Caged

by Hilary Norman

  Evelyn was seventy-one and Frank three years older, but the couple were still in love. Her hair was silver, his almost all gone; they both needed glasses for reading and Frank wore dentures, but they were healthy, bright-minded, and some people grumbled that they only had eyes for each other, but they didn’t feel that was true, because they knew they were still interested in others – most especially Barbara, their beloved daughter, and Ariel and Debbie, their grandkids, not forgetting Simon, who was a fine son-in-law – and just because they liked to hold hands when they were out walking . . .

  ‘Some people get jealous,’ Evelyn had told Frank just the other day.

  ‘I know plenty of men who’re jealous of me because I have you,’ Frank said.

  ‘Flattery will get you everywhere,’ Evelyn had said.

  ‘Think I don’t know that?’ Frank said.

  It was a tried and tested formula, but they both enjoyed it, so where was the harm, and Evelyn had kissed him then and he’d kissed her right back.

  They still did a lot of kissing.

  And they were grateful, every single day, that they still had each other.

  FORTY-FIVE

  The keeper had all but given up on Romeo the Fifth.

  There’d been a few occasional sounds to indicate that the little guy was probably on the loose, very likely having a high old time ingesting whatever building components he’d been able to sink his sharp little teeth into.

  Not as beneficial to his health as the feed mix his keeper had been providing for him and his good lady, but there was only so much a person could do.

  Isabella the Seventh seemed pretty content on her own so far, enjoying her own space, maybe relieved to be spared the buck’s persistent attentions.

  Splendid isolation for another few weeks for her, gestation in rats being twenty-one to twenty-three days.

  And then the patter of teeny-tiny paws.

  Decisions to be made as to which of the pups would be the new Romeo and Isabella.

  Who would live and who would die.

  Power and glory.

  FORTY-SIX

  February 17

  ‘Oh my God, oh my God,’ Frank Ressler said.

  Evelyn knew right away that it was Frank speaking, but it didn’t really sound like him because usually Frank’s voice was nice and clear, and he never mumbled like so many other people, but now it was slurry and husky and he sounded almost drunk.

  Matter of fact, she felt that way too.

  Drunk and nauseated, too, and maybe it was time she opened her eyes and woke up properly, because obviously Frank was sick and needed her, and anyway, there was something wrong with their bed. It reminded her of the time someone said they should put a board under their mattress because Frank’s back had been playing up, but the first time she lay down on the bed she let out a shriek, and there never was a second time because she had it taken out, and Frank’s back got better just the same.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Frank said again.

  ‘Stop with the “Oh my Godding”,’ Evelyn told him.

  Except her voice sounded strange, too.

  Open your eyes, she told herself, but her lids felt too heavy.

  And then she managed it.

  The fear hit her right away.

  Hit her hard as a boulder smashing through her body.

  ‘Oh, my God,’ she said.

  And the last scrap of humour left in her – the very last – told her it must be catching.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  Ten days had passed since the first couple had been found, four days already since Elizabeth Price and André Duprez had been dumped in the fish tank on Prairie Avenue, and Sam and Martinez and the squad were still no place to speak of, which was getting to every last one of them.

  No one in or around La Gorce Drive remembered seeing a VW van with or without a darkened windshield anyplace near the Easterman house.

  Mayumi Santos’s cousin and friends had checked out.

  Nothing new on either killing.

  People expected better, and so they ought.

  Except that the truth of the matter was that unless the cops caught a lucky break, or unless the killer or killers wanted to be found – which did sometimes happen, either because they wanted to be stopped or because they were too hungry for glory to wait for capture – then it was not a whole lot better than looking for proverbial needles in haystacks.

  For now, the best they could do was continue getting to know everything possible about all four victims; most of it useless to the investigation, but you just never could tell when finding out that Mike Easterman collected old movie posters might become suddenly pivotal. Likewise that Suzy had occasionally treated herself to a day at the Willow Stream Spa at Turnberry Isle Resort – near Mike’s parents’ home; or that André Duprez had been about to join a cigar club when Elizabeth Price had prevailed on him to give up smoking; or that Elizabeth had dumped her childhood sweetheart, another lawyer named Jay Miller, within a week of meeting André . . .

