Sex Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 6) (21 page)

Finally Nina asked:

“Did they let you go, Dicken?”

A shrug:

“They couldn’t really hold me. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Except to see a ghost.”

Dicken Proctor shook his head:

“It wasn’t a ghost, Nina. It was Thornbloom.”

“And this is what you kept telling them?”

“Yes. And they would never believe me. Maybe I don’t even believe me. Thornbloom is at the bottom of the ocean. There’s no way he could be anywhere else. People—responsible people—saw him get on the airplane, saw the plane take off. The plane remained on the radar screen until it disappeared two hours after take off. It couldn’t have turned back.”

“And yet…”

“And yet I saw him here in this office, Nina. As clear as anything I’ve ever seen in my life.”

He pressed a palm against his forehead, leaned back in his chair, and breathed deeply. Then he continued:

“I worked with the man for ten years. I was close to him. I made him coffee on the morning he took off in that plane.”

“Yes, you told me that.”

“I would know him from a mile away. No one looks precisely like him. Six foot two, those blue eyes…I couldn’t have been mistaken. Nina…”

“Yes, Dicken?”

“That night in the library. When the man stalked you. You didn’t get a glimpse of him, did you? Tall man, silver haired?”

“I’m sorry, Dicken. The stacks were between us. I couldn’t see anything at all of him.”

“Too bad. If somebody could just corroborate…”

Then, a slow shaking of the head:

“It doesn’t matter. I know they’re not going to believe me. That’s why, when they told me under no circumstances was I to tell this wild story to the press or anyone else…Nina, I decided to hold back one thing. Why tell it to them if they weren’t going to believe me anyway?”

She stared at him for a time.

Then:

“What is it, Dicken? What did you hold back?”
  

“All right. You have a right to know. You were almost killed. If anybody has
 
right to know, it’s you.”

“Tell me.”

“Two nights before the day he…the day…”

“I know. Go on.”

“Two nights before, we were up in his office in the Cannon Building. It had been a long day. Lots of visitors, lots of meetings. So now it was late and everybody else had already gone home. Sometimes when that happened—and it happened pretty frequently—he would take out a bottle of brandy that he kept in his desk. We would sip a glass. No more. But a small glass. So this night we’d almost finished it, when he looked at me and said: ‘Dicken, I think he’s trying to talk to me.’ I didn’t understand. I asked something like, ‘Jarrod’—after we had worked together for years, he began to insist that I call him by his first name—‘Jarrod, who is trying to talk to you?’”

“But he just shook his head, as though it should have been self evident. He just shook his head and said: ‘He’s been coming to me. And talking to me. And he’s been telling me that I’ve been wrong. For all these years, I’ve been wrong. Like the Apostle Paul, I’ve been kicking against the pricks. I’ve been promoting evil causes. Dicken, he’s been telling me that I must act. I must wipe out the evil.”

Dicken Proctor shook his head:

“I didn’t know what to say. And that was all he said. Then we finished our brandy, washed out the glasses, put the bottle away, and went home.”

“You didn’t,” Nina asked, “talk about this again the next day?”

A shake of the head:

“No. But Nina, I have to tell you: I think Jarrod Thornbloom is alive. And I think he’s gone insane. And I think he imagines God is talking to him, and telling him…”

“Telling him what?”

“To kill Laurencia Dalrymple. And to kill you.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: A PHONE CALL AT MIDNIGHT

At first, she did not know what had awakened her.

It might have been the incessant pounding of rain on the window across the bedroom; for the storm had hit shortly before twelve (there had been flashes of lightning and rumblings of thunder at ten thirty, when she had gone to bed.)

“Laurencia!”

She propped herself up in the bed.

“Laurencia!”

No answer.

She got out of bed, got into her slippers and robe, and wandered dazedly into the kitchen.

“Laurencia?”

Carefully she opened the door to Laurencia’s bedroom.

Empty bed.

She was, as she had sensed, alone in the apartment.

“Where the hell…”

She returned to her own bedroom and was aware of it for the first time.

Her cell phone was buzzing.

She had set it carefully on the nightstand before she got into bed. Now it glowed blue, buzzed like an adder, and vibrated its way toward the edge of the stand, as though it were trying to escape and get under the bed before it could be captured.

She flipped it open, put it to her cheek, and breathed into it:

“Hello?”

A pause.

Simply the sound of breathing at the other end.

“Hello?”

Then:

“Nina?”

It was…

“Nina?”

“Laurencia!”

“Nina?”

“Where are you? Are you all right?”

Then merely the same pause, the same sound of breathing.

Followed by a low, raspy:

“Hello, Nina. It’s nice to talk to you.”

She caught her breath.

A flash of lightning illuminated the room.

BAM said the thunder.

FLASH answered more lightning.

“I so enjoyed our time in the library. Didn’t you?”

She could not speak.

“Can’t you answer me? I’ve gone to a great deal of trouble to reach you.”

And, finally, she could answer.

“Who are you?”

Pause.

Wheezing of breath.

And:

“That’s the question, isn’t it?”

“What do you want?”

Wheeze.

Wheeze.

Then, quietly:

“Nothing. Any more.”

“What are you talking about? How did you get this number?”

“I have access to a great many things. Most of them, as I now realize, useless.”

“What have you done with Laurencia?”

“Nothing.”

“If you’ve hurt her…”

“I have not. But it is over now.”

“What do you mean? What are you planning to do?”

