by Anne McAneny
“Where does he—”
A vicious kick to my front door snapped the deadbolt like it was a toothpick. I spilled my drink on the couch and jumped up. The perpetrators weren’t even in full focus, but I did catch the steel glint of a nine-millimeter gun aimed at my head before spinning around, dropping to my knees, and pulling my own loaded .45 from beneath the couch cushion, only to face a bleak situation. I was in a standoff against three thugs, one of whom had a massively muscled arm wrapped around Grady’s neck and a muzzle pressed to his head. I shifted my aim from one punk to the other.
“Get out now and nobody gets hurt,” I shouted. “I’m with the police.”
“Who the fuck is this?” the guy holding Grady yelled. “Thought you said she was alone.”
“She is,” said the short guy. “Almost always.”
I decided to be insulted later. “I’ll ask one time,” I said, “and then I start shooting. What the hell do you want?”
“Where’s the ball?” said Shorty. “We know you got it.”
He may as well have spoken Russian for all the sense he made. “Does this have something to do with Leroy Fitzsimmons? Did he hire you?”
“What the fuck you talkin’ ’bout, fucktographer? We want the combination and we want it now. Who you workin’ for, anyway? You better not have opened that safe.”
The third man, who’d temporarily lowered his gun and remained mute so far, began kicking things over in a slow, deliberate manner, making a controlled threat of sorts. He started with my cheap end table, progressed to my cheap chairs, and finished with a cheap lamp. Meant to be intimidating, it was merely loud. He worked his way to me, raising his gun within inches of my head. That proved more intimidating.
I faced him, my own gun leading the way. He was giving me free license to shoot him—at the expense of my own life, but he sure as shit knew I wouldn’t. The trembling hand at the end of my arm told him as much.
His tired blue eyes showed thin red trails of blood and it made me feel better. Perhaps we were equals—both performing suboptimally.
“Janie Perkins,” he said, making it clear this was no case of mistaken identity. “I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and maybe even spare you and your guest serious injury.” His clear articulation and accent-free voice surprised me. “You took a tennis ball from Dizzy’s apartment, did you not?”
What the hell? How in the world—
“Did you not?” he repeated, the threat in his voice needing no volume.
“How did you know that?”
“Is that some quirky thing you do?” he said. “Take souvenirs from crime scenes? Are you a thief, Miss Perkins?”
Now he’d pissed me off, laying bare my sinful soul in front of Grady after I’d just accused my mother of no better. I channeled my anger to the ends of my arms, forcing my hands to be steady. “Screw you,” I said. “I took the stupid ball by accident.”
“Fine,” he said. “Where is it?”
“If everyone will lower their guns, I’ll be happy to get it for you.”
“Gentlemen,” came Grady’s voice, sounding like a restaurant host offering the best table in the house. It was the most melodious thing I’d ever heard. “I’m afraid there’s been a misunderstanding. Perhaps I can help clear this up.”
The gorilla-armed man yanked Grady’s neck tighter, pressed his mouth to his ear. “What kind of misunderstanding, old man? The kind where you end up dead?”
“Quite the contrary,” Grady said. “The kind where you do.”
With that, Grady backfisted the thug’s face, disorienting him enough that he was able to grab the gun. After relieving the gentleman of his piece, Grady slammed the guy’s head into the tipped table and knocked him out. The gushing blood would do a number on my cheap area rug, but the fifty bucks to replace it would be worth it. Shorty used the opportunity to take a shot at Grady, who hit the ground and rolled out of the way just in time. When Grady rotated onto his stomach again, he raised the gun he’d confiscated and took an immediate shot from the floor, catching Shorty in the shoulder, which was enough to make him drop his gun and wail like a baby. That’s right, Shorty, bullets hurt.
Grady kicked the loose gun across the room.
I held my .45 firmly on the articulate third man and he kept his on me, remaining silent and calm despite the abuse his cohorts had taken. The scene was the most surreal of my lifetime—and all over a ball that meant no more to me than a housecleaner’s key had meant to my mother.
