Chapter 9: Escape

I. Accept No Imitations
I lay on the wet pavement, with my head bent over the sewer manhole, my hands clutching to my head a hardhat designed for people with short heads, and my back soaking up the cold rain that splattered on the back of my coveralls. I lay there wondering what the hell a guy like me was doing watching another human being slosh around in the excrement of our fellow creatures. I lay there like an innocent victim of a cheap murder mystery with the potential murder weapons – a crowbar, manhole lid and climbing rope – spread out beside me. At any moment, the stranger in the dark trench coat would sneak around from behind the van, grab the murder weapon, bludgeon or strangle me, toss me into the sewer and fade away into a nearby alley, the only clue a drop of blood soon to be washed away by the rain and ground into the pavement by passing cars.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Russ yelled from below.

“What’s the matter?” I called back.

“Goddam drill bit broke again!”

“Okay, I’ll throw down another one. Hang on while I get it.” I walked over to the van and dug through the tools, screws, and other crap on the shelves for several minutes trying to find the drill bit.

“What the fuck’s taking you so long?” Russ screamed like a man burning in hell.

I walked back to the manhole. “If you’d organized your van before we left I wouldn’t have taken so long.”

“Shut the fuck up and throw me the drill bit.”

“I couldn’t find one.”

Russ muttered to himself, kicking his boot against the nearest wall and slamming the hammer in the tool bucket – obviously trying to keep his cool in the process. “Well, I can’t just sit down here all fuckin’ day. Pull me up and we’ll run to the hardware store for supplies.”

I attached the carabiner and ascender to my harness, part of a mountain-climber’s rope system we used, and began pulling Russ up out of the hole.

“Not so fast,” Russ groaned, “you’re crushing my balls.”

After Russ got out of the hole, he stood in front of me for several seconds, staring through his goggles with a look of disgust and hate and rubbing his tattoo of a roadrunner’s head on his right biceps. “If you hadn’t served in the Navy, I’d throw your putrid ass down that hole and weld it shut.”

“Yeah, well fuck you. You and your philosophy degree have really got you ahead in life, hasn’t it?”

“Ahh, just shut up and help me get this shit in the van.”

We decided to stop working and get cleaned up at the hotel. Russ wanted to eat somewhere and then later check out the local bar scene before it got too late. I wanted to see what life breathed in the little town of Harrisburg, with its quaint riverfront community of law offices and art galleries.

While Russ was taking a shower, I sat on the bed, absent-mindedly watching a movie on TV. Some muscle-clad android kept blowing people away with an endless arsenal of futuristic weapons. Between the noise of the TV and shower, I thought I heard a knock but I wasn’t sure.

“Hello?” a voice called out from behind the hotel door.

I waited.

Someone knocked again. Another pause.

“Can anyone hear me in there? I need help.”

“Who’s that?” Russ yelled from the shower.

“I can hear you,” the high-pitched voice of distraught woman called out, “Please come to the door.”

“What the fuck’s goin’ on,” Russ yelled again.

I opened the bathroom door. “I don’t know. Think I should open it?” All I could see in my head was a picture of the Sirens calling from a distant shore.

“I know someone’s in there,” the woman called out, the desperation rising in her voice. “My boyfriend’s dead and I’m scared as hell standing out here.”

Russ pulled back the shower curtain, exposing his drenched, stark white body, which often reminded me of one of those whitewashed statues with little dicks that stand in the middle of Italian gardens. “See what the bitch wants but don’t undo the chain. I wanna get dressed and ready to go while you talk.”

Putting a pissed-off look on my face, I opened the door. “Whatdya want?”

“Hey, look, sorry to ruin your day but someone just killed my boyfriend and I’m afraid to go back to the room.”

“Why don’t you just go to the front desk?”

“Dressed like this?”

I took the cue and ran my eyes over the woman’s body (not that I needed an invitation, either, cause she was damn good-looking). I first mistook her for a biker. Her hay-colored hair, though held back from her face by a leather headband, lay across her shoulders like she’d just stepped off a motorcycle and pulled off her helmet. Her black and white striped nightshirt had obviously worn thin over the years and the threaded ends stopped just above her knees (god, I hate to admit it but I wish she’d been standing in front of a light cause the shirt was almost see-through). Her legs…well, she wasn’t Raquel Welch but they were slim and firm and tan like the rest of her body (besides, I hadn’t seen my wife in a month, not to mention that our supervisor kept going on about the African belief that a male will die unless he has sex every two weeks).

“Yeah, maybe you’re right.”

“Hey, I just wanna come in for a couple of minutes. What do you say?”

I looked back at Russ leaning against the wall. He shrugged his shoulders and nodded.

“Okay, but just long enough to use the phone.”

“Thanks,” she said as she brushed by me, “I owe you one. By the way, my name’s Thrush.”

“No kiddin’,” Russ said as he looked up from picking his nails. He motioned her to the chair next to the night table, walked over and rolled up his sleeve. “Check this out.”

She leaned forward and looked at his arm. “Cool tattoo. I like it.” She winked at him.

“If you need to use the phone,” I interrupted, “use it. Otherwise, you’re about to head outta here.”

