Cold Case Squad (31 page)

A trunk and a matched set of expensive leather luggage stand just
inside the door, ready to go.

The shower isn't running. "Desiree!"

I turn off the loud radio and step into her bedroom. Clothes are
strewn about. Drawers hang open. She packed in a hurry. "Desiree!
Linda!"

She's not in the bathroom.

Alarmed, I pull out my cell, hit Nazario's number, and head for the
kitchen as it rings. I pass the large gilt-framed oval mirror and in it
glimpse a reflection, something terrible behind the bar. A pale, bare
foot, her shoe beside it. The once-white carpet now crimson. She's
sprawled on the floor, her head resting against the wall. I rush to
find a pulse. Her skin is still warm. But half her face is gone.

"Goddamn it!" I shout.

I hear a
click
, turn, and recognize an older Charles
Terrell in the instant before he shoots me in the chest. I see the
flame and feel the impact before I hear the shot. The force of the
bullet knocks the wind out of me. My knees buckle. I reach for my gun
as I fall, but he lunges forward and shoots me in the head.

I can't feel my hands or feet. It's as though a red-hot railroad
spike has been pounded into my skull between my eyes. Pain impulses
travel up and down my spinal cord, relayed from one nerve cell to the
next by chemical messengers to the brain. I feel like I have been
doused with gasoline and set on fire.

He takes my gun, cell phone, and identification. My eyes stay
closed. To open them would only invite another bullet.

I think he is gone and I am alone.

I smell spilled blood and know that it's mine.

She's dead, I think, as I drift away. It's my fault. I'm dying and
it's my fault. I was so stupid.

The room is quiet. Blood bubbles up out of my chest. I try to sigh
but it is too difficult to breathe.

My future slips away. All behind me now. Here I am in the valley of
the shadow. I think of my wife and my children.

Horns blared and brakes screeched as Nazario accelerated into a
U-turn. All he'd heard on the cell phone was Burch's shout and what
sounded like gunfire.

Burch didn't answer when he called back. Nazario called local
police. He blew three red lights leaning on the horn, abandoned the
rental on the sidewalk, and sprinted into the lobby.

He cursed, skidding on the marble floor, when he saw the security
post unmanned. The guard must be with Burch. What went wrong?

He punched the elevator button half a dozen times and had turned to
take the stairs when it arrived. He burst out on the fourth floor, gun
in hand.

The door to Desiree's apartment stood ajar. He kicked it open and
proceeded cautiously. "Sarge?" He took another step inside.

"Dios mio! 'Quepaso?"

Eyes darting, gun ready, he knelt beside Burch, whose shirtfront was
soaked with blood. So was the carpet beneath him. Blood gushed from a
head wound as well. Multiple gunshot wounds. He felt for a pulse.
"Sarge! Sarge!"

Burch's eyelids fluttered. He tried to say something. "Tell my wife
I love her."

"Son of a bitch, tell her yourself. Hang on. Help is on the way."

He'd left his cell in the car. He dove on the wall phone behind the
bar and saw Desiree.

No dial tone, wires cut.

He raced through the apartment, kicking open the doors. No one else
there. He dashed out into the hall. The other tenants on the floor were
gone, the guard had said. The elevator indicator showed it was in the
lobby. Faster to take the stairs.

He charged down the dimly lit stairwell, taking two and three steps
at a time. He stumbled over something at the second-floor level and
nearly plunged headlong. Greg, the security guard. The kid who wanted
to be a cop. His skin already growing cold. Shot in the back of the
head.

Nazario hit the pavement running.

"Three down, one is a police officer suffering from multiple gunshot
wounds!" He was still shouting into his cell phone when the first
Portland squad car pulled up.

"No. No. No." Nazario tried to deny what he knew was true as he
paced the street, cleared of traffic for the rescue helicopter.

Strapped to a backboard, his skin paper white, Burch was brought out
of the building by medics. He wore a neck brace and had intravenous
lines in his arms.

"I can't go with you, Sarge," Nazario said in his ear. "I'll find
Terrell. Then I'll be there. Hang in."

There was no response.

