They each flipped through their respective phones. Again, nothing. No images or audio.
“Doesn’t mean anything.” Gloria pocketed her cell. “Maddox might still be setting up the scenario for her death. After what happened with the Palermo kid, he’s not gonna take any chances.”
“I agree,” said Barnes. “The prick won’t get in touch till he’s good and ready.”
I nodded. “Then call me when he does.”
I grabbed up one of the prepaid cell phones that Barnes had brought, pulled on my jacket, and headed for the door.
“Where the hell are you going?” he said.
“Down to the bar in case Noah freaks out and does something stupid. I mean, to himself. He’s tried it before.”
Gloria frowned. “Yeah, what’s the story with this guy Noah? I’ve been wondering.”
“Years ago he was a patient at Ten Oaks, the clinic where I interned. He’s a paranoid schizophrenic, suffering from persecutory delusions. Once, during a psychotic episode, he got a hammer and some nails from a construction site and went around asking people to please crucify him.”
She stared. “So he’s obsessed with…crucifixion?”
“Among other things. But he’s been stable for years, thanks to his meds, and I want to make sure he stays that way.”
Barnes took hold of my arm. “Understood. But you’re taking your damn car?”
At my puzzled look, he released his grip, but kept the grim determination in his voice.
“Maddox said he followed you this morning when he saw you and Polk get in the unmarked, right?”
“Yeah. Tailed us to the precinct, then followed me after that to the police gym.”
“But how could he have known Polk was coming to pick you up today? That the cops wanted to question you about the Steadman girl’s murder?”
Gloria spoke up. “Maybe I was right and Maddox has hacked into the Pittsburgh PD system.”
“He probably has. And maybe that’s why he was parked across the street at the crack of dawn. Lucky for him, he got here in time to see you and Polk head out. But if I’m right, he was outside the house bright and early this morning for another reason. To put a tracking device on your car. If I was Maddox, that’s what I’d do. Remember who we’re dealing with, Doc.”
I’d no sooner voiced my agreement than Gloria was striding for the door.
“Try the wheel wells first, Reese,” Barnes called after her. “Plus he could’ve jimmied his way inside and planted it under the dashboard.”
“I’ve done this before, old man,” she said over her shoulder. Then, to herself, but for our benefit: “Jesus.”
I quickly followed her outside, my porch light the only illumination in the deepening darkness. Gloria had just gotten a heavy-duty flashlight from her own car at the curb and was trotting back to my Mustang in the driveway.
As I watched, she bent and aimed the flashlight beam under the left rear wheel. Then, with unhurried and practiced skill, she checked each wheel well. After that, she rolled on her back and shone her light up at the car’s undercarriage. Inching her way along the length of the chassis. Satisfied, she got to her feet again and held out her hand to me.
“Keys?”
I got them out of my jacket pocket and tossed them over. Without another word, she opened the driver’s side door and began examining the Mustang’s cramped interior. Five minutes later, she poked her head out of the car and smiled. In her hand was a small metallic device with a miniature antenna.
“GPS tracker. State-of-the-art.” She climbed back out of the car. “It was hidden under the passenger side seat. I’ve left it turned on, so Maddox won’t know we found it. He’ll think your car’s still sitting in your driveway.”
I squinted at the device in her palm. “Thanks, Gloria.”
“Thank the old man. Because he’s right, Danny. We can’t afford to underestimate Maddox.” Her eyes grew solemn. “The fucker’s determined.”
All I could do was nod. Then, with a somber smile, Gloria gave me back my keys. But before I got behind the wheel, she squeezed my arm. Same place that Barnes had, but it felt a helluva lot different.
“Do I have to tell you to be careful, Doctor?”
“Never hurts to be reminded.” I bent so that our foreheads touched. “Just make sure you call me if you hear from Maddox.”
l l l l l
Noah closed up at midnight on Sunday nights, so there was still an hour to go when I pulled to the curb twenty feet from the entrance. But coming through the door, I noticed only two tables in use and a half-dozen drinkers at the bar.
