“Yes, but you would have kicked his balls off.”
“Me?” I asked.
“Yes, Sonny, you!” She smiled. “Don’t ever underestimate yourself. I know your heart. It’s big!” She added softly, “Real big.”
“Thanks.” I smiled.
“Bigger than your ass!” she laughed loudly. “I knew you would have stopped Billy cold. You never would have allowed him to harm me.”
I thought about what Miss Lolita said. I was never a tough guy or a great fighter as a youngster. But I do think that if Billy had gotten any closer, I might have lunged at him to protect Lolita. Would it have been suicide? Yes. But there comes a time in one’s life when you do the seemingly impossible. It may only take a few seconds, but those seconds could save a life, even if it means losing one’s own life in a miscalculated move.
I hoped I would never be faced with that kind of life-threatening decision ever again. Graham did make that life-or-death decision to lunge at Billy Blaine. It could have ended very badly for Graham. If Billy had suddenly heard Graham and quickly turned, Graham very possibly would have been stabbed to death.
It was a pisser, though, how Miss Lolita got all nervy with Billy Blaine, mouthing off at him and berating him while he held a large knife! I find that many older people speak their minds. And if I were 110 years old, I might have done the same thing. In reality, it’s usually not smart to piss off someone who is prepared to kill you.
But then again, Miss Lolita was very wise, and maybe she knew something about Billy’s personality. Maybe he didn’t have the balls to slice someone up, especially a little old lady who could have been his grandmother. Billy clearly wasn’t working alone. We needed to know more about him, particularly where he was from and who he was working with.
Was it all about the Hagerstown murders of ninety years back? Could someone actually still care about something that happened so long ago? What was the motive, the gain? Why even take such a risk? And more importantly, was Billy going to talk? Or would he try to protect whoever else was involved?
“Graham!” I finally voiced my surprise. “What the hell? How did you ever . . . ?”
“Louie, Louie, Louie. You know I love you, man!” He smiled then gave me the bear hug of a mountain man. “That Harold Glavin is the boss from hell, Lou. You know that. Well, when you were being evasive and not returning his and Gloria’s calls, he flipped out. He called me into his office every two hours to interrogate me about you and what I knew from our conversations. Of course, I knew very little about your Hagerstown troubles. So he kept getting updates from the Hagerstown police captain, Joel Krolm. That’s when he sent me this morning to trail you and report to him. He, of course, used the new camera as an excuse.”
“Camera . . . ?”
“Yeah, the newspaper just purchased a mega-camera, very high-definition. He wants me to take some good shots of Lolita and the nursing home.”
“But . . . you attacked a killer! Are you insane, buddy?” I exclaimed.
“Dude, you know I have training.”
“Yeah, in making babies?”
“Knucklehead, I am trained in Tae Kwon Do. I’m a black belt. You knew that, didn’t you?”
“Man, I don’t remember. But you sure do know how to take someone down!”
“Damn straight, buddy. It has to do more with discipline than anything else. But if threatened, I can be deadly within a split second.”
“Damn! I gotta remember that, man!”
“Well, I’ve got to run right now. I have to give the boss a full report or he’ll fire my black ass!”
We said we would catch up on everything later that night over dinner, and he took off.
Shortly thereafter, Sergeant Pawler’s backup arrived, and they took Billy Blaine, handcuffed and shackled, straight to jail.
A few officers stood guard at the nursing home, and one watched over Miss Lolita, who was in her glory. She wanted to know all about the young officer and his family, and, amazingly, she was already giving words of inspiration to the impressionable officer.
Twenty minutes elapsed while I tried to settle down. Jeremy Roberts and I spoke about the attack and poisoning incident. Mary was responding well to the medication at the hospital. It seems Sergeant Pawler had deduced immediately that it was the same thallium poison used on me, so the hospital had been ready for her as soon as she arrived by ambulance.
Roberts was stunned at the terror that one person could perform in a couple days’ time.
