The Traveller (19 page)

He picked up the telephone and dialed the administrator’s extension. The secretary picked up the phone.

‘Hello, Martha. Marty Jeffers here. I got your note. What’s on the chief’s mind?’

‘Oh, Doctor Jeffers,’ the secretary said. ‘I don’t know exactly, but there’s a detective here. All the way from Florida. Miami, she says, and she wants to talk to you …’

The secretary hesitated and Jeffers pictured palm trees and beaches. ‘I’ve never been to Miami,’ he said. ‘Always wanted to go.’

‘Oh, doctor,’ the secretary continued. ‘She says it’s a murder investigation.’

Jeffers wondered for a moment whether the trout knew, after it had been touched, that it was doomed to die; whether it swam off, searching out some lonely eddy behind a cluster of rocks to shiver itself to death, cruelly confused and betrayed by its own environment.

‘I’ll be right there,’ he said.

5 A singular pursuit

8

The words echoed within her: trace alcohol.

At first she wondered whether her cheeks had been scarred by her tears in the same way that she felt her heart had been ripped and torn by her unchecked grief. She looked up at herself in the mirror, half-expecting to see permanent red welts on her skin, marking the paths her misery had flowed. There were none. She rubbed her eyes hard and felt a vast exhaustion enter her body, fatigue pushing aside and storming the barriers of resolve and perseverance and taking over inside her. She breathed out slowly, battling lightheadedness and residual nausea.

Detective Mecedes Barren wanted desperately to organize her thoughts, but was defeated by emotion. She gripped the edges of the sink and held tight for an instant, trying to clear her mind of everything, as though by creating a blank slate she could control what she thought and felt. She took a deep breath, and, moving with exaggerated deliberateness, turned on the faucets. She felt flushed and overheated so she ran cold water over her wrists, remembering it was her husband who had told her that this would cool her down quickly - an athlete’s trick. Then she splashed water on her face and looked up again into the mirror, staring at her reflection.

I am old, thought Detective Barren.

I am thin, brittle, and tired and I am unhappy and there are creases in my skin, on my forehead, and in the corners next to my eyes that were not there not so long ago. She looked at her hands, counting the veins on the backs. An old woman’s hands, she thought.

Detective Barren turned away from the mirror walked back into the living room of her small apanmei She glanced momentarily at the stacks of reports and file folders stuffed with statements, analyses of evidence, photographs, transcripts, psychological reports, and lists of items seized that formed into the paper substance of a criminal investigation. It was all piled haphazardly on her small desk. She walked to it and began idly to sort and arrange the documents, trying to impress reason on the mass of material. Susan’s legacy, she thought, and again she bit back tears.

She wondered how long she had cried.

She went to the window and looked out at the pale-blue morning sky. It was cloudless and oppressively bright. It seemed to her that the air was filled with the reflection of the sun exploding off the expanse of blue sea so close to the city. It was a day without darkness, without even a taste of disorder, and this angered her. She put her hand against the glass of the window and felt the tropical heat. For an instant she wanted to draw back her fist and thrust it through the window. She wanted to hear the glass shatter and fall. She wanted to feel physical pain. She stopped herself when she became aware that her hand had balled itself into a fist, turned away from the window, and surveyed her apartment.

‘Well,’ she said to herself out loud, ‘that’s it, then.’

She felt as though something had finished and something different was beginning, but she was not certain precisely what. She rubbed a tear away from her eye and took a deep breath, then another. There was a picture of her niece in a simple silver frame on top of the bookcase, and she walked slowly over to the picture and looked at it. ‘Well,’ she said again. ‘I guess it’s time to start over.’ She put the picture down and felt a rush of sadness slip through her body, like a cool wind in the last few seconds before a hard rain. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said to herself. ‘I’m so very, va sorry.’ But she was unsure to whom she was apologizing.

The woman officer behind the reception desk at the Dade County Sheriff’s Office was abrupt:

‘Do you have an appointment?’

‘No. I don’t believe I need one …’ replied Detective Barren.

‘I’m sorry, I can’t let you up to homicide unless there’s someone expecting you. Who is it you want to see?’

Detective Barren sighed loudly, irritatedly, swiftly fishing her own gold shield out of her purse.

