Stranglehold (24 page)

A long sigh. “I stood in the hallway the night he killed Monica Davies. He wanted me to warn him if anybody came along.”

“Oh, God, honey. Oh, God.”

Sister's tears reached her cheeks now.

“So he admitted that he killed Monica and took the money?”

“Oh, yeah. He told me all about it. He told me what her face looked like when she was dying.”

“What do they call that, Mr. Conrad—assess—”

“Accessory.”

“Oh, shit, honey. When Mom finds out—”

We sat in silence. All three of us knew the implications of what she'd just said. Sister started crying now, openly. Put her elbows on her desk and put her face in her hands. She'd been tough and now she was no longer tough, and it was sad to see.

“That's why I want to run away.”

You and Bobby, I thought. The pipe dream of Mexico.

Sister snuffled up her tears and sat back in her chair. In the silence, it creaked. “What can she do, Mr. Conrad?”

“The first thing she needs is a lawyer.”

“We know one, but he's pretty much a cokehead.”

“You mean Larry? The one I dated?”

“Yeah.”

“I wouldn't want him as my lawyer. I couldn't even stand him as a boyfriend.”

“I guess you weren't listening, Heather. I wouldn't want him as a lawyer, either. That's why I said he was a cokehead. What's so damned hard to understand about that?” Then: “Sorry I snapped at you. It's just—”

“Let me help you find a lawyer.”

Heather's hard gaze met mine. “All this is for Bobby, right?”

“Right.”

“And you don't particularly give a shit about what happens to me?”

“I give a shit only to the degree that you tell me everything you know about who killed Donovan in his motel room.”

“That's fair,” Sister said. “That's damned fair. You help him, he helps you. What the hell's wrong with that?”

Heather traced her fingers across the top of her skull. A sigh exploded from her ripe lips. “I don't know if this means anything or not.” She was watching me. “I lied to the cops. I told them I wasn't at Craig's motel last night. But I was. He told me he had some business to take care of and he couldn't see me till morning. Sometimes I'd stop in before work. He never got tired of it, that's one thing you could say for him. You could never wear him out.”

“But you went there?”

“Not inside. Not at first. I stood behind a tree—it was like I was back in junior high and following a boy I had a crush on—and just watched. I didn't even care about the rain. I was picturing him in there with a girl. I was really mad. I wasn't there very long before I saw this other guy come out. He was really in a hurry. I wondered why. Dumb me, I thought maybe he was in there on business or something. I didn't think he might've done something to Craig. So when he left I went up to the door. It wasn't closed all the way. I just kind of nudged it with my knee, just enough so I could see inside, you know? And that's when I saw Craig. And I knew he was dead. He was the first dead man I'd ever seen except for people at funerals. But I knew he was dead. And I knew I had to get out of there. I thought maybe the police wouldn't connect me with anything, that maybe I could get by with it. But too many people knew about Craig and me, so the cops found me right away.”

“Who was the man you saw?”

She shrugged. “I'm not sure. But I saw the car he was in.”

“What kind was it?”

“Some kind of foreign thing, really expensive from the looks of it. It was silver.”

There wasn't much doubt about whose car she was describing. But to be sure, I said, “Was it a convertible?”

She sounded curious and surprised. “Yeah. How did you know?”

“Just a lucky guess.”

Sister said, “You know who that car belongs to, don't you?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, I do.”

Then she looked at Heather. “I hope you're happy, Sis. This is going to tear Mom apart.”

But by then I was already at the door and moving fast.

Fog rolled down the streets on my way to foundation headquarters. Streetlights were dulled by ghosts and stoplights burned like evil eyes through the mist. A long stretch of fast-food places shone like a cheap carnival midway in the rolling clouds. And always there was the relentless cold rain, gutters and intersections filling up fast.

Maybe I would have done what Manning did. Maybe I would have started to hate myself so much for being in Natalie's grasp that only an act of violence could make me feel honorable again. Easy to rationalize killing a monster like Craig Donovan. Easy to rationalize taking the money and hiding it until one day you made your escape. People escaped all the time. Just vanished. A good share of them were caught. But some weren't. Some were never heard from again. The lucky ones. The ones who got to start over, clean and whole.

