Shadows (16 page)

“Gran! Gran!” Stone dropped to his knees on the floor beside his grandmother and felt for a pulse. She was breathing. He turned her over gently and she opened her eyes.

“Gran, are you okay? I'm sorry. I'm so sorry! Talk to me. Please talk to me.”

Did she have a stroke? Had she been taking her blood pressure medication? He'd neglected to remind her lately as he usually did. It was critical to act quickly if it was a stroke. What had her doctor said? Stone tried frantically to remember the questions that can identify stroke symptoms.

“Gran, smile. Can you smile for me?”

The corners of her mouth turned up. Her gaze was fond.

“Good. Good.” No facial weakness. “Now try to raise both arms.”

She raised her right arm, then her left.

No arm weakness.

“All right now, sweetheart. Try to speak. Say a complete sentence, just a simple sentence.”

“For pity's sake, Sonny. Just help me get up.”

“Excellent, very good.” Her speech wasn't slurred.

“Gran, tell me, who's the president of the United States?”

“Dubya. I mean it, Sonny. Quit your silly questions and help me up.”

He opened his cell phone to punch 911. “I want Rescue to check you out.”

“No need,” she insisted, sitting up. “I don't want them busting in here, disturbing the neighbors with all that noise and fuss. It was so hot up there. Jus' had a little weak spell. I'm fine.”

“Sure you're all right?” he asked doubtfully.

“I'm fine. Jus' felt a little weak and lost my balance when I stood up.”

He picked up her pink scuff, helped her to her favorite chair, lifted her feet onto the footstool, and slid the slipper onto her foot. “Did you take your medication?”

She hesitated, uncertain. “Maybe I forgot. I wasn't sure and I didn't want to make a mistake and take it twice.”

“I'm calling the doctor.”

“Don't you go bothering him, he's a busy man.”

“I'll go get you one of those pill dispensers that have sections marked with each day of the week,” he said. “You can see exactly when you took your medicine last. I meant to buy you one before.

“What did you say you were doing when you felt weak?” He brushed what looked like a cobweb off her shoulder. “You said hot. Up where?”

She looked guilty. “I went up into the attic crawl space. It's so hot and dusty….”

“What?” The only opening to the crawl space was in the top of her bedroom closet. “You climbed the stepladder and went up in there? You promised you'd never go up a ladder when you're home alone. What if you fell? Whatever you want up there, you know I'll get it down for you.”

“Didn't want you getting yourself all exercited before I saw if it was still up in there. Should a throwed it away or burnt it. Meant to a long time ago.”

“What?”

“An old box a your father's papers. Maybe something there can help you. Maybe not. After the funeral I went over to the barbecue store to clear out your mama and daddy's things. Put 'em all in one a them cardboard file boxes and stored it up in the crawl space.”

“What's in it?” he whispered.

“Papers, a lot of business papers.” She shrugged. “Ray Glover, he went through 'em before I put 'em up there. Said I should hang on to 'em.”

He followed her into the bedroom and winced at the old six-foot stepladder still standing in front of the closet. A dusty cardboard file box sat atop her neatly made bed.

“You might find somethin'.” She bit her lip. “You know I'm so proud of you, Sonny, but sometimes I'm scared for you, too.”

“Sure, Gran. But I can take care of myself. You taught me how to do that.”

Her smile was sad. “I don't want to lose you the way we lost your daddy and Annie. I'm jus' scared—for you, not me. I been arguing with myself.

“I pray to God every day to keep His hands on you. I don't want to fuss with you anymore, Sonny. Don't want you believin' I don't care. I'll do what I can.”

“Atta girl.” He gave her a gentle hug. “I have to go to a meeting now, but I won't turn off my cell phone, no matter what. I'll keep it on vibrate. If you don't feel well, call nine-one-one right away, then me. Want to go through these papers together later?”

She shook her head sorrowfully. “I hope I'm not makin' a terrible mistake,” she whispered. “I made so many. Take it outta here, Sonny. I don't want to see it.”

He locked the file box in the trunk of the unmarked and drove to the medical examiner's office.

Rakestraw was already there.

He'd been called out to a fatal accident before dawn.

“Traffic stopped,” he said, his thin face morose. “College kid in a Ford Focus didn't.”

Bill Rakestraw took every traffic death personally. That's why he's the best, Stone thought.

