Deluge

16

"LEGS," SAID DANNY.

They were sitting in the conference room next to the headmaster's office. Marvin Brightman, the headmaster, was at one end of the table, hands folded, wondering if he would be updating his rйsumй in the next week.

Danny sat at the other end of the table. Bill Hexton was across from him. They were waiting for a lawyer. It might be a long wait. John Rothwell, the lawyer who represented the Wallen School, had been called, but his firm backed off. Said it would be a possible conflict of interest if the police were planning to arrest one of the Wallen School students in connection with the investigation. They had recommended another firm. The return of the throbbing downpour would definitely delay the arrival of the attorney.

"Legs," Danny repeated. "Havel kept a journal. Said he was involved with a student he called 'Legs.'"

Hexton looked at him, impassive, resigned, determined.

"You said you did it on your own," said Danny. "That wasn't true."

The headmaster shifted uncomfortably but didn't speak. Hexton didn't answer.

"We know whose dress that was in your locker," said Danny. "Size fits only one of the girls in that chem class and the video confirms which one. My partner's talking to her right now."

Nothing from Hexton.

"You hid in the chem closet before class," said Danny. "Plan was to come out when the students left. Plan was to warn Havel to leave her alone, maybe even push him around a little, maybe push him around a lot, but you heard noise. When you came out Havel was facedown on the desk, pencil in his neck. She was standing over him covered in blood. She had her uniform on under her dress. She took the dress off. You got her cleaned up and then you took another pencil and drove it into his eye. He was already dead. You wanted to take responsibility for killing him if you got caught. One big problem. You want to know what it was?"

"No," said Hexton.

"I do," said Brightman.

"Blood splatter," said Danny. "The blood on the dress shows that whoever wore it struck the first, the fatal blow. You going to claim you were wearing the dress?"

No answer.

"Okay," Danny went on. "No blood splatter from the second blow, the one to the eye. No splatter on your uniform. The blood had stopped pulsing in Havel's body. He was dead. No splatter. You drove a pencil into the eye of a dead man to make it look as if you had struck both blows. Angle's wrong. Splatter's wrong. And we believe there was glass in your palm from using the jar. You tried to use green clay to get the glass out, but you had to dig the glass out yourself. And your palm is still slightly green."

Hexton looked as if he were going to speak, but Danny stopped him.

"You'd better wait for your lawyer. There'll be an assistant DA here soon. The two lawyers can talk to each other. I'm finished," said Danny.

"Detective, I've advised Miss Reynolds not to say anything," said John Rothwell, the Wallen School lawyer.

"I want to tell her," said Karen Reynolds of the golden hair and long legs.

"This won't be admissible," said Rothwell.

"She's eighteen," said Lindsay, turning on the small tape recorder.

They were in the headmaster's office. Beyond the door Karen Reynolds kept glancing toward where Danny was sitting with Bill Hexton and Marvin Brightman.

"I didn't mean to kill him," Karen said to Lindsay. "I knew Bill was in the closet, yes. The plan was for him to come out, face Mr. Havel, warn him. I went back into the lab when the others left. I told him to stop bothering me, calling me, touching me. We'd only done it once, two months ago. I was seventeen then. I told him I'd tell, that his wife would find out, the school would find out. He didn't care. Said no one would believe me. He grabbed me. I picked up the pencil and…I panicked. I didn't plan to kill him. I didn't. I wouldn't have stabbed him if he hadn't grabbed me."

"That's it," said Rothwell. "Not another word."

Lindsay reached over and turned off the tape recorder. She had enough.

Charles Roland Cheswith was a resourceful man and, if he had to say so himself, which he did, a very good actor. He never had the looks, the charisma of a leading man, but that was fine with him. Leading men get old, hang on, give up and start to compete, usually unsuccessfully, for character roles with Charles Cheswith, who already fit comfortably into the roles of father, priest, lawyer, pharmacist and cop. He could go back to the stage, although it would have to be far away and under a different name.

He still harbored a glimmer of hope that he could claim the substantial insurance on his brother, Malcom. It was not a great hope, but there were still possibilities to explore.

First things first, however.

