Hell (14 page)

He could not begin to imagine how she was feeling, though he had killed, more than once, in the line of duty, and one time, a few years ago, acting out of jurisdiction, he had ended the life of someone close to Cathy, a killer, but nonetheless . . . Cops were, for the most part, pretty well taken care of on the psychological front after traumatic events, and sure, cops were human, too, but Grace . . .

Grace lived to take care of others.

And Grace had just killed.

Sam felt his own level of pain rising by the second.

She was still shut down.

‘I thought it was him,' she said again.

She had told him that, had told everyone that, over and over.

‘I know,' Sam said. ‘He looked like him.'

Not enough like him, he thought, for others to see the resemblance and be convinced, though he hoped to God to be wrong about that.

Grace looked at him, saw raw wounds in his warm eyes.

‘I feel like a china doll,' she said. ‘I know I'm alive, and I know what I've done. I've killed a man in cold blood. But I can't seem to
feel
it yet, and I think I'm glad of that.'

They were sitting on the ground at the side of the narrow road, and Grace had a blanket around her shoulders, and Sam had one arm around her. The crime scene was illuminated now by headlights and lightbars from police cars, and flashlights lit up the dead man – Grace's victim – where he still lay in front of her car.

She was still shivering.

‘Couldn't we sit in your car?' she asked.

Sam had already told her they could not sit in the Toyota because it was evidence for the time being, and in any event, she could not imagine ever being able to get into that car again.

‘I don't think that's a good idea,' Sam said now. ‘It might be misconstrued.'

‘In case you're telling me what to say,' she said.

Her voice was lifeless.

‘Something like that,' Sam said.

‘But you could be doing that here, too,' she said.

He wished, on one level, that she were being less rational, grew more afraid for her with every moment that passed.

‘I guess they're giving us a little time,' he said.

‘Before they take me,' Grace said.

‘I've called Jerry Wagner,' Sam said.

That pierced the china shield, an arrowhead getting through.

Jerry Wagner had become Cathy's defense lawyer when she was fourteen and had been unjustly arraigned for the murder of her parents and more besides.

‘That bad?' she asked, softly.

‘He's the best I could think of,' Sam said, ‘and he knows you.'

Grace looked again into his wounded eyes, saw that he was breaking apart inside, knew that she would have done anything to spare him this.

Too late now.

‘I really believed it was him,' she said.

‘I know you did,' Sam said.

‘Charlie.' She shook her head. ‘I can't even remember his surname.'

‘Duggan,' Sam said.

‘Charlie Duggan,' she said.

The name spoken by her sounded remote, the way she felt. Dissociated. And even at the core of the dullness that had overtaken her, her psychologist's mind comprehended what was happening to her, because dissociation was a common response to trauma, and God knew she had experienced many shocks over the past several years.

But she had never killed before.

Once, years ago, she had contributed to a man's accidental death while she had been in fear for her life, and she had felt the repercussions of that for a long time – and she had
wanted
to kill, briefly but violently, after Cooper had stolen Joshua, when she'd believed their baby lost.

But this man, this Charlie Duggan, had been an innocent man.

‘
I was just trying to help.
'

His last words, spoken before witnesses.

‘I killed him,' she said again now. ‘I killed a man, and I'm not feeling it yet, but I know enough to realize that it's going to hit soon.'

‘I'm here for you,' Sam said.

He'd called Martinez a while back, had told him swiftly and carefully what had happened here, and his friend, deeply shocked, had told him that he would deal with the unfolding situation at Sadie's Boatyard, and that he would make a discreet call to Mike Alvarez – and the lieutenant had already called Sam, had told him to consider himself off-duty, had assured him that his thoughts were with him and Grace, and if there was anything they needed, he'd do his best to help.

‘You need to go back to Claudia's,' Grace told him. ‘Be with our children.'

‘They're OK,' Sam said. ‘I've talked to your sis.'

