The Long Gray Goodbye: A Seth Halliday Novel

by Bobby Underwood

  “Oh, I don’t know!”

  “We don’t have to decide right now. When this is all over, we can drive around those places, get an idea of what it’s like. Find a place you want to call home for the rest of your life.”

  She was shaking her head negative.

  “No, Seth, a place that we want to call home. The boat can be our home away from home.” She smiled. “Plus our dog. Wait! What about Harry? I almost forgot!”

  “He can live on the boat, which would be close by. Really close by if we can find our own spot, not a marina. Walking distance. That’s what Harry would want, anyway. You can’t let a boat set, it’ll go to pot. He can keep Sweet Caroline in top condition in case we have stretches where we don’t travel for a while, like holidays. You can fix him up a room in the house, so he’d know it’s his home, too. Either way, we’ll still watch after him.”

  I thought Caroline was going to cry. We kissed and she was all but skipping as we walked back to our table.

  Sonny said, “No pie?” I shook my head sadly. We both knew we weren’t having pie until we got back to America.

  Katarina looked up and smiled. “A lovers’ tryst, so early in the day?”

  Sonny looked at his wrist in exaggerated pantomime, because he wasn’t wearing a watch. “Gone too long for that, honey,” he laughed. “Unless Seth smoked three cigarettes afterward.”

  Caroline blushed. She gave Sonny a playful tap on the back of his head as she went by and sat down. He threw his arm around her neck and kissed her on the check in apology.

  She said, “We’re going to buy a house.”

  Sonny was clearly shocked. “Really?” He looked at me. “Man, you haven’t lived on land since…” He’d been going to say, “Escobar” but caught himself. He finished with, “I can’t even remember when. So where are you guys puttin’ down the roots, Miami?”

  That got the ball rolling as we kicked ideas back and forth. Athena was watching me while she listened, making small contributions from time to time. I knew she was waiting to hear my reaction to the files, but was being patient. She had deliberately refrained from telling me everything they contained. She wanted me to go over them myself, to see if they lined up with whatever she might have spotted in them. Athea Christos was a sharp woman, and an attorney to boot.

  The file on Susan’s disappearance was thin. They had checked with authorities in Mykonos, who had gone to her home. She was not there, and had never boarded the plane in Paris she had booked for her flight there. Because there was no evidence of foul play, only a cursory search was undertaken of her home, but nothing appeared to be out of place. The fire, coming so quickly on the heels of her disappearance, destroyed any leads which might have been garnered from an appointment calendar, or files of patients — such as whether she might have been trying to help someone capable of doing her harm. A list of people that French authorities had spoken to in the neighborhood was also in the file. The most promising was a café she was known to frequent. Authorities had spoken to the owner, but came up empty.

  The only thing I could criticize was that only the café owner was spoken to, and not the waitresses, who would have been much more likely to remember the last time Susan had been there. That might have given a frame of reference for when she’d actually disappeared. Looking at the times people were questioned during the canvas, it appeared to be the final stop. Perhaps by that time they were ready to call it a wash.

  I’d looked at Holly’s file, next. It had happened a few days before Susan was reported missing. It had been ruled a suicide because there was no evidence to suggest otherwise. No fingerprints were taken to confirm identification because there were none. Propellers from a boat had shredded her fingers to mincemeat. So was the woman’s face. Teeth were not needed for identification, however, because Holly’s passport had been found in the pocket of her raincoat. The general description — height, weight, eye color, hair color — had been spot on.

  When I read it I immediately questioned how hard, if at all, anyone had looked at Holly’s death. If you’re killing yourself, why throw up your hands to protect your face? A gash in her head had apparently come from hitting the boat before entering the water. Blood had been found on the boat’s railing. But why would anyone committing suicide, looking to drown, not wait for the boat to pass before diving into the water?

  The case notes dismissed these questions because of heavy rain, suggesting she had not seen the boat. It was bullshit. A lazy cop trying to clear his caseload. The listed height of the bridge was nowhere near so great that she’d not have seen the boat, no matter how hard it was raining. Also, there was a deep cut in the woman’s abdomen inconsistent with the propeller. A notation stated that while inconsistent, it was within the realm of possibility. This suggested to me, because it was in the official file at all, that whoever examined the body had taken objection, forcing it into the report. Someone hadn’t believed Holly committed suicide.

  The attached medical report was interesting because of something crossed out among the list of personal effects. The passport was listed, and a key to Holly’s apartment near the club where she had sung; it just so happened that Susan’s office was above the club, and both were next to the café listed in Susan’s file. No canvasing had been done in Holly’s case, however, because the cop handling the case had quickly ruled it a suicide. Days later Susan had been reported missing.

  Timing was everything here. Holly had been a nobody, an unknown singer in a small club. Her album wouldn’t be out for a while. Her father was a piece of garbage, thousands of miles away, and her mother was dead. There was no one to push anyone to keep the investigation open. The case had been closed.

