And no more than one second before I knew I would give up, let go, accept fate, plummet downward and die, one single yoctosecond before my brain and body would have to give up, I felt the wall change again. There it was, another slatted segment.
No lock, no lock, no lock, I whispered. Only then did I dare to try, once again wedging myself at three points as much as I could as, holding my breath, I pressed with my right hand.
It gave.
I was so flooded with relief, I nearly let go and plunged downward, but nearly doesn’t count. Instead, I inched my feet up the wall, keeping my head at door-level until I was in almost a fetal position, so I could propel myself through the opening, into the room.
Now I had a new mantra—don’t be here, don’t be here, don’t be here now. As I made my way, I had a few sub-mantras, depending on where precisely I was. Don’t step on my hands as they appear. Don’t hurt my head as it appears. Don’t kill me as I appear.
I wondered if this constituted a rebirthing experience. I wondered if I’d been as worried the first time I encountered the world.
And then I was through, out of the claustrophobic dark into the blindingly light openness. I landed, headfirst, on bare, waxed floorboards, which groaned and squeaked greetings.
I don’t know why babies cry, unless it’s for joy. It’s a hell of a lot nicer out in the open, even with a slightly sore forehead. I wanted to laugh, to pound the floor and kiss it. I was alive, and I was out.
At which point I realized that getting the gentlemen in the basement out had been the reason for the climb, and time and oxygen were both running out.
But first…
This never happened in the movies. Superheroes never had to excuse themselves and hit the lavatory. I was inferior stock, and profoundly worried that someday people would be able to say that two men died while I visited the Roederers’ facilities.
The chute had deposited me in a hallway, centrally located between bedrooms, the better to dispose of their linens. There were an awful lot of doors, open and not, lining the hall on both sides. A small but exquisite art collection graced the landing, on the papered walls and on dark wood pedestals. The Roederer money was ill-gotten, but well spent. Closest to me was a rose-quartz statue of Shiva, the many-armed Hindu god of destruction and reproduction, an interesting combo. He didn’t look troubled by his dual nature. He looked lit from within, cool and hot at the same time, the four arms exquisitely graceful.
I wondered what would become of the treasures when Mrs. R. skipped. I wondered which, if any, of them she’d take along.
This is not to suggest I was dawdling, because I did my speculating while trying doors. To my momentary amazement, all the doors were unlocked—but when opened, most revealed nothing. Empty shells of rooms in desperate need of a human touch to bring them to life.
The wealthy couple hadn’t put even the minimum in these rooms. Not a bed, a lamp, a table. Because the Roederers didn’t have houseguests. They probably didn’t have friends. Their entertaining had been public and for public causes. Main floor only. Why waste two dimes on rooms no one would see or use? It was interesting that in this one area of their life, they saw no need for subterfuge. I wondered if Jake had noticed the unfurnished rooms, and whether he’d just accepted it as the sort of frugal economy his family would approve of. If, of course, people in his situation ever suffered a surfeit of bedrooms.
Luckily, bathrooms, even if unused, didn’t need furnishings, and I found and used one, locking the door behind me, just in case she was around, waiting.
She wasn’t.
Detour completed, I was on my way to Jake and Loren who, please God, had not expired in the last two minutes.
In the relatively small area I had to traverse between the bathroom and the stairs, I passed a very Cézanne-looking painting, a suit of armor for a tiny medieval warrior, an ornate Southwestern storytelling figure, a mask made of silver, gold, and turquoise, and a blue and white Chinese vase. I walked over two small rugs, one patterned with flowers, the other with interlocking geometries, both the zillion-knots-to-the-inch sort with the sheen of woven silk.
The best in the world. Nothing less. The collectors turned out to be fakes, but their knowledge and appreciation of art was real. Even the old flooring, creaky and tired as it sounded, was a work of art with inlaid parquetry. I tiptoed, afraid of setting off protests from the boards under my feet, then I gave that up in favor of expediency. What difference could it make?
Seconds later, I had my answer. Probably neither the tiptoeing nor the strides had made a difference. The clunk of my headfirst arrival would have sufficed. And following that trumpeted announcement, my side trip had given Tea Roederer time to arm herself before confronting me.
