by David Martin
Growler couldn’t tell who was on the floor and didn’t know either of the other two men but he wasn’t all that surprised to see them here … the conspiracy against him must include a huge cast, maybe every single person in the world.
He picked up the gas can one-handed and with considerable effort managed to begin soaking Elizabeth.
44
Bees, she thought. The piano’s buzzing had begun softly like a fluorescent hum but as Annie stumbled backward to get away, knocking over a bookshelf that fell against the piano, the buzzing grew louder and more urgent, angrier. She desperately wanted out of the closet, out of the dark, away from bees.
As a child, attending a Girl Scout Jamboree, Annie had been playing on old wooden steps when her foot went through a rotten board and onto a hornets’ nest in the ground beneath the steps. She was instantly swarmed, stung a dozen times, very nearly going into shock as she was rushed to a hospital. What she remembered most about the incident was not the pain of the stings but the panic of having those hornets all over her, in her hair, not being able to escape them no matter how she flailed her arms and ran and screamed. She’d been stung a few times in her life since then without suffering any allergic reactions but Annie was left with a deep-seated dread of bees.
Which was why she lurched so wildly for the closet door, knocking over more furniture, barking her shins but not caring, desperate to get out of there, turning the handle but unable to get the door open … had it locked upon closing or was someone in Paul’s workshop, someone who had locked her in?
As the buzzing-whine grew louder behind her she kept rattling the handle, throwing her shoulder against the door, shouting to be let out. And when the first one landed on her face Annie very nearly went mad with panic.
Jake Kempis had walked all the way around Cul-De-Sac, stopping near the open window at the back of the building, where he waited as Camel had told him to. But when he heard gunshots Kempis went in through that window … and now he was looking at Camel holding a revolver and standing over Parker Gray’s body. “Jesus Teddy what’ve you done?”
Camel’s face held a stricken expression for just a moment, then he seemed to recover, walking over to Kempis and cooly handing him a small sheet of paper.
Half-convinced Camel intended to kill him too, Kempis didn’t even glance at the paper until Camel insisted, “Go ahead and read it.”
Kempis finally did: Gray’s signature over an incomplete statement: Teddy Camel shot me in—
“He didn’t get a chance to finish,” Camel was saying. “If he’d lived long enough he was going to say it wasn’t my fault. Read it again, tell me how you think he meant to complete it.”
Kempis looked at Gray’s body, all that blood over the front of his shirt, then back at the note which he read softly aloud, “Teddy Camel shot me in … the stomach?”
Camel was disappointed but not surprised. “In self-defense, that’s what he was going to write.”
Although deeply unconvinced Kempis nodded. “I understand now.” Returning the note he said, “I guess we’d better call someone … you want to hand me that revolver?”
“Jake, it was self-defense.”
“Okay except I’d still feel better if you gave me that revolver.”
Camel handed it over grips-first but immediately picked up Gray’s semiautomatic. “We’ll go get Annie, she’s locked in a room upstairs, then—”
He was interrupted by the sound of a woman loudly gasping, Camel and Kempis both turning to see Elizabeth Rockwell down there at the end of the corridor, a man standing behind her soaking Elizabeth with gasoline. It was the shock of that cold liquid on her shoulders and back that had made her gasp.
And it was the shock of seeing what she held in her right hand that made Jake Kempis say Sweet Jesus.
45
On her ashen face was an expression of profound bewilderment, both eyes blackened, her blouse bloodstained like a map of Minnesota’s lakes, shoulders hunched and shivering from the gasoline, Elizabeth Rockwell still holding Murray’s head.
“Step in that doorway,” Camel told Jake Kempis. “Get ready to open fire.”
“On who?” Kempis didn’t know any of these players, didn’t know who the enemy was … the woman with the head, the man with the gas, both of them?
“Just don’t hit the woman,” Camel said, racking the slide on Gray’s 9mm, thumbing off the safety, pointing the muzzle toward Growler, and telling Kempis again, “Don’t fire until you get a clean shot at the man behind her.”