  Susan’s circumstance had been the opposite, but with the same end result. Her disappearance had only been high-profile because of a famous sister, much younger then. Perhaps when there was no body, no easily apparent reason to connect the women other than their secular proximity, the person working the case got annoyed that so much time was being spent looking for someone who may have taken off for their own reasons — usually a man — and had no desire to be found. The only avenue for further investigation had been destroyed in the fire above the jazz club. Without that, the cop was spinning his wheels.

  “Well,” Athea said, “what were your impressions?”

  I’d been in my own world for a while, thinking back on the files. The conversation surrounding our prospective purchase of a home had wound down while I wasn’t paying attention.

  “I think whoever’s body that is, Holly’s or Susan’s, they were murdered.” I explained my reasoning while everyone listened. Caroline and I had brought the young girl’s body aboard Sweet Caroline, but we’d all heard that tape with Holly and Susan on it — except for Athea — and had an emotional investment in finding out who had killed her. The only way to know, would be to find out why she had that tape, and who had given it to her.

  “I also think that the cops blew both cases off at some point. Susan’s simply because there was nothing to go on once her office files were torched, and Holly’s because she was a nobody at the time, and it was easy to clear as a suicide.”

  Athena nodded, telling me she had drawn the same conclusions.

  I said, “I’d also like to know whether the investigating officer crossed off something on the list of effects found on Holly’s body, or whether the Medical Examiner I’m speaking with later did. I get the impression after reading the file that he didn’t think it was suicide.”

  “How so?” Athena was alert. She’d missed that. I explained it was the inclusion of the inconsistent wound. “A cop writing something off as a wash or confirming it as one thing as opposed to another, doesn’t include contradictory evidence unless someone insists on it.”

  Athena smiled. I had earned teacher’s approval.

  She said, “Perhaps you can find out this afternoon.”

  Caroline said, “I hope so, Seth, for Laura’s sake. She deserves to know. And that girl in Ecuador
deserves justice for the terrible way she died.”

  Sonny said quietly, “There ain’t no good way to go, man, that’s for sure. But that’s gotta be one of the worst.”

  “Yeah,” I murmured, thinking about all the time that young girl had to think about dying before she finally hit the water…

  Thirty

  Maids were sprucing up the rooms when we returned. One of them was just shutting our door and flashed me a bright smile. Something struck me as odd about her. She was a redhead to begin with, and a very pretty one. Perhaps redheads aren’t an anomaly in France, but I’d had yet to see any other than this one.

  Redheads tend to get too much good press, as far as I’m concerned. I’d noticed over the years that all too often with redheads, the hair color was all they had going for them. That wasn’t the case with this one. She had a pretty face which included penetrating green eyes. She also had shapely white legs, a decidedly full bosom, and a rear end which begged to be adored on a regular basis.

  She was wearing the same uniform as the maids I’d noticed earlier, and it took me a second to pinpoint what was bothering me. It was her shoes. They were black joggers, Pumas if I wasn’t mistaken. Every other maid I’d seen in passing around the hotel had been wearing shoes similar to the kind worn by nurses because they had to be on their feet all day. It had to be part of the official uniform.

  I was bringing up the rear, with Caroline in front of me, the closest to me. Sonny almost had his hand on the door when I said in a sharp tone, “Sonny.”

  I whirled in the same instant and laid the barrel of the Glock against the back of her head as she passed. She stopped in her tracks. All that soft beautiful red hair would be a lot redder if the gun went off.

  “Who are you?”

  I heard amusement, not fear in her voice when she answered.

  “My name does not matter. There is a file on your bed, from a friend of yours, and an associate of mine.”

  I frowned. “Katarina?”

  From behind me, she answered. “I don’t recognize her, Seth, but that means nothing.” She came forward to stand next to the woman. She said something in Russian and the woman laughed and then answered her in Russian. Katrina reached up and touched the Glock very gently, pushing it away. “She’s one of Vlad’s.”

  “If I was a feminist I would resent that. But I have a soft spot for men. May I go now?”

  “I’m sorry, yes, you can go.”

  She turned to face me, still smiling. “The shoes, wasn’t it? They’re so damn comfortable I took a chance. Vlad said you were good. I should have listened.” She was still smiling as she walked away, taking her graceful and spectacular rear with her. She hollered something in Russian just before she disappeared around a corner.

  “What did she say?”

  It was Katarina’s turn to smile. “Translated, she said: ‘I know you’re looking at my ass.’”

  I laughed and Caroline playfully punched me in the shoulder.

  “I’m a professional, honey! She might have been concealing a weapon.”

  Sonny laughed. “Yeah, a weapon of mass seduction.”

  I was laughing as Katarina followed Caroline’s lead and punched Sonny in the arm. His “Ow!” told me it had been less playful than Caroline’s, or at least packed a bigger wallop.

  Inside, a drab gray folder lay on the freshly made bed. Inside the folder were two photographs. A blond-haired boy in his late teens, and his younger sister, also a blonde. The boy was stocky and muscular, like a high school lineman, but even in the photo you could discern something soft about him, something sensitive.

