In Death's Shadow

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

"Naddie," I said, trying it on for size. "Naddie."

Next to me, Mrs. Bromley began to weep quietly. "If anything happens to you, Hannah, I'll never forgive myself."

"Please, Mrs. B, uh, Naddie." I wrapped my arms around her, wanting so much to comfort her, to reassure her that everything would be okay, but at that point, neither one of us was likely to believe it.

Tears glistened on her cheeks.

"Here," I said, "let me find you a tissue." I plunged my hand deep into my purse. I had a packet of tissues in there somewhere.

I pushed aside my wallet, my lipstick, an appointment book, my car keys-fat lot of good they were going to do me now. I found an old AAA battery, a stick of gum, and somebody's business card. Then my hand touched something soft and squishy.

Squishy? I tried to think. I felt it on all sides. Something squarish, in bubble wrap.

Bubble wrap. Paul's global positioning system was wrapped in bubble wrap.

Carefully, lovingly, realizing the potential of this miraculous discovery, I pulled the GPS out of my purse and laid it gently on the blanket.

Carefully, lovingly, I began to remove the bubble wrap, praying, as I did so, that the GPS had been returned from the West Marine repair shop operationally complete, including fresh batteries.

"What's that?" Mrs. Bromley asked as the device began to emerge from the plastic.

"This, Mrs. B, may be our salvation." I looked straight into her eyes. "And if not our salvation, at least a means of bringing these criminals to justice after we're gone."

"What? With a PDA?"

"No, not a PDA, Naddie. It's Paul's GPS." I turned it around so she could see the screen. '"I lift up mine eyes-'" I quoted. "I knew there was some reason we needed that window!"

Naddie looked puzzled. "Does it send out some sort of signal?"

"No," I explained. "Just the opposite. It picks up satellite signals and tells you exactly where you are. Paul uses it when he's sailing, to navigate."

"Well that's all well and good," Naddie said, wiping her eyes with her sleeve, "but knowing exactly where we are isn't going to help us get out of where we are."

"No, but when we do get out, it will tell us how to get back."

"Get back? Why on earth would we want to come back?" And then she got it "Ah, the police! I must be senile."

I got to my feet. "Here, hold onto this-carefully!-while I climb back up to the window."

"Why do you need the window?"

I eased a toe into an empty wine slot and began to pull myself up the wall. "It needs to see the sky in order to pick up satellites."

When I reached the ceiling, I used the decanter drying rod to remove the panel, laying it aside on top of the Whisperkool.

Light poured into our prison cell.

Naddie handed me the GPS, and I held it as far out the little window as I could before turning it on. I waited, watching anxiously for the screen to light up. When it did, I said a silent prayer, thanking God and the Energizer Bunny. Then I cheered as, one by one, the device glommed onto the satellites orbiting overhead.

When the GPS was done acquiring satellites, it beeped.

"Now, to save our position."

Below me, Mrs. Bromley was bouncing up and down on her toes. "How do you do that?"

"Remember when I said Paul used this for sailing? Well, what we do is push the man overboard button." With my thumb, I mashed the M.O.B. down. "If we get out of here alive, Naddie, this little baby will tell us exactly where we've been. It'll even lead us here, like a mechanical bloodhound."

I kissed the GPS, tucked it into my waistband, and scrambled back down.

"You know what?" I said as I re-wrapped the GPS in its protective plastic. "I'm tired of waiting. I think we need to make it happen."

I tucked the device tenderly into my purse, slipped the strap of my purse over my head and positioned the bag comfortably against the small of my back. "You know what else I think? I think Chet's waiting for instructions. He doesn't have permission to use that gun, otherwise he would have shot us already."

"Perhaps we should get his attention." Naddie squared her jaw and grinned. She picked up a bottle of chardonnay, and when I nodded, she smashed it on the floor.

We stopped to listen. Chet had switched channels. He seemed to be watching a stock car race.

I picked up another bottle of chardonnay and hurled it against the wall. It crashed into a bin of merlot with a satisfying thwack.

The television went silent.

Just to make sure Chet was listening, I threw another bottle of wine against the door, hoping to shatter the pane. Surprisingly, the bottle broke, but not the glass. God only knew what kind of space age material it was made from.

