The Dead Room (7 page)

13

‘Cop,’ Jamie repeated.

Ben grinned, flashing his bloody teeth. ‘Glad to see that bullet I put in your head didn’t impair your hearing.’

A sensation like slicing razor blades ran up her spine, reached the base of her skull and then made its way through the scarred meat of her brain. Brought her back to the place she had lived every day since the shootings – a space of perpetual darkness where the air felt like concrete blocks stacked against her skin, her bones threatening to crack with each breath.

‘Badge,’ she said.

‘I’m more of the undercover variety, so I don’t carry one. Bad for business.’

Her heart banged away inside her chest.

Ben licked his swollen, bloody lips. ‘I don’t expect you to take my word for it, so here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to give you a number to call, and this person will explain the facts of life to you. You got a phone?’

She had left it inside the minivan. Driving to Belham, she had called Michael to tell him she was still at the hospital and wouldn’t be home until late; she asked him to give Carter a bath. She’d tossed the phone on the passenger seat and forgotten about it until now, her focus on tailing the BMW without being spotted.

‘A simple yes or no will do,’ Ben said.

‘My… ah… husband.’

‘Danny.’ Ben saying it as if they had been the closest of friends.

‘Why… you… ah… did you –’

‘The person you’re about to call will explain everything. Let me know when you’re ready to start dialling. If you don’t have a phone, you can borrow mine. It’s in my right-front pocket.’

Jamie didn’t move – was suddenly afraid to move. Something about the way Ben had shifted the tables on her, dictating what he wanted her to do in that calm voice of his, kept her feet planted.

‘Tell… me.’

‘The number is six one seven, two –’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Husband. Why?’

‘You’ve got to speak to my man. He can –’

‘No. You… ah… ah… explain.’

‘I understand you’re pissed and want your questions answered right now. Don’t begrudge you that in the least. I mean, you’ve prayed for this moment for a long time and want it to go your way.’

Ben closed his eyes for a moment, then took in a deep breath. In her mind’s eye she could see the locked door at the end of the hall – the dead room. She had replaced the beige carpet and repainted the walls. It looked and smelled new, but each time she went in she thought she could still smell blood. She remembered Michael screaming behind the duct tape covering his mouth. Ben had covered their eyes with duct tape, but she had tipped over her chair and, while she was struggling on the floor, the tape had slid down; she saw Ben take out a gun and fire at Michael but there was only a dry click and Michael looked at her and her first thought – and it shamed her to admit this – her first thought had been to protect Carter, he was younger, more vulnerable. She remembered Ben putting on a pair of bifocals and studying the gun and then saying, ‘Goddamn chamber’s empty. Imagine that.’

She remembered everything. Every moment, every sound and scream.

‘Here’s our dilemma,’ Ben said, opening his eyes. ‘I can’t think too well on account of the blood loss and the fact that you slammed my noggin against the floor. What I’m saying is I’m a little fuzzy on the details. You want your questions answered, then I suggest you start dialling now because I think I’m going to pass out.’

‘Partners,’ she said. ‘Names.’

‘You need to talk to my supervisor. I swear, with God as my witness, he’ll tell you everything you need to know.’

Please, Mrs Russo, please don’t scream or run.

Ben saying those words as he stood inside her kitchen holding Carter. Her eighteen-month-old son’s tiny fingers wrapped around the Colt’s barrel, trying to put it in his mouth.

Just do what I say, Mrs Russo, and I swear, with God as my witness, we won’t hurt you or the kids. We just want to have a little talk with Danny when he gets home, okay?

Jamie slammed Ben’s face against the side of the boot. He fell sideways, fresh blood pouring from his nose.

‘Christ, you mean business, don’t you?’ he said after he finished gagging.

‘Names,’ Jamie said.

‘Make the phone call.’

No. It was a trap. What was the person he wanted her to call going to do? Trace the call? A cop could do that with a warrant. Did the phone have some sort of GPS unit in it that could locate him? Anyone could do that with the right software and equipment – as long as the phone was turned on. Was it turned on right now?

She reached into his pocket and removed the mobile. It was something called a Palm Treo. It was turned on; a tiny green light blinked, sending out a signal. She took out the battery and stuffed everything inside her jacket pocket.

A new expression on Ben’s face now: anger.

‘Make the call,’ Ben said again. ‘That’s the only way this is going to work.’

