A Dark and Lonely Place (43 page)

“Shall we call Robby?”

Katie shook her head. “Did you see how he looked tonight? He’s over-tired, stressed out, juggling a demanding job, the rest of the family, his own wife, who’s a handful, and what’s happened to the big brother he’s always idolized. He’s also taking care of us. Don’t want to add to his burden with anything but an emergency we can’t handle ourselves.”

Laura wearily agreed. “Will this night ever end?”

Katie smiled sweetly. “Don’t worry. In Miami, the sun will always rise in the morning.”

Both swore they were not superstitious, but the dog’s behavior so unnerved them that Katie called the hospital to allay their fears.

“John,” the charge nurse said, “is resting comfortably.”

“I hate to sound silly,” Laura said after the call, “but it made me think of all those old wives’ tales about dogs howling when somebody’s about to die.”

They dragged a heavy sofa, braced it against the door, double-locked
the windows and sliding glass doors, then camped out in Katie’s bedroom for what little was left of the night.

Laura’s cell phone rang shortly after they finally fell asleep. She fumbled for it in the dark, unsure where she was for an instant. She found the cold steel of her revolver beside her, then the phone, and tried to keep from waking Katie.

Too late.

“Who can it be at this hour?” Katie mumbled, and sat up.

“Don’t know,” Laura said, her heart clutched with fear. A phone call in the wee hours is almost never good news. The scare at the door and the howling dog seemed omens of disaster to come.

Katie switched on a bedside lamp as Laura answered.

“Wait,” she told the caller, her face shocked. “What are you talking about? Do you know what time it is? . . . Who? . . . Which ones? . . . What was that? . . . No! Oh my God! No! Don’t do that!”

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

L
aura? You’ve gotta help me!” He sounded frantic, out of breath.

The shameless poseur, the reckless wannabe who shot John, the man who’d rudely dismissed her as unqualified to play herself in his demented and grandiose movie plans, needed her help. And it was four thirty in the morning. She rolled her eyes at Katie, crinkled her nose, and silently mouthed the name
Gil Lonstein.

“Wait!” she said, suddenly. “What are you talking about? Do you know what time it is?”

“They’re here!” he cried.

“Who?”

“The cops!”

“Which ones?” Her voice changed from exasperated to wary.

“Looks like Miami and the county!” he panted.

She heard a shattering boom, as though a car had hit a house. “Oh, no!” he said.

“What was that?”

“They’re breaking in! They yelled for me to throw out my gun, then surrender. If I didn’t, they’d shoot! I don’t have the gun. It’s in the car. So I slammed the door and ran out through the kitchen to the garage to get it. I’m scared! They’re gonna kill me, Laura! Laura? I’m getting in the car now.”

She heard the car door slam.

“Okay. I’ve got the gun. I’m gonna open the garage door and drive to the Miami Lakes Police Department for protection!”

“No! Oh my God! No! Don’t do that! No,” she screamed again as he started the engine. She heard the rumble of a heavy garage door opening. “Wait!”

“Stop him! Get him! Get him! Get him!” men shouted. A barrage of gunfire. Crashes, breaking glass, the slam of bullets into metal never seemed to end. She heard at least thirty shots.

A high-pitched scream at the start was followed by a moan, several seconds of labored breathing. Then silence.

“Throw out your weapon! Throw out the gun!”

“Jesus! We got ’im! We got ’im. Let’s get him outta there! Artie, come on! Get him out. Get him out. Now!”

“Son of a bitch! Get that phone!” Fumbling noises as someone picked it up.

“Hey! Who is this!” a man hoarsely demanded in Laura’s ear.

She held her breath, frozen, listened to his heavy breathing for a moment, then hung up. She stared at Katie.

“I think they killed Gil Lonstein,” she whispered.

Hands shaking, she called Jeff Burnside.

“Jeff, Jeff,” she said as he answered. “This is Laura. Please listen.”

“I’m here,” he said. She heard him moving about, as though he’d rolled out of bed and was dressing. “Where are you?”

She ignored the question.

“Gil Lonstein,” she said breathlessly. “He’s the man who shot John at the bank yesterday.”

“Right. I know who he is. They issued a warrant for him, or were about to, last night. He worked for Eagle.”

“That’s him. He just called in a panic. Said the police were trying to kill him. I heard at least thirty shots. I think he’s dead.”

