Eclipse (29 page)

Only by then it had been too late.

Toni had shown up out of the blue at Billie's at around noon, bringing a plastic container of nutritious soup she said she'd made for the company because of the flu going around, and she'd been in the neighborhood and had figured she'd ask Billie to taste it in case it needed more spicing up before rehearsal.

‘I was thrown, especially because I didn't think I'd told her where I lived, but I let her in,' Billie said. ‘I didn't feel I had any choice, but then I told her that I wasn't hungry, couldn't face eating, that I'd try it later.'

Which was when everything had changed.

‘Toni went to the door, and I thought she was leaving, that I'd offended her, but she let in another woman, wearing dark glasses, using a cane, carrying a bag, and Toni didn't introduce us, just said to the woman that I wasn't hungry – and then the woman came at me, barged me, knocked me off my feet, and I saw the cane swinging at me, at my head . . .'

She remembered nothing else until she'd woken up in the dark, tied down, and someone – she didn't think it was Toni, so it was probably the other woman – had fed her sandwiches a couple of times and juice, and Billie had known she had to eat something to survive, but she'd kept on getting sucked back down into this heavy kind of sleep, so she was sure they must have been drugging her.

‘Who was the other woman?' she asked Sam now.

‘Toni's sister,' he told her.

‘They will go to jail, won't they?'

Which was when he realized how very little she still knew about why she had been abducted.

He told her no more than she needed to know. That Kate Petit, the woman with the cane, was dead. And that Toni was in custody and going nowhere for a very long time, probably forever.

‘You weren't their only victim,' Sam said.

And then, seeing her start to tremble, he stood up. ‘You have to rest.'

‘You saved my life,' Billie said.

‘You wouldn't have been there if it hadn't been for me,' Sam said.

In the ER, Sam established that Chauvin was still there, though the only medic Sam could find was too busy to give him more than a few seconds. He explained that Chauvin had witnessed a fatal shooting and that he needed to be sure they were keeping him overnight.

‘The patient needs surgery, so I'd say he'll be here till noon or later.' The doctor paused. ‘If he's awake, you can see him now.'

‘Thanks, but no time,' Sam said. ‘I'll be coming to take him home, but no need to mention to him that I was here.'

The doctor shrugged. ‘I already forgot you were.'

Walking back out to his car, Sam had already decided how best to deal with Chauvin, to make sure he never came anywhere near his family again.

Then there was the scumbag who'd scared Mildred, and if his dad hadn't told him that Alvarez and Riley were on the case, he'd have had even bigger personal issues to fight right now.

But he and Martinez and Joe Duval – and whoever else was coming to join the party – had a suspect to interview.

Long session ahead.

He yawned.

Good job he'd gotten his coffee habit back.

Already hard to imagine a night into morning like this without caffeine.

The interview finally got under way at four a.m.

Toni Petit had been read her Miranda rights for a second time and, as previously, had waived them.

Duval checked with her one more time.

‘Just so we're all clear, Ms Petit. You wish to waive your Miranda right to silence, and your right to have an attorney present while you speak to us?' He paused. ‘“Us” being myself – Special Agent Joseph Duval of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement; Miami Beach Police Department Detectives Samuel Becket and Alejandro Martinez; Detective Jerry O'Dea from Palm Beach and Detective Roberta Gutierrez from Fort Lauderdale.'

Five, the ASA had advised, was the maximum number for their side, tonight, if they wanted to avoid future challenges from whichever lawyer Toni Petit ultimately appointed.

‘I'm clear on all that,' Toni Petit told him.

Sam was watching her closely.

A few hours ago, this woman had shot to death the sister she claimed to have spent almost two decades single-handedly protecting. It had happened in a moment of the highest drama and maximum stress, but Sam was as sure as he could be that she had known what she was doing.

Kate Petit had wanted him dead, but Toni had shot her dead instead, and then she had tried to turn the Colt on herself; had wanted, at that moment, to die.

Looking at her now, Sam felt that nothing had changed on that score.

