A Maiden's Grave

by Jeffery Deaver

  "Why did he take the girls?"

  "He needed them. With the delay he knew he didn't have time to get the money and make it to the airport--with the cops right on his tail. But he wasn't going to leave without the cash. Lou figured with the hostages inside and me working to get him out, it didn't matter how many cops were at the slaughterhouse. He'd get out sooner or later. He radioed me from inside and I agreed to convince the FBI to give him a helicopter. That didn't work but by then I remembered Sharon Foster's negotiation with Handy a few years ago. I found out where she was stationed now and called Pris Gunder--his girlfriend--and told her to drive over to Foster's house. Then I pretended I was a trooper and called Ted Franklin at state police."

  Potter asked, "So your heart-rending offer to give yourself up for the girls . . . that was all an act."

  "I did want them out. I didn't want anyone to die. Of course not!"

  Of course, Potter thought cynically. "Where's Handy now?"

  "I have no idea. Once he got out of the barricade that was it. I'd done everything I'd agreed. I told him he was on his own."

  Potter shook his head. Budd asked coldly, "Tell me, Marks, how's it feel to've murdered those troopers?"

  "No! He promised me he wouldn't kill anyone! His girlfriend was just going to handcuff Foster. He--"

  "And the other troopers? The escort?"

  Marks stared at the captain for a minute and when no credible lie came to mind whispered, "It wasn't supposed to work out like this. It wasn't."

  "Call for some baby-sitters," Potter said. But before Budd could, his phone buzzed.

  "Hello?" He listened for a moment. His eyes went wide. "Where? Okay, we're moving."

  Potter cocked an eyebrow.

  "They found the other squad car, the one Handy and his girlfriend were in. He's going south, looks like. Toward Oklahoma. The cruiser was twenty miles past the booking center. There was a couple in the trunk. Dead. Handy and his girlfriend must've stolen their wheels. No ID on them so we don't have a make or tag yet." Budd stepped close to the assistant AG. The captain growled, "The only good news is that Handy was in a hurry. They died fast."

  Marks grunted in pain as Budd spun him around and shoved him hard into the wall. Potter did nothing to interfere. Budd tied the attorney's hands together with plastic wrist restraints then cuffed his right wrist to the bed frame.

  "It's too tight," Marks whined.

  Budd threw him down on the bed. "Let's go, Arthur. He's got a hell of a lead on us. Brother, he could be nearly to Texas by now."

  She was surrounded by the Outside.

  And yet it wasn't as hard as she'd thought.

  Oh, she supposed the driver had honked furiously at her when she crossed the center line a moment ago. But, all things considered, she was doing fine. Melanie Charrol had never in her life driven a car. Many deaf people did, of course, even if they weren't supposed to, but Melanie had always been too afraid. Her fear wasn't that she'd be in an accident. Rather, she was terrified that she'd do something wrong and be embarrassed. Maybe get in the wrong lane. Stop too far away from a red light or too close. People would gather around the car and laugh at her.

  But now she was cruising down Route 677 like a pro. She didn't have musician's ears any longer but she had musician's hands, sensitive and strong. And those fingers learned quickly not to overcompensate on the wheel and she sped straight toward her destination.

  Lou Handy had had a purpose; well, so did she.

  Bad is simple and good is complicated. And the simple always wins. That's what everything comes down to in the end. Simple always wins . . . that's just nature and you know what kind of trouble people get into ignoring nature.

  Through the night, forty miles an hour, fifty, sixty.

  She glanced down at the dashboard. Many of the dials and knobs made no sense to her. But she recognized the radio. She turned switches until it lit up: 103.4. Eyes flicking up and down, she figured out which was the volume and pushed the button until the line in the LED indicator was all the way at full. She heard nothing at first but then she turned up the bass level and she heard thumps and occasionally the sliding sound of tones and notes. The low register, Beethoven's register. That portion of her hearing had never deserted her completely.

  Maybe his Ninth Symphony was playing, the soaring, inspiring "Ode to Joy." This seemed too coincidental, considering her mission at the moment, and 103.4 was probably rap or heavy metal. But it sent a powerful, irresistible beat through her chest. That was enough for her.

  There!

