MASS MURDER (49 page)

Poindexter twisted away
, pulling Giorgio with him. T
he two fell, rolling sideways until a knee caught Giorgio sharply in the abdomen.
He let go
and groaned half
way to a standing position just as Poindexter headed for the gun lying on the floor a few feet away.
Giorgio
stumbled after him
, tackling him from behind
and
sending the two of them head first into a stack of boxes.
Giorgio grasped
the arm holding the gun
and
yanked
it behind him.
First rule of the police force – never surrender your weapon.

Poindexter struggled to rise, but Giorgio pinne
d him with one knee
while trying
to release the gun.
The injury to
his
right arm
prevented him from closing h
is hand around the gun
,
and the hesitation allowed Poindexter to jerk around
.
Giorgio
toppled
into the stack of boxes.
Poindexter got nimbly to his feet just as Giorgio’s good hand
found
something on the floor.
He threw
whatever it was
, forcing Poindexter to jerk to his left.
The skull
from
Hamlet smash
ed against the wall
.

Giorgio
followed it
, coming in low
but t
he younger man spun and clipped him with the barrel of the gun exactly where Anya Peters had hit him.
It didn’t take much.
Giorgio went face down in the decades old dirt blinded with pain.
He lay motionless, his head swimming.
Within seconds, he was being dragged backwards
and
dumped a few feet from the water heater.
A moment later, the suffocating odor of gasoline filled his nostrils
,
and his mind began to scream.

A soft chuckle accompanied the strike of a match, and in less than a heartbeat, the room was ablaze.
As flames leapt toward him, Giorgio forced himself to his knees.
The room came into focus revealing the foot of the stairs already engulfed in flames.
Poindexter was gone
. T
he room fill
ed
quickly with a mind-bending heat.
He had to move fast.

Giorgio had visited the basement only a few times before.
It was situated below ground level where there were no windows.
Too bad for that.
Small and cluttered with cardboard boxes, furniture, and a couple of bookcases, it also provided an abundance of fuel.
Really too bad.
He made one attempt to break through the flames now halfway up the stairs, but was stopped by the roaring heat.
He turned and
searched for another means of escape as a fleeting thought entered his mind.

It was a play he’d done in college, in which a twentieth-century protagonist was trapped in a twelfth-century dungeon.
The fiendish bad guy had pumped gas into the closed room leaving the hero to die.
But, voila!
At the last moment, the hero remembered a secret doorway and escaped.
The memory reminded Giorgio there was a second door to the prop room.

When the theater was built, the basement had been used by the actors to travel unencumbered from one side of the stage to the other.
Today, a catwalk at the back of the building provided easier access, but the door was still there.
He’d only seen it once and was pretty sure it was on the opposite side of the room.
If only he could find it through the smoke.

He staggered forward.
It was so hot his skin felt raw
,
and he was having difficulty breathing.
Reaching inside his coat, he grabbed his handkerchief and placed it over his mouth.
He stumbled
past shelves
o
f old dishes
until he
reached a tall stack of boxes
.
S
omewhere in there was a door.
He threw
aside
c
ontainers filled with old tea sets, wigs, and artificial f
ood
, spilling their contents across the floor.
A wax apple rolled into the flames and melted instantly, its red dye staining the floor like draining blood.
Giorgio was coughing now and gasping for air.
He was getting dizzy and tripped over an old baby buggy, falling onto one knee.
One hand hit the floor and he used it to steady himself.
As he lifted himself up, the same hand brushed against something metal.
It was his gun.

Without thinking, he stuffed the gun into his pocket, then lunged forward again, pushing furniture and boxes away from the wall in a frenzy.
He could hardly see more than a foot in front of him now and tears ran down his face as the smoke stripped his eyes like acid.
A heavy beam toppled from a shelf
blocking him
and he let out a cry of frustration.
He squatted to lift the heavy beam, but it came up so easily he was thrown backwards onto the floor.
Like every
thing else, it was only a prop.

