by Dane Hartman
“Don’t be a fool!”
The man was down on one knee, bringing the shotgun up to his shoulder. McConnell pulled the trigger again. It clicked empty. The man pulled his own trigger. Nothing happened.
“Hold it,” Harry said, aiming his weapon. The man looked at the shotgun as if it were an alien thing. Harry leaped off the stage just as the wounded man was forcing the pump of the shotgun back. The cop took the stairs three at a time as the man expelled the spent shell and released the pump—automatically feeding a new one into the chamber.
Harry got within twenty feet of him when the wounded man started to aim the shotgun straight at him. The look on his face was that of a child confused and frustrated. Harry had no choice. Still running, he shot the man in the chest.
The man’s smiling, triumphant face froze as he flew backward, his body retaining its sitting position. He landed two steps up. Harry came to a stop over him. He recognized the face. His face reminded him of the man who had talked to him in The Third Degree bar on Tenth Street. It was the man who had cryptically warned him about the impending trouble.
Callahan turned to see McConnell coming up the stairs after him, reloading her gun. Turning back, with determination coloring his features, Harry pointed the Magnum at the black glass of the lighting booth and fired the last bullet. The suddenness of his action made McConnell stop and wince.
He shot it high enough into the pane so as not to hit anyone who might be inside. Since he didn’t have time to find the entrance, Harry decided to climb through the shattered window. The .44 calibre slug had created a network of cracks around its big hole, but it hadn’t shattered the obstruction. Putting the Magnum back in his holster, Harry grabbed the heavy spotlight, and pulled it off the stair with a grunt. Then, using all his strength, he pushed it into the glass.
It collapsed like a waterfall, a glistening cascade of black glass instead of a sheet of liquid. Shards splashed and sparkled across the floor of the little booth, sliding across the light board, tape recorders, and several plush black chairs. The booth was empty, a door leading out to the left was open.
Harry turned to find McConnell at his side. “Call headquarters,” he said. “I want an immediate autopsy of every one of these men.”
“White is still working on the McLaren job,” McConnell reminded him.
“I don’t care who does it, as long as it’s done,” Harry said intensely.
“Take it easy, Harry,” she reproved mildly. “Anything you want to know we can get from the swordsman there.” She pointed toward the edge of the stage and both looked in that direction. The man who had attacked Harry with the broadsword was gone.
McConnell turned back in wonderment. “Maybe the man who was dropping the flats got him . . .”
“Or maybe the one who was in here,” Harry said. “It doesn’t matter. Go call HQ, Sergeant. An immediate autopsy, you read me?”
“Loud and clear,” McConnell said. Before she left, she turned to Harry one last time. “You sure you don’t want me to accompany you back there?” she asked, motioning with her head at whatever lay beyond the lighting room door.
Harry nodded, looking at the booth instead of her, so she just shrugged and went out the back. Along the way, she stopped to examine the sword the disappeared attacker had dropped. To her surprise, it was light when she picked it up. Made of painted wood, she discovered. It was a prop.
Harry found what he was looking for in the third dressing room behind the booth. She was brutally bound to a chair which was screwed to the floor itself. Her wrists and thumbs were tied together behind her back with rubber coated wire. Her shoulders and elbows were bound to the back of the chair with wire and tape.
More wire and tape were used to secure her ankles and knees apart on the chairs’ front legs. The cords cut cruelly into her skin at all points because her pants had been stripped from her before she was tied. She had struggled desperately by the looks of it because streams of dried blood colored her hands and feet.
She was further held to the chair by a wire encircling her waist and silenced by tape wound around her head and hair repeatedly. When Harry cut it away, he found a sponge taped in place over her knotted pantyhose which was forced between her lips.
The fading bruises of the rape were joined by brand new ones which split her lower lip and nearly closed one eye. Her sweater was practically torn off her body with many more welts beneath the tears on her torso. A wide, custodial broom had its base propped against the dressing room wall in such a way that the handle was pushed between Kimberly Byrnes’ outstretched legs.
