Murder on the Run

by Medora Sale

  The long bridge over the Humber River in the farthest northwest stretches of the city was absolutely deserted. He stopped the van on the bridge and waited for fifteen minutes for signs of pursuit. None. He opened the door on the passenger side and climbed out. Still nothing. He peered over the edge of the bridge. down into the black ravine to the even blacker narrow band of water at the bottom, noted with satisfaction the one heavily treed slope, and mentally fixed in his brain the location of the footpath that shimmered slightly in the light of the almost full moon. He was right. They hadn’t been able to work things out this far. He would still be able to act, although it would be dangerous. He felt dizzy with elation. He would have to return on Friday, however, to find a suitable opponent, as he had planned. He climbed back into the front seat of the van and headed sedately home.

  Amanda awoke groggily, and then shrank back in terror as a bright beam of light shone directly in her eyes. She shut them tight, waiting for the blow. Nothing happened. When she opened them again, the light still shone, but all was quiet and tranquil. Its source rode peacefully above her in the heavens—the moon. She was soaking wet and bitterly cold. Every part of her ached except for her arm. It screamed in pain. She was thirsty, and her stomach twisted and rumbled, whether from nausea or hunger she could not tell. She slipped back into unconsciousness.

  The next time she woke up the bitter cold was the first thing she felt, then the thirst and the pain in her arm and chest. She shivered uncontrollably and slipped back into the void. After what felt like a minute she opened her eyes and realized that she could see. The sky was silver and birds were chattering in the dawn. What time was it? This seemed to be the most important question of her life. If it were almost sunrise, then when does the sun rise? Tears trickled down her face as she tried desperately to think. She shifted position and moved her arm; it reacted swiftly, burning into her consciousness with pain. With a cry, she grabbed it and felt the watch on her wrist. But she could neither bring her arm to her face, nor force herself to sit up and look at it. She tried to raise her head far enough to see it; the moon swam dizzily and blackness closed in again.

  Something warm and bright touched Amanda’s cheek, and her dream of fires and comforting things rapidly changed to one of hot, burning, destroying things and she awoke again. The sun was shining brightly through the budding branches, and stray warm beams touched her here and there. It took a long time for her to understand why she was lying in a pool of water, trembling with cold, with a burning pain in her arm and chest. But it was daylight. Surely nothing dreadful could happen to her now. Someone must come and rescue her. She thought of the long painful crawl up to this point, of how far down it was to the path below, and of how impossibly far up it was to the park above her. Despair caught her. Then through the singing of birds and chattering of squirrels she heard a confused murmur of voices. She listened sharply. They were male voices, but she didn’t recognize them—yet. There seemed to be more than two, but it was impossible to say whether Rick and Jimmy had gone to bring back friends. Then individual words rose out of the general babble and drifted up to her. The voices were apparently down on the path. “Take this side and divide it up—you three. We’ll try up there” floated up to her. It was people looking for her.

  She raised herself up as far as she could and tried to scream. Nothing came out. “Up here,” she said, but it was just a croak, and the searchers were making so much noise by this time that it would have been a miracle if anyone had heard her. The excited barking of a dog, who seemed to be rushing back and forth, added to the noise and confusion. Tears of frustration fell down her cheeks as she realized that the searchers were moving farther away from her. Then, from relatively close by, she heard a voice, a voice she knew very well, saying, “I’ll just try up here—you go on ahead, sir.” Amanda pushed herself up to a sitting position with her good hand, pain dulled by terror. Through the branches she could see a young, handsome man, a little tired and in need of a shave, but very familiar, making his way up the mud and gravel of the spring stream bed. “No!” she screamed. “Not him! He’s the one—” and once again she hurled herself down the precipice, rolling wildly past the startled figure of Constable Rick Gruber, who stood silent, then dropped the rock in his hand. Amanda landed on the path at the feet of an astonished John Sanders.

  By nine o’clock Thursday morning Eleanor was sitting in a small waiting room at the Toronto General Hospital, hoping for news of Amanda. She yawned fiercely, absolutely exhausted by a night in which she had caught only moments of sleep in a large chair in Kate’s living room. It had been eleven o’clock before they had been able to establish with certainty what had lured Amanda out of school, when the errant Mrs. Cowper had told them what the false telephone message had been. Roz Johnson had turned white with anger. “That is an obscene thing to do. Nothing else would have made a girl like Amanda wander off alone.” Then the matter had been left entirely to the police. They had left Roz to catch what sleep she could and returned to Kate’s. And Kate, pale with guilt and anxiety, had called her brother and sister-in-law in California to let them know that their only daughter, clever and pretty and well-beloved, had been abducted on the way home from school.

  John Sanders had been in and out all night, once staying long enough to catch an hour’s sleep on Kate’s couch. The news that there had been a plot to abduct Amanda had infused him with energy and guarded optimism.

  “You realize, don’t you,” he had said briskly to Eleanor, “that this is the first hope we’ve had.”

  She shook her head in bewilderment. “I don’t understand you at all. It doesn’t seem particularly hopeful to me.”

