‘So if the drugs were in the potatoes,’ Sam reprised at the meeting, ‘maybe someone cooked for them at home and did a major clean-up, or maybe they went to a restaurant where someone didn’t like them.’
‘They might have ordered takeout,’ Martinez said.
‘Or maybe someone invited them to dinner at their home,’ Beth Riley said.
‘Nothing new on the restaurant front?’ Alvarez asked.
‘Nothing,’ Sam said.
They’d already conducted a scan of restaurant menus in the area, had found two serving stroganoff and salmon, but no white fish, one place further away in Coral Gables serving both goulash and a variety of fish dishes, and, a more probable geographic candidate, a swanky Indian Creek restaurant also serving both; and Sam and Martinez had visited and come away with reservation sheets and a shared instinct that it was a non-starter.
‘Though at this point, we’re ruling nothing out,’ Sam said.
‘Nothing more from the neighbours,’ Mary Cutter said.
No one had reported seeing anyone delivering or leaving with any kind of food containers, though even if some residents were nosier than they might be admitting, with so many trees blocking the views from front windows, it would have been hard to see the victims’ pathway or front door.
‘Nothing from Easterman’s office,’ Martinez reported.
‘Nothing from anyplace.’ Riley raked her short red hair.
Everyone they’d spoken to had seemed shocked: colleagues, friends, locals.
No one with even the tiniest shred of a clue as to the young couple’s whereabouts prior to their abduction.
‘OK,’ Sam said, trying to lift the energy. ‘Let’s check the list of people we still need to interview.’
‘Or re-interview,’ Alvarez said.
All the neighbours, again.
Colleagues, again.
Mayumi Santos again and the cousin she’d gone to stay with during those key twenty-four hours.
‘Maybe her friends, too,’ Sam said.
‘For sure,’ Cutter said.
‘You feeling OK?’ Sam asked Martinez back in the office, his own cold having dried up, wondering if he’d maybe passed it on to his partner.
‘I’m good,’ Martinez said.
‘You seem on edge.’
‘Maybe a little.’ Martinez paused. ‘You got time to talk before we get moving?’
‘I can make time,’ Sam said.
‘This is personal stuff.’
‘I assumed.’ Sam’s heart sank a little. ‘Problem with Jess?’
Martinez looked around the open-plan squad room to see who was in earshot.
No one except Riley and two of the guys at the far end.
Three too many sets of ears.
‘Can we get out of here, man?’ he said. ‘Go get a cup of coffee?’
They walked fast along Washington, both mindful of the clock ticking in the case, and went into Markie’s, one of their regular haunts, going to sit right at the back with an Americano for Martinez and a cup of English breakfast tea for Sam – who had in the past been a coffee aficionado, until a cup had almost killed him.
Last cup ever so far as he was concerned.
‘So what’s up?’ Sam asked after several moments of silence. ‘Restful though this is.’
The coffee shop was almost empty, just two women in the front and Markie herself working at her laptop on the counter.
‘Maybe a lot,’ Martinez said.
‘You going to elaborate?’
‘Give me a chance, man.’ Martinez took a gulp of coffee, scalded his mouth and swore.
‘You OK, Al?’ Markie called out. ‘Need some water?’
‘I’m good, thanks,’ Martinez called back, then waited another second before he said: ‘I’m going to ask Jessie to marry me.’
‘You’re kidding me,’ Sam said. ‘Al, that’s great.’
‘If she says yes, it’s great.’
‘Why wouldn’t she say yes?’
‘Why would she, more like?’ Martinez sagged back in his seat. ‘I’m no oil painting, in case you didn’t notice, and I got lousy prospects.’ He shook his head. ‘Women date cops, but they don’t want to marry them, it’s a known fact.’
‘Grace married me.’
‘You’re a handsome black guy, man. I’m a short, middle-aged Cuban.’
‘Give me a break,’ Sam said, laughing.
‘Jessie’s a beautiful young woman – she could have anyone.’
‘But she wants you,’ Sam said.
‘Maybe,’ Martinez said. ‘Maybe not.’
‘When are you planning to ask her?’
‘Tonight,’ Martinez said. ‘If we finish early enough.’
‘Done deal,’ Sam told him.
‘I gotta heap of paperwork besides the new case.’
‘Dump it on my desk before you go.’
‘Grace is gonna hate me if you work late again because of me.’
‘Grace is going to be cheering you on,’ Sam said.
FOURTEEN
On Wednesday evening, Elizabeth Price and André Duprez were working late.
They were almost always working, together or separately, were always either in meetings at Tiller, Valdez, Weinman, the law firm where they both worked, or dealing with clients, or in court, or in their own offices or in the library at TVW ploughing through law tomes.
Sometimes they stopped to eat or do chores or to have sex, which they both enjoyed a lot, though their mutual ambition as divorce lawyers frequently drove them even harder than their physical urges.
Both in their early thirties, they were doing pretty well. André, from Quebec City, drove a second-hand BMW and lived in a condo in Miami Shores. Elizabeth lived in a small townhouse near Maule Lake in North Miami Beach. When one of them made partner, they’d agreed to move in together, but they intended to wait until they were both earning higher salaries before they considered marrying, because they believed in stability and equality.
