Heartstopper

by Joy Fielding

  “Oh, I found it.” Delilah spun around, holding up the papers. “They were on the counter.”

  “Good. Then let’s get out of here. Now.”

  They’d been driving for almost ten minutes when Sandy realized they were going in the wrong direction. A recent turn had brought the late day’s sun directly into her eyes, which meant they were heading due west when they should be going east.

  “I think we were supposed to turn left back there,” Delilah said at roughly the same moment. “Not right.”

  “I thought you said to turn right.”

  “No, I said, turn left and then right. I think.”

  Sandy quickly turned the car around, headed back toward the last intersection. Ian was always telling her she had no sense of direction, that left to her own devices, she couldn’t find her way out of a paper bag. And the visit to Gordon’s house had spooked her. That picture of Liana Martin, looking so vibrant and alive. “Okay. I give up,” she said, after driving around for several more minutes and seeing nothing but orange groves. She pulled the car to a stop at the side of the road. There wasn’t another car in sight. “Where the hell are we?”

  “I think we should turn left at the next intersection,” Delilah offered.

  “Are you sure?”

  “No.”

  “Great.”

  “Maybe we should just wait here for another car.”

  “Have you seen a car in the last five minutes?” Sandy asked testily. “I thought you knew where we were going.”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Crosbie. I messed up.”

  “No, I’m sorry,” Sandy apologized quickly, watching Delilah’s lower lip quiver. “This isn’t your fault. I’m the one who’s driving.” She took a deep breath. “So you think I should turn left?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Well, might as well give it a try.” Sandy turned left, continued down the road, passing one fruit grove after another. Just when she thought it was probably time to consider making another turn, the sudden pressure of Delilah’s hand on her arm stopped her.

  “Stop the car,” Delilah whispered.

  “Why? Do you know where we are?” Sandy pulled the car to a stop, turned toward Delilah. “What’s the matter?” she asked when she saw the look on the girl’s face. Delilah was staring out the front window, her eyes wide, her skin ashen. “Delilah, what’s the matter?”

  “I think I saw something.”

  Sandy’s eyes did a quick 360-degree turn. “What did you see?”

  “It looked like a hand.”

  “What?”

  “It looked like a human hand,” Delilah said, her voice a shout. “Oh, God. It looked like a hand.” She turned toward Sandy, her eyes brimming over with tears.

  “Okay, calm down. Calm down,” Sandy advised, though her own heart was beating so fast it felt as if it might take flight. “Where do you think you saw it?”

  “Back there. About fifty feet.”

  Sandy threw the car into reverse and slowly backed it up about fifty feet.

  “Keep going,” Delilah urged through tightly gritted teeth. “There!” Her hand shot to her right, her fingers slamming against the car window. She cried out, closing her eyes and burying her face in her lap. “Is it a body?” she asked as Sandy stopped the car and opened her door. “No. Don’t go out there!”

  Sandy said nothing as she slowly proceeded around the back of the car, her eyes warily searching the long grass at the side of the road, afraid of what they might find. At first she saw nothing out of the ordinary. Grass, earth, some discarded, half-eaten oranges, flies. Lots of flies. And then, a flash of something shiny reflected by the sun. A wedding ring, she realized, seeing the flesh around the ring and recognizing a human hand.

  Sandy’s hand shot to her mouth in an effort not to scream as she stumbled back to the car. “Do you have a cell phone? Please tell me you have a cell phone.”

  Delilah quickly handed Sandy her cell. “What is it? What did you find?”

  Sandy pressed in 911. “There’s a woman’s body lying by the side of the road,” she informed the emergency operator, as the color drained from Delilah’s cheeks. “No. I have no idea where I am. Somewhere out past Citrus Grove.” She promised to stay on the line until the police arrived. Then she lowered the phone to her lap and gathered an increasingly distraught Delilah into her arms.

  “Is it Mrs. Hamilton?”

