‘Yes, ma’am.’
Detective Riley went on to tell Grace that Cathy Robbins had made a 911 call just after seven that morning, and that when the paramedics and officers on patrol had gotten to the house on Granada Boulevard, they had found Frances Dean dead in bed.
‘Oh, my God. How?’ Silently Grace prayed for natural causes.
‘I don’t know, doctor,’ Riley said. ‘The case is in the jurisdiction of the Coral Gables Police Department – though I know Detective Becket’s over at the crime scene now, so I guess we’ll probably learn more quite soon.’
Grace was shaky when she put down the phone. Part of her wanted to jump in the Mazda and drive over to be with Cathy, but another part wanted to crawl into bed, pull the covers over her head and quit answering the phone.
She did neither, because her temporarily forgotten two-thirty patient showed up fifteen minutes early, and for the next hour, shocked as she was, Grace was absorbed in trying to find out why a previously gentle six-year-old Chinese boy had begun picking fights with other children at school.
Sam called at three minutes past four, just after Teddy Lopez had brought Harry back home. The terrier was still careering around the house, the way he always did after time spent away, when the phone rang.
‘I gather Beth Riley told you about Frances Dean,’ Sam said.
‘What happened, Sam?’ The icy chill was back.
‘Sure you want to know?’
‘No, but I think I have to.’
‘She was pierced through her forehead at around two a.m.’ He paused. ‘Cathy’s in bad shape. The Coral Gables police have been trying to talk to her, but no one’s getting through.’
‘You want me to come?’ Grace felt nauseous.
‘I’d certainly appreciate it.’
Harry came hurtling into the living room.
‘Could I bring Harry?’ Grace asked. ‘Cathy likes him.’ Reality hit her sickeningly. She was going to a murder scene and all the horrors that had to entail. ‘Am I going to be allowed time alone with Cathy?’
‘If you’re fast,’ Sam said. ‘They’re through with her for the moment. She’s been examined.’ He was speaking quietly. ‘No evidence has been found to link her with the crime.’
‘But they’re going to be looking, aren’t they?’
‘No doubt about it,’ Sam answered. ‘I’d understand, Grace, if you wanted to take some time to think about this.’
‘I don’t see much to think about,’ Grace said.
‘The extent of your involvement, for one thing,’ he pointed out.
Grace knew perfectly well what he was saying. She was getting too personally bound up in Cathy Robbins; she was spending a disproportionate amount of time concerning herself with Cathy over and above her other patients. With Frances Dean dead, there was no one else left to protect Cathy, which was going to make her even needier than previously. Grace was a psychologist, a therapist, not a relative or even a friend.
‘Grace?’
Sam’s voice jolted her from her thoughts.
‘I’m on my way,’ she said.
‘Are you sure?’
‘I’ll see you there,’ she told him.
She was back in Coral Gables by five o’clock. The area surrounding Frances Dean’s home was the zoo she had imagined it would be, with marked and unmarked police cars, flashing lights, crime-scene tape, and, worst of all, reporters from newspapers, TV and radio news stations. Grace parked the Mazda more than a block away and, with Harry in her arms, his warm body snug and comforting against her, walked through the gathering crowd of rubberneckers; most people ignored her as she approached the house, but at the last minute, as she identified herself to a uniformed officer guarding the perimeter and he lifted the tape to let her through past the banyans and floss silk trees, she was conscious of eyes and even camera lenses turning towards her.
Inside the house, however, things were quieter than she’d imagined. A police sergeant escorted her into the living room, and less than a minute later Sam came into the room with Cathy. Grace held her for a few moments, felt the teenager let her body rest against hers, felt her give a brief shudder, but then Cathy drew away again, and there was no outward sign of what Grace knew she had to be going through.
‘Mind if I stick around awhile?’ Sam asked.
Grace didn’t much like the idea. ‘It’s up to Cathy.’
‘Cathy?’ Sam said.
‘I don’t care,’ she said.
‘Are you sure, Cathy?’ Grace said, concerned that she might be too closed down to be the best judge of her situation. ‘We could be alone if you preferred it.’
