Unspeakable (42 page)

T
he cop car in front of their house pulled away, leaving them on their own again. The two policemen had searched the yard and combed over the surrounding area: one from inside the squad car with the floodlight, and his partner on foot with a flashlight. They hadn't found anyone. But there were footprints in the damp ground around the outside of the house. After the reception their prowler had gotten, Olivia's dad surmised the guy was probably in another zip code by now.

He and Hank were once again in the TV room, watching their movie. Fighting the urge for a cigarette, Olivia returned to her mother's writing nook and the computer. On the reel-to-reel tape, Chubby Checker sang about the Twist. Blurry-eyed, Olivia was about to close the page on the
Post-Intelligencer
article covering Andy Stampler's retirement. But then she looked at the date again: October 17, 1999.

Rifling through the Post-its, printouts, and copies she'd accumulated regarding Wade Grinnell, Olivia found what she was looking for. It was a printout of the article about Sheri Grinnell: T
ACOMA
W
OMAN
D
IES IN
A
PARTMENT
F
IRE.
The date was October 29, 1999, just twelve days after the story about Andy Stampler had run.

Olivia wondered if Wade's sister had seen the story about Andy Stampler eleven days before her death. She remembered what Sheri's son had told her:
“Funny thing though. I remember about a week or two before the fire, she started talking like she'd be coming into a lot of cash soon—big money, too. But she wouldn't say how. . . .”

It was almost too much of a coincidence about the dates and the timing. She also had a feeling in her gut that Andy Stampler was holding something back. Then again, maybe she was just grasping at straws. There was nothing connecting Collin's grandfather with Sheri Grinnell.

She moved the cursor, pressed a key, and closed the page to the article about Andy Stampler's retirement.

Suddenly, she heard a click on the tape, and Chubby Checker stopped mid-song.
“Testing one, two, three.... Testing. . . .”

A chill ran through her at the sound of Wade's voice. Olivia stared at the reel-to-reel player.

Olivia slowly stood up.

There was a pause on the tape, and then she heard Wade burp.

He cackled at his little joke. Another click followed, and it returned to Chubby Checker.

Olivia sank back down in the chair.

Her father stepped into the kitchen and pulled a beer from the refrigerator. “We really owe Ian Haggerty a debt of gratitude for hooking us up with Hank.”

She gave her dad a tired smile. “You can stop trying to sell me on Ian, Pop. I like him.”

“Good,” her father said. Then he headed for the TV room.

Olivia turned to look out at the patio. She couldn't help feeling someone might still be watching her. That prowler might have forced his way into the house if Hank hadn't been there with a gun. Obviously, the people who wanted Collin's friends dead weren't giving up after one try. Her father had been right—thank God Ian had gotten Hank to watch over them.

It suddenly dawned on Olivia. Who was watching over Ian?

 

 

Dressed in a surgeon's scrubs and cap, the man stepped off the hospital elevator on Ian's floor. A surgical mask was loose and down around his neck. He kept his arms folded, so no one could see he was holding on to a small box. Tucked under his bicep, it was a little kit that he'd used before several times—with great success. The box contained a hypodermic and a vial with a lethal mix of barbiturate, paralytic, and potassium solution.

He'd had to abort the Alder Lane job. They'd been expecting him. He wouldn't be able to go near that house again for at least a few more hours—when their guard was down.

But no one was expecting him here at the hospital.

He headed down the quiet, empty corridor toward Ian Haggerty's room.

 

 

Ian woke up in his room, lit only by the flickering TV screen and a small lamp in the far corner. It took him a moment to realize he'd drifted off. He'd been watching
Sweet Smell of Success
on TMC, but the painkillers had made him weak and drowsy. It looked like the movie was wrapping up, with Burt Lancaster yelling at Tony Curtis about something. Ian found the volume button on the remote and turned it down.

A shadow swept across the wall, and he turned to see a swarthy, fortyish man in pale blue surgical scrubs coming into the room. “It's time for another shot,” he announced. Then he ducked into the bathroom on the right side of Ian's bed. The bathroom light went on, but Ian couldn't see what he was doing in there. “How are you feeling?” the man asked.

“A little out of it, I guess,” Ian replied. He wondered why a surgeon was giving him a shot. Wasn't that the nurse's job? Ian knew he was loopy from the drugs they'd given him. But he couldn't get over the feeling that something wasn't quite right.

In a mirror on the wall across the room, he saw a reflection of the man's back as he hovered over something in the bathroom. Ian tried to sit up so he could see better, but he was too weak. “Um, what's the shot for?” he asked warily.

“Another painkiller,” the guy answered from the bathroom.

“But I've already had one of those tonight.”

“This one will send you to la-la land. What—are you trying to give me an argument?”

Ian knew his voice. He'd heard that voice last night, speaking to him from behind a ski mask:
“What—are you trying to be a hero? You're off-duty. . . .”

His hand trembling, Ian reached over and pressed the call button for the nurse.

The man emerged from the bathroom holding the hypodermic. “Relax. It's only going to hurt for a second. . . .”

Ian started to shake his head. He realized the guy wasn't even going to swab his arm first. He wasn't imagining things. This was no doctor. Ian tried to reach for the phone, but he knocked over his plastic water pitcher. It hit the linoleum floor with a clatter.

The man grabbed him by the wrist.

“No!” Ian yelled.

“What's going on in here?”
the heavyset nurse asked in her crisp Jamaican accent. She stepped into the room and switched on the light.

