by Sara Blaedel
“I knew he didn’t always get along with Mary Ann’s family. Fletcher was mad as hell at him, and her mother didn’t think he was good enough for the family. Anyway, we made it to the racetrack. I had five horses racing, one of them in the first race for mares. I went in to check the horses, and Paul went on up into the stands to study the program. When Fletcher was in the stable, your dad stayed away. And after they fired Paul, Fletcher bad-mouthed him every chance he got. So of course your dad avoided him.”
“When did you see him again?”
“Just before lunch. And later early in the afternoon, before the last two races.”
He hunched forward and looked down at the table. “First time I went up to him, I asked if he wanted to eat lunch together, but he was already part of the group sitting at the table. Russians or something, somewhere from Eastern Europe anyway. It was their accent, it sounded like they chopped their words out with an ax.”
He wiped off his forehead. “I don’t know where they were from, I just noticed they spoke weird, and we didn’t know any of them.”
“Was he drinking with them?” Ilka felt a strange chill creeping up on her again.
Conaway looked puzzled and shook his head. “They were too involved with the races, working each other up, but Paul was the one who knew the most about the horses. So I figured he was just enjoying the attention, having an audience. I told him I’d be back when I finished with the last horses, and I left.”
Ilka closed her eyes. She knew exactly how it felt, up in the stands, together with people as wild about racing as she was. The tension just before a race started, opinions on the various horses flying around. The scorn for the losers hanging in the air. Time flew by, and it was like being in a room with no door.
“Gregg Turner came over to the stable to get me,” Conaway said. “He insisted, told me I had to drop everything and go with him. I was busy bringing out a sulky, the jockey was standing there waiting for me, but Gregg dragged me away. And even before we got to their table, I saw how bad it was.”
He looked away and bit one of his knuckles while Ilka waited, dreading what she was about to hear.
“The Russians were playing in another league money-wise, and your dad was swept up in it. And we couldn’t get to him, he wouldn’t listen to us, he got mad when we elbowed our way over to him.”
He looked down at his fist. “He wasn’t himself, not at all.”
Conaway looked at her as if he wanted to make her understand, but she already did.
“He’d lost all his money and written two checks that wouldn’t clear. When we finally got to him, he was about to sign an IOU, with his house to back it up. Gregg managed to grab it and tear it up before he signed it, while I tried to drag Paul out of there.”
He pointed at his skinny body. “Fat chance of that happening. Your dad was a big man.”
Ilka nodded. Conaway was at least four inches shorter than she was, and he’d stand little chance against someone six-three.
“I offered to drive him home, but he wouldn’t listen. Gregg wanted to run back to the stable and get Fletcher, but I talked him out of that. I called Mary Ann from the office and filled her in, and I asked her to come out and talk some sense into him.”
For a moment he hid his face in his hands; then he looked up at her. His expression said it all. “I went back to at least stop him from gambling until Mary Ann got there, but he told me to go to hell. And then I got mad. It wasn’t the first time I’d had to step in, and usually I managed to get him out, but not this time. He blew up, he acted like a real bastard.”
He threw up his hands. “I mean, I wasn’t his mother or anything, but I knew how it was going to end. He’d regret it all and blame himself. And me too, probably, for not stopping him. It was those Russians, getting him all worked up. Laughing at him, daring him, and he kept betting more on every race. It was pure entertainment for them, but Paul was blind to it. Then his phone rang, and he was told there’d been an accident.”
He paused a moment. “A mile from the track.”
Ilka raised her hands to her mouth and spoke in a near-whisper. “So he wasn’t even in the car when it happened?”
Conaway looked away and rested his forehead in the palms of his hands. He shook his head.
Ilka’s ears began ringing in the silence. She stared to prod him on.
He wet his lips, as if he could barely speak. “We got there before the ambulances and emergency people. Mary Ann had been thrown from the car, she was lying in the field several yards from the accident. Fletcher arrived just after. I don’t know who called him.”
