Contents Under Pressure Page 10

  Other police quietly surrounded the place, guns drawn.

  “He’s drunk, armed, and dangerous, and just shot somebody, and you were about to visit for a little midnight tête-à-tête?” Flood shook his head sadly. “They never used to send women out on the police beat.”

  I batted my eyelashes at him, then stared at the darkened house.

  “Should we call out SWAT?” a young patrolman asked eagerly.

  “Not so fast. We don’t even know if our guy is in there,” McDonald said. “Let’s see.”

  He stepped carefully up the path to the front door, patrolmen standing by, alert for any movement from inside. A car suddenly squealed to a stop behind us, and the darkened front yard was instantly bathed in blinding light, illuminating McDonald, caught halfway up the path. He was a perfectly silhouetted target for any gunman lurking inside.

  Piling out of the car, Minicam rolling, TV lights blazing, was a Channel 7 news crew. They had no idea what was happening but were determined not to miss it in the event it should be newsworthy. Angry cries came from the cops, curses from Flood. “Cut those lights! You crazy bastards!”

  The yard plunged back into darkness so suddenly that it made me blink and see shadows that weren’t there. McDonald was on the front porch now, staring reproachfully over his shoulder. He stood prudently to one side of the door frame, rapped hard on a wooden panel, then did it again. Nothing happened. Some cops in uniform moved swiftly up onto the porch beside him, guns in hand. McDonald pounded the door once more, and a light bloomed inside. After a moment the door inched open. The Channel 7 lights blazed again, focused on a dazed man who stood there in his underwear blinded by the brilliance. From somewhere inside came a woman’s querulous voice and a baby’s wail. Soon the woman appeared, wearing a shapeless pale green cotton nightgown, hair in curlers. McDonald spoke briefly to the couple, the exchange ended cordially, and he came striding back to his car.

  He wrenched open the door, slid behind the wheel, then looked up at Flood and me. “Wrong Placido Quintana. This one’s been home all night with his family. Let’s go, Dan.”

  The TV crew pressed in. “Who are you looking for, Detective?” the reporter asked, shoving a microphone in front of Flood.

  “Gitoutdahere, you scum,” he snarled, squinting into their lights. “You cudda got somebody killed.”

  As the TV news car zoomed off, police radios bleated reports of another shooting. “What is this?” Flood said irritably, climbing into the unmarked.

  The scene was just eight blocks away at a bar called the Velvet Swing. It looked like the start of a long night. I was already overtired, and had to go to work early in the morning, but I was game. It would be nice to start the day with a story in the bank.

  McDonald radioed that they were on the way. “Well, Brenda, you gonna meet us there?” He looked up at me.

  “Sure thing,” I said, as if it were an invitation to Buckingham Palace. Some single women do meet men at bars, I thought, hurrying to my car, but not like this. Nearly 1 A.M., and I was racing around downtown Miami, making eye contact with a sexy detective at sleazy bars with blood on the floor. I should know better.

  My scanner said the shooter was GOA, gone on arrival of the first police unit. Medics and uniforms were already inside. The door to the Velvet Swing hung open. From out on the sidewalk we all heard it at the same time: “I Shot the Sheriff,” blaring loudly, from the jukebox inside.

  A young officer with a notebook in his hand hurried out to meet us. His expression said he had important information to report. Before he could speak, McDonald said, “Short, squat, yellow guayabera?”

  The cop looked up from his notebook startled, mouth open. “Yeah, how’d you know?”

  “Put out a BOLO for Placido Quintana, then check every jukebox in the city. No telling how many quarters he has left.”

  The layout was similar, except for the picture over the bar, a laughing dark-haired woman in a velvet swing. This victim was a customer who’d lacked the foresight to don a bulletproof vest before objecting to the gunman’s obsessive taste in music. He had done a lot of bleeding and was unconscious as medics bundled him into a MAST suit (military anti-shock trousers) that forced blood up toward the heart, elevating blood pressure that had dropped dangerously low. A tired, middle-aged barmaid wearing a low-cut black blouse and purple lipstick crinkled her face in concentration, pretending to speak no English. When a young officer offered to translate, she scrunched up her face even further, pretending to speak no Spanish either.

