Over My Dead Body

by Dave Warner

  An idea exploded in his head. ‘Get them to make him stand,’ he commanded.

  Harry didn’t question him, he disappeared out of the room. Holmes watched as there was a knock on the door and Gomez got up.

  Gomez returned as Harry re-entered the interview room.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Harry. Holmes just pointed at the interview room.

  ‘Could you please stand, Mr Burgess,’ asked Gomez.

  Burgess, still the ringmaster, stood, opening out his arms as if to say ‘search me’.

  Holmes stamped his foot. ‘Don’t you see? If he had written that message, he would have written it lower down. People write just above their eyeline. He’s not tall enough.’ And even as he said it, that toboggan was twisting and turning. Burgess had an accomplice! The truth crashed through. ‘You said he had a son.’

  Harry was already moving fast to the door, Holmes in tow.

  ‘Listen everybody,’ Harry shouted, as he hit the main room. ‘We need to find Burgess’s son. Who was on relatives?’

  A diminutive brunette put up her hand. ‘Burgess has a sister in Houston. I spoke with her. She said the son, Ryan, hasn’t been seen since college. He went to Europe six years ago to study art. Photography, I think she said. He became estranged from his father because of Burgess’s alcoholism.’

  But Burgess may have reformed.

  ‘He’s …’ she checked her notes, ‘… thirty-two.’

  ‘See if he has returned to the country. Maybe he’s changed names.’

  ‘I got a press photo of the funeral,’ yelled a young man, ‘but you can’t see the kid’s face.’

  A photo leapt up onto the main screen. Shot from behind it showed a man, presumably Burgess, leading a boy about ten. Gomez had been right. Rebecca Chaney would not have been attracted to the middle-aged Burgess, but this boy was now the right age. Panic rarely presented itself to Holmes but it did now. Pulling out his phone he said to Harry, ‘Get a squad car to Georgette’s lab.’

  ‘I’ll call the security guard.’

  Holmes cautioned. ‘Burgess has prepared for this. Until we know who the son is, I wouldn’t do that.’

  Columbus was still perky and that cheered Georgette as she precisely bisected the vitamin tablet with her miniature pocket knife. The doses had to be exact or she would have no idea what might be working. She crushed the tablet into the food bowl, picked Columbus up gently and placed him in his cage, the last of them, fed and exercised. She had only come up with the refreezing option early that morning. If she could buy time …

  There was a knock on the locked lab door. Had Holmes decided to come here after all?

  ‘Dwayne?’ she asked.

  ‘Kelvin. Your dad wants you at the station. I was the nearest.’

  She opened the door, grabbed her things. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Didn’t say, just whoever was near to get you and bring you to the station.’

  She turned and switched off the lights. Felt a terrible jolt, saw blue and white spirits dancing, collapsed helpless.

  Holmes’ call went to voicemail. He fought to remain composed.

  ‘She’s not answering.’

  Simone was stricken. ‘Georgette? What’s happening?’

  Harry was back on his phone. ‘Where’s that squad car?’ He listened, turned to Holmes. ‘One minute away.’

  The nightmare day was on an endless loop.

  ‘Where did the son go to school?’ yelled Harry. ‘Get a class photo.’

  Simone still in the dark, asked again with rising panic, ‘Is Georgette okay?’

  Holmes seized Simone.

  ‘Can you drive me?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Harry waved them on. ‘Go.’

  Holmes was at the door when it hit him. He turned back to Harry.

  ‘How did Burgess know you were at the crime scene?’

  Harry blinked, tried to process. Holmes helped.

  ‘In the interview room, Burgess said you should have recognized “Save Me”. But you’re not the case detective. There was no way of knowing earlier that you would be there.’

  ‘The super?’ said Harry in a fog. ‘I interviewed him, remember.’

  ‘Or … ’ said Holmes speculating aloud. ‘… Burgess could have infiltrated a technician. He has had more than a year to plan this.’

  Simone thought back to Burgess’s office. Well-shot photos on the wall. ‘Or a photographer.’

  ‘Where is Kelvin?’ asked Holmes, looking around but before anybody could answer, the dark-haired woman yelled out.

