Mind Games

by Hilary Norman

  What she ought to do, Grace was beginning to realize, was to consult with another Miami psychologist, perhaps even consider handing over Cathy’s case to a more detached third party.

  Cathy would feel even more betrayed if Grace passed her on – but then, according to Dr Parés, that was how she already felt. And what if – however much Grace hated contemplating the possibility – but what if she was guilty? Mightn’t she then be far better off with a psychologist who was willing to accept that truth, someone who would start right out tracking the best way to help Cathy from that perspective? As a potential psychotic. As a multiple killer, not to mention a matricide.

  ‘Maybe it’s time,’ Grace said to Harry, her faithful confidant, just before lunch, ‘I started really taking those possibilities on board.’

  He sat very still, his bright, dark eyes fixed on hers.

  He had nothing to say. He knew she was only casting around. Snowing herself. Grace knew that too.

  There was no way she was going to give up on Cathy.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  TUESDAY, MAY 12, 1998

  On Tuesday morning, David Becket called Grace. Sam had told her that his father was now back home full-time and getting cantankerous. His familiar voice sounded as warm as it had ever been to her ears.

  ‘Last time you and I had a real chance to talk,’ he said, ‘it was about that son-of-a-bitch, so-called physician father of Cathy Robbins.’

  ‘I guess it was,’ she said.

  ‘Next thing I knew – well, you know what happened then.’ David paused. ‘Sam told me about your mother, Grace. I’m sorry.’

  She hadn’t seen Sam since the barmitzvah, but they’d talked on the phone, and she’d told him about the visit to Chicago. He had asked what she needed, or if she wanted to be left alone, and she’d answered that there was nothing she needed, but that she didn’t especially want to be left alone either. One of these days, Grace had thought, she might even tell Sam the whole miserable story of her childhood – if, that was, they ever found the time and space.

  ‘Thank you, David,’ she said now, into the phone. ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘Getting fitter every day. Driving Judy crazy, wanting to do more than she thinks I should.’ He paused again. ‘I gather she cold-shouldered you because she knew you were backing Cathy?’

  ‘I understood why.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t understand, and I’ve told her so.’

  ‘That wasn’t necessary, David.’

  He came to the point. ‘We need to do something more about that girl. I don’t like what I’m hearing – sounds to me like she might be in danger of being sold down the river.’

  ‘In what sense?’ Grace asked, though she thought she knew.

  ‘This garbage about considering an insanity plea.’

  ‘I take it you’ve been talking to Wagner?’

  ‘Yesterday,’ David said. ‘I was trying to find out what he’s doing for Cathy, trying to see how I could help, and I got nowhere fast. I told him since I’m supposed to be one of her so-called victims, surely having me as a character witness ought to be useful?’

  ‘And what did he say?’

  ‘He said he wants to wait and see how the case shapes up overall. He said they were going to need a lot more than a character witness – he said that since I couldn’t testify that it definitely wasn’t Cathy who stabbed me, anything I did say might not make enough difference. I said surely anything would help, and he didn’t disagree with me, but he didn’t exactly catch fire either.’

  ‘You don’t rate Wagner too highly then,’ Grace said, quietly.

  ‘I don’t know – I’m hoping he’s not an asshole.’ David paused. ‘He said you’d told him about Broderick, and that he’d had his people do some checking, and that to date it hadn’t yielded anything worthwhile – I just hope they’re trying hard enough.’

  ‘I suppose it’s a pretty tall order,’ she said.

  ‘Playing devil’s advocate doesn’t become you, Grace,’ David rebuked. ‘You know as well as I do that Cathy needs someone who’s going to move heaven and earth to find a way to help her – I mean, for Christ’s sake, this guy must know the media’s going to go crazy if he manages to dig up a dead, murderous father.’

  ‘I’m sure Wagner does know that,’ Grace said. ‘I just don’t think he believes the father’s still alive.’ She took a breath. ‘Has Sam talked to you about Broderick?’

