Slamming on the brakes, he managed to stop just in time. Anticipating the jarring thud that could come from the car behind slamming into his rear end, he flashed a backward glance in his rear mirror. Luckily, the nearest car to him was quite far behind, a blue Mazda, which had no problem in stopping, and came easily to a halt several feet behind him. Slightly embarrassed, Kerrin drove on, and learning his lesson, paid less attention to the bikini clad beauties on the beach, and more to the road.
The Cohen household had a fantastic view of the beach. Their private stretch of land ran from the house down across the sand dunes to the silver beachfront, just visible from the road. The house was situated high on a hill at the end of a low-lying piece of headland, which commanded an excellent view of the sweeping bay in front.
It had to be said, that the core team of geneticists at Gen8tyx all seemed to be doing very well for themselves. All of them had expensive houses, and the cars parked in the driveways were not exactly cheap.
"It's a beautiful view isn't it? You can understand why my brother loved living here so much!"
The voice of a woman caught him off guard. He had been so wrapped up in the panorama, that he had not seen her coming out of the house and walking down the path to the roadside.
The three-storey house was set back from the road, a large covered porch running around the outside of the building. The sunlight bounced off the bright white walls, and glistened off the beautiful, well-tended, exotic flowers and shrubs that bordered the house and the edge of the path. Everything looked fresh, clean and inviting. The bright green of the grass, obviously irrigated well and often, cut a sharp yet complementary contrast to the bright yellows, reds and blues of the flowers, the white of the house, and the blue of the sky and the sea beyond. It reminded him of a fairy tale house, the sort of house a person always dreamt of owning, but realistically knew he never would.
Except Sam Cohen had realised that dream. Then he had died.
"I'm sorry. I didn't notice you, I was admiring the view of the house and the sea so much. My name is Kerrin Graham…I called you about an hour ago."
"Yes, yes, I guessed it was you. Welcome to 'Traum Villa'. It would have made Sam happy to know you like the place so much. Come…come, I have tea. Or would you like a cold beer? Sam liked cold beer…"
He followed her into the house, noticing immediately how clean and ordered everything was. The interior was as beautiful as the outside. Golden, bright, almost glowing wooden floors, with white, yellow and cream walls. Luxurious white leather armchairs and sofas, fresh cut flowers. The scent of lemon in the air…In spite of the fact that the place looked too clean, perhaps a little too much like a museum that wasn't lived in for Kerrin's taste, he had to admit to himself that he had fallen in love with the building as soon as he had seen it. He would not have to ask Sam Cohen's sister why he had not gone to live in California. It would be a stupid question.
She took him past several rooms in to the back of the house, to a living-room which took up most of the ground floor. A set of vast, panoramic windows dominated the back of the house. They ran from floor to ceiling and captured every ounce of light, letting the vista of the blue bay outside flood into the house and wash over him.
In one corner of the room was a large, white, Steinway grand piano, and immediately Kerrin was seized by the romance of what it would be like to sit at the piano and play, looking out onto such a view.
The room was incredible.
He turned to Ms Cohen, about to say something, but was met by her smile. She had been standing by his side, studying his reaction to the room and the panoramic view, and when he noticed her smile, the pride in her eyes, he knew that words were not necessary. Instead he just smiled back, and for a moment something was shared between the two of them.
"Sam would have liked you Mr. Graham. How can I help you?"
--------------------
As his sister told the story, Kerrin learned that Sam's story was both a sad and a happy one.
In spite of himself, Kerrin began to like the man, and he wished that he had been able to meet him in life, and not in tales of death.
Sam had married once, but after five years of happiness together, his wife and unborn daughter had died in childbirth.
While courting, Sam and his wife-to-be had first found the house together one afternoon, when strolling along the beach. In those days, the house was old and run-down, but in the weeks that followed whenever they walked along the beach, hand in hand, they had looked up at the house and played imaginative games, describing to each other how they would repair and restore it if the house belonged to them. They had dreamt dreams of a life together, and of growing old in the house on the hill.
Then one day, the old woman who lived in the house had died and without his girlfriend knowing, Sam had bought the deeds to the property.
On the night he proposed to her he had taken her to the gate at the bottom of the path that led from the beach to the house, and had gone down on one knee.
She had cried, and when she said 'yes', Sam had given her the keys to the house.
From then on, and for the rest of her life, she had worn the ring that bound the keys of the house together as her engagement ring. Three months later they were married, and together they had started to repair and rebuild the house.
Theirs had been a happy marriage. Two lives, one love. Strong and beautiful.
Sam had never remarried. Had never loved again. Had never fully found how to live again. A life lived in the past.
The house had become a memorial to their love.
The house on the hill.
As Sam's sister had recounted the story to him, Kerrin felt himself strangely moved. The fairytale house with its own little fairytale. It seemed so unfair that tragedy had come back to revisit the same household so cruelly.
"So how did he die, Miss Cohen?"
