Last Run

by Hilary Norman

  And, of course, the continuing lack of evidence.

  That one fragment of wood in Broward’s first case – no such luck in the Rivera killing – though as Doc Sanders had said at the time of that discovery, the fact that no sliver had been found after the other assaults did not rule out the possibility of the weapon being the same.

  Not if the killer was taking good care of his weapon between attacks.

  Organized, then, if that was true. Even if the ferocity of the beatings indicated frenzy, the secondary attacks, on lips, throat and teeth, seemed, Sam thought, to point to possible premeditation. And the more he thought about it, sweated it, the more he believed they were linked. Even if Detective Rowan did not agree.

  Proving it was the problem. Not to mention finding the son-of-a-bitch behind it.

  The chief didn’t like it when this amount of time had passed without so much as a sniff of a result. Captain Hernandez didn’t like it when the chief was unhappy, and Lieutenant Kovac was grouchier than ever. None of the detectives liked having the captain or Kovac busting their chops, nor did they like failure.

  Failing themselves, but most of all, the victim.

  No one had come to learn much of great interest about Rudolph Muller, either good or bad, yet to their credit it bugged them a whole lot that an apparently honest, hard-working man with a possible weakness about his appearance, but with no rumoured major narcissism or perversion – it bugged them that a guy like that, a regular guy, should go for a run on the beach, their beach, get his face smashed in, his throat cut, and not have anyone brought to book for it. Not the kind of victim, Muller, who got cops fired up as a rule, made them line up for overtime night after night. But the Miami Beach police valued their city and were fond of their safe beaches, and they’d be damned if they were going to let some low-life scum or maniac get away with splattering the sand with blood and brains, never mind scaring off innocent people.

  So, for Muller’s sake, and, of course, his family’s: ‘Work harder, think harder, don’t give up.’ The whole unit’s motto at times like these, Sam’s in particular right now. His case, after all.

  Work harder.

  Saul had decided he needed to take some special action.

  Find a way, the right way, to make Terri understand how much she meant to him.

  He hated the idea that she could even think he might snitch on her to Sam about the photograph, about anything; hated even more that Teté seemed to feel she was much less important to him than his family.

  Lonely girl, deep down, beneath the sharpness, behind the defensiveness. Saul knew how much she still missed her grandmother, and he sensed in her sometimes the kind of envy she’d admitted to, though more often a touch of resentment of his close, loving family. If he thought about her violent father he could understand that.

  He thought, for the most part, that he understood her. Knew, without question, that he loved her, would do anything to keep her.

  Romance, for now, was his best bet. It was their greatest strength, after all, their love, their passion. Terri had three passions, of course: work, animals, and him – he hoped, still him. Fact was he only really had her.

  Which was why he’d taken a chance and made reservations for the weekend.

  He knew how much she had always wanted to drive over to the Gulf coast to visit the fifty-two acre Caribbean Gardens zoo in Naples. A big primate exhibit – one of her passions. Most people said that Naples was a romantic place, which made it two out of three, provided she agreed to come.

  Going away together might be just what they needed to get back on track.

  Saul knocked on wood.

  Cathy had finally concluded that the only sensible, adult thing to do was to talk to Kez.

  Even if Kez had seemed to think the mature thing was for Cathy to go away and make up her mind on her own.

  The more she thought about it, the more Cathy realized that, right or wrong, that was never going to happen. And maybe that did emphasize her immaturity or at least her inexperience, but to hell with it, she was young, and this was entirely new to her, and surely the right way for her to make this kind of pivotal decision was with Kez.

  Problem was, Kez wasn’t answering her home phone, and Cathy had left two messages already, to which Kez had failed to respond. Which meant either that she wasn’t there (and though she owned a cell phone, she’d told Cathy she seldom took it with her, could hardly remember its number), or that she had decided she didn’t want anything more to do with Cathy.

  One more attempt, one more message, and after that, more waiting.

  Down to Kez now.

