by John Lutz
Her throat was dry, and it was an effort to swallow as she decided to explore.
There was nowhere to hide in the living room. The furnishings were shabby, and there was dust on the matching tables at each end of the long green sofa. On a windowsill was a lineup of small potted plants, all of them wilted. An empty Diet Pepsi can lay on its side on one of the tables, and a copy of Oprah’s magazine lay open on the floor as if it had been tossed there. Somebody was a lousy housekeeper.
Still holding the gun at the ready, Pearl held her breath and negotiated the hall. It took her only a moment to glance in the tiny bathroom and assure herself that it was clear.
On to what must be the apartment’s only bedroom.
It also appeared unoccupied.
There was an odd burnt scent in the air, as if someone had been smoking here recently. Or cooking.
The bed was made but somewhat sloppily, and was too low for someone to hide under.
The closet. If she really wasn’t alone, he, she, it, would probably be in the closet. Hiding behind the clothes draped on hangers. Waiting.
Pearl steeled herself and yanked open the closet door.
No clothes at all. There were only a few wire hangers inside, an old coupon for pizza on the floor, nothing on the wooden shelf above. The faint scent of mothballs wafted from the closet.
Pearl shut the closet door, turned around, and saw the foot.
It was barely visible on the floor on the other side of the bed, as if someone had fallen out of bed and was lying there.
The foot was bare and had toes with chipped red enamel on the nails. There was a callus or blister on the side of the big toe.
Pearl eased over until she was against the wall and peered at the narrow space between wall and bed.
Lisa Bolt was crammed into that space, her left foot beyond the bed, her right leg jammed sideways with the knee crooked. She was wearing her jeans, but that was all.
Pearl squeezed in to where she could reach Lisa. She called her name several times to see if she was conscious.
“Okay, okay,” Lisa mumbled, though there was no movement and she didn’t open her eyes.
Pearl reached Lisa’s perspiring arms and began pulling on them. They kept slipping out of her grasp.
“Try, will you?” Pearl said, after one of her fingernails had been bent back. The finger continued to throb.
Begrudgingly, and after much flailing around, Lisa cooperated enough so that she was turned and on her knees. Pearl gripped her around the waist and got her standing upright, and Lisa collapsed onto the bed.
Pearl eased her around until Lisa was lying lengthwise with her head on the pillow. That was when she saw the pattern of cigarette burns on Lisa’s breasts and recognized the scorched smell she’d noticed in the bedroom. It hadn’t been from something cooking. Not exactly.
Someone had tortured Lisa by holding a lit cigarette to her bare flesh.
The realization in the hot bedroom with the smell of burned flesh made Pearl’s stomach turn, and for a moment she thought she might vomit. When she swallowed, she tasted bitterness at the back of her throat.
“Who did this to you?” she asked.
“I’m sorry,” Lisa said, and started to sob.
Pearl almost slapped her, and then thought better of it. “There’s no time for this sorry bullshit now,” she said. “Tell me what went on here. Tell me now, Lisa.”
Lisa struggled to control herself and went from sobbing to gasping to ragged breathing. She was calming down.
“Get a grip,” Pearl said.
“Yeah…I’m okay now.”
She might have thought she was about to be slapped, and that had done the trick.
“What are you doing here?” Pearl asked.
“I thought Chrissie might be here. This was a place where we met once, but she’s moved. Must have been scared.”
“Scared of us? The police?”
“Yeah. You, of course. Scared of her father, too. She must have seen in the news that he was in town.”
“Was it Keller who did that to you? With the cigarette?”
“Yeah. He left a while ago.”
The man in the blue Windbreaker, with the umbrella. Flicking his cigarette away as he went down the steps.
“Damn it!” Pearl said.
“You screw up?”
“Royally.”
“Welcome to the club,” Lisa said. “I knew Chrissie would be here or in another apartment where she’s been staying. She wasn’t here.” Her gaze roamed around the room, and her eyes widened slightly, as if fear had set in again. “Keller was suddenly behind me. The bastard had been hiding. I couldn’t put up any kind of resistance.” She sounded ashamed.
