by Don Weston
“Oh, it doesn’t record voices,” she said. “Still, I might see if Larry could make the recorder malfunction during your visit. It gets really political in here. A tremendous amount of backbiting goes on in these corridors.”
“What about other staff?” I said. “Are there any secretaries or other people who might have been here yesterday?”
“The only other people were Bob Blaney, the city auditor, and Commissioner Tuttle did stop in for a few minutes during the lunch hour, but they were in their offices. Hmm.”
“Did you think of something?”
“Yes. I just remembered. Blaney went into Tuttle’s office for about ten minutes. I heard some yelling and when Blaney came out in a huff, he was all red-faced. I’ve never seen him like that. He’s usually so calm and unflappable.”
“Any idea what they were arguing about?”
“Not a clue. I couldn’t hear what they were saying and it only lasted a couple of minutes.” She paused. “I try not to pry,” she said, absently.
“Let me know if you think of anything else, Eileen. I’ll be around.”
“Oh sure,” she said. “I’ll call you later this afternoon or first thing in the morning about the tape.”
I glanced back and caught her perching her bifocals on her nose and smiling to herself. “When will Commissioner Tuttle be back in the office?” I asked.
“Maybe tomorrow for a while. Oh, tomorrow is Saturday. But I heard a few people say they were planning to catch up on some work in the morning. The office will be closed. I’m afraid it might be a bit difficult to get in.”
I frowned and started for the door.
“Billie?”
“Yes?”
“There’s a side door on the South end of the building. It’s where the recycling bins are located. The gate is unlocked between nine-thirty and eleven on Saturdays. That’s when they pick up the recycling. If somebody knew the routine, they could get inside the building.”
I gave her a half-smile. “Thanks.”
“And if I get the tape tonight I’ll call and arrange where we can meet tomorrow. I don’t want to be anywhere around City Hall when I give it to you.”
“I live on Northwest 23rd,” I said.
“Perfect. I’ll call you.”
Maybe by then, I thought, I’d know more about what was going on with Tuttle and Blaney. I walked out of the office door and right into my big brother. Dan is six-foot-three inches tall and has the girth of a bear. At the moment his face was as ashen as mine must have appeared.
“I heard about Darrin,” he said, choking. “I can’t believe it. I was in the middle of my patrol when the news came over the radio.” We sat on a stone bench in the empty hallway and held each other and cried for a while.
“Angel told me about The Jet being seen here,” Dan finally said. “I knew I’d find you nosing around.” He examined me with a stoic demeanor I couldn’t read. Was I in trouble or was he here to help? “Did you learn anything?” he asked.
“No one is here but a secretary,” I said. “She gave me the lay of the land the day he was sighted, but I’ve still got people to talk to. Are you here to help?”
“Yep,” he said and snapped a pair of nickel-plated bracelets on my wrists. “You’re going home to bed. “We’ll find the guy who did this.”
“But I’ve got to do something.”
“Dag is already chasing down Chris The Creep. He had a line on The Creep’s apartment, but he gave Dag the slip. Landlady told Dag a couple places he hangs out. We’ll find him. Brother Jason is with the investigative team. He’ll have all the dope we need. The three of us can do more than you can right now.”
I knew he was right but I wanted to be in on it. “Will you guys keep me informed?”
“We’ll report to you first time we get anything if you’ll stay home in bed for a day or two.”
I twisted my wrist to see if there was enough room to slip the bracelets, but Dan had a good fit going for him. “Where’s Steve?”
“He’s still at the crime scene.”
“Does he know I’m here?”
Dan snorted. “He knows you’re not home. He sent me after you. Said he didn’t trust himself. You really can rankle him.”
Dan’s squad car was in a loading zone. He opened the passenger side door and, out of habit, put his hand on my head and pushed me down so I wouldn’t bump it in the doorway. I guess I’m lucky he didn’t put me in the caged area in back.
Chapter 7
I lay in bed and tried to act sickly when Dan and Steve came in after Angel helped me into my nightgown. She had given me the once over and stopped to take a drag from her phantom cigarette.
