by Lois Winston
“Fucking amateur,” muttered Dirk. He smacked Murray between the shoulder blades with the broadside of the gun but not hard enough to knock him off balance. “The one in the suit.”
When Murray had snapped the cuff on Detective Spader’s left wrist, Dirk took over. He slammed the gun into Spader’s gut. “Slowly walk over to the corner.” After he got the cops in position, he said to Murray, “Now loop that last cuff around the steam pipe and snap it onto the other cop.”
Once the cops were secure to the pipe in an outward circle, Dirk gave Murray one more order. “Take their cell phones and keys and toss them out the window. Then get back on the floor.”
We waited while Murray fumbled around in the cops’ pockets, then struggled to open the window, Dirk growing more and more impatient. “Don’t toss them on top of the bushes. Pitch them hard onto the sidewalk.”
When Murray had finished his task and was once again on the floor with the others, Dirk said, “No one move. Stay put, and you all live. Try being fucking heroes, and I’ll make sure none of you sees your next birthday.”
“What are you going to do with me?” I asked as he dragged me from the room.
“You’re my insurance policy,” he said as he flipped the knife closed and added it to his apron pocket while still keeping the gun trained on me. “We’re going for a ride. Where’s your car parked?”
“Out front.”
Dirk dragged me down the corridor. “Don’t do anything stupid,” he warned.
With a gun shoved in my ribs? Hardly. My only concern at the moment was staying alive, and that meant total compliance to keep this hit man from making me his next hit.
However, I couldn’t control the stupidity of others, especially my mother-in-law, who at that moment shuffled toward us with Mephisto at her side, his leash looped around her walker. “Anastasia, I refuse to spend another night in this hell hole. Whatever you’re doing, stop it right now and get me signed out of here.”
Lucille planted herself directly in our path and took on her I-budge-for-no-one stance. Mephisto zeroed in on Dirk and emitted a deep, prolonged growl.
Dirk forced the gun barrel deeper into my flesh. “Get rid of her.”
Easy for him to say. He didn’t know Lucille. I gave it my best shot. No pun intended. “Fine, Lucille. I’ll take care of it.”
“Now,” she demanded, “and I’m coming with you to make sure you do.”
This time Dirk shoved the gun so deep I felt my flesh splitting. Tears flooded my eyes, and a wince erupted from my throat. How self-absorbed could my mother-in-law be? How clueless? Didn’t she notice the gun? “Dirk is helping get something out of my car. I’ll be right back. Why don’t you wait for me outside Shirley Hallstead’s office? I’ll be there momentarily.”
“I’ll come to the car with you. Manifesto needs his exercise.”
Couldn’t she hear the fear in my voice? See it written across my face? “It’s too hot for you outside, Lucille. I’ll take him for a long walk in a few minutes.”
Dirk grew impatient. “Enough of this. Let’s go.” He yanked at my arm and started to drag me around Lucille’s walker.
That’s when Mephisto pounced, hurling himself against Dirk’s chest. As Dirk fell backward, his legs twisted up in mine and brought me down with him. The gun discharged before it flew from his hands, the bullet missing both of us by mere inches.
I yanked from Dirk’s grasp and scampered on all fours out of his reach, but I needn’t have worried. The walker, still attached to Mephisto’s leash, had followed behind the dog, dragging along Lucille, who toppled over the walker, pinning Dirk to the floor, her knee jabbed into his groin.
“Son of a bitch!” yelled Dirk.
With that, Mephisto clasped Dirk’s neck in his jaws and continued his menacing growl. Between Lucille’s bulk, her optimally placed knee, and the canine’s canines—not to mention the gun I grabbed off the floor and aimed at his head—Dirk Silver wasn’t going anywhere. At least not until the cavalry arrived.
“April!” I yelled down the hall. “Call nine-one-one!”
Instead of April, I heard the unmistakable clickity-click of Shirley Hallstead’s stilettos headed our way. “What the hell is going on here?” she demanded. Then she noticed the gun in my hands. “Mrs. Pollack! Have you lost your mind? How dare you bring a gun into my facility and threaten one of Sunnyside’s residents!” She stooped to grab the gun out of my hand. “Hand that over at once!”
