You Only Die Twice (17 page)

“What did she look like?” I asked.

“Very attractive. I never saw her in person again after that day,” she said, “but I saw her in your newspaper, after they identified her as the dead woman on the beach. When I saw the story, I counted back the days. Her body was found the morning after he arranged to meet her. You realize what that means?”

She stared bleakly across the table at me, shoulders sagging, her fingers working nervously together.

“I didn't have my glasses on when you walked in this morning. For a moment I thought you were her. I knew, of course, that you couldn't be. I guess I was somehow hoping to be wrong…”

“Will you tell all this to the detective?”

“I can't.” Her mouth quivered.

“Why? How important is keeping your job if—”

“It's more than that,” she interrupted. “If he committed a crime, he won't go down alone. That's what he's like. I could be in serious trouble. If he even suspected that I talked to you—.”

“That won't happen,” I assured her.

“Oh, my God,” she said suddenly, “look at the time! I have to get back. Remember, we never talked.” She folded her untouched pastry into a paper napkin and gathered her things.

She carefully checked to be sure no one was watching before exiting my car two blocks from Kagan's of
fice, then rushed away, nearly stumbling on the curb in her haste.

 

I walked into the newsroom, scooped up my ringing phone, and slid into my chair.

“I saw you,” the caller said softly, “early the other morning, jogging in the rain.”

He
had
been watching. “Yes, that was me.” I tried to sound cheerful.

“You demonstrate an admirable dedication to physical fitness, or you have trouble sleeping. Which is it?”

I didn't answer.

“Saw you start to limp. Hope you didn't pull a muscle. Looked more like a charley horse or a cramp,” he said.

“Oh?” I said, as though I didn't recall.

“You never looked up,” he said accusingly. “You knew I was there.”

“Tsk, I forgot,” I said lightly. “That's right, your building
is
somewhere along that stretch.”

“I have something for you.” He lowered his voice to a suggestive register. “A story.”

“Oh?” I rolled up to my terminal and opened a file.

“Yes but, tsk, I forgot.”

“Don't tease me, Zack. I'm in no mood for games. Come on,” I coaxed, “spill it. I won't forget again.”

“One of those big earthmoving machines the city uses for beach maintenance backed over a sleeping sunbather. An older man. Tourist, I think.”

“Oh, no. How badly is he hurt?” I took notes.

“He didn't look good. The medics worked on him. He was trapped underneath. They had to jack up the
whole damn machine to get him out. They took him away a little while ago. The cops and the driver are still there.”

“You should have called me right away,” I said.

“I did, but you didn't answer.”

“I just walked in the door. Thanks, Zack. I appreciate it.”

“Wave next time,” he demanded.

I trotted up to the city desk and asked Tubbs to assign a reporter. He scanned the room. “You'll have to take it, Britt. I've got nobody else.”

“But I'm working Jordan full time,” I protested.

“Is there a new development for the street? I didn't see anything from you on the budget.”

“No,” I admitted, “but I'm working leads.”

“Britt?” Gretchen glanced up from her editing screen. “If you're tired of your beat and want a change, say so. Until then, I suggest you take this story and follow your leads later.”

She smirked as I left.

 

The scene was precisely as Marsh reported. The machine operator was distraught, either because of the victim's injuries or the joint the cops had just found in the cab of his bulldozer. His boss, his union rep, an assistant city manager, and a city attorney were present. None looked happy to see me.

The uniformed cop handling it said that the driver had been rearranging the beach, eroded by heavy winds and waves the night before. The driver insisted that as he pushed drifted sand, the tourist must have spread out his beach towel and reclined behind one of the artificial
dunes being created. The operator was backing up and never saw the man, he said, until passersby screamed that someone was caught under the machine.

The victim's leg was broken and his pelvis crushed, among other injuries.

I ignored the creepy sensation that I was centered in the crosshairs of a zoom lens focused from above. At the first opportunity, I waved.

About to leave, I saw Emery Rychek trudging across the sand. “Hey, kid, it's déjà vu all over again.”

“They have you working this too?” I protested, aware the city would require an intense investigation and mountains of paperwork due to the potential liability.

“I'm the man,” he said grimly. “Looks like you're off the story too.”

“They didn't have anybody else.”

