“The voices say you are evil,” Walter said. “They say both of you are evil!”
Solo cast a rueful look at the ruined mandala. “Guilty as charged. We are a little evil.”
“Evil infests you.” Walter’s eyes were pinpoints. “Evil spews from you. Evil!”
“Now wait a minute. Wait a doggone minute,” Solo said. “At least we’re honest about it, not like those deceptive fat-free labels. Under a gram of fat is still fat, you know?”
“That’s right. Joke around. You wanna know what happens to evil? I smite it!” Walter barked comically. “I smite it with my whip.”
Solo laughed. “Well, if that isn’t a little overkill.”
I jabbed my elbow into his side to shut him up.
“Well it is, Rylie. Bleach kills everything, even evil, I’m bettin’. And the guy has a whole bottle of it under his hat. Nice hat, by the way. Is it genuine fur felt?”
“Quiet!” Walter vibrated with anger through a couple beats of silence. Muttering something that was too low to hear, he raised his concealed right hand to level at us a scary-ass gun.
Air stuck in my chest.
The gun was sleek, black, and police issue. A dead ringer to Zach’s.
I told myself not to jump to conclusions. No jumping. No jumping!
Solo shifted sideways, shielding me from Walter. Hands up in surrender, he glanced over his shoulder and told me to stay put. His fear was obvious, but it was not the lip-trembling horror I knew was plastered on my face. I was a coward whereas Solo was anxiously brave.
“Looky here, the big guy isn’t so funny anymore,” Walter said, snickering.
His sick laugh made me brace for gunfire, but instead he just stepped to the storage room door and pushed it open. “Join us, one and all. We’ve got ourselves a comedian.”
I’d been expecting Zach, so when Walter—using the whip as a prod—forced five bald monks of various ages into the narrow space behind the counter, where they assembled shoulder-to-shoulder to face us, I eased out a relieved breath. I couldn’t help it, even though we were still in harm’s way.
Walter made a great circle in the air with the handgun. “Come on! Come on!” he said to an unseen person in the storage room. I thought—more like hoped—Zach would enter the lobby and say, “Just kidding, Rylie. It’s all a joke.”
Instead, I got, “Hold your horses,” from FoY resident, retired Nazi hunter, and long-established germaphobe Gilad Kupper as he sauntered into view. He never looked at me, not once, just took his place beside the last monk in line. “I gotta hand it to you,” he said to Walter. “You do crazy well.”
I couldn’t breathe, could barely stand. Where was Zach?
Gilad looked at me—finally. His intense brown eyes were cunning darts in a deeply lined, furious face. A hunter’s face. The face he assumed when he talked of hunting down Nazis, of sometimes killing them if they resisted arrest. “Genius plan, Rylie,” he said, his voice sharp, and oddly harsh. “Asking Tita to pick up your forgotten items at the trestle is why we’re here—at the mercy of this lunatic.”
Everyone looked at me, even Walter. It was like being scolded in class. I knew my breath was coming out in pants. “I’m sorry,” I said with a whimper. “Is Tita okay? Where is Zach? Please, please tell me they’re all right.”
“Have some respect.” Gilad spat. “Stop begging.”
I swallowed hard, feeling dazed and humiliated.
“Go ahead and talk.” Walter pressed the gun to Gilad’s shoulder. “Have fun with her, make her squirm.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Well, tough.” Gilad slapped away the gun as though it were a dreaded germ rather than a lethal weapon. “Zach, get out here. You, too, Tita.”
Zach stepped from the storage room, followed by Tita, who was still dressed in kitchen whites, her dyed blond hair sporting considerable brown roots. They took their place beside Gilad, wordlessly, sullenly.
I bit my lip. Blood streamed down Zach’s cheek, the result of an angry gash at his temple. My eyes rounded, and I forced myself to focus on his chin to keep from fainting at the sight. Zach swayed a little, his legs buckling. Tita grabbed his arm to support him.
“Hey, you, Walter the Nutcase.” Tita pressed my jacket to Zach’s head wound. “This man needs a doctor. Let us go or else.”
A shiver ran up my spine.
