Midnight Baby

by Wendy Hornsby

  At two-thirty, all the bars and clubs on Second Street were closed. All the chickies were in for the night. The narrow streets of Naples were deserted. I drove through the alley behind the Ramsdale house, saw no one about, and parked two houses farther down.

  When I got out of the car, I had one of Mike’s big, heavy Kel-Lite flashlights in my hand. I had picked it up on my way out of the kitchen.

  Mike had told me one time that when he worked street patrol in uniform, back before his hair turned white, the Kel-Lite had been his compliance tool of choice during hand-to-hand brawling. Better than his service revolver as a cudgel. His stories always failed the political correctitude tests. Sometimes their brutality set my back molars on edge. Most of the time, they made me laugh, because I knew there was no malice in anything he had done. Times have changed. Acceptable police practices have changed. So has Mike.

  Anyway, I carried the flashlight as a sort of talisman against anything that might be waiting in the dark. I lurked down the alley. If anyone had seen me, and been worried, he or she would have called in to report a burglar. I heard no sirens, so I lurked on.

  The back door of the Ramsdale house was heavy oak. I longed for Martha’s key. But I would have had to break into her house to get it. So I broke into the Ramsdales’ instead.

  Randy’s study was on Martha’s side of the house. I knew she was gone, so unless I made a big noise, no one was likely to hear me. I used the Kel-Lite on the pane in the French doors closest to the latch. The shattered glass made less noise than I had expected as it fell onto a doormat inside.

  I tried the knob. It turned, but the door wouldn’t give. I could see hardware for a floor bolt, so I broke another pane and I could pull up the bolt. The door opened smoothly, finally, and I slipped inside, stepping wide around the glass.

  I stepped inside and waited for my heart to stop pounding, a wide spot in the checkerboard of shadows, trying to listen to the house. All was still except for the ticking of a clock somewhere. Relying on my imperfect recollection of the floor plan, I felt my way through the dark and up the stairs to Hillary’s room.

  I went straight to her bookcase and used the flashlight only long enough to make sure that I had taken down the right books — the photo album and the yearbook. Then I went back out into the hall. I listened to be sure all was quiet before I went back down.

  Thinking it had all been too easy, I pulled the French doors shut behind me and rebolted them. I was so slick, I thought, I could reel in a little extra money as a cat burglar on the side. Send Casey to an Ivy League school if she wanted. Or to London for ballet. I felt more hyped than scared when I came out into the narrow passage between the houses.

  I flattened myself against the wall beside a skinny juniper, and looked for trouble. The alley end, where I was headed, was clear. To be cautious, because my dad when he taught me to drive told me always to look both ways in case a comet, or whatever, came shooting up behind me, I looked down to the canal end, too.

  On the water, things are always moving: lights, boats, ducks, gulls. What alarmed me was a block of dark stillness against the motion. I froze, tried to focus on it. I was closer to the canal than to the alley. I tried to figure whether I had a big enough head start to make it back to the car if that dark shape decided to chase me. I hated myself for being so anal that I had locked the car — my caution had added two or three seconds to my escape time.

  I thought about the alternatives, and chose one. Clutching the books tight against my chest, the Kel-Lite straight in front, I stepped away from the wall and shot the light into the dark.

  What I saw was an old wooden dinghy that had been hauled up out of the water. It leaned against one of the support pilings of the Ramsdale dock. Next to it was a can of caulking. Kids, I thought, doing some boat-repair work on a vacant dock.

  Feeling relieved, if a bit of a jerk, I switched off the light, quickly reevaluated my future as a burglar, and turned toward the alley.

  My dad also taught me to look three times, left right left, before committing to a turn into traffic. I forgot that part at the wrong time.

  When I spun back, he was there, blocking the passage to the alley maybe four yards in front of me. I flashed the light on him.

  He flinched, raised an arm to shield his eyes.

  “Officer Flint,” I shouted in the direction of the shattered French door. “Metrano is here. Have the alley sealed.”

