Dead Famous aka The Jury Must Die

Chapter 21

THE OUTNUMBERED FBI AGENTS HAD BEEN CONTAINED on the floor below, and Lieutenant Coffey stood outside the door to Ian Zachary's studio. He had lost his satisfied smile. According to Mallory, there was a lethal weapon in play, and the game plan had radically changed. The narrow corridor was crowded with police, and yet the only sound was the tap of Mallory's foot.

Special Crimes Unit had never used the lower ranks for cannon fodder, and so they waited for a uniformed officer to fetch two bulletproof vests, one for the lieutenant and one for his detective. With a wave of his hand, Jack Coffey motioned the remaining uniforms to move back down the hall. The metal studio door was thick enough to offer protection from a.45-caliber bullet, but the surrounding wall might not. Prescient Mallory had known that this arrest would not go down nicely. She had brought her own drill to the party, and she handled it like a gun. In her other hand was a wiring diagram of the electronic door lock.

Coffey stared at the power tool. "You're sure you can't electrocute yourself with that thing?"

"No electricity," she said. "The lock has its own circuit breaker." Her voice was testy. She obviously resented having to play this out by the book and respond to silly questions. "The body armor should have been here by now."

"Maybe we shouldn't bore out the studio lock." Ian Zachary's door could only be opened from an interior control panel. The doors to the booths had locks made to open with keys, but they had both been fused shut with a glue that had hardened to the temperance of steel. The studio door was Mallory's own preference for the first strike. The lieutenant was not yet convinced. "Zachary might not hear the drill if we go through one of these side doors. They've both got windows on the studio."

"And the glass is four inches thick, unbreakable." Mallory looked up from her reading to glance at the ruined lock on one of the flanking doors. "You know why those locks are glued shut. One of them doesn't want any witnesses – probably Dr. Apollo. We can't wait for the body armor."

"Lieutenant?" A uniformed officer was monitoring Zachary's show on a pocket radio. As he walked toward them, he removed his earpiece and turned up the volume on the noise of violent breakage. "It sounds like he's taking the place apart."

Without waiting on orders, Mallory put the drill to the lock, knowing that the sound would alert the people inside. Jack Coffey stayed her hand before she could power up the tool and give them away.

"Cover me," he said. "I'll drill the lock."

"It's my drill." She held it tightly in both hands.

The lieutenant could only stare at her. What a hell of a time for this silly kid stunt. However, it was her drill, her case – her show all the way. Jack Coffey removed his hand from the tool. Stepping back, he drew his gun, demoting himself to Mallory's backup, then waved the uniforms farther down the hall. "Okay, Mallory, nowl"

He had not expected so much noise. The loud squeal of metal grinding on metal made all his nerve endings stand at attention. Zachary and Dr. Apollo would know they were coming, but which of them would be holding the gun when the door opened? He trained his own gun on the door, ready to kill whoever pointed a weapon at Mallory. She was halfway through the lock, and a death might be only seconds away.

His detective looked up from her work, saying, "We'll never make a case if you shoot my corroborating witness."

"Mallory, later you can remind me to fire your ass." He turned to the sound of footfalls pounding down the hall at his back. Two uniformed officers came on the run. Instead of the requested flak jackets, they carried two large bulletproof shields.

Johanna Apollo was startled to hear her own voice on the radio. She had not expected Zachary to play that interview tape on the air. How could she have guessed wrong about that? If he thought he was impervious to an investigation, he might not come tonight.

Or was he already here?

She turned off the radio and held her breath, standing very still in the dead quiet of the front room. Had she actually heard a noise in the hall? Or had she intuited a presence out there – sensed it in the fashion of Mugs or Timothy Kidd? Tonight there would be no buffer of FBI agents downstairs in the hotel lobby. The federal bodyguards were looking for her elsewhere.

No interruptions, no witnesses.

Gun in hand, Johanna settled into an armchair and braced her elbows on the upholstery. The recoil of Riker's revolver would be stronger than Victor's smaller gun, and she would not risk it falling from her trembling hands, for one bullet might not do the job. After turning off the table lamp, all that illuminated the hotel room, she could see the shadows of two shoes in a crack of yellow light below the door. The narrow foyer's walls seemed like an extension of the gun's barrel.

A knock. How polite – and unexpected. Johanna called out, "It's not locked!"

