A Rush to Violence (A Spellman Thriller)

by Christopher Smith

  But it was nothing like the chaos that was unfolding now.

  Listening to the clips, Jennifer became filled with self-doubt. Had she given her husband the best advice to wait twenty-four hours before going through with his plan? Would Camille Miller reveal herself during that time, or were they wasting time because of her advice? And how would it affect her marriage if she was wrong? What if Katie or Beth was murdered? If they were, she’d have blood on her hands. She would have prevented him from doing what he thought was best. As close as they were, their marriage couldn’t sustain such a blow. She knew it couldn’t. They’d drift apart, the wedge of what she urged him to do always between them.

  She went into his office and saw the intensity on his face as he scrutinized the footage. She put the bottle down beside him and put her hand on his back. His arm instinctively reached around her waist and pulled her close to him.

  “Notice anything yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  She looked at the screen. There, in the video viewer, crowds of people were being held back by the police, who were keeping them at bay on the sidewalks. She was on camera, oblivious to much of the pandemonium while she applied powder to her face and told her producer she’d be ready to go live in thirty.

  Not since she was a young journalist had she watched herself like this. She looked intense. Alive. Her concentration was as obvious as it was absolute. She could almost see herself preparing her opening lines. What was the best lead that would hook the viewer and not let them go? There was nothing like the thrill that came from breaking a big story like the one surrounding Kenneth Miller’s bizarre death. Looking at herself now, she thought she was the epitome of that thrill. This is why she loved what she did.

  “How do you stay so calm?” Marty asked. “Listen to those people. It’s as if you don’t hear them.”

  “I hear them. It was insane that day. When we arrived, word already had hit the streets that Miller was dead, but people wanted to know how he died, which created the pandemonium you’re seeing now. That was the question they were asking. How!”

  She sat down in the chair next to him. “Marty, we need to talk.”

  He paused the video so he wouldn’t miss anything. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’ve held you back. I’ve pressured you when I shouldn’t have.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Waiting the twenty-four hours.”

  “You didn’t talk me into anything, Jennifer. You gave me another option and I chose to go with it because I thought it was the best option.”

  She knew him well enough to know that he’d never lie to make her feel better. That’s not how their relationship worked. If either had something to say to each other, they said it. “What if it isn’t?”

  “Then we scrap your plan and use mine. There’s still time for each option to play itself out. It doesn’t have to be twenty-four hours. Something could happen that makes it five hours. We could be out of here in the next thirty minutes or by tomorrow morning. We don’t know. So, let’s focus on this. Unfortunately, after today’s events, you now know what Carr looks like. Take the other thumb drive and scan the crowds on your computer. Find him if he’s there. Because if he’s there, we may have a lead. If he’s not, then the lead might be in the will, whenever that gets here.”

  “It shouldn’t be long now. I told him it was urgent.”

  “Can we agree that urgent should be within the next thirty minutes?”

  She got up from the chair, grabbed the drive and kissed him full on the mouth. “In my world, urgent is twenty,” she said. “If we don’t have it in ten, I’ll call him and light a bonfire under his ass.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “Something’s wrong.”

  It was Gloria Spellman. She looked at her husband, Jack, and then at the Moores, whose faces were bleached by the harsh glare of the light bulb shining in front of them. “Something happened. Somebody fell. Did you hear it?”

  “I heard it,” Barbara Moore said. She kept her voice equally low. She was a middle-aged woman with short, stylish red hair and she owned one of the city’s largest PR firms. She and Gloria had been best friends since their days as undergraduate art students at NYU. “Either somebody fell or some thing fell. I’m not sure which. But something isn’t right.”

  The others agreed. But not Katie. Katie said nothing. Gloria looked down at her youngest daughter and instinctively reached out to squeeze her hand. She was still rocking. Still in her own world. Still looking down at the dirt floor. Still young enough to believe she could become invisible. Gloria leaned down to her ear and said, “It’s going to be all right.”

  But when Katie tilted her head up to her mother, on her face was an unexpected flash of anger. “No, it’s not.”

  Her outburst startled Gloria. “Keep your voice down.”

  “It’s not going to be all right. Don’t lie to me.”

  “Katie, please.”

  Back to the rocking, her fear a cocoon that cloaked her back into silence.

  And then they heard his voice. Thick. Wet. Oddly heavy. “Fucking bitch. You dead fucking bitch.”

  Immediately, Gloria was on her feet. So were the Moores and Jack, but she turned to them, pointed down at Katie and motioned for them to stay with her. Jack shook his head but when Gloria Spellman made up her mind about something, nothing stopped her and he knew it.

  She stepped to the workbench and looked for something she could use to protect herself against him, but all she found was a screwdriver and a stone that had come loose from the foundation and fallen on the bench. It wasn’t perfect, but the stone was heavy in her hand and the screwdriver was long enough to drill through somebody’s eye or gut. Each could do their share of damage.

  Armed, she lifted her head to the ceiling and heard nothing. Where were the other men? Why didn’t they answer his calls earlier? Why didn’t they come? Were they outside? In another part of the house? It didn’t matter now. Sooner rather than later, they’d make their appearance. She needed to get to her daughter before that happened.

