Murder on the Run

by Medora Sale

  “Getting much better,” he said, with warmth and sincerity. He liked that ring of truth in his tone. But he’d better not let this bitch hold him up. He hadn’t allowed for too many delays. He reversed onto the street and pulled away, a little faster than usual. The streets were strangely quiet for a Friday morning.

  He pulled into the spot he had chosen the day before. 10:25. He slowly arranged his equipment where it would be needed then began his careful hunt. There were fewer people than he would have expected. The weather was good for operating; there should have been young housewives out for walks between the development and the mall. No problem, though. He had allotted himself an hour before the lunch-hour rush from the local school made maneuvering impossible. The window on the passenger side was open, and his sharp ears strained for the right sort of sound. Far-off voices were merely an irritation to be classified and discounted. Then, coming up the footpath he heard the unmistakable sound of steps—one set, perhaps light enough to be the right sort.

  She was panting from the effort of her rapid climb up from the river and grabbed a branch to pull herself up the last couple of feet to the sidewalk. She stopped for a minute to scrape the mud off her shoes and wipe the sweat from her forehead, looked back down the path a second, and started along the sidewalk. Her way was almost blocked by a pleasant but puzzled-looking young man, leaning on the open door of his shiny new van, squinting at a road map in his hand. “Excuse me, miss, but do you have any idea where Hawthorne Crescent is? It’s supposed to be in one of these subdivisions, but I don’t seem to be able to find it.” He waved the map slightly toward her, and she automatically stepped back a pace, but good-naturedly glanced down.

  “I don’t really know the neighbourhood,” she started, “but my—” Then her quick eye caught the flash of black in his fist, and she ducked as he swung and tossed the map into the van at the same time. The blow glanced off the thick braid on the back of her head, and she reeled as he grabbed her with his left hand. He threw the pipe after the map and reached for her inert body. What he faced, however, was screaming fury. Before he could grab her free arm, a clawful of fingernails raked his cheek. He lunged for her and got only her upraised foot in his grasp just before it landed. All the while she was yelling incoherently but lustily. Her scream ended in a loud gasp as she lost her balance and fell backwards, loosening his grip on her arm, but still caught by one foot. When he looked up from the ruin of his enterprise, he suddenly realized that three people had materialized from the footpath. He let go of her foot and threw himself into the front seat of the van. In seconds he was in gear and lurching toward home. On the bridge, two people helped her gently to her feet, while the third stared after the retreating van.

  In less than an hour, Sanders was standing in an interview room looking down at four robust, lively young adults in jeans and heavy sweaters. The smallest of the four, a girl with long brown hair half pinned up in a braid, looked a bit dusty and muddy, but otherwise in excellent condition. “You are”—here he glanced down at the names hastily scribbled in front of him—“Miss Karen Dodds? You are the one that—”

  She nodded vigorously. “That’s right.”

  “Did he hurt you?” he asked quickly. “Has she been looked at by anyone?” he said, turning to the young constable in the corner of the room.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “They tried to drag me off to the hospital, but really, there’s nothing wrong with me. I fell on my backside, that’s all. I’ve done that plenty of times before.”

  “I thought you said he hit her on the head,” said Sanders, turning back accusingly to the man in the corner, who reddened slightly as he opened his mouth to protest.

  “He missed,” she said. “Hit my hair, that’s all. It’s probably a mess.” She automatically reached up and patted the straying braid back into place. “I saw it coming and ducked. I almost got him, too.” She flashed a triumphant smile at the large young man hovering over her. “Did you see that, Dave? If I’d had boots on instead of these things,” she said, pointing down at her running shoes, “he wouldn’t have felt much like driving off. The bastard.”

  “You were very lucky, Miss Dodds. If you had been alone”—he paused to fight off the image of that lively face turned to pulp by savage pounding.

  “Luck has nothing to do with it,” she said. “He’d have had some doing to pin me down in broad daylight even if the others hadn’t been there.”

