A Clean Kill

by Glass, Leslie

  "Oh, sure, but I don't babysit. I'm not supposed to do that."

  "Why not? You look like you'd be a very good babysitter."

  "You have to go now." Leah went out of the dining room, then down the back stairs, leading the way to the front door.

  Eloise hesitated even as her adrenaline kicked in and her training directed her to move. The girl was out of her sight, and she now had put together enough of the pieces to know she'd made a number of tactical errors. She'd heard of the girl from the interviews, but didn't know she lived here. No one had mentioned that, not Alison, not Lynn. And Leah had worked in the Perkins house. That meant she had access, maybe even her own key. They had assumed it was the old lady. Now her heart slammed away in her chest telling her to get the hell out of the house and call for backup. She reached for her phone and realized that it was off. Berating herself for a dozen stupidities, she started down the stairs.

  Fifty-one

  The rain started again as April and Woody came out of the building and dived into the car. Woody ground the key in the ignition before the door was closed, and the engine roared to life.

  "Perkins house," she said, which was close enough.

  "I know," he muttered. He pulled out, barely looking as a bus was cruising in. The driver hit the horn. Woody hit the siren and cut him off.

  April shut her eyes to the offense and punched the number one on her phone. Mike's voice mail came on immediately. "It's me," she told it. "I've called for backup at the Anderson house. Sergeant Gelo is over there, and she isn't picking up." Shit.

  She didn't want to say she was ticked because her sergeant didn't like being left behind and had taken matters into her own hands. The big no-no could have widespread repercussions for both of them. She ended the call without pointing a finger and muttered angrily to herself as a yellow light slowed the traffic in front of them at Fifty-seventh Street. When the light went red, a hole opened up. "Go," she said, and he ran the light.

  She punched two on her cell. Charlie picked up on the second ring. "Hagedorn," he said.

  "Charlie. What happened with Gelo?"

  "She stepped out. I've been trying to reach her. I have something on Anderson."

  "What do you have?"

  "She has a girl living with her."

  "I know about that," April said impatiently.

  "Did you know her name is Lucy Walters?"

  "Is that supposed to mean something to me? Oh, Jesus." April braced as Woody dodged an ambulance.

  "You okay?"

  "I'm on Lexington with Woody."

  "My condolences. Okay, Lucy Walters hit her homeroom teacher in the head with a chair when she was in sixth grade. The woman died of her injuries. That was thirteen years ago. She served eighteen months in juvenile, out of state, and she's been in and out of programs until she moved in with Anderson."

  "Call Minnow with that, will you?" April said tersely.

  "I already took the liberty. Didn't want to be slow sharing that."

  "Good thinking. And Mike?"

  "He knows, too."

  "Okay. What's the story on Gelo? Don't hold back on me."

  "I'm working on it. As soon as I know . . ."

  April's stomach heaved. Whenever she was upset, all her nerves went right to her gut. She told herself that everybody was on the way, that it was

  going to be all right. She wanted to believe that, but she knew she was responsible for her people. Even if no one was hurt, she was still going to have to take the hit for her officer's bad judgment. But more importantly right now, she had no way of knowing whether or not Gelo was in that house and if she was, what was happening there. She started to pray.

  Fifty-Two

  At the bottom of the stairs was an old-fashioned stainless steel kitchen. A gas stove, dishwasher, and refrigerator were in the usual places against the walls, along with some freestanding glass cabinets filled with china. A large worktable was in the center and a rustic table and chairs by the back window might have been used at one time for staff. There were three doors in the large room. A back door led to the untended garden. A side door opened on the front hall, and a half-glass door faced the street. The floor was the color of old precinct walls.

  When Eloise came in, Leah was rubbing a corner of the worktable as if she'd already left. It was then that Eloise noticed the diamond rings on her finger for the first time. Eloise was only a few steps from the little fenced-in area outside the house where garbage cans were kept on the street. A gate from there led to the sidewalk and freedom. Through windows in the kitchen door, she could see that the rain had started again. Once again she hesitated about making her escape.

