Authors: Hilary Norman
‘A bitter one, I’m afraid,’ he said softly.
‘Do you have children?’ Grace asked.
Sam took a moment before answering.
‘We had a son,’ he said. ‘His name was Sampson.’
Was.
The word hung in the air.
‘He died,’ Sam explained. ‘He was run down by a drunk driver.’
She saw the veins in his neck tauten, read the nightmare replaying behind his eyes, felt – and rapidly quelled – the urge to reach for his hand.
‘He was three years old.’ Sam’s voice was steady but very low. ‘My wife blamed me. I wasn’t with Sampson when it happened, and she was, but Althea still blamed
me.’ He gave a small shrug. ‘So did I.’
‘Why, if you weren’t with him?’ Grace put the question gently.
‘Exactly because of that,’ Sam answered simply. ‘Because maybe if I had been with them, it might not have happened.’ He paused. ‘Correction. If I’d been
there, it would most certainly not have happened. I’d have been holding on to Sampson’s hand more tightly, so when he pulled away I’d have been able to keep ahold of him. Althea
wasn’t very strong. And she was very tired that day – she’d had a lot of sleepless nights, worrying about me.’
‘Do you blame yourself for that, too?’
‘Of course I do,’ Sam said.
They took a stroll through South Beach before parting. It was a pleasant evening, not too warm or humid. They walked slowly, close but not too close, and though Sam was about
eight inches taller than Grace, they kept pace easily, naturally. Ocean Drive was alive and kicking as it was every evening of every week, young and not-so-young people – some colourful, some
ordinary, some downright wacky-looking – blading or just walking, some talking animatedly, some just watching, drinking, smoking, hanging out outside Casablanca and the All Star Café,
or staring at the Versace house. Sam and Grace were both mostly silent now, but her mind at least was full of images of Cathy Robbins – growing ever more bitter and afraid – and fantasy
pictures of Sampson Becket at least half grown: a boy who, had he lived, would probably have begun by now to look like his daddy, tall, lean, broad, gentle tough guy.
Sam walked Grace back to her Mazda, parked outside the restaurant.
‘Going back to work?’ she asked, unlocking the driver’s door.
‘Not tonight,’ he answered. ‘Not unless I have to.’
She looked up at him. ‘Paperwork for me, I’m afraid.’
‘Like that as much as me, do you?’
‘Do I ever.’ She smiled.
‘I’m going to wander back to my place,’ Sam said, sounding lazy, ‘and then I’m going to head up to my roof, which is where I like to hang out, and I’m going
to sing a couple of arias and give my neighbours something to bitch about.’
‘You’re a singer?’ Grace was surprised, and sounded it.
‘Oh, yeah,’ Sam said, and grinned. ‘I’m not great, but I’m not too bad either – but even if I was the worst baritone in south Florida, I couldn’t give
it up. Singing and listening to opera’s what I love to do more than anything.’
‘I like to listen, too.’
‘Like?’ Sam shook his head. ‘No such word when you’re talking about opera, Grace Lucca. Love or hate. Nothing in between.’
‘Perhaps I need teaching how to listen.’
‘Perhaps you do,’ Sam said.
The whole of Tuesday and most of Wednesday flew by for Grace with scarcely enough time to draw breath let alone spend it worrying about Cathy Robbins. Patients and paperwork
aside, she had a minor flood to deal with that stemmed – according to Ramon, the plumber, one of Teddy Lopez’s many friends – from some pipework running between Grace’s
bedroom floor and kitchen ceiling. What had started out as a large patch of glistening damp had turned into a mess of wet and chunks of plaster.
‘If you don’ lemme do this now,’ Ramon had warned direly before starting work, ‘the whole ceilin’s gonna cave in on you.’
It was hard, come Wednesday afternoon, to tell the difference.
She had just brewed fresh coffee for Ramon, Teddy and herself, and was fishing around in her own cup trying to remove a large paint flake, when the phone rang.
‘How are things with you?’ Sam asked.
‘Don’t ask.’
‘Okay.’ He paused. ‘I have the information you asked for.’
Grace looked around for somewhere clean to set down her cup, but Ramon was drinking his coffee halfway up his ladder, and Teddy was picking plaster bits out of Harry’s coat, so she decided
to leave the kitchen and headed for the den instead.
