Nickel City Storm Warning (Gideon Rimes Book 3)

by Gary Earl Ross

  The night you are widowed by the wolf, however, kills all future memory. What is past stays past, but now, and ever after, you are fixed in a horrifying present that includes the events of that night and pushes you so far outside yourself you remain a distant observer of your own life. Every day is HERE. Every day is NOW. Every day is IT, happening all over again. So all you ever want to do is scream.

  You and Grant are seated before another fire in the darkened living room, watching a recent Dracula film on the large flat screen above the fireplace. In an old sweatshirt and stretchy jeans, you are clipping and sorting grocery coupons from the Sunday Post. Occasionally you take a few kernels of microwave popcorn from Grant’s bag. You take turns answering the chimes and dishing out Snickers and Milky Way miniatures to giggling children who gather on the flagstones outside your front door. Sometimes one of you calls the other to see a particularly imaginative costume. Standing together to look at children dressed for Halloween reminds you of Miranda, now in grad school herself, in distant London with her British fiancé. You miss her childhood and her smile. Though neither of you has mentioned it, you know you both temper the absence of your only child with hope for a grandchild.

  The number of witches, monsters, and superheroes lessens as the evening progresses. Twice you give candy to children so tall you admonish them for being too old to go trick-or-treating. As Grant is on his way to turn off the front light and signal the end of the candy giveaway, the chimes sound one last time. You glance toward the door as Grant opens it and see more kids too old to beg for candy—four of them, in dark hoodies and some kind of Mardi Gras masks. As you rise to chide them, they push through the storm door, two of them seizing Grant’s arms and the one holding a white plastic jug punching him in the gut before slamming the front door behind them. The fourth one is rushing toward you as a scream rises in your throat.

  A glove so filthy you can taste dirt clamps over your mouth. You are spun around, a thick arm locks around your waist, and pungent breath hits your right cheek. Stomach clenching, you are held in place to see whatever will happen to your husband. These are not teenagers, you realize with increasing horror, but men, young men, gloved and dressed all in black. Their masks are not actual masks, but white and black paint applied to make the lower half of their faces look like living skulls.

  Doubled over and gasping, Grant says, “What do you want?”

  As two of them hold him up, the one with what looks like a gallon jug of bleach switches off the inside and outside lights. With illumination from the fireplace and the flat-screen TV above it, everything is now in flickering shadows. Setting down the jug, the man steps into the dining room and drags a chair back past the entryway to the carpet. As he grabs a few chocolate miniatures from the big bowl near the door, the other two force Grant to sit. Producing rolls of nylon cord from their pockets, they tie him to the chair, one securing his upper body, the other his legs. When they are ready to tie their knots, the man now chewing chocolate takes out a small knife. He cuts the cords from what remains on the rolls. Folding and pocketing his knife, he then takes out a red rubber ball, which he stuffs into Grant’s mouth.

  “So you’re Grant Gibbons,” he says. His voice is harsh, gravelly. “The jig trying to investigate us.”

  The man on Grant’s left cackles. “You got a funny name, old man.” The timbre of his voice is like steel scraping the nerves in your ears. “You know a gibbon is a kinda monkey, right?” He cackles again.

  Gravel Voice takes his time opening the last chocolate and popping it into his mouth. Then he leans in so close it almost seems he wants to kiss your husband. “Well, we’re here, porch monkey, to do some investigating of our own.”

  “Yeah!” says the man on Grant’s right. “Say hello to Liberty Storm. For real.”

  Liberty Storm? Before you can register that the name belongs to one of the groups Grant has been researching for a Post series on white supremacy, Gravel Voice straightens to his full height and throws another punch. The expulsion of air and snot from Grant’s nostrils makes you struggle against the man holding you. But he squeezes your face so hard your jaw hurts. “Hold still, you old black bitch!” His voice is a menacing whisper. “You fight, it’ll be a lot worse when it’s your turn.”

  Gravel Voice looks at you for a long moment. “She don’t need to see this, especially if she’s gonna give you trouble. She ain’t that big. Just hold her down.”

