Body Language

by James W. Hall

  “That’s very kind,” said Alex. “Very kind.”

  “I mean it. Anytime at all.”

  “I need to go back to Miami for a day or two. I know it’s a lot to ask.”

  Grace dusted a honeybee away from her ear.

  “No problem at all, Alexandra. I’m happy to help.”

  Alex leaned across the gate and kissed Grace on the cheek.

  “Did your friends find you?” Grace said.

  “Friends?”

  “You’re a very popular young lady.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Well, there were the three people asking about you Saturday night. And then the phone call.”

  “What three people?”

  Grace described the large man in the bright yellow jacket and the small blond girl with the light eyes.

  “The other one was a young woman of twenty-five or so, a tall, thin blond who seemed a little … I don’t know, dizzy. To be honest, it’s hard to picture them as friends of yours.”

  “They aren’t.”

  “Did I do wrong to say that you were here?”

  “No,” she said. “Tell me about the phone call.”

  “Same thing. Some man wanting to know if an Alexandra Rafferty was staying at Seaside.”

  “When was that? Do you remember?”

  “Saturday morning, early, nine-thirty, maybe. Not half an hour after you checked in.”

  “Did he say anything else? Give you any idea who he was?”

  “No. But he seemed quite pleased to find you here. He said he was taking a wild stab. Those were his exact words, I believe, ‘a wild stab.’ He seemed amused, for some reason. A little smart-alecky. So did they find you, your friends?”

  “I think they did, yes. I think they found me.”

  Lawton swung open Grace Trakas’s screen door. He was holding a tall glass of lemonade and she could see he had a mustache of rind.

  “Oh, Alexandra, hey. Don’t forget about that blood. We don’t want it to stain the woodwork.”

  “Blood?”

  “The blood I showed you.”

  “What blood? You didn’t show me anything, Dad.”

  “On the front steps of our house. Yeah, I’m sure I pointed it out as we were coming over here. Or maybe not. But I thought about pointing it out. You ever do that? Think something in your head and later you’re not sure you said it out loud or not? You ever do that? I do it all the time.”

  “Do you mind, Grace? Taking him for just a little while?”

  “Blood?”

  “Please, just for a little while.”

  The woman touched a hand to her heart as if she were having pangs of doubt. She glanced at Lawton, then brought her eyes back to Alex. She shook her head solemnly as if she were overruling her better judgment.

  “Go,” she said. “He’ll be safe here. Go.”

  There was the faintest sprinkle on the front steps of the Chattaway. Several smudges where she and Lawton must have trampled them, then a dozen distinct droplets leading out into the street and curving toward the beach. She stooped and dabbed at one spot and rubbed the gluey fluid between thumb and first finger. Had to be several hours old.

  She followed the spatters a few feet down the street, then lost the trail and had to wander awhile before she picked it up again on the other side of the highway. It led to the whitewashed stairway that swept down to the beach and then it trailed out across a white stretch of sand to the still water’s edge.

  Just out of range of the tide, the spotty track led west toward the wild and unpopulated end of the beach. The blood was showing up in larger and larger patches, a clump, then, twenty feet farther along, another, slightly larger clump. As if he was worried that the sand might blow and drift and cover his handiwork.

  Monday morning, the beach was empty, some gulls and terns standing stiffly and peering out to sea, but no human life. Farther on, she found a small blue crab tracking through a splash of blood, and she felt the flesh rise in patches along her shoulders, her sinuses flare open.

  She spotted the twin humps of sand forty yards or so before the blood made its turn and led her to them. Two sand sculptures that seemed like no more than the standard reclining figures until she mounted the small embankment and stood a yard away.

  The two sand figures were laid out side by side. The first one might have been mistaken for an archer’s bow, while the second could be some headless running man. She swung around, but there was no one on the beach. Higher up the bank, the sea oats yielded to a feeble breeze, but she saw no one anywhere.

  She looked back at the two sand sculptures.

  It was D and her sister, R.

