Beyond Eden (42 page)

“Okay, Lindsay,” Barry said, “we've pretty well knocked any and all of your family out of the running. What Taylor said seems the direction to go.”

“Somebody is after him.”

“Yeah. They're getting at him through you. Revenge, most likely.”

Lindsay felt the dull thudding of her heart, felt the helplessness of ignorance. She looked at Taylor. “Please tell me you have some ideas.”

“Yes, several, in fact. Unfortunately—” He drew a deep breath, then forced it out. “Oswald is dead. But don't worry, sweetheart, we'll figure this out, and very soon now.”

Lindsay wanted to cry. She wanted to howl. It wasn't fair, dammit. She felt so vulnerable her skin crawled. Taylor understood how she felt, the helplessness of it. Very calmly he pulled his .38 from its holster, handed it to her, and said, “Keep it in the bedside drawer. The safety's on, see? If a baddie comes near you, don't hesitate. Flip the safety off, aim, and pull the trigger. Okay?”

Barry wanted to mention that there was a uniformed officer outside her door, but he didn't. The uniformed officer hadn't helped her last time. He patted Lindsay's shoulder and said good night.

Taylor was sleeping here, on a cot. For convenience and for her protection. He went into the bathroom to brush his teeth and take a shower. He came out in a few minutes wearing a robe she'd never seen before. She raised an eyebrow at him.

“It's new. I didn't want to shock any nurses or doctors. I can't very well wander around nude, the way you like to see me.”

“Can't you sleep with me instead?”

Taylor sighed. He wanted to but he was afraid of hurting her.

“Why don't I hold you until you go to sleep? That sleeping pill should be kicking in soon.”

He held her loosely, so carefully, and Lindsay sighed and said, “I can't believe Oswald had the nerve to die.”

“Me either, the little worm.”

“What are you going to do?”

“It's a matter of reviewing all the cases I was in charge of for, say, three years before I quit the force. It'll take me a little time, but I'll figure it out. You're not to worry.” The admonition sounded hollow in his ears.

“No, I won't,” she said, and nestled closer.

He was amazed that she was here and that she was his wife and that she loved him. He kissed her temple. “You are brave and tough and—”

“The best lay you've ever had?”

“Yeah. There's a story I'd like to tell you, maybe I should have told you sooner, maybe not. It's about this girl—”

“One of your old girlfriends?”

“No. Do you remember me telling you I was in Paris the same time you were?” She nodded, but he could feel her drawing back, trying to burrow back inside her armor, to hide, to defend herself. He quickened. “Yes, of course you do. I love France; I've told you that. In any case, I was riding my motorcycle in Paris and this damned Peugeot came roaring out of a side street and hit me. I was lucky. I got thrown into some bushes but my arm
was broken, that was the main thing. The ambulance took me to St. Catherine's Hospital, to the emergency room. I was waiting for treatment all alone in this curtained-off cubicle when they brought in this young girl who had been raped. She was in the curtained-off room right next to me.”

“Taylor, no, damn you, no—”

“Shush. I listened to her screams, her cries, heard what the doctors were saying and how they didn't really give a shit because the girl was a foreigner. I heard how the nurse tried to protect her, but in France, back then most of the doctors were men and the bosses and they were hassled because there'd been a big auto pileup. And finally I saw her wheeled out. When I was at De Gaulle airport ready to come home, I bought a newspaper and read a bit about this girl. Practically none of it rang true and I should know because I'd been there, in the emergency room. And I never forgot her name or her. Her name was Lindsay Foxe. I remember thinking that no one should have to bear such humiliation, such lies as the media were telling, and it changed me. I couldn't believe much of what I read because I knew firsthand what had happened.”

She was crying silently. He merely held her, his voice pitched low as he continued, saying, “Your rape changed something very fundamental in me, Lindsay. I'd never really been confronted on such a personal level with rape before. Yeah, I'd been called in a couple of times on rape reports, but I hadn't realized the indignity of it, the utter humiliation of it, the hopelessness of it for a woman. In fact, one of the reasons I left the force was a rape, a little girl fourteen years old, raped by her damned uncle.

