As we watched the footage I could feel Billy's eyes on me, but I didn't turn from the screen as the report cut back to the anchorwoman.
"More in a moment. But now we take you live to the sheriff's administration building where lead investigator Jack Hammonds is holding a press conference."
The screen changed to show Hammonds standing at a podium flanked by several men in suits, clasping their hands in front of themselves like ushers waiting to take up the collection at Sunday church service.
Richards was the only woman in the bunch. She had cleaned up and was wearing a skirt with a jacket that looked too large. Her blond hair made her stick out even more and I could tell she'd put on some lipstick. I picked up my gin and took a deep draw.
The camera tightened on Hammonds, who had begun to speak.
"As you are already aware, through the joint efforts of the FDLE, the FBI, the Sheriff's Office and the FMD earlier today we were able to ascertain the whereabouts of six-year-old Amy Alvarez at a location in the far Everglades. With the quick action of a medical-response team from the county rescue center we were able to airlift the child to Memorial Hospital where she is now listed in guarded but stable condition."
Hammonds cleared his throat and took a drink of water before continuing.
"Subsequent to our arrival at said location, we were also able to locate the remains of a suspect we have now identified as David Ashley, a thirty-eight-year-old Florida native. The deceased was found hanged in a location nearby."
You could hear the press corp squirm in their chairs and then someone in the back yelled, "Are you saying he committed suicide, Chief?"
Hammonds paused again and seemed reluctant to look up from his notes to face the gathered cameras.
"Mr. Ashley did not leave any correspondence or suicide note to indicate his mindset or motivation, but there were indications at the scene of a troubled and potentially psychotic individual. Evidence was also collected at the scene linking Mr. Ashley to another victim in this summer's string of abductions and although we will continue our investigative efforts into this matter, it is our hope that today's developments put an end to this long and difficult case."
Hammonds gathered his one-page address and turned to his team as some politician took the podium and began, "First of all we want to share in the joy of the Alvarez family in the safe return of their child, but our hearts also go out to the families…"
I stood up and Billy stopped the tape and punched off the set. I made myself another drink and stood at the kitchen counter thinking about Hammonds' "linking" evidence and how even he wouldn't hang himself out that far unless they picked something up at the scene. I was running my memory through the inside of Ashley's cabin when I remembered the blanket. Richards had peeled it off the child and someone had put it in an evidence bag. Hammonds would not have missed it. Every piece of evidence in every abduction would be stuck in his head. He could easily use it as a strong tie-in, proof that Ashley was the right suspect.
Billy rolled the painting back in place over the television screen and McIntyre started for the kitchen.
"What they like to call a slam dunk case," she said, stacking the bowls in the sink. "Especially tidy since the suspect is dead."
"At least they k-kept you out of it with that 'able to ascertain the w-whereabouts' c-crap," said Billy, carrying his wineglass to the counter.
"Yeah, at least there's that," I said, avoiding a reaction to his emphasis on the word they.
"Do you think it's over then?" McIntyre asked me.
"Possibly," I said, thinking of the knife. "Maybe they're just hoping that if there were more snakes in the bucket, they crawled away for good."
She raised another exquisite eyebrow to me, her only response. I picked up my drink and moved out to the patio where I stood at the railing in the high ocean breeze and looked out on the black water. The moon was down. I could see a few dots of light far out from shore, boats at anchor or trolling so slowly they appeared stationary. I sat in the lounge chair and closed my eyes. I was trying to remember the kiss in the elevator but visions of Ashley twisting under the tree canopy and the black- stained butcher stump and Nate Brown standing high in his skiff kept invading my head. I could hear the tinkling of glass and china inside and the low voices of Billy and McIntyre in conversation.
Then the lights went out and I heard Billy step to the door.
"Can I get anything for you, Max?"
I could tell from the cleanness of his words that he must have still been just inside and that it was too dark for him to see my face.
"No thanks, Billy. I'm fine."
"I hope you know what you're doing."
"I've given it some thought."
"All right. We're going to bed."
I had always thought there should be more joy in such a statement. But what did I know?
"Good night," I said.
I sat for a while, thinking of my friend. I wondered if he stuttered when he was in the arms of his lover, in the darkness of his room. If he couldn't see her face, could he whisper his words without hesitation? I suppose it didn't matter. In the arms of a lover your faults and failures were supposed to be inconsequential. Sometimes you're supposed to be a hero. Even if your armor is somewhat tarnished. But I knew that was fantasy too.
I sat listening to the surf eighty feet below and the sound of water took me again to that jumpy place in between dreams and consciousness.
It must have been a dream because I could see my breath billowing out like thin smoke in the freezing air. But I could hear the voices of men screaming as clearly as if they were standing below on the sand looking up. I had never heard men scream before that day, not with such panic and helpless ache.
It must have been a dream because I could see the woman, really only a girl, not much older than I was as a second-year patrolman. She was standing on the outside ledge of the Walnut Street Bridge, leaning out over the water forty feet below, her arms reaching back to the cold concrete abutment. She had tossed her coat into bridge traffic before we could cordon off the area, and it lay there now with a brown stain of a tire tread across the back. I was watching her hands, gone white with the cold and fear. Her long fingernails were blood red in contrast as they dug into the gray stone.
It must have been a dream because I could see Sergeant Stowe in front of me and my partner, Scott Erb, who had first spotted the commotion and wheeled the patrol car up the bridge access lane into one-way traffic. We'd run up within fifteen yards of the woman before she stopped us with a wordless look of such desperation it was like taking a punch to the heart.
Now Sergeant Stowe was talking to her but she refused to see him. She kept looking down into the half-frozen water, the skin on her face stretching so taut across her bones that I could see the blue veins below the surface.
We had never seen a jumper actually go, Scott or I, though we'd been called to a few attempts on the Ben Franklin. I sneaked a look at the current below. The distance was not great. Both of us had jumped off higher points into the Schuylkill off the old Girard railroad bridge as kids. But this was mid January and the river was running hard and cold with chunks of gray ice spinning on its surface and its white banks closing in with hardening edges.
The sergeant was still talking when the scratching sound stopped him. It was the girl's nails. Maybe she was trying to change her mind as they dug into the concrete, red slivers splitting off as they scratched against the weight of her body pitching forward.