Caged to Kill

by Tom Swyers

  “I’m so sorry to hear that. I wish I could say or do something.” David fumbled his hands in his lap, acutely uncomfortable with talking about her impending death.

  “You can do something. You can listen to me.” Edith was weak but emphatic.

  “All right.”

  “Ever since we first talked, I’ve felt this need to talk with you again. I don’t exactly know why. Maybe it’s to relieve my conscience or something. I don’t know. Maybe it can help you and Phillip Dawkins, though I’m not sure how.” Edith sighed. “Here goes.”

  “When I was young, real young—in my teens—I was introduced to Edmund O’Neil, who was Kranston’s superintendent at the time. We went out to a shady bar here in Hoosick Falls, the kind of place where they didn’t check for underage drinkers. One thing led to another and, well, I had an affair with him at the time. I was young and didn’t know any better.” Edith’s eyes became glassy. She tilted her oblong head toward the ceiling, blinking hard as if to keep the tears from streaming down her face. “I got pregnant with Janet. I thought there was something between us but he had a family and, as I found out, he wasn’t going to ever leave his wife or his kids. But he felt sorry for me and hired me as his secretary. He paid child support too, on the condition that his wife and family never find out about Janet, and that Janet never find out he was her father.”

  “So you believe that Edmund O’Neil is Janet’s father.”

  “I know it.” Edith spoke with the calm assurance of someone who was there.

  I know otherwise. “Is that all you wanted to tell me?”

  “I think so.”

  “I think maybe you left something important out.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like you were under the age of consent when it happened, that this amounted to statutory rape, and that Edmund O’Neil could have gone to prison.”

  “Yes, you’re right. How did you know?”

  “I did the math. So, why wasn’t this reported to the authorities?”

  “I was estranged from my parents at the time, living on my own. Isn’t that ironic? My daughter is estranged from me now. Anyway, I was supporting myself then. I never finished high school, had limited skills. I needed the work. He promised me a job and he delivered. I was secretary to him before I became secretary to Martin Kleinschmit, after Edmund left for the commissioner job in Albany. He gave me financial security and supported the child. I thought he might leave his wife for me. But after a while, I realized he was all talk. By then it was too late.”

  “You mean the five-year statute of limitations had expired?”

  “Yes.”

  “But why haven’t you told your daughter about him? She’s over the age of eighteen. He’s not still supporting her, right?”

  “He’s still paying me for her. I still need the money. He won’t pay me if she knows about him. That’s been the deal since she turned eighteen. When I die, he’s promised to pay her anonymously via an attorney through a trust that’s been set up.”

  David was blown away by her story. Edith thought that Edmund O’Neil was Janet’s father when David knew it was Phillip. The DNA doesn’t lie. But is she lying to me or does she really believe O’Neil is the father? I don’t know. “Out of curiosity, did you or someone else run a paternity test?”

  “I didn’t have to run one. I didn’t have sex with anyone else but him that one time.”

  “One time?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did O’Neil have a paternity test done?”

  “I think he might have done it. I think Mr. Kleinschmit arranged for it. Yes, now that I think about it, Mr. Kleinschmit did have one done. It sounds like something he would do. He’s such a good man.”

  “Did you ever see the test results?”

  “I don’t think so. No, I didn’t have to. He admitted that he was the father.”

  “Why are you telling me all this?”

  “I don’t know. I think I’m supposed to do it; it’s an urge that won’t let go of me. I don’t know why I feel compelled to share this with you. I know you won’t tell anyone because of the lawyer-client privilege and all.”

  David’s head was a muddled mess. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that the lawyer-client privilege rules did not apply to her; she wasn’t his client. But he didn’t have a reason to tell anyone else either, so he didn’t say a thing to Edith. Does she really believe O’Neil is the father? Johnny had given him love notes that Edith had written to Boris Dietrich. She wanted Boris to marry her like he promised, according to those letters. Does this mean that O’Neil is really Boris Dietrich? “Ms. Nowak, the last time I was here, I mentioned Boris Dietrich’s name. Do you recall?”

