by PM Weldon
"Rosenberg never showed up at the warehouse."
"I know. Because when he got to Meehan's someone had attacked Meehan in his home. Rosenberg's at the hospital with him now. Meehan's going to be okay, but he told Theo a dark-haired woman in a trench coat and crazy eyes knocked on his door and then hit him with a stun gun. She shot him with something and started asking him questions about you, and about your pictures."
Holy—
"Why would someone question Meehan about the pictures?"
"Probably saw him on TV during the interview we staged. I think we just spooked Ms. Smith because Meehan identified her from that mugshot."
"Do they know where she went?"
"No. But apparently you were the focus of conversation." Vale blew air out between his lips in a rare sign of frustration. "McNally, I think it's time we put you under protection."
"Oh no…no…" I backed up. I needed to get to my house and at least grab my laptop. I also wanted to check and see if Mary Smith had taken my tablet from Julie's place, since I'd put it under the couch when I plugged it up. I hadn't checked.
"Under no circumstances are you to go back to your house."
"You've had a car watching, right?"
"Yes, and they haven't seen anyone show up yet. Other than the mailman."
"Captain, I need to get the laptop. Have a uniform take me there if you want, but if I can use my software to enhance these pictures, I might be able to find more details. I'll come right back here."
He looked as he was gonna say no, but abruptly nodded. "I'll have Kulkarni drive you."
I didn't see Julie before I left. I was a little glad of that, since she'd want to go with me and I wanted her safely in the station. I really didn't think this Ms. Smith would actually come after me in the house—not with cop cars outside of it. So in my opinion, running in to grab the laptop was a great idea.
We got to the brownstone in a half hour. It was getting dark and I told Kulkarni to wait outside. The other officer assigned to watch the house conferred with him and reported nothing was happening.
I unlocked the door and nearly tripped over the mail. After scooping it up and tossing it into a bowl on the coffee table, I went to the shelf to grab my laptop. My phone buzzed and I assumed it was Julie. After I had the laptop stowed in the bag, I grabbed the cord, extra flash drives, and my Bamboo tablet. A look up the stairs, and I thought grabbing a shirt and jeans wouldn't hurt.
My phone chirped to let me know there was a message as I set the computer by the door and took the steps two at a time. Once inside the bedroom, I pulled my overnight bag from the under the sink and dumped toiletries inside.
The phone buzzed again. This time I pulled it out and looked at the call. This one was from Vale. The missed one was from Debbie..
Why was my sister calling me—oh crap. Pink's birthday! Was it today? I turned to head out of the room when something very heavy clocked me against the side of my head.
Twenty Two
He was easy to take down but harder to drag back into the bathroom. Mary had everything where she wanted it, having hidden out in the watched house for over a day after interrogating the chubby blond detective. It was the perfect place to watch a little TV and keep up with the news. But what she really wanted to know, she was sure this guy had the answers to.
She handcuffed his wrists behind him before she pulled and propped him against the side of the tub. She pulled out the rope and made a noose, looped it around his neck and then tied the other end to the middle shower knob. She made it just taut enough to keep him immobile but not choke him. Yet. She guessed she had about half an hour max before the cops came looking in the house. Lucky for her, she'd locked the doors downstairs.
She leaned him against the tub and duct taped his ankles together, and then looped another rope around them and tied it to the bed frame just past the bathroom door. It would hold him in place just long enough.
After running a little cold water on her hands, she slapped his face. Hard.
He sputtered and then choked as his movements tightened the noose. It took him about a minute to size up his situation as she pulled the syringe from her pocket and stuck it into his neck, careful not to nick the jugular or press the poison into him. He started to yell out, but she was ready for that and shoved a bar of soap in his mouth. "Sshh. You have about two minutes before this poison starts working. You tell me what I need to know and I won't jam the rest of it into you."
He stared at her and nodded. She pulled the soap out and he spit several times as soapy saliva ran down his chin. "You…you're Mary Smith."
