The Intruders

chapter

FORTY-TWO

“We didn’t get him,” a voice said.

I was sitting in a chair in a hospital room, after the most recent of a series of conversations with members of Seattle’s law-enforcement agencies. I’d given a selective account of events during the altercation inside the building in Belltown. It was not the first time I’d given this account. I doubted that it would be the last. I had burns on my face and arms, had lost a chunk of hair. The pain of the wound in my shoulder and its associated stitching was bitterly emphatic, even through a pile of painkillers. My lower back felt like I’d been hit by a truck, and my head hurt in a way that felt as if it would never go away. I was not feeling receptive to news of any kind. I glanced up. Blanchard stood in the doorway.

“I hope you feel better than you look,” he said.

He came in and leaned against the side of the bed, folded his arms and stared down at me. I waited for him to say whatever it was he’d come to say.

“You could be worse,” he said eventually. “You were a lot worse, until half an hour ago. You’re a lucky guy.”

“In what way?”

“Forensic report came in. The bullets that killed Mr. Fisher and the one they dug out of you share a profile with those they found in Bill Anderson.”

“I said it was the same guy.”

“You did. But you know what? Ballistics reports carry a little more weight than the word of an ex-cop, especially one who’s happened to be on hand at every gun fatality Seattle has seen in the last week.”

“And there’s no sign of this guy? He just melted away on the open street?”

“Like he walked away from killing Anderson, and Anderson’s family. The guy is evidently a professional. A professional what, I have no idea. All we do know is that it seems like his name might be Richard Shepherd.”

I don’t think I did more than blink, but Blanchard was watching me closely. “Mean something to you?”

I shook my head. “How do you know his name?”

“I’ll tell you in a minute. I want to be sure on something first. You really have no idea of how the fire in the basement started? In these ‘storage areas’?”

“No.” This at least was true. “How bad was it?”

“Bad. The fire department is only really getting down there now. Anything that wasn’t rock is gone. Assuming there was anything there to be found?”

I made a face indicating I had nothing to say on the matter.

Blanchard smiled tightly to himself.

“Come on,” he said. “I’ll walk you out.”

“I can go?”

“For now. That’s what I’m telling you,” he said, standing. “You’re a lucky man.”

I followed the detective down the corridor. Walking hurt more than sitting had. Nurses made a big deal out of not watching us. There’d been a couple of armed cops sitting outside my room since I arrived. They were gone now.

“They can’t specifically put the gunman at the scene of the Anderson-family murders,” Blanchard said. “But since he killed both Bill and Gary Fisher—who was the only person making noise about that case—nobody has any problem assigning those to him, too. And you have no idea why he might have done all this?”

I shook my head. It was barely a lie. “What about the other guy? Todd Crane?”

“Private hospital across town. Lost a bucket of blood and took a lot of sewing up, but he’s going to be okay. He’ll live to hike again.”

“What?”

“He was babbling about it to his wife when he came out of surgery. Going hiking in the Olympic Mountains. So apparently Shepherd stabbed him, right?”

“If that’s what Crane says.”

“Busy guy.”

Though the environment was clean and bright, it felt oppressive. I was glad to be alive, more or less. Other than that, I wasn’t sure what to feel. I’d spent the night awake, my eyes open, watching and rewatching the memory of Gary Fisher being killed. I’d told myself that the man in the long coat, Shepherd, had planted killing shots in Gary before I could have made a difference. It was true. It hadn’t helped a great deal. You always feel you should have been able to do something about events in the past, more even than those that may lie in the future. I don’t know why that is.

Blanchard paused near the nurses’ station. Across from it was a room where a young girl was lying. A man and a woman were holding hands across the bed. I realized that this was the girl I’d last seen lying under Gary Fisher, covered in his blood.

“She’s okay,” Blanchard said. “Serious concussion, some burns and scrapes. Seems to have lost a lot of the last week, though, big chunks gone like they never happened. Could just be she’s blanking stuff, abuse or something, but the psychologist thinks it’s permanent.”

