Judgement Day

by Andrew Neiderman

  “Comin’ back for something?” Beardsly said as he started to open the door. He opened it enough to see that it wasn’t his woman but Matthew Blake. Blake took advantage of the look of surprise on Beardsly’s face by putting his shoulder to the door and slamming it back at him. Beardsly fell backward and sat hard on the area rug in the entryway. Blake stepped in and closed the door.

  “What the fuck . . . what the hell is this?” Beardsly asked, now more embarrassed than angry at how foolish he looked and how easily he had fallen.

  Blake reached into his pocket and produced the photo of Sam Lonegan. He held it out. “You know who this is?”

  Beardsly stood up, brushed himself off, and looked. “No. What the hell you think you’re doing bustin’ in on me like that?”

  “It’s the man whose cremated remains you delivered to John Milton at that old farmhouse.”

  Beardsly squinted at the picture and then looked at Blake. “Farmhouse?”

  “Don’t try to deny doing it.”

  “What’d ya do, follow me?”

  “You brought another urn to him not that long ago, the urn containing the remains of Keith Arthur. He killed Warner Murphy.”

  “Warner Murphy?” He put his hands on his hips. “I know that case. That was a suicide. Besides, that happened recently. Keith Arthur was already dead himself. What the hell are you talking about, asking about the cremated remains of people in urns, anyway?” He smiled coldly. “You trying to freak me out like Popeye in The French Connection? You going to ask me if I pick my feet in Poughkeepsie next?”

  Blake hesitated. Could it be that Beardsly didn’t know who John Milton was and what he could do? “John Milton resurrected Keith Arthur from the ashes you brought him and then sent him to kill Warner Murphy. He threw him off his patio.”

  Beardsly rubbed his rear end and flopped back onto his sofa. “Resurrected killers, huh?” He nodded. “I know who you are now. You’re that wacko detective, the one they call Saint Matthew, ain’t ya?” Beardsly asked, smiling. “Peter Thomas told me about you, about how you forced him out of the department, threatened and blackmailed him.”

  “How do you know Peter Thomas?”

  “Due diligence,” Beardsly said. “I was asked to speak with him.”

  “Milton sent you to him. That makes sense,” Blake said, thinking aloud. “Peter was tired and corruptible. He fabricated evidence to convict someone.”

  “Who are you, Serpico?” Beardsly laughed. “He got the creep. What difference did it make how he got him?”

  “When you behave like them, they win,” Blake said.

  “Great. I’ll remember that when I attend my philosophy class later.” His rage and embarrassment returned. “What the fuck do you want, anyway? Why’d you come bustin’ in here? You don’t have a warrant. You’re behavin’ like them yourself.”

  “This is different. There’s no time to waste.”

  “No time to waste for what?”

  “I want to know what John Milton has in mind for Sam Lonegan to do. He must have given you some indication. You’re in this pretty deeply. You’d better talk.”

  “In what pretty deeply? Delivering urns? You’re a real nutcase. Get the fuck out of here before I call the police myself.”

  Blake didn’t move. Instead, he smiled. “You work for John Milton, but you’re afraid of him, Beardsly, aren’t you? He pays you, but I bet you’d work for him anyway, do anything he asked. Did you ever ask yourself why? It isn’t just that monster of a driver he has. You carry a 357 Magnum. How you get away with still carrying, I don’t know, but you do.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “You’ve been working for him longer than you think. The first time you did something illegal, you invited him in.”

  “Invited who in?”

  “I don’t have to tell you. You know. You’ve always known.”

  Beardsly smirked and shook his head. “I was told you always have a stick up your ass when it comes to defense attorneys. If Milton’s too good for you guys, find another line of work.” He stood up and stepped closer, his face only inches away from Blake’s. “If you walk out of here now, I’ll forget how you came in, but get out now,” he said, “before I stop being charitable to a mental case.”

  If he thinks I’m unstable, I might as well behave as though I am, Blake thought.

