But before I succumbed to this knife-wielding psycho, I needed to know one thing. “Why did you kill her, Jackson?” I gasped.
His answer was succinct and direct. “I was tired of the cheating.”
“Me, too,” I said. “But divorce seemed a lot less messy to me.”
He wiped his hand across his brow and I saw the blood from my hand paint a dark streak on his skin. He was out of breath from his short run across the lawn and he struggled to catch his breath. I was in luck—I had been knifed by an out-of-shape assailant. “She wasn’t going for that,” he said. He knelt in front of me, his knees straddling my legs. He hung his head and tried to get his breathing back to normal.
I figured I should warn him. “There’s a very large man in my house with an even bigger gun. And when he sees you filet me, he’s going to shoot you in the head.” I chuckled, slightly hysterical. “Just thought I should let you know.” I picked up my hand and looked at the defensive knife wound. “Wow,” I said, in wonder. “This hurts more than when I got shot. And that hurt a lot.” My palm was in two pieces, clear down to the bone. My other hand was trapped under my leg and I couldn’t get it loose, what with Jackson’s weight pinning me down. “And even if you don’t kill me, he’s going to kill you for doing this,” I said, showing him my injured hand.
“You talk too damn much,” he said, and raised the knife above his head again.
“And your French stinks,” I said, taking the heel of my palm and shoving it as hard as I could stand into his face.
The pain shot through me, white hot, but I managed to push Jackson onto his back. I got to my knees and staggered, half standing, pushing off the grass with my good hand. I curled my wounded palm into my chest and looked up, hoping to see Crawford come out the back door of my house. But my backyard was vacant, except for a very troubled Trixie, who continued to walk in circles, her head hanging low. When she saw me approach her, her instincts kicked in and she ran to my side, licking my good hand. Apparently, she had decided who she would defend.
Jackson got up and ran toward us but Trixie let out a sinister-sounding growl to warn him off. She separated the two of us, and in that instant, I saw in Jackson’s eyes that he was deciding how quickly he could kill the dog before he got to me.
“If you hurt a hair on her head, Jackson, I will tear you limb from limb,” I said, and knelt beside Trixie, holding her collar in my good hand. “This dog is the best thing to come out of your house. And this whole mess.” I heard the back door open and the screen door slam shut as Crawford’s calm and reassuring voice drifted across to me.
“Alison, get up and walk toward me with the dog. Jackson, don’t move or I will shoot you,” he said, the last part more of a promise than a threat.
I stood and pulled Trixie along. The front of my shirt was soaked with my blood and it clung to my chest, heavy and wet. I stumbled toward Crawford, who was shirtless and pointing the gun very steadily in Jackson’s direction, despite being fifty feet from his target. His sweatpants hung on his slim hips and his feet were bare.
“Drop the knife, Jackson, and then put your hands where I can see them,” he said, still calm. He took short steps toward Jackson, who stood on the other side of the hedgerow. “Go inside, Alison,” he said. “The boy’s already called 911.”
Nothing doing. I wasn’t leaving him outside with that guy, no matter what. Trixie and I stood behind him on the patio and watched the standoff.
Jackson held the knife over his head but he didn’t drop it. He stared at Crawford, weighing his options. Crawford read his mind. “You don’t have any options, Jackson. Let’s do this the right way.” He inched closer to the hedge. “She cheated on you, right?”
Jackson looked around, hearing, like I did, the sirens in the distance.
“Cheated on you a lot. With Ray even.” Crawford continued his baby steps across the yard, his arms held out in front of him, the gun in a two-fisted hold.
Jackson nodded, his eyes filling with tears.
“You’re in over your head here, man,” Crawford said. “Drop the knife.”
The sirens got closer. But Jackson stayed where he was, the knife at shoulder height.
“I have a gun, you have a knife. You know how this is going to end, right?” Crawford asked. “It’s like rock, paper, scissors, except when you lunge at me, I shoot you. That’s how it ends every time. The one with the knife always dies. I’ve done it before, Jackson. It’s not hard. And you’ll never surprise me.” He was close enough to touch the hedge now and I felt my heart pounding in my throat.
But surprise him he did, because just as every police car in Dobbs Ferry congregated at the end of my driveway, Jackson plunged the knife into his own chest, spraying blood farther than I ever would have imagined blood could travel. The look on his face was utter surprise at his own action, as if he hadn’t had any idea that he was going to do it. He disappeared behind the hedge.