  “I don’t know.” Sandy held the sobbing girl in her arms as they waited for the sheriff to arrive, trying to decide what would be worse—if the body they’d discovered was Fiona Hamilton, or if it wasn’t.

  TWENTY-SIX

  You want to tell me what you were doing out here?” John Weber asked as police began cordoning off the area. He was trying to get his mind around the fact that the woman he was talking to had her arm around the daughter of the woman her husband had left her for. That was almost as shocking to him as the body the two of them had discovered lying in the tall grass. A body he assumed was Fiona Hamilton, although he wouldn’t be 100 percent sure until her husband made a positive ID. As had been the case with Liana Martin, there wasn’t a whole lot left of the woman’s face. Still, the hair color was the same, and the body appeared to be relatively intact. It shouldn’t be too hard to make a positive identification.

  “I’m sorry,” Sandy Crosbie said. “What?”

  John leaned into the front seat, his left arm resting on top of the open car door. “I asked what the two of you were doing out this way.”

  Sandy sat behind the wheel of her car, her face streaked with tears. She stared blankly at the windshield, Delilah’s head buried against her side, and said, “We were at Gordon Lipsman’s house.”

  “What were you doing there?”

  “Mr. Lipsman forgot his sheet music at home,” Delilah said, pushing herself into a sitting position, although one hand still clung to Sandy’s navy skirt. “I offered to go get it. Mrs. Crosbie said it was too far to walk …” Her voice broke as she glanced out the side window, saw the police moving around the body. “What are they doing?”

  “Collecting evidence,” John told her, although truthfully, he wasn’t sure there was much to collect.

  “Is it Mrs. Hamilton?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “Oh, God,” Delilah cried, as if understanding the implications of that remark.

  “So, Mr. Lipsman asked you to fetch his sheet music, and Mrs. Crosbie offered to give you a lift. Is that correct?”

  “She said it was too far to walk,” Delilah repeated.

  “You’re quite a long way from the Lipsman house,” John remarked.

  “We made a wrong turn,” Delilah said.

  “We got lost,” Sandy said at the same time.

  Clearly both women were in shock, John concluded, deciding to save any further questions he might have until later. “Okay, I’m going to have Officer Trent drive you both home.” He signaled to one of his deputies. “I’ll bring your car back later.”

  “What about Mr. Lipsman’s sheet music?” Delilah asked, panic sweeping through her voice. John saw that the papers in question were crushed in the palm of her right hand.

  “It’s okay.” He reached in and extricated the sheet music from Delilah’s clenched fist. “I’ll see that he gets them.”

  “Did you know that Gordon Lipsman has a picture of Liana Martin in his house?” Sandy asked as she was being led from her car.

  “No, I didn’t,” John answered. What kind of picture? he wondered, deciding to go see for himself later on. “Are you going to be okay, Mrs. Crosbie?”

  Sandy nodded, although she looked far from sure.

  “All right. Look, I’ll be by later. In the meantime, please don’t talk to anyone about this. At least until we’ve located Cal Hamilton.” Cal had been released from jail this morning after his boss, old Chester Calhoun, had posted his bail. He’d been ordered not to leave town and to stay away from Kerri Franklin and her family.

  “Do you thin
k he did this?”

  “I think we have to ID the body before we ask any more questions,” John said. Seconds later, he watched as Deputy Trent tucked the two women into the backseat of his cruiser and drove off. “So, what do we have?” he asked, approaching an officer leaning over the body, his hand covering his nose and mouth.

  The young deputy jumped to his feet. “Looks like a gunshot to the head. Same as Liana Martin.”

  “Any identifying marks on the body?”

  “A small tattoo on her left ankle. Looks like Property of … I couldn’t make out the rest.”

  John wondered if Fiona Hamilton had a tattoo. She hardly seemed the type, although that Property of business was rather ominous. He wondered if Candy Abbot had had a tattoo. But Candy Abbot had been missing for months, and if this was her body, that meant she’d either been kept alive until several days ago or that her body had been stored in a freezer. Both were possibilities, he realized, although neither felt right. “Anything else?”