  George Metrano smiled, monstrous in the beam of light. “I watched you go in. You were alone.”

  “Cops have had the place staked out.”

  “No, they haven’t.” He started toward me. “What did you take?”

  “Not a goddam thing.” I gripped my booty tighter, and screamed, “Flint, out here, now!”

  “Shut up.” He hissed as he lunged, moving fast for a big man.

  I ran for the canal. Ivy vines snagged my shoes and ripped up from their roots — I didn’t have time to aim for the artfully placed stepping stones. If I tripped, I knew he would be all over me.

  I felt him reach for me, a push of air from behind. I ducked to the side, used my flashlight hand to right myself, and ran on. I didn’t have time to find him back there. I only knew he was too close. My back arched away from him, giving me a few more inches of time.

  I came out on the sidewalk, careened around the corner, and headed toward the nearest bridge. I miscalculated my speed at the turn and lost both my footing and my lead. As I scrambled to find solid ground underneath, he dove. And he got me.

  Metrano’s huge hand caught me just below the knee, flipped me, and sent me skidding face forward onto the concrete. I kept the books, but lost most of the skin on my knuckles.

  He slid his hand up my leg for a better grip. I managed to roll onto my back. I cocked my free foot to flatten his smug face, but he caught it, too. He was on his knees, I was on my butt, struggling to get upright, straining to wrench free as he tried to get over me, dominate me, pin me down. I hate to be pinned. Especially by a guy with a thing for razors. Every time I tried to sit up, he yanked my legs and sent me backward again. One big jerk had sufficient force to knock me on my head hard enough to make my ears ring.

  I was plain old mad. On my way up again, I swung the Kel-Lite with everything I had, a well-placed backhand stroke. He was turning to see where the blow was coming from when Kel-Lite and face bones connected. He screamed like something on Wild Kingdom. Warm blood sprayed through the air and hit my face. I retched at the smell of it.

  The follow-up shot I gave him didn’t have as much force as the first blow, sufficient to raise a dummy bump on his temple, but not enough to break the skin. It did motivate him to try something else on me. When he moved his hands higher on my calves, looking for a better grip, I found an instant of hesitation to slide through. I snatched one leg free and got some leverage to kick away from his hold. Like a scared bunny, I scooted the hell away.

  I felt the wood of the dock under me. He never gave me more than a few inches of lead, but I used them to scramble to my feet. A yard from the edge of the dock, I sprang for the water, a high, off-balance dive. He snatched at my trailing foot. I felt the hard parts of his hand collide with my shoe as the black water rose to meet me.

  I coursed down through frigid salt water so dark I could see nothing. I was worried about the bottom, about sharp obstacles among the boat trash that had been dumped into the canal. But I worried about George Metrano more. I felt him hit the water somewhere above me, felt the shock waves generate down from him.

  When my dive lost its initial momentum, I pushed myself deeper, groping ahead for debris. My lungs ached, my head throbbed, but I still had the books against my chest. A reflex grip, probably. Not that a photo album was what he was after.

  The sharp barnacles on the dock pilings snagged my sleeve, and I reached for them. I wrapped an arm around the piling long enough to kick off my heavy shoes. Then, with the barnacles cutting into my hands like embedded shards of glass, I used the piling to cont
rol my rise to the surface.

  When I broke through to the still, dark night, I gulped sweet air, got my bearings, and ducked down again, pushing myself beneath the Ramsdale dock. I pressed my face up to the gaps between the planks and managed to find breathable air. I listened for George, but all I could hear was the water lapping around my ears. I was so cold I ached all over. The salt water burned my scraped knuckles, stung my eyes. But I waited.

  It is nearly impossible to keep track of time under water.

  After what seemed like hours but was probably only a few minutes, I located George. I had lost the flashlight somewhere in my flight. Apparently, George had found it. A shaft of light between the planks hit my eye, so I slid down deeper until it passed overhead.

