A few minutes before his three o’clock at the Pine Tree School, Sugarman made a quick detour by Dillard’s office. The good doctor was at lunch, so Sugar took a run at his secretary, Mary Suarez, a brisk woman of about fifty, with closecropped hair, orange lipstick, and a pugnacious squint.
As Sugar inquired about the clothing Abigail Bates was wearing when her body was found, Mary stared down at her telephone, and her right hand inched toward it as if she was considering summoning security.
Sugarman waited, staring at the top of Mary Suarez’s head. He was trying his damnedest to give the woman the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she was weak on social skills. Bashful, tongue-tied.
“May I assume your office returned Ms. Bates’s property to the next of kin?”
She flicked her eyes up and took him in. No, not bashful—something else entirely. She studied the baseball cap he was holding. She probably assumed he’d doffed it in a display of servitude.
Sugarman bulled ahead.
“So I’m asking if you kept any record of those articles in your evidence package? Photos of her clothes, jewelry, things of that nature.”
The woman clucked her tongue three times. “Are you insinuating this office is less than professional?”
“No, ma’am. I’m not doing that.”
“Well, of course we keep records of the deceased’s possessions.”
Sugarman shrugged.
“I need to take a look.”
Before she could refuse, Sugar said, “As Dillard told you, I’m here to double-check the sheriff’s work. Something doesn’t smell right.”
“Well, it’s about time someone double-checked that woman.”
Mary Suarez pushed back her chair, got up, and tramped into an adjoining office. In half a minute she returned with a red file folder. She slapped it down on the edge of the desk and stepped back out of Sugarman’s range as if sharing his breathing space might pose a health risk.
Carefully, Sugarman set the Marlins cap on her desk, picked up the folder, and leafed through the documents and photos. Same autopsy shots he’d viewed earlier. And there were pictures of Abigail Bates’s clothes laid out flat on what looked like a surgical table. A vented fishing shirt, frayed jeans, white lacy underwear, and one pink tennis shoe with plaid laces.
“Nobody asked me,” Mary said, “but it’s obvious there was foul play.”
“So you agree with Dr. Dillard.”
She weighed her response with an evasive light playing in her eyes. Not about to be conned by some outsider.
“Based on what I’ve seen so far, I’m not so sure,” Sugar said. “The sheriff’s decision might be right. This whole thing could be nothing more than an accidental drowning. I’d have to see something a good deal more convincing than some bruises on the woman’s arms.”
“Oh, my,” she said, her voice tightening. “I didn’t realize I was in the presence of a forensic pathologist.”
Sugar touched the bill of the cap.
“There’s a hair snagged on the snap of this ball cap,” he said, keeping his voice as quiet as he could manage. “Please treat this item with the same care you’d use on any crime-scene evidence. And when he returns, have Dr. Dillard check that strand of hair for postmortem banding. Pay special attention to the proximal root.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“DNA analysis will be critical. That strand of hair might belong to Ms. Bates, or it might belong to the killer. You want to write that down, Mary, or can you remember it?”
She gave him a freeze-dried smile.
These people were starting to seriously piss him off, but somehow Sugar managed to bid the woman good-day and get out of the office without strangling her.
It had been such a long time since he’d felt the death-ray of bigotry aimed in his direction, he wasn’t sure if he was reading it right. Maybe he was just being thin-skinned. Yeah, he’d have to work on believing that.
He was getting into his car when his cell phone chirped. He dug it out, snapped it open, and Thorn spoke his name.
“Hey, Thorn? How’s it going?”
But the connection broke. Sugar sat for a minute waiting for Thorn to call back, but he didn’t, which didn’t surprise Sugar. He could count on one hand the times Thorn had used a cell phone. Had to be something pretty special to make him do it now. Probably wanted to brag about a fish they’d caught, some hundred-pound tarpon. Sugarman got the cell number off his ID screen and returned the call, but was forwarded to the automatic voice-mail system. The party he was calling was unavailable.
