing to nail Sloat this time for failing to adequately represent his client. The effort was quickly dropped, however, after members of the jury, all water signs, unanimously agreed, in record time, to acquit. Who could argue with success? Not the bar association.

Sloat drove a big Mercedes, wore nine-hundred-dollar Italian suits and was on a first-name basis with every news anchor and editor in town. The flamboyant defense attorney loved money, but he loved something else even more. If a case was destined for the front page, the financial status of the accused notwithstanding, Norman Sloat would be there.

The lawyer snapped a cheery little salute to the two detectives, then nodded at several reporters in the spectator section. When corrections officers herded in the prisoners and Sloat shook hands with Roper, Rick felt the hair on the back of his neck begin to tingle.

The judge called the calendar, and Sloat rose to announce his presence for Roper. He approached the bench and moved to have Roper's confession thrown out as evidence. Pausing for theatrical effect, then smiling benignly, Sloat outlined the grounds for his motion.

His client had been advised of his Miranda rights by the detectives, “present here today,” he acknowledged, gesturing toward them, diamond pinky ring winking. However, Roper had been unable to comprehend those rights because he had been drinking. “My client is addicted to alcohol, your honor. He has a low tolerance to it and a history of poor judgment when he is drinking. The detectives had already examined his prior record. Yet they picked him up
at
a bar, knowing the man cannot hold his alcohol, advised him of his rights and
then
proceeded to take his statement, knowing full well the man was
incapable
of making a rational decision at the time. It was incumbent upon them to wait, overnight if necessary, until such time as he was sober, alert and in full command of his faculties before having him make serious legal decisions that could affect the course of his entire life.”

Ignoring objections, the judge allowed Sloat to introduce Roper's arrest report and the detectives' depositions, relating that they had found him at a bar, along with doctors' affidavits stating that Roper's alcoholism was involuntary because he was addicted and therefore not responsible for his actions.

Defeat already lurked in the young prosecutor's eyes. He argued that the defendant's statement was the heart of his case.

Sloat stood waiting behind the defense table, smiling expectantly and rubbing his polished palms together.

The judge suppressed the confession.

Jim shot out of his seat, his face red. “Your honor, the man confessed to murdering a little girl!”

“I am clearly aware of the gravity of the charge,” the judge said solemnly, speaking slowly, one eye on the reporters who were scribbling furiously. “Had you been there at the time, I presume you would have followed the correct procedures to ensure that the defendant fully comprehended his Miranda rights.”

“Your honor.” The prosecutor stepped in front of the detectives, signaling them to sit down. “We have no choice but to nolle prosse.”

The defendant raised his head for the first time, looked around and blinked. Unsure of what was happening, he tugged at his lawyer's sleeve for an explanation. Sloat slapped his fingers away as though flicking a speck of lint from his immaculate cuff.

The judge peered down at Roper, told him he was free to go, called a recess and left the bench.

Rick closed his eyes for a moment. The parents of the murdered child had attended every hearing until this routine pretrial motion. They had all expected Roper to plead guilty if he could negotiate a deal to escape the death penalty. Free to go—what would Rick tell the family? This was one of those gut-wrenching times that he hated the job.

He stepped into the crowded corridor. Jim had slammed out ahead of him and was pacing in a fury. Dusty came striding down the hall to join them. She was smiling. Then she saw their faces.

“What happened? You boys look like somebody took your ice cream and cake away.” Scalding TV lights suddenly flooded the hallway, and Dusty followed her partners' eyes to an alcove where Sloat was holding court for the press. “Uh oh,” she said.

A reporter started toward them. “Let's get out of here,” Rick said. He took their arms and hustled Dusty and Jim into the elevator. “I think I need a drink.”

“At ten o'clock in the morning?” She gave him a sidelong glance. “Sounds good to me.”

The detectives settled at a wooden table in the dimly lit back room of the nearly empty Southwind Bar and Grill. Rick and Jim drank Jack Daniel's like people in pain swallowing their medicine and hoping for quick relief. Dusty sipped a glass of chilled wine.

