Mind Games

by Hilary Norman

  ‘I’m going to cut the power now and get the sails up,’ Hayman told her.

  ‘Lovely,’ she called back lazily. ‘Want some help yet?’

  ‘No need. I’m used to coping alone.’

  ‘Just yell if you change your mind.’

  She watched him put on sailing gloves, the kind that left his fingertips exposed but would protect his palms and fingerpads from getting burned by the lines as he heaved and worked to get the mainsail up. Hayman had shown her where the PFDs – life jackets – were stored, but neither of them had put one on, Grace because frankly she couldn’t face the added weight or bulk, just when she was trying to shed her headache, and Hayman because he said he never did unless conditions indicated it advisable. As it was, while she was wearing denim cut-offs and a cotton T-shirt, he had on a long-sleeved sweatshirt and was sporting a blue bandanna around his neck, and Grace figured that a PFD would probably have made him boil.

  ‘We have to make sure the boat’s pointed into the wind,’ Hayman called out to her, explaining as he went, ‘so the sails don’t fill when we raise them.’

  ‘Otherwise we’ll take off before you want us to,’ Grace said. ‘Sure you don’t want me to lend a hand?’

  He shook his head. ‘I told you, I’m used to sailing solo and I could use the exercise.’

  ‘You look pretty fit to me.’

  ‘You don’t look so bad yourself.’

  Grace was already feeling the first signs of what she and Claudia called vacationitis – the careless, floating, limitless sensation that Grace sometimes found glorious, other times irritating – pushing its way through the fatigue clouds and injecting its own cottonwool layers into her brain.

  ‘Sorry I can’t concentrate on you for a while,’ Hayman called.

  ‘I’m happy as I am,’ Grace assured him.

  ‘Soon as we’re on course, I’ll fix us both a drink.’

  ‘Take your time,’ she said. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

  Sam was still on the South Dixie Highway when he made the decision to call Martinez. Cellular to cellular, just in case.

  He answered after one ring.

  ‘Where the hell are you?’

  ‘Al, are you home or in the office? If you’re in the office, don’t let on that it’s me.’

  ‘It’s okay, I’m home alone. What’s up? The cap and Maria have called me twice. Why aren’t you answering your pager?’

  Sam tucked the phone under his chin and kept his eyes on the road.

  ‘I need you to do something for me, Al.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ Martinez demanded. ‘What’s the big secret? You in some kind of trouble, Sam?’

  ‘Not yet. Will you do this for me? It’s nothing heavy – I just need you to chase down some people who think Sundays are rest-days and persuade them to open up their computer records for you.’

  ‘Unofficially, I take it?’

  ‘For now,’ Sam said, and got right to the point. ‘I need someone – anyone – who can check a shrink’s background. Try the American Psychiatric Association in DC, or maybe someone at Miami General or one of the private hospitals—’

  ‘What shrink?’ Martinez sounded startled. ‘Not Doc Lucca?’

  ‘Name of Peter Hayman, lives on Key Largo,’ Sam said. ‘Used to work over St Petersburg way or thereabouts.’ He paused. ‘And I need you to call Angie Carlino at home in Tampa, tell her that the stuff I told her could wait till Monday suddenly got real urgent.’

  ‘She’s gonna understand that, is she?’

  ‘She’ll understand. Tell her especially the no-show shootings, okay?’

  ‘What shootings?’

  ‘Just tell her, Al, okay?’ The old guy moseying along at around twenty mph ahead of him was starting to drive Sam nuts, and he hit his horn hard.

  ‘What car you driving?’ Martinez asked. ‘Where you going, man?’

  ‘No place you need to know about,’ Sam evaded.

  ‘I’m not going to tell Hernandez,’ Martinez said.

  ‘I don’t want to put you in a bad place, Al,’ Sam told him. ‘Just do what you can and get whatever you find to me in the next hour or so – even if there’s nothing, Al – especially if there’s nothing.’