The door opened slowly, and this was something she should have anticipated. She could see that now – her error. Ian Zachary would pride himself on theatrics. His dark silhouette filled the door frame, backlit by the lamps in the hall.

She had rehearsed this moment inside her head so many times. It had always begun with immediate violence, a body barreling through the door, rushing in with a view to unbalancing her with cold, paralyzing terror. That had been Timothy Kidd's imagined recreation of the juror murders, but that was not to be – not here and now. And what else might she get wrong before this night was over?

The room suddenly flooded with light from the ceiling fixture. Her eyes were still adapting to the brightness when she saw his hand on the wall switch and heard him say, "I should come inside." His voice was in the range of seduction, and this was another surprise. "If you shoot me in the hall," he said, "the police might not buy the idea of self-defense."

During her training days as a crime-scene cleaner, Riker had told her that hesitation should be listed as the cause of death for most homicide victims. Educable Johanna raised the gun. She must kill Ian Zachary now.

He closed the door behind him – and locked it.

The gun was so heavy.

"There, that's better," he said. "Now you have privacy for a murder – and a better story for the police." Zachary strolled toward her, smiling, all but laughing at the gun in her hands, only sparing it one glance. He stopped a few paces from her chair, then raised his arms to show her the spread of his empty hands. "I don't have a weapon, but here's a thought – maybe you could plant one on my dead body." He lowered his arms. "You might have time to run to the store, some all-night bodega where the clerk won't remember a distraught hunchback buying a penknife."

The gun barrel wavered. Her finger touched lightly on the trigger, and he became an easier target as he closed the gap between them. She fancied Timothy inside her head, screaming to the rhythm of a banging heart, Kill him, kill him, kill him!

Her script for this event was already in shambles. It should not have surprised her so when Zachary leaned down and simply plucked the gun from her shaking hands, saying, "Not quite the scenario you had in mind? Too civilized for a cold-blooded killing? You don't know what you're missing, Dr. Apollo." He pressed the gun to her forehead an inch above her eyes. "What a rush. Better than sex."

She looked down at her hands, limp useless things, and waited for the shot.

Riker sailed through another red light, avoiding collisions by the grace of providence, for his eyes kept wandering to the rearview mirror, expecting Mallory to climb up his taillights at any moment. She would have discovered by now that Jo's interview was on tape, and it would only take her six seconds to steal another car.

A fire engine beat him into the intersection, stringing its long body across the entire width of the street. He slammed on the brakes, but not before he had done some damage to the other vehicle and crumpled a fender of Mallory's car. He reversed gears and backed up by ten feet as an angry fireman climbed down from the driver's seat and walked toward him. Now the driver was joined by other men dropping down to the pavement like combat troops parachuting in for a battle. They were all moving in tandem, and the strategy was clear: they were planning to surround Riker and take a little satisfaction out of his hide – slow torture by paperwork and forms filled out in triplicate. Flashing his badge would not save him, and he could not spare the time to do even that much.

Taking a tip from the Mallory School of Bad Driving, Riker aimed the car at the walking wall of firemen. Brave bastards, they waited until the last possible moment to jump aside. And now the small tan sedan was running round the long red truck, using all of the sidewalk to do it, and civilians were diving into the street. Move or die – that was the message.

Mallory would have been proud.

If I wanted you dead," said Ian Zachary, "I could have killed you months ago. You were the easiest one to keep track of." He ran the gun barrel lightly along the deformity of her spine. "Such a distinctive profile. Tell you what. Let's do a trade – your life for Victor Patchock's." He reached out to a small table, picked up the telephone and carried it to her chair. "Call him over here."

"You'll kill us both."

"No, no, no." Zachary wore a condescending smile as he knelt down before her. "The last juror standing takes all the blame. I thought you understood that, Doctor. That's why people keep dying in your vicinity. First Timothy Kidd, then poor Bunny. When the police find Victor bleeding all over your rug, I think they'll have enough to close out the case."

"And no witness to back up the charge of jury tampering." Johanna nodded her understanding. One of the surviving jurors must die tonight. "But if I'm supposed to be the Reaper – if I die, you have no show left."

"You do understand." He rewarded her with his widest smile, then patted her hand. "Good girl. Yes, ideally there would be another trial – yours. A long, drawn-out affair. You're wealthy, Dr. Apollo. You can hire the best legal team in the country. I promise you'll never do a day in prison for all those murders. You'll buy your way out with legal talent. It's the American way."

"And then we start over?"