“What was she doing in the building?”

“That’s the other thing I mentioned. Madison O’Donnell was abducted from a beach house down in Oregon five days ago. What happened since isn’t clear, or how she got up here, but a man was evidently involved. The girl says it was the man with the gun last night, who you say was trying to kill her. Her parents gave a good description of him, and the guy even left his card with them, which is how we know his name. Or the name he uses, at least.”

I stared at him. “He kidnaps a child and then leaves a business card? How does that make sense?”

“I don’t know,” Blanchard admitted. “But we’re never going to be able to join all the dots on this one until we find the guy. And on that, I’m not holding my breath.”

I watched the family in the room for a moment. The girl’s face was badly bruised, but she was smiling. Her mother and father looked happy, too. Very happy.

How nice to have a family, I thought. What a simple thing, and yet how lucky it is.

When I turned back, I realized that Blanchard was looking awkward. “What?”

“I don’t know how much of this you know,” he said. “So I’ll just tell you. Fisher’s wife and child were here very early this morning. Mrs. Fisher flew over to identify the body. She did it and went straight home again.”

“Child? He had two.”

He nodded slowly. “Okay, so you don’t know. The daughter died. Three months ago.”

I stared at him. “Bethany’s dead?”

“Yes, that was her name.”

“How? What happened?”

Blanchard’s face was composed. “She drowned. In the bath. Mr. Fisher…well, her father was the supervising adult at the time. According to his account, he went out to get her pajamas from her room, and in the meantime she slipped, banged her head. He tried to resuscitate her. He failed, even though she could not have been under the water for very long.”

“You’re not saying…”

“Nobody’s saying anything. But there had been some crisis at Mr. Fisher’s office. He was named in a massive negligence suit over some guy’s will. Subsequently Mr. Fisher had become unfocused in his professional and personal lives. Started refusing to sleep. This thing in the bath happened, and then a few weeks later he went out one day and just didn’t come home. His wife didn’t even know he was in Seattle. He’s been missing for over a month.”

I suddenly had to get out. I didn’t want to be in the hospital anymore, didn’t want to hear anything else.

“Wait here,” I said.

I walked over to the bedroom where the O’Donnell family was. They looked up, all at once, as I entered. The parents frowned, doubtful and concerned. I probably didn’t look like the kind of person you wanted walking into your life.

“I remember you,” the girl said, though. “I think.”

“Right,” I said. “I was there. In the building. You don’t remember much, from what I hear.”

She shook her head. She seemed groggy. “Not really.”

“Do you remember a guy? Not me, not the…not the man with the gun? Another man?”

“Is this important?” her father asked. He wanted to protect her, and I didn’t blame him. His wife was ready to back him up hard. I wasn’t going to stop, however.

“Yes,” I said. “Madison—do you remember him?”

The girl thought a moment, then nodded.

“Yes,” she said. “There was a man who was trying to pull me out of the way.”

“His name was Gary Fisher,” I said. “He saved your life.”

Blanchard went down in the elevator with me and walked me to the door. Stood looking up the street as I lit a cigarette.

“There’s no call for you to be leaving the country, right? Or the state?”

“No,” I said.

“I guess we’d like it if you kept it that way. Being lucky doesn’t equate to a free pass just yet.”

“Whatever you say.”

He nodded, seemed to hesitate. “Don’t feel bad about what happened,” he said. “It seems to me that everyone put themselves in their own place. Fisher most of all.”

“Okay.” I didn’t want to talk about it.

“Right,” he said. “Well…oh. Here.”

He handed me a slip of paper.

“What’s this?”

“Left at the nurses’ station for you this morning. Now. Tell me you’re not going to try driving anywhere today.”

“I’m not going to try driving anywhere.”

“Good man. See you around, Jack.”

I waited until he’d walked back into the hospital before I unfolded the piece of paper. It took me a moment to recognize the handwriting. Something about it had changed. The note said:

Meet me somewhere.