Hell (28 page)

Grace had told him she'd chosen not to request a change in her bail conditions, and she knew Sam had understood that she felt anything but positive about ever getting back home for keeps, but she felt guilty about that too, was beginning to feel she had an infinite supply of guilt, her own personal well.

Saul hauled himself out of the water, came over to towel off.

‘What's up?'

‘Grace says you and I should go home,' Cathy told him. ‘I think it's too soon, and they can't go back yet because of her bail.'

‘Maybe we could stay here another week or so?' Saul suggested.

‘I know you're thinking about Richard Bianchi's funeral,' Grace said. ‘And I know you just want to help me, but truthfully, the best way you two can help me right now is to get back to your lives.'

Dan left the barbecue and came over with a bottle of Becks. ‘So long as you know we're happy for everyone to stay.'

‘I'm afraid you're still stuck with three of us,' Grace said.

‘Though we do think it's time Joshua slept in our room,' Sam added.

‘I love having him share with me,' Robbie said.

‘We know you do,' Sam said.

‘To be honest,' Grace said, ‘we're being selfish, wanting him with us.'

‘OK,' Robbie said. ‘I get that.'

‘So do we get a say about going home?' Cathy asked.

‘Not really,' Grace said.

‘I guess a little normality would be good for you guys,' Claudia said.

‘Saul?' Sam said.

Saul shrugged. ‘OK with me.'

‘How come he gets asked?' Cathy enquired.

‘He's your uncle,' Grace said. ‘Show some respect.'

‘Give me a break,' Cathy said.

Sounding more normal already, Grace thought, and felt that in this one thing, at least, she had been right.

THIRTY-SEVEN

May 24

N
ormality ended again, abruptly, on Monday morning.

Sam woke with a sore throat and a slight fever.

‘I'm calling your father,' Grace said.

‘I'll call him later, if I need to,' Sam said. ‘I'm sure it's just a cold.'

‘I'll be checking up on you,' she said.

‘There's a surprise,' he said.

His health went to the back of the line once he reached the office.

Robert Bianchi had called Chief Hernandez.

No surprise there either.

‘You're off the case, Sam,' Lieutenant Alvarez told him. ‘Order of the Chief.' Martinez, he said, would go on working it with Mary Cutter, but Sam was on desk duties until further notice.

‘I warned you,' Alvarez said. ‘I told you not to speak to his family.'

‘I know you did,' Sam said. ‘And for what it's worth, I'm sorry.'

He remembered too, sick at heart, the other thing Alvarez had said to him that day. That if he messed up with the Bianchi family, it was Grace who might suffer.

‘Take the hit.' Alvarez's exact words.

David had tried telling him too, but he wouldn't listen.

He must have been out of his goddamned mind.

The captain called him into his office to issue an official warning.

‘You're a good detective,' Tom Kennedy told him, ‘and you've been under enormous strain, and I don't want to suspend you, but if you pull any more stunts like that one, I will not have a choice.'

Not Sam Becket's first tangle with the department.

Oh, man.

THIRTY-EIGHT

May 25

‘
W
e got a problem,' Martinez alerted Sam Tuesday morning.

Sam was feeling a little better, physically, than he had yesterday, but he was far from OK and, truth to tell, it no longer felt like a cold. He had not called his father yesterday, for which Grace had gotten mad at him, but it was only when she'd said that she didn't feel he should go near Joshua that he'd allowed himself to take the issue seriously.

A blood test later, at Miami General.

Shades of things to come after the needlestick.

‘Cooper won't talk to anyone but you,' Martinez told him now.

‘I guess he'd better take that up with the Chief,' Sam said.

‘That's pretty much what's going on,' Martinez said.

Albert Singer had, it seemed, passed on his client's instructions to tell the cops that if they wanted to know what had happened to the other victims, then Sam Becket was going to have to see him, whether he was on the case or not. And as much as Broward and City of Miami wanted to tell Cooper to go straight to hell, Special Agent Duval was presently discussing the matter with Alvarez.

‘No one's going to let this happen,' Sam said.

