Stranglehold

by Ed Gorman

  I pulled the door closed with great care. I stood there and listened.

  “Doris . . . Doris, I followed you last night. The way you were acting . . . so crazy . . . I knew something was wrong.” He stopped, sounded as if he was gagging. “You killed him before I could get inside.” He was wheezing now as he spoke. There were long rasping pauses between words. “You . . . murdered . . . a . . . man.”

  But she was angry, unrelenting. “Why do you think I did it? For us. Because I couldn’t stand to see you treated the way they treated you. Do you have any fucking idea of the risks I took?”

  Quiet little Doris was now furious little Doris. She was shrill. One half octave up and she’d be shrieking.

  “I knew about Wyatt taking the money to Monica Davies. I went to her room to get the money, but Donovan beat me to it. Do you have any idea the courage that took? Do you? And then when I killed Donovan and finally got the money—for us—so we could finally go away together—think of what you said to me, David. That I was insane—that this whole thing between us was just my fantasy—that you would have stopped me if you’d known what I was doing—and how the hell do you think that made me feel? After all I went through. After I put my life in jeopardy with scum like Donovan!”

  I was on tiptoe again, but I was wondering if either of them would hear me even if I walked on the soles of my shoes. Her voice was about to start shattering glass.

  “I did it for us. I thought you’d be happy. I thought we’d finally go away together. I knew you wanted to, even though you wouldn’t admit it. I knew it, David. I knew it. I prayed for it and my prayers are always answered. Always, David.”

  By now I was expecting to hear Manning say something. But there was nothing. Or maybe he couldn’t talk. She was speaking in a kind of reverie, the kind I associated with people in alcohol or drug dazes. And maybe she was speaking to a ghost. Maybe Manning was dead.

  I took the final four steps to the office door. The space between door and frame was at a bad angle for me. I could see one end of the desk, but I couldn’t see Doris or the chairs in front.

  “You betrayed me, David. No matter how hard I tried to make you love me, you turned me away. Nobody loved you the way I did, David. Nobody even came close.”

  I heard him, then. Not words. Just a deep, shaky moan. Then: “Help me, Doris. Help me. Call an ambulance.” He sounded as if he’d be sobbing if only he had the strength.

  I raised my Glock then raised my foot and gave the door a push so that it opened wide. Then I went in with my gun pointed right at Doris, who sat, prim as always—the wan pretty girl you always wondered about when you sat studying in the library at night, those heartbreaking little legs and that lost nervous gaze—pretty Doris all grown up now.

  “Don’t move, Doris.”

  Her eyes remained on Manning, who was slumped in the chair in front of the desk. A bloody hand hung limp, plump drops of blood splashing on the carpet below. As I moved into the office, I kept scanning the desk for any sight of a gun. Her hands were folded and in clear view. I wondered what she’d done with the gun. I could smell the powder in the small confines of the office.

  I came around the side of the desk so that I could see Manning. The pale face and sunken eyes startled me. He had the pallor and pain of one of those beggars you see on TV when those greedy ministers want to soak you for some more tax-free money. I doubted he had much longer to live. From what I could see, he’d been shot in the chest twice. His white shirt was soaked red and something like puke ran down both sides of his mouth. He saw me but he didn’t see me. His head gave a little jerk when his eyes and brain came together to recognize me.

  He started crying. “Dev—she’s crazy, Dev. Never had anything to do with her. Crazy, Dev . . .”

  I started to reach for the phone on the desk, but she was faster than me. She grabbed it and hurled it into the air. When it reached the end of its cord length it crashed to the floor. “No! No! I want him dead! All I did for him! All I did for him!”

  Kept my Glock on her as I jerked my cell phone from my pocket and punched in 911. I heard myself at one remove talking to the police dispatcher. She was calm and professional. I envied her.

  Doris was on her feet, ripping open the middle drawer of the desk. I saw everything in broken images—hand inside the desk—hand coming up—shape and sheen of the .45—gun being raised.

