Hush Little Baby (5 page)

Suzy’s father lived in an apartment block that was a short drive from Seminole Heights. Dixon led the way in her Tampa PD 4×4. She hit her hazard lights when they reached it, the prearranged signal to let Yoko know they’d arrived, then sped off back to headquarters. Yoko pulled into the parking lot and reversed into a spare slot between a rusting Ford and a large SUV with blackened windows.

For a moment she just sat there, getting a feel for the environment. Miles Devlin’s apartment was a definite step down from his ex-wife’s little bungalow in Seminole Heights. There was plenty of concrete and hardly any green. No trees, no flowers, and what little grass there was looked parched and terminal. The only colour came from the graffiti. Muted urban colours straight from an aerosol can.

‘Nice place,’ said Winter. ‘So remind me again why we’re here?’

‘Because I like to get as clear a picture of the victims as possible, and the best way to do that is by talking to the people who loved them.’

Winter nodded grudgingly. Her comment contained an echo of the one he’d made about acquainting himself with the victims. She still had the impression that this was all some sort of game for him, though, an intellectual puzzle posed for his amusement. She wanted him to get some first-hand experience of the human tragedy that accompanied a murder, and the best way to do that was to show him what raw grief looked like.

They got out of the car and walked over to the apartment block. Up close, it looked worse than it had from a distance. The building was streaked with dirt, the windows were filthy. Dirty threadbare drapes hung from some of the windows, ramshackle broken-down blinds hung from the rest. Devlin’s apartment was on the first floor. The front door was more or less in the parking lot. You crossed the narrow sidewalk, walked a couple of yards up the cracked concrete path, and you were there. The layout was similar to the sort of layout you often found in motels.

She knocked on the door and stepped back. Thirty seconds later there was a shuffling on the other side of the wood and a slurred ‘gimme a minute’. She didn’t hear a lock disengage, didn’t see the spyhole darken. Devlin clearly wasn’t worried about security. The door swung open to reveal a thirty-something man in a crumpled T-shirt and boxer shorts. His eyes were bloodshot and he stank of whisky. He looked like the world had ended, which she supposed wasn’t that far off the mark.

‘What do you want?’

Yoko held up her badge and Devlin glanced at it for a fraction of a second. If he was impressed, it didn’t show.

‘FBI. We’d like to ask you a couple of questions.’

‘Sure.’

Devlin turned and walked back inside, leaving Yoko and Winter standing there. They shared a look and a shrug, then followed him. The open door a couple of yards along the hall led into the main living area.

The room was cosier than Yoko expected. The large sofa had a couple of multi-coloured throws draped over it and the bright modern rug looked brand new. There was a matching armchair and a large TV with a games console wired into it. The bright red bean bag had presumably been bought for Suzy. It was easy to imagine father and daughter relaxing here, laughing and joking, maybe watching a movie and eating popcorn, or perhaps playing a video game.

The room was lit by a single lamp that sat on a small table next to the sofa. Under ordinary circumstances the light it provided would be moody and atmospheric. Under these circumstances it made Yoko think of an interrogation room. A tall highball glass and an open bottle of bourbon sat next to the lamp.

There were pictures of Suzy on the walls. A dozen in total. Different frames, different sizes, different ages. Unlike the professional pictures back at Heidi’s place, these were snapshots. Devlin appeared in a couple of them and Yoko guessed that Heidi had probably taken these. Father and daughter were smiling for the camera, so presumably these had been taken during happier times in the marriage.

Devlin sank down onto the sofa and picked up his glass. He drained it in a single swallow, grimaced, then reached for the bourbon bottle and poured himself another couple of inches. His movements were loose-limbed and he didn’t offer to share. The bottle was more or less empty, and had no doubt been bought earlier in the day. The raw face of grief. Yoko sat down in the armchair and glanced up at Winter. His face was blank. Whatever was going through his head, he was keeping it to himself. He was shifting around in the suit again, doing his best to get comfortable.

‘When did you last see Heidi?’ Yoko asked.

Devlin looked over like he’d just noticed her. He seemed to be having trouble focusing. ‘Sunday, I guess. It was my weekend to have Suzy. It would have been when I dropped her off.’

