You Only Die Twice (8 page)

“But surely,” I said, “her mother must have been relieved and happy for her when they got married.”

Myrna Lewis's eyes flickered. “The husband was spoiled, a jealous, selfish man. Reva could never forgive him for all he…” Her voice faded. “They hated each other.”

“But they both loved Kaithlin. Why didn't they work at getting along?”

She shook her head. “There are some sins only God can forgive.”

“But St. Jude came through,” I said persistently. “Kaithlin was alive long after R. J. went to death row.”

“If Reva's prayers were answered,” the woman said,
leaning forward to jab an arthritic finger, “she died never knowing it. She made me promise that if she went first she'd be buried properly. She wanted her daughter's body found so she could have a decent burial, too. She bought a double plot and a fancy stone for her and Kaithlin. She wanted her girl with her, the way it was before him. She wrote letters to the prison, even had the parish priest write, begging R. J. to say where he put her. He never answered.

“The day Reva died, she was going to the church to talk to Father O'Neil about a special mass. She had them twice a year, on Kaithlin's birthday and the anniversary of the murder.

“They said she stepped off the bus in front of St. Patrick's and fell down in the street. While she was lying there, somebody stole her purse. By the time she got to the hospital, she had no identification. But the maintenance man from this building had been driving by; he saw the ambulance take her and phoned me to find out how she was. I kept calling but the hospital kept denying she was there. Finally they put me through to a social worker who said they had an unidentified body.

“I had to go down to identify her.” She gazed out the window, eyes flooded.

“You saw her body?”

She nodded. A single tear trickled down the wrinkled cheek.

“You're sure it was her?”

“What sort of question is that?” she snapped, frowning in confusion. “Of course. Why would you even—”

“I'm sorry,” I said. “Do you still work at Discount Office Supply?”

She shook her head brusquely and blinked. “That's gone too. The big chains, Office Depot and Office Max, both moved in. Ran my boss right out of business. He packed up and moved north, think he opened a convenience store somewhere. The good Lord knows I keep trying to find something. Social Security goes only so far. Most people won't hire a woman my age.”

She let me borrow the photo, as long as I wrote her a receipt and promised to return it.

“He should stay where he is,” she said, as she saw me to the door. “Look what he's done. Years ago, Reva and I made a pact. We were both alone and promised to be there for each other if anything happened. I did my part. Now who will be there for me?”

 

I made a pit stop at home to shower and change. Bitsy bounced out as I opened the door and I nearly missed the business card that fluttered to the floor. It bore the familiar Miami city seal with McDonald's name imprinted. Scrawled on the blank side were two words.

“Who? Why?”

I frowned, puzzled, as I pushed the
PLAY
button on my answering machine.

“Britt, what's up? Did you pick a fight with me because you had a late date? Who the hell was that guy?”

Distracted by the loves and lives of the clan Jordan, I paused to consider the question.

Then I realized what must have happened.

After driving off in a snit so long ago last night, McDonald must have reconsidered and returned just in
time to see Rychek, arriving or departing. I winced, envisioning me, silhouetted in the open doorway, smoothing the rumpled detective's collar and delivering intimate sartorial advice at 2
A.M
. in my robe.

“Oh, for Pete's sake!” I murmured as Bitsy grinned, pranced, and wagged her tail.

Did I have the time, energy, and patience to explain to McDonald right now?

Dutifully, against my better judgment, I hit his number on my speed dial.

“It's me,” I sang out cheerfully.

“Hey.” He sounded calm but chilly.

“Just got home and heard your message.”

“Oh?”

The inflection in that single syllable set my teeth on edge as I contemplated all I still had to do in so little time.

“If you came back last night,” I said, “you should have knocked.”

“I saw a Beach detective's car, an unmarked.”

“That was Rychek, remember? You met him once.”

“Didn't realize you two were so tight.”