“End it. The voice tells me to end it. Tonight.”

“Listen, you have to…”

“I have to end it. That is all. I obey only the voice. Only the one voice and no other. I have done my best. And now it is time to go.”

“Let me talk to Laurencia!”

“Of course. Laurencia is, I’m certain, quite eager to speak with you.”

“Then put her on! I want to be sure she’s all right!”

“No. You must come here.”

The sentence hit her like a blow in the stomach.

For a time she could not speak.

Then:

“What? What did you say?”

“I said that you must come here.”

“I…I can’t do that.”

“And why ever not?”

“I don’t know where you are.”

“Six eleven Clifford St. It’s a lovely garden apartment. Clifford Street is a mile or so about the U Street neighborhood. You’ll love it here, Nina. It’s a side of Washington that Laurencia and her friends have never shown you. Perhaps, to tell the truth, they’ve never seen it themselves. And that’s such a shame. For this neighborhood never rests. Laurencia and I, as we speak, are watching through the window, and looking at the sidewalk. Only the spattering of rain is to be seen, for the people who live and visit here are all warm and cozy inside the bars and the brothels. But the rain will stop sometime. And then they will be out again. The lovely ladies with their high heels and their red dresses and the long cigarettes that they smoke. All of this world you shall visit tonight. How exciting.”

“This apartment is ringed by security people. I can’t just get out and go where I want to.”

A pause and then the voice became deeper, more menacing:

“Then find a way, dammit! Sneak out in the rain! Whoever’s watching that damned place is dozing in the back seat or playing pinochle. And, by the way, aren’t you supposed to be the great Nina Bannister? Hell, you and this woman sitting here with me are supposed to be the next leaders of the free world! And you can’t get out of your own apartment? Don’t make me laugh!”

Another pause, and then the voice regained its earlier icy calmness.

“You’re biggest problem, Nina, might be finding a cab that will come here. Most of them won’t do so after midnight. Such cowards they all are!”

“Look, if you just…”

“And do be aware: you must come alone.”

“I’m just not certain that I…”

“Because if you don’t—if you try to bring your beautiful Hispanic Secret Service friend—or any stray policemen you may have picked up—if you do either of those things, I will immediately cut the throat of Ms.—sorry,
Senator
—Dalrymple here.”

“Please, please just…”

“Good night, Nina.”

And he hung up.

For a time, she simply sat on the side of the bed, thinking, hearing the bellowing of the storm and having no idea what to do.

Was this Jarrod Thornbloom, having ultimately gone mad?

Dicken had been certain.

Dicken had worked with Thornbloom for ten years. And Dicken was certain.

And as for Laurencia—how had he managed to abduct her? What had happened to
her
security?

And yet she could not forget the voice.

“Nina?”

“Nina?”

Exactly how Laurencia always sounded on the phone.

‘You have to come.’

‘Six eleven Clifford St.’

She sat and thought.

The security people were down there.

She could call them immediately.

She could call Sylvia Morales.

And, oh, how she wanted to do that!

Within ten minutes, perhaps less, there would be policemen and women swarming all over this lunatic’s
garden
apartment (if such a place even existed).

They would go in and find him and capture him.

And it would all be over.

She paused.

And, her thought continued on its own, like a runaway train…and Laurencia would be found lying in the bed with her throat cut.

No.

No, she had to go.

Dr. King’s words came back to her:

“The ultimate measure of a––woman––is not where––she––stands in moments of convenience and comfort, but where she stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

Well.

A little controversy here.

And a little challenge.

She got off the bed and began to get dressed.

Doing this took some time and also took her into Laurencia’s bedroom, where she found in one of the closets, a massive dark green rain slicker––her own was still in Bay St. Lucy—and equally formidable galoshes. In ten minutes time, she was outfitted like a forest ranger with everything but hatchet and hose…

…and in twelve minutes’ time, she was furtively shoving open the back porch door, much as Furl had learned to nose open her front porch door when he sensed food on the landing.

The rain was pouring harder than ever now, rattling on the paving stones beneath, and falling in sheets so thick that nothing could be seen from more than ten feet away except for the faint blue of street lights, which looked like stars twinkling oh so faintly in a water sky.

She made her way down the rickety back stairway, feeling like a burglar in reverse.

She reached the bottom stair and turned right, up the sidewalk, heading East.

Were those cars parked a few feet away, or just inert blobs of metal with streams of water running off their useless hoods?

Hard to tell.

At any rate, she realized that, if she could see nothing, than neither could she be seen.

She splashed her way on, up the street.

One of the finest law enforcement agencies in the world was now attempting to protect her.

And she was doing her best to escape from it.

In five minutes she
had
escaped from it.

And in ten minutes, feeling surprisingly warm due to the quality of Laurencia’s rain gear—she felt as though she were standing in a diving bell—she was standing at the northwest corner of Mt. Vernon Square.

“Taxi!”

There were several, even at midnight, even in this storm.

One of them pulled over and stopped.

She bent down and shouted through a crack in the open window:

“Six eleven Clifford Street! It’s…”

“I know where it is,” said the driver, and pulled away.

This happened twice more.

Finally, she found a driver who would take her.

She clambered into the cab, feeling like a nutria.

“Sorry,” she panted, wiping rainwater out of her eye and giving up on the prospect of ever drying her hair, “about getting your backseat wet.”

The driver pulled into the street, but looked at her through the mirror: