Chapter 16
A light rain had drifted in off the Atlantic, slowing traffic so that it was nearly an hour before he found his way to Barbara’s place. She rented a cottage on the back end of a once-grand property on Commercial Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale. What must have been one estate among many was flanked these days by a strip shopping center and a series of used car lots. The former main house had been converted to a set of offices that held an insurance agent and a direct-mail advertiser. The broad lawn had gone bare in spots, the ancient fruit trees were scraggly, the driveway crumbling.
Deal swung the Hog around a fender-bender that seemed to have involved a pickup and an ancient VW van, then made a right into the drive. A wrecker lit up like something from a flying saucer movie had arrived at the scene of the accident behind him, and Deal spotted the lane that led off to the rear in its glare. As he moved further along, he noted that the back end of the property had maintained some of its original charm. The drive changed from asphalt to crackling white shells and curled under a thick canopy of banyan limbs and ficus, giving out in a leaf-strewn parking area beside an old Florida cracker house with a wraparound porch and a steep-pitched tin roof, a dim yellow lamp burning at the entry, another alive in one of the inside rooms.
Despite the questionable neighborhood, Barbara felt safe. “Nobody even knows there’s a house back here,” she’d told him more than once. And the rent, by South Florida standards, was a joke.
Deal got out of the Hog and stood in the shelter of the great trees, hesitating, listening to the hiss of the rain in the leaves. Except for that sound, and the distant crackle of the wrecker truck’s CB, it was quiet, the essence of peacefulness. Maybe she’d fallen asleep, he thought.
He swung the door of the Hog closed and kicked through the shoals of fallen leaves to the front stoop. He knocked firmly on the wooden screen of the porch, listened to the sound die away, knocked a second time. He called her name then, feeling the first stirrings of concern.
The screen gave at his touch, as did the inner door. He was inside the living room then, his eyes drawn toward the lamp that tilted crazily in a far corner. He saw the streaks on the walls first, and found himself thinking someone had started to paint. Then his feet caught on something beneath him, and he stumbled. He tried to catch his balance, but the floor seemed as though it had been greased. His feet flew out from under him, and he felt a painful crack as his elbow landed on something hard.
It seemed, as his eyes adjusted to the dim light, like a series of terrible snapshots slowly fitting together into one awful whole: one hand reached beneath him, groping for the thing he had fallen upon—some rock, some bookend, something tossed aside—and, finding it, raised a pistol into view; at the same time, the paint-splattered walls, lit in random shafts from the tumbled lamp, came into focus as the blood-drenched backdrops that they were; and the last, of course, was the worst—turning, knowing, even before his eyes confirmed it, the awfulness of what had thrown him to the floor.
Chapter 17
She could do this, Paige told herself as she stepped out of the rental car into the damp Florida night. She had to do this. She had spent the better part of her life running away—now it was going to stop.
She had spent all day Saturday running over the possible scenarios. Finally, when she had decided she was prepared for almost any response, she’d called for a rental car and arranged for a pickup at the hotel next door.
On the way out she’d had to dodge Florentino, who’d been waiting faithfully for her, attired in a fresh but equally blousy uniform and lounging against the fender of the limo at the end of the taxi line. That was the last thing she needed, a faithful retainer sitting outside in a limo while she tried to connect with a sister who despised her for being too good for the family. She did not think for a moment that she and her sister could ever have anything approaching a normal relationship, but by God they were going to treat one another like human beings, Paige was going to see to it. And she would find out just how much truth there was in that mind-numbing accusation that her sister had made.
Yes, her sister might insist, it is true, and in a way, every miserable aspect of Paige’s childhood might be accounted for. No, it was a lie, though it was what her sister had always fantasized, and Paige would be left to wrestle with the same cruel conundrums she had lived with all her life. Or, Get out of here, I have nothing to say to you, her sister might say. Only the last would Paige refuse to accept.
She felt a moment’s hesitation when she saw the strange car parked outside her sister’s cottage. Paige had not considered the possibility that her sister might have company. She had thought about phoning ahead, had even dialed the number before she’d left her room, but her nerve had left her when she heard the receiver lift, and she’d slammed the phone down quickly.
She’d driven quickly, almost recklessly, given the slick streets, but once she had known her sister was at home, she’d been overwhelmed with the urge to arrive here. It was as if she realized that any hesitation would be fatal. If she did not confront her sister while her courage was at its peak, she feared she might never manage it. After all, she’d had a lifetime of practice in denial, in self-deception.
She raised her hand to knock, then realized that the door was open, the wood frame pushed inward, wedged against the uneven slab of the porch. She stepped inside, ignoring the warning bells that had begun to ring the moment she’d spotted the strange car outside. She was far too wrought up to pay attention to something as feeble as common sense.
She heard a sound inside and hurried forward, through the entryway, where the door also stood ajar. She had enough of her wits about her to be concerned, of course, had even managed to get her mouth open, ready to call out for her sister…when she came through the foyer and saw it, illuminated in the crazed glare of an unshaded lamp:
The stark white walls splattered with gore. A kneeling man, disheveled and wild-eyed, the front of his shirt and slacks covered in blood. He knelt above her sister’s body. One of his hands was pressed to her throat. A gun lay on the floor at his feet.
