Cheated By Death (31 page)

Richard rolled onto his knees, stumbled to
his feet and fell against me, nearly toppling us both. Ray stood
behind us and yanked my coat, wrenching the sleeves back to further
bind me. He did the same to Richard.

“Now, over by the door.” We stood by numbly
while he opened it. He motioned Richard in—I filed in after
him.

High ceilings with exposed pipes towered
above us. Safety lights cut shafts of yellow, leaving the rest of
the place bathed in gloom. We followed a painted pathway on the
concrete floor, past rows of ceiling-height shelves and stacked
pallets. The place was deadly quiet, with no hum of machinery or
the bustle of workers—just our hollow footfalls echoing through the
cavernous room.

Ray called out directions, left, right,
right, left. I tried to memorize the way so I’d know how to get
out—
if
we ever got out. Maggie knew we’d come here, but how
long would it be before our absence made her suspicious?

More lights loomed ahead. A fork lift was
parked near scores of shelves enclosed by a chain link fence.
“Stop,” Ray called out. We halted in front of a tool crib. Close
by, Patty hugged a support beam, her wrists tied by the same
plastic strips. She heard us approach, lifting her swollen,
tear-stained face. Blotched mascara gave her raccoon eyes. A puddle
of urine encircled her bare feet. How long had she been there?

I recognized her torn, rumpled beige jacket.
A silver snowflake pin gleamed on the lapel.

Just like in my nightmare.

“I’m sorry,” Patty sobbed. “I didn’t know
what he was. How could I know?”

“Shut up,” Ray growled.

A video camera on a tripod stood ten feet
from Patty. Marty Concillio had received a video of his wife’s
murder.

“Stop,” Ray commanded. He shoved the rifle
barrel into my back. “On your knees.”

I did as I was told, stayed put as he marched
a still-punchy Richard over to the tool crib, looped another
plastic strip through the bindings and fastened it to the crib’s
chain link door. Then he looped a strand around Richard’s ankles,
attaching it to the fence.

“On your feet,” he ordered me.

I hauled myself up. He grabbed me by my coat
sleeve, shoved me to the crib’s door then bound me to the other
side so Richard and I were back to back.

I avoided Ray’s gaze, unwilling to challenge
him. He backed off, leaving us.

I glanced over my shoulder at Richard. A
rivulet of drying blood marred the side of his face where Ray had
hit him.

“Are you all right?” I whispered.

He didn’t answer. His breathing was too fast.
Humiliation or shock?

Ray set the rifle on the bench in front of
the crib. He grabbed an open beer and took a gulp. His flush of
victory bombarded my senses. Thankfully, I couldn’t read Richard or
Patty because my own escalating fear spiraled into panic.

“What’re you going to do with us?” Richard
asked.

“What do you think?” A self-satisfied smirk
twisted Ray’s features. “You don’t even know why, do you?”

“Dorothy Pfister,” Richard said.

“She was my mother.”

Richard let out a sharp breath. “We tried to
save her.”

Ray’s laugh was mirthless. “Yeah, right.”

“How old were you when it happened, Ray?” I
asked. “Six, seven?”

“Eight.”

“Then you only had a kid’s perspective—you
really don’t know what happened.”

“I know enough. My mother died. It took ten
years for my stepfather to drink himself to death. He beat the shit
out of me nearly every day. You haven’t got a clue.”

Oh, yes I did.

“You can’t trust what a drunk tells you,” I
said. “They’ll say anything—believe the worst.”

“When my mother went to the hospital, she was
fine. Then she died, and I lost a brother.”

“Your mother wasn’t fine,” Richard said.

Ray ignored him, tipped the can back, and
drained it. He crushed it in his fist and tossed it into a trash
barrel. His smile was chilling.

“Until his wife died, Dr. James Martin
Concillio was a dedicated employee of New York State,” Ray said. “I
recognized the name immediately. I’d heard it every fucking day for
ten years. We finally met my first day as a guest of the state. I
knew him—but he didn’t know me. Three years in a stinking cell in
Sonyea. Three years, I planned. I took my time. Why be in a
hurry?”

“You killed his son and his wife,” Richard
said.

“And let six months pass between each one.”
Ray’s malevolent smile tightened. “The cops never put it all
together. All three—different modus operandi. Yeah. Real different.
I made sure to drive Concillio crazy. It was nothing less than he
deserved. Then there was just you,” he said, his gaze nailing
Richard.