“The man's pushing retirement.” I resisted the impulse to add K. C. Riley's name to the mix. “He's good people, a source. He had information on a story.”

“So he delivers news tips personally, at night?”

“For Pete's sake! McDonald. You never had an informant, a CI who was female?”

“Sure, lots of them. But I never served them drinks at my place after midnight.”

Drinks? “So you were lurking in the bushes? Prowl
ing and window peeping? Scaring my landlady? She's eighty-two, her husband is eighty-eight. One of them could have had a heart attack.” Actually, Helen Goldstein would have brained him with her broom. “I'm damn lucky he did think of me. The story I'm working on is the big secret you wouldn't tell me last night. R. J. Jordan, right?”

“It's another department's case. It wasn't up to me to release information.”

“Why not? The entire world will know tomorrow. I could have had it in this morning's paper.”

“I was being professional.”

“Sneaking around in the bushes is professional?” Ha, I thought, he's on the ropes.

“Stop saying that,” he said, voice reasonable. “I wasn't sneaking. You should keep your drapes closed.”

“Why? I have nothing to hide. If you'd knocked, you would have seen how innocent it was.”

“I tried that once.”

Damn. A low blow, I thought, my face burning. He had dredged up ancient history. After the hurricane, the big one, when the phones were out, along with the electricity, the water, and the roads, when misery reigned and people were willing to kill for a bag of ice or a hot shower, McDonald came to my rescue—and found me with someone else. The look in his eyes that night haunts me still.

“That was long ago,” I said quietly. “I thought the statute of limitations had run out on it. I'm sorry.”

“So am I.” He sounded weary.

My shoulders sagged. I felt fatigued and yearned to be with him, to relax in his arms. I fought the feeling.

“Have to go now.” I tried to sound upbeat, to pump up my energy level. “I've got an early deadline. Talk to you later.”

A terrible thought slowly took form after I hung up, materializing like something ugly in a horror film. All it lacked was a spooky score in a minor key. I'd heard those words, that tone, before. That was my mother talking. Was I becoming my mother?

I stepped into the bathroom, undressed, and stared into the mirror. No. No way, I told myself. It's the story, the deadline, my brain as overloaded as a computer about to crash.

When I finish this story, I promised, I will make it all up to him. Make him forget K. C. Riley. I will lovingly whip up a succulent meal, some of my Aunt Odalys's exotic Cuban concoctions, a creamy midnight-black bean soup—or a green plantain soup thickened with ground almonds—and her
malanga
-encrusted snapper with olives and pimientos. I will massage his back, lure him into the shower, wash his hair with my scented shampoo, and smother him with kisses. Yes, I thought, stepping into the shower. I closed my eyes and realized I was not alone in that warm and steamy cubicle. The presence with me was not McDonald, it was Kaithlin.

How did a woman “dead” for ten years reappear, only to die again? Had she been kidnapped? Comatose? Suffering from amnesia? What triggered her return on the eve of her husband's execution? Did the execution lure her back? Or did she return belatedly to mourn her mother's demise? And if the M.E. was right, where was Kaithlin's child? And who was its father?
If her first “murder” was not what it appeared to be, what about the second? Who killed her, and why?

Fresh-smelling body wash streamed like satin across my naked body, as I scrolled a mental list of possibilities and listened to whispered questions in the hissing flow of water.

Fortified by strong hot coffee, my brightest lipstick, and a favorite blue blouse, I filled in Fred Douglas, the news editor, by phone as I drove north on Collins Avenue. I needed no help, I told him. I had everything under control and was still reporting.

Unlike Myrna Lewis's modest abode, my destination this time was lavish and beachfront, with valet parking, a huge pool, cabanas, and a four-star restaurant. I used the gold-and-white house phone under a gleaming crystal chandelier in the marble lobby.

“I'm downstairs,” I said, introducing myself.

Without hesitation, he invited me up.