“Where?”

“Lonstein said he went into his garage. Has to be at his home. He lives in the north end. Said he was going to try to drive to the Miami Lakes Police Department for protection. I may be able to find the address. Hold on.”

“Okay, let me call a cameraman on another line. Don’t hang up.”

“I won’t.” She dashed barefoot to the small office next to the kitchen, still clutching her cell phone.

Katie, seconds ahead of her, was already booting up the computer on which John had been documenting the case, including lists of witnesses, suspects, and contacts, for Joel, his lawyer. She smoothly vacated the
desk chair as Laura slid into it, then ran for John’s notebook and coffee, as Laura scanned files.

She returned to peer over Laura’s shoulder. “Hit edit,” she suggested, “then find and replace, and type in Lonstein’s name.”

“There! There it is! I’ve got it!” Laura said moments later. She repeated Lonstein’s Miami Lakes address to Jeff Burnside.

“We’re on the way,” Burnside said.

She told him, as he got into his car, about the files and letters Eagle had left. “That’s why we were at the bank,” she explained. “Lonstein found them in a safe-deposit box he shared with Eagle. I’ll try to send you a set today. Lonstein talked to too many people about what he knew. That’s why he was killed. He sounded so scared. Said they ordered him to throw out his gun or they’d shoot. He ran to the car to get it. By then they were breaking into the house. He knew they’d kill him, so he tried to drive to a safe place for protection.”

“Call me later,” Burnside said.

“What should I do now?” she asked.

“Write down everything you heard during his call. Try to recreate the entire conversation, all the background noises, names, and what was said while it’s still fresh.” He paused. “Laura, there’s an arrest warrant for you too. If you’re in a safe place, stay put. Try not to be alone, and be careful.”

“A warrant? On what charge?”

“Attempted bank robbery, aggravated battery, obstructing justice, gun charges, and criminal conspiracy.”

Laura teared up as Katie prepared to leave for the hospital. “I hate to see you go without me. I’d give anything to see John and tell him I love him.”

“I’ll tell him as much as I can, with that cop in the room. Hope it’s not the same creepy one as yesterday.” Katie shuddered, then hugged Laura. She took two copies of the Eagle documents with her in manila envelopes, one addressed to Jeff Burnside, and the original to John’s attorney, Joel Hirschhorn.

Françoise, the shih tzu, trotted to the door behind her. The women exchanged a startled glance as the same thought occurred to both. “Françoise was right,” Laura said.

“She didn’t even know Lonstein,” Katie said thoughtfully.

“Yes, but she sensed something. Dogs are so intuitive. We’ll walk you to your car.” Laura buckled the little dog’s red leash to her collar. They locked the apartment and walked down the empty hall to the elevator, talking quietly.

Katie gasped. “Look!”

Cigarette butts, two of them, had been dropped, then ground into the plush carpet in a small alcove across from the elevator. Both were Marlboros, smoked down to the filter.

Someone had waited and watched their apartment on the otherwise empty floor.

“The prowler at our door last night must have left them,” Katie said. “If they’d been here when Robby and I came home, we would have seen them.” They stared at each other. Katie sensed what Laura was thinking and shook her head. “Wasn’t him. Robby doesn’t smoke, never has.”

She gripped Laura’s arm tightly. “Wish I didn’t have to go, but I want to be there when the doctors check John’s vision. Don’t take Françoise out; walk her on the terrace. Try not to be seen from the street.” Katie checked her watch. “Time to fill in Robby. He’s on his way to Morningside to brief the family.”

The elevator door yawned open and they hugged. “Be back, quick as I can. Pray for good news. Wear your gun and cell phone at all times. By the way, there’s a pistol-grip shotgun under my bed. It’s loaded. Get it out and keep it with you.”

The doors closed and she was gone.

Laura and the dog trotted back inside and returned minutes later. She plucked the cigarette butts from the carpet with tweezers, dropped them into a Ziploc bag, and sealed it. As she rose to her feet, she saw that the elevator, at lobby level where Katie left it, had begun to ascend with a new passenger or passengers. Two, three, four, it kept rising. As it approached their floor, Laura and the little dog ran back to the apartment and barricaded the door.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

F
igured it was Lonstein,” Robby said, as Laura poured his coffee. “Heard that a task force of city and county cops killed a male subject wanted in the bank robbery attempt and shooting. Said he was armed, resisted, and forced them to fire in self-defense when he tried to hit them with his car.”