"The police say he drowned himself. They found the body lying on the beach at the bottom of the garden."
"And did he?"
"Of course not. The part of the story that I haven't told you yet was that Sam and his wife had made a vow to each other, a vow which they had sworn to each other and taken as solemnly as their wedding vows. On the first night they had come here, after Sam had bought the house, they sat in this room and opened a bottle of champagne. They were young, and in love. Their lives were before them, and as they sat in the house with the paper peeling off the wall, the old oak doors rotten with woodworm, and the water dripping through the roof, they made a lover's promise to each other…"
Sam's sister was smiling, but the tears had started to roll from the corners of her eyes.
"…They had promised each other that they would rebuild the house, and turn it into the most beautiful house in the world…a house of dreams…the 'Traum' house. No matter what happened to each other, if one of them died, the other person would make sure it was finished."
"…They were young, they were in love…perhaps a little foolish…neither of them could have foretold her tragic death so soon afterwards. Anyway, Sam never forgot the vow he made. He has spent the past twenty years fixing the house up with his own hands."
"I don't understand…" Kerrin loved the story, but didn't see where she was going with it.
"Come with me…come with me," she urged him, beckoning with her hand.
He followed her out of the large living room and up three flights of stairs, coming out into the attic space beneath the roof. Unlike the rest of the house, which was almost perfect in every way, the attic was a mess. Floorboards were lying piled on top of each other in a corner underneath one of the gables, and the smell of fresh paint still lingered in the air. Electricity cables hung loosely from the ceiling, and some plastic pipes lay in a pile, beside some carpet tiles, which were still in their boxes, untouched and unwrapped.
"Sam had just started working on the attic. It's the last room to be done in the house. He was taking his time with it, but said it would be finished next year
sometime. The house was truly a labour of love, in every sense of the word. Sam was heartbroken, yes, but he would never have broken his vow and taken his own life before he had finished this last room…never…"
--------------------
They were sitting together again downstairs in the large room with the stunning view, drinking coffee and eating some of Miss Cohen's delicious home baked cakes.
"Could it have been an accidental drowning?" Kerrin asked.
"I don't think so. Sam was very strong. He swam in the bay almost every day. He knew all the tides, all the currents. He could swim for a couple of hours with ease. Only three weeks ago I watched with the binoculars as he swam from here right over to the other headland and back. Do you know how many miles that is?"
Kerrin looked out of the window, following the direction the lady was pointing in.
It was a hell of a long way. He must have been an incredibly strong swimmer.
"Did he have any enemies?"
"I don't think so…Sam hardly ever went out. We lived a quiet life here together. Growing vegetables and tending the garden. It's a possibility he did have enemies, but he never mentioned them to me."
"What about work?"
"He was dedicated to it. Apart from the house, it was his main interest in life. Kept on saying that he wanted to be able to help other people, that what he was doing was really important."
"Do you know what he was working on?"
"No. He said that he couldn't discuss it at home. Not that I would have understood a word. It was enough for me that it made him happy."
"Was he under any stress in the last few months?"
"Of course he was! He didn't want to lose his job, Mr Graham. He wanted to keep it. But he wouldn't…couldn't… move to California. His life was here. With this house…" She paused, moving to the piano and stroking the ivory keys, before picking up one of the pictures that sat on top of it.
She stared at it for a while, a look of admiration showing on her face, then she handed it to Kerrin.
"Look…that's Sam in the top corner. They took that about three weeks ago at the bottom of the garden…just over there."
Kerrin took the picture from her. It was a photo of six people standing in a tight group holding beers and wine, and he immediately recognised that it was a picture of all the people whose deaths he was investigating. Everybody was there…he recognised Martin, Alex, Tom, and also Mike and Henry from the pictures he had seen at their widow's houses.
"May I please borrow this for a day or two, and make a copy of it? I'm sure all the other bereaved relatives would love a copy too?"
"That's a nice idea. Please. But take care of it…"
"What was the occasion?"
"I don't know. I think they had a meeting about what was going on…yes, that's it… I remember now. Sam and Tom, that’s him there…"she said pointing to the photo…"they were really concerned about the new people that were joining the company. Henry had guessed what was going on, and I think he called the meeting because he wanted to tell everybody something. Henry,…yes, that's him…yes, it was his idea.”
"What happened? Did Sam say anything about it later?"
"No. But after the meeting Sam was both angry and excited at the same time. He said, 'they weren't going to take it lying down.' Talked about a Phoenix, and something about them rising from the ashes? Does that make any sense to you Mr Graham?"
"I think it does. I think that Henry Roberts knew what was happening. He had to…he was the financial guru behind Gen8tyx. Perhaps he called a meeting to explain it all to the others? And maybe they decided to stand up for themselves and start their own company!"
"Oh, that would have been nice. Sam always wanted to have his own company…Poor Sam…Mr Graham, do you know why my brother was killed?" she looked at him, a sadness clouding over her eyes.
