by Maris Soule
Box in hand, she hesitated at the top of the stairs to the basement, then straightened her shoulders and went on down. Being afraid of her own basement was ridiculous. There were no bogymen down there.
She had one foot on the bottom step of the steel stepstool, ready to climb up and return the box to its original spot, when she heard a crash upstairs. For a moment she stood motionless, trying to identify what had fallen and broken. And then she heard voices. Male voices. Loud and strident. Arrogant.
‘Where are you, bitch?’ one yelled.
‘Hey, Puta, come get what you deserve,’ another taunted.
‘Bitch!’ a third voice echoed.
Mary put down the box of weapons and turned toward the egress window. She could try to escape through that. Climb up on the bookcase under the window, crawl out, and run to the nearest neighbor. All she had to do was hope no one came down the stairs until she made her escape, that she could get the window open without making a sound, get herself …
A pair of jean-clad legs appeared on the other side of the egress window, ragged cuffs hanging over scuffed and worn boots. The knees bent, and outside the window she saw a tattoo covered arm and hand, then a face, scraggly black hair half-covering dark eyes. She knew the moment he saw her. A sneer curved his lips, and then the arm and face disappeared, leaving just the pant legs and boots, and she heard a muffled shout in Spanish.
‘Fuck,’ she mumbled. No way to escape now. No place to hide.
Her gaze shifted to the crawl space. Could she get in there before they found her? Would they think to look for her in there?
From above, she heard the shattering of glass and the crack of wood. She wasn’t sure what they were breaking, but the thought of them handling her possessions, of ruining the things that held such precious memories, cleared her mind. Taking in a deep breath, she started up the stairs. The bastards had no right invading her house. Maybe she wouldn’t be able to win this battle, but dammit all, she wasn’t going to go down without a fight.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
‘HEY GUYS, DISPATCH is getting 911 calls,’ Allison shouted from the front of the station. ‘Something’s going on over at that house that was fire-bombed last night.’
‘Shit,’ Jack said, pushing himself away from his computer as Wally and Phil stepped back. ‘I told her they weren’t going to let this drop.’
‘We’re all going,’ Wally called back to Allison, and headed for his office.
‘My cruiser’s right out back,’ Phil said, leading the way to that door. ‘You can ride with me, Jack.’
It seemed the best idea, and Jack slid in on the passenger’s side of the police car as Phil started the engine. Siren blaring, the drive to Maple Street took less than five minutes, and both he and Phil were out of the cruiser, Glocks drawn, before Jack had time to come up with a plan of action. Wally pulled his car up right behind them.
Two boys peeled out of the back door, and Phil took off after them, Wally trailing at a slower pace. Jack headed for the front door, ready to stop anyone who attempted to escape that way. When no one did, he tried the door. A turn of the knob, and he knew it was still locked.
Gun at the ready, he worked his way around the opposite side of the house, looking for the point of entry. A broken window by the back door answered that question. He could also see Phil and Wally had the two escapees down, spreadeagled on the ground. ‘I’m going in,’ he yelled to the two.
Broken glass crunched under his feet as Jack entered the back room. From somewhere near the middle of the house, he heard a high-pitched scream. Male? Female? He couldn’t really tell and cautiously hurried that direction, fearing the worst.
Through an open door next to the stairway that led to the second floor, Jack could see the top of the stairs that led down to the basement. Another yell – deeper and more guttural – came from that area, then a crash and a thump.
‘Mary?’ Jack yelled.
‘Yeah?’ came back at him from the basement, the voice a little shaky.
‘You OK?’
She didn’t answer, and he hurried to the stairway.
He couldn’t make out the sounds he heard, but by the time he’d gone far enough down the steps to see, Mary was setting a fallen stepstool back up. ‘Hey,’ he said and repeated his question. ‘You OK?’
She looked up at him, smiled, and brushed her hands together. ‘I’ve had better days.’