A high-speed elevator whisked me to a spacious sixteenth-floor hallway with thick seafoam carpeting, ornate molding, and elegant gold sconces.

When I knocked, the door to 1612 buzzed, unlocked,
and swung open, but the room appeared empty. I stood waiting.

“Hello?” My voice echoed in the silent apartment. “Is anyone here?”

No radio or TV played. No carpeting, little furniture. Lots of open space. The sea-and-sky colors of the walls and narrow drapes, all shades of marine blue and bottle green, were reflected in the expensive tile floors. The overall effect was one of being submerged in the sea instead of in a needlelike high-rise in the sky. Schools of fish would seem more natural outside these enormous windows than swooping pelicans or seagulls. One paneled wall concealed an elaborate entertainment center. Another, mirrored from floor to ceiling, reflected blue sky and water.

“Hello?” I called again. “Mr. Marsh?”

“In here.” The computerized voice came from an overhead speaker. “To your right.”

My heels clicked eerily on the tile floor.

A lock disengaged as I approached another door.

“Hello?” I hesitated, then pushed it open.

I gasped, suddenly face-to-face with myself, shocked at my mirror image, life-size and in full color, on a huge TV monitor. I hadn't even seen the hidden cameras. Bluish light flooded the room, which seemed even more sterile than the others; a slight odor of antiseptic was in the air. A man sat facing the screen, with his back to me. He touched the controls, and his motorized wheelchair spun in a hundred-and-eighty-degree turn.

His body looked shrunken and shriveled but his eyes glittered, dark and intelligent, and his thick salt-and-
pepper hair looked absurdly healthy in contrast to the rest of him.

“I'm Zachary Marsh.” He nodded briskly, in almost military fashion. “So you're Montero. I've read your stories.” He eyed me approvingly. “Younger and prettier than your picture.”

The man hadn't seen my picture, I decided, unimpressed. He had confused me with the columnists whose head shots appear with their work. But I didn't correct him. I was more interested in his toys.

At the oceanfront windows, two powerful telescopes stood on low tripods, adjusted to accommodate a seated viewer. Neatly arranged on an adjacent and immaculate glass-topped table were a moon-phase calendar, a NOAA weather radio, a police scanner, a cell phone, a cordless, two cameras, several sets of high-powered binoculars, and a remote-control device that looked sophisticated enough to operate every piece of electronic equipment in the apartment.

“Are those night vision?” I indicated a set of bulky black binoculars.

“Correct. But,” he cautioned, “don't touch them! No one else handles my equipment.”

“Sorry.” I stepped back. “I'm impressed.” The National Guard used the night-vision glasses, originally developed for Israeli commandos, when much of South Florida was plunged into total darkness after the big hurricane. Now narcs and undercover cops used them for surveillance.

“How did you start…all this?” I said, still gaping at his array of equipment.

“Always wanted to watch the sky,” Marsh said, “but
never had the time. Too busy running the biggest Rolls-Royce dealership in the Northeast. Then my condition got worse, put me in this chair, and sent me south for the warm weather. Bought my first real telescope when I moved in. Studied the heavens for months. Then one day, by chance, I set my sights lower.”

His lips curved into a half smile, his eyes roved to the windows, and his voice dropped to a near whisper.

“You have no idea what happens out there at night.” He nodded toward the sea, awash in golden sunlight and sparkling innocently. “Everything from sea turtles marching out of the surf to lay their eggs, to beached whales, to cruise ships illegally dumping garbage. I've seen it all: incoming rafts, mother ships, smugglers in action—but none of it compares to the bizarre religious rituals and mating habits of the human species.”

His hands, the left slightly clawed, turned palms up.

“To one in my position, the earthbound is far more intriguing than anything out there beyond our reach. Better than anything on television.”

“You called in that floater,” I said briskly, “a couple of weeks ago.” I stepped to the window to gaze down at the stretch of sand where Kaithlin lay after being dragged from the water.

