Mind Games (35 page)

‘I think Dr Lucca would like to help you more than you have allowed her to, Cathy. She understands what dark times these are for you, and she believes in you.’

‘That’s what she says,’ Cathy said, sullenly.

‘Don’t you trust her?’ Parés asked, quietly.

‘I don’t trust anyone any more.’

‘I suppose I can’t blame you for that,’ the doctor said. ‘But it’s wise in this harsh world to learn to differentiate your enemies from your friends.’

‘Are you my enemy or my friend?’

‘Mind your manners, Robbins,’ the nurse said sharply.

‘It’s all right, nurse,’ Parés said, and kept his eyes on Cathy’s face. ‘Which do you think I am, Cathy?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said.

‘Oh, I think you do,’ he said, gently.

The marina was no sparkling power parking lot for glitzy millionaire toys. It looked to Grace more like what it was: a rather grubby, workmanlike service station for boats that
represented, for many of their owners, their most regular mode of transport and, in some cases, their livelihood. It smelled of diesel and seagull crap and hot dogs – emanating from a stand
at one end of the marina – and the combined effect on Grace was to make her feel queasy all over again. Yet, in spite of all that, she had to admit that just the sight of the
Snowbird
, Hayman’s sailboat, a two-masted white monohull with lovely sleek lines, moored beyond the main working area, apparently fit and ready to move out, was enough to lift her
spirits.

‘What do you think?’ Hayman asked, watching her face.

‘I think she’s perfect,’ Grace said.

‘Do you know much about sailboats?’

‘I know I like being on them, and I’ve heard enough sail-speak, back home on Lake Michigan and since I got to Florida, but I still don’t really know a cleat from a clew –
it all just tends to fly straight over my head.’

‘No problem,’ Hayman said. ‘You know the basics: raise the sails, tension them off and go with the breeze.’ He smiled at her. ‘And since the
Snowbird
has
auxiliary power, we don’t even have to wait for the wind to get out of here.’ He paused. ‘Sure you’re up for this, Grace?’

‘I’m up for it,’ she said, ‘but worst-case scenario, if I turn into a liability, you can always toss me overboard.’

‘Oh, I doubt it’ll come to that.’

Over on the far side of the marina, a middle-aged bald guy straightened up from a job of work and waved at them. Hayman set down the box of supplies he was carrying, raised his right arm in
acknowledgment, then glanced around.

‘I guess the Weintraubs gave up on us.’

‘That’s my fault,’ Grace said. ‘I’m sorry to have held everyone up.’

‘Will you please stop apologizing?’ Hayman said. ‘Everyone feels lousy now and then – and if you do feel bad again, there’s a small bunk down below.’

‘I won’t need that,’ she said confidently.

She meant it. Now that they’d moved away from some of the unpleasant trapped smells on the working side of the marina, the ocean was already beginning to exert its power over her, the way
it often did. It was one thing living and working by water, but the prospect of getting out
on
it was entirely another. Even back in Chicago, Grace had always grabbed any opportunity she
could to catch a ride on someone’s boat, however humble, on the lake, but the ocean was another beast entirely, and one of which she was in awe. She might have talked, sometimes, about
getting her own boat sometime down the road, but even if that did come to pass she was only talking small potatoes compared to the
Snowbird
, some little craft like a Sunfish, just big
enough for a woman and her dog, a minnow compared with a shark.

‘You are looking better,’ Hayman said.

‘I’m feeling it.’ Grace shrugged. ‘I think maybe this has all been down to overstretching myself for too long without a break.’

‘I’m not surprised you’re exhausted.’ Hayman reached out and gently touched her right arm.

Grace didn’t pull away. For one thing, his words acted as an instant reminder of how tired she still was. And for another, she seemed, she realized with relief, to have stopped feeling so
edgy around him.

‘Ready to board her?’ Hayman bent down to pick up their supplies.

‘You bet,’ Grace said.

Sam had stopped waiting for Grace to call a while back. He had tried Hayman’s number again just before two o’clock, and gotten no reply, and by then Teddy Lopez, who’d gone on
keeping him under close surveillance, had became infected by Sam’s growing anxiety.

‘Is something wrong with Dr Lucca?’ he’d asked finally, watching Sam pace the kitchen floor.