  He turned as if he was going to leave, and then, with his pistol flat in his palm, he spun around and struck Beardsly on his left cheekbone. Beardsly went down again, rolling onto his back. His cheekbone was fractured, but the shock overcame the pain. He looked up at what he now believed was surely someone who had gone stark raving mad. Blake knelt, his knee on Beardsly’s stomach, and pointed his pistol at his face.

  “I saw you leaving Skip Tyler’s street just as we had gotten there. Milton sent you there to do him so I couldn’t prove Heckett had hired a hit man. You made it look like he overdosed on heroin. You’re about as dirty as a law enforcement agent can get. After you’re dead, I’ll make sure he doesn’t get your ashes, Beardsly. You’re never coming back.” He cocked his pistol.

  “Wait, you crazy bastard. What the hell do you want?”

  “Where’s John Milton going to be today? What is he planning to arrange and witness? You’re the backup, aren’t you? You’re always there now.”

  “Shit,” Beardsly said, looking at his palm. He was bleeding profusely now.

  “That’s nothing to a corpse,” Blake said. He leveled the pistol.

  “Wait. I’m to be at the St. Regis at two.”

  “The St. Regis?”

  “Yeah. Two o’clock.”

  Blake looked at his watch.

  Beardsly saw his attention shift and seized Blake’s wrist, twisting his arm so the gun was no longer pointing at him. Then he shifted his left leg, and with his free arm, he turned and threw Blake off him, still holding on to his wrist so he couldn’t aim at him. He threw a punch with his other hand and caught Blake on the side of the face, driving him onto his back and then getting on top of him, but Blake didn’t release his grip on his pistol. When Beardsly reached back to throw another punch, Blake was able to reach up and seize his throat.

  Beardsly’s effort went to keeping Blake’s steel-like fingers from closing on his windpipe. He could feel his body start to cry for air. He tried to turn Blake’s gun around and, in the process, lost his grip on his wrist. Instantly, Blake got off a shot that drilled through Beardsly’s chest, shattering his spinal cord and cutting off the arteries and nerves that delivered the blood to his head and his arms and the neurons to his muscles. In moments, he was like a balloon version of himself, leaking air rapidly and closing in and down on his skeleton. Blake easily tossed him over and stood up.

  He should call it in, he thought, but there wasn’t time to get soaked in this right now. He took out his cell phone and found the number for the St. Regis Hotel. As soon as he had a live person on the line, he identified himself.

  “What’s happening at the hotel around two today?”

  “We have a New York State District Attorney conference,” he was told.

  When he hung up, he dialed Michele Armstrong’s office.

  “I’m sorry, Lieutenant,” Sofia Walters said. “She’s in a ‘do not disturb’ meeting with her new client. Can I take a message?”

  “I’ve got to talk to her now!”

  “Unless there is a personal family crisis, Lieutenant, we’re not permitted to interrupt when a victim is being interviewed by a member of the district attorney’s staff. I’m sorry. I promise—”

  “You make sure to tell her to call me as soon as she’s finished,” he said. “It’s not a family tragedy for her, not yet, but it’s urgent.”

  “I will do,” Sofia replied. “I’m sorry. I’m—”

  He didn’t have time to waste on the phone. After he hung up, Blake stared down at Beardsly’s lifeless body. He wasn’t the first man he had shot and killed in a police action, but Blake was closer to his target than he ha
d ever been. He could see the light slip from Beardsly’s eyes, his soul slipping from his body. He felt this death more than any other. He was close enough for the dark shadow to brush against him and make him sense his own mortality.

  Shaking it off, he left the apartment. Someone across the hall opened his door and peered out, but as soon as Blake appeared, he shut his door. Blake figured he had heard the gunshot, but he wasn’t about to stop and explain. He didn’t even try to wait for the elevator. He bounced down the steps and shot out of the building, hurrying to his car. Moments later, he was off, his bubble light going again, heading for the St. Regis Hotel.

  27

  Aunt Eve’s warning this morning that it was going to be a very dark day haunted Michele. But her aunt had been in a gloomy state of mind ever since Michele had gone to dinner with John Milton. She had lit candles and put up talismans and other charms to ward off evil, even put some on the door to her bedroom. Now she was reciting her own spiritual incantations, inserting Michele’s name into her special prayers. This morning, she was doing it right outside her bedroom door. Michele found herself deliberately avoiding Aunt Eve, and for the first time since moving in with her, she wondered if her mother hadn’t been right to warn her off of living with her aunt. When Eve went into this melancholy and woeful state of mind, she seemed to age right before Michele’s eyes. The bottom line was, she was very depressing.