  Try as she might, Grace had not been able to get her concerns about Terri out of her thoughts. Not so much because of the day she’d come to the house, but because of the photograph that had so disturbed Saul.

  Grace knew why she was so troubled by the picture.

  Saul’s worst case suspicion had been that Terri might have gone up to Hallandale Beach and snapped that photograph herself, had talked her way on to the crime scene, maybe charmed some young officer alone on duty.

  Almost impossible, in Grace’s opinion.

  Grace knew a little about how impeccably crime scenes were preserved, and frankly she doubted that even the most inexperienced cop turned on by the gorgeous Officer Suarez would have been willing to risk his career by letting her screw up potentially crucial evidence.

  Besides which, while the body was still there the place had to have been crawling with experienced cops and technicians. No way Terri could have got close enough to take a picture. Which presumably meant she had merely taken it, perhaps stolen it, from Violent Crimes. Still a much less disturbing notion than the alternative.

  So why had Saul, who loved Terri, made more of it rather than less? Instinct, perhaps, that something was very wrong. More than he could cope with – more than he could bear to admit to.

  That was what was going around and around in Grace’s mind. The photograph and the whole deal about Terri’s obsession with the killings was beginning to give her a seriously uncomfortable feeling – more than that, actually, more of a great unease – about Teresa Suarez.

  Hormones.

  Grace hoped so, with all her might.

  She didn’t want to think about what it might mean, otherwise.

  Chapter Sixteen

  September 3

  Saul had wanted to book them into the Hotel Escalante on Fifth Avenue in Naples, had wanted to give Terri a weekend of pure pampering and luxury, but she had not wanted that, had told him she’d rather go to the Cove Inn at the city dock.

  ‘Let’s just be us,’ she’d said. ‘We don’t need all the frills.’

  Saul had said he guessed not, though frankly frills were what he’d been hoping might help soften a few of those sharp, spiky edges of hers that he seemed to have been raising recently. But the fact, for which he was most thankful, was that Terri had agreed to come with him, and so wherever she wanted to stay was great with him.

  The inn at Crayton Cove was, as it turned out, exactly what they needed. Wonderful location right at the marina, comfortable room overlooking Naples Bay, two great restaurants and bars a stroll away, a pool and an easy-going atmosphere.

  ‘You were so right,’ Saul told Terri, after lunch on Saturday of scallops and stuffed crêpes at the Boat House.

  ‘Usually am,’ she told him.

  ‘So right,’ he said again when they were back in their room, lying naked on the bed, closer and happier than they’d been in a long while.

  ‘Thank you,’ Terri murmured against his ear.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘This,’ she said. ‘Everything.’ She smiled. ‘You.’

  ‘I’m not such a bargain,’ Saul said.

  ‘Me neither,’ Terri said.

  ‘True,’ he agreed.

  She took a gentle swipe at the top of his head, then kissed him on the mouth.

  They began making love, and stopped talking.

  He didn’
t know until he woke alone in the bed and saw her, wearing her short scarlet satin robe, sitting hunched over on the couch near the balcony, that she’d even brought her laptop with her.

  ‘No way,’ he said, real anger swamping him.

  She looked up, startled. ‘Just checking over a few—’

  ‘Not here.’ Saul was out of bed, still naked, still mad. ‘This is nuts, Teté.’

  ‘Don’t start, Saul.’ Her eyes were already flashing.

  ‘Not starting,’ he told her. ‘Finishing.’

  ‘You’re overreacting again.’ She shook her head, looked back down at the computer. ‘You don’t even know what I’m—’

  ‘I don’t care,’ he snapped. ‘It’s work, and this is meant to be our time.’

  ‘You were asleep.’ She closed the laptop. ‘Jesus, Saul.’

  ‘What’s so important?’ Saul came across, glowered down. ‘Show me.’

  ‘Why should I?’ Terri picked up the silver machine, tucked it under her arm. ‘So you can tell me I’m obsessed again? Crazy?’ She found her weekend case, stuck the laptop into it and pulled out a pair of white jeans and a strawberry coloured blouse. ‘Maybe I am, you know? For thinking you might have started accepting what’s important to me.’

