If there was any silver lining, it's that I didn't have to see Wheeler afterwards; he seemed to disappear after the trial. His cronies--Lawrence Ferrin and the others--gave me looks and threw some remarks in my direction when they saw me, but nothing ever came of it and they, too, seemed to melt away once the fireworks were over.
A year later, long enough that I didn't blame myself too much, Landis walked out of his brownstone in Old Town Alexandria, swallowed some pills, and laid face-down across the railroad tracks north of town. An exercise path runs alongside the tracks, separated by a narrow stretch of grass and a chain-link fence. His body, or what was left of it, was an early-morning find by two joggers I'm betting never took that particular trail again. The coroner found traces of alcohol and prescribed anti-depressants in his blood. In the wake of the Lane trial and bolstered by testimony from his coworkers and his psychiatrist, an inquest deemed it a suicide, no contest.
When I heard, I sat at my desk for a minute, saddened, then went to lunch. I had only recently managed to forget about the debacle when Don killed himself, so I'll admit with some guilt that, when he was gone, he was one less reminder of our inability to put Michael Wheeler behind bars. Memories of the trial and our colossal failure surfaced like sunken debris that had been temporarily dislodged. I gazed dispassionately at my anger and frustration…then let them sink back into the murky bottom of my emotions from where they'd come.
iv.
She was older, of course, and taller, but there was still a lot of the girl in her that he remembered. The hair was the same and she was still slender. Her face had the same distracted air, like she was listening to someone or something no one else could hear.
There were differences. As a girl she'd been awkward and clumsy growing into her body, falling off her bike and cutting up her knees. As a woman, she was lithe and walked gracefully even when she was hunched over with her books. Shy twelve years ago, she seemed popular now: she smiled and chatted with students and teachers on her way to class.
From benches and doorways and street corners he'd watched for days, trying to remember her. He'd monitored himself, alert to any of the desire he'd had for her before, surprised when he felt a stirring of the old emotions. Not the rushing burn he'd had back then, but enough of a tickle to make him doubt what he was doing. He'd been dead inside for twelve years. Was he the same person? She had changed; maybe he had, too.
He'd arrived with a mission, strong and confident, ready to act. Now he felt the first stirring of doubt, a crack in the foundation of his plan. If he wasn't ready to do what needed to be done, he didn't deserve the chance. Second chance, he corrected himself.
Maybe he'd sensed his own doubt. The flower had been as much a test for him as a message to her. He'd felt a strange tumult of emotions when he'd left it for her, and later, when he saw her pick it up. Satisfaction at her shock, cold rage at the thought of the years behind him because of her--but hardest of all--the unexpected wriggle of desire. He'd assumed he'd feel nothing but cold direction; now, his emotions were confusing and muddling his focus. He needed something to tell him how to proceed.
It was time to push the boundaries.
Chapter Twelve
I drove away from Atwater's house mad. Memories of the trial were hard to swallow, naturally, but the encounter itself was difficult to take, too. I wasn't used to having to dance around subjects or witnesses. When you're a thirty-year veteran of the MPDC, you usually get what you want. Not that I was a bully. I didn't slap people around like some Prohibition-era thug with a badge. But I had resources, from outright arrest to more subtle ways to pressure people into doing what I needed them to do. Like suggesting they might get a parking ticket on the hood of their car every day for the rest of their natural life. That kind of thing. Those days were gone. Atwater knew that I could make her life inconvenient, but when push came to shove, she could tell me to get the hell out of her house and that was the end of it. It was another adjustment I was going to have to make.
I blew out a breath and concentrated on driving. I felt like I'd had a load of bricks dumped on my shoulders. I hadn't done anything like face down the boys from SecureTrex or work on a reluctant subject like Atwater in months. It should've been a piece of cake. Now all I wanted to do was pull over to the side of the road and take a nap. I gritted my teeth, put my hands at ten and two, and blinked rapidly until I pulled in front of my house.