Behind her, scrunched up against a metal shelf, a cardboard box shoved next to him, was Jose Rodriguez himself. His right arm was at an odd angle and blood trickled down from a gash on his forehead. Although a knife on the floor had no signs of blood, Jack knew the crowbar by the stepstool could be lethal. ‘Is he dead?’
‘No, just unconscious. What about the others?’
‘We’ve got them,’ he said, and then heard Wally, from somewhere above him, shout, ‘Stop where you are!’
Jack rushed back up the stairs. Wally had his gun pointed at a dark-skinned teenager who had started down the upstairs stairway. The boy gave a quick glance Jack’s way, looked back at Wally, and then sunk down on the middle step and raised his arms up in defeat.
‘The woman…?’ Wally asked, never taking his gaze off the boy.
‘Fine.’ Jack laughed and walked up the steps to where the teenager sat. ‘You guys picked on the wrong old lady.’
The kid frowned as Jack pulled him to his feet. ‘But Jose, he say this the one.’
‘Oh, she’s the one, all right,’ Jack said and cuffed the boy. ‘She’s just not a defenseless old lady. Your fearless leader is now going back to jail.’ He jerked on the boy’s arm, causing him to stumble down the stairs. ‘But don’t worry. So are you.’
‘She took him out?’ Wally said, the shake of his head expressing his disbelief.
‘Anyone going to call an ambulance?’ Mary asked, appearing at the top of the stairs. ‘The guy down there is going to be in a lot of pain when he comes to.’
Jack stared at her. In his thirty-four years of police work, both in Chicago and on the Rivershore police force, he’d never seen a potential victim so calm after a break-in and attempted murder.
Mary had to admit, she felt damned proud of herself. Halfway up the stairs, she’d decided she needed a weapon. Although she would have preferred using her nunchuck, with it gone she’d decided on a more conventional weapon and went back for the crowbar hanging by the furnace.
Next trick was to conceal her intentions. Carl always said, ‘Catch your target off guard, and you’ll have the advantage.’
‘Help,’ she yelled, knowing that would bring the enemy to her.
Within seconds, a man started down the stairs.
By then she’d moved the stepstool closer to the bottom steps and positioned herself beside it. She had a feeling the man was surprised to find her looking up at him, smiling.
‘Looking for me?’ she said as sweetly as she could manage with her heart thudding like a jackhammer.
‘Puta,’ he growled, a dark scowl narrowing his almost-black eyes and drawing thick, bushy eyebrows together.
‘Puta?’ she repeated, hoping she looked confused. ‘I don’t understand.’
He paused, his frown deepening. His hesitation gave her time to assess her adversary. A gray hoodie covered all but a lock of his dark hair and created an oval frame around his face. His features were Hispanic, his skin swarthy. He wasn’t very tall, but she had a feeling there was a lot of strength in his lean frame. The denims hugging his hips and legs looked fairly new and expensive, as did the leather boots on his feet. He looked older than the boys who had attacked her the night her car stopped running, but she doubted he’d reached his thirtieth birthday.
‘Bitch,’ he growled and held up a knife with a blade long enough to easily slash a tire or puncture a lung and heart.
‘Now, son, what did I ever do to you?’
‘I ain’t your son.’ His nostrils dilated as he slowly proceeded down the steps, his gaze locked on her face, and his
movements reminding her of a cat on the prowl.
She edged closer to the stepstool, as if retreating in fear, all the while using the stool and her body to hide what she held in her right hand.
He smiled.
She leaned to the side, using the stool’s top step for balance, and tilted her head up to watch him.
He reached the basement floor, his gaze focused on her face.
Mary held her breath. Move too soon and she would lose her advantage; too late and he would overpower her.
His eyes, along with the tightening of the muscles around his mouth, relayed his intentions. As he made a slashing lunge with the knife, aiming for her neck, she leaned her head and shoulders back, out of range, and rotated to the left. In one smooth motion, she swung the crowbar up and around in an arc in front of her.
