My Sister's Keeper (33 page)

I had to think about that. “I…want…my sister to walk again. I want to get the police off my back. I want to direct theatre on Broadway. I want my dad to get better and come home.”

He took a sip of his drink. “What do you want from Sydney?”

The question caught me off-guard. I wasn’t sure how to answer. “I just want her to be happy.”

He chuckled under his breath, then tossed the rest of his drink down. “Women can be awfully fickle, Mr. Baimbridge.”

“
I suppose.”

“
And exactly what is it that you want from Mr. Willett?”

“
Who?”

“
The man from the beach house. Albert Willett.”

“
Just his fingerprints.”

He continued to gaze out the window. “His fingerprints?”

“
I told you. It’s for my sister. She’s looking for the guy that shoved her off that window ledge and left her paralyzed.”

He lifted a file folder from his desk and waved it in the air. “And she thinks it might have been Willett?”

“
A fingerprint from that house matched one from her assailant.”

“
I see.” He rotated the folder around, tossed it back on his desk, and turned back to face the window. “Well, you know I can’t be involved in anything like that.”

There was a yellow sticky-note attached to the folder. I leaned closer to read it. “I understand.”

He didn’t turn around. “That’s the kind of thing that could get a lawyer disbarred.”

I leaned further over the desk toward the note. “Certainly. I understand.”

The note read,
McLeod Hotel. 8 p.m. Room 306.

45

A
S THE LAST STRANDS of pink faded and the sky turned steel gray, I drove past the McLeod Hotel and parked several blocks away. It stood tall and proud at the center of the seediest part of Wilmington. Built in the late 1800s, it had not had a coat of paint since Hitler marched on France. A few windows on the bottom floor had been covered with plywood that had since grayed and curled, threatening to fall off. One window on the second floor was covered by cardboard. I got more than a few strange looks as I walked past the neon signs and cheap bars back toward it.

The prostitutes propositioned me, and the men kept an eye on me. The entrance to the hotel was too narrow and too congested with people I wouldn’t dare ask to move, or try to slither through. I lowered my head and walked on by, disappearing into a narrow alley a few doors farther. Stepping over broken bottles, drug vials, and piles of excrement, I made my way to the back of the buildings.

Night was falling quickly. The interior of the block was a menagerie of fire escapes, sagging porches, broken windows, and dilapidated sheds. There was an equal amount of cracked pavement and tall weeds with clear open dirt paths squirreling around the garbage containers and outbuildings. I could feel the presence of people all around, but couldn’t see any. I heard a whisper from one direction, a grunt and a moan from another. In the distance a police siren wailed and a woman screamed at a whimpering infant.

I followed a path toward a rotting wooden stairwell at the rear of the McLeod and came upon a man leaning back against a telephone pole watching me. I paused to see what he was going to do, but when I realized there was female down in the shadows in front of him with her face in his crotch, I moved on. Stepping around debris, I entered the stairwell and looked up. The only light came from a bare bulb just inside the door. The stairs had broken treads and missing boards, and grew darker as they went up but still felt safer than going through the front.

It was 7:56 p.m. I presumed room 306 would be on the third floor and began my ascent. Avoiding abandoned toys and beer cans, I had to step carefully as the light grew dimmer. At the third floor, I held my breath and pulled the door open. To my surprise I found the interior clean and well lit. Down the hall someone practiced a classical piece of music on a well-tuned piano and children laughed. I moved quickly to room 306 and although I had no idea what I was going to say when he came to the door, I knocked. Getting a fingerprint might not be that easy. I knocked again

harder

and the door opened ajar. The room inside was dark and I wondered if he was out

or worse

had checked out?

“
Mr. Willett?”

Looking around for a glass or bottle or anything that would hold a fingerprint, I heard shuffling in the next room and saw light coming around the edges of the door. Stepping closer, I peered through the tiny gap. There was a man sitting at a metal table. As I cranked my head to see if I could tell who he was, a gun discharged, and the door to the room banged open.

Stumbling backward, I was confronting a man in a black ski mask holding a pistol in his hand, smoke curling from its barrel. Behind him sat Fat Albert, gagged and bound to a chair. There was a hole in the center of his forehead with a column of blood sprinting from it. As the gun flashed up, I lunged for the entrance and a shot whizzed past my head. Bolting up the hall, I burst through the door to the stairwell with bullets zipping by me. Through a crack in the wall of the stairwell, I saw police vehicles with flashing lights skidding to a stop behind the hotel and men scrambling from them.

I clambered down the steps three and four at a time, banged through the door to the second floor, and barreled down the hall with voices behind me shouting, “Stop! Police!” A door swung open in front of me and I dodged past a screaming woman into her apartment, tugged at a window that refused to open, smashed a chair through it, and leapt from the second floor.

I fell to the ground hard, pain shooting through my left ankle as I tumbled backward and—for an instant—I considered the game over.
I give up!
But the sounds of more police cars screeching to a halt on the street got me going again. I hobbled along the narrow alley to the front of the building, merged into the angry sidewalk crowd squeezing between hookers and addicts, and entered into the darkened interior of the building next door. It was some kind of club.

The air was thick with tobacco, reefer, and stale beer. The only light I could see came from dim colored bulbs in the ceiling aimed at erotic art and life-sized nude statues recessed into the walls. A heavy bass and drums rhythm thumped loudly amid a celestial tinkling of music lacking a melody. I pushed forward through the sweaty bodies and felt a hand grab my crotch.

