Scandal in the Secret City (24 page)

I
wanted to slip to the floor and rest, just rest. But I had no time to spare. Mrs Bishop might still be alive, but she needed immediate medical attention. I heard the desk sergeant say something but his words were not loud enough for me to understand over the sound of my own ragged breath. I pressed both hands into the wooden counter, pushing upward as I gulped for air.

‘Ma’am, is someone chasing you?’ the desk sergeant asked.

‘I don’t know,’ I said, panting between each word.

‘Then why were you running?’

‘I …’ I inhaled sharply and spoke as I exhaled, ‘I may have killed someone.’

‘You killed someone?’

‘I don’t know. I left her on the floor.’ I sucked in another hard breath. ‘She was bleeding. I stabbed her. She might still be alive. You need to help her.’

The sergeant pulled out a form and asked, ‘What is your name?’

‘Clark. Elizabeth Clark. But please, you need to get someone to my house to help her.’

‘Elizabeth Clark?’

‘Yes. But hurry. I don’t want her to die.’

The sergeant came out from behind the counter, and placed a hand around my upper arm. ‘I understand, Miss Clark. Why don’t you come in here and sit down? I know your work is very stressful.’

‘This has nothing to do with my work,’ I said struggling against the tug on my arm.

‘Officer Ambrose, could you give me a hand out here?’

‘Let me go,’ I insisted. ‘Listen to me. A woman might be dying.’

I didn’t stop struggling but, with the help of a uniformed officer, the sergeant trundled me down the hall and into a room where they forced me into a plain wooden chair. ‘You stay right here, Miss Clark,’ the sergeant said. ‘I’ll get you help right away.’

‘I’m not the one in need of help,’ I objected, trying to rise from the chair but being firmly pressed down into it.

‘Miss, you just sit here. Officer Ambrose will be right outside the door. You’re safe now.’

I slumped into the chair feeling defeated. ‘I’ll stay here but you need to get someone to my house. You need to get help for that woman.’

The sergeant and officer walked out of the room without saying another word. And there I sat helpless and confused. What did they think was going on? How long were they going to hold me? Would they send someone to the house? They had to. Mrs Bishop might bleed to death if they didn’t. But why did I care? She tried to kill me. Obviously, she saw me as a threat to her husband, her family. Could I completely blame her for wanting to protect them? No. Not completely. When Dr Bishop killed Irene, he set this all in motion.

I jumped up and pounded on the door. ‘Officer! Officer! You need to get help for Mrs Bishop. She might bleed to death. Please help her.’

‘Miss Clark, you need to calm down,’ he shouted through the door. ‘If you don’t, I’m going to have to handcuff you to the chair. Please don’t make me do that.’

‘But she might die …’

‘Miss Clark, please.’

I slouched away from the door and returned to my seat. They must have been told some strange story about me. They were treating me as if I were mentally unstable. I looked for a way out of the room. But there were no windows. No other exits. The only way out was through that door and the officer was bigger and stronger than me. I slumped in the chair and waited.

Time passed with the speed of an opossum lumbering across a country road. If someone was going to go to my house, they would have been there and back by now. If they’d done that, they would know I was telling the truth.

I walked over and knocked politely on the door. ‘Officer Ambrose, sir.’

‘Yes, miss.’

‘I need to go to the lady’s room.’

‘Miss, I am sorry. I was told to keep you in this room.’

I slid as much southern sugar into my voice as I could muster, ‘But sir, please. I really need to go to the ladies.’ I sniffled for effect. ‘I really can’t wait any longer.’

For a moment all was quiet. I loudly choked back a sob. The lock clicked and the door opened.

‘Thank you, thank you, sir,’ I said coming through the door, wiping away imaginary tears.

‘It’s down this hall. Walk ahead of me and don’t try to run off.’