Rick called from a pay phone to tell Laurel a case had gone awry in court and he was delayed.

Dusty watched him speaking intimately into the telephone, then leaned across the table, her voice a near whisper. “Jim, what do you really think of Laurel? There's something strange about her … She's just not right for Rick.”

“Your problem is that you think
you
are.” His pale eyes were cynical.

She looked wistful. “My personal feelings have nothing to do with this. You're his friend too. Neither one of us wants to see him hurt. She's not the sweet little thing she seems to be.”

“Oho!” His eyebrows raised over the rim of his glass. “Forget the wine, I'll order you a saucer of milk.”

“I'm serious.”

“So am I.”

“You should have seen her at the fitness center the other day, really coming on to Barry. The way she looked…”

“The guy with the ponytail? I thought he was gay.” Jim scowled.

“You're impossible.”

“Hell hath no fury…” He grinned.

The jukebox in the background made it obvious that Rick was not calling home from the Justice Building. “Where are you?” Laurel asked.

“We're grabbing a bite to eat downtown,” he said. “Our case took a wrong turn in court. We have some things to go over.”

“Who are you with?”

“Jim and Dusty.”

“Oh.” Laurel sounded thoughtful.

“I should be there in a couple of hours.”

“You need to get some sleep. Are you all right?”

“Sure. See you later, sweets.”

Miriam Kelton looked up from her desk at the medical examiner's office. The man wore a chauffeur's cap. “We are here to pick up the body,” he announced politely. He glanced casually at a slip of paper that he drew from his pocket. “José López-Gómez.” Miriam looked puzzled. “Do you have a release signed by the doctor?” she said, reaching for the paper.

“
Sí
,” he said, and drew a machine pistol from under his dark jacket. “Where is he?”

The two attendants, Lester and Sam, dropped their jaws and raised their hands as the stranger prodded a protesting Miriam into the morgue with his pistol. “I don't know who's who back here,” she told him in the high-pitched peevish tone usually reserved for a misbehaving grandchild. “I just handle the paperwork.”

A short, horse-faced man had joined the gunman. He too was armed. The man in the chauffeur's cap signaled to him, jerking his head toward the covered gurneys in the autopsy room, referred to as the Pit by those who labor there. The second man stalked through the rows, jerking back paper sheets to expose naked bodies.

The barrel of his own gun aimed at the ceiling, he twisted his neck to peer into the face of a dark-complected corpse. “
No es el
,” he called, snatching the flimsy sheet off another. He stared somberly into the face of an elderly woman. She resembled his grandmother. He crossed himself with his free hand and devoutly rolled his eyes toward heaven. A shotgun victim was next, a man who had already been autopsied.

“
¡Dios mío!
” the gunman muttered softly, then stopped to scrutinize the corpse more closely, a look of recognition spreading across his face. “Hey, I know him, it's Pepe!” He reached for the tag that hung from the dead man's big toe, stared at the name printed there and nodded. “
¿Que pasa, Pepe?
” He turned to his companion. “
Es Pepe
.”

“
¿Pepe?
” The first man looked interested, craned his neck, then muttered a curse. “
¡Apurate! ¡Apurate!
Hurry up!”

“
¿Adónde? ¿Adónde?
” said the shorter man, shrugging his shoulders. He swung open the door to another small room. It emitted cold air that smelled sour, like a refrigerator in which something has spoiled. Bodies were stacked three deep.

The man in the cap brandished the gun. “
¿Adónde?
Where? Where?”

Miriam exchanged glances with the morgue attendant named Lester, a middle-aged black man. Her snippy look said that this situation had gone just about far enough. “Outside,” she snapped. “The one you want must be in the trailer. Outside.”

They all stepped out a side door onto the loading dock, as the shorter man swiveled his head back toward the last corpse he had uncovered. “
Adiós, Pepe
,” he said softly.

