by Jan Burke
“But connecting him to a guy like Parrish—”
“Parrish was his neighbor for a while.”
“That doesn’t mean he knew what Parrish was up to. Parrish isn’t a hit man; he kills for his own pleasure.”
“Maybe he’s done both. I’m going to talk to Phil Newly,” I said. “Maybe he’ll know if Parrish was in touch with anyone else, thought of anyone as a friend.”
“Phil may have helped me to find you,” he said, “but good luck getting him to take attorney-client privilege that lightly.”
I called Phil Newly’s number several times on Sunday afternoon and evening. No answer. I figured he might be away for the weekend.
That was one of my worries over the next few days — Phil Newly’s phone ringing unanswered. I should have been more worried than I was.
48
MONDAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 18
Las Piernas
On Monday morning, while Jack was my sitter, we were able to pick up the van from the impound yard. I washed it more thoroughly than I have ever washed any vehicle. We took the Jeep back to Ben, who was able to use it in time to get to his first class. He seemed amazed that it came back to him in one piece.
I called Jo Robinson to complain about the hours she had arranged, and she told me that she had not expected that Wrigley would come up with this schedule. She was angry about it, but her calls to the Express apparently made no difference.
I kept calling Newly.
Travis called. He had been good about keeping in touch, although he was clearly having the time of his life with Stinger Dalton and as far as I could tell, was in no hurry to come back to Las Piernas. He had already soloed in small helicopters, and ecstatically related to me that Stinger was now teaching him to fly the big Sikorsky.
“So, are you still off work?” he asked me.
“No, in fact, I’m working tomorrow night.” I told him about my unique working hours.
“That really sucks,” he said, making me think he had spent a little too much time with Stinger.
“It’s only temporary,” I said.
“Maybe I’ll come and visit you soon. I miss the dogs.”
“Thanks.” I laughed.
“That’s not what I meant!”
“I know, I know. We all look forward to seeing you whenever you get a chance to come by.”
I was approaching the first night shift with some trepidation. Normally, I wouldn’t mind driving alone on deserted streets after midnight or working alone in an office on a graveyard shift, but nothing in my life was normal then. I had no doubt that Parrish would be stalking me on those streets, that Parrish would come to hunt me down in those empty hallways.
He’ll hunt you wherever you are, I told myself. I couldn’t hole up in the house forever. A life spent cowering was no life at all.
I was in that frame of mind when Frank told me he wanted to make sure that I was never unaccompanied at the newspaper on night shifts. I flatly refused to take a sitter into work with me. That argument livened things up for a few hours. He drove off, came back an hour later and handed me a cell phone.
“What’s this?”
“My peace of mind.”
“You expect me to carry this around with me—”
“And to have it on. Yes.”
“Can we afford this?”
“It’s cheaper than a funeral.”
“Frank!”
“Okay, okay. Just carry it around for my peace of mind, please?”
I gave in.
I didn’t do much of anything in connection with the Sayre case for the next week; I was too busy adjusting my sleep schedule and catching up with the paperwork that had piled up on my desk at the Express. Those first nights, the paper had already been put to bed by the time I arrived. I talked to the printers down in the basement, and to Jerry and Livy, the computer maintenance staff.
Frank tested me a few times, making sure I had the cell phone turned on, until I finally told him that if he didn’t quit making me jump out of my skin by making the damned phone chirp, I was going to roll the thing between a couple of presses. That took care of that.
I tried calling Newly at eleven-thirty. No answer.
The newsroom was empty and quiet.
I was well on my way to being unnerved by that quiet when my cousin Travis called at 11:55 P.M.
“Go up onto the roof,” he said.
“What?”
“We’re coming to see you!” he said over loud noise in the background.
“Who is coming to see me?”
“Stinger and I.”
“Great. When?”
“Right now.”
“Now? Is this some practical joke, Travis?”
“Go up onto the roof of the Express. We’ll be near there in about ten minutes.”
“Are you nuts?”
“No, I told Stinger that you were going to have to work late at the paper and that you didn’t sound too happy about being there by yourself at night. So we decided it would be fun to surprise you there. Stinger says there’s a landing pad on top of your building.”
“There is, but—”
“Who’s going to know?” he asked, anticipating my objection.
“One of the computer maintenance guys goes up there for a smoke every now and then.”
“Is he the type that would tell on you?”
“No,” I admitted.
“Hurry, then! We’re almost there!”
Wondering if Wrigley might call to check up on me, I set the phone on my desk to forward calls to the cell phone.
I took the stairs to the top of the building — a good workout — and opened the door marked ROOF ACCESS.
This actually opened on to another stairway. When I opened the final door, and stepped out onto the roof, I took a moment to enjoy my surroundings. It was good to be out in the open. The night air was cool but not chilly enough to make me long for a jacket. A slight sea breeze blew away the worst of the city smells. Sounds came to me — muffled traffic sounds, the hum of transformers and machinery housed on the roof, the sharp ching-ching-ching of the cables on the flagpoles, the soft flapping of the brightly lit flags (the Stars and Stripes and the California Bear). Within this mix I could also hear the steady pulse of an approaching, but still distant, helicopter.
