The Fall

by Michael Allen Dymmoch

  She paused at the back door. Had the Feds alarmed her house? Or booby-trapped it? Or set up surveillance cameras? She was almost beyond caring. Her key still worked, and there were no sirens or klaxons as the door swung inward. She left her boots on the mat and made her way to the darkroom without turning lights on.

  She lay her film out on the counter, and set the water running, adjusting the temperature. Before she started to free the first film roll from its metal jacket, she tested the developer. Habit. From habit she glanced at the test strip. It must have been five full seconds before the results registered. The developer was worn out. The trip had been for nothing! Damn! Damn! Damn!

  Furiously she searched through the shelves and cabinets for fresh developer, moving bottles and boxes. There was none. When she moved one of her notebooks, the glassine envelope of Dossi’s pictures came tumbling out. Her attempt to catch it sent it whirling toward the floor, scattering its contents.

  Dossi smiled up at her from the pictures, from the comfort of his home, as if gloating over their respective fates.

  It was too much!

  She felt a dizzying surge of rage. She shuffled photos and negatives together and shoved them back in the envelope. She crammed the envelope in her pocket.

  Her brother’s question pounded in her ears: “What would you do if we were invaded?” And her own flip response: “Join the resistance!”

  This was war! And so far the enemy had taken her home and family, her job, her very identity. What she had left was the gun. She wondered if the Feds had found it yet.

  The tiny flash on her keychain was enough to light the way to her room, where the hope chest stood undisturbed. Inside it, under the bag with his boots, the rifle lay nested where her father left it, wrapped in his red flannel coat.

  But how to take it safely from the house? The dull gleam of gun metal would be amplified by the streetlights. It needed a cover. She gathered it up and wrapped it in the jacket. She grabbed the bag with her father’s boots and the cleaning kit. She removed a box of cartridges from the kit, and put the kit in with the boots. She put the cartridges in her pocket. Passing the hall closet, she remembered the bundled leaf-recycling bags she’d bought in August. It took only a moment to slip gun, jacket, and boot-bag into one of them. Then she fled back to the kitchen.

  She’d slipped into her boots and was out in the yard before she could think what she was doing.

  There was snow enough on the street to mark her path as she pulled away from the curb, enough to build traffic at the intersections. The borrowed car went well.

  She took Dundee Road to Skokie Boulevard, then backtracked on Lake-Cook Road to Ridge. She was surprised it only took five minutes to get past the Highland Park police station. Five minutes later, she put on the four-way flashers while she got out to drop the chain, then pulled the Mercedes onto the side-road and shut it off.

  She stood next to the open driver’s door while she pulled her father’s coat on over hers, her father’s boots over her own. She loaded three cartridges—one for a clean kill, one for backup, one for luck—and put the box on the floor of the back seat, and the envelope of photos next to it. Then she was ready.

  There were obstacles she scarcely noticed—the snow that was coming down fairly fast now, underbrush and burrs that snagged her clothing, the frozen manhole cover. She’d forgotten that. She left the rifle next to it while she returned to the car. The trunk light flashed when the trunk opened; may as well set off a car alarm. She grabbed the bulb, removed it. She lay the bulb on the trunk floor and used her keychain flashlight to find the tire iron.

  She thought only about the job. Close the trunk. Retrace your steps. Pry open the manhole cover without dropping it on your foot or fingers.

  The half-foot of water in the storm drain was crusted over with ice; she slogged through it. Ice held the grating in place at the mouth of the storm drain. She used the tire iron to break it free, trusting the thickening snowfall to muffle the sound. A hundred or so yards from the outlet mouth, she found a spot with an unobstructed view of Dossi’s windows.

  She took a sitting stance, not quite as steady as the prone position, but better—in her limited hunting experience—for hitting a target situated overhead.

  Through the scope, she could easily see Dossi, could see every cruel line of his face. Definitely the face she’d seen speeding away from the park that century-long month ago. What could make the man do what he did for a living?