"Right. A fresh jury. And, next time, all twelve of them die."

"And then another trial? Do you get all your plans from comic books?" Ah, she had disappointed him. This was not the response he had expected. But she knew he would not kill her – not yet. First, he must make her into a believer – a fan of sorts. She was all the audience that he would ever have. He wanted – applause.

He set the telephone in her lap. "You see? I do have an interest in keeping you alive. So you know I'll keep my word." He pressed the receiver into her hand. "Call Victor Patchock."

"You have a famous face," she said. "How many people spotted you downstairs in the lobby? How many of them saw you get on the elevator?"

"Oh, I don't need an alibi tonight. This time, I'll be the one who discovers the Reaper's next victim." He held up her old business card and flipped it over to show her a personal note. "Recognize your own handwriting? I took this off the corpse of Agent Kidd. The wording is ambiguous, no names or dates, just a reminder that the appointment's been changed from ten to eleven o'clock. I'll say you invited me over, lured me here with the prospect of interviewing Victor. But then – what a shock – you killed him right before my eyes." He looked down at his watch. "It's close to eleven o'clock."

"I don't know where Victor is." And this was true. She had been unable to reach him tonight.

"What a pity." He pulled a small silver penknife from his pocket and opened the blade. The honed metal edge gleamed bright. "You can split hairs with this thing – razor sharp." Zachary smiled in mock chagrin. "Oh, I lied about not having a weapon."

Removing the telephone from her lap, he set it on the floor. "Fine, don't call Victor. I'll just have to make do with you." He rose to his feet and backed away from her. "More fun this way. Make me chase you around a bit. Up you go." With a lifting gesture of the small knife, he urged her to rise. "How fast can a hunchback run?"

Crazy Bitch sat behind Ian Zachary's console, leaning into a stationary microphone and saying, "They're coming, boys and girls." She had cut off the pretaped interview to give the fans a moment-by-moment account of an unknown invader drilling out the lock on the studio door. "Is it the cops? Is it the Reaper? Stay tuned." She laughed too loud, creating an electronic feedback squeal that drowned out the sound of the drill. Hysteria was toned down to mere giggles. "Yeah, like you're gonna turn me off before that door opens. Oh, here they come."

There was an unintentional moment of high drama in the silence that followed. The door swung open, and Crazy Bitch had lost her voice, unable to adequately describe the scene before her eyes when tall Mallory strode into the room, wielding a wicked-looking drill and carrying the shield of a medieval knight. The blonde was moving forward with grim resolve.

Could this woman be any more pissed off?

Crazy Bitch thought not.

Ian Zachary could not yet bear to part with his audience, or this was Johanna's thought as she watched the small blade dip and rise to punctuate his words.

"You have no alibi for any of the jury murders," he said. "I was very careful about that. Curse of the grotesque. Poor baby, you spent all your evenings alone. And then there was Timothy Kidd, murdered in your reception room. Now Bunny's crime scene was a piece of luck. I was counting on the neighbors to lead the police back to you. I never expected you to be there when they found the body."

Zachary turned away from her, thinking so little of her ability to fight back. After plumping up the couch pillows, he sat down and stretched out his legs on the coffee table. "Standing trial for murder isn't the worst that could – "

A knock on the door was followed by Riker's voice yelling, "Jo, it's me! Open up! I know you've got my gun!"

Zachary, vaguely amused, pulled the revolver from his pocket. "This is his. You stole a cop's gun?" He inclined his head in the manner of a complimentary bow. "You're an interesting woman, Dr. Apollo." He waved the revolver in the direction of the door. "Let him in."

Johanna smiled, and he didn't like that. "You're afraid of Riker," she said. "You're the one with the gun, but you'd never open that door yourself. You don't want to get that close to him."

The knocking was constant now and louder.

"You were hoping he'd just get tired and go away?" Zachary crooked one finger around the base of a ceramic table lamp. "I think this might get his attention."

The lamp toppled to the floor, smashing to pieces. Riker's knocking escalated to the bang of a closed fist, and he yelled, "Jo!"

Zachary took aim at the door. "I can drop him from here if you like. Let him in, or I'll shoot him right now."

"It's a big gun," said Johanna. "Powerful." She stood up and moved between the door and the couch, blocking his aim. Behind her back, she could hear the savage kicks to the wood, but the dead bolt lock was holding. "You could get both of us with one bullet – if you're lucky. But you won't risk a shot through a closed door – not you, the pathological planner. What if you miss Riker? What happens to all that careful scheming? Improvisation is not your forte."