  ‘Sam tells me most things I want to know.’ David sounded smug. ‘He thinks he’s so close-mouthed, a real hard-case cop, but I get stuff out of him when I really want.’

  ‘Do you think it’s possible that Broderick might be behind all this, or do you think I’m whistling in the wind?’

  ‘I know someone’s behind it, and I know it isn’t Cathy.’

  ‘Why are you so sure, David? Is it still just instinct?’

  ‘You can call it that,’ he said. ‘I held that child in my arms the morning after she climbed into her dead parents’ bed. If she killed them then I’m a KGB spy, and if I’m wrong about her, they can lock me up and throw away the key,’

  ‘Wagner says he wants to choose the best route to keep her out of jail.’

  ‘And put her in an institution instead,’ David said scornfully. ‘That’s supposed to be better? That’s supposed to be justice?’

  ‘You don’t have to convince me,’ Grace said.

  She tried that afternoon and again the following morning to organize a visit to Cathy, but both applications drew the same response: Cathy didn’t want to see her. Becoming ever more concerned, Grace put in another call to the prison doctor.

  Dr Parés sounded tired, but did his best to be courteous. He’d visited Cathy that morning, he said, and was glad to report that her emotional condition seemed no worse than previously.

  ‘But no better?’ Grace asked.

  ‘Under the circumstances,’ the doctor told her, quite kindly, ‘Cathy is quite composed.’

  Those words, Grace knew, were intended to reassure her, but instead they struck dread into her heart. ‘Composed’ smacked of resignation, which led her to fear that Cathy might be giving up.

  She waited until afternoon to make another call. She felt in need of comfort, and it seemed to her, suddenly, that the person most likely to console or at least calm her was Sam. Trying his direct line at the department, she got his voice mail, then called the cellular number he’d given her. He answered almost instantly, his voice clipped.

  ‘Sam, it’s Grace. If you’re too busy to talk, just hang up.’

  ‘I’m busy, but I have a couple of seconds.’

  ‘Any chance of seeing you?’ She felt oddly nervous.

  ‘When? Now?’ The clipped tone was gone.

  ‘I don’t know. This evening? If you can make it.’

  ‘Will you cook for me again? I love the way you cook.’

  ‘I love the way you eat.’

  ‘Seven? Eight?’

  ‘Eight.’

  ‘Deal,’ Sam said.

  When Grace put the phone down, her cheeks were hot.

  ‘Oh, boy,’ she said.

  She knew she had it bad.

  ‘What’s this called in Italian?’ Sam asked her that evening.

  Grace had gone out to the meat market right after their brief call and had bought duck, then come back and found a jar of damsons marinated with wine, cinnamon and coriander that she’d put away last fall, and even now, as they came to the last morsels of the roasted combination with wild rice and fresh, light salad, the mouth-watering aroma still lingered in the kitchen.

  ‘It isn’t, so far as I know,’ she said, mopping up juices with a slice of bread. ‘The only specifically Italian thing on this table is the ciabatta.’ She noticed Harry doing his best to coax tidbits from their guest. ‘Don’t give him any duck – it’s too rich, and he’s getting fat.’

  ‘I don’t know about the dog, but a guy could get seriously fat knowing you.’ Sam eyed her. ‘Why aren’t you
fat, Grace?’

  ‘Tension, maybe.’

  ‘Cathy?’

  She looked at him. He seemed so calm, sitting at her table. Grace thought of the horrors he had to have seen in his career. She had told David Becket once that she was used to hearing about ugliness, but it was unlikely to compare to the living daily nightmares of Sam’s working environment.

  ‘Talk to me, Grace,’ he said.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About what’s on your mind.’

  She stood up. ‘Dessert first.’

  ‘How can I say no?’

  A little time passed while Grace grilled fresh peaches with honey and cinnamon and Sam loaded some dishes into the dishwasher and then fooled around on the floor with Harry. The peaches were done in minutes, and Grace served them with vanilla ice cream.

  ‘Jeez,’ Sam said, sitting down again.