  She braked the car to a screeching stop in the deserted parking lot of the hardware supply store. The windows held just the assortment of goods she'd been looking for.

  The brick sailed tidily through the glass and if it set off an alarm, which it probably did, she couldn't hear it so she felt no particular pressure to hurry. Melanie leaned forward and selected what seemed to be the sharpest knife in the display, a ten-inch butcher, Chicago Cutlery. She returned leisurely to the driver's seat, dropped the long blade on the seat next to her, then put the car in gear and sped away.

  As she forced the engine to speed the car up to seventy through the huge gusts of silent wind, Melanie thought of Susan Phillips. Who would soon be sleeping forever in a grave as silent as her life had been.

  A Maiden's Grave . . .

  Oh, Susan, Susan . . . I'm not you. I can't be you and I won't even ask you to forgive me for that, though I would have once. After today I know I can't listen to imaginary music for the rest of my life. I know if you were alive now you'd hate me for this. But I want to hear words, I want to hear streams of snazzy consonants and vowels, I want to hear my music.

  You were Deaf of Deaf, Susan. That made you strong, even if it killed you. I've been safe because I'm weak. But I can't be weak anymore. I'm an Other and that's just the way it is.

  And Melanie realizes now, with a shock, why she could understand that son of a bitch Brutus so well. Because she is like him. She feels exactly what he feels.

  Oh, I want to hurt, I want to pay them all back: Fate, taking my music away from me. My father, scheming to keep it away. Brutus and the man who hired him, kidnaping us, toying with us, hurting us, every one of us--the students, Mrs. Harstrawn, that poor trooper. And of course Susan.

  The car raced through the night, one of her elegant hands on the steering wheel, one caressing the sensuous wooden handle of the knife.

  Amazing grace, how sweet the sound . . .

  The wind buffeted the car fiercely and, overhead, black strips of clouds raced through the cold sky at a thousand miles an hour.

  That saved a wretch like me.

  I once was lost but now I'm found.

  Was blind, but now I see.

  Melanie dropped the knife back onto the seat and gripped the wheel in both hands, listening to the powerful bass beat resonate in her chest. She supposed the wind howled like a mad wolf but of course that was something she couldn't know for sure.

  So you'll be home then.

  Never.

  They were three miles outside of Crow Ridge, speeding south, when Budd sat up straight, making his perfect posture that much better. His head snapped toward Potter.

  "Arthur!"

  The FBI agent cringed. "Of course. Oh, hell!"

  The car skidded to a stop on the highway, ending up perpendicular to the roadway and blocking both lanes.

  "Where is it, Charlie? Where?"

  "A half-mile that way," Budd cried, pointing to the right. "That intersection we just passed. It's a shortcut. It'll take us right there."

  Arthur Potter, otherwise the irritatingly prudent driver, took the turn at speed and, on the verge of an irrigation ditch, managed to control his mad, tire-smoking skid.

  "Oh, brother," Budd muttered, though it wasn't Potter's insane driving but his own stupidity he was lamenting. "I can't believe I didn't think of it before."

  Potter was furious with himself too. He realized exactly where Handy was. Not going south a
t all but heading directly back to his money. All the other evidence had been removed from the slaughterhouse by the police. But Crime Scene had never gotten the scrambled radio--or the cash. They were still there, hidden. Hundreds of thousands of dollars.

  As he drove, hunched over the wheel, Potter asked Budd to call Tobe at Melanie's house. When the connection was completed he took the phone from the captain.

  "Where's Frank and HRT?" the agent asked.

  "Hold on," Tobe responded. "I'll find out." A moment later he came back on. "They're about to touch down in Virginia."

  Potter sighed. "Damn. Okay, call Ted Franklin and Dean Stillwell, have them send some men to the slaughterhouse. Handy's on his way. If he's not there already. But it's vital not to spook him. This might be our only chance to nail him. I want them to roll in without lights and sirens and park at least a half-mile away on side roads. Remember to tell him Handy's armed and extremely dangerous. Tell him we're going to be inside. Charlie and me."

  "Where are you now?"

  "Hold on." Potter asked Budd, who gave him their whereabouts. Into the phone he said, "Charlie says, Hitchcock Road, just off Route 345. About two minutes away."

  A pause.