  Alexandra knelt beside the first one and took a measured breath, then brushed the sand from the naked flesh until she found the young woman’s face. The sky shook with a gull’s boisterous laugh. And with the rhythm of an overheated pulse, a Jet Ski pounded across the washboard surf.

  It was the tall blond girl she’d seen coming out of Stan’s hospital room last Thursday evening. Jennifer McDougal, her body bent in grotesque service to the Bloody Rapist. On her face was the same bruise as the others, two fingers wide.

  Viewing it in the morning sunlight, the purplish yellow print of the attacker’s fingers, Alexandra knew all she needed to know. It was a bruise she had seen a dozen times before—on her own body and on countless others at the dojo. A nihon nukite, a two-fingered thrust, known as “a spear hand.” It was commonly used on the softer, less muscled portions of the body, the neck, the gut, but the face would do nicely. A nihon nukite administered with enough force would stun an average man or woman, send them to the floor, docile and compliant.

  Alex knee-walked through the sand and bent above the other figure and uncovered her face, as well. The dark-skinned girl with curly blond hair, her lips torn, her cheekbone gashed, a lime-sized knot on her forehead. This one had fought more viciously than any of the others, gone down flailing. Good for her.

  Alexandra pushed herself to her feet and drew a breath.

  Beside the dark woman’s face, a large brown cockroach churned its legs in the sand, going nowhere, snagged by a green thread.

  Alex scanned the dunes and beach. Only a pair of old ladies with net bags and matching white porkpie hats. Matrons of the seashells.

  Alex lifted her foot and crushed the roach, ground it into the soft sand, then headed at a trot back toward the gorgeous town.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Dan Romano’s voice was so hoarse, it sounded like he’d been gargling gasoline.

  “I’ve got bad news,” he said.

  “Good, we can trade.”

  “Early yesterday morning,” Dan said. “Florida Highway Patrol got a call. A passerby found Stan’s body along the shoulder of a back road up in Escambia County. Ten miles from Panama City. Stan was shot in the back seven times with a large-caliber weapon. An execution. Blue pool-service truck like the one you described was parked a few hundred yards up the road from the scene.”

  Alex sat down in one of the oak dining room chairs. She took a dry swallow and stared up through the transom window at a ragged fleet of clouds sliding past. They crossed briefly in front of the sun and the room dimmed to momentary dusk, its bright colors grown pallid.

  “I’m sorry, Alex,” Dan said. “Sorry to have to tell you over the goddamn phone like this. Stan had problems, I guess. But he always struck me as a decent guy.”

  “Then he fooled you, too.”

  “Okay, whatever you say. But I’m sorry anyway. It’s gotta be a blow.”

  She heard the house creaking as the sun brightened and the timbers warmed. A purple slash of light stretched across the dining table, deflected by one of the antique bottles lining a high windowsill.

  “Are you there, Alex?”

  “Barely.”

  Out in the street, a young man pedaled by on an ancient bicycle. His chain clanked and rattled like a troop of manacled prisoners.

  “What did you get on D
arnel Flint?”

  “Not a lot.”

  “I’m listening.”

  She heard Dan rustle through his papers; then he cleared his throat.

  “Darnel Sampson Flint died about six months ago. A stroke. Body wasn’t claimed. County had to dispose of it.”

  “About the same time the murders started.”

  “What?”

  “Is that all you got?”

  “Hey, come on, Alex. Where’s the reciprocity here? Don’t I deserve a fucking explanation? You got me digging through tax records and property deeds and insurance claims. All night I worked my ass off and you aren’t even going to throw me a bone? Like maybe telling me what the fuck’s going on?”

  “Reciprocity? That one of your new words?”

  “Yeah, just so happens it is.”

  “I like it. It feels good in the mouth. Reciprocity.”

  Alexandra stood up and stretched the phone cord out to its limit so she could reach the end of the dining table. She hadn’t noticed the copper bucket till that moment. Something new.

  She leaned forward and slid the wine bottle from the ice, turned it around and read its label. Lucere, the California chardonnay.

