The parallels with Fort Lauderdale were unmistakable. The victim tidily positioned on her own king-size bed. Fully clothed in an olive-colored linen dress, her underwear in place.
Same kind of latex sheeting over three stacked pillows.
‘Why three pillows?’ Martinez asked.
‘Makes them easier targets, maybe?’ Sam hazarded. ‘But why bother with the rubber sheet if they’re leaving it behind?’
‘Maybe a thing about dirty laundry,’ Martinez said. ‘Not that it worked.’
‘Seems almost theatrical,’ Sam said.
Sanders went on working. ‘I heard you’re singing again.’
Sam didn’t respond, knew no answer was expected, went on focusing hard.
The time frame here was obviously the biggest difference between this and the last scene, this crime perpetrated more recently, perhaps just an hour or two ago.
Not the only timing difference. The first three killings had been approximately a month apart, then nothing in April – now two in less than a week, and did that mean the killer was growing more frenzied (though there was nothing here, in this carefully set scene, to suggest frenzy) or making up for lost time? And if the hiatus had been in March, coinciding with spring break, they might have been considering a teacher or other school employee, but . . .
He quit trawling, and came back to what was in front of them.
Ballistics would probably confirm that the wounds had been created by the same weapon.
Just those weird little lacy coverlets seeming to make it a little worse.
And that smell again, Sam realized as it reached him through the rest. Past the smell of burned feathers from the pillow probably used as a silencer – feather pillow rather than foam this time, though more than likely that was simply because it had been available.
This time, though, he identified the other smell.
‘Anyone else smell acetone?’ he asked.
Elliot Sanders nodded toward the victim’s feet, toenails polished bright pink.
‘Recently applied?’ Sam asked, trying to recall if Amelia Newton’s toe or fingernails had been painted.
‘Not this morning,’ the ME answered.
‘That smell always hangs about,’ Martinez said. ‘I’ve never liked it.’
‘So no chance the killer applied that polish?’ Sam asked the ME.
Sanders took another look at the victim’s toes. ‘Too hard to have been painted that recently. Unless the killer was here all night or longer.’ He paused, added ironically: ‘She certainly didn’t die of inhalant abuse.’
‘Drugged again?’ Sam said.
‘You’ll find out when I do,’ Sanders said. ‘No sign of her being forced to swallow anything.’
Joe Duval, who’d arrived soon after the Miami Beach detectives, came into the room. Different kind of worry etched on his forehead.
‘The daughter’s missing,’ he said.
Carlos Delgado had only just started making sense, was still a mess.
As anyone finding that scene, let alone his wife, would be.
Ex-wife.
Looking at him closely now, Sam had to ask himself how much of a mess. Anyone could yell loud enough for the neighbors to hear, work themselves up, bury their face in their hands.
This man was a whole lot calmer now than he had been.
No tears, no look of devastation.
Still, ex-wife, so who knew what had gone on?
Nothing so bad, so terminal, apparently, that he hadn’t been able to come into her home and find her body.
Sam glanced at Martinez, knew they were browsing the same page.
They knew that everyone reacted differently to tragedy.
Certainly ex-husbands, especially after a lousy marriage.
Though it would have to have been a real bitch of a marriage for a guy not to be genuinely distraught on finding his ex, the mother of his child – presumably – so brutally and grotesquely slain.
Delgado’s account was straightforward, so far as it went.
When his fourteen-year-old daughter, Felicia, had been a no-show at St Thomas Aquinas Middle School – less than two miles away – this morning, someone in the school office had called her home and, receiving no answer, had contacted her father at his office.
That part of the story had already been corroborated. Felicia had missed school time twice in the previous two days, taken by her mother to doctors’ appointments, but Mrs Delgado was always correct, they said, about seeking permission or informing the school if Felicia was sick.
‘You have a key to this house, sir?’ Sam asked.