  She moved forward into the dark and its welcome concealment. She stretched out her arms in front of her so she wouldn’t bump into anything. Her shoes scuffed on the dirt even though she tried to move forward in silence. She tripped on a rut and righted herself before she fell. Perspiration beaded along her hairline. When she was beyond the staircase, she whispered her daughter’s name into the gloom.

  “Beth?”

  Nothing.

  “Where are you?”

  Silence.

  Did he have her? Was he waiting for her to come closer so he also could grab her? She lifted the stone above her head and felt a chill in spite of the basement’s warm humid air.

  He could be anywhere. She knew it. She could feel it. The very idea of it sent her back years ago, when she was married to Marty and they took their first apartment in the Village. At that point in their lives, they had no money. Nothing but debt, a couple of over-priced degrees, but also a fierce sense of loyalty and love for each other, which is what got them through each day.

  Back then, he was just starting out his investigative work. She was painting in earnest in an effort to get her work shown in galleries, but to no avail. Nobody in the art world took notice of her back then. It wasn’t until two years ago that she found success as a painter and that was because of Jack and the gallery he owned.

  “One day you’ll win,” Marty used to say to her. “Somebody will take notice. You will win in the end, Gloria.” It took her fifteen years to do so and when she did, they were divorced for a second time and she was sharing the thrill of success with her new husband. It was something she thought about often. Marty had encouraged her in the beginning, but Jack was receiving her gratitude now. It seemed wrong to her.

  I need to fix that.

  The floor was uneven, composed of a solid swath of dirt compacted from decades of use. But she was used to it. The basement in their Village apartment was sim
ilar to this.

  Old wiring. The same problems with the floor. The lingering smell of mold and decay and other things that smelled of rot, which she snuffed from her mind. It was the place where they stored their junk and the place that frightened her most because she always thought she’d come upon someone down there. Sometimes, just walking down those creaky wooden steps off the kitchen felt like she was taking her life in her hands, even if she did have a flashlight and knew that at least on some level, she was being paranoid.

  But not entirely so. The neighborhood they lived in was sketchy. Drug addicts, crime, the occasional rape and murder, but also many young people not unlike her and Marty who were just starting out and had no choice but to live there until they could afford to live elsewhere. It certainly wasn’t the Village of today. Before Giuliani gave the city its unfortunate scrubbing and removed much of its interest in the process, the Village was dark and edgy. She felt safe during the day. But on a night like tonight, especially if she was alone because Marty was lucky enough to land a job? She felt that anything could happen.

  She stopped for a moment and heard what sounded like something stirring in the dirt.

  “Beth?”

  “Don’t come closer.”

  It was her daughter, but she couldn’t see her. Her eyes hadn’t adjusted to the darkness.

  “Step to your left. Away from him.”

  Gloria did so. She heard something turn in the dirt and took another step to the side. “I can’t see anything.”

  “I can. I can see everything now.”

  She’d never heard her daughter sound as cold or as detached as she sounded now and it gave her a chill.

  Above them, footsteps moved across the floor. There was the faint sound of a door slamming shut and then more footsteps.

  “We need to hurry,” Gloria whispered. “Wherever they went, they’re back.”

  “I hear them.”

  “What are you doing? What have you done?”

  “I tried to hit him in the head, but instead I punched a hole through his back. He’s drowning now. His lungs are flooding with blood.”

  “What did you hit him with?”

  “With the hammer I took from the bench. I faked him out with a cramp. He bought it. I grabbed the hammer and when he was close enough, I swung it at him.”

  None of it made sense to Gloria—how had Beth known there was a hammer on the bench? She must have been able to see it. Or did she just hope something was on it, which was worse? It didn’t matter now. They didn’t have long. The men were upstairs and they needed to move.

  “We need to get out of here,” she said. “Eventually, they’ll check on us.”

  “At your feet is his rifle. Take it.”

  Gloria reached down and felt blindly for the gun. When she touched the sole of the man’s boot, she recoiled.

  The movement roused him. “Get the—” he said. “You get—”

  “Just to your right,” Beth said. “There. That’s it. Take it.”

  Gloria dropped the rock and the screwdriver, and picked up the rifle. It was cold and heavy and felt clumsy to her. Once, a few weeks after they moved into the Village apartment, she asked Marty to show her how to use a gun so she could defend herself. He took her to a field in upstate New York and not only taught her how to shoot, but also how to use the gun as a weapon even if it was empty. By the time they left, she could shoot reasonably well, but what she also learned was how to pistol whip the hell out of somebody if she had to.

  Unfortunately, that was years ago and he never showed her how to use a rifle. Why would he? He bought her a small handgun he lovingly called her “pepperbox.” It had a pearl handle and was so petite, it was designed so it wouldn’t intimidate her. But this? This intimidated the hell out of her. This was madness. She maneuvered the rifle in her hands, felt for the trigger, found it, but knew that beyond the point-and-shoot basics of how to fire a gun, she didn’t know how to use this thing. She was felt fairly certain that Jack and the Moores wouldn’t know how to use it either. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to finish him off.”

