Harmful Intent

by Robin Cook

  What had surprised Jeffrey about the listening device was that it was able to ignore the skaters’ music. Jeffrey assumed it had something to do with the fact that the cassette player was off to the side and not within the acoustical shadow of the Hatch Shell’s large concave surface. He guessed it was the same with the noise of the traffic passing so close on Storrow Drive.

  The light was now fading rapidly. The sky was still a light, silvery blue, but stars had begun to appear and the shadows under the trees had turned a deep purple. Jeffrey could no longer see Kelly. Most of the Frisbee and ball players had concluded their games and left. But there were still a few people out on the grass. There was also a smattering of joggers using the walkway to the far right, as well as an occasional cyclist.

  Jeffrey looked at his watch. It was nine-thirty, time for Harding to arrive. When it got to be a bit past, Jeffrey began to wonder what he’d do if Trent didn’t show up. For some reason, up until that moment Jeffrey had not even considered the possibility.

  Jeffrey told himself he had to calm down. Trent would come. As sick as the guy had to be, he’d be dying to get the photos back. Jeffrey stopped pacing and gazed out over the grassy expanse in front of the stage. If Trent decided to get rough, Jeffrey had a lot of room to run. He also had Kelly’s lug wrench literally tucked up his right sleeve. It might come in handy even if he only used it as a threat.

  Jeffrey squinted into the distance. Try as he might, he couldn’t see Kelly in the darkness under the trees near the concession stand. That meant Harding wouldn’t be able to either. There was no way Trent could think there was a witness to their conversation.

  A siren in the distance made Jeffrey start. He held his breath and listened. It was coming closer. Could it be the police? Had Harding alerted them? The sirens grew louder with their approach, but then Jeffrey saw the source: an ambulance sped past on Storrow Drive.

  Jeffrey sighed. The tension was wearing him down. He started to pace again, then abruptly stopped. Trent Harding was looking at him from the stage steps to the left. He had one hand at his side, the other behind his back beneath a leather jacket.

  Jeffrey’s bravado drained from him as he stared at Trent, who for the moment was motionless. Trent was dressed in a collarless, lightweight black leather jacket and acid-washed jeans. In the half-light of the fading day, his hair appeared blonder than before, almost white. His unblinking eyes sparkled.

  Jeffrey stood facing the man he suspected of at least six murders. Again he wondered about the man’s motivations. They seemed unfathomable. Even with the lug wrench up his sleeve and all the potential witnesses, Jeffrey felt suddenly afraid. Trent Harding was a wild card. There was no predicting what his reaction to this blackmail ruse might be.

  Trent mounted the stage steps slowly. Before he took the final step that would put him on a plane with Jeffrey, he took a look around. Seemingly satisfied, he set his gaze on Jeffrey. He approached with a cocky, confident step, an expression of disdain on his face.

  “Are you Jeffrey Rhodes?” he asked, finally breaking the silence.

  “You don’t remember me from Memorial?” Jeffrey said, his voice cracking. He cleared his throat.

  “I remember you,” Trent said. “Now I want to know why you’re bothering me.”

  Jeffrey’s heart was pounding. “Call me curious,” he said. “I’m the one taking the fall for your handiwork. It’s a done deal. I’m twice convicted. I’d just like to know a little bit about the motivation.” Jeffrey felt like a piano wire stretched to its limit. His muscles were tense, and he was ready to flee at any moment.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “And I suppose you don’t know anything about the Polaroids, either.”

  “I want those back. I want you to give them to me. Now.”

  “In good time. All in good time. Why don’t you tell me about Patty Owen or Henry Noble first.” Come on, Jeffrey urged, please talk to me. Talk.

  “I want to know who you’ve shared your nutty theories with.”

  “No one,” Jeffrey said. “I’m an outcast. A fugitive from justice. A man with no friends. Who would I have to tell?”

  “And you brought the photos with you?”

  “Isn’t that what we’re here for?” Jeffrey said evasively.

  “That’s all I wanted to know,” Harding said.