  The air-conditioner in the unmarked white Chevrolet Lumina – the car that Sam had no business driving on unofficial business – was working at full blast along with his mind and heart-beat as he drove through Goulds, passing the turn-off to the Monkey Jungle. He had Pavarotti singing La donna e mobile on the radio, and he’d tried doing what he usually did, namely singing along with him, his baritone underpinning the great man’s tenor, but this afternoon it just wasn’t working for him.

  He’d turned off both his pager and radio after the call to Martinez – knew he’d done the unpardonable, but Sam was running on pure, high-octane intuition now, and he was pretty sure he was going to live to regret it, but there wasn’t a damned thing he was prepared to do about it. His cell-phone had rung twice in the past ten minutes, and both times Sam had glanced down to check the caller ID in case it was either Grace or Martinez, but once he’d recognized it as a departmental number – probably Hernandez trying to catch him off-guard – and the next time it had been his mother. He’d answered neither call, and the automated message service had cut in for him.

  He’d worry about the flak when today was over – when he’d quit worrying about Grace’s safety.

  That was quite an admission, if he paused to think about it. Sam Becket had always known where his priorities lay till now: David’s, Judy’s and Saul’s health and safety aside – and in the old days, of course, Althea’s and Sampson’s – work had always come first.

  Grace Lucca was not family. They had liked and respected each other, Sam reflected, almost from the get-go, their mutual concern over Cathy Robbins bringing them closer. They’d become comfortable with each other – real comfortable and easy. And then they’d made amazing love up on his roof – just that one time – and even that had been interrupted by his damned pager. On the surface, their relationship was hardly established enough to make Sam take the kind of risks with his career that he was running this afternoon. If Hernandez or the chief found out what he was up to, they’d probably have his head first, then his badge, and ask questions later.

  Questions.

  There were a whole lot of questions Sam might well be asking himself. Like what were the exact ingredients for this giant mess he was cooking up in his brain, and on what grounds was he breaching regulations and going off half cocked into who knew what situation?

  Peter Hayman’s old records hadn’t jumped right into Angie Carlino’s lap on a Saturday afternoon – which might or might not mean that the man had materialized out of nowhere on Key Largo just a handful of years ago, just the right kind of decent time lapse after John Broderick had disappeared.

  A double shooting that Hayman had talked about happening in St Petersburg had also failed to show up – which might or might not mean that it had never happened. And if it had not, that might or might not mean that Hayman had invented it, maybe just to open up a channel of communication with Grace.

  Anna Valdez had been stabbed to death with a scalpel in a doctor’s office, which might mean zip in this context, or might mean a whole lot, or might even, at a pinch, mean the whole damn schmear.

  Grace had arrived at a hotel on Key Largo to find she had no reservation, and had apparently therefore gone to stay with Hayman. She was, according to her host, feeling unwell, and had, also according to him, previously injured herself, albeit in a minor way. She had, since then, failed to respond to a message left with Hayman, and they had both now, if the unanswered telephone was anything to go by, apparently left Hayman’s home.

  It wasn’t much to go on, Sam reminded himself as he reached the Overseas Highway and drove through a lovely cluster of white butterflies as fast as he could without tearing them apart or getting stopped for speeding by the highway patrol. For one thing, Grace had given him no
indication of what Hayman looked like – for all Sam knew, he could be Chinese or eight feet tall – and as he’d already reminded himself, surely if he bore a resemblance to John Broderick’s photograph, Grace would have noticed.

  Or maybe she had noticed by now.

  And maybe that was why she had not called him back.

  Maybe she couldn’t.

  Chapter Fifty-one

  The queasiness was back, and the headache, too. They were out on the open sea now and the wind was rising and some bad-looking clouds were gathering, and suddenly Grace wasn’t so sure after all if this was the right afternoon to be out on the ocean, especially feeling the way she was.

  She said as much to Hayman.

  ‘Weather looks okay to me,’ he said.

  ‘It’s getting bumpy.’

