Whiskers of the Lion

by P. L. Gaus

  Caroline laid her knife down and turned to face him. “Tell me why, Michael.”

  The professor sat again at the kitchen table. Caroline joined him. He told her about the sheriff’s plan to capture and question Earnest Troyer. Then, with Caroline’s further questions, he explained how they all had concluded that it was Earnest Troyer who had killed Howie Dent. Caroline listened to the logic of it, and she said, shaking her head judgmentally, “It was all there from the beginning.”

  “I know.”

  “Really, Michael.”

  “I know! But it was Stan Armbruster who put it together for us. He learned from Fannie that Howie Dent had left his wallet on the bus in Charlotte. And he left his keys there, too. In the red backpack.”

  “Still, it should have bothered you more—and sooner—that he didn’t have his own set of keys when he came home for the car.”

  “I know, Caroline. I know.”

  • • •

  Stan Armbruster stood in his boxers, in front of the mirror in his trailer home’s bathroom. His old uniform was hanging in the closet behind him. His new detective’s suit still lay soaked and crumpled on the floor where he had dropped it beside his bed two days previously.

  “The uniform again,” Armbruster grumbled. The sheriff had asked that he wear it for the Earnest Troyer arrest, so that as many people as possible would be in uniform. He wanted Troyer to have no doubt that he was being approached by officers of the law. Armbruster considered it to be a sure sign of the end of his new career as one of Robertson’s detectives. The sheriff had assured him that it wasn’t, but Armbruster could see the handwriting on the wall. And with the end of his career as a detective, Armbruster knew that he was also facing the end of any chance he might have had with Pat Lance.

  Barefooted, Armbruster padded into his kitchen and took two paper grocery bags out of the cupboard. These he carried back into his bedroom. He bagged his suit coat, pants, shirt, and tie for the trip to the dry cleaner. Unceremoniously, he dropped the heavy, wet bags into the corner beside his nightstand.

  Then Armbruster dressed slowly and methodically in his deputy’s uniform. He buckled on his wide and heavy black leather duty belt. From the top shelf of his closet, he took down his gun safe, and he opened it on his bed. He took out the big SIG Sauer 9 mm pistol, loaded it, and slid it into the holster on his belt. Back in front of his mirror, he snapped the safety strap in place over the hammer of the gun.

  At least he had resolved the alarm of his dream, he told himself in the mirror. It had been grizzled Earnest Troyer all along. There had been good reason for the alarm, and good reason for the clanging bell. Only last April, he had stood alone in that monster’s house, asking innocently for phone numbers of the bus drivers. Troyer had told him then that he was in charge of turning the buses around for another trip down to Sarasota. So of course, Earnest Troyer would have had Dent’s backpack all along. He managed the lost and found. And when Dent knocked on Earnest Troyer’s door to retrieve his lost backpack? Well, that had been all that Troyer needed. Howie Dent had come straight to him, and as Armbruster remembered what Earnest Troyer had done to Dent in the basement of the Helmuth farmhouse, it put a chill down his spine.

  So the alarm bell of his dream had been resolved. He could forget it. He felt relieved over that, if nothing else.

  Still, behind the frontal activity of his thoughts, the bell was always there. He knew, beneath whatever reasoning he could exercise in his consciousness, that the bell could clang again at any time. Any day could skip sideways in an instant.

  • • •

  Pat Lance had come home to put on her Amish dress, but she postponed it as long as possible. She fixed a microwave dinner and stared at the organdy Kapp as she ate rubbery chicken and soupy mashed potatoes. She watched one of Cleveland’s local news programs on cable while she fingered the dusty-rose fabric of the dress that lay on the couch beside her. She waited until the last minute before she began to dress.

  In front of her bathroom mirror, she pinned her brown wig into position and set it so that the bun was placed properly at the back of her head. She put on the black hose, the rose dress, the white apron, and the organdy Kapp. Then, over her hose, she strapped her thigh holster in place under her dress.

  It was easy to dress the part, she realized. It was harder to actually live the part. The costume was only an outward superficiality. The behavior was the real trick. To be demure. Submissive. And to do it gracefully.

