Kill All the Lawyers

Great sheets of rain pounded the pavement, the winds clocking around to the north. The Mustang sloshed across the causeway, shuddering in the gusts at the top of the bridge.

Steve passed the Seaquarium, the steering wheel in one hand, his cell phone in the other. The 911 operator told him to call the Coast Guard. The duty officer at the Guard base said no, they could not dispatch a flotilla of patrol boats, cutters, and choppers to parts unknown on a citizen's hunch that a crime was being committed somewhere at sea.

He tried the police again. After two transfers and seven minutes listening to recorded crime-stopping tips, Officer Teele came on the line. 'Funny you called, Solomon. We've been looking for you.'

'Why?'

'Got a bench warrant to pick you up. Seems you didn't show up for anger-management therapy.'

'That's bullshit!' Sounding like he needed his anger managed.

'Got Dr. Kreeger's affidavit right here.'

'It's Kreeger you should be after. He's got Maria on his boat. He's-'

'You really got to get over this thing about Dr. Bill.'

'Goddammit, listen to me! Kreeger killed that girl in the Redlands. He's gonna kill again.'

'Okay, Mr. Solomon. Why don't you just come downtown? Then you can tell us all about it.'

'Why? So you can arrest me?'

'You're sounding a little paranoid, Mr. Solomon. So tell me, where are you right now?'

Steve clicked off the phone just as he turned into the marina. The car splashed to a stop. Steve jumped out and jogged toward the dockmaster's office, leaping over puddles. A red triangular flag whipped on a pole atop the small building. Small craft advisory, the winds hitting twenty-five knots.

Steve figured Kreeger had a several-hour head start. The Psycho Therapy would be in 'open water,' according to Amanda, but where? He needed to find someone who knew where Kreeger liked to cruise. Maybe someone saw the boat leave the dock. If they could pinpoint the time, it would be possible to calculate the range. Steve needed something-anything-to go on.

Soaking wet in his jeans and T-shirt, he was ten yards from the dockmaster's office when he caught sight of another flag. One pier over. A row of gleaming power boats in the forty to fifty-foot range. Flying from the top of an antenna was a flag imprinted with the image of a bearded man in an old-fashioned suit. The man looked familiar.

Sigmund Freud.

Now, who else would fly a flag with a picture of Freud?

Steve tore across to the pier toward the boat flying the flag. On a concrete piling, a stenciled sign in yellow paint: 'The Freudian Slip.' And on the transom of the white-and-blue sport fisherman tied at the dock: 'Psycho Therapy.'

Bow and stern lines taut, fenders in place. In the cockpit, both fighting chairs encased in their blue weather covers. Same for the console on the fly bridge. No sign that anyone was aboard or had been lately. So, Kreeger hadn't brought the girl here just before dawn. And now, in broad daylight, he surely wouldn't.

Amanda lied! Victoria had twisted her into a pretzel and she still lied.

Steve looked around. Lots of boats, but here not one person on this lousy nor'easter of a day. The rain pounded at the concrete, moving across the dock in seemingly solid walls, then stopping a few moments and starting again. The boats groaned in their moorings. Two seabirds flew overhead, battling the wind. On a nearby piling, a bleary-eyed pelican seemed to be staring his way.

Steve stepped from the dock into the cockpit. A teak deck, weathered and bleached by the sun, channeled the rainwater out the scuppers at the stern. He opened a freezer used for bait. Empty. Moved to a bait prep station, opened drawers. Fish hooks, pliers, knives, some spools of fishing line.

He slid a cushion off a bench and opened the lid to a storage compartment underneath. Fishing gear, deck shoes, life jackets.

No twelve-year-old girls.

Opened the lid on another compartment. Life rings.

An old fishing rod. Three metal buckets, brand-new, the kind you might use to mop the floor. A shovel, not new. It looked like a garden spade, a crust of mud along its curved sharp edge. And a canvas bag, maybe eight feet long, unzipped. Big enough to haul fishing rods or scuba gear. . or a ninety-pound girl. Steve rooted around, running his hands over the canvas, half hoping to find something, half hoping not to.

What would be better? Evidence that she'd been here? Or nothing at all?

But the bag was empty. No little-girl barrettes, no little white socks, no notes saying, 'Help!'

Then he caught the fragrance. What was it? He stuck his head into the bag and inhaled. Citrus. As if the bag had once held a couple dozen oranges.

Or a girl who borrowed her mother's perfume!

The fragrance Steve remembered from Bobby's room.

He tossed the bag aside and raced to the salon door. Glass in a metal frame. Locked. He grabbed the pliers from the bait station and shattered the glass. The sound startled him. But no alarms sounded. No one shouted. The only reaction was from the pelican, which flapped its giant wings and took off for quieter surroundings.

Steve unlatched the door from inside the jagged glass and let himself into the salon. Dripping water on the polished teak deck. A galley to one side. Stove, stainless-steel refrigerator, microwave, a built-in banquette and table anchored to the deck. On the walls, certificates attesting to the capture of a number of innocent fish in various tournaments. 'Hello!' he yelled. 'Maria!'

Nothing.

He went down several steps, his waterlogged running shoes squeaking. He checked out the staterooms. Beds made, neat and clean. No one home. He went into the head. A beach towel draped over a shower door. The towel was wet.

She's here! Or she's been here.

He went back into the salon.

'Maria!'

Still nothing. Water sloshed, the fenders squeaked against the hull. In the channel, a fifteen-foot outboard putt-putted toward open water, a couple of kids ignoring the weather warnings. From somewhere belowdeck, something creaked and something else rattled. Boat sounds. Meaningless.

'Maria!'

He heard a clunk. Metal against metal? No, a duller sound. It could be anything or nothing.

'Maria!'

Clunk. Clunk.

Again, belowdeck. He found the hatch in the deck, opened it, took a flashlight from a bracket, and crawled down the ladder into the pitch-black engine compartment. Moved the light over tanks and pipes, stringers and beams, and the two huge diesel engines. Shadows flashed across the bulkhead.

And there, on her knees, tape covering her mouth, ankles and wrists bound with a line attached to an engine mount, was Maria Munoz-Goldberg. Her eyes were closed as she banged her forehead against the deck. Clunk. Clunk. Clunk.

Thirty-Nine

RESCUE PARTY

Heart pounding, Steve ripped the tape from Maria's mouth and winced as she cried out in pain. She had red marks above and below her lips, and her forehead bled from where she'd banged it against the deck. Her entire body trembled, starting at her shoulders and running all the way down to her legs and feet. She sobbed, great streaks of tears tracking across her cheeks. Her wrists were bound behind her back with quarter-inch line.