You Only Die Twice (12 page)

I saw the flashing red beacons of the fire trucks and ambulances waiting below, then assumed the position.

The engines roared like jungle animals as the plane shuddered, skidded, and scraped, hurtling dead ahead. Forty-five seconds seemed endless. The pilot killed the engines, and the lights went out. Floor lights bloomed along the aisle. The aircraft vibrated violently, but we slowed only slightly. Where would we stop? Would we run out of foam? I sneaked a look. Fire engines raced alongside, lights flashing.

As we screeched to a jolting stop, doors opened, slides deployed, and a shock of cool air swept through the cabin. The flight attendants' shouts cut off a smattering of applause.

“Go! Go! Go! Jump! Jump!”

Fitzgerald was gone before I released my belt. Our eyes met for an instant as he lunged past, the little girl under one arm, the other locked around her mother's
waist, propelling her forward. She was screaming, reaching back for her other child. I darted ahead, fumbled to free the girl, no more than six, from her belt, then scooped her up as she cried out for her mother.

People pushed and shoved; someone sobbed aloud. Passengers were pushed out the open doors. A middle-aged man blocked the aisle as he tried to remove something from the overhead. A male attendant hit him like a linebacker, forcing him into the moving tide. I stumbled to the door. “Look, look, it's okay,” I told the little girl, and swung her onto the slide.

Bright yellow, about four feet wide, it resembled a giant play toy in a kiddy park.

Pushed forward, I struggled to go back. Then Fitzgerald appeared, half carrying the woman in the cast. He sent her flying onto the slide. As she went, he swept me off my feet and sent me after her, hurtling down into foam and chaos.

I tumbled off and out of the way at the bottom, then ran, looking over my shoulder for him. Where the hell was he?

Firemen shot foam onto the belly of the plane. Metal glowed, red hot. Or was it only the reflection of their lights?

I blinked, confused, ankle deep in cold wet foam.

“Move away from the plane! Away from the plane.” People in uniform tried to herd us away. A paramedic carried the young woman with the cast. I turned back to the flashing lights, shouts, and shadows to find Fitzgerald.

Someone whisked me away, into the dark. I resisted, then saw it was him.

Mercifully, there was no fire, no death, only a few injuries: a broken ankle, heart palpitations, back pain, and vertigo. Amid the noise and excitement I glimpsed the formerly screaming baby, now sleeping peacefully in its mother's arms.

Airline officials insisted that medics take our vital signs. Airline reps briefed us. Our bags would be delivered. We were advised to make no statements to the press. Ha, I thought, knees shaky, as I looked for a phone.

We were bussed to the terminal. I rested my head on Fitzgerald's shoulder. From a pay phone, I called the city desk collect to unload. No crash. No deaths. But since the flight originated in Miami, I knew they'd want a brief story. I was fine, I told Tubbs. No, I would not write it. I was busy. Fitzgerald waited, with a cab. We climbed in and our bodies collided, lips fused. The rigid tension in my neck and shoulders melted into that smoldering kiss. The cab stopped before we did.

We fumbled our way into his dark apartment without turning on the lights. His hands were so occupied he had to kick the door closed. I had no idea where we were. I didn't care. The piece of furniture we first made love on may have been a sofa. I'm not sure.

 

Fear and near-death experiences lead to sex. That's a fact. So easy: no complications, no history, no problems. Until I awoke next morning in a strange bed with a strange man in a strange city. I sat up, staring numbly at my clothes strewn across the carpet.

Fitzgerald blinked awake. If seeing me was a surprise, he hid it well. “Good morning,” he said, voice
sleepy, and drew me to his warm, broad, comforting chest. The room was chilly. How tempting to simply pull the blankets over us and stay the day.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “What time is it? What time is court?”

“Jesus.” He looked at his watch and hurtled out of bed. “I'll make coffee,” he said, as I dashed for the bathroom.

I stared guiltily into the mirror, expecting shame. Instead, my color was excellent, my eyes bright. I never felt more alive. “You are a bad person.” I denounced my reflection. “If this gets back to the
News
you'll be disgraced, could lose your job.” Why was I smiling?

The man whipped up a killer omelet, with onions, peppers, and mushrooms. I wore one of his shirts and we gazed at each other across the breakfast table like any domesticated couple.

“I guess you're not married,” I said.

“No.” He poured orange juice. “Was once, but not anymore.”

In daylight, his apartment was scrupulously neat for a bachelor pad. Even stacked newspapers were precisely lined up in military fashion, as were the files and papers on his desk.