“Just hang on to your horses, mister. My boyfriend’s just been killed and you’re treatin’ me like a criminal.”

“For all I know, you did it.”

Her face scrunched up into an ugly ball and fell into her hands as she began to bawl. “You…you…” she stammered through the wails and sobs, “you bastards are all the same.”

I looked at Russ with a “What do we do now?” look. He just gave his usual shrug and pointed at his watch. I grabbed a tissue from the bathroom and dropped it in Thrush’s lap as her body jerked back and forth with her sobbing like a woman in her last death throes. I turned back to the TV and watched the android blow away more people, this time to the somewhat appropriate sound of crying in the background. Within a few minutes, I lost myself in the movie and forgot about Thrush’s throes.

Russ walked in front of me and broke my TV trance. “I’m going to smoke a cigarette. When the wailing wall stops, let me know.” He grabbed his daypack and walked out the door.

After Russ shut the door, Thrush sat up and cleared her throat. “Thanks for letting me stay…and thanks for the Kleenex, too.”

“Uh, you’re welcome. Look, if you’re boyfriend’s really dead…”

“Ah, come on. I just said that to get in your room. My old man’s just abandoned me and taken all my clothes with him. The fucker even turned in the key.”

“How…”

“All while I went to get a bucket of ice and some Cokes.” She wiped a final tear from her red, puffy eyes.

“Sorry,” I said, giving her a sympathetic look.

“You got any smoke?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know – pot – have you got any?”

“Sorry…”

“Whatdya mean, ‘sorry?’ I can smell it up and down the hall every night.”

“How long have you been here?”

“A couple of weeks.” Thrush shifted in the chair. “Look, I’m not here to play twenty questions. Have you got any or not?”

“How can I trust you?” I asked, standing up from the bed to turn off the TV.

“Yeah, right. Am I supposed to look like Cinderella and ask for some weed?” She stood up, walked over and opened the door. “Where’d your friend go?”

“I don’t know. He said he was going to smoke a cigarette.”

“Is he cool?” she asked, closing the door. She turned around, looking at me with raised eyebrows.

I shrugged. I didn’t know what she wanted but she was beginning to give me the creeps. Here I was, a married man alone in a hotel room with a woman who claimed her boyfriend just left her. I couldn’t ask her to leave without carrying out my Boy Scout sense of duty and at least get her some decent clothes. “Tell you what, I’ll give you a…”

“Can I use your bathroom?”

“Sure,” I said, rolling my eyes. The girl was too weird for me. I turned on the TV and sat back down on the bed. This time, I fell into some kung fu movie with lots of kicks and punches and dubbed English. Several scenes in the movie passed before Thrush finally came out of the bathroom. I looked at her and was shocked. She had tucked her nightshirt, now covered with green crisscross patterns, into a pair of tight, white, short shorts. Her hair looked neatly pulled back.

“I must say you don’t look half bad.”

“Thanks, my mother always said you get what you want when you look good to a man. I borrowed your toothpaste,” she added, pointing to her shirt.

A chill ran up my back. At that moment, Russ walked in the door. “Man, there’s some pretty weird shit going on out there.”

“Whatdya mean?” I asked, not knowing what was going to happen next.

“A couple of cops are rummaging through the dumpster out back and a couple more are going door to door asking questions.” We both looked over to Thrush.

“Hey, guys. I haven’t done anything. I swear. Just cause I got kicked out…”

Russ burst out, “Kicked out? I thought you said your boyfriend had just been killed.”

“Naw. I just said that to get in here.”

Russ looked at me with that stare again. “Man, I knew you’d get me in trouble.”

“But…”

“Look, I’m going to take Thrush here and sneak her to the van. You stay here and play it cool. I’ll drop her off up the street.” Russ walked to the door and peered out. He turned to Thrush. “Okay, let’s go and don’t start your mouth.”

“Okay, okay,” Thrush whispered.

As I sat back down to engross myself in the finer points of kung fu, I noticed Russ had left his daypack on the bed. Not wanting to leave myself open to prosecution, I opened the front pocket of the daypack and pulled out the baggie of pot. I flushed the pot down the toilet and burned the baggie in the ashtray. I threw the one-shot pipe out the bathroom window. I just sat down before I heard a knock.

“Hello?” an official sounding voice called out from behind the Pandora’s box of hotel doors.

I opened the door. “Yes,” I gulped, facing the two policemen in the hallway, “what can I do for you?”

“Have you heard any unusual noises in the last hour?” asked the policeman on the left with his neatly combed jet-black hair (obviously dyed), thick Tom Selleck mustache and deep facial lines. I looked down at his badge – Bowman.

“No, I’ve been watching TV the last couple of hours.”

The other officer – Krupkowski – looked past me into the room. His blond hair and blue eyes scared me.

“Do you mind if we take a leak?” Krupkowski asked.

“Uh, well, I guess not. Come on in.”

Krupkowski stepped in first, making a beeline to the bathroom.

Bowman stepped in and closed the door. “Appreciate it. We’ve been walking outside here for quite a while, drinking coffee like there’s no tomorrow.”

“Yeah, it’s chilly out there for this time of year,” I added, trying to keep the small talk going.

