by Mike Markel
Then there’s a smaller group, shufflers over eighty, who know they’ve got only a little while longer, and an even smaller group of folks who’ve had a serious talking to from a doc. My grandfather, when he was over ninety and dripping oil and dropping parts all over the garage floor, was told he had only a month because this tumor had come out of nowhere and spread everywhere. He was really good with it, saying he’d lived long enough and there wasn’t anything he could do about it, anyway. So he kept on doing what he always did, never complaining, denying that it hurt even when it was obvious it did, and in general showing everyone how to die.
But I think my case was pretty unusual—being absolutely certain you’re going to die, sometime within the next few minutes or hours. You’re not old and broken down, and you haven’t had a chance to think about it, maybe figure out how to fit the puzzle pieces together without snapping off any of the ends. Plus, getting beat up and gang-raped. Then, all of a sudden, you’re not going to die—at least not at the moment. Instead, you’re in a hospital, you’re popping Tylenol with codeine like they’re Tic Tacs, you’re icing down your ribs and trying to breathe deep so you don’t get pneumonia even though it feels like a couple Nazis are still kicking you, you’re in a shrink’s office, you’re at an AA meeting, you’re grocery shopping.
You’re alive. It takes some getting used to.
One thing that helps you keep it all in perspective: things haven’t really changed that much. In my case, my ex-husband, Bruce, didn’t know I was gone, didn’t know I was back, wouldn’t have cared either way. Same for Tommy. Sarah the AA woman and all the other drunks I hang with an hour a day are still announcing that they’re alcoholics and trying to convince themselves that feeling shitty while sober is better than feeling shitty while drunk. Ryan is still running down scammers, telling school kids not to suck on aerosol cans, and in general doing whatever the chief thinks is a good use of his time. And let’s not forget offering to bring me some cold meds.
Yes, everything today is what it was yesterday. One of my challenges will be to figure out how to see that as good news.
I had stopped off to get some groceries after my eight o’clock AA meeting. With dusk settling in around nine this time of year, I was pleased to see the light on over my front steps. I’d gotten a timer because I never had the discipline to turn the outdoor lights on. Maybe it was that I didn’t want anyone to think I was home and actually knock on the door. As a result, my house was always the only one on the block with the lights out. The new me, I wanted to be a little less obviously antisocial.
I pulled into the carport and grabbed the bag of groceries. I unlocked the front door and turned on the light just inside. I thought I had left my kitchen light on, but I must have forgotten. I like the kitchen light because, the way my house is laid out, a single one-hundred-watt bulb in a frosted globe throws some light the length of the house, unobstructed all the way from the back to the living room and entryway.
The entryway light got me across the living room and into the kitchen. As I clicked on the overhead light, I was grabbed from behind. His left arm was around my neck, and I felt a knife point below my right ear.
“I’m prepared to kill you, bitch,” the voice said.
“Just let me put this bag down,” I said. It sounds stupid now, like I was talking to a girlfriend, telling her I need to put the bag down and then I’ll write her a check for March of Dimes. But it was the only thing I could think of. If he was willing to let me get out of the chokehold, I might be able to see him, figure out who he was, think of something to do.
“Drop the bag.”
That was clear enough. I did it.
I saw a leg come around—blue jeans, hole in the knee, dusty work boots—and kick it across the floor. “We’re going to talk.”
“Okay, let’s talk,” I said. I could hear his breathing, way too fast and shallow, and I could smell his beery breath. “But you’re kinda cutting off my breathing.”
“Move.” He pushed me over toward the little kitchen table with the two chairs. “Sit down.”
I did it.
I didn’t recognize him. He was about five-ten, one eighty. I’d put him at thirty to thirty-four years old. He had a shaved head, with a soul patch and goatee, and a loop earring in his left ear. There were gray bags under his eyes, worse than mine. His eyes were rimmed in red, the pupils dilated like he was high. He was wearing a plaid flannel work shirt over a gray t-shirt, and his hands were cut up, with caked dirt beneath his nails, like he was in construction or maybe irrigation.
