Sleep When You're Dead

by Chris Hollenback

  Should he wait until more help arrived? Would his sister be dead by then? Would she be half-human, half-statue? He had no choice but to crawl around in search of the gun. It had to be there. He held the light under his chin, got down on his knees and groped the ground. The snow quickly coated his jeans, and soon his body heat melted the snow and saturated his pants around the knees. And still he had no pistol to show for it.

  His stomach ached from the realization that he wouldn’t find the weapon, that his nightmare about losing Elena and Leila would come true, and possibly Nell to boot. He flinched at a sharp pain in his knee.

  Had he knelt on a rock? It was too hard for a stick. He reached down into the snow, and couldn’t quite get the object dislodged. He used both hands to dig around it, then extracted it. Nell’s gun!

  He held it in his right hand, the CombatLight in his left, and aimed them both up toward the top of the tree. Still no sign of Hailangelo. He turned off the light, tossed it at the base of the tree, tucked the gun in the back of his waistband, and climbed expeditiously in the dark. Eventually, his head was level with the deer stand. He peered over the edge, peeked inside the lighted stand, and saw Leila tied with rope, hanging by her wrists from the ceiling, arms apart, fully clothed in a black sweater and jeans. Rope also bound her ankles together. Hailangelo stood in front of her, facing her, and holding his syringe near her chin. Her eyes were shut.

  Casey aimed Nell’s gun at Hailangelo, squinting down the barrel to align the sight with the kidnapper’s back.

  The sculptor startled and shouted, “I’ll kill her! Drop your weapon or I’ll make her my next masterpiece.” He held the needle to her carotid artery.

  Casey’s shoulders and head slouched, his hands flopping to the floor of the deer stand.

  Hailangelo relaxed and cackled. “Narcolepsy, the greatest sculptor of all. Bravo!”

  Casey didn’t move.

  “You were so close,” Hailangelo taunted, casually approaching Casey. “But your impotence is your defining feature. You know the only thing worse than kissing your sister? Thinking her statue is sexy.”

  Casey’s head snapped up. “Psych!” he said, raising Nell’s weapon and firing. POP! POP! POP!

  Two of the three bullets from the Glock 22 ripped through Hailangelo’s collarbone on his left side. He fell backwards to the floor, bleeding.

  The kickback from the gun had messed with his aim, but Casey had been happy to hit him at all. Hailangelo scrambled for the hypodermic needle. Casey climbed into the deer stand.

  Hailangelo grabbed the syringe with his right arm, stood up, and hastily stabbed backhanded at Leila’s chest.

  “No!” Casey shouted, reaching toward her in vain. Metal clinked on metal. The needle had hit her father’s dog tags!

  POP! POP!

  Blood sprayed from the side of Hailangelo’s head. He screamed, fell to the floor, dropped his needle, and rolled onto his back. He clutched his head wound and groaned, blood seeping through his hand.

  Casey’s heart thumped like a rabbit entrapped. Had he killed him? Casey kept the gun trained on the sculptor.

  A moment later, a skinny Latino appeared on the ladder behind Casey. He aimed a pistol at the reporter. “FBI,” he said. “Drop your weapon!”

  Casey complied and raised his hands. “Don’t shoot! He’s the killer.” He pointed at Hailangelo.

  The agent climbed into the stand, hustled to Hailangelo and kicked the syringe away from him. He bound Hailangelo’s wrists and ankles with plastic ties, then hog-tied them together. The agent turned and pointed the gun at Casey’s chest. “I’m Special Agent Antonio Torres. Step away from the weapon.”

  Casey did, hands still in the air.

  Agent Torres grabbed Nell’s gun and looked at Casey. “Who are you?”

  “Casey Thread, the reporter working with Special Agent Nell Jenner.” Casey nodded toward Leila, still hanging by her wrists. “That’s my sister.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  Agent Torres stared at Leila, seemingly half-sympathetic and half-incredulous. He muttered, “Ay, Dios Mío.”

  Casey strode toward his sister. “Let’s cut her down.”

  Torres snapped back to reality. “Wait! We need photographic evidence.” He holstered his weapon, grabbed his cell phone, and took pictures of Leila.

