An Absence of Light (41 page)

Neuman nodded and turned in to the street They didn’t have to go far before they saw the black Corvette.

“There it is,” Neuman said.

“Okay,” Graver said. “This is perfect We’re lucky. I know someone near here who’s got a boat.”

Neuman looked at Graver but said nothing as Graver gave him directions. Within fifteen minutes they were pulling up in front of another house with boat slips in the rear. It was miles away from Heath’s by land, but by water it was just a few minutes. The houses here were considerably more modest than those in Heath’s neighborhood. There were more banana trees here than palms, and the oily smell of the shipyards nearby permeated the still air. An occasional camper or fishing skiff was parked here and there under the rows of shaggy oleanders that separated the houses, and the driveways here were made of crushed mussel shells from the bay instead of smooth paving stones.

Graver directed Neuman into a driveway and the crunching of the tires on the shell base made a comfortable sound in the late heat and softening light of the afternoon. The garage in front of the car had been converted into living quarters and the crushed shell ran dead into the wall. An enormous outboard motor lay across two weathered sawhorses in front of the car. Neuman cut the motor, and Graver got out and walked between the car and the outboard motor to the front door that was shaded by an old mimosa that bloomed as brilliantly as if it had graced a palace garden.

Graver knocked on the frame of the screen door and heard a parrot screech somewhere in the dark interior. He heard footsteps coming, heard them pause, then quicken as they approached the front door.

“God damn,” a man said, and Graver stepped back and the screen door popped open as a stocky man in his mid sixties stuck out his suntanned arm to shake his hand.

“How are you, Ollie?” Graver said.

“Hell, I’m fine,” the man said, stepping out of the house into the shade. “How are
you?”

His gray hair was wispy, its thinness having allowed his scalp to become deeply tanned and speckled by the coastal sun. He wore khaki trousers rolled to mid calf over faded blue tennis shoes and a denim shirt that must have been washed a million times, its long sleeves rolled to the elbow. The shirttail was tucked into the waist of the pants which were hitched over a tight belly and held in place by a cracked leather belt that was much too large, its unused portion hanging down in front of his fly. He was grinning at Graver, looking up at the taller man with a cocky smile that revealed strong, even teeth.

“You want somethin’, don’t you.” His grin broadened.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Graver said. “A little favor.”

The stocky man looked at the car and at Neuman. “Business.”

Graver nodded.

“Right now.”

“I need a boat ride,” Graver said. “Just a few minutes from here.”

“Yeah.”

“I need you to take us there, maybe wait a while. Twenty minutes. Something like that We’ll be bringing a woman back here, and then she’ll leave with me.”

“Yeah.”

“And then I’ll owe you… again.” Graver smiled.

“No shit That’s the way I like it.” He looked at Neuman in the car. “Well, come on,” he said, jerking a thick arm at Neuman.

Ollie was always game for a game, having spent years in tactical operations before he retired out If he trusted you, he didn’t ask a lot of questions; he just followed instructions. He knew that whatever was happening here had already been thought through by Graver. Graver wouldn’t be asking him in if it wasn’t something that wouldn’t pass Ollie’s own muster… or could have been done without his help.

As Neuman got out of the car, the man eyed him and then he turned and started around the end of the house as Graver and Neuman followed. They passed under a tunnel of oleanders tangled in weedy vines to a back yard that was only thirty or forty feet deep and ended at a dock in the canal. Moored at the dock was an old inboard cabin launch, a small one, but well cared-for, if sparsely furnished.

Ollie stepped on board without hesitation and began flipping switches and pulling buttons as Graver and Neuman stepped off the dock and into the cabin.

“Where is it?” he asked as the ignition started grinding and the engine caught in a gruff cough that turned to a deep rumble. Graver told him. “Oh, yeah.” He stepped out of the cabin, threw off the mooring ropes and got back to the wheel. Without any further questions he eased back on the throttle, and the launch pulled slowly away from the dock as the old man let it glide into a drifting turn and in a moment they were moving forward, headed out of the canal toward the bay.

