Wireman

CHAPTER 29

AT TEN-THIRTY in the evening, a half-hour before the shift was over, Sam Bartholomew’s gaze was riveted to the front of the Ringer house.

“The shade,” he croaked, hardly believing what he had just seen. “He raised the shade.”

Patty and Jack, playing cards in the backseat, turned in unison to look at the house.

“No lights,” Jack said.

Patty scooped up the cards and slipped them into a cardboard case. “What’s it mean?” he asked, fumbling with the pack of cards.

“I think he knows we’re here,” Sam said. He crouched in the seat and pulled his hat low over his eyes. “Get down.”

A light came on somewhere inside the house. For four days there had been no light showing behind the drawn shades. A shadow moved past the door and windows.

“What’s he doing?” Patty asked nervously. “You think he’s gonna come out?”

“Shut up, Patty. Jack, get up here with me,” Sam commanded.

Jack obeyed. He rolled down the window and watched the house. The wait seemed interminable. Patty squirmed in the backseat until Sam stilled him with a glance. Jack unconsciously brushed his fingers over the scar on his cheek. Sam squinted past Jack’s profile. He had his right foot resting lightly on the accelerator and his hand itched to turn the ignition key.

Steady, steady, he told himself. Don’t panic and fuck up now.

The front door of the house opened, and Nick was silhouetted in the light from within. He wore a light-colored sweater over an open-necked shirt and beige sport slacks. He carried a bowling bag.

“What the hell!” Jack turned to Sam in bewilderment. “He’s going bowling?”

“Jesus Christ. We’ve staked out a guy for four days and he goes bowling,” Patty said.

“Both of you shut up and stay down.” Sam knew he sounded like a snapping dog, but he couldn’t help it.

Nick walked to the Chrysler and unlocked the door on the driver’s side. He tossed the bowling bag on the seat, then abruptly turned and looked straight across the street to the men hiding in the unmarked car.

“He made us,” Jack said. His knees were up against the dashboard and he was leaning toward the middle of the seat.

They heard the engine of the Chrysler sputter and catch. It roared into life and the tires squealed as the car left the curb.

All three policemen straightened and Sam started the Plymouth Fury. He jerked the wheel to the right and crossed the street, cut through the median turnaround, and followed the dwindling taillights of Nick’s car.

Jack had the tracking device on, the bird-dog beeper on the Chrysler sending strong signals.

“He’s trying to lose us,” Sam said, watching the side streets ahead for oncoming cars.

“Don’t let the bastard do it,” Jack shouted. “I know he’s the one! I know that motherfucker!”

It had been awhile since Sam Bartholomew had participated in a high-speed chase. Before he had driven a mile he knew that they would have been better off with Patty or Jack behind the wheel. Their first mistake had been changing places. Their second had been staying so close to the house during surveillance. He should have known that Nick, a trained reconnaissance man, could pick up a stakeout within ten miles of him.

The taillights far ahead of them blinked out.

“He turned left,” Patty yelled.

“He turned right, goddammit!” Jack argued.

Sam grabbed the mike and called for help. Their beeper was emitting a very reduced signal. They would have to call in a helicopter search to pick up the bird-dog signals. With a hundred-mile range, the helicopter crew would not lose Nick altogether, but it might take a long time to narrow down the signal on the city map and know exactly where he was. They had been outmaneuvered.

“Well, I’ll be a horse’s ass,” Patty said from the backseat.

Jack was on the edge of the seat, gripping the dashboard to stay in place as the Fury sped along the street.

“He’s going to kill someone.” He turned to look at Sam to confirm it. “Isn’t he, Sam? He’s going to kill tonight.”

“If he’s the Wireman, he is.”

“I fucking knew it, knew it, knew it!” Jack beat on the dashboard before throwing himself back in the seat.

“And the motherfucker got away slick as goose shit,” Patty said.

“Not yet,” Sam answered, slowing the car, looking down each side street he passed. “He hasn’t gotten away yet.”

At 10:45 Cal Duncan and Lori Giroux both looked up at the sky over Hermann Park.

“That sucker’s flying low,” Cal remarked.

The helicopter swung over the trees and circled back like a toy on a string in a giant’s hand.

“What are they looking for?” Lori asked, craning her neck to follow the copter’s route.

“Who knows what the Spy in the Sky is after? Maybe you, my little sugar dumpling,” he teased, grabbing his date and tickling her.

“Oh, Cal, please don’t grab me like that!” She giggled hysterically, broke free. and ran through the trees across soft, wet lawn.

The helicopter zoomed away, its sound finally fading entirely. The two teenagers forgot about it.