The inside of her mouth throbbed where she’d accidentally bitten herself, and though her jaw was nearly locked, she said, “Who reported the accident?”
Slowly he shook his head. “I don’t know. Nobody else was around when we got there.”
“Fletcher forced my father to take the blame. What, did he make him get in behind the wheel?”
“He ordered me back to the stable when he showed up. I wasn’t there when the police arrived. Fletcher’s security guard drove me. I don’t know what happened, but I saw the other car, way down in the opposite ditch. I heard later on it was Davidson; that he and his wife were killed instantly. But the boy survived, he’d been in the backseat, and he crawled out the back window, it was all smashed up. They had to cut the Davidsons out.”
He cleared his throat and said that he and Paul only spoke about it one time afterward. “Your dad blamed himself. I wanted him to tell the police the truth, but he refused. He kept saying it was his fault she’d been driving out there. To pick him up. If he hadn’t lost control at the track, the accident would never have happened. I think he felt that what he’d done was worse than if he’d been behind the wheel.”
“But Fletcher knew the truth.”
Conaway nodded.
“And you knew,” she said. “And Mary Ann. What about the boy, did he know, did he see anything?”
Conaway took a deep breath. “Right after the accident, Fletcher formed a partnership with the boy’s grandfather, Gerald Davidson. They owned the racing team together. It was an enormous opportunity for the old man; his horses weren’t in the same league as Fletcher’s. A lot of us wondered about that back then. But Fletcher never explained. It was a hell of a deal for Davidson.”
“So maybe, if the boy had seen something, Raymond Fletcher made sure he wouldn’t talk, by making Davidson his partner.”
“Or if he said something, his grandpa probably convinced him he was wrong. And it wouldn’t be all that hard to question what a ten-year-old boy remembered.”
They sat in silence again for several moments, until Ilka leaned forward. “Was my father punished?”
“They took away his license for a few months. If he’d fought it, he could’ve gotten off scot-free: There was no alcohol in his blood, no proof he’d been driving too fast, no sign he’d done anything wrong. The case was closed, the deaths were accidental. A tragedy that orphaned a ten-year-old boy.”
Ilka’s phone rang in her coat pocket, and she took it. “You have to drive out to Artie,” Sister Eileen said. “I think something’s wrong.”
“I can’t.” Ilka explained she was at the Conaways’.
“You have to. I just called him, but I couldn’t understand what he said. Something’s happened.”
“The keys to the hearse are in the desk, take them. I’m at least an hour away from his place.”
“I can’t,” Sister Eileen said, then she lowered her voice. “I think he’s hurt, I think he’s been injured.”
Ilka drove way too fast, even though the sun riding the horizon blinded her.
She’d run out to the car and thrown her bag on the front seat, leaving Conaway sitting at the kitchen table. She’d called Artie several times, but all she got was his answering service. And when she tried to get ahold of Sister Eileen to find out more, no one answered at the funeral home. Her chest tightened, and she pushed the old Chevy even more.
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Finally, Sister Eileen picked up. “Where are you?”
Ilka checked her GPS. She was close to Kenosha, the nearest town to Racine. “What happened when you called him?”
She slowed down when the red warning light began flashing. Low on gas. She swore at herself for being too rushed to fill up on the way out.
“At first he didn’t answer though I called several times. And when he finally did I couldn’t understand him, it was more noise than anything. Then the connection broke off.”
Ilka could barely recognize her voice. “Have you called the police?” she yelled.
“No, I, I called you,” the nun stammered.
Ilka sped through town and on out to the lake, her hands stinging from gripping the wheel as she took the sharp curves. “What did he say?”
“He tried to speak,” she wailed, “but I couldn’t understand him. How far away are you now?”
At last, Ilka turned in the driveway to Artie’s house and spotted the rear end of his black pickup. She told Sister Eileen she was there now, and with the phone to her ear she jumped out of the car and headed for the terrace overlooking Lake Michigan.
