Suitable for Framing (2 page)

“And it was a GM.” The detective shook his head. “The GM steering column is the lifeblood of thieves.”

A patrolman sent to follow the stroller scratches in the roadway reported back, his words tinny on Rakestraw's walkie. The driver had pulled up on a curb three blocks west of the center. The front-seat passenger had jumped out and yanked the stroller from beneath the car, witnesses said. It was still there where they had left it.

Rakestraw instructed him to hold the scene until he got there. “If we're lucky we may get a print off it,” he said. “That baby was saved because her mother kept her strapped in her car seat. It absorbed the impact, exactly what it was designed to do.”

His job was to painstakingly reconstruct exactly what happened in those terrible split seconds. The physical evidence, witnesses' stories, and information gleaned from injuries would all fit together like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. He measured skid marks, the width of the road, and the location of the driveway, meticulously stepping off paces as he rolled the tape to the closest cross street. Scene diagrams drawn to scale, site sketches, and photographs would be provided to the state attorney's office for use in a prosecution—if the guilty parties were ever caught.

I retrieved my keys from Lottie, who was shooting the medics' feverish work, and drove the three blocks to where the stroller had been found.

A lone police officer guarded the mangled bit of evidence, left in the gutter in front of a small dry-cleaning establishment. In the traffic on his walkie, I heard the mother referred to as a “possible forty-five.” A dead body.

Cops and medics are sometimes wrong, I thought. Our new trauma center literally plucks patients back from the dead. I thought of the young police officer shot in the head by a deranged army deserter. All but the trauma team presumed him dead. No way he could survive, a weeping colleague told me at the crime scene. Wrong. He will never be a policeman again, or the man he once was, but he is alive.

She's young, I told myself, unlocking my car to return to the mall. Young bodies are astonishingly resilient, and she has lots to live for. A white Buick stopped alongside. A man about thirty, wearing a white shirt, his tie loosened, rolled down his window. “What happened?” he asked, staring past me at the patrol car and the tattered strip of yellow canvas caught in the crumpled metal framework.

“An accident,” I said lightly. I am usually impatient with gawkers who stop to eyeball the misery of others. I have an excuse to be there; it's my job. But something about his voice, or maybe his big eyes and curly hair, suggested he might be more than just a curious passerby.

“What kind of accident?” His tone became more urgent.

I stepped away from my car and approached his. If he was who I suspected he was, I didn't want to be the one to tell him.

“My little daughter has a stroller like that one,” he said.

Fear had begun to grow in his eyes. He gripped the steering wheel.

“There's been an accident over at the mall,” I said.

“At the mall?” He looked confused. “How did that get here?”

“It was dragged under a car. But I think the baby is fine,” I quickly added.

“My God! How could she be?”

“She flew out, in her car seat,” I said gently.

He looked numb.

“There are a lot of baby strollers. This one probably isn't yours.” I tried to sound reassuring.

He didn't seem to hear. A car honked behind him. He didn't seem to hear that either.

“I was supposed to meet them at the mall exit by the bus stop.” His voice was controlled, as though trying not to panic. “They weren't there yet, so I came to pick up the dry cleaning. I'm going back for them now.”

“Who were you picking up?”

He glanced sharply at me, as if wondering who I was. “Britt Montero,” I said, “from the
Miami News
. I'm covering the accident.”

“My wife, my little boy, and my baby girl. They're at the mall,” he repeated.

It was him. Cringing inwardly, I dug in my pocket for a business card and handed it over.

“I saw a lot of flashing lights inside the parking lot when I went by.” He stared past me, at the policeman. “I kept going.” A terrible awareness was overtaking him.

“They may have been involved,” I said quietly. “If there is anything I can do to help, please call me. Stay here, and I'll ask the officer to notify Detective Rakestraw. He can give you all the details.”

“No,” he said, suddenly moved to action. “I'm going back there. My wife must be scared to death. The baby, and Jason—”

“No, wait,” I said, as he shifted into reverse. “Don't. It's better if you stay here and—” But he was gone.

Tires squealing, the Buick shot across two lanes of traffic to turn east, back toward the mall.

