Ricochet

by Paula Gosling

  ‘I don’t think the neighbours will be very impressed if I get an axe and break down your front door,’ Muller bluffed. It was hard to bluff when you looked like a kid, but he gave it his best shot.

  ‘Neither will we. We would sue you for criminal damage.’

  ‘We are officers in the pursuit of our duty. You are obstructing us. We could charge you with obstruction.’

  ‘Get another warrant, then.’

  Muller turned to Neilson. ‘We can do that, right?’ he asked in a low voice.

  ‘What, the axe or the charge of obstruction?’ Neilson was still amused.

  ‘Either.’

  ‘Sure. I’m not saying Captain Fineman will like the publicity, but we could do it all right.’

  ‘Shit,’ said Muller, who rarely swore.

  ‘I am going to call the Student Union,’ came a different voice from behind the closed door. ‘I am going to call the newspapers. I am going to get reinforcements.’

  ‘Mexican stand-off,’ Neilson said approvingly. ‘Nice move.’

  ‘If we do it fast, there won’t be time for them to call the press,’ Muller said.

  ‘Oh, hell.’ Neilson levered himself off the porch railing. ‘Go on, then.’

  ‘We’re coming in,’ Muller shouted. He glanced around. Already there were a couple of students from nearby houses on the sidewalk below, looking on with interest and some contempt. ‘I hate students,’ he confided to Neilson. ‘While we’re crapping around out here, this Ms McKittrick could be slipping out the back way. Maybe she already has.’ They stared at each other. They hadn’t thought of that. They should have.

  ‘Maybe we should call for back-up.’

  ‘They’ll just about arrive along with the press.’

  ‘Oh, shit,’ Muller said again, establishing a new record for himself. ‘Have we got an axe in the car?’

  ‘Nope. Got a tyre iron, I think.’

  They assessed the door. It looked pretty solid, but the lock was old. ‘We can do it,’ Neilson said, backing off a little. ‘But if I get a dislocated shoulder out of this, you’re doing all my paperwork for the next month.’

  ‘Kick, then,’ Muller suggested. ‘Kick first – the lock looks weak.’

  ‘OK. On my count of three.’

  ‘Why is it always three?’ Muller asked.

  Caught off guard, Neilson lowered his foot. ‘I don’t know. Does it matter?’

  ‘I just wondered,’ Muller said. ‘It just occurred to me.’

  ‘Have you a preference for something else?’ Neilson enquired sarcastically.

  ‘No. One, two, three will be fine,’ Muller said. ‘It just occurred to me to wonder, that’s all.’

  Neilson glared at him. ‘One,’ he said ominously. Muller sighed and lined up beside him, bracing himself. ‘Two, three,’ Neilson shouted and they both kicked the door at lock level. It burst open easily, revealing Ayo, Lorrie and Peaches on the other side. They all screamed and backed down the hall as Muller and Neilson fell through the open door, just managing to stay on their feet. The girls had been unprepared for the sudden access and clung together. Or rather, the smaller two clung to Ayo, who looked furious.

  ‘We have reason to believe Lois McKittrick is on these premises,’ Neilson said, a little short of breath, steadying himself on a nearby chair.

  ‘This is breaking and entering,’ Peaches informed him in a tremulous voice.

  ‘Oh, hell, woman, where is she?’ Neilson snapped. ‘Still in her room? We’ll arrest the whole bunch of you in a minute.’

  ‘I’m here,’ said Lois McKittrick, coming out of the living room to their right. ‘They were only trying to protect me.’ She sounded defeated. ‘I’ll come quietly.’

  ‘It would have been a lot cheaper if you’d done that before,’ Neilson said irritably. ‘Now they’ll have to get a locksmith.’

  ‘We’ll send you the bill,’ Ayo said ominously.

  ‘Fine, fine, send us the bill.’ Muller was aware of some voices outside in the street. They didn’t sound like the happy voices of peasants at play. Students and neighbours were gathering, and the sight of them kicking in the door was obviously not to the public’s liking. By now someone was certain to have called the police – and the newspapers. If the girls themselves hadn’t already done so. It was just the two of them, without back-up, and if they didn’t act quickly the situation could become ugly. Students loved any excuse for a demonstration. Especially one that involved the police. Muller had had plenty of experience with ugly crowds when he had been in uniform and didn’t relish a repeat. He had thought detectives were past that. Apparently not.