  Smoothly but suddenly he pulled his hand from behind his back and brandished his pistol. Grasping the gun with both hands, just the way Crockett did on Miami Vice, he aimed the barrel at Jeffrey’s forehead.

  Jeffrey froze. His heart skipped a beat. He’d not expected a gun. He stared with utter terror at the dark black hole at the end of the barrel. The lug wrench was a joke compared with such a weapon.

  “Turn around,” Harding commanded.

  Jeffrey couldn’t move.

  Trent fished for the syringe, still pointing the gun at Rhodes.

  Trent let go of the gun with his right hand and fished a syringe from his pocket. Jeffrey eyed it with horror. Then, out in the blackness he heard a scream. It was Kelly! Oh God, thought Jeffrey, imagining her running across the grass toward the stage.

  “I thought you came alone,” Trent snarled. He took a step forward and locked the arm with the gun. Jeffrey could see his trigger finger begin to move.

  Before Jeffrey could react, there was a gun blast, followed by screams from the skaters as they stumbled in all directions.

  Jeffrey’s legs went limp. The lug wrench fell from his sleeve with a clatter. But he felt no pain. He thought he’d been shot, but instead a hole appeared in Trent’s forehead. The man staggered. Then there was a second, more sustained blast of multiple, rapid shots. Jeffrey felt the sound had come from over his shoulder, downstage right.

  Trent was thrown back by the additional shots that had struck him square in the chest. Jeffrey looked down, mute with shock, as Trent’s pistol came skidding across the stage to bump to a stop at his foot. The syringe bounced on the wood floor and lay still. It was almost too much to take in. Jeffrey glanced at Trent. He knew he was dead. Part of the back of his head was gone.

  * * *

  The moment the rifle shot sounded and the blond guy staggered as if he’d been hit, Devlin hit the grass. At that point he’d been halfway across the grassy area. The instant he’d seen the blond guy draw the pistol, Devlin started for the stage. He’d been careful to stay low to the ground, half bent over in an effort to come to the pair by surprise. He’d heard Kelly scream, but he’d ignored it. Then there had been the additional burst of shots. From his experience from his days on the Force, but mainly in Vietnam, he knew a rifle shot when he heard one, especially a high-caliber automatic assault type.

  Devlin hadn’t recognized the blond fellow. He’d assumed he was the out-of-town talent that Mosconi had been threatening to bring in. Devlin was determined not to be cheated out of the reward money. He’d have more than a word with Mosconi when he saw him next. But first he’d have to deal with the matter at hand, which was turning into a carnival in its complexity. The rifle business meant a third bounty hunter was in the picture. Devlin had been in with some pretty stiff competition before, but he’d never known even the toughest of bounty-hunting SOBs to take out a competitor without so much as a word.

  From his spot flat out on the lawn, Devlin raised his head and peered at the stage. He couldn’t see the blond from that angle. The doctor was just standing there like a fool, with his mouth hanging open. Devlin had to suppress an urge to shout to him to hit the deck. But he didn’t want to draw attention to himself without knowing more about the origin of the rifle shots.

  With another scream and clearly no thought for her safety, Kelly recovered from the burst of gunfire and ran past Devlin on her way toward the stage. Devlin rolled his eyes. Quite a pair, these two, he thought. He wondered which one would manage to get killed first.

  But at least Kelly’s screams seemed to snap Rhodes out of his trance. He turned toward her and, raising
his hand, yelled at her to stop. She did. Devlin lifted himself, hunkering down on the grass. From that position he could see the blond guy lying in a crumpled heap center stage.

  The next thing Devlin knew, two men casually stepped out of the shadows and mounted the stairs to the stage. One of them was carrying an assault rifle. Both were in dark business suits with white shirts and conservative ties. As if they had all the time in the world, they calmly approached the doctor, who’d turned to face them. Devlin thought that for bounty hunters, their style was unusual, but it was as effective as it was ruthless. It was obvious they were after Jeffrey Rhodes.

  Pulling his own gun from its holster and gripping it with both hands, Devlin ran for the stage. “Freeze!” he yelled with authority, pointing his gun at the chest of the man with the assault rifle. “Rhodes belongs to me! I’m taking him in, understand?”

