Caged (8 page)

Everything except her mind. And even that – especially that – felt alien to her now, too filled with terrors.

Of the worst thing of all.

The unknown.

TWENTY-ONE

M
artinez reached for the baseball bat he kept under his bed.

A coiled spring he was
not
, he registered even as he was straining to get to it in time.

If this was an intruder and if he survived, he vowed to do something about his fitness.

He made it over to the door just as it started to open.

Raised the bat high over his head . . .

Jess crept into the room, barefoot.

‘Jesus, Jessie!’ Martinez put down the bat and turned on the light. ‘You almost got your head smashed in.’

Not just barefoot. She was wearing a matching brassiere and panties in the sheerest imaginable black and scarlet. Martinez had never seen her in anything like it, but she looked like heaven on a plate.

‘I wanted to surprise you,’ she said, breathless from the shock of his reaction.

‘There’s surprise,’ he said, ‘and there’s a goddamned heart attack.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I should have thought.’

‘It’s OK,’ he said, and put his arms around her, delighting instantly in how she felt against him. ‘I’m getting over it already.’

‘You gave me a key, remember?’

‘Sure,’ Martinez said. ‘But you never used it before.’

‘Do you mind that I did?’

He could feel tension in her now, didn’t know how to make up for ruining her surprise, so he did what came naturally, kissed her and cupped her breasts in his hands, drawing away from her mouth to say: ‘That’s how much I mind.’

‘I bought these for you a while ago.’ Jess fingered her tiny panties. ‘But I never felt right wearing them until tonight. I figured they were perfect for celebrating.’

‘You figured good,’ he said, drawing her to the bed. ‘What happened to going to bed alone and thinking about us?’

‘I tried it.’ She sank down beside him. ‘But it felt lousy.’

‘I’m glad,’ Martinez said.

After they’d made love, Martinez got out of bed to turn out the light, but neither of them could sleep.

‘Do you mind,’ Jess asked, ‘if we talk for a while?’

‘Talking is good,’ Martinez said. ‘I wanted to ask you anyway about how you want to play this? Is it OK with you if we tell people?’

‘I guess,’ Jess said. ‘Except, I know we’re in different units, but what if the department doesn’t want engaged people working in the same building?’

‘I don’t think that’s gonna be a problem,’ Martinez said. ‘But anyway, it’s just Sam I’m thinking about telling, for now.’

She took a moment. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘He’s a good guy.’

‘He’s the best,’ Martinez said. ‘He’ll want to tell Grace, too, because they tell each other everything, but they won’t spread it around if we ask them not to.’

‘I guess that’s all right then.’ She smiled into the dark. ‘It’s going to make you happy telling Sam, isn’t it?’

‘He’s my friend,’ Martinez said. ‘They’re both going to be happy for us.’

‘Then you go right ahead and tell them.’

‘Who are you going to tell? Your mom and dad?’

‘I don’t know,’ Jess said, ‘because if I do, they’ll want to fly over, and Mom hasn’t been doing too good.’

‘You didn’t tell me that,’ Martinez said, concerned.

‘You’ve been busy.’

‘I’m never too busy to hear your troubles, Jessie.’

‘She’s had some women’s stuff, you know? And I think travelling might be a little much for her right now.’

‘Then maybe you should wait till we can get to Cleveland.’

‘You wouldn’t mind doing that?’ Jess asked.

‘You kidding me?’ Martinez said. ‘I can’t wait to meet the people who made you.’ He hesitated. ‘Though maybe they might think you could do better for yourself.’

‘They won’t think that, because it isn’t true,’ Jess said. ‘And even if they did, it wouldn’t make me change my mind. But they never would.’

Martinez shifted position, but that took him away from Jess, so he moved back again, and he’d thought he’d never be comfortable sharing a bed with anyone long-term, but with Jessie even that was different.

‘I was thinking I wanted to get you a ring,’ he said. ‘But if you don’t want to tell people at the station . . .’

‘You can still get me a ring, Al,’ she said. ‘I might just not wear it to work.’

‘That’s good,’ he said.

‘So this is real?’ Jess asked softly.

‘As real as this.’ Martinez kissed her again, her smooth forehead first, then her lips. ‘You feel that?’

