by Jason Pinter
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Of course not. Glad to see you understand. If Wallace asks—which he will—tell him exactly what you told me.”
“I will.”
“And Henry,” Jack said, his eyes growing soft. I’d never seen the man show a tender side, and it unnerved me. “I want you to know I’m sorry about Amanda and Mya. I know I said some things a while back, I don’t know how much you actually listened to and how much you passed off as the loony ramblings of an old idiot, but everyone lives their life differently. I never found the same kind of happiness a lot of others have, but that doesn’t mean what I did is the right way to live.”
“Right or wrong, you made a career to be proud of.”
A small choking sound came from Jack’s chest.
He said, “You know what I consider the best story I ever wrote, Henry?”
“It wasn’t Michael DiForio?”
Jack laughed. “No offense to the guy who tried to rub you out, but not even close. No, it was February third, 1987. Not just because that’s the day Liberace died—not a lot of people paying attention to human interest stories that day—but I wrote a piece about a woman in Nebraska who’d lost her husband to cancer and her son to a carjacking. Childless and widowed at forty-one. She’d never worked a day in her life, and suddenly decided to join the police force, and became a cadet on her forty-second birthday. Her name was Patti Ramona, and I remember she told me that if she saved just one life doing her job, if she prevented one family from going through what she went through, then their deaths wouldn’t sting so much.”
Jack coughed into his hand.
“A week after the article came out, I got a letter from a man in Idaho, Robert something, his name escapes me. Robert had lost his wife and daughter and had been dying of loneliness for a decade. Robert told me the moment he finished reading my story he went out and became a volunteer firefighter. He said thanks to Patti he knew his life could still have a purpose. You see what I’m saying, Henry? You don’t need a whole city to remember you. If you make your mark on just one person, change one life for the better, that’s the noblest thing you can ever do. It’s easy to be a celebrity. It’s harder to actually mean something.”
He clapped me on the shoulder and left without saying another word. I watched him turn the corner and disappear. And then I was alone.
Sitting at my desk, my mind was blank. I didn’t know what to write about. I stared down at the paper Jack had left on my desk. My phone was silent. E-mail inbox empty. I had a sudden and terrible feeling of déjà vu, remembering walking the streets of Manhattan after Mya had been attacked a year ago. Getting drunk and hoping the needle in a haystack would cross my path. I remembered the anger and sadness, a dangerously potent mixture. I felt that way now.
It was easier when there was a story. Something to focus on, something to prevent my mind from wandering. But right now all I could focus on was that emptiness. And hope it didn’t consume me.
And suddenly everything changed.
I saw Wallace running from his office down the hall. Evelyn followed from Metro, her short legs having trouble keeping up. Then two more got up and ran after them. Frank Rourke ran past my desk. I grabbed his shirtsleeve.
“What’s going on? Where’s everybody running to?”
“Anonymous tip just came in, there’s a hostage situation going down. Some maniac took a girl.”
“Where?” I asked.
“Downtown,” he said. “199 Water Street.” Then he ran off.
I couldn’t breathe. 199 Water Street. That building housed the New York Legal Aid Society. Where Amanda worked.
But the stringers…there was no police activity. Yet everyone at the news desk knew about it. What the hell was happening?
My heart racing, I picked up the phone and dialed Curt Sheffield’s cell phone. He picked up, said, “This is Sheffield.”
“Curt, it’s Henry. Have you heard anything about a hostage situation down on Water Street?”
“That’s a negative, nothing’s come over the radio, and I’m downtown right now so I would’ve heard something. Why, what’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Somebody called in an anonymous tip about a hostage in the building where Amanda works. But if it hasn’t been reported to the cops yet…I’ll call you back.”
I hung up, dialed Amanda’s number at the office. We hadn’t spoken in days. I didn’t know how she’d sound, what to expect, but I needed to know what was happening, that she was all right.
I regained my breath when the line picked up and I heard Amanda’s voice say, “New York Legal Aid Society, this is Amanda.”
“Amanda, it’s me.”
“Henry…hi…”
“Listen, is everything okay over there?”
“Of course it is, what do you mean?”
“Are you in trouble? Have you seen or heard anything strange?”
“Other than your calling me just now, I was having a pretty uneventful day.”
“Thank God.”
“Thank God I was having an uneventful day?”
“No, not that at all, I…well, yeah…I’m just glad you’re safe.”
“Safe? Why wouldn’t I be? If there’s something I should know—”
And that’s when I heard a woman scream over the phone, followed by a gunshot so loud it rattled my teeth. I recognized that sound. I’d heard it this week. It was the sound of a Winchester rifle. William Henry Roberts was in Amanda’s office.
“Amanda? Amanda! What’s happening?”
“Oh God, Henry, there’s someone here—help us!”
The line went dead.
I leapt up, heart hammering. I had to get down there. Everyone was piling out the door, going to the scene of the crime.
And then it hit me, just what he’d done.
He called us. William Roberts.
You write about history. I am history.