"It's a moot point, Doctor. Look at what he's doing to that door." She turned to see the wood splintering on one side of the lock. The frame was cracking, yielding, and there was only time to open the bottom drawer of the armoire before the door banged inward and Riker crashed into the room. He had one instant to register the weapon in the other man's hand, and then Johanna made a mighty swing to bring the wine bottle across the back of his skull. Riker dropped like a stone.

Crazy Bitch played the tape for a commercial break during the police-enforced interlude. Her eyes were trained on Mallory, who was evidently not Zack's own private cop.

One of the uniformed officers carried the drill into the hall and knelt down before the lock on the producer's door. Inside the studio, the two police in street clothes stood before the booth's window, admiring the sheet spread across it. Far from the effect of a cartoon ghost, the black slashes that stood for eyes were eerie. The thick glass was scratched but intact, and the remnants of a broken chair lay on the floor below.

Detective Mallory walked toward the console, intractable as a slow train wreck in the making. She wanted an explanation – right now.

"Zack did it," said Crazy Bitch, so easily prompted by a vision of Mallory's footprint on her face. "He left before the show started." She affected a deep frown as she turned to the producer's booth. "At least I think Zack's gone."

Was she overdoing this? Yes, she must be, for the blonde had one hand on her hip, and, in the other hand, the drill was slowly swinging like a pendulum.

"I've been playing pretaped interviews. You can't have dead airtime. I could lose my job for that. So how do you like the show so far?"

The drill crashed to the floor. The blond police braced both hands on the top of the console, leaning forward to communicate that Crazy Bitch should not to try her patience for one more minute.

Lieutenant Coffey interceded, calling out, "Hey, kid, what happened here?"

"I'm pretty sure Zack wanted to kill Needleman."

"The producer?" Coffey turned to face the draped window. "Is he in there now?"

"Who knows? Well, Needleman's door is always locked," said Crazy Bitch, "so Zack tried to break through bulletproof glass. And that was really nuts. He even knows the glass is unbreakable, but there he is, red in the face, banging that chair against the window. Then he racked up a few hours of old canned interviews and ran out the door. But I really liked the tape he made tonight. So, after he left, I changed the – "

"Shut up," said Detective Mallory.

The lieutenant was more polite, but just barely. "When Zachary left, was he carrying a weapon?"

"No, not that I could see, but I wouldn't take chances if I were you. I mean look at what he did to that chair." She stared at the sheet covering the producer's window. "Zack might be in there. If you kill him, can I still finish the show?"

Ian Zachary stood over the inanimate body of Riker. "Well, that solves the immediate problem. Is he dead?"

"I'm a doctor." Johanna, knelt on the floor, checking life signs and finding them strong. "I know how to place my shots." The blow had split the skin of Riker's scalp, and his blood was on her right hand.

Zachary leaned into the hallway. "I love this town. All these people behind their closed doors. They don't want to get involved. Ah, New Yorkers."

"They probably didn't hear anything. The walls are very thick – just like Riker's place. I know what you did to him, and that was a mistake. He had no idea you were the Reaper."

"Oh, the blanks? Yes, I suppose it was a pointless plan – but great fun. He actually fainted."

Johanna shook her head. "He scared you, didn't he? Riker caught you by surprise that night, but you'd never go up against him with a knife. So you picked up the first weapon that came to hand, Mac's gun – Mac's bullets. No, that wasn't planning, Zachary. That was just another mistake."

She looked up at him, only a glance to gauge the fall of his confidence, then her eyes were cast down as she stared at her hand, at Riker's blood. "You can still walk away from this," she said. "My fingerprints are on the bottle that hit him."

"He saw me point the gun at him."

"That's not a problem. Side effect of concussion – it can wipe out ten or twenty minutes of memory, and Riker only saw you for a second. But what if he did remember? So what? He knows I'm the one who stole his gun. You can say you took it away from me, that you saved him from the Reaper – me. Don't you see? You don't need one more dead body to make the case. Just pick up the phone and call 911. The story's more believable if you're the one who makes that call."

"You're good, Doctor. And you're right. Your little plan might work. But that would still leave the loose end of Victor Patchock."

"He won't make a credible witness in court."

