The Murder Channel

by John Philpin

  The phone continued to ring. When no one answered after a dozen rings, I hung up.

  The man identified at the bottom of the screen as Bob Britton continued to flap his soundless mouth. I watched, expecting his toupee to topple onto the desk. Instead, the screen divided. The woman on the right was Dr. Fawn Hyphenated, Providence, R. I., author of, expert on.

  “Aren’t we all,” I said.

  I turned, thinking that I would walk back to the Riverway, but when I saw the monitor’s reflection in the glass, I looked at the screen. I seldom watch TV, but I know that talking heads do not jog around the set.

  On the left, Britton was on his feet attempting to struggle with a much larger man. On the right, Dr. Fawn continued to pontificate.

  I ran for the elevator.

  … lost contact with Bob Britton in our studio. We will stay with you live from our Riverway location. We have only preliminary information on events inside the buildings. Mass murderer Felix Zrbny was holding a young woman hostage in the apartment you see on your screen. You can also see the heavy police presence at the entrance. When tactical officers stormed the building, Zrbny fled into the cellar. A shootout ensued, with what we would describe as heavy automatic weapons fire. We’ve counted two body bags thus far. We don’t know if Zrbny is among the dead. We’re simply not getting cooperation from …

  I SHOVED OPEN THE STUDIO DOOR AND waited until my eyes adjusted to the light. Pain stung my neck and upper spine. I felt as if colonies of insects crept and buzzed inside my head.

  A gray-haired, bearded man crouched beside the woman I had thrown into the hall. I removed the handgun from my pocket and walked slowly forward, studying the man’s profile. When I was ten feet away, he looked up. I raised the gun, and aimed at his face.

  His eyes were empty. Like mine, I thought. Dead eyes.

  Then I recognized him. He was the old man who had tried to protect Sable. I felt no fear in him. I had no desire to kill him, but I did not know why. He said nothing. He continued to look at me, but he remained silent.

  I walked to the elevator, punched the button and waited.

  The old man returned his attention to the woman.

  WHEN I LOOKED INTO FELIX ZRBNY’S EYES, I knew I had nothing to fear from him. I did not know why.

  He had hurled the young TV producer like a rag doll, breaking her arm and collarbone. He held a nine-millimeter handgun aimed at my face.

  I am not a fan of death, especially my own. Whether I am to be in or out of the coffin, I do not like the notion of funerals. Zrbny’s eyes held no life, but neither did they hold my death. He moved past me to the elevator, punched the Down button, and, after an endless span of time, stepped into the metal box and disappeared.

  I opened the door to the studio, grabbed a wall phone immediately to my right, and dialed 911. When I made clear who and where I was, the nature of the emergency, and where Bolton was, the dispatcher told me to stay on the line. I told her I could not do that, left the phone off the hook, and moved into the set.

  A camera technician lay unconscious against the wall. His breathing was good, his pulse strong.

  Dr. Fawn’s mouth continued to flap on a silent monitor. Behind the news desk, Britton, his head twisted at an impossible angle to his body, had become BTT’s latest news flash. Felix Zrbny had broken his neck.

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER, BOLTON AND I stood in the hall outside the studio watching medical technicians prepare the young woman for transport. “We found a dead security guard in the parking garage,” he said. “Looks like Zrbny started there.”

  “Everyone’s dispensable when it comes to the evening news,” I said. “Even the news anchor.”

  “You think Vigil wanted Zrbny free?” Ray Bolton asked. “What for?”

  “Story value,” I said. “BTT is international hot shit right now.”

  “Tell me how it works.”

  “I’m not sure of any of this, Ray. Let’s say Pouldice got to know Zrbny when his sister disappeared. When he was ready to pillage Ravenwood two years later, Zrbny called Pouldice.”

  I gave Bolton the copy of Escher’s “Relativity” with Pouldice’s old publicity photo. “I found that in Zrbny’s bedroom. In the print the figures move around on different planes, oblivious to one another. They don’t see. They don’t touch. Pouldice sees everything. When I talked with her earlier, she tried to tell me that Zrbny had changed. Why would she bother?”

