by Jude Hardin
“Wonder what happened up there?” she said.
“I thought you would have heard by now,” Marshall said.
“Heard what?”
“Nothing. It’s not important.”
“No, really. What happened?”
“A young lady was murdered late last night,” Marshall said. “Right here in the park.”
“You’re kidding,” Janelle said, knowing of course that he wasn’t.
“She was a stripper,” Marshall said. “And you know what they said about her on the news this morning?”
“What?”
“They said she looked a lot like you. In fact, the guy who found her thought that she was you. Crazy, huh?”
Janelle glanced down at the pistol again. The tip of the barrel was jittering like a needle on a pressure gauge. Marshall’s face was slick with sweat, even though he’d cranked the air conditioner up to its highest setting.
“You shot her?” Janelle said. “Is that what you want me to believe?”
Marshall smiled. It seemed as though he was trying to stifle a laugh.
“I didn’t shoot her,” he said.
Janelle’s throat tightened. Marshall’s behavior was getting more and more bizarre. Maybe he really was planning to kill her.
“I’ll give you whatever you want,” she said. “I’ll give you a million dollars. Just let me go.”
“I don’t want your money,” Marshall said. “You think you can just buy me, like you buy everyone else? I loved you. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. All those promises we made. They didn’t mean a thing to you, did they?”
“Maybe we can work things out,” Janelle said. “Let’s go back to the track and talk it over.”
Marshall didn’t try to hold it back this time. He laughed. Hard.
“It’s way too late for anything like that,” he said. “I might be stupid, but I’m not that stupid.”
“It’s not too late. I won’t say anything to anyone. I promise.”
“I know you’re not going to say anything to anyone,” Marshall said. “I know that for sure. That’s one promise that you’re definitely going to keep.”
Marshall turned onto the road that led to the third lookout. Maybe there would be people, Janelle thought. There usually were people up there in the summer, during daylight hours. Maybe there would be another group of teenagers, goofing off, like there had been down at the first lookout, where Marshall had stopped earlier. Maybe there would be runners, and cyclists, and sweethearts walking hand-in-hand, enjoying the panoramic view of the city as they navigated the perimeter, maybe stopping and pointing out the various landmarks you could see from the edge of the cliff, maybe even trying to find their own houses, their own tiny specks of real estate in the distance. Maybe there would be families with lawn chairs and buckets of fried chicken and two-liter bottles of soda.
Maybe there would be people.
And maybe Janelle would scream for help this time.
Scream for help, knowing that it might be the last thing she ever did.
16
The sleek and speedy two-seater that Wahlman had borrowed from Charlie had been built by hand in a tiny factory on a tiny island off the coast of France. All electric, with solar panels and magnetic turbines and cyclic wind generators—all of which greatly reduced the need for plugging in and charging. Advertisements for the vehicle claimed that it could take you from zero to sixty in 1.4 seconds, while saving you a bundle in energy costs at the same time.
Wahlman had been somewhat skeptical about the acceleration metrics until he fishtailed out of the parking lot and floored the pedal and shot forward like a missile out of a cannon. It was the kind of power that could quickly get away from you if you weren’t careful. The kind that could get you in trouble with the law. The kind that could get you killed.
Wahlman eased off the accelerator, kept the top speed at around ninety. He took a right on Third, and then he veered onto Southern Parkway, thinking that the man in the plaid flannel shirt might be taking Janelle Pierce to the same place he’d taken Rokki Rhodes—to one of the lookouts up in the park.
Reevaluating as he traveled along, figuring that any sort of encounter with the police would result in immediate and prolonged detainment, he slowed down some more, but he still made it to the intersection of Southern Parkway and Newcut Road in a little under five minutes.
A pair of Louisville Police Department cruisers were blocking the main entrance to the park. Nose-to-nose, strobes flashing. Wahlman wondered if the entire area was being treated as a crime scene. Not because of Janelle. It was way too soon for that. Because of Rokki. Because of what had happened earlier.
