Once Bitten, Twice Dead Page 24

  However, like any good housewife knows, there are many weapons in the kitchen. I could see a rack of knives on the counter, but to use one of those I would have to get very close to Price. He would probably shoot me before I could stab him. I quietly pulled out the bottom drawer of the stove, and I beheld a treasure trove of pots and pans. I pulled out the biggest frying pan I could find and gripped it tightly. I would still have to get close, but a swing seemed better than a stab.

  I signaled the kids to begin yelling. Probably because they had been in total fear for two days they had much to release, and they really yelled. It almost scared me. I crouched behind the stove, and as Price ran in I rose and swung with all my might.

  He must have noticed my movement out of the corner of his eye because he turned slightly toward me, causing my aim to be slightly off. I ended up clobbering him on the arm, sending the gun against the front of the dishwasher. The piece fell to the floor right next to Chief Brown’s son. The kid must have been about ten, and all he could do was stare at the weapon.

  I didn’t have any more time to look because Price had recovered and with a loud bellow he charged at me. I swung again, but this time he hit my arm away and grabbed me around the neck. He was a powerful man, and the crazy look in his eyes told me how charged up he was. I had dropped the frying pan and was beginning to feel faint. I knew it was going to be the end for me, and soon the Chief and his entire family would be dead.

  A loud roar almost deafened me. Price’s grip loosened as he slumped to the floor. Part of his skull had splattered against my face, half blinding me. I wiped the blood out of eyes to see Brown’s son, Todd I think his name was, still holding the gun out in front of him, too afraid to drop it lest Price would get up again. However, Travis Price was now eternally still.

  “Give me the gun, Todd.”

  “My dad taught me to shoot last summer. That guy tied our hands in front of us so we could eat. He said he wanted to keep us alive for a long while so he could torture us.” Then Todd started to cry.

  I untied the kids and then the Chief and his wife. Brown had been beaten, but he still smiled when he saw me. “Good to see you, Stolle. You know you’ll get no overtime pay for this because you don’t work for us anymore.”

  Petrosky and the Swat Team had heard the gunshot and decided to rush in. Of course like all of us they were amazed at the heroism of Brown’s son. Brown himself had to admit that he had a horrible moment in the family room when he heard the gunshot. “I heard the scuffle, and then the shot—I didn’t know what had happened. I had been praying all this time anyway, so I just said another one.” The usually controlled Chief then gave all of us a hug, even the embarrassed Swat Team.

  When Price’s body had been removed, and things were getting somewhat back to normal (if that ever could happen), the Chief said to me: “You know anytime you want your old job back, it’s yours.”

  “Thanks anyway, Chief, I’m better off free-lancing. I’m beginning to understand myself better. I need space, freedom. If I ever run into a person who can give me that, maybe I’ll settle down, but for now it has to be Raven flying solo.

  “Besides, if I came back I wouldn’t know what to call you: ‘Chief,’ or ‘Thaddeus.’

  Brown looked at Petrosky who began to walk out of the room. “You’ll be pulling extra duty for that, son.”

  CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN

  I had surprised myself rushing into that house to rescue Chief Brown and his family. The biggest part of that surprise was that I didn’t falter. I am just now beginning to realize how protected my past life has been.

  Both my mom and dad had taken good care of me—they were always there—no absent father or mother at all in my early growing up period. Also, whenever I left the house to go to school, to go play, I always knew I had my brother, Mark, to watch my back. Even after my parents died, they left me with the protection of an inheritance.

  After Mark died, possibly I kept seeking that security, and maybe that’s why I went so quickly toward David. I needed another protector. When David left I crashed badly, but maybe not because I missed him—goodness knows, the last few months with him had been pretty miserable—what I was missing was the protection that David gave me. I was now all alone, and I couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t stand on my own two feet.