His arm and her crowbar collided, opposing actions doubling the force. A keening sound came from deep within him, the knife flying out of his hand and falling onto the concrete with a clatter.
Mouth open, he staggered back, clutching his right arm with his left hand, until he bumped against the bookshelf under the egress window, jarring books and knick-knacks to the floor. For a moment he stared at her, a mixture of pain and anger giving his eyes a wild, unfocused look, then he gave another yell, this one deeper and more guttural. Again he lunged forward.
As she’d been taught so many years before, she pivoted out of range. He saw the stepstool too late to stop his forward momentum and hit it full-force. The stepstool went over, taking him with it, and throwing him into the metal shelving unit. His head hit an edge with a thud, and he dropped to the floor like a bag of dirt.
Mary heard her name called from somewhere up above and called back, somewhat surprised by how shaky her voice sounded. She started for the stairs, but then, from behind her, she heard a grunt.
She stopped where she was and turned to look back. Blood poured from a gash on her attacker’s forehead, and his eyes had a dazed, crazed look. His lips contorted into a snarl as he struggled to his feet. She waited until he was standing before she moved.
Rather than retreat, she surged toward him. She used the side of an open hand to hit the pressure point at the side of his neck. He had no chance to react, and, although she would have liked it to be a killing blow, she held back, satisfied when his legs collapsed under him, and he slid back down the shelving unit to a seated position on the floor.
He would have toppled over, but she quickly shifted a fallen box of books under his side to prop him up. She then picked up the fallen stepstool and set it back on its legs. That was when Sergeant Rossini came into view.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
THE THREE MOBILE gang members were taken to the County Jail in Paw Paw. Phil volunteered to do the initial paperwork on them. Wally accompanied Jose Rodriguez in his ambulance ride to the hospital, and Jack stayed at the house. He kept Mary isolated in her bedroom while the county’s Crime Scene Unit gathered evidence of the break-in. Other than a few general questions, he didn’t ask her for a step-by-step description of what had happened. He wanted to leave that interview until everyone had left and just the two of them remained.
Once the house was cleared, he opened the bedroom door and told her to come on out. ‘Want some tea?’ he asked, leading the way to the kitchen and going directly to her coffee maker.
‘Sure,’ she said and sat down at the table.
‘You were lucky,’ he said, refilling the water reservoir. ‘They knocked this over, but it didn’t break.’
Mary said nothing, but as she absently rubbed the side of her right hand, she looked around her kitchen and into the living-room area. Jack knew she was taking in the damage the gang had done: the broken window, shattered glassware and dishes, emptied drawers, and knocked-over lamps.
As soon as the water heated, he prepared a mug of tea for her and a coffee for himself; then he sat opposite her. She still hadn’t said anything, and her silence bothered him. For the first time since they’d met, she looked all of her seventy-four years.
‘You OK?’ he asked, wondering if she might be in shock and if he should take her to the hospital … or call an ambulance.
‘I guess so.’
‘You want to talk about what happened here?’
That brought a small chuckle … and a ‘No.’
‘Well, I do.’ He didn’t pull out a notebook. He wanted her to see this as a friendly conversation. ‘Do you realize you just put a gang leader … an ex-con and probable drug pusher … in the hospital?’
‘So that was Rodriguez?’ She shook her head. ‘When he came down those stairs, I had no idea who he was.’
‘Being involved in a hit isn’t his style. Normally he lets others do the dirty work for him, makes sure he isn’t connected. I don’t understand why, personally, he was after you.’
‘My charming personality?’
She said it with a fake smile, which irritated Jack. ‘Don’t be coy, Mrs Harrington, or whatever your real name is. Something’s going on that’s bigger than a gang looking for revenge. Did you know your friend Burrows was at Rodriguez’s house this morning?’
‘That’s what he told me.’
‘So he was here? You talked to him this morning?’
She nodded. ‘He came to say goodbye. He’s flying back to Washington D.C.’
Jack hated to admit that was a relief. He still didn’t understand why Burrows made him so nervous. ‘Did he warn you that Rodriguez might come after you?’
