Cold Case Squad (28 page)

He had spent his life from that day forward atoning for his failure,
but he could never do enough, never do it right. His mother had
demanded perfection from her firstborn son. That much she deserved. All
he had wanted was to please her. He could never forget the pain, the
stigma, the stares, and the knowing looks that his weakness, his
cowardice had brought upon him. If only he could do it over, relive the
moment. He had tried, for the last twenty-five years, he had tried.

He watched the woman open her screen door and thought about her
bedroom, where this time he would perform as required. He would do it
all. He could close her eyes and mouth, recite the prayers, wash her
naked body with warm water, cut her hair and nails. Beside him on the
seat he had the fresh white linen sheet with which to cover her.

In his pocket, a small bag of earth from Israel. To be placed
beneath her head, so when the messiah came and she was among the first
to be resurrected, she and the others who had been alone with no one to
perform these services would intervene with his mother, proving he had
made
teshuvah
, repentance.

As he watched, the grandson arrived. He saw the detective look
around, up and down the street. He knows nothing. No one could see him
behind the tinted windows of the old station wagon. Again with the
yellow toolbox. Out on the porch repairing a window frame. His constant
repairs would not be enough to keep anyone out. But perhaps she did
have someone to do for her. Perhaps the Angel of Death should pass her
by. No, for him, she would open the door. And he would return her to
dust.

Milo Ross and Norma the maid identified the silky blue garment found
in Nelson's van as the dress Natasha was last seen wearing. But where
was she?

There seemed little chance that Nelson, comatose and in intensive
care, would be able to tell them anything. Ever.

"Think positive," Riley told Ross. "The only thing Nelson said to
the hostage negotiator was that he wanted to talk to Natasha. If he was
telling the truth, she may be safe somewhere."

"That animal," Ross said bitterly. "If he's harmed her… I want to
offer a reward for her safe return. Do you think a hundred thousand
dollars is enough?"

"That should get everybody's attention," Riley said.

"How do I announce it to the media?"

"The department has someone who can help you with that." She called
Padron.

The SWAT team battered down the door and swarmed Nelson's Little
Havana apartment. It was strangely empty. Even the furniture was gone.
Neighbors had not seen his wife and children for at least two days.

Using the work schedules and logs found in his van, Riley marked the
locations of all the landscaper's regular jobs on the big wall map in
Homicide. Then she flagged the intersection where he'd been spotted by
Officer Santiago.

Despite the wounded pedestrian, the shattered windows, and a dozen
car crashes, Joe Padron had issued a press release identifying Fermin
Santiago as an alert and heroic cop nearly killed in a single-handed
attempt to abort the kidnapping of a multimillionaire's wife.

Santiago, that screw-up, Riley thought in disgust, would probably
make officer of the month.

Computing times and distances, she concluded that if Nelson had
taken Natasha to a job site, it was probably the San Souci Towers.
Information had a listing, but it was only a sales office.

The huge, nearly finished high-rise was empty, with no crews
working. Riley reached the architect and the contractor, who gave their
permission to search. The contractor met police at the site with
elevator remotes that would allow them access to all floors. No sign of
Natasha.

"Check every closet, every storage space, every garbage chute,"
Riley told half a dozen cops. "Don't forget the elevator shafts. Start
at the bottom, work your way up. I'll start at the top and meet you in
the middle."

In a fortieth-floor penthouse garden, she found a discarded pair of
pruning shears and Natasha's other high-heeled sandal.

Riley called her name. Her voice echoed in the emptiness.

The unoccupied structure was otherwise silent except for the eerie
wind off the water.

Riley took the staircase to the roof and ran across along the south
side. Nothing.

The wind whistled and picked up. The view was spectacular from the
top. To the south she could see halfway to Homestead; the bay sparkled
to the east, as did the azure sea and a panoramic vista of city skyline
sprawled out to the west.

Riley trotted along a wide wraparound terrace near the empty shell
of a rooftop pool.

"Natasha! Natasha! Can you hear me?"