“He doesn't know,” I told the patrolman, who had left his car and joined me. “That's the husband and father of the victims.” He radioed Rakestraw that next of kin was on the way, scared and unaware.

Traffic had snarled into a worse tangle back at the mall as heavy chopper blades beat against the growing dusk, rising slowly, hovering noisily over the roadway. The man who had been driving the Buick sat in the passenger seat of Rakestraw's unmarked. The car had been repositioned so the occupant could not see the accident scene. When Rakestraw emerged, clipboard in hand, I approached him. “He's the husband?”

The detective nodded and asked an older policeman to join the man in the car. “I don't want to leave him sitting there alone,” he said, turning to me. His deep-set eyes, shadowed and weary, flicked to his notes. “Name is Jason Carey.”

“What did you tell him?”

“He wanted to know where his wife was.” Rakestraw glanced toward the darkening sky, which had swallowed the flashing lights of the chopper. “They were just taking off when he got here. I feel so sorry for the guy. Gave him what I could. Told him his boy had expired. That his wife is critical and on the way to the trauma center with the baby. I think the little one will go to the ER and be admitted. She looks like she'll be all right.”

“Think the father will?”

Rakestraw shook his head. “He's totally lost. It takes them awhile to comprehend what you're saying.”

We stood wordless in the gloom.

The detective left to resume his work. Only in his thirties, his shoulders looked stooped.

A huge fire engine rumbled up, slowly angling into place, back-up signal bleating, to light the area for the investigator and hose away the blood. The medical examiner's wagon followed. The routines that attend violent death were beginning to be carried out.

The Trans Am was still missing, along with the occupants. Had yesterday's carjackers added death to their crime spree? If so, what could they be thinking now?

Arturo was waiting for a girlfriend he had called to drive him home. “What do you need my insurance information for?” I heard him ask a cop, his voice aggrieved. “It wasn't my fault.”

Rakestraw was rewalking the entire lighted scene to be sure he hadn't missed anything.

Jason Carey sat in the detective's car, head in his hands. His partner in a small water purification company was en route to take him to the hospital, Rakestraw told me. I approached and tapped on the window. The officer in the driver's seat rolled it down. The chill from the air-conditioning spilled across my bare arms, making me tremble.

“May I speak to Mr. Carey?”

The officer indicated that it was up to his companion.

Carey raised his head, eyes drowning.

“Remember?” I said gently. “We met in front of the dry cleaners?”

He nodded.

“I wanted to ask a few questions about your wife.”

“Why?” It was more a sob than a question. “Have you heard anything from the hospital?” he said fearfully.

“Not yet, she's still en route. I'm writing a story.”

“Why?” he repeated.

“This is a tragedy. People care. It may help find the ones who did this.”

He nodded again. “Okay.”

The patrolman climbed out, leaving the door open, and went to assist Rakestraw. Breathing again, stomach still clenched, I slipped behind the wheel. “How old is she?” I asked carefully.

“Jennifer is twenty-seven; her birthday was last month, the sixteenth,” he said, choking on the words.

“Is she a Miami native?” I handed him a tissue from my purse.

He pressed it to his eyes for a long moment. “No. Her parents moved here from Lexington, Kentucky, when she was eleven.”

High school sweethearts, they met when she was a freshman and he was a junior. He played basketball. She was a cheerleader. They married after college, almost five years ago.

Jason and Jennifer had been discussing moving, finding a better place to raise their children because of the crime in Miami. They weren't fast enough.

“And how old is your son?” I kept it present tense. No victim will hear a loved one referred to for the first time in past tense from me. Death is so final. The realization comes soon enough.

“If I lose her, I'll have nothing left,” he said, weeping. His raw pain permeated the air around us. “Nothing left to live for.”

“She's hanging in there,” I told him. “And your daughter, your little girl needs you.” My own eyes tearing, I forged on, asking to borrow a family photo and waiting as he fumbled in his wallet.

