by Dane Hartman
Normally, it would have lifted the inspector’s spirits. He had beaten a gang of crooks, there was no one tailing him, and Collins was positive the Beacon Hill Murders case was coming to a close. But among those robbers’ bodies were the corpses of two cops. The insides of the man who had been tailing Harry were still being sopped up off the floor of the Pussy Cat Lounge, and there were still some annoying inconsistencies nagging Callahan about the Orenda case.
He mulled it over in his mind without success while he trudged toward Shanna’s apartment. Nothing was coherent by the time he arrived at the handsome corner building placed among many others between Charles Street and Storrow Drive. He walked around the iron grillwork of the banister wall and trotted down the five steps to Shanna’s thick basement-apartment door. He knocked sharply.
“Just a second, babe,” he heard her voice immediately call. He heard the deadbolt unlocking and the chain being thrown off. Then the heavy, windowless portal swung back. Shanna was positively beaming in the doorway, wearing only a thin, designed shirt tied just under her almost exposed breasts and a pair of lace panties. When she saw who was standing there, her jaw nearly dropped to the level of her belly button.
“H-Harry!” she attempted to recover, gulping.
“Hello,” he said, unsmilingly surveying her handsome limbs. “Expecting someone?”
Shanna wasn’t as polished a liar as Harry had become. If the positions were reversed, Harry would have said yes. That would’ve given him more time to think of a decent excuse. And if he couldn’t think of one and the questioner was rude enough to ask who, he could’ve said “none of your damn business.” Of course, Harry would look ridiculous in Shanna’s outfit though.
Shanna was acting none too comfortable in it either. Normally, she may have responded with aggression to Harry’s question, but Callahan was not her parents. He was still a veritable stranger. Quickly, nervously, Shanna replied, “No.” An obvious lie.
It only made things worse, and both of them knew it. If Shanna was covering for someone and uncovering herself for that same someone, it was natural for Harry to assume that she was waiting for her lover, Jeff Browne.
“Hey, listen,” she said, trying to recover, “come on in while I finish dressing.”
“Thanks,” Harry said, ducking slightly and entering. It was a cozy place, basically structured in a hexagon. There was a little bathroom to the left of the door, a little kitchen across the way, and Shanna’s bed to the right. She had decorated it nimbly, highlighting the two windows high on the wall and the rustic, “study-like” feeling of the place. Harry would’ve felt comfortable here if the tension wasn’t so strong.
Shanna skipped over to a bureau and a steamer trunk next to the bed. She quickly pulled out a dark jacket and a pair of jeans. She seemed expectant, waiting for Harry to pursue the matter of her greeting outfit. Harry didn’t. He had already reached a theory. He merely waited for corroborating evidence.
Shanna sat on the bed and pulled the denims over her underwear. “Hope I didn’t shock you,” she said with forced flippancy. “I’m usually never visited by anybody except friends and they all know what I’m like. I just like to feel comfortable, you know? Clothes give me a bound-in feeling.”
Harry had to admit it was good. And it probably had some basis in fact. But combining her lack of clothing with her call when he knocked added up to the arrival of an anticipated guest. Shanna didn’t call just anybody “babe.”
She undid the knot in the shirt, quickly buttoned it and stuck it down the waistband of her pants. She zipped them up the shrugged the jacket on. “Hey,” she continued. “I have to go out anyway. I told Dr. Gerrold I might be stopping by.” She pulled a pair of boots out from beneath the bed.
Harry just watched her from his standing position near the door. “Tom Morrisson is dead,” he said.
Shanna looked up and blinked. “What?”
“Christine Sherman is missing. I found the body of a Brookline waitress in Jeff Browne’s apartment. Jeff stabbed a girl downtown, and I shot him in the shoulder. He got away but not before Tim Marchelli died.”
Shanna stared at Harry open-mouthed.
“The police think that Christine killed Tom in self-defense and is hiding out in shock and fear. I’m not so sure. I think Browne may have killed Morrisson so he couldn’t talk and taken Christine with him. I’m afraid she might already be dead as well.”
