by Mary Miley
We reached the hospital in minutes. Before I could climb out of the front seat, a nurse and two men in white coats busied themselves pulling the injured men out of the back with commendable efficiency. The policeman who had followed the ambulance joined us, probably to make sure neither of the wounded men did a flit.
The closest I’d ever come to a hospital had been on the set of Mary Pickford’s Little Annie Rooney where we’d filmed the poignant blood transfusion scenes. I’d imagined a real hospital to be a noisy confusion of nurses and doctors rushing from crisis to crisis, so the calm atmosphere of the real thing came as a surprise.
‘Who’s worse?’ someone asked. I inched closer to the assassin.
‘This one’s dead,’ said the medic, pointing to Pavlovitch.
A moment’s examination confirmed that diagnosis, at which point the trio shifted its attention to the assassin who had by this time been lifted onto a gurney. I stepped back, content at present to be ignored, as the nurses pulled his shirt tails out to reveal the belly wound inflicted by Officer Marks – and something unexpected: an odd roll of dark red fabric bunched around his waist. Frowning slightly with confusion, the nurse pulled it out of the way and concentrated on the injury. I alone recognized it for what it was – part of a transfigurator’s quick-change costume. Had Carl Delaney and Officer Marks not shot him, he’d have transformed into a woman by unrolling a dark red skirt and walked calmly away from the scene of the crime.
The medical trio read each other’s minds better than any vaudeville psychic act I’d ever seen, exchanging no more than a couple grunts as they examined the killer’s wounds. The nurse bound his leg wound and then ignored it in favor of the more serious belly wound. Lights made the entry brighter than it had been at the cable car terminus, which meant I could study the man’s features more closely. Still, I saw nothing familiar about him. For one brief moment, he opened his eyes and took in his surroundings with an indifference that said plainer than words that he couldn’t have cared less where he was or what had happened to him. I looked into his eyes and felt a little jolt of surprise. Familiar eyes. Brown, with gold flecks like the sun’s rays.
Startled, I racked my brain trying to remember where I’d seen those eyes before. Or was this a coincidence? Just how common were brown, yellow-flecked eyes?
Two men hustled the gurney down a long hall and banged through swinging doors. I stood staring stupidly after them, rooted to the spot, consumed by those eyes, until another nurse approached me with a clipboard.
‘You’re the patient’s next-of-kin?’ she said, putting a gentle hand on my arm to pull me out of my daze.
‘Yes!’ I shouted, not as a response to her question. I hardly heard her. Yes, I remembered those eyes! Julia Shala’s eyes. The woman who befriended Barbara Petrovitch in her grief, brought food to her house, and sat beside me at dinner that night. Julia Shala! Julia Shala?
I must have been blind not to see past Julia Shala’s disguise. The truth hit me like a slap in the face. The killer had posed as Mr Shala at the Petrovitch funeral and as Mrs Shala when he brought food to Barbara and hung about so he could learn how the investigation was proceeding. That’s how he learned about other Serbian friends – by attending their funerals and talking with their grieving relatives.
His nondescript appearance was the key to his ability to change sex. His size made him slightly smaller than the average man, slightly larger than the average woman. His neutral face shaved clean could be feminine; adding a beard or mustache made it masculine. His short hair was easily covered by a woman’s wig. He was a killer with no remarkable features. None that were visible from a few feet, that is. To notice those unusual eyes, one had to be very close – something that almost never happened. When the witnesses all agreed they’d seen a man, the last thing police would be looking for was a woman. Besides, everyone knows women don’t shoot people in cold blood.
The pull on my arm by the persistent nurse brought me back to earth. She probably thought I’d been struck dumb with grief. ‘There now, dearie,’ she said, oozing sympathy, ‘he’ll be fine. The doctors will take care of everything. You can’t be any help to them in the operating room. But you can certainly help us here at the admitting desk. I need you to fill out this patient-information form.’ She guided me to a chair and handed me the clipboard and a pencil. I drew a deep breath, sat, and stared at the form without seeing it.
