Hell (29 page)

‘Jewel, the white witch-bitch,' Cooper had called her in his writings.

A major part of why he'd turned himself into Cal the Hater.

‘Still,' Sam said now, ‘tattoo or not, there's the death penalty to consider.'

A ripple passed across Cooper's light-brown eyes.

Fear, maybe, though Sam could not be sure.

The guy being crazy, after all.

‘What?' Cooper said. ‘You offering me protection, or a deal, maybe?'

‘No deal,' Sam said.

‘Protection then.'

Something, in fact, that Sam thought he could feasibly have offered a man he felt deserving of protection.

To say that Sam did
not
want that was an understatement.

Martinez cleared his throat.

Wasting time.

‘Going back to your friend “Toy”.'

‘You mean the guy who did my shopping,' Cooper said.

‘Among other things,' Sam said.

‘Toy's real name is Richard Bianchi, isn't it?' Martinez asked.

Maybe so Sam didn't have to.

‘I never heard of Richard Bianchi,' Cooper said to Sam.

‘I think you have,' Sam said. ‘I think “Toy” was Bianchi. I think you used him to help you lure Ricardo Torres from a party to your houseboat, the
Aggie
, on the night of the twenty-fourth of April.'

‘You think?'

‘I think you gave him the red VW Beetle that you were given by, or took from, the late Bernice van Heusen, and I think he ran
errands
for you using that car.'

‘What kind of errands?' Cooper asked. ‘I'm fascinated.'

‘What was the name of your final victim?' Sam changed tack. ‘The person whose remains were found on the
Aggie
?'

‘Final?' Cooper said. ‘I wouldn't be too sure.'

‘I'm very sure,' Sam said.

The low-burn of anger was starting to heat up now, along with his headache.

Not doing his job well enough, not just here and now, but not since the little dinghy with the first heart had been tied up outside their house.

Not up to the job.

‘OK?' Martinez was as discreet as he could be.

Sensing Sam's distraction, or maybe his anger.

‘How is wifey doing now?' Cooper asked, sensing it too.

Easy
, Sam told himself.

Get back to the last question or end it now.

He took a breath.

‘How did you choose your last victim?' he asked.

‘Last as in “most recent”,' Cooper said. ‘Better.'

‘Answer the question,' Martinez said.

‘Not talking to you,' Cooper said, looking at Sam. ‘You didn't answer my question about dear Grace.'

‘Shut up,' Sam said.

‘Who knew she and I had so much in common?' Cooper said.

‘I told you to shut up.'

Beside him, Martinez braced.

‘I guess the waiting must be hard on her, even out there.' Cooper smiled. ‘Even in that nice big safe house.'

Sam froze.

‘I wouldn't bet on the
safe
part,' Cooper said.

Sam was out of his chair, one hand shutting off the tape machine, the other grabbing the neck of the dirtbag's prison jumpsuit, before Martinez could stop him. ‘Don't you even
think
about threatening my wife again, you piece of filth!'

‘Sam!' Martinez was dragging him off. ‘Jesus, Sam!'

‘I told my lawyer you have a temper, didn't I?'

Biggest smile Sam had ever seen on Cooper's face.

Martinez was fighting to hold it together. He leaned over the table, veins standing out on his temples as he started the tape again, waited for it to be ready.

‘Interview suspended,' he said.

‘Due to police brutality,' Cooper said.

Just before Martinez could add the time.

‘Holy man, did you ever screw that up.'

Sam could not remember the last time his partner had spoken to him with such heartfelt reproach.

Not nearly enough.

What the
hell
had he thought he was doing? Not just losing it, but agreeing to the interview in the first place? He had achieved nothing, either for the investigation or for Grace.

Worse than that, he had almost certainly done them all harm.

‘Hey,' Martinez said, already softer.

Sam was sitting on a bench, slumped over, pounding head in his hands, still shaking inside.

‘You OK?' Martinez asked, anxious.

