In the Shadow of the Arch

by Robert J. Randisi

  He was aware that many foster families took children in because they would then receive a monthly stipend to care for them. He was also aware that, at least in New York, many of those families then had their own uses for that money. He hoped St. Louis was different. Somebody, somewhere, had to be taking these kids in simply because they wanted to help, or because they loved children.

  Keough circled the house, his eyes sweeping the yards alongside and behind as he went. As he got to the back he heard voices and knew that he was in time-maybe just.

  "… away before I call the police. I've already called security, and the social services woman."

  He came around the back and saw the man. He was dark-haired, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, but he looked smaller than Keough would have thought Bill Sanders was.

  "Bill Sanders?" he called.

  The man turned toward the sound of Keough's voice and his eyes widened when he saw him.

  "Police!" Keough said.

  "No," the man said, "you don't understand." Only it didn't sound like a man's voice.

  "Stop there."

  "No," the man said again. He looked into the house, said, "Brady," and then turned to run.

  "Don't run," Keough said, as the security man came from the other direction.

  The man ran toward the back of the yard, where there was a high wooden fence. Keough ran after him, as did the security man. He thought the fleeing man might vault the fence, and then they'd be in for a chase, but he stopped short, as if unwilling to make the jump.

  As Keough reached him, the man turned and pointed a small pistol at him. Keough's thoughts went back to the day Brady had walked into the police station, the day he'd walked through the Sanders house and found an empty holster in one of the night tables.

  He'd guessed a small-caliber pistol, and he'd been right.

  "Mrs. Sanders," he said, "Marian, you don't want to do this."

  It was Marian Sanders, all right. Even with the short black wig he recognized her from the photos he'd seen in the living room of her home. He also realized that a lot of this trouble could have been avoided if he had asked Brady in Florissant if he had seen his father or his mother.

  "I just wanted to see my son."

  "I understand that-" Keough started, but he was cut off by the arrival of the security man.

  "Hold it!" he shouted, pointing his gun at Marian Sanders. "Throw the gun away."

  "Put your gun up, Henry," Keough said, as calmly as he could.

  "But… but, Detective-"

  "Put it away," he said, again. "Mrs. Sanders doesn't want to shoot me."

  "Mrs. Sanders?" the man said. He holstered his gun and looked closer at the man holding the gun, and saw that it was, indeed, a woman. "You know her?"

  "I do," Keough said. "Go and talk to the woman in the house. Tell her everything is all right."

  "But detective-"

  "Go on, Henry," Keough said, "do as I say."

  Reluctantly, the security man obeyed and walked away. Meanwhile, Marian Sanders kept a tight, two-handed grip on the gun and kept it trained on Keough.

  "Marian," Keough said, "why don't you give me the gun."

  "You don't understand."

  "About your son?" he asked. "Or about killing your husband?"

  "It was a fight," she said, "and it got out of hand. I was so… angry. All the late nights, all the women…"

  "And he hit you, didn't he?"

  "We… we used to hit each other," she said. "It was a… a sick relationship."

  "Why'd you stay married to him?"

  She shrugged and said, "I loved him-and he loved me. I know he did. He just couldn't… s-stop… I couldn't take it, anymore."

  "So there was an argument, and it escalated into a fight. Who got the knife?"

  "I did," she said. "I stormed out of the bedroom, went to the kitchen, and got the knife, just to scare him."

  "And it got out of hand."

  "Yes," she said, tears sliding down her face, dropping from her chin to the ground. "I s-stabbed him… he chased me down the hall into the living room, bleeding, and I stabbed him again… and again… and he was dead."

  "What did you do then?" Keough asked. "Panic?"

  "No," she said, wiping the tears from her face with a forearm while continuing to train the gun on him, "that's the odd part. I was very calm. I knew I had to do something with him so I wrapped him in an old blanket, dragged him to the garage, and put him in the trunk of the car. H-he wasn't very heavy, and he wasn't much bigger than me."

  It had been easy to mistake her for a man not only because of the wig, but because she was a tall woman, perhaps five eight or nine.