  Nothing so far leading to any solid links, but if they kept on brainstorming and hitting every avenue hard, maybe, just maybe, the result might come from one or more of the victims.

  If this was random killing, though, or random selection, then needles in haystacks might prove to be as easy as falling off logs by comparison.

  Sam’s greatest fear this Tuesday morning was that there might be more killings to come.

  Though that, in a sense, was not his greatest horror.

  Which was that another double murder might be just what they needed to bring the lead that had so far eluded them.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  They were in some kind of a cage.

  ‘Is this a dream?’ Frank had asked Evelyn a while ago.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she’d answered him. ‘I hope so.’

  ‘One good thing about it,’ he’d said.

  They were in a cage in a padded room, chained up and naked.

  Naked.

  ‘What’s that?’ she’d asked.

  ‘We’re together,’ Frank had said.

  ‘A second good thing,’ Evelyn had said. ‘The light’s so lousy you can’t see me too well.’

  Not all her humour gone, after all.

  ‘You’re beautiful to me,’ Frank had said. ‘You know that.’

  She had told him then that she loved him.

  They kept on telling each other that, the way they always had, though now the repetition reminded them both of the time they’d thought Frank was going to die from his heart attack, and the speaking and sharing of love had taken on a kind of urgent defiance.

  ‘You know what’s strange,’ Evelyn said now. ‘I can’t seem to remember what happened before we got here.’

  ‘Me neither,’ Frank said.

  Both their voices were sounding more normal again now.

  Normal.

  ‘We were eating dinner, weren’t we?’ she said.

  ‘I guess so,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure.’

  Evelyn took a breath. ‘I don’t think this is a dream, honey.’

  ‘Of course it is,’ Frank said. ‘It has to be.’ He spoke with as much conviction as he could muster, doing it for himself almost as much as for her. ‘No one would do this for real to two old people who never hurt anyone.’

  ‘Maybe we did.’ Evelyn’s mind ransacked back through the years. ‘Maybe we did hurt someone.’

  ‘Not badly enough for them to do this,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ Evelyn said. ‘You’re right. This is a dream.’

  ‘You know what?’ Frank said. ‘I think we should close our eyes and think about good things, like the children or dancing the foxtrot, and wait till we wake up.’

  ‘I’d feel so much better,’ Evelyn said, ‘if we could just touch.’

  She was shackled to the bars in one corner, and Frank was shackled in the other corner.

  Too far apart to hold hands.

  The worst thing of all.

  FORTY-NINE

&n
bsp; Sam grabbed a moment at what ought to have been lunchtime to ask Martinez about the engagement dinner.

  ‘It’ll be just us guys,’ he said. ‘But at least we can make sure we celebrate regardless of what’s going on here.’ He smiled. ‘All pretty much Grace’s idea, by the way. She figures you and Jess need to remind yourselves how happy you are.’

  ‘Man.’ Martinez shook his head, almost too touched to articulate. ‘Your wife is just the best.’ He hesitated. ‘Maybe we should do it in a restaurant, though. My treat. It isn’t right for Grace to have all the work.’

  ‘She wants to do this for you, Al,’ Sam said. ‘We both do.’

  ‘That’s great.’ Martinez felt his eyes smart. ‘Just so great.’

  ‘It’s our pleasure,’ Sam told him.

  ‘I think I will keep it a surprise for Jess, though.’ He was still thinkng it through. ‘Specially since she’s not telling her mom and dad yet, you know?’ He shook his head again. ‘This is just the best thing.’

  ‘Grace is the best,’ Sam admitted.

  ‘Like Jess,’ Martinez said.

  ‘Why’d you think I’m so damned happy for you?’ Sam said.