“Who are you?”
“Shut up, Detective Seagate,” his voice high, his body all jittery. “You don’t ask the questions. I ask the questions. Then I tell you what we’re gonna do next. If you’re not good with that, stand up right now and walk toward me. I will kill you.” He paused. “Is that clear?”
“Yes,” I said. Abundantly.
“We’re going to talk about Willson Fredericks.”
Was this guy BC, the one in the emails? I didn’t know what to say, but he seemed to be waiting for me to reply. “Okay,” I said. “Let’s talk about Willson Fredericks.”
“Why did you question him about the Dolores Weston murder? You know goddamn well he didn’t have anything to do with that.”
“We interviewed him about the patriot movement because he was an expert on the subject. We were perfectly fair with him.”
“Don’t lie to me,” he said, loud, almost shouting, stepping toward me, the knife waving back and forth a little, him keeping it in motion so his arm won’t freeze up and he could take a long swipe at me. “I will not let you tell me you treated him fair when I know you didn’t. I’ll kill you, and I’ll kill myself. I swear to God I will.”
“Listen, I don’t know who you are or what you want. But I’m telling you the truth. We interviewed Professor Fredericks to understand more about the patriot movement because we thought they might be involved in the Dolores Weston case. That’s the absolute truth.”
“But then you started to lie about him. You took him in to police headquarters, you accused him of planning illegal activities—when you know he did nothing of the sort.”
“We did bring him down to headquarters. But I explained to him why that was. When we interview someone at headquarters and record it, it’s for their protection. If they’re charged with anything, they have full access to the recording. That’s all it was.”
“I’ve given you the last warning. You lie to me again, I’ll kill you.” The knife was waving back and forth in bigger arcs, and I was worried he might not be able to control it much longer.
“Listen to me. You’re obviously freaking out here, but nothing you’ve done so far is gonna get you in trouble. So let’s just turn it down a little bit and see if we can work this through without anyone getting hurt.” I reached out my hand toward him. “I’m gonna stand up now and walk over toward you. Why don’t you just hand me the knife—”
He pulled away, his eyes on fire. “Get back,” he shouted.
“Okay.” I put my palms up, walking backwards to the chair and sitting down. “You keep the knife. Just tell me who you are.”
“Who I am doesn’t matter. You’re gonna answer my question. Why did you kill Willson Fredericks?”
I shook my head. “Willson Fredericks died of a heart attack. I was about two-hundred miles away when it happened. I really have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I’ve told you for the last time: I won’t let you lie to me.” The knife was waving in front of my face now, way too close.
“Okay, I get it. You’re BC. Is that right?”
“No, I am not BC. There is no BC. There never was.”
“I’m sorry to tell you this, buddy, but there was a BC. I saw the emails between Willson Fredericks and BC. They were planning operations. I saw the emails.”
He shook his head and started walking toward me.
I got into a fighting stance, pivoted my feet to the right,
and swung my left elbow as hard as I could at his right arm, trying to knock the knife out of his hands. But my blow landed too high up on his arm, sending his arm swooping down. I heard the knife rip through the front of my nylon jacket and felt its sting as it sliced across my chest.
He stumbled to the side, bent over, more surprised than hurt. He pulled back, too far away for me to pull him in and get at the knife. He straightened up, breathing loud, his eyes blazing. “You’re dead,” he said, between breaths, and he started to walk toward me, knife up.
I stepped back, bumping into a kitchen chair, a piece of crap with a plastic seat and back on a steel-tube frame. I bent down, grabbed its back with both hands, and swung it at him like a baseball bat. But I was off balance, and, with my busted ribs, I couldn’t generate enough force. I heard him grunt as one of the steel legs slapped against his thighs, then he just pushed it away.
He kept coming.
