Down the Darkest Street (9 page)

He parked the car and they got out. Kathy was outside, close to the entrance, huddled, her two-sizes-too-big sweater enveloping her as she took a drag from her cigarette.
The Miami Times
building was a symbol from a bygone era when newspapers mattered, surrounded by half-empty, giant downtown high-rises, luxury condos being rented instead of sold, and a looming performing arts center—a faded icon that would soon flicker out completely. Pete thought he could smell a tinge of salt water mixed in with the dust and dirt from the myriad construction sites slowly dragging the city into the present, but he was probably just deluding himself. Despite the sweltering Miami weather, Kathy looked like she was freezing. Kathy scanned them carefully as they approached, a knowing look in her eye.

“Glad you could make it,” she said, exhaling a small cloud of smoke. “Emily was up at this hour, too?”

Pete didn’t take the bait.

“Is there anything I can do?”

“No; she’s dead,” Kathy said, whatever anxiety she had been feeling over the phone now gone. “Her body washed up in a lake over in Kendall. Someone had taken a raft out sometime late at night and dumped her there. The bag was sealed airtight, so it floated to shore. Maybe the killer was a moron—but that strikes me as odd, considering all the terrible things he did to this girl. I can’t even repeat it. It’s the worst I’ve ever seen. No note, no prints, obviously. No word on DNA. The cops are in a tizzy. And, in case you were wondering, Rick isn’t much of a suspect anymore. This was a little too—um—stylish for him.”

“Tell me about the scene,” Pete said.

“He tied her up, wrists to ankles,” Kathy said. Pete could tell she was uncomfortable, choosing her words with care. “I can’t. I can’t deal with this.”

“Where in Kendall?” Emily asked.

“Off One-thirty-seventh,” Kathy said. “Townhouse complex—Bent Tree. Kind of nondescript. Kind of old pseudo-condos painted in earth tones to look thematic. Pretty random place to dump a body.”

“Unless that’s what you want,” Pete said.

“Excellent point, Mr. Detective,” Kathy said. “But doesn’t this strike you as odd? It just seems really random.”

“It does strike me, but
odd
’s not the word,” Pete said.

“What do you mean?” Emily said.

“It’s like a weird déjà vu feeling,” Pete said.

“That’s not surprising,” Kathy said, rummaging through her purse and pulling out a stack of printouts. She handed half to Pete and the other half to Emily. “Look at these. I found them in the news archive earlier tonight while doing some research. Something I never do, so I’m sure red flags galore went up. So, suffice to say, these were not easy to acquire and you’re not supposed to be seeing them. Hence our covert rendezvous. So, yeah. No live-tweeting your reading.”

Pete tried to stifle a yawn. It was close to dawn. He was surprised by the number of cars in the parking lot, but big news in Miami meant
The Times
had to call in what little staff was left. And the grisly murder of a young, recent college grad fell under big news, even in a seedy place like his hometown.

He flipped through the stack of
Times
clippings. Most were dated from the mid-eighties, and a handful were written by Kathy’s father, Chaz, who, before moving up to be the local columnist du jour, had toiled away as a crime reporter, much as his daughter would twenty years later. Pete skimmed the headlines: “Teen girl found mutilated at Crandon Park”; “Tamarac teen feared missing, last seen with mystery man”; “FIU grad dead, stabbed 24 times: police fear serial murderer.” For a second, he appreciated the terse, staccato writing of the journalists of the era—trying to inform as much as possible, before the Internet, Twitter, and Facebook were options, when your daily paper was your one main dose of information before the nightly news.

“These sound similar,” Pete said, still rifling through the clippings, each one clocking in at about four printed pages—a front section story and a lengthy jump, unheard of now. “But they’re from twenty years ago.”

“Except this one,” Emily said, pulling a page out of her smaller stack. She handed it to Pete.

