by Susan Dunlap
Now I stood, barely breathing, hoping Claire had forgotten I was here, hoping Michael was sure he’d taken care of any danger when he killed Madeleine.
He moved almost as if in slow motion, his wide face tense, focused, like a spoiled child about to snatch a forbidden candy and plop it in his mouth. He stepped toward the bed, brushing it with his leg before turning to the bedside table and lifting the cigarettes and ashtray and carrying them across the room. His running shoes squeaked on the wood floor, and the smell of dead ash cut one last time through the air as he emptied the ashtray into the garbage. He walked back to the bedside table, this time ignoring Claire, and slowly poured a glass of water. He looked down at Claire, put the glass to his mouth, ran his tongue around the rim, then took a long swallow of water.
Claire watched, transfixed with disgust and dread. The symbolism was clear.
I wanted to smack Michael Wennerhaver so hard his head spun and the moisture flew off his lips. I wanted to knock that smug look off his face. All my muscles ached, pulling back against the overwhelming need to strike. But I couldn’t move, couldn’t even get my revolver free.
Michael rolled a pill from its container into his palm and let it lie there half a minute before moving it to a paper cup and placing it beside the glass. He looked over at Claire, a strained smile on his wide lips, his face pinched, intense, like the child about to throw a tantrum, a toddler who knows he can intimidate into control.
“You ready to sit up, Claire?” he asked.
She pushed back into the pillows, her arms wrapped so tight around her breasts I was surprised she could still breathe. I could smell the remnants of her perfume and intermingled with it the vague, sour strains of sweat and fear and powerlessness.
I held my breath. My heart was thumping so loud I couldn’t believe he didn’t hear it. I shifted my arm and reached for the zipper of the fanny pack on my stomach, and began inching it open, metal track by track.
“Here, I’ll help you up.” He ran a hand behind her, under her quilted bedjacket. I could see the opening in the back of her gown, and the mound of his hand inside it. She was whimpering. He lifted her to a sitting position. With one hand he untied the pink ribbons of her bed jacket, and slowly pulled her thin, pale arms away from her breasts. I shuddered, and clenched my teeth so tight my jaw throbbed. He wasn’t looking at her body; he was staring into her eyes, sucking in her fear. He wasn’t after sex per se, he wanted power. Like Victor Champion with Madeleine, what Michael was doing to Claire was all about control.
Claire let out a cry.
Michael’s hand tightened on her arm. “Don’t you pull away from me.” He stood, staring down at her, his face inches from hers. His breath smelled bad, she’d said to me. How many nights had he exhaled his tense, excited, assaulting breath? He shifted his hands and slid her bed jacket off.
I wasn’t breathing at all. My face was scalding; my fingers squeezed the doorknob so tight the indentations cut into my hand. I wanted to kill him.
And I couldn’t even stop him. I had to wait, to watch. To get enough evidence so he didn’t walk out of here free, to work in another nursing home, to abuse other elderly women whom no one would believe. So he wouldn’t go on to medical school, on the scholarship for which Madeleine had championed him.
He slid his hand under her nightgown strap on her far shoulder. With excruciating slowness, he slid it down her arm till the fabric fell loose beneath her wrinkled breast.
Her face went deadly white, her body was rigid. She lay there helpless, exposed.
I slid the zipper to the end and reached into the pack for my revolver.
Michael released her arm and for a moment I thought he was going to pull down the other nightgown strap. But, instead, he glanced nervously at the screen. With a sheepish grin he walked over and looked behind it.
As he turned back to Claire, his grin broadened, “Madeleine’s not there anymore, is she? No one to save you now!” He reached down and unzipped his fly.
I waited till he had penis in hand and reached for her, before I yelled, “Freeze!”
The color drained from his face. He stared, unbelieving.
Then he pulled a pocket knife from his pants and put the blade to Claire’s neck. Her mouth opened, but she didn’t make a sound. He pulled her back against him so she was half off the bed, then he glared at me. “Now who’s in charge, bitch?”
