Girl Can't Help It: A Thriller (Krista Larson Book 2)

by Max Allan Collins

  “Oh, yes, very much!” she said. “I knew his late father. Isn’t Brian dating your daughter?”

  “He is.”

  “You could do worse.”

  They were at the side of the stage now, where four steps waited. Also waiting, onstage, against a black-curtained backdrop, was the drum kit up on its platform, the pair of keyboards facing front, two guitars and two basses on stands, and three mics across the front, plus their respective amplifiers. But these instruments of potential joy, delight, and even (as the Stones said) satisfaction were draped in murky shadows.

  Then the rack of lights above, and the footlights, too, snapped on, flashing redgreenyellowblue, redgreenyellowblue, and the crowd went crazy.

  As he guided the mayor up onto the stage, Keith looked out at the audience and they were wildly clapping and hollering, an endless stretch of them on the gentle slope down to the river, but to the left and right as well.

  It’s flippin’ Woodstock, he thought.

  All ages, eight to eighty (as the saying went), but the ones around his age, his vintage, had a special, slightly desperate glow.

  Keith slipped behind the massive stack of speakers at stage right. Anyone who rushed the stage with more than an autograph in mind would have him and his sidearm to deal with.

  The mayor headed out to the center microphone, pausing on the way to set down her purse on the edge of the drum platform. The way the audience reacted to her, she might have been the show.

  When they settled down, her amplified voice swept over the audience as she said, “As the mayor of the great city of Galena—the outdoor museum of the Victorian Midwest, in the words of some . . . the town that time forgot, in the words of others . . . and of course the home of President Ulysses S. Grant . . .”

  Lot of hooting at that, as if many in the throng had voted for him.

  “. . . I could not be more proud to introduce our native sons . . . members of the Iowa Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame . . . Beat Brothers Records recording artists . . . the boys behind ‘The Girl Can’t Help It’ . . . Hot Rod and the Pistons!”

  From the black curtain at the back of the stage, hanging in sections, the musicians stepped out, starting with the new members, Phil and Brian, and then the original surviving Pistons, Steve and finally Rod. They jogged to their instruments, the drummer hopping up on his private stage. The mayor was standing off to the left—stage right—looking as gleefully out of control as any of the fans here, grinning and clapping.

  Then, almost giddy, she scurried past Keith and down the stairs, and that was when he noticed she’d left her purse behind. He called to her, but she apparently didn’t hear him over the continuing applause, and something alarmed him about her expressionless urgency, as she moved quickly down below, across the front, where she didn’t have to navigate the crowd.

  The applause was continuing and Rod hadn’t even welcomed the audience yet when Keith ran out to the drum platform and leaned in at the purse perched there. It yawned open, just a bit—she’d left it unsnapped—and he could see the kitchen timer, running down, 2:29, 2:28, 2:27. Something yellow could be made out below. 2:26, 2:25 . . .

  He grabbed the purse up in both hands. Steve was the first to notice Keith’s apparently demented actions, and then the other guys turned toward their roadie, too, with WTF expressions.

  Keith shouted, “Get the hell off this stage! Go that way!” He nodded with his head behind him as he ran over to the steps and down, holding the purse in two hands, and into the crowd.

  “Out of the way!” he yelled. “Out of the way!”

  He yelled that again and again, keeping that word “bomb” to himself, knowing the panic it would bring, even as irritated and angry crowd members, comfy in their lawn chairs and on their butts on their blankets, swore at him, particularly if he jostled them, demanding to know what in God’s name he was doing.

  But no one touched him. No one wanted to wrestle with him or challenge him, because something of what he was up to conveyed itself, the urgency, the danger.

  Plenty of time, he said to himself, not believing it, plenty of time . . .

  And down the slope to the river’s edge he went, and once there, planted himself, and he hurled the purse into the water, sending it about halfway across. The thing went in with a plunk and a little splash.

  Then nothing.