‘But
he's
still out there,' she said. ‘I didn't finish him.'

‘I'm staying with you,' Sam said.

‘Will they let you?'

‘Not during questioning, but after.'

‘Will they let me leave?'

‘You'll get bail.'

‘Tonight?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Not tonight,' she said, slowly.

‘Don't be scared,' Sam said, and held her tighter.

‘I'm not,' she said. ‘Except of what I did. What I was capable of doing.' She paused. ‘And of what this will do to Cathy and Joshua.'

‘Joshua won't know anything about it,' Sam said. ‘We'll all see to that.'

‘He will some day,' she said. ‘If I go to jail.'

‘You won't go to jail, sweetheart.'

‘How do you know?'

‘I won't let that happen. Jerry Wagner won't let it. They'll hear the whole story and they'll understand.'

‘Even I don't understand,' she said.

And then, suddenly, two men stood over them, blotting out the lights.

Two detectives from Miami-Dade Homicide.

Grace heard their names, but did not absorb them.

Just one name going around and around in her head.

Charlie Duggan.

Her victim.

‘Grace.' Sam's voice, sharp and clear, penetrated. ‘Grace, listen to me. You're probably going to be arrested, and they'll be taking you to Miami-Dade headquarters in Doral.' He saw her nod. ‘But I don't want you to say
anything
till Jerry Wagner arrives. You can confirm your name and address, but that's all. Do you understand?'

‘Of course,' she told him. ‘Don't worry too much.'

He kissed her forehead, and helped her to her feet, and the detectives waited, did not prevent him.

Sam told her that he loved her, and Grace told him the same back.

And then, suddenly, she realized what she had not said until now.

‘I'm so sorry,' she said.

‘I know you are,' Sam said.

Inside the Fred Taylor Headquarters building on NW 25th Street in the city of Doral, west of Miami International Airport, two detectives from the Miami-Dade homicide bureau questioned her for what seemed an eternity.

She heard the Miranda warnings, comprehended them, but Jerry Wagner had arrived before her to identify himself as her representing attorney, and he did not allow a statement to be taken.

‘Don't say anything,' he told her.

Her right to remain silent, as enshrined in the Fifth Amendment.

The charge, she already knew, was vehicular homicide.

Ugly, harsh, cold.

And accurate, it seemed to her.

‘You need to tell me why you did it,' Wagner said to her before the interview.

‘The whole story?' Grace asked.

‘In time,' he answered, ‘but tonight I'll take the edited version.'

‘I thought he was someone else,' she said.

‘Jerome Cooper,' Wagner said.

‘Yes.' Grace paused. ‘I thought he was going to . . .'

She stopped, abruptly uncertain of exactly what she
had
thought Cooper had been about to do, and a new sense of panic threatened to engulf her, one she knew she had to control for her family's sake more than for her own . . .

Yet the fact was she did not feel sure now what she'd thought out there in the dark. Maybe that he had been going to hurt her, maybe even kill her, and she had been terrified – but that was not what had been uppermost in the seconds leading up to Charles Duggan's death. What had been exploding in her head right then had been rage at the man because he had been using Pete to get to her, because he had terrified that vulnerable boy, and because once upon a time he had stolen her child, her baby . . .

Which meant, she thought now, that she had wanted to punish him.

And maybe Jerry Wagner was a mind-reader, because he decided not to wait for her to say any more in case she strengthened the case against her, so maybe this was
not
the moment for unvarnished truth out of the mouth of an honest woman who had never before, so far as he knew, harmed another human being.

Until she had mown a man down with her car.

‘You thought a multiple killer was coming at you,' Wagner said.

‘I guess,' Grace said.

‘You guess?'

And she nodded, because she remembered now that it was true.

‘That's what I thought,' she said. ‘I told him to get away.'

She remembered that, too.

‘But he didn't back off,' Wagner said.

‘No,' Grace said. ‘I thought he was Cooper.'

‘That's all I need for now,' Wagner said.