My hand was still on the revolver, still in my fanny pack on my stomach. I didn’t move it. I took one look at Claire, hanging in Michael’s grasp: limp, withered, lifelessly pale. She could have been the dummy in the canyon. My whole body shook with rage. I wanted to grab Michael and slam him into the wall again and again until there was no more left of him than that dummy.
I swallowed hard. What I had here was a hostage situation. Forcing myself to think as a negotiator, I said a whole lot more calmly than I felt: “Michael, we have a situation that’s gotten out of hand.”
“Bullshit! I’m in charge here, for a change. No woman tells me what to do now, not my mother, my goddamned aunts, not the nuns at school, not Madeleine.” He ran the point of the knife across Claire’s throat.
Claire let out an anemic shriek, then called out plaintively, “Madeleine!”
I jammed my teeth together to keep from reacting. I couldn’t let Michael see my fear for Claire. God, I wanted to shoot him, to wipe that smirk off his bland, wide face. I wanted to send him to a hell run by Amazons. Taking a breath to control my voice I said, “Madeleine saw you in here.”
He smirked. “Big deal. Madeleine thought she was smarter than anyone. So smart she sat behind that screen like she was invisible. A third grader knows better than that. I yanked that screen back and there she was, like a chicken sitting on an egg.” He shifted Claire’s weight, but his attention was still on Madeleine. “What’d she think she was going to do, run for the cops? She could barely walk without help.”
Keep the hostage taker talking. “What did she do?”
“Went back to her room. I took her there. She went where I decided.”
“But she warned you never to do this again, didn’t she?”
Michael shrugged, jostling Claire. “Big deal. She was dying, what could she do?” Standing behind the old woman, his firm body, moist skin, his shiny dark hair screamed youth, power, freedom.
Entice the hostage taker to bond with the negotiator, the instructions say. But there was no time for that. Claire was too fragile. And the tape recorder could snap off at any minute. I had to go create a diversion—get him angry, defensive, off-balance—and then go for him. “Madeleine canceled your scholarship, right?” It was a guess, but a sure one. “You’ll never be a doctor now, Michael. You’ll spend the rest of your life emptying bedpans. You’ll jump to it when the nurse tells you.”
He flushed. “I don’t need her fucking scholarship,” he insisted, but his voice betrayed him. “I told her that.”
“When?”
“Right after I tossed her in bed.”
I jammed my teeth together; my jaws throbbed. I watched for the smirk that would tell me he had assaulted Madeleine that night as he had Claire. But his stiff, self-righteous expression didn’t change. He hadn’t touched her; he wouldn’t have dared.
“But you didn’t kill her then. Why? Because you were afraid?”
“No!”
“Sure!” I taunted.
“Stupid bitch. Just like Madeleine, think you know it all. Madeleine thought she could make me do what she wanted, like I was some tame pet.”
“She could have called the police.”
“She tried that. She asked you to come back. She would have told you then. But I was too smart. I didn’t let her.” He jerked Claire against him.
She cried out. I didn’t look at her. I kept staring at his face, and goaded, “You didn’t let her? I don’t believe that.”
“I was there Sunday night, right outside her door, remember? Then you left. I could have killed her right then.”
&
nbsp; “But you were too much of a wimp.”
“I was too smart. I chose my time.”
There hadn’t been any defensive wounds only light bruises. She hadn’t put up any real struggle. I knew what he had done but I needed to hear it in his words. “What time?”
“She went back on her word. I didn’t owe her anything. But I was decent with her. I put the pillow over her face, so it’d be easy for her.”
“Easy! Hardly!” I took a breath, pushing down my fury. “Okay, Michael, now put Claire down slowly.”
“No way.” He gripped her arm so hard she screamed. The hostage taker knows the value of his hostage.
Still, I didn’t look at her, only at him, like we were the only two people in the world. My throat was so tight I could barely swallow. Willing it to relax, to let me sound calm, I said, “Michael, you have no choice. You’re not going anywhere but to jail. Your only decision now is how you’ll be treated there. You want to know what they do to guys like you in jail? You want me to spell it out for you?”