  I couldn’t stay there. So I came up for a last gulp of air, then dove down again through the water, pushing myself deep into Randy Ramsdale’s grave. Around me, the light cut through the water like thrusts of a sword, but I was so close under him that the light passed over me.

  I felt my way along the slimy seawall until I came to Martha’s dock. I rose again for air, dove again, and continued along for two more docks.

  I passed under a bridge and found moss-covered stone steps that led up to the sidewalk. The steps were too slippery to use, but I hauled myself up by the metal rail. Sheltered, I hoped, by a cluster of potted geraniums, I lay curled into a ball on the rough concrete and filled my lungs, gasping, shaking with cold. Green slime clung to my clothes. I reeked of boat fuel.

  I risked raising my head to see over the pots. George was still searching the canal for me. He scuttled down the sidewalk in the opposite direction, knifing the water with his beam again and again. When he headed back my way, I was still out of breath. I knew it was only a matter of moments before he gave up on the water and looked elsewhere, the most obvious place being the alley where I had left the car. I had to be history before George got there.

  When he leaned out over the water to follow his light, I snaked across the sidewalk, staying low. I slipped between two houses barefoot, managed to scale a tall wooden gate without rousing the neighborhood, and dropped into the alley. I prised the car keys out of my pocket and held them in one hand, the dripping books in the other, and ran down the alley, leaving a wet trail behind me.

  Old George was no dummy. I was just faster. He came out into the alley farther along, running hard, dragging that leg again. I had the key out and ready. I was still shivering, so my hand shook, but I got the key into the lock, me into the car, and the doors locked again before he could touch me.

  His face contorted with purple rage, the sinews of his neck pulled taut with the force he used to hurl obscenities at me. I couldn’t understand a word, though the gist was clear enough.

  I cranked the ignition and pushed my face up to my window. “Motherfucking child-killer,” I screamed, jamming the car into drive. As I accelerated away, the heavy Kel-Lite crashed through the window behind my head. Shards of glass sprayed around me, a thousand points of treacherous light. Ducking from flying glass, dodging trash cans and parked cars in the alley, I got away clean. All things considered.

  I was looking for a phone booth to call the police when I heard the sirens pouring in off Second Street. Always a courteous driver — as Dad taught me — I pulled to the side and let them pass. The cavalry was riding in to handle things. I would handle the details later. The next item of business on my agenda was growing soggier by the second.

  At red lights, I slowed enough to see oncoming cars, then blew through the intersections. George would need clean clothes, and I didn’t want to be hiding in his closet should he come home looking for some.

  I parked around the corner from the Metranos’ house and jogged to their front door. My clothes were cold and heavy, the pavement hurt my feet. But I had my booty, and my agenda, intact.

  I banged on the door, leaned on the bell until Leslie came and turned on the front light. She peered out at me through the living-room drapes. She wore a robe over pajamas, but she didn’t look as if she had been sleeping. Her makeup and hair were waiting for company. Probably George.

  “Leslie, let me in,” I said, hoping she could read lips, because I didn’t want to wake up another neighborhood. When she hesitated, I opened the sodden photo album and held it up for her. Perplexed, but with curiosity sufficiently aroused, she opened the door.

  “What happened to you?” she asked, clutching her terry bathrobe at the throat.

  “Midnight swim,” I said. “Where are the police? I thought you had a guard.”

  “They took me to the night deposit, that’s all.”

  “Do you have a towel?”

  “Of course.” She turned on the inside lights then and let me in. “Just wait here.”

  She had left me in a raised, tiled entry that was a sort of launching pad for the step-down living and dining rooms. While I waited, I paced its chilly length.

  It appeared that the house was nearly stripped bare. In the dining room, the only furniture was a card table and two folding chairs. But there were indentations in the carpet left by a large table and maybe eight or ten chairs. There had been other furniture, long dents that would conform perhaps to a china cabinet. The living room held only boxes, taped shut and lined up against one wall. I had seen all there was to see before Leslie came back carrying a beach towel.