  "Does Lynn come here often?" she asked.

  "Nobody comes here. I told you Joey is sick."

  "What's wrong with her?" Eloise asked. She thought the girl was mistaken. She was the sick one.

  She lifted her shoulders in an angry shrug. "I'm getting tired of this," she announced. "People aren't supposed to upset me."

  "Are you sick, too, Leah?" she asked gently.

  "No, not anymore."

  "Are you taking medicine to make you better?"

  "You're very pretty," she said. "Mrs. Wilson was pretty, but not as pretty as you."

  "Does Joey know you clean for Lynn at the Perkins house?"

  "No." She looked away.

  "Is she afraid that you would hurt them?"

  "No."

  "Is that what you're taking medicine for?"

  "Don't bug me about meds when I'm telling you you're pretty," she said angrily. "I could hurt you."

  Eloise had a gun. She thought she could handle it. "Oh, Leah, you're not going to hurt me. I'm a police officer. We're surrounded here. People all over the place, and Miss Anderson is coming over. She'd be upset if you touched me."

  "She doesn't care what I do. I'm her daughter." Those blue eyes were like marbles.

  "Well, I talked to her yesterday. I know she doesn't want her daughter to hurt people," Eloise said calmly. "We're going to help you so you don't do that, okay? You're going to be fine now."

  There had been many times in Eloise's life when she'd been frightened, sometimes even terrified, but not when it counted. During 9/11 and the days that followed she was frightened for other people, never

  for herself. These days she was terrified only in her dreams. To Eloise, a sick young woman in a room equipped with knives and wooden mallets and skewers and forks did not pose a real danger because she had confidence in herself to handle anything. She'd dealt with crazy people before. That was her mistake. She could have walked out that kitchen door, and let somebody else mop up. But she wasn't used to letting other people do her dirty work. She wanted to stay, to conquer Leah herself and make sure nothing happened to her. Call it arrogance or ego—she wanted to be a hero. And Leah seemed to be responding well.

  "I'm sorry about Marsha. I didn't mean to hurt her," she said.

  "Who's Marsha?" That was a name Eloise hadn't heard before.

  Jo Ellen's assistant. Will you hold my hand? I don't want to go back."

  Eloise swallowed. "Where is she?"

  "In the basement. Hold my hand."

  No, she wasn't going to do that. She was concerned that there might be a living person in the basement who needed help. She moved two steps back. "How long has Marsha been in the basement?" she asked softly.

  Leah noted the retreat and didn't answer for a long time. Then she said, "She was pretty."

  Eloise licked her lips. Leah had a "pretty complex," among other things. If she were in restraints, Eloise would be happy to talk about it. Who didn't have a "pretty complex"? It sometimes felt like a good reason for murder, but killing the pretty ones wasn't the solution. Sometimes there wasn't a reason. Crazy people did sick things because they couldn't help it.

  "Why are you moving away? Are you afraid of me, too?"

  "No," Eloise said quickly. "Why would I be afraid of a beautiful girl like you?"

  What they did in the aca
demy was practice with a number of contraptions—nets, restraining devices, even stun guns. Sometimes when people were out of control mentally, or high on drugs, police officers had no other choice but to use them. Eloise didn't have any of those devices to keep swinging fists, kicking feet, a battering head—and human teeth— away from her. And she hadn't practiced physical combat in many years. All she had was a firearm she didn't want to use. The gun gave her comfort.

  One second she and Leah were having a conversation of sorts; the next second" her phone rang. Before she could reach for it, or make a plan, the girl crossed the space between them.

  "No phone," she said furiously. "No phone."

  She came at her fast as if to grab the phone, and Eloise stepped back again to keep the distance. The phone rang again.

  "It's all right. It's just my partner."

  Leah shook her head, angrier than the situation called for. "Don't make me hurt you," she said.