She had nothing left to live for.

No reason, therefore – perhaps – to lie.

Her face was pale, her eyes dull, her expression remote, as if she had traveled a great distance, was not really here in this stark room with five officers of the law, all strangers.

Sam including himself in that, even if he had thought he'd known her for a number of years. There had been no friendship between them, no significant relationship, nothing to disqualify him from this interview.

He began by taking her back again – for the others present and for the record – to the multiple tragedies that had taken place in Louisiana, through to their escape to Florida and change of name. Kate Petit's finger on the trigger of the Remington shotgun when it had gone off and killed Jake Grand, but Toni responsible for it, in her own heart and her sister's.

‘I wanted to stop him,' Toni said.

‘Because he'd been beating you for so long,' Sam said.

They had agreed in advance that this would be an interview rather than an interrogation; that they were, it seemed probable, dealing with an ‘emotional offender', which meant that their technique would be friendly, even sympathetic, at least at the outset.

Emotional offenders were more likely to break.

This woman seemed already broken.

And ready to talk.

‘Kate developed an obsession after we settled in Hallandale,' she told them. ‘For a while, she started writing stories which all ended with some character being blinded, usually as a punishment. Eyes and blindness were always her theme.'

‘Had she accepted by then that she had to wear her glasses?' Sam asked.

‘When she chose to,' Toni said. ‘When she didn't, she was almost blind.'

‘Tell us about the Colt you stole from your father's safe,' Martinez said. ‘The gun you shot your sister with tonight.'

‘You want to know if it's the gun used in the Black Hole killings.' Toni paused. ‘Kate liked that name.' She nodded. ‘It was the gun used in all those killings, yes.'

And there it was already. Slam dunk.

They all looked at her hard, trying to penetrate the calm exterior.

Hoping for horror, Sam guessed, for shame.

For humanity.

Chauvin lay on his narrow bed in the ER bay, smiling.

Being shot had been a great shock to him initially, but he thought he might not have minded a slightly more serious wound if it had resulted in Sam Becket speaking to him a little more generously than he had.

‘You're a jerk.'

That had hurt almost as much as the pain in his arm.

Yet still, Sam had come to check on him. Chauvin had heard his voice out there a while ago beyond the curtains, and though he hadn't been able to hear what was being said, it was enough, for now, to know that he had come.

He knew that Sam had been mad at him even before tonight, and he guessed he understood the big detective getting pissed at him for being there during those wild moments in that ugly little house – just remembering walking in on that, seeing the madwoman with her gun trained on Sam still made him shiver – but Sam would realize eventually that Thomas Chauvin really had saved his life.

And then they would be friends, and Grace and Cathy – or Catherine, as he had decided to call her – would love him for what he'd done.

His arm was starting to hurt a little again, but it scarcely troubled him because he had more important things to think about. Like what he would call Grace, in his mind, now that he had met Catherine – and pronounced the French way, it was a perfect name for her . . .

‘Catherine,' he whispered.

His mind was fuzzy from medication, a pleasant kind of sensation.

He wondered when he would see her again, wondered if perhaps, after his surgery, Sam might invite him to come and stay with them while he recuperated, and then . . .

‘
Grace-mère
'
was what he would call Catherine's mother – almost like ‘
Belle-mère
',
the French for mother-in-law . . .

‘Catherine,' he murmured again, smiling.

And fell asleep.

Kate had never stopped complaining that glasses gave her agonizing headaches and contacts hurt her.

‘I used to get mad at her,' Toni said, ‘tell her she was choosing to be dependent on me, and sometimes she'd cry and rage, other times she'd be ice cold, but the bottom line was always that it was my fault, so “live with it”.'

It was only, she went on, when Kate's urges struck, that her sister dramatically changed.

‘Can you explain “urges”?' Sam asked.

‘Sometimes, when we were out and Kate was wearing her glasses, she'd see a perfect stranger and become enraged. Sometimes, it was because she was very attractive or seemed very confident. Other times, it was because of the person's job. Kate hated opticians, anyway, but if she saw a woman selling mascara, she'd resent her too. Or she'd see a stranger just looking happy,
normal
, with her kids or partner. Or she'd decide someone was staring at her or talking about her.'