‘I do,’ Delgado said. ‘It’s my property, for one thing, but my wife likes – liked – me to keep a key.’ The shake of his head was disbelieving. ‘I tried calling Beatriz, and then I came to see what was up, and . . .’ His mouth trembled. ‘You know the rest.’
‘And you have no idea where your daughter might be?’ Sam asked.
‘If I knew . . .’ He shook his head again. ‘I’m scared to death for her.’
The haunted look now in his dark eyes looked real enough to Sam, except that killers got haunted too, because of what they’d done.
Especially in crimes of passion.
And he felt that this man was holding back something.
It made no sense to figure him for Black Hole. Serial killers seldom spilt blood on their own doorstep, unless, of course, they were in a real tight corner.
If, say, their ex-wife had found out what they’d been doing.
Though after a thing like that, they were more likely to flee the scene or maybe commit suicide.
A killer calling in the crime and sticking around for questioning seemed more than improbable to Sam and Martinez.
The house was busy now, Crime Scene techs all over, Duval on the phone ensuring that teams in Orlando, Jupiter, Naples and Fort Lauderdale were being kept in the loop.
This case, though, belonged to Miami Beach.
Goddamned poison chalice.
Martinez was asking Delgado about his movements the previous evening and night, and early that morning.
‘You have to be kidding me,’ Delgado said, comprehending what he was being asked.
‘It’s routine, sir,’ Sam assured him.
‘I have no alibi,’ Delgado said. ‘If that’s what you’re asking.’
‘It would help the investigation,’ Martinez said, ‘to know where you were, sir.’
‘For elimination,’ Sam said.
‘I was alone,’ he said. ‘At home.’
‘Which is where, sir?’ Martinez asked, ready to note it down.
Home was a condo in Country Club Drive in Aventura, opposite the golf course. Carlos Delgado an affluent real estate broker.
‘Last evening, I was watching the Heat beating the Boston Celtics, eating pizza. Later, I went to bed. This morning, I already told you about.’
Martinez asked if he’d had the pizza delivered.
Delgado shook his head. ‘It was in my freezer.’
No way of confirming any of it.
They requested his cooperation with fingerprints and a DNA swab, assured him that these, too, were strictly for elimination purposes.
‘We’re guessing, since you have a key,’ Sam said, ‘you’re a regular visitor.’
‘Regular, no,’ Delgado said. ‘But sure, I’m here now and then, for Felicia.’ He stood up. ‘So who’s looking for my daughter while we waste time here?’
‘There are a lot of people working on this case, sir,’ Sam told him.
‘They’ll find your daughter,’ Martinez said.
Unless, of course, Delgado had done something to her.
Both detectives thinking the same ugly thought.
They went on with their questions.
The last day of the conference had ended at five.
It had, overall, been a good experience for Grace. She’d listened to fine speakers, had met caring people from many countries, enjoyed stimulating debates wit
h more strangers than she had for many years. Her own expertise appeared to have stood up well, if Dr Mettler and Stefan Mainz’s compliments were to be believed.
But she could not wait to go home.
She’d called Sam during recess, and he’d told her about his evening with Billie Smith, and she’d been glad when he’d mentioned that awkward moment, even if it was a reminder of what she already knew: that her husband was a handsome, compelling man, and that women of all ages noticed him. And when the woman concerned was young, beautiful and talented, it was probably wise not to be complacent.
Yet Sam had told her about it, and she trusted him, same way he’d trusted her when she’d mentioned her encounter with Thomas Chauvin.
All done now at the conference, but not quite over yet for her, because four colleagues were coming for dinner at her hotel; the same group she’d lunched with yesterday, plus an Italian child psychologist.
A pleasant way to end.
And then, a bouquet of large pink roses waiting for her at the hotel’s reception desk as she and her guests arrived.
‘How lovely,’ Grace said.
Until she saw the message on the card: ‘With my undying gratitude. Thomas Chauvin.’