The airline had delivered his duffel bag. My overnighter probably waited at the hotel. I borrowed a toothbrush and did the best I could to look neat in the clothes I wore the night before, once I found them.

The morning was cold and windy as we walked to the courthouse for the 9
A.M
. hearing. We parted discreetly outside the building. Judge Cowley's courtroom was crowded, with a substantial electronic presence:
cameras on tripods in the back of the courtroom, cords and wires taped to the floor all the way out to the sound trucks and aerials outside. Laws allowing cameras in the courtroom specify that they be unobtrusive, which is impossible. This was a main event. I was glad to be covering it.

Rychek was at the defense table up front, wearing his blue shirt and conferring with Stockton. He glanced up, saw me, then squinted slightly, brow furrowed, as though puzzled. Then Fitzgerald ambled in. Rychek nodded, then did a double-take: to me, then back to Fitzgerald. His expression changed. He knows! I thought. How? But he knew, I read it in his face. Were we that transparent?

I gave a little wave. He responded with a look of weary resignation, then resumed his discussion with Stockton.

A batch of handcuffed and shackled prisoners shuffled in as I found a seat. R. J. was not among these drunk drivers, thieves, street wanderers, alcoholics, and homeless people who had run afoul of the law. Jailers herded them into the empty jury box, a bumper crop, a motley cross section of major and minor criminals. A few immediately began to mug for the cameras, which were not yet turned on.

A half-dozen handcuffed hookers paraded in next. They sashayed into court as saucy as they had apparently been on the street, eyes bold, smiling and winking.

Judge Cowley made his entrance a short time later, black robe swirling. His shrewd eyes flew straight to the cameras as he strode into his courtroom, stalwart
and impressive. His posture relaxed visibly when he saw they were not yet in operation.

Cowley sped through his morning calendar with brisk efficiency. Prosecutors and public defenders clearly accustomed to a more leisurely pace were cut off mid-sentence and defendants whisked offstage before settling into the spotlight. Scant repartee was tolerated. The judge, like all of us, was eager for the big case, but for different reasons. We faced deadlines. He just wanted it over.

As the prisoners straggled out, their various lawyers and relatives left and I managed to snag a seat up front, behind the defense table. More press arrived, filling the gallery.

During a five-minute recess, two jailers brought in R. J., handcuffed and in prison garb. Ten years on death row had taken its toll. Still handsome at fifty-two, his features were harder, more craggy. A visible scar creased his pale forehead. His thick dark hair, now shot with silver, had receded only slightly. Reports were that his smart mouth and bad attitude had kept him in constant trouble with both prison personnel and fellow inmates. Much of his time had been spent on X-wing, the harshest section of Florida's toughest prison.

Rychek beckoned and I leaned forward, hoping for some profound insight on the proceedings.

“Jesus Christ,” he muttered. “I can't leave you two alone for five minutes.”

My face burned as he turned abruptly back to the defense table.

The lanky silver-maned prosecutor who had con
victed R. J. entered through the chambers door. To his credit he showed up; he could have sent an assistant and tried to distance himself for political reasons. Cowley returned, called the case, and the cameras rolled. The prosecutor requested that the conviction and sentence be vacated, citing extraordinary circumstances.

Rychek presented proof that the alleged victim, Kaithlin Jordan, was alive until February 6, 2001, and that her corpse had been positively identified. Stoic until then, R. J. reacted for a moment at the sound of her name. Was it pain or something else reflected in his expression? Guilt? Satisfaction?

“The obligation of the state attorney's office,” the prosecutor boomed, grandstanding as though he himself had ferreted out and brought this miscarriage of justice to the court's attention, “is to find the truth and make full disclosure. My job is to seek justice. That's why we're here today.”

The judge had already examined affidavits from fingerprint experts and the Miami–Dade County medical examiner and conferred with them by phone. Stockton sat beside his client. Unusually subdued, he had little to say. The evidence spoke louder than words.

“The system did work well,” Judge Cowley intoned, “the way it's supposed to, based on all the available evidence at the time.” He ordered R. J.'s release. “I wish you well,” he said, and abruptly adjourned. Cold and correct, he swept out quickly, eager to end the mess in his courtroom and his nice good-old-boy town.

No one even asked who killed Kaithlin, or why, I thought, as the jubilant lawyer and client embraced.

I caught Fitzgerald's eye and nodded. He was right.
No apologies from this judge, not in this jurisdiction. He nodded back, the look in his eyes igniting a heat that made my mouth dry. Nervously, I licked my lips, then caught Rychek watching us both.