Peering over the edge of the building, I could see some of the gargoyles and other ornamentation that in my childhood had put me in awe of this building, and had long since endeared it to me. I remembered the first time my father told me that this was the place where the newspaper was made, the Las Piernas News Express that landed so unfailingly on our driveway each morning, a grand publication that could have only come from so grand a place.
I reached over the waist-high guardrail and trailed my fingers across the sooty masonry, remembering my youthful veneration. “And look where that got me, old girl.”
I looked up at the flat, featureless face of the skyscraper next door, a dark gray nothingness broken up only by an office light left on here and there. The Box, I sometimes called it. The Box had other names — so many, in fact, it kept signmakers busy changing the logo at the top every few years. For all its shiny newness, it had never filled all of its rooms. Some of the Wrigley’s were empty now, too, but we had been around a lot longer. I stroked the stonework again.
I brushed off my fingertips and began walking. Although newer, taller buildings nearby have made it less spectacular than it once was, the view from the roof of the Wrigley Building is still breathtaking.
I wasn’t at the highest point of the building; part of the roof held several structures — some of them fairly tall — that were clustered at the end of the roof nearest the stairway. A series of narrow alleyways ran between the housing for the huge air-conditioning unit, various utilities, the high mounting block of the satellite dishes and others. The flagpoles and a spindly lightning rod were on top of one of the tallest and longest of these, most of the space below used for storage.
&nbs
p; Despite these obstructions, one could walk all around the perimeter of the roof and still see quite a distance. I didn’t have time to take the grand tour that night — I could hear the helicopter coming closer.
I hurried to the other side of the building, and stood near an area with a special flat surface, painted with markings — the helicopter pad.
By now, I had seen the big Sikorsky. Its noise drowned out all other sound, a bright light shone down from beneath it, and a stinging cloud of dust and grime was raised in counterpoint to its slow descent to the landing pad.
I found myself grinning, pleased with Travis’s skills, wondering what my mother’s shy sister would have thought of her son’s outlandish arrival. I waved and waited for them to shut down the engines, then to crawl out of the cockpit.
“Were you piloting just now?” I asked Travis, after we exchanged greetings, knowing full well that he had been.
“Yes,” he said. “My first night landing on top of a city building!”
“Your first?” I echoed, then tried not to let him see how much that statement unnerved me. “You did great.”
“Sorry about all that dust,” Stinger said, shaking my hand. “Been a while since anybody landed here?”
“Yes. The Express used to have its own helicopter, but that was before budget cutbacks. Now the paper has a contract with a company at the airport. They’ll come here and pick up reporters and photographers and take us to anything we need to get to,” I said. “I think we were better off with our own, because we could respond more quickly, get to the scene we were covering without waiting for the contract pilots to pick us up. We’re a little slower now. Of course, most of the time, Wrigley just wants us to drive to the scene.”
“Hell,” Stinger said, pointing back at the Sikorsky, “this will get you most places you need to go a damned sight faster than a car — especially on the L.A. freeways.”
“Too bad you have to stay at work,” Travis said. “I could take you for a ride.”
“I’d like that,” I said, “we’ll definitely have to set that up for another time. How did you manage to call from the helicopter?”
“Pappy — Stinger’s ground crew — stays in radio contact with us while we fly. He patches calls through from Fremont Enterprises to the helicopter, and vice versa. Most of the calls are Stinger’s girlfriends—”
“Now, that’s enough out of you, Short Stuff,” Stinger said, although Travis was easily a head taller than he. “Time we were going. Irene’s got to get back to work.”
“But you just got here!” I protested.
“We might stay overnight in Las Piernas,” Travis said. “Jack said he could put us up. We’re just going to do a little more night flying and then go out to the airport after this.”
“There’s room at our place, too,” I said. “Do you need the van back?”
“I might want to borrow it for a little while tomorrow. I’m thinking of making an offer on a place not far from your house.”
Pleased by this news, I talked with him for a few more minutes about his plans. When I looked over at Stinger, his head was tilted to one side as he studied me. “When’s your next night shift?” he asked.
“Thursday.”
“Be back Thursday — same time, same station.”
I laughed. “Giving Travis more practice?”
“Call it that,” he said, nodding.
“Okay, why not?”
“Well, now that you mention it,” he said, scratching his chin, “could be a reason why not. Here, let me borrow your cell phone for a minute.”
I handed it to him, and he programmed a number into it. He handed the phone back, and showed me how to retrieve the number he had labeled “Stinger@FE.”
“That’s ‘Stinger at Fremont Enterprises.’ That will get you Pappy, and Pappy can patch you through to us. If your boss is hanging around or it’s otherwise inconvenient to have a chopper landing here, give a call. Otherwise, we’ll see you on Thursday.”
They took off.
