Shimmer

by Hilary Norman

  Yet Claudia, changed into jeans, T-shirt and sneakers fifteen minutes later for Woody’s walk, found she did not feel safe.

  She’d had this feeling before.

  Of being watched.

  Not here, of course, but back on Bainbridge Island, all too recently, and on the mainland, too, on one occasion, in Seattle.

  There she knew now that the feeling had been all too well-founded, but there was no one watching Claudia here, she knew that perfectly well, too, unless perhaps it was a neighbour taking a look out of their window at an unfamiliar dog walker; but still, it was unsettling enough to remind her of why she’d abandoned her husband and sons to come here.

  She knew full well that she was going to have to tell Grace soon, not because her sister was inquisitive, but because she loved Claudia, and, of course, she was also a psychologist, accustomed therefore to picking her way over sensitive terrain until she struck emotional oil.

  ‘OK, Woody,’ she said to the dog. ‘Time for me to face the music.’

  Woody peed against a palm, and then he stood perfectly still, and growled.

  ‘What?’ Claudia said, the small hairs at the nape of her neck rising.

  And then she saw the ginger tomcat, sitting on the path of a house just ahead of them, staring out Woody.

  ‘Fool,’ Claudia told herself, and went on walking.

  13

  No witnesses or leads as yet.

  Nor a single clue as to where their John Doe had been slain.

  No Missing Persons reports matching his description.

  No instant miracles from the ME’s office either.

  Sam had received a text from Mildred a little while ago.

  DEAR SAMUEL, THANK YOU FOR THE PHONE. PLEASE DO

  NOT CONCERN YOURSELF ABOUT ME. YOURS, MILDRED.

  ‘She texts better than I do,’ he said, showing it to Martinez.

  ‘Maybe she had some help.’

  ‘I wouldn’t bet on it,’ Sam said. ‘Mildred’s an enigma.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean her silver dude’s our guy,’ said Martinez.

  ‘Means I’d like us to talk to him, though,’ said Sam.

  ‘You and me both,’ said his partner.

  14

  ‘I had an affair,’ Claudia told Grace, and then swiftly, desperately, added: ‘Please don’t hate me.’

  Grace stared at her. ‘I could never hate you. You know that.’

  ‘I do,’ Claudia agreed. ‘But still.’

  It was almost eleven, and they were in the den, a room often used by Grace in the past – and, she hoped, in the future – for seeing her young patients, its walls covered with their own brightly coloured paintings; though for now it, too, had a playpen and a stack of soft toys – one of which Joshua, dressed in comfy blue and white rompers, was now contentedly snuggling up to after a fine game of ‘find the rattle’ with his Aunt Claudia.

  ‘Do you want to tell me about it?’ Grace asked.

  She felt more than a little shocked, and mad at herself, too, for feeling that way, because as a psychologist, she knew she ought to know better. Except, of course, this was not a patient, this was her own sister, so she guessed she was entitled to feel a degree of shock, because Claudia had her sons to consider, and so far as Grace knew, with the possible exception that he might have railroaded his wife into relocating to Seattle, Daniel had always been a decent man, a good husband and father.

  Things change, she reminded herself.

  ‘It’s all over,’ Claudia said. ‘It was almost before it began.’

  It sounded crazily simple, as she told it. She had been at a very low ebb, low enough to be in a park on the island having a weep, when this man had stopped to ask if she needed help, and he was a stranger, but he was also kind and attractive.

  ‘So you had an affair?’ Grace could not conceal her amazement. ‘On the basis of a pick-up in a park?’

  ‘Do you want me to tell you or not?’ Claudia asked quietly. ‘Because I’m finding this very hard, and I doubt that you could disapprove of me any more than I already do myself.’

  ‘I’m not disapproving,’ Grace said, knowing that wasn’t entirely true. ‘More surprised, I guess. And of course I want you to tell me.’

  ‘There’s not much more to tell,’ Claudia said. ‘It was very brief, but also very sweet. And, in some respects, good for me.’

  ‘OK,’ Grace said, and waited for her sister to go on.

