The Dark Side of Town

by Sasscer Hill

  Without any warning, he rolled my straining, twisting body up and over the edge of the canoe.

  “Have a nice swim.” He laughed.

  I fell into the water like a stone, the cinder block pulling me down fast. I grabbed a last breath through my nose before I went under. As the water filled my ears, I thought I heard a splash somewhere. Then cold, heavy water closed over my head.

  23

  The pull of the block took me lower and lower. I held my breath. A useless action. There was no hope. But in my head, I heard my dad’s voice. “Fia, the race ain’t over until you hit the wire.”

  I tried to fight against the cinder block’s relentless pull. Desperate for air, I got the crazy idea that once I hit bottom, I could spring back up, break the surface, and breathe. Except the block took me down like an elevator and there was no ground floor. I could no longer hold my breath. Precious air bubbled from my nostrils. My father’s voice grew silent.

  Something grabbed my head. Hands. They pulled me up. The water churned beside me as strong legs kicked viciously. We were rising, but I didn’t care anymore and only wanted to hear my father’s voice again. Wanted to be with him.

  My next awareness was someone coughing. Then I felt hands on my chest, water spilling from my mouth. I rolled to one side, coughing up more water, choking and sputtering.

  “Mi corazón.” Calixto’s hands grasped me, lifted me to a sitting position. “I will kill them. All of them.”

  The duct tape and cable ties were gone. I leaned into him, clung to him. “I’m all right,” I said, then immediately burst into uncontrollable sobs of shock and relief until I stiffened and pulled away in fear. “Where is he?”

  “The bastard? He is gone. Our friend here took care of him.”

  Confused, I looked up to see a man wearing night vision goggles, holding a rifle. He slid the goggles down.

  “Agent Turner, ma’am. Pleased to meet you.”

  I’d never met Turner. He’d always been around, but I’d never actually seen him. To me, he looked like an angel.

  “Thanks,” I said, before easing back into Calixto’s arms, loving the feeling of safety until my memory flashed back and I was falling through the water again, my breath bubbling out. Again, my body shivered and shook. Calixto put his lips close to my ear and softly said, “Mi pequeña leona,” repeating the words again like a lullaby. In that moment, I wanted to stay with him forever.

  “Sorry we didn’t get here faster, Fia,” Turner said, his words speeding with excitement. “By the time we spotted Rizelli, that scumbag already had you over the side. Man, I wish you could have seen Calixto dive in and blast through that lake like a cigarette boat. Then I squeezed off my shot and put a bullet in that piece of shit. Man, one shot and I hit him. He dropped like—” He abruptly stopped his recital, as if realizing I was too shaken to listen, and perhaps there might be a better time to tell his tale. “Uh, you two are drenched. You guys need a blanket or something? It’s cold out here.”

  In the distance, I heard a police siren. Then I remembered, and leaned forward.

  “We have to get Lila!”

  “Una momenta, leona,” Calixto said. “We must deal with the police first, then we will get Lila, yes?”

  Within a half hour the county police had arrived in force. It seemed every cop on hand had a wool blanket in the trunk of his cruiser and Calixto and I were wrapped in all of them. They put us beneath a tent they threw up for shelter against the rain.

  Turner went to his car and returned with a pint bottle of Maker’s Mark. I was really starting to like this guy. I sipped the whiskey. Nothing ever tasted better to me. Probably to Calixto, either, since together we emptied the bottle in less than five minutes.

  By now, I was fired up and ready to blast to the cabin to rescue Lila, but an unmarked police car bumped across the grass, stopped behind the squad cars, and detectives Clark and Ferguson climbed out. When a county cop spoke to them, Clark headed straight for us. The taller Ferguson motioned for Turner to follow him as he took long strides to the canoe that held Tony Rizelli’s body.

  I had no interest in seeing it.

  “You two again,” Clark said, shaking his head as he peered at Calixto and me through the round frames of his glasses. “What is it about you and murder, Ms. McKee?”

  “You should be more worried about the kidnapping of Stevie’s little sister. She’s still up at that cabin!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  I explained. “So right now she’s traumatized, terrified, and up there alone.”