‘You have an admirer,’ Natalie Gérard said.
Grace smiled and asked the receptionist to hold the bouquet for her.
‘I’m guessing they’re not from your husband,’ the French teacher persisted.
‘Why not?’ Cecilia Storm, the Italian psychologist, asked.
‘The evening before his wife’s return?’ Mlle Gérard said. ‘Making her either waste the flowers or carry them with her luggage onto a crowded plane.’
‘If I were fortunate enough to be married to Doctor Lucca’ – Stefan Mainz was in gallant mood – ‘I think I might send roses morning, noon and night.’
Grace laughed and thanked him.
‘I don’t know if we’re even permitted to carry flowers onto planes these days,’ Elspeth Mettler said. ‘Regulations alter all the time.’
‘Shall we have a drink first?’ Grace changed the subject. ‘Or go straight through to the restaurant?’
‘I’m absolutely starving,’ Cecilia Storm said.
‘Dinner then,’ Grace said.
Felicia Delgado had been found wandering on the beach near 80th Street shortly after two p.m.
Bloodstains on her school uniform.
Her clothes almost certainly fresh on that morning, placing her at home prior to and either during or after her mother’s murder, and making it less likely that the killer – if a stranger – had been there overnight.
Sam and Martinez were still with her father in his ex-wife’s living room when the news came in that she was safe.
‘Thank God.’ Delgado was up on his feet. ‘Where is she now?’
‘Apparently she’s unhurt,’ Sam told him, ‘but she’s distressed and confused, so she’s been taken to Miami General as a precaution.’
Delgado seemed to hesitate, then sat down again.
Which threw Sam, since as a father he’d be through that door and on his way to the hospital, nothing short of restraints capable of stopping him.
‘Do you know,’ Delgado asked, ‘if my daughter saw her mother after . . .?’
‘We don’t know that yet, sir,’ Sam said.
‘It’s just . . .’ Delgado stopped again.
‘Just what, sir?’ Martinez asked.
Delgado took a breath. ‘You should probably know that my daughter being confused is sadly nothing new.’ He paused. ‘Much like her mother.’
Coming to it now, Sam realized. Whatever this man had been holding back.
‘Go on, please,’ he said.
Delgado shook his head. ‘It seems wrong, speaking about my wife now.’
‘It might help us find the person who did this to her,’ Martinez said.
Delgado took another moment.
‘The truth is, she was sick.’ He paused again. ‘In her mind.’
Sam waited, then asked: ‘In what sense, sir?’
‘In a sense that seems horrifically connected to . . .’ Delgado stopped, covered his face with both hands, shuddered, then dropped his hands onto his knees. ‘That thing – that nightmare – with her eyes.’
Sam and Martinez both waited.
‘My wife had a phobia,’ the other man said.
Black Hole’s drug of choice clicked into Sam’s mind.
Into his partner’s too, he saw that in Martinez’s sharp, dark eyes.
Diazepam.
Prescribed for all kinds of things from muscular pain to anxiety.
And sometimes, perhaps, for phobias.
‘It has been such a great pleasure,’ Stefan Mainz told Grace, kissing her hand. ‘I look forward to the next time.’
The pleasure had been hers, Grace had assured him as they’d all taken their leave in the hotel driveway.
It was just after ten, and she felt a sense of relief. Dinner had been enjoyable, but during the evening her thoughts had veered to the possibility that Thomas Chauvin might show up in person, which would have been embarrassing. She’d thought, too, for a second time, about the faint chance that he might have set up that ‘accident’ on the tramline, and she knew it was absurd, but it had been odd that his leg had been fine just moments later. And it troubled her a little that she hadn’t mentioned that suspicion to Sam, but she hadn’t because it had patently been nonsense, and she might have worried him unnecessarily, and in any case, she would tell him about it and the flowers when she got home . . .
‘Don’t forget your bouquet,’ Natalie had reminded her in reception.