What surprised me more was Noah himself, in his usual spot behind it. Calmly working the taps, chatting with a pair of boisterous customers as he filled their steins.
I crossed the room, about to call out to him, when I was met with an even bigger surprise. Charlene Hines, arms laden with a tray of drinks and burgers, bumping through the kitchen swinging doors with her generous hips. She gave me a friendly wink, then went on to serve a young couple at one of the tables.
My initial relief quickly gave way to anger. In two long strides, I reached the bar and slammed my hand down on its polished surface. Noah, startled, almost dropped the beer steins. His two customers had pretty much the same reaction.
I ignored them and gazed at my friend’s perplexed face.
“What the fuck’s going on, Noah? I thought—”
“What do ya mean, Danny?” Then, as realization dawned in his deep-set eyes, he broke into a grin. “Oh, yeah. That.”
He kept the grin intact for his rattled customers.
“Nothin’ to worry about, folks. Just a misunderstandin’ between friends. Beers are on me.”
Noah placed the mugs in front of the pair before moving down the length of the bar to where the stools were unoccupied. I followed him, then leaned across and gripped his shirt collar in both fists. Still steaming.
“Jesus, Noah, you scared the shit out of me. When you called and said Charlene was missing—”
“But that’s just it, man. Turns out, she wasn’t missin’. She’s fine. After she left her brother’s place, her car broke down. Plus her cell was outta juice. So she hadda flag somebody down—not as easy as you’d think, times bein’ what they are, everybody all suspicious and weird nowadays—”
“Noah, goddam it…”
“Anyway, she used the guy’s phone to call for help, and it took forever for the tow truck to come. When they got to the repair place, she called to let me know what happened. Man, was I relieved when I heard she was okay and everything was fine.”
“You and me both, Noah.” By now, I was starting to feel foolish, so I released my hold on his collar. “But why the hell didn’t you call me back? Let me know Charlene was safe?”
“Oh.” Another grin, more sheepish this time. “I guess I sorta forgot.”
“You forgot?”
“Hey, dude, we got super busy in here and Charlene was AWOL. I had to hold down the fort all by myself. And as you know, I’m not real good at multi-taskin’.”
I sat back on a stool, a long exhalation escaping me like air out of a tire. Though my temples still pounded.
“Now let me ask you a question, Danny.” Noah made a point of looking appropriately offended as he adjusted his shirt. “What’s got into you? I’m the one supposed to freak out on a regular basis, not you. I’m the fuckin’ paranoid, remember? What the hell’s your excuse?”
I had one, of course, but not something I could reveal.
“I’m sorry, man. You’re right.” I rubbed my forehead. “When I got your panicked phone call, I guess I overreacted.”
“Ya think? Maybe you need one o’ them chill pills they got nowadays. Before ya stroke out or somethin’. It’s the silent killer, ya know. That or heart disease. I forget which.”
“I hear you, Noah.”
He sniffed loudly, apparently mollified, and stepped over to one of the taps. He put a foaming mug of Iron City in front of me, patted my shoulder solicitously, and ambled back down the bar to rejoin his customers. From their loud, slurred voices it was clear they’d already forgotten the previous incident. Drinks on the house are pretty good mollifiers, too.
Sipping my beer, I felt my pulse slowly return to normal. I didn’t blame Noah for his confusion about my behavior. After all, he couldn’t know why I’d reacted the way I did. That I’d thought Charlene’s life was in danger.
I drained my beer and went around the counter to tap the keg for a refill. I remained behind the bar, sipping my beer, letting my thoughts drift.
Maddox had said his next target wouldn’t be one of my patients. Rather, it would be someone “closer to home.” That’s why I responded so quickly when Noah called about Charlene. To my mind, she fit the bill.
Which meant Maddox had yet to claim his new victim. Or, if he had, he hadn’t revealed who it was. At least, not yet.
