Hell (23 page)

‘And he was alone?' Sam asked.

‘So far as I could tell.'

‘Anything else you can add?' Sam asked.

‘Only that I suffer from insomnia, which is why I said I'd noticed him leaving again.'

He thanked her, ended the call.

Martinez gave him a minute.

‘So?' he asked, quietly.

Sam took a few moments more, knowing he had to temper his gut response with professional commonsense.

Instinct overcame all the other arguments in his head.

‘We go in,' he said.

Boarding the
Aggie
was smooth as silk.

So easy, they kept waiting for all kinds of other shoes to drop – anything from a marine ambush to a booby trap explosive device.

Two Miami PD boats. Six officers, plus Sam and Martinez, all wearing life jackets, all armed.

No warnings given.

No resistance offered.

No bomb.

No one on board.

Someone had been there though.

An unspeakable stench was coming from someplace on the houseboat.

All the officers and the Miami Beach detectives, their .40 calibers drawn, ransacked the
Aggie
with their eyes, cautiously checking every hidey-hole, every closet, locker,
every
nook and cranny.

A number of quality shirts and pants hung on a rail in the master bedroom, and the rumpled sheets on the bed looked and felt expensive.

‘Still warm,' Sam said quietly.

In a second cabin, and in a cuddy, they found sights far worse than the stink.

Human remains.

But Jerome Cooper was not
there.

Sam was back on deck before the others, edging, as fast as caution allowed, around the perimeter of the boat, leaning over the side every few feet, keeping a double grip on his weapon, all his senses on high alert, scanning the water . . .

There.

Naked, face down.

‘Suspect overboard,' he yelled.

He holstered his gun, pulled off his shoes.

‘Sam, wait!'

He heard Martinez, other voices besides his, but he was already over the guard rail, and no way was he letting this happen, no
way
was he letting this monster drown when Grace needed him
alive
.

‘Cover me!' he yelled.

And dove.

Cooper was limp when Sam reached him.

Lifeless.

The black snouts of seven weapons trained on him.

Seven men yelling warnings.

Sam grabbed the man by his hair, his left hand snaking under his slippery body to flip him over – knew, even before he saw Cooper's face, that he'd blown it, that it was a trick, a goddamned gamble, but a
trick
.

The killer opened his eyes and took a big breath.

And smiled.

‘I knew you'd come,' he said.

Sam saw what was in his hand just before it struck.

A goddamned
hypodermic
.

Cooper jammed it in, hard.

‘Jesus,' Sam said, gasping.

He heard the bullets exploding out of the guns at the same instant that Cooper brought up his other hand and landed a hard blow to his right temple.

And then the killer went limp again, folded down into the water.

Dizzy as hell, Sam yanked the hypodermic out of his body.

Keep hold of it
, he ordered himself.

But it had already slipped from his fingers.

And he was going under.

THIRTY

I
t was Martinez – who
hated
to swim more than almost anything – who'd plunged right in with one of the Miami PD guys and helped fish him out, same time as the others were retrieving Cooper.

The killer not dead, though he ought to have been, with three of the police bullets having struck him, but one bullet had passed right through, missing vital organs, another had grazed his head, and he was presently being prepped for surgery at City Hospital for the removal of the third bullet from his left arm.

Lucky as hell, considering.

Under guard, under arrest.

And demanding to see Sam.

Who wanted nothing more than to oblige, who wanted Cooper alive and coherent for as long as it took to prove Bianchi's connection with him, to give Grace her self-defense plea.

Then
the bastard could die.

But Sam was marooned in the ER at Miami General, with nothing much apparently wrong with him, apart from some bruising to his head and the after-effects of swallowing some ocean.

Some discomfort, too, from the puncture in his left shoulder, where the hollow needle – estimated to have been a large diameter eighteen gauge – of Jerome Cooper's hypodermic syringe had pierced him. And it remained to be seen what damage the needle might have done to nerves, tendons or ligaments, but Sam's trapezius muscles were well-developed, and in any event, he knew he'd been lucky as hell too, because if Cooper had stuck it in a little way across his chest, he'd have had a punctured lung at the very least.