  She drew a long, airless breath, then swung around and stared at the empty room.

  “Alex? You still with me?”

  She wasn’t sure if her voice still worked.

  “I’m with you, Dan.” She screwed the bottle back into the wine bucket. The ice was still fresh. “But I’m under some time pressure. Speed this along, would you?”

  “Okay, okay. The father left some small insurance policies to his children. From the Philadelphia Life records, we got an address for the two girls. Mollie and Millie share an apartment in Boulder, Colorado. Escort-service hookers is what it looks like.”

  Alex leaned out to peer into her bedroom. Vacant, as far as she could see.

  “And the son? J.D.?”

  “Yeah, well, he got ten thousand bucks from the same policy, apparently used it to buy a piece-of-shit house down by the Miami River. In the middle of a high-density crack neighborhood.”

  “Can you check out that house for me?”

  While Dan cursed and ranted, she peeked in Lawton’s room. Nothing.

  When Dan was quiet, she said, “Is that all? No employment records, nothing else?”

  “Christ, Alex, with what I had to go on, that’s a pretty good night’s work.”

  “The son’s full name. Did you get that?”

  “It’s somewhere in my notes.”

  “Do you have them with you?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Christ, I’m checking now.”

  Alexandra saw him coming up the stairs. Shirtless, with dark trunks, his coppery flesh gleaming, dark hair swept back and plastered down. He carried a red beach towel in one hand, his running shoes in the other.

  “Is his first name Jason?” she said quickly.

  “I’m looking, I’m looking.”

  Jason pushed open the front door and stood for a moment smiling at her. Then his eyes fell on the ice bucket and he gave her a quizzical look.

  “Are we celebrating?” he whispered.

  Alex shrugged a noncommittal reply as Dan spoke in her ear. “Yeah, yeah here it is. I knew I had it.”

  “What is it, Dan?”

  “Justin David Flint.”

  “You’re sure?” She watched Jason draw the wine bottle from the ice, check the label. “You couldn’t have made a slight mistake with the first name?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. That’s what I wrote down. Justin David. What’s the big deal, Alex?”

  “Later, Dan. I’ve got to run. I’ll call you when I get a chance.”

  “Wait a minute. Wait a goddamn minute! Don’t hang up on me!”

  Alex turned and walked to the kitchen and set the phone back in its cradle, cutting off the shrill bleating of Dan’s electronic wrath.

  “What was all that about?”

  Jason stood at the head of the table. He pushed the Lucere back into the ice. The bottle was uncorked.

  “Cop business,” she said.

  “Never stops, does it? Can’t even go away on vacation.”

  “Killers and rapists aren’t big on holidays.”

  “Wow, you’re serious this morning.”

  “Oh yeah,” she said. “I’m dead serious.”

  He took a step her way and she countered with a half step to the side. He raised an eyebrow, half-smiled, and made another experimental step, and she replied. A dream dance. A slow-motion waltz around the furniture. Keeping him at a careful distance, matching his rhythm with her own.

  “What’re we doing?” he asked. “What’s the matter?”

  “Did you bring that wine, Jason?”

  “No, I’ve been jogging on the beach. I just got back.”

  “Where’d it come from? Have any idea?”

  “What is this, some kind of joke?”

  “I didn’t put it there; you didn’t put it there. So I wonder where it came from.”

  “Maybe Lawton?”

  She wanted open space, room to maneuver, enough unobstructed area for a roundhouse kick, her strongest, most decisive weapon.

  “Lawton’s visiting a friend,” Alexandra said.

  “His new lady?”

  He set his shoes on the floor beside the couch and slung the towel over his shoulders and drew it around him like a shawl, as if he’d felt a sudden chill.

  “He’s safe,” she said. “And he’s going to stay that way.”

  He looked puzzled, then shrugged it off.

