Mind Games

by Hilary Norman

  She shook her head. ‘Not really.’

  ‘It’s the last thing I wanted to do.’ He smiled at her. ‘Have some juice.’

  Grace reached out for her glass, but it was slippery, oily, and fell out of her grasp on to the stone tiled floor, smashing into fragments. ‘Damn,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, Peter.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  She was already off the chair and down on her knees, starting to pick up the broken pieces.

  ‘Grace, leave it.’ Hayman got down beside her. ‘There’s no need for you to do this – let me get a brush, and I’ll—’

  He covered Grace’s right hand with his own to stop her picking up the glass, but her fingers had just closed on a jagged piece and as Hayman squeezed her hand to pull it away, the shard cut into her palm.

  ‘Damn,’ she said again.

  Hayman let go her hand and the fragment fell back to the floor.

  ‘God, Grace, I’m so sorry. Let me see.’ He took her fingers in his, very carefully, and examined the cut. ‘That looks nasty – it’s quite deep.’

  ‘It’s not so bad,’ she said, quickly. ‘Not deep enough to need suturing.’

  ‘Maybe not’ he said, still examining it. ‘But it needs cleaning and dressing.’

  Grace drew her hand away, got off her knees and slid sideways back on to the kitchen chair. ‘Give me just a second,’ she said, ‘and then I’ll go take care of it.’

  ‘Please,’ Hayman said. ‘It was my fault – least I can do is clean it up.’

  ‘I dropped the glass,’ Grace said.

  ‘I hardly think a broken glass compares with a damaged hand.’ He left the kitchen and was back in moments with a first-aid kit. ‘May I?’

  ‘Sure.’ Grace held out the hand. ‘Thank you.’

  He was gentle, thorough and skilful, cleaning the cut carefully, covering the palm with antiseptic-impregnated gauze and then sealing it with a length of sticking plaster. By the time he was through, Grace was starting to feel deeply ashamed. Maybe Hayman was right – maybe she had been running her imagination about Cathy in overdrive, to the extent where now she was in real danger of seeing dead men around every other corner. For heaven’s sake, the thing he’d said about the vitamin capsules had obviously been no more than a reasonable supposition – a plausible guess as to how Broderick might have fed Cathy cannabis without her knowing – given that they both knew about Broderick’s previous use of B12. And it wasn’t as if Peter Hayman even slightly resembled the old snapshot of John Broderick that Grace had seen.

  ‘How’s that feel?’ he asked her.

  ‘Fine,’ she said.

  ‘Sure? Not too tight?’

  ‘No, it’s great.’ She flexed her hand, showing him.

  ‘I’d keep it still for a little while,’ he told her, ‘or the bleeding might start up again.’ He looked down at the floor. ‘And better watch your feet while I clean that up.’

  ‘Peter, I should be doing that.’

  ‘You just sit still, Grace,’ he said, firmly. ‘And please don’t start making a big deal about one cheap glass again.’

  She smiled at him. ‘I won’t.’

  He brushed up the glass, folded it safely in old newspaper, then relegated it to the trash before washing the floor. It was all done in minutes.

  ‘Are you going to be up to sailing, Grace?’

  ‘Oh, I think so.’

  ‘Are you really sure about that?’ He looked at her quizzically. ‘You look a little pale.’

  ‘It’s only a cut, Peter.’ She was, in fact, feeling a little shaky, but she didn’t want to admit to it after all his efforts.

  ‘Why don’t you go sit out on the porch for a while? I still have a few errands that could use taking care of before we leave – I can give you some more juice and you just take it easy.’

  ‘I hate to hold you up,’ she said. It was true, especially after all his kindness – and the more Grace thought about it, the more sure she became that neither the night-time visit to her room nor the capsule remark had been remotely sinister. She was tired, that was all – exhausted and frustrated over Cathy – and jumpy as a cat because of it all.

  ‘You’re not holding me up,’ he said.

  She stopped arguing.

