Shimmer (7 page)

‘Nothing,' Claudia said.

‘OK.' Grace's mind spun, trying to stay steady and, most of all, non-judgemental. ‘But you're here.'

‘Because I'm a coward.'

‘No, you're not,' Grace said. ‘Or you never have been.'

‘It gets worse,' Claudia said.

Grace waited.

‘I'm being blackmailed.'

‘My God.' Now Grace was openly horrified.

Joshua was still in his playpen, occupied now with a soft ball. These past few disturbed nights aside, he was such a good, undemanding little boy, for whom Grace was as endlessly and passionately grateful as she was for Sam.

As she'd believed Claudia was for Daniel and their boys.

‘Someone saw us in the park,' her sister went on, ‘and took photographs. Of me kissing Kevin.'

‘Who?' Grace's bewilderment was growing, because this kind of thing only happened to public figures or movie stars, not to suburban wives, and who would do such a thing to Claudia, or to Daniel, come to that?

‘Still worse to come,' Claudia said, ‘depending on your outlook.'

Grace waited.

‘The blackmailer was Jerome Cooper.'

Grace stared, her mind floundering again. ‘Roxanne's son?'

Claudia nodded, the flush in her cheeks darkening. ‘Our stepbrother.'

Grace felt suddenly as if her thinking processes had been caught up in an internal mud storm, as if this was one ingredient too many, and certainly too bizarre. She never thought of Jerome Cooper as her stepbrother – she never thought about him at all, in truth.

Jerome Cooper. Son of Roxanne Cooper, who'd married their father back in 2000, two years after their mother's death.

She and Claudia had both felt relieved at the time not to receive invitations, had only found out about the marriage because someone (they'd never found out who, nor cared) had anonymously sent both sisters Xeroxes of the notice in the
Melrose Park Journal
, and of a wedding snap showing a middle-aged woman in a snug-fitting white suit – her only resemblance to their late mother her blonde hair, though that, Grace had felt uncharitably certain, looking at the photo, had come out of a bottle – standing between her new husband, Frank Lucca, and a grinning boy of about sixteen. After which there had been one combined Christmas and change of address card – the Luccas were still in Melrose Park, living in a street Grace thought was less than a mile from their old place – signed
Roxy, Frank and Jerome
, to which Claudia had reciprocated but Grace had not, and no communication since then.

More than seven years now since they'd seen Frank.

Grace, for one, had no regrets on that score.

‘How,' she asked now, ‘could Jerome possibly know about you and this man?'

Since to the best of her knowledge, Frank Lucca's stepson still lived just outside Chicago, over two thousand miles from Seattle.

‘He must have been following me.' Claudia paused. ‘He'd come to Bainbridge Island before.'

‘He had?'

‘He showed up on our doorstep out of nowhere last fall, looking for a hand-out.' Claudia shook her head, remembering. ‘“I'm Jerry,” he said, “Roxy's boy.” He has this really insincere smile.'

‘You never said a word to me.' Grace was stunned.

‘It was right after I'd come back from visiting with you guys.' Claudia had flown down after Joshua's birth and stayed on for a while to help. ‘You'd all been through so much, and I didn't want to burden you.'

‘And later?' Grace said. ‘Why not tell me then?'

She looked down into the playpen, experiencing a strong urge to pick up her son, but Joshua was perfectly content, and her sister's need for her full attention was decidedly greater for the moment, so Grace remained on the sofa.

‘Because I knew it would make you mad,' Claudia answered. ‘And I guess I wanted to put it out of my mind. Dan saw how upset I was, and said that if the guy was in a jam, we might as well give him five hundred dollars, since he was, in a sense, family, but he asked Jerome to sign a receipt, and he didn't argue, said he was grateful and it'd be all he'd ever ask for.'

‘Why did he say he needed this money?' Grace asked.

‘He said his mom and Frank were going through a bad time.' Claudia paused. ‘He said he figured
we
owed him. You and I.'

‘How did he figure that?' Grace asked, harshly.

