Mirror Image

by Dennis Palumbo

“Hold on, will ya, Noah? That’s my cell.”

  I reached over and slipped the cell out of my pocket.

  “Dr. Rinaldi? Harvey Blalock.”

  “Hey, I was going to call you. I’ve gotten a room at the Hyatt.” I gave him the room number.

  “Good boy. I just wanted to let you know I spoke to the District Attorney, and he assures me there’re no plans to charge you in the Riley murder. At least for now.”

  “You know Leland Sinclair? How well?”

  “We play golf once in a while. Besides, I’m president of the Pittsburgh Black Attorneys Association. He and I both know he’ll need our endorsement when he runs for governor. Anyway, unless you like paying lawyer’s fees, I wouldn’t rush out and retain Ralph Puzzini just yet.”

  “Okay. Speaking of fees, we never discussed yours.”

  He laughed. “Why ruin what looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship?”

  I managed a laugh, too. After talking about finding a time to meet in his office in the next day or two, I clicked off and checked back with Noah on the land-line.

  “Sorry, Noah, you still there?”

  The line was dead.

  I called right back, feeling an inexplicable, mounting anxiety as it rang six or seven times.

  Finally, Charlene picked up.

  “Charlene, it’s Dan. I was just talking to Noah.”

  She sounded harried, distracted. “You were? He was just here…maybe he’s—shit, I don’t know where he is…”

  “Look, if he—”

  “Sorry, Doc, another customer’s come in. Gotta go.”

  She hung up.

  I stared at the receiver. Then at the wall print of a Turner landscape just above the desk. Then at the scattered papers and files waiting for my attention on the bed.

  Strange, this feeling twisting inside my stomach about Noah. That something was about to happen. That something was…wrong.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  A blustery wind whipped the flaps of my overcoat as I pushed open the door of the Spent Cartridge. The cop bar was a dark, wood-paneled anachronism wedged between two recent high-rises on Liberty Avenue. As always during shift changes, the place was packed.

  A haze of cigarette smoke veiled the room. I made my way through the throng of off-duty plainclothes, past the noisy bar where the evening news played on a wide-screen TV nobody was watching, and reached the booths at the back.

  Sgt. Polk and Det. Lowrey sat across from each other, over burgers and beer. Without preamble, I slid in next to Lowrey. I smiled at her.

  Her violet eyes narrowed for just a moment, then softened with what seemed like bemusement.

  “Dr. Rinaldi. Nice to see you again.”

  Polk, working over a mouthful of burger, swallowed noisily. “What the hell are you doin’ here?”

  “Just checking in with the team. Casey Walters told me about Stickey. She also said you guys mentioned coming here after work.”

  “She did, huh?” Polk looked across at his partner. “Can you believe the balls on this guy? You wanna toss his ass, or should I?”

  “Chill, Harry. Besides, with all the shit goin’ on in your life, maybe the Doc here can give you some advice.” She turned to me. “He sure as hell doesn’t listen to me.”

  “Yeah, right.” Polk pointed a ketchup-smudged finger at me. “One thing, man. You better pray that Lt. Biegler don’t come waltzin’ in here right about now. He wants your goddam head on a pole.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said, “Biegler wouldn’t set foot in this place. Figures he’d be slumming.”

  Lowrey laughed. “You got that right.”

  “Look,” I said, “just fill me in on what’s going on. I’m on the payroll, so I could probably find out through official channels, but I’d rather get it from the people who don’t have their heads up their asses.”

  “Gimme a break,” Polk said irritably.

  “C’mon, just tell me about James Stickey…”

  Eleanor Lowrey enjoyed watching the slow burn coloring her partner’s face. Finally, Polk shrugged, but he made me wait until he’d finished off his burger.

  “Nothin’ to tell,” he said. “I go up this morning to Cloverbrook—now there’s a fuckin’ garden spot, nothin’ but tractors and cow shit and this big, ugly-ass prison. Anyway, turns out Stickey ain’t in his cell. They call out the troops, and we find him stuffed in a clothes basket in the laundry room. Been dead at least a couple hours.”

  “Any suspects?”

  “Oh, yeah. About fourteen hundred of ’em.”