  ‘I’m the crazy one round here.’ Saul felt suddenly exposed, and located his own jeans on the chair where he’d tossed them an hour or so back. ‘For imagining you were capable of choosing me – us – over three murders that have nothing to do with you!’ He stepped into the jeans, almost tripped, was grateful in the midst of his anger to have spared himself that small humiliation. ‘Not for one single weekend.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake.’ Terri already had her jeans on, and was fastening the buttons of the blouse, her fingers shaking. ‘You were asleep – you’re always going to sleep.’

  ‘Pardon me for being human.’ Saul sat back down on the edge of the bed. ‘Pardon me for wanting – for thinking it’s normal – to fall asleep with the woman I love.’

  ‘Pardon me for the great sin of waking up.’ Terri stuck her feet into her moccasins. ‘Pardon me for not being overjoyed to just lie in your arms and gaze at your not so handsome sleeping face.’

  Saul stared at her, used to passion from her, positive and negative, but not a bit used to real, hard bitchiness.

  ‘Hurt your feelings?’ Terri found her bag and slung it over her shoulder. ‘Well, I may be a cop, and I may be more ambitious than you think I ought to be, but I have feelings too, and right now all I really feel is sick to death of begging your goddamned pardon.’

  It seemed to Saul that one or other of them was always walking out the door.

  The weekend had arrived, and still no response from Kez.

  She’d blown it. No doubt about that now, Cathy realized.

  She found it curious, in a way, that until now she’d never understood quite how lonely she had been despite the warmth of her adoptive family surrounding her. Always there for her when she needed them, because they loved her.

  She knew how lucky she was to have that kind of love. To have lost her first family so comprehensively, to have lost the trust of everyone who had ever known her in that other life, and then to have been drawn in, welcomed in with such unstinting faith and generosity by Grace and Sam and David and Judy and Saul.

  No one could have asked for more. Which was probably why she had never thought of needing any more. Why the absence of intimate relationships had not appeared to matter much to her.

  Until she had met Kez and discovered that there was, after all, something more – someone more – that she did want.

  Blown it.

  Saul had waited a long while, his thoughts a precarious balance between anger and guilt, before he’d gone looking for Terri.

  Obvious places first, close at hand; the bar at the restaurant where they’d eaten lunch, the bar at The Dock nearby, the hotel’s own marina-side Chickee Bar.

  Nothing that easy, not where Teté was concerned.

  He called her cell phone, got voicemail, left no message – not feeling ready to grovel – then began to move further inland, on foot to begin with, heading for the Third Street shopping district, with no real belief that he would find her there. Nor was she anywhere that he looked, and he had picked up his car and was starting to check out approaches to the beach when it struck him that the most probable place – the place most likely to have drawn Terri – was the one they had planned to visit together.

  He went back to the Cove Inn, asked if Ms Suarez had called for a cab to take her anyplace, but no one at reception had taken a request from her, though she might, they suggested, have taken the CAT bus or rented her own car.

  She might have done that – Saul had been trying not to consider that – and left Naples altogether; might be back on Alligator Alley right now on her way home.

  She hadn’t taken her things, though.

  Saul got directions and headed for the zoo.

  It was lush, sub-tropical, and, if you got past the Subway Café, a pretty damned good-looking zoo, Saul supposed, except he wasn’t here to look at tall, aged trees, amazing plants and gorgeous flowers, or even what every other visitor in the place was here to look at, namely the animals and birds.

  Terri was all he was here for.

  He checked out the café first, went back to wait outside the restroom for several minutes just in case, then walked back out past the Subway Pavilion and the children’s play area, a small map of the zoo in one hand, taking the main trail that would have taken Teté to her number one goal, the Primate Expedition Cruise on Lake Victoria.

  ‘Lemurs and spider and colobus monkeys,’ she had read to him when they’d been setting up the trip back home, excited as a child. ‘And siamangs – they’re lemurs too, but the biggest there are – and all endangered.’