Pete scanned the single sheet. The byline was a name he didn’t recognize: Alexia Sanchez. The turnover at
The Times
was frequent and usually involved interns and temps taking on full-time jobs for less money. The story, unlike the pages from the 1980s, was brief and limited to the front page of the local section. The headline was short, befitting a story buried on the lower right of the page. With only a small mugshot for art, the story was lucky it made the front at all. “Miami High student missing after shopping trip.” It was light on details, but did include a call out to
The Miami Times
website “for more information, as it happens.” Pete let out a sigh.

“This one’s from a few days ago,” Pete said. “But kids go missing all the time. It doesn’t automatically mean they’re connected.”

“Fair enough,” Kathy said. “But did you read the story?”

He hadn’t. The piece was poorly edited. Pete fought the urge to pull out a pen, as he had so many times during his stint at
The Times
, and make corrections.

“The best details are lost in the story,” Pete said, more to himself than to Kathy or Emily. “‘Morales, seventeen, a senior at Miami Senior High School, was last seen talking to a white male in his thirties in the Dadeland parking lot, adjacent to Macy’s off N. Kendall Drive. The man was driving a white van of unspecified make and model.’ Why is that in the last paragraph?”

“That’s not the point,” Emily said. She’d been looking over Pete’s stack of clippings while he read the story. “The kids and women in these stories were also last seen talking to a dude driving a van.”

“Right, but that was twenty years ago,” Pete said. He was confused. He looked at Kathy. She didn’t seem confused at all. “What’s the deal?”

“You’re a bad Miamian,” Kathy said. “You’re really still drawing a blank?”

Pete hated guessing games. Especially when they involved people’s lives.

“Just spit it out,” Pete said.

Kathy collected her printouts and shoved them back into her purse before taking out a black folder. She opened it and pulled out a sheet of paper and handed it to Pete.

“Rex Whitehurst,” Kathy said. “Does the name ring a bell?”

“Not really,” Emily said.

“Pete?”

He looked over the printout, a quick bio of Whitehurst. It was incomplete, as if someone had been in a hurry and had only printed a few pages. But the basic information was there. Whitehurst had killed a dozen women—ranging in age from fourteen to twenty-seven—in the early 1980s, ending his string of murders in Miami, where he ruthlessly killed three girls in a manic spree that led to his capture. Whitehurst was a stabber—and known for leaving his victims in elaborate, sexualized poses.

“So, this is our dude, then?” Pete said, regretting it after the words left his lips.

Kathy snatched the paper back and slipped it into the black folder.

“That’s the problem,” she said.

“I’m confused,” Emily said. “How is this possible? Did this guy somehow escape?”

“No, dear,” Kathy said. “This is a much bigger problem.”

“Why?” Pete said.

“Rex Whitehurst has been dead for over two decades,” Kathy said, her voice emphasizing the last few words. “He was put down via Old Sparky in 1994. Rex is dead and someone is killing women in a sick, twisted homage to him.”

“You know you have a permanent piece

Of my medium-sized, American heart.”

—The National, “Looking for Astronauts”

T
he bitter c
offee burned Pete’s tongue as he sipped it. He hated this part of AA. The socializing. The exchanging of numbers. The questions, like “How’s your day been?” or “How are you holding up?” It drove Pete up the wall. He didn’t know how he was holding up. He wanted a drink most of the time.

He’d slid over by the coffee pot, where he figured he could finish his cup of tar, do his time, and sneak out with little fanfare. That was the plan, at least.

“Hey, Pete, how goes it?” It was Jack. Again.

“Not bad,” Pete said, sipping the still-hot and still-nasty coffee faster. Plan foiled.

“Meant to tell you this last week,” Jack said. “But you seemed a little ruffled when I mentioned the book. Hope I didn’t offend you.”

Pete stiffened for an awkward exchange.

Jack cleared his throat. “I knew your dad,” Jack said. “I was a beat cop—Miami Dade PD. Your dad… He was one of the good ones. Great detective. Smart man. Just an all around good guy. I think he’d be proud of you, seeing you right yourself like you’re doing.”

Pete was caught off-guard. He’d been expecting some new age AA babble, or a passive-aggressive guilt trip about how Jack “hadn’t seen him around.” Not the memory of his father. It felt weird—like his dad was in the room with him, noticing him for what he was. He stammered a bit before responding.