“
Oh, darling,” a man purred. I twisted free and limped on. “Over here, lover,” another beckoned. The air was hot, musty, and hard to breathe. Beads of perspiration trickled down my sides. My ankle throbbed with pain. I had no idea where this would lead, but knew it was safer than being outside. I moved my wallet to a front pocket and hobbled on blindly, my legs trembling. I could feel my heart beating in my gums as my eyes adjusted to the darkness.

Farther in, the crowd in the aisle thinned and the room angled to the left. Voices whispered and giggled from dark alcoves around me and I could smell the odors of sex

male and female.

What lay behind me was life in prison and possibly death.
What lay ahead I could not have imagined.

46

I
N SPITE OF THE RECENT WARM WEATHER, Scott McGillikin pulled the collar of his wool overcoat up around his ears, hunched forward with his shoulders high, and slunk along the street Martha and Richard had played on as children. As he approached the Baimbridge home, a Saint Bernard across the street reeled off a string of low-pitched barks that sounded more like a car being started with a dying battery than any kind of living creature.

The neighborhood was actually safer now than it had been twenty years earlier. Transplants from the north were buying up all the older homes, restoring them to better-than-original condition, and adding decks, brick walks, outdoor lamps, and herb gardens.

As he turned up the Baimbridge sidewalk, a young girl next door leaned out over a porch railing to get a better look at him. He lowered his chin, mounted the steps, and had raised a gloved hand to knock when the door abruptly swung open.

Before him sat a startled woman in her wheelchair bundled in an overcoat with a scarf around her neck. Shocked at the unexpected sight of a man on the porch, she recoiled and slammed the door. The Saint Bernard across the street again cranked his engine.

Stepping back, Scott called out. “Hello? Is this the Baimbridge home?” The porch light came on. “My name is Scott McGillikin. I’m Richard’s attorney. Are you Martha?”

The door opened and Martha spoke through a narrow crack. “I’m sorry. You startled me. Yes, I am.”

“
I apologize. I should have called first. You’re obviously headed out.”

“
I was just going for a stroll. The night air and the exercise help me sleep.”

“
I see. Well, mind if I join you?”

“
Who is it, Martha?” Pearl called from upstairs.

Martha wheeled around and called back to her. “It’s for me, mother.”

“
All right, darling.”

Martha kept one hand on the doorknob. “What’s this about, Mr. McGillikin?”

Scott cleared his throat. “Your brother told me that you had some information that might have something to do with his case.”

She studied his face wondering if he could be the imposter named Dane Bonner. “It’s a fingerprint from that house at the beach that blew up.”

“
What about it?” he asked.

“
It matches one belonging to the man that pushed me off a ledge a few years ago.”

“
And how does that affect your brother’s case?”

“
Richie followed a man he spotted in the Matthews house to that beach house.”

“
So,
you
think the cases
could
be related.”

“
Yes, I think there’s a connection. The problem is that the prints the police found have never been identified.”

Scott scanned the neighborhood. The girl next door had faded back into the shadows and a dog in the next block now bayed incessantly. “So, basically what you have is a set of matching fingerprints, but you have no idea to whom they belong.”

“
Right.”

“
Well, that’s interesting, Miss Baimbridge, but not very helpful. However, I do appreciate your sharing that information with me. You never know what might turn out to be important.”

“
Of course.”

“
You’re close?” he asked, then seeing her confusion added. “Your brother and you?”

“
Oh, yes. Very.”

“
He’s lucky to have a sister like you. Thank you. And again I apologize for interrupting your stroll.”

“
Not a problem. Thanks for stopping by.”

“
Anytime you have anything you think might be of importance to his case, feel free to call.”

“
Thank you. I will.”

Scott nodded. “Well, good night, Miss Baimbridge.”

Martha rolled the chair back. “Good night, Mr. McGillikin.”

She watched him step off the porch and waited to see which way he went before closing the door. Knowing that he might be a murderer gave her the creeps. She waited fifteen minutes before opening the door again and looked carefully as she rolled out onto the porch. Seeing no sign of him, she closed the door, took the ramp down, and checked the street before heading toward the abandoned warehouse.

MY EYES ADJUSTED SLOWLY to the low light as I penetrated deeper into the interior of the club. I could make out couples in booths kissing and pawing at one another

men with men, men with women, and women with women. With every step I searched for a bottle or other weapon to grab should chaos suddenly break out. There was a commotion at the front doors and I knew from the shouting and groans that the police had arrived. Beams of light circled into the smoky darkness lighting patrons that hid their faces and cursed.

I crouched, feeling my way along a pathway when a hand hooked the back of my belt and flipped me up into a booth. A woman, nude from the waist up, ripped the front of my shirt open, flipped it off my shoulders, and whispered, “I hate pigs.” She thrust her tongue into my mouth, pressed her chest against mine, unzipped my fly, and forced her hand inside my trousers.

With my face against hers, I watched the cops as they shined their lights into every nook and corner and saw that some of the nude statues weren’t statues at all, and some of the women weren’t women. As one of their lights fell upon me, I closed my eyes and held my breath, the hammering in my chest drowning out the beat of the music. When the light moved away from me, I pulled back and examined the woman fondling me. Her breasts were high and well-formed, and her face certainly looked female. But if she wasn’t,
I sure as hell didn’t want to know it.
As the cops approached, I shoved her against the rear of the booth and kissed her passionately. She arched her back, moaned, and gyrated against me.