Hangman

by Michael Slade

  The house was dark.

  No one home.

  Except the lawyer, who kept the headlights shining so he could see while he limped to an overgrown flowerpot beside his car and lifted it to remove the spare key hidden beneath.

  Hobbling to the front door, he cranked the key in the lock, then limped back to replace it under the pot. After dousing the headlights and locking his car, Kline returned to the house and disappeared inside.

  The Hangman’s car was parked down the street.

  Streetlights in the East End were few and far between.

  While Kline was unlocking the house, the Hangman was watching him from behind the darkest tree.

  Tick-tock …

  Tick-tock …

  The killer went for the key.

  Vigilante

  Vancouver

  Tonight

  The pistol in my hand is an eight-shot, 7.65 caliber Mauser semiautomatic, taken as a trophy off a dead Nazi in the Second World War. I have no idea who that Nazi was, nor do I know how many people were killed with this gun. Every time I see a movie set during that war, I imagine the nastiest Nazi in it carrying this Mauser, so it has built up quite a history over the years. Gram got the gun as payment for blowing a junkie war amp back when she was a young whore working the skids. It scared the crap out of several johns who tried to beat up Gram for an extra thrill, and when the angels finally called her to that cathouse in the sky, the Mauser passed from her to me.

  My nerves are calm.

  My hands are steady.

  The walnut grip is cold in my grasp and the barrel aims at the door.

  I’m waiting for the Hangman.

  The end is near.

  The price of winning a cause célèbre is that it brings out the nuts. No cause was more célèbre at this moment than me freeing the Hangman on a technicality, so that meant I was public enemy number one, and that drew the ire of the nuts in anonymous crank calls. Some sounded like nuts ready to crack, so that’s why the Mauser was in my car—and would have gone into the law courts if not for security checks.

  The gun isn’t legal.

  This is Canada.

  The first thing I did once I had recovered enough to function after the attempt on my life was gather up the rope the Hangman had left behind. Then I limped to my car on Hornby Street and withdrew the Mauser from its hiding place. Tucking the pistol into my belt so it was close at hand, I checked the rear-view mirror as I drove away, and continued to check it as I headed east.

  I was being followed.

  I sensed the eyes behind.

  So I led the Hangman here, and now I wait, the gun in one hand and a bat in the other, lurking in a dark nook just inside the door.

  My grandmother used to have these books by Ellery Queen. She picked them up at a swap meet in the Ritter Project. The Greek Coffin, and Dutch Shoe, and Chinese Orange, and French Powder Mystery. You came to a point in each novel where the story stopped and a “Challenge to the Reader” by the author appeared. It was time for you to solve the whodunit, if you were out to beat the player on the other side.

  If this were a novel, that time would be now.

  But of course, it isn’t.

  This is real life.

  My ears listen intently for any sound outside.

  My eyes watch the doorknob for it to turn.

  Yes, there it is.

  The snicking of the lock.

  The Hangman has found the key outside.

  The knob is turning.

  The door is easing open.

  A dark figure steps into the dark hall.

  Another step.

  The bat is in a swing.

  Time to take justice into my own hands.

  This is the East End.

  This is my turf.

  And this is what we do to fucks who fuck with us.

  Too late, sucker.

  Showtime, folks …

  Vancouver

  November 16 (Tonight)

  Such were the thoughts, memories, daydreams that passed through his brain as Jeffrey Kline relived the past sixteen days while standing in that black hall waiting for this moment. The baseball bat clipped the Hangman’s skull and sent the intruder flying into the foyer. From the shiver up the handle and the crack of the blow, Jeff knew his stalker was knocked out cold. The lawyer used the handcuffs the Hangman had brought to return that favor, then dragged the shackled killer up the foyer stairs.

  It took a few minutes to rig up the gallows, but by the time the Hangman came around from the blow, it was ready for the drop.