  Chapter Forty-four

  Martinez had called four hours ago, at six-thirty a.m., about forty-five minutes after Sam had managed to doze off. Sometimes Sam wondered if Martinez ever slept; he certainly appeared not to need more than an hour a night. He’d called this time with news dropped clean off the grapevine of a new homicide in the City of Miami jurisdiction: an office cleaner named Anna Valdez had been stabbed to death in a downtown doctor’s office.

  ‘Looks like they used one of the doc’s instruments on her,’ Martinez had said, then waited for Sam to react.

  ‘A scalpel?’ It had felt like an instant cold shower.

  ‘In one.’

  Sam’s mind had raced back over the MO at his father’s office. ‘Any drugs missing?’

  ‘Only scrip pads.’ Martinez had been ready with his answer.

  ‘Was she sleeping?’ Sam had asked.

  ‘She was certainly sitting down on the job – they found her in the doc’s chair. Seems she should have finished work and been out of the place a good half-hour before she was killed.’

  The ME on the case was Marina Garmisch. As physically imposing as her name suggested, with the body and head of a Wagnerian heroine, she was rumoured to have terrorized more than one six-foot cop, yet where the dead were concerned, Garmisch was as tender, delicate and caring as a lover. Like the other medical examiners in the county, she knew all about the other scalpel attacks.

  ‘Could be the same perp as in your father’s case,’ she told Sam on the phone after Anna Valdez’s body bag had been taken to the morgue to await her further attention. ‘Though without the weapon or any usable prints, it’s going to be hard to prove.’

  ‘Do you know if she was asleep when she was stabbed?’ he asked.

  ‘She may have been dozing, but the blade definitely roused her. She put up quite a fight.’ The ME paused. ‘My understanding is that Dr Becket never knew much about his attack.’

  ‘Which could have been down to the angle the blade hit,’ Sam said. ‘I mean, my dad was sleeping on the couch in his office, so the perp had a clearer target.’ He paused. ‘You know that all the other scalpel victims had sedatives in their bloodstreams? My father was the odd one out.’

  ‘I’ll let you see the results soon as we have them,’ Garmisch told him. ‘But I’d say it’s unlikely that Anna Valdez either took or was given anything. Like I said, she put up a good fight – I think she was a hundred per cent alert in the last few minutes of her life.’

  ‘Even if it is the same sleaze who whacked your dad,’ Martinez said over a cup of fourth-rate coffee, ‘it won’t be enough to get the Robbins kid off the hook.’

  Sam knew that only too well. Ever since some asshole had leaked the news that the weapon in the other cases had been a scalpel, they’d been waiting for some other SOB to try a copycat.

  Martinez was still thinking aloud. ‘Unless the same guy offed her family and the therapist,’ he said, ‘and now he wants us to think this is someone else because he wants to keep the girl in jail, but he’s gotten a taste for killing, the way they do.’

  ‘I thought you were dead-set on Cathy Robbins being the one,’ Sam said.

  Martinez shrugged. ‘You know I never like it when things get messy. I like my ends all tied up, nice and neat.’

  Sam didn’t say anything.

  Broderick had come back into his mind.

  And so had Peter Hayman.

  He called Grace five minutes later, listened to her message giving the number of the hotel where she was staying. She hadn’t said anything to him about plans for going anywhere this weekend – but then again, he hadn’t given her much of a chance to tell him anything much last time they’d spoken.

  She’d left the numbe
r, but no name. It was a 305 area code, which meant she was staying somewhere in south-east Florida, any place between Miami and Key West. Sam couldn’t imagine why she’d be staying in a hotel on the Keys when her sister lived on Islamorada.

  Peter Hayman lived on Key Largo.

  He was just about to pick up his phone again when it rang and Maria Mitchell, the captain’s personal assistant, told him he was wanted right away.

  ‘Maria, can you tell the cap I just have a—’

  ‘He said right away, detective.’

  The only time Maria called him anything other than Sam was when her boss was in the room with her, and the strident tone in her voice was a clear warning that the captain was on the warpath about something. Captain Hector Hernandez pissed off was not a man to be kept waiting – especially not on a Sunday.

  Whichever hotel Grace was staying at in whichever part of south-east Florida would just have to wait a while longer.

