A Hard Death (17 page)

J
enner drove the Bentley back to Stella Maris, taking it slow more to make the drive last than for fear of damaging the quarter-million-dollar car. Maggie sat next to him, while Craine, subdued and quiet, rode in the back.

She asked Jenner to wait while she took her father inside. He watched her support Craine as they walked up the path to the side door. He waited by the fountain, sitting at the wheel of the beautiful car in front of the beautiful house, looking at the beautiful grounds.

After a quarter-hour, he walked down to the house parking lot; he'd just opened his car door when Maggie appeared again at the gap in the hedge. She'd let her hair down, and had a pale blue wrap around her shoulders.

“Thanks again, Jenner.” She shook her head. “I'm really sorry you had to see us like that. He's better than that—we both are.”

She walked down the steps, and this time didn't stop at the Craine halfway point. She stepped quickly up to Jenner, and he held her head and kissed her mouth as she pulled him close. He wrapped her in his arms, stroking her back through the thin cashmere.

Jenner pulled back and kissed her lips, then her cheek, then her forehead. Her eyes were soft and dreamy, green and infinite.

“You must think I'm crazy—I was upset. You do understand, don't you, Jenner?”

He shook his head. “You're not crazy. You're just in a tough spot.”

“Oh, I'm crazy alright.” Maggie gave a wan smile. “Jenner? Promise me we won't fall in love? It'll hurt too much when it ends.”

He hushed her, but she pushed him back, eyes dark and serious. “I mean it.”

So he promised, smiling. She kissed him again, and he felt the press of her lower lip between his teeth as she ground her hips against him.

There was the quiet clearing of a throat, and over her shoulder Jenner saw a uniformed member of the Craine house staff standing on the walkway, hands folded in front of him. “Excuse me, Miss Craine? Your father asked if you would stop by his study for a quick word.”

Maggie nodded; the attendant disappeared. She pulled away from Jenner, kissed the palm of her hand and brushed her kiss onto his cheek.

He climbed into his car; as he reversed, he looked for her on the steps, but she was already gone.

T
he sound of movement.

Jenner listened, suddenly awake.

The battered clock radio on the bedside table read 2:05 a.m.

The cabin was quiet.

Then the tapping came again. The front door.

He pulled on a T-shirt and sweats, and opened the door to find Maggie, her eyes rimmed with blurred mascara, shivering despite the wrap clutched tightly around her. Over her shoulder he saw the Bentley, straddling two parking spaces.

“I came, Jenner.”

“You okay?”

She shook her head as he opened the door, and she slipped into his arms and she kissed him over and over.

“What is it?”

Maggie shook her head again, and the wrap slipped off her shoulders, and she guided his hand back, helping him pop the catch at the top of her zip. His hand slipped the zipper down her back, and her dress fell away, and she was naked and smooth against him, tearing off his T-shirt.

Jenner pulled her down onto the bed; she kissed his face and his hair and then moved up to straddle him, leaning back so he could admire the swell of her breasts.

He lifted up to kiss her and she pushed him down, hand flat on his chest. She said, “Am I pretty, Jenner?”

He smiled and reached up for her, but she slapped his hand away. “Tell me.”

He lay back and said, “You're beautiful,” and it was true.

Maggie reached down, traced the width of his shoulders, touched
along the scar on his arm. She leaned up over him so he could kiss her stomach, and as his lips kissed her skin, she stroked his hair and he rolled her so he was on top.

She slid her wrists above her head, and he understood she wanted him to pin them down, and when he did, her hips lifted to him. He pressed her down, and her breath was hot on his neck as she whispered he should do whatever he wanted to her, that anything he wanted to do, she'd do it…Anything, anything,
anything
…She would be his slut, be his little bitch, be anything he wanted, if he would just…if he would just…

Afterward, when they'd both finished, Maggie let him sleep; she lay there and watched him for a long while. She pressed closer to him, kissed his shoulder, and whispered, “I'm sorry, Jenner,” because she already knew how things would go between them.

A little later, she went to the sink, filled a glass of water, and put it on his bedside table; it was hot in the room, and Jenner might get thirsty.

J
enner woke at seven a.m. Maggie was wearing her white dress from the night before, now wrinkled. Face scrubbed, she was putting her hair up in the dresser mirror.

She seemed slightly put out that he was awake. “I have to go see Lucy off to school—don't get up.”

He walked her to the front door. He held her hand, but her mood had cooled; she was already thinking about the day, and the previous night was now history.

On the porch, she gave him a peck on the cheek, then walked to the Bentley without the slightest trace of self-consciousness or shame. Her indifference was particularly striking, since Mrs. Foley was gawking two feet from the car in a Marshmallow Peep-yellow housecoat and matching slippers, her curler-knotted hair secured under a fuchsia kerchief.