Cathy threw a glance at the door, and the strangers just beyond it. ‘I don’t mind if Detective Becket stays,’ she said. ‘I don’t have anything to hide.’
She was wearing a blue tracksuit and her hair, tied back, was damp. Grace guessed that she’d showered after the forensics people had finished with her. Her eyes were red, but she seemed past weeping now. Grace hardly dared contemplate what she had been through, nor could she bring herself to think about the horrifically clear implications of the latest development.
‘I brought Harry with me,’ Grace said. ‘I hope you don’t mind?’
Cathy shook her head. She sat down on her aunt’s white sofa, and Grace nodded at Harry, who knew the routine and liked it. He jumped up, sinking deep into the soft cushion, and Grace thought, for one pointless moment, that had she been here, Frances would probably have objected.
‘He’s so neat,’ Cathy said, and began petting him. The motions seemed mechanical, but Harry wasn’t fussy.
Out of the comer of Grace’s left eye she noticed two people dressed in white coveralls talking quietly in the hallway. ‘How about we go out for a walk?’ she said.
Cathy didn’t answer.
‘I just think it might be good to get out of here,’ Grace said, softly.
Cathy looked up from Harry into Grace’s eyes. ‘Could I go home?’
‘To your place, you mean?’
‘Would that be okay?’
Grace turned to look at Sam, who’d sat down in a deep armchair behind her. ‘Would it?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I’ll need to check with the man in charge.’
He left the room and came back a few minutes later. ‘It’s okay, so long as I come along.’
‘I don’t know,’ Grace said.
‘It’s me or one of the Coral Gable officers.’
‘Cathy?’ Grace looked at the teenager.
‘Sure,’ she said.
The drive to Miami Beach was dreadful for Grace, even if Harry did lighten the load a little by travelling on Cathy’s lap. There was no doubt in Grace’s mind that Sam’s coming along was not what it might be seeming to Cathy. This was not just a gentle, supportive gesture to help her get through the day. Sam might not be the man in charge of the Coral Gables case, but he was still the lead investigator on the first two killings, a police detective with what surely had to be ever-strengthening suspicion on his mind. With Frances’ death, Grace knew without being told that Cathy had risen from top of the list of suspects to the absolute pinnacle – and she didn’t think that the girl’s outward calm was helping her case any. Maybe Sam could still see past that shell to the vulnerable, terrified child beneath, but Grace doubted if his colleagues or Coral Gables counterparts could understand why Cathy was not by now a broken down, hysterical wreck. In all honesty, Grace wasn’t even one hundred per cent sure that she really understood either – except that she, of course, had seen this type of reaction before, in many shapes and forms. She and Sam had talked about it in one of their first conversations, when it had seemed that the killing of her parents was the worst thing that could ever happen to Cathy Robbins.
Deep shock. Blocking.
‘How you doin’?’ Sam asked Cathy, as Grace drove. He’d let Grace take her own car out of consideration to Cathy, knowing that the trip in a police car might be impossibly fraught for
her.
‘Okay,’ she answered from the back seat.
Grace wondered suddenly if she should call a halt, encourage them to go back with her to Frances’ house, or maybe take them to her own place – if she should try to find out which lawyer had attended Cathy’s questioning at the police station the day she’d collapsed. She had a bad feeling, growing by the minute, about going back to Pine Tree Drive, though she couldn’t say exactly what it was. She just felt it.
Yet still she kept on driving.
Cathy didn’t want to go inside the house. Just as Frances had told Grace yesterday, all Cathy wanted was to go into the backyard.
It all looked and felt as it had the last time – except, of course, that this time they had Sam and Harry along for company.
‘Could we talk alone, Grace?’ Cathy asked, quietly, almost as soon as they got there.
Grace looked at Sam.
‘Sure,’ he said, and silently she thanked him.
They walked slowly, Harry trotting behind them, to the back section of the garden, past the swimming pool towards the pool-house. Close to, the structure was starting to show signs of inattention. The windows were dirty from rain showers and weeds were groping towards the walls from the edges of the lawn. There were a couple of canvas director’s chairs beside a white table. They sat down, their backs to the swimming pool and main house. Harry sniffed around the outside of the pool-house, then trotted over to a palm tree and cocked his leg.
