Bad Bird (v5)

by Chris Knopf

  Randall once told me you can’t extract greater clarity from a low-resolution image than what was already there in the first place, despite what you saw on TV shows. All you could do was ask the computer to give you options as to what those big, fat, pixilated blobs might be saying, and for that you needed very expensive software, which he owned. That meant another trip to Randall’s, so for now I’d have to move on.

  I don’t remember what I did after that, because I’d finally passed out all the way, which was inevitable. As always, I woke up disoriented in the middle of the night, and had to drag myself out of the gooey slop of interrupted sleep before heading for the bedroom.

  I flicked out the light in the living room, leaving the house in darkness. I stumbled over to where another switch lit up the hall that led to the staircase. I patted around the wall, found the switch, and went from there. This is how I normally did things in this state. One pool of light at a time.

  I made it all the way to the bathroom, where I cleaned my teeth, halfheartedly brushed out my ridiculous ball of hair, put cream on my hands, searched my ruddy face for incipient signs of skin cancer, and staggered off to bed. This was my favorite approach to getting a good night’s sleep—be essentially asleep before you hit the mattress.

  Some nights, like that one, I’m so zonked I forget to take off my bathrobe and just flop down on top of the covers. I’d achieved the flopped-down part and was about to slide into oblivion when I heard the noise.

  Everyone knows what it’s like when you hear a sound at night you’re not used to hearing. When you live alone in the middle of the woods, you know it with every cell of your body. And at that moment, every cell in mine woke up.

  I held my breath and listened as well as I could over the white noise exploding in my head. Then I heard it again.

  Someone was moving through my house.

  I let out a muffled cry and leaped out of bed. I sleep in one bedroom and keep my clothes in another, for reasons too embarrassing to explain. That meant I had to cross the hall, which I did at a dead run. I gently shut the door of the clothes bedroom and fumbled for a lock that wasn’t there. I scooped a pair of jeans off the floor and wriggled into them, then searched the piles for a top, coming up with a loose cotton sweater, which I pulled over my head before I had my bathrobe completely off. The two articles of clothing fought it out till the sweater won.

  Shoes were easy. My cowboy boots were right within reach. Now all I needed was a gun, which I didn’t have, never had, and, until that moment, wasn’t sure I needed.

  I heard footsteps in the hallway, then the sound of doors being opened and shut. I looked around in the dark, trying to remember what in the room would adapt to a decent weapon.

  The crystal lamp. It had been my grandmother’s and had a slim top, a curvaceous mid section, and a square base with four sharp corners. I ripped off the shade, unscrewed the lightbulb, and tore the cord out of the middle of the base. An easily handled, lightweight club, and far better than nothing.

  I opened the window and looked down. At two stories plus it was a serious drop, more than I’d likely survive with all limbs intact. But still a better risk than getting cornered in the house. Tucking the slender lamp into the waistband of my jeans, I stuck one leg, then the other, through the window until I was sitting on the sill. Then I twisted around so I was resting on my belly, my legs dangling below. With great effort, I switched the crystal lamp from the front to the rear waistband of my jeans. My next move was to slide through the window, grip for a moment with my fingers, then drop to the ground. But before I had a chance to do this, the door opened and a light went on in the room.

  It was Fred Flintstone. Or more accurately, a guy in a Fred Flintstone mask, a hooded sweatshirt, Levi’s, black leather gloves, and motorcycle boots. I screamed and lost my grip on the frame, causing me to slip uncontrollably through the window. I saw Fred leap toward me, but only for a second, because the next moment I was falling through the air.

  The landing was such a piece of cake, I felt like a complete fool. When I hit, I tumbled backward—aided by the angled heels of my cowboy boots—and rolled into a cluster of spindly azaleas. The lamp dug into my back, but no nerves were severed and no crystal shattered.

  I stood up, gripped the lamp, and rubbed the inflamed part of my back, furiously considering my next move. I was at the back of the house. My car was around the front, but no good to me without the keys. Behind me were acres of woodlands, but difficult to run through without the sound of dry leaves giving me away.