A shadow appeared on the other side of the glass. "Hey, you ladies, cut it out. I know what you're trying to do."

I stood to the left of the door, well out of pistol range. "Aw, Chet. We're just having a little fun! There's wine in here, Chet. Lots and lots of wine! What do you think we've been doing in here, Chet? We've been drinking wine! Lovely, lovely wine!" I dashed another bottle against the tiles.

"You can break every goddamn bottle in there, I don't give a fuck. It's not my wine."

"C'mon, Chet," I wheedled. "Let us go. Before your friend gets back. We'll never tell."

"No fucking way."

Chet's shadow disappeared for a minute, and then it returned, dragging a chair. He positioned the chair directly in front of the door and sat down in it. I imagined him with his arms folded across his chest, a deputy sheriff in a spaghetti western.

I used the corkscrew to open a bottle of merlot, then poured it carefully under the door. Chet seemed to be ignoring the wine that had to be wicking into the carpet at his feet. Every few seconds he'd tip his head back, and I could see the vague outline of a bottle. Chet was drinking beer.

"Chet," I called through the door. "You really should let us go. You know why?" I giggled drunkenly. "Because my brother-in-law is a policeman, that's why! You don't believe me? His name is Rutherford, Chet. Lieutenant Dennis Rutherford. You can look it up. And if anything happens to me, he's going to come looking for you. And he's going to find you, and when he finds you he's going to cut off your balls and feed them to his cat!"

On the other side of the door Chet drained his bottle. I saw him set it on the floor next to his chair. Then he paid another visit to the refrigerator. I heard the door slide open and the psssst of a bottle being uncapped.

"You know something, lady? You are full of shit!" Chet faced the door defiantly. He tipped the bottle up and took a long swig. "I gotta do what I'm told. Ain't no independent thinking in this outfit. Last time I tried, he ripped me a new one."

I turned to Mrs. Bromley and rolled my eyes. "If Chet ever had an independent thought, the New York Times would report it."

"Boss not very understanding, then, is he?" Naddie was getting into the act.

Chet plopped down in his chair. "No way. Don't ever want to screw up with this dude or you could end up a floater."

"It can't be that bad," she drawled.

"Wanna bet? Kee-rist!" He snorted and upended the bottle. "Was supposed to get papers back from this broad. Ended up capping her instead. Didn't mean to. Was he pissed!”

The image of Gail's body swam before my eyes. I clapped my hand to my mouth, trying to suppress a scream.

Naddie touched my arm. To Chet, she said, "Why don't you get out of this business, then. Do you have a mother, Chet? Go home to her. Get a job at Wal-Mart."

"I don't usually work with guns," he mused, ignoring her. “Too fucking loud."

"Messy, too, I'll bet," Naddie said.

The refrigerator door slid open. Psssst. However this comes out, I thought, it'd probably be the last time Pottorff stationed Chet next to an unlocked refrigerator door.

"So, Chet, if you don't like guns, how come you got one stuck in your belt?" I asked.

"That?" He snorted. "Adds to my street cred, you know? Gets respect."

"So, what do you usually work with, Chet?" I hiccupped. "I really want to know. Knives? Poison?"

Chet laughed. "Nah. I make it look like natural causes, you know, like those geezers at the nursing home."

Naddie's fingers dug into my arm.

Chet was on a roll, so I pressed him. "And just how did you do that, Chet?"

"I burked 'em," he said simply. He tipped up his bottle and took another drink.

Somewhere a horn blared. Chet arose from his chair. When the horn blared again, Chet disappeared.

I turned to Naddie. "What the heck is burking?"

"My God," she said, grabbing onto the edge of the tasting table for support. "It dates back to nineteenth-century Edinburgh," she whispered. "Burke and Hare were these two fellows who dug up bodies to sell for anatomical dissection. When digging got to be a lot like work, they decided to streamline operations. They'd get a victim drunk, and while Burke sat on his chest to keep the lungs deflated, Hare would cover his nose and mouth, neatly asphyxiating him. It's extremely difficult to detect," Naddie continued, "unless you're looking for it."

