Name Witheld jpb-13

by J. A. Jance

  "Did you hear that, Mr. Whitten?" Peters called, once our reinforcements were safely in place. "More cops arrived just a minute ago and more are on their way. The police boat will be here soon as well. You're surrounded. There's not a chance in hell that you'll get away. Leave the officer alone, Mr. Whitten. Move away from him. Come up the stairs with your hands up. We'll see to it that you don't get hurt."

  By then, I had made my way as far as the berm at the end of the retaining wall. Slowly, ever so slowly, expecting another incoming shot at any moment, I raised myself up and peered over the side. Kramer was still there, lying in the same exact position as the last time I saw him. Bill Whitten, on the other hand, was nowhere in sight.

  "Kramer," I called. "Are you okay? Are you awake?"

  "I'm awake. Whitten just went down to the house. You've got to get me out of here quick," Kramer said in a hoarse whisper, "before that crazy bastard comes back."

  "Why did he do that?" I asked, peering down the hill where Grace Highsmith's house was shrouded in darkness.

  "How the hell should I know? Just get me out of here."

  Kramer was right, of course. Moving him out of harm's way had to be the first priority. "Hey, somebody," I yelled up to the others. "Over here. Ron, cover us. You other two guys, come help me. My partner's injured. I can't lift him by myself."

  Grasping the edge of the retaining wall, I lowered myself over the side. Even when I was fully extended, the bottoms of my feet were still a good four feet from the surface of the ledge. Dreading the price that four-foot drop would exact from the bone spurs on my heels, I dangled there for a moment before fear of being shot made me let go. I dropped down beside Kramer in a low crouch. Within seconds, the two uniformed Kirkland officers joined me.

  "That leg looks real bad," one of them observed. "Shouldn't we wait for the EMTs?"

  "No, damn it!" Kramer grunted through gritted teeth. "He might come back. Get me out of here now! Just do what you have to do and get it over with."

  The thought was daunting. With the prospect of bullets flying at any moment, it wasn't simply a matter of moving a man with a broken leg. There were other injuries as well. Later, we would discover that in his tumble off the ten-foot ledge, Detective Kramer had broken six ribs in addition to damaging his leg. And at the time we were considering moving him, it seemed likely that he might have suffered neck or spinal injuries as well. With those, there's always the possibility that any kind of jarring or unprotected movement may lead to further injury-to paralysis even.

  Moving him by hand, especially over such rough terrain, flew in the face of every grain of first-aid training I'd ever had drummed into my thick skull. Yet, there was no choice. Cop instinct warned me that an armed standoff was coming. We couldn't very well leave Kramer lying exposed right in the middle of it. Besides, with the extent of his injuries in that terrible cold, it seemed likely that if a stray gunshot didn't get him, shock sure as hell would.

  One of the patrol officers looked up at me. "What do we do?" he asked.

  "We carry him out. From the sounds of those sirens, we don't have long. I'll take this side. You take the other," I told the cop who had asked the question. "That leaves the legs for you," I told the other.

  Kramer's a big guy. With only three of us, lifting him was no easy task. He gasped when we first raised him off the ground, and he groaned again when we finally put him down. Other than that, he didn't make a sound. While we were carrying him up the steep stairs, I thought-hoped-that maybe he had passed out, but when we reached the far side of Grace Highsmith's garage and laid him down on the ground, I saw that wasn't the case. He was wide awake. His jaw was clenched shut while tears streamed down his face.

  "Sorry about that," I apologized. "I know it was rough."

  "It's okay," he managed. "Thanks."

  Grace Highsmith appeared out of nowhere carrying a blanket. She covered the injured man, then she disappeared into her garage. She emerged carrying a walking stick.

  "We can use this to splint his leg," she announced, moving purposefully toward Kramer. I could tell from the look of her that she was fully prepared to put word to action.

  "No, Miss Highsmith," I told her. "That won't be necessary. An aid car will be here soon."

  "An aid car," she sniffed disapprovingly. "I've splinted legs before, you know. I'm perfectly capable, and I know how to do it."