‘I don’t understand,’ Cathy said, very softly. ‘I don’t understand why this is happening.’ She looked into Grace’s face. ‘Is it real?’
‘I’m afraid it is,’ Grace said.
‘It doesn’t feel real.’ Cathy shook her head helplessly. ‘I can’t even seem to cry properly.’ She looked away again. ‘I was awful to Aunt Frances. So mean. And now she’s dead, too, and I can’t even tell her I’m sorry.’
‘She understood, Cathy.’
‘I don’t think she did. I think I just made her more unhappy.’
Attracted by something, Harry headed over to where Sam was sitting, waiting, on one of the swing seats. Grace didn’t bother checking on the dog, safety-wise. Harry was too old and too smart to take a tumble into a swimming pool, and anyway, even if he did, he’d swum in rivers and oceans before now. He was a pro when it came to water.
‘What’s going to happen to me now Aunt Frances is dead?’ Cathy asked. ‘Will I have to go live in some home?’
‘I don’t know. Did your mother have any other relatives?’
‘Just a couple of cousins someplace in California. No one close. No one I’ve even met or talked to.’ Cathy paused. ‘Maybe it won’t matter. Maybe I’ll be in jail.’
Grace leaned forward, felt one leg of her canvas chair wobble, touched Cathy’s left arm. ‘Of course you won’t be in jail.’
‘I will if they decide I killed them all.’
‘They won’t.’ Grace sounded definite. ‘They’ll find out who did it.’ She heard, from the top of the garden, the sounds of play. A ball being thrown. Sam’s voice softly urging Harry to fetch. Harry wasn’t big on fetching, unless it was edible.
Cathy looked at her again. ‘You really don’t think it was me, do you?’
‘No. I’ve told you that.’
‘You still feel that way? Even now?’
‘Yes, I do.’
Grace heard Sam’s voice again. He was calling Harry, but now he sounded like he was calling him away from something.
‘What’s Harry up to?’ Grace asked Cathy, twisting around to try and see.
‘I don’t know,’ she said.
‘Hey, Harry!’ Sam’s voice, louder this time.
‘Sam!’ Grace called. ‘What’s up with him?’
‘I’m not sure,’ he called back. ‘I think he’s digging.’
Grace looked at Cathy. ‘Shall we go see?’
‘Sure.’ She got to her feet, started back ahead of Grace. The white dog was over on the lefthand side of the garden, past the line of palms close to the Jacaranda tree, digging in a patch of dirt in true terrier fashion.
‘Harry, what’re you doing?’ Grace called to him.
‘Does he always do this?’ Sam asked.
She shook her head. ‘I’ve never seen him dig up so much as a buried bone in all the years we’ve been together.’
Harry was scrabbling crazily now, making small eager sounds.
‘Well, he sure seems to think he’s found something now,’ Sam said.
Grace looked at Cathy, saw curiosity in her eyes. Then Grace looked at Sam, and saw that he, too, was watching Cathy.
Grace’s bad feeling returned.
‘There it is,’ Cathy said, suddenly coming to life. ‘Hey, boy, what’ve you got?’ She got down on her knees beside Harry, delighted as a young child to see a dog digging up a find.
Grace felt sick. She looked up, and now Sam was looking at her, and Grace realized at that moment that, cop or not, he felt as lousy as she did, like if he could have turned tail and got the hell out of there he would have.
But he couldn’t.
Harry barked.
‘What —?’ The question died on Cathy’s lips. What began as a simply quizzical, confused expression, turned almost instantly into sheerest horror. Grace watched her lips turn white, saw her sway, ran to stop her falling sideways.
‘Harry, get away,’ Sam said.
‘Harry,’ Grace urged from Cathy’s side. ‘Come here.’
Something in his mistress’s tone warned Harry this was not a game, and he came away from the small hole he’d dug. Sam was already taking gloves out of his pocket. Swiftly, methodically, he pulled them on, then extracted a plastic evidence envelope – Grace hated seeing how prepared he’d been, as if he’d known he might strike lucky if he came along with her and Cathy. He crouched down, withdrew Harry’s find, shook the excess dirt gently from it, then put it in the bag.
