Hell (7 page)

But almost certainly to one of his cohorts.

Toy couldn't know that for sure – he didn't know anything for
sure
, not about what happened to guys like Rico after he'd delivered them to the Boss.

Except that he never saw them again.

For which he was devoutly thankful.

He
knew
it, though. Knew that bad things happened to them.

Stage Three.

Not his business.

He hoped, with all that remained of his soul, to keep it that way.

There were things Toy was prepared to do, and things he was not.

He'd done plenty for O'Hagen, and hoped to go on doing more.

Not just for the money, either, though Christ knew he needed it.

Tom O'Hagen certainly knew.

And for now, anyway, the Boss's gratitude was solid.

All that really counted, for Toy.

On Sunday evening, Grace was still alone.

Sam had called a while back to say he might not be able to get home before dark, and she'd told him a little crankily that she was fine, that there was no reason for him to worry.

‘When have I ever stressed about being alone after dark?' she'd said. ‘Besides, I have our son and dog for company, so I'm not alone, am I?'

Which had, she knew, hardly filled Sam with confidence, given that less than two years ago, Woody had accepted doped meat from Jerome Cooper, clearing the way for the killer to kidnap Joshua.

A hard thing for either of them to forget.

Still, she'd been working calmly enough in her office, and had made a small snack of Cheddar and crackers, and aside from going upstairs to check on Joshua – borderline obsessively – every fifteen minutes, she was doing just fine.

Until she heard the sounds.

Like shuffling – not inside, but someplace
close
, one minute seeming to come from around the back, then at the side of the house – creepy sounds – but she just couldn't identify exactly
where
they were coming from.

‘Woody?' She looked down at the dog by her feet.

Not so much as a cocked ear, let alone a growl.

‘OK,' she said.

She went upstairs to check on Joshua again, then back down to her desk.

‘OK,' she said again. ‘Relax.'

She heard it again.

‘Come on, guy,' she told Woody.

Phone in one hand, little dog at her heels, she took another slow walk around the house, checked every window, double-locked the front and back doors, switched on the outside lights to take a look around.

Nothing. No one.

She
hated
feeling this way, had never been like this in the past.

Enough cause, Lord knew, but that made her resent it no less.

New sound.

The Saab entering the driveway.

Pure relief, then a kind of frustration, almost anger.

‘This is not me,' she told herself, quietly.

And went to greet her husband.

THIRTEEN

April 26

A
t seven twenty on Monday morning, two miles east of Baker's Haulover Cut, soon after Ron Emett had taken a dive off his pontoon boat to try and find out what was amiss with the Danforth anchor, he surfaced gasping and ashen-faced.

‘Call the cops!' he yelled up to his wife, Rachel.

‘What happened?' She leaned over the side, stretched out her hand to try to help him as he began scrambling wildly back on board. ‘What's wrong with the anchor?'

‘What's wrong with it,' he told her, ‘is there's a
body
attached to it.'

Goddamned flesh and bone snared right around one of the flukes.

Ron Emett had never felt so sick.

‘You just call the cops and stay on this boat,' he told Rachel. ‘You don't ever want to see what I just saw, honey. Not ever.'

Not
ever.

They came in droves.

Not just the cops and Sam and Martinez and Crime Scene and Doc Sanders, and more members of the media circus than any of them had seen in a long time, but any number of small private boats, plus a horde of rubberneckers with binoculars on the beaches, no one put off by the storm warnings forecast for the day. And who the hell had gotten word out so fast, Sam didn't know, but none of it really mattered, because there was and would be nothing much for them to see, because the remains of that poor human being would be kept under wraps until the ME was ready to commence his exam back on dry land.

And so far as the detectives were concerned, they, too, were going to be pretty much treading water until Elliot Sanders had something to tell them.

Could be days or weeks.

