Act of Betrayal

by Shirley Kennett

  He found himself staring at Lemont’s naked butt. The man was standing at the sink, shaving. The room was steamy. He’d just taken a shower. Most of the mirror was fogged up, but Schultz could see Lemont’s face reflected there as he lifted his chin and ran the razor down his throat.

  Heart thudding in his chest, Schultz froze in place. Lemont hadn’t reacted at all, hadn’t seen him. The man calmly rinsed the razor under the faucet. Feeling like a Peeping Tom, Schultz quickly scanned the interior of the bathroom. It looked as though the window was easily accessible from where Lemont stood, and it would be his logical bolt-hole as soon as Vince pounded on the front door and announced himself.

  Schultz slowly lowered his head until he was clear of the window, then positioned himself next to it on the fire escape, pressing against the wall of the building. He drew his gun and waited for all hell to break loose.

  A shotgun blast jolted him, and he almost pulled the trigger on a wild shot himself. A heartbeat later, the first sound still in his ears, the shotgun was fired again.

  His partner didn’t have a shotgun. Something was terribly wrong.

  He looked in the window. Lemont was nowhere to be seen. Schultz realized the man must have seen him after all, and had just kept his cool, pretended that he didn’t see an extra set of eyes in the mirror.

  Schultz had spooked the man toward Vince, just the opposite of what he intended to do.

  He shoved the window up hard and dove in head first. Schultz found his cheek mashed up against the porcelain base of the toilet and his left leg twisted painfully. He righted himself and dashed for the door. It had been only seconds since the second blast.

  He raced through the door and down a short hall, his breath coming fast and his chest heaving. There wasn’t time to give in to the sickness that churned in his gut. He rounded the end of the hall, and there was Lemont, framed in the open front doorway.

  Lemont hadn’t stopped to get dressed. In his left hand he held a bulging briefcase with papers shoved hastily into the side pockets. His right hand was hooked around a shotgun, the butt shoved up in his armpit and the barrel lowered. He was prodding something with his foot, something that had to be Vince’s body. A glance at his partner lying there, face and chest splattered with blood and opened up like ripe fruit in a compost pile, sent a bolt of rage through Schultz’s body—rage at this lowlife shithead for blowing Vince away, and rage at himself for letting it happen.

  Lemont started to step over the body. In a moment he’d be gone, a naked animal running with the others in the street, maybe never trapped and made to pay for the life he’d taken.

  Schultz took his stance and pumped several bullets into Lemont Clark. The first went into the back of his shoulder, and the rest into his chest when he turned.

  The heat of the rage left Schultz almost immediately, and the blackness receded from the edges of his vision. He looked down at the carnage and shivered. Coldness crept up through his feet, where he stood in the mingled blood of his partner and the coldhearted bastard who’d killed him. He wondered if he was any different from Lemont, and he thought about Vince’s girlfriend and her twin babies, and he thought about the news Detective Glen Mandoleras was going to get about his son.

  He lifted his own gun toward his face and looked down the barrel for as long as it took his breathing to return to normal, trying to remember how many shots he’d fired and whether there was one bullet left to deal with his overwhelming failure. The three of them would make a nice pile on the floor, however untidy.

  On some subconscious level, Schultz decided that he’d have to live with the events of the last few minutes. The urge to pull the trigger slipped away, and reason returned. He bent over, fumbled around in the mess, and came up with Vince’s belt radio. Schultz hardly ever had his own handy when he needed one. He pressed the talk button. “Officer down. Repeat, officer down.”

  Fourteen

  SCHULTZ WENT THROUGH THE motions of getting ready for bed in the motel in Billings, but his thoughts were focused on Glen Mandoleras. He tried to dredge up every last bit of information about the man that he could remember.