I was responsible for Paul Pavlovitch’s death. The assassin had known I was looking into the murders. He’d learned everything at Barbara’s house. He knew I was making progress, drawing the murders together, understanding that they were all related. He had been waiting for me – me! – to track down the fourth Serbian victim, with Barbara’s help. He’d wormed his way into Barbara’s confidence and probably knew everything she knew. He’d been there the night Barbara received the telegram from Pavlovitch – the night I was with Carl posing as a child to visit Rose Ann’s house – so he learned about the man in San Francisco. But he didn’t know where, so the bastard followed me, letting me do all the work of finding the gripman so he could kill him. I had all but pulled the trigger myself, by guiding the hunter directly to his prey. I couldn’t have made it easier. Julia Shala was really a man. I had sat right beside her – him – that night at Barbara’s house. How could I have been so blind?
The policeman who had followed the ambulance was standing nearby. A nurse offered to get him a cup of coffee. He accepted and told her he wouldn’t be there long, just until he learned whether the second man survived surgery. She threw a glance in my direction and shushed him before coming quietly to my side. ‘As soon as you finish with that form, dear, you can go in to the waiting room.’
My eyes focused on the busy room for the first time. This wasn’t a waiting room? She read my confusion.
‘This is admitting. The waiting room for relatives is down the hall. It’s quieter. Private. You’ll be more comfortable there while you wait for the doctor to come out of surgery.’ She put her hand on my shoulder as I started to stand. ‘But you must finish this first.’
The first blank was the hardest. Patient’s name. Julia Shala? Of course not, that was an alias. So was Mr Shala. What difference does it make? None, really, but I wanted to get it straight for myself. We’d narrowed the possibilities to two, Vesa Leka and the protean act of Barton, Hicks & Hicks. Vesa Leka was reputed to be a foreigner. The names Barton and Hicks did not sound like foreign names. Touching the tip of the lead pencil to my tongue, I wrote ‘Vesa Leka’ in the blank.
From there, it was easy. I made up an address in San Francisco, estimated Mr Leka’s height, weight, and age, and gave him his real profession: vaudeville performer. After handing the completed form to the nurse on duty, I was directed down the hall to a small room where I was the only occupant, and I settled in to wait for the doctor’s report.
It wasn’t long before the doctor entered the room. Young, with bright red hair, spectacles, and cheeks dotted with freckles, he approached me with a solemn face that did not bode well for Mr Leka.
‘You are the patient’s sister?’
A safe assumption. I was the only person in the room.
‘Cousin,’ I said, correcting my earlier blunder.
‘I am Dr O’Flaherty,’ he began. Behind the spectacles, his eyes sagged with fatigue. ‘I’m sorry to bring bad news. The bullet went through the upper abdomen, piercing the kidneys and liver. We hoped to find minimal damage that could be repaired, but it was not to be. I never say no hope, because there is always hope, but there is nothing a surgeon can do for such a serious injury. Your cousin is still alive, but I’m afraid she will not survive for long. How long? It is impossible to say. A few hours, a few days. It’s in God’s hands now. The ether is wearing off, and she is coming around now. I recommend you call a priest or clergyman, if that would ease her mind.’
She?
I glanced behind me in case the doctor was talking to someone who had just entered the room, but I still wa
s the only person there. He could not be addressing the wrong relative.
The assassin was a woman.
THIRTY-ONE
I hadn’t spent twenty-four years on a vaudeville stage without learning how to react to the unexpected. Like the time little Darcy Darling danced off the edge of the stage into the pit, or the orchestra opened our act with a waltz instead of ragtime, or a dogfight in the wings spilled onto the stage during our finale. Some things in life can’t be anticipated, and this was one of them, in spades.
Not once had I figured the killer for a woman masquerading as a man. How could that have sailed past me? Instinctively I dropped my head into my hands, the tried-and-true method of covering any expression of shock I might be unable to hide. The doctor took it as grief and laid a comforting hand on my shoulder.
‘You should sit down,’ he said. ‘I’ll have a nurse bring you some water.’ His solicitous tone changed as he snapped out orders to a nurse coming down the hall. ‘Now, maybe you can enlighten me. I’m quite confused. Was your cousin an innocent bystander? Who shot whom? Not that it matters as far as her care is concerned, of course.’