CHAPTER 55
At first Amanda thought that the sound of shattering glass came from outside. A construction crew had been tearing up the building across the street for what seemed like a decade, and anything more than a dropped pen in their office was cause for excitement. But then she recognized Darcy’s high-pitched voice as she screamed for help, and Amanda knew that whatever was happening was happening terrifyingly close.
Then she heard the gunshot, a blast so loud it seemed to shatter the air, and for a moment she heard nothing but ringing in her ears. When her hearing returned, Amanda heard Henry on the line.
“Amanda? Amanda, what’s happening?”
She didn’t know what she said next, or if she said anything at all, but suddenly Amanda was scrambling away from her desk, trying to bide her time while figuring out what the hell was going on.
She crouched down, surveyed the office.
Their suite housed three shared offices and one large conference room, as well as a smaller waiting room by the elevator. The waiting room door was made of glass. The others were metal. She immediately knew that the breaking glass was the sound of somebody crashing through the waiting room door.
She wondered how he’d gotten past the security guard downstairs—waited until he’d gone on break? Or something more horrible?
Oh God…
She heard another scream, someone yelled, “Get away from me!” and then Amanda heard a loud thud like something heavy had hit the floor.
She saw Phil the intern run past her muttering, “Sweet Jesus, sweet Jesus,” over and over again. Amanda still couldn’t see what was happening, but if praying to Jesus or any other deity meant she’d make it out of the building alive she’d happily renew her faith in the Lord.
Crawling on all fours, Amanda moved past her desk until she was next to the door to the conference room. She peered up, looked through the small window pane. She gasped when she saw what was happening inside.
Violet Lawrence was lying on the floor, facedown. Amanda recognized the purple sports
jacket she’d complimented her on just that morning. She couldn’t see anything else, couldn’t see Violet’s face. But she heard a small moan, and that meant at least she was alive.
Nobody else was running. The office had grown deathly silent. The watercooler gurgled. Then she saw the man walk into the room, and Amanda froze.
He was tall, maybe six one or two, lean with short blond hair. He was wearing a suit, the sleeves rolled up, sweat beading through the fabric. His face was tan, eyes wild yet focused.
He was holding a gun. No, not a gun, a cannon. And immediately she remembered their meeting with Agnes Trimble, the image her professor showed them. The one Henry was captivated by.
The Winchester rifle.
That’s what he was holding. The man in their office had killed four people. Killed his family, all in cold blood. What the hell was he doing here?
Another woman ran past, screaming. The boy—William, the papers had called him—grabbed her by the ponytail. She let out a shriek. He spun her toward him. Amanda could see the veins and muscles in his forearms. The woman was crying, blubbering, tears streaking her mascara. Then he suddenly let her go, pushed her toward the doorway. She disappeared and Amanda heard the familiar chime of the elevator call button.
He let her go.
The man was standing in the middle of the room. He was holding the rifle by his side. She could see no other movement. William scanned the room, quickly crouched down to see if anyone was hiding under a desk, then stood back up.
“Amanda,” he said. Her blood ran cold. “Amanda Davies.”
It wasn’t phrased as a question. He said her name the same way Henry did when he got home from work. Said it like he knew she was there and couldn’t wait to see her.
“Amanda,” he said, holding his arms out wide, the rifle barrel pointing at the ceiling. “I’ve been wanting to meet you for a long time. Don’t keep a friend waiting.”
She knelt, silent, hoped he would search the other offices, turn his back so she could make a run for it. Her heart felt like it was ready to burst through her blouse, she could feel sweat dripping down her sides.
“Henry and me, we bonded the other day.” She heard footsteps, looked up, saw he was moving through the office. “Like brothers from different mothers, we might have been. Every yin needs a yang, every bad penny needs a good one to even things out. He’s my bad penny.”
The footsteps grew closer and Amanda dropped back to the ground. She scuttled behind her desk, crawled underneath and curled her knees to her chest. She bit her lip to keep it from trembling. She was too scared to cry.
Roberts moved closer. She heard a squeak as the doorknob turned. Suddenly she heard a bump come from the other office, and the knob stopped turning. The footsteps grew fainter.
Amanda crawled back to the door, looked up just in time to see Roberts disappear into the conference room.
“Where’s Amanda?” she heard him say. There came a wheezy response from a male voice—she recognized Phil, the intern. Poor Phil had only been here a week. She hoped he was making a killer stipend.
Amanda brought her hand up to the doorknob, slowly it turned until it stopped. Looking up, she saw that the adjacent office was empty. Slowly she eased the door open just enough to fit her slim body through. She eased the door shut. The stairwell was less than twenty feet away. She could make it. There were still noises coming from the other room. Now or never.
She crawled along the wall, keeping her eyes on the other office where Roberts had entered. Saw William’s black shoes pointing away from the door. She took it a step at a time, taking deep, slow breaths to slow her heart rate. Twenty feet. Eighteen. Fifteen. She was past the door, closer to the exit than Roberts. She slowly stood up. Took one more step. Peeked around, braced herself, planted her feet to sprint away.
Just as she took her first step, she felt a sharp pain as a hand gripped her hair and spun her around.
Her breath caught in her throat as Amanda looked into the grinning face and wild eyes of William Roberts.