“Welcome to the club,” he said.

Once greeted by the city hall staffers, Rychek was too busy to talk. Besides, I told myself, Frances had sworn me to secrecy, and neither Rychek nor Fitzgerald would consider a twenty-year-old news flash about Kaithlin's baby more than ancient gossip. That did not explain why I didn't tell my editors. Would the sordid story about the Jordans' secret love child interest them? I was afraid it might. Myrna Lewis's crack about garbage and gossip must have stung more than I realized.

I called the ER at county hospital on the way back to the office. The hapless tourist was still alive, en route to surgery.

As I drove toward Biscayne Boulevard moments later, my cell phone startled me.

“Britt! This is Onnie, in the library. I think I've got a hit! I think I found her!”

“Great! You're sure?” I hit the brake and swooped off the exit ramp, a red light ahead.

“Hell, no. No way to be sure. But she definitely looks good.”

“I'm five minutes away. I'll be right there.”

“Her name is Shannon Broussard, a Seattle woman reported missing by her husband, Preston, three weeks ago!” Onnie handed me the printout, her face as excited as I felt.

“Is there a picture?”

“No, but her description fits Kaithlin Jordan to a T. Husband owns a software company. Two little girls, five and seven.”

Shannon Broussard had failed to return from a three-day shopping trip to New York. She had boarded her flight in Seattle but never checked into her Manhattan hotel, the story said.

Onnie hovered behind my chair as I called Broussard's Seattle company, my heart pounding. His personal assistant said he was not in the office and not expected.

“I'm calling about his wife,” I said.

“You have news?” she said quickly.

“I'm not sure,” I said. “It's possible.”

She took my number. He called in less than five minutes.

“You're in Miami?” He sounded bewildered. “My assistant said you called about Shannon.”

“She hasn't been located yet?”

“No,” he said, disappointed. He clearly hoped I had called with answers, not questions. “She disappeared in New York City. I just returned from there—with nothing.”

“Was she originally from Miami? Did she ever speak of it?”

“No. She's from the Midwest.” He sounded weary.

“You have her confused with someone else.”

“When did you meet your wife? How long have you known her?”

“What is this?” he said angrily. “What kind of question is that? We've been married for almost nine years.”

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I was just hoping to eliminate the possibility up front.”

“What possibility?”

“A few weeks ago,” I said carefully, “a woman was found dead in Miami Beach. We're trying to determine where she came from, attempting to match her to missing persons reports.”

Silence. “Are you still there?” I asked.

“This…woman, she—she hasn't been identified?”

“She has and she hasn't. It's a long story that I won't burden you with unless the possibility exists that she might be your wife.”

“How—how did this woman die?”

“She was murdered, drowned in the ocean.”

“That's not my Shannon,” he said quickly. “She was in New York, not Miami. She's an excellent swimmer. And she's not the sort of person anyone would deliberately hurt.”

Children's voices clamored in the background. “Daddy, Daddy,” one called, “is it Mommy?”

“Please hold on,” he said. I heard him ask someone to take the children into another room.

“Sorry,” he said, upon his return. “They miss her. We all do.”

“Mr. Broussard,” I said, “is there an inscription engraved in your wife's wedding ring?”

“The same that's in mine,” he said.
“You and no other.”

I felt no elation. Instead, my eyes blurred.

“Mr. Broussard,” I said softly, “I think you should call our medical examiner's office or the police detective on the case.”

“Oh, my God,” he said. “No! It can't be.”

He took down the names and numbers I gave him.

“It's still possible,” he said, voice cracking, “that this is all a coincidence. Isn't it?”

“I hope so,” I said, certain that it was not.

I replaced the phone in its cradle gently, as though it was something fragile that might shatter.

“You did it,” I told Onnie, who waited, eyes expectant. “The poor guy. I could hear the kids in the background.”

We began a computer check of Seattle newspaper files for background on the Broussards.

The husband called back in less than thirty minutes, his voice shaky and distraught.

“I couldn't reach the detective,” he said. “They left me on hold, then said he was out. The people at the medical examiner's office say they have the woman you mentioned under another name: Jordan. I don't understand. Can you please tell me what's going on? I'm on my way, but I couldn't get a direct flight so I won't be there until late. But I need information, some clue as to what's happening.”