  And then Beth did.

  Before Gloria could speak, she felt a sudden stir in the air around her. She saw motion in the darkness, a rush of something whoosh past her face and drill down toward the floor. She heard the sound of bones breaking. She heard the cushiony sound of something soft and wet being destroyed. She expected the man to shout out in pain or cry for help but his only response came from his legs, which kicked out in front of him and lifted dirt off the floor as her daughter continued to strike blows upon him until he stopped moving.

  More footsteps above them. The muffled sounds of men talking, somebody laughing.

  “Come on,” Beth said. “I need your help. Grab his arm.”

  “Why?”

  “Just do it.”

  “Why would I grab his arm? You’ve killed him. They’ll know.”

  “You wanted him alive? Get over yourself and help me.”

  “To what end?”

  “He’s dead now. He can’t hurt us. So, get down here and help me. I can’t do this alone. Before one of those bastards decides to check on us, which they will, we need to get him back in that chair.”

  * * *

  He was heavier than he looked. All muscle. A body made of lead. But not steel. Her daughter had proved that. She broke straight through him.

  They pulled him across the dirt floor, toward the light, but it was difficult. Gloria was hampered by the rifle. With each step, the length of it slapped against her thigh. She pulled when Beth pulled. She listened between steps. She tried to focus, but it was difficult. She was overwhelmed by the murder. Shaken by it and undone by it. She didn’t know who her daughter was anymore. Nothing about Beth’s life leading up to this point had given Gloria a clue that she was capable of such an act.

  But she was. She planned all of it while the rest of them sat there wondering how to go forward. She was only fifteen years old, yet she deceived him with an expert’s finesse. She didn’t know whether to feel proud of her daughter or terrified of her because what she did was as skilled as it was reckless.

  At some point, someone would discover that they murdered this man. And then what? She had a rifle, but she didn’t know how to use it. The men upstairs were skilled with guns. Once they found him dead, she knew they’d use those guns. Likely not on all of them because they needed to keep at least some of them alive. But they’d choose someone as an example of what happens when you go after one of their own. One or more of them would die for this. She knew that. But who? Her daughters? She’d ask them to take her first.

  They were approaching the staircase. Fifteen feet beyond it, she could see Jack, the Moores and Katie, all of whom now were standing and watching them emerge from the dark.

  At first, they looked confused. But the moment they came into the light, a sting of surprise flashed upon their faces when they saw what she and Beth were dragging.

  Jack and Brian Moore quickly and quietly came forward to help. They moved behind Beth and Gloria and lifted the man’s feet. In a low voice, Jack said, “Gun. Calf strap. Mine now.”

  Above them, they heard a door swing shut and a man’s voice ask where the rest of the coffee was. Were they out of it? The question prompted movement. Footsteps fell across the floor as cupboard doors were opened and closed. How many were they? Three? Four? Gloria couldn’t tell. Sounded like four. She prayed to God it was three.

  “Bring him to the chair,” Beth whispered.

  “Why the chair?” Brian Moore asked.

  “My plan didn’t end with killing him,” she said. “The chair. Now.”

  “You’ve got a plan?”

  They moved past the staircase. But as they did so, a hand fell on the doorknob above them. Gloria looked left and saw the door at the top of the staircase start to open. Light shone down the stairs. A young man with brown hair and a beard stood at the top of them, but he wasn’t looking at them. He w
as looking into the kitchen they ushered them through earlier.

  “Try the pantry,” he said to the man he was talking to earlier. “If there’s none in there, you’ll need to go out and get some.”

  They were beyond him and the stairs when he said that. They moved as quietly as they could to the chair.

  “Where am I getting coffee at this hour?”

  Beth motioned for Barbara Moore to move the chair back, so it wasn’t directly beneath the light bulb. They eased the man into it and when they did, the horror of what Beth did to him was there for all to see.

  His skull was smashed. His face looked as if someone had yanked it inward and then punched it outward. He had bled out onto his clothes, but his clothes belonged to somebody who didn’t want to be noticed at night—black T-shirt, black pants, black shoes. They didn’t show the stains. She glanced at her daughter, who was moving the man’s head so it tilted back, and she began to see what she had in mind.

  A footstep on the stairs.

  “There’s a store two blocks south.”

  “Where the hell is south? You know I’m not from here.”

  “Do I have to drive you? Figure it out or forget the coffee.”

  “We’ll be here all night. We need the coffee.”

  “Then go get the coffee.”

  While the men argued, Beth took the dead man’s feet and crossed them so it looked as if he was sitting casually. She placed the only hand of his that wasn’t speckled with blood and put it on the armrest. With the chair moved back, his ruined face now was out of the light and in shadow. If someone came down the stairs to check on them, they’d see his legs and his hand, but not his face. They’d also see them looking frightened against the wall across from him. On the off chance that the man at the top of the stairs was just planning a quick visual check, they might be safe.