  "Charlie Budd's with you?" Tobe asked uncertainly.

  "Well, sure. You saw him leave with me."

  "But you took both cars."

  "No. We just took mine."

  Another pause. "Hold on, Arthur."

  Uneasy, Potter said to Budd, "Something's going on there. At Melanie's."

  Come on, Tobe. Talk to me.

  A moment later the young agent came on. "She's gone, Arthur. Melanie. She left the shower running and took the other car."

  A chill ran through him. Potter said, "She's going to the Holiday Inn to kill Marks."

  "What?" Budd cried.

  "She doesn't know his name. But she knows the room number. She saw what I wrote down."

  "And I left him trussed up there without a guard. I forgot to call."

  Potter remembered the look in her eyes, the cold fire. He asked Tobe, "Did she take a weapon? Was there one in the car?"

  Tobe called something to LeBow.

  "No, we've both got ours. Nothing in the car."

  "Well, get some troopers over to the hotel fast." He had an image of her madly going for Marks despite the troopers. If she had a gun or knife they'd kill her instantly.

  "Okay, Arthur," Tobe said. "We're on it."

  Just then the sulky landscape took on a familiar tone--deja vu from a recurring nightmare. A moment later the slaughterhouse loomed ahead of them. The battlefield was littered with coffee cups and tread marks--from squad cars, not the swales of covered wagons. The field was deserted. Potter folded up the phone and handed it back to Budd. He cut the engine and coasted silently the last fifty feet.

  "What about Melanie?" Budd whispered.

  There was no time to think about her. The agent lifted his finger to his lips and gestured toward the door. The two men stepped outside into the fierce wind.

  They were walking through the gully down which Stevie Oates had carried Shannon and Kielle like bags of wheat.

  "Through the front door?" Budd whispered.

  Potter nodded yes. It was wide open; they could enter without having to risk squeaky hinges. Besides, the windows were five feet off the ground. Budd might make the climb but Potter, already exhausted and breathing heavily, knew that he wouldn't be able to.

  They remained motionless for some minutes but there was no sign of Handy. No cars in sight, no headlights approaching, no flashlights. And no sound except that of the extraordinary wind.

  Potter nodded toward the front door.

  They crouched and hurried between hillocks up to the front of the slaughterhouse, the red-and-white brick, blood and bone. They paused beside the spot where the body of Tremain's trooper had been dumped.

  The pipe by the window, Potter remembered. Filled with half a million dollars, the bait drawing Handy back to us.

  They paused on either side of the door.

  This isn't me, Potter thought suddenly. This isn't what I was meant to do. I'm a man of words, not a soldier. It's not that I'm afraid. But I'm out of my depth.

  Not afraid, not afraid . . .

  Though he was.

  Why? Because, he supposes, for the first time in years, there is someone else in his life. Somehow, existence has become somewhat more precious to him in the past twelve hours. Yes, I want to talk to her, to Melanie. I want to tell her things, I want to hear how her day went. And, yes, yes, I want to take her hand and climb the stairs after dinner, feel the heat of her breath on my ear, feel the motion of her body beneath me. I want that! I . . .

  Budd tapped his shoulder. Potter nodded and, guns before them, they stepped inside the slaughterhouse.

  Like a cave.

  Darkness everywhere. The wind roared through the holes and ill-fitting joints of the old place so loudly that the men could hear virtually nothing else. They stepped instinctively behind a large metal structure, some kind of housing. And waited. Gradually Potter's eyes became accustomed to the inky darkness. He could just make out two slightly lighter squares of the windows on the other side of the door. Beside the closest one was a stubby pipe about two feet in diameter, rising in an L shape from the floor like a vent on a ship. Potter pointed to it and Budd squinted, nodding.

  As they made their way forward, like blind men, Potter understood what Melanie had gone through here. The wind stole his hearing, the darkness his vision. And the cold was dulling his sense of touch and smell.

  They paused, Potter feeling panic stream down his spine like ice water. Once he gasped as Budd lifted his hand alarmingly and dropped into a crouch. Potter too had seen the leveraging shadow but it turned out to be merely a piece of sheet metal bending in the breeze.

  Then they were five yards from the pipe. Potter stopped, looked around slowly. Heard nothing other than the wind. Turned back.