‘I wouldn't be so sure,' Martinez said.

Sam didn't know how he felt about it. The notion of dancing to Cooper's tune was as sickening to him as it had to be infuriating to the others – but Lord knew he wanted,
needed
, to be back on the case . . .

The problem was, even if the captain allowed him to go back in there, Sam was going to have to find a way of cutting through the killer's taunting. A bargaining chip. Something Cooper wanted.

No deals.

No
way
.

But something.

Tom Kennedy called Sam to his office.

Second time in two days. A regular rollercoaster ride.

‘I'm sure you know what's going on, Detective.'

‘All I know is that Cooper wants to talk to me.'

‘His lawyer seems to think he has something to share, but you're the only one he'll talk to.' Kennedy's gaze was sharp. ‘I guess you can imagine how thrilled I am by that.'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘And that's not the only issue,' the captain continued. ‘He's also stated again that he doesn't want his attorney present.'

‘That's not good,' Sam said.

‘It's not out of the question, though, if we play it strictly by the book. Detective Martinez to be with you. The interview to be taped. The defendant to be Mirandized again – and you ask him loud and clear if he wishes to be interviewed on tape without his attorney present – and you get his answer even louder and clearer.'

‘No question about that,' Sam said.

‘It goes without saying that the only reason I'm prepared even to consider this is that we want justice for as many of Cooper's victims as we can get.'

‘I understand that, sir.'

‘So is this an interview you feel confident to undertake, Sam?'

‘I feel confident to undertake it, Captain, but not as confident as I'd like to be about what we'll get out of it.' Sam paused. ‘Are the other departments in agreement with this? From a jurisdictional standpoint?'

‘You can leave that with me,' Kennedy said. ‘I think it's safe to assume Cooper's wanting to play games.'

‘No question.'

‘That's games with
you
, specifically, I'd guess.'

‘No doubt about that either.'

Tom Kennedy wasn't finished making his points.

‘Do you feel you have your priorities sorted now, Detective? That is, the case against Jerome Cooper as opposed to any possible case against the late Richard Bianchi?'

Sam took a moment. ‘Is it acceptable to you that Bianchi's name may come up during the interview?'

‘So long as it's in the best interests of the case against Cooper, yes.'

‘Then yes, sir, my priorities are sorted.'

Kennedy stood up.

‘Just don't screw this up, Becket.'

Sam was on his feet too.

‘I'll do my best, sir.'

Cooper had been moved to the Pretrial Detention Center.

Same place Grace had been taken nineteen days ago.

Grace in the same place as that
filth
.

Not there today. They had checked him out of there and brought him to the State Attorney's office for questioning.

‘I wish I felt good about this,' Martinez said before the interview.

‘Me too,' Sam said.

He did not feel the way he ought to before a confrontation of this kind. The way he usually felt prior to an interview with a known evildoer. He was never overconfident, always felt a strong kick of nervous tension and the wariness necessary to get the job done properly.

But this was different on so many fronts. The fact was he ought not to be walking into this room, not with the super-high personal stakes that he knew were, for the first time in his career, overshadowing the task at hand. Lord knew he'd been distracted by intense personal issues before, and Kennedy and Alvarez – and Martinez most of all – knew damned well his propensity for taking somewhat rash chances when his loved ones were at risk.

This was
so
different.

‘You wanna call it off, man?' Martinez asked.

‘Oh, yes,' Sam said. ‘But there's no way on earth we're going to do that.'

‘Are you sure that you wish to speak to us now without an attorney present?'

‘I've told you.'

‘Please confirm it now, for the record.'

‘I, Jerome Cooper, confirm for the record that I wish to speak to Detective Samuel Lincoln Becket without an attorney present.' A pause. ‘Does he have to be here?'

‘For the record, the defendant is looking at Detective Martinez,' Sam said. ‘Yes, he does.'

‘For the record,' Martinez said, ‘the defendant shrugged.'

‘OK,' Cooper said. ‘If he has to be here, he has to be here.'

Like a host snubbing an unexpected guest.

