Act of Betrayal

by Shirley Kennett

  Would they have to keep their relationship a secret at work? Sneak around like they were having an affair?

  There was only one place in the department where PJ fit in, and that was with the CHIP project. But Schultz was flexible. He could request a transfer. That would solve the direct boss-employee setup, but Wall would want to know why Schultz was transferring. Was that a problem? Were romances within the department accepted or frowned upon? In her old field of marketing research, she could have answered that question. But in law enforcement, she just didn’t know, and she had no one she could ask except Schultz himself. His view was bound to be biased.

  Another thing: Schultz was walking around out there, deliberately exposing himself to a killer. It was part of his job, she knew, to put himself in the path of danger, but she had Thomas to consider, too. She sensed that her son would come to love Schultz as a father—the seeds of it were already sprouting. Could she ever really accept the risk that went with his job on the front lines of law enforcement?

  To be brutally honest, were the risks he was taking so different from the ones she had taken upon herself since she’d joined CHIP? How did anyone involved in law enforcement handle the idea that their children could be left alone? Would it be easier to deal with as a married couple than as a single parent?

  There were so many problems, so many considerations, and all of them striking deep.

  She imagined what it would be like if the door shut inside her, closing off the relationship before it could go any further. If it was going to end, it would have to be done by her, because she was sure Schultz couldn’t do it. The thought of ending it made her terribly sad. Tears of loss and stress painted her face with hot streaks. She put her face in her hands and quietly sobbed.

  The phone rang. She sniffled and took a couple of deep breaths to calm down, then picked it up. It was Wall.

  She didn’t hear anything of what he said after the first sentence: Schultz was missing.

  Anita Collings walked in. PJ had left her office door open after a hasty trip to headquarters. Anita didn’t say anything, just puttered around fixing coffee. The familiar noises and aroma seemed to settle PJ’s chaotic thoughts. Anita passed her a cup.

  “Thanks,” PJ said. She wrapped her hands around the warm offering, wondering how her fingers had gotten so cold. “Did Wall send you to baby-sit me?”

  “I wouldn’t call it baby-sitting exactly,” Anita said tactfully. “He just said that you might want somebody to talk to.”

  Of all people, PJ thought, it has to be Anita.

  PJ found it hard to relate to Anita. She was the only daughter of a career cop, and had been immersed in the camaraderie of the department from the time her father brought her in to show her around when he was off-duty. Even the scars on her face, on the forehead and at the corner of her right eye, seemed to preclude confidences. There was a gulf between them of experience and attitude that being the same gender hadn’t put a dent in, much less overcome.

  “I’m all right now,” PJ said evasively. “I just overreacted to Schultz being out there.” She waved her hand vaguely.

  Anita held her gaze, maddeningly waiting her out. PJ sipped her coffee and wondered if it would be too rude just to get up and leave.

  “I grew up in a rough neighborhood,” Anita said. “And I wasn’t exactly a little angel. When Dad worked evenings or nights, I sometimes sneaked out and met with my friends, just to talk, you know, hang out. Since it was just Dad and me, I didn’t have a lot of supervision.”

  PJ thought how different that was from her own childhood. She had grown up in Newton, Iowa, a small town bounded by cornfields, pig farms, Interstate 80, and the midwestern work ethic. Her mother had always been there for her and her sister, Mandy. Her father had been the editor of the Newton Daily News, and frequently came home for lunch. Her father died years ago, but her mother still lived in Newton, in the white frame house with the big porch on the edge of town. The house, her parents, the whole town—everything smacked of stability and normalcy.

  The naughtiest thing PJ could remember doing as a child was sneaking out at night with her sister and writing “cock” on the side of the school building with red paint. She had just learned that a cock wasn’t only a rooster, and was eager to show off her knowledge. Mrs. Reardon, who taught seventh grade and lived next door to the school, saw them. The next day, PJ and Mandy scrubbed their handiwork with stiff brushes and buckets of soapy water, while classmates taunted them from the playground.