  “Well, what’s your gut feeling? You think his death is connected to the Wingfield case?”

  “Could be, but I doubt it. Could be anything. Drugs. Turf. Maybe he got tired of bein’ somebody’s bitch.”

  “Aren’t you investigating?”

  “Not our jurisdiction. The local cops are tryin’ to pick up some leads. Ain’t gonna come up with squat.”

  Eleanor Lowrey nodded thoughtfully. “Part of me agrees with you, Dr. Rinaldi. Too damn coincidental. But…”

  She took a sip of her beer. A black female cop didn’t make Detective First Grade by wasting time on dead leads. Or pissing off her veteran partner.

  I turned to her. “By the way, I was talking to Nancy Mendors, and she told me you interviewed those two girls at the clinic. About the fight.”

  “You sure get around, Doc. Yeah, I took a run at each of them. But I didn’t get much. Lucy’s family had a big-time lawyer there in about ten minutes, so that was that. The other one, Helen Frazier, just clamed up, except to call me a nigger cunt on my way out the door. All in all, a real fruitful afternoon.”

  “Somebody put them up to it,” I said. “At least one of them. Maybe with money or drugs. Then the killer used the diversion to slip into Riley’s office and shoot him.”

  Polk eyed me caustically. “Yeah. The killer. Whoever that might be.”

  “Give that one a rest, will ya, Harry?” Lowrey said carefully. “Even you don’t believe it.”

  Polk and Lowrey exchanged looks, and I saw something pass between them. Like a secret code. The thing that anchored their relationship: Regardless of rank, years on the job, even differences in race and gender, partners don’t bullshit each other. Simple as that.

  Harry Polk got to his feet and announced, “I’m goin’ to the can. Let Freud here get the check.”

  As he shuffled off, Lowrey shook her head and reached for the bill. But I snatched it up.

  “My pleasure,” I said, to her surprised face. “Harry seems pretty stressed-out. Even for him.”

  Her eyes softened. “I feel sorry for him. He just got served the divorce papers an hour ago. So it’s official.”

  I considered this. “Hey, I know it’s not your job, but don’t let him crawl too far into a bottle tonight. He’s not looking so good.”

  “We’re partners, Dr. Rinaldi. So I figure it is my job. But don’t worry. I’ll bring him home with me tonight. Luther won’t mind. I’ve done it before.”

  “Luther?”

  “My Doberman.” Again, that bemused smile.

  As I flipped some bills onto the table, a chorus of angry voices rose from the bar area. I glanced up to see the bartender using the TV clicker to pump up the volume.

  “Screw you guys,” he growled, “I wanna hear this.”

  On the wide-screen, the graphic said “Breaking News,” under an image from a helicopter’s vantage point of a scarred, fire-blackened building. Obviously long-abandoned, it stood like a ghost amid rubble and scattered debris.

  The TV picture was jerky, moving in and out of focus, as the camera swung in a high circle around the site. Surrounding the building were a half dozen police units, lights pluming up against the wintry darkness.

  Lowrey and I stood, straining to see over the backs of a dozen heads now clustering at the bar. I just managed to get some of the news announcer’s words.

  “…apparent hostage situation…police have confirmed the identity
of the suspect…a photo has been released…”

  A blurred head shot appeared in a corner of the TV screen. Institutional setting. Pale green hospital tunic. It was an old picture, but—

  I threaded my way to the bar, getting a closer look at his face.

  As I felt the blood drain from my own.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Nancy Mendors aimed her dark eyes up at mine as two cops fitted the Kevlar jacket snugly across my chest.

  “Danny, you don’t have to do this.” Her soft voice dopplered away, lifted by the wind, shredded by the rattle of helicopter blades a hundred feet over our heads.

  “Richie knows me,” I said. “He trusts me. I think I can get him to come out.”

  All around us, steaming klieg lights were like blurred suns, making angled silhouettes of the piles of rubble, the fenders of cars, the upraised guns. The whole area was cordoned off, bracketing the tension. Hard faces, backlit against the night, loomed in at me.