Sam was already getting a headache.

‘If at any time during the interview,' he said, ‘you wish to have an attorney present, please state it and the interview will be ceased until an attorney is available.'

‘Yes.' A pause. ‘That's fine. Can we get started?'

‘Yes, we can.'

Sam double-checked the tape.

‘You wanted to speak to me,' he said.

‘Because I figured you'd want to speak to me too,' Cooper said.

‘No other reason?'

‘You want things from me,' Cooper said.

‘Yes,' Sam said.

‘Tell me what you want.'

‘Further information regarding the allegations against you,' Sam said. ‘Any further details you wish to give us regarding the unlawful killings of Sanjiv Adani, Tobias Graham—'

‘I never knew that was his name at the time,' Cooper interrupted. ‘He told me his friends called him Tabby, which I liked. Who knows, if he'd told me his real name, I might not have killed him.'

‘Is that an admission that you unlawfully killed Tobias Graham?'

‘I guess.' Cooper paused. ‘You were starting a list of names.'

‘I'll continue,' Sam said. ‘Sanjiv Adani, Tobias Graham, Andrew Victor, Ricardo Torres.' He paused. ‘And Roxanne Lucca.' Cooper's mother. Not a glimmer of reaction from the killer. ‘Also any further details you wish to give us at this time regarding the attempted murder of Mildred Bleeker, and the kidnapping of Joshua Becket.'

‘Your son,' Cooper said. ‘And your step-mom now, I guess.'

‘That is correct.'

‘That stinky old bag lady and the old doc.' Cooper shook his head.

‘Watch your mouth,' Martinez said.

‘All makes it a little personal, doesn't it?' Cooper said.

‘Would you like to end the interview?' Sam asked.

‘No.'

‘Are you sure?' Martinez checked.

‘I'm only answering Sam's – excuse me, Detective Becket's – questions.'

‘That's your prerogative,' Sam said.

‘I've always liked that word,' Cooper said.

‘You enjoy words,' Sam said. ‘You wrote about that in your
Epistles
.'

‘Many times.'

‘Back to the interview,' Sam said.

‘What kind of details would you be looking for, Detective?'

‘You tell us.'

‘Confessions?'

‘If you wish.'

‘Names, maybe,' Cooper suggested, ‘of any victims you might not know about yet?'

‘If you wish.'

‘I wish for many things,' Cooper said. ‘I guess you'd like to know the whereabouts of any missing bodies.' He paused. ‘Or body parts, maybe?'

‘It would be helpful,' Sam said.

‘Anything else that would be helpful, Detective?' Another pause. ‘How about the names of any accomplices?'

‘Of course,' Sam said.

He was conscious of Martinez's increased tension, sitting beside him.

‘So what's in it for me?' Cooper asked.

Finally.

‘Truth,' Sam said.

‘Anything else?'

‘How about salvation?'

‘Little late for that, wouldn't you say?'

‘Not my place to guess,' Sam said.

‘Come on, Sam, there has to be something you can give me.'

Sam leaned forward slightly. ‘Call me Detective Becket, and I'll think about it.'

‘OK.
Detective
Becket.'

‘That's better,' Martinez said.

‘Did someone speak?' Cooper asked.

‘Don't get smart,' Martinez said, ‘or we'll wrap this up.'

Cooper ignored him, kept on looking at Sam.

‘I seem to remember,' Sam said, ‘from your
Epistles
, you were pretty scared of places like this. Jail. Even juvey.'

‘It's not so scary now,' Cooper said. ‘I got my old tattoo removed a while back.'

He'd had a racist symbol tattooed on his chest, a white cross in a red circle with a blood drop in the middle. According to one of his old
Epistles
, he'd done it to try and please his mother, but she'd told him that all he'd done was turn himself into target practice for ‘them'.

Them
being anyone not Caucasian. Roxanne – Frank Lucca's second wife – having been a bigger racist than her son. And perhaps an even more evil human being: a mother who had abused and tormented her son, who had taught him to hate himself and others, and who had gone on to torture Grace and Claudia's father.