by Carol Costa
The snow was already a few inches deep so Bruno walked carefully around the building to the back and climbed those stairs. The back windows were covered with wrought-iron security bars and Dana had hung some heavy curtains over the windows to hide them so Bruno couldn't see inside the kitchen. However, he could tell that there were no lights on in the apartment.
Bruno pulled out his cell phone and dialed Dana's cell number. He got an out-of-service signal, so he clicked off and dialed her home number. He could hear the phone ringing from inside her apartment and listened to it ring five times before he got the answering device.
"Where are they?" he mumbled to himself as he went back down the stairs to the front of the building again.
He went inside the building and sat down on the stairs as he dialed Globe Investigations. Marianne answered.
"Hi Marianne, it's Bruno. Is Dana there?"
"No. She took the day off to be with your mother."
"I know that, but I'm at Dana's apartment and they're not here"
"Is her car there?" Marianne asked.
Bruno looked outside the glass door at Dana's usual parking space. It was empty. "No. It's not here," he told Marianne. "And I tried her cell and got an out of service message"
"That's odd," Marianne said. "Maybe they got stuck in the snow someplace."
Dana and Angie were not stuck in the snow. They were stuck in Dana's car with George Hollingsworth. Dana was driving and Angie was buckled into the passenger's seat. George was in the backseat, holding a gun to the back of Angie's head.
Angie had been asking George a lot of questions that he refused to answer. He finally told her to shut up or he'd blow her head off.
"Where are you taking us?" she asked without so much as a quiver in her voice.
"Out of town," he replied. "Now shut up. You always did talk too much."
"Don't you want to tell us how you killed the Hunter brothers?" Dana said evenly.
"The Hunter brothers," Angie said before George could answer. "Those were the young men who held up your bank and killed your Sarah."
"That's right, Angie. I've been waiting all these years to get justice. I was hoping they'd die in prison. Sarah's father told me he was going to hire someone on the inside to kill them. He had connections to the Mob, but I guess his connections weren't good enough because it never happened"
I can't believe it. You were always such a nice boy."
George laughed. "Not as nice as you think."
"That's right," Dana said. "George and Sarah planned the robbery. They used the Hunter boys to pull it off and then they were going to get the money from them and take off with it."
"Who told you that?" George asked.
"Mary Lou Bandini."
"Mary Lou told you," Angie said incredulously. "She's in jail for embezzling money from the nursing home where she worked. Everyone in the neighborhood was shocked. How did you talk to her?"
I went to the correctional facility where she's being held and visited her last week."
"Some things never change," George said cynically. "Mary Lou always had a big mouth. Did she tell you that she was the one who turned in John and Tony?"
"Yes. She said she did it because they killed her friend, Sarah."
"She probably did it hoping to get her greedy little hands on the bank money, but the Hunter boys turned out to be smarter than anyone gave them credit for. They killed Sarah when she tried to take off with the cash and then they hid it so well no one ever found it."
"Is that why you didn't kill Tony as soon as he turned up in Crescent Hills?" Dana asked. "Were you hoping he'd lead you to the money?"
"No. I didn't kill him right away because I knew that if he got out of jail, his brother would soon follow and I wanted to take care of them both at the same time."
"Then you found out that Tony married Casey and you acted immediately."
I went to his place hoping she'd be there. The plan was to kill her first in front of Tony. I wanted him to know how it feels to lose someone you love. Only when I got there she was gone. Tony said they had some kind of an argument and he threw her out. That's when I shot him."
Dana took a deep breath, stunned at how close her friend had come to being murdered. "Casey was innocent. She didn't know anything about Tony's past "
"Okay," Angie said in a firm voice. "So, you killed some bad people, but why are you doing this to us? We are good people."
"Your friend here is an investigator, a very smart investigator. I knew when I saw you together this afternoon, you'd tell her all about me and how I was a bank manager and how my fiancee was murdered by the Hunter brothers. She's been investigating the case here and she was in Chicago when I killed Johnny boy. I'm sure my name must have popped up somewhere judging from the look on her face when you blurted it out earlier. Then of course you threw in that little tidbit about your son being a homicide detective and her boyfriend to boot "
"You came from a nice family, George. They would be so ashamed," Angie told him.
"The roads are getting very slippery," Dana said. "I'm going to have to slow down."
"And give your boyfriend a chance to catch up with us. I don't think so. Pull over to the side of the road. This is where you two get out "
"Get out?" Angie said. "We're in the middle of nowhere"
"That's the idea," George told her.
Dana pulled the car off to the side. The road they were on was deserted. There was no one to see them. George had taken her cell phone and crushed it under his foot before they got into the car. Dana could only hope that the weapon she had managed to slip into her coat pocket would be enough to save them.
Bruno was beside himself with worry. He had put out an APB on Dana's car, but so far nothing had been reported. He had decided to try and retrace their steps.
The last time he talked to Dana she had said they were going grocery shopping. With the snow, he was hoping she had decided to shop at the Sunflower Market as that was on the way to her apartment and he knew she liked the store.