‘And what was your relationship like with Heidi these days?’

‘Okay.’

‘Okay?’

Devlin reached for the highball glass and took another drink. He grimaced, wiped his mouth, put the glass down heavily on the table. ‘What do you want me to say? She thinks I’m an asshole. And she’s right. I am an asshole.’

Yoko noted the use of the present tense. Devlin was in shock. It was going to take time to come to terms with this. That’s if he ever came to terms with it.

‘Why did the marriage end?’

‘Because I had an affair. Heidi found out about it and kicked me out.’ He waved a loose arm around in a way that took in the whole apartment. ‘And here I am living in this shit hole.’

‘The woman you had an affair with, are you still with her?’

He shook his head. ‘Nah. She worked out that I was an asshole, too. It didn’t last long. Just about long enough for Heidi to find out.’

‘Are you seeing anyone now?’

He shook his head. The arc it moved through was much wider than it should have been. ‘Nah, not seeing anyone.’

‘How often did you see Suzy?’

‘Every other weekend. I phoned her every evening, though. Without fail.’

‘You talked to her yesterday evening?’

‘Yeah.’ His voice tailed off as he slid into the memory. His eyes blinked shut and stayed shut for a good ten seconds. Long enough for Yoko to wonder if he’d fallen asleep. His eyes suddenly jerked open and he reached for his glass, took another hit of bourbon. Tears streaked both cheeks. Thin trails that glistened in the lamplight.

‘You okay?’ she asked.

He waved a floppy hand in her general direction. ‘Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. What else do you want to know?’

‘What time did you speak to her?’

‘Around six.  I always speak to her after dinner. ’

Devlin wiped his face and his hands came away damp. He glanced at his tearstained fingertips, then looked at Yoko like she might be able to offer an explanation as to how they’d got like that. The tears were coming more freely now, flowing down his flushed cheeks.

‘If I’d kept my dick in my pants then Heidi and me would still be together and none of this would have happened.’

This statement was fuelled by guilt and self-recrimination. Unfortunately, this time it was accurate. If Devlin had kept his dick in his pants then Heidi and Suzy wouldn’t have been living all alone in their little house over in Seminole Heights, and if that had been the case then they wouldn’t have appeared on The Sandman’s radar.

‘You shouldn’t blame yourself.’

‘Who else am I going to blame?’

Devlin grabbed the bourbon bottle and emptied it into his glass. He dropped the bottle and it landed on the rug with a dull thud. Then he reached for the glass and took a long swallow. The whisky hit the back of his throat and he started to cough and splutter. Winter reacted more quickly than Yoko did. Before she had a chance to work out what was about to happen, he’d moved over to the sofa and was holding the waste basket out while Devlin threw up into it.

He stopped retching and wiped his mouth. ‘I don’t feel so good.’ He went to say something else, but before he could get the words out he was throwing up again. Winter met Yoko’s eye.

‘Who said that being an FBI agent wasn’t glamorous, eh?’

Yoko didn’t have a response to that. The room suddenly felt much too small. The air smelt of vomit and sour whisky. Winter didn’t seem particularly bothered, though. He was taking the whole thing in his stride.

‘I think I need to lie down,’ Devlin mumbled.

‘Let’s wait and see if there’s anything else to come up first,’ Winter told him.

‘I’m fine.’

Devlin went to say something else, but before he could get the words out he was retching again. Most of what was coming up now was bile and spit. Even so, Winter had positioned himself so he didn’t get splashed. He put the waste basket down and looked over at Yoko.

‘A little help here, please. We need to get him down on the floor.’

Yoko walked over, careful to give the waste basket a wide berth. Up close, the smell was even worse.

‘You get his left side,’ said Winter. ‘I’ll get the right.’

Yoko grabbed Devlin’s arm and they hauled him to his feet. He was moving like all his bones had been removed. Carefully, they laid him on the rug and Winter started arranging him into the recovery position.

‘I guess this interview’s over,’ he said.

Yoko looked down at Devlin. His eyes were shut and his breathing was getting deeper. He wasn’t snoring yet, but he would be soon.

‘We can’t just leave him on his own like this. What if he does end up choking on his vomit?’

