No Place to Die

by James L. Thane

  “Well shit,” I sighed into the radio. “It looks like he’s giving it up for the night. But everybody stay alert. If he hasn’t gone to bed, don’t let him slip out of there in the dark without us seeing him.”

  McClain snapped off the light in the kitchen and made his way to the living room with his glass and what remained of the bottle of Cabernet. He dropped into the easy chair, poured himself half a glass of the wine, and set the bottle on the table next to the chair. Then he propped his feet up on the ottoman and turned off the floor lamp. Alone in the darkened room, he took a healthy drink of the wine and tried to figure out what in the hell he was going to do about Beverly Thompson.

  He understood now that he should have finished with her after the first two or three days, back when he still knew for certain that she was the stupid, incompetent bitch who’d let them send him to prison for life—back before he’d begun to wonder if she might have been some other woman all along.

  But of course, that was then and this was now. And he realized that despite the doubts that might be gnawing at him, he had no real choice in the matter. His only option was to finish what he’d started here. His own survival depended on it.

  He drained the last of the wine and sat there for another thirty minutes, his mind running in circles. Finally, he pushed himself up out of the chair, and for a few seconds, the floor seemed to be shifting under his feet. He was somewhat surprised to realize that he was slightly drunk, but he wasn’t so drunk that he didn’t know what needed to be done.

  Attempting to move quietly, he walked down the hall in his stocking feet and stopped in front of the bedroom door. He unbuckled his belt, pulled it free of his jeans, and looped the end of the belt back through the buckle. Then he slowly opened the door, slipped into the room, and made his way toward the bed.

  After sitting in the dark for thirty minutes, his eyes had adjusted to the little ambient light that filtered into the house from the outside, and he could just make out Beverly’s vague shape lying on top of the covers. He stood beside her for several long minutes, holding the belt and willing himself to get it over and done with.

  Beverly’s head was turned away from him and she was breathing softly and regularly. McClain reasoned that it would be a fairly simple matter to quickly slip the loop in the belt over her head and pull it tightly around her neck. With any luck, she’d be dead before she was even awake enough to realize what was happening to her. But his hands remained at his sides, stubbornly refusing to execute the command that his brain kept repeating insistently.

  Finally, after wrestling with the issue for another couple of minutes, it occurred to him that the better plan might be to wait until morning when he was completely sober and thinking a bit more clearly. He could get up early and get his things packed into the Taurus. Then he could finally finish with Beverly and be out on the road immediately after.

  Relieved at having conjured up a more sensible approach to the problem, McClain reached out and lightly touched Beverly’s leg. Then he sighed and walked slowly around to his own side of the bed. He slipped out of his jeans and lay down beside her, setting the belt on the floor next to the bed. Tomorrow morning would be soon enough.

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Lying on the bed in the dark, Beverly had no way of telling how much time had elapsed since McClain had left the bedroom, but it felt like it was taking a lifetime for him to finish whatever it was he was doing before coming to bed.

  She thought about the way he had touched her before leaving the room, and about the way his voice had broken when he said he was sorry. For the first time he’d actually sounded like he meant it, and Beverly wondered whether he might finally be having a belated attack of conscience.

  What if he was, at long last, actually experiencing some sense of guilt and shame? What if he’d decided that he couldn’t face her again tonight? What if, God forbid, he’d finished the bottle of wine, but instead of coming to bed as she had hoped, with his senses dulled by the alcohol, he’d simply passed out and was sleeping it off somewhere else in the house?

  As the thought crossed her mind, she reached down and touched the tip of the plunger handle. And just as she did, McClain quietly opened the bedroom door.

  The hall outside the bedroom was not nearly as pitchblack as the interior of the bedroom itself, and she could see him standing as a dark silhouette in the doorway. Then, without closing the door, he began moving slowly across the room in her direction.

  Beverly closed her eyes, turned her head away, and tried to force herself to breathe slowly and regularly as if she were asleep. She could feel him standing beside her in the dark. Was he going to try to force himself on her again?

  The time dragged on interminably. Then, through the sweatpants, she felt the touch of his fingers on her calf. She heard him move around to the other side of the bed and take off his jeans. He lay down on the bed beside her—carefully, as if he was trying not to disturb her. Still feigning sleep, she rolled onto her right side, facing away from him, and brought her hands up together near her face.

  She lay like that for the next hour, breathing slowly and regularly while remaining alert to McClain. He continued to lie on his back, as he had since coming to bed, sighing occasionally and apparently unable to sleep. She sensed that he was wrestling with some dilemma, and she could feel the blankets and the mattress shift slightly as he clasped his hands together, first behind his neck and then across his stomach. Finally, after perhaps an hour had elapsed, he settled into one position and began to breathe more regularly. Fifteen minutes later, he was still lying on his back and snoring softly.

  In the middle of most nights, when he was totally dead to the world, McClain’s snoring would have drowned out the whine of a twenty-year-old chain saw, and Beverly struggled, willing herself to remain patient and motionless until he had fallen into his deepest sleep. But after another ten minutes, her heart was pounding and the adrenaline was raging through her system. What if he were to wake up to go to the bathroom or some such thing? What if he got up for some reason and then didn’t come back to bed?