She couldn’t fight back. His hand was on her neck. The Winchester was slung over his neck. And in his other hand was a knife nearly half a foot long, a streak of glistening red blood on the blade.
“Miss Davies,” he said, his voice metallic and calm. “If you’ll please join me.”
“Wh…what do you mean? Where?”
“Somewhere a little, oh, scenic. The last girl, Mya, sad to say she’s probably going to make it.” He smiled at her. Then he said, “Problem is, I didn’t drop her from nearly high enough. That’s a mistake that won’t happen again.”
CHAPTER 56
I shared a cab with Jack. My legs were jittery as I kept redialing Amanda’s number on my cell phone. It went right to voice mail every time. I called 911. Tried to figure out what the hell was going on. I got the feeling from the exasperated woman on the other end that I wasn’t nearly the first to call it in. I hung up without learning anything.
I called Curt Sheffield, praying there was some sort of mistake. His voice instantly told me the situation was worse than I imagined.
“Dude, 911 got about a hundred calls in a three-minute span,” he said, his voice breathless and uneven. “All from newspapers and television stations. The NYPD has a freaking battalion on our way down there, but man, they’re going to be a few minutes, the choppers say there’s already a few dozen reporters at the scene. Somehow you guys at the news desks got wind of this before the cops did. Listen, Carruthers is on the rampage. I’ll call you soon as I know anything.”
Curt hung up.
“What’d he say?” Jack asked. His voice was scared, his breath slightly sour.
“Nothing we don’t know,” I said. “But it seems like the news crews got tipped off somehow before the NYPD. There might be a few reporters down there already.”
The cab rounded the corner, arrived at 199 Water Street. Or at least got as close as it could. Because when we saw the crowd in front of the building, both of our jaws dropped.
Jack said, “I have a small quibble with your definition of the word ‘few.’”
Surrounding the building’s entrance were at least a hundred reporters and a dozen news vans. They lined the street like a cattle drive stuck in Neutral.
“What the…” Jack said.
“Hell…” I finished.
Dozens of sports-jacketed journos were in the middle of writing copy while news correspondents were already being primped for their on-camera reporting. Cameramen were pushing and shoving, jockeying for the best lighting to both hide their stars’ blemishes and capture the best angle of the building behind them. It was an unmitigated madhouse.
And there wasn’t a cop in sight.
“This has to be a mistake,” Jack said. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“No way,” I said. “This is no mistake.”
Looking at the building, I could see several confused people staring out their office windows down at the gathering outside, oblivious to what was going on just a few floors above or below them. And in the time I took to assess the situation, three more news vans pulled up, five more nattily dressed reporters piled out, followed by several burly not-as-nattily-dressed cameramen. They all joined the horde and began applying makeup.
There were no cops anywhere to be seen.
Roberts.
He couldn’t have taken the office more than twenty minutes ago. That’s when I spoke to Amanda. That’s the last I heard from her.
“Crazy son of a bitch,” I said. “Roberts tipped off the press before hitting Water Street. Only a sick fuck would call the press prior to a crime he intended to commit. He called the press so they’d show up before the cops. He wanted it like this.”
“This isn’t just one newspaper,” Jack said. “I think everyone who’s ever held a press badge is here. Informing a thousand reporters about a hostage situation in New York is like throwing a slab of rancid meat into an ant farm.”
Roberts wanted the press t
o have the kind of unimpeded access cops would normally prevent. Right now, the news crews were free to roam. There was no yellow tape, nobody holding the crowd back, no gruff detectives or crisis management teams giving inconvenient “no comments.”
This was the very definition of a free press.
A reporter wearing a two-thousand-dollar suit and fiberglass hair walked up to the main entrance, cupped his hands and peered inside. He cocked his head, turned back and shouted, “Jesus, I think I see someone lying down behind the security desk. I think I see blood, I think the security guard is dead.” He turned to the cameraman. “You think we should go inside?”
His cameraman, six-four with a body that looked like it was fueled at the local Krispy Kreme, carried the camera over to him. He glared inside.
“Why not? Let me get a light reading, make sure this thing will transmit.”
Suddenly I was sprinting over to the entrance. I shoved fiberglass hair against the side of the building and pressed my forearm into his chest.
He struggled, tried to pry my arm away, yelped, “Get the hell off me!”
“Goddamn it, you don’t know who’s watching. If you so much as touch those door handles I’m going to break them off and strangle you with them.”
He could see in my eyes I wasn’t kidding. He relaxed. So did I. He smoothed out his jacket, told the cameraman, “We’re good out here.” Then he turned to me. “I had a great spot out front. If someone steals it I’ll have your ass.”
“You’ll have to try it with broken arms. Look, there’s a nice spot, go set up. Get away from here.”
He walked away. Then I turned back to the building. That’s when I heard the first siren. I could see the reflection in the doorway as half a dozen squad cars pulled up and a phalanx of uniformed officers filed out. Radios came out as the first cops to arrive called in reports. They circled the building’s entrance.
One cop came closer. I heard him say, “We don’t know what floor they’re on.”