Intent to Kill

by James Grippando

  “The guy whose cell phone you called on,” the man said. “The one they call Babes.”

  “He’s hiding,” said Yaz, tears running down his face, “in the old North Burial Ground. There’s a crypt there that nobody ever visits.”

  The man slammed the bat across his ribs. “You’re lying!”

  “No,” said Yaz, struggling to force the words out through the pain. That last blow had cracked his ribs and smashed Babes’s cell phone. “It’s for a family named Dawes. Babes is there. Go now, you’ll find him. I promise.”

  Yaz didn’t see the final blow coming, and the next few moments were a complete blur. He heard a dull thud, felt a hot explosion on the side of his head, and fell face-first to the ground. He saw the club land right in front of him, and he heard footsteps as his attacker walked away.

  Then his world went black.

  39

  BABES WAS FREE OF HIS BINDINGS. REMOVING THEM HADN’T proved difficult. With no rope, Yaz had torn an old woven blanket into narrow strips, but the fabric was threadbare and rotting. Babes had more than enough leg strength to break through the ankle ties first, and the restraints on his wrists didn’t take much longer.

  But he still lacked the courage to leave the crypt.

  Moonlight shone through the crypt’s arched entranceway, and the long shadow of a Baroque-style wrought-iron gate extended all the way to the marble bench in the center. The dark and light pattern on the stone floor was one of the most intricate and beautiful things Babes had ever seen. The gate’s gentle curves, the symmetry of its design, the precision of its lines, as captured in the shadow of moonlight, seemed to emphasize that the iron was more decorative than protective. In a way, it reminded Babes of those maze games he used to play as a kid, where the object was to get all the way to the exit without lifting the pencil tip from the page and double backing from a blind alley. Babes retreated into his dark corner and imagined that he was four inches tall, walking through the ornamental maze on the floor—to the exit.

  But he didn’t move. The crypt was his refuge, the only safe place he knew in Rhode Island. It was exactly as Yaz had warned: the police would arrest him the moment they spotted him. And leaving Pawtucket sure wasn’t an option for Babes. He couldn’t count the number of family vacations he had ruined over the years. Every time it was the same thing: his father and mother hoping that Babes had outgrown his anxieties, packing the family into the minivan, checking into a roadside motel for the night—and then checking out and heading straight home before bedtime because Babes was freaking out.

  What was that?

  Babes was suddenly on high alert. He could have sworn he’d heard a noise outside the crypt.

  There it is again!

  It was a crunching sound, like footfalls on a gravel path. Babes closed his eyes tightly and listened hard. There was only silence, but he was certain he had heard something earlier. He needed to check it out. On hands and knees he crawled across the stone floor toward the gate, taking care to stay in the protection of the dark shadows, just beyond the bright streak of moonlight. He lay flat on his belly, making himself as invisible as possible as he peered out through the iron bars and into the cemetery.

  His heart skipped a beat. A man was approaching.

  Yaz?

  He hoped so. The man was near the path but walking on the grass now, as if he’d realized that the crunch of gravel beneath his shoes was making too much noise. The white beam of a flashlight helped him to navigate around headstones.

  Babes didn’t remember Yaz having a flashlight that actually worked. Maybe he’d found one.

  The flashlight cut off. Why would Yaz switch off the light before he reached the crypt? Yaz wouldn’t. And this silhouette was much bigger than Yaz.

  That’s not Yaz!

  Babes had to think fast. Hide—but where? The interior of the crypt was a simple rectangular room. There was limited space for the living. But the two long walls were lined with plenty of places for the dead—or for anyone who didn’t want to die at this particular moment.

  Babes hurried across the crypt to his secret hiding place, the vacant niche where he used to stash his baseball cards. It was at the bottom of the column near the entrance, right below Daisy Dawes, born August 9, 1847, died April 21, 1935. He removed the polished granite marker that had been intended for another member of the Dawes family. The crypt accommodated caskets as well as urns, so the niche was plenty big for Babes.

  He took a deep breath for courage and crawled inside.