  Casey hated leaving her tied for another second, but also didn’t want another abuser to avoid prosecution for what he had done to Leila.

  Hailangelo groaned and started to roll, trying to hurtle himself over the edge of the deer stand.

  Torres ran to him, kicked him in the groin and grabbed his shirt.

  Hailangelo moaned.

  Torres opened his cell and pressed a speed-dial button. “We’ve got four agents down, one possibly DOA. Suspect is in custody with multiple GSW’s.” He closed his cell and said to Casey, “The helicopters should be here any second.”

  “What the hell took them so long?” Casey asked.

  “They were already deployed on a separate sting operation in Milwaukee,” Torres said. “It has been a tough night.”

  Nell! They had to help her. “Agent Jenner fell off the ladder,” Casey said. “Hailangelo kicked her.”

  “She all right?”

  “I don’t know. She was okay a minute ago.” Casey ran to the ladder. She hadn’t moved since her fall. “Nell?”

  No response.

  He climbed down to her. “Hey gorgeous, you okay?”

  She stirred. “My arm’s on fire…the rest of me is a Nell-cream cone.”

  “Help is coming.”

  “Is Leila all right?”

  “Unconscious.”

  “Go to her.”

  “I’ll be right back,” Casey said and climbed to the deer stand.

  Torres used a combat knife to saw at the bindings holding Leila. She remained unconscious.

  Casey grabbed a blanket, wrapped it around Leila, sat on the floor, and held her. “Leila, it’s Casey. It’s okay. You’re safe now. I’m so, so, sorry.” If she died now, she’d never get a chance to accept herself, find her passion, fall in love, experience contentment in her adult life. If that happened, he would never forgive himself. What would he tell Mother? She’d hold that damn kabob in every nightmare for the rest of his life. He hugged his little sister once more, then rose and marched to Hailangelo. “Why?”

  Agent Torres held Casey back.

  “Why did you do it?” Casey shouted.

  “Calm down, sir,” Torres said.

  Hailangelo tittered in delirium.

  Casey hadn’t forgotten all the scientific facts Nell had shared, or her theories on why Hailangelo had committed his crimes. He figured Hailangelo might be aware of some of them, but probably not all. Still, for some reason, he wanted to hear an explanation from the man himself.

  Hailangelo said nothing, cachinnating until his eyes rolled back.

  A bald Caucasian FBI agent climbed into the deer stand and unzipped the tarp serving as the wall on one side of the blind. Cold air rushed in.

  “Casey, this is Special Agent Anderson,” Agent Torres said. Anderson nodded and went right to taking pictures with a high-powered camera on a strap around his neck.

  A helicopter thundered in the distance. Casey watched it approach the deer stand. It swooshed overhead. The wind blew their hair and vibrated the sides of the stand. Casey broke into goose bumps. A searchlight from the chopper scanned the ground around the tree until it found Nell and the other fallen agents.

  A man in black FBI gear and a Kevlar helmet hopped out of the chopper, clinging to a wire as they lowered him to the deer stand. Anderson released Hailangelo from the bindings that hogtied him and placed handcuffs on him, while the agent from the helicopter attached a harness around Hailangelo then linked it to his own harness. A cable lifted the men into the helicopter. Hailangelo winced and groaned at the compression of the harness on his wounds. The helicopter took off and Anderson returned to photographing the scene.


  After the chopper got some distance away from the tree, Casey turned to Torres. “Why didn’t they take Leila first?”

  “There’s another chopper coming.”

  “How do you know Leila’s condition isn’t more critical?”

  “She’s breathing.”

  “So is Hailangelo.”

  “Maybe not for long. He’s critically wounded. We need to get as much information as possible out of him in case he goes into shock.”

  Incredulous, Casey shouted, “But Leila’s the victim!” He curled his fingers like talons.

  Torres looked at Casey as if snakes had popped out of his head singing “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” The agent patted the air between them in a calming motion. “Your sister will be fine. They’re coming, and we’ll take good care of her.”

  “Hey T,” Agent Anderson shouted. “Check this out.” With a gloved hand, Anderson held up a vial.

  Torres read the label. “Zolpidem.”