"Jesus," I said. I thought about Valerie and Clark and those other poor folks at Ginger Cove and felt an overwhelming urge to force a pillow over Chet's face and hold it there until he quit squirming. Then I'd let him breathe. Then I'd mash the pillow over his face again. And again.

"Quick! Before he gets back!" In the light coming in from the window, I was able to identify the bin holding the champagne. I rushed over and pulled out a magnum. I held it in both hands and was about to use it like a club to smash down the door when I realized Chet was no longer alone.

"Hey, Nick. What's happening, man?"

"What the fuck?" It was Pottorff. His shadow, shorter and bulkier than Chet's, blocked the light coming in through the door. He was lifting his feet, examining his shoes. He'd stepped in the wine.

"Asshole! I thought you were supposed to be watching them?"

"I am watching them. They didn't go nowhere."

"Son of a bitch!" Stepping high, Pottorff's shadow receded.

"I didn't break them bottles, Nick. Them bitches did." Chet sounded desperate.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck! Look at this mess!"

"Look, man-" Chet began.

"Just get rid of them!"

I wrapped an arm around Naddie and dragged her with me as I retreated to the far corner of the wine cellar. I handed her my magnum and picked out another one for myself. Whatever happened, we'd go down fighting.

I braced myself, expecting Chet to burst in at any moment, gun blazing.

Then, from somewhere upstairs, a new voice shouted, "Not here, you morons!"

"Who is that?" Naddie whispered.

"I don't know!"

We heard muffled conversation, and within minutes the door opened and Pottorff slunk in, followed by Chet.

I raised the magnum to my shoulder like a baseball bat and got ready to swing.

"Drop the bottle, lady." It was Chet, backing up the order with his gun pointed directly at Mrs. Bromley. "You, too," he snarled.

Prudently, we did as we were told.

Pottorff grabbed my arm and dragged me roughly out of the wine cellar. Chet escorted Naddie, a bit more courteously. Maybe he hadn't emerged fully formed out of the primordial slime. Maybe he had a mother after all.

Retracing our steps, they hustled us back through the family room, up the stairs, through the kitchen and into the garage, where they shoved us into the back of the van and slammed the door.

Once again we heard the garage door grind open, and with Chet at the wheel and Pottorff riding shotgun, the van peeled off into the late afternoon sunshine.

The plan, apparently, was to pummel us to death.

Traveling at a high rate of speed, the van lurched through our captor's neighborhood with Naddie and me ricocheting off the walls as it careened around corners and joggled over potholes.

Naddie held onto the lawn mower. "Can you get the door open?"

On my hands and knees, I crawled to the cargo door and tried the handle. "It's locked!" I yelled over the roar of the engine. "But even if I could get it open, they're driving too fast. We'd be killed if we tried to jump."

Chet slammed on the brakes and I slid forward into a bag of grass seed. I looked up to check on Mrs. Bromley. She was still hanging onto the lawn mower, but under its tie-downs the mower had shifted alarmingly. I crawled forward, dragging the grass seed with me. Before the van began to move again, I helped Naddie into a corner on the passenger side of the van and cushioned her on both sides with seed bags. "You okay?"

She nodded, looking pale.

I piled two more seed bags around her for good measure, then the van took off and I slid back toward the cargo doors.

Where the hell were they taking us?

I cast a desperate eye around the van. A canvas bag containing gardening tools dangled from a single handle, its contents jingling and clanging like pie tins. I crawled across the floorboards and dumped the bag out: a cultivating fork, some pruning shears, a bulb planter. I set the Garden Weasel mini-claw aside, thinking it might come in handy later, grabbed the trowel and crawled back to the cargo door. Kneeling, I used the trowel to scrape at the paint covering the window.

"It's coming off, Naddie!" A peephole began to take shape. I scraped some more, enlarging the opening until it became a nickel, a quarter, a silver dollar. I put my eye to the window.

Traffic was light, but then, it was Sunday. I counted three cars behind us, and then four. Chet was traveling fast, passing everyone in his path. We sped past a highway sign, but I could see only its back side.

We were on an expressway, though. I shifted my gaze to the right, across the median to the other side of the divided highway. A green sign announcing the Route 50 split for Annapolis and Washington, D.C., was receding into the distance. "We're heading north on I-97," I told Naddie.

