Deadly Pursuit (22 page)

The stab wound, at least, had almost stopped its painful throbbing. Before leaving the house, he’d inspected the injury, then wrapped his thigh in a strip of bedsheet to stanch the blood. He could walk without limping now.

He turned his attention to the motorboat, fully submerged at last, dragged to the bottom by the weight of the Evinrude outboard. Through the crystalline water its outline shimmered faintly, blurred and strange, a ghost vessel in a dream.

Kirstie wouldn’t be getting away in that boat, anyhow.

Only the runabout was left. Steve, of course, knew where it was concealed, but Jack was unconcerned about him. His energy had been fading fast. By now the sedative in his system must have put him under.

And Kirstie had no idea where to find the runabout. Still, she was certain to try. Where would she look first?

The cove.

Obviously. The cove was where the boat had been beached in the first place. Probably she was on her way there right now.

Waiting for the boat to founder had cost him time. She had a head start. But he could catch up.

And when he did, his next bullet would not miss.

36

Where the forest trail met the coral beach, Steve found what he was looking for.

He had spotted it ten days ago, on an aimless walk with Anastasia. The borzoi, like all dogs, had liked to sniff everything within reach; but when she’d started nosing a waist-high shrub with scarlet flowers and yellow fruits, Steve had pulled her hastily away.

Jatropha multifada
. The physic-nut tree.

Easy enough to recognize the species. Jack, in fact, had first identified it to him when they vacationed on the island together. Varieties of
Jatropha
grew throughout south Florida; one of them, native to Key West, was known by locals as “the bellyache bush.”

An appropriate name for any of the
Jatropha
species, which collectively were responsible for dozens of accidental poisonings every year. The tempting, candy-colored fruits were irresistible to children; the seeds within the fruits contained a purgative oil similar to the ricin found in castor beans.

As little as two seeds could produce symptoms of gastroenteritis within a few hours. The larger the quantity, the faster the onset and the more severe the effects. A large enough dose could prove fatal.

Crouching by the bush, Steve plucked a small yellow capsule of fruit from the nearest branch. With trembling fingers he tore it open, plucked three seeds from the cavities.

He raised them to his lips. Hesitated.

You sure you want to do this, Stevie?

The voice, strangely, was Jack’s. But the thought was his own.

A ripple of tingling cold skittered up his forearms as if in answer. A new wave of the sedative kicking in.

Goddammit, he had to get that shit out of his system. Adrenaline wouldn’t keep him going much longer.

Eyes closed, he thrust the seeds into his mouth.

They were tasteless, crunchy. He chewed, swallowed, then picked another fruit and consumed its seeds as well. A total of six so far.

How many would it take to get quick action? If he overdid it, he would face a painful, writhing death. But if he was too cautious, he wouldn’t feel the effects for hours. Hours he could hardly afford to waste, not with Jack undoubtedly hunting Kirstie at this moment, the Beretta hot in his hand.

He plucked a third fruit, ate the seeds.

Nine now. He’d heard of people dying from a dose of ten.

But other than a mild burning sensation at the back of the throat, he still felt fine.

Dammit to hell, this wasn’t going to work. Maybe he’d misidentified the plant. This might be some harmless shrub that only looked like a physic-nut. In that case he could gorge himself on seeds without effect, until the damn sedative finally put him under.

He jerked another fruit free of the branch, began to pulp it in his fingers to find the seeds, then froze, listening.

From the south end of the island, a distant crack of sound, then another, and more.

Gunshots. Four in all.

Then, rising high and breathless in the night air, Kirstie’s keening cry.

“Stop it! Stop it, you son of a bitch!”

Christ, Jack was killing her. Killing her right now.

“Hell with this.” Steve threw aside the fruit and pushed himself to his feet.

He had to save her. Had to find the strength somehow. If the seeds wouldn’t work, then he would fight off the sedative with sheer willpower. He could do it. He—

A sudden agonizing stomach cramp bent him double. Sparks of white glitter whirled before his eyes. They expanded, merged, bleaching his world to a spread of arctic snow.

