3 Revenge of the Crafty Corpse (23 page)

“Preferably nude models,” said Murray from the pottery table where he’d begun to knead a lump of fresh clay.

I raised my eyebrows at that. “Are you planning to move from pottery to painting, Murray?”

“Hell, no, chickie. I just like to look.”

This produced a titter from some of the women and chuckles from the other men.

“Don’t hold your breath,” I told him. “Shirley doesn’t strike me as being in the giving mood lately.”

“Unless she’s giving grief and aggravation,” said Sally, apparently referring to my dressing down this morning over the new staff dress code edict.

I gathered up the box of found objects to make room for those who might want to use the table and placed it on one of the shelves under the windows. “Help yourselves to any of the remaining items at any point,” I told them. “I’ll leave the box here.”

“I’d rather help myself to a nude model,” said Murray.

“Enough with the nudes, Murray. Not going to happen. Not now. Not ever. Shirley would have a cow at the mere suggestion, and I’m already
persona non grata
with her.”

Before anyone else responded, we heard a rap at the door. Detective Spader, accompanied by Officers Harley and Fogarty, stepped into the room and headed straight for Dirk. Harley nodded to me as he and Fogarty took up positions slightly behind and to either side of Dirk.

“Mr. Silver,” said the detective, “we’d like to ask you a few more questions.”

“’Bout what?” asked Dirk, continuing to focus his attention on his acrylic painting. “Already told you everything I know.”

“That may be true, sir, but based on some new evidence we’ve uncovered, we need to re-interview the entire staff and all the residents.”

“I’m busy. Start with someone else.”

“I’d prefer to start with you, sir.”

Dirk scowled. “You’ll have to wait while I clean my brushes. Can’t leave paint drying on ’em.”

I stepped in between Dirk and Spader and held out my hand. “I’ll clean your brushes for you, Dirk.”

He moved to hand me his brush, but instead, he grabbed my arm and twisted me into a chokehold. I have no idea where it came from, but the very sharp point of a knife pressed up against my jugular.

“Go for your guns, and the bitch dies,” he said.

twenty-two

This was no palette
knife Dirk held against my neck. Not even an X-Acto knife. This was an I-can-slit-your-throat-with-the-flick-of-my-wrist sort of knife. Big. Pointy. And exceedingly sharp. To prove his intent, Dirk pressed the tip a fraction of an inch, pricking my skin. A trickle of blood flowed down my neck. Someone gasped, but I wasn’t sure if the sound came from me or one of my students.

My life should be flashing before my eyes, but all I could think of was where the hell did that knife come from, and how had Dirk managed to pull it out from its hiding place and press it up against my throat before Harley, Fogarty, or Spader reacted the way cops do on TV? Shouldn’t one of them have pulled a gun and shot Dirk the moment he flashed that whopper of a knife?

I also wondered how I could have been so wrong as to suspect Murray instead of Dirk.

This is why I shouldn’t be stumbling across dead bodies. I’m a lousy amateur sleuth.

Not that I had to worry about that for much longer. Given the current situation, I might not live to trip over another dead body. Worse, if I died, I’d saddle Alex, Nick, and Mama with all the debt Karl had racked up
plus
his mother. I couldn’t let that happen. Somehow I had to get out of this situation alive.

An eerie silence settled over the arts and crafts room. My students had frozen in place, looking like they were about to turn blue from holding their collective breaths. That or drop dead from fear. I knew the feeling.

I stared at Harley, Fogarty, and Spader, silently pleading with them for help, but they, too, stood like statues. Hopefully not from fear but because they were weighing their options and formulating a game plan that would result in keeping me alive while taking down the bad guy with the knife to my throat.

“This is how it’s gonna work,” said Dirk. “You three dicks line up facing the wall, about two feet away, legs spread. Place your arms behind your heads and bend forward until your heads touch the wall.” He waved the knife at everyone else. “The rest of you, face down on the floor.”

The seniors dropped to the linoleum, grabbing onto tables and chairs to aid in lowering themselves as their joints creaked and popped. The cops stood firm. Dirk poked the knife into a fresh spot on my neck, this time deeper and producing far more than a few trickling drops of blood. “Now!” he yelled at Harley, Fogarty, and Spader. “Or I slit her throat.”

“Please,” I whimpered through the pulsing pain in my neck. “He means it.”

The cops complied. Once they lined the wall in the awkward position Dirk demanded, he dragged me across the room toward them. He lowered his one arm from a choke hold to grasp me across my shoulders, trapping my back against his torso, then transferred the knife to that hand. The point now poked me under my chin in such a way that if I moved my head in any direction, I was a goner.

With his free hand Dirk removed the cops’ guns, shoving all but one into the pocket of his painting smock where they pressed painfully up against my lower back. He placed the barrel of the last gun against the side of my head.

“Murray!” he yelled. “Get your ass over here!”

Murray dragged himself off the floor. With a shaky gait he made his way across the room.

