Last Run

by Hilary Norman

  ‘Gracie.’ Sam was out of his own chair and on his knees, taking her in his arms. ‘Don’t do this to yourself. You did your best, like you always do, with all your patients.’ He prised her hands from her face, and looked at her. ‘This must be the hardest thing in the world for you.’

  ‘Forget me.’ She pulled one hand free and rubbed fiercely at her eyes. ‘That poor, poor boy.’

  ‘And his poor, poor parents.’

  She shook her head, brought herself back under control. ‘Jay asked me some questions about those last two sessions, and I had so few answers for him, but I could see, anyway, that he was afraid of hearing them.’

  ‘Afraid maybe,’ Sam said, ‘of being shown what he thinks he should have seen for himself.’ He looked up at the darkening sky. ‘Ultimate failure, for a father.’

  Sampson’s small coffin back again in his mind, making him shudder.

  ‘Don’t.’ Grace leaned forward and put her arms around him.

  He tried to smile. ‘I won’t, if you won’t.’

  ‘Not quite that easy, is it?’ Grace said.

  ‘I don’t suppose,’ Sam said softly, ‘it’s meant to be.’

  ‘Dr Becket called,’ Lucia told Grace on Tuesday morning after a bereavement session with an eleven-year-old girl who’d recently lost her mother to cancer. ‘About Gregory.’

  Lucia had been so deeply upset yesterday morning when Grace had broken the news of Greg’s death that Grace had wanted to send her home, but Lucia had said it was out of the question, that if there was ever a day on which Grace needed all the help and support she could get, this was it.

  ‘Besides,’ she had said, ‘we owe it to Gregory, don’t we, to help the others.’

  And then she had wiped her eyes, seen the self-doubt in Grace’s face and added: ‘You do help them, Dr Lucca, you truly do.’

  Grace telephoned David as soon as she was alone.

  ‘I have nothing new,’ he told her. ‘I know the ME’s thinking along the lines we were discussing, but we’re a long way from knowing more.’

  ‘But?’ Grace paused. ‘David, I can hear there’s something.’

  ‘Only that I didn’t tell you Sunday that I’d once seen a similar thing. Came upon a patient recently passed and looking a little like – too much like – this poor boy.’

  ‘It’s all right.’ Grace felt he was trying to spare her. ‘Annie told me how he looked.’

  David sighed. ‘Poor lady.’

  ‘So what was it, with your other patient?’

  ‘It might not be the same,’ he cautioned.

  ‘David, please just tell me.’

  ‘In that case, it was strychnine poisoning.’

  ‘Strychnine.’ Grace was horrified. ‘Oh my God.’

  ‘Heroin cut with rat poison. His last fix.’

  ‘You think Gregory was using heroin?’

  ‘I don’t know what he was using yet,’ David said. ‘And we don’t want to jump to any conclusions, but I gather that even the notion that this kind of deadly stuff might be out there has jolted the ME.’

  ‘Enough to speed up the job?’ Grace asked.

  ‘Of course,’ David said. ‘We’d be looking at a homicide, after all, not to mention other lives at risk. They’ll be working flat out on blood and examining liver and kidney samples, and I’m told there was some residue on the glassine bag I saw, which might help some. But you’ll know from Sam these things take time, and there’s no reason for anyone to keep me posted, by the way.’

  ‘Oh my God.’ It all began to weigh in on Grace again. ‘That poor, lovely boy, and his poor family.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ David said.

  ‘Are you all right, doctor?’ Lucia asked an hour later.

  Grace told her she was, went on trying to read case notes on her patient due at eleven. All a fuzz. Words on printed sheets about an eight-year-old boy suffering flashbacks a year after his family home had been destroyed by fire.

  Concentrate.

  An unbreakable rule among all responsible therapists: one patient at a time, each of equal importance. But Gregory, that lovely, frightened boy, was dead. Which meant, of course, that Grace could do no more for him, that what she needed to do, as Lucia had said earlier, was force herself to focus on this living child, to do everything in her power to help him.

  But still, the words in those notes kept blurring.

  Strychnine.