Walter swung around on Zach, talked low to his ear. “You won’t press charges, will you, Officer O’Neil? Not when shaking that tree will bring forth the truth. And you don’t want that, do you? Believe me, a cop who gives up his gun without a fight is bad news.”
Zach finally met my gaze, and in his eyes, I saw the truth behind Walter’s accusation. I stared at him over Solo’s shoulder. There was no fight left on his face. He looked lost.
“Let me tell you, O’Neil,” Walter went on. “Kids fight harder to keep their candy than you did your gun. Search me how you ever made it on the force.”
Tita stared at me, her eyes weighty—signaling. My mind blanked on what she was trying to tell me, so I shrugged.
She rolled her eyes, shifted to Gilad, and nodded.
Gilad fell into a diatribe of hot-blooded Yiddish, followed by the five monks releasing a volley of what sounded like soft-spoken Tibetan.
“English, please!” Tita shouted.
“Oh, that’s rich,” Gilad said. “You illegals always refuse to learn English.”
Walter watched them, fascination on his face, his eyes bouncing from one to the other.
It struck me, then. This argument was a diversion, so I could perhaps do something brave like launch over the counter and subdue Walter. However, my legs were pickets of ice.
“You must be senile,” Tita told Gilad. “I speak English. I’m a citizen.”
“Groyseh Macher,” Gilad said, his tone insulting. “So you say.”
“Don’t get me started, old man,” she said. “I’ll make mincemeat with your liver.”
Gilad bristled. “This is what happens when we don’t fence off our borders. You’re sucking dry our resources, exhausting my tax dollars.”
“I told you, I’m a citizen!” Tita said. “And I pay a lot more taxes than you do, you social security bloodsucker. And my parents paid taxes before they retired. We are good citizens. We vote. We support our church.”
“Pish posh,” Gilad said. “Try being a Nazi hunter. Now that’s a good citizen.”
Waking from a nightmare would not have surprised me more than Walter looking at Gilad with eyes full of wonder. “You’re really a Nazi hunter?”
“One of the best before retirement.”
“Cool,” Walter said. “I wanna be a Nazi hunter. Can you get me a job?”
Gilad eyed the gun in Walter’s hand. “I might be able to arrange something.”
“You a Nazi hunter,” Tita said with a laugh. “You gotta be kidding. You are insane. They don’t let insane people hunt Nazis.”
Walter’s nose flared.
“You wanna piece of me?” Tita egged him on. “Come on. Ditch the gun. I’ll show you how big girls smite evil.”
“For chrissake, Tita, shut up,” Zach hissed.
Walter grinned. “Looky here, paging Seattle Times. Frozen with fear cop finally finds his voice. Cat got your gun.” He laughed at his own joke.
“We aren’t done with this yet,” Zach said with gritted teeth.
“Oooo, I’m scared.” Walter leveled the gun to Zach’s temple.
My heart skipped a beat. Somehow, I broke my bond with fear and rushed forward. “Don’t be a dope, Walter. Assaulting a cop is a felony.”
He rolled his neck my way; his eyes hard as he stalked around the counter, closed in. “It was you. You!” he shrieked in a sudden blind rage.
A chilled black silence engulfed me. When he pressed the gun to my nose, my knees buckled; I hit the floor. Thump.
“I’m gonna blow out your brains,” he hissed.
I begged for my life, my hands up in surrender.
>
“Say the word dope, slower this time. Say it!” he screamed.
“Sweet Jesus,” Zach said in the background.
I stared at him, bewildered. What did he know that I didn’t? And what did the word dope have to do with it? Then it hit me. Sweet Jesus was right.
Before I could think, I babbled out a slew of panicked apologies. Never once did I consider my suicide training. How could I? My mind was empty. Gone was all knowledge of negotiation, of taking command of a tense situation.
“Walter,” I began. “Please don’t be mad.” I was too scared to meet his eyes. “I never meant to hurt you. I didn’t know it was a live call. I was only a trainee on the suicide hotline. Believe me, please. I’m begging you.”
“You dumb bitch. I almost killed myself that night.”
“I’m sorry,” I said repeatedly, my eyes blurred by tears.