"Good memory, but not what I want to know. This is a syringe of poison. Don't ask me what kind because I don't know. What I do know is it killed my fifth husband in three minutes and it wasn't a pretty death. He foamed at the mouth and convulsed all over the bed. The doctors didn't find anything, so I figure…it'll look like your brain injury will have finally taken the best of you."
His face was red, but she figured that was from the pull of the noose around his neck. The end of the rope was in reach in case she needed to use it. Blood dripped from the hole in his neck and ran down under his collar. He tested the strength of the handcuffs.
"Now…I suggest you think fast," she said. "You have to tell me where the real bones are."
The look on his face bothered her. "The real bones? You mean the ones…" He spit again. "Ugh… the ones in the wall?"
"Yes. Those weren't Patsy Granger's bones. Those were Lizzie Poulin's bones, right? You made that up just to spite me. You made me mad so I had to kill Auggie." She stopped herself. Why was she telling him so much?
"No…" He tried to move and was caught by the rope again. He coughed and his face was redder than before. "Those were Patsy Granger…"
"No!" She pushed her face into his. "Those are my mother's bones! I put her in that wall so I know those are hers!" By the time she finished, she was screaming at him.
Pounding downstairs. The cops outside.
Too late. It was all too late. And it was too late for him. "I know you lied. She's dead because I killed her. She wouldn't let me have any friends growing up. She was a bitch…nothing but a damn bitch!"
Something sharp struck her back. The cops! She turned and saw two curly wires running from her shoulder to a gun in the hand of a dark-clothed figure—
Her body jerked at as the trigger to the air-dart stun gun was pulled. She lost control of her body for a few seconds, but refused to give up. When the pain stopped, she lay on top of McNally's legs, her hands at her sides. A gloved hand slipped over her mouth and used her chin as a means to pull her body backward. The grip was strong and the smell…
She knew that scent.
It was a scent that had haunted her for twenty-five years.
The sent of the dead.
She kicked and tried to scream, but the gloved hand had her jaw clenched tight. She saw the needle in front of her, no longer buried in McNally's neck but in the gloved hand of death.
A sharp pinch as it slid into her own neck. She thought she felt the warm poison as it spread fast throughout her body. Her captor released her and she fell on top of the photographer's legs. Something heavy pressed on her chest. It crushed her lungs as she looked up into the golden face of Black Angel.
Her last thought before leaving this world was that Auggie was wrong. The Angel was still taking jobs.
Twenty Three
I gasped for breath as Mary's convulsing body pulled me down. The noose around my neck tightened and my vision came and went. I thought I saw someone in a black coat and hat, with a golden face. But I wasn't sure. It reminded me of the mask Cahan used, but it was different. This one was smoother. The features more elegant.
The mask faced me, and I thought he were going to kill me, too. He still had the syringe in his hand. Panic made my heart race as the mask came closer, and I blacked out.
Again.
When I came to, I was on my bed with an oxygen mask on my face. I
reached up to move it, but a hand stopped me. "Not yet, Mr. McNally. You inhaled something with a bit of a narcotic in it. We need to get your lungs cleared."
I inhaled…what?
The room was filled with people. Uniforms, business suits, and the EMT hovering over me. I tried to sit up, but my brain banged painfully against my skull and I collapsed back in the bed. I didn't recognize anyone. And there was no sign of the gold mask.
A voice pierced the din. "I don't care who you are. That is my ex husband in there and I am going in to see him!"
Susan?
I turned my head to see her charge through the door of the bedroom. It wasn't as grand a room as hers was, but it was mine and it reflected things that were me. Including the Dogs Playing Dungeons & Dragons poster I'd coveted and bought from a yard sale. She spotted it over the bed and broke into tears at the foot of my bed.
This time I didn't care; I pulled the mask off. "Susan?" My voice was raspy and my throat hurt.
With little to no regard for her suit dress, Susan kicked off her shoes and crawled across the bed to me. She wrapped her arms around my neck and we both fell back in the bed. I held her tight, and for the first time since waking up in the hospital that rainy morning, I felt my eyes burn as I squeezed them shut. I didn't care if there were a hundred people in my bedroom. I was holding Susan…she was holding me…and I finally cried.