‘No, I don’t think so,’ Sam had said.

‘Then why are you so upset?’ Teddy had nailed him.

‘I’m not upset. I just really need to talk to her.’

‘She’s a very good lady,’ Teddy had said.

‘I know she is.’

‘I like taking care of her.’

‘I’m glad she has someone as conscientious as you
to
take care of her.’

He’d left less than five minutes later, chosen the Miami Beach route, going south on Collins as far as the Mac Arthur Causeway and then continuing in the same direction
on US1, heading out of Miami towards the Keys. Sam was fully aware of what he was doing, knew he was on duty and how much hell he was going to catch from Hernandez if and when he got to find out
about it. But he was also suddenly cold-as-Jack-Frost
-certain
that he needed to hightail it down to Key Largo as fast as he could.

However innocent Grace’s reasons for not returning his call, Sam was unhappy as hell about her being down there, probably alone, with a guy who had, so far as he could tell, deliberately
insinuated himself into her life with a case history that might be invented, and who, at the very least, was right now far too much of an unknown quantity for his liking.

Hayman had told Sam that Grace had been feeling unwell and that she’d cut herself on some glass. He’d said that he’d taken care of her, and that she was in the shower, which
was why she’d been unable to talk to him. He’d also said that he would tell Grace that Sam had called and wanted her to get back to him.

And she hadn’t.

There was no real doubt in Sam’s mind that she
would
have called if she had been given his message.
If
she’d been given the message.

If she’d been able to call.

All of which had left him with four choices. One, he could do his job, go back to Hernandez’s goddamned statistics and try to put Grace to the back of his mind –
impossible.
Two, he could tell Captain Hernandez what was on his mind – which would, he was pretty certain, be a waste of time and effort. Three, he could call in a favour with one of the guys down in
the Keys – not a great idea, since if by the remotest chance Hayman
did
turn out to be Broderick, they would probably just be waving a great big warning flag right in his face.

Or four, he could do exactly what he was doing.

Dropping everything and going to find Grace himself.

Grace watched Hayman cast off, winch up the anchor, check a bewildering array of cables, ropes and winches from bow to stern, taking time out to plump up the cushions for her
on a bench in the part of the boat even she – sailboat philistine that she was – knew was known as the ‘aft’ section, before starting the engine to take the
Snowbird
out to sea. She felt comparatively relaxed as they left the harbour, glad to be on board at last, appreciating the fact that Hayman appeared a calm, efficient sailor, well used to
his boat, his long frame at ease with the rocking motion, his rubber-soled feet firm and agile on the polished teak deck.

‘I should be helping,’ she called to him a few minutes out.

‘You should definitely not be helping,’ he called back.

‘I feel guilty.’

‘How do you feel otherwise?’

‘Fine.’

That wasn’t exactly true, but it wasn’t exactly a lie either. The air was helping in one sense, but that curious fatigue – to which Grace was entirely unaccustomed –
still seemed to be wrapping itself tighter about her head, like an overly effusive hug from a fat maiden aunt.

She leaned back against the cushions, tilted her head and watched Key Largo drift slowly away as they moved out into the ocean. Less than a month ago, the water would have been crowded with
boats of every kind, but the fishing contingent aside, the really busy season was over for the time being, and though they certainly didn’t have the wind’s sweet, warm breath to
themselves, if Grace half closed her eyes, it did almost feel that way.

‘I’m going to cut the power now and get the sails up,’ Hayman told her.

‘Lovely,’ she called back lazily. ‘Want some help yet?’

‘No need. I’m used to coping alone.’

‘Just yell if you change your mind.’

She watched him put on sailing gloves, the kind that left his fingertips exposed but would protect his palms and fingerpads from getting burned by the lines as he heaved and worked to get the
mainsail up. Hayman had shown her where the PFDs – life jackets – were stored, but neither of them had put one on, Grace because frankly she couldn’t face the added weight or
bulk, just when she was trying to shed her headache, and Hayman because he said he never did unless conditions indicated it advisable. As it was, while she was wearing denim cut-offs and a cotton
T-shirt, he had on a long-sleeved sweatshirt and was sporting a blue bandanna around his neck, and Grace figured that a PFD would probably have made him boil.