  The house was a rundown two-story from the early days of the city. The foyer off the entrance hall was chilly with drafts. The rickety staircase ascended up one wall, then angled at the upper landing to create a stairwell. The plunge from the narrow balcony backing the stairwell was a good twelve feet down to the main floor.

  The noose around the Hangman’s neck was a double strand. The slightly shorter length was fashioned out of piano wire so it would yank a foot before the hemp rope, slicing the flesh of the neck down to the bones of the spine. The hard jerk of the hemp rope a split second later would sever the vertebrae exposed by the previous cut, tearing the head of the Hangman off the still-plunging body.

  The drop from here to there was greater than any used by official hangmen.

  This gallows might as well be a guillotine.

  Kline was standing on the safe side of the upper rail. The Hangman sat slumped unconscious on the rail itself. All that kept the killer from taking a plunge into eternity was the lawyer’s grip—and the urge the lawyer felt to say a few last words.

  The Hangman came around.

  Tick-tock …

  Tick-tock …

  Time was running out.

  Last Words

  Vancouver

  November 16

  “You’ve reached the end of your rope,” joked Jeffrey Kline, his mouth inches behind the Hangman’s left ear. “Before I let you drop to the hell you deserve, I want you to appreciate how brilliant I am. A mind like mine comes along once in a generation of lawyers. I am a master at the legal game.”

  Spill salt on the table and superstition says you should pinch a few grains and toss them over your left shoulder.

  Ever wonder why?

  The Hangman knew.

  Because the left shoulder is where the devil sits in his endless whispering battle for your soul with the angel on the right shoulder.

  The hope is that salt will blind the devil to give the angel an edge.

  Well, this was like that.

  Except this voice over the Hangman’s shoulder was that of the devil’s advocate.

  “Hate like yours I understand. I hate, too. It’s ingrained. I hate everyone who ever put me down, and I hate every silver spoon who tried to keep me down. The only pittances life ever offered me were those cast-offs I could beg, borrow, or steal. I wish I’d known earlier that murder was the key.

  “Love like yours I don’t understand. That emotion you call love is foreign to me. I have never felt love and never will. I know what I am. I’m a psychopath. An individual who exhibits amoral and antisocial behavior, lack of ability to love or establish meaningful personal relationships, extreme egocentricity, et cetera. I face others like me every day in the courts. Those symptoms fit most lawyers to a T.

  “Ha, ha.

  “Get it?

  “That’s a lawyer joke.

  “You, however, have proved Clarence Darrow wrong. What he said was, ‘Nobody kills anyone for love.’ What you killed for was your love of Peter Haddon. You must have loved him to death.

  “Ha, ha.

  “That’s a pun.

  “Damn, I’m funny.

  “Me, I plead the defense of necessity. To make it as a lawyer, you need lawyer’s luck, and lawyer’s luck is hard to come by these days. You can wait a lifetime for that breakthrough case, and no way did I intend to wait that long. Not with skid-row drunks pissing at my door. So I made my luck in this cutthroat
profession. By hanging Alex Hunt, look where I am now.

  “At first, I thought the way to fame was by hooking you, so I drafted a newspaper piece to attract you as a client. That was a long shot. I had no control. A bust in the States and you would hire an American gunslinger. A bust in Canada and you would have your pick of lawyers. What were the odds that you would choose a skid-row kid like me?

  “Who was I kidding?

  “What a fantasy.

  “But then I got an unexpected break. Ethan sought my help to solve his ethical dilemma. He suspected that his brother was the Hangman, and he asked me to meet Justin on the crime cruise so I could assess that possibility for him. If so, there was no need for me to publish an article to hook the Hangman. All I had to do was prove my legal ability. And what better proof was there than a rigged trial? A trial in which his brother Ethan was in jeopardy? A trial in which the outcome was never in doubt for me, because I controlled the evidence that went to court.

  “What a setup.

  “What a frame.

  “It was brilliant.

  “Don’t you agree?

  “There was only one lawyer Ethan could depend on to save his skin: his buddy Jeff.