“You were surprised,” Pearl said. “And you probably should still have been in your hospital bed to begin with. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
“He tied me up, took off my blouse, and started in on me with the cigarettes. He jammed a pillow over my face whenever I tried to scream. Punched me around, too. I think he broke something in me. I heard it crack. He demanded to know where Chrissie was. Said he’d kill me if I didn’t tell him, and that he’d find me and kill me if I lied to him.”
Lisa started to shiver, maybe going into shock. Pearl laid the other half of the old bedspread over her to warm her up. The shivering got worse.
“It’s okay,” Pearl said. “He’s gone.”
“Of course he’s gone. I gave him what he wanted, the address of the apartment where he could find Chrissie.” Lisa pointed feebly toward the door. “He left to find Chrissie. I told you he wanted her. I told you.”
“You told us,” Pearl said, feeling for her cell phone in her purse. She punched out 911 to get an ambulance in a hurry for Lisa.
“Now tell me the address you gave Keller,” she said, when EMS had an ambulance on the way.
Lisa lay with her eyes closed, as if reading from the insides of the lids, and told her.
Pearl called Quinn, filled him in on the situation, and relayed the West Side address. Then she called Vitali and clued him in, along with Mishkin. They were Midtown in their unmarked car. She asked Vitali to have a radio car sent to where she was with Lisa as soon as possible, and another to the address where Chrissie was supposed to be staying.
“They’re on the way,” Vitali said. “The uniforms will make sure Lisa gets back in the hospital. Maybe she’ll stay there a while this time.”
“She will,” Pearl said. “She’s got broken bones this time. Cigarette burns in bad places.” Over the phone she heard the unmarked’s siren kick in, parting the traffic in front of Vitali and Mishkin.
“What are you figuring on doing, Pearl?”
“Soon as the uniforms get here, I’m leaving for where you and Mishkin are going—Chrissie’s apartment. We need to get there before Keller.”
“You wouldn’t realize it over the phone, but right now Harold has our car doing ninety on Broadway. We only slow down when we have to get up on the sidewalk.”
“He’ll kill her,” Lisa said in a pain-weary voice behind Pearl. “That bastard, her father’s gonna kill her.”
Pearl said, “A couple of cops doing ninety think otherwise.”
77
Pearl had to park the unmarked a block away from the apartment address Lisa had given her. The street was cordoned off by twisted strands of yellow crime-scene tape, along with a striped blue and white sawhorse. Two big uniformed officers were standing nearby with their fists on their hips.
The cops stood very still, made so much larger by what they represented, and watched Pearl approach. Cops were like that at times like this; sometimes she forgot they were on her side—for the most part, anyway—and that she was one of them. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she was defying their shall-not-pass posture and attitude.
They represent the law, but not always justice.
Quinn’s kind of bullshit.
She flashed her ID, and one of the uniforms, a young dark-haired guy
who looked like movie star material, raised the tape so Pearl could bend at the waist and edge beneath it. She knew him from her years in the department but couldn’t remember his name. Dexter or Derrick…something like that. He smiled and winked at her. These guys never gave up.
The block was clear of traffic, and the knots of onlookers that had gathered were all behind her on the other side of the tape and sawhorse. As Pearl walked along the deserted sidewalk toward the apartment building that supposedly contained Chrissie Keller, and possibly Chrissie’s father, faces gazed at her from the other side of windows. Some of the faces looked bored, some concerned, others amused.
Every hundred feet or so a uniformed cop stood or paced, making sure the citizens stayed inside, away from any potential line of fire. Most of those caught inside the cordon who’d requested in the beginning to get out were gone, leaving those who for some reason couldn’t leave, along with the usual gawkers who were thrilled that their day had been juiced up by a hunt for a killer. Something was going to happen here. Somebody might die.