  “One night we saw a liquor store robbery,” Anita continued. “Cal—that was my best friend at the time—and I heard the shots and saw the creep run out. We went inside before the police got there. Stupid shits, that’s us, because there could have been more than one robber. Mr. Li was lying on the floor. His chest was covered with blood, and there was blood on the floor. He wasn’t dead yet. He was having some kind of convulsion, his whole body rigid and shaking, practically bouncing himself across the floor. Never seen anything like it before or since. It shook me up so bad I couldn’t eat or sleep for days.”

  PJ closed her eyes. She could picture the scene vividly, but she didn’t know why Anita had chosen to tell her the story.

  “Cal and I had been in the store pestering Mr. Li five minutes earlier, trying to get him to give us a free soda, I think. Then those bullets had a death grip on him, they were shaking the life out of him. He was dead by the time the police came in and shooed us out.”

  Anita paused and drank some of her coffee.

  “I’ve seen dead people since then,” she said. “Traffic accidents. Elderly people who died at home. Suicides. OD’s. Murders. I’ve even seen a woman who died after trying to give herself an abortion when she was seven months pregnant. But it’s Mr. Li I see when I wake up in the middle of the night—the way his head kept hitting the floor, and his eyes were rolled back. Jesus, the whites of his eyes were blood-red.” Her hands tightened on the coffee cup, and PJ saw tiny bumps rising on Anita’s forearms.

  “You never know how you’re going to react to stuff like that,” Anita said. “Or to the threat of it. Or of seeing people you care about walk into danger. What I’m trying to say is any reaction is all right. Just don’t hold it in.”

  PJ felt emotion sweep through her, slam her hard, an emotional mix she couldn’t even define. A cacophony of powerful impressions, each demanding acknowledgment, flashed in her mind. Her father’s death. Stephen saying he wanted a divorce. Loss, pain. The death of a newfound friend at the hands of a brutal killer. Eleanor’s blood spattered on the wall from the blows of a baseball bat. Schultz’s son under the terrible hand of death.

  Her heart wailed when she thought of Schultz looking the same way.

  When she could talk, she looked into Anita’s eyes, and wondered how she had ever thought the woman cold and distant.

  “It’s so many things,” PJ said, knowing there were things she couldn’t say directly to Anita. She had to keep the depth of her feeling for Schultz a secret, at least for now.

  PJ’s gaze flicked down at her own arm, where the thin line of the scar inflicted by a psychopath lay. She looked up and saw Anita looking at the scar.

  “When he was killed,” PJ said, tapping the scar, “my God, Anita, when he was killed, his blood splashed on me and mixed with my own in my wounds.” PJ lost her voice for a moment. “How do you do this, year after year? Doesn’t it make you crazy?”

  “Welcome to the job,” Anita replied. “I can’t say that it gets any easier. You just go on. You have to believe that you’re making a difference.”

  PJ wondered why she couldn’t talk to Schultz about those things. Anita seemed to read her thoughts about him.

  “Some cops just can’t talk about it. Or won’t.”

  “I guess you’ll have to be my safety net,” PJ said. The two women sat quietly. PJ felt something pull together inside herself, an inner strength that, just three years ago, she wouldn’t have believed she possessed. That strength got her through
the divorce, through the first challenging months of single parenthood, through the soul-searing cases she had been involved in, and it would serve her now, as well. In her work with the St. Louis Police Department, PJ had discovered a new level of commitment that flowed deep within her psyche, like the cold, relentless currents that ran far beneath the ocean, down where the sunlight never penetrated.

  Where was there room for love? Floating on the surface, perhaps, like a life raft. She liked the image. It was one she could hang onto until she had time to think the whole situation through.

  PJ rubbed the scar on her arm. The skin there felt colder than the surrounding area, but she figured that was her imagination. “How did you get those scars on your face?”

  Anita blinked. That was a question she wasn’t expecting. “You probably think it’s something sinister. Far from it. This one,” Anita said, brushing her hair away from the half-inch long depression that was like a notch in her forehead, “was from running into the corner of a brick building. I was chasing some friends when I was six years old, and took the corner too tight. Really laid myself out. It probably should have had stitches.” She took a sip of her coffee, evidently reliving the event.