  The sound of footsteps outside grew louder. Babes had only a few seconds to pull the granite marker back into place and fully disguise his whereabouts. But Babes was frozen. Being inside the crypt had never bothered him before. Actually lying inside an internment niche was another matter. It was the difference between being among the dead and being one of the dead.

  The iron gate rattled.

  He’s here!

  Babes was shaking. He struggled to hear his mother’s sweet voice: “Think only pleasing thoughts,” she would have told him.

  Suddenly he was Christopher Plummer in The Sound of Music. These weren’t dead people around him. They were the Trapp family. That guy rattling the gate was Rolf. And everyone knew that Rolf was a dolt.

  Babes pulled the marker into place, sealing off his niche from the intruder. The edges were routed, so even without fastening bolts, the granite fit snugly. Inside it was dark beyond the blackest night, but four unused bolt holes, one in each corner, allowed enough air inside for him to breathe. If Babes craned his neck just so, he could peer out through one of the holes.

  He heard the gate creak as it swung open. The click of the man’s heels echoed off the stone walls. Babes calmed his breathing and waited.

  Through the open bolt hole, he saw the sweep of the flashlight. The man walked to the far corner where Babes had been hoveled and inspected the bindings that Babes had left behind. The beam of the flashlight traveled to the marble bench in the center of the crypt. The man peered at the burned candle and sat on the bench. And then Babes saw it: the gun. The man definitely had a pistol in one hand.

  Something bad had happened to Yaz—he was sure of it.

  Babes considered making a run for it, but that was a foolish thought. He fought off the urge and lay perfectly still.

  The man rose from the bench. The sweep of his flashlight went from one end of the crypt to the other, brightening row after row of dead Daweses. Finally, it swept past Babes, and he cringed for a split second as the white light shone like lasers through the four bolt holes.

  But the man hadn’t noticed him.

  Or had he?

  The clicking heels grew louder. The stranger was coming closer.

  Babes held his breath. The footsteps stopped. A pair of shoes was less than a yard away from Babes’s head, just on the other side of the granite. Then Babes heard the most welcome sound imaginable. The gate creaked. He’s leaving! Babes could breathe again.

  The gate closed with an unmistakable metal clank. The man was definitely going away. Babes had fooled him, and the danger was gone. He’d narrowly escaped death, but he didn’t dare move. He couldn’t leave his hiding spot too soon. That had been the Trapp family’s near fatal mistake. And Babes didn’t have singing nuns to help him escape. Even if he did, he wouldn’t trust them.

  I’m on my own. And I can never go home.

  40

  A NOISE OUTSIDE HIS BEDROOM WINDOW WOKE DOUG WELLS FROM a sound sleep. The clock on the nightstand said 3:40 A.M.

  Doug was too tired to reach over and turn on the light, let alone get up and investigate. He was determined not to lose any sleep over that bitch Emma rejecting him again—for good, this time. So far, he’d been fabulously successful. Sleeping like a baby. A stupid bat flying into the window or a branch brushing up against the building wasn’t going to change that. His head sank back into his pillow, his eyelids slowly closed, and he felt his mind drifting back into dreamland.

  Another bang at the wi
ndow—this one was so sharp that it sent him sitting bolt upright in the bed.

  What the hell?

  He listened carefully, but there was silence. Part of him wanted to go back to sleep, but that last noise didn’t sound so ordinary. He climbed out of bed, crossed the dark room, and went to the window. The blinds were shut. He wasn’t sure why—he’d never been afraid to live alone—but something made him think twice about opening those blinds. He did it quickly.

  The glass was black with night.

  He reached over for the lamp and switched it on—and what he saw gave him a start. It was right in front of his eyes, stuck to the window. A piece of paper. A note. Handwritten. He leaned closer to read it.

  “Open the door. Let’s talk again. Babes.”

  Doug felt tingles. He wasn’t sure what “again” meant, but Babes must have considered Doug’s pitch on the radio as their first talk. His stunt on Ryan James’s show had worked.

  In your face, Emma.