  ‘There’s maybe a little more movement than before, but it’s nothing to worry about.’

  He looked the opposite of how she felt, his cheeks warmed by sun, wind and exertion, facial muscles relaxed, body movements easy. Just looking at him made her feel envious. Worse.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘You should have left me on dry land.’

  ‘You know there was no way I would have done that.’ He glanced at her face, checking her over again. ‘Just give it a little more time, Grace, and I guarantee you’ll be feeling better.’

  ‘What if I’m not?’ Her optimism seemed to have vanished along with the temporary cottonwool euphoria that had set in when they’d started out.

  ‘You will.’

  There was a tinge of hearty authority – almost of gently couched dictatorship – in those words that made Grace wonder if she was maybe dealing with a control figure. She felt her hackles rising, but suppressed the urge to snap back. She did not, after all, want to fall out with Peter Hayman, especially not when he was all that was standing between her and an increasingly rocky Atlantic.

  ‘I’ll give it another half-hour or so,’ she compromised, ‘but if I still feel lousy, or if the weather gets worse, I’m going to want to go back.’

  ‘No problem.’

  Hayman’s smile was beginning to have a patronizing tilt to it.

  ‘Peter, I mean it.’

  ‘Grace, so do I,’ he said.

  He was still smiling.

  Sam located Hayman’s house easily enough, heard the ship’s bell clang several times, then stepped up on to the porch and began to follow it around the house, climbing over rails where they got in his way.

  ‘Watcha doin’, mister?’

  He turned around slowly, saw a craggily handsome man of about sixty, dressed in a short-sleeved Polo shirt and slacks, staring accusingly up at him from the road.

  ‘Looking for Dr Hayman,’ Sam said.

  ‘He’s not in.’ The man had steel grey hair and piercing eyes to match.

  ‘Do you know where he’s gone?’

  ‘Depends who wants to know,’ the man said.

  Sam was beginning to feel he’d landed in the deep South. Any second now, he half expected the man to pull a shotgun on him and order him off the doctor’s land. He thought about showing his badge, but he wanted to avoid that if he possibly could.

  ‘My name’s Sam Becket, and I’m actually looking for Dr Lucca, the woman who’s been staying with Hayman.’

  The man nodded. ‘Pretty woman.’

  ‘Do you happen to know where they went?’

  ‘Sailing.’

  Broderick flashed through Sam’s mind again.

  ‘Sailing where?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Then how do you know they went sailing?’

  ‘It’s what he does most weekends.’ The cold eyes narrowed again. ‘You ask a lot of questions.’

  Sam turned towards the closest steps back down to the road. ‘Does Hayman have his own boat?’

  ‘He does.’

  ‘Do you know where he keeps it?’

  ‘I might.’

  Sam wasted no more time. He showed the man his badge. ‘Do you know where Dr Hayman keeps his boat, sir?’

  ‘Dooley’s Marina.’ The change in attitude was half-hearted. ‘Where might I find that?’

  The guy gave directions, his voice clipped.

  ‘Do you know the name of the boat, sir?’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘Do you know anyone around here who might know?’ Sam asked.

  ‘People around here mind their own business,’ the man said.

  Sam’s cellular rang just as the marina came into view – the caller ID displayed Martinez’s home phone. Sam answered. ‘What do you have, Al?’

  ‘Zilch so far,’ Martinez answered. ‘You said you wanted to know even if nothing was showing up, and so far I got nothing on Hayman except what you already know, like he’s listed in Key Largo with fancy letters after his name.’

  ‘Did you reach Angie?’ Sam asked.

  ‘Yeah, I reached her, and she called me back five minutes ago. She says she needs more time, and she can’t do much before tomorrow, but everyplace she’s looked she still can’t find anything about those shootings.’

  ‘Okay, Al,’ Sam said. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘So what now?’ Martinez asked. ‘You coming home or what?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Where are you, man? What’s going on?’