  It was the very thing that Eloise was thinking herself; she did not want to hurt an EDP (emotionally disturbed person), even one who might be a killer. She had that thought and didn't see the knife. Leah raised one hand above her head. Eloise watched the hand going up so she could get out of the way when it came down. The other one whipped out at her and stabbed her in the stomach before she could dodge it.

  "Oh shit," she exclaimed in surprise. "Why did you do that?" She felt the knife burn as it pierced her skin. At first it didn't seem so very much worse than a paper cut. But when it came for her again, she got angry. "Cut that out," she screamed, and reached for her gun.

  She didn't get to it. Leah was all over her with that knife. She was an attacking tiger, a wolf, panting and growling as if there were no other form of expression, and Eloise was slipping in her own blood. It was everywhere, on her black and red pants, on the knife, on the floor, and splattered all over the crazy girl trying to kill her.

  Blood gushed out of her. She could feel it pulse with every heartbeat as she tried to dodge out of reach. She hit the refrigerator, the stove, the wall, bouncing off of all surfaces as she looked for something to fend off the blows. The kitchen became slick with her blood while the one thing that she'd always relied on, her gun, remained strapped in its holster. She didn't collapse and go down, but she couldn't get at the gun as she struggled to stay on her feet. She found herself moving in closer to the table, forcing Leah to circle with her. That was when Eloise realized that there was something else wrong with her. Leah was so wound up and enraged that she was almost foaming at the mouth. But like a rabid animal, she was not an agile fighter. Her circuits weren't connecting. Her movements were awkward and uncoordinated. She struck at her victim but couldn't bring her down. The phone in Eloise's purse started ringing again. Leah was distracted by it and turned to it, almost as if she thought it was for her.

  In the split second when Leah was listening to the phone ring, Eloise grabbed the one lone chair at the worktable. She swung the chair around and pushed it into Leah's knees. It took her by surprise; she lost her balance and fell forward with a scream. Her arms were pinned in front of her as her chest hit the spindles on the chair back. The knife tumbled to the floor and she struggled to untangle herself from the chair. She got free of it and lunged for the knife.

  Eloise wanted to kick her, smash her head in, but she was pulsing blood and too weak to lift her . leg. Crouched forward in an awkward position, she had only one thing—possession of the chair. She shoved it at the girl again, and Leah flopped down on her stomach. A wild cry rose out of her mouth when Eloise pushed the chair over her, trapped her between its legs, and sat on it so that she couldn't get up. It was then that she finally got the gun out of its holster and shot out the window so she could call for help.

  Fifty-three

  It was a scene April had played so many times in her life, and one that plagued her dreams. She was in charge of a major investigation that was going terribly wrong, and she couldn't get there to stop it. Someone would die who shouldn't die and as a result she, too, would lose her life or her job, or lose face, which was just as bad. She needed to get out of that car. Same old, same old. The traffic lights were too slow, and cars and trucks blocked the way no matter how aggressively Woody drove, or how loudly he used the horn with the siren to tell people, "Police—get out of the way."

  One minute she was in the passenger seat of the black Buick on Second Avenue. The next minute the dispatcher made an all-points bulletin, asking for officers to respond to a report of gunshots fired from a residence on the four hundred block of Fiftieth Street. "Fuck, that's us," Woody said. "Call for an ambulance," April told him. Then, as sirens started wailing in the distance, she jumped out of the car and started running down the block in the pelting rain, determined to be the first re-sponder. She didn't feel the rain and nothing went through her mind, not her past life, or her future with her husband or the Skinny Dragon Mother she loved as much as anybody on earth. All that drove her was her instinct and training. Dodge the oncoming traffic and pedestrians with their umbrellas up and get there.

  "Police, move back," she screamed at two men standing outside the house as she unholstered her weapon.

  "I called 911. He's in there. He has a gun," a man standing outside told her.

  "Get back," she said. "Get away."

  She went through the gate, sidestepping as she looked through the shattered panes of the_kitchen window. She'd seen plenty of bad things in her life, but nothing in all her years in police work prepared her for the blood in the kitchen.