  Beverly drew a deep breath and held it. With her senses on highest alert to any movement by McClain or to any change in the rhythm of his snoring, she slowly reached down with her left hand and found the tip of the plunger handle. As carefully as she possibly could, she eased it out from under the mattress and transferred it to her right hand.

  She rolled slowly onto her back and lay quietly for a couple of minutes, holding the weapon beside her while McClain continued to snore next to her. Then she dropped her left elbow to her side and dug it into the mattress to brace herself. As she did, McClain shuddered and shifted his position on the bed ever so slightly. Beverly froze, terrified to move or even to breathe. Then, perhaps thirty seconds later, McClain’s snoring settled back into a steady tempo.

  Beverly slowly rolled up onto her left side, holding the plunger handle in her right hand behind her. In the dim light, she could now see that McClain was still lying on his back with his hands at his sides and his abdomen exposed. She squeezed her eyes closed for a moment and into the darkness she whispered, “I love you, David.”

  Then she opened her eyes again. In one swift fluid motion, she rolled up to her knees and raised the plunger handle above her head, gripping it tightly with both hands. And then, summoning all of the strength she could possibly muster, Beverly drove the makeshift weapon straight down into Carl McClain’s stomach.

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  “Heads up, everybody! Heads up! Something’s going on in the bedroom back here.”

  It was just before one in the morning. I was scanning the front of McClain’s rented house with my night-vision binoculars while one of Al Harris’s men monitored the neighborhood around the house. His partner was catching twenty winks in the driver’s seat, and Maggie was taking a catnap in the back corner of the van when Curt Hesler whispered excitedly into our headphones.

  I keyed my radio and asked him what was happeni
ng.

  “I can’t tell for sure yet. I attached the mic to the bedroom wall where I was hearing the conversations earlier and settled in under my headphones. I haven’t heard a single sound in the last two hours and then someone—I’m sure it was a man—just screamed like he was in terrible pain. But that was it, just the one sound. I’m not hearing anything now. I suppose it’s possible that the guy’s just having one hellacious nightmare, but he sure got my attention.”

  “Okay, Curt. Hold your position and keep listening. Let us know the instant you hear anything else.”

  The interruption brought Maggie to full alert and as she scanned the front of the house, I said into the radio, “Did you copy that, Al?”

  “Yeah, what do you want us to do?”

  “Hold your position for the moment, but get your entry team geared up and ready to go at my signal. If Hesler hears anything else, we may want to go in immediately.”

  “Copy that. They’re suiting up now.”

  I set the radio down beside me and retrieved my binoculars. But I could still see no light in any room of the house and no activity in or around the house.

  The plunger handle knifed into McClain’s stomach, and a split second later, he sat halfway up on the bed and let out a bloodcurdling scream. As he did, Beverly scrambled off the bed and raced out of the room. In the hallway, she ran to the right, in the direction of the kitchen, and found a light switch at the kitchen door.

  Her heart was pumping so hard it felt like it was about to burst. She snapped on the light and risked a glance back over her shoulder at the bedroom door. She could hear McClain moaning in agony, but he was nowhere in sight.

  Next to the kitchen at the far end of the hall was the door that she had seen two nights earlier. Beverly raced over to the door, twisted the knob, and attempted to pull the door open. But it refused to budge, and her heart sank when she saw that like the bedroom door, this one—wherever it led—was secured by a dead-bolt lock that could be opened only with a key.

  From behind her, she could hear the sound of McClain still moaning in agony. Trying not to surrender to the panic that threatened to immobilize her, Beverly ran back into the kitchen and pulled the shades up off the window.

  In the dim light cast by the streetlamp on the corner, she could see a handful of vehicles parked along the street in front of the house, but no one was moving outside. She found the window latch, released it, and strained to push the balky window up. As the window squeaked in protest, she managed to force it up about six inches, only to realize suddenly that the window was protected by iron bars that would prevent anyone from getting in through the window—or out.

  In desperation, she reached out and grabbed one of the bars, but it was anchored securely. She would never be able to wrench the bars aside and escape through the window.

  She could no longer hear McClain moaning, and the thought of having to go back into the bedroom and somehow force him to give up his keys terrified her, but she knew that she had no choice.

  Turning away from the window, Beverly saw that McClain had cleaned up the kitchen after dinner. The dishes were put away and the counters were wiped down and empty. She ran over to the cupboards and started feverishly pulling open the drawers. In the third drawer, she found McClain’s kitchen knives, washed, sharpened, and carefully put away. He’d bought himself a beautiful new Wüsthof chef’s knife with a ten-inch blade. Her hand shaking, Beverly reached into the drawer, drew out the knife, and reluctantly turned back in the direction of the hallway.

  At the kitchen door she could see no sign of McClain, and looking at the floor in the hallway, she could see no trail of blood to indicate that he might have left the bedroom. She stood in the kitchen doorway for another thirty seconds, straining to hear any sound. But the house had gone silent.

