Little Death by the Sea (26 page)

Tonight, the moon cast an eerie incandescence
over the wooded patch. Blackened tree limbs were elongated by
shadows and stretched out in all directions like skinny witches’
arms beckoning wickedly toward her. She shivered and enjoyed the
comfort of her little lighted nook in the darkness.

She flipped open the notebook she’d begun
keeping on her investigation, then tucked a clean piece of paper in
the electric typewriter. She typed out the date and entered the
information she had been given about the man who had turned himself
in tonight. She munched on a cookie and stared at the notes in her
notebook.

Suddenly, she heard a noise from outside her
window. She took a breath and held it. Her blood pounded in her
ears and she craned her neck to look out the window towards the
woods. The wind seemed to have risen. She could hear it moaning in
the trees. And then the sound again. Like a dog in pain. Maggie
stood up and went to the window. She heard it again.

Why is a man never here when something
happens? While she was debating whether or not to wait for Laurent
to return before she did something, Maggie heard the cry again.

Quickly, she pulled on her sneakers and stuck
her keys and a small flashlight from the kitchen drawer in the
pocket of her jeans. She closed the apartment door behind her and
the hall lights, triggered by her movement, blinked on. Maggie ran
down the hall and pulled open the heavy outside door at the end of
the corridor.

She slipped outside into the night. The moon,
although not quite full, kept her path lighted. She didn’t need to
use her flashlight. Running quietly in her sneakers, Maggie hurried
to the opening of the woods in front of her dining room window. She
glanced up and was surprised to see her dining room illuminated
clearly and distinctly from outside.

“Here, boy,” she called gently. “Where are
you, puppy?” She was sure the sound was being made by a dog.

She listened for more sounds. She hesitated
to go into the woods. In fact, now she wished she’d picked up her
can of mace as well as the flashlight.

“Here, puppy,” she said, finding herself
afraid to speak loudly. Suddenly, she heard the dog whimper
directly ahead of her. Clicking on her flashlight, she moved
through the trees and into the opening of the woods toward the
sound. As the darkness engulfed her, she had to resist the impulse
to return to the comforting glare of the street lamps of the
parking lot. Her eyes followed the flashlight beam, her ears
straining to hear in spite of the thundering of her heart in her
head.

Then she saw it. It was tied to a small
sapling. A six-foot ravine separated her from the puppy. Her
emotions see-sawed between relief at having found the animal and
trepidation that human hands had put him there. At the bottom of
the ravine was a representative trickle of Peachtree Creek. It
would go on to a bolder showing a few miles down the way, but here
it trailed away to just a moving, damp creek bed.

Maggie made her way down the steep side of
the slippery slope. She grabbed at branches and rocks as she slid
her way to the bottom of the muddy creek bed. The puppy squirmed
against its bonds and watched her approach with large, frightened
eyes.

“It’s okay, puppy,” she said, trying to keep
herself calm as much as the dog. “I’m coming.” Her light flashed
spasmodically along the leaf-choked side of the ravine. She took a
couple of steps up the other side, her fingers reaching for the
little dog and his rope. She pulled at the hemp twine but it held
fast. The puppy whimpered again.

Maggie knelt down on one knee near the puppy
and pulled out her house keys.

“It’s all right, little guy,” she said as she
used the teeth of the key to saw away at the twine. She touched the
animal gently and it whined. She drew back her hand and stopped
sawing. The dog was covered with blood. There were cuts along its
head and haunches and Maggie could see that it was missing toenails
on each paw. Maggie gave the weakened piece of twine a sharp jerk
and pulled it free of the tree. Quickly, she picked up the animal,
ignoring its cry, and tucked it snugly against her. It was then
that she heard the other noise.

Her eyes went in the direction of the light
from her dining room. It was only about forty yards away. She had
heard a movement in the woods above her, a movement of something
heavy treading on leaves and sticks. A blundering sound of someone
stalking her.

