Cold Case Squad (26 page)

He studied city directories, street maps, and locators on the
Internet and, city by city, began the tedious process of creating
geographic profiles of each crime scene radiating out from each
victim's address. Many didn't drive, they walked or rode buses.

By the end of the day he found that stores that sold judaica were
located within two miles of each victim's home.

He found the small store in Miami filled with books, candles,
picture frames, even kosher scouring sponges.

"Most of our merchandise comes from New York and from Israel," the
pudgy proprietor said. He wore a yarmulke, gold-rimmed spectacles, and
a snowy white shirt under a black vest and tie.

"When a young man becomes engaged to be married, he is given a gold
watch and a set of
shas
, books that contain writings from the
Torah." He displayed some of the tall, handsome leather-bound volumes,
some sets worth as much as twenty thousand dollars.

Brides-to-be receive sterling candlestick holders and a silver
challah knife.

There were rows of
mezuzah
cases, each containing a small
scroll with a quote from Deuteronomy 6:9: "
And you
shall
write them on the door posts of your house and on your gates
."

He has seen them fixed in a slanted position on the upper right-hand
doorposts of Jewish homes.

Stone was frustrated again to learn that the Judaica stores were
independent and family-owned, not part of a national chain.

"Are there salesmen or suppliers who call on you and travel to other
stores all over the country?"

"No. We go to New York, to the showrooms, once, twice a year."

"Who among observant Jews working in religious-related fields would
travel from city to city?"

He shrugged. "Maybe a chief
mashgiach
, from the National
Council. He is the one who oversees the overseers who certify kosher
food establishments. He visits, once, twice a year. His job is to
inspect and check that all the local
mashgiachim
properly do
their jobs, that everything is kept up to par. The laws are very
strict. That they don't open on the sabbath or on holidays. That even
for Passover, they can't begin to prepare before midnight, that they
don't use nonkosher products. There is even kosher Tide detergent. And
the flame on the stove must not be lit by a nonobservant Jew. His is an
important job."

The proprietor excused himself to help a man carrying a department
store garment bag. Price tags still dangled from the suit inside.

The man who bought the suit had come to have it inspected for
shatniz
.
Orthodox Jews are not permitted to mix wool and linen. Stone watched
the proprietor use a microscope to carefully examine the suit's fibers.
The suit passed. Had the presence of linen fibers been detected, it
would have been returned to the store.

Back at headquarters, Stone rechecked his geographic profiles.
Kosher restaurants were also located within a two-to three-mile radius
of the crime scenes.

He riffled through his messages, found one from the medical
examiner's office, and drove to Bob Hope Road.

Dr. Everett Wyatt, the thin, wiry, and intense forensic
odontologist, was holding forth in the chief's office.

"Here he is," he greeted Stone.

"We've got some news for you," the chief medical examiner said.

Dr. Wyatt placed a computerized blow-up of the photo of a laughing
Charles Terrell beside the jawbones of the man who died in the garage.
"Although the victim's upper front teeth are burned and blackened, the
protected lower teeth were distinctive. Mr. Terrell's lower teeth,
clearly visible in the laughing photo, do not display those same
distinctive characteristics."

"These," he said, "are two different men. So now that we know who
this fellow wasn't, let's see who he was."

He placed another photo, a computerized enlargement, next to the
jaws.

"Now, look at the overall arrangement of the lower teeth," said the
fast-talking, ebullient dentist. "See how that left lateral incisor
overlaps? And the chipped edge of that right lower central incisor?
Voila! A perfect match! We have our man."

"The victim found dead under the car in Terrell's garage was your
fellow from Wyandotte, Missouri," the medical examiner said. "Michael
Hastings."

The midday flight was full, packed with the usual cast of characters
assembled before any passenger jet can take off. They were all there:
the screaming baby, the wheezing, sneezing stranger with a runny nose,
and kids who kick the seat backs nonstop.

A large Latino family, parents and an indeterminate number of
teenagers, sat inexplicably in distant sections of the plane, then
spent the flight shouting back and forth to one another.

