The Pride Trilogy: Kyle Callahan 1-3

by Mark McNease

  “Yeah,” Chloe replied, her voice tinny through the phone.

  “Hang on, Chloe, I’m putting you on speaker.” A second later they could hear her voice filling the back seat as Kyle said, “You still there?”

  “I’m still here.”

  “So what’s this about a suit?”

  “Well, there was this guy who came in late for lunch, just about time to close the kitchen. You know Danny, he never turns anyone away unless he has to. So he served him.”

  “What did this man look like, Chloe?”

  “Tallish. Handsome. Older for sure, in his forties. Said he’d just got back from Europe and he owned a suit store, men’s store, whatever.”

  Linda mouthed the words, “Oh my God” and started to say something, but Kyle shushed her.

  “So what happened then?” he asked

  “Then? The guy left. He ate, gave Danny his card, and left.”

  “Chloe, thank you for the information. It’s very, very helpful.”

  Kyle was about to hang up when Chloe said, “Kyle? Please don’t tell Danny I told you. He wanted me to keep it a secret. About the suit, I mean.”

  Kyle laughed for the first time in two days. “Well, I knew you didn’t mean about the man, Chloe. Danny’s not the straying sort. His eye might wander, all eyes do, but that’s as far afield as we go. And don’t worry, if this is the man I think it was, Danny will be very relieved you told me.”

  Kyle hung up. The taxi was now at 72nd Street and they had a decision to make.

  “Do we go to the store instead?” Kyle said. “Danny left an hour ago, he’s probably there now.”

  Linda was undecided: should they veer from their plans and head to the store, or stay on mission. The store wasn’t that far from the townhouse, they could do both, but first she wanted to make sure Keller wasn’t home.

  “Let’s stay on track,” she said. “We’ll go to the townhouse, have the taxi wait outside while we see if Keller’s home, then make a beeline to the store. If Keller’s the Pride Killer, he’s not claiming his victims at a highly visible store on Lexington Avenue. If Danny’s there, he’s safe for the moment.”

  Kyle sighed—a deep exhale of anxiety and adrenaline. He was perched on the very edge of the backseat now. They were just a block away from the townhouse. He leaned up to the partition, handed the driver a $20 and said, “Listen, we need you to wait when we get there. Keep the meter running. If no one’s home we have a second stop. If this person is home, just keep the change and go.”

  “Fine,” said the driver. It was the only word he’d uttered in fifty blocks.

  Chapter 39

  Danny listened in horror as his cell phone buzzed. He kept it on vibrate at the restaurant, and now, helpless, he heard it shaking and rattling just out of reach. He knew it must be Kyle—Chloe and the others at Margaret’s only called him in cases of emergency, knowing he needed his away-time from the demands of the job.

  He had no idea how long he’d been unconscious. Obviously long enough for Diedrich Keller to get him to a gurney and secure him with straps. He was still fully clothed, which was a very minor relief. He also knew he had fallen into the trap of the man known for years as the elusive Pride Killer. How could he be so stupid, he wondered. How could he not have realized that while there were coincidences in life all the time, having Diedrich Keller come into the restaurant for lunch just hours after Kyle and Linda spoke to him was not one of them? Had his judgment been dulled by all the emotions of the past few months? Had he let his guard down so far he had no instincts left—if he’d ever had them at all? How, exactly, did he allow himself to be lured into this position, which may well prove to be his last?

  “It’s your husband,” D said, glancing at the phone and seeing Kyle’s name on the caller ID. “Shall I answer it?”

  Danny knew the man was toying with him. He wouldn’t be surprised if he answered the phone to torture Kyle with the knowledge of what was about to happen. Danny said nothing, hoping his silence would keep Keller from taking the call.

  “No,” said D, letting the phone ring a fourth time and go into voicemail. “Better he and that bitch he’s with find out about you when it’s too late.”

  “What are you going to do?” Danny said, his voice hoarse as his wits slowly came back to him.

  “Do you know who I am?”

  “You’re the Pride Killer.”

  “Then that answers your question.”

