Shimmer (9 page)

‘He just said he wouldn't go away,' Grace said now.

‘But he did go,' Claudia said.

‘Seems that way,' Sam agreed.

He had made several circuits of the small Bay Harbor Island community, but short of checking every garage and back yard and, to be certain, every room of every house in the district, he knew better than to feel wholly confident that the creep really had departed.

‘So what's going on?' he asked.

Grace had told him only half of Claudia's tale last night when he'd come in late from work; not because she intended keeping this from him, but simply because she'd figured that in the circumstances, hearing what a member of her father's new family had done, or tried to do, up in Seattle, was something that could easily wait.

Now the two sisters – with the baby perched on Grace's knees – sat in the kitchen, filling Sam in on the rest.

‘OK.' Sam turned his attention square on Claudia. ‘You've spent more time than Grace with this guy. Do you feel he could be dangerous?'

‘No way,' Claudia said. ‘He was mean, obviously – it was a mean thing to do, to say the least – but I never felt threatened, not in any physical sense.' She looked at Grace. ‘Don't you think I'm right about that?'

‘He has sneaky eyes,' Grace said.

A thought occurred to Claudia, causing instant, fresh distress. ‘I hope you guys don't think I knew he might follow me here?'

‘Of course we don't,' Grace said.

‘It never entered my head, or—'

‘Claudia, honey,' Sam said, ‘we're not blaming you for this. I just need to know what this guy wants.'

‘Presumably,' Grace said, ‘what he wanted before.'

‘Money.' Claudia's eyes filled with tears. ‘I'm so sorry.'

‘It's all right.' Grace stood up and put an arm around her sister's shoulders.

‘I need to know a little more,' Sam said. ‘Anything you can tell me.'

‘He's a scumbag,' Grace said.

‘I should go home,' Claudia said. ‘I shouldn't have left.'

‘You're not going home till you're good and ready.' Sam got up, went to the refrigerator, took out a jug of orange juice and offered it to the women, who both shook their heads. ‘And definitely not because this blackmailing creep showed up here.'

‘He didn't actually try that again,' Claudia said.

‘Only because we didn't let him in,' Grace said.

‘He'll be back.' Sam drank a glass of juice and checked his watch.

‘You have to go,' Grace said.

‘Alvarez knows I'm here, so I have some time.'

Life had become a little easier in the department ever since Sergeant Kovac, one of the banes of Sam's and Martinez's working life, had transferred out of Violent Crimes to Strategic Investigations and been replaced by Mike Alvarez, who was definitely one of the good guys. With no progress to speak of in the rowboat homicide, however, and the Leehy case fresh in their laps, Sam didn't want to push his luck.

‘I'm going to ask a patrol to swing by a couple of times as a personal favour – no reports filed, don't worry.' He saw the sisters glance at each other. ‘I'm not happy about leaving you here at all,' he added. ‘So take it or leave it.'

‘We were going to go shopping,' Grace said.

‘Just over to Bal Harbour,' Claudia added.

Grace saw his hesitation. ‘After all these years, Sam, I'm not prepared to let Frank make me a prisoner in my own home.'

‘This isn't about your father,' Sam said.

‘In a way, it is,' Grace said. ‘By extension.'

‘OK.' Sam gave in. ‘But if you see him, just go sit somewhere real public and call me right away, and if he comes back here after you get back, do not open the door till I get here.'

‘You can't keep shuttling back and forth,' Grace said.

‘If some jerk plans on hassling my wife and sister-in-law,' Sam said grimly, ‘you'll be surprised how often I can shuttle back.'

23

A second text from Mildred arrived a little after noon.

Sam texted her straight back:

Confirmation was in that the explosion had been no innocent accident, though it might prove to be a case of a bomber blowing himself up prematurely. The feds were on the case, as anticipated, along with the ATF working in cooperation, for the time being, with Miami Beach.

Sam and Martinez had been given the go-ahead, by Alvarez and the chief, to concentrate on their own homicide.

Lord knew their John Doe deserved their full attention.

Still nothing to identify him either. All they knew about him was that his last meal had been of spicy fish with rice and vegetables, that he'd had anal intercourse not long before his death – with no injuries to indicate that it had been non-consensual – and that his sexual partner had used a condom.

Still no Missing Persons reports that might match him.

‘If he just started a vacation,' Sam said bleakly, ‘it could be a couple of weeks or more before anyone notices he hasn't gotten home.'

‘If he's a loner, or no one gives a fuck,' Martinez said, ‘it could take forever.'

Sam had been checking in with Grace regularly.

‘You're much too busy to keep calling,' she told him after they'd returned from Bal Harbour. ‘If we see Jerome again, I promise to tell you right away.'

In the past, she'd have felt no need to reassure him of that. But the anxieties she'd kept from him last year had done some damage to the soft core of their fine and infinitely precious relationship, and Grace knew that she would never take that kind of risk again.

‘I ran Cooper through the system, and came up with nothing,' Sam said, ‘which is good, so far as it goes, but I'm still betting he'll be back.'

‘Claudia's trying to believe otherwise,' Grace said.

‘How's she holding up?'

‘By buying presents and spending much too much money, especially on us.'

‘You shouldn't have let her,' Sam said.

‘I tried, believe me, but she was unstoppable,' Grace said. ‘She bought Cathy a pair of beautiful red and white shoes with wedge heels and ribbons, and while I was in the restroom with Joshua, she went into Tiffany and bought him the most gorgeous elephant moneybox – our son has a Tiffany moneybox, can you believe it?'

‘I'm not sure I want to.' Sam was dry.

