by Jan Burke
“Philip Lefebvre. I’m a detective with the Las Piernas Police Department.”
Seth wiped at his tears. Lefebvre reached for a tissue, to help the boy dry his face, but Seth tapped at Lefebvre’s hand in some urgency.
Seth covered his left eye, mouthing something.
Lefebvre moved to a nearby cupboard and took out a board a speech therapist had left. It had large letters, numbers, and a few short phrases on it — an aid for communicating with patients who could not speak after surgery.
“You tap my other hand when I’m pointing at the correct letter,” Lefebvre said.
He began slowly tracing his hand over the alphabet, almost Ouija-board style. When he reached the “P,” Seth tapped.
“First letter, p.”
Seth touched the word “yes” on the board, then put his hand back on Lefebvre’s, eager to proceed.
Slowly but surely, working together, they spelled out a word. P-I-R-A-T-E.
Lefebvre stared at him a moment. “You were attacked by a pirate?”
Awkwardly, Seth moved a bandaged hand to “yes” on the board. Seeing Lefebvre’s incredulous look, he covered his left eye again.
“My God,” Lefebvre said, suddenly realizing what Seth was saying. “You were attacked by a man wearing an eye patch?”
Seth’s relief at Lefebvre’s understanding was visible.
“A patch over his left eye?”
Yes.
“You’re certain?”
Another yes.
Working patiently, Lefebvre focused on getting a description of the man, and gradually one developed. A white male, medium build, dark hair and clothing. Seth was unsure of his attacker’s age, but thought he was around Lefebvre’s age — maybe a little younger or older. Seth indicated that he had seen the man for only a few moments, but believed his father may have known him.
From the moment the eye patch was mentioned, Lefebvre suspected that Dane was the killer. None of the other elements of the description changed that suspicion. He knew that more evidence would be needed to bring Dane to trial, but for once, the police might have enough to get a search warrant.
He needed to establish a time frame. He knew that when he had arrived at the yacht, neither Trent Randolph nor Amanda had been dead for long. The coroner’s report had confirmed that impression. He also believed that the killer had struck quickly and had not lingered aboard the Amanda. There were several indications of this — the attacker had not herded his victims belowdecks; bloodstain patterns showed that while Amanda died belowdecks, she and her father had been attacked above. There were no signs that anyone had been restrained, and except for damage to the door of the head, no signs of prolonged struggle or resistance. The killer had been in and out, not staying around to rob the victims or to steal any of the yacht’s equipment.
Again working with the board, he asked about the time of the attack. Seth thought it had been between eleven forty-five and midnight. Lefebvre remembered that a witness had heard a big-engined powerboat in that section of the marina at about that time. Carefully structuring his questions, he learned from Seth that the man who had attacked the Randolph family came aboard from another boat. A powerboat.
“Did you see the name of the boat?”
No. He looked away.
“Don’t worry, Seth. What you’ve told me tonight is very helpful. I think we can catch the man who did this.”
Seth looked at him uncertainly.
“Yes, I mean it,” he said. He was not just comforting the boy. Seth had already been more useful than many other crime victims would have been under far less traumatic circumstances.
He saw the boy was tiring, but ventured one more question. “Do you know how to use a computer?”
Yes, Seth answered, but held up his bandaged hands.
“The speech therapist and your mother want to get you one that will let you communicate without using your fingers to type — they can wire these computers now so that they will read movement from muscles in your arm, for example. We can deal with that later — for now, just concentrate on getting stronger, all right? We’ll talk again when you’ve had a little more rest.”
Seth looked toward the chair where Lefebvre had been sitting, then anxiously back at the detective.
“I’m not going anywhere, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Seth mouthed the word “thanks,” then closed his eyes.
When he was sure Seth was sleeping soundly, Lefebvre called Elena Rosario.
“Are they still watching Whitey Dane’s boat?”
“Yes. And Whitey, too.”
“Has he been anywhere near the Cygnet in the last few days?”
“No.”
“Do we know what time it came into the Downtown Marina that night?”
“No, but I could ask around. Maybe one of the live-aboards will remember. You working again?”
“Sort of. Listen — I think Dane just became our prime suspect in the Randolph case.”
“What?” she asked, startled.
“Seth woke up. I asked a few questions.”
“And you got a mute witness to talk to you.”
“Yes. Come by and I’ll tell you all about it.”
A search warrant was issued, and although the Cygnet didn’t look as lovely when they finished, the crime scene unit found crucial evidence there. Whitey Dane protested that he had not been aboard the boat for days, that he never took it to the Downtown Marina, that it must have been stolen from the Marina South. While the boat had been made to look as if it had been hot-wired, the police didn’t buy his story. The boat was not far from its home, and none of its expensive gear had been taken.
The decks had been washed, but luminol tests showed bloody footprints. And although the weapon was not found, a pair of bloodstained deck shoes were discovered hidden in a footlocker. An uncommon and expensive brand of deck shoes, of a style which exactly matched — as surveillance photos showed — those worn by Whitey Dane on several occasions. Careful collection of trace evidence in the locker and shoes yielded small amounts of hair and fiber evidence as well.
