Page 53 of Nine Lives

They practically squealed, then invited him to join them. He told them he was in the middle of an important text conversation, and maybe he’d join them in a bit. Sipping his drink, he continued to stare at his phone, considering what to do next. A wave of disgust was beginning to sweep through him. Disgust at the two stupid girls at the next table, disgust at some casting director actually having given Madison a professional acting job, disgust at the idiot city he lived in, crawling with human insects. Jay finished his drink, got up, and went through the bar area and out the other side. He had decided to give up, and go home, spend some time on the internet. He’d been hoping for more but tonight was not the night.

An Uber pulled up across the street and let out a blonde in a tiny skirt and some kind of halter top. She swayed for a moment on the sidewalk, looking at her phone, then studied the street. He thought she might walk toward the bar, but turned instead in the opposite direction, staggering along the sidewalk.

Could this actually be it?

She turned onto a cross street and he followed her, keeping his head down in case there were any traffic cameras around. They were in a residential area, old Spanish-style apartment buildings that had once been chic, now filled with new Hollywood arrivals and drug addicts. She was about twenty yards in front of him, but she kept stopping to stare at her phone, the light illuminating a messy head of blond hair, and an overly made-up face. His heart raced. In his leather jacket pocket was the heft of a hunting knife he’d bought over a year ago at a vintage market. He put his hand around it and an almost sexual thrill surged through his body, a rolling sensation, like great drugs. Now he was only about ten yards behind her, between streetlamps, and in the shadow of a row of desiccated palm trees. He quickened his pace.

The first strike from the stainless-steel baton hit him across his right ear, breaking his temporal bone, knocking him to the ground. A ringing sensation howled through his brain, and his first thought was that the police had caught him, even though he hadn’t done anything yet, then he felt a rush of warm blood sheet down his neck and under his shirt, and he felt scared.

The second blow from the baton hit him about two inches above his ear and with much more force. His body slumped, his face hitting the pavement. That second hit was enough to kill him—he was dying already—but a few more rained down upon his head before the perpetrator walked briskly away, passing a drunk girl on her phone, saying, “I’m right out front, what do you mean it’s too late?”

Four

1

Monday, October 17, 4:40 p.m.

Jay Coates of Decatur, Georgia, had been sitting in the interrogation room at the police station for over an hour. No one had checked in on him, or offered him water, or even told him why he was there. Earlier, he’d been at work, and two uniformed police officers had showed up to escort him to the station. Jay could only imagine what his coworkers were thinking now. He didn’t know whether to be upset or kind of thrilled. But either way, he was not happy to be here now, waiting, studying the room, trying not to look directly at the observation mirror across from him and wondering who was on the other side.

To calm himself, he tried to estimate the dimension of the room, deciding it was eight by ten, exactly. That had been too easy, and he decided to do another mental exercise, seeing how far he could count using the Fibonacci sequence. It was something he used to do years ago, in college, when he was particularly nervous, or bored, in a class. He was at 317,811 when the door banged open and two plainclothes officers came in, a man in a tan suit with long arms and a heavy brow and a younger woman with a buzz cut who sat down off to the side. The man in the suit kept standing, pacing a little back and forth behind the chair that was opposite Jay, until he finally said, “I’m going to give you one chance, Coates, and only one. If I find out you are lying to me, I’m going to throw the book at you for obstruction of justice. Do you understand?”

Jay opened his mouth to say something, but the policeman kept talking. “I will personally ensure you do time for this. Real time, understand? And if you so much as try to tell me another lie in this room today, help me, Jesus, it’s not going to be pretty. And if you so much as pretend you don’t understand what’s going on here...”

He shook his head slowly back and forth. Jay looked at the female police officer, who sat impassively in her chair, looking back at him.

“Do all of us a favor, Coates,” the man in the suit said, his voice softer now. “I’m going to ask you a question and I want you to tell me the truth.”

Jay, whose whole body felt as though it were pooling under him, looked at the police officer, and felt himself nodding.

“Okay, Coates. Here we go. One simple question: Did you receive a letter on Thursday, September 15? Did that letter contain a list of nine names, including yours? Think before you answer, because I’m not going to ask you twice.”

