Last Run

by Hilary Norman

  Cathy didn’t want to hear another tale.

  ‘I’m really going to have to think about going back soon,’ she said.

  ‘I know,’ Kez said. ‘Am I making you uncomfortable, telling you this stuff?’

  ‘I think you’re smoking too much weed,’ Cathy said. ‘And you know I want to get back to see—’

  ‘Maybe I have this relationship wrong,’ Kez cut in again. ‘Only I thought you meant it when you said you wanted to share.’

  Cathy felt instantly guilty, supposed that another half an hour or so wouldn’t make any difference, especially with Saul doing better.

  ‘You don’t have it wrong,’ she said.

  ‘How are you doing, sweetheart?’

  David called Grace at eleven fifteen.

  ‘Fine,’ she said.

  Only half a lie, because the cramps had gone a while back, and the backache and weariness she was experiencing now were, in her opinion, nothing unexpected in her particular circumstances.

  ‘I managed to dig out some of the Flanagan records,’ David told her.

  ‘Anything useful?’

  ‘Afraid not.’ He sounded glum. ‘Dad’s name Joseph, mother Gina, dates of vaccinations, that kind of thing.’

  ‘How’s Saul doing?’ Grace asked.

  ‘Sleeping,’ David answered. ‘Anything from Sam?’

  ‘Nothing yet,’ Grace said.

  ‘You’re looking very tired,’ Cathy told Kez. ‘Maybe you could use a nap.’

  ‘No time,’ Kez said.

  She got up, found her duffel bag and foraged in it, took out a foil-wrapped tablet and swallowed it instantly, without water.

  ‘That’ll do it,’ she said.

  ‘What was that?’ Cathy was afraid it might have been speed or maybe E, hated the idea of either, especially on top of all the dope.

  ‘Don’t stress.’ Kez came to sit beside her on the couch.

  ‘I’m just worried about you,’ Cathy said. ‘Because I care.’

  ‘Me too. That’s why I took it. I don’t want to waste our time together sleeping.’

  ‘But what was the tab?’ Cathy persisted.

  ‘Don’t make a big deal,’ Kez said.

  ‘I’m not,’ Cathy said. ‘But I think it’s time I went home.’

  ‘Soon,’ Kez said. ‘Know what I’d like first. More than anything?’

  Cathy did know, could read it in her eyes, but she didn’t answer.

  ‘Don’t you want to make love again?’ Kez asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Cathy said. ‘Not if it’s just because of the pill you took.’

  ‘I didn’t take anything last night, did I?’

  Cathy looked at her, saw that she seemed more amused than pissed off, wondered again what the pill had been.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Kez said. ‘I understand.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Cathy, I told you I’d never push you into that.’

  ‘I know,’ Cathy said.

  ‘That’s something at least,’ Kez said.

  She took hold of Cathy’s hand, folded it in her own and held it against her heart, and all Cathy’s agitation melted away.

  ‘That’s lovely,’ she said.

  ‘I love you, Cathy.’

  Cathy heard the words and was startled.

  ‘You don’t have to say anything,’ Kez said. ‘Only would you mind if we just rest here together for a little while, and then we can go out and you can call home again.’

  ‘I’d like that,’ Cathy said.

  Kez leaned back against the cushions and put her feet up, and Cathy curled against her and thought, with sudden, overwhelming sleepiness, that this was the warmest, most comfortable place she’d ever been.

  ‘Where are you?’ Sam asked at eleven twenty-five.

  ‘Still on 75,’ Terri answered.

  Lying.

  Because she was already in Naples, but if she told him that Sam would start issuing orders, and while she accepted that he appeared to be keeping his side of their bargain he still hadn’t given her a single new scrap of information, and maybe that was because he didn’t have anything, but she couldn’t be sure of that. Besides, whatever he said and meant now, if something did go down in Naples it would be the local cops that Sam Becket would ultimately trust in, not the rookie, and even if he did ask for her to be involved, the Naples PD weren’t going to take any real notice of what the Miami Beach detective wanted.

  So for now she had to go on playing it her own way, take any crumbs he might toss to her, but go on working solo, drive around for a while, get her bearings, check out the place in a way she hadn’t had time to do while Saul had been in hospital here, try to figure out the possible districts someone like Flanagan might be drawn to.