  “You’re acting very strange, Alex. Are you still mad at me about last night? I mean, I understand if you are. But I certainly didn’t go off intending to get wasted. I just sat down at the bar at Bud and Alley’s, had a glass of wine, started talking to the bartender, and it turns out the guy is a stock-market junkie, of all things. So he starts picking my brain. Talking Dow Jones, bonds and mutual funds, global growth, and the guy’s refilling my glass whenever it’s half-empty. Next thing I know, I’m swimming nude with a bunch of people I never met before, and I looked around and realized you weren’t there.”

  “I’m here now.”

  “I see that.”

  She had positioned her back to the kitchen so the rising sunlight was in Jason’s eyes. Not much of an advantage, but all she could muster, given the situation. Her arms hung at her side, loose, relaxed, poised. She wasn’t frightened, wasn’t angry. Wasn’t anything. There was a quiet buzz in her veins. A bee in a bottle. Just watching him. Knowing what she had to do. Ready for it. Way past ready. Eighteen goddamn years of preparation.

  “Do you want me, Jason? Do you want to take me?”

  “What?”

  “How does it work? Do I have to say something to set you off? Some sexy abracadabra?”

  “What the hell’re you talking about, Alex?”

  “I bet you have to find a reason. Some little word or look or gesture that lights the fuse. Is that how it works? A sip or two of that Lucere, you cuddle with them. All the while you’re getting more and more aroused, you’re also secretly pissed off. Those are probably the same things for you. Your cock stiff with hatred and desire. You probably don’t see a lot of difference, do you?”

  Jason pulled the towel off his shoulders and dropped it on the dining table.

  “Something’s happened,” he said.

  “Damn right something’s happened. A whole string of somethings.”

  He swallowed.

  She saw the subtle shifting of his feet as he reset himself. An ambush was out of the question now. Element of surprise long gone. And that was as it should be. She didn’t want to win by a sucker punch. She wanted this head-on. Down and dirty. Her outrage versus his.

  “I don’t know what you think, Alex. I don’t know where all this is coming from. But you’re wrong. You’ve made a wrong turn somewhere.”

  “I don’t think so. I think you were in the bathroom eighteen years ago. You didn’t go to the
grocery with your parents and your sisters. You stayed at home with big brother. And a second or two after you flushed the toilet, there was a gunshot in the house. It was very loud and you were scared out of your mind. So you hid. You hid somewhere very good, because my father looked for you and didn’t find you. And you were so terrified, you never said a word. Not ever. Not to anyone.”

  “This is nuts.”

  Alex came forward a half step, keeping her balance, hands relaxed at her sides.

  “But that wasn’t the end of it. Because that secret started to glow inside you. You kept thinking about how terrified you’d been, how impotent. Little by little, that terror turned into rage.”

  Three feet separating them now. His eyes had tightened. Stance focused on this attacker, this woman who had stepped inside his danger zone.

  “And so you decided on a way to get even. Work your way through the letters of my name. Knowing I’d see the results, and maybe you could scare me as much as you’d been scared a long, long time ago.”

  “You’re making a huge mistake, Alex. I don’t know why you think I’m this guy, but I’m not. I swear to you, I’m not.”

  “Oh, come on, Jason. Don’t back down now. You’ve come all this way, worked so hard. Been so diligent and creative. This is your reward, isn’t it? Me, Alexandra Collins, the little girl all grown up. You’re finished with the substitutes, you’ve perfected your ritual, and now it’s time for the finale. Don’t lose courage now, Jason. Not now.”

  He lifted his hands to a middle guard position. But he looked off balance, confused.

  “Don’t,” he said. “Don’t do this.”

  She flicked a right hand toward his face and he brushed it aside with an upward thrust. A half a second slower than usual. Wild static in his eyes.

  “They didn’t have a chance, did they? Just normal women. Not fighters, none of them black belts like you. They let you into their houses. You charmed them, seduced them, and when they were at their most vulnerable, you killed them. Just like you were going to do to me.”

  She snapped a front kick toward his groin, but he shunted it aside with an ankle block, then countered with an automatic left hand that was sluggish and only grazed her cheek. She feinted with another kick, and when he moved to block, she lunged with a chopping right to the side of his neck, which jolted him and made him hop back out of range.