Krupkowski stepped out of the bathroom. “Do you smell something burning?”

“No,” I said in as natural a voice as possible.

“Yeah,” Bowman said, “I smell it, too.” He looked around the room. He pointed to the daypack and remarked to Krupkowski, “Recognize that?”

Krupkowski nodded.

I gave Bowman a puzzled look.

“See that patch?” he asked.

“Yeah.” I had seen the same emblem tattooed on Russ’ arm.

“Thrush mufflers. Bikers love ’em.”

Krupkowski reached over and squeezed his shoulder. Bowman turned and nodded to Krupkowski, then headed to the bathroom.

“If you’ll excuse me, I’ll take my turn.”

“I’ll be back in a minute,” Krupkowski said as Bowman closed the bathroom door. Krupkowski headed toward the hotel room door. “When he gets out, tell him I’ve gone down for more coffee. Want some?”

“No, thanks. I’m going to finish my movie.”

“What’s it called?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Funny name,” he muttered as he closed the door.

I sat down for more kicking and punching only to see that the kung fu star had been locked in the dungeon of a Buddhist temple. He sat in the lotus position for days, refusing food and water. He would not speak. I wondered what I would do in his situation. I was not a kung fu star, of course, but I could imagine being punished for my dissident ways as a Chinese student. Just as I saw myself blocking the path of an Army tank, Bowman came out of the bathroom.

“The other officer said he was going for coffee.”

“Okay. Mind if I wait here for him?” Bowman asked, leaning against the hotel door.

“No, go ahead.”

By this time, the kung fu star had fooled the guard that he was too weak to move. When the guard opened the door, he was karate chopped in the neck. “Kung Fu” grabbed the keys and opened all the dungeon doors. He led the other prisoners outside of the temple where they all overthrew the evil villain of the movie.

“Nice thing about these movies, they’re always predictable,” I said as I turned to Bowman.

My heart stopped. Bowman had his gun pointed at me.

“Don’t move,” Bowman growled through clenched teeth. “You’re going to sit right there till Krupkowski gets back.”

I sat and pondered the situation. I tried to figure out what to say to get Bowman to drop his guard so I could knock him out and run like hell. “Look,” I squeaked two octaves higher than my normal voice, “I know who did it.”

“Shut up!”

Krupkowski knocked on the door.

Bowman stepped aside. “Come on in,” he said, keeping the gun pointed at my head.

“You’re right,” Krupkowski said with a smile, “that Eric fellow’s been here a couple of weeks.”

Bowman spit out, “Never mind that. Search the bag.” He motioned the gun toward Russ’ daypack. “He says he know he did it. He’ll be confessing the rest of the story before we even get him to the car.”

“Hey, I never said I…”

“I said shut up.”

Krupkowski opened the front pocket, pulled out a lighter and threw it on the bed. Next, he unzipped the top of the daypack and turned it over on the bed. Out thumped a shirt wrapped around something heavy.

“Careful,” Bowman stated in his official voice, “we’ll need fingerprints.”

Krupkowski gripped the edge of the shirt, pulling upward and letting the object roll out onto the bed. I stared in disbelief at my crowbar.

Bowman stiffened his grip. “Handcuff him.”

I reached for the TV. “At least let me turn off…”

Bowman pulled the trigger.

“Pay attention and slow down. You don’t want the cops to pull us over.”

“Man, I can’t fuckin’ believe it,” Russ managed between laughs.

Thrush shook her head. “I know. Too bad you had to leave the pot behind.”

“After we get all the loot your boyfriend’s been making from those crazy mufflers of his, we can smoke joints from now until forever.”

“Yeah, Eric said he’d share it with me one day. He just didn’t know how.”

Krupkowski grabbed Bowman’s shoulder and spun him around. “What the hell did you do that for?”

“He was reaching for my gun.”

“I doubt that.” He looked at the blood on the walls. “Now what’re we supposed to do about this guy?”

“Who cares? I think I’ve got the murder figured out. He followed…” Bowman slid his gun back in the harness and pulled a small notebook out of his back pocket. “Eric something,” he said, thumbing through the pages, “yeah, that’s it – Eric Heffelfinger. Anyway, he followed Heffelfinger to his room, hit him over the head with the crowbar, dragged him to the chair and tied him up.”

“You’re forgetting one thing,” Krupkowski said as he stooped over to examine the body.

“What’s that?”

“Why’d he do it?”

“How should I know? I’ve got two bodies that aren’t saying a hell of a whole lot right now and…”

“Lee Colline.”

“What?”

“This guy’s name is Lee Colline.” Krupkowski continued to look through the wallet. “And get this, he’s from Landscape, Alabama.”

Bowman laughed, “S-s-sounds like a pretty place to be from. Look, I’ve got to get another ambulance here to pick this guy up. Why don’t you call down to the front desk and see if anyone’s reported any more strange sounds. I’ll meet you at the car.”

Krupkowski continued to look through the wallet. He found the phone numbers of a Russ Engquist, some notes dated the day before, a couple of canceled checks and a photo of a naked woman with black hair and a tan with no tan lines sitting on a motorcycle in someone’s backyard.

“Front desk, this is Bob. May I help you?”