  "I'm sure you do," I told her. "And so do I, but how about if we leave that job to the professionals? Come on. We need to get you out of here."

  Grace shot me a withering glance. "I'm not going anywhere, Detective Beaumont. This man was injured on my property because he was trying to help me," she said determinedly. "I'm not leaving until he does."

  By then, the street in both directions was rapidly filling with arriving emergency vehicles, although to the north there was still one lane open to allow vehicles to leave as needed. Giving up on the futile idea of arguing with Grace Highsmith, I walked over to where Ron was huddled with a group of uniformed Kirkland officers. When I arrived, he was briefing them on the situation-giving them the information they would need to pass along to the commander of the Emergency Response Team, who was due to arrive at any moment. The department's chief hostage negotiator had also been summoned.

  "How many people do you think are down there besides the bad guy?" one of the Kirkland cops asked me.

  "Just him as far as we know," I answered, "but I'll go check."

  Getting up, I hurried back to where Grace Highsmith still hovered over Detective Kramer. "Is he alone?" I asked.

  "Yes," Grace answered, but Kramer shook his head.

  "There must be two of them," he said. "I was approaching the Lexus when the lights over the stairway switched on. I remember seeing Whitten on the stairs, and that's when something hit me from behind."

  I looked at Grace. "What did he want? Why did he come here in the first place?"

  "My fax," she said. "He came looking for the information Virginia Marks sent me. But I was smarter than that. I had hidden it, but I told him I didn't have it, that I had sent it somewhere for safekeeping. I asked him if he planned to kill me, too."

  "You asked him that?"

  "Of course. He's a dangerous man, Detective Beaumont. Very unstable. Like a vicious dog. Father always taught us that you can't afford to back down with one of those. You should never show any fear, either. I believe, from something he said, that Virginia may have tried to blackmail him. That may have pushed him over the edge."

  "Blackmail? With what?"

  "Detective Beaumont," someone called from behind me. "The captain wants us to clear this area."

  Looking around, I realized that the unit commander of the Kirkland Emergency Response Team had taken control of the situation and was busily deploying personnel and weapons in what he viewed as the most strategic positions. Kramer, sheltered behind the garage, would need to stay where he was. Grace Highsmith wouldn't.

  "Look, Miss Highsmith, you heard the officer. We've got to get out of here," I warned her.

  "No," she replied. "I already told you I'm staying until the ambulance gets here and that's final. I'm eighty-three years old. If I get hit by a stray bullet, it's my choice. I'd much rather do that than shrivel away in some old people's home."

  "I give up," I told her. "Suit yourself." I turned back to the officer. "Leave her be," I said. "She's waiting for the ambulance."

  "Okay," he said dubiously. "But the captain isn't going to like it."

  "Have him come talk to her then."

  Just then, an arriving ambulance came threading its way toward us through the bottleneck of parked cars. Ron Peters and I, benched by the arrival of the locals, watched from the sidelines while the emergency medical technicians splinted Kramer's leg and loaded him onto a backboard. I think they also must have slipped him some kind of medication. By the time they were ready to load him into the ambulance, he seemed to be in far less pain. When he saw me hanging around in the background, he grinned faintly
and held out his hand.

  "Don't think this makes us best buddies, Beaumont," he said. "But thanks. Thanks a whole hell of a lot."

  "You're welcome, asshole," I replied, squeezing his hand. "You'd do the same for me."

  Moments later, they loaded the gurney into the ambulance. When one of the EMTs turned away from the aid car after closing the two back doors, she was holding Grace Highsmith's blanket.

  "We use our own blankets on the way to the hospital," she explained. "Do you have any idea whose this is?"

  "It belongs to Grace Highsmith," I said. "She's around here somewhere. I'll see that it's returned to its proper owner."

  Taking the folded blanket, I looked around for Grace some more, but still didn't see her. Assuming that one of the local officers had finally succeeded in convincing her to move out of harm's way, I unfolded the blanket and draped it over my own chilled shoulders, then I walked up to the Buick where Ron Peters was in the process of loading his wheelchair.

