Shimmer (17 page)

‘Turns out it was stolen by the maid's ex-boyfriend –' Martinez had it hot off the grapevine – ‘with some nutso idea of torching it – who the fuck knows why – and the guy ended up frying himself along with it.'

‘So no connection with Dania or Lauderdale,' said Sam. ‘Unless it sparked off the kids again.'

‘Not a yacht this time either,' Beth Riley reported. ‘Some kind of speedboat.'

Sam checked his watch and stood up. ‘I'm going to grab a word with Mildred.'

‘I'm backed up here,' Martinez said, shuffling papers.

‘Back in fifteen to twenty,' Sam said.

‘I don't know why I should feel so relieved to see you,' Mildred told Sam, ‘and to get this off my chest.' She shook her head. ‘I still don't even know why I feel he's so important. I probably shouldn't be giving him another thought.'

‘But you are,' Sam said. ‘Which means something in my book.'

She'd invited him to sit, most of the pedestrian traffic flowing past the bench heading for the beach. She looked tired, her blue eyes less sharp than usual and wreathed in puckers of weariness.

‘I saw him early this morning on the corner of Washington and 9th, just after one thirty.' Mildred raised both wrists, showing her two watches. ‘No problem being sure of the time.'

She told him about the man's sharply dressed companion, and about her instinctive concerns – which she hoped had been irrational – for the second stranger.

‘They looked to me as if they'd been to a party, or maybe to one of those nightclubs, as if maybe they'd been dancing.'

‘But you didn't feel that they were a couple,' Sam said.

‘A real couple?' Mildred shook her head. ‘They looked brand new to me.' She thought some more about it. ‘They were walking south along Washington when our silver friend stopped to pick up this tandem – one of those nice old bicycles for two, you know? It was definitely his, not the other way around, because he had it chained to a lamppost, and he was the one who unlocked it – and I can't be sure, but I don't think his friend had ever seen it before. And then off they went together.' She paused again. ‘I'd probably have thought it quaint if he didn't chill me so.'

‘Which way did they go, did you notice?' Sam asked.

‘They rode north,' she said.

‘Do you think he saw you?'

‘Again, I can't be sure,' Mildred said, ‘but yes, I'd say so.'

Sam looked around. It was overcast again, humidity high, rain forecast to blow in later, but there were plenty of people on the beach and promenade and behind them back on Ocean Drive.

‘I hope you're not worrying about me, Samuel,' Mildred said.

‘I don't suppose,' Sam said, ‘you'd consider spending a few nights inside?'

‘I don't do shelters,' Mildred said, ‘unless there's a big hurricane blowing.'

Sam pondered. With no evidence that this guy was guilty of anything more sinful than being another SoBe character, it was hard to know what to do for the best.

‘I know a place – not a shelter – where they owe me a favour or two.'

‘What kind of a place?' Mildred was suspicious.

‘A bed and breakfast.' He was making this up as he went along, hoping he was good enough to fool her, but not one bit sure of that.

‘And where is this place?'

He had to make it right if Proud Mildred was to agree.

‘Over on Alton,' he said. ‘It's called Freddie's.'

Mildred's face creased into a friendly scowl. ‘You took a little too long, Detective. They don't owe you a dime at that place. You're thinking of paying for my room, and don't you lie to me, Samuel Becket.'

‘I just want you someplace safe,' Sam said, ‘till we can talk to this silver dude.' Her text came back to him. ‘You said he wasn't silver when you saw him early Monday.'

‘That's right,' Mildred said, ‘but I still can't tell you any more about him. It was dark. He walked past my bench, and I knew it was the same man, and he made my skin crawl, but he looked like a million other young men in the night.'

‘Still skinny?'

‘Definitely that. Not so tall, though, without those foolish things on his feet.'

‘Anything else?'

‘He wore a baseball cap,' Mildred said, ‘but I can't even tell you the colour, except that was dark too. I was trying not to let him see I'd even noticed him. I felt safer having him think I was sleeping.' She paused. ‘You think he might have killed the man in the boat?'

