Thinking of such assignations I snoozed during the final part of the ride. I wakened with a start when the cab driver said, “Here we are sir.”
“Thank you,” I paid him and glanced at my watch. Almost midnight. Rain still beating down. Autumn rain. So soon. The doorman would be gone by now. No problem. I’d let myself in with my key, ride up to my apartment on my private elevator, fall into bed and dream about Jane.
As I fumbled to get my key into the lock, they hit me.
There were two of them, large dark objects in the rain. Muggers. Give them your money and don’t fight, my professorial head said.
Kill the bastards, the POW camp survivor insisted.
Leo
They seemed more interested in messing me up than in getting my money.
“Mother fucker,” one of them grunted, hitting me in the gut.
“Fucking bastard,” said the other, punching my back.
I spun around and kicked one of them in the shins. Then I buried my fist into the groin of the other.
How quick it all comes back, I thought.
They flailed away at me, amateur alley fighters against a trained killer, no matter how many years away from killing.
I made up my mind to kill both of them Jane, the University, all the important things in my life faded away. Killing these two muggers was all that mattered.
They kept coming back for more, jabbing and pounding on me, despite my devastating blows. Probably high on drugs.
“I’m going to cut the mother fucker,” one of them yelled.
“We’re not supposed to do that.”
“He gonna kill us.”
“Let’s get outta here.”
“Gonna cut the mother fucker first.”
I saw him coming at me in the rain and darkness, an opaque shape with a sliver of metal reaching out for me. I ducked away, felt a sharp sting in my shoulder, grabbed his arm and snapped it.
He bellowed with pain. I kneed him in the groin, threw him to the ground, and stomped on what I thought was his hand. Then I kicked him in the stomach.
“Mother fucker,” he moaned.
I kicked him again. He rolled away, scrambled to his feet, and tottered off into the storm. His friend was already gone.
“Mother fucker,” he groaned from a safe distance.
I could have killed him, but I didn’t. Good sign.
I felt in the general area of the pain in my shoulder. Blood under my jacket. Damn. Ruined a good shirt and suit. I’d better go over to the hospital and have them sew me up.
I stumbled the three-quarters of a mile across campus and into the emergency room of the hospital. I got a little lost at first and maybe fell three or four times. For a couple of minutes I was not sure who I was or what I was up to.
Then I thought of Jane and that I had better not bleed to death from a mugging or I would be in great trouble with her.
I was soaking wet from the rain, dizzy from the blows I had received, confused about what had happened, and dripping blood.
An attractive black resident saw me collapse into a bench in the waiting room. “Mr Kelly! What happened! You’re bleeding!”
Injured provosts get quick attention.
“I guess I was mugged.”
“Let me see! Oh my, this is a serious wound, you’ve lost a lot of blood. We’ll have to give you a transfusion. Come along with me. Does it hurt?”
“No, Doctor it doesn’t. I’m a hero.”
She giggled nervously as if I had said something hilariously funny.
A half hour later in the presence of the Director of Emergency Services, the Director of the Hospital, and the Dean of the Medical School, the Chief of Trauma Treatment sewed me up.
I must have been hilariously funny as I lay on the table, blood trickling in through a tube in one arm and antibiotics through a tube in the other arm. They all were laughing at my comments, most of the substance of which has since escaped me completely.
“You were lucky, Leo,” the surgeon said. “Nothing much damaged. An inch in either direction and it would have been another matter.”
“Did you refuse to give them your wallet, Leo?”
That was the president himself who had just drifted in, a tall, thin lawyer with thick glasses and a whimsical smile.
“They didn’t seem to want my wallet,” I said, realizing again how strange that was. “Odd, isn’t it?”
“Very odd,” the Dean agreed.
“Provosts are odd people. Thank God they get first-class treatment, even if they fly coach.”
More laughter.
“Dr. Kelly,” the resident said, “you sure are funny.”
“A real stitch.”
More laughter.
A cop was lingering at the doorway. “Be with you in a minute, officer.”
“No hurry, Doctor Kelly.”
“Can I go home now?”
They looked at one another.
The young woman made the decision, as was perfectly proper. “You’re my patient, Doctor Kelly, and I’m going to keep you in here overnight…because you’re so funny!”
“All right,” I sighed. “I know better than to argue.”
The rest of the crew drifted out eventually. I answered the cop’s questions. Two men, on drugs, one of them with a broken arm, not a very easy search.
“We’ll do our best, sir. We might just luck out.”
“I understand.”
I felt very tired, I wanted to sleep until the day after the Last Judgment.
“Maybe you should take a little nap now, Doctor Kelly,” the woman’s name I had learned was Diane and she had the tenderness that a male M.D. must work hard to achieve and women have almost for the asking.
“You’re right, Diane. I need to nap.”
There were a couple of other things I needed to do, but they could wait till morning.
No, one of them could not wait.
“Can I make a phone call, Diane?”
“Sure can.”
She carried a phone with a long extension line over to me.
“It’s pretty late to make a call now, Dr. Kelly.”