“You look terrible,” she said. “If things keep going like this, I’m going to have to start smoking again.” She looked at the space between her fingers reserved permanently for that missing cigarette, sighed, and stormed out of my room.
To tell the truth, I didn’t feel so good either. My little escapade downtown had taken the starch out of me. I grabbed a hand mirror and realized my face looked as pale as an unused powder puff. When Steve came into my bedroom ready to read me my rights for escaping while under a house arrest, my stomach didn’t feel too good either.
I really did care about what Steve thought of me because I guess I’ve always had a crush on him. For some reason he’s never tumbled, so I’ve had to continue to play it cool. Easy to do when we hadn’t seen each other much during the past two years. It wasn’t until he visited me in the hospital, that I realized how much I missed him.
“Billie, what in the hell were you thinking?” Steve said, as he entered the room. “Running off by yourself when there’s a killer out there hoping for a chance to finish the job.”
It felt good to see him worried about me. The feeling lasted only a few seconds.
“If you’re killed on my shift, do you know what it would mean? I’ll tell you,” he said, not waiting for an answer. “I’ll be walking a beat again for letting a cop and his ex-cop sister both get murdered on the same day. Why do you always have to be so irresponsible?”
Okay, I kept telling myself, under all the yelling I know he must have feelings for me. He just doesn’t know how to express them, so he yells. He isn’t really mad; he’s scared I might get hurt.
“I can take care of myself,” I said. “Some weasel killed my brother, and I’ve got to find him. It’s my fault he’s dead. If he hadn’t taken the bullet to protect me, he’d still be alive. I’m the one who should have died.”
I broke down crying. First a sob, followed by more sobs and before I knew it I’d sprung a leak in the dam I’d built to keep my feelings submerged. Angel hugged me and Steve stood back like I might spill on him.
Dan came through the door and glared at Steve. “What did you do to her?”
“I didn’t do anything,” Steve said. “She started blaming herself about Darrin’s death and began blubbering.”
Dan gave me one of his teddy bear hugs and held me until the rhythm of my sobbing slowed, and I managed to dial it down to sniffles.
“It’s okay,” he said. “It’s nobody’s fault. Darrin did for you what you would have done for him if the situation were reversed.”
“Except I didn’t.” I started on my jag again, and Angel joined Dan with a hug. I thought I would have felt better if Steve would have given me a hug too, but I knew he wouldn’t.
“Crap,” Steve said. “What I meant to say is, I can’t find your brother’s killer if I have to go chasing after you all the time. The best thing you can do is to stay in bed and take care of yourself. If you do that, the rest of us will be able to concentrate on finding the scum that killed Darrin.”
I sighed. He was doing what he thought was best for me.
“Promise me you will do that,” he said.
“I can’t promise you anything. If my health allows it, I’m going to be a part of this investigation.”
“I already told you we’ll keep you informed,” Dan said. �
�You’ll be in on it all the way if you stay down and take care of yourself.”
A low rumbling sounded from Steve’s gut and finally erupted in a god-awful grunt. “You told her what? You can’t do that. It’s like waving a red flag in front of a bull. The first time you tell her something, she’ll be out following up the lead. She’s out of the loop. Not only that. I want her handcuffed to her bed with a twenty-four-hour guard. And I want the guards to be up on all her tricks and where the damn bathrooms are in this house. So, you and your brothers are on permanent duty protecting your sister as of now.”
“You can’t do that,” Dan said.
“I just did it. I’m going to have dispatch call Dagwood and Jason and get them over here pronto. And if any of you so much as step outside the house, you’ll be suspended. That’s it. Round-the-clock protection for your sister. I’m not going to have anymore Blys interfering with my investigation.”
“This is bull,” Dan said. “This is our brother you’re talking about. We aren’t going to stand on the sidelines while you guys muck things up.”