Fighting the urge to panic, Maggie clutched
the dog and moved steadily up the steep side of the ravine. The dog
trembled against her chest. Her mouth was dry and she could feel
the beginnings of terror start to unravel her mind. Who was out
here? She reached for a hanging root and hoisted herself a few feet
higher up the ravine. She neared the top, her hands trembling and
clumsy with the cold, her heart fluttering in her throat.

She sensed her assailant behind her before
she heard him, before she felt the heavy hands on her neck. When he
attacked, she was vaguely aware that she dropped the puppy, heard
it cry as if from a long distance. She was even mildly aware that
Laurent would be home by now and that she had left her typewriter
on. She smelled a light fragrance, like violets or lily of the
valley. And then a blinding pain crept up from the back of her head
and the dark, damp ravine bottom of Peachtree Creek rushed up to
slam into her face.

Part III

Eliminating the Impossible

Chapter 15

1

Dave Kazmaroff pressed his fingers into the
soft, yielding flesh above his hip bone. All that tennis for
nothing. All those early morning jogs, a waste. He lifted the
glutinous, overly-sweet pastry to his lips. It wasn’t even good
pastry, he thought as he bit into it. A cop’s lifestyle and a
tendency to pack on pounds obviously didn’t match up. He stared at
the chorus line of Styrofoam coffee cups lined up in front of him
on the metal conference table. A thin cardboard box holding a last
few doughnuts and pastries sat crumpled and used amongst the cups.
He shoved the whole raspberry pastry into his mouth and licked the
flakes of sugar off his fingers. It tasted dry and stale. He eyed
the doughnuts in the box, then leaned back in the metal folding
chair. Where was Burton? How long does a shower take? He reached
over and delicately extricated one more plump doughnut from the
box. His eyes moved to the large simple-faced clock that hung over
the only door to the room. Six a.m. They’d been here all night
talking to one Douglas A. Donnell, confessed psychopath and overall
despicable human being.

Kazmaroff finished off the doughnut.
Sprinkles escaped down his shirtfront. The bastard had recounted
the murder easily, and with a degree of pleasure as though he was
looking to them for applause or approval or, at the very least,
some sort of reluctant respect. Amazing.

Donnell had rattled off details that only the
cops, the coroner, the murderer and the general newspaper-reading
public could have known. When asked why he’d killed her, he had
merely shrugged and smiled. Were they supposed to think this
low-life was mysterious or something? Dave wondered, finishing off
the last of the doughnut. The man had spilled it all, without
apparent reservation, and without apparent truth. He worked as a
bank teller at a Fulton County Bank branch in Buckhead, where he
had been a teller for nearly twelve years. Preliminary questioning
of his fellow workers had revealed the usual: he was thoughtful,
considerate, a little stand-offish, but generally well-liked. He
had no girlfriend and had never been married. He had a cat, and no
friends or acquaintances outside of work. Most of his co-workers
expressed surprise at that.

Wearily, Dave picked up his notepad. Burton
wasn’t going to like this new bit very much. He wasn’t sure what he
felt about it himself. His glance fell on a jelly doughnut that had
served all night as the sticky landing strip for two flies. His
lips twitched slightly. What was taking him so long?

Suddenly, the door swung open and Burton was
there. He strode into the room, his thinning hair plastered against
his head from the recent shower, looking revived, even cheerful.
Kazmaroff felt a perverse pleasure in being the one to change all
that.

“The Newberry woman was attacked last night,”
he said, pushing himself to his feet. “Her boyfriend called the
downstairs desk about three a.m.”

Burton stopped and stared at him.

Dave felt an irrational impulse to laugh.
Man, I must be tired, he thought.

“What?” Burton backed two steps away from him
as if Kazmaroff and the news could somehow be avoided.

“Attacked, you know, as in assaulted and done
ugly things to.”

“But, we...” Burton trailed off, his eyes
bouncing around the interrogation room.

Kazmaroff knew what he was thinking. He’d
gone through the same mental maneuvers himself. Yeah, but we caught
the son of a bitch.

“Come on, man, let’s go talk to her.”
Kazmaroff led the way past their offices, down to the receiving
desk and through the hall that led to the underground parking
garage. He stopped briefly to pick up their messages at the front
desk. The new shift was just coming on duty.

