“They’re home,” Rissik said, stalking toward the door like Dick Tracy. In recognition of his authority, the others followed in single file. The rain washed the sweet scent of the flowers out of the air, leaving the clean smell of ozone. The smell that comes before a storm. It also rustled the leaves of surrounding trees, almost talking aloud, warning them.
A much louder crack followed. It was not thunder. A bullet drove asphalt skyward two feet from Rissik and he dived backward, landing prone beside Hannibal’s car. Three others joined him there in less than a second.
“Go Away!” Gabriel Nieswand shouted from a second floor window. Hannibal looked over the Volvo’s hood, but shadows hid Nieswand’s face.
“Put that away,” Rissik told Hannibal, “and give me your phone.”
Hannibal realized he had reflexively drawn his own weapon. He lowered it, but since Rissik was holding his own gun, Hannibal held his. “Before you call this in,” he asked, “what is it? A mad sniper? Two suspects resisting arrest? Or do we have a hostage situation here?”
“Does it really matter?” Cindy asked.
Rissik nodded. “He knows it does. What I call it will determine the reaction, I mean the procedure for the backup I get. Everybody from a SWAT team to a negotiating team could get called into play, and they’ll do this by the numbers on the page I determine when I call in. You don’t treat a mad sniper the way you treat a desperate hostage taker.”
“Abby could be damaged beyond repair by all this,” Lippincott put in. “I need to get to her as soon as possible.”
Rissik shoved a hand back across his head. He looked at Hannibal with a pained expression. “You were a cop?”
“Yes. More recently I worked for the treasury department. Personal protection.”
“Secret Service?” Rissik asked. “Well, I’m open to suggestions. What do you think?”
“I think the wrong call could cost lives, blow my case and ruin your career.” Hannibal said. “Or, you could let me handle it. Nieswand’s an amateur. I could slip in and disarm him.”
Hannibal knew Rissik was conservative, a company man, the kind of guy who plays by the rules, even if the game gets weird. He met many like him in his twelve years of law enforcement. Sometimes his dedication to proper procedure would run headlong into his devotion to human life and his infatuation with justice.
“Do you know what you’re asking?” Rissik asked.
“Yes, I do. I’m asking you to back my play.”
Rissik considered Hannibal carefully. “I could do this myself.”
“Yes,” Hannibal conceded, “but I know the house. And I know Nieswand.”
A long, quiet minute passed. When Rissik’s agreement came, it was in the form of a hand waved toward the building. Hannibal nodded his thanks, tossed Rissik his keys and moved off at a crouch up the driveway. Behind him he heard his engine roar. Then the sound shrank away from him. He knew Rissik would take the car out of sight of the house, hoping Nieswand would believe they all left.
Inside the garage, Hannibal took a moment to remove the cap from the stem of Nieswand’s left front tire. Pressing a pen into the valve mouth he released the air, flattening the tire. If Nieswand somehow got past him, he would not drive off very quickly. Smiling grimly, he quietly opened the door into the house.
He was prepared for a confrontation if he met the Nieswand is leaving. But the kitchen was empty. The room smelled of leftover food not put away properly, and counters no one had wiped off. A half eaten bowl of soup on the table spoke volumes of Nieswand’s loneliness and helplessness when left alone. Hannibal felt sorry for the man, but his sympathy was tempered by the fact Nieswand shot at him.
Leading with his gun, he quickly surveyed the first floor. It was large, well appointed, and unoccupied, so Hannibal moved upstairs. With his back to the wall and his pistol held close in to his belly, he stepped upward slowly. The carpeted steps accepted his weight without a sound. Not that it mattered. From above he heard suitcases slamming, closets banging open and closed, and the strident voice of a desperate man.
“Look, just tell me which of these you want to take,” Nieswand shouted. “We don’t have much time, honey. They’ll be back soon and they’ll want to separate us for good. You don’t want that, do you?”
Abby Nieswand sounded groggy, like she was badly confused and disoriented, or partially drugged. “Gabe, can’t I go back to the hospital. I don’t feel too good. I think the people there can help me, maybe get me back on track, you know?” Then, after a short pause, “The pantsuit. The pantsuit is fine. I need the darker bra with that.”