The chopper spiraled into the air, higher and higher, a vanishing
speck in a gray sky.

Big Red and Greg Everett would wait for the morgue wagon.

Where is Terrell? He couldn't have struck this quickly if he lived
out of town, Nazario reasoned. He had to have been here already. Big
Red must have called him. To say goodbye or to warn him.

"
Que es estupida
!" Surprising Terrell let her live this
long. He only had a five-minute head start. Where is he? Burch is
dying, Nazario thought. How did he allow this to happen? To Burch. To
the kid, the newlywed security guard with ambitions to be a cop. To Big
Red, who would never see the Miami sky again. How many victims now?
Where is Terrell? Something Big Red said last night. About strip clubs.
Strip clubs. He thought of Floria and tears stung his eyes. Big Red
said
spending time at a club is cheaper than dating or marriage.
Buddy
still feels that way
. That's what she said.

Present tense. Present place.

Nazario gave Terrell's general description to the lieutenant in
charge of the crime scene.

"Did you see him?" the lieutenant asked.

"No, but it's him."

The lieutenant was furious. Out-of-town cops had no business taking
police action on his turf, he said, without being accompanied by one of
his own.

"We didn't take any police action," Nazario explained.

"We were just talking to a witness. Can you call in somebody from
Vice? ASAP? They would know this guy."

"We need to handle this crime scene first. You stay put," the
lieutenant ordered. "We'll want to take a statement from you."

Nazario couldn't wait.

"You ever work Vice? This is a twelve-year-old picture. He could
look a lot different now." He paced the sidewalk, flashing Terrell's
photo at the uniforms.

"Hey, look at this!" a weathered patrolman said. Another peered over
his shoulder.

"Sure thing, that's him." The second one nodded.

"Who?"

"Josh Ellis. Owns a restaurant and the Candy Stick Lounge, a strip
joint over on the waterfront. First exit before the seaport."

Nazario walked to his car. He gently eased the rental around the
block out of sight, then floored it.

Too early for entertainment at the Candy Stick. The big double doors
out front were locked, but a side door to the bar was open.

Only one person in sight, a man cleaning up behind the huge
horseshoe-shaped bar. He was thin and acne scarred, with straight black
hair worn too long.

"I need to talk to the boss," Nazario said. "Is Josh here?"

"Nope." The bartender pushed his hair out of his eyes and squinted
at him. "Hasn't been here today."

He was lying.

"Okay, I'll leave the message with you." Nazario motioned, as though
about to whisper something confidential.

When the man leaned forward, Nazario caught him by the neck and
shirtfront and dragged him across the bar. He wrestled him into the
women's restroom and left him handcuffed to a pipe.

The office marked private was at the back, behind a door, sturdy,
reinforced, and locked. Nazario heard someone moving about inside,
drawers opening and closing.

He returned to a box he'd seen on the wall near the stage, yanked
the fire alarm, and took a position beside the office door.

The deafening alarm was overridden by a computerized voice warning
patrons to leave the building at once. After a moment or two the
sprinkler system sputtered, then kicked in. Water jets sprayed from the
ceiling.

A bolt disengaged and a man stepped out of the office. Charles
Terrell, aka Josh Ellis, was a few pounds heavier and a dozen years
older than in the photo. He had a suitcase in his left hand and a gun
in his belt. "Manny!" he shouted. "What the hell's—"

Nazario jammed his gun to the side of Terrell's head.

"
Maricón
," he muttered. "Please reach for your weapon so I
can shoot you now."

"What is this, a robbery?" Terrell raised his hands, feigning
innocence.

"
Si
, a robbery. At the Place Montmartre in Miami Beach. You
remember it, the one with the ten-foot blonde outside. Put your hands
against the wall." Nazario took Terrell's gun. He patted him down,
ignoring the cold spray that drenched them both.

"I've never been to Miami. You don't know what you're talking about."

"Then why is my sergeant's badge case in your pocket?
Hijo de
puta
."

Terrell suddenly spun away, darted through the door to his office,
and tried to slam it shut. Nazario lunged forward and wedged a foot
inside. He slammed his full weight against it as Terrell let go.
Nazario stumbled inside, splashing through water over his shoe tops.