“Don’t believe that,” Laura said. “He tried to run to a safe place because he knew they’d kill him, and they did.”

“Remember what he said to you yesterday? ‘Shit happens.’ He was right,” Robby said.

“But dead wrong about himself,” she said. “He thought he’d found a new career, a promising future. Instead he had no future at all.”

“What they did was cold, premeditated,” Robby said. “And the best time to do that is four a.m., which it was. No pedestrians, joggers, or nosy neighbors, no mailman, no lawn man mowing the grass. No witnesses.”

“Why on earth would he call me for help?” Laura asked, as they sat in the cheery kitchen. “Last time we talked, I promised to smack the snot out of him.”

“He thought you’d know what to do,” Robby said. “Or it was an accident.”

She nodded. “Scared, in a panic, he may have accidentally hit redial. His last call before that may have been the one to me. I threatened him, called him a small-time wuss.”

Robby grinned. She gave him a reproachful look.

“Hey, I won’t miss his sorry ass. He shot my brother. He’s lucky I didn’t see him first.”

She looked serious. “Are your folks okay?”

His parents were on the way to see John in the hospital, he said. “Mom was up early fixing chicken, dumplings, and the works. The girls are going this afternoon, Ed and Frank later. Won’t be much chance once he’s transferred to JMH. That’s a locked-down prison ward. It won’t be easy.”

“Is there a way I can call him?” she said.

He shook his head. “His calls are monitored.”

He had her write the time, the date, and where the cigarette butts were found on the Ziploc bag and said she and Katie should have called him immediately when the intruder was still outside. “There is a remote chance,” he said hopefully, “that the prowler last night was one of those creeps who strip foreclosed houses and vacant condos. They steal a/c units, generators, appliances, everything but the kitchen sink, and sometimes that too. Or a pervert who saw you and Katie on the beach, quite a sight in your bikinis.”

“I wish it was a two-bit thief or perv,” Laura said. “Them we could handle, but not a bunch of trigger-happy cops who want us dead.”

“Dial nine-one-one as a last resort if they show up. You’ll get the cops in this jurisdiction. Ask if they have officers at your door. When they say no, tell them you’re alone, scared, and that armed men who claim to be police officers are breaking into your home. They’ll give it top priority.”

He took a copy of Eagle’s documents with him. “Now,” he said, “I need to find you an alternate exit.”

He studied the wraparound terrace, took measurements, left, and returned in thirty minutes with a nine-foot length of scaffolding nearly two feet wide and weighted at both ends.

“You’re not afraid of heights are you, Laura?”

“I’m not phobic.” She hesitated. “But I’m not one of the Flying Wallendas either.”

He took the scaffolding to the far end of the terrace, around the corner of the building, and left it lying against the wall where it couldn’t be seen. “If the time ever comes when you or you and Katie have to leave in a hurry, just slide this under the rail and push it across to the next terrace, which is five feet away. The ends are weighted, the bottom railings will hold them both down. You’ll have two feet overlap at each end. Just
step over the railing and walk across to the next terrace if it’s not windy; if it is, crawl across, holding on to the scaffold. Then drag it over to the other side and leave it against the wall. I stopped by the super’s office on my way out. Nobody there, so I borrowed the keys to that next apartment and made copies.

“And here.” He opened a package from Home Depot and unfurled a sturdy rope ladder. “They make these so people in upstairs bedrooms can escape house fires. You fasten the ropes to the railing like this, make sure it’s tight, then climb down to the terrace below. That apartment’s also unoccupied. I copied the keys. That set is green, the ones for next door are red.”

He gave them to her on a single key chain attached to a sturdy leather cord she could wear around her neck.

“Once you’re out of the apartment, there are two elevators across from the stairwell on the south side of the building. Push the buttons for all the lower floors including the lobby, then take the stairs to the penthouse level. On your right you’ll see a covered bridge to the parking garage. You know where the car is. It’s an older-model gray Volvo. The key’s in the usual place. They’ll be watching the exit, so you leave through the entrance on the other side. There’s a yellow button on the mechanism that operates the gate. Get outta the car, hit that button, and it will open. Drive south. Or simply walk out of the garage onto the beach, like a tourist taking a stroll south along the surf. Then call me or Katie if she’s not with you.”