Death Before Facebook (Skip Langdon #4) (Skip Langdon Mystery) (The Skip Langdon Series)

by Julie Smith

  Skip hung up. Great. Just what I need right now. Bureaucracy.

  She felt time running out.

  Barely thinking, driven by anxiety and adrenaline, she started walking, striding down the hospital corridors as if she were a nurse en route to a code.

  I know what he’d do; he’d stage another accident—that’s his specialty.

  She headed to the roof, taking the stairs two at a time.

  But no one was there.

  The clouds had lifted, though, and she had a clear view. Somehow the metaphor of clarity rooted itself in her belly. She closed her eyes and let the blackness give way to whatever came, be it pictures or words.

  She saw white—white walls, white cloths, bright lights, Kit all in nurse’s white, swallowing, terrified.

  This is a hospital, dammit! An ideal place for a drug overdose.

  It’s perfect—her best friend just died. She’s too distraught to go on. She has a history of depression.

  Dammit! Goddammit!

  She was too late and she knew it—the murderer would be gone and Kit would be lying unconscious, maybe dead. But maybe not dead. That part, Skip’s instincts told her, was very much open to debate.

  She opened every door she came to, including broom closets and bathrooms, once surprising an old man sitting on a toilet. She hoped he wasn’t a heart patient.

  Running, she covered the fifth floor (closest to the roof), and descended to the fourth, not even pausing when anyone yelled at her, which was often.

  She remembered something Suby had said—something about a room where Kit went to smoke, where the witches had had a secret ritual.

  Would the killer have told Kit he needed to speak to her? Something like: “Is there any place we could talk privately?”

  Where was the room?

  On the third floor, there was a wing that looked closed off. Could it be there? It wasn’t locked. She went in, opening doors, not closing them behind her.

  Was that a murmur she heard?

  Voices?

  Yes. At the end of the corridor.

  Hand in her purse, holding her gun, she opened the last door on the hall. She could shoot through the purse or take her hand out, whatever she needed to do.

  The room looked like a waiting room. It was small, with a wall of windows looking out on the back of another building. Worn couches and chairs had been placed awkwardly around the walls of the room, the upholstery hanging and discolored. Religious paintings in old wooden frames hung on the walls, probably from the days when the hospital had been a Catholic one. There was a porcelain water fountain in one corner, probably issuing barely a trickle. Kit was bent over it.

  Standing behind her, holding her free arm bent, pulling up on it, his other arm around Kit’s neck, was Cole Terry. As the fountain was low, he was forced to bend his knees awkwardly.

  “Let her go or I’ll shoot.”

  Instead, Cole pulled her upright and turned her around to face Skip. “No, you won’t.” The hand around her neck held a knife.

  “Feeding her pills, is that it?” said Skip. “Another suicide so soon after Lenore? Do you really think that’s going to fly, Cole? Especially now, with me here.” She brought the hand with the gun out of the bag, slowly, yet as threateningly as possible. “As soon as she eats the last pill, you’ve lost your hostage—what’s to stop me from blowing your head off?”

  Skip heard herself speak and marveled at it. Her voice sounded as calm as if she were talking to Cindy Lou about what to order for lunch. Yet her blood pounded in her head, her crevasses were clammy, her underarms, the little V’s between her fingers, her palms.

  Cole smiled at her. In the act of holding a knife to a woman’s neck, he simply turned his head and smiled as if meeting a neighbor picking up his morning paper. “You wouldn’t do that. I’m a father.”

  His iciness unnerved her. She felt her teeth clench, but she opened her mouth wide to speak, trying to stay as loose as possible. “You killed your stepson.”

  “Don’t be silly. He fell off a ladder.”

  “What about Lenore? Think about it. The least I’ve got is attempted murder against Kit. That means it’s over.”

  His eyes darted, calculating his chances, assessing what she’d said. “Put down the gun and I’ll hand her over.”

  “Let her go, Cole.”

  Almost before she’d finished speaking, he did, flinging her against Skip. Both women were caught off guard. Kit landed heavily against Skip’s chest and Skip, who didn’t have time to brace against the blow, stumbled backward.