"Lucky we didn't plan to take a nap," Burch said.

Nazario cut his eyes at the hacking passenger across the aisle and
two rows back.

"This is what I hate about flying. God knows what we'll take off
this bird with us. Remember the old days? You catch a cold and you go
to bed until you get better. Maybe your family or the guy working next
to you catches it. No big deal. Today somebody sick books on a jet from
Singapore to London or Seattle. All the way, he's coughing little
invisible drops of what's ailing him into the same recirculated air the
rest of us are breathing. When the plane lands, a couple hundred
passengers fan out, coughing and sneezing, into a whole new
unsuspecting
population. No place in the world you can't reach in hours. That's how
fast a bug can travel."

"Look at AIDS, look at SARS—who the hell knows what's next. We might
be inhaling it on this flight right now. Plus, we have to change planes
in Atlanta. That doubles our chances."

"Don't do this to me, Naz. Just try not to breathe, okay?"

"They should give everybody a physical before they board."

"Not a bad idea. They already make you take off your shoes."

"Hey, the first AIDS patient was a flight steward who infected
people from New York to L.A."

"Yeah, and I'm already suffering from IDS."

"What's that?"

"Income deficiency syndrome. Thank God for that place I'm living. At
least I'm not paying rent."

"The guy who owns that spread isn't doing you any favors. He got his
money's worth the other night. He owes you. They'da cleaned him out."

"I hope his cat's all right," Burch worried. "Maybe I shoulda
boarded him. Hated to leave 'im alone. Anything happens to me, tell
Stone to take good care of that cat until Adair comes back."

"Jeez. What brought that on?"

Burch shrugged and went back to an old
Newsweek
he'd
plucked from the seat pocket in front of him.

"See this?" He indicated a story about a wildlife photographer and
his companion, killed by the Alaskan brown bears they were filming.

"Yeah," Nazario said. "The guy was like a paparazzi."

"What d'ya mean, a paparazzi?"

"They said the guy had been sneaking up on the bears, shooting their
pictures for twelve years. The bears had no privacy. They're eating,
they're drinking, snoozing, or having sex, and every time they turn
around, some guy's creeping through the bushes, shooting their
pictures, filming everything they do. A bear can't even take a crap in
the woods without this guy and his camera."

"That's exactly what Alec Baldwin and all those other celebrities
are always complaining about. They take swings at those photographers,
try to run 'em over. Even Jackie O. got a restraining order against one
of them. Guy was following her all the time. A bear can't get a
restraining order, he doesn't even have a lawyer."

"The bears got tired of it, just wanted some privacy, a little peace
and quiet. But here comes the guy again, sneaking around stalking 'em
with the camera. Enough is enough. The bears just snapped. So what do
they do? They shoot the bears. It's a shame."

"Same thing with the big cat in the casino. Wild animals don't
belong in a casino."

"Yeah, that was trouble waiting to happen,"said Burch. "The way this
little cat I'm baby-sitting plays and pounces is cute, but I'd be in a
shitload of trouble if he weighed six hundred pounds instead of six or
seven."

They rented a car at the airport in Portland and checked into a
Holiday Inn a mile away from Big Red's Greenway Drive apartment.

"Do we go see her now? Or grab something to eat first?" Burch asked,
after they checked into their room.

"No time like now. We wait and maybe she's out for the evening."

The Silver Briar, a gabled four-story condo in a fashionable
neighborhood, offered private parking for residents and visitors. They
found a metered spot on the street instead.

"You think Terrell is here?" Nazario said, as they walked to the
building.

"Could be. But if he ain't, Big Red's the key."

"The femme fatale," Nazario mused, "the long-legged, red-headed
exotic dancer. She's gotta be something if he dumped Natasha for her.
You saw Natasha."

"Wonder if she's still MIA?" Burch said.

"We shoulda told Riley to check out the cabanas. Think she's all
right?"

"Somebody like her always lands on her feet."