Harry looked around for something to use as a tool; spotting a screwdriver in the corner, he worked feverishly to unbolt the chair from the floor. When he finally pulled all the screws up, he slowly, gingerly moved the seat back from the wall.
When the broom clattered to the floor, Kimberly Byrnes groaned.
C H A P T E R
E l e v e n
“It was horrible,” she said.
Kim Byrnes was sitting up in the hospital bed, most of her head covered with bandages. Her skin was a light shade of blue. Steve Rogers, the black police doctor who took care of most of Harry’s wounds, described it all in the hall before the combination visit and gentle interrogation.
“By all outward signs, she was beaten continually. When he wasn’t hitting her with an open hand or his fist, he was whipping her with something. A thin leather belt, I should think. Very little else would make those kinds of markings.”
“Anything else?” Harry said needlessly.
Rogers thought he knew what he was referring to. “No physical damage due to the . . . uh . . . object. It probably caused nothing more serious than a case of shock. In fact, Harry,” the doctor said in a consoling tone, “other than the immediate surface damage, she’s not badly hurt.”
Callahan looked at him.
“No, really,” Rogers contended. “The way I figure it, Steele’s killing rage was spent by the murder of the Mayer girl. But since he had a second girl hostage, he took his minor frustrations out on her. That way, his anger didn’t have a chance to build. There’re contusions and lacerations, but no concussion or broken bones as far as we can ascertain.”
“Then she’ll be OK.”
“Good as new. Officially, we’re planning to release her tomorrow morning. But in fact, she could go home anytime.”
Callahan thanked him and entered the private room, which was already occupied by Captain McKay, Lieutenant Bressler, Alex Wu, Lynne McConnell, and, of course, Kim Byrnes.
“I can’t remember what happened very clearly,” she admitted.
“Of course not, my dear,” McKay clucked, seated in the one chair, which was moved up to the girl’s bedside.
“What happened after the fight started?” McConnell asked, getting a dirty look from the captain and a concerned one from Wu.
Byrnes looked down at her hands, which had swaths of gauze around her wrists, making her look like she had attempted suicide. Her small, shapely fingers, their fingernails for the most part intact, lay on the sheet over her torso,
“All I can remember was running out the back door,” she said slowly, having difficulty bringing it all back. “I think we kept running until we were alone. Then I think I can recall his face . . .”
“Steele?” Bressler asked.
She nodded. “But I’m not sure.” Her hand raised toward the back of her head, but returned to the bed. “Then I felt something on my head and I blacked out.”
McKay turned to look at Bressler. “The two split off from the rest of the crowd where they met Steele. Then she was knocked out and he beat the other girl to death.” The way he spoke made it sound as if he were filling the lieutenant in on the “official” version—the one that was going to be on Steele’s warrant request.
“Where was that?” McConnell asked her directly.
Byrnes looked blank. “I don’t know. We just ran and ran.”
That fit, Harry thought. They h
ad found plenty of blood inside the Mustang, but it was hard to tell whether she was beaten to death there or somewhere close by. “Do you remember any cars?” he asked her himself.
She turned her head to look at him, her one uncovered eye gleaming in warm recognition. “Harry,” she said warmly, as if welcoming him. Only then did she consider the question. “There were cars . . .” she started hesitantly.
“There,” said McKay abruptly, “you see, Inspector?” He changed his irritated attitude when he solicitously returned his attention to the girl. “Now what happened after that?”
She stared off toward the opposite wall again, as if she were trying to see it all on a movie screen—to separate herself from the experience. “I woke up with him slapping me,” she said with certainty.
“Steele?” Bressler had to interrupt again to make sure. Obviously the girl didn’t want to remember her torturer by name. She nodded again, taking a second to look at Bressler; then returning her gaze to the far wall. While she continued, Detective Wu took the lieutenant aside. When they returned to the bed, Bressler did not interrupt again.