  Sam heard the anxiety in his partner’s voice, and the temptation to share the situation with him was intense, but he knew he’d be doing Martinez more favours by keeping quiet.

  ‘Better you don’t know, Al,’ he said. ‘Like I said before, I don’t want to put you in a bad place. Okay?’

  He cut off the call before the other man answered.

  Chapter Fifty-two

  ‘It’s no good, Peter – I’m feeling worse, not better, and this swell isn’t helping one little bit.’

  Grace was standing a couple of feet away from where Hayman still appeared to be having a great time steering the boat through the rising waves, while she hung on to a guardrail on the gunwale and told herself she was not going to throw up under any circumstances.

  ‘Peter, I’d like us to turn back.’

  ‘Not much sense in that,’ he said, looking right ahead. ‘There’s perfect sense in it,’ she said, getting ready for a fight she wasn’t at all sure she had the strength left for.

  ‘I mean there’s no sense going back when we’re not that far out from Long Key,’ Hayman pointed out. ‘We could put in there for a while if you like – give you a break till the weather passes. Or I can give you something for seasickness – I have something that works pretty fast.’

  ‘But I don’t think this is seasickness,’ Grace said. ‘I’ve hardly ever suffered from it – and anyway, this started on dry land, didn’t it?’

  ‘The medication I have works on nausea in general,’ he said.

  Grace didn’t answer. She was too busy remembering exactly when the queasiness and headache had started. Soon after she had cut herself on the glass – the glass that had felt oily when she’d taken it, which was why she’d dropped it and broken it. Soon after Hayman had gone to stop her picking up a jagged fragment and had inadvertently closed her hand on the shard.

  Inadvertently?

  And then he’d fixed the wound for her.

  He’d covered it with antiseptic-impregnated gauze.

  At least that was what he’d said it was.

  The boat rocked, and Grace shut her eyes and held on harder to the guardrail. It was getting more difficult to think straight, to keep her thought processes going along cleanly, sensibly.

  Where exactly were these processes heading? What precisely was she thinking about?

  She was thinking about the brief, but shocking, bout of suspicion she had experienced that morning after Hayman had talked about Broderick slipping cannabis into Cathy’s vitamin capsules. She’d told herself that she’d been imagining things, over-reacting, but suddenly she wondered if that was true. Which was making her think back again to the fact that h
e’d come into the guest bedroom – her bedroom – in the middle of the night and stood right up close to the bed, and then, next morning, he’d told her that odd little lie about hearing her crying out. That had been a lie – she was suddenly certain that it had been.

  ‘Grace, I’m going below.’

  She opened her eyes.

  ‘We’re all steady.’ Hayman’s expression was concerned. ‘I’m just going to get that stuff to help you feel better. Okay?’

  Grace didn’t answer. She was still thinking.

  The photograph.

  She had remembered the photograph tucked inside the address book in her tote bag. She wanted to look at it. She needed to look at it, just to reassure herself that there was no way on God’s earth or ocean that Peter Hayman could be John Broderick.

  ‘Grace?’ His voice jolted her.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  ‘It’s okay,’ he said, gently. ‘I just wanted to check you heard me. I’m going below to fetch some of the medication I told you about – I’m going to take care of you.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said, sounding vague. ‘Thank you.’

  It was an effort to speak normally, but then again if she sounded strange Hayman was only going to think it was because she felt so bad – and maybe, Grace hoped, that was part of it. Maybe all these wild thoughts were crowding in on her because she was sick.

  Except what if she wasn’t just sick in a normal, natural sense? What if it hadn’t been antiseptic in that gauze, soaking into the gash on her hand?

  A new thought struck. What if Hayman had found the photograph in her bag? What if he thought she’d recognized or at least suspected him?

  But it had been Hayman who had first asked her if she’d ever seen a picture of Broderick, he who’d suggested she get one.

  Or had he just been on a fishing expedition, checking to be sure she hadn’t made a connection.

  I’m going to take care of you.