  "Come on, Chief Sitting Bull," he said, glancing at me and my blanket. "The captain wants all nonessential people out of the immediate area. That includes you and me."

  "Did Grace Highsmith come up this way?" I asked.

  "If she did, I didn't see her," Peters replied. "But one of the uniformed officers just herded a whole group of people into the house next door. Maybe that's where she disappeared to."

  "You're probably right," I said. But just then, something drew my eyes to the open door of Grace Highsmith's garage. I was startled to see a fat cloud of exhaust steam suddenly stream out of the back of Grace Highsmith's Cadillac and rise in the cold night air. At the same moment, a set of taillights flashed on.

  "What the hell…?" I began.

  Then the backup lights flashed on as well and the Caddy, belching clouds of steamy exhaust vapor, began backing out of the garage. I immediately assumed that Grace was at the wheel. My expectation was that she would back out to the right and then leave to the left, driving away in the single northbound lane that was still open to traffic-the one that ran past Ron and the Buick.

  Instead, the Cadillac turned in exactly the opposite direction. Rather than driving away from the danger, the Caddy headed directly into it.

  Turning his attention from the Chair Topper, Ron stared at the Cadillac. "That can't be Grace Highsmith, can it?" he asked.

  "Who else?" I returned.

  Who else, indeed!

  Walking after her, intent on turning her around, I wasn't in any particular hurry. After all, the road where Grace was headed was chock full of official police vehicles. Not only was she not going anywhere, she also wasn't going anywhere fast.

  That was the thought that crossed my mind at the time, anyway. Which shows how much I know.

  As the Cadillac lumbered toward the command-post van, a uniformed officer broke away from the group. Waving his arms and gesturing madly, his message to the Cadillac's driver should have been perfectly clear: Go back! To my absolute astonishment, the Caddy stopped at once, exactly as directed.

  Grace Highsmith would never do that, I thought. Somebody else must be driving her car.

  I was curious to see what the driver would do next. At that point, what would have been sensible and easy would have been to reverse course, return to the garage, and repeat the whole process over from scratch, turning into the opposite lane. Instead, with the squeal of a fluid-starved power-steering pump, the Cadillac's wheels turned sharply to the right. She began to turn around on the spot right where it was, in a place just beyond the top landing of the stairs, where there was almost no shoulder on either side of the road.

  That's when I realized for sure that Grace Highsmith was at the wheel.

  Instantly, I flashed back to the parking ordeal on Main Street a few hours earlier. I remembered the whole series of bumper-bashing backing and filling maneuvers it had taken for Grace to wedge the Cadillac into a regular parking space. Compared to this, that was simple. Here, if she misjudged the distance, it wasn't matter of creasing somebody else's chrome. There was no bumper to stop her if she went too far. Only a straight drop, with nothing at all to break the fall-other than the possibility of tumbling into the arms of the gun-toting maniac who was waiting in the house at the bottom of the cliff.

  The other cop-the one who was officially charged with stopping her-and I reached opposite sides of the Cadillac at pretty much the same time. By then, Grace had wrenched the car around so she had it perpendicular to the roadway, sitting squarely astraddle both lanes of traffic. The Kirkland officer pounded on the driver's window with his flashlight, then aimed the beam into the vehicle.

  "Lady!" he yelled. "Turn off the engine and get out of the car."

  There was no sign from the driver that she so much as heard him, so I took a crack at it. "Grace," I called, bending down and peering in the window. "You've got to-"

  That was as far as I went. Suddenly, the Cadillac's powerful engine surged from a simple idle to a full roar. In the beam of the flashlight I caught a glimpse of the car's interior. As she shifted the car out of reverse and into high, both Grace Highsmith's feet were planted on the pedals-one on the brake and one on the gas. There was only a split second to react. The other cop and I both dodged back while the Cadillac shot forward in a spray of gravel.

  The first casualties of the speeding car were the handrails at the top of the stairs. The Caddy plowed through the one-inch pipes as if they were made out of so many straws. And then, in the best tradition of Evel Knievel, the vehicle sailed out into space. For several slow-motion moments it seemed to stay level, as though a ribbon of invisible pavement were still holding it up. Then, ever so slowly, it began to arc downward.