Crawford burst through the hedge and vanished, as well. I heard him yell to me to get the cops over the cacophony of sirens. I opened the back door and ushered Trixie in, catching sight of Brendan’s younger brother in the hallway, his eyes wide and tear-filled. I grabbed a dishtowel from the counter and wrapped my hand as I made my way down the driveway, where I did exactly as I was told before collapsing into a heap on my front lawn.
Chapter 32
My left hand looked like a giant Q-tip, wrapped in more gauze than I had ever seen. The microsurgery to reattach some of the cut nerve endings was successful, but any career as a concert violinist had now been cut short by my coming into contact with a giant fowl-deboning implement.
Jackson had managed to severely wound himself but he didn’t die. When he started to recover, he was questioned by the Dobbs Ferry detectives, cranky Joe Hardin and even crankier Catherine Madden. Turns out that Jackson thought he had hit on something good with the old dismemberment modus operandi; he could kill Terri, cut off her hands and feet, and cast more suspicion on the Miceli clan while he took off for parts unknown. Ray and Terri had truly been kindred spirits, because like Ray, Terri had amassed quite the little black book of conquests. She was a serial philanderer and Jackson had had enough. Everything she had told me about him had been true; he had spent a good deal of their marriage in rehab and, obviously, had the “anger management” issues that she had alluded to. I’ll say.
The worst part of the story was that he had killed her in the house. They had left town the day that I had come to own Trixie; they had gone to Massachusetts to their summer house in the Berkshires in an attempt to rekindle their relationship and decide whether or not they would stay together and in Westchester. Terri, however, had left something in the Dobbs Ferry house and implored Jackson to return before they made any permanent moves. It wasn’t Trixie she was after. And when Jackson found out what it was—a necklace that had been given to her by Ray—he had snapped. And just like I suspected and had told Crawford when I called him at work, someone had called 911 that rainy morning. It wasn’t the wacky 911 system going haywire like the cop had told me; Terri had been bleeding to death in the house and managed to make one last call. A luma light and the appropriate chemicals revealed blood spatters in the family room and kitchen, consistent with someone being stabbed to death.
Jackson had stolen the red car from the Stop & Shop in the center of town and had dumped his own car there as well; he wanted to be anonymous when he took off. Poor Mrs. Dayer, the owner of the stolen car, had been visiting her sister and had gone out to get eggs. She was dismayed to find that even though she was visiting a swanky suburban town, crime happens, and her lovely little red Corolla was gone when she emerged from the store. Jackson was in that car when I was chasing him. He was on his way to dispose of Terri’s hands and feet, which he revealed he had tossed into the East River, the repository of many a dead body or parts of dead bodies.
The hole that he had buried her in had been started by Trixie; that dog just loves to dig and had been working on that hole f
or a long time. Fortunately for Jackson, the developing hole, coupled with my absence during my stint in state trooper jail, afforded him the location and the time to bury Terri and get out of town before I even returned.
Jackson had forgotten one thing in his haste to leave: his passport. His goal was to start a new life in Canada, but bless their hearts, United States Customs had instituted a new rule that made everyone crossing our borders show a passport. In the old days, traveling to Canada consisted of a wink and a nod at the border. I don’t know to what part of Canada Jackson was going to go, but the thought of him sullying my homeland with his stupid hair and murderous ways made me furious.
And just as Crawford suspected, the cop who didn’t follow up on the 911 calls coming from their house had made a sudden and unexpected career change. Last I heard, Officer Bruno was a conductor on Metro North.
So, how did I end up with Trixie? I made Crawford pry that out of Hardin and Madden, who had pried it out of Jackson. Seems Terri hated that dog, which moved her up on my most-hated list. How could you hate Trixie? Jackson said that Terri knew how much I liked the dog and viewed their leaving as a good way to get rid of the dog, complicate my life, and make everyone happy in the long run.
As for Miss Blurry Tattoo Ass, Julie Anne Podowsky had made one more trip into the Fiftieth Precinct, but this time she didn’t lie. She wasn’t there to help but to admit something that had been eating at her since her first visit to the precinct: she had broken into Ray’s apartment to find a sex tape that he had made of the two of them. Seems her father was a building superintendent in Queens and she knew her way around locks and had even picked a few in her day. She told Crawford that she had never found the tape and was wondering if the police had it. Crawford assured her that there was no sex tape and he said that when he told her that, she had turned the color of cement.
I must have done a pretty good job of wearing a poker face, because Crawford didn’t seem to suspect that I knew anything about the tape. I was really proud of myself because, despite having the biggest mouth in the world, I had been able to keep the fact that I possessed the world’s worst, most unsexy sex tape from Crawford.