Her eyes grew hot and tears spilled down her cheeks. In her mind she saw Carter sitting in the bathtub, saw the two hard, round, white scars the size of half dollars on his back left by the exit wounds.

Jamie placed the Magnum’s muzzle against Ben’s kneecap and fired.

Ben howled in pain, the sound tearing something free from inside her chest. Something that cooled her blood and made her limbs shake.

‘
NAMES
.’

Ben couldn’t answer. He was screaming, the tendons in his neck bulging underneath the skin like rope as he flopped around inside the boot.

She tucked the Magnum back inside the holster, then grabbed him by the jacket. Ben tried to fight her, struggling with his bound wrists and ankles, but he was too weak, in too much pain. She threw him on the ground.

‘
N-N-N-NAMES
.’

His mouth quivered, spitting up blood. He didn’t answer.

She looked at his knee, then slammed her foot down on the shredded pulp of skin and fractured bones.

Ben howled again, his face turning a deep, dark red – the same shade Dan’s face had been when she found his head resting inside the kitchen sink.

Ben made a weird gurgling sound. As if he were drowning. She grabbed him underneath the arms, lifted him up and dragged him across the damp ground. His body jerked and he vomited blood.

She threw his legs over the edge of the cliff, then pulled him up into a sitting position. She pushed his head forward so he could see the oily slick of water shimmering in the moonlight far below.

‘
N-n-n-n-n-names
,’ she sputtered against his bloody ear. ‘
P-p-p-partner… n-n-names.
’

Ben sucked in air. Vomited.

‘
Tell me. Tell or… ah… ah…
’

He didn’t answer.

She shook him. ‘
Off ledge… throw you… water…
’

Ben wouldn’t answer.

‘
Drown… in… ah… drown. Water. You’ll drown.
’

Ben refused to speak. She let go of him and reached for the Magnum, prepared to shoot his other knee, to shoot him into pieces until he spoke.

His body slumped against the ground. Ben didn’t cough or move – oh, Jesus, oh, Jesus, no. She dropped to her knees and pressed her fingers against his slick, bloody neck.

There, a faint pulse.

‘
N-N-N-Names!
’

Jamie shook him. He stared up at her, his head bobbing from side to side.

She slapped him across the face.

He groaned. His lips quivered.

‘
TELL… AH… TELL ME
.’

Ben didn’t answer but his lips kept moving. Blood trickled out of his ears. He was bleeding out. Dying. The answers she needed were caged somewhere inside his skull and she wouldn’t know them unless Ben woke up. He
had
to wake up.

She pressed her mouth against his, the slick, bloody mess sliding against her lips, and screamed air into his lungs until she was dizzy. She pulled her mouth away, gagging, then pumped his chest with her fists the way she’d been taught – three sharp pumps. Ben didn’t move or make a sound. She screamed air down into his lungs again. Ben lay still. Jamie pounded his chest with her fists and he didn’t move and she kept hitting him and screaming for him to wake up even though she knew it was too late.

14

Jamie scrubbed the blood from her face and her scraped and swollen hands using napkins and a half-full bottle of water she’d found in a McDonald’s bag tossed on the back floor of the Honda.

She checked her face in the side mirror. The left side was swollen but clean. She couldn’t do anything about the blood on her clothes and sneakers until she got home.

You better pray to God you don’t get pulled over
.

She tossed the bloody napkins inside the boot. Ben stared up at her with a puzzled expression.
Why so sad, hon? Did you really think I was going to tell you what you needed to know? You were going to kill me anyway, so what was in it for me?

Ben could have told her everything and she still would have killed him. She had known that the second she decided to follow him from the drugstore.

Jamie reached inside the boot, pinched his eye and came away with a bright blue contact lens. Ben’s real eyes were brown, just as she remembered.

She searched his zippered pockets and found a Tiffany key ring and wallet. She wondered if one of the keys opened the house in Charlestown. Maybe the fat guy in the Hawaiian shirt lived there. Maybe he was the man who had killed her husband.

She stuffed Ben’s things in her pockets. Slammed the boot lid shut, placed her hands on the bumper and started to push. The damp ground was muddy but sloped forward and after a moment the car started to pick up speed.

I’ll let you in on a secret
, Ben had told her.
I’m a cop
.