If I did this story right, the killer's own mother might be moved to surrender him. Hearts would be touched, readers outraged. One of the thieves might even feel remorseful enough to turn himself in, though that possibility seemed remote. The teenage criminals I'd encountered lately were scary creatures. Sometimes I suspect they were born with a birth defect, like a cleft palate or an absent limb. But what they lacked was conscience. Look in their eyes. All you can see are MTV, rap music, and violent movie fantasies.

A public outcry would fuel the investigation and assure justice. The family would not stand alone in its grief. Someday a little girl would read about this violent afternoon from a yellowed news clipping with my byline on it and understand exactly what happened to her and her mother and the brother she never knew. So why did I feel like such a ghoul?

He stared at the photo through watery eyes, then handed it to me. Jennifer Carey's hair, tied back today, had been carefully curled. She wore blue and a warm smile as she held the baby, all ruffles and satin ribbons. Her husband, Jason on his knee, rested a protective hand on his son's shoulder, the other arm around his wife. Perfect.

“We had it taken for her parents' anniversary in July…” His voice trailed off. The baby's name was Eileen. I promised to return it.

“How could anybody just drive away and leave them?” he burst out. “They must be animals!”

“They'll catch them. The police put out a BOLO, and tomorrow half a million readers will want them in jail. I'll do the best I can,” I promised.

I did not mention that if they were juveniles, too young for adult court, punishment would probably be no more than a minor inconvenience.

I went back to find Lottie. Rakestraw, wrapping up his work, echoed my unspoken thoughts. “Hope to hell they're not juveniles,” he muttered.

Lottie and I drove back to the office in a far more quiet and subdued mood than when we had set out. “Remember,” she whispered, “just before it happened? I was wanting to trade places with her.”

The lighthearted spirit and the golden afternoon were gone.

I worked late on the story for the final, long after Lottie had delivered her photos to the city desk and gone home. Luckily, Trish was on duty in the library. She printed out hit-and-run statistics and even unearthed sports clips from Jason Carey's high school record as a forward on the all-city team.

She watched over my shoulder as I worked. I object vociferously when editors do that, but I didn't mind Trish at all.

“Think you could use a breakdown on crime in that shopping center?” She sounded thoughtful. “You know there's a push now to ban juveniles from some malls until after six
P
.
M
. on school days.”

“If you could dig up some stax on the mall—especially auto theft figures—it would be great. You think like a reporter, Trish.”

“I know,” she murmured, her tone curious. I looked up, but she was on her way back to the library.

I wrote about Jennifer Carey's career as a speech therapist, put on hold until her children were older, the irony of her only sister's work as a counselor for troubled teens; and the young couple's plans for a future, now uncertain. She was still in surgery when I checked with the hospital.

Gretchen wouldn't be able to edit my story for another twenty minutes and I wouldn't go home without watching the process, so I returned the clips to the library. Trish sprang up from a desk where she'd been nibbling a sandwich.

“Need something else?”

“Nah, just bringing these back.” I dropped them in the in-basket and leaned across the counter.

She seemed to want to say something but just stood there. The latest economy kick at the paper is to use as few lights as possible at night, when the building is largely unoccupied. The features section, on the other side of the library's glass wall, was dark. Her perfect skin luminous, she looked young and vulnerable in the chilly cavernous room filled with looming shelves and shadows. It was probably safe, but it sure looked spooky.

“You're all alone back here?”

“Yep, the only one working tonight. But I don't mind. In fact I'm learning local history, reading some old stories.”

I opened the half door and slipped behind the counter. A number of clips were spread out on the desk: The topless dancer saved by her silicone breast implant, which deflected a bullet. The hapless firefighter who forgot to engage the stabilizers before sending an aerial ladder nearly a hundred feet into the air. (When the $750,000 fire truck tipped over, the ten-story aerial ladder and bucket crashed into a busy intersection at rush hour. Half a dozen motorists were injured, along with three firefighters, who fell off the truck as it toppled.) The saga of “Crime Boy,” age thirteen, with a rap sheet of sixty-six felonies. Federal officials took immediate action when his record was publicized, authorizing HUD to relocate him and his family from the sweltering projects into a three-bedroom waterfront home. Crime pays.