A Lesson in Love and Murder

by Rachel McMillan

  She nodded. “All… all right.”

  Relief deflated Ray. He gave her a quick smile and a peck on the cheek and made to say something when Jasper’s voice rang hollow through the corridor inside.

  “Ray, you might want to… Ray!”

  A shadow filled the doorway. “You said I couldn’t provide for Viola.” Tony was obviously seething with revenge.

  “Tony, Hedgehog is dead. Did you… ”

  Tony grunted a quick affirmative while looking at Jem. “Convenient that you’re here,” he said, grabbing her arm and tugging her through the door before Ray’s reflexes would allow him to intervene. He dashed in after them.

  “Tony!” Ray said to his brother-in-law’s back. “Jem was just on her way. She isn’t a part of this. She doesn’t need to be.”

  Tony swiveled, turning Jem with him. “This gun has already killed once today,” he said, pressing it to Jem’s neck.

  “We won’t let you get away with it,” Jasper said evenly, summoning a courage he didn’t feel.

  “What you are going to do, Constable? Arrest me? In Chicago? With force? Wouldn’t you need backup?”

  Jasper removed his gun from the inside of his coat and pointed it at Tony. “This is my backup.”

  “You have no intention of firing that,” Tony said, gripping Jem more tightly. Jasper set his face resolutely anyway and kept the weapon still and sure in his hand. Tony cocked his own weapon, and Jem jumped at the sound of the click. Jasper lowered his weapon and looked to Ray with a shrug.

  “Tony, you’ve killed a man. Now your prints are identification on that weapon,” Jasper said. “So what do you plan to do? Add another death?

  “I want him gone!” He spat in Ray’s direction. “I want Ray out of my life. I want to manage my own family and my own affairs without his getting involved.”

  “Then start taking care of your family!” Ray shouted. “Start now, and I will happily stay in Toronto. But I won’t let you starve my sister and nephew.”

  “You show up, and I sink lower and lower in her eyes,” Tony confessed, shifting his weight, tightening his grip on Jem’s arm and twisting it behind her back the more upset he got. “I’m not you! She looks up to you. My own little boy will look up to you. It’s been this way since we were kids!”

  “I don’t know what you want me to say, but I would prefer not to talk about this while you have that weapon pointed at my Jemima!”

  “What do you want with me, Ray?”

  “Right now, all I want is her, and you can go to… go to… ” He coughed. “I want you in jail. I want you so far away from my sister that she never hears from you again! That you drift into some phantom memory.” He winced as Jem looked at him helplessly, her eyes pleading with him to do something. “Jasper might want justice, but all I want is you gone. Take the money, leave the corpse. I don’t care. Just give her back, Tony! You don’t need to hurt her like that. She’s not squirming or anything.”

  “A trade.”

  “Lower your gun and take your filthy hands off Jemima, and I will let you have this entire bank if that’s what you want.”

  “But I won’t.” Jasper cut through, while Tony wrung Jem’s arm so tightly she cried out.

  Ray swung around. “You won’t?” he said fiercely. “Jasper, what do you mean you won’t? He’ll kill Jem.”

  Jasper shook his head. “No, he won’t.”

  Ray inclined his head in Tony’s direction. “He’s not giving me any reason to believe he won’t.”

  Jasper calmly raised his gun at Tony again while Ray desperately tried to decipher his plan. A split second later he figured it out, as Jasper swerved the gun and fired before Tony could react, other than to falter and let go of the nearly missed Jem while he gripped his now wounded forearm.

  Ray was furious and scared and then furious again. “You trusted your aim that much!” he said to Jasper, grabbing a shaking Jem and pulling her away from Tony, who was cursing at the widening stain on his shirt.

  “Are you all right?” Ray asked Jem, gripping her arms and staring into her terrified eyes.

  She was too scared to say anything, and her teeth were chattering so fiercely that coherent sentences wouldn’t have made their way out anyway. Ray smoothed her hair back, kissed her forehead, and then held her at arm’s length a moment and gave her a slight reassuring smile. Then he swerved at Tony, who had slowly risen, gripping his bleeding arm. Ray lunged at him and drove him into the column behind him, his fist gripping his collar. “What is wrong with you? What did I ever do to you?” Ray’s bad ear was popping, and red spots were blurring his vision of Tony’s suddenly terrified face. When he didn’t respond, Ray tightened his hold. “What?”