A huge refrigerated trailer purred out in the warm, damp parking lot. When Miami broke all records for homicide in 1981, the county had been forced to lease a refrigerated Burger King trailer to store the overflow of bodies.

The shorter man scrambled up the breakaway stairs and disappeared into the trailer. He reappeared in the doorway minutes later, looking pleased, “He's here.
Completo
.”

The other man grinned.

“Where are his clothes?” the short man asked Miriam.

“I have no idea,” she pouted. He jerked the gun at her again. “I assume the police property bureau has them.”

Before locking her and the two morgue attendants in the refrigerated trailer, the gunmen forced Lester to strip off his baggy surgical greens. Awkwardly, like dressing a huge doll or department store dummy, they tugged and pulled the shirt and pants onto the empty-eyed corpse. Then hurriedly, as though he were a sick friend, they walked him to their car. His bony bare feet and the tag on his toe dragged in the dust.

Dr. Lansing returned ninety minutes later. He was humming and thinking about going home. Since the office had not beeped him for some time, life must have quieted down in the big city. He thought he heard rapping sounds from the trailer as he parked in his slot near the front door and walked into the office. Must be something to do with the refrigeration system, he thought. Only dead people in there. He hoped fervently that the noise was not a sign of mechanical breakdown. That could be unpleasant. The temperature was eighty-seven degrees and climbing.

Then he saw that the phone lines were all lit up and bleeping. Nobody was manning the front office. Or the Pit. He was alone in the morgue.

Jim raged on about the failing system, lawyers who were sharks, weak-kneed judges and deviate child killers.

“Here's to the new obscene word:
addiction
.” He raised his glass.

Rick and Dusty joined him, raising theirs morosely.

“They call alcohol an addiction, and now the surgeon general says even smoking is an addiction. How convenient—they just can't help themselves,” he said, his last three words taking on the whine of a pleading defendant. “It's all bullshit! Every asshole in jail says he couldn't help it, and his lawyer uses it as an excuse to get him off. Whatever happened to good old basic responsibility for your life and your own actions?”

“What can we do about Roper?” Dusty asked, her arms folded on the table.

“Unless we find a witness or some hard physical evidence, nothing. We can't refile the charges,” Rick said bleakly. “It was all circumstantial. The confession is what cinched it, or so we thought.”

“He walked.” Jim drained his glass and slammed it down on the table so hard that Dusty winced. “Nobody's got the manpower to tail him night and day. We just have to hope no other little girl crosses his path when he's in the mood. I've had it just about up to here with the system, with this job, with this town. Roper was as sober as you and me when we advised him and took his statement.”

“Maybe more so, at this point.” Rick stared into the bottom of his empty glass. “He really was,” he said, answering the question in Dusty's eyes. “We were so careful.”

“I'm gonna see if I can get us some sandwiches,” Jim muttered, struggling to his feet.

“You don't get mad, you get hungry,” Dusty said, smiling.

“Very funny,” Jim said, and strode toward the bar, leaving Dusty and Rick alone at the table.

She smiled and raised her wineglass. “Like old times, Rick.”

“Yeah.” His smile was lukewarm, thinking about Sloat.

“Trouble at home?” she said.

“Nah, Laurel is okay. She understands.”

“I wish I did.” Dusty slipped out of the severe navy-blue blazer she had worn to court. Her white blouse looked soft and gauzy.

Slow down, Rick cautioned himself, a couple of more drinks and you'll want to rest your head on it.

He took a mental step back, to refocus on Dusty from a polite distance. “So, how is life treating you, kid? Everything okay?”

She studied her glass in the uncertain light. “Sure.”

“So what's happening? Who are you seeing these days?”

“Nobody, actually.”

“Come on,” he coaxed, “you can tell it straight to me. We're old buddies.”

She looked up, an odd light in her eyes. “I thought we were a helluva lot more than that.”