‘In a way.’
She was still being evasive, which irked Jack. ‘Come on, Mary. Why did Rodriguez come here specifically for you?’
‘Why?’ She leaned back in her chair. ‘Because that’s the way David works. If you want someone dead, you make it look like someone else did it.’
Her calm accusation surprised Jack. ‘Burrows wants you dead? But why?’
She gave a small laugh. ‘I can’t tell you, Detective, or he’ll have to kill you, too.’
‘He’s not going to kill me.’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure about that.’ Mary lifted her mug of tea, but before she took a sip, she added, ‘We have our ways.’
Jack noticed the ‘We.’ He also heard the pride in her voice, and he wondered if she might be right. Hadn’t he already sensed something very dangerous about David Burrows?
‘How’s he going to know you told me?’
‘You’ll put something in one of your reports, or you’ll start doing some checking on the Internet, to see if what I told you was correct. He’ll know.’
Her confidence explained a lot. ‘He hacked into our computers, didn’t he? That message we all found this morning, he did that, didn’t he?’
‘I don’t know what message you mean, but yes, your computers have been hacked into. He needed to know what you’d discovered about me. He also found out about that gang from your computer.’
‘And the box the crime-scene boys found on the floor down in your basement,’ Jack said, ‘the one with the martial arts weapons. That’s yours, isn’t it?’
For a moment he thought she would deny it, then she gave a slight shrug. ‘I should have gotten rid of those weapons years ago. They certainly didn’t help me today.’
‘You said you’d never had any martial arts training.’ He remembered that clearly.
‘I said I hadn’t taken any classes since moving to Rivershore. Actually, I never took any classes. It was simply part of my training.’
Training she hadn’t forgotten, from what Jack could tell. ‘Training for what?’
‘For ways to kill people.’ She closed her eyes and shook her head. ‘I’m telling you too much.’
As far as he was concerned, she wasn’t telling him enough. ‘What people?’
‘Back then?’ She looked at him again and shrugged. ‘Spies. Political leaders. People the government couldn’t legitimately touch.’
‘You worked for the CIA?’
‘No. Even back then they had limits on what they could
do.’ She pushed her chair away from the table and stood. ‘You know what, Sergeant? I’m hungry. All I’ve had today is a piece of toast. What about you? Hungry?’
She walked over to her refrigerator and opened it. Once again, her calm amazed him. ‘I wasn’t finished, Mrs Harrington.’
‘I have some leftover chicken. Or I could fix an omelet.’
‘Mrs Harrington, we need to talk.’
‘OK.’ She closed the refrigerator door and came back to the table, holding a chicken drumstick. ‘What do you want to talk about?’ She sat back down. ‘What happened today? It’s simple. Four guys – who evidently belong to a gang – broke into my house. I suppose they planned on robbing me. Their leader, this Jose Rodriguez, tripped going down the stairs, hit his head, and broke his arm. I was very lucky that the police arrived when they did.’ She took a bite of chicken, chewed it for a moment, then asked, ‘Why did you arrive when you did?’
‘Your neighbor called 911.’
She smiled. ‘Good for Ella. She called here right after the ambulance left. I told her I’d call her back as soon as I could.’
Mary looked over at the telephone, and Jack was afraid she’d get up and make that call before they were finished. ‘You can call her after I leave,’ he said, hoping she took that as an order.
To his surprise, she didn’t argue, simply took another bite of chicken. He kept talking. ‘We actually received several 911 calls. According to the dispatcher, the first one came from a man who hung up right after giving your address. She couldn’t trace the number and wasn’t sure if it was a prank or not … but then the call from Mrs Williams came in.’
Mary frowned. ‘I thought you could always trace 911 calls.’
‘It could have been from one of those throwaway phones.’
‘Maybe I’m wrong, then.’ She put the drumstick down and smiled. ‘Maybe he’s not trying to kill me.’
‘Rodriguez?’