Palindrome

CHAPTER 43

Lee Williams looked at the bedside clock. It was twenty minutes past one, and the house was as quiet as it ever got. He could hear his wife's heavy breathing in the darkness; she was in that sleep that only she could manage-deep, dreamless unconsciousness. Not even the telephone would wake her from this state. Williams got carefully out of bed, slipped off his pajamas, picked up his clothes, and walked quietly into his living room. There he dressed-same underwear and socks, same shirt and tie that he had recently taken off. He did not want his wife to ask when she did the ironing how he had used up a fresh change of clothing.

Out of habit, he went to his son's room and checked on the boy. He was sprawled wildly across his bed, sleeping soundly, like his mother.

Williams left the house and got into the unmarked police car. He drove onto 75 North, the interstate that ran through downtown Atlanta, exited north of the central city at Moores Mill Road, then drove to Collier Road, and found a phone booth at a darkened service station. He did not want a record of the call on his car phone bill. It was five minutes before two o'clock in the morning. He checked his notebook and dialed the number. "Hello?" the voice said. It was not sleepy. "Bake, it's Lee Williams. Sorry to disturb you at this time of night."

The voice took on a hostile edge. "What do you want, Lee?"

"First of all, Bake, I want to apologize for the way I conducted myself in our interview. I was almost as upset about Mary Alice's death as you were, and I let it show."

"I guess you were doing your job."

"No, I let myself get personally involved, and that was inexcusable, then I took my feelings out on you, I'm very sorry about that."

"It's okay, Lee." The voice relaxed a bit.

"But that's not why I called." He took a deep breath; he didn't want to sound nervous at this stage. "I called because I was dead wrong about you. I know now that you didn't hurt Mary Alice."

"Yeah?" The voice was disbelieving.

"I've found out who killed Mary Alice."

"Who?" There was interest in the voice.

"A professional burglar named Ace Smith. He's pulled half a dozen jobs in Mary Alice's apartment complex, and I've got the goods on him."

"Have you arrested him?"

"No, I'm going to do that now. I thought you might like to come along."

"Me?"

"Well, you said you'd like to get your hands on him. I might just find a way to give the two of you a couple of minutes alone."

"I'd like that. Where do I go?"

"Can you meet me at Mary Alice's apartment in, say twenty minutes?"

"Sure, I can!"

"I'll be there, and I'll leave the door unlocked. I've got word that Ace is doubling back tonight to strip the apartment. It's part of his MO, coming back later. Lots of burglars hit the same place twice, when the victims have had a chance to replace the stolen things; Ace doesn't have to wait for that, in this case."

"I'll see you there in twenty minutes," Ramsey said, and hung up.

Williams hung up the phone, then wiped it down with his handkerchief. I'm getting paranoid, he thought. Nobody would ever think to dust this particular phone. He got back into his car, drove to the rear entrance of the apartment complex, and let himself in through the self-service back gate with the card the security lady had given him. He drove slowly to Mary Alice's apartment, opened the front door with his key, and left it ajar. He reached into his coat pocket and retrieved the 9-mm automatic, wrapped in a handkerchief; then he sat down in a comfortable chair and waited for Ramsey to arrive. He used the time to try to regulate his breathing and heartbeat and to accustom his eyes to the darkness. Exactly on time, the front door creaked, and Ramsey filled the doorway, backlit by the light from a streetlamp.

"Lee?" he whispered.

"Come on in, Bake, and have a seat," Williams said conversationally.

"I can't see much," Ramsey said.

"We can't turn on the lights. There's an armchair to your right about four feet."

"Got it."

Ramsey sank into the chair. "What's the drill?"

"We've probably got the better part of an hour before he shows. I'll take him, and then you can have him."

"Sounds good to me. We just sit here until then?"

"Oh, we can talk a little."

"Sure. What's on your mind?"

"I've got most of it, I think. Maybe you'd fill in the gaps for me."

"What gaps?"

"It was Elizabeth the whole time, wasn't it?" Ramsey said nothing.

"You wanted Elizabeth. That's why you did Al Schaefer, but Al wouldn't tell you, would he?" Ramsey still did not speak. "So you had to do the Fergusons, too. Raymond Ferguson told you where she was, didn't he?"

"Are you recording this, Lee?" Ramsey said finally.

"No, it's just you and me."

"Yeah, Ferguson told me. Once I had his wife, he'd have told me anything, anything at all."

"Where is Elizabeth?"

"A place called Cumberland Island, just north of Jacksonville."

"About Mary Alice: you did what you did to her, because you thought she had told me something."

"That's right. Mary Alice always liked it in the ass; I thought I'd give her a treat." The blood pounded in William's head; he slid his finger through the trigger guard, the handkerchief protecting the trigger from his fingerprint. "You're going to kill me, aren't you, Lee? You can't prove anything, so you're going to kill me."

"That's right, Bake. You deserve to die, and I'm going to kill you. Or rather, you're going to kill yourself."

"I see. And why do you think I'm telling you all this?"

"Because you think you're going to kill me first."

"That's right, Lee, I do."

"Don't worry, Bake, I know how quick you are. You've always been quick for such a big man. What is it, six-three, two thirty?"

"Two forty, this year. The steroids have been adding some weight. But I'm faster than ever."

"When had you planned to kill Elizabeth?"

"This weekend. We've got an off day on Sunday, and I'm going to slip down there and play with her a little bit. I'm going to do things to Liz that will make what I did to Mary Alice look like a little kid's game." As Ramsey said this, Williams got up and, the pistol held in front of him, moved quickly across the room to Ramsey's side and held the gun to his temple. The football player did not move.

"Very good, Lee," Ramsey said. "Quick, and very nicely timed."

"It's over, Bake," Williams said. "I'm going to send you to hell now."

"Just one thing, Lee; will you do me a favor?"

"What is it, Bake?" Ramsey's timing was good, too, and, in the darkness, Williams missed the move.

Suddenly, Ramsey's hand gripped his wrist and moved the barrel away from his head. To Williams's astonishment, the grip was so tight that his trigger finger would not work. Then the grip tightened further, the detective's fingers involuntarily opened, and the pistol fell from his hand.

"Funny, isn't it," Ramsey said mildly, "when you press the wrist like that the fingers don't work."

"Shit!" Williams said, and it was almost his last word. Ramsey jerked, spun the detective, and got an arm around his neck; he pulled him to the floor, his forearm pressing on the carotid artery. The darkness swam before Williams's eyes.

"Bake," he managed to say as he came close to blacking out. Ramsey lessened the pressure ever so slightly.

"Yeah, Lee? A last request?"

"Bake, the security guard saw you when you came through the main gate. You can't get away with this one."

"Oh," Ramsey said, "I came through the back gate with the pass Mary Alice gave me. Good night, Lee." He cupped Williams's chin in his hand, released the stranglehold, and grasped the back of his head with the other hand. One quick, powerful jerk, and the detective's body relaxed. Williams heard a loud snap, and he began a swift descent into a deeper darkness.

"There, that's better," Ramsey said. Those words were the last sound Williams heard before the darkness overtook him. He saw things, though. He saw his son's face, his wife's profile; he saw himself at four or five, riding in the back of a wagon, lying in hay; he saw his mother's back as she bent over a cast-iron wash pot; he saw a puppy his father gave him, his first. Then he saw nothing.