I didn’t have to wake up the next morning; you can’t wake up when you’ve never been asleep. I’ve had some long nights before, but this was the longest night I’d ever spent. Even when things were at their worst with Lanie, when we lay next to each other, silent and sleepless, it was nothing like this. There was a kind of unreality about it, as if I’d gotten myself cast in a remake of some film noir classic. Only this was very real, and the difference between what this felt like and reality was the same as the difference between a gunfight on television and a gunfight in your neighborhood.
I washed down the last of a tasteless biscuit with cold coffee, then started toward the door. The kitchen clock read 7:35, too early for me to be up as a rule. But these were days without rules. I put my hand on the doorknob, then stopped. I couldn’t do this alone. I needed help. Rachel would need help. It’s time we all came clean with each other.
I walked back into my bedroom and called Walter’s office.
“I’m sorry,” the receptionist said. “He’s not in yet.” I was surprised anyone was in yet, but after all, the sharks feed early.
“Can I leave him a message? It’s urgent. In fact, it’s an emergency.”
“Go ahead. I’ll see he gets the message.” Her voice was concerned, serious.
I gave her Rachel’s address. “Tell him to meet me there as soon as he can. It’s very important.”
“Can I tell him what it’s about?”
I couldn’t leave that in a message. “Just tell him to be there.”
The drive over to Rachel’s left me brittle, like the time Lanie wanted me to meet her for lunch. I knew she was going to divorce me; I knew that was what she was going to tell me. But I went to lunch anyway. It was like that today.
I turned onto Golf Club Lane and drove quickly to Rachel’s driveway. I imagined Walter’s BMW pulling out just as I pulled in; the thought made me laugh out loud.
The Ford chugged up the driveway, squealed to a stop behind Conrad’s Jag. I wondered if she’d keep the Jaguar, now that she had all that money. I rang the bell a few times, with no response. But the cars were there. Odd, I thought.
I walked around the side of the house, down the driveway a few feet, and stood in the sun. The storm front had long since moved through. It was a beautiful, sunlit day. The sky was deep blue; even the air temporarily clean.
Rachel shot into view, running at a good solid clip from up the street to my left. She disappeared behind a line of hedges, then came back into sight running the street in front of the house. She moved quickly, with an ease and grace that gave me an ache in my chest. Rachel really was beautiful, on the outside anyway.
She turned into the driveway and slowed as she saw me. Her arms dropped to her side, and she loped up next to me, glistening with sweat and breathing hard.
“Harry,” she panted. “What-”
“Hi, Rachel,” I said. “How’re you doing?”
“Tired. Out of breath. Glad to see you, though. C’mon inside.”
She walked past me, head down, shaking her arms and shoulders to stay loose. She pulled her keys out of her fanny pack, turned off the burglar alarm, and opened the kitchen door. Inside, the remnants of a breakfast eaten solo remained on the table.
“Let me run upstairs and get a towel,” she said, pulling off the fanny pack and laying it on the table. “Be right back.”
She left the kitchen and went down the hall. I heard her footsteps on the stairs. The fanny pack was lying there; I reached over, unzipped it, spread it open wide.
Inside the dark pouch, I could see what looked like a black plastic box. I pulled it out. A button on the side, four metal contacts on the end. Just like Lonnie showed me.
I shoved the stun gun back inside the pouch, zipped it shut. Damn, I thought.
Footsteps padded down the stairs, then through the hall. She stepped into the kitchen, hair combed straight back, face rinsed, towel around her neck.
“Good run?”
“Yeah, almost an hour. Great way to start the day. You want coffee or something?”
“Sure.” I stepped around the counter to get out of her way.
“You look like you’ve been up all night, darling. Been on a stakeout?”
“Something like that.” It hurt to have her call me darling.
She opened a bag of gourmet coffee. I recognized the store’s gold sticker. They imported it special, mixed the blend themselves, ground it right in front of you. Real class.
“Harry,” she said, pouring water into the coffee maker, “how come you’re here?”
My heart made a big thump inside my chest. I shut my eyes, tried to get centered, get ready.
“Rachel, we have to talk,” I said.
She turned to me, fidgeted with a couple of coffee mugs, sugar, milk pitcher. “About what?”
“I found out how Conrad was killed.” She stopped cold, her eyes meeting mine for a split second, then turning away again.
“We know how Conrad was killed, don’t we?”
“That’s not what I meant. I meant how he came to be killed.”
“Really? Who killed my husband?” she asked. “If you know who killed him, you should tell me.” Her voice was soft, almost far away. But a deep red color rose in her cheeks.
“The way I see it, whoever killed Conrad was paid to do it. A contract job. Paid by somebody who knew their way around the hospital, knew pharmaceuticals. Somebody with medical training. Somebody who could get into a hospital, steal what was needed, then make sure the hired killer did it right.”