I froze at the top of the stairs, although inwardly, everything was in motion—pounding, clenching, spasming—because there she was, two steps up the grand staircase. No longer madcap, just mad. Her wig was more askew, and she’d misbuttoned her black velvet dress and accessorized it with a gun aimed directly at my stomach. She looked like doom, like inevitability. She was only a decade older than me; how had she become a force of nature, mythic and unstoppable?
I was inside my skin watching me—watching us—as if we were a show, played in slow motion. I didn’t and couldn’t move, but she could, a step at a time, one hand on the banister, the other carefully maintaining her grip and aim. She scowled, visibly peeved either by my presence, her forgetfulness in leaving the chute door unlocked, or both.
From my strange observer’s distance, I heard my voice say, “Don’t do this. There’s no point.”
She shook her head briskly, annoyed, not wasting words on the likes of me.
Her vast arrogance revitalized me. Systems on—racing, scurrying, doing their best, all at once and instantly, but to no avail. I couldn’t remember a place to run to or hide where I wouldn’t be trapped. Even if I gained a moment by locking myself into a room—a lock she could shoot through—that would only add to the danger downstairs, where minute by minute, the cellar filled with poison.
This was her house. She knew its closets, windows, and exits. That’s how she’d been able to calmly attempt the murder of three people. This was her call, her game. I had to find a way through what she knew. Or be what she didn’t know.
“I don’t like loose threads.” Tea Roederer paused and raised her gun.
I swayed, I stepped side to side, I did deep knee bends, then stood straight.
I looked like a dancing duck. I added hand motions, anything to confuse, up, sideways, above the head, down, like a bargain-basement imitation of the Shiva.
Tea Roederer, the local god of destruction, waved her gun. Behind me stood Shiva, who owned the title. I whirled and grabbed the statue and held it in front of me like a hostage. “Don’t do it!” I shouted at Tea Roederer, and I hoped so much she wouldn’t.
She would. She came up another step, squinted, and raised the gun.
With all my might, with whatever power was left in my exhausted arm, and with a silent apology—to him and to his carver—I hurled the statue.
He flew. And destroyed.
Tea gave a great whoof! of escaping air and toppled backward, down the stairs with the many-armed god. Except for the staircase runner, the entry was all hard surfaces—wood, plaster, and marble, so that each painful bounce against a riser was clear and loud.
A deafening explosion drowned out our human sounds. I stopped, crouched, screamed, a reflex of pure terror. Was I shot? Pieces of plaster fell silently, dustily, from the ceiling. No pieces of me followed suit.
I started down after Tea, apologizing again to Shiva, who’d been amputated twice as he bounced.
Tea tumbled all the way to the bottom. Shiva had gotten one of his remaining arms stuck between two of the balusters. I pulled him out as I passed and set him upright. He looked a lot better than the woman who’d thought herself a god.
But she still looked too good for my liking. The floor of the entry ha
ll was marble. Very hard stuff. Tea lay on her back, blinking and stunned. But incredibly resilient. Any minute now, she’d shake herself back into place and be at me again.
I dove at her, knocking her back onto the marble, hard, and then I stood up and planted one foot on her chest. If she’d try to get up, I’d stand on her.
She bled from an unfortunately nonfatal bang on her nose. But I didn’t want her dead. I wanted her in court, explaining what would be otherwise unbelievable. That the patrician so eagerly clutched to Philadelphia’s breast was, in fact, faux. A murderer, making Tea/Chester both a wanted man and now, a wanted woman.
But I had more important things than her to consider. Jake and Loren were in the basement with time running out, or already dead. I looked around. The detonating gun had flown out of Tea’s hand, bouncing on its own trajectory down to the floor, just out of reach.
I looked at her. Her skin was ashen, her breathing shallow. She wasn’t going to pop up this instant, so I took my foot off her chest and grabbed her weapon. She struggled to sit up. I aimed the gun. Wasn’t there something I had to do before being able to pull the trigger? Was it in the right position now or had the fall pushed it back?
