Eclipse (23 page)

‘No,' Mildred said. ‘You're quite right.'

They sat in silence for a moment.

‘Do you think he was actually going to do something to my eye?' she asked. ‘I mean, he was holding that instrument, and maybe it was nothing he was going to . . .' She broke off, abruptly nauseous.

‘Hey.' David touched her cheek. ‘Don't think about that.'

‘No. Better not to.' Mildred paused. ‘I did wonder if maybe some sixth sense had been warning me, but I know that's nonsense, because I've been squeamish for years.' She smiled. ‘Doctor Wiley was just an added bonus.'

‘The icing on the cake,' David said grimly.

Martinez had listened to Sam's message and called him back, but now Sam's phone was going to voicemail.

He considered for about five seconds, and called Grace at home.

‘I'm glad you called, Al.' It was just after a quarter to ten, and she was in the den, sharing the couch with Woody. ‘I was going to try you, but I figured you must be busy with Sam.'

‘Not this minute,' Martinez said.

‘Isn't he on the case?' Grace asked.

‘Not as far as I know, though he did leave me a message about one of the opera women.'

‘Billie Smith?'

‘No, not her, though it might be connected.' Martinez paused. ‘Grace, that isn't why I called. Sam asked me to check out the Frenchman.'

‘You found something?' She grew tenser.

‘Chauvin has a history. Not a criminal record as such,' he added quickly. ‘But he's been accused of stalking a couple of times back in France.'

Grace's spine crawled, thinking of Cathy. ‘Is he dangerous?'

‘Doesn't seem that way,' Martinez said. ‘But with Sam not home, I know he'd want me to tell you, so you don't let Chauvin in if he comes back.'

‘Of course not,' Grace said. ‘And I'll call Cathy right now, tell her the same, make sure Saul stays home with her.'

‘And you make sure your alarm is set, Gracie,' Martinez told her.

They'd finally had a security system installed last year, but he knew they didn't always remember to set it.

‘You really think that's necessary?' Grace asked.

Martinez decided there was no need for her to know that Chauvin had been tailing Sam.

‘I'd be happier if you did,' he said. ‘There's no reason to think Chauvin's going to come anywhere near you again, and I haven't seen anything that tells me he's dangerous, but the guy's definitely a creep.'

‘I can't argue with that,' Grace said.

Martinez left Grace and tried Sam again.

Still going to voicemail.

He had also decided against mentioning Sam's
hunch
– he and Grace having both learned not to underrate those over time – or the fact that Sam had followed Toni Petit to Hallandale.

No sense in giving her more stress.

Sam had told Martinez not to run Petit's tag number yet, because it was probably ‘nothing'.

But Martinez was going to run it anyway.

A sound pierced the silence of the house on Foster Avenue.

Like a moan.

‘Who was that?' Sam asked, a chill tweaking his spine.

‘I think it was an animal,' Toni said. ‘Our dog, maybe, out back.'

Sam remembered the sound he'd heard in Tyler Allen's house, the choreographer's claim that it had been his Siamese cats, which might have been true.

This was very different.

‘Didn't sound like a dog to me,' he said peaceably.

He turned to Kate Petit.

Who had gone.

The sound repeated, almost a wail.

Human suffering, Sam was almost certain.

He turned back to Toni.

‘OK,' he said. ‘What's going on here?'

‘Nothing is going on, Sam.'

‘I just want to help,' Sam said. ‘I like to think we've all become a kind of family at S-BOP.'

Lame, he registered as he said it.

‘I've told you,' Toni said tersely, ‘I don't need any help.'

‘My gut tells me you do.'

‘Your gut is mistaken,' Toni said. ‘I'd like you to leave, Sam. I didn't ask you to follow me.'

‘I know. And I will leave, just as soon as I'm sure you really are OK.'

Toni shook her head, exasperated but giving in. ‘You're right. Things aren't great.' Her voice was low, as if she didn't want her sister to hear. ‘My life is not the easiest, if you really need to know.'

‘I don't mean to invade your privacy,' Sam said.

Toni's smile was tired. ‘Isn't that what cops do?'