  The two men froze in their tracks, obviously taken by surprise by Devlin’s appearance. “I’m just as surprised to see you guys,” Devlin whispered, half to himself, half to the men in suits.

  The men were only about twenty feet away. It was point-blank range. Jeffrey was to Devlin’s right, just at the periphery of his vision. Suddenly Devlin recognized one of the men. He wasn’t a bounty hunter.

  Jeffrey’s heart was in his mouth, and his mouth was so dry he couldn’t swallow. His pulse hammered at his temples. Devlin’s sudden appearance had surprised him as much as the arrival of the two men in suits.

  If only Kelly had the sense to stay clear of whatever was developing. He never should have involved her in this mess in the first place. But this was no time to berate himself. The men in suits had stopped their relentless approach. Now their full attention was on Devlin, who was at the lip of the stage, holding his pistol with both hands. Devlin was watching the men with total intensity. No one spoke and no one moved.

  “Frank?” Devlin said finally. “Frank Feranno—what the hell is going on?”

  “I don’t think you should be interfering, Devlin,” the man with the rifle said. “This doesn’t concern you. We just want the doctor.”

  “The doctor belongs to me.”

  “Sorry,” Frank said.

  The two men slowly started to move apart.

  “Nobody move!” Devlin yelled.

  But the men ignored him. They steadily inched apart.

  Jeffrey began to back up. At first he edged away only a step at a time. But once he saw that at least temporarily the three men were caught in something of a Mexican standoff, he decided to take advantage of it. For the moment he wasn’t the target. The instant he reached the stairs, he turned on his heels and ran.

  Over his shoulder Jeffrey heard Devlin order the men to stay still or he’d shoot. Jeffrey ran out into the grass and caught Kelly where she’d stopped at the point where the lawn met the macadam. He grabbed her hand and together they ran for the Arthur Fiedler bridge.

  Reaching the ramp, they ran up, rounding several turns. Sudden gunfire from the direction of the stage made them flinch, but they never looked back. At first there was just a single shot, but that was immediately followed by the rapid, sustained sound of an automatic weapon. Jeffrey and Kelly tore across Storrow Drive, then down the other side. Panting, they reached Kelly’s car. She frantically searched for her keys while Jeffrey thumped the roof of the car with his palm.

  “You have them!” Kelly shouted, suddenly remembering.

  Jeffrey pulled the keys from his own pocket. He tossed them over the car. Kelly unlocked the doors and both jumped in. Kelly got the car going, and they shot forward, turning onto Storrow Drive. She quickly gunned the car to sixty. When they came to the end of Storrow in a matter of minutes, Kelly pulled into a maze of narrow city streets.

  “What on earth is going on?” Kelly demanded once they’d both regained their breath.

  “I wish I knew!” Jeffrey managed. “I have no idea. I think they were fighting over me!”

  “And I let you talk me into this plan,” Kelly said with irritation. “Once again I should have listened to my intuition.”

  “There’s no way we could have anticipated what happened,” Jeffrey said. “It wasn’t a bad plan. Something very screwy is going on. Nothing makes sense except that the one person who was capable of restoring my life is now dead.” Jeffrey shivered, recalling the gruesome image of Trent Harding being shot through the forehead.

  “Now we have to go to the police,” Kelly said.

  “We can’t.”

  “But we saw a man killed!”

  “I can’t go, but if you have to go for yourself, do it,” Jeffrey said. “For all I know they’ll probably indict me for Trent Harding’s murder. That would be the final irony.”

  “What will you do?” Kelly asked.

  “Probably what I set out to do a number of days ago,” Jeffrey said. “Leave the country. Go to South America. With Trent dead, I don’t think I have much choice.”

  “Let’s go back to my place and think,” Kelly said. “At this point neither one of us is in any shape to make such a major decision.”

  “I’m not sure we can go back there,” Jeffrey said. “Devlin must have followed us from your house. He must know I’ve been staying there. I think you’d better drop me off at a hotel.”

  “If you go to a hotel, then I’m going too,” Kelly said.

  “You really want to stay with me after what just happened?”