He filled in Rakestraw and the chief medical examiner and left the Collier County medical examiner's file with them.

His beeper had already sounded. Four times. He went straight to the office.

Nazario and Corso were waiting for the elevator as Stone stepped off.

“Dawg! You are in so much hot water!” Corso said. “The lieutenant's gonna whup your ass.”

“Hear about the DNA results?” Nazario asked grimly.

“Yeah, at the ME's office. Hell of a thing.”

“We're going to bring in a suspect right now.”

“Good luck,” Stone said absently.

“You're the one who needs it, dawg.”

 

“Where the hell have you been!”

K. C. Riley was red in the face and on her feet. “Glad you could make it, Stone. Oversleep? Glad you slept like a baby! I didn't. What in hell did you think you were doing over there in goddamn redneck country? Nobody even knew where you were! I expect better from you. Since when are you the Lone Ranger?”

“Sorry, Lieutenant. I didn't oversleep. Haven't slept yet. I left word with your secretary that I had tracked down Ray Glover.”

“Sure, but you neglected to mention he was on the goddamn other side of the state. Had he been in Baghdad, I suppose you'd be there, ducking bombs and bullets, without asking my permission.”

“Let me tell you what I found, Lieutenant. Glover's dead. I think he was murdered.”

“Don't screw with me, Stone.”

“I'm not.”

She cocked her head at him, sat down, and listened. Before he finished, she called in Burch.

“Holy crap,” he said after hearing everything. “Where is this one going?”

“Let's find out,” the lieutenant said. “Good work, Stone.”

The metal door handles were as hot as a stove. The detectives gasped as they slid into their unmarked, a blast furnace exposed to the ruthless summer sun on the rooftop level of the parking garage.

“Now I know what a corpse feels like being rolled into the crematorium,” Corso said.

Nazario felt the heat searing his lungs, turning his bones to ash. He rolled down the windows, turned on the AC, and floored it, steering gingerly with his fingertips until the wheel cooled off.

“I swear to God you ain't driving on the way back!” Corso bellowed as they circled around and around in a dizzying spiral descent to the street. “Never should a got in the car with you. I know better.”

“What, you expect to live forever?”

“No, but a few more weeks would be nice.”

“Yeah, might be nice to get married first,” Nazario said.

“Then it'll just seem like forever. Hey!” Corso yelped as a concrete retaining wall loomed in the windshield. “How the hell'd you get your driver's license? Mail-order from Havana?”

“I don't like those insinuendos. Tell me when I had an accident! Name one.”

Heat rose in waves off the blacktop as they hit the street.

“You Cubans are all alike. Too macho, no sense a humor.”

 

Ronald Stokoe lived in a tree-shaded, one-story, concrete-block, fifties-style South Florida home, attached to a one-car garage. The mailbox tilted at a precarious angle, its door hanging open like a parched tongue. The paint on the north side of the house was dark with mold, in need of pressure cleaning. Large round brown patches in the weedy, overgrown lawn signaled that the chinch bugs were in charge.

Stokoe answered the door shirtless, barefoot, and in need of a shave. A TV blared in the background.

“Chinch bug inspector!” Corso flashed his badge. “Sir, you got a serious problem.”

“What are you talking about?” Stokoe said.

“Miami police,” Nazario said.

“Ahhhhh!” Stokoe slapped his head and spun around in frustration. “What the hell is this? Harassment? Because I have a record, right? What's going on?”

“A good-looking blonde wants to see you,” Corso said. “That's the good news. The bad news is she's our lieutenant.”

“Can we come in?” Nazario said.

Stokoe stepped back reluctantly.

“Did my parole officer send you? Look, I only missed two appointments.”

“Oh, ain't that nice to know?” Corso shot a triumphant look at Nazario. “Thank you very much.” Eyes roving, he stepped into the living room.

“Sir,” Nazario said, “I think you should get dressed, put on a shirt—”

“Am I under arrest?”

“We just want to talk to you down at the station.”

“Who are you with, what unit?”

“Homicide, Cold Case Squad.”

“What you talking about? You got me mixed up with somebody else! Did my goddamn neighbors call you?”

“Do they have a reason to?” Nazario asked mildly.

Chastened, Stokoe said, “What if I don't wanna go?”

“What do we
have
here?” Corso boomed triumphantly from a corner of the living room. “Well, well, well. Naz, look it this. Our buddy here's got a green thumb.”

