Someone's Watching (25 page)

“What did she write, Roberta? What were her exact words?”

Someone yelled over the scraping sound of the skateboards.

“She wrote, ‘It’s my fault you’re in heaven. But remember, Joanne. You were always better than an angel.’ ”

He pulled back and blinked several times. “It’s my fault you’re in heaven?” He released Robbie’s hand. “She said it was her fault?”

“Yes, but that could mean anything. She could just be feeling guilty about the whole trip. Maybe it had been her idea.”

“So you’re starting on that again? That Kaitlin deliberately set up herself and her friend to get into trouble?”

“Please, Dad. I’m just telling you this so you know that Kate is very likely alive. That she probably sent the message.”

“Impossible.” He slammed the bench with his open hand. “Impossible. She would never have written such a thing.”

“Well, that’s something Detective Lieber will have to try to figure out.”

“You’ve told the detective about this?”

It had become clear to Robbie that she had to tell Lieber. “Not yet, but I’m planning to.”

“So that she should think Kaitlin is a murderer?”

“No, Dad. So that she can try to find Kate. Maybe there’s some
technology that can trace the message. Or maybe Lieber can fit this piece of information with other things she knows. I don’t think it does Kate any good to keep her message hidden from the police.”

“And you believe this will help them? That they’ll do something with it? What have they done so far? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

“That’s not true.”

“Then where is she? Why haven’t they found her?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s been twelve days. Twelve days since she’s disappeared. They’ve done nothing to find my little girl.” He covered his face with his hands and his shoulders shuddered.

She understood how overwrought he must be. She wanted to touch him, to comfort him, but he gave off a vibe—as though choosing to remain closed to her. Behind them, skateboard wheels scraped against concrete going up the hill, then down. Up the hill, then down.

When her father raised his head, his cheeks were wet. “So you’re going to tell the police that you think Kaitlin murdered her friend. And you believe this will help them? Sure it will. It will give them a tidy explanation for everything. Joanne’s death, Kaitlin’s disappearance. They’ll have their case all wrapped up nice and neatly thanks to you.”

“They won’t do that.”

He stood up. “I thought you cared about her. That you wanted to help her.”

“Of course I do.”

“I never imagined you’d be this hateful toward your only sister.” He began walking away.

Anger flared up inside her. “Wait a minute. Stop.”

He turned to look at her, his face almost unrecognizable in its flatness.

“I’m not being hateful. You’re the one who’s twisting things. You just don’t want to admit that whatever happened to Kate may have something to do with you.”

“How dare you?”

“No. How dare you? I’m finally starting to understand you. Why everything is always someone else’s screwup, never yours.”

His face turned red, his jaw twisting. “My screwup?” Spittle formed on his lip.

“You’re the one who walked out on my mother after cheating on her. You could have fought for joint custody or at least visited me, especially when my mom was sick, so why didn’t you? And then there’s Kate’s mom. You’re a doctor, for God’s sake. Couldn’t you see she was an alcoholic and needed help? Couldn’t you have intervened? And . . . and then there’s Kate.” Robbie paused to catch her breath, enraged. “Kaitlin, you still call her. That’s not her name. She calls herself Kate. How well can you possibly understand her if you don’t even acknowledge the name she uses?”

He stared at his scuffed penny loafers. His lips moved. “Kate,” she thought he said.

“That’s right. Kate. Did it ever occur to you that maybe she ran off because of something you did or didn’t do? That all this is your fault?”

He slumped like a broken old man, the wind blowing his hair.

Robbie’s anger dissolved. But in its place was emptiness. She had her father back, but he was anything but the misunderstood victim she had believed he was two days ago.

She turned from him and walked toward the hill. The sound of wheels scraped the concrete paths, getting louder and louder. Up the hill, then down. Up the hill, then down.

Jeremy leaned against the balcony railing outside his apartment. The rainstorm over downtown had passed and there was a coolness in the air. But it wouldn’t be long before the heat burned through. Directly below him was the pool. It was almost noon, but only a few people were out. A middle-aged man and woman reading newspapers, a man in a loud print shirt and floppy hat covering his face. Not the usual crowd.

