Caged (17 page)

No acrylic sculptures, so far as he’d been able to ascertain. John Hercules worked with clay and metal.

He had not, he’d told the officers first on the scene, had cause to use his kiln for more than two weeks, but he was in his studio most days, and to get there from his house he had to walk through his backyard with the kiln in his line of sight.

In the sitting room-cum-kitchen of the house, Hercules, a shaven-headed, well-muscled, tattoo-armed man of forty-two, looked traumatized.

‘I passed a mirror a while back,’ he told Sam and Martinez, ‘and I hardly recognized myself. I look like Dorian Gray after he wrecks his fucking portrait. I wonder if I’ll ever change back.’

Sam caught Martinez’s look.

Self-obsessed individuals not his partner’s favourite thing.

Still, Sam thought, the poor guy . . .

If they’d thought the first two scenes bad, now they seemed almost gentle by comparison.

Same MO, but this somehow the cruellest.

Throats cut again. Terror and suffering unmistakable on the faces of Evelyn and Frank Ressler, though their eyes were not visible. It was, in fact, impossible to tell, for the moment, whether or not their eyes were even in their sockets, because the elderly couple had been positioned face-to-face, and their spectacles had been glued together – and, from what the ME and Crime Scene techs and City of Miami and Miami Beach detectives could see, their spectacles had been glued to their eyes.

Their hands had been stuck together, too. Evelyn’s right hand holding her husband’s left.

Like the other victims, this couple were naked. In their
seventies
.

Sam could not remember ever having seen Martinez throw up at a crime scene, but this time he did, and Sam managed to hold back, but he would have liked to have been able to weep, and looking around at the other men and women in the backyard, he saw that he was not alone there.

And then there was the anger.

Burning, boiling, rising fury.

Frustratingly impotent fury for now.

FIFTY-SIX

E
verything changed.

This was now a serial situation for sure, and a major one. Time to enter the details into ViCAP, part of the FBI’s National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime. Extra help needed now, every kind available.

A Major Crime Squad was being formed, a situation room being set up for the duration, and an FDLE special agent named Joe Duval was joining the team to lend support, and in some circumstances the new man’s presence might have pissed off the detectives, but they’d worked with Duval before – a former Violent Crimes cop first in Chicago, then Miami, with experience in profiling – and knew the lean, middle-aged agent to be a good man to have on side, and anyway, they were in no position to gripe.

Crime Scene had found wheel tracks
again
– a signature now, it seemed, as well as evidence of the method of transporting the victims – and though the kiln had perhaps been a less open location in which to exhibit the bodies, the art connection was there, loud and clear.

Which might have led them directly back to Beatty and Moore, except the lab had already prioritized the case and bypassed its backlog, and Ida Lowenstein in the ME’s office had reported no match between either of those people and the blood found in the former gallery.

‘Which only means they didn’t spill their own fucking blood,’ Martinez had said, testily.

Two things, though.

It seemed even less likely now that they were looking for a killer working alone, because it was almost impossible to conceive that an individual, however strong, could have manoeuvred Evelyn and Frank Ressler’s bodies, maintaining their face-to-face position, into the kiln.

‘Unless Doc Sanders was right about them using a hoist,’ Riley said.

Sand had been found again, too, for the second time. In the tracks and on the grass. The same kind of white, fine sand as the last time.

‘I’d like to go back over the garden at the gallery,’ Sam said.

They were snatching a five o’clock sandwich at Markie’s – a Cubano for Martinez, and a rare roast beef on rye for Sam – and Lord help them, but they were hungry despite the horrors of the afternoon.

‘Think the guys could have missed sand there?’ Martinez was dubious.

‘Not likely,’ Sam said. ‘But it’s been dry, so it couldn’t hurt to look.’

Clutching at straws, and they both knew it.

‘I’d like to go looking for white sand at Beatty’s and Moore’s homes,’ Martinez said. ‘Think we got enough for warrants?’

‘No way,’ Sam said. ‘But I’d love to do the same at Anthony Christou’s place.’

‘Not gonna happen,’ Martinez said.

