If I Should Die

by Hilary Norman

  Joe badly wanted to search Hagen and Schwartz’s apartments, but he didn’t even bother making out a complaint for a search warrant, for he knew that without specific proof no judge would agree to sign it. The more Joe thought about it, the more he felt the two men’s illnesses were too damned convenient, but since about a quarter of Chicago had the flu, that was no evidence either. Because of Jess, and his genuine concern over Lally, the commander had said comparatively little to Joe about his trip to Massachusetts, but Jackson was less than appreciative about Chris Webber having been told what was being kept from the rest of the country.

  “Just what do you know about this man, Duval?” he asked on Saturday night.

  “Very little,” Joe admitted.

  “Yet you’ve foisted him on the Florida police.” Jackson’s tone was as soft as usual, but held an unmistakable note of menace.

  “I think he can help.”

  “And what if he opens his mouth to the wrong person?”

  “Webber’s only interest is in finding my sister, Commander,” Joe said. “He could care less about selling his story or worrying about other patients in the same position. He may remember to care about those things after they’ve found Lally – I don’t know enough about him to be sure – but right this minute, I’d stake my life on his doing anything to help.”

  The commander took a long look at Joe.

  “When did you last sleep?”

  “I caught a nap on the plane.”

  “Go home now. You look like hell.”

  “I can’t.”

  “It wasn’t a request, Duval.”

  “I won’t be able to sleep, Commander.”

  “Wanna bet?”

  Joe went home. The house was lonely without Jess or Sal, and it seemed suddenly to be crammed with reminders of Lally. The photographs, books she’d given him, the watercolour of the Berkshires she’d bought to keep home fresh in his mind, the silver candlesticks she’d given him and Jess for their fifth wedding anniversary. He flicked the TV remote until he found a rerun of The Odd Couple, found a frozen pizza and heated it in the microwave, and drank a beer, and normally that was all it took to knock him out, but tonight, if he was hoping to get any rest, he knew he’d need more, so he followed it up with a shot of Jack Daniels. And the comedy show ended and The Red Shoes began, and Joe knew it was one of Lally’s favourite movies, and suddenly he was drunk, and sadder than he could ever remember feeling in his life, and with no one there to see, he began to choke up a little, sat there looking at the screen and sniffing like a teenage girl.

  He woke up as the closing credits were rolling, and it was after two, and his head ached. He dragged himself out of the armchair and filled a glass with cold water and drank it down, and then he called the hospital to check on Jess, and called Florida to check on Lally, but no one anywhere had any news for him, and so, very slowly and rather painfully, he went upstairs and pulled off his clothes and went to bed, and slept like a dead man.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Sunday, January 24th

  Chris had never felt so useless in his life. He had thought over the last few years that he had cornered the market in helplessness as he’d watched Andrea drink herself over and over from Jekyll into Hyde, but running around south Florida like a headless chicken for the past twenty-four hours, scanning tourists and staring into cars, getting more and more frustrated and weary, knowing that he was about as likely to run into Lally Duval as he was to see a snowflake, he had become increasingly filled with a sense of self-mockery and despair.

  Chief Hankin having asked his Miami counterpart for assistance in the search, had enabled Joe Duval to ask the local police to meet Chris at Miami airport on Friday night, and they already knew that Hugo and Lally had rented a red Pontiac Sunbird, and every available officer from Miami to Key West had a copy of the car description and Lally’s photograph. It would have been useful if someone had thought to give them a snapshot of Barzinsky, too, but never mind, because now that they had their licence place number they were one hundred per cent better off than they had been before, and no one put up a fight when Chris told them he’d decided to go it alone rather than stick with any one group of officers.

  “You do have people on all the islands?” he’d asked one young officer with a golden crew cut and snub nose.

  “Pretty much.”

  “What do you mean pretty much?”

  “Word’s gone out, sir. To all the camp sites and tourist offices.”

  “And hotels?”

  “There are hundreds of hotels and motels, Mr Webber. We can’t get details to all of them, but they’ll all get checked out in time.” The officer had looked and sounded patronizing.

  “How much time?” Chris had asked.

  “As long as it takes, sir.”

  “You know how important it is that we find Miss Duval, don’t you?” Chris was a non-violent man, but he’d experienced a sudden intense desire to shove this young asshole up against a wall and show him his fist.

  “Yes, sir, we know, and we’ll be doing our best.”

  “Then it won’t matter to you if I look for them on my own.”

  “So long as you don’t go getting yourself into trouble, sir. You wouldn’t want to use up any more valuable manpower, would you?”

  Chris gritted his teeth. “I’ll keep in touch, in case you have news for me.”

  “You do that, sir.”

  Assuming that even if they had spent time in the Everglades they’d have long since moved on south by now, away from the wetlands to the Keys, Chris had stayed at a hotel in Florida City on Friday night. Saturday morning had proven hotter than he’d anticipated, and he hadn’t stopped to pack properly, and his denims and sneakers felt too heavy, but he had no intention of wasting time shopping for shorts or sandals, and gradually he’d grown acclimatized. As the day went on, everywhere he’d looked there’d been young women with long, straight dark hair, but whenever he ran up to them, or honked the horn of his own rented Mercedes, or touched them on the shoulder, they turned around, looking startled or amused or angry, and none of them had those soft grey eyes or that magical slenderness, or that wonderful dancer’s neck, and he knew it was hopeless, worse than hunting for a needle in a haystack, because there was no way of knowing if she was in this particular haystack or in another, twenty or forty or even a hundred miles away.