  Doug ran to his closet and grabbed his robe, but he threw it aside. Not exactly the power look. He rummaged for real clothes: a shirt and pants. The adrenaline was flowing. This was big. Sure, his J-school professors would have cringed at his tactics. They taught the future reporters of the world never to make themselves part of the story. But some of the biggest names in the business had made their careers by ignoring that rule—and not just in recent history. Did anyone criticize Woodward and Bernstein for selling the movie rights to Hollywood for All the President’s Men? Did anyone ever tell Dan Rather that he should have gone off camera to confront the Chicago police at the 1968 Democrat National Convention? Even the right-as-rain New York Times had cooperated with law enforcement and published the Unabomber’s rambling manifesto.

  Now it was Doug Wells’s turn.

  He pulled on his shoes and raced down the hall.

  It seemed a little strange that Babes hadn’t just knocked on the front door. Maybe he had, and Doug had slept through it. Either way, Babes was here now and had the full attention of the rising star at Action News. Doug turned the deadbolt and pulled open the door.

  The force that hit him was like a charging bull.

  Doug tumbled head over heels into the hallway. The door slammed shut. Before he could react, a huge hulk of a man was on top of him.

  “Don’t move,” the intruder said.

  Doug felt the barrel of a gun pressing up under his chin. One squeeze of the trigger and a bullet would shatter his jaw, rip through his brain, and come out the top of his head.

  “Don’t shoot,” Doug said, barely moving his mouth.

  “Don’t resist.”

  The man turned him over with ease, partly because of his strength, partly because Doug was so compliant. He pulled Doug’s hands behind his back and fastened them with plastic handcuffs. They were cinched too tightly, and the narrow bands of flexible plastic cut into his wrists.

  “Now, I want you to get up slowly.”

  Doug complied. The man had an accent, Doug noticed. Russian?

  “We’re going to the bedroom.”

  The bedroom. A million thoughts ran through his head, none of them pleasant.

  Doug felt the barrel of the gun against the back of his head. With his hands behind his back and an armed Russian grizzly bear breathing down his neck, fighting didn’t seem like an option. Slowly he walked down the hallway toward his bedroom. The Russian was right behind him. He stopped Doug at the open doorway.

  “Inside,” the man said.

  Doug entered, and the gun felt glued to the base of his skull. He was standing at the foot of the bed when the Russian told him to stop.

  Doug closed his eyes, then opened them slowly. His throat was going dry. This was not what he’d had in mind when he decided to take the plunge and make himself part of the story.

  “What do you want?” Doug said.

  “Shut up.”

  The response cut through him like a knife. The man had a frightening edge to his voice, one that offered no room for negotiation.

  “Turn around, slow.”

  The thought of coming eye to eye with his attacker sent Doug’s pulse rate off the charts. Only a killer would let the victim see his face. Doug turned so slowly that he almost lost his balance. He didn’t want to look but—thank God!—the Russian’s face was unrecognizable, utterly distorted by the nylon stocking pulled over his head. Maybe he didn’t plan to kill him after all.

  A good thing.

  “Kneel,” the Russian said.

  A bad thing.

  Slowly, with obvious reluctance, Doug lowered himself to his knees. He looked down at the man’s shoes.

  “You seemed very excited to talk to Babes.”

  Doug didn’t know what to say—couldn’t even begin to guess what the right response might have been.

  “Have you talked to him?” the man said.

  “No. Never.”

  “Liar. That’s why I wrote ‘Let’s talk again. If you never talked to him, you would have known the note was bogus.”

  “I just figured my call to the radio show counted as our first talk.”

  “Nice try. But I still say you’re lying.”

  “It’s the truth.”

  “What did he tell you about Chelsea James’s car crash?”

  “Nothing. I’ve never talked to him. I swear.”

  He grabbed Doug by the throat. Doug’s Adam’s apple was suddenly in a vice grip, and his lungs yearned for air.

  “I’m going to give you one more chance: What did Babes tell you?”

  The Russian released his grip, and Doug coughed in his struggle for air. “I swear,” he said, coughing again. “We never talked.”