‘I don't know. Probably not.' Sam looked back at her. ‘Do you?'

She shrugged. ‘How would I know? I'm just an old bag lady.'

‘You got the lady part right.' Sam took her hand and kissed it, saw her weathered cheeks grow warm. ‘Will you do me a favour and go to Freddie's?'

‘No, Samuel, I will not,' she said. ‘But I thank you for your kindness.'

He sighed. ‘If you change your mind—'

‘Then you'll hear from me.'

Sam's cell phone rang and he answered, listened briefly to Elliot Sanders, off-duty but with news he felt Sam and Martinez needed to hear. ‘Thank you,' he said. ‘We'll be there.'

Mildred was watching him intently. ‘What is it, Samuel?'

‘I have to go,' he said.

‘Something bad?' She saw his grimness. ‘Is it another death?'

Sam was up on his feet. ‘Do you have any plans, Mildred?'

‘No, sir,' she said. ‘If you want me, I'll be around.'

On impulse, he stooped, kissed her cheek.

‘Stay safe,' he said.

53

That made Cal burn.

The kiss.

That stinky old bird.

He'd had a bad feeling about her last night. The way she'd looked at him when he and Tabby had gotten on board Daisy.

The way she was
there
.

He was only here now because he'd been on his way back to the fleapit and figured he ought to pick up a fresh pint of milk and something for his pain – and it had been as much as he could manage to get himself off
Baby
and out of the marina without crying out and having people staring at him. And right after he'd bought the milk and extra strength Excedrin, and a white loaf and a jar of Skippy creamy peanut butter for consolation, some kind of weird fascination had taken him close enough to the cop shop to smell the jokers coming in and out of the big white building, detectives and uniforms and witnesses and lawyers and criminals and more cops.

He'd seen one of them, in plain clothes, stride out, tall and purposeful, and head over the street and on down 11th, crossing over, and for all Cal knew he might have been going right to his very own alleyway and the pisshole, so he'd waited a few moments, for safety's sake, then followed.

The other man had passed the alley without so much as a sideways glance.

Kept right on going.

Heading towards Lummus Park.

Where
she
lived.

Which had made Cal want to go on following, because he had a
feeling
, and he'd known he should have gone back to the dump instead, but he'd felt like the other guy and the tramp were some kind of magnet, sucking him towards them . . .

And then there they were, like bosom buddies or even mom and son.

Which had made him want to puke.

And then he had
kissed
her.

54

Miami-Dade had been on the scene for quite a while – the techs moving briskly about their business because the skies were threatening rain and, therefore, the crime scene – when Sam and Martinez arrived just after ten forty.

Sanders was already there, after the courtesy heads-up he'd received from Dr Mike Dietrich, a poker buddy and the on-call ME.

‘Dietrich was right.' Sanders, a family man who lived about a mile north on Collins, looked incongruous in a Hawaiian-style shirt that billowed in the breeze over a pair of XXL black shorts. ‘Looks a whole lot like our 10th Street guy.'

They were on the beach in Surfside, just a handful of blocks from the Adani home. Which might be meaningful but was, considering the vagaries of the ocean, probably pure coincidence, Sam and Martinez had already agreed, since the pair of guys who'd found the dinghy and its gruesome cargo had happened upon it while they'd been messing about on their own Sunfish a little way out from the beach.

Having seen what lay inside, they'd freaked first, then toughed it out for the same reasons that had made Joe Myerson pull in the rowboat bearing Sanjiv Adani's body, had tied it up to their boat and towed it to shore.

Two young men, named Carson and Kahn, neither of whom would ever completely expunge from their memories what they'd seen this day.

‘African-American, probably late twenties, naked, strangled with a ligature and taken from behind. Nothing to help ID him, and no wedding band mark –' Sanders pulled a pack of Marlboro from his breast pocket – ‘but it's the injuries on the body that are just too damned similar to ignore.'