No one said anything for a while as the old launch casually made its way along the shore, passing the entrances to other canals, the houses growing tonier as the dusk grew darker. Graver heard the engine ease up before he actually felt it He had been watching the lights come on along the shore, watching their converging illumination flanking the narrow canals as they passed. The engine slowed yet again as they made another listless turn into yet another canal and glided past the docks of the houses.

“I figure it’s the next one up,” Ollie said in a husky voice.

“Casey,” Graver said, pulling Neuman to the cabin doorway. “You recognize it?”

“Yeah, he’s right. That’s it.”

Ollie grinned silently.

“Can you cut your lights, Ollie?”

The old man did.

“Can you dock at the very end? Not pull all the way up in back of the house?”

The old man nodded and did as Graver asked. It was almost completely dark, and his task was not all that easy. In a moment they felt the prow nudge the dock and the old man cut the engine. He quickly stepped out of the cabin and walked the gunwale to the prow and got out onto the dock.

“I want you to go around front,” Graver said, turning to Neuman. “Just ring the doorbell. When she answers and recognizes you, identify yourself. Let her know immediately you’re a police officer—but be sure to get in, at gunpoint if you have to. Don’t let her lock you out. Then let me in from back here. I’ll try to get in behind her if the door back here is unlocked.”

No one said anything more as Graver and Neuman got onto the dock and stepped a few feet into the bushes at the back of the small lawn. There were lights on in the house, a dim one in the kitchen where Valerie had burned her food the night before and then lights on in what must have been the back bedroom. Everything else was dark, some of the soft light in the kitchen felling onto the stone patio just outside the sliding glass door.

Graver nodded when he was satisfied, and Neuman made his way around one side of the house and disappeared. Easing to the side of the back door, Graver peered into the kitchen and dining room for a moment and then backed up and put his ear next to the wall outside her bedroom where the light was. He could hear water running. Was she bathing? Would she hear the doorbell? He went to the patio door and tried it He was startled to find it unlocked. Slowly he slid it open, praying there wasn’t an alarm system, and stepped inside. He waited a moment, then moved across the family room to a short hallway that he guessed led to the lighted bedroom. He paused at the doorway. Now he could clearly hear the shower. Good. He hurried down the entrance hall to the front door and opened it to a surprised Neuman.

“She’s bathing,” Graver said.

“Is she alone?”

Graver shrugged and locked the door again after Neuman stepped inside. They made a quick check of the other rooms to make sure they were alone and then went into the family room where they could still hear the shower. Neuman looked at Graver.

“There’s not going to be any easy way to do this,” Graver whispered. “We’ve got to go in there, and we’d better do it before she gets out of the shower. She might be able to get to a gun if we give her the chance. She might scream. Get your shield out.”

Graver went first. The bedroom was a mess. The bed was unmade, and the only light on was a lamp beside it The bathroom door was open and the shower seemed to be running full blast. She sneezed, and then blew her nose. She coughed. The smell of soap and the dank of steam drifted out into the bedroom. A closet door was open and a tangle of clothes draped off crooked hangers above shoes and shoe boxes piled carelessly on the floor. There was a television under the windows that looked out to the canal and a large digital clock with red numbers sat on top of it. Her underwear was at the foot of the bed where she had shed it as well as a pair of shorts and a halter top. A bottle of suntan lotion lay on the floor in front of an armchair beside the bed. There was a copy of
Cosmopolitan
on the wadded sheets, its pages folded back to an article she had been reading.

“We’ll let her get out of the bathroom,” Graver whispered hoarsely. “Don’t want her to lock herself in there. Stand back out of sight beside the door, and when she’s out I’ll identify myself. Don’t let her get back in there.”

Neuman nodded and started toward the wall and immediately the shower stopped. Neuman plastered himself against the wall adjacent to the bathroom door, and Graver moved back out of sight near the closet.

Both of them thought she would take some time to dry off, maybe brush her teeth, or blow-dry her hair, but to their surprise she came straight out of the shower and into the bedroom dripping water and without a towel. When she cleared the door Graver stepped away from the closet.

“Police,” he said. “Freeze right there.”

The minute he saw her he knew it wasn’t going to work that way. She immediately bolted, not back into the bathroom, but toward the bedroom door.

“Police,” they both yelled.