The man stared up at Paige with an expression that seemed to mirror the shock she felt in her own. He held up his hand toward her, his mouth open as if he was about to say something but couldn’t get it out. She remembered thinking how odd it was that he hadn’t reached for the gun. It looked as if he meant to entreat her, not kill her.
Whatever had caused him to do that, it surely saved her life. She screamed once, in pure terrified reflex. And then, as he was still struggling to stand, she was outside and running, praying she could make it to the lights.
Chapter 18
Even as he ran, Deal felt the craziness of it all. Were any sane person to observe it—a wild-eyed man covered in blood pursuing a terrified woman across the grounds of a darkened estate—that observer would be perfectly justified in thinking the worst. Were that observer—a policeman, say, or a typical South Florida homeowner out walking his dog—to have a weapon in hand, there was no doubt in Deal’s mind what it would be used for. Another reason why he redoubled his speed, ignoring the fiery protest in his lungs, the lashing of the banyan tendrils at his face, the sudden jolt of pain when his foot twisted on an outcrop of coral rock and doubled under him.
He went down hard—his shoulder and cheek slamming against the damp bare earth—then rolled to his feet as if it were something he’d practiced. He paused for a moment, light-headed and staggering. Bright lights pinged behind his eyes, brilliant pinpricks that danced across his vision, along with the flickering blue and yellow flashers of a tow truck somewhere out there on Commercial Boulevard.
He saw that she was struggling, too, caught for the moment in a noose of the dangling, vinelike roots of the enormous tree that spread a hundred feet out from the cottage. She was screaming for help as she fought the vines, clawing her way toward the flashing lights, and all that Deal could think of was to stop her before she got there.
He started on, gasping when the pain shot up his leg. He took a second stride, willing himself to ignore it, felt his eyes roll back, but kept going. By the third or fourth step he could bear it, and by the time she had fought loose of the vines, he was moving in a hobbling, short-legged run.
Her screaming had stopped, transformed to ragged gasps and whimpers as she ran.
“Wait,” Deal cried. “Please!” Knowing even as he spoke how ridiculous the words would sound.
She was gaining ground on him now. No way he’d ever stop her before she made it to the street. And then what? Limp out to the curb, smile, explain everything to the bystanders in a calm voice…
“I’m a policeman,” he cried then, surprised at his own words.
She faltered.
“I’m a cop, goddammit!”
She turned, uncertain. She still hadn’t stopped, but it slowed her just enough.
He hit her about waist level. He’d expected more resistance, was surprised when she went down like a breath of air. Holding her was another matter, however. She was squirming wildly in his grasp, kicking, one knee driving like a piston into his chin.
The stars were dancing before him again, but he ignored them. He rolled atop her, his weight smothering her kicks, his hand clamping down on her screams. He waited until she’d calmed, then raised himself above her, trying to find her eyes with his own.
“It’s all right,” he said. “Listen to me. I didn’t hurt your sister.”
She squirmed frantically in response.
“You’re Barbara’s sister. I know that. It’s all right.” She was staring at him now, her eyes frozen wide.
“I didn’t hurt her. I found her, just before you came in.” She shook her head violently. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. “I’m going to let you go now.”
He took his hand from her mouth and rolled aside. She sprang up into a crouch, ready to bolt, her gaze still wild. She glanced toward the street, still a hundred yards or more away. The wrecker and its flashing lights were gone. A soft drizzle had sprung up again, and the traffic whizzed along the boulevard in a spray that would have sounded lush, even pleasant, in another life.
She turned warily back to Deal, still panting. “What did you do to my sister? What did you do to her?”
Deal shook his head, his gaze locked with hers. “She called me, about an hour ago.” He swallowed, trying to bring his own breathing under control. “When I got here, she was lying there, just like you saw her.”
She glanced toward the house, then again toward the highway. “Please,” she said. “Let me go. I have to get help.” There were sirens sounding in the distance now.
Deal held up one hand in a conciliatory gesture, reached to his belt with the other. She flinched, as if she were expecting him to produce a weapon.
“I called them,” he said, holding up his tiny phone. “The EMS. They’re on the way.”
Surprised, she turned toward the boulevard, where the sirens were already growing louder. She glanced back at him, her expression transforming like the ripplings of some filmic special effect: fear gradually eroding, shading back into uncertainty, then into anguish.
“You called for help?” she repeated, and he watched as she internalized the meaning of his words. Maybe that’s what made her an actress, he found himself thinking. Every emotion registering, molding her whole outward self.
“Go,” he said, gesturing toward the cottage. “Stay with her.” He felt his own anguish welling up suddenly. “Go on,” he said. “I’ll go out to the street for the ambulance. They’ll never find the place otherwise.”
The sirens were blaring now, no more than a block away. Swirls of red light slashed across the top of the huge banyan.
The woman hesitated. “Is she…?”
“Just go,” he said, unable to meet her gaze. And then he was running toward the street.