“Absolutely correct,” Marsh replied, with a casual wave. “But that was nothing. Remember when those Haitian boat people began washing up dead on the beach last year?”

I nodded.

“That was me.” His bony thumb jabbed at his sunken chest. “I spotted them first and informed the Coast Guard and the police. And when that dope plane cart
wheeled into the sea last October? Dispatch even called me back, kept me on the line until the choppers were directly over the crash site.”

I nodded, even more impressed.

“Remember when your own newspaper reported that ‘the Coast Guard spotted' a fourteen-foot sailboat full of Cuban refugees who tried fighting them off with machetes? That,” he said, voice rising, “was incorrect! The Coast Guard didn't spot them. Me—it was me. And when all those packages of cocaine washed ashore during that big music convention and people began picking them up off the beach? Guess who?”

“I remember, that was when the seven kilos washed up.”

“Twelve.” He inched up taller in his chair. “Twelve kilos. I saw who ‘salvaged' the other five.” He rolled his eyes toward a zoom-lensed camera on the table. “Even caught them in action.”

“Wow.” Though he hadn't invited me to sit, I assumed it was an oversight and dropped into a modern sculpted chair facing him. “What did the cops say when they saw the pictures?”

“They didn't see them.” He shrugged. “Don't ask, don't tell. They didn't ask, I didn't tell.”

“But—”

“You know,” he said accusingly, “you are the only one who has come to see me, to acknowledge what I do.”

“But I'm sure—”

“I'm sure,” Marsh snapped, “that they take the credit to justify their existence, to make it appear they're earning their pay. I see what they do down there at night, on
duty, in their official cars, parked at the street ends on the beach in the dark. Not one has ever called to thank me, even though I'm the one who makes them look good.”

“Perhaps they feel you'd rather remain anonymous, protect your privacy.”

“Right,” he said sarcastically. “The incompetents protect themselves. If they gave me credit, the public and their own superiors would soon question how I manage to see so much while the able-bodied men and women paid to protect our borders and our civilian population see so little.”

“I'm sure Detective Rychek would like—”

“Oh, that one.” He waved the name away with a dismissive gesture. “Called the other day, wanted to come by. Told him I was too busy.”

“Why?”

“Did he ever call to thank me? Apparently he's too busy. Well, if he wants my help on something now,
I'm
too busy.” His pout was petulant.

“The woman was murdered.” I leaned forward intently. “Didn't you see the story? Someone killed her.”

He looked bored. “I knew that—long before anyone else. You were there, on the beach that day. I saw you. When I read the story in the
News
the next morning, I realized that was you.”

The look in his eyes gave me a sudden chill.

“Let me see here.” He pressed a lever on his chair's control panel, maneuvering it across the narrow room to a low two-drawer file cabinet. Inside were dozens of folders, precisely labeled and color-coded. “Here we are,” he said cheerfully. He removed a folder, thumbed
through a sheaf of eight-by-ten photos, then motored back to where I sat, stopping his chair so close that his knees nearly touched mine. I wanted to push my chair back, but it was blocked by the table behind me. He selected a photo, studied it for a long moment, then presented it to me, his eyes meeting mine.

For an instant, I didn't recognize the woman in the picture. Hair and skirt caught in the wind. Sunglasses, notebook in one hand, pen in the other, my mouth open, speaking to someone, probably Rychek, who was outside the frame.

My legs looked good, I thought in a moment of vanity. He handed me another print and I reacted as though slapped. His long lens, that one-eyed voyeur, had zoomed in on Kaithlin's naked breasts wet and glistening in the sun. The close-up was so intense, the focus so sharp, that the individual grains of sand clinging to her skin were clearly visible. The small bare feet in the foreground had to belong to the boy, Raymond. His pail lay forgotten in the sand nearby.