I joined the press clamoring for comment from R. J. and his attorney. His lawyer looked more elated than the freed man, who was led off to retrieve his personal belongings and complete some final paperwork.

“This is one of life's greatest events,” Stockton crowed. “There is no feeling in the world that compares to freeing an innocent man from death row. It's better than arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court.”

As bailiffs asked us to clear the courtroom, Stockton promised he and his client would meet the press on the courthouse steps in twenty minutes.

I caught up with Rychek on the way out. “Look,” I said. “You're tight with Stockton. Can you help me get a one-on-one with R. J.? There's no way I can interview the man in the middle of that mob scene.”

“I'll see what I can do,” he said.

I called the city desk, went to the court clerk's office to pick up a copy I had ordered of the trial transcript, then dashed outside. Stockton was alone, holding court on the steps. R. J. had pulled a fast one and made his getaway from another exit.

His client, the lawyer apologized, would not talk to the press until he returned to Miami. R. J. wanted out of Volusia County ASAP. Who could blame him?

The media stampede fought, jostled, and shouted their way down the sidewalk after Stockton. As I tagged along, lugging the transcript, Rychek sidled up, a purposeful look on his face.

“Don't say it,” I warned, expecting a rude comment on my sex life.

“Okay, okay,” he muttered. “I talked to Stockton for ya, kid. But if you don't wanna hear it—”

I broke stride. “What did he say?”

“No interviews here. We're headed for the airport now…”

I sighed.

“…but there's room on the plane. May be a little rowdy, a lotta celebrating, but hey, kid, wanna hitch a ride?”

I stared. He was serious.

“Sure,” I said. “I'd love it.”

“What an emotional experience, walking out of prison with an innocent man saved from execution!”

Champagne glass in hand, as his sleek jet streaked home to Miami, Stockton retold his story. “They kept me waiting. Other prisoners were cheering when they finally brought him out. They had to give him a push-cart for all his books, his legal papers, and ten years of correspondence.”

Good quotes. I took notes, but this flight was short and what I needed was time with R. J. He'd shown such interest in the late-model jet, with its computerized cockpit and sophisticated controls, that for a moment, when we boarded, I feared they'd let him fly it. He
was
the man of the moment. Now, however, as Stockton continued to crow, as though his genius and persistence
had freed his client, R. J. was quiet, immersed in thought.

I seized a chance to slip into the seat beside him when one of Stockton's assistants went to the rest room. R. J.'s rugged good looks were more impressive close up. Prison garb flatters no one. He had changed into a soft leather jacket over a sweater and twill slacks, garments Eunice must have sent to Volusia with his lawyer.

“What are you thinking?” I asked.

I withered under the close scrutiny of his dark eyes, wishing I'd had the chance to change clothes, comb my hair, and freshen up.

“That I can walk down the street,” he finally said slowly, “and feel the sun on my face. I couldn't do that yesterday. Today the grass is greener, the sky bluer. I can even appreciate a raindrop. I can take a drink.” He raised his champagne glass. “I can sleep in a real bed tonight, use a real bathroom. Is that what you wanted to hear?” he asked arrogantly.

“If those are your true feelings,” I said softly. “I know this is an emotional time for you. I'm sorry to intrude, but everybody is interested in your story, in this miscarriage of justice—”

“Where were they,” he snapped, “ten years ago when I was railroaded by a kangaroo court in a redneck county?”

“It had to be terrible,” I said, “that no one believed you.”

He nodded, his smile ironic. “She nearly got what she wanted.”

“Your wife?”

His granite eyes flickered dangerously at the word, but he said nothing.

“This is such a happy time for your mom,” I offered.

“For me too,” he said, eyes still grim. “The woman who put me behind bars got what she deserved. Had the state succeeded—if they had walked me down that hall to the electric chair—she'd be as guilty of murder as somebody else is now.”

“But you loved her….”

“Let me tell you something, Miss Reporter.” He leaned close, his face inches from mine, speaking swiftly, sotto voce. “On X-wing I lost whatever fondness I had for the woman. Let me tell you about life in Cell X-3323. Let me tell you about the open metal toilet, the total lack of privacy, being told what and when to eat, when to sleep, when to take a shower. Let me tell you about the chemical spray, the ‘electrical restraint devices,' and the pepper-gas grenades.” He smiled with no humor. “The guards refer to them as ‘foggers.' Kaithlin”—he paused and sighed—“no day went by that I didn't think of her. I'd have killed her with a smile on my face, Miss Reporter.”