Both voices came from the same bedroom door. Once on the second floor, Hannibal inched toward it with his automatic pointed skyward. Less than a minute after reaching the top step he stood against the wall outside the door, listening to suitcase latches clicking shut. He tried to imagine the layout of the room, where the players would be. With any luck they would be at opposite ends of the room. The woman would be seated next to a large piece of furniture. And Gabe Nieswand would be standing, facing the door, his hands filled with suitcase handles. Hannibal took a deep breath, a second, and spun to face into the room, his Sig Sauer pointed forward with both hands.
He would have to wait for another day for luck. The Nieswands were walking toward the door side by side. Each was carrying a suitcase. Gabe’s right hand held a small revolver, the kind of hideout wheel gun people who don’t really like guns carry for protection.
As Hannibal came into view, Nieswand dropped his suitcase and pushed his gun forward. Oddly, to Hannibal, his wife did not scream, which probably helped both men overcome the temptation to fire immediately.
Hannibal had been here before. He waited a second for his heart to slow to only twice its normal speed, and spoke in deep tones to disguise the trembling in his voice.
“Put the gun down. Step away from your husband, ma’am.” Abby Nieswand, looking unsure of what was going on, carried her suitcase back to the bed and sat down. A tall canopy bed dominated the huge room. It was decorated with pink lace, and the pictures on the walls were all elves and unicorns. Did they have separate bedrooms? This must be hers.
Gabe Nieswand looked marginally braver behind a gun. “I told you to go away.”
Butterflies had commandeered Hannibal’s stomach, but this was no new feeling to him. The trick, he knew, was to make them fly in formation. His answer was both strategically correct and sincere. “I’d only be replaced by a squad of nervous policemen who might hurt Abby. You don’t want that, do you?”
“I’ve done a lot to help you,” Nieswand said, taking a step forward. “You should be helping me, not stopping me.”
“I am trying to help,” Hannibal said, lowering his gun to waist level, but keeping it pointed forward. “Gabe, you’ve made some mistakes here. A couple of serious mistakes, but they’re not irretrievable. I’m trying to keep you from making a bigger one. You know how this works. I’ll bet you’ve had some clients who were in pretty big trouble.”
“Yeah, but I always talked them out of jail,” Nieswand said, “or at least got them lighter sentences.”
“Right.” Hannibal could hear the blood rushing behind his ears, but he held his gaze steady on Nieswand’s eyes. “Did you ever advise any of them to run?”
“Of course not. Once you’re a fugitive, a jury can take that as an admission of guilt.” As he said it, Nieswand heard it as if for the first time. His mouth opened as his face registered the shock of recognition. Unsure of his next move, he turned toward his wife who was watching the drama play out before her like a television show beamed in from hundreds of miles away.
As Nieswand’s head turned, Hannibal stepped in quickly, grabbing his right wrist and jamming it upward. The gun fired, the blast a foot above his head, savaging his ears. He turned his face down to avoid the plaster littering his head. He dropped his own gun to wrap his left hand around Nieswand’s gun hand, above his own right. Then he sharply twisted his arms out and down,
slamming Nieswand to the carpeted floor. As he kicked the gun across the room and under the bed he started panting. He had not noticed, but he stopped breathing the instant he grabbed Nieswand’s arm.
“Gabe?” Abby Nieswand suddenly looked shocked and ran to her husband. She crouched beside him, her hands on his chest, either to comfort him or hold him down. Or maybe both. Hannibal leaned back against the wall and got control of his breathing.
“Nice work.” It was Rissik, walking into the room, handing Hannibal his gun. “I just called in backup, but now I don’t have to worry about anybody getting hurt. You know, you’re pretty good at that stuff.”
“Good training,” Hannibal said. Then Cindy hugged him, while Doctor Lippincott crouched beside Abby. She stood up while he spoke to her in low tones. But she backed away when he opened his bag.
