Cut and Run

by Ridley Pearson

  As the emergency room administrator, Alice could observe all this with a certain degree of detachment. She kept the health care machine working: admittance, insurance, scheduling, on-call assignments, and she attended administration meetings to convey the inherent problems, the personality conflicts, the budget overruns-all part of her daily life. The job had nothing to do with her technical expertise, but that had been the case for most of the past six years. As a former systems analyst and fraud investigator for Jamerson Ltd., a British-owned insurance underwriter, her computer skills had once proved incredibly valuable. Now those talents went unrecognized and uncompensated for, until a colleague had a problem with a PC. Alice was the unpaid computer geek of the emergency room administrative offices.

  She’d chosen Minneapolis nearly at random, but in part because Garrison Keillor’s show had let her imagine that good, simple lives were lived here. A wholesome place to bring up her daughter. And also because it had a robust theater community-including Shakespeare in the Park. Of course, if WITSEC ever came looking for her, Roland Larson would concentrate on cities offering Shakespeare first. He knew this about her. He knew too much about her.

  Alice had been a redhead for the past six months-a fairly convincing color given that it was out of a box. Beneath the red was natural blond. She’d tried to gain weight, but to no use-her metabolism, her nerves, burned it off as fast as she could eat. The result was a slightly gaunt look, sunken eyes, pronounced cheekbones. Unflattering, she thought. She looked a little sallow, unable to spend the time she wanted outdoors, simply because she felt safer while inside. They were out there somewhere. She never forgot about them-not for a second. Not in the shower, not on her way to sleep, not now as she worked in St. Luke’s. Anybody, anytime. This mantra had been drummed into her during WITSEC orientation. She could make friends, but she could not trust them. She could tell no one. She lived like the bubble boys on the sixth floor of this same hospital, insulated, isolated, and completely alone. Except for Penny.

  “The new website is pretty cool, don’t you think?”

  That was Tina, sweet Tina, who worked as her administrative assistant. Tina, whose job it was to dig them out from under the pile of paperwork, but who toiled at it like a dog digging in sand. Perfect Tina, with her perfect body, her perfect kids, and her perfect husband. There were times Alice ached to trade lives with her.

  “What website?”

  “The daycare,” Tina answered. “It went up over the weekend. Such cute shots! You should see you and Penny in the music circle. The two of you are adorable. And I’ll tell you something, I like that they only use first names. You know? A little extra measure of safety.”

  Alice ’s ears whined, like standing too close to a jet airplane. She remembered the music circle, vaguely.

  “Do you read any of the e-mail they send us?” Tina worked the keyboard of her computer, opening the website. “The coolest part of it is this…” She spun the monitor so that Alice could see.

  On the screen, in a small box, Alice saw the jerky motion of kids playing, and she understood immediately that she was watching a live webcam.

  “Are they insane?” Alice said, far too loudly for the small office. She dropped the pile of papers she’d been holding.

  She broke into a full run as she reached the same corridor through which the burn patient had just been admitted. She felt burned as well.

  Tina watched through the office’s interior window. She called out, her voice silenced by the thick glass.

  Tina inadvertently left the webcam up on her computer. Five minutes later, in that same jerky, almost inhuman motion, Alice entered into frame, snatched Penny into her arms, and looked once directly at the camera, with a face so full of fear that Tina flinched and backed from the screen.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE PRESENT

  Paolo entered the modern brick edifice of Minneapolis ’s St. Luke’s Hospital with the small brown shoulder bag he’d borrowed from Mrs. Blanchard, the woman who’d told him about St. Luke’s in the first place. He worked his way down the sterile corridors until reaching the administration receptionist, a Hispanic woman in her mid-twenties with long, acrylic fingernails.

  He held up the bag, putting it on display, then slid his photograph of Hope Stevens across the counter, and through the open window. “I found this purse out in the parking lot. It says inside there is a reward if found. This picture was inside. Does this woman work here?” He let the woman take a look, and he took a chance. “The name on the ID is Alice… Alice Dunbar. There is a photo of a pretty little girl, too.”

