Caged (5 page)

Having two victims, Sam and Martinez knew, was either going to make it easier or a whole lot harder.

Easier, in this case.

A couple named Suzy and Michael Easterman had been reported missing on Friday evening by their parents. Mr Easterman, an architect aged twenty-six, tall, dark-haired, his face with boyish, sweet features. His wife an illustrator, two years younger than her husband, with long blonde hair, pretty, even features and a tiny willow tree tattoo on her lower back designed, according to her mother, by herself.

Leaving little room for doubt.

The report stated that the couple had married at Christmas and moved into their house on La Gorce Drive – less than three miles from the Oates Gallery – just three weeks ago. Suzy spoke to her mother, Audrey Stein, most days and had been due to meet her Friday lunchtime at Bal Harbour. When her daughter had failed to appear and after repeated calls to her cell and home phones had proven useless, Mrs Stein had attempted to contact her son-in-law and learned that the reliable young architect had also been a no-show without explanation at his office yesterday.

Following a series of increasingly frantic calls to family members and friends of the couple, Mrs Stein had raised the alarm.

Newly-weds.

Sometimes, Sam and Martinez both hated their work.

NINE

T
hese days, Miami’s morgue was known either as the Joseph H. Davis Center for Forensic Pathology, or as the Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner’s Office. But though it was an attractive, comfortable enough place to visit, the grim fact was it took in over three thousand corpses a year.

Its address was 1 Bob Hope Road, but there was little laughter there.

Still a morgue.

The ME investigator who’d brought the identification photographs to the two sets of parents waiting in the Family Grieving Room off the lobby, had never grown used to watching people’s worlds crashing.

‘I’m so very sorry,’ he told Suzy and Michael Easterman’s parents, after he’d helped snuff out any lingering trace of hope.

William Stein voiced one of the questions on all their minds. ‘Did our children suffer?’

The investigator wished he could have flat-out lied to the man, but all he could do was offer kindness and courtesy and ask them to wait for the medical examiner’s report. He knew, looking at the wreckage of these poor people’s faces, that their suffering was only just beginning.

‘I want to see my son,’ Ben Easterman said.

Which was not yet possible.

To the parents, that seemed like cruelty being piled on savagery.

Like the detectives, the ME investigator did not always like his job.

In his office on the second floor, away from the grieving families, Elliot Sanders was sharing grim findings with Sam and Martinez.

‘Glue, for sure,’ he said. ‘Inside as well as out. In Mrs Easterman’s vulva and vagina and her husband’s urethra.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m still putting this together, but I’d guess that whoever did this washed and dried them after death, and then went to work with anything from a turkey baster to a syringe pump.’

The two detectives looked at each other wordlessly.

‘Three more things, by the by,’ Sanders said. ‘Plain-edged blade on the weapon that killed them. Sliced, not slashed. No serration, no distinctive markings, but you’re probably looking for a blade an inch or more wide.’

‘How many million of those in this fucking city?’ Martinez said.

‘I did find some marks on Mr Easterman’s left ankle and on his wife’s right leg that could have been made by shackles of some kind.’

‘This just gets sicker by the minute,’ Martinez said.

‘Or more evil,’ Sam said, and for a moment he felt a terrifying awareness of their helplessness in the face of true wickedness.

And then his head-cold came to save him with another big sneeze.

Brought him back to a kind of normality.

‘You said three more things,’ he reminded Sanders.

‘Crime Scene found a little blood in the old art gallery, and some traces of cocaine,’ the ME said. ‘I’ll keep you posted.’

TEN

W
ith the rest of the team working the neighbourhood around the former Oates Gallery, Sam and Martinez had come to the Easterman house on La Gorce Drive, a beautiful creamy two-storey home set back off the exclusive road near 59th Street, its palm-shielded front garden making it potentially more vulnerable to crime.

A warrant had been applied for, though not yet obtained, but consent for a search had been given by next-of-kin, both sets of grieving parents frantic to assist in any way possible, and the detectives knew that the relatives would in due course have a torrent of questions for them – too many unanswerable – but for now they had their early crushing shock to deal with, and Sam and Martinez planned to wait until tomorrow to speak to them.

