Night Terrors

by Dennis Palumbo

  I pushed such thoughts from my mind as I led Eleanor through the ink-black interior of the cold, dead oven. Our flashlight beams guiding our steps through charred rubble buried inches deep in coal dust. Finally, a crude opening—little more than a wide crack in the brickwork—was revealed by my light in the back wall. I went first, squeezing sideways through the jagged opening, dislodging small, crumbling bits of masonry. Eleanor followed.

  There was a narrow brick-walled corridor on the other side, as dark and soul-chilling as every other part of the place. Not knowing which direction to go, I went left for ten or fifteen yards, until I came to an iron door blocked by boulder-sized rubble. So I reversed direction, leading Eleanor far down the passage to the other end.

  Where we found another iron door. Opened.

  Just as we were stepping through it—

  Another gun shot. Loud. Closer.

  Before I could react, Eleanor had crossed the door’s threshold and begun running at full speed down another passage. I awkwardly gave chase, and almost collided with her when she abruptly stopped.

  I peered past her shoulder and saw, through this second door, a narrow catwalk extending above and across a shadowed cluster of huge generators, multileveled ramps, and steam pumps. Racks of pressure valves. All silent, frozen in place, shrouded with coal dust. A graveyard of industrial debris. The unbeating heart of the old mill.

  The catwalk’s corroded, wire-mesh floor and sagging railings didn’t inspire much confidence. But the shot had clearly come from the opened door at its far end.

  I whirled to face her.

  “We have to, El. I have to—”

  She merely nodded. Turning back again, I made my way unsteadily across the catwalk, Eleanor on my heels. The thin wire mesh swayed and rolled under our combined weight, and I grabbed the metal railing to maintain balance.

  Halfway across, the door at the other end drawing closer with every step, I felt that familiar surge of adrenaline. My heart thumped wildly in my chest. I knew we had to hurry, but I also knew we were going to make it—

  Suddenly, behind me, I heard Eleanor cry out.

  Startled, I almost dropped my flashlight. Clutching it hard in my fist, I turned—

  Too late.

  Her leg had broken through a part of the catwalk’s mesh, and she was falling. Arms flailing, her gun flying from her grasp, she struggled to right herself. Grab hold of the railing.

  I threw myself down on the wire flooring and stretched out my hand. Reaching for hers.

  And clutched empty air.

  I could only watch as Eleanor tumbled to a narrow ramp about a dozen feet below. She landed hard, on her knees, and then rolled to her side.

  “El! El, are you all right?”

  I looked frantically about me, swinging the flashlight beam, in search of a way down. All I saw was a clutch of coiled tubes, dusty motor casements, rows of blank dials.

  “Danny!”

  I aimed the light down and saw her waving feebly up at me. Her legs curled beneath her, her face etched with pain.

  “El! Are you okay?”

  She shifted position, testing her arms and legs.

  “Yeah. Everything hurts, but I think I’m okay. I just gotta find my gun. It fell somewhere near here…”

  “Soon as I find a way down—”

  “No!” She raised her chin, so that her eyes leapt into view in my light. “Keep going! You’ve gotta find Barnes!”

  “But—”

  “Goddammit, Rinaldi! I’m fine! Go!”

  I hesitated only a moment, then awkwardly got to my feet. I knew she was right, but…

  Gulping air, I gripped the railing again and strode as quickly as I dared to the other end of the catwalk.

  Once there, I shone my light through the door, which opened onto another small passage. Revealing a web-draped, iron-runged ladder. Leading up.

  I grabbed either side of the ladder with both hands.

  By now, blood had begun seeping through the bandages. My neck and shoulders screamed in protest at the smallest movement. Every muscle in my body ached. Every nerve was frayed.

  I was done. Finished. Useless. To myself or anyone else. I knew this. In my mind and in my heart.

  Then I thought about Clare Cobb.

  And put my foot on the first rung…

  I’d only climbed halfway up the ladder when I heard the voices. Hard, angry voices. Threaded with fear, panic.

  I started climbing faster.

