Cold Case Squad (27 page)

Riley literally ran to her car.

A police helicopter had picked up the van headed out the Tamiami
Trail.

He would drive across the entire state, to the Gulf of Mexico, if he
had to, Nelson thought. He was alone, against all odds, all for love.
He would show them a real man. He would show Natasha. She would see he
was willing to die for love. She would beg him to come back to her.

Half a dozen patrol cars trailed behind him, their numbers growing,
lights flashing, sirens wailing. But nobody was shooting at him.

A good sign. They knew he was not at fault. He was no criminal.
Perhaps Natasha had already told them that. The slow-speed chase
crossed Krome Avenue headed west. The city began to fall away. Endless
sky stretched out across the Everglades on either side. The brightness
hurt his eyes. He could almost hear the asphalt sizzle as it withered
in the heat from a relentless sun. It was then that he noticed, as he
approached the Miccosukee Indian village, that his gas gauge read empty.

Impossible. It had been three-quarters full. One of that policeman's
gunshots must have hit the gas tank.

Why now? Why, Natasha? Why? He wept aloud, then gritted his teeth.
More choppers beat the air overhead. He wondered if they would drop
bombs on him from the sky.

This was war. He was a soldier of love, he would never surrender.
They would never stop him. A combination gas station, souvenir stand,
and convenience store lay up ahead. He saw signs for airboat rides into
the Everglades.

Empty airboats were parked alongside the convenience store. He could
steal one and flee deep into the Glades, where they would never find
him. Like an Indian, he could outwit, outwait, and outsmart them. He
was unafraid of darkness, alligators, or snakes. But, he thought, it is
mosquito season. The swampy sawgrass swarmed with dense clouds of
small, ferocious Everglades mosquitoes.

He would take the convenience store instead, hold hostages until
they brought his Natasha to him, to beg him for forgiveness. The police
were ridiculously slow, he thought. They were afraid. They knew what
they were up against, that the forces of true love cannot be denied.
They seemed so slow that had his gas tank not been leaking, he would
have had time enough to roll up to the pumps, fill the tank, and be
gone. But not quite. As the van sputtered and slowed down, they began
to close in like hawks cornering a rabbit. The van died. It rolled to a
stop about two hundred feet from the store.

Nelson did not hesitate. He leaped out, gun in hand. Ignoring the
sirens, the lights, and the shouts to stop, he sprinted into the store.

The few customers inside scattered. He intended to hold them all
hostage, but they showed no respect. They ran away, scrambling out the
front door when they saw his gun.

All but Trudy Tiger, standing behind the counter in her authentic,
colorful native Indian costume.

She'd been showing a schoolteacher from Chicago a pair of beaded
moccasins and a rubber alligator made in Taiwan when her would-be
customer fled.

Trudy blinked. Six months' pregnant, hormones raging, she felt
depressed, bloated, and sleepy.

Nelson ordered her not to move.

Stoic, she said nothing.

"I am a man!" Nelson raged. He ranted, pacing back and forth,
stopping only to glare out the plate-glass windows at the police. He
pounded his chest at the TV cameras and hoped Natasha was watching.

Trudy frowned.

Television choppers and mobile news vans had joined the chase. The
SWAT team had already mobilized and was on the way.

Riley's unmarked car arrived just behind Channel Seven. She strapped
her bulletproof vest on over her blouse.

"Keep the press back!" she ordered. The van stood within shooting
distance of the store. The small, dark puddle beneath it appeared to be
gasoline. But if Natasha Ross was inside that van, wounded by police
bullets, there was no time to waste.

"Cover me," she told two young patrolmen. "He comes out with the gun
in his hand, drop him." She and a young cop named Victor darted to the
back of Nelson's van and forced open the dented, bullet-riddled doors.
Riley took a deep breath. Only a wounded lawnmower, a nasty-looking
machete, and half a dozen sacks of fertilizer.

And something blue. A silky dress. Torn.

"Where the hell is she?"

They slammed the doors and took cover.

A sergeant reported that all but one of the people in the store had
escaped. The lone hostage was the pregnant clerk.

Cops with bullhorns ordered Nelson to come out. He shook his fists
in response, spouted insults, and kicked over a display of Miccosukee
dolls dressed in authentic costume.