And then, out of the haze around me, Solo came up from behind, wrapped his arm around Walter’s neck, and yanked. Walter wilted, tongue out. I was halfway into a sigh of relief when the gun slipped from his hand, bounced on the floor, and discharged. A female scream only vaguely penetrated. To clear my vision, I blinked several times. All eyes were on Zach. He had Tita pressed against the wall behind the desk, his forearm thrust against her throat. Angry color flooded his face.
“Zach, no!” I scrambled to my feet, swayed.
His eyes met mine, held. I got a vague feeling that what Zach feared most—a flashback—had happened. I couldn’t move. I could only stare back at him, his tortured gray eyes, and his white-knuckled grip on the arm he had pressed to her throat.
“Let her go,” I said softly. “This isn’t the convenience store.”
Slowly he released her, and slowly disbelief crept into his face as he stared at his open hands. “I heard the shot,” he said. “She was—was firing on us. I had to stop her. Kill her.”
I rushed to him on woozy legs, but he shook me off.
“Leave me alone. Just leave me alone.”
Footsteps approached, thundering. The broken door flew open, glass shards scattering across the floor. A sea of officers rushed in, guns drawn. A lot of shouting arose, followed by a cacophony of explanations and thanksgiving in several languages.
Eventually two officers led a stirring Walter to the holding cell, while another carted off the gun to the evidence cage. Yancy tended to Zach’s head wound. Solo and I stood by in silence, awaiting our turn to give statements.
I cast a sideways look at Tita, whose statement had followed Gilad’s and appeared to be wrapping up. “Boy, no free rides around this place. He grilled me like I was still a Las Chicanas,” she said in reference to her former gang affiliation. “Damp, cold, and barely fit for people, these cop hideouts are, you know?”
Gilad joined us from the front window where he’d stood for the last fifteen minutes. “I had no idea Otto was dead. Why didn’t somebody tell me?”
All three of our mouths stayed shut for several seconds, and then Solo described the accident, how Otto’s body was found, concluding with, “It was no random act of violence.”
“That’s unfortunate,” Gilad said. “Come on, you three. Do I have to spell everything out? We’re all suspects.”
The station chief strode in, looked around, and asked to speak to Zach in private. He rose, followed her through the broken doorway. He never looked back.
~Due to recent cutbacks, the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off~
“I hope Zach is okay,” Solo said for what was the tenth time in the last hour.
I put on a brave face. “He’ll be fine.”
We were mainlining Slurpees from 7-Eleven as we worked FoY’s booth at the ongoing marathon. Actually, it was more a canopy with tenting overhead and no sides. Runners drifted past in patchy groups or as singles on the cordoned off street. Lots of spectators still milled about, but few stopped to pick up FoY brochures or ask questions. Most hurried past, eager to sample some hot wings from the Roaring Wing’s booth next door, or juice from Jamba Juice across the street.
“You can’t always be sure,” Solo went on, frowning. “My mom’s kid brother was never the same after he came back from the Iraq War. PTSD did a real number on him.”
“Zach will be fine,” I said again, a little desperately.
“Hope so. Tao just took off one night. We haven’t seen him since.”
Beneath my calm veneer, my nerves wheeled. But that wouldn’t help Zach. I needed to be strong for him. He was a fighter. Fighters fight. Fighters win. I’d seen that on a bumper sticker once, it had to be right.
“Uh-oh, your hair is dull again,” Solo said. “We should hit the mandala again.”
“I’m okay.” I tossed my empty cup into the trash. “My karma is in good shape.”
“How do you know?”
“Walter didn’t kill anyone,” I said. “You were awesome, by the way.”
I couldn’t say more, couldn’t call attention to my failure. Yet I could not ignore the truth, either. Even if I had remembered my negotiation training—stay calm, meet their eyes, no pleading, and no apologies—I doubt I would have used it, my fear had been so deep.
Solo rested a hand to my shoulder. “For a minute there, I thought we’d lost you.”
“Thanks for saving my life.” I said the words, but recognized their inadequacy.
“I think Walter will be okay,” he said, looking shaken. “The paramedics thought he would. I sure hope he is. I’d hate to have hurt him for good, like brain damage or something.”