I shifted my body, still keeping the gun pointed at Dirk. “And let your killer go free? I don’t think so.”
“Killer? Dirk? Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Why don’t you go down to the arts and crafts room and ask the cops handcuffed to the steam pipe?”
“You handcuffed the police?”
“Not me, you imbecile, Dirk.”
“You’re the one with the gun.”
The adrenaline that had sustained me to this point was dissipating from my body. My neck throbbed, and my arms and hands trembled and ached from grasping an extremely heavy gun. Who knew Glocks or Berettas, or whatever make this gun was, weighed so much? I had no strength to argue with Shirley. Instead, I heaved a sigh, executed a lame eye roll, and yelled again for April.
This time I heard her racing down the hall. “On their way,” she said. “And an ambulance. I didn’t know if that bullet I heard hit anyone.” Then she saw my neck. “Sweet Jesus, girl! You’re bleeding.”
“I’ll be okay.” However, I was beginning to feel a bit dizzy and hoped I held out until the cavalry arrived. No telling what would happen if I lost consciousness and dropped the gun. I certainly didn’t trust Shirley to do the right thing.
Other staff members and residents began to congregate. In the commotion that ensued, Dirk started to squirm, trying to shift Lucille off him. That’s when I remembered the other guns and knife in his apron pocket.
“No you don’t,” I said, inching closer and placing the gun against his temple, then directed two of the orderlies to help Lucille up and another to disarm Dirk.
Shirley stood off to the side, her expression both grim and petulant, her eyes narrowed, her lips pursed into a thin line. I couldn’t decide if she was more upset by the capture of an assassin at Sunnyside or angry at the fact that the others were lauding me as the heroine of the moment. Either way, from the looks of it, I’d earned a few more black marks on her mental score sheet. Not that I cared.
What I did care about were answers. Before the cops arrived and while I still had a gun trained on Dirk, I asked, “Why Mabel?”
“I never kiss and tell,” he said.
“Not good enough, Dirk.” I slammed the barrel of the gun into the fleshy part of his cheek and repeated the question. Mephisto seemed to understand my intent and clamped down a little harder, threatening to break Dirk’s windpipe. Still, the hit man kept to the hit man’s code, if there is such a thing. He neither flinched nor uttered another word.
_____
An hour later, dressed in a blue hospital gown, I lay supine on a gurney in the emergency room at Overlook Hospital. A doctor had stitched up the knife slits in my neck and given me a tetanus shot and a prescription for painkillers, even though I told him I didn’t want any.
I’d seen and read too many stories in the news about people getting hooked on painkillers after accidents. I’m no martyr, but I figured I’d rather soldier through the pain with over-the-counter ibuprofen than risk addiction. He told me I’d probably change my mind once the local wore off and placed the prescription on the chair with my clothes.
“Do you know anything about my mother-in-law’s condition?” I asked before the ER doctor left the room.
“The woman brought in with you? They took her for X-rays. I’ll have one of the nurses update you.”
Lucille had complained vociferously throughout the short ambulance ride to O
verlook because she hadn’t wanted to leave Mephisto behind at Sunnyside. She didn’t appear hurt, Dirk having cushioned her fall, but Shirley insisted. I’m sure her concern centered more around a lawsuit than Lucille’s physical well-being.
As for me, right now all I wanted to do was go home and hug my kids and Mama. Then I wanted to crawl into bed and sleep for a week. I wondered if Shirley expected me to show up at Sunnyside tomorrow. I fully expected her to dock my pay for not putting in a full day today, even though I deserved hazard pay in addition to my hourly rate.
The door opened a couple of inches and Detective Spader called in, “Are you decent, Mrs. Pollack?”
“Depends on the context but you can come in.”
He entered the room, pulled up a chair, and sat down next to me. “Up to talking?”
