Ten minutes later, she knew that it had all been a waste of time. Less than ten, in fact, but she’d tried to kid herself for a while there. However the sale went, Bonnie normally got along really well with her clients. That was one reason why she was such a successful realtor. Maybe that was also one reason why Jerry didn’t ask too many questions about her being out so much in the evening, seeing as she had been paying the bills ever since his job with a marine brokerage turned out not to be recession-proof. Real estate is a people business, and Bonnie liked to think of herself as a people person. Plus there was always a little buzz in the air when the client was a man. Men had always gravitated toward her, drawn by her looks and a sense that they could relax around her. She enjoyed this for its own sake, and knew how to turn it to her practical advantage. And if the guy happened to be gay, she could work that room too, with her sassy sister act.
So it kind of shocked her to discover there was no way she could relate to Professor Samuel Baines Sherman. Not only did Bonnie’s social firepower fail to make the slightest impression on the Sherman Tank, as she privately dubbed him, but it turned out that he had no intention whatever of buying. For a while she thought he might be trying to work some leverage on the price, but when she hinted that there could well be some flexibility in that area, he just carried right on enumerating all the defects of the property. After a while she gave up. It was like the guy was giving a lecture on whatever the heck he was Distinguished for. There was no way to stop him short of walking out, and she couldn’t afford to do that. Losing the sale was bad enough, but if the client complained to Jack Capoccioni she could be in deep shit. Marine brokerage wasn’t the only job description where there were more applicants than positions these days.
Sherman’s basic bitch was that the property had been willfully misrepresented in the description he had been sent, describing it as a “gracious and immaculate rehab in move-in condition combining sophisticated family living and oodles of charm.” OK, so it was a bunch of bull, but Bonnie didn’t write the copy. Plus everyone knew that was just a come-on, feel-good stuff. All that really counted was the location and the price. After that you had to go look. But Professor Sherman evidently felt he’d been deliberately conned out of an hour of his valuable time, and wasn’t going to leave until he’d made damn sure that Bonnie never tried to pull a fast one on him again. As a result he led her through every room in the goddamn house, pointing out at great length why it was totally and utterly inappropriate for a man of his status.
“These rooms have been insensitively remodeled at some stage, probably the late forties or early fifties to judge from the moldings. The whole rationale of the original ground plan has been destroyed thereby, creating an architecturally psychotic ambience. Just look at the shape and dimensions relative to the height of the ceilings! It’s like a rat maze designed by Piranesi. No claptrap about graciousness and sophistication can change that.”
They had reached the bedrooms by now. Bonnie Kowalski figured she had to eat shit for about another ten minutes, then he’d be through. Give him satisfaction, she told herself. Keep him sweet for the future. Nevertheless, she felt a huge surge of relief when she heard footsteps on the stairs. Jack Capoccioni had told her he would drop by if he got through with the Schlumberger deal in time, see how she was doing, maybe work a squeeze play if the client was hard to close. This way he’d get to see for himself what an asshole the guy was, and she’d be off the hook.
“I must confess myself stupefied by your inability to grasp the nature of my requirements, Ms. Kowalski,” Sherman was saying. “I think it would be fair to say that I boast a certain renown as an effective communicator in academic, civic and political circles throughout the country. I am therefore mortified and dismayed to discover that in this instance I have evidently been unsuccessful in enabling you to grasp something as straightforward as the type of house I am looking for. Whether the responsibility for this failure is mine or yours is unclear, but at all events it is something we must rectify momentarily if we are to continue to do business.”
Behind them, the door creaked on its hinges.
“Hi, Jack!” said Bonnie, turning.
But the man who stood there wasn’t Jack. He was younger and fitter, wearing some kind of sports outfit and holding something in one hand, a personal stereo maybe. There was another guy behind him, standing in the shadows. Then they came into the room, and she recognized the two joggers who’d passed by while she was sitting outside waiting for Sherman.