“He slapped me many times, asking me to cry. Then he’d stop, only to start hitting me. He did that again and again and again. He’d slap me and then stop. Then he’d come back and hit me. Then he’d start all over again. After awhile, it seemed like he got tired of that. He came in and started hitting me with his belt.” As she spoke, her head stayed perfectly still and her eyes stayed wide open, but big teardrops started streaming down both cheeks.
“Where were the others?” McConnell asked in empathy.
McKay whirled around and snarled at her. “She was gagged, wasn’t she? Stop your damn interruptions!”
“No,” Byrnes said quickly, looking at the captain. “It’s all right. I want to help all I can.” She concentrated once more on the far wall. “I didn’t see any others. It was just him going in and out, beating me . . . in and out . . .”
That phrase brought her back to the torture seat. “After awhile,” she said as if in a trance, “he seemed to get tired of that too. Then he came in carrying something . . .” She shook her head minutely, like she was trying to get something loose. “And all the time,” she continued in a small voice. “And all the time, he was talking to me . . .”
McKay was on it like a shot. “What did he say?”
“First, he swore at me and told me to cry or scream. I wanted to, but nothing came out. Then he kept saying that it was my fault. My fault . . .” She closed her mouth and swallowed. McKay and Bressler leaned in. “When he came in the last time, he said he had a big surprise for me.” The sexual allusion was clear to everyone present, Harry thought.
“Then,” she continued, “when he was fixing it, he said that I had been a bad girl and had to be punished. He said that it was my fault that he was a homosexual. He said that if I hadn’t been gay, he’d be able to love me instead of all the boys. He said he hated the boys too, but it wasn’t their fault. They didn’t have a choice, he said, but I did.
“Then, when it was all set up, he started hitting me again, saying ‘Isn’t that nice? Doesn’t that feel good . . . ?’ ” Her voice started to waver and crack. Detective Wu moved in quickly.
“That’s enough, Kim,” he said gently, reaching across Bressler to put his hand on her arm. “That’s all we need to know for now.”
That seemed to snap her out of it. She looked up at Wu with glistening eyes. “Did it help? Did I do all right?”
“Fine,” he assured her. “You did great.”
McKay slowly got up, moving behind Wu and stretching. “Well, I think that’s all we need to know, period. Lieutenant, Inspector, Sergeant, would you join me in the hall, please?”
Kim looked over imploringly. “Does Harry have to go? I’d like to talk with him if I can.”
McKay looked over at the inspector with an expression that combined doubt, dislike, and what could only be termed as envy. But his face was solicitous when he again returned his gaze to Kim. “He’ll be back in just a few minutes, all right?”
Bressler followed McKay out tamely, but as Harry let McConnell go in front of him, she presented him with a look of skepticism. Whether it was about McKay’s assurance or Byrne’s selfless heroism, he didn’t know. All four huddled in the bright hospital hall.
“I think that does it, all right,” McKay said briskly, rubbing his hands together. “I want a warrant and an APB out on Steele immediately.”
Callahan spoke strongly. “We don’t have a clear cut motive.”
“You heard her, Inspector,” McKay said with exaggerated patience. “He blames lesbians for his homosexuality. It probably goes way back to his childhood.”
Harry looked to the others for confirmation. McConnell put the last nail in Steele’s coffin. “It has its precedents,” she mused. “He said it wasn’t the boy’s ‘fault.’ That’s a rather classic example of a gay placing the blame for his condition anywhere but on himself. It’s also a classic example of seeing women as things, rather than people. According to Steele, boys can’t control themselves, but women can.”
“We don’t have much proof . . .” Bressler said doubtfully.
“Are you kidding?” McConnell replied. “Just get that girl up on the stand and there won’t be a dry eye in the courtroom. She could convince a jury the Pope did it.”
