by Tracy Clark
I felt something grab me by the ankles from under the stairs. I had just enough time to register that the something was a pair of human hands before I lost my footing, tumbled the rest of the way down, and crashed to the concrete floor. The back of my head made a sickening sound when it hit the floor, and all I saw for a fraction of a second was blinding light dancing behind my eyelids. The basement had gone dark.
Shock quickly gave way to alarm, alarm to panic, and panic to a desperate desire for survival. I scrambled to my feet, afraid of the rats, my head pounding. Thankfully, I had managed to hold onto my gun as I fell, and I aimed it now into the dark, eyes peeled, waiting for whoever was standing in the shadows to come at me, but not even the rats made a sound.
Chapter 40
All of a sudden, a light flicked on, and there stood Allen, next to a cheap camping lantern that sat on an upturned fifty-gallon drum. There was a .22 next to the lantern. Allen didn’t look worried or scared or even surprised to see me. Instead, she appeared oddly calm, determined, which worried me more. My eyes slowly swept the room and landed on Elliott and Chandler tied to folding chairs, both looking as though they’d been harassed to death. Elliott was pale; his hair and uniform were mussed. Chandler’s face was bruised, and there was dried blood on her shirt, as though her surgical stitches had come undone and she’d begun to bleed. Their hands were bound behind their backs.
I pedaled back quickly out of the light and plastered my back to the wall. The light from the lantern reached only so far. I was sure Allen couldn’t see me, but I could see her. She started toward me.
I called out, “Far enough.” My head hurt. My vision was a little blurred though it was quickly clearing. I just needed a minute.
She stopped, squinted in the direction where she thought I was. She didn’t look right. Something was off. It was in her eyes.
“Why are you here?” she asked. “This is between me and her.”
She didn’t come any closer. I eyed the drum, the gun sitting on it.
I slid my free hand into my pocket for the flashlight, then quietly moved a few steps to the left. “What about Elliott there?” I kept my eyes on Allen. “How you doing there, Elliott?”
He grunted, struggling against the ties. “Been better.”
Allen flicked him a look. “He wanted to call the police. I wasn’t ready for that yet. First, I have to make her pay for everything she did to me.”
Chandler laughed. “Everything I did to you? Benita, you don’t have what it takes. You never did. If you had, you wouldn’t have needed me. You’d have been able to do it all yourself. But you didn’t, and you couldn’t, and you still can’t. I did it. I did it all.”
Allen ran up to Chandler and slapped her face hard. “You shut your mouth!”
Chandler looked up at Allen and chuckled. “Not good enough. Why don’t you try shooting me?” She cocked her head toward the .22. “Go on. Pick it up. Shoot me.”
Allen backed up, grabbed the gun off the drum. I froze in place. “This gun?” Allen said. “The one you intended to shoot me with?”
Chandler only smiled. Allen turned toward where she thought I was hiding, but I was already several steps farther to the left, making my way behind her, closer to the drum, closer to the chairs, closer to her. Elliott stopped struggling, his eyes on the gun in Allen’s hand. This whole thing had nothing to do with him, yet here he was right in the middle of it all. “The only way to end this is to put a bullet in her head. If I don’t, she’ll keep coming. She won’t rest until I’m dead. You see it, don’t you? What choice do I have?” I kept quiet, moved left. “She killed my mother!”
Chandler smiled. “Now, Benita, don’t be angry. I did it all for you. She would have held you back. There would have been no magazine, no television show, no fame. We were on our way, but then you tried to cut me out, didn’t you? You lied to me and you were going to just throw me out with some half-baked severance package?” She shook her head, frowned. “No. Not after all it took to get you here. Not after everything I’ve done.”
It was Allen’s turn to laugh. “Jokes on you then, Kaytina. I wasn’t going to give you any severance package. I was just going to throw you out. I don’t need you. I never did. How’s that feel? How’s it feel knowing I’m the one with all the control now? You leech!”