  Behind him the crowd was getting vocal, fear and anger in about an equal mix, as the band had indeed departed the stage as Keith advised.

  He had his hands on his hips, thinking, The water put it out, when what sounded like the world’s loudest gunshot announced a geyser erupting in a towering shaft of boiling white that gathered itself into a ball before sending out watery shock waves as it dissipated and everyone but Keith, it seemed, was screaming.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Pandemonium.

  Moments before, Krista had been easing through the crowd without much problem, toward the back and near the slope down to the river, navigating the irregular rows of seating brought from home, folding chairs, blankets, beach chairs, even inflatables.

  Then everyone, stirred by the mayor introducing the band, got to their feet to turn their enthusiasm into a standing ovation, cheering, whistling, hooting, applauding for the Hot Rod & the Pistons reunion, about to fill their eyes and ears with good memories relived.

  This slowed her passage but never quite stopped it, until a murmur in the crowd worked itself into a collective gasp, building into real alarm, only to be overwhelmed by what might have been a double-barrel shotgun blast but wasn’t, and when she looked in that direction, with much of her immediate view blocked, Krista nonetheless had no trouble seeing the pillar of water leap into the sky accompanied by a roaring whoosh.

  She had no doubt about what she’d heard, not for an instant—that was a bomb, and not just some powerful Fourth of July bottle rocket, either. Nor had she any doubt that this bomb had been thrown into the river, for which she was thankful.

  And then the festival-goers were headed away from the river in every direction, as they trotted and scrambled and clambered across grassy ground littered with the chairs, blankets, and coolers they’d brought from home, an instant obstacle course. Despite the uniformed police presence that included Krista herself, no one paused to ask her anything. The only questions she heard, among the screams and shouts and yells, were various profane variations on “what the hell was that?”

  At least this was a clear night with a full moon, the lack of extensive lighting in the park offset by the old-fashioned streetlights on the bridge and across the river, and the bright colored lights on the portable stage. And except for some teenagers, no one was flat-out running—rather, they were clearing out, fast as they could, but people were keeping their heads.

  So far.

  As the crowd fanned out, many were heading east, away from the river and across the park and the train tracks and into the hilly residential area beyond. To the north, fest-goers were scurrying into the adjacent Grant Park, beyond Otto’s, or into the neighborhood nearby. Others were going south, toward the bridge, where wrought-iron stairs rose to the Spring Street Bridge/Highway 20 walkway that could take them back to town, since many locals had left their vehicles at home and walked over.

  This allowed Krista to make her way to the cleared slope near the river, and—shouting over the clamor—she spoke into her handheld radio: “All personnel! Initiate emergency procedures! Threat containment unknown. Crowd management protocols. Evacuate the park.”

  Then she made a separate call: “Lieutenant Harrison—use the stage microphone as our public address system. Attendees can be directed east or west or north, as they wish, but keep them moving in as orderly a fashion as possible!”

  That would not be easy—these were prime conditions for panic to feed a stampede. Galena’s police chief was well aware that stampedes in humans, as in cattle, were set off by perceived danger, and an orderly evacuation could quickly turn irrational out of the instinct for sel
f-preservation.

  But as she cast her eyes around the park, she was pleased to see her officers and others on the team, including Explorer Scouts, helping calm and direct the members of the public, guiding them back into being citizens again and not frightened animals.

  Families, couples on dates, packs of kids were moving quickly, but not frantically. The worst she saw was a frenzied family stepping across a pair of seated, confused senior citizens, like logs, as if a bear were in pursuit. More reassuring was the sight of the mayor serenely directing her constituents toward the stairs to the walkway, giving them smiles and nods. It might have been a fund-raiser.

  Somebody was panting and Krista turned and her father was standing there. Those icy-blue eyes of his were as wild as she’d ever seen them. He, too, had stayed at the river’s edge, waiting for the crowd to clear away from him, and had seen his daughter and rushed to her.

  He quickly told her of the mayor leaving her purse on the stage and how he’d discovered it was packed with explosives on a timer. And how he’d been the one who’d hurled the thing into the Galena River.