She laughed, a short, nervous snicker. “Well, that narrows it down. Only about a thousand suspects.”
“It does, Rachel. It narrows it down a lot.”
“So who was it?”
“The only person I can find who not only had the knowledge and the opportunity, but the motive. Homicide 101, Rachel. I should have figured it out sooner. The first thing you ask is ‘Who benefits?’ ”
She looked up from the counter. The color that rose so quickly in her face had drained away just as fast, leaving her skin a perfect, almost translucent alabaster.
“There’s only one person who benefits,” I whispered. “You.”
Nothing showed in her face, no reaction, no flicker of reflex or fear. Her eyes were steady, calm.
“Harry, you’ve been watching too much television.”
“It would have been easy for you to steal the protocurarine. It wasn’t a class narcotic, would have been accessible for somebody who fit in at the hospital.”
“Harry,” she laughed, “I didn’t even work there.”
“But you spent time there. Your husband worked there. You put him through med school. You’re a nurse. You knew how the system worked. There are hundreds of nurses in that facility every day. You put on the uniform, blend right in with them. You just went where you wanted. Who was going to stop you?”
“You’re crazy,” she said quietly after a long moment.
“I even know how he was put down without a mark on him. I know about the stun gun,” I said. I reached over, unzipped the pack, turned it upside down and poured all her belongings onto the kitchen table.
Her eyes darkened. “No marks,” I continued. “No permanent damage. When he was lying on the bed helpless, the killer shot him full right through his pants leg.”
“Harry, I-”
“Did you imagine you heard his breathing after that?” I demanded. “Could you hear his death rattle inside you? I did, Rachel. I felt him die under me.”
Her eyes reddened, filled with tears. “I don’t know why you’re doing this to me.”
“Am I wrong, Rachel? If I am, show me how.”
“You are wrong! Why would I want him killed? I loved him!” she yelled.
“I know about the money, Rachel. I know how far in debt you were. I know how close to collapse you were.” I paused a moment, steadying myself against the back of a chair. “And I know about the insurance. You’re a wealthy woman, Rachel. If you get away with it.”
She stared at me silently, her face a blank. We stood there like that for what seemed like a long time.
“How much did it cost you, Rachel? Where’d you find the guy? I’m glad, for some reason, that you couldn’t do it yourself.”
“I didn’t kill him, Harry. And I didn’t pay to have him killed.”
“How long,” I asked, “have you been seeing Walter Quinlan?”
For the first time, I saw real fear in her face. She seemed to sway on her feet, as if her knees were about to give way.
“I don’t feel well,” she said. “I need to sit down.”
I stood aside, pulled out a chair for her. She came around the counter, slumped in the chair with her arms on the table. I crossed around to the other side of the table and sat opposite her. The stun gun lay between us. She looked at it, then quickly at me.
“Dogs, Harry. I run. I’ve been attacked by dogs.”
“And you saw what it could do, didn’t you?”
“You’re twisting things,” she cried. “These are horrible accusations!”
“Does Walter know about this, about how you had Conrad killed?”
“I didn’t kill him!”
“Tell me, Rachel,” I said. It was time to play my last card. “The morning after Conrad was murdered, I came over to see you. Remember?”
“Yes.”
“You ran up to me in the kitchen, when Mrs. Goddard was here and the police were in the den. And the first thing you said was that you’d heard I got hit. You said that before you even saw the back of my head.”
“Well, yes, I know, I-”
“How did you know I got hit, Rachel?”
“Well,” she stammered, “I-I, the police told me. The police told me when they questioned me.”
“No, Rachel. The cops wouldn’t tell you anything like that. And they didn’t. I checked. The only way you could know I got hit on the back of the head was if you were there, or if somebody who was there told you about it.”
She had this shocked look on her face, as if I’d grabbed the stun gun and jammed it into her. She stared through me, about a mile off, her mouth cracked barely open.
“Jesus,” she whispered.
“Rachel,” I said, my arms on the table toward her. I reached over, took one of her hands in mine. “I want to help you. We can help you. This doesn’t have to be the end of everything.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” she said, her voice faint. “I asked you to let it go. Why didn’t you let it go, Harry?”
“Rachel, I called Walter. He’s a good lawyer, the best. He’ll help you. I’ll help you. We both care about you.”
Her eyes shot open. She jerked her hand away from me. “You did what?”
“He’s on his way here, Rachel. He’ll want to help you.”
She jumped up from the chair. “You fool,” she screamed. “You idiot!”
I stood up, confused. “What the hell are you talking about? I only want to help you.”
She stepped quickly up to me, got right in my face, yelling so loud spit flew. “Oh, you’ve helped all right! You damned fool, you’ve ruined everything!”