"Or her back. At least you don't have to look over your shoulder for
the little woman while we're here."

"I'm straightening it all out when we get back," Burch said. "One
way or the other. Talked to my daughter, the oldest, the other day.
She's such a good kid."

A boyish security guard in a blue uniform sat at the lobby desk.

His name tag said Greg Everett.

"Hi, Greg," Burch said. "We're here to see Linda Ballard."

The young guard smiled and reached for the house phone. "Who shall
I—"

"We don't want to be announced." Burch flashed his badge.

The guard hesitated, expression uncertain. "Can I see some ID?" he
said.

Burch handed over his badge case.

"All the way from Miami, huh? Sorry, Sergeant. The condo association
is really strict about the rules. Didn't want to run the risk of losing
my job." His wide gray eyes lit up. "How hard is it to get hired down
in Miami? I qualified for the police academy here, but there's a
waiting list. I just got married and we sure could use the security. I
hear the benefits are good."

"Forget Miami," Burch said. "Unless you can shake a Hispanic or two
outta your family tree."

Linda Ballard was in apartment 402. "A nice one," the young guard
said. "A two-bedroom corner, she's got views of the park and lots of
privacy. Owners of the other three units on the floor are all away for
the summer."

"She entertain a lot?" Burch asked.

"Once in a while a few of her lady friends come for lunch. They make
a lot of noise and laugh a lot. Otherwise she's pretty quiet."

"Ever see this guy around?" Burch handed him Charles Terrell's
photo. "He'd be twelve years older than he looks here."

Greg studied it, then frowned. "I don't know. I'm not sure, I've
only been on this job for three months."

They left Greg at his post in the pink marble lobby and took the
silent, mirrored elevator to the fourth floor.

Nazario rapped three times with the elaborate front door knocker, a
gold lion's head.

Big Red opened the door. She was not what they expected.

Norma the maid said that Nelson's truck had been in the driveway.
Mrs. Ross had stepped outside to speak to him.

Then she and the truck were gone. Vanished.

A single, impossibly high-heeled Jimmy Choo sandal lay broken in the
driveway.

How could she walk in a shoe like that? K.C. Riley wondered. Surely
she couldn't run.

"Something's happened to her," Milo Ross said gravely. "Natasha
wouldn't just disappear. There has been no ransom demand. I'll offer a
substantial reward if you think it might help."

"That might be premature." Riley wondered how much Ross knew about
his wife and Nelson the land-scaper. "What do you think the man's
motive might be?"

"Natasha fired him," Ross said. "I should have done it myself, but
she insisted on taking care of it. She hated the way he'd pruned the
royal poincianas, said it looked like they'd been attacked by vandals
with chainsaws. Actually it looked like they'd grow back fine and the
fellow did an otherwise outstanding job. But my wife's a perfectionist.
She called him Nelson the tree slayer and said he had to go."

The retired tycoon kept files on all household employees, including
copies of their driver's licenses.

Life would be so much simpler if all homeowners were so thorough,
Riley thought, radioing dispatch to broadcast a BOLO for Nelson's van.
"Homicide needs to talk to him about a possible missing person."

Moments later she was startled when the dispatcher reported the van
involved in a traffic stop.

"They've got him pulled over," she told Ross.

Riley was about to ask that the driver be detained until she got
there, but her radio emitted a long, high-pitched emergency signal.
Transmissions were halted. The air cleared. Staccato reports of an
exchange of gunfire. Unit 333 breathlessly requesting backup.

"Tell him to hold his fire!" Riley broke in. "There may be a kidnap
victim in that van! All units hold your fire!"

Responding officers had spotted the van. A chase was now in
progress, headed due west. Patrol was cautioned to use restraint
because of the possible hostage.

"I'm going with you!" Ross insisted.

"Sir." Riley touched his arm. "It would be best if you wait here. If
she's not with him, Mrs. Ross may call or come home. You want to be
here if she does. If we find her, I promise I'll send someone for you."

Tears in his eyes, Ross nodded, unable to speak.