“Stop,” Neuman blurted and then lunged at her before she got to the door, knocking her sideways onto the bed where she fell into the tangle of sheets and started screaming. Neuman was on top of her instantly, wrestling her into the sheets as he tried to get his hand over her mouth, get the sheets into her mouth, the two of them rolling over and over as she flailed her arms and legs and squealed, tossing Neuman first one way and then the other from the sheer strength of her panic. Graver jumped on the bed too and together they managed to pin her between them, Neuman beneath her on his back with his arms locked around her, pinning her upper arms to her sides, his fists gripping each other under her heavy breasts, her wet hair in his face.

She was facing Graver who was on top of her, pressing his knee into her sternum as he held a part of the sheet over her mouth with one hand and his shield in front of her face with the other. She stared at the shield wall-eyed. All three of them were heaving for breath.

“Goddamn it,” Graver hissed. “We’re police.”

Pause.

Her eyes went back and forth between him and the shield.

“You got that?” he asked.

Pause.

“Police,” he repeated.

She nodded frantically.

“I’m going to get off you,” he said. “Let you get some clothes on.” He shook his head. “Don’t fight this, okay?”

She nodded, her wet hair flapping in Neuman’s face.

He eased his hand off her mouth. “Say ‘okay,’ “he said.

“Okay,” she panted.

Graver eased off her, pulling the sheet up over her as best as he could as he did so.

“He’s going to let go of you,” Graver told her. “Don’t try to get away again. Okay?”

“Okay,” she blubbered, snatching at the sheet from all over the bed as Neuman gladly scrambled out from under her and rolled off the foot of the bed.

The front of Neuman’s sport coat and trousers were dark with the water he had soaked off of her backside. He wiped his face which was dripping from the water from her hair. “Great,” he said, looking at his clothes as he slung the water off his hands.

Valerie Heath quickly got the sheets around her and sat up against the headboard of the bed, gaping at them.

“Do you understand that we’re police?” Graver repeated, standing at the foot of the bed and holding his shield out in front of him.

“Yeah… yeah…” she stuttered. She looked at Neuman who was running his fingers through his rumbled hair.

“You remember me?” Neuman wheezed.

“Yeah…”

“Do you have any idea why we’re here?” Graver asked, putting his shield back into his pocket.

She shook her head.

“I believe you do,” Graver said. He stared at her. “Speak to me,” he said, “so I’ll know you’re understanding me.”

“I fuckin’ understand you,” she said, “you son of a bitch.” Her black hair was plastered to her forehead, and without her makeup her face was as featureless as a sheet of paper.

“Good,” Graver said. “Now listen to me. We’re going to take you in for questioning.” He would explain later that he wasn’t exactly taking her in. “You’ve got yourself in a hell of a mess, Ms. Heath.” He put his gun away, made a swipe at his own hair with his fingers and sat down at the foot of the bed.

“Listen,” he said, trying to sound calm and sane to her, trying not to sound like a policeman, “I’ll be honest with you. I don’t believe you fully understand what it is you’re involved in here.” He paused. “The people you’re working for have killed two police officers. Detectives.” He looked at her in the dim light of the lamp. All he could see was belligerence. “As of this moment, your life isn’t worth a dime either. I’ll explain why when we have more time. If we decided we didn’t want to talk to you after all, if we walked out of here right now and left you alone, you wouldn’t make it through the night Even if you got in that brand-new Corvette of yours and drove it like hell all night… you wouldn’t see the sunrise.” He held his eyes on her. “Believe me.”

He didn’t see anything in her face.

“We’re getting ready to close down the whole operation, Valerie,” he lied, “but we’re going to try to save as many lives as we can. We don’t want anybody else killed. We have reason to believe that they’re going to start killing some of you. They know they’re near the end of this, and they’re trying to cut their losses. Unless we have your help, the people you work for, the people at the top, are going to get away with it We don’t want something for nothing. We want to deal. We can save your life, sure. But if you agree to cooperate with us we’ll also do our best to keep you out of prison. After all, you’ve been used.” He paused. “There’s no need in you serving time for something you didn’t really understand. Especially if they all skip out on you.”