“You were luckier than she was, Lindsay. She didn't make it. You survived because you're strong and you've got guts. And luckily for me, I found you and it's us now and forever. Okay?”

He felt miraculously purged of something he'd wanted to tell her. “Lindsay? It is over, sweetheart. All over, and very soon we'll get this idiot and then it's Connecticut and a white house and a dog and a half-dozen kids. How does that sound?”

Silence.

Then she said quietly, “There are so many things right here in Manhattan, Taylor. So many new experiences, things I've never done and always wanted to. Can we do them together? I love our apartment. I don't want to leave our apartment.”

“I'm easy. You got it.”

 

Taylor and Barry were down at the station, Taylor reviewing old cases. He'd told Lindsay that he'd be back with folders for them to look through together. He'd be back soon now.

Lindsay's arm throbbed and she wanted to rub it, but she'd tried that and it had hurt like hell. Her face throbbed more than her arm, and every once in a while she raised her fingers to the strips of butterfly adhesive that covered the suture lines.

She wanted to get up and pace. Finally, unable to stand it, she threw back the single sheet and thin blanket and swung her legs over the side of the hospital bed.

Even that slight exertion made her dizzy, and she paused, head down, breathing deeply. And that made her ribs hurt. She cursed. She was nearly twenty-seven and she felt old and feeble.

It would be over soon now. Very soon. All she had to do was be patient. Lord, she already was a
patient. But it was impossible. She lowered her feet to the floor.

She heard the door open quietly and she said as she turned, “Is that you, Taylor? I'm so glad you're back. What did you find?”

A doctor stood in the doorway, wearing his white coat, a stethoscope around his neck. He held a chart in his hand. He was smiling toward her. He simply nodded, then closed the door.

“Who are you?”

“I'm Dr. Grey. Dr. Shantel asked me to see you. He asked me to give you a shot.”

“Oh, not another shot! What is it this time?”

“Just an antibiotic.” He withdrew a syringe from one of his pockets. He pulled off the safety cap as he walked toward her. “In the arm will be just fine. Could you get back into bed, please?”

She froze. Dr. Shantel wasn't a he. Dr. Shantel was a woman.

The man was advancing on her, a professional smile firmly in place. She'd never seen him before, never in her life. No, no, she was being stupid. He was a doctor, he was—She studied him, but she was certain. She'd never seen him. He shouldn't be here.

He was here to kill her.

There was no place to run. Lindsay did the only thing she could think of. She opened her mouth and screamed as loud as she could. And again and again.

He was on her in an instant, leaping on her and knocking her flat on her back onto the bed, her legs dangling over the side. He was trying to hold her down with his left arm pressed against her chest. In his right hand he was fiddling with the syringe.

Lindsay screamed again.

“Shut up, damn you!” He raised his hand to hit her but she scooted back, bringing her legs up. She was strong in that moment, and when her knees hit him squarely in the chest, he yelled and fell sideways.

Lindsay felt raw panic; then she smiled. She smiled as she jerked open the night table beside the bed. She smiled as she picked up the .38 and aimed it at the man. He was shaking his head, and he was pale with rage. He was up in an instant, the syringe high in his hand so she couldn't kick it away from him.

“Now,” he said, and then he saw the gun.

“That damned bastard gave you a gun!” And he rushed at her.

Lindsay pulled the trigger. The syringe went flying. He grabbed his right wrist. Blood quickly seeped through between his fingers.

He stared at her. “No, damn you!” he screamed at her. “You damned bitch!” Lindsay fired again. This time nothing happened. “Oh, shit,” she said and threw the gun at him. She missed but it didn't matter. She was out of bed and on him in an instant, frenzied, hitting him, a wild keening coming from her throat. He twisted out of her grasp, cursed, tried to hit her, but the pain in his wrist held him up. Lindsay smashed her fist in his throat. He gagged, jerked away, and ran out of the room, holding his wounded wrist. Lindsay stood there panting, staring at the door.

When Taylor and Barry came crashing through the door, it was to see Lindsay standing there, still panting, holding Taylor's gun in her hand. She looked up and said, “Damn, Taylor, you can't trust technology. The thing fired once but didn't do
anything the second time.” Taylor's heart was careening about in his chest. Dempsey hadn't been at his post and Taylor had been beyond fear. He stared at Lindsay, at the gun that hadn't fired the second time.