  She took several deep breaths, then let them out slowly, watching the crosshairs wobble across her target as she did so. The trigger was cold against her finger tip. What was making this so hard?

  I can’t do it.

  Think of plastique!

  Think of Sean, crying himself to sleep, trying to start life over again.

  Think of Dossi’s victims in the morgue drawers, white and cold as fish-flesh. Cold as the trigger.

  Rage ignited her hesitation like flash powder, burned her red, then white-hot.

  No!

  The rage shook her.

  No! No! No!

  She counted ten. The shaking subsided slightly. Twenty. She took two deep breaths and peered back through the scope. Dossi had moved away from the window. Thank God!

  Then he moved back into her line of sight and stopped, facing someone standing near the window.

  The someone turned, and she could see his face, familiar, though it took a moment to recall from where.

  The Federal court! He was the one who demanded her appearance! Dossi hadn’t known who she was before the hearing. She lined the crosshairs up on his chest. She heard her father’s voice say, “Kicks a little to the left.”

  But she would only have one shot. Then the others in the room would take cover. Shooting the judge wouldn’t free her of the threat Dossi posed.

  She moved the crosshairs to center on Dossi’s left breast pocket. She moved her head so the scope wouldn’t strike her face when the gun discharged.

  Her mind was saying, he’s far too far away. Nobody can…

  Dossi stepped to the window and looked out.

  Joanne fixed on his pocket button. She heard her father’s voice say, “Breathe in. Let your breath halfway out. Squeeze the trigger. Don’t anticipate. Let it surprise you when it finally fires.”

  Just what she did as she was waiting for the perfect picture…

  BLAM!

  Her ears were slammed by a concussion like an M-80 exploding near her head. And the flash from the muzzle flare burned her eyes.

  Thirty-Eight

  A cloud of powder-smoke materialized between the muzzle and the target, mingling with the flying snowflakes. The odor, and the crack echoing in her eardrums, brought a memory fragment—too brief to be identified—from childhood, then an overwhelming feeling of disaster. She felt a sharp pain in her right shoulder from the rifle’s kick. She closed her eyes.

  What have I done!

  She opened them. The window was too small to see clearly, let alone hit.

  I must have missed.

  She put her eye to the scope again and saw—clearly—a man rushing to the window. With a gun. Awareness hit her like the recoil of the rifle and, for a moment, she felt ill.

  Oh, God!

  But she must get away—for Sean and Rick and Hancock. For all those who thought well of her, perhaps even Paul.

  Pull yourself together! Deal with it!

  Oh, God!

  What had been a satisfying fantasy, like blowing Howie’s head off during their divorce, was suddenly premeditated murder. “Malice aforethought.” And no sane jury would accept that her carefully thought out plan was self-defense—against what theoretical threat?

  What’s done is past.

  There was a pop of distant gunfire. Unreal. Uncanny. Toy soldiers fighting a TV war. Dossi’s bodyguard trying to make amends. At this distance, he couldn’t hope to come close, but it wouldn’t take him long to figure where the shot came from. And come looking. Or send the dogs.
<
br />   A frantic voice whispered, “Get out of here!” Her own voice.

  Think!

  She thought she heard the dogs bark. A snowflake moistened her cheek where tears should have been. She felt strung out, but some rational part of her mind said, Back up and get going!

  She reached down and felt the reassuring lump of the car keys in her pocket.

  Nothing else to lose. Nothing important. Grab the gun and go.

  She backed away carefully, slowly, dragging the rifle behind her in the snow. She would have to dispose of it. Pity. She wouldn’t leave it behind.

  The snow was falling furiously. Big soft flakes had already obscured the tracks she’d made coming. She walked like an automaton, stumbling—in the oversized boots—over every weed and exposed tree root. The gun had slipped into the cradle of her arm as if by its own volition. She was scarcely aware of the culvert when she got to it, squeezing around the rusted grill, cracking and splashing through the shallow water with its crust of ice like movie-set window glass that shattered without causing damage.

