by Susan Dunlap
“At night? Maybe if I were bleeding on the sidewalk, if I could pluck her heart strings enough. But I don’t know that I had enough emotional pull to do that.”
But Ellen took the car home after the rally. And then three hours later she went out again, and got in the car, ready to drive. The key was in the ignition. There was only one “bleeding” that could have made her do that.
There was a sudden shattering of glass. Bryn screamed.
I shoved her to the floor.
Chapter 27
“GET DOWN!” I YELLED again.
Bryn jolted up, ran to the window.
A second shot cracked through the air. She staggered back a step, staring down at the blood coming from her shoulder.
I grabbed her and pulled her to the futon. Blood oozed on her sweater. A few inches southwest and that bullet would have killed her. “We need to stanch the blood! Towels? Where do you keep your towels?”
She stared at the wound. Athlete’s shock, I’d seen it before. Bryn couldn’t believe that her shoulder, a key part of her dive, could be mangled like this, away from competition.
I yanked open the curtain in front of the closet, pulled out a sheet, tore it into wide strips, and wrapped them tight around her shoulder. “Press it hard against the wound. Don’t let up.”
She complied without comment, pressing down with her right hand.
Squatting, I moved to the window and leaned against the wall beneath it, listening. Rain still smacked the roof; the casement windows had burst open and banged against the house. Nose to sill, I peered outside. But the rain was like one of those old hippie beaded curtains; it blocked out everything but its own shimmer. In the time I’d spent settling Bryn, the shooter could have moved anywhere.
Keeping down, I moved to the back window and repeated the procedure with the same results. There were three more windows, one on the other end of the back wall, a high one at the end, and another on the front wall. On the futon, Bryn was beginning to moan.
“Bryn! Quiet!” But I might as well have kept still. I didn’t know how long shock would mask the pain of her wound. Or how many hours before blood poisoning set in or she would bleed to death. Damn it, why hadn’t I studied the first aid manuals? Why had I always counted on having an ambulance at the ready?
With one eye on her, I squatted by the front window, listening. The rain shielded us from view, but it blocked any chance of my spotting our assailant outside. It was late afternoon, already dark. In a couple of hours there would be no light at all. If we survived until morning, Bryn would be delirious with pain or gangrene or loss of blood, if we survived, we’d face another day like today, only worse.
I thought of Ellen Waller, sitting safe in Bryn’s house when the phone rang. The last thing she had wanted was to drive Bryn’s station wagon again, in the dark. Volvos shift hard, even for drivers used to manual transmission. I’d driven my friend Mary’s old Volvo once and stalled out six times going across town. I’d been furious and humiliated. What could have drawn Ellen into the car?
I recalled the Volvo wagon as I’d last seen it, with the punctured window, and the Victorian house comforter that covered the backseat.
“Bryn, did you keep a comforter on the backseat of your car?”
She looked at me as if I’d lost my mind, then turned back to her wound.
“When Ellen was shot, there was a comforter covering the backseat. Victorian houses on it, etched in black on white.”
Still staring at her shoulder she said, “That’s Ellen’s.”
“Was it there when you drove the Volvo to People’s Park?”
“No. Of course not.” She drew in a deep breath and looked up. “I keep my car clean. I don’t have crap on the dashboard or debris on the floor. I was only taking a box of flyers with me and they fit on the floor. Why would I pull the comforter off Ellen’s bed and stick it in the car?”
“To protect the backseat?”
“From what?”
“From a dog.”
Suddenly I understood what the comforter meant. There was only one person whose opinion mattered enough to Ellen for her to drive the Volvo at night—Karl Pironnen.
What had Pironnen said when he called her? “Nora’s cut her paw; she’s bleeding. She’s got to get to the vet. My car won’t start. Please help me! Meet me in your car; I’ll carry her over there.” Something like that.
And Ellen, anxious to help, worried about a sick or bleeding dog lying on Bryn’s leather seat, would have grabbed her comforter—the only thing she owned that was big enough—and spread it over the backseat.