  ‘Call it therapy,’ Grace said.

  ‘Eating or cooking?’

  ‘Both. It works for me almost every time.’

  A few more missing pieces of their respective puzzles slotted into place over dessert. Grace talked some more about life with the Luccas in Chicago in the bad old days, and then Sam told her about his great-grandfather’s great-grandfather, the slave who’d run away from Georgia in the 1830s and escaped via Key Biscayne to the Bahamas.

  ‘I got all my information from my father and his journals,’ Sam said. ‘My mother’s side of the family never wanted to talk about the past, but I guess my daddy’s background’s enough to play with.’

  ‘What happened in the Bahamas?’ Grace asked.

  ‘He worked as a farm labourer on Eleuthera, and his wife went into service, and the family stayed put for about fifty years until my great-great grandfather moved them to the Florida Keys. According to my father, he tried his hand at fishing but he was sick all the time, so he worked on a pineapple plantation on Key Largo. When the soil gave out, they moved on to the mainland and settled in the Black Grove.’

  ‘Which is where you were all still living back in 1971,’ Grace said, softly.

  ‘Except that my grandfather moved the family to Liberty City when my daddy was a baby. They owned a restaurant there, and my grandmother took in dressmaking. My father went to Dorsey High School, spent as much time as he could get away with in Overtown, sneaking into jazz clubs – and then they built the expressway and as good as finished the place, which as good as finished Liberty City, so the family went back to the Grove and my father became a cop and had yours truly.’ Sam paused. ‘And the rest you more or less know.’

  Grace was very still. ‘So you joined the force because of your father.’

  ‘It was partly that,’ Sam said, softly. ‘Staying connected with him.’

  ‘And was it also something to do with the way your parents and sister died?’ Grace remembered what he’d told her about the shooting by the white police officer that had sparked the riots up in Opa-Locka, thought again about the long-term effects that might have had on a seven-year-old boy.

  ‘I think it was a lot to do with that, too,’ Sam said. ‘Keeping the faith with my father and the things he’d hoped for.’

  ‘How did David and Judy feel about it?’

  ‘Troubled. They’d sent me to a private school and then on to Spellman College.’ Sam’s smile was gentle, hazy. ‘They never put pressure on me to follow in David’s footsteps or anything like that, but I guess Judy could have lived without the fear factor.’

  ‘David’s certainly very proud of you,’ Grace said.

  ‘And Ma, too.’ Sam grinned. ‘And at least Saul’s talking about going the doctor route, so there’s still hope for the next generation.’

  They went outside again after they’d finished eating, to the spot on the edge of the deck where they always seemed to end up with their coffee cups.

  ‘If you don’t want to talk about Cathy,’ Sam said, ‘that’s cool. But if you’re bottling it up for my benefit, don’t bother.’

  ‘It’s nothing new.’ Grace sighed. ‘Except I seem to be getting more scared for her with every passing day.’

  ‘You’re right to be scared,’ Sam said.

  She smiled wryly. ‘That makes me feel better.’

  He waited another second. ‘I’ve had a pal in the FBI field office in North Miami Beach run a kind of upside-down profile on what Broderick might be up to if he were still with us.’ He paused. ‘It supports your thinking.’

  A new thought struck Grace. ‘Did someone profile the scalpel killer?’

  ‘Not officially, no,’ Sam answered quietly.

  ‘Why not?’ She knew the answer. ‘Because most people figured they had their suspect right from the start.’ Sam kept silent, and she didn’t blame him one bit. ‘You said not officially.’

  ‘Because I had a profile run by the same pal, off the record.’

  Grace shook her head. ‘Why does it seem as if every decent idea in this case has had to be kept off the record?’ She paused. ‘Did the profile fit Cathy?’

  ‘Not really,’ Sam said. ‘But it was too inconclusive to help clear her.’ He drank some coffee and stared out over the river. ‘My pal certainly thinks that if Broderick didn’t die, you could be right about him.’

  ‘How could the same profile begin to match a grown man and a teenage girl?’

