Edge of Evil

Chapter 17

Ali picked up the computer and started toward the door with her assailant right behind. She realized as she walked, that this might be her only chance. If he came close enough to her, maybe she could fire her.9 mm Glock at point-blank range in a way that would drop him like a rock and take the boning knife out of play. And maybe kill him.

That was the other thing Nancy had said: When you make the decision to buy and carry a deadly weapon, you’ve already made a moral decision as well. You’ve established that there’s a point beyond which you will use that weapon to defend yourself, and you’ve drawn that line rationally and not in the blood-pounding heat of the moment.

Ben Witherspoon had crossed Ali’s deadly-force line long ago. He had bet she wouldn’t fight back, but he was wrong. Even so, she still hoped that when she opened the door, she’d find Dave in his patrol car parked outside, ready to come to her aid. But Dave wasn’t there. If anyone was going to save Ali Reynolds, it was going to have to be Ali herself.

The night was cold, clear, and utterly silent. Ali’s breath puffed white in the frigid air, and every icy intake made her want to double over in pain. At least one rib was broken, maybe more. Overhead, the still, velvet-black sky was bright with winking stars. Ali had lost her shoes in the earlier scuffle. The cold gravel of the driveway bit sharply into the soles of her bare feet, making her limp, but the pain also helped her focus.

She glanced around hopefully, looking to see if any of her neighbors had spotted something amiss. Unfortunately, the laurel hedge around the backyard-the same hedge that gave the house its much prized privacy-now lent cover to the man who intended to kill her.

“You drive,” Witherspoon growled at her. “But if you try to pull anything-anything at all-I’ll slit your throat. Understand?”

Ali nodded. She understood all right. Absolutely. What’s more, she knew he meant it. She also knew that, once she got in the car with him, she was as good as dead. Whatever she was going to do to save herself had to happen soon!

When she arrived at the front of the Cayenne, she stopped and made as if to put the computer on the hood. She felt the blade of the knife bite into her back.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.

She knew at once he’d cut her, not deep, but enough to hurt. Enough to make her bleed. Enough to let her know he meant business. “I need the keys,” she hissed back at him. “They’re in my purse.”

“Get ’em then,” he returned. “And be quick about it.”

She had dropped her cell phone into her purse. It rang again just then, startling them both.

“Don’t answer it,” he snapped. “Let it ring.”

She did as she was told, but the flashing light on the screen of the ringing phone provided an amazing amount of light inside her otherwise pitch-black purse-enough to see her car keys. Enough to see the gun.

Then something else happened. From far away down the mountain, Ali heard the faint wail of a siren. Witherspoon was standing right next to her, close enough that she felt him tense at the sound. Knowing this momentary distraction was her only chance, Ali wrapped her shaking hand around the handle of her Glock. Whirling, she spun around and faced him. She didn’t even try removing the weapon from her purse. Instead, holding the gun inside, and with the leather of her Coach bag touching his belly, she pulled the trigger.

Nancy Drake’s voice droned in her head. “Once you’ve made the decision to stop someone, you’d by God better carry through. Use hollow points. They’re the ones that do the damage. And forget about target shooting. Go for the gut. Take out a guy’s pelvis and he’s going down.”

With the first shot, Ben Witherspoon’s eyes bulged as much in outrage as surprise, but despite Nancy’s predictions, he didn’t fall. “Why you…” he screamed.

In the aftermath of the shot, Ali’s ears rang. She couldn’t hear what he was saying, but she read his lips. And his mind. He was enraged, and with the knife still in hand, his intentions were absolutely clear. So she let go of the purse and pulled the trigger again. This time the bullet found its mark and he did go down. Hard.

When Ali could hear again, she realized that her phone was still ringing. Or maybe it was ringing again. It lay where it had landed, a yard or so from her feet. Next to it, barely visible in the pulsing light, she caught the gleam of the car keys.

Just then, to her dismay, a steel-hard grip, like the jaws of a trap, locked around the base of her ankle. Witherspoon was down, all right, but he wasn’t out. Ali reached for the door handle, trying to hold on to something to keep from falling. In the process, she slammed the Glock against the car door. The gun bounced out of her grip, fell to the ground, and then spun out of reach.

Ali hit the ground, too. When she landed, the jolting pain from her broken ribs was so excruciating it took her breath away. She felt a sharp stab of pain in her leg, too, and knew he had cut her at least once and that he’d do it again if she didn’t get away. She kicked him then, hard, with her other foot. She felt the gratifying blow as her heel connected sharply with the bottom of his chin. The kick took him by surprise. His head jerked back and she heard his teeth knock together in his mouth. His grip loosened only slightly but it was enough. She squirmed away from him, scrabbling along the ground like an ungainly lizard, desperate to escape his reach.