Richard said nothing.

“Once I got back to Buffalo, everything just
kind of fell together. I spent a lot of time at City Hall and the
library finding out about you two. Even dabbled in a little
genealogy. That’s how I knew Patty was
his
sister,” he
nodded toward me. “I staked out your wife and found that Medsco was
a supplier for the Williamsville Women’s Health Center. Getting a
job here was a piece of cake. I just took out one of the
drivers.”

“You killed him?” Richard asked, aghast.

“Nah—just broke his legs. I’m a firm believer
in networking, and prison introduced me to people from all walks of
life. Course, I was pissed when Patty told me she’d never even met
her brother. Lucky for me your old man was sick and died,” he said,
and laughed. “Otherwise, I might not have had as much fun. The
letters, the calls. I had you going there, didn’t I? And you jerks
thought it was her ex-husband—or those stupid church fucks.” His
smile widened.

Just what had Patty told him? I strained to
look at her over my shoulder.

“Everything was right on schedule ’til last
night when you didn’t show,” Ray continued. “I lost patience and
started the fun without you,” he said, and stepped close to Patty,
lifting her chin. She wouldn’t look him in the eye. “Now I want
Dr
. Alpert,” he announced the title with revulsion, “to
suffer. Like my family. Like my mother.”

“I tried to save her,” Richard said.

Ray stroked Patty’s face, trailed his fingers
down her neck, continued over her chest, and squeezed her left
breast. She recoiled, clamping her eyes shut, a squeal of anguish
escaping her lips.

“Leave her alone,” Richard said.

Ray withdrew his hand and glared at my
brother, a lascivious grin covered his features. “Are you fond of
the bitch?”

Richard kept silent.

Ray’s grin widened. He reached for Patty’s
bound hands, took hold of the little finger on her left hand and
yanked, the crack of bone and her agonized scream reverberated
through the factory's silence.

“Stop!” Richard commanded.

Ray’s laughter cascaded through the room,
shock waves of his triumph echoing through me. This show was for
Richard’s benefit.

“What about you, big brother,” he said to me.
“You want me to break another finger?”

“Why should I care?” I bluffed. “I only met
her two weeks ago.”

Richard glared at me over his shoulder.

Suddenly Ray was in front of me and leaned
close, snorted sour beer breath in my face. “That’s the problem
with
your
family. You don’t give a shit about anyone,” he
grated. “That’s why my mother died.”

He turned, reached under the bench, and
brought out a wrapped bundle. Unfastening it, he spread out a gray
flannel cloth, arranging four bone-handled knives of various sizes,
their blades glinting dully under the fluorescent light. Then he
unwrapped a sharpening stone.

Ray looked up at me before selecting a knife.
“Concillio never knew ’til the day I gut-shot him that I’d whacked
his kid. His wife was even more fun. The papers said it was a
ritual slaying, because her re-pro-ductive organs were
missing.”

He laughed. The sound of steel rubbing the
wet stone grated on my nerves.

“I read the anatomy books in the prison
library, so I knew what I was doing . . . but it was a sloppy job.
Kind of like what
you
did.” He glared at Richard for long
seconds before going back to sharpening the blades.

“I watched that tape I made when I did
Concillio’s wife over and over. Next time, I’ll do better.”

“Next time?” I asked.

Ray didn’t answer.

Time.

I glanced at the opposite wall. A
plastic-faced clock with a sweep hand kept vigil. How long had we
been here? Five minutes?

Ray concentrated on his work. “Lucky the way
it all fell together. No, it was more than luck—it was fate. I even
got to scope out your house the day I drove Patty there. I know
where the phone lines are. Where the electrical comes in. That new
security system should be easy enough to disable.”

“I suppose you learned that in prison, too?”
I said.

“It’s the State’s goal to rehabilitate every
inmate. We have to make a living on the outside, you know.” He
tested the knife’s sharpness, found it lacking, and started in
again.

“I heard your old lady lost your kid,
Doctor
Alpert.” Ray continued. “Ain’t that too bad. Maybe
now you know how it feels. But that’s only the half of it. Next
you’re gonna lose your woman. But before I do her, I’m gonna have
me a piece of brown sugar.”