"No. Not yet, Miss Cohen. But I promise you, I'm going to find out. And when I do, I'm going to make sure that whoever is responsible will pay for it."
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As Kerrin left the house, closing the garden gate behind him, he noticed the blue Mazda sitting on the opposite side of the road, about a hundred yards further up the hill. As he glanced in its direction, there was a flash of light from something inside the car on the driver's side, almost like the reflection of sunlight off a mirror.
He climbed into his car, switched on the ignition, and drove slowly down the hill towards the sea. With one eye on his rear-view mirror, he noticed the Mazda pull away from the sidewalk and start to drive after him.
It was the same blue Mazda that had nearly crashed into him at the traffic lights only hours before.
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The man in the blue Mazda, dropped the newspaper and picked up the camera. His target was just coming out of the house.
"Damn, the sunlight!" the man swore as he tried to take a quick picture. The sunlight was streaming straight into the lens and it made taking any photographs impossible.
He picked up his cell phone from the seat beside him, speaking without introducing himself to the woman at the other end.
"He's just leaving the Cohen woman. What do you want me to do?"
"Nothing yet. Just follow him, and find out where he's staying…"
"Okay. Will do. Have you heard anything from New York?"
"Not yet. In the meantime, don't lose him. We need to know what he's going to do next."
Chapter 13
Try as he might, Kerrin could not shake off the Mazda. It wasn't as easy as it looked in the films and the last time he had been in a car chase, he was the one doing the chasing. He tried stopping and letting the car behind him pull past, but a few minutes later the car was there again, back on his tail. He pulled into a gas station. The car waited outside.
He doubled back on himself. The Mazda followed.
He tried everything he could. It didn't help.
Whoever the person in the Mazda was, they were pretty good. The sort of 'good' that only came from being a professional.
"Come on…you used to be a professional too…Think boy, think!"
The car had been tailing him for almost an hour. He was passing through the outskirts of Miami now, his heart racing at over one hundred and twenty beats a minute, even though he was sitting still and the car was doing the driving.
He frantically absorbed his surroundings as he drove, mentally noting all the alleyways and shops on either side of the road.
"How can I lose him? How?"
He was looking for somewhere to hide. Somewhere to disappear.
It was almost dark now. That at least would help him.
The Mazda was about five cars back. Good, that was giving a little distance between them.
Suddenly on the left hand side Kerrin spotted a garage. A car was just driving out of the attached car wash, and there was no queue behind it. When he looked back to the road he realised he was just coming up to a changing light, and on instinct he gunned it, pushing down hard on the pedal and shooting across the junction.
The cars behind him stopped, trapping the Mazda behind them.
Kerrin accelerated, heading towards the next junction as fast as he could. He reached it just as the lights were changing, and as he pulled through it he immediately took a left. As he shot off into the street ahead, he glanced sideways, noticing the Mazda just clearing the first set of lights.
The street he had entered was quite clear, and using every ounce of skill he could remember from his police driving courses, he threw his car into a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree hand-break turn and headed back to the junction he had just come from, his high beams on full. As soon as the lights changed, he turned right on the inside lane, a row of moving cars flanking his left hand side.
As he made the corner he noticed the Mazda passing him in the other direction, turning left into the street now behind him.
Kerrin accelerated again, this time easily making the light ahead before it turned to red. Without slowing
down he pulled into the garage twenty yards past the lights, and drove straight into the covered car wash.
He jumped out of the car, and walked to the edge of the covered exit, poking his head round the corner just enough to see the road. He waited.
About fifteen seconds later the blue Mazda accelerated past him, heading back down the road towards the edge of the city.
He walked across the forecourt into the shop.
"What's the slowest wash?"
"Wash, wax and dry. Six dollars."
"Fine. Give me four!"
"Four?"
"My car's very dirty."
The man flicked him four blue tokens and change from thirty dollars and Kerrin walked back to the car, popping the first token into the slot. As the machinery around him whirred into action, and the water poured down over the car, he slid back into his seat and started to relax.
Twenty minutes later, he pulled out of the car wash. The blue Mazda was nowhere to be seen.
Two blocks away he found a Hertz rental agency. He took the car in, and swapped it for something a different colour and a little faster. But not so clean.
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As soon as Kerrin got back to the hotel room he paid the bill and checked out. Keeping a careful eye out for any suspicious looking cars, he drove about ten blocks away and checked into a motel, where sixty dollars a night got him air conditioning, a T.V. and a room with no view. For now, Kerrin wanted to disappear.
Who had been following him? And why?
He needed to think. To pull together what little he knew, sift through it all and see if there was anything solid that he could go on.
Using the pillows, he propped himself up on his bed against the wall, kicked off his shoes and settled down to do some work. Changing the batteries in his tape-recorder, he pulled out his notebook and listened to each of his interviews once again. This time he made notes, picking up a few new things, some important, some not, that he hadn't caught the first time around.
The Orlando File Omnibus : (Omnibus Version-Book 1 & Book 2) Page 8