‘I'm not here as a cop, just a friend, and if you'd like to talk, I'm a decent listener.'

Another of those sounds pitched into the air.

Human fear, Sam was certain.

Coming from the back of the house.

Something very bad was happening here.

‘Your dog again?' he said. ‘Why not bring him inside?'

‘Sam, listen to me.' Toni stepped close enough for him to smell her fragrance and feel the heat coming off her, and now he saw a plea in her black cherry eyes. ‘You said it – we are a kind of family. Which is why I'm asking you, please, Sam, just let us be.'

‘I will,' he said. ‘Soon as—'

‘My sister asked you to go.'

Sam turned.

Kate Petit stood there, hands behind her back, dark glasses still in place.

‘I think you should listen to her,' she added.

His bad feeling intensified.

‘I guess I will,' he said.

He started to turn around, toward the door.

‘I guess I don't believe you,' Kate said, and brought her hands around from behind her back, linked them quickly back together.

Holding a gun.

Pointing it at Sam.

It looked like an old Colt semiautomatic pistol.

Maybe a Mk IV Series 80.

The kind used by Black Hole.

Sweet Jesus.

Sam had begun to think, from the dark glasses and from the way she angled her head when she spoke, that Kate Petit might be sight-impaired in her left eye.

She had some vision for sure, hard to say how much.

Hard to know just what she might be capable of.

‘Hey,' he said to her now. ‘Let's not get excited, Kate.'

‘Who said I'm excited?' she said. ‘And who said you could call me Kate?'

‘I'm sorry,' Sam said. ‘Ms Petit? Is that OK?

‘Better,' she said. And then she added, to her sister: ‘I told you we should have finished her.'

‘Her?' Sam said, his stomach crawling.

‘Her,' Kate repeated.

Billie.

Sam looked away from Kate Petit, away from the gun, at Toni.

‘Why don't we all go sit down somewhere?' he said. ‘Turn down the heat a notch or two, talk this through.'

‘I'd like that,' Toni said.

‘Would you really?' Kate asked her. ‘Are you sure that's what you want, Toni?'

Toni nodded, and now her eyes seemed sad.

‘I'm ready to talk, Kate. I need to.'

‘I think it's a good idea,' Sam said.

‘Did I ask you?' Kate said.

And raised the gun a little higher.

Lieutenant Alvarez arrived at the Adams Clinic with Sergeant Beth Riley just after ten.

Alvarez's presence a compliment to David and Mildred.

‘You didn't need to come yourself,' David told him. ‘Especially so late.'

‘I can't remember a time when I was more embarrassed,' Mildred said.

She had started fretting about her appearance a few minutes earlier, had told David she wanted to get dressed, but David had been adamant she stay in bed until Ethan Adams had checked her over.

Word was he was en route.

‘You mustn't even think that way,' Beth Riley told her now.

‘Let's just say it's not the way I'd choose to entertain Samuel's senior colleagues.' Mildred tugged the covers a little higher.

‘You entertained us rather well at your wedding, as I recall,' Alvarez said.

‘But right now we need to verify a few things,' Riley said.

Getting down to business.

‘I told you what happened,' David said.

‘I know you did, Doctor Becket,' Riley said, ‘and I know it's upsetting, but we do have to hear it from Mrs Becket.'

‘Could we please at least stop being so formal?' Mildred asked.

Riley smiled. ‘Sure we can, Mildred.'

Mildred took a breath. ‘Not too much really did happen. Thanks to my husband coming back when he did.'

‘Nothing at all would have happened if I hadn't left you alone.'

‘You didn't leave me “alone”,' Mildred said. ‘You left me in a respectable clinic, with nurses and doctors you assumed I'd be safe with.'

Very calm now, she gave a precise account of what had happened.

‘It doesn't sound like much now,' she said when she'd finished. ‘Except for the end of it, for which I think I was a little to blame.' She glanced at David. ‘My husband thinks I shouldn't be saying that because it was Doctor Wiley who scared me into pushing him away.'

‘I agree with your husband,' Lieutenant Alvarez said.

‘But for all I know, Doctor Adams might have authorized Doctor Wiley to do that,' Mildred said. ‘To examine me.'

