‘What did you find?’ I leaned back so he’d either have to almost lie across the bar to maintain eye contact, or lean backward and risk tipping over. It was immature and felt appropriate.
He chose to lean back. ‘Not much except the identity of a girl who worked there. She told an odd story. The front door is all glass, and has a mail slot in the metal at the very bottom. She hadn’t been paid the wages she was owed, so she walked out, pushing the key inside the mail slot after locking up for the last time. Later, she realized she’d left behind a bottle of black nail polish. She went back to reach in for the key so she could retrieve the nail polish, but the key was gone.’
‘Another employee opened up, and took the key?’
‘She was the only employee. Here’s the odd part, Elstrom: When my agents arrived there this morning, the key was lying inside the locked front door, right where the girl said she’d left it.’
‘Obviously, the key was there all the time,’ I offered reasonably. ‘The girl just got confused.’
‘Or an intruder showed up after the girl quit, snagged the key through the mail slot, used it to go in the front door, locked that, and left by the garage. Since there were no signs of forced entry, it’s a plausible explanation, especially since …’ He let the thought dangle, prompting.
‘Yes?’ I asked.
‘There were signs of forced entry inside. Someone smashed the inner door to get in the garage. The girl said it hadn’t been that way when she worked there, and that it was always locked.’
‘What did you find in the garage? More tire treads?’
‘Fresh ones, pulling out. And little rubber cuppy marks.’
‘Little rubber what?’
‘Concentric circles, three of them, totaling an inch and three-quarters in diameter.’ He pointed to my crutches, leaning against the wall. ‘Exactly the sort of marks made by the rubber caps they put on the tips of crutches, to prevent them from slipping.’
I could see Amanda had caught her breath. I wanted to hold my own, too, for fear Krantz was going to ask to see my crutches.
‘Trouble is, almost every crutch manufacturer uses those same caps,’ he said, looking straight at my eyes. ‘That garage smells like something’s been dead in there for quite some time.’
‘What was it?’
‘We found nothing … yet.’ He took another maddeningly delighted pull on his beer. ‘Still, you know what’s even more bothersome than that?’
‘Apparently not your low-carb beer,’ I said.
He frowned, but only a little. Obviously they spent hours teaching self-control at IRS Agent school. ‘It’s the two-million-dollar cash payout on Grant Carson’s life.’
‘Why?’
‘Only one million dollars was found in that case in the Buick.’
‘You said that at the clinic.’
‘A number which you confirmed at the time.’
‘I was medicated and confused.’
‘I was in the local tap in Bent Lake, having a brew with the locals—’
‘Low carb?’ I interrupted.
‘They didn’t have any—’ He caught himself and stopped. Then, ‘They remembered you, especially your wit. Seems you came in carrying a metal case that looks exactly like the one we recovered from the Buick. When they asked you what was in it, you cracked them up by saying you had two million dollars in there.’
‘That’s right.’
‘That’s right?’ Krantz set down his beer.
‘My wit did sparkle that evening,’ I said.
Amanda laughed, just once, but continued to stare straight ahead at the glasses gathering dust above the bar.
‘I could haul you down to Chicago, keep you for forty-eight hours.’
‘I had my briefcase in the bar that night. Somebody stole it from my Jeep when I was in the clinic.’
Krantz looked at me, and looked at Amanda. He stood up, knocked back the last of his de-carbed beer and left, looking less happy than when he’d arrived.
‘What’s the deal with the second million he keeps asking about?’ Amanda said.
I shook my head; I was paranoid about a sticky microphone Krantz might have left behind. We ate cheese and bread and talked about World Wars One and Two, and then we finished our drinks and went outside where there would be only cheese-fed, native Wisconsin insects and not bugs imported from Chicago, made of plastic, batteries and bits of metal.
She touched my hand, questioning. ‘What happened to the other half of the two million we found at Second Securities?’
‘I held that half back to bargain with, in case I got double-crossed about where your father was,’ I said.
