Mind Games (9 page)

‘He got mad?’

‘Not exactly. He got offended, said something about he’d done his bit by telling me, and now it was up to us, but he thought we should come.’ Claudia paused. ‘I’d
say what he wants is for someone to shoulder the burden, take care of Mama after her operation.’

‘Well, that someone can’t be you,’ Grace said quickly, hoping to quash any feelings of guilt even before they were born. ‘You have Daniel and the boys to take care of,
and you can’t afford to risk getting sucked back into that old hellhole just because Frank Lucca makes one phone call in a decade.’

‘I know that, Grace,’ Claudia said, softly. ‘I didn’t say I’d go.’

‘Good,’ Grace said, a little sickened by the force of anger that had just welled up out of her. She shut her eyes again, thought about Ellen, pictured her sick and afraid and having
to face coming home after surgery to her shitbag of a husband. ‘Oh, God,’ she said, violently, and opened her eyes.

‘Grace, are you okay?’

‘Yes. I guess.’ She knew she didn’t sound okay. ‘Just facing the fact that I’m trying to stop you from feeling guilty about Ellen, but I’m not even sure I can
switch my own feelings off.’

‘You’re human, too, Grace,’ Claudia pointed out, calmly, then paused. ‘So what do we do now?’

‘I think we should wait a while,’ Grace said. ‘With Easter in a couple of days, we probably couldn’t get a flight to Chicago if we wanted to. Anyway, we both have
commitments.’ Cathy Robbins’ face came into her mind, and she remembered the phone number in her hand. ‘Matter of fact, sis, there’s someone I need to call right
now.’

‘That’s fine,’ Claudia said. ‘Are you still up for this weekend?’

Grace thought about the prospect of two days and nights with her sister and brother-in-law and their sons down in Islamorada, and warmth coursed through her.

‘I wouldn’t miss it,’ she said.

Frances Dean was evasive on the telephone, bordering on hostile, but Grace had the feeling that was probably because the older woman was now associating her with Sam Becket and
the rest of the Miami Beach Police Department – and with Beatrice Flager’s murder plainly raising the temperature of suspicion towards her niece, Grace could hardly blame Frances for
that. Nor could she, Grace supposed, somewhat grudgingly, entirely blame Sam Becket for doing what the taxpayer paid him to do.

Out of the blue, something came back to her. The niggly feeling she’d had last Saturday after she’d noticed the Band-Aid on Cathy’s arm and failed to ask Becket about it. Now
Grace had just been given the perfect opportunity by Frances Dean to abandon this case, to forget all about Cathy and Marie and Arnold Robbins, to legitimately walk away from a girl who might
– who just
might
– have murdered three people, one of them her own mother.

The thing was, Grace simply did not believe that. And even if she did, it was not in her province to prove Cathy Robbins’ innocence or guilt. If she was going to continue with an ugly
situation that was likely to turn even uglier, Grace was going to have to stick around to help Cathy come to terms and deal with what had happened to her.

Even if what had happened to her was becoming a killer.

Grace had to break through two barriers next morning in order to set up her new session with Cathy. First she had to persuade Frances that, no matter what she might be feeling
about the way the investigation was being conducted, Grace was still on her niece’s side. Second, she had to obtain police permission to use the specific location she had in mind for this
next meeting. The Robbins’ house on Pine Tree Drive was officially still a crime scene, cordoned off from normality, but it was where Grace felt she most wanted to speak with Cathy –
provided the teenager agreed.

She did agree. Grace had been almost certain she would.

‘So long as we don’t have to go back to that room,’ she said.

‘We most certainly don’t,’ Grace assured her.

Going back to the scene of the horror was not Grace’s reason for wanting to take Cathy to the house. She was aware that one of the traumas adding to the girl’s load was the fact that
she had been wrenched, from one moment to the next, out of her home. As if the manner of losing her parents had not been horrifying enough, Cathy had simultaneously lost that other major anchor.
Home was where people needed to go to lick their wounds, to begin to recover. In her aunt’s house – however well-meaning Frances Dean was trying to be – Cathy couldn’t be
herself. She had her aunt’s own grief and immaculate rooms to be considerate of. She had a room of her own to go to, to be alone, but it was not
hers
. Grace was in no way
underestimating the potential trauma of making this first journey back into what had surely, in her mind, now become a house of horror. Yet that last event, that last nightmare, represented only
one night; Cathy Robbins had lived within those walls for years. She needed, Grace thought, to touch base with her roots, with herself, and going back with someone sufficiently detached to let her
react the way she needed to, might, Grace hoped, be good for her.

