Hal understood that the shooting story, with a sidebar on Justice Building security, forced postponement of our evening. He kissed me good-bye and left to help his parents, who had panicked about the storm and were bringing their boat up the Miami River to safe harbor.
“They want to do it before boat traffic jams up waiting for bridge openings, and land traffic gets crazy because of people trying to evacuate,” he said, shrugging.
Some Miamians’ idea of storm preparation is to throw their most valuable possessions in their cars and speed north, inland, or across state. Problem is, you can’t outrun Mother Nature. No place to hide. Hurricanes are so erratic and unpredictable that not even the scientists who track them from their inception can precisely predict exactly when and where they will make landfall.
This one, still for to the south, in the Caribbean, was not even a threat to South Florida at the moment. But as José Marri wrote, “Man needs to suffer. When he does not have real griefs, he creates them.”
I had not read Martf since I was a schoolgirl, yet his words came back to me now. Perhaps I am more Cuban than I thought. More likely it was because of my thoughts of my father and the feet that the storm might be headed for Cuba.
I worked the shooting story, learning that Stosh had apparently caused LaFontana Pierre grief, both personally and professionally. She seemed to believe they were engaged at one point, but had caught him with another woman. He had stopped returning her calls, but she knew where to find him. She had shown up packing a pistol as he represented another of her cousins, held on robbery charges. When she whipped out the gun, the defendant had leaped eagerly to his feet in the belief that she had come to break him out of there. Much to his disappointment, she gunned down his lawyer instead.
When I returned home, to the delicious luxury of my efficient new air conditioner, Mr. Goldstein and Seth were lugging out the hurricane shutters, numbered aluminum panels for each window and door. The young boy was already an inch or two taller than his granddad, and his back was certainly a lot straighter.
“Hey, Britt, we gonna have a hurricane party?” Seth was obviously thrilled by the idea.
According to the latest advisories, the huge storm had nicked the southern tip of the Dominican Republic’s Barahoma Peninsula. There were reports of flash Hooding in hillside barrios, crops and fishing boats had been destroyed, and airports were closed. Hurricanes are rated on a scale of one to five, with five the most fierce. This was a three, with winds of 111 to 130 miles an hour, but reports were that the storm was picking up speed over open water south of Jamaica and had veered to the northwest, toward Cuba.
“Hate to tell you this,” I said, “but last I heard, the storm may hit Cuba. That should slow it down and then, most likely, it will die in the Gulf.”
Seth looked crushed at the prospect.
“You can’t be too careful, Britt,” Mr. Goldstein said, a screwdriver in his hand. “There’s nothing like being prepared.” He mopped his forehead with an oversized handkerchief, his expression concerned. “I’ve been wondering if we should send Seth back home early.”
“No way!” his grandson cried. “I’ve never seen a hurricane! I want to write a first-person account for the Gazette. I’ll be the first staffer on my school paper to do an eyewitness account of a killer storm!”
They were still debating as I took Bitsy out for a walk.
By morning the storm had escalated to a four, with winds of between 131 and 155 miles an hour, and slammed into the Isle of Pines, off Cuba’s southwest coast, site of the prison my father had once escaped. The hurricane had hit the mainland’s narrow neck at La Habana Province and was roaring north toward Havana leaving widespread destruction in its wake.
Reports out of the country were sketchy with communications down, but the damage was apparently severe, with casualties high. Havana, where most houses and buildings are old and in poor condition, was sure to be hard hit. The mountains of eastern Cuba, where there is much more land to cross, will destroy a hurricane but this storm had struck at the narrow neck to the west.
A note on my word processor directed me to see Fred, the city editor, in his office. “Sit down,” he said, looking grave.
Uh-oh, I thought. Something had caught up to me. The U.S. 1 caper with Bravo?
I smiled, mind racing, and tried to look innocent.
“Britt,” he said reluctantly. “This is a sensitive matter.” He arose, stepped outside, spoke quietly to his secretary then returned, closing the door behind him, another bad sign. “Normally we wouldn’t ask you something like this,” he said, settling in his chair, “but we’ve had a complaint…”
My stomach churned.
“About me?” I said, quick on the defensive.
“No.” He looked startled, as though wondering why I would think such a thing. “The, eh, spouse of one of our staffers has made allegations, stating that they have experienced marital difficulties,” he paused—clearly uncomfortable—” because of a situation here in the newsroom.”
“A love triangle?” I said.
He nodded. “It’s said that you might know something about it.”
“Me? How?” Possibilities bashed through my mind. Had Lottie told someone?