‘I want to see Detective Perry. Right now. Pick up your phone, officer, and call his office. Right now.’

The woman held out her hand for the badge. Detective Barren handed it over and the woman carefully noted the shield number on a form. She handed the badge back and, without meeting Detective Barren’s eyes, dialed the number for homicide. After a moment she spoke:

‘Detective Perry, please.’

There was a momentary pause.

‘Detective Perry? There’s a Detective Barren from City here to see you.’

Another pause.

The woman officer hung up.

‘Third floor,’ she said.

‘I know,’ said Detective Barren.

The elevator ride seemed to take much longer than she remembered. She suddenly wished that there were a mirror available; she wanted to check her make up, to make certain that all the outward signs of grief were properly concealed. She straightened herself self-consciously. She had selected her clothing that morning with far more care than usual, knowing that appearances were important when connected to what she was going to say. She had ruled out her dark blue and gray courtroom suits in favor of a simple, light-coloured cotton blazer and khaki skirt. She wanted to seem loose, easy, and relaxed - informal. The jacket was cut stylishly large. Once upon a time, she had thought as she slipped it on, it would have been called baggy. Now it was oversize. But it was an excellent design to hide the shoulder harness which held her 9-millimeter. It was not her usual

choice of weapons. Ordinarily she simply stuffed a short-barreled .38-caliber revolver into her handbag and forgot about it for the remainder of the day. But she felt a wild sense of insecurity after she had dressed, had looked up suddenly at a sound outside her door, feeling the small hairs on the back of her neck stand. She had discovered herself strapping on the large automatic pistol without even thinking, and now she could feel its weight and bulk and she welcomed it.

The elevator doors rolled open with a swooshing sound.

‘Hey, Merce! Over here!’

She turned and saw Detective Perry waving to her from a corridor. She walked toward him quickly. He was holding out his hand and she shook it. He gave her a little wave as well and started walking toward his desk.

‘Come on - you want coffee? So how’re you doing?’ he asked, but, hardly pausing for an answer, he launched ahead. ‘You know, I was just thinking about you the other day. We had a rape-murder, the kid out in South Miami, right along the canal, you probably saw it in the papers, and all I could think of was that boxer you busted. Intuition won’t get you a search warrant, isn’t that how you put it? Anyway, I had this feeling, you see, that the killer wasn’t really a murderer, right? I mean, it was a straightforward rape all the way, but the kid’s skull got fractured. She was unconscious when she died, the coroner says. I got to thinking maybe he didn’t realize, you know? Maybe he didn’t know how hard he hit her, right? So I got a couple of guys and a policewoman to dress up like a teenager, and we staked the place out last night - the same spot, can you believe, where the first crime took place, and bingo! Who should come walking up to our lady cop but some guy with scratch marks healing up all over his face. Wanna party? the creep asks. I got a party for you, the detective says back. Guy copped out finally after a couple hours of denials. You know something, Merce? We’d all be useless if the bad guys weren’t so damn dumb most of the time. So, as you can see, I had a helluva night. Helluva night. Christ, the type of night that makes it seem worthwhile …’

He looked at Detective Barren before continuing.

‘ … So here I am, finishing some paperwork before heading home to the wife and kids, and who calls up from the lobby? This I gather is not a social call, huh? Have a seat.’

He motioned across his desktop to a chair and they both sat down.

‘You’re being real quiet,’ he said.

‘Sounds like a good bust. A real good bust.’ It occurred to her that she liked Detective Perry and she was suddenly sad because she knew that he would not like her after they completed their conversation. ‘It helps,’ she said.

‘What helps?’

‘That so many of them are dumb.’

He laughed. ‘No kidding.’

He looked over the clutter of papers at Detective Barren.

‘Merce,’ he said softly, ‘why are you here?’

She hesitated for a few seconds before replying in an equally soft voice: ‘He didn’t do it.’

Detective Perry stared at her as silence surrounded them. Then he got up from his seat and walked about. She watched him carefully.

‘Merce,’ Detective Perry finally responded, ‘let it go.’

‘He didn’t do it.’

‘Let it go, Merce.’

‘He didn’t do it!’

‘Okay. Let’s say he didn’t. How do you know? How can you be sure?’

‘Trace alcohol.’