  “Ray, please,” Jem’s voice entreated from behind. “It’s not worth it.”

  Ray saw Tony’s eyes flicker toward his dropped gun. Ray kept his grip. “Jemima, pick up the gun.” Tony’s eyes flashed the first true fear Ray had seen in them.

  Jem made to do as instructed while Ray loosened his grip on Tony, but Tony was faster. He threw Ray behind him, lunged at Jem, wrestled the gun out of her hand, and drove the butt into the side of her head. Ray dashed in Jem’s direction while Tony made for Jasper, who found himself with a blade at his neck before he could raise the gun held loosely in his hand. “Constable Forth here was so worried you might commit my murder, he let his guard down a moment.” Tony pressed harder. “And you’re still determined to see me hang, Ray?”

  “Shut up!” Ray yelled. “Jemima.” Ray dropped in front of her and ran his eyes over her face. He followed the movement of her hand to the back of her neck, and his fingers came away red. The blood drained from his face.

  “It’s okay,” she said woozily but more clearly than her bleary eyes. “He didn’t hit me that hard.” She inclined her head toward Jasper. “Ray, you have to help Jasper.”

  Ray picked up the gun Tony had discarded, slowly rose, and turned.

  Tony’s knife nicked Jasper, and Ray saw a drop of blood. “I left the gun there, Ray, because I know it’s useless to you now. You’ll never kill me. We’re family, aren’t we? You think Viola would ever speak to you again if you did? Look at you. You want to. I hurt your wife, I am driving this weapon farther into your friend’s neck, and yet… you can’t do it. You hate me, and you still can’t do it. For Viola you can’t do it.”

  Ray’s heart twisted at Vi’s name, even as his hand closed around the cold metal in his hand.

  “We stand at Armageddon, and we battle for the Lord!” Roosevelt shouted with finality, triggering an explosion of applause from the crowd.

  Oh, good! Merinda thought. That has to be the end of his spiel. This Roosevelt fellow had no lack of words as he expounded on every promise. This adventure buzzed through her and made the world seem brighter in kaleidoscope colors, and while she wanted the insufferable man to cease droning on, she didn’t want it all to end. The sparks and the fireworks, the heart-clutching feeling that the world could turn in an instant and she would be pulled in its vortex. And Benny. Of course, Benny.

  She looked about her, and there was David Ross, as planned, the slightest flick of a match and… But a tall figure now stood before him before Merinda could move or even think through the noise of the crowd. They clapped and clapped for Roosevelt. No one would hear the sudden pop of gunfire as the two men wrestled near the exit. And yet, from her vantage point, Merinda knew that Jonathan had pulled the trigger. Ross squirmed and she gasped—undetected by the throng and the noise around her.

  Benny was watching the same commotion, his face paling at his simultaneous realization. Jonathan was swift, and they disappeared out the doorway.

  Benny looked to Merinda, and they shoved their way through the ovation and in the direction of the bomb still tucked behind the podium. Benny wriggled out of his vest and wrapped it up while Merinda looked left and right. They made for the doorway.

  Once outside, in a damp alleyway overrun with garbage and mice, they gingerly set the bomb
on the ground.

  “Well, that could have been a disaster,” Merinda panted.

  “Now you’re just being theatrical.” Benny’s normally clipped, calm voice was rippled with fear.

  “I’m pretending to be calm.”

  “I’m still scared!” Benny said.

  “I am too!” Merinda took a step back. “Imagine a Mountie saying he is scared.”

  “I am… uneasy.” Benny ran his hand through his hair. “There’s nothing wrong with saying what you feel, Merinda. You so often say what you think. And with such little provocation.”

  Merinda stared at the bomb carcass on the ground. “What do we do with this? I know nothing about bombs.”

  “Do you think if I pick it up and take it farther, that will stop it from accidentally detonating?”