  Once out of the storm drain, she concentrated on getting back to the car without tripping or dropping the rifle or the tire iron. The snow muffled every sound, like a white noise, except the soft galumph of her feet in her father’s boots. She had no idea how long she was taking. Forever.

  She almost missed the car in the dense fog of snow. Her quaking hand couldn’t, at first, make the key enter the lock. How long did it take the police to get a helicopter in the air? Then she forced herself to take a deep breath. This was nonsense. They couldn’t fly close enough in this mess to see her. All she had to do was keep the car on the road until she got it home. No one would connect her to the shooting unless they caught her with the gun.

  Think! What next?

  Hide the gun. Get out of these clothes. Get back before someone misses you!

  Her hand trembled less violently as she unlocked the trunk. It must be true, what they say about getting used to anything. She replaced the tire iron. She took off the hunting jacket and turned it inside out to prevent any burrs and dirt she might have collected from getting on the floor mat. She lay the gun on the jacket and folded it around the weapon, then got the photos and cleaning kit from behind the front seat and put them in the trunk, in the leaf bag.

  Before she got in the car, she cleaned the snow off the windows. She kept the boots on until she was sitting sideways in the driver’s seat, taking off the right boot first, putting her right foot on the car floor, then shaking off the boot and dropping it on the floor behind the seat. She repeated the procedure for the left. She was careful to keep her mind on business, not to think why she was doing it. She started the car, reversed it. She backed slowly down the drive. Only when she was on the road did she turn on the lights. She left the car running on the street while she raised the barrier chain back in place. Maybe it would be a while before anyone thought to check it, to see if it was really locked. Maybe that would slow down the pursuit.

  Don’t count on it.

  The fastest way home would be back the way she came, but something made her turn the other way. Towards Dossi’s drive. There was maybe a half inch of fluffy, slippery snow on the blacktop. She had to go slowly. She looked at the dash clock and was surprised to see it wasn’t even eight o’clock. She’d been away from the house just over an hour. She concentrated on keeping the car on the road.

  Panic nearly paralyzed her as red and white lights flashed from the fog of whirling snowflakes. Police! She was caught! Might as well surrender. Can’t outrun radio.

  Stop it! Think! Of course the cops are coming. Someone’s just been shot. She slowed even more, preparing to stop like a good citizen. The cop car blazed past, its lights amplified by the surrounding snow. Joanne kept going. As she approached Route 41, cars materialized on the road ahead. She slowed and left an interval when the line in front stopped. She sat breathing deeply, telling herself que será, será. The line inched forward.

  Thirty-Nine

  The drive had been plowed when Joanne finally pulled into it, the near inch of snow pulled away from the garage door and pushed into neat piles on either side of the parkway. She wouldn’t have to shovel to remove the evidence that she’d been out. In another half an hour, there wouldn’t be a trace. The back walk and porch had been cleared, too. The homeowner must have a service contact for snow removal.

  She activated the garage door opener, but stopped the car short of the door. She got out and brushed as much of the snow off as she could—no use soaking the floor and calling attention to her trip. She parked inside and turned off the garage light, but left the door up while she went to get rags from the house to clean off the snow and road salt. There wasn’t anything she could do about the water on the floor. With luck it would dry before anyone noticed. She gathered her father’s boots, the leaf-recycling bag, and the shrouded rifle, and hurried into the house.

  She wanted a drink desperately, but it would have to wait until after she cleaned up.

  She wondered about the gunshot residue—that’s what it was called, not gunpowder. Trace evidence along with hair and fibers. She could remember Howie pontificating. “That’s what trips up most clever murderers.” Me now, she thought. How could she have guessed her unpaid service as a typist for a personal injury lawyer would prepare her for a life of crime. Bless Howie. Or curse him. Well, she would wash the clothes before disposing of them. She wouldn’t dump them from the car—too likely to arouse the notice, and the wrath, of the anti-litter crusaders—or put them in the trash—too obvious.