For the first time he looked scared. He pressed the point of the blade into Claire’s skin.
She screamed but no sound came out.
I kept my eyes on Michael. “In prison, Michael, you can face the lifers on your own, or I can see that you get special treatment. Your choice, Michael. You want a room of your own, nights alone, then you do exactly what I tell you.” Textbook hostage negotiation—promise them anything.
The tape recorder clicked off.
Michael jerked backward. He poked the knife in Claire’s throat. Blood spurted. She screamed. I lunged for his arm. He thrust her into me. Shrieking, she slid to the floor.
Michael was out the door and gone.
CHAPTER 27
CLAIRE LAY ON THE floor, curled into a fetal position. I yelled for Williams as I ran across the dirt path after Michael Wennerhaver. The fog was pudding-thick; the flashlight beam barely made it to the ground. At the jade plant where Madeleine had hidden the metal box and her Parking Enforcement wand, I flashed the light toward the steep dirt path into the canyon. I couldn’t see more than a yard ahead. I doused the light, and leaped onto the downward path, skidding with both feet, leaning back to keep from somersaulting, hands in front of my face batting away leaves and twigs. Dirt flew up, clogging my nose, coating my teeth and tongue with grit. The rocky ground scraped my butt, the revolver banged my ribs, and the flashlight I was still clutching kept jarring my wrist.
At the bottom of the path I slid to a halt and looked around. The air was clearer down here; the fog was held back by the trees. But Michael wasn’t in sight. He couldn’t be far ahead. I pulled the revolver out of the pack and stood listening. My heart thumped against my ribs; my breath was coming in gasps. Leaves rustled, the creek gurgled loud as the Mississippi, paws scampered: everything made noise; nothing stood out.
I squinted, willing him to come into view. Dammit, he would not get away!
The whole place smelled of wet dirt, eucalyptus, and bay leaves. The damp air slid under my jacket, iced my back. I shivered but the movement didn’t warm me.
I stepped across the creek and moved under the thick branches on the far side. He could be scrambling up the canyon wall into the dark of Kensington. There was no way to stop him. It was too late to go back and call for backup. Maybe the patrol units around Champion’s were still there. Maybe Michael would run headlong into them. Maybe not.
I stood stone-still, squinting into the darkness, listening. Nothing moved. It was a blind stare-down in the dark, just the two of us. One of us would flinch. When Michael moved, I’d get him. I braced the gun and waited.
In her room I hadn’t let myself look at Claire, but I’d seen her out of the corner of my eye. I could see her now, held there in front of Michael with his knife piercing her neck. Terrified, her naked breasts exposed, she hung there as limp as the dummy, and as powerless.
I wanted to kill him.
I “saw” Madeleine begging me to come back … because of him. Madeleine Riordan, the woman who terrified the whole police department, reduced to … reduced to nothing. I was sweating and shivering. Blood pounded in my ears. I could barely hear the leaves rustling around me.
I pushed the pictures out of my mind and squinted into the darkness. What was Michael thinking? Was he still down here? I couldn’t wait forever. But he’d be thinking that, too. That’s what the stare-down was.
Movement. In the bushes just off the path, five feet to my right. “Freeze!” I yelled.
There was no sound, as if every creature in the canyon had stopped to listen. I could make out the outline of his body. I could have flicked on the flashlight. I didn’t. “Lift your hands over your head.”
He didn’t move. He was bent over, crouched just like he’d been over Claire’s bed. My head pounded with rage. I wanted to burst through restraint, decency, responsibility—all those so-female traits—and shoot his balls off.
In the distance came the coo of an owl. Michael stood up.
“Raise those hands! Now!” Time stopped. Every atom of my body screamed at him: Ignore the command! Lunge forward! Come on, give me an excuse to shoot!
He didn’t move. I didn’t have to give him another chance. No one would know. It would be revenge for all the Claires in places much worse than Canyonview, all the hostages of life.