  Chapter Fifty-one

  The ladder reached up to some kind of wooden trap door. I pushed it open and cautiously crawled out into a frigid, starless night.

  I was on the flat, tarred roof of the building, whose stark expanse was intermittently broken by towering smokestacks and huge, brick-backed chimneys.

  I’d only a moment to register my new surroundings when another volley of shouts and frenzied cries pierced the darkness. I turned, bringing my flashlight up.

  And saw them, maybe fifty feet away. Randall and Barnes, their bodies contorted in struggle. On their feet, arms locked. Faces obscured, gasping, cursing, they clashed like savage creatures in a dream. A nightmare.

  I hurried toward the base of the nearest smokestack, as big around as a redwood, and crouched behind it. Now close enough to see that the two men were fighting over something in Randall’s hands. Hard, black. A tire iron.

  I stepped from behind the curved concrete tower, shining my light in their direction.

  “Randall!”

  Startled, Harve Randall turned toward me. Momentarily distracted, he lessened his grip on the tire iron. Giving Barnes the opportunity to wrest it from his opponent and swing mightily at Randall’s head.

  The younger man managed to duck at the last moment, and then threw himself out of my light’s reach. Swallowed instantly by the cold, engulfing darkness.

  Almost simultaneously, Lyle Barnes himself half ran, half stumbled out of the light. I swung the beam around and just caught sight of him, still gripping the tire iron, as he scrambled for the safety of another smokestack. Maybe a dozen yards from my own.

  He didn’t make it.

  From out of the night came the roar and muzzle flash of a gun. Randall. Firing wildly at Barnes in the dark.

  A strangled gasp not too far from me told me the FBI agent had been hit. I heard his staggering footsteps, and then the muffled rattle of the tire iron skittering across the roof.

  “Lyle!”

  Not a sound from Barnes. Nor another gunshot.

  I had no idea what kind of gun Randall had now, so there was no way to know how many bullets he had left. Maybe the abrupt silence meant he was out of ammo. Or maybe it just meant he was reloading.

  Casting my light about, I searched for some sign of the injured agent. Then, with barely a whisper of movement, Lyle Barnes was suddenly crouching at my side. Somehow he’d spotted me in the dark and made his way over.

  “Jesus, Lyle!” My voice a soft, strained rasp.

  “Good seein’ you again, too, Doc.”

  I turned my light. His pale, fatigue-ravaged face was bruised, spotted with dirt and grime. Eyes a sickly yellow.

  “Where are you hit?”

  He raised his arm slightly. “Flesh wound, that’s all. I’ve had worse, plenty o’ times.”

  Regardless, I trained the light up and down his body. And noticed immediately that his orthopedic boot was gone.

  “What’s that wrapped around your ankle? Duct tape?”

  He nodded. “Couldn’t move in that goddam boot.”

  Suddenly, I heard a sharp, crackling sound. I craned my neck around and saw that something was sailing through the air, thrown from behind a squat, brick-walled chimney. Glowing orange, sizzling, trailing a ribbon of smoke.

  I recognized it as soon as it fell to the roof and rolle
d to a stop. Harve Randall, hidden behind that chimney, had lit a roadside flare. Its bright, flickering light pulsed against the surrounding darkness.

  Emboldened by its illumination, Randall leaned out from behind his hiding place and fired, twice. I ducked back as the bullets flew past us, one slug taking a small chunk out of the concrete inches from my face.

  But I’d had my first good look, if only briefly, at Randall. He was wearing the same winter coat I’d last seen, when he’d driven off the precinct lot. I also recognized the gun he’d two-handed to shoot at us. A standard-issue police weapon, like Eleanor’s. A 9 mm Glock.

  I leaned back against the smokestack’s unyielding concrete. Peered over at Barnes. He didn’t look too good. Blood-soaked sleeve, skin lacerations, hand tremors. His glance back at me a strange, blasted stare.

  “He’s got us pinned down, son.”

  At a loss. “Hang in there, Lyle.”

  He offered me a wan smile, then stirred. Before I could stop him, he’d hoisted himself to his feet.