“Yes, This is Officer Krupkowski.”

“Yes, sir, have you found anything? We heard a gunshot a few minutes ago.”

“I’m in room 215 with a possible murder suspect named Lee Colline. I’d like to know if he was registered here and if so, was there anyone else.”

“Hang on a second. I’ll look up the room…yes, Mr. Colline is registered in room 215 as a double occupancy. Is he okay?”

Krupkowski pulled his notepad from the left pocket. “We’re sending for an ambulance right now. By the way, do you have the other occupant’s name?”

“Not here but I can check the phone records, if you wish.”

“Wait. Before you check, can you tell me how long Lee Colline had this room?”

“Yes…two weeks to the day.”

“Can you tell me if he registered before or after Eric Heffelfinger?”

“Well, Mr. Colline registered at 11:00 a.m.”

“And Heffelfinger?”

“Just a moment, I’m looking…Mr. Heffelfinger also registered at 11:00 a.m.”

“Really?” Krupkowski quickly jotted down the dates and times. “That’s interesting.”

“Not really. We usually don’t let new guests in until 11:00 a.m. They were probably just waiting in the lobby.”

“Would you know who was on duty that day?”

“Yes, sir. My daughter, Suzanne.”

“Do you have a number where I can reach her?”

“Well, if you’ll come on down, I’ll have her meet you in the lobby.”

“Thanks. I’d appreciate that list of phone calls, too.”

“No problem.”

“What did I tell you?” Thrush yelled at Russ over the sound of the siren. “Now we’re in trouble.”

“Hey,” Russ said with confidence, “don’t worry about it. I can handle it.”

Russ pulled the van off the interstate freeway and onto the shoulder. He stepped out of the van and started heading behind the van toward the police car.

Bowman pulled the cruiser to a halt and turned off the siren and lights. He threw the door open like a shield, pulled out his gun and stooped behind the door. “Stop where you are!” He pointed the gun at the dark image of the oncoming man.

Russ continued toward the car. “Hey, man, be cool. It’s me.”

“I didn’t recognize you, Mr. Heffelfinger.” Bowman stood up and reholstered his gun.

“Don’t forget, man. The name’s Engquist.”

“Okay, Mr. Engquist. Look, I’ve taken care of Colline but my partner doesn’t accept Colline killed your brother. He’ll start snooping if I can’t give him something.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ve taken care of everything. Thrush put some notes in Colline’s wallet that’ll implicate him, for sure. Just go back and make sure he finds them.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And remember, I’ll call you in a couple of days.”

“What about my money?”

“You’ll get it when I call you.” Russ walked back to the van.

“What was that all about, Russ,” Thrush asked as she turned up the radio. “That cop looked pretty pissed off at you.”

“He thought I looked like some convict they reported had stolen a van.”

Krupkowski surveyed the lobby. Three or four couples were sharing a couple of couches in the far right corner and watching the fourth quarter of a late college football game. On his near right hung photos of what he presumed to be the previous owners along with some smaller autographed photos of long-forgotten movie starlets. The dimly lit entranceway of a piano bar on his left beckoned the tired and lonely business traveler. A couple of coat racks with the usual array of forgotten raincoats and umbrellas stretched along the wall beside the bar. From there, the counter of the front desk covered the back wall ending in the right corner with the bathroom entrances covering the space between the corner and the football fans. Krupkowski estimated the distance from where he stood at the doorway to the counter covered about 30 feet. The carpet was spotted with old chewing gum and coffee stains.

“Officer Krupkowski?” a woman asked from behind the counter.

He walked on up. “Suzanne?”

“Yes, sir. Dad said you wanted to speak to me.”

“How are you doing?”

“Just fine, thank you.”

“Good. If you’ve got a minute, I’d like to ask you a few questions about some guests you checked in a few weeks ago.”

“Mr. Colline and Mr. Heffelfinger.”

“Yes.” He pulled out his notebook again.

“I don’t remember Mr. Colline very well except that he had red hair. The other man that was with him seemed to know Mr. Heffelfinger. In fact, while Mr. Colline was checking in, Mr. Heffelfinger took the other man into the bar. I could hear them laughing and joking for several minutes before they came back in.”

“Do you know the other man’s name?”

“No, but Dad’s checking the phone records right now. He may be able to find something. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go see how’s he doing.”

“Sure, go right ahead.” Krupkowski looked around the lobby for a place to sit and decided to walk over to the group watching the football game. As he approached them, he noticed the three men looked twenty to thirty years older than the women they were with, who were well dressed, but not like the hookers he was used to seeing in this part of town. They seemed cultured. Perhaps they were passing through town and were fooled by the exterior of the hotel, which still held its beauty as a riverside stop, although long since abandoned for the more lavish resorts in the nearby Allegheny Mountains.

Krupkowski nodded to the group, “Hello there.”

Every member of the group turned to nod briefly before returning to the game. The youngest-looking woman, perhaps no more than twenty years old, who wore faded jeans and a white T-shirt under a light-blue letter jacket, spoke in a manner befitting a well-refined matron, “Hello to you. Would you care to join this misplaced group of Syracuse fans?”

“Thank you, no. I was wondering if you could answer a couple of questions for me in the next commercial.”

