We were a sight, three-abreast, me supporting the wounded Willie with my left arm and holding the traumatized Gina in my right, slowly zig-zagging from one landing to the next, making our way down the four flights of vibrating metal stairs from the balcony to the courtyard; the Spirit of '76 without the fife and drums. I have no clue what was holding me up.
“You were lucky he only winged you,” I told Willie. “You could have been killed, you know?”
“I guess. I didn't really think about it.”
“You're even dumber than I thought.” Yeah, I said it and I meant it. Then I smiled through the pain and thanked him. I meant that too.
“Hey, Blake,” he said, “how'd ya know it was me up there in the dark and not a real cop?”
“Real cops point real guns. They don't hold up their finger like a six year-old.”
“The cops wouldn't give my gun back when they let me out.”
“Remind me to thank them for small favors. Oh and for future reference, real cops also do not yell `Freeze, scumbag' through their nose.”
“I got a deviated septum. Besides, I'm shot.”
“You weren't shot then.”
“No. But I'm shot now.”
“New night, same old whine. Blake, I'm shot, be nice to me. You damned baby.”
The courtyard, once bruised black with shadow and blue with moonlight, had suddenly come to life with bright white search beams and the red-blue strobe of emergency lights stealing down the alley between the buildings from squads baha'ed through the grass on the side of the dilapidated complex. Two real patrol cops, guns drawn, had arrived on the hustle and were waiting for us at the bottom of the stairs. I don't know who they planned to shoot; the three of us, using every ounce of energy to remain up-right, were certainly no threat. My gun, as you know, was in my safe waiting for a war to make me drag it out. Willie was wearing an empty holster and, outside of his fantasies, his finger wasn't loaded. It finally dawned they were safe because the patrol boys lowered their shooting irons and were tucking them and their flashlights away as we reached the flagstone floor of the courtyard.
Because I'm a crap magnet, the flatfeet weren't alone; the detectives were there too. Dave Mason, near the uniformed cops, was staring at us like a starving wolf ogling three crippled rabbits. Wenders, out of breath from moving fast (he never ran), not tucking in his gut as usual, was leaning on one of the rusted metal balcony pillars, staring down at the twisted body of our murdering maniac. “It is a small world of villains,” the lieutenant said. He slipped in a stick of gum and looked up chomping. “Eddie Love. What's he doin' dead?”
I have to tell you, sisters and brothers, after what I'd just been through I was not ready for another accusation. I opened my mouth to explode. Wenders waved it away. “Forget it,” he said. He took another look at Love. “I gotta admit he looks like a killer. Guess you were right, Blake.”
I'd lived long enough to hear that, but closed my mouth in a frown because I knew it wasn't true; not entirely. I shook my head, oh so gently, let go of Willie while keeping hold of Gina, and started what felt like a confession. “No,” I told Wenders. “I was wrong.”
“Huh?”
“Well, not so much wrong as not completely right.”
The lieutenant left Eddie and waddled over to us. “As I am so often forced to ask, Blake,” he said, “what are you ramblin' about now?”
“I'm telling you I've been giving Love too much credit all along,” I said. “He was the mechanic, no doubt, but he wasn't running the shop.”
Wenders sighed, then said, “If you say Reverend Delp again, I swear, Blake, I'll kick your ass.”
“Save the shoe leather and keep your balance.” I let loose of Gina, still folded into my chest sobbing and sup-supping, took hold of her arm, and pushed her toward the lieutenant. Her look of shock was priceless as I told him, “Sorry she's not tied in a bow. You'll have to take her as is.”
“Take her?” Wenders asked stupidly. “Take her for what?”
“Murder and arson for a start. Oh and conspiracy to kidnap, of course.” The waterworks stopped as if I'd turned off Gina's tap. She stood straight as a honeymoon hard-on. Her mouth fell open in a round O. She looked like an inflated vinyl blow-up doll (not that I'd know). “You can pile it on later,” I said, “with the help of one of those brilliant assistant DAs.” I turned to Gina. “Go ahead, sweetheart, tell the nice policeman all the naughty things you've been up to.”