Marianne and Greg were at Dana's apartment. Fortunately, Dana kept an extra set of keys at the office. Bruno and Dana used to have keys to each other's apartments, but the last time they had a big argument, Dana had changed her locks and refused to give him a key to it.
"Where's the manager?" Bruno asked the woman at the nearest cash register.
"Who wants to know?" she asked.
Bruno flashed his badge and she said she'd page him. Ron Morgan answered the page within a few minutes and Bruno suggested that they go back to his office to talk.
"I need to know if my mother and Dana Sloan were in here shopping earlier," Bruno said as soon as they got inside Morgan's office.
"Yes, they were. I spoke to them. Is something wrong?"
"They've disappeared."
"This must be the day for that "
"Pardon me?"
"One of my employees is also missing. One minute he was in the produce department replenishing the vegetables and the next minute he was gone. No one seems to know where he went "
"What's his name?"
"George Hollingsworth."
The name immediately registered and Bruno felt a prickle of fear run down his spine. "Is he related to a Stuart Hollingsworth?"
"I'll check." Morgan opened a file cabinet behind him and pulled out a personnel file. He looked at it briefly. "His first name is Stuart, but he goes by his middle name, which is George"
"Come outside with me and see if his car is in the parking lot. I know Dana's car isn't there because I've already looked."
Morgan got his jacket and followed Bruno outside. "The employees park down at the end by that empty store" Bruno and Morgan hurried down to the end of the walkway. "That's George's car there, the white Nissan."
As Bruno stepped off the curb to get a closer look at the white car, he stepped on something and had to grab on to another parked car to keep from sliding off his feet.
He bent down and picked up D
ana's phone that had been smashed and left in the parking lot to be covered with snow.
"Where does this guy live?" Bruno asked, trying not to panic.
"I don't know, but I'm sure his address is in his file."
"Let's go get it "
The mild-mannered, jovial man Dana knew as George had turned into a cold-blooded killer. He ordered Dana to leave the car running and get out. Then, still holding the gun to Angie's head, he ordered her out of the car and quickly got out himself, so he could keep the gun leveled at her.
"Are you going to shoot us with that gun?" Angie asked as they stumbled across the snow-covered ground toward a wooded area away from the road.
"Shut up, Angie," George said firmly. "Who wants to die first?"
"I do," Dana said. "But first I have to know something"
"Your last wish?" he asked coldly.
"I understand why you murdered the Hunter brothers but why did you kill Lucas Porter and then send that anonymous letter to the paper?"
"Lucas Porter was practice."
"Practice," Dana repeated. "I don't get it."
"Lucas was a scumbag. He beat up on that pretty little wife of his so I decided to practice on him. You see, as Angie pointed out, I was always a nice guy. I'd never killed anyone before and I wanted to make sure I could do it before I faced the Hunter brothers. I thought beating him to death was appropriate after the way he battered his wife. I knew if I could do that, the Hunter boys would be easy. I sent the letter because I felt badly that the wife and her little friend were getting blamed for it."
"You left a fingerprint on the letter and it was matched to the fingerprints on file with the real estate commission in Arizona."
"See, Angie. What did I tell you? This gal is real smart"
"Listen, George," Angie said, edging closer to him. "You don't have to kill us. Just leave us and we'll freeze to death out here in the snow."
"That's right, George," Dana said picking up Angie's lead. "No one comes down this road and if that is the same gun you used to kill Tony and John with, when they find our bodies they'll know you killed us and Bruno will not rest until he tracks you down"
"He'll never find me. My escape route is all planned out. Sending that letter was a mistake, and not leaving town sooner was another, but I can't go back and change that."
Dana looked around. The snow was getting very deep. If they tried to run, they wouldn't get very far. George grabbed Angie's arm and pulled her close to him. He placed the gun at her temple.
"Say good-bye, old girl," he said.
A search of George's apartment didn't yield any clues, except an Arizona Cardinals hat. Bruno was beginning to panic. He got back in his car and drove to the Sunflower parking lot again and then drove past it to the road that led out of town.
It was obvious that they had left in Dana's Mustang. The problem was that Bruno didn't know if they had driven out on the road that led out of town toward the country or had gotten on the expressway and headed toward Chicago.
The planes at O'Hare and Midway were grounded because of the weather, and Bruno had stationed men at the Crescent Hills train station and bus depot. However, there was no way of covering the Chicago stations and bus terminals.
As Bruno drove slowly down the road looking left and right for a sign of Dana's car, he began to pray. He was a man who dealt with violence and murder on a regular basis and he had learned to detach himself from the crime scenes and the victims. This was different. These were the two people he loved most in the world. If he lost them, he didn't know how he would survive.
George Hollingsworth had lost the woman he loved and had waited almost twenty-five years to avenge her death. The pain Bruno felt now must have been what Hollingsworth had felt when the Hunter brothers killed his fiancee.
Suddenly Bruno noticed car tracks on the side of the road. A car had pulled off the road there. He stopped his vehicle and got out his flashlight to take a look.
There were lots of footprints and signs of a struggle there in the snow. Then, his light shone on a dark patch that stood out dramatically on the white frost that covered the ground. It was blood. A trail of it started at the edge of the woods and led back to the road.
