Garman waved the gun.
“Know what this is?” he asked lightly.
I shrugged. “A .22? Maybe a .38. I don’t know that much about guns.”
He beamed. “That’s not what I meant. See, Danny, this is the gun that killed Brooks Riley.”
“You mean—”
He took a couple steps back, out of my reach. No fool.
“My wife Elaine. My soon-to-be-
ex
-wife. She thinks she’s so smart. Like I wouldn’t find out about her and Riley. Like I’d stand for being cuckolded by that bitch. After all the shit she’s put me through.”
I had it now. The pieces clicked together in my mind.
“
You
killed Brooks,” I said, “just before the patient riot. When you left your office for my files. You told Polk and me you’d just need a minute…”
“I was right. That’s all it took.”
Never taking my eyes from his gun, I reached to grip the wing strut beside me. I needed the feel of its cold solidity to ground me. Order my thoughts.
“You went down to Brooks’ office, shot him, and brought the files back to your office.
Easy
. Then the alarm bell sounded. Per your arrangement with Lucy.”
“Yep. See, you had the steps down right, but figured the wrong person. Elaine.”
“But Lucy admitted to the cops it was Elaine who—”
“Christ, Danny. I
told
her to finger Elaine if the cops pressed her.
I’m
the one keeping her supplied with nose candy. Her main man, she calls me. Trust me, that’s all she gives a shit about.”
“While you get to see your wife charged with murder.”
“Sweet, eh?”
He shouldn’t have smiled. But he did, dropping his guard for only a moment.
Which was all I needed.
I pivoted off from the wing strut, kicking out at him with my left foot. Literally airborne for a second. I didn’t connect—knew I wouldn’t—but it changed the equation. Startled, he staggered back, gun jerking in his hand, firing. Into the rafters.
I hit the pavement hard and rolled to my left, under the jet’s fuselage.
“Goddam you, Danny!” He righted himself. Fuming.
I stayed low, moving along the length of the jet’s body, keeping it between me and Garman.
“Now where the fuck did you go?” Garman’s voice echoed off the high ceiling.
I made my way to the jet’s tail, crouched beneath the cross-wings. Behind me, one of the hanging lamps threw an oval of pale light. I saw Garman’s shadow creeping slowly on the other side of the aircraft.
At the same time, my mind raced, knitting the story together. What really happened at Clearview. Garman had had an affair with Loretta Pruitt, one of his patients. Maybe he wanted to break it off, maybe she did. But Kevin happened to be on the roof and saw the whole thing.
Garman was getting closer, on his side of the jet. My best bet was to keep him talking. Distracted.
“Kevin saw you strangle Loretta Pruitt, didn’t he, Bert? That night on the roof.”
His laugh was bitter. “So that’s how we’re gonna play it, eh, Danny? Cat-and-mouse. Okay, I’ll play. Except I’m the one with the gun.”
A shot boomed, loud as cannon-fire. I ducked just in time, as a slug tore into the jet’s tail above my head.
“Truth is, Loretta was a total pain, but a maniac in bed. Nothing like a woman with low self-esteem, I always say. But I wanted to end it, so she threatened to talk. Destroy my career. Naturally I couldn’t allow that.”
His shadow froze where he stood, a silhouette with a gun in its hand. He was trying to orient himself.
I backed away from the jet, out of the light. Felt my way behind me in the dark with my hands.
I kept my voice even. “But she’d already told Kevin. They’d become friends. Maybe she even told him she was meeting you that night. So he followed her.”
“Who cares? All I know is, I squeezed the bitch till she was dead and tossed her off the roof. Then I looked behind me and there’s Kevin Merrick, staring at me…”
An irritated grunt. “Where the hell
are
you, Danny boy? This is getting—”
But I saw it coming. I rolled to the floor as Garman leapt from behind the jet’s tail and fired. The bullet whizzed over my head and shattered a wall lamp, spraying glass. The pool of light winked out.
“Shit, Danny, now we’re
both
in the dark.”
Gulping air, I crouched and edged toward a bank of thick wooden work benches along a far wall. I had to keep pressing him, throw off his concentration.
“So Kevin sees you kill Loretta, you threaten him—”
“I didn’t have to.” I tracked Garman’s footsteps as he advanced. “He
knew
. Ran down the stairs and disappeared. I searched half the night for him. Then all hell breaks loose the next morning. Cops everywhere. No way to get him alone, know what I mean?”
The footsteps stopped. The scrape of shoe on concrete as he swiveled, looking for me. “Funny thing. He
could’ve
told the cops what he saw right then. But he didn’t.”
“I’m not surprised.”
And I wasn’t. Kevin was probably traumatized by seeing Loretta killed. He’d spent a lifetime keeping secret the things that had been done to
him.
Or maybe he thought the cops wouldn’t believe him. God knows what his mental state was during the questioning. I doubt he came off as a credible witness.
More importantly, Garman was a therapist at Clearview. A powerful authority figure, like his father. He probably figured Garman could get away with anything. Again, like his father.
“Kevin was too terrified to talk. That’s why he took off. He knew his life was in danger.”
“
His
life? What about mine?”
He fired again, and I winced as the bullet whistled past my ear. His anger was making him reckless.
“It drove me crazy knowing he was out there somewhere. That he might still talk. So I looked for him. Checked other hospitals. Everywhere. But he’d vanished.”
He was on the hunt again, this time for me, moving, shifting, stalking. Like he’d stalked Kevin.
The sharp edge of a heavy work bench pressed against my spine as I leaned back, hugging the shadows. I was running out of options. Risking the sudden movement, I dropped to the floor and crawled behind one of the thick wooden legs. And, hopefully, out of sight.