‘No prizes for guessing it was my heart he was aiming for,' Sam said.

Martinez the only one with him at that moment, Grace on her way.

His friend in dry clothes, but still shocked and still mad at Sam for his recklessness – and that happened too damned often for
his
goddamned sanity – and sure he understood, but Jesus . . . He'd still been on the
Aggie
when he'd seen Sam turn Cooper face up, had seen the sonofabitch's hand move, had seen him stab
something
into Sam, had presumed a blade of some kind, and his initial relief at the absence of a major wound had been immense.

‘So what are we thinking?' he said now, because the scenario still made no sense to him. ‘That he let the blood leak out of the boat, that he wanted to get caught, or was it supposed to be “suicide by cop”?'

‘With a twist,' Sam said.

‘So he jumps overboard naked, holding a fucking hypodermic, and then he turns over to play dead just in
case
you show up?'

‘I'm guessing he saw us coming,' Sam said.

Seemed clear to him, since Cooper-Cal was crazy, always had been.

‘And if someone else had jumped in after him?' Martinez said.

‘I guess he'd have stuck them with the needle,' Sam said.

‘But Miami PD are saying there were scalpels on the
Aggie
, so if he wanted your heart, why use a fucking hypodermic?'

‘I'd like to think it was just the first thing that came to hand,' Sam said.

‘Yeah,' Martinez said. ‘Me too.'

‘Except I saw the syringe,' Sam said quietly. ‘And it was full.'

Martinez did not speak.

‘It looked a lot like blood,' Sam said.

Grace arrived moments later, and Sam shut down those thoughts, focused on making her believe that he was fine and that Jerome Cooper was in custody.

‘Hard to take in,' he said. ‘But we have him.'

‘He could have killed you,' she said.

‘Not easily,' Sam said. ‘Too many guns trained on him.'

‘Piece of cake, right?' she said.

He looked at her white face and still frightened eyes.

‘You holding up, Gracie?'

‘They said something about a syringe,' she said.

‘He tried to stick me with it,' Sam said.

She was looking at the dressing on his shoulder. ‘Apparently he did more than try.'

‘It's not much,' he said.

Her eyes met his, held steady. ‘Did he inject you with something?'

‘I don't think so,' he said.

‘But you're not sure,' she said.

‘Main thing,' Sam said, ‘we have him.'

‘Yes,' she said.

‘Worth celebrating, I'd say,' Sam said.

‘Are they doing blood tests?' Grace asked.

No diverting her.

‘Sure,' he said. ‘Taking all precautions. Just in case.'

She chose to leave it, leaned in, stroked his forehead, his hair.

‘I'm glad you got him,' she said, gently. ‘Thank you, for us all.'

Cathy and Saul came by the ER to see him, and he thought he did a better job of convincing them that he was better than OK, and for a while he had himself believing it too.

And then his father showed up.

Man of few words when David Becket was scared to death, but everything he said and asked, however calmly, led back to the thing Sam was trying not to think about.

‘You know what they're concerned about, son,' he said.

‘Sure I know,' Sam said. ‘BBV.'

Blood borne viruses – BBV – the doctors' most likely concern.

Anything from hepatitis B to HIV.

Cops, like hospital personnel, knew all about the dangers of needlestick injuries. An ordinary needlestick could introduce contaminants into the body, both from the outside of the needle and from the bore itself, and whatever Cooper had used that hypodermic for prior to stabbing it into Sam could define what he might be up against now. And that was without knowing what might have been loaded inside the syringe.

Blood, bodily fluids, who the hell knew?

‘They're getting a search warrant for Cooper's blood,' Sam said. ‘Officer exposed, so no problem there.'

So long as it had been Cooper's blood and not a sample he'd taken from one of his victims – though for all Sam knew, the bastard might have sucked up the red stuff from a bottle of Chianti.