  “She has an investment in him,” Bolton said.

  “I can’t prove any of it.”

  “Lucas, you said that Zrbny was probably going to walk from that hearing. I agree. Why couldn’t he wait a couple of days for Devaine to unlock the door for him?”

  “Maybe he didn’t know what was going down.”

  “Then how were they going to get him out of there?”

  “Driver number two. Fremont confirmed that there was a second car. He says Albie Wilson wanted insurance.”

  Bolton considered my theory. “It could be that simple. Why would Zrbny camp on the Riverway? What was he doing here? Why kill Britton?”

  “They fucked with him. Don’t ask me how. Where was his lawyer this morning? Who the fuck is his lawyer?”

  Bolton sighed. “Hensley Carroll out of Jamaica Plain.”

  “What’s his claim to fame?”

  “He’s defended members of Vigil. Carroll isn’t connected to the group. He’s been around the system for years.”

  “Has he done any work for BTT?”

  “I don’t know. I’d say that’s out of his league.”

  “Where was he this morning? What was his excuse?”

  “He didn’t call the court. Lucas, don’t mess with Carroll. He’s Zrbny’s attorney.”

  Bolton’s last remark was a caution. Hensley Carroll lived life behind a shield of confidentiality and privilege.

  “Maybe you can’t talk to him,” I said. “Anyone find Waycross?”

  “They’re still looking. Lucas …”

  This time Bolton’s tone was more than cautionary.

  “I’ll be nice,” I said.

  I FOUND THE LAWYER’S JAMAICA PLAIN address. His office was downstairs, his home upstairs. He was still awake.

  “I’ve been sitting here watching this shit on the tube,” Hensley Carroll said. “Yeah, I saw you on there too. Listen, Boston’s got its problems but mostly it’s a quiet town. I don’t remember anything like this. You want coffee?”

  “Sounds good.”

  “I’ll make a fresh pot. Since my wife passed, rest her soul, I have trouble sleeping.”

  The short, bald, heavyset Carroll busied himself in the kitchen. I watched BTT report the latest carnage from outside their headquarters. They could not get in; Bolton had sealed the building as a crime scene.

  “It’s fuckin’ wild when you think about it,” Carroll said as he returned and settled his bulk into his recliner. “Back in the sixties when the strangler was on the loose, you had to wait for the last evening paper to find out if anybody got whacked. Now they’ve got this shit on TV while it’s happening. Amazing. Well, shit. We put guys on the moon, I guess. Coffee’ll be about ten minutes. Sit down, Doc. Friends call me Hink.”

  I wondered what his enemies called him. “You are Felix Zrbny’s attorney.”

  He tapped a Camel from his pack and put a match to it. “That’s a lot of why I’m glued to this TV set. I figured with all the media the case would be good for business, you know? I don’t know why it matters. I don’t need the business. Never got to meet Zrbny.”

  Carroll took a long drag on his cigarette. “I don’t know how many times I’ve been before David Devaine, rest his soul. I told that shithead a dozen times if I told him once. When it’s snowin’, I don’t go out that fuckin’ door. Busted my hip fifteen years ago walking through sleet on South Huntington. I don’t do snow. When they shovel and spread salt, then I go out.”

  “You didn’t call the court.”

  Both eyebrows shot up. “Why the fuck should
I? Because his honor’s got a bee up his ass? Hah.”

  “Did Zrbny retain you, Hink?”

  “Look, Doc, this is my town, too, okay? I don’t want that sick fuck running around loose. That’s why I’m talking to you. I don’t have to tell you shit and you know it.”

  He crushed his cigarette into a green ceramic ashtray. “Two months ago this big fucker came into my office downstairs. No appointment, no nothing. Doesn’t have a fuckin’ name, I figure, because he doesn’t introduce himself. He pushes an envelope across my desk. Will I represent Felix Zrbny through the hearing process? There’s no prep involved, he says. Burden’s on the Commonwealth. All I gotta do is show up. There’s a fuckin’ bank check for twenty grand in the envelope. I about creamed my gabardine. No way I’m gonna say no to that. The next morning I’m reading about me in the newspapers.”