If the entire park—all 739 acres of it—was being treated as a crime scene, then the man in the plaid flannel shirt would have been forced to take Janelle somewhere else. And if that was the case, there wasn’t much more that Wahlman could do. He had no idea where else to look. He supposed he would need to head back downtown and explain the situation to Brannelly or one of the other homicide detectives and hope that they didn’t arrest him for what had happened at River City Downs.
He waited at the traffic light and took a left and noticed some kids swinging on the swings and some players playing on the tennis courts. Which meant that the park was open. Which was good. It meant that Janelle might still have a chance.
Wahlman raced down to the south entrance and saw that it was accessible and he swung in and steered past the parking area and around to the amphitheater and up toward the golf course.
Iroquois Park was basically just a very large hill, a massive elevation in a part of town that was otherwise relatively flat. The road that led to the top was curvy, and there weren’t any guardrails. You had to watch your speed, even in a car that handled as well as the two-seater. If you didn’t, there was a good chance that you would skid off the edge and maybe roll like a barrel and maybe go airborne for a couple of seconds and maybe end up skewered on a tree branch down in one of the gulches.
Wahlman strongly preferred for that not to happen, so he third-geared it most of the way to the first lookout, where a group of teenagers were hanging out, smoking cigarettes and throwing Frisbees and riding skateboards.
A rock and mortar barrier, two and a half or three feet tall, skirted the perimeter of the viewing area. One of the boys was sitting there with one of the girls. Kissing and hugging, carrying on as if they were the only two people on the planet. Wahlman figured they were about fifteen. Maybe sixteen. He remembered being that age and being in love and doing the same kind of thing and not caring what anyone thought about it. He also remembered Natalie being that age, and he remembered advising her to stay away from boys until she turned thirty. He’d been joking, of course, but he figured the basic message had gotten through.
He steered the car over to where the couple was sitting and rolled the window down and asked if they’d seen anyone driving a white SUV with tinted windows. The girl looked embarrassed. She didn’t say anything. The boy told Wahlman that there had been a car like that parked there earlier, but that it had driven away shortly after he and his friends had arrived.
“Thanks,” Wahlman said. “Stay in school, and stay away from drugs and alcohol, and practice safe sex.”
“Huh?” the boy said.
“Just do the right thing.”
The girl looked embarrassed some more. The boy shrugged. Wahlman drove on.
He continued up the hill, passing a series of reflective road signs reminding motorists and cyclists and pedestrians that deer were crossing and rocks were falling and cell phone reception was poor. Wahlman had never heard of any rocks falling on anyone, but just last week he’d read an article about a guy who’d swerved to miss a doe and her fawn and had ended up deep in the woods, trapped in his car and unable to call for help. His wife had reported him missing, and a search team had been sent out, and they’d found him in time, but just barely. The top of the park was a pretty dangerous place to be, even when you we
ren’t looking for a suspected murderer and a world-renowned movie star who was potentially going to be his next victim.
A row of orange and white traffic barricades—joined together with strips of yellow crime scene tape—blocked the turnoff to the second lookout. Where the hiker had found Rokki Rhodes, Wahlman thought. He figured that the area would be closed to the public for several days. Several weeks, maybe.
He continued toward the top, toward the third and final lookout. When he got there, he steered over to the edge and shut the engine off and climbed out of the car. The rock and mortar barrier was slightly taller than the one down at the first lookout, and there was a lip at the bottom that had probably been added as an extra safety measure. Mostly for nighttime visitors, Wahlman thought, a little wall about the height of a stair step that a tire would run into, theoretically preventing the entire vehicle from crashing through and sailing past the treetops and arcing on down to the rocky creek bed below.
Wahlman stood there and gazed out over the valley. The city seemed a million miles away. The sky was blue and the trees were green and there was nobody else around. No teenagers. No white SUV. Nobody.
