Garden of Evil (29 page)

Unfortunately, none of my messages were in response to the morning story. The only new clue came from an unlikely source. My mother.

I had comp time for working on my day off and had arranged to meet my mother at La Hacienda for lunch.

Her convertible was parked outside, the top down. At
age fifty-three, she looked stunning in a crisp pastel suit. Her bubbly chatter was full of news about her burgeoning social life, her high fashion career and the new winter cruise wear. I was grateful that she didn't criticize my clothes, my job or my love life.

My favorite, a delectably seasoned crisp crusted baked chicken with moros and green plantains, was wonderful. Lunch was uneventful until I fished through my Day Timer for my credit card, and the photos, tucked inside, fell out.

“Oh,” my mother said, picking one up to study before handing it back. “Those are my favorites.”

“Of course, the Elsa Peretti open heart. Exclusively for Tiffany's.” She shrugged. “Everybody knows that.”

“You're sure?”

She stared as though I was not her only child, but an alien creature from some third world planet. There are times I am sure I was the victim of a maternity ward mix-up. We are so different.

“Excuse me,” I said, “you recognize this earring?”

“Of course,” she chirped. “They're a signature design for Tiffany's.” She reached out to snatch up the second photo.

“Good god!” She squinted at the image. “Is this woman…alive?”

“No,” I murmured unhappily. “Not anymore.”

She slapped it face down on the table like a playing card, shoulders aquiver in an exaggerated shudder.

“What happened to her? No, no,” she held up one hand like a traffic cop. “Please. Don't tell me. Spare me the details.”

She studied me in pained silence for a long moment, her expression one of suspicion. “What on earth would you be doing with a thing like this?”

I realized again what a disappointment I must be to her. Most women my age happily share baby pictures, while my handbag revealed close-ups of corpses.

Appetite gone, I pushed away my caramel flan and forti
fied myself against the usual barrage with the dregs of my
cafe con leche.

Instead, she turned up one edge of the photo with a beautifully manicured fingernail to take another peek, her expression odd.

“Gruesome.” She grimaced as she turned the photo face up. “But I swear, something about this poor creature…Who is she?” She raised her eyes from the picture to me, her look questioning.

“You think you know her?” I leaned forward. “She's the unidentified woman found drowned yesterday at the beach.”

“I saw your story,” she said pointedly, as though somehow it had been all my fault. She stared again at the photo, closed her eyes for a moment, studied it again, then pushed it toward me. “I guess not. Her own mother wouldn't recognize her, I'm sure.”

“You know,” I said quickly, “it's entirely possible that you do know her. You meet so many women, the fashion shows, the models, the buyers, your clients. She may have moved in those circles. Here, take another look,” I urged. How ironic, I thought, if my mother could help solve this mystery.

She shook her head emphatically. “No!” She refused to look at the picture again. “It was just a passing thought.” She was strangely silently as we walked to her car. A quick hug and she was gone. Her car flew out of the parking lot, tires squealing.

 

I showed Bobby Tubbs the earring photo which he agreed to run with the story if space was available. “I also got a picture of the victim,” I said cheerfully.

His head jerked up, eyes narrowed. “Is she dead in the picture?”

“It's not that bad,” I said. “We can touch up the nose a little.”

“I don't want to see it. Gedit the hell outta here!” Fuming, he spun in his swivel chair, turning his back to me.

“Putting it in the paper may be the only way to reunite her with her loved ones…” I said to the back of Tubbs' head.

“Don't
even think about it,” he barked, without looking up from his editing screen.

Of course, I thought about it. Missing people intrigue me. Perhaps because my father was missing for most of my life, or because human beings lost and never found baffle me. The words of a long dead comedian, Myron Cohen, haunt me: “Everybody's got to be some place.”

I turned in the story, stuffed a handful of business cards in my pocket, reminded the desk that I was still owed comp time and departed for the day. I drove to the Beach, parked ten blocks south of where the dead woman was first spotted and began to hit the hotel lobbies, trudging from one to the other, inquiring about any woman guest or employee who might be missing.

I pressed business cards into the hands of front desk clerks, managers and bartenders, asking them to call if they heard anything.

I continued until I was ten blocks north of where she had been found. At sunset, I beeped Rochek. We met, shared drinks, ate a pizza and compared notes.

Our victim matched no missing persons reports, county, statewide or even internationally, Rochek reported. He had checked on cars parked overtime or towed from the beach since her final swim. None were linked to a missing woman.

The detective had also visited Tiffany's. I imagined him, with his smelly cigar and unperturbable swagger, shooting questions at the staff. The earrings could have come from any one of more than 150 Tiffany stores in the U.S., and world capitals such as London, Paris, Rome and Zurich. She might not have purchased them herself.

“She looked like the kinda broad guys buy presents for.” He sounded wistful.

“Wanna bet the call will come tomorrow?” I said.

“From your lips to God's ears, kid.” He raised his glass.

 

But the call did not come the next day or the day after.