“Don’t do anything stupid, you won’t get hurt,” the first man said.
It was an uneducated voice, sullen and constrained. He was about twenty, twenty-five, with a face that tapered to a protuberant jaw. He had meaty lips, slightly buck teeth and evasive, widely spaced blue eyes. He raised his hand, and Bonnie realized that the thing he was holding wasn’t a Walkman.
“Yeah,” said the other man, moving forward into the room. “That’s right.”
This was the shorter one. He had bleached blond hair and a little slit of a mouth, and he was also carrying a pistol. He reminded Bonnie of one of the other realtors called Randy who’d been pink-slipped a couple of months back, and for a moment she thought of those news stories you see where some guy who’s been fired comes back to work and starts shooting at random. But she knew it wasn’t Randy.
“Kneel down on the floor,” the tall one said.
Both men were wearing transparent plastic gloves, Bonnie noticed, the kind her gynecologist used for pelvics.
“I’ve got two hundred dollars in my wallet, and a gold Rolex,” Samuel Baines Sherman announced calmly. “You’re welcome to both.”
“Kneel the fuck down!” the squat guy shouted tensely.
Sherman gave out a long sigh, as though this were just one more of the tedious and unnecessary inconveniences he had to face every day of his life, due to the incompetence of others.
“Kneel?” he repeated with a peeved frown. “What on earth for?”
“Do what they say!” Bonnie Kowalski told him, all the fury and frustration she’d suppressed now gushing out. “I don’t want to get shot just because you’re an asshole!”
Sherman looked more shocked by this than by the gunmen’s appearance. Well, screw him. She didn’t care about losing the sale any more. She didn’t even care about Jack Capoccioni getting mad. Setting her purse down carefully, she knelt beside it, facing the two gunmen. After a moment’s hesitation, Sherman gave a little weary shrug and got to his knees. The tall guy unzipped the pocket of his backpack, watching them all the while.
“Hands behind your back,” he said.
“It’s not even our house,” Bonnie replied. “The owners have moved out. There’s nothing here to steal.”
“Shut up! Shut up!” screamed the squat one agitatedly.
“Hey, lighten up,” his partner murmured.
He crouched down behind Sherman. There was a sharp click. Sherman gave a grunt of surprise, or pain. The man straightened up and moved in front of Sherman, blocking Bonnie’s view.
“This is completely un-” Sherman began.
The gunman bent down, and Sherman’s voice ceased abruptly. The shorter man gave a jagged laugh which broke off as his partner swung around to face him.
“Well, don’t just stand there!” he snapped.
The other gunman started rooting around in the backpack. All his movements were jerky and urgent. He ran around behind Bonnie, who flinched.
“Please!” she pleaded. “I have a family!”
She could feel his breath on her hair and at the nape of her neck. Something hard and sharp gripped her left wrist, then the right, locking them together. The man seized her jaw from behind and pressed something over her mouth in a sticky kiss. Smelling the heady reek of raw plastic, she realized it was a patch of adhesive tape. There was one on Sherman’s mouth too.
The taller man surveyed the scene for a moment.
“OK,” he said.
His companion looked at
Bonnie, then at Sherman. His expression was one of panic. The other man had set down his pistol and was taking something else out of the backpack. Bonnie noted dully that it was a video camera, a Sony, the new lightweight model she had been meaning to get Jerry for Christmas, but the store had had a JVC on sale for a hundred bucks less so she’d gone for that instead. The salesman had assured her it was just as good, maybe a tad heavier was all.
The squat man stood looking at the two trussed and gagged figures kneeling on the floor. He took a step toward Bonnie, then paused and stepped quickly over to stand behind Sherman. The other man raised the viewfinder of the video camera to his face, targeting his partner, whose pistol was pointing at the back of Sherman’s neck. Bonnie fought to control her bladder. If she peed now it would form a puddle on the floor, everyone would see. She would just die of shame.