  “This one,” she said, her finger tracing the slash at the outside corner of her right eye, “came from an old phonograph player. You know, the kind they had ages ago with long play records.”

  PJ nodded, feeling old.

  “Dad had one, and some old records he and Mom used to play. I was putting a stack of them on that post in the center, and I fell over on it. I was about ten years old. Just toppled over. Clumsy kid, I guess. The doctor said I was lucky. The post glanced off the bone right here at the edge of my eye and slid to the outside. If it had slipped the other way, I would have lost my eye.”

  Anita smiled and raised her coffee cup to PJ in a salute. “Now you know some of my deep dark secrets.”

  “If that’s all you’ve got hidden in your past, you’re one fortunate woman.”

  “Well, I didn’t say that was all…”

  The office door opened a crack, then widened, and Wall’s head popped in briefly. Evidently he was testing the waters.

  “C’mon in, lieutenant,” Anita said. “The coast is clear.”

  Wall came in and settled in what PJ thought of as Schultz’s chair, then put a folder on her desk. She pushed her emotions down and prepared herself to deal with whatever Wall was going to say.

  “Well, surprise, Libby’s gone,” he said. “The Jeff City police checked out her house.” Wall pointed his chin at the folder. “Here’s a copy of Jeremiah’s letter for you to go over. I think you’re going to find it interesting reading. It fits with everything on that tape of yours.”

  PJ nodded. She knew Wall was saving the lecture about threatening Darla with a gun—a gun she wasn’t even qualified to fire—for some other time, and she appreciated that.

  “I could use a little time to myself to go over this,” PJ said, tapping the folder. “Then I’d like to get out there and help.”

  Anita and Wall looked at each other. “There really isn’t much for you to do at this point,” Wall said.

  “Why not?” PJ snapped. “I couldn’t do any worse than you, letting Schultz get taken right out from under your nose.”

  “Do I have to remind you that watching Elijah was your idea? It’s as close to certain as we can get without finding him in the act, you said.” The sudden heat in Wall’s voice could have cooked a steak.

  “Since when do you rely exclusively on what I say, you patronizing—”

  “Since you’ve been right,” Wall said, leaning across the table, his face in hers. “Most of the time.”

  “All right, you guys,” Anita said. “Save your energy for the chase. We’re gonna find Schultz, and we’re gonna find him in one piece.”

  Wall sat back and hunched down in his chair. PJ crossed her arms across her chest.

  “Geez, grow up, will you?” Anita said to the room in general. “We’ve got a cop to save.”

  PJ let go of her anger. She knew it was based in fear, the fear that she’d never see Schultz alive again. She sucked in a deep breath, and saw Wall do the same.

  “Let’s be constructive about this,” PJ said, using her best shrink voice. “What can I do to help?”

  “Read the letter and we’ll talk,” Wall said.

  Thirty-seven

  “OUCH,” SCHULTZ SAID.

  Brilliant comeback for being decked by an old woman.

  Libby Ramsey told him to get up off the ground, and he did. The side of his face felt like a bus had hit it, but he hadn’t lost consciousness. She took his gun, pulled his cell phone out of the pouch, turned it off, and tossed it into the bushes.

  “You wired?”

  He shook his head no, regretted it as bursts of color obscured his vision. Her hands ran over him like ants over a cake crumb, found the transmitter, and yanked it loose.

  “Ouch. Damn.”

  “Walk,” she said, and somehow he got to her car.

  She made him drive. At first he said he couldn’t. His head hurt and he couldn’t see well enough. Then he found out an amazing thing: a gun held to his temple miraculously cleared his vision. He wondered if he should pass that along to the medical establishment.

  She didn’t blindfold him or put him in the trunk of the car, and he took that for a bad sign. It meant she didn’t think it mattered that he saw where they were going. They drove southwest out of the city, on Interstate 44 toward Meramec Caverns. They didn’t get that far, though. Libby had him take the St. Clair exit, and from there he got lost in all the twists and turns on country gravel roads.