It was funny thinking of the pain he'd feel when he had to give up his sleek new Aston Martin. But he'd have to be careful with his bounty. He could squander it in fast order if he wasn't cautious. There wouldn't be any more Aston Martins in his future unless he was very, very lucky. But he would be free of the stranglehold.

The foundation parking lot held two cars, the Aston Martin and an
inexpensive little Ford two-door. I parked near the street end of the lot and reached in for the Glock I'd put in the glove compartment.

The fog on the sidewalk was thick enough to get lost in. Somewhere on the street, headlights tore the fabric of the gray stuff as they headed to the end of the block. Smells of fried chicken from a KFC around the corner. A car radio pounding out rap. Somewhere behind me a pair of cars dueling with their horns. All of it lost in the swamp of gray.

I made my way to the front entrance and tried the door. Unlocked. I went inside and stood on the parquet floor. The only lights on this floor were on the tracks above the framed pieces in the gallery. Keisha's desk was empty.

A churchly quiet was threatened only by my footsteps as I moved through the shadows. The stairs to the second floor looked iconic, like stairs in a movie poster that led the audience to places it shouldn't go. The heating system came on with a tornado of noise.

I eased the Glock from my overcoat pocket and started my way up the wide, curving staircase that ended in what appeared to be impenetrable gloom.

Near the top, trying to make myself alert to even the faintest sound, I heard the first of it. An animal noise. I thought of kittens sick or kittens dying. But it wasn't a kitten, of course. When I reached the top of the stairs and tried to orient myself—I remembered that I turned left to find Manning's office—I heard it again and recognized it for what it was. Another weeping woman.

Between sobs she was talking to somebody. I moved on tiptoe down the hall to the glass-paneled entrance. The reception area was dark. Down the hall behind Doris Kelly's desk I saw a spear of light on the carpet. Manning's office door was open a few inches. I went into the sort of big pantomime movements actors in silent films used. I made it into the reception area and then the hall without being heard. I took a deep breath. I was a silent-movie comic sneaking into a house. I eased the door open
just enough to slip through. Then I waited, heart pounding, for any sign that they'd heard me.

I pulled the door closed with great care. I stood there and listened.

“Doris . . . Doris, I followed you last night. The way you were acting . . . so crazy . . . I knew something was wrong.” He stopped, sounded as if he was gagging. “You killed him before I could get inside.” He was wheezing now as he spoke. There were long rasping pauses between words. “You . . . murdered . . . a . . . man.”

But she was angry, unrelenting. “Why do you think I did it? For us. Because I couldn't stand to see you treated the way they treated you. Do you have any fucking idea of the risks I took?”

Quiet little Doris was now furious little Doris. She was shrill. One half octave up and she'd be shrieking.

“I knew about Wyatt taking the money to Monica Davies. I went to her room to get the money, but Donovan beat me to it. Do you have any idea the courage that took? Do you? And then when I killed Donovan and finally got the money—for us—so we could finally go away together—think of what you said to me, David. That I was insane—that this whole thing between us was just my fantasy—that you would have stopped me if you'd known what I was doing—and how the hell do you think that made me feel? After all I went through. After I put my life in jeopardy with scum like Donovan!”

I was on tiptoe again, but I was wondering if either of them would hear me even if I walked on the soles of my shoes. Her voice was about to start shattering glass.

“I did it for us. I thought you'd be happy. I thought we'd finally go away together. I knew you wanted to, even though you wouldn't admit it. I knew it, David. I knew it. I prayed for it and my prayers are always answered. Always, David.”

By now I was expecting to hear Manning say something. But there was nothing. Or maybe he couldn't talk. She was speaking in a kind of
reverie, the kind I associated with people in alcohol or drug dazes. And maybe she was speaking to a ghost. Maybe Manning was dead.

I took the final four steps to the office door. The space between door and frame was at a bad angle for me. I could see one end of the desk, but I couldn't see Doris or the chairs in front.