I lifted up the chair, pointed the legs at him, trying to stay out of the range of his knife.
He grabbed one of the legs, pulled the chair out of my hands, and tossed it against the wall like it weighed a few ounces.
He stood up straight and just looked at me. Slowly, he put his knife back in a sheath on his belt. I watched him as he pulled a pistol out of his sweatshirt pocket and started to walk over to me. He seemed calmer now. Now that he had decided what to do.
I heard his boots on my linoleum floor as he approached me. Saw him raise his pistol slowly and deliberately into the firing position. Saw his finger fold around the trigger.
I felt time slow down as a calm descended on me. I knew I could simply stand there. One or two more steps and he could touch the barrel to my chest and squeeze off the round. It would be over in just a moment or two.
My left hand came up, grabbing the pistol barrel up high, where it met his hand, twisting it clockwise, hard.
He was looking into my eyes and didn’t see it coming, and with my palm covering his knuckles, there wasn’t anything he could do about it. His eyes went down to his hand, which must have been hurting pretty bad because I was torqueing it with all I had, so he never saw my right hand come up and break his nose.
What gives the straight punch its extra pop is the twist on impact. His head reeled back and, as it snapped forward, I landed one more jab. The first jab had broken his nose, so this one had a softer landing. After the third jab, his face was pulpy and mostly red.
My right hand came under my left, which now was controlling his pistol. With my right, I grabbed the gun barrel, all the way back near the hammer, and rotated it one eighty so the hammer was closest to me, the butt closest to his leg. I heard the satisfying click as his trigger finger broke, then his cry of pain. I yanked down and had the gun. I stepped a few paces back.
But he was a tough son of a bitch. His face a bloody mess, the end of his busted nose pointing out to the left, he staggered toward me. I think his courage was beer-fueled, because there was no way he could’ve thought this was a smart idea.
Turns out it wasn’t. I waited till he was almost on me, then I squeezed off a single round. Pistols aren’t known for their accuracy, but from two feet, me in a two-handed stance, I got him. The blast reverberated, sending blue smoke into my tiny kitchen. The acrid smell of gunpowder filled my nostrils.
He crumpled to the floor, lying there on his left side. Now I started shaking as I stood over his body, looking to see if he was still a threat. I pushed his right arm with my foot, but it just flopped, like a piece of meat. With my gun still in position, I leaned over him and put a finger on his carotid. He was officially alive, the pulse faint.
With my foot, I pushed his right shoulder so he unfolded onto his back. The way his right arm slapped my linoleum floor, I knew he was almost gone. I unbuttoned his flannel shirt and held it back so I could see the entry wound, about nipple high, a little left of center in his chest. I could see he’d lost a lung, but the bullet also might have hit his heart. Little pink bubbles formed and popped at the entry point as the air leaked out of his lung. I could hear him breathing, fast but shallow. He blinked his eyes once, but then they were dead, like on a fish in a boat. The red stain spread out on the guy’s t-shirt.
I got my phone from my bag on the kitchen table and phoned it in. I didn’t recognize whoever I was talking to. “This is Detective Seagate. Officer-involved shooting at my house.”
“Are you in danger, Detective?”
“No.”
“Are you injured, Detective?”
“No.”
“Does the shooting victim need an ambulance?”
“He’s dead.”
* * * *
“Who was he?”
Ryan said, “His name was Andrew Howell.”
“Willson Fredericks’ boyfriend?”
“That’s right.” We were sitting in Ryan’s car, which he had parked a block down. The squad cars and the ambulance were all over the street in front of my house. Forensic Services and Harold Breen, the ME, were in my house.
I pulled Ryan’s handkerchief off the knuckles on my right hand, scraped up and still bleeding a little. “I really don’t like punching people.”
He smiled at me. “Well, you were a little beat-up there, anyway,” he said, referring to my scrapes from out at Lake Hollow.
