Nelson DeMille - The Gate House

I told her about the iron gates that might need to be forced open, and she asked me, “Do you think there are any other perpetrators on the premises?”

I replied, “There was, but I think he’s gone and waiting for a call from the assailant.”

“Okay, sir, you just sit tight there with your wife, and please secure any firearms.”

I thanked her and hung up. I said to Susan, “They’ll be here in five minutes.”

She looked at me and asked, “Will he be dead?”

“I don’t know.”

“I aimed for his heart. But he moved.”

I had no comment on that, but I did say, “You’re very brave, and very smart.”

She took another sip of brandy and said, “I wasn’t too smart when I opened the door.”

“I probably would have done the same thing.”

She didn’t reply, but I saw she was looking at the shotgun on the couch.

She said to me, “We should check on him. Before the police arrive.”

I thought, of course, about Frank Bellarosa, lying on the floor in Giulio’s, his carotid artery spurting blood. Stop the bleeding. That was rule one of basic first aid. So I stopped the bleeding. He lived, and here we were, ten years later, dealing with the consequences.

Susan stood and walked toward the shotgun on the couch.

“Susan.”

She looked at me and said, “Before you got here… he said to me – you and your husband think you’re so fucking smart, so fucking above-”

“I know what he said.”

“So fucking high and mighty… well, he said, when I get through with you, you’re never going to be the same again… and your fucking husband is never going to look at you the same again… and you can live with that, bitch, the way I live with thinking about you killing my father…” She picked up the shotgun and said, “And he told me I might like it so much, I might want to do it with him again.”

I stood and moved between her and the door. I said, “You can’t do that. I won’t let you.”

She stared at me, the shotgun cradled in her arm, then said, “I am so sorry, John, for everything that has happened to us.”

“That subject is closed.”

“Are you sorry you saved Frank’s life?”

I was, and I wasn’t. I said to her, “I did the right thing.”

“It was the wrong thing.”

I looked at her and asked, “Did you think so at the time?”

She didn’t reply for a few seconds, then said, “No. But afterwards… I wished you’d let him die. And now… we’re not going to make that same mistake.”

I put out my hand and said, “Give me the gun.”

She pushed the shotgun toward me and said, “He threatened our children. So you take care of it.”

I hesitated, then took the shotgun from her. We made eye contact, and she said, “Do this for Edward and Carolyn.”

I’d thought about killing Anthony, and I would have without a second thought when he was a threat to us. But killing a wounded man in cold blood was not the same. And yet… if he lived… there would be an investigation, a public trial, testimony about what happened here… and there’d always be that threat hanging over us… but if he was dead… well, dead was dead. Dead was simple.

I took a deep breath and said, “I’ll check on him.”

I carried the shotgun into the foyer and up the staircase, then stopped at our bedroom door. I checked to see that the selector switch was set to the left barrel – the one that held the heavy-load buckshot, then I opened the door.

I could see him on the floor, and his chest was still heaving.

I moved closer, then I knelt beside him.

His arms were at his sides now, and the blood coming out of his wound had slowed and was no longer frothy with air.

I looked at his face, which was so white that the stubble on his cheeks looked like black paint. I felt his pulse, then his heart, which was beating very rapidly to compensate for the loss of blood pressure.

I leaned closer to him and said, “Anthony.”

His eyelids fluttered.

“Anthony!” I slapped his face, and his eyes opened.

We looked at each other. His lips moved, but I couldn’t hear anything except a gurgling sound.

I said to him, “When you get to hell, and you see your father, tell him how you got there, and tell him who shot you. And ask your father for the truth about him leaving his family for Susan. Anthony?” I slapped him again and said, “Can you hear me?”

His eyes still had some life in them, but I didn’t know if he could hear me over the sound of the rushing in his ears, which happens when the heart is trying to pump the last of the blood through the veins and arteries.

I said loudly, “And tell your father thanks for doing me that last favor.”

His eyelids fluttered again, and I knew he’d heard me.

I kept staring at him. His eyes were wide open now, and they followed my movements, and I had the thought that he might live.

Susan came into the room, and she looked at me, then at him, but she didn’t say anything.

I could hear the sound of police sirens outside, and I said to her, “Go and unbolt the door for them. Quickly.”

“John, you have to do it, or I’ll do it.”

“Go. I’ll take care of it.”

She looked again at me, then at Anthony, then turned and left.

I stared at Anthony, who was showing too many signs of life… and it was too late now with the police outside to fire the shotgun.

I noticed that his blood had coagulated over his wound, and it was seeping, rather than flowing freely. Stop the bleeding … Start the bleeding.

I knelt on his chest, and his eyes opened wide in terror. I stuck my index finger into his wound, pushing down as far as I could into his warm chest cavity, and when I withdrew my finger, his blood gushed up and began flowing again.

I kept my full weight on his chest, which heaved convulsively, then stopped.

I stood, went into the bathroom, washed my hands, and threw the shotgun back on the bed.

When I went downstairs, Susan was standing at the open door. In the forecourt were two police cars and uniformed officers were moving quickly toward the house.

I put my arm around her shoulder and said, “It’s finished.”

The police searched and secured the premises and determined that there were no other perpetrators present.

The EMS people, who carried a stretcher upstairs, didn’t carry it downstairs, and a uniformed officer told me, “He’s dead.” The medical examiner, when he arrived, would make that official.

The police had tagged the weapons as evidence, and the crime scene investigators were on the way to begin the slow, arduous process of turning the scene of a violent personal assault into a neat scientific project.

While this was going on, a homicide detective by the name of Steve Jones had requisitioned our home office to conduct an interview with me while Susan was taken by EMS vehicle to the sexual assault unit at North Shore University Hospital.

I wasn’t happy that I hadn’t been allowed to accompany Susan to the hospital, but Detective Jones explained that this was standard operating procedure, to wit: In cases involving serious felonies, witnesses are separated. Well, one size does not fit all, and even though we were witnesses, and even though Susan killed the alleged assailant, we were also obviously crime victims, so I said to Detective Jones, “We will, of course, cooperate fully, but I have to insist that I be present when you interview Mrs. Sutter.” I further explained, “I am an attorney, and I am also her attorney.” I suggested, “It might be a good idea to call Detective Nastasi in the Second Precinct, who took our original complaint about threats that the assailant made against us.”