Sam looked towards the Miami-Dade investigators and their team. ‘We OK to take a look?'

‘Help yourselves.' Sanders put the pack back in his pocket with a sigh, and walked with them.

Another beach, another victim, another set of detectives and crime scene technicians, but the whole scene was horrifically and depressingly
déjà vu
.

‘Nice,' Martinez said. ‘Someone's done this twice now.'

‘At least,' Sam said grimly.

The possibilities of a copycat seeming unlikely, with details of Adani's wounds as yet unreleased to the media.

‘Getting a taste for it,' Sanders said.

The thought made Sam feel mad as well as queasy.

And more than a little afraid.

David had once told him that any man who could see stuff as bad as this would be a damned fool if it did not make him afraid.

‘Afraid for humanity,' he'd said.

Looking down into the dinghy now, Sam knew what his father had meant.

And knew, too, that there was one really ugly thing that he needed to take care of just as soon as it could be arranged, something he'd much sooner have avoided.

‘We need to have Mildred take a look.' He'd already brought Martinez up to speed with Mildred's sighting of her silver ‘angel' and his new pal. ‘Lord knows she's jumpy enough about him already.'

‘Old lady like that,' Martinez agreed, ‘shouldn't have to see this.'

Sam stooped again for another close look, noted that there were, thankfully, fewer bloody striations on this victim's face than on his torso. ‘Let's ask the team for some head shots and see if they put him in the ball park for her.'

‘If this is the guy,' Martinez said, ‘I think Mildred should come off the streets until we have the bastard.'

‘Stubborn lady,' Sam said. ‘Easier said.'

55

Grace, who seldom took Joshua out for walks in his stroller when the South Florida summer sun was blazing down, was standing in the front doorway wondering if the rain was going to hold off long enough for them to cross Kane Concourse, get to the French bakery and dry cleaners on the East Island and home again, when the phone rang.

She hesitated, listened to the machine picking up.

‘Grace, it's me.'

The voice was a whisper, but it sounded like Claudia, which couldn't be right, since she was still en route to Seattle, but if her plane had seatback phones . . .

Grace shut the front door, abandoned the baby and ran for the phone.

‘Grace, it's Claudia, please pick—'

She snatched it up. ‘Sis, I'm here. Are you all right?'

‘Not all right.' Claudia was barely audible. ‘Grace, I'm at Papa's.'

‘Why?' Confusion and the beginnings of anger sent Grace's voice higher. ‘What the hell happened?'

‘Just
listen
, for God's sake.' Still that inaudible, almost muffled voice. ‘I think something bad's going on here.'

‘What kind of stuff?' Realization hit Grace. ‘Is it Jerome?'

‘Grace, you need to—'

The line clicked and died.

‘I'm on my way,' Sam told her from the Saab. ‘I'll be home in ten.'

Alvarez had told him to take the day, temporarily turning the Adani lead over to Martinez and assigning Beth Riley to the case till Sam's return, their first task as temporary partners to check which nightclubs had been open last night near to where Mildred had seen the two men climbing aboard the tandem.

‘I keep trying to get back to her,' Grace said, ‘but her phone's switched off.'

‘And you've tried your father's number again?'

‘Still no answer.' Grace felt sick with fear. ‘Sam, I have such a bad feeling about this.'

Sam trusted his wife's ‘bad' feelings. ‘I'm going to make a call to the Cook County Sheriff's Office,' he said. ‘Ask them to check it out.'

‘I have to get out to the airport,' Grace said. ‘I have to get to Chicago, find out what's going on.'

‘If anyone's going to Chicago,' Sam said, ‘it'll be me.'

‘She's my—'

‘No argument,' Sam said.

56

Claudia had known as soon as the other woman had opened the front door.

This visit was a bad idea.

Jerome's mother was dishevelled, clad in an ugly velour dressing gown with a zipper pulled all the way to the neck, her feet encased in what looked like bed socks. No obvious physical resemblance to her son that Claudia could see.