  “No, sir. No shell casings or stray bullets.”

  Which meant she’d probably been killed elsewhere, John concluded, then dumped here for someone to stumble across. Her killer hadn’t even attempted to bury the body this time, which meant either he’d been interrupted, was getting cocky, or that he’d wanted her to be found quickly. And if he’d wanted her to be found quickly, that raised another interesting question.

  Why?

  An hour later, John drove Sandy’s car back to her house, followed by another officer, who pulled his cruiser into Cal Hamilton’s driveway behind Cal’s splashy red Corvette. Sandy greeted John at her front door. “I think he’s home,” she said instead of hello, glancing at the house next door. “The music’s been blasting for the last twenty minutes.”

  John signaled for the other officer to approach. “Stay inside and keep away from the windows,” he directed Sandy.

  “You think there’ll be trouble?”

  “Hopefully not.”

  “Mom?” Sandy’s son approached, stopping behind his mother. “What’s going on?”

  “Just returning your mother’s car,” John told him.

  “You got towed?” Tim asked incredulously.

  “Not exactly,” Sandy said.

  “Your mother will explain later. Now, if you’ll excuse me …” John heard Sandy’s door close behind him as he cut across her front lawn to Cal Hamilton’s house, the music getting louder, more insistent, the closer he got. I’m sorry, Mama, Eminem wailed. Wailed being the operative word, John thought as he knocked loudly on Cal’s door. You couldn’t really call that singing. Although he harbored a grudging admiration for the young man’s obvious talent. The punk had learned how to channel his anger into something not only productive, but immensely profitable. Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone could do the same? Too bad rage was easier to channel than creativity, he thought, feeling his own ire rise as he knocked on the door again, harder this time. “Cal? Cal Hamilton, this is the sheriff. Open up.”

  “Should we break it down?” his deputy asked.

  “Only if you want to get your ass sued from here to kingdom come,” John told the overly eager young man with the short, dark hair and soft, wide mouth. “This is a courtesy call, remember? We’re asking this man’s help in identifying a body, very possibly his wife’s. We’re not here to make an arrest.” Yet, he added silently, before knocking a third time.

  The music retreated to a dull throb. “Hold your horses,” came a voice from inside. “Jeez, what’s going on here?”

  Even before Cal appeared in the doorway, wearing only a pair of tight-fitting, black jeans and a lopsided smile, John knew he was high on something.

  “Why, Sheriff Weber, how nice to see you again so soon. To what do I owe this great honor?”

  “Get your shoes on,” John told him. “And a shirt. I need you to come with me.”

  “Are you arresting me again? ’Cause whatever it is, I didn’t do it. I’ve just been sitting here all day listening to music and minding my own business.”

  “You’re not under arrest.”

  “Good.” Cal slammed the door in John’s face.

  John began pounding on the door as the voice of Eminem returned full force. He was debating whether he should leave and come back later when suddenly the caterwauling stopped and the door reopened.

  “I have a bell, you know,” Cal said, his eyes as smooth and expressionless as glass. “It’s right there.” He pointed. “All you have to do is press it.” He demonstrated. The melodious sound of bells filled the air. You are my sunshine. “Cute, huh?”

  “I need you to come with me,” John said.

  “And why is that?”

  “We’ve found a body,” John said with deliberate bluntness. “It could be Fiona.”

  Cal’s reaction was both extreme and unexpected. He staggered back into the main part of the house, as if he’d been struck. “What?”

  “Does your wife have any tattoos?” John asked, following after him. Immediately he recognized the cloying smell of hashish. Empty beer bottles were everywhere.

  “She has a little one on her ankle,” Cal replied after a long pause. “Why?”

  “Can you describe it?”

  “’Course I can describe it. I know every inch of that woman’s body. It says Property of Cal Hamilton.”

  John lowered his head, released a deep breath of air. “I’ll need you to make a positive identification.”

  “You’re saying it’s her?”