  “She’s our killer,” he said, still somewhat out of breath. “No idea what grudge Rhonda Rector holds toward Rod and the boys, but she murdered Rick and Dan and Donna, all right, and very likely Rory Michaels. That bomb had to be his handiwork.”

  “Well, the mayor’s right there,” an astounded Krista said, turning and gesturing.

  Already the front half of the increasingly abandoned park grounds were littered with chairs and blankets and coolers and trash left behind; it was a battlefield minus the dead. The vendor city was abandoned, too, though some sellers had taken time to shutter their food windows and lock up.

  With the Spring Street overpass looming, the calmly reassuring Mayor Rector was continuing to guide citizens up the metal stairs to the bridge walkway. Then she happened to glance Krista’s way and saw the chief of police and her father—the man who’d scuttled her plans—looking right at her, and Rhonda Rector’s pretty, serene face became an ugly, scowling thing.

  She pushed several no-longer-needed voters out of the way and started up the stairs to the bridge. Two steps at a time.

  Krista used her radio. “Reynolds, detain the mayor! She’s our suspected bomber.”

  The officer, positioned at the top of the stairs, was using his shoulder mic. Even from where Krista and her father were standing, his bewildered expression was obvious. “Repeat, please.”

  That gave the mayor time to give the officer a vicious shove, and he went flailing over the side and landed with a whump, on his back.

  “Good God,” her father said.

  “Get him help, Pop,” she said.

  Krista was on the run now, with only the abandoned belongings of the fest-goers to navigate. As she went, she called dispatch to circulate the suspect’s clothing description and direction of travel, so all police working in the area could respond as event evacuation demands allowed. Though her people obviously knew Mayor Rector, she added a description for the out-of-towners pitching in. In the meantime, she said, she would track the suspect.

  The mayor had fallen in with the fleeing fest-goers on the walkway, moving toward town. Krista paused just a few moments at the fallen officer, found him breathing, but unconscious.

  Then she went up the stairs, slipping past the other climbers, who saw who it was and made room. At the top, she found the right lane already bumper-to-bumper—the first to flee the fest had wasted no time getting to their cars—with the other lane barely in use.

  Krista slipped between backed-up vehicles and walked the centerline, hoping to spot Rhonda Rector among the residents and tourists walking briskly toward their homes or hotel rooms. She felt an unexpected surge of pride for the people she served and protected—this emergency exodus seemed surprisingly orderly, and she anticipated few if any major injuries.

  Not counting police officers pushed off the bridge by the mayor, anyway.

  Krista kept walking down that centerline, to scope out the refugees moving along the narrow walkway, two and three abreast. The oldest people and a few heavier ones slowed the process, but not much, and she got eyes on every one of them—Rhonda Rector had nowhere to hide here.

  But neither was the woman in sight.

  Apparently the time it had taken Krista to get to the stairs and up onto the bridge—her haste compromised by having to call in to dispatch—had given the mayor an advantage. When the sidewalk of retreating fest-goers made the curving turn off the bridge and onto South Main, Krista kept heading down the centerline, again with gridlock at right and lighter traffic at left. The pilgrimage back into town continued, now on opposite sidewalks, residential bluff on one side and riverfront on the other.

  Where would the woman have gone?

  If the mayor was on her way to her Queen Anne house on the aptly named High Street, Rhonda Rector would have a long, hard, steep trek ahead. Rector Real Estate on North Main was an easier walk, but not nearby, and anyway what could be waiting for the woman there? Money perhaps? A car in the agency’s tiny parking lot?

  Had Rhonda even anticipated what she might do if her plans were thwarted? If capture seemed imminent?

  Krista passed by the small veterans memorial park at left before going through Galena’s massive floodgates, over which flapped a banner—ROCK AND COUNTRY MUSIC FEST. Going through these steel portals, the sidewalk ran out briefly and the evacuees followed the police chief into the historic downtown district, as if this woman in a baseball cap and shorts, with a gun on her hip, were their guru.