  And if not that, then something taken by Gregory noxious enough, lethal enough to end his life in the most terrible way. Clearly the ME feared there might be more on the streets, and taking that line of thought further was horrifying – vulnerable men, women and kids at mortal risk, perhaps a rash of deaths or close calls that might be coming to the attention of the police, maybe even Sam’s department.

  The other possibility. Even more unthinkable, from Grace’s standpoint, certainly more unbearable from the Hoffman family’s.

  Grace gave up, and set the notes aside.

  If this was strychnine . . . If this was a one-off.

  That would make it personal.

  Saul woke up in Terri’s double bed a little before midnight on Wednesday night and found he was alone again.

  It kept happening.

  He pulled on some shorts, found her on the floor in her tiny living room, wearing the T-shirt she’d tugged over his head a couple of hours back, looking sexy as hell as usual, but engrossed in files of papers.

  He knew, without looking, what she was doing, because she’d been doing little else for the past couple of weeks: poring over every crumb of information she had managed to glean about the Muller and Sanchez killings, building her own case files; even sitting waiting for him outside his house in her Miami Beach PD car, listening to the police dispatchers on the radio, reluctant to miss a trick.

  ‘For God’s sake, Teté,’ he said. ‘Not again.’

  Terri looked up. ‘Hi, baby.’ She saw his face. ‘Please don’t get mad.’

  ‘I’m not mad.’ Saul sat on the rug beside her. ‘More worried.’

  ‘No need to worry about me.’

  ‘Every need.’ Saul looked over her shoulder. ‘You’re getting obsessed.’

  ‘Don’t say that,’ Terri said sharply.

  ‘I wouldn’t have to if you’d stop reading that stuff.’

  She slammed the files shut, got to her feet, stuck the paperwork in the canvas case on her table and glared down at him. ‘Satisfied?’

  ‘Get rid of them,’ Saul said. ‘Then I’ll be satisfied.’

  ‘What is so wrong – ’ Terri got back down on the floor beside him – ‘with me wanting to learn more about my work?’

  ‘It’s not your work, Teté,’ Saul said, flatly. ‘It’s my brother’s.’

  She eyed him with disgust, and got up again. ‘Those files do not belong to your precious brother. They belong to the police department I work in too, in case you’ve forgotten.’

  ‘You work in Property.’ He was not in the mood for giving way tonight. ‘Not Violent Crimes.’

  ‘Fuck’s sake, Saul, I am getting so sick of going down this same damned road.’

  ‘Not the only one,’ Saul said, though his stomach was starting to churn, and he wished he hadn’t started down it again, wished he’d stayed in bed asleep and let her do what made her happy.

  ‘You knew I was ambitious when you met me,’ she flared. ‘You said you liked ambitious, strong women.’

  ‘I love that you’re ambitious,’ Saul said. ‘I love you, Teté.’

  ‘Maybe you do.’ Some of the anger began to melt. ‘I know you do, baby.’

  Saul heard the unspoken but hover in the air between them.

  ‘But I’m not sure you can cope with it,’ Terri said.

  ‘Because I think it’s crazy to sit up half the night working on stuff that’s nothing to do with you?’ He just couldn’t let it go. ‘I don’t want you to make yourself sick.’

  ‘What’s gonna make me sick,’ she said, ‘is you mocking my
way of working, my way of getting where I want to be.’

  ‘I’ve never mocked anything you do,’ Saul protested.

  ‘Maybe not,’ Terri said. ‘But you sure don’t understand it, and if you can’t get over this, then we’re really going to have big problems.’

  ‘Maybe we are,’ Saul said.

  And the churning in his stomach became an actual pain.

  Chapter Eleven

  August 25

  With Gregory’s body not yet released, there had been no funeral and, therefore, no conventional shiva for the Hoffman family’s relatives and friends to attend, but having caring people around at least some of the time had seemed the only thing, at present, keeping Annie and Jay from drowning. So Michael and Lynne Hoffman, Jay’s brother and sister-in-law from New York, had been keeping a table load of drinks and snacks going for the informal steady stream of shocked, caring visitors, most arriving with offerings of food.

  Annie and Jay had all but ceased to eat.

  People cajoled them with kind, well-intentioned, idiotic words: ‘Gregory wouldn’t want you to starve yourselves.’; ‘You’ll feel better if you eat.’; ‘You have to stay strong, for Janie’s sake.’

