by E. C. Bell
The Escalade leapt forward, back into the garage and then through it, blowing boards and window glass all over the unkempt backyard of the drug house. The Tactical Unit ran to intercept as the vehicle fishtailed, spraying grass and dirt on what was left of the garage as it aimed for the fence of the house next to it.
“He’s going around!” Stewart barked. “Take him out!”
The member with the rifle settled himself as the Escalade began to find purchase on what little grass was left and skittered toward the old bowed fence that ran down the property line between the drug house and the one next to it.
“Now! Now!” Stewart screamed. The gunman took aim at the Escalade. The Escalade leaped forward a few more feet, then, over the scream of its motor, we all heard wood cracking.
“Huh,” James said, almost smiling. “Idiot forgot about the tunnel.”
The earth opened up with a small scream and a huge plume of dust as the Escalade’s front end buried itself windshield-deep in the escape tunnel. The engine roared, but did nothing more than push it further into the ground. Then, even that stopped and for a moment, there was no noise from anywhere.
The sharpshooter walked up to the driver’s side door with his weapon trained on whoever had been driving. A small red dot of light reflected off the tinted side window, but no one moved inside the vehicle. Soon a multitude of red dots swarmed over it as the rest of the Tactical unit aimed their weapons at the Escalade.
“Hands out the windows,” the marksman barked. “Now.”
The windows slowly opened and Marie, who’d been driving, obediently did what she was told. “Don’t shoot,” she said. “I’m unarmed.”
“And you!” The marksman pointed his weapon at Ambrose Welch, semi-conscious in the passenger’s seat, and the tiny red dot touched his forehead. “Hands out, now!”
A small runnel of blood ran down from Ambrose’s hairline into one eye. But I could see the other eye, very clearly. That was definitely the eye of a guy who realized his luck had run out.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said. But before he could move, Stewart was beside him, pressing a revolver to his head just above his ear.
“You son of a bitch,” Stewart hissed. Ambrose flinched as the muzzle bit into the tender skin of his head. “I finally got you.”
“Just arrest me,” Ambrose said, keeping his hands up and open so everyone there could see he did not have a weapon. “I’m not talking until I see my lawyer.”
“Oh really?” Stewart growled. He pulled the revolver away from his head and pulled the trigger. Both Ambrose and Marie screamed and flailed, and the marksman who had had his weapon trained on Ambrose jumped back, doing some outraged growling of his own. Stewart ignored everything and put the muzzle of his gun back to Ambrose’s head. “You ready to talk now?”
“You son of a bitch!” Ambrose yelled. “I’m not armed!” He looked past Stewart to the police on the other side of the vehicle. “I don’t have a weapon!”
“Stewart!” James yelled. “Stop.”
Stewart ignored him, pressing the gun barrel harder into Ambrose Welch’s head. “Talk. Now. Why did you kidnap that woman and torture her?”
The police standing around the vehicle looked shocked. And no one moved. Stewart ground the muzzle of his gun into the side of Ambrose’s head. “Tell me. Right now.”
“Word was she knew who offed Brown Eddie,” Ambrose finally said. “We wanted to know what she knew—what she’d told you.”
“And why would you care who killed that piece of shit?” Stewart rasped.
All right, I must admit, even though I knew the guy hated me on principle, the “piece of shit” remark stung. But at least he was trying to figure out who’d killed me.
Ambrose Welch, blood streaming down his face, relaxed and smiled. A terrible smile. “You aren’t going to be able to use anything I tell you, you know. I already asked for my lawyer.”
“I don’t care! Tell me everything,” Stewart said, and his eyes went wild. “Everything! Who else have you killed? Who else? Who else?”
“I’m telling you nothing more,” Ambrose said. “I want my frigging lawyer.”
And then he slowly reached for Stewart’s gun.
That’s when Marie started to scream her head off.
Marie:
No Way I’m Dealing With a Dead
Ambrose Welch. No Way
I HAD NEVER been so afraid in my whole life.