She made a murmur of assent.

‘Any time you get a doubt in your head,’ he said, ‘you shut your gorgeous eyes and remember how that feels.’

‘It feels real beautiful,’ Jess said.

‘Like you,’ he said.

TWENTY-TWO

S
am got to the Opera Café at seven ten Thursday morning, with plenty of time before the meeting he’d arranged at Beatty Management at eight thirty, and in the mood to treat himself to a decent breakfast with the added bonus of knowing that Cathy was on early shift.

She was waiting on customers at a window table, so he held back on a hug and sat at a vacant table halfway back. From the kitchen, Dooley saw him through the glass partition and waved, and about three seconds later, Simone came through the street door and planted a kiss on his daughter’s cheek, which delighted Sam.

He felt good about this for Cathy.

Dooley was starting the day, audio-wise, with the duet from the first act of
Marriage of Figaro
, and that was fine, too. Sam watched as Simone took over from Cathy, who grinned at him and transferred into the kitchen to help Dooley, and within moments she was hard at work back there, and her movements looked deft and calm, and there was something about her bearing and expression that looked just right to Sam, as if Cathy really might have found her métier.

Which made him just so happy for her, made him want to call Grace and share the feeling with her.

His cell phone vibrated in his pocket and he drew it out, took the call.

‘Hey, man,’ Martinez said.

He sounded good, too.

‘So?’ Sam hoped there was no need to hold back. ‘How was your evening?’

‘Pretty good.’

‘If you don’t want to talk on the phone,’ Sam said, ‘I can wait.’

‘Yeah,’ Martinez said. ‘Let’s wait.’

‘Works for me.’ Sam called his bluff. ‘Collins and 73rd, twenty after, OK?’

Martinez couldn’t stand it.

‘She said yes, man.’ His voice sounded almost like it was bubbling.

‘That’s so great,’ Sam told him. ‘I’m so happy for you both.’

‘Me too, man,’ Martinez said. ‘Never been happier in my whole life.’

Larry Beatty was out of the office when they arrived at Beatty Management, but Allison Moore was ready and waiting for them, having assembled everything the detectives had asked for.

‘All the gallery’s records from their last five years.’

She’d provided an office at the rear for as long they needed it, had laid out everything on the teak desk together with a pot of coffee and some small bottles of Evian water. ‘Exhibitions, artists, items sold, clients.’ She paused. ‘A bunch of photographs, too, of exhibits, sculptures, that kind of thing – anything I thought might be useful.’

‘If only everyone was as helpful,’ Sam told her, ‘our lives would be a whole lot easier.’

‘I just hope it does help,’ Ally Moore said. ‘Those poor people.’

‘If it doesn’t give us anything directly,’ Martinez said, ‘it’ll help by elimination.’

‘I guess that’s something.’ She hesitated. ‘I was taking a look through the old catalogues – I mean, I didn’t really know what to be looking for, except for what I heard about the weird plastic thing – but there was an acrylic sculpture exhibit two years ago.’

‘Where did you hear that?’ Sam asked.

‘It’s there,’ she said, ‘in one of the catalogues.’

‘Detective Becket means where did you hear about the “weird plastic thing”?’ Martinez’s antennae were up too, because there had been no moment on Saturday when the scene in the backyard could have been visible to her or her boss.

‘I don’t remember,’ the young woman said. ‘I think it was one of the people milling around – Crime Scene people, I guess.’

There was a moment’s silence.

‘If there’s anything you want to tell us, Ms Moore,’ Sam said, ‘now would be the best time.’

‘There’s nothing,’ she said.

Sam watched her, saw something that might have been evasiveness or plain old-fashioned nervousness because she was being quizzed by detectives in a grim double homicide.

‘Something you saw, maybe?’ Martinez said.

‘You never know what’s going to make a difference.’ Sam was gentle.

‘I guess not,’ she said. ‘If there were anything.’

‘But there isn’t?’ Martinez said.

‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘Or I’d tell you.’

‘And you can’t remember exactly who mentioned the “weird plastic thing”,’ Sam said.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Maybe it’ll come back to you,’ Martinez said.

Moore shook her head in a helpless gesture, her red hair bouncing a little. ‘I was just hoping I could help.’

‘You already have.’ Sam gestured at the paperwork on the table. ‘Though there is one more thing, if you don’t mind.’

‘Anything,’ she said.

‘A little blood was found in the house,’ Sam told her. ‘Not much, and almost certainly unconnected to the crime, but same as with the fingerprints, it would make sense to ask you to provide a voluntary sample for DNA purposes.’

Now Moore looked downright edgy.

‘Just a simple swab,’ Sam said. ‘Not blood.’

‘Do you remember cutting yourself at any time in the gallery?’ Martinez asked her.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Never.’

‘It could have been no more than a scratch,’ Sam said. ‘Something you hardly noticed at the time.’

‘That’s why it’s better to be sure,’ Martinez said.

‘Only if you give your consent,’ Sam said. ‘Nothing for you to be worried about.’

‘Sure,’ she said.

‘Thank you,’ Sam said.

‘Did you find my fingerprints in the house?’ she asked.

‘Sure did,’ Sam said.

‘So if you hadn’t had my prints to compare, you’d have been looking for some unknown person,’ Moore said.

‘You got it,’ Martinez said.

Sam and Martinez returned to that
moment
later, after they’d finished trawling through the material Moore had set out for them, finding, at first sift, nothing of apparent use, the acrylic exhibit having been of animal sculptures that Sam thought looked like poor imitations of Steuben Glass.

‘So where’d she get that from,’ Martinez said, ‘about the plastic?’

They were sitting in the Chevy out on Collins, tourists and locals flowing by, enjoying the sunny late morning, checking out places for lunch before some of them headed back to the beach.

‘Beats me,’ Sam said.

Neither of them buying her story about a Crime Scene tech having blabbed in earshot.

‘Think she might have been listening at keyholes?’ Martinez said. ‘So to speak.’

‘Uh-uh,’ Sam said.

‘Me neither.’

‘Maybe the gardener called her first?’

‘Why wouldn’t she tell us that?’ Martinez said.

No way of getting that from Joseph Mulhoon, at least not yet, the gardener – who’d checked out as a regular old guy – still on a ventilator at Miami General.

‘Maybe Moore was nosing around before Mulhoon,’ Martinez said, ‘and she’s too embarrassed to tell us.’

‘Doesn’t ring true to me,’ Sam said.

‘Think she’s been spending time there?’

‘Or maybe letting someone else do that?’ Sam said.

The blood and cocaine on both their minds again.

‘Maybe she was meeting her lover,’ Martinez said. ‘Not exactly a love nest, but it takes all kinds.’

‘She said she thought the place was spooky.’

‘You thinkin’ she’s a suspect?’

‘Uh-uh.’ Sam shrugged. ‘Nothing’s impossible, as we know.’

‘I’d buy Beatty over Moore,’ Martinez said.

‘That’s just because you didn’t like him,’ Sam said.

Both of them had checked out, too.

‘Bet he doesn’t consent to a swab,’ Martinez said.

His cell phone rang.

‘Hey, Jessie,’ he said. ‘What’s up?’

‘I’m so sorry, Al.’ She sounded upset.

‘What’s wrong?’ He felt his heart rate speed up.

‘Nothing except I have to work late,’ Jess said. ‘One of the girls lost a bunch of files on her PC, and I offered to help her after hours, but then I suddenly thought maybe I shouldn’t have offered without checking – ’ she lowered her voice almost to a whisper – ‘with my fiancé first.’

Sam, glancing across, couldn’t help but see the smile on his friend’s face.

The kind of smile that made everyone feel good.

TWENTY-THREE

E
lliot Sanders called, back in the office, to say that the glue analysis was going to take time, that they might never discover which brand had been used on the victims.

‘One thing, though,’ the ME said. ‘Unless it came from some big industrial-size container, it would be reasonable to say that the quantities needed for the job might have seemed unusual to a salesperson if someone purchased it from a store.’

‘If it was bought online,’ Sam said, ‘that’s going to be a whole lot harder to track down.’

‘Can’t help you there,’ Sanders said.

Tracing the origins of the plastic dome-shaped cover was proving no easier.

‘I’m still thinking,’ Martinez said, ‘it was something made for display, like maybe at exhibitions.’