I slipped into the restroom. In the stall, I planned my next moves. Flushing the toilet, I walked over to the sink. I turned on the water and let it run for a moment. I bunched up a towel and dampened it, and turned off the water. Opening the door to the hallway, I smiled, hung my head and said, ‘Thank you, sir.’ Then I threw the towel in his face and took off running.

He was standing between me and the lobby with the front door, so I took off in the opposite direction. There had to be a rear exit and I would find it. Every moment, I faced another decision. Turn right. Turn left. Go straight. I no longer had any idea of my relative position in the building.

Suddenly, I faced a dead end with an open door to another room. Would I find a way out in there? Looking through the entry, I saw windows. Windows can be broken. I rushed into the room, thinking it was empty but then heard a voice saying, ‘She’s quite hysterical.’

‘I am not hysterical. She tried to kill me. Look. Look at my neck,’ I said raising my chin and pulling down on the collar of my blouse.

The man on the phone spoke again into the receiver. ‘And it looks like she injured herself to give credibility to her story.’

‘I did not do this,’ I shouted as Officer Ambrose pulled my arms behind my back. ‘I stabbed her. Go to my house. Take care of her.’ Cold metal encircled my wrists. A loud click echoed in my ears.

The man at the desk disconnected his call. ‘Miss Clark, I am very sorry for having to restrain you but it’s for your own good.’

‘Go to my house!’

‘We did, Miss Clark. There is no one there.’

‘Did you look in the kitchen?’ I shrieked as Ambrose led me out of the room.

‘Yes, Miss Clark. I am very sorry. We have a doctor on the way to help you.’

‘I’m not the one that needs help,’ I shouted.

Ambrose manhandled me down another hallway to a barred cell. He unlocked the door and shoved me inside. I stumbled and didn’t regain my balance until I ran into the opposite wall.

‘The doctor will be here soon, Miss Clark. Try to pull yourself together,’ the officer urged.

‘If she dies, her blood will be on your hands, too.’

He looked at me, shaking his head sorrowfully. ‘I’m sorry. When you get better, you’ll understand. Sit on the bench and be quiet. If you settle down, maybe we can take those handcuffs off.’ He walked away, his head swinging back and forth with every step.

A few minutes later, Ambrose and the sergeant led a man with a doctor’s bag up the hall. He was short with gray hair, balding on top and drooping across his forehead. Gray stubble marched along his jawline. ‘It’s very sad,’ he said to the policemen. ‘But often the line between genius and insanity runs very thin.’

‘I am not a genius,’ I objected.

‘There, there,’ the doctor said. The three men waited until two white uniformed hospital orderlies carrying a stretcher arrived outside the bars.

‘What are you going to do to me?’ I asked, jumping to my feet.

The cell door opened and all five men converged on me. ‘You’re going to have to take the cuffs off so I can give her an injection.’

‘No. No. I don’t want an injection. Stay away from me,’ I said as they backed me into a corner. I hissed at them, feeling primitive, animal, savage – I was ready to do anything to get away but with my hands fastened behind my back, I was helpless.

Ambrose flipped me around as if I was weightless and pressed my face into the rough wall as he unfastened the cuffs. The second my wrists were free, he spun me back around. I lashed out with my arms now, swinging punches but the orderlies easily overpowered me, pushing shoulders back, pinning in place like a dead butterfly.

The doctor reached for my arm. I tried to pull it away but the sergeant grabbed it firmly by the elbow and forced it out toward the doctor. The doctor squeezed my fingers under his arm and wrapped and tied a rubber tube above the sergeant’s encircling hands. He palpitated my vein. I willed it to flatten, to no avail. When the needle pierced my skin, I screamed.

In seconds, a warm sensation coursed through my limbs making me feel light and weightless. Hands slipped under my arms and ankles. Before I knew what happened, I was lying flat on my back. I looked at the lights in the ceiling passing over my head. And then, I was gone.

I
was foggy-headed when I awoke. And frightened. I didn’t know where I was. I blinked as I looked around the room. Was I still in Oak Ridge?