Zachary was no longer listening to her. His smiling eyes were lit with some new inspiration. "You have a much more interesting choice now." He pointed the gun at Riker. "I can kill him – or you can get Victor Patchock over here. Pick one." He waved the gun from side to side. "Who lives? Who dies? Up to you."

"I'll think about it," said Johanna, as if Riker's life meant very little to her. She rose from the floor, the bottle still gripped in one hand. "First, I'm going to wash up. And then I'm going to pour myself a drink." She turned toward the bathroom, fighting down the impulse to look back at Riker and see which way the gun was pointing now.

"Dr. Apollo? Hold it! I'll tell you where you can go and when."

"Then shoot me." She turned around to face him. "No, you can't do that, can you? A gun – that's not the Reaper's style." She took one step toward him and raised the bottle as a reminder that she had just brought down a bigger man, a better one. "Now how do you like your chances with that tiny knife? Like I said, Zachary, you're no good at improvising. And there's another flaw in your plan. That business card with my personal invitation? That note is in my secretary's handwriting," she lied. "I haven't seen that woman since Timothy died. Do you want the police to find that card in your pocket? No, I didn't think so. While you're burning that little piece of evidence, I'll be washing up." Bottle gripped tight in her right hand, she left him standing there and closed the bathroom door behind her.

No, I said Zack might be inside." Crazy Bitch stared at the recently opened door of the producer's booth. "He really wanted to get in there."

"But you're the one who glued the locks shut," said Mallory. "Yeah, just in case he was in there. Well, he's crazy, isn't he?" "And you didn't want anybody to know that you were running the show tonight." Mallory inspected the interior, then pointed to the sheet spread across the window. "Is that your work?"

"How could it be? The producer's door is always locked." "But you had a key, didn't you?"

Crazy Bitch gave her a wobbly smile as she backed up to the door of the studio. "The commercial break is over. I have to get back to my show. It's my show now."

"Just a minute." Jack Coffey appeared behind her, blocking her backward exit. "Where can we find this guy Needleman?" "Probably home in bed. It's a school night."

Mallory loomed over the shorter woman, willing her to make sense with a glare that promised unspeakable violence if sense was not immediately forthcoming.

Crazy Bitch hurried to explain that Needleman was the station manager's nephew. "He's only fourteen years old."

"A payroll scam," said Mallory. "So the station manager pockets the extra paycheck?"

"You didn't hear that from me, okay?"

"Tell me how you know," said Coffey.

"Well, the station manager goes home at six. So it was my job to unlock the producer's booth after Zack left for the night. A couple of real producers use it for the morning shows. I was told it was a joke, just a way to get back at the bastard and drive him nuts. And that was fine with me, but I didn't believe it. If that was true, why not just give the other producers keys of their own?"

Lieutenant Coffey seemed smug as he turned on Mallory, saying, "Good reasoning. I might give this kid your job." Crazy Bitch sensed a note of payback in his voice as he rested one hand on her shoulder, saying, "Go on, kid. Tell us how you cracked the payroll scam."

"I screwed the hundred-year-old bookkeeper. He gets a cut from the producer's paycheck – and he told me."

Mallory missed the moment of the lieutenant's disappointment. Her head was turned, listening to the whispers of a policewoman. And now she ran down the hall. Lieutenant Coffey turned to the officer. "What did you say to her?"

"I gave her a message from Detective Janos," said the police officer. "Her car was stolen. Some firemen got the license plate number after the car hit their truck. They saw the thief driving south."

Johanna stood before the sink, looking down at the pimpernel Riker had drawn on the palm of her hand. She washed away his flower and his blood.

After leaving the bathroom, she walked into the kitchen, pulled down a wineglass from a rack on the wall, then rummaged in a drawer. The noise attracted Zachary. He was at her side when she pulled out the corkscrew.

The muzzle of the gun was pressed to the back of her head, yet her voice was perfectly calm. "Sorry," she said. "Looks dangerous, doesn't it?" She held up the twisty metal and made a show of inspecting it. "So sharp." Johanna walked past him, pretending that the gun did not exist. She sat down in an armchair and plunged the tip of the screw into the cork of the wine bottle. "Your plan is falling apart." She twisted the corkscrew by a full turn, driving it deeper. "Wondering how many other mistakes you made?" And now she noticed her crime-scene bag open on the floor by the couch.

