Hell (22 page)

‘You're thinking Savannah's where Cooper holed up after he escaped?'

Sam shrugged. ‘We know her car made its way to Miami.'

‘Last driver Richard Bianchi,' Martinez said.

‘If Cooper knew “Blossom”,' Sam went on, ‘if, say, he did hook up with her some time after he disappeared off our radar, I'm not sure it makes a bean of difference to the homicide investigations, but it might just make a hell of a difference when it comes to proving Grace's self-defense.'

‘So what, you think Bianchi was hooked up with this Blossom broad too?'

Sam shook his head. ‘I guess I'm saying that I'd like Bianchi to have been driving Mrs van Heusen's car because Cooper gave it to him.'

‘Long shot,' Martinez said.

‘I know it,' Sam said. ‘Except if Bianchi's alias was given him by Cooper along with his car . . .' He paused. ‘Think about it. Cooper stays away for as long as he can stand it, or maybe till he has to leave wherever he's been hiding out.'

‘Maybe with Mrs van Heusen,' Martinez said. ‘Until she dies.'

‘So then he comes back down to Miami, ready to move his act along a little, change the MO, maybe because he has this new burning need to cut the hearts out of black, preferably gay men, maybe to keep his game with us alive.'

‘Maybe just getting his jollies.'

‘But he knows he can't risk hitting the clubs or streets anymore—'

‘Unless he's changed his appearance.'

‘Easier to find someone else to do it for him,' Sam said.

‘So you're thinking Bianchi was maybe pimping guys for Cooper?'

‘Could be,' Sam said.

Martinez shook his head. ‘Hell of a long shot, man.'

‘I know it,' Sam said again.

Jerry Wagner called just before five to tell Sam that according to his investigator, the VW was being kept under wraps by the Bianchi family.

‘Just being protective, you think?' Sam asked. ‘Or something more sinister?'

‘Almost certainly simple grief and anger, I'd say. Parents wanting to keep their dead son's name intact.'

‘Can't blame them for that,' Sam said.

‘I don't,' Wagner said, ‘but even if you got hold of the car now, nothing in there would be admissible, so I'd understand if you did blame them.'

‘I'm going to stay around South Beach late tonight,' he told Martinez. ‘Another unofficial stake-out.'

‘The clubs again?' Martinez looked dubious.

‘And the sidewalks, and the promenade,' Sam said. ‘If there's anything to my Bianchi theory, then with his little helper gone, the Joy Boy's going to have to come out to play again soon if he wants another heart.'

‘Pick up a couple of tamales first,' Martinez said, ‘and I'm with you.'

‘You got a deal,' Sam said.

The tamales tasted fine.

As did the company of his partner and good friend.

They'd almost lost him last year.

Quite a year.

No dice with the stake-out.

If the Joy Boy was out tonight, they couldn't see him.

Didn't mean he wasn't there.

They hung around till after two.

‘Go home, man,' Martinez said.

‘Wish I could,' Sam said.

‘You got Grace and Joshua waiting for you,' Martinez said. ‘Sounds enough like home to me.'

The rebuke was gentle, but deserved.

‘I'm on my way,' Sam said.

TWENTY-NINE

May 13

S
am's cellphone started ringing at six thirty-five, while he was in the kitchen with Daniel, who was making French toast.

‘Beth Riley just called me,' Martinez told him. ‘Seems some tourists spotted something bad in the water near Dinner Key Marina.'

‘What kind of bad?'

Over at the stove, Dan turned from his griddle, eyes interested.

‘Blood,' Martinez answered. ‘They said it looked like it was leaking from a boat moored out there.'

‘What kind of boat?'

Sam's flesh had started to creep.

‘Houseboat named
Aggie
.'

Cooper's last known boat,
Baby
, had been a battered old cruiser.

‘We have a registered owner?' Sam asked.

‘Not yet,' Martinez said.

‘Anyone on their way?'

‘Riley says Miami Police are sending a boat to take a look.'

‘We need to stop them,' Sam said.

‘You think it's him?'

‘It could be anyone, any damned thing,' Sam said, ‘but hell, yes, I think it could be Cooper, which is why we need to mount surveillance, not go storming in.'