‘She’s opened her eyes,’ someone shouted out.

‘Miss Clark,’ someone else said while placing a hand on my shoulder. I flinched away from his touch. ‘You’re OK. Everything is all right. But we need you awake. Can you sit up if I help you?’

I nodded. ‘Mrs Bishop?’ The croaking voice I heard did not sound like mine. My mouth was so dry that my tongue cleaved to the roof of my mouth. My throat hurt. ‘Water. Please.’

A nurse handed me a glass and I took one greedy gulp after another. When I handed the glass back, another nurse handed me a cup of coffee. ‘It’s a little hot, can you manage it?’ I nodded. ‘Drink up. We need to get you alert. We need your help.’

They needed my help? What had happened while I slept? ‘Mrs Bishop – did you get to Mrs Bishop? Is she still alive?’

‘We think she’s alive but we’re not sure. We’re going to get you over to her house as soon as we can,’ a voice said from the other side of the room.

Why would they want to take me to the woman who had tried to kill me? I looked toward the person who last spoke. It was the same man I’d seen talking on the telephone in that room at the end of the hall.

‘Who are you?’ I demanded to know.

‘Lieutenant Hammond. We met earlier but you might not remember.’

‘Oh, I remember all right.’ I turned away from him and looked at the nurse. ‘What’s going on?’

Before the woman could respond, Hammond said, ‘I’ll explain to you on the way over to the scene.’

‘What scene?’ I asked.

‘I’ll explain in the car,’ he said.

‘No! I will not go anywhere with you.’

‘But Miss Clark, you are needed …’

‘I’ll go where I’m needed but not with you, not in a police car and not with any officer of the law.’

‘Miss Clark, you are acting crazy,’ Hammond snapped.

If he was calling me crazy, he obviously didn’t believe I was an insane person who needed to be humored. That was definitely an improvement. Still, I wasn’t going anywhere with a policeman.

‘Oh, leave her alone,’ one of the nurses said. ‘You treated her like she was crazy when she was telling you the truth and now you’re calling her crazy when she expresses a healthy skepticism about your intentions. I’ll drive her over there.’

Things had really changed while I was asleep.

‘She needs to be briefed,’ Hammond objected.

‘I know enough.
I’ll
tell on the way over,’ the nurse insisted. ‘C’mon, Libby.’

In her car, the nurse said, ‘I don’t know the whole story but I’ll tell you what I know.’

‘First, what time is it?’ I asked.

‘1:45 a.m.’

‘How long was I out?’

‘Just short of four hours. We gave you another injection to bring you around – not the best things to do to a body. You will probably not react well to it.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘In all likelihood, you will develop a splitting headache later this morning, along with a seemingly unquenchable thirst. And when that hits, the only thing that’s going to make you feel better is a long, long sleep.’

‘Not exactly a cheery prospect. Tell me, what is going on here?’

‘After you were brought over to the hospital, there was an argument between the military and the physicians. We thought you should be in a proper mental health facility where you could be evaluated and treated. They argued that it would compromise security by bringing unwanted attention to our mission here. They worried about the risk that in your state you might reveal important information about your work here.’

‘What did you all decide?’

‘We didn’t have time to make a decision. The argument was still underway when one of the Bishops’ neighbors called the police station and reported he heard shots fired and a woman screaming and thought it came from the Bishop house.

‘An officer responded to the Bishop home but when he knocked on the front door and got no response, he eased the door open. At that moment, a shot rang out. The officer was hit – it was only a flesh wound but it was enough to make him lose his footing. He stumbled off the steps and fell on the ground, and broke an arm.’

‘Oh no. The same arm that was shot?’

