Harmful Intent (37 page)

It took Kelly several beats before she could break the paralyzing spell the man's appearance had caused. In full panic she pushed the car door completely open and leaped out into the street. She dashed for the building, grasping the door, fully intending to pull it open. But she didn't. She wondered if Trent had had time to pass through the foyer. After another second's hesitation, she cracked the door an inch and peered within. Seeing the foyer was empty, she quickly entered and madly searched for Trent's name on the intercom board. Finding it on the top, she reached with a trembling index finger and pushed the button.

“No!” Kelly cried. Tears of fear and frustration welled in her eyes. The button wouldn't budge. Looking closely, she could see that the buzzer had long been disconnected. The severed wire was clearly exposed. The button was permanently smashed in. If the wire hadn't been cut, Harding's apartment would have been perpetually abuzz. Kelly pounded the intercom panel with her fist. She had to think of something. She considered her options. There weren't many.

She dashed back outside and ran to the middle of the street. Cupping her hands around her mouth, she shouted up to the open window: “Jeffrey!” There was no response. Then she yelled even louder, repeating his name twice.

If Jeffrey heard, he gave no sign. Kelly was at a loss. What could she do? She pictured Harding climbing the stairs. He was probably at his door that instant. Running over to her car, Kelly hopped in and leaned on her horn.

 

Jeffrey straightened up and stretched. He'd searched most of the undercounter cabinets in the kitchen and had found nothing unexpected besides a rather sizable colony of cockroaches. In the distance he heard a car horn sound steadily. He wondered what the trouble was. Whatever it was, the driver was pretty insistent.

Jeffrey had hoped by now to have come across something incriminating in Trent's apartment, but he'd come up with nothing. All he'd succeeded in establishing was some evidence of a weird and possibly violent personality, combined with some serious questions about his sexual identity. But that certainly didn't
make him a serial killer who'd tampered with vials of local anesthetics.

Jeffrey began to open the kitchen drawers. There was nothing unusual, just the usual flatware, knives and openers, and other kitchen gadgets. Then he went to the sink and opened the cabinet under it. There he found a garbage can, a box of S.O.S. pads, a bunch of discarded newspapers, and a propane torch.

Jeffrey lifted the torch from the cabinet and looked at it more closely. It was the type used by do-it-yourself plumbers. A portable tripod was folded against its side. Jeffrey's first thought was whether the torch could have been used in tampering with the Marcaine vials. He recalled his own makeshift experiment using Kelly's stove. A torch like this would have been better in directing the heat. But while the torch might have been useful for such a purpose, in itself it hardly constituted proof that was the reason Trent had it under his sink. There were a lot of uses for a propane torch besides tampering with glass medicinal ampules.

Jeffrey's heart skipped a beat. The sound of heavy footfalls coming up the stairs reached his ears. Quickly he put the propane torch back in place and closed the doors to the cabinet. Then he started for the living room in case he had to beat a hasty retreat. He'd not heard the buzzer, but he thought it best to be prepared in the unlikely event Harding had gotten in without Kelly seeing him.

The sound of a key slipping into a lock made him freeze. The open window was twenty feet away, directly past the door to the hall. Jeffrey knew he wouldn't make it out in time. All he could do was flatten himself against the kitchen wall and hope to stay out of sight.

His heart racing, Jeffrey heard the door slam and the sound of magazines being dropped onto the coffee table, followed by the same heavy footfalls across the room. Soon the deep, percussive pulse of rock music filled the apartment.

Jeffrey wondered what he could do. The window in the kitchen looked out on a courtyard, but there was no fire escape there. It was a straight five-story drop to the ground. His only route of escape was the window in the front, unless he could get to the hall door in time. Jeffrey doubted he could do it, and even if he did make it to the door, he'd noticed the full complement of locks securing it. He'd never be able to unlock them fast enough. But he had to do something. It was only a matter of time before Trent noticed the missing screen.

Before Jeffrey could think of what to do, Trent surprised him
again by walking directly past, heading to the refrigerator. He had a six-pack of beer in his hand.

Knowing he'd be discovered in the next few seconds, Jeffrey took advantage of the moment by dashing through the door, heading for the open window.

