Unbreathed Memories (28 page)

I aimed a knee at his groin. A yelp told me I’d made contact with the target, but the pressure around my neck only increased. Voorhis’s face, inches from my own, remained impassive. Except for a thin sheen of sweat across his brow, he could have been preparing his taxes or waiting in traffic for a light to change. The space behind my eyes turned red with the pulsing blood inside my head, then black, as waves of darkness washed over me. My knees buckled.

When you’re dying, they say your life passes before your eyes. Not so. My last thought before I slipped into unconsciousness was Listerine. His breath smells of Listerine. Imagine! Remembering to use a mouthwash before setting out to kill somebody.

chapter
21

Suddenly I could breathe, and the pressure
on my neck was replaced by a heavy weight across my legs. Connie’s face swam into view. She stood over me, a towering giant, Brünnhilde wielding a wooden pole. At the other end of the pole dangled the Maryland state flag. “Are you OK?” The flagpole clattered to the floor as she bent to help me up. But first she had to roll Voorhis away with a push of her foot.

Free of my attacker, I sat on the chancel steps, rubbing my throat. It hurt to swallow, and I was certain my voice box had been badly bruised. I looked at the doctor, whose head was gashed and bleeding profusely. “Is he dead?” I croaked.

“I doubt it. I just knocked him cold.”

“Thank God you showed up! I wondered what had happened to you. Couldn’t you hear what was going on?”

“Every word. Lionel switched on at the beginning of Voorhis’s sad tale and recorded almost everything.” She waved toward the hidden staircase. “I’ve been standing just inside the stairwell over there.”

“No rush, I was just being strangled.”

“Well, I didn’t want to interrupt until he was finished confessing.”

I rubbed my neck where the impression made by the microphone cord had bitten deeply into my flesh. “You could have made your presence known a tad sooner. I really thought I was going to die!”

Connie checked to make sure Voorhis was still out of it, then knelt in front of me. “As soon as he made a grab for you, I ran. I was going to jump him, but then I saw the flag and thought a piece of wood might be a more persuasive weapon than my bare hands.”

Connie turned to Dr. Voorhis. She slipped out of her cardigan and used it to staunch the blood that was gushing from a wound on his scalp. When Voorhis began to move, his legs twitched, then he groaned. I grabbed the man’s ankles with both hands and sat on his legs to keep him from getting away.

“It’s a small cut,” Connie announced, touching Voorhis’s forehead with her fingers. “Might need a few stitches is all.”

Voorhis stirred, his head flopped to one side, and he stared into the dark with unfocused eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said.

I felt no sympathy for the bastard. “Sorry for what you did or sorry you got caught?”

“I’ve lost everything.” He closed his eyes. “Fiona, Diane, Loraine …”

“Who’s Loraine?” Connie wanted to know. She rolled up her stained sweater and slipped it between Voorhis’s head and the cold stone floor. “Don’t move,” she ordered. “There’s an ambulance on the way.”

I was surprised. “Ambulance?”

“Lionel called nine-one-one,” Connie said. As if
hearing a summons, the Senior Warden appeared from behind the pulpit. He studied the three of us. We must have appeared a strange triptych arranged up there between the pulpit and the lectern. With his hands clasped in front of him, Lionel glanced about as if looking for something to do. He picked up the lavalier mike from where it lay on the floor and returned it to its proper hook in the pulpit, not noticing the severed wire. A look of disapproval told me we were naughty children who had just messed up his sanctuary with a bit of roughhousing. He began to wring his hands like Uriah Heep. “I never …” he began. Then, “Nothing like this has ever …” He sputtered on for a few seconds, but failed to form a single coherent sentence. He pointed to the blood on the stone steps. “I’ll just get … No, I suppose the police will be wanting to see that.”

Suddenly, Lionel glanced over his shoulder toward the west doors as if something outside had attracted his attention. “I’ll just see if they’re here yet. They’ll be wanting the door unlocked, I suppose.” He stood for a few more seconds, rocking back and forth on the heels of his shiny vinyl shoes. “Shall I?”

Connie kept a firm grip on Voorhis’s upper arm, while I continued to perch on his legs.

“Yes, Lionel. You go ahead and do that.”