The woman nodded and turned her attention back to the game.

Krupkowski sat in a chair between the two couches and glanced over to the counter. The manager’s daughter had not returned so he pulled out his notebook and reviewed the contents of Colline’s wallet. Among the credit cards, he had found a membership card to a private club called The Pink Poodle. Krupkowski wrote a note to remind himself to call the club and see if Colline had been a frequent visitor.

“Hey, Krupkowski,” a voice called from the entrance. Krupkowski turned to see Bowman striding toward the counter. “I loaded the bodies in the ambulance and sent them on…”

“But I never got a chance to look over Heffelfinger’s body,” Krupkowski said in astonishment as he stood and walked over to meet Bowman eye to eye.

“Don’t worry. I called the coroner and told him to remove any items from the body and send them to us at the station. Besides, I found this in Colline’s shirt pocket.” Bowman handed Krupkowski a folded sheet of stationery with an apparent blood stain in the upper right corner. “We’ve got Colline nailed. Looks like blackmail.”

Krupkowski unfolded the letter. A logo of a woodpecker’s head and the words THRUSH MUFFLERS covered the top of the page.

You have caused me much anguish in the past about which I can no longer tolerate. I have enclosed a check for $25,000. I consider this an adequate sum to settle our account and expect you to return the photographs which you have used so well to torment me these past few months. I shall meet you in Harrisburg per our last agreement. In case you have any ideas of causing further trouble, I have made arrangements to insure my wellbeing – you know my connections. Let us, instead, put aside our sibling rivalries and make amends.

Love always

Bowman slapped Krupkowski on the back. “Well, what do ya think? Have we got this guy or what?”

Krupkowski shook his head. “He…well, why don’t you pick up some burgers for us? I wanted to ask some more questions around here.”

“Why?” Bowman asked, flaring his nostrils and trying to control his anger. “Colline obviously was planning to collect his check and cancel this Heffelfinger at the same time.”

“I’m not sure yet. If Colline was getting so much money from Heffelfinger, why did he work for a sewer company? You smelled his room. Above that burnt smell, it smelled like someone had shit in the middle of the floor. It just doesn’t fit.”

“Aw, for Christ’s sake. You’ve been watching too many episodes of ‘Murder, She Wrote.’ So the guy was making a few bucks.” Bowman began to drum the fingers of his left hand on the counter. “If he was stupid enough to kill somebody, he was stupid enough to work in a sewer.”

Krupkowski shook his head. “Yeah, well…I just want to get all the details on this. I don’t want to have to come back and follow a cold trail.” Bowman frowned at him. “Look, I won’t be long. Go get the burgers – make sure they don’t put mayonnaise on mine – and I’ll be through by the time you get back.”

Bowman turned and walked away, muttering something about brown-nosing superiors.

“Officer Krupkowski?”

Krupkowski turned his head. “Ah, Bob. Have you found anything?”

Bob held up a computer printout several feet long. “Would you believe over a hundred phone calls have been made from room 215 in the past week, not to mention the week before?”

“May I see that?” Krupkowski asked, reaching over the counter.

“Sure, I can’t make heads or tails of all these numbers. I noticed one thing, though.”

“Yes?”

“Most of those calls go to about a dozen numbers.”

Krupkowski looked down the list. “So I see. If you don’t mind, I’d like to take this with me.”

“Not at all. By the way, was Suzanne able to help you?”

“Oh yes, she was quite helpful. Thank her for me, would you? She walked off before I got the chance.”

“No problem.”

Krupkowski pulled a card out of his right shirt pocket. “And here’s my card. If you or Suzanne can think of anything else that might be helpful, feel free to give me a call.”

“Will do.”

Krupkowski folded up the printout and started toward the group on the couches.

“Officer…”

Krupkowski stopped and walked back to face Bob. “Do you remember something else?”

“Well, if you’ve finished with the rooms…” Bob asked, shrugging his shoulders.

“No, leave them as they are. We’ll have some detectives come in later to investigate.”

As Krupkowski retraced his steps, he noticed the group had turned off the television and left the lobby.

Out of the darkness, I felt a pinprick of pain in my head that grew into a throbbing that grew and grew and continued to grow as I gained consciousness. Suddenly, the pain exploded. I opened my eyes and cried out for help. In front of me stood a Doberman with a .38 caliber police pistol for a mouth. The dog was held inches away from my face by a blond-haired, blue-eyed man in a Nazi uniform, yelling at me, “You should have had some coffee!” Then the man let go of the leash, fire shot out of the dog’s mouth and I passed out.

I opened my eyes again to darkness.

“He’s awake,” I heard a voice say a few feet above me, “what do you want me to do?” Then silence wrapped me in the darkness again. I started falling into a bottomless pit with voices all around me calling me to reach out, begging me to grab hold but I felt no arms or legs on my body. In fact, I couldn’t see or feel anything as if I was a dot at the end of sentence that fell off the end of a page back into an inkwell.

“His pulse is normal,” the voice said, removing my quilt of silence and returning my body of pain. I screamed again and someone’s breath the smell of mint and gin brushed across my face and onto my neck.