  At the farmhouse, he started to panic. It was so remote. He shouldn’t have let things get so far. He’d have to take her out somehow, regardless of whether he had any proof of the other killings.

  When he got out of the car he was poised to act, but she stood too far away to reach and calmly shot him in the foot. He bent over with the pain of it, his leg suddenly turned to jelly underneath him, and then he felt the impact of the butt of the gun behind his ear. After that he felt nothing.

  Schultz came to with a stabbing pain behind his eyes. He had no idea how long he’d been out. His left foot throbbed. He experimented with opening his eyes. It took him several times before the world stopped reeling.

  He was naked and tied to a chair. A bright lamp hung from the ceiling, casting a circle of light around him but obscuring the edges of the room so that he couldn’t tell how large the space was. He leaned over as well as he could, bringing on dizziness but allowing him to glimpse a bloody rag tied around his left foot. At least the foot was still there. It hurt like hell.

  He tried out his voice, found he could only croak. He swallowed a couple of times and tried again.

  “Libby, you in here?”

  There was no answer, which didn’t mean she wasn’t behind him at the moment with an ax the size of Texas. Reflexively, he drew his shoulders up around his neck, grateful at least that it was Lizzy Borden, not Libby.

  Schultz tugged at the knots that held his wrists behind the chair, and found them disappointingly tight. Whatever else he thought of Libby, she deserved credit for tying a good knot.

  He heard a small scrape behind him.

  “Goddamn it, Libby, come on out. I know you’re back there.”

  “Watch your language, you murdering son of a bitch. You’re in the Lord’s presence.”

  He heard the click of a light switch, then the wall in front of him was bathed in brilliant light. He blinked a few times until his eyes adjusted. On the wall were two stunning renderings. One was of the Four Riders of the Apocalypse. Pestilence, War, Famine, and Death galloped across the wall on their dreadful mounts. He stared at the other drawing for some time before he called up the names from distant memory: the Dragon with Seven Heads and Ten Horns and the Woman Clothed in the Sun. Both scenes were from Revelations, the book of the Bible dealing with judgment day. Done in black and wh
ite, they were line drawings, like intricate Renaissance woodcuts. He was certain they were copies of something famous he’d seen in art appreciation class, meticulously re-created with a patient and talented hand.

  His eyes traveled over them, absorbed not only in their stark beauty but in their portent. Death, on his starving, skeletal horse, seemed to have a message meant directly for Schultz.

  Libby appeared abruptly, blocking his view of the wall. She was holding a butcher knife.

  “Oh, shit,” he said.

  Thirty-eight

  CUT ARGUED WITH THE woman on the phone. She didn’t want to send out one of her ladies without a credit card number in advance. He offered to double the fee for a cash payment in person. She was suddenly agreeable.

  “Now we got that little business behind us,” she crooned into the phone, “what kinda girl you lookin’ for?”

  “I want somebody over forty, tall and big, weighs about a hundred and seventy pounds. She needs to wear a long modest dress, flat shoes, and a shoulder-length blond wig.”

  The woman chuckled. “Hey, I got that. I got just what you lookin’ for. You wantin’ somebody to be your mama?”

  “I guess I am.”

  “Anythin’ else? Maybe you want your old granny, too? I got a special this time of night for two. It’s gettin’ late.”

  “Just the one,” Cut said. “And tell her to pick up some burgers on her way. I’m hungry.”

  “That’ll be—”

  “Yeah, I know. I’ll give her an extra twenty for the food. Just get her here quick. Room four oh six.” He gave her the address of the hotel.

  Forty minutes later, a car pulled into the front parking lot. By luck or by design on her part, she headed for a portion of the lot that was poorly illuminated and near a side entrance. Marking the position of the car in his mind, he watched the woman cross the lot. A few minutes later, there was a knock at his door. He let the woman in. The scent of hamburgers and fries preceded her.

  “Hi, I’m Marlene,” she said. “Hope you like your burgers with everything.”