  The woman answered him after a moment. “ Alice? This? I’d barely recognize her.” She looked up at Paolo. “You only found this just now?”

  “Just now.”

  “Hmmm. She hasn’t worked here in a long time.” She eyed him curiously. “Where did you say you found this?”

  “Have you got a forwarding address for me? I wouldn’t mind that reward.” He felt his pulse quickening. Legwork and patience paid off. It had been drummed into him by Philippe. The thrills-like those at the apartment-were short-lived, but well worth the wait.

  The receptionist worked the keyboard with those long nails. “No, nothing,” she finally said. “You might try Tina, down in ER admin. She and Alice were close.”

  “Tina.”

  The woman pointed to the left down the hall. “Follow signs to the ER.”

  “Gracias.”

  “Good luck with the reward. And if you hear from her, tell her we could use a postcard.”

  The ER’s waiting room teemed with noise and confusion, giving Paolo a moment to study the back of the brown-haired woman in the glass box of an office, a woman he took to be “Tina Humboldt, Executive Assistant,” as advertised by the black placard by the sliding window.

  Another woman, prim and proper, came and went from the same office. She carried an aluminum clipboard and hurried stiffly down the long corridor, her clothes neatly pressed.

  Twice, a male housecleaner in green scrubs opened and entered a glorified closet that Paolo saw stacked with linens, cleansers, and supplies. This, he thought, would make a suitable interrogation room. He would need Ms. Tight Ass to be off on one of her excursions, and the busy waiting room to remain so. The more he worked it out in his head, the longer he waited, the better he liked it.

  The officious one with the pointy tits and stiff walk came and went one more time. A sick Mexican laborer coughed up blood that threw his family into a frenzy. Paolo moved toward the office door and knocked loudly enough to be heard over the cacophony behind him.

  “Hello?”

  Tina glanced up at him, delivered a press-on smile, and pointed to the waiting room. “We’re handling everyone as quickly as possible.”

  She’d probably mistaken him for a Mexican, and this pissed him off. A Brazilian, orphaned and raised briefly in Italy before being trained in Washington State, Paolo didn’t care for the ethnic association. “It’s about Alice,” he said. “Alice Dunbar.”

  Tina spun on her office chair. She had a pleasant but not exceptional face. “You know Alice?” Her face brightened.

  Paolo measured his chances of getting her out of the office and toward the closet. “I’ve heard from her…” he said. “She asked me to pass a message along to you, but it’s… private… confidential, you understand.” He looked behind him at all the noise and confusion.

  “Please come in,” she said, standing to reach for the door.

  The phone rang, saving him. He gave it a distasteful look, its interruption unacceptable, and he said, “Maybe just over there…” cocking his head, “away from all this… stuff.”

  She nodded. “I get so used to it. I don’t even hear it.”

  He stepped away, hoping she would follow, and she did, drawn by her curiosity. He felt a rush of satisfaction. When he found the right play-as he had just now-he could use the victim’s own desires and needs.

  He stopped just in front of the closet door
marked PRIVATE, turned and faced her. “My name’s Raoul,” he said. “I helped to relocate Alice and Penny.”

  Tina’s brow furrowed with concern. He knew that word would win her interest.

  “Relocate?” she asked.

  “Did she never tell you about him? The father? And what he’d done to her?”

  Tina shook her head. He could see her thinking: So that was it.

  The trick was to buy enough time to wait for the exact moment. He needed them to be invisible. He used a convex hallway mirror mounted overhead to keep an eye on the corridor behind him, another eye on the distraught Mexicans, while watching the small glassed-in office as well, in case the other woman returned. A doctor appeared in the waiting room and the Mexicans clustered around him.

  Now!

  Paolo reached out toward Tina with open hands, as if to console her. As she responded, her hands coming up reluctantly, Paolo grabbed her wrist, opened the closet door and spun her inside in one fluid motion. In a precise ballet of movement, he flicked on the light, caught her up in a choke hold, and eased the door shut behind him. The door wasn’t made to lock, so he dragged her off her feet and away from the door.