  Danny felt himself growing damp with sweat, yet the basement was nearly cold from an air conditioner he could see mounted in a small blacked-out window in a far corner of the ceiling. He forced himself to become fully alert, lifting his head as far as he could—there was a restraint of some kind lashed across his forehead. A belt? A strap? He couldn’t tell, but he was able to bend his head up just a bit, and turn his neck slightly from side to side.

  He was not in the main basement room, he was sure of that. He’d made it to the bottom of the stairs … it was coming back to him now. He’d felt his knees begin to wobble as he got down the stairs and into the well-furnished cellar. Diedrich Keller had taken pains to make his killer’s lair as deceptively arranged as his townhouse. There was a large leather couch and two matching armchairs, Danny remembered that. There was some kind of artwork on the walls, imitation modern art that reminded Danny of Pollock and Warhol, one above the couch, another above a low ebony cabinet. There was indeed a wine cellar of sorts, with rows and rows of dark bottles carefully stacked in a waist-high rack that ran along the back wall. Danny had been about to comment on the comfort of the room when he realized the wooziness he’d been feeling was not natural. His legs began to buckle and he lunged for the couch, saying, “What did you do to me?” as he fell face-first onto the cushions.

  “What I did to you,” Danny remembered Keller saying just before he lost consciousness, “is nothing compared to what I’m going to do.”

  Then all was blackness, and now this. In a separate room. Cold but sweating with fear. Knowing Kyle had been trying to call, knowing rescue was just beyond his arm’s reach. Watching as a sadistic, very successful serial killer hummed to himself and stood in front of a tray, his back to Danny, inspecting tools that Danny could see just on the periphery of his vision. Torture tools. The kind of instruments from hell the living only see as they are about to die.

  The taxi pulled up in front of Diedrich Keller’s townhouse. Linda was out immediately, hurrying up the steps with Kyle a moment behind. The cab idled at the curb as promised.

  Kyle caught up to Linda at the top step as Linda pushed the door buzzer and waited. After a long minute without response, she pushed the buzzer again.

  “He’s not here,” Kyle said, taking Linda by the arm. “Let’s go to the store.”

  “Wait just a minute, I’m not so sure …” She cocked her head and listened.

  “What are you …”

  “Shh!” She listened carefully, as if she heard a very small voice on the wind. She slowly turned her head, looking for the source of the sound. Kyle followed her line of sight, first up, then to the side, and finally down. There were basement window wells, and in one of them a small air conditioner could be heard humming.

  “There,” Linda said. “An air conditioner.”

  “In the basement. Why would he have an air conditioner in the basement?”

  “And why would it be on if he wasn’t home?” She pushed the door buzzer again, this time hard enough that Kyle thought she might push it through the wall.

  D heard the buzzer upstairs. So did Danny, though he tried to keep any trace of hope or excitement off his face.

  “I’m very well equipped down here,” D said, turning back from his tray. He held what looked like an X-Acto knife in his hand. “You know, I’ve always been quick about it, preferring a belt or garrote of some kind—not for mercy, but for the mess. I mean, really, who needs the clean up? But I’ve gone to some trouble for you, acquiring a few extra toys just this morning.” He held up the knife
. “Art supplies, indeed.” He then nodded to another corner of the room, behind Danny. “You can’t see it from where you are, but there’s a small monitor mounted in the corner. I can see whoever’s at the front door. Would you like to know who it is?”

  Danny swallowed hard, afraid of the answer. Was it the police? Would this madman simply ignore them and hope they went away? Please, please don’t go away, Danny prayed, licking his drying lips.

  “It’s your husband and the bitch. She’s looking around. My mistake! She probably heard the air conditioner.”

  Danny discovered in that instant that hope and despair can be felt at the same time. He hoped Kyle and Linda would not go away, that they would know something was happening in this house of horrors. Yet he despaired they would leave and he would never see his husband, his friends, his cats, anything that mattered to him, ever again.

  D put the knife back on the tray. “I’d better go see what they want before they call in reinforcements,” he said. “Don’t worry, Danny. I’ll be back.” He took a roll of duct tape from the tray and hurried over to Danny. Peeling off a piece and cutting it with the knife, he taped Danny’s mouth. “Can’t have you shouting out now, can we?” he said.