“Bryn, when Ellen took Pironnen’s dogs to the vet, did she ever miss an appointment?”
There was no answer from her; but the sadness and the horror hit me hard. Karl Pironnen. I didn’t want the killer to be him.
When I had pounded on his door a week ago, I was in uniform, patrol car pulsar lights still flashing, a dozen armed cops behind me. Now reality had flipped over and it was he out there, backed up by his knowledge of the woods, a force greater than a score of police officers. At the door that night I had hidden beneath his view and waited until he peeked through the leaded glass window in his door. Then I’d leapt up and got him.
Like he could get us.
I knew now how he’d felt, an alien in a friendless place where lights mean only danger. I understood why he’d backed away when I came near. And I realized how long a leap of faith it had been for him to take me into his brother’s room. He had brought Ellen there, exposed the core of his life to her, and then she had kicked it aside so she could get on with her own life. If his brother Dan was forgotten, that was fine with her; that’s what she wanted.
His attack on Bryn’s van, on her look-alike in her car, and then the fire would assure the world that Bryn Wiley had been the intended victim all along. Like Dan Pironnen, Ellen Waller would be merely a nameless footnote. The pebble she had tossed when she drove the getaway car splashed Dan Pironnen not only with death but anonymity. Now Karl had sent that karma back at her. Now she would be dead and forgotten. Bryn had agreed with Ellen—the past is past. Bryn could die.
There would be no reasoning with him; there was nothing left that he cared about saving.
I shivered. As he had shivered that first night. After he had shot Ellen. Automatically I reached for my radio, the radio I didn’t have, on which I could not call in 10-99. Out here I wasn’t a cop. I was just a city person with the odds stacked against me. He was out there with his dogs, and we were cornered like foxes. City foxes. Out here I had nothing to grab on to, no backup, no experience, no knowledge. I could feel panic rising, overwhelming me.
Bryn moaned louder.
No time! I had to move. If I waited until dark, I’d never find my way out of the forest. I had to make my move now.
Keeping low, I hurried across the room, put a pot of water on the burner, and dumped in all the coffee in the tin. When it came to a boil, I brought the whole pot over to Bryn.
“Bryn! Listen! We can’t both just sit here and wait. I’m going out there. And you’re going to have to give me cover.”
Her eyes widened.
I repeated the instruction.
The third time, she nodded. But how long would she remember? How long would she have the strength to care?
“Here’s a cup. Dip it in the pan; keep drinking coffee. You have to stay awake. Do you understand?”
Her head bobbed. Her normally hooded eyes were almost closed.
I grabbed her good shoulder. “Bryn! If he kills you, only Fannie—Tiff—and Sam will be left. When reporters ask them about how you got in the Olympics, what do you think they’re going to say? You will be dead, and all people will remember of you is that you were a cheat!”
She dropped the bloody sheet and backhanded me across the face.
It startled more than stung. This was one woman who would keep herself alert until she dropped. “Bryn, if we get out of here, then this case will focus on Dan Pironnen and E
llen Waller. Sam and Fannie and the Olympics won’t even be part of it. I’m leaving you your rifle.”
She nodded, propping the rifle on the back of the futon. I put the coffee beside her, and then, with a longing look at my warm, waterproof anorak, I spread it over her legs. “I’m going out the back. Give me a cover shot.” I started to add, “If I’m not back in an hour …” but the logical end of that sentence was “you’ll bleed to death or Pironnen will shoot you.”
She looked up at me. Her breathing was so shallow it seemed that she was afraid to exhale, afraid she would fall to dust. She cranked up a shadow of a smile and said, “The coffee, it’s not Peet’s; but I’ll drink it anyway.”
I grinned and in that moment liked her more than I had anytime since I’d met her.
I opened the front fireplace window, shot toward the woods, and pulled the window shut. “Okay, Bryn.”
She fired just as I opened the back door.
I ran full out. A shot came from the far side of the house. Glass shattered, but no scream followed. He hadn’t hit Bryn. He was firing at the house.
