by John Lutz
As they were rocketing along the highway, the wind pounding again in the car’s interior, Beth said, “I still think Adelle is behind the bombing, and I think she might have hired Ezekiel Masterson. He might have been the man I saw driving away with her from her house earlier tonight.”
“Or the man lurking outside her house who might have done to you what was done to Wicker.”
She smiled. “You afraid, Fred?”
“Oh, I am most of the time on some level. For me and for you.”
“And you still believe Norton acted on Freel’s orders.”
“Or was set up to take the fall for the bombing. Freel had to know Norton was a nut case who was working away on assembling bombs in his home workshop. What better dupe could he find to take the high-minded blame for what really was a squalid murder for the two most frequent motives in the world—love and money?”
“It sounds good when you say it fast,” Beth admitted, “but Adelle’s still my choice.”
Carver watched the dark road. “Freel will be doubly on guard now that he knows his affair with Adelle is known.”
“Still, they’ll meet again.”
“Lovers always find a way,” Carver agreed, trying not to sound like a song title. “Someone else needs to be there when they do. It makes the most sense to put a watch on Adelle and wait for her to go to Freel.”
“We’ll alternate watching her.”
“No,” Carver said. “Are you forgetting what we just saw back there nailed to the fence?” He hadn’t forgotten and never would. The terrible vision of Wicker’s crucifixion, only minutes behind them, remained in his mind with clarity and horror. He knew it would be vivid in his dreams. “I’ll shadow Adelle,” he said. “You stay at the cottage with the gun and with Al.”
“I think not, Fred.”
Lord, this woman was stubborn!
“And I think we should buy another gun.”
Carver shook his head no. He had never liked guns, and he liked them even less after being shot in the leg. One gun floating around in his life was more than enough.
“You’re being stubborn about the gun, Fred.”
He seethed.
Finally they agreed that he would be the one to watch Adelle in the evening if she could work the day shift. With the gun and with Al in the car. She would use her car, with a cellular phone which she could use to check in with Carver or to call for help.
Carver didn’t like the idea, but he knew he had no choice but to agree. He did so tersely, letting her know he didn’t approve. She smiled in the wind.
The next day, they began their loose watch on Adelle Grimm.
She behaved normally, probably aware that someone might be observing her. That evening, she went out for dinner alone at a neighborhood restaurant in a strip mall, then rented a movie from Mr. Video and returned home.
It went that way day after day, but Carver or Beth stayed close to her. Wicker, hands bandaged in what looked like thick white mittens, was back on the job as agent in charge. The FBI had intensified its search for Ezekiel Masterson, which comforted Carver as it made it more likely that Masterson had gone underground and wouldn’t make an appearance for a while. But while the search for Masterson was still going strong, the investigatory phase of the Women’s Light bombing had slacked off. The authorities seemed content to let Norton play the martyr. It made everything fit neatly into bureaucratic cubbyholes real and mental, and it made a neat, uncomplicated moral tale for the media. Norton had been arraigned and would stand trial for murder.
It wasn’t until the third week, when Carver was convinced that Adelle was asleep inside her darkened house and was about to drive to the cottage and get some sleep himself, that her overhead garage door went up at one in the morning.
Carver, in a weary state of alertness, sat up straight as he heard the faint hum of the opener and noticed the visible corner of the garage door moving. What interested him was that for the first time since he’d been watching the house, the light inside the garage didn’t automatically come on when the door rose. Maybe it was burned out. Or maybe Adelle had removed it.
The deep blue Olds backed down the driveway to the street, its headlights dark, and the garage door lowered. Still without lights, the big Olds stopped, straightened out, and began to recede down Phosphorus Lane, its fleeting form blending with the black shadows between streetlights.
Carver left the headlights of his own car off as he followed Adelle through the dark, nearly deserted side streets.
It wasn’t until they were near Shell Boulevard, where there was still sparse traffic despite the desolate hour, that she switched on her car’s lights so that she wouldn’t draw possible police attention. He did the same.
She made several turns, as if trying to make sure she wasn’t being followed, then drove west, away from the ocean and toward the less affluent side of town.
Carver stayed well back and used every technique he knew in order not to be seen by her. But such caution might not have been necessary. She had no idea how to shake a persistent tail and wasn’t really as careful or elusive as she assumed.
Finally she drove across an intersection with four-way stop signs, then parked her car on Widmar Avenue, in a neighborhood of small shops and apartment buildings.
Carver pulled over to the curb half a block away, on the other side of the intersection, his car’s headlights already off. He scooted low in the seat behind the steering wheel. His car might have been parked there when Adelle drove up, simply the last in a row of parked cars.
She got out of her car and walked toward him. She was dressed down, wearing jeans, a dark T-shirt, and what looked like white jogging shoes. From this distance and in the faint light, she might have been a young woman in her twenties, with a spirited walk that suggested she had no cares. He was afraid she was going to keep coming and would recognize his car, then notice him slumped down behind the wheel. But at the intersection, she turned and entered the second building from the corner, moving quickly yet taking the time to glance up and down the street before disappearing inside.
It was one of several run-down four-story apartment buildings. Carver looked at his watch: 1:30 A.M. Most of the tenants should be asleep.