‘The implication was, Daniel and I took it, that if we'd been better daughters and not run out on him and Mama, Papa might not have had to close down the store and sell the old house when he married Roxanne, and things would have been easier ever after.'

‘And we could have stayed home and sliced salami.' The bitterness was still in her tone, and Grace had never known till now, nor cared, if the Lucca's house move had been up or downscale. ‘We could have made it easier on our father because we
owed
him so much.'

17

Sam and Martinez had been in the office screening all the reports called in to the whole Miami-Dade area that might possibly relate to the killing – the time frame now estimated by Elliot Sanders as having been between midnight and four a.m. Friday, give or take.

There had been a bunch of calls complaining about disturbances of the peace, but only two worth following up: both reporting awful screaming, both callers feeling that the screamers had sounded male. One in the Hallandale area, the other in Coconut Grove.

‘If the killer set the rowboat adrift near the crime scene –' Sam had been checking stats on currents and wind and tidal flow – ‘then the Grove's a better bet for getting washed up on South Beach.'

‘Coulda killed the guy up in Hallandale,' Martinez said, ‘then found himself the rowboat further south.'

‘Lot of driving around with the body,' Sam said.

‘Or sailing around,' Martinez added.

All conjecture, for now.

But they took the Grove first.

Which led them nowhere.

Hallandale likewise.

18

‘
He came to the house last Monday morning while Dan was out, showed me a photo of me with Kevin, and told me he wanted ten thousand dollars. I told him the photo wasn't of me, told him to get lost.' Claudia reached down into her shoulder bag, pulled out a white envelope and withdrew a photograph. ‘But even if it isn't the greatest shot, of course it's me.'

She held it out, her hand shaking.

‘Are you sure you want me to look?' Grace asked.

‘Of course I don't want you to look,' Claudia said. ‘I don't want any of it to have happened, but I'm here because I need your help, so I guess you'd better see just how low and dumb your sister can be.'

Grace took the photograph, saw a couple in what seemed a tender embrace, thought of Daniel, a tall, angular man with kind, green, myopic eyes, who stooped a little from years of hunching over drawing boards and plans, but was still attractive and had always, Grace believed, been kind, and then forcibly pushed away that image.

‘I guess,' she said, ‘you could say it wasn't you.'

‘Maybe,' Claudia said. ‘If it was the only one.'

‘Go on,' Grace said, dreading what was still to come.

‘Jerome said he had plenty more photos, and any fool could see they were of me, and if he were me he'd think about this real hard, because it seemed to him I had a whole lot to lose, but because we were “family” he'd give me some time to think it over, but if I didn't come through with the cash, I'd be real sorry.'

‘And then what happened?'

‘He left,' Claudia said. ‘And I've spent the past five days going out of my mind, waiting for him to come back, one moment making up my mind to tell Dan and pray he'll forgive me, the next telling myself that would be the selfish thing to do, because it might make me feel better, but not him, and of course I know that's hogwash, but . . .'

‘You've heard nothing more from Jerome?' Grace asked.

‘That was the other thing I kept telling myself: that Jerome had changed his mind, realized it wasn't going to be the easy money he hoped for, that maybe I would tell Dan and maybe even call the cops.'

‘So why did you leave?' Grace asked. ‘How could you risk leaving when Jerome might turn up again any day?'

‘I couldn't face it,' Claudia said. ‘I couldn't face Dan.' Her brown eyes sparkled with sudden tears. ‘I couldn't go on lying every minute I was with him.'

‘So what did you tell him about going away?'

‘I told him that you were still having a bad time with baby blues, and I wanted to come see you, help out for a while.'

For the first time, Grace felt real anger at her sister. ‘I'm over that, Claudia, and you know it, and I imagine you've told Daniel as much. I'm on the verge of starting to see patients again.'

‘I had to tell him something,' Claudia said. ‘I'm sorry.'

Grace saw despair in her eyes, and her anger dissipated. ‘I still don't see how you can risk Jerome showing up when you're not even there. I don't get it, sis.'