  I had had no chance to ask Sgt. McDonald about D. Wayne Hudson, and was beginning to think about how much I would hate myself in the morning. Though I wanted to follow the manhunt, I knew too well what would happen. Stay out all night, and without fail the following day would erupt with news that required a minimum twelve hours on the job.

  I had to catch some sleep. “Can I call you guys first thing in the morning, before you go home, to find out what happened?”

  “Crapping out on us, huh?” Flood said. He was politely giving the tired barmaid a seat in the back of a patrol car until she could decide what language she did speak.

  “No way,” I said, “but I have this editor who wants me to be in early.”

  “Call me anytime. Better yet, come by for coffee,” McDonald said, radiating that personal one-on-one smile, amid the chaos and confusion of organizing a manhunt.

  I entertained salacious thoughts about him on the way home. The police scanner stayed busy, and the FM station I punched into the car radio began to play “I Shot the Sheriff.” I had not heard that song in years, and now, all of a sudden … Wondering if the spin was a request, I waited for the disc jockey to dedicate it to Placido Quintana and laughed myself halfway across the empty causeway.

  Seven

  Billy Boots and I were still huddled under the comforter when the alarm woke us at 6:55 A.M. I rolled over, reached for the telephone, and called homicide.

  McDonald answered. He sounded wide awake and alert.

  “Did you find Placido Quintana?” I yawned.

  “You sound all sleepy and cuddly,” he said.

  “Did you find him?” I mumbled, conscious of how groggy I sounded.

  “He’s right here, want to talk to him?”

  “Yes!” I sat up quickly, disturbing Billy Boots who mewed in annoyance, as I scrambled for my bedside notepad and pen.

  There was fumbling as the telephone changed hands. I heard McDonald say, “Somebody wants to talk to you.”

  “Hullo.”

  “Mr. Quintana?”

  “Who’s this?”

  “Britt Montero, from the Miami Daily News.”

  There was an awkward silence. Damn that McDonald, I wished he had filled me in first on how Quintana was captured and the conditions of his victims. Was the one from the Velvet Swing still alive? Had there been any more?

  I didn’t want to spook the shooter by asking him, as it might make him reluctant to talk to me.

  “Mr. Quintana?”

  “Yeah, what do you want?”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You went out last night?”

  “Yeah.”

  “To some bars downtown.”

  “Yeah.”

  Shoot, I should have had coffee before I called, I thought numbly, rubbing my eyes.

  “You ran into some trouble?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How did it happen?”

  He sighed. “It’s a long story.”

  “I have time,” I tried to seem awake and cheerful.

  He sounded confused and hung over. “I don’t know. Those guys … you know how nobody’s polite anymore? They show disrespect.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  “And I had a few drinks.”

  “What were you drinking?”

  “Cuba libres.”

  “How many?”

  “I dunno.
”

  “Any drugs?”

  “I don’t smoke crack.”

  “Marijuana?”

  “A little.”

  I decided to try learning more about him, and then work my way up to the shootings.

  “Do you have a job?”

  “Yeah.” His voice was low and mumbling now.

  “What kind of work do you do?”

  “Auto mechanic.”

  “Where?”

  “Vinnie’s Garage.”

  “You married?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Does your wife know where you are? Have you called her?”

  “No,” he sounded glum. “I’m not sure where she is, we’re sort of separate right now.” I could hear him take a long drag on a cigarette.

  “Do you have children?”

  “Two. They’re with her mother.”

  “Why do you like that song you were playing on the juke box so much?”

  A long pause. “I dunno.”

  “Have you ever shot a policeman?”

  “No!” He seemed shocked at the suggestion.