“He’s attempting to talk. His bandages look pretty tight. Shall I…yes, ma’am. I’ll be right there.”

I blinked and the darkness began to fade. In front of me, I saw diffused light like the moon through thick clouds. The clouds began to clear away. The moon became a light fixture and the sky a dark blue ceiling.

“Hello there,” a voice called from far away. “We’ve been waiting a long time for you to wake up.”

I tried to pick up my head but the pain grabbed hold and knocked me out.

I woke up with a jolt and opened my eyes.

Staring down at me, the Nazi smiled. “You don’t give up, do you? I like that. I hope I can hold out if that ever happens to me.”

I closed my eyes but the voice continued. “We’ve been waiting a long time for you to wake up. Don’t worry, everything’s going to be just fine. We’ve got it all figured out. We know you didn’t do it.”

I opened my eyes and the Nazi was replaced with a police officer. “Oh, it took a while. I couldn’t figure out how you were related to the victim.”

A nurse stepped into my view. “Mr. Krupkowski, we’re not feeling well right now. You’ll have to come back later.”

The officer looked across the bed to the nurse. “Okay, tell you what. You call me when he’s ready to listen for a while.”

“You’ll have to ask the doctor,” the nurse said as another pinprick of pain, this time in my left arm, shot through my body and knocked me out.

“We’ve got a visitor today,” the nurse said in her now irritatingly patronizing voice. “I hope we feel good enough to let him in.”

I blinked my eyes once in agreement.

“Very well, I’ll let him in.” The nurse winked at me and left my view.

“Hello again,” the familiar voice of the officer called out as he entered my field of vision. “I don’t know if you remember me but my name’s Henry Krupkowski but you can call me Hank.”

I blinked.

“Good, good. I can see you’re in much better spirits. Do you remember me coming by the other day?”

I blinked.

The nurse chimed in, “Of course, we do. A gunshot through the cerebrum does not make us retarded, you know.”

I raised my eyebrows.

Hank winked at me and looked at the nurse. “Tell you what, why don’t you check on the other patients while I have a word or two with Mr. Colline here.”

“Very well, but I’ll be back soon.” By the sound of the swishing of her starched outfit, I could tell the nurse left the room in an agitated state of mind.

“Well, well, well,” Hank began in a relaxed voice. “I hope you don’t mind if I have a seat but I’ve got a long story to tell.”

I blinked. He disappeared from my field of view.

“You see, you’ve been the center of attention for the past couple of weeks. By all accounts, you should have been dead or facing the death penalty if it weren’t for me.” He paused. “I know, I would be speechless too, what with the good feeling that comes over you when someone does you an act of kindness that saves your life.” Hank leaned into my view and patted me on my right arm.

“If you could’ve talked a few weeks ago, I would’ve done my job a lot faster. Anyway, I better make this quick before that ol’ biddy comes back.

“Do you remember getting shot?”

I blinked and then winced from the memory.

“Hey, if this is going to bother you, I’ll come back.”

I blinked twice.

“Okay, let me get my notebook out and lay this out as best I can…okay, first of all, I figured out you weren’t the killer when I found out from some people who’d been watching TV in the lobby that they’d seen a woman come in and out of Heffelfinger’s – well, the victim’s room, you know what I mean – all night.”

I blinked.

“Hate to say it but when there’s women involved it’s always complicated. Besides, when the people identified the woman as the one in the photo in your wallet…”

I raised my right eyebrow.

“Oh yeah,” Hank laughed, “I guess you didn’t know that was in there. I kinda figured it was a plant, especially after I called the Pink Poodle and found out you frequented the place to help wives spy on their husbands.”

I blinked several times while trying to laugh.

“Hey, don’t exert yourself. I don’t want you to die on me. You’re going to help me out by appearing in court to point your finger at the bastards and put them in the electric chair.”

I blinked and yawned.

“So anyway, I decided to come to the hospital morgue and check the bodies only to find that you weren’t here. I called the ambulance company we use and they hadn’t received a second call. I called a couple of more and found that you had been registered in the county hospital as a John Doe. I called my partner at home the next day and he sounded strange. I drove over to his place and there was your company van parked in front of Bowman’s house.

“I called in a backup. Then, as I quietly walked past the van to the house, a woman called out to me, ‘Fuckin’ cops! Don’t you guys have nothing better to do than scare the shit out of me? Russ is inside giving your friend Bowman your bribe.’ Then a couple of guns went off inside the house. I ran back to my car and the woman took off with the van.”

I opened my mouth for a big yawn but closed it quickly when I heard the swish of starch come into the room.

“Mr. Krupkowski, it’s almost time for you to go. We’re getting awfully sleepy.”

“Okay, okay. I’m almost finished. Just give me a few more minutes.”

The swish receded out of the room and down the hall.

“When the backup arrived, we surrounded the house and went in to find both Russ Heffelfinger and my partner Bowman unconscious and bleeding. Another unit tracked down the woman a few hours later. She told us everything. She had drugged her husband Eric and then tied him up in the hotel room after she had had an argument with him about sleeping with the other brother, Russ.”

I blinked.