  “Well, the rapist seems to grab his victims entirely at random—and when he attacks, he kills.” Sanders paused. “I don’t know why someone wanted to snatch this particular girl, but there is a chance that it was for some other reason than killing her. And so she might be alive.”

  Eleanor had shuddered. “Do you think Kate realizes that?” she had asked.

  “I suspect so. She’s a very clever woman.”

  Eleanor yawned one more time. If someone didn’t turn up soon, she was going to fall asleep here in the waiting room. As she started to nod off, the door opened, and Kate appeared.

  “How is she?” asked Eleanor groggily.

  Kate smiled broadly in relief. “She’s all right. Relatively. She has a badly fractured collarbone and a sprained wrist, and she’s a mass of scrapes and bruises. She’s suffering from shock and exposure, but they’re very cheerful about it in there. They say she’ll be fine in no time. Except for the collarbone. She’s out like a light still, and they won’t let us disturb her.” The door swung open once again, and John Sanders walked in, looking rumpled and dark-jowled. Kate looked at her watch suddenly in alarm. “My God. Eleanor—David and Suzanne are coming in on the 10:15 flight, and I have to meet them. They don’t even realize that Amanda has been found. They’ll be sick with worry. Could you stay here in case she wakes up? It would be awful if no one was with her.”

  “Sure,” said Eleanor heroically. “Just tell them I’m a temporarily authorized visitor, that’s all.”

  “Thanks,” said Kate, and disappeared.

  “Don’t worry,” said John. “She won’t be alone. We still want to know what’s going on, and we haven’t had a chance to talk to her. She was screaming something about ‘No, no, he’s something-or-other’ when she passed out at my feet, and I’d like to know what she was talking about. It’s clear she was running away from ‘him.’ It would help if we knew what happened last night.” He sat down on a large couch and pulled her down beside him. “Why don’t you go home and get some sleep?” He gave her a long look. “Or better yet, go to my place and get some sleep. It’s very quiet, and maybe I can get back there this afternoon.”

  She snuggled her head sleepily on his shoulder. “No. Kate will expect me to be here when she gets back, and people will start talking
if I don’t go home sometime.” She kissed him on the neck and settled herself more comfortably against him.

  Sanders looked up and caught the eye of an embarrassed young constable standing in the door of the waiting room. “I think they already are,” he said.

  Chapter 10

  The embarrassed constable, torn between tact and necessity, was making a valiant try to catch John Sanders’ attention without appearing to notice him. He looked infinitely relieved when Sanders finally made his way over.

  “Excuse me, sir, but it’s about the girl. She’s awake, sort of, and the doctor says we can talk to her for a little while if we have to, but she’s—she won’t cooperate.”

  “What do you mean, won’t cooperate?”

  “Well, every time Collins tried to say something, she just kind of shrieked and the nurse got very upset. I think she’s scared of something, sir.” He looked back over his shoulder. “Then Sergeant Dubinsky tried to talk to her, but she just kept staring over at Collins and blinking sort of funny. The nurse said that maybe she wasn’t really awake yet. Sergeant Dubinsky would appreciate it if you could come and—uh—assess the situation.”

  “Thanks,” Sanders said abstractly. “I’ll be along in a moment.” He turned from the door and went back to Eleanor. “Apparently she’s awake, but she’s too nervous or frightened to talk. Is she a terribly shy girl?”

  “Not that I’ve noticed,” said Eleanor. “She’s rather quiet, but she doesn’t run out of the room in terror at the sight of a stranger.”

  “Why don’t you—she knows you, and you might reassure her a bit.”

  “Of course,” she said, with a yawn. “Anything to oblige. Let’s go.”

  Amanda was in a private room, with her left arm and shoulder encased thickly in plaster, and an intravenous feed clipped into her right hand. She looked pale and, groggy, but Eleanor’s face, swimming into focus above her, elicited a smile.

  “Eleanor,” she said thickly. “That’s nice. Where’s Aunt Kate?”

  “She’s gone to the airport. To pick up your parents.”

  Amanda’s eyes widened in horror. “Oh, no! That’s—”

  “It’s all right, sweetheart,” interrupted Eleanor soothingly. “We know all about that. But this time she really is there, and your parents really are on that plane. How are you feeling?”

  “Awful. But not as awful as I did before.” Her voice began to sound stronger and not as thick.

  “Terrific. Now, I’ve brought John Sanders in to talk to you. He’s a friend of mine, but he’s also a police detective, and he’s trying to find out what happened to you. We know about the fake phone call, but that’s all.” She waved John over to the bed. “Here he is.”

  Amanda’s good right hand, intravenous and all, reached out and clutched at Eleanor. “Are you going to stay?”

  “Of course I am, if you want me to.” She tried to smile reassuringly. “But John is very nice, even for a cop. Really he is. And you’ll be perfectly safe with him here.”

  Amanda looked from one to the other doubtfully. Finally she spoke, but with hesitation in her tone. “It was a cop who kidnaped me. A cop in uniform.”

  Startled, Sanders turned to her. “A cop? Are you sure?” he said abruptly. “A real police officer? Not just someone dressed up in a rented uniform?”

