Spring Break

“You think the sister’s involved?”

Adler shrugged. “Hard to tell. She didn’t want to talk to me about Deirdre’s business.”

“So why come to me?”

“The entire department’s covered up with spring break,” Adler said. “We’re all working double shifts, dealing with traffic, drunk and disorderlies, and other minor infractions. Since you already have a connection with the family, I’d really appreciate your interviewing the sister. See if you can find out what Deirdre was doing on this side of the bay in Crest Lake Park in the middle of the night.”

“You got it. When’s the autopsy?”

“Tomorrow morning at ten. Want to observe?”

The Tampa children’s murders had haunted my dreams and frustrated my waking hours for years. Getting involved with Adler’s homicide case would either put my nightmares to rest or stir them up again. My love/hate relationship with police work and my obsession to catch a killer who’d eluded me for too many years won out.

“I’ll be there. It’ll be good to see Doc Cline again.”

Adler stood to leave. He paused at the doorway and circled his face with his finger. “Get your Benadryl refilled. From the looks of the splotches on your face, you’re going to need it.”

As soon as Adler left, I asked Darcy to complete the calls to local kennels and vets in search of Roger, and I headed for Tampa.

Driving across the Courtney Campbell Causeway that spanned Tampa Bay, I passed four locations etched in my memory. Three of the spots were boat ramps where a young girl’s body had been brought ashore. The fourth was where the fishermen had discovered nine-year-old Deirdre Fisk, naked, freezing and traumatized.

Unlike those dark, tragic nights that I shuddered to recall, the road today was drenched with light. Towering oleanders, bursting with white and pink blossoms and shimmering in the brilliant sun, lined the causeway. Vehicles bearing out-of-state license plates jammed every lane. Most cars were overflowing with young people, luggage and coolers, and many sported surfboards, boogie boards, beach umbrellas and folding chairs strapped to the roofs. Everyone seemed bound for a beach and in no particular hurry to get there.

By the time I reached Elaine Fisk’s apartment complex in Temple Terrace, it was after eleven, but I doubted the woman had reported for work on the day her sister had been murdered.

I parked in a visitor space, climbed the stairs to Elaine’s second-floor apartment and rang the bell.

No one answered, but I could hear sound from either a television or radio inside.

I rang the bell again. “Elaine? It’s Maggie Skerritt. Will you talk to me?”

Someone switched off the sound inside, and a moment later, the door opened a crack with the chain still on. I pushed my ID through the opening.

“I’m sorry to bother you at a time like this, but I need to talk to you about Deirdre.”

The door closed. I heard the chain unhook, then the door opened again. Elaine Fisk blinked in the sunlight, her eyes the same pale blue as her sister’s, her hair the exact silvery blond, but uncombed and tangled. About thirty years of age, she was dressed in gray sweatpants and a Hard Rock Hotel and Casino T-shirt. Her feet were bare, and her face was swollen from crying.

“Come in.” She stepped aside, and I entered her living room.

The draperies were drawn and no lights were on. My eyes took a moment to adjust to the gloom. The apartment was filled with dark, heavy furniture, the kind many newcomers bring south from Northern homes and that doesn’t mesh with Florida’s bright sunshine and oppressive heat. A few knickknacks, porcelain statues and framed pictures cluttered the tabletops. Elaine motioned me to a sofa, turned on a lamp, and curled into a chair across from the couch.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said. “Detective Adler told me about Deirdre.”

Elaine, her eyes glazed with shock, nodded.

I glanced around the dreary room. “Is there anyone you can call to be with you?”

She hunched her shoulders. “Deirdre was all the family I had. My friend Katy’s working, but she’ll try to get off early this afternoon and come over.”

I hoped Katy could make it.

“I’m helping Detective Adler investigate Deirdre’s murder. Can you tell me why she was back in Tampa?”

Elaine gazed past me, her eyes unfocused. “She came to visit me. If she liked the area and it didn’t bring back the nightmares she had as a kid, she was planning to move so—” she swallowed hard “—so we could be together. Deirdre was lonely living in the big house in Pittsburgh after Mom and Dad died.”

“Why was she in Clearwater late last night?”

Elaine curled deeper into her chair and avoided my eyes. “I promised Deirdre I wouldn’t tell anyone.”

I took a full breath and spoke in my gentlest voice. “The only connection I had with Deirdre was when I investigated her abduction here in Tampa all those years ago. Was that why she wanted to see me?”

Elaine’s lower lip trembled. “I warned her not to stir things up again.”

“Is that why she was coming to see me?” I repeated. “About that case?”

She hesitated, then nodded. “But only if she was sure.”

“Sure of what?”

“That the man in the newspaper picture was the man who tried to kill her.”

“The picture in the clipping she was carrying from the Tribune?”

Elaine nodded again.

“Which man?” I asked.

She shook her head and twisted a lock of hair around one finger.

“I know you promised Deirdre not to talk about it, but you may hold the key to solving her murder.”

She appeared to consider my claim before finally saying, “Deirdre wouldn’t identify which man. She didn’t want to accuse anyone falsely. She said she had to see the man first and be certain it was him before she came to you with her suspicions.”

Deirdre’s body had been found in a park less than five miles from my office. Had she identified her assailant and been on her way to tell me? Or was she headed to Branigan’s house in Clearwater or Raleigh’s home in Pelican Bay and had met with foul play unrelated to the man in the newspaper photo?

“I’m sorry I can’t be more help,” Elaine said.

“There is one way you can. Do you have a recent picture of Deirdre I can borrow?”

Elaine removed a photograph from a frame on the table beside her and handed it to me.

I slid the photo into the pocket of my blazer. “I don’t know who killed your sister, but if it was the man who abducted her as a child, and if he thinks you might know about him, you could be in danger, too. Maybe you should move in with Katy for a while, until we get a better handle on what happened to Deirdre.”

She shrugged, apparently too numb with grief to feel fear. “I’ll see. When will they let me have her? I want to take her back to Pennsylvania and bury her beside my parents.”

“Detective Adler will let you know.” I took a business card from my pocket and handed it to her. “In the meantime, if you remember anything else or if you need me, give me a call.”

I stood to leave. Elaine remained huddled in her chair.