Julie Anne Podowsky found an envelope in her mailbox the following week. I know, because I watched her open it from my position across the hall from the mail room, and smiled when I saw the relief etched on her face. It wasn’t a letter telling her that she had gotten an A in Modern Literature, but it was something that I’m sure she wanted just as badly. Maybe even worse.
Mrs. Helpful strikes again.
Crawford came by my house early on a Wednesday morning, two weeks after everything had happened, and took me to school. Sister Mary had kindly given me a week off so that I could recover from my microsurgery. I had been prepared to take the rest of the semester off, but the doctor had assured me that my line of work wasn’t terribly taxing and that I would still recover nicely, even while delivering the boring lectures that I was known for. I had discovered the joys of Percocet—even better than Vicodin—but weaned myself off lest my lectures stopped being boring only to become wacky and weirdly fascinating.
I got in the car with Crawford and leaned over to kiss him, whacking him lightly in the head with my Q-tip hand. “Hey,” he said, rubbing the side of his head.
“Sorry,” I said. “I’m still trying to judge distances with this thing.”
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
I considered that question. “Pretty good, actually.”
He looked at me closely before putting the car into gear and slowly starting down the street. “Are you still on Percocet?” He handed me a cup of coffee from the cup holder.
“Nope. Clean as a whistle.” I took a sip of coffee. “Want a urine sample?”
“No,” he said, obviously disgusted.
When we got to St. Thomas, he parked, as he always did, in the tow-away zone. He turned to me and rested his arm on the steering wheel. “So, what are you doing Friday night?”
I looked up at the ceiling, trying to figure out if I had plans. Of course I didn’t, but I liked to tease him. “I’m not sure…what did you have in mind?”
“The Rangers are playing the Islanders.”
I gasped. “You don’t have tickets, do you?”
He rolled his eyes. “No. That’s your other boyfriend.”
“So what are we going to do? Stand outside an electronics store and watch it on television behind plate glass?”
“I was going to invite you over to watch the game but if you’re going to be difficult about it…”
Crawford may not have the typical “guy” apartment but his television is bigger than mine. It’s actually the biggest television I’ve ever seen. “Well, when you put it that way, I guess I can make myself free for the night. Can Trixie come?”
“Of course Trixie can come. I figure she’s part of the deal now.”
I waved my hand in front of his face. “And can I bring Q-tip Hand?”
He sighed. “Yes, you can bring Q-tip Hand.”
“Then it’s a date.” I leaned in and drank in his clean laundry smell. “I can’t wait,” I murmured, giving him a long kiss, one that would last me a few days.
“Chinese or pizza?” he asked when we came up for air.
“It’s too early to know what I’ll want to eat. You’ll have to wait until Friday.” I opened my door and started to get out. He put his hand on my arm.
“I love you,” he said.
“And I love you,” I said and got out of the car. One last look at him told me that he had the same look on his face that he always did when I told him I loved him: surprise. I was going to have to say it a lot for him to believe me, obviously. I watched as he drove off in the police-issue Crown Victoria before going into the building.
Dottie was clad in a spectacular all-green ensemble, her eye shadow iridescent and thickly applied to match her clothing. I knew I hadn’t taken any Percocet that morning, but considered the fact that maybe she had. Only someone hopped up on opioids could have come up with that combination. She batted her eyes at me. “Getting better?” she asked.
I held up Q-tip Hand. “Guess so,” I said, but without giving her any additional information, I sashayed down to my office. She was fascinated with all of the gory details of what had happened. I knew she read all of the local papers and was up to date on all of the cases because it was clear she wasn’t doing any real work behind that desk, and the New York Post, rag of rags, was always tucked into her Webster’s New Abridged Dictionary.
I went into my office and sat in the chair behind my desk. I wasn’t in my office more than thirty seconds when there was a tentative knock at the door. “Come in.”
Her head barely grazing the doorknob, Sister Calista darted in and threw something on my desk. I shielded myself from any expectorations but she just cackled wildly and pulled out as quickly as she had come in.
“Voilà!” she called as she click-clacked back to her office in her chunky orthopedic shoes.
The manila envelope skittered across the metal top of the desk and came to rest on the far left-hand corner. In it were the syllabi from Calista and all of her colleagues. And also in there, written in the beautiful calligraphy of an old nun, was a note:
Dear Alison: Here are your syllabi. My dear, you should have joined the convent when you had the chance. It’s a much safer existence. With God’s Blessings…Sister Mary Edward Calista.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES
Copyright © 2007 by Maggie Barbieri.
All rights reserved.
For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2007032329
ISBN: 978-0-312-94530-5
St. Martin’s Paperbacks are published by St. Martin’s Press, 1
75 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Extracurricular Activities Page 26