  Annie and Jay could see a measure of sense in the last argument, though Annie had already concluded that if she had been a mother worth having, her son would never have needed drugs and would now be happy and alive.

  Still, Janie was everything now, and their total self-destruction would be outright cruelty to her, and people kept on thrusting food at them, so to keep themselves alive and fob off their well-meaning friends they nibbled at the corners of crackers, drank endless cups of coffee and tea, forced down occasional mouthfuls of soup; and Jay poured himself too many J&Bs, and Annie hid in a corner of the kitchen and drank watered down white wine, and Michael and Lynne followed them anxiously around when either of them picked up their little girl and clutched her close, in case they dropped her.

  Grace and Sam went to call on Thursday afternoon.

  Jay and Annie both looked like shadows, and little Janie’s confusion was painfully evident; one minute being removed from her parents by relatives so that she could play quietly out of sight, the next being carried around by her mother or father, gripped so tightly by Annie, at one point, that Janie cried out.

  ‘Bad scene,’ Sam said quietly.

  ‘The worst,’ Grace agreed.

  The young people helped a little, a handful, she assumed, of Gregory’s friends, speaking uncomfortably to his parents and in low voices to one another, but now and again forgetting propriety, raising their voices to more natural, youthful levels. When they laughed, from time to time, they looked around guiltily and Grace felt for them, understanding the impact of this early collision with grief.

  She had just used the powder room and was walking back through the hallway towards the living room when she overheard two of the teenagers talking in hushed voices, heads together.

  ‘He was on the beach, man, night of the murder, he was there.’

  Grace stopped, stood still.

  ‘Ryan, for God’s sake, you have to stop freaking out.’

  ‘I can’t stop.’

  Grace tried not to stare, to keep her stance casual. The boy who’d spoken first, the one named Ryan, the one so clearly scared, was tall and broad-shouldered but with a round, fresh face that marked him as being somewhere near Gregory’s age.

  ‘He OD’d, man.’ The other boy, a head shorter, skinny and red-haired with acne, took Ryan’s arm, tried to draw him away. ‘Bad luck, nothing more to it.’

  For a moment or two, Grace wasn’t certain what had chilled her more, the reference to the murder on the beach or hearing a teenager dismiss a drugs overdose as if it were a commonplace accident.

  ‘He was on the beach.’

  Dear God.

  She waited a little while, saw that Sam was occupied in conversation with Jay and his brother, Annie nowhere to be seen, perhaps in hiding, seeking brief respite, probably finding none.

  The tall, fresh-faced teenager went out on to the deck alone. Grace seized the moment and followed.

  ‘Ryan?’

  He turned. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m Dr Grace Lucca, and I’m sorry to intrude.’

  ‘No problem,’ Ryan said.

  ‘Could we talk for a moment?’ Grace took a couple of steps closer to the water, away from the house, and the young man followed, frowning now, mystified.

  ‘I owe you an apology.’ She kept her voice low. ‘But I really couldn’t help overhearing your conversation with your friend a few minutes ago.’

  Ryan’s eyes, darting past her, sought escape.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Grace told him. ‘You’re not in any trouble, but it’s clear you’re very concerned about Greg’s death.’

  ‘Who isn’t?’ Ryan said defensively.

  ‘Not everyone,’ she said, still quietly, ‘knows that Greg might have witnessed a murder.’ She saw his alarm. ‘Truly, Ryan, it’s OK. I just want to help, if I can.’

  ‘There’s nothing to help with,’ he said.

  ‘I think there is,’ Grace said. ‘Though I have to tell you, if you choose not to explain to me what you were talking about back inside, I’ll have to consider suggesting that the cops ask you some serious questions.’

  ‘It’s not that big a deal.’ Ryan’s cheeks were hot now, and again his eyes scanned the doorway and room behind her. ‘But if my mom and dad find out – ’ his voice was barely more than a whisper – ‘that I had anything to do with the kind of stuff Greg was into, they’ll kill me.’

  ‘Your parents may not need to find that out,’ Grace said, ‘though I’m not in a position to guarantee that.’ She shook her head. ‘But you have to realize that if you have any information that might make a difference to the investigation into Gregory’s death, you have to share it.’