Artie lay motionless just inside the gate. A black cotton sack like the ones used in executions in American movies had been pulled over his head, and a pool of blood had spread out on the walkway. He lay in a fetal position, his hands covering his face, as if he’d been protecting himself before losing consciousness.
Ilka screamed his name, then she tossed her phone aside and threw herself on the ground to loosen the cord tied around his neck.
“Artie!” She stuck one hand under his head and pulled off the black cloth, crying quietly as his long brown hair, matted with blood, came into sight. Immediately she wrestled off her jacket with her free hand, rolled it up, and slid it under his head, then she turned him slightly; his face was a bloody mess, but to her enormous relief his skin was warm. Blood still oozed from the cuts and scrapes on the back of his head. At least he was alive! But he lay twisted in an awkward position, and he didn’t respond to her voice. Ilka sniffed to clear her nose, which was clogged from crying, then grabbed the phone beside the walkway and stared at him while she pressed RECALL. Now she was the one who spoke quietly when Sister Eileen answered.
“Call for an ambulance.”
She couldn’t remember the address. She knew her way there but had no idea what the street or road was called.
“What happened?” Sister Eileen sounded calmer now that Ilka was there.
“Someone tried to execute him.” She explained about the black cloth sack. “But he’s alive.”
“Are they still in the house?”
“Call the damn ambulance!” she yelled. “He’s unconscious, we have to get him to a hospital, now. And call the police.”
“Is anyone in the house?” Sister Eileen repeated.
Ilka noticed that the glass door leading into the living room was shattered; shards of glass littered the floor inside. Over the phone she heard Sister Eileen talking to 911, briefly explaining about the assault and that the victim was unconscious and presumably bleeding to death. She gave them Artie’s name and address. Ilka hadn’t known Sister Eileen had a cell phone.
Artie’s pant leg was torn, and a shoe lay under the picnic table a few feet away. Sister Eileen’s voice was unclear now, but Ilka heard her speak about calling Artie earlier that evening and not being able to understand what he said. That she’d been worried and called her boss to drive out there. She must be talking to the police now, Ilka thought.
She hung up and pocketed the phone, then she sat down and quietly told Artie that help was on the way. That she would stay with him, and to hold on. She held his hand, stroked it. Should she move him? No, not a good idea. She thought about covering him with a blanket, but she didn’t dare go inside the house. In the silence she studied Artie’s damaged face, and suddenly his body jerked from a mild spasm, his swollen eyelids fluttering for a moment. He didn’t react, though, when she spoke his name again.
She swiped at her tears and noticed that her arms and hands were covered with snot and Artie’s blood. She wiped most of it off on her pants, then took his hands and carefully began stroking them again. The glass had cut the back of his hands. She thought about Raymond Fletcher and his men, who had been keeping an eye on her since she’d come to Racine. How much did they know about what she’d just found out? She’d been so certain no one followed her out to the Conaways’, but maybe she’d been wrong?
Ilka shuddered, and her hands were shaking when she leaned over to stroke Artie’s hair. She glanced over at the table on the terrace, past the walkway to the front door, then over to the broken sliding glass door.
Finally, she heard them coming, the sirens cutting through the evening air, and she ran up to the road and waved both arms when the ambulance appeared around the curve. A police car with blinking lights followed, and she stepped aside and gestured where they could come in and park beside her car. Then she ran back to Artie. More sirens neared the house, and she whispered to Artie, told him again to hang on.
At once their footsteps and voices transformed the stillness into a crime scene, and she was told to move away. Even though it wasn’t completely dark yet, a floodlight was set up, and soon it illuminated the entire terrace. The paramedics were already attaching a drip to Artie’s hand, and orders flew around as efficient hands applied a compression bandage to the back of his head and tried to stabilize him before lifting him onto the stretcher.