  But they had good and sufficient reasons, Lance told herself. She understood that now. The Amish had good and sufficient reasons, both for their dress and for their behavior. The average American could never make it work, but the Amish did it every day. They did it purposefully. They did it peacefully.

  Standing in front of her mirror, dressed as Fannie Helmuth, Pat Lance found that she could respect that. She could never do it herself, but with new insight, she found that she could respect it.

  32

  Friday, August 19

  8:15 P.M.

  THE STAIRWELL where Armbruster was posted in the St. James was dimly lighted. He was on the landing, half a flight of steps above the third-floor door. Beyond him by another half a flight of steps was the exit to the roof. If Earnest Troyer came up the stairs from below, or if he came down from the roof, Armbruster would be there to arrest him.

  It was a suitable posting, Armbruster thought. But it was not the best posting. He would have preferred to be in room 6, with Lance. Or in room 7 with the sheriff. Then again, considering his failure to find Howie Dent in time to save him, perhaps he was lucky to have any posting at all.

  As he waited in the dark, a door below Armbruster opened in the stairwell. It was on the first or second floor. He heard steps coming slowly up the staircase.

  Then another door opened and closed in the stairwell. That was the second floor, Armbruster realized. Someone had entered the stairwell on the first floor, climbed to the second floor, and opened the door there.

  Then Armbruster heard the elevator starting up from the lobby. He listened to the motor in the elevator shaft, and the doors opened and closed on the second floor, below him.

  Armbruster checked his watch. Eight twenty-five. Troyer? Had he really come?

  The elevator continued to rise to the third floor. The sound of the doors parting brought Armbruster silently down the steps to the stairwell door that opened onto the third-floor hallway. He waited there with his hand on his pistol.

  The elevator doors closed, and the elevator stayed on the third floor. Armbruster heard a shuffling of cardboard, as if boxes were rubbing together, and he leaned his shoulder softly against the door. The latch had been altered earlier, so he was able to push soundlessly on the door to see into the hallway.

  Just in front of the elevator doors to Armbruster’s left, Earnest Troyer stood still in the hallway, with his back to Armbruster. He appeared to be thinking. Perhaps he was listening. He held two pizza boxes, one larger than the other. Armbruster watched through the slim crack of the door’s opening, and Troyer pulled loose the edge of the lid on the larger pizza box on the bottom. Then Troyer slipped his fingers into the slender opening and started walking toward room 6.

  When Troyer had advanced halfway down the hall, Armbruster took out his phone and sent the capital T text message that he had earlier addressed to everyone: Robertson in room 7. Lance and Branden in room 6. Bobby Newell, with uniformed deputies in the alley. Two more uniformed deputies on the roof.

  Simultaneously, Armbruster and Robertson pushed open their doors and stood like bookends at the opposite ends of the hall. Earnest Troyer was caught in the middle.

  With his hand resting on the butt of his gun, Robertson stepped forward and said, “We want to ask you some questions, Troyer.”

  Earnest Troyer backed up immediately. Robertson came forward, and Troyer backed up more. Behind Troyer, Armbruster commanded, “S
top!” and Troyer brushed the top pizza box off his stack. The box landed on the carpet at Troyer’s feet, and the pizza spilled out.

  Now Troyer was five paces from Armbruster, who was behind him, and ten paces from Robertson, who was in front of him. His hand was still slipped inside the open edge of the large pizza box he held.

  Behind Robertson, the professor came out of room 6, and then so did Pat Lance. Dressed Amish, they both had their guns in their hands, and the sight of them puzzled Troyer momentarily.

  Robertson stood fast and said, “We’re taking you in for questioning in the murder of Howard Dent.”

  Again, Troyer backed up a pace toward Armbruster. Now he was four steps away. Troyer stopped there and studied Robertson’s position. Behind Robertson, Lance and Branden were advancing. Troyer cranked his head around to see Armbruster in uniform. Armbruster advanced a step toward Troyer.

  Troyer’s face went slack, and his eyes hardened as he turned to face Armbruster. Taking care to speak distinctly, Troyer stepped closer and said, “You can ask me anything you like, Deputy. I don’t even know a Howie Dent.”