Sam Becket, too, thought it a good idea. He’d brought up the notion with her aunt at one point, in the hope that returning to the house might jog something in Cathy’s memory, but
Frances Dean had rejected it ferociously. He was glad she had given her consent to Grace.

‘I guess she doesn’t consider you family enemy number one,’ he said on the phone, after giving her police permission to enter the crime scene.

‘I guess she doesn’t think I’ll just be taking Cathy home to try and trap her,’ Grace said. ‘Not that that’s why I think you would have taken her
there.’

‘Why do you think I would have?’ Becket asked.

‘To get closer to the truth,’ Grace answered.

‘Isn’t that what you’re hoping to do, Dr Lucca?’

‘In a way.’

The house was a big, but not too grand, mock Tudor, with plenty of landscaped space around it. Grace noted three different kinds of palm trees, bougainvillaea, jasmine, roses,
a smooth, immaculately maintained front lawn – the image of tranquillity – until the partially torn crime-scene tape and careless litter of soft drink cans and discarded coffee cups
reminded her of the brutal reality.

They entered from the side, moved through the kitchen and into the hallway. Grace didn’t need to watch Cathy’s face; the tension was coming off her in palpable waves. The first pangs
of self-doubt and guilt hit Grace hard.

‘Where do you want to go to feel safe, Cathy?’ she asked.

Her answer was instant. ‘The backyard.’

‘Let’s go.’

Grace followed her back through the side entrance and around to the rear of the house, and right away she understood. It was the kind of backyard any teenager would like to live with. It was big
and private, its perimeters lined with shady palms and a lovely Jacaranda tree. The lawn was good-sized, there was a great, tempting pool with a diving board, a stone barbecue, table and chairs, a
couple of swing-seats with canopies and a hammock. There was also a pool-house at the end of the garden with a second barbecue, and Grace guessed that Cathy had spent a lot of time down there with
friends. If she had friends. Grace realized, abruptly, that she’d seen or heard no evidence of any youngsters coming to her aunt’s house, or calling. Not that that proved much; Grace
knew very well that death of all kinds caused some people of all ages to keep their distance.

‘This is a great backyard for parties,’ she said, softly, watching Cathy’s face, glad that here, at least, the memories seemed to be happy.

‘My parents threw a few,’ she answered, ‘when Arnie wasn’t working at the restaurants. He loved parties.’

‘What about your mother?’

‘Not so much. Mom was quieter, you know?’ Cathy paused. ‘No, I guess you don’t.’

‘I’d like to hear, if you want to tell me.’

‘Can I take off my shoes, dunk my feet in the pool?’

‘It’s your pool,’ Grace said. ‘You don’t need permission.’

‘I feel like I need to ask before I do anything these days.’

‘Not with me.’

Cathy took off her sneakers without untying her laces. Grace did the same, and they both sat down on the edge of the pool. Cathy was wearing shorts and a halter neck top; Grace wore tan slacks,
but wished she’d put on a pair of shorts instead. The water felt great. Cathy gave a long sigh. It sounded like relief.

‘What?’ Grace asked.

‘It feels the same,’ she said.

‘It is the same.’

‘Nothing’s the same,’ she said.

Grace couldn’t argue.

They sat silently for a while.

‘I would like to hear about your mother,’ Grace said, at last.

‘What do you want to know?’

‘Anything.’ Grace knew better than that. ‘Were you good friends?’

‘I guess.’ Cathy stared into the blue water. ‘Mom wasn’t really fun, you know? Though she could be, sometimes, when she let herself go. Arnie was fun. Mom was
quieter.’ She paused. ‘I said that already, didn’t I?’

‘That doesn’t matter.’

‘She worried a lot,’ Cathy said.

‘What about?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Didn’t she confide in you?’

‘Did your mom tell you private stuff?’ It was the same kind of retaliatory question she’d come back with near the start of their last session, before she’d started to
settle down a little.