  “Ambien,” Anderson said, looking at Casey. “These days, Z-drugs are the most common date rape drugs. Much more accessible than roofies.”

  Casey placed his hands on his head. “Oh no, no, no…”

  “Calm down,” Torres said. “There’s no indication he got that far.”

  Casey dropped his hands to his side, nodded, and took a deep breath. “Will she be okay?”

  “Assuming that’s all he gave her?” Anderson said. “Yeah.”

  An identical FBI chopper landed in the field, near Nell. Two men from the chopper loaded Nell and Agent Agu onto stretchers and into the aircraft. They worked with the efficiency of a unit operating in enemy territory. The helicopter took off.

  Casey saw a third chopper in the distance. When it hovered above the tree, an officer dropped to the deer stand on a wire and latched a harness around Leila. Groggy, she threw her arms around him. The winch in the chopper hoisted them up.

  Torres turned to Casey. “Stay here. She’s in good hands.” The helicopter ascended.

  “Leila!” Casey shouted in full throat, then broke into tears, more out of frustration and exhaustion than anything else. He glanced around the deer stand at the mural, allowing himself to be judged through the depicted binoculars. The agents shared a look and shook their heads.

  Anderson said, “This is crazy.”

  Casey ran his hands through his pompadour. “This is nothing.”

  Both agents turned toward him, surprised.

  “Wait ’til you see his basement.”

  41

  WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 26

  Agent Torres drove Casey to Green Bay Hospital, where doctors treated Leila and Nell. As they entered the building, Torres glanced at Casey and said, “I have to admit, if someone had told me the narcoleptic reporter would be the one guy to walk away from this fiasco unscathed, I would have told him he was nuts.”

  “Yeah, well,” Casey said, “I wouldn’t say unscathed. I’m about to curl up into a ball in the corner and rock incessantly.”

  Torres chuckled.

  Casey’s phone played “Message in a Bottle.” It was another text message, this time from Samantha Narziss. In it, she reported that she had discovered her husband’s affair with Elena, taken the kids, and left Todd. While she didn’t have proof that he had ordered a hit on Elena, she forwarded to Casey cryptic e-mail messages between her husband and Skeeto DeWillis. The notes alluded to a kidnapping plot. At one point in the messages, Todd Narziss solicited Skeeto to “put the fear of God in her.” The frequency of the messages had intensified just before Elena had disappeared. Samantha wrote to Casey, “I tolerated a cheat for the benefit of my children. But I can’t take it any more.”

  Casey figured Narziss had asked Skeeto to convince Elena to either eliminate their bastard child or to move back to Quito. But Hailangelo had either beaten them to it, or killed Skeeto so he could get Elena back. Either way, Casey envisioned a cover story. He couldn’t help it; he had become trained to think that way. He had rent to pay, too.

  Torres and Casey entered the hospital without any problems, thanks to Torres’ FBI identification. Casey peeked into Leila’s room. He turned back to Torres and thumbed in her direction. “I’m going to check on my sister.”

  Torres nodded. “I’ll see how Agent Jenner is doing.”

  Leila turned away from the TV and smiled at her brother.

  “You’re awake!” Casey almost didn’t recognize her in a white hospital gown. She appeared rather…angelic. “How are you?”

  “I’m good.” She smiled.

  Good? “I’m sorry,” Casey glanced over his shoulder and pointed at the hallway. “I must have the wrong room.” He looked back at her. “I was looking for my sister, Leila Thread?”

  “Can it. I’m still alive. That’s good, right?”

  “Yes. Yes, it is.”

  “Whatever he did to me, I was out nearly the whole time. I don’t have many memories to compartmentalize.”

  “What do you remember?”

  “I think he drugged me.”

  Casey nodded. “He did.”

  “But according to the nurse, the rape kit was negative.”

  Casey exhaled hard, leaned over, and gently hugged her. “That’s great news.” He stood back up. “Listen, Leila, I’m so, so, sorry.”

  “Hey, it was my decision to go off with him. You would think I’d have known better.”

  “Don’t blame yourself. You’re not the first woman to date a man who turned women into famous statues.”

  Leila raised her brows skeptically.

