Last Run (12 page)

‘I think . . .’

‘What do you think, Cathy?’

‘I think I want you,’ Cathy said.

‘That’s fine,’ Kez said, ‘but it’s not enough. Not for me, not for you.’

‘So what do you want me to do?’

‘Take the time you need. Do your thinking – no pressure – decide how you feel, about me, about having a gay relationship.’ There was a new, flatter note in Kez’s
voice. ‘I’m not interested in being an experiment.’

‘I would never—’ Again Cathy was dismayed.

‘I don’t suppose you would,’ Kez said. ‘Not deliberately.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Cathy wasn’t certain why she was apologizing, but Kez was upset, and that was bad enough.

‘Don’t be sorry,’ Kez told her. ‘Just be honest with me.’

‘I will,’ Cathy said.

‘And with yourself,’ Kez said.

Cathy looked at her, saw how calm she was, how steady, and felt a surge of admiration, wished for just a little of the same, wished for her own heart and mind not to be in such turmoil. Realized
that Kez was right to want to wait.

Except that Kez had told her to
leave,
which was the last thing in the world she wanted to do. To walk away.

‘Couldn’t we just go on?’ Cathy asked.

‘Maybe we could,’ Kez said, ‘but then we might both get hurt.’

‘Isn’t that a risk worth taking?’ Cathy persisted.

‘Not for me.’ Kez’s smile was wry. ‘I don’t like that kind of pain.’

The word was in on what had killed Gregory Hoffman.

Rat poison. Strychnine, to be exact, as David Becket had suspected. Not so uncommon as a mix in itself, rodenticide being used on occasions to lace cocaine in the hope of a longer, more intense
high; and the potential for serious health risks was always present, especially the risk of uncontrolled bleeding, often intracranial haemorrhage. That was when the mix was moderate.

In Gregory’s case, the ratio of strychnine to cocaine had been much higher. The almost indisputable intention, therefore, to kill.

No other similar deaths so far in the county, which indicated at least the possibility that the teenager had been targeted.

About the only thing Sam Becket was not entirely sorry about – when he went with Al Martinez to interview Ryan Harrison with regard to the Muller murder – was that despite the
potential cross-over between cases, the Hoffman investigation was not in the hands of Miami Beach.

The Miami-Dade police had – in the immediate aftermath of Gregory’s death – gone through Gregory’s belongings, read his private journal and talked to all his friends in
and out of school. Ryan Harrison had given no hint at that time of what he had later told Grace, but having since established a potential connection with the beach killing, the teenager had already
been re-interviewed by Miami-Dade detectives before Sam and Martinez had arrived on his parents’ doorstep. And had left again, less than an hour later, no wiser.

Ryan and his parents had been keen to help; no prickliness, no wariness, just up-front, decent people, posing no problems.

Offering no real help either.

‘Kid doesn’t know zip,’ Martinez concluded after the interview.

‘He could be right, though,’ Sam said, ‘about Greg having seen something.’

‘But Ryan didn’t, so that gets us no place.’

‘It gets us talking to all of Gregory’s friends,’ Sam said, grim-faced. ‘Never know, he might have told one of them what he saw.’

‘Don’t hold your breath,’ Martinez said.

There were few things Sam disliked more than questioning young people in the line of his work. Bad enough when they were just witnesses to a violent crime; ugly and depressing
when they were suspects. Right now, there was only one thing he hated the idea of more, and that was having to return to the Hoffman home and confront those grieving parents with another search of
their dead son’s room and possessions – let alone having to ask them questions relating to Gregory as a possible
suspect
in a homicide inquiry.

Yet unthinkable – and improbable – as that was, with the teenager now conceivably placed at the Muller crime scene, and with nothing new discovered to link the Miami and Pompano
Beach killings, it had become something he and Martinez had been forced to consider, even if just to eliminate the possibility from the inquiry.

‘
Saw me
.’ Still not a lot to go on, especially if all Greg had meant was that someone had seen him doing drugs.

‘Unless Muller was the one who saw him,’ Martinez hazarded over a cup of coffee in the office, ‘and the kid was so off his face, he killed him to keep him quiet.’

‘But then, if Greg
was
targeted with the strychnine mix, who wanted him dead?’ Sam countered. ‘And why?’

