The information now in on the VW van’s licence number was nothing that they had not, pessimistically, anticipated. The licence plate traced to a sedan belonging to a woman over in Naples, her Chrysler reported stolen last November. Which made it no help at all, since the van might well be stolen too – but at least it confirmed that the vehicle was almost certainly suspect, might even have been used in the earlier crime against the Eastermans, probably with another set of phoney plates.
The shots of the windshield had been blown up and closely examined, the consensus of opinion that the film on the glass was so dark that the driver would probably only have used it for that journey, since it would have been hard to see out from the inside, plus it was the kind of stunt that might have gotten the van pulled over by cops in daylight.
‘And if, say, the guard at the gate had noticed it,’ Sam said, ‘the driver could just have turned the van around and vamoosed.’
Bottom line though, meantime: no visual on the driver, and no way of knowing if there had been one or more passengers – or victims – inside the van.
And next on the agenda, more grieving relatives.
Only the gentlest probing possible at this stage.
Both detectives allowing themselves a snatched moment to wish they were home with their own loved ones, away from the ugliness of their work.
That wish still a brand-new luxury for Martinez.
‘I thought the day couldn’t get any worse,’ Sam told Grace on the phone at around six. ‘That young woman’s father and sister were so dignified, but you could see it devouring them.’ He shook his head. ‘And then the Duprez parents.’
‘Too much,’ Grace said gently. ‘For you and Al, too.’
‘We’re nothing,’ Sam said. ‘Unless we can do the jobs they pay us to do.’
‘You’re doing all you can,’ Grace said. ‘No one can ask for more.’
‘Four families out there with their worlds crashing down around them,’ Sam said. ‘They have every right to ask one hell of a lot more.’
Grace hesitated. ‘It seems almost wrong for me to ask this, but are we still going ahead with the dinner for Al and Jess?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Hasn’t your general rule always been that life has to go on? Seems to me our friends might need reminding that this is the happiest time of their lives.’
Sam smiled. ‘Is Thursday too soon?’
‘Not for me,’ Grace said. ‘Why don’t you see what Al says, and then I can pull the rest together.’
‘Late night at the Opera Café tomorrow,’ Sam said. ‘Engagement party Thursday. All of a sudden, we’re such social animals.’
‘Maybe we should wait till the weekend,’ Grace said.
‘No.’ Sam was decisive. ‘You were right about life going on. And who’s to say the weekend’s going to be easier?’
FORTY-FOUR
O
n Monday evenings, Evelyn and Frank Ressler often got takeout for dinner, because most Monday afternoons they went to a tea dance at their temple in Surfside, and neither of them ever ate a lot there because the food, frankly, wasn’t up to much, and anyway, they were too busy dancing.
Evelyn was seventy-one and Frank three years older, but the couple were still in love. Her hair was silver, his almost all gone; they both needed glasses for reading and Frank wore dentures, but they were healthy, bright-minded, and some people grumbled that they only had eyes for each other, but they didn’t feel that was true, because they knew they were still interested in others – most especially Barbara, their beloved daughter, and Ariel and Debbie, their grandkids, not forgetting Simon, who was a fine son-in-law – and just because they liked to hold hands when they were out walking . . .
‘Some people get jealous,’ Evelyn had told Frank just the other day.
‘I know plenty of men who’re jealous of me because I have you,’ Frank said.
‘Flattery will get you everywhere,’ Evelyn had said.
‘Think I don’t know that?’ Frank said.
It was a tried and tested formula, but they both enjoyed it, so where was the harm, and Evelyn had kissed him then and he’d kissed her right back.
They still did a lot of kissing.
And they were grateful, every single day, that they still had each other.
FORTY-FIVE
T
he keeper had all but given up on Romeo the Fifth.
There’d been a few occasional sounds to indicate that the little guy was probably on the loose, very likely having a high old time ingesting whatever building components he’d been able to sink his sharp little teeth into.