As I described the life of Kaithlin Jordan, “murdered” by her husband a decade ago, he began to sound relieved, repeating, “That isn't Shannon. That's not Shannon,” over and over again.

“She wore an earring,” I finally said. “A small open heart, in gold.”

His breathing began to sound labored, as though he needed oxygen.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“No,” he gasped. “Last Mother's Day,” he finally whispered. “I took the children to Tiffany's. They picked them out. She always wore them.”

I had dozens of questions but he was rushing to the airport for the long flight ahead. He promised to call when he arrived, no matter how late.

“I hated it,” I told Onnie later. “I could hear his heart break.”

“We did him a favor,” she said flatly. “It's better than never knowing, jumping every time the phone rings, searching faces in every crowd, always looking for his wife.”

“But Onnie, he still doesn't realize she never was his wife. That it was all a lie.”

“Nine years and two kids sounds more married than Kaithlin and R. J.”

“Who, unfortunately, were never divorced.”

The desk opted to hold the story until Kaithlin was positively identified as the woman Preston Broussard knew as his wife, Shannon.

Our computer search of Seattle society pages revealed that, though considered one of the city's best-dressed women, Shannon Broussard was notoriously camera-shy, a charming eccentricity which, in retrospect, made perfect sense. She raised funds for local charities and won trophies in amateur golf and tennis tournaments. Kaithlin the achiever, I thought.

A charming feature photo of her two children, Devon, then four, and Caitlin, age seven, with their father, a tall, lanky fellow, at a country club Easter-egg hunt indicated they had all been living the good life. What on earth brought her back here to a bad death?

I called Fitzgerald's hotel and left word canceling our dinner date because I had to work. Hopefully I'd be able to interview Broussard before police whisked him away and the media pack picked up his scent.

 

Lottie and I grabbed sandwiches in the
News
cafeteria. “Wonder if he's another R. J.,” she drawled, as I filled her in. “You know how we tend to repeat our mistakes.”

Was I oversensitive because the truth hurt? I wondered. I had confided to Lottie about Fitzgerald. Did she mean me?

“I doubt it,” I said. “The guy sounds sweet. They have kids; apparently they were happy.”

“If playing house with him was such a fun trip, what from here to Hades was she doing in
this
town? Lord knows, she'd been through enough to know you don't squat with your spurs on. Did ya see how good Eunice Jordan looked in some of the pictures I made at the airport? That woman's gotta be pushing seventy.”

“She
is
elegant,” I said. “In great shape.”

“With a lotta help. Plastic surgeons have had at her like a Sunday roast.” She glanced across the room and abruptly changed subjects. “Any brainstorms 'bout our weddin' gift for Angel and Rooney?”

I followed her gaze. The betrothed had finished dining at a table across the cafeteria. Rooney, in his security uniform, reached out to steady the small blond as she struggled to her feet. Her belly bulged like that of a baby whale.

“Ain't they sweet?” Lottie said. “That baby's ready to see daylight any damn minute. Look at her, she can hardly waddle. You in on the office pool? She's already a week overdue.”

“Stop looking at them.” I wrapped the second half of my grilled-cheese-and-tomato sandwich in a paper napkin for later.

“Why?” Lottie reluctantly wrenched her eyes from the happy couple.

“They might come over.” I drained my cup.

“Well, ain't you Miss Congeniality.”

“I swear, Lottie, it's a disaster every time that woman crosses my path.”

“Pshaw,” she said, waving greetings their way.
“That's all over. They're as happy as clams at high tide. Angel's got her act together now.”

 

Our strategy, we decided, was to ambush Broussard at the airport. Until then, I returned to my desk to wrap up the story on the bulldozed tourist, who was still in surgery. Police had arrested the operator for marijuana possession, accident charges were pending, and he had been suspended from his job. Reached at home, he had no comment.

I called Marsh to thank him for the tip. “I saw you,” he said playfully.

“I know, I know. I waved. Did you see me wave?”

“Oh, yes. In fact, I got it on tape. My new video cam arrived. The quality of the playback is excellent. I can count the buttons on your blouse.”

Oh, swell. I grimaced. Why did the most innocuous conversation with this man always make me want to take a shower?