“This town never has this much action. Someone clearly was very scared,” he said. “Your boss called me about ten minutes ago for an update. He was very agitated.”
“Harold’s always agitated. He can’t act any other way. He is always pissed off at me in particular.”
“Yes, he had some choice words when your name came up.” He chuckled at the memory and shook his head.
“It’s a job, you know?” I said.
“Yes. Well, Lou, do you have enough for a story so far?”
“Mr. Roberts, I have enough for a couple of books. There is so much depth to Miss Lolita alone. Then there are the 1923 murders and the history of it all. And then we have the violent outbreak from Billy Blaine and whoever hired him, because we all know Billy wasn’t acting alone in his reign of terror.”
“Do you think we will ever have closure to those terrible murders? Though it was so long ago, those girls’ deaths still hang over this town like a heavy storm cloud.”
“Yes, Mr. Roberts, I do believe that we will have some answers to this investigation now that Billy Blaine has finally been apprehended. Blaine could lead us to the ringleader who hired him. Blaine is no doubt a two-bit criminal who isn’t capable of masterminding and inflicting all this terror by himself. Blaine is the key, though. The authorities will wear him down and get to his connections.”
Mr. Roberts excused himself for some official business.
A couple of minutes later, Felicia came back into the large room. Her face was ashen and she was clearly shaking. We hugged quickly but tightly.
“She almost died!” Felicia said about Mary. “That creep poisoned an innocent person.”
“It was a brilliant diversion,” I said. “He put the emphasis on the fallen victim in the kitchen, a real emergency situation. This gave Billy Blaine free rein, without Sergeant Pawler on the scene, to try to kill us. Thank God for Graham.”
“I know,” she agreed. “I was introduced to your friend as he was talking with the authorities in the kitchen. He’s a great friend!”
“Graham is one of a kind. But I was shocked, I will admit, that he was capable of swooping in and taking down Blaine. We are taking Graham out for a fancy dinner tonight, Felicia.”
“I’m right there with you!” she said with a warm smiled. “He saved you and Miss Lolita. He really is a special hero.”
Miss Lolita called me over and asked me to come real close. I could see the hues of her old, brown eyes. I was used to the routine now. Miss Lolita needed to see me close up. She wanted to tell me something important—very important.
“You know, Sonny, I feel even closer to you now. We both were the target of an elaborate murder plan. We very well could have be dead if that Billy Blaine had succeeded. I’m an old woman, I will admit it, and I am not afraid to meet my Maker. I have some ideas I’d like to share with God about earth and some improvements I’d like to see here, mostly about global warming and that thallium poison, which is one doozy of a killer.” She smiled a big smile. “When I get up there, though, I will surely put in a good word for you two,” she said, gesturing between Felicia and me. “Now, you know that from time to time I have these strange visions. Well, Sonny, I will admit that right before I met you that very first time, I had a vision of Felicia and you walking hand in hand on a white, sandy beach and happier than ever. I also envisioned you both with a long, healthy life and blessed with children.”
“So you knew that I’d fall for this beautiful woman?”
“Of course! Besides beauty, she’s an angel, unmatched by anyone.”
Felicia smiled shyly as she said, “I love you, Miss Lolita. You are my guardian angel.”
“Now, Sonny, get real close, and put your ears up high for what I’m about to tell you,” she said with a serious tone. “I’m going to only speak about this once. Got those ears up high?” She laughed.
“They’re sticking straight up for you!” I said. “Shoot.”
“Well, I didn’t want to talk about the 1923 murders. And honestly, I thought they would go unsolved forever. But Billy may help in the investigation. So, here goes: My visions throughout the past ninety years have been consistent: the lion’s head, which is actually a ring; the dead girls, all bringing me to a cross. But, after many years, the visions changed to a cemetery where the cross was located. And then there were those bricks, old chipped bricks. And, oh, yes, a serrated type of butcher’s knife used in the murders. Sonny, if you follow all the leads I see, you will be able to get to the bottom of what happened ninety years ago. Now, I told you that I didn’t want to go back to those days again, so I will just leave it there. Now, don’t you go messing around with me and ask me any questions, or I’ll chase you down the hallways here with my killer wheelchair. I’ll run your ass right out of town if you don’t behave yourself!” She laughed, but then she started to cough.