The wailing sirens were much closer now, coming up the mountain, but they weren’t nearly close enough or fast enough to satisfy her. If he came after her again, there was no guarantee anyone would reach her in time.

Nearby she heard the murmuring voices of worried neighbors who had emerged from their various houses in search of an explanation for the real-life gunfire that had suddenly drowned out the cops-and-robbers sound effects of their nightly police drama fare.

But Ali needed armed police officers right then far more than she needed well-meaning or curious neighbors. When her fingers chanced to encounter the familiar shape of her car keys, she did the only thing that made sense.

She grabbed them and pressed hard on the panic button and kept right on crawling.

The next thing she knew, Dave Holman was there beside her, kneeling on the ground.

“He tried to kill me,” Ali heard herself blubbering. “He was waiting inside the house and…”

“Hush,” Dave said, covering his lips with one finger. “Don’t say another word. You’re hurt. Let’s get you to the ER.”

cutlooseblog.com

Monday, March 21, 2005

First, please let me apologize for the long silence, especially after that post that said it was my “last” post. I know many of you have been terribly concerned. Some of you are already aware of what’s happened. The rest of you are about to find out.

Twenty-two years ago, when I was pregnant with my son, I decided that when it came time to choose an OB-GYN to deliver my baby, I’d go looking for a woman. My reasoning was simple. Since men don’t have babies, maybe a female doctor would be more in tune with what I wanted and needed. And I have to say, even all these years later, that Dr. Winona Manchester was perfect in every way. She had two children of her own. She was sympathetic and realistic. When she told me what I should or shouldn’t do, I believed her. She’d been there and done that.

Since most of you know Tank is now twenty-two, you must be wondering why I’m telling you all this old news. I’m getting to that. And since this is a blog, and I don’t have to say my piece in the forty-five seconds before the next commercial, I’m going to say it my way.

For years, in my role as a “public person” I’ve helped out with various social events. I’ve spent a lot of time raising money for cancer research for the simple reason that’s what my first husband died of. I’ve also done a good deal of work for various women’s groups, including organizations that deal with helping victims of domestic violence. But I did that more as a good citizen than because I really knew or cared that much about the issue. I was interested. I was involved. But like those male OBGYNs that I dismissed so long ago, I hadn’t been there or done that-until now.

My last regular message was posted on Friday morning, the day of my friend’s funeral. The night before I had received a second threatening e-mail from the estranged husband of one of my readers. You may remember the woman I advised to take her baby and run. I posted her husband’s comment that if she left him, he’d come looking for me. She did run, and he made good on his promise. He found me. He broke into my home while I was attending Reenie’s funeral and was waiting for me when I got back.The cut screen and the broken window have both been replaced, and my new security system is being installed right this minute.)

Before Friday night, I never knew what it felt like to be kicked hard enough to break bones. (Two ribs, currently taped.) Or to be sliced by a kitchen knife. (Eleven stitches. Tetanus shot.) I also never knew that a life-and-death battle is just exactly that. In newscasts I’ve often been critical of “trigger-happy cops.” But while I was spouting those views, it turns out I’d never been there or done that, either. I didn’t know what it means to have your life turned upside-down in a him-or-me scenario.

I spent two nights at the hospital in Flagstaff, the same hospital where my father had his surgery last week. (My mother was there again, bless her.) I still hurt all over from the kicks that found their intended targets, and I’m grateful for the one that missed. One of the blows left a clear shoe-print-style bruise on my backside. Having that photographed for forensic purposes was not a high point of my existence, but I’ll live.

I’m home now, and I’m alive. My assailant isn’t. That’s due primarily to the California concealed weapon permit I carry in my wallet and the Glock I had in the bottom of my purse when he attacked me. (If you are someone who thinks all handguns should be outlawed, you’re more than welcome to write to me here, but I think you’re going to have a hard time changing my mind.)

There’s a lot more I’d like to say right now, but my lawyers (yes, that would be plural) won’t let me. I’ve hired a local defense attorney in the event (unlikely, I’ve been told) that the county attorney decides to press charges against me. Arizona seems to be one of those states where people still have the right to defend themselves in their own homes and on their own property. The second attorney is due to the fact that the dead man’s estranged wife, the abused woman who read my column and fled for her life, is now considering filing a civil wrongful death suit against me. (No good deed goes unpunished!)

After living for more than forty years with no attorneys, I now have four which, by my count, is approximately four too many.

Someone called a few minutes ago to let me know that a news team from my old station wants to come to Sedona to interview me. It seems that the LA area is “intense with interest” about my situation. I told them not to come. But if they show up anyway, I’ll put them in touch with my attorney(s) and repeat my two new favorite words. “No comment.”