  I went into a crouch and started to pull the trigger of my Glock. All this in mere moments. But then more broken instant images—Doris raising the gun higher, higher—the barrel of the gun gleaming in the overhead lighting—the point of the gun against her head— And then the cry, the plea, the scream. And then the explosion.

  Mere moments again as I watched blood and brain and hair freeze for a millisecond in midair, the scream still shocking my entire body. And then in a wild grotesque dance her arms flying out from her body, the gun tossed against the wall, and then the final abrupt death of will and awareness and soul as she collapsed to the floor.

  I was shaking and I was cold from sweat freezing on me. I started uselessly toward her, but just then Manning cried out for his mother, and by the time I was able to turn back to him I saw from the terrible angle of his head that he was likely dead.

  Sirens, then, coming fast and coming close. There was no point in looking at either of them now. Doris had had her way. She was finally joined with the man she’d never been able to seduce.

  CHAPTER 22

  SCANDAL TARNISHES A POLITICAL FAMILY.

  This story appeared on one of the news services a week before the election. It was picked up by hundreds of papers, TV and radio stations, and, of course, cable news where talking heads feasted on murder, blackmail, and the end of what Natalie had hoped would be a political dynasty. I’m sure some people said that the story had ensured Congresswoman Cooper’s defeat, but I think that defeat was inevitable, anyway. Duffy won by six points; without the story he might only have won by four or five.

  Eight days after the election Natalie showed up for a half-hour interview with Larry King. She looked gorgeous. And she gave great press. She cast herself—as a writer would—as a concerned but suffering stepmother to an ungrateful stepdaughter whose reckless early years came back to destroy not only her but poor Natalie as well. All Manning got for his death was a tsk-tsk. She stressed that she’d never liked or trusted Doris and was not surprised that Doris was both a thief and a murderer. She pulled it off with consummate skill. Despite her differences with Susan, she had called her many times over the past months, but Susan would never return her calls. Summoning Tinseltown tears and a scratchy throat, Natalie said, looking directly into the camera, “I still love you, Susan. If you need anything, please call me. Night or day.”

  In January, Susan vacated her congressional offices and moved to Portland, Oregon, where a college friend of hers ran a public-relations and lobbying firm. There are good lobbies and bad lobbies. This was a good one, its clients working to make life at least marginally better for people society had cast aside.

  As for Greg Larson, he found another business partner, and on the day they started smearing people the IRS announced that it was investigating him for tax evasion and tax fraud. He, of course, sputtered about “communists” and this being nothing more than “political revenge,” even though the head of the IRS was a Bush appointee who’d stayed on.

  And after a while a photo of a tiny pink infant showed up on my Mac screen. Gwen and Bobby, who had also moved to Portland, where Bobby had found work in a supermarket managerial program, had named the boy Devlin Robert Flaherty. “We’ll call him ‘Dev,’ of course,” Gwen wrote.

  In his first four months in Congress, Duffy surprised many people, including me, by voting for some very liberal bills. We would never have been as savage toward him as the far right proved to be.

  I’m writing all this with the scent of pot roast in the air. Jane’s here for what she calls her “Chicago weekend,” which seems to be a regular thing these days. We
swap cooking chores. When it’s my turn I take her out to a very expensive restaurant.

  I’ll be driving back with Jane tomorrow. Sister has asked me to testify on Heather’s behalf. She did in fact help find the killer. I’m not sure how much that will help, but I’m willing to do it. The few times I’ve had to testify in trials I’ve been nervous and probably not very effective. Maybe I need some pointers. You know, how to give one of those rousing Perry Mason performances where the judge bangs her gavel and proclaims, “This trial is over!”

  I imagine Natalie could give me some help with that. But then she may be too busy. The word is that she’ll be announcing Peter’s candidacy for Congress very soon now.

  I may be wrong, but somehow I don’t think she’ll be calling me for any help. And even if she did, I wouldn’t have the guts to break it to Ben.