Not as beneficial to his health as the feed mix his keeper had been providing for him and his good lady, but there was only so much a person could do.
Isabella the Seventh seemed pretty content on her own so far, enjoying her own space, maybe relieved to be spared the buck’s persistent attentions.
Splendid isolation for another few weeks for her, gestation in rats being twenty-one to twenty-three days.
And then the patter of teeny-tiny paws.
Decisions to be made as to which of the pups would be the new Romeo and Isabella.
Who would live and who would die.
Power and glory.
FORTY-SIX
February 17
‘
O
h my God, oh my God,’ Frank Ressler said.
Evelyn knew right away that it was Frank speaking, but it didn’t really sound like him because usually Frank’s voice was nice and clear, and he never mumbled like so many other people, but now it was slurry and husky and he sounded almost
drunk
.
Matter of fact, she felt that way too.
Drunk and nauseated, too, and maybe it was time she opened her eyes and woke up properly, because obviously Frank was sick and needed her, and anyway, there was something wrong with their bed. It reminded her of the time someone said they should put a board under their mattress because Frank’s back had been playing up, but the first time she lay down on the bed she let out a shriek, and there never was a second time because she had it taken out, and Frank’s back got better just the same.
‘Oh my God,’ Frank said again.
‘Stop with the “Oh my Godding”,’ Evelyn told him.
Except her voice sounded strange, too.
Open your eyes
, she told herself, but her lids felt too heavy.
And then she managed it.
The fear hit her right away.
Hit her hard as a boulder smashing through her body.
‘Oh, my God,’ she said.
And the last scrap of humour left in her – the
very
last – told her it must be catching.
FORTY-SEVEN
T
en days had passed since the first couple had been found, four days already since Elizabeth Price and André Duprez had been dumped in the fish tank on Prairie Avenue, and Sam and Martinez and the squad were still no place to speak of, which was getting to every last one of them.
No one in or around La Gorce Drive remembered seeing a VW van with or without a darkened windshield anyplace near the Easterman house.
Mayumi Santos’s cousin and friends had checked out.
Nothing new on either killing.
People expected better, and so they ought.
Except that the truth of the matter was that unless the cops caught a lucky break, or unless the killer or killers wanted to be found – which did sometimes happen, either because they wanted to be stopped or because they were too hungry for
glory
to wait for capture – then it was not a whole lot better than looking for proverbial needles in haystacks.
For now, the best they could do was continue getting to know everything possible about all four victims; most of it useless to the investigation, but you just never could tell when finding out that Mike Easterman collected old movie posters might become suddenly pivotal. Likewise that Suzy had occasionally treated herself to a day at the Willow Stream Spa at Turnberry Isle Resort – near Mike’s parents’ home; or that André Duprez had been about to join a cigar club when Elizabeth Price had prevailed on him to give up smoking; or that Elizabeth had dumped her childhood sweetheart, another lawyer named Jay Miller, within a week of meeting André . . .
Nothing so far leading to any solid links, but if they kept on brainstorming and hitting every avenue hard, maybe, just maybe, the result might come from one or more of the victims.
If this was random killing, though, or random
selection
, then needles in haystacks might prove to be as easy as falling off logs by comparison.
Sam’s greatest fear this Tuesday morning was that there might be more killings to come.
Though that, in a sense, was not his greatest horror.
Which was that another double murder might be just what they needed to bring the lead that had so far eluded them.
FORTY-EIGHT
T
hey were in some kind of a
cage
.
‘Is this a dream?’ Frank had asked Evelyn a while ago.
‘I don’t know,’ she’d answered him. ‘I hope so.’
‘One good thing about it,’ he’d said.
They were in a cage in a padded room, chained up and naked.
Naked
.
‘What’s that?’ she’d asked.
‘We’re together,’ Frank had said.
‘A second good thing,’ Evelyn had said. ‘The light’s so lousy you can’t see me too well.’
Not all her humour gone, after all.