  Cole leapt forward, chopped her wrist. She felt her fingers open, the gun fall out. She didn’t know which was louder, her own gasp or the clatter of the .38 on the tile floor.

  Calmly, Cole picked up the gun and leaned against the wall. He was smiling again. Kit and Skip untangled themselves.

  Where the hell is Security? Skip wondered. Surely some of those people I upset must have called them.

  Yeah, but they would have known it was a police officer stomping around. Because I told them myself.

  And how would they find me anyhow?

  “It was this way,” said Cole, “on that long-ago day.” He spoke lazily, a man with all the time in the world. “When Kit found out I was having an affair with Marguerite, her idea of revenge was to tell Marguerite’s husband. But she didn’t know what a crazy bastard Leighton was, and he couldn’t have begun to know how nuts Kit was. He drew his gun and ordered Kit out of his house, but she tried to grab it. There was a struggle and she killed him.”

  “Dammit Cole, I didn’t even know Marguerite.”

  “My dear, of course you didn’t. Why would I introduce the two of you? But you were a jealous and determined woman, and Marguerite and I weren’t the most careful of adulterers. It was easy for you to find out what was going on—all you had to do was follow me.”

  He shifted his eyes to Skip. “I saw Marguerite across a crowded room, and she wasn’t even singing. She was sitting with a group of people. I can see her blowing smoke and throwing back her head to laugh. Remember smoke? Why doesn’t it seem romantic anymore?”

  There was something about the way he was telling the story that Skip found even more unnerving than the fact that he was holding a gun on her. As if he were the center of the universe. As if none of his actions had any consequence because they were all in the service of Cole Terry, king of the world. There was something bloodless about the man.

  They said that psychopaths were this way, but psychopaths, theoretically, did not connect with other human beings, and Cole obviously did. She had seen him with Marguerite. There was real love there, love that had lasted twenty-seven years and survived several murders.

  “I saw her and my life was changed. We should have music at this point, shouldn’t we? It’s too cornball for words.

  “Have you any idea how many men wanted Marguerite then? She’d sing and the love letters would pour in; marriage proposals, every kind of thing. But I swear to God something happened the night we met, and it happened to both of us.

  “After a performance, I’d wait for her. Sometimes I’d sit at the bar, but she’d never join me afterwards. In fact, the way we worked it, she’d join somebody else and I’d sit there smoking, waiting for her to leave, and then a few minutes later I’d follow her out. We’d just about have each other’s clothes off before we got to the corner.”

  Skip asked, “Where was Kit all this time?”

  “Working nights.” He gave Kit a discreet glance. “Don’t worry, dear. We didn’t go back to our apartment. We always got a hotel room—usually the same one, in an old hotel near Camp Street. It’s now been redone, I think. In those days it was quite romantic, with its thin linens and bare light bulb—very Tennessee Williams.

  “Of course, sometimes I wouldn’t even go to hear her. I’d just go to our room and wait. We were good, if I do say so. I don’t think we were ever seen together except the night we met, and then only for five minutes. I caught her hand a
t the bar and made a date with her. We met in Jackson Square and talked for two hours. We walked everywhere and saw nothing. We were in love within the first three minutes.”

  “What was it?” said Kit. “Why did you fall in love with her?” Her voice held nothing but curiosity, not fear, not anger or loathing, nor even regret. Skip wondered if she was dealing with two lunatics.

  Cole spread his hands, casual as could be, even holding the gun. He turned it sideways while he did it. Skip nearly leapt, but in the end didn’t have enough time. “We were soulmates,” he said.

  “You wouldn’t have a child with me.”

  “It wasn’t right. I knew it wasn’t right. Neetsie was the child I was meant to have. She came when she was ready.” His tone changed, from indulgent parent to professor, lecturing. “You see, Skip, Kit was a great deal more in love with me than I was with her. I thought she might even kill me—or worse, Marguerite. And that was far worse. So after she killed Leighton, I didn’t dare leave her. Finally, I got up the nerve, even moving to another state. I had to, to protect Marguerite. But Kit was so obsessed she followed. She kept track of me through any means she could, the most recent being the TOWN. Then she actually moved back here.