“Evidently the aggrieved spouse suspected there was a late-night assignation here in the building last Wednesday and was outside, somewhere, watching. Claims she saw them leave together but that shortly before they emerged, you and Lottie Dane arrived, then left. The two individuals deny the allegations and claim both were here in the newsroom working late on individual projects. I might add that the couple involved is seeking counseling in an effort to repair the marriage, but the spouse appears to want some sort of disciplinary action on our part. These are valued employees, this could factor into their futures. Careers are involved here.” He looked up at me expectantly.
I stared back, hating to be caught up in this. He misread my expression.
“What adults do should be their own business,” he conceded. “Normally that’s the way it is, but you know the old man. He has always adhered to high moral standards and insists that we do the same. After all, we are in the daily business of scrutinizing and reporting the behavior and the ethics of others and, I might add, this aggrieved party has called him a number of times demanding action.”
“You’ve talked to the two people?”
He nodded.
“These are valued employees, and you don’t believe them?”
“We want to cover all bases. Did you observe anything out of the ordinary Wednesday night?”
“People could lose their jobs?” I leaned back in my chair, crossed my legs, and smiled wickedly at the thought.
“Now, Britt,” he warned, “I know you and one of the individuals involved may have experienced some difficulties in the past, but I expect you to be absolutely candid with me.”
I sighed. “Okay. I was here that night, with Lottie. I came in to check out an arrest, and she had film to bring in.”
“Did you see anyone?”
“Yes,” I said casually.
“And?”
“I didn’t see anything that looked unusual to me.”
The “individuals involved” were fools to do it in the newsroom, but it’s not that unusual, I reasoned. I know two cops who claim to have done it on the fifty-yard line at the empty Orange Bowl after dark. Lottie has confided about a steamy encounter in a hot air balloon, and though any sexcapades of mine probably pale by comparison, I thought that it was really gross for him to spy on employees’ sex lives for the executive editor. Had their positions—professional positions—been reversed, if a male editor had indulged in sex with a female reporter, would there be prurient corporate interest? I thought not. I’d have to warn Lottie.
As though reading my mind, Fred said, “Ah, here she is now.”
I glanced up and saw Lottie approaching, apparently summoned from the photo department.
“Thanks, Britt,” he said, motioning her in as I left.
I tried to give her a subtle high sign as we exchanged looks in passing. It would not be cool if our stories didn’t match.
Ron was nowhere in sight, but Gretchen was at the city desk and watched me return to my terminal. She had to be aware. First me, then Lottie called in for questioning. This is like the Kremlin, I thought. She looked sick. I could have given her a reassuring smile, but, hell, I’m not that nice.
Glancing back at Fred’s glass-enclosed office, all I could see was Lottie’s profile, lips slightly parted, eyes wide in an expression of studied innocence.
She emerged a short time later and walked past my desk. “Coffee?” she asked brightly.
“Sure,” I said. We did not speak again until the elevator doors closed behind us. I punched three for the cafeteria.
“You see anything?” she said, leaning casually against the back wall, arms folded.
“Nothing unusual,” I answered.
“Me neither.”
“Good,” I said with relief. “I hoped you’d say that.”
“I saw that old fish eye you gave me as you left Fred’s office. Don’t it suck that they’re investigating private lives?”
“You see Gretchen’s face?” I said, as we stepped off. “She’s worried.”
“Good.” Lottie grinned fiendishly and grabbed a tray. I poured a cup of coffee while she ran boding water over a tea bag.
“Wish I’d finished putting Bahama shutters on my house,” she said, as we settled at a corner table. “They’re so expensive that I’ve just been adding a couple a year. Still have four windows to go. Sure hope that storm don’t head our way. If it don’t, that’s what I’ll spend my slot-machine money on, afore the next one stirs up out there. It’s only a matter of time before we get hit.”
“Hey, we always manage to dodge the bullet,” I said confidently. “It’s over the west end of Cuba right now.”
“Nice if it just blew Mr. Castro the hell outta there.” She sipped her tea. “Ain’t the delicate balance a nature amazing? A little butterfly flaps his wings somewhere in Australia and that teeny tiny waft of air snowballs, somersaults, and spins around until three weeks later we got us a hurricane boiling up the Caribbean.”
I blinked at the image.
“I don’t think that’s exactly how the meteorologists would describe it. Although, to tell you the truth, that makes more sense to me than some of the jargon in their forecasts.”
I tried to call the detectives in the Armando Gutierrez case, but when somebody finally did answer I was told they were out. Farmer from the FBI was out of his office, too. What the hell was going on here? A little storm hundreds of miles away and everybody disappears.
My Aunt Odalys did not sound great but insisted she was okay. “Britt, mi hijita. Listen to my words,” she muttered weakly. “The spirits are with you always. But remember, one can never escape la mala hora.”
The bad hour of ones life.
