by GC Smith
Victoria said, “Time for us to be moving, Johnny. We can't keep the star waiting.”
Donal, running late and exasperated by the impossibility of remembering just how to knot a bow tie correctly, growled, “Yeah babe, I'm moving; if I can ever get this damn thing knotted,” he said.
“Here let me” Victoria fixed the tie in seconds. “Come on now there's no way I'm going to miss this party. I want a good look at my detective's favorite client. A woman has to know her competition.”
“Competition, hah,” Donal growled. He gave his shoes a quick pop with a buffing cloth.
The cat rubbed against his trouser leg leaving hairs behind, forcing Donal to waste time putting her out of the room and looking for a clothes brush.
In the Versailles room of the Admiralty House restaurant, Claudia Chatrian, accepting compliments and congratulations from admirers and sycophants, worked her way across the room to Mike Sullivan. “Johnny is coming, isn't he?”
Mike smiled at her casual use of Johnny. “Oh sure.
He'll be here. Man's late for everything.” Mike at six feet four towered over the petite actress. “Need a refill,” he asked, taking her empty champagne flute from her hand?
“Please.”
Mike placed the glass on a silver tray held by a tuxedoed waiter and took one for Claudia and another for himself.
Claudia scanned the room. “Why is it we women always get the rap for being late? Harry isn't here yet either.”
A short chubby man, in a lavender tuxedo, twinkling diamond stud in his right ear, minced his way through the crowd and joined them. He pushed pink tinted glasses to the top of his balding head, kissed Claudia's cheek, and said, “You look lovely, my dear. Absolutely radiant. And who is this divine man?”
Claudia introduced Mike to Christopher Feathers.
Feathers gave Mike a lingering once over.
Mike looked down at the posturing, five foot two inch, Feathers.
Claudia inwardly chuckling, thought, oh no, my dear Christopher. He may be your idea of heaven but you're surely not his. Watching Sullivan's chagrined expression, she managed to control herself and avoided giggling aloud.
“Oh lovely,” Feathers tittered as the waiter offered a tray. He plucked a glass of champagne and ceremoniously touched it to Claudia's and then to Mike's. “To you and to fabulous success,” he piped to Claudia. With a coy smile he added, “And to meeting you, Mike.”
Feathers drained his glass, “Must run away from you darlings. I see Katherine Ogden over there in the corner with Todd Nichols. Mustn't let that wicked woman turn his head.”
“Who was that?” Mike asked as Feathers slipped expertly through the crowd?
“Christopher's a costume designer. He did the clothes for my picture. He's immensely talented, but ...
Art Silverman joined Mike and Claudia. “How are you holding up babe?”
“Fine,” Claudia said. “I thrive on crowds. Has to be the actress in me.” She introduced the two men and Silverman said to Mike, “I see you met Feathers.”
Mike nodded.
“Piece of work. Fruit compote.”
“Your mixing compotes and Capotes,” Claudia said. “But,” she continued, “the resemblance to Truman is uncanny.”
“He can resemble whomever just so long as he behaves.”
“Oh come on, Art. Don't pick on dear Christopher.”
“You're talking to Art honey. I know Feather’s drives you around the bend too.”
“He isn't all that bad. You just have to know how to handle him.”
“You handle him.”
Claudia laughed. “I'd better circulate.
“Art, catch my eye if you see Harry come in.” To Mike she said, “I'd like you and Johnny and Dr. Summerville to join us for dinner after the screening.”
“Great and I'm sure John and Victoria will be delighted.”
Victoria's gonna love this Johnny stuff, Mike thought. He scanned the room looking for Donal and Victoria. People, dressed in outré costumes that he guessed were the latest fashions, milled about shrieking to acquaintances and air kissing at each other.
Claudia might love this, Mike thought, but to me they're zoo creatures. No way I'd climb into their cages with them. He looked at his watch; nearly seven. Donal was almost a half hour late.
