It Happened at Two in the Morning

by Alan Hruska

  “They already believe it.”

  “That’s the press,” Elena says.

  “The guy we just heard? Joe Cunningham. He’s the Chief Deputy DA. He believes it.”

  “He’s a moron,” she says. “And probably a pol who thinks he’s gonna get something out of it.”

  “Maybe. But he’s hardly acting in a vacuum.”

  “So what do you think?” she says. “You think we did it? We were there, we should know.”

  “They found the gun in your apartment,” he says. “With your prints. How’d that get there?”

  She blows her cheeks out. “Someone’s framing me. Obviously. It’s the guys who kidnapped us. Or whoever they’re working for. After they blindfolded me, they stuck something in my hand for a moment. You missed that. You were unconscious.”

  He looks at her as if to say, I didn’t have to see it.

  “I’m in a frame,” she expostulates. “It’s what I’ve been saying.”

  “Deep frame,” he says. “That’s the point. And not just you. Someone’s gone to the trouble of creating records of phone calls between us. You have any idea how hard it is to do that?”

  “Some, yeah.”

  “And my guess—that’s only a small piece of it. For example, those two clowns, Becky and Seymour, were looking for us. They knew exactly who we were when they found us. How’d that happen? This is a boondocks town in Pennsylvania. New York puts our names out on a general tape to a bunch of states along with a bunch of other names, none of which does any boondocks town pay the slightest attention to. Unless they’ve been tipped. And who knew enough about our whereabouts to give special warning to the police department of Seaversville, Pennsylvania?”

  “Hmm,” she says. “You sure about this?”

  “And a lot of other things. Like tomorrow morning, before we’re shipped back to New York, there’s got to be an extradition hearing. We have a right to counsel on that hearing and a right to be there. And until that hearing is held, Pennsylvania cops have no right to turn us over to New York cops. So what the hell is the story about we go directly from a PA jailhouse into a New York van?”

  “So you’re saying what? The cops are in on the frame?”

  He shrugs. “Something’s happening. Something bad. Your father was a very powerful guy. Whoever’s responsible for shooting him is probably equally powerful. And there’s probably a whole lot more evidence. Maybe even a witness.”

  “Jesus!”

  “You don’t think they could manufacture a witness?” he says.

  “No, I’m totally getting it.”

  “And if we go back to New York, while we’re trying to dig ourselves out, where do you think we’re spending our days?”

  She looks sick.

  “Rikers, probably,” he says. “Where you wouldn’t be too conspicuous. Billionaire heiress?”

  “So what are you saying now?”

  “I don’t think we ought to wait for the van.”

  “A fucking prison break?” she says. “Who the hell do you think we are? Bonnie and Clyde?”

  “Shouldn’t be that hard. And this isn’t exactly a prison.”

  “Okay, mastermind. Say we do that somehow. Then what’s next?”

  “We get lost in America?”

  “Living on what?”

  “What we earn?” he says.

  “Jobs? Without social security numbers?”

  “There are ways.”

  “Sounds great,” she says. “How long? You’re gonna say, until they find the actual murderers, but until they find us, they won’t even look. So if I gotta chose between living some dingy kind of life forever and trying my hand at staying outta Rikers and breaking the frame—how do you think I’m leaning?”

  “All right,” he says.

  “All right what?”

  “You’re not going, I’m not going.”

  “Why?” she says. “What’s stopping you?”

  “My plan requires two people.”

  “You got a plan? Already?”

  “Of course.”

  “And what about for when we get out—if we get out?”

  “Got a plan for that too,” he says.

  NINE

  What the fuck you doing, Joe?” Mike Skillan, in his office, rips off his jacket and slams it down on his chair, which Joe correctly interprets as a sign to stay standing.

  “I got ambushed, Mike. On my way into the office. Right after I called you. They already had the story. Had had it almost an hour. They knew about the prints.”

  “I didn’t know about the prints then. How the fuck did they know about the prints?”