I swung my legs over the side of the gurney and leveraged myself into a sitting position. “Are you?”
“I’m trained for situations like that. You’re not.”
Hmm … seemed to me he and his colleagues could use a bit more training. Granted Dirk was a hit man, but the odds had been stacked in the cops’ favor three-to-one, and still Dirk got the drop on them.
“How are you holding up?” he asked.
“I survived. In the greater scheme of things, I’m fine, considering what might have happened.”
“I like your attitude. Harley and Fogarty are right about you.”
“Talking behind my back?”
He chuckled. “Seems they’re charter members of your fan club. Anyway, I just stopped by to thank you. I’m not sure we would have broken this case without your help. Our CSI guys totally overlooked the importance of those journals.”
“Not to mention Lyndella’s accounting ledger.”
“Yeah, I gave them hell over that one. From now on they’ve got orders to go through every page of every book at a crime scene.”
So many questions still remained unanswered, though. At least for me. I doubted Detective Spader would satisfy my curiosity, but I had to ask. “How did you figure out Dirk was the hit man? I never suspected him. I was positive the killer was Murray Seibert.”
He gave me his ongoing investigation look but then said, “Hell. The story’s going to break on the evening news, anyway. His prints popped in the system under a different name. Dirk Silver is really Dante Silvestri, and he’s got a rap sheet going back decades.”
“Was he hired by one of Lyndella’s former clients?”
“That’s where the case gets really interesting. Silvestri worked security for Adeline Hunter.”
“The congresswoman?” Adeline Hunter was a newly rising star in national politics, riding the conservative coattails of Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, and Nikki Haley. She’d recently started showing up with increasing regularity on the Sunday morning talk show circuit. “How is she connected to Lyndella?”
“Turns out Congresswoman Hunter put herself through college and law school working as one of Lyndella’s girls.”
“And she feared that information getting out?”
“Exactly. She had no idea the vic was even still alive until she received a blackmail threat from her. Instead of paying off Mrs. Wegner, Hunter dispatched Silvestri to deal with the problem.”
“How’d I miss that in Lyndella’s journals?”
“I don’t think you did.”
I thought back to Lyndella’s entry about finding a golden ticket. “Lyndella must have caught Hunter on television and recognized her.”
“Yeah. It’s doubtful Hunter turned tricks under her real name when she worked for the vic. Until she saw a picture, Lyndella wouldn’t have known the congresswoman and her former employee were one and the same.”
“Which must have happened the day she wrote the entry about finding a golden ticket. And days later, Dirk moved into Sunnyside. But how’d you find out all of this?”
“Once we made the connection to the congresswoman, she realized her only recourse was to cooperate. I’m guessing it has to do with Georgia being a death penalty state.”
“But what about Mabel? Why did Dirk kill her?”
“So far, Silvestri’s not talking. If I had to guess, I’d say Mrs. Shapiro just got on his nerves for one reason or another.”
Mabel had grown rather bossy in the days after Lyndella’s murder. I suppose it doesn’t take much sometimes to give a killer incentive to kill. Poor Mabel. “He seemed like such a bland, mild-mannered guy. Half the time I didn’t even notice him around.”
“Those are the most dangerous killers. They’re great actors. They blend into their surroundings, and you never see them coming until it’s too late.”
“Dirk is an excellent artist. It’s hard for me to reconcile someone who can create such beauty on one hand while taking lives on the other.”
“He’ll have plenty of time to paint where he’s going, and he won’t be taking any more lives.”
He also wouldn’t be taking part in the gallery show. I’d have to call Clara to tell her we’d lost another exhibitor. Whether I wanted to or not, I’d also have to go to Sunnyside tomorrow. With the opening less than a week away, we’d need to fill some large holes.
The door swung open, and Lucille shuffled her walker into the room. A nurse followed behind her. “Your mother-in-law checked out okay,” she said. “A few minor bruises but nothing broken. She’s free to leave.”
“We’re picking up Manifesto, and you’re taking me home,” said Lucille. “I’m not spending another minute in that hell hole full of lunatics running around with guns. That man nearly killed me!”