  Gripping the handle of the knife in her right hand, she forced herself to move out into the hall and then inched her way back toward the bedroom. As she reached the bedroom door she pressed up against the wall and stopped to listen again for a moment. Still, she heard no sound coming from anywhere in the house.

  Her heart pounding, she turned into the doorway, holding the knife out in front of her. In the light from the hallway, she could see that the bed was empty. She turned to look in the direction of the bathroom, and as she did, from the opposite side of the wall, McClain clamped his hand over her outstretched arm and jerked her back into the bedroom.

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  I’d only just set my radio down again when a light suddenly showed around the edges of the kitchen blinds. I picked up my binoculars, and ten seconds later, the blinds flew up and I was looking into the face of a panic-stricken Beverly Thompson. I grabbed my radio and hollered, “Al, get your team in there right now! Thompson’s in the kitchen and she’s trying to get out!”

  Harris shouted back, “Copy that. We’re rolling!”

  I clipped the radio to my belt and leaped out of the van. As Maggie jumped to the ground behind me, I could hear the sirens of Harris’s SWAT team screaming to life a couple of blocks up the street. I grabbed Maggie’s shoulder and said, “Take the team in through the front door. I’ll take the back.”

  As three SWAT-team vehicles raced around the corner with their Mars lights blazing, I vaulted the chain-link fence and ran over to the door at the side of the garage. I drew my pistol, braced myself, and kicked through the door, shattering the jamb as the lock broke free. I jumped back and flattened myself against the outside wall of the dark garage, but heard no one moving inside.

  Crouching low, I crossed to the other side of the door, peeked in, and found myself looking at “Jason Barnes’s” gray Ford Taurus. Still staying low, I slid my hand up the wall next to the door, found a light switch, and flipped it on. I took another cautious look into the garage but could not see or hear any activity inside.

  I moved quickly to the corner of the garage, looked around, and saw Maggie and the SWAT team assembling at the front door of the house with a battering ram. Ducking back around the corner, I slipped into the garage and headed toward the door that led from the garage into the house.

  As McClain jerked Beverly into the bedroom, the chef’s knife flew out of her hand and clattered across the floor in the direction of the bed. Beverly screamed and McClain wrapped her body up against his. Beverly was facing away from him and he clamped his left arm around her neck to hold her there. “You fucking bitch,” he cried in a strained voice. “I’m really going to hurt you now, Beverly.”

  Beverly could feel the life being squeezed out of her. Struggling to breathe, she tried kicking back at him while pulling at his arm with both hands in an effort to loosen the pressure at her throat. McClain began dragging her in the direction of the bed, and suddenly the night air exploded with the wail of sirens.

  McClain stopped in the middle of the room. In a voice wild with shock and anger, he said, “What the fuck did you do, Beverly?”

  He held her still in the middle of the bedroom for another couple of seconds. Then he released the pressure on her neck a bit and began dragging her back toward the hallway. “Walk with me, Beverly,” he commanded. “And do exactly as I say or I’ll snap your goddamn neck.”

  He dragged her back out into the hallway, then down the hall and into the second bathroom. From the kitchen end of the hallway they heard the crash of someone battering down the door into the garage. Through the living-room walls, they could hear the shouts of people racing toward the front door.

  Beverly could feel the blood seeping out of McClain’s wound and soaking into the back of her T-shirt. She had no idea how badly he was hurt, but he was obviously not incapacitated. She prayed that he was in shock, running on adrenaline, and that he would not be able to sustain for much longer the strength he was now demonstrating. She struggled against him, and again he tightened his choke hold around her neck.

  The noise outside the house intensified, and something exploded against the front door. But McClain’s barricade withstood the blow
and kept the intruders at bay, at least for the moment.

  McClain leaned back against the bathroom wall, then slid down the wall a couple of feet, pulling Beverly with him. She heard the sound of a zipper and realized that McClain was opening his backpack, which was sitting on the floor against the wall. He reached into the backpack and came out with the gun he had used to murder David. And as he did, someone kicked in the door at the kitchen end of the hall.

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  The door from the garage flew open into the house, and as I regained my footing, I found myself looking down a dimly lighted hallway toward the opposite end of the house. To my right was the kitchen where I’d seen Beverly Thompson struggling with the window less than two minutes earlier, but the room was now empty.

  Holding my gun out in front of me, I began moving slowly down the hallway. The entry team slammed the battering ram into the front door a second time, and the whole house seemed to shake. An instant later, Carl McClain popped out of a room ahead of me, shielding himself behind Thompson and holding a pistol to her head.

  Thompson was dressed in a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. McClain, wearing only a T-shirt and a pair of black briefs, looked nothing at all like the photos and sketches we’d been circulating. He was much thinner and fitter than I ever would have imagined. He’d also gotten rid of the geeky glasses and had shaved his head. After hunting him for the last four days I could have passed him on the street and never would have recognized him. Waving his pistol at me, he shouted, “Tell those fuckers to get off my front porch right now!”

  Still holding my own pistol in my right hand, I pulled my radio from my belt with my left, keyed the mic, and said, “Hang on, Maggie. He’s got Mrs. Thompson, and he wants the SWAT team off the porch. Pull back for now.”