Richard sagged, yanking me backward. “No,
please.”

Ray laughed. “Then I’ll come back for
her
,” he pointed at Patty, “then
you
—” Me. His
shark-eyes bored into Richard. “I’m saving
you
for
last.”

“You—you can’t, Ray,” Patty cried. “You said
you’d let me go. You said if I called them you’d—”

“I’ve had just about enough of you, bitch. If
you don’t shut your goddamned mouth . . . . ”

Patty’s hiccoughing sobs started anew.

“You’ll never get away with this,” Richard
said.

“You got away with butchering my mother.”

“She came in too late. Her condition—the
weather—”

“She died because you screwed up!”

“The Medical Board said—”

“Doctors stick up for their own. Besides, the
hospital paid. They wouldn’t have if
you
weren’t at
fault.”

Richard sighed, as though realizing the
futility of arguing.

Something clicked inside my head. The money.
Was that the focus of Ray’s anger?

“What happened to the money?” I asked.

Ray looked away.

“I take it you didn’t get your share?” I
tried again.

“Keep quiet.”

It all made sense, now. A sociopath and
probably a career punk, he’d fucked up, landed in jail, and had
three years to think about the cause of all his troubles, figuring
his life had soured the day his mother died.

“Was there a trust?” I asked. “Or did your
old man drink it all away?”

“Shut. Up.”

“Sure. Why else would you kill? You tried to
squeeze Concillio for money. He refused to pay.”

“I told you to shut up!” he said, eyes
widening, his anger rising.

“You never gave a shit about your mother,” I
said, knowing I should keep silent, but I was on a roll. “All you
cared about was the money you thought you’d get. And when you found
there wasn’t any, and the only person to blame was dead, you
decided to go after the people who actually tried to save Dorothy
Pfister’s life. You poor sick bastard,” I said, contempt coloring
my words.

Ray rushed me, knocking me and the hinged
gate back, slamming Richard against the chain link wall. Ray’s
hands gripped my throat, throttling me.

“Stop, Ray—stop! Please,” Patty begged.

“Shut up, bitch.”

Richard pulled against his restraints,
yanking the cage door and me backward. “Stop! Sweet Jesus, stop
it!”

Ray hung on, his thumbs pressing harder
against my windpipe. His murderous eyes drilled mine.

I couldn’t escape, couldn’t breathe. My heart
pounded, and my vision dappled.

“Ray, you spineless sonuvabitch,” Patty
screamed. “You can kill him, but you can’t kill the truth!”

Ray let go and whirled on her. “I said shut
up!”

Chest heaving, sweet air filled my tortured
lungs as my knees buckled, pulling the chain link door forward,
yanking Richard off-balance.

Grabbing one of the knives, Ray stalked over
to the post, cut the plastic binding Patty’s wrists. He grabbed her
by the hair, threw her to the floor.

“Not again,” Patty whined like a frightened
child.

Muscles trembling, I strained to look past my
shoulder, but they were out of view. Richard yanked at his
bindings, rattling the chain link.

Fabric ripped.

Patty’s wail echoed off the vaulted ceiling,
searing my soul.

“Stop it, you sonuvabitch. Stop!” Richard
shouted.

“Don’t,” I rasped. “He wants us to react. It
makes him feel more powerful.”

“For God’s sake, he’s raping her.”

“Don’t you think I know that?”

Ray’s hands muffled Patty’s anguished
cries.

I looked around, searching, searching the
tool crib for some way out, some weapon. I had to keep my mind off
what was happening. What was going to happen.

I’d promised Sophie I’d keep Patty safe.

I’d failed.

And we were all going to die.

I scanned the rows of drawers, boxes, in the
tool crib. A pegboard wall held hammers, tin snips, pliers, and
screw drivers. A fire extinguisher hung by the door. CO2 could
freeze the plastic at our wrists, make it shatter—but the result
would be useless hands from chemical burns.

Ray yelped. “You little bitch!”

A slap.

Patty cried out.

A dull thunk—flesh and bone slammed onto
concrete. The sounds of struggle subsided. Only Richard’s haggard
breathing broke the terrible quiet.

Shuffling noises. Ray’s zipper. Booted feet
on concrete scuffed past Richard. Ray. Sweaty. Sated. Blood welling
along a deep scratch across his cheek.