They watched the Bentley pull out of the lot. Mrs. Foley looked at Jenner, shook her head slowly, then steamed off toward the laundry room.

Jenner sat at the table with his bowl of Weetabix, trying to figure out Maggie's life, her father in particular.

Lying in bed talking in the small hours, she'd told him Craine had bought her and Lucy their own house ten minutes' drive from Stella Maris. Maggie had made a point about how important it was to her to be independent, but Jenner figured her independence had a fairly clear dollar value, shaped largely by the luxury in which she'd grown up. More critically, there were her daughter's needs to consider: without a job, Maggie had no medical coverage other than what her father provided.

Lucy was thirteen, anorexic for a year as far as Maggie knew. She'd
just got out of a rehab center near Fort Myers that specialized in eating disorders—she'd collapsed at school, dehydrated from an exclusive diet of dry toast in the morning and laxative tablets the rest of the day. In the ER, at five foot six inches tall, she'd weighed in at under ninety pounds. But the doctors were optimistic—she'd done well at the clinic, and Lucy, her mother, and grandfather met weekly with Dr. Vargas at Stella Maris for an hour of discussion, visualization exercises, and creative role-play. Lucy was already up twelve pounds.

Jenner changed into his running clothes, then called the morgue. There were two cases waiting for him. The first was an elderly woman with a long history of heart disease, who'd died after cardiac bypass surgery; she was Jewish, and the family had a religious objection to autopsy. Jenner would perform a quick external examination, then photograph and release the body without a single incision, issuing a death certificate based on the available medical history.

The other case needed an autopsy, but sounded straightforward: an unidentified white man hit by a car on I-55 south of Bel Arbre. The cops figured the victim was probably a migrant worker, one of the new urban poor who now competed for jobs that had always gone to illegals. The driver was young, but hadn't left the scene, and had passed roadside sobriety tests. Here, the forensic challenge wouldn't be the cause of death but identifying the decedent.

An easy day, then. Jenner was relieved—he needed time to work on his eulogy for Marty's memorial service the next day.

Plus,
he thought,
I didn't get much sleep.

He stretched in the sunlit kitchen and, thinking about the night before, he allowed himself a smug grin.

C
lay Martin tapped the desk in front of Arlene Soto and said, “God, Arlene, how much longer will he be?”

“Oh, okay, Clay—why don't I just go in there and tell Sheriff Anders that Clay Martin and Gordie Cooper from Highway are sick of waiting for him to prepare for his national TV interview with Amanda Tucker on
American Crime
? That what you want?”

Martin snorted and said, “No, no, you know I don't want that. But jeez! Feels like we've been out here an hour!”

“Nuh-uh. You been here twenty-four minutes.”

Martin walked back to the bench where Cooper sat reading
Guns & Ammo
; Cooper didn't look up. He was about to sit when the door to Anders's office opened, and there was Anders, in full Class-A uniform, flushed, his brush-cut hair damp with Brylcreem. Martin nudged Cooper, who got slowly to his feet.

“Hey, sheriff.”

“Boys.” Anders smoothed his shirtfront, checking his reflection in a shiny black commemorative wall plaque. He turned to them. “So, how do I look?”

Cooper said, “Sharp, Tommy. Real sharp.” From the way he said it, Martin knew Cooper was enjoying himself; his words always got tight when he was having fun.

“Thanks, Coop.” Anders nodded at his reflection in the plaque, brushing the epaulets flat on his shoulders, then gestured into his office and said, “What can I do yer for?”

They followed him in and Cooper motioned for Martin to shut the door. The stacks of paper in Anders's office had been tidied, and his shooting trophy and the medal he'd received for bravery during a traffic stop had been shuffled to a more prominent place on his desk, next to
a framed photo of Anders as a boy standing next to his father, Sheriff Richard “Big Rick” Anders.

Tommy Anders sat behind his desk; furrowing his brow, he leaned forward and auditioned his pen set first to his right, then to his left. Neither seemed to satisfy him. He looked up. “Sorry. What you got, Gordie?”

Cooper shook his head, a reluctant expression on his face. “I'm not one for stirring things up that don't need to be stirred up, but I thought you should know this…”

“Okay.” Anders leaned back, eyes narrowing. He knew Cooper well enough to be wary of the man even when sharing a beer at a cookout in his own backyard. “What should I know?”

Cooper shook his head again, looking pained. “This morning when Clay and I were heading over to Denny's in Golden Palms, we passed by the Palmetto Court—where the doctor is staying?”

“And…?”

“Well, we saw a Bentley in the lot.”

“Huh.”

