Just Fall (20 page)

So. The woman Camille saw
has
been in this room. Instinct tells him the two murders are linked. But still he can’t see how. How many women can be killing people in hotel rooms in St. Lucia in the course of forty-eight hours? Is one of them Eleanor Larrabee? Or are the blonde and the dark-haired woman one and the same?

There are an astonishing number of ways to kill someone, Rob learned. There are poisons and garrotes, guns and knives, the opportune push from a window. Staged suicides, overdoses, and accidents.

The key was in the planning. The observation of routines and habits, the assessment of opportunities and weaknesses. Because not only must the intended victim unequivocally die (no last-gasp revivals or trips to the hospital) but either he or she must disappear without a trace, or the death must be an unsolvable crime. Rob had done well in a crisis, Quinn assured him, but killing is an art.

Quinn, for example, had a favored routine, as Rob learned over the next weeks. Quinn’s victims were brought to him, snatched away by his carefully trained muscle, so it was as if his victims simply vanished off the face of the earth. He liked them bound, and Rob came to recognize that it was this particular part of the sadism that Quinn relished most, the utter and complete helplessness of those whose lives he was about to snuff out. Quinn was verbose. He liked to talk to his victims while he tortured them. His weapons of choice were knives. And every single death, he took a trophy: an ear, a toe, a nipple, a lip. After he was done, his victims were dropped out at sea under the cover of night.

Quinn’s brutality was horrific, but there was always an explanation, some grievous betrayal that was being righted. Rob’s father could be vicious, but also charming and expansive; he had elegance and taste. But most important, he wanted Rob in his life, and that was like a drug for a young man who hadn’t ever felt wanted.

When Quinn thought he was ready, Rob was told to kill someone. The victim was not likely to be missed, a thug of low intelligence but high hubris. The thug had thought he could skim from Quinn without Quinn noticing. That was his first mistake. His second was bragging about it. The thug, known on the streets as Monkey, was an unpleasant fellow, brutish and ugly. Monkey enjoyed inflicting pain, which had made him an effective collector for Quinn, but despite this utility, his greed and stupidity had made him a liability.

Rob observed Monkey for several weeks, just as Quinn had taught him. Monkey was a creature of habit. Every morning, he shambled from his apartment to the coffee shop on the corner. There, he ate waffles, bacon, and coffee and chatted up the pasty-faced waitress, whom he also banged every Thursday night when her husband went to his AA meeting. After breakfast, Monkey started his rounds.

He broke for lunch, rotating a pizza joint, a Chinese restaurant, and a deli. His orders were always the same: two slices of pepperoni with a Coke, beef with broccoli, a pastrami sandwich with a side of potato salad and a Cel-Ray soda. After lunch, a few more pickups.

Monkey’s evenings were only slightly less predictable than his daytime habits. He stayed at home most nights, the flickering light of his TV set sparking through his blinds. Sometimes he hit the Irish pub down the street for a few shots of whiskey and boozy bar camaraderie. Thursdays of course were devoted to the pasty-faced waitress, an arrangement that seemed to suit them both.

Quinn wanted Monkey dead, but this time he wanted the body found. It was to be a message to any of his other employees who figured they could get greedy.

One sultry night, the air thick as cotton, Monkey emerged from the pub, stumbling drunkenly. Rob slid from his car and followed him discreetly, waiting until Monkey turned off the main avenue and onto a side street.

As he quickened his steps, Rob’s thoughts raced in a million different directions. He congratulated Quinn on his methodology; his insistence on observation and planning was paying off and Monkey’s devotion to his routine was making this easy. But beneath his logical appreciation of the plan raged more powerful feelings.

Self-disgust, fear, and repulsion, as well as a sense of hopeless inevitability. He was a killer. He had killed twice already. It was what he was meant to be. He was his father’s son.

The cacophonous roar in his head flared into a mushroom cloud. Softly, Rob called, “Hey, Monkey.” Monkey turned. Then Rob did just as Quinn had taught him, wielding a knife with force and precision.

That night Rob didn’t sleep. The few moments he did were poisoned by toxic dreams. His mother flitted in and out of them; in one dream she floated peacefully in a pool of warm water and when he dove in beside her, the current turned fast, the water icy. She pulled him to her, nuzzled him to her breast, then held his head below the freezing waves while she laughed and he drowned. The next morning, hollow-eyed from lack of sleep and guts gnawed with fear and shame about the man he was becoming, Rob scanned the news for reports of Monkey’s death. Nothing.

Rob told Quinn he wanted to go away for a few days; he had never been to Vegas, maybe he would check it out. But at the airport he switched his ticket. He went home to Pennsylvania.

Rob rented a car at the airport and drove to his old house in Devon. It was a compulsion, a siren call he couldn’t ignore. He felt hypnotized. Seduced. His eyes went to the bay window of the master bedroom. The room where everything had changed. A family emerged, the parents packing their two little boys into car seats, loading a double stroller into the trunk of their Audi. The parents were loving, the little boys happy. Rob drove away; their domesticity felt like a punch.

He stopped at Trinity Episcopal Church. It was where his mother had married his stepfather. Rob took a seat in the shadowy recesses of the nave and watched a baptism, the baby wailing as the water spilled across her tiny velvet head.

It was years later, but the memory flooded in, clear and crisp.

