Lady Justice and the Broken Hearts

by Robert Thornhill

  There was a social time before the actual meeting got underway, where people could get a cup of coffee or a soft drink and mingle with one another.

  As I perused the milling bodies, I was surprised to see a familiar face, Lawrence Wingate, a resident at my Three Trails Hotel.

  Lawrence wasn’t the typical resident. Most of my tenants were old retired guys living on social security or younger guys working out of the day labor pool. They paid forty bucks a week for a tiny sleeping room with a bed, dresser and chair. Twenty rooms shared four hall baths. I wasn’t exactly proud of the place, but a friend once told me that everybody has to be somewhere, and if it wasn’t for the Three Trails, most of the guys would be living under a bridge somewhere.

  Lawrence was different. He came to the hotel a beaten man. He had gone into the hospital for heart surgery, but before checking in, he gave his wife complete power of attorney, just in case he checked out. He survived, but as soon as the anesthesia put him under, his wife sold their house, cleaned out their joint bank accounts and ran off to Hawaii with her secret lover. When Lawrence came out of the hospital, he had nothing but his job. He was starting life from scratch and all he could afford was the hotel.

  While the normal dress code for most of my tenants is a scuzzy AC/DC t-shirt with tobacco stains on the front, Lawrence left each morning in his suit and tie. Once he got back on his feet, I expected him to leave, but he never did.

  I soon found out why.

  “Lawrence, I’m surprised to see you here.”

  “Hi Walt. I’m surprised to be here. I wish I wasn’t.”

  “Why is that?”

  “I thought after my surgery everything would be fine, but there’s been some complications. Looks like there’s just no repairing the old ticker. I’m going to need a new one. I’m on the waiting list, but you know how that goes.”

  “I’m really sorry to hear that. How are you getting along at the hotel? Is Mary taking good care of you?”

  “Mary’s a sweetheart and everything is as good as it can be given the circumstances. Other than Mr. Feeney’s aromatic deposits in the hall bath, I really can’t complain.”

  About that time, Liz called the meeting to order.

  After a brief presentation by a surgeon, there was a period where members could share their feelings. Some of the testimonials were from people who had received their transplants and their message was to stay positive and don’t lose hope. Others tried to put on a brave face, but the fact that their time was running out, betrayed them. The hard, cold fact was that there would be some at the meeting that would never get the call that would save their lives.

  As I listened to them, I felt the six inch scar on my chest and thanked my lucky stars for what I had been given. My heart ached, but not from the surgery, but for the people that would not get the second chance that I did. Some would die from a broken heart that would never be repaired.

  When the meeting was over, neither Kevin nor I had a clue as to whether there had been a killer in our midst.

  Scott Banks watched the people pour out of the meeting room.

  So many people, so few hearts. Someone else would have to go.

  He had been watching a man for several meetings and determined that he was single, unattached and living alone. Tonight, he would follow him to his home and see if he was a likely candidate for his potassium chloride cocktail.

  He had become skilled at stalking his potential victims and had no trouble tracking him to a flea-bag hotel on Linwood Boulevard.

  When he saw the sign out front that read, ‘Sleeping Room. $40.00 per week,’ he knew he had the right man. No one would miss a guy shacking up at The Three Trails Hotel.

  CHAPTER 18

  Scott did some checking and found out that the flop house hotel housed twenty sleeping rooms. He would have to determine which one his mark occupied.

  He had also learned that the place was run by a seventy-year-old woman who was not to be trifled with. According to his sources, she had clubbed an assassin to death with a baseball bat and shot an intruder right on the front lawn. He wanted no part of that.

  He sat in his car and watched the hotel until he saw the old woman leave with a shopping bag. After she was out of sight, he entered the hotel and climbed the steps to the sleeping rooms.

  He had just rounded a corner when the door to a hall bath opened. An old man stepped out followed by a stench that brought tears to his eyes.

  “Howdy stranger,” the old guy said. “Are you the new tenant in #14?”

  As soon as he had his gag reflex under control, Scott replied, “No, I’m here to see Lawrence Wingate. Would you happen to know which room is his?”

  “Sure do.”

  Scott waited for the number but the old guy just stood there grinning.

  “I thought you said you knew the number?”

  “I do.”

  “Well what is it?”

  “Oh, you want to know the number. Why didn’t you say so?”

  “Sorry,” he replied with exasperation. “Will you please tell me which room belongs to Lawrence?”

  “Number 8, but he ain’t home. Usually gets here around 5:30 or thereabouts.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Glad to oblige. If you give me your name, I’ll tell Lawrence you dropped by.”

  “No! Please don’t do that. I want to surprise him.”

  “Got it!” the old man said, making a zip gesture across his lips. “Hush-hush stuff!”

  With that, the old man trudged down the hall.

  Scott located room #8. It had a simple deadbolt which he could pick with ease. He would come back around five, let himself in and wait. Lawrence wasn’t a big man and he had a bum ticker. It shouldn’t be difficult to subdue him with the chloroform soaked rag. In a day or two, somebody would miss him and find that he had died peacefully in his sleep. One more competitor off the list.