‘I'll make some calls,' Martinez said, ‘and meet you where?'

‘City Hall,' Sam said.

He ended the call, looked up at Daniel, knew he'd heard enough.

‘Chances are,' he said quietly, ‘it's nothing to do with Cooper.'

‘What's nothing to do with Cooper?'

Grace was in the doorway, wearing a long white T-shirt, feet bare. She looked tired and fragile. Sam debated for an instant, knew he had to tell her.

‘Someone's reported seeing what might be blood leaking out of a boat at a marina,' he said. ‘There's absolutely no further information.'

‘But you think it might be Cooper?'

‘We're going to take a look,' Sam said.

Her eyes were wary.

‘Please,' she said. ‘Be careful.'

‘You bet,' Sam said.

The
Aggie
was a white thirty-four foot Wavelength houseboat whose registered owner was one Tom O'Hagen.

Not Thomas, just Tom.

No rap sheet for anyone with that name.

Just a guy with a houseboat.

Maybe.

There had been no way of preventing Miami's marine patrol from taking a preliminary look at the water surrounding the boat, though Sam understood that an assurance of caution and discretion had been given to Lieutenant Alvarez.

Confirmation that what was in the water did look like blood and there was a dinghy tied up to the boat.

Anything more on hold for now.

The guys who had first called in the report were a couple of British tourists, name of Philip Hamblin and Terence Reed. Back on shore now and, having answered all Miami Police's questions, the two men were waiting for Sam and Martinez in the back of a patrol car in the parking lot of the white and blue building that had, in the thirties, been Pan Am's seaplane terminal, but was now, for better or worse, City Hall.

‘Anything else you can tell us?' Sam asked them.

Mid to late twenties, both sporting deep sailing tans and a shared, ill-concealed look of excitement.

‘Nothing more than we already did,' Hamblin said.

‘You were what, moored near the
Aggie
?' Sam said.

‘We'd been out in the Bay overnight,' Reed said. ‘It was bloody dark out there, and we were both tired, so we decided to anchor and wait till it was light.'

‘And then, on our way in this morning,' Hamblin said, ‘we passed this houseboat and saw the blood in the water.'

‘At least, that's what we thought it was,' Reed said.

‘Did you see anyone on board?' Martinez asked.

Both Brits shook their heads.

‘Anything special you can tell us about the boat?' Sam asked.

‘Not really,' Reed said. ‘It's just a houseboat.'

‘It's the kind of boat a person could really live on, I suppose,' Hamblin said. ‘Spend real time on.'

‘So long as they're not in a rush to get anywhere,' Reed added.

‘So you still think this could be him?' Martinez asked Sam, out of earshot of the Englishmen, walking back around the side of City Hall to the marina. ‘Like the man said, houseboats are not exactly built for speedy getaways.'

‘Maybe not,' Sam said, ‘but plenty of space inside.'

For killing, not to mention mutilation.

They were both silent for a moment.

‘The name O'Hagen ring any bells with you?' Martinez asked.

‘Uh-uh,' Sam said. ‘But there's an outside chance the
Aggie
might.'

He stopped walking, took out his PDA and keyed in a search.

‘OK,' he said after a moment. ‘Remember why Cal the Hater said he renamed his mom Jewel?'

Martinez nodded, too damned much of the killer's so-called
Epistles
still etched on his memory. ‘After Caligula's mother, right?'

‘Right,' Sam said. ‘Julia Agrippina.'

‘Shit,' Martinez said. ‘Except Cooper hated his mom.'

With good reason, as they both knew.

‘After killing her, though,' Sam said, ‘maybe he wanted a tribute to her?'

‘He sure loved his old boat,' Martinez said.

‘More than he loved any person we know of,' Sam agreed.

‘So what now? We board the
Aggie
, see if he's down below?'

‘That's one option,' Sam said. ‘Though if he's not on board and he sees or hears about it, we've blown our chances of catching him.'

‘He could be anyplace,' Martinez said.

‘Except Bianchi's apartment.'

‘You think that's where he might have been holed up?'