  Glen had joined the St. Louis Police Department sometime around 1980, Schultz thought. He remembered that because it seemed to him that father and son came on board within a few months of each other, an oddity in a world where age generally corresponded to number of years on the job. A man Glen’s age would normally have a couple of decades of seniority. Glen had been a Vietnam vet, lean and muscled and still with a military bearing even though his time in-country was long past. He never talked about what he did after the war and before he moved into law enforcement, and eventually his fellow officers stopped asking. Glen moved up fast, and seemed to have an affinity for narcotics work on the street. Schultz knew him well enough to trade cop talk, but their paths didn’t cross much.

  Vince Mandoleras died at Schultz’s feet in 1985, and after that Vince’s father’s work never did recover. Glen was broken by his son’s death, but after some initial anger didn’t seem to hold it against Schultz, who had been cleared by Internal Affairs. Schultz had claimed self-defense, and IA had gone for it, although they’d raked him over the coals for a few months about that shot in the rear shoulder. After that, Schultz found that green detectives weren’t exactly lining up to be partnered with him, and over the next few years his own field assignments had tapered off. Glen took early retirement around 1990 and moved out of state. He moved somewhere warm, but Schultz couldn’t remember exactly where. By now, Glen would be in his mid-sixties—old enough to be retired for real.

  The years could change a person, Schultz knew. Bitterness could grow and take over a person’s whole outlook until it became the only reason for living. Schultz’s actions had planted a seed of bitterness in Glen’s heart thirteen years ago. Had it withered over time, or was it mature, ready to be reaped in a vengeful harvest?

  Schultz felt good to have a direction for his investigation. He had some phone calls to make if he was going to track down Glen Mandoleras, the man he suspected had awakened one day filled with blackness and hate. The man who had taken a son for a son, and then some.

  Giving up on the prospect of getting to sleep, Schultz decided he might as well get started. There was a lot of work to be done, and lying around pretending to sleep wouldn’t accomplish anything except mussing the sheets. He needed help, and Anita Collings was the person he turned to. She had an intense sense of loyalty, the ability to keep her mouth shut, and a true cop’s feel for the brotherhood of law enforcement, even if she was a sister. He dialed her phone number.

  “Collings,” she answered groggily. Belatedly, he remembered it was past midnight. He didn’t apologize for calling late, though.

  “Anita, it’s Schultz,” he said.

  “I’m listening.” Her voice was suddenly alert and intense.

  “I want you to do some things for me, outside channels and no questions asked. Can you do that?”

  There was a moment’s hesitation, and he thought perhaps he’d misjudged her.

  “Sure, boss,” she said.

  “First is find out if my ex-wife is at the home of Cassandra Wilkins in Spring Creek, Florida. It’s on the Gulf side, south of Tallahassee.” He heard her rooting for paper and pen, and gave her a minute to get it down.

  “I’m not sure if she’s made it there yet. You might have to check back in a couple of days. Tell Cassie that Burpy wants to know, so Julia’ll be sure that it’s really me you’re making the call for.”

  “Burpy?”

  “Yeah, Burpy. Got a problem with that?”

  “That’s not one of the Seven Dwarfs, is it?”

  “None of your business. You ready for the next one?”

  “Fire way, boss. Things can only go up from Burpy.”

  Fifteen

  CUT SLEPT PART OF the day Wednesday. After Tuesday night’s exhilarating knife work, he was too keyed up to do anything but channel surf in his motel room for hours. It was that or walk
the streets, and he didn’t want to take any chances with being picked up. He finally fell asleep, still sitting up in bed, sometime around dawn. He woke a few hours later with a stiff neck and a ravenous hunger.

  A hot bath and a couple of steakburgers improved his attitude until he could laugh at himself for even noticing the discomforts. He was getting decadent in his old age. He resolved to double his morning workout, at least until he got back to his old environment.

  Things were going well, except that there had been no public announcement of Schultz’s arrest for the little girl’s death. In fact, there was very little in the news at all about the hit-and-run—a couple of paragraphs on page six of the Post, and no detailed description of the vehicle or driver. Peculiar. He had circled the block until there were a couple of witnesses handy before aiming the car at the girl. Didn’t those witnesses come forward?