  She had called Miami General a while back, asked one of the nurses on Saul’s floor how he was doing, and she’d acted a little weird, asking if she was family. They’d stopped doing that with her after day one, and this new attitude had not only bugged her, but scared her. And what Terri wanted, desperately, was to go back to Saul with the news that she had brought in Kez for his sake.

  That was what Teresa Suarez wanted now more than anything.

  Except for Saul to get up out of that hospital bed and come home to her – to her, not to his daddy or his brother or the rest of his doubting family.

  ‘No news at all?’ Grace asked Sam.

  ‘I wish I had something for you,’ he told her.

  ‘Not just for me,’ she said.

  ‘I know,’ Sam said. ‘How you holding up?’

  ‘I guess I’m doing as well as you,’ Grace said, ‘except at least you’re out there trying to find them, and all I can do is sit here and try not to go out of my mind. And please don’t tell me to relax or take it easy, because I can’t.’

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘Is Lucia taking care of you?’

  ‘She will,’ Grace said, ‘if I need her to.’

  It wasn’t exactly a lie, though Lucia had not been here since Grace had returned from the hospital, and Grace was on the whole content to be alone, but it would have been good right now to have her comforting presence about the house. Except she couldn’t summon the energy to try calling her, and anyway Lucia must have had a good reason for leaving, so she didn’t want to hassle her.

  ‘Will you do something for me, please?’ Grace changed the subject. ‘Take care.’

  ‘I promise,’ Sam said. ‘You too.’ He paused. ‘Give the baby a kiss from me.’

  ‘Doing it right now.’ She kissed her own fingertips, pressed them against her abdomen.

  Then he was gone again, and though he had been kind, almost loving, she still felt that he had not been quite his normal self. And Grace couldn’t remember ever feeling quite this needy of him before. She supposed she liked thinking of herself as being fairly self-sufficient, a sounding board for others, remembered hoping in the early weeks that advanced pregnancy might have an empowering effect upon her.

  ‘I wish,’ she said wanly to the dog.

  Woody thumped his tail.

  Judgment shot to pieces, and energy too, Grace thought with a heavy sigh.

  Heavy was the right word.

  ‘I’m in Naples,’ Sam told Terri at ten to noon, ‘so it stands to reason you’ve been here a little while.’

  ‘I guess it does,’ she said.

  ‘Want to get together?’

  ‘Soon,’ Terri said.

  ‘You have a good reason for playing hard to get?’ he asked pleasantly.

  ‘You have a good reason for wanting to get together?’ she countered.

  ‘I have a photograph of Flanagan,’ Sam told her, ‘that I plan to get copied at the first print shop I see. At least we could both have something to hand out.’

  ‘The beach where Saul was attacked,’ Terri said. ‘Near the pier.’

  ‘Give me a half-hour,’ Sam told her.

  On the pretty couch in the pretty sitting room in the pretty apartment in the peaches and cream house, C
athy and Kez slept on.

  The deeper their sleep, the more entwined.

  Faces peaceful, cares left behind.

  Innocence personified.

  The former crime scene on the beach was, Sam and Terri both agreed, probably the last place Kez would come with Cathy.

  ‘But not necessarily without her,’ Sam said, basing it on the old chestnut about killers returning to the scene, scanning around, searching for long blonde hair and a short spiky red head, but almost certain that nothing so simple was going to happen in this case. Certainly not Kez Flanagan offering herself up to them on a plate with Cathy safely out of the way.

  ‘I talked to Detective Martinez,’ he told Terri. ‘He’s been tied up all morning, but he’s finally stolen some time, has a friend at DHSMV trying to get a license number for Flanagan’s car. Nothing else yet.’

  It was overcast, sticky and very warm, with a whole lot less people around than there would have been before Labor Day. Still plenty of blonde heads walking, none of them Cathy.

  No one even vaguely resembling Kez on the horizon.

  ‘I could kill,’ Terri said, ‘for a decent cup of coffee.’

  ‘Two things we have in common,’ Sam said. ‘Espresso’s my poison.’

