Guilt (31 page)

*   *   *

Neddleman was ecstatic when MacRae relayed Blankstein's claim that he'd salted a bomb in the downtown skyscraper One Beacon Street, where the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts was temporarily housed. Within minutes, he'd ordered the building evacuated and searched.

Sitting with MacRae in his office afterward, Peter was in no mood to be high-fived. He'd crossed a line. He'd deal with the guilt, just not right now. There'd been no choice, he knew that, but that didn't change the fact that he felt like he'd soiled himself, violated the principles he lived by.

In a contest of ideals, Blankstein was best in show. He had his principles and acted accordingly, intellect before emotions. Blankstein had picked his enemies: Harvard Law School, where tomorrow's lawyers and judges were born and were nurtured; the courts where they practiced their deceit; the attorney general of the United States, the Satan in charge. All in the name of societal change. If some poor souls got annihilated in the process, tough nuts. They were sacrificed to a greater good.

It all made sense—all of it except the last bomb. Blankstein probably had some convoluted rationale for targeting a practicing attorney and an investigator who should have been small potatoes, unworthy of his attention. Still, the lack of symmetry troubled Peter.

“Just curious. Were there any flyers found around Annie's office?”

MacRae nodded. “Cars parked on the street had these in their windshields.” He took out a sheet of white paper, a Xerox of a page printed with a broad-tipped marker. It was printed in all caps.

FREEDOM FROM TYRANNY. LAWYERS SUCK.

And beneath that, a circled A.

Peter almost laughed. “That's short and sweet. Lacks some of the finesse of his earlier work, don't you think?”

“We're looking at it,” MacRae said, a hint of defensiveness in his tone.

“All caps? Handwritten? And that symbol at the bottom looks more like a stop sign than an anarchist symbol.”

“Yeah, I know.” MacRae looked like he had a bad case of indigestion.

“You sure Blankstein was responsible for the last one? I mean, Chip's law office? Doesn't seem grandiose enough for him.”

“We're exploring the possibility of a copycat. We've talked to Chip about who might have had a grudge against his firm.”

Peter didn't doubt that the list would be long. Chip and Annie had been working for the public defender's office for years before they went into private practice, and they'd had their share of unhappy clients. Ralston Bridges, who'd killed Peter's wife, was a case in point.

“Have the investigators reported on what they found in Annie's office?” Peter asked. “I mean, is it the same kind of bomb?”

MacRae told him the preliminary report was inconclusive.

“You don't know if they found any”—Peter cleared his throat; it felt so silly to be asking this—“flowers. Roses, for example. In the office, I mean.”

MacRae didn't scoff at the question. Instead he turned to his computer. “I'll pull up the report.” He typed something in and waited. Typed some more. Then he looked over at Peter. “Red ones?”

32

T
HANK GOD
for drugs. Annie's vision was hazy, and the only pain she felt was a dull throb in her head, distant, like it was that clock on the wall that had been banged up. She'd been out for an hour. Still, she felt like one of those dead balloons at Sophie's party. It was nice, really, that Sophie and her friends didn't cower in the corner, shriek, and cover their ears when a balloon burst. She closed her eyes.

The sound of footsteps kept her from slipping under again. Maybe the nurse was coming to check on her. No, those were hard footsteps, like leather shoe heels. Peter? She hoped it was Peter.

She felt a hand on her arm. She was glad he was back. Sun streamed in through the window behind the man who bent over her. But it wasn't Peter. The man wore green scrubs. An orderly? She let her eyes close and began to drift. Then she noticed the smells. Cigarette smoke, stale beer, and sweat. She forced her eyes open.

“So, did you like the flowers? I know you've got a thing for red roses.” The man was holding one of her roses. Peter's roses. He pressed it into her face. The sweet smell of roses mixed with the rubbery smell of his latex glove. She struggled to push him away, and pain shot up her arm, clearing the narcotic haze that threatened to smother her like a warm, moist blanket.