‘One of the other kids, maybe,’ Martinez theorized. ‘In over his head and figuring Greg was a loose cannon.’

‘I don’t buy it,’ Sam said.

‘Me neither,’ Martinez said. ‘We’re not the ones who have to, thank God.’

‘Sure we do,’ Sam said, ‘if the killings are linked.’

Chapter Thirteen

August 27

A body was found in Hallandale Beach early on Saturday morning.

Right on the beach, like Rudolph Muller and Carmelita Sanchez. Bludgeoned first, possibly, probably, with a bat – just like the other two.

Another female –
not
like the Miami Beach killing. No weird screaming sounds reported this time either, no screaming at all, even though that part of the beach was close to several
high-rise residential buildings. And no cutting.

But the victim’s teeth had been smashed. And not, according to the ME’s initial findings, as a part of the primary bludgeoning. This demolition job had been done as a secondary
assault, after death,
just
after death.

Hallandale Beach PD had responded to the first report, taken care of the preliminaries while waiting for the Broward County Sheriff’s office to take over the homicide investigation. With
Broward already in charge of the Sanchez case, Detective Rowan was paying full heed, but Sam and Martinez had only gotten to hear about it through Elliot Sanders, who’d had a call from the
Hallandale ME, a friend who knew about the other beach cases and figured Doc Sanders would be interested.

Not quite as interested as Sam Becket and his team.

Sam and Martinez drove up on Sunday afternoon to meet with Rowan again and learn a little more: victim’s name Maria Rivera, identified by the contents of the small purse
still strung diagonally across her body, the way many women wore their bags for security and hands-free walking. Nothing apparently stolen again.

She had been a sales clerk working in Fratelli, one of the one hundred plus clothing stores in the Aventura Mall. An excellent saleswoman according to her supervisor, well-liked by her
colleagues. Unmarried, thirty-two, no children, but parents, brothers and sisters who all seemed crazy about her, and several neighbours in her high-rise building close to Magnolia Terrace and
Ocean Drive who all seemed to like her too.

No motive anyone could dredge up.

It had been Miss Rivera’s habit to get home from her long day’s work at the store, take off her uniform suit, change into T-shirt and shorts or the like, and go walking on the beach
– pretty much like Muller, pretty much like thousands of Florida residents – then sometimes pick up a TV dinner and go home to chill.

Random, or someone watching her, knowing her pattern,
again.

No link between them though, Mike Rowan said.

‘No
known
link,’ Sam said.

‘No known link between any of the cases,’ Rowan added. ‘And even less to connect the others with this one.’

‘No cutting,’ Martinez said.

‘Exactly,’ Rowan said, seeming pleased by that.

Still eager to keep his cases to himself, Sam figured, though the Broward homicide unit certainly had no shortage of murders per capita by comparison with Miami Beach.

‘Mouth again, though,’ Sam pointed out.

‘And all bludgeoned first,’ added Martinez.

‘I don’t know.’ Rowan still dubious. ‘Certainly not where your Muller’s concerned.’ He shrugged. ‘All you got there’s a guy clubbed on a beach and
his throat cut. Nothing too weird about that.’ He tugged at his moustache. ‘Now
we
got two women, same county, both on the beach after work, both bludgeoned, one with her lips
cut off, the other with her teeth smashed to pulp.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘I guess we should keep each other posted, but I don’t think we got more than that.’

They came away half glad to still have their own ball to run with, knowing that Rowan might be right about the lack of connection.

‘Except you don’t agree with him,’ Martinez said as he drove them back towards the station, staying on A1A, always preferring to stay close to the ocean.

‘No.’ Sam’s mind was working. ‘I think we need to focus on the mouth and throat link.’ He stared out of his side window, not really seeing the palms or blue sky and
ocean or glitzy towers along the way. ‘Speech. Speech-making. Public-speaking classes.’

‘Acting,’ Martinez offered. ‘Singing.’

‘If Muller belonged to an amateur group,’ Sam said, ‘we’d probably have found something – a poster or script or libretto maybe – in his apartment.’

‘Not everyone gets all the parts, like you,’ Martinez said. ‘Muller could have gone to auditions and gotten rejected.’

