Hell (17 page)

A whole lot of people loved her.

No one more than himself.

And he would do anything.

Anything
.

No help to be had at Jimbo's, though the people there this noontime knew that a man had been killed near Crandon Boulevard Thursday night.

‘I heard a woman mowed him down,' one guy said.

Leather jacketed, despite the heat, tattoo on one cheek.

Sam wanted to punch him, maybe arrest him.

Couldn't arrest a guy for speaking the truth.

And punching his stupid face would not help Grace one bit.

So he moved on.

He sent Duggan's photo to Martinez's cellphone, then called him as he drove, told him he planned to show the picture around the Applied Physics building at the nearby Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science.

‘It's Saturday,' Martinez reminded him. ‘Won't be a full house.'

‘So I'll come back another day,' Sam said. ‘And I'll scoot around the other place while I'm here.' The ‘other place' being the NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, because what the hell, someone there might recognize Duggan. ‘Might as well cover as many campuses as I can think of, since his girlfriend thinks he studied “marine life” someplace.'

‘Cutter's coming in later,' Martinez said. ‘I'll make a few copies of the photo, and maybe she and I can show them round a few places, too.' He paused. ‘I found a Bernice van Heusen in Savannah, by the way – she passed away last year, aged seventy-one.'

‘How did Duggan come to be driving her car, I wonder?'

Sam had already reached the Rosenstiel building.

‘Me too,' Martinez said. ‘How's Grace holding up?'

‘Last time I called, Claudia said she was taking a nap.'

Grace rarely took naps in the daytime.

‘Best thing, man.'

Sam found a parking spot and stared unseeing at the white building he was about to visit. ‘Still think there's something wrong about Duggan?'

‘If we can't find his life before death,' Martinez said, ‘sure I do.'

‘Could mean he wasn't who he claimed to be,' Sam said.

‘Let's don't get ahead of ourselves,' his friend said.

Sam had to follow the thought through. ‘Could mean Grace had real grounds to believe she was in danger.'

‘She thought he was Cooper,' Martinez said flatly. ‘We have to stay real. Even if Duggan turns out to be a grade-A sleazebag, it doesn't mean the judge is going to say it was OK for her to nail him with her car.'

‘He might if she was under
real
threat,' Sam said. ‘Self-defense.'

‘We still gotta prove it,' Martinez said.

David and Mildred flew in to Miami International from New York City early that evening, Saul and Cathy dispatched to meet them.

And to break the news.

‘Couldn't we keep it from them just a little longer?' Grace had asked Sam earlier. ‘It seems so cruel to ruin their homecoming this way.'

‘And if they heard it someplace else?' Sam had said gently.

And Grace had sagged a little and given way.

‘Sam said we should take you home,' Saul told the newly-weds while they were still reeling with shock.

Cathy had tried to get them to sit, have some coffee or something stronger, but neither David nor Mildred were having that.

‘We're not going home,' David said. ‘We're coming with you to Claudia's.'

‘I'm not sure that's what Grace wants,' Cathy said.

‘I don't know what she wants,' David said, ‘but what she's going to get is our love and support.'

‘The unconditional kind,' Mildred said.

David grasped at her hand, and she gripped it firmly.

‘Lousy homecoming,' Saul said.

‘We've had the honeymoon,' Mildred said. ‘Now comes the marriage.'

After the greetings, hugs and some tears, another family dinner, and then Sam drove them back to Golden Beach.

He had already checked on the house a few times, but he wanted to look around again to make sure all was secure. Daniel had tried persuading them to stay, though Névé was pretty much full, but neither of the senior Beckets had been prepared to countenance the idea.

‘You'll be noticing the occasional patrol car,' Sam told them on the way, glancing sideways at his father, waiting for an argument. David's lips did tighten for a moment, but that was all, and Sam guessed he was remembering Mildred's suffering at the hands of Cal the Hater.

‘One more thing, Dad,' Sam said.

This, he knew, would not be so easily received.