“You tell him, Miss Lolita,” Felicia said with a happy laugh. She enjoyed toying with me.
Miss Lolita was clearly troubled about her recollection of the visions about the murders. So I didn’t bother to tell her about the visions I’d had. I didn’t want to tell her that mine were very similar to hers. I didn’t want to tell anyone, really. I wasn’t sure why, but maybe I was scared that people would think I was half a nut if I started to recount the details of my visions to everyone.
Miss Lolita could give me no additional help at the moment, so why disturb her any further? After all, we had had enough excitement for the day.
Later, Graham shared with me how he was able to take Billy Blaine down so easily. He said it’s called a roundhouse kick—meaning that he snuck up behind Billy, spun around, and kicked a martial arts kick to the back of both of Billy’s legs. This move basically caves in the legs, and automatically, the arms go up in the air as the body collapses. Once the arm with the knife was straight up in the air, Graham grabbed it, twisted the hand, and pulled the arm quickly behind Billy’s back. The knife fell out of Billy’s hand as Graham broke or dislocated Billy’s shoulder, causing a great deal of pain. It was brilliant.
As Graham explained it—and as I had witnessed—it all goes down in a split second. It takes a great deal of practice and conditioning of body and mind. But you basically go on automatic pilot as a result of years of practice. The average person has no defense against the moves of a black-belt martial arts student. The only thing that would scare me, I thought, was if the assailant had a gun. There is no guarantee when a gun is in the mix.
Officer Robert Cianci, whom I had met during my first hospital stay, came up to me in the recreation room. Quietly, he said, “Captain Krolm needs you to pick Billy out of a lineup at the precinct. I have been instructed to bring you in. You ready to go, buddy?”
The officer was young and tall, good-looking in his uniform and so much nicer in demeanor than Sergeant Pawler. Maybe it was because the young officer was so new and Pawler had been in the street for years. Maybe the years harden an officer.
“Okay, I guess I can go. I’m finished here for the time being.”
I reminded Felicia that we would head to the Italian restaurant at around eight, and I would call Graham’s cell phone.
The precinct was quiet at 3:30 p.m., when Officer Cianci and I walked into Captain Krolm’s office.
The captain motioned for me to sit and for Officer Cianci to give us some privacy and close the door behind him.
“Well, I told you this wouldn’t turn out good, my young Washington reporter.”
“Captain, will Mary okay?”
“She will be fine. Sergeant Pawler was quick on the scene and recognized the symptoms of the thallium poison. We called ahead and prepared the hospital for her arrival. She’ll be there a few days. She’s not as strong as you are, but she is fortunate to be alive.
“This whole thing could have been quite deadly,” Captain Krolm continued. “This Blaine character had it planned quite well, with the attention going to the kitchen. You realize you should be dead, don’t you?”
“I don’t feel all that alive right now, Captain.” I smiled weakly.
“Yeah, well, I did warn you it was not going to turn out well. But I need you to pick Blaine out of a lineup. Just routine, you know. Then I can fill you in a little about the case.”
The lineup contained six men, mostly young, some unshaven and unkempt. Billy was easy to pick out: he was the long-haired, straggly, dirty-looking person with a nasty smirk on his face. He knew that he was dead in the water and would probably do ten years in prison. What a waste of a life, I thought. Add ten wasted years to his current age, then release Blaine after all that time locked up, and hope that he will find a real job and become a good citizen. He would most likely wind up in jail again.
Out of all the men in the lineup, Billy Blaine looked like a real thug, a hardened criminal. The others were probably undercover and off-duty officers. So even if I had forgotten that ugly mug of a face, I still would have picked Billy for the sinister look he in his eyes.