  Michele sat back in her chair, now even more depressed. Carol Kyle, the woman for whom she was going to seek justice, wasn’t only going to be a disappointment as a witness for herself and in the case against her brother-in-law. She was going to be a disaster. Michele had no doubt that Jerome Rand had forced himself on her, but maybe it was only this one particular time, and as bad as that was, as violent as the photographs revealed, she was afraid Kyle’s obvious equivocation about previous assignations with her brother-in-law, as testified to by her own sister, no matter how innocent Kyle made them seem, would diminish and excuse his recent sexual attack.

  Pictures of bruises weren’t enough. The defense would surely make the point that people can abuse themselves with what some would call overly passionate, even violent sex. There were those who actually claimed to enjoy it more that way. Toward the end of the interview, Kyle’s revelation that this wasn’t the first man she had accused of sexual assault added to Michele’s depression about pursuing the case.

  “How many were there?” Michele asked, tensing in anticipation of the answer. Kyle had made this claim as if it had been some sort of an accomplishment, something that proved how attractive she was.

  “Two, three,” she said, shrugging. She brushed back her shoulder-length dark brown hair. She had come to the office made up enough for a magazine photo shoot. Maybe she thought they were going to take more pictures and one or more of them would find its way into the newspapers. How could Eleanor think this would be a good witness?

  “What is it, Carol, two or three? You can’t estimate something like that.”

  “Three. Because other women let them get away with it, they thought they would with me,” she said petulantly. “They were in for a surprise.”

  “Charges were filed?”

  “Yes, but only one actually resulted in a court hearing,” she said. “The others were settled.”

  “Settled? How settled? With money?” she asked, grimacing.

  “Well, they paid,” she said, her eyes wide. Michele would certainly have to insist that she cut down on makeup if and when she was in court. She had enough mascara on to last a week in the rain. “I wasn’t going to let them get away with not paying somehow.”

  “And the one who had the court hearing?”

  “He settled for community service or something.”

  Michele could feel the bottom falling out of her self-confidence. It felt as if she was sitting on an inner tube that was deflating. John Milton’s admonition left on her voice mail was ringing in her ears: “Someone is setting you up for another fall.”

  “We’ll talk again before we decide how we’ll go forward,” Michele told the victim. Could she feel comfortable even calling her that? “Don’t talk about this case with anyone else, not even your sister now.”

  “Oh, we’re not speaking,” she said. “Actually, she was the one who stole boyfriends, not me.”

  Now what, Michele wondered, a revelation of sibling rivalry when it came to men? This could raise the question in the jury’s mind about whether Kyle had enticed her sister’s husband to prove a point or better her. She raised her hand like a traffic officer. “Okay, that’s enough,” she said.

  Carol Kyle could see the skepticism in Michele’s face. “Well, everyone believes me, not him, and certainly not my sister,” she ranted. “I’m not the first woman he cheated on her with.”

  “We’ll talk again,” Michele said, forcing a smile. She stood up and practically escorted her out of the conference room, closing the door quickly behind her and returning to her seat.

  For a few moments, she just sat and stared at nothing, dazed. Then she nodded to herself and started to get up to go see Eleanor Rozwell. She was going to tell her that the best she hoped for was a plea deal. If Eleanor refused to let that happen, she was determined to go to Mike Barrett and plead the strategy. There was no question that it would look like the retreat it was, and after a dramatic loss, she knew it didn’t bode well for her future, but it was the sensible way to go. Maybe Mike would respect her for that.

  Before she could stand, Sofia entered, her face telegraphing something serious enough to justify bursting in rather than buzzing her. She looked as if the words were ready to explode from inside her cheeks.

  Michele settled back in her seat. “What?”