“Don’t shoot him!” I yelled. “Please, don’t shoot him!”
Stewart wasn’t listening, and Ambrose Welch was still moving his hands up, toward Stewart’s gun. If I didn’t do something, Stewart would kill him.
And then I’d have to deal with him.
I’d never met anyone so evil before. It came off him in crazy-making waves and I knew that dealing with his spirit would be nothing I could handle. My mom, maybe, but not me. Not me!
Neither of the men was listening to me. Stewart had taken a step back as he belatedly realized what Ambrose Welch was attempting, but it looked like he wasn’t going to be quick enough. Welch was going to touch that gun and then—then everybody with a weapon was going to use every bit of force at their disposal to stop him.
Suicide by cop.
So I reached over and rammed my thumb in his eye. Hard. Yelling, “Don’t shoot him, don’t shoot him!” over and over as I felt his eyeball compress and then give. And then he screamed, high and tight, and forgot all about Stewart’s gun. Forgot about everything but his eye and my thumb.
Finally, Stewart did the right thing and backed away. The rest of the cops swarmed the vehicle, pulling Ambrose Welch from it and throwing him to the ground as he screamed and clawed at his wrecked eye.
They pulled me out and tossed me on the ground, too. I pressed my face into the torn-up grass and let them do whatever they wanted to me. I didn’t care at that moment. I’d stopped Ambrose from killing himself. Thank God.
I MUST HAVE blacked out, because the next thing I heard was Stewart saying, “Take them away, boys.”
Seriously. “Take them away, boys.” Who did he think he was, John frigging Wayne?
I rolled onto my back and groaned. I hurt absolutely everywhere. “Don’t move,” someone said. I opened my eyes, and there was James, looking worried.
Not angry or suspicious. Just worried.
“Did we get them?” I asked.
“Yep.” He almost smiled. “Can you stand?”
“I don’t know.” I tried moving my arms. Had some luck, so tried my legs. More luck, so I slowly sat up, and then, with James’s help, I stood. Shaky, like a newborn foal, but I did stand.
I heard a spatter of applause from somewhere behind the mostly destroyed garage. “What’s that?” I asked.
“I think it’s the book club ladies,” James said. “Showing their appreciation.”
“Huh.” I grabbed his arm and hobbled a few steps, then stopped and really looked around. Ambrose Welch was gone. So was Stewart.
“Where are they? The bad guys?”
“Stewart took them to the cop shop. For a little more interrogation.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think he’s going to get any more out of that guy.”
James shrugged. “I don’t care, to be honest. Welch as much as confessed to killing Brown Eddie, and that gets Honoria off the hook.”
“Honoria,” I gasped. For a brief moment my head spun, and James grabbed my arm, helping me stay upright. “Where is she?”
“On her way to the hospital.”
“Is she—is she going to be all right?”
James’s face froze. “She took a lot.”
“Jesus, James. They tortured her.” I couldn’t believe that anyone could do that to another human being.
“I know.” James put his arm around my shoulders and gave me a quick, hard hug. “I think the book club ladies want to talk to you.”
“Right.” I sighed. “None of them actually got hurt, did they? Queen Bea will never forgive me.”
>
“Queen Bea,” James half-smiled. “That’s funny. No. Nobody hurt. I’d appreciate it if you handle them, though. I really don’t know what they expect of me.”
“I think they expect a job,” I muttered, looking around. “Where are they?”
“Over there.” He pointed somewhere past the wrecked garage. “Want me to help you?”
“No,” I said. “I think I can do it under my own power.”
I hobbled away from James’s protective arms and past the cops milling around the crime scene, stretching out the oh-so-familiar yellow and black tape that would soon keep everyone from muddling the scene further.
I got to the tape and attempted to bend over, to scoot under it, and stumbled. A police officer ran up and pulled the tape high enough for me to walk more or less upright.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Good job with the driving,” he said and pointed at the Escalade, still buried nose-deep in Ambrose Welch’s escape tunnel.