  Troyer had taken another step as he said this. Now he judged that Armbruster was only two steps away. He could see that Armbruster’s hand was on his gun, and he could see that the hammer strap was loose, but Armbruster hadn’t drawn the weapon.

  It was a mistake. Troyer lunged swiftly at Armbruster, knowing that the sheriff would not have a clean shot if he moved in close to the detective. As he lunged, he tossed the pizza box in Armbruster’s face. Simultaneously, from the open edge of the box, Troyer drew a green blade with a serrated edge, and Armbruster had time to raise his gun only partly from its holster before Troyer was on him.

  With his left hand, Troyer knocked at Armbruster’s pistol, and with his right hand, he stabbed at Armbruster’s left shoulder. The sharp plastic knife struck bone and tendons, and Troyer twisted the blade viciously, snapping off the tip in Armbruster’s shoulder.

  Armbruster screamed and dropped his gun. He sank to his knees and saw Robertson rushing forward. Armbruster made an attempt to lunge with his right hand at the feet of Troyer, but Troyer jumped over him, and Armbruster lost consciousness.

  Robertson pursued Troyer through the stairwell door. He heard footfalls below him, and he knew that Bobby Newell would be bringing men up the stairs from the alley. Robertson also heard footfalls above him, and he started slowly up the stairs after Troyer. Halfway to the landing between the third floor and the roof, Robertson stopped. Glass shattered, and the stairwell above him became instantly dark.

  Instinctively, Robertson took a step upward in the dark, and his mind flashed with the image of the lion in the cage of his childhood nightmares. He saw the lion tamer beckoning him to draw closer to the cage. He saw the big sign mounted to the top of the cage:

  Fear the Roar

  Trust the Bite

  In the next instant, in a nightmarish flash, Robertson saw the face of the lion tamer clearly for the first time in his life. The tamer was shouting for him to press near to the bars, to feel the whiskers of the beast on his cheek. And instinctively, as he had always done as a child, Robertson backed away. Then he backed down the steps in the dark. First one step and then another. Three steps, and now a little light in the stairwell was visible to him from the floors below.

  A green blade flashed out in front of the sheriff’s face. It gashed into the line of his jaw and bit deeply into his cheek. Swiftly the blade arched forward again, and Robertson shot. Stumbling back on the landing, he shot again into the dark. With his back flattened against the wall beside the stairwell door, Robertson fired his weapon twice again, and Earnest Troyer toppled down the steps and lay tangled in a heap at Robertson’s feet.

  Robertson fumbled for the door, and he lost his orientation. Bobby Newell appeared at his side to support him in the stairwell, and then Newell knelt beside the body of Earnest Troyer.

  The sheriff tasted blood. He put his hand to his face, and he felt the slippery stickiness of blood. Wanting light, he pushed the door open with his hand, and he fell into the third-floor hallway. There he slumped to the carpet.

  Despite the pain, Robertson pressed his palm back against his cheek. Deliberately, he placed his revolver on the carpet and tried to pull his handkerchief out of the inside pocket of his sport coat.

  That’s when the sheriff began again to hear. Pat Lance was shouting into her radio, “Man down! Third floor, St. James!”

  Next, Robertson saw Lance kneeling beside the body of Stan Armbruster. Robertson tried to speak, but he choked on blood. Lance looked over to him, and instantly she keyed her mic again to report, “Two men down, Del! Two men down!”

  Robertson watched Lance move away from Armbruster’s body and come in slow motion toward him. She still had her gun in one hand, her radio in the other. She knelt beside Robertson, and she placed her palm over his hand, to help him press the bloody handkerchief against the ragged gash in his jaw and cheek.

  Robertson grasped the sleeve of her dusty-rose dress and muttered, “Stan?”

  Bobby Newell pushed through the stairwell door and came immediately past Robertson to help the professor tend to Armbruster. Over his shoulder, Newell shouted to Robertson, “He’s dead, Sheriff! Troyer’s dead.”

  Armbruster was unconscious on his back. The professor was trying to find a way to stop the flow of blood from Armbruster’s shoulder, but the tip of a jagged green plastic blade protruded from the wound, and Branden was having no effect applying pressure.

