Alex Cross: Cross Justice Part 32

Biting insects whirled around us the second she stopped the car. But then she reached into her glove compartment and pulled out two ThermaCell bug repellents. She clipped one to her purse. I put mine on my belt and was glad to see the thing worked.

We walked forward two lanes in the cemetery and took a left toward the chain-link fence and the dense vegetation beyond it. At the end of the row there was a simple reddish granite slab about the size of two bricks set side by side.

PAUL BROWN.

DEDICATED SERVANT OF HIS LORD, JESUS CHRIST.

I felt my shoulders slump a bit reading those words and then the date of his death below. I thought back through the years, wondered where I'd been when my father killed himself.

I'd been, what, twelve? Thirteen? Did I ever once think of him back then?

I doubted it, and that admission let loose a trickle of raw emotion that had been building since I'd come upon the gravestone of my dad. My head swung slowly back and forth. My lungs fluttered for air.

He'd killed my mother and escaped prosecution only to be consumed by guilt and grief. The dam burst in me then, and I gave into it all, the tragedy, the loss of my father a second time. Burying my face in the crook of my arm, I broke down sobbing.

I felt Reverend Maya's hand rubbing my back.

"Hard thing," she said. "Hard, hard thing."

It was almost a minute before I could control myself. I sniffed and looked away from her, said, "Sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry about," she said in a soothing tone.

"I feel bad about all of it."

"I think it would be natural. What are you most upset about?"

I thought about that and anger pooled in me. "I didn't have a dad. That's what I'm angriest about. A boy deserves a father."

"He does, and I'm sorry," she said, deep empathy in her expression.

"There's nothing for you to be sorry about," I said in a hoa.r.s.e voice. "My father made his decision. I'm sure he thought it was the right thing to do."

"But it's still a hard thing."

I nodded. "It was like a door slammed shut on him the night he died. And then, just in the past few days, that door was open, just for a second, and I caught a glimpse of a secret pa.s.sageway, but it ended at another locked door. One that will stay that way forever."

Reverend Maya seemed to feel my pain as if it were her own, and she didn't speak for a moment. Finally she said, "Do you need more time alone?"

I gazed down at the gravestone feeling wrung out, and then I said to my father's ghost, "I love you, Dad. I forgive you, Dad."

Reverend Maya patted me on the back again as I walked away from the gravestone. We were quiet on the drive back to Pahokee.

"I hope I've helped to give you closure, Dr. Cross," she said after I'd disentangled myself from the Miata.

"I wanted to know my father's whole story, and now I do, and now I'll have to learn to live with it, and so will my grandmother."

Reverend Maya gazed at me for a long moment, and then said, "I have to go home and make dinner for my husband, who should be getting off work about now, but I wish you and your family all of Jesus's blessings."

"Thank you, Reverend," I said, smiling weakly and nodding. "I wish the same for you and your husband. And drive safe."

"Always," she said. Then she put the Miata in gear and sped off into the gathering night.

CHAPTER 69.

IT BEGAN TO rain as I drove across the bridge around eight thirty that evening. I was debating when to call Bree. A part of me wanted to pick up the phone right then, but I didn't want to churn the emotions all over again while in public and behind the wheel. I'd call when I got back to my room at the Hampton Inn after checking in with Sergeant Drummond.

But neither Drummond nor Johnson answered the phone, and when I drove by Mize Fine Arts, I didn't see any sign that the place was under surveillance. I drove on toward Mize's house, knowing that I was doing what I often did in turbulent times. I was turning my mind to a mystery and an investigation as a way of escaping the rest of my life.

I should have gone somewhere to eat, then returned to my hotel and tried to get an earlier flight back to North Carolina. Instead, I was in front of Mize's house, relieved to see Drummond's vehicle right where I'd left it.

I drove around the corner, parked out of sight, and strolled down the sidewalk as nonchalantly as an African American male can in Palm Beach. Johnson saw me in the pa.s.senger-side mirror and unlocked the car.

I climbed in the backseat.

"Success?" Drummond asked, looking at me in the rearview.

"It was a great help. She was a great help."

"Then we're happy."

"Yes, thank you, Sergeant."

"Least we could do."

"Given up watching the store?"

Drummond gestured through the windshield. "Those lights went on about an hour ago. Don't know if it's part of a security system or if Mize is in there."

"How long are you going to sit on him?"

"I don't know. Until I-"

"Sarge," Johnson interrupted. "Garage door's going up. Which car's it gonna be? The Lexus or the ..."

The rear end of a dark green convertible backed out of the garage into the turnaround. The top was up, and the car had to have been forty years old. It looked to me like something Sean Connery might have driven in his years as Bond.

"An Aston Martin DB Five convertible," said Johnson appreciatively. "A very rare car. A very fast and nimble car. Roadster."

"We'll stay with it," Drummond said, starting the car.

The roadster pulled out, revealing the silhouette of a tall figure behind the wheel. The car turned away from us, heading north at a rapid but legal clip toward Worth Avenue and Mize's shop.

"You going to pull him over?" Johnson asked.

"I want to see where he goes at night after ignoring our phone calls and door knocks," the sergeant said.