  But perhaps half of her followers abandoned her leadership when they realized she was heading down South Water Street, as their homes and hotel and B and B rooms were better accessed by Main. The few remaining acolytes were going to their cars, parked along the grassy rise of the levee. Cars were piled into, started up, and gone.

  Soon Krista was alone, as if she were on a street in a deserted town, or drifting through a dream landscape where the streetlights glowed but no lights were on in buildings.

  Through all of this, she stayed alert, though it seemed absurd to think Rhonda would find a wall to hide behind, some alleyway to cling to, waiting for a chance to take by surprise the police chief tracking her.

  Yet Krista’s mind was working that way. The emptiness of the street, as she cut left by the venerable post office up to South Commerce, felt like an Old West town where the good folks were inside, cowering and watching, anticipating a shoot-out.

  As she continued down the empty street, Krista passed Antiques A Go Go, Danny Davies’s ghost seeming to point the way to the one building on South Commerce that had all its lights on.

  City Hall.

  Had those lights been burning any brighter, the place might have been on fire. She got on her radio and gave the dispatcher her location, and said to send available units ASAP. Then she crossed into the parking lot, where only a few vehicles took up spaces.

  She unholstered her Glock 21, held it in one hand, its nose up. Staying low, moving parallel to the low-slung modern brick building, she jogged across, seeing no activity through the facade’s many windows, no one inside at all. She reached the far left of the front of the building, put her back to the wall, Glock in both hands now, and peeked around to have another look, a closer one.

  No one in there.

  Not visible anyway. No one in the cubicles, no one she could see in the city council area beyond. No sign of life, except for all those lights somebody switched on. She felt, oddly, as if she were being invited in.

  Was that an invitation she should accept?

  If Rhonda Rector was inside, this was not the mayor of Galena. This was a psychopath who had poisoned at least three people, likely blown up another, and had just done her best to create a fiery death for Rod & the Pistons and anyone else near enough to be collateral damage.

  Staying very low, she hustled over to the front door. She got out her cell.

  “Yes,” her father’s voice said t
ensely.

  “I think she’s in her office, Pop,” Krista said. “At City Hall.”

  “Wait for backup. We’ll get several units over there, and we’ll have some of the SWAT boys with us. Don’t do anything . . . just maintain your position.”

  “Who made you chief?” She clicked off.

  She tried the front door.

  Open.

  She moved slowly through the small lobby, then found the door to the main area unlocked as well, and went on through, the Glock’s nose high but ready. The former grocery store seemed suddenly huge, a vast open space despite the cubicles and chairs arranged before the recession with the council’s table and the city seal. Doors to offices on the periphery of the council chamber were closed, though one directly ahead of her—to this side of that meeting-area recession—was open.

  The mayor’s office.

  Another invitation?

  That she should probably refuse? If she walked over there, assuming the mayor was waiting for her within, would a crazed Rhonda Rector pop up from behind a cubicle, or out from behind the podium, and start blasting away?

  Really? Krista asked herself. What makes you think she’s armed, anyway?

  She answered herself: What makes you think she isn’t . . .

  She advanced, turning in a slow-but-not-too-slow pirouette, ready for whatever might come. Moving past the bullpen at left, and the chairs and podium at right, and the closed office doors behind those chairs, and the ones across the way, and . . .

  . . . nothing happened.

  The mayor’s office, its door standing open, beckoned. Krista moved right, to look in, and the mayor was seated there, behind her desk. Expressionless. The pretty ash blonde looked poised, composed, not even rumpled. Both hands were visible, her right hand clenched. Her left just resting on the desktop. No weapon. Nothing but a glass of water.

  Cautiously, Krista entered.

  “Sit,” Rhonda said. She smiled just a little. “Please.”

  Krista lowered the Glock but did not holster it. She did not take the chair waiting for her across from the mayor. “You’re under arrest, Your Honor.”