“What brought this on?” He glanced toward the bar to see where Jim had gone, then sipped his drink, avoiding her gaze. “Sure, we've got some history, good times I won't forget, but you know how tight I am with Laurel.” Suddenly he grinned. “Do you know, that woman actually irons my shorts? What a housekeeper! Almost too good. She's got my saucer in the dishwasher before I can set my coffee cup down.” He shook his head. “If I hadn't met her … Dusty, there is something so exciting, so different about that girl…” He trailed off and found himself wanting to go home.

“Different isn't always better, Rick. I never thought that what we had was such a casual affair.” Her voice was soft. “It was damn serious to me.” Tears glistened in her wide blue eyes.

“Kid, we're just having a bad day.” Rick looked uncomfortable. “Some damn headline-hungry lawyer has fucked up our case, a killer is walking the streets, we're all tired…”

“Remember what we used to do to forget when things went sour on the job?” She looked directly into his eyes. “You never outlive your past, Rick.”

He gazed back this time, remembering. “Listen,” he said, lowering his voice. “Playing house with Laurel doesn't mean I'm dead. I think about you. Who could forget what you're like?”

“I don't
believe
you. You're living with another woman and…” She chewed her lower lip.

He looked puzzled. He had thought that was what she wanted to hear.

“Believe it or not, Rick, I haven't … indulged, since you and I … I just don't have the heart. I guess I thought we were really going somewhere. I cared.”

“You're sure that's not the wine talking? Abstinence is hard to believe in a woman as warm and affectionate as you are.”

She looked exasperated. “Why do men, especially cops, always think sex is a necessity of life? I am not a slut,” she said bitterly. “Believe it or not.”

“I would never have wanted you if you were.” His voice was defensive.

“I'm sure you're very flattered,” she said miserably.

“How was I to know? You never said anything about us.”

“Actions speak louder. I thought you knew. And what could I have said? And when? It hardly seemed appropriate when you suddenly started talking about Laurel. The next thing I knew she was moving in with you. That was obviously not the right time to broach the subject.”

“I'm sorry.” He was silent for a moment, then spoke as though thinking aloud. “You always seemed sort of distant, secretive. I assumed it was some guy who either really burned you or was gonna surface one of these days, out of your wicked past.”

She looked up, her face white. “What do you mean, my wicked past?”

“Just an expression.”

“My past is not what we're talking about here,” she said sharply. The tears were gone, replaced by something else. He thought he saw fear in her eyes, but the lighting was lousy and he was well into his third drink.

She was sliding her arms into her jacket. “Cold?” he said, and reached out to help.

She shrugged him off and got to her feet. “I have a lot to do today.”

Jim loomed up behind her. “Coming through,” he said. He juggled three grilled cheese sandwiches on paper plates. “You don't know how hard it was to get these before the kitchen opens at noon. I almost had to pistol-whip the manager.”

He placed them lovingly on the table, as one of their pagers began its urgent high-frequency beep. They stared at each other, stricken. “Oh, no!” they chorused, each reaching for his or her beeper. It was Rick's. He separated a quarter from the change on the table and trekked back to the telephone.

Dusty sighed and sat down, reaching unenthusiastically for one of the sandwiches. Her face felt hot. Jim threw her a sharp, questioning look. She slid the plate in front of her. “Thanks,” she said. “I think I'm feeling the wine. If we have to go back in, I better eat one of these first. Yecch! Why'd you let 'em put so much butter on it?”

“Just like a woman,” he said, his mouth full. “Always complaining.”

Rick returned with the news. “We've got a call at the ME office.”

“Christ,” said Dusty, wrinkling her nose, putting down her sandwich and wiping her mouth with a paper napkin. “Why do they need us? We're off.”

“Yeah, but they say it relates to one of our cases.”

“Figures,” Jim said, wrapping the remaining half of his sandwich in a napkin and tucking it in his pocket. “Let's pick up some coffee on the way.”

The front door to the medical examiner's office was locked.

“We've been robbed!” Miriam announced as she swung it open.

“What did they take?” Jim said, digging out his gold-rimmed reading glasses and opening a small notebook.