Lynne Heitman - First Class Killing

When he got to the close-ups of her face, I reached up and touched the bruises on my throat. Her nose was broken, and she had a gash that looked as if she’d bitten through her lower lip. One eye was pinched shut by the cauliflowered mass around it, but the other gazed out from behind dark and bruised tissue.

“ Harvey…”

“She died of a broken neck.” He continued with the parade of grotesque images.

That her spine had been snapped at its most vulnerable point was obvious from the awkward way her head hung from her shoulders. An unbroken arc of pale skin pressed against the smooth curve of muscles and tendons that ran from the base of her left ear to the hollow of her throat. Absent blood and bruises, it gleamed under the camera’s flash, obscenely undamaged to be hiding such a catastrophic rupture beneath. My heart shuddered against its vulnerability, this last part of her that still looked like her, offered up by the exaggerated tilt of her head, undefended by arms that lay still at her sides.

I reached over and stopped him from putting any more down. “ Harvey, enough.”

He stared down at me, looking more vigorous than I had ever seen him. His strength was fueled by his anger. I had waited until I had flown back to Boston from Chicago to give him the news of my attack, thinking it might go better in person. I might have been wrong about that.

“How could you not tell me? How could you keep this from me? Why did you not call me right away?”

“I didn’t want to upset you.”

“A large man attacked you in your hotel room in a strange city and tried to kill you. Why would that upset me? I told you your plan was too risky.”

I wanted to pull my feet up in the chair and curl myself around my legs. This day had already been difficult enough. I had worked my trip home as scheduled, moving through a world of strangers like a big, raw nerve, wondering which of them might, without warning, raise a hand or a weapon and try to hurt me. It had taken a lot of energy. I wasn’t sure I had enough in reserve to properly defend my incautious and possibly stupid behavior.

“You told me the fake date was too risky. This was something different. Besides, he wasn’t trying to kill me.”

“Alex, please.” He took a step back to lean against his desk. “Even you cannot be this obtuse.”

“There was something odd about this whole thing. He left me on the bed, Harvey. After I passed out-”

“After he choked you to unconsciousness.”

“-he put me on my bed with my head on a pillow, and he left a glass of water for me on the nightstand.”

“How gracious. A turndown service to go with the strangling.”

“He was there to deliver a message, one that made no sense to me. He said he wanted me to leave someone alone, a guy named Arthur Margolies, and to destroy the videos. I looked up Arthur Margolies. He’s a big frequent flier on OrangeAir out of Chicago.”

“So?”

“I think he was after Monica and not me.”

“What? Why?”

“I think he’s a client of the hooker ring-of Monica’s, specifically-and I think she’s trying to extort him using videos. Probably sex videos.” I looked up at him. “That’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“None of this makes sense.”

“Maybe not, but I have to try to make sense of it so I can continue to function. I don’t think this guy was after me, which means I don’t think he will come after me. That’s important.”

He crossed his arms and hunched his shoulders. He didn’t look to be in the mood for new theories. He liked the one where we all stayed locked in our houses afraid for our lives, because that was more or less what he did every day anyway. “You believe the last-minute switch confused your attacker?”

“I believe he was set up on the trick, the man who was supposed to be hiring Monica for the evening. How, I don’t know. Maybe he had inside information that Reverend Cole was her scheduled date. It would have been easy enough for someone to check his reservation and see what hotel he’d booked. The big guy saw me come out, followed me to my hotel, and attacked me-by mistake. I got a message that was supposed to be for Monica.”

He reached down and began kneading the muscles in his thigh. “What does Monica say?”

“Good question. She was supposed to work the trip home with us, but suddenly she’s on emergency leave. I’m pretty sure he was after her and not me, and she knows it.”

“Do you think she switched dates on purpose?”

“I don’t know. I plan to ask her.”

I looked over and saw that his leg was beginning to shake. It started quietly but quickly turned into a jack-hammer. He gripped his balky quadriceps with both hands. I jumped up and tried to give him the closest seat-mine-but he wanted to go around to his desk chair. I helped him around the desk and held his chair so it wouldn’t swivel as he sat down in it.

“Are you all right?”

He nodded, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, and mopped his forehead. I went back to my seat, and the two of us sat in silence. The only sound was the sharp ticking of the old mantel clock that kept perfect time because Harvey wound it religiously. His great-grandfather, a clockmaker, had brought it from Poland.

“This man,” he said quietly, “he could have done worse to you.”

“But he didn’t. I’m fine.”

“Alex.” He folded his handkerchief, looking more bereft than angry. “Am I so little comfort to you?”

I sank back into my seat and closed my eyes. I was mentally, physically, emotionally, and every other possible way exhausted. Did he really want to talk about this now?

“Please,” he insisted. “Say what you are thinking.”

I had to work hard to figure out what I was thinking and how much of it I could say. “I care about you, Harvey, and I hate seeing you this way. I didn’t call you because I didn’t want you sitting here by yourself in the dark…worrying.”

“You were afraid you would make me sick?” His eyes blinked rapidly, and I could tell by the way he tried to hold himself that his body was still in turmoil. “My disease causes my symptoms, not you. Let me make my small contribution, even if it is only to sit in my house by the phone and worry about you.”

“That’s not your only contribution.” It was hard for me to look at him. He was trying in his clumsy way to talk about something important, to sort out our roles and what we were to each other and maybe what we should be. It made me want to be truthful. “I didn’t call anyone, Harvey.”

“You didn’t?”

“No. I never do. When I’m in trouble, I deal with it myself. It’s not you. It has nothing to do with you being sick. I’m just not someone who takes comfort easily from anyone. I’ve always been that way. I can give it, but I never learned how to take it.” I wanted again to pull my feet up into the chair. This time I did it. “It’s one reason I’m still alone.”

He let out a sigh that seemed to calm him. “I suppose we have that in common, then.”

I hadn’t thought about it that way, but he was right. Harvey bristled at the thought of accepting help from anyone. “You are important to this case,” I said. “You are important to me. While I’m out there, I’m always asking myself, what would Harvey think? Mostly it’s in the sense of ‘ Harvey will kill me if I do this.’ ” That elicited a hesitant grin. “I don’t take direction well, and I always think I’m right about everything, but that doesn’t mean I’m not listening.”

He seemed all right with that. I waited a few moments to make sure. Sometimes it took him a few minutes to get his thoughts out. He was still; he wasn’t shaking anymore, and his breathing was steady. The subject seemed to be closed. Thank goodness.