by JJ Partridge
I was perplexed, if no longer as concerned, and went back outside. My eyes had adjusted somewhat to the night and I could distinguish the tall box hedges and hollies which narrowed the width of the driveway as it curved around the corner of the house. I found my way to the sidewalk to where the snow at the curb had been trampled by the crowd. Nadie must be on Carter Street by now, I thought, in the safety of the Quads. The wind whirled fragments of leaves around me like a flock of birds; tree limbs creaked and smacked against each other and leaves swooshed as they collided. Maybe a nor’easter had blown into town.
I had retraced my steps to the turn of the driveway when a scream, higher and more piercing than the wind, came from the direction of the garage. Before I could react, a rush of steps came at me and I never saw the body check that sent me careening into the hedge.
Stabbing stems of hedge dug into my face and shirt as my weight pushed me deeper into its maw. I struggled within the bush for leverage to stand and when I did, I was knocked right back into it by a banshee who threw herself on to a shape slumping to the driveway. As I freed myself from the clutches of the hedge, grunts came from the lumpy shadow. Nadie yelled, “Grab him!”
Grab him? What? I groped forward, saw Nadie roll away, and fell to my knees to lay across his back. He—it was definitely a he—shuddered with deep, wheezy breaths under my weight; he was stunned or unconscious.
Someone ran towards me and after the two knocks into the hedge, I braced for a blow. But, it was Danby, waving something long and heavy that might have been a baseball bat. “Call the police!” I shouted over my shoulder and heard him run up the driveway toward the kitchen.
“He ... came up from behind me ...,” Nadie gasped in an almost unrecognizable falsetto, “... got his hand over my mouth ... dragged me back toward the garage ... had me against the wall ....”
A rattling groan interrupted, followed by two heaving breaths. Was he in shock?
“You came outside and he saw you, he about smothered me when .... I bit him ..., his hand slipped, and I got enough leverage to get between his legs.... Threw me down and ran .... You blocked him ....”
I blocked him?
I pulled myself up on his torso; inching closer to his face, I barely made out a puffy lid over a closed eye, a large nose, an earlobe the size of a nickel, and brown, stringy hair that stuck out from under something that could have been a hairnet or a rolled-up stocking. He gave off a musky, garbagey odor; his breath was as described by every victim. His jacket creaked with his jerky breathing and I yelled to Nadie to call an ambulance. I heard her inhale sharply, then her rapid footsteps.
No longer concerned he might escape, I got to my knees and straddled his back. The wind rushed around us, picking up a sweetish, strangely familiar odor that emanated from him, one that I couldn’t for the moment identify. Nadie and Danby returned as a siren, then another, pierced the night through the blasts of wind. My hands pressed his lower back and I felt breathing that seemed less frequent, maybe funereal.
We kept an impatient silence as sirens came closer; then, tires squealed in the driveway and dazzling blue and white lights barreled toward us, stopping not ten feet from where I sat on my captive. My hands went up to block the blinding lights. Nadie rushed forward, waving her arms and shouting; car doors were thrown open and two cops charged at us, their shouts unintelligible in the wind, sirens, and Nadie’s cries. I started to roll off my captive when a steely blue Smith and Wesson was thrust in my face.
“Freeze!” shouted the voice above the gun as an arm went around my neck and yanked me upright. My spine! Nadie pounded the shoulder of the cop who was strangling me, screaming that she had been assaulted by the guy on the ground, and it took long, long seconds before her words penetrated the cop’s intensity. Finally, the gun was lowered, my neck was roughly released, and I fell to my knees, barely missing another crunch on the body below me.
“I think he’s in shock,” I gulped as my vocal chords relaxed. Meanwhile, more sirens sounded from the street, cruiser doors opened, strobe lights revolved and illuminated the house and hedges, flashlights were turned on, radios crackled, and cops and security officers filled the driveway until there had to be at least a dozen uniforms in a knot around the body, listening to its gasps for breath, nobody touching it and nobody doing anything but gawk.