“You betrayed me, David. No matter how hard I tried to make you love me, you turned me away. Nobody loved you the way I did, David. Nobody even came close.”

I heard him, then. Not words. Just a deep, shaky moan. Then: “Help me, Doris. Help me. Call an ambulance.” He sounded as if he'd be sobbing if only he had the strength.

I raised my Glock then raised my foot and gave the door a push so that it opened wide. Then I went in with my gun pointed right at Doris, who sat, prim as always—the wan pretty girl you always wondered about when you sat studying in the library at night, those heartbreaking little legs and that lost nervous gaze—pretty Doris all grown up now.

“Don't move, Doris.”

Her eyes remained on Manning, who was slumped in the chair in front of the desk. A bloody hand hung limp, plump drops of blood splashing on the carpet below. As I moved into the office, I kept scanning the desk for any sight of a gun. Her hands were folded and in clear view. I wondered what she'd done with the gun. I could smell the powder in the small confines of the office.

I came around the side of the desk so that I could see Manning. The pale face and sunken eyes startled me. He had the pallor and pain of one of those beggars you see on TV when those greedy ministers want to soak you for some more tax-free money. I doubted he had much longer to live. From what I could see, he'd been shot in the chest twice. His white shirt was soaked red and something like puke ran down both sides of his mouth. He saw me but he didn't see me. His head gave a little jerk when his eyes and brain came together to recognize me.

He started crying. “Dev—she's crazy, Dev. Never had anything to do with her. Crazy, Dev . . .”

I started to reach for the phone on the desk, but she was faster than me. She grabbed it and hurled it into the air. When it reached the end of its cord length it crashed to the floor. “No! No! I want him dead! All I did for him! All I did for him!”

Kept my Glock on her as I jerked my cell phone from my pocket and punched in 911. I heard myself at one remove talking to the police dispatcher. She was calm and professional. I envied her.

Doris was on her feet, ripping open the middle drawer of the desk. I saw everything in broken images—hand inside the desk—hand coming up—shape and sheen of the .45—gun being raised.

I went into a crouch and started to pull the trigger of my Glock. All this in mere moments. But then more broken instant images—Doris raising the gun higher, higher—the barrel of the gun gleaming in the overhead lighting—the point of the gun against her head— And then the cry, the plea, the scream. And then the explosion.

Mere moments again as I watched blood and brain and hair freeze for a millisecond in midair, the scream still shocking my entire body. And then in a wild grotesque dance her arms flying out from her body, the gun tossed against the wall, and then the final abrupt death of will and awareness and soul as she collapsed to the floor.

I was shaking and I was cold from sweat freezing on me. I started uselessly toward her, but just then Manning cried out for his mother, and by the time I was able to turn back to him I saw from the terrible angle of his head that he was likely dead.

Sirens, then, coming fast and coming close. There was no point in looking at either of them now. Doris had had her way. She was finally joined with the man she'd never been able to seduce.

S
CANDAL TARNISHES A POLITICAL FAMILY
.

This story appeared on one of the news services a week before the election. It was picked up by hundreds of papers, TV and radio stations, and, of course, cable news where talking heads feasted on murder, blackmail, and the end of what Natalie had hoped would be a political dynasty. I'm sure some people said that the story had ensured Congresswoman Cooper's defeat, but I think that defeat was inevitable, anyway. Duffy won by six points; without the story he might only have won by four or five.

Eight days after the election Natalie showed up for a half-hour interview with Larry King. She looked gorgeous. And she gave great press. She cast herself—as a writer would—as a concerned but suffering stepmother to an ungrateful stepdaughter whose reckless early years came back to destroy not only her but poor Natalie as well. All Manning got for his death was a tsk-tsk. She stressed that she'd never liked or trusted Doris and was not surprised that Doris was both a thief and a murderer. She pulled it off with consummate skill. Despite her differences with
Susan, she had called her many times over the past months, but Susan would never return her calls. Summoning Tinseltown tears and a scratchy throat, Natalie said, looking directly into the camera, “I still love you, Susan. If you need anything, please call me. Night or day.”