  Sheriff Robertson pushed Lance up and away from himself, and as he lost strength, he asked, “Where’s my squads?”

  Lance keyed her mic and shouted, “Del!”

  The radio made a garish squawk as Markely answered, “Coming!” and Lance turned back to kneel with Branden and Newell, beside Armbruster.

  When the sheriff lost consciousness, both Bobby Newell and Professor Branden were pressing their fingers into the wound in Stan Armbruster’s shoulder. The wound was spurting blood past their fingers.

  Pat Lance was on her feet, holding the tip of the plastic blade. She was shouting again into her handset, but Robertson couldn’t hear her words. The sheriff got one last look at Armbruster, and then he passed out with the pasty, coppery taste of blood in his mouth.

  33

  Friday, August 19

  9:35 P.M.

  PARAMEDICS WERE able to sedate the sheriff only because they established a viable IV port on the back of his hand while he still lay in shock on the third-floor carpet of the Hotel St. James. In Millersburg’s Pomerene Hospital, the anesthesiologist was able to anesthetize the sheriff’s jaw and face for surgery in an ER bay only because Robertson had earlier been sedated. Even then, despite the anesthesia, they were able to close the long arc of the knife wound on Robertson’s face only because they were able to add Demerol to the cocktail of pain medications that he was receiving through the original IV port. Otherwise, the sheriff would have torn the ER apart trying to get down the hall to the surgery suites, to find out what progress was being made with Stan Armbruster’s shoulder wound.

  When all of the commotion had settled down, Robertson lay on his back in a semiconscious state of disgruntlement, in a recovery room between the ER and the surgical suites of the hospital. Over a span of about twenty minutes, he dozed on and off. Eventually, he became aware, while struggling out of an ensnaring hallucination, that a bearded Amish man was standing at the railing beside his hospital bed. It caused the sheriff a moment of confusion, because his struggle had not been with anything Amish. It had been a struggle with a morphine-induced hallucination of semihuman shapes writhing inside the translucent walls of his room. But the sight of a plain Amish man seemed incongruous enough to the sheriff to cause him to hold his eyes open and study the man more closely.

  He wore a vest, Robertson could see. He was in denim. His hair was short. It was too short fo
r an Amish cut. The long blue sleeves of the Amish man’s shirt were stained with blood. The man’s hands had been scrubbed, but Robertson could see a reddish grime under his fingernails.

  Because of the pain, Robertson was able to turn his head only slowly. He looked more carefully at the man’s face. It wasn’t a face with a proper Amish beard. The beard was neatly trimmed, not full and bushy. It was a professor’s beard. Only gradually, because his thoughts were muddled by the sedatives and the morphine, was Robertson able to recognize the man.

  “Mike,” Robertson whispered through lips he could barely move. The effort to speak nearly exhausted him, but he managed to add, “Armbruster?”

  “Still in surgery, Sheriff.”

  “Earnest Troyer?”

  “Dead, Bruce. Missy is taking his body to the morgue. I’m to tell you that she’ll be up here as soon as she has logged her evidence.”

  Though his efforts to move were suffused with exhaustion and pain, Robertson grasped the professor’s sleeve and said, “We should have wanded him, Mike.”

  “It was a lettuce knife, Bruce.”

  Robertson’s eyes closed, but he waved his hand to encourage more from Branden.

  The professor leaned in over the bed railing. “He sharpened a plastic lettuce knife, Sheriff. It wasn’t metallic. We would have passed right over it with a metal detector.”

  Robertson’s eyes remained closed. Branden gently shook the sheriff’s shoulder, but Robertson did not wake. So the professor walked into the bathroom to scrub again at the dried blood under his fingernails. When he came out of the bathroom, Sheriff Robertson was fumbling with the ice in a pink plastic glass of water that had been placed on his bed’s rolling tray. Branden held the cup steady so that Robertson could take out a chip of ice. On the tray, a plastic spoon was in its wrapper. The professor unwrapped the spoon and lifted another sliver of ice out of the cup. He offered it to the sheriff, but Robertson ignored the spoon. He looked back at the professor with weary lids and troubled eyes.