  “His childhood friend.

  “That’s what friends are for.

  “Ha, ha, eh?

  “I knew Ethan would get drunk that night. A drunk drinks, so I ordered booze. Then I suggested he invite his brother to our table, and he returned with Alex as well. For what I had planned, any victim would do; I was going to allege that Ethan had been framed. I thought Alex would be ideal, since her involvement with the Hangman case would make her seem to be a target, but there was no reason for Ethan to hang her. Imagine my shock when I later learned he was Peter’s brother, which gave him a motive for all the Hangman crimes.

  “The first defense I built in was jurisdiction. I had to make sure Hunt was hanged in Canada. That would allow me to act for Ethan, and it would stop the Seattle cops from extraditing him. Cheating the Washington gallows would be Win Number One.

  “To that end, it was me who set up the photograph in the bar so the lights of Victoria were the backdrop behind Alex, Ethan, Justin, and me. I took maritime law at UBC, so I knew the separation rule in the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

  “After Alex and Ethan left the bar for some fresh air on deck, the woman serving us gave Justin the eye, and I was left alone when he went after her. That gave me an opportunity to pick up the trail and follow Alex and Ethan down to his cabin.

  “Alex answered my knock on the door.

  “‘How’s he doing?’ I asked.

  “‘Sick as a dog,’ she said. ‘He’s in the toilet, throwing up.’

  “That’s when I hit her.

  “Down she went.

  “Then I ambushed Ethan as he stumbled out of the john, clubbing him before he saw me.

  “I used a length of rope I had cut on deck for a noose to hang Alex from the curtain rod. I slashed her arms and legs to be symbolic, but I didn’t hack them off so as to avoid the blood. Then I scrawled the hangman puzzle on the wall, like the one I’d seen that morning on TV. Because the latest guess by the cops had been the letter I, I filled that in where I thought it fit.

  “Big mistake.

  “That same morning, Ethan had shown me a copy of Justin’s article on Peter’s hanging in which the typo Brice—with an I—appeared. That lodged in my brain as the proper spelling. It wasn’t dispelled before we boarded the boat, since I only heard Bryce spoken for the rest of that day. So when I drew the hangman game in blood on the wall, I made the mistake of repeating the typo in Brice.

  “Is that how you got onto me?

  “You asked yourself who benefited from the death of Hunt, and who lacked family knowledge of how Bryce was spelled?

  “You put two and two together, then came up with me?

  “We lawyers are trained to take advantage of all openings, and to turn disadvantage around to help our client’s case. The misspelling ended up as a blessing in disguise, for when I discovered Ethan was actually Peter Haddon’s brother, I could argue the misspelling proved he didn’t draw the puzzle. Why, if the Hangman was out to make a statement about his brother’s wrongful hanging, would he lynch a victim in his own cabin and foul the answer to the hangman game by misspelling Peter’s name?

  “The logic of it was that whoever killed Alex Hunt was someone outside the Haddon family.

  “Unwittingly, I had secured Win Number Two.

  “Lawyer’s luck.

  “The way I figured it was this. Win Ethan’s case and I would impress you, apart from the fact that that win itself would be my breakthrough. Maybe you would come to me and confess to save Ethan. Maybe you would kill again while he was in jail to prove Ethan innocent of the Hangman’s crimes—both to get him off and to take back your vendetta from whoever was trying to copycat your M.O.

  “No matter how you played it, I knew you’d play into my hands.

  “Which you did.

  “By coming after me.

  “I must admit, you took me by surprise with your attack. A hanging in the law courts. That took guts. But once warned, I was ready for you.

  “This house you followed me to tonight is rented by Ethan. He’s off seeing his mom right now. If Ethan takes a trip, I house-sit, and that’s how I know about the spare key. Tonight I’m a burglar. And so are you. Which will become evident to the cops after I smash a window and replace the key you removed from the pot to get in.