“Harry,” Shanna breathed in astonishment. “What are you saying?”
“You’re in over your head, Shanna,” he answered in the same flat tone of voice he had rattled off the body count in. “Browne is using you at the very best. At the very worst, he’s planning to kill you next.”
“What are you talking about?” Shanna repeated explosively. “Jeff wouldn’t kill me!”
“The police think he killed Judy Halliwell and that other boy as well,” Harry went on. “I’m afraid they may be right.”
Her reaction was unusual. She stared at Harry, first in wonder, then in confusion, and finally in anger. She reached down and jammed on her other boot. “I don’t want to hear this,” she said, more irritated then frightened. She strode over to the desk near the door and scooped up her keys. “Listen,” she said to Harry’s face. “You can believe whatever you like but I’m not going to stand here and listen to that bullshit.” She headed for the door, passing Harry by. “Stay as long as you like,” she snapped at him flippantly.
She had just turned the knob when Harry’s hand gripped her arm. Almost effortlessly, he pulled her back and threw her onto the bed.
“It makes no difference if you believe it,” he said evenly. “It makes no difference if I believe it. The fact is people are being murdered. People you know. People who are close to you. You can make believe it doesn’t effect you or concern you, but you’re only fooling yourself. You are in danger.”
“I’m in danger every day on the street,” Shanna countered hotly. “I get the looks, I get the leers. I’ve had to change my number three times because the same obscene caller keeps getting it. I get pornographic notes in my school box. Haven’t you read the papers, Harry? Haven’t you heard? It’s open season on girls. We’ve surpassed deers as the favorite hunting prize. Girls are getting raped, kidnapped, and murdered all the time. What’s so different about today?”
She didn’t have to tell Harry. Pictures of every San Francisco girl who got croaked passed his desk. “The difference,” he informed her, “is today somebody’s out there who isn’t going to hit on the first girl who strikes his fancy. He’s looking for you. He’s after you.”
Shanna accepted the information silently. Then she leaned back, looked at the ceiling, and laughed without mirth. “Christ,” she said. “Jesus Christ. I’m just about to get my act together, and this has to happen.” She looked back down at her relative. “Look, Harry,” she said calmly. “Thanks for your concern, but I’m all right. I’m perfectly safe. I’m in no more danger than I usually am. Jeff isn’t going to come after me. If he was going to come after me, why kill that blonde waitress?”
Harry had a reason for that as well. But it was a reason he wasn’t going to say right out. Not until he had better evidence.
“Can’t you see you’re making it worse?” Shanna pleaded. “Everything was fine, it was really getting better until you showed up. Mom sends you flying in like Superman and the Lone Ranger all wrapped into one, and everything just starts falling apart.” She looked at the digital clock-radio by her bed. “Jeez, I really have to get to my counselor’s office. I said I’d stop by.”
“I’ll walk you,” said Harry.
“No, don’t,” said Shanna quickly. “I don’t want you to,” she went on with equal conviction. She stepped up to him demurely. She put the flat of her hands against his chest and looked up into his eyes. “Look, Harry, I really love you, but leave it alone. It will all take care of itself, I promise. You won’t help anything by getting involved.”
She looked at him imploringly. He
simply looked back without a change of expression. She dropped her hands and left the apartment, leaving the door open after her. Harry walked to the entrance and watched her go. She kept her head up and didn’t look back.
“You’re only making it worse,” he remembered. There was an echo in his mind. Jeff Browne had said it to him while he held a knife against a stripper’s chest, and Shanna just said it. There were two minds that thought alike.
Harry couldn’t bring himself to believe that those two minds thought alike in more ways than that. Shanna wanted to know why Browne didn’t kill her before the Brookline waitress. She had a point. Harry asked himself again. “Why not Shanna?” This time he answered. “Because maybe Browne never had any intention of murdering Shanna. Maybe Shanna wasn’t even a target.” And Harry could only think of one reason that could be.