Up ahead were flashing lights and an assemblage of emergency vehicles parked at various angles, as if they were toys scattered along the curb by a young child. Pearl saw another, smaller collection of vehicles beyond the first, so that the two gatherings of cops and cars flanked the building where they had finally found Chrissie Keller. Figures moved among the nearest array of vehicles. One of them was Quinn.
When he saw Pearl approaching, he moved away from the cluster of people he’d been talking with and assumed a waiting attitude.
“Looks like everybody beat me here,” she said, slightly out of breath.
“And everybody was too late,” Quinn said. “Edward Keller’s up on the fifth floor with Chrissie.”
“Shit!” Pearl said, and actually kicked at the sidewalk.
Quinn understood her disappointment.
Pearl glanced around at the army of cops. “Keller’s holding her hostage?”
“That’s how it was supposed to be,” Quinn said. “But it didn’t work out that way. Chrissie was waiting and ready for trouble. She’s up there holding a shotgun on Keller.”
Pearl saw a white windowless van parked closest to the building. She knew a hostage expert was inside, possibly talking to Chrissie.
“She demanding something?” Pearl asked. “Or is she working up to killing him?”
Killing her father. Pearl tried to imagine how that must feel. It was something her mind didn’t want to touch.
“She’s not saying,” Quinn said. “She’s agreed to talk, though, if we send someone upstairs to her.”
“Who’s the someone?”
“She didn’t specify who or how many. Hostage control says two or three of us can go, along with the person most likely to be able to talk Chrissie out of pulling the trigger.”
It didn’t take Pearl long to figure out who that might be. “Her mother?”
“Yeah. At least Erin thinks so.”
As if the pronunciation of her name were magic, an unmarked car pulled up to where a uniform raised a resolutely waving arm to halt it, and Erin got out on the passenger side. Sal Vitali climbed out from behind the steering wheel, Mishkin from the back of the car. Sal took a cautious look up at the face of the brick apartment building, calculating angles and gripping Erin’s arm with a firm gentleness as he escorted her toward Pearl and Quinn.
He and Mishkin must have made a detour after they’d talked with Pearl, to pick up Erin and rush her to the scene.
Erin looked pale and frightened. “Sal’s explained the situation to me.”
So they’re on a first-name basis, Pearl thought.
Quinn quickly and precisely told them the plan. Pearl realized he must have given it a lot of thought while waiting for Erin to arrive.
As he was talking, a uniformed cop was fitting a Kevlar vest on Erin, making sure it was adjusted for a tight fit. The Velcro straps made harsh ripping sounds in the warm afternoon.
“Pearl, Feds, and I will take Erin upstairs on the elevator,” Quinn said. “We’ll take our time. Sal and Harold will climb the fire escape in back and let themselves into the apartment while we’re diverting Chrissie’s attention. We’ll be in the living room, and both of you try to move to that end of the apartment, where you might be able to get a bead on Chrissie. Nobody fires a shot unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
Erin adjusted the bulky vest so it fit more comfortably. A breeze ruffled her red hair, and she didn’t look so scared now. Her square jaw was still set like a rock, but her eyes were different. She looked determined. Quinn was staring at her. She gave him the slightest of nods, as if assuring him that she was up to this. Quinn figured she probably was up to it.
“Everybody be careful,” Quinn said. “We screw this up and the SWAT team’ll take their turn.”
And somebody will die.
“Bullet city,” Vitali said.
“Seldom are you so poetic, Sal,” Mishkin said.
“It’s the moment, Harold.”
Vitali and Mishkin moved away, toward the passageway that led to the rear of the building and the fire escape. Staying close to the front of the building so anyone firing from a window would have an impossible angle, Quinn led the way as he, then Erin, Pearl, and Fedderman made their way toward the entrance. Pearl saw that Erin was gripping Quinn’s belt at the small of his back, as if he were leading the blind.
They entered, crossed the small tiled lobby, and rode the tiny, stifling elevator to the fifth floor. It seemed warmer and more confining as they rose.
Pearl absently touched the bulk of her handgun beneath her blazer, as if checking to see if her heart was still beating.
Thinking of Yancy.