  “Yes, but I’d rather not talk about that name.” Her thin frame shuddered in the chair.

  “I won’t say it then, but can you tell me who he is?”

  “No, just talking about that name makes me nauseous.”

  “Do you recall ever having written letters to anyone by that name?”

  “No. Why would I write letters to someone I didn’t know?”

  “I don’t know. I’m just asking.” David wasn’t going to tell her Johnny had discovered those letters in her file cabinet. If that little tidbit was revealed, it might just get him kicked to the curb.

  “Please, I don’t want to talk about that name anymore. I don’t know anyone by that name, but it feels like they’ve shot me up with chemo when I hear you say it.” Edith’s face turned gray, her hand shot up to cover her mouth, and she lurched forward. She moved her hand just long enough to blurt out, “You’ll have to excuse me a minute.” Then Edith leaped up and wobbled down the hallway to the bathroom, where she slammed the door behind her. David heard her heave before the splash of vomit hitting the water in the toilet bowl.

  David sat there frozen, while down the hall Edith hurled. He was dumbfounded by this turn of events. Edith sounded like she really believed that Edmund O’Neil was Janet’s father. On the other hand, maybe she knew that Phillip was the father. It could be she wanted to hide that from everyone, take that secret with her to the grave. Maybe she doesn’t want it known to her daughter or to anyone that she bore an illegitimate child to a convicted murderer. Maybe she wants to throw O’Neil under the bus to keep me from pursuing the idea that Phillip is the father.

  David thought about confronting Edith with the fact that he had proof Phillip was the father. But he couldn’t face the fallout or the lifelong regret he’d have if it turned out he was wrong or if somehow Edith actually believed O’Neil was the father. Either way, I’d end up killing her before the cancer does. Let her believe what she wants to believe and let her take that comfort to the next world.

  In few minutes, Edith limped back into the room and slumped down in an upholstered Queen Anne chair across the living room from David. The sixties fabric beneath her shaky knees and wobbling head was a solid pea green, which just emphasized the bloodless pale tone of Edith’s complexion.

  “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave, Mr. Thompson,” Edith said, wringing her hands and wiping her clammy face.

  “I hope it’s nothing I said—”

  “No, not directly. I’m having some awful thoughts. I’m not sure where they’re coming from. I don’t know if they’re memories or if my imagination is running wild. I think it’s the chemo. It must be the chemo.”

  “Do you . . . do you want to talk about them?”

  “I think not. I’m afraid if I say them out loud, that’ll make them stay with me long after you’re gone. If you could, please shut the door behind you when you leave. I think I’ll just sit here awhile.”

  “Okay, Ms. Nowak,” David said, getting up from the chair. “If you’d like to talk again or if there’s anything I can do, please feel free to call me.”

  Edith was looking in David’s direction, but her eyes were focused over his shoulder, outside the picture window.

  With tears welling in her eyes, Edith said, “If I don�
�t see Janet before I die, could you just tell her that I loved her?”

  “Yes, Ms. Nowak, I can do that.”

  “If I tell everyone I know to tell her this, I’m hoping she’ll get the message.”

  “I’m sure she will.”

  “Good day, Mr. Thompson.”

  “Goodbye, now,” David said, before turning to the front door. As he stepped toward the exit, the floor board creaked beneath his foot. He turned to close the door behind him and glanced at Edith, head tilted back, staring at the overcast sky outside the picture window.

  A few moments later, he was sitting out front in his Mustang. He could see the top half of Edith’s head set back and off in the right-hand corner of the picture window. She hadn’t moved from her chair. He dialed up Phillip on his cell phone, but there was no answer. Then he tried his motel room phone, but still no answer. David decided to pay a visit to the Red Apple to check on him. He looked up one last time and he saw Edith sitting there frozen in time, staring at the clouds as it started to drizzle.