“Gotta handful for ya, Kaz,” the
scrawny-looking sergeant at the front desk said as he handed over a
small stack of messages. “Jack, your wife called. She didn’t sound
happy.”

Burton looked up slowly. He felt like he had
entered a fog. Just moments before, life had seemed so tidy and
ordered. Locked up, buttoned up, nailed down.

“Jack?”

Burton nodded at the sergeant. He knew he
must look drunk or half-asleep.

“Rough night, huh?”

Kazmaroff answered for him, taking charge,
leading the way, sorting through their messages as if Burton’ were
of concern to him too.

“Long one,” Kazmaroff said, sifting through
the white note slips. “We’ve been at it since...when was it, Jack?
Yesterday afternoon, I guess.”

Burton looked at Kazmaroff briefly.

I hate your slimy guts, you Russian
bastard.

“You guys better get going.” The scrawny
little sergeant turned towards his typewriter and began to insert a
processing form.

“Come on, Jack,” Kazmaroff said turning away.
“You can read these in the car.”

Holding his temper in a frail grasp, Burton
followed down the hall after his partner.

He’d already spent a good part of the
preceding night having his joy at a walk-in confession marred by
the thought that he had been mere moments from destroying his
career by arresting a retarded delivery boy for the crimes.
Throughout the night, as he questioned Donnell, he couldn’t help
but imagine what would have happened if he had brought Alfie in—and
then Donnell had given himself up. He’d have been the laughing
stock of the entire department. Hell, entire department
nothing—this kind of news wouldn’t have stayed put. He’d have been
a joke throughout the entire southeast. His reputation and his
career would have been in shambles. He’d have been taken off the
case, probably off the damn force. And the worst of it...the worst
of it was when he imagined the look on Dave Kazmaroff’s face.
Burton shuddered to think how close he had come to doing time in a
federal prison. Because he would’ve killed the bastard. He would’ve
pulled out his regulation-issue Colt-45 and emptied every round
into the bastard’s teal blue Polo shirt.

2

Maggie hung up the phone in the living room
and, even in the pressing heat of the late morning, rewrapped the
wool afghan rug tighter around her. She sat back down on the couch
and nestled into the pillows, her eyes open but unseeing.

Perhaps, on some subconscious level, she had
believed that Burton’s suspect in custody really had killed Elise.
What other explanation could there be for the fact that she had
felt surprisingly little concern about entering the woods last
night? She had somehow felt that since the bad guy was locked up,
there was nothing to fear in the night anymore. And she had nearly
died last night. Would have died too, if it hadn’t been for
Laurent.

He had returned to the apartment and found
her gone. A quick search of the apartment and the parking lot had
revealed that she had not taken her car. Laurent had begun a search
of the apartment building grounds. He had begun a very noisy search
of the apartment building grounds. In the process, he’d awakened
Mr. Danford, the night watchman, as well as a good number of
residents at the Parthenon, and had, it seemed, succeeded in
scaring off Maggie’s assailant.

Maggie picked up the ice pack and held it to
the back of her head. Laurent had found her lying crumpled at the
bottom of the ravine, a large, swelling knot on the back of her
head, the wounded terrier cowering at her side. Laurent had
insisted they spend the rest of their early morning hours in the
emergency room at Piedmont Hospital to confirm that Maggie would
not lose her memory or begin reciting chants in Urdu at some point
in the future. She was released with the assurance that, although
nasty and painful, her wound was a relatively mild concussion. It
felt anything but mild now as she sat in her living room—her head
banging like a rusty kettle drum being attacked by a shovel—and
remembered her terror in the dark last night.

Laurent entered the room, his eyes clouded
with concern. He held a steaming mug of tea and a small flask of
amber-colored liqueur. Wordlessly, he placed the tea in front of
her and handed her the brandy.

“Never had spirits before noon,” she said,
wincing as she drank the brandy. It hurt to tip her head back and
the fluid burned in her throat.

“You have called Gerry?” he asked, sitting
down opposite her.