He had a checklist. Not one he had written. He didn't need to write it. Charles had an outstanding memory cultivated by exercises and tricks collected from years of learning roles. He had once, not too long ago, played Murray the Cop in a production of The Odd Couple on a riverboat in Natchez. He had understudied all of the male roles and had been not only prepared to step in but eager to do so. He got his chance one Saturday performance when one of the actors fell suddenly ill with violent vomiting. Ipecac induced. For one performance, Charles got to play Oscar Madison.

Now Charles sat in a wheelchair at JFK Airport, passport and e-ticket in hand, waiting to board his flight to Vancouver. He knew places to get lost in Vancouver, places where he could heal and hide. He had the money from Doohan. It would carry him while he figured out a way to claim the insurance money.

He wasn't quite home free, but he was getting closer.

With the help of the crutches he had made it to the front of the hospital and into a cab, which had just pulled up. There were people ahead of him in line, but with crutches and bloody blue surgical garb he had pushed his way past them filled with apologies as he uttered, "Emergency. Sorry."

And they believed him, believed he was a doctor. It was one of his better performances. It had to be.

They would be able to track him to the cab he had taken. Of this Charles had no doubt. The pretty woman detective wouldn't give up or slow down. She had been relentless in rescuing him and her partner and figuring out what Charles had done. She would be relentless in tracking him.

But he had made it back to the hotel where he had a room. The front desk clerk glanced at the bloody blues, the crutches, the bandaged leg and said nothing. He got Charles's passport and cash from the hotel safe. Charles paid his bill, went to his room, changed his clothes in agonizing pain, and made his way back to the front of the hotel where he caught another cab.

All he had was a carry-on. No checking of luggage. In a washroom, Charles put on a pair of glasses, combed his hair forward and let his lower lip puff in a pout that announced that this character was not of high intellect.

A lean black man with a trim beard and a blue blazer and tie hurried him through security in a wheelchair. Charles had checked the departure board briefly, saw that the Vancouver flight was leaving in thirty-five minutes. He had purchased a one-way ticket. Charles knew Vancouver, had been in three episodes of The A-Team, two of 21 Jump Street and four pilots for shows that didn't go anywhere. That had been a long time ago, but he still knew people there. One of them would put him up. He would tell them tales, lies and partial truths till he healed. He would lose weight, grow a mustache, change the color of his hair, become someone different, buy an illegal Canadian passport. It could and would work out. Charles Cheswith was a resourceful man.

He got the man who was pushing the wheelchair to stop at a mall shop where he bought a Mets cap, a pair of sunglasses and a magazine. He was ready, at the front of the line, early boarding for the man who needed assistance.

Then he saw them. He wasn't sure at first that it was Detective Stella Bonasera and Dr. Hawkes. He had to take off the sunglasses to be certain, but there they were, heading toward him through the crowd.

It was almost certainly over. He had run out of all but one option and that was more a dramatic gesture than a sincere probability. Still it was a possibility. He reached into his carry-on, took out a small bottle filled with almost clear liquid, removed his watch from his wrist and fumbled for a small length of twisted wire.

When Stella and Hawkes were standing in front of the wheelchair, Charles was ready. He looked up at them and said, "How did you find me so damned fast? No, hold that explanation."

"It's over," said Stella.

"I was just thinking that myself," Charles said. "But I'll try this just the same."

He pulled down the blanket in his lap to reveal a small bottle wrapped in thin wires. The wires were attached to a wristwatch.

"I'd like to leave now," he said.

No one around them seemed to notice.

"I'm sure you would," said Stella.

"It's not going to happen," said Hawkes.

"What have I got to lose?" asked Charles. "Do you really want to take a chance?"

"No chance," said Hawkes. "That's not a bomb. It's shampoo."

"You're sure?" said Charles. "You willing to risk innocent lives?"

"No risk," said Hawkes.

Stella stepped forward and took the wired shampoo bottle and attached watch from his hand.

"This is the way the world ends," said Charles, shaking his head.

"Not with a bang but a whimper," Hawkes supplied.

"I don't know if I'm insurable," Keith said as he and Jerry walked across the lobby of the Gronten Hotel toward the elevator.

