Five Minutes Alone (17 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Schroder jabs the end of the floorboard towards the dog’s head. It bites down on it, opens its mouth, yelps, then takes another bite. It shakes its head furiously, saliva and blood spraying across Schroder as it bites onto the nails sticking from it. Schroder fights to keep the board in his hand, and the dog is driving him towards the window and across the shards of glass that bounced off the iron bars when he broke it. He pushes the floorboard. He pulls it. The dog keeps shaking its head like it’s disagreeing with Schroder’s desire to live. There are footsteps on the stairs, then somebody is swearing, yelling that they think they just broke their goddamn ankle because there’s a goddamn stair missing.

The dog figures things out. It lets go of the floorboard and comes again for Schroder’s throat. Schroder gets his forearm in the way, the dog’s teeth latch on to it, and it doesn’t hurt, not like he thought it would, but he suspects that’s because adrenaline is flooding his system. The dog feels like it weighs a hundred pounds and the pressure in its mouth feels strong enough to jack up a car. He keeps waiting to hear something in his arm snap. He pivots, the dog’s front paws swiping at his chest, its back paws tangoing across the floor. He beats the floorboard across the back of the dog’s head, but he can’t get enough leverage to make it hurt. The force becomes too much, his foot slips from beneath him as he steps on a piece of glass, and he loses balance. He falls on his back and he does all he can think to do—he pushes the dog up and over him as far as he can.

The momentum and the arc take the dog above him and into the window, then downwards, glass crashing around it. Its jaws open and let Schroder go. It becomes more furious. It growls
louder. Schroder gets to his feet. The top half of Buzzkill’s head has gone into a
V
in the glass, wedged in there and sinking deeper as it struggles, the glass angles sliding into its head. It struggles harder, already something has come loose as it tries wiggling its head side to side, an ear, perhaps, or something else. Its legs scramble as if it’s on a treadmill that isn’t there. Schroder grabs the piece of wood, turns it so the nails point downwards, and swings as hard as he can into the back of the dog’s head, partly out of self-defense, mostly just to put the damn thing out of its misery.

The dog goes still.

He levers the nails out and takes the board over to the door. He closes the door and puts the board on a forty-five-degree angle, jams one end beneath the handle, then digs the opposite end into the floor. He kicks it, burying the nails partway into the floor. The door handle turns and then there’s banging.

The only weapon he had is now the only thing keeping the others out.

There’s a gunshot. He doesn’t think the bullet makes it through the door because the door is too thick, but then there’s another shot and a small hole appears in the wall next to the door, made obvious by the beam of light behind it. The wallboards are thinner than the door.

He moves to the window and puts his hands on the bars, and there’s another gunshot, this one coming from outside, this one pinging off something only a few inches from him.

Another gunshot from behind. Another hole filled with light. The bullet smacks into the wall opposite. Another gunshot and another hole, then a foot appears down low. They can’t open the door, but they can kick a hole in the wall next to it, reach in, and shift the plank. Or reach in and shoot him.

The foot disappears, then comes back. This time it twists, and instead of going out the way it came in, it gets caught up between the framework and the board.

Schroder grabs a hand-sized piece of glass off the floor, tears the perforated sleeve from his bloody shirt, and wraps it around the end to protect his fingers. The foot disappears. He waits for it to come back.

This time the foot kicks in a bigger section of the wall. Schroder grabs it, pulls upwards, then pushes the tip of the glass into the side of the calf. He drags the glass as hard as he can from left to right across the shin, and at the same time the owner of the leg starts to scream.

There’s another gunshot, this one wild and he doesn’t even think it’s come into the room. Schroder keeps pulling upwards, trapping the foot against the beams in the wall. He moves the piece of glass to the back of the ankle. He feels it dig into something more solid then drags it with as much force as he can, hoping to slice right through the Achilles.

Another scream, this time louder. Schroder knows he can’t keep doing this. He can’t defend himself with a piece of glass. But he has bought himself a little more time. He lets go and moves back to the window. He picks up the dog and throws it as hard as he can against the bars. They shudder. He picks it back up for a second attempt. This time there is creaking and groaning and the bars tilt forward. There’s a gunshot from outside, and he feels the impact of the slug going into the dead dog. The sense of hope that has come with the moving bars makes the dog feel lighter when he lifts it over his head again, and this time he throws it with even more force. This time the bars pull away from the top, they hinge downwards, the right side bottom breaks away, then it swings to the left, dragging across the wood and coming to a rest, hanging on by one final bolt at the bottom. Schroder throws the dog towards the figure shooting at him below. There’s an impact and an
oomph
as the two shapes become one in the darkness.