Harry Trent, waiting on the sidewalk for the crossing signal to change, watched as a bright red station wagon, siren wailing, emergency lights flashing, slewed around the corner, rear tires chirping against the pavement. The logo on the door read, “Battalion Chief, Fire Company #7, Moultrie County.” The driver flipped a lit cigarette through the open left window.
Trent grinned at the irony. Probably on his way to deliver a fire prevention lecture, he thought. I can imagine him pontificating before an audience of high school kids. Turning to a rotund, bald man dressed in a green work uniform and waiting alongside him, Trent said, “Hell of a note, Fire Captain flipping his lit butt out the window.”
“Human nature,” came the reply from the disinterested pedestrian. “Thirty years in the Sanitation Department and I do the same thing. I oughta know better. Habit.”
Trent shrugged and stepped off the curb as the light changed to green. A bullet crashed into his forehead stopping him in midstride. Even as his hand reached up to cover the spot where the missile had entered his brain his knees gave way.
A preoccupied man walking behind him stumbled over Trent's sprawled body. The man recovered from the stumble and looked down to see a thick red puddle forming beneath Trent's head.
The Sanitation Department worker who had exchanged curbside comments with Trent, broke away from the gathering crowd and ran with a lumbering gait into an upscale women's clothing store, shouting to the startled woman behind the counter, “dial 911. Get the cops.”
A Sheriff's Department green and white and an EMS ambulance arrived within seconds of each other. The EMS tech from the ambulance felt for Trent's pulse. He looked up at the uniformed deputy. “Faint,” he said to the Sheriff's deputy, “be a miracle if he makes it.”
The deputy went to the patrol car and called in a report and request for assistance over the radio. The med techs started their practiced routine. Trent was lifted onto a stretcher by the ambulance team and they slid the carrier through the rear door of the vehicle. One medic started a saline i.v. and began to administer oxygen. Quickly, he cut away Trent's clothing and pasted leads to the cool skin. He flipped switches on the control panel to begin telemetry transmission. Tracings of Trent's vital signs were directed to the hospital emergency room, standard procedures that the medic was certain would prove useless in this case. The ambulance pulled away from the curb, lights and siren punching holes in the downtown traffic.
The crowd dispersed, individuals quickly resumed their self-absorption, blocking out the horror that had for a few minutes interrupted their lives. They went their various ways.
No one, particularly not the Sheriff's deputy on the scene, had noticed the blond man who left the second story apartment window on the opposite side of the street.
In the hospital emergency room Harry Trent was pronounced dead.
As Donal and Victoria approached the double entrance doors to the Admiralty House they hesitated momentarily to allow a laughing couple to exit. Exchanging smiles they heard the young man say, “One more day, honey. Tomorrow you'll be Mrs. Malcolm.”
Donal had turned and stepped aside allowing the kids to pass by when the first bullet struck. The young man was slammed backward into the restaurant's doorman who caught him as he fell. His companion screamed.
Victoria felt Donal's hand on the small of her back as he shoved her through the lobby doors a microsecond before a second bullet crashed into the glass. He pushed her to the floor and rolled with her in his arms to shelter behind a sofa.
A dark sedan, tires screeching, pulled from the curb on the opposite side of the street.
“Stay down,” Donal bellowed. He raced back to where young man
lay; at the same time he shouted to the doorman to get a doctor. He caught a glimpse of the sedan's driver as the vehicle rocketed away from the hotel.
Alphonsos Smallsmith parked his unmarked Ltd next to two green and whites that blocked the entrance to the hotel. Grim faced, he waded through the crowd of on-lookers. Donal met him as he came into the lobby.
“I heard it on the police radio,” Smallsmith said. “Where's Miss Chatrian?”
“Upstairs. Mike and Victoria and a cop are with her.”
“How much does she know?”
“She was inside when it happened. She knows that a young man was shot.”
“She doesn't know about Trent?”
“Trent?”
“Killed by a sniper.”
