Dead Heat (28 page)

Spraggue absorbed the tableau: the motionless, rag-doll form tossed across the king-sized bed; the senator, tousle-haired, wild-eyed, shielding her; Sharon, kneeling on the braided rug, searching for a way through Donagher's defenses.

“Get away from her.” Donagher's face was twisted, his voice an ugly snarl.

One minute everything made sense one way and the next minute everything had tilted and rearranged itself into a new pattern.

“Murray,” Spraggue said, his dead monotone more threatening than Donagher's snarl. “What was the diet Donagher and Collatos went on two weeks before the marathon?”

Donagher froze.

“What the hell?” Eichenhorn said.

“Tell me if I have it right. And if I do, get an ambulance fast because Donagher killed Collatos and he's trying to kill his wife. No cheese, right? No alcohol? Nothing rich in tyramine because tyramine reacts with Parnate. If Pete had eaten anything wrong the week before the marathon he might have died too soon and it wouldn't have looked like Donagher was the target; it wouldn't have thrown us off the scent, it wouldn't have given Donagher a sympathy vote and all that publicity …”

“Brian,” Eichenhorn said and his voice was a plea, a plea for a denial that didn't come.

“He's trying to stall,” Spraggue said, “hoping that help will come too late—because if Lila dies, he can still blame it all on her. Go and call an ambulance!”

Eichenhorn, when he moved, walked as stiffly as an old man, stumbled down the corridor.

“No!” Donagher called after him. “Don't call!” He lunged toward the doorway, but had to stop to keep Sharon away from the bed.

The doorbell rang.

THIRTY-SIX

The chiming bell echoed through the first floor, up the stairs, into the room where Lila Donagher lay motionless as a wax statue across the king-sized bed. It froze everyone in place: Eichenhorn in the corridor, shoving his gold-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose, disbelief in the round ‘o' of his mouth; Donagher, twisted, undecided whether to stop Murray or bar Sharon from the bed; Spraggue blocking the bedroom door.

“Answer it, Murray,” Spraggue said, moving a few steps inside the bedroom.

“No.” Donagher shouted. “It's a trick. I wouldn't do anything to hurt Lila.”

“Get the door. They'll break it down,” Spraggue warned.

The campaign manager came unstuck and moved haltingly toward the landing. The senator must have seen him as a greater threat than Sharon because he ran forward to stop him, into the space Spraggue had ceded. Closing in from behind, Spraggue grabbed Donagher's gesturing right arm with both hands, at wrist and elbow, twisted it cruelly—up, behind the writhing politician's back.

Donagher sagged as if he'd given up, kicked backward suddenly, landing a stinging blow on Spraggue's shin, wrenched his arm free.

“She's got a pulse!” Sharon shouted, bending over the still form on the bed.

Donagher struck first. The punch hit the fleshy part of Spraggue's neck, cracked against his jaw. It made Spraggue stop thinking of Donagher as a respected senator gone mad, made him remember instead Pete Collatos cold on a stretcher, a house full of blackened memories.

The senator may have seen the change in Spraggue's eyes. He dodged back toward the bed, tried to push Sharon away from his wife.

Spraggue seized the man by the shoulders, sent him crashing into the wall. Donagher slumped, clung to the wall. But he was stronger than he looked—quick, wiry, and crafty. When he turned, he came out punching.

Afterwards, Spraggue couldn't remember what had happened. Rage blinded, deafened him, cut him off. The pulsebeat humming in his hears exploded into a roaring ocean of sound. In the rush of blows, some of Donagher's must have connected, but he shook them off. Then Donagher was on the ground, his upturned face shocked and bloodied. Spraggue picked him up as if he were a stick of wood, buried his fist in the politician's stomach.

“Stop it!”

Spraggue heard the words before he understood their significance. It sounded as if someone were shouting at him from down a long tunnel.

“Stop it!” Sharon was screaming in his ear, pounding on his shoulder. “You'll kill him.”

Spraggue's arms fell to his sides. Donagher sank to the floor, cradling his head, moaning.

Sharon stared at Spraggue for a long moment, ran back to Mrs. Donagher. “I'll breathe for her until the ambulance comes.”

Spraggue bent down, seized the senator, spun him around, grabbed his arm in the hold that had set off the fracas, hauled the man to his feet.

“You're breaking my arm—” Donagher struggled, his skin patchy, his breath coming in gasps.