***
“She saved my life,” Deal said. He watched helplessly as the attendants wheeled Barbara’s body out of the airless room toward their van. The technicians had tried CPR, had tried their injections, had tried to start a pulse with their electric paddles, but Deal had seen the looks on their faces. All that effort had been by rote. They’d taken one look at the pulpy mass where the back of her head had been, at the dark scorched cave of her mouth, at the terrible burns that seared her cheeks, and they had known, as Deal had known from the moment he’d found her.
The detective he’d been speaking to nodded, not discourteous, but not sympathetic either. Did that mean he was a potential suspect, Deal wondered. A cacophony of emotions crowded his skull: grief, disbelief, outrage, self-loathing.
Barbara was gone, and nothing would ever change that. Yet his grief and disbelief were tempered by his anger, that she would do a thing like this. It was a suicide, clearly. Clear to Deal, at least. And he’d heard the coroner, a young Indian or Pakistani, mumble the same thing in his accented English to an aide a few moments ago.
But here was someone else suggesting, however subtly, that no possibility would necessarily be discounted. He would have felt an even greater sense of outrage, but the worst of it was, Deal did feel responsible, as if he were some kind of ghoulish accomplice. If he’d arrived a few minutes earlier, if he’d been gentler with her on the phone, if he hadn’t been so goddamned arrogant and self-centered when they’d met out on the beach…
He realized he was staring at the dark pool of blood where Barbara’s body had been and forced his gaze away, his stomach knotting. Another detective huddled outside on the screened porch with Barbara’s sister. Paige Nobleman, he thought. The actress. The irony of it. Leaves Hollywood and all those made-up concoctions of violence to come to another, lesser Hollywood and find this very real and awful thing.
Deal found himself starting for the porch, felt the detective’s hand on his arm.
“I’m not through here,” the detective said.
Deal turned, an unreasoning anger sweeping through him.
“What else do you want?” he said. “We’ve been through it half a dozen times.”
The detective gave Deal an appraising look, as if his response was tantamount to a confession. “My colleague tells me that Ms. Nobleman declines to press assault charges…”
“What?!”
“Don’t get yourself worked up,” the detective said. “We advised her of her rights, she declined.” He shrugged, as if the matter were of no consequence. “I’d like to see your driver’s license,” he added.
Deal stared at him, ready to explode. “You want to give me a traffic ticket?”
The detective raised his eyebrows in a weary gesture. “Do you have a driver’s license, sir?”
Deal fumed, dug in his pocket, fumbled through his battered wallet until he found the license, stuck to the back of a Public check-cashing card. He handed it, with its photo of a weary man startled by the operator’s flash, over to the detective, who glanced at it, then jotted a note on his clipboard.
Deal found himself drifting. He’d had that picture taken back in the glory days, when Janice had first come home from the hospital, her burns all tended to, turned to shining pink ribbons of grafted flesh. Had he looked that worn to her, too?
“This your current address?” the policeman asked.
Instead of nodding, Deal repeated the information aloud, clipping off each syllable. The cop looked up. “Maybe this is uncomfortable for you,” he said. “Maybe you’d like to come on downtown, sit in a quiet little room for a while, go over all this again with one of my colleagues.”
Deal stared at him, tight-lipped. He felt his fists clench, unclench. He wouldn’t give this jerk the satisfaction.
“My very good friend has killed herself,” he said evenly. “I walked into this room a couple of hours ago and found her. Now unless you have further business with me, I’d like to leave.” He felt his rage rising up again, struggled to keep his voice even. “I’d like…to get…the hell out of here.�
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The cop stared at him impassively for a moment. Finally he screwed up his face in a “who knows” expression and handed his license back.
“You drive home carefully, Mr. Deal,” he said. “We know where to get in touch with you.”
Deal accepted the license wordlessly, tucked it away, turned to go. Paige Nobleman and the second detective stood together on the porch, facing his way. He hesitated, then stepped through the open doorway into the cool air outside. He was past them, halfway down the steps, when he heard her voice.
“Mr. Deal?”
He turned. There was a moment as they regarded one another.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He hesitated. “So am I,” he said.
She glanced back inside the open doorway. From this distance it looked as though someone had thrown dark paint in random swatches on the stark white walls. She turned, closing her eyes briefly. She took a deep breath, then looked squarely at him.
“The detectives told me they found powder burns on my sister’s hands…” She faltered, her jaw working hard to hold everything in check. “They told me…” She broke off then, turning away.
“You don’t have to apologize to me,” he said.
She nodded, her face still averted. After a moment, she calmed and turned back to him.
“Had you known my sister a long time?” she asked quietly.
“A few years,” he said. He paused. She was waiting for something more. “We met more or less by accident. She did me a very big favor once.”
She nodded. “My sister and I weren’t close. I don’t know if she told you…”
“I didn’t even know she had a sister,” Deal said. “Not until a few days ago.”
She nodded, glancing down at the ground. “I see.”
Something occurred to Deal then. “Look, Ms. Nobleman, I don’t want you to have the wrong impression. Your sister and I were friends, but that’s all there was to it. There were a lot of things I didn’t know about her life.”
She nodded, but whether she believed him or not was impossible to tell. The two detectives had moved out onto the porch together, glancing at Deal and Paige while they conferred.
Deal to Die For Page 11