Deluge

by Stuart Melvin Kaminsky

  "Want to tell us who the girl is?" asked Danny.

  "What girl? I found that in the garbage this morning. I was going to turn it in to you."

  "You weren't in a big hurry," said Danny.

  "I did it on my own."

  "Did what?" asked Danny.

  "Killed Havel."

  "We'll see," said Lindsay.

  "I want a lawyer now," said Bill Hexton.

  "Now," Lindsay said, "you get one."

  * * *

  Keith Yunkin watched the bald man heading toward the door of the hotel with an older man who was talking animatedly. Both men held black umbrellas and the pounding rain made them raise their voices to be heard. The bald man was carrying a container of coffee in one hand, umbrella in the other, and a newspaper under his arm. He glanced at the hotel entrance, looking as if he wanted to escape.

  "You can close the deal by dropping two points," said the older man as they made it up the stairs and under the alcove in front of the hotel entrance. "Two points, Jerry. You'll still walk away with what…?"

  "One hundred and forty-two thousand," said the bald man.

  "One hundred and forty-two thousand," repeated the older man.

  "One hundred and forty thousand is ten years ago's sixty thousand," said Jerry.

  "So you're going to pass up writing the policy because of nostalgia? Insurance is insurance."

  "That it is," said Jerry.

  Keith stood to the side, listening.

  "So you're going to write it up or not?" the older man said.

  Jerry pressed a button on the umbrella to close it. He had purchased it from a one-eyed nervous vendor this morning for five dollars. It was working just fine.

  "I'll write it up," said Jerry. "When I get back to Dayton."

  "Before you go home," pressed the older man. "Jerry, don't give me a heart attack here."

  "Before I go home," Jerry conceded.

  The older man patted Jerry's shoulder and grinned. He was getting a piece of the action and it was enough.

  "Gotta go," said the older man. "You going up to your room and getting it done now, right?"

  "Right."

  "I'll send a messenger to pick it up in an hour, okay?"

  "An hour's fine," said Jerry.

  The older man looked at the sky and shook his head. He muttered, "Fucking rain," and ran to the curb where a cab was waiting.

  Keith walked up to Jerry, doing his best to hide the limp he knew the police would be on the lookout for. They would also be looking for a lone man. He meant to remedy that situation right now.

  "Jerry?" he said as the bald man turned to head for the hotel.

  "Yeah."

  "I thought it was you," Keith said, holding out his hand to shake. "Ted Wingate from Dayton. You sold my uncle a great policy on his business."

  Jerry took the offered hand and said, "Frank Terhune?"

  "My uncle," said Keith. "What brings you to New York?"

  "Insurance," said Jerry. "You?"

  "Surgery," said Keith. "Leg. Long, boring story. Afghanistan. Got a minute? I haven't talked to anyone from home in weeks."

  Jerry hesitated and then said, "Sure. We can sit in the lobby or- "

  "Mind if we go to my room? I've got to make a call."

  "No, that'll be fine. I just have a few minutes."

  "Me too. I've got a check up at Mount Sinai at one. Wait. They were just starting to clean my room when I came down."

  "We can go to my room," said Jerry.

  They walked in together. Keith put his hand on Jerry's arm to steady himself, hide the limp. The hand made Jerry uncomfortable, but he wasn't about to distance himself from a wounded veteran.

  * * *

  Installation art. That's what it looked like to The Hat. A long time ago. A year? Six years? He had been an artist. A real artist. Shows in galleries in San Antonio, Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago, Manhattan. He could have designed something like this back then.

  A cleanly painted room with shining floors. A single office chair in the middle. Someone sitting almost motionless. A boy in jeans and a blue pullover shirt, short sleeves.

  The Hat stood in the doorway, looking at the kid who looked back at him but didn't move.

  "You okay, kid?" asked The Hat.

  "I don't know."

  The Hat stepped into the room. Nothing seemed to be holding the kid in the chair. He wasn't tied up. There was no bomb attached to him.

  "Why are you sitting there?" asked The Hat. "You hungry?"