“I'd like to break your neck,” Spraggue said in a voice so quiet it silenced him like a shot. “Pete worshipped you. He thought you were the best goddam thing that ever happened to him. And you told him to keep on running while you lay down and played possum, knowing he'd die.”

Eichenhorn raced down the steps. Spraggue's progress, pushing the senator ahead of him, was a crawl by comparison. He didn't want Donagher to trip, by accident or design. By the time they got downstairs, the front door was already ajar, the porch light blazing. Captain Hank Menlo loomed on the doorstep, a smaller uniformed cop behind him.

“Shut the door!” Spraggue said quickly, too late. The huge man and his shadow stepped over the sill. The uniformed attendant slammed the door and twisted home the locking bolt.

Donagher stopped struggling.

“Let him go,” Menlo ordered. Spraggue loosened his grip. “Do you want to prefer charges, Senator?”

“Officer,” Eichenhorn's tenor practically squeaked. “Upstairs. Mrs. Donagher … she needs an ambulance …”

“About time, Menlo.” Donagher straightened his shirt, rubbed his arm. He had his voice back. His breathing was almost normal. He sounded as confident as he did on his promotional campaign radio spots, but the blood still oozed from a corner of his mouth. “There is a woman upstairs who joined this man in breaking into my house. Have your man bring her down here—and tell him to ignore anything else he might see. Only to bring that woman downstairs.”

Menlo nodded and the short, dark cop headed for the stairs. When Spraggue stepped out to challenge him, the cop patted his holster and looked questioningly at his boss. Menlo cracked a smile that had no humor in it. “Not yet,” he said.

The cop bypassed Spraggue and bounded up the steps.

“Murray,” Donagher said calmly, “go into the kitchen and wait for me.”

“I can't.… I … Mrs. Donagher …”

“You'll do what I tell you,” Donagher said. “Now.”

Upstairs, a woman's scream was cut short.

“Get an ambulance,” Spraggue said. “If Lila dies, she's going to take the rap for all this.”

A flicker of understanding lit Menlo's eyes. Spraggue could almost see the machinery turning—weighing, evaluating, stacking and restacking the chips. Then the captain motioned Donagher to his side, drew his revolver, and herded the other two men into the front room. “No phone in here? Good. Nobody leaves until I say so.” The rest of Menlo's words were addressed to Donagher in a whisper too faint for Spraggue to catch.

Eichenhorn collapsed on the couch, removed his glasses, rubbed his eyes. Spraggue stood by the mantel, searched the room—first for an escape, then for some sort of weapon-regretted that he no longer carried a gun. The dark cop half carried, half dragged Sharon Collatos into the room, dumped her on the rug. She had angry tears in her eyes, the crimson mark of an open hand splayed across her face. The cop had bloody scratches down one cheek. He backed out of the room, quickly, warily, guarded the doorway with his hand poised above his holster.

Sharon shook off Spraggue's hand when he tried to help her up.

After a long five minutes, Menlo reappeared, coughed. “The senator says that his wife wrote a letter before she took her life and that perhaps I'd better read it before I involve the authorities any further.”

“It's too late for that—” Spraggue said.

“Exactly,” Donagher interrupted smoothly. “It's too late for Lila; but it may not be too late to salvage something from this tragedy. That's what I was explaining to Captain Menlo.”

“She's not dead yet—” Sharon began.

“Menlo's been in it all along, hasn't he?” Spraggue said.

Eichenhorn, on the couch, turned to stone.

“It all fits. Menlo is in charge of arson liaison. Menlo is a rotten cop. Menlo flourishes on the force, keeps getting promoted while other, better cops, get fired. He must have found out about your little arson fortune a long time ago, Senator. He must have been bleeding you for years. Menlo must have told you about a young eager-beaver cop who was getting too damn close to your secrets.”

Spraggue looked at Donagher for confirmation, got nothing but a blank stare.

“Then Collatos got laid off and Menlo breathed a sigh of relief. But you didn't, did you, Senator? You had to know how much this Collatos character had guessed or discovered. Once Menlo told you Pete had pulled those old files, he was as good as dead. Menlo knew Pete well enough by then to know he'd keep on looking and, eventually, he might have found out the source of your early wealth. Pete was like a dog on a scent once he got started. A good cop. Not like some who'll follow any stink that leads to money, who've forgotten the aroma of justice if they ever smelled it.”

“Want me to shut him up?” the short cop asked.