  ‘Detective Becket?’ Maria’s tone was holding steady.

  ‘On my way,’ he said into the phone.

  Chapter Forty-five

  Grace wasn’t feeling too good. It had started suddenly, just a little while ago, sitting out on Hayman’s porch. Nothing too specific, mostly a dull headache and some queasiness, and now a great wave of exhaustion seemed to be taking her over, making her just want to flop where she was.

  She’d used her cellular phone to check her messages and had found only one demanding an immediate response, from Cathy, but now her phone had died. She went in search of Hayman, passing the locked door of the previous evening – still closed – and found her host at his desk in the study, reading some papers.

  ‘Peter?’

  He twisted around, saw her in the doorway. ‘Come in.’

  ‘I’m afraid I need to call Miami, but my phone battery’s all used up, and the only way I can recharge is while I’m driving.’

  ‘You don’t need to ask to use the phone. I told you when you first got here – help yourself to whatever you need.’ He took a longer look at her. ‘You don’t look so hot.’

  ‘I don’t feel so hot,’ Grace admitted.

  Hayman stood up. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She was leaning against the door frame, glad of its support. ‘It started just a little while back.’

  ‘Do you think it’s a reaction to the cut?’

  ‘No way.’ She managed a smile. ‘I hope I’m not that feeble.’

  ‘I don’t think you’re feeble at all.’

  ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘where would you like me to call from? I don’t want to disturb you.’

  ‘Anywhere you like,’ Hayman said. ‘You won’t disturb me.’

  Grace headed back into the kitchen and used the phone mounted on the wall, glad the cord was long enough to allow her to sit at the table. Cathy hadn’t left the number, but Grace knew she’d written it down in her address book. The problem was that the book was in her tote bag in her room, and she didn’t think she could summon up the energy to go fetch it, not when she could dial 411 instead.

  Maybe, she thought while she was waiting for the operator, Cathy calling was a fragment of good news. Perhaps, if she was being allowed to make calls, they’d let her out of solitary.

  She’d just written the number on Hayman’s grocery list pad, when Grace remembered what else she’d put in her address book. Broderick’s photograph. Hayman had asked only an hour or so ago if she’d obtained one, and she hadn’t thought to show it to him.

  Her head ached. Grace closed her eyes for a moment and rubbed her right temple with the back of her hand. Stop procrastinating, she told herself. One problem at a time.

  She made the call to the Female House of Detention, and within a surprisingly short time Cathy was on the line. She sounded lousy, but at least she wasn’t weeping this time.

  ‘Did you hear what happened?’

  ‘I heard they thought you attacked someone,’ Grace said.

  ‘I didn’t do it, Grace.’

  ‘Dr Parés told me they found a peeler from the kitchen in your cell.’

  ‘I didn’t put it there. Someone planted it.’ Cathy paused. ‘Do you believe me, Grace?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Why haven’t you come to see me?’

  ‘They said I couldn’t come,’ Grace told her. ‘They told me I’d have to wait till tomorrow and call again.’

  ‘It’s because I was so awful to you on the phone, isn’t it?’

  Hysteria was obviously lurking just below the surface. Grace trod carefully. ‘Cathy, we only spoke on Thursday, and the reason I didn’t get in my car and drive straight over to see you was because I had appointments I couldn’t break – and then Friday, the doctor called me, and after that it was impossible.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Cathy said.

  ‘You don’t have to be sorry, Cathy. I just need you to understand.’

  ‘I do.’

  Now she sounded flat and dull, like a stone.

  ‘Listen to me, Cathy,’ Grace said. ‘I’m out of town today, but I’m going to do my best to get over there to see you either tomorrow or Tuesday.’

  ‘Can’t you ask if they’ll let you come later today?’ Now her voice was small, pathetic.

  Grace’s heart felt like it was twisting inside her chest, but the fact was that even if she’d thought there was any chance of being allowed into the facility on a Sunday without prior arrangement, she felt too ill to contemplate driving back to Miami.