Another shot cut the air, closer. I kept moving, slower now, stepping carefully, back toward the cover of the redwoods. Rain smacked my head, my shoulders, my back. When I made it to the trees, my sweater was sodden and my hair was streaming. I turned to face the cabin. It wasn’t fifty yards away but I couldn’t make out more than a dark blob. And Pironnen could be anywhere.
I stood listening. The gunfire had stopped. The only sound was the rain and wind, and that so steady it was like cotton jammed in my ears blocking out any warning.
If I could circle around to the path, I could run. Maybe Bryn’s cellular phone was still in Pironnen’s car. I could get the sheriff out here in … in two hours, one and a half at best. Too long, much too long.
My hand tightened on my gun. I had never shot a man. I’d pulled the trigger in training but never in real life. Pironnen was a good shot; probably a better shot than I was.
Lifting each foot carefully, I made my way to my right, away from the sound of the shot. I counted twenty steps and stopped, surveyed 360 degrees around me. Branches waved; dark clumps squatted thigh high. But there were no sharp movements; he wasn’t there. Probably.
I moved on, another twenty-five steps. Checked again. And moved on. The drenched sweater felt leaden on my shoulders. My feet squished with each step. Twenty-four, twenty-five. I turned slowly.
Behind me a twig snapped. I spun toward the house.
Underbrush rustled.
Both hands on the automatic, I braced my legs, moving the gun in a side-to-side arc.
The rustling was closer. He wasn’t even making an attempt at stealth. Too cocky? Too desperate? Carefully, silently I shifted behind a tree. The trunk wasn’t wide enough for protection, but in the semidark it gave some cover.
Leaves rustled. He was moving in, like he knew where I was. I slid my finger from the ready position to the trigger.
And then he barked.
I gasped, with shock. Then with relief. Then with fear.
Pablo, the pi dog. The dog who had kept himself between Pironnen and me. The rescued dog who would protect his master to the death.
He was a blur between the trees to my right, barking, pointing me out for the kill. I aimed my gun at the center of the blur. Rain ran down my forehead into my eyes. I shook it off. The dog had inched closer. I could see him clearly now, his ears cocked, mouth open panting, his short black and brown coat slick against his body, his ribs lifting and giving way with each tense breath. I sighted between his eyes, tightened my finger on the trigger. My finger was stiff; I wasn’t breathing. I couldn’t … shoot this trusting dog. I couldn’t …
Pablo barked again. He jostled the tree beside him. Pironnen could be back there, part of the noise, or coming up behind me, his movement covered by it. I had no option to run; all I could do was shoot the dog. My whole body felt frozen …
But I was a police officer, for Chrissakes, I had a duty. I couldn’t be paralyzed by sentiment.
I sighted him one last time.
Then I realized that once again reality had reversed. We were on Pironnen’s playing field, but now I made the rules. My hand eased on the trigger. “Pironnen,” I yelled, “I’ve got your dog in my sights. Walk over here slowly, hands on your head, or I will shoot Pablo.”
The barking stopped, the rustling ceased. Only the pounding of the rain held steady. And my heart thumping in my rock-tense chest.
“Now, Karl! Don’t call him. He moves, I shoot! Walk over here, out in the clearing, hands where I can see them. I’m counting to three. If you’re not here by then, you’ve killed Pablo! One!”
There was a rustling of leaves, but I couldn’t tell where it came from. It could be Pironnen; it could be the storm. The dog barked.
“Two!”
Pablo barked and kept barking, as if he knew his danger. My hands were shaking on the gun. The trees, the wind, the dog, the rain mixed into one great well of sound. I waited another beat, watching, hoping.
On three I would shoot and run like hell.
Chapter 28
“WAIT! DON’T SHOOT PABLO! I’m here! Pablo, stay, boy!” Pironnen shrilled in panic as he ran into the clear.
“Place your gun down on the ground in front of you where I can see it,” I yelled. “Do it now!”
Tall, thin, charcoal gray in the dim light, he lifted something—a rifle?—from his shoulder and dropped it on the ground.
Still barking, Pablo ran toward him, stopped in front, and stood barking at me.
“Hands above your head! Now!”