“So you set it up with Menlo to hire Collatos as your personal bodyguard. I've always hated your guts,” Spraggue said to Menlo, “But I'm not sure you knew Donagher intended to kill him.”

“I didn't,” Donagher said harshly. “Not then.”

“Or did you plan Pete's execution together? No, I doubt the senator would trust his brainwork to a cop. The senator had the medicine, thanks to his wife's previous illness … He had the mob connections from his earlier arson scam. I wonder what the senator's record is on organized crime legislation?

“Didn't your wife suspect anything when all the property she owned under her old name, her father's name, burned so advantageously? Or did she trust you to handle all her business affairs?”

Eichenhorn picked that moment to stand and announce, “I'm going to call an ambulance.”

“Sit down,” Donagher said. “That one won't be any trouble. I know enough about him to guarantee silence.”

“But Spraggue,” Menlo said, “is another story altogether. And the woman.”

“Any other cop would have been too smart to type one of those envelopes on his own typewriter,” Spraggue said. The words brought purple into Menlo's face, made his foot tap the wooden floorboards. “Did Pete know for sure when he visited you that Sunday, or did he just come to ask you why you'd lifted the envelope? Was he surprised when he typed a line on your typewriter and found it matched the type on the threatening envelope?”

Menlo took his gun out of his holster. Not the police standard six-shot S&W—a .357 magnum.

“No,” Donagher said hastily. “We have to think this out. We have to set the stage. I heard a burglar; I called the police. After all the threats, after Pete's death, naturally I'd be uneasy. I call you and you see them running from the house. You call out, he turns. You see a gun. You shoot. The girl's in the line of fire. How's that? We can plant the guns later.”

Eichenhorn shook his head. “I can't—” he said.

“You damn well can. Or there'll be three deaths.”

Spraggue said, “There'll be three deaths anyway. Isn't it going to strain the public credulity to imagine that you had burglars in the house the same night your wife committed suicide?”

“It would sure as hell strain my goddam credulity,” Hurley said. He had his gun drawn as he came out of the shadows of the hallway. The walkie-talkie at his waist crackled. Sirens wailed and blue flashing lights split the night.

Donagher broke for the front door, was outside in a flash.

Hurley yelled into the walkie-talkie.

“There's nowhere far enough for him to run,” Spraggue said.

Sharon dashed for the stairs.

THIRTY-SEVEN

The ambulance came and went—khaki-clad paramedics eased Sharon to one side, took over Lila Donagher's arrhythmic breathing, shifted her onto a stretcher, vanished with their burden so rapidly they seemed like creatures from a disjointed dream. Police cars came and went. Heavy black shoes beat a path up the walk of number 55 Sparhawk Street.

Whispered conferences were held in corners. The governor, red-faced and irritable, abruptly wakened and hauled over to Donagher's in the official limo, was closeted with aides in the kitchen. Someone tipped the press and what had seemed like madness moments before seemed now like a model of organized sanity as the newshounds joined the fray.

When he wasn't wanted for questioning, Spraggue sat in the senator's armchair, elbows on knees, head bent forward. He laced his fingers together at the back of his neck and closed his eyes, imagined himself elsewhere, on a different stage.

He saw Senator Donagher, running out into blackness, endlessly falling, opened his eyes and focused on the rug.

Hurley prodded his shoulder.

“Tell it once more,” he said. “For the superintendent.”

“Shit,” Spraggue said. “Can't you get a tape recorder?”

Hurley waved a microphone in front of his eyes. “Straight from headquarters. This time for posterity.”

Spraggue closed his eyes, composed his thoughts. He spoke with no inflection. “Some of this is guesswork. Some of it is fact. You'll have to sort it out.”

“Go ahead.”

Spraggue was aware of a shifting of furniture, of additional faceless people entering the room. He waited for silence, began.

“When Donagher decided to go into politics, he didn't have the money to get into it in a big way. I think he ran for state auditor or something and lost. It must have cost him a lot to lose. In cash, in self-respect. His wife had some money, but more than that, she had property. Buildings in Roxbury, the North End, in Back Bay, Jamaica Plain, God knows where else. Maybe Donagher tried to sell them. Maybe that was when the mob approached him. Maybe he went to them because he couldn't get a good price. But, no matter who initiated it, he became part of a scam to increase the value of his wife's holdings, increase their value on paper, and then bum the buildings and collect the insurance. His name never appeared in any transactions. Buildings passed between straw owners connected with the mob and L. Di Bennedetto. Every time a building was sold, its property value increased. No money changed hands.”