  They started forward but Budd was tapping his shoulder. The captain whispered, "Don't slip. Something's spilled there. Oil, looks like."

  Potter too looked underfoot. There were large dots of silvery liquid--more like mercury than water or oil--at the base of the pipe. He bent down, reached forward with a finger.

  He touched cold metal.

  Not oil.

  Steel nuts.

  The end plate was off the pipe.

  Handy had been here al--

  The gunshot came from no more than ten feet away. An ear-shattering bang, ringing painfully off the tile and metal and exposed wet brick.

  Potter and Budd spun around.

  Nothing, blackness. The faint motion of shadow as clouds obscured the moon.

  Then the choked sound of Charlie Budd whispering, "I'm sorry, Arthur."

  "What?"

  "I'm . . . I'm sorry. I'm hit."

  The shot had been fired into his back. He fell to his knees and Potter saw the ragged exit wound low in his belly. Budd keeled over onto the floor.

  The agent started forward instinctively. Careful, he reminded himself, turning toward where the gunshot had come from. Guard yourself first.

  The piece of pipe caught Potter squarely on the shoulder, knocking the wind out of him. He dropped hard to the ground and felt the sinewy hand yank his pistol from his grip.

  "You alone? You two?" Handy's voice was a whisper.

  Potter couldn't speak. Handy twisted his arm up behind his back, bent a little finger brutally. The pain surged through Potter's hand into his jaw and head. "Yes, yes. Just the two of us."

  Handy grunted as he rolled Potter over and bound his hands before him with thin wire, the strands cutting into his flesh.

  "There's no way you're going to--" Potter began.

  Then a blurring motion, as Handy was slammed sideways into the pipe where the money'd been hidden. With a hollow ringing sound, the side of his head connected with the metal.

  Charlie Budd, face dripping sweat as copious as the blood he shed, dr
ew back his fist once more and slammed it into Handy's kidney. The convict wheezed with pain and pitched forward.

  As Potter struggled futilely to get to his feet, Budd groped in the dark for his service automatic. He felt himself starting to black out and lurched sideways. Recovered slightly then staggered into a large cube of stained butcher block.

  Handy leapt at him, growling in fury, throwing his arms around Budd's neck, pulling him down to the floor. The convict had been hurt, yes, but he still had his strength; Budd's was draining rapidly from his body.

  "Oh, brother," Budd coughed. "I can't--"

  Handy took Budd by the hair. "Come on, sport. Only round one."

  "Go to hell," the trooper whispered.

  "There's a boy." Handy got his arms around Budd and pulled him to his feet. "Ain't heard the bell. Come on. Fans're waiting."

  The trooper, bleeding badly, eyes unfocused, pulled away and began flailing at Handy's lean face. One blow struck with surprising force and the convict jerked back in surprise. But after the initial burst of pain dissipated, Handy laughed. "Come on," he taunted. "Sugar Ray, come on . . . ." When Budd connected a final time Handy moved in close and rained a half-dozen blows into his face. Budd dropped to his knees.

  "Hey, down for the count."

  "Leave him . . . alone," Potter called.

  Handy pulled the gun from his belt.

  "No!" the agent cried.

  "Arthur . . ."

  To Potter, Handy said, "He's lucky I'm doing it this way. I had more time, wouldn't be painless. Nosir."

  "Listen to me," Potter began desperately.

  "Shhh," Handy whispered.

  The wind swelled, a mournful wail.

  The three gunshots were fast and were soon replaced by the sound of Potter's voice crying, "Oh, Charlie, no, no, no . . . ."

  3:00 A.M.

  Through the murky chutes, where the condemned longhorns had walked, between rectangular boulders of butcher block, beneath a thousand rusting meat hooks, clanging like bells . . .

  And all the while the wind screamed around them, hooting through crevices and broken windows like a steam whistle on a tug.

  Potter's wrists stung from the wire. He thought of Melanie's hands. Of her perfect nails. He thought of her hair, spun honey. He wished fervently that he'd kissed her earlier in the evening. With his tongue he pushed a tooth, loosened in his fall, from its precarious perch and spit it out. His mouth filled and he spit again; blood spurted to the floor.