Winter was looking down at Devlin’s prostate body, too. ‘Yeah, I guess. Okay, I’ll take the bedroom, while you look in here. We need to find his cell, or a phone book. There must be someone living close by who can come and watch him.’

Yoko poured out two small measures of Glenmorangie. The whisky was a single malt that had spent a large part of the past two decades in a dark cellar in the Scottish Highlands. Her glass was crystal and lived in her suitcase. Winter’s tumbler was plastic and she’d found it in the bathroom. This was the reason she carried her own glass. Drinking a whisky like this from plastic was criminal.

After what had happened back at Miles Devlin’s apartment she wasn’t in the mood for whisky. However, after the sort of day she’d had she needed a drink and, right now, her need for alcohol trumped the flashbacks. Winter had pulled a seat up to the bed. His shoes were off and he was sitting there with his toes wedged into the gap between the mattress and the frame. She passed him the plastic tumbler.

‘Sip, don’t gulp.’

Winter looked suspiciously into the tumbler. ‘Have you got any Coke? 7 Up? Ice?’

‘No way. That would be sacrilege.’

He took a tentative sip and wrinkled his nose. ‘It definitely needs Coke.’

‘You know, Jefferson, you might like classical music and be well educated, but you can be a real Neanderthal sometimes.’

Yoko kicked off her shoes and got comfortable on the bed. Her back was against the headboard and she was wriggling her toes, glad to have them freed from the confines of her shoes. It was getting late and it had been a long day. She was glad to be off her feet.

‘Why did you join the FBI?’

Yoko looked over at Winter. He was projecting an aura of idle curiosity, but she had a feeling there was more to his question than that. She swirled the whisky around in her glass, took another sip.

‘There are days I ask myself that very same thing.’

‘That doesn’t answer my question.’

‘I’m not sure there is a single simple answer. Big decisions are usually the result of a convergence of smaller decisions. As a little girl I could have chosen to read stories about ponies and fairies, but instead I read the Nancy Drew books and tried to solve the crimes before she did. I guess that’s where the seeds were sown.’

‘But there’s a world of difference between Nancy Drew and the guy who killed Heidi and Suzy.’

‘That was just the first step.’

‘And I’m sure that there were lots of other little steps. To be honest, I couldn’t care less about Nancy Drew. What I’m interested in is that big final step, the one that finally set you on this path. And don’t say there isn’t one because that would be a lie.’

Yoko stared at him. The tie was gone, the top button of his shirt undone, and the plastic tumbler was resting against his bottom lip. He took a small sip and glanced at her over the rim. It would be easy to look at him and see a kid with unruly hair and an arrogant screw-the-world attitude. And it would be so easy to forget just how smart he was. Serial killers weren’t the only ones who were experts at hiding in plain sight.

As much as she hated to admit it, he was right. There was a big reason, a final push that had moved her from thinking that this might be something she’d like to do to thinking it was something she was going to do. She’d never shared it with anyone. She wasn’t even sure she was going to share it now, not until her mouth opened up and the words started coming out.

‘Annie Fuller.’ She paused and reached for her cigarettes, lit one, then exhaled a cloud of smoke with a sigh. ‘I grew up with Annie. We lived in the same neighbourhood, went to the same schools. We were in the same year, but we were never best friends. She was pretty and popular, and I wasn’t. That said, she was never horrible to me, not like some of the other girls. I’ve never admitted this to anyone before, but if I could have been someone else, I would have been her.’

She took another drag and looked over at him again, searching for disapproval, or condemnation. She didn’t share easily and this was making her uncomfortable. It crossed her mind to stop talking. Why the hell was she telling all this to a twenty-year-old kid who she hardly knew?

‘Look,’ he put in. ‘Just say what you’ve got to say. It’s not like I’m going to blab to any of your colleagues. I mean, heaven forbid they ever see you as a real person rather than some sort of ice maiden, right? No, as far as I’m concerned, what happens in Tampa stays in Tampa.’ He nodded to the cigarette pack on the nightstand. ‘Can I have one, please?’

‘I thought you didn’t smoke.’

‘I don’t. Occasionally I like to have one when I’m drinking, that’s all.’

‘And that’s the first step towards addiction.’

