Caged

by Hilary Norman

  ‘Beats me,’ Sam said.

  Neither of them buying her story about a Crime Scene tech having blabbed in earshot.

  ‘Think she might have been listening at keyholes?’ Martinez said. ‘So to speak.’

  ‘Uh-uh,’ Sam said.

  ‘Me neither.’

  ‘Maybe the gardener called her first?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t she tell us that?’ Martinez said.

  No way of getting that from Joseph Mulhoon, at least not yet, the gardener – who’d checked out as a regular old guy – still on a ventilator at Miami General.

  ‘Maybe Moore was nosing around before Mulhoon,’ Martinez said, ‘and she’s too embarrassed to tell us.’

  ‘Doesn’t ring true to me,’ Sam said.

  ‘Think she’s been spending time there?’

  ‘Or maybe letting someone else do that?’ Sam said.

  The blood and cocaine on both their minds again.

  ‘Maybe she was meeting her lover,’ Martinez said. ‘Not exactly a love nest, but it takes all kinds.’

  ‘She said she thought the place was spooky.’

  ‘You thinkin’ she’s a suspect?’

  ‘Uh-uh.’ Sam shrugged. ‘Nothing’s impossible, as we know.’

  ‘I’d buy Beatty over Moore,’ Martinez said.

  ‘That’s just because you didn’t like him,’ Sam said.

  Both of them had checked out, too.

  ‘Bet he doesn’t consent to a swab,’ Martinez said.

  His cell phone rang.

  ‘Hey, Jessie,’ he said. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Al.’ She sounded upset.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ He felt his heart rate speed up.

  ‘Nothing except I have to work late,’ Jess said. ‘One of the girls lost a bunch of files on her PC, and I offered to help her after hours, but then I suddenly thought maybe I shouldn’t have offered without checking – ’ she lowered her voice almost to a whisper – ‘with my fiancé first.’

  Sam, glancing across, couldn’t help but see the smile on his friend’s face.

  The kind of smile that made everyone feel good.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Elliot Sanders called, back in the office, to say that the glue analysis was going to take time, that they might never discover which brand had been used on the victims.

  ‘One thing, though,’ the ME said. ‘Unless it came from some big industrial-size container, it would be reasonable to say that the quantities needed for the job might have seemed unusual to a salesperson if someone purchased it from a store.’

  ‘If it was bought online,’ Sam said, ‘that’s going to be a whole lot harder to track down.’

  ‘Can’t help you there,’ Sanders said.

  Tracing the origins of the plastic dome-shaped cover was proving no easier.

  ‘I’m still thinking,’ Martinez said, ‘it was something made for display, like maybe at exhibitions.’

  ‘It could be a theatre prop,’ Beth Riley said. ‘Even a movie prop.’

  ‘Maybe it’s a component in some bigger scientific thing we can’t even begin to picture,’ Mary Cutter suggested.

  ‘Jeez,’ Martinez said. ‘Now all we gotta do is identify “thing”.’

  They’d drawn up chairs around Sam’s desk in the corner, Riley sitting below his old Florida Grand Opera poster for Aida.

  ‘Maybe it’s from a sci-fi movie,’ she said.

  ‘Turn it upside down – ’ Sergeant Alvarez, just arriving, glanced again at the photos on the cork board beside the poster – ‘and it could be a giant salad bowl.’

  ‘It would have no base,’ Sam said dryly. ‘It would rock.’

  ‘It kind of reminds me of something they might keep weird insects in at a zoo, or maybe in a lab,’ Riley mused. ‘It could get real hot and humid under there.’

  ‘Sam said right off the victims looked like specimens,’ Mike Alvarez said.

  ‘Or exhibits,’ Sam said. ‘So I guess “display” seems to be the link.’

  ‘I like the movie props idea too,’ Martinez said.

  ‘Let’s get on all that then.’ Sam got to his feet, feeling the need to energize again. ‘Movie sets, zoos, labs, exhibition companies – anyone who might have sold off our “thing”, or might be missing it.’