‘And now?’
‘Somebody’s owed something out of this,’ I said.
SEVENTY
The meds couldn’t put me to sleep that night. I eased onto my good side to read the bedside alarm clock. If it was close enough to dawn I’d quit struggling to sleep and get up to read about soups and wars and sleuthing Brits.
No red numerals shone from the top of the nightstand. The alarm clock had died.
I reached to switch on the lamp. The lamp didn’t work. The power to my room was out.
I found my phone. It was four-fifteen.
A moment after I laid back, I heard something click faintly, one-two, in fast succession, out in the hall – followed, after a delay, by a third, softer sound, a thud. Perhaps someone was out there, checking on the power. Then I remembered that there was no staff in the resort, except for the manager, and she’d likely be asleep in her rooms. It was the middle of the night.
There were no other guests, either, except for Amanda, probably also sound asleep.
And me, sleepless, with jitters that would jump at anything.
One-two; another pair of clicks came, followed again by the third sound, the soft thud.
I grabbed my crutches from the other side of the bed, and levered myself to stand. Moving had set the stitched bullet wound in my left arm and the torn ligaments in my legs to throbbing. I waited until I’d steadied and hobbled to the window.
The resort was dark. The entire building had lost power. No one was awake to notice.
Except for me.
Click-click; the new sounds seemed slightly louder now. Again, they were followed by a strange soft thud. I started toward the door.
The fourth pair of fast clicks came when I was still only halfway across. Definitely louder, definitely closer.
By the time I got to the door and pressed my ear against it, I was sweating like a man standing under a hot August sun. Fifth and sixth sets of noises had come, increasingly louder. By now I’d recognized them for what they were: doors were being unlocked with one of the big, square-cut metal keys. The first click was the sound of the lock bolt retracting, the second the sound of the bolt snapping forward after the door was opened. The soft thud following each delay was the sound of the door being gently closed.
Rooms were being searched.
‘Damned dumb, bored kids, looking for booze,’ the resort manager had called the intruders who’d broken in.
Damned dumb, bored kids didn’t search an empty resort, room by room, looking for booze.
I pressed my eye to the magnified peep-hole. A light flashed for an instant, out in the hall. Tiny prickles shot across my scalp as I understood. Someone was using a pencil beam flashlight to quickly scan the rooms.
A new pair of clicks came loud. And, after only a second, the thud.
He’d spotted my Jeep parked in the lot, broken in for food, and for sanctuary. Until everyone was asleep.
The next clicks came loudest of all. I could hear him through the wall. He’d opened the room next door. Too soon, the soft thud came. He’d closed the door.
I could hear him breathe, out in the hall.
I pressed against the wall, steadying, seeing the faint low shape of the bed – my unmade bed. In an instant’s flash of his light, he’d know I was there.
Metal scratched on my door. He’d
slipped the master key into my lock.
I leaned one crutch against the wall, pressed back to brace myself, and raised the other crutch like a bat.
First click; the bolt retracted.
Second click; the bolt sprung back out. The door was opening.
His breathing was heavy, labored, not two feet from my face.
The pencil beam of light moved unsteadily, low across the carpet toward the bed.
The beam halted. He sucked in air. His flashlight had found my shoes, next to the bed.
The floor creaked as he stepped softly into the room.
SEVENTY-ONE
I swung my crutch like I was swinging for the moon, aiming high where I hoped was a head. I hit him with such force that the impact knocked the crutch out of my hands and slammed me back against the wall.
He shrieked, dropping his flashlight, but he didn’t go down. The black shape of him turned on me like a monster, stretching his arms out for me like giant bat wings. I pushed off from the wall and half charged, half fell onto him. We went down with me on top, beating at his face with my good right fist, once, twice, three times, until I connected with something small. It crunched. I’d caught his nose, shattered a bone.
Exhaling hard, whistling wet through his nose, he raised up his hands to flail at my head.