Terrell had backed off to snatch another weapon, Burch's gun, off
his desk. He pointed it at the detective.

"Gotcha," Terrell cried, eyes bright. "Don't move," he said. "Drop
it. Now!"

Nazario stared at him, then dropped it. The gun plopped into the
water at his feet.

"I want you to tell me something." Terrell seemed almost
preternaturally calm. He wasn't even breathing hard. "Tell me what the
hell happened? Why, after all these years? It was foolproof. Perfect.
How did you know?"

"Your ex-wife, April, came in. Said she saw you."

"Mystic Seaport! I should've killed the bitch then! I could have. I
followed them, saw where they were staying. I should have killed the
bitch!"

"Why didn't you?"

"The goddamned kids were there."

"You know there are more coming behind me. A lot more."

"That's why we're taking a boat ride."

He snatched up his suitcase and motioned toward a back exit with the
gun.

They had almost reached the door when Nazario tripped over something
hidden in the ankle-deep water and fell. Terrell cursed. "Get up, you
clumsy son of a bitch. Hurry!"

As he rolled over, Nazario kicked Terrell's legs out from under him.
He landed on his back and elbows and dropped the gun.

Nazario piled onto him. They thrashed about in the water until the
detective wrestled him to his feet and caught him in a choke hold. His
right arm under Terrell's jaw, he turned sideways to avoid the man's
flailing arms and applied pressure. He grunted as his bicep cut off the
artery on the right side of Terrell's neck. His forearm squeezed the
artery on the left, stopping the flow of blood to the brain.

He continued squeezing after Terrell went limp. He debated whether
to stop.

He did. Terrell slid, unconscious, to the floor.

Nazario groped in the cascading water for the gun and picked it up.
"Son of a whore," he said. "
Si te mueves te mato
. If you move
I'll kill you."

Sirens converged as both the fire department and police arrived.

Rabbi Mordechai Waldman sounded breathless, speaking rapidly into
the phone. "Samuel, I checked with the national rabbinical council, as
you asked. The cities where the women were murdered all share the same
chief
mashgiach
. For the last twenty-five years he has
traveled periodically to each one, to inspect the kosher establishments
and instruct the new
mashgiachim
."

"His name is Yitzhak Friedman. His home address is in Fair Lawn, New
Jersey, but they say he is here in Miami now."

"Do you think… ?"

Stone felt a surge of adrenaline. Friedman's age, fifty, put him in
the right age group. He was staying at a small kosher hotel in Miami
Beach.

Elated, he called his grandmother. He'd been doing so several times
a day since the news story. This morning she hadn't answered. He
assumed she was in the yard or with a neighbor. He tried again. No
answer.

He called the cell phone he'd given her. Either the battery was dead
or the phone was turned off. He had told her to keep it in the charger,
but she thought it foolish.

"If somebody wants to call me and I'm not home," she argued, "they
can call me later."

She thought that people who used cell phones on the street, in
shopping malls, or in their cars were foolish, with delusions of
self-importance.

He called her next-door neighbor, who hadn't seen her all day. The
neighbor checked and called back Gran didn't answer the door.

Alarmed, he thought of sending a zone car by, but what if something
had happened to her?

He went himself.

Nothing looked unusual as he parked the car. But his chest tightened
as he took the front steps two at a time.

He fumbled with his key, then realized it was because the door
wasn't locked.

"Gran!" The cottage was silent. Nothing out of place. The kitchen
immaculate. The pictures back in their frames.

Heart pounding in his throat, his dread mounting, he went to her
bedroom. "Gran."

He stood in the doorway. There was something on her bed. Knees weak
and trembling, he leaned on the door frame for support.

She wasn't there. It was a note in unfamiliar block letters.

"See how easy. You know nothing."

Where was she? He tore through the rest of the house, calling her
name, checked the yard. No sign of her, or her purse, or the cell phone.

He called Riley, trying to sound calm and keep his voice from
trembling.

She issued a BOLO and dispatched the crime lab. She was on the way.