He looked up from the floor, his head spinning, his arm throbbing, his lungs burning
. This
could be his last moment alive
. Just then
, the hazy outline of a door tucked behind a flimsy set of movable shelves flickered through the smoke.
Though his lungs felt as if they might collapse at any moment, he threw off the false beam and mustered the energy to pull the shelving unit forward, throwing it contents onto the floor.
He squeezed behind it and reached for the doorknob.
The door was stuck.
Using both hands, he yanked and pulled, but the door wouldn’t budge.
In one desperate
move
he slammed his whole body against the door, hoping to loosen it like the stubborn lid to a pickle jar.
When he pulle
d again, the door scraped open.

He pushed his way through to the other side, stumbling over a stack of paint cans
and up a
small staircase
. He had to hurry. T
he fire would follow him now that it had a new source of oxygen.
With a frantic shove, he pushed through into the scene shop, closing the door tightly behind him.
Groping blindly in the dark past work tables and sinks, half painted flats and stacks of lumber, he found his way to the exit door.
With a last heavy shove, he burst outside wheezing and drawing fresh air into his lungs.
When he could finally fill his lungs without pain, he leaned back against the brick wall listening to the blare of a siren in the distance.
At least, he wouldn’t have to call this one in.

C
hapter Thirty-Five

Giorgio sat on the edge of a gurney while a young, black doctor bandaged his arm. A nurse had helped him clean his face and hands so that he appeared less charred and more human, but his clothes smelled like the inside of an ashtray. This was a small, community hospital where the emergency room functioned like an urgent care center. The doctor had determined Giorgio’s arm wasn’t broken, but the hammer had lacerated the skin and badly bruised the bone. He’d also received first degree burns to his face, much like a bad sun burn. Giorgio was warned the arm would be swollen, and an ugly bruise would probably surround his forearm for the better part of a month. The burns would heal by themselves, but they’d had to use antiseptic on his scalp where the gun butt had split the skin.
All in all, he felt like Hell.

The doctor wrapped his arm with gauze and Giorgio flexed his fingers just to make sure he could. When the muscles rippled across the injured bone, they created a sharp pain that made him cringe. Just then, the curtain rattled and Swan stepped into the cubicle.

“Barnes called Angie. She’s on her way.”

“What about the theater?” Giorgio envisioned a pile of blackened
rubble.

“The fire was contained to the basement, but there was a lot of smoke damage. At least no one else was in the building.”

“What about Marvin Palomar? His car was in the parking lot.” Giorgio felt queasy thinking about what might have happened to his friend.

“As I said, no one else
was found in the theater.”

“Send someone to his apartment. I need to know he’s okay.”

“I’ll call Samson. You think it was Poindexter?”

“I’m sure of it. I recognized his voice
. A
nd he left me a note.”

Swan arched his eyebrows. “Do you still have it?”

Giorgio sneered. “Are you kidding? I barely got myself out, but Poindexter should have a large bruise on his left cheek where I smashed his face into the fuse box.”

Swan grinned. “That should help.”

The doctor finished taping the gauze into place and left the two men alone, but not before telling Giorgio he could pick up a prescription for pain medication from the nurse. Giorgio slipped off the rolling gurney. The gauze made it difficult to roll down his sleeve, so he left it rolled up and grabbed his coat off the back of a metal chair. One whiff of the ja
cket made him turn up his nose.

“Guess I’ll
be getting some new clothes.”

He threw the coat over his good arm as Swan pushed the curtain aside
. T
hey stepped into the
nursing area
. The room was small, with only four separate examination areas. A circular nursing station filled the center of the room, along with a crash cart, a medication cart
,
and assorted other equipment. Behind the nursing station were automatic double doors
leading to the ambulance bay.

“I wonder what role Poindexter plays in all of this.”

“What do you mean?”

“There have been three murders up there,” Giorgio talked as he circled the nurse’s station, heading for the waiting room. “And I don’t think they were all committed by the same person.”

“Which one was Poindexter responsible for?”  Swan stepped to one side to let a nurse pass, nearly knocking over an IV pole. He caught it just in time.

“The mud and the cigarettes tell me he probably killed Jeff
Dorman
,” Giorgio said, stopping at the end of the counter. He leaned over to speak to a young nurse.

“Dr. Bateman told me he’d leave a prescription for me.”

“Yes, sir, here it is,” she smiled, handing him a small slip of paper. “Take one every fou
r hours. Preferably with food.”