How long had it been since the last time he’d come out on his balcony? Weeks? Months? It had been his and Robbie’s favorite place to hang out. They’d share a bottle of wine and watch the downtown lights, the bay rippling in the moonlight. But after she left, he couldn’t stand being out here without her.

How close they’d come to getting back together. The drive to the Keys in his dad’s Corvair. Like old times. The way she kissed him, looked at him. They’d been so close. So damn close.

He breathed in the smell of bay water. His eye throbbed from where Brett had punched him. He’d punched Brett, too. He knew his blood and Brett’s had mingled, that forensics would confirm they’d fought. But Jeremy had readily admitted it. The question was, who had gotten to Brett after Jeremy had left? And why?

He remembered his efforts to find his own parents’ murderer. How Marina, his father’s graduate assistant, had helped him put together lists of suspects and motives. It had been over a year, but he
still felt a stab when he thought about her—her wild copper-colored hair, her small round mouth.

But Marina was gone. And now it was Robbie trying to solve the puzzle of what happened to her sister and sister’s friend. She was with her father now. Would she talk to Lieber about her sister’s message? Jeremy wanted her to, but not, as he’d told Robbie, because he thought it would help Lieber’s investigation. His purpose had been more self-preserving. He was hoping this clue from Kate would direct Lieber’s attention away from him. Because if Lieber was chasing after Kate—well, she couldn’t be in two places at one time, could she? And that would buy Jeremy some time to clear himself from suspicion in Brett’s murder.

Jeremy thought back to the scene at Mike’s house. Lots of money had been poured into that place. Did a guy who owned a PR firm make that kind of money? Maybe. But there was something sketchy about Mike—the crowd he hung out with at BURN, all those cars with tinted windows, the waterfront house. To Jeremy, it smelled like drugs. Maybe that’s what this was all about. Maybe Brett had gotten sucked into it and wasn’t playing along. He sure looked like he was coming unglued at BURN last Friday, then at the gym on Monday. Maybe Mike felt like Brett couldn’t be trusted any more. Or maybe someone was pissed at Mike and was making an example of Brett.

But how could Jeremy get on the inside of that? He didn’t associate with the drug crowd.

Metal scraped against concrete. Jeremy looked back down at the pool. Sunbathing time. The club girls set up their lounges close to the bay and pulled off their bathing suit tops. Even from this distance, Jeremy could see Tyra’s boobs bouncing like a couple of volleyballs.

Tyra might know what was going on with Mike and his crowd. She was a regular at BURN and probably mingled with its darker
side, too. The question was, would she be willing to talk to Jeremy?

Jeremy took the stairs down the eight flights, feeling like he could use the exercise after the intensity of this morning with the detective. He put on his sunglasses so his swollen eye wouldn’t be conspicuous, and approached the lounging area near the swimming pool. In his sneakers he didn’t make much noise.

Tyra was lying on her back. Her breasts shone like a pair of greased-up piglets, ready for the spit. On the lounge beside her, close enough for Tyra to touch, was the blonde girl called Angel. She was lying on her chest, face turned to the side, eyes closed as though asleep. Her full lips and makeup-less face reminded Jeremy of a child’s.

Tyra cupped her hand over her eyes and squinted up at Jeremy. Her hair was wrapped in a scarf and her gold hoop earrings pulled her earlobes down. “You’re blocking my sun, Muscleman.”

“Sorry.” Jeremy moved aside and dragged a lounge chair around to the other side of her. The couple he’d seen earlier reading newspapers had gone into the pool and were splashing each other playfully. They looked like visitors—the woman in a one-piece bathing suit, the man with swimming trunks pulled up to his waist. The other man wearing the loud shirt was still lying on a lounge chair. He had his face covered with a floppy hat, his head resting on his beach bag.

“So,” Jeremy said, not sure how to get into this, “how’s it going?”

Tyra sat up on her chair and scowled. Her green eyes reminded him of fake jewels in a cheap doll. “Goin’ good. Why do you care?”

“I don’t know. We’re neighbors. I see you at BURN all the time. I’m just being friendly.”

“Friendly?” She angled her head, clearly not buying.