Harry tried picturing Shanna up on a Beacon Hill rooftop, holding a knife against Judy Halliwell’s throat as Browne raped her. He tried to see her holding Christine back while Browne killed Morrisson. He tried to see her helping Browne to drag Cathy Bryant to another car.
It was a sign of just how long Harry had been a cop when he was able to realistically picture Shanna as a murderer’s accomplice. He was able to do it real easy.
C H A P T E R
E i g h t
Harry Callahan returned to the Holiday Inn at one o’clock in the morning. He had spent ten hours trailing his red-headed relative. She had gone to Gerrold’s Newbury Street office as she said she would and spent an hour there. Then she went to the library, stopped at a store to buy a pair of “No Nonsense” pantyhose, got back to the Emerson cafeteria at 150 Beacon Street to have some dinner, went home for some homework, returned to 130 Beacon Street to do some remixing on a friend’s film project, went out for a drink in Copley Square with the friend, then went home again and to bed.
Harry had seen neither hide nor hair of Jeff Browne. He may have been scared away from their rendezvous by spotting Harry at the apartment. It was vaguely possible that he had cut off his beard and slipped her a note among the library racks or in the crowded dining hall, but Callahan doubted it. He considered himself a better detective than to let them get away with something like that.
But that happily married man in the back of his mind said that Shanna could’ve been telling the truth. The “uncle” who had bounced her on his knees an era ago whispered that she was still guileless, still innocent. Harry wasn’t going to decide one way or the other. He’d let reality dictate the truth to him. In the meantime, he’d just keep watching and digging.
Callahan approached the night clerk. “Any messages for me?” he asked. The man checked his room box.
“No, sir.”
Harry went upstairs. When he entered his room, he saw the little red message light on the phone blinking even before he turned on the other illumination. Still without switching on the light, Harry angrily pulled the receiver to his ear and dialed the front desk.
“This is room 2125,” he said when the desk answered. “I just left the lobby. I thought you said there were no calls for me.”
“Oh yes, sir,” said the man. “There were several calls for you, but no messages.”
Harry closed his eyes. “Just a second,” he said. “I think there’s something wrong with our connection.” Then he slammed the mouthpiece against the edge of the bed table, hard. He hung up before the deskman could wail in pain.
He returned to the door and switched on the lights. Then he saw the envelope under his foot. It was a letter. From Jeff Browne.
The pale white light globes that dotted the Boston Common were the only illumination that streaked the front of the Unitarian Headquarters building. The gray clouds that had been threatening the ground with moisture all day had covered the moon, as well as finally releasing patches of intermittent drizzle.
All of Beacon Hill had a slick, glossy, wet-down look. Harry looked back up Joy Street. The road seemed to end at the top of the hill, then all there was was sky, framed by the townhouses at the very apex. Harry looked back toward Beacon Street. The Common was empty as far as he could see. He poked his head around the left corner. The sidewalk in front of the Church offices was clear.
He checked his watch. It was three A.M., the exact time the letter had said Jeff would meet him. It was a hastily scrawled ink letter on plain lined paper. It looked like it had been torn from a school composition book.
“The police are on a vendetta against the Orenda. If they catch me, they will kill me. I want to stop. I have to stop. If you meet me, I will give myself up. But no police. I still have Christine. If there are cops there, I will take her with me.”
It was all very clever. At no time did Browne admit to killing anyone. He did not openly threaten Christine. He only professed to having a paranoia complex and a desire to stop. Once they got him in a station house, he might very well say that he had been referring to the heartbreak of psoriasis all along. Perverted mass murderers were getting very crafty in this age of plea bargaining and cushy insane asylums.
Harry moved cautiously out onto Beacon Street. The large block letters, “T-R-A-P,” kept flashing across his consciousness like the light-bulb signs on the bottom of the Goodyear Blimp. He acknowledged to himself that if there was an ambush, Shanna might be in on it. He slowly reached into his jacket to grip the handle of the Magnum. He prepared himself to shoot her if he had to.