  Taking a deep breath, D composed himself. Danny watched in fascinated terror as Diedrich Keller’s face changed, softening, smiling, becoming the face of an innocent man caught up in something he had nothing to do with. “This won’t take long.”

  D left the room, humming to himself. Danny could hear the hum fade as the man who was very close to taking his life climbed the basement stairs and quietly closed the door behind him.

  “He’s here,” Linda said. “I know he is.” She rang the bell one more time. If Keller did not answer the door she was prepared to find a way in. Then, to their surprise, the door opened. Diedrich Keller stood in the doorway, feigning sleep, as if he’d been woken from a nap.

  “Yes, Mr. Callahan, and Brenda, was it?”

  “Linda Sikorsky.”

  “Right. I’d say it was nice to see you again but I’ve just been sleeping! I nap sometimes in the afternoon.”

  “May we come in?” Kyle asked. “We’d like to ask a few more questions.”

  “Certainly,” said D, as he stepped aside, waving them into his home.

  The three of them entered the foyer, tastefully furnished with an ebony crescent table and mirror just inside the door. Soft classical piano music played in the living room. Kyle identified it as Chopin, among his late father’s favorites. “Let’s head into the living room and sit,” D said, leading them down the short hallway into his expansive living room.

  Kyle looked around, taking in each detail. The paintings, the fireplace, the soft suede furniture. There were a number of photographs lined up on the fireplace mantel. Kyle wandered over and looked at them. He had the strange sensation no one in the pictures was related to Diedrich Keller. “Family?” he asked.

  “Distant,” said D. “Won’t you have a seat?”

  Linda eased down onto the couch. D could see she was still wearing the gun holster. His smile fell an inch or two. He remained standing as Kyle took a seat in the matching chair, forming a small triangle with Linda on one side, Kyle on the other, and Diedrich Keller standing by the coffee table.

  “Now,” D said. “May I get you something to drink?”

  Danny could hear movement upstairs. The floorboards in the townhouse were old and original, and they’d warped over the years as old wood does. The constant shifting of cold to hot, damp to dry with the changing seasons, created curves in the boards. No matter how well they were kept up, they always creaked. He heard voices, too, but muffled. He recognized the timbre of Kyle’s voice, speaking in short sentences. It elevated his agitation to a nearly unbearable level. Would Keller kill them, too? Would they all be found dead in this basement days from now, or be buried under the floor?

  He tried to free his hands. His arms had been fastened with straps to the metal bars along the side of the gurney. His legs were bound with a belt and strapped down. There appeared to be no way to free himself, but he kept trying, wriggling his right hand back and forth. He told himself over and over to relax, just relax. He’d always been fascinated by escape artists, and he knew the key to extricating oneself from restraints was not to fight against them, but to surrender to them. Deep breaths. Let the body become fluid. Finally, after a full five minutes of letting himself become smaller and smaller, his right hand came free. At first he didn’t realize it, but he felt the space that had opened up around his wrist, just enough empty space to allow him to slide his arm up and out. He raised his hand and stared at it, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Then he quickly grabbed the tape on his mouth, yanked it off and screamed.

  Kyle and Linda both declined D’s offer of a drink. They did not want to waste time while he made coffee or tea, and they certainly were not having alcohol in the middle of the afternoon. When he’d made the offer, Linda glanced at Kyle with the very slightest shake of her head: no. Kyle read into it everything Linda wanted him to. Keller was stalling. Keller was up to something. Whatever he offered someone to drink in this house, it was a drink they regretted.

  “We visited your store again,” Kyle said.

  “Yes, I know,” D said. “Jarrod called me. He was afraid I might be in some danger.”

  “Danger?” said Linda.

  “With this Pride Killer person on the loose, and apparently some connection to my store I’m completely unaware of. I realized after speaking with Jarrod that I had seen that young man, looking in the store window. He never came in, though. Do you suppose this killer is stalking his victims? Perhaps he followed the man, approached him outside my business, and that’s where the trail went cold, so to speak.”