He asked about the Jordan story. “Looks like she was married,” I confided, “living out west, with a couple of kids. The husband's flying in to make the ID. But don't repeat this to anyone till it's confirmed. Okay?”

He agreed, and I said I'd keep him informed. News sources love being kept abreast as a story develops.

I called Rothman, Kagan's private detective, and talked to his answering machine. The phone directory listed no street address. He probably worked out of his house. I also tried a second number, a beeper, then called Kagan's office and left my number on his emergency line.

Rothman called back almost immediately.

“Who is this?” His voice was loud, his brusque tone abrasive.

“I need to talk to you about Kaithlin Jordan,” I said, and identified myself.

“You need to talk to me about who?” he said, even louder.

“Kaithlin Jordan.”

“Don't know 'er.”

“That's odd.” I sounded confused, always easy for me. “I understood differently. I spent some time with Martin Kagan earlier today.”

“
He
gave you
my
name?” He spoke the words distinctly and very slowly.

“Where else would I get it?” I said blithely. “I'm working on the story, this whole thing is about to hit the fan—”

Gloria signaled that I had another call.

“Whoops,” I said. “Important call, another new development, have to get back to you.” I hung up.

Good timing is rare. This was one of those golden moments. It was Kagan on the other line.

“What do you want?” he said rudely, realizing it was me.

“I'm working on the story,” I said cheerfully. “The Kaithlin Jordan thing we talked about.”

He gave a quick sigh of annoyance. “I told you. I never met her, never talked to her.”

“I guess that's because you knew her by a different name,” I said sweetly. “Shannon Broussard. From Seattle. Does that refresh your memory?”

“No idea what you're talking about,” he said coldly.

“Well, that's odd,” I said, perplexed. “See, I was just talking to Mr. Rothman.”

He hesitated. “Who?”

“You know, your private eye, the Digger. You hired him to do some work on the case—”

“
He
told you that?”

“Well.” I hesitated. “I'm sure I didn't misunderstand. I just spoke with him, not five minutes ago. He said that you—uh-oh, have to go now, the news meeting just started. Get back to you later.”

The news meeting
had
just started, editors assembling in the glass office. As usual, I was not among them. Reporters are not invited.

 

Broussard's flight was on time, the airline said. Lottie and I left early. Miami International Airport was always bedlam at the height of the season, with parking spaces so rare that distant offsite parking lots use trams, trains, and buses to transport people to MIA from miles away. With patience and luck, we eventually snagged a spot in a short-term garage on actual airport property.

The cacophony of foreign languages added to the chaos and confusion as horns blared, exhaust billowed, and cabbies battled. There are those who are overwhelmed by it, those inured to it, and those who thrive and prosper: the pickpockets, the sharp-eyed thieves who loiter near airport phones to rip off credit card numbers as owners use them, and those who deliberately splash mustard, ketchup, or a drink onto startled travelers so they can profusely apologize, elaborately
“assist,” and otherwise distract them while accomplices steal their valuables.

Northern-bound travelers in heavy winter clothes rubbed shoulders with island-bound vacationers in shorts and T-shirts, as we staked out the concourse, hoping Broussard didn't change flights at the last minute. This one arrived thirty minutes late. The first to disembark strode by, rushing to make connections. The weary followed, loaded down with carry-ons, pulling hand carts, carrying babies.

“Over there, bet that's him!” I said. He resembled the man in the photo at the Easter-egg hunt. Tall and slender, with wavy brown hair and glasses, he looked about forty, distracted and fatigued. He wore a rumpled gray wool sports jacket over a white shirt open at the neck. His tie was loosened and he needed a shave. He seemed confused, almost a bit of a nerd, totally unlike R. J.

Though startled, he seemed relieved to be met by someone, even strangers eager to pick his brain. When I offered to drive him to his hotel, he agreed. He did not protest or even seem to notice when Lottie shot a few discreet photos. Instead, he eagerly asked questions, propounding his own theories.

“I thought about it all through the flight,” he said, “wracking my brain. The dead woman isn't Shannon. Definitely. I'm positive. Shannon's jewelry must have been stolen and this other woman was wearing it.”

Lottie and I exchanged dubious glances. “Anything is possible,” I said reluctantly, trying not to encourage him. “Stranger things do happen.”