“You just couldn't mind your own business, could you? Bitch.” The man's fingers tightened on her arm. She knew it couldn't be Charlotte's father, but that's who she saw. “You had to stir up trouble. Turn my wife against me. Fill my daughter's head with nonsense.”

“I didn't do anything. I couldn't—” she said, barely able to muster a whisper as he leaned on her chest. She tried to bring her knee up into his groin, but only succeeded in pushing him off balance. She groped for the nurse call button but it was no longer there. The door to the room was shut.

He came back at her, holding her down, his face in hers. It was Joe Klevinski. “If at first you don't succeed,” he said. He pulled out a hypodermic syringe, and with his teeth removed the plastic sheath from the needle.

Annie screamed, butted his head, and sent him staggering back. Then she rolled onto her side and tried to free her legs. It felt as if she were moving through sludge. When he came back at her, she got off a solid kick to the groin.

Klevinski fell back and doubled over in pain. He knocked over the vase of roses. The glass broke and water spilled out onto the floor.
They're heavy as all get-out,
Annie remembered Luke saying as he offered her the roses that were delivered to her office. She could see that vase hitting the ground and cracking, revealing wires inside like a nest of vipers.

She only had a few moments before he'd recover and be on her again. She had to get away. She rolled away from him, but the rail on that side of the bed was up.
All you have to do is push one to call me.
She groped under the pillow for her cell phone, pressed 1, but before it even rang, Klevinski knocked the phone out of her hand. She tried to scream again but he had his hand over her mouth.

He was on top of her now, his knee rammed into her. Annie felt her chest compress under his weight. She struggled for breath as he pressed down.

She tried to shake her head free of his hand, or bite him, but she couldn't. She knew what she was supposed to do, she'd taught the women in her class how to defend against this kind of attack. Press up and throw him off balance. But she couldn't press, she could barely breathe.

“Pathetic pussy,” he said. She could taste the rubber of the glove and smell its chloriney scent. “Brenda put up a better fight than this.”

The world turned gray around her, as if the lens of an iris were closing.

“Too bad I have to waste this nice junk on you. Nightie-night,” he whispered, his hot, moist breath in her ear.

*   *   *

Peter walked to his car in the parking lot behind the police station. He got in and started the engine. If Annie hadn't imagined the roses, then maybe she hadn't imagined the card. So who had sent it? No one called him Petey except his mother and, to his chagrin, a few of her friends whom he didn't dare contradict. His brother used to call him Petey when he wanted to get a rise out of him. And of course, Sophie Klevinski. For some reason, it didn't bother him a bit when she did.

He put the car in gear and glanced at his watch. He'd go home, take a shower, maybe get a quick nap, and be back at the hospital in time to relieve Annie's mother. He turned onto Ruggles and headed up toward the Fens. He sniffed an armpit. Pretty ripe. Well, that's what he got for sleeping in his clothes. His body ached for a long, hot shower.

He approached the BU Bridge. In a few minutes he'd be in Cambridge. Then, a couple dozen blocks one way he'd be back at the hospital. A half-dozen blocks the other way and he'd be home.

Getting to the bridge from Boston was like threading a needle. Three lanes were supposed to merge into one, only “merge” wasn't part of the local vocabulary. Peter nudged his car forward, cutting off a Land Rover. His cell phone vibrated. He honked as the behemoth came within inches. The driver probably couldn't even see the top of his Miata. The phone vibrated again. He pried it from his pocket and glanced at the readout. It was Annie.

“Hey, what's up?” he said. There was no answer. “Hello?” He looked at the readout again. They were still connected.

“Annie? You okay?” Silence—or maybe not. He heard something. Grunting and muffled voices.

The light turned green. He shot through the intersection, then pulled over and stopped on Commonwealth Avenue. Trying to ignore the car horn blasting behind him, he rolled up the window and cut the engine. He put a finger in one ear, the phone to the other. “Hello? Can you hear me?”

Was that a man's voice? Sounds of struggle?

“Annie!” he yelled into the phone. What the hell was going on? “Are you all right?”