Ordinarily, Wahlman would have enjoyed the serenity. The peace and quiet. But the fact that nobody else was around possibly meant that his hunch about the man in the plaid flannel shirt was wrong. Maybe the man was just an old friend or something. Maybe he hadn’t killed Rokki Rhodes, and maybe he wasn’t planning to kill Janelle Pierce.
Wahlman didn’t even know for sure that Janelle was with the man. He’d seen someone who fit her general description climb into the SUV with him, but he hadn’t been close enough to make a positive identification. And everything else had been guesswork. Maybe Wahlman had been wrong about everything.
He was considering that possibility when he heard a series of muffled grunts somewhere down in the woods.
17
Marshall hadn’t driven the SUV all the way up to the third lookout. He’d switched on the four-wheel-drive and had steered off the edge of the blacktop into the thick and lush foliage that covered the undeveloped parts of the park this time of the year. He’d forced Janelle to stuff one of her socks in her mouth, and then he’d pulled a pair of nylon cable ties out of his pocket and had used them to secure her wrists and ankles.
Now she was on the ground, staring up at the vines and leaves and branches, grunting frantically, totally helpless.
She felt as though she might pass out any second, might succumb to the thick August heat and the outrageous assault on her mind and body. She was about to close her eyes and give into it when she noticed a hornet’s nest the size of a watermelon dangling from one of the tree limbs, twenty feet or so above the top of the SUV.
Bees terrified Janelle. They were her only true phobia. In any sort of ordinary situation, the sight of the nest would have caused her to experience extreme anxiety. Sweaty palms, heart palpitations, shortness of breath—a genuine panic attack. But ironically, in the current situation, which was by far the direst that Janelle had ever been forced to endure, the sight of the nest seemed to provide a calming effect. Maybe it was the bluish gray color. Or the incessant hum. Or the oddly-shaped specks of sunshine breaking through the canopy and beaming down on it, the effect reminding Janelle of a giant prehistoric egg she’d seen in a painting one time. Maybe it was the power, or the illusion of power, the wavy strands of hot blue electrical current that seemed to surround the nest. Whatever it was, Janelle decided to make it her own. She decided to latch onto it and try to use it as a psychological shield, a reprieve from the horror for as long as she was able to remain conscious.
Marshall tossed the pistol onto the driver seat, and then he produce a pocketknife, the kind with a single blade that locked in place when you opened it all the way. He crouched down and pulled the front of Janelle’s shirt up and pressed the point of the blade against her skin, an inch or so to the left of her bellybutton.
“See?” he said, laughing nervously. “I was telling you the truth about Rokki. I didn’t shoot her. And I’m not going to shoot you. Gunshots attract too much attention. You can hear them for miles. People would wonder. Anyone nearby might get curious, try to follow the sound. And of course there’s quite a police presence here in the park today. It wouldn’t take long for one of those cruisers down at the main entrance to drive up here and start looking around. Best to stay quiet, wouldn’t you say?”
Janelle didn’t look at Marshall. She didn’t plead with her eyes. Shrieks and moans didn’t erupt from the deepest part of her chest, as they had just minutes ago. She’d decided to rewrite the script. She’d decided to approach the role of woman in jeopardy in a totally different way. She’d decided that she was no longer going to feed Marshall’s insanity. She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of watching her squirm.
She stared at the big blue electric egg, breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth and felt more relaxed than she’d ever felt in her entire life.
She didn’t flinch.
Or cry.
Even when the tip of the blade pierced her skin.
Once.
Twice.
Blood trickled down her side. Warm. Like honey. She kept her eyes on the nest. Then she heard a metallic click, followed by the sound of a man’s voice.
“Drop your weapon,” the man said.
Marshall didn’t drop the knife. In one swift motion he turned toward the direction that the man’s voice had come from and threw it overhand, with great force, the shiny steel blade and the black plastic handle whizzing through the air like a miniature airplane propeller, seeming—from Janelle’s chemically-fueled, hyperaware perspective—to churn its way across the clearing in super slow motion, finally thudding definitively into something or someone about a hundred feet away.