Posted: 12:47 P.M. by Babe

Several hundred e-mails had come in over the weekend while she had been dark, almost all of them asking why Ali was abandoning cutlooseblog. Almost as soon as her post was up, she started hearing a barrage of clicks, as if people had been lurking in dark corners of the Internet, waiting for her to reappear. Not surprisingly, some of them were very familiar. Velma’s message in particular made her smile.

Dear Babe,

Velma again. Okay, I finally did it. I called you Babe. Hope you’re happy.

Thank you for putting up your picture. That was fun, but then all of a sudden you just stopped and nothing more came through. I checked every single day. Last night they finally had something on TV about what happened to you. I’m so sorry, but I knew it all along. As soon as I saw that “last” post of yours, I knew something was terribly wrong. I even called information and got the long distance number for the police department there in Sedona. But the person I spoke to wanted to know what I was reporting, and of course, I had no idea of what or where or any of the other things she said she had to have in order to make a report.

I’m so glad you’re going to be okay.

Velma T in Laguna

Sylvia’s, too, was familiar.

Dear Ali,

This morning someone bought your autographed photo from me for $11.38. That means I more than doubled my money. As far as I’m concerned, you’re a very good investment.

Your fan,

Sylvia

Some, however, were entirely new.

Dear Babe,

My name is Al Rutherford. I saw what happened to you on TV last night and it is amazing. I am a student at UCLA. Film studies. I need to write a screenplay, and I think your story would be awesome. Do I have to have your persmission to write it? If so, would you please send it. Also, when I finish I hope you will help me find a agent. Everyone says you have to have agents now although that didn’t use to be the case

Best,

Al (Short for Alvin)

When he was young, my father worked on the Chipmunk records

Dear Babe,

What happened to the cat? To Samantha? Is she all right? You didn’t mention her and I’m worried that awful man may have hurt her, too.

Janelle

Ali immediately posted that one along with a response.

cutlooseblog.com

Monday, March 21, 2005

Sorry I forgot to mention it, but Samantha is fine. It turns out she’s smarter than I am. As soon as the guy broke into my house, she evidently went looking for cover and didn’t come out until after he was gone. While I was in the hospital, my mother came over to look after her. Thanks for your concern.

Posted 2:10 P.M. by Babe

Shortly after that the security system installer knocked on the front door to tell her he was finished. He came inside and spent the next half hour taking Ali through all the intricacies of her new wireless setup, including instructing her on setting the codes and tuning her television set to the proper channel so she could see who was outside knocking without having to open the door.

When he left, Ali wasn’t at all surprised that she fell asleep on the couch. The doctor had told her the pain meds would make her sleepy, and it was absolutely true. During the day. At night, it seemed she couldn’t sleep at all or, when she finally did, she was plagued by nightmares. In each of those, Ben Witherspoon was always back in her house, stalking her and menacing her, with a knife in one hand and a gun in the other.

A sharp knock on the front door startled Ali out of her afternoon nap. The security system installer had left her TV set tuned to channel 95. As Samantha scrambled to disappear, Ali checked out the television screen. On it, she saw Bob Larson’s battered Bronco parked in the background. In the foreground stood Kip Hogan, Bob Larson’s new right-hand man. An Arizona Diamondbacks baseball cap was pulled low over his eyes.

Seeing a man there, a relative stranger, caused an unreasoning fear to rise in Ali’s throat. What she wanted more than anything right then was to have her Glock back and in her hand, but the weapon had been confiscated as possible evidence and was still under lock and key where it would remain until all legal wrangling had run its course.

Kip knocked again.

Straighten up, Ali told herself. She stood up, staggered over to the door, and opened it.

Kip took off the cap, bent down, picked up an ice chest, and then followed Ali into the house. “Afternoon, ma’am,” he said politely. “Your mother sent over some food. Want me to put it in the fridge?”

Back on the couch, Ali laughed aloud at that and then stopped abruptly. The words ‘it only hurts when you laugh’ were no longer funny.

“If you can find a spot,” she said. “There’s already so much food in there, I don’t know what I’m going to do with it all. People must think I’m starving. And if I eat it all, I’ll turn into a blimp.”

She had come home from the hospital to find her kitchen counter overflowing with platters of cookies, cupcakes, pies, and brownies along with plastic-wrapped loaves of banana bread. In all its carbohydrate glory, the place had looked more like a gigantic bake sale than a private kitchen. She found that the refrigerator and freezer both, too, had been stuffed to the gills with goodies. There were frozen casseroles stacked in the freezer while the fridge bulged with plates of fried chicken and covered bowls full of every kind of fruit salad imaginable along with two separate potato salads, one macaroni salad and a dish of very leathery red Jell-O.