The poison. Kicking in.

He collapsed on his side, trembling violently, as pain clamped down harder on his guts and currents of nausea raced through him like fever chills.

You ate too many of the damn things. The groaning voice in his thoughts was nearly drowned out by the hum and sizzle that seemed to fill his skull. You killed yourself, you asshole. And Kirstie, too.

Somewhere far away, a fifth gunshot sounded. He barely heard it. The noise had no reality to him. Nothing had any reality but the spasms of agony knotting his bowels.

He twisted on his belly and vomited. Again. Again.

His stomach emptied, and he was left rasping with dry heaves that shook his body.

“Oh, God,” he whispered. “Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.”

Fire laced his throat. His heart pounded impossibly hard in his chest, each separate beat threatening to shake him apart. Sweat dripped from his face in a silent, steady rain.

“God. Oh, my God ...”

Flies were already gathering at the foul-smelling puddle he had made. Weakly he crawled away from it, off the path into a patch of weeds, then buried his face in the dirt, tasting grit. For a long time he did not move again.

Gradually pain and sickness receded, leaving him with the limp, hollowed-out feeling of utter exhaustion.

I think you’re going to make it, old buddy. The interior voice was still Jack’s, the words accented with cold mockery. Looks like you bought yourself a second chance.

“Second chance ...” Steve licked his lips. His tongue was sandpaper. “Yes, Jack. That’s what I’ve got.”

He lifted his head from the dirt and blinked, trying to clear his vision.

The world seemed murky. Had the poison damaged his eyesight somehow?

No, of course not. It was his glasses; he’d lost them in the fight with Jack. That was why he couldn’t see.

All right, then. How was he doing otherwise?

Methodically he took inventory of his symptoms.

The numbness in his extremities was still present, but less obvious than before.

His limbs had lost their leaden heaviness.

He no longer had to fight a nagging impulse to shut his eyes and yield to sleep.

His thoughts seemed clear.

“It worked.” A crooked smile ticked at the corner of his mouth. “Goddamn
worked
.”

He had purged himself of the drug. He was clean.

Fighting light-headedness and a residue of nausea, he struggled to his knees. The effort was too much for him. He fell forward, panting.

For a bad moment he was sure he would be sick again. His stomach convulsed. But there was nothing left inside.

He lay unmoving, concentration focused on deepening each breath and slowing his hectic pulse.

When he felt ready, he tried again to stand.

This time he succeeded. His knees fluttered badly, and he had to grab a tree limb for support.

Holding tight to the branch, eyes shut, he waited for his strength to return while considering his next move.

He had to find Kirstie. That much was obvious. Track her down and take her to the boat. Either the motorboat at the dock or ...

Or Jack’s runabout.

His eyes flickered open with a thought.

He’d forgotten the runabout. It was camouflaged under fronds and sedges on the verge of the beach, only a short distance from this spot.

The most logical thing to do was to leave the island right now. Take the boat, speed to Islamorada.

Could he navigate the harbor waters without his glasses? Probably. He might nudge a few buoys along the way, but there would be few other obstacles this time of night.

Within twenty minutes he could be at the sheriff’s station, reporting everything.

But if he did that, he would be abandoning his wife. Leaving her alone on Pelican Key with Jack.

He remembered her desperate shriek:
Stop it, you son of a bitch!

Afterward, nothing except a final gunshot, some moments later.

The coup de grace? The bullet that had ended her life?

Or was she still alive, but a prisoner?

He pictured her, bleeding, helpless, Jack’s toy. Not hard to imagine the kind of games Jack would play with her.

If he went to the authorities, how much time would pass before they believed his story and agreed to send a patrol unit to the island? An hour? Longer?

He could not leave Kirstie for an hour. Not when she might be in agony, might be dying.

The boat would have to wait. He would find his wife first. Find her and save her life.

If she was not already dead.

The thought stabbed him, icicle-sharp. He blinked back a stinging eyewash of tears as he headed up the trail.

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.”