‘I took the liberty of having an alarm installed,' he said.

He heard his father's sharp intake of breath, but then Mildred's weathered hand reached out from the back and patted her husband's shoulder, and again David restrained himself.

‘I think that's a very kind idea,' Mildred said.

‘Dad?' Sam said. ‘Are you OK with it?'

‘Do I have a choice?' David asked.

‘It's been installed,' Sam said, ‘so I guess not.'

‘I can still choose not to use the damn thing,' David said.

‘He'll use it,' Mildred said.

Grace thought, upstairs at Névé, waiting for Sam's return, that she would never have believed it possible to be surrounded by all her loved ones and yet feel so alone.

They had all been the same as they always were around her. Meaning every word of unqualified love, their smiles as warming as always.

Yet she was ice cold inside.

She felt, in spite of their kindness, like a pariah. Her crime seeming, with every passing day, more unforgivable.

She knew that Jerry Wagner intended to find some means of pleading not guilty, hoped to keep her out of prison or an institution. And she knew that, for the sake of her family, she had to do all she could to help him.

But she was not really certain that she could do that.

Because she deserved to be punished.

TWENTY-FIVE

May 9

T
he same photograph of Duggan that Sara Mankowitz had given Sam, appeared in the newspapers on Sunday, with an appeal to anyone who recognized the victim to come forward with further information.

Other photos too.

New ones of Grace. One of her with Sam, taken a few years back at a fundraiser for Miami General, laughing together, having fun. Another taken as they'd left the courthouse on Friday afternoon.

Coverage in the
Herald
, the
Sun-Sentinel
, and the
Key Biscayne News
.

Same thing on the local TV news stations.

‘At least they didn't use her mug shot,' Robbie said to Mike.

‘Shut up, man,' his brother told him.

Saul and Cathy just coming out on to the deck.

‘It's OK,' Saul told them. ‘We've seen the papers.'

‘We've been trying to keep them from Grace,' Cathy said, ‘but I heard the TV on in their room, so I guess it's a losing battle.'

‘She's not doing so well, is she?' Mike said.

Saul slumped down on a lounger. ‘I've never seen her like this.'

‘It's eating her up.' Cathy sat beside him. ‘I don't know what to do for her.'

‘You're doing it,' Robbie said. ‘Staying close.'

‘Being yourself,' Mike agreed.

‘I guess it's all any of us can do,' Saul said.

In Golden Beach, Mildred and David had seen the newspapers with a sense of growing bleakness, had set them aside and tried to find a little solace in some honeymoon photos that Mildred had taken with her cellphone.

Not for long. Their hearts not in it.

‘I thought Joshua seemed to be feeling it too,' Mildred said. ‘Like summer and winter for him all in one. His mom cuddling him, playing with him every second, then suddenly backing off.'

David had noticed that too. ‘It's the way I've seen some terminal patients behave. Drawing close, then pushing loved ones away.'

‘She thinks she's going to jail,' Mildred said.

Her husband shook his craggy head. ‘It's unthinkable.'

‘Too many bad things have happened to this family,' Mildred said. ‘It isn't right.'

‘I don't know what it'll do to Sam if she's found guilty.'

‘Samuel's a strong man,' Mildred said.

‘Everyone has a breaking point,' David said.

Sam had come to the station at lunchtime.

He'd woken before dawn after less than two hours' sleep with the clear conviction that the best way for him to help Grace now was to get back on the job.

Two jobs now.

Keep on digging into the apparently mysterious Charles Duggan. And focus harder than ever on apprehending Jerome Cooper, because whatever came to pass in Grace's case, if Cal the Hater was put behind bars once and for all, then at least their family as a whole could start feeling safe again, free to move on with their lives.

‘Go to work,' Grace had told him.

Same as she'd told him yesterday, and he'd told her again this morning that he wanted to be with her, and she hadn't pulled away from him in a physical sense, but he'd felt her pushing him away nonetheless, and if he wasn't careful, there was a real risk she'd become even more withdrawn.