Only way to find out… I aimed straight up. This is a test, I muttered, this is only a test. In case of a real emergency…
It worked. I stood in a small hailstorm of plaster dust and fragments.
Tea fell back down, her eyes wide.
“Do not move,” I said. “Do not even think about moving.” I felt John Wayne–ish now, able to speak calmly and carry a big gun. I pointed the weapon in her general direction and tried to figure out what to do with her while I got the guys out of the basement.
But as I thought about it, I heard footsteps. Whose? Too many feet and steps for two people. And sirens? Loudspeakers and breaking glass? And all from the wrong direction in the house, the front of it. Near me.
And wait—Jake and Loren couldn’t get themselves out, that was the whole point, and if I hadn’t unlocked that cellar door, who was it pounding toward me—
“She! She—” Tea screamed. “Get her! She attacked me!”
I was grabbed from behind. “Drop it!” an authoritarian voice bellowed directly into my ear.
“I’m not the one—”
He didn’t seem in a mood for discussion. “Drop it!” he shouted, real menace in his voice. This was how cops got bad reps. I’d just been through hell—the least he could be was polite.
Nevertheless, I dropped the gun.
“She! She—” Tea said. “Arrest her! Look at her—she—”
“No!” I said. “She’s the—” My version was going to be a hard sell. Tea, rumpled and bruised, had a pathetic, victimized aura. Her wig was off and her semibald head made her look much older and a whole lot feebler than she was, but still patrician. Still the lady of the manor. All the same, couldn’t they let me explain how I’d climbed a laundry chute, tackled an armed murderer, and saved her prisoners?
Maybe not that last part. I didn’t hear any sound from below. “The basement,” I said.
“Yeah, yeah,” the cop muttered.
“No, listen, the back stairs—locked—there’s two men down there and exhaust fumes coming in.”
“Lady, we know.” But how could he? He did nothing except snap handcuffs on me as if I hadn’t said a word.
I tried again. “You don’t understand, there are two men who will die if you—”
“Hold it a minute? We’re busy.” The policemen—not a female among them—swarmed, one helping Tea Roederer sit up and shakily attempt getting to her feet, another studying the bullet-aerated ceiling, another making note of the de-limbed Shiva, another wandering off, presumably to inspect the manse.
“You have this backward,” I said. “I’m the goodie!” That apparently lacked convincing power or finesse. “I’m not the villain!” Now I sounded old-fashioned, out of a twirling-mustache melodrama, the wrong century’s drama. “There are men in real danger down—”
“Let her go!”
Loren! Loren? Loren with the policeman who’d left the room. And Jake right behind. Loren, looking more physically rumpled and scattered than he ever had, but stronger inside—taking charge for the first time. Facing down men with guns. The man had possibilities. “She isn’t the one!” he said. “She is.” He pointed at Tea.
“You the fellow got in touch?”
“My son did. This boy here. My son.” He put his arm around Jake’s shoulder, a touch to reaffirm that Jake was a real person. The light of belated comprehension in his eyes was so bright, you could have read by it. “He saved the day,” he said.
What had happened between them because of the crisis was good. Even great. But what he was saying didn’t make sense. I’d saved the day, hadn’t I?
“Hey—you’re the kid was at the station this morning.” Jake had been singlehandedly justifying the Radnor Township police force’s payroll. “About the mister here. The hit-and-run.”
Jake nodded.
“Well, you’re a smart kid. Fast thinking.” The policeman actually cracked a smile. All was forgiven. And all of me forgotten. I was still handcuffed and unacknowledged and they were deep into an incomprehensible conversation. “The call we got was from Idaho.” The cop chuckled after he said it.
“Jeez,” Jake said. “I thought there’d be somebody closer. He did it by phone?”
“She, and the answer is yes. Her 911 dispatcher did it.”
Loren saw my befuddlement. “I told you. You know, in the chute.”
“Shoot?” one of the cops said. “You talking about those holes in the ceiling? Good thing nobody got hurt, but you want to explain, Miss?”
“We’re talking laundry chute,” I said.
“I forgot to lock the upstairs door.” Tea sounded on the verge of tears. “I never thought anyone could climb up there, but she did. She got out.”
