Last Run

by Hilary Norman

  No wood fragments had been found in the mess of Rudolph Muller’s smashed face, and Dr Sanders had made no mention of either oil or alcohol.

  ‘Doesn’t mean it was or wasn’t the same bat,’ the doctor had said when Sam had called him to double check. ‘Could mean the killer noticed a chip and rubbed it down and cleaned it before the next assault. Could also mean, as I said, that it wasn’t a baseball bat at all.’

  ‘Or just another bat that wasn’t taken care of,’ Sam said.

  ‘Like my oldest boy’s,’ Sanders said. ‘Never seen so much as a drop of linseed oil since we bought it for him.’

  The cutting blade of whatever instrument had been used to slice off Mrs Sanchez’s lips had, the Broward County ME felt, been fine and sharp, but was, she had thought, more likely to have been a sharp kitchen knife than, say, a cutthroat razor. Sanders had hazarded at a kitchen knife in the Muller case too, but with no telltale markings or striations in the throat wound, he had been unable to be any more specific than that.

  ‘No sense looking in people’s kitchens then,’ Martinez said. ‘Find a suspect with a bloodstained bat and we got our killer.’

  ‘Piece of cake,’ said Sam dryly.

  By Saturday afternoon, the Miami Beach investigation team had completed their first round of routine tasks, including the painstaking, frustrating area and door-to-door canvassing of the big apartment blocks overlooking the beach where Muller’s body had been found. There still, as usual, remained a considerable number of residences for detectives to return to, perhaps repeatedly, until they found the occupants at home; and being Miami Beach, more than a few apartments might have been occupied by summer visitors, who had now departed.

  Add to that the fact that those few people likely to have been wandering along the beach at that time of night might be reluctant to come forward, either because they had been up to no good, or out of it on drink or drugs, or maybe there might have been kids who’d sneaked out of hotels or apartments without their parents’ permission. Not to mention that most people in their bedrooms in August would have been unlikely to have heard any unusual noise, most having their air conditioners switched on, windows and balcony doors closed, televisions turned on or just plain, old-fashioned asleep.

  Muller’s brother and mother had arrived from Pennsylvania on Thursday, both shattered, neither having been in close enough contact lately with the murdered man to be able to offer much insight; and neither his friends – mostly members of the Harding Avenue Gym, where he was a regular – nor his co-workers at Trent had been able to supply any information about enemies or serious problems in Muller’s life.

  ‘No bad stuff going on in Mrs Sanchez’s life, either,’ Sam said as he mulled over things again with Martinez in the office.

  ‘That supposed to be a big coincidence?’ Martinez was in a negative mood.

  ‘And we still got the weird screams.’ Sam ignored the grouchiness. ‘In both killings.’

  Martinez shrugged, his personal belief that the sounds had come from the victims.

  ‘ “Like an animal,” ’ Sam quoted again.

  ‘You still think it was the perp screaming?’

  ‘Why not?’ Sam said.

  ‘Because it would have been like a fucking commercial for what he was doing.’

  ‘Plenty of crazy people,’ Sam said.

  ‘We’re getting no place, man,’ Martinez said.

  ‘No place at all,’ Sam agreed.

  ‘I can’t get past this thing with Sam,’ Terri said to Saul on Saturday evening as they waited for their Middle Eastern platter at the News Café.

  Saul, just raising his glass of white wine, put it down.

  ‘Don’t get all ticked off,’ Terri said. ‘You know it’s true.’

  ‘It is completely untrue,’ Saul said, ‘and if I am ticked off, it’s just because I thought we’d already dealt with all that.’

  They’d argued about it last night. Terri had concluded, after Sam’s response to her probing about the two homicides, that he hated her. Saul had told her she was exaggerating, that she might have had cause to be a little put out, but it had only been a moment, had been nothing. Teté had told him it had most definitely not been nothing, that she had felt humiliated and that only someone who really disliked another person would do that to them.

  ‘Sam does not dislike you,’ he’d told her. ‘He thinks you’re beautiful and smart.’

  ‘He hates that you’re dating a cop,’ she had said.

  Saul had found that harder to deny, and then Terri had told him that Sam made it impossible for her to feel comfortable around his family, and after that it had got out of hand and Saul hated fighting with Teté or, even worse, finding himself caught between the woman and brother he adored.