Oh yeah, like I meant to do that. “Thank you.”
“And taking Welch out. That was really something to see.”
“Thanks.”
“Maybe we can go out for a drink or something, and you can tell me all about it.”
Good grief.
I smiled at him, said something terrifically noncommittal, and hobbled away before he could press the offer of a drink.
I managed to get past the garage and saw a police car blocking the alley. Behind it, I could see Bea and the rest of the women on the grass of someone’s backyard. Bea put a china cup to her lips and sipped.
Trust Bea to be able to find tea in the middle of a crime scene.
“How are you?”
“Fine,” she said and took another sip from the china cup.
“Where did you get that?”
“From her.” She pointed over to an ancient woman who was hobbling among the book club women with a huge teapot. “She lives in that house.” Bea pointed at the house on the corner. “And she was good enough to give us a cuppa something.”
“Nice.”
“Yes,” she said. “Some people know how to treat us.”
I chuckled. Looked like the moment of appreciation was over. “Hey, we got you out of there,” I said. “Wasn’t that good enough?”
“We will discuss this at another time,” she said imperiously and turned her back on me.
“Oh come on, Bea,” I started, but she held up a hand, palm out, without turning around.
“At another time.”
Hey, I tried.
I caught a glimpse of Eddie’s mother, and my heart jumped. I hadn’t seen Eddie since we escaped the tunnel. Had he moved on in the middle of that bedlam? I hoped not. He’d been so close to going to his version of hell. I was afraid if he’d slipped over, he’d still let himself go there. He didn’t deserve that.
She was sipping tea over by a weeping birch tree, and she looked up and smiled at me faintly as I walked over to her. Then I saw Eddie, standing in amongst the branches of the tree, watching her.
“Hi,” I said, to both of them.
“Hi,” Eddie said, and a second later his mother said hello.
“How are you?”
“I’m fine,” Eddie’s mother said. Eddie didn’t answer, so I glanced in his direction. He was crying.
“I hurt her so bad,” he whispered. “How can I ever make up for that?”
“I’ll be back in a second,” I said, and without looking at his mother again, walked over to Eddie. “You can’t, Eddie,” I whispered. “I’m sorry, but you can’t.”
“I know,” he said. “But she came here because of me. Jesus, even after I’m dead I’m causing her grief! Nearly got her killed! You tell me why I don’t deserve to go straight to hell for that.”
“Because she decided to do this, Eddie. Not you. Her.”
“Yeah but—”
“But nothing.”
“Who are you talking to?”
I could tell by the look on Eddie’s face that his mother had followed me and was now watching me argue with what looked like nothing.
I was going to turn and give her some song and dance about seeing a cat or some such foolishness, I really was, but then something snapped. I was tired of the lies and the hiding. Just this once, I decided to tell the truth. Screw it.
“I’m talking to your son. To the spirit of your son.”
Eddie’s mother’s face blanked, then tightened, and she took a small step away from me. “I don’t think that’s very funny, young lady,” she snapped.
“See?” I said, turning back to Eddie. “They think I’m a liar or crazy. That’s why I never tell.”
“Tell her I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“She doesn’t believe I’m even talking to you.”
“Stop that,” Eddie’s mother said and took another scuffling half step back.
“I’m telling you the truth,” I said hopelessly. She was never going to believe me.
“Prove it,” she snapped.
“How?”
“Oh God, just tell her I’m sorry,” Eddie said, on the verge of tears again. His voice sounded weak, and I glanced back at him, almost ready to see those Godawful black and red sparkling lights around him again, but they weren’t. He just looked immeasurably tired.
“What did I get him for his fourteenth birthday?”
“What?” I turned back to his mother and stared at her. She glared back.
“If I’m supposed to believe you, you should be able to answer that simple question,” she said. Her chin began to quiver. “What did I get him for his fourteenth birthday?”
I looked at Eddie, but he just looked confused, so I turned back to his mother. “Why his fourteenth?”