‘You’re beautiful to me,’ Frank had said. ‘You know that.’
She had told him then that she loved him.
They kept on telling each other that, the way they always had, though now the repetition reminded them both of the time they’d thought Frank was going to die from his heart attack, and the speaking and sharing of love had taken on a kind of urgent defiance.
‘You know what’s strange,’ Evelyn said now. ‘I can’t seem to remember what happened before we got here.’
‘Me neither,’ Frank said.
Both their voices were sounding more normal again now.
Normal.
‘We were eating dinner, weren’t we?’ she said.
‘I guess so,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure.’
Evelyn took a breath. ‘I don’t think this is a dream, honey.’
‘Of course it is,’ Frank said. ‘It has to be.’ He spoke with as much conviction as he could muster, doing it for himself almost as much as for her. ‘No one would do this for real to two old people who never hurt anyone.’
‘Maybe we did.’ Evelyn’s mind ransacked back through the years. ‘Maybe we did hurt someone.’
‘Not badly enough for them to do this,’ he said.
‘No,’ Evelyn said. ‘You’re right. This is a dream.’
‘You know what?’ Frank said. ‘I think we should close our eyes and think about good things, like the children or dancing the foxtrot, and wait till we wake up.’
‘I’d feel so much better,’ Evelyn said, ‘if we could just touch.’
She was shackled to the bars in one corner, and Frank was shackled in the other corner.
Too far apart to hold hands.
The worst thing of all.
FORTY-NINE
S
am grabbed a moment at what ought to have been lunchtime to ask Martinez about the engagement dinner.
‘It’ll be just us guys,’ he said. ‘But at least we can make sure we celebrate regardless of what’s going on here.’ He smiled. ‘All pretty much Grace’s idea, by the way. She figures you and Jess need to remind yourselves how happy you are.’
‘Man.’ Martinez shook his head, almost too touched to articulate. ‘Your wife is just the best.’ He hesitated. ‘Maybe we should do it in a restaurant, though. My treat. It isn’t right for Grace to have all the work.’
‘She wants to do this for you, Al,’ Sam said. ‘We both do.’
‘That’s great.’ Martinez felt his eyes smart. ‘Just so great.’
‘It’s our pleasure,’ Sam told him.
‘I think I will keep it a surprise for Jess, though.’ He was still thinkng it through. ‘Specially since she’s not telling her mom and dad yet, you know?’ He shook his head again. ‘This is just the best thing.’
‘Grace is the best,’ Sam admitted.
‘Like Jess,’ Martinez said.
‘Why’d you think I’m so damned happy for you?’ Sam said.
FIFTY
‘
O
h, my God,’ Frank said again.
Evelyn kept her eyes closed.
She was finding she could stand it just a little better this way, because every time she opened her eyes the first thing she saw in the pool of dim light was her own body, all wrinkled and saggy and
old
, and a little while back it had made her think about pictures from the Holocaust, which had, in turn, made her feel ashamed, because she had been so very lucky, had never known starvation or terrible health or deprivation. Best of all, though, she’d had Frank and had kept him into old age, but it still hurt her to look at him like this, too, because it was so dreadfully humiliating. And she didn’t suppose it would be that much better if they were a good-looking young couple – but someone had
done
this to them, someone had undressed them and left them here – wherever ‘here’ was – maybe to die, maybe worse than that.
And it was not a dream.
Evelyn had known that perfectly well almost from the outset, and she knew it was the same for Frank because he was an intelligent man, had been in the bookselling business for most of his life until his retirement and had read more about all manner of subjects than just about anyone they knew. She knew that Frank had been keeping up the foolishness about the dream for her sake, but before long she’d have to start talking sense to him, because if they were going to die soon, there were things she wanted to say.
‘Dear God—’ Frank butted into her thoughts, his voice urgent. ‘Evelyn, open your eyes.’
So she did, because maybe something
good
was happening.
It was nothing good, not really.