Shadows

Simon & Schuster

CHAPTER 1

MIAMI -- TODAY

People applauded when Craig Burch walked into the office. His face reddened. He wanted no attention, no fuss. He wanted his first day back to be like any other day on the job. But that didn't happen.

Two of his detectives sprang to their feet. Pete Nazario, usually quiet and introspective, moved in for a bear hug, then hesitated.

"It's okay," Burch said, and hugged back.

He exchanged a high five with Stone, who grinned like he'd won the lottery. Other homicide detectives pumped his hand.

"Looking good!"

"Attaboy!"

A sea of smiles and good humor, except for Emma, Lieutenant K. C. Riley's tiny, middle-aged secretary, who blubbered uncontrollably into a flowered handkerchief. She removed her spectacles, wiped her eyes, and blew her nose loudly. "Thank God you're back." She hiccuped.

Where is Riley? Burch wondered. Joe Corso, his temporary replacement, was missing in action as well. He scanned the sprawling homicide office and spotted their heads together in the lieutenant's glass-enclosed office, the door closed. What's that all about? he wondered. Corso, who had seniority, had been appointed acting sergeant in Burch's absence.

The two emerged to join the welcome.

"So ya finally got off your lazy ass and came back to work!" Corso trailed behind the lieutenant's welcoming smile.

"Yeah, had to make sure somebody was doing some detecting around here."

Burch had made certain, despite his impatience, that before he returned he looked suntanned, robust, and fit, as though back from a vacation, not life-threatening gunshot wounds. He wore a new jacket, shirt, and shoes, and had had his hair cut a week earlier.

No dead-man-walking look for him. Cops rush to donate blood, money, and vacation time to a fellow officer in need. You can take that to the bank. But reappear limping and scarred, with a hospital pallor, and the camaraderie pales as well. Survivors can read it in their eyes. Nobody on the job needs a daily reminder that there but for the grace of God...

Hailed from all directions, Burch made the obligatory rounds, to briefly shoot the breeze.

"You won't believe the one I caught today, Craig," homicide detective Ron Diaz said. "Guy shot a dozen times -- by his own kids."

"Not those little rugrats out there?" Burch had seen them in the hall on the way in. A curly-haired thumb-sucker with wide, frightened eyes. She and a sturdy boy about seven clung to a plump middle-aged woman with a half-closed, swollen, and purpling left eye. They huddled on a hard wooden bench.

"That's them. The two little ankle biters."

"Holy crap! He at the morgue yet?"

"Hell, no. He's at Jackson, in the ER. Doing okay."

"Where'd he get hit?"

"Both legs, groin, chest, face, arms. You name it, they shot it. Guy looked like Swiss cheese."

"What'd they use? Old ammo with no punch?"

"Nah! Get this. He picks a fight with 'is old lady, lands a right cross to 'er eye. They're in a shoving match when she starts screaming, 'Shoot 'im! Shoot 'im! Shoot 'im!' to the kids.

"Unlike mine, her kids listen. They open up on Dad with the trusty Red Ryder BB guns he got 'em for Christmas. Keep shooting even after he falls down the front steps and cuts his head trying to get away. Damn good shots; guy should be proud.

"Moral a this one is: Be careful what you give 'em for Christmas. Don't buy 'em nothing they can use against you.

"Pisses me off, 'cause now I gotta figure out who to charge and with what. An ASA said I could charge the kids with agg battery, a felony. They're five and eight. I could bust Dad for spousal abuse instead. Or lock Mom up for neglect, child abuse, and contributing to their deliquency. I'm leaning toward the last one at the moment."

"A little harsh with that shiner she's sporting."

"Yeah. Ain't it a beaut." Diaz shrugged. "But the ASA says it's a crime to encourage kids to break the law. Or I could just bust both parents for spousal abuse on each other and let a judge sort it out...."

Burch sighed. "Some people shouldn't have kids."

"Tell me about it."

An attractive long-haired woman sat at a detective's desk, waiting to give a statement, her expression forlorn.

"What's her story?" Burch asked.

With her silky, low-cut blouse, dangly earrings, billowy skirt, and high heels, she looked dressed to go dancing, except for her tear-streaked makeup -- and handcuffs.

"Yeah, all dressed up with no place to go. Domestic. Long history. Husband lies to 'er, cheats on 'er, beats on 'er. Separated for a while, but he claims he changed, turned over a whole new leaf. Talks 'er into letting him move back in. Promises to take 'er out on the town to celebrate last night. At seven, she's ready and waiting. She's still waitin', sittin' out front, when he finally gets home this morning, drunk as a skunk, lipstick on 'is shirt. Poor bastard hops outta 'is car with a big grin. 'Qué pasa, baby.'"

"'Qué pasa, my ass!' she says, and shoots him between the eyes. DRT, dead right there."

"My wife would call that justifiable," Burch said.

Another weepy suspect inside a small interview room wore open-toed stiletto heels, a miniskirt, and a bad case of five o'clock shadow.

"You don't wanna know about that one," Diaz said. "Rivers's case. Fatal shooting up on the Boulevard. The victim was dumped out of a pickup on Seventy-ninth Street. He was wearing a red dress. Some kind of transsexual turf war up there in hooker heaven.

"So how ya doing, Burch?" The detective eyed the taller sergeant speculatively. "Heard it was touch and go for a while."

"They exaggerated. I'm good."

We all have a case number waiting for us, Burch thought. His hadn't come up yet. Life was good. He sighed as he returned to the Cold Case Squad's corner. Home at last.

Two hundred and thirty rumpled pounds occupied his space. Corso was slumped in Burch's chair, one big foot up on his desk.

"You mind?" Burch gripped the chair back.

"Sure. Sure." Corso took his time vacating the seat. "Force a habit. Made sense ta use your desk when you were laid up. More convenient."

Sure, Burch thought. He and Corso, a transplanted New Yorker, had worked patrol at the same time years ago. Time had mellowed Corso some, but edgy and unpredictable, he could still be a loose cannon. If Burch had had his way, Corso wouldn't be on his team, but the man knew how to win favors from friends in high places. After a stint as a city commissioner's driver/bodyguard, he returned recommended for a coveted homicide slot. After a brief, but lucky, run of cases, he'd applied for the Cold Case Squad. The regular hours appealed to him, too.

"Time for the Monday-morning case meeting," Burch announced.

Stone and Nazario exchanged glances.

"Oh, yeah," Corso said nonchalantly. "I changed that to Wednesdays."

"So today," Burch said mildly, "it's changed back."

Hell, he was only gone a few weeks. What was Corso's big rush to change things?

"Stone, what's the status on your case?"

The husky black detective, the youngest on the squad at twenty-six, shook his head. "Nada. We decided to wait for you to come back." Stone avoided Corso's eyes.

"Okay," Burch said, sensing an unpleasant undercurrent in the air between them. "We take a hard run at it. Now. Give it top priority."

"So, what was it like?" Corso said. "When that SOB shot you, when you hit the deck and thought you'd bought the farm, what were you thinking?"

"What we all think," Burch said quietly. "That the worst thing is that you...