Cold Case Squad (20 page)

"Help me out on this," he promised, "and you'll be the first to
know." He meant it. He gave her his number.

Did she like him? he wondered. Was she this flirtatious with
everybody?

He told Padron, who'd beeped him twice, that he was still tied up at
the newspaper, then drove to Miami Beach. The big house across from the
golf course on Chase Avenue was just the way he remembered it, a new
generation of children playing in the yard.

"Samuel!" Mordechai Waldman greeted him from behind the cluttered
desk in his study. "It is wonderful to see you. I've been reading about
you in the newspapers! I knew you would grow up to be a force for good,
just like your grandmother. How is she?"

"The same, but older."

"Like all of us, if we are fortunate." He was dressed in black, wore
a beard and a yarmulke, the corners of his fringed undershirt showing
beneath his dark vest.

"I need your help, Rabbi."

"Whatever I can do, Samuel. Anything."

He told the rabbi everything, there in that comfortable study where
Waldman's wife, Chani, served tea and cake.

The rabbi listened gravely. Dubious at first, he shook his head.
Then he became thoughtful.

"When death comes, the eyes and mouth are traditionally closed by
the firstborn son," he said. "The body is washed with warm water and
the hair and nails are trimmed. Then the loved one is covered with a
clean white sheet or wrapped in a white linen shroud. The dead are
never
left alone. A
shotner
stays with the body, reading from the
Psalms until burial. The mourners eat hard-boiled eggs and bread for
the first meal afterward. I concede that these traditions bear some
similarities to what you have observed, but America is known for its
ritual murders and serial killers. That doesn't mean—"

"But, Rabbi, in ritual murders investigators find behavior that is
not necessary to commit the crime but gratifies the emotional needs of
the killer. Isn't it true that the emotional needs of many people are
rooted in religion or perhaps in a deluded perversion of religion?"

The rabbi sighed, his gaze wandering to the children at play outside
his study window. "The world today is such a dark place. Summer will be
gone soon," he said, as though thinking aloud. "Yom Kippur is coming.
The Day of Atonement."

"One thing I don't get," Stone said, "is the dirt. A small amount of
soil, apparently a teaspoon or so, has been found beneath the victims'
heads. The scenes are otherwise immaculate. It has to be put there
deliberately."

The rabbi's eyes flicked away from the children and back to his.
"You're sure of this?"

"It's consistent at every scene, all nine."

The rabbi leaned forward, speaking carefully.

"A small sack of soil from Israel may be placed under the head
because when the messiah comes, those buried in Israel's earth will be
resurrected first."

Stone felt an adrenaline rush.

"You may be right, Samuel. But you say that most of these poor women
were not of the Jewish faith." He paced his study, his narrow shoulders
hunched. "Could it be someone of the faith, unbalanced, forever trying
to atone for some prior sin?"

He turned to the detective. "Is this what you meant when you told
the press that you knew more about him than he realizes?"

"I wasn't sure, then. What do you think could take him to all of
those cities? Is he a musician? A truck driver? What job? What
profession?"

"Who can say? How does he travel? In comfort to a preplanned
destination? Or is he a hobo, a lost soul who wanders the road and
finds himself wherever he happens to be?"

"Hard to say whether he's well financed or a nomadic wanderer, but
my guess is that he has specific destinations because his pattern may
be repeating. The first was in Paterson, New Jersey. So was the last.
Miami was the second. And, Rabbi, I have a strong suspicion that he's
here. I can't explain it, but I can feel it in my bones."

"Never discount your instincts, Samuel. If you are right he has
probably heard your voice, seen your face. That leaves you at a
disadvantage. You haven't seen his. If he is unbalanced he may be quite
agitated by what you said. Be well. Be careful."

He walked Stone out to his car.

"Above all," he said, "trust your instincts, Samuel. Trust your
instincts."

The detective watched him enter the house, pausing for a moment to
touch the
mezuzah
on the doorpost before going inside.

Stone went back to the station, up the rear elevator to Homicide,
but was still ambushed by Padron, eager to learn how his interview had
gone.