Sugarman tried to hear again the tenor of Thorn’s voice. A little strained, hurried. Not surprising that he might be getting cranky after twenty-four hours crammed together with so many people. Sugar let it go.
Sasha cut the engine and the boat coasted deeper into the narrow inlet. Griffin was propped up against the transom, eyeing Milligan, who stood on the other side of the console. The big man would have to take two or three steps to be in arm’s length of Sasha, time enough for her to put three rounds in him.
“I can deliver Thorn,” Milligan said again. “No risk to you. End this whole thing. You take him down, we get out of here, nobody has to know who you are or why you did it. You just disappear.”
“We’re past that point,” Sasha said.
“Mona put you up to this. My daughter’s paying you.”
“Sit down and shut up.”
“Then it was Carter. Carter Mosley. That bastard wants control. He’s behind this whole thing. Tell me, goddammit. It’s Mosley, right?”
Sasha cut her gaze to Griffin. He had his eyes open and he was sitting up, his breath noisy, but he was still alive. His skin had taken on a waxy gleam.
“Get over the side,” Sasha said.
“What?”
“Over the side. Into the water.”
“I’m offering you a deal. I’ll give you Thorn. That’s who you want.”
“Over the side,” she said. “I’m not saying it again.”
“Look, I’m an ally. I can make anything happen you want. Name it, it’s yours. We’ll find your son the best damn doctors in the world. A new home, cash. You tell me what you want. A million dollars, two. Give me a number.”
“Your mother said the same thing, just about those exact words. Right before I drowned her.”
“What does it accomplish, killing me, killing the others?”
“Head of the snake,” Griffin said.
Milligan stared at the boy.
“I know who you are,” Milligan said. “I recognized you this morning. You’re the Olsen woman. Your husband was the one who died. An activist, worked at Pine Tree School. Taught science or something. Got the natives all riled up.”
“Died of lung cancer,” Sasha said. “Same as my boy.”
“Same as me,” Griffin said.
“Whoever you’re dealing with, I’ll double whatever they’re paying you. Hell, I’ll triple it. We’ll cease the mining operation. We’ll cap that gyp stack next to the school. What do you want? Name it, make me a list.”
“I want you to get overboard, Mr. Milligan, into the water.”
She gave him a good view of the .45.
“Why?”
“We’re going to find out how long you can hold your breath.”
He was a big man, wide shoulders. Early sixties but without paunch or jowl. Good head of hair, clear pitiless eyes like his mother’s. Sasha had seen him a few times before, strutting around Summerland like he owned the world and simply out of the kindness of his heart was allowing a few others to share it with him.
A bullet in the leg or shoulder, something to weaken him, to even up the odds, that would have been the wise thing.
“Nice and easy, slip in the water. I’ll be with you shortly.”
Milligan seemed to be making the calculation most men his size and strength would make. He didn’t smile outright, but she could see the cunning play on his lips.
“Shoot him, Mama. Don’t risk it.”
Milligan sat down on the starboard gunwale.
“You and me in the water? That’s what you’re saying? Hand to hand.”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“I’m not an eighty-six-year-old woman.”
“Go on, Mr. Milligan.”
“Shoot him, Mama.”
“No, son. She thinks she can drown me. Your mama’s a certified loony.”
“I don’t want to shoot you, Mr. Milligan. But I will if you don’t get in that water. Right now.”
He swiveled on the gunwale, brought his legs over the side. He looked down between his knees into the shallow creek. Pushed off and splashed.
He treaded water five feet away, stirring up the muddy bottom.
“Come on in, gal, the water’s fine.”
“Mama, goddammit, use the pistol. He’s too damn big.”
She set the .45 on the console.
“At least leave me the gun.”
“No need for that.”
“Mama, don’t.”
“I’ll be fine, son. It’s not the size of the muscles, it’s what you’re willing to do with them.”
Sasha climbed onto the gunwale, winked at her boy, and hopped into the water. It was nice and warm. Much warmer than the Peace River.