  When David turned the key in the ignition, it hit him that he’d seen this facial expression before. Phillip stared out the picture window like this when David visited him in his motel room. It was the same vacant look Phillip sometimes wore in David’s office. As David struggled to put the Mustang’s ancient transmission into drive, it triggered a subliminal thought about Cameron’s psychic driving. When he got the car into gear, David had an epiphany.

  Edith Nowak has been drugged and brainwashed just like Phillip.

  David turned his head to look at the picture window one last time before he drove off. He didn’t see Edith’s forehead any longer in the right corner of the picture window. She’d moved. David got a glimpse of her standing on the other side of the window staring at him. In her hands, she held a rifle at her waist. Good God, is she going to shoot me?

  Chapter 28

  As David sped off looking out the passenger window, he saw Edith track him with her head like a laser sight in “locked-on” mode. He knew his rifles. Edith’s gun looked like an old 22 caliber, at a glance, about the same age as his Mustang. David thought maybe she used it to shoot varmints in her vast backyard as many rural New York Upstaters do. It’s about the only way to deal with a rogue groundhog. Except in this case she wasn’t facing the backyard. She was staring at him in his car on the street in front of her house and he was the only varmint in sight. Maybe her chemo is laced with LSD. Maybe there’s no chemo at all. It could be just LSD straight up or some other psychotic drug cocktail.

  He’d never forget that face. There Edith stood like a mannequin in a dirty department store window with a crooked smile on her haggard face. It was the very first smile he’d seen from her. The truth had seeped through her attempts to suppress it and it was aimed right at him. Oh my God, she was going to shoot me dead in her house, but couldn’t quite bring herself to do it. Or did the chemo disable her fingers so badly that she couldn’t? Did she get the same psychic driving message as Phillip had? “Kill David Thompson.” Did I trigger something in her by asking about Boris Dietrich?

  It hit David then that he could not trust anything she had said to him. Not a single word. It wasn’t that David thought she was intentionally untruthful. Not at all. He feared that, like Phillip, Edith might honestly believe something based on a memory that could change on a dime or could have been implanted by the CIA. Even though David believed much of what she told him, he had no yardstick to separate fact from fiction. Everything she believed was suspect because all of her memories were suspect.

  While he was high-tailing it out of Hoosick Falls, David decided he needed to tell Phillip about his visit with Edith. David wanted to let him know that he wasn’t the only victim of this mess. He thought that this might comfort Phillip, calm him down, and just maybe help him to unearth some memories about Edith or his own past.

  David rode over the curb with his back tire as he darted into an empty space in the Red Apple Motel parking lot. The Mustang dropped into place with a thump that did not bode well for his shocks. He popped out of the car and knocked on Phillip’s door. There was no answer. The drapes were wide open so David peered through the picture window. The bathroom door was ajar. There were no lights on; there was no sign of life in the dingy little room. The bed was made. Oh, no, he went to O’Neil’s office again. David dialed Phillip’s cell phone. No answer. The voicemail still hadn’t been activated.

  A door squeaked behind him and David wheeled around at the sound. The motel clerk was taking the office trash out to the dumpster. It was the same clerk who collected the rent from David every week.

  “Hey, do you know where Phillip might have gone?”

  “Phillip?”

  “Yeah, the guy in 113.”

  “Right, the tall guy. He left a few hours ago.”

  “Was he on foot?”

  “Yeah, he walked across the street and got on a bus, I think.”

  “Was it a red express bus?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Any idea where he was headed?”

  “The only red express bus on that side of the line goes to Albany.”

  “Okay.”

  David was now furiously rubbing his face with both hands as he desperately searched his brain for a plan. Nothing like a little frustration-induced friction to get the gray matter moving. He was about to fly down to O’Neil’s office on a second search and rescue op, when he decided to stare in Phillip’s window one last time.