When Growler resumed pouring gasoline on Elizabeth she reacted this time by dropping Murray’s head and starting to run toward Camel … but Growler grabbed her.
“Hey Donald I know you didn’t kill your cousin!” Camel called from the other end of the hallway.
What did it matter now, Growler wondered … because although he finally knew the answers to the questions that’d been eating at his brain for seven years, knowing had brought him no peace. He took out a silver lighter and rolled the wheel against the flint, sparking a flame.
“Don’t do it!” Camel told him.
“Have to,” he muttered … have to kill Elizabeth, kill Hope’s murderer, kill St. Paul’s wife … then maybe that hungry little beetle would crawl back out of his ear and maybe then he could sleep. Sleep would be good. To his ravaged mind the prospect of sleep was like the promise of heaven.
“If you hurt her, Jake and I’ll both open fire. But that doesn’t have to happen, just put the lighter away and—”
“And what … you got nothing to offer me!”
“I’ll help you nail who framed you, here’s one of them on the floor … Parker Gray.”
“He’s not who I want.”
“We’ll get the other one too.”
“Then what!” Growler shouted.
“Make sure he pays for what he did to you.”
“You mean like this?” Growler said, tossing the lighter onto Elizabeth’s skirt.
46
They were all around her face and in her hair and at her ears too, though oddly they hadn’t started stinging yet … little solace to Annie because the horror of it was having them on her, especially being trapped in the dark like this, their insistent buzzing seeming to drive through her ears and right into her brain as she sunk to the floor and lifted Kempis’s big jacket over her head like a protective dome, Annie brushing wildly at the ones there under the jacket with her as she screamed for help or just screamed because what else could she do but scream.
47
Elizabeth Rockwell screaming when she caught on fire, the lighter having ignited her before bouncing to the floor still holding on to its flame as it landed next to Growler’s right pants’ cuff which he had inadvertently splashed with gasoline, Growler now on fire too but not like Elizabeth Rockwell who had become a living pyre.
When Growler stepped away from Elizabeth to beat at his pants’ leg, Camel and Kempis both opened fire … both hitting their target which then hit the floor howling.
Elizabeth still screaming lifted her arms out from her sides in a terror-and-panic pose reminiscent of that famous photograph of the Vietnamese girl who’d been burned with napalm, Elizabeth rushing toward Camel like one of hell’s angels straight from home and still fiery.
He realized of course she was coming to him for salvation but he also realized that if she reached him, here in this section of corridor which Parker Gray had soaked with gasoline, the entire corridor would go up in flame.
Quickly dropping the pistol he turned to a pile of white canvas tarps, grabbed one, and ran to meet Elizabeth, her heat even from ten feet away enough to warm his face and dry moisture from his eyes.
Most of her clothing had already burned off, she was naked in front and all the more blindingly on fire as her movement fed oxygen to the flames making them intensely blue.
In nearly thirty years as a cop Camel had handled drunks and psychos but never had he been charged by anything quite as terrifying as that burn
ing woman with fiery arms reaching his way.
He lifted the canvas tarp between them like a protective curtain and neatly snared the still-screaming Elizabeth, embracing her, bringing the tarp around in the back and then using his weight to collapse her, getting Elizabeth on the floor and furiously tucking in the tarp to deny fire its breath.
Flames kept leaping out from the edges of the canvas, burning a hole in Camel’s shirt high on his chest, the skin there turning immediately red, hurting … and before completing the grisly task of extinguishing Elizabeth he also got scorched just above the belt-line.
Camel stood to check his clothes for fire then glanced at Growler down the corridor on his back. “Go see if the poor bastard’s dead,” Camel told Kempis who was just now coming out from the protection of that doorway. “If he’s alive cuff him to a radiator … you got cuffs?”
Kempis said he did then stayed standing there staring wildly at Camel.
“Jake, go on!”