She sputtered wordlessly for a second, cried “Blake,” then stopped herself. You could see the toys turning in her head. A change came over her face and, like that, she was as innocent as a nursery rhyme heroine. “I don't know what you're talking about,” she said.
“Yeah, me too, Blake,” Wenders shoved in, “what are you talkin' about?”
“I'm talking,” I said, “about a case where nothing added up the way it should have. There were clues all over the place. But every one shined a light in the wrong direction.” I jerked my head toward Love's body and was immediately sorry (not for Love, for the pain it caused me). When the acute ache ebbed and I knew my gourd was going to stay in place, I continued. “From the beginning, thanks to that prick cow-puncher, God rest his soul, most of what you boys were finding pointed at me. But you knew I didn't kill Katherine Delp. At the same time, what I was digging up put the cross-hairs on her husband, and you weren't having any of that. Because, in your world, rich people don't do bad things.”
“You're talkin', smart guy,” Wenders said. “Are you gonna say anything?”
“I've already said most of it, when I laid the case out for Delp…”
“You mean last night, when you accused him of multiple murders?”
“Yeah, Frank, then. Everything I told him, and you, was dead on. It was no surprise he innocently denied everything. I mean, what prison isn't full to the rafters with convicts that didn't do it? But it seemed strange that even a professional liar like Delp could seem so sincere. When he told me I was out of my mind, he genuinely appeared to mean it. Weird, huh?”
Wenders smacked his lips.
“My point is, if I hadn't known he was guilty, I might have thought him innocent. It took me a long time, too long, to wrap my brain around the notion that those same facts…” I turned to Gina. “Fit you, Miss Bridges, very nicely.”
She stared icy daggers but didn't say a word.
“You worshiped the ground Reverend Delp walked on. And you wouldn't have minded a bit owning some of it. You would have been happy to replace Katherine and, to that end, you made plans to get rid of her, for good. You met Reggie and Eddie in the prison outreach program. You convinced Delp to hire Reggie, a faithful servant. Meanwhile, you cultivated a relationship with Love because you knew that a maniac, under certain circumstances, might come in handy. I don't know if Delp had any part in the plan to kidnap his wife. If he did, I can't prove it now. But I know that you came up with it and you saw it through.”
“Wait,” Wenders barked. “What? That's the second time you've said that. What kidnap?”
“We've been over it, Lieutenant. That's how this started. The first intended criminal act; a kidnapping. But it actually started before… with rumors.”
“You mean like… at a church picnic?”
“No,” I said. “The opposite. Rumors at a church picnic are part true and spread like wildfire. These were calculated lies; nasty, un-Christian, but effective. Whispered secrets shared between the devout, secrets that to an amazing degree were kept. Different, contradictory secrets told to specific individuals for specific results with oaths sworn in the name of the Almighty. Conceived and initiated by the reverend's real right-hand, his secretary. Gina fired Nick Nikitin in Delp's name, then spread the word to the right people that the church was in financial trouble. As the sole remaining bookkeeper, handling everything from crusade reservations to ordering paper clips, she had no difficulty convincing those necessary. She conned Reggie into believing the ministry had to be saved and got Eddie t
o propose a drastic, dramatic plan. They would kidnap Katherine to spur donations and public interest. She would be hidden someplace safe and, when the church was saved, triumphantly returned unharmed to the glory of God. What Delp knew, I don't know. But what nobody knew, other than Gina and Eddie, was that Katherine would not be coming back.”
“How's she do all this,” Wenders asked, “without showing her hand?”
“Oh, you gotta spend some time around her, Frank. Gina could sell matches to Satan and convince him he's getting a bargain. She knows how to move people. It's quite a trick.”
“So she's Svengali's sister,” Wenders griped. “A perfect wonder. How's that make her a killer?”
“It doesn't. And she's not perfect; she made mistakes. Her biggest one came in the early innings when she let Love talk her into hiring me. Then she convinced Reggie it was his idea.”
“Blake,” Gina piped in. “This is all –”
“You were good, sister,” I said, cutting her off. “But you had no way of understanding my…” I stopped myself. I'd entered a mine field and was going to have to watch my step. “Let's put it this way,” I said. “You had no way of gauging my memory.”