  He had tried, from the start, to envisage the trip through Lally’s eyes. She was an energetic young woman, and a creature of impulse, he knew that much, but she had been sick, so there must be some limitations, and he guessed that even if Lally didn’t want to accept that, Hugo Barzinsky would take care of her. Chris had seen the way Hugo looked at her, the way his eyes changed when he talked about her, and he recognized that look, for he’d seen it in his own eyes in the shaving mirror over the last two weeks.

  There were two ways Hugo and Lally might have tackled the Keys, either driving all the way through to the last island, Key West, and then backtracking leisurely, or dipping in to some or even all the Keys on their way down to the tip. He wasn’t sure about Barzinsky, but he didn’t see Lally as a methodical traveller, so Chris had taken a chance on the second alternative, and he’d bypassed Key Largo on the assumption that, as with the Everglades, they’d have been and gone by now, and headed straight for the Islamorada group of islands.

  “Have you seen this woman?”

  He’d asked the question over and over again, feeling like a cheap private eye in a bad movie, except that most people he asked were happy to look at Lally’s picture, or too polite to refuse to. But no one had seen her, and it was hopeless, and he understood the young cop’s attitude a little better already, for according to the leaflets he’d picked up at the tourist centre there were at least a dozen sites that might have attracted them, and any number of hotels, motels and mom-and-pop establishments they might have stayed at, or restaurants, diners and cafés they might have eaten at.

  He’d hit pay dirt on Saturday eve
ning.

  “Have you seen this woman?” he’d asked the man at the cash desk at the entrance to one of the camp sites on Long Key.

  “Yes.”

  Chris stared at him. “You have?”

  “Sure.” He was Hispanic and had an easy, swinging accent. “Like I told the cops, she and her friend camped here Wednesday and Thursday night. What did she do?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why are you all looking for her?”

  “She didn’t do anything.”

  Chris couldn’t believe it. There were sixty camp sites on Long Key, and he’d struck the right one first time.

  “So they left yesterday morning?” His spirits soared, his feet stopped aching, the throbbing in his head went magically away.

  “I guess so.”

  “Do you know where they went from here?”

  “How should I know?”

  The headache came back. “Is there anyone else they might have talked to about their plans?”

  The man shrugged. “Maybe a turtle, maybe a bird.”

  Another wise-ass. Chris had thanked him and gone to a payphone to check in with the police. They had been there before him, and the discovery hadn’t gotten them much further along, but they said that it was good to have confirmation of their presence in the Keys, and it was only a matter of time before they were found.

  It wasn’t that Chris didn’t believe that. The trouble was, he couldn’t be be sure they had the time.

  Sunday morning he felt no better. He’d spent the night in a motel on Route 1 and now he was back on the road, heading south, and he felt like a washed-up gambler, sticking pins in the map to decide where to try next.

  He was filled with self-disgust. He was an amateur, and arrogant, and a damned fool. He also had a wife in a clinic in New England, and a ten-year-old daughter he should have been looking after, and if anyone was going to find Lally, it was almost certainly not going to be him. But he’d promised Joe Duval that he would do his best. And besides, he was in love. He was thirty-five years old, and he was head-over-heels in love with a woman who was not his wife. A beautiful, talented, impulsive, decent young woman whose life was in unthinkable, unbearable danger.

  There was a red Sunbird three cars further along. Chris’s pulse-rate quickened. He put his foot down, swung out to get a better look, but it wasn’t a Sunbird at all, it was a Japanese import, and the driver and his passenger were both black.

  He bit down hard on the disappointment, and drove on.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Sunday, January 24th

  Joe heard the phone ringing while he was in the shower. He grabbed a towel and ran, making wet footprints on the bedroom rug, a thing Jess abhorred.

  “Yes?”

  “Lieutenant Duval?”

  “That’s right.”

  “This is Lucas Ash. I treated your sister last – ”

  “I know what you did.” Joe was curt. The sabotage might not be the cardiologist’s fault, but so far as Joe was concerned, the communications breakdown had been unforgivable.

  “I want to apologize for the delay in getting back to you – ”

  “Thank you.” Joe cut him off again. “Do you have the information, sir?” He knew that his tone was too brusque, but he couldn’t help it.

  “I do, Lieutenant.”

  Joe heard the grim note in the other man’s voice, and knew.

  “It was made by Hagen Pacing?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Are you sure?” Joe clutched at straws. “Have you confirmed it with your office?”

  “I have, and in any case I remember every detail about your sister’s case, Lieutenant. I’m afraid there’s no doubt.”

  Joe’s mind raced, going nowhere.

  “Lieutenant?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m arranging to return right away. I’d like to be on hand in case I’m needed.” Ash paused again. “I understand from Detective Cohen you’re having some difficulty locating your sister. I told him I knew she and Mr Barzinsky were probably going to Florida, but I’m afraid I had nothing more to offer.”