I walked back toward the stairway access in a much happier frame of mind. I strolled a little more slowly, and found myself thinking that staying at the paper was worth overcoming any obstacles one member of the current generation of Wrigleys might toss in my way. Otherwise, I thought, I might end up in a building that looked like the Box.
I had just reached that corner of the Wrigley Building rooftop where the Box came into full view. I stopped. Something was odd about one window, a window nearly at the same height as the level on which I stood. There was some light in that office, but not enough to work by. Stranger still — this light was moving.
Fluorescent ceiling panels don’t move. A bright flashlight? Was I witnessing a robbery?
I had not rounded the corner that would place me in full view of the Box, and as the light bounced off the windowpane a few times, I stepped back into the shadows and took the cell phone out.
The light went out. I stayed where I was, kept watch on the window. Soon I saw a shadowy and indistinct figure standing close to the glass. I could barely make out the outline of this person. Nick Parrish?
Or was I only imagining him again?
I couldn’t be sure. But I hadn’t imagined that flashlight.
I crouched farther into the shadows and dialed the police.
49
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 12:15 A.M.
The Roof of the Wrigley Building
Next I called home.
“Irene? Are you all right?”
“I’m okay. Did I wake you?”
“No. I’m waiting up for you.”
“You know how you said I should tell you if I thought I saw Parrish again?”
“Yes. Where is he?”
I told him that I had just reported a possible burglary in progress in the building next door, and quickly explained why I was on the roof. “But now I’m wondering if I should have mentioned Parrish after all,” I admitted. “I don’t want them to be unprepared if it is him.”
“Get inside, and find Jerry or Livy or anyone else who’s working there. Promise me you’ll do that until a unit gets there. And alert the security guard in the lobby.”
I agreed to do as he asked, and began my descent.
I had entered the second stairwell when I heard footsteps. I halted, listening.
I heard a door close below me. The metal rails were vibrating, as most of the building does when the presses are running. The rumble comes pulsing up from the basement, not loud at this height, but persistent. I felt my hand trembling in a different rhythm. I took the phone out again and tried to dial security, every little beep of the keypad seeming to blast out like a brass band. I waited for the call to go through, but nothing happened. I looked at the display — no signal. The stairwell wasn’t a great place for reception.
I waited. I thought I heard another sound below me.
Jerry or Livy, I told myself. Moving from floor to floor to work on the computers. I waited.
When one of those three-minute years had gone by without my hearing any other sounds, I crept down to the next level and reached a doorway; I tried it — it was locked. I was frustrated, but not surprised. Even by elevator, these upper-level offices could only be accessed if you had a special key, and the doors to the stairway opened only from the other side.
I listened, and still not hearing any other noises, went for broke — completely unnerved now, I made a mad dash down the stairs. I swung around the last turn on the landing above the newsroom just as the door to the newsroom flew open. A man in dark clothing stepped out. He was pointing a gun at me.
I stopped, threw my hands up, and tried to say something. My mouth worked something like a guppy’s, but no sound came out.
The security guard spoke first. “Jesus Christ, Kelly!” he said, lowering his gun to my kneecaps. “You just scared the shit out of me.”
“Put the gun away, please,” I said, wishing I could recall his name. “You’re still scaring the shit out of me.” Bare
ly shaving, but he had a gun. Geoff, the day-shift guard, was nearing eighty (some swore it would be for the second time) and never wore a weapon. Guess who made me feel safer?
He holstered it, and hiked up his belt. “Your husband called. He said you had called him from the roof on your cell phone, but when he tried to call you back, there was no answer. He just got the phone’s voice mail. So he tried to call your desk, but he got the cell phone again.”
“This warrants an armed response?”
“Oh — well, as for that — just before I heard from him, I heard a call on the scanner — they think Parrish is in the building next door. I figured he might be after you, so I came prepared.”
This was spoken with an easy confidence that did not indicate the slightest awareness that I might have been the recipient of a few rounds of whatever caliber he had in the clip. He was smiling now, and extended a hand, ready to assist me down the stairs. I let him guide me into the newsroom, where I all but collapsed into the nearest chair.
He picked up his radio and talked into it. “This is Unit One calling in.”
When there was no reply, he frowned in consternation and tried again. “Unit One to Central. You there, Jerry?”
“Leonard?” came the reply. “You calling the front desk? What’s with this ‘Unit One to Central’ horseshit?”
Leonard. How could I have forgotten that name?
“Do not use profanity on the security radio, Jerry! Totally against regulations. Totally!”
Leonard rolled his eyes and turned the radio off. “I better get down to the desk,” he said to me. “Are you okay? You want me to get you a glass of water or anything?”
He hurried off to the water cooler before I could answer. A man of action, our Leonard. But I found myself starting to like him.
“I’ve got a bottle of spring water already started,” I said, and he detoured with a smart about-face to fetch it from my desk.
“You should call your husband, let him know you’re okay,” he said sternly, handing the bottle to me.
