Nobody Knows Page 3

  It would have been a big help if she had spoken Spanish. But she didn’t. Her high school Spanish had long since left her, and she hadn’t given it much mind. In Washington everyone spoke English, of course, and Washington was where she belonged. Washington or New York, that is.

  She had loved her job as KEY News justice correspondent, but she had been ready for a professional change. Covering the Supreme Court, the Justice Department, and the FBI was challenging and stimulating, especially in the months after the terrorist attacks. Cassie’s pieces had been on Evening Headlines almost every night, reporting developments in the investigation, describing the new world of anthrax and wiretaps and Level One security alerts, Most Wanted lists of international terrorists and multimillion-dollar rewards for their capture. With the exception of the anchorwoman, Eliza Blake, Cassie had had more airtime since the attacks than any other female correspondent at KEY News. It would have been satisfying to leave the Washington Bureau on such a high note.

  Cassie was aware, too, that her clock was ticking. Now that she was thirty-nine years old, the once open vistas of broadcast journalism had begun to feel a bit more limited. The network chiefs could say what they wanted, but they were still more likely to put older men than older women on the prime-time news shows.

  Yes, it had seemed just the time to make the switch and move to New York.

  But then the Maggie Lynch story had changed everything, making all Cassie’s big career plans seem so inconsequential. A young girl was dead, and Cassie had played a part in that. As a mother herself, she could understand Pamela Lynch’s agony and rage and her need for justice. The rapist was still out there somewhere, hidden and anonymous, but Cassie was front and center, a target for vengeance. A deserving target.

  Cassie winced as she turned her back on the hopeful sun and started across the dock to the shore. She had to get home, if you could call the apartment that. She needed to shower, dress, and force herself to go to a job that was a constant reminder of her failure.

  Waiting for her at the end of the dock was the sunburned man, dressed in his stained red Bermuda shorts and loose-fitting, red-and-black Hawaiian shirt. He wore the same clothes, black sneakers, and dirty socks that he’d worn yesterday and the day before and the day before that. Glazed blue eyes shone from his ruddy, weather-beaten face. Steel gray hair was pulled back in a matted ponytail, pieces of dead grass sticking from it. His lips were cracked and discolored.

  God knew where the man slept at night, thought Cassie, but he made it a point to be waiting at the dock for her every morning since she had given him that first five-dollar bill. Cassie stopped and pulled a folded bill from beneath her wristband.

  “Make sure you get something good to eat with that today, okay?” she urged as she handed him the money. The man nodded.

  When their ritual had started, shortly after she had moved to Miami, Cassie had tried to find out more about the man. What was his name? Where did he live? How had he ended up where he was? But her questions had been met with silence and, eventually, she didn’t ask anymore. She couldn’t force the man to talk to her, but it gave her some peace of mind to give him the money. She just had to hope that he really did buy food and didn’t blow it on booze.

  Didn’t the poor creature have anyone who cared about him? It was so sad and so scary. There, but for the grace of God, go I. Cassie shivered as she jogged away. Life sure turns on a dime. I could end up where that man is. Anyone could.

  All those years she had worked hard to accomplish what she had professionally, so many times at the expense of her personal life. Now her profession had hung Cassie out to dry, and her husband and daughter weren’t there for her either. She couldn’t blame Jim or Hannah, really. They had formed their own special bond during Hannah’s formative years. Jim had simply spent more time with their daughter. Jim Sheridan, high school English teacher, with his predictable hours and long summer vacations, had done more of the day-to-day raising of their child, helping Hannah with her homework, coaching her softball team, taking her to dance lessons and doctors’ appointments. The beeper that Cassie always wore had sounded too many times, calling Mommy to work, calling the wife away from her husband.

  Cassie rationalized that it was her work that had allowed Hannah to have all the advantages. While Jim made a respectable salary, it was Cassie who brought home the real bacon, earning five times what her husband did. That income made their four-bedroom, three-bathroom brick colonial in Alexandria possible. That income paid for her Saab convertible and Jim’s Volvo station wagon. That income had paid for Hannah’s summer camp when she was younger and for the shopping sprees at Abercrombie & Fitch now. That income was paying for all that was going on in the home that Cassie wasn’t a part of anymore.

  Because, now, Jim wanted a divorce, thirteen-year-old Hannah wanted to stay with her father, and KEY News had transferred Cassie out of her beloved Washington Bureau to Miami, where she was marking time while she and KEY News were being sued for the wrongful death of Maggie Lynch, the daughter of the first female director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Yep, life could turn on a dime.

  CHAPTER 3

  The freshly shaven face peered back at him in the makeup mirror. It was important to start with a clean, dry face.

  He dipped his finger into the white grease-based makeup and began to smooth it around his eyes and mouth, careful to use only a little bit. Too much would look heavy. Once the round shapes were applied, he used his fingertips to pat, helping the makeup get into the pores and smoothing out the streaks. Next he took a Q-tip and swirled it in his mouth to moisten it. The saliva-sharpened tip outlined the white painted area, making it more distinct.