‘Okay,’ she told Sam. ‘I have a pen now.’
‘I don’t have many details,’ he said, ‘but what I do have looks enough to be going on with, from your point-of-view.’
Grace felt a lick of foreboding. ‘Go ahead.’
‘Marie Robbins’ first husband was a Dr John Broderick. He was a physician at Lafayette Hospital up in Tallahassee, which was where Cathy was born. The Brodericks were separated when
he died in ’89, though they had not divorced.’ Sam paused. ‘Seems the doctor was in quite a jam at the time, being investigated by the ethics committee at his hospital, which was
why he took his own life.’
‘Suicide?’ Grace thought about Cathy aged five.
Oh, Christ.
‘He kept a sailboat at the Pensacola shore – it was hurricane season. He waited for the next big storm to hit, left a note for Marie, took off in his boat and got himself
drowned.’
Grace said nothing. She didn’t know what to say.
‘Grace, are you okay?’
‘Yes, I’m okay. It’s like you said Monday night – it’s not my pain, is it?’ She paused. ‘I guess it may begin to explain why her aunt doesn’t like
talking about the past.’
‘A heavy load for a child to carry,’ Sam said.
Grace knew what he was thinking. That the information represented more bad news for Cathy now. A severely traumatized young child, bearing Lord knew what kind of emotional scars into her
adolescence, with a mother who had to have had her own burden to deal with . . . More grist to the State Attorney’s mill if the intention was to suggest that they were looking at an
out-of-control, perhaps even psychotic, teenager.
‘It’s not going to help her case, is it?’ she said.
‘Not so far as I can see.’ Sam paused. ‘I’m sorry, Grace.’
‘I know you are.’
She hadn’t seen or had a real conversation with Frances Dean for over a week – come to that, she’d never had much of a conversation with her. But after what
Sam had just said, Grace was determined to try to put that right.
It was not easy to arrange. She called the same afternoon, asked Frances if she might drop by and see her, but she said she had an appointment, and next day, too, according to Frances, was too
busy. Possibly, Grace thought afterwards, Frances hadn’t been prepared for her persistence, which was why she ran out of excuses when Grace asked if she could come to Coral Gables on Friday
morning.
‘Cathy won’t be here, you know,’ Frances said. ‘She’s back in school.’
‘I’m glad,’ Grace said. ‘That may help her a little.’
‘Maybe,’ Frances said. ‘Nothing else has.’
Frances looked worse, Grace thought, each time she saw her. They sat in her living room as before, Frances sitting bolt upright, face pale and drawn, hands nervous in her lap.
Grace regretted already that she was about to delve into an area that this intensely private woman undoubtedly considered no-go, but she also knew that if she was hoping to be of any significant
use to Cathy, she needed to know as much as possible about her troubled early childhood.
Frances Dean did not want to talk about it. She wished, she said straight away, that Grace would leave her sister’s past alone. That was what Marie had wanted more than anything when
she’d left Tallahassee and brought Cathy to Miami. To start a new life, and to forget the old.
‘She begged me not to talk about it to anyone,’ Frances said.
‘I understand that,’ Grace said, ‘but surely under the circumstances —’
‘I made my sister a promise. No circumstances can or should change that.’ She read the frustration in Grace’s expression. ‘I’m talking about guilt, Grace,’
she explained. ‘We’re Catholics, you know, but my sister was far more devout than me, and far more burdened by guilt – much good it did her, God rest her poor soul.’
‘Why did she feel guilty?’ Grace asked, gently.
‘She had nothing to feel guilty about,’ Frances said, darkly, ‘except perhaps, for choosing John Broderick as her husband.’ She shook her head. ‘But, being so
devout, her vows meant everything to Marie, and she thought it at least partly her fault that their marriage turned bad.’
‘I gather they were separated at the time of her husband’s death?’
‘Marie would never have divorced,’ Frances said. ‘And of course, when John died, she blamed herself for that too.’
Grace saw the other woman’s lips purse tightly for a moment, observed the anger in her eyes, felt her almost straining against its power, and hoped she might let it go.
‘I will tell you one thing, and no more,’ Frances went on. ‘John Broderick was a wicked, cruel man who used his position to abuse his wife and child.’
Awful, cold dismay lashed at Grace again. ‘He abused Cathy?’ Her voice was hushed.