The sudden movement startled Trent, but only momentarily. With a burst of profanity, he let go of the beer, which crashed to the linoleum, and leaped after Jeffrey.

Jeffrey had one goal in mind: to get out the window. Reaching it, he practically dove through, hitting his hip on the sill. Grabbing the wrought-iron balustrade of the fire escape, he attempted to pull his legs from the room, but he wasn't quite fast enough. Trent got hold of his right leg at the knee and began to pull.

A tug-of-war resulted, with both men grunting and heaving. Jeffrey was no match for the younger man's strength. Realizing he was about to be yanked back into the apartment, Jeffrey cocked his free leg and kicked Trent as hard as he could in the chest.

The blow loosened Trent's grip on Jeffrey's leg. With a second kick, Jeffrey was freed. He cleared the sill and scrambled up the fire escape on all fours.

Trent leaned out the window, to see Jeffrey going up. Deciding to head him off, he ducked back into the apartment to use the main stairs. En route he grabbed a claw hammer he kept on his bookcase.

Jeffrey had never moved so quickly in his life. Once he made it to the roof, he lost no time. He ran directly at the wall of the neighboring house and vaulted to its roof. He rushed to the headhouse and frantically tugged on the door. It was locked! Running for the next wall, he heard the door to the headhouse of Trent's building burst open and smash against the wall.

Jeffrey glanced over in time to see Trent charging in his direction with a determined grimace of anger contorting his face. Jeffrey saw that he was clutching a claw hammer.

Jeffrey reached the second headhouse, two buildings up from Trent's. He gave the door a tug. To his utter relief, it opened. In a second he was inside, pulling the door shut behind him and fumbling with the lock, which was broken. But there was a hook and eye. Jeffrey's hands were trembling so badly that he had trouble putting the hook through. He slipped it home just as Trent smashed into the door's other side.

Trent rattled the door viciously, trying to open it. Jeffrey backed away, hoping the slender hook would hold. When Trent
gave vent to his frustration by pounding the door with his hammer, several of the blows penetrated the thin door with a splintering sound. Jeffrey turned and fled down the stairs. He was two flights down when he heard the door crash open.

Rounding the third landing, Jeffrey tripped in his haste. Had it not been for his grip on the banister, he would have fallen. Fortunately he was able to regain his balance and continue his descent.

Reaching the ground floor, he pushed through the doors to the street. Kelly was standing next to the car.

“Let's go!” Jeffrey shouted as he dashed for the car. By the time he got in, Kelly had the car started. At that moment, Harding appeared, his hammer clenched in his hand. Kelly spun the tires. There was a dull thud on the roof of the car. Trent had thrown the hammer.

Jeffrey braced himself against the dash as Kelly accelerated down Garden Street. The tires screeched in complaint as she braked at the foot of the hill. Without stopping, she turned right onto Cambridge Street's busy thoroughfare and headed for downtown Boston.

Neither of them spoke until they were forced to stop for a light at New Chardon Street. Then Kelly turned to Jeffrey. She was enraged. “ ‘Nothing will go wrong. Trust me,' ” she said, parodying Jeffrey's earlier reassurance. “I told you not to go in there!” she yelled.

“You were supposed to buzz!” Jeffrey yelled in return, still catching his breath.

“I tried,” Kelly snapped. “Did you check to make sure the buzzer worked? Of course not. That would have been asking too much. Well, the buzzer was busted and you could have gotten yourself killed. That idiot had a hammer. Why did I let you go in there?” she wailed, hitting her forehead with an open palm.

The light changed. They moved forward. Jeffrey remained silent. What could he say? Kelly was right. He probably shouldn't have gone into Trent's apartment. But it had seemed like such an ideal opportunity.

They drove in silence for a few miles more. Then Kelly asked, “Did you at least find something to justify the gamble?”

Jeffrey shook his head. “Not really,” he said. “I found a propane torch, but that's hardly evidence.”

“No poison vials on the kitchen table?” she asked sarcastically.

“Afraid not,” Jeffrey said, beginning to feel a little angry
himself. He knew Kelly was shaken up, and had reason to be irritated at his amateur sleuthing, but he thought she was carrying it a bit far. Besides, he'd been the one who risked his neck, not her.