Eight-year-old Rob had served as ring bearer at his mother’s wedding. When the minister requested the rings, Rob fumbled the platinum bands. They dropped to the stone floor and rolled in opposite directions. The assembled guests tittered. Rob’s mother covered her initial flush of mortification with a pat on Rob’s head. But it was his stepfather’s face Rob remembered. It had mottled an angry red, the first harbinger of the temper that was to destroy them years later.

A quick Google search at the Philadelphia library revealed his mother’s new address. But it took Rob a couple of days to gather enough courage to drive to her new house. She was living in a large elegant colonial, not far from where he had grown up. The house was set back deeply from the street, with a sweep of manicured lawn, lush plantings of flowers, old-growth trees. A brand-new silver BMW was parked in the driveway. He circled the block several times without stopping, unsure of his intent. Would he ask her about Quinn? Would she tell the truth if he did? What did he want from her? He wasn’t at all sure.

Over the next three days he drove past the home numerous times but never stopped. Then, on the fourth day, impulsively he parked across the street. Killed his engine and lit a cigarette. Idly kept watch on the house, chain-smoking, as late afternoon oozed into dusk. The house was hushed, the shades drawn.

He was about to pull away when the front door opened and there she was. She wore a gunmetal silk dress with high black heels. An Hermès scarf was tossed about her shoulders and she carried a Prada handbag. She was, he had to admit, still a good-looking woman. She pulled out a compact and checked her cherry-red lipstick, wiping an invisible smear of it from her teeth; her formerly broken mouth now flashed a perfect smile. A car pulled up, a late-model Lexus. She got in the passenger side. Rob noted her date hadn’t opened the car door for her. He couldn’t see the man clearly but watched their shadows as she leaned over and kissed him.

When the Lexus pulled away, Rob almost packed it in. But instead he decided to follow them. They drove to a nearby restaurant, a high-end steakhouse; the bar at the front had a cozy, clubby feel. As his mother and her date made their way to a table in the dining room, Rob took a seat at the bar.

He ordered a dirty martini and then another. His mother and her date, a silver-haired man, seemed familiar with each other, although Rob thought she was working too hard to be charming. Her companion didn’t seem to mind.

“Does she ever wonder about me at all?” Rob didn’t realize he had spoken out loud.

The barfly next to him, navy blazer with a gold crest on the pocket, beet-red nose, looked puzzled. “Who you talking about?”

Rob blinked. “Uh, no one. Sorry.”

“Your ex, I bet. Am I right? Fucking crazy how a girl can get under your skin. I oughta know, I have two exes myself. Left in a room with them, I still don’t know if I’d fuck ’em or just fuck ’em over.”

The barfly delighted in his crudity and laughed until he choked. The bartender brought him a glass of water as he sputtered and pounded on his own thigh, completely secure of his charm. At the sound, Rob’s mother pulled her attention away from her dinner companion and stared right at them. Rob’s eyes met hers. He held the glance a beat too long, his breath snared in his chest. Would she recognize him? Shouldn’t she recognize him, her only child?

But his startled gaze was mistaken for quite a different intent, he realized with horrified disgust. She dipped her head at him with a coquettish bob, and adjusted her neckline to best show off her décolletage. Rob pushed blindly away from the bar, slapping down a handful of bills. Out on the street he puked up the martinis.

He drove directly to the airport. Returned his rental car and got on the first plane back to Miami.

It wasn’t really a surprise that Quinn knew Rob had gone to Pennsylvania. So when Quinn quizzed him, asked if he had found what he had been looking for, Rob nodded and copped to the trip. “I don’t need to go back again” was all he said.

Lucien is in the morgue. The building is very cold; the air feels shocking after the dense heat of the day. The thick perfume of formaldehyde, rotting meat, and bleach assaults his nostrils. Lucien listens to his old friend Alphonse Dafoe, the coroner. Alphonse is as loud, warm, and cheerful as his workplace is gray, sterile, and bleak, but his reports do not help Lucien’s investigation much.

Williamson had been drugged with a hefty dose of Seconal before his stabbing. This accounts for the lack of evidence of a struggle in the room. Lou, well, Alphonse figures she was probably taken by surprise and also that a woman of her size would have had slow reactions to a perceived threat. She had been shot at close range, through a pillow. Alphonse confirms that the nail Lucien found was not from Lou’s fingers (no adhesive was found on her nails, or evidence of a torn nail matching the piece still affixed to the fake), and while he has sent the torn piece out for DNA processing, there is a weeklong backup at least. Lucien thanks him and begins to leave, but Alphonse clears his throat.

“I’ve got one more good one for you.”

Lucien waits expectantly, looking at his old friend’s mischievous brown eyes, as round as his shiny bald head, his neatly trimmed gray mustache. This is their ritual.

“Three nurses working in a morgue discover a dead man with a hard-on. The first nurse says, ‘I can’t let that go to waste,’ and rides him. The second nurse does the same. The third nurse hesitates and says she has her period but does him anyway. Then the man sits up! The nurses apologize, saying they thought he was dead. The man replies, ‘I was, but after two jump-starts and a blood transfusion I feel better than ever!’ ”

Lucien gives an obligatory guffaw, and Alphonse looks delighted.

As Lucien emerges into the bright sunlight, he automatically checks his cell. There is no reception in the morgue, and he is annoyed to see he has three missed calls from Agathe. Doesn’t she know the kind of pressure he is under? He feels petulant and resolves not to call her back, but before he can even begin to delete the calls, the phone rings again. Agathe.

“Listen, Agathe, I am in the middle of two murder investigations. I don’t have time for this right now—”