“Well, uh, thanks. Thank you, Jack,” Pete said. “Not sure if you’re on the money there, but I appreciate it. My dad was a good man.”

Jack poured himself a cup of coffee.

“You been keeping up with the news?”

Pete tossed his cup into the nearby trash bin.

“Sure.”

“People are talking about that dead girl,” Jack said, sipping his coffee with none of Pete’s hesitation. “Some of my old buddies on the force say the brass is freaking out.”

“Yeah? Why’s that?”

“Lots of reasons,” Jack said. “Smells of a serial, first of all. Especially with that other girl missing.”

“What other girl?”

Jack seemed surprised.

“Morales,” Jack said.

Pete nodded and grabbed another empty cup. The church basement had cleared out by now, with the exception of a few stragglers helping put stuff away.

“Yeah, I read the story,” Pete said, pouring himself another half cup for lack of anything else to do. “But what’s that got to do with a serial killer?”

“You’re cagey,” Jack said, laughing. “I’m not trying to grill you, man. I’m trying to talk shop a bit. You’re the closest thing to a cop in this room, and I get nostalgic for the water cooler talk in my old age. Beats going down to John Martin’s and knocking back a dozen Guinness.”

“That’s fair, sorry,” Pete said. “I’m just paranoid by nature. Been a nutty year or so.”

He was wary of Jack. Of all the people he’d met in the rooms Jack was the most persistent. And now he kept bringing things back to the murders. Was he looking to talk shop, or was there more to it? Was Pete just being paranoid? He wasn’t sure yet.

Jack gave Pete an apologetic smile.

“The name Rex Whitehurst mean anything to you?” Jack said.

“A bit,” Pete said. “Been reading up on him lately, actually.”

“What they did to that Cline girl,” Jack said, pausing for a beat. “That’s Whitehurst. ’Cept it can’t be. He’s been dead for about a decade.”

“Yeah,” Pete said. “But he’s not the only person to ever slice people up.”

“Fair enough,” Jack said. “But I was there when Rex came to town. I remember what he did to those girls, and what he was like. It wasn’t just about posing a girl in a sexy way, like a porno. He posed them in a way that said ‘I did this. I won.’ When we brought him in, he was talking nonsense—about a dark age that would last thousands of years, and how he needed to stop it. Crazy shit. But this is a mirror image of his work. If I hadn’t known people who saw him get fried, I’d think he was back at it somehow.”

“I was young,” Pete said. “But I remember bits and pieces. The press was all over it. It wasn’t ‘Summer of Sam’ crazy, but everyone in the city was looking for that guy. Surprised he was on the run as long as he was.”

The room was empty now, and Pete wondered how much time they had to shoot the shit before someone semiofficial came to usher them out.

“He was smart,” Jack said. “But he was crazy. In custody he kept going on about the collapse of society. He’d rationalized it to himself in his mind. He’d started off molesting kids at the school he worked at, up in New York. Then he went too far and killed one, went on the run. Think he had over a dozen or so bodies under his belt by the time we got him.”

“You think we have a copycat?” Pete asked.

“I dunno,” Jack said. “Could be a one-off, could be more than that. Sure seems like an homage, at the very least. What’d that girl ever do to anyone except break a few hearts?”

“What do you mean? I’m not following you.”

“She’s pretty, is all,” Jack said, giving Pete a confused look. “Or was.”

“Yeah,” Pete said. The comment struck him as odd but he let it go. “It’s a tragedy.”

Jack nodded and started to head for the door. “Well, I gotta get home,” Jack said. “Mona’s gonna cook up her usual and I have to sit down and pretend to love it. Marriage, huh?”

Pete waved as Jack walked out. He felt on edge. He needed to do something. But what was he already doing? He was researching Rex Whitehurst, talking to the people around Alice, and trying to figure out who was behind her death. He knew this feeling. It had paid off when he found Kathy, he thought, but it’d also cost him the life of a close friend and two others. He didn’t want to put anyone at risk again. But did he have faith in the Miami police to do anything?