The Ice Maiden (7 page)

Was the woman crazy, I wondered, or as cold as ice?

Burch and I rendezvoused in mid-beach, at the Fisher monument, an elevated bronze bust of Carl Fisher, the pioneer who carved this resort city out of a swampy mangrove jungle. Like so many others whose vision imprints the world forever, he died alone and broke.

“Hey,” Burch called good-naturedly, as he walked up to my car. “You're all sunburned.”

I glanced in my rearview mirror. My face was bright pink.

“That isn't sunburn,” I snapped, stepping out of the T-Bird to join him. “It's frostbite.”

“What?”

“You didn't say I had to wear goddam thermal underwear to talk to that woman! Why didn't you warn me?”

He looked bewildered.

I filled him in, temper flaring, as my body temperature inched toward normal. “I was thisclose,” I said, illustrating with thumb and index finger, “to being the first reporter frozen to death on the job in Miami.”

“How the hell was I to know?” He wore a puzzled frown. “I don't remember her being into anything like that when she was a kid.”

“Of course not,” I said. “Teenage girls don't aspire to futures in freezers, chipping away at giant blocks of ice for banquets and bar mitzvahs. It's her day job while she's a struggling artiste.”

“What'd she say about the mug shots? Did she pick 'im out?”

“Wouldn't even look at them.” I wriggled my toes, hoping to restore feeling to my feet. “All she wants to talk about is her work. When I brought up the case, it was as though she didn't even hear me. Kept working, wouldn't listen—”

Burch reacted with a wince.

“What?” I demanded.

“Oh, jeez,” he said.

“What?”

“Sorry, Britt. I guess I forgot, or figured that after all this time it mighta gotten fixed. You know, her dad's a doctor, big time plastic surgeon, with access to all—”

“What are you talking about?” I demanded.

“The bullet Sunny took to the head. It shattered the mastoid bone, left her deaf in one ear. They said it was permanent, but that was a long time ago. She can hear fine with the other one.”

“Which ear was damaged?”

“Let's see.” He paused. “The right. Yeah, that's it, the right.”

I visualized the scene, as Sunny turned away and continued to work.

“Oh, fine. She just tuned me out,” I said, voice rising. “Talk about turning a deaf ear. Thanks, Craig. What else didn't you tell me?”

“Sorry. Guess this was a lousy idea from the start.” He sighed. “Is she okay? How'd she look?”

“What little I could see of her looked fine, if setting up housekeeping in the dining room of a crumbling old hotel is okay.” I paused to reflect. “A little reclusive, maybe. Neighbor said she's always home. Doesn't look like she entertains a lot. Windows all tinted. She sees out, nobody sees in. Mucho hardware on the doors.”

Burch paused, arms folded, at the foot of the coral rock steps that descended from the bust of Carl Fisher. The pioneer, sensitive about a receding hairline, historians say, wore his trademark fedora, brim turned up. Both men, one dead, the other alive, gazed bleakly at passing traffic.

“Look,” I said, “I have to follow up the Gomez story anyway. I'll try to talk to Coney's relatives, see if I can size up his boyhood compadres.”

Burch's head shot up in surprise. “Thanks, Britt.”

“A little background might help, so I don't waste more time talking into a deaf ear. I'll drop by your office, shoot the breeze with your lieutenant.”

“Okay,” he said, eyes wary, “but don't let on we talked about the case.”

 

Riley was tied up at a meeting, according to her secretary, so I stopped by the office of Public Information Sergeant Joe Diaz to break the good news about the
Hot Topics
story. He regarded me with suspicion, as always.

“Sounds okay,” he said guardedly, “but I'll run it by the chief.”

Always better to start at the top, I thought as I left. When you start at the bottom, somebody on the way up the chain of command will find a reason to object.

An unexpected sighting in the lobby took my breath away: Major Kendall McDonald. Lean, long-legged, in uniform.
Muy macho.
Strong jaw. Cleft chin.
Guapismo
.

“Hey, Brenda Starr.” There was warmth in his smile, but his eyes looked weary. “What's new?”

“I didn't know you were back,” I said casually.

“Got in last night,” he said hoarsely. “Drove straight through.”