  “I don’t know! I don’t know!”

  “I do!”

  They heard David Ross before they saw him, one hand trying to stop the spread of blood, while the other was waving a gun at them. His pained voice was a wire wound tight and thin. “I trusted you.”

  “You did so in complete error! What is wrong with you? Going to annihilate the entire world to exact your brand of justice?” Merinda spat.

  Ross set his gun down, but as Benny made to grab it, Ross struck a match on the ground beside him and tossed it so that its sudden flame caught the end of string trailing a stick of dynamite, held to others of devastating power like firewood bound with twine. Slowly, the snaking flame ate at the string. “We’re still close enough to do a lot of damage,” Ross panted.

  Benny made for the gun, but Ross had reached it in the split second Benny was distracted by the bomb flickering at his shoes. Benny instinctively stepped in front of Merinda and stared Ross down. “There’s enough dynamite here to cause quite a stir,” Ross continued. “You can leave, of course, but that would mean how many casualties?” Ross cocked the pistol and backed away before tripping, still holding the gun toward them and grunting, his hand completely soaked with his blood. “Or one of you can do something noble. Pick it up and run with it. You may not get out alive, but… ”

  “What statement does that make?” Merinda screeched. She stepped out from behind Benny. “You would die too.”

  “I would take my betrayer with me.”

  “Would it be worth it? With no one to see? No president with grand thoughts to extinguish?” Benny leaned into Merinda and turned her from Ross. “Merinda, you have to go! Run. Run as fast as you can and get the police.”

  “And what about you?” Merinda squeaked, feet solidly on the ground.

  Benny looked about him. Debris, piles of overturned crates, bricks, rubbish. “I can find a way to… to… ”

  “You can’t disable a bomb by yourself.” Merinda’s ears made out the painful trail of the flame on the string. Inching closer and closer.

  Benny glared at the shortening wick. It seemed surreal. Just a moment before they would… “I won’t have you stay here with me. Merinda, I will not have your blood on my hands when I could… when I could… ”

  Merinda shook her head vehemently.

  “Ben!”

  Merinda and Benny stopped, startled.

  “Jonathan!”

  “The two other bombs are cleared out,” he assured them. He threw Ross a scowl before following Benny and Merinda’s terrified eyes. “Thought I’d knocked you out better than that, you… you… ” His eye caught the bomb at their feet, and he dropped to his knees and inspected the explosive. “Ben, take Merinda and run. That way!” he said through gritted teeth.

  “You can do something, can’t you?” Benny’s attempt at a confident voice betrayed the uncertainty he felt.

  Perspiration trailed down Jonathan’s forehead. His fingers shook over the gadgets. His bleary eyes trailed over the interlocking wires. “Not sure, Ben.”

  “There must be a way you can stop it!” Benny’s eyes sheened. “You can do anything. You could always do anything.” He watched his cousin’s tired profile.

  “Ben, I’ve let you down for the last time,” Jonathan said flatly. He extracted the pistol from his pocket and shot Ross, turned to Benny so their eyes locked. “I’m sorry.”

  Merinda looked between them, a startling, wavering realization drawn in a split second. She made to move or speak. But Jonathan had traded the gun for the sputtering bomb and was sprinting in the opposite direction before Benny’s arm could stretch out, clutch on, and hold him back. Merinda, wiry but strong, kept him from bounding after the retreating shadow.

  Ray stretched his arm out and centered the barrel so that it pointed directly at Tony.

  And his mind screamed, “This is Tony!” For his mind was suddenly a book filled with moments, of photographs, of memories. He was just a boy again and Tony was his best friend. Putting ink in his sister’s tea. Playing jacks by the river. Chasing chickens.

  He blinked his eyes into focus. Steadied his hand, his finger light on the trigger. Jasper was bleeding now. “Drop your knife, Tony,” Ray said.

  “You won’t kill me,” Tony challenged. “In front of your pretty wife? Kill the father of your little nephew?” But now fear undercut his words.

  Ray squinted and closed his left eye, focusing his right. He had the advantage. He had the shot.