Riley stepped to the edge to check the ground, the construction
equipment below, and the roofs of smaller ancillary buildings. Nothing.
Where the hell could she be without her dress?

Kathleen Constance Riley tasted the sweet summer wind, drank in the
reddening horizon, and forgot Natasha for a moment. Instead, she stood
poised at the edge, thinking how glorious it would feel to step off to
ride the wind currents like a lonely bird in a vast blue sky. She took
a deep breath.

Someone called out her name. A stranger holding an elevator remote
waved from the far side of the roof. He'd emerged from the same
stairwell she had used. Fit and trim, with prematurely gray hair, he
wore a neatly pressed gray suit and once-shiny shoes now coated with
construction dust.

She stood and watched him approach.

"Conrad Douglas, FBI," he said. "Any word on Natasha Ross?"

"Where were you when we needed you, out at the reservation? Now I
know how General Custer felt."

"I hear it was more a standoff than a massacre."

"Only because the hostage saved herself. She was too efficient,"
Riley said wistfully. "I would have liked to have talked to the man."

"What are his chances?"

She shook her head. "They'll do another scan in twenty-four hours,
but initial neurological testing showed no brain activity."

"From what I hear, that was this guy's normal condition."

She grinned in spite of herself. They stood silhouetted against the
open sky high above the city, the wind riffling through their hair.

"What's your interest? There's no evidence she's been taken across
state lines and there's been no ransom demand."

"Between us for now?" he said.

She nodded.

"We first became aware of Natasha Ross about a year and a half ago.
She'd called immigration to turn in a household worker she wanted
deported for pissing her off. A savvy agent there took a harder look at
her and called us. We've had her under loose surveillance ever since."

"Must have been extremely loose or we wouldn't be here."

"We only checked intermittently on whether she appeared to be in
contact with her father."

"You know where her parents are?" Riley said, interested.

"Not exactly. But we'd like to."

"She told my detectives she was born in Iowa, but we couldn't find
any record of her there. Where
is
she from?"

The FBI agent smiled. "Croatia."

"Get out, as in Yugoslavia?"

"Istria actually. On the northern Adriatic in northwest Yugoslavia.
That's where she was born."

"After the Russians and before Milosevic, a lot of bad things
happened in the former Yugoslavia. Her father was responsible for the
majority of them. He was in charge of the military, left a lot of
corpses behind in mass graves. Torture, rape, you name it, he did it.
He bailed out when the regime changed and left a lot of people looking
for him. He, his wife, and their daughter, Natasha, age two at the
time, made it to this country using false passports. They moved around
a lot, but did eventually settle in Iowa, of all places. Fourteen years
ago Croatian agents, still hunting him after all these years, got a
line on his whereabouts. They wanted him arrested, extradited, and
tried for war crimes. But before that could happen he disappeared
again. The family had relocated in the past when investigators got too
close. But this time Natasha was nineteen and chose not to go with
them. Guess she didn't see much future in it. She changed her name,
took off on her own, and wound up in Miami."

"Where she met Charles Terrell," Riley said.

"Husband number one, who may, or may not, be dead."

"Right, we're thinking not. So what's her real name?"

"Dubravko," he said. "Gabriella."

"Does Milo Ross know?"

"Apparently not."

"Looks like the apple doesn't fall far from the tree," Riley said.
"Think she's in touch with her parents? That it might have something to
do with all this?"

"Not as far as we can tell. This caper looks strictly domestic."

Douglas smiled at Riley, then flung his arms open wide to the pink
and gold sunset across the Everglades. "I love it! Only in Miami could
a pregnant Miccosukee Indian cave in the skull of a Cuban exile wanted
for snatching a native of Croatia. By God, I love this place!"

His words echoed in the wind around them.

Big Red's hair was shot with gray. She'd put on pounds, lots of
pounds. Her thick face looked jowly beneath heavy makeup and her
tortoise-shell eyeglasses and comfortable slippers gave her a matronly
appearance. Linda Pickett, aka Linda Ballard, Desiree, and Big Red, was
age thirty-seven when she left Miami; she was close to fifty now and
looked every day of it.