Even though I was behind protective glass, I quickly chose Billy. I felt as if he could see right through the glass and was looking me in the eyes and saying to me, “I’ll be outta here soon, and I’m coming to get you.” It is quite scary to look at someone who wants you dead so badly that he will risk everything and everyone around you just to kill you. I was glad to be escorted back into Captain Krolm’s private office. I felt safe there. But I also remembered what Billy Blaine had done the previous time I had been here, when he shot up the precinct and an officer to boot.
Life is strange. You can walk down a street and pass a thousand people, and no one even notices you. Then one day, out of the blue, a stranger wants to kill you and won’t stop trying until he succeeds. You never think of your life ending that way. You always envision becoming old and decrepit, dying slowly after many years. It really does shed new light on how valuable a life is.
The captain was happy that I had picked Billy out of the lineup. Some people get nervous and choose the wrong person. Others choose incorrectly seemingly on purpose, possibly out of fear of retribution one day.
“Now that Billy is going to jail,” the captain began, “we can discuss the investigation with you.”
“I knew he was no good when I first saw him at the gas station.”
“Well, let’s set the record straight.” He glared at me. “You were always the target right from the beginning. The gas station shooting was a warning that you never recognized. Someone hired Billy to kill you for sure.”
“Did Billy talk?”
“He clammed up so tight it’s a wonder he still could breathe. He is a tough cookie; very hard to crack. He knows that no matter what he tells us, he will have to do at least ten to twenty years’ hard time. So he isn’t going to sing for anyone.”
“What can we do?”
“Well, we did discover evidence of his staying in the basement of Millie’s Diner. We confiscated phone numbers, receipts, and a set of keys we will try to match up to the diner’s basement door.”
“That son of a bitch, Sy!” I exclaimed.
“This job surprises and shocks me every so often. Sy is the last person we ever would have suspected. He is a pillar of the community, the son and grandson of preachers from the oldest church in Maryland. So, you see my disbelief that he could possibly be involved.”
“Something about him bugs me.”
“Well, we will be getting a search warrant for Sy’s home and his business in a few hours. You are welcome to come with us tonigh
t. We also will be picking up Sy for questioning, but I’ve pushed that off too, until right after midnight. I am assigning officers to protect you and Lolita, as well as guarding all entrances of the hotel you are staying at and the perimeter of the nursing home.”
“Captain, I’m exhausted, and I will be meeting my friend Graham for a celebration dinner tonight. Can I meet with you first thing in the morning to go over any new evidence?”
“Okay, that will be fine,” he said.
“I do have a couple of ideas I want to run by you in the morning, based on what your detectives discover tonight,” I added.
“Sure, we’ll meet here in the morning. By the way, I had an interesting conversation with your boss. He’s madder than a wounded bull. You ignored his phone calls?”
“I didn’t want him to shut me down. I felt like I was getting closer to some answers to some questions I had, and he . . . .”
“Yeah? Well, you were getting real close to the unemployment lines, buddy. He said that he had every intention of firing you and squashing the assignment tonight. That was until the old lady, Lolita placed a call to him. Whatever that old lady said to him completely changed his mind. I heard she doesn’t hold anything back.”
“Miss Lolita? She’ll tell you to go crap in your hat if she wants to. And who could blame her at a hundred and ten years old? She even told Billy Blaine that he had no balls, and this was while he was pointing the knife at us. She is a real special person, and smart as a whip.”
“Well, whatever she said to that hothead, it must have worked. I didn’t add any wood to that fire. I told him that you were diligent in your job and kept your nose clean. He wanted to know if you were drinking too much.”
“Drinking? Who has time for a drink? I’ve forgotten what alcohol tastes like, though I feel I could finish off a bottle or two right now.”
“Don’t make a liar out of me, or I’ll lock you up with Billy in the same cell!”
“Okay, Captain.” I smiled.
“You just can’t let go of those 1923 murders, can you? You realize that everyone who could have anything to do with those murders is dead, don’t you?”
Defying Death in Hagerstown Page 16