I had no strength; my body was on fire with pain. I had to get away. But his giant hands reached up and found my neck. I beat down at his smashed wet nose again. He pushed me off, rolled on to his side and then onto his belly, to get up, to kick at my head.
I clambered on his back, put a knee into the small of it, and grabbed the hair at the back of his head with my good right hand, to force him down on his chest.
He reared back to raise his knees to buck me off. I dropped my hands around him, down to the carpet to steady myself, and found aluminum with both hands. The crutch that had been knocked from my hands now lay perpendicular under his chest. Tugging at the crosswise crutch with both hands, I forced my knee deeper into his back. My gunshot arm and torn legs raged in pain. But to let up was to die.
He took in a great breath, raised his head and got his knees up, six, eight inches, contorting into the beginning of an arch, but it was no good. I had him pinned. He slammed down face flat on the carpet, except now the front of his neck lay on the crutch.
Pushing all my weight through my knee deep into the small of his back, I tugged the crutch hard up under his neck. Hot blood flooded down my left arm; my stitches had torn loose from my flesh.
His right hand fluttered up, weak, trying to loosen my grip.
‘Die, you son of a bitch,’ I heard myself scream to the body writhing beneath me. ‘Die!’
Something snapped loudly, wonderfully. The hand that had been flailing up to find me fell limp. I did not let up. I let the blood run hot down my left arm; I let my torn legs rage in pain. I tugged on both sides of the crutch until I could tug no more. And then I counted to a hundred.
Finally, I had nothing left. I fell off him and began to crawl out of my room. I could hear nothing but the frantic gasping of my own breathing.
At some point I tried to rise, at least up to my knees, to head down the hall, to find Amanda. Surely he’d found her first. But I had no strength. I slumped back to the floor and sort of rolled, kicked and crawled the dozen yards to the lobby.
There was a fire extinguisher mounted on the wall. And a fire alarm. I reached up and managed to pull the red handle down on the alarm.
Horns on, battery back-ups sounded down both halls. White lights flashed like lightning strikes.
I fell back; I could do no more.
‘Dek?’ Amanda’s voice sounded after a time, from far away. Her breath found my cheek, on the floor. ‘He’s here?’
She didn’t ask who; the blood running out of my torn left arm had already told her.
‘The Escalade,’ I managed to whisper. ‘Get us inside, lock the doors, drive us away.’
Surely the man could not be killed. Surely he was still alive.
She ran to get her keys, knelt to help me up, and half dragged me out the lobby door and across the parking lot to the Escalade.
‘Just lock the doors,’ I said, after I’d crawled up onto the seat. Bright white lights were flashing everywhere, under the eaves, on the walls, out through the windows from inside.
I passed out.
SEVENTY-TWO
I’d killed.
I’d snapped Canty’s neck with my crutch; his back with my knee. With time, I’d feel something more about that. For now, all I felt was numb.
After being re-stitched and re-bedded for the rest of the night at the clinic, Amanda was allowed to return me to the ski resort the next afternoon. However clumsily I’d walk-hobbled before, I was now bound to a motorized wheelchair, since I could only use my right hand. The resort manager’s niece had moved us into a nice, wheelchair-accessible two-bedroom suite, just off the lobby. No charge for the upgrade or the motorized wheelchair, the niece said, though I was sure she would have been happier if she’d been allowed to tow me to the top of the highest ski run and push me over the back edge. I’d brought horror to the log resort. After cutting the resort’s power and telephone landlines, Canty had beaten her aunt senseless before taking her master key.
Amanda and I slept well enough, separately. I supposed she was as unsettled as I by our close proximity, and how easily some of the old mannerisms and rituals we’d shared in marriage wanted to return. But she had much bigger worries, waiting for word of her father. There had been no news, either from the local sheriff, or from the cops in Chicago reporting a body found stuffed in a stolen car.
