But his mind wasn’t working properly, he knew that, too, because all he kept on doing was replaying the scene, going back over the build-up, back to the shooting and Flanagan’s dying and Cathy’s cradling her and Cathy’s face with the other woman’s blood on her cheek, over and over and over . . .
Long evening.
It was almost seven p.m. before Sam was able to call Grace.
‘She’s safe.’ The two words he knew she needed to hear. ‘It’s over, and Cathy’s not hurt.’
The unspoken but seemed to pound the air.
‘And Kez?’ Grace asked.
All downhill from that point on.
‘Kez is dead,’ Sam said. ‘I shot her.’ He got it out fast, the only way. ‘I thought she was going to hurt Cathy, and I shot her.’
‘Oh my God, Sam.’
Her voice was low, horrified, stunned, and Sam – whose own mind had finally begun working properly again – knew that in that one thunderclap moment Grace had understood all the potential ramifications of what he had done.
‘Sam, are you OK?’ she asked. ‘You’re not hurt?’
‘No, I’m not hurt,’ he said, ‘but we’re all at the Collier County Sheriff’s office – Terri, too, because she was there.’
‘Was she involved in the shooting?’
‘It’s a little blurred.’ Sam paused. ‘Grace, Saul mustn’t hear any of this.’
‘Of course not.’
‘How’s he doing?’
‘No change. Sam—’
‘Grace, I only have a few minutes.’
They had allowed him to phone from an unoccupied office, but he knew they wouldn’t give him long. He felt as if he’d been answering questions for ever, knew it was only the beginning, that though he’d been advised against giving a statement at this stage because of the policeman’s bill of rights, once the team of investigators out of Miami Beach arrived, things would get heavier before they got better.
If they did get better. He could hardly count the strikes against him. He had been out of jurisdiction. He had not notified the Naples police of his reasons for being there. He had fired his weapon in a public place, endangering innocent bystanders. Had used deadly force against a young woman who had, when the Naples and Collier County officers had arrived, possessed no weapon, the baseball bat being somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico.
And that young woman was dead.
‘What about Cathy?’ Grace was scrambling, needing to ask questions fast. ‘She must be shattered. Does she know what Kez did?’
‘I don’t know.’ Suddenly Sam felt unspeakably weary, like he could lie down on the linoleum floor and sleep forever. ‘I’m so sorry, Grace.’
‘You did what you had to do.’
‘I know,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t necessarily make it right.’
‘If you saved Cathy’s life that makes it more than right in my book.’ A new thought, a new horror, hit her. ‘Sam, was anyone else hurt?’
‘Thank God, no.’ He waited for her to speak. ‘Grace, are you OK?’
‘Are they holding you there?’ she asked.
‘For a while, I guess,’ Sam answered.
‘Can I come to you?’
‘No way,’ Sam told her point-blank. ‘I don’t want you making the drive, and anyway, by the time they let you see me I’ll probably be on my way back.’
‘And Cathy? Surely they’d let me see her?’
‘She’s making a statement right now,’ Sam said. ‘But I’m hoping they’ll get her home ahead of me, and that’s why you need to stay there.’
‘Of course.’ Grace’s mind was in turmoil. ‘Should I call David?’
‘I think so,’ he said. ‘It might be a while before either of you hear from me again, but you’re not to worry about me.’
‘How about a lawyer?’
‘I’ve already seen one,’ Sam told her, ‘and there’s a whole posse coming over from our department.’ He paused. ‘Internal Affairs included.’
‘Oh my God, Sam, what a mess.’
The door opened and a young, fresh-faced officer came in.
‘I have to go now,’ Sam said.
‘I want to speak to Cathy,’ Grace said urgently.
The officer cleared his throat.
‘I’ll ask someone,’ Sam said.
‘Don’t forget.’
‘I love you, Grace,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘I love you, too,’ she said.
They let Sam see Cathy.
Not alone. An officer present too.
‘We’re not allowed to talk about what happened,’ she said to him.