  FIFTY

  ‘Oh, my God,’ Frank said again.

  Evelyn kept her eyes closed.

  She was finding she could stand it just a little better this way, because every time she opened her eyes the first thing she saw in the pool of dim light was her own body, all wrinkled and saggy and old, and a little while back it had made her think about pictures from the Holocaust, which had, in turn, made her feel ashamed, because she had been so very lucky, had never known starvation or terrible health or deprivation. Best of all, though, she’d had Frank and had kept him into old age, but it still hurt her to look at him like this, too, because it was so dreadfully humiliating. And she didn’t suppose it would be that much better if they were a good-looking young couple – but someone had done this to them, someone had undressed them and left them here – wherever ‘here’ was – maybe to die, maybe worse than that.

  And it was not a dream.

  Evelyn had known that perfectly well almost from the outset, and she knew it was the same for Frank because he was an intelligent man, had been in the bookselling business for most of his life until his retirement and had read more about all manner of subjects than just about anyone they knew. She knew that Frank had been keeping up the foolishness about the dream for her sake, but before long she’d have to start talking sense to him, because if they were going to die soon, there were things she wanted to say.

  ‘Dear God—’ Frank butted into her thoughts, his voice urgent. ‘Evelyn, open your eyes.’

  So she did, because maybe something good was happening.

  It was nothing good, not really.

  Not exactly bad, though, either, just bizarre.

  So much so that she felt, for a moment, as if she’d stepped back through her lucidity and was back to believing that maybe, after all, it really still was a long, crazy nightmare – because right out of nowhere there was a black-and-white movie playing on a screen on the wall to her left. And what was so impossible was that it was of them: of her and Frank, just the two of them, like a stream of stuck-together pictures, really, of them looking happy, holding hands, looking at each other the way she supposed they always had. With love.

  If they were home now, safe in their house, and if Barbara and Simon had done this for them, had compiled this for, say, an anniversary, it would probably feel warm and romantic and perhaps a little embarrassing, but wonderful just the same. But here and now, in these unspeakable circumstances, the film, or whatever that thing was playing over and over again on the wall, felt disgusting, like a violation.

  That was an over-used word, Evelyn thought. Like ‘devastated’. People had a little break-in and a vase was smashed and their TV stolen and they said they felt violated and devastated.

  She and Frank had never been that way, had always had their priorities down straight.

  Here and now, violated was exactly right.

  ‘What does it mean, Evie?’ Frank’s voice was shaky again.

  She realized she hadn’t spoken since he’d roused her, had been too busy thinking, and he sounded so afraid suddenly that she felt a wave of protectiveness sweep over her, and maybe it was her turn to be the strong one now, and she wished with all her soul that she could spare him this.

  ‘Best not to think what it means, honey,’ she told him.

  ‘OK,’ Frank said. ‘I love you, Evelyn.’

  ‘I love you too, Frank,’ she said.

  ‘And I’m so proud of you,’ he told her, ‘for being so brave.’

  ‘No point screaming and carrying on,’ she said. ‘Though I wouldn’t mind a little scream, to tell the truth.’

  ‘Go right ahead,’ he said, ‘if you think it’ll help you.’

  Evelyn shook her head. ‘I won’t give them the satisfaction.’

  ‘Them?’

  ‘Whoever did this to us,’ she said, ‘could be watching.’

  ‘Watching us watching us,’ Frank said, his voice a little stronger.

  ‘That’s good, Frank,’ Evelyn said. ‘It’s all we can do, I think. Be brave, and make the most.’

  ‘Of what, Evie?’

  ‘Of the time we have left,’ she said.

  FIFTY-ONE

  A heads-up, late in the day, on a new missing couple.

  Evelyn and Frank Ressler, two Surfside senior citizens, had not been seen by family or friends or neighbours since late Monday afternoon when they had left a tea dance at Temple B’nai Torah on Isaac Singer Boulevard.