If he wondered why a woman was wearing a man’s getup, he was too shy to ask. I figured he’d learn the truth about the shooting soon enough from the police, so I didn’t hesitate to respond. ‘She shot the other man. A policeman shot her. I don’t know why,’ I added to forestall his inevitable next question. It was the truth.
The surgeon shook his head in disbelief. ‘Women aren’t violent by nature. Only one with a severe mental illness could have done such a thing. Was your cousin exhibiting other signs of mental illness?’
‘Not that I was aware of.’
‘Well, it’s cold comfort perhaps, but at least she won’t have to pay the price for her crime.’ Meaning she wouldn’t live long enough to go to prison or hang. ‘Excuse me, now, I must give my report to the police.’
The nurse brought a glass of water. ‘We’ve put the patient in Room 7,’ she said. ‘Down the hall to your right.’
The hospital was quiet as a morgue as I walked the hall, past two nurses – no wonder, it was the middle of the night and most patients were asleep. I had lost all sense of time. In Room 7, the weak bulb in a wall sconce gave off enough light for me to make out the killer lying on his back – her back – in a narrow bed. A simple table and a straight wooden chair completed the décor. No clock. Behind a curtain, a second bed, table, and chair – all empty – were pushed against the wall.
I sat in the chair closest to the bed, where I had a good view of the patient, and she of me when she emerged from the ether. I wished someone would offer me a cup of strong coffee instead of water.
After a long while, I don’t know how long, her eyes opened. She gazed about the room, blinking rapidly, but her eyes were soon clear and intelligent. She seemed mindful of her surroundings and not at all surprised to see me sitting beside her bed. We stared at each other for a long while without speaking.
‘Is your real name Vesa Leka?’ I asked at last.
Her response sounded like a hiss. I took it for a ‘Yes’ and continued, somewhat foolishly, ‘Good. That’s what I wrote on the hospital admitting form. I don’t suppose I need to tell you my name.’
She blinked.
‘You killed him. Paul Pavlovitch. He’s dead, in case you were wondering.’
Her lips turned up at the corners.
‘He’s the fourth you’ve killed, isn’t he? The fourth that I know of, anyway.’
‘Yes.’ This time she said the word clearly. ‘Water?’
A burly police guard stationed outside the door to Room 7 gave me a wordless once over as I passed him on my way to the nurse’s desk. I found a nurse and asked if the patient could have water. For an answer, she took a piece of ice from an icebox, placed it in a clean towel, crushed it with a hammer, and shook the pieces into a glass. ‘Not water, no, but she can suck on these. I’ll be down in a few minutes to look in on her.’
I fed Vesa Leka bits of ice until the nurse showed up. She felt her patient’s pulse and forehead, propped her head up with a second pillow, and murmured the usual clichés about feeling better soon. ‘The doctor will be in shortly, dear.’ By the time she left us alone again, Vesa Leka had found her voice. Rough and soft at the same time, it came with an accent, but her English was pretty good.
‘I will die, yes?’
‘I’m sorry. The doctor said he couldn’t do any more for you. The wound was too serious. He said a few hours, or a few days at most. He suggested we ask for a priest. Are you Catholic?’
‘No.’
‘Greek Orthodox?’
‘No priest.’
‘Wouldn’t a priest make dying easier?’
‘I am not afraid to die. Everyone dies. I will join my family again. I regret only that I die before I have finished.’
‘Finished what?’ I was afraid I knew the answer.
‘Killing.’
‘Isn’t four men enough?’
‘Five is enough.’
‘Why did you kill them?’
She closed her gold-flecked eyes, signaling her refusal to answer as clearly as if she had telegraphed the words. Thinking she did not believe me about the seriousness of her wounds, I waited for the doctor. Maybe once she understood she really was dying, she would ask for a priest. Maybe then she would talk – to him or to me.