‘I don't have a clue,' Sam said. ‘But it comes to mind. Whatever deal they may have had going on between them – unless I've been totally wrong about the connection – Cooper might have been living part-time at Bianchi's and the rest on the houseboat.' He shrugged. ‘And right this minute, he could have taken another dinghy out to sea or he could be on shore picking up supplies.'

‘Or another victim,' Martinez said flatly.

‘Not his time of day,' Sam said. ‘Unless that's another MO change.'

‘Or maybe this has nothing to do with Cooper at all,' Martinez said. ‘Maybe we got ourselves another killer with this O'Hagen.'

‘Maybe we do.'

‘Or O'Hagen could be an innocent man with a houseboat named after his Aunt Agatha.' Martinez shook his head, frustrated. ‘Man, I wish we had something
real
.'

‘How's about a houseboat with blood leaking out of its keel?' Sam said.

‘I'm impressed,' Martinez said. ‘I would've said butt.'

They settled, after a brief meeting with two marine patrol officers, on a stake-out position on a sailboat in range for their 10/50 binoculars. Miami Police and the Coast Guard standing by to assist, if and when.

Eleven a.m. and counting.

All the family were waiting at Névé.

Neither Daniel nor Grace, it seemed, had been capable of keeping their tension from the others.

‘No way I'm going to college now,' Cathy had said, after she'd squeezed the news out of Grace, and Saul had said much the same.

And then Saul had answered the phone when his dad had called and had let the news slip out, which was why David and Mildred had driven right over. And now they were playing with Joshua, and Claudia and Cathy were half-heartedly making brunch, and though Sam had stressed the slimness of a possibility of a breakthrough, they all felt poised on the edge of something big.

‘You OK?' Daniel found Grace on the terrace, sitting with the dogs.

‘Sure,' she said.

‘Getting a little crowded in there for you?' he said.

‘I'll be in soon,' she said.

He left her to her thoughts, from which all optimism seemed absent.

She was, no matter what Sam and the others found, a killer out on bail.

Interested in only two things right now: hearing that her husband was safe and Cooper in custody. And the
safe
part was something she and Sam would have to talk about soon, because if she went to jail, then Joshua would need his father safe and sound and present in his life, not taking risks with brutal killers, monsters.

Sam loved his work, tough as it sometimes was.

Another thing she might end up taking away from him.

Just after one p.m., it became apparent that word had gotten out that the cops were keeping the
Aggie
under surveillance, because a keen-eyed woman on a yacht moored a few hundred yards away had phoned Miami PD to say that she had seen the guy who'd been living on the houseboat come aboard in the early hours of this morning.

‘She claims she'd have noticed if he'd gotten off again,' reported one of the officers staking out the
Aggie
with the Miami Beach detectives.

‘She give a description, by any chance?' Sam asked.

‘“Tall, blond, otherwise nondescript,” was what she told the dispatcher.'

That last word got to Sam more than the rest.

First time he'd ever set eyes on Jerome Cooper, he'd found him just that, a nondescript man with mean little stoat's eyes. Though in this case, if they were talking early hours, it would have been dark, which made him wonder how she even knew this guy had been blond.

‘I need to talk to her,' he said.

No way of knowing if the dispatcher had asked enough questions.

Five minutes later, the lady, one Marilyn Segal, resident of Boca Raton, was answering Sam's questions on his cellphone.

‘I don't suppose you got a close look at his face, ma'am?'

‘If you mean did I take a look with my binoculars,' she said, ‘I'm not in the habit of spying on my neighbors, either at home or on the yacht.'

More was the pity, Sam thought.

‘You described him in your first call as “nondescript”,' he said.

‘I did,' Marilyn Segal confirmed, ‘though that was probably the wrong word to use, because it was dark and he was too far away for me to see.'

‘But you saw that his hair was blond?' Sam asked.

‘Actually, it looked kind of silvery, but his movements were nimble, too youthful for him to have gray hair, which is why I said blond.' She paused. ‘He boarded from a dinghy, and then he turned on some lights on board – which was when I saw him – and he stayed out on deck for a few minutes, then went inside.'