For now, they had a possible witness to interview, though if anything at the house appeared likely to provide evidence of the crime, they would halt and wait for the warrant before continuing.

Mayumi Santos, the couple’s Filipino housekeeper, had returned early Friday evening after staying with a cousin during her weekly twenty-four hours off, to find Suzy’s anxious mother waiting.

Now, seated in her employers’ kitchen, Mayumi appeared distraught.

‘Mrs Stein tell me she phoned Mrs Easterman many times when she did not come to Bal Harbour – ’ her English was stilted but rapid – ‘and then she came here and we went to the bedroom and I see they have not slept here because when Mrs Suzy – my employers tell me to call them Suzy and Mike, but I don’t like . . .’ She broke off and began weeping.

The kitchen was a palace of granite and sleek stainless steel, and before long the detectives would be ushering Santos from the house in order to preserve any possible evidence; but since she’d been here since yesterday evening, had slept here and presumably bathed, cooked, eaten and washed dishes, Sam and Martinez saw little to be gained by rushing the shocked young woman out of the home she might never have the opportunity of living in again.

Kinder and perhaps more productive to speak to her here.

‘Have you noticed anything missing in here, Ms Santos?’ Sam asked.

His eyes passed over a knife rack on the wall above a granite counter, registered six gleaming knives of different sizes all present and correct, and they’d come to those later, ensure that any with plain blades an inch or more wide were examined for evidence that might, feasibly, have been missed by a killer during washing.

The young woman’s eyes followed his gaze and widened in alarm. ‘Nothing, sir.’

‘Can you show us where the other knives are kept?’ Martinez asked.

‘Yes, sir.’ Mayumi stood up, moved over to a run of deep drawers, then hesitated. ‘May I touch?’

Sam stood to her right, not too close. ‘Can you open the drawers with one finger, do you think?’

‘I already opened them today like normal,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘That’s all right, ma’am,’ Martinez said.

She opened a large drawer and Sam, looking with her, saw a neatly arranged grouping of cooking, chopping, paring and peeling knives.

Santos appeared to be counting under her breath.

‘Everything is here,’ she said, finally.

‘Are you sure?’ Martinez asked.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Thank you,’ Sam said.

Martinez moved on. ‘You said you could see that Mr and Mrs Easterman had not slept here.’

‘Yes, sir,’ she said. ‘I could see this because when Mrs Suzy makes the bed, it looks very different.’

‘And when did you last make their bed?’ Sam asked.

‘On Thursday morning, sir.’

Beyond that, she had little to offer. So far as she could tell, nothing in the house appeared to have been disturbed. Nor was there even the slightest indication of any visitors having called during her absence.

‘I check the dishwasher,’ she said, ‘in case I should empty it, but there was nothing inside.’

‘Is that unusual?’ Martinez asked. ‘After your day and night off?’

‘Not so usual, sir.’ She paused and added with simple logic: ‘But if they were not here, then they would have used no dishes.’

‘So you don’t think they cooked here?’ Sam asked.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘It didn’t look like they did.’

‘Did they usually cook on your day off?’ Martinez asked.

‘Sometimes.’

‘Did you notice if the sheets on the bed were the ones you put on?’ Sam asked.

‘I did not check that, sir,’ Santos said.

They went upstairs together, and she peered at the bed.

‘May I lift the corner, please?’

‘Sure,’ Martinez said.

Mayumi Santos raised one edge of the spread, looked closely at the bedding beneath, studied the smooth cotton and its perfectly tweaked edges.

‘I did this,’ she said.

‘Good job,’ Martinez said.

‘Thank you, sir,’ she said, on the verge of tears again.

And though the Crime Scene technicians would pore over every inch of every sheet and pillow case as well as the mattress beneath, Sam and Martinez both felt they’d be surprised if they found anything of interest in the Eastermans’ bed.

ELEVEN

N
o one in the unit liked working Sundays, especially when they were working a homicide, but it was hard for Sam and Martinez to picture anything much lousier than having to pay their respects to the shattered families of two horribly slain young people.