And we slept safe. Sheriff’s deputies from two surrounding counties, supplemented by a special detachment of two armed special agents from the IRS, were now staying at the resort. I quickly grew fond of the deputies; they brought doughnuts, freshly fried and often topped with sprinkles.
Krantz’s special agents, though, were another matter. They were a grim-faced pair, dispatched ostensibly to be vigilant, but more likely sent for what they might overhear. Krantz’s frustration with me was growing exponentially. He was certain I knew plenty, but without Wendell around to squeeze, and nothing otherwise to link me to Eugene Small, Arthur Lamm or the Carson payout, he’d resorted to posting the two agents to hang around the lodge and pretend they weren’t listening.
I’d found their bugs right away, one stuck under my nightstand, another stuck under Amanda’s. I was tempted to reposition them on either sides of the toilet, to offer a stereophonic listening experience, but I left them where I’d found them. Amanda and I made sure to never discuss anything of substance in our small suite, for I was certain Krantz had planted more bugs.
The waiting drove Leo nuts, too, back in Rivertown. He enlisted Endora, no stranger from her modeling days to changing her look, to rent a car and look down the street where I’d abandoned the small Ford, while he rode ducked down in back. He then called me from an unfamiliar number.
‘Burner phone,’ he whispered. ‘Forty bucks at Walmart. I’ll toss it after this call.’
‘But you called me on my regular phone,’ I said, wanting to laugh for the first time since Canty.
‘The eagle has flown,’ he murmured.
Meaning the small Ford was gone. I could only marvel that Chicago’s car thieves were as strong-stomached as its gang murderers. They’d boosted the car, likely stripped it, and with luck, turned it into a recyclable steel cube, albeit one that was slightly leaking.
Amanda said nothing of it. Or much about anything else. She left early each of the next three mornings to check on the sheriff’s search plans for the day. After that, I think she just drove, or stopped somewhere. I never asked, and she never offered. She expressed no rage at her father, or at the world, or at me. She ate next to nothing, and I think slept little. Her hands trembled almost continuously. It was like that, waiting.
Krantz took a room at the lodge. He visited my mouth, in the wheelchair
, in the lobby, twice a day in hope the new meds I’d been given had relaxed it enough to offer up more of what he was sure I knew.
‘Where’s Phelps?’ he asked right off on the first, second and third mornings and afternoons after I’d killed Canty.
‘The television news says Lamm has left the country,’ I said, each time.
‘Did I tell you the receptionist at Second Securities remembers you?’
‘The one who couldn’t remember her nail polish, or where she’d left a key?’
‘I’ll be bringing her in to look at you through a mirror.’
‘No need. I went there, but I didn’t break in, Krantz. I walked in through the front door.’
‘Spewing some cocked-up story about being an inspector. You didn’t say anything about that when we first spoke at the clinic. Withholding information from a federal investigation is prosecutable.’
‘Meds,’ I said. ‘They made me forgetful.’
And so it went for those three mornings and three nights. Then, very early on the fourth day, the sheriff called to give Amanda directions to a tiny lake.
We packed what little we had and went out to the Escalade. I got behind the wheel. The stitches in my arm were holding, and the new fissures in my torn leg ligaments were healing. It was not a day for Amanda to drive.
‘The sheriff will let you leave, afterward?’ she asked, after we’d gone a mile.
‘He termed what I’d done to Herman Canty “justifiable.” I might not even have to come up for the inquest.’
‘And Krantz?’
‘He said he’ll arrest me in Chicago.’
‘He was kidding?’
‘Krantz has difficulty with humor.’
‘That low-carb business,’ she said, struggling, looking straight ahead. No one should ever be required to be strong enough to look at someone fished dead from a lake.
Parked on the dirt road leading to the water were two county cruisers, Krantz’s black Crown Victoria, an ambulance and the county medical examiner’s van. The sheriff walked over, opened my door and leaned in. ‘Mr Elstrom can handle this, Ms Phelps.’
The Confessors' Club Page 27