  ‘On it.’ Riley was up too.

  ‘Could just as well have come off a dump.’ Martinez saw Sam’s face, held up his hands. ‘I know, we gotta look anyway.’

  They were no closer to finding the actual crime scene. The Easterman house had yielded even less than the former gallery, and though their interviews with relatives, friends and colleagues were still at an early stage, with two such apparently genuinely popular young victims, there seemed little likelihood of some enemy lurking in the shadows.

  Suzy Easterman had illustrated mainly children’s books. Michael Easterman had been an architect specializing in commercial property, with no adverse publicity linked to his name or any history of litigation against him or even his firm.

  Random selection likely then. Scary as hell and even harder to solve.

  Highly organized killings. Boastful too.

  And one of the spectres creeping Sam out was that unless there was some specific reason for the Eastermans having become the victims of a crime as vile and brazen as this, the mind or minds behind it might be planning to do it again.

  Nothing had shown up yet on the computer to indicate that they had done it before, either in South Florida or anyplace else in the US.

  But every killer had to start somewhere.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Elizabeth had slept for a while, a tiny time-out, a fragment of escape.

  She was awake again now, and she was cold, and André had still not shifted, but at least she was finally certain that he was alive, thank God, because a moment or two ago his shoulder blades had moved just a little, and she could hear his breathing . . .

  Something distracted her.

  Something else.

  Movement. Not in the cage with them, not exactly, but . . .

  Shapes were moving on the wall to her left, galvanizing her now.

  Monochrome figures in a black-and-white movie.

  A silent movie.

  With a cast of two.

  Herself and André.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Sam and Martinez were at the Milton Zuckerman Home, a high-priced nursing home on Biscayne Boulevard a few blocks north of the Aventura Mall, where they’d come to meet with Mrs Marilyn Myerson.

  They’d seen Larry Beatty’s documents, including a psychiatric geriatrician’s report confirming the Alzheimer’s diagnosis, but they needed to see for themselves.

  Beatty had said that her dementia was advanced, and he had spoken the truth.

  No hope of even a few lucid words from this poor woman.

  ‘I know we’re on duty,’ Martinez said as they emerged from the home into the warm sunshine, ‘but I could use a goddamned drink.’

  ‘Know just what you mean,’ Sam said, because though they had both, for their own emotional health, developed a degree of immunity to suffering, the plight of complete strangers could sometimes still hit hard.

  ‘So how about you tell me now,’ he said as they got back in the Chevy, ‘about last night?’

  ‘I told you. She said yes.’

  ‘Did it go the way you planned it?’

  ‘I screwed that up,’ Martinez said. ‘I figured I’d blown it for sure.’

  ‘Clearly not,’ Sam said.

  ‘I ended up asking her in the goddamned car. She was sitting right where you are, can you believe it?’

  ‘Sure I can. Nice view of the bay?’

  ‘We were in the parking lot,’ Martinez said wryly.

  ‘And she still said yes?’ Sam smiled. ‘She must really love you.’

  ‘She really does seem to,’ Martinez said with a kind of awe.

  He started the engine, the sad plight of the old lady who’d once owned the big mansio
n and art gallery on Collins already fading away, though Sam found himself wondering if anyone ever came to visit Mrs Myerson these days and if the lady was ever sufficiently aware to notice if they did.

  ‘Why the parking lot?’ he asked, belatedly.

  ‘Any port in a storm,’ Martinez said. ‘If I’d waited till we got home, I knew I might have lost my nerve again.’ He grinned. ‘I’m gonna love that parking lot till I die, man.’

  TWENTY-SIX

  There was some kind of fine mesh screening right across the wall to the left of the cage that Elizabeth hadn’t noticed until the ‘movie’ started, though she guessed it had to have been there all the time.

  She wondered what the time was, had no way of knowing, thought that perhaps it was better that way, and oh, dear God, she was so cold, and she needed André to wake up, she needed him to hold her . . .