I started in again with the trowel. I'd made a hole about six inches in diameter when Naddie said, "Listen!"

It was the first of the sirens.

The van slowed. Chet must have heard it, too.

I cupped my face and put it to the window, searching the road behind us for any sign of a police car. The siren grew louder. The van slowed again, but I couldn't see any flashing lights.

"Come on! Come on!" I chanted. "Where the hell are you?"

Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw it. A two-tone blue cruiser pulling a U-ey, pitching and yawing over the median strip, siren whoop-whoop-whooping and blue lights flashing.

"Naddie! They're coming! Oh, thank God, thank God!"

But Chet wasn't planning to wait around for the Anne Arundel County police. The van lurched and I was thrown against the cargo door. As the van sped up, I crawled forward, pounding with my trowel on the Plexiglas partition that separated us from the driver's compartment. "Slow down, you idiots! You're going to get us all killed!"

As if they cared. They had seat belts, after all.

I turned to check on Mrs. Bromley. "You okay, Naddie?"

Looking small and frightened between the seed sacks, Mrs. Bromley nodded.

I crawled back to my peephole. The cop car was still behind, easing into the fast lane. He was going to force Chet over.

Then the cop drifted back. In a moment I saw why. A funeral procession, headlights blazing, had been crawling up the slow lane. Model citizens all, they tried to get out of the way, but some had pulled to the shoulder, some to the median, others, in confusion, still clogged the slow lane. Chet barely slowed. Like a stunt car driver gone berserk, he threaded his way between the mourners, horn blaring.

We passed the exit for BWI Airport. In a few minutes, I knew, we'd reach the Baltimore beltway. The cop was still behind, but his lights were receding. Had he determined that the chase was an unreasonable risk to innocent bystanders? Had he given up? Damn! If he didn't catch us before the beltway, Chet could go east on I-695. He could go west. He could drive north through the Harbor Tunnel. Unless the cops called in a helicopter, we might never be found.

I needed to stop Chet. But how?

Still holding the trowel, I crawled around the van, searching desperately for a weapon. I banged into buckets and flower pots, muddy work gloves and boots, a compost pail and a rusty wheelbarrow. It was like crawling through a minefield. Then I saw it, like a beacon in the night: a yellow canister strapped to the wall with a bungee cord. I tucked the trowel into my waistband and, pitching and weaving drunkenly, made my way toward the canister, thinking it would make an excellent bludgeon. Bracing myself against the wall, I unhooked the bungee cords and pulled the canister down. I checked the label. Insecticide. Oh, ho, ho, better yet, I thought as I tucked the canister under my arm. Some painters' masks hung on a peg nearby. I snatched them as I passed and staggered forward.

"Here, Naddie, put this on."

I fastened a mask to my own face, then, dragging the canister, made my way clumsily toward the front of the van.

I studied the sliding window. It had a lock, like on a jewelry display case. It didn't look too sturdy.

I pulled the trowel out of my pants, rammed it into the space between the sliding panels and pulled back, hard.

"What the hell?" Pottorff was pounding on the window with his fist. "Get back there!"

I pulled even harder. The lock turned out to be sturdier than the Plexiglas it was attached to. The Plexiglas crackled, then cracked, then split in two.

Pottorff's hand shot through the opening, but I whacked it with my trowel. "God damn!" he yelled, hastily retracting his paw.

I picked up the insecticide, aimed the nozzle into the cab, pulled the trigger and sprayed. I sprayed right and left, up and down, I sprayed until the canister was empty.

Pottorff coughed, he gagged, he tore at his eyes.

Chet stared straight ahead, but his eyes were streaming; he swiped at them with his shirtsleeve. The van swerved, hit the rumble strip, then pulled back onto the highway.

"Stop!" I screamed. "Stop now!"

Chet was aiming for the exit to I-695 when the cop car appeared outside his window. Chet swerved, accelerated and tore up the ramp, but was going too fast to make the turn. The van hit the Jersey wall, scraped along it, gradually slowing. Just when I thought we'd be okay, my head crashed into the ceiling as the van jumped over an object on the shoulder and shot across the ramp to bounce off the Jersey wall on the opposite side.