“Just so I can keep track of why different people are trying to kill me, what’d I do to piss off Andrew Howell?”
“He thought you killed Willson Fredericks.”
“I told him it was a heart attack.”
Ryan was shaking his head. “Howell thought it was a heart attack caused by stress from the investigation. But it was a suicide.”
I was feeling a little disoriented, still shaking a little. “Allan Friedman gave me this,” Ryan said, pulling a sheet of paper out of his jacket pocket and handing it to me.
My dearest Andrew-
The police have decided to blame me for the murder of Senator Weston. They have concocted a narrative in which I have conspired with members of the patriot movement to carry out illegal operations, and in which I am responsible for that murder—or I know who was.
It is not true. I had nothing to do with the murder. However, they are intent on pressing their case. Someone must be held responsible, and it appears to be me. They will prosecute me and perhaps convict me. Regardless of whether I am convicted or exonerated, whether I am incarcerated or not, I will be killed by the patriots.
I do not care about myself. My work here is done. But I will not let them persecute you or harm you in any way. They will find you and destroy you. Therefore, I have resolved to take this action. My death will appear to be a heart attack.
But I could not depart without telling you that our love has been my greatest achievement. My final thoughts are of you. I ask only that you hold me in your heart as long as you can.
Always,
Willson
I had a fuzzy memory of Allan Friedman telling me something about how the Willson Fredericks death was a matter for local law enforcement. “You say the FBI guy gave you this?”
“That’s right.”
“So he was on the scene of Fredericks’ suicide and got the note there?”
“Either that or he got it from one of the unis who responded when Fredericks didn’t show up at class.”
“Andrew Howell never saw this note, then.”
“Correct.”
“And Howell thought we killed Fredericks.”
“That’s right,” Ryan said.
“How’d Fredericks kill himself?”
“Not sure. Probably just bought some epinephrine tablets over the counter. You know, Primatene? Enough of them will give you fatal ventricular arrhythmias. You get a heart attack or stroke out.”
“And nobody knows it was a suicide.”
“All they know is you’re dead,” Ryan said.
“So Andrew Howell thought we were framing Willson Fredericks for Dolores Weston?” Ryan just looked at me, not saying anything. “What a
re you saying?”
“I’m not saying anything,” Ryan said.
“You believe that?”
He shook his head. “I … I don’t really know what I believe.”
“Why would Allan Friedman want to frame Fredericks? Friedman doesn’t care about closing a case here in Rawlings. All he cares about is getting Weston’s killer and signaling to the patriots that they’ve gotta control their own guys.”
“That’s what I want to think,” Ryan said.
“What’s the problem? We leaned on Fredericks a little because he had crossed over from being a professor to being an operative. You know, those emails to BC. He got scared, wanted to spare his boyfriend from the embarrassment or whatever of getting outed or being in with the patriots, so he killed himself. It’s too bad and all, but we didn’t kill him.”
Ryan was looked down at his hands, which were tracing the bottom of the steering wheel.
“What’s going on, Ryan? What is it?”
“Fredericks’ death was reported as natural causes, but Friedman pulled me aside and gave me the suicide note.”
“Yeah, I got that. What are you saying?”
“I think he was saying we ought to keep an eye on Andrew Howell.”
“To see if he was BC?”
Ryan shook his head. “No, Friedman knew Howell wasn’t BC.”
“Did he say that?”
“No, but there was no BC.”
“How do you know?”
“Remember we told Friedman there was this guy named Benjamin Connors who kept showing up in Willson Fredericks’ articles but we couldn’t figure out who he was? And Friedman asked us how we spelled Connors?”
“You’re saying we fed him the name and he just used the initials? So Friedman had us chasing our own tails?”
“That’s what I think happened.”
“So Howell was telling the truth?” I said.
“About that, yes.”
“How do you know that?”
“When Friedman gave me the suicide note, I tracked down Andrew.”
“How’d you do that? There was nothing on the note.”