  Sex had saved the night, and to say that Teresa Suarez was still the best lover Saul had known would have been the understatement of the decade. The fact was, he would have done just about anything for her, found it endlessly amazing that a girl like Terri should want him, but she most unarguably did, and Saul was deeply grateful for it.

  ‘Why shouldn’t she want you?’ his friend Hal Liebmann had once asked him. ‘You’re a decent looking guy, and you’re going to be a doctor.’

  ‘I’m a student, still sharing a place with my dad.’

  ‘From what you’ve told me,’ Hal had said, ‘Terri probably envies you that.’

  Now, in the busy South Beach café, their platter arrived and for a few minutes they busied themselves with their pita and dips, though Saul’s appetite had already pretty much waned.

  ‘Please,’ he said after a while. ‘Don’t let’s have another fight.’

  ‘I don’t want to fight with you,’ she said.

  ‘Good,’ he said, relieved.

  ‘But I think you should talk with Sam.’

  He shook his head, exasperated. ‘I am not going to blow this tiny thing out of all proportion.’

  ‘Tiny thing,’ Terri repeated, coldly.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Saul said.

  He left her at the door of her apartment, on the second floor of a drab mushroom coloured building on Washington Avenue between 14th and 15th Street, waited till she was inside, then headed up Collins towards home, having decided that if the first floor lights were still on at Sam and Grace’s house, he would go in and tackle his brother.

  The lights were on. Grace was upstairs having a bath. Cathy was out. Sam and Woody had just returned from an evening stroll.

  ‘I’m here to lay this thing about you and Terri to rest,’ Saul said.

  Sam had been anxious for an instant, seeing him on the doorstep, then pleased to have a bonus visit from his little bro.

  Pleasure over.

  ‘I’d like to think,’ he said in the kitchen, having given Saul a decaf, himself the real thing, ‘that I’m not going to have to watch every word I say to Terri, any more than I do with any of my family.’

  ‘So you don’t have to watch every word, but she does,’ Saul said accusatorily.

  Sam frowned. ‘This is because of the work questions, right?’

  ‘She was interested, so she asked a question.’ Saul had left his coffee on the table, was pacing back and forth. ‘Not such a big deal for you to have answered it, surely?’

  Sam stirred brown sugar into his espresso.

  ‘Pretty big deal, as a matter of fact,’ he said. ‘Not her case.’

  ‘Not her business, you mean,’ Saul said.

  ‘Not her place to ask.’

  Saul sat down, picked up his cup, took a sip and put it down again. ‘I don’t like seeing her this upset.’

  ‘I can understand that.’

  ‘I especially don’t like the fact that it’s my own brother who’s upset her.’

  Sam took a moment. ‘There has to be more to this than a single question I wouldn’t answer last night.’

  ‘She thinks you dislike her.’

  ‘I do not dislike her,’ Sam said. ‘You know better than that
.’

  ‘I’m not so sure.’ Saul stood up again.

  ‘Don’t fight with me,’ Sam said. ‘Especially not about something like this.’

  ‘This is important to me.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Sam said. ‘To me as well.’

  Saul looked down at him, saw the concern in his brother’s face, knew it was sincere and sat down again with a sigh.

  ‘She’s sensitive,’ he said, ‘about a lot of things.’

  ‘She comes from a troubled background,’ Sam said. ‘I didn’t know that until last night, and it’s her private business, no reason for us to know.’

  ‘Should it make a difference to the way you talk to her?’

  ‘Perhaps not,’ Sam answered, ‘but the more you get to know a person, particularly when she’s the woman your brother’s in love with, the more you can try to understand.’

  ‘You make her sound like a case.’ Saul was riled again. ‘Like one of Grace’s patients. Terri’s a great person, Sam, she doesn’t need your understanding.’

  ‘Stop being so damned prickly.’ Now Sam was growing exasperated. ‘We all went out of our way last night to make Terri feel welcome.’

  ‘Grace and Cathy certainly did,’ Saul said. ‘And Dad.’

  ‘But not me.’ Sam’s voice was quieter. ‘I disagree, Saul, but I’m sorry if you feel that way.’

  ‘I guess I don’t,’ Saul admitted. ‘Not really.’