‘And were they?' Joe Duval asked.

‘I didn't think so.'

‘Were they always women?' Sam asked.

‘Usually.'

Kate complained almost daily about someone who'd infuriated her, either on TV or in a market or mall or on the street. Which was Toni's fault too, because if she hadn't made Kate wear her damned glasses, she wouldn't have seen them.

‘Sometimes I actually hid her glasses for a while,' Toni said, ‘but then she'd be so helpless, I couldn't bear it.'

Sam waited a moment.

‘You referred to “urges”,' he led her back again.

Toni nodded. ‘Urges, rages, it's hard to describe what happened to her.'

‘Try,' Jerry O'Dea said acidly.

Toni took a breath. ‘Mostly, Kate kept herself under control. She would be seething, but keep it inside, building up until she could get home and explode in safety, without anyone noticing.'

‘What happened when she “exploded”?' Sam asked.

‘Sometimes she'd just cry and smash things,' Toni said. ‘Other times, she'd go to the garage . . .' She looked at the investigators. ‘You've seen Kate's “workroom” – that's what she called it.'

‘We have seen it,' Detective Gutierrez said.

‘Oh, yes,' Martinez said.

‘Sometimes she'd go in there soon as we got home, and she'd take a toy or a doll – I bought them for her, because I figured it was a harmless enough outlet for her rage.' She paused. ‘So anyway, Kate would take one and punish it.'

‘How?' Sam asked quietly.

‘She gouged out their eyes,' Toni said.

The silence in the room felt thick and ugly.

Sam broke the pause. ‘I'd like to ask you about the other dolls in Kate's workroom.'

Toni didn't answer.

‘Are you all right to go on?' Duval asked.

‘You're talking about the special dolls. The ones that looked like the victims.'

‘Yes,' Sam said. ‘Did you buy those dolls too?'

‘Yes.'

‘When did you buy them?' Sam asked. ‘At what stage?'

‘I always had spare dolls,' Toni said. ‘Different kinds. For when Kate got mad.' She paused. ‘Not for when . . .'

Sam let that go.

‘What about the clothes?' he asked. ‘For the lookalikes, I mean.'

‘Some I bought. Mostly I made them.'

‘A little sewing sideline for you,' Martinez said.

‘It was what Kate wanted,' Toni said.

‘But it was what you liked doing,' O'Dea said.

‘I
hated
doing it. But I still did it, same way I did everything she wanted.'

‘Why?' Sam asked. ‘If you hated it.'

‘You know why,' she said. ‘Because I owed her. Because if it hadn't been for me, her life would not have been ruined.'

Abruptly, she covered her face with her hands.

‘Are you OK?' Sam asked.

‘No.' Her hands dropped to her lap. ‘I'm very tired. I'm sorry.'

‘Would you like to take a break?' Duval asked.

‘Yes, please.'

Sam wondered how she'd be after a rest break – which would be taken in this room, no other comfort offered unless she made demands; wondered if she'd go on talking then, or if she'd invoke her rights to silence and a lawyer.

It was a chance they had to take.

It was almost five in the morning.

One of the many terrible things about this endless night for Dr George Wiley was having nothing to read.

Graffiti didn't count, nor legal forms.

He had invoked his Miranda rights.

No
way
he was going to speak to those people like some common criminal.

He was a doctor, after all.

‘I am a
doctor
.'

He had told them that over and over, but they just didn't seem to comprehend what that meant. And though Lieutenant Alvarez had treated him with a degree of respect, it had been apparent from the first that he and the red-haired sergeant already knew Dr Becket, and were, therefore, biased.

‘I don't have an attorney,' he'd told them, because he'd never needed one, certainly not a
criminal
attorney, and they had told him that one could be appointed for him, that he would not necessarily need an attorney until his first court appearance, but that it was his decision.