“Every right turn I make is a dead end. It's like she dropped outta nowhere,” Rochek complained at our next strategy session, a week later. Her fingerprints had come back NIF, not in file. No criminal record. “It's like she came to Miami to die. What the hell she had against me, why she did it on my watch, I dunno.”

“Maybe she's a foreign tourist and folks back home haven't missed her yet. Did you talk to Wyatt?”

Dr. Everett Wyatt, one of the nation's foremost forensic odentologists, sent one of the nation's most savage serial killers to Florida's electric chair by identifying the bite marks he left in the flesh of a coed victim.

He shrugged. “He says her dental work looks like it was done in the states.”

“Jeez,” I said. “It's like she was scooped up in a flying saucer and dropped off here.”

The morgue was overcrowded, as always, and Rochek told me the administrator at the medical examiner's office was talking burial.

“We don't come up with answers soon,” the detective said, “they're gonna plant her in Potter's Field.”

The prospect made me want another drink.

Twice a month backhoes dig trenches and prisoners provide free labor as the cheap wooden coffins of Dade's destitute and unclaimed are buried in graves marked only by numbers. Stillborn babies sleep forever beside the impoverished elderly, jail suicides, victims of violence, AIDS victims and unknowns without names or any one to mourn them. They use numbers in the county cemetery, otherwise known as Potter's Field, in hope that a John, Jane or Juan
Doe will one day be identified by a loved one eager to claim and re-bury the body. That rarely happens.

“No way,” I said.

“Right.” His jaw squared. “Somebody must miss her.”

He took it personally. So did I.

 

“How can somebody like you and me just get lost?” I groused to Lottie the next day. She had dropped by my desk and pulled up a chair after deadline for the first edition.

“Maybe she wasn't like you and me.”

“If she shopped at Tiffany's regularly,” I said, “she wasn't. But rich people are missed quicker than the rest of us. Where the hell are her relatives, her neighbors, coworkers, her boss, her best friend? Hell, you'd think her hairdresser would report her missing, if nobody else did. She looked like high maintenance.”

“Dern tootin'. By now, she's due for a touch-up, a manicure, another bikini wax.”

That evening, a much anticipated date with the man in my life, Miami Police Major Kendall McDonald, ended badly. The first sign was when I thought he was reaching for me. It was actually his pager in the glove compartment.

The beeper sounded as we dined on excellent food at a barbecue at the home of a policeman friend. The night was soft around us, with music in the air and the pungent aroma of citronella candles burning to repel mosquitoes.

He returned from the phone, his expression odd, and spoke into the ear of a homicide lieutenant who reacted as though he'd been gunshot. They exchanged whispers and expressions of disbelief.

“What's happened?” I asked expectantly, as McDonald took his seat beside me.

“Nothing,” he said, eyes troubled.

That was his final answer. I hate secrets. During the drive home I coaxed, but he lectured me on ethics. One thing led to another. At my place I stepped out of the car,
marched to my front door and turned my key in the lock as his Jeep Cherokee pulled away.

Why, I thought,
am I my own worst enemy?

Ignoring the blinking red eye on my message machine, I took Bitsy for a walk. Each time a car slowed down beside us, I hoped it was him, but it never was.
Why does this always happen?
I wondered.

Back at home dressed for bed, I was warming a glass of milk in the microwave, when someone knocked softly.

I smoothed my hair and threw open the door, smiling and relieved.

My visitor's balding dome shone in the moonlight. “You ain' gonna believe this, kid.”

“Emery, what are you doing here?” I clutched my cotton robe around me and glanced at the clock. “It's one
A.M.
”

“You tol' me to call you if I got a break. You didn't answer. I was passing by and saw your lights.”

I swung the door open wider and he stepped inside.

“I got the ID of the mermaid,” he announced. “Been working the case all night. Thought you'd wanna know. It's a hell of a thing.”

“How'd you find out who she was?” Eagerly, I led him into my little kitchen. He looked rumpled and needed a shave. “Want coffee?”

“No, but I could use a stiff drink. I'm heading home after this. You expecting somebody?”

“No.” I took out a bottle of Jack Daniels. “How's this?”

“Perfect. Nothing on the side.” He looked puzzled. “What's with you, kid? Didn't you ever learn to check who it is before you open your door in the middle of the night? You of all people.”

“You're right. I wasn't thinking.”

We sat across from each other at my kitchen table. Him with the booze, me with the milk. Our notebooks in front of us, the air electric with anticipation.

“I knew you'd do it,” I said as we raised our glasses in a mutual salute. “Where is she from?”

“Right here.” He took a swallow, then sighed. “Miami, born and raised.”

“Amazing, how come she wasn't identified sooner?”

“Because the corpse that we fished outta the drink that day was a dead woman.” Fondly, he contemplated the amber liquid in his glass.

“So? We knew that.” I frowned and put my pen down.

“She was a homicide victim…”

“Emery,” I implored impatiently.

“…more than ten yeas ago. She was
already dead.”
His gaze met mine. “Ran her prints again, this time through local employment records. Came back a hit. Her prints positively identify her as Kathlin Ann Jordan, murdered in 1991.”