"Maybe he goes to Coco's place," Johnson said.

"You're thinking they're in this together?" Drummond asked.

"Why not? Coco could be turning Mize onto his targets. Or vice versa."

Drummond frowned, glanced in the mirror at me. "A woman serial killer? Isn't that rare?"

"You've got multiple killings here, but it doesn't feel serial to me. In every case, effort was made to cast the deaths as suicides. Most serial killers delight in being blatant about their acts. So a woman could be our killer or an accomplice."

"Motive?"

"Money."

The Aston Martin was two cars and almost a block ahead of us as it rolled to the stop sign. Instead of taking a left toward Mize Fine Arts, the Aston Martin turned right and headed toward the ocean.

Drummond stayed well back now, unwilling to risk being noticed, while Johnson and I craned our necks to see the roadster take a left onto Ocean Boulevard just as the rain came on hard. When we turned after it, less than a minute later, we couldn't see where Mize had gone.

Then Johnson saw brake lights in the shadows beyond a gate set in a wall that surrounded a two-story Mediterranean. The house was mostly shielded from the road by a riot of plants and towering palms. We circled the block to make sure Mize hadn't gone somewhere else and returned feeling that he must have been allowed in by someone who lived or worked there. Edwin and Pauline Striker were listed as owners in the county records Johnson pulled up on his iPad.

"Is Pauline a candidate for Coco?" I said.

Johnson shook his head. "Both owners are in their late sixties. But maybe Coco's a daughter or something."

Drummond parked where we could see the gate and then drummed his fingers on the wheel. Even though his face remained expressionless, I was learning to read his other nonverbal cues. He was frustrated, and I sensed why.

The various links we'd established connecting the victims, Mize, and Coco were weak, at best, and some were unproven. We didn't even know, for example, if the Coco who'd painted the portraits was the same woman who worked for Mize. And the only thing that tied Mize to any of it was the fact that he'd employed Francie Letourneau and had been called by the maid just before she'd been killed.

That certainly wasn't enough to warrant us going into Mize's home or even, for that matter, into the Strikers' place. For all we knew, the Strikers were old and dear friends of the art dealer, and he was over for a late visit.

But what if- Drummond said, "I'm sitting here wondering if Mize is in there alone with Pauline Striker."

"Or with Coco and Pauline Striker."

"Call the house," I said. "Make it sound as if you're checking in with people who used Francine Letourneau as a maid or a woman named Coco as a portrait painter. See if that flushes him out."

Johnson looked up the number, called it, heard it ring into voice mail. He left a message identifying himself and asking that someone give him a call back on his cell phone regarding an ongoing investigation.

When he hung up, I doubted we'd get a call anytime soon and I yawned, glanced at my watch. It was nearly ten.

Then Johnson's phone rang.

"The Strikers," he said, and he put the phone on speaker and answered.

CHAPTER 70.

IN A HALLWAY off the master suite upstairs, Jeffrey Mize became Coco. He got control of himself and affected a crotchety voice, saying, "This is Pauline Striker. I am looking for Detective Johnson."

"You got him," Johnson said. "Thanks for the quick callback."

"What's this about?" Coco said.

"An investigation I'm a part of," Johnson said. "I'm trying to find out if you or your friends employed a Francine Letourneau as a maid in the past four or five years."

"The answer for me is no," Coco said. "We've been lucky and haven't had a turnover in staff in ten years. Both our girls are part of the family. As far as the staff at other houses, I couldn't say."

"Right," Johnson said.

"Is that all? My husband and I are entertaining."

"Sorry to interrupt, but just one more question."

"Go ahead."

"Have you ever had a portrait of yourself done by an artist named Coco?"

For a moment, the cloud that was Coco lifted, and Mize felt panic surge through him. But in the next instant, Coco rea.s.serted control and said, "The only formal portraits of me and my family are photographs. What's this about? I have guests to entertain."

"Just running down leads, ma'am," Johnson said. "Again, I'm sorry for interrupting your evening."

The line clicked dead.

Coco set the phone back in the cradle, feeling like an immediate danger had been averted. But he stood there several long beats also feeling like the police were closing in.

The Mize circuitry in his brain broke through: Johnson has met Coco and me. Johnson was pounding on the front door at the house this afternoon. He'll go back to the shop in the morning. You should run now. Take all you can and run.

But these days, Coco was dominant. He pushed aside the thought of leaving just as easily as he'd pushed aside what his house looked like and hid every other thing that might mar his appearance to the outside world.

This was all that mattered. Appearance. This night. This moment.

One last time?

Dressed only in La Perla black panties and a gorgeous Chantal Thoma.s.s blush-and-black corset, Coco padded back into the master bedroom, where Pauline Striker, naked, was gagged and lashed to a chair, clearly terrified.

"What do you think?" Coco asked, running his fingers down the sides of the corset. "Slimming. And sensual. Why, Pauline, in my wildest moments I didn't imagine you and Edwin as the merry-widow type, but I suppose what happens behind closed doors just happens and evolves. And then one day I'm here playing in your kinky side, and you're ... you're there."