I covered his hand with mine. “I know violence bothers you. I’m sorry.”
For a minute neither of us spoke, just looked at each other, thankful to be alive.
“The good news is the monks weren’t mad about the wrecked mandala.” He held up a small silk bag. “They even gave me some sand.”
“What for?”
“To scatter over water, spread the blessing of the mandala. Good timing, too. I need my karma squeaky clean by audition time.”
“You got an audition?” I asked, surprised. “When? How come you didn’t tell me?”
He looked playfully at me from under his bushy eyebrows. “It’s sort of been a busy morning. I’ve only known a few hours. It was on my recorder when I stopped by the sailboat. It’s in October, right before Halloween.”
Though my heart sank, I made a triumphant gesture with my fist. “So many cities to perform in, so little time to be at home. I’m gonna miss you.”
He blushed. “It’s been awhile since someone missed me.”
“Mama birds love to see their fledglings soar,” I said, my cheeks burning now at my clumsy attempt to catchphrase like Alistair. “Point is, your mom will, too.”
“Maybe,” he said, looking doubtful. “But Cirque du Soleil isn’t the NFL.”
“I think we’re going to need to bring in a referee on this one. Cirque du Soleil is so much more than the NFL.”
“Thanks.” His face pinched with concern. “Here comes Gilad and Tita.”
“Why the frown?” I asked.
“Here we are putting all our energy into proving Booth guilty, but is it wise to focus on only one suspect? We can’t exclude anyone from last night’s fundraiser.”
I considered a moment. “Looks like I’ve reached my first investigative low point,” I said. “I should have known that. We need to get them apart, question them. I call dibs on Tita.”
“Be careful,” he said. “She may be a friend, but she has a dark past.”
I was nodding now, certain we both had our work cut out for us. “No need to ask what strategy you’ll use. Gilad responds best to flattery.”
“Paved with good intentions of course.”
“Of course,” I said.
Tita and Gilad sauntered up to the brochure table. As usual, they were bickering.
“So it’s official. I’ve run out of patience,” Tita told him. “Just suck it up. A bit of fat won’t kill you.”
Gilad’s eyes bug
ged. “When one asks for a fat-free blintz, one oughtta get a fat-free blintz.”
Tita grabbed the blintz and pushed it into her mouth. “There. You’ve dodged a bullet.”
“Astounding,” he said. “You would clog your arteries for me.”
“Don’t get all mushy. To shut you up, I’d eat bacon fat.”
“Now you’re just embarrassing yourself,” he said. “And here you’re married to a Jew.”
“Was married to a Goldberg, not anymore,” she told him.
“Either way, you know we don’t eat pork.”
“Don’t be silly. Otto did, and he was Orthodox.” She looked to each of us before going on. “If you wanna know the truth, Otto slipped me something extra to bring him breakfast in bed. Coffee with milk, eggs, and bacon. It’s no secret now because I already told the police. The dinero wasn’t huge, but it fed my new car fund. I wanna buy a Subaru.”
“I’d have never guessed,” Gilad said, scratching his head.
“You saying I don’t look like the outdoorsy type?” she asked him.
“What?—no,” he said. “I just never knew an Orthodox who ate pork.”
“That’s it,” I said, looking at Tita. “That’s what you were hiding on the phone.”
She nodded. “Yeah, I was afraid the cops would think I’d tried to shake down Otto for more dinero, maybe killed him by accident,” she said in a voice riddled with worry. “No way was I gonna take that chance. I’ve got two kids. They need me, so I told them pronto. A Detective Talon took my statement over the phone. Hot accent,” she said with a lusty whistle.
“Hot guy,” I said, then felt my cheeks go pink again.
“About damn time,” she said. “Face it, you and Zach are destined to remain friends.”
“I think Talon is soft on Rylie,” Solo said with a wink.
“Hey, I have an idea,” Tita said. “Why don’t you ask him out?
I gave a start. “Are you crazy? I couldn’t do that.”
“Why not?” she asked.
Malicious Mischief (A Rylie Keyes Mystery) (Entangled Select) Page 11