Having to start prying into their too-short lives.

People all took homicide investigations in different ways, some with their responses dulled, some raging against every step. Some relatives were unable to face anything more than the fact of the death, or not even that – especially not that. Others wanted to be
doing
something to help nail the evil that had stolen their loved ones, and whichever way they leaned, buffeted by their agony, it could be pretty hard on the cops too.

Nice people here, open with their pain, wanting to help and be helped.

‘I was so anxious not to seem to be poking my nose into their marriage,’ Audrey Stein told Sam and Martinez just after eleven in the elegant grey living room of their tenth-storey apartment overlooking Bal Harbour. ‘Suzy called me most days, but if she didn’t I held back, made myself wait to hear from her. If I hadn’t done that on Friday morning . . .’

She had to stop to press her sodden white handkerchief to her eyes as her shoulders shook and her hands trembled.

William Stein, his own eyes red, put an arm around her and gazed helplessly at the detectives. ‘Some of the friends Audrey called thought that Suzy and Mike might have decided to go somewhere overnight because it was Mayumi’s day off—’

‘But I knew that was nonsense,’ Audrey Stein broke in, the handkerchief back in her lap, being twisted back and forth by agitated fingers, ‘because even though they really liked May, Suzy and Mike both loved having the house all to themselves for a little while.’

There was no clutter in the room, everything perfectly maintained, with a handsome cabinet housing a Lalique glass collection. Photographs everywhere in polished silver frames, many of their daughter, alone or with her husband.

‘Anyway,’ William Stein added, ‘there was simply no way that Suzy would leave town without calling her mom.’

‘Is there anything you can tell us about Ms Santos, ma’am?’ Martinez asked.

‘May’s a good girl,’ Mrs Stein said, quickly and emphatically. ‘She used to work for friends of ours, but they moved into a smaller apartment in Boca and had to let her go.’

‘I know that Mike had all her papers and references,’ William Stein said. ‘They’ll be in the filing cabinet in his home office.’

‘Who could have done this?’ Audrey Stein said, and began sobbing. ‘Why would anyone do such a wicked thing to two decent, beautiful young people?’

The detectives had no answer to give her.

Their first interview with Ben and Sissy Easterman was just as sad, though whereas Suzy had been the Steins’ only child, at least this living room was brimming with Michael’s siblings and other family who, it seemed to Sam and Martinez, just kept pouring into the apartment.

A West Country Club Drive residence with gorgeous views over the Turnberry golf course. Another beautiful, affluent home.

Nothing enviable here today, most people in black or sombre clothing, yet still managing friendliness, introducing themselves to Sam and Martinez, all desperate to help: Michael’s older brother, Anthony, with his wife Trish, and younger sister Debbie with fiancé Richard, and Ben’s sister, Rose Graber.

‘It doesn’t seem real,’ Mrs Graber told them. ‘One minute Sissy’s sitting having her hair coloured at Danny Mizrachi, and then Michael – that’s her hairdresser, not our Mikey – says there’s a call for her, and it’s the beginning of the end.’ She took hold of Sam’s right forearm, her fingers gripping his sleeve tightly, tears brimming in her eyes. ‘And when people tell you how special these kids were, please believe them, detective, because it’s true. My nephew and Suzy were a delight.’

‘That’s good to hear,’ Sam told her gently. ‘And it’s kind of you to share it with us.’ He made no attempt to free himself, and anyway, he could see that Rose Graber hadn’t finished.

‘I’m not just talking about talent,’ she went on. ‘They were both clever and very gifted, but they were also kind young people, and not just to each other or even their parents, but to
everyone
.’

Finally, she released Sam’s sleeve, turned and hurried from the room, sobbing, and Anthony Easterman went after her.

Good, close-knit family would help them get through in time, Sam knew.

Circles of hell to pass through first.

‘Mike and Suzy were just so crazy about each other,’ Debbie – dark and sweet-faced, like her late brother – told them. ‘They were always cuddling up, they were just so much in love.’