“He's making a hell of a mess, that's what's going on,” the bogus surgeon replied. “I'll get an orderly to clean it up. . . .” Brushing past the nurse, he hurried down the hallway.

“Please,” Ian gasped. “Call hospital security—and the police.”

 

 

Andy Stampler washed the blood off his hands. He watched the pink water swirling around the white sink. On the Formica counter, beside the hotel ice bucket, he'd laid out the knife and the policeman's nightstick—as well as Clay Bischoff 's cell phone, his wallet, and the hotel room key card.

Staring at his pale reflection in the mirror, he saw the drops of blood splattered on his face. One big crimson glob dripped down along his right temple, mingling in his gray hair. Andy had thought it was sweat—until just now. He quickly rinsed off his face.

He wished he were more like his old friend. It never used to bother Wade when he'd gotten blood on himself. But Andy had preferred to keep his victims at a distance. Yards and yards away, he could still see the fire and smell the smoke. He could still hear the crackling sound—and the screams.

He remembered pulling into the lot of a Chinese restaurant a quarter of a block away when Irene Pollack had discovered her family trapped in the inferno he'd created. Just an hour before, he'd only gotten to second base with her sister-in-law, Loretta, in the back of his red '59 Chevy. Wade had been in the front seat, and Loretta had suddenly seemed more interested in him. She'd gone back to her room at nine. They'd been parked down the road from the sign by the hotel entrance. After they'd started the fire, it had been Wade's idea that they drive to Yum-Yum China for a better view of the fire.

“I'll bet you any amount of money the mother's gonna fry trying to get those kiddies out,” Wade had said as they'd watched the blaze from inside the car.

Andy had hoped he was right. He hadn't been too concerned about Mrs. Pollack seeing him flirt with Loretta at the fair. But he hadn't counted on her—just minutes before—spotting him as they'd fled the blaze he'd created with two Molotov cocktails and a tin of charcoal starter. For the first time, he and Wade had left behind a witness.

Now, fifty years later, he stood in the bathroom of another Seattle hotel. In the mirror above the sink, he couldn't see the young man he used to be. Only when he looked at his grandson did he glimpse his former self.

It was his face Irene Pollack had seen in the Leavenworth rest home.

It killed Andy to learn she was still alive—and to hear from his grandson that she still remembered. He wouldn't rest until she was dead.

Andy winced at the dark stain down the front of his blue nylon Windbreaker. It was soaked. He carefully unzipped the jacket and took it off. He dumped it in the sink to keep the blood from dripping on the floor.

He'd smuggled two black garbage bags into the room earlier. One contained the clothes he'd been wearing when he'd left the house nearly three hours before. He'd changed out of them in the bathroom of a Shell Station near the hotel. The second bag held a gray sweatshirt and jeans belonging to his grandson. While Collin had attended his last three classes of the day, Andy had pilfered the clothes from his bedroom closet—along with a leather cowboy belt that had COLLIN stenciled on it. That belt was now wrapped around Clay Bischoff 's ankles.

Andy dug the sweatshirt and jeans from the bag and dropped them on top of the blood-soaked Windbreaker. Then he started to get undressed.

Ten minutes later, he was in the hotel parking lot, wearing the “business casual” clothes he'd had on when he'd left the house earlier. He made certain no one saw him as he loaded the two garbage bags into the trunk of his BMW. Then he crept back into Clay's room—through the sliding door he'd jimmied open two hours before. This time, he locked it behind him. On his way to the door, he stepped around Clay's corpse and the puddle of blood on the beige carpet. He checked the peephole to make sure the hallway was empty. Quietly opening the door, he slipped out and hung the D
O
N
OT
D
ISTURB
sign on the door handle.

Andy was pretty certain no one saw him leaving the hotel by a side door.

That had been something he and Wade had agreed upon a long, long time ago—always leave the hotel by a side door, not the lobby.

“I know it sounds crazy,” Ian tried to explain. He was sitting up with his hospital bed elevated. “But that ‘surgeon' was the holdup guy from last night. I recognized his voice. . . .”

At the other end of his bed stood the Jamaican nurse and a fifty-something security guard with a buzz cut and a sun-wizened face. Along with his modified gray policeman's uniform he had a belt that holstered his gun and a walkie-talkie. He and the nurse looked at each other as if they had a real nutcase on their hands.

“Did you recognize the guy?” Ian asked the nurse, trying to make his point. He was so drowsy from the medication. He talked loudly to keep himself awake. It was exhausting just getting them to listen. “You—you got a look at him. Does he work here? I mean, have you ever seen him before? I'm telling you, he wasn't a real doctor. And you guys let him get away. He's probably long gone by now—”

“Well, then he won't be coming back, will he?” the security guard said, with his thumbs in his gun belt. “You need to settle down, buddy.”

Ian wished he knew the nurse by name. She must have worked the night shift, and just punched in. As for the guard, talking to him was useless. Ian had asked them to watch the hospital exits for a tall, thin, olive-skinned guy in surgical scrubs. But of course, they'd ignored him. They hadn't contacted the police yet either.

His tired eyes pleaded with the nurse. “Listen, please, if you don't believe me, ask yourself, why—why was a guy dressed like a surgeon giving me a shot? Isn't that your job? Is it on my chart that I was due for a shot?” Ian started coughing. It felt like his body was shutting down. “The guy was trying to kill me,” he gasped. “He didn't succeed yesterday, so he came back to try again. Jesus, didn't you see the way he ran out of here—like he was escaping? He said he was getting an orderly to clean up the water. So where—where's the orderly?”