The calm man now trained his gun on Grady.
I had to put an end to this before more blood was shed. “Everybody, stop!” I shouted. “I’ll hand over the tennis ball. It’s in my bedroom.”
“I’m sorry, Janie,” Grady said, his tone laced with controlled menace, “but this behavior cannot be rewarded. We have two guns against his one. He assumes I care if I die. Which I don’t.”
The man turned his gun back to me, waving it like a conductor’s baton, his composure rivaling Grady’s and the whole situation playing out like a sequence in a gritty noir film. I caught a glint in Grady’s eye and suddenly saw how it all would end—with a corpse lying next to me and Grady being carted off to jail. Damn testosterone. Why couldn’t they just let me get the ball?
The composed man started to speak. He’d be dead before he finished his stupid threat; he started it anyway. “Well then, perhaps you care if she—”
I shot him in the leg and followed it with a well-placed, rigid kick that knocked out his wind and flung him onto the couch to recuperate. My childhood with Jack had finally paid off.
Grady instantly relieved Calm Guy of his gun and pinned him to the couch.
Suddenly everything went silent and still. A hollow loudness filled my ears and my body shook uncontrollably. As my heart rate caught up to where it should have been all along, sweat flowed from every pore and I dehydrated drop by drop. Grady flipped the intruder onto his stomach while Shorty, spotting an opportunity to get the hell out, bolted through the back window and clattered down the fire escape, still whimpering.
After Grady secured Calm Guy by crisscrossing his arms behind his back, he used his own shirt to stanch the bleeding. Despite the insanity of the last few minutes, I couldn’t help but notice three scars on Grady’s back, two long, one blunt and triangular. Something told me he’d have more on the front. Perhaps prison hadn’t been all sipping tea and lounging in the sun.
He turned to me. “Janie . . . Janie! Keep it together!” He was shouting for my sake while remaining perfectly calm himself. “Bring me that tennis ball and then call the police.”
Like a zombie, I shuffled to my bedroom, removed the floor vent whose air flow I’d blocked with an old shirt, then pulled out the small plastic bin that contained my personal album of altered crime scenes. I grabbed the tennis ball and returned to find Grady and the man finishing up a conversation.
The man turned his head as best he could from his prone position and sneered at Grady. “Yes, I understand,” grumbled the man.
“Repeat it to me.”
“We had the wrong address. Supposed to be picking up some money we were owed.”
“Good,” Grady said. He took the tennis ball, squeezed along the ripped seam, and pulled out a small slip of paper tucked inside like a fortune from a cookie.
“What the hell?” I whispered.
“You good with numbers?” Grady asked the man.
“Yes.”
Grady read from the slip of paper: “Fifty-two, ninety-seven, twenty-nine, eighteen, three. Got it?”
The man repeated it back. Grady shoved the combination in his own pocket and the tennis ball into the man’s. “Maybe they’ll let you bounce that around your cell. If not, you’ll get it when you pick up your possessions in five years. But at least you got the job done, so Rocko will let you live. I met him on the inside. Do give him
my best.”
Wexler and three uniformed officers barged in, breathless but calm. I hadn’t even called, but a neighbor surely had. Something’s going on in that lady’s apartment. Joanie or Janie or some such person.
“All clear, officers,” Grady said. “There were three of them. One on the ground there, one took off out the back window, and this guy on the couch. Miss Perkins and I are fine.”
At a nod from Wexler, two of the officers tended to Muscles while the third approached Calm Guy and called for an ambulance.
Wexler, seeing a pale, trembling version of the woman he’d spent the night with, grabbed both my arms and sat me down. “Janie, what happened? You okay?”
“Yes, yes, I’m fine.”
He crouched down, keeping his eyes locked on mine, looking for signs of shock, as Grady approached.
“Detective, thanks for getting here so quickly. I’m Grady McLemore.”
They shook hands and Wexler introduced himself, maintaining a rigid professionalism. If not for the circumstances, I might find it adorable that my new boyfriend was meeting my new dad.