‘I’m not going to get addicted.’

Yoko raised an eyebrow. ‘You know that nicotine is as addictive as crack cocaine, right?’

‘I’m not going to get addicted.’ He emphasised the words carefully. ‘Anyway, who are you, my mom?’

She passed him the cigarette pack and Zippo, watched him light up. He was holding the cigarette awkwardly, like he wasn’t too sure what to do with it. He took a tentative drag and blew out a small cloud of smoke.

‘You were telling me about Annie Fuller.’

‘I was. Okay, one day Annie didn’t come home from school. This was back when I was thirteen. The police mounted a massive search, everyone in the neighbourhood got involved, but there was no sign of her. Days passed, weeks, and still no sign. It was like she’d just vanished off the face of the earth. It really shook everyone up. Parents kept a closer eye on their children than they had before the disappearance. And the atmosphere at school was even weirder than it usually was. Everyone was trying to act like nothing had happened, but of course something had happened. I used to sit behind Annie in math and that seat stayed empty for the rest of the school year. It was the same in all her other classes too. Her seat stayed empty. It was like her ghost was stuck there in the school and nobody wanted to disturb it. If you sat in her seat, then maybe you’d be next to disappear. That’s how it seemed to me, at any rate.’

‘Was she ever found?’

Yoko shook her head slowly. ‘No, she wasn’t. Like I said, she just disappeared off the face of the planet. One day she was there, the next there was an empty seat in class. Eventually the police stopped looking and people started getting on with their lives again.’

‘But you couldn’t quite shake yourself free.’

‘I’d never really thought of it like that, but yeah, I guess you could say that.’ She took a drag on her cigarette. ‘I was obsessed with the case from the start. I followed it religiously on the news and collected all the newspaper clippings. I filled notebooks with theories and speculation. It was almost like I was conducting my own investigation. Even after the police stopped looking, I couldn’t let it go. I kept picturing Annie locked up in a dark cellar or buried in a shallow grave.’

‘And imagining it was you,’ Winter finished for her.

Another slow shake of the head. ‘That’s the thing. I didn’t think that at all. Annie was the complete opposite to me. She was beautiful and popular. Why would this guy come after me? I just didn’t fit his victim profile.’

Winter laughed at that. ‘You were thirteen and thinking in terms of victim profiling?’

Yoko shrugged, ‘What can I say, I wasn’t your average thirteen-year-old.’

‘I can relate. So why were you so obsessed with this case?’

‘Because it happened so close to home. Up until then, the evil in the world had happened at a distance. It was an abstract concept rather than anything real. After Annie disappeared it became real. And any time I started to think otherwise all I had to do was look at that empty seat.’

Winter thought this over for a second. The quiet of the night was broken by an occasional vehicle passing on the nearby highway, the drapes briefly lighting up and the shadows arcing. He took another tentative drag, coughed as the smoke hit his lungs, then stubbed the half-smoked cigarette out in the ashtray. Yoko watched all this, but kept her mouth shut.

‘We’re agreed that you have control issues, right?’

‘No, Jefferson, we have most definitely not agreed on anything of the sort.’

‘I’ll take that as a yes.’

He grinned and she resisted the urge to slap him. He was baiting her, searching for a reaction, but she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction.

‘Something like this happens, the first thing people do is they try to make sense of it,’ he went on. ‘The box has burst open, all the ugly stuff has come pouring out, and they’re desperately trying to scoop it up and jam that lid back on. Except once that lid’s off it’s never going to fit back on. That’s what happened here, the lid came off, and ever since you’ve been trying to get it back on again.’

‘I think you might be oversimplifying.’

‘Of course you do. Everyone likes to imagine that they’re a lot more complex than they actually are.’

Yoko had another strong urge to slap him. Instead, she sipped a little more whisky, then took a final drag on her cigarette and stubbed it out.

‘Human beings are simple creatures really,’ he added. ‘So long as they have food, water and shelter they’re going to be okay. Everything else is affectations, stuff they use to dress things up to look more impressive than they really are.’

‘And you expect me to believe that’s how you view yourself?’

Winter shook his head and made a sour face. ‘God, no. I’m not talking about myself here. I’m talking about everyone else.’

