The Borrowed and Blue Murders (The Zoe Hayes Mysteries) (12 page)

Standing, though, I remembered the cake Molly and I had baked. Half of it was still in the kitchen. Moist yellow cake with fudge icing, sprinkled with chopped pecans. If I had just a small slice of that with a glass of milk, I’d probably be able to sleep. So I went downstairs, not caring if I woke the brothers up, not minding if Sam stirred and stopped his trumpeting din, but no noise I made seemed significant by comparison. I turned on the lights and moved around the kitchen, cut myself a slab of buttery cake, licked the knife, poured myself a mug of fat-free. Sitting on a stool, stuffing my face, vibrating along with Sam, I glanced into the entrance- way, noting the clutter. On the floor, Molly’s book bag and a few pairs of shoes. On the hall table, a pile of unsorted mail. Underneath, Sam’s leather briefcase.

I sucked my finger to get the last bit of icing, swallowed the last gulp of milk. Leaving the dishes for the morning, I turned out the light and started for the steps. But I didn’t go upstairs. Instead, I stopped in the hall and put the light on, staring at the brothers’ trail of clutter. And, as Sam continued his serenade, I began to clean. I hung jackets, picked up laptops, a half-empty bag of tortilla chips, a wad of laundry. My arms were pretty full when I grabbed Sam’s briefcase, so I dropped it. And, apparently, it was unlocked, because when it hit the floor, something clattered and folders spilled everywhere.

The snores were regular and rattling, undisturbed. The noise hadn’t awakened anyone. Quietly, setting the pile I’d gathered on the floor, I knelt to replace the items into the case. The files were marked with names. Costa Rica. St. Martin. St. John’s. Taiwan. Albania. Albania?

Finally, I reached for the metal box, the thing that had made so much noise when it fell. What was in it, I wondered. Money? Coins? Diamonds? Maybe it would reveal what Sam really did for a living. I couldn’t resist. Looking around again to make sure that no one was watching, I opened the lid. And stopped breathing. It wasn’t money or diamonds; it was a gun.

A
GUN.
A
BIG
and cold, shiny, sinister-looking gun. I sat on the floor, staring at it. Why would Sam, a businessman, a guy who invested other people’s money in stocks and vacation real estate, need a gun? It wasn’t like he had to personally transport luxury condos or piles of cash. Or travel in dangerous neighborhoods at odd hours. No. Sam would have no apparent reason to carry a gun. Unless he wasn’t the person he claimed to be.

My mind began racing. Maybe Sam really was a criminal. Maybe he carried a gun because he used it for work. But would a con artist need a gun? Oh God. Maybe he wasn’t just a con artist. Maybe Sam was a killer. A hit man. The deals he discussed on the phone—were they covers? Were the conversations encoded to hide the identities of clients and victims?

Stop it, I told myself. It’s late. Your nerves are frayed. Your imagination is flying. But I couldn’t stop myself. I was on to Sam, and I needed to know what he was up to. His briefcase wouldn’t tell me anything else, but I knew another place I might look. Since he’d arrived, Sam had spent half his time on his computer.

I picked the thing up and took it into my office, aware that I didn’t know how I was going to search. I didn’t have Sam’s password, wouldn’t have a clue how to trace his correspondence. I tried to guess, realizing I didn’t know him well enough. Didn’t know his birthday or his ex-wives’ names. I tried the brothers’ names, though, and Molly and Luke. I tried the city Sam was born in. I tried his parents’ names. And I was about to try Dixon, the name of the elementary school where the boys had gone, when warm hands landed on my shoulders. I jumped, hit the keyboard and spun around.

Tony’s hands tightened, and he frowned. “What are you doing, Zoe? What’s going on?”

“N
OTHING.” I TWISTED MY
neck to look at him.

He didn’t release me. Not his hands, not his gaze.

“I couldn’t sleep. I decided to check my e-mail.” Why was I explaining myself? After all, this was my office, my house.

“But this is Sam’s computer.” Finally, Tony let go of my shoulders.

Damn. I couldn’t think of an excuse.

“What are you really doing?”

Don’t tell him, I told myself. He’ll get mad. Remember, Tony and Sam are blood.

“Are you trying to guess his password?”

