Archer Mayor - The Ragman's memory

Gail arrived moments later, and I escorted her down the narrow hall, leaving Sammie to read from her Miranda card.

“You ready?” I asked her.

“Go on,” she urged.

I worked the heavy lock and pulled the door open. It was dark inside and utterly airless.

“Mary?” Gail asked tentatively, squinting to see better.

“Who’s there?” came the tired, confused reply.

A light flashed on, and Mary Wallis was revealed sitting up in bed, one hand on a small lamp, the other shielding her eyes. She looked dirty, haggard, and weak. “Gail?” she said incredulously.

Gail crossed the room and held her in her arms. I faded back to the front room. The old couple were being led outside by two patrolmen. Sammie glanced at me expectantly.

“She looks like hell,” I told her, “but she’s alive. Might as well bring up the ambulance.”

The next morning was overcast, the sky as gray as the now-gritty snow. There was a dampness to the cold, making it difficult to ward off. After the satisfaction of escorting Mary Wallis to the hospital and from there to her mother’s bedside, I’d returned to the office to bring the paperwork up to speed. What we’d stopped Ben Chambers from burning in his office had amounted to a gold mine of evidence against both him and his brother.

In addition, without fanfare or drama, Paul Hennessy had turned himself in at the dispatch window three hours earlier, having heard of our arrests on the radio-a special irony, I thought, considering how much I’d relied on the newspaper. Now, Stanley Katz’s “exclusive” on the case’s wrap-up would trail Ted McDonald’s reports by a full day. Sweet revenge for Ted, not that Katz had much to complain about-Hennessy would produce enough copy to keep Katz content for weeks.

Maxine Paroddy’s voice came over the intercom. “Lieutenant? State Police just called-they’re about five minutes out.”

I rose and grabbed my coat. “Willy?” I shouted across the squad room, “want to help with the honors?”

For once, there was no grousing. Kunkle appeared from around the corner, dressed for the weather. I wondered how long he’d been waiting. Although neither one of us had ever referred to it, I knew how NeverTom’s reference to Willy as a cripple had hurt, which was precisely why I’d asked for him now.

We went outside and stood around the parking lot for a few minutes. Willy had slept no more than I had and was in no mood for conversation. Eventually, the crunching of tires on old ice announced the arrival of the dark green state police cruiser. We waited for the car to roll to a stop, and then Willy bent forward to open the back door.

Thomas Chambers sat in the rear, his eyes fixed straight ahead, his cuffed hands nestled in his lap. Two troopers emerged from the front.

“Quiet ride?” I asked the driver.

“Yeah-snowing a little up north.”

“Coffee’s fresh inside.”

Willy reached into the car and grabbed NeverTom’s arm. Chambers jerked it away angrily. “Get your hands off me.”

Willy laughed and dragged Chambers completely out of the car, landing him on his knees. “Not this time, asshole.” With his one good arm, he lifted the other man up as if he weighed no more than a child. The two troopers looked slightly alarmed.

“Not to worry,” I muttered. “He had it coming.”

The driver nodded and went around the car to park it properly, while his companion joined us as we walked toward the building.

It was the slight crackle of ice underfoot that caught my attention. Otherwise, the dark shadow appeared from around the building’s edge with all the sound of a gentle breeze. I glanced over casually, expecting to see one of our officers walking toward the parked cruisers. Instead, it was Ned Fallows who stood there, legs slightly apart, a semiautomatic pistol held in both hands. Willy Kunkle, oblivious to all but his prisoner, was directly between Fallows and his target.

“Gun,” I shouted, diving in front of Chambers and pushing Willy hard in the chest with one hand.

The explosion went off just as I hit the icy ground, Willy’s startled cry still in my ears. I heard the trooper who’d been walking behind us shout, “Freeze,” and looked up to see Fallows standing, hands high in the air, the pistol at his feet. I rolled over to check the damage he’d done. Willy was struggling to get up. Tom Chambers lay spread-eagled on his back, motionless.

Willy’s face was twisted with humiliation and outrage. He looked from Fallows to Chambers’s prone body. “God damn it,” he yelled at me, “I could’ve handled it. What the fuck did you push me for?”

A pool of blood was rapidly expanding from the gaping wound in Chambers’s head. I slowly got to my feet and walked tiredly over to Ned Fallows, taking him by the arm. I looked him in the face for a moment, studying its familiar, haggard lines. “You did this because of what I told you, didn’t you?”

His eyes flickered to mine for a moment, but thankfully, he didn’t answer.

I sat exhausted in my office, my head throbbing. Instead of the elation I’d hungered for, especially with Mary Wallis being found alive, all I felt was sorrow and loss and depression. The motivations I’d recently witnessed-Ben Chambers and his amoral brother; Paul Hennessy and his beguilingly dissolute girlfriend; Ned Fallows, whose life of good work had grown twisted and bitter with pride-had shaken my trust in human nature. I thought of their victims-Shawna, Milo, Mary Wallis, Adele Sawyer, even poor old Bernie, who’d been forced to revisit the battlefield that had scarred him-and wondered how it was that they should have been singled out for such wanton destruction. It seemed so carelessly capricious. The irony was that NeverTom-who’d killed no one-had wound up the victim of his own devices.

Unfortunately, that gave me no solace. Too much damage lay in the way.

“Joe?”

I looked up and saw Gail standing in the doorway, the smile on her face oddly fitting the tears in her eyes. We silently embraced, lost in each other’s arms-the mutual harbor we’d nurtured over the years.

She knew of my troubles as if by telepathy, and after a few moments unhooked my coat from the back of the door and said, “Let’s go home.”

“It’s the middle of the day.”

“And other people can finish it-for both of us.”

I sighed at the sense of relief that gave me and let her slip the coat over my shoulders.

Outside, I held open my passenger door for her and circled around to the other side. As I slid in behind the wheel, she handed me a large sheet of paper. “This was on the seat. What is it?”

I held it up. It was a beautifully rendered pencil sketch of the Skyview Nursing Home, huddled against a looming black mass of hills, vanishing into a star-packed sky. “I think it’s a gift.”

“Anyone I should worry about?” she asked with a smile.

I laughed and carefully placed the picture on the back seat. “No… Not in the least.”