  After the support group meeting, I tried to find Lawrence, but he got away before I could locate him. Even though the notion that someone was bumping off people in the group was still conjecture, I felt that I should give Lawrence a heads up just in case.

  The next afternoon, I decided to make a visit to the hotel. I hadn’t visited with Mary for almost a week and that would also give me an opportunity to chat with Lawrence.

  Mary wasn’t home, so I left the box of Krispy Crème donuts I had bought for her in the door with a note.

  I headed upstairs and nearly collided with old man Feeney.

  “Whoa! Slow down! What’s the rush? You’re retired.”

  “On my way to see Mary. Stopped up the toilet in the #3 crapper. Thought she’d want to know.”

  Yeah, she’ll be thrilled. “Mary’s not home right now. I just checked. Don’t suppose you’d know if Lawrence is home.”

  “Sure do.”

  I waited, but there was nothing more forthcoming.

  “Well, is he or isn’t he?”

  “Nope, not home. He’s one popular fellow today. You’re the second dude that’s come lookin’ for him.”

  “Really,” I said, surprised. “Did you get the guy’s name?”

  “He never gave it.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Young feller, ‘bout this tall,” he said, raising his hands six inches above his head.

  “Did he say what he wanted with Lawrence?”

  “Not exactly,” he replied, conspiratorially, looking up and down the hall. “Said it was a surprise. Ask me not to tell him.”

  I thanked him and he ambled off.

  I thought about the stranger coming around the day after the group meeting and bells started going off in my head.

  Maybe this was our guy!

  I called Kevin and asked him to meet me at our office. On the way home, a plan began to take shape.

  “You could be right,” Kevin said after I shared the details of my visit with old man Feeney. “What do you have in mind?”

  “If it is the guy, he will get
to the hotel around five, let himself into the room and wait for Lawrence. I say we wait until we spot Lawrence and stash him in Mary’s apartment. You and I will go upstairs. I’ll go in and you back me up.”

  He thought for a moment. “I like all of it except the ‘you go in’ part. Think about it. This guy is going to try to subdue you. You’re just six weeks out of surgery. What if he cracks your chest open? I don’t think you want to go through that again. I’ll go in and you’ll back me up.”

  He was right, of course.

  We arrived at the hotel just after five and briefed Mary on our plan.

  While we were waiting, I casually asked, “Did you enjoy your donuts?”

  She looked confused. “What donuts?”

  About that time, old man Feeney came out of the building whistling. I noticed there was chocolate icing on his chin. Mary noticed it too.

  “Get over here you pastry pilferer!” she screamed. “I’m gonna kick your ass into next week!”

  A look of terror registered on his face. He turned and high-tailed it off the porch and down the street as fast as his old legs would carry him.

  “This isn’t over!” Mary called after him.

  Feeney had just turned the corner when Lawrence pulled up to the curb. His apartment faced the street, so we waited until he was on the porch before we motioned him into Mary’s apartment.

  We quickly explained what was going down, then headed up the stairs.

  Kevin slipped Lawrence’s key into the deadbolt, turned the knob and kicked the door open with his foot.

  We heard an ‘uggggh’ as the door collided with flesh, then, “What the hell?”

  The guy recovered quickly and made a grab for Kevin. Kevin saw the handkerchief coming for his face, ducked and knocked it away.

  The man was forty years younger than Kevin, taller and stronger. He grabbed him and had him in a headlock with one arm and in his free hand was a syringe.

  At that moment, I made my appearance, pointing my gun at his chest. “Put it down. No one needs to get hurt here today.”

  It was a Mexican standoff. I could see him thinking, weighing the alternatives in his mind. Suddenly, his demeanor changed from thoughtful reflection to determination. He simply said, “I’m sorry.” Then he raised his arm to plunge the syringe into Kevin’s neck.

  I had no choice. I fired, the syringe dropped from his hand and he crumpled to the floor.

  Kevin tried to pull himself free, but the man grasped his collar and pulled him close. I could see him whisper something to Kevin, then his eyes rolled back in his head and his body went limp.

  Kevin scrambled to his feet and breathlessly relayed the dying man’s last words.

  My first call was to 911 for an ambulance, and my next call was to my sister, Dr. Elizabeth Crane.

  After a quick conference, I called Maggie and told her to meet me on the street. I picked her up and we headed to the home of Laurie Banks. We arrived at the same time as the ambulance that would transport her to St. Luke’s hospital.

  It had been arranged that Maggie and I would stay with her two daughters until Laurie’s sister arrived.

  The ambulance had just pulled away when we received a call from Kevin who had accompanied the body to the hospital. Tests had already been run, and miraculously, the blood and tissue samples were compatible with Laurie’s.

  Six hours later, Scott Banks heart was beating in his wife’s chest.

  Laurie didn’t know until after the transplant that the donor was her husband.

  Scott Banks had been willing to commit murder to help his wife get the heart she needed to survive, and when that plan failed, he was willing to make the ultimate sacrifice --- his life for hers.

  CHAPTER 19

  I had heard other officers use the term, ‘suicide by cop,’ and had listened to their stories, but it had never happened to me --- until that evening with Scott Banks. Killing the young man was the farthest thing from my mind, but he had given me no choice. It was his life or Kevin’s.