“How bad was it up at Ground Zero?”

“Devastating. Worse than you could imagine. Still is. What news are you chasing today?”

“
Hot Topics
wants a cover story on the Cold Case Squad.”

He nodded. “Excellent. Our squad's a model for other departments.”

I looked into his silver-blue eyes, remembered our times together, and got lost in the moment.

“How are you, Britt?” His voice dropped to an intimate tone. “Is everything all right with you?”

“Busy as ever,” I said airily.

“Tried to call you a few times, before nine-eleven.
When you didn't return my messages, I figured you were busy.”

“Oh?” I said, flustered. “My answering machine must have fouled up again—or maybe I did.”

What did I just say?

He grinned, his eyes catching mine. I blushed and grinned back. A pair of gangly young public service aides stopped chattering to eyeball us both as they went into the PIO office, and the moment was gone.

“Good luck with your story,” McDonald said. “I'll look forward to reading it.”

My eyes still locked on his, my jumbled thoughts focused inanely on the bullet scar high on his right inner thigh. What if he could read my mind? “Put in a good word for me,” I managed to say primly. “Diaz has to run it by the chief.”

“Sure thing,” he said. “The chief'll be pleased at recognition for something positive—for a change.”

Considering that Miami police were currently under fire for shooting too many civilians, among them an unarmed seventy-two-year-old grandfather killed in his home by cops who fired 122 bullets at him, a homeless Vietnam vet, and a man who'd been standing on a street corner holding a portable radio (they mistook it for a gun, they said), he was probably right.

I willed McDonald not to walk away from me, but he did. My stomach did a double back flip with a triple twist when he turned. “You're doing something different with your hair, aren't you?” he said, squinting at my sorry coiffure. “Nice,” he added, instantly reading my reaction, then fled.

Knees rubbery, I hurried out into the scorching heat
of the parking lot to cool off. Chemistry, I thought. Nothing lasting. It's only chemistry.

 

Coney's current address was still the morgue. His family either wasn't interested or was too poor to bury him and therefore hadn't claimed his body. I'd find out from the next contact on my list.

 

There was no green at Green Gardens, a government-subsidized low-income housing project. Two gray box-shaped buildings with no discernible character faced each other across a grim cement courtyard where swarms of children cavorted noisily with a dozen stripped-down shopping carts strung together into a clattering snakelike contraption—their improvised version of playground equipment.

Ida Sweeting, Coney's aunt, wore shapeless pull-on slacks, a flowered blouse, sandals, and wire-rimmed spectacles. She appeared to be in her seventies, hair iron-gray, eyes gentle.

Many people who suffer loss react to strangers with hostility. To my relief she was not one of them. She invited me into her second-floor apartment without hesitation. A well-worn family Bible lay open on a small table next to the threadbare couch where we sat. Her apartment had at least three bedrooms and was impeccably neat, despite a small red tricycle and other signs of children.

“We went on down to Rawlings Funeral Home this morning. They're working with us on it,” she said, nodding. “We hope to have Andre's service next week.”

“I'd like to know more about him,” I said, notebook open on my lap.

“Not much left to say,” she murmured, eyes watering.

“I understand you raised him.”

“I tried,” she said, right hand over her heart. “The good Lord knows I tried, but somewheres along the way I stumbled and failed that boy.”

“I doubt it,” I said. “He made his own decisions. I'm sure you did everything you could. I'm so sorry.”

“I don't hold nothing 'gainst that other fellow, the man who owned the store. And I'm sorry 'bout the fire.” Her words were in a mournful monotone. “Andre had no business being there. I keep thinking that maybe if I'd let him stay here….” She studied the dull beige walls around us. “But I couldn't,” she said regretfully. “I got my daughter, my niece, and their babies to think about. We'da lost this place. Rules here are strict, you know. We're held accountable. Anybody goes to jail or gets caught with drugs, they evict the entire family. Everybody. And Andre, he was always in trouble.”

I knew about the zero-tolerance policy, designed to improve the quality of life among public housing residents by instilling responsibility and pride.

“That boy, rest his soul,” she said, gazing at a picture among clusters of framed family photos on a shelf, “he got off to a bad start.”