  ‘We have officers at the lab. The security guard is unconscious, no sign of Georgette.’

  Simone swore and gripped the wheel, hunched, the car spearing through tumbling snow, sparse night streets. Holmes was furious with himself. How could he have ignored that the ice-skater figurine spoke more of Georgette than her sister? That had been the plan all along, hadn’t it. To steal both Harry’s daughters from under his nose. Perhaps there would be something at the scene of the abduction he could spy that would lead them to Georgette in time. His phone rang. Harry.

  ‘News?’

  ‘It’s Feeney. They’ve let Harry go in with Burgess. I’ll be monitoring this phone if you think of anything.’

  ‘Kelvin’s car –’

  ‘Statewide alert. FBI are being informed. Benson and Lipinski are heading to Kelvin’s apartment.’

  Holmes was cold from the terror in his veins.

  ‘He’s going to kill her,’ said Simone.

  Yes, thought Holmes, he would, in some symbolic, terrible way.

  ‘Is it possible that I could overhear the interview?’ asked Holmes into the phone.

  ‘Sure. I’m going to the observation room. Stay on the line.’

  ‘Where is she, Burgess?’

  Harry wanted to seize him and smash his head into the wall. Carter watched Harry like a hawk. Burgess glowed with triumph.

  Harry said, ‘You want them both to die, is that it? Your son, my daughter. You hate the world that much?’

  ‘Thanks to you, my son lost the sister he loved. And I lost him, for years. This brought us together. We’re both comfortable with our choices.’

  ‘Where is he taking her? You want revenge on me, fine. I’ll give you my gun. You can do it. You can pull the trigger.’

  Burgess smirked. ‘Too easy. Life’s hard, Harry. No miracle this time.’

  ‘Where!’

  ‘Somewhere in the globe, Harry.’

  Harry’s heart was bursting. ‘Don’t do this. The worst he’s facing is an accessory charge on Rebecca. Save your son, Burgess.’

  ‘Save your daughter, Harry. That’s it. No more talkies.’

  Harry tried to engage him but Burgess simply sat there with arms folded and a smile on his face. Carter gently edged Harry up and towards the door. Harry stopped.

  ‘I’m sorry, I let you down. But I couldn’t do any different. If I’d have seen Lee first and not Becky, I would have swum her in. Please.’

  Burgess simply scratched his nose and sat back, silent.

  Holmes heard it all, played the scene out in his mind.

  With a heavy heart Feeney said, ‘That’s it. I’m going back out. Wait a second –’

  Holmes stopped breathing, waited at least thirty seconds. Feeney came back on, excitement in his voice.

  ‘The guard has regained consciousness but has no idea what happened. The techs found something though on Burgess’s work computer: it looks like he planned a car route to the Catskills.’

  Harry must have seized the phone, for his voice suddenly burst from the speaker.

  ‘Kelvin is confirmed as Ryan Burgess. We found a school photo. He’s taking her back to where she drowned, going to finish the job, that’s his sick plan. We’re getting roadblocks in place and hopefully a chopper. Tell Simone I love …’

  The phone cut out. Holmes’ battery again. Damn.

  ‘Can I have your phone, Simone?’

  ‘The poli
ce took it. Evidence.’

  Georgette woke in cold darkness, gagged, feet bound, hands tied behind her back with a thin rope, motion. A moment for her eyes to adjust. Metal, a glow of red, smell of gasoline. She was in a car trunk. The bastard had tasered her.

  ‘If your father had done his job, I wouldn’t have to do this. I owe my sister.’

  That’s all he had said. Then he had pushed a cloth into her face. Some sedative. She didn’t recall how she’d been put in the car, wasn’t sure when, had no clue how long but knew she had to try to free herself. She felt around as best she could with her hands behind her. Her fingers weren’t numb. Good, probably hadn’t been under all that long, just long enough to get her into the car. She had to escape. Was she still in her lab coat? Yes. The last thing she had done before that knock on the door was put Columbus in his cage. That meant using both hands … please let it be there. She bent her arms around as far as she could to the right, her shoulder blade ached. Carefully she dangled her fingers into the right pocket, felt metal, her mini pocket-knife. Don’t drop it, careful. She had it, used the fingers of her left hand to prise it open. Even though her hands were tied she was able to saw the rope. The tiny blade was sharp. She felt the strands thinning. She slipped, cut her wrist but … snap! She was free. The car stopped.