“Rachel,” I said, as soothingly as I could, “please …”
Her eyes welled up; tears began to run down her cheeks. “Why couldn’t you just leave it alone,” she sobbed. “Why didn’t you do what I asked?”
She hid her face in the palms of her hands. Her shoulders heaved. Something in me melted; I couldn’t help it. I took two steps and wrapped my arms around her, pulling her tightly to me. Her breath came in ragged gulps, her body shaking as if she were freezing to death.
The kitchen door opened, and Walter Quinlan stepped in. He was wearing a starched white shirt, gray suit, and carried an expensive leather briefcase. His hair was swept back neatly. He was lawyer to the core of his soul. Good thing, too. Rachel would need the best.
“Walter,” I said. “Hey, man, thanks for coming.”
Rachel stiffened; the shaking stopped, every muscle in her slim body seemed to lock up. She pushed away from me, turned toward him and stared.
“Well, well, well,” Walter said. “Harry and Rachel. How nice to see you guys again. Hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”
“Walt, this isn’t some kind of relationship confrontation,” I said. “We’ve got some serious problems here.”
He smiled, but it was more of a contemptuous sneer than anything funny. “Oh, yeah, I’d say we got problems all right. Enormous problems.”
Rachel turned to me, fear in her eyes. “Harry, I-” she hesitated. “I’m so sorry.”
Walter set his briefcase down on the counter. He fiddled with the catches, the lid of the case rising toward us.
“You don’t understand,” Rachel said. “I didn’t pay anyone to kill Conrad.” Her voice was barely a whisper, the color completely gone from her face. There were dark circles under her eyes, as if a fatigue beyond measure had settled on her.
“I didn’t have to.” She turned, stared at Walter.
“Oh, for chrissakes, Rachel, you really need help,” I said, shocked. “You can’t really believe anybody’s going to believe that. Walter’s an attorn-”
I turned. As Walter shut the lid of the briefcase with his left hand, I saw in his right hand a pistol.
And again, in one of those senseless, idiotic sparks that run rampant through human brain cells in the middle of catastrophe, I thought: Hmmm, looks to be about a 9 millimeter. Nope, I ain’t gonna mess with that.
I stared at him. My jaw cracked open this time.
“Does this mean no more raequetball?”
Walter smiled. “You always were an asshole, Harry.”
This ain’t real, I thought. This isn’t happening.
His smile disappeared. “This wasn’t my fault, Harry. She talked me into it.”
“You, Walter?” I was still dazed by it all. It was the one option I hadn’t considered.
“It was her idea, damn it! She put it together.”
I looked at Rachel. She stared at Walter with an expression I’d never seen before. An expression of pure, distilled fear.
“We’d been having an affair for about a year,” he continued. “She was going to divorce him after I made partner. Big bucks in being partner.”
“Then you didn’t make partner,” I said.
He moved his eyes from her to me. “Yeah, that’s right, Harry. I didn’t make partner. Rachel and Conrad were falling apart, the marriage dead. In debt up to their eyeballs. The money almost gone. I’m in deep, too, man. Don’t you see? This was the way out. For both of us.”
He motioned with the gun, his hand shaken by a quick tremor. “Both of you, sit down. Now.”
I looked at Rachel. Her eyes bulged in terror. She backed into a chair, then sat without taking her eyes off him. I came around the other side of the table, sat as well.
The pistol looked small in his hand, the way it must have looked to Mr. Kennedy. It was the last thing Mr. Kennedy saw in this life; I didn’t want to have the same experience.
“Why’d you do Mr. Kennedy?”
“Who?”
“The black guy in the Lincoln, the one who worked for Bubba Hayes.”
“Hell, I’d forgotten his name. I knew he was following you. I didn’t know what he knew. But then he started following me as well. Not all the time, but enough to make me think he knew more than I wanted him to. Then I caught him parked out in front of Rachel’s house one night when I was coming out. I knew he had to go.”
I shook my head slowly. He hadn’t even remembered the man’s name. “Jesus, Walt. Did you have to kill him?”
“He was getting too close, damn it!” he yelled, his hair falling down on his forehead. “He brought it on himself.”
He reached up, loosened his tie with his one free hand, the pistol pointed at us the whole time. He was sweating now, perspiration dripping down his face. All I could think of was that I didn’t want to the sitting at some goddamn kitchen table.
“Why me?” I asked. “Why’d you bring me into it?”
Walt grinned, but it was a painful grin, his lips pulled back like a dog baring his teeth. “That was Rachel’s idea, too. When I told her you’d lost your job at the paper and had become a detective, we both got a good laugh out of it.”
Pained, I looked over at Rachel. She turned my way, but couldn’t bear to look at me.