  “Are you moving?” I asked.

  “Unless there’s a miracle,” she sighed. “Everything’s gone. We’ll never build back up again. Not this time.”

  I handed her the photo album and the yearbook and used the towel on my face and hair, wiped down my feet. Then I took the towel into the dining room and spread it over the card table. Leslie came with me.

  “I hope all of the pictures aren’t ruined,” I said, taking the album from her and opening it over the towel. “This is Hillary Ramsdale.”

  She pulled up one of the folding chairs, took reading glasses out of her robe pocket, and started with the first page. The pictures were wet but still clear. I knew most of the deterioration would come when they started to dry and the emulsion separated from the paper.

  Leslie studied the pictures on the first page. Pried open the second page and studied it, too.

  “So?” I asked, impatient, miserably cold.

  “The hair is different. Amy didn’t have that scar, or whatever it is, on her chin. But it’s her. You want proof? Go look at my little granddaughter. She could be Amy’s twin.”

  “When the coroner’s office called you Saturday, who took the call?”

  She frowned. “George did.”

  “Where were you?”

  “At work. I’m almost always there, trying to hold things together as best I can.”

  “Are you going to lose the business as well?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “George has been working on a deal. These things take time, though. So until it’s final, we’ve been just hanging on, selling off what we found buyers for, scraping together every nickel we could find.”

  “He had gambling debts to pay?”

  “Not this time.” There was fierce certainty in her voice. “He swore to me this time it was bad investments, some real estate we couldn’t dump in a bad market. Negative amortization and a high vacancy rate were eating us alive. He knows I would throw him out on the street if he ever placed another bet. I figured that’s why he went out on the boat, to get clean away. When he gets real upset, he tends to want to go place a bet.”

  “He didn’t go anywhere,” I said. “I chased him down the street in Belmont Shore this afternoon, and he returned the favor tonight, not fifteen minutes ago.”

  She rose, involuntarily like a marionette on a string. “Then where the hell is he?”

  “I don’t know. And as long as he isn’t here, I don’t care.” I began pulling pages out of the album and lining them up on the towel so they wouldn’t start sticking together. “Maybe he’s holed up in one of your vacant rentals.”

  “Could be.”
/>   I glanced at her. “So, how long has he been working on this deal?”

  “Couple of months.”

  “Like, since February?”

  She thought before she nodded. “About then. He went back East somewhere for a couple of weeks. Around Valentine’s. I remember, because he mailed me a card.”

  “Where was he this past Thursday?”

  “Thursday? We went down to San Diego for a Bingo Burgers sales meeting, stayed overnight.” She looked over at me. “Is that when the girl died, Thursday?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you thought George did it?”

  I nodded. “Her throat was slashed, just like Randy Ramsdale’s was two months ago. I caught George today slashing my tires.”

  “You’re a liar.”

  “Sometimes. But not this time.” I sat down on the other folding chair, because my knees shook. I was exhausted. And running out of time.

  Leslie was staring at me.

  “You told me you didn’t know the Ramsdales,” I said. “But it seems George worked for them for a while. He was working for them up in Pasadena at the time Amy disappeared. Does that ring any bells?”

  She shook her head. “George did jobs for a lot of people back then, anything he could pick up. He went around the harbor, the marinas, getting what he could. And he did some handyman work, too. Anything.”

  “You don’t remember him working for the Ramsdales?”

  “I was pretty busy. Five kids and a job, that kept me occupied, all right.”

  “You didn’t see the name on a paycheck?”

  “I’m ashamed to say it, but George took his pay in cash so we could get out of paying taxes on it. We just used up every bit of it for essentials. I do remember him working in Pasadena, though. He did some boat work for a man, and the man asked him to come work around his house. The job was supposed to last a couple of months, but our old car conked out and George couldn’t get up there. So they loaned him a real nice little pickup with a camper shell. When he finished the job, they gave him the truck as part of his pay.”