Chandler glared at Allen. I moved again, got closer. “I regret now not killing you,” Chandler said. “I could have, you know. There were opportunities, but I thought I could mold you into something useful, and I did for a while. Then you got too big, and you started believing you were enough. You’re a fool. Always were.” She sat back in the chair. “So, what now, Benita? What are you going to do now?”
Elliott struggled to untie himself, squinting into the dark. “Aren’t you going to stop them? Do something? Help!”
Allen pointed the gun at Elliott. “You keep quiet!”
“You’re losing it, Benita,” Chandler taunted. “You can’t be a killer without a cool head. You’ve got to think. You’ve got to plan and strategize, then act. You haven’t got the temperament for it or the head. That’s my job. Untie me. Let’s talk this thing out.”
Allen turned away from Chandler, peered into the shadows. “I haven’t forgotten you’re there.” The way she said it, detached, cold, sent a shiver up my spine. “I just haven’t figured out what I need to do with you and with Elliott. I’m going to kill her, but I’m not sure yet if the two of you have to die with her.”
“You’ll have to kill us all,” Chandler said. “There’s no other way.”
Allen turned back to her. “I’m done taking orders from you.”
I moved again. This was no place for gun play. The basement was confined, dark, too many things could go wrong and people could die. But if I could just get close enough to her . . .
Chandler kept needling Allen. “Always the martyr. Always the hero, you ungrateful bitch. You barely noticed they were gone, did you? Linda and Philip? They were impediments, so I eliminated them . . . for you. The others, too, they stood in your way and, more importantly, my way. You’re no killer, Benita. I’m the killer.” Chandler wrestled with the ties at her wrists. “I’m going to get out of this chair, Benita, and when I do, I’m going to kill you.”
What was Chandler doing? Trying to get herself killed?
Allen’s hands shook. “The only place you’re going is prison or the graveyard. I’ll let you choose.”
Chandler cackled. “Prison? No, no. I’m not going to prison, darling.”
Elliott rocked his chair, trying to free himself, the legs of the chair scraping against the concrete floor.
Chandler looked up at Allen. “I really enjoyed killing Devin. A little something in his coffee. Well, maybe more than a little. I found it on the black market at great expense. Your expense, Benita, not mine. So you could say that you helped me kill him. Hey, you should count that as your first kill.”
“Oh, God,” Elliott murmured.
Allen stilled, raised the .22. I moved again. Chandler stared into the gun barrel.
“Do it,” Chandler said.
Allen didn’t move.
“Do it, I said. Do it. Do it. Do something, Benita, without my having to reason it out for you. Pull the damn trigger and blow my head off!”
I eased my gun into my tuck holster, and then tightened my grip on the flashlight. I’d only get one shot. “Hey!” I yelled. Allen reeled around and I flew out of the corner. Crouched low, I slashed down on her arm with the heavy end of the flashlight, knocking the gun from her hand, then arced up, slamming her in the chin. I watched as she stumbled back, fell against the drum, toppling the lantern, which rolled along the floor sending light dancing along the walls.
Surprisingly, Allen roared back, her arms outstretched, murder in her eyes. I slashed the flashlight down on her right forearm and heard a crack, then swung up and whacked her across the bridge of her nose. Blood gushed out of her nostrils like water out of a running faucet and she went down like a
felled redwood, unconscious before she hit the floor. I picked up the. 22 and pocketed it, checked that she was still breathing, and then reached for my cell phone to call the police.
“Yeah!” Elliott screamed. “Now untie me! Get me out of here!”
Chandler stared at me her head angled. “You should have killed her. How else would she have learned?”
I glared at her, said nothing, made the call.
* * *
I kept it sketchy with Tanaka, just the address, Chandler, yada yada. She could get the rest when she got here. She sounded a little miffed, but, hey, I’d deal with that later, too. When I hung up, I untied Elliott.
“Go to the car,” I said. “Lock the doors. Wait for the police. They’re on their way.”