For the most part, their conversations centred on the law, but they talked endlessly, never tired of hearing the other speak, sharing points of view and new experiences, learning together, respecting each other’s minds.
It was already after ten, and they’d worked through dinner at André’s apartment, and now they were too bushed, but Elizabeth had already said that she had to go back to her place for the night because she hadn’t done any laundry for a week, and she didn’t have a single white blouse left for the Thursday morning meeting at the office.
‘But we haven’t finished,’ André said in the Québécois accent that Elizabeth had come to adore, ‘and you’re already tired.’
‘I’m OK,’ she said.
André stifled a yawn and frowned. ‘I’m sleepy, too, matter of fact.’
Elizabeth regarded the work on the table. ‘Let’s just see if we can get a little more done,’ she said, ‘and then I’ll go.’
FIFTEEN
Sometimes, Martinez hated himself.
All that talk, all that focus on wanting to get things right, and he’d got nothing right, and then he hadn’t even managed to get the damned words out during dinner the way he’d planned.
He’d taken her to the Bleu Moon, one of the restaurants in the Doubletree Grand Hotel on North Bayshore Drive, because a guy he’d gotten talking to in a bar two weeks back had told him about the great romantic evening he’d had there with his girlfriend. He’d seemed like a nice enough guy and there was no one else Martinez had wanted to ask; he’d felt a little embarrassed about asking even Sam, because a middle-aged police detective ought to damned well know where to take his girlfriend for an important dinner. So he’d taken the stranger’s advice and had reserved a table overlooking the bay.
Trouble was, he’d hated the place before they even found the restaurant, because the hotel was massive, jammed with tourists, and to reach the Bleu Moon they’d had to take an escalator, which made it feel like a goddamned shopping mall or a train station, an
d all he could think of as his beautiful girlfriend clung to his clammy paw was that she hated it too, and so she had to be thinking that if this was his idea of romance, then maybe she’d be better off looking elsewhere . . .
The restaurant itself was nice, in fact, and the table, too, overlooking the marina, but it was modern, which was all wrong for Jessica Kowalski, who was an old-fashioned girl – but then, right after they’d sat down and he’d ordered her Chardonnay and his beer, she’d looked around and said:
‘Al, this is so beautiful.’
God, he loved her.
‘I wanted something special,’ he’d said, and her smile had just lit up her blue eyes, and he’d thought for a moment that he was going to do the deed right then, but then their drinks had arrived, and suddenly it seemed to Martinez that he’d messed up again, because he ought to have ordered champagne. Except then Jess might have guessed what was coming, and that would have made him even more nervous, so there he was, feeling wrong-footed, and then they’d started looking at the menu and after that it had all been about food.
Things had gotten a little easier during the starters. He’d had calamari and she’d had seared scallops and she’d said they were delicious and asked what she’d done to deserve this whole treat, and he’d told her she deserved the best, but then he’d gotten all tensed up again.
Jess had asked him, during the entrées, if he was OK.
‘I’m great,’ he’d answered. ‘My steak is fine.’
‘It’s just you seem a little strained,’ she’d said.
‘I’m just tired, I guess,’ Martinez had said, wanting to kick himself for losing another opportunity, telling himself he’d put things right during dessert, except then Jess had said that she couldn’t eat another thing.
‘Al, something isn’t right,’ she’d said, seeing the look on his face.
‘Only that I don’t deserve you.’
‘What do you mean?’ Jess had asked.
Real concern in her eyes.
‘Later,’ Martinez had said.
‘Now I’m scared,’ Jess had said.
‘Oh, God, Jessie, don’t be.’
‘Easy for you to say – ’ she’d tried to smile – ‘because you can’t see your face.’
‘You know what?’ he’d said. ‘This place is making me nervous.’
‘So let’s get out of here,’ Jess had said.
‘Now why didn’t I think of that?’ he’d said.
So now, at half-past ten, they were in his Chevy in the parking lot on the corner near the hotel, and suddenly Martinez knew, as he was about to start the engine, that if he waited even one more second to try to get the scene just right, it might all go wrong again.
‘So here’s the thing, Jessie,’ he said.
She’d opened her window, and the breeze blew her hair, and the moon was sending glints of silver through the gold.
Often, when Martinez looked at this woman, he got the kind of fanciful thoughts about love that he’d never really allowed himself before, though if someone had pressed him to explain why, he didn’t think he’d have been able to. Until now, it had simply felt easier for him to be alone.
‘You’re everything I want in this world,’ he told her.
Getting there at last.
Jess turned to face him fully.
Her eyes were shining now.
He knew it was going to be OK.
So he asked her.
Dug the fingertips of his left hand into his seat, and popped the goddamned question.
Finally.
‘Jessie, will you marry me?’
The answer was already there in her face, nakedly clear, but she whispered it anyway.
‘Yes.’ A tiny pause. ‘Thank you, Alejandro.’
Martinez sent up a prayer of thanks.
He thought about Sam, who might still be in the office, working.
His good friend would be happy for him.
Right now, Martinez felt happy enough for all mankind.