  I only had an instant to decide, knowing that Fred would be there in the next few seconds. Instead of bounding into the woods, I ran to the house and squeezed myself inside the casement surrounding a door that opened on a stairwell leading down into the basement. Then I waited.

  Everything about the plan was good until the moment Fred walked in front of me and I was supposed to club him over the head. I stepped out of the doorway and swung the lamp, but instead of hitting his skull, I hit the top of his back with the edge of my hand and the lamp merely clipped the side of his hoodie.

  Before I could entirely take stock of the situation, he’d spun around with one hand darting out to grab me by the throat, the other gripping my wrist and shaking loose the lamp. In an instant, I was helpless.

  I heard him chuckle. At times like this, I would always prefer an angry word over a chuckle, because I know what comes next. And it did. No sooner was I pinned inside the doorway than I felt his hand running up the inside of my sweater toward my unfettered boobs. So I did what I’d done before in these situations. I kneed him in the balls.

  I’ve learned that most guys find this to be a serious distraction. He doubled over and turned away, though without losing his grip on my sweater. I was pulled out of the doorway and knocked to the ground, which freed his grip. As I tried to scramble up again, my hand grazed the shapely form of the crystal lamp. Fred was hunched over, leaning against the house. He was breathing heavily and, I thought, with his head bent toward the ground. But I’d been confused by the Flintstone mask, so when I took another swing with the lamp he caught my hand again, pulled me into him, and stuck a hard fist right in my stomach.

  He pulled me by the hair almost all the way to the front of the house before I was able to get a breath of air in my lungs. I was barely conscious from lack of oxygen and the shock of the blow, but I knew enough to realize this was heading the wrong way. I grabbed his wrist and tried to wriggle out of his grasp, but he held on and yanked me through the front door. I stumbled and dropped to my knees on the living room floor. Then the guy dove on top of me, pushing my face into the rug and pinning my wrists to the floor, using his far greater weight to hold down the rest of me.

  I could hear the hollow sound of his breathing behind the plastic mask.

  “What are you doing?” I yelled at him.

  He just breathed. I tried to squirm back up to my knees, but it was impossible. I felt him move his hips, rubbing his crotch against my backside. I struggled some more, for naught. I’m not a small woman, but he was very strong. And for all I knew he was jacked up on something, like a lot of the evil bastards I’d defended liked to do, just to get in the mood. I had to think of something else.

  “I’m gonna spit up,” I said, more calmly, my voice muffled by the way my mouth was pressed against the rug. “Let me at least get up on my elbows.”

  He stopped moving. I waited, limp, hoping that would signal my willingness to cooperate.

  “Please,” I said, the word punctuated by a gagging sound. “I’ll choke to death.”

  “Who cares,” he whispered behind the mask.

  I turned my head slightly up off the floor.

  “It’ll get on your arm.”

  Who knows why in the midst of all that mayhem such a trivial hazard would bother him, but I didn’t have much else to go with.

  I felt him shift slightly, then pull in my wrists, which gave me just enough leeway to turn in my elbows and lift myself up.
The shift brought more pressure down on my lower half, but my head was now free. I could tell by the echoey breathing that Fred’s face was now directly behind me and about four inches away.

  As noted, I didn’t have a lot to go with, but I took what I had.

  I dipped my forehead toward the floor, then snapped back my head with as much force as the angle would allow. Even through the cushion of my thick hair I could feel the plastic mask collapse into the face behind. Probably more startled than injured, the guy let out a little grunt and loosened the grip on my wrists. I banged him again with the back of my head, hard, this time getting some shoulder into the effort. I could feel him rear back, trying to get his face out of the way, which only further loosened his grip on my wrists. I twisted to the right, freeing my hand, which I used to push up onto my shoulder. Then I twisted at the hips, this time making it all the way over.