“Okay,” I chirped cheerfully. “Just wanted to be sure you’re all right and that if the hurricane does come this way you have somebody to help you.”
“Si,” she whispered. “Beware la mala hora.”
On that sunny note, I called my mother.
“Britt! Do you still have that little London Fog trench coat I got you at a discount? It will be perfect if the storm comes. Will you be coming to my place?”
I smiled. The last real hurricane to slam South Florida came when I was a toddler. I remembered us huddled together in her small apartment, wind howling around us. The power was out for a week.
“I’ll be working, Mom. If the storm comes, I’ll be covering it. I need to ask you something.”
“Yes,” she said guardedly.
“Winslow, from back in Dad’s days, remember him? He was CIA. Do you recall him ever saying where he was from, or where he planned to retire to?” I asked, pencil poised over a blank page in my notebook. “You wouldn’t happen to know his exact age, would you?”
She hung up.
I stood, fuming, and reached for my car keys as Ryan, working the weather story on the phone at the desk behind me, yelled to the city desk, “Hey, we may get id It battered the hell outta Cuba, now it’s standing still in the Straits, hasn’t moved in three hours, but it could head northeast for the Keys.”
The National Hurricane Center in West Dade, a big gray brick shoebox built like Fort Knox, with ten-inch-thick walls, rooftop satellites, wind gauges, and rooms crammed with radar and tracking equipment, was on red alert.
Oh swell, I thought, and stalked out of the newsroom. I knew what my reception would be, but didn’t care. Fueled by anger, I stormed out to my car. Enough was enough-How dare she hang up on me? I have endured a lifetime of her fashion crap, her embarrassing attempts at matchmaking for me, her moods, lousy temper, cigarette smoke, secrecy, and evasiveness. But never once did I hang up on her.
I rapped once and she threw open the door, a garment bag over her shoulder. A suitcase beside her on the floor.
Her mouth opened in surprise. For a moment she said nothing. “I thought you were the doorman.”
“Where are you going?”
“Emma, from the office, invited me to stay with her. She lives on high ground, in the Grove. So I’m evacuating early.”
“This building is perfectly safe, Mom. It’s only a hurricane watch.” Was she running out on me or the coming storm? “Weren’t you even going to let me know where you were?”
“I planned to call you.”
She was lying. I closed the door behind me and stood with my back to it. “Mom, I can’t believe you hung up on me.”
She watched me warily.
“You’ve got to help me. Don’t you realize that the more evasive you are, the more I want to know about my father?”
“I told you everything,” she said, indignantly, “the last time we talked.”
The doorbell rang. The doorman. “I have to go now,” she said briskly. “I’ll call you later, dear.”
“No,” I said, opening the door. I smiled at the middle-aged man in uniform. “Sorry. She doesn’t need you now. I’ll help her downstairs with her things.” I closed the door before either of them could object.
“Because you refuse to help me and keep playing games,” I told her, my rage mounting, “I wound up nearly deafened, within an inch of being arrested or killed, running around with Jorge Bravo, trailing after Juan Carlos Reyes, finding a dead body, and being humiliated in front of cops I have to deal with every day, and even fading into the arms of a man I scarcely know—all because of you!”
Her expression softened. “There’s a new man in your life?”
“That is not what this is about.” My voice shook. “If you ever want to see me again, you’d better start answering some questions!”
“Ask!” Her eyes glittered with anger.
“What the hell was your relationship with Reyes?”
“How dare you pry into my personal life!”
“And what’s the story on the earrings?”
She jerked her chin up stubbornly. “They were a gift-”
“I gathered that. From whom?”
“I don’t know.” Her eyes searched the room, as if for a means of escape. “Reyes gave them to me, saying they were from your father. Supposedly Tony slipped them to him in Cuba, asking him to deliver them to me if he didn’t get out. I never believed it for a moment.”
“Why?”
She raised her neatly penciled eyebrows. “For one thing, they’re for pierced ears. Tony knew my ears aren’t pierced—and that they were not the sort of thing I would ever wear.” Her classic nose wrinkled delicately.
Typical, I thought. I loved them.
“I just assumed that Reyes felt sorry for an abandoned widow with a child and was being kind, or trying to ingratiate himself for some other reason, such as seduction. You know how men move in on women who seem vulnerable. And why would Tony Montero send a gift to a woman he had left?”
“Perhaps because he intended to come back,” I said quietly.
“That’s the sort of naive remark that turns my stomach! Why do you keep making me miserable by dredging up the unhappy past?” she lashed out furiously. “I’m out of here.” She swung the garment bag back over her shoulder.
“Did you have an affair with Reyes?”
She glared at me. “We had dinner a few times. Danced. I was young, lonely. No.”