But in that instant, it had looked more like blood than wine.

‘They'll be giving you a lot of medication,' David said.

‘I know,' Sam said.

Antibiotics, antiviral, immunoglobulins.

All of which might make him feel sick by themselves, plus, whether or not Cooper tested positive for HIV or any other disease, Sam knew he would still have to come for regular testing for months to come. All kinds of mental trauma that neither he nor Grace, nor the rest of their family needed.

‘And you have no idea if he pushed the plunger home?' David asked.

‘No,' Sam said. ‘I'd say I wish I did know, but I'm not sure that's true.'

And chances were they would never know, because he had dropped the hypodermic in the ocean, though so long as nothing showed up positive in his blood tests, and so long as he didn't get sick, it might not matter too much.

Except that it was another crime committed by Cooper – maybe just GBH, maybe attempted murder – and the syringe was evidence.

All other answers to be drawn out of Cal the Hater.

Along with things even more important to Sam right now.

‘I need to get out of here,' he told the doctor who'd just said she wanted to keep him overnight for observation.

‘You need to rest,' she said. ‘And I'd like to monitor you for any ill-effects.'

‘I can rest at home,' he told her.

Lying through his teeth, because though he knew the docs over at City were unlikely to let Cooper be questioned until tomorrow at the earliest, he wanted to get back over to Dinner Key, wanted to see the
Aggie
again before Crime Scene started taking her apart.

‘My wife will monitor me for ill-effects,' he said.

‘Still,' the doctor said, ‘I'd be happier keeping you here.'

She was young – God, they were all so
young
– and pretty, but stern.

‘How's about I go home now,' Sam said, ‘and come back tomorrow?'

‘I'd advise against it,' she said.

‘And I do appreciate your advice, Doc,' he told her, ‘but I'm going to have to discharge myself.'

‘You'll need to wait for some of your drugs to be ready,' she said.

‘Can I come back for them later?' he asked.

‘You're certainly in a great hurry to
rest
, Detective,' she said dryly.

THIRTY-ONE

S
till Thursday, May the thirteenth.

After six p.m. when Sam and Martinez got back to Dinner Key.

On the way, Sam had called Gail Tewkesbury and Anne Dover, Andrew Victor's sister, to tell them about the arrest of the prime suspect in Andy's killing.

‘Slow progress from here,' he told them both, ‘but we have him.'

Gail had wept on the phone. Anne Dover had been reserved and subdued. Both women had thanked Sam for the capture.

Which had felt good.

As long as it lasted.

Elliot Sanders had been and gone, though his work and Crime Scene's would run and run in this case.

The on-call Assistant State Attorney had been there too, called to join the party at the outset as a matter of urgency because of the complex totality of circumstances. Everyone had known they had to back off while City of Miami sought a warrant to search the
Aggie
, based on the fact that a fugitive had been on board, and that during the arrest of that fugitive – in the course of which he had injured a police detective – evidence of new crimes had been in plain sight on the houseboat. Warrants already existed for Cooper's past crimes, but here was a load of new stuff in another jurisdiction, and the investigators needed all the expert legal help they could get with the construction of the search and arrest warrants and any other legal aspects of the case, for which the State Attorney would be responsible in court.

No one concerned was willing to risk a single mistake.

Everything – photography, crime scene sketches, evidence collection and preservation – was on hold until the arrival of the warrant.

A forensic cornucopia awaited Crime Scene and the Medical Examiner.

More than enough – sickening enough – to Sam and Martinez now.

A bathtub stood in one of two cuddies, partially cleaned, but with blood, flesh and bone fragments still clinging to the sides and splashed over the walls and floor around the tub.

DNA everywhere.

Prints, too, though Sam was already taking grim bets with himself that even if Richard Bianchi – whose blood and fingerprints were on file at the morgue – had been on the
Aggie
, Cooper would have taken pains to eradicate every trace.