Sam couldn't speak.

Uncertain who he hated more, Cooper or himself.

No contest.

He had never felt such shame in his life.

Telling Grace was tough.

He'd put it off by going to the hospital first, for his blood test.

The needle stung a little, a whole lot less than he deserved.

He drove to Key Biscayne, found Grace, left the house with her and went to the beach, walking slowly while he described what had happened, exactly what he had done.

She was gentle with him. Said things to him that almost made sense, that might
almost
have helped him forgive himself. She said she thought they had both lost their direction, some of their fundamental self-control, after what had befallen them last year. That they should, as they'd talked about a few times, have gotten some good, prolonged therapy instead of staying strong and believing they could manage life that way.

‘I guess now we're paying the price for that,' she said.

He stopped, looked at her. ‘You're being kinder than you ought to be,' he said. ‘If it's because you're worried about me getting sick, there's no need.'

‘You can't stop me worrying,' she said. ‘Though if I am being kind, it's because I doubt if I'd have reacted any better if I'd been in your shoes.'

‘I had a chance in there to get something out of him,' Sam said. ‘Something that might have made a difference. To the case, to you, to us all.'

‘He's grown smarter, more confident,' Grace said. ‘More evil.'

Sam said nothing.

They walked on a little way, their shoes in their hands.

‘If you really want to help me now,' she said after a while, ‘please stop beating yourself up.' She stopped walking, looked up at him. ‘Because what's happening to me is all my own doing, and if you do get suspended, it'll only be because you were so desperate to help me.'

‘It'll be because I lost control,' Sam said.

‘You're human,' she said. ‘You reacted.'

‘I'm trained not to,' he said.

He saw then, exposed in her eyes for just an instant, the awful pain she was still in, the guilt and fear and shame. Yet she was fighting not to let him see it. Right now, Grace was shelving all that to support him, because that was how she'd always operated when it came to him.

So talking to her on the beach was nowhere near as tough as it ought to have been.

Not nearly as tough as looking at himself in the mirror later that night.

He was going to be suspended, no two ways about it. Probably two to five days without pay. Another stain on his record.

And no way of using any time out to help prove that Grace had acted in self-defense, because he couldn't think of one other person left to talk to.

Bernice van Heusen, last registered owner of the VW, dead and gone.

The Bianchi family probably willing the judge to send Grace down for life.

Bianchi himself – Cooper's ‘Toy' – not yet in his grave, but long gone.

Nowhere left to turn.

God help them all.

THIRTY-NINE

May 26

T
he captain was grim, but not unkind.

‘Why the hell did you turn off the tape?'

The implication being that if Sam had just lost his cool for a moment, it might possibly have been, if not acceptable, at least redeemable, but that the turning off of the tape had potentially turned it into a premeditated assault.

Which Cooper was claiming via Albert Singer.

Though there was no witness to that, since there was no force on earth that could persuade Alejandro Martinez to back Cooper against Sam Becket, even if Cooper claimed that the earth was round.

Cooper was claiming that the rip in his jumpsuit and the bruising on his neck were down to Sam.

‘I didn't rip his jumpsuit,' Sam said now, ‘and I'd be surprised if I bruised him.'

‘I'd rather hear you say that you know you did not bruise him,' Kennedy said.

Sam took less than two seconds.

‘I know I did not bruise him, sir,' he said.

The captain nodded.

‘You're suspended, Detective Becket,' he said, ‘pending a disciplinary review.' He paused. ‘Regrettably, none of this is new to you.'

‘No, sir.'

Sam having been suspended a couple of years back for acting out of his jurisdiction, well aware at that time that he might have been demoted or even transferred out of the Detective Bureau.

‘I'd like to apologize, Captain,' he said now.

‘I'm sure you would,' Kennedy said.

‘Too little, too late, I guess,' Sam said.

‘Detective Martinez tells me you were provoked, and the tape backs that up.'

