An Eye for Murder

by Libby Fischer Hellmann

  She gripped the wheel. “No. It was Wolinsky. He pressured me to sleep with him, but I wouldn’t.” I flashed on an image of Dory outside Marian’s hotel room in Rockford, her face spasming between fury and anguish. Raoul reached for her hand.

  I leaned against the back of the seat.

  When I opened my eyes, we were on Michigan Avenue. During the day, the strip of road between Oak Street Beach and the Conrad Hilton is brash, bright, and confident. But when night falls, the street devolves. Figures slip in and out of shadows, cars creep by, strangers prowl back alleys. Away from the pools of light, a sinister, more primitive force lurks the streets, linking passion and danger in a macabre dance. Demonstrators at the ’68 convention were beaten up near here; Andrew Cunanan stalked his prey close by.

  Dory and Raoul were talking in low voices. I yawned.

  “Good,” Raoul said into the rearview mirror. “We’re almost there.”

  I stretched my arms. “I’m still wondering about something.

  Did Marian hire me because of my skill or because she had to keep me close?”

  “I don’t know,” Dory said. “But it goes to the heart of the matter. Who was—who is—in control.” She twisted around. “I can tell you this much. When the subject of a video first came up, Roger thought of you right away. Without any prompting.”

  I looked out the window as we headed east on Superior. “So it was totally serendipitous that I went to work for her in the first place?”

  Dory shrugged.

  Another Jungian coincidence.

  Chapter Forty-nine

  At the outdoor parking lot, a stooped old man with a toothless grin took our money and wished us a good evening. As we walked the two blocks to the River North office, patches of fog drifted past us, their smoky tendrils dissipating on contact. Raoul retreated to the Italian restaurant next door. He would wait outside. If anyone went into the building, he’d call Dory’s cell, let it ring twice, and hang up.

  Dory’s key opened the outer door, and we quietly entered the narrow lobby. The building wasn’t big enough to warrant a security guard, but a sign advised us that the alarm system was connected to the Eighteenth Precinct. I hadn’t noticed it before. The small, rickety elevator deposited us on the third floor.

  I tried to swallow my fear. If I hadn’t thought Rachel might be in danger, I would never have let myself get talked into this. “Are you sure we should—”

  Raising a finger to her lips, Dory slipped her key into the lock. It turned easily, but the door squeaked as we stepped through. I heard it latch behind her. Just inside the door on the wall was an electronic keypad. Dory opened it, tapped in four digits, and a red light turned to green. She blew out her breath. I’d never noticed the alarm before either. How did she know they hadn’t changed the code since she left? An uneasy feeling swept through me.

  The reception area was shrouded in darkness and, except for the tick of the clock, it was still. A car passed below, its radio blaring heavy metal. A pair of white headphones lay on the marble-topped desk. We rounded the corner. Light from streetlamps poured through the large, patterned windows, spilling distorted fleur-de-lis shadows across the floor. As we circumvented the pit and passed Roger’s office, Dory scowled.

  Marian’s office was a few feet away. The door was closed.

  Dory pulled another key out of her pocket, fit the key into the lock, and opened the door. A dark expanse stretched out. I let my eyes get accustomed to the absence of light, and gradually, shapes dissolved out of black. At one end of the room was Marian’s round conference table, chairs, and the sofa. At the other end was her desk, her computer monitor on top. Dory glided over to the hard drive underneath.

  The machine whined as it cranked up. A moment later, a blue glow washed over everything. I walked over, aware that precious minutes were slipping away. Finally, the cursor changed from an hourglass to an arrow. Dory clicked on Marian’s E-mail, which promptly asked for her password.

  Dory typed in the letters S-T-E-E-L, and the program opened. Over a hundred messages appeared in her in box. Either Marian never deleted anything, or she got more fan mail than a rock star. Dory and I scanned the list, looking for anything with the words Gibbs or Covenant or Church in the return address.

  We had almost reached the bottom of the list when I pointed to an entry: admin@covenant.org. Dory opened it, and we read the first few lines. It was a request for more information about Marian’s domestic policies. Impersonal and bland, it was soliciting the type of information many organizations do when they evaluate which candidates to support. Dory and I traded glances. She motioned to the printer. Raoul had said to print out anything we found. I turned it on.