“It will be a lot later for me if I don’t…damn! Diane I can’t read the numbers…will you punch them in for me?” I paused and struggled to remember the magic number.
It wouldn’t come.
“I can’t remember it. I must be a real mess.”
“You’ve had better days, Doctor Kelly. Where does the party you’re calling live?”
“Near north, Michigan Avenue.”
“642-exchange?”
“Right! Brilliant! 642–0913…I hope.”
She giggled again and handed me the phone. “It’s ringing now, sir.”
She slipped away, discreetly protecting my privacy.
“Yes!”
Jane, awake, alert, worried.
“Me. I’m all right. You will hear radio reports in the morning that the Provost of the University has been mugged. No reason to worry, he is surviving nicely.”
“He sounds woozy.” Her voice was tight with fear.
“Long, hard day Jane. They’re keeping me overnight just to play it safe. But there’s nothing seriously wrong with me, except that this young resident is so pretty.”
“Then there’s nothing wrong with you at all,” she laughed, but was still worried.
You cannot deprive them of their right to worry, even when all cause for worry is over.
“Not at all. But I realized I would be in the deepest of shit if I was not the first one to tell you.”
“Absolutely, to use your favorite word.”
“My daughter, the inestimable Laura, is returning from basketball camp early in the morning along with your equally admirable child. Ah…”
What was the brat’s name.
“Lucianne?”
“Right. You’d best intercept them so they hear about it from you.”
“I will! I will!”
“Then you can all worry together, even th
ough there’s nothing to worry about.”
She laughed again. “I’m terribly worried right now.”
“Your privilege. In a minute I’m going to put the pretty young resident on the line and she will give you an exact description of my case, thus you will have all the details, I repeat all of them. Officially on the record. Thus, we can give some dimensions to your worry. Fair enough?”
“Good idea…”
“One more thing before I sink into the sleep of the just…let me see…oh yes, Jane, I love you. I’m absolutely—sorry—totally and crazily in love with you and I always will be.”
“Oh, Lee, me too. Forever and ever. Amen.”
“Diane…Ms. Devlin on the line. Would you tell her the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about what my condition is?”
She grinned. “Sure will.”
I didn’t listen to the conversation.
“All OK, Doctor Kelly. That Ms. Devlin sure is a nice lady.”
“She is that, Diane. She is that.”
The next morning that nice lady and the others in the gaggle of women who had suddenly become my family were gathered around my hospital bed, still worrying—Laura and Lucianne looking very worried. Lovely women all.
Also, to provide psychotherapeutic support should such be needed, the cute little witch from Philadelphia lurked behind them.
The tone of their comments from youngest to oldest stated that the “mugging” in great part was my own fault for not being more careful. The next time I traveled, the University Livery should bring me back and forth to O’Hare. Their driver would have waited till I was in the building and would have phoned the police when he saw the muggers.
Perhaps he would have, but by the time they came it would have been too late.
I suppose I didn’t help matters any by responding with the horrific macho comment, “You should see the other two guys.”
They assured me that a wide variety of food and drink would be waiting for me at my apartment. As would Jane too, to make sure I didn’t do anything crazy for the next day or two.
Well, not too crazy, I didn’t say.
Maggie lingered after the rest.
“Still at Chosin, Leo?”
“I guess so, Maggie. They weren’t supposed to knife me. Just beat me up a little. I scared the hell out of them.”
“And they didn’t take your money?”
“No. They weren’t interested in my money. Stupid. If they had tried to take money it would have looked like an ordinary mugging. Our friends, whoever they are, are getting clumsy.”
“They’re still out there then?”
“Yes, Maggie. They are still out there. They still want to take her away from me.”
“This time they will fail, Leo.” She touched my hand and I felt healing energy flow from her body into mine. That was a new trick.
“A promise?”
“Absolutely,” she smiled.
After she left, I tried again to put the pieces together as I had all summer long. I had more pieces now, a lot more pieces.
I rearranged the pieces several times, like I play with data on my SPSS analysis package. Still didn’t fit.
Too much painkiller in me.
I gave up, relaxed, and began to think of Jane waiting for me at the apartment, long legs, lovely face, rich body. Ah Jane.
I should have stayed away from the Pentagon, I told myself as I drifted into a trance-like state. Pentagon. Navy Department. Nothing good came from them.
Pentagon. Navy Department.
Why are those words important?
Is some voice deep down in the sub-basement of my soul trying to tell me something?
Pentagon? Navy Department!
Then the picture erupted in my head. I saw it all, the total and each of the pieces. I played it over, just like I always rerun a correlation that seemed suspiciously high.
It all fit.
Despite the medication, I was now wide awake. My heart sank. It was not good news, not at all.
Well, I must go ahead with it now. Check out the details. I called Tim in Washington and he confirmed a detail with an answer to one question.
“Does that solve it for you, Leo?”
“It does.”
“You want us to do anything?”
“Not at the moment.”
My brain was churning now, adrenaline exorcising painkiller. I went through the details, listing in my head the evidence I would need. We must not stir “them” up again.