He nodded. “Yeah, I figured you knew about her sleeping around. Then, while you were taking a shower, Russ went over to Eric’s room and struck him in the head with the crowbar from your van. Unknown to me, Russ had bribed Bowman to be driving in the area when we received the call so we would be the first ones there and he could help Russ set you up. Even if the woman hadn’t confessed, the letter in your pocket proved that Russ and the woman – can you believe they called her Thrush? – had been extorting money from Eric.”

“I’m sorry but I insist you leave,” the nurse exclaimed, surprising us both by having snuck into the room.

Hank leaned down to my face. “Don’t you forget, Mr. Colline, that you and I will have our day in court.” He grabbed my right hand and shook up and down vigorously. I managed a weak squeeze and fell back into the darkness.
 

 

II. Bittersweet Revenge

“Murder is sweet. Murder is kind. Murder is a way to get rid of the deadwood so the rest of us can enjoy life. Yeah, I love a good murder, especially when it’s like, you know, committed by some mass murderer. I’ve been saving newspaper clippings on ’em for years. Now, I’m following this new guy down in Florida…”

“What did you say?”

“Shit, man, haven’t you been listening to a word I’ve said.” Russ scratched his newly shaven head with his right hand. “You’re just like my brother. He never took me seriously.” He looked around the room. Although he was supposedly in the high risk section of some psychiatric hospital, he had come to recognize this place as just another kind of prison with its bars in the windows and heavy steel doors with small windows so the guards and psychologists could peer in at night. So what if they kept the place clean and sterile, and gave him three meals a day? The beige walls kept getting smaller and closing in on him everyday. He glanced at his roommate, Mike, who sat curled up in his hospital chair with thin, stiff cushions and pumped his head up and down to the beat of the music he claimed he heard from imaginary headphones.

“Don’t you ever take those things off?”

“Shh,” Mike whispered, holding up his left hand, “the news just came on.”

Russ shook his head, slumped further down in his chair and propped his feet on the end of his bed, avoiding the touch of the straps which he had felt across his body on too many nights but which now hung limply off the sides of the bed. “Bunch of fuckin’ weirdos,” he muttered to himself and drifted off to sleep.

I shifted into fifth gear and pulled into the heavy traffic of people heading home for the day. I used to get uptight and dread traffic hour but my new Alfa Romeo Spider seemed to make traffic disappear. Well, the car’s not new, actually. Between my day job fixing sewers and my part-time job as a “family counselor,” I’ll never have enough money to buy a new car. I had made a small bundle of money during my last case, though, in which I had prevented the children of this naive businessman, Eric Heffelfinger, from losing their muffler business to Eric’s new bride and younger brother Russ. With the money, I paid off some bills and still had some left over to put in the bank. I spent a couple of days trying to decide how to invest the money – you know, what stocks or bonds I should buy for a good portfolio – and saw a lovely blond-haired female drive by in an Alfa Romeo Spider. I quickly invested where my money would have the best turnaround time.

Unfortunately, I had been too late to save Eric Heffelfinger. I should have taken Russ’s psychotic fits seriously. He had been working with me for a few months in which he told me how he was going to perfect all these hate crimes he had read about in the news. He kept a scrapbook full of newspaper and magazine stories of grotesque murders that he would read over and over every night.

In one of his drunk rages, Russ told me how he was going to murder his brother and take over the family business. I overheard him talking to his brother’s wife on the phone late one night while I was supposedly asleep. I called his brother the next day and told him about my family counseling business (I hate being called a private investigator). He FedEx’d me a check for $500 the next day and told me to keep track of Russ.

I felt better after Russ had been put away, although not for long, I’m afraid. You see, they determined he was psychologically unfit for trial and put him in the state psychiatric hospital for evaluation. For the past three months after recovering in the hospital from a gunshot wound to the head, I’ve asked myself every night before I go to sleep, “How secure are those facilities?” Why can’t they just put people like him in a dungeon somewhere and throw away the key?

I turned my attention back to the road and pulled off at the Landscape exit. I had decided to take a week’s vacation after the Heffelfinger trial and head back to my hometown for some rest and relaxation. As usual, I went straight to Little Mountain Restaurant for some good pecan pie. I parked right next to the entrance so everyone could admire my car whether they wanted to or not.

“Lee, glad to see ya. Come on in and sit down. I hear tell you’ve been to hell and back.” Billy Slayter greeted me at the door in his dark blue overalls and red flannel shirt. Despite his not having worked on a farm, Billy still insisted on “just being folks.” He knew his customers enjoyed the relaxed down-at-the-farm atmosphere and good barbecue of the restaurant.

“You might say that,” I said, closing the screen door behind me and taking a seat next to Billy on one of the cedar benches against the inside left wall. I nodded to the cashier, an elderly woman who had worked behind the cash registers since I was a little boy, back when the registers were simple adding machines and a cash box. Now, the glow of a computer screen reflected off the woman’s Coke-bottle bottom eyeglasses. I added, “I see the place has changed with the times.”

“You know how it is. Thank goodness, Ethel still has a head on her shoulders. Those new computers confound the daylights out of me.” Billy turned to the waitress sitting next to him. “Fetch this man some ice tea.”

I leaned back on the bench. “It sure feels good to be home.”