  I could only imagine what Laurie Banks was feeling. I knew how disoriented and confused I felt when I awoke from my open heart surgery. Undoubtedly her feeling of elation at being given a new lease on life had been dashed when she was told that her donor was her husband. Would it be a burden or a blessing living the rest of her life knowing that the heart beating in her chest was that of her husband and lover?

  A few days after the incident, I received a call from Mary with good news. Lawrence Wingate had received the call he had been hoping for. A donor had been found for his transplant and he had been whisked off to the hospital.

  In the weeks following my operation, I had noticed a subtle change in my own personality. For some reason, maybe because I had been just a heartbeat away from my own demise, I seemed to be more emotional. I found myself tearing up watching dramatic TV shows, and I felt a special kinship with other members of the ‘zipper club’ who had experienced open heart surgery.

  I decided to visit both Lawrence and Laurie Banks and wish them well in their recovery. Going back to the ICU where I had spent four days was an emotional roller coaster. I remembered waking up finding tubes protruding from my chest. I remembered barfing up my heels as the anesthetic wore off. I also remembered the small victories as I sat in a chair for the first time and took my first steps in the hallway. But my warmest memories were of the kind and compassionate nurses and technicians who made my journey through recovery as pleasant as it could possibly be. For me, they were angels of mercy sent to comfort me in my darkest hour.

  After visiting with Lawrence and Laurie, I roamed the halls of the ICU hoping to find one or two of the nurses so I could thank them. As luck would have it, I found Kim Delany seated at one of the nurses stations. When she saw me, she got up and gave me a big hug.

  We had just started to visit when her pager went off.

  “Gotta go,” she said. “New patient coming in. Heart attack and he’s critical.”

  She took off down the hall and met two orderlies wheeling a man on a gurney. She directed them into one of the empty rooms.

  I was about to leave when I saw three men in overcoats burst through the doors. A sixth sense told me they were law enforcement of some kind.

  The one in the lead barked, “Where’s the man that was just brought in with a heart attack?”

  He looked around the ward and our eyes met. The man barking the orders was my half-brother, Mark Davenport.

  Like Dr. Elizabeth Crane, Mark was the product of one of my dad’s dalliances outside the bonds of matrimony. Mark’s mother was a waitress at a truck stop somewhere out in western Kansas. Dad was like the sailor with a girl in every port, and on his trucking runs out west, Mark’s mother was his companion.

  Dad never knew about Mark until the day he showed up at my door about three years ago looking for a man we had been tracking who called himself Thanatos.

  Mark worked for the FBI at that time, but had since transferred to the Department of Homeland Security. I had worked several cases with him while I was in the police department.

  “Mark! What in the world are you doing here?”

  “The man on the gurney. Where did they put him?”

  I pointed to the room where they had taken the man.

  Mark and his men approached the door but quickly backed away. I fell in line behind them and peered into the room.

  My recently repaired heart leaped into my throat when I saw the man sitting on the edge of the bed holding a gun to Kim’s head.

  “Not another step or she dies,” the man said, giving Kim a shake.

  “Come on, Yasser,” Mark replied. “You know how this works. If you don’t release the girl, you’re going to take a bullet somewhere. That, on top of your bum ticker is going to make for a very unpleasant day. Why don’t you make this easy on all of us?”

  “No! This girl’s life is in your hands. I want transportation out of here or she dies.”

  “Again, you know how this works. The Unite
d States government doesn’t negotiate with terrorists. You go ahead and do what you have to do and so will we. What’s it going to be?”

  Mark had just called the man’s bluff and had bet Kim’s life. “Mark!” I whispered. “Please!”

  He held up his hand to silence me and turned back to the man. “Okay, Yasser. What’s it going to be? I haven’t got all day.”

  I could see the man weighing his options. I’m not sure what I expected, but it certainly wasn’t what happened.

  The man’s mouth twisted and I heard a ‘crunch.’ Instantly, he convulsed and collapsed on the bed.

  “Damn!” Mark shouted, charging the room. He put his fingers to the man’s neck and shook his head. “He’s gone.”

  “Wha --- what just happened,” I stammered.

  “Cyanide,” Mark replied. “The poison pill. It’s a glass ampule that looks like a tooth. They can pry it loose with their tongue and when they crush the ampule, it’s instant death. Yasser knew we had him cold and he chose to die rather than be interrogated.”

  I rushed to Kim who had collapsed into a chair. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I think so. Just shaken up. I’ve never been so frightened.”

  “You’re safe now.” I turned to Mark. “So who was this guy?”

  “Yasser al-Kassar. He’s the leader of a terrorist sleeper cell with links to Al-Qaeda. We’ve been monitoring him for months. They have some kind of offensive planned. He was on his way to a meeting with his cell when he had the heart attack.”

  “An offensive? Here in Kansas City?”

  He nodded. “I’m afraid so. We were hoping he would lead us to the whole gang and we could wrap this thing up, but then his ticker gave out.” He turned to his men who had been searching the body. “Find anything?”

  They shook their heads.