  You are turned again and forced backwards onto the leather sectional, your glasses askew and your arms beneath you, atop the newspaper you’ve been clipping. The back of the couch blocks your vision. The only man you can see straddles you, his weight immobilizing you. He is positioned so light from the fireplace magnifies every detail of his face. Between the blackened nose and cheeks of his faux skull and the upper edge of his black hood are eyes so blue and intense you shudder. But you cannot look away.

  The sound of the next punch makes you try even harder to throw off the young man. Smiling before he spits into your face, he pushes your head down deeper into the cushion. “I’m gonna enjoy what we do to you!” The spit dripping off your right lens near your nose smells of garlic.

  “So you wanna know who we are and how we’re organized?” Gravel Voice again. He is the leader—perhaps of this particular team, perhaps of Liberty Storm itself. “You wanna know how we’re funded and where we meet?” Another blow lands, and Grant cries out through the rubber ball. “Well, we want to know where your informant is hiding.” Still another blow. “Tell us where we can find Jody Cropper and we’ll end this sooner.”

  There is no mistaking the rhythm of what vibrates through the ball gagging Grant: “Fuck you!”

  Then several blows land in rapid succession, hard blows, too many to have come from a single assailant. The sound of your husband’s muffled pain makes your eyes fill. Your own screams stifled by the glove, you try arching your back, thrashing your legs, but Garlic Spit draws back a fist.

  “Hey, man, hold on!” Gravel Voice calls out. “She’s old but her lips are definitely DSLs. Don’t hurt ‘em till we’re done with her mouth!”

  The man holding you laughs. “Yeah, I guess broken teeth could be a problem.” He shifts his weight just enough for your left arm to wriggle out from under your back. “Is he gonna get to watch her choke on the latex lollipop?”

  Blood flowing into them again, the fingers of your left hand touch something metal. You remember the coupons.

  “Course!” Gravel Voice says. “After he sees what we do to every slot she’s got, he’s gonna tell us what we want to know. Then he’s gonna beg to die.”

  “Her too,” the Cackler says. “After ATM.”

  “But it’ll be slow for both of you unless you give him up,” Gravel Voice says to Grant. “Tell us where to find Cropper and we’ll make it quick.” And the punching resumes.

  Now that you know you’re going to die, you think of the white gallon jug. Bleach or accelerant? It doesn’t matter. Either one means these men plan to destroy evidence of murder. Even though you, a reader of crime fiction and crime fact, know they are leaving trace everywhere—hairs, fibers, shoe scrapings, paint flecks, garlic spit—they have tried to think ahead. If you have any chance of coming out of this alive, then, you must think ahead too. You must choose your next action carefully. You squeeze your eyes shut and will the tension to slip away. You listen, trying to envision what you cannot see, what you wish not to see but must if you are to survive.

  Your mind begins to construct the scene in which you are caught. You, pinned to the couch. Your husband, tied to a chair and beaten by three men, is near the front door. You try to picture this tableau without passion so you can see beyond it. Beside the door is your security system keypad. A push of the panic button would set off the alarm siren and a call to police when you didn’t answer the security company phone call. But to reach the keypad, you will have to unseat the man holding you down and get past the three assaulting Grant. They will stop you, and with Gran
t in no position to help, you will fail. You must consider another possibility.

  If you can make it to the fireplace just a few feet away, there is a poker on the tool stand. If you can get your hands on that, maybe…but what if they have a gun? So far all you’ve seen is bleach or accelerant and a small pocket knife. If they had a gun, wouldn’t they have shown it already? Even so, a poker against four men? Terrible odds.

  Then you remember Grant’s desk, in the corner beyond your head. The phone is to the left of his desktop computer…but even if you manage to dial nine-one-one, these men will get to you before you can give details to the dispatcher. So you think of Grant’s handgun, a revolver. He has a concealed carry permit for Virginia but has taken the gun into DC when he’s had to cover news in dicey areas. When Miranda was at home, he kept it in one of two places—at night in the small lockbox upstairs on the bedside stand’s second shelf or when he was in and out of the house during the day in the top drawer of the desk. Gun or no gun, the drawer was always locked against the curiosity of your child. Now that she is grown, you wonder if he still locks it, if the gun, which you have not seen for so long, is even there. If it isn’t you’re both dead. If it is, at least you have a chance.