  ‘I’d been feeling so cold,’ Claudia said, ‘as if nothing could ever really warm me through again, and then suddenly there he was, and we had this connection, which I know sounds like a terrible cliché, but . . .’

  ‘Go on,’ Grace said after a moment.

  ‘I knew right away – and I told him – that it was never going to be more than that, just those moments, nothing else.’ Claudia shook her head. ‘But truly, sis, he did make that cold go away for a little while, and though I guess he was using me, in a way, I was much guiltier of that than he was, and he knew that and he was OK with it, he was very kind to me about it.’

  ‘Do you want to tell me his name?’ Grace’s first shock had given way now to a strange kind of intrigue.

  ‘Kevin,’ Claudia said. ‘He’s from Australia.’ She looked into her sister’s blue eyes for an instant, found the even gaze too hard to cope with, looked away again. ‘Do you mind if I don’t tell you any more about him than that?’

  Grace found that she did mind, because it seemed to emphasize the distance that had opened up between them over time. ‘It’s up to you how much you want to share.’

  The door opened a little wider, and Woody came into the room and settled with a soft grunt of contentment on the rug beside the playpen.

  ‘My guilt,’ Claudia said. ‘That’s what I think I need to share most.’

  ‘From my point of view,’ Grace said, slowly, ‘what I’d like you to feel able to share with me is why you were feeling so cold in the first place.’

  ‘Loneliness,’ Claudia said. ‘Silly bitch that I am, with a good husband and two great kids, I still felt alone. Isolated, you know?’

  ‘Sure,’ Grace said. ‘At least, I can imagine.’

  And was, for about the millionth time, keenly aware of her own great good fortune.

  15

  Cal had emerged, relieved to be outside even if it was daytime, not his time, but beggars couldn’t be choosers – which was not really true, it seemed to him, because panhandlers and street people seemed to have plenty of choice, seemed to have almost unlimited freedom in this great land, which was a damned sight more than he had right now.

  Dangerous enough to be outside at all, but he needed food, and he’d bought a Herald and a bagel with cream cheese and a pint of Seagram’s and a gallon of water and just a pint of milk because of the heat, and some apples and two Hershey bars and a big bag of Cheetos and some tall kitchen bags for trash. It was too goddamned hot for him, and he resented being forced to come out at this time because too much sun often made him feel nauseous.

  Still, he’d decided he was going to take a little stroll along the beach, might as well now he was out, and it wasn’t so bad, wandering over the sand like some aimless tourist, his sneakers dangling from one hand, his shopping in the other, but now he was moving past the piece of beach that he knew, from the Channel 7 News, was where the rowboat had been hauled ashore by the swimmer, and which he hoped to hell was still the closest the cops had to an actual crime scene.

  There were plenty of people around, the rowboat long gone, of course, and all the tape too, and the cops. And Cal guessed he ought to feel relieved by that, by the reassuringly swift eradication of the human drama, yet instead he felt a pang of disappointment, as if he’d been cheated.

  He’d expected a little more . . . something.

  No one so much as glancing his way, either, which was no real surprise since he guessed he looked like a regular guy walking on the beach today; no make-up, no gorgeous shimmer, and anyway, this was not his time, these people
were not his kind, neither as playmates nor prey.

  He spotted a pair of uniforms on the horizon, heading his way.

  Cops.

  Time to go back to the hole.

  16

  ‘How much does Dan know?’ Grace asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ Claudia said.

  ‘OK.’ Grace’s mind spun, trying to stay steady and, most of all, non-judgemental. ‘But you’re here.’

  ‘Because I’m a coward.’

  ‘No, you’re not,’ Grace said. ‘Or you never have been.’

  ‘It gets worse,’ Claudia said.

  Grace waited.

  ‘I’m being blackmailed.’

  ‘My God.’ Now Grace was openly horrified.

  Joshua was still in his playpen, occupied now with a soft ball. These past few disturbed nights aside, he was such a good, undemanding little boy, for whom Grace was as endlessly and passionately grateful as she was for Sam.

  As she’d believed Claudia was for Daniel and their boys.

  ‘Someone saw us in the park,’ her sister went on, ‘and took photographs. Of me kissing Kevin.’