  Picking up an old tube sock filled with the baby powder he had taken from Maggie Lynch’s bathroom, he shook it over the area he had made up and applied the sock to his face to press in the precious dust. He sat back and contemplated his reflection as he waited a minute for the powder to sit. Then he took a brush and flicked off the excess. Next, he applied the flesh-colored makeup to the rest of his face, except the area around his nose where the red would go. He repeated the routine of patting with his fingertips and powdering, followed by drawing black lines around his eyes.

  He picked up a theatrical makeup pencil and colored in a red, down-turned mouth and filled in a red circle over the tip of his nose. He didn’t have time this morning to bother with the prosthetic nose. He picked up the spray bottle from the dressing table and misted his face. Some blue around the eyes to make the clown’s face look scarier and a mascara wand to his eyelashes and the work was done.

  He turned his head from side to side and admired himself in the mirror. What would his mother say if she could see him now? Something mean and screeching, to be sure. The harridan.

  He ached to get out there again and find someone, see the expression on a young woman’s face as she looked up at him. But for now he had to gratify himself with the makeup alone. He knew the FBI was still looking for him, and it worried him. How could he have known that the pretty coed he followed home from the Mardi Gras parade was the daughter of the FBI’s director? How could he have known that he would end up all over the national news?

  “I won’t harm you if you cooperate.”

  She had listened, her eyes bright. She didn’t know that he didn’t really plan on using the knife. But the knife worked well. Women were terrified at the prospect of disfigurement.

  “Tell me that you love me.”

  She had put up no struggle. As she lay there, his pleasure increased. Maybe she did love him, maybe she enjoyed it. Just like the girl in Miami and the last one in Louisville.

  He didn’t want to be caught and was fighting hard to hold back. He was using all his willpower to keep himself from finding another woman.

  Merilee and what happened on the boat didn’t count. That was different.

  CHAPTER 4

  Breathing heavily and dripping with perspiration, two blocks from her high-rise, Cassie slowed down to w
alk the rest of the way. Aware of the checks she had to send to Jim twice each month and the fact that the checks from KEY might stop coming after the Pamela Lynch lawsuit was over, Cassie had chosen a less expensive apartment than she would have at another time. She’d found a sparsely furnished one-bedroom with rent much less than it would have been if it were on the west side of Biscayne Boulevard, where most of Miami Shores was—the side with the manicured lawns, palm trees, and Spanish-style houses. Cassie’s condo tower community was on the east side of the boulevard, where the neighborhood was not so highbrow. She passed several one-room shacks as she turned into her building’s driveway.

  Inside, she switched on the coffeemaker, flipped on the television, unwrapped The Miami Herald, and spread it out on the kitchen counter. She stood in her running shorts, perusing the newspaper from front to back, periodically looking up to aim the remote control at the TV and click around to the various morning news shows. Cassie paused as the radar map of Florida shone bright green from the screen.

  “Here in the Miami area, we’ll have another hot one. Temperatures should reach the high nineties with eighty percent humidity.”

  A different weather map popped up. On this one, Florida appeared smaller, making room for the Atlantic Ocean on the east coast and the Gulf of Mexico on the west. The weather person pointed to the southern Gulf. “There’s a tropical storm here, folks, and it seems to be gathering steam. This one has the potential of developing into a hurricane. We’ll be keeping an eye on it and will keep you posted.”

  Cassie sighed as her mind speedily calculated what this could mean to her. If a hurricane developed, she would have to cover it in all its unpredictable, wind-whipping, flooding glory. A hurricane would mean property damage and possible loss of human life, and Cassie would have to report on it. If the hurricane were powerful enough and horrible enough, Cassie would be up to her neck with it, and with the havoc it left in its wake, through the coming weekend, perhaps into next week.

  She had planned to fly up to Washington to see Hannah this weekend, since Hannah wouldn’t come down to see her. The last thing she needed right now was her teenage daughter experiencing yet another example of Cassie’s work getting in the way of their lives.

  She glanced at her watch and considered calling her daughter but thought better of it. With school starting soon, these were the last mornings Hannah would be able to sleep late. She’d wait and call her from the office.

  Yes, they could go shopping together for school clothes this weekend, Cassie thought as she swallowed the last gulp of coffee. A normal mother-daughter thing to do. That was what they needed. Some uninterrupted time together, just the two of them, doing ordinary things.

  And, though she hated to admit it, even to herself, she wanted to see Jim too. She missed him. Missed the sound of his deep voice, missed the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he laughed. She missed the all’s-right-with-the-world feeling she used to have when he took her hand in his. There had been many sleepless nights over the past months, and Cassie had yearned to reach out and find him in the bed beside her, ached to feel the warmth of his strong arms wrapped around her in the dark.

  The cruel things they had said to each other at the end were fading in memory, replaced with flashbacks to the happy times they’d shared. She’d first spotted him in that Advanced Shakespeare class back at Georgetown, the earnest expression on his handsome face as he listened intently to the professor expound on Romeo and Juliet. She’d watched as he took notes and raised his hand to enter the discussion. His comments impressed her. The next week Cassie casually took a seat near his. By the end of the spring semester, they were inseparable.