And maybe it was some kind of perverse wishful thinking, or maybe it was one of Sam Becket's well-known hunches, which made no sense, given that this could be anyone: a lone sailor gone overboard or a drunk or a swimmer who'd gotten in a jam with no one to help him.
Anyone.

But Sam knew it was another victim.

He just knew it.

FOURTEEN

April 28

H
e was right.

And this time it was bad news for Gail Tewkesbury, among others, because they had a match.

The body that had come to rest beneath Ron and Rachel Emett's pontoon was that of Andrew Victor, Ms Tewkesbury's housemate and friend.

Like the first body – still a John Doe – this poor guy was minus his heart, not to mention various fingers, toes and other parts of his anatomy, courtesy of nature and the ocean's scavengers.

He still had his teeth, though, a perfect match for Victor's dental records.

Which meant that Sam and Martinez and the rest of the squad were now in business with a full-blown homicide investigation.

‘No clear evidence of skin raking,' Lieutenant Alvarez pointed out at a squad meeting. ‘The heart not Cooper's MO, so far as we know.'

‘But Andrew Victor was African-American, gay, was known to go looking for sex in South Beach, was probably strangled with a ligature from behind, all of which makes him a candidate for Cooper,' Sam responded. ‘And no, his heart wasn't the one stuck in a dinghy and tied to my house, but that message was as personal as Cooper's note to me last March.'

‘Any idea why he'd graduate to cutting out hearts?' Joe Sheldon asked.

‘Because he's the sickest fuck we've ever had to deal with,' Martinez said.

‘Maybe it'll turn out to be just black hearts,' Sam said, then shrugged. ‘Cal was always an exhibitionist.'

‘And he may not be raking his victims' chests these days,' Martinez said, ‘but I'm betting the fruitcake still beats himself up.'

‘Only one way to prove that,' Sergeant Riley said. ‘Find him.'

The squad's number one task.

No one wanting that to happen more than Sam Becket.

He had woken up that morning with something else on his mind.

Their home was not secure enough, his wife was still jittery, even if she wasn't admitting it, and the fact was, none of them could be truly safe so long as Cooper was at large.

Time to do something
.

He called Grace just before he and Martinez left for the Tewkesbury apartment.

‘I want us all to move to Dan and Claudia's house until we know things are safer. Cathy and Saul too.'

Security and family all under one roof.

Made sense to him.

‘Sam, we can't do that.' Grace was startled. ‘We can't impose on them.'

‘I talked to Dan an hour ago. He and Claudia are all for it.'

‘You've all been talking about this?' She felt a surge of irritation.

‘Gracie, don't get mad,' Sam said. ‘One conversation, one hour ago.'

She shook her head. ‘But why now? I mean, I know they found this poor person, but what's changed?'

‘Nothing's changed,' he said. ‘But too much still points to Jerome being back, and that's a risk I don't want to take.'

Her anger had gone, replaced by a sinking sensation.

‘You think it was him at the party shop last week,' she said.

‘I don't know, but I guess I'm just not prepared to take the chance that it might have been,' he said. ‘And you can't deny that your sister's house is a much nicer proposition than some hotel room or safe house.'

‘That's not the point,' Grace said.

‘I'd say it's exactly the point.'

Daniel Brownley's security system had been set up so that any occupant could check any part of Névé, internal and external, from several locations around the house. The smart materials created primarily for comfort could also be used to fool would-be intruders into believing that the house was occupied when it was empty. And the alarm system was directed through to the Village of Key Biscayne Police Department and a private security firm.

It was everything Sam and Grace both ordinarily hated.

But these were not ordinary times.

‘I'm not going to leave you or our son unprotected again,' Sam said. ‘And the same goes for Cathy and Saul.'

‘We could make our own house more secure,' Grace said.

‘Is that what you want?' Sam asked.

Grace was silent for a moment, picturing alarms and bars at their windows, hating it as he knew she would.

‘Is there anything you haven't told me?' she asked. ‘Any threats?'