  Even in the dark, Fred didn’t look so good. Crumpled and partly pushed off to the side, the mask was now blocking the guy’s sight, and though it was very dark in the living room, a little vision’s better than none. As the guy tried to adjust the mask, I was able to get one cowboy boot between his legs and another in his midriff. Women can rarely match men in upper body strength, but our legs are another story. Especially the legs of a thoroughly incensed and terrified woman. I let out a kind of kung-fu yell and kicked upward as hard as I could.

  Fred shot upright and tried to catch his balance as he stumbled backward, hopping on his heels and windmilling his arms. It didn’t work, and he toppled over, crashing through a lamp and over a side table. I didn’t see what came next because I was already up and on my way, pausing for a split second to grab my cell phone, then racing up the stairs and down the hall to a place I called the junk room, which was laughable, since the same label could be applied to any room in the house. I was keenly interested, however, in one particular piece of junk—an antique chest of drawers filled with crap, sitting just to the right of the door. Once in the room, I wedged myself into the space between the chest and the wall and, using my rapidly weakening legs, shoved the chest in front of the door. Better than any lock.

  I slid down against the drawer fronts and speed dialed Southampton Town Police HQ, listening keenly for sounds of pursuit. They were faint, but I could hear the soft tread of footsteps out in the hall. Janet Orlovsky answered the phone. I whispered, “Hi,” identified myself, then told her, “There’s a guy right outside my door who’s trying to rape me. Need the boys here pretty quick.”

  She said to stay on the line, then put me on hold.

  I heard Fred wiggle the doorknob.

  Janet came back on the line.

  “Danny’s less than five minutes away. Hang tight.”

  “Could you repeat that? But say he’ll be here in three. Make it loud,” I whispered, then pushed the button that turned the cell into a speakerphone. I stood up and held the phone up to the door.

  “Officers Sullivan and Izard will be on the scene in three minutes,” Janet squawked out of the phone, her voice a near shout. “Expect lethal force. Please seek a secure area.”

  She kept going on like that, but I didn’t hear the next lines because I’d switched off the speaker and held the phone away from me so I could listen for Fred. The junk room’s window faced the front of the house, so moments later I could hear him running down the gravel driveway. After that I heard an engine start up and the subsequent sound of tires over gravel, accelerating quickly. I put the phone back up to my ear.

  “Officer Izard has his weapon drawn and is approaching the house,” Janet was shouting.

  “Okay, Janet. He’s gone.”

  “Are you all right?” she asked, worry etched in her voice.

  “I think so. Shook up a little,” I said, but I had trouble saying more because of the wad in my throat that usually presaged a fountain of tears. I choked it back down. “Is Danny really on the way? He might catch the guy in the driveway.”

  “I’ll tell him,” said Janet, and put me on hold.

  I slid back down the front of the chest of drawers. There should be a word that means relief on a galactic scale. It’s not joy, it’s not euphoria, it’s not even gratitude. I felt all those things, but stirred in was an emotion no less deeply felt, though of an entirely opposite nature.

  Pure and absolute rage.

  12

  Fred Flintstone had cleared the driveway by the time Danny Izard got there. I could see the roof strobes light up the trees and hear the roar of the Crown Vic’s pursuit engine and the rear wheels whiplashing over loose gravel. Janet told me his first job was to clear the area around the house. He gave her a blow-by-blow of his progress, which she relayed to me.

  Before he entered the house, she asked me if I was armed, and I said no. She said his weapon was drawn and to stay put until the house was cleared and we were in audible contact.

  “Roger that. Happy to sit right here,” I said.

  I talked her through the layout of the house, which she passed along to Danny. When he reached the top of the stairs, I told her which door I was behind, which was his final stop. She said he’d tap three times when he got there.

  “Jackie?” he said through the door. “You okay?”

  “What’s my maiden name?” I asked.

  “Come on, Jackie. You know it’s me.”

  “What is it?”

  “O’Dwyer. Everybody knows that.”

  “Where did Ross go to school?”

  “Same place we did,” said Danny. “Southampton High.”

  “College.”