In the cab, Chet was wrestling with the steering wheel, struggling for control. With the cop crowding him on the right, Chet kept to the shoulder, still driving like a madman. Up ahead, a disabled vehicle blocked his way. "Look out!" I screamed, and ducked, covering my head with my arms. By the time Chet saw it, though, it was too late. He slammed on the brakes, sending the van into a slow skid. It screamed along, teetering on its right-hand tires, tipped and toppled on its side with a sound of breaking glass and shredding metal.

Suddenly everything was quiet.

I opened my eyes. I was lying on what had been the right side of the van, and I had the headache from hell.

I struggled to my knees. "Naddie! Where are you?"

"I'm over here."

Wiping at my eyes, I crawled to her. Secure in her corner, cushioned by seed sacks, she had survived the crash fairly well, but she was pinned in by the lawn mower, which had become unattached from its moorings.

"Are you okay?"

Naddie clutched her arm to her chest. "I think I've broken my arm."

"Anything else?"

She sucked in her lips against the pain and shook her head. A tear rolled down her cheek. "I don't think so, but the arm hurts like the devil."

"I'll have you out in a minute."

I'll have you out? That was a laugh. I poked my head through the window. There was no one in the cab. What I saw in the side view mirror was the backside of Chet and a brown blob that was Pottorff, crawling over the guardrail and hightailing it off into the underbrush, heading, I presumed, for nearby Arundel Hills Park.

"Help!" I screamed to anyone who might be listening. "Help! Get us out of here!"

There was the wail of more sirens. "Reinforcements!" I cheered. I crawled back to the cargo door and began flailing at it with my feet.

Suddenly the door was wrenched open. With "Thank God!" on my lips, I launched myself forward, falling into the arms of a very surprised Anne Arundel County cop.

"My friend," I muttered into his uniform. "Her arm's broken."

The officer held me at arm's length. He looked puzzled, as if I'd been speaking Greek. Where had all that blood on his uniform come from?

"Ma'am?" he said. "Are you all right, ma'am?"

The next thing I remember was sitting in the backseat of the police cruiser holding a compress to a gash on my forehead, watching as Chet and Pottorff, handcuffed, shuffling and staring at their shoes, were assisted into the backseat of a second cruiser.

"Please, check out my friend in there. I think she needs an ambulance."

"You both need an ambulance," the officer said. "It's on its way."

I shivered. "My friend. Is she okay?"

The officer smiled. "She's fine. Just a little beaten up. We've made her comfortable. Don't worry."

A blanket appeared from somewhere and I pulled it over my head and around my shoulders. "What took you so long?" I complained. "I called 911 and told them where we were."

The tips of the officer's ears reddened. "Do you know how many blue vans All Seasons has?"

Under the blanket I shook my head.

"Six. And one of them was parked on Rowe Boulevard in front of the Hall of Records. The crew was weeding the median." He grinned. "We had a very surprised driver and his assistant spread-eagled among the pansies when your call came in. By the time we'd realized our mistake and got around the corner to the construction site, you were gone."

Although it wasn't particularly funny, I smiled. "So near and yet so far."

"Something like that"

"They took my cell phone," I said.

The officer immediately got my drift. "Is there somebody we can call?"

I thought about Paul. If he had already gotten home, he must be frantic. "My husband." I gave the officer our number. Then I ticked the others off on my fingers. "And my brother-in-law, Lieutenant Rutherford with the Chesapeake County Police. And Officer Mike Tracey. He's one of you. He's working on the case this is related to."

"Ma'am," the officer said with a broad grin, "are there any cops you don't want me to call?"

I smiled. "It runs in the family."

"Do you mind if I ask?" the officer said after a moment.

"Ask what?"

He tapped the painter's mask that still dangled from my neck. "Why this? Your friend has one, too."

"I'll show you," I said.

He followed me over to the van, where I pointed out the yellow canister. "I sprayed 'em with that."

"What's in it?" he asked, picking it up and hefting it in his hands.

"Nothing now," I grinned. "But it used to be insecticide."

"'Kills chewing, sucking, and other hard-to-kill insects,'" the officer read off the label.

I thought about Pottorff in his beetle-brown suit. "Sounds about right to me."