Stone fielded some calls and listened to his voice mail. One caller
left no name, just three words: "You know nothing."

"You're right," he muttered. He played it again. Weren't those the
same words an earlier caller used? Was it the same voice? Only three
words. It was hard to tell.

He spoke to several elderly ladies who had nothing to offer but were
eager to chat.

A roiling sky exploded into a pounding rain as he drove home. Heavy
rain depressed him. It always did. He opened the door to his darkened
apartment. The red light on his message machine was flashing. The tape
was full. Most were messages from old friends, neighbors, and
schoolmates who had seen him on television or in the newspaper.

One was from Nell Hunter.

He stretched out wearily on his bed in the semidarkness and called
her.

"A couple of possibilities on Mr. Bones," she said in that
chirpy way she talked.

"You still at the paper?" he asked. "You always work such long
hours?"

"It keeps me out of trouble, off the street." She laughed. "I don't
know many people in town yet."

"You won't meet them at the office," he said.

"
Au contraire
," she said softly. "I've met some pretty
interesting people here. Like today."

Is she coming on to me? he wondered.

"Okay," she said, suddenly brisk and all business, as though she'd
read his mind. "Here's what I've got so far. A couple gets married in
Canada. Big family wedding. The happy newlyweds drive south for a
three-week honeymoon. No official itinerary. Maybe headed as far as
Miami. Maybe not. Probably depended on how many motel stops they made
along the way," she said slyly. "The couple is never heard from again.
The car never found. Credit cards unused, bank accounts untouched.
Gone."

"The stories don't say if he was a drinker. He was thirty-four, she
was twenty-seven. First marriage for both. Knew each other for seven
years. The endless honeymoon remains a mystery."

"They're still in the car," he said quietly, "probably underwater."
He remembered the scoop-neck blouse Nell was wearing and how beneath it
her breasts looked as perky as her little voice sounded. "They ran off
an unfamiliar road into water, or somebody killed them and ran the car
into the water with their bodies inside."

The wind-driven rain lashed against his windows. His room suddenly
seemed unbearably lonely, with the only light and warmth at the other
end of the telephone line.

"Anything else?"

"Yeah. A romantic stranger, approximately forty, disappears after
marrying a lonely, well-to-do, and somewhat older Boca Raton widow. Her
money and jewelry disappear with him. Lots of it. Police investigate,
and guess what they find? More abandoned brides! In Fort Lauderdale and
Key West, they all have the same story. He used a different name each
time. Each wife reported him missing before realizing he'd ripped them
off. Far as I can tell, he's never turned up. The Boca cops might know."

Stone frowned. "What else?"

"Don't you ever get enough?" Her voice dropped to a sultry purr.

He chuckled. "Never."

"Okay. Two years ago we ran a story about a college girl from
Wyandotte, Missouri. She was on a mission to Miami looking for her
long-lost father."

"Dad was a drinker, a loser who abandoned the family when she was
seven. But he kept in periodic touch, with Christmas and birthday
cards, occasional weepy phone calls—most likely collect. Said he loved
them, missed them, and wanted to come home, but wouldn't do it while he
was still down and out. He didn't want them to see him until he was
clean and sober with a job and money in his pockets."

"Last time she heard from him was a letter from Miami, postmarked
May eighteenth, 1992. He loved them, missed them, realized how much his
family meant to him, yada yada yada."

Stone smiled at Nell's cynical take and her oddly upbeat delivery of
a sad story.

"Said he finally got a break, blah, blah, blah, blah, was getting
his life together, coming home in style, planned to start a business.
Promised to make everything up to her and her mother. He'd be there in
a few weeks. So every time the bus stops or a phone or a doorbell
rings, the poor kid, then eleven or twelve, expects it to be Daddy
Dearest."

"But they never hear from him again. No more cards, no more letters,
and no phone calls."