  Saul had enjoyed her thrill at the time, but now, beginning the walk she’d mapped out for him, he wasn’t sure he’d have noticed or cared if the rarest species on earth had swung off a palm right into his face.

  Macaws, alligators in the bay to his left, dorcas gazelles to his right, a grey parrot, zebras, a porcupine dozing in the hollow of a tree trunk. Humans, too, parents and children wandering through, some pushing buggies, many on their last days of vacation: pointing, enjoying, relaxing.

  No dark-haired beauty in a strawberry-coloured blouse.

  The catamaran had just sailed as he reached the lake, with half an hour to wait before the next departure. Saul screwed up his eyes, trying to make out the passengers, saw a flash of red – but the wrong red – knew it was hopeless, and guessed he had no option but to go on walking around till the cat returned.

  He turned to his right, moving into Lagoon Loop, could see the catamaran through the trees, the passengers on the nearside of the vessel quite clearly visible to him now, but still no sign of Terri. She might, he realized abruptly, just have disembarked from the previous cruise, so what he needed to do while the cat made its round of small islands was to go on looking for her on land, and maybe this was just a wild goose chase, but it was, for now, the only game in town.

  Left over a small wooden footbridge to Look Out Point, and Saul paused, took a look, could see over to one of the dozen small islands in the lake that the catamaran was now approaching. A gardener was mowing grass over there, and he thought he saw a few monkeys, though he could have cared less which they were.

  No Teté. That was all he cared about.

  He sighed, turned around, walked back over the bridge, scanning left to right, passed a sable, way back from the fence in its nice spacious enclosure and then, a little further along, another enclosure, of spotted hyenas.

  He stopped dead. Totally thrown.

  She was over to the left in a corner, crouching, almost huddling, her face right up against the lower, outer perimeter fence of that enclosure. She was watching a spotted hyena padding out of the distance towards her, completely absorbed by it.

  More than just absorbed, he felt.

>   She turned, suddenly, saw him staring at her.

  The look in her eyes threw him even more, but he managed a smile.

  ‘Hi,’ he said.

  Her expression turned to ice.

  ‘You OK?’ he asked tentatively, and took a step forward.

  She bolted. Just straightened up and ran towards the clearing over to his right, dodging a group of visitors and melting into the old palm trees and banyans behind them.

  Saul followed, walking fast, then sprinting, passed the group, saw the Subway Pavilion, the building that housed the zoo’s shop and restrooms, but saw no sign of her.

  She had gone.

  ‘What’s up with you, Gracie?’ asked Sam late on Saturday afternoon.

  They were in the den, both taking time out, Grace with her feet up on the couch, Sam on the floor close by, Woody draped over his long legs, snoozing.

  ‘Nothing’s up.’

  She was unaccustomed to lying to him, did not like it one bit.

  ‘Something’s wrong,’ he persisted.

  ‘The baby’s auditioning for the City Ballet.’

  ‘Really?’ Sam reached up a hand, put it back on the side of her ever-expanding bump, where it had been resting up until a few moments earlier. ‘I thought he was feeling pretty laid back this afternoon.’

  ‘With respect – ’ Grace removed his hand, sat up with her now usual effort – ‘how would you know?’

  ‘If you want something,’ Sam said, ‘ask me.’

  ‘I’m pregnant, Sam, not sick.’ The irritation in her tone was unmistakable.

  ‘That’s what you say,’ Sam retaliated, ‘unless I don’t offer to help.’

  ‘I don’t ask you to do much,’ Grace said. ‘If I did, it wouldn’t help, since you’re hardly ever here.’

  ‘I’m here now,’ Sam said.

  ‘You want a medal?’

  Sam got up off the rug. ‘Come on, Gracie.’

  ‘I’m not in a “Gracie” mood,’ she said.

  ‘Tell me about it,’ Sam said wryly.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  He held up his hands in surrender. ‘Forget it.’