I jostled my way forward. He remained motionless but the ever-moving flashlights revealed a scarlet stain spreading on the asphalt and I saw my hands, shirt, and trousers smeared with blood. I now recognized the smell and almost manically wiped my hands on my trousers. My stomach rumbled and began a heave; my fists clenched in embarrassment. Please, God, don’t let me make a fool of myself!
Nadie grasped my arm and demanded loudly, “Do something!” encouraging someone with authority to step into the overlapping circles of light, stoop, and pull back an eyelid for a second only to let it drop. He fished under the torso, shifting it slightly on one side, and blood sprayed from beneath the jacket.
That about finished me! I was so woozy that I was barely aware that EMTs were charging their way through the uniforms with gruff yells of “get the hell out of the way”s.
The cops elbowed one another to make room and a jumpsuited EMT entered their dancing lights as he snapped on latex gloves, and thrust a white bandage inside the bloody jacket; another EMT shouted for a gurney, checked for a neck pulse, and reached into a satchel for a syringe. The EMT working on the wound withdrew his gloved hand and raised a black-handled knife; the flashlights captured drops of shiny blood dripping from its blade on to its handle and his glove.
My stomach churned! I wasn’t going to make it.
Another siren wailed in the distance as a gurney clanked up the driveway and the injection was jabbed home. Two EMTs lowered the gurney to knee height, placed a stretcher on the asphalt, then inched the limp figure on to the stretcher, lifted it to the gurney and fastened velcro straps; the gurney, raised with another ‘get out of the way,” was pushed down the driveway. The cops milled around the bloodstains on the driveway as a blast of horn erupted from the street, signaling that the ambulance was on its way to City Hospital, while yet another cruiser noisily braked to a stop. There had to be six by now!
I was still fighting my stomach’s rumblings when Danby appeared at my side. We started back toward the kitchen, with Nadie in tow, only to be confronted by a cop at the door. “Where do ya think yer going?” After some nonsense about being available for questions, he followed us inside. Nadie took off her coat. Her chin was scratched, her cheeks scraped, and her hair fell in her face. One earring was missing. Yet, she seemed to have eyes only for me. Her touch was gentle at my forehead and I saw blood come away on her fingers.
The goddamn hedge! I had been mauled by a goddamn hedge!
Danby left the kitchen as I washed my face at the sink, feeling the stings of old and new cuts, and used a dish towel to wipe away sweat and blood. The cop, who had blond hair, a bushy, blond mustache, a new looking uniform, and the clear eyed gaze of a rookie, slouched by the door. He obviously didn’t have a clue what to do; after assurances we would stay where we were, he went back outside for instructions and returned, saying he had orders to search the house. He drew his pistol.
Nadie and I had the same thought. Loudly, we shouted to his back “be careful,” that President Danby was somewhere in the house, maybe in the study or the family room, because if this kid saw his own shadow, we’d hear a shot!
Two older, rugged-looking, cops in scruffy leather jackets came into the kitchen from the driveway and ignored us as they decided who was going to do what. One, who was a dead ringer for Danny Aiello, took down our names, addresses, and telephone numbers in a worn, black leather notebook and told Nadie she could make her statement downtown or right there, once the detectives arrived. The other, a skinny guy with acne marked cheeks and an overbite showing bad teeth, kept looking Nadie over until Nadie stared him down and said calmly, “Downtown,” and added that first, she was going to
clean up. She left, to his disappointment, and I gave them a brief rundown of what had happened. Danby—alive—returned with the rookie, confirmed my story, and left us again. The older cops snickered to themselves about what a wuss The Stalker had been, put down by a “little girl, fer Christmas sakes”, and flicked the light switch to the floodlights a half-dozen times or so for the benefit of the rookie. He was told to escort Nadie.
Nadie looked less disheveled when she entered the kitchen and said to me, “Why here? Why was he here?” I had remembered Tuttle’s insight that The Stalker was picking his victims, even as I was scissored over The Stalker’s back. But, first things first. I didn’t want her in the Public Safety Building alone, and said so, under my breath since the rookie remained in the kitchen. “These bozos can wait until tomorrow—”
“I have to do it,” she said firmly. “All they need right now is me. If I’m questioned with you and Danby, especially here, there’s bound to be a lot more interest. I want to get this over with. Tonight.”