  Dave looked down at her in smug satisfaction. “Karen’s a great gymnast,” he said. “And a dancer. She’s fast and strong. He sure picked the wrong one this time.”

  “How good a look did they get at him?” asked Sanders, turning back to the young constable in the corner.

  “Pretty good sir,” he said. “We’ve put it out.” He flipped back a page or two in his notebook. “He’s taller than average—about six feet—in his twenties, light brown curly hair, medium length.”

  “And he should have some pretty good scratch marks on his cheek, too,” said Karen, who looked pleased at the thought. “I think I drew blood.”

  “Did you include that in the description?” asked Sanders impatiently.

  “No, sir, but I will, right away.” He hurried on with his report. “And he’s driving a new van, probably North American make, light brown or tan, with a license plate number that has a nine in it.”

  The other young man looked up apologetically. “By the time we realized what was happening and made sure that Karen was okay, the van was a long way down the road. But we’re pretty sure of the nine.”

  “Right,” said Sanders. “We’ll get in touch when we find him. We’ll need you to identify him.”

  “Do you think you’ll find him just on this?” asked Dave. “There must be thousands of vans out there.”

  “Even if there are,” said Sanders, “we’ll find him.”

  He sat in the garage, still trembling, clinging to the wheel of the van with sweat-slimy hands. The door had clanged shut and was firmly locked, but the safety it offered was illusory. What had happened? He hadn’t even heard the others coming up the path. He had failed again. Miserably, disgustingly. “Failed again, failed again” echoed in his skull in that thin, nasty, mocking voice that was going to drive him wild. He slowly picked up the crumpled map and smoothed it out. He studied the folds carefully and then restored it meticulously to its original shape. Clutching it in his hand, he eased himself out from behind the wheel and stepped heavily down onto the garage floor. Slowly, slowly, he locked the van door, opened the door to the house, and moved up the stairs to the kitchen. The powerful stench of rotting food seemed to make no impression on him as he walked through the room, his feet crunching on the broken glass on the floor. He picked up a box of salted crackers from the counter and walked up the stairs to the living room. In a corner the television set flickered on soundlessly and endlessly. From a table beside him, the telephone rang, and rang, and rang. His hand crept up to his right cheek. His fingers slowly measured the long red gouges running down his face until the ringing stopped. He stared, unseeing, into the far corner of the room.

  Nine o’clock Saturday night at the Toronto General Hospital had come and gone, and Amanda was sitting up in bed flipping channels on her television set in a desultory manner. The hospital, as is the way with such places, was already concentrating its efforts on bedding everyone down for the night, and an atmosphere of weary boredom had taken over. She sighed and flopped back down again. Nothing on. She was already getting sick and tired of being there and was eager to get back to Aunt Kate’s. She even itched to get back to school, cast and all, just for a change of scenery. The door was flung open suddenly, heralding the arrival of a nurse; Amanda had observed that each class of person at the hospital entered a room in a distinctive way—the cleaning staff gingerly, the nurses abruptly, the doctors coyly, and so on. This was a new nurse. They changed with dizzying frequency, and when Amanda had commented on it, she was
told that it was a consequence of landing in hospital close to a holiday weekend. She smiled vaguely at the nurse, who was proceeding toward her briskly.

  “Now, love, just roll over, and we’ll soon have you feeling better. Come on.” She grabbed the corner of the bedclothes to flip them back.

  “Hey! What’s that?” said Amanda, sitting up and pointing at the wicked-looking hypodermic needle in her hand.

  “It’s your injection, dear. Now roll over.”

  “I’m not supposed to get an injection. Stop that!” she said loudly as the harassed nurse tried to roll her on her side. “Stop! Al! Help!” She was screaming by now. Into the room raced two hundred and ten pounds of well-muscled, uniformed policeman. He grabbed the nurse by the arm.