  That’s the problem with people nowadays, he thought. No one wants to get involved.

  Then it occurred to him that Schultz’s fellow police officers were covering for him. He should have foreseen that. Loyalty was important. Hell, he’d do it himself.

  It would have been nice if Schultz spent some time in prison before Cut killed him. That way the misery would have been spread out over time, and Cut would have gladly waited five or ten years and then gone after him when he was on the outside again. That was the original plan, but if Cut had learned anything in his military and post-military activities, it was to keep his options open.

  The next step was to scope out a venue for the job. Cut thought about brazenly walking into police headquarters and blowing Schultz away. He let himself run with it for a few minutes, enjoying the images, playing around with different body sites he’d aim at, then tossed it aside. He was a practical man. He knew he wouldn’t accomplish his goal with a plan like that, and even if he did, he wouldn’t come out of it alive. That wasn’t good. He wanted to live. He had a reason to live.

  As long as Cut was alive, he could keep the memory of his son alive inside him, and somehow that made his son a little less dead.

  No, it wasn’t a suicide mission.

  Cut took the bus over to Lafayette Avenue to take a look at Schultz’s house. He got off a few blocks away and strolled down the sidewalk. It was afternoon, and a fine day for August at that, but there was minimal activity in the neighborhood. The yuppies who lived in the rehabbed houses were all at work, and many of the houses that hadn’t undergone an internal remodeling and an external face-lift belonged to people too old or sick to be outside. There were a few stay-at-home moms. He could tell by the minivans.

  It was summertime, and the yards should have contained at least a few kids playing. But the kids were inside soaking up the air-conditioning and probably playing Nintendo, useless hunt-and-strike games that were no substitute for the real thing.

  He walked past Schultz’s house and continued on to Lafayette Park. There he did find evidence of life. Preschoolers fed the ducks and skinned their knees on the playground. Mothers talked about whose kid did what first. He didn’t linger. A lone man earned sharp glances from protective mothers, and he didn’t want to draw attention to himself. Cut left the park, crossed Lafayette, and walked back toward Schultz’s house on the opposite side of the street. He found what he was looking for a few houses past his target.

  It was a house that looked as if no one was home, and there was a garden hose hanging next to an outdoor faucet. He walked around the back of the house, acting as if he had every right to do so, and found a treasure trove: garden tools in an unlocked outdoor storage shed. He put on the owner’s cap and gloves, picked up the hedge shears, and went around the front of the house. There he trimmed the bushes under the front windows. He worked slowly, spending most of his time watching Schultz’s house. When he ran out of trimming work, he bundled the cuttings and left them around the back of the house. Then he got the hose out and watered the front lawn. It was a hot afternoon for outdoor work. No one paid any attention to him, possibly because they didn’t want to imagine themselves out there sweating.

  He watched a woman park in front of Schultz’s house and go in. Not long afterward, the front drapes suddenly opened and the woman stood there, staring out. Worried that she would spot him and remember his face, he bent over and weeded out some crabgrass, giving her a rear view. She came out later with a grim look on her face. He didn’t recognize her. It wasn’t Schultz’s ex-wife—he knew what Julia Schultz looked like.

  He made up his mind that he could easily break into the house. He’d do it when Schultz wasn’t home, and then wait for him inside. If all went well, he’d have enough time for a slow kill.

  That was for later, though. Cut methodically put the tools back, putting in the effort to clean the hedge shears and wondering whether the owners would even notice that the lawn fairy had visited while they were away.

  It was time to go back to the motel, get something cool to drink, and build the bomb.

  Sixteen

  PJ SAT AT THE desk in her small office in the headquarters building. Thomas was staying with Winston for the next few days, so she didn’t have to be home at any particular time. She had gotten back to her office Wednesday evening to find Anita gone. Anita had been through the simulations and hadn’t even been impressed enough to leave a note.

