Robert Tanenbaum: Falsely Accused

“Funny.”

Marlene looked at them, as always trying to stay in step with Harry’s jumps. “Work keys,” she reasoned out loud. “Somebody’s apartment; she’s a maid. But not her current employer?” Harry nodded. “So: another employer, or a former employer, to whom she didn’t give back the keys, because … she ran? She was canned under unpleasant circumstances?”

Harry shrugged. “Front and back. And no letter.”

Marlene inspected the key labels. She had a peculiar feeling, almost a déja vu, something tugging at her mind. “Front and back doors means either a private residence, something in the burbs, or an apartment in an old-fashioned, high-tone building. The 800/18? Eight hundred Eighteenth Street? No such place in Manhattan. Or the eighteenth floor of 800 some avenue? Oh, I see, you think the floor having no letters after it means there’s only one apartment on the floor, so, somebody with money.” She laughed and handed the keys back. “Or maybe she just picked them up on the street.” But she didn’t believe that.

The Sisters of Perpetual Help were housed in what used to be a cheap motel, one of several along a strip of mixed zoning cut off from the rest of Chester, Pennsylvania, by the roaring mass of the 1-95 freeway. The motel signs had been removed, and a black and white sign with the name of the order had been placed in the window of the former motel office. Here Marlene and Harry entered.

A rugged-faced young woman with short brown hair, wearing a modest blouse and jumper combination, looked up and smiled and asked if she could be of help. Marlene explained who they were and asked if they could see Isabella Machado. The young woman looked blank, and said that she had no information about a guest with that name, but if they cared to wait, she would refer them to Sister Gregory, who was out at the moment. If they wanted to get something to eat while they waited, the restaurant in the motel across the road was open. You understand, things are always a little slow on Sundays. They understood, but short of rousting the place with drawn guns, they could do nothing, and so they said they’d be back and traipsed across the street to the Keystone Motel, 24-Hour Service, Truckers Welcome, an arc of aqua-colored huts terminating in a diner-like office and restaurant.

Several truckers had, in fact, been welcomed at the Keystone, as witnessed by their rigs parked in a row on the motel’s large gravel lot. There were also private cars in slots in front of three of the huts.

They went in and sat at the counter. Marlene was not hungry; she ordered a bran muffin and coffee. Harry ordered a cheese steak, the specialty of the house.

“What are you staring at, Harry?”

“The Fury with the New York plates in the lot there.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

Harry bit into his sandwich and chewed for a while. Then he said, “It looks like an unmarked.”

Marlene frowned. “Harry, that doesn’t make any sense. Why would an NYPD car be parked in a motel lot in Chester?”

Harry shrugged. He didn’t seem interested in his sandwich anymore. He stared at the black Fury some more and then abruptly rose, slapped some bills on the table, and walked out. Marlene ran after him.

“It is an unmarked,” said Harry, shading his eyes with his face pushed up against the glass of the Fury’s window. He stared at the door of the cabin number twelve, the one closest to the car, as if trying to see through it.

“Come on, Harry,” said Marlene. “It could be a fugitive bust, a police convention, anything … come on, I want to see Isabella.”

He gave her a scornful look and stalked away. Marlene looked at the car and then at Harry’s retreating back. She tried, and failed, to see what an NYPD car had to do with Guatemalan hit squads while she trotted to catch up with Harry. He had an idea, and since he was Harry Bello, it was probably a good one, but she had no clue as to what it was.

Sister Gregory was a wiry little woman with close-cropped steel-colored hair. She appeared in the ex-motel office in a greasy mechanic’s coverall, of a blue slightly paler than her eyes, which regarded them with a curious mixture of sweetness and suspicion from behind smudged, round spectacles. She explained that she had been fixing the boiler. Isabella who? She shook her head, as did the nun behind the reception desk.

They showed her their P.I. cards and explained who they were and what they wanted. The sister looked at these closely and returned them with a look that was kind but unsympathetic. Marlene remembered that look well from parochial school in relation to sloppily done French exercises.

“I’m sorry,” said the nun. “You know, anyone can get these made up.”

“Sister, do we look like Guatemalan assassins? Isabella is a friend of my daughter.” Faint smiles, regrets. A memory blossomed in Marlene’s mind. She rummaged in her bag and extracted the drawing Isabella had done for Lucy. The nuns studied it, conversed briefly in undertones, and returned it.

“Wait here,” said Sister Gregory.

They waited. They heard running steps. Sister Gregory burst into the office, flushed and angry.

“She’s gone!”

“What! When?” cried Marlene.

“She was at lunch,” said Sister Gregory. “It must have been sometime after that. Somebody broke in the bathroom window.”

Harry’s eyes met Marlene’s for an instant, and then he was gone, running out of the office and across the road. A passing semi blocked Marlene from following him, and by the time she got to cabin twelve at the Keystone, Harry was pounding on the door with the butt of his.38 revolver.

He used the pistol to smash the window, reached in, and released the lock and door chain. He turned his head and shouted to Marlene, “Get out of here! Call the cops!” Then he went in.

Marlene drew her.380 automatic and followed behind him. The bathroom door opened and Marlene had the impression of a huge shape filling the doorway, a big man, swarthy, with stiff black hair, wearing a white T-shirt and blue slacks. The blood was pounding in her ears. Something was shouted, but she couldn’t make it out. She shifted to her left to get a clear line on the big man.

Who moved, a great leap, like a forward going for the paint. Harry’s gun went off, twice. Marlene stopped, stunned by the sound.

The big man had Harry down on the floor. They were grappling for the gun. The back of the man’s white T-shirt had a large, round red circle in its middle, like a Japanese flag. Harry fired again. A window shattered. Again. A chunk flew out of the ceiling tile. In a corner of her frozen mind, Marlene knew that Harry was trying to expend all his bullets, because the man on top of him was stronger than he was and in a few more seconds would wrench the pistol away. Another shot.

“He’s got the gun, Marlene! Run!”

The big man struggled to one knee, and Marlene saw that indeed he had the pistol in his hand, holding it by its short barrel and cylinder. He turned to look at Marlene. His eyes were bulging; his face was pale and covered with sweat, and she could see a larger red stain on his chest, spreading around two dark holes in the cloth.

Marlene shot him in the face. His head jerked, but he didn’t fall. There was a hole in his cheek, below the left eye. Incredibly, he rose slowly to his feet. He swayed slightly and looked at the pistol in his hand, as if he barely understood what it was for. Marlene shot her remaining four bullets into his chest. The big man took a step backward; again he looked stupidly at the pistol in his hand, turned it around, and pointed it slowly in Marlene’s direction.

Then, like a man returning after a hard day’s labor, he took a step backward and sat down on the edge of the bed. He opened his mouth, loosing a gush of bright blood. He toppled sideways and slid off onto the floor.