She looked pale, hair dishevelled, her eyes filled with deep pain, but she seemed under control. Sam put out his arms and she came into them, and he offered up a swift prayer of gratitude because she was letting him hold her.
‘I’m so sorry, sweetheart,’ he told her softly.
‘You’re shaking,’ Cathy said.
‘I’ve been so afraid,’ Sam said, ‘that you’d hate me.’
She pulled back. ‘You don’t understand,’ she said.
There was something else now in her eyes besides the pain, something less easily readable, something that reminded Sam sickeningly of the blankness he had seen in her face the very first time they had met years ago, just after her parents had been killed.
‘You don’t understand,’ she said again, ‘that it was what she wanted.’
‘OK,’ the officer said. ‘Change the subject or that’s it.’
Cathy nodded. ‘I’m sorry.’ She thought. ‘Am I allowed to tell him stuff that happened before?’
‘Is it connected with the shooting?’ the young man asked.
‘In a way, sure,’ she said.
‘Then no, I don’t think so.’ He smiled at her. ‘I’m sorry, it’s not my rule.’
‘Sure,’ Cathy said.
‘How’re you holding up, baby?’ Sam asked. ‘Have you seen a doctor?’
‘I don’t need a doctor.’
‘If it gets too much, if they’re asking too many questions, you can tell them you want to take a break. Tell them if you change your mind about seeing a doctor.’
‘Have you told Grace?’ Cathy asked.
‘I have and she’s hanging in, but what she’d love most is to hear your voice.’
‘She probably thinks I need her as a shrink again,’ Cathy said.
‘She thinks you need her as a mom.’ Sam put her straight.
‘I’m not sure,’ Cathy said, ‘that I don’t need both.’
They all wanted to talk to her.
Collier County wanted to talk to her about the shooting, mostly in her capacity as chief witness to a police-involved shooting, even if the fact that the shooter was her dad was almost certainly going to muddy the waters. And they didn’t especially want to talk about the crimes to which the victim had allegedly confessed, but Cathy’s account of those multiple confessions had formed a major part of her statement, so they had no choice but to listen.
Detective Joe Patterson and his colleague from the Naples police department did most definitely want to talk to her about Kez’s admission of guilt in the assault on Saul, particularly since it seemed their best chance of closing the case.
Mike Rowan from Broward County was going to be interested as hell in talking to her in relation to the murders of Carmelita Sanchez and Maria Rivera – and with Sam otherwise occupied for the foreseeable future, Al Martinez would want to listen to every word Cathy had to tell him about Kez and her dad’s old baseball bat and what she’d said about Rudolph Muller.
All hearsay, of course, and almost certainly inadmissible.
The bat was lost somewhere in the Mexican Gulf. The only possible, known, forensic proof of Flanagan’s link to the victims were the residual stains on the repeatedly washed Reggie Jackson jersey tied around her waist at the time of her death.
They all wanted to talk to her and Cathy wanted to talk, wanted to release it, get it all out of her head, because even
Kez had accepted that she would do that, and because it was too much for her to bear on her own. Because of Saul and all he was going through. Because of Kez’s other victims. Because if she tried to conceal the truth, not only would those deaths weigh on her conscience, but the cops might come after her, decide she had been an accomplice in some way, even if she hadn’t even known Kez when poor Carmelita Sanchez and the Trent janitor had died.
And because Cathy had done time, known prison and knew, too, that she could not endure it again, and so she had to cooperate, had to talk.
And then there was Sam.
Sam-the-cop, armed and dangerous. Sam-the-killer, who had blown away Kez in the blink of an eye. And there had been witnesses to that – Cathy had heard their voices, even in the cacophony of ocean and wind and sirens and screaming; one woman telling everyone who would listen that Kez had been unarmed and doing nothing to provoke anyone when ‘that man’ had shot her; one young, hippy-looking guy in tears because of the ‘maniac who shot into the crowd’ and could have killed anyone.