‘We have to make sure the boat’s pointed into the wind,’ Hayman called out to her, explaining as he went, ‘so the sails don’t fill when we raise them.’

‘Otherwise we’ll take off before you want us to,’ Grace said. ‘Sure you don’t want me to lend a hand?’

He shook his head. ‘I told you, I’m used to sailing solo and I could use the exercise.’

‘You look pretty fit to me.’

‘You don’t look so bad yourself.’

Grace was already feeling the first signs of what she and Claudia called vacationitis – the careless, floating, limitless sensation that Grace sometimes found glorious, other times
irritating – pushing its way through the fatigue clouds and injecting its own cottonwool layers into her brain.

‘Sorry I can’t concentrate on you for a while,’ Hayman called.

‘I’m happy as I am,’ Grace assured him.

‘Soon as we’re on course, I’ll fix us both a drink.’

‘Take your time,’ she said. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

Sam was still on the South Dixie Highway when he made the decision to call Martinez. Cellular to cellular, just in case.

He answered after one ring.

‘Where the hell are you?’

‘Al, are you home or in the office? If you’re in the office, don’t let on that it’s me.’

‘It’s okay, I’m home alone. What’s up? The cap and Maria have called me twice. Why aren’t you answering your pager?’

Sam tucked the phone under his chin and kept his eyes on the road.

‘I need you to do something for me, Al.’

‘What’s going on?’ Martinez demanded. ‘What’s the big secret? You in some kind of trouble, Sam?’

‘Not yet. Will you do this for me? It’s nothing heavy – I just need you to chase down some people who think Sundays are rest-days and persuade them to open up their computer
records for you.’

‘Unofficially, I take it?’

‘For now,’ Sam said, and got right to the point. ‘I need someone – anyone – who can check a shrink’s background. Try the American Psychiatric Association in
DC, or maybe someone at Miami General or one of the private hospitals—’

‘What shrink?’ Martinez sounded startled. ‘Not Doc Lucca?’

‘Name of Peter Hayman, lives on Key Largo,’ Sam said. ‘Used to work over St Petersburg way or thereabouts.’ He paused. ‘And I need you to call Angie Carlino at home
in Tampa, tell her that the stuff I told her could wait till Monday suddenly got real urgent.’

‘She’s gonna understand that, is she?’

‘She’ll understand. Tell her especially the no-show shootings, okay?’

‘What shootings?’

‘Just tell her, Al, okay?’ The old guy moseying along at around twenty mph ahead of him was starting to drive Sam nuts, and he hit his horn hard.

‘What car you driving?’ Martinez asked. ‘Where you going, man?’

‘No place you need to know about,’ Sam evaded.

‘I’m not going to tell Hernandez,’ Martinez said.

‘I don’t want to put you in a bad place, Al,’ Sam told him. ‘Just do what you can and get whatever you find to me in the next hour or so – even if there’s
nothing, Al –
especially
if there’s nothing.’

The air-conditioner in the unmarked white Chevrolet Lumina – the car that Sam had no business driving on unofficial business – was working at full blast along with
his mind and heart-beat as he drove through Goulds, passing the turn-off to the Monkey Jungle. He had Pavarotti singing
La donna e mobile
on the radio, and he’d tried doing what he
usually did, namely singing along with him, his baritone underpinning the great man’s tenor, but this afternoon it just wasn’t working for him.

He’d turned off both his pager and radio after the call to Martinez – knew he’d done the unpardonable, but Sam was running on pure, high-octane intuition now, and he was pretty
sure he was going to live to regret it, but there wasn’t a damned thing he was prepared to do about it. His cell-phone had rung twice in the past ten minutes, and both times Sam had glanced
down to check the caller ID in case it was either Grace or Martinez, but once he’d recognized it as a departmental number – probably Hernandez trying to catch him off-guard – and
the next time it had been his mother. He’d answered neither call, and the automated message service had cut in for him.

He’d worry about the flak when today was over – when he’d quit worrying about Grace’s safety.

That was quite an admission, if he paused to think about it. Sam Becket had always known where his priorities lay till now: David’s, Judy’s and Saul’s health and safety aside
– and in the old days, of course, Althea’s and Sampson’s – work had always come first.