McKay pinned the vice cop with a critical eye. “Sergeant,” he said coldly. “We are not railroading anybody, so do not give the impression in either word or deed that we are. Michael Peter Steele killed all those women and he nearly claimed another victim. Only I’m going to make sure it’s his last.”
“What about his men?” Harry asked. Everyone looked up in surprise as if they had forgotten he was there.
“What men?” the captain asked in return.
“The members of SAFE.”
“What about them?” McKay sniffed.
“Were they in on it? Did they help him?”
Their superior thought about it. “They probably thought they were protecting him from police killers. And when you came charging into the theater, they were sure SAFE’s Public Enemy Number One was out to get their leader. It hardly makes any difference in the long run anyway. Steele could’ve killed the lesbians on his own, and even if he got some help, the charges will be minor. No, Inspector, I’m after the big fish on this one. The head man!”
McKay turned to Bressler. “An APB on Steele and a warrant for his arrest, Lieutenant. Now.” Then he turned briskly and walked away.
Bressler looked helplessly at the other two, shrugged, and followed the captain like an obedient dog. That left Harry and McConnell alone amidst the crush of doctors, nurses, patients, and interns.
“Looks like it’s all over but the shouting,” McConnell said, smiling.
Harry did not mirror the expression. “Looks that way,” he said distantly.
McConnell misread his meaning. Thinking his mind was on Byrnes, she turned a little defensive. “Don’t let me keep you, Inspector. I’m sure you have plenty of important things to do besides talking with a sergeant from Vice. Just let me say that it was a pleasure and an honor working with you again and the last thing I’d want to do is to keep your bait waiting.”
Callahan looked at her blankly. She seemed to have more to say, but she turned heel abruptly and marched away. Harry watched her go, expressionless, then slowly moved toward the private room door. Wu and the girl were where they had left them. Byrnes was leaning over, talking conspiratorially to the rape squad detective, who was holding her hand in both of his.
When the inspector entered the room, Wu quickly rose, said a few soothing words to the girl and approached him. “She is very excited and very vulnerable right now, Inspector,” he said quietly as Kim laid back and looked out the opposite window. “She has blanked most of the details out of her mind already, although she shows signs of blaming herself for everything that happened.”
“What do you mean?”
“It may
be why she is so eager to please,” Wu explained. “She perhaps feels that if she can satisfy everyone, no one will have any reason to hurt her.”
“Is that common?” Harry marveled.
“No, not common,” Wu replied, looking at the bed, then back to Callahan again. “This is a very uncommon girl, Inspector. She has survived what could turn others into paranoid schizophrenics or manic depressives. And it seems that she has come to grips with her experiences in spite of repressing the most painful things.
“So be careful, Inspector,” the detective warned. “She will need constant support to believe in herself and not believe that it was her fault. I have suggested a variety of counseling programs, but the final decision rests with her.”
The Oriental had made it clear that he thought Harry could do some good or else he wouldn’t have confided in him. Harry nodded, putting out his hand. “Thank you,” he said. “I’ll do what I can.”
The detective took his hand and nodded in return before leaving. As the door closed behind him, Harry surveyed the scene with a policeman’s eye. The room was dark in the early evening dusk. The sunset had come suddenly, bathing the room in a golden glow. The light had been turned off during the interview, so the streaks of color reflected off the clouds was the only illumination in the room.
Kim had turned down the sheets on her bed, leaving her beaten body exposed. She wore only her underwear, which she had begged Detective Wu to bring in addition to some outer clothes. The lingerie was light, silky cream, its lace v-neck held on her breasts by spaghetti thin straps. Her right hand was by her head on the pillow. Her left across her stomach.
As her chest rose and fell slowly in the sunset-colored room, the air thickened in Harry’s nostrils. And when she turned her head to pinion Harry with her one blue eye, the effect was devastatingly sexy.
“They tell me you saved my life,” she said softly. “I wanted to thank you.”
Harry approached the bed. “You were my responsibility,” he said in way of explanation.