Rissik was handcuffing Gabe Nieswand and reading him his Miranda rights. Cindy’s head was buried in Hannibal’s chest, but his attention was on Abby. She looked numb when he walked into the room, as if her reality radio was tuned to a different station. Now she was rising toward the manic end of a manic-depressive cycle. Lippincott had come prepared with a syringe of comfort and offered it to her now.
But Abby leaned against the far wall, saying “No, no, no” in an endless loop, shaking her head back and forth.
“It’s okay,” Lippincott said. “This will relax you, and dull the pain of what you’ve seen.”
Water was streaming from Abby Nieswand’s eyes. “Please. I don’t want to be relaxed.”
Hannibal looked at her face, so much more animated than he had ever seen it. Then he looked at Gabe Nieswand, then Lippincott, and a series of tiny switches closed in his brain circuitry. This case had been a mass of wires running nowhere, but suddenly, a circuit connected.
“No!” Hannibal broke free of Cindy’s grip and dashed across the room. Lippincott had Abby’s arm turned forward and was about to place the needle against her skin. Hannibal grabbed his arm, much as he had Gabe Nieswand’s earlier, and twisted until the syringe hit the floor.
“Have you gone mad?” Lippincott snapped, yanking his arm out of Hannibal’s grasp and, surprisingly, swinging a left into Hannibal’s jaw. Barely pushed backward, Hannibal grabbed the doctor’s jacket and slammed him against a wall. There he clamped his right forearm across Lippincott’s throat and hung his left fist, cocked back, in front of Lippincott’s face.
“You back off and leave the lady alone or I will smash your teeth down your throat,” Hannibal said. “Do you believe that? Do You?” Lippincott blanched pale, but managed to nod. When Hannibal released him he scampered to the wall next to the door.
“Now what the hell was that all about?” Rissik demanded. “The woman needs help.”
“Maybe,” Hannibal said. “But I suddenly realized that everything I know about this woman I heard from somebody else.” He faced Abby Nieswand, unsure what to expect. Her face was jittery, but she sat on the bed, up near the pillows. Hannibal sat at the foot of the bed and slid his dark glasses off. Eye contact seemed important. “Based on all that input, I interpreted your actions in here as manic-depressive behavior,” he told her. “But the truth is, you were just a lot calmer before your doctor came at you with a needle. Can you tell me why?”
The tears came again, but she was not sobbing. In fact there was no crying sound at all. “I was frightened. He calls it sedatives, what he gives me, but it makes it hard for me to think and feel. I don’t want to hide anymore. I want to face the truth.”
Lippincott said “Abby, you’re confused.”
Gabe Nieswand said “Honey I tried to protect you.”
Hannibal said “Ignore them,” while maintaining eye contact. “Look at me. Listen only to me, all right? I want to help you face the truth. But maybe the truth looks different to you than it might to me. Will you tell me what you know?”
Abby nodded. Hannibal heard her husband call her name and then grunt in pain. He assumed Rissik had taken care of the situation.
“Can I call you Abby?” Hannibal asked. She nodded again.
“Abby, that man behind me is a police officer. His name is Orson Rissik. The lady’s name is Cindy Santiago.”
“She’s in my husband’s firm,” Abby said. “Good lawyer.”
“Yes,” Hannibal said. “She won’t let you do anything that puts you in danger. If it looks like you might be in trouble, we’ll handle it correctly. Do you believe that?”
Another nod. She seemed stronger.
“Abby, you know Ike Paton’s name was really Pat Louis.”
“Poor Pat,” Abby said. “He’s dead, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” Hannibal said. “But I think you mixed up how that happened.” Lippincott tried to say “stop” but interrupted himself with a yelp. Hannibal figured Cindy kicked him or something. “Doctor Lippincott says you confessed to that crime. Did you really kill him?”
The transformation was frightening and fascinating and thrilling all at the same time. Hannibal could see connections being made behind her eyes, as he had made them moments ago. Abby Nieswand’s mind traced the wires down to their source, putting it all together. Her eyes not only widened, but cleared. Her mouth dropped open, and the tears came again. She never reached to wipe them away.