  “I’ll have to ask you not to do that,” he said apologetically, not loosening his grip. “Not until I get authorization from someone. She’s not supposed to get anything that I don’t know about. Sorry,” he said, looking nervously at the nurse’s face, which was rapidly shading from scarlet to purple.

  “Well,” she said. “I’ll get the doctor who ordered the injection, and perhaps you won’t attack him!” She stormed out of the room, muttering something that sounded unprofessional.

  “Thanks,” said Amanda. “I’m getting tired of people doing things to me these days.” He winked at her.

  Five minutes later the door opened, a trifle more gently this time, and a white-coated resident, young and brisk-looking, poked his head around and said, “So this is the young lady with the pain, is it?” He smiled. Amanda was sitting bolt upright, bright-eyed and determined. “You don’t really look as if you’re in pain, though. Is it better?”

  “Better? I’m not in pain. I haven’t been in pain all day. I’m fine,” she said fiercely.

  “Then you really shouldn’t have asked for an injection, you know. It’s not good for you to have these strong drugs if you don’t need them. If you’re having trouble sleeping we’ll give you something for that—no need to ask for a needle. Isn’t that true, nurse,” he said to the woman who had followed him in. His gently condescending voice was immensely irritating.

  “I didn’t ask for an injection, I tell you. I’m fine. I’ve been fine all day, haven’t I, Al?” She turned to her protector and star witness. “So you can keep your drugs and injections to yourself.” She tried to wave her huge cast in their direction, muttered a silent ouch, and settled back on her pillows.

  “Well, I was just doing what I was asked to do,” said the nurse, huffily. “Dr. Weatherill ordered an injection and I came to give it.”

  “I ordered the injection because I got a call from the nursing station that the patient in 526 was screaming in pain. Why else would I do it?” Now he glowered at Amanda, then at the nurse. “I have enough to do around here without medicating patients who don’t need it. If you knew the kind of load I had on a holiday weekend you’d realize I don’t go around treating other people’s patients just to amuse myself.” His voice was low and bitter now.

  “Who called you, may I ask?” said Al hastily, before Weatherill could get any further in his catalogue of complaints.

  “I don’t know. It must have been Miss Beatty here,” he said.

  “Wasn’t me,” she said, rapidly tossing the responsibility as far away as she could. “I just got back from my break and there it was—the order for the injection. So I got it ready. I know nothing about it. I haven’t been on duty for days. I just got back this evening.” She glared at Dr. Weatherill. “It must have been one of the others.” At that she flounced out of the room.

  “I’m going to have to call someone in to look into this, Dr. Weatherill,” said Al. “You understand that this young lady is under police guard because an attempt has already been made on her life.”

  “Well, investigate away,” he replied, offended. “But all I know is what I told you.” As he left, he brushed against an orderly hurrying past, and saw but did not see an innocuous-looking man leaving the room across the hall, saying goodbye tenderly and affectionately to an empty bed and two unoccupied chairs.

  Sanders was standing, keys in hand, vehemently pointing out to Eleanor that a woman of her age should be able to spend a night out without worrying what her mother might think. “Dammit, Eleanor, has she ever said anything?” he whispered. They were standing in the corridor of his apartment building and making half-hearted attempts to keep their voices down. She paused to consider for a moment.

  “Stop trying to steamroller me,” she complained. “You’re entirely too used to pushing people around. It’s not good for you.” Before he could think of a reply, the phone on the other side of his door began to ring.

  “Dammit.” He fumbled with the lock, cursing under his breath, flung open the door and dashed to answer it. For a long time he simply listened. “Did you call Dubinsky? Okay. Tell him I’ll see him there right away.” He turned to Eleanor and shook his head. “Okay, sweetheart. You win this time. Someone made another try to get at Amanda. She’s fine—they bungled it—but I have to go down and see what’s up.” He kissed her on the forehead. “I’ll drop you off on my way.”

  “That’s not exactly the way I had hoped to win this particular fight,” she said. “Losing would have been more fun.”