“I can’t!” the short man said in a tone or desperation.
“C’mon, Dale!” said the tall man, switching on the camera. “Hit the mitt! Straight down the pipe, baby! You can do it.”
The gunman took an audible intake of breath and pressed the muzzle of his revolver to Sherman’s neck. At the contact Sherman’s head jerked back instinctively, knocking the barrel aside. There was a dull crack and the gunman jumped back with a horrified expression.
“Christ!” he gasped.
Sherman was thrashing around on the floor. His muffled roars reverberated in the empty room.
“Jesus Christ!” the gunman cried in obvious distress. “Jesus Christ!”
The victim’s overcoat had ridden up, revealing a patch of dense red blood spreading across the seat of his tweed pants.
“Fire it in there!” the tall man shouted.
“I can’t! I can’t do it!”
“Hustle up, Dale! Finish the job!”
Bonnie could feel the waffle and bacon she’d eaten for breakfast rising in her throat, and the thought of choking on the vomit, unable to get rid of it because of the gag, made her panic.
The gunman bent over Sherman, who was twisting around and around on the bare floorboards, his feet kicking convulsively. There was another shot. Splinters of the oak planking went flying. Then a sudden spasm of Sherman’s leg knocked the gunman off balance. The revolver went off again as he fell heavily on his side. The window broke, and for a moment Bonnie thought that someone outside had thrown a rock or a ball at the glass, like the time Nathan was pitching to a friend in the backyard and a fly ball went through the kitchen window.
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” the gunman howled desperately.
He had scrambled to his knees, his clothes and hands streaked with blood.
“Help me, Andy! I can’t handle it! You’ve got to help me!”
A series of warbling sounds filled the room. Bonnie glanced down at the purse where she kept her cellular phone. It must be Jack, calling her to see how it was going. The phone rang eight times, breaking off with a truncated beep.
The gunman called Andy switched off the video camera and set it down on the floor. He looked at Sherman, then at the kneeling gunman.
“Lemme have it,” he said.
The other guy didn’t react until the command was repeated. Then he raised the plastic-sheathed hand which held the pistol. Andy took the weapon by the barrel, turned it around and shot his partner between the eyes. The man’s mouth popped open as though in a yawn. He toppled forward slowly, crashing to the floor without uttering a sound.
Sherman was moving more slowly now, feebly pedaling his legs and jerking his spine. Carefully avoiding the patch of bloodstained flooring, the gunman crouched down and aimed his pistol at the side of the wounded man’s head, just above the ear. He fired once. Sherman stiffened, then relaxed and was still.
The killer observed him for a moment. Then he straightened up and turned toward Bonnie Kowalski.
COVERAGE WAS BIG in Metropolitan Chicago, fair in Illinois and surrounding states, patchy to nonexistent elsewhere. NU PROF, REALTOR SLAIN IN SHOWHOME SHOOTING was the Chicago Sun-Times headline. The article began:
Urban-style random violence struck at the quiet, leafy college town of Evanston Thursday when three bodies were found in a house in the exclusive Gray Park area of the Lakeside suburb. Two of the victims were named as Samuel Baines Sherman, fifty-one, and Bonnie Kowalski, thirty-seven. The other, a man who police suspect may have been the killer, has not yet been identified.
The crime was discovered by John Capoccioni, president of the Evanston real estate agency where Mrs. Kowalski worked. He had grown concerned when she failed to return to the office or to answer her cellular phone, and drove to the property on Maple Street. He found Kowalski’s car parked outside, and on searching the Victorian mansion discovered the bodies in one of the upstairs bedrooms.
Samuel Sherman had recently been appointed as MacDowell Distinguished Professor of Corporate Law at Northwestern University. He had made an appointment to view the Maple Street house with Mrs. Kowalski at 9:30 that morning.