‘Yes, but at least he has one arm that still functions. We patched him up, too, while you slept. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Hammond was concerned enough about what was happening over there, that after he sent in help and reinforcements for the injured officer, he personally made a trip to your house. He didn’t find a body but he noticed a throw rug on the kitchen floor that seemed to be in a peculiar spot. He lifted it and saw smeared blood on the floor. Then, he looked in your trash can and found towels stained with reddish brown. And he came to the hospital and here we are.’

‘So what’s going on at the Bishop house?’

‘That I don’t know. But right now, the police are assuming it’s a hostage situation. They just don’t know who the hostages are and who is holding them.’

As we pulled up to the scene, the situation looked anything but normal. Patrol cars filled the street in front of the Bishop home. I stepped out of the nurse’s car and looked around for a familiar face. I heard a voice shout, ‘Over here, Miss Clark.’

I turned and saw Lieutenant Colonel Crenshaw and Charlie Morton standing side by side. I walked over to them and saw relief wash over Charlie’s face. ‘Thank God, you’re OK, Libby.’

‘What happened? What’s going on inside the house? Is Ann in there?’

Crenshaw placed a hand on Libby’s shoulder. ‘Let me explain, Libby. Let’s go sit in my car.’

I didn’t particularly trust Crenshaw either but I slid into the passenger seat just the same. I did, however, keep a hand on the door handle, just in case. ‘How did you get involved in this?’

‘You look wary, Miss Clark. I can’t say that I blame you. Lieutenant Hammond called me over to your house. Besides the evidence in your kitchen, we found a trail of blood leading down your steps. It ended just where someone would have stood to get into an automobile and drive away.

‘Both the lieutenant and I thought it was possible that the story you told was true. I admit that I was still skeptical. But I couldn’t neglect what I saw with my own eyes. When we arrived over here, I became a believer. I’m sorry for doubting you – we all regret it.’

‘I think this is connected to Irene’s death.’

‘In all likelihood, that is correct. What do you theorize happened?’

‘Dr Bishop was having an affair with Irene Nance,’ I began.

‘Correct,’ Crenshaw said.

‘Irene was pregnant.’

Crenshaw nodded.

‘Bishop had been in that situation before. This time, he decided to eliminate the problem by killing Irene before she could kill his career.’

‘That part of your theory needs to be reconsidered, Miss Clark.’

‘Why?’ I asked. ‘Do you have evidence pointing in another direction?’

‘Just before midnight on Christmas evening, a car belonging to Mrs Bishop’s sister did go through the gate into our facility.’

‘Well, that puts Dr Bishop here and gives him the opportunity to commit the crime.’

‘Not exactly. There was only one passenger in the vehicle. It was not Dr Bishop. It was a woman – his wife, Mildred Bishop.’

‘But I thought she was protecting her husband. I thought that’s why she attacked me.’

‘Apparently, she was just trying to save her own neck.’

‘So she must be the one firing the gun inside the house?’

‘Probably. But it is also possible that Dr Bishop has the weapon and thinks somehow he can protect his wife. Or maybe we heard gunfire because he killed her when he found out what she had done.’

‘But she was injured. How did she get to her house?’ I asked.

‘We found the car parked a block up the street. There was blood on the driver’s seat and a spotty trail of blood up to the house. We assumed she drove herself home.’

‘So where do things stand now? What do you need from me?’

‘It’s a long shot. But we were hoping that you could try talking to Mrs Bishop on the bullhorn. Maybe your presence would catch her off guard. Maybe you could convince her to release her daughter. It seems worth a shot.’

‘OK,’ I agreed. ‘I don’t think it will do any good but I’ll try.’

The police provided me with as much cover as possible. I lifted the instrument to my lips and shouted. ‘Mrs Bishop, this is Libby Clark. I need to talk to Ann. Could you let her come out, please?’

A shot fired out from the house, shattering the headlight on a patrol car. A second shot dinged a lamp post. I sighed, turned the bullhorn over to the officer standing beside me, and walked over to where Crenshaw waited. He gave me a grim smile and said, ‘Thank you for trying.’