  The movie was still silent, though she could hear a low electronic hum.

  If this were a real movie, no one would pay to see it, for sure, but Elizabeth found she could not look away.

  It was all footage of her and André sitting somewhere, talking.

  Talking, talking, endlessly.

  It was impossible to see where they’d been when it was filmed – when they’d been spied on – because the shots were all in close-up, and as Elizabeth went on staring at it she realized it was a series of short sequences edited together. Their clothes – what she could see of them – were of no help in identifying the date or location, because she was wearing the white cotton blouses she put on most work days with her suits, and she often still wore the same clothes when they went out for drinks or dinner directly from the office; and André, too, wore one of his favourite Brooks Brothers slim-fit one hundred per cent cotton shirts most days . . .

  Her shoulder-length dark brown hair was different in each sequence, once tied back, once loose, once held partially back with one of the tortoiseshell clips she sometimes used, but Elizabeth’s mind was much too confused now to even begin to try to recall what hairstyle she’d worn on different occasions.

  It was dizzying to watch, because despite its jerky editing, it was still one piece, playing repeatedly like a loop, and sometimes she and André were speaking earnestly, sometimes it was one talking and the other listening intently, then they seemed in the midst of one of their rapid fire exchanges, but that was all there was to see – talking.

  And then, at the end of the final clip, the end of the loop, the camera had zoomed in on their faces, close up to their lips, so that their mouths appeared ever larger, which made Elizabeth feel violently ill each time she saw it, and she wanted to look away, but she had a terrible, almost superstitious sense that if she did that, her life, their lives, might end along with the sick movie.

  As to what it might mean, she was too afraid to know that, too terrified to think about who was playing this tape, to wonder if they were doing it remotely or if they were here now, if they were watching her watching it. And so she switched off those questions, shut down the inquisitorial part of her mind that had always been a significant part of being Elizabeth Price, and just went on staring up at the screen as the compilation rolled over and over again.

  She wanted to scream.

  In time, if this kept on for long enough, she knew she might do just that.

  Except that might make the director of this movie do more than watch her.

  It might make him or her come back.

  ‘Please,’ she said, very softly, then repeated it. ‘Please, please, please.’

  She took another look at André, at the man she loved, torn suddenly between gladness for his lack of suffering, and rage at his absence from her, because he was useless to her like this, and of course she loved him, but . . .

  ‘Please,’ she said again.

  And turned back to the people on the wall.

  Who seemed, increasingly, to her tortured brain, like strangers.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Thursday afternoon, Grace had been out shopping with Joshua.

  She’d seen two patients this morning, but now she was free until tomorrow and feeling energized by the sunshine, and they’d been to Laurenzo’s on West Dixie for pumpkin ravioli and to Fresh Market for fish and fruit and to Publix for everything else, and though she’d already dropped in several bags of shopping at David’s house, the trunk of the Toyota was still loaded.

  She was at Saul’s place now, had changed Joshua’s diaper and was sitting on the peaceful terrace that overlooked the Intracoastal Waterway, sipping a glass of iced tea; and Cathy had just come in from the café and said that she was going to be heading out for a run on the beach just as soon as she’d gotten over the big plate of penne that Dooley had made for her after her shift. Saul had been around the corner when Grace had arrived, busy in his small rented workshop off North Bay Road, fulfilling an order for a beech table and chairs, and the furniture looked so handsome that Grace had felt a rush of pride in her young brother-in-law – and now she felt the same way about Cathy, who looked so happy, seemed so positive.

  ‘Unky Saw,’ Joshua shouted suddenly, and Saul, in cut-off T-shirt and shorts, gave a whoop and scooped up his nephew, joined after a second by Cathy, tickling her little brother’s tummy.

  ‘Caffee!’ Joshua screamed with joy.

  ‘Joshi!’ Cathy responded in kind.

  ‘Mommy!’ Joshua urged Grace to join in, but she just sat, enjoying the moments, reflecting yet again that baby laughter surely had to be one of the most beautiful sounds in life.