Trudy squinted at the mess.

The SWAT team's armored van arrived, SWAT Captain Billy Clayton in
command.

Nelson laughed contemptuously and made rude gestures at them. An
army of cowards, hiding behind trucks and cars,
behind flak jackets and protective gear. He had the power.

He strutted and preened, performing for the television cameras,
hoping Natasha could see him. He imagined what he must look like on
camera and tried to emulate Tony Montana, the hero in
Scarface
,
his favorite movie.

The phone rang.

"Bring Natasha here," he demanded. "I must see her."

After Nelson laughed at the hostage negotiator and hung up the
telephone, Captain Clayton discussed a tear gas attack.

"The woman clerk is pregnant," Riley protested, as half a dozen
Miccosukee police officers appeared, accompanied by several tribal
elders.

"We don't need any help." Captain Clayton waved them away. "Just
step over there with the press, fellows, and stay out of the line of
fire—"

"Take your people. Leave now," the Miccosukee police chief said.

"Say again?" Captain Clayton cocked his head and grinned. Half a
dozen more Miccosukee officers noisily arrived in airboats. Two pickup
trucks pulled up with even more.

"You have no jurisdiction here," the Indian said. "You must take
your people and leave."

"We have an armed fugitive inside. He's holding a hostage," Clayton
sputtered.

"We will take care of it."

"Like hell. This little powwow is over," Clayton replied. "End of
discussion."

"We need to arrest the gunman unharmed," Riley told the Miccosukee
police chief. "He may be the only person who knows the whereabouts of a
kidnap victim. She may still be alive."

The chief nodded solemnly. "We will take care of it."

"But—"

"This," one of the elders announced gravely, "is the sovereign
Miccosukee nation. Your laws do not apply here. You were told to leave.
Now you are criminally trespassing."

Clayton quarreled with them as Riley stepped away to make a call.

"We have a situation here," she told Leo Nathan, the city's legal
adviser.

"They're absolutely right," Nathan said. "The Miccosukee Reservation
is exclusively federal jurisdiction. Nonfederal agents have no right to
be there. If you can't negotiate a quick and peaceful settlement, I'd
advise you to leave."

"Captain Clayton will not back down," she whispered.

"Sit tight, I'll notify Chief Granados."

Riley rejoined Clayton, who pointed a warning finger at the
Miccosukee elder. "Outta my way, Chief," he said. "We're going in."

"Arrest them," the dignified elder said calmly. He had had enough.
His tribe was still immersed in long-standing feuds and lawsuits with
outside government. The state had not lived up to its legal agreement
to reduce Everglades pollution levels. A new US. Army Corps of
Engineers crusade to protect the Cape Sable seaside sparrow by
diverting the freshwater flow was sure to doom the roseate
spoonbill, a dazzling pink wading bird, and the Everglades kite and
harm
all of northeastern Florida Bay. Weeks earlier construction workers
digging trenches for state power lines had unearthed an Indian burial
ground. Legally, a work stoppage is required so archaeologists can
investigate and protect the site. Instead, the contractor had his men
hastily pour cement over the human bones, skulls, and artifacts and
continue their work Now this…

"You and your officers are under arrest for criminal trespass," the
Miccosukee police chief informed Clayton.

"No!
You're
under arrest for obstructing justice!" Clayton
roared, as TV cameras rolled.

Nelson shouted insults, paced, waved his arms, and made obscene
gestures, as the situation outside escalated. He sensed he was losing
his audience. If only he had a TV set, he would know what was happening.

Riley talked to Nathan again. "Do something," she whispered. "The
Miccosukee police and the SWAT team are arresting each other."

"The cavalry's on the way," he said.

K.C. Riley's heart sank. This wouldn't help find Natasha.

Nelson found Trudy Tiger's transistor radio behind the counter.
According to the all-news station, Miami's mayor, the city manager, the
police chief, his PIO officer, and their legal advisers were all racing
to the scene of a tense standoff at the Miccosukee Indian Reservation.

Nelson screamed in triumph. The mayor himself would bring Natasha to
him! He did a macho strut back and forth in plain view of the police.
He felt invincible. Arms raised in victory, he shouted triumphantly at
them, challenging them to send their best and bravest to try to take
him. He did bumps and grinds in their direction, humiliating them in
front of the cameras, laughing aloud at his own bravado.