  “Hey, Randall! Harve! You gonna kill both of us? I mean, hell, the doc here ain’t done you any harm.”

  I rose, too. Gripped his shoulder.

  “Dammit, Lyle—”

  He shrugged me off. Called out again.

  “I bet you think that means you’re a real man at last. No more piggy-backing off the crimes of others. No more letting other killers do your dirty work.”

  I leaned hard against him. Got in his face.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Situation like this, it never hurts to rattle ’em a little. They lose focus.”

  “But—”

  Ignoring me, Barnes raised his voice even louder.

  “Hey, Harve! I guess, once you shot Cranshaw, your first kill, shootin’ the rest got easier. That’s what the other whack-jobs like you tell me, anyway. Am I right?”

  For the first time, Randall shouted back.

  “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talkin’ about, old man.”

  Barnes started to reply, but I covered his mouth.

  “You’re right, Harve,” I called out. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. But I do. And so do you.”

  “You don’t know shit, Rinaldi.”

  Barnes peeled my hand from his mouth, gave me an angry, puzzled look. But kept quiet.

  “I know more than you think, Harve. For one thing, I know Earl Cranshaw wasn’t your first kill.”

  Randall suddenly fell silent.

  Steeling myself, I went on. “I’m right, aren’t I, Harve? Your first kill happened before Cranshaw. It was when you killed a Wheeling businessman named Ed Meachem. Your father.”

  Another deep silence. Then: “You’re crazy, Rinaldi, I don’t—”

  “Meachem was your father, all right. I can prove it!”

  And I could. Before I left the Wheeling precinct, I’d taken a strand of Randall’s hair from his other jacket, hanging on the coat rack. As soon as Henry Stiles isolated its DNA, and it was matched to that taken from Meachem’s remains, the police could establish paternity.

  “You can’t prove nothin’!”

  I knew I had to keep going. Keep him riveted, stunned and angry, where he was. Keep him from storming across that roof toward us, gun blazing.

  “You just found out yourself, eh, Harve? That one and only time you visited your mother in the hospital.”

  “Goddam you, shut up!”

  “Poor Doreen. In your eyes, nothing but a hooker who abandoned you as a child. Who you refused to acknowledge your whole life. Until she was dying, and you went to see her. And made her tell you the truth about your father.”

  “I said, shut the fuck up!—”

  For the first time, his voice had cracked. His level of agitation rising.

  No surprise. I could only imagine what he felt. Raised in brutal foster homes, while his actual father went on with his privileged life. Playing the loving family man to the hilt. Rich, well-regarded. A pillar of the community. No one suspecting that he’d once fathered a child with a prostitute and then abandoned them both.

  “That’s why you killed him,” I shouted. “And then got Wes Currim to take the fall for it. You knew all about him. You also knew how devoted he was to his mother. So you threatened to kill Maggie Currim unless Wes confessed to a crime he didn’t commit.”

  “You think you’re so fucking smart…”

  No, I thought, just smart enough to finally believe Maggie. Wes was so willing to protect her, he even accused her of lying when she claimed he’d been with her the night of Meachem’s murder. Which was where he’d actually been.

  “That’s why you tried to kill me when I came to Wheeling to talk with Wes.” I kept pressing him. “It was you that ran me off the road. You were afraid I might somehow get Wes to change his story, tell the truth about who really killed Ed Meachem.”

  Suddenly, I was aware of Barnes moving away from me. Slowly, cautiously. His back to the smokestack, inching around its curve toward the other side.

  I turned, caught his eye.

  He smiled at my quizzical look. “Good job, Danny. Keep him talkin’…”

  Then he pointed toward a patch of roof just beyond, and something barely visible in the flare’s sputtering light. Glinting dully. The tire iron.

  “No, Lyle!” I whispered. “Don’t—”

  “Piece o’ cake.”

  “NO!…”

  He bent and pushed off, moving as quickly as he could toward the makeshift weapon. His hobbling figure suddenly backlit by the road flare. In the open. Exposed.

