The Last Family

3

Ted Broom, retired, dressed now in a knit shirt and sansabelt slacks, opened Rainey’s front door to a distinguished older man in a navy blazer and a knit polo shirt. Ted’s eyes ran over the steel crutches with the stainless bands that circled the man’s forearms. Polio most likely, he thought. The crutches that had been so common at one time were now rare, and Ted hadn’t thought about polio in decades, but his brother had a son who’d had it in the early fifties. The doctor carried his bag by hooking the handle with the tips of the fingers of the hand on the right crutch grip.

“Dr. Evans. Rainey sent me. To see after Doris.”

“Come in,” Ted said. “Please.”

The doctor followed Ted like a shadow, the crutch tips chirping as the old man moved in fluid, one-way pendulum strides. Ted opened the bedroom door, where his wife, Mary, was sitting on the bed holding Doris’s hand, cooing to her sobs. It had been less than half an hour since Rainey had abandoned the house.

“Tom Evans,” the older man offered, his voice surprisingly vital.

“This is Dr. Evans,” Ted said, introducing the man to the two women.

“Rainey sent me,” he explained to Doris.

“Where is he?” she asked, the words trembling out. Doris was on her back with her hands over her eyes when the doctor sat on the side of the bed and propped his crutches against the wall.

“Please excuse us,” the doctor said as he opened his bag. By the time he looked up from its depths, the door was closing behind the couple.

Doris stared up like a frightened fawn. The doctor smiled at her, his eyes soft through darkened lenses. Her own eyes were points of horror. Get me out of here! Get me away from this place, now!

His face floated above her, the peppermint breath washing her as he spoke. “I understand how you feel,” he said. “I lost a child years ago.”

Her hand flew to his forearm and was like a claw. “I want to go to him,” she whimpered. “I’m his mother.”

“Have you been drinking?”

“Some vodka-before.” She started crying again. She knew drinking was a sin, and she a sinner. Her mind was running from one place to another and touched on the thought that God was perhaps punishing her for that sin among many. Or punishing Rainey for something she didn’t even know about. Hadn’t Rainey cursed God, questioned his worth?

“Now, now.” The aged physician removed a syringe and filled it from a vial of clear liquid, the bottom pointed at the ceiling as he pulled back the plunger. “Doris, are you allergic to anything?”

“No,” she said, “just dairy products.”

“This’ll sting a little, but it will help you get through the next few hours.” He inserted the needle, but it didn’t hurt at all. Doris was numb to the needle because she was overwhelmed by real pain. Immediately after the shot she closed her eyes.

“What’s that?” her words slurred.

“It’s succinylcholine. It’ll force you to relax. I want you to close your eyes and remember a good time with your children. Imagine their smiles. They aren’t in pain now. They’re in a far better place. Do you believe that?”

She smiled. “Yes, I do.”

“Now, imagine the two children together hugging somewhere far away, happy to have each other again. I imagine they’re waiting for you.”

Her head rolled gently to the side.

“Doris?”

She didn’t move. Her eyes were open slightly. He put his hand to her neck, gently. Then he kissed his index finger and touched it to her nose. “Sleep now.” He lifted her arm and felt for a pulse. “One more just to be safe.”

He refilled the syringe and held it against the light. He took her arm in his hand, twisted it, and carefully inserted the needle into the artery, depressing the plunger until the liquid was gone. Then he dropped the syringe back into the valise, closed it with a snap, and placed it on the bed. He put his fingers to her neck and smiled at her.

“Go into the light,” he said, snickering. Then he pulled a note from his pocket and placed it between Doris’s breasts.

There were two telephones beside the bed, one for Lee family personal use and a secure one for agency business. He lifted one and removed small oblong pieces of plastic from the base. The microphone in his pocket, he dialed a number on the small Sony. It was answered on the third ring.

“Special Agent Lee?”

“Yeah.” Rainey’s voice was flat, his words slurred. “Who’s this?”

“This is your family’s doctor.”

“Who?”

“Dr. Fletcher. Martin Fletcher. We haven’t met in some years.”

“Who?” Rainey demanded, his voice raised. “Martin Fletcher? Can’t be.”

“Check the caller ID readout on your desk. What do you see?”

“What?” Rainey was silent as he looked at the display on the machine. He didn’t speak for the time it took for him to realize that the number Martin Fletcher was calling from was Rainey’s own private line. The secure line. Rainey’s mind flew in a thousand directions at once. “What… do you want?” he said, trembling.

“I want you to think about some things. Remember when I said… I forget the exact wording-that I would eat your hearts?”

“Martin… I didn’t…” His mind raced to remember what it was Martin Fletcher was referring to.

“I want you to listen to me. I have a lot to say and not much time. Let me tell you first that I am the one who killed your little girl. It wasn’t an accident… I designed it to look that way. If I live to be a hundred and fifty, I will never get over the horror of it. Fire is so ugly. And the way you tried so valiantly to save her. I watch the tape often late at night when I’m feeling nostalgic.”

“Martin…?”

“This morning your son, George. It is amazing how long a scream can last when it’s echoing all around the rocks like that. What did he say in those last seconds? Secret. Five seconds. Sobering, I tell ya. Bet he was a mess. Hard to see over that railing. Thinking about how he must have looked? Did you look… course you did.” He laughed.

Rainey began screaming into the receiver. The words were blurred together, and the counterfeit doctor placed his hand over the receiver and smiled.

“Calm down, Rainey. There’s more, I’m afraid.” He spoke just loud enough for Rainey to hear. “It’s about Doris.”