‘Me neither,' Claudia said, wretchedly. ‘But then, I don't really get what happened in the first place, with Kevin.'

‘I'm not sure that's quite true,' Grace said. ‘You said you were at a low ebb, said you'd been feeling “cold”, said—'

‘Please,' Claudia said, quickly, ‘don't be scornful. I don't think I can cope with that.'

‘How do you think Daniel's going to cope,' Grace said quietly, ‘if he sees the photos? When he realizes you lied to him about coming here, that you were escaping, running away.'

‘You make it sound as if I want to hurt him.'

‘I don't mean to,' Grace said. ‘I know it's not in your nature to want to hurt anyone, and certainly not someone you love as much as Daniel.' She paused. ‘That's assuming you do still love him.'

‘Oh, God, yes,' Claudia said. ‘That's why I left, don't you see? If I'd stayed, I'd have had no choice but to tell him the whole truth, and I couldn't bear the thought of seeing his face when I told him – and sure, I know it won't be any better if he hears it from that
snake
, it'll be even worse, but at least I won't be there.' She shrugged. ‘I told you I'm a coward. Now you know.'

Joshua began, suddenly, to cry, and Grace stood up swiftly to retrieve him from the playpen, Woody wagging his tail as she came close, then settling down again, resigned to being ignored.

‘I guess I've been hoping,' Claudia went on, ‘that maybe Jerome won't go to Daniel, because after all, what would be the point? Once Dan knows the truth, there's no hope of a payout.'

The baby had already stopped crying, but Grace, grateful for the comfort of his warm, solid body in her arms, began to walk back and forth in the small room, kissing the top of his head, consoled by him.

‘So what now?' She stopped moving, looked down at her sister.

‘I don't know,' Claudia said.

‘Do you think,' Grace asked, slowly, already repelled by the idea, ‘that I should call Frank?'

‘God, no,' Claudia said. ‘What for?'

‘Intervention, maybe?' Grace said.

‘Surely he's the last person in the world we want to talk to,' Claudia said. ‘And I don't think for a single minute that he'd be interested in helping.'

‘I guess not,' Grace said. ‘What about Roxanne? Maybe if she knew what her son had been up to . . .'

‘That would mean telling her what I've done,' Claudia said, appalled.

‘Maybe she already knows,' Grace said, then shook her head. ‘I guess it's not my best idea.' She paused. ‘Let's wait and see what Sam thinks.'

‘Do we have to tell Sam?'

‘Yes,' Grace said. ‘It's the reason you've come to us.' She saw fresh misery in her sister's expression. ‘I mean, I know it's your personal business, but now you've shared it with me . . . I don't keep anything from Sam these days.'

‘All right,' Claudia said.

‘You said that you need my help, sis.' Grace sat down on the sofa again, settled Joshua on her lap, gave him his rattle. ‘I'm just not sure – other than being here for you – what I can actually do to help.'

‘I don't know that either.' Claudia paused. ‘Maybe I just need you to help me work out why this has happened. Why I've done such destructive things, why I even looked at Kevin in the first place.'

Joshua was content again, sucking on his rattle, leaning into his mother.

Every last trace of Grace's exasperation had melted away.

‘Have you really been so terribly unhappy?' she asked.

‘Yes,' Claudia said. ‘I rather think I have.'

19

The explosion sent the boat, in a thousand or more flaming fragments, soaring into the inky sky, then descending gracefully, like glowing snowflakes, back down on to the ruffled black waters.

People within a half mile or so experienced the blast as a near-physical shock, but the reverberation rolled further through Miami Beach and parts of Miami itself, waking and alarming some residents and visitors, startling birds and animals, sending humans reaching for their remote controls.

Sitting in the nursery rocking chair at four a.m. on Sunday morning, already awake because her son had begun crying twenty minutes earlier, Grace had been using the peaceful minutes since Joshua had quietened to float an idle hypothesis about the reasons she and Claudia had both become island dwellers of a kind, wondering if it might involve some sort of subconscious moat fixation, perhaps a lingering craving for protection from the bête-noire of their mutual past . . .