  ‘Cafecito,’ she said. ‘Strong and sweet.’

  They settled for a couple of Cokes and sat for a while on the sand, exchanging thoughts and possible theories about why Flanagan should have wanted or needed to attack Saul, of all people.

  ‘I can’t see the laughter connection working in this case,’ Sam said.

  ‘Me neither,’ Terri agreed. ‘I’ve presumed that Flanagan takes her running seriously, and maybe her victims were people who didn’t, who maybe laughed at her.’

  ‘Or maybe Kez just perceived them as laughing at her,’ Sam suggested.

  ‘Neither would fit with Saul,’ Terri said.

  Sam shook his head, agreeing. ‘Saul doesn’t laugh at people, just with them.’

  ‘Except,’ Terri thought on, ‘if Flanagan is nuts, maybe she imagines people laughing at her.’

  They got up, began to walk away from the pier, both continuing the constant search, eyes darting back and forth, pausing whenever they passed the walkways and small footbridges that connected the beach to the streets. Sam wondered which of them Saul might have crossed on his way to disaster, wondered if Kez had been following him, how long before the attack she had targeted him as her next victim, if it had been impulse or part of some as yet unknown plan.

  ‘Maybe,’ he hypothesized, ‘Saul found out something about her.’

  ‘But when?’ Terri shook her head, the notion too painful for her. ‘If he’d known something before we argued, he’d have told me.’ She glanced at Sam, saw the doubt on his face. ‘And even if he didn’t want to tell me, he’d certainly have called you right away because he’d have been afraid for Cathy.’

  ‘Unquestionably,’ Sam agreed. ‘And I think you’re right, by the way. Saul wouldn’t have kept something that huge, that frightening, from you.’

  Terri stopped walking. ‘Which means if he did find out something, see something maybe, it happened after our fight. While he was out looking for me.’

  Sam said nothing, saw the bleak guilt deepening in her dark eyes, felt conflicting sympathy and anger, and was unsure if he was ever going to be able to help her with that guilt, or if he even wanted to.

  ‘There’s another possibility,’ he said. ‘Saul might have unwittingly seen something before that weekend. Flanagan might have followed you both to Naples, struck lucky because of your fight just because it made Saul an easier target.’ He paused. ‘Not your fault, after all.’

  ‘Nice try,’ Terri said. ‘No cigar.’

  They went on walking.

  ‘First time,’ Sam said after a few minutes, ‘we’ve worked together.’

  ‘How was it for you?’ Terri asked ironically.

  ‘I liked it,’ Sam said gently.

  Found it to be true.

  When Cathy woke Kez was already up, smoking again, sitting at the small, white, fake marble-topped table in the little kitchen, her father’s old bat and the jersey laid out in front of her.

  ‘I can’t believe I slept so long.’ Cathy glanced at her watch, saw it was after two. ‘I must look wrecked – I used the bathroom, but there’s no mirror.’

  ‘Never use them if I can help it,’ Kez said.

  No mirror, no phone.

  No big deal, either, Cathy decided.

  ‘Mind if I make some coffee?’ She stooped, kissed the red hair. ‘I wish you wouldn’t smoke so much weed.’ She went to the sink, turned on the cold tap. ‘You put far too much crap in you for an athlete.’

  ‘Remember when I told you how my dad died?’ Kez said.

  ‘How could I forget?’ Cathy said, filling the jug for the coffee maker.

  ‘Wasn’t quite the whole truth.’

  ‘No?’ Cathy opened the refrigerator, took out the packet of coffee.

  ‘The sex happened the way I said it did. And my father’s heart attack, too.’ Kez fingered the handle of the bat. ‘But I didn’t just stay outside watching through the keyhole.’ She paused. ‘What actually happened was I did watch for a while, watched them fucking. And then I opened the door real quietly, and Mrs Jerszinsky saw me first, before Joey.’ Kez looked up at Cathy. ‘You’d think she’d have been ashamed, right?’

  ‘I’d think,’ Cathy agreed quietly.

  Kez shook her head. ‘Not her. Not a bit of it.’

  Cathy had stopped making coffee.

  ‘She saw me standing there, saw the way I was looking – and I guess I must have looked shocked.’