  “Ethan will return to find you dead in his home. Chandler will arrest him for your murder. The Mountie has an ax to grind for Hunt’s hanging. Ethan will ask me to defend him, and I’ll argue that you were the Hangman all along.

  “Which you are.

  “So try this on for size.

  “Mary Konrad died because she was the weak juror who sealed Haddon’s fate.

  “Jayne Curry died to hide that motive. You heard the Mounties were investigating her and realized she would make the perfect smokescreen. You drove up to Vancouver with Justin Whitfield and dropped him at his mom’s. While he was with Ethan, you hanged the juror, then drove back to Seattle alone. The reporter caught a plane.

  “Bart Busby died because he was the Haddon juror most to blame.

  “Why you lynched Alex Hunt is a mystery. She was digging into the Haddon case. Were you afraid she had discovered whatever tied you to Peter, so you decided to kill three birds with one stone? That hanging not only removed any threat from Hunt, but also—because it offered Ethan as a suspect—baffled police long enough for you to kill again.

  “It was a blind.

  “It fit your M.O.

  “It bought you enough time to get the Greek.

  “George Koulelis died because he had fingered Haddon as the killer of his daughter, Anna.

  “And with his death, your vendetta was complete.

  “Except for Ethan.

  “The grudge you nurse against Peter’s brother is anybody’s guess. As good a theory as any will be this submission. The false accusation of murder put Haddon through hell. First, he lost his freedom. Then he was raped and castrated in jail. Then he spent years with death hanging over his head. And finally, he suffered an end to that psychological torture in the hangman’s noose.

  “We know where Justin was during that ordeal. He was at his brother’s side through thick and thin, and when the gallows floor dropped away beneath Peter’s feet, Justin was there to see him out.

  “But where was Ethan?

  “Nowhere to be seen.

  “Did he think Peter guilty?

  “Was his blood thinner than water?

  “The Hangman’s reason for being is to drive home moral lessons. Those who fail to do their duty suffer the same consequences. Send Peter to the gallows, and to the gallows you go. Let your brother stand falsely accused, and falsely accused will you stand.

  “That’s why you framed Ethan on the ship. So the Judas would know what Peter had endured. You filled in the I instead
of the Y so it would look as if the drunk was trying to cover up by turning suspicion toward a killer outside the family. Hanging the Greek while Ethan was in jail wasn’t an attempt to free him from the charge, but was aimed instead at causing the cops to wonder if he was half of a killing team. When I sprang Ethan so easily from that moral lesson, you set out to set him up again.

  “You don’t want to kill him.

  “That would be unjust.

  “Balancing the scales is what the Hangman is all about.

  “What happened tonight is that you went over the edge. Guilt from all those murders got the better of you. A suicidal urge drove you here, so your death will have an after-effect for Ethan. You broke in, rigged a gallows, gagged and cuffed yourself, and climbed over the banister to jump into the well. You knew love and grief would drive Chandler to arrest Ethan. You hoped he’d see the break-in as a ruse, like the misspelling on the boat. Ethan will again be falsely accused, and your vendetta will reach from the grave.

  “Lucky for Ethan, he has me.

  “Currently the hottest gunslinger around.

  “All I have to do is raise a reasonable doubt. I will plead a similar-fact defense. Because there is a nexus here between strikingly similar crimes, how can Ethan be the Hangman when several were committed at times for which he has alibis? Would he hang you in his own house so soon after being charged with hanging Hunt in his cabin? The only way your death makes sense is if it’s a mad attempt to frame Ethan again.

  “Who would do that?

  “It must be the Hangman.

  “And who is the Hangman?

  “The Hangman, I’ll say, is you.

  “Because you really are the Hangman, when we dig deep enough we’ll find the proof. Any holes in what I have theorized tonight will be filled by the argument that your mind was crumbling. Not only will I spring Ethan from another cell, but—the icing on the cake—I’ll be the lawyer who unmasked the Hangman.