  "No. He, this guy, told me to sit here till he got back," said the kid.

  "Guy?"

  "I don't know his name. He came for me at school, outside of school. Said Ellen was waiting for me."

  "Ellen?" asked The Hat.

  The truth was that Jeffrey was more frightened of this guy than he had been of the man with a limp. The man with the limp had talked to him softly, calmly, assured Jeffrey that he wouldn't be hurt, and Jeffrey believed him. Jeffrey also believed him when he said he would be very sorry if he got out of the chair before the man got back.

  Jeffrey didn't feel the same about this guy. He knew homeless when he saw it.

  "She wasn't waiting for you? This Ellen," said The Hat.

  "No. He called her. I think he wants to kill her. He's got a knife."

  The Hat knew kids this age who drank, smoked, snorted, ate and shot up with all kinds of crap that had them seeing murder where there was none. This kid was none too bright, but he looked clean.

  "Kid, just get up and go home," said The Hat. "You got money?"

  "No," Jeffrey said warily. "But I have a Metrocard."

  The Hat moved to the middle of the room to help the boy up, but the boy didn't need help. There was nothing wrong with him.

  "Maybe I better just wait," Jeffrey said.

  "Maybe you better just get the hell out of here," said The Hat.

  "Hold it," came a voice behind them.

  The Hat froze, then turned around.

  Don Flack stood in the doorway, gun in hand. The Hat knew he was a cop. He looked cop, probably smelled cop if they got close to him.

  "I just came in to get out of the wet," The Hat said.

  He looked harmless, but Flack knew better than to count on that.

  "Keep your hands where I can see them," he said, taking a step into the room.

  The Hat held his hands out. So did the boy.

  "The man with the limp," said Flack. "Where is he?"

  "Left," said Jeffrey.

  "Who are you?" asked Flack.

  "Jeffrey Herdez."

  The name rang bells, lots of bells.

  "Ellen Janecek," said Flack.

  "He's going to hurt her," said the boy. "He said it was because of what she did to me. Ellen didn't do anything to me."

  The Hat was lost. "The rain," he said. "We just- "

  "You see the man?" asked Flack, putting his gun back in the holster under his jacket but keeping his distance.

  "No," said The Hat.

  Flack took out his phone, flicked it on, pushed a speed dial button, waited a beat and said, "Mac. Yunkin's on the way to the hotel to get Ellen Janecek. Might be there by now."

  A pause. "You are?" said Flack into the phone. "Right. I'll get him home."

  Flack turned the phone off and looked at the homeless man.

  "Let yourself out the way you came in," he said.

  The Hat didn't need to be told twice.

  16

  "LEGS," SAID DANNY.

  They were sitting in the conference room next to the headmaster's office. Marvin Brightman, the headmaster, was at one end of the table, hands folded, wondering if he would be updating his rйsumй in the next week.

  Danny sat at the other end of the table. Bill Hexton was across from him. They were waiting for a lawyer. It might be a long wait. John Rothwell, the lawyer who represented the Wallen School, had been called, but his firm backed off. Said it would be a possible conflict of interest if the police were planning
to arrest one of the Wallen School students in connection with the investigation. They had recommended another firm. The return of the throbbing downpour would definitely delay the arrival of the attorney.

  "Legs," Danny repeated. "Havel kept a journal. Said he was involved with a student he called 'Legs.'"

  Hexton looked at him, impassive, resigned, determined.

  "You said you did it on your own," said Danny. "That wasn't true."

  The headmaster shifted uncomfortably but didn't speak. Hexton didn't answer.

  "We know whose dress that was in your locker," said Danny. "Size fits only one of the girls in that chem class and the video confirms which one. My partner's talking to her right now."

  Nothing from Hexton.

  "You hid in the chem closet before class," said Danny. "Plan was to come out when the students left. Plan was to warn Havel to leave her alone, maybe even push him around a little, maybe push him around a lot, but you heard noise. When you came out Havel was facedown on the desk, pencil in his neck. She was standing over him covered in blood. She had her uniform on under her dress. She took the dress off. You got her cleaned up and then you took another pencil and drove it into his eye. He was already dead. You wanted to take responsibility for killing him if you got caught. One big problem. You want to know what it was?"