That was worth a small laugh. ‘You really are something, Jefferson. You know that? Anyway, enough about me, why do you want to join the FBI?’

‘Who says I want to join the FBI? That’s the last thing I want to do.’

Yoko said nothing.

‘Read my lips: I do not want to join the FBI.’

‘And I guess that’s because you’re so happy and fulfilled playing piano to strangers in some crappy restaurant.’

‘It’s not a crappy restaurant. And yes, I am happy working there.’ He stared hard, eyes narrowed, daring her to contradict him.

‘And once again, methinks you doth protest too much. I didn’t bring you here at gunpoint, Jefferson. You could leave any time you want, yet you choose to stay. Then there were those notes you sent out. Nobody was a holding a gun to your head while you were cutting those letters from
The New York Times
, either. You want to do this. You were born to do it.’

‘So you say.’

‘I do say.’

They fell into a deep contemplative silence. More cars passed by on the highway, the drapes lightening then darkening again. Yoko reached for the whisky bottle and topped up their drinks. She considered having another cigarette but decided not to. She’d been trying to cut back for a while. She was down to six or seven a day. Well, maybe ten. Unless it had been a stressful day, then it was a closer to fifteen. She almost smiled at that. As addictive and as deadly as crack, and with all the lies and delusions that go with a class-A drug addiction.

‘What are you thinking?’ he asked.

‘I’m thinking about what happened back at Miles Devlin’s place.’

He gave her a look but didn’t call her on the lie.

‘When he threw up like that, it took me completely by surprise. Not you, though. You were ready and waiting with the waste basket.’

‘You were busy asking questions. I was busy watching. I saw what was about to happen and I reacted. It was no big deal.’

She shook her head. ‘But it was a big deal. It wasn’t just what you did with the waste basket that I found interesting. It was you who suggested getting him down on the floor and putting him in the recovery position. It was your idea to phone for someone to keep an eye on him to make sure he didn’t choke.’

‘So what?’

‘So, you’re a twenty-year-old kid, and I’m the grown-up around here. Those are the sort of calls I should be making, yet you were a step ahead of me all the way.’

Winter locked eyes with her. ‘It’s getting late. I think I’m going to head next door and crash.’

‘No arguments there, but you’re going to give me a couple more minutes first.’ She reached for her glass, but didn’t drink. For a second or two she just sat and looked at the way the lamplight had got trapped in the liquid. Like a diamond trapped in amber. ‘I’m guessing your mother. She’s got a drink problem, right?’

For the longest time Winter said nothing. His face was unreadable but Yoko could tell that he was giving her question some serious thought. She kept very still. She didn’t want to move because she didn’t want to hurry him into a decision. Do that and it was likely that he’d just clam up. Another couple of seconds passed and he gave a barely imperceptible nod.

‘Do you want to talk about it?’ she asked gently.

‘Not really.’

‘Will you talk about it?’

The silence that followed lasted long enough for Yoko to think that the conversation was over. She was just about to give him another little push when he finally spoke. His voice was barely a whisper and it was a struggle to hear what he was saying.

‘To begin with she’d get drunk every now and again. This was just after my father’s arrest and I figured that she was trying to come to terms with what had happened. As time passed the gaps between the binges got less and less until she was drinking every day. I lost count of the number of times I found her passed out.’

‘And you put her in the recovery position so she wouldn’t choke?’

Winter shrugged. ‘I’d lost one parent, I wasn’t ready to lose another. Although, looking back, it’s obvious that she was already gone. I guess I lost her the day the FBI arrested my father.’

 ‘I’m sorry, Jefferson. It must have been difficult for you.’

For a moment he just sat there looking lost. It was easy to imagine him as the small boy he’d been when the FBI descended. In a split second his life had changed and nothing had ever been the same again. That was the thing with life, it really could turn on a dime. It had been that way for Heidi. She’d opened the door and dropped her guard, and her world had ended. It was that way for all the Annie Fullers of this world, too.

Winter picked up the plastic tumbler and drained it, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He smiled over at her and there was nothing of the lost kid in that smile. The protective mask had gone back up and the big bad world had been pushed back to arm’s-length. He got up to leave.