  The other cop and I stood paralyzed with only the suddenly empty width of the Cadillac between us, then we turned as one and headed for the stairway. We arrived just in time to see Grace Highsmith's Cadillac plunge nose-first onto the steep roof, directly between the two dormers.

  The blow sent a storm of glass shards and flying wood splashing out from the windows. For a moment, the car stood poised on its nose. It seemed for a second or two that the roof might actually hold, but then the whole house trembled. The air came alive with the screams of twisting nails, shattering glass, and breaking wood. Ever so slowly, with a cloud of debris mushrooming up around it, a hole opened up in the roof, and the car disappeared inside.

  The house quivered again, almost as if it were made of Jell-O, then as the car crashed through from the second floor to the first-taking a bearing wall with it-the front of the house seemed to pucker and wrinkle as the upper rafters fell over into one another. It reminded me of the collapse of a house of cards.

  The other cop and I stood transfixed. When the dust cleared, I think I expected the whole house to be flat, but it wasn't. It was crooked and out of focus, but the outer walls were still standing while smoke curled from the tilting fireplace.

  I was still standing there dumbstruck when the other cop found his voice. "I'll tell you what," he said wonderingly, "they don't build 'em like that anymore!"

  His words and the sudden wailing of a car horn functioned like a pistol shot at the beginning of a race. We both headed for the stairs. I must have looked like a brown-caped superman with Grace Highsmith's blanket billowing out behind me as I started down. On the second step, I lost my balance when I tripped over a tangle of twisted pipe from a demolished section of handrail. If the guy pounding down the stairs behind me hadn't managed to grab me by one flailing arm, I might have broken my neck.

  The only reality for me, right then, was the honking horn-the hauntingly god-awful wail of it. Anyone who has ever witnessed an auto accident and heard that terrible sound knows all too well what it means. Those old horn rings don't work unless something is pressing on them. In the aftermath of a serious accident, that something is usually someone's body-someone's broken body.

  When we reached the bottom of the stairs, I looked around for a way to get into the house. Head-high debris spilled out the gro
und-floor windows and doors.

  For a moment, we stood indecisively on what was left of the wraparound front porch and looked at one another. The cop, who had managed to remain focused on the armed standoff part of the problem, was still carrying his drawn gun. Mine was put away.

  "Let's try the other side," he suggested. "I'll cover you."

  Until that moment, my only thoughts had been of Grace Highsmith and the infernal horn. Now, as we picked our way along the uneven, broken porch, I, too, remembered Bill Whitten. Was it hours earlier or only minutes when Grace Highsmith had referred to him as a vicious dog? What had made her decide to take the law into her own hands and attempt to put him out of his misery herself?

  For some reason, the window over the kitchen sink was relatively clear. I climbed in.

  "What if something blows up?" the other guy asked me, as I reached back and helped pull him in. For the first time, I caught a glimpse of his name tag-Officer Smith. Hell of a name for a hero.

  "Good point," I said. "The living room's that way. There's a fire in the fireplace. We'd better try to put it out, especially if there's gasoline leaking from that Cadillac."

  There was no sense in thinking about it any further. We were already in the house. Backing down then would have been unthinkable, especially with the horn still honking.

  "You look for the woman," Officer Smith said. "I'll handle the fire. Here's a flashlight."

  "Grace!" I shouted, pointing the frail beam off into the dark and dusty interior of the house. "Grace Highsmith! Can you hear me?"

  Tripping and stumbling, we fought our way through the darkened kitchen. We scrambled up and over a huge pile of unidentifiable crap that reached almost to a nonexistent ceiling. And just on the other side of the mountain of debris, nose-down into the floor of what had once been the front entry, sat the remains of Grace Highsmith's Cadillac. With Grace still belted inside.

  "Grace?" I shouted again. I braced myself against the crumpled flank of the car and climbed the jumbled wreckage of shattered plaster, lath, shingle, and demolished furniture. "Grace?"