“Grab their handcuffs and cuff ’em together. Real tight.” Murray did as Dirk directed. “Now take the last pair of cuffs. Place one on Spader’s free wrist. Hold on to the other end.”

Murray stared at the three cops. “Which one is Spader again?”

“Fucking amateur,” muttered Dirk. He smacked Murray between the shoulder blades with the broadside of the gun but not hard enough to knock him off balance. “The one in the suit.”

When Murray had snapped the cuff on Detective Spader’s left wrist, Dirk took over. He slammed the gun into Spader’s gut. “Slowly walk over to the corner.” After he got the cops in position, he said to Murray, “Now loop that last cuff around the steam pipe and snap it onto the other cop.”

Once the cops were secure to the pipe in an outward circle, Dirk gave Murray one more order. “Take their cell phones and keys and toss them out the window. Then get back on the floor.”

We waited while Murray fumbled around in the cops’ pockets, then struggled to open the window, Dirk growing more and more impatient. “Don’t toss them on top of the bushes. Pitch them hard onto the sidewalk.”

When Murray had finished his task and was once again on the floor with the others, Dirk said, “No one move. Stay put, and you all live. Try being fucking heroes, and I’ll make sure none of you sees your next birthday.”

“What are you going to do with me?” I asked as he dragged me from the room.

“You’re my insurance policy,” he said as he flipped the knife closed and added it to his apron pocket while still keeping the gun trained on me. “We’re going for a ride. Where’s your car parked?”

“Out front.”

Dirk dragged me down the corridor. “Don’t do anything stupid,” he warned.

With a gun shoved in my ribs
? Hardly. My only concern at the moment was staying alive, and that meant total compliance to keep this hit man from making me his next hit.

However, I couldn’t control the stupidity of others, especially my mother-in-law, who at that moment shuffled toward us with Mephisto at her side, his leash looped around her walker. “Anastasia, I refuse to spend another night in this hell hole. Whatever you’re doing, stop it right now and get me signed out of here.”

Lucille planted herself directly in our path and took on her I-budge-for-no-one stance. Mephisto zeroed in on Dirk and emitted a deep, prolonged growl.

Dirk forced the gun barrel deeper into my flesh. “Get rid of her.”

Easy for him to say. He didn’t know Lucille. I gave it my best shot. No pun intended. “Fine, Lucille. I’ll take care of it.”

“Now,” she demanded, “and I’m coming with you to make sure you do.”

This time Dirk shoved the gun so deep I felt my flesh splitting. Tears flooded my eyes, and a wince erupted from my throat. How self-absorbed could my mother-in-law be? How clueless? Didn’t she notice the gun? “Dirk is helping get something out of my car. I’ll be right back. Why don’t you wait for me outside Shirley Hallstead’s office? I’ll be there momentarily.”

“I’ll come to the car with you. Manifesto needs his exercise.”

Couldn’t she hear the fear in my voice? See it written across my face? “It’s too hot for you outside, Lucille. I’ll take him for a long walk in a few minutes.”

Dirk grew impatient. “Enough of this. Let’s go.” He yanked at my arm and started to drag me around Lucille’s walker.

That’s when Mephisto pounced, hurling himself against Dirk’s chest. As Dirk fell backward, his legs twisted up in mine and brought me down with him. The gun discharged before it flew from his hands, the bullet missing both of us by mere inches.

I yanked from Dirk’s grasp and scampered on all fours out of his reach, but I needn’t have worried. The walker, still attached to Mephisto’s leash, had followed behind the dog, dragging along Lucille, who toppled over the walker, pinning Dirk to the floor, her knee jabbed into his groin.

“Son of a bitch!” yelled Dirk.

With that, Mephisto clasped Dirk’s neck in his jaws and continued his menacing growl. Between Lucille’s bulk, her optimally placed knee, and the canine’s canines—not to mention the gun I grabbed off the floor and aimed at his head—Dirk Silver wasn’t going anywhere. At least not until the cavalry arrived.

“April!” I yelled down the hall. “Call nine-one-one!”

Instead of April, I heard the unmistakable clickity-click of Shirley Hallstead’s stilettos headed our way. “What the hell is going on here?” she demanded. Then she noticed the gun in my hands. “Mrs. Pollack! Have you lost your mind? How dare you bring a gun into my facility and threaten one of Sunnyside’s residents!” She stooped to grab the gun out of my hand. “Hand that over at once!”

I shifted my body, still keeping the gun pointed at Dirk. “And let your killer go free? I don’t think so.”

“Killer? Dirk? Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Why don’t you go down to the arts and crafts room and ask the cops handcuffed to the steam pipe?”

“You handcuffed the police?”

“Not me, you imbecile, Dirk.”

“You’re the one with the gun.”

The adrenaline that had sustained me to this point was dissipating from my body. My neck throbbed, and my arms and hands trembled and ached from grasping an extremely heavy gun. Who knew Glocks or Berettas, or whatever make this gun was, weighed so much? I had no strength to argue with Shirley. Instead, I heaved a sigh, executed a lame eye roll, and yelled again for April.