  “Did you know Max who tends bar at the Reno?”

  “Yeah, nice guy.”

  “What about the other man, at the Velvet Swing?”

  “I seen him around, but I don’t know him to talk to.” There was a pause. “I think they want me to go now.”

  “Is there anything else you want to tell me?” I said miserably.

  “Wha’s your name again?”

  “Britt Montero, from the Daily News.”

  “Nice talking to you, miss.”

  “Okay,” McDonald was back on the phone. “How was that? Don’t say I never did you any favors.”

  “I need one more. What’s the scuttlebutt on D. Wayne Hudson?”

  There was a pause. “I know nothing. We were off that night. Besides, you’ve got your big story. Exclusive interview with my man Quintana.”

  “It was awful,” I moaned.

  “I heard,” he said chortling.

  “You were listening in?” I said, indignant.

  “Sure, he’s my prisoner.”

  “How did you catch him? Why did he do it? Are the victims alive? What set him off?” I was beginning to wake up.

  “Two of our guys stopped at Gordon’s all-night drugstore, on Seventeenth Street, for coffee. You know the place, has little jukeboxes along the counter and in each booth?”

  “Yeah.”

  “They’re eating raisin danish, shooting the breeze, and guess what starts playing?”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. There he is, short, squat, in his yellow guayabera, hippity hopping in time to the music, dropping quarters in the jukebox. It was G4. I got that piece of information just for you,” he said, his voice dropping to a deep pitch. “Saw you check that out at both places last night.”

  “You should be a detective.” I found it easier to talk to McDonald on the telephone without the distraction of his magnetic eyes. “Did he give them any trouble?”

  “Nah, they didn’t try to pull the plug on his theme song. The gun was in his waistband, but he gave it up nice and easy. He was sobering up. I think he was glad to see them.”

  “Does he have a past for violence?”

  “Nada. A few misdemeanors, drunk and disorderly, that’s it. Thomas, the guy from the Velvet Swing, is in intensive care, but he’ll probably make it.”

  “Where’d Quintana get the gun?”

  “Bought it four years ago for home protection. Flood just took him down to booking, charged with two counts of attempted murder and carrying a concealed firearm.”

  “What happened? Why did he do it?”

  “At this moment, the silly son of a bitch doesn’t even know himself.”

  “It’s all so stupid.”

  McDonald stayed silent for a moment. “It’s not unusual,” he finally said. “It’s common. That’s how it is. Most violence grows out of anger and frustration. If you’ve been taking a lot of shit all day, every day, and you can’t dump on your boss or your wife, especially if you can’t find her, and you can’t dump on the government or the police, it’s easy to dump on some guy in a bar. It doesn’t take much.”

  What he said sounded right, and so sad.

  McDonald’s tone suddenly changed. “Now I have a question.” He spoke softly, urgently, his lips close to the mouthpiece. “What are you wearing?”

  I laughed, threw a pillow over the phone, and plodded into the kitchen to make coffee.

  I went by the cop shop midmorning, hoping to find the D. Wayne Hudson tape, or a transcript, waiting. Instead, the public information officer left me waiting, sitting in the media room while he went off to investigate the status of my request. He was gone for a long, long time. The frigid air conditioning made my head ache. It had never been this tough before to get the cops to cough up a reel of tape from communications. I was sure they hoped I would grow tired of waiting, or become involved in some other story and go away. But it only made me mad, and more determined.

  All my life I have had the feeling that something big is about to happen, perhaps tomorrow, or tonight, and that I must be ready. That is why I keep a comfortable set of clothes, dark trousers, a blouse, and a lightweight bomber jacket hanging on the back of my closet door, for the nights when I have to fight my way out of a sound sleep to rush out into the dark to cover a crime or disaster. Nothing is worse than groping sleepy-eyed through a cluttered closet for something to wear to a multiple murder at 4 A.M. Often I lie awake in the dark, waiting for the sound of the pager or the phone, feeling somehow that tonight is the night. The paper’s lawyer, Mark Seybold, carefully chose his battles, but I tried to hang tough and fight them all. I might be wrong, but it is a matter of principle for a woman in this business. One small sign of weakness or lack of resolve and you are lost.