  ‘Who?’ Grace’s bewilderment was growing, because this kind of thing only happened to public figures or movie stars, not to suburban wives, and who would do such a thing to Claudia, or to Daniel, come to that?

  ‘Still worse to come,’ Claudia said, ‘depending on your outlook.’

  Grace waited.

  ‘The blackmailer was Jerome Cooper.’

  Grace stared, her mind floundering again. ‘Roxanne’s son?’

  Claudia nodded, the flush in her cheeks darkening. ‘Our stepbrother.’

  Grace felt suddenly as if her thinking processes had been caught up in an internal mud storm, as if this was one ingredient too many, and certainly too bizarre. She never thought of Jerome Cooper as her stepbrother – she never thought about him at all, in truth.

  Jerome Cooper. Son of Roxanne Cooper, who’d married their father back in 2000, two years after their mother’s death.

  She and Claudia had both felt relieved at the time not to receive invitations, had only found out about the marriage because someone (they’d never found out who, nor cared) had anonymously sent both sisters Xeroxes of the notice in the Melrose Park Journal, and of a wedding snap showing a middle-aged woman in a snug-fitting white suit – her only resemblance to their late mother her blonde hair, though that, Grace had felt uncharitably certain, looking at the photo, had come out of a bottle – standing between her new husband, Frank Lucca, and a grinning boy of about sixteen. After which there had been one combined Christmas and change of address card – the Luccas were still in Melrose Park, living in a street Grace thought was less than a mile from their old place – signed Roxy, Frank and Jerome, to which Claudia had reciprocated but Grace had not, and no communication since then.

  More than seven years now since they’d seen Frank.

  Grace, for one, had no regrets on that score.

  ‘How,’ she asked now, ‘could Jerome possibly know about you and this man?’

  Since to the best of her knowledge, Frank Lucca’s stepson still lived just outside Chicago, over two thousand miles from Seattle.

  ‘He must have been following me.’ Claudia paused. ‘He’d come to Bainbridge Island before.’

  ‘He had?’

  ‘He showed up on our doorstep out of nowhere last fall, looking for a hand-out.’ Claudia shook her head, remembering. ‘“I’m Jerry,” he said, “Roxy’s boy.” He has this really insincere smile.’

  ‘You never said a word to me.’ Grace was stunned.

  ‘It was right after I’d come back from visiting with you guys.’ Claudia had flown down after Joshua’s birth and stayed on for a while to help. ‘You’d all been through so much, and I didn’t want to burden you.’

  ‘And later?’ Grace said. ‘Why not tell me then?’

  She looked down into the playpen, experiencing a strong urge to pick up her son, but Joshua was perfectly content, and her sister’s need for her full attention was decidedly greater for the moment, so Grace remained on the sofa.

  ‘Because I knew it would make you mad,’ Claudia answered. ‘And I guess I wanted to put it out of my mind. Dan saw how upset I was, and said that if the guy was in a jam, we might as well give him five hundred dollars, since he was, in a sense, family, but he asked Jerome to sign a receipt, and he didn’t argue, said he was grateful and it’d be all he’d ever ask for.’

  ‘Why did he say he needed this money?’ Grace asked.

  ‘He said his mom and Frank were going through a bad time.’ Claudia paused. ‘He said he figured we owed him. You and I.’

  ‘How did he figure that?’ Grace asked, harshly.

  ‘The implication was, Daniel and I took it, that if we’d been better daughters and not run out on him and Mama, Papa might not have had to close down the store and sell the old house when he married Roxanne, and things would have been easier ever after.’

  ‘And we could have stayed home and sliced salami.’ The bitterness was still in her tone, and Grace had never known till now, nor cared, if the Lucca’s house move had been up or downscale. ‘We could have made it easier on our father because we owed him so much.’

  17

  Sam and Martinez had been in the office screening all the reports called in to the whole Miami-Dade area that might possibly relate to the killing – the time frame now estimated by Elliot Sanders as having been between midnight and four a.m. Friday, give or take.