  “The body we found has a tattoo on her ankle similar to the one you’ve just described.”

  “What do you mean, similar?”

  “We’ll need you to make a positive ID,” John repeated.

  “I don’t understand. You’ve met my wife. You’d know if it was her. What are you telling me?” Cal backed even farther into the room, until his legs hit a chair and he collapsed into it. “You’re saying she doesn’t have a face? That some lunatic blew it away, same as with Liana Martin?”

  “If you’d prefer to give us a sample of your wife’s hair, perhaps from a brush …”

  “No.” Cal jumped back to his feet, shaking his head as if to clear it. “I want to see her. I want to see her.”

  John waited as Cal slipped a white T-shirt over his head and stuffed his feet into a pair of black sneakers by the door. “I’ll take you to her,” John said.

  “I already told you, she was alive and well yesterday morning when I left for work.” Cal was sitting in the small, windowless room that was used to interrogate suspects. The room was sparsely furnished, containing only a rectangular oak table with a small chair on either side of it. Two similar chairs stood against an unadorned wall. The air-conditioning in the room was kept just above freezing. John reasoned that the more physically uncomfortable a suspect felt, the more likely he was to talk. Cal had started sweating almost as soon as he’d been ushered inside.

  A two-way mirror filled the top half of the wall across from the closed door. John knew that Richard Stahl, the sheriff for all of Broward County, was standing on the other side of that glass, watching him. The mayor had called him as soon as he’d found out about Fiona Hamilton and requested he drive up to Torrance to oversee John’s investigation.

  A week ago John might have felt threatened by the mayor’s preemptive actions, even more so by his supervisor’s unscheduled appearance. But today he felt curiously sanguine about being judged. While he’d never had much patience for the mayor, whom he considered a pompous ass with a Napoleonic complex, he both liked and respected the sheriff of Broward County. Besides, John had never believed in cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face. If Richard Stahl had some fresh ideas that might help solve this case, John was more than willing to listen to them.

  Normally he would have preferred to wait at least a couple of hours before questioning a man who’d just identified his wife’s corpse. But Cal Hamilton wasn’t just any man. He was a hothead who’d already been arrested for assaulting one woman
and was probably a wife beater as well. And while he’d seemed genuinely shaken at the sight of Fiona’s lifeless form, he’d regained his composure with remarkable speed.

  “Did anyone else see her?” John asked.

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “Had you been fighting?”

  “Everybody fights.”

  “Not everybody uses their fists.”

  “You accusing me of something?”

  “Her body was covered with bruises, Cal. Old bruises. I’m sure that once the medical examiner has a look at her, he’ll find lots of old wounds, maybe even a few broken bones.”

  “Okay, so I may have hit her a couple of times. Trust me, she gave as good as she got.”

  “You’re saying she hit you?”

  “I’m saying she wasn’t exactly a saint. Sometimes I had to protect myself.”

  “You outweighed her by a good eighty pounds,” John pointed out.

  Cal made a dismissive sound, somewhere between a laugh and a snort. “She could be pretty fierce when she got angry.”

  “What was she angry about, Cal?”

  “The usual. She thought I was playing around. You know, being unfaithful.”

  “And were you?”

  “It didn’t mean anything.” Cal glanced toward the recessed fluorescent lights of the ceiling. “What’s with the look, Sheriff? You trying to tell me you never cheated on your wife?”

  John tried not to flinch. “I’m telling you it takes a special kind of coward to hit a woman.”

  The same derisive sound as before. “Hey, you can call me all the names you want. A coward and a wife beater and an adulterer. It doesn’t mean I killed my wife. I loved that woman.”

  “You sure had a funny way of showing it.”

  “To each his own.”

  “What happened, Cal?” John asked, trying a different approach. “She’d had enough of the abuse? She told you she wanted out? She threatened to leave you?”

  “She wasn’t going anywhere.”

  “Not if you had anything to say about it, she wasn’t.”

  “I didn’t have to say anything.”