“No,” she said, just loud enough for everyone in the room to hear. “I loved Pat. That’s why he did it, don’t you see. Out of jealousy. I was upstairs in the window. Pat fought with Slo. Slo left just before Gabe came home. He got out of his car, walked into the garage and shot Pat in the head.”
-30-
Hannibal was on his feet, facing Gabe Nieswand, who shrank back into Rissik’s arms. Hannibal’s face reflected not simply rage at the killer, but self-hatred, for accepting what he was told at face value.
“You knew,” Hannibal said, his voice turned down in disgust. “You knew they were lovers. You probably knew where she was when she ran away.”
Abby dropped to her knees on the floor, sobbing quietly. Cindy stared hard at her boss, her mentor, no longer her superior in her eyes. Rissik slipped out from behind Nieswand, letting his back bump against the flowered wallpaper. Hannibal’s shadow covered him as he sank to the floor, then Hannibal’s powerful hands gripped his collar and dragged him to his feet against the wall.
“You filthy bastard. A helpless man. In the back of the head, with no remorse. You must have known for months. What happened? Did it just become too much for you, thinking about them together when you were away from home? Just didn’t have the guts to confront him, did you? So instead of firing him and sending him away, you waited for a chance to dust him. And you got your wish, right? You came home and there he was, helpless.”
Nieswand stared up into Hannibal’s eyes with more contempt than fear. “Any man might have done the same. She’s my wife, for God’s sake.”
“The hell of it is, he’ll probably duck the chair with that line of defense,” Cindy said.
“I didn’t know this man before I hired him,” Nieswand said. “How was I to know he’d take advantage of my wife?”
“Liar!”
All heads turned toward Abby, now holding her husband’s gun which she retrieved from under the bed. The barrel was trained on Hannibal’s back, but as he slowly stepped away it stayed in place, focused now on her husband’s heart.
“You knew the condition I was in,” she screeched, her voice cracking with emotion. “How could you do this? For a while, you had me convinced I killed poor Pat. The liquor. The pills. Then the sedatives. I couldn’t think. But hearing you say it, now I know it was you. You shot him, but you said it was me so many times I…” She swallowed hard, then went on. “But you said you didn’t know Pat. Now you tell them the truth.”
“Darling,” Nieswand began, “You’re confused. I never knew this man.”
The gunshot was deafening in the small room. Nieswand must have felt the wind from the bullet hitting the wall five inches from his face. He dropped to his knees, leaning back,
his chained hands in front of his face.
“You came and got me last year,” Abby shouted. “Tell them.”
“Yes,” Nieswand croaked. “Yes, I came and got you.” Then he turned to Rissik, as if seeking salvation. His eyes finally flashed fear. “She ran away from me. Just disappeared. I was frantic. The police never got anywhere. I ran newspaper ads offering a reward for information. I called all her family I knew. I hired a detective. Then, three weeks she’s gone, I get a phone call. This guy, he knows where she is, and he wants to know about the reward.”
“That’s a lie,” Abby cried again.
“I’m sorry darling, but it’s the truth,” Nieswand said, still on his knees. “I went to that dirty hotel room he had you in and I paid him.” Then turning back to Rissik, “I bought my wife back from that man for five thousand dollars.”
“Oh my God.”
Hannibal stepped slowly back until he stood on the opposite side of the bed from Abby. He could see her hands shake with the weight of the revolver. “Oh my God,” he said again. “You knew him. You knew who he was when he came here. So you must have known about the scam with Angela all along. You let him do this, even knowing Kyle might die if it worked.”
“Kyle?” Abby asked.
“Kyle Mortimer has cancer, Mrs. Nieswand,” Hannibal said. “We think your Pat Louis brought in Angela Briggs to fool the Mortimers into thinking she was a close relative who could give Kyle the bone marrow transplant he needs to live.”
Abby turned again to her husband, staring as if she was not sure she recognized him. “Is that true? Is that what you and Louis argued about in the night? This girl?”
Nieswand, apparently in control of himself again, turned to Rissik. “You have to protect me, and I have no intention of incriminating myself further.”
Blood and Bone Page 20