  There had been a bunch of calls complaining about disturbances of the peace, but only two worth following up: both reporting awful screaming, both callers feeling that the screamers had sounded male. One in the Hallandale area, the other in Coconut Grove.

  ‘If the killer set the rowboat adrift near the crime scene –’ Sam had been checking stats on currents and wind and tidal flow – ‘then the Grove’s a better bet for getting washed up on South Beach.’

  ‘Coulda killed the guy up in Hallandale,’ Martinez said, ‘then found himself the rowboat further south.’

  ‘Lot of driving around with the body,’ Sam said.

  ‘Or sailing around,’ Martinez added.

  All conjecture, for now.

  But they took the Grove first.

  Which led them nowhere.

  Hallandale likewise.

  18

  ‘He came to the house last Monday morning while Dan was out, showed me a photo of me with Kevin, and told me he wanted ten thousand dollars. I told him the photo wasn’t of me, told him to get lost.’ Claudia reached down into her shoulder bag, pulled out a white envelope and withdrew a photograph. ‘But even if it isn’t the greatest shot, of course it’s me.’

  She held it out, her hand shaking.

  ‘Are you sure you want me to look?’ Grace asked.

  ‘Of course I don’t want you to look,’ Claudia said. ‘I don’t want any of it to have happened, but I’m here because I need your help, so I guess you’d better see just how low and dumb your sister can be.’

  Grace took the photograph, saw a couple in what seemed a tender embrace, thought of Daniel, a tall, angular man with kind, green, myopic eyes, who stooped a little from years of hunching over drawing boards and plans, but was still attractive and had always, Grace believed, been kind, and then forcibly pushed away that image.

  ‘I guess,’ she said, ‘you could say it wasn’t you.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Claudia said. ‘If it was the only one.’

  ‘Go on,’ Grace said, dreading what was still to come.

  ‘Jerome said he had plenty more photos, and any fool could see they were of me, and if he were me he’d think about this real hard, because it seemed to him I had a whole lot to lose, but because we were “family” he’d give me some time to think it over, but if I didn’t come through with the cash, I’d be real sorry.’

  ‘And then what happened?’

  ‘He left,’ Claudia said. ‘And I’ve spent the past five days going out of my mind,
waiting for him to come back, one moment making up my mind to tell Dan and pray he’ll forgive me, the next telling myself that would be the selfish thing to do, because it might make me feel better, but not him, and of course I know that’s hogwash, but . . .’

  ‘You’ve heard nothing more from Jerome?’ Grace asked.

  ‘That was the other thing I kept telling myself: that Jerome had changed his mind, realized it wasn’t going to be the easy money he hoped for, that maybe I would tell Dan and maybe even call the cops.’

  ‘So why did you leave?’ Grace asked. ‘How could you risk leaving when Jerome might turn up again any day?’

  ‘I couldn’t face it,’ Claudia said. ‘I couldn’t face Dan.’ Her brown eyes sparkled with sudden tears. ‘I couldn’t go on lying every minute I was with him.’

  ‘So what did you tell him about going away?’

  ‘I told him that you were still having a bad time with baby blues, and I wanted to come see you, help out for a while.’

  For the first time, Grace felt real anger at her sister. ‘I’m over that, Claudia, and you know it, and I imagine you’ve told Daniel as much. I’m on the verge of starting to see patients again.’

  ‘I had to tell him something,’ Claudia said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Grace saw despair in her eyes, and her anger dissipated. ‘I still don’t see how you can risk Jerome showing up when you’re not even there. I don’t get it, sis.’

  ‘Me neither,’ Claudia said, wretchedly. ‘But then, I don’t really get what happened in the first place, with Kevin.’

  ‘I’m not sure that’s quite true,’ Grace said. ‘You said you were at a low ebb, said you’d been feeling “cold”, said—’

  ‘Please,’ Claudia said, quickly, ‘don’t be scornful. I don’t think I can cope with that.’

  ‘How do you think Daniel’s going to cope,’ Grace said quietly, ‘if he sees the photos? When he realizes you lied to him about coming here, that you were escaping, running away.’

  ‘You make it sound as if I want to hurt him.’