The guard stopped before the door to pull his pants up over his belly and tuck in his shirt. He grabbed the keychain attached to the retractable wire on his belt and fumbled through the keys until he found the one marked 1403. He opened a panel on the wall next to the door handle, punched in a security code, and then inserted the key in the door lock. Opening the door, leaned in, and grumbled, “Okay, guys, time for your exercise.” As he stepped into the room, he looked to his immediate right at Mike thumping the arm of his chair. “This time, Mike, see if you can keep from singing along with your music. I want some peace and quiet today. I’ve got a splitting headache.”

Russ woke up from his catnap. “What’s your problem? At least you don’t have to listen to him all fuckin’ day.”

The guard looked across the room at Russ. “And I don’t want any crap from you, Mr. Heffelfinger. Just give me anything today and I’ll beat you so hard you won’t know what happened to you,” the guard said in disgust while patting the billy club hanging from his belt.

Russ stood up, walked around the beds and stopped next to Mike. He automatically held out his left wrist, waiting for the guard to handcuff him to Mike’s right wrist.

Everyday, they got thirty minutes to walk in the little Japanese garden secluded behind a concrete wall from the rest of the hospital patients doing their afternoon calisthenics. Russ hated being handcuffed but he loved the smell of the different plants. He’d asked what their names were but no one had been able to identify the plants so he made up names for them.

Today, Russ chose to recite in his head the names of the plants he had discovered to keep his mind off his plan of escape so he wouldn’t blurt something out for the guard to take back to the psychiatrists. On the way to the elevator, Russ first pictured the garden. The entrance to the garden began with a bamboo arch shaped like the sun setting on the ground. Russ thought more about the entrance and imagined his life was a setting sun and he wanted to scream or tear somebody’s throat out. He decided, as the elevator door opened, that today was his day to begin anew. He bit his lip as they walked out of the elevator, through the lobby and onto the hospital grounds.

They took the path that led some two hundred yards to the concrete wall. As they walked into the garden, out of sight of the hospital grounds, Russ cleared his throat.

“Excuse me, but I want to look at the dragon fingers without dragging Mike along with me.” Russ pointed to a Japanese maple with his right hand.

The guard poked Russ in the back with the billy club before he stuck it back in his belt loop. “Okay, but don’t try any funny business.”

Russ turned around as the guard looked down to pull the keys up. Russ grabbed the guard’s keys in his right hand and jerked as hard as he could, snapping the wire from the guard’s belt. At the same time, Russ gripped the handcuff chain in his left hand and pulled Mike over toward the guard, who was spun around off-balance. Russ swung the end of the wire into his left hand and threw the wire around the guard’s neck. The guard groped helplessly while his face changed colors from white to red to a pale blue as he slumped back against Russ. Russ dropped the guard with a sneering laugh. He unlocked the handcuffs and looked into Mike’s eyes.

“Man, if you ever want to take off those fuckin’ headphones and run, now’s your chance.” Russ stuffed the keys in his pocket and ran toward the garden entrance. He stopped at the arch and broke off a two-foot length of bamboo, which he stuck in his back pocket. He spun around when he heard footsteps behind him. He kicked out with his boot before he realized who he faced.

“Whu…” Mike wheezed as he took Russ’ boot in his stomach. Stumbling backward, he continued, “Where are we going?”

Russ grabbed Mike’s left arm to keep him from falling in the bushes. “Why, you fucker, you aren’t crazy, are you?”

“Hell, no. I was put in here for rapin’ my mama. When I found out they was goin’ to put me in the state pen, I freaked.”

“Cool, I like it. Look, we don’t have much time to get out of here.” Russ kept looking from left to right nervously. “You know your way around?”

“Sure. I didn’t spend all my time in the hellhole. Just follow me.” Mike started walking toward the main hospital building.

Russ grabbed Mike’s left arm as he walked past and turned him around. “Wait a minute. I’m not going back in there.”

“No problem. We ain’t.”

“How can I know to trust you?” Russ reached for the bamboo stick.

“That’s your problem.” Mike looked down at Russ’ hand behind his back. “Look, you kill me and you ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

“Okay, okay. Just tell me where we’re headed.”

Mike turned back toward the hospital and pointed to a ten-foot tall brick wall that ran the length of the hospital. “On the other side of that wall is where the food trucks come and go. I figure we wait till a truck comes through and hitch a ride.”

“It’ll never work. They’ll know we’re missing in an hour or two and tear this place apart looking for us.”

“Hey, you do what you want. I’m headin’ for that wall.” Mike walked on.

Russ stood for a few seconds and thought about Mike’s plan. He looked in the opposite direction at the nearest security fence several hundred yards beyond the Japanese garden. Russ shrugged his shoulders and ran to catch up with Mike.

“Those doctors fell for the fake headsets?” Russ asked, slightly out of breath, as he caught up with Mike, walking next to the wall.

“Not at first. A friend told me about this book called The Cuckoo’s Nest where this guy fakes like he’s real stupid and they keep him in the hospital where things is real cozy. I played stupid like I couldn’t hear nobody and then came up with the headphones when I wanted to hear some tunes late one night.” Mike stopped at the end of the wall and leaned his head around the corner. “Hey, we has a ride.”