I finished my second beer and went back to my seat on the stool. For the first time in twenty minutes or so, I looked up and noticed my surroundings. The two tables in the middle of the room were now empty, and the last few customers at the bar were paying their tabs. The place was finally closing up.
I spotted Charlene busing one of the tables, so I went over. She looked up from the stack of dishes and smiled.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” I said. “Noah was worried.”
She chuckled. “Tell me about it. He practically hugged me to death when I finally showed up. But I’m sorry he worried you, too, Danny.”
“Only added a few more gray hairs to the beard. You can’t even notice.”
“Truth is, he just now told me he never called you back to let you know I was okay. Classic Noah, the crazy S.O.B. But with Mr. Schizo, you gotta take the good with the bad. I figure you know that as well as anybody, right?”
I sighed. “Right.”
She gave me a rueful look and shuffled off with her fully loaded tray toward the kitchen.
I was about to leave when I saw Noah again, alone on a bar stool, sipping a beer, the night’s work over. I apologized again for my angry outburst earlier, then told him I had to go.
“Fine with me, man. I’m just sittin’ here, shootin’ the shit with Satan and his minions. See ’em? Two stools over.”
I started, which brought out a booming laugh.
“Jesus, Danny, I’m fuckin’ with ya. Don’t worry, I told ya, I’m takin’ my meds every day like a good boy. In fact, Dr. Nancy just sent over my refills.”
“Yeah, well, make sure you take them.”
He was still chuckling as I went out the door.
l l l l l
I hadn’t driven two miles from Noah’s place, heading east along the river on Second, when the burner cell rang. Taking a breath, I scooped it up and placed it in the dash holder. Pushed the button. Gloria answered.
“It’s Maddox,” she said simply. “Hold on.”
Not knowing what to expect, I pulled the Mustang to the curb and killed the engine. With my anxiety spiking, I didn’t want to have to focus on driving.
Gloria’s terse voice came from the cell’s speaker again.
“He’s streaming a live image onto your laptop screen. I’m forwarding it to you now.”
I bent toward the dash to better see the playing-card-sized image on the cell. Maddox’s chiseled face, lips upturned in a self-assured grin, filled the entire screen.
“Hope you’re still awake, Danny. ’Cause it’s show-time. Ready for some Midnight Madness?”
My chest tightened, capturing my breath. Holding it there.
Suddenly, Maddox vanished from the screen, to be replaced by a somewhat grainy black-and-white image similar to the traffic camera image from the city street where Stephen Langley had been killed.
I leaned forward, eyes not five inches from the tiny cell screen. I was right, it was a live streaming image from a static security camera mounted high enough to capture a wide swath of some shadowy, concrete interior. A parking garage, the lens’ angle revealing about a half-dozen vehicles in prominently labeled spaces. High-end cars and SUVs, their skins buffed to a proud gloss by the harsh fluorescent lights overhead.
For four or five long minutes, nothing happened. Then, in a far corner, a set of elevator doors opened and two people came out. A heavily built black man with a briefcase and a younger, more slender woman.
It wasn’t until the pair began walking toward the line of parked cars that I recognized them. At the same time, Maddox’s voice crackled from the cell’s speaker, narrating the scene in a strange, stilted cadence.
After a moment, I got it. He was doing a bad impression of Rod Serling, from the old Twilight Zone TV show.
“Witness, if you will,” he intoned, “two of our city’s finest lawyers. Harvey Blalock, president of the Pittsburgh Black Attorneys Association, and good friend of one Daniel Rinaldi, psychologist and blatant self-promoter. Accompanying Mr. Blalock is his new protégé, Lily Chen.”
“Christ, no!” As though Maddox could hear me. But I knew he couldn’t, since I was getting picture and sound relayed from my laptop. Which he probably assumed I was home watching.
And that was all I could do. Watch. Helpless, impotent. Unable to intervene. Just as before.