There was no doubting what it was.
Chapter Twenty-four
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 22, 1998
The funeral was hideous.
It was unclear, until the hour itself, whether or not Cathy was to be allowed to attend, but in the event the powers-that-were agreed that she could go to Our Lady of Mercy cemetery en route from the Juvenile Assessment Centre – where she had spent the last day and night undergoing basic evaluation and processing – to the Youth Facility up on NW 27th Street in Miami where she would remain at least until her case came before the grand jury.
Cathy, flanked by officers and handcuffed, looked to Grace as if she had lost several pounds in weight overnight and gained almost as many years. Her hair, lank and greasy, was tied back off her face, and she looked shockingly haggard. She was wearing a black skirt and blouse at least two sizes too large for her, and her eyes were bewildered and frightened. A man in a dark suit stood close by, giving her occasional reassuring glances, and Grace guessed that he might be the lawyer Frances Dean had retained for Cathy when she’d been taken in for questioning after Beatrice Flager’s murder. He looked like a lawyer, aged about forty-five, sleek, sturdy and prosperous, with dark, curling hair cut framelike around his compact head, his nose small but curved, his eyes blue and piercing. Grace hoped, with all her might, that he was the best damned lawyer for the job.
‘Hello, Grace,’ Cathy said softly as she approached.
‘Hello, Cathy.’ Grace tried not to glance at her shackled wrists or at the officers to either side of the teenager, kept her eyes trained firmly on Cathy’s mask of a face. ‘Are you holding up?’
‘I guess.’ Cathy swallowed. ‘I’m glad you’re here.’
‘Of course I’m here.’ Grace put out a hand to touch her left arm. ‘I’m going to be here for you as long as it takes to get this cleared up.’
Cathy didn’t answer, seemed incapable of speaking again. Swiftly, apprehensively, she looked back at a dark-haired girl – her friend Jill, Grace thought, the one in the photograph in Cathy’s room at home. Jill managed a bri
ef, frozen smile, then, perhaps constrained by the woman beside her, looked away from her friend and down at the ground.
Out of the corner of her right eye, Grace glimpsed Sam, standing with another man; probably, she thought, another detective, or perhaps one of his superior officers. He saw her, nodded, gave the smallest of smiles, but made no move towards her. It occurred to Grace, not for the first time, that perhaps, no matter how Sam felt as a private individual, they were now on opposite sides of a great divide.
The service got underway. It was a hot, humid, wet afternoon, and as Grace allowed the words to float someplace over her head, she was hard put to decide which was the most dismal aspect of all. The pair of simple polished coffins being lowered into the ground. The chief mourner in handcuffs. Her utter isolation – the fact that if there were relatives or other friends present, they never approached her; a typhoid carrier, Grace thought, might have attracted more physical warmth from the other mourners than Cathy received. The knowledge that within a comparatively short time there would be another funeral to attend, probably in almost identical circumstances.
It got worse, briefly, after the burial, when the media, restrained till then by grudging respect, finally burst upon the scene like a maddened herd of cattle released from an abattoir, and suddenly Cathy, despite the best efforts of the dark-suited man and the police, was surrounded for several long moments by hungry press and television reporters and camera crews. Grace stepped back, escaping reflexively from the onslaught, but she caught one more glimpse of Cathy’s face as she was hustled back to the black car she’d arrived in. There was sheerest terror in those blue eyes now, and Grace knew that that look in her eyes as a dozen microphones thrust into her face would be beamed into every home by nightfall and splashed on every front page in Florida, or perhaps even farther afield, by breakfast-time next day.
The thought made her feel sick to her stomach.
Chapter Twenty-five
FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 1998
It was another two days before Grace was allowed to see Cathy again, this time in a small locked room at the Youth Facility. Cathy had, to date, been charged with the first degree murders of Marie and Arnold Robbins and Frances Dean. There was little doubt in anyone’s mind that there would be more to follow. Bail, Grace had learned, was out of the question.
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