  Sgt. Chester, the bullet-headed SWAT leader, got in my face long enough to give me a sour, frustrated look, and then stomped off, shouting orders to his men. The decision to let me try to talk Richie Ellner into surrendering had come from upstairs, and Chester was cleanly pissed.

  Bert Garman, shivering in his overcoat next to Nancy, wasn’t happy about it either.

  “Richie’s out of control,” he said. “He’s taken a hostage, for Christ’s sake. The security guard…”

  “They think there’s a hostage,” I said. One of the two cops prepping me slammed a thick black flashlight in my hand. Felt like a length of lead pipe.

  When I got here twenty minutes ago, I’d found Bert Garman and Nancy Mendors conferring with the police. I pulled Nancy aside and got the story.

  Apparently, Richie had been one of a group of clinic patients being taken by van to Memorial Hospital for observation. Their level of agitation had escalated after Brooks Riley’s murder, and Garman had ordered some tests.

  According to the other patients, when the van stopped at this intersection, Richie had bolted from his seat, gotten past the orderly in charge, and ran out onto the street. The driver gave chase, but Richie had too big a lead and vanished into the bowels of the building.

  “What is this place?” I’d said to Nancy, peering up at the dilapidated structure, streaked charcoal-black.

  “Some old dry-cleaning plant.” Her words were clipped, as though hollowed-out from shock. “Caught fire a couple years ago. Burned out. Abandoned.”

  She’d held my arm, dark hair buffeted by the wind. “Danny, I can’t bear the thought of Richie in there. Alone. Terrified. They’re going to kill him.”

  Even as I tried to comfort her, I’d already begun thinking about running something by the cops. About getting them to let me have a chance to talk to Richie.

  It took a lot of argument and calls to the brass, but I’d finally gotten the go-ahead. The fact that Richie’s father was a prominent senator, and was at that moment flying down from Harrisburg, put the idea over the top.

  Now, as I slipped a reflective jacket over the vest, Lieutenant Frank Lucci, in charge at the scene, came over to have the last word. Lucci was former military, tall, solid, with a face tough as a shaving strop.

  “Let’s get this bullshit over with,” he said, avoiding direct eye contact. “Chief says you get five minutes. Five fuckin’ minutes, okay? Then SWAT goes in and takes the bastard out.”

  “Got it.”

  “Remember, there might be a hostage. Building’s been abandoned since the fire, but the holding company says they keep a security guard on premises. To run off the crackheads, homeless. If he’s down, we gotta assume the perp took his gun. Which means the perp is violent, and armed.”

  “I know all this,” I said. “Now let me get in there.”

  Nancy’s eyes narrowed with anger. “He’s right, Danny. This is bullshit. Some kind of misplaced—”

  “Dr. Mendors,” Garman said. The sharpness in his voice seemed to surprise her, and Nancy fell silent. Then he put his arm around her. Also uncharacteristic.

  As was the fierceness in the look he gave me. “I hope to God you know what you’re doing,” he said.

  Then, with a proprietary grip on Nancy’s shoulder, he turned them both away.

  ***

  Ten feet into the building, and the reality of a world beyond its crumbling walls was eclipsed. The lights and sounds at my back, proof of men and movement, grew fainter with every step into the burned-out hull.

  I swung the flashlight beam in a wide arc to get my bearings. It illuminated a labyrinth of blocked corridors, scattered piles of rubble, the black and twisted remains of machinery. At the far end of this main floor, spiraling up like a DNA helix, stood a fire-scarred metal stairway.

  “Richie!” I started walking. High walls of hulking, rusted equipment made a catacomb of the factory floor.

  I glanced up, shining my light at the warped, bowed ceiling above. There were four floors stacked above me. He had to be up there somewhere.

  “Richie!” I called again. “It’s me! Dan Rinaldi!”

  I knew I couldn’t stop moving. Given Lucci’s deadline, every second counted. I headed for the spiral stairway.

  It was slow going. The wind was a high shriek. Dust swirled like a live thing, a mix of plaster and ash that burned my throat, choking me with every step.

  The flashlight beam bounced ahead of me as I made my way slowly, carefully, through the rubble. Thick darkness hung like a shroud beyond the stroke of the light.

  A dull gleam shone off the railings of the metal stairway, just ahead now. I sped up, impatient suddenly, careless. Come on, come on! Running now—

  Something caught my foot.