Whitey Dane was arrested for the murders of Trent and Amanda Randolph and the attempted murder of Seth Randolph. The D.A. wanted him held without bail, but the defense argued that he had no criminal record, that he had business interests in the community, and that there were indications that the boat had indeed been stolen. Judge Lewis Kerr, in a move some considered uncharacteristically harsh, set bail at two million dollars. Dane made bail in less than twenty-four hours.
5
Thursday, June 21, 2:00 P.M.
Las Piernas General Hospital
The room was too crowded, and the camera lights made it overly bright and warm. Lefebvre wanted the television news crews to leave. He wanted everyone to leave. But Tory Randolph was holding court, charming the press, the captain, the members of the police commission, and the others.
He was especially uncomfortable to see Polly Logan here. The platinum blond television news reporter always managed to get herself assigned to stories about his cases. He had thought it was coincidence until she had asked him out. He had politely refused, and although she had never asked again, when she showed up to cover stories now, he often found her glancing his way, directing a camera operator to shoot footage of him, and positioning herself as close as possible to him — to an extent that gave him the creeps. She often muttered catty remarks about Irene Kelly of the Express, perhaps jealous of Irene’s closeness to him. His friendship with Irene would never be understood by someone like Polly, he knew — like many of his coworkers, Ms. Logan suspected they were more than friends.
As if his thoughts had tapped her on the shoulder, Polly Logan turned to look at him. She smiled. He nodded, then looked away. He watched Irene, who seemed tired today. Her father was ill — cancer — and she was caring for him. She did not play the martyr about this, as some might have. He tried to picture Polly Logan or Tory Randolph bearing such a burden so quietly, and
could not imagine it.
Most of the other members of the media were captivated by the Tory Show, as he had started to think of this press conference. When the reporters realized that Seth still couldn’t speak, they had focused on his surviving parent, camera operators dutifully recording her as she starred in the role of concerned mother — a beautiful, tragic figure, hovering over Seth, making statements about the credit due to her brave boy, who had helped police capture the man who had killed her daughter and her husband.
“Ex-husband, correct?” Irene asked. Lefebvre suppressed an urge to smile.
Tory said — with a little catch in her voice, and lifting a tissue to a dry eye — that divorce was just a legal term, but in her heart she had never stopped loving Trent Randolph and considered herself a widow. She continued her planned speech, ending by skillfully reminding the assembled reporters that her son, heir to the Randolph Chemicals fortune, would become one of the wealthiest young men in Southern California when he reached his majority. He could almost feel her distress whenever Polly asked her camera operator to get a shot of anyone else, especially him.
Lefebvre despised Tory, but over the last three weeks he had carefully hidden that. He had not been so successful at hiding it from Seth, who he thought sensed it and sympathized with him. Seth, he had come to realize, was an excellent observer. Lefebvre was the person most often in his company, and Seth hadn’t hesitated to study him, picking up on nuances of his behavior to a degree that was at times unnerving to the detective, who was much more used to being observer than observed.
The formal portion of the conference ended, but Polly Logan and some of the others asked Tory to pose with the newly appointed Homicide Division captain — Captain Bredloe — as well as the members of the police commission.
The doctors and a few reporters left, but there was still a crowd in the room. Most were from the PD — Willis and two other lieutenants, as well as a few uniforms, a couple of guys from the crime lab, and several detectives — including Hitch and Rosario.
Something was happening between him and Rosario, he admitted to himself. Not surprisingly, Seth had picked up on that, too. Now proficient at utilizing the special equipment that allowed him to type on the computer without using his fingers, Seth had urged Lefebvre to ask her out. Maybe he would. He was not living here, in Seth’s room, as he had during those first two weeks, but he still spent many hours at a time at the young man’s bedside. He found he rarely thought of Seth as a boy now, although just this moment, while others laughed and talked around him without actually talking to him, Lefebvre thought he looked more fragile than usual.
Lefebvre had done his best to stay in the background during this press conference, but in recent days the media had made much of his role in the rescue of Seth and in the case against Whitey Dane. Some of his coworkers resented it, made a play on the sound of his name and called him “The Fave” — not in a complimentary way. Their resentment made some aspects of his work difficult, but otherwise, it didn’t bother him much. Others from the department, people who would not normally have had much to do with him, now sought him out. Most of that was, he knew, strictly political — a desire to be seen with the golden boy of the moment — and all of it sickened him.
Turning his back on them, he moved toward Seth, who was clearly wearing down — Seth still tired easily, a result, the doctors said, of having lost so much blood on the night of the attack. In one bandaged hand, he was cradling a rubber ball his physical therapist had given him, barely able to curl the hand around it. Even so, he weakly squeezed it, doing his best to regain strength in his fingers.
Seeing Lefebvre approach, Seth smiled. There was a knowing look in his eyes, one that said he knew Lefebvre was displeased with all the hoopla.
It was at that moment that the alarm on someone’s watch played a little tune. It was shut off almost as soon as it sounded.
Seth’s already pale face lost all color — the look in his eyes became one of sheer terror. The ball dropped to the floor. Lefebvre hurried to his side.