  ‘It couldn’t. But there were no clues as to the killer’s gender, for one thing. And as you know, the victims were all sleeping, so no special strength was needed for the stabbings.’

  ‘What about the force of the stabbings?’ Grace was starting to think about things that had never occurred to her previously. ‘Can’t they measure things like that these days – how fast and hard the scalpel hit?’

  ‘It’s the kind of thing the ME considers,’ Sam said. ‘The killer in all these cases struck hard and with precision, but in theory there was nothing a physically fit fourteen-year-old girl couldn’t have managed.’

  They both fell silent. Harry got up from his place between them and wandered back into the house, probably heading for the kitchen in search of any scraps of duck that might inadvertently have been dropped.

  Grace remembered, suddenly, Peter Hayman’s suggestion the last time she’d seen him. She couldn’t believe she’d forgotten about it till now. Maybe her mother’s death and the funeral had taxed her more than she liked to admit.

  ‘Could you get a photograph of Broderick for me, Sam?’

  ‘I already have one,’ he said.

  ‘Why haven’t you shown it to me?’

  ‘Last time I looked, you were a psychologist, not a cop,’ he said.

  ‘That hasn’t stopped you from telling me things you’re not supposed to.’ She paused. ‘I need to see the photograph, Sam. I might recognize him.’

  He smiled into the dark.

  ‘What?’ Grace said.

  ‘The photo only arrived yesterday. I requested it a week or so ago from Lafayette Hospital, but the fax they sent was lousy, and the one they mailed took its sweet time.’

  ‘So do you have it here?’ she asked impatiently.

  ‘Would I dare eat your duck and peaches and keep it from you?’

  They went inside and Sam retrieved the photograph from his inside jacket pocket. He laid it on the kitchen table and Grace sat down and gazed at it.

  Her first sight of John Broderick.

  He was fair, like his daughter. Hair several shades less golden. Blue eyes. Nose large, lips narrow, but the whole face was roundish and suntanned. No special distinguishing features. No obvious scars or pock marks.

  The snapshot was mounted on a sheet of white paper, and a few statistics were handwritten beneath in black ink. 9/8/85. (The date the photograph had been taken – four years or so before his disappearance.) Height: 6'1". Weight: 210lbs.

  ‘Big man,’ Sam commented. ‘Overweight.’

  Grace nodded.

  ‘Maybe he drank too much.’ Sam paused. ‘I wonder if he took steroids.’

  Still, Grace said not
hing.

  ‘What is it?’ Sam asked.

  She shook her head. ‘It’s nothing – nothing real.’

  ‘You think you’ve seen this man?’

  ‘No, nothing like that. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him.’ She hesitated. ‘It’s just – there’s this familiarity about him.’

  ‘He’s Cathy’s father.’

  ‘No, that’s not it.’ Grace continued to stare at the photograph. ‘Or maybe it is just that – I’m not sure.’

  ‘Take your time,’ Sam said, gently. ‘Remember this was taken over twelve years ago. If he’s alive, he’d be that much older and he might have changed his appearance.’

  ‘If he is the killer,’ Grace said, ‘he’ll certainly have changed his appearance. I would have, if I were him.’

  ‘He could have gone all out,’ Sam conjectured, ‘had surgery. At the very least, he could have coloured his hair, or maybe shaved it, or bought a wig – he could have grown a beard, maybe dropped some weight or put on some more – he could use tinted contacts in his eyes.’

  ‘In other words’ – Grace looked away from the picture up at Sam – ‘there’s almost no point in trying to place this John Broderick.’

  ‘There’s always a point,’ Sam said. ‘Still look familiar to you?’

  She looked back down again. ‘I don’t know. Maybe it is because Cathy’s in there somewhere. Or maybe it was just wishful thinking.’ She paused. ‘May I keep this?’

  Sam nodded. ‘It’s a copy. Keep it if you like, but it’s for your eyes only, Grace. You can’t start showing it around places, playing detective, okay?’