Six small marijuana plants were thriving in an egg carton beneath a blue light.

“Sorry, pal. Gotta confiscate these and take you in. You got no choice about coming downtown now.”

“They're strictly for medicinal purposes,” Stokoe protested. “I been in ill health. Had a gallbladder operation a couple months ago,” he said, pulling on a shirt in his bedroom.

Corso put the egg carton in the trunk while Nazario watched Stokoe dress. “Your lieutenant really a blonde?” Stokoe ran a comb through his thinning hair and daubed on some cologne. “Okay,” he said, “how do I look?”

 

“You got to be kidding!” Stokoe exploded when Burch asked where he was the night of August 25, 1961. “Are you crazy?”

His initial reaction simmered down as the gravity of Burch's question began to sink in. Something changed in his eyes.

“We're not kidding. We're dead serious.”

“Number one,” Stokoe said. “The statute ran out a long, long time ago on anything that could a happened back then.” His confidence restored, he leaned back in his chair and grinned at them.

“Wrong. It never runs out on first-degree murder.”

Stokoe's mouth opened, but he said nothing.

“Want to tell me about Pierce Nolan?”

“I don't know what you're talking about. I don't have to talk to you.”

He shut down, silent and unresponsive. Burch left him alone and found Riley and Corso in her office.

“Stokoe's playing cute, doesn't want to cooperate.”

“Okay,” she said. “Let me take a crack at him.”

“He's all yours,” Burch said.

“I'd like to give that guy an attitude adjustment,” Corso said, cracking his knuckles.

 

Stokoe smiled up at her. “Hey, they sent in the blonde. I was hoping they would. If more cops looked like you, I wouldn't mind visiting here more often.”

She smiled back as his oil-slick eyes roved boldly over her cream-colored blouse and form-fitting slacks.

“Call me K.C.”

“Yes, sir, ma'am.” Stokoe gave a charming little salute. “You can call me Ron.”

“Okay, Ron. I hope bringing you down here so abruptly wasn't inconvenient.” She took the chair opposite him.

“An imposition, but I got to meet you. Wish I'da had time to shave. Always wanted to meet a babe who owns her own handcuffs.” He winked.

Riley chuckled.

“I see here, Ron,” she said, frowning at the folder in front of her, “that you did some time for rape.”

“A misunderstanding,” he said. “Strictly consensual, I swear. You know how it goes, some women get crazy. It was one a those she said, he said deals. I took a bad rap. Had a lousy lawyer.”

“She was fifteen years old,” Riley said. “You went in a window. It says here her arm was broken, a spiral fracture from being twisted. Tsk, tsk, Ron, I'm surprised at you.”

He sighed. “She was into rough sex. She wanted me, she told me she did.”

“Ohhh, so that explains it.” Riley sniffed the air. “What's that smell?” She looked around the room, puzzled.

“I think they call it
Le Male.
It's French.” His sly smile returned.

“No, Ron, I don't think it's that.” She wrinkled her nose. “I think it's your breath.”

He blinked, smile fading.

“How bad is your breath? How backward is your brain? And how little is your penis, Ron? It must be terribly small. You must have needed tweezers and a magnifying glass to find it every time you pulled it out to wave at little girls. Want to wave it at me? I could use a laugh today. I bet I've seen bigger dicks on little kids,” she said casually, then smiled.

“Your own hand probably rejects your pathetic little pecker, you ballless bastard.” She shook her head sadly and continued her role of bad cop, very bad cop, with no good cop in sight.

 

“Hey, Sarge, listen to this,” Nazario said. “Not only did we run down the owner of that clinic in the Shores, but they're still in business, just down the street. Had all the old records. Unbelievable! Stokoe did show up there that night. Suffering from scratches, mosquito bites, and a gunshot wound, a shotgun pellet the doctor dug out of his left shoulder.”

“The blood out there that night was his!” Burch said.

“Without a doubt. Damn, wish we had it for DNA. We could a positively nailed him in court.”

“DNA wasn't even on the horizon then. But if Stokoe was the shooter,” Burch said, “how'd he get hit?”

“Ricochet maybe, or when he and Nolan wrestled over the weapon.”

“Damn, he looks good for this! What a break,” Burch said. “What'd I tell ya? Despite what the lieutenant says, sometimes putting it in the newspaper works.”