She was right, as usual, as expected. And how can you argue with a woman who weighs a hundred pounds, and who had just taken out The Carter Stalker!
She put on her coat—the tam was probably in the garage or on the driveway—and leaned forward to give me a kiss on the cheek. She left with the rookie, passing in the doorway a squat, bald guy with ball bearing eyes in a floppy raincoat over a too tight green jacket. A shiny ID badge clipped to his lapel identified him as Detective Sergeant Joseph Palumbo; that and his attitude shouted he was important!
Danby, looking less anxious than before, and I went through our stories again; Palumbo, hearing Tuttle’s name, said that he had worked with Tuttle and his expression didn’t hold any affection. Must be one of McCarthy’s boys, I thought, as we went over the same stuff in twenty, grunt-filled, minutes. Palumbo, who didn’t bother with notes, muttered something to the effect of “too many nut cases these days” and left without more. I glanced at Danby; he just shook his head.
Tuttle arrived and we repeated our stories; did they get better in the telling, I wondered? I left them at the kitchen table and retrieved the Scotch we had been enjoying less than an hour or so earlier. “It was Martine he was after,” Danby was saying thoughtfully as I returned. “That’s why he was here. Maybe he loosened the floodlight bulbs. He must have known she usually used the rear door.” I found glass tumblers in a cabinet over the sink and poured large drinks for all, neat. “She was the target. Bill, you were right about the direction this was taking—higher up the visibility chain—but I never considered Martine in that context. God, what a chance I took!” He took a hard swallow. “I should have known!”
It made sense. Why else would The Stalker be lurking in the garage of President’s House? He was in a darkness of his own making, and there was Nadie, coming out of the rear door, not much different in size from Martine, ….
“Curfew is one o’clock. I expect she’ll be home as soon as she hears that we got The Stalker!” His face finally showed relief and a smile. “Still can’t believe it!”
The Scotch and adrenaline rush I was on must have been taking hold because I asked why the goddamn media wasn’t banging on his front door. Danby replied that he had telephoned Gregson at the Information Office with instructions as to a media statement and had decided on a press conference for tomorrow afternoon. “We’ll build some momentum if we keep quiet now and then hold it right here,” he said. “Lots of praise for the police and Security Office. And Nadie. And you. And for the kids who acted so responsibly tonight.” I protested my involvement and he nodded in understanding. “Maybe, I’ll even call Sonny! Let him know that I plan to get on with business.” Tuttle grinned; maybe he was thinking of making a similar call to Chief McCarthy.
* * *
A few minutes later, after a vain attempt to blot out the stains on my shirt and trousers, Danby lent me a shirt in exchange for the bloodied one; there was nothing to be done with the trousers. As I left, Danby was pouring on praise for Tuttle’s perseverance and his deft handling of the rally and the march; outside, a genius had gotten the floodlights back on. A solitary cop stood near a chalked circle around a blood stained patch of driveway. I put up my coat collar, tamped down the fedora, and started for Congdon Street.
The wind was blowing hard, kicking up grains of frozen snow from piles remaining at curbs and spraying it fiercely against me, as I mulled over The Stalker’s last assault. The darkness in the driveway where the light should have been. If I hadn’t noticed, or if I hadn’t made so much noise, what would have happened? Nadie could have been raped or killed! All I had done was be there for him to crash into, even if Nadie was giving me more credit. Was that when he got the knife wound? When he fell to the driveway? His wheezing lungs, the dazzling headlights, the blinding, flashing whites and blues lights, the creaking of his jacket, the knife with its crimson drops, spun through my mind, and I was half way to nausea when I made the conscious effort to think of something else, and, of course, it was Annie Sullivan’s murder.
Now, I realized, everyone would know—for sure—that The Stalker had not killed Annie Sullivan.