  Cathy stood quite still, wanting the story to stop.

  ‘But that cow, with her great big tits and ass – ’ Kez’s fingers curled around the handle of the bat – ‘looked right back at my face, and then she looked down at my skinny kid’s body. And she smirked.’

  The room was very silent.

  ‘But not for long,’ Kez said.

  The unease came back again.

  ‘You’ve never really talked,’ Cathy said quickly, ‘about your mother.’

  ‘What about her?’ Kez asked.

  ‘Is she still alive?’ Cathy asked.

  ‘I’ve never heard otherwise.’ Kez shrugged. ‘Though she might just as well be dead for all the difference she’s ever made to me.’

  The shrug did it, changed things again. The sad, wan little gesture.

  That and the expression in Kez’s eyes of utter loneliness.

  Suddenly all Cathy wanted to do was weep for her.

  She went back to making coffee.

  Terri and Sam had split up again, searching out on the streets, showing Kez Flanagan’s photograph around like relatives looking for a missing loved one, neither getting any response so far.

  Sam had decided not to bother with the high-priced areas and had come to Crayton Cove, partly because it was where Saul and Terri had chosen for their ill-fated weekend, but also because it seemed to him that if Cathy was being allowed a say in where she and Kez spent their time – if they were out and about at all – she’d probably find this dockside area attractive.

  He had taken a look around the bar at The Dock, talking the bartender into promising to call him if anyone fitting Flanagan’s or Cathy’s description came in, and was just coming out of the Naples Ships Store when Martinez called.

  ‘Give me something, please, Al,’ Sam said. ‘Anything.’

  ‘I’m sorry, man,’ Martinez said.

  ‘Motor vehicles?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  Sam swallowed his frustration, thanked his friend, told him to keep trying, to share with Angie if he thought it might help, and then he called home, his greatest need now to talk to Grace, his greatest wish to get back home to her with Cathy.

  ‘No news yet,’ he told her right off. ‘I’m sorry, sweetheart.’

  ‘Don’t be sorry,’ Grace said. ‘Just find her, please.�
��

  The helplessness in her voice jolted him. ‘You feeling all right? Cathy aside?’

  ‘I’m fine.’ She gave a small wry laugh. ‘Cathy aside.’

  ‘The baby?’ Something, he felt, was wrong. ‘Any pain?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Grace told him firmly. ‘Sam, you have more than enough to take care of without worrying unnecessarily about me. Do you believe me?’

  He told her he did, told her to be careful and rest, told her he was checking in regularly with the hospital so he knew Saul was still peaceful; told her that what he was hoping for was that come late afternoon or evening, if not before, when people started emerging from their homes, hotels and work places to come out to bars and restaurants, they would happen upon the two young women and get Cathy away from Kez without any significant problems.

  ‘What if they don’t come out?’ Grace asked. ‘What if Angie’s friend can’t trace Kez’s phone and Cathy doesn’t use her credit card and you and Terri aren’t enough?’

  ‘Then I guess I’ll call in the troops,’ Sam said.

  ‘You will, won’t you?’ Grace said. ‘We can’t just leave Cathy with her.’

  ‘I know that,’ Sam said. ‘Trust me, please.’

  ‘I do,’ Grace said.

  Small mercies.

  ‘One of the things,’ Kez told Cathy, ‘I knew made you special, soon as we met, was I felt you respected me. That you weren’t the type of person who would ever try to ridicule me or laugh at me.’

  ‘No,’ Cathy said. ‘I’m not. I wouldn’t.’

  She felt, suddenly, as if she needed to tread carefully, and disliked the feeling.

  ‘He did,’ Kez said. ‘This man.’

  The blood flowing through Cathy’s veins felt suddenly colder.

  ‘He was watching me run one evening,’ Kez went on. ‘He had this grin on his face that reminded me of the kids at school who poked fun of me, and the boy who laughed at me when he found out I was a virgin.’

  There was more coming, and Cathy knew she didn’t want to hear it.

  ‘All trying to make me feel the same way,’ Kez said. ‘Inferior, stupid, different. What they didn’t get was that I was different. He learned that the hard way, same as they all did.’