  “When Geoff started having flashbacks she knew she was in trouble. You see, she didn’t know he was in the house until after the shooting. All she saw as she was leaving was a scared little boy at the door of his room.

  “He got a good look at her—it was from a distance, but he saw her as well as she saw him. So she had to stop him from remembering.

  “But she was too late. By the time she killed him, he already knew too much. He hadn’t told anybody, but he’d written it in his diary; she had to kill Lenore to get the diary. Right, Kit?”

  “You crazy bastard.”

  “But I figured it out, and so did our detective friend. The only problem is, I got here too late. You’d already killed her.”

  Again, he turned his attention to Skip. “There you were, lying dead on the floor. Kit was just putting the finishing touches on her suicide note—” He held up a piece of paper.

  Kit said, “He made me write it before I started taking the pills.”

  “She was going to kill herself with your gun. I tried to stop her but it was the old story. We struggled; the gun went off….”

  “It’s full of holes. Fire that gun and this place’ll be overrun. This is a hospital—you don’t think anyone’ll notice the noise? You won’t have time to fake a struggle—Kit’ll still be alive, and you’ll have the gun. In fact, you’ll have just killed a cop in front of a witness. It won’t even matter how many other people you’ve killed. You’re dead, Cole. Your only chance is to give me that gun right now. If you don’t kill a cop, you can probably plead insanity, be out in a few years…”

  But not if I have anything to do with it.

  He looked flustered, staring first at Skip, then Kit. “Oh, bullshit. Say good-bye to your asses, ladies.” He held the gun with both hands, raised it, arms outstretched. Skip heard the swishing of the door opening behind them.

  She let out her breath. Security. Finally.

  “Enough, Cole,” said Marguerite.

  His face darkened. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “No more killing, Cole. Give me the gun.”

  “Goddammit, you crazy bitch. Goddamn you! All these fucking years I’ve protected you—”

  “You killed Leighton. I didn’t.”

  “What? After I’ve kept you out of fucking prison for twenty-seven years, you’ve got the nerve to say a fucking crazy thing like that—”

  “Cole, you’re getting upset.”

  “Marguerite, you better go lie down.”

  “Enough of this. Give me the gun. It’s over.”

  “You’ve got a fucking nerve deciding what’s over and what’s not. Where have you been through this whole thing? I’ll tell you where—asleep, that’s where. And now you think you can come in here and…”

  “You kept giving me those pills.”

  “What, me? Now I’m a pusher or something? You couldn’t wait to get your damn pills. I had to hide them from you.”

  “Cole, you’ve killed three people. Don’t you think that’s enough?”

  “Three! How can you say that! You up and kill your damn husband and I spend the next thirty years protecting you, trying to cover your tracks, and this is what you do to me? I’m going to kill you, Marguerite. You’re the next one—I’m just going to kill you.” He trained the gun on her.

  “You won’t kill me.” It was a high, strained voice. Neetsie’s. The door swished again. “I came with Mom. I was listening. I heard everything. I can’t believe you could talk to my mother like that.” She was crying.

  Crying and irrational. Her dad killed her brother and her good friend, and all she can do is complain about the way he’s talking.

  The situation was getting more explosive by the moment.

  “Neetsie, I didn’t mean it. I was upset.”

  “I can’t believe you did what you did. I really can’t believe it. I thought you loved me.”

  “I do love you, baby.” His face was a mask of misery—this one definitely had emotions.

  “But where would you be if your dad was in jail? How would you get over that? Look, it should have worked; something should have worked. I just can’t seem to catch a break here.”

  Neetsie looked as amazed as anyone Skip had ever seen. “You’re not my dad. You’re not the same person who does Dr. John. You’re some creature who—”

  “Shut up.” He smacked her with the back of his gun hand.

  Skip moved.