  ‘Let’s go, Miss McKittrick.’

  I have to get my coat,’ she said.

  ‘Oh no,’ said Neilson. ‘I’ll get your coat. You stay right here where we can see you.’ He paused. ‘Where is your coat?’

  ‘In my room.’

  Neilson sighed and, with a glance at Muller, who nodded, went up the stairs to Lois McKittrick’s room. As he stepped through the door, his mouth fell open. One entire wall was covered with pictures of Professor Mayhew. Most were candid shots, obviously taken without the woman’s knowledge. A couple were posed shots with other students – he recognized Jerry Hauck, Chan Mei Mei, and Morrie Garrison. One was a posed portrait, apparently enlarged from some publication, as it was very grainy. ‘Holy St John Birchman,’ Neilson said. He knew what it meant. It meant obsession. It meant psychiatrists. It meant complications. It meant trouble. He went to the cupboard and got a warm coat for their obviously loony arrestee.

  He was a less than happy man.

  Kate was an unhappy woman. She sat in her car, stuck in a traffic jam, and scowled at the other drivers around her. Inching forward in the lunch hour traffic, she wondered whether she felt like going to the gym or not. She was so angry with Jack that she wanted to ram the car in front of her, but it was a Mercedes and the bills would have been horrific. Maybe she could work off her annoyance at the gym – that had been the idea, anyway. Liz was meeting her there. They would have a workout and then some lunch.

  She pounded her fist on the steering wheel and blew her horn quite unnecessarily at the car in front, whereupon the driver gave her the finger. He knew she was a bitch. She knew it too, but anger was destroying any common sense she’d ever had. She managed to stop herself from getting out of the car and confronting the man, but it was a close-run thing. She asked herself what exactly had made her so furious.

  The word ‘forbid’.

  Red rag. Fighting word. The trouble was that she knew he was probably right. She and Liz had planned to confront Torrance and now she couldn’t because Torrance had something to do with Jack’s precious case.

  She met Liz in the changing room and told her about Jack’s visit.

  Liz seemed very relieved. ‘Well, then, that’s that,’ she said. ‘I know you’re probably disappointed, but it’s for the best, Kate.’

  ‘Best for whom?’ Kate wanted to know, pinning her locker key to her T-shirt and heading for the weights room. ‘I wanted to deal with Torrance myself. We went to all that trouble tracking him down, got David involved, and now . . . nothing.’

  ‘That’s better than getting killed,’ Liz said mildly.

  Kate glanced at her. ‘You don’t believe Torrance killed Elise Mayhew, do you?’

  ‘I have no idea. I don’t know any more than I read in the paper. I seem to remember there was some question of suicide.’

  ‘No.’ Kate explained about the gun being wiped of prints and the lack of contact powder burns Jack had told her about.

  ‘Well, even a little skinny guy can shoot a gun,’ Liz pointed out, grunting a little as she began her shoulder lifts. ‘And if he caught Ricky from behind, by surprise . . . even if Dan says he’s small and weak, he’s also mean. We know that from the calls. And anger or madness is suppos
ed to make people stronger than normal.’

  ‘Well, I’m angry, but I don’t seem able to lift any more than usual.’ Kate dropped her hand weights back in the rack after struggling with shoulder presses.

  Liz, relieved that Kate seemed to be more reasonable, nodded and reached over to replace her own weights. In doing so, she missed the look Kate gave her in the mirror.

  It would have scared her.

  They arrived back at Kate’s office about an hour later, switching on the lights, as it was darkening early. A roll of thunder in the distance said cold rain was on the way. They had just settled down with coffee when the phone rang.

  ‘Hello, Katie,’ said the familiar hated voice.

  ‘Hello, Professor Torrance,’ Kate said and Liz nearly dropped her coffee. ‘How delightful of you to call.’

  There was a silence. ‘So you know who I am.’ The voice was, if anything, a little tighter, a little nastier than before. ‘That is a shame.’