Ilka looked away. The stretcher’s undercarriage reminded her all too much of the pickups she and Artie had made together.
They began rolling Artie to the ambulance, then they decided to carry the stretcher instead. He lay on his side, still unconscious, with a gray blanket covering him. Ilka had been focused completely on him, but as she stood up to follow, she noticed that the whole area was sealed off with barrier tape.
An officer came over and asked her name. He also wanted to know why she was there. She answered mechanically while staring at the open ambulance doors. Shadows moved behind the matte glass high on the side of the ambulance. They were busy inside. Saving Artie’s life.
She gave him her date of birth, her address, and her Danish phone number. She explained her relationship to the victim. They already knew that Sister Eileen O’Connor had reported the assault. Ilka explained that the nun worked for the funeral home, and she’d been trying to contact Artie, and that’s why she’d called Ilka. The officer wanted to know why they hadn’t called the police immediately, but she couldn’t answer that. Just as she couldn’t explain why she hadn’t immediately called for an ambulance when she found Artie, but she did explain about the black sack pulled over his head. And she apologized for loosening the cord without being careful of ruining fingerprints. She hadn’t been thinking of anything like that, she’d been focused on freeing him and making sure he survived.
“Was anyone around when you arrived?”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “But I didn’t go inside. I haven’t been inside since I came.”
The officer eyed the broken glass door but didn’t say anything.
She asked if they needed her to stay, or could she go along to the hospital? The officer checked to make sure he had her number written down correctly before letting her go. He added that they might need to talk to her again, depending on Artie Sorvino’s condition.
Ilka bit her lip. Depending on whether Artie regained consciousness, is what he meant. If not, they would need someone who could tell them more. The only problem was, she didn’t know what more to say. She mentioned that Artie’s father was dead and that he had no other family. He was single, a bachelor. He was alone. But he had Sister Eileen and Ilka. She wrote their names down as next of kin on the form he handed her.
Back at the funeral home, Ilka pulled off her bloodied clothes and washed her hands and face.
Sister Eileen was very quiet as they drove to the hospital. She held her hands folded in he
r lap and stared straight ahead after Ilka said that Artie still hadn’t regained consciousness when the ambulance drove away. Nor did she react when Ilka confronted her about not first calling the police.
“He was lying on that walkway for an hour and a half! Did you understand anything he said?”
It was a wonder he could even answer his phone, Ilka thought. Usually he kept it in his pocket. He must have managed to jimmy it out. But of course he couldn’t speak clearly, with his battered face and that black cloth over his head.
“You didn’t think you should call for help immediately?”
“I called you,” Sister Eileen said.
Her face was white as snow, and Ilka realized she was frightened out of her wits. Ilka tried to reassure her, saying that Artie would be fine, that he was in good hands. But Sister Eileen began shaking when they drove in the hospital parking lot. She sat with bowed head when Ilka got out, not moving until Ilka opened the passenger door to help her.
The nun was a small, frail woman, though usually it wasn’t so obvious. Or at least Ilka never thought about it anymore when they were at the funeral home. In front of the hospital, however, she seemed to vanish inside the gray habit that hung below her knees.
Ilka spotted Information, a glassed-in booth in the middle of the foyer. She explained that they were there to see Artie Sorvino, who had just been brought in. Ilka jotted down where they were to go, but when she turned around she stopped. Over by the automatic doors, staring out at the parking lot, stood Jeff and another of Fletcher’s men.
Immediately she grabbed Sister Eileen’s arm and guided her to the hallway that led to the emergency room. When she realized she was nearly dragging Sister Eileen along, she apologized and let go. She stopped a harried-looking man in a white coat to ask directions, and he pointed ahead and told them to walk to the end of the hallway and around the corner.
Family members sat around in small sofa groups. Some were stone-faced, others were reading magazines in their laps with small children sleeping beside them. It wasn’t crowded, but the mood was gloomy from the fear and worry in the room.