  “I made a commitment to see this through.”

  Jeffrey was touched, but he knew he couldn’t let her run any more risks than she already had. At the same time he wanted her near him. They’d only been together a couple of days, but already he didn’t know what he’d do without her.

  She was right about one thing: he was in no shape to make a decision. He closed his eyes. He felt shell-shocked. Too much had happened. He was emotionally drained.

  “How about driving out of town and staying at a small inn?” Kelly suggested when Jeffrey didn’t make any suggestions.

  “Fine.” He was already distracted, his mind involuntarily taking him back to the horrid and tense moments on the stage. He remembered Devlin recognizing one of the other men. He’d called him Frank Feranno. Jeffrey guessed they were all bounty hunters greedily fighting over the sizable reward money on his head. But why kill Harding? That didn’t make sense, unless of course they’d thought he was a bounty hunter. But even then, did bounty hunters kill each other?

  Jeffrey opened his eyes. Kelly was making her way through the Friday night traffic.

  “Are you okay to drive?” Jeffrey asked her.

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  “If there’s a problem, I can drive.”

  “After what you just went through, I think you should just try to relax,” Kelly said.

  Jeffrey nodded. He couldn’t argue with that. He then told her his idea that the men in suits were bounty hunters like Devlin, and that they had been fighting over him for the reward money.

  “I don’t think so,” Kelly said. “When I first saw those men, I thought they were with Trent. They came right after he did. But then as I watched, I could tell they were after Trent Harding, not with him. They shot him very deliberately. They didn’t have to shoot him. They wanted to. You weren’t the target.”

  “But why kill Trent?” Jeffrey asked. “It doesn’t make sense.” He sighed. “Well, in one way it does make sense. There is some benefit. I’m convinced Trent Harding was the killer, even if we don’t have the proof. The world will be far better off without him.”

  Jeffrey laughed suddenly.

  “What can you possibly find funny?” Kelly asked.

  “I’m just marveling at my own naiveté. That I actually thought I could get Harding to implicate himself by meeting with him. Thinking back, I bet he saw it as an opportunity to kill me from the start. I didn’t tell you, but he had a syringe with him. I suppose he didn’t plan on shooting me with a bullet. He was going to shoot me with his toxin.”

  Kelly suddenly slammed on the
brakes and pulled to the side of the road.

  “What’s the matter?” Jeffrey asked, alarmed. He half expected Devlin to loom out of the night. The man’s appearances were always so startling.

  “I just thought of something,” Kelly said excitedly.

  Jeffrey stared at her in the dim light. Cars passed, filling their car briefly with their headlights.

  Kelly turned to him. “Maybe Trent’s killing has a hidden benefit.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Maybe his death provides us with a clue that we wouldn’t have had unless he’d been killed.”

  “I don’t follow you,” Jeffrey said.

  “Those men in suits were primarily out to shoot Harding, not you. I’m sure of it. And it wasn’t a humanitarian gesture. That tells us something.” Kelly was becoming more animated by the second. “It means that somebody thought that Harding was a threat. Maybe they didn’t want him talking to you. I think those men with their fancy suits and guns were professional killers.” She took a breath. “I think this whole thing might be more complicated than we’ve imagined.”

  “You mean you think that Harding wasn’t just a crazy person acting alone?”

  “That’s exactly what I mean,” Kelly said. “What’s happened tonight makes me think of some sort of conspiracy. Maybe it has something to do with hospitals. The more I think about it, the more I believe there has to be another dimension that we’ve completely missed by concentrating on the idea of a lone psychopath. I just don’t think he was acting alone.”

  Jeffrey’s thoughts went back to the exchange between Frank Feranno and Devlin. Frank had said, “This doesn’t concern you, and we just want the doctor.” They had wanted Jeffrey, but they had wanted him alive. They’d certainly had the opportunity to shoot him, along with Harding.

  “What about insurance companies?” Kelly asked. She’d always disliked insurance companies, especially after Chris’s suicide.

  “Now what are you talking about?” Jeffrey asked. With everything that he’d experienced, his mind was numb. He couldn’t keep up with her line of thinking.