“I think it's time we call the police, proof or no proof. A hammer-toting madman is proof enough for me. The police should be in that creep's apartment, not you.”

“
No!
” Jeffrey shouted, this time with real anger. He didn't want to go through this discussion again. But as soon as he'd raised his voice, he felt sorry. After everything she'd gone through for his sake, Kelly deserved better. Jeffrey sighed. He'd go through it one more time. “The police wouldn't even be able to get a search warrant with only pure speculation.”

They drove toward Kelly's Brookline home in silence. When they got close, Jeffrey said, “I'm sorry I yelled at you. That fellow really scared me. I hate to think what he would have done to me if he'd caught me.”

“My nerves are a bit raw, too,” Kelly admitted. “I was terrified when I saw him go in the building, especially after I realized I couldn't warn you. I felt so helpless. Then when I saw you struggling on the fire escape, I was beside myself. How did you manage to get away?”

“Luck,” Jeffrey said, realizing how much danger he'd been in. He shuddered as he tried to ban from his mind the image of Trent coming at him with the claw hammer in his hand.

As they turned onto Kelly's street, Jeffrey remembered his other problem: Devlin. He thought about climbing into the backseat, but there wasn't time. Instead, he slid down so that his knees were against the dash.

Kelly saw him out of the corner of her eye. “Now what?”

“I almost forgot about Devlin,” Jeffrey explained as Kelly pulled into her driveway. She pressed her automatic garage door opener, and as soon as she'd pulled in, she pressed it again. The door closed behind them.

“All I need at this point is for Devlin to lunge out of nowhere,” Jeffrey said as he got out of the car. He didn't know whom he feared more, Trent or Devlin. They went into the house together.

“How about some herbal tea?” Kelly suggested. “Maybe it will settle us both down.”

“I think I need about 10 mgs of intravenous Valium,” Jeffrey said. “But I'll settle for tea. It would be nice, actually. Maybe we could put a little shot of cognac in it. That might help.”

Kicking off his shoes, Jeffrey slumped onto the family room couch. Kelly put the water on to boil.

“We've got to come up with some other way of finding out if Trent Harding is the culprit or not,” Jeffrey said. “The problem is that I don't have a lot of time. Devlin's going to find me one of these days. Probably sooner than later.”

“There's always the police,” Kelly said. As soon as Jeffrey started to protest, she added: “I know, I know. We can't go to the police, et cetera, et cetera. But remember, you're a fugitive, I'm not. Maybe they would listen to me.”

Jeffrey ignored her. If she didn't understand by this time, he wasn't going to try to explain it to her again. Until there was some concrete evidence, it was ridiculous to go to the authorities. He was that much of a realist.

Lifting his feet to the top of the coffee table, Jeffrey settled back into the depths of the couch. He was still shaking from his experience with Trent Harding. The vision of the man coming at him with the hammer would haunt him for the rest of his life.

Jeffrey tried to review where he was in his investigation. Although he had no proof of a contaminant in the Marcaine, his instincts told him it had been there. There was no other explanation for the array of symptoms all those patients evidenced. He didn't have high hopes of Dr. Seibert's finding anything, but his conversation with the man had made Jeffrey feel relatively certain that some kind of toxin, maybe batrachotoxin, was involved. And at least Dr. Seibert was interested enough to be looking for one.

Jeffrey was also pretty certain that Harding was the murderer. His working at all five of the involved hospitals was too much of a coincidence. But Jeffrey had to be sure. If it was just coincidence, then he'd have to get busy on getting the staff lists for the remaining two hospitals.

“Maybe you should just call him up,” Kelly said from the kitchen.

“Call who?” Jeffrey asked.

“Harding.”

“Oh, sure!” Jeffrey said, rolling his eyes. “And say what? Hey, Trent! Are you the guy who's been putting poison in the Marcaine?”

“It's no more stupid than you going up to his apartment,” Kelly said, taking the kettle from the stove.

Jeffrey turned to look at Kelly to make sure she was serious. She raised her eyebrows at him as if to challenge him to disagree
with her last statement. Jeffrey faced around again and stared out at the garden. In his mind he played a hypothetical telephone conversation with Trent Harding. Maybe Kelly's suggestion wasn't so stupid after all.