‘Nothing I haven't told you,' he said. ‘Just common sense.'

She took another moment.

‘What do we do about preschool?'

‘We keep Joshua with us till this is over,' Sam said.

Another pause.

‘What do you want me to do?'

‘Get packed, lock up, pick up Joshua and get over to your sister's.'

‘I have two patients this afternoon,' Grace said.

‘Are they emergencies?'

She considered the cases: an eight-year-old and a young teen. Both doing quite well, neither in crisis.

‘I can postpone,' she said. ‘What about Cathy and Saul?'

‘Leave them to me,' Sam said.

‘You know you're scaring me now,' Grace said.

‘I don't mean to,' he said. ‘That's the whole point.'

Gail Tewkesbury was heartsick, but she was still exactly the kind of intelligent, clear-minded person that Sam and Martinez needed to assist them. Staying calm and cooperative as the investigative machine got underway around her, she offered the detectives coffee and water and then began, all over again, to tell them everything she could about Andrew Victor and the friendship they'd first formed at the Starr Banking Corporation.

He had, she divulged to them now, been fired after three warnings for bad timekeeping and, finally, for swearing at his boss.

‘And I guess he could have his moments, but he was still the nicest man I ever met,' Gail said in the sitting room. ‘Any time I needed help with anything, or got sick or just blue, Andy was there for me – and to be honest, I think maybe his weaknesses made me even fonder of him.' Her shrug was sorrowful. ‘I already told you he said I sometimes mothered him a little, but he liked it – maybe because his own mom wasn't the easiest.'

‘How much did he tell you about his family?' Sam asked.

‘Just that it hadn't gone too well when he came out. His dad got mad, his mom was more embarrassed than anything, Andy thought. He said they were both relieved when he moved away.'

‘His sister, Anne, is flying in today,' Martinez told her.

‘I know,' Gail said. ‘She texted me first thing. I never met her, but I'm sure she must be broken up. It was important to Andy that she stayed in touch with him.' She paused. ‘Do you think you could make sure she knows that? In case I don't get to meet her.'

‘I expect you will,' Sam said.

‘We'll tell her though,' Martinez said.

Andrew Victor's bedroom yielded no more of obvious interest than it had a week earlier, when its occupant had still been a missing person, not yet a victim of homicide.

No love notes, no hidden cache of photographs, erotic or otherwise. No illegal drugs, no prescription medications of the kind that might have been subject to abuse. No threatening or even reproachful letters from lovers, current or past. Just the neatly kept room of a young man thought by his landlady and friend to be ‘the sweetest guy'.

‘There's nothing in his waste basket,' Sam said to Gail. ‘Did you empty it?'

She shook her head. ‘Andy must have before he went out.'

The garbage collections long since gone.

They looked harder, but failed to find a cellphone or address book. They removed the datebook they had previously glanced at, with its few names to try following up, but little else to help them; meetings that might or might not have been dates or even potential sexual encounters, but no helpful notes either anticipatory or reviewing. And only the last four months to scrutinize, last year's diary not yet in evidence.

‘Not a “Dear Diary” kind of a guy,' Martinez commented.

‘More's the pity,' Sam said.

The chances were, of course, that even if they did turn up any of the men named on those pages, they would turn out to be irrelevant to the investigation, because the likelihood was that Andrew Victor had happened upon his killer on a street or on a beach or at a private party or at a nightclub – an encounter, wherever it had taken place, that would have given poor Andy no chance to log the person's name in his datebook.

They sat down again with Gail, went through each entry with her, but she had beaten them to the punch, had already compiled a list of names of her own.

‘This is everyone I can remember Andy ever mentioning,' she said, handing it over. ‘Though I've probably forgotten people – my brain's turned to mush.'

‘Hardly surprising.' Sam looked at her list. ‘This is good.'

She'd supplied more than names. Relationships with the deceased, as far as she knew, were printed beside each one, together with phone numbers and suggested possible addresses.