Miami, It's Murder by Edna Buchanan

unsigned.
    â€œYeah.” Harry went on. “Guy had everybody excited for a while. Called the hot-line number from jail, where he was locked up on a burglary charge, says he’s who we’re looking for. Gave accurate information, details not in your story, stuff that only we and the victims know. He almost had us.”
    Damn, I wondered, how much are they holding back?
    â€œHow could he know those things? Maybe he is the guy.”
    â€œNope. We backtracked him. Found out he’d been picked up in the county and was cuffed to a chair outside the burglary office waiting to be interviewed. They share space with the sexual battery unit on the other side of a wall divider. So while he’s sitting on one side, a detective on the phone is on the other, talking to a city rape squad detective who is filling him in on the case. The county detective had it on speaker phone for the benefit of the two other investigators in his office. Unaware, of course, that this scumbag on the other side of the divider is taking it all in.
    â€œSo later, sitting in jail, a two-bit burglar, busted again and facing career criminal prosecution and hard time, decides his life lacks excitement and attention. He’d rather be the guy sought in a major front-page case than a petty thief.”
    â€œYou’re sure?”
    â€œThis guy was in jail in Palm Beach when one of them happened.”
    â€œSorry.” I sighed.
    â€œGoes to show,” he grumbled, “the fewer people, even cops, who know anything, the better off we are.”
    This was not the moment, I thought, to press him for more details. “Most people who call want to help—”
    â€œSure, but the sincere ones know nothing, leaving us with crazies, scumbags, and liars.”
    â€œAnd maybe just one with the real thing.” I ripped open another envelope. This one looked grungy, as though it had fallen on the floor in the mailroom and been stepped on a few times.
    â€œLet’s hope so, and let’s hope we recognize it, if it comes.”
    I said goodbye to Harry as I scanned the letter. Another weirdo.
Say Britt Montero,
    Hello, I did got from your newspaper a story. You put a lots of words. You write a good English language but who are you to say? Take good advice. Write about Haitians. Don’t make me angry.
    The signature was either a scrawled bow and arrows or unintelligible initials.
    I crumpled the letter and tossed it, with the others. Then I snatched up my purse and smoothed my navy blue slacks, leaving a powdery smudge on the front. “Don’t they ever dust around here?” I muttered, glaring up at the air-conditioning vents, which continually spew out fine black particles of dirt, bacteria, and germs that I was convinced were killing us all. No wonder poor Ryan was always sick.
    I stopped in the rest room to wash my hands, then went to meet Dan for lunch at Clifford’s, a family restaurant on the Boulevard just north of the city limits. Other establishments come with new styles and trends and go, but Clifford’s has been there forever: a large and bustling family dining room out of sight of the bar, which is dimly lit with quiet booths and tables. I stood blinking just inside the door, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the sudden darkness. Dan rose, hailing me from a booth in the bar.
    His voice, so strong and positive on the telephone, had been that of the old Dan, but his clothes hung loosely and his face looked puffy. His skin looked ashen in the poor light. I kissed his cheek, then slid into the booth across from him. He had a lit cigarette in one hand and a glass of something resembling scotch in the other. There were already two butts in the ashtray, and he couldn’t have been waiting long.
    â€œHey,” I said lightly. “Thought you quit smoking last year. And isn’t it a little early for that?” I gestured at his drink.
    â€œWho said you were my mother?” His grin was the