Encouraged, he turned smartly on his left toe and scurried down the center aisle, gradually disappearing into the shadows at the rear of the sanctuary, his keys jangling as he walked. The distinctive sound of a dead-bolt lock being thrown echoed through the quiet sanctuary followed by a click. A soft light illuminated the west door.

I smiled at Connie. “Thank you,” I said.

“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you at first, Hannah.”

“I do have an overactive imagination sometimes,” I said, “but you have to admit that this time I was right on target.”

A siren cut through the night, followed by the squeal of tires hitting the curb, hard. I heard Lionel say, “In there.”

When Dennis and Paul burst through the door and came rushing down the aisle, I looked around for a place to hide. “Paul!” I turned to Connie.

Connie shrugged apologetically. “I know, I know. I said I wasn’t going to tell them, but I lied.”

Paul took the chancel steps in a single bound and was soon kneeling before me, my hands swallowed up in both of his. “Are you all right?” His eyes searched mine, as if the truth would be written there.

“I think so. Yes.” I was stiff from sitting on Dr. Voorhis’s bony shins. “Help me up.”

While Paul pulled me to my feet and smothered me with attention, Dennis stooped over Connie, his strong hands gripping his thighs for balance. “What happened? I thought you said seven o’clock.”

“Voorhis was choking Hannah, so I clobbered him with that pole.” She pointed to the Maryland flag that lay on the floor several feet away. For Paul’s sake, I was grateful that she didn’t elaborate.

“He confessed,” I told Dennis as I straightened to my full height. I adjusted my bra just in case my new breast had slipped sideways and tucked my shirt back into my trousers. “It’s all on tape.” Paul’s arm slipped around my waist and pulled me close.

Meanwhile, Dennis was attending to Voorhis. The doctor stood unsteadily; he shook his head as if to clear it, then winced in pain. Blood stained the lapel and breast pocket of his suit.

“We’ll see you get some medical attention, sir.” After what the man had done, I couldn’t believe Dennis was being so nice to him. I found myself wishing that they’d sew up that gash in his head with a dirty string and darning needle without the benefit of anesthesia.

“Can you walk?” Dennis asked the doctor.

Dr. Voorhis nodded. Keeping a firm grip on the doctor’s upper arm, Dennis led him to a seat in a front pew, watched until he had sat down on the blue velvet cushion, then blocked any possible escape route with his body.

Lionel scurried up the aisle. “There’s more police,” he announced before disappearing again, only to return in thirty seconds to add that the ambulance had arrived as well.

“That will be Williams and Duvall.” Dennis looked at me. “I gave them a call.”

While the paramedics attended to Dr. Voorhis, Connie and I sat in a pew and gave our statements to Sergeant Williams. Officer Duvall scribbled down notes about what we told them in a small gray notebook.

Lionel disappeared down the spiral staircase and returned almost at once with something in his hand. He produced the cassette tape with a flourish usually reserved for magicians who pull rabbits out of hats. Sergeant Williams received it gratefully.

The paramedics had transferred Dr. Voorhis to a stretcher and began to roll him down the aisle. As they passed my pew, I held up a hand. “Just a minute. There’s something I want to ask him.” I leaned over the stretcher, feeling powerful for a change. “Tell me, Doctor, why did you come to my hospital room?”

Dr. Voorhis stared straight up at the ceiling.

“What was in that syringe?”

The doctor turned his head in my direction, slowly,
like a ventriloquist’s dummy. His mouth moved. “I don’t have the foggiest idea what you’re talking about.” He waved a hand. “Let’s get out of here, gentlemen.”

The last I saw of Dr. Voorhis was his smile … thin-lipped and sinister. I thought about that smile long after he was driven away in the ambulance, with Officer Duvall sitting by his side. I think about it today.

The five who were left stood on the porch of All Hallows and watched the vehicles disappear down Roland Avenue into the night. I shivered and held tight to my husband’s hand. “What do you suppose will happen to him, Dennis?”

“I think after they get his head stitched and bandaged, he’ll have had time to think. However good confession may be for the soul, I’ll bet he’ll have forgotten all about it on the advice of his lawyer.”

“But we got it on tape!” Connie exclaimed.

Paul squeezed my hand. “Let’s hope the lawyers don’t figure out a way to suppress the tape as evidence.”

Dennis stared in the direction where the ambulance had disappeared. A light snow had begun to fall. “With lawyers, anything’s possible. Consider O.J.”