Bullshit. An undercover cop or Fed wouldn’t have forced his way inside a house and shot two children in cold blood. A cop wouldn’t have allowed two men to shove someone’s hand inside a running waste-disposal unit and wrap a noose around their neck. A cop wouldn’t have broken into a house and slit a woman’s throat. Ben had made it up, a last-ditch attempt to spare his life.

The front tyres dripped over the edge. Jamie gave a final push and let go. She stood hunched forward with her hands on her knees, sweating and sucking in the muggy night air as the car disappeared from her view.

For a moment the only sounds she heard were the crickets chirping from the woods. Then a loud splash that sounded far away, as though it was happening in another place, at another time. Standing at the cliff’s edge, she watched the car being swallowed inside a cyclone of silver moonlit bubbles. Growing up in Belham, she remembered the time some drunk had fallen over in the water. For days divers searched for the man’s body. It was never found.

Her muscles tensed and her skin grew cold. What if the car didn’t sink? What if the water was too shallow? In the evening’s chaos she hadn’t thought through that possibility.

All her worrying, it turned out, was for nothing. The car sank below the black water shivering with moonlight. The surface grew calm again.

She headed towards the path, hot and uncomfortable underneath the bloody windbreaker. She wished she could take it off but it covered the shoulder holster and Ben’s Glock, which was wedged in the back of her jeans. The extended magazine kept digging into her lower back.

She had a long walk ahead of her. She had parked on Kale, a busy neighbourhood off Blakely full of other suburban homes with minivans much like her own. She knew she couldn’t watch him from the neighbourhood – too risky, too exposed; plus Ben or his partner had started drawing the front shades of the house. Fortunately, she knew Belham and knew where to park.

Jamie hoped the teenager was okay.

She hadn’t known he was inside, not at first. Standing in the hot, dark woods behind the house, she had debated about moving to the back fence for a closer view, then ruled it out. The homes were too close together. Someone might be watching from a window, see her and call the police. Safer to watch from inside the woods.

In addition to the Magnum, she’d brought the small pair of binoculars she kept in the back of the minivan. (Michael liked to use them; Dan had bought them for sporting events and those rare times he went hunting. She kept them in the glovebox.) From her vantage point she could see only part of the kitchen. She had an excellent view of the sliding glass door leading into the living room and for a long time watched Ben search every inch of the room, even going so far as to cut the chair and sofa cushions. Not once did she see the teenager tied down to the chair.

That changed later, when she heard a car pull into the driveway, and the mechanical chug as the motor hauled up the garage door.

Jamie remembered trying to find a new vantage point. The tree limbs kept obstructing her view. Walking through woods in the dark, in a hurry and without the aid of a flashlight, wasn’t desirable. She kept tripping and bumping into things. It was slow, tedious work.

By the time she’d found a new spot, the blonde-haired woman in the blue T-shirt was taped down to a chair seated across from her son, their eyes covered with duct tape. The boy’s mouth was taped shut but not the woman’s; Jamie could see her screaming as the man with the suit started breaking her fingers. Ben stood behind him holding a barber’s straight-edged razor.

Jamie reached for her phone, then remembered she’d left it in the minivan. It didn’t matter. Even if she had brought it, by the time she stammered through the 911 call the woman and boy would be dead. Ben had just cut off one of the woman’s fingers.

Jamie’s first thought – and it shamed her to admit this – was evidence. As a former cop, her fingerprints were stored on a database. She couldn’t leave her prints or any other evidence for the police to find; she had to protect her children. She fumbled at her zippered pocket for the latex gloves.

What happened next came back to her in a series of flashes: running down the incline, slipping and falling. Getting up and tripping again. Finally finding the gate. Unzipping her jacket, grabbing the Magnum and sprinting across the lawn. Moving quietly up the back steps, not wanting to alert Ben and his partner, then discovering that the sliding glass door was locked. The woman screaming. Two shots and the glass shattering. Climbing inside. From the living room, firing two shots at the suited man, hitting him in the stomach. Swinging the Magnum to Ben and seeing the woman’s cut throat. A shot to the thigh and Ben falling backwards, on top of the boy, tipping over the chair. Kicking Ben in the stomach and then grabbing the handcuffs from the suited man lying on the floor, bleeding out of his chest. Wrestling Ben on the floor and cuffing him. Then picking up the spent brass.

A quick search of the woman’s pockets revealed the set of keys for the Honda. With Ben cuffed and taped inside the boot, Jamie came back, picked up the straight-edged razor and cut through the boy’s bindings. She left the strips of tape covering his eyes, placed the cordless phone she’d found on the floor in his hand and ran fast to the waiting car.