  Harve Randall stepped easily from behind the chimney, aimed and fired. With an agonized cry, Barnes went down.

  I leapt from behind the smokestack, flashlight held like a cudgel, and lurched forward into that same light. Randall turned and pointed his gun at me.

  I stopped dead, staring into the muzzle of his gun.

  Not ten feet away from where Lyle Barnes writhed on the hard, cinder-strewn surface of the roof. Bathed in a sickening, dying light.

  Harve Randall motioned with his gun for me to step back. Then he indicated the heavy flashlight still gripped in my blood-smeared hand.

  “Lose that sucker. Now!”

  I hesitated, torn. But didn’t see much choice. Letting my arm drop, I wearily tossed the flashlight into the darkness surrounding us. Heard it roll noisily to a stop.

  Randall smirked, then calmly approached Barnes, who was clutching his stomach with both hands.

  “Gut shot, eh?” Randall leaned over him, smiling. “Jesus, Barnes, that’s gotta hurt like hell.”

  I stood frozen, impotent, mind racing. I couldn’t let it happen again. Like with Claire Cobb. I couldn’t…

  Meanwhile, Randall kept swiveling his head, looking down at Barnes, then over to me, and back again. As though unsure who to kill first.

  It was then that I heard it. The wail of police sirens, approaching fast.

  I risked a glance over the lip of the roof, and could see three police cruisers, lights flashing, barreling down that same access road. On their way here.

  “That’s it, Randall,” I called to him. “It’s over.”

  His laugh was bitter, mirthless. Resigned.

  “It’s over when I say so, Rinaldi. Which will be when I’ve killed this son-of-a-bitch here, and put any leftover slugs in your skull. Then it’ll be over.”

  “Maybe. But you’ll be done, too.”

  Randall shrugged. “Like I give a fuck. I did what I wanted to do. Needed to do. Especially since my whore of a mother is gonna die any minute now.”

  He looked off, reflectve. “Though I would like to stick around long enough to see that. Watch the life go outta that fuckin’ cunt. That’d be sweet.”

  The sirens grew louder, closer.


  Randall straightened his shoulders. “Guess we’ll just have to see how it all plays out. Meanwhile, I got me a G-man to kill…”

  He took hold of his gun with both hands and aimed at Barnes’ head. The agent lay silent, curled in a fetal position, and I realized he’d probably lost consciousness.

  I swallowed hard. Muscles tensed, I tried to gauge the distance between Randall and me. Could I even make it?…

  Suddenly, a clear, commanding voice pierced the night air.

  “Police, Randall! Drop your weapon!”

  I turned at the same time Randall did, both of us staring mutely at Eleanor Lowrey, two-handing her Glock. Leaning against a smokestack’s support strut, obviously in pain, she had her gun leveled directly at the killer.

  “I mean it, asshole. Drop the fucking gun!”

  Randall hesitated only a moment, then whirled, bringing his own weapon up. He never had the chance to shoot.

  Eleanor fired, twice. Randall cried out, staggering backwards, and then his knees gave out. He fell, clutching his chest, blood seeping between his fingers.

  I stared at Eleanor. “But how—?”

  “Found my gun. Found you.”

  As Eleanor came limping over, her gun still trained on Randall, I hurried to where Barnes lay. Blood oozed slowly from his gut, spreading in rivulets.

  “El!” I called to her. “Get an ambulance!”

  “I’m on it.” She was already hitting buttons on her cell phone.

  Meanwhile, I could hear the sounds of police cruisers squealing to a stop down below in the lot. Could see the angled reflection of the turning lights flicker against the opaque, untroubled sky.

  Then, to my surprise, I heard Randall’s voice. Hoarse, choked. The rasp of a dying man.

  “Doc…”

  I exchanged puzzled looks with Eleanor, but, for some reason, got to my feet. Went over to where Randall lay.

  As I bent over him, he grabbed my coat collar with a feeble hand. Though there was no mistaking the urgency in his eyes.

  “Doc…” His voice already weaker. Fading.

  With a supreme effort, he pulled me down closer to him. Positioned my ear to his thin, parched lips.