He started the car and peeled out, over the bridge, through the rotary, and up the ramp and onto Mem Drive. Traffic was backed up at the light. He couldn't wait. He leaned on his horn, flashed his headlights, and accelerated into oncoming traffic. There was none of that exhilaration he'd felt riding shotgun in the police cruiser a few days earlier. Cars coming the opposite direction swerved to avoid him. He sped up to the intersection, honked his way through, then veered back to his own side of the street.

“What's happening?” Peter screamed into the phone.

Then he heard a man's voice. “You won't be needing this anymore.” And the phone line went dead.

Peter dialed 911 and turned onto a dog-legged street to cut over. The hospital was only a few blocks away, but he wanted to be there
now
.

“Police emerg—” he heard on the phone, then a crackling sound and the signal cut out. Damned cell phones. He hit
REDIAL
, and barreled into the hospital emergency entrance, screeching to a halt beside a
NO PARKING
sign. He left the keys in the ignition, and hoped the car wouldn't get stolen. He couldn't worry about that now. He raced through the double doors.

A surprised clerk rose to her feet as he stormed past. “Sir, you can't go in there.”

“Police emergency,” he heard over the phone. He continued to the inner area.

“A patient in room four twenty-three at Mount Auburn Hospital is being attacked,” he said into the phone and loud enough for everyone around him to hear.

The dispatcher asked his name. A nurse tried to block his way. “You're not allowed back here,” she said, her hands up, a mixture of fear and distaste on her face. He realized he looked like a lunatic in his rumpled suit, red eyes, and day's growth of beard. “I'll have to call security.”

“Good idea. Call security. I'm calling the police now, too.”

“Please give me your name and location,” the voice on the telephone insisted.

“Peter Zak. Get someone over here fast. Mount Auburn Hospital. The patient is being attacked.”

“Stop him!” the nurse called as Peter raced toward the stairway exit.

“Room four-two-three!” he shouted over his shoulder.

He slipped into the stairwell and started up. The stairs clanged as he climbed. He hoped there'd be a security guard hot on his tail, but there wasn't.

The operator on the phone asked him to spell his name.

“Would you just send someone over here!” he said into the phone, and disconnected.

He emerged into the fourth-floor hall and hurried down the corridor, past a nurse's station and around the corner. Halfway down was Annie's room. The door opened and an orderly backed out into the corridor. The IV rack clattered as he pushed it along.

Peter checked the impulse to tackle him. Was the man's voice he'd heard on the phone just an orderly? Were the grunting and straining sounds nothing more than Annie shifting from the bed and back on again? Had she just leaned on the phone and ended up dialing 1?

The orderly walked away, down the hall. It was odd how the IV bag dangled from the rack, and how he was letting the tubes trail along on the ground.

“Code Gray, Unit four-two-three,” blared the PA system.

Why didn't the orderly double back to the room?

“Code Gray, Unit four-two-three,” the message repeated. Still the orderly didn't seem to hear.

“Hey!” Peter yelled after him.

The man gave a quick glance over his shoulder. It was Joe Klevinski.

“What the fuck were you doing in there?” Peter shouted.

Klevinski backed away. He picked up the stand, held it across his body, and hurled it at Peter. He dodged just in time, and the heavy steel apparatus clattered and banged across the floor. By the time he recovered his footing and got the stand out of the way, Klevinski was gone.

Peter ran to Annie's room. He pulled the door open. Annie lay on the bed, flat on her back. Her breathing was shallow, her body limp. There was no blood, no bruises that he could see. The sweet smell of vomit filled the room. Annie was covered in it.

Aspiration of vomitus was his first concern. That could be lethal. He turned her on her side and made sure her airway was clear. He touched her forehead. Her skin was cool and clammy. Her pulse was light and rapid. His gut wrenched. If only he hadn't left her alone.

He didn't know what to do next. Start CPR? The nurse call button had been ripped from the wall. He knelt alongside Annie. Her eyes were barely open, the pupils constricted.

“Klevinski?” he said.

She gave a barely perceptible nod.

“What did he do?”

Annie looked down at the inside of her arm where there was a raw, red spot and a bloody puncture wound. That's where the IV had been attached.