  Sam stirred his coffee some more, then tasted it and found it less pleasing than usual, knew it had nothing to do with the beans or machine, and everything to do with the risk of falling out with Saul.

  ‘Did Terri ask you to come?’

  ‘She said she’d like me to talk to you,’ Saul said. ‘And I got mad at her.’

  Sam smiled. ‘And then you figured you’d come kick my ass.’

  ‘I guess.’ Saul’s mouth twitched in a semblance of a smile.

  ‘What can I tell you, bro?’ Sam said. ‘Love’s the best thing in the world, but sometimes it hurts like hell.’

  ‘You need – we all need – to get past this right away,’ Grace told Sam in bed early on Sunday morning. ‘Invite them to brunch, maybe.’

  ‘Might turn into a replay of Friday,’ Sam said. ‘Better to take them out.’

  Grace went to see if Cathy wanted to come along – found her on the way out for a run, with a load of study to catch up on later – made the call to Saul, found him just leaving to pick up Terri to take her to Metrozoo.

  ‘The zoo again?’ Sam raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Terri loves wild animals,’ Grace said. ‘Nothing wrong with that.’

  ‘Caged animals.’ Sam appreciated animal conservation, but tended to remember the bad old zoos, majestic big cats pacing up and down in tiny spaces behind bars and glorious birds banned from the skies.

  ‘Don’t start,’ Grace told him. ‘Saul said we were welcome to join them.’ She saw his face. ‘It’s OK. We settled on a late lunch instead.’

  ‘Sure you’re up to it?’ Sam asked. ‘You worked yesterday.’

  ‘One session,’ Grace said. ‘You know it was important.’

  ‘You’re important, too,’ Sam told her. ‘And the baby.’

  ‘One appointment, Sam, sitting down the whole time.’

  ‘Stressing about the patient,’ Sam said.

  ‘I’m not going to make a habit of it,’ Grace assured him.

  ‘I hope not,’ he said.

  ‘I guess it’s partly the incorruptibility of animals as well as their magnificence that keeps drawing me back,’ Terri said to Grace later at Ocean’s Ten in South Beach. ‘Makes a nice change from some of the humans we have to deal with.’

  ‘I’ll go with that,’ Sam agreed. ‘Though the dogs I’ve known may not have been corrupt, but they’re—’

  ‘I should think not.’ Grace wound pasta around her fork, raising her voice over the insistent thump of the background music.

  ‘But they’re certainly mercenary creatures,’ Sam went on. ‘Woody would do just about anything for a slice of ham or a tummy rub, and Harry was no different.’

  ‘Domestic animals,’ Terri said, tucking into her paella, ‘dancing to man’s tune.’

  ‘Luckily for us,’ Sam said, enjoying his swordfish.

  ‘You love dogs, Teté,’ Saul said, ‘and Woody certainly likes you.’

  ‘Woody’s a sweetheart,’ she agreed, ‘and pets are fine, but I’d rather watch an animal in the wild.’

  ‘Plenty of the two-legged variety in Miami,’ Sam said.

  ‘Cliché, bro.’ Saul poked at his Alaskan king crab.

  ‘I know.’ Sam grinned.

  ‘Did you ever consider a career in wildlife conservation, Terri?’ Grace asked.

  ‘Working in the wild was a bit of a fantasy for a while,’ Terri replied. ‘The two things that make me feel most alive are police work and being around animals, especially primates.’

  ‘So what made you choose law enforcement?’ Sam asked.

  ‘Mostly, I think,’ Terri answered, ‘my grandma’s tales about my grandfather.’

  ‘He was a Manhattan cop,’ Saul said. ‘Died in the line of duty.’

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ Sam said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘My grandmother was so proud of him.’ Terri’s expression softened. ‘She’s been gone a while now, but I guess that’s one of the things that drives me to be the best cop I can – wanting to make her proud of me too.’

  ‘Sounds like a good reason to me,’ Sam said.

  ‘Me too,’ Grace agreed.

  ‘Still, going to the zoos – even if it’s nothing compared to seeing them running free – but just getting as close as I can to those beautiful animals is the best relaxation I know.’ She looked at Saul and smiled. ‘Or did know.’