Actually, he nearly killed me, but why argue? “All right, Lucille, but I don’t have a car here.”
“I can give you a ride back to Sunnyside,” said Detective Spader.
“Fine,” said Lucille. “Let’s go.”
“Do you mind if I get dressed first?” I asked her.
That’s when my self-absorbed mother-in-law noticed the hospital gown. “What happened to you?”
“Someone tried to kill me.”
Lucille scrunched up her nose and skewered her mouth in disbelief. “Exaggerating as usual, I see, Anastasia. Well, you’ll get no sympathy from me. If you hadn’t forced me into that place, none of this would have happened. This is your own fault.”
So what else is new?
twenty-three
When we arrived back at Sunnyside, pulling in the back entrance to avoid the news vans parked at the front entrance, Detective Spader decided I shouldn’t drive the short distance home. He placed a call to Harley and Fogarty while I retrieved Mephisto. With any luck, I’d avoid Shirley and the bureaucratic paperwork involved in Lucille’s release until tomorrow.
Once inside, I tiptoed down the hall past Shirley’s closed door and made my way to the lobby, keeping off to the side to avoid the gaze of the reporters gathered like a flock of vultures at the front entrance.
“Girl, you okay?” asked April when she saw me.
I glanced up and down both halls before answering her. No Shirley in sight. “Sure. Just a few scratches.”
“Shut up! Looked like a lot more than scratches from where I stood.”
“I’m fine,” I assured her. “Can you bring Mephisto to me? I don’t want any of the reporters to know I’m here.”
“Sure thing.” She unhooked Mephisto’s leash from the back of her chair and walked down the hall with him. Anyone peering inside would think she was taking him for a walk.
When April had traveled beyond the view of anyone on the outside, she handed the leash off to me. “I’m bringing my mother-in-law home,” I said. “She’s refusing to come back to Sunnyside.”
“Can’t say as I blame her. Not with what’s been going down here lately.”
“If Shirley says anything, let her think Lucille’s spending the night in the hospital. I’ll dea
l with her and all the red tape tomorrow.”
“Don’t worry. Shirley left for the day. That woman was one out-of-control, power-suited basket case in stilettos, especially once the news crews started showing up.”
I can imagine. Talk about a PR nightmare. I wondered how Shirley would spin the events to her Board of Directors, not to mention the press.
“You got any inside info to spill?” asked April.
“Watch the news tonight.” Then I added, “National.”
April’s eyes bugged out. “You shitting me, girl?”
“Would I do that?” I tugged on Mephisto’s leash and headed toward the employees’ entrance.
Lucille, Mephisto, and I rode in Detective Spader’s mercifully air-conditioned unmarked sedan. Fogarty drew the short straw and drove my stifling rust-bucket with Harley following in the police cruiser. When we arrived, I offered the three officers cold drinks, but they all declined.
Once inside the house, Mephisto scurried to his air vent of choice, and Lucille shuffled off to the bedroom she shared with Mama. I released Ralph from his cage. As I refilled his water bottle, I heard Mama scream.
Shouting ensued. Mama, Lucille, and one very decidedly male voice rose in discordant cacophony. I raced down the hall, Ralph flapping along ahead of me.
Lucille stood in the entrance to the bedroom. I poked my head into the room and found Mama and Lawrence Tuttnauer huddled together in Mama’s bed, the sheet drawn up to their chins. “Mother!”
“Mother, mother, mother!” squawked Ralph flying into the room. He landed on the headboard and stared down at Mama and Lawrence. “Hamlet. Act Three, Scene Four.”
“Get out!” shouted Mama. She pulled her arms out from under the sheet and flapped them at Ralph. “Shoo, filthy bird!” Then she turned to me and Lucille. “Both of you, get out, and take that flying rodent with you!”
“I will not,” said Lucille. “This is my room.”
“What’s she doing back here?” asked Mama, directing her question to me. “She wasn’t supposed to come back until the end of the month.”