by Tom Fowler
“Positive,” I said.
I felt her looking at me, so I tried to give Gloria a reassuring face. Her brown eyes stared into mine. I have never found brown eyes interesting, but Gloria’s had a depth to them others lacked. A darker hue erupted from the center, ringed by a narrow band of tan. I never before encountered eyes like hers in any color and would always find them captivating. “You’d better be right,” she warned.
“I am.”
“What if you get caught?”
“Then I’ll probably be arrested,” I said.
Gloria released a delicate sigh. “Then what?”
“Then I hire an expensive lawyer like James Snyder and play on the distinct possibility at least one person on the jury understands my actions.”
“You seem pretty confident of that.”
“Revenge is a basic emotion. Everyone understands it.”
“But there’s a chance you could go to jail,” said Gloria.
“Are you saying you wouldn’t pop in for conjugal visits?”
Gloria smiled. “I’m saying I don’t want you to throw your career away. You do a lot of good work for a lot of people who need it. There’s real value there.”
“I’m not going to throw my career away. If I used what I know and what I can do to find Samantha’s killer and then didn’t act on it . . . then I’d be throwing it away.”
She patted my leg, leaving her hand resting on my thigh. “That’s what I love about you.”
“My way with words?” I said.
“No, silly. Your conviction. No matter how amoral you seem, you have a code about you, and you stick to it. That’s admirable.”
“‘I only know what is moral is what you feel good after, and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.’”
“Who said that?”
“Hemingway,” I said. “Shitty writer, but he got off some good quotes.”
“You think you’ll feel good after you kill this man?”
I thought about it. “Good? I don’t know. I’ve never felt good after I’ve shot someone. It’s simply something I’ve needed to do. I think I’ll feel . . . fulfilled.”
“Does Hemingway have a quote for that?”
“Probably,” I said, “but I’ve already reached my Hemingway quota for the day.”
Gloria lapsed into silence. So did I. We each took occasional sips of our port. Her head rested on my shoulder, and I’d slipped my arm around her. A while ago, I noticed Gloria and I had become comfortable not saying anything. Some couples have to try and fill silence with drivel. Not long after I had this realization, Gloria told me she loved me. I kissed her forehead.
“When are you heading out?” she said.
“A couple hours.”
“In history class, I learned that a knight who had a lady’s favor would get a proper sendoff before going into battle.”
“Am I a knight?” I said.
“Am I a lady?”
I smiled. “You don’t need to be on your best ladylike behavior tonight.”
“Deal,” said Gloria.
Chapter 24
The Strand pulled a good crowd regardless of the night. Many bars and clubs make their money on the weekends and attract more tumbleweeds than customers during the week. The Strand did not suffer this fate. Unfortunately, most of the crowd it attracted were hipsters and women predisposed to liking them. For obvious reasons, I usually kept my distance.
Tonight, though, I would use the Strand and its usual crowd to my advantage. I told Anthony Tyler I would wear a white shirt with a black tie over black pants. He would presume few people would be so dressed, thus enabling his quarry to stand out. In reality, I would be clad in the perfect camouflage, Tyler would be confused, and I would get the drop on him before I led him away to his execution.
I chose a long-sleeved button-down shirt without a tie, a nice pair of khakis, a pair of moderately worn Ferragamo shoes, and a jacket heavy enough to conceal the .45 at my side. If this were going to be my last night of freedom for a while, I at least wanted to go to jail in snazzy threads. Gloria came downstairs and wrapped me in a bearhug. “Please be careful,” she said, her voice muffled by my shoulder.
“I always am,” I said.
“You don’t normally go out to shoot someone you’ve never met.” Gloria frowned and a pout played on her lips.
“I’ll be careful.” I gave Gloria my best reassuring smile. It didn’t help—probably needed some work. “This asshole will never see me coming.”
“Promise me. Promise me you’ll be OK, and that I’ll see you again.”