  You close your fingers around the scissors you felt when Garlic Spit shifted his weight. The pointed blades are perhaps three inches long. Even as the beating continues, you open your eyes and look up into your captor’s face. You have relaxed a bit, so he has relaxed a bit. Now he is looking to his right, watching what the other three are doing to Grant—waiting, you imagine, for his own turn. You look at his throat, at his Adam’s apple, and hope your memory of biology class is accurate. Taking and holding a deep breath through your nostrils, you ease your arm past your side and as quickly as possible jam one blade of the scissors into the right side of his throat, pushing so hard you reach the pivot screw as warmth spills onto your hand.

  The man grunts and clutches his throat, tumbling off you, leaving you still holding the scissors as spurting blood confirms you hit the jugular. So much blood! But you cannot waver. You roll to your right and scramble over his twitching body, losing your glasses. The beating stops as Grant’s assailants begin to process what has happened. You make it to the desk and, still on your knees, jerk open the top drawer—unlocked, thank God! Dropping the scissors, you reach inside for the gun—still there, thank God! The box of bullets beside it suggests the gun may be unloaded but you have no time to check, no time to load. Standing, you turn to face the men starting toward you. You raise the gun.

  They stop.

  For a moment there is dead silence. Hood lowered and blond hair unruly, the man you’ve thought of as Gravel Voice appears to smile, as if doubting your resolve, but in the flickering firelight, the only thing you are certain you see in his face is cruelty in pale eyes beneath blond eyebrows. So, calmly, you point the gun at him, the leader, right hand resting in the cup of your left and neither hand shaking. You do not know if the gun is loaded or you would pull the trigger until all these men lie dead at your feet. You do know it is too dark for them to see from where they are whether bullets are in the cylinder. You cannot afford to show any doubt in your expression. You thumb back the hammer, the click louder than you expected, and take a step forward. Gravel Voice must read the certainty in your face. He steps back, hands rising as if in surrender. The two men behind him backpedal to the door, ease it open, and disappear into the night. After a hesitant glance at his now motionless friend lying between your couch and coffee table, Gravel Voice spins around and darts out after them.

  Gun still pointed in front of you, you hurry across the room to lock the front door. Then you push the police button on your alarm panel. As the siren screams, you lower the gun and, shaking, go to your husband. So much blood. Face swollen, nose split and flattened, he is barely conscious, but his eyes are full of tears mixed with blood. Setting down the gun, you slip a thumb and forefinger into his mouth to remove the wet rubber ball. He tries to speak, utters something that sounds like, “sorry,” but you cannot be certain with the alarm so loud. You say, “Shhh,” as his head lolls to one side and he vomits more blood. Uncertain what else to do, you return to the desk to pick up your dropped scissors so you can free him. The desk phone begins to ring as you cut the cords holding him up. The security company. If you do not answer, they will dispatch help at once. You let the phone ring and ring.

  The police have to break down the door because the alarm is still screeching and through one of the sidelight windows they see Grant’s legs on the carpet. Like the dead assailant in front of the couch, Grant’s twitching has long since stopped. Police find you cradling his head in your lap and shrieking as you hold his .357 Magnum to your temple. The alarm makes it impossible to hear each drop of the hammer onto an empty chamber, but every time you squeeze the trigger and find yourself still breathing, you scream anew and pull the trigger again.

  6

  Bobby was in the hospital for three days and spent the next few weeks restricted from his usual schedule of board meetings, public talks, and coffee with friends. His partner, retired Family Court Judge Kayla Baker McQueen, abandoned her waterfront condo to move in and care for him—as he had moved into her place years earlier after she had surgery. Serving as a cross between a caregiver and a gatekeeper, Kayla prepared his meals, though he was a better cook than she was, and monitored his steady stream of visitors.