Fortunately, I’ve had little to do with doctors in my life, save for the year my mother died. I saw more doctors that year than I ever want to see, a new one at nearly every town we played. All were stern, hard men, but young as I was, I understood that their brusque manner stemmed from anger at their own helplessness in the face of the disease that was destroying my mother. They could cut off a crushed limb and save a life, but cancer had them licked. The young red-haired doctor here was cut from the same mold. He was sorry, he told Vesa Leka when he came into the room, but there was nothing more he could do. He repeated the same lines about never saying ‘no hope’ and that she was in the hands of God and would she like a priest, and she answered him as she had me: no.
‘Are you in pain?’ he asked.
‘Some.’
‘I’ll tell the nurse to get you opium. As much as you like.’
He left. The nurse reappeared and spooned a large dose of white liquid into the patient’s mouth. Then Vesa Leka and I were alone again.
‘You’re Julia Shala,’ I said.
Her eyebrows lifted. I had surprised her with that observation. ‘How did you know?’ she asked.
‘Your eyes. I saw them up close at Barbara’s house that night and again in the admitting room. They are unusual.’
‘Tiger’s eyes, my father called them.’
‘Is there a family member I can notify about your injury and … death?’
‘No.’
‘This may be the last chance you have to explain. You must have had a reason for killing those men. Don’t you want us to understand why you did what you did?’
She said nothing.
‘Are you Serbian?’
‘No!’ she snapped. And then, a little calmer, ‘Pigs.’
‘What, then?’
‘Albanian.’
‘Tell me.’
After a long wait, I gave up. I made ready to leave. Perhaps Carl Delaney and Officer Marks were in the admitting room by now, wondering what had happened to me. I should try to find them. And my grandmother, if she were still awake at this hour, would be worried about me. I could come back to the hospital tomorrow and see if Vesa Leka had survived the night. Maybe she would talk then. Maybe never. Some secrets go to the grave.
Then she began talking, slowly at first, as if each word hurt to come out, then faster.
THIRTY-TWO
‘Our farm, it was small but good. We lived there, my mother, my father, my uncle, my brother, and me. Fighting comes often to our land. For us, the Great War started not in 1914 but in 1912.’
She coughed and clutched her stomach as
a spasm caused pain. After a minute, she marshaled her strength and continued.
‘One day five soldiers came to our farm. Serb deserters. They want food. My mother was frightened so she gave it. Then my father and brother came from the field. The soldiers shot them. Even our dog. My brother was ten. I was fifteen. They rape my mother and me. Five men. Then two more soldiers came. Good soldiers, officers looking for the deserters. The five said they would not go back to the army, and they shoot their officers. They shoot my mother and me, but I did not die. My uncle came home that night and find all of us dead except me. I wanted to die too, but he made me live.’
Her voice sank to a whisper. She licked her cracked lips and motioned with her fingers for the ice. I handed her more shards to suck on. After a moment, she resumed her story.
‘My uncle, next year, he sends me to New York where lives a cousin and no one knows of my dishonor. I become apprentice to my cousin, a tailor. This cousin makes clothes for many people, some on the stage. One customer is the Great Fulgora, the famous transfigurator. I learned the tricks of making clothes that come off and on very fast. Fulgora himself taught me some of his secrets. I practiced. I went to vaudeville to make more money than a tailor. It is a good life, vaudeville. Better than tailor.’
She paused for more ice chips. Her story horrified me. It shouldn’t have. Like everyone else, I’d read about the atrocities inflicted on the Belgian women and children by the invading Huns during the Great War – babies bayoneted, women defiled and decapitated – but that was far away, and I knew none of those people. Here was one I knew who had suffered unspeakable violence. Something Carl Delaney had said once came to mind: that he wished men could satisfy their lust for war by shooting at each other from their trenches and leave civilians alone.
‘I’m so very sorry.’ It sounded pretty feeble, but I didn’t know what else to say.
‘In our culture, avenging wrongs is important. I never thought I would have the chance to avenge my family. Then God showed me He had not forgotten. One afternoon, I was on stage in New York and the audience showed me a face, in the front row, a face I could never forget if a thousand years would pass. He was one of the soldiers at our farm that day. He was one who raped my mother and me and killed my family. It was a message from God.