78
When they exited the elevator, Quinn led them only a few feet down the hall to 5-D. The apartment had windows facing the street. Windows that he thought offered the SWAT snipers maybe too much opportunity. If everything went right, there would soon be a lot of people in the apartment.
If everything went right, no shots would be fired.
But if anything went wrong…
He stood off to the side of the door and knocked.
“Coming in, Chrissie!”
There was no sound from inside, but he was sure she’d heard him. At least heard the knock.
He reached over, rotated the knob, and pushed on the door.
It was unlocked and swung open wide.
He breathed in deeply, knowing it might be his last breath, then stepped into the doorway.
Edward Keller was standing awkwardly with his arms at his sides, leaning slightly to his right with his knee braced against the arm of a pale green easy chair for balance. He was a medium-sized man, wearing gray pants and a white shirt, red tie. The tie was loosened. The shirt was plastered to his body with perspiration so the pink of his flesh showed through. What was left of Keller’s thinning dark hair was mussed, as if he’d been raking his fingers through it. His eyes were red-rimmed from the sting of the rivulets of sweat that were tracking down his face. It was an ordinary face, made stiff as a mask by terror.
He didn’t look at all mean or dangerous now.
That was because his daughter, Chrissie, stood calmly ten feet away from him, holding a twelve-gauge shotgun trained on his midsection.
Keller stared with slack-jawed fear at Quinn and the others who filed in behind him. Something was going to happen here, and soon. He didn’t know what, but it scared the hell out of him.
Scared Quinn, too.
A shotgun. Just what we need. She must have brought it with her from Ohio.
Quinn sensed the others spreading out behind him. They knew the shotgun, which looked like a semiautomatic, would, if fired wildly over and over, turn the apartment into a bloody death trap.
He turned his attention to Chrissie. She seemed calm, almost in a trance. Speeding along tracks leading to a train wreck and unable and unwilling to stop. The shotgun rested light and easy in her hands. She’d grown up in a
small town in bird-hunting country. Quinn hoped she was familiar with guns and wouldn’t go crazy with the thing.
Keller broke the silence by stammering, “Please get her to stop pointing that shotgun at me.”
“It wouldn’t hurt you to drop the barrel a few inches, dear,” Quinn said to Chrissie.
There was no change in her posture or expression. The gun remained steady. Quinn noticed she was standing in one of the few areas of the room where there was no chance of a sniper’s shot from outside hitting her. She’d thought this out. Her eyes darted to Quinn, back to her father.
“It would be better for all concerned,” Quinn said calmly, “if you lowered the gun and we talked.”
He was suddenly aware that Pearl had unobtrusively removed her handgun from its holster and was holding it down and slightly behind her right thigh, where Chrissie wouldn’t see it.
Jesus! Yancy!
Shouldn’t have let Pearl come up here…
Quinn pushed Pearl from his thoughts and smiled at Chrissie, moving a few feet to his right so she could see him in her peripheral vision while looking at her father. Keller was trembling now. There was a spreading urine stain on the front of his gray pants.
“What is it you want?” Quinn asked Chrissie.
Her answer was spat from behind clenched teeth. “Justice.”
“Then we’re on the same page,” Quinn said. “So let’s talk about this and see if we can arrive at justice.”
“I don’t want to talk.”
Quinn saw Keller stiffen as she spoke, asking himself the same question Quinn was asking: Then why did she let these people come up here?
And suddenly he knew why.
The shotgun roared, and Keller’s body leaped backward and spun, spewing blood as it fell.
Chrissie brought around the long barrel of the shotgun, drawing a bead on Quinn, then Erin, Quinn, then Erin. Erin began to scream.
“He’s dead, Chrissie!” Quinn said, almost screaming himself so he could be heard with Erin making all that noise.
Erin had figured it out, too. Chrissie had known she would come into the apartment, and Chrissie knew why Erin would come. Even though hers had been a sin of omission, Erin wanted Chrissie’s silence as much as Ed Keller had. She wanted to make sure of that silence.