Bad for her, bad for Joshua, not great for him.

So he'd stuck around all morning, and then he'd left her with Claudia who was starting to put together brunch.

Martinez was in the office too, had brought in bagels with lox and fresh-squeezed juice from Markie's, one of their regular haunts, and Sam was surprised to find he was hungry.

‘You got a message.' Martinez nodded toward his phone.

Sam picked up and listened.

‘Tony and I heard what happened,' a familiar voice said. ‘Anything we can do, just ask.'

Angie Carlino was an old pal and former colleague, now a mom of three working in the Pinella County Sheriff's Office over in Tampa. She was tough, warm-hearted and always direct, and her tone in the message reflected that.

‘Love to you and Grace, and hang in there, both of you.'

Same kind of encouragement he'd been getting from his colleagues here on Washington Avenue.

Blessings to be counted.

His phone rang.

‘My, you're popular,' Martinez said.

‘Dave Rowan,' a gruff voice said, ‘with something you might want to check out.'

Detective Dave Rowan from Broward County Sheriff's homicide unit, was in charge of the Torres case now. They'd had some dealings with him a few years back, and Rowan was as aware as most local cops of Sam's history with Jerome Cooper, not to mention his family's present troubles.

‘We've been checking party-related nuisance complaints and arrests for the night of April twenty-fourth – ' the night Lilian Torres had believed her son to be attending a party – ‘and we've got nothing much our way, but it seems there was a pretty wild one at a vacant warehouse over in Wynwood.'

‘OK,' Sam said, and waited for more.

‘I'm sending you a link right now,' Rowan told him. ‘Someone posted a YouTube video filmed at the party. There's quite a crowd, but a couple of people stood out for me.'

‘Torres?'

‘Oh, yes.'

‘And Cooper?' Sam's pulse sped up.

‘I think you'd better take a look for yourself,' Rowan said.

When Magda Shrike had an hour to spare, she liked to break off from her paperwork catch-up time on a Sunday for some late brunch and a trawl through the newspapers.

Her first response on seeing Grace's photos on the
Herald's
front page was dismay. She had spoken with her friend briefly last evening, had heard the welter of emotions in her voice – shame the clearest of all.

A lot for her to bear, too much, but as soon as Grace was ready to accept some professional support, Magda would do her utmost to help her through.

Not ready yet, though, not by a long shot, and experience had taught both women that some pain had to be endured, worked through or just plain survived before counseling could be of real use.

Grace's expression in the photo snapped outside the courthouse filled Magda with sorrow.

Yet the images of her friend were not all that had seized her attention when she'd first looked at the newspaper.

It was the photograph of the victim, Charles Duggan.

‘
If you know this man, please call the helpline . . .
'

Magda did not believe that she knew him, but she was almost certain that she had seen him someplace before.

The problem was, she could not seem to remember where.

She leaned back now in her chair and shut her eyes, trying to filter out all the mental junk and pinpoint that memory . . .

Nothing specific.

Though it did vaguely seem to her that there might be a connection with one of the magazines to which she occasionally contributed. Her most recent article, titled ‘Fear and Beyond', had been published in
Psychology 101 Magazine
a month ago, and had necessitated several meetings with an editor at their offices on Biscayne Boulevard.

The telephone on her desk rang, and she let it go to voicemail.

Heard that it was a patient. Sounding needy.

She picked up the phone. ‘This is Dr Shrike.'

She folded up the newspaper with her left hand and set it aside.

Perhaps later, she might remember . . .

Tom O'Hagen had been calling Toy off and on for the best part of twenty-four hours.

Leaving voicemail some of the time.

Getting more and more wound up.

‘Where the fuck are you?'

And then, this morning, over a late breakfast, he'd seen it.

The photograph.

Twice over. On the TV and in the newspaper.

So he had stopped calling Toy.

Goddamned idiot.

‘Shit,' he said now.

Looked down at his half-eaten breakfast.