‘Then – wait for it – she got us a Tiffany crystal bow box. I almost got mad at her, but she looked as if she was going to cry, so I gave her a big hug instead, and then we had some coffee at the Santa Fe and wrote postcards to Daniel and the boys.'

‘She buy gifts for them too?'

‘Not today,' Grace said. ‘She wants to go to Aventura, which I'll make sure she does, because I'd hate for her to go home empty-handed.'

‘Not to mention penniless,' Sam said. ‘Has she called Daniel again?'

‘Not that she's told me.'

‘I hope,' Sam said, ‘this doesn't all spin out of control.'

‘Me too,' Grace said.

That was one of the things about running away to lick wounds, Grace had come to see over the years; because it meant being away from the very person or people you needed to mend fences with, it often lengthened, rather than shortened, the healing process.

Vicious circles everywhere.

Sam took fifteen minutes out that afternoon to visit with Mildred.

He found her less than a hundred yards from her bench, feeding stale breadcrumbs to a bunch of birds, her bags at her feet.

She smiled when she saw him. ‘You didn't have to come, Samuel.'

‘Can't say I liked the idea of you being out here alone last night,' he admitted. ‘It must have been a little scary, even for you.'

‘Takes more than a little bang to bounce this old heart around,' Mildred said. ‘But I did hear on the grapevine that some poor soul was killed in the bay. Is that true, Detective?'

‘I'm afraid so.'

Mildred scattered the remnants of her crumbs. ‘And was it a bomb, as they're also saying?'

‘I don't know the answer to that as yet, Mildred.'

‘And if you did, you probably couldn't tell the likes of me.'

Sam smiled at her. ‘So how have you been, apart from having your sleep disturbed?'

‘I haven't seen my
angel
again,' Mildred said. ‘If that's what you're asking.'

‘You'd have told me if you had,' Sam said. ‘I didn't come to ask about that.'

‘I know you didn't.'

He hesitated before asking: ‘Are you still happy out here, Mildred?'

A down to earth approach always best with her.

‘As a clam,' Mildred said.

24

Early Monday morning, Cal was out again.

At the real time. Night time.
His
time.

No make-up, no
gorgeousness
, just himself, but at least he could breathe better than in daytime, check out the action, see if there were any more cops sniffing around 10th Street and the promenade than there had been on Saturday.

First thing he'd done was take a slow walk over to Alton Road and north to 16th Street – then an even easier, nonchalant kind of a stroll all the way west to the end of the road, and there was Flamingo Marina, and there was his
Baby
, and even though everyone knew now that it had been some rich guy's yacht that had gotten blown up in Biscayne Bay, it was still good to see her safe and sound, and he wasn't going to risk boarding her yet, just went on strolling past like some insomniac tourist out stretching his legs; but she looked just the same as before, like nothing special to anyone in the world but him, and Cal guessed that was good news, though in a weird way it offended him a little, as if people ought to realize that
Baby
was special.

That
he
was special.

He was back on Ocean Drive now, out among his kind – though there weren't enough people around for his liking, Sunday nights into Monday mornings being quiet out of season, but still, it was kind of buzzing, and things seemed so normal, as if none of that excitement had ever happened, neither the yacht explosion nor even the dead man in the rowboat on the beach – and Cal wished he could have been there himself to see that show. And if only he could take a risk on just
shimmering
himself up and turning a trick, he'd feel so much better, because boredom was making him hungry, and sexual frustration had always sharpened his appetite for food, and the garbage he was having to eat was unhealthy and fattening, and if he didn't get a decent fuck soon, he was going to end up with a goddamned paunch, which would just about kill him . . .

Oh, but it was still so good just to be out in the warm, humid darkness, hearing the music and good-time voices, with the late birds flitting around, some of them exotic, some just plain tawdry, all full of their own needs but all the more human for that. And Cal suddenly felt such a powerful connection to them all that he had a great urge to rush up to a whole
group
of them, to grab one and embrace them, hold them close and risk whatever came next, a punch or a kiss on the mouth or even a knee in the groin.

But he knew he couldn't get too close to anyone, knew he needed to stay penned up inside himself for now, a stunning bird suffocating under the drab camouflage of a Joe Blow. And it was hard, knowing that in a while most of these people would melt away into the night, and then it would be just the stragglers and a few of the hard core left; those who, like him, lived to be out here at this hour, and the others, who had no real choice.

He wasn't sure if he'd been looking for
her
, the stinky old bird, but he saw her just the same, all bundled up in her layers, slumped on the bench near the kids' play area like so much wrapped up human trash. Yet despite his instinct to recoil from her, he found he just could not resist walking right by her as a kind of test, though even if she'd been staring right at him the other night, he doubted if she'd have recognized him now, because it was so much more than cosmetics and clothes that set him apart, it was the fact that Cal couldn't walk his walk tonight, couldn't offer up joy to anyone.

There was nothing from her. No reaction at all.

Which was insulting in one way, but more good news in another, because it confirmed to him that he was a true chameleon; that if he were to walk three feet from a cop, he would not get noticed, which meant that he could probably take someone right
now
if he chose to, could seduce them right off the sidewalk or grass or sand and take them somewhere like the dunes and fuck them or even strangle the life out of them, and no one would notice until they fell over the corpse.

But it wasn't supposed to be
that
he was hungry for. It was supposed to be carnal pursuits – though maybe there was nothing much more carnal than what he'd done to the last man he'd fucked, than what he'd done to his flesh . . .

He realized he'd grown hard just thinking about it.

Took a swift glance down at his pants, checking that it didn't show, and it did not, which was, in a way, a great waste.

Cal sighed.

No cops around, which was good news too, so maybe soon – maybe even tomorrow or the next night – he could be himself again.