It had come to me, in that last startling psychic flash I'd gotten on the balcony, the moment that Gina locked hands with Eddie and me. In that instant, I'd been transported back to Market Street, back in the path of the racing black car. I saw Love grinning like a chimp in the passenger's seat. I saw his chauffeur as they escaped the scene of multiple murder. But it was more than an escape; it was a trap, conceived on the spur of the moment, to murder a used-up detective that was getting too nosy. I'd never given her a critical suspicious thought because, beyond the personal feelings I'd allowed to creep in and destroy my thinking, I'd also taken certain aspects of the case at face value. That night, I'd just called her myself, awakened her to get the Riazs' address. It never occurred to me that, while she was sleeping soundly, she was acutely aware but blissfully indifferent to the murders taking place at that moment. That, at my call, she had gotten an idea, left her bed, hurried the short distance to the Riaz home, and collected her killer. That, with Love beside her, she then laid in wait for the ignorant gumshoe. I was a putz. I'd seen it in the vision as clear as a bell, Love's organ grinder, the steering wheel gripped tightly in her two white hands, glaring through the windshield at me as I flipped over the roof; Gina gritting her teeth as she tried to wipe me off the face of the earth. I couldn't tell any of that to Wenders of course. He wasn't a fan of my visions. I merely said, “I remember it now, clearly. Miss Bridges was driving the car that ran me down.”
“You can't prove that, Blake,” Gina said.
“And what,” Wenders growled, “will a defense attorney make of your returning memory?”
“Not as much,” I said, “as the DA can make of this.” I jammed my hand into Gina's coat pocket and, before she could react, like magic, pulled out a gun. The cops were as startled as she was and the patrol boys proved it by jerking for their weapons. I gave them the frown they deserved, then handed the little Raven .25-caliber Saturday night special to Wenders. “Like I said, just a few slip-ups that would have been easy to miss; odd things that didn't add, like inventing threats against Delp, nervously spilling her coffee when she thought Reggie had spilled the beans, distancing herself by pretending not to know the prison Reggie was in. And why does a church secretary have a police scanner? Hang on, Frank. They were meaningless threads that couldn't be tied, but there's more. Just now,” I told Gina. “Inside. It was cock-eyed that I could be laying on my back on that conveyor, watching Love grin like a hungry lion at my feet, when the machine fired up and took me for a tumble. Who started the belt? Not Eddie. And imagine my displeasure, upstairs a few minutes ago, when I checked Love's gun and found he'd fired only one round.” I pointed at Willie. “He has temporary possession of that bullet.”
The lieutenant offered a fleeting glance at Willie, who was leaking liquid red from the wound in his left shoulder, staining his newest stolen cop's uniform.
“A few minutes before Willie collected that,” I said, “someone fired at me inside. The shot ricocheted off a railing.” I turned to Gina. “That meant there was another gun; which meant that you weren't being very nice, angel. You played me for a country boy and I went right along with it. And all because I forgot the first rule of detecting: the worst trouble always looks good from the outside.”
For the first time I realized how blind I'd been about her, how blinded I'd been by everything. It had all happened exactly as I thought but I'd gone too high with the blame. Conrad Delp was a pompous ass but not a murderer. The wrath had never been his. It was possible he might still have had a hand but I doubted it, and knew I'd never prove it. No, Gina and Eddie had engineered the entire affair.
“How long did you lay there, Gina, on your apartment floor? How long was Love on top of you, holding that rock, waiting for me to get there? You were never in any danger, were you? It was all about Eddie setting me up one more time. The rock was meant for me.”
“You're wrong, Blake,” she said, refusing to give up and sounding as convincing as ever. Her eyes misted over. “It was Love. He was crazy. He wanted to kill me!”
“What's so crazy about that?” I asked. The mist turned to acid and Gina stared daggers. I returned them, sharpened. “Just now,” I said, “I'd like to kill you myself.”
“Blake, please.”
I wiped the blood from the corner of my mouth with the back of my hand, gave the gorgeous church secretary the last smile she'd ever see from me, and told her, “Shut up.”