  The photo of the girl broke your heart, if you knew how she had ended up. I did. She was sitting on a blanket in the park. She had on a pastel green dress that had lots of lace and screamed Easter. Long blonde hair cascaded down the front of the dress. On top of her head she wore a big floppy hat the color of straw. Her legs were crossed and tucked beneath her and her hands were in her lap. She was smiling, happy to be having her picture taken; a pretty young girl about to blossom who would never spend another day in the park.

  I handed the photos to Caroline while I gleaned all I could from the file.

  The kids’ names were Brian and Cheryl Sanders. Their mother was Bess Sanders, daughter of Donald Sanders, the shipping magnate who also owned a football franchise which had won a Super Bowl a few years back. He was the clout who through the US Government had been putting pressure on the authorities in Ecuador to find his daughter’s children.

  The kids had run away during a cruise taken by the family. Their father had died and their mother had recently remarried. The stepfather was divorced by the mother immediately upon their return because of what transpired on the ship.

  Though it had all been hushed up — presumably by old Donald — the new stepfather had apparently tried it on with his pretty little stepdaughter on the cruise. Brian had heard muffled groaning coming from his little sister’s cabin and broke in on them just as the stepfather was about to ruin all of Cheryl’s childhood dreams of love. There was a tussle and the mother broke in.

  She had believed her new husband rather than her children. They bolted at the next port and hadn’t been seen since.

  That’s all there was, but at least I had photos of them now. Growing up Donald Sanders’ daughter, I doubted Bess Sanders even knew pedophiles existed outside of episodes of Law and Order. Maybe that’s why she hadn’t believed her own children. Or maybe she’d just been so into this guy that she hadn’t wanted to believe it. To her credit, once her children had run away, she woke up to the truth. But for Cheryl, it was too late. Had she thought of her mother in those final seconds before she met her long gray goodbye?

  There was a note from Krista’s father:

  I will hold back any and all information regarding the fate of the Sanders children until it is confirmed by you that the girl is indeed Cheryl, or the family is contacted by the Ecuadorian authorities. On the other front, all information has been discreetly shared, and I have been assured, as I made it a condition of our country’s discretion in this extremely sensitive matter, that all actions previously taken have now been rescinded.

  He was letting me know in the language of diplomats and politicians that Katarina was now officially safe. Orders for her termination had been retracted, stamped, RESCIND by someone sitting behind a desk in front of a big window filled with light so he could never clearly be seen. Probably an ex-KGB man longing for the old days.

  I handed the note to Katarina. She read it, then handed it back. “He didn’t mention Vlad at all, not even in a veiled reference.”

  “So, you noticed that, too?”

  “What do you think it means?”

  “I don’t know. It doesn’t have to mean Vlad’s on the outs. It could just as easily have something to do with Krista as your country.” I told her briefly about what had happened between Vlad and Krista.

  I wasn’t certain how the Senator would feel about his daughter sleeping with the enemy, even though they weren’t technically the enemy anymore. It also probably wouldn’t help that Vlad was quite a bit older. However Krista’s father felt about it, I couldn’t envision a future in it. But you took spring where you could find it in this life, and Krista definitely was that.

  I changed the subject.

  “We have an hour before we leave. Chances are Boon won’t have had time to organize another attempt, if he’ll try at all, now that we’ve been alerted. Especially if he’s calling the shots from Tena, which I suspect. He’d want to stay close to whoever he’s got.”

  “Unless both women are dead,” said Sonny.

  “It’s possible, but then I keep asking myself who would have given Cheryl that tape? I think at this juncture, we have to assume one of the two women on that tape is alive, either Laura’s sister, or Holly.”

  Sonny said, “We can tail you and make sure you’re not followed. We’ll keep watch outside while you’re in there.” He glanced at Caroline then back to me
. “Caroline should stay with us.” She looked at me to see what I thought. I nodded. It was a good idea.

  “I should be safe enough once I’m inside, but someone could set up outside and wait for me to come out.”

  I reached down and slid the Glock from its holster. I handed it to Sonny. Katrina was probably a crack shot with her little .22, but if something did go down outside, I wanted a little more firepower around Caroline.

  We took a cab to a rental agency and twenty minutes later were equipped with two of the most hideous looking vehicles I’d ever seen. As I pulled away from the rental agency, Sonny, Katarina and Caroline following me at a safe distance, I couldn’t help wondering how de Gaulle could be so terrific, and French cars be so butt-ugly.

  Thirty-One

  We weren’t followed to the office of the Chief Medical Examiner of Paris, but I hadn’t expected we would be. Sonny gave me the thumbs-up signal before I got out and headed up the walkway.

  Big trees offered shade and something nice to look at as I headed for the office. Parallel to the building a couple of young blonde French girls with great legs walked by giggling, contributing greatly to the natural beauty of Paris. One of them was wearing a pretty blue dress and pumps, the other a short black leather skirt and high black leather boots. The girls were probably sixteen or seventeen. As they crossed my path about ten feet in front of me both of them smiled. I heard “Très beau!” followed by giggles as the girl with the best legs — by only a fraction — glanced back a couple of steps later and smiled, bolder than her friend in the blue dress. They were only just beginning to realize their feminine power, testing that allure on someone more mature. I played along, blowing them an exaggerated kiss, exclaiming, “Spectaculaire!”