Act of Betrayal (21 page)

I had expected the meeting to be awkward at first, with a somber or angry mood, but a spirit of instant camaraderie prevailed. Eager ideas and an air of optimism swept the room. Sharing lightens the load, I thought. It had to be exciting, after all their waiting, for something to finally be happening. Attention from both the media and the police validated their loss, an added bonus.

At times everyone spoke at once, comparing notes, dates, and pictures. They galvanized into action; Emily Kearns, a former secretary who now handled the business side of the family nursery business, took notes. The minutes of the meeting would be distributed to all the parents, particularly those unable to attend. Edwin Clower would provide unlimited use of fax and Xerox machines and a business phone number for tipsters. Vanessa would design a color poster bearing all the boys' pictures and combining the reward offers. “News of one could lead to all of them,” she said.

Detective Simmons, clean-shaven, short-haired, and boyish, though a twelve-year police veteran, took the floor to announce that the department was taking the investigation seriously and—based on the recently added cases, whether related or not—was forming a Missing Boys Task Force. The task force would include a detective from each local department with a case. Everyone applauded. An almost party atmosphere reigned. Cassie served the doughnuts, a chocolate cake, and Andrea Vitale's cookies.

Even Michael Kearns looked content, digging into his chocolate cake. Notebook in my lap, pen in hand, I studied them and knew the truth. Suddenly sick, I was afraid I was going to retch. The iced tea I had swallowed had turned to battery acid in my stomach. The only face in the room I could bear to look at was Simmons, who sat comfortably in his shirt and tie at the dining room table. My thoughts were reflected in his eyes, the look I'd seen in so many cops' eyes before.

They're all dead! I wanted to scream. Not one is ever coming back. Oh my God, I thought. They're dead.

Preoccupied with the Cuban business, my mother, my father, my own personal life, I hadn't been thinking clearly.

Each of the boys has probably been dead since the day he vanished. One person is responsible. Serial killers are nearly always loners. This one is still out there.

There are no coincidences. The smartest cop I ever knew once told me that. Nobody could hold that many kids. Any time this many are missing, they are all dead. I had been denying what my subconscious and my intuition had told me from the start, when I had mentioned both Bundy and Wilder to Fred, trying to spark editorial interest in the story.

The chatting and laughter and optimism in the room ebbed and flowed around me as though I were drowning. How many of them were also in denial?

I wanted to warn them: They are not coming home. Accept it now. Grieving is easier than being left in limbo, better than holding your breath when the phone or the doorbell rings, or searching the faces in every crowd of strangers. Hope ages fast. The most devastating truth is better than keeping life and emotions on hold forever. Better to grieve, close the book, and go on.

I took deep breaths to settle my stomach. The light hurt my eyes and my head throbbed. “What's the matter, Britt?” Andrea Vitale asked, concern in her voice. “You look pale.”

Her son was one of the last to die, I thought. Only missing five months. All eyes turned to me now.

“Don't you want to try the cake? It's made from scratch,” Cassie said warmly.

Her son, I thought, welcomed into the world after four miscarriages. The boy who never walked out the door without kissing her good-bye. My God, they're all dead.

“I have to go,” I said, and stood so suddenly that my notebook fell to the floor. “Have an early deadline.”

Simmons walked me out to the car, probably to be sure that I would mention his department's deep concern for these parents and their sons. “Who will the task force report to?” I asked him.

“Murphy.”

“The homicide commander.”

He nodded. “But that doesn't mean…” he began perfunctorily.

I returned his nod, got into my car, and looked up into his boyish face. We both knew.

I drove back to the paper, a lump in my throat. How many? I wondered. How long has this been going on?

I called Onnie in the library to find me everything and anything she could on pedophiles. “Oh, Jesus,” she said, “what happened?”

“Just research,” I said wearily. “I'm trying to figure out what's going on.”

“You don't sound good, Britt.”

“I don't feel good.”