"So, two years ago, a now grown-up twenty-two years old, she takes a
vacation to Miami to find her father. Thought he might still be here.
Wanted to tell him money didn't matter, she just wanted to see him
again. She hit every homeless shelter, every bar, every jail and
flophouse. Some vacation. A reporter did a nice little heart-tugger. We
ran a picture of her holding her dad's photo. I couldn't find a
follow-up, so looks like she was unsuccessful."

Stone had stopped smiling.

"When was that last letter postmarked?"

"Let's see. May eighteenth, 1992."

Stone sat up and reached for the notebook beside his bed.

"Where she from again? What's her name?"

"What will you give me if I tell you?" she teased.

"What do you want?" His mind raced. Had he already heard enough to
find the story without Nell's help?

"I'll have to think about that. Let me see now, what do..."

"Nell," he said. "Tell me the name."

"Donna Hastings. Dad is Michael Hastings, age thirty-seven when last
heard from. He'd be forty-nine now."

"Can you print me out a copy of that story?" He gave her the fax
number.

"Sure, you think it's anything?"

"Probably not." He tried to sound casual. "But it's worth checking
out."

The relentless rain drowned out all other sounds until he opened the
door to the club and the driving beat of the music washed over him. The
first thing Nazario saw was Floria, onstage, her body gyrating, her
tawny skin glistening.

He settled at the bar and ordered a Cuba Libre. The place wasn't
crowded. It was still early, the rain probably keeping people away.

Fiona's legs looked long from where he sat, though she was actually
petite, with high, full breasts, not big bosomed, but perfectly
proportioned for her frame. Natural, not siliconed, implanted, or
man-made. She seemed a little thinner than when he last saw her. Floria
was not a trained dancer. She had a style of her own, a delicate,
almost ladylike way of prancing, twirling, and spiraling to the beat of
the music as she peeled down to a G-string and red high heels. Her hair
was shorter now, a mass of tight dark ringlets with auburn streaks and
golden highlights that shone and shimmered in the spotlight.

Their eyes connected as he ordered his drink. Her lips curled into
an arch smile and her hips waggled in his direction with a little bump
of recognition. He felt a slight sting of embarrassment as a
dark-shirted man at the bar turned to look at him.

She finished her performance, scampered offstage, tied on a shirt to
cover her breasts, and, grinning like a schoolgirl, trotted to where he
sat.

"Like a migratory bird, you always come back," she trilled. She
rested one hand on his shoulder as she climbed onto the stool next to
his. "I knew you couldn't stay away forever."

There was a smattering of applause as a blonde waving a tiny
American flag skipped onstage in a skimpy little blue-and-white sailor
suit and saluted.

The heavyset bartender frowned at Floria as he meandered toward
them. She introduced Nazario as an old friend.

She didn't want anything to drink. "I just want to drink you up with
my eyes," she said.

They adjourned to a tiny table in a dark corner.

He looked at her glistening skin, then deep into her golden eyes,
and inhaled her scent.
She
is
a trap
, a voice inside told
him, repeating the words, the mantra that would save him.

"Where have you been, baby?" She leaned forward, lips parted, as
though eager for his answer.

"Are you okay?" he asked. "Staying on the program?"

She smiled, eyes guarded in the dim light. "I'm fine. Let's talk
about you, honey."

He knew why she didn't answer his question. Floria never lied to him.

"How much do you weigh now?" Was it even a hundred pounds? "Are you
eating, taking care of yourself?"

She playfully shrugged away his questions. "Let's go outside for
some air," she said.

"It's raining."

She lightly caressed his hand. "We can sit in your car."

She is a trap
, the voice echoed.

"I need a cigarette," she said.

He stepped to the door to check. The rain had let up a little.

"Come on," he said.

She signaled the bartender that she'd be right back "Where's your
car?"

"No. Not the car," he said. "We can talk over here."

They huddled together beneath an overhang at the corner of the
building, protected by walls on three sides. He held the match as she
lit her cigarette. A kaleidoscope of lights reflected on the dark,
slick wet street as traffic rolled by. Fiona fit neatly under his
protective arm.

"I need some information,
chica
. Hoped you could help us
out."