“Did my father work for the CIA?”
She looked startled, then shrugged. “Not that I know of, but of course I was the last to ever know anything.”
“Winslow was an agent. When was the last rime you saw him?”
“Thirty years or so ago,” she snapped. “I really have to leave now.” She took a step toward the door that I still blocked.
“Did you ever see or hear from him again after my fathers death?”
She thought for a moment, then erupted as though agitated by whatever she remembered. “No, I don’t think so, but I don’t care! I don’t give a shit about any of this. Your father was a bastard and it’s a pity you take after him. I’m out of here! You can stay if you like! Just lock the door when you leave.”
She pushed by me, red in the face. I didn’t try to stop her. I didn’t help with her luggage either. She picked up the suitcase and left, dragging the garment bag behind her.
She didn’t even say good-bye.
When I was sure she was gone, I turned the deadbolt, checked her address book, and rummaged through her neatly kept desk. Then I checked her bedroom closets. Nothing from the past. The gold earrings were in a junk jewelry box on her dresser. I scooped them up and slipped them into my pocket. They were mine. My eighteenth-birthday gift. I wanted to call Hal or Kendall McDonald, or somebody, for a kind word. Instead I drove back to the paper.
The newsroom was hectic for this time of the day. Stalled over the straits and fueled by the warm water, the storm had built and was now a category five and on the move, according to the latest advisory. Barreling north, with winds exceeding 155 miles an hour, it was skirting the coast and bypassing the Keys, which were being hit by outer edge gales, rain bands, and tornadoes. The big news was that the storm was traveling at nearly twenty miles an hour, twice the normal speed of a storm that size, and was accelerating.
The hurricane watch had been hurriedly upgraded to a hurricane warning, meaning that a storm is expected within the next twenty-four hours.
“If you have to, go secure your homes and your families, then get back in here as quick as you can,” Fred told the staff in a hasty newsroom meeting. “I’ll be calling in everybody who’s off. This thing could reach here a lot sooner than anybody expected.”
I had no messages from Farmer or the detectives. I called the FBI office. Farmer was in.
“Hey,” I said, “find out anything?”
He sounded harried and in a hurry. “Good news and bad news,” he said. “The good news is, I found Winslow.”
My heart beat faster. He had to talk to me.
“The bad news is, he’s dead.”
“What happened?”
“Retired early, apparently an alcohol problem he couldn’t control. Five years ago he was coming out of a bar in Alexandria, Virginia, and was shot to death. Apparently a robbery. Never solved. His daughter still lives up there.”
“What’s her name?”
There were noises and voices in the background. He seemed distracted. “You need that?”
I said I did. “What’s going on there?”
“A storm’s on the way,” he said irritably. “We’re trying to secure this place and move all the files to upper floors.”
“The daughter’s name?”
“Okay, don’t tell her where you got it. Meredith Jessup, at, uh … Sorry, I tossed it. She’s listed under her husband’s name. Simon. A Worthington Avenue address.”
I tried the detectives again, without any luck.
“You still here?” Fred said, pacing by my desk and looking impatiently at his watch.
The usual drive home took forty minutes instead of ten. Bridges were opening, bringing road traffic to a standstill in order to let high-masted boats through. The roads were becoming a nightmare, and it had only just begun.
I thought of my hurricane supplies, left untouched from year to year, bottled water and a few outdated cans of tuna. I had plenty of pet food but needed to stock up on candles, batteries, bread, and ice. The Publix parking lot was full but I found a space on the street nearby when another car pulled out.
I walked into my supermarket and stood still in shock.
Bedlam reigned. Most counters were already empty. The bread was gone, the bottled water and batteries were gone. They were already out of ice. Frantic shoppers, panic buyers, carts piled high with anything and everything, were rushing through the store, several fighting bitterly over the last few cans of soft drinks. I wanted to grab half a dozen ten-pound sacks of Kitty Litter to sandbag my front door just in case, but it was too chaotic I’d never get out of there.
I turned and walked out with nothing. Car horns blared, tempers flared, and there were two fender benders in the parking lot. Several drivers were jockeying for my space as I pulled out. I didn’t stay to referee.
Mr. Goldstein and Seth had nearly all the hurricane shutters in place. Seth was practically giddy with excitement.
“It’s really coming, Britt!”
“Not necessarily,” I said calmly. “It could still veer off and bypass us altogether.
“Are you going to evacuate?” I asked his grandfather. Miami Beach, a narrow island, has no storm shelters. One must go to the mainland and then rely on the “authorities” to decide when and if you can return home. That might be days, if the storm did hit.
He nodded. “If the next advisory doesn’t show some big change. My wife is packing up some things now. What are you going do about Bitsy and Billy Boots?” he said.