‘My mother only told me private stuff when it suited her.’ Grace was still sure that straight was the only way to go with Cathy. One of her first tutors had taught her that it was
okay to refer to her own life experiences with a patient so long as the focus remained firmly on them.

‘Is that why you became a shrink?’

‘It may have been part of the reason.’

Grace had told Sam Becket that Cathy was an intuitive person. Fourteen going on twenty-four, the psychologist thought now, and wondered if that acuteness was going to help or hinder her position
with the Miami Beach Police Department.

‘I think my mom just wanted to protect me,’ Cathy said, abruptly.

‘From what?’

‘From bad stuff.’

There it was again.
Years of misery
, her aunt had referred to briefly, cryptically. And the flashes that Cathy hadn’t wanted to talk about. Or had thought she ought not to talk
about.

They sat quietly again for a few minutes. Cathy drew circles in the water with her big toes. Grace felt the sun on her face, the slight breeze in her hair, and let herself relax a little. They
had time.

‘You heard what happened to the therapist, didn’t you, Grace?’

Grace had decided not to refer to the Flager killing unless Cathy brought it up first. She had anticipated that Cathy probably would.

‘Was Beatrice Flager the therapist you told me about?’ she asked, carefully. ‘The one who taped you.’

‘Yes.’ Cathy hesitated. ‘I didn’t kill her.’

‘I didn’t imagine you did,’ Grace said, matter-of-factly. ‘Detective Becket and one of the other officers wanted to know if I’d been in Aunt Frances’ house
all night Tuesday.’

‘I know,’ Grace said.

‘Did you tell him what I said about Ms Flager?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘For one thing, I didn’t think it was relevant.’

Cathy hit the surface of the pool harder with her left heel, making a splash and sending droplets flying over them both. Grace didn’t mind.

‘Is what I tell you the same as stuff I might tell a priest?’ Cathy asked. ‘I mean, don’t you have to tell, if the police ask you?’

‘Like the sanctity of the confessional, you mean? Yes, more or less,’ Grace answered. ‘It’s called doctor-patient confidentiality. That means that I’m not allowed
to disclose things you’ve told me, unless you give me permission to talk about them.’
Or unless you’re likely to harm yourself or anyone else
, she added silently.

‘Even if you think I’ve done something really bad? Like killing three people?’ Cathy’s voice was hard, but the fear beneath the bravado was audible. She stood up
suddenly. ‘I think we should go back inside again.’

‘Are you sure you want to?’ Grace got up, too.

‘No.’ Cathy shrugged. ‘But now I know I can escape out here, I’m willing to risk it.’

‘And we can just leave anytime, too.’

They went back the way they’d come, into the kitchen. Cathy wanted to look in the refrigerator. She said that she wanted something cold to drink, but Grace felt she was
probably hoping for a quick fix of the way things had been. Ice boxes were personal things, favourite foods laid out in specific ways. Grace wasn’t sure what might be worse for the bereaved
teenager: finding that her family refrigerator had been emptied by strangers, or finding it much as it had been.

It was well-stocked, and visibly tough on Cathy. There was a whole bunch of stuff in there that Marie or the housekeeper had probably brought back from the market not long before the killings;
and there were plastic containers of soup and pasta sauces with stickers labelled
Arnie’s
that Grace supposed had been brought back from one or other of the restaurants.

Cathy stared at the contents for about a minute. Grace wondered what it was she was seeing in her head. Her mother taking out eggs and milk and bread and making French toast? Arnie opening one
of those bottles of white wine that stood in the ice box door? The family sitting round the kitchen table, eating brunch? Maybe she was replaying an argument, or maybe she was thinking that
she’d never seen Marie cooking breakfast or any other meal, that maybe the housekeeper had done all the cooking – or maybe Arnie had brought his restaurant skills home with him each
night? Under different circumstances, Grace might have asked Cathy to tell her what she was seeing in her family ice box, but at that moment it just didn’t seem like the right thing to
do.

Cathy closed the door quietly. ‘I need to get out of here.’

‘Okay,’ Grace said. ‘Out of the house, or just the kitchen?’

‘I’d like to go to my room.’

‘Alone or with company?’

‘Not alone.’ She said that fast, fearfully.