He saw that most of them probably were, as there were lights on in only one unit, on the third floor. Blinds were down on all of the apartment’s windows and he couldn’t see inside.
After waiting a few minutes, he grabbed his cane, climbed out of the Olds, and crossed the intersection toward the building. A three-legged stray dog, some kind of terrier, standing near the mouth of an alley, watched Carver as if thinking maybe it could use one of those cane things.
He entered the lobby carefully, not letting the street door make noise that might be heard upstairs. The lobby had a cracked and dirty tile floor and smelled like stale bacon grease. The walls were painted a dull green with some kind of sand finish that didn’t do much to conceal old cracks and patches.
Carver moved quietly in his moccasins. It was an old building, cheaply constructed, and even small sounds from upstairs were seeping down to him: a window fan humming away and ticking metal against metal; the faint, ratchety noise of someone snoring behind a door at the top of the first flight of wooden stairs. Felt-tip graffiti on the wall next to a door that probably led to a storage room listed things that a woman named Betty would do. Carver read the list and didn’t believe half of it. He examined the bank of tarnished brass mailboxes. The name slot above one of the boxes for an apartment on the third floor, 3-F, was blank.
He looked around, noting that the fire stairs were inside the building and there would be no exterior steel fire escape. Then he began climbing the stairs, staying to one side so they wouldn’t creak so loudly, placing the tip of his cane carefully on the split rubber treads that were nailed to the steps and curled up at the edges.
The third-floor hall was narrow and dim, painted with the same rough-finish green paint that was in the lobby. A wide black stripe ran horizon
tally four feet above the floor, but it was badly painted and had dripped onto the green and run down the edges of some of the dark wood door jambs. Carver stood in the stifling heat and calculated which of the doors led to the apartment whose lights were still glowing. A sliver of light along a threshold confirmed his guess.
He limped to the door quietly, still breathing a little hard from climbing the stairs, and smiled. 3-F was stenciled in black on the old, darkly varnished door.
A soft sound wafted from the other side of the door. Then again, slightly louder.
A woman moaning.
Carver moved closer, leaning on his cane and bowing his head, his ear close to the door. Again he heard the moaning. And something else. Faint but urgent movement. An ancient and unmistakable rhythm.
A couple was making love in the apartment.
Adelle, Adelle! Carver thought.
What now? He could kick open the door, rush in, and catch them in the act. If he had a camera, he could pin them to the legal mat with the incontrovertible evidence of photographs. If he hadn’t left the gun with Beth, he could wave it at them and freeze them in immoral passion, undeniable guilt, and complicity while he phoned for Wicker and the police.
Instead of any of those things, he raised his cane and knocked gently on the door.
The rhythmic sounds ceased.
He heard a frantic female voice, then a soothing male voice. There were faint footsteps, the soft creaking of a wood floor, and the metallic click of a lock being released.
The door opened about six inches, and Dr. Benedict peered out.
As Carver was staring in astonishment, something slammed into his shoulder and he bounced off a wall and found himself lying on the thin, coarse green carpet on the hall floor.
Ezekiel Masterson was looming above him, smiling and moving toward him with the look of a predator confident that dinner had been disabled.
40
MASTERSON WAS CLEAN-SHAVEN and neatly dressed, as usual, but not wearing his blue business suit. He had on creased black slacks and a gray silk shirt with a bold sunrise pattern printed across its chest. A brimmed straw hat with a rainbow-colored band was perched squarely on his head. The shirt’s top buttons were undone, and a thick gold chain glinted among dark chest hairs just above where the sun was rising. With his getup and black horn-rimmed glasses, he looked like a bean counter on vacation, trying to pretend he was casual and relaxed. It was difficult to believe he was a self-righteous homicidal maniac.
Carver believed. Struggling to stand up, he lashed out with his cane and struck Masterson in the shin bone, then raised the cane and just missed his head with the backswing, sending the jaunty straw hat sailing. The big man blinked in pain and backed away a step. Then he used his forefinger to adjust his horn-rimmed glasses, as if to see Carver more clearly, and came at him again.
Carver, halfway to his feet and leaning against the wall, jabbed at Masterson’s face with the cane, but Masterson snatched the cane away and tossed it aside. He threw a powerful punch toward Carver’s midsection, but Carver scooted along the wall and took much of the blow’s force on his hip, which ignited with pain, then went numb.
Missing full impact with his punch threw Masterson off balance, and he stumbled a few steps. The sudden motion had caused a heavy gold cross on his thick neck chain to work out from beneath his silk shirt and dangle on his chest.
He found himself standing next to Carver’s cane, propped at an angle against the wall where he’d flung it. Masterson smiled, drew back a gigantic foot, then stomped hard on the middle of the cane and broke it. He studied the two pieces of the cane, then bent low and scooped up the broken half that had the sharpest point. Holding the cane up with both hands in front of his face, he declared, “The arm and the terrible swift sword of the Lord!”
“Poetic,” Carver said, “but it’s only my cane.”
Masterson moved in on him more slowly now, and with great caution.