Shelters do not admit pets.
“I don’t know.” If there was a crisis, I wanted the animals with me.
“We’re not going to a public shelter,” Mr. Goldstein offered. “We have a niece at Country Walk, in the southwest section. That’s pretty far inland, a relatively new development. It should be safe. We can take them with us.”
I hated to send them, but as he had said, it didn’t hurt to be prepared. “I’ll put their carriers by the door along with their food,” I said gratefully.
I did so, adding Billy’s new catnip toy and a chew bone for Bitsy. I still believed it would not happen, that this was all a drill like every other hurricane season in my memory. South Florida would breathe a sigh of relief at the next advisory and then go on as before, except that the people who sell batteries and bottled water would be a bit richer.
I filled the bathtub and some water jugs, set the freezer and fridge at their coldest levels, and unplugged all the other appliances. I tossed my flashlight, portable radio, the few batteries I could find, my toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, deodorant, a change of underwear, a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, socks, and a granola bar in a canvas bag. My fire department boots and another pair of Reeboks were already in the trunk of the T-Bird. Bitsy watched, subdued, from beneath a chair but Billy Boots was pacing, agitated and meowing.
How annoying this whole damn thing was. The timing couldn’t be worse. I wondered about Winslow, the only person who could have filled in the gaps, who could tell me what I wanted to know. Damn, why did he have to be an alcoholic?
I kissed the Goldsteins, fought off Seth, who begged to go with me, and tossed the bag in my car. This didn’t seem real. I detoured to South Beach for a look at the ocean, as though it could tell me what Mother Nature planned. Perfectly peaceful and placid. As beautiful as always. People were playing Frisbee on the sand as usual. The bearded street preacher ranted on a street corner, arms outstretched. Nothing seemed different or ominous in any way except that something didn’t seem quite right. Something missing. I stood next to my car, squinting in the sun. What was wrong with this postcard-perfect picture? The usual afternoon thunder squalls, a line of low dark gray clouds, lay offshore, to the east, instead of over the Everglades, to the west. Then I saw what was missing. No sea birds, no birds at all. Not a gull in sight. They had all gone.
The damn thing is really coming, I thought in awe. Shit!
Reality suddenly sank in. I started the car, made a sharp U-turn, then switched my police scanner to the weather channel. The storm had gained speed and strength in its northward sweep. Drawn by a low-pressure area, it had changed course, veering to the northwest, on a relentless course for Miami. At five, the most deadly category, it was currently 185 miles offshore, with wind speeds clocked at 160 miles an hour and gusts approaching 200.
Not now, I thought. Dammit. I’m not ready for this.
Bridges would no longer be raised for boat traffic. Women in the final trimester of pregnancy were being urged to go to the nearest hospital because the extreme low pressure of a hurricane induces labor. Family members, however, could not accompany them because the hospitals were already overcrowded with heart patients and diabetics. Forecasters were voicing concerns about the residents of coastal counties. Ninety percent had never experienced a major hurricane. The last one was in 1965. We were way overdue. Exactly what Lottie had been saying. Shit.
My assignment was to spend the hurricane at the Dade County Medical Examiner’s office. My job would be to provide the paper with an accurate casualty count. I was issued a cell phone by the city desk and told to tally the storm victims as they arrived. Not as bad a job as some. The brick budding is solid, secure, and elevated, adjacent to the county hospital, directly across the street from the trauma center, and equipped with emergency generators. The morgue can hold 350 bodies and is the last place county officials would allow to go without power. Before leaving the office, I called Alexandria, Virginia.
Meredith Jessup answered.
“You don’t know me,” I began, introducing myself. “I’m calling about your father.”
“You know he’s dead,” she quickly responded.
“Yes, that’s why I’m calling you.”
“Finally,” she breathed. “You’ve learned something?”
“No,” I answered, puzzled. “I wanted to ask you about his work, in Miami, with Cuban exiles, the freedom fighters, thirty years ago.”
“Oh.” She sounded disappointed. “I really didn’t know him that well. He was never around, always away on assignment, when I was growing up. Florida, Haiti, Central America, Mérida in Mexico. He and my mom got divorced.” She sighed. “I was just beginning to get to know him when he was murdered. That’s what I thought you were calling about. You’re a reporter, so I thought…”
“What?”
“His murder. I never believed it was a robbery. Just a fantasy of mine, I guess. I thought maybe you’d uncovered something.”
A kindred spirit, I thought. Another woman caught up in the mysteries of her father’s past. “What happened?”
“He moved back up here after he reared. My mother had died. I was getting married and asked him to give me away. He did, and we really hit it off. He had a drinking problem but he stopped. He was getting his life together. He had a lot of regrets. You know, about his work You’re not writing about any of this, are you?”