According to Detective Eileen McCann of Evanston City Police, all three victims were shot at close range with a.22-caliber Smith amp; Wesson Model 34 revolver which was recovered at the scene. Marks on the bodies suggest that Sherman and Kowalski were bound and gagged before being shot. Police are working on the theory that the gunman then turned the weapon on himself.
The motive for the crimes remains a mystery. Neither of the victims had been robbed, and there is no evidence that either was known to the presumed killer. The property itself, which had been on the market for several weeks, contained nothing of value. A sexual attack has also been ruled out.
The article continued with an appeal by Evanston Police to any members of the public with information about the shootings. They were particularly concerned to identify the gunman, who was described as a white juvenile aged twenty to twenty-five, of medium height, heavy build, with light brown hair and brown eyes. Efforts were also being made to trace the murder weapon. Home security specialists, hardware stores and gun shops in the Evanston area were reported to be doing record business.
It was a slow news day in the Northwest, and the early edition of the Seattle Times featured a heavily condensed version of the story in its Across the Nation column, squeezed up against an advertisement for a shoe sale at Nordstrom’s department store. In the night final which Kristine Kjarstad read that evening at home, this had been dropped in favor of a piece about the drugs charge which had been brought against one of the pitchers for a leading American League team. Kjarstad skimmed the column briefly before turning to the Arts section to read about a movie she was thinking of seeing.
Almost two months had gone by since the shootings at Renfrew Avenue. The news that Wayne Sullivan had confessed had created a sense of euphoria and relief that was as intense as it was short-lived. Seattleites liked to think of their city as a civilized haven, as temperate as its mild, cloudy climate, immune by its very nature to the epidemic of crime which had turned so many other urban centers into virtual war zones. At the same time, everyone knew that out-of-staters were moving there, partly because of the area’s reputation as peaceful and livable, and there was growing concern that they would bring their problems with them.
So when something like the Renton killing occurred, a houseful of people shot dead in broad daylight without any evident motive, everyone’s worst fears appeared to have been realized. Any outcome would have been a relief from the swirling, formless terrors of the community’s collective imagination, but Wayne Sullivan’s confession was the very best news anyone could have hoped for. People might be shocked by what Sullivan had done, but at least they could understand it. Hell, we’ve all been there at some moment or other, if we’re honest.
Above all, they were relieved to find that it posed no threat to them. Far from being the random slaughter it had at first appeared, this was a situation-specific killing. What had taken place was a private affair between Wayne Sullivan and his family. As for that poor Chinese kid, he’d just been in the wrong pla
ce at the wrong time. Could’ve happened to anyone.
There was thus intense pressure on the police in general, and on Kristine Kjarstad in particular, to come up with evidence to corroborate Sullivan’s statement so that charges could be brought. This they had failed to do.
Kristine had known the attempt was doomed from the moment she and Steve Warren had interviewed Sullivan at the courthouse following his unexpected admission of guilt. Things had begun promisingly enough, with Wayne giving vent to obviously genuine feelings of hostility regarding his ex-wife.
“She tried to take the little ones away from me,” he explained in a voice filled with hurt. “She shouldn’t ought to’ve done that. I don’t care about her, but those were my children, the only thing I have in this world. She tried to take them away and form them in her image. No one has the right to do that. I told her. ‘My boys’d be better off dead than brung up by a slut like you,’ I said.”
Kristine waited for him to go on, but he seemed to have lost the thread.
“What happened then?” she prompted.
Sullivan’s eyes darted around the room, as if searching for inspiration.
“She started in at me, calling me a no-good, worthless loser who wasn’t fit to father a dog. I just lost it. I took out this pistol I’d brought with me and I blew her away. Then I got to thinking ’bout the kids, all alone in the world with no one to look after them. And them knowing their dad killed their mom and all. So I knew I had to kill them too. It was for the best. I didn’t know what else to do.”
Kristine Kjarstad nodded sympathetically. So far, so good, she thought. Everything Sullivan had said rang true. Now they just had to sort out the details and type up a statement for him to sign.
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