There were six people in the small lobby. One of them, the one with his hands folded over a paperback novel in his lap, was definitely a cop. The cop looked a little weary, but he was doing his job. Keith could sense the man looking at him and the insurance salesman from Dayton as they stepped into the elevator. There would be another cop outside of Ellen's room. He would deal with that.

"Everybody's insurable," said Jerry as the doors closed. "The only question is, how much will it cost and is it worth it?"

Keith was blessed with great peripheral vision. He was looking at Jerry and nodding as if the salesman had just said something profound, but Keith could also see the cop in the chair looking in his direction.

They were the only ones on the elevator. Jerry pushed the button for the sixth floor. Close enough. Keith would have only two flights up to get to Ellen Janecek.

"Your leg, right?" asked Jerry as they rose.

"My leg," Keith agreed. "Army's covering treatment but what about complications down the line? My mother, Dotty, you know her?"

"Don't think so," said Jerry.

"She died last year. Left me financially but not physically comfortable."

The elevator doors opened.

"Let's see what we can come up with," said Jerry with a smile.

Room service. Coffee. Toasted bagels and cream cheese and within fifteen minutes Jerry was preparing a policy. He couldn't believe how easy it had been to sell it. It was a good policy, but it wasn't cheap. When he finished making changes, he passed the four-page document across the small table to Keith who signed and initialed in all the right places.

Keith looked at his watch.

"I've got to go down to my room for a few minutes. I'll be right back with a check."

"Fine," said Jerry. "I'll just call my office and get the paperwork rolling."

Keith went to the door as Jerry picked up his cell phone and pressed a button.

Keith liked him. After he killed Ellen Janecek, he could come back and talk to him for a while, get him to accompany Keith out of the hotel. That was the plan in any case. He hoped he would not have to kill Jerry.

Ellen waited.

She wanted, needed to see Jeffrey. The television was on. The sound was off. She didn't want to miss the knock she was expecting on the door.

He would be coming soon.

The room was small. Two uncomfortable chairs with arms. A bed. The television. A single window with a mesh screen and beyond it a view of a dirty brick wall. Bathroom. Long dark lightning-shaped crack on the tile floor. The other hotel had been better, but he, the one she knew as Adam, had found her there. Yes, it was partly her fault. No, it was completely her fault, but "fault" wasn't quite the right word. It was her responsibility, and the consequence of her decision to tell him where she was had led to this small room.

But it was going to change.

And it was going to change now.

The knock at the door was gentle. Two raps. Ellen stood.

Keith stood in the hall. He was ready. He was lucky. There was no cop in the hall. In a few seconds, this part would be over. The circle would be complete. The letters of his brother's name would be carved in bloody gashes. A-D-A-M. This time all four letters in her soft, white flesh. Their bodies, what he had left of them, would forever be the reminder of Adam's death and their own unclean actions.

The world was a shitty place. There were decent, innocent people born into it, people like Adam. They were defiled.

Keith's hand was in his pocket touching the cool metal handle of the knife. She would open the door. An instant of recognition on her pretty, vacant face and then click, jab under her arm, push her back, close the door, take his time, but not too much time.

He knocked again.

The door started to open.

Knife out. No one in the narrow corridor.

The door swung open.

Mac had heard the knocking at the door. He had sent the officer in street clothes guarding the corridor down to the lobby. Mac came out of the bathroom, moved past Ellen Janecek, who he motioned to back away. More knocking. Flack had called him less than half an hour ago. Mac had arrived at the hotel fifteen minutes later.

When he had quickly told Ellen what he planned to do, her only question was, "Is Jeffrey all right?"

Mac, gun in his right hand, reached out for the door with his left, and threw the door open.

Keith stood there, knife in hand.

"Drop the knife," Mac said gently, both hands on the gun now.

Keith looked over the shoulder of the man in front of him, the man with the gentle, firm voice and the gun. Keith could see Ellen Janecek's face across the room. He wanted to tell the man with the gun that he had to kill her, that he couldn't leave this unfinished. He had a feeling that the man with the gun would understand, but he also had the feeling that the man with the gun would shoot.

"You don't understand," Keith said calmly. "She killed my brother. They all killed or destroyed my brother and other brothers, sisters, children, grandchildren. You have to understand."