Then again, I’d seen them almost rip each other’s eyes out, arguing over the newspaper. Tony and Sam had issues, even if they were brothers.

“Urn—” Brilliant answer, I congratulated myself. “I couldn’t sleep.” That made no sense, but I had to say something

Tony smirked. Scratched his head. “You want to read his e-mail? Why?”

“Sam has a gun.” Damn. Why had I said that?

Tony looked baffled. “What?”

“Sam has a gun. In his bag.”

“You looked in his bag?”

“Of course not.” I didn’t want to explain. “But why would he have a gun?”

“Wait. If you didn’t look in it, how do you know it’s there?”

“I spilled it. It fell out.”

Again, he scratched, this time his armpit. “Wow. I don’t know. Lots of people have guns.”

Go ahead, I told myself. You might as well ask. “Tony, I know he’s your brother. But how much do you know about what Sam does for a living?”

Tony folded his arms, cocked his head. “What are you getting at?”

“Those deals he’s always making. The way he’s always trying to get people to invest—”

“You think Sam’s running scams.” Tony said that too quickly. Had he been thinking it himself?

“Maybe. Or worse.”

“Worse?”

“What if he’s involved in something bigger than scams?”

Tony’s eyebrows furrowed. “Zoe, what exactly are you saying?”

“Why would he carry a gun? Why would he bring it into my house, where there are children? He must be up to something dangerous. Maybe something with drugs. Maybe Sam was the one who was supposed to meet that woman—maybe he was her contact.”

Tony’s neck tilted so far that his head was almost at a right angle to his body. As if he was trying to see me sideways. “Are we talking about the same guy? Sam. My brother.”

Go ahead, I urged myself. “Think about it, Tony,” I began but stopped. My mouth was dry, my voice unsteady. “If he has a gun, maybe he’s involved in this. Maybe Sam killed her.”

“What?”

I couldn’t repeat it. I waited for him to replay what I’d said in his mind.

“You think he killed her?” His voice sounded so loud. “Sam?”

I shrugged, ready to point out how Sam had been unperturbed about the dead woman, how he’d never mentioned anything about carrying a weapon, how he might be using his so-called international investment deals as a front to cause a diversion—

But I didn’t say any of that. Even if I had, Tony wouldn’t have heard me. My words would have been drowned out, lost in his peals of uproarious laughter.

“S
AM?”
T
ONY GUFFAWED.
“S
AM?
You can’t be serious.”

My face was red-hot.

“He passes out when he gets blood drawn. He faints at the sight of a needle. Sam went fishing. Once. He threw up not because he was seasick but because there was fish blood on the deck. The man can’t eat rare steak. He might look like a bully, tries to act like one. But, and you can take this to the bank, Sam Stiles is a wimp, pure and thorough.”

“Really? He wasn’t the one who ran to the bathroom when he saw the body on the deck.”

“But, if you recall, he didn’t stand up, either. He sat plastered to the upholstery. If he’d had to stand up, he’d have hit the floor. I promise you. Sam’s all bluster. A marshmallow. A pussycat.”

He’d seemed that way, amusing Molly with jokes, cuddling Luke. But that might be part of his cover.

“Relax, Zoe. I can’t swear that he doesn’t scam people. In all honesty, I’ve suspected that some of his business deals might be a little shaky. But a killer? No way. Besides, the jogger wasn’t shot. She was cut. Sam can’t even cut rare steak.”

“But why the gun?”

“I don’t know. Maybe for protection. He’s got two pissed-off ex- wives, remember. And he’s involved in megabuck deals, whether they’re legit or not. Whatever his reason, though, it’s not to kill anyone. Not Sam. You’ve got him confused with Eli.”

Tony was still chuckling as he said good night and walked out of my office. I stayed, thinking about what he’d said. Maybe I was wrong. Or maybe Tony was so close to his brother that he couldn’t even imagine Sam doing anything truly evil.

Either way, I wasn’t going to figure out his password or find anything on his computer. I hoped Tony wouldn’t say anything to Sam or Nick. Would he? I told myself he wouldn’t, that Tony was honorable; our conversation would remain private.

I knew I should go up to bed and try to sleep. It was only a few hours until morning, less than that until Luke would wake up. But my pulse was still racing, alert. As long as I was in my office, I might as well read some of the e-mail that had been piling up for weeks.