“I promise.” I tried the reassuring grin again, this time with the wattage turned down by a quarter. Gloria’s pout morphed into a small smile.
“I love you,” she said, giving me one more kiss.
“I love you, too. Don’t wait up.” I walked out the door and headed for the Strand.
* * *
I made sure I arrived early. The hipster count disappointed me by their sheer presence but reaffirmed my predictive powers. Tyler would be too busy looking at the drones to see the real threat. A half-hour remained, so I walked to the bar. The stools were about half full with a few stragglers standing around. I tried not to listen to the conversations. The crowd of guys was younger than me, probably just past college age. I hoped I didn’t sound like them when I’d finished my fourth year. I ordered an IPA, paid cash for it, and tried to tune out the frat house conversations going on around me.
A couple of attractive girls sidled up to the bar beside me. The blonde wore a dress short enough to qualify as a shirt. I didn’t object. It showed off her shapely legs and almost allowed me to read the tag on her panties. Her redheaded friend opted for tight jeans and a shirt with a neckline revealing the top halves of her breasts. A pair of hipsters on the other side tried to strike up a conversation. The girls looked at each other and rolled their eyes. I smiled. The blonde noticed and smiled in return.
She tried to strike up a conversation, but the fumes coming from her mouth almost took me from zero to drunk in record time. Soon enough, her friend collected her to take her home. I moved to an unoccupied table. A minute after they left, Anthony Tyler walked in. He looked like his driver’s license photo, though his hair grew a little thinner and stringier in the intervening time. He wore a Salisbury State hoodie over a dingy pair of jeans. The girls who appraised him when he paused inside the door turned away and snickered. He’d probably gotten this reaction a lot over the years. Maybe it was why he hated women so much.
Maybe it drove him to violate and kill my sister.
From my table, I watched Tyler amble to the bar. He looked around at the crowd. There were at least five guys dressed like I told him I would be. He kept glancing among them, trying to figure out which one learned the truth about him. Of course, he didn’t have the guts to approach any of them. Tyler ordered a cheap domestic draft from the bartender, paid cash, and sipped his lousy beer while he surveyed the room.
I became aware of the gun at my side, almost like it threatened to burn a hole through my jacket. If Tyler saw me, he looked right past me, scanning the hipster drones. He didn’t want to be here and had only come under the threat of having his past exposed. It meant he’d be good for a beer or two before he left. I felt a palpable urge to pull out the .45 and empty the clip into him right here. There would be a bar full of witnesses, but I would have a good reason and a better lawyer. Most cases only required the latter.
I downed the rest of my IPA. Tyler still sipped his beer. He looked at the girls, though none paid him any mind. I wondered what sinister thoughts tossed around inside his head. Did he ogle my sister the same way he now looked at these girls? Had he come here hoping to find another girl to lure away if his accuser didn’t show? I stood and walked to the bar. My heart didn’t race, but I felt every beat as I stalked my sister’s killer. He stared at some girls on the other side of the bar. I walked close to him. My hand went under my jacket. I leaned in to conceal the fact I dre
w a gun. Temptation gnawed at me. I pressed the barrel into his back. My heartbeat reverberated in my chest and ears. Tyler sat up straight and started to turn.
“Don’t,” I said in a quiet voice.
“OK,” said Tyler.
“We’re taking a walk.”
“Don’t want to talk here?”
“Not really,” I said. “In a minute, you’re going to get up and leave. I’ll tell you where to go. If you try to run or yell for help, I’ll shoot you. You’re not smarter or faster than I am. We clear?”
“Yeah.”
I nudged him in the back with the .45, then put it away. “Let’s exit stage front.” Tyler got up and headed for the door. I stayed two steps behind him. He pushed the door open. “Go to your right,” I said. “Turn down the first alley you see.” He did as instructed. Streetlights didn’t illuminate the way back here. Baltimore had alleys upon alleys in a network behind the houses in its old neighborhoods. They formed a maze if you weren’t familiar with them. I’d spent the time to acquaint myself with these. The occasional back porchlight and ambient glow of the city would be enough for me.