“Janie and I were talking,” Grady said, “and the next thing you know, three hoodlums barged in screaming about a meth payment. They had guns, all three of them. I disarmed one and knocked him out, then used his gun in self-defense on the second man. Janie disarmed the third man, getting off an accidental shot in his leg while doing so. She was about to call the police when you got here.”
How could he be so cool and smooth?
Wexler looked at the scene, at the perps, back to Grady, and then at me. Doubt filled his eyes.
Not knowing what else to do, I nodded to affirm Grady’s version of events.
“Mr. McLemore,” Wexler said, “you mind coming down to the station and giving your statement?”
“No problem, Detective,” Grady said.
Wexler put his hands on my knees, cueing Grady to make himself scarce. “Janie, I know these guys. They work for Rocko Mania, the drug dealer who probably ordered the hits on Dizzy and his mother. They don’t get addresses wrong. Want to tell me what really happened?”
Any remaining fortitude within me collapsed. I leaned in close, picking up a hint of nervous perspiration from Wexler. It mingled with the scented soap he’d used in my shower earlier. “The tennis ball in the guy’s pocket,” I whispered. “It had something in it. A combination for a safe. They were here to get it back.”
Had to give Wexler credit. He put it together in no time flat, and I couldn’t have been sadder when I saw his perception of me change. “You took the ball from Dizzy’s?”
I nodded. “It was a mistake, I swear.”
All the implications instantly merged in Wexler’s head. If word got out that I’d manipulated a single crime scene, every conviction that had ever involved my photos would be in jeopardy. The defense attorneys in town would dine out for months on the appeals bonanza. Everything I’d ever touched would be tainted, and forget about keeping my job.
“Grady’s story is cute,” Wexler said, “but what are these guys gonna say at the station?”
“Grady worked something out with them about sticking with the mistaken address.”
Wexler stood and addressed the room. “All right, guys. Let’s keep things moving. Looks like a case of the bad guys getting a bum scoop.”
Grady’s eyes met mine. I didn’t know whether to thank him for saving my life, curse at him for lying to Wexler, praise him for covering for me, or pat myself on the back for keeping him from killing someone on his first day out of prison. I settled for returning his gaze.
CHAPTER 41
The immediate aftermath of the break-in was horrific and nauseating, and it sucked up the entire day, but things had worked out. Calm Guy had given his weak story. Shorty had been arrested and corroborated the story, while Muscles was in the hospital with a serious concussion. Wexler leaked the tennis ball information to let Rocko Mania know I’d relinquished the ball and the safe’s combination. Yes, my new lover was keeping me safe, but would he keep me as a lover? He hadn’t returned my calls yet this morning.
As I waited in my car to pick up Grady from my brother’s place, I grabbed the third newspaper I’d bought and read another front-page article feting Grady as a hero. They couldn’t get enough of the irony of the story. Grady McLemore failed to save the love of his life thirty years ago, but arrived in the nick of time to save the life of his estranged daughter.
Hm, I’d take Haiku Twin over estranged daughter.
According to one ridiculous opinion piece, he’d saved my life twice: Thirty years hence, the nimble, sure-footed Grady McLemore rose as if from the ashes to save the life of the daughter he never knew. Yes, fans of literal interpretation will argue that Mr. McLemore’s intervention decades ago cost his daughter a mother, but without his heroic deeds on that dire evening in a dark living room, when a public panic over a perilous serial killer was the prevailing sentiment of the land, the Haiku Twins may well have lost their lives before they’d even begun. Luckily for them, McLemore stepped into harm’s way.
Who wrote this stuff? Clark Kent on an alliterative high?
My favorite was the one by a fawning journalist who believed my mother was the Haiku Killer’s target all along: His actions spared the next generation, who surely would have perished in the Haiku Killer’s mad rush to murder his first female victim, embodied by stunning waitress and art student Bridget Perkins, who died in the very uniform that may have made her a target. And now, Grady McLemore has done it again.