  Joe went silent again.

  “I’m sure you’ll find her soon.”

  “I hope so.” Joe’s voice was stiff.

  “I’m so very sorry, Lieutenant.” There was no mistaking Ash’s sincerity. “You sister’s one of the loveliest young people it’s been my privilege to meet.”

  “Yes,” Joe said. “She is.”

  He put down the receiver. There was a pool of water around his feet, but he didn’t notice. The phone rang again, and mechanically he snatched it up.

  “Did you hear from the doc yet?” It was Cohen.

  “Just now. It’s bad news.”

  “Oh, my God.”

  “Anything else, Sol?”

  “Nothing from Florida yet, but it’s still early.” Cohen hesitated, “I had a visit from Ferguson.”

  “What’s up?”

  “I told him about Lally.”

  “You did what?”

  “I know, I know, but the man was really on shpilkes, and then when he heard you were in the Berkshires, he got it in his head you were taking a break, and I got mad and told him. Joe, I’m sorry.”

  Joe heard his wretchedness. “Right now, Sol, Ferguson knowing or not knowing is the least of my worries.”

  “Anyway, it really shut him up. He was very shocked, wanted to know if there was anything he could do for you, and I told him no, thank you, but at least now he’ll stay off your back.” Cohen took a breath, and changed the subject. “Any news on Jess?”

  “No change.”

  “Thank God for that.”

  “Yeah.”

  “They’ll find Lally today, Joe.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You okay?”

  “What do you think?”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Sunday, January 24th

  The names were heavenly. Big Pine, No Name, Big Torch, Little Torch, and Sugarloaf. The Lower Keys began below the Seven Mile Bridge, and their character was different again from the islands that had come before. If Lally and Hugo had felt well-being and relaxation washing over them as far back as at Key Largo, these less commercialized islands, with their easy access to Atlantic coral reefs, their wildlife refuges and tropical hardwood forests, and their quieter, calmer attitude to life in general, all but stopped them in their tracks.

  On Big Pine Key on Saturday afternoon they had seen their first alligators close to, lying tranquilly near the shore of a big freshwater pond, and on Sunday, in the early morning mist in one of the wilderness sections of the refuge, they spied two of the elusive, tiny white-tailed Key deer, the smallest in the world. For the first time since she’d become sick, Lally felt like dancing for joy, but she controlled the impulse and stood very still, and Hugo, too, scarcely dared to breathe, and the two exquisite, fragile creatures seemed almost to be posing for them, and though neither Lally nor Hugo risked touching their camera for fear of disturbing the animals, it was a moment they both knew they would retain for ever.

  Chris Webber noticed no alligators, no deer, nor herons nor pelicans. He was an artist faced with deep and gentle colours, with lush vegetation and rare creatures and an atmosphere so peaceful that at another time he would have put up his easel and not moved for hours or even days. But his eyes were still seeking the red Sunbird, and the dark-haired, grey-eyed girl, and nothing else counted, nothing mattered, not the hungry growl in his stomach when he forgot to eat, nor the nagging ache in his head from the sun and ceaseless looking, and when, just after noon he checked in with the police on Sugarloaf Key, he didn’t know that he was less than two hours behind Lally and Hugo, though for all the good that was, they might just as well have been a thousand miles apart. But he forced down some local fish, and drank another cup of coffee, and though he tasted neither, they renewed his strength and his determination, and he got back in his car, back onto Route 1, and drove on again.

>   Key West took Hugo’s and Lally’s breath away. It shimmered in the sun, was fragrant and lush with frangipani and hibiscus and mango trees and oleanders and coconut palms, and lively and colourful with fishing boats and yachts and attractive houses and contented humanity.

  “Spanish explorers named it Cayo Hueso or island of bones,” Lally told Hugo when they arrived just after two o’clock. “They found all these human remains scattered on the shore, and no one ever discovered why they were there or who they’d belonged to, but the name stuck.”

  “Not exactly descriptive,” Hugo said, his voice softened with wonder. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything more perfect. I may never go home. Maybe we could open Hugo II here.”

  “And we could both write novels.” Lally joined in the fantasy. “You remember what Bobby Goldstein said about all those Pulitzer prizewinners.”

  “You could teach ballet here.”

  “I’m not sure Nijinsky would like the heat.”

  “It’s not all that hot.”

  “That’s because it’s only January.”

  “Oh well,” Hugo sighed. “If the cat doesn’t like it, we can’t come.”

  Chris Webber hit Key West at ten minutes past four. He parked the Mercedes in a lot in the Old Town and found, as he had in every town, the police station.

  “They’re here,” an officer at the desk told him. “Their car was spotted an hour ago.”

  “And?” Chris’s pulse-rate rose again.

  “And that’s it for now.”

  “But you said someone saw their car.”

  “Sure.”

  “So?”

  “So nothing else yet.” The police officer observed Chris’s growing flush of frustration and anger. “Mr Webber, this is a busy town with a lot of traffic, but assuming they haven’t been here too long, most people stay a while because they like it.”