“Take a left,” I said as we approached another turn.
“Where are we going?” Tyler said.
“Would you rather talk about what you did in public?”
“No, I just—”
“Then shut up and keep walking.” I yearned to gun him down now and be done with it. Shooting him in the back would be fine. The result would be the same. But I’d picked a spot, and this wasn’t it. “Take a right.”
After a couple more turns, we reached my chosen location. Five houses surrounded this area where two alleys crossed. I did my research. One was unoccupied. Two of the owners worked nights. One was deaf. One loved the nightlife. None would be able to hear us. The lights from their porches and a nearby garage mixed with the moon to illuminate the scene about to the level of dusk. “Right here,” I said. Tyler stopped and turned around. He looked me up and down and frowned.
“You weren’t dressed like you said you’d be.”
“No.”
“What do you want?”
“Do you even know her name?” I said.
“Whose name?”
“The girl you murdered in Patterson Park thirteen years ago. Do you even know her name?”
“You got any proof?” he said.
“Enough.”
“For a jury?”
I smiled at his naïveté. I ignored rules but never the consequences, while I was amazed most scofflaws expected everyone to extend them every legality. “I didn’t promise you a jury trial.”
Tyler’s eyes went wide. Color drained from his face. “Why did you bring me here?” he said in a small voice. He must have known the answer.
“Do you know her name?” I said again.
“I never do.”
“So you have experience killing innocent girls.”
“Not what I meant,” he said.
“I don’t care what else you’ve done. I only care about one innocent girl. Patterson Park, thirteen years ago.”
Tyler nodded. “I remember her. She was into peace and all that shit. It’s how I found her.”
“And then you met her.”
“In a small group at first,” he said, a distant look coming onto his face. “Then we left together.”
“You walked into Patterson Park.” My pulse quickened. I heard my own breathing, and it sounded like I’d just run three miles.
“Yeah.” The bastard had the audacity to smile at the memory. “The girl was a real fighter.”
“What was her name?” I said through clenched teeth.
“Shit . . . I don’t remember.”
I pointed the .45 at Tyler. I wasn’t even aware I drew it. “Her name was Samantha Elizabeth Ferguson, and she was my sister.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“He’s not going to help you now,” I said.
“I . . . I didn’t know.”
“No, you didn’t care. Wastes of flesh like you never do.”
“What . . . what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to kill you, right here in this alley. I’m going to empty this clip into you and watch your blood run toward that drain down there.”
“You’re cold, man,” he had the balls to say. “This ain’t fair.”
“You killed my sister! Let’s not talk about cold or fair. On your knees.”
“What?” Tyler shook his head. “I ain’t kneeling.” He rushed me. I didn’t want to shoot him yet. My left arm blocked his simple punches. Tyler reached for the gun. I hit him in the gut with a left. There wasn’t room to put a lot into it, but it backed him off a bit. I followed with another punch, then kneed him in the groin.
He stayed bent over and staggered a few steps to his rear. I kicked him in his left knee, not so hard as to break it, but enough to make it buckle. Tyler grunted as his leg went out from under him. He wound up on all fours. I stared down at him.
“Much better,” I said. I put the .45 in front of his face. My pulse thudded in my ears. The man who murdered my sister was at my mercy, and I didn’t feel merciful. I saw Samantha’s face. I remembered her senior prom, how much time she spent getting ready, and how beautiful she looked. I remembered making fun of her date when he came to pick her up. I flashed forward to her graduation and how proud we all felt of her. Her valedictory speech played in the back of my head. I looked away from Tyler. When I looked back, my vision blurred from the tears welling in my eyes. Tyler appeared distorted, like I saw him underwater, but I still held my pistol in line with his face. He shook his head in a last bit of desperation.