“Stop whining!” I snapped. Lord knows Tea had made me feel bad for presuming to be her equal, when all along, I was her better. “You’re a phony. I don’t mean the money you stole or the murders—I thought this was about banned books, while it was about cooked books. Your special talent. The truth is, you don’t believe in free speech. Not for Harvey Spiers. Not even for your husband.”
“Run that by me again, lady?” the cop said. “Maybe backtrack to the robbing and killing part?”
“About my arms,” I said. “Loren, Jake, tell them again. Tell them I’m okay.” I turned to my cop. “Couldn’t you take these things off me?”
He looked fuddled. Jake and Loren had somehow passed muster, but I’d been aiming a gun at a social icon. Nobody was ready to release me. It was possible I’d be in cuffs forever.
And I might have been, except that at that moment, Mackenzie walked in. He didn’t have a big white horse, but still and all, there he was. Like magic. I turned so he could see my handcuffs and rescue me.
“Hold it, mister!” a cop said.
Mackenzie identified himself. I waited, full of hope.
Jake beamed. “You read your e-mail,” he said.
Mackenzie nodded while he scanned the room—the guys, the police, Tea—me. I smiled at him, flooded with relief. He scowled back. My jaw dropped. Nothing made sense.
“What’s this about mail?” the cop asked.
“The computer has a modem,” Jake said. “I should have realized sooner. That means a telephone line, even though there’s no phone. That’s how I get online, where we already were. Dumb of me not to get it sooner. So I e-mailed everybody I’ve ever had on my list, even you, because you gave me your address.” He nodded toward Mackenzie, then looked at the policemen. “I said this wasn’t a prank and to get help fast. I figured somebody, somewhere, would get the message. I told them the address and the name of the police force and said to call them. And they did.”
“By the time we left the station, at least a dozen people had called,” the cop said. “I’m sure there’s been more since then.”
> Computer. That’s what Loren had been trying to say. Not that I was cuter. Internet. Jake.
So my climb, the terror, the exhaustion, the fight on the stairs—all that had been an exercise in futility. I was a downsized hero, replaced by electronics. I never got my fifteen minutes of fame. Not even fifteen seconds.
“And here we are,” Loren said.
“But the fumes,” I said. “So much time went by—I was sure you were dead. How did you survive?”
“Weren’t you listening?” He laughed. Mackenzie still looked grim. I wanted to slug both of them. I was concerned about my increasingly violent fantasies, but that might be a possible side effect of climbing up a laundry chute to no applause. “Loren,” I said, “I was busy—and you didn’t speak clearly, and I will kill you if they ever uncuff me—”
Mackenzie made a barely perceptible nod, as if he were the Caesar of Radnor, sparing my life. “She’s misguided,” he said. “Overfond of drama and hyperbole and often weird. But not a criminal. Of course, all this could have been less melodramatic if she’d left a note. Said where she was headed.”
“Sorry,” I muttered. That’s what he was miffed about. It wasn’t enough to scale the heights if I messed up on basics, like cohabitation etiquette.
“Why keep your whereabouts a secret?” Mackenzie asked.
Secrets again, those slippery shape-changers, even when unintentional. Sometimes good, just as often, bad. This time, dangerous.
“You could have died!” He cared.
“It won’t happen again,” I said.
“You mean next time you’re in a locked basement with poison coming through the window you’ll write a note tellin’ me that?”
The cop uncuffed me. My wrists hurt even after that short time. “Loren?” I redirected my amorphous hostility his way.
But he only grinned. “I tried and tried to tell you that Griffin’s car ran out of gas.”
Gas, not grass. Griffin, not fin. Ran out of gas!
Tea Roederer said a nasty Anglo-Saxon word. Something had finally rattled her.
Jake smiled. “He never remembered to fill it. She—” He pointed at Tea, whose skin was maroon with rage. “Mrs. Roederer was always on his case about it. Sometimes she’d have to come get him when he’d run out, and man, would she be furious. That’s why when we’d sneak out at night, we’d take one of the other cars. They always had gas.”
The Bluest Blood Page 23