Except in reality he was Sam-her-dad, the gentlest man in the world, who loved his wife and his father and his brother, and her. And if Cathy did not tell the investigators everything she knew, there was a far greater chance that Sam’s troubles might multiply all the way to murder. And she couldn’t do that to him or to Grace, or to Saul or David, or to her unborn baby brother.
She doubted if talking would get the things out of her head. Things Cathy thought she would not forget even if she lived to be a hundred.
Feeling Sam tremble when she’d let him hold her had been small fry by comparison to the rest, but she had felt his fear and known it was because he loved her so much, and that had moved her enough to tell him that it had been what Kez had wanted, to be dead, out of it.
But if she had told him that she would not remember, to her own dying day, that he had taken aim at Kez’s heart and pulled the trigger, Cathy would have been lying. Because she could never forget, and never forgive.
Except it wasn’t Sam she would not be able to forgive. It was herself. Cathy Robbins Becket, always the survivor, always managing to walk away, trailing bloody footprints behind her.
She had brought Kez Flanagan to her family, which made it her fault, because she was naïve and needy and desperate to be loved. Which made it her fault that Saul was lying wrecked in that hospital bed. Her fault that Sam might be fired or have charges brought against him. Her fault that Grace might not have her husband with her when their child was born.
Her fault that Kez was dead.
And not talking would not set Kez back on the track in her orange shorts and battered Nikes, her funky hair fanning as she ran on those fabulous lightning feet. Not talking would not warm her poor dead arms, give them life again so she could wrap them around Cathy, help set the fire burning in her again.
Not talking would not change the fact that Kez had spent her whole life feeling ugly and mocked and letting it make her crazy. Crazy and wicked, and knowing it, and hating it enough to want, in the end, to die.
So Cathy did what they all wanted, and talked.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Nine o’clock had passed when Grace finally heard her voice.
‘Thank God,’ she said.
Standing in the kitchen, her legs were suddenly so weak that she had to sink down on to a chair. David had come over a while back and ordered her to bed. She’d promised him she’d do that and then he’d left to visit with Saul, but still Grace had not gone upstairs, because even though Sam had told her Cathy was safe, until she actually spoke to her, it wouldn’t count.
‘How are you?’ Cathy asked.
‘It’s not me who’s been through hell,’ Grace said. ‘And I’m not going to ask you if you’re OK, because I know you can’t possibly be.’
‘I don’t think I really know how I am right now,’ Cathy said. ‘I’m so tired from all the talking, from everything, but I’m glad to be tired because it’s keeping me from feeling too much. Does that make sense?’
‘Absolute sense,’ Grace said. ‘I’m so sorry, sweetheart, about Kez.’
‘Me, too,’ Cathy said.
Grace wanted to ask about Sam, but suddenly the fact that Sam had shot Cathy’s probable lover seemed to open up a gulf between them, which frightened her all over again.
‘Sam’s with an attorney,’ Cathy said, helping her out.
If Grace had been with her she would have flung her arms around her.
‘And then I think we’re supposed to be going someplace to sleep, or at least they’re taking me somewhere. I’m not sure about Sam, but he’s doing OK, Grace, don’t worry too much.’
‘I think I should come over there,’ Grace said. ‘Sam said I should stay home, but that was because he thought they might let you go this evening.’
Woody came padding into the kitchen and lay down at her feet.
‘He didn’t know how much I have to tell the cops,’ Cathy said. ‘And they’re not making me stay, I want to. I need to tell them.’
‘About Kez?’ Grace was careful.
‘She confessed things to me, Grace. Terrible things that she’d done.’
‘Are you allowed to tell me, sweetheart?’ Grace asked. ‘Do you want to?’
‘I think so,’ Cathy said. ‘Except I’m too tired right now.’
‘Then it can all wait,’ Grace said. ‘Till you’re ready.’
Cathy was silent for a moment and then she said: ‘You already know about Saul, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ Grace said. ‘Saul told Terri, spelled out her name.’
Cathy didn’t speak.