“Let’s not,” I said.

“What next?” Paul was resting his chin on top of my head, and I could feel his chin move whenever he talked.

Dennis reached for Connie’s hand. “I’m taking this lady home, and I suggest you do the same.”

“Hannah?” Paul asked.

“Home.” I turned to Paul and wrapped my arms around his waist, enjoying the solid, familiar feel and smell of him. I looked up into his face. “But first, we need to stop at Georgina’s.”

chapter
22

You can’t judge a book by its cover
.
The proverb
came to mind as Paul and I stood on the sidewalk in front of Scott and Georgina’s neat, middle-class home, complete with white picket fence. Paul reached out to open the gate, but I stopped him. “Just a minute.” He seemed puzzled, but waited patiently while I stood in the cold night air admiring my sister’s house. Golden light shone through the lace curtains and cast warm rectangles on the porch. A TV murmured softly somewhere inside; a shadow, probably Julie, darted across the glass like a nymph. It was a Norman Rockwell painting, the epitome of home and family. It was difficult for me to contemplate what
really
might be going on inside that house. I sighed, and my breath came out in a white cloud.

“Hannah?”

I shivered inside my warmest jacket. “It’s OK. I was just thinking that appearances can be so deceptive.”

“Do you want to come back later?”

“No. I need to let Georgina know that they’ve arrested Diane Sturges’s killer.”

“When she finds out who did it, do you think she’ll welcome the news?”

I shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”

Paul opened the gate and I passed through ahead of him. Once on the porch, we discovered that the screen door was locked for the night, so we rang the bell.

The porch boards vibrated as pint-size feet scrambled to answer. The chain lock rattled, the door eased open, and the serious blue eyes of one of the twins peered around it. “It’s Aunt Hannah!” he shouted, throwing the door wide.

I could see from the pattern of freckles on his nose which twin it was. “Hi, Sean.”

“We already ate dinner.”

“We haven’t come for dinner, Sean. We came to talk to your mommy.”

“She’s in the kitchen.” Sean unlatched the screen door and backed away as we opened it and came through. At that moment, Dylan careened around the corner, chasing a ball. He fell on it, hugged it against his chest, and rolled over three times. “Hi! Wanna play soccer?”

“Me or your uncle Paul?” I asked.

Dylan scowled. “Girls don’t play soccer.” He looked at Paul for confirmation, then asked, uncertainly, “Do they?”

“I’m afraid they do, squirt.”

“Oh.” Dylan struggled to his feet, still clutching the ball. He aimed it at Sean, threw, and made a direct hit, thumping his brother soundly on the head.

“Ouch!” Sean whined. “You cut that out!” We were instantly forgotten as Dylan streaked around the corner into the living room with Sean in hot pursuit. Still wearing our coats, we wandered back to the kitchen.

The table held the remains of dinner. Julie sat in a chair, stirring a bowl of ice cream into chocolate soup.
Scott lounged at the head of the table, leaning on his elbows, sipping coffee. Two empty bowls, one licked clean, marked the places Sean and Dylan had recently occupied. Georgina stood at the sink, her back to us. A flowered apron was tied in a bow at her waist.

Scott’s eyebrows disappeared into his hair. “Well, look who’s here!”

With her hands still dealing with a greasy roasting pan in the sink, Georgina glanced over her shoulder. “Oh, hi.”

I pulled out a chair and sat down. “Paul and I have news for you.”

Scott set his mug down and stared at me curiously. “What news?”

Georgina turned, the picture of domesticity, wiping her hands on her apron. “Julie, are you going to eat your food or just play with it?” She must have suspected the worst. I could tell she was trying to get rid of her daughter.

Julie laid down her spoon, picked up the bowl with both chubby hands, tipped it toward her mouth, and slurped. When the ice cream was gone, she burped loudly.

Georgina snatched the bowl from her daughter’s hands and banged it on the table. “That’s enough for you, young lady. Go get ready for your bath.”

Julie’s chin was coated with chocolate. Scott held her chin and gently wiped it off with his napkin. “Off you go, missy.”

Julie slid off her chair, ran across the room, and threw her arms around my knees. “Hi, Aunt Hannah.” Traces of chocolate remained in the corners of her mouth as she grinned up at me.

I patted her head. “Did you save any ice cream for me, Julie?”