  “We’d better go,” he said. “Ms. McKee, are you able to walk to my car?”

  “Yes,” I said, rising unsteadily to my feet with Calixto’s help. Between the head and leg injuries, the trauma, and the whiskey, my first step was more of a lurch. My shin throbbed like hell where the moose struck it, but though I’d probably have a terrible bruise, walking wasn’t too bad.

  Calixto grasped my hand, steadying me. He leaned close. “Go ahead, but don’t worry. I’m not allowing you out of my sight.”

  I hated letting his hand slide from mine as I slid into the passenger seat of Clark’s unmarked car. I hated being away from his warmth. I was worried about the severity of my head pain, too, but my desire to reach Lila outweighed everything.

  Calixto slid into the backseat of Clark’s car, and a county cruiser with two patrol officers followed behind us. Clark could see I was still shivering and turned his heater on full blast as he drove up Isolation Lane. The hot air hit the damp wool blankets still wrapped around our shoulders and the car began to smell like a herd of wet sheep.

  Outside, the forest was black, the car’s headlights working hard to penetrate the gloomy night as the rain drummed on the roof overhead. When we pulled into the clearing, Clark insisted that he and the county officers should clear the cabin before either Calixto or I went inside.

  “No,” I pleaded. “Let me go with you. Lila knows me!”

  “All right. But you stay here,” he said to Calixto, as if unable to relinquish all control.

  “No problema,” Calixto said, but his narrowed eyes told me he didn’t like it.

  There wasn’t much space to “clear” inside the cabin. Two bedrooms, a bath, and the living room with a small kitchen against one wall. When I spotted the light glowing under the bedroom door with the key in its lock, I rushed to it, ignoring Clark’s calls to wait, ignoring the pounding in my head, and the protests from my shin. As I turned the key, one of the county cops tried to grab my hand to keep me from opening the door, but the lock clicked open. I rushed inside.

  “Fay,” a small voice cried. “I knew you’d come back.” She flew off the bed and wrapped her thin arms around my waist, pressing her face against my chest. She shuddered. A wail escaped her. Safe at last, her bravery abandoned her.

  I knew the feeling and held her while she sobbed.

  * * *

  On the drive back, the rain finally stopped. We picked up my Mini, and Lila tried to reach Stevie, but his phone took her to voicemail. She left a message.

  “Stevie, it’s me! Fay came. She saved me!”

  Not every day I got to hear words like that.

  When we got back to the lake, Ferguson was watching the EMTs zip Tony’s body into a black bag before loading it into an ambulance. We climbed out of Clark’s car, and one of the crew, a woman with kind eyes, took Lila aside to check her over.

  After watching the woman lead Lila away, Clark turned to me. “Ms. McKee, I need you to answer a few questions.”

  When did he ever not need me to answer questions?

  Calixto gave him a hard look. “Ms. McKee has been through a terrible ordeal, Detective. She has a head injury, was almost dead when I pulled her from the water, and should be taken to a hospital with Miss Davis. She’s wet and chilled. Allow me to answer your questions.”

  Clark was not intimidated. “I’ll get to you in a minute, Coyune.” But he paused, and I thought his eyes softened as he
glanced at me. “You up to it?”

  I nodded and he waved me back to his car, where I slid onto the bench seat. Calixto stood outside, his arms folded across his chest.

  “So tell me what happened,” Clark said. “Preferably from the beginning.”

  I did, and he seemed particularly interested in how Lila’s abduction and the murder attempt on me related to Alberto Rizelli.

  “Never liked that scum moving to our town. We’ve been itching to nail these guys for a while. So, you believe Tony was talking to Alberto Rizelli on the phone? That it was his voice saying Tony should take you to the lake, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about Rico Pizutti? You got anything for me on him?”

  “No. I wish I did.”

  “Yeah, me too,” he said.

  “I still think Rico was behind the abduction. If Stevie will talk, you’ll have a case, at least for the kidnapping.”

  “I’m more interested in the attempted homicide.”