Keith took a step forward, knife still in his hand. Mac could feel the man's pain, a horrible frustration. Mac took a step back and said, "Put it down now."

Keith tightened his grip on the knife. Maybe, just maybe he could surprise the man with the gun, make a move, stab him under the arm, make him drop that gun.

"Don't," said Mac.

"There are a lot of animals out there who don't deserve to live."

"Maybe," said Mac, taking a step forward. "I'm not one of them. I talked to your mother. She wants to hear from you."

Keith had few options left. He considered them.

"What's your name?" Keith asked.

"Taylor, Mac Taylor."

Keith looked at Ellen Janecek and tightened his grip on the knife. Before he had lost his leg he could have leapt across the room and gutted her before he was shot. That was before he lost his leg.

"Keith?"

Keith Yunkin nodded and dropped the knife.

The Hat walked under the elevated train tracks, clinging to the duffle bag that he had taken from the office building. He considered the theft of the bag a major triumph. The Hat had stood across the street from the office building, hidden in a doorway, until the cop came out with the kid.

Then he'd raced back into the office building and found the duffle bag in the room behind the one in which he'd found the kid. The bag had been tucked away under a sink. The Hat had grabbed the bag and fled the building.

Then, under the tracks and station above them, he had walked.

Now he stopped, looked around furtively, put the bag on the ground and leaned over to unzip it.

Knives. He could sell them somewhere. Clothes. Maybe they fit. An egg salad sandwich and bottles of water. He sat on a low block of concrete and ate.

The Hat reached into the bag and came up with one of the knives. He opened it easily and as he did the blade ran across his finger. He dropped his sandwich. The cut was deep, very deep, to the bone. The blade of the knife was bloody.

He'd have to find some bandages somewhere. A knife like this one could kill someone without a blink.

He let the knife tumble back into the bag, took out a shirt, wrapped it around his hand and gave serious thought to going to a drug store, but not for Band-Aids, for something much bigger than a Band-Aid. There was a clinic about six blocks away, but it was far and The Hat was bleeding. No, a drug store it would be. Maybe he could trade a knife for bandages.

It had begun as a very good day, The Hat thought. A good deed for a soft-brained boy had brought him a promising bag full of jangling goodies and a sandwich. It could turn into a bad day with a dark ending if the bleeding were not stopped. Oh well. The Hat knew people, lots of street people, who would be glad to buy these very sharp knives. But first, the bleeding had to stop.

Every drawer was occupied by a corpse. Nine of them. Sid Hammerbeck had been busy, nonstop for three days. Now he was home meditating in his state-of-the-art kitchen, amid shining pots, dark cast-iron pans, the smell of fresh vegetables and baking turbot. He took a spray of fresh chervil from a small paper bag in the refrigerator, placed it on a cutting board and expertly cut it into tiny, even pieces.

The timer was on. Sixteen minutes more.

It struck him that his life was one of smells, the smell of the dead, the smell of his own cooking. Sometimes he had guests over for dinner, but not tonight. Tonight he would dine alone. No conversation. No television. No book or newspaper on the table. He would eat slowly, close his eyes to savor the food without having someone across the table look at him as if he were doing something weird. His friends already thought his decision to leave the kitchen of one of the finest Continental restaurants in the city to go into the steel gray of the autopsy room was was weird enough.

Sid had explained that the room where he dissected the dead was cleaner than almost any four-star restaurant in the world. He could see disbelief, even when they said the obligatory and sophisticated "I know." Sid didn't explain much or often anymore.

Something itched, not physically, mentally. It was like trying to remember the name of a character in a favorite novel. There were several ways of dealing with it. Go back to the novel and find the name. Use some trick of the memory to locate the source of the itch and scratch it.

The microwave ticked behind him. Sid checked the oven timer. Perfect. Turbot in the oven. Chive and crushed cauliflower in the microwave. An inexpensive California white wine barely chilling in the refrigerator.

What was bothering him?

One of the bodies.

He stood over the sink holding the garlic press in his hand. Patricia Mycrant. It came to him suddenly. Not words, but a faint smell wafting in the alcoholic miasma of the autopsy room and then a vision.