She stopped the crying. She was a cold, hard baby that had had me completely snowed but the heat was on and the icy mask was melting. Her wide green eyes shrank to mean slits as surprise was replaced by something dark. I saw the change as clearly as I'd just seen her behind the wheel of the hit and run car. Evil took over her face; her lips peeled back from fierce white teeth, fire glinted in her eyes. “I should have taken my time,” Gina said. “I should've killed you when I had the chance.”
“Don't worry about it, honey,” Wenders told her sympathetically. “Everyone Blake meets comes away with that same thought.”
“He can't prove any of this,” she hissed. “Neither can you.”
“Yeah, well, we'll have to talk about that. Tracks get left in lots of places hard to cover up.” He turned to one of the uniformed officers. “Escort the lady out. Read her her rights.” The cop snapped the bracelets on Gina and, taking her by the arm, started down the alley out of the courtyard.
Though I'd participated in her downfall, I still couldn't believe it. How could anyone with those legs be so damned evil? It just wouldn't add. My head was starting to swim again and it must have shown because, somewhere outside of it, I heard Wenders bleating, “Blake. Hey! You all right?”
Before I could answer, Willie jumped in. “Forget Blake,” he demanded. “What about me?”
“Yeah what about you?” Wenders asked with disinterest. “Are you just sweatin' blood like usual? Or are you shot a little?”
“I'm shot!” Willie whined through his nose.
“That's just the start of your troubles,” Wenders growled. “You're under arrest for impersonating a police officer… again.” Mason and the remaining boy in authentic blue grabbed Willie and hauled him away. As they neared the mouth of the alley, Mrs. Banks' weasel of a son shouted back over his shoulder, “Blake, take care of my car, will ya?”
“Oh, Christ.” He was gone before I could refuse or call him a name.
“You know, Blake,” Wenders said, pointing in Willie's wake, “he ain't the only one's gotta quit acting like a cop.” It wasn't an argument I was ready to have. I grabbed my aching head, turned uneasily and started away. “Blake.”
I turned back to Wenders. The lieutenant pulled a plastic bottle from his pocket, the pain pills Mason had dug up for him the other morning, and tossed them to me. I was genuinely touched. Then I looked at the label, sighe
d all the way down to my toes, and tossed the bottle back. What could I say but, “I'm allergic.”
Wenders shrugged, pocketed the bottle, and turned his attention to Love. I followed his stare to the cowboy's mortal remains and thought a thought I never imagined I could. I hoped that though Eddie had refused to go gentle into that good night, anything but, he might at least go quietly. Yeah, I silently prayed that this corpse had nothing more to say. I limped slowly and alone from the courtyard, through the alley between the buildings, and into the flickering lights on the forgotten lawn – now a staging area for Chicago's finest.
Willie was being shoved into the back seat of a prowl car. Not far away, Gina sat in another, staring straight ahead with unmoving eyes. Mason was jawing with a couple of the patrol boys and, by the chevrons on his sleeves, the shift supervisor. Though we were in an area of the city too remote for the gathering of a large crowd, it was still Chicago, and there were still a few rubber-neckers in attendance. From among those, behind one of the empty squads, I heard a familiar shout and saw a familiar silhouette running my way. “Nod! Nod!”
The name alone was more than enough to identify the clamorer. It was either my secretary or my mother. And, as there was no way on earth my mom would miss one of her shows just to see if I was alive, I knew it had to be Lisa. One of the cops tried to stop her but she wasn't having any of it. She was by him in a flash and by the time she reached my side he no longer cared. Lisa grabbed me, hugged me, almost knocking me down. “Are you okay, Nod?
I was almost embarrassed by the anxious look on her face; almost.
“Eddie Love?”
I started to shake my head, regretted the vibration, and instead said, “No.”
“I see you got her,” Lisa said, indicating the squad holding Gina. Though I detected relish, there wasn't a hint of surprise in her voice. “I knew that you knew,” she added with pride. “For a while I thought you couldn't see it. Then I was afraid you refused to see it. But, in the end, I knew you'd figured it out; that Gina Bridges was behind the murders.”
Corpses Say the Darndest Things: A Nod Blake Mystery Page 23