“That was the last time I bought him a birthday gift that didn’t have anything to do with the streets and drugs,” she said, her voice small. “The very last time.”
“Oh.” I looked back at Eddie, and he had the saddest smile I’d ever seen on a ghost’s face. And that is going some.
“She bought me a hamster,” he whispered.
“A hamster?” I asked, but didn’t need to see his nod to know I had passed his mother’s test. Her half-scream and the crash of breaking china hitting hard-packed earth told me everything.
“Tell her I’m sorry,” Eddie said.
“Please, please tell him I’m sorry,” Eddie’s mother cried. “I’m so sorry! If I’d just been a better mother, maybe none of this would have happened!”
“No,” Eddie said. “That’s not right. I was making my own choices. She was my excuse for doing what I did. She doesn’t need to apologize. I do.”
“Please tell him,” she whispered. “I am so sorry for everything.”
“He can hear you,” I said. “He thinks it was all his fault.”
She laughed, sounding heartbroken. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “If I’d been better, somehow, this wouldn’t have happened.”
“She’s wrong,” Eddie said. “You know that, don’t you?”
We had hit a bizarre impasse. Eddie desperately needed his mother’s forgiveness, or he would push himself to that hell he’d built for himself. And I had this horrible feeling that if Eddie didn’t forgive his mother, the same thing would happen to her. I couldn’t allow that to happen. Not on my watch.
“Just forgive each other—and yourselves. Please?”
I jumped when I saw a couple of vans pull up beside the police car blocking the alley entrance. “They’re going to take us all away,” I said to Eddie’s mother. “Please. Forgive him, so he can move on.”
Her lips quivered, and her eyes filled with tears. “I forgive you. Do you forgive me? Please say you forgive me!”
“I—I forgive you,” Eddie whispered. “I love you, Mom.”
I told her what he’d said, and she threw herself into my arms and sobbed. I felt Eddie’s cold steal over me as he reached through me to touch his mother, and for a moment, before the police hauled us all away, our t
hree hearts beat as one.
But Eddie didn’t move on. He really did need Luke, just as I suspected.
Dammit, anyhow.
THE POLICE GRABBED everybody to take us down to the police station, and I obediently followed along until I felt someone’s hand on my elbow, pulling me out of the line.
I turned and saw it was James. “You can ride with me,” he said. “If you want.”
For a second, I thought about saying, “No, it’s all right, I’ll ride with the book club ladies,” but I didn’t. I just nodded silently and followed him to the car.
It was time for our talk, whether I wanted it or not.
But here’s the thing. He helped me into the car, ever the gentleman, and pulled away from the old house with the black door without saying a word. When I said, “I suppose you want to talk now,” all he did was shake his head.
“Not now,” he said. “Let’s do what we need to do first. We can talk later.”
So we drove to the cop shop in total silence. He seemed calm. Almost at peace. But I was neither. I felt nearly as scared as I had in the Escalade, moments before Ambrose Welch’s attempted suicide by cop, because I was absolutely certain that when our talk was over, we’d be over, too.
WE WALKED INTO the front entrance of the cop shop and were immediately buzzed in and herded through to the interview rooms at the back. I saw that the book club had beaten us there, as had Eddie. He was standing with his mother, still looking as clear as glass.
After we collected our cell phones, we stepped into line behind the women. Eddie walked up to me and stood solemnly.
“Thanks, Marie. I know that was hard for you, putting yourself out there like that.”
I wouldn’t answer him, because James was standing beside me, but Eddie didn’t seem to care. Just wandered back to his mother, who I hoped would keep her mouth shut. She’d said she would, but I’d learned the hard way not to trust people when they say they’ll keep a secret.
His mother looked surprisingly good. She was comforting a couple of the other book club members who had decided that since things were now relatively quiet and they were out of danger, they could afford to have small meltdowns. She looked at me over the head of the woman sobbing all over her and smiled as though her biggest burden had been lifted. Maybe it had.