  ‘About three minutes to the lab,’ said Simone, who hadn’t eased the speed.

  Could he possibly find anything of import there? He had to try, hope the police would cut Kelvin off. Dark possibilities swarmed his brain. Might she already be dead? Yes, but more likely Kelvin … Ryan Burgess, would want to drag her kicking and screaming across the ice, drop her down a hole, stand there listening to her pleas. Holmes felt empty inside, desolate. He may as well have been a soul being ferried down the Styx, his life already ended. Traffic ahead was thin but slow.

  Without Georgette, life is worthless. That was all Holmes could think.

  ‘Move it!’ yelled Simone and swung hard to pass a slow truck that had strayed into her lane. As before, the snow globe shot along the dash and Holmes caught it.

  ‘I meant to glue that. Georgette told me. I never listened to her.’ Simone was on the verge of tears.

  Holmes looked down at the globe in his hands.

  ‘Jesus, look at these morons, are they camping?’ Simone hit the horn, swerved again.

  He wasn’t listening. He was thinking, this was found in Georgette’s apartment. Burgess or Kelvin could have put it there. It would have been easy to take her keys while she was in the squad room, make an impression.

  What was it Burgess had said in the interview room: ‘She could be anywhere in the globe.’ Not ‘on’, in.

  The importance of keeping one’s composure in times of crisis had been drilled into Holmes by his father, brother, uncles, prefects, ministers, mother and a platoon of teachers who could wield a switch with the effortless ease of a fly-fisherman. Keeping one’s composure, an Englishman learned early on, was what made England great. Drake had played bowls as the Spanish Armada had approached, W.G. Grace had stared down the thunderbolts of the colonials’ fastest bowlers. For the first time in his life, Holmes discarded all those lessons, the way a man who finds himself on fire rips a blazing robe from his body, preferring nakedness and life to propriety and death.

  Holmes yelled, ‘Central Park, NOW!’

  Simone yanked the wheel and cut across three lanes. Burgess had left a trail on his computer to the Catskills as a last sick amusement. Holmes was certain.

  ‘Bow Bridge, where exactly is it?’

  ‘Five blocks south of the entrance, spanning the lake.’ Simone had the pedal flat down.

  Georgette was trying to free her legs when she heard the key. No time.

  The trunk flew up, she squeezed her eyes, feigned sleep. She smelled him close.

  Now.

  She opened her eyes and swung the small knife as hard she could at Kelvin’s neck, felt it bite.

  ‘Fuck!’ he cried. Outside it wasn’t much lighter than in the trunk but she pushed herself out over the trunk into snow, the knife dropped.

  She tried to get to her feet, hop, pulled down her gag, began to shout for help but only got out the beginning of a grunt before she was tackled from behind and landed hard, all the wind knocked from her lungs.

  ‘No, you don’t,’ he muttered.

  She remembered Holmes’ training, swung her right arm back, managed to connect with some part of his head, wriggled free, but then he was on her again. She groped for a stick, that’s all she needed …

  Something hard struck her head. The night sky was blacked out by a shadow falling ….

  He was falling towards the waters of Reichenbach Falls, the memory triggered by the relentless speed of the car through the gloom. Each second seemed ten minutes. Each minute an hour. Holmes could barely see through the windscreen, white snow tumbling. Simone ran red lights.

  ‘We need the gates on West seventy-seventh,’ shouted Simone. ‘Nearly there.’

  But she took the corner too quickly and this time the tyres did not grip on the icy road but slid. Neither he nor Simone screamed. Life had them in its palm.

  A long moment of silence was terminated by a shuddering crunch. The car bucked like a mule. Holmes felt his body strain against the belt. The car settled against a fire hydrant.

  ‘Miscue,’ said Simone.

  ‘Are you injured?’

  ‘No.’

  She tried the ignition, it clicked uselessly.

  Holmes slipped his belt, shoved out into the street and ran, his feet slipping and sliding.