  I had thought that my “vacation” had refreshed me, but it really might have been that I saw I couldn’t run away from myself. Whether I was enjoying the sights of Venice or going down the Colorado River, it was still me doing those things. I felt better when I returned from those trips because for the first time in my life I was beginning to accept myself. I’m not superhuman, I have my flaws—but for sure I am Raven Stolle. No one else can say that, and also for the first time this Raven Stolle didn’t need anyone else to protect her.

  I went into the Chief’s home alone, and yes I could have been killed, but it wasn’t that I had succeeded that was important. What was important was that I had been able to do it alone. It felt wonderful. That was what my “birth” was all about.

  My new knowledge and feeling didn’t mean that I couldn’t eventually hook up with someone, but if I did it would not be in any kind of dependent relationship. I now had something to live for—myself.

  My thoughts were interrupted by someone entering my office. Even those words felt good: my office.

  Thoughts about myself quickly vanished, as I beheld who was now standing in front of me. It had to be a ghost. I closed my eyes and then opened them again. She was still there: Winnie Pramp.

  And what also seemed very real was that Winnie was pointing a very ugly-looking gun at me.

  “Hello, Detective Stolle, you’re looking well.”

  I didn’t know for how long I’d be well. “We have to stop meeting like this, Winnie. Have you crawled out of the grave?”

  “No, but I had crawled out of the Hudson River that night.”

  “I thought you were dead. Cody thought you were dead. He told me you had jumped into the River to end your life.”

  “I hadn’t lied to him. That’s what I was going to do, but all that changed when I hit the water.”

  Instantly I thought back to my feelings in Venice when I was sure I was going to drown. Possibly instead of therapy with psychiatrists, we should just throw people into large bodies of water.

  “What happened that night, Winnie? Sit down, relax, and tell me about it.”

  “I prefer to stand. I don’t think I’ll be staying long, but I will tell you. I do owe you that much because you gave me a good chase.

  “I started to swim out toward oblivion. That’s the town right next to despair. I didn’t care that the water was cold—it matched how I felt: already dead, I think. However, I swam maybe only thirty feet when common sense hit me. I was still a young person. I still had my whole life in front of me. I didn’t really want to die. Probably you can’t understand that, Detective.”

  “Oh, yes, I can, Winnie; but please go on.” I liked the fact that as she talked Winnie had gradually been lowering the gun.

  “I turned around to go back to the pier, but that meant also going back to jail. I had told Cody the truth about that—I wouldn’t be able to go back to that one tiny square cell where I would spend years and years. I knew it would be only a few minutes before you arrived on that pier and would arrest me. Also, I didn’t want to tell Cody that I had jumped to my death, but then no, I’d changed my mind. It sounded stupid. So I hid under the pier.

  “I heard you and Cody talking. I waited until you both left to go search the waters for me, and then I climbed back into life.” She had raised the gun back to the level of my chest.

  “So why are you here now, Winnie? And I am curious as to why you’re pointing that gun at me?”

  She looked at the piece in her hand, as if seeing it for the first time. “I did eventually contact Cody, and he seemed changed—he was upset at me, of course because I had betrayed him twice: abandoning him on that pier, and then not carrying thr
ough what I had told him. But the poor puppy, I think, loves me, and as a token of that, he gave me his gun because I’m still on the run. I had left my weapon in the smashed up car when you were chasing us.

  “Cody said he didn’t need a gun, anymore. He told me you had enough faith in him to not arrest him, and because of that he was going to change his life, and make something of himself. Cody is a weak person, so I don’t know if he will do what he says, but I did know that our relationship together was broken. I haven’t seen him since he gave me the gun.”

  “I’m asking again, Winnie. Why are you here?”

  “I tried to go about a normal life. I got myself a job, went to movies and bars, but I was always looking over my shoulder, expecting to see you. I was pretty sure you had just accidentally seen me at that basketball game, but why couldn’t we just happen to run into each other again? And, for the record, I’ll repeat to you what I had said to Cody that night: I’m not going back to prison.