I felt a stab of guilt. Part of my reason for being there was to establish that Andre was far more evil than she or the world knew and most likely deserved his fate or worse.

“Are his parents alive?” I asked gently. “Was he born here in Miami?”

“No, ma'am. We're from Jesup, up in Georgia. My late husband, Franklin, and I came down here in nineteen and seventy-six. Andre is my baby sister Annie Mae's boy, her oldest. A beautiful child, but he done took after his daddy.”

“Andre's scars,” I prompted. “His old burns. What happened?”

“His daddy drank,” she said, eyes swimming now, “and when he did, he'd beat up on Annie Mae something terrible. I always thought he'd kill her someday. By the time Andre was five or six years old, he'd try to stand up to his daddy, try to make 'im stop hurting his mama. He'd wind up gettin' whupped too. Annie shoulda left 'im, but she had four littler ones and she'd dropped outa school in seventh grade, had trouble readin'. He kep' threatenin' to put her in the ground if she called the law on 'im. He'da done it. I know he would.

“Finally, she just had enough, I guess. One night he come home drunk, cussin' and arguin' like always, and she was waitin', had the potash on the stove just like our grandma always did. When he started in on her, she snatched up that pot by the handle and throwed it all at 'im.

“Andre was nearly eight then. He darted in between 'em, tryin' to stop the fightin'. Most all of it splashed onto 'im. He run right out the door, screamin', the potash just eatin' away, burnin' the flesh right off his little body, smoke risin' off his skin. Annie Mae tried to
catch him, runnin' after him, screamin' as loud as he was. Finally he just fell thrashin' on the ground. My godmother lived acrost the street, said she heard the most godawful screams. The kind that freezes your blood and makes your hair stand straight up on end.”

Ida Sweeting closed her eyes and heaved a great shoulder-sagging sigh. After a moment, she rose and went to the sink for a glass of water. When I declined her offer of something to drink, she returned to the couch, the plastic tumbler in her shaking hand.

“Andre's daddy panicked. Run to a pay telephone at the service station on the corner, askin' for the ambulance. But I guess he got scared cuz he'd been drinkin' and beatin' on his family, so he run off. Man always was a coward.”

“The poor little boy,” I said, hating it. I wasn't here to feel sympathy for an evil man, to see more shades of gray. “What happened then?”

“The police arrested his mama; his daddy, too. Found 'im at the same bar where he always drank. The state took the other kids, sent Andre to a special burn hospital way up in Atlanta. When he got out months and months later, they sent 'im on down here to me. Annie Mae went to jail.” Her face softened. “We was thinkin' she'd come to git 'im when she got out. Sent her bus fare, but she never came. Heard she went to New York. Had a postcard from Detroit back in 'eighty-eight. Said she was sick. Nobody's heard a word from her in years. Andre's daddy left a bar drunk one night, walkin' home along Route 301. They found 'im dead next mornin' at the side of the road. Mighta
been a big rig hit 'im. Whatever it was, it never did stop.”

She sipped from her glass and pursed her lips.

“It musta been the wrath of God, sent down to smite 'im. Kin in Georgia took Andre's brothers and sister, but when they got too much to handle, they sent 'em on down here too.”

“You raised them all?” I said.

She nodded, the Bible on her lap now. “But Andre—that boy was never right again. I tried to get 'im help, but he was always in trouble.”

“You must have been the only good influence in his life.” I reached for the worn hand resting on the Bible. “You had no control over all that damaged him before he came to you. Or the peer pressure—you know, the boys he ran with.

“Who,” I asked, pencil poised, heart skipping a beat, “were his buddies back when he was a boy, maybe sixteen, seventeen?”

Ida Sweeting searched my eyes for a long moment. “Andre didn't make friends in school,” she said slowly. “Didn't like physical education, any kinda sports or swimmin'. Said everybody stared at his scars in the shower. Called 'im names, like Lizard Man and Monster. Same thing with girls. I tried to tell 'im we all carry some kinda scars, whether people can see 'em or not. But he dropped out, wouldn't listen. Not much point in 'im stayin' in school, cuz I couldn't make him go most times anyway. It was after that when he started makin' friends, boys from the project where we were livin'. But I knew they were trouble.”