Zachary pulled on one of her disposable gloves, then picked up a rag and proceeded to clean Riker's revolver. "Tell me what you think of my new plan – my improvisation. First I shoot you in the head. You see? I can be flexible. Then I put the gun in your dead hand and shoot poor Riker in the heart." He held up his gloved hand. "When the police arrive, yours are the only fingerprints on the weapon. A clear case of murder and suicide. That works so nicely with all your guilt for those dead jurors."

"You're making this too complicated," she said, twisting the screw deeper. "More mistakes." She pulled out the cork. "I washed Riker's blood off the bottle. I hope you don't mind me tampering with your evidence."

He made a long reach across the cocktail table and ripped the bottle from her grasp. "No problem. There's still a bloodstain on the label. I think that's enough to point the way for the police. How dumb can they be? Incidentally, you have excellent taste in wine. The last time I saw this vintage – "

"Was the night Timothy saw you in the liquor store. That's when you thought he'd pegged you as the Reaper. And that's why you killed him." She gave him a benign smile. "You can't fob that off as just another detail in your great plan. You killed him because you panicked. One more murder might be dicey. You've botched so many things."

He leveled the gun at her face. "Are you sure you want to piss me off?"

"Not my intention – just a symptom of something called the Stockholm syndrome."

He nodded. "Hostages bonding with their kidnappers. I don't see the – "

"There's more to it. The hostages actually work with the kidnappers. You see, it's in their best interests to help the kidnapper get the result he wants so the victim can survive. That's why I'm going to help you fix your errors – like the one with the business card."

"No, you're stalling for time. Waiting for reinforcements? Do you actually believe that Riker would tell another cop he'd lost his gun to a woman? Absurd. No one is coming to your rescue. Time to make a decision, Dr. Apollo." He walked to the kitchen and pulled another goblet from the rack on the wall. On his way back to the couch, he paused to nudge Riker's body with his foot, then moved on to pour some wine into Johanna's glass and more into his own.

"Are you sure you want to drink that?"

"Are you insane?" He held the bottle high. "It's impossible to find this vintage anymore."

That might well be true. She had inadvertently cornered the market with her collection. "What if the wine is poisoned?"

His glass hovered in midair, and his face was also frozen.

"You're not sure, are you? Lost your edge?" She sipped from her wineglass and assumed what she hoped was a Mallory smile.

Perversely, he found that reassuring, and tipped back his own glass for a long draught. "You still believe you can talk your way out of this?"

She nodded and drank her wine. And he drank.

"Just as I remember it – fabulous." His gaze fell on Riker's body. "Too bad. I actually liked that man."

"He's not dead yet," said Johanna.

"He'll be dead soon enough, Doctor. And it's all your fault, you know. All those murders. If only you'd hung that jury when you had the chance. It would've taken one vote – yours. If you'd voted guilty, my plan would have died right there in the courtroom. You see that now, don't you? All your fault. And now poor Riker has to die."

"You're making everything too complicated. That's how they'll catch you."

"You'll never know, Doctor. You'll be dead. Or… one phone call to Victor Patchock and you get to live." He perused the bottle's label. "So Timothy Kidd put you onto this wine. That night in the liquor store – was he following me?"

She sipped from the glass. "That's been driving you crazy, hasn't it? How did Timothy know it was you? What did you do wrong?"

"He found me in the neighborhood of a fresh corpse."

"That wasn't it. The body hadn't been found yet. No, the odd note was when you recognized him. In hindsight, it's so simple. You haunted your crime scenes. That's part of the kick, isn't it? The police activity, the media frenzy. That's how you knew Timothy was FBI. Forgive me – I'm digressing. Of course he recognized you. Your face was on the news every night. But he had to wonder why you'd be surprised to see him, a man you'd never met. And then you disappeared so quickly. Details like this are food for a paranoid personality. He was only suspicious that night. When another juror turned up dead the next day, that's when he – "

"Still trying to buy time? You really think the cavalry is coming over the hill to save you. Now, that's odd, because you're the one with the rescuer complex." He yawned. "Let's get this over with, shall we?" He aimed the gun at her face.

"Actually, I was just about to pay you a compliment." He lowered the gun. She knew he would.

"The idea was brilliant," she said. "And you almost pulled it off. You nearly disemboweled the justice system." "With a little help from the ACLU."

"Yes, a nice touch." She watched the rise and fall of Riker's chest, and found comfort in this.

"I don't have to kill him, Doctor. Choose. Riker or Victor." His gun hand warred a moment with the hand that held the wine. The revolver was left to rest on the couch cushion. He drained his glass, then filled it again. "Perhaps I shouldn't rush you. As victims go, you're miles more entertaining than the rest of them." "Even my friend Timothy?"