  Officials who succeed in withholding information always celebrate by withholding something else. They continue to further block the free flow of facts until they are operating the way they like best, in secrecy. At least that had been my experience. Letting them know that you never surrender, give up, or go away is the only way to be sure you are not shut out when the big story breaks.

  Danny Menendez was the sergeant in charge of the PIO, a reasonable and competent man who used to be a robbery detective. He had been very good at his work. I covered the story when he was shot and nearly killed in a robbery stakeout that went awry. His wife, Sarita, wears the bullet doctors dug out of his body on a gold chain around her neck.

  “It’s been three days since I made this request,” I complained, plopping into the chair facing his desk in a small cubbyhole office. “It’s starting to look like a cover-up.”

  Menendez did not swallow the bait. Ignoring my accusing eyes, he checked his watch and gazed through paperwork on his desk, trying to look busy.

  “Is the chief in?” I shoved back my chair and rose to my feet, as though ready to march into the man’s office, which was next to impossible since the department installed its new security precautions. I would need a key card to even reach the fourth-floor office by elevator, plus a SWAT team to get by the chief’s protective executive staff.

  I liked this chief, who’d been in office for two years now. He seemed honest and fair but was far less accessible than the former chief, a born leader who’d risen through the ranks and was regularly seen out on the street, in uniform. Tough and feisty, he had been a cop to the core, and his men had loved him. He had died in uniform, in fact, red in the face as usual and railing at the mayor at a city commission meeting, demanding a bigger budget, more cars, more equipment, and more money for his troops. Heart attack.

  The current chief was more colorless administrator than flamboyant die-hard street cop. He had neatly trimmed gray hair, wore well-cut gray business suits and steel-rimmed spectacles, and was into modern policing and scientific detection. He was what the department needed b
ut was highly unpopular with the rank and file who bitterly resisted change and would never forgive him for being an outsider, recruited from New England after a nationwide search for a new top cop. With no old ties, friendships, loyalties—or skeletons—he instituted many changes, which, of course, made the troops resent him even more.

  “I should speak to him before we get the lawyers involved.” I flounced toward the door, as though about to hop on the elevator and actually get it to go somewhere.

  Menendez stood up, his eyes stone cold. “You shouldn’t get so pushy, Britt, it will only defeat your purposes here in the future. The chief is in conference, but I’ll see that he gets your message.”

  “Okay, but I need the tape or transcripts today, otherwise the lawyers will probably put the department on notice by 5 P.M. and ask for an emergency hearing. Nothing personal,” I said, smiling, “I’m just doing my job.”

  I thought about his implied threat while driving back to the News and considered stopping by the legal department to fill in Mark Seybold. Instead, I decided to wait and see if the cops called my bluff.

  Gretchen Piatt wrinkled her pert nose in apparent disgust as she read my story on the screen in front of her. In her classic suit, worn with effortless elegance, she looked as though she had stepped off a fashion-house runway. I always felt shabby and rumpled sitting next to her, which meant I began our encounters at a disadvantage. “Barroom shootings?” she asked, her voice sliding up the scale to a pitch that would repel attack dogs. “You were out covering barroom shootings? Nobody even died.” She stared at me as though gravely disappointed, her face an exaggerated question mark.

  “Admittedly this is not front-page news,” I said carefully, “but it has its place, Gretchen. When people are being shot for such trivial reasons, when a barkeep in downtown Miami must resort to wearing a bulletproof vest on the job—and is still shot; when half a dozen people have been gunned down at the same location in the past several months—that, I think, is worth reporting. It says something about our quality of life. The newspaper should be a mirror that reflects the community and what happens in it and, like it or not, this is our city.”