“Easy,” he said, but this time Seth would not be soothed. Lefebvre saw a kind of desperation in him that had not been there since his first days in the hospital — the way he looked when he awakened from nightmares. “Seth, it’s all right.”
Seth shook his head, reached out to hold on to Lefebvre.
“What’s wrong?” Tory asked. “What’s wrong with him?”
Television cameras and lights turned toward the bed, and Polly Logan repeated the question, in a less frantic tone.
Fear, Lefebvre thought. “A little too much excitement,” he said. “Perhaps it would be best if we let Seth rest.”
“Detective Lefebvre is right,” Captain Bredloe said. “We need to let the boy have a chance to recover. I’m sure everyone here understands that Seth’s health must be our first concern.”
Lefebvre’s respect for the new captain increased when Bredloe suited action to word and courteously herded almost everyone out of the room, including Polly. Irene moved a little more slowly, watching Lefebvre and Seth with open curiosity. She met Lefebvre’s eyes and seemed to realize that if she pushed to stay around now, she’d anger him — and risk losing future cooperation from him. He was glad she didn’t say anything to him as she left. It would have only increased some of the friction he was encountering in the office, and Polly would have complained about unfair access for the Express.
Rosario, under Hitch’s watchful eye, didn’t look back at Lefebvre as she left. Even Tory Randolph found herself gently escorted away on the captain’s reassuring arm.
Lefebvre reached up, smoothing Seth’s hair in a calming gesture. “Better now?”
Seth still seemed frightened, but he nodded, turning to the computer. Lefebvre moved to read the screen:
He was here just now. In this room.
“Who?”
The killer.
“Whitey Dane?”
Seth shook his head and typed furiously.
No. Wrong man.
Lefebvre wondered briefly if this was some sort of setback brought on by the excitement of the day, but when he looked back into Seth’s eyes, he saw the young man’s need to be believed. “Tell me more,” he said.
Seth looked relieved and began typing again:
Doremi.
6
Thursday, June 21, 8:30 P.M.
Las Piernas General Hospital
Lefebvre paused, making sure Seth was sound asleep, then quietly stepped out of the room. The stocky guard was away from the door, chatting with the nurses down the hall. He saw Lefebvre’s fierce scowl and hurried back to his post.
“How’s he doing?” the guard asked, looking as if he wondered if Lefebvre had had all his shots.
“He’s asleep. If he awakens, Officer, you will please ask one of the nurses to let me know — a nurse, or anyone else, but you remain here at all times — understood?”
“I’ll stay right here, sir,” he said nervously. “Uh, where will you be?”
“On the patio, outside the waiting area — just over there.” He pointed to a tinted glass door at the end of the hallway. “I need a little air. I won’t be long.”
As he stepped out into the warm evening, he sensed movement to his left. Another door to the patio, leading to a separate corridor, swung softly shut. He walked toward it and pulled it open, but whoever had been on the patio must have moved into the nearby stairwell. He listened, heard footsteps going down the stairs, and walked back outside. He returned to the door he had used to enter the patio and looked down the hallway. The guard was still at Seth’s door, looking a little more alert than usual. Lefebvre hoped he had scared the crap out of him.
He took off his suit coat and stretched, looking into the moonlit sky, imagining how it would feel to take the Cessna up into this calm night. He had not flown since the day before the Randolph murders. Perhaps when Seth had recovered, he would take him flying.
He sighed, chiding himself for the thought. He wa
s too emotionally involved in this case. That involvement began the moment he reached through that door on the yacht and felt Seth’s pulse. No — a little later, when he held Seth, and perhaps in some small way helped him to live, as he had not been able to help another boy…
But that was a long time ago, he scolded himself, and nothing could be changed by thinking about it.
Honest with himself about his own weaknesses, he had tried to stay away from most of the investigative work of the Randolph case, to involve others. But today — what Seth had told him today had shattered the delicate balance he had worked out between his protectiveness of Seth and his obligations to the department.
He heard a door open and turned to see Elena walking toward him.
“Phil? Is Seth all right?”
“Yes. He’s sleeping. Did you come to see him?”
She hesitated, then said, “Both of you. I worried about him this afternoon, but knew he would be all right if you stayed. I wanted to stay, too, but Hitch…”
“Hitch is worried that his partner spends too much time with Lefebvre and always watches how she acts around him now.”
“Yes, I thought you had probably picked up on that.” She moved closer, standing a few inches from him, at his side. She did not touch him, but he felt his skin warm at her nearness. It would be easy to touch her, so simple to lean a little closer.
“Seth has picked up on it, too,” he said, moving a little farther away.
“Seth?”
“Yes, but I think little escapes Seth.”
“Little concerning you.”
He shrugged.
“Are you sure he knows?”
“Knows what?” he asked, angry with himself for letting this conversation begin, let alone reach this point.
She was silent.
Lefebvre, you are an asshole, he told himself.
She began to walk away and he heard himself say, “Have you eaten?”
He took her to the Prop Room.
The place was crowded. “I’ve never been here before,” she said, looking around at the various airplane paraphernalia that covered the walls — including the propeller mounted on the wall behind the bar.