Marshall lunged toward the SUV and grabbed the pistol from the driver seat, and then he ran to the other side of the vehicle and leaned over the front fender and the hood. Which kept most of his body shielded by the engine compartment. Which housed a ridiculously expensive state-of-the-art power plant that probably could have stopped a cannonball.
“Drop your weapon,” he shouted, pointing the barrel of the pistol toward Janelle’s face. “Drop it, or I’ll blow her head off.”
18
The knife had missed Wahlman’s right shoulder by about two inches. He pulled it out of the decaying tree that he’d ducked behind, folded the blade into the handle and slid it into his pocket.
Wahlman owned a very nice handgun, but he wasn’t allowed to carry it. Not yet. His application for a concealed weapons permit was still pending. Still swimming in a sea of red tape down in Frankfort. So the .40 caliber semi-automatic pistol he was holding didn’t belong to him. It belonged to Lancaster, the security supervisor at River City Downs.
Wahlman tucked the gun into the back of his waistband. The man in the plaid flannel shirt had positioned himself behind the engine compartment of the white SUV, making the .40 cal of little use—at least for the moment. But Wahlman had something else with him, something that could possibly be of great use, something that could possibly enable him to circle around and approach the man in the plaid flannel shirt from the other side of the clearing, something that could possibly take Janelle out of the deadly equation for a while by obstructing her from view.
Wahlman had borrowed the pistol from Lancaster.
And the grenade.
Smoke, or tear gas. He still wasn’t sure. There were no markings on it, not even a warning statement.
Which was unusual. As a Master-At-Arms in the United States Navy, Wahlman had been trained and signed off on practically every canister-type grenade in existence. Invariably, the ones produced by legitimate contractors were clearly marked, sometimes in several different languages. Active and inactive ingredients, propellants, manufacturer, serial number, expiration date. Sometimes more than that. Sometimes a lot more. Sometimes there was more writing on a canister than there was blank space.
&nbs
p; The fact that absolutely nothing had been stamped or etched onto this particular device was a good indication that this particular device had been purchased illegally. Which, as it turned out, was a very serious crime in the United States of America in 2101, subject to very serious fines and incarceration times. Smoke, or tear gas. It didn’t matter to the Department of Homeland Security. The penalties were the same. But it mattered to Wahlman. He needed smoke. Tear gas might disable the man in the plaid flannel shirt for a while, but it would also disable Wahlman for a while. He didn’t have a mask. A pressurized canister filled with a lachrymator agent would put him in the same eye-stinging, snot-gushing, throat-tightening boat as the man in the plaid flannel shirt. Which made the decision to use the grenade at all a pretty big gamble. Kind of like betting on a horse. Only you didn’t get any points for second or third place. You either went home with the trophy or you went home dead.
Wahlman decided to give the man in the plaid flannel shirt one more chance to give himself up.
“The police are on the way,” Wahlman said. “Drop your weapon and put your hands in the air and—”
“Did you hear me?” the man in the plaid flannel shirt said. “I’m going to blow her head off. I’ll do it. Don’t think I won’t.”
“Why did you kill Rokki Rhodes?”
“Shut up.”
“Obsession can be a dangerous thing,” Wahlman said. “It hardly ever ends well. Believe me.”
“You’re an idiot. Janelle was my girlfriend. We were going to be married.”
“So it didn’t work out. Now you’re going to kill her? What kind of sense does that make?”
“We’re going to be together forever,” the man in the plaid flannel shirt said. “That’s what kind of sense it makes.”
It was starting to sound as though the man in the plaid flannel shirt was not only planning to kill Janelle, but himself as well. Which made him exponentially more dangerous. In Wahlman’s experience, it was nearly impossible to reason with someone who had fallen into a hole that deep.