Holding his breath Camel lifted the tarp to see what was left recognizable as Elizabeth Rockwell … her face had been scorched, skin blackened, lips burned away so that teeth showed, most of her nose gone too, leaving gaping nostril holes.
Let her be dead, he prayed … but Elizabeth opened her lids to look at him with hazel eyes that appeared impossibly wet and alive in contrast to the black-burnt flesh of her face.
“Hold on,” he told those eyes. “I’m going to get you to the hospital.”
Kempis returned and asked how she was, though he wouldn’t look over Camel’s shoulders to see for himself. “I think we both hit him in the legs,” Kempis said excitedly, “but with all the other wounds it’s hard to tell, like he’s been through a meat grinder, his pants were still on fire, I had to put it out—”
“Jake is he dead?”
“Yeah I think so, or just about.”
Camel fought to hold his temper. “Go back and cuff him anyway.” He tucked the tarp more tightly around Elizabeth and when Kempis returned, Camel told him, “We got two things to do, get this woman to the hospital and get Annie out of this building. You know the nearest hospital?”
Jake ventured a look at Elizabeth’s face and spoke quickly, “I’ll get Annie, where is she?”
No time to argue the point. “Okay listen to me,” Camel said as he prepared to lift Elizabeth. “Gray said Annie’s in a corner room on the second floor, you find her then use Gray’s car to drive Annie to The Ground Floor.”
“Where’s his keys?”
“I don’t know Jake, probably in his pocket, find them.” Camel was taking Elizabeth in his arms, Kempis looking away. “Just make sure you get Annie to The Ground Floor.”
“What about the guy we shot, I mean I fired because you told me to, I don’t even know who he is, what he’s done—”
“Go upstairs and get Annie,” Camel said as he carried Elizabeth down the hallway.
Kempis followed. “Teddy—”
“Jake, he’s the one who killed all those people I told you about, the decapitations … just leave him there, all you have to worry about is getting Annie out of here and taking her to Eddie’s place. I’ll meet you and we’ll call this in from there.”
“All right.”
When Elizabeth began slipping, Camel boosted her higher in his arms, his fingers slipping off the tarp to scrape loose a chunk of crisped flesh that felt like soft warm pork barbecue. He had to will himself not to drop her in disgust.
He carried Elizabeth outside and then around to Eddie’s Fairlane placing her as carefully as he could into the backseat, keeping the tarp around her, Camel thinking the interior is going to be ruined now, Eddie will never get this smell out. He looked down at hazel eyes watching him from somewhere far away.
Camel got in the driver’s side and slid behind the wheel, started the engine, snapped the lap belt closed, looked back at what had once been Elizabeth Rockwell, then took off.
He was going too fast when he got to the two-lane county highway, braking hard and making a sliding right turn that nearly clipped one of the brick pillars. The hospital waited another fifteen, twenty miles away, Camel almost sure she would die of shock before he got her there but he also felt obligated to try … Parker Gray had died while Camel, in typical cold logic, knelt beside him waiting for the inevitable, this time he was going to race the inevitable to a hospital.
The highway wound through a forest, Camel driving as fast as he could and still stay on the road, glancing in the rearview mirror and Jesus Christ there she was, RIGHT THERE … Elizabeth’s face leaning over the seat back right there at Camel’s shoulder, he wondered how in God’s name did she find the strength to sit up … the fire had transformed that face into a horror mask, blackened with little left of her lips or nose, most of that gray blond hair burned off, ears only remnant folds of charred flesh, her teeth grinning white. Camel might’ve survived the shock of having that fright-face suddenly at his shoulder but when he saw her eyes he jerked away from Elizabeth and lost control of the car … because while her head was held rigidly forward, as if she was leaning to see out the windshield, her eyes were straining to the left, bulging from the sockets to find him, to plead with him, as if those undamaged eyes desperately wanted Camel’s help getting out of that ruined face.