When he was a few feet away, he made a move as if to swing at Carver’s head with the cane, then with amazing quickness and dexterity he stooped in a momentary squat with one bent knee and kicked Carver’s good leg out from under him.
Carver landed hard on the carpet. He rolled over to avoid the kick Masterson aimed at him. The big man knew how to fight and was deadly with his feet. Carver couldn’t avoid the second kick, which caught him in the side. He was sure he heard a rib crack. Breath shot out of him and he tried to curl his body into the fetal position for protection.
Masterson would have none of that. He bent low and punched Carver in the forehead, causing a pain as if his skull had been cleaved. Carver fought off dizziness and nausea as he felt himself being forced onto his back.
“The Lord saith, ‘Expel the wicked from your company!’ ” Masterson pronounced, straddling Carver’s chest. His weight settled on Carver like a building. He must have recently eaten Chinese; his breath was hot and reeked of soy sauce. He raised the cane high, its pointed end directly above Carver’s exposed throat, then grinned wide, the eyes behind his thick glasses like black wells. “Judgment day!” he shouted, and brought the cane down.
Carver clutched Masterson’s wrist with both hands. He felt the point of the cane bite at his throat. Then he dug his heels hard into the thin carpet, pushing up with every fiber of strength in his arms and body, and managed to force the cane upward a few inches.
He knew he was only buying seconds. Masterson was as powerful as fate, and the downward pressure of the cane was tremendous. Carver couldn’t last long. Every breath was agony. He knew that soon the pointed end of the hard walnut cane would penetrate his throat. When his victim’s strength ebbed, Masterson would bring to bear all of his weight and power down on the cane. The sharp wooden point might make it all the way out the back of Carver’s neck.
It was probably his last struggle, and Carver knew it. He held nothing back. As he strained to keep the point of the cane away from his throat, his vision blurred. He was aware of Adelle standing near the apartment door, a white sheet draped gracefully over her body like a toga. Benedict was beside her, nude and staring at what was happening before him on the hall floor.
“Not this!” Benedict was repeating in a horrified voice. “Not this!”
One of Carver’s perspiring hands lost its grip on Masterson’s wrist, then closed on the cross and the heavy gold chain dangling from the big man’s thick neck. Carver gripped the cross and deftly wrapped the chain around his hand, twisting, twisting. He saw Masterson’s broad face redden as the chain tightened around his neck and dug into his throat, but the downward force on the broken cane remained constant.
That’s how they were, Carver trying to strangle Masterson with the gold chain, Masterson inches away from thrusting the pointed end of the broken cane into Carver’s throat, when Carver was aware of the naked figure of Benedict standing over them, holding a large orange object in his right hand.
Benedict was shouting again for them to stop struggling. An impersonal bombing was one thing, but the hands-on killing he was about to witness was too much for the idealistic physician to endure. Carver wrestled with Masterson while Benedict wrestled with his Hippocratic oath.
The neck chain broke and fell away to dangle from Carver’s hand. Masterson grunted and shifted his body forward, leaning over Carver. The sharp point of the cane was again at Carver’s throat. It had already penetrated flesh and he could feel warm blood trickling down the side of his neck.
He was going to die. It was impossible to comprehend, but it was true. He heard a high voice from his childhood, long-ago hide-and-seek . . . Ready or not! . . . Ready or not! . . .
There was a shower of ceramic pieces as Benedict brought the heavy orange lamp down on Masterson’s head.
The pressure on the cane lessened.
It disappeared altogether as Benedict raised what was left of the lamp base again and hit Masterson behind the ear. This time it was heavy brass that struck thick skull, making a sound like a melon being thum
ped.
The crushing weight on Carver’s chest shifted as Masterson slumped unconscious.
Smelling soy sauce, Carver shoved the huge body away, rolled onto his side, then managed to scoot to a wall and sit up, his back pressed hard against the rough plaster.
“I couldn’t let him kill you,” Benedict was saying, his eyes wide. “Useless, senseless death. There’s been enough of it.” He looked as if he might break and sob. Adelle, in a kind of trance, drifted over to him like a spirit in her flowing white sheet and stood next to him.
Carver’s injured side caught fire with each gasp for oxygen. He was aware of footsteps clattering up the stairs. One of the tenants must have heard the fight and called the police.
Two uniformed cops were suddenly in the hall, filling it with blue. One of them was wielding his nightstick, the other had his nine-millimeter handgun drawn and was holding it low and pressed to his thigh, pointed at the floor.
“What’ve we got here?” the taller of the two asked, trying to be firm and in control but sounding afraid.
Carver attempted to tell him but couldn’t get the words out. When he tried to speak, the pain in his side erupted, cutting his breath short. He was afraid the pain, with the exhaustion and lack of oxygen, would cause him to lose consciousness. He tilted back his head. Maybe it would be easier to breathe that way. The hall had become dim, as if curtains had been drawn over the single window at the far end of the corridor. He heard sirens outside now, very close, down in the street.
Then the other cop was standing nearby at an angle and had his walkie-talkie close to his mouth. He was saying something about an ambulance. Carver couldn’t understand him or the garbled words coming out of the walkie-talkie. It sounded as if the cop might be underwater. Carver wondered if that could be the problem.