  He snickered. “Okay, maybe you are. But you can’t assume everyone is out to get you, or next thing you know your apartment will be lined with tinfoil.”

  “Ha, I’ll stick to my paintings.”

  “Good call. Anything I can do?”

  “Help the feds throw him in prison and melt the key. Then write an article so other people can avoid sludge like him. Think you can handle that?”

  “I do.” A smile gradually spread across his face. His next breaths were getting sweeter all the time.

  Their mother entered the room. “Leila? Oh, my darling, sweet child.”

  Shantell bashfully curled inside the door, her finger in her mouth. Casey encouraged her to come stand next to him. “I won’t bite,” he said. Elzbieta shuffled toward Leila, arms outstretched dramatically, and embraced her daughter like never before.

  “Ow, Mom, I have bruises,” Leila said.

  “Oh, sorry, dear. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. I actually don’t remember much.”

  “Oh, thank God you’re all right,” Elzbieta said.

  “For the first time in years, I feel happy,” Leila said. “I’ve dealt with the rape, and I finally gave that”—she glanced at Shantell— “clown his comeuppance.”

  Elzbieta looked at Casey for an explanation, and he shook his head as if to say, “Don’t ask.” She held her daughter’s hand with both of her own. “You’ll be back to work at Fixate Factory before you know it.”

  “That’s not a big concern right now, Mother,” Leila said.

  “Well, a job is nothing to sneeze at, dear.”

  Leila changed the subject. “Ma, a man from the FBI said Casey saved my life.”

  Mother crossed herself.

  “I had help from Nell and the other agents,” Casey said.

  “Where is that bastard, Football-angelo?” Elzbieta said. “If he’s not dead I’ll—”

  “Ma, it’s Hail-angelo,” Casey said. “And it’s okay. He’s in FBI custody. The feds will handle him.”

  Elzbieta sat in a chair, deep in thought. “What if he escapes?”

  “Casey shot him multiple times,” Leila said.

  “Oh my,” Elzbieta said. “Is he dying?”

  “They flew him to a hospital,” Casey said. “He survived and is under tight security.” Casey placed his hands on his mother’s shoulders, leaned in, and whispered. “Hailangelo killed at least eleven people in four states, Ma. He abducted Lei; they
’re not going to let him get away with this.”

  “Thank God,” Elzbieta said, placing her palm over her heart, as if trying to control how fast it pumped. She opened her purse, extracted knitting materials, and knitted feverishly. “I really wish we could smoke in here.”

  “It’s a hospital, Mom,” Leila said. “You know…the place where you’re supposed to get healthier?”

  “Yeah, well, my brain would feel much healthier with some nicotine.”

  Casey raised his brows and said gently, “They do have nicotine patches for that, Ma.” Elzbieta scoffed at him. “Who died and made you Surgeon General Koop?”

  “Elena Ortega,” Casey said.

  Shantell approached Leila. “Why are you wearing that funny dress?”

  “It’s a hospital gown,” Leila said. “Standard issue.”

  Shantell wrinkled her nose. “What’s standard issue?”

  Casey whispered in his mother’s ear. “Bad news, Ma. Shantell’s mom didn’t make it.”

  She stopped knitting. “Oh my. Where’s the father?”

  He shrugged. “Out of the picture, as far as I know. I’ll ask Agent Torres to see if Shantell has family that can take care of her, okay?”

  “Oh.” Elzbieta nodded reluctantly and resumed knitting.

  “What? I thought you’d be thrilled.”

  His mother cocked her head. “Well…I was sort of getting used to the little troublemaker. But, hell, I can barely manage myself. When you get to be my age, you pick your battles.”

  “You’re doing fine, Ma. I’m going to check on Nell.” As Casey opened the door to leave, his mother turned toward him.

  “I could really use some grandchildren.”

  Casey froze in the doorway. “Easy, Ma, we met a little over a week ago.”

  “Yeah? Well, I’ve been waiting twenty-eight years.”

  42

  WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 26

  Agent Torres sat bedside by Nell; they stopped talking when Casey entered the room.

  Torres turned to him. “Well, well, well. It’s the Caped Columnist.”