He flew up the stairs without looking back. I left Chandler sitting there. She was a murderer many times over, and she was going to prison. She didn’t bother trying to get into my head like she had with Allen. I thought my flashlight ballet had dissuaded her. So, I leaned against the drum and waited for the cops.
Chapter 41
As I figured, Tanaka was not happy to see me. She was less happy to see Allen laid out like a big X, blood all over her face.
“You’re shitting me, right?” Tanaka said.
“She had a gun. Would you rather I shot her?”
“Do you have any idea how this is going to look? Chicago’s media darling tied up in all this mess?”
“Well, first of all, you’re going to have to come off that ‘Chicago’s media darling’ business. And look to who?” I ran my fingers over the goose egg on the back of my head. “I want to watch you interview Chandler. She’s in a confessin’ kind of mood.”
Tanaka stared at me. “You’re . . . you’re . . .”
I smiled. “I know, right? I think the words you’re looking for are utterly adorable.”
She walked away from me, mad.
“So? Yea or nay on the interview?”
Nothing.
“Don’t be like that, Tanaka. I just bagged you a bona fide psychopath and also handed you the great Vonda Allen, knocked out and practically lying on a silver platter. It couldn’t be more of a gift if I’d wrapped them both in Christmas paper.”
She kept walking but flipped me the bird on her way.
“Crude and crass, Tanaka. Crude and crass.”
* * *
It was Eli who got me back in the room with the two-way mirror. Allen had been taken to the hospital. At last report, I’d broken her nose and her wrist, and she was threatening to have me charged with attempted murder, as if. Right now I wanted to find out what Chandler’s deal was. Why Allen?
It was after 2:00 AM, but Chandler still looked calm and collected. No lawyer. She had turned down representation, and she was talking a blue streak. She was a cop’s dream. I glanced over at Eli, who stood next to me, his arms folded across his chest.
“Do you believe this?” he said.
I stared through the glass at Chandler, who was sitting at the table, sipping a can of Diet Coke someone had brought her. It was as if she didn’t care who knew what at this point. “It’s like it’s Tanaka’s birthday, and Chandler’s the best present ever.” I was filthy, tired, and could swear I heard rats skittering around the walls.
“Who’s Lyndon Barnes?” Tanaka asked Chandler.
“I found him strung out in front of a shelter. I needed someone who’d do anything for money, and he fit the bill. He stole a car, used it for what I needed him to use it for, and then I paid him in crack. When I needed him again, he was glad to do it. Only this time, I loaded him up on crack and then set him off. The end was inevitable.” She chuckled. “It was easy.”
“The hit-and-runs?” Marcus asked.
She nodded. “The Peetses and Dontell, but I’m sure she’s told you all this already.”
Marcus frowned. “She?”
Chandler flicked a look at the mirror. “Her. Detective Raines. She’s much smarter than Benita.” She looked up at Marcus, grinned devilishly. “She’s probably smarter than you, too.” Tanaka glowered at me through the glass. She was still mad at me. I turned to Eli. “She really needs to get over it,” I said. “Were we or were we not cooperating?”
“Maybe she thinks you cooperated too much?”
“Whatever. But for the record, I’m not the only one who doesn’t know how to get along.”
“It’s my own mistake,” Chandler said. “I made things too easy for her. I thought we were partners, equal partners, though she had to be seen to act otherwise. It had to do with the image I created for her. But she started to believe in the lie. She became dismissive . . . of me. She forgot the truth of it. After I’d done so much, killed so many, she was just going to leave me behind. I should never have trusted her.” She shrugged. “I built it. It was mine. I intended to keep it. But all that’s behind me now.”
Tanaka leaned over the table, looking straight at Chandler. “Sewell, Hewitt, Henry Peets, Barnes, Devin, Adkins. Anyone else?”
“Do dogs count?” She laughed. “I did what needed doing.” Her cadence had slowed and she began to slur her words. “No regrets.”
I drew closer to the glass, watched Chandler closely. “Eli.”
Chandler’s head began to loll to the side. “That’s it. You have everything . . . you need.”