‘I know it,’ Sam said. ‘Being obnoxious isn’t enough to cut it with a judge.’

‘Not even being obnoxious and having two dead people in his fish tank.’ Martinez picked up his paper napkin and wiped his mouth. ‘Damn,’ he said. ‘I lost my appetite again.’

They’d all gone over the Christous ad nauseam, had agreed, yet again, that abducting, killing and dumping two victims in their own backyard before calling the cops, would appear to have been an act way beyond insane.

Still, there was mutual dislike in that marriage, perhaps even true hate, and neither Sam nor Martinez felt ready to let go completely.

‘I’m not saying I think Christou or Karen had anything to do with it,’ Sam said. ‘I’d just be happier if we could rule them both out once and for all.’

‘We could go visit him in Boca,’ Martinez said.

‘Or at least drop by his office,’ Sam said.

They’d established that Christou ran his small chain from an office above the first restaurant he’d opened in Aventura six years back, Anthony’s Taste of Ionia.

‘Maybe he has a central storage place,’ Martinez mused. ‘Like somewhere big and private enough to stash the victims and do the whole glue thing without anyone noticing.’

‘Do you have a hint of a motive for all this?’ Sam asked dryly.

‘We don’t have a motive for the Beatty people either.’

‘Tell me about it.’ Sam shrugged. ‘There’s still no reason we can’t talk to Christou again, ask how he and Karen are coping with the shock.’

‘Just a few friendly questions,’ Martinez agreed. ‘Like does he take long weekends on the Gulf coast or play golf?’

‘Or has their own lousy marriage given him and his wife an obsessive hatred of happy couples?’ Sam said.

‘See?’ Martinez stood up. ‘A motive.’

FIFTY-SEVEN

A
long-anticipated Damoclean sword fell slowly but painfully on the squad in the closing hours of their official working day.

The media had linked the homicides.

It had, of course, been inevitable, but first the numbers and intensity of calls from press, TV and radio newshounds seemed suddenly to quadruple – and then the barrage swelled into something resembling an incoming cloud of angry hornets.

Only good thing, Sam figured as the situation worsened: the Chief was taking charge and senior minds were deciding which details would be passed across to the public, what to give, what to hold back.

Nothing but negatives
to
hold back.

He didn’t envy them.

A press conference had been called for eight thirty next morning.

‘How in hell can I even
think
of going on a cruise now?’

Finally, in the men’s room, no one else in there but his partner, Sam let out the question that had been choking him.

‘That’s how I felt this morning about the ring, and you told me to go out and buy it anyway, so I did, and God forgive me, I feel I did good.’ Martinez shrugged. ‘Anyway, there’s a week to go before your cruise. Whole lot can happen in a week.’

‘Yeah,’ Sam said. ‘Like more deaths.’

‘Or maybe a breakthrough,’ Martinez said. ‘Maybe even an arrest.’

‘I feel no optimism.’ Sam shook his head. ‘After what we saw in the sculptor’s backyard, I feel pure darkness.’

‘You think we should call off tomorrow evening?’

‘No way,’ Sam said. ‘Grace is already cooking.’

‘Not pure darkness then, man, right?’ Martinez said.

Sam’s smile had no humour in it.

FIFTY-EIGHT

I
sabella the Seventh and her unborn pups were dead.

The keeper was in mourning. Not just for the doe, but for the next generation, and who was to say if there would ever be a Romeo the Sixth or another Isabella?

The cage was empty now, the cedar shavings and nesting boxes and cans and remnants of food burned.

Isabella too.

The rats had been more than a project, so much more than science.

An exercise in control, of course, the keeper was well aware of that.

But more besides. Not just power.

Love of a kind, too.

FIFTY-NINE

T
hursday morning’s press conference, located outside headquarters on Rocky Pomerantz Plaza because of the sheer numbers of bodies expected, most with cameras and boom mikes and other paraphernalia, was as grim and miserable an event as Sam and the squad had known it would be.