  Joe heaves a sigh. “Beats the shit outta me, Mike. But they fuckin’ well did. You can check. Sammy was there.”

  Mike doesn’t like this, he doesn’t like anything about it. “In the future—”

  “I know, Mike. I got blindsided. No more answering questions, unless you tell me to do it.”

  Mike picks up his jacket, drapes it on the back of the chair, sits, stares at his assistant who’s still standing. “Y’know the worst thing about this? It’s forcing our hand.”

  “Pretty fat hand, Mike.”

  “And will probably get fatter. Know why?”

  “I’d say because she did it, and is an amateur. Probably panicked and started leaving clues all over the place. Sorry Mike. Not buying into that ‘she may have been framed’ theory.”

  “So let’s think again,” Mike says. “How’d the press know about the prints before you found out?”

  “A leak in the lab,” Joe suggests. “Don’t worry, I’m on that.”

  “Good. And while you are, also check out exactly who the information went to, in what sequence, and at what time.”

  “News like that,” Joe says, “could spread fast in the department. Maybe dozens knew before I did.”

  “So find out.”

  “This some kind of witch hunt?” Joe says, voice getting cautious. “Guys talk to the press here. Always have. We’re not gonna stop it. Let me issue some new directives, scare people a bit, but I really don’t think we’re so porous in general we need to start tying people to stakes.”

  “I’m not talking about random leaks to the press.”

  “Oh, shit, what? Conspiracy theory?”

  “That’s right, Joe. That’s one of the things possible. And to me, at least as plausible as a young woman with no record of mental illness or crime suddenly shooting her father in the middle of the street.”

  Joe frowns. “Dammit, Mike. The case against this woman is fucking overwhelming.”

  “A flood. Right. Probably, in two minutes, a tsunami.”

  “That’s what I’m saying.”

  “When’re we getting the daughter here?” Mike asks. “I’ll wanna talk to her.”

  “By noon. Latest.”

  Sammy bursts in. “We have a witness,” he says. “Eyewitness. To the Riles killing. Thought you should know right away.”

  TEN

  Elena screaming for five minutes brings both cops back into the cell room, whereupon Becky screams back, “What the hell you screaming about?”

  Elena clamps down immediately. “This guy,” she says. “I want him outta here.”

  “Oh yeah? Why’s that?”

  “He’s groping me, what do you think?”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “Exactly,” says Tom. “It’s bullshit. She’s hysterical.”

  “Oh yeah? Wanna see the bruise marks?” says Elena to Becky. “Let’s go into the ladies room, I’ll show you.”

  Becky looks uncertain.

  “I’ll tell you, Sergeant. I get outta here, I’m going right to the press. The jailhouse in Seaversville? They lock men and women together in cells!”

  “All right,’ says Becky. “You come out here with us. You’re not gonna like it.”

  “Because why?” says Elena, heading toward Becky. “You’re gonna chain me to a pipe or something? Or to one of those steel chairs? This is
a jailhouse where they chain women to chairs?”

  Becky halts her with a jab to the shoulder. “Then you,” she says, pointing to Tom.

  “What?” he says, all innocence.

  “Out here.”

  “I’m getting chained now? Pretty damn sexist.”

  “Get out here!” she commands, unsheathing her pistol.

  He obeys, leaving the cell. Seymour slams it shut on Elena and locks her in. With Becky waving the gun nervously toward the doorway, Tom leads the procession to the outer room.

  The rest goes amazingly easily.

  Becky points to a chair; Tom sits in it. Seymour bends to start cuffing Tom’s leg to the chair leg. Becky starts shouting at once, “Dammit, Seymour, the arms first!”

  Too late. Tom yanks Seymour’s gun from its holster while at the same time shoving the distracted, squatting man’s shoulder, bouncing him on his butt.

  As Seymour makes a move to get up, Tom, himself rising, says, more calmly than he feels, “I just shot a billionaire, Seymour. You think I’d have any qualms about shooting you?” Then, swinging the gun toward Becky with menace, “Or, for that matter, you?”