  Of course he was. He was a homicide detective. Which reminded me it would be good to ease away before he thought to ask more questions about the murder of Matt Percy.

  “So who will handle the kidnapping end of this,” I asked. “The FBI?

  “Yeah. I’d better make sure dispatch relayed the info.”

  I was willing to bet my next paycheck Calixto had already called his FBI contact. Clark pulled out his phone to make the call.

  “So,” I said, “you’re done with me, right?”

  “For now.”

  I slid from the car and made a beeline for Lila who was still with the kind-eyed EMT.

  “I wanted to talk to you,” the woman said. “Lila seems to be all right physically, but her family should get her in for psychological counseling. Just in case.” She smiled and handed me a card with the names of several therapists. “And you,” she continued, “need to get a CAT scan for your head and a lung X-ray. Tonight.”

  One of the county cops offered to drive my Mini back to the Victorian on Union Avenue, and since nobody wanted to ride with Tony Rizelli’s body in the ambulance, Turner drove Calixto, Lila, and me to Saratoga Hospital.

  As we drove away from Lake Desolation, I was relieved I’d avoided more questions from Ferguson or Clark about Matt Percy’s murder. I was too brain-dead to piece together the jagged pieces of a murder puzzle. Still, I couldn’t quite let the crime go. Something about Percy’s murder left me with a niggling unease, as if I’d forgotten something.

  24

  By the time we got to the hospital, it was well past midnight. After Lila and I went through triage at the front desk, a nurse led Lila through a set of swinging doors and they disappeared somewhere into the inner workings of the ER unit. Then it was my turn, and I was led through the doors to one of those curtained cubicles, where I waited to be seen by a doctor.

  Calixto lied so smoothly and easily it alarmed me. He was so convincing when he said we were husband and wife, I almost expected him to produce a marriage license. But I was glad he followed me in. While we waited, I lay on the room’s bed and listened as his repeated calls to Stevie remained unanswered.

  A while later, a white-coated doctor padded into my cubicle in rubber-soled shoes. He whisked me off to a cold room, took a CAT scan of my head, then sent me back to my bed. A pulmonary specialist came by next and led me to a different machine in an equally cold room for a chest scan. Apparently, Lila hadn’t needed any machines, because when I returned to my cubicle, she was waiting there with Calixto.

  “Lila has been telling me about the two men that abducted her. One, of course, was Tony Rizelli. But,” he asked Lila, “you never heard the name for the second guy?”

  Lila’s face paled, and her eyes seemed to focus on something far away.

  “Just tell me what he looked like,” I said, “and we’ll be done, okay?”

  She opened her mouth, but no words came out. I wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “You’re safe now, sweetie. You can tell us.”

  “He was just some old guy.” She addressed her words to the floor. “He never said anything.”

  “Old like parents, or old like grandparents?” Calixto asked.

  “Like grandparents.”

  I looked at Calixto. “Sounds like one of the old Mafia guys.”

  He nodded, then tried for more detail from Lila, “What was he wearing?”

  “A baseball cap and sunglasses. Old clothes. I don’t really remember them.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “Did he have a beard or anything like that”

  “Yes,” she said, her voice suddenly stronger. “He had a mustache.”

  “Good.” I gave her a little squeeze. “Last question, okay?”

  Still looking at the floor, she nodded.

  “Did you see any marks on his arms or hands? Like a tattoo or a scar?”

  “No. He had on long sleeves and a turtleneck.”

  “Thank you, Lila. We don’t need to talk about it anymore.” I turned to Calixto. “The description matches what Lou told me. But we still don’t know who he is.”

  “Oh, we will find out,” Calixto said. “And when we do, this man will wish he’d never seen Lila.”

  “Will you shoot him?” Lila asked.

  “Probably just put him in jail,” I said.

  “Good! That old guy belongs in jail.”

  Calixto smiled. I could tell he loved her flash of spunk as much as I did.

  “So,” he said, “Lila received a clean bill of health from the nurse-practitioner.”

  “But they want me to get psychological counseling,” Lila said with a trace of rebellion. “Do I have to?”