“No, I’m trying to find out what happened to my own father. They knew each other. My father was killed when I was three.’’
There was a moment of silence.
“The past is always with you,” she said wistfully.
“No way to shake it,” I agreed.
“He had a lot to live with, from his work over the years. I’m sure I don’t know the half of it. He had to do things in the line of duty that haunted him later. Contributed to his drinking problem, I’m sure.”
“Do you know much about what happened in Miami?”
“I know he was there for several years. When I was in the first and second grade he used to send me postcards.”
“Anything else?”
“A lot of regrets. He would never even vacation there. He wanted no part of Miami.”
“Did he leave any files, records, journals?”
“No, when I got his stuff there was nothing. You wouldn’t think he had a past.”
He should have met my mother, I thought, then I remembered: he had. “It is funny, though. Just before he was killed he mentioned something, just in passing. He’d come over for lunch with me and the baby. He was so happy he had a grandson. He mentioned that he’d seen somebody from the past that he hadn’t seen for many years. I got the impression it was someone from Miami.”
“A friend?”
“No, no friend. He didn’t seem upset, just depressed.”
“What happened?”
“Two nights later he was shot on the street outside a bar downtown. I was surprised at that. He hadn’t been drinking anything stronger than iced tea for six months, as far as I knew. The police said it was probably a robbery. But they gave me his wallet. Had two hundred dollars in it. And his watch. They said the robber must have been scared off. I never bought it. I thought it had to be something out of his past. The detectives talked to somebody at the Agency, only after I insisted. But they never really looked into it.”
“Where was he shot?”
“Twice in the back of the head, just below the ear, as he was about to get into his car on a side street. Small-caliber. I think they said a twenty-two. Never knew what hit him, they told me.”
A chill rippled across my shoulders, raising goose bumps on my arms.
“Any witnesses? Anybody hear the shots, see the killer?”
“No. He’d been dead for a while when he was found. A taxi driver saw him lying there and called it in.”
“When did this happen?”
“Five years ago last May. May twenty-seventh. I really resented it,” she said. “I never knew him all those years growing up. I was finally getting to know my father, and then he was gone again. This rime, forever.”
“At least you had him for a while,” I said gently. “Some of us aren’t that lucky.”
“You’re right,” she said sadly. I could hear a child playing in the background. “How did your dad die?”
“Executed in Cuba, by a firing squad. Apparently he was on an anti-Castro mission.”
“At least he died for a cause and you know why. Good luck. Call me anytime. Aren’t you having a hurricane down there? I thought I saw something on TV.”
“It’s not here yet,” I said.
A crowd was clustered around the bulletin board reading the latest Hurricane Center advisory. The television monitors overhead were broadcasting infrared satellite pictures of the storm, giant counterclockwise spirals of angry red, the eye pulsating at the core like the beating heart of something alive.
Lottie strode by wearing a yellow slicker. She would be out in the teeth of the storm, shooting pictures. I was sorry I wouldn’t be with her, in the middle of the action.
She paused by my desk. “Hell all Friday,’’ she said. “It looks like this is it. The big baboomba!”
“Watch yourself. I hope this damn thing blows over before the Vera Verela concert,” I fretted. The benefit for the missing boys was only two days away.
I dialed the homicide detectives. They weren’t in. I could try again from the ME office. My phone rang as I gathered up my things to leave.
“Montero?”
“Hola, Jorge.”
“You must leave that place, a storm is coming. A bigger storm is soon to follow.”
“What?”
“The same winds that swept across Cuba have brought us the truth. Antonio’s diario. We have id”
“Oh puleeze.”
“Reyes’s own hired criminal came to us after he saw what Antonio had written there. Reyes was a Castro agent. He betrayed all of us.”
“I hate to interrupt your usual routine, Jorge, but did you know that Frank Winslow is dead? Murdered.”
“Muerto. Dios mio, I did not know.”
“You didn’t know he was blown away, up in Virginia, in a murder quite similar to that of Armando Gutierrez?”
“No, my word to you. Who killed him?”
“I thought you might know.”
“Reyes! Winslow knew the truth. So Reyes had him killed.”
“Sure, and Reyes shot J.R., put the cyanide in the Tylenol capsules, and blew up the Federal Budding in Oklahoma City.”
“¿Que?”
“I can’t talk to you now, Jorge. I’m busy.”
“Si,” he said quietly and hung up.
The wind was already gusting as I drove to the medical examiner’s office at Number One Bob Hope Road.
The Cuban capital had been devastated, the radio said, with hundreds of lives lost, buildings collapsed, mass destruction. The minor damage Bravo had inflicted with grenades and gunfire in his speedboat drive-bys was a trifling annoyance compared to the devastation wrought by Mother Nature.