  “What about case files, meeting your client?”

  “The guy specifically said I was not to go to the hospital and talk to Zrbny. I asked about court records. He said if I wanted to read that shit, it was up to me, but I didn’t have to waste my time. The guy was dirty. I knew that. I also knew there wasn’t anything wrong with me taking that check. Zrbny’s case wasn’t dope or kiddie porn.”

  He shrugged. “I deposited the fuckin’ check.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Coffee’s ready. Wait a sec.”

  Carroll shoved himself from his chair and disappeared into the kitchen. He was back in minutes with two mugs of coffee that tasted as good as it smelled.

  “Doc, I was born in this house,” he said, lowering himself into his chair and firing up another Camel. “I spent two years in the army, one in Korea. The rest of the time I’ve been right here. I know this city. I may be greedy, but I ain’t a fuckin’ fool. I had a buddy downtown run the plate on the big guy’s car. It came back to that outfit right there.”

  He pointed at his Magnavox TV. “Boston Trial Television. That’s all I needed to know. I figured if anything kicked back on me, I knew where to find him.”

  … is dead. Boston Trial Television news anchor Bob Britton was doing what he has been doing so well for so many years, broadcasting the news. Mass murderer Felix Zrbny invaded the BTT studios, severely injuring producer Meg Waterman and engineer Ted Hanley, and killing Britton. We are stunned, shocked. The Towers, home of Pouldice Media, is a crime scene. Police are allowing no one to enter the building because Felix Zrbny may still be in there. We will continue from here, recognizing our obligation to viewers to provide uninterrupted …

  I WAITED UNTIL NO CARS WERE IN SIGHT, then jumped and grabbed the maple tree branch, hands slipping, but hauling myself into the tree. In seconds a car passed; by then I was invisible.

  The snow was heavier, the wind stronger. The cold invaded my bones and stiffened my joints. My fingers were numb. I had little time to rest. I needed warmth and safety, and I knew where I would find both.

  My fingers slipped through the snow coating the limb above my head. I grasped it and maneuvered myself to the end of the branch. My foot slipped, but I held on, and cleared the wall and its rack of razor wire. Then I waited again.

  The yard below was dark. I could barely see the cars in the lighted parking lot fifty yards south. Hearing nothing but the wind, I released my grip and dropped into two feet of snow.

  A light flashed across the yard, sweeping slowly from a row of wintering lilac bushes toward me. I dropped into the snow on my back, staring up at the approaching light. The beam never slowed, passed me, then died.

  As quickly as I could, pumping my legs in and out of the deep drifts, I moved across the yard to the rear of the building. I counted basement windows until I arrived at number seven.

  The steel grid yielded to my grip as I knew it would. I rapped my knuckles against the glass.

  There was no light, no sound within. I tapped a second time, and a dim light appeared through the smoky glass.

  There was a shuffling noise, then, barely above a whisper, “That you, Felix?”

  “Open up, Ralph,” I said.

  He flipped the window bar and turned the crank. I crawled through the opening headfirst. The concrete floor was six feet below, but Ralph grabbed my belt and guided me slowly down. I lay still on my back, feeling the heat from the steam furnace in the adjacent room.

  “Felix, oh Jesus, are you okay? I was sleeping. I watched about you on TV until midnight. I couldn’t keep my eyes open after that.”

  He tugged my arm. “Tell me you’re okay, Felix.”

  “I’m tired and cold, Ralph. That’s all. I’m fine.”

  “I knew you’d come back. I just knew it. I got a place for you. Nobody will ever find you. I saved you some food. That’s how sure I was.”

  Ralph Amsden had been in the hospital for thirty-five of his sixty years. He was a toothpick of a man with white hair, bulging eyes, and one arm. When new patients met Ralph, they figured that the hospital kept him because he knew the ancient furnace and all its quirks. He did not look crazy, and only occasionally talked crazy. A few people asked why he was hospitalized at all.