‘Not in the way you’re thinking,’ Frances said, ‘though, Lord knows, what he did wasn’t much better.’
‘It might help if I knew.’
‘Why? How? Cathy doesn’t know about it. She was too young – she doesn’t remember, which is at least one blessing.’
‘She may not consciously remember, but —’
‘Oh,
please
.’ Frances rose from her armchair, propelled out of it by scorn, but then she brought herself visibly back under control, and sat down again. ‘I’m
sorry, Dr Lucca,’ she said, reverting to formality, ‘but I simply don’t believe in these theories about forcing people to face dreadful things they’ve been fortunate enough
to bury.’
‘I don’t necessarily disagree with you,’ Grace said.
‘My sister wasn’t one of those women who use every opportunity to speak badly about their children’s fathers. She was a good, kind, decent, God-fearing woman, Dr Lucca
—’ the anger was still there, still only just being held at bay ‘— and there are only two things left for me to do for her now, and one of those is to keep my word to
her.’
‘If you shared at least a little more with me, Frances,’ Grace said, ‘I promise you it would go no further.’
‘That’s not good enough. Marie wanted to leave all that shame behind her, and not be reminded of it ever again.’ Frances’ eyes filled suddenly with tears; she fished for
her handkerchief in her pocket, found it, used it.
‘And you don’t think that my knowing about the past might help Cathy?’
‘How could your knowing anything help her?’ The scorn was evident again. ‘Digging up the past isn’t going to help find out who killed Marie and Arnold.’ Frances
took a breath, composed herself. ‘If there is any justice beyond this world, John Broderick’s burning in hell now, and Marie’s surely in heaven. There’s only
one
thing that’s going to help that child now, and that’s for the Miami Beach Police Department to do its job and catch the person who killed those good people, so that Cathy can go on with
her life and put it behind her.’
Grace liked to think she knew when she was beaten.
‘I didn’t come here to pry, Frances,’ she said. ‘I hope you know that.’
‘I’m not sure why you are here, Dr Lucca,’ Frances said stiffly.
‘I’m here as Cathy’s psychologist and as her friend.’
‘You’re only here because the police asked you to come.’
‘That’s not true. I came in the first place because Dr Becket thought I might be able to help Cathy.’
‘Because of what happened to her parents,’ Frances said. ‘Not what happened years ago.’ She stood up again, this time with an air of finality. ‘My sister and
brother-in-law’s bodies have been released for burial, doctor. The funeral is arranged for next Wednesday. That will be more than enough for Cathy to have to bear without making things even
more terrible. I don’t believe in dredging up every bad thing that’s ever happened to a person.’
‘Nor do I, Frances.’ Grace stood up, too, knowing she was being dismissed. ‘I never have believed in that.’
‘Then let it rest.’ Frances Dean paused. ‘If you really want to help Cathy, then please just let it be. Otherwise, as her guardian, I may have to ask you to stop seeing
her.’
Ramon was standing on the kitchen table when Grace got home, plastering the hole in the ceiling.
‘How you doin’, Gracie?’
She wondered where he’d got that from. She didn’t think Teddy called her Gracie, but then again she supposed she didn’t know what anyone called her behind her back. Not that it
bothered her. If it was good enough for George Burns’ wife, she figured, it was good enough for her.
She escaped back into her office and, with Harry up on her lap, debated getting back in touch with Sam. What Grace wanted now was to know what John Broderick had done to Cathy and her mother.
Sam Becket was the obvious route to go, but she was concerned that all she’d achieved to date with her prodding was to give the police and the State Attorney more reason to suspect Cathy.
She decided to call David Becket instead, reached him at the medical centre in downtown Miami that he shared with two other physicians. He came to the phone directly, his voice warm and
friendly.
‘How’s my favourite shrink?’
‘Troubled.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that. Nothing to do with that son of mine, I hope?’
Grace wasn’t sure how she felt about that question, but it made her smile. David Becket usually made her smile, now she came to think about it.
‘Cathy Robbins,’ she said. ‘I need some information about her background, and I’d prefer to get it off-the-record.’
‘And you think I can help?’
‘David, do you have contacts at Lafayette Hospital up in Tallahassee?’
‘As a matter of fact, I do.’
‘Are they the kind of contacts who might have access to nine- or ten-year-old information about a physician at the hospital?’
‘Who are we talking about here?’ David asked.