  Could he save her? Did Kelvin have too much of a start? He spied salvation ahead.

  Goodness knows what it was doing out in this weather but there was one carriage by the gates, the horse waiting obediently while the coachman fiddled with something at the back. Holmes charged forward and leapt up into the carriage.

  ‘Hey, buddy, I’m not working …’ the coachman got no further as Holmes seized the reins and yelled the universal ‘yee haw’.

  The horse responded, dashing into the park on its well-worn route. Holmes’ knowledge of the park was rudimentary but he knew which way was south.

  It had been more than one hundred years since he had driven a carriage but it is a skill that one simply does not forget. Cold tears of snow flicked down. The park was deserted here, someone’s frozen nightmare, bare dark branches spearing up like beggars’ hands beseeching mercy from the night sky, the horse charging as he urged it on. He guessed the direction of the bridge, yanked right, sending the carriage off the main path and down a walking track, the carriage bucking on the rougher ground. He was standing now, caught a glimpse of the lake shimmering, chunky and white and there to the left, the bridge. He cut that way, closing on the bridge itself. A scream rose above the sound of the bouncing carriage – a brief silhouette showed by the water’s edge.

  ‘Georgette!’ he yelled at the top of his lungs and even with the turmoil of his brain, he was able to isolate a thought – this must have been akin to how Watson felt watching me tumble to my doom. By now the distance was down to one hundred yards. He could make out a figure near the bridge. Holmes slowed the horse as best he could, leapt from the carriage, rolled to break the fall, and ran towards a rescue ladder stationed handily.

  ‘Nothing can save her now.’ Ryan Burgess stepped out to block his path and raised a weapon of some kind, not a pistol though it looked like one. Pulled a trigger.

  It was as if a rugby scrum had crushed Holmes from every side. Holmes dropped to his knees, conscious, but feeling like he was a stranger in the body of a ghost.

  ‘Fate should have claimed her the first time,’ said the young man.

  Holmes felt his brain reassembling. Some kind of electric shock.

  ‘I have been around a very long time, Ryan,’ said Holmes, feeling his strength returning, ‘and I can assure you, fate’s influence is exaggerated.’ He could not stand yet but he could flex his palm. ‘Fate has no trick that can
not be overcome by planning and resilience.’

  ‘I couldn’t agree more.’

  Ryan Burgess raised the weapon again but his hand was not as quick as Holmes’, which emerged from his pocket holding the palm-sized derringer.

  Holmes aimed and fired. One shot to the chest.

  Burgess dropped. Holmes did not wait to see if the shot was fatal. He got to his feet, managed to pull free the recsue ladder, tried to run to the water’s edge but collapsed again. His upper body had strength though. He dug his elbows into the earth and dragged himself forward, scanning the lake in the dim light.

  There! A disturbance, little ripples.

  He slid in. The shock was instant. It was not deep. His legs were infirm, melting like wax, but he struggled up, the ladder lost from his grasp. He waded as best he could to where he’d seen broken water … but now there was nothing.

  He scanned three-sixty degrees. Panic rising, he swam deeper, swept his arms around … he was tiring quickly himself …

  His fingertips brushed hair. Follow. Georgette! He scooped her up under the armpits and began swimming her back until his feet found purchase. He hauled her backwards to the shore cursing his own weakened limbs. Please God, let her be alive. His strength was deserting his body, he could barely make another step. But he had to. Had to save her. Had to tell her …

  27

  Her eyes flicked open and she coughed and spluttered. Only then she became aware she was lying on her back on top of … what?

  ‘You’re not dead are you, Watson?’

  She turned over so now her face was above his. Holmes looked weak and pale. Or maybe that was just the snow that littered his face. Panic hit her.

  ‘Kelvin.’ She stood, unsteady, ready to run.

  ‘Ryan Burgess, the son. I shot him, hopefully dead, because I literally couldn’t stand to save myself.’

  And now she could see the prone figure of Kelvin on the ground. She helped Holmes to his feet but she did not remove her arms from him, and not just because he might otherwise fall.

  ‘You saved my life,’ she said.

  ‘Not necessarily true but the converse definitely is: I would be dead but for you.’