While Ali watched, Kip worked with single-minded determination to cram this new load of foodstuffs into the refrigerator. “What about your friends up the mountain?” Ali asked, thinking in sudden embarrassment that only a week ago, Kip had been bunking in a snowy homeless encampment up on the Mogollon Rim.

“I’m sure they’d be most appreciative, ma’am,” Kip said. “If there was any of it you didn’t want,” he added, “any you thought you could spare.”

“Ask my dad,” she said. “Tell him I have way more food here than I’ll ever be able to eat. Maybe the two of you could come collect it tomorrow or the next day and take it up the mountain.”

“I’ll talk to him about it,” Kip said nodding. “See what he has to say. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

He exited then, scurrying away as if uncomfortable talking to her alone. Once he was gone, Ali limped out to the kitchen. The doctor had warned her that she’d feel worse in a day or two than she had in the hospital, and it was true. The many bruises on her body had gone from black to greenish purple. As they changed color they seemed to hurt more rather than less.

Ali picked through the goodies. Her mother had sent over a covered dish filled with potato soup. She dished up some of that and put it in the microwave to heat. She reached for a piece of chicken, to go along with the soup. But the chicken reminded her of Howie Bernard and the kids. She pulled the tin foil back over the chicken and settled for soup only.

Chris called while she was eating. “How are you?” he asked.

“Better,” Ali said, making the effort to sound more chipper than she felt. “I’m doing fine. Really.”

She’d had to talk like crazy to keep him from abandoning his finals and coming straight back to Sedona. Her mother had helped with that one, or it might not have worked.

“You have enough to eat?”

She surveyed the mounds of food covering her counter. “Plenty,” she said. “You wouldn’t believe how much food there is.”

Chris didn’t sound like himself, though. “What about you?” Ali asked. “Are your finals going all right?”

“They’re fine,” he said without conviction.

“What’s wrong, Chris?” she said at last. “I can tell by your voice that something’s up.”

“It’s all my fault,” he said. “I’m the one who talked you into doing the blog thing. If I had just left you alone, none of this would have happened.”

“Yes,” she said, “and then I wouldn’t be sitting here gorging myself on your grandmother’s delicious potato soup. Things happen for a reason, Chris. I was looking for a new direction, and you gave me one. Of course, neither one of us expected me to get the crap beaten out of me along the way. But what is it they say at the gym, ‘No pain; no gain.’ ”

“Mom,” Chris groaned. “Don’t even joke about it.”

“I’m not joking. Besides, what if Witherspoon had attacked someone who hadn’t had a gun. What then?”

“But…”

“But what?”

“You killed someone, Mom,” Chris objected. “My mother actually took another person’s life. It’s not a video game; not a movie. A real live person’s life.”

“Is that what’s bothering you?”

“I guess,” he said miserably. “I mean, the whole time I was growing up, I never thought you were that kind of person.”

“You know what, Chris? Neither did I. All those years I lived with Paul Grayson, I was a mealy-mouthed namby-pamby. I put up with his bullshit and got along no matter what. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about that the last couple of days and wondering why I did it, and I think I’ve finally figured it out.

“I did it because I was afraid something might change. Afraid something might happen. Afraid that if Paul dumped me I wouldn’t be able to make it on my own. But I’m not afraid anymore, Chris, I’m not afraid of anything. And that includes Paul Grayson and cutlooseblog.com. Yes, you’re right. The blog brought me Ben Witherspoon. So what? Facing him down brought me something I needed, something that had been missing from my life for a very long time-self respect. When push came to shove, when it was a choice of him or me, I had guts enough to choose me. Finally. And that counts for something.”

Even as she said this, she realized it wasn’t completely true. Because she had installed a security system. And she had felt that sudden sense of dread when Kip showed up on the doorstep. But it was mostly true, when it came to the big things, anyway.

“You’re going to be all right, then?” Chris asked after a pause.

“Absolutely,” she said. “I’m going to be more than all right. You can count on it.”

She sat at the table for a long time after she got off the phone with Chris, wondering if she had said too much or too little and whether or not her outburst had made any sense-to him or to her. He had asked her what time it was, and she had ended up telling him how the clock was made. Too much information, she thought.

Bored with watching a screen full of her empty front and back doors, Ali had switched over to a Phoenix channel where the evening news featured the story of a young fresh-faced man, Hunter Jackson, a 2003 graduate of Chandler High School who had died two days earlier in a mortar attack on his convoy in Baghdad.

Hunter hadn’t seen the mortar that was destined to kill him, but suddenly Ali Reynolds had a whole new understanding of all those other young-faced kids who had gone off to do their duty and who had made the hard choices to kill or be killed; to kill or let their buddies or their allies or civilians be killed. She knew just as certainly that those young people came away from those decisions-those momentary life and death decisions-changed in the same way she was now changed as well.

“God bless them,” Ali whispered aloud. “And bring them safely home.”