Cuba, so close and yet so far away. I remembered my Aunt Odalys saying that Cuba is everywhere: in the food we eat, in our prayers, in our hearts, in our daydreams. Why does this small island no bigger than Pennsylvania forever obsess this sprawling and complex city of exiles and contradictions?
I parked and trudged past the fifteenth-century Spanish cannon up the stairs to the entrance, lugging my bag and a fistful of notebooks.
The lobby, with its raspberry-colored furniture and soft-patterned carpet, was empty. The chief was not in, but there was “a skeleton crew,” according to Miriam, the motherly chief investigator, who emerged from her office cracking one of her usual morbid jokes. She seeded me in a small conference room near the morgue.
“Anybody attributable to the storm come in yet?”
“One dead, two wounded, in a family fight over whether to evacuate, one electrocution.” She ticked them off on her fingers like a housewife with a shopping list. “Homeowner was trying to knock the coconuts off his trees. He touched a hot wire with the metal pole he was using.”
Ouch. People were already dying, and the storm hadn’t even arrived. Miamians cannot seem to do anything without killing off themselves or each other.
“And I hear we have two traffic cases on the way. Oh”—she brightened—” here are the detectives on the electrocution.”
Hanks and Wogan appeared in the doorway and did a double take when they saw me. They wore boots, their hair windblown. “Hey, guys. Just who I wanted to see.”
They rolled their eyes.
“Did you get my messages?” I asked.
“Mucho messages, Britt. Don’t you ever give up?” Hanks said.
“No.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“I wanted to ask you about Armando Gutierrez. What kind of silencer was used?” The detectives exchanged glances as Billy sat down at the conference table to write the report on the electrocution.
“Who you been talking to?” Hanks demanded.
“Nobody,” I said quickly. “He was shot execution style, two right behind the ear in the middle of the day. Nobody heard a thing. You don’t have to be a genius to think it was a professional hit, with a silencer…”
“You’re not gonna print that?”
“Not until you say it’s okay.”
I had not seen raw potato chunks around the body, ruling out the cheapest, most popular silencer. Firing a pistol through a potato is messy but effective. They may be bulky to carry around, but they have their advantages. Possession of a potato is not a federal offense. Yet.
“Okay, so there was a silencer,” he conceded, “but I don’t want to read about it in the newspaper.”
“How do you know for sure?”
“He had a contact wound. There was so much blood in his hair that we couldn’t see it at the scene. But when the ME cleaned off the wounds the muzzle mark was bigger, larger in diameter, than the barrel of any weapon that caliber. Had to be a silencer, probably a reworked lawnmower muffler with a few extra baffles. Turns the sound down to what sounds like the thud of a car door. Takes the crack right out of it.”
“The gun was a twenty-two?”
“Listen to me now, Britt.” Hanks took a seat at the conference table and began to pry the plastic lid off the Styrofoam coffee cup he’d been carrying. “You can’t be printing this.”
“You know better.”
“Yeah, a twenty-two. Smaller caliber has less noise to start with, and the barrel can be easily machined to screw on a silencer.”
Billy looked up from his paperwork. “You got the name of that cousin, the next of kin?”
“Uncle,” Hanks said. He put down his coffee, opened his small black notebook, and spelled out the name.
“What did Gutierrez have in his pockets?”
“Nothing much,” he said, closing the book.
“What?”
“One thing you might find interesting. I know we did.” Billy grinned.
“What?” I looked from one to the other. “I can’t stand it. Tell me. I’ll trade you some information I guarantee you don’t have. Tell me.”
“You first,” Hanks said. He was grinning now, too.
I told them about Frank Winslow. Neither changed expression. “So?” Hanks said.
“Same MO, same connections.”
“In goddamn Virginia, five freaking years ago.” Hanks looked skeptical.
“That’s not all that unusual an MO, Britt,” Billy said.
“It wouldn’t hurt to check it out.”
“A pro probably wouldn’t keep a piece that long,” Billy said.
I shrugged. “I thought it was interesting.”
“Maybe it’s worth a call or two,” Hanks said.
“Now you tell me.”
“I dunno,” he teased. “You think that was good enough for a trade, Billy?”
“Give the girl a break.”
“You promise you won’t…”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
“Tucked in his shirt pocket, close to his heart,” he said, speaking deliberately, excruciatingly slowly, “the late, unfortunate Mr. Armando Gutierrez was carrying the late, unfortunate Mr. Alex Aguirre’s business card with his home number and his beeper number written on it.”
I stared, mind racing. Could Bravo have told me the truth? No way. Maybe. “So you think they’re related?”