It’s too far to jump to the ground below and, anyway, the person down there is already starting to roll the dog off him. He climbs out the window, puts his foot on the corner of the dangling grate, and
looks up. The roof is three feet higher than he can stretch and overhangs the side of the building by a foot. There is ivy everywhere, so much that it looks like it’s sprouting right out of the wood. It’s thick in some places, weak in others, but he grabs a handful of it and starts climbing. The first handful is good, the second handful he’s just pulling it away from the building, and he reaches further out and finds a thick branch of the stuff.

He climbs, and a few seconds later he’s at the top of the wall. He stretches out and grabs the guttering. It feels strong enough to support him and, really, what option does he have other than try? He pulls his body weight up, and for a few seconds he’s hanging from the roof, then he gets his fingers around the edge of a pole, a pole that he soon sees is the base of a TV antenna—he thanks God that mental people love TV—then a moment later he’s scrambling onto the roof and thanking God he’s even still alive. He’s two stories up. He rolls out of view from the ground then shimmies back until he can peer over the edge. The person he hit with the dog is on his feet, pointing the gun up at him, but there’s no way the guy can see him, surely, and the proof of that is the guy doesn’t take a shot.

The roof is made up of concrete tiles. He could pull up some roof tiles and crawl into the ceiling space, or he can try to climb down another wall. Either way he has more options than before, and one less dog in the world to worry about. He tugs at one of the roof tiles. It lifts, then there’s some resistance because it’s wired around a wooden slat beneath it, but he continues to pull and the wire unwinds itself. He pulls up two more. He figures he can send a few down to the ground. Why not? The tiles will be coming out of the dark, so the guy will never see them coming. The problem is the guy is two stories beneath him.

He decides he can afford to dedicate ten seconds of his life in the hope of getting lucky. Throw a few of them down there.

He gets lucky with the first tile.

He throws it so it spins sideways like a Frisbee, and it cuts through the air with a whistling sound and it’s a direct hit, better
than he could ever have hoped for, getting the guy somewhere in the middle of his face.

So he’s down to one dead dog, one unconscious but most likely dead guy, another guy with a sliced Achilles, and two guys still fully mobile. Maybe he and Peter are going to get out of this after all.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Charlotte’s first thought when I tell her that her husband lied is that he’s having an affair.

“This notion he would be out there trying to hurt the people who hurt . . . his . . . dead wife,” she says, avoiding the dead wife’s name, “is ridiculous. Or, I suppose, he could be gambling. Come to think of it, gambling makes more sense than an affair. But out there looking for revenge? No, I don’t think so. Peter is, well, not to sound mean, but Peter is Peter. He’s a coward.”

I don’t tell her she’s wrong. She’ll come to that conclusion soon enough. “Have you ever heard him talking about Kelly Summers?”

She looks even more confused now. “Who? Are you trying to tell me he
is
having an affair?”

“No,” Kent says. “This has nothing to do with anybody having any affair. Now, have you heard the name before?”

Charlotte shakes her head.

I carry on. “What about Dwight Smith?”

“Not him either,” she says.

“What do you think Dad has done?” Monica asks, standing at the entry to the lounge. She’s come back.

“This man who came to your house today, tell me about him,” I say, looking at Monica.

She shrugs. “Like I said, he was bald. And white.”

“Can you tell me more?”

“He was old. Like you,” she says, and people need to stop telling me this. Closing in on forty means half the world sees me as old, and half sees me as young. “Like dad too,” she says.

“Around forty?” I ask.

“I guess.” She comes into the lounge and sits on the same couch as Charlotte, but there’s a gap big enough to fit two more people. “Not granddad old, just, you know.”

“Old.”

“Exactly.”

“What did this guy say?”

“Nothing. I mean, he was just arriving as I was leaving.”

“Did your dad know him already? Or did he introduce himself?”

“I didn’t hear.”

“What was he wearing?”

She gives it a few seconds of thought. “Jeans, maybe. And a shirt. Maybe a jacket. Yeah, I think he was wearing a jacket. Black or blue.”

“Okay,” I say, “that’s good, Monica. Really good,” I say, but the truth is it’s useless. I figure that if you’re not under twenty and don’t hate the world then you’re invisible to a girl like Monica Crowley.