“Yeah…. Listen, Sarge, there's something I didn't wanna bring up in front a Corso.” He filled Burch in about Fleur Adair.

“She shows up, naked, in your bed?”

“Swear.”

“You didn't do the nasty with her? Tell me you didn't.”

“Could have. Didn't. Wouldn't. You recommended me for that job, Sarge. Adair trusts us with what belongs to him.”

Burch sighed in relief.

“Did you know that promoters pay pretty girls just to go to parties at South Beach hotels and clubs?”

“Party girl is her profession?” Burch said. “Used to call 'em B-girls. This close,” he said, squeezing his thumb and forefinger together, “to prostitution.”

“She's not a bad girl. Poor kid's a broken cookie.” Nazario shook his head.

“If she's on the outs with her father, you gotta get her outta there.”

“No problem. She promised to be gone by the time I get back.”

“What do party promoters pay girls for something like that?”

“Didn't say, but it must be enough to make a living.”

“Even if that's all she does?”

Nazario shrugged. “They party down every night in South Beach. Says she gets a bonus to be a human table.”

“The hell is that?”

“A girl who lets rich guys eat sushi off her naked stomach.”

“Sounds like ptomaine city to me. Jeez, you see a big, beautiful house, the fancy cars, the big bucks, and think the people who live there and their kids don't have a care in the world. Uh-oh.”

The door to the interview room slammed shut.

“Over to you.” Riley went into her office and closed the door.

 

“Let's go pick up the pieces,” Burch said.

Stokoe's body language and cocky demeanor had changed. Slumped in his chair, he rocked back and forth.

“I don't want to talk to her anymore!” He jabbed a finger at them. “Jesus God, what kind of woman is that? I don't wanna see her again!”

“That can be arranged,” Burch said. “If you cooperate…”

“Sure, whatever you want to know. I'll tell you the whole thing. Just keep her the hell away from me.”

After being advised of his rights, Stokoe said, “I went up there that night to see Summer Nolan. You should a seen 'er. She was so beautiful that cars would wreck when she walked down the street. But meaner than a snake.”

“Mean?” Nazario asked.

“Had an attitude. Pretended not to see you. Wouldn't give me the time of day.”

“She was only sixteen,” Burch said.

“So? I was seventeen, perfect for her. I'd say hello, she'd look the other way. Followed her home once. Then I started going up there almost every night. I'd ride my bike or take the bus.

“I'd watch her, though a bedroom window. She used to dance. All alone, in her room. I'd stand on a rock and watch her. Used to get off. She hadda know I was watching. She'd undress. Sometimes she'd touch herself.”

Stokoe licked his lips, eyes dreamy. “She wanted me. She knew I was there, hadda know. But I was scared shitless of her father. He was a big guy, a big shot. I'd been caught red-handed, so to speak, once before, down in the Roads section. The judge gave me one more chance. It was my third or fourth one. I couldn't afford to get caught again. I didn't wanna go to Youth Hall.”

“So that's why you shot Pierce Nolan when he caught you that night.”

“Hell, no!” Stokoe jerked back in his chair. “I never shot nobody. I have scruples. I was a victim. Think I'd be sitting here talking to you guys if I killed anybody? I'd be lawyered up and outta here. Hope you catch the guy who did it—you can charge him with assaulting me, too.”

“Sorry,” Burch said. “There's that pesky statute of limitations again. So what happened?”

“That was one hot, steamy night. Summer was alone in her room. She was waiting for me. I knew it. She had music on the radio. She took off her dress first, real slow, in front of the mirror. She was swaying back and forth. Started doing ballet exercises, bending and stretching. Really sensuous shit. Hadda know I was there. She starts dancing, barefoot, in a little slip. I'm jerking off, fantasizing about what I'd be doing to her if I was in there. I was really excited, but it was taking me longer. She had Patsy Cline on the radio, singing ‘Crazy.' I'm whaling away and, Shit! I hear his car coming up the driveway. Almost there, I had to quit. Hated leaving her but I didn't want him catching me. Son of a bitch was a big guy, an athlete. So I ran down behind the hedge, figuring I'll circle around behind his car and split once he goes in the house. But something's moving on the far side of the driveway. I don't know what it is. I'm thinking maybe they got a dog. So I freeze, outta breath, take cover, and wait. Nolan gets outta his car, starts to walk inside, then stops and yells something at me. I'm thinking, Oh shit.