Hal had left another message. I was in no mood for flirtatious happy talk, and he sure as hell would not be turned on by my current state of mind. How do you talk to a normal civilian about something like this? Only somebody in the business would understand. I wished for Kendall McDonald and his arms. He could hold me, we could exchange ideas. I could pick his brain and find warmth and comfort in his body. I missed Dan Flood, a street-smart detective, a source and a friend, now dead.

Lottie and I could have brainstormed, but she was at sea and in love. Having a wonderful time. She and the Polish Prince were probably cuddled in a chaise longue on deck under a romantic blanket of stars. I felt so lonely.

First I wrote the story about the meeting. The news peg, of course, was the formation of the Missing Boys Task Force, a smart political move. Before the parents' group could organize and publicly accuse the police of being unresponsive, uncaring, and slipshod, the department had defused the situation. Now that they had stepped in to the rescue, it would be nonproductive to ask where they had been all this time. I hoped the task force would be more than a token. We had to find the bodies. Once they were found, their families could join the Parents of Murdered Children, begin to heal, and focus on lobbying for victims' rights, tougher laws, and proper punishment. Simmons's assignment was a good sign. I knew him to be thorough, conscientious, and meticulously organized. The department has to do this right, I thought; they can't afford not to.

I turned in the innocuous story on the meeting and plunged into the research Onnie had brought. The divorced mother of two young boys, she had gingerly placed the printouts and clippings on my desk as though eager to go wash her hands.

My headache worsened as I read through them. Five years earlier several small black boys, street kids from poor homes, had turned up in Miami canals. The first had been mauled by a gator. His head and legs were missing. Police and a medical examiner believed he was killed by the animal while playing on the canal bank, even though the canal was miles from the eight-year-old's home. The second was nude but so decomposed that it was impossible to determine his cause of death. He might have drowned while skinny-dipping, detectives theorized. The next two were found more quickly. The bodies were still fresh, one discovered by a fisherman, the other by snake hunters, ten days apart. The boys had been sexually assaulted and fatally beaten. The killer was never identified. In the hue and cry of publicity and the intense manhunt that followed, he had vanished. He either died, moved on, got into therapy, or was arrested for some other crime. There were no new cases.

The man responsible for the missing boys was obviously not the same. The ages and the profile of the victims were different. Serial killers usually select victims from their own race and these boys were well hidden, unlike the others, simply discarded, tossed down a canal bank when their killer had finished with them. Charles Randolph and the other missing boys, all tall for their ages, healthy and agile, could not all have been snatched off the street. They must have gone willingly with their killer.

The numbers were staggering as I read the latest research. I knew that the United States leads the world in the production of serial killers. But just two short decades ago it was believed that there were approximately twenty roaming the country at any one time, trolling for victims. Sociologists now estimate that there are as many as five hundred out there hunting other humans like animals. Either our reporting and tracking have become considerably more accurate, or our society is creating monsters at an accelerated rate.

My phone startled me. The newsroom was deserted, except for a cleaning man shampooing a carpet in one of the executive offices. It was after one o'clock in the morning. I answered, expecting a cop or a fireman with news of a late-breaking story.

“What are you still doing there?”

“Lottie? Where are you?”

“Down at the port, can you come git me?”

“Sure.” It was only five minutes away. “But where's Stosh?”

“Come git me. I'll tell ya then. Everybody's leaving, it's dark as hell over here, and I'm loaded with money.”

“I'll be right there.” What the hell, I wondered, hanging up. I left my desk the way it was, grabbed my car keys, and took off. Didn't have to wait for an elevator, it was waiting for me. I love the
News
building when it is empty, and that dizzying high that comes after inhaling your first breath of hot, moist night air after so many hours in an over-air-conditioned, unnaturally frigid building. Head spinning, I slid into the T-Bird and drove with the windows wide open until my bones warmed and I began to perspire.

The other passengers had gone. Lottie stood alone, a tall silhouette in the dark under a sapphire sky. I didn't see the black Jaguar.