  “Lieutenant Blake called ten minutes ago. He wanted me to break in on your session with Carol Kyle. He insists you call him immediately. He sounded very disturbed. I’m sorry. I hope I wasn’t wrong not to interrupt you, but . . .”

  “No, you were right,” she said, releasing the fear and tension that had seized her body. All she could imagine was that something terrible had happened to a member of her family, but it was just Matthew being overly dramatic. After the way he had behaved and the things he had said the day before, she was sure of it. “I’ll take care of it. Thank you, Sofia.”

  The moment she stepped out, she called Matthew, a little annoyed that she had to take the time to do it right this moment. She almost hung up and put it off before he answered, but she had no idea what he might do to get her attention next time. He might even drive over and burst in on her while she was talking with Eleanor or Mike.

  “Thank God you called,” he said.

  “What’s happening, Matthew?” she asked. She was unable to hide the fatigue and depression in her voice. To her surprise, he didn’t jump on that as she had anticipated. He was obviously very excited about something new.

  “Good, good. I see from the number that you’re still at the office. Good.”

  “Yes, Matthew, I’m still here. I just finished interviewing a victim.”

  “The rape case? The one you thought was more complicated?”

  “Yes, yes. So what is going on? You nearly scared my secretary to death,” she said, not hiding her annoyance.

  “She should be frightened. We all should be.”

  “Why? Where are you?”

  “I’m almost to the St. Regis Hotel. I was calling to tell you that if you were coming here, don’t.”

  “Why would I be going there?”

  “There’s a New York state prosecutors’ conference there.”

  “What? Oh, damn. I forgot,” she said. She’d have to wait to talk to either Eleanor or Mike, probably until the morning. “Why are you going there?”

  “John Milton has sent Sam Lonegan there. I’m sure of it.”

  “Who’s Sam Lonegan?”

  “The man who died in prison and was cremated and just resurrected, the one I told you about yesterday.”

  “What are you saying? You’r
e making my head spin. Why would John Milton send anyone there, much less a—what? A resurrected man? What are you going to do, Matthew?”

  “I’m going to stop him. Don’t worry. I figured it out. It all makes sense to me now.”

  “What does?”

  “He’s going to have Mike Barrett assassinated, and he’s going to put up his own candidate for district attorney in a special election soon after.”

  “Who? John Milton? He’s going to have the district attorney assassinated? Is that what you’re saying, Matthew? Do you know how ridiculous this is sounding?”

  “Didn’t you hear what I said? It makes sense. He’ll control it all. I never told you all of it when I told you about my religious studies, Michele, and what changed my mind about my future. I had discovered that the Satanists had infiltrated the Vatican. Eventually, he’ll have the pope, too.”

  “The pope? Matthew, you’re not making sense. Look,” she said, taking a deep breath, “I’ll meet you somewhere. We’ll have coffee and talk. I promise.”

  He surprised her by laughing.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Of course, you would suggest that, Michele. You don’t realize it, but you’re already in his control. Don’t you see? He wants you to stop me from getting to the hotel in time. You don’t even realize what you’re doing.”

  “Stop you? How does he know you’re on your way there, Matthew?”

  “Oh, he knows now. I’ve already eliminated part of his plot.”

  “What part? How? What have you done? What do you mean by eliminated?”

  “Mark my words, Michele, one way or another, you’ll be working for John Milton if I don’t stop him. I’m saving you as much as I’m saving Mike Barrett.”

  “Matthew, please listen,” she began, but he hung up. She redialed, but his voice mail came on. “Damn,” she said, and marched out of the office. She didn’t stop to tell Sofia anything. She just ran down the hallway to the elevator to see if she could get to the St. Regis in time to stop something terrible, whatever that was.

  As soon as he hung up on Michele, Matthew pulled his car to the curb on Fifth Avenue near Fifty-Fifth Street and sat there for a moment. The sky had grown overcast. The air smelled like rain was coming. He could almost hear the shadows unfolding in alleyways. Evil was rising out of the earth like steam from hot springs. Everything he saw and heard reconfirmed his suspicions. This was to be a day when tragedy emerged from wherever it had been incubating and put its mark of Cain on the face of mankind. Unless, of course, he could stop it.