“Capers.” Donal said. “The kid outside was a misplaced shot, he was trying for me. It has to be he who shot Trent.”
“Yeah. Hook figured Capers when the squeal came in.”
“He's driving a dark Ford Ltd sedan. This year's model.”
“Get a plate number?”
“No.”
“I'll relay the make and model to Hook.”
Hours later, Donal dropped Victoria at home before he went on to Police Headquarters. Smallsmith and A.J. were in Hook's office when Donal arrived. Hook asked, “How’s you’re movie star taking all this?”
“Hard. She was on the verge of hysteria. Victoria finally got her past that. She's still jumpy. Mike's staying with her. You have anything yet?”
Hook said, “We found the Ford parked in a downtown
lot. It's staked out but I'm sure Capers abandoned it.”
“You're sure got the right the car?”
“Oh yeah. It stinks of cordite and we found a rental receipt made out in a phony name, Howard Boston. We checked with the landlord and someone used the same name to rent a second floor suite in the apartment building across from Trent's law offices. Had to be Capers.”
“Any word on the kid he shot?”
“He died on the operating table.”
Smallsmith interrupted, “What do we do with Miss Chatrian?”
“She's going to Hilton Head. My office is arranging a rental. Mike'll drive her there in the morning. He's staying with her at Trent's house tonight.”
“Why Hilton Head?”
“She insisted. She's a local girl made good and refused going anywhere else. She wanted to stay here in Moultrie Bay, but I persuaded her that Capers could know where she lives and would expect her to go there. Told her that her own house was out of the question. She raised so much hell that I had to give in on Hilton Head.
“Pros and cons considered it's probably as safe a place as anywhere. There's a constant stream of tourists on and off the island. The tourist activity provides a certain degree of anonymity.”
“I guess it's as good as you can do,” Smallsmith said.
“Other than you, who knows that she's going there?”
“Mike and Victoria and, unfortunately, a friend of Miss Chatrian's who accompanied her upstairs after the Malcolm kid was shot. Fellow named Feathers.”
“You sure he won't tell people where you're taking her?”
“I told him to keep his mouth shut and fortunately he doesn't know where she'll be staying. Only that she'll be somewhere on Hilton Head. Be better if he knew nothing,” Donal shrugged, “but what's done is done.”
Smallsmith lit a cigarette and tossed the pack on the desk. He said, “There's no reason for Feathers to broadcast where she's gone.”
“Naw. I guess not.” Donal took cigarette from Smallsmith's pack. He felt his breast pocket for the Zippo lighter that he hadn't carried for years, realized what he was unconsciously about to do, and replaced the cigarette. “Where do we go from here?”
“Home,” Hook replied. “It's three a.m. and there's nothing more we can do tonight. The whole Department is on alert, if anything breaks make sure they call me.”
Capers fitted the stock to the rifle mechanism and slid the bolt into place. He attached the scope, an infrared night model. He pushed an ammunition clip into its receptacle. Before stepping out onto the porch Capers draped his suit jacket over the rifle to protect the scope. Teeming rain slanted in under the porch roof and soaked his shirt. He took position at the porch rail, resting the rifle across his arm and sighting in on the house across the street.
Behind a curtained window Capers could make out a vague human silhouette. He raised the rifle and steadied it, centering the cross hairs on the figure silhouetted in the scope. His finger curled around the trigger and he squeezed off a shot from approximately one hundred and twenty five yards.
The body pitched forward and disappeared from the scope. “Two down,” Capers said to the teeming darkness. “Now to baby sister.” He stepped back into the doorway, broke down the rifle, returned it to its case, and left the scene.
As he closed the door, Donal sensed that something was wrong. Calling her name he hurried through to the bedroom. Cold October wind blew through a shattered window. Victoria lay crumpled on the floor. Her hair was blood soaked.