  There had been some excitement that afternoon when Kathee Kollins had recognized Ginger’s name. Kyla was called back into the room, and Kathee, PJ, and Kyla signed intently while Dave sat impatiently, frustrated by not following the conversation. PJ then explained to him that yes, the imaginary playmate’s name was Ginger Miller, but the name came from a woman who’d been a volunteer in the hospital during one of Kyla’s surgeries. She was “about two hundred years old,” according to Kyla, had been a schoolteacher for at least a hundred of those, and had been very nice to Kyla during her stay.

  Dave promptly checked with the hospital and found that the woman did exist. She had been a volunteer for a decade, and had died last spring at the age of ninety.

  Dead end.

  Whether the name had any significance or was just a coincidence was impossible to say. PJ and Dave both leaned toward it being a coincidence.

  PJ worked on her VR simulation of Rick’s murder for several hours, then set it aside in frustration. Dialing up a private bulletin board, she made contact with her longtime mentor, Merlin, and the two of them moved into a private chat room. It was as close to talking face-to-face as she had ever gotten with Merlin.

  Merlin’s nickname for her, Keypunch, came from her college days, when computers only accepted data and programs on punch cards. PJ had excelled at keypunching the cards, and was the envy of her less dexterous fellow students.

  She had known Merlin since college, although she had never met him in person. He communicated with her only in dial-up connections, starting from the time when bulletin boards weren’t in wide use yet. Merlin had seen her through high points and lows in her life, while revealing little about himself. She was aware from long association with him that he had global connections, and he chatted with government leaders and top scientists as easily as he did with her. How he kept all his contacts straight was a mystery to her.

  More than once she had thought Merlin might be an intelligent computer program rather than a human being. But the insight offered and compassion dispensed made that seem unlikely.

  What’s the buzz, Keypunch?

  The familiar greeting appearing on her screen warmed her. Merlin could always be counted on to simply be there when she needed him.

  Merlin, so much has happened I hardly know where to start.

  Tell me everything. I need my soap opera fix. Lay bare your soul and we’ll go from there. Lay bare whatever else you wish, too.

  You dirty old man. You ought to be evicted from cyberspace.

  She told him about Rick’s death, her time with Schultz and his enigmatic phone call, and the girl’s death. After some hesitation and gentle prodding by Merlin, she told him
about her visit to Schultz’s house and the discovery of the empty bottles.

  Was it good quality? The booze, that is.

  Dewar’s. What has that got to do with anything?

  Just checking to see if he has good taste. Wouldn’t want you hanging out with a cheap drunk.

  Merlin!

  Yes. Sorry. That was uncalled for. So do you believe Schultz or not?

  PJ closed her eyes. At least he hadn’t asked if she loved Schultz or not. Or perhaps it was the same thing.

  I want to believe him, she typed, but everything’s stacked against him.

  My kind of poker game. What are you doing to find Rick’s murderer?

  She described everything her team had gone through.

  Very pedestrian.

  What’s your idea, oh great crime-solver?

  It’s about time you recognized my abilities. Raise up thine eyes from thine own concerns and look about thee.

  Merlin, the biblical prophet. I can do better getting an old movie at Blockbuster.

  Very funny. Good to know you still have that lightning wit.

  Cut the crap and tell me what you’re thinking.

  Oh, how unladylike. I’ll have to tell your mommy.

  PJ nearly broke her connection. Sometimes Merlin fell into a loop of mock insults, and she wasn’t able to get anything useful out of him. She waited him out.

  Oh, all right. You ‘re not thinking in a synergistic way. Look for connections, even ones that don’t seem to make sense on the surface.

  I’m all ears.

  Do you think somebody is out to get Schultz?

  I’m not sure, PJ typed. He thinks so. He said something on the phone about being framed.

  Consider this: a detective who arrests killers suddenly has his life turned upside down. A prominent prosecuting attorney who brought killers to justice is wiped out. Key word in both sentences: killers.

  Victor Rheinhardt.

  I read the news, cutie.

  Do you think they’re related? PJ’s eyes were wide.