  ‘Oh, really? Why?’ Kate asked.

  ‘Because now I really will have to go to see the Dean,’ Torrance said. ‘It’s been fun, but it’s time you were put in your proper place. I saw the picture of you in the student paper yesterday.’

  ‘Not a good likeness,’ Kate said through clenched teeth.

  ‘No. But an excellent demonstration of what I have to tell the Dean.’

  Kate closed her eyes. It had been an old picture of her at a Rag Week celebration, hugging a male student with enthusiasm. Not Michael Deeds, fortunately, but definitely a male student. The story had been on the history of Rag Week, presaging a light-hearted new book by another English faculty member.

  ‘Can’t we settle this between us?’ Kate asked.

  ‘Too late, Katie,’ said Torrance and hung up.

  Kate gripped the phone with white knuckles and looked at Liz. ‘He’s going to the Dean.’

  ‘Stop him,’ Liz said. ‘Call him back.’

  Kate rang the science department, but was told that Professor Torrance was not in today. ‘He’s at home.’ Kate put down the phone. She reached for the phone book and began riffling through it for Torrance’s home address.

  ‘No, Kate,’ Liz said.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Kate said. ‘Oh yes.’

  TWENTY-TWO

  David Waxman dropped his brother Dan off at the entrance to the Emergency Room, where he was taking the late-afternoon shift. Dan was in no shape to drive comfortably. He was still staying with David and Abbi, and they were glad to be able to look after him. Dan worked long hours and it was hard, heartbreaking work most days. Worse to go home to an empty flat and have to struggle with those broken ribs.

  Dan was still determined to help Sergeant Pinsky out in his investigations, even after the battering he’d received. David sighed and pulled back out into traffic. All this was getting a bit much, he thought. First the vicious phone calls to sort out for Kate – he admitted he’d enjoyed that. But it involved no physical confrontation. He was worried about Kate and Liz going to see this Professor Torrance. It felt wrong to him that they would have no male support. It was not a matter of not respecting their individual rights as human beings, nor of coming over all protective male. It just seemed . . . unbalanced. And it was the same with Dan. The hospital was huge, it was full of all kinds of people, at least one of whom obviously had it in for Dan. Which meant Dan was getting too close to whoever had killed the boy, Ricky Sanchez. If only Kate and Dan weren’t both so stubborn.

  Two kinds of confrontation – Kate’s face to face, Dan remaining vulnerable to another possible attack from behind – and David didn’t like either of them. He himself required a peaceful life. He was not a coward, nor was he lazy or afraid of physical effort. He just liked a clear mind and quiet surroundings in which to make music.

  All this emotional static was interfering with his work.

  It definitely wasn’t his kind of thing.

  But it was all around him and he was getting edgy.

  It felt like . . . thunder in the distance.

  Lois McKittrick just sat there, tears rolling down her face, trembling from head to toe, but saying nothing. Absolutely nothing.

  Neilson had told Stryker about the pictures in the bedroom and they agreed that it appeared as if the girl had had an unnatural obsession with her teacher, but further than that they couldn’t go without some response from her. No matter what they asked, she just sat there in the grubby interrogation room.

  Saying nothing.

  ‘The arrest warrant was premature,’ Stryker said, cross with himself for not overseeing the arrest.

  ‘It was the only way to get her down here,’ Muller protested. ‘Those girls weren’t about to let her come quietly – they were prepared to stand us off and make a splash in the press.’

  ‘But what we have is purely circumstantial.’

  ‘Why is it always “purely” circumstantial?’ Muller wanted to know.

  Neilson turned on him. ‘What is it with you and this philosophical questioning of everything?’

  Muller shrugged and turned away to hide a smile. He had found a way to bait Neilson and he was beginning to enjoy it. Little did they realize that under his little-boy exterior there lurked a demon born to torment the innocent. He would soon have them all licked into shape, he thought to himself. The Rookie from Hell.