“Did this man pull into the driveway in a car?”

“No. I think it was parked out on the road.”

“Did you see it?”

“Not really.”

“Not really? So does that mean you kind of might have seen it?”

She shrugs. “Yeah, I guess it does kind of maybe mean that. It was like, dark blue, but I don’t know cars, I couldn’t tell you what type it was. It wasn’t one of those four-wheel drives, though.”

“So it was a sedan.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Four doors,” I tell her. “Smaller than an SUV and not a sports car. Just a normal car.”

“Then it was a sedan.”

I stand up. “Was the bald guy taller than me?”

“Maybe,” she says.

“Bigger than me?”

“I’m not sure.”

“You really think he’s out there looking for revenge?” Charlotte
asks, the idea finally starting to take hold. “Is he in danger? This guy you’re trying to get Monica to describe, you know him, don’t you.”

“No,” Kent says. “Monica, please, this is important. Can you remember anything about the guy? Did he have any tattoos?”

“I don’t think so, and I’m trying the best I can, but the guy was just average, you know? It’s not like he was hot or anything.”

I can feel fatigue and frustration kicking in. We still don’t even know if Peter is involved in anything. He really could be fixing a busted water pipe, or he really could be having an affair at the casino.

“Does Peter have a study here?”

“Yeah he does,” Charlotte says.

“Do you mind if I have a look through it?”

“Don’t you need a warrant or something like that?” Monica asks.

“Monica,” Charlotte says. “If it will help find—”

Monica starts shaking her head. “Don’t you get it? If Dad is out there looking for revenge, then why should we help the police? Those guys who hurt Mom deserve to die.”

“Monica—”

“But it’s true,” the girl says. “And if Dad has done something, why should we help the police send him to jail?” She looks right at me then carries on. “If you want to arrest my dad, then you’re going to need to find enough evidence to do so. You’re going to have to find the two bodies, you’re going to have to find my dad’s DNA and his fingerprints, and you’re going to have to get a warrant.”

“Listen to me,” I say. “If your—”

She shakes her head. “No. Why should I listen to the people who let the men who killed my mother out of jail? The people who now want to put Dad in there?”

“Monica,” I say. “We’re trying to help your dad. We want to get to him before—”

She keeps shaking her head. “It’s too late,” she says.

“Mrs. Crowley,” I say. “The study?”

But now Charlotte is shaking her head too. “Monica is right.
Not without a warrant. We don’t know what my husband is doing out there, and I don’t want him going to jail. If he’s done something, we’re not giving him up. You’re going to have to prove it. This conversation is over.”

“We’re on your side,” Kent says.

“Really? So if Peter is out there doing something wrong, you’ll stand by him? You’ll set him free?”

“We just don’t want him getting hurt,” I say.

She stands up and we stand up and she leads us back into the hallway. There are pictures on the walls of Monica and another boy, the one who’s still asleep, of Charlotte and of Peter, of the four of them together, but there are none of Linda Crowley. Of course there aren’t. Charlotte doesn’t want to see her husband’s dead wife every day.

I hand her my card. “Get him to call us when he gets in.”

“I will,” she says.

We get to the door. I turn towards Charlotte. “Whatever you’re thinking of doing, you can’t do it,” I tell her.

“What does that mean?”

“You’re going to go through your husband’s study and you’re going to try and hide anything that can link him to what he’s doing. I want you to stay out of his study. Going in there is interfering with the investigation.”

“It’s our house,” she says. “I can do whatever I want here.”

“You can’t hide evidence.”

“Until you know for sure what happened, nothing here is evidence.”

I step outside with Kent, and then we walk to the car. Charlotte and Monica stand in the doorway watching us. We climb in and Kent puts the keys in the ignition, but doesn’t start it.

“We should get a couple of officers to keep an eye on the place,” she says.

“I’ll make the call.”

“So now can we go home? No doubt there’ll be a task force meeting early in the morning, but I don’t know what else we can
do tonight. These guys either show up or they don’t, and as soon as Peter Crowley shows up we have the officers stay outside his house to babysit him. There’s no way to know where they might be. There’s no other angle here, not tonight. I’m tired and you’re tired too, and if we’re lucky those Collard brothers are never going to show up, and we’ll never have to come back here and arrest Peter and destroy his family for the second time. What do you say?”

“I say we should see if we can run a trace on Peter Crowley’s cell phone,” I tell her, “and maybe we can find out exactly where he is.”