  Sam had told her last night, soon after they’d finished making love, that Martinez was going to propose to Jess, and a sense of warmth enveloped her at the thought of that good man finally getting a taste of this.

  Good times.

  The best.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Early this Thursday evening, the rats were alone, their food all eaten.

  In her section of the cage, the doe named Isabella the Seventh was quiet, but Romeo the buck, separated from her, was hungry and becoming increasingly agitated, and need had sent him a while ago to one of the cage’s ventilation holes, to a small gap on the outer edge that the keeper had not yet noticed.

  Gnawing brought some satisfaction.

  Freedom would bring food.

  This young buck was not a fancy rat, had not been bred as a pet. Romeo the Fifth was a common-as-shit roof rat, rattus rattus, a sleek, graceful critter with a slate grey back and a paler grey belly, as happy in a hollow wall munching on insulation or wiring or pipework, as most of his kind.

  If Isabella or any other female had been immediately accessible, Romeo might have thought twice about leaving right away, would at least have jumped her one more time before hitting the road. But she wasn’t available.

  So he kept right on gnawing.

  Urinating and dropping faeces as he went.

  Same as any other self-respecting roof rat.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Elizabeth could hear new sounds.

  ‘André,’ she hissed, beyond desperate for him to wake at last, for him to be here for her now.

  But the man who had always been so animated, so young and lean and clever, who had made love to her with the same kind of verve that he’d brought to his work – that man just went on lying there, all his strength and vitality stolen along with his dignity by whatever they had done to him.

  The movie was still playing, but Elizabeth had quit looking at it, had burrowed back down into sleep for a while, waking to fresh realization and terror, which was when her bladder had finally let go, making her weep with humiliation. Nothing more she could do about it than shift closer to the wall, out of her own mess, taking her even further away from André.

  Lonelier than ever.

  The new sounds came closer.

  Something rattling, creaking, rolling.

  Wheels, perhaps.

  And now she heard jangling.

  A key in a lock.

  Elizabeth’s eyes, wide in new terror,
darted toward the sound, trying in vain to penetrate the darkness beyond the front of the cage.

  But the key was turning, and now an unseen door was opening, and with it came a sliver of light that expanded to a triangle and was instantly muddied – by someone entering – and then the triangle shrank and vanished as the door closed and the blackness was complete again.

  Elizabeth felt the most abject dread crawl through her.

  ‘André,’ she whispered one last time.

  She thought again of her father and sister, and of her dead mother.

  Her heart felt strange and painful.

  Breaking, perhaps.

  THIRTY

  Sam’s mind kept veering off the case to his surprise plans for Grace’s birthday.

  She wouldn’t be expecting anything, this being her thirty-ninth, but he hadn’t wanted to wait a whole year until the ‘big’ one because Grace deserved something special now, and when it came to her fortieth, he’d do something else, something even bigger, if their reserves held out; and his mom’s legacy had made a substantial difference to their security, and Judy would have approved of his putting some of it into spoiling Grace, because she’d grown to adore her daughter-in-law in the five years they’d spent together.

  So this year, for her birthday on March first, it was going to be a cruise – departure three days earlier from Fort Lauderdale.

  One of Sam’s concerns was that the surprise was a bit of a long shot, because cruising was something they’d never considered before, and for all he knew, they might both hate the whole thing, and Lord knew their previous experiences with boats had been small and anything but soothing . . . Still, First International’s Stardust was certainly not small, and he wanted to whisk Grace away from it all, but he couldn’t take more than a few days, and this way there’d be no need to negotiate airports and long flights, and if by chance they hit bad weather or got seasick or hated vacationing with so many other people, then heck, it was only four nights and, bottom line, they’d still be away and together . . .

  And the notion of sweeping his Gracie right off her gorgeous feet and on to a beautiful cruise ship, when she was expecting nothing grander than a family dinner, warmed him right down to his toes.