  “I wouldn’t hurt,” I said. “And it’ll make them happy. Then they’ll leave you alone, right?”

  The last part made her smile. “Okay.”

  While we waited for my results, it occurred to me that Stevie might be holed up at Lou’s house instead of his more vulnerable garage apartment. Though I didn’t like calling Lou in the middle of the night, I decided reaching Stevie was more important, so I called. Lou answered on the second ring.

  “Don’t worry about it. I never sleep anymore anyways,” he said, when I apologized for disturbing him. “You got my message?”

  “No.” Not likely when the FBI still had my phone.

  “You’d said to call if I saw Stevie.”

  “You know where he is?”

  “Sure. He’s asleep in my guest room.”

  I could feel my shoulders sag with relief. “Lou, I found Lila! She’s fine.”

  “Thank God! Where is she?”

  “Right here next to me.”

  “Well, put her on the phone, for God’s sake!”

  Lila took the phone and I could hear Lou yelling, “Stevie, wake up. Come talk to your sister!”

  I glanced at Calixto as Lila spoke to Lou and Stevie. There was a light in his eyes I understood. The light that comes when things work out, when heartache doesn’t win.

  Lila told Stevie we’d come over as soon as we escaped from the hospital. As she ended the call, my first doctor showed up.

  “You received a mild concussion. But,” he said with a smile, “there’s no brain bleed.”

  Always nice to know your brain isn’t bleeding. The doc left, and eventually the pulmonary guy came by and told me I had a little water in my lungs. He gave me an antibiotic shot, a prescription for pills, and said to come back in a week. Then we beat it out of the hospital. I can never get out of those places fast enough.

  When we reached Lou’s, the front door opened, and Lila was overrun by a squirming, crying Raymond. She clutched the little dog to her like she’d never let him go. Stevie crowded forward and managed to get his arms around both of them. With Lila, Stevie, and the dog all crying at once, Lou scurried off to grab some tissues. I could have used one myself.

  Two FBI agents stood inside the living room. Calixto knew one of them, who he introduced as Special Agent John Meloy. Meloy was maybe thirty-five, short, b
ut built like a fireplug—the kind of guy you don’t take on in a wrestling match. I was content to know the agents were taking Lila and Stevie to a safe house for the remainder of the night and stayed out of their conversation. At least until Meloy told Lila she couldn’t take Raymond with her.

  “After what she’s been through you’d deny her the comfort of this little dog?” I was furious.

  “No, he has to come with me,” Lila pleaded.

  “For God’s sake,” Lou said, “that’s her dog. They sleep together. You want her to cry all night?”

  “And she will,” I said. “Besides Stevie’s got to rest. He’s riding a race tomorrow. So take the dog, and put them all to bed.”

  Meloy threw his hands up in the air. “All right, all right. The mutt comes, too.”

  Calixto, who’d been watching the exchange, had a gleam of amusement in his eyes, and a not-quite-hidden smile.

  “What are you laughing at, Coyune?” Meloy asked.

  “Absolutely nothing,” he said. Then his gaze shifted to me. “She is a force when she is angry, no?”

  Meloy nodded. “Glad she’s your problem.”

  After the two agents rounded up the kids and Raymond, we left right behind them in Turner’s car. It was 3:00 A.M. as Turner drove out of Lou’s neighborhood.

  “Where to?” he asked.

  Calixto, who looked dead-tired, rubbed at his forehead a moment. “Fia’s rental is out of the question, and there is not enough room at our apartment.”

  “You guys share a room?” I asked.

  “For the summer meet, yes,” Calixto said.

  Before now, he hadn’t revealed one clue about his living arrangements in Saratoga, which was so typical of him.

  “Drop us off at the Adelphi,” he said.

  Turner looked doubtful. “You plan to get a room in the middle of the night during racing season at the Adelphi?”

  “They always have a room or two for VIPs,” Calixto said.

  Turner made a derisive sound. “But you’re not a VIP.”

  Calixto gave him the hard stare.

  “Right. Adelphi, next stop.”