  ‘Oh God,’ the teenager said, ‘this is just not fair.’

  ‘I know.’ Sympathetic, but matter-of-fact. ‘But I gather Greg was a friend?’

  ‘Sure.’ Ryan looked at her properly for the first time. ‘Did you say you’re a doctor?’

  ‘I’m also a friend of Greg’s parents.’ Grace’s smile was gentle. ‘Ryan, please.’

  ‘OK.’ He sighed. ‘It’s just that Greg used to smoke dope, you know?’

  ‘I do know,’ Grace said.

  A middle-aged couple came out of the house and Ryan waited as they stood for a few moments looking out over the bay, then shook their heads sadly, turned back and went inside again.

  ‘Go on,’ Grace told Ryan. ‘You were talking about Greg smoking dope.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ He motioned to her to move with him even farther from the glass doors, closer to the edge. ‘But a while back,’ he said softly, ‘he got into coke. I warned him about it – not just me, a couple of the other guys, we all told him to keep off – I mean, we all knew how much shit – excuse me – how much trouble he’d already had.’

  ‘Just tell me, Ryan.’

  ‘But Greg wouldn’t listen, he just got so into stuff, you know, he couldn’t stop. And what he’d do, he’d go out late at night, real late, after his parents were asleep, and he’d take his bike and go a good long way from home and do – you know – and then he’d maybe sleep it off on the beach or go swimming, and then he’d go home again.’

  ‘So what was it that happened on the night of the murder?’ Grace thought she detected relief in the young man, finally able to unburden himself. ‘I take it you meant the killing on the beach near Surfside?’

  ‘The Muller guy.’ Ryan nodded. ‘The thing was, I saw Greg next day and he was just so weird, you know – I mean really freaked out – and he wouldn’t tell me why, wouldn’t tell any of us. But that was the day after the guy had gotten killed, and I know Greg used to cycle down that way, near the park, because he liked that the trees were there to cover him while he . . .’

  ‘Right,’ Grace said.

  ‘So I’ve just been wondering, y
ou know.’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘He was just so upset, and now he’s . . .’

  Ryan turned away, and Grace thought he was trying not to weep.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said.

  ‘Except it’s not, is it?’ he said.

  ‘No,’ she agreed. ‘It’s not.’

  He turned back, his eyes red, their expression urgent. ‘But you see I wasn’t there, doc, so there’s no point you giving my name to the cops, is there? Because I can’t really tell them anything for sure, can I?’

  ‘OK.’ Grace waited a beat. ‘Ryan, there’s just one person I am going to mention this to and that’s my husband, because he’s a Miami Beach detective—’

  ‘Oh God.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ she tried reassuring him again. ‘But he’s actually investigating the Muller killing, which means he really does need to hear this.’

  ‘But there’s nothing to hear,’ Ryan pleaded.

  ‘Probably not.’ Grace laid a gentle hand on his forearm. ‘But even if Detective Becket does want to ask you a few questions, Ryan, you have nothing to worry about.’ She paused. ‘Unless you know where Greg was getting his drugs from.’

  ‘No,’ Ryan said quickly. ‘ No.’

  ‘OK,’ Grace said gently. ‘That’s all right then.’

  Chapter Twelve

  Sales personnel in clothing stores were accustomed to all kinds of sights. Fat men and women trying to squeeze their big behinds into tight jeans. Flat-chested girls hiking up their tiny titties inside Wonderbras. Old women trying on shell suits, old men climbing into Speedos. The more experienced of them knew better than to laugh or even smile, were conscious that the smallest flicker of mockery would not only upset the customer, but also, much more important, lose them the sale.

  Maria Rivera prided herself on being an excellent saleswoman, something she measured not only in transactions, but by the fact that her customers felt she cared about selling them the right clothes and tended, therefore, to come back to her. Maria knew that there were times you needed to lie, or at least to conceal the absolute truth, but there were also occasions when allowing a customer to leave the store with a garment that was going to make them look ridiculous was, so far as Maria was concerned, a real disservice. She liked seeing a perfect or at least a good fit, derived pleasure from seeing clientele becoming more attractive because of the clothes they were trying on.