But, as Miami police and the Miccosukee Nation faced off outside,
Trudy Tiger grew tired of waiting.

She grasped the ballpeen hammer she kept beneath the counter for
just such an occasion and plodded up behind Nelson. He bellowed at
police, flapping his arms like a chicken and making chicken noises at
them.

Clutching the hammer in both hands, Trudy swung and slammed the side
of his head so hard that brain matter hit the wall. Irritated by the
mess, she swung and hit him again as he fell.

"Slow everybody down. It's resolved," Riley radioed, as medics
bundled Nelson into a rescue helicopter. She flew with him to the Ryder
Trauma Center and held his hand, hoping, even though he was bleeding
from the ears, nose, and mouth, to ask him a question.

He watched from his car across the street as she knelt in the yard
beside the wooden cottage snipping leaves from an herb garden.

Look how stiffly she moves, he thought, watching her struggle to
stand when she had finished. She was one of them. Alone, aged, and
lonely. He had seen her speak to strangers at the market and buy only
enough food that she could comfortably carry.

Ending her pain by providing the final passage that returned her to
dust would serve two purposes. Perhaps this time he would do it
perfectly and his mother would forgive him when the messiah came. At
last
mechilah
, forgiveness.

He would try again to atone for what he had failed to do when he was
called upon. And it would bring bad
mazel
to the detective,
for all he had said and done, the lies he told on television and in the
newspaper, the lack of respect, when he knew nothing. Detective Stone
had brought the evil eye upon himself. But is it truly deserved? he
asked himself, trying to remain objective. Or was it because something
about Stone's arrogance had awakened the
yetzer ham
, the evil
impulse, in him?

He watched the old woman cling to the railing as she slowly climbed
the stairs. Her life had not been easy. But neither had his. After his
humiliation, his loss, and the ridicule he endured, he had studied and
studied, read the Torah, worked hard. He still did. So diligent was he
that he now held a position of trust and importance. The chief
mashgiach
,
the overseer of the overseers, he demanded excellence and exacting
enforcement of all the rituals. Religious laws must not be broken. The
other, lesser
mashgiachim
feared his inspections, cringed at
his reports, chafed at his demands. But they must be perfect in their
observance of the rules, the laws, the rituals. Nothing less than
perfection was acceptable.

If those from whom he demanded so much knew of his humiliation, knew
that he himself had failed to perform the greatest
mitzvah
,
the one the recipient can never return in kind…

If he could only do it perfectly this time, his mother would forgive
him when they met again after the coming of the messiah. The sting of
his shame was as painful now as it was then, so many years ago.

She had been sick for so long. Had lost weight, had found it
increasingly difficult to walk. His younger siblings did not remember
how their mother had looked before she was ill. Doctors came and went.
His older sisters had whispered and wept. By six months after his bar
mitzvah his mother had become someone he scarcely recognized.

The night they said she was a
goses
, a person at the brink
of death, they called him to her room. It is a
mitzvah
to be
present at the very end of a life. The room was crowded with relatives,
the air so thick with grief and impending death that he could not
breathe. The smells, the weeping of his sisters and his grandmother
repelled him.

He hid trembling in the hallway, knowing what lay ahead.

He heard wailing and then the prayers.

Barukh atah Adonai, Dayan haemet.

His father came for him then, ushered him into the room, to the
bedside. Unable to speak, he could not resist.

He was the firstborn son. His duty was clear.

He was to touch his mother, to close her blank eyes and gaping mouth.

He had never seen death up close before. She stared at the ceiling,
her skin gray, her tiny body like a bundle of rags in a huge bed. He
did not recognize her, could not bring himself to touch this dead
stranger. His father lifted his hand, to place it gently over her eyes.
Violently, he recoiled. He screamed and screamed, high-pitched cries
like a woman, even though he was now a man. He rushed wildly from the
room, shrieking down the stairs, hurling people and objects out of his
path. Still shrieking out the front door and down the street. He ran
and ran until his body was numb, his lungs bursting, and he no longer
knew where he was. Then he fell to the ground and cried like a child.
He finally returned home long after midnight only because he was alone,
afraid, and had no other place to go.