I dragged myself inside, shut and locked the door, and collapsed onto the couch. From my back, I tossed my keys on the table and meant to do the same with my phone, but only got as far as pulling it out of my pocket before I fell asleep with it in my hand.
Which was a stroke of good luck, since it was the phone that finally woke me. I'd had it on vibrate and apparently it had been buzzing and jiggling enough to send it tumbling out of my hand to the oak floor where it landed with a loud clack. The noise of its impact and the persistent vibration fished me out of the coma I was in.
I sat up, stupid with sleep. It took me a minute to register where I was, when I was. It had been early afternoon when I'd stumbled through the front door and fallen onto the couch. Now it was pitch black outside, Pierre was doing a hot cakes dance in front of me, looking for food, and my phone was making a sound like an angry cicada stuck on its back.
I scrubbed my face with my hands, then picked up the phone. I punched the button to stop the alarm, then checked the time. 9:25. The day before, I'd set the phone to go off on the nines, am and pm, to remind me to check in with Amanda. She was almost a half-hour late calling in. A walnut-sized lump of anxiety took shape in my chest, but I clamped down on it and hit the speed dial number for her. I began rationalizing. We'd only been doing the call-in for a day or two; it wouldn't be that strange if she'd forgotten or blown it off, though the second thought made me burn. If she wasn't going to play by my rules, she could find someone else to worry about her.
The call was on its sixth ring and headed for voice mail. I cursed, ended the call, then hit speed dial again. It chirped four times. Five. Six. I was about to hang up when I heard it pick up. A loud bang made me wince, then Amanda's voice came on.
"Hello? Marty?"
"Amanda," I shouted.
"Sorry, I dropped the phone," she said, out of breath. "Oh, shit. It's past nine, isn't it?"
"Yeah," I said. "You were supposed to call in, remember?"
"I'm so sorry. I totally forgot. I gave an exam two days ago and I promised my students I'd get their scores back--"
"Wait," I said. "Where are you?"
"I'm in the Krueger building," she said. "My office."
"Your office? On campus?"
"Yes."
"Damn it," I said. "I thought I told you to stay away from there."
"I know, but the only scanning machine in the department is here--"
"Did you call campus security, like I told you?"
"Not yet," she said, hesitating. "I was going to earlier--"
"Amanda, you need to leave. Now." I had a snap in my voice, the product of converting the sudden fear I felt into a tight, controlled command. "Don't clean up, don't turn any lights off. Just walk out."
"Marty, this is dumb--"
"No, it's not. I want you to grab your bag, turn around, and walk right out." I pinned the phone to my ear with one shoulder and put my shoes on. "What floor are you on?"
"The ninth."
"Are there elevators?"
"Yes."
I stood up and grabbed my jacket. "Go to the elevators, punch the down button, but head straight for the stairs. Don't get on the elevator."
"All right," she said. Her voice was small.
"Don't be scared, be smart," I said. "You have a can of pepper spray, mace, anything?"
"Pepper spray."
"Pull it out and have it ready. In your hand. I don't care if it looks stupid. When you get outside, head straight for the biggest, most populated space you can think of, then call me. Student union, library, whatever. Don't stop to
talk to anybody."
"Got it."
"Good girl," I said. I snagged my keys and headed out the door. "I'm on my way."
"Marty, you don't have to--"
"Yes, I do. I've been taking this way too lightly," I said, as much to myself as to her. I thought of the look of fear in Julie Atwater's face. "It's time to get serious about this. Now, no more talking, but keep me on the line."
"Got it."
A moment passed as I hopped down from the porch to my car. I could hear her clip-clopping down whatever polished academic hall she was in and I resisted the urge to tell her to tiptoe. I jumped behind the wheel, but as I turned the key in the ignition, I heard her gasp.
"What is it?" I said.
"Someone's coming up the stairs."
"You already punch the elevator down button?"
"Yeah," she said, whispering.
"Take your shoes off and head back to the elevators."
"My shoes?"
I wheeled away from the curb holding the phone to my head with one hand, glancing over my shoulder for traffic. "They're too loud. I can hear them over the phone."