  As the printer whined, she kept scrolling. At the bottom of the page was another E-mail from Covenant. She started to open it, but the printer stopped, and she reached for the paper. She was about to stuff it in her bag when a noise outside the door made me freeze.

  Dory jerked her head around, angling her head to listen.

  A squeak sounded. Someone was opening the outer door. Panic shot across her face.

  “Someone’s coming. We’re fucked. Get out!” she hissed. She raced to the door, and her outline disappeared.

  I grabbed the paper from the printer, just as light from the reception area flooded the big room. There was no time to get out or to shut down the computer. I threw myself under the desk next to a warren of crossed cords and wires. The wires were attached to a power strip with a glowing orange light on one end. I flipped the master switch on the power strip. Everything went dark. And quiet.

  Except for the steps thudding across the floor.

  I held my breath, fear piercing my skin like a sharp blade. Who was out there? Where had Dory gone? It flashed through my mind that the office alarm code had in fact been changed, but Dory hadn’t realized it. Maybe it had been programmed to accept the old code and simultaneously trigger an alarm. Which meant that they might have suspected her all along. Maybe they’d tripped the alarm to trap her.

  More footsteps tramped across the floor. The sounds of a struggle echoed through the walls. Grunts, definitely male. A voice hissing, “Fucking bitch!” Then a groan, this time female. I looked around wildly. There were no panels covering the sides of the desk. Whoever it was would spot me as soon as he looked into Marian’s office. I thought about climbing out the window, but it was covered with bars. There was no room behind the couch and no closet in the room. I pulled out the Colt, crawled out from under the desk, and ran to the door, throwing myself behind it.

  From the other room, I heard more scuffles, and then what sounded like a swift exhalation of breath. Another rustle. A thud. Then silence. Was it over? Were they leaving? Seconds later, two muffled cracks split the air. Oh God. I released the safety on the Colt. More footsteps. Headed toward Marian’s office.

  All at once the door banged into my face and crushed me against the wall. Pain ripped across my nose. I sagged down the side of the wall, a wave of dizziness washing over me. The Colt clattered to the floor. I covered my face with my hands, feeling something warm and sticky and metallic smelling. A pair of arms dragged me out from behind the door, whipped me around, and threw me against the wall.

  I tried to get my wind, but something solid and hard hit me from behind. My knees buckled, and I fell sideways to the floor. I tried to break the fall with my hand. A sharp pain snaked up my wrist. I groaned, trying to shift back on my haunches, but a heavy weight slammed down on top of me. Something pushed my face into the floor. I felt hot breath on my cheek, and a gravelly voice hissed in my ear.

  “Don’t even think about it, bitch.” My tongue tasted dust and grit. I smelled rancid body odor. “Get the cuffs.” Another voice grunted. Footsteps sounded to my right.

  Black rubber-soled shoes filled my field of vision, and the weight on my back shifted. Someone pulled my right hand then my left behind my back. Pain sluiced through me. I heard a click, felt cold metal banding my wrists. Then something else stabb
ed the small of my back. A gun?

  Sour cigarette breath strafed my face. “You get up now, nice and easy, and walk to the elevator. Got it?” Someone grabbed my hair and pulled it away from my face. Spasms of pain tore through my scalp. “Got it?” He pulled tighter. My head felt raw. “Tell me you got it.”

  I moaned.

  “Good.” The throbbing around my head eased. I felt a prod as something hard was thrust deep into my back. “Just in case.”

  Someone else grabbed my shoulders and pulled me up. I stumbled forward, losing my balance. Rough hands clutched me and broke my fall. I took a tentative step, then tried to collapse and melt the way I’d been taught during the ’60s.

  The jab in my back deepened. “You do that again, I’ll shoot you with your own gun.” The Colt. I tried to twist around. The jab got deeper. A shove pushed me out of Marian’s office. Beyond the door, between Marian’s and Roger’s office, a dark form lay motionless on the floor. Dory. Bitter anger welled up in me. Where was Raoul? What happened?