  “Jesus Christ. Cornell. Nobody knows that. I wouldn’t know that if Sullivan hadn’t told me.”

  “That’s the point, Danny,” I said, standing up. “Secret passwords are supposed to be secrets.”

  I was wobbly, with barely the strength to pull the chest of drawers away from the door so I could get out. Danny gently moved me behind him, stepped off to the side, and shot his flashlight into the room. Then he shot it in my face, though only for a second. I flicked on the hall light.

  I’d never been so pleased to see Danny Izard’s pale and earnest face, assured in his dark blue uniform festooned with armaments and communications gear. He didn’t push me away when I wrapped my arms around him and stuck my face in his shirt, though it was clearly outside proper protocol.

  “Oh, man, that was bad,” I said.

  I felt a tentative pat on my back.

  “We’ll get you to the hospital.”

  “He knocked me around a little, but he didn’t do what he came to do,” I said.

  “We’ll get you to the hospital,” he repeated as he gently pulled away my arms and guided me down the hall.

  “It’s important you know this, Danny, because everyone’s going to ask you if I’m telling the truth. I don’t need that weirdness factor right now.”

  “I get it. I’ll tell them,” he said, in a way that I believed. Danny was too good and simple a man to lie and get away with it.

  I had him wait for me in the hall while I changed clothes. I put what I’d been wearing in a plastic bag and brought it along with me. I also brought my laptop, my cosmetics, the external hard drive and the other stuff I’d hidden in the bookcase, the little wooden Tibetan box where I kept the joints I hadn’t left half-smoked in an ashtray, my terry-cloth robe, and as many clothes as I could cram into the back of the Volvo.

  “He was wearing gloves, so don’t bother checking for prints,” I said to the cops arriving on the scene. “The place is enough of a mess without all that dust everywhere.”

  Danny wanted to drive me in his cruiser, but I made him follow my Volvo. Before we reached the end of the drive, my cell phone rang. It was Joe Sullivan.

  “Izard said you were okay.”

  “Okay enough.”

  “He said you fought the guy off.”

  “I got lucky. I’m depending on you guys to put a lid on the chatter. What could’ve happened didn’t happen.”

  “Already done,”
he said.

  “I took a sock to the gut and got a big bump on the back of my head. Otherwise, I’m okay,” I said.

  “You’re one tough mick,” he said.

  “Takes one to know one. You gotta reopen the case.”

  “I knew you’d say that.”

  “This wasn’t random. I’ve already had a death threat.”

  “You didn’t tell me that,” he said.

  “I was getting around to it. It came through my e-mail. I’ve got Randall Dodge tracking it down. They’re trying to scare me off.”

  Sullivan was quiet on the line. I could see him sitting somewhere in his house in his underwear, scratching his blond crew cut as he grappled with the manifold implications.

  “Stay at the hospital till I get there. I’ll take your statement and then we’ll figure it out.”

  Harry got to the hospital first. I’d called him after talking to Sullivan. I told him I was okay, but I waited until Sullivan and the ER chief, Malcolm Fairchild, were there before going through the whole rigmarole. When I was finished, Malcolm shooed the boys out of the room so he could examine me.

  “You sure about that rape kit, counselor?” he asked, after checking my pulse, squeezing my limbs, and shooting a little flashlight into my eyes.

  “I’m not one of those who thinks there’s any shame in being a rape victim. If needed, I’d be screaming for the kit.”

  He studied my face, then nodded. He’d seen plenty of the real deal in his time, and knew what to look for. He let Sullivan and Harry back in the room.

  “Forensics will go through your place, but I’m not optimistic, based on your statement,” said Sullivan. “We have your DNA on file. If we find some of this jamoke’s, he might be in the system.”

  “Fine,” I said. “What about the Birkson case?”

  Sullivan frowned at me, but not too hard. There was a hint of a grin somewhere inside the frown.

  “You are such a pain in the ass,” he said. “Which I say with all due respect,” he added, looking up at Harry.