  He reversed her, his hand on her throat now, and pinned her up against the shelves, nearly lifting her again.

  Tina proved herself a wily one. Maybe she’d taken a self-defense class, or seen the move in a film, but she reached back onto the shelf as he pushed her against it, and one-handed a steel brush at Paolo’s face.

  He saw it coming, deflected the effort, and knocked the brush from her hand. He was angry now.

  She drove a knee for his crotch, but he blocked it, taking it on his thigh.

  He delivered a fist to her solar plexus, and watched her pale, felt her sag. His rule, his automatic response to those who fought back, was severe punishment. He drew his razor from its hiding place behind his belt buckle.

  “Listen to me, now,” he told the whites of her eyes. “You know what happens to little girls who lie? They get religion.”

  He cut straight down through her blouse, neck to navel. He made it a shallow cut-a bleeder that wasn’t close to life-threatening. Maybe because she worked in ER she’d know that about the cut. Maybe not. But either way he won her full attention. The second cut, made equally fast, ran breast to breast, completing the sign of the cross that seeped out into her clothes.

  “I’ll leave you to bleed out if you don’t answer me. Do you understand?”

  She nodded, terrified. He loved that look of panic in their eyes- that moment when they realized they’d lost all control.

  Choking her as he was, he watched her grow slightly blue, and felt her begin to tremble from shock. “Hold it together. I’m going to let you go.”

  She nodded again, though her eyes rolled slightly back into her head, and he feared she might faint.

  He loosened his grip and whispered, “Where did Alice go?”

  She coughed. Tears streamed from her eyes. She whipped her head side to side, indicating “no.” Perhaps in his outrage he’d pushed her too far. Perhaps she was a lost cause. If so, he knew the thing to do was to quickly finish her and get the hell out of here. He tried one more time.

  “Where?”

  “She didn’t say…” Tina gasped. She was feeling the sting of the cuts now. “She just left. I never saw her again.”

  “That’s not helping me…” he said. “That’s not helping you…” He presented the bloody razor blade, well aware of the power it contained. So small, but so effective.

  He counted down, “Five… four… three… two…”

  “A letter!” she said too loudly.

  Paolo cupped her mouth, turned his attention toward the door, and listened, thankful for the continuing commotion in the waiting room. He motioned for quiet, then released her mouth.

  “She owed me some money. A hundred dollars. A pair of shoes I’d bought her. I didn’t even remember it,” she said. “She mailed it to me… Cash. Letter said, ‘Thanks.’ Wasn’t signed. But I knew it was her.”

  “You’re wasting my time.” He moved the razor so it flashed light across her face. “Come on, Tina… you know better.”

  “I was curious,” she said quickly. “On account of the way she’d left like that. Panicked and all. Leaving a paycheck behind. No explanation.”

  “You’re stalling.” He forced his free hand between her legs and filled his hand with her. Soft, and incredibly warm. He felt himself stir.

  She rose to her toes and he heard her choke back a scream.

  “ St. Louis,” she said. “A postmark… the envelope. St. Louis. It’s all there was, but at least I knew…”

  Paolo felt a wave of satisfaction and accomplishment. St. Louis. His erection receded. He hadn’t the time for such foolishness.

  “Well done, Tina.”

  He eased off her crotch while keeping the razor close to her face.

  “I’ll spare you the pain,” he told her in a warm whisper into her ear.

  With that, he crushed her nose with a single blow, knocking her unconscious. He used a towel to block the spray as he sliced her neck ear to ear, as he’d been taught. He let her slump to the floor, the secret of their conversation contained.

  He once again felt himself engorged and aroused but knew this was not the place. He committed Tina to memory, slumped on the floor like that, so he’d have it to draw upon when he had the time.