  "What about Brady?"

  "Brady he came into the bedroom while I was getting the blanket. B-Bill… Bill's body was in the living room. I convinced Brady to go back to his room to wait for me. After I put Bill in the trunk of one car, I put Brady in the other car and took him to the only place I could think of."

  "The police station."

  She nodded. "I knew they'd take care of him there."

  "I did," Keough said. "I got there just as Brady walked in, Marian, and I took care of him."

  "Th-thank you…"

  "My name is Joe Keough," he said, "and I want to help you, the way I helped Brady."

  "I just wanted to see him," she said. "When I went out to Florissant I didn't mean to scare anyone…"

  "I know," he said, "but how did you find him both times?"

  "I have a f-friend who works for the city," she said. "She helped me. I've been s-staying with her until I could figure out what to do."

  "Does she know about your husband?"

  "No," Marian Sanders said. "I just told her I had to hide from him."

  That could have been true, or she might have been protecting her friend from being an accessory. It really didn't matter.

  "Okay, Marian," he said, "now we've come to the point where you either have to shoot me, or give me the gun. Which is it going to be?"

  She didn't respond right away.

  "Brady's in the house, Marian," he said. "Maybe he's watching. What do you want to do?"

  Marian stared at him for a few moments, and then suddenly all of her muscles relaxed and she slumped, dropping the hand with the gun to her side. With her other hand she slid the black wig off, revealing her own blond hair, which had been hastily chopped short. Keough moved then, taking the gun from her and helping her to her feet.

  "Time to go, Marian. It's all over."

  They started walking back to the house. Keough could now see a woman and Brady standing at sliding glass doors looking out at them. Henry, the security man, was standing just outside.

  "C-can I see Brady before I go?" Marian asked.

  "Why don't we wait until you can see him when you're looking more like his mother, huh?"

  "When will that be?" she asked.

  "I don't know, Marian," he said, "I honestly don't know."

  66

  The place was called A Taste of Manhattan. It was in Clayton, and had been opened by some guys from Brooklyn. Valerie had brought him there as a surprise, but she needed him to tell her if it tasted like real Brooklyn pizza.

  "God," he said, closing his eyes at the first bite, "it's perfect."

  The slice was cut in a triangle, and he folded it lengthwise, the way they did in Brooklyn. He turned to Joey, the man behind the counter, and saluted him with the slice. According to Joey, this was the first of many Brooklyn pizzerias he and his partners were going to open.

  St. Louis was getting better and better, and that was due, largely, to the woman sitting across from him.

  "You know," she said, "I'm originally from Chicago, and this really can't stand up to a Chicago pizza."

  Okay, so she wasn't perfect.

  It had been a week since he'd brought Marian Sanders in for the murder of her husband. She had driven his body out to Riverport and dropped him into a construction site where they were building some new casinos.r />
  That same day he had called Valerie, met with her at Dressel's for dinner, and explained a lot of things to her. After he covered the problems of the Sanders family he explained something that he himself had only just become aware of.

  "I haven't been sure that I was going to stay in St. Louis," he said. "I think I was pushing you away so we wouldn't get involved. That would have made my decision harder. I needed to figure it out myself, with no distractions."

  "I'm a distraction?"

  "Definitely."

  "And now you have it figured out?"

  "Yes," he said. "I'm going to stay. In fact, Captain McGwire has offered me the position of lead homicide investigator at Major Case, and I'm taking it."

  "And now you can deal with me?"

  "If you'll let me," he said.

  She'd frowned at him from across the table.

  "I sort of like the romantic notion that you might decide to stay because of me," she said.

  "Valerie-"

  She held up her hand and he stopped.

  "But I agree with you," she went on. "You needed to make this decision on your own, without any help-or hinderance-from me."

  "Then we can start over?" he asked.

  "Oh, no," she said, "not over. That would waste all the time we've already invested-and I can't afford that. I've become… impatient to move to the next level."

  "Which is?"

  She smiled and said, "You live walking distance from here, don't you?"