‘It's no excuse,' Sam said.

‘No, Sam, it is not,' Kennedy said.

At ten past eleven that same morning – the day before Richard Bianchi's funeral – Gina Bianchi, staying over at their parents' home in Fort Myers, sat on the bed in her brother's old room, opened the laptop computer which had been brought back from his Miami apartment, and switched it on.

First and foremost, she did so because she felt there might be practical matters to deal with that had not yet been considered, and if it were she who had died, her computer would tell those left behind most of what they needed to know in order to settle her affairs.

Besides, Gina had an urgent need to feel close to Richard.

She opened up Word, browsed his creative writing folder, hit on one of his short stories – titled ‘Ground Control' – and began to read.

And, before long, to weep. Not just because he was gone, nor just because reading this piece proved to her again that her younger brother had possessed minimal talent, but mostly because she knew that Richard had known that too, which had made him less happy than he might otherwise have been.

He had wanted to write a novel, and Gina bet that if she looked a little harder, she'd find some attempts at that, and she would look in time, but not today, because finding something would only make her more sad. So she came to the end of the short story and then, feeling intrusive but pushing on anyway, browsed his mail.

The usual stuff was still coming in: shopping websites, junk, an email from someone called Rebecca, who sounded chatty and clearly had not heard the news, so Gina sent her a kindly worded note, telling her that Richard had passed away and that the funeral was tomorrow, and that, if Rebecca was anywhere near Fort Myers, she would be welcomed.

That done, she checked his calendar for appointments to be cancelled, but found that Richard had apparently not used that application, so she moved on to her brother's bookmarks: his bank, already dealt with; a doctor's office she'd never heard of – no reason she should have; a couple of book websites and a whole bunch of weird-sounding sites that she guessed Richard had probably used for research purposes, the kind that some novelists presumably frequented . . .

Gina returned to Word and looked for any letters or notes that her brother might have left for her or their parents, found none and was sadder still, yet not surprised, for why should a man of twenty-eight have had intimations of mortality?

Nothing to make her feel useful to him now.

One lousy email to this ‘Rebecca', who might not even have been a real friend.

Gina shut down the computer and returned it to the closet, knowing that the sight of it would upset her mother.

As everything had, since it had happened.

Not least that bastard Becket's visit on Sunday.

FORTY

May 27

T
he day of the funeral passed slowly.

A posse of reporters tried to get close to Névé early Thursday morning, buzzed Mike's car when he drove out with Robbie, but for the most part the security system, combined with a little help from the Key Biscayne police, kept them at bay.

Daniel came and found Sam in the kitchen, where he was sitting after speaking to David about the results of his blood test, which had been clear. Like his throat and head, both fine now.

More than could be said for his conscience.

‘We're not sure how you guys want to deal with today,' Daniel said.

‘I wish I knew,' Sam told him.

‘Claudia tried talking to Grace a while ago and had to back off.'

‘It's a tough day for her.'

And many more to come.

‘We both know that.'

‘At least I'm not working,' Sam said wryly.

Cooper's arraignment today, too. Martinez attending instead of him.

‘Every cloud, I guess.' Daniel paused. ‘We're thinking we might leave you in peace for a few hours.'

‘It should be us doing that for you,' Sam said.

‘We figure you won't want to go out, with the paparazzi out there.'

‘I'm not sure we qualify as celebrities,' Sam said. ‘But you're not wrong.' He forced a smile. ‘At least you and Claudia can escape for a while.'

‘We could bring back some takeout for dinner,' Daniel said.

‘Seems to me there's no way we're ever going to be able to thank you enough, Dan,' Sam said.

‘It's just takeout.' Daniel smiled.

‘If only,' Sam said.

‘They've escaped,' Grace said after they'd gone.

‘That's what I said.'

‘You should go too,' she said.

‘Stop that,' he told her, gently.

‘OK,' she said.

‘We'll take it quietly. Be with Joshua, be together.'