His cold words sent a chill rippling between my shoulder blades. “It's Britt,” I said softly. “Britt Montero, from the
Miami News
.”

“Well, Miss Reporter, I'm sure you're eager to ask how I
feel
about her death. Let's just say relieved, with a new appreciation of poetic justice. There is some balance in the universe after all.”

“Who do you think might have killed her?”

“I don't know, but I'm grateful. Her killer saved my life. His timing was excellent, but I wish he had done it
a helluva lot sooner.” He leaned back in his seat. “Now they're both where they belong.”

“Both?” I glanced up from my notebook.

“Her mother. She's dead too. Did you know that? The witch who stirred up all our troubles.”

“How so?” I asked.

Dark and sullen, he shook his head, then turned to respond to Stockton, who interrupted to discuss how to handle the press at the Miami airport.

“One more question,” I said hurriedly. “Did you have something engraved inside Kaithlin's wedding ring?”

He refocused on me, eyes narrowed. “How would I remember?” he said curtly. “It was a long time ago.”

I reluctantly relinquished my seat to the lawyer. It was
his
plane.

I sat next to Rychek.

“So.” I sighed. “How did you know?”

“You and Fitzgerald?”

“Yeah.”

“I ain't been a detective all these years for nothing, kid. Hey, he's a cop, and he don't know any better. I keep telling the young guys to keep their eyes open and their pants zipped, but they keep getting it backwards. But you…I'm surprised.”

“Do me a favor?” I asked, suddenly weary. “Don't tell anybody, at least until this case wraps up. Okay? It wouldn't look good, with me working on the story and all.”

“'Course not. He ain't a bad guy, but I thought you wuz otherwise involved.”

“I don't know, Emery.” I shook my head. “I guess I'm not.”

We didn't mention it again. R. J. stopped by my seat, shortly before we landed.

“The date,” he said. “June twelfth, nineteen eighty-five, and initials. Hers and mine.” As I jotted it down, he leaned over and spoke softly in my ear. “Did you see her?”

I blinked. “Kaithlin?”

“They said you were there, on the beach the day they found her.” His words were casual, his eyes were not.

“I was there.”

“How did she look?” he whispered, Adam's apple working.

“Pretty much like she did before,” I said awkwardly, remembering her features in the water. “Judging from old pictures, she hadn't changed much. She was a beautiful woman.”

He winced, as though in pain.

“Why?” I said.

He straightened up abruptly, shook off the question, and moved on to rejoin Stockton.

His remorse, if that's what it was, was apparently fleeting.

 

Facing the press in an airport meeting room, R. J. morphed into the flamboyant charmer, still the spoiled bad boy of Miami society, high-fiving his lawyer for photographers, hugging his mother, Eunice, who met the plane elegantly attired in—white, a stunning designer suit.

“I got what I wanted,” R. J. told the press. He knew how to step back into the spotlight and hold center stage. “I was determined to walk out of that hellhole a
free man—or die. No compromises.” His eyes roved the room, searching each reporter's face. “That's why I refused to plead guilty. Prison is no place to spend your life.”

A Channel 7 reporter asked if R. J. now planned to crusade against the death penalty or for reforms in the system.

“Hell, no.” R. J. grinned. “I'm no poster boy for prisoners. I never related to any of them. They all claim to be innocent. The difference is, I really was.”

Stockton stepped up to blame the state for ruining the life and reputation of an innocent man.

“He can never retrieve what they took. You know the old story. Take a pillow to a mountaintop, rip it apart, and fling the feathers to the four winds. Then try to retrieve each and every feather. It's impossible,” he drawled. “That's exactly what it's like to try to regain a ruined reputation.”

I exchanged skeptical glances with Lottie, who was among the photographers. R. J. was no innocent bystander. What about the domestic abuse? The restraining orders? The mistress? The lies? The missing millions and his renegade past? The world might not have been so quick to believe he was a killer had he not ruined his own reputation first.

“What would you say to your wife's killer?” a reporter asked as the press conference wound down.

“Thanks, pal,” R. J. quipped, without hesitation. Even Stockton winced at his client's heartless smile.

“That R. J., what an SOB,” Lottie said, as we headed to the parking garage. “He's hot, ain't he?”

“Bad boys are always attractive to women,” I muttered. “I wish I knew why.”

“Speaking of bad boys,” Lottie said, “you look like hell.”

“Thank you. Haven't seen my lipstick, comb, or a clean pair of underpants since I left Miami. Nice to see you too.”

“Heard the flight up was rough.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Heard you never checked into your hotel. Gretchen was trying to hunt you down. She got so mad she wanted to twist off your head and shit down your neck.”