  Stryker continued. ‘We know she has no alibi after eleven for the night of the murder, that she was close enough to the professor’s home to reach it at a fast walk in twenty minutes or so, or a three-minute drive. We know there was an altercation at the house some time around eleven thirty and we know that a woman called the Suicide Hotline from Mayhew’s phone at around midnight shortly after the shots were fired. But we have no prints, no witnesses, nothing.’

  ‘We have that she was stalking Mayhew.’

  ‘We don’t know that. We only know she was obsessed with her.’

  ‘Lesbian,’ Neilson said with disgust.

  Stryker eyed him. ‘We don’t know that,’ he said quietly. ‘And maybe she doesn’t, either. She seems very immature for her age. It could just be some kind of crush.’

  ‘Either way, it doesn’t prove she killed her.’

  Having given up for the moment on direct questioning, they were looking through the one-way mirror at Lois McKittrick, who sat in the interrogation room, with a woman officer watching her from a seat in the corner. Stryker frowned. ‘I want a doctor to look at her anyway,’ he said. ‘Hear that?’ The microphone in the room beyond the mirror was on, in case McKittrick said anything to the woman officer. ‘She’s beginning to wheeze . . . the last thing we need is for her to have some kind of asthma attack while in custody.’

  As they watched, Lois rummaged in her handbag. The woman officer started to stand up, but when the girl drew out an inhaler and used it, she sat down again.

  ‘She’s OK,’ Neilson said with relief.

  ‘For the moment,’ Stryker conceded. ‘The point is, now that we’ve got her, what the hell can we do with her if she doesn’t say anything? We can’t hold her for ever and we can’t book her without evidence. Our only hope at the moment is a confession and that doesn’t seem to be forthcoming.’

  ‘She hasn’t asked for a lawyer.’

  ‘I think we should ask again whether she wants one or not. I think we should make clear just what we do have and why we suspect her of this murder.’

  ‘She’ll see right away it isn’t enough to convict.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ Stryker said slowly. ‘First we’ll tell her the situation, then we’ll get her a lawyer.’

  ‘That is very sneaky,’ Tos said. ‘You’re counting on her ignorance.’

  ‘What else have we got?’ asked Stryker irritably. ‘Unless you want to call in the Chinese girl as well.’

  ‘We could—’ Neilson began.

  ‘No point
,’ Muller interrupted. ‘I doubt she has a picture wall of the professor, her parents wouldn’t allow it, and I certainly doubt she is the type to panic and call the Suicide Hotline. The guy said the voice was a little familiar, remember, as if she were a regular. McKittrick strikes me as just the kind of person to call the Suicide Hotline on a regular basis.’

  ‘They don’t wear identification tags,’ Neilson argued. But he knew Muller was right. They all knew it. The odds were that Lois McKittrick had killed Professor Mayhew. But they were only odds – they were not evidence.

  It was very frustrating.

  ‘Maybe we should try a woman detective,’ Tos suggested. ‘Who have we got?’

  ‘No. How about getting that woman psychiatrist in?’ Stryker said slowly. ‘We’ve used her before and she’s retired from her full practice, so she’s usually available as a consultant. She can check McKittrick’s physical situation and maybe get her to talk as well. What’s her name again?’

  ‘You mean Dr Maclaine, that white-haired old biddy in the tracksuit and trainers?’

  ‘Yes, that’s the one. We can brief her on the situation and she might be able to draw the girl out. We can tape from in here. It’s worth a shot.’

  ‘I’ll get her on the phone,’ Tos offered.

  Dan tried not to breathe too deeply, but he felt like heaving a big sigh of exasperation. The pain in his ribs was restricting his movement, which in turn restricted his work. Even bending over to listen to a suspect abdomen was painful. He had taken some mild painkillers, but didn’t want to impair his faculties. Can’t make a good diagnosis when you’re spaced out from here to Mars.

  The staff were making allowances and doing all they could to make it easier on him, but so much depended on touching the patient, palpating organs, judging clamminess or dryness of the skin, feeling the temperature and pulses of injured limbs and so on. He was a hands-on doctor and always would be.

  He straightened up and looked at Ann-Catherine, the nurse who stood on the other side of the patient. ‘I think it’s a hot appendix,’ he said. ‘Better get her admitted, stat. Better ring them to prep an OR, too.’