  “I knew if you saw me again, you’d come after me, so the only way I could eliminate that threat is to eliminate you.” She took a step closer to my desk—she didn’t want to miss.

  With all my thinking about protection, a few minutes ago, I guess I was now experiencing one of the major disadvantages of not being protected: at this moment, no one was going to come save me. So start thinking, Raven honey.

  “Winnie, listen to what you had just said about your thoughts that night as you were heading toward the Atlantic Ocean. You have your entire life in front of you.”

  “Yeah, sitting in a stinking jail cell.”

  “There is such a thing as appeal. You said you didn’t mean to kill that boy.”

  “That is the truth. Cody said that he told you I was the only one holding Simon out that window, and that is accurate. But I didn’t try to kill the fool. I was so hammered that he just slipped out of my hands. I haven’t had a drink or done drugs since then. I’m not trying to tell you that I’ve become Mother Theresa, but I’m not a murderer.”

  “I do believe that, Winnie. So give me the gun.”

  “You’re not understanding me, Detective. I’m not going back to prison.”

  “Winnie, if you murder me, you’ll go to prison forever.”

  “They won’t catch me.”

  “Do you think, Winnie, that I’m the only person in the world who chases criminals. If I’m dead, there’ll just be another person, and then another person, chasing after you. You’ll always be looking over your shoulder.”

  I had said the wrong thing. I could see by the look on her face that my words had frightened Winnie. With a flick of her thumb she clicked the hammer back. “I’m very sorry, Detective Stolle.”

  For the second time in just a few minutes I closed my eyes again. That was dumb. Would it hurt less if my eyes were closed? I opened them to see Winnie placing the gun onto my desk top. She collapsed into the chair across from me. She shook her head back and forth, all the while saying, “I’m not a killer—I’m not a killer.”

  Gingerly I slid the gun toward me, thinking Winnie might still make a grab for it. But she had decided, and it was final.

  The gun was still cocked. I carefully released the hammer back and put the gun into my drawer.

  “You did the right thing, Winnie.”

  “You can visit me in my new prison home ten years from now and tell me the same thing. I can give you a tour of my cell and all its appointments.”

  I spoke my decision before I knew I had made it.

  “Winnie, I’m letting you go.”

  She looked at me. “Stolle, don’t mess with my mind.”

  “I’m serious, Winnie. I did feel Cody was worth it to get a new chance, and maybe you are, too.”

  “You are serious. Why would you do this?”

  “I don’t know, Winnie. Let’s leave it at that.” I wasn’t going to go into the fact that just recently I had given myself a second chance. And, what kind of a chance would a young girl like Winnie have spending the next decade in that tiny cell? Yes, I was being sympathetic, but also justice is much more than just enforcing laws.

  “Oh, thank you, Detective Stolle. Thank you so much.”

  “Now let’s not get all gushy here. I do want to see you turn your life around. I do think you can do it. As an aid to that goal, I’m going to keep your gun forever. In my profession, I can always use an extra piece.

  “And now that you and Cody are ‘gunless,’ maybe you both could face the world with just your own wits.”

  “Cody is a good guy. Like I said, the clown might actually be in love with me. I don’t know how I feel about him, but it might be fun to find out.”

  The last thing Winnie said to me on the way out was, “Maybe I’ll call you sometime, Detective Stolle, and we can go see a 76ers game.”

  “It’s a deal. Have a good life, Winnie.”

  CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT

  Now that I had released two people who probably had committed some kind of crime, maybe I’d better see if I could actually put some people in jail instead of keeping them out of it.

  After Winnie left, I randomly paged through the paper, waiting for my phone to ring. A week after David had gone I had put a new ad in the Yellow Pages, but other than the two Drexel students, lately I hadn’t gotten any results. Maybe my inheritance would run out sooner than I thought if I couldn’t get any detective work.

  In the entertainment section of The Inquirer I saw a blurb about a magician coming to the downtown Rialto Theater for a month-long engagement. He was giving a matinee performance today at two o’clock. I could just make it.