* * *
I went into the dining room, opened the drinks cabinet, removed a decanter of Aux Vieux Calvados and a snifter, and took them downstairs. I snapped on the lights over the pool table and opened the case of my favorite cue, a Schoen, a twenty year friend, and screwed it together. The balls gleamed within the triangle on the felt. I drilled the cue ball, smacking the set up into a wide spread. And that’s when it came together. As the balls hit the rails and caromed, with two disappearing into pockets, I saw connections! It was no longer a stream of consciousness, it was chronological and logical. The play had been there, I just hadn’t worked it out. I straightened up after that shot, took a long snort of Calvados, chalked the cue tip, and smartly cleared the table as the elements of the case became clearer. Annie Sullivan had sent lives caroming in a game she had been playing until she made a fatal error. She had been so sure of herself that she had not prepared for her next shot. A good shooter always prepares for the next shot. And that mistake had killed her.
I left the cue on the table, turned off the lights, and went up to the loft. I took off my bloodied trousers and sat in the recliner in my skivvies to work it out. To do so, I would pry into the malicious, manipulative mind of Annie Sullivan. I would know her in her mean, twisted essence. Across the room on my worktable, my evidence case lay next to Williams’s wool cap, license, screwdriver, and cell phone. I was drawn to get up and touch them. I picked up the cell phone and pressed “on”; its screen brightened, and like metal fragments drawn by a magnet, my insight became a certainty.
* * *
I called 411 for Patricia Sullivan’s number at her apartment in Cranston and punched it in. Would she be home on a Saturday night? I heard a television in the background when she picked up. I identified myself and she was immediately defensive; no longer the practiced storyteller, she sounded scared. Maybe the “lout” had gotten through to her. I cut her off and asked my questions; slowly, reluctantly, she answered them. One was the bull about her sister’s job. No, she wasn’t “sure” there was a job but she also didn’t know—“… I’m telling the truth ...”—or how or where the money arrived—…“I think it was sent to her.” Yes, she said, when pressed, her sister once had used the term “cash cow” without explanation. I asked one final question, and after a long pause, she answered, “No.”
I told her that The Stalker had been caught and described Nadie’s part in his capture. She didn’t seem all that interested. I thanked her, said goodnight, and hung up the phone.
Next came Tariq Faud. When we got through his fussing about the late hour, he listened with impatience and growing interest as I gave him the background that hooked him before I asked for the favor. He objected and complained about the privacy of records in the Pathology Department and hospital rules and that there could be “trouble” and finally promised to call me back if he could
get the information, which he said might be in a few minutes or tomorrow morning. I said I needed it tonight, if possible, and he said he’d try, although I shouldn’t plan on it.
An hour later, Faud called and his information, a little too graphic, fit once I had the essence of Annie Sullivan’s mind. Now, I had facts; I was no longer pressing to jam pieces of the puzzle together so they fit. They slid in easily.
I finished the Calvados and went to bed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Sunday
Annie Sullivan’s eyes are open and gaze at me reproachfully, asking why I’m there and why am I not doing something to save her life. Her blonde hair is lank, her complexion wan, her eyebrows raised; in her stillness, she is a mannequin. A pillow floats above her head before her face vanishes beneath it. I can taste the pillow and experience flashes of color that dance behind her eyes.
“You—?”
But who does she say it to?
A human shape appears hovering over her. Hands press resolutely on the pillow. Blood from her bitten tongue fills her mouth. Her eyes redden with ruptures of tiny blood vessels. She struggles, then accepts. The pillow drops by the bed and her murderer turns to me. A doorknob squeaks, the apartment door opens and scrapes against the uneven floor, and I wait to see who has joined us. I hear a moan ....
* * *
Mrs. Cabel didn’t have the opportunity to protest as I marched into the hall, around two suitcases, and into the living room. It was barely eight o’clock; the room was saturated with morning sunlight. She followed me, her mouth agape in surprise; neither the hollows in her sagging cheeks nor her tired eyes gave me pause.
“Just what do you think you’re doing?”
I felt profound anger; any pity or empathy had evaporated. My mouth was surely drawn in disgust. She had composed a minuet of deception and almost pulled it off. The fedora remained on when I sat on the sofa, my right arm draped along its back affecting an air of confidence.