  Ralph was born in Boston, grew up in Jamaica Plain, entered the army at eighteen, married at twenty-two. On the day after his twenty-fifth birthday, he killed his wife, her parents, her two brothers, then took the subway to Fenway Park, watched five innings of the Orioles humbling the Red Sox, and killed a hot dog vendor.

  Ralph Amsden would never leave the hospital, and that was fine with him. His only visitor had been a sister, Terry. Twice a year she made the trip by subway and bus from Jamaica Plain. She brought photographs of her kids; Ralph did not know them, and would never meet them. Terry died in 1996, and whatever real contact Ralph had with the outside world died with her.

  Years earlier he had modified the basement window. It appeared secure, but in seconds became a route to freedom. Ralph figured he might have a use for it someday, but not for himself.

  “You gotta fix my window,” he said now. “If anybody walks by, they’ll see it.”

  I considered reminding him of the storm, telling him that no one would be out for a stroll behind the hospital through two feet of snow. Ralph would not be reassured. I pushed myself from the floor, reached out and grabbed the steel grate, and yanked it into place.

  “The snow will cover my tracks,” I said.

  “You can’t be coming and going, Felix. Jesus. They’ll find you for sure.”

  The next time I crawled through Ralph’s window would be the last time, but I saw no need to tell him that. I cranked the window into place.

  “I got something for you,” I said, and reached into my jacket for the package of Twinkies and the candy bar that I had picked up on my way.

  Ralph loved sweets. If the only foods on earth consisted of sugar, chocolate, and corn syrup, Ralph would be certain that he had arrived in heaven.

  “Why’d they kill that girl?” he asked. “Jesus. They must’ve shown that twenty times. You gotta tell me the truth. I can’t get true stuff from TV. They gotta sell me shit I don’t want and couldn’t buy even if I did want it. Why’d they shoot up the courtroom? You hungry?”

  “I had some soup,” I said, wondering how long it had been since I sat in Sable’s kitchen with a bowl of chicken noodle and rice and a box of crackers.

  Now she was dead.

  When I turned and walked away from the security guard in the parking garage, my head flooded with noise, and pain arced from the back of my head into my spine. These were sensations that I knew well, electric surges that stimulated muscle, cartilage, and bone. My first experience with the arrhythmic pulsing ache had been that day, that hot summer, that year I knew I was less than complete without Levana.

  Someone took her away from me.

  “What courtroom are you talking about, Ralph?”

  “The one you were going to until those assholes flipped the truck. If you got there when you were supposed to, you might be dead now. Well, you could’ve been dead a bunch of times today, I guess.�
�

  I sat on a folding chair and surveyed Ralph’s domain, his home for the biggest part of his life. His bed was an army cot, in disarray now because he had been asleep when I rapped on the window. Usually the bed was made with military precision—sheets without a crease, blanket pulled tight to the pillows, then folded down. His bureau was a stack of cantaloupe crates containing his folded clothes and the few objects that were important to him. A crucifix hung on the wall above the bed; a Bible lay on the small table to one side. There was no other reading material in the room. Ralph’s window on the world was his thirteen-inch black-and-white TV that Terry had brought him ten years earlier.

  Steam pipes clanked overhead. The large space was filled with boxes of nonperishable hospital supplies—toilet paper, soap, shampoo, floor-cleaning solvent, paper towels. The lamp on the bedside table put out about forty watts of dusty yellow light. There was a single overhead light, but Ralph switched that on only during the day when he worked. When I asked him about the poor lighting, he told me that he did not need to see much, just enough to get by.

  Ralph filled a pan with water from the tap at the mop sink and put it on his hot plate. “I’m gonna make us some instant,” he said, and sat on his cot. “I knew some Wilsons growing up. That was in Jamaica Plain. I never heard of Albie Wilson, but he’s from Chelsea. I don’t think I ever knew anybody from Chelsea.”

  I did not interrupt him. Eventually, Ralph would tell me what I wanted to know.

  “There wasn’t any Vigil when I was outside,” he said, pulling a cigarette from an open box on his table.