  They went to bed together for the first time that night, and had seen each other almost every day since. McGwire had given him a week off before he started his new job, and there was only Saturday and Sunday left.

  They had started Saturday by going to Forest Park to fly some kites, and then she'd taken him for a surprise Brooklyn pizza.

  He checked his watch and said, "We have time for another slice."

  "Not me," she said, "but you go ahead. When do we have to see your friend?"

  "He's signing from four to six," he said. "Plenty of time."

  "I'm looking forward to meeting someone who's known you for a long time."

  "Well," he said, "Mike qualifies."

  ***

  Mike O'Donnell was signing copies of Kopykat at Big Sleep Books in the Central West End; he and Keough had agreed to have dinner afterward. Keough told O'Donnell he was bringing a new friend.

  Big Sleep Books was on Euclid Avenue, just a couple of blocks from Keough's house. He had finally unpacked the last of his boxes, and now thought of the house as home.

  He'd heard about the bookstore previously from Al Steinbach, but had never gone inside himself until now.

  He and Valerie entered the small store and saw O'Donnell sitting at a table in the back with a handsome, slender, elegant-looking woman in her early sixties.

  "Keyhole man!" O'Donnell said, and rose to give his friend a bear hug. O'Donnell, once a reporter for the New York Post, had written several true crime books before Kopykat, the first of which had made the best-seller list. The subsequent books had not done as well, until Kopykat, which was presently on many of the lists, including number nine of The New York Times list.

  "You've gained weight," Keough said.

  "Prosperity," O'Donnell said, touching his slightly swollen belly. He had also let his hair grow a bit longer, and shaggier, and had gotten somewhat grayer.

  "Mike O'Donnell," Keough said, "meet Valerie Speck."

  "Ah, I've heard about you," O'Donnell said, "we've got a lot to talk about."

  "I'm looking forward to it."

  "Joe, Valerie, this is Helen Simpson. She owns the store."

  "So, you're Joe Keough," Helen said, shaking Keough's hand. She had a disconcerting way of looking right into his eyes when she spoke to him. It was disconcerting because not many people did it, these days. Keough liked it, and instinctively liked her. "I've been looking forward to meeting you ever since I read your book-and then Mike told me you lived here! Why have you never come in?"

  "Well," Keough said, "I don't write, and I haven't been reading much, lately-"

  "You could have come in and signed copies of Kopykat."

  "Why would I do that? I didn't write it."

  "I, uh, told Helen that you were, uh, pretty active in the, uh, preparation of the book."

  "That may be true, but I can't sign copies-"

  "Of course you can," she said, "and you can start now."

  There was no way out, he could see, so he signed a few for her. He had the feeling she usually got what she wanted.

  "Now you can tell us about your newest case," Helen said, afterward.

  "What case is that?" O'Donnell asked.

  "It was in the papers," Helen told him. "He caught the Mall Rat."

  "The Mall Rat?" O'Donnell said. He looked at Keough. "That sounds interesting."

  "Maybe you could write that case as a book, also," Helen said, as if it was a wonderful idea.

  "I need another book," O'Donnell said, looking at his friend. "My publisher's pushing me. Is there something to this Mall Rat case?"

  "It's very interesting," Valerie said.

  "You guys could write it together," Helen said. She was not shy with her suggestions.

  "Joe-" O'Donnell started.

  Some people came into the store then, and Helen got up to greet them.

  Keough said, "Why don't you keep busy selling this one, Mike, and we can talk at dinner later, okay?"

  "Okay," O'Donnell said, as Helen led the people over to meet the "famous" true crime writer and the "famous" detective, "but I really want to hear about this." He looked at Valerie and asked, "Help me with this guy, will you?"

  "Oh, I don't know," she said, taking hold of Keough's arm, "I rather think you're the one who's going to have to help me. After all, we're right at the beginning of something."

  As O'Donnell rose to talk to the prospective customers he said to her, "We'll help each other. We have tonight and all day tomorrow."

  "Two against one," she said in Keough's ear. "I like those odds."

  Keough wondered, idly, if he could go into work tomorrow, a day early.