‘Cathy, sweetheart,’ Grace said. ‘If you want to stop talking, it’s—’
‘She killed those people, Grace.’ Cathy’s voice was thin and bewildered. ‘The janitor at Trent, and two women. She said it was because they’d laughed at her – she had this thing about everyone mocking her, she’d had it since she was very small because she thought she was ugly, can you believe that? She thought her body was ugly, and it wasn’t, Grace, she wasn’t ugly.’
‘No, she wasn’t,’ Grace said.
‘I think she brought me to Naples,’ Cathy said, ‘just so she could confess to me. She brought me to an apartment that she said was hers – except it didn’t feel like it was hers at all, but she called it her sanctuary, and it was very pretty, all flowers and . . .’
She stopped, went silent.
‘Cathy?’ Grace was anxious.
‘I just remembered something, that’s all,’ Cathy said. ‘A weird little thing that happened when I first saw the apartment.’
‘What kind of weird?’
‘It was nothing, really, just something about it that felt familiar, but then so much was going on and I forgot about it. But I just realized why it happened – Grace, do you remember a photo Lucia used to keep on her desk, right next to the one of her husband?’
‘The one of her with her niece.’ Grace did vaguely remember it, but mostly because Lucia had taken it to be repaired when the frame had broken, and it troubled her a little now that Cathy should be latching on to that in the midst of so much horror.
‘Only that was what looked familiar,’ Cathy explained. ‘They were standing on a balcony in the photo, and it looked exactly like the veranda at Kez’s place. And I don’t know why I’m even talking about it, because it’s nothing, less than nothing – thousands of balconies must look like that, with clematis or flowers like that wound around so prettily, and I don’t know why I’m babbling about that when poor Kez is dead.’
‘Sweetheart,’ Grace said, gently, ‘take it easy.’
‘I’m going to have to go in a minute.’
Grace said, ‘It’s been so wonderful for me to hear you.’ She thought about family then, about the emotions that bound people together. ‘Is Kez’s mother still alive, do you know?’
‘I think so,’ Cathy answered. ‘But Kez hadn’t had anything to do with her for years, though she said something
about an aunt who used to help her, and I think she meant she helped her after she’d done terrible things. I guess because she understood that Kez was sick, that she couldn’t help what she did.’
Grace heard a sound in the background, like a door closing, and then a man’s voice – Sam’s voice – and the baby kicked hard at that instant, almost as if he’d heard his father, and she laid her left hand over him and smiled.
First time she’d smiled for a long while.
‘Sam’s here,’ Cathy told her. ‘He wants to talk to you.’
‘Sweetheart, please try and get some rest,’ Grace said quickly. ‘Call me any time, collect if that’s easier, any time.’
Then Sam was on the line.
‘Good to hear her, right?’
‘Can she hear me now?’ Grace asked him.
‘No,’ Sam said, ‘she’s just left the room.’
‘I want you to answer me honestly,’ Grace said.
‘Of course.’
‘Does anyone there think she might have been involved with what Kez did?’
‘No one’s implied that to me,’ Sam said. ‘But the fact that Cathy was driving Kez’s car in Naples, running with her on the beach just before . . .’
‘She says Kez confessed to the killings,’ Grace said.
‘But only to her,’ Sam said. ‘Right now Cathy’s being treated simply as a witness to the shooting, and until someone digs up something solid to back up her story about the confessions, that’s all it’s going to be, her story.’
‘Does she need a lawyer?’ Grace asked.
‘Not yet,’ Sam said. ‘Grace, you don’t need to worry about that. Even if a few people do want to sniff around Cathy for a while it’s not going to take too much time to show that Flanagan was killing long before she ever met Cathy.’
‘But they were both at Trent for a while before they met,’ Grace pointed out.
‘It won’t come to that,’ Sam said. ‘They have another Becket to roast first. One who might deserve it.’
‘Don’t talk like that,’ Grace said. ‘Please.’
‘Can’t quite seem to help it,’ Sam said.
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