‘What?’

‘Trace alcohol. The bite mark on Susan’s body was swabbed and saliva tests were run. They turned up trace alcohol.’

‘Right. I remember. So what?’

‘He said he was a Shiite Muslim.’

‘Right.’

‘Sincere.’

‘Yeah, that’s what he said. So?’

‘Won’t touch a drop of alcohol. Not a beer. Not a scotch. Not a glass of wine.’

Detective Perry sat down heavily.

‘That’s it?’

‘That’s it for starters.’

‘Got anything else?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Merce, why’re you doing this to yourself?’

‘What?’

‘Why are you punishing yourself?’

‘I’m not. I’m merely trying to find Susan’s killer.’

‘We found him. He’s in prison for the rest of eternity. When he dies he’ll probably go to hell. He will go to hell. Merce, give it up.’

‘You’re not goddamn listening to me! Trace alcohol!’

‘Merce, please …’ Defeat and sadness crawled into his voice. ‘I’m tired. I’m really tired. You know as well as I that this guy picked up half his victims in bars or student unions. You’re saying he never had a beer? Bull! He was crazy, Merce! He was sick crazy. He’d have done anything, anything! to get his victims. The rest, all the religious garbage, that was just, I don’t know, cover-up crap. Self-justification. Madness, hell, I don’t know …’

Detective Perry rolled back in his chair.

‘I’m tired, Merce. I shouldn’t have to tell you of all people that that damn saliva testing will turn up trace alcohol if the creep rinsed his mouth out with mouthwash before committing the crime. Hell, you know that better than I do. You’re the expert. You know.’

‘He didn’t do it.’

‘Merce, I’m sorry. He did. He killed her. He killed all of them. You’re going to have to learn to live with it. Please, Merce. Please learn to live with it.’

Detective Barren looked at Detective Perry. She wavered for a moment, measuring all the sadness and discouragement in his voice. She thought how crazy she must sound. Then she thought, vaguely, in an undefined, vaporish way, of her niece and she toughened quickly.

‘Will you help me?’

‘Merce …’

‘Will you help me, goddammit!’

‘Give me a break …’

‘Will you help me!’

‘Merce. Get help. See the department shrink. Talk to your goddamn minister. Take a vacation. Read a book. Hell, I don’t know, but don’t ask me to help you.’

‘Let me have the file then.’

‘Christ, Merce, you’ve already got everything we had. I gave you everything before the guilty plea.’

‘You’re not holding anything back?’

Anger flashed across Detective Perry’s face.

‘No! Goddammit! What a fucking question!’

‘I needed to know.’

‘You knew already!’

They were both quiet, staring at each other. After a moment Detective Perry spoke again. His voice was slow and sad.

‘I’m sorry you feel this way, Look, your neice’s murder has been cleared by us. If you turn up some hard piece of evidence, well, you can always come on back and we’ll take a look at it. But, Merce, it’s over. At least it should be. I wish you’d see it that way …’

He hesitated before continuing.

‘ … because you’d be much happier if only you’d realize.’

She waited, to be certain he’d finished.

‘Thanks …’

He shook his head and started to say something but she cut him off.

‘ … No, I mean it. I know that you believe what you’ve said. And you’ve always played pretty straight with me and I appreciate that.’

She looked at him hard.

‘I know what you’re thinking, but you’re wrong. I’m not crazy. And a couple of weeks off thinking about it isn’t going to change my mind. He’s out there.’

‘I don’t think you’re crazy, Merce. Just …’

He couldn’t find the word.

‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘I understand your position.’ She stood up. ‘I don’t mind,’ she said, ‘but I’m still going to go find Susan’s killer.’

She hesitated a moment.

‘I’ll let you know when I’ve got him.’

She was not exactly certain what she was going to say to her own boss. That she didn’t believe the Arab had killed Susan; that the killer was still at large; that she wouldn’t rest until he’d been uncovered? Whenever she formulated the sentences to describe the situation she found herself in, it all sounded silly, melodramatic, and unconvincing. She thought: There is something ordinary and trite to revenge. It is a common urge that comes from uncommon circumstances. It carries a package of guilt with it, wrapped up and unavoidable. She knew it was wrong to desire it so, but she was unable to say precisely why.