I wanted to throw up, but settled for throwing the papers in the back. Suddenly, a glaring flash hit me in the eye. Not a camera flash—I knew those backwards and forwards, professionally and personally—more like a piercing beam. It flickered from one eye to the other and when I threw my hand up to block it, it traveled to my steering wheel and then my lap. When it started making a dash-dot-dash pattern, I knew exactly what was going on. I smiled and lowered my hand. The light flashed four times, paused, and flashed again, followed by a longer flash, a quick flash, and two longer flashes. I could predict the flashes that would follow, and they did. Jack had just sent me a Morse code message: Hey, Sis! Even with rusty translation skills, I got it. We’d mastered only a few basic phrases as kids.
I glanced up at Jack’s third-story condo window to see him holding a mirror, which he lowered before any of the lurking newshounds noticed. Some of the reporters—in wrinkled clothes and generally unkempt—looked like they’d camped out overnight, desperate for a glimpse of their new hero. It’d be a jackpot day for them if they got a shot of Grady and his handsome son together. But Jack and Grady were probably waiting for the pivotal, maximum-advantage moment to stage such a shot; otherwise, they’d be pulling a Michael Jackson right about now—Grady dangling Jack from a window with a wool blanket over his head.
Jack next held up a can of soup and wiggled it to make sure I’d see. I grinned, but finding myself without a trusty tin can and string, I opted for calling.
“Hey, Sis,” he said upon answering. “Grady will be down any minute. He’s just brushing his teeth.”
“Wish you could come.”
“I would, but there’s a huge development in one of my cases. Looks like we might be turning a guy, bringing down a whole heroin operation that’s been under surveillance for months. Besides, I think you should let the police handle this whole Leroy situation.”
“I know, but I want to talk to this Sam guy myself.”
“Well, sorry I’ll miss it. A family drive in the country would have been so us.”
I glanced up at the window to see him smirking playfully.
“Actually, the drive will give me a chance to talk to Grady,” I said. “We kind of got cut off yesterday.”
“You sure you’re okay after all that? Can’t believe you wouldn’t stay here last night.”
�
�I refuse to be cowed by the criminal element. But thanks for sending dinner over. That was sweet.”
“Ordered it myself. Didn’t even have Randall do it.”
He was so proud that I couldn’t even muster any mockery. “You know, Jack—”
My passenger door suddenly wrenched open. An old man in a floppy rain hat and sunglasses threw himself into the seat, a heavy cane in his hand. I gasped. “Leroy?” Reaching for my door handle to escape, I shouted into the phone. “Jack! Call the police! Are you seeing this?” But then I heard a resonant laugh—in stereo—as both Jack and Grady—the man in my passenger seat—had a good chuckle at my expense.
“Seven reporters outside your brother’s building,” Grady said, “and not one of them gave the old man with the bum leg a second glance.”
Grady, still laughing, flashed camera-ready choppers as he cast his props into the backseat. I had trouble deciding between punching Grady in the arm and flipping off my brother, so I dropped my phone to my lap and did both.
Jack laughed and waved from his perch while Grady feigned pain and rubbed his arm. Then I noticed some of the reporters catching on to the antics and running toward my car. I started the engine, gunned it, and turned the corner before any flashes went off.
“Maybe we should start again,” I said. “Good morning, Grady. You have the address?”
He waved some papers fresh off my brother’s printer. “If you get us to the town of Stuart, I’ll get us to Sam Kowalczyk’s.”
I got us out of the city in eight minutes and the scenery changed dramatically. Central Virginia was like that. City and country, pavement and pastures, sometimes butting up against each other, but always finding a way forward. Grady seemed to enjoy being out in the open, a delighted grin playing on his lips every time I glanced over. “Would you do me a favor, Grady?”
“Anything.”
“Would you tell me something nice about my mom? I need to replace the pickpocket image in my head.”
He laughed before launching into ten minutes of breathless wonder. He told me about my mom’s penchant for hoop earrings, her adoration of animals, mysteries, and chocolate, and her abiding love for blueberry cobbler. “She’d eat enough to turn her teeth purple,” Grady said. “And here’s something else. She was determined to master the unicycle after you kids were born.”