The Ice Maiden (2 page)

I understood his caution. The job is full of minefields. The last chief lost a war with the mayor over the little rafter boy, Elián González. The chief before him was doing prison time for stealing from a children's charity called Do The Right Thing. The FBI accused him of lavishing the loot on the wife of a convicted cocaine trafficker. The lovers met at police headquarters, where she worked. While reporters were being treated
like potential terrorists, she had free access, to the building and the chief.

I left, frustrated after the usual skirmish with the PI officer. Heat rose in waves off the blacktop as I spotted Detective Sergeant Craig Burch striding toward the building. Wearing shades and a dress shirt and tie and carrying a battered briefcase, the eighteen-year homicide veteran had lost the graveyard pallor acquired during long years on the midnight shift and was tanned and upbeat. His current job in a unit that breathes new life into old murder cases clearly agreed with him.

“Hey, Craig, what's new?”

“That's the beauty of the Cold Case Squad.” He grinned. “Ain't nothing new. Case we're chasing now is the murder of Virginia Meadows, a nice friendly little old lady, unsolved for twenty years.”

The Cold Case Squad is armed with a cop's most powerful weapon: time. Unlike Homicide's chaotic daily routine, responding to murder scene after murder scene while juggling cases, suspects, witnesses, and leads, Burch's detectives have the luxury of enough time to investigate old unsolved cases without interruption.

The small team began with a bang, reopening the thirty-seven-year-old murder of a Miami police officer; they found the killer employed as a New York City elevator operator. They'd closed a string of other “unsolvable” cases in rapid succession.

“Can't beat it,” he said. “Better than that, it's done a helluva lot for my home life. The wife loves the weekends off, regular hours, no middle-of-the-night call
outs. For me the best part is the expression on the face of some dirtbag who thought he beat the system a long time ago.”

“You know,” I said, “I've been thinking about pitching a magazine story on your squad to the editor of
Hot Topics,
the paper's Sunday magazine.”

I could freelance the story on my own time, I thought. No hardship, given the drought in my love life, and I could use the cash for a diving vacation I yearned to take at Small Hope Bay on Andros Island, a mysterious and unspoiled paradise of pristine white beaches and eerie blue holes hundreds of feet deep.

“Good press couldn't hurt us right now,” the detective said. “We've been catching some heat from a few of the brass who think we should be out answering calls with everybody else. And now, with the new lieutenant…”

“New lieutenant?”

“Yeah, didn't you hear? Ernie got promoted to captain and went to Special Investigations. We got K. C. Riley from the rape squad.”

My stomach did a nosedive.

“Whatsa matter, you don't like Riley?”

“No, it's not that,” I said hastily. “K. C. is a good cop. It's just—”

“I know.” He nodded. “We hafta deal with that hair-trigger temper every day, explodes at the drop of a hat.”

“Right,” I said lamely.

Riley and I shared something in common: Major Kendall McDonald, the man I'd longed to spend my life with. Our work created constant conflicts between us, while the job was something he and K. C. Riley
shared. Who could compete with that? Lately I'd chosen not to try, but the ache was still there.

As a question formed on Burch's face, I changed the subject. “Hear about the burglar who got zapped this morning? You should see him: black guy, ugly scars like grapes, clustered all over his neck, chest, and stomach. The chief M.E. says they're some kinda old burns.”

“Yeah?” He grinned. “Musta thought God threw down a lightning bolt. Hey, would ya look at that?” He removed his sunglasses and lingered in the shade of a sea grape to watch a K-9 officer, a huge German shepherd, scramble easily over a five-foot barricade in a training area west of the parking lot.

“Ain't that something?” Burch shook his head. “The wife and kids always wanted a damn English sheepdog. So we got 'im—big shaggy monster. Face so full of hair he can't see out in front. Got pedigree papers and everything. Costs a bundle to feed, and he's too damn dumb to even raise his head when you call him.”

“Work with him. Dogs are happiest when they're trained and know what they're supposed to do,” I said, watching the shepherd wheel gracefully on command in the dappled sunlight.

“Lousy watchdog,” Burch muttered. “Only thing he barks at is a cat. Only way he'd ever attack a burglar is if the son-of-a-bitch brought a cat with him.” He paused, reluctantly taking his eyes off the panting dog poised at alert, awaiting his next command…. “Hey!” Burch cocked his head. “Gimme that again.”