“Okay. I want to ask you something. There are some people at BURN. I don’t know them very well, but I was hoping you could tell me about them.”

“Why would I tell you anything?”

“I don’t know. Because you know I’m a good guy. And I think these other people are into some bad shit.”

“Like what?”

“Drugs, maybe.”

“So you think I’m into bad shit?”

“No, no. Nothing like that. It’s just, I always see you there. And you’re a smart lady. I’m guessing you pick up on things. That you know who’s trouble and who to stay away from.”

“You sayin’ I like to watch my ass?”

“Well, who doesn’t?”

“You got that right, Muscles.”

“So what about this guy Brett Chandler? You know him?”

“Maybe.”

“You heard someone killed him?”

She shrugged. “What if someone did?”

“Just that Brett wasn’t the kind of guy who gets killed. Good family. College boy. Well-connected.”

“I see. So he was a friend of yours?”

“I knew him years ago. In high school.”

“So what do you want from me?”

“I’m trying to figure out who may have had a reason to kill him.”

“You’re talking to the wrong person. I’m no detective.”

“Please, Tyra. Help me out here. What’s the deal with Brett’s boss, Mike—Mister M?”

Tyra lay back down on the lounge. “Go away, Muscles. You’re eating into my tanning time.”

“Is he into drugs?”

Tyra didn’t answer. Her chest muscles tightened under the fake boobs.

“Just tell me who I should talk to. Does Mike have enemies? Someone who was getting to him by making an example of Brett?”

“Go away,” she said without opening her eyes.

“Come on, Tyra. I know you know stuff.”

She sat up. There was rage in her eyes. “I said get the fuck away from me.”

The couple in the pool stopped laughing and splashing. The man on the lounge was peering out beneath his floppy hat.

“I just want to find out what’s going on before someone else gets hurt.”

“Get away from me,” Tyra screamed. “Get the fuck away.”

Jeremy stood up. “Okay. Fine. Calm down.”

“Away,” Tyra said. “Stay away from us. You hear me, motherfucker?”

Jeremy glanced back at Angel. She was watching him, head slightly raised. Her full lips moved, ever so slightly. But he was pretty sure he could read them.

“Help me,” she mouthed. “Help me.”

Robbie biked up Washington Avenue so fast that her leg muscles hurt. She was furious with her father.

What she’d said to him was true. She knew it. He knew it. He was a weak-willed, self-righteous bastard who never took the blame for anything. He was the reason Kate was gone. And now, it was like destiny playing a big joke on him. He’d given up one daughter willingly, and his other daughter had left him in turn.

She slowed her pedaling and came to a stop at a red traffic light. The early afternoon sun beat down on her while a crowd of jostling teenage girls and boys crossed in front of her bike.

But was her dad really a horrible person or just an ordinary man with human failings? And how perfect was Robbie in her own relationships that she should criticize him?

The light turned green. Cars moved around her. Someone honked. She stepped on the pedal and pushed off. Would she have reacted much differently if her own child had been missing for twelve days? Would she have blamed herself? Probably. Maybe her father did, too. Perhaps his anger and denial were just a reflection of how ineffectual he felt.

But even if that were the case, it didn’t stop the hurt. The truth was that her whole life Robbie had secretly believed if she did everything right, everything she possibly could to be a good girl, her father
would realize he made a mistake and return to her with all the love she had missed out on.

The police station was to her left. Robbie waited until the oncoming traffic cleared, then turned onto Eleventh Street. She pushed her bike into the stand and locked it. She thought about her meeting with Lieber this morning. How focused the detective was on Jeremy’s connection to Brett’s death. Was Robbie, as her father believed, making a mistake coming to talk to the detective now? Would Robbie’s information just give the detective an easy out in wrapping up the case of who killed Joanne and why Kate had disappeared?

Her gut told her it was the right thing to do, so why did she feel so unsettled?

Robbie went to the check-in window, asked for Detective Lieber, and was told to wait. The sunlight coming in through the windows created a pattern of rectangles on the floor. A few minutes later, the same uniformed cop who had escorted her earlier brought her back upstairs. This time he led her through an open area with dozens of workstations. He continued to the back, stopping in front of a large windowed room with a door.