“C.T., don’t do it!” I heard from behind me.
How the hell did Rich find me? I ignored him and kept the gun leveled at Tyler.
“Don’t do it,” Rich said again. His voice sounded closer this time. “You know she wouldn’t want this.”
I thought of Samantha, of the many social causes she embraced. A few of her friends were snooty. They came from money and didn’t care about other people. Samantha was never like them. My parents’ sense of charity rubbed off on her. She volunteered with programs helping less fortunate people. She worked in a soup kitchen every Thanksgiving. After 9/11, she supported a peaceful resolution to whatever conflict the country faced. Samantha spent years trying to help others and make the world a little bit brighter for people trapped in darkness.
She was a much better person than me.
Rich was right; she wouldn’t want this. Samantha’s social justice agenda allowed no room for the death penalty and certainly not for execution without trial. We didn’t always agree on the issues, but she made her case well, and I always respected her opinion. Where was the justice, social or otherwise, for Samantha without me? Her case got resigned to the scrap heap, her killer free for thirteen years to torment more women and more families. Samantha needed justice. Those other families needed justice.
I needed justice.
“I mean it, C.T.,” Rich said. “This isn’t the way.”
“He killed her, Rich,” I said, my voice cracking. “He did it. You have to believe me.”
“I believe you. I do. But I can’t let you do this.”
“It’s what he deserves.”
“But it’s not what she deserves,” he said.
Rich’s voice grew closer. His years of Army and police training meant his gun was drawn and pointed at me. I didn’t think he could bring himself to shoot me unless I posed a direct threat to him. If I were going to shoot, it needed to be now. Tyler still looked up at me, shaking his head and pleading with me. My finger itched. I had to pull the trigger now.
But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t shake the image of Samantha looking at me not only with sadness but also with disappointment. It hurt a lot more. Rich was right; she wouldn’t want this. She wouldn’t want someone executed for murder, even her own, and she wouldn’t want her baby brother carrying it around on his conscience. Tears ran down my face.
Samantha’s disappointed stare dominated my vision. I looked up and yelled in inarticulate rage, yelled until my throat grew raw, and I ran out of breath. I raised the gun and smashed Tyler in the side of the head with it. He pitched over in a heap. I tossed the gun down and crumpled into a crouch. Rich’s footsteps approached from behind me. He put his hand on my shoulder.
I stood, turned, and sagged into him, sobbing onto his shoulder as he put his arms around me. When I was all cried out, I pulled back and wavered on my feet. Rich grabbed my forearm to steady me. I got my balance and nodded at him. He let go. I picked up the .45 and put it back into its holster. “How did you find me?” I said when I had recovered the ability to talk.
“I went to your house. Gloria let me in. When I unlocked your computer, I saw your map of the alleys.” Rich knew my password. After getting arrested in Hong Kong and spending nineteen days in a Chinese prison, I set up certain protocols here. My father often called me paranoid. Maybe he was right.
“But how did you know I was doing this tonight?” I said.
“Apparently, I called a Sergeant Palmgren a couple days ago.” Rich arched his eyebrows. “When I didn’t remember our conversation, he filled me in on the details.”
“To be fair, we do sound a bit alike on the phone.”
Rich shook his head. “I’m glad he was working late. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have come looking for you.”
“I don’t know I needed you. Samantha might have talked me out of it.”
“I’m glad someone did,” Rich said.
“What happens to this asshole now?” I said, inclining my head toward the unconscious Tyler. A small trickle of blood ran from his head where I hit him with the butt of the pistol.
“He’ll go to jail. We’ll submit evidence. He’ll get a lawyer. The usual.”
“You think he’ll go away?”
“I think so,” Rich said. “We can gather the evidence you got on your own to make a good case.”
“Good. I hope he dies in jail.”
“He’s going to file a complaint about this, though.”
“So?” I said.