With a little luck we could get it all. We could certainly get enough. I’d do one interview myself, no two, leave the rest to pros.
I phoned Jerry Keenan.
“You all right, Lee?”
“Fine! I’ve solved it all, Jerry!”
“You sure? You sound kind of strange.”
“All of that. But I have it down cold. Listen to me.”
I painted my picture.
“Dear God,” he whispered. “It sounds right, crazy, but right.”
“Here’s what I want you to do.” I went through the list in my head. Had I missed anything? No, not a thing.
“All right, I guess it can be done, we’ll have to be lucky a couple of times.”
“Tell your dad, no one else. Except Maggie of course.”
“Couldn’t hide it from her.”
“I need it all quick.”
“I can see that. You can’t tell what they’ll try next.”
“I agree. It’s too late to turn back now.”
“It’s always been too late…what will you do when you get the evidence?”
“I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it then.”
“There’s no statute of limitations on murder or attempted murder.”
“Yeah.”
The adrenaline kicked out and the painkillers took over again.
Maybe I’d do nothing. Maybe it would be enough to have the evidence.
Maybe, but that sounded too easy. High risks either way.
I had a lot to lose either way.
I vowed I would not lose Jane no matter what happened. I would not tolerate that loss again.
Leo
We were in Jane’s house on the Saturday afternoon of the Labor Day Weekend. She was hosting a small party in honor of the Devlin Chair, toasts in real and unreal champagne, depending.
She and I had been together constantly during the past week, deepening and strengthening our love.
Her brothers and their wives—presentable matrons in their middle fifties (Dickie’s wife was Madge, I reminded myself and Mickie’s was Helen)—but not their children were on the porch with us. And the usual crowd: Laura, Lucianne, and the Keenans—Tom and Marie, Jerry and Maggie, Packy.
Jane smiled at me over her glass as she toasted the Chair, a shy, sly lover’s smile.
“I have something to say,” I began.
“Say it,” she grinned at me.
“I want to make some charges.”
Her smile faded.
“I intend to charge your brothers with being accessories before and after the fact to the murder of James and Eileen Murray. I intend to charge them with conspiracy to commit murder against me, once thirty-two years ago and again the week before last. I further intend to charge them with conspiracy to falsify government documents thirty years ago, though on that charge the statute of limitations has long since expired.”
The terror on the faces of her two brothers persuaded me that our hastily assembled evidence was unnecessary. They were guilty on all counts.
“You’re out of your mind,” Dickie blustered. “Out of your fucking mind.”
Her face drawn tightly, her eyes closed, Jane sank quietly into a chair.
“I’m not, Dickie. Hear out my evidence. On all other charges except the assault last week, I believe you were only accessories.”
“You can’t prove a thing.”
I opened the briefcase out of which I removed a stack of statements.
“As to t
hat most recent crime, we have the sworn testimony of the man you hired to pay those two goons to beat me up. You were rather crude about that, boys. Out of practice I suppose. I thought I faced an elaborate and sophisticated conspiracy. In fact I was dealing with crude amateurs, crude but dangerous and potentially deadly. I note for the record, that if that knife blade was an inch to the right I would be dead and you’d be free forever of your past crimes.”
“Bullshit.”
“This testimony alone would be enough to convict you.” I put it aside.
“Then I have a sworn statement from Al Winslow that your brother Herbie paid him five thousand dollars in 1948 to loosen the brakes in the Keenans’ old Lasalle instead of fixing them. Mr. Winslow is an elderly man now and afraid of spending the rest of his life in jail. He was only too willing to talk to our investigators, especially since then Officer Joe Miller, now Sheriff Joe Miller when asked of the possibility of seeing someone hanging around Winslow’s place after the crime said that he’d seen you there, but had at the time thought nothing of it.”
“That kind of testimony won’t stand up in court,” Dickie argued nervously.
“No, Dickie, probably not, but it confirms for us that we are right in our analysis.”
Dickie broke down. “We didn’t mean for you to get killed,” he sobbed, “just an accident. We didn’t figure anyone would drive it down the hill that fast. Anyway, Mickie and I were going to warn you to have another look at the brakes because we’d say we didn’t trust Winslow. There wasn’t time.”
“She made him do it,” Mickie agreed. “You knew that she could make us do anything. We were terrified of her. He didn’t want to do it either. He carried the memory of what happened to his grave.”
“Michael!” His wife spoke sharply. “Don’t say anything more!”
“It’s no good, Helen.” He slumped in his chair. “They have all the goods on us. We knew it would catch up with us eventually.”
“It’s caught up now. I note in passing that the memory Herbert P. Devlin carried to his grave was of two young bodies incinerated in a car just a few yards away from this house late on the night of August 14, 1948. I do not believe he was in this house when it happened. But I presume the three of you rushed up the next day to see the results of your handiwork.”
“She made him do it. You don’t know the kind of power she had. We couldn’t resist her temper, especially when she was drunk. You don’t know what it was like to five with that woman.”
Summer at the Lake Page 40