  Then he cracked open the door and slipped out, leaving the wails and cries from the waiting room far behind.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Larson climbed the apartment stairs two at a time, his federal shield flapping against his coat pocket. He couldn’t blame his pounding chest solely on the exertion. He’d been in an agitated state ever since arriving in Minneapolis. The rental car company said his credit card was no good, only to reverse themselves; he was detoured because of road construction. But his rapid heart rate and clammy hands spoke to one thing: Hope Stevens. He prayed he’d arrived in time.

  At the address Sunderland had provided, Larson faced clusters of poorly parked cop cars, flashing lights, and not one, but two ambulances. He slumped, knowing without knowing. Everything about this scene implied he was too late.

  The fall night air slapped him. He smelled wood smoke in the air, or rotting leaves, or a foul cigar. The trees were barren in Minnesota weeks ahead of Chicago and a month in front of St. Louis.

  He reached an apartment’s open door at the top of the stairs. Slowing to allow an MPD officer to mentally process his federal credentials, Larson quickly introduced himself as “Fugitive Apprehension.”

  The seas parted, and he was inside.

  “Who’s lead?” he asked the door guard, who then pointed out a man crouching by the sprawled body of an elderly woman who was simultaneously being photographed by a forensics tech in her late twenties. The photographer bounced on her haunches as she squatted, studying the dead woman with a controlled impatience before clicking off another shot.

  The deceased’s dress was hiked up over ashen legs revealing varicose veins that wandered like wisteria. The grape-stained bruise on her neck suggested she’d been strangled. Larson’s panic gave way to relief. “Who the hell is this?” he asked.

  “Who’s asking?” The detective was seated by a phone, which he promptly hung up. He’d spent too much time in the sun on vacation, his well-weathered and leathery face now pink and peeling. You didn’t get a tan like that in Minneapolis. He appeared to have fresh mosquito bites on his lower neck. Larson was guessing Florida or maybe the Yucatán. He’d been back a day or two, at most.

  Larson introduced himself.

  “Detective Dennis Manderly.” He wore latex gloves and didn’t offer to shake hands with Larson. Dressed in plainclothes like Larson, he stepped closer and studied Larson’s credentials carefully through a pair of bifocals that didn’t want to stay on his nose. “Question still stands.”

  “Fugitive Apprehension Task Force,” Larson said, straining now to s
teal a look at the number on the apartment door: 3C. He had the wrong apartment.

  Larson wasn’t sure what was going on, but the clamminess crept through him again.

  “I missed my mark,” he said. “I’m down the hall.”

  “Hold on a sec.” Judging by his accent, Manderly had been raised on the eastern seaboard. Boston or the Bronx came to mind. “I’m gonna need a little more than that.”

  “That’ll have to happen boss to boss. I’d tell you if I could.”

  Manderly gave him a look that said, “I’m sure you would.”

  “Wrong apartment. My mistake.” Larson turned toward the door.

  Manderly called out, stopping him. “My guys are down in 3D as well. You’re not going in there until and unless you, or someone above you, explains to me, or to my boss, why I’ve got two toe-taggers on my hands.”

  … two toe-taggers… Those words drowned out all else.

  Larson charged out of the room, down the hall, and blew past a uniformed officer whose job might have been containment. He entered a fairly bare living room, where he stopped abruptly, struck by the sight of the woman spread-eagled on the floor. A blue workout mat was indicated by four numbered flags pinned into the carpet. A television’s blue screen glowed in the background.

  Larson thought he knew that body. The woman’s chest and abdomen were splayed open in the sign of a cross, nipples to navel. Dark, rust brown blood had run out of her and coagulated into a giant congealed scab, looking like melted wax from a candle where it puddled on the carpet. A rank and familiar odor pervaded, a stench that even an open window couldn’t overcome.

  “Deputy!” Manderly shouted, behind him by only a step.

  Larson had to confirm her before they dragged him out of here. The razor-thin incisions needed no medical examiner to be properly analyzed. He lunged past another forensic technician in an effort to identify the victim’s face.