The City of Miami detectives in whose jurisdiction the Resslers had been found were present as well as the Miami Beach team and Special Agent Duval, but the Chief and Captain Kennedy were kicking things off, and in other circumstances it might have been Sam’s conference to head, but with his leave scheduled so soon, Chief Hernandez felt that if the crimes were not solved prior to that – looking too damned probable – it might backfire on the department if Sam Becket was the focal point today.

That knowledge making Sam feel infinitely worse than a heel.

‘Good morning. I’m Chief Hector Hernandez of the Miami Beach Police Department, and I’m joined today by Captain Tom Kennedy and Sergeant Michael Alvarez, lead investigator Detective Samuel Becket, FDLA Special Agent Joseph Duval and the rest of the squad who have been tackling the homicides that have shocked and saddened our peace-loving citizens over the last two weeks.’

The speaker system whined, and Sam and Martinez exchanged uneasy glances, while Hernandez waited a second, then forged on.

‘We also welcome, from the City of Miami . . .’

The whine rose to a shrill howl and Sam winced – hell,
everybody
winced, but he knew that some of the cameras whirring and clicking were focusing on him at that instant, and if he’d had a farm to lose, he’d have bet it that one of those shots of him looking discomfited would be tied to the Chief’s description of him as lead investigator.

Not important
, he told himself harshly, turning his full attention back on the boss, getting set to listen intently to the questions that the Captain and Alvarez would soon enough be fielding.

Tom Kennedy was already standing and naming the victims.

‘Mrs Susan Easterman. Mr Michael Easterman.’ He paused between names, giving just the right amount of emphasis and respect to each. ‘Ms Elizabeth Price. Mr André Duprez. Mrs Evelyn Ressler – ’

A sound came up from the crowd in the plaza, a strangled female cry, and Sam couldn’t see who’d uttered it, but he knew it didn’t bode well, and they’d tried hard to shield relatives from this conference, but . . .

‘And Mr Frank Ressler.’

Silence fell for one long moment – and then the Captain handed over to Sergeant Alvarez, who commenced a brief, heavily censored account of each crime, with approximate discovery locations, following up with an appeal to the public:

‘Anyone with information that might lead to the apprehension of the person or persons guilty of these wicked crimes will be treated in strictest confidence.’

More facts missing than included: no mention of glue, nor of the plastic dome or fish tank or kiln. Deemed wiser for the investigation, and an avoidance of sensationalism, in any case, had been agreed upon, the basic facts being grim and alarming enough.

Alvarez continued with help from Joe Duval’s profile.

‘It’s thought that these were signature killings, couples taken either together or separately, then murdered and, finally, left in locations where they were sure to be found sooner rather than later. There was a sense of “display” in all cases, and the time lapse between disappearance and discovery was also similar in all three cases, indicating a high level of organization and a clear desire to show off.’

In the report itself, Duval had said that though none of the victims had been sexually assaulted, there was nonetheless the strong possibility of a sexual motivation in the crimes, certainly of power issues.

Sam was grateful for Alvarez’s sensitivity in leaving that out here and now. Lord knew it was all bad enough, whether or not there were relatives present in the crowd beyond the semi-circle of journalists and reporters, but any mention of sexual motivation would have been fodder for lurid headlines.

‘Our department’s intention until now,’ the sergeant went on, ‘has been to choke off the publicity oxygen that the killer has very likely been craving, but now that a third couple have suffered such a monstrous, tragic end, it’s become clear that while there’s no need for mass alarm, there is now, sad to say, a real need for vigilance in the Miami-Dade area.’

The questions began, came thick and fast, sharp, searching questions from
Fox
,
7 News
,
CBS 4
and the other big guns, and Alvarez had left enough unsaid to give him room to answer some, but with so much to be kept under wraps, he was at a major disadvantage.

‘That’s the third question you’ve evaded,’ Ann Nuñez from the
Miami Daily News
snapped, and a chorus of frustration and hostility rose around her.

Time, Alvarez knew – only a glint of sweat on his forehead betraying his stress – to offer them one hard ingredient, partly to appease, but also because it was the kind of thing that might just draw out a real lead.