“Rumored to be having an affair,” Maddox droned on in that horrible clipped voice, “Blalock and Chen have been working late in the office tonight. Attending to important legal matters, of course. Sharing briefs, if you get my drift.”
Onscreen, Harvey and Lily exchanged a warm embrace before separating to head for their respective cars. It was then that I recognized Harvey’s silver Lexus parked less than a dozen yards away. And the lawyer was wasting no time walking toward it.
I quickly reduced the image and tapped in Gloria’s number.
She answered immediately. “Yes, we’re seeing this, and—”
I interrupted her. “Listen, Gloria. You’ve got to call Blalock on his cell. Warn him.”
“What’s his number?”
I went to check my cell’s contact list, but then remembered this wasn’t my phone. It was one of the throwaway cells Barnes had bought. None of my usual numbers were programmed into it.
“I…” Trying to think. To remember Harvey’s cell number. But I drew a blank. Having always used speed-dial to call him, I’d let the number slip from my memory.
“Wait a minute,” I said to her. “Where’s my cell? The one I smashed?”
“Still in pieces in the corner, where you swept it. I’m in the kitchen, looking at it now.”
“Go check to see if the memory card is intact. If it is—”
“Right. I can put it in one of the prepaids here, pull up the number.”
“Yes! Hurry!”
I restored the image from the parking garage security cam. By now, Harvey was approaching his car, arm outstretched, thumb tapping something in his hand, obviously using his remote to unlock the Lexus. At the same time, in the opposite corner of the streaming image, I could make out Lily Chen standing next to a dark Toyota Highlander, searching her purse for her keys.
Again, all this was occurring without sound, like an old silent movie. A particularly eerie silence that somehow enhanced the horror of the moment, my growing sense of dread.
A silence broken only by Maddox’s cartoonish impression of Serling’s voice, continuing on. Something about how Blalock’s affair with the much-younger female lawyer mirrored my own relationship with Joy Steadman.
There it was, I thought. Like an Old Testament God, Maddox took delight in punishing sinners whose supposed transgressions were similar. Again, his disordered mind using symmetry as a form of self-regulation. Reifying his sense of mastery, co
ntrol.
I couldn’t bear to listen to him anymore, so I reduced the image again. Still in contact with Gloria’s cell.
Waiting.
“Okay, Danny,” she said at last. “I switched memory cards and got the number.”
She gave it to me and I clicked off, going back to the streaming image. Blalock stood at the driver’s side door, reaching for the handle.
I quickly dialed his cell, and saw him glance down at his suit jacket’s pocket. Obviously where his cell had started ringing. He drew it from his pocket, answered.
“Harvey, it’s Daniel. You’re in danger. You—”
“Danger?” He chortled. “Hell, man, that’s my middle name. Besides, since when—?”
He opened his car door and got behind the wheel.
“Look,” I said, “I don’t know what he’s got planned, but—”
“Who’re we talking about, Danny?”
Through his windshield, I saw him reach to turn the key in the ignition.
Suddenly, Maddox’s voice bellowed from my cell’s speaker.
“Too late, Danny boy. Enjoy the fireworks.”
I shouted into the phone. “Harvey, no! Don’t—”
Blalock started his car.
Chapter Twenty-three
The explosion, terrible in its silence, had such acoustic force that the camera image jiggled for a moment. Then the Lexus was engulfed in flames, an angry blood-red fireball that sent spiraling ribbons of intense heat toward the roof.
“Oh, Christ, no!” My voice a croak, splintered like glass as I gazed in disbelief at the nightmarish image.
Suddenly, from the other side of the garage, Lily Chen came running toward the flaming car. Brushed back by the searing heat, she fell to her knees on the concrete floor, mouth wide in a silent scream. Her hands to her face.
“Hey, Danny.” Maddox had abruptly reappeared on-screen, replacing the video feed. Eyes as bright and incendiary as the carnage I’d just witnessed. “This one turned out so well, I might just post it on YouTube. What do you think? Too much?”
Head Wounds Page 16