“Please, don’t hurt Doris,” Rainey pleaded. “I’ll give you anything! Not Doris! Take me.”

“She’s right here. Want to speak to her?”

“Martin…”

Martin Fletcher put the phone to her mouth.

“She can’t think of a thing to say. I’m not going to lie to you, Rainey. After all you’ve been through, I owe you the truth. She’s dead as an oyster shell. But she didn’t suffer. She’d suffered far too much already because of you. God, the guilt you must feel. But nothing to what Paul Masterson must feel. He’s the one who did all this, you know.”

The phone was silent as Rainey sat with his eyes unblinking.

“Are you still with me?”

“I’ll kill you! You filthy bastard!”

“That’s the spirit.”

“I swear, as God is my witness…”

Martin laughed. It was a staccato metallic rattle, half beast, half machine. “But, Rainey, he isn’t your witness. I want you and your pals to know that the old saying ‘Every dog has his day’ is the truth. Tell Paul all of this was for him. Tell him his true legacy is written in the hearts of his men. Do you love him now? Do you love your master, Rainey, knowing that he has killed your families? He still has his, Rainey. How does that make you feel?”

“Martin! I’ll… get you…” Rainey began bellowing obscenities blindly into the phone.

The counterfeit doctor hung up. Then he disconnected both receivers and laid the handsets on the bed, blocking the line to incoming calls. He retrieved his crutches and left the room carrying his case, shutting the door behind him.

Ted stood when the doctor came into the living room. Mary looked at him anxiously. “Will she be all right?”

Dr. Evans took Mary Broom’s hand and smiled. “She won’t wake for quite a while. I’ve just spoken to Rainey, and he assures me that he will be right along.”

“They’ve been through a lot,” Ted said. “We’re here for them.”

“Well, I’ve done all I can here. I’ll just see myself out.”

Ted went to the window and watched the doctor move down the street with his bag swinging at his side as he worked the crutches. He was like a measure of music that kept repeating as he continued to the end of the block and turned without once glancing back.

“Guess he must live close by.”

“How’s that?” Mary said.

“Well, he’s on foot, so to speak.”

By the time Martin Fletcher reached the car, the sound of sirens was in the air. He climbed into the Range Rover that he had stolen two days earlier. It was parked just around the corner from the Lee house. He hadn’t wanted anyone to get a description of the car just in case the cops got lucky. It was all he could do to keep the crutch tips touching the pavement. He fought the urge to throw them into the bushes and run. So Rainey had called 911.

When he got to the Rover, he tossed the physician’s kit and the crutches onto the rear seat. He took a quick look around to see if he had attracted any attention, and satisfied no one was watching, he drove away. As the car gathered speed, he started to remove the disguise, which was the most realistic, and by far the most expensive, masquerade of his career. He peeled off the wig and hand makeup, which was complete with small liver spots. Then he pulled over against the curb, removed the gray wig, and peeled off the latex face and turkey neck. He took off the blazer and tossed it onto the backseat as he accelerated and moved back into the street. Then he put the sunglasses and cap on. Seconds later a pair of prowl cars flew past headed for the Maple Street address. Martin had laid his Browning. 380 on the console.

At the next red light he slipped on a London Fog golf jacket and combed his dark hair so it looked as if it had been painted on his skull. He removed the remnants of spirit gum with a cloth soaked in acetone. Then he put on his round-lensed sunshades and admired himself in the lighted mirror set in the visor.

He amused himself by trying to picture the confusion, the pain and the rage, that the neighbors would witness. He tried to imagine Rainey’s face when the Brooms told him that the killer was a seventy-year-old cripple. Rainey would know he had been disguised, but by then he’d be long gone.

He parked the Rover as close as possible to the DEA’s “secret” airport operation offices on the ground floor of the airport’s parking garage. The DEA airport operation posts were twin bunkers with darkly tinted windows built under the ramp that led to the upper-level parking deck. One had a chain-link fenced-in area for equipment storage. He climbed from the vehicle and removed a suitcase. Then he lifted the coat from the device on the floor behind the driver’s seat. It looked like a small cigar box and had wires leading to a small plastic cylinder that lay on the floor between two gallon jars. As he removed the lid of both jars, the smell of gasoline and the thickening agent hit him. He poured the gellike contents from the jars over the carpeting and then placed the electronic match, or omni switch, so that it was an inch or so above the level of the stuff, where the vapor would be ignited. Then there was a metal box with six sticks of Olin dynamite and a slow-burning fuse for the finale. He walked away toward the airport, carrying his suitcase. As he walked, he reached into his jacket pocket and flipped a toggle, which started the bomb’s liquid quartz watch timing device at 59:59.

Not more than a couple hundred yards away he opened the door to a battered Caprice and dropped the case onto the seat, crushing a park ranger’s hat. He slid in and smiled at the man who was leaning against the driver’s window with the bill of a baseball cap pulled down over his features. The man, who had been napping, stretched and looked at his watch.

“We should go,” Martin said. “We’ve got a long drive ahead of us.”

When the timer hit 00:00 a second short of one hour later, the battery in the cigar box made circuit and the omni switch created its first and last spark. There was a bright flash and then the flames leaped through the Rover’s exploded windows and the homemade napalm spewed flame thirty feet in every direction. Within seconds the heat had caused the tanks of the automobiles on either side to explode, and a few seconds later another pair or three, until almost every car on the ground level was blazing, and thick smoke, colored black by burning rubber, poured from the open concrete structure. When the sticks of dynamite went off, they turned the windows of the vacant DEA bunkers to confetti.