  “I wish I believed you. I really do.”

  Doug looked up. The Russian had a rope in his hand.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “You ever heard of a garrote?”

  Doug shook his head with trepidation. The Russian went to the night table beside the bed, picked it up, and smashed it to pieces on the floor. He grabbed one of the broken legs with one hand and held the loop of rope in the other.

  “Let me show you.”

  He dropped the loop over Doug’s head. It hung around his neck like a noose. Then the Russian fed the table leg through the rope and turned it quickly, tightening the slack.

  “I never met Babes!” said Doug. “I’d tell you everything if there was anything to tell. I never talked to the guy!”

  “Let’s see if you’re still saying that five minutes from now.” He gave the table leg another turn. Doug’s head tilted back, and the noose gripped his neck.

  He tried to talk—tried to plead—but he had no voice.

  His groans turned to wheezing. His vision blurred. Another half turn of the garrote. Doug could no longer bear it. His body twisted, his legs swept out from under him, and he rolled to the floor. The Russian grabbed him from behind, maintaining pressure on the garrote as he buried his knee in Doug’s spine. Doug was pinned facedown on the floor, completely at the Russian’s mercy. His head pounded with congestion, like the worst sinus headache imaginable. His eyes bulged. His face flushed with red heat. It was as if he could hear nothing but his own desperate grunts, but then he heard something more.

  The Russian was shouting at him.

  Doug struggled to make out the words, wanted to answer if it would end this pain. But it was all running together.

  The garrote tightened further. Doug tasted blood in his mouth.

  The shouting continued, except that to Doug’s ears it no longer seemed like shouting. It sounded like…singing. The Russian was singing to him at the top of his lungs.

  Then Doug’s eyes closed, and the singing stopped.

  41

  A PHONE CALL AT 4:25 A.M. WAS NEVER GOOD NEWS, ESPECIALLY from the police. Emma sat up in her bed at the sound of Lieutenent Adler’s voice. Probable homicide. A battered body had been found under Pawtucket bridge number 550.

  “What bridge?” she said. Emma had live
d in Rhode Island all her life, so street names—much less bridge numbers—meant nothing to her when it came to directions. Landmarks were all that mattered: Turn right at the Dairy Queen, then go another mile past the redbrick building that used to be the A&P but closed about ten years ago.

  “It’s where I-95 crosses the river,” said Adler, “south of old Slater Mill.”

  “Got it,” she said.

  Emma reached the crime scene before dawn and was glad to have her overcoat. Autumn had not yet officially arrived, but on the breezy waterfront at 5:00 A.M., it felt as though winter had.

  The Seekonk River begins at Pawtucket Falls, just a hundred feet or so north of the I-95 bridge. The Seekonk was fed by the historic Blackstone River, truly the cradle of the Industrial Revolution, but two centuries of dyes, heavy metals, varnish, solvents, and paints had transformed the river into an industrial sewer. Mobsters joked that the quickest way to make someone “disappear” was to drop him into the river—alive. Great strides toward cleanup had been under way since Emma was a little girl, after a congressional report declared the river totally polluted and not suitable for bathing, though the warnings never seemed to deter the homeless.

  Emma followed a footpath along the east bank. A deadly combination of early-morning commuters and all-night partiers zoomed overhead on six lanes of interstate. Skimming upriver in a needlelike scull was a rowing crew from Brown University, the team of oars dipping in rhythmic silence. A media helicopter hovered overhead, the first on the scene. In another thirty minutes remote broadcast crews from Providence and possibly even Boston would turn the surrounding area into a wintry forest of tall metal towers topped with microwave dishes.

  I’m surprised Doug Wells isn’t here yet.

  For now, the scene was all about police work. Uniformed officers and yellow crime tape closed off the entrance points to the riverfront on either side of the interstate. Emma stopped at the tape and watched for a moment as the crime scene investigators tended to the body beneath the bridge. It was like a well-oiled machine—swabs taken, photographs snapped, evidence gathered.