This time I heard her racing down the hall. “On their way,” she said. “And an ambulance. I didn’t know if that bullet I heard hit anyone.” Then she saw my neck. “Sweet Jesus, girl! You’re bleeding.”

“I’ll be okay.” However, I was beginning to feel a bit dizzy and hoped I held out until the cavalry arrived. No telling what would happen if I lost consciousness and dropped the gun. I certainly didn’t trust Shirley to do the right thing.

Other staff members and residents began to congregate. In the commotion that ensued, Dirk started to squirm, trying to shift Lucille off him. That’s when I remembered the other guns and knife in his apron pocket.

“No you don’t,” I said, inching closer and placing the gun against his temple, then directed two of the orderlies to help Lucille up and another to disarm Dirk.

Shirley stood off to the side, her expression both grim and petulant, her eyes narrowed, her lips pursed into a thin line. I couldn’t decide if she was more upset by the capture of an assassin at Sunnyside or angry at the fact that the others were lauding me as the heroine of the moment. Either way, from the looks of it, I’d earned a few more black marks on her mental score sheet. Not that I cared.

What I did care about were answers. Before the cops arrived and while I still had a gun trained on Dirk, I asked, “Why Mabel?”

“I never kiss and tell,” he said.

“Not good enough, Dirk.” I slammed the barrel of the gun into the fleshy part of his cheek and repeated the question. Mephisto seemed to understand my intent and clamped down a little harder, threatening to break Dirk’s windpipe. Still, the hit man kept to the hit man’s code, if there is such a thing. He neither flinched nor uttered another word.

_____

An hour later, dressed in a blue hospital gown, I lay supine on a gurney in the emergency room at Overlook Hospital. A doctor had stitched up the knife slits in my neck and given me a tetanus shot and a prescription for painkillers, even though I told him I didn’t want any.

I’d seen and read too many stories in the news about people getting hooked on painkillers after accidents. I’m no martyr, but I figured I’d rather soldier through the pain with over-the-counter ibuprofen than risk addiction. He told me I’d probably change my mind once the local wore off and placed the prescription on the chair with my clothes.

“Do you know anything about my mother-in-law’s condition?” I asked before the ER doctor left the room.

“The woman brought in with you? They took her for X-rays. I’ll have one of the nurses update you.”

Lucille had complained vociferously throughout the short ambulance ride to Overlook because she hadn’t wanted to leave Mephisto behind at Sunnyside. She didn’t appear hurt, Dirk having cushioned her fall, but Shirley insisted. I’m sure her concern centered more around a lawsuit than Lucille’s physical well-being.

As for me, right now all I wanted to do was go home and hug my kids and Mama. Then I wanted to crawl into bed and sleep for a week. I wondered if Shirley expected me to show up at Sunnyside tomorrow. I fully expected her to dock my pay for not putting in a full day today, even though I deserved hazard pay in addition to my hourly rate.

The door opened a couple of inches and Detective Spader called in, “Are you decent, Mrs. Pollack?”

“Depends on the context but you can come in.”

He entered the room, pulled up a chair, and sat down next to me. “Up to talking?”

I swung my legs over the side of the gurney and leveraged myself into a sitting position. “Are you?”

“I’m trained for situations like that. You’re not.”

Hmm … seemed to me he and his colleagues could use a bit more training. Granted Dirk was a hit man, but the odds had been stacked in the cops’ favor three-to-one, and still Dirk got the drop on them.

“How are you holding up?” he asked.

“I survived. In the greater scheme of things, I’m fine, considering what might have happened.”

“I like your attitude. Harley and Fogarty are right about you.”

“Talking behind my back?”

He chuckled. “Seems they’re charter members of your fan club. Anyway, I just stopped by to thank you. I’m not sure we would have broken this case without your help. Our CSI guys totally overlooked the importance of those journals.”

“Not to mention Lyndella’s accounting ledger.”

“Yeah, I gave them hell over that one. From now on they’ve got orders to go through every page of every book at a crime scene.”

So many questions still remained unanswered, though. At least for me. I doubted Detective Spader would satisfy my curiosity, but I had to ask. “How did you figure out Dirk was the hit man? I never suspected him. I was positive the killer was Murray Seibert.”

He gave me his
ongoing investigation
look but then said, “Hell. The story’s going to break on the evening news, anyway. His prints popped in the system under a different name. Dirk Silver is really Dante Silvestri, and he’s got a rap sheet going back decades.”

“Was he hired by one of Lyndella’s former clients?”

“That’s where the case gets really interesting. Silvestri worked security for Adeline Hunter.”

“The congresswoman?” Adeline Hunter was a newly rising star in national politics, riding the conservative coattails of Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, and Nikki Haley. She’d recently started showing up with increasing regularity on the Sunday morning talk show circuit. “How is she connected to Lyndella?”

“Turns out Congresswoman Hunter put herself through college
and law school working as one of Lyndella’s girls.”