Three minutes to go. He would wait, take the fish from the oven, put the chervil and garlic away, refrigerate the cauliflower and chives and have a late dinner, maybe a very late dinner.

The wine would be too cold. He removed it from the refrigerator and placed it on the counter.

Twenty minutes later he was back among the dead.

Flack knocked at her door.

Less than an hour ago he had been lying on his sofa, shoes off, fully clothed watching a Rockies/ Cubs game. He wasn't much interested in either team, but it was better than no game and it distracted him from the discomfort in his chest. He knew he couldn't concentrate on a movie or a series or read a book. He was hurting. He admitted it to himself, but no one else. He had come back from the trauma and surgery with rehab and rest, but on long days like this one, the aching, particularly in his chest, jarred him into memory.

When his phone rang, he was lying motionlessly, right arm across his eyes. He should get up and eat, maybe take a shower or bath, get some sleep, probably on the floor rather than his bed after taking one of his pain pills. It felt better to be on his back on the floor, though getting up in the morning was a series of challenges and pain.

The phone call had gotten him up and moving. Distraction was almost as good as sleep.

He knocked at the door again.

"Who is there?" came the voice.

"Detective Flack," he said.

"I'm not prepared for visitors," she said. "I've just bathed."

"Police business," he said.

Gladys Mycrant opened the door. She was wearing a black silk robe with colorful red and yellow flowers. Her hair was down and she wore makeup. Flack wondered if the makeup might be the tattooed kind.

"Yes?" she said, examining him and making it clear from her look that he came up short in her estimation.

"May I come in?"

"If you must."

She stepped back, hand holding her robe closed at the breast. He entered and she closed the door.

"When am I getting Patricia's body?" she said. "I want to give her a decent burial. It's awful to think of her, the way she is, in some cold police mausoleum.

"The medical examiner had to complete another examination and run some tests."

"Tests?"

She sat in an armchair, legs crossed, bouncing impatiently.

"According to the medical examiner, your daughter's body is slightly yellow."

"Jaundice. Patricia drank. I told her what it would do to her liver, what it had done to her father's liver. Detective, I have a vivid imagination that helps me in my business but hampers me in my thoughts. I'd rather not think of my daughter as she is now."

"She was being poisoned," said Flack, looking down at her.

He didn't want to sit. His back told him not to. She was watching him. He knew she would see him wince, even if it were slight, when he tried to get out of a chair.

"Poisoned?"

"Arsenic," said Flack. "The ME found it in her nails, skin."

"ME?"

"Medical examiner."

"Oh my God," she said. "Something in the water? The walls? Am I poisoned too?"

"I doubt it, but we can check. She was dying from chronic arsenic poisoning," he said. "Slow."

She was silent now, biting her lower lip, thinking.

"You have plants?"

"Plants? In the house? No."

"You do on the roof."

"Yes."

"We'll check the soil for arsenic."

"She spent too much time with those plants, tending them. I shouldn't have- "

"You told me she didn't like to go on the roof, remember?"

"Did I? Yes, that's true, but she did enjoy the plants."

"We'll check your supplies for prints. You have arsenic?"

"No," she said indignantly. "Why would I have arsenic?"

"It's used for plant care," he said. "Mind if we look at your supplies?"

"I don't- "

"Gladys," he said gently. "Enough."

Her head was down. She wept into her silk robe.

"Patricia didn't die from arsenic poisoning," she said. "She was murdered by that maniac."

"But you were killing her slowly."

She nodded.

"She hadn't changed, wasn't changing. That group was doing nothing for her. I could tell by what she said, watched, listened to, the way she looked at children on the street. Bad genes. I've always attributed it to bad genes from her father's side. Nothing you can do to help someone with bad genes."

"So you were killing her."

"Softly," she said looking up. "Very softly. She was my daughter. But I didn't kill her, did I?"

"No."

"So you can't arrest me."

"The district attorney's office says that I can. I'm calling it attempted murder for the record, but they can straighten it out when you get there."

He read her her rights and told her he would wait while she dressed and called a lawyer. Gladys got out of the chair slowly and looked at him.

"You understand, don't you? You understand why I had to do it?"

"Doesn't matter what I understand," he said, but that was a lie. It mattered to Flack. It mattered very much.