“Then you took over at Ten Oaks. Which meant you led the peer supervision group. One day, years after Loretta’s death, I present a patient for discussion. A kid named Kevin Merrick…”
Anger choked his words. “Can you imagine how it felt, hearing you describe him? Realizing that he’d surfaced at last.”
“And was beginning to open up…”
“Right. He might tell you about Loretta’s murder. You’d urge him to go to the cops. Even if he didn’t,
you’d
know about it. And God knows where
that
would lead, confidentiality or not.”
He was right about that.
Plus, I thought, Ten Oaks was just about to be acquired by UniHealth, which would make Garman a wealthy man. But Kevin Merrick could end all that.
“So Kevin had to go,” I said. Moving again, pulling myself along the floor with elbows and knees under the row of work benches.
“No other choice, Danny boy. Then, when you presented his case, how he’d begun looking and dressing like you…I saw a way to kill Kevin but make it look—”
“Like
I
was the target,” I finished for him. “That the killer had mistaken Kevin for me.”
Garman changed position, an indistinct outline in a shaft of light from the opposite wall lamp. The gun barrel glinted dully.
He was talking easily now. Trying to draw me out. Get me in his sights.
“I didn’t enjoy killing him, by the way. A bloody mess. I wanted it to look savage, crazy. That’s why I thought the kitchen skewer was a nice touch.”
“So was planting it in my office. Using the key that fell out of Kevin’s pocket. So it would look like the killer was still out there, tracking me.”
I’d crawled the length of the work benches, and was back near the tail fin of the jet. That’s when I saw it, off to my right. Even from this new angle, it was nearly invisible in the dim light. A service ladder, aluminum, leaning against the fuselage on the other side of the jet.
I ducked low and crept silently toward it.
But still I had to finish it. Had to know it all.
“Same thing the night Richie Ellner died.” I reached the ladder, started climbing. Raised my voice to dull the sound of my feet on the rungs. “The manikin, impaled with the second skewer.”
“Cool, eh?” Garman chuckled. “See, I have it ready in the trunk of my car. Richie takes his little dive into eternity, I duck out in all the commotion, break into
your
car and put it behind the wheel. Your crazed killer strikes again!”
I stepped off the highest rung and onto the top of the fuselage. The surface was polished, slick. I quickly knelt, for better balance, both palms gripping the bowed width. I figured I’d also be harder to be see.
Taking a breath, I began sliding carefully along the top. Garman was on the floor on the other side of the jet, maybe a dozen feet forward and to my left.
Now the silence between us grew ominous.
I risked leaning out over the side and saw him, his face taut, alert. As though listening for my breathing. To find me, sense me in the darkness.
But suddenly all I could think about was Kevin. My patient. My responsibility. His sad, lifeless eyes looking up at me as I cradled him. His blood pooling beneath us in that cold, empty garage.
And Bert Garman. My friend and colleague. Who’d played me for a fool since this whole nightmare began—
And who whirled suddenly, eyes searching above him. Scanning along the top of the jet.
He knew where I was
. His gun came up. He was taking aim—
With a gutteral cry, I sprang up and charged down the length of the fuselage, hurtling myself through the air at Garman, arms outstretched. He looked up, mouth agape, trying to register what was happening.
Too late. I was on him.
We hit the floor with bone-rattling impact. His gun went flying. He tried to scramble away, but I grabbed fistfuls of his shirt and collar, hauled him to his feet. Put everything I had into a hard right to the jaw.
His eyes rolled up in his head, but I didn’t stop.
Couldn’t
. As though suddenly possessed, in the grip of something deep, primal, out of mind. I hit him again.
My years of training in the ring, of technique and discipline, dissolved into nothing. My father’s harsh lessons about holding back, staying in control—gone.
All I saw was a kind of pulsing scarlet before my eyes. All I felt was a nameless rage.
As I pounded his face and body. Felt the crack of bone, the pulp of bruised flesh beneath my knuckles.
Until, gasping, stunned at my own actions, I flung him to the floor. Moaning, Garman scuttled, crab-like, away from me. Spitting blood.
I looked down at my throbbing, reddened hands. What the hell had just happened? I swayed on my feet. My temples pounded, my ears rang. As though punch-drunk.
Maybe I was. Because I didn’t see until too late that Garman had rolled over on his side. There was something in his hand. Metallic. He’d found his gun.
I took a half-step toward him, but my luck had run out. He fired, and I felt a searing pain slice across my side. My legs gave out from under me.
I hit the floor hard, hand going to my ribs. Blood oozed from between my fingers.
Garman, coughing blood and spit, face splotched with bruises, got shakily to his feet. It was taking his every ounce of strength to stay upright.
Breathing hard from the effort, he steadied his grip on the gun. Slitted eyes burning with malice.
“You shoulda killed me when you had the chance.” Each word forced out between split, swollen lips. “You sure wanted to. But you don’t got what it takes. Never will.”
He raised the gun and aimed it at my head.
“Good-bye, Danny boy.”
Suddenly, a harsh voice boomed.
“Freeze, Garman! Police!”
Sgt. Harry Polk was two-handing his regulation firearm and pointing it at Garman.
“I mean it, ass-wipe. Drop the fucking gun.”
Garman’s eyes flickered before he turned on one foot, gun sweeping the air, in Polk’s direction.
Polk crouched and fired. Garman screamed as the bullet buried itself in his thigh and he collapsed to the floor, his gun skittering away.
Wincing, I managed to stand up as Polk came over, still holding his automatic on Garman’s writhing body.
“He’s a bleeder,” Polk noted passively.
Eyes never leaving his suspect, he bent and scooped up Garman’s gun. “The rest of him don’t look too good, either.
Some
body got a little carried away, eh, Doc?”