“Now that is something worth checking into.” He pointed his index finger at me. “That’s exactly what we plan to do once this freaking storm blows over.” He pushed his chair back. “Come on, Billy, we’ve gotta get back out there.”
“Was the card new, like he got it here? Or did it look like it came with him from Cuba?”
“Dirty, dog-eared, had been wet and dried off.” Hanks looked to Billy, who nodded in affirmation as they went out the door.
How can I reach Bravo? I wondered. I called Reyes. He answered his home phone himself.
“Mr. Reyes…”
“Juan Carlos,” he corrected. “I tried to reach you, Britt. First and foremost, I am deeply concerned. WQBA radio news reported that you and Jorge Bravo were present, together, when a murder took place in a hotel downtown.”
Drat, I thought, now the FBI will know for sure, unless they’re too busy boarding up to listen to Spanish-language radio.
“I cannot emphasize enough my grave concern,” Reyes was saying, “for your safety, for your reputation. Bravo is a madman. Dangerous. He will stop at nothing. I strongly suspect that he is a Castro agent.”
Hell, was everybody in Miami a Castro agent?
“Why would you say that?”
“Many reasons, among them his constant efforts to malign and slander me and my organization. You are aware that I am a threat to Fidel as his economy and his leadership falter and weaken. Fidel knows this. Of course you understand all that. The other reason I attempted to contact you was that Wilfredo, my aide, did as promised and I now have the diary of your father.”
“You have it?” I blurted out. “Jorge Bravo claims he has it.”
“You see, he is a madman. I am looking at it at this very moment. Here at my desk. Holding it in my hand. Fragile, dusty, but definitely intact. At this moment, I am preparing to leave. The island neighborhoods must evacuate, as you know. But when the storm has passed I will personally deliver it to you and Catalina.”
Now that would be a scene.
“No, I’ll come right now. I’m on the way.”
“Impossible.” he said. “I’m sure the police will no longer allow traffic onto the island. Out of the question. I will be in touch with you later.”
The connection broke.
I upended my purse onto the polished conference table, pawing frantically through the contents. Did I have it? What had I done with it? It had to be here.
A scrap of paper fluttered to the floor from the inner lining. I snatched it up. The contact number Bravo had given me for especialista Luisa.
Nothing else seemed to matter. Other goals had come first all my life. I followed through on every story, always put my job first, but had never done for myself what I had so often done for others. This one was for me. This time I would follow through, for my father, for myself. The storm was nothing. I had lived in the eye of a storm all my life. Nothing could stop me.
I grabbed my bag, punching the number into the cell phone as I ran up the stairs to the lobby.
“Britt?” said Miriam. “You’re not going out there?”
“I’ll be back,” I said. “Something I have to do.
“Answer, answer,” I muttered at the phone. I had trouble pushing open the front door, surprised by the force of the wind that buffeted me as I stepped out. It nearly knocked me off my feet. Head down I fought my way to the car.
“Hola.” Someone answered at the other end of the phone as I slammed the driver’s side door.
“Luisa! Is that you?”
“Si.”
“I must talk to Jorge Bravo, right away,” I said, identifying myself, turning the key in the ignition.
“¿El comandante?”
“Si. It’s an emergency.”
“¿Emergencia?” I heard her speaking to someone else. “Give me your number.” I did. “He will call you.”
“Now!” I said. “As soon as possible.”
The call came almost immediately, as I pulled out onto Tenth Avenue. “I don’t know what’s going on, Jorge. But I just talked to Reyes. He said he had the diary in his hands. I am going to his house right now, to see for myself.”
“Wait! It is not true. He lies! It is too dangerous. Wait, I can prove to you…”
“I don’t know who or what to believe,” I said. “This whole thing is weird and I intend to get to the bottom of it.”
“The storm…”
“Fuck the storm!”
“I will meet you.”
“No, I’ve tried that. It never worked out.”
Garbage and an entire garbage can blew across the street in front of me. I swerved to avoid it. Miami looked like a ghost town with boarded windows and deserted sidewalks.
“I beg you, Montero, do not risk this.”
Did he ever say that to my father?
“What about Alex Aguirre?” I said. “Was he really on a story?”
“The information I gave you was correct. Armando Gutierrez was bringing the diario…” A burst of static and we lost the connection.
As I approached the causeway, a lone Miami patrol car inched through the residential waterfront neighborhood. The driver was broadcasting over a public address system.
“You must evacuate. It is the law. You must evacuate. If you do not have transportation, we will assist you.”
Oh sure, I thought, heart sinking. We are from the government and we are here to help you. That is when you know you are really in trouble.
Oh God, I thought, as turbulent skies closed in overhead. Please let Reyes still be there. I might have just enough time to get the diary and get back to the morgue.