A half minute passed where all I heard was her breathing, then, "I'm by the elevators."
"Get in one. Punch the lobby or first floor or whatever, but don't get out there. When it gets between the third or fourth floor, pull the STOP button."
"Stop button?"
"The emergency button, the hold, whatever they call it. An alarm might go off, but that's what we want." She made a high humming noise, not quite a whimper. "What's wrong?'
"Elevator's not coming."
"They still on the stairs?"
"Marty, I don't know," she said. "I can't hear them any more."
"Keep punching that button."
I wheeled the car back onto Route 50, heading to DC at twice the recommended speed. Luckily, at nine-thirty on a weekday night, traffic wasn't what it could've been. I punched my hazard lights on, hoping that any one of the five or six police agencies that were entitled to pull me over would give me a pass, thinking it was an emergency. Which it was.
"How we doing?" I asked.
"I can hear him coming down the hall," she said, her voice a mouse's squeak.
"Elevator?"
"Almost here."
"Hang in there, kid," I said. "The elevator is as good as a vault once you're in there."
I heard a faint ding and a clatter. "I'm in."
"Close those doors and get moving."
Her breathing was fast and fluttering, catching in her throat as she tried to talk. "I think I'm all right. You shouldn't--"
And then the phone went dead.
Chapter Thirteen
My heart was thudding in my chest. I called Amanda's number two more times, fumbling with the phone one-handed as I raced towards Teddy Roosevelt Island and the District line. Both calls failed. I cursed, then lifted the phone again. At one time or another, I'd worked with every university and federal police force in the city, so I punched in the GW campus security number from memory. I hoped. I fiddled with the numbers, glancing down at the phone, up at the road, down at the phone, up at the road, trying not to kill myself or anyone else. They picked up on the second ring.
"GW campus police."
"This is Detective Marty Singer with MPDC," I said, stretching things. "I've got reason to believe one of your faculty might be in danger of assault."
"On campus?"
"Krueger, ninth floor."
"Hold on." There were some bleeps, then the voice came back. "Who is the faculty member, Detective?'
"Amanda Lane," I said. "She's got an office there. Women's Studies, if that makes a difference."
"Hold, please." The voice disappeared again. I flew across the Route 50/66 bridge. The headlights of the oncoming traffic were paired stars, whipping past me while the Potomac flowed underneath all of us, black and serene. I slowed down as the stoplights and cross streets of the city loomed ahead. The operator came back on. "I'll try to get a unit in place, Detective, but there's a rally on campus tonight that's got us tapped out. Patrols are tripled up."
"Christ," I said, squeezing the phone. "This girl's life might be in danger. You don't have one warm body you can get over there?"
"Trying, Detective," he said. "I'll peel someone away from the rally. We're looking at five minutes, maybe seven or eight. You on the way?"
"Yeah."
"ETA?"
"The same," I said. "Unless I run into your rally. Where's Krueger, exactly?"
"Twenty-second and M. Big, tall building, can't miss it."
"A big, tall building? In DC?" I said. "You're kidding."
"It says Krueger on the outside."
"Jesus…okay, I'll find it," I said. "I'm plainclothes, so ask your boys not to shoot me."
"Can do. Might want to put on a clip badge or something, Detective. Just to be sure."
"Thanks for the tip," I said and hung up.
George Washington's campus is snugged into a lower corner of northwest DC, its streets and buildings woven into those shared by nearby Georgetown and Dupont Circle. It's so integrated, in fact, that the only real clue a visitor would have that they were near a large university was the character of the street life and the GW logo embedded into the sides of the buildings.
While families were already asleep in the suburbs of the city, throngs of flip-flop and jeans-wearing students were out in force here. I went as fast as I could through, past, and around them, trying not to plow into the ones that crossed the street with white headphones jammed in their ears, oblivious, or others too intent scoping out the opposite sex to care about my front bumper. I whipped the car over to the curb near a group of kids on Twenty-Second Street, three girls and two guys laughing at something one of them had said. The smiles drooped a bit when they saw me--even without the uniform and cruiser, everything about me screamed "cop"--but I was used to it.