  Cathy wasn’t certain why she had not told Grace, that morning, that she was going running with Kez Flanagan. A kind of foolish embarrassment, she supposed, perhaps because she’d been feeling so nervous about it.

  She had gone on feeling that way when she’d got to the track at Trent and had seen Kez warming up, waiting for her. She was wearing vivid orange shorts, ripped up the seam on the outside of her right thigh, a black cut-down T-shirt exposing a small mauve dragonfly tattoo on her right shoulder, battered Nikes and dark, impenetrable Wileys covering her eyes. The colour of the shorts, clashing with the bottlebrush-red hair, made her look, Cathy thought, funky and amazing, and made her wish she hadn’t put on her nearly new Adidas shimmel and shorts.

  ‘Hi.’ Kez went on warming up.

  ‘Sorry I’m late,’ Cathy said.

  ‘You’re not.’ Kez glanced at her. ‘Looking good.’

  ‘Overdressed.’ Cathy felt herself blush. ‘Are you sure about running with me?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

  ‘I’ll hold you back.’

  ‘We’re not racing,’ Kez said lightly.

  Cathy set down her bag, took out her blue cotton, red-stitched Trent cap, stuck it on her head, pulling her ponytail through, and started some stretches.

  ‘I told you,’ Kez went on, ‘I think you have promise.’

  Cathy could feel her cheeks reddening again, reached back down into her bag for her own sunglasses, perhaps as much for camouflage as protection.

  ‘And to be honest,’ Kez told her, ‘I’d like the company.’

  ‘You must have a ton of people who’d run with you.’ Cathy went on with her warm-up, knowing that the other woman was ready to go.

  ‘I have people I could run with, sure,’ Kez said.

  Cathy heard a note of something beneath the briskness, looked up to try to gauge her expression, found it impossible with her eyes masked by the Wileys.

  ‘Not many I want to, though.’ Kez pulled a black baseball cap out of a pocket and put it on.

  Cathy thought for a moment that she had identified that note, then realized almost as quickly that she couldn’t be right.

  Neediness. That’s what she’d thought
she’d heard.

  Crazy.

  Cathy looked at Kez Flanagan, at her lean, narrow frame, watched her beginning to move away on to the track, swinging her arms, flexing, bouncing gently, saw the long, supple, strong yet quite thin legs common to many runners, muscles and tendons clearly definable, even in semi-repose. She remembered seeing her run at Tampa – ‘Tampa was special’, Kez had said the other day, hadn’t she? – and she remembered her supreme confidence, the respect and acclaim of her fellow Tornadoes, the applause of the spectators.

  Nothing needy about Kez.

  Running, for Cathy, had always been, at its very best, a lone experience. It was good in many ways to run with a group or be a part of a team, but her fundamental lack of self-confidence had prevented her from becoming a valuable team member, had blocked her full potential. When Cathy ran alone and unobserved, her legs felt stronger, her body indefatigable, her heart pumped blood more effectively, spread vitality around her body right down to her toes. As a lone runner, she felt like a real competitor, capable of winning, but whenever Coach Delaney had attempted to stretch her ability, the winner in Cathy had disappeared until finally the coach had all but given up.

  Running with Kez felt different.

  Watching her from a distance had been great, but running shoulder to shoulder with a fine and powerful athlete, close enough to hear the sharp, steady rasps of her breathing and feel the heat fanning out from her made everything seem more intense. Cathy could hear the pounding of Kez’s spikes in a kind of counter-rhythm to her own thump, felt as if she were almost flying, as if running was effortless.

  ‘Doing OK?’ Kez slowed them down to a jogging rest after the first quarter mile.

  ‘Great,’ Cathy panted back.

  ‘I’m going for it,’ Kez said suddenly, and broke away.

  Cathy considered for about a half second trying to go with her. No way. She watched her go, start to fly, cut loose from her running companion’s dead weight, saw the red-black-orange blurring with speed and distance, began to slow her own pace, a peculiar kind of sorrow expanding to fill her chest until, finally, she realized it was her own overexertion forcing her to stop. She doubled over, fighting to control her breathing and pulse till she could look up and pinpoint Kez again, watch the end of her solo flight while she, a lesser mortal, reduced again to third-rate, commenced her own warm-down exercises.