  They shoved me into the elevator, facing me against the back wall. As the door closed, someone threw a blindfold around me and pulled it tight across my nose. The rush of blood prompted a new wave of dizziness. A wad of what tasted like cardboard was stuffed into my mouth, forcing my tongue back against my throat. I gagged. Someone stretched tape across my mouth. The elevator door opened again, and I was pushed through the hall.

  Hinges squeaked against metal. I’d never used the back door to the building, but I knew it led to a makeshift parking lot off the alley; Marian and Roger parked there. The door closed, and we were outside. I breathed in air scented with garlic.

  A car door opened, and I was thrown in, falling sideways against the back seat. The door slammed. I heard murmurs outside. Then it was still. I wriggled on the back seat, trying to gain purchase, but the upholstery was too slippery. After what seemed like a long time, the doors of the car opened, and the springs under the front seat squeaked.

  “You get rid of her?” It was the gravelly voice. “Yup,” a second voice replied. Not as deep. Reedy. “What about the other spic?”

  “I left him at the dumpster.”

  Raoul. A wave of nausea threatened to choke me. Doors slammed. The engine gunned. The car swung around. I rolled on my side, lurching back and forth on the seat. Finally, the car accelerated in a straight line, and I became more or less stationary.

  The ride was a blend of stale cigarette smoke, weed, and the acid smell of violence. Facedown on the seat, every bump was a fresh slice of pain. My left cheek rubbed against a patch of rough tape, probably used to repair a tear in the upholstery. “Fire me up one,” the rough voice said. A few seconds passed. “Now, asshole.”

  I heard the click of a lighter being depressed. The air filled with cigarette smoke. Someone exhaled. “You must always think ahead, Burl. Anticipate. And prepare for it.”

  “I’m doing that, Eugene. I am.”

  “Fuck you are. You haven’t learned anything since the goddam dog.”

  Dog?

  “I took care of it, didn’t I?”

  “Yeah, but it was your mistake that got us into this in the first place. You should have known the old lady was taking the mutt for a walk.”

  Bruno. And Ruth Fleishman.

  “If we hadn’t gone back to finish them off…” his voice trailed off.

  “But we fixed it, Eugene. Didn’t we?” A grunt was the response.

  “It’ll end up okay, once she’s out of the way, won’t it?”

  “Here. You keep this.”

  “A Colt? Hey, thanks.”

  The men lapsed into silence.

  I tried to breathe normally but couldn’t gulp down enough air. The gag reflex kicked in again. I made mewling noises in the back of my throat. Surely they would take pity on me.

  “If I hear another sound from you, bitch, I’ll do you right here. Just like your amiga.”

  So much for pity. I tried small breaths through my nose. Gradually, the tension in my throat eased. I tried to count in an effort to keep track of time, but I couldn’t get past eight. Was Dory really dead? What about Raoul? Where were we going?

  The car slowed and made a turn. I had no idea how much time had passed, but I could tell from the uneven road we were off the highway. After a few more turns, tires crunched on gravel, and we came to a stop. The car doors opened. Hands pulled at me, and I stumbled forward. I smelled freshcut grass and heard the quiet slap of waves.

  Chapter Fifty

  Images flew past my eyes, like flashing lights on a carousel, but I knew my mind was playing tricks on me. I was curled up in a dark, silent place. The blindfold was on and I was still cuffed, my wrists now chafed and raw. I had no idea how much time had passed, but I felt the tape on my mouth. My jaw was stiff, and my lips and throat were parched.

  Feet shuffled outside. I heard a key inserted into a lock. The door opened.

  “Rise and shine.” A harsh voice. Gravel Mouth. Eugene. I tried to swing my legs and sit up but lost my balance.

  My right cheek and side slammed against a cold, hard surface.

  I saw stars.

  “Clumsy bitch, ain’t she.” The other voice from the car. A pair of hands grabbed me, pulled me up. Again I stumbled, but the hands caught me and pushed me forward. Something cold and hard pressed against my cheek.

  “Do you know what this is?” Gravel Mouth.

  I shook my head.

  Another prod stabbed my cheek. “It’s my Glock,” he said. “And Burl has the Colt.”

  I didn’t move.

  He ripped the tape off my mouth. Pain stung my lips and skin. I whimpered.

  “What did I tell you?” He jabbed the Glock into the side of my head. My lips throbbed like someone had poured alcohol on an open sore. I gulped down air.