‘To wake you, after nine, when you were meant to be resting?' David's anger resurged. ‘After Doctor Adams had said that he was coming next morning to examine your eye? And then Wiley carried on after you asked him to stop, terrified you with some instrument he was holding.'

‘Do you know what the instrument was?' Riley asked.

‘I didn't see it,' David said. ‘I wish I had.'

‘I didn't get a good look at it,' Mildred said. ‘He was so close to me, and it was quite dark in the room, but he never actually touched me with it.'

‘But he as good as punched you in the eye.'

‘That wasn't deliberate,' Mildred said.

‘For the love of God,' David said, ‘will you stop defending him?'

‘I'm just trying to be fair,' she insisted. ‘And I wish you would calm down.'

‘He tried to make me believe you'd been dreaming,' he reminded her.

‘Yes,' she agreed.

‘You're sure . . .' Mike Alvarez looked uncomfortable. ‘Mildred, forgive me for asking this, but you are quite sure that you didn't dream any of it?' He ignored David's furious expression. ‘You said you were sleeping when he came in.'

‘I was.' Mildred was composed. ‘He woke me by asking how his “favorite patient” was doing, and then he took my pulse, and then –' She shook her head. ‘I've already told you the rest, but no, I was definitely not dreaming.'

‘Try not to shake your head like that,' David told her.

‘I keep forgetting,' she said.

He smiled at her. ‘I'm calmer now,' he said.

‘Good.' Mildred looked at Alvarez and Riley. ‘My main concern, now, I think, is that someone probably should deal with this man in case he really hurts someone else.'

‘He hurt you,' Riley said. ‘And he frightened you.'

‘That he did,' Mildred agreed.

‘I'd like to be there,' David said, ‘when you make the arrest.'

‘I don't recommend that,' Alvarez said.

‘Will you be actually
arresting
him?' Mildred asked uncertainly.

‘Let's just say we'll be talking to him,' Alvarez said. ‘Initially.'

‘And we'll need to speak to Doctor Adams,' Riley added.

‘Where the hell is he, anyway?' David asked.

‘Patience,' Mildred said.

Grace picked up the phone after one ring.

Not Sam.

Carlos Delgado calling.

‘Doctor Lucca, I'm very sorry to call so late.'

It was ten-twenty.

‘Has something happened?' Grace asked.

‘It has,' Delgado said. ‘Felicia just told me that she's ready to speak about her mother's death.'

‘That's good news,' Grace said.

‘But she says she won't talk to anyone but you. I said we'd have to wait till morning, but she became very upset. She says she has to tell you now, tonight, and if you don't come, I'm worried that she may get too worked up again.'

No option.

‘Let me organize a few things,' Grace said, ‘and I'll be on my way.'

‘If it's what you both want,' Kate Petit said, ‘by all means, let's talk.'

She turned to the right, led them into a living room.

Mushroom-colored walls, brown carpet, a single light fitting overhead. Little in the way of comfort and zero clutter; probably, Sam surmised, because of the woman's partial blindness, of which he was becoming increasingly certain. One worn-out couch, one armchair, a tapestry-covered footstool, a small round pine table with two cane-backed chairs and a low end table beside the couch.

The room was charmless and depressing, hard to connect with the chic woman who made beautiful clothes. Few books, no photographs, a small black hi-fi system on the floor in one corner, a stack of CDs beside it. No television. One painting, of a cornfield which might perhaps be a Louisiana scene, maybe a picture brought along to Florida.

On the wall opposite the painting, a closed door.

And, tilted in the corner to the right of the door, a black cane. Not a white folding cane that would have confirmed Kate's visual disability – but abruptly Sam recalled the indentations on the path and grass outside Billie's home.

The sound came again. More muffled than before, but just as chilling.

The sound of human fear.

Not coming from behind that closed door, he thought, but from farther back in the house.

‘What would you like to know?' Kate Petit asked.

‘Whatever you want to tell me,' Sam said.

She gestured with the pistol for him to sit in the armchair. Still the two-handed grip, though it seemed to Sam that her aim was a little off.