Kill All the Lawyers

And before Steve saw it coming, Victoria drew back her right arm and threw a punch as hard as she could. Not a jab. And not a hook. A fist that had an apple in it and all her weight behind it.

The Granny Smith smashed squarely into Amanda's nose.

There were three sounds, coming a second apart. The crack of cartilage, the thump of Amanda's butt hitting the floor, and a yelp.

Steve heard a yelping sound, realized it had come from him. A stream of blood ran down Amanda's face; a pink bubble emerged from her lips as she exhaled through the torrent.

Did I just see what I think I saw? Did Vic just TKO Amanda with a Granny Smith?

'Fucking bitch!' Amanda bleated, her hands covering her face. 'You broke my nose.'

'Put your head back till it stops bleeding,' Victoria ordered, suddenly the Nurse Ratched of the law business.

'Jesus, Vic. Why'd you do that?'

He was flummoxed. In all their time together, the most violence she'd ever shown was a wicked backhand on the tennis court.

'Don't you get it, Steve? We can plead and beg and try to find that glimmer of humanity you think is inside this sick puppy, but it won't do any good.'

'And punching her will?'

'You're a Democrat and I'm a Republican.'

'Yeah?'

'You're suspicious of the use of force. But the only way we're gonna get anything from her is to go Abu Ghraib.'

'No way.'

Victoria had strayed off script. Steve was supposed to be the bad cop, but apparently he hadn't been bad enough.

Still bleeding, Amanda got to her feet. She reached for a cell phone from the coffee table, but Victoria grabbed her wrist and twisted her arm behind her back.

'Ow!' Amanda rasped. 'What are you, a dyke or something?'

Victoria snatched the phone with her free hand and threw it hard toward the fireplace. Her aim was high-not enough follow-through-and the phone sailed into the painting of Kreeger aboard his boat. It left a gash in the canvas.

'Bill ain't gonna be happy,' Amanda said, no more little girl in her voice. 'He loves that picture.'

Still hanging on to Amanda's wrist, Victoria used a foot to kick the woman's leg out from under her. Amanda fell to her knees, Victoria tightening the grip and bending Amanda's arm like a chicken wing. Blood flowed from her nose and puddled on the pine floor. Victoria used the woman's arm like a crowbar, pushing higher and higher, until the back of her wrist lay flat against her neck.

'Fuck! That hurts.'

'Vic, what are you doing?'

'Trying to save a girl's life. Bobby's, too. Now, make yourself useful and find something to tie her up.'

Steve thought it was possible that his lover and law partner had quite suddenly gone insane.

'Where is he, Amanda?' Victoria demanded. 'Where'd he take Maria?'

'Fuck you.'

Victoria pulled higher on Amanda's wrist until it passed over the shoulder blade. There was a pop. And a scream.

'That was your elbow dislocating,' Victoria said. 'I've done that in tae kwan do. Hurts like the dickens, doesn't it?'

Amanda lay prone on the floor, her wailing interrupted only by her pained breaths.

'Hey, Vic, could you ease up a minute?'

'We don't have a minute. If we don't find Kreeger, that child's going to die. Isn't that right, Amanda?'

No more 'fuck you' s. Just some sobbing.

'Let's work on the other arm,' Victoria said.

'Wait.' Amanda got to her knees. 'Bill likes little girls.'

'No shit,' Victoria said.

Who is this woman?

'He takes them, sometimes. I don't know what happens to them.'

'Sure you do,' Victoria said flatly. 'If they can ID him, he kills them.'

'I don't ask him. There was a girl from the Redlands. About twelve or thirteen.'

Oh, shit, Steve thought.

'That girl who went missing down in the Redlands. .'

Kreeger had tried to blame the disappearance on a boy with disabilities. No wonder the bastard knew so much about serial killers. His knowledge fell into the forensics category called 'It takes one to know one.'

'Where's he go?' Steve now, getting with the program. 'Does he have an apartment somewhere? A cabin in the Glades? Where!'

Amanda didn't answer, and Victoria reached for her other arm. This time, it didn't take a snapped tendon. Amanda flinched, then surrendered. She turned her head toward the painting above the fireplace.

Steve focused on the painting, Kreeger and his big-ass sport fisherman, the Psycho Therapy. 'The boat! He's got her on the boat.'

Amanda didn't say a word, but her look told Steve he was right.

'Where's he keep it?' Victoria said.

'Grove Marina,' Amanda whispered.

'C'mon, Steve. Let's get going.'

'No.'

'No?'

'Something's not right. You torture people, they always lie.'

He remembered the photos of the boat in Kreeger's office. A dock, a channel, a mangrove island. The island was distinctive, and he remembered seeing it before. It provided a windbreak for the boats anchored away from the dock.

The island. The island. The island.

It wasn't at Grove Marina. Where was it? He tried to focus the way Bobby would. What could he remember? A breakfast. No. A brunch. That restaurant on the Rickenbacker Causeway on the way to Key Biscayne. From the restaurant, you look out over the channel, straight at the mangrove island.

'Crandon Park Marina. On Key Biscayne. That's where Kreeger keeps his boat.'

'Then go!' Victoria ordered. 'I'll make sure Amanda stays put.'

'You're too late,' Amanda said. Neither pleasure nor regret in her voice. 'They'll be in open water by now.'

'Where?'

'Don't know. The ocean, somewhere. Bill does the girls after he gets out to sea. Then he weights their bodies and chucks them overboard. Something about the water's all mystical to him.'

Again Kreeger's words came back to haunt Steve. The guy didn't believe in ashes to ashes and dust to dust. He believed in a watery start and a watery finish. What had he called it?

'From the swamp to the sea.'

Thirty-Eight

PSYCHO THERAPY