He got as far as the Unitarian entranceway without being mowed down. He felt a drop of rain on his forehead. He was wound so tight, he nearly jerked his head to the side because of it. Then more raindrops fell. He could still see no one approaching the door from any direction, so he moved up the steps out of the drizzle.
He looked at the door and did a double take. There was a thin line of light coming from the space at the bottom of the portal. Harry jumped lightly over the rest of the steps. He tried the knob. It was open.
Harry jumped back to the street and raced around the corner as fast as he could. He ran to the back of the building, leaped onto a stone wall with a high metal fence attached to it, vaulted over the top of the steel-poled obstruction, and charged at the first window he saw.
As he ran, he pulled off his jacket and wrapped it around one arm, as if he were going to face an attack dog. Harry threw himself sideways at the window. He held his jacket-wrapped arm in front of his face. The glass and wooden framing gave way like rice paper under his speeding bulk. He saw the wooden slats of the floor seemingly moving under his feet. He felt himself begin to drop just as the glass shards started smashing all around him. He pushed his bent knees straight. He landed flat, balanced, and kept on going.
He threw the jacket off his arm as he reached for the darkened room’s doorknob. With his other hand, he got the gun loose. When he pulled open the portal and charged into the foyer the Magnum was cocked and ready.
Browne was caught by surprise. As Harry had thought, the bearded man was just inside the front door, waiting for him to walk right into a knife. Browne instantly whirled about as Harry came through the back way. Then the bearded man crouched behind another figure that was kneeling on the ground in front of him.
It was Christine Sherman. Although the lower half of her face was almost completely covered by a Western kerchief, Harry had no trouble recognizing her. Her eyes were half-closed and her head sagged as if she were drugged. Her arms had been cruelly bound behind her with thin rope. A coarse wooden pole had been placed against her back and the ropes that were wrapped around her wrists, elbows, and upper arms had been tied to that as well, effectively keeping her back straight.
Her kneeling form was covered with Indian clothing. Animal skins covered her shoulders and bent legs. A mantle was covering her back. Around her neck and down her chest she was wearing thick circles of beads and several silver brooches. A bead wampum belt was tied around her waist. Other than that, she was naked.
Harry moved forward toward them.
“Hold,” he heard Browne hiss. He had a long
ceremonial knife pressed against her neck. It had a two-sided copper blade and a wooden wolf’s head carved in the handle. “You come any closer and she shall meet the wolf,” the bearded man said slowly, almost torturedly.
Harry could have pegged him if any bit of vulnerable skin was above Christine’s kneeling form. But the pole attached to her wrists and again to her neck by one thin leather thong was making her an effective shield.
“I thought you said you were giving up,” Harry said.
“No,” came the slow, precise voice again. “You are like the rest. You killed all the Indians and stole all their land. You broke every treaty with the red man. You will lie and kill me, too.”
“Come on, Browne,” Harry said in astonishment. “Why would I kill you now? Just come out without the knives.”
The bearded man didn’t answer. Instead, Christine began to rise. Browne was lifting her up. A single blanket was knotted around her waist. Harry could see where the two ends overlapped that her legs were not tied. The bearded man pulled her backward toward the door.
“Don’t follow or I’ll kill you.” Browne edged out the open door, keeping Christine fully in front of him at all times. She followed him like a sleepwalker.
As soon as they were completely out the door, Harry raced forward, spun around at the last minute, and ran up the staircase. He kept going until he reached the top floor. He raced from room to room until he found the door to the roof. It was locked shut. He kicked it open. Only thirty seconds had passed since Browne had escaped. Harry hoped he wasn’t too late.
He ran to the Beacon Street side first. If Browne had a car, he could spot it, report it, and join Collins on the hunt. He looked down. No parked car had moved. They all sat in the same line they had when Harry had first appeared that evening.
He ran to the Joy Street side. It was the second most logical escape route. The other direction simply held the business district near Government Center. Deeper into Beacon Hill there were alleys and cellars and empty apartments and many other places to hide. Callahan spotted them right away. Browne was dragging the bound-and-gagged girl up the street.