Jay looked at the woman, but she was idly looking at the back of her hand now, as though this whole process was boring her.

“Why are you looking at her?” the man said.

Jay looked at him, and said, “No. No. I never received a letter.” And both officers looked at each other, almost without interest, as he broke down and cried.

2

Wednesday, October 19, 1:15 p.m.

As the plane touched down in Sarasota, Sam Hamilton, seated in the second-to-last row, turned the page of his book. He was in no rush to stand hunched under the baggage compartments waiting for everyone to disembark ahead of him. He was rereading And Then There Were None for the second time since the murder of Frank Hopkins. After he’d booked this trip to Florida in order to visit Frank’s surviving sister, he’d dropped by Kennewick’s only bookstore, a ramshackle barn filled with used books that went by the somewhat pretentious name of Ragged Claws Books. Sam had known what poem that name came from at one point, but he’d long since forgotten. After saying hello to Charles Montgomery, the owner, and the only person ever working at the store, Sam had gone to the mystery section, where he’d found an old Pocket Books paperback copy of And Then There Were None. He knew he wanted to bring the book with him to Florida and he also knew that he didn’t want to bring his own copy.

He wasn’t sure rereading the book was helpful, but it felt like something proactive to do. And it kept his mind on the case. The question he kept asking himself, the question that everyone tasked with this case was probably asking themselves, was what was the connection between the nine people on the list? In a way that was also one of the questions from And Then There Were None. Ten strangers are brought to an island, and systematically murdered. They don’t know one another, have never met, yet they are forced into a deadly situation together. Sam thought their connection was obvious, that it was forged the very moment they all arrived on the island. And it was the same with the list of nine people who received letters, all now targeted for murder.

Sam wondered why he was so fixated on the book. For all he knew, the killer had never read it, never even heard of it. It wasn’t as though the nine names were incorporated into some sort of nursery rhyme. And there was a major difference between what happened in the book and what was happening now. The difference was that early in the novel the characters realize that because there is no one on the island but them, the killer must be among them. That wasn’t the case with the list of nine names, but even so, Sam did wonder if the killer had put him-or-herself on the list. According to Mary Parkinson from the state police, no one had successfully located Alison Horne yet. Was that important? Sam, just going from his gut, didn’t think so.

The person Sam was interested in was Jack Radebaugh, only because of his age. Six of the people on the list were in their thirties or early forties, while two were in their seventies. Sam didn’t think this was particularly important except for the fact that Frank Hopkins had been killed in such a different way than the other four victims. He’d been murdered in a manner that ensured he knew it was happening. He’d felt pain, and probably panic. Everyone else had either been shot or attacked from behind or asphyxiated in their sleep. But not Frank.

“Excuse me, sir.”

Sam looked up at the stewardess who had spoken to him and realized that the plane was almost entirely empty. He apologized and made his way down the aisle.

After picking up his rental car and driving to the motel he’d booked on Siesta Key, Sam checked in, then changed into a pair of lightweight chinos and a light blue short-sleeved polo. It felt good to be temporarily back in tropical weather, the warm air heavy with an impending afternoon storm. He had talked with Cynthia Hopkins, Frank’s older sister, on the phone twice, once to ask her questions, and once to arrange this visit. She had told him during both phone calls that she had hearing issues and wasn’t good on the phone, and that was the reason for Sam making the trip. He knew it was probably a waste of time, but he’d taken the two days off anyway, booking a round-trip flight from Portland to Sarasota that included a stayover. Cynthia was expecting him at four in the afternoon. It was two o’clock now, and the motel he’d booked was within walking distance of Cynthia’s house. He decided to go for a walk down toward the beach.

At exactly four o’clock Sam rang the doorbell of Frank Hopkins’s sister’s house. It was a bungalow with pink stucco siding; the shabby front yard was packed dirt decorated with a few patches of yellow grass. The door opened six inches and Cynthia Hopkins peered out. Her round face was a mass of wrinkles, the skin patchy with sun damage.

Sam, unsure of whether she was going to remember this planned visit, said, “Mrs. Hopkins, I’m Detective Sam Hamilton. We spoke on the phone.”

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