  Their daughter, Mrs Barbara Herman, had spoken to her mother shortly after they’d gotten home to their house on Bay Drive after the dance, and Evelyn had told her that both she and Barbara’s father had enjoyed themselves as always. When Mrs Herman had telephoned this morning, however, there had been no answer, but knowing her dad had a check-up scheduled with his cardiologist at eleven, she’d assumed they’d gone out early and that she’d hear from them later.

  The receptionist at the doctor’s office had called at noon.

  Barbara Herman had begun calling hospitals an hour later and Simon Herman had come home from the office to try to calm his wife.

  By three, they’d both known that something was seriously wrong, and Simon had made the call they’d dreaded.

  Every cop in Miami-Dade was on the look-out now.

  Nothing yet.

  FIFTY-TWO

  Dinner at the Opera Café was going beautifully, despite the bad news Sam had received. It had been tough, at first, for him to get his mind off the case – off the elderly Resslers, especially, because just the thought of two old people being abducted, let alone terrorized and murdered, was unbearable. But a whole lot of people went missing all the time, usually for just a short while; things happened that had nothing to do with homicide, things like illness and accidents and, especially with seniors, forgetfulness.

  Except that was the kind of thing that tended to happen to individuals out on their own. Not impossible, but far less likely for it to happen to a couple, especially when their daughter insisted that her parents both had all their faculties.

  Still, this was Cathy’s night and it was important to her, so Sam was doing his damnedest to enjoy himself.

  Dooley’s choice of music was helping: a little Schubert, a sliver of Verdi and a lot of Puccini, all romantic stuff, to match the candles and sweetheart roses on their table and twined around the café.

  Cathy was in the kitchen, Dooley there too, but plainly leaving the real cooking to her, and they could see her chopping, slicing, whirling, moving with apparent confidence between the refrigerator and the stove, and steam was rising and the glass partition was steaming and . . .

  ‘It’s hard not to stare,’ Grace said.

  ‘I’m just so damned proud of her,’ Sam said.

  ‘And so impressed,’ Grace said. ‘Just look at her.’

  The food,
when it came, served by Simone – who had clearly prevailed on Cathy – was nothing short of great.

  ‘And all of her own devising,’ Dooley had said on their arrival. ‘Not a thing from our regular menu.’

  ‘Your menu’s terrific,’ Sam said.

  Dooley smiled. ‘I don’t think it was meant to be an insult to us,’ he said. ‘She wanted every ingredient to be a special favourite of yours, and I’ll be surprised if you don’t both love it.’

  It was an eclectic menu, but Dooley had been right. There was a light crabmeat ravioli starter, calves’ liver cooked to perfection and served with rösti potatoes and a delicate salad of mixed green leaves with a dressing that Grace just couldn’t seem to nail.

  ‘Sorry,’ Cathy said, emerging briefly. ‘I’m not telling.’

  ‘But I’m your mother,’ Grace said. ‘I’ve shared my recipes with you.’

  ‘This is professional.’ Cathy grinned. ‘One day. Maybe.’

  Dooley, nearby, raised both his hands, surrender-style. ‘Nothing to do with me, but I’m hoping it’s going on our menu.’

  After a dessert of tarte Tatin with homemade vanilla ice cream, Simone, Dooley and Cathy finally agreed to draw up chairs and sit with the guests, and maybe the wines chosen by Matt Dooley had added to the sense of well-being that both Sam and Grace were now experiencing, but they were also aware of being moved both by Cathy’s talent, and by Dooley’s generosity in teaching her.

  ‘It seems you’ve opened up a whole new world for her,’ Sam said.

  ‘She opened it up for herself,’ Dooley said, ‘out in California.’

  ‘But you’ve really let her in,’ Grace said, feeling emotional, and Sam reached for her hand and squeezed it, and then they both got up simultaneously to give their daughter a hug, just as quickly letting her go again, because tonight had been about her new professionalism, and neither of them wanted to spoil that for her by embarrassing her.