  Bobby’s third-floor apartment was right above mine on two. For the first week, I let myself in each morning to check on him before I went to my office. The first few days, Friday through Tuesday, I found Kayla in the kitchen and Bobby either lying on the sofa or still in bed, annoyed at abdominal discomfort or in the throes of a headache. By the following Friday, the rich brown skin of his face was tighter than it had been after surgery, and he was dressed as he read the morning paper over coffee. The second Monday the kitchen was empty. From behind the bedroom door came the voice of Isaac Hayes singing “Walk on By,” which in Bobby’s day, he once told me, had meant not to knock on the dorm room door. I eased the apartment door shut, deciding to call before my next morning visit.

  Evenings were different. From the beginning, however worn out he looked, Bobby would receive visitors after dinner. When I entered his book-lined living room his first Friday evening home, I saw Kayla beside him on the leather sofa and Eduardo Colon perpendicular to them in the matching stuffed chair. A DACA teenager Phoenix had represented pro bono after his mother was deported to El Salvador, Eddie was a shy, lanky kid with thick black hair, light brown skin, and no trace of a Spanish accent. He had been joining us for holiday meals since last summer and had slept on my futon when his dorm was closed during semester breaks. He was family enough to be on my call list when Bobby was hospitalized.

  Hoping to become an investigative journalist, Eddie had helped me solve a murder in Ohio last May. Now at the end of his freshman year as the first recipient of Buffalo State’s Robert Chance Scholarship in Language Arts and Communications, he had come at the start of exam week to check on his benefactor. By the time I came home, he was summarizing for Dr. Bobby and Miss Kayla the highlights of his year—Dean’s list first semester and likely the second once exams were done, two student journalism awards, a public speaking award, and a poem in the campus literary journal. His Intro to Journalism professor forwarded to the Buffalo News his essay on immigration. In it, he described how his half-sisters and their father found asylum with cousins in Canada while Eddie and his mother were denied entry at the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls because Pilar Colon and Alberto Vega had never married. The essay’s publication had got Eddie a summer dorm room and an internship at the paper.

  “I’m so proud of you,” Bobby said in a fluttery voice when Eddie finished. “Your mother must be pleased.”

  “I write her two letters every week,” Eddie said. “She always tells me to thank my professors…and to pray every day for you, Dr. Bobby, for everything you’ve done for me.”

 
“I hope you can take me to meet her someday,” Bobby said, “and the rest of your family in Toronto.” At the limit of his endurance for the day, he cleared his throat and tried to rise. Kayla helped him, adjusting his robe. “When I’m able to get around better, let’s have a nice dinner to celebrate.”

  Most nights I heard voices and laughter or music before I let myself in. Usually, Bobby had one or two visitors, sometimes three or four—old friends, former students, and retired colleagues from Buff State. Some of his visitors I knew, while others I had heard of but never met. The students were grateful to have studied under him. Stunned at the news of his assault, they came to reassure themselves he was all right. No matter how much pain he was in, Bobby beamed with pride when they talked of the milestones in their lives—career accomplishments, marriages and children, unusual travel. Likewise, over beer or wine, both of which he started sipping as he began his second week home, his colleagues recounted this or that departmental battle or academic freedom issue that would have turned out for the worse if Bobby had not been a key figure. For student visits, Kayla tended to keep herself in the background until Bobby looked tired or showed signs of another headache, at which point she suggested he rest. For his friends, many of whom she knew, she was the gracious hostess, pouring drinks and serving desserts. Anytime I heard only the television, I imagined them curled up together on the sofa and retreated downstairs.

  On his second Wednesday evening, I was surprised to find Ayodele Ibazebo, a former student who was now an emergency room physician at Buffalo General. Visiting her parents in Nigeria when her favorite professor had been attacked, she had nevertheless learned of his hospitalization and sent texts and emails to express her concern. Now that she was back, he was the first person she wanted to see. A year and a half earlier, during my hospitalization for a gunshot wound, Kayla had met Dr. Ibazebo, who was about the same age as her daughter Alaila, a working actress in Manhattan. Now Kayla was happy to bring out a plate of fresh brownies and join the conversation. After one brownie, I excused myself.