  "No," said Hexton.

  "I do," said Brightman.

  "Blood splatter," said Danny. "The blood on the dress shows that whoever wore it struck the first, the fatal blow. You going to claim you were wearing the dress?"

  No answer.

  "Okay," Danny went on. "No blood splatter from the second blow, the one to the eye. No splatter on your uniform. The blood had stopped pulsing in Havel's body. He was dead. No splatter. You drove a pencil into the eye of a dead man to make it look as if you had struck both blows. Angle's wrong. Splatter's wrong. And we believe there was glass in your palm from using the jar. You tried to use green clay to get the glass out, but you had to dig the glass out yourself. And your palm is still slightly green."

  Hexton looked as if he were going to speak, but Danny stopped him.

  "You'd better wait for your lawyer. There'll be an assistant DA here soon. The two lawyers can talk to each other. I'm finished," said Danny.

  * * *

  "Detective, I've advised Miss Reynolds not to say anything," said John Rothwell, the Wallen School lawyer.

  "I want to tell her," said Karen Reynolds of the golden hair and long legs.

  "This won't be admissible," said Rothwell.

  "She's eighteen," said Lindsay, turning on the small tape recorder.

  They were in the headmaster's office. Beyond the door Karen Reynolds kept glancing toward where Danny was sitting with Bill Hexton and Marvin Brightman.

  "I didn't mean to kill him," Karen said to Lindsay. "I knew Bill was in the closet, yes. The plan was for him to come out, face Mr. Havel, warn him. I went back into the lab when the others left. I told him to stop bothering me, calling me, touching me. We'd only done it once, two months ago. I was seventeen then. I told him I'd tell, that his wife would find out, the school would find out. He didn't care. Said no one would believe me. He grabbed me. I picked up the pencil and…I panicked. I didn't plan to kill him. I didn't. I wouldn't have stabbed him if he hadn't grabbed me."

  "That's it," said Rothwell. "Not another word."

  Lindsay reached over and turned off the tape recorder. She had enough.

  * * *

  Charles Roland Cheswith was a resourceful man and, if he had to say so himself, which he did, a very good actor. He never had the looks, the charisma of a leading man, but that was fine with him. Leading men get old, hang on, give up and start to compete, usually unsuccessfully, for character roles with Charles Cheswith, who already fit comfortably into the roles of father, priest, lawyer, pharmacist and cop. He could go back to the stage, although it would have to be far away and under a different name.

  He still harbored a glimmer of hope that he could claim the substantial insurance on his brother, Malcom. It was not a great hope, but there were still possibilities to explore.

  First things first, however.

  He had a checklist. Not one he had written. He didn't need to write it. Charles had an outstanding memory cultivated by exercises and tricks collected from years of learning roles. He had once, not too long ago, played Murray the Cop in a production of The Odd Couple on a riverboat in Natchez. He had understudied all of the male roles and had been not only prepared to step in but eager to do so. He got his chance one Saturday performance when one of the actors fell suddenly ill with violent vomiting. Ipecac induced. For one performance, Charles got to play Oscar Madison.

  Now Charles sat in a wheelchair at JFK Airport, passport and e-ticket in hand, waiting to board his flight to Vancouver. He knew places to get lost in Vancouver, places where he could heal and hide. He had the money from Doohan. It would carry him while he figured out a way to claim the insurance money.

  He wasn't quite home free, but he was getting closer.

  With the help of the crutches he had made it to the front of the hospital and into a cab, which had just pulled up. There were people ahead of him in line, but with crutches and bloody blue surgical garb he had pushed his way past them filled with apologies as he uttered, "Emergency. Sorry."

  And they believed him, believed he was a doctor. It was one of his better performances. It had to be.