“Jesus,” he said.

They found Officer Dempsey unconscious in one of the men's-room stalls some five minutes later. Half the staff was in on the search.

They hadn't seen the man who'd tried to kill Lindsay, but it didn't matter. Taylor knew who he was.

 

Taylor and Barry and two other NYPD cops arrived at the brokerage house of Ashcroft, Hume, Drinkwater, and Henderson on Water Street two and one-half hours later. They'd already converged on the brownstone but found only some bloody towels and an open first-aid box. And an appointment book.

“Bastard,” Barry said now as he got out of the car.

“I know where his office is,” Taylor said.

“Let's get to it, then.”

“My pleasure.”

As they rode to the fourteenth floor, Taylor said, “I called to confirm what we read in his appointment book. The executive secretary told me that Brandon Waymer Ashcroft was due in a board meeting in twenty minutes. Just about now, in fact.”

“Uncle Bandy,” Barry said aloud, shaking his head. “What a nickname.”

“You want the truth now or later, Barry?”

“Now, and make it snappy.”

Taylor was surprised at how calm he sounded. “Uncle Bandy had been sexually abusing his niece,
Ellie, starting when she was about ten years old or so. I came along quite by accident one afternoon to see her mother running out of a very nice brownstone, screaming that her little girl was bleeding to death. She was bleeding. The bastard had just raped her and she was hemorrhaging. I wanted him strung up, and finally I got the mother to testify against him. I got Ellie on tape. Enough to break your heart, Barry. She was such a sweet little kid. So broken—”

Barry made a noise in his throat and kept looking straight ahead at the elevator panel.

“Anyway, it turned out Uncle Bandy was rich and powerful and headed up this brokerage house. He was paying the sister's way and evidently that included having her pimp for him, namely, the little girl. You'll recognize this all too well: we arrested him, he was out within an hour, and he got the sister to recant her testimony. He got off scot-free. I played Ellie's tape recording for Judge Riker. I had to do something, but of course it wasn't enough. The judge said chances were good that Uncle Bandy had paid off his sister not to testify against him and that she and Ellie would be long gone. He firmly believed that she would be safe now.

“It didn't work out that way. Two weeks later the girl jumped out of the girls' restroom from the third floor of her private school.”

“That's when you quit the force, Taylor?”

“Yeah. But I had to do something to avenge Ellie. I beat the shit out of Uncle Bandy. I got him outside his three-million-dollar brownstone and I beat him to a pulp. I wanted to kill him, but I didn't. Maybe something you taught me in the academy stopped me, maybe something that was
inside me all the time. Who the hell knows? It was later he told me he would get me. I laughed, Barry, I laughed. I didn't look at his eyes. If I had, I would have believed him.”

“We're here.” The elevator opened onto a huge carpeted entrance area filled with eighteenth-century French antiques, fine prints, and soft recessed lighting.

A woman rose when she saw the two men. She was frowning and Taylor knew well enough that she knew they weren't board members. They didn't look right.

Joanna Bianco, efficient, astute, quickly stepped foward, saying in her smooth calm voice, “ Gentlemen, I'm sorry, but Mr. Ashcroft is in a board meeting at present. Perhaps if I could have your names I could—”

Barry flipped out his badge. “Sergeant Kinsley, ma'am. And this is S. C. Taylor. We'll see Mr. Ashcroft right this minute.”

“Let me get him, then—”

“Oh, no,” Taylor said. “I want him right where he is. At the head of his big mahogany table, feeding a line of B.S. to a whole lot of gentlemen over the age of sixty, right? I want, in short, to humiliate him. He's slime.”

Joanna Bianco looked him up and down, her expression unreadable. Then she said, “I gather he's done something rather serious to be slime?”

“Dead serious,” Taylor said.

She stepped back and waved toward the doors. “Have at it,” she said, and there was a smile on her face.

Barry told the other two officers who had just arrived on another elevator to remain there. “Keep your eyes open, lads. You've seen his photo. If the
guy comes bounding out, have a ball, but don't kill him.”