“I’ll let that comment slide because I know you’re hurting. You know this is standard procedure. If any of you leave the sidelines you’ll be suspended. You’re all too close to this. I don’t want to worry about vigilante justice being wreaked upon unsuspecting citizens by the Bly family.”
Dan was speechless. I couldn’t believe it either. Steve smiled, like he had done something clever, and walked out of the room leaving the three of us dumbfounded.
“You aren’t going to stand for that, are you?” Angel said.
“What can I do?” Dan said. “If we disobey his orders we’ll be suspended, and we still won’t be able to be part of the investigation.”
He studied me for a moment, and I thought he was going to cry. Except he didn’t, and I realized that for the first time in our relationship Dan was relying on me for an answer.
“What?” I said.
“Darrin wouldn’t want us to get ourselves kicked off the force on account of him,” Dan said. “You know me. I’m by the book. But you’ve never gone by the book.”
“So?”
“It’s up to you, Sis. I hate to say it because you’re all banged up and look like death warmed over, but we need you to think of something.”
“I’m beat,” I said. “Let me sleep on it. When I’m done napping, you can bring Dag and Jason up and we’ll talk.”
“That’s my Billie,” Angel said. “You want I should fix you a snack for when you wake up?”
“Yeah, chicken soup sounds good. Maybe a bowl of soup and a salad.”
“Soup? Salad? I was going to make a run to the Jack in The Box and pick up a Jumbo Jack.”
“For some reason soup and salad sounds good to me. My near-death experience and Darrin’s murder makes me think it’s time I started taking care of myself.”
As I mentioned earlier, I had been Vegan for a while, about two weeks before I had been shot. They must have forgotten, because they both stared at me.
“How about French fries?” Angel said.
“A salad!” I realized for the first time how precious life was and now I wanted to take care of myself so I could live longer and have the strength to find Darrin’s killer. They closed the door softly. My eyes became heavy, and I tried to force myself to dream about how to carry on our investigation.
When I awoke I found myself back in the hospital somehow. The possibilities twisted through my brain. Maybe I hurt myself with all the running around I did downtown. I felt all doped up so I figured maybe I suffered some kind of setback. But I didn’t remember being taken to the hospital. I glanced at the sun setting outside of the window and the colors splashed against the wall in my room, creating a mosaic of crimson, mauves and muted pinks. The effect was the oozing of blood from a twisted body. I shivered and tunneled under the hospital blankets, pulling them around me to create a safe cocoon.
When I peeked from under the blankets, the colors on the wall melded into a kaleidoscope of dark storm-like clouds. I shuddered, feeling cold and exposed. I peeked through my door into the hallway and was relieved to see a cop standing outside. No one could get at me with him on guard.
A wonderful thought occurred to me. Maybe it was all a dream. Maybe I never left the hospital. What about Darrin? If I was still here, Darrin must be alive, I thought. The sniper, his death . . . was it all a bad dream?
A dark shadow stretched across the room as if trying to grab me. Large and elongated, it slowly took shape. It had frightening wings, a slim body and twitchy ears. Its wings beat against the mosaic in front of me. My adrenaline kicked in, or what was left of it after being weakened by too many doses of drugs to help me sleep, eat, and combat the pain.
I tried to turn toward the figure making the shadow. The object was behind me at another window. My blankets held me tight like a straightjacket. The tangled IV tubes and monitoring wires, attached to my body, wriggled like snakes on Medusa’s head. A surge of fear boosted my anemic adrenaline—to a hundred-fifty-proof—and I felt high.
I flashed back to a time as a baby, when I had slipped from my mother’s grasp in a swimming pool and spun like a corkscrew underwater until she plucked me from the depths. It’s amazing I still remember that traumatic event.
Now the shadow is on the ceiling too. I’m in a god-awful Disney Fantasia nightmare and my dry mouth can’t cry out. An improbable squeak from my lips occurred as I completed my turn toward the window. I couldn’t believe what I saw next. It must be the drugs, I thought. I shook my head and glanced back to the wall, the ceiling, and then back to the figure in the window.