Bruno stared at the bloody trail as a numbness crept over him. He went back to his car to radio for help to search the area.
As he reached for the radio, his cell phone rang. "Hello," he managed to say when he answered it.
"Bruno, it's Jack. Your girlfriend and your mother just showed up here"
"What? Are they all right?"
"Yeah, they're fine, but the guy they got stuffed in the trunk of the car doesn't look so hot"
Despite the icy roads and streets, Bruno made it back to the station in under thirty minutes. Putting the emergency flasher and siren on helped him navigate what little traffic was still on the streets.
He double-parked in front of the station next to Dana's Mustang. As he passed by it, he saw bags of groceries on the backseat.
Bruno bounded up the steps and pushed through the door, letting in a blast of cold air. "Where are they?" he yelled to the desk sergeant.
"Interview room two," he yelled back. "They're expecting you"
As he ran down the hallway to room two, Bruno heard a burst of laughter. The room was soundproof, but the door was standing open and Jack O'Brien was in the doorway laughing so hard he was crying.
Bruno yanked him out of the way and crashed into the room. Dana and Angie were sitting at the interview table. Besides Jack, there were two uniformed cops in the room. Everyone stopped laughing and turned to look at Bruno.
Dana and Angie both got up and ran into his arms. Tears of relief were streaming down his face. "My God," he whispered. "I thought I'd lost you both"
"Dana saved my life," Angie told him.
"No," Dana protested. "Angie gets the credit."
Jack and the other officers had the good sense to leave the room. After a few minutes, Bruno calmed down and was able to release them from his suffocating embrace.
Dana and Angie sat down again and Bruno threw off his coat and sat down across from them. He stared at their faces, so beautiful, so alive.
"What happened?" he finally asked.
"Has anyone filled you in on Hollingsworth?" Dana asked.
"Marianne did. Then I went to Sunflower and found out he worked there and had disappeared at the same time you did. I also found your cell phone smashed in the parking lot."
"Right," Dana said. "It turned out that your mother knows George and told me his last name. I was unable to hide my surprise and he realized that I had connected him to the murders"
"Wait a minute" Bruno held up his hand. "My mother knows this murderer?"
"We grew up in the same neighborhood," Angie said defensively. "He wasn't a murderer then, but I knew about the robbery and his girlfriend being killed and he knew I would tell Dana so he came after us. Oh, and I also happened to mention that my son was a homicide detective."
"I was just about to call you when he came out of the vacant store and put a gun to our heads"
"We were putting the groceries in the trunk," Angie added. "I saw Dana grab a can of tomato paste and slip it into her pocket. So, I grabbed a can too. George was too busy smashing Dana's cell phone and waving his gun around to notice." "
"He made us drive out into the country and pull off the road," Dana continued. "He was going to shoot us both and drive off in my car. He grabbed Angie first and put the gun to her head. I pulled out the can of tomato paste and threw it as hard as I could. It hit him in the face and threw him off balance. He dropped the gun and as he dove for it, your mother took out a can of jumbo olives and knocked him out cold."
I saw where you pulled off the road. There was a lot of blood," Bruno told them.
"George's," his mother said. "They took him to the hospital. I think he has a concussion."
"Maybe a fractured skull," Dana added. "Anyway, I got the gun and held it on him, but he was unconscious.
We opened the trunk, transferred the groceries to the backseat and then the two of us picked up George and dragged him to the car and managed to lock him in the trunk"
"Then Dana turned the car around and we drove straight to the police station. And here we are. Good thing it's so cold outside, it will keep the groceries from spoiling"
Bruno looked at the two of them in disbelief. "So George the friendly grocer you are always talking about killed Tony Hunter."
"And John Hunter and Lucas Porter. Remember his fingerprint on the anonymous letter is what made it all fit together."
"Marianne told me he sold real estate in Arizona where they have to be fingerprinted and that's where he became an Arizona Cardinals fan. Louis told me about the witness Bob found and about the salesman at the hardware store who sold him the hammer. Why did he kill Porter?"
"Practice!" Dana and Angie said at the same time. Then they looked at each other and hugged.
Dana and Angie's ordeal made the front page the next morning, with Dana's byline, of course.
The spaghetti dinner took place that night with Casey as an additional guest. As Angie said, the cold air kept the groceries from spoiling. Dana was allowed to assist with the sauce, but mostly she just watched Angie and wrote down everything she did. When Angie started to add a half-handful of sugar to the bubbling mixture, Dana made her stop, got the measuring spoons, and figured out how much that was. Angie was delighted to have someone so interested in her secret recipe.
Once the sauce was simmering, Dana took Casey into the bedroom for a private talk. She told her that the master plan had actually saved her life. If Tony hadn't become so angry about it and pushed her out of the apartment, George would have shot her too.
"I can't believe it," Casey said. "George was such a sweetheart "
Stuart G. Hollingsworth was still in the hospital recovering from his head wound. The police had the gun he used to kill Tony and John, so George confessed to everything, thereby closing three homicide cases and forcing Louis Hildago to drop all the charges against Judy Porter and Teddy Larson.