  They would be able to track him to the cab he had taken. Of this Charles had no doubt. The pretty woman detective wouldn't give up or slow down. She had been relentless in rescuing him and her partner and figuring out what Charles had done. She would be relentless in tracking him.

  But he had made it back to the hotel where he had a room. The front desk clerk glanced at the bloody blues, the crutches, the bandaged leg and said nothing. He got Charles's passport and cash from the hotel safe. Charles paid his bill, went to his room, changed his clothes in agonizing pain, and made his way back to the front of the hotel where he caught another cab.

  All he had was a carry-on. No checking of luggage. In a washroom, Charles put on a pair of glasses, combed his hair forward and let his lower lip puff in a pout that announced that this character was not of high intellect.

  A lean black man with a trim beard and a blue blazer and tie hurried him through security in a wheelchair. Charles had checked the departure board briefly, saw that the Vancouver flight was leaving in thirty-five minutes. He had purchased a one-way ticket. Charles knew Vancouver, had been in three episodes of The A-Team, two of 21 Jump Street and four pilots for shows that didn't go anywhere. That had been a long time ago, but he still knew people there. One of them would put him up. He would tell them tales, lies and partial truths till he healed. He would lose weight, grow a mustache, change the color of his hair, become someone different, buy an illegal Canadian passport. It could and would work out. Charles Cheswith was a resourceful man.

  He got the man who was pushing the wheelchair to stop at a mall shop where he bought a Mets cap, a pair of sunglasses and a magazine. He was ready, at the front of the line, early boarding for the man who needed assistance.

  Then he saw them. He wasn't sure at first that it was Detective Stella Bonasera and Dr. Hawkes. He had to take off the sunglasses to be certain, but there they were, heading toward him through the crowd.

  It was almost certainly over. He had run out of all but one option and that was more a dramatic gesture than a sincere probability. Still it was a possibility. He reached into his carry-on, took out a small bottle filled with almost clear liquid, removed his watch from his wrist and fumbled for a small length of twisted wire.

  When Stella and Hawkes were standing in front of the wheelchair, Charles was ready. He looked up at them and said, "How did you find me so damned fast? No, hold that explanation."

  "It's over," said Stella.

  "I was just thinking that myself," Charles said. "But I'll try this just the same."

  He pulled down
the blanket in his lap to reveal a small bottle wrapped in thin wires. The wires were attached to a wristwatch.

  "I'd like to leave now," he said.

  No one around them seemed to notice.

  "I'm sure you would," said Stella.

  "It's not going to happen," said Hawkes.

  "What have I got to lose?" asked Charles. "Do you really want to take a chance?"

  "No chance," said Hawkes. "That's not a bomb. It's shampoo."

  "You're sure?" said Charles. "You willing to risk innocent lives?"

  "No risk," said Hawkes.

  Stella stepped forward and took the wired shampoo bottle and attached watch from his hand.

  "This is the way the world ends," said Charles, shaking his head.

  "Not with a bang but a whimper," Hawkes supplied.

  * * *

  "I don't know if I'm insurable," Keith said as he and Jerry walked across the lobby of the Gronten Hotel toward the elevator.

  There were six people in the small lobby. One of them, the one with his hands folded over a paperback novel in his lap, was definitely a cop. The cop looked a little weary, but he was doing his job. Keith could sense the man looking at him and the insurance salesman from Dayton as they stepped into the elevator. There would be another cop outside of Ellen's room. He would deal with that.

  "Everybody's insurable," said Jerry as the doors closed. "The only question is, how much will it cost and is it worth it?"

  Keith was blessed with great peripheral vision. He was looking at Jerry and nodding as if the salesman had just said something profound, but Keith could also see the cop in the chair looking in his direction.

  They were the only ones on the elevator. Jerry pushed the button for the sixth floor. Close enough. Keith would have only two flights up to get to Ellen Janecek.

  "Your leg, right?" asked Jerry as they rose.

  "My leg," Keith agreed. "Army's covering treatment but what about complications down the line? My mother, Dotty, you know her?"

  "Don't think so," said Jerry.

  "She died last year. Left me financially but not physically comfortable."