Donal knelt beside her, hand shaking as he reached out. He had seen and dealt with death a hundred times when investigating murder as a police officer. He had schooled himself to suppress emotion. This was different, infinitely worse. He steeled himself, forced calm. He reached down and touched her throat. She was cold but he could feel a pulse. Carefully he cradled her in his arms and as he did her eyes opened.
“Johnny?”
He touched her cheek. “I'm here, Victoria.”
She tried to smile. “What happened?”
“Easy, darling.”
“I don't understand. I must have fallen. I just came from the shower. I don't remember. I don't know.”
She struggled to sit up and Donal held her firmly. “No. Don't move.”
A tremor shook her body and she tried to pull her robe closer around her. “Cold.”
Donal moved to the bed, pulling blankets from it. He came back and covered her. Her eyes closed and her breathing shallowed. He smoothed a tangle of hair back from her forehead and reached for the phone.
Waiting for the paramedics, he remained kneeling beside her; willing her every breath; feeling her hands grow colder; watching the wound in her temple seep.
The ambulance arrived after a seeming eternity, uniformed cops two minutes behind. While the paramedics worked on Victoria, Donal forced himself out of their way. He gave the Deputy in charge what sketchy details he had worked out while he had waited.
Donal watched one of the deputies dig the spent bullet out of the plaster where it had lodged above the bed. Steel jacketed, likely the same caliber that had killed Trent and the Malcolm kid.
In the ambulance on the short trip to Moultrie Bay Memorial Hospital, the paramedics worked smoothly, monitoring Victoria's pulse, respiration, the i.v. The quiet voice coming over the radio, “Unit ought niner? What's your ETA?”
The crisp reply, “three minutes; bullet wound; headshot; stand by,” chilled Donal.
***
A kid in hospital greens, who turned out to be a doctor, emerged from the examining room. He told Donal that Victoria was being moved to X-ray, that they believed that the bullet had not done extensive damage but they had to make certain. That had been at five minutes to four.
Donal stood at the window of the empty waiting room watching as a weak sun tried to burn through the pre-dawn mist. He looked at the clock again. Six twenty-five. He had been here nearly three hours.
Hearing the door open he turned, hoping for news.
Hook strode across the linoleum and gripped Donal's shoulder. “How is she, Johnny?”
Donal shook his head, “The doctor is hopeful, but I don't know, A.J.. I don't know.”
“What happened?”
Donal sank onto the misshapen sofa, rubbing the back of his neck and tried to order his thoughts to give Hook a coherent answer.
After hearing him out, Hook rose and swore, “God damn Capers.
”
At quarter to seven, the young doctor entered the waiting room. “Mr. Donal? Miss Summerville is out of danger. She bled a lot, not uncommon with a head wound. Fortunately the bullet just grazed the temporal bone. X-rays confirm that there is no fracture. She'll be fine.”
A tide of relief flooded through Donal, exhaustion replaced anxiety. “May I see her?”
“She's under sedation, but, yes, I guess it would be all right. Just for a moment.”
Donal followed the doctor down the long corridor into a dim, antiseptic cubicle.
One side of her head neatly bandaged, Victoria lay in the bed, looking very young and vulnerable.
Donal bent over her, lifted her hand and gently kissed it, and said, “I love you, Victoria.” As he watched, her eyes opened and she smiled, immediately lapsing back into drugged sleep.
He stayed a moment longer, then turned and left the room. It was no longer a case like any other. It was personal. Capers's had reached into Donal's life. Capers would pay.
CHAPTER FORTY TWO
Moultrie Bay, SC
October 20
Donal took a cab from the hospital to his house and took a quick shower; cold, hot, and cold again, no substitute for sleep, but better than nothing. On his answering machine was a message from Mike, called in at five-thirty a.m.. Mike reported that he and Claudia were leaving within the hour for Hilton Head. Good, Donal thought, that's one problem taken care of.
He called the Low Country Paint and Glass, arranged to have the bullet shattered window replaced, fed the cat sliced baloney, and left for Hook's office.
***