“Thanks, Britt.” She settled in the front seat with an apprehensive glance behind us. “Thank God that woman's finally gone.”

“What woman? Where's Stosh? What the hell is going on?” I demanded, and swung into a U-turn. “Is he swimming back from Freeport?”

“He didn't go.” She spoke calmly and didn't look heartbroken.

We were sailing across the Dodge Island Bridge between the port and downtown. “What do you mean he didn't go? I saw you both board that ship.”

“Yeah, but, as you know, even though you don't need a passport, you need to show two forms of ID, driver's license, birth certificate, voter's registration. When they ask us for it, Stosh pats his pockets. Whoops, he says, he left his wallet in the car and has to run back to the Jag for ID. He did, and the man did not come back. The
Gettaway
sailed without him. At first I thought he had to be on board somewhere, that he must be with the purser being processed.”

“I don't believe it! What could have…”

“I saw the parking lot from the upper deck after we moved away from the pier. His car was gone. He hightailed it outta there like a lynch mob was on his tail.”

“That's awful! What on earth would make him … Were you two having an argument?”

“Nope.” She thought a moment. “Nothing. I did make a joke. When the captain greeted us, I asked him if he performed marriages on the high seas. He just laughed.”

“But it was right after that?”

She nodded. “Not long. I'm surprised he didn't pass you like Mario Andretti as you was leaving.”

“Do you think what you said could be the reason?”

“Don't know, and don't wanna know. Could not care less.”

“It had to be awful. What did you do?”

“Wasn't half bad, Britt. I mean, it wasn't no transatlantic cruise. I ate till I thought I would burst. Played shuffleboard with a buncha young medical students and toured Freeport with a nice family from Austin. Bought some perfume and a bottle of duty-free rum. On the way back I tried my hand at roulette in the casino and won twenty bucks. That's when I started watching folks playing the slots. Never play those badger games myself, just watched. Some woman from Chicago had been playing one since morning. Never even went ashore. Eight hours she'd been feeding that machine, and nothing.”

“Humph, like the parking meters down at Chopin Plaza.”

“Exactly. Finally she takes a break to go to the ladies' room. Without even thinking I drop fifty cents in the slot and it belches up money, money, money! Red lights and sirens, just like a vice raid.”

“You won!”

“Five thousand big ones,” she said, speaking slowly, emphasizing each syllable.

“Five thousand dollars? Great! I love it! Oh, Lottie!”

We high-fived.

“That woman from Chicago comes back spitting fire. Real mouth on her. Coulda swallowed the devil with his horns on. Screeching like a stuck pig that I took her machine. Still at it when we docked, following me down the gangplank yelling: ‘That's my money! That's my money!' Shoulda heard her.”

“Did you give her any?”

“Nope. Not with her attitude. I'm quitting the game while I'm ahead. No more gambling or Stosh Gorski.”

“Good idea,” I solemnly agreed.

“I shoulda done it before, but if I had, I wouldn't have won. Had he come aboard and stayed, I wouldn't have won. I wouldn't even have been playing, not a machine anyway. I should thank him. But I won't. I ain't so bad off. He never was a plumb truthful critter, always foil of balooey. Deep down I knew it.” She leaned back and sighed. “Greenbacks in my jeans sure ease the pain.”

“What are you going to do with it, after you buy me breakfast?”

“Been thinking about some white-water rafting, a painting by that Hainan artist down by the river, some new camera equipment.”

I told her what I believed about the missing boys.

“Glory, Britt, I assumed you'd figured that out. Ain't no secret summer camp out there for lost boys. Little ones might git sold off to chicken hawks, sent south of the border. Ain't no way big boys like that could be controlled by anybody for so long.”

We drove up the Boulevard, deserted at that hour except for the hookers staring hollow-eyed from shadowy street corners.

“How come you're so good at judging character when it comes to news but not in your personal life?”

“Ain't that true of all of us?”

She was right. I wondered about Hal and Kendall McDonald.