  He couldn’t look after he flicked his index finger. The bullet was expelled with force from the barrel and met its target quickly.

  He let the gun drop. It fell to the ground with a dull clang.

  Then he raised his eyes and focused on Jem, who stood, frozen save for her trembling shoulders, against a column nearby. She looked at him with big, pleading eyes, her hand still fingering the sticky wound at the back of her head. Part of him wanted to press her to him and hold on for dear life, but she was there and Tony was on the ground, and she was to blame.

  If she hadn’t been in Chicago. If she hadn’t followed Merinda into this mess. If she hadn’t insisted on coming to the bank, then maybe… maybe… Tony wouldn’t have picked up the gun and sparked Ray’s ire and…

  Spots danced above his eyes, and every bone in his body seemed gelatin. He stole a look at Tony, but his eyes were blurred, and he couldn’t make out his features: just a slumped figure whose life had drained away. He crossed himself quickly and backed away. He had words. So many. They were all bottled up, and he thought they might choke him. He looked to Tony again, but it made his heart beat faster and his hand shake and black dots stab behind his eyes. He took a few deep breaths, swallowed down the nausea in his throat, and turned to Jem.

  “You!” Ray said coldly, stabbing Jem with his eyes, unable to even raise his stilted voice to a yell. “Jem. How could you?” His voice had stopped on her name before it tripped out the rest of the question.

  If Jem could look even more horrified, she did at that moment, slightly shaking her head and covering her hand with her mouth.

  “I wanted him behind bars, and you made me send him to his grave!” His voice cracked, giving Jasper the opportunity to rise and attempt to take command of the situation.

  “Ray! Calm down,” Jasper said. “This wasn’t Jem’s fault. You did what you had to.”

  But Ray had nothing to say, looking wildly between Jem and Jasper, hand shaking uncontrollably. Then he looked at Tony, and his hand shook faster still.

  A blast of shock. He put his hands over his face. “She’ll never forgive me.”

  A split second. That was all it took for the ground to rumble and the blast to shock through them. Merinda knew and Benny knew what the smoke and dust signified, but their eyes wouldn’t meet. Then they had to run as people spilled out and police whistles blew. Benny looked left and right, dashed back to the scene, dropped his notes and the map of the Coliseum, and then sprinted back to Merinda and away from the scene.

  “What did you do back there?” she panted once they had stopped. They’d reached the safety of Wabash Street and had blended with the crowd.*

  “Set them off our trail.” Benny’s voice was low a
nd lifeless. “Like wearing your snowshoes backward.” He stopped. “Something… ” But he couldn’t say Jonathan’s name. “He was my hero.” Benny’s voice cracked. “He was always my hero. He still is, Merinda. The sun rose and set by him. I believed in him.” He straightened his shoulders. Swallowed. Merinda watched him try to gain composure that could shatter at any moment.

  Merinda blinked. She didn’t want Benny to see her eyes mist. She was certain that her ears would still make out the phantom sound that had sickeningly followed the blast. There was nothing scarier than silence. Not shrieks or threats or the lick of flame sizzling a wire. Not when the alternative was nothing.

  Benny continued. “And I always wanted to be him, to outrun him, to be the best at everything. Though I never would be.”

  “He loved you, Benny. He saved our lives. He saved all those people too.”

  “It was a waste, though. The smartest and most talented man I have ever met.”

  “You might be talking about yourself,” Merinda said impetuously, her eyes washing over his sad features.

  “Sorry?”

  She cleared her throat. Maybe it was the sentimental side she rarely showed reacting to his loss. But she knew the same pedestal he used for Jonathan she used for him. “That’s exactly what I think of you. You’re smart. You’re resourceful. There is nothing you cannot do. There is nowhere you cannot go and no person you could not be.” She paused, thinking he might fill the silence. He didn’t. “I think you can live a brilliant and daring life in his memory, Benny. That’s what I think, and cracker jacks, you’ll be a corker at it!”

  “Jonathan died a criminal.” He had trouble getting the sentence out.

  “Oh, he was so much more than that.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I remember the way you first talked about him. How he first fell in with the anarchists.”