  Amanda cast him a withering glance. “He was in a bright yellow car marked ‘Metropolitan Toronto Police,’ and all that, with big red lights on the roof. Flashing. He picked me up on the corner of Mount Pleasant and Elm. He said that my parents—no, actually, he didn’t say—he just said that there had been an accident, and I was to go out to the airport with him.”

  “Did you get a good look at him?” Sanders’ voice was hostile, challenging. “Would you recognize him again?” Eleanor glared at him.

  Amanda paid no attention to the tone of his voice. “Yes. I’ll never forget that face, let me tell you. Anyway, I saw him again. He was the one that came along on the search party looking for me. That’s when I tried to run again, only I fell—again.”

  “Are you sure he was the same one?” Sanders’ eyes never left her face.

  “Positive,” said Amanda steadily.

  “Really? Because you screamed when you saw Constable Collins out there, and he wasn’t the one who kidnaped you, was he?” Sanders’ voice bullied.

  “I couldn’t see his face. My eyes were all blurry, and I just saw this uniform coming for me, and I screamed. I’m sorry. But I really did recognize the one who kidnaped me. His name is Rick. Or that’s what the other one called him.”

  “Just a minute. I’ll be right back.” Sanders strode out of the room to where Dubinsky was lounging against the wall talking to Collins. “Ed, I want the names of all the people who were on the search party looking for the Griffiths girl this morning—all of them. Look for someone named Rick or something close to that. Fast.” Dubinsky headed off to the nearest phone.

  Sanders stuck his head back in the door. “We’re on our way. Would you mind if Collins comes in and takes notes? I’ll put him where you don’t have to look at him.”

  Amanda laughed, her voice clearer and more cheerful now. “No. That’s all right. I feel safe with Eleanor here.”

  Sanders grabbed a chair and pulled it over to the bed. “You said ‘the other one.’ There were two men who kidnaped you?” Amanda nodded. “Did you recognize the other one? Would you know him again?”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t really get a look at him, and I think he had a hat on most of the time—one of those tweed, checked sort of Irish hats. Most of the time I was asleep, or trying to pretend that I was, and I didn’t dare open my eyes and really look at him.”

  “Maybe we’d better start right from the beginning and get it all down in order. How are you feeling?”

  “Pretty good. I’m thirsty, but my head is clear.” Amanda took a sip of the proffered water and started in on her long recital.

  Most of the time the three people in the room listened in silence; the only interruptions were the scratch of Collins’ pen and his occasional request for repetition of a word. When she came to describe what they planned to do to her finally, however, Sanders made her go back several times. “And you’re sure they meant to kill you?” She nodded vehemently.

  “Yes. They were quite clear that I mustn’t get too heavy a dose of whatever it was because that would kill me and the autopsy would show the wrong cause of death, but they certainly planned to kill me. They were going to bash my head in, was the way Jimmy put it.”

  “Did either one of them try to attack you in a—” John’s voice trailed off at the poisonous look from Eleanor.

  Amanda laughed. “Really, Eleanor. I’m not a baby. Yes. Jimmy tried.” She shuddered. “He was awful. But the other one—Rick—wouldn’t let him.”

  “Well, at least the cop wasn’t a complete bastard, then,” murmured Sanders.

  “Actually, it wasn’t that. He said that they’d be identified if they did.”

  “Jesus,” he muttered. “Vicious and stupid.”

  Amanda went slowly and carefully over the details until she got to her desperate escape. Aside from commenting that her mother would be furious because she’d certainly have to buy another school uniform, she hastily glossed over that awful night before the search party arrived.

  “How did you know where to look for me?” she asked. “I mean, they could have taken me anywhere.”

  “It was all that crashing around you did that put us on to it. A Mr. Cottrell who lives across the ravine heard a great deal of strange noise; he thought you were a pair of raccoons fighting. But when he heard on the six o’clock news that a girl had disappeared and that we were searching everywhere, especially the parks and ravines, he called us. Just in case. It was the first real lead we had, and so we tried it.”

  “By the way—where was I?”


  “I think you were about fifty yards from St. Clair Avenue. If you’d had a rock, you probably could have tossed it onto the bridge and hit a car.”

  “No, I couldn’t,” said Amanda. “Not even to save my life.”

  Dubinsky thrust his head in the door and beckoned. “I’ve got what you want, I think,” he said, looking down at his notebook. “There were nine people on the preliminary search party, as you know, and I’ve got all the names. But there was only one named Rick—a Richard Gruber, known as ‘Rick,’ usually. He’s with the uniform branch on nights, patrolling, these days. He turned up when the party was being organized, said that he had heard about it, had been looking out for the girl all night while on patrol, and wanted to volunteer for the extra shift to help. Nobody was very surprised, since a lot of guys feel pretty strongly about this sort of thing, and he went along in your group. That’s it. I asked them to get his file together.” He snapped his notebook shut.

  Sanders, moved without hesitation into higher gear. “What I want now is a picture of him and about five other guys in uniform—all around the same age. And throw in a picture of Collins too. Bring them back here, see if we can get a positive identification. I’m going back to the school to clear up a few details. Call me if you get anything before I get back.”

  “What do I do if she starts screaming when one of us walks in?”