  She stands there, too angry and frightened to speak. But dangerous with a gun still in her hand.

  Tom summons a convincing laugh. “You think they would’ve hired an amateur for the job I just did? And having done it—for me, you two are just collateral damage.” He aims Seymour’s gun at her forehead.

  Becky carefully lowers her weapon to the floor.

  Tom says, “I’d like you, Seymour, to take those cuffs and attach the sergeant to the chair you’d intended for me.” And into their stupefied faces he yells, “Now!”

  Tom supervises their carrying out his directions. “Above the crossbar, Seymour!”

  Gesturing with the pistol toward the back room, Tom says, “Before cuffing you, my friend, let’s release the young woman, shall we?”

  One last glance at Becky as she glares at the floor.

  Mike and Joe, through the two-way, watch Sammy Riegert question Horace Moon, nighttime janitor of the Riles Whitney building and alleged witness to the shooting of Robertson Riles. Horace, a slender middle-aged man in a good but frayed suit and rumpled shirt and tie, waits attentively for the next question.

  “So let’s hear it again,” Sammy says. “Every detail. What you saw and heard.”

  “After Mr. Riles went out of the building?”

  “Right,” Sammy says. “You say his car wasn’t there?”

  “Didn’t see it.”

  “You know his driver?”

  “Not really,” Horace says. “I know what he looks like.”

  “And he wasn’t there?”

  “Didn’t see the man.”

  “So what did you see?”

  “A girl with a gun.”

  Sammy shows him a newspaper photograph of Elena walking the street with some punk-looking guy. “Ever see her around before?”

  “Yeah, that’s her, I think.”

  “The one with the gun who came over to Riles?”

  “That’s right,” Horace says.

  “Then what happened?”

  “She shot him.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Seemed so.”

  “How much time elapsed between her walking over to him and her shooting him?”

  “No time. She just did it.”

  “How far away were you?”

  “Oh … thirty, maybe forty feet.”

  “You wear glasses?”

  “They’re reading glasses. For distance, I see just fine.”

  “So was there anyone else there?”

  “Yeah, this guy in a suit.”

  “This guy?” Sammy says, showing him another photo.

  “That’s him.”

  “And?”

  “They took off.”

  “What did you do?”

  “When I stopped shaking?” Horace says. “Went to my room in the basement.”

  “What took you so long to come forward?”

  “Figured it out, finally.” Horace says. “Trouble I’d get into if I didn’t seemed worse than the trouble if I did.”

  Foster Donachetti picks his moments. He glides into the one open chair next to Mike Skillan in front of the two-way. Jacketless, in the dark room, he still looks dressed up. “That’s the good news,” he says, referring to the witness, Moon.

  “All right,” says Mike. “What’s the bad?”

  “The suspects? Flown, if you can believe it. Somehow managed to bust out of the lockup in Seaversville, PA.”

  Mike laughs. “Sure digging themselves deeper. “Who’s out looking?”

  “Allentown, Wilkes-Barre, Scranton, others.”

  “Shouldn’t be that hard to find.” He heads towards the door.

  “Where you going?” Joe asks.

  “If you need me,” Mike says, “really need me—I’m at the Pierre. But it better be earth-shattering.”

  ELEVEN

  The sun rises through the back window of the truck—an eighteen-wheeler loaded with canned beer. Tom and Elena bump along in the cabin, listening to some unknown country and western singer wailing about not getting laid. Roy, their driver and ostensible benefactor, who just picked them up off the road, sings along in a decent basso, radiating bonhomie. He’s a giant—they could tell even though he’s sitting—but he’s got a bad back, which is a serious disability for a truck driver. His seat is outfitted with back supports and magnets, and sudden moves make him wince. The truck carries enough canned beer to supply a city, he tells them. “City of Cincinnati, yep,” says Roy over the road noise and the music.

  “Good luck for us,” Tom says, studying the man’s large, puffy, bearded face.

  “Big coincidence, then, my going to Cincy?”