I booted up my computer and typed in my password, and the electronic voice welcomed me, telling me that I had mail. In fact, I had 393 messages. Good Lord. I hadn’t been online in two months, since Luke’s birth, but I’d had no idea I’d missed so much e-mail. I scanned the list, most recent at the top, eliminating some of the spam as I went, noticing message after message from edmdbry. Bryce Edmond had e-mailed me over and over again, maybe twenty times. What had been so urgent? Why had he pestered me almost to the point of harassment? At random, I picked one of his early e-mails and opened it, expecting to find a request for a signature for some employee benefit program or maybe an informal notification that my position was about to be eliminated. But I was wrong.

Bryce Edmond’s e-mail was a few paragraphs, followed by a list of names. I read his note. And, suddenly chilled, I knew why he’d so doggedly tried to reach me.

B
EFORE
I
’D TAKEN OFF
for maternity leave, I’d known that the Psychiatric Institute was floundering financially. A drastic reduction in federal funding and grant money had led to the loss of several important research programs and elimination of staff positions, and “nonessential” employees like me had their hours slashed. My art therapy program had been chopped in half, affecting not only the patients but also my health insurance and retirement funds.

Bryce had written to inform me of the latest, even more dramatic changes. Recently, due to further funding cuts, a number of patients whose care had been paid for by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania had been released. Some of these patients had been institutionalized by court order due to criminal acts, but having been treated for multiple years, they had aged and been deemed harmless or rehabilitated by Institute staff and the Commonwealth. As a courtesy, Bryce was writing to inform me of those newly released, formerly violent patients with whom I’d worked.

Slowly, cautiously, I let my eyes move down the list, recognizing the first name, Kimberly Gilbert. Kimberly? Oh my. How could they let her leave? The Institute was the only home she’d known for decades. What would happen to her? How would she survive? Kimberly was a schizophrenic who, years ago, had slaughtered her family, believing that demons had disguised themselves as her husband and mother. Kimberly, even medicated, wobbled in and out of reality. I was appalled that they’d set her out on her own.

But Kimberly wasn’t the only surprise. They’d also released Troy Dunbar. I pictured Troy, a too-handsome forty-some-year-old man, lanky, charismatically intense, Nordic looking and bipolar. At the age of twenty, he’d shot his grandmother to death, nearly killed his sister and himself. I wondered if he’d try again, on his own.

I scanned the list, stunned, unable to believe that some of the most disturbed patients I’d worked with, who had committed the most violent crimes, had simply been released. I told myself that most of them were no longer dangerous. Most of them had responded well to medication and had probably mellowed over time. But how could anyone be sure these people would take their medication? Bonnie Osterman, for example. Her name was on the list. Bonnie Osterman was the woman who, years ago, had sliced open the bellies of pregnant women. Now, she had been set free. She was out in the world again on her own.

Bonnie Osterman. The very thought of her made my toes curl. She was a solid, squat woman, probably in her mid-sixties, hospitalized for maybe thirty years, ever since a gas company worker had discovered tiny human bones in Bonnie’s backyard. Investigators, as I recalled, had turned up the remains of five infants behind her house and pieces of a sixth in her freezer. Bonnie, it turned out, had craved the tender flesh of unborn infants, killing their mothers to get them, pulling them from the warmth of the womb and tossing them into the heat of a stew pot.

According to Bryce, the Commonwealth had determined that, after decades of intense psychiatric treatment, Bonnie Osterman had overcome her ghoulish appetite and been cured. But I wasn’t entirely convinced. Before I’d gone on leave, Bonnie had been unusually attentive, fascinated by my expanding middle, commenting on the chic styles of my maternity clothing, asking if I’d learned the baby’s gender. Her attention had chilled me at the time, but I’d assured myself that she was harmless, safely contained within the brick and concrete walls of the Institute, guarded by security staff, nurses and orderlies.

But now, she was free. Out on the street.

And a woman’s belly had been slit open on my back porch.

I stared at the computer screen, rereading the message. Unconsciously, my hands had risen, protecting my middle. Slow down, I told myself. It’s just a bizarre coincidence. Bonnie Osterman could not have killed the jogger.

No? Myself answered back. Why not?