  Chapter 12

  The mills of justice, in their own way, like the mills of the gods, grind on, even on holiday weekends and in unlikely places. Easter Sunday morning dawned bright and clear in southern Florida—the birds and the tourists sang and fluttered in the early morning sun. In fact, many of the birds, like many of the tourists, were on their way back to Canada and were making the most of the friendly climate while they were still there. But in the minor resort town of Pidgeon’s Bay, a clutch of motels and beach houses outside of Fort Lauderdale, things were dull and dreary in the sheriff’s office. The drunken students were gone, the hordes of tourists were slowly dwindling, and the sleepiness of summer was beginning to pervade the atmosphere. Des Hepworth sat in lonely splendor, staring at a cup of coffee and the various papers that had hit the desk since Friday, when he had last been on. Among the long lists of stolen cars and wanted fugitives one stray item caught his attention. The words “1984 Corvette—white” leapt out at him. That was what he wanted with all his heart and soul. A white Corvette. So did Lindy. When he had made his unsuccessful bid to transfer her from beach blanket to motel last night, she had distracted him with shrieks of delight at the white Corvette parked outside the Flying Fish Motel. “Look, Des,” she had squealed, “isn’t that the most gorgeous car! I wonder who it belongs to?” And he had dragged her away again, almost forgetting what they were supposed to be there for. Or had she done it on purpose? Damn that girl. You could never tell what she was up to.

  He read the rest of the item—Ontario license number SYW 567; driven by Richard Gruber, 6’2”, light brown hair, age 23, weight 195 lbs. Wanted for kidnapping and assault. Bastard, he thought. Kidnapping. He rested his hungover head on the chair back. That license number seemed somehow familiar. Shit! He reached for his phone, moments later for his car keys, and was out of the door.

  And so it was that one aficionado of sexy white cars and lively women met up with another—only these two, who should have been soul mates, ended up in a spirited battle in room sixteen of the Flying Fish Motel. Des had the back-up, however, and by Monday morning Rick was at the Miami airport, sullenly awaiting a free trip home.

  When Sanders came in on that Monday morning, he found Dubinsky already hard at work. He looked up from the pile of things on his desk and nodded. “I heard about Saturday night. Sorry. I was at my niece’s wedding. I wouldn’t have been much use to you by the time they called, anyway.” He shrugged apologetically. “Did you figure out what happened?”

  “Sort of. If you put everything together. It looks as if someone came out into the corridor outside room 526, all excited, saying that his daughter was screaming in pain and no one was a
nswering the bell. He grabbed a nurse who happened to be passing by from another ward. She passed the message on to Miss Beatty’s relief, Mrs. O’Connor. She assumed that the first girl had gone in and looked at 526, and so she put in a call for the resident who ordered a standard dose of painkiller. Very simple. He obviously counted on the floor being slightly short-staffed because of the holiday. It’s harder to tell exactly what he had in mind from there, but someone had been camping out in the empty room across the hall. There were sandwich wrappers and some empty coffee containers in the garbage. And a couple of orderly’s outfits—one of them worn. I suppose they were going to try to take out the man on duty and get at her when she was unconscious. It’s a damned good thing the Griffiths girl is getting very suspicious of people in uniforms,” grunted Sanders as he headed for the door. “Anyway, let’s get out to the airport and meet our dear friend Mr. Gruber. We wouldn’t want him to be kept waiting.”

  Sanders and Dubinsky faced a new Rick Gruber, stripped of whatever status he might have enjoyed, sitting on the wrong side of the table in the interview room. He was pale and bedraggled, but stubbornly defiant still.

  “I had some time coming to me, that’s all. I was tired, so I took off for Florida.” He attempted a casual shrug of his shoulders and winced. Des had inflicted a few nasty bruises before he got finished. “So is that a crime? I mean, I should have gotten permission for leave, but that’s no reason to haul me back like a bloody fugitive.”