  An upraised floor plank? Debris? I staggered and pitched forward, hitting the floor hard. The flashlight flew from my hand, skittered away. Shit!

  I lay there, gasping. A stabbing pain where my elbow had hit. I blinked against the dust, reaching with outstretched fingers for the flashlight.

  It had rolled only a few feet, light elongating along the splintered floorboards. Okay. Okay.

  I took a breath and crawled forward to retrieve it. In the darkness, I felt a sudden whisper of movement across my knuckles, a pinch of claws—

  Christ! I lurched upright. I flapped my hand as if the rat still clung there, and, in two quick strides, scooped up the flashlight.

  I grasped the rail of the stairwell and stepped up, panning the floor with the light. A dozen pair of moist eyes blinked up at me. Then that familiar scurrying sound.

  At the edge of the circle of light were some overturned boxes, each about the size of a brick. Rat poison. Some of the boxes had been nibbled open, their contents spilled like dry riverbeds on the floor.

  “You’re gonna need more than that,” I said aloud to no one in particular.

  I climbed the winding metal stairs. Squinting to see up into the swirling opacity of dust and darkness. The stairway trembled, swayed, beneath my weight.

  Finally, I reached the top, a charred expanse of mottled flooring and collapsed walls. Only half a ceiling stretched overhead, the rest exposed to the black sky.

  Steeling myself, I threaded across the uneven floor. The wind’s shriek grew louder, like a cry of pain, of torment, of the damned.

  It wasn’t the wind.

  “Richie?”

  I ran quickly forward, my path suddenly blocked by a huge chunk of masonry. Half a chimney stack, collapsed onto itself. I clambered down its jagged length.

  I could hear Richie’s anguished cries clearly now. The cops would come breaking in any moment, and I was so close, almost there, almost—

  On the other side of the barrier was a huge, rain-bloated cardboard box, wet and crumbling with mold. Though empty, it was slick, cumbersome. I put both hands on the box, pushed it aside.

  There was something under it. Someone. Dead.

  I bent down, aimed the light. Found his face, and the spindly black beetle scrambling out of
his open mouth.

  I got to my knees and quickly swept the light from the contorted, frozen face, down the expanse of blue shirt, pressed pocket, ID badge.

  The security guard.

  I pressed my fingers against his throat. Nothing. I bent to listen for breath. Again, nothing.

  I felt for the holster strapped to his belt. His gun was gone.

  “Shit, Richie,” I whispered.

  Slowly, I got up and moved around the body. A charred leather trunk with brass hasps stood up ahead. I poked it with my light, and saw a fabric of spider webs shivering in the wind.

  Then, not ten feet beyond, the walls converged to a deep V. There, latticed in shadow, cowering in the ceaseless push of the wind, was Richie Ellner.

  I moved in a crouch to the trunk, then peered over it for a better look at him.

  He was an apparition, a nightmare out of Goya. Clothes dirty and ash-covered. Huddled in semi-darkness, trembling violently. Head and torso cloaked in shadow.

  On the floor between us, twisted frames secured by tape, lay his thick, cracked eyeglasses. Forlorn, hapless.

  “Richie,” I called softly, urgently. I moved closer. “It’s me. Dan Rinaldi…”

  The shadowy head reared up, and again that awful wail of agony. One of his hands waved like a stalk, and I saw metal glinting in the darkness. The security guard’s revolver.

  “Richie, I know you have a gun…”

  I crouched behind a splintered crate.

  “I also know you didn’t hurt that guard. There’s not a mark on him. I think he died of a heart attack. You hear me, Richie? You didn’t hurt that man.”

  His keening stopped abruptly, followed by an even more ominous silence. I took another step. I was only six feet away from him now, though in that empty blackness it felt like a chasm.

  “Richie..?”

  He began sobbing. Deep, choking sobs.

  Then a voice so thin, so strained, it seemed to be coming from somewhere else. The dark side of the moon.

  “They’re inside, Doc…they’re eating me up from the inside. That’s been the problem all along.”

  “Richie, I’m going to come closer.” I walked very deliberately toward where he huddled against the wall.