Jamie wished she could talk to the boy. Hold his hand and share her story, a fellow traveller who could help him navigate his way through this new landscape of grief.

Jamie drove well under the speed limit in case any cops were out on patrol. She turned on the radio and moved the dial to Boston’s all-news radio station, WBZ.

She had to wait fifteen minutes to find out what had happened in Belham.

Police hadn’t released the names of the woman or the boy. A reporter on the scene described ‘an intense shootout in the woods behind the home that included stun and smoke grenades’. The reporter didn’t have any details, as ‘police have refused to comment’.

Jamie wondered if the fat man in the Hawaiian shirt was involved. He had parked the BMW at the end of the street. Had the police somehow found him? Maybe tried to corner his BMW? Had Mr Hawaii tried to escape through the woods?

The reporter had a breaking development. One of the victims, a male teenager who had been rushed to hospital, had apparently committed suicide. Nothing more was given, but the reporter urged listeners to stay tuned for further details.

Suicide. The boy had seemed around the same age as Michael, her thirteen-year-old. Jamie drove the rest of the way home numb all over.

Forty minutes later she pulled into her driveway. She didn’t open the garage, not wanting to wake the kids. She ran to the back of the house and unlocked the cellar door. She heard the beep for the burglar alarm, entered the code, and then placed Ben’s Glock and the things from her pocket on Dan’s old desk – a slab of plywood the size of a door set across two metal filing cabinets. When he was alive, Dan would come down here to catch up on paperwork or to read through one of his woodworking magazines.

She picked up Ben’s wallet. No credit cards, just a licence with the name Benjamin Masters. Local address too: Boston.
Has he been living here all this time?

She picked up the Glock, turning it over in her hands.

Three safeties, three modes of fire: safe, automatic and semi-automatic. Laser-targeting sight mounted against the frame. She examined the barrel and found the model number. A Glock eighteen. She’d never heard of it. She ejected the extended magazine and read the words stamped into the metal tubing:
RESTRICTED IN THE USA
.

The rounds had a pitted nose. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up.

She knew about hollow-point rounds, how they expanded when they hit the victim’s skin, the pressure from the rush of blood expanding the snub-nose tip and turning it into a spinning mushroom of razor-sharp lead claws that shred tissue and organs as it spiralled its way through the body. Hollow-point rounds were one-stop shots. Even with immediate medical attention, victims usually died from massive blood loss.

If Ben had shot me
, she thought, placing the Glock back on the desk,
I wouldn’t be alive right now
.

Standing inside the kitchen, she stuffed all of her clothing and the spent brass inside a rubbish bag. She tossed the bag inside the garage. She’d find a place to dump it later. She walked back down the hall to use the shower. Scrubbed clean, she grabbed a pair of cotton shorts and a T-shirt from the dryer and went upstairs to see the kids.

Michael’s room first. She kissed him on the forehead. Michael, with his sandy-brown hair and lean swimmer’s build, looked so much like his father it was painful.

Carter wasn’t in his bedroom.

She found him sleeping in her bed.

Jamie crawled underneath the sheets and cuddled up next to her six-year-old. He smelled clean. Good. Michael had remembered to give him a bath.

She wrapped her arm around Carter’s small waist and pulled him close. The blond stubble of his buzz cut tickled her chin.

She was too wired to sleep. She stared out of the window at the dark sky and rubbed her fingers across the thick lines of scars covering his stomach – permanent reminders of the scalpels that had cut him open to save his life. The ER doctors had managed to stem the bleeding and repair the damage to his stomach and lungs.

‘Dead,’ she whispered against Carter’s ear. ‘Killed him.’

Her son breathed softly beside her. He didn’t suffer from nightmares any more, not like he had the first year, when he’d wake up screaming in the middle of the night. Sometimes he’d crawled into bed with her. Sometimes she’d woken to find him standing at her bedroom window, chewing the corner of his ratty blue blanket. She’d asked him what was wrong but the answer was always the same:
I’m watching for the bad men, Mom. Do you think they’ll come back?

Jamie hugged her son.

‘I will… find… find… partners,’ she whispered. ‘Kill… them.’ She said the words to Carter. To the cool air inside the locked house. To God. ‘I will… kill them to… to… keep you and Michael safe.’