“What?”

“'Bout the burglar.”

“If he brought a cat?”

“No,” he said, exasperated. “The guy electrocuted.”

“Oh. Old burn scars, bad ones, battery acid or something, the M.E. said.”

“No,” he said patiently. “Where'd you say he had them?”

“Lumpy clusters: across his shoulder, the base of his neck, his chest, all the way down to his groin.”

“The guy's how old?” he asked, his eyes odd.

“Thirties or so.”

“'Bout six foot?”

“That's right.”

“Identified yet?” His posture was no longer casual.

I suddenly felt like a suspect undergoing the third degree.

“No, but I'm sure he will be as soon as they run his prints. Probably has a rap sheet from here to downtown.”

“He still with the M.E.?” Burch glanced at his watch.

“I just left there.”

Burch used his walkie to inform someone in his unit that he'd be delayed because he was checking something at the morgue.

“See ya.” He turned on his heel.

“Wait a minute.” I tagged after him across the parking lot. “You know him?”

“No,” he said over his shoulder, “but if he's the right guy, I've been waiting fourteen years to meet him.”

“Who? Who is he?” I trotted to keep pace with his quick long-legged stride.

“I'm damn sure gonna find out.”

“Wait a minute. He's not going anywhere. What case was he involved with?”

“Unsolved,” he said tersely. “Don't wanna jinx it. Wait till I get a look at 'im.”

“Can I come with you?”

“No.” He looked away. “I need to do this solo.”

“Okay, Craig,” I said reluctantly. “Call me when you know something. Don't forget, okay?”

“Sure.” He slid into his unmarked Plymouth, slammed the door, and took off, leaving me standing there by myself in the parking lot. The story of my life.

I'd always liked Craig Burch, despite occasional clashes under deadline pressure. He was reliable, matter-of-fact, and down-to-earth. Unlike some, he'd never lied to me. But I'd never seen him so intense.

I went back into the station and finally dogged Sergeant Joe Diaz in PIO into tracking down what I needed. Gomez would be arraigned in the morning: the charge, second-degree murder. Instead of going back to the paper, I drove the eighteen blocks to the M.E.'s office. Burch's unmarked stood in the parking lot.

A hot breeze blew across the pavement, birds sang, and passing traffic hummed as I leaned against the cannon to wait. The ancient weapon, worn smooth by hundreds of years of ocean waves and tides, had protected the
Santa Margarita,
a Spanish galleon lost with all aboard in a savage hurricane off the Florida coast. Did the doomed ship ever anchor at Andros, a historic haven for notorious buccaneers? I envisioned the ship's crew who had touched this same metal in that era of pirates, sea battles, and exploration nearly four
hundred years ago. When overtaken, engulfed by that killer storm, did they see the irony, that no gun is powerful enough to fight off the forces of nature? I wondered if the loved ones who waited for them ever learned the fates of the lost seamen, and I thought of my own father, executed in Cuba when I was three.

As I daydreamed about men long dead, Burch emerged from the building, moving fast, like a man with a mission.

“Hey, hey!” I called, to slow him down. “Is it him? Is it the right guy?”

He broke stride. “Maybe.”

“Don't leave me hanging, Craig. I won't write anything until you're sure.”

“Right.” I could see him considering the possibility that I might do him some good. “There are other suspects,” he said slowly. “We don't wanna tip 'em off.” He checked his watch. “Got time for a quick cuppa coffee?”

“I'm good to go. La Esquina?”

“Meet you there in ten. Inside.”

 

I drove south on Twelfth Avenue, past a half dozen charming old-fashioned wooden cottages converted into bail-bond offices. Flags were
everywhere
: in yards, on front doors, fluttering from cars, on every street corner, in every window. Since the disasters, Cuban street-corner vendors who normally offer flowers, fruit, or snacks, had been selling small American flags. La Esquina de Tejas, my favorite restaurant, stands at the corner of Calle José Martí and Ronald Reagan Boulevard, a long low building with a red barrel-tile roof and
a walk-up window where pedestrians can buy Cuban coffee, pastries, and cigars. I found a table in the back room near an entire wall devoted to autographed photos of President Reagan's historic 1983 visit to Little Havana. The commander in chief dined here on
pollo asado, moros, maduros, flan, y café
—roast chicken, mixed black beans and rice, fried bananas, caramel custard, and coffee—a meal still proudly identified on the menu as
El special del presidente.