The Fairlane was fishtailing while Camel worked the brakes to slow down without going into a completely uncontrolled skid. These maneuvers were only partly successful because while he did manage to get almost stopped, at the last moment the car veered off and hit a tree dead center … with sufficient impact to rocket Elizabeth over the front seat and into the windshield, which instantly spider-webbed into a thousand cracks but did not break out … Camel’s lap belt limiting him to hitting his face against the steering wheel.
Pinpoints of light exploded in front of his eyes and he kept saying, “Jesus.” Not taking the name in vain but saying, “Jesus, Jesus” as a prayer, the most earnest he’d ever prayed … and continued praying as he got out of the car, went around to the passenger side, propped Elizabeth in the front seat, and retrieved the canvas tarp to put over her.
She had remained dead silent until now when she said, “Oh.” Camel thought he should offer a reassuring word, none came to mind.
Elizabeth held a hand toward him, he didn’t know what she wanted, wasn’t sure she knew either. He tried to push her hand back so he could close the door but she kept reaching for him, finally he grabbed her wrist and forced it inside … his palm coming away wet with serum.
Wiping that hand on his pants Camel walked to the front of the car, bumper bent in a wide-mouth U around the tree. Steaming green antifreeze bleeding onto the ground told Camel the radiator had taken a crippling hit but, amazingly, the car started. He reversed onto the road and took off again.
A mile later the temperature gauge had pegged itself way over past H, these small-block V-8s notorious for running hot even with a good radiator, engine’s heat coming through the fire wall to roast his legs, Camel wondering how it must have felt on hers.
No choice but to throttle on full bore waiting any moment now for the engine to seize but the old Ford motored its heart out delivering Camel and his damaged cargo right to the hospital’s emergency room entrance.
He looked at Elizabeth and again wanted to say something but she was beyond words.
Running to the hospital’s double glass doors, he encountered two orderlies just exiting.
“What happened to you?” one of them asked with a casualness that Camel found maddening. “Somebody Joe Louis your ass, didn’t they?”
He had no idea what the orderly meant, Camel hadn’t yet felt pain from his nose, broken on the steering wheel in the crash, and was unaware of blood creeking down his face.
The orderlies each took an arm.
He pried their hands off.
“You on something buddy?” one of them asked. “What’ve you been taking?”
He looked at their faces, they appeared to be concerned for him but wary too, exp
ecting Camel to turn violent at any moment. He knew what he had to say … there’s a severely burned woman out in the car.
When they tried again to get Camel inside he settled for raising his right arm and pointing at the car.
They saw the busted windshield on the passenger side.
“Someone in there?” one of them asked.
He nodded.
“Worse shape than you?”
Camel nodded again, closing his eyes with the relief of finally being understood.
They grabbed a gurney and ran to the car, Camel following. When the first orderly opened the door Elizabeth started to fall out and the second orderly had to reach down and grab her. When he saw what he had in his hands, he said, “Jesus.”
Camel thought yeah I know that prayer.
They got Elizabeth on the gurney and rushed her inside, Camel arriving at the treatment room just behind a doctor, young guy with orange-red hair that stuck high all over his head like a comic wig, who lifted the tarp and mumbled, “Jesus.”
Everybody praying tonight.
Quickly recovering his composure the doctor began giving orders to the nurses, yelling for the orderlies to put through for a helicopter because the best he could do was stabilize the patient for a flight to the nearest burn center.
As the nurses assembled equipment Elizabeth turned her head and found Camel. She unbent one burned arm and reached for him as she’d done after the crash. The doctor turned and looked at Camel. Nurses staring too. Everyone still for a moment as if frozen in a living tableau … then just as abruptly all their animation returned, the emergency room once again filled with clatter and activity as the nurses brought in IV drips and hypos, sponges and sterile wraps, the doctor nudging Camel aside and telling him, “Go across the hall to the other treatment room, I’ll get someone to take a look at you as soon as we can.”
“I’m fine,” Camel said just before doing a most astonishing thing, the first time he’d ever done it in a long life full of all possible opportunities and provocations: he fainted.