Cal, encumbered by the heavy blanket draped over one arm, could not catch up with Lori. He halted, searched the areas around the trees for her shadow.

“Lori, come on out now. I’m going to spread the blanket for us.”

He waited impatiently, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. There was no one in the park at this time of night, and if the truth be known, Cal thought the place was a little eerie. The streetlights from nearby streets cast long, skeletal shadows from the trees. Black barbecue pits erupted from the ground in the oddest places, looking like dwarf soldiers in the night. Cement picnic tables shone in the pools of streetlight like marble altars for primitive sacrificial rites.

Cal shivered and adjusted the blanket on his arm where it was putting his wrist to sleep. “Lori? Come on, baby. I don’t wanna play hide-and-seek, okay? I’d rather play something more fun. Wouldn’t you?”

Cal smiled, thinking that would bring her from hiding. After what seemed like hours, the anxious Cal started walking and looking for his girl. The night air was rain-washed clean, and he could smell crushed grass. He heard the distant monotonous drone of the helicopter once again. Cars swished past not far away.

Cal began to worry. Something was not right. “Lori? Lori, honey, this isn’t funny anymore. I’ve got to get you home by midnight and you haven’t even given me a kiss. Lori?”

He walked on, slowing at each tree to peek behind it. She was nowhere. How could she have disappeared?

“All right, that’s enough! If you don’t come out right this minute, I’m going back to the car and leave you here. See how you like that, huh? All alone in this big, empty, scary park?” Cal said sternly.

He thought he heard a movement behind him and turned quickly, relieved Lori had tired of her game. But no one was there. He sighed and turned a full circle, trying to spot a human shadow among all the shadows around him. He had the craziest sensation that some of the shadows were creeping toward him, snaking across the damp grass toward his feet.

“I’m getting outta here, Lori. You better listen to me! I’m going to start counting and when I get to ten, I’m heading for the car. One—two—three…”

He turned and began walking in the direction of the parking lot.

“Four—five—six… Lori!”

He looked behind him, expecting to see her following. No one was in sight.

“Seven—eight—nine…”

Someone stepped from behind a tree ahead, and Cal quickened his pace. At first he thought his eyes were fooling him, that he had been looking for her too hard, and the figure ahead was not as tall or as masculine as it was. “Lori, I’m pissed at you!” he said to the shadow. “Why did you do that—”

Cal stopped. It was not Lori.

“Who are you? Have you seen my girl around here?”

He was several yards away from the man and he could not make out his features in the shadow. A streetlight behind him blocked Cal’s vision.

When the stranger did not answer, Cal turned and called loudly, his voice alarmed. “Lori!”

“She’s over here,” the stranger said suddenly. An arm pointed to the tree from where he came. “She’s waiting for you. Lori’s been playing hide-and-seek.”

Cal stumbled away from the figure and approached the tree from the other side. “Lori?” He jerked his head to look at the man. “What have you done? You didn’t hurt her, did you?”

He ran the last few feet and clutched the tree with one arm. He looked down.

Lori Giroux lay crumpled on the grass at the base of the tree. Her cheek rested on an exposed root and her cotton blouse was hiked up so that her ribs gleamed in the light.

Cal dropped the blanket and knelt beside her. He lifted Lori into his arms and put a hand to her pale throat.

It was such a shock to find her alive and breathing when he had been convinced she was dead that he began to cry. He looked up at the shadowy man.

“What did you do to her? What do you want?”

“You,” Nick Ringer answered. “I want you.”

At a disadvantage from the very beginning, Cal Duncan did not have the agility or the cunning to stop his death. Despite his youth and lean, athletic body, there was nothing he could do against the bite of the wire stretched around his throat.

He was wrenched backward and hauled along the grass, kicking and jerking. His fingers dug at the wire imbedded in his neck and with horrible inaccuracy clutched and tore bits of own flesh in his desperation to grab the garrote.

Like an animated puppet he was jerked from the blood-glazed ground once, twice. On the third powerful lurch Cal Duncan surrendered his head to his attacker.

Nick stood, gasping for air, his legs trembling. The two parts of the boy lay at his feet. Blood dripped like black, sticky raindrops from his hands. It had been so hard to kill him, so hard.

The whine of the helicopter neared the park, a shining bird of prey. It swept over the acres of trees and lifted higher toward the west to clear Houston’s skyscrapers.

From out of the shadows a form emerged. It moved silently, wraith-like, to stand before Nick. As if acting on an unspoken command, Nick obediently stretched out his arm and let the garrote be taken from him.

Daley wrapped his lingers around the garrote’s handles and turned from his brother. With precision and ease, Daley decapitated Lori Giroux as she lay on the grass.