Burch arrived minutes later with two Cold Case Squad detectives—Sam Stone, a flashy, fast-talking, dapper young black guy, and Pete Nazario, a quiet Cuban-born cop. Both watched me with guarded curiosity as they took their seats.

I smiled, trying to look winsome. I knew both men by reputation. Nazario, a sensitive loner, had a gift, a talent that does not provide probable cause for arrest or testimony in court but is priceless to a detective. Fellow cops swore that he could sense when somebody was lying.

A doe-eyed waitress took our orders:
cortaditos,
tiny cups of steaming black Cuban espresso for Nazario and me, and café con leche for Burch. Stone asked for
té frío,
iced tea.

“Okay.” Burch planted his elbows firmly on the table and lowered his voice as the waitress departed. “I caught the case fourteen years ago, my fourth year in Homicide. I was the lead. It was big, it was a bitch, and we had up to a hundred people, not counting volunteers, working it at one point. No day goes by, even now, that I don't think of it.”

He licked his lips as though they'd suddenly gone
dry. “How many years you on the job?” he asked Nazario.

“Ten.”

“So you weren't here yet, but you musta heard about it. You know how there are some you never forget.”

The Cuban detective nodded, his intelligent brown eyes attentive, his hands folded on the checkered tablecloth.

“And you,” Burch told Stone, “were probably still in diapers.”

“Not quite.” Stone looked amused. “I was in the sixth grade back then, sarge.”

“Your newspaper ran big headlines on it,” Burch said to me. “I got 'em all, stapled into the case file. Happened at Christmas. You know the annual Christmas Boat Parade?”

“Sure. Boaters decorate their craft, everything from little putt-putts to millionaires' yachts, and parade the waterways with holiday lights and music on Christmas Eve. I was part of it one year, aboard
Sea Dancer,
a sightseeing boat out of Bayside.”

“We had two victims,” Burch said, “both teenagers from good families. Richard Lee Chance, white male, age seventeen, a good-looking high school athlete. Kid was straight as they come. Victim number two, Sunny Hartley, white female, just turned sixteen. Real pretty baton-twirler type. Should see her picture. Little pixie smile could tear your heart out. Her mother was a Ford model, big-time, but quit the business when she married Sunny's father, a surgeon.

“Night it happened, the Christmas Boat Parade, was Sunny's first date, if you could even call it that. Pretty
well chaperoned. She and Ricky were with her parents, along with her little brother, Tyler, a kid about ten. Had a twenty-eight-foot Chris-Craft named for the girl—called it the
Sunshine Princess
. Had it all lit up, colored Christmas lights, carols on the sound system. But they run into a problem—the engine cuts out and is gonna take some time to fix. Dr. Hartley had taken the boat up to the parade staging area earlier. The wife and kids drove up to join him. So they tell Ricky to go on ahead, take the car, and drive their daughter home while they square away the problem. The kid brother stays with his parents. A blessing, given how things turned out.

“They never get the engine restarted and wind up catching a tow back to the dock behind the house a couple hours later. Santa's still on the roof, Christmas lights twinkling in the yard, everything like they left it, but no Sunny, no Ricky, no car, no note. His parents live a few blocks away. They haven't seen the kids either, thought they were still with the Hartleys. First they're all pissed, then they panic. It's the start of a long night.”

I toyed with my coffee spoon and tried to imagine.

“Their worst fear,” Burch said, “was a traffic accident. They couldn't even begin to imagine how terrible the truth would be. They start reaching out to cops, troopers, hospitals, tow companies. Nothing.

“We pieced together later that the kids had stopped for ice cream on the way home. It's about ten o'clock on Christmas Eve. Strolling back to their car, no more than a hundred fifty feet from the brightly lit ice-cream parlor, they're surrounded by four or five young blacks.
They're robbed at gunpoint, abducted in a white van, and driven south to a remote farm field. The boy is severely beaten. Both are bound. The girl gets raped every which way by who knows how many, and then she and Ricky are shot in the head and left for dead.”