“You were our backup,” Walter said. “We figured the cops would never suspect Rachel if she had the alibi and also hired a P.I. We never figured you’d be smart enough to figure this out. Kinda broke a few patterns on us, buddy.”
I looked at Walter, his face glistening, tight, and I realized at that moment how much he hated me. For whatever reason and from whatever source, Walter Quinlan hated me. I’d never seen it; even now, didn’t understand it.
“I didn’t break any patterns, Walt. I didn’t figure anything out. I just thought I had. Actually, I’ve been blind to a lot.”
“I’m sorry, Harry,” Rachel said.
I looked at her. Her face had a look of resignation, as if she no longer had the energy to be afraid, or to even care.
“Me, too,” I said quietly.
“Isn’t this touching?” Walter sneered.
“What happens now?” I asked.
“Well, we can’t leave things the way they are, can we?” His voice was cold, the voice of a stone killer. “No, we can’t do that at all. Let me see … Harry finds out you killed Connie. Confronts you with it. Maybe he’s blackmailing you. Yes, I like that. And so will the newspapers. You kill him. Then, in a fit of hysteria or guilt, you take your own life.
“Star-crossed lovers to the end. Oh, yes, the papers will love it.”
Rachel gasped. “No, Walter-”
“He’s right, Rachel. It has to be this way, doesn’t it? It’s the only way.”
He smiled at me again, a little softer now. “I’m glad you understand. Stand up, you two. We need to go back to the bedroom.”
He motioned with the gun. I stood up, glancing out of the corner of my eye at the mess spilled out onto the kitchen table from Rachel’s fanny pack. Lying in the pile of tissues, gum, keys, and a couple of wads of paper, was the stun gun.
If I could just get to it.
I tried not to stare at it, hoping with every breath that he wouldn’t see it. If I could only get to it…
I slid my arm over the table as I stood up, scooping the stun gun up into my right coat sleeve. All I had to do now was get close to him. My chest felt heavy, my heart thumping away helplessly.
Rachel sat there, frozen. The lines in her face were suddenly deeper, her eyes popping.
“You’re serious,” she whispered.
“Stand up,” he ordered. “Now.”
Then I heard it. Far away, at first, but louder by the second.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“What’s what?” he demanded.
“That. Listen.”
We stood silent for just a moment. “What is it?” Rachel asked, looking at me. Maybe it was luck, maybe it was coincidence. Maybe it was deus-ex-freaking-machina. Whatever, I was going to play it for all it was worth.
“Sirens,” I said. “Hear?”
The unmistakable high-pitched whooping grew even louder.
“You call the cops, Walter?” I asked, mustering as much calm as I could.
“Shut up, damn you! Move, upstairs!”
“It won’t work, Walter. They’re coming. I don’t know who did it, but they’re coming.”
“My God,” Rachel said.
“Move!” Walter yelled. He came around the counter, was barely a foot away from me. I turned, my back to him, Rachel just beyond me facing the hallway. I uncupped my hand; the stun gun slid into my palm. I took a step, then dropped and spun, my hand on the button. I jumped for him.
Something hit the back of my head and exploded in searing heat and pain. Thought: oh, hell, so this is what a bullet feels like. Only it wasn’t a bullet. It was the butt of the gun.
I felt the stun gun go into his gut, my finger mashing the button so hard it hurt. He screamed, jerked. I felt his arm slam down on my shoulder.
Then next to my left ear, the gun went off. It was a bellowing, sharp, excruciating crack, followed only by the echoing silence of a battered eardrum. I felt him go limp on me, then fall.
I was dizzy, nauseous, lying on top of Walter the same way I’d fallen on top of Conrad. I hyperventilated, my heart in my chest, my breath shallow, short, rapid gasps. I reached up and took the pistol out of his hand.
The sirens blared outside, but they seemed softer now that I was only hearing them out of one ear. Tires screeched from just beyond the living room behind us.
I struggled to get up, but I was dazed, the nerves in my legs a light year away from my brain. I couldn’t move very fast. Nothing worked. There was a ringing in my head.
I tried to speak, but nothing came out.
I rolled off him, the gun in my hand. I turned. Rachel was on the floor, her back against the wall, staring at me.
A red splotch slowly widened in the middle of her shirt.
Time hung like that for what seemed an eternity, the adrenaline flooding my body breaking everything into microseconds. I tried to yell again, dropped the pistol, scooted over to her.
Her eyes were glassy, fading fast.
I took her hand. It was turning cold. She opened her mouth. I pulled her to me, my arms around her shoulder. I pulled my left hand away from behind her. It was covered in blood.
There was a long red smear on the wall.
Behind me, there was the crash of a door splintering, then the pounding of booted feet. I felt somebody behind me, then arms all over me, pulling me away from her. I fought, yelled. Nothing happened.
Rachel fell back against the wall, a gentle crimson foam filling her mouth.