She studied them speculatively, a drink in her hand.

Burch flashed his badge.

"From Miami, right?" She smiled. "What the hell took you boys so
long? I've been expecting you for a good ten years."

"We've been busy, Linda," Burch said.

"Call me Desiree. That was my stage name."

She had a sultry Mae West delivery and her double-wide hips still
had a sexy twitch as she led them into her parlor. But she was hardly
the heartbreaker, the seductress, the bombshell sweetheart and
companion in crime they had expected.

"So, Desiree, anybody else here?" Burch's eyes roved the premises as
they followed her into a white-carpeted room, its windows framed by
lush layers of velvet drapes with fringed gold-tasseled valances.

"So, Sergeant, who were you expecting?" She cocked her head coyly.

"I think you know."

"It's just little ol' me," she said, "and my bottle of good scotch."
The ice tinkled in her glass as she sipped. "Care to join me?"

"Thanks, but we'll pass for now. We're here on business."

She settled in a mauve lounge chair, crossed her fleshy legs, and
waved them toward an overstuffed couch.

"So am I busted?" Her posture was casual and there was an earthy
bravado to her voice, but the eyes behind her glasses looked resigned
and weary.

"In a matter of speaking," Burch said.

"How bad is it?" She shook a cigarette loose from a pack on a small
marble-topped table beside her and lit it with a ceramic table lighter.
Her hands were steady. "How much trouble am I in?"

"That's entirely up to you," Burch said. "Where is he?"

She thoughtfully smoked her cigarette, as though she hadn't heard.

"You know who I'm talking about. When did you last see Charles
Terrell?"

"Didn't you hear? He died. A long time ago, back in Miami."

"We know better."

"To tell you the truth," she said, smiling gently, "I haven't seen
Buddy for years."

"Buddy?"

"His nickname growing up. You didn't know that? His childhood
friends and high school chums all called him Buddy. That's how he was
introduced to me. I met him through one of them."

"So you two were pretty tight."

"We had our thing, but came to a parting of the ways. Too hot not to
cool down. Like the song says. You know how it is." The pain in her
eyes looked real.

"How long, exactly, since you've seen him?"

She shrugged. "Four, maybe five years. Seems a lot longer in this
burg. I miss Miami. A lot. Hear the nightlife's hot these days."

"Your aunt Sylvia tipped you off that we might be paying you a
visit, didn't she?" Nazario said.

Desiree snorted in derision and sipped her drink, leaving a crimson
lipstick smear on the rim. "Actually, she thought she had you snowed.
Thought you believed her. But I knew better. If you went to the trouble
to find her, you wouldn't buy it. You have to give Syl credit for
trying. How is she? How'd she look? I miss that crazy old broad.
Closest thing to a mother I ever had."

"Living the good life, thanks to you," Nazario said. "Doesn't use
her cane anymore. I think she's got a boyfriend."

"Too bad she's going to jail," Burch said.

"What do you mean?" Startled, Desiree sat up straight. "She had
nothing to do with anything."

"She lied to us," he said. "And she's an accessory."

"No way." She set her drink down on the marble-top table with a loud
crack
and got to her feet. "She's an old lady. Had a tough
life. Don't drag her into anything."

The detectives exchanged glances as she paced.

"Maybe we should talk," Burch said casually. "See what we can work
out."

"You could be in a world of trouble," Nazario said.

"I know." She stood at the window, her back to them.

"I'da been a helluva lot happier to meet you boys three years down
the road."

"You studying law?" Nazario said.

"I miss Florida. I'm lonely here." She hugged herself as though
chilled. "I wanted to go back. So I bought a sit-down with a local
lawyer a couple of years ago to check out my options. There is no
statute of limitations on murder. But he said if I was charged as an
accessory, which would be likely, there's a fifteen-year statute of
limitations. Three more years and I'da been home free."