I could see him clearly now. He didn’t have a weapon, none visible. But he could have one—I could say that—if he had stolen Champion’s weapons, he could be reaching for one, even the review commission would believe that. The air swelled thicker in my nostrils; I could barely breathe. My heart was pounding in my throat. “I can kill you right now, Michael. I’ll squeeze this trigger and blast your head all over the canyon. Your choice.” I wasn’t yelling anymore. My voice was low; it sounded utterly calm. I cocked the revolver.
His arms flew up. Leaves fluttered, animals moved, the wind rustled the grasses.
“Keep those hands up, drop to your knees. Now! Do it!” I yelled. “Facedown on the ground. Spread your arms and legs. Do it! Do it now!”
It wasn’t till I’d cuffed his right hand to his left foot behind him that he said, petulantly, “So why didn’t you just shoot me?”
I was shaking now, thinking how close I’d come, how easy it would have been—how utterly righteous and good I would have felt.
But I hadn’t shot him. I had stopped. I stared down at him lying on the muddy path. I didn’t have an answer for his question. When I realized my reason, I knew he wouldn’t understand it. But I said it out loud anyway. “You can consider this Madeleine’s legacy. She would have insisted on justice, even for you.”
I shone the light on him. He didn’t understand. But there was something here he would remember. I flashed the light around till I found a spread of poison oak. “Crawl over to your right, Michael. That’s it, three feet to your right.”
It wasn’t the same as shooting him, but you take what you can.
CHAPTER 28
I WAS RELIEVED WHEN Michael refused to speak without his lawyer. No matter how depraved an action, there is some cause. Michael Wennerhaver doubtless had suffered himself. But I didn’t want to know about that. Not yet.
By the time I finished herding him through processing, the lobby was packed with the press. I could have let Doyle handle them alone; it was the first upbeat press conference he’d had in days. But I’m never going to make chief by shirking the limelight. And when the public read about Michael abusing old women, I wanted them to see the woman who nailed him.
For years when people asked why I became a police officer, I told them I took a bunch of civil service tests, passed some, and when I finished the oral exam for the police I realized I’d be good at the job. That was how I got the job. Only now did I see why I wanted it. It’s not something I’m comfortable admitting here in laid-back Berkeley. I like to think of myself as able to go with the flow, a woman who is not hostage to things, or places, or people. I drive a car built before some of the
perps I collar were born. I’ve lived on a back porch, I’ve house-sat for months, and my room in Howard’s house I see as temporary. I have a superficial freedom. But ask me to leave Berkeley, to live without Howard, and that’s a different story. Then I don’t want to be caught up in a flow that washes me away from them. There are things in my life I need to control. As a police detective I have more power than Madeleine Riordan ever had. It scares the shit out of me to think I could lose it as entirely as she did. Maybe that press conference was to assure myself I couldn’t.
When I finished with the paperwork, it was after two A.M. Usually when you get a big collar there are other officers to share the celebration. But one of Howard’s substance abuse perps had been spotted transacting business in west Berkeley; Howard would be there for hours. Eckey would be delighted about Champion, of course. But Madeleine Riordan’s murder had been too personal a case for anyone else to understand the flatness of what I felt now. There was nothing to celebrate. I was too wired and still too much in Madeleine’s head to go home. And there was only one place to go, only one person who would understand.
I called the pizza takeout. The delivery boy was at Herman Ott’s door when I arrived. Ott opened at the first knock. He had heard about the collar, of course. He looked as drawn as if he’d watched the whole operation from the sidelines, unable to help or even holler.
I told him about Michael, gave him a moment to ponder what other seamy scenes Michael might have orchestrated in nursing homes before, and to realize what he would never do in places like that again. Then I said, “I don’t know how much Madeleine was motivated by memories of her mother, but she more than evened the balance—for both of you.”
I can’t swear that I saw Ott’s eyes water, he turned away too fast. But he did pay for the pizzas, both of them. Then we ate them, every bit, and talked about Madeleine. I think it was a wake she’d have liked.
Acknowledgments