  "Oh, shit. Oh, shit." She didn't hear herself whimpering as she raised her weapon and fired into the lock. People were yelling behind her, but she didn't hear what they were saying. Like her own Sergeant Gelo before her, she did the same thing. She entered the house alone, and the horror she saw did not stop her from moving forward into the gore. She was trained to go where the trouble was, and that's what she did. The kitchen was awash with blood. Sergeant Gelo was so drenched with it, she couldn't tell what color her clothes had been. She was sprawled across a kitchen chair, and a female body was pinned under it. Neither moved, and for an awful second April thought both were dead.

  "Aw, Jesus, Eloise," she said softly.

  Eloise took her hand off her stomach. "She got me."

  "Looks like you got her, too. Hang on. We'll get you out of here." April moved forward to see how bad it was. Eloise yelled.

  "Watch out."

  April didn't see it in time. The woman on the floor grabbed her foot and yanked hard, trying to pull her down. "No," she said sharply, wrenching her wet boot from the bloody hand. Then she leaned over and tapped her on the back of the head with the butt of her gun. The Glock was not heavy steel the way the old .48s were. But it was hard enough to put her out.

  "She did it," Eloise gasped. "She killed those women." She was already in shock, shivering, and couldn't hold her head up. "Please don't be mad. I got her."

  "You sure did. Just hang in there, and I won't be mad. I promise." April ripped off her jacket and murmured encouragement. She didn't even know what she was saying. As she waited for the ambulance to arrive, she prayed for a life and offered her own in exchange. She made a vow to whatever gods might be listening. Let Gelo live, and I'll retire from police work. Just let her live.

  April knew that it was one thing for her to mess up personally and get hurt herself as she had done in the past. Her many failures in this case, starting with Alison's death, and ending with one of her own officers doing the unthinkable, was something else. As Gelo's commanding officer, April felt it was her fault that the sergeant took such a crazy risk, and Chinese face demanded that she be the one to go. Gelo was still breathing when the ambulance arrived. April got in with her, an held her hand all the way to the hospital.

  Epilogue

  On Friday, April and Mike's honeymoon cruise departed without them, but they were hardly in the mood for rejoicing in paradise and barely noticed. As, police officers say when they miss important life events, "Som
ething came up."

  In the days that followed Lucy Walters's (aka Leah) interment in Bellevue for psychiatric evaluation, all April could think abut was the fate of her second whip. Fast work by surgeons at New York Hospital—and a miracle—saved Eloise Gelo's life. Doctors on the case said what others in the Department already knew about her: Eloise was as tough as they come; she always beat the odds.

  Patching her up, however, took time and more than one surgery. April and Mike were among the many police officers who gave blood for her transfusions, and April was a daily visitor during the weeks that she remained in the hospital. Included in her gifts were some special (and quite disgusting) herbal medicines purchased by Skinny Dragon Mother in Chinatown to cure her. Who knew, maybe they helped.

  The only bright light in the very dark story was that Eloise was the sole survivor of Lucy's wrath.

  The badly decomposed remains found wrapped in garbage bags and locked in an old steamer trunk in the basement of Jo Ellen's house turned out to be Marsha, the Anderson employee whom Jo Ellen said wasn't with them anymore. Along with her teacher of years ago, Maddy, Alison and her unborn baby, Marsha brought the number of Lucy's victims to five.

  Working at Jo Ellen's house brought the troubled young woman in contact with the mothers and their households. Jo Ellen, who'd been stealing from her clients throughout her long career, encouraged Lucy to continue the tradition. If the customers complained about theft or other irregularities, innocent employees were fired and replaced with new ones. The scam had worked until Lucy started killing the employers she despised. Furthermore, she lost all her wiggle room with her attempted murder of a police officer. Jo Ellen was exposed and faced prosecution for her many crimes.

  But April weathered the storm; she always did. Her promise to quit the Department if Eloise lived was not forgotten, but in the end no one wanted her to go. Two months later, when the case was fully resolved and the legal system had taken over, she and Mike sailed from San Juan to the West Indies for the vacation of their lives.