  “I think you know more than you’re telling us,” Kyle said. “I think it’s time for us to go to the police and suggest they have a conversation with you.”

  D stared at them. “I have to ask you to leave now.” His voice was cold, his smile gone and replaced by a flat, hard expression.

  That was when they heard it: a loud scream from beneath them. A man shouting, “Help me! Help me!” And that man, Kyle instantly recognized, was Danny.

  “Oh my God, he’s here!” Kyle shouted. He jumped up from the couch. “Where is he?”

  Without waiting for Keller to respond, Kyle hurried through the house, looking for doors, calling out, “We’re here, Danny! We’re here!”

  Keller was alone in the living room now with Linda. Just as she rose from the couch he lunged at her, shoving her back into the cushions. She was a tall woman, but Diedrich Keller was taller, and stronger. He shoved his forearm against her throat. When she reached up with both hands to free herself, gasping, he grabbed her gun from its holster. Stepping back from the couch, he pointed the pistol directly at Linda’s chest and said, “Stop right there.”

  Danny had not been successful in freeing his other arm. He’d also stopped relaxing, fighting frantically against his restraints. He heard the door open and footsteps rushing down the stairs. He looked up, shocked and relieved, to see Kyle running into the room.

  Kyle hurried over to him. He didn’t know what was going on upstairs, but he knew they had little time. He had to free Danny from the gurney. He stood over Danny, trying to determine where the buckles were on the straps.

  “The knife,” Danny said, nodding at the tray where Keller had his instruments of pain and pleasure. “Use the knife.”

  Kyle grabbed the X-Acto knife, turned back to the gurney and began slicing the straps. The knife wasn’t meant to cut leather, but Kyle was determined. He cut himself slashing at the straps and a gush of blood began flowing from his fingers. He didn’t care. He kept cutting, furiously digging with the knife blade. Finally the strap gave way and Danny was free. He slid off the gurney. He wanted to embrace Kyle, to fall into him, but there was no time. They were both about to run back upstairs when they heard the voice behind them.

  “Let’s
all just stay in the basement, shall we?” D said.

  Kyle turned around and saw Linda in front of Diedrich Keller, who was holding her gun, calmly and evenly, prepared to shoot her in the back.

  “It will be so much easier to clean things up down here.”

  Kyle and Danny watched in horror as Keller raised the gun back over his shoulder. In a quick, savage arc, he brought the gun butt smashing against Linda Sikorsky’s skull. She collapsed in an instant, as if she’d been inflated and all the air inside her suddenly released.

  Kyle ran to her, fearful of the worst.

  “I doubt she’s dead,” D said. “Probably just unconscious. She’s in for quite a surprise when she wakes up again.”

  Timing was everything, Kyle knew. Decisions had to be made so quickly sometimes they could not be called decisions, but reactions, instincts. He was in a crouch over Linda. He still had the knife in his hand, and without thinking, without knowing what would happened next, he threw himself at Keller and thrust the knife into his leg.

  Keller screamed. Kyle pulled the knife out and plunged it in again, causing Keller to collapse on the floor beside Linda.

  Kyle scrambled for the gun. They two men struggled—Diedrich Keller was not giving up without a fight. Danny watched, terrified, as his husband and the man who had been close to killing them all rolled and wrestled on the floor. What could he do? Should he jump in and try to subdue Keller? Then he saw it: Keller had gotten the knife and was raising it over Kyle’s back. He was going to bury it in Kyle’s neck! Danny screamed, “Nooooo!”

  Then a gunshot. One single, roaring gunshot. Danny feared the worst. It had come to this. Kyle and Linda’s obsession with criminals, their repeated forays into the worlds of the depraved. His very worst nightmare had just become reality. He had to do something. He had to survive and do what he could to help them all. He turned to the instrument tray and grabbed a small, stainless steel hammer. With enough force it could be lethal. He turned back and the sight stunned him. Kyle standing up. Kyle rising slowly. First to his knees, then to his feet. Linda Sikorsky’s gun was in his hand. Diedrich Keller was dead.