  We clacked down an uncarpeted hall, linoleum probably. Someone gripped my arm and pushed me up a flight of stairs. I counted thirteen steps.

  Upstairs it felt warmer. I had been in a basement. I turned toward the person gripping my arms.

  “Water?” I croaked hoarsely.

  “I told you not to say anything.” It was Gravel Mouth. “Please….” I begged.

  “Shit.” Then, “Give her a fucking glass of water, Burl.” Footsteps. Water gushing from a faucet. A glass being filled, the trickle changing from hollow to full. I could have cried in gratitude. More footsteps, then someone slipped the glass between my lips. I opened them eagerly. I smelled the slight chlorine odor. My mouth sang with anticipation.

  “Not so fast, bitch.” The reedy voice. “Give us what we want, we’ll give you what you want.” The glass was snatched away. The water drained into the sink. I heard laughter.

  “Damn, Burl,” the gravelly voice chuckled. “You do learn.” A buzzer sounded. Loud. Flat.

  “Let’s go.” The blindfold was pulled off my head. Blinding light blasted my eyes, and with it sharp pain. I squeezed my eyes shut. After a while I slowly cracked my lids. A man with beady eyes and a ponytail stood in front of me. I’d seen him before. Driving a tan Cutlass.

  He pushed me through the door.

  Chapter Fifty-one

  Wearing white linen slacks, a silk shirt, and looking very much the gentleman of leisure, Jeremiah Gibbs lounged on the Iversons’ brocade sofa. Night hugged the windows, and several table lamps glowed. Pinching the barrel of the Glock against my neck, Gravel Mouth shoved me into a tufted chair. A pitcher of water sat on the mahogany table in front of it. I eyed it jealously.

  Stroking his blond mustache with two fingers, Gibbs studied me for what seemed like a long time. He poured a glass of water. Ice cubes plopped into it. My throat was on fire. My mouth opened. Gibbs motioned to Gravel Mouth. “Give it to her.”

  Taking the glass, the man thrust it between my lips and turned it up at a sharp angle. I gagged, and the water sloshed down my chin, my chest, soaking my shirt and jeans.

  “Eugene. Be careful. Those are expensive carpets.” Gibbs rose and grabbe
d the glass, raised it to my lips, and gently tipped it into my mouth. I drank greedily.

  “Good breeding is a thing of the past, isn’t it, Ellie?”

  He removed the glass, and our eyes met. I looked away. He set the glass back on the table.

  “We, on the other hand, know what good manners are.” He sat down. “But breaking and entering?” he chided, airily waving a hand. “Them—well, we know how they are. But you? You should have known better.” He squared his shoulders, and his face grew cold. “Did you really think we wouldn’t change the alarm? Or that you’d find anything we didn’t want you to?”

  I tried to speak.

  “What?”

  I whispered hoarsely. “David?”

  “Yes. We will deal with him when he arrives.” My head jerked up.

  “Yes. We know he’s on his way.”

  “My phone. You’ve been—”

  He flashed me a modest smile. “Your E-mail too.”

  “You tried to kill my father.” I heard the rage in my voice. He ran a hand through his hair. “Strong guy for his age.

  And fast. He was lucky. We’ll get him, of course. In time.”

  “Leave him alone. You’ve got me.”

  “Sorry. He knows too much.”

  “What? What does he know that I don’t?”

  He raised a finger to his lips. “You’ll find out. Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.” He paused, as if waiting for me to praise his intellectual pretense. “Aristotle.”

  I tried not to react, but I wondered where he had learned that. Was he the kind of loner who hung out at the library as a kid? Didn’t psychopaths often start out like that? Suddenly, the memory of another kid at a library passed through me. “You shot Boo Boo. He’s an innocent.”

  He shrugged. “He was helping Skulnick at the library.

  Who knew what he knew? And—before you ask—yes. The old lady—Fleishman. She was in our way. But she did give us your name. Which made catching up with you a lot easier.” He fingered the silk collar of his shirt. “You’ve been a busy woman. And, until now, quite resourceful. My compliments. Hacking into Skulnick’s E-mail was good. Likewise getting past me at Giant Park.”