  “Sure is.”

  “I say Ohio, and you say us too?”

  “Happens.”

  Roy gives out a loud guffaw and snaps off the radio. “Hey! Guys! Who you kidding? I know who you are.”

  “Oh yeah?” Tom says. “Who’s that, then?”

  “You being coy?”

  “No, Roy, just cautious.”

  “Okay. Who, then, was it broke outta the Seaversville jailhouse last night? Am I right, or am I right? Who then’s all over the friggin’ airwaves?” His self-satisfied smirk is illuminated, and made gruesome, by the new light of the day.

  “If you thought that was us,” Tom says, “aren’t you taking a big chance?”

  Another loud laugh. Then, low-voiced, condescendingly, “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, we’re certainly grateful for the lift.”

  “I’ll bet. This is like your getaway car.” Roy now smiles with some secret thought. “How ’bout the girl? She grateful too?”

  “Sure am, Roy,” says Elena.

  “Good,” Roy says. “So here’s the deal.”

  “Not just a favor, then,” Tom says.

  “Sure it’s a favor. But there’s a way you can pay part of it back. I happen to need twelve thousand dollars. If it wasn’t a favor, I ask for twenty-five, minimum.”

  “You do this often, then?” Tom asks.

  Roy looks confused.

  “Your having a standard rate, I mean,” Tom says.

  “It’s worth a helluva lot more than twelve thousand, what I’m doin’ for you.”

  “Pretty expensive, Roy. It’s just a lift.”

  “I could stop. You could get out.”

  “Don’t think so.”

  “Price is now twelve-five.”

  “Make it anything you want. We don’t have that kind of money on us.”

  “Hey!” Roy says. “No problemo! We are fortunate to live in a digital world.” He lifts one hand off the wheel, as if delivering a sermon. “Been an invention, man! Called a wire transfer!”

  TWELVE

  Teddy Stamos is a short man with a jutting jaw and large nose. He walks with a nodding cadence and a forward tilt. As a result, he makes a pugnaciou
s appearance, as if cutting a swath, or searching for something to pounce on. And while his suit is exquisitely cut, and his haberdashery expensive, he creates the impression of an overdressed frog.

  This, at least, is how Lowell Jockery sees him, as the man comes bobbing into his office, though Lowell knows Teddy is competent, even creative, at what he does. Stamos founded and still heads an international firm of private investigators, which Jockery has had frequent occasion to use. Creativity is not normally a hallmark of such a profession, but the matter now involved requires it. What’s more, the present part of that job is of such a sensitive nature that Jockery trusts no one but himself to assign it, and no one but Stamos to carry it out.

  “So, Teddy,” says Lowell without preamble, “what think you today of General Technology & Media Corporation?”

  “After four down quarters, I’d say it’s ripe, LJ. Quite … ripe.”

  “And whom would you identify as the most likely swallower of that plum? Apart from ourselves, of course.”

  “Robbie Riles was said to be keen. But, of course, he’s gone.”

  “He is, yes,” says Lowell musingly, as if he’d just thought of that too. “And what about Julian Althus?”

  “I should think equally keen but far less powerful and certainly more distracted. At the moment, by the succession.”

  “Be good, Teddy, if you could find more with which to distract him.”

  “Althus?” Teddy asks.

  “Well, say, the GT&M shareholders. About Althus.”

  “Hmm,” says the little man. “More.”

  “You’re not following?”

  “In a general way, yes. Of course. But specifically … not quite yet, LJ. As usual, you’re some steps ahead of me.”

  “Well, the man he’s replacing was just shot down in the street.”

  “Riles. So he was,” Teddy says, as if enjoying this sharing of news. “They’re thinking it was the daughter and her lover.”

  “So they are,” Jockery says. “And so it probably was. But are they the only ones with a motive? And who’s to say they were acting alone?”

  “Oh, I see.”

  “Yes, I thought you would.”

  “Indeed, Julian Althus is a likely suspect,” Teddy says.