My Susan.
The EMT pushed Susan away with warnings about lungs and narcotics. Susan let go but she didn't leave. I believe I dozed. When I woke again, the EMT was gone, and so were the rest of the people. Susan wasn't there, but I was bundled up in blankets. The clock read nearly two in the morning. I got up slowly and avoided the bathroom. I knew Mary Smith's body wasn't there anymore, but I just didn't want to deal with it.
Julie was downstairs with Susan. Vale was there, too, as well as Rosenberg. God…of all the people at the precinct he was the one person I didn't want knowing my address.
Susan greeted me at the door and ruffled my hair. "You need a cut and a shave."
"I thought you liked scruffy."
"Coffee?" Vale moved to the coffee maker and grabbed a K-cup.
I nodded. "As long as you throw a shot of something strong in it."
He laughed and started making the coffee.
I leaned against the sink and watched them watch me. "What?"
Rosenberg was helping himself to the cookies my sister made me. The tin was nearly empty. "We're waiting on you to tell us what happened. Vale's got his theories, but he said we had to hear it from you first."
Susan took the tin from Rosenberg and actually took a half-eaten cookie from his meaty fingers. "I personally don't care what your Captain thinks. I'm not talking to him right now."
"Why not?" I moved to the fridge to pull out some milk, hoping I actually had milk. Ah…yes I did.
Vale handed me a steaming mug of coffee. "Miss Lowell believes I am the second coming—that I set all of this up. I single handedly maneuvered everyone into position so that Mary Smith would try and kill you—" He stepped back once I had the mug in hand. "And I could catch her in the act."
The whole scenario sounded like Vale. "Well if that's true," I checked the date on the milk. It was good for another half hour. "Then you have mad skills."
"So what really happened?" Rosenberg grumped. "I heard you were found passed out in a puddle of your own piss." He laughed. No one else did.
"Rosenberg," Vale began as he clasped his hands together. "Can you head back to the station and see if any reports from the GBI have hit my desk?"
"Can't you just call—" Rosenberg stopped and stared at Vale a few seconds before he stood, grabbed his suit jacket from the back of a chair and left the house.
I finished decorating my coffee and answered the douche bag's question. "I went upstairs to grab some things. She hit me with something."
"Yeah, you got a nasty bruise on the side of your face." Susan pointed to her own cheek.
I put my hand on the tender area. "Yeah…I woke up and she'd handcuffed me, tied my legs to the bed, and noosed me to the faucet. It was like a weird medieval rack. She stuck a needle in my neck." I reached up and touched that area. That, too, was sore, and felt hot.
"Whatever it was, it dropped Mary Smith dead." Julie said. "But what we want to know is why."
"She was asking me if the bones in the wall were Lizzie Poulin's bones, not Patsy's. She insisted they were Lizzie's bones and she was pretty upset about it." I looked at the mocha-colored coffee. "It sounded like she believed she killed Lizzie Poulin and put her in the wall."
Vale leaned against the counter in front of the coffee maker. "For this I will assume Lizzie is Elizabeth. We know Elizabeth and Elspeth Poulin lived there before the Birches purchased it. We know there was a missing person's report filed on the neighbor's wife, Patsy Granger. And we know Mrs. Granger's husband George never existed legally." Julie said. "But that's not what we were wondering."
"What, then?"
"Why did she stick you, not inject you, and then shoot herself up."
I stared at them. No one had seen the golden-faced angel. Except me.
And Mary Smith.
"Devan?"
I looked at Susan, then the others. Julie's stare was the most intent. "I don't know. She knocked me out. I told her the bones were Patsy Granger's. She got mad. I woke up in the bed."
"That's it? No that can't be it." Julie crossed her arms over her chest. "If this Mary Smith, aka Elspeth Poulin, believes she killed Lizzie, her mother, and stuffed her in the wall…but it's Patsy Granger's remains…" She shrugged. "Where's Elizabeth Poulin's remains?"
