Deadly Pursuit

37

Thirty-one pages of documents had come over the fax line at the sheriff’s station in Islamorada, to be produced as hard copy by an inkjet printer, then stapled together by a thoughtful deputy. A complete record of the Montclair Police Department’s 1978 investigation into the death of Meredith Turner, preserved on forms filled out when Tamara Moore was still in grade school, forms typed on electric typewriters and doctored with correction fluid, forms that were artifacts of the pre-computer age.

The death investigation form was first, followed by a crime-scene log, press release, chronological record, victim and crime information form, suspect information form, multiple pages of signed statement forms, a master report information form, and the follow-up form that had closed the case. After that, a new sheaf of papers: autopsy protocols, lab reports, and miscellaneous crime-scene photos, sketches, and evidence-collection inventories.

Moore scanned the file once, then went back to study the suspect information form and the signed statements. As she read, she smoothed the flimsy fax paper with her hand.

“Something interesting here, Peter,” she said without looking up.

Lovejoy, distracted and half asleep, was fumbling with the controls of a Mr. Coffee machine. “Mmm?”

“Jack was a suspect.”

That got his attention. “In the Turner case?”

“Right.”

He stared at her across twenty feet of checkered linoleum. They were alone together in the station’s squad room, surrounded by schoolroom trappings: front desk, fluorescent ceiling panels, comical or inspirational posters tacked to cinder-block walls. Moore sat at the desk like a teacher; Lovejoy was a misbehaving student being held after class.

The rest of the station was largely deserted now, at two A.M. In the lobby, a sergeant biding time until retirement manned the night-watch desk; nearby, in a tiny alcove labeled Communications, a sleepy deputy tapped at the keyboard of a computer terminal; in one of the holding cells at the rear of the building, a sun-blistered transient snored on a steel bench. Somewhere a dog was barking, and no one seemed to care.

“So what does it say?” Lovejoy asked finally. The coffee machine began to gurgle.

“Meredith suffered a skull fracture and subdural hematoma. Cause of death was drowning; her lungs were filled with chlorinated water that matched a sample from the swimming pool. The head injury was consistent with a diving accident. She could have struck her head on the edge of the diving board itself or on the bottom of the pool.”

“Except…?”

“Except the coroner’s investigator found no blood or tissue on the diving board, and given the height of the board and the depth of the pool, she probably couldn’t have hit bottom, at least not with any force.”

“People don’t always use the board. They dive off the side of the pool, into the shallow end. They’ve been known to crack their skulls.”

“But Meredith was an experienced diver, a lifeguard. Not the type to make that kind of mistake.”

“Unless she was drunk, stoned, something like that.”

“Serology tests all came back negative.”

“All right. Suppose her death wasn’t an accident. How does Jack fit in?”

“Meredith’s friends told detectives that Jack had been openly hostile toward her for years, and that Meredith was afraid of him.”

The last of the coffee dribbled into the pot. Lovejoy poured two cups. “But apparently the D.A. didn’t file charges, or they would have shown up on Jack’s rap sheet.”

“That’s because Jack had an alibi.” She consulted the sixth page of the statement form. “On the evening of Meredith’s death, he took a long car ride with a friend. Steven Gardner.”

“Steve…”

Moore nodded. “The postcard. ‘Jack and Steve and I took the boat out yesterday.’ Same Steve, I’ll bet.”

“The skinny kid with the glasses.” Lovejoy carried the coffee to Moore, a boy bringing his teacher an apple. “Why wouldn’t the police see through a ruse like that? One friend lying to protect another. Hardly an unusual occurrence.”

“According to the report, Steve Gardner had a good reputation in town. A real straight arrow. And he stuck to his story pretty convincingly. Besides, the coroner’s office wasn’t certain of foul play. Meredith could have slipped and fallen into the shallow end-or hit her head on the diving board without leaving any obvious mark-or suffered a seizure in the water and struck the side of the pool while thrashing around. A hundred possibilities.”

“And of course, the authorities wanted the case closed.” Lovejoy sipped his coffee. “Looks bad for a town-one kid killing another, friend covering up. Better if it was an accident. Neater that way.”

“You’re a cynical man, Peter.”

“Just a bureaucrat at heart. I know how these things work. Getting to the truth is less important than sweeping a messy situation under the rug.”

Moore pushed her chair away from the desk. “So what do we do now?”

“Locate Steve Gardner and ask him a few probing questions.”

“At two A.M.?”

“Sometimes that’s when you get the best answers.”

A rap on the door frame. The sleepy deputy was there.

“ ’Scuse me, folks. Sergeant Banks’d like to see you.”

Moore stood. “He say why?”

Yawn and shrug. “Something turned up on patrol.”

The desk sergeant, Banks, was gray-haired, red-faced, and badly overweight. His uniform sagged in some places and clung to him skintight in others. Deep half moons of sweat had formed permanent discolorations under his arms.

He refused to talk fast. Leaning back in his chair, lording over the lobby desk, he seemed to savor each syllable as it passed, slow and sweet as molasses, through his lips.

“There’s this condemned restaurant over on Blackwood Drive, west of Route One. Patrol unit checks it out nearly every night. Rousting transients, y’know.”

He paused to clean his teeth with a ragged thumbnail. Moore had to step down hard on an urge to grab the man and shake the information out of him.

“So tonight Parker and Ross are cruising the area, and when they go around back of this place, what do you suppose they find?”

“A Pontiac Sunbird,” Lovejoy said, then caught himself making a definitive statement and added, “in all probability.”

Banks cocked an eyebrow. “Aw, now you’ve gone and spoiled my story.”

“Sergeant”-Moore kept her tone cool and professional, fighting back a rush of excitement-“did the patrol unit give you a description of the car? Year, color, license plate?”

“No plates. They’re gone. Vehicle identification number’s missing, too. Car’s pretty well junked. Not stripped, exactly, Parker says. More like… trashed.”

“What color is it?”

“White exterior, blue interior. It’s a four-door hardtop, relatively new. Could be a ’92.”

“That just might be the vehicle we’re looking for,” Lovejoy said.

Banks nodded heavily, multiplying his chins. “I know.”

“Jack trashed the car so it would pass for an old wreck.” Moore was thinking fast, her mind remarkably clear despite long hours without sleep. “Took the tags so we couldn’t link it with the airport theft.”

“Conceivably. On the other hand, the possibility exists that this is a different Sunbird altogether.” Lovejoy turned to Banks. “Was that location checked last night?”

“Doubtful. Darby and Brint work patrol on the Thursday p.m. watch, and those two sumbitches never do jack. Oh, they’re supposed to poke around behind the restaurant, sure, but more’n likely they were sawing lumber in their car somewhere out on Industrial Drive.”

“How about the night before?”

“No Sunbird then. I make the rounds myself on Wednesdays.”

“Time frame is right,” Moore said.

Lovejoy pursed his lips. “We have no proof that this is the car from airport parking or, even if it is, that Jack was the one who lifted it.”

“Well”-impatience struggled with Moore’s frayed self-control-“let’s quit yakking and find out. We need to contact Miami, get a search team down here, go over that damn car with a microscope and tweezers.”

“My recommendation also.” Lovejoy picked up the desk phone, then remembered courtesy. “Excuse me, Sergeant. Mind if I make a call?”

Banks moved his big shoulders. “At your service. Tell you true, though… you people sure do move fast.”