  That’s what I’ll do. Instead of waiting for Godot, because in the story he never did show up, I’ll go see a magic show. When I was a little kid my dad took me to one of those; and after watching birds, cars, and people disappear and appear I was hooked. I had an answering machine. I could check back with it later to see if anyone had needed my services while I was gone.

  I locked my drawer with Winnie’s gun in it and started for the door. I opened it to find a rather tall fellow with a nice smile standing there. He ran his hand through his sandy hair, and he shuffled sideways and back, like he was going to block my path.

  “I was just about to leave my office,” I said. That’s harder to do with you standing in my way.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” He blushed, but he didn’t move to the side.

  “If you want to see me about some detective work, I’ll take your name and phone, and we can set up an appointment.”

  Still he didn’t move. “It’s not about that.”

  This man was becoming a puzzle and an irritation.

  “What is it about, then?” I asked. “I’m in kind of a hurry. By the way, would you have stood here all afternoon if I hadn’t opened the door?”

  “No. . .uh. . .I was coming in. I guess I was just hesitant.”

  “Well, Mr. Hesitant, as I said I’ll take your name, and then we can arrange a time to meet.”

  He seemed to have not heard me. “It’s pretty important. I have to see you right now, or maybe I’ll chicken out again. This is the second time I’ve stood by your door. The first time I got cold feet and left.”

  This guy was becoming a mystery story all by himself. I was going to be late for that magic show. “Just tell me what’s so important that it can’t wait until tomorrow?”

  “I’m your brother.”

  “Yes, of course we’re all brothers under the Almighty, and all that, but I’ve really got to get going. Come back tomorrow, please.”

  As I brushed past him, he grabbed my arm.

  This was getting a little scary. We all know there are people wandering around who should be in mental institutions.

  “Let go of me. What is the matter with you?”

  “Nothing’s the matter with me. I really am your brother. Please let me come in, and I’ll explain it to you.”

  He looked desperate. Maybe we both should go back into my office so I could be closer to Winnie’s gu
n. I made a note in my brain to unlock my drawer as soon as I got behind my desk.

  The man followed me in. He had a slight limp, which suddenly made him more sinister to me. Were all handicapped people criminals? What was the matter with me? My fear was capturing me. I had to re-group and try to treat this guy objectively.

  Still, I sat down behind my desk and unlocked the drawer. “All right now,” I said, “we’re all comfy here—tell me your story. But I will have to tell you first that my brother is dead.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” And he just kept staring at me.

  Was I on a hidden-camera game show?

  “Whoever you are, please let’s get to it. Tell me why you’re here, and why you keep insisting you’re my brother.”

  He took a deep breath. My name is Trevor Dawkins. Your mother and father—my mother and father—had me when they were in their teens. Dad was eighteen; mom was seventeen. It seems that they felt they were just too young to properly take care of a baby. So they put me up for adoption. I knocked around a couple of foster homes for four or five years, and then the Dawkins family adopted me. Mr. Dawkins at the time was a golf pro, but the Mrs. wanted to stay home and have a child—I guess she couldn’t conceive—so they went to an adoption agency and got me. I guess they picked me because I was so cute. Just kidding. They always told me the selection was pretty random, but they really lucked out. That’s what they said.

  My stepfather wasn’t doing very well as a golf pro so he eventually took a job with a company in Vermont that sold snow-removal equipment. We lived there ten years. I loved it up there. By the time I was seven I had learned to ski. Also I had all the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream I could eat since Burlington, where we were, is their home office. But my dad was always fanatical for that golfing, so we moved back here when he was able to get a job running the pro shop at the Downingtown Country Club. I’ve always called Mr. and Mrs. Dawkins my dad and mom. Currently my mom does some selling on QVC, you know that home-shopping network, where they try to have you buy something right over the TV. They’ve been great parents. They always told me they weren’t my real parents, but they’ve treated me like I was one of theirs.