  It would take two steps to get to him, but she had time for only one. She dived at his knees. She got a good grip, but he didn’t go down—there was simply too much distance to make much impact.

  He grabbed her by the hair and pulled. “Get up.”

  He put the gun to her temple. “Okay, we’re going.”

  He marched her out of the room and through the corridor, out of the closed wing and into the hospital proper. It was brighter here; the place Skip had found so depressing on her previous visit seemed cheerful by contrast. A nurse was striding toward them; another was talking to a man in a suit, probably a patient’s son or husband. All three saw the gun and began to run. Cole fired at the ceiling. “Let us through. Don’t try to stop us.”

  He kept walking.

  They turned a corner, nearly bumping into a nurse helping an old man on a walker. “Out of our way.” Cole swept them away with his gun hand, the other still holding tightly to Skip. The old man fell, which made Skip furious.

  She tried frantically to think what to do, but people were starting to litter the halls, some of them old, a great many of them sick. Instead of fleeing at the sound of the gunshot, the shouting, the clatter of the old man falling, they’d come out to rubberneck.

  Anything she did would endanger them.

  The good news was, she heard sirens. Cole heard too, and panicked. He shot once again at the ceiling. “Let us through.”

  People scattered, but it was no good. Others took their places.

  Still, he kept walking. The stairs were open, not in a closed stairwell, so that they were able to descend without the risk of surprise at the bottom; first one floor, then another, the gun tight against Skip’s scalp.

  She was not even slightly frightened; seeing the old, the sick, the innocent so vulnerable in those halls, knowing what this man was capable of, she was nearly blind with fury.

  They were almost at the door. Her tongue was tight against her teeth, every muscle tensed, in her own body’s absurd effort to make sure no one got hurt.

  Someone opened the door, and Skip got a glimpse of what was outside—police cars, a dozen at least. And it looked like more coming. Cole stopped dead. “I need a nurse. Now!”

  There was scurrying behind them, and Lirette, the nurse from Kit’s floor, approached warily.

  “I want you to step outside,�
�� said Cole, “and tell them to send in an unarmed man.”

  The nurse disappeared. Skip stood in the middle of the corridor, the gun snug against her temple, every muscle tight against every other one. She ached to flay the son of a bitch alive. She was surprised at the hatred in her. She had never felt so much fury at a suspect.

  An officer came in, but not the man Cole had asked for. “I’m Sergeant Sylvia Cappello.”

  Cappello’s hands were up. Skip felt her throat tighten; she’d never seen Cappello helpless.

  “Sergeant Cappello, you let us out of here or Officer Langdon’s dead. You send those cops home, and those police cars home; but you stay. And you let us walk out of here quietly, peacefully, with no fuss.”

  “We can talk about that. Just let Officer Langdon go and we’ll talk about whatever you want.” Even at fifty paces, Skip could see the distress in Cappello’s brown eyes; she’d never seen Skip helpless either.

  “Don’t be absurd.”

  “Nothing is impossible. You just need to let Officer Langdon go and we can talk.”

  Skip wondered if officers were pouring in other doors. She imagined they were, but maybe not. It didn’t seem like such a hot idea in a hospital.

  Cole, apparently deciding he’d get nowhere with Cappello, looked around, rotating his head quickly; nervously, Skip thought. His cool might be starting to crack.

  “See that elevator over there? Let’s go.” He walked her over. “Push the Up button.”

  Skip wished she could catch Cappello’s eye—this was her chance to break away, with another officer to help her. Almost as if Cole had caught her thought, he spun her around, pulled up on her arm so that she nearly gasped with the pain, and pushed her out to arm’s length, so she couldn’t get a kick in. He was staring Cappello straight in the eye. “Don’t either of you move.”

  He was smarter than she’d thought, and that bothered her.

  When the elevator came, it was empty.

  “’Bye, Sergeant.” If he’d lost his cool, he’d now regained it.

  Still holding Skip in a death grip, he took her to the fifth floor and they walked from there to the roof, not easy the way he was holding on to her arm.