  She lay newspapers out on the table and put the rifle on them. She put the plaid jacket on the kitchen counter and combed the burrs out of it, discarding them in the disposal. The jacket and her father’s boots she took downstairs and dumped into the washer. She set the temperature on hot, added detergent and, when the agitator started, bleach. So much for residue. And if they found fibers, maybe they wouldn’t match. She remembered the Dirt Devil in the broom closet. She got it and ran back to the car with it. She spent five minutes vacuuming each seat, ten on the trunk. She locked the garage and put the keys back where she’d found them.

  In the kitchen, the gun lay on the table like an accusation.

  After a hunt, her father had always cleaned his guns. He’d made a ritual of it, laying the materials out just so on the kitchen table.

  She took out the cleaning kit and opened it. Her father’s letter lay inside. She got as far as “Daughter, May be a mistake…” before the tears pouring onto the page started to blur the text. She wiped her eyes on her shirt sleeves and took the letter to the stove, lit one of the burners and held the page to the flame. When it was all but consumed, she threw the curled ash in the sink and washed it into the disposal.

  She cleaned the gun before dismantling it. The metal parts she wrapped in newspaper and slipped into the garbage. She took the stock into the living room and laid it against the pyramid of kindling Carver had built that afternoon.

  After scouring the kitchen she took a long, hot shower, poured herself a double shot of whiskey, and started the fire. The kindling caught from the first match. When the flames were tall enough to reach into the chimney, she fed them Dossi’s pictures. She watched the emulsion turn brown and bubbly like a toasting marshmallow, then blacken and curl. The negatives contracted and twisted, morphing into matte black cinders around the burning gunstock. She settled down to watch the fire consume her father’s work.

  The stock was a glowing ember, and Joanne was feeling strung out but nearly sleepy when the phone rang.

  She picked it up on the third ring. “Hello?”

  “Joanne?”

  “Hmm. Paul?”

  “Were you asleep?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Just called to say we made it. Sean was dead on his feet. I told him he could talk to you tomorrow. Where’s Carver?”

  “I don’t know. At this hour, probably sleeping. Shall I wake him?”

  “Nah. Don’t
bother. I’ll talk to him in the morning.”

  Forty

  Haskel was waiting for him at the gate. Minorini felt a stab of panic and maintaining his Bureau facade was hard. “What’s up?”

  Haskel drew out the suspense. Bastard!

  “Something happen to Joanne?” Minorini demanded.

  “It’s Joanne, is it?” The laugh-lines at the corners of Haskel’s eyes grew marginally deeper—the closest he would come to “gotcha!” “Nah, she’s okay. Dossi bought it.”

  “Dossi? How…?”

  “Wouldn’t we all like to know that. Sniper took him out.”

  “Jesus! When?”

  “Just about seven last night.”

  “Where?”

  “In the privacy and comfort of his own living room.”

  “That why you’re not guarding Reilly?”

  “Nah. Our trap worked like a charm; Reilly and I had a nibble. A mouse went for our cheesecake and got blasted into oblivion. We spent most of the night filing reports.”

  “That’s why you look like shit this morning.”

  “Yeah. Butler wants us to get on this Dossi thing, pronto.”

  Joanne awoke cramped and stiff, curled into the fetal position. Symbolic. She wondered if she would spend the rest of her life fighting the urge to regress.

  The act she’d thought would save her life had changed it irrevocably. She felt vaguely ill, the way she imagined it would feel to have AIDS or some other disastrous social disease, something you couldn’t tell people about, dread-filled. It was a rerun, amplified unimaginably, of how she’d felt when she divorced Howie.

  She knew if she’d just carry on, the feeling would fade. It had before. But the in-the-meantime stretched before her like an indeterminate sentence. The cops might never get her, but she would do time. She’d do life. It would always be there. No statute of limitations on murder.