"Hey, guys," I said, leaning over to talk out the passenger-side window. "Krueger building around here?"
The guys stared back, defiant and surly, and one girl was still laughing too much to answer, but the last two girls pointed to a gray stone building poking its head up over its companions a block away. Block construction and narrow windows made it look like a prison. I waved a thanks to them and stomped on the gas, blowing through a red light with the help of some honking and creative hand gestures.
I don't remember stopping the car, only jumping out and running up the shallow, scalloped steps to a long row of double glass doors protecting a brightly lit lobby. I yanked on the first door. Locked. I looked down the row. There were four sets altogether and I went down the line, getting more desperate with each door that didn't budge, until I nearly pulled myself off my feet when the last pair flew open. I ran through and headed for the back of the lobby.
Like the glass doors, there were four sets of elevators, fronted by brassy gold panels that matched the nameplate on the front of the building. The second from the left was holding steady on the third floor. I crossed my fingers that Amanda was holed up in there. By herself.
The other three were at the lobby level. I thought about it for a second. My adrenaline had given me a boost, but there was no way I was going to be able to run up nine flights of stairs and be ready to do anything except collapse like a pile of wet laundry. I jabbed at the up button on the third elevator. It opened with a soft chime and I got in. I reached under my shirt and pulled out my holdout gun from when I was on the force, a SIG Sauer P220 Compact. I squeezed the grip of the gun to fix the feel of it in my hand and waited an eternity for the "9" to light up above the doors. Finally, the elevator eased to a stop and I flattened myself against the side wall as the doors slid back. I counted to five, then swung in to the hallway, gun out.
There was nothing in front of me except a dimly lit hall with a shiny composite floor and wall-mounted light fixtures shaped like upside-down punch bowls. I cocked my head and listened, but might as well have stuck my fingers in my ears. Wa
rm air blew softly down the hall with a low roar that, coupled with a buzz from the lights and a hum from the elevator shaft, swallowed all other sounds, no matter how hard I concentrated.
But that could work both ways. I padded down the hall, noiseless in sneakers. The hall branched to the left several times, forming the bottom end of a "T." At each branch I listened intently, then bobbed my head into the hallway for a quick check. I reached the end of the hall.
Nothing.
Nobody.
No Charles Manson or Ted Bundy or Vlad the Impaler. Definitely no Michael Wheeler.
I considered for a second. I didn't know which office I was looking for and could spend half the night checking doors and poking my head into rooms while Amanda might or might not be stuck in an elevator. And if Wheeler was holed up somewhere on this floor, it would be child's play to sneak up and pop me while I was going up and down hallways, rattling doorknobs. It wasn't a one-man job and I could afford to wait for backup. My first priority was to make sure Amanda was safe. Quick but cautious, I headed back to the elevators. Halfway there, my cell buzzed in my pocket. I answered.
"Singer."
"Detective Singer, this is Corporal Jennings with the George Washington University police. We spoke earlier. Are you in the Krueger building?"
"Yeah," I said, keeping my head up and watching the doors to at least a dozen classrooms as I continued the walk back to the elevator. "I'm on the ninth floor now."
"Is Ms. Lane in danger?"
"I don't know." I explained how I'd lost the call. "We'll need to get someone to override the elevator and bring it down."
"No problem. There's a unit arriving now. I'll let them know you're on the way," he said and hung up.
I reached the elevators and punched the down button, keeping myself half-turned towards the hall. When the doors chimed open, I did a quick check, then got in and headed for the lobby. On the way there, I slipped my gun back in its holster and pulled my shirt over it. A short ride later, I stepped out into the lobby. The elevator I hoped Amanda was in was still holding steady at the third floor. I tried her number a few more times, with no luck. Aside from banging on the doors and scaring her to death, there wasn't anything I could do to get her out, so I did a more thorough look-see of the first floor. I found nothing besides cold marble and locked bathrooms, so I headed outside to wait for the cavalry.
A Reason to Live (Marty Singer1) Page 9