  ‘There’s no way I can get there today, Cathy,’ she said, trying to sound gentle and calming, ‘but I promise you I’ll do what I can to get there by Tuesday at the latest.’

  ‘Where are you, Grace?’ Cathy asked, suddenly.

  ‘I’m on Key Largo,’ Grace said, then bit her lip.

  ‘Oh.’

  That was all she said, but Grace heard the resentment and knew she’d probably just added about a hundred pounds or so to Cathy’s burden of isolation. There she was, innocent and locked up with real offenders, and here Grace was – the shrink who was always making promises about helping her – too busy vacationing in the Keys to come see her.

  ‘I’m thinking of you all the time, Cathy.’

  ‘Yeah,’ she said.

  ‘You just have to be patient, I’m afraid.’

  ‘I don’t have much choice, do I?’

  Chapter Forty-six

  Sam was holed up with the captain going through overdue monthly statistics. He wanted to get the hell out of there and talk to Grace, and then he wanted to get on with checking out Hayman – not to mention the fact that he was more than a little eager to find out how Miami PD were doing with the Valdez killing and whether or not the perp was the same piece of shit who’d stuck a scalpel in his father. But Hernandez said he’d had the chief on his phone at home first thing this morning, and his ulcer was playing up, and what Sam really wanted to do was tell him to go find someone else to hold his hand, but a voice in his head kept reminding him that he was getting worked up for all the wrong reasons, and none of them was Captain Hernandez’s fault. And so far as Anna Valdez and even his father’s case went, Sergeant Rodriguez and his team were on the job and Al Martinez was almost certainly keeping his ear to the ground.

  He finally got back to his own desk at twelve-fifty-three, picked up the phone and punched the number of Grace’s hotel.

  ‘Good afternoon, this is the Pelican Lodge, how may we help you?’

  ‘Dr Grace Lucca, please.’

  ‘One moment, please.’

  He was on hold for several moments, drumming the battered sole of his right Nike sneaker on the base of his desk.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What was the name of the guest you were asking for?’

  Sam repeated it. The woman at the other end told him that they had no guest of that name. He told her that Dr Lucca had left a message for him the previous day, stating that she was staying there. She went away again, and came b
ack with the information that Dr Lucca had indeed arrived yesterday, but had left again almost immediately. No, she did not know where she had gone to.

  Sam tried Grace’s house again. Still the same message. He didn’t know if her machine was the type that would allow her to change an outgoing message from an outside phone.

  Where the hell was she?

  ‘With her sister,’ he told himself, and started to dial information, only slamming the phone back into the cradle again as he realized he didn’t know Claudia’s second name.

  Didn’t know or couldn’t remember.

  He closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. He thought about Grace talking about her sister – Claudia, that much he was rock sure of – and her brother-in-law, the architect . . . Daniel – that was his name . . . Claudia and Daniel what? Damn it, he didn’t know, never had known.

  He opened his eyes again and dialled his parents’ home, hoped his father would pick up instead of his mother.

  ‘Dad?’

  ‘Sam? You okay?’ David knew Sam was on duty.

  ‘I’m fine.’ Sam wasted no time. ‘Listen, Dad, you probably can’t help me with this, but I wondered if you happened to know Grace Lucca’s sister’s surname?’

  ‘Has something happened to Grace?’ Now David was anxious.

  ‘No, nothing like that. Do you know her sister’s name?’

  ‘No, son,’ David said. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever heard it.’

  ‘Okay, Dad, sorry to have—’

  ‘Why can’t you ask Grace?’

  ‘She’s away – I think she’s at her sister’s.’

  ‘Oh.’ David paused. ‘You could call the father in Chicago.’

  ‘I guess I could,’ Sam said.

  ‘Or Grace must have people who work for her – a secretary, maybe?’ David chuckled. ‘Hey, are you the cop or am I?’ He paused. ‘Or are you just a cop who’s fallen in love?’

  Sam barely hesitated. He and his father seldom kept secrets from one another. ‘As a matter of fact, Dad, I think that about sums it up.’

  ‘You couldn’t find better, Sam,’ David Becket said.

  Sam smiled into the phone. ‘I know.’