“Well, so, there's more. On the way back…” He glanced at Martin, as if for moral support. “On the way back, we took another look, and we saw Maggie Craine come out of the doctor's cabin, then get in the Bentley.”

Anders was silent for a second, his expression blank.

“Was the girl with her?”

“Nope. But she looked like she spent the night with him.” Cooper shifted in his chair as if his clothes were sticking to his skin.

Anders shook his head, then shrugged. “Not my concern, Gordie.”

“Looked like she was still dressed up from the night before.”

“I get it.”

“Sure, chief.” Cooper stood. “Just figured you'd want to know.”

Anders looked at him bleakly. “That it?”

“Pretty much.”

“Okay, see you guys around.”

As they left, Cooper turned back and grinned. Anders was still moving the pen set around on his desk; only now, his right foot was tapping urgently.

A
s Cooper and Martin left the office, a small mob was headed toward it: Arlene the receptionist and Diane from Public Affairs were escorting Amanda Tucker and her entourage down the hall.

The sheriff opened his door, then paused, framing himself carefully in his doorway for a second before approaching, hand outstretched, broad smile on his face.

“Miss Tucker, a real pleasure to meet you, ma'am.”

Amanda grasped his hand and said, “Me too, sheriff.” He enjoyed her grip, cool and confident, yet soft and feminine; the country needed more women like Amanda Tucker.

The segment producer suggested that the two should chat casually as they toured the building, so that the cameraman could get some interesting background shots, then sit down in the sheriff's office for a formal interview. The soundman clipped a small microphone to the upper part of Anders's shirt, where the straining buttons yielded to a ruff of white T-shirt, then had him slip the slender cable all the way down under his shirt. He threaded the cable out between two shirt buttons, plugged it into a black box smaller than a pack of cigarettes, then placed the box in the sheriff's hip pocket.

The sound engineer listened to his headphones, then gave a thumbs-up to the camera operator. The cameraman said, “A quick white balance, then we're a go…”

Amanda waited, head down, for the signal. She knew her hair was good, but her face felt over-made-up.

The producer nodded at the cameraman, who said, “Rolling…Speed.”

“Okay, Amanda, whenever you're ready.”

Close-up on Amanda: “This is Amanda Tucker. We're on location today at the Douglas County sheriff's office, in Port Fontaine, Florida. This wealthy, picturesque resort town was rocked last week by the discovery of the decomposed bodies of the county medical examiner and his wife in a sunken car; both of them had been tortured and killed.

“Then, two days later, the bodies of another four as yet unidentified men were found out in the Everglades; they had all been murdered by hanging.

“At the center of the investigation of these six homicides is a man who'll be very familiar to regular viewers of
American Crime Prime Time
—disgraced former New York City medical examiner Edward Jenner. Dr. Jenner is…Sorry, can we cut it there, Rob? I want to go again—I don't think my energy was right.”

“Okay, Amanda. I thought you were fine, but we need to adjust the mic levels—you're pinning the needle in the red.”

“Okay. Plus I think I want to go with ‘putrefied' instead of ‘decomposed.' What do you think?”

“Yeah, nice—putrefied's better.”

The sheriff leaned over and said, “Very interesting. Uh, Ms. Tucker? What do you mean ‘disgraced'? What you were saying about Dr. Jenner…”

“Please, sheriff—Amanda.” She pressed her hand to his arm conspiratorially, smiling widely, her eyes gleaming. “You don't know his story? I'm surprised. My team in New York is putting together a bio reel for Dr. Jenner—watch
Update
this afternoon, I think you'll find it quite an eye-opener.”

Christ,
Anders thought. What now? He'd let Roburn sort out his vacation coverage, and the ME had said he was bringing in one of the best. Jenner's name had sounded familiar but…

“Sheriff, can we get you and Amanda over by the statue and the flags?”

The producer moved them into position, the sheriff instantly cardboard-stiff and self-conscious beneath the flags and the bulky bronze bust of his father. Amanda said, “Let's not talk about Dr. Jenner's past right now—I'd prefer your unbiased opinion…”

Anders shook his head. “You know, Amanda, I have to admit I've developed some concerns about the doctor.”

She appraised him coolly. “You and me both, sheriff. Let's chat about this later—I think we can help each other out.”

The white light flared up again. Anders felt the flush of his face; he could almost hear his sweat begin to trickle.

“This is Amanda Tucker with Sheriff Tom Anders at the Douglas County sheriff's office, here in Port Fontaine, Florida. This picturesque, wealthy resort town was rocked last week by the discovery of the putrefied bodies of the county medical examiner and his wife…”

The segment producer watched with admiration. Amanda could be an utter, screaming bitch, but he had to give it to her: she was a pro. He savored the way she gently pushed “putrefied” without making it obvious, like a con man forcing a card on some rube.