Susan waved Vale away from the coffee maker and started making another cup. "Good question, Julie." Susan glanced at Vale. "Why not answer it, Master Detective Manipulator Vale?"
Crap. Vale was on Susan's radar. And anyone that knew Susan knew that radar was not something you wanted pointed your way. If Susan felt like it, she could do a lot of serious damage to mine and Vale's relationship. Time to steer the ship away. I put my hand on the bandage around my wounded shoulder. "Have any of you ever heard of a person who wears black clothes and a gold mask?"
"I have," Vale said as he evaded Susan's death-ray gaze. "He's not talked about much anymore because if he's still out there, he's been very quiet."
"Who?"
"Black Angel." He gave me a serious look. "Black Angel's been around for nearly twenty years. Hit man for hire. And a damn good one. No one's ever seen his face—they're not even sure it's a man. Always wears a golden mask."
"They're a hit man?" This part surprised me. Hit men were usually well trained and only went after who they were paid to go after. And if this was the same person, who hired them to go after Mary Smith? And how in the hell had they known she'd be here with me?
I heard my phone and looked around.
"Oh, you need to get that. Deb's left, like, fifty messages." Susan pointed to the living room. "I put it in there."
"You didn't answer?"
"You changed your phone password."
Oh…
I ambled into the living room and found it on my desk next to my keyboard. It was Deb. "Hey, Debbie, I'm sorry I haven't—" I pulled the phone back at my sister's shriek. "What the hell's wrong?"
"Pink's missing, Devan. She didn't come home after school. I thought at first she was over at Paula's house—you know, the girl down the street she grew up with?"
"Yeah, go on."
"But when I called down there for her to come home—because you know it was Pink's birthday yesterday, right?—she wasn't there. Well, we called the local police to file a missing person and they've been real nice combing the area. But Paula said she saw Pink walking home. But she's not here! Devan, it's two in the morning!"
I winced again. "She leave her phone?"
"I didn't find it. I didn't get home 'til six, and when I found the door open I yelled down to her, thinking she was in the basement. But she wasn't. Just her ba
g."
"Are the police still there? Have they tried finding her using GPS?"
"Yeah, hold on." A few minutes passed, and I gave my name to the detective who came on the phone.
"Oh, yeah…the guy with the magic pictures. Wanna come over here and see if your camera shows us where your niece went?"
His flippant attitude told me they weren't taking this seriously and probably believed she ran away.
Pink knew she had a good thing. And skipping out on it wasn't part of the kid's modus operandi. I got back on the phone with Deb. "Does she have anybody she's been hanging out with recently you haven't met?"
"No… she had that boyfriend two years ago and never really got over that. Nothing since."
"Boyfriend?" My niece had a boyfriend? "She never mentioned a boyfriend."
"I found out from her brother. I still don't know his name, but he died two years ago. Just about the same time you were shot, which is why I think she never said anything. I mean, losing you and this mystery boy…"
"Her boyfriend died when I was shot?"
"Yeah. He was killed in some kind of mugging in the park before that happened to you." She sighed. "Devan, you've got to help me find her."
I turned glanced back at the kitchen where the others were still talking. "Deb, did you or Gerald ever catch her sneaking out of the house?"
"Oh, yeah. All the time. She used to grab MARTA and head downtown. But Gerald put a stop to that before you were shot—"
My call waiting buzzed in. I pulled the phone back to look at the screen.
It was Pink.
"Hold on, Deb." I put her on hold and answered the phone. "Pink?"
"I didn't believe her when she said you were her uncle. This really is a small world, Devan McNally."
Llse Wallace. "Where is she?"
"She's fine. She's exactly where she needs to be. And you need to be with her, don't you?"
I balled my hand into a fist. "I knew it. You were the one who killed Chad, and then framed and killed Ferrell. You screwed around with Jim to do it, too, didn't you? Then you killed him and you tried to kill me."