  Oh, what a spring that was. Falling in love in Washington as pink cherry blossoms popped around the tranquil Tidal Basin, as balmy breezes caressed their faces and ruffled their hair on their long walks together. The hours they’d spent talking over cups of coffee, the alleged study dates that had turned instead into make-out sessions behind the library stacks.

  Cassie treasured those sweet memories, and the ones that came after. The cramped apartment with its futon and old theatrical posters dotting the walls. The fun they’d had going to tag sales and used-book shops, trying to save money. Their budget might have been tight on Jim’s initial teaching salary and Cassie’s paltry income from her first job as a desk assistant at The Washington Post, but they’d felt confident about their future. Back then, it had all stretched before them.

  From the newspaper Cassie had gone on to a researching job at KEY News, which led to an associate producer’s spot. The fact that she was talented and bright was complemented by the fact that she was also very pretty. Within a few years she was doing on-air pieces for the weekend news broadcasts.

  The joy of finding she was pregnant was tempered by worries about what it would do to her career. Yet her heart had felt as though it would burst through her chest at the sight of Hannah’s damp head in the hospital delivery room. Yes, she had been torn about going back to work after her too-short, six-week maternity leave. But Cassie could also not deny the large part of herself that was hooked on the television news business, enjoyed the office and the stimulation and camaraderie she felt there.

  It had been a fine, but flawed, balancing act, juggling the demands of family and career. She should have seen it coming, should have known that something had to give. Please, please, please, she thought. I’ve paid my dues. Paid them over and over and over again. Please, no cancellations this time. Don’t let this thing turn into a hurricane.

  CHAPTER 5

  A cupful of coffee from 7-Eleven in his hand, Sarasota County Sheriff’s Deputy Danny Gregg let himself into the small office in the pavilion on Siesta Public Beach. The start of another hot day in what promised to be another hot week.

  In his late twenties, good-looking and solidly built, the young officer was very pleased with the career path he had chosen. His job as one of the ten sheriff’s deputies assigned to Siesta Key offered Gregg a somewhat flexible schedule, a variety of experiences, and for the most part, a feeling of satisfaction every day. At the end of a shift, he always had an answer when Colleen asked him what had happened at work. A shoplifter caught in Siesta Village, a traffic accident at the approach to the causeway, a child temporarily lost on the beach.

  Danny liked that he had four modes of transportation available to him to carry out his job. He had a white police truck to patrol residential neighborhoods and answer traffic calls. A bicycle to pedal through the village and make sure all was well in the blocks of colorful T-shirt stores, informal restaurants, and gift shops. A Jet Ski to get around in the water that surrounded and reached into the key. And his olive green ATV, his all-terrain vehicle with the oversize rubber tires that gripped the sand as Danny cruised the beach at will.

  He had no set schedule. No one looked over his shoulder to make sure he was at a certain spot at a certain time doing a certain thing. Danny had been chosen for the Siesta Key beat because his bosses in the sheriff’s department had observed the young deputy to be a self-starter, conscientious and dependable. They didn’t want a guy who was lazy by nature and looking for ways to goof off.

  Danny put the paper coffee cup down on the desk and adjusted the leather holster on his belt. He even liked his uniform of forest green shorts and white golf shirt with SARASOTA COUNTY SHERIFF DEPARTMENT, DEPUTY D. GREGG, embroidered in the same dark green over the right breast. How many sworn officers of the court got to dress like they were going out to shoot eighteen holes?

  He was slathering on some sunscreen over his tanned forearms when the dispatch call came in. “Proceed to Old Pier. Human hand found at the seawall.”

  “Say again?”

  “Caller says a male youth found a severed hand.”

  As Danny climbed onto his ATV, his wife, safe at home with Robbie, their eight-month-old son, flashed through his mind. He’d really have something to tell her tonight.

  The ATV sped up the relatively empty beach, leaving its
distinctive tire print in the damp sand. Scattered early morning walkers and joggers, a few shell collectors, and lots of seabirds occupied themselves on the shoreline. But as the deputy got closer to the northern tip of the beach, he could see a cluster of people gathered at the seawall. The small crowd parted as Danny dismounted the sand cruiser.

  A sandy-haired kid, whom Danny judged to be about nine or ten years old, stood proprietarily next to the clump of seaweed. There was something familiar about the boy, but Danny couldn’t quite place him.

  “I found it, mister, but I put the seaweed back on top of it, so the sun wouldn’t bake it,” the boy said with pride, bending down to pull away the thick grass. The officer stopped him.

  “That’s okay, kid. I’ll take over now. Okay, everybody. Stand back,” Danny ordered. The onlookers inched away, wanting to stay close enough to get a good view. The deputy slipped on a rubber glove and swallowed before he lifted the greenish vegetation.

  It was a hand all right. The stench was awful.

  The hand had been through only the good Lord knew what. The crowd was growing now as every curious resident or vacationer who had ventured out on the beach that morning was eager to see what was going on.

  Danny rose from his crouching position. “Come on, folks, move along now. Please, move along.”

  As far as the deputy could tell, no one moved. So much for obeying authority. He needed to get some help. This was no one-man job. He pulled out his radio and called the supervisor. “We need some detectives and somebody from the crime scene forensics unit out here.”