"Oh, absolutely boring. Though, to be fair, I suppose it's difficult to be scintillating company once your throat is slashed and you're bleeding to death." Zachary lifted his wineglass again, then watched, surprised and helpless to prevent it from tipping forward. His fingers could not close around the crystal. The wine spilled across the couch cushions in a wide red stain.

Johanna was reminded of Timothy Kidd quietly bleeding his life away in an armchair.

Zachary gave her a foolish smile. "I'm drunk."

She shook her head. "No, that's not it." Johanna looked down at her glass. "Such a poor wine. That's all you had in common with Timothy- neither one of you had a discriminating palate. I think my chemicals actually improved the taste."

It was a struggle for him to keep his eyes open. There was a high color in his cheeks and his eyes were those of a dullard, slow to focus. But now, as he began to understand what she had done, he made a clumsy attempt to rise from the couch. Panic worked against him. "You drugged me." His fingers wormed around the handle of the gun, but he could not lift it from the cushion. "You put me to sleep."

"I considered that option," she said. "I have a high tolerance for these drugs, but you have greater body mass. So I couldn't count on outlasting you. And you might've been the first to wake up. No, I didn't sedate you… I killed you. A syringe in the cork. It's the simple plans that work best."

"But you drank – "

"I killed us both. There was no other way." Johanna sat quietly, finally coming to terms with Timothy Kidd's last moments and sharing them. She sipped air and life, what measure was left.

The more Ian Zachary struggled, the faster he died. The red wine stain spread across the upholstery, just like the bloodstains on Timothy's chair. She had not anticipated the justice of this tableau. She had not dared to think so far ahead, lest she falter with the syringe while poisoning the wine.

Zachary's head rolled to one side, and he stared at her in dumb surprise. The muscle spasm, a preview of her own death, made his body go suddenly rigid. Then came the violent shakes, and then nothing at all. He had ceased to exist.

And she was alone.

There was no euphoria to numb her own panic while she separated from the solid earth. Johanna Apollo, the recalcitrant suicide, grieved for her lost life as she careened away from it. This was the moment after the leap from a mountain, the knowledge that she could not scratch her way back to the ledge, and the experience of free fall was intense. There was such cruelty in this long descent from grace – so much time for regret.

The final spasm came. The wineglass fell from her hand. And, in the ether of her dying brain starved of oxygen and blood, regret, tenacious thing, remained.

Riker was bleeding from a head wound, always a good indication of ongoing life, and his pulse was strong. Mallory was still holding on to his wrist as she spoke to the 911 operator, saying the words guaranteed to get the best service, "Officer down."

His limp hand fell back to the floor. Mallory rose to a stand and moved on to examine other elements of her new crime scene: Riker's blood on the wine bottle, his stolen revolver in the loose grip of Zachary's gloved hand. So the doctor had lost the gun to this man before she could get off one round; no surprise there. The Reaper's trademark, a honed penknife, lay at Zachary's feet, and one case was closed. What else? Spilled wine on the couch and a shattered glass on the floor by the doctor's chair. In the absence of visible wounds, poison was such an easy call – a murder-suicide.

No, it was not quite that simple. There were a few outstanding details.

And now the scene was all too easily read, and here her mind made a bruising stumble, slamming up against her own mistake: she had underestimated the doctor's feelings for Riker.

He moaned, and she turned around to see other signs of Riker's awakening, subtle movements of his face and limbs. Before the real horror show could begin, she turned out the light so he would not open his eyes to see the dead white face of Johanna Apollo.

After dragging his body into the hallway, the young detective returned to tamper with the crime scene. In her limited rule book for a cop's life, this was an act of heresy.

She could not remove Riker's stolen gun from the premises; Jack Coffey knew who had taken it, and he would expect to find it listed on the crime-scene inventory. She settled for hiding the revolver in a drawer of the armoire, and now it was less clear that suicide had been Dr. Apollo's second option. Next, with one hand, Mallory wiped the wet face of a corpse, formerly a woman who had loved her life and proved it, leaving behind the irrefutable evidence of tears.

All gone now, perfectly dry.

Riker would never know and never blame himself.

When the ambulance arrived, Mallory was on her knees, holding Riker tightly in her arms, rocking him and lying to him, telling him that everything was fine – just fine.