  The room was clean, as if the maid had readied it for the next road-weary occupant. There was a white envelope centered on the empty surface of the desk. At first David thought it was a tip envelope for the maid. But then he wondered if it might be something else. He jogged over to the office where, with some difficulty and a twenty, he pried a spare key out of the clerk.

  It took a few minutes to fling open Phillip’s door and snatch the envelope off the desk. The envelope was sealed, with David’s name scrawled on the front. His hands trembled as he ripped open the missive and read the contents.

  Saturday Morning

  Dear David,

  Hopefully, you’re not reading this letter. I plan to finish my mission, get back here, and rip it up before you ever open it. But if I don’t make it back before you see this, it might mean I’m in trouble or dead.

  If that’s what happens, you should know that I’m busing over the river to Martin Kleinschmit’s house to pay him a surprise visit.

  Edmund O’Neil raised more questions in my head than he answered. I think Martin Kleinschmit has the answers.

  I don’t expect any trouble with him, but I’m leaving you this note just in case.

  Oh, and don’t be ticked off at me for not having told you or invited you to tag along. You can’t be involved. You have a family that depends on you.

  Thank you for being such a wonderful friend.

  I will always cherish the kindness you and your family showed me.

  Phillip

  David slammed the letter on the desk, dropped down into the chair, and buried his face in his hands right up to the hairline. He was tempted to tear his hair out. “Damn it, Phillip!” He knew that the ex-con was right about one thing. If he tried to follow Phillip, it might further seal his fate as a man who knew too much. He had a better chance to escape that fate if he stayed away. He could just pretend he never saw this letter if Annie asked questions later on. Besides, if Phillip was really Boris Dietrich in disguise, then there was less of a reason to save him. Still, if David was wrong about Phillip being Boris, he knew he’d have to live with the consequences. One guilty conscience, coming right up. In rising frustration, David pounded his fist on the desktop. “Jesus, Phillip!”

  David’s cell phone began to play the theme song from Superman. Christy had installed the ringtone as a prank. David cringed and made a mental note to have him change it back to the sound of an old dial phone ringer. David sighed as he read the display. Julius was calling.

  David picked
up. “Yeah, Julius . . . .”

  “You all right? You don’t sound like the Mr. Sunshine that I know.”

  “Long day, Julius. I’m sorry.”

  “Well, maybe this news will raise your spirits.”

  “What do ya got?”

  “There’s a match.”

  “DNA?”

  “Yeah, the DNA at the crime scene matches Phillip’s DNA.”

  “My God, he was telling the truth then—he did kill that officer.”

  “Apparently so.”

  “They knew this when they let him out. They freed him to kill me then.”

  “It seems that way, yes.”

  Suddenly, David’s eyes widened as a realization hit him. He sprung up out of the chair. “Oh. My. God. Oh my God—”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It also means that Phillip is Phillip. He’s not Boris Dietrich. We know that Phillip was Phillip when he killed the officer. He couldn’t have been anyone else back then. And his DNA from back then matches the man we know as Phillip today.” David didn’t care who Boris Dietrich was back then. It only mattered that Phillip was Phillip.

  “You’re right—”

  “I’ve got to go, Julius. Phillip is going to pay the Kranston superintendent a visit. I’ve got to go stop him if I can.” Now David had all the motivation he needed to launch another search and rescue mission. And he needed to hit the road, pronto.

  Julius said, “Really? I don’t know if I can help you out—”

  “You can’t. I don’t want you involved. I don’t want the FBI brass coming down on you for sticking your neck out. You said it right the other week. If the CIA is involved and you’re discovered to be poking around, there’s a whole world of hurt waiting for you.”

  “I feel bad. Call me, though, if you find yourself in a bind.”

  “Are you at your desk?”

  “Yes.”

  “I need you to find Martin Kleinschmit’s home address. He’s the super at Kranston.”