As its huge black wings fluttered against the backdrop of crimson blood on the wall, a hideous creature sat in the open window, sneering and plotting. My eyes slowly focused and the shape transformed from a giant black bat creature to a less formidable ugly . . . crow.
“Miss Bly? Are you okay?” It was the cop assigned to my room. “I thought I heard a cry.”
My contorted body relaxed and I fell back against the mattress. A stupid crow. My imagination at work overtime. “Yeah. I saw that shadow on the wall and it spooked me.”
He stepped into the room and laughed at the shadow as the crow flew off. “I can see where it might startle you.” The communications Rover on his shoulder squawked and he tilted his head toward it and pushed a button. It squawked again and a screechy voice screamed with urgency.
“We’ve got a situation on the floor below, and I’m needed. Will you be okay if I go investigate?”
“Sure.” I was still shaken from the bat incident, but I couldn’t admit it. I reached under my pillow and was pleased to find my Glock. Instant security.
“Thanks. I’ll be back in a couple minutes.”
He ran out of the room as he said this, so I knew something important must be going on. For some reason—maybe it was the drugs, maybe I crashed after the adrenaline rush—I dozed off. I wanted to see what happened downstairs and something inside told me to stay awake. But I couldn’t. I drifted in and out of consciousness and finally awoke to the shadow on the wall again.
The damn bird was back. Its wings were huge against the wall. Then the shadow changed shape. More like an orangutan or some kind of monkey, at least. The breeze from the open window wafted over me and it seemed hot for an October day. I brushed away some matted hair from my cheek. The room grew dark and I wondered why the nurse hadn’t switched on the lights. The waning sun elongated my sinister shadow.
I turned on my side to get a panoramic view of the wall and the bird in the window. The move seemed easier this time because I wasn’t freaking, knowing my imagination had gotten the best of me before. The cop should have been back by now, I thought.
I saw him as I reached for the nurse’s button on the bedrail. Slipping in through the window, which swiveled open enough to let a breeze in but supposedly keep a child from falling out. But The Jet squirmed through easily like he’d been doing it all his life. Behind him, a
rope dangled outside from above.
“Hi, Billie. Remember me?”
I felt for the bedrail on my left and it was down. Thank God! In one motion I slid my left hand under the pillow while pushing my right hand hard against the mattress. The rubber lifelines untangled as I twisted and the last thing I saw before I rolled out of bed was the little man with the toothy grin and evil eyes raising a semi-automatic at me.
The first shot whizzed by my ear as I gripped the Glock in the wrong hand. Pop, pop, pop, pop, four shots searching for me. I wriggled off the bed but hadn’t quite made it to the floor. Pop, pop. More shots ricocheting off the floor.
The IV lines held me suspended slightly below the mattress, the gun in my left hand pinned against my waist by the rubber tubes. I pawed frantically at the plastic snakes with my free hand. Finally, I managed to stretch some tubes enough so I could point my gun in his general direction.
“Where the hell are you, Billie? Playing hide and seek?” He squatted to peek under the bed and I managed a shot at the floor. Sparks flew at his feet and he jumped back. “Damn,” he said.
I thought the same thing. His gun had a silencer, so my shot echoed the first warning to hospital staff and that damn cop, still missing from action. I squirmed like an antsy pug dog trying to twist out of its collar and two more shots zinged at me under the bed. One of them tore into my arm and sent me into a shivering fit. I fell to the floor and lifted my gun with my left hand about the time The Jet decided to see if he hit me.
Bam, Bam, Bam—and this time my bullets found their target. The Jet left his feet and bounced a couple of times before collapsing in a heap on the floor. I straightened to a prone position on the cold linoleum floor and waited for him to get back up. He didn’t.
I heard shouts and people scurrying in the hallway, but the door was closed now for some reason and apparently no one was brave enough to open it. I debated on whether or not to shoot if someone did enter the room. I smelled my blood and saw it oozing from my arm onto the floor. And then, in my weakened state, I did something most embarrassing to me. I fainted.