“Oh, swell. Any more good news?”

“Yeah, Angel showed me the catalog. The one with the bustle?” She sighed. “It's the best of the lot.”

 

Cool, crisp, and dressed for success as always, Gretchen Platt, the assistant city editor from hell, scrutinized me from head to toe when I breezed into the newsroom. “What happened to your shoes?” She looked aghast.

“Foam,” I said, checking my mailbox. She dogged my footsteps, trailing behind me as I searched for my chair, which someone had appropriated in my absence. I recaptured it from another desk and rolled it back to my terminal.

“Don't disappear again,” she said tersely, “until your story is in and we can review it together.”

My face must have reflected my thoughts, because she backed off and had the sense not to harangue me while I worked. But I knew I'd pay the piper later.

 

“Whew.” Fred gave a long low whistle as he read R. J.'s quotes in a printout of my story. “He really said that?”

“I didn't make it up.”

“He's cold,” Fred said. He sat on the edge of the desk next to mine.

“Stone cold,” I said. “As stone cold as any killer. Who could blame him? He admits he would have killed her himself, given the chance.”

“Think he did?” Fred asked thoughtfully. “Killers for hire aren't hard to find behind bars.”

“Who knows?” I said. “But that poses another question. If he did hire somebody, could he be prosecuted? He's already been tried and convicted for killing her once. Does double jeopardy apply?”

“Interesting thought. Check into it.” He took off his gold-rimmed glasses and massaged the inner corners of his eyes with a thumb and index finger. “In the meantime, where do we go from here on this one?”

“The next feeding frenzy is to find out where she was all these years. That's the big, burning, searing question. It's probably only a matter of hours before all the TV news mags and tabloids—
48 Hours, 20/20, America's Most Wanted
—zero in on it. Somebody who knows her will see the mystery aired and expose her secret life. We can try to beat them, pull it off ourselves. I'd like to give it a shot.”

“How do you propose to do that?”

“I've got the morgue picture…”

He frowned.

“…and a stack of old file photos of Kaithlin before
she disappeared. I'd like the art department, with all their new computerized equipment, to do a really good lifelike drawing of how she looked recently. We can fax it to missing persons bureaus in key cities. And I'd like Onnie, the best researcher in the
News
library, to do an exhaustive computer check, see if we can match her to recent reports of missing persons all over the country. She's been dead for weeks now. Somebody somewhere must be looking for her. If there was a short or even a classified ad in her current hometown paper, I'd like us to find it first.

“Meanwhile, I'll track down as many people from her old life as possible. Somebody might have heard from her or know her well enough to say where she'd go to start over.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Fred said. “Maybe we'll get lucky. I'll get the art department on it. You talk to Onnie.”

“Ask for a full front and a profile,” I said, handing him the morgue picture.

He looked at the photo and winced, then put his glasses on and stared at it more closely. “If she had a whole new life somewhere, why the hell you think she came back?”

I shook my head. “You know how Miami is; it gets under your skin. Maybe she just couldn't stay away. Or maybe she had second thoughts and wanted to save R. J. Maybe she came back to find the missing money. Maybe, though it seems improbable, she just learned that her mother was dead.”

“A lot of maybes,” he said tersely. “Give it your best
shot. So far we're ahead of the pack. It'd be nice to stay there.” He frowned at me. “Why don't you go home and get some sleep.”

I shook my head again. “I want to start tonight. I'll just go home, shower and eat, and come back.”

“If you're up for it,” he said. “One thing more.” He paused, as though hesitant to broach the subject. “The desk had a problem last night. They had space out front, so Gretchen wanted more reporting on the emergency landing. The airline stonewalled, aware that we were close to deadline. She wanted you to work it from that end, but you were unreachable. The hotel said you never checked in. She even tracked down Stockton's people at their hotel. They said they hadn't seen you.”

“It was a frightening experience,” I said, annoyed that I'd been checked up on, like a truant schoolgirl. “I immediately called the desk, unloaded all I knew, then stayed with a friend who lives there. I didn't even have a toothbrush or a nightgown. My bag still hasn't caught up with me.”

He peered skeptically at me through his bifocals.

“I'm going home now, to brush my teeth. I'll be back in an hour or so.”

He nodded.

“Good job,” he called, as I left the newsroom.

I hurried down the stairs, rather than risk being cornered by Gretchen or having Fred shoot more questions at me while I waited for the damn elevator.

I called the library from the car as I emerged from the building. Onnie had escaped an abuser herself. She'd relate to Kaithlin.