Grace wondered now why she had not simply told her dinner companions about the encounters with Chauvin, which would have amused them all, perhaps set them hypothesizing.
A desire for privacy, she supposed.
In the event, he had not appeared, and she supposed that the flowers were a nice gesture of gratitude, that it was a shame, really, not to be able to thank him.
But tomorrow, thankfully, Grace was going home.
At five-thirty, at Miami General, Sam and Martinez were still waiting to talk to Felicia Delgado. Her doctor had confirmed that she was physically unharmed, but appeared to be in a state of deep shock.
Her father was at her bedside now, but the teenager had not spoken either to him or to anyone else.
Her condition added to the probability that she had found her mother’s body.
Though until she spoke, there would be no way of knowing if she might not have seen something even more horrific.
Someone.
For all they knew, Felicia Delgado might be a witness.
The first known witness to Black Hole.
Joe Duval for the FDLE and the investigative teams from the other jurisdictions were all standing by.
‘We need to take this gently,’ Sam had said to Duval a while ago. ‘Meantime, I’d like it if we could have someone watching her room.’
Duval had nodded. ‘I’ll get on that.’
‘Weird thing,’ Martinez had said quietly to Sam a while back.
Referring to Felicia Delgado’s large, inky-dark sunglasses.
According to hospital personnel, she had become distressed and combative each time someone had tried to remove them.
Lending credibility to Carlos Delgado’s description of his daughter’s phobia, which he said she had shared with her late mother.
The sight of the glasses had really chilled Sam. Not because of what Felicia’s father had told them, but because of the Polaroid shot that Joe Duval had shown him at the Fort Lauderdale scene.
Of Amelia Newton wearing those oversized dark glasses.
He remembered again the acetone smell.
Felicia Delgado’s fingernails had no polish on them, but Sam asked one of the nurses if she’d noticed if the teenager had polished toenails.
‘I didn’t notice,’ the nurse said, almost disapprovingly.
Sam asked her to take a look
at her feet, told her it might be important.
Waiting, his thoughts slid back over the horrors of the day.
The doily coverlets over the victim’s destroyed eye sockets. No more grotesque than the covers used in the other cases, except they seemed somehow jokier than the other items Black Hole had used.
And there was something else that was really getting to Sam.
It looked as if Felicia Delgado had washed blood off herself, though traces had remained beneath her fingernails and on her arms as well as her clothes.
Which had to make her a person of interest in the case.
Sam’s best guess was that she had found her mother, had touched her, perhaps tried to hold her, and had then fled in a state of near catatonic shock.
But the way Felicia was now, hours later, just lying there in that hospital bed, reminded Sam too damned much of how Cathy had been when she’d been found following her own parents’ murder.
Long time ago.
But some memories were never eradicated.
Like the day when he had been the one with no choice but to arrest her.
She had been fourteen, too, at the time. And totally innocent.
So many scars in Cathy’s psyche.
And here was another fourteen-year-old in similarly terrifying circumstances.
They were going to have to interview this child as soon as she was fit, and they would, God help them, do their job.
But already Sam hated it.
The nurse was back.
‘No polish,’ she said.
Which meant nothing, since many nail polish removers contained acetone, yet with so little to go on at this early stage . . .
‘Any chance it was removed here?’ Sam asked.
The nurse shook her head. ‘If she were undergoing anesthesia, some varnish might be removed from her fingernails,’ she said, ‘but not her toes.’
Sam thanked her, his mind flipping to the drug found in previous victims. They were a long way off toxicology confirmation that Beatriz Delgado had ingested a large dose of Diazepam prior to her death, but Sam had called his father a while ago to ask about the drug’s role in the treatment of phobias, and David Becket had confirmed its use in some cases.
Though, in fact, Xanax and Prozac had both been found in Mrs Delgado’s bathroom cabinet, but no Diazepam.
‘You think they did blood tests on the kid here?’ Martinez asked quietly.
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