“You never know what treasures the sea and Mother Nature will deliver next,” Marsh said crisply. His lips curled in an unsettling smile. “Quite attractive, don't you think? I do my own darkroom work as well.” As he reached for the photos his hand brushed my knee—deliberately, I was sure. The man is disabled, I reminded myself, swallowing my indignation.

“Did you photograph the murder?”

“Unfortunately, no.” His smile faded. “My fault entirely.” He gestured a mea culpa. “I'd been shooting a unique cloud formation at first light. Cumulus, with a vertical buildup. A huge geyser of red, orange, and pur
ple, astonishingly like a mushroom cloud. Looked like Armageddon, the goddamn end of the world. Shot the whole roll. Emptied the camera. Not only would I have had to go to a hall closet for fresh film”—he made a small irritated sound—“in order to reload, I would have had to open that infernal cellophane wrapper, the cardboard box, then the film canister. My fingers don't work well some days. Had I tried, I would have missed it all. It happened lightning fast. But I have the pictures,” he assured me, gnarled forefinger tapping his temple, “right up here.”

“What happened?” My voice sounded faint, perhaps because my heart beat so loudly.

“Savage. It was savage.” His eyes burned with the light of a boxing fanatic reliving a particularly brutal bout. “I couldn't tear myself away. The bugger popped her right square in the mouth. Punched her out, though the water did slow his swing somewhat.”

“What did he look like?”

“Dark-haired white man is all I can say. From way up here, heads look like coconuts down in the water. Not much you can tell. He faced the horizon. I did catch her expression briefly in my binoculars. Total amazement, then horror. By then he was all over her. Didn't take him long at all. I couldn't see which way he headed once he swam ashore. I went to my bedroom for a better view but I had to unlock the door to the terrace. By the time I got out there, he was gone.”

“Why didn't you call the police then?”

“To say what?” he demanded, rearing back indignantly. “To report a body somewhere in the Atlantic? She was no longer visible.” He frowned at my naïveté.
“I take pride in my word. When I say something is out there, it is in my sight. I can direct the authorities right to it. What if they didn't find her? What if they never found her? Sometimes they don't, you know. You can't cry wolf, not once, and ever expect to be taken seriously again.”

“But,” I protested, “they would have known hours sooner. The police might have stopped him or found other witnesses, maybe even someone who knew him.”

Marsh stared as though I was the lunatic.

I gazed back, at a loss for words.

“I've acquired a backup,” he offered, his tone conciliatory. “A second camera, always loaded. And I've ordered a video cam as well. Compact, lightweight, the newest, most sophisticated model on the market. Next time I'll have it all on video.” He paused suggestively. “I see things before anyone else. Sometimes it's big news. Perhaps you and I can come to an arrangement….” His fingers brushed my right knee again. This time they lingered. “So I call you first, give you the news tip.” His chair pressed closer.

“You live here alone?” My eyes roved the premises hopefully, for signs of a caretaker with a net.

“More or less.” He studied my breasts. “Don't like live-in help. I intend to stay independent as long as I can. A service sends somebody in twice a day, helps me bathe, makes sure I eat. Cleaning woman comes two days a week. Other than that, I'm on my own, doing whatever I like, thank you.” He pushed a button on his remote, and hidden stereo speakers instantly responded, piping mindless elevator music throughout the apartment. He leaned forward, lips wet, eyes still
focused just below my neckline. “We are alone,” he said softly, “if that's what you're asking.”

“Hate to leave, but I've got to go. Deadline,” I sang out cheerfully, as I shoved his chair back and sprang to my feet.

“Thank you for coming,” he said stiffly. “By the way, did they ever find out who she was?” His words were sly, his eyes bold.

“Yes,” I said, halfway to the door. “I'm working on the story for tomorrow's paper.”

“Then I suppose they also know where she was staying, correct?”

“No. Neither do the police. So much about her is still a mystery.” I paused. Something in his expression made me ask, “Do you?”

“It's probably not important.”

“It is,” I said quickly.