Two young guys, laughing as they passed the car, stooped to stare into the Chevy, but he didn’t give a damn, just started the engine, moved the car toward the exit, put out his right hand and laid it on Jess’s knee, felt warmed through as she covered it with her own hand.
‘You know what?’ she said. ‘I think I need to go home.’
‘Sure,’ Martinez said. ‘We can stay at your place, if that’s what you want.’
The fact was, they almost never stayed at Jess’s place up in North Miami Beach because his house was a whole lot more comfortable and more convenient for them both for work, but tonight he could care less where they stayed, so long as they were together.
‘No,’ Jess said. ‘I mean, I think I need to go home alone tonight.’
‘Why?’ Martinez felt a pang of dismay.
She saw his expression. ‘Don’t look like that, Al.’
He’d stopped his car, just inside the exit. ‘You’ve changed your mind.’
‘Never,’ she said. ‘It’s the exact opposite.’
‘So why don’t you want to be with me, tonight of all nights?’
She took a moment, wanting to get the words right.
‘I guess this may be hard for you to understand,’ she said. ‘Because you’re a guy, and you’re a little older, and we both know you’re much more experienced.’
‘I never asked anyone to marry me before,’ Martinez said.
‘And I never had a proposal,’ Jess said.
‘Honest to God?’
‘I wouldn’t lie about it,’ she said earnestly. ‘I feel this is the most important thing that’s ever happened to me in my entire life, and I don’t know why, but it’s made me feel kind of . . . old-fashioned, I guess.’
A horn honked behind them, and checking in his mirror, Martinez saw it was the kids who’d gawped at them earlier, but now he felt less benevolent about them, and if they did that one more time . . .
‘That’s why I want to go home alone,’ Jess went on. ‘Because I want to drink in the fact that the man I’m crazy about has asked me to be his wife. I want to go to bed on my own and think about you and how it’s going to be.’
The car horn sounded again, but Martinez’s aggression had melted away again, and he lifted a hand in apology and drove out on to the street.
‘OK,’ he said to Jess, and knew that it really was, that he hadn’t blown it after all, that it was all going to be better than wonderful.
‘Does that make any sense to you, Al?’ Jess asked.
He glanced sideways at her, saw her looking at him, saw the love in her eyes.
‘All the sense in the world,’ he said.
SIXTEEN
‘You’re much too tired to drive,’ André told Elizabeth as she was piling her files into her attaché case before leaving. He stifled another big yawn. ‘Me, too, it seems.’
‘I’ll be fine,’ Elizabeth insisted, ‘so long as I go right now.’
‘Or we could just go to sleep and set the alarm early so you can go home then and iron a blouse.’
‘Except I don’t have anything clean to iron.’
André knew when there was no point arguing with Elizabeth, and it was an easy drive to her place, which was in a safe neighbourhood, besides which he had no strength left to argue tonight, felt he was almost drooping with fatigue, so instead he saw her down to her Honda in the parking garage. They had no significant crime issues in this area either, but André liked to think he was a gentleman and anyway, Elizabeth was the most precious person in the world to him.
‘No one like you,’ he told her after a last kiss, leaning against the car.
It was something he said often, and always meant.
‘Nor you,’ she said back to him.
Meaning it too, with all her heart, or at least all of that segment of her heart that was not devoted to her career.
She knew she’d never find anyone like André again.
Knew they truly were a perfect match.
SEVENTE
EN
When Martinez had found his neat little foreclosure one-storey house on Alton Road near 47th about eight months back, he’d had some qualms about taking on a piece of serious freehold property as a confirmed bachelor, not to mention as a police detective with few hopes, or even ambitions, of serious promotion. The odd lonely moment aside, he’d always liked his life pretty much the way it was, so in the midst of negotiations he’d wondered exactly why he was taking such a step at forty-five. A roof to maintain, his own windows to hurricane-proof; most of all, a mortgage which, even though he could afford it, having spent a lot less in his life to date than most guys he knew, was still going to be a stretch.
Within a week of meeting Jessica Kowalski, the house had suddenly begun making sense. Everything had begun making greater sense.
Coming home tonight, he thought he could even begin to understand what Jessie had meant about going back to her place alone to let it all sink in.
His house looked different to him tonight.
His whole life felt different.
She’d said she was crazy about him.
Those words felt fat inside him, were filling him with warmth and goodness.
Because Jess was exactly those two things to him.
He considered phoning Sam, but like his fiancée – and that was a word he’d been known to mock in the past, but never again – he thought he’d just be quiet with it for a while, maybe grab himself a beer and do what Jessie was doing, go to bed by himself and think about her and their future . . .
Together.
EIGHTEEN
The road where Elizabeth lived, a gated cul-de-sac where every vehicle entering or leaving was recorded, was quiet.
It was usually quiet here, with a sense of tranquillity and understated affluence.
Elizabeth had felt safe ever since she’d moved into her town house.
This evening no exception.
She passed under the raised security barrier, vaguely aware of another vehicle passing through behind her, its lights disappearing before she touched her remote to open her garage door and automatically switch on the lights, and then she slowly drove the Honda inside, closed the up-and-over door behind her and turned off her engine.
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