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Moments later, Quinones's yellow Chevy pulled up near the Honda. Andrews drove the van into the parking lot and pulled into a space where the detectives could both see Quinones, still seated in his car, and the apartment building directly ahead. After a few minutes they saw lights go on in one of the lower-floor apartments, with the blond woman clearly visible through a window. Only for a moment, though. Crossing the room, she pulled draperies across the window.

"She knows he's out there," Thurston said.

"Yeah, and he may have tailed her before. Probably knows the apartment."

Suddenly Thurston shouted, "Shit! He's gone." While they had been looking up at the window, Quinones had left his car and moved to the apartment building doorway, where he was entering behind another figure.

Both detectives flung their van doors open and raced to the door. Andrews wrenched at it, but it was securely closed. By now no one was visible inside. Thurston immediately started pressing buttons on the residents' speaker system. "Police officers!" he cried out. "We're chasing a suspect. Open the front door, please."

Many, he knew, would be suspicious, but someone might . . .

Someone did. A loud buzz sounded. Andrews called over, "It's open!" and they both rushed in.

"What floor was she on?" Andrews queried. "I'd say the third."

Thurston nodded. "Get up there!"

A hallway contained two elevators, both closed. Andrews hit a call button, then abruptly the doors of one opened and an elderly woman slowly emerged, with a Pekingese on a leash. The dog seemed reluctant to move. Thurston settled the matter by picking it up and dumping it outside. As the woman opened her mouth to protest, both detectives were already inside the elevator, Andrews jabbing the third-floor button, then a lower button to close the doors. But the machinery was unhurried; only after a pause, while the two men fumed, did the doors slide together.

At the third floor they hurried out, turning right toward where they judged they had seen the blond woman through her window. But the corridor was silent, and no door was open. Thurston knocked at two doors without response.

"Nothing here!" he pronounced. "Has to be the fourth floor. Use the stairs!" He headed for a doorway marked FIRE EXIT, Andrews following. They bounded up concrete steps, then through another door, emerging on a corridor matching the one below. A few yards away an apartment door was open, with part of the door splintered. At the same moment two loud blasts, clearly gunshots, sounded through the apartment doorway. As both detectives paused, drawing their guns, they heard four more shots in quick succession.

Thurston, his face set grimly, moved against the wall on the same side of the corridor as the open door. Motioning Andrews to stay behind him, he whispered, "I'll take this one. Cover me."

Small sounds could be heard through the open doorway light footsteps briefly, then several indistinct thuds while Thurston approached carefully. Then, with gun extended, he put his head cautiously around the doorway. Almost at once he lowered the gun and stepped inside. Beyond a small hallway, in what appeared to be a living room, Quiflones was facedown on the floor, unconscious, in a pool of blood. His right arm was extended, a sharpedged, gleaming knife close by. It was a pearl-handled switchblade, Thurston noted. The woman, who looked older than she had from a distance, was seated on a circular ottoman. She held a gun pointed downward; her body was slumped, hair a mess, face dazed.

Thurston approached her. Pointing to the gun, he said, "I'm a police officer. I'll take that." He observed it was a .22 Cal Rohn automatic pistol that held six shots, the number he had heard fired. Obediently she held the gun out to him. Taking a pen from his shirt pocket, he placed it in the trigger guard, handling the weapon so no contamination of fingerprints would occur, and, for the time being, put it on a table to the side.

Andrews entered cautiously, then went straight to Quiflones's body and checked for vital signs. "He's gone," he pronounced. Then, moving the body slightly, he asked Thurston, "Did you see this, Charlie?" He pointed to the trousers front, where the zipper was down and Quiflones's penis protruded.

"No, but it figures." As the detectives knew, rapists often exposed themselves, believing the sight would turn women on. Thurston added, "Better get Fire-Rescue here to confirm he's dead."

On his portable police radio, Andrews transmitted, "Nineteen-thirty-one to dispatcher."

"QSK. "

"Send me Fire-Rescue to 7201 Tamiami Canal Road, apartment 421, to check a possible forty-five. Also send a two-man unit for crowd control, and dispatch an ID unit, too."

"QSL."

Within less than a minute, approaching sirens could be heard outside as uniform police and Fire-Rescue medics responded to the call. An ID team, though traveling with less urgency, was undoubtedly on the way.

Thurston made a radio call to Sergeant Malcolm Ainslie, as head of the special task force, informing him of developments.

"I'm close by," Ainslie said. "Be with you in minutes."

Andrews, meanwhile, had begun crime-scene routine, making notes, then questioning the woman, still seated.

"Your name, miss, please?"

With an effort she seemed to collect her thoughts, though her hands were shaking. "Dulce Gomez."

She was single, she reported, thirty-six years old, and lived in this apartment. She had been in Miami ten years. She was attractive, Andrews thought, though with a certain hardness to her.

She was employed by Southern Bell as a phone-repair technician, Gomez told him. In the evenings she attended classes at Miami-Dade Community College, where she was majoring in telecommunications. "I want to get a better job."

Thurston, who had joined them, motioned toward Quinones's body. "Do you know this man, Dulce? Had you seen him before he followed you today?"

She shuddered. "Never!"

"We've been watching him. It's possible he might have done this before without your knowing."

"Well . . . now you ask, couple of times I did have a feeling someone was..." She stopped, remembering. "That pendejo sure knew the apartment number, must have come straight up."

Andrews prompted, "And broke down the door?"

She nodded. "He stormed right in like a crazed dog, his click hanging out, and swinging a knife."

Thurston said, "And that's when you shot him?"

"No. I didn't have the gun then, so I gave him a karate kick. He dropped the knife."

"You do karate?"

"Black belt. I let him have it to the head and torso and he went down. Then I got the gun and shot him."

"Where was the gun?"

"In another room. My bedroom, in a drawer."

Thurston was startled. "You mean you already had the guy down, but you still got a gun and shot him emptied it into him six shots?"

The woman hesitated. "Well, I wanted the shit to stay down. He had the knife and was wriggling around. That's why, even after I shot him, I kicked him in the head some."

It explained the sounds light footsteps and thuds that both detectives had heard while approaching the apartment. Andrews said, "But he wasn't wriggling after you shot him."

Gomez shrugged. "I guess not. But I was still pretty scared."

During the detectives' questioning, the paramedics had arrived; it took them only a few seconds to confirm that Quifiones was dead. And two uniform officers were now on duty in the corridor outside. They had sealed off apartment 421 with yellow POLICE LINE tape and were assuring a crowd of assembled tenants: "All the excitement's over, folks," and "Everything's being taken care of."