A tear ran down my cheek. “Karl, make the dog sit! I don’t want to have to hurt him!”
Pironnen reached forward, his hand shaking so hard it looked like a fan. For an instant I thought he was going for the rifle, to protect his remaining companion. But he dug his fingers into the dog’s fur. Then he murmured something and the dog lay warily down, leaving Pironnen’s hand empty and quivering.
“Okay,” I forced out.
Pironnen fell to his knees and pulled the pi dog to him. I thought I heard a sob but I couldn’t be sure.
I knew then that the possibility of Pablo dying was much more real to Pironnen than the deaths of Ellen or Bryn. We, people, couldn’t squeeze through his protective grate. For Pablo it was no barrier at all.
I suppose I would have shot Pablo—logic assures me I would have, but God, I’m glad I didn’t find out. I couldn’t have borne taking the friend Karl Pironnen loved more than his own life.
If I had had second thoughts about this single-handed excursion to a cabin an hour’s walk up and down hill from the end of the road, the events of the next two hours made clear I should have had third thoughts, fourth, however many it took till I came to No.
I handcuffed Pironnen to a tree and went to check on Bryn. After the half hour of terror and loss of blood, she was barely lucid and too weak to walk. I didn’t dare leave her. I found a wheelbarrow behind the house, rigged a support across the handles, and made it as comfortable for her as possible. Maybe it was from the relief that Pablo was okay—more likely it came from the overload of emotion so foreign to him—but Pironnen clearly wanted to help out. I warned him against fleeing, reminded him I was armed, and unlocked the cuffs. He took the handles of the wheelbarrow and steered as carefully as if Pablo had been the injured passenger. And so our odd little parade headed off over hill and dale to the cars.
I’d been afraid the trek would be too much for Bryn, but the air or the coffee or the prospect of safety actually revived her. When we lifted her from the barrow, she was coherent.
I didn’t even bother to question Pironnen. He was the prime suspect, and I was about to arrest him. If I asked anything about the murder, I would have to read him his rights and offer him a lawyer, which I couldn’t produce. And when he did get a lawyer, that officer of the court would say I had single-handedly scuttled the state’s case. So I did what any wise police officer do
es in these situations. The law does not preclude our listening to statements freely offered by a suspect. I moved Pironnen to the back of Bryn’s van and cuffed him out of reach of her. Then I kept my ears open as I drove out.
His first question was what I would have guessed. “My dogs, what’ll happen to them?”
“Your dogs!” Bryn demanded. Her voice was soft but it didn’t waver, and only someone from another planet would have misconstrued her anger. “You’re worried about your dogs! You could have killed me. You shot a woman who looked like me when she was sitting in my car!”
The outburst seemed to have gone over his head. In the same slightly confused voice he said, “Ellen killed Dan.”
“She wasn’t the gunman, only the driver. And she went out of her way to tell you how sorry she was.”
“Sorry?” he said as if contemplating a strange substance. “What difference does sorry make? Does it give Dan life? Or me Dan?”
Bryn started to protest. “No!” Pironnen shouted. “The only thing sorry would change would have been how she felt. She killed my brother as an aside! An inconvenient incidental! Dan died and no one cared. No one noticed. They didn’t even remember his name!” He sucked in his lips. “And then she comes around my neighborhood saying the past is over and you should forget it and go on with your life. I heard her tell Fannie Johnson that! On the lawn, right in front of me!”
“But—”
Out of Pironnen’s sight I waved my hand at Bryn and put a finger to my lips.
“She killed him. Then she used my dogs to get to me. And she used me, dragged me to that bank where he died. She sat in his room! She didn’t care about Dan, she didn’t care about me; it was all so she would feel better. She wanted me to absolve her, to say Dan’s death didn’t matter. That Dan’s life was nothing.”
“That’s why you killed her?” Bryn’s voice was stilted and barely audible. “I don’t believe that. You thought you were shooting me.”
I glanced in the rearview mirror; Pironnen was smiling. He didn’t explain. Bryn gave a weak snort. She may have taken his silence for agreement.