They began questioning her, and she registered their questions, did as her lawyer had told her and said as little as good manners allowed, but her brain seemed too fogged now for any clear understanding of what the homicide detectives, or even Wagner, wanted of her.

She was, after all, guilty.

Guilty.

That was the only thought that occasionally dragged itself clear of the fog. Her awareness of that guilt, and the terrible ache in her heart.

For her victim. For Sam. For Joshua. For Cathy and Saul, and Claudia and David and Mildred, and Sara Mankowitz, and any other people she had irrevocably harmed.

No ache for herself.

But for the life she had thrown away.

TWENTY-THREE

May 7

T
hursday night into Friday morning.

The longest, darkest of nights.

After the questioning in Doral, they had taken her first, for ‘processing', to the Pretrial Detention Center on NW 13th Street in Miami, after which they had transferred her to the Women's Detention Center on NW 7th Avenue, where Jerry Wagner had come to see her for a second time.

Grace had scarcely noticed his appearance earlier, at Miami-Dade headquarters, but now, across a stained table, she looked at him with a greater degree of clarity and remembered him well, recalling the first time she had ever seen him, at the funeral of Cathy's aunt. She remembered thinking then that he looked every bit the distinguished lawyer, sturdy and prosperous, with well-cut curling hair, and he was little changed now, just older, with silver threads in the hair, his hands still beautifully manicured, his eyes still the same piercing blue.

He had taken as good care of Cathy as he'd been able.

Not the same. Cathy had been an innocent fourteen-year-old, while she was a forty-year-old psychologist married mother.

And she was not innocent.

Which was what she told Wagner. Again. In another room, another place.

A prison.

‘Will they let me go home?' she asked.

‘Not tonight,' the lawyer answered.

She thought she'd been prepared for that, but it felt like a body blow.

‘But tomorrow,' Wagner continued steadily, ‘you'll go before a judge, and hopefully you'll be released on your own recognizance or on the posting of a bond. Bail, in other words.'

‘What if the judge won't grant either of those things?'

‘He or she will grant it.' Wagner's smile was gentle. ‘You have an unblemished record, you're a person of high standing in the community, you're not a flight risk, and you have a small child and patients who depend on you.'

‘I'd say the last remains to be seen,' Grace said.

Wagner assembled his papers and notes, and rose.

‘Tomorrow, Dr Lucca,' he said.

‘I think they charged me as Mrs Becket,' she told him.

He smiled again. ‘I know that.'

‘What's in a name?' she said.

‘That's the way,' Jerry Wagner said. ‘Stay strong, Grace.'

She spent the long, dark night with four other women, each on their own metal-framed bunk bed bolted to a graffiti-covered wall and disquietingly stained floor, each prisoner with a mattress and blanket, united in their sharing of air and space and toilet facilities – the single, stinking steel lavatory and sink – but utterly disconnected in every other sense.

The detention center sat forty or fifty feet beneath the I-95-836 corridor of the expressway system, which meant that it was never quiet.

Traffic rumbling, roaring, pounding.

One of the women snored steadily through the night, while another – the youngest – wept for a while into her open hands until an older, hatchet-faced woman told her that if she didn't cut it out, she would do it for her. And Grace wished she possessed the courage to step up for the youngster, but found she was all out of that commodity, and was simply relieved when the weeping stopped.

She spoke only when addressed, which happened just once.

‘You got any rollies?'

The question had come from the hard-faced prisoner, and Grace floundered for a moment, then realized that, of course, the woman was asking for cigarettes or marijuana or whatever.

‘No,' she said. ‘I'm sorry.'

And after that, thank God, she was of no interest to any of them.

For a while, as she lay still and silent in the dark, she thought about Cathy again, and then her thoughts flew to Joshua, but drawing him into this place, even in her thoughts, seemed an abomination. And each person that came to mind went the same way, ejected back into the outside world, the decent world where they belonged and she no longer did.