‘Let’s do some cross-checking,’ Sam said. ‘Night schools again, that kind of thing.’

‘Mouth, throat.’ Martinez continued the process. ‘Could be eating or drinking. One of those gourmet groups?’

‘Could be just about any damned thing,’ Sam agreed. ‘Could also be some kind of symbolic silencing. Victims maybe
said
too much about something or someone – or
maybe just knew too much?’

Martinez was sceptical. ‘I can maybe accept that about our guy – I guess Muller could have been a snitch. But a dressmaking cleaner and a sales clerk?’

‘All kinds of people see things someone doesn’t want them to,’ Sam said.

They slowed at traffic lights at Bal Harbour, watched an elegant, elderly couple make their way slowly, with fancy shopping bags, from the glitzy mall to the Sheraton.

‘Political groups,’ Martinez added to the list.

‘Maybe they were all in therapy,’ Sam came up with. ‘Or all seeing different therapists at the same office.’

‘Can’t imagine Carmelita Sanchez having time for therapy.’ Martinez paused in thought. ‘Dentists. Doctors.’

‘Chat rooms,’ Sam said abruptly.

‘OK.’ Martinez liked that idea better. ‘Nothing on Muller’s phone bills or PC so far, though.’

‘Internet cafés,’ Sam said.

‘I’ll call Rowan,’ Martinez said. ‘He’ll be thrilled.’

‘One good thing,’ Sam said after a while, ‘if there is a link between Maria Rivera and the other two killings.’

‘Rules out young Gregory as a suspect.’ Martinez was already there.

‘Still our only possible witness to Muller’s murder though,’ Sam said.

And unable, poor kid, to tell them a damned thing.

Chapter Fourteen

August 30

Tuesday night, and Saul, spending the night at Terri’s, was restless, though she for once was sleeping like a baby beside him.

He got up carefully, picked up his T-shirt and shorts and padded silently out into the living room, closing the bedroom door behind him. He poured himself a glass of water, snaffled an oatmeal
and raisin cookie from Terri’s jar, and was just about to settle down on the couch and switch on the TV, sound low, when he noticed the photograph on the floor over in the corner near the old
dented filing cabinet in which Teté kept her work.

He hadn’t noticed it earlier when they’d come in after a great evening at Casa Juancho over in Little Havana, probably because they’d both been so intent on shedding their
clothes and falling on to Teté’s bed.

Saul stooped to pick up the photograph – and froze.

It was a picture of a dead body on what looked like sand; an appalling photograph. A woman, though it was only possible to see that from her bare limbs and clothing – her head, her face,
too bloodied, too
destroyed,
to make out – if one could stand to look at it for more than a second.

Saul thought – putting things together despite his shock – that it might be a photograph of the woman who had been found murdered on the beach up in Hallandale. He’d read about
it a couple of days back in the
Herald,
seen more on the local TV news. The assault had been described as ‘brutal’ and ‘shocking’ – the kind of words people
were all too accustomed to hearing used about crimes.

Different seeing it like this.

Sickening.

Definitely not a branch of medicine he was ever going to be attracted to. Though being squeamish was hardly the greatest quality for any doctor.

No blood in furniture making, give or take the odd cut finger or hammered thumb.

He sat down at the table, wondering how come Terri had this in her possession, already aware that, given how fired up she’d been about Sam’s murder case and the poor woman up in
Pompano Beach, she might have found a way to obtain – maybe even
steal –
this picture from Violent Crimes.

Except this didn’t look like the kind of professional crime-scene shot that Saul had, from time to time, seen Sam looking at over the years. This looked more like the kind of snap one
might get from a regular camera, maybe even a disposable.

But surely Terri could not have snapped the body, would never
–
even if she’d managed to escape her own work schedule and make it up to Hallandale Beach (if this actually
was
that poor woman) – but even if she had gotten herself there, surely she would never have been allowed to get in close enough to take this kind of picture.

No one more charming than Teté though – or more determined. So maybe she had persuaded some Hallandale detective
–
or more probably one of the officers securing the
scene of crime – to let her have a glimpse.

Maybe he’d even agreed to look the other way long enough for Terri to whip out a camera and take this
snap.