“Eli!” I began banging on the glass, trying to get Tanaka’s attention, but she had noticed the change in Chandler, too, and was reaching for her over the table.
“What’re you doing?” Eli asked.
“Look at her. She’s taken something.” I banged again. Chandler’s eyes rolled back in her head. Tanaka tilted Chandler’s head back and slapped her cheeks to try and rouse her.
“Jones, get the paramedics,” Tanaka said.
“All . . . you . . . need,” Chandler said.
Her head fell to the table. Marcus swept out of the room to get help. Tanaka lifted Chandler out of the chair, laid her flat on the floor, started CPR.
We watched as the room next door erupted in a frenzy of alarm. Cops rushed in, rushed out. Finally, the paramedics came, administered to Chandler on the floor, but she was gone. She’d been right. She wasn’t going to prison. She’d decided to go to the graveyard instead.
Chapter 42
After they removed Chandler’s body from the interview room, I sat out in the squad, waiting for Eli, who was in with Tanaka and the others. It was over, at least, though it wasn’t exactly justice for Dontell and the others. It was just an ending. Now Allen could play it any way she wanted to, could revel in her victimhood, play to every camera placed in front of her. She’d be more insufferable than usual, but she’d be without Chandler, so whatever she did from this point forward would be all her. Let’s hope she could handle it. I stood when Eli walked up.
“Don’t see that every day. She poisoned herself,” he said.
“She likely did it before she even walked into that basement. She knew how much time she had and used it efficiently.”
He tossed his legal pad on the desk. “Well, this one’s a wrap.”
“Was the gun in the park Allen’s?”
“Yeah. Chandler’s prints weren’t on it, but they were on the inside of the glove they found with it. Allen will probably walk. Chandler was after her. The housekeeper can say she got that call, and her driver confirms Chandler had a gun on her when they got there. Allen was lucky enough to get it from her, given Chandler was right out of the hospital and weak. All that works in her favor.”
“That and Chandler’s creepy ‘special’ room. She didn’t exactly try to cover her tracks. I think she was trying to get Allen to kill her down there. Whatever she ingested was just a backup. She knew either way, she had an out.”
“Good thing you had that flashlight, or we wouldn’t have gotten the full story. How’s the head?”
“Still attached.”
Eli stood watching, a slight smile on his face. “That was me asking on a personal level.”
“A little sore, bruised, like the rest of me. Thanks for asking. . . on a personal level.”
“Notice how I didn’t swoop in and try to handle any of that for you?”
I smiled. “I did. You’re a quick study.”
He rocked on his heels. “When properly motivated.” He leaned over to whisper in my ear. “I can kiss it and make it all better, you know.”
I pulled back. “Not here you can’t.”
He laughed. “So, you’re good?”
I squeezed his arm. “Yep.” I moved past him. “I’ll see you later. I’m going to get some sleep. The cookout starts around one. Come ready to eat.”
“Don’t I always? Hey, I talked to Mickerson earlier. He’s getting sprung and wants to talk to you. You haven’t been around, he said.”
“He’s coming to the house later. I’ll see him then.”
“Everything okay with you two?”
“Sure. Why?”
“Nothing. Oh, he wanted me to tell you he’s got a line on some security job for this guy he knows. He says the work’s minimal and the pay’s good. He . . .”
I walked away on the rest of it. From behind me, I could hear Eli chuckling.
After a few hours’ sleep, I got showered and dressed and drove out to the Adkinses. I had Dontell’s box in the backseat of my car, its contents neatly arranged, just like I’d found them. I drove with all my windows down, too. After the rats, I couldn’t seem to get enough fresh air.
I parked, carried Dontell’s things all the way to the front door, and rang the bell. Chandler had hired a desperate man to run their baby down in the street, and now she was dead, too. And what for? Some kinked-up facsimile of devotion? For fame and success? It was done, or as done as it was going to be, but Dontell was still gone, as were the others, and all the Adkinses had to carry on with was the box in my arms and the memories they held. Small comfort. Inadequate, but all there was and ever would be.