Straw Men (8 page)

Christensen took a step back, hoping to defuse the situation.

Harnett stepped forward. “Any guesses?” he said, practically shouting now.

“David, don't,” Teresa said. Her voice was sharp as she pushed herself between them. “Just back off, OK?”

David Harnett's eyes never left Christensen's. He moved his wife out of the way with a slow sweep of his arm, his size and strength making the move seem almost gentle. “What is it about this situation you people don't understand?”

Christensen took another step back, almost out of the vending area. Harnett clenched and unclenched his fists, which seemed to pump him even larger.

Christensen looked directly at Teresa, trying to reconnect. “I'm sorry this happened,” he said. “Really.”

Teresa glared, then stepped between the two men again, facing her husband. In her stance Christensen saw proof of her police training. She barked, “David, back off,” and her voice left no room for discussion. It worked.

Harnett blinked, then looked his wife in the eyes.

“Let's just go,” she said. “It's not worth it.”

Christensen took advantage of the moment and stepped into the hall, finally out of the small room. He was halfway to his office door when he heard Teresa's question echo down the corridor: “What phone call?”

“Don't!” she said, grabbing for the control. She'd been brushing her teeth when Levin's segment came on. She left the sink in midstroke, and her lips were rimmed with Crest.

“Bren, I can feel you getting tense. Or, more tense. You don't need the aggravation.”

Brenna gave Levin back his voice.

“—trouble finding even a single resident of Teresa Harnett's Morningside neighborhood who hasn't taken extra precautions in the wake of the controversial ruling in the DellaVecchio case. They definitely have strong opinions about what should happen at the final hearing and—”

“Myron's such an ass,” Brenna said, wiping her mouth on a hand towel. “He's just hysterical.”

“You think this is funny?”

“I didn't say funny. I said hysterical.”

True enough,
Christensen thought. For nearly two weeks now, Levin had been working himself into a righteous froth in a series of grave reports for the evening news. Working every conceivable angle of the story, he'd revisited the crime scene and replayed key testimony from the original trial. He'd interviewed the fearful residents of Lawrenceville about the unleashed monster in their midst, and now was doing the same with people who lived in Morningside, where Teresa Harnett was attacked and still lived. Night after night, Levin had treated viewers to a somber parade of legal scholars, judicial analysts, skeptical forensic experts, and carefully orchestrated leaks from the district attorney's office. Boiled down to its essence, his central message seemed clear: Run for your lives!

“Hysterical,” Christensen repeated. “Perfect.”

Brenna's face suddenly filled the screen. It was a grab shot from an old videotape. Her eyes were half closed, and her mouth was frozen in a sneer.

“You look like you're about to spit,” Christensen said.

“Shh.”

“Curiously, Brenna Kennedy, Mr. DellaVecchio's defense attorney, did not return phone calls earlier today,” Levin droned from off screen.

“Like I've got nothing better to do, you pompous son-of-a—”

“So it's hard to say how the Scarecrow camp is reacting to the almost vigilante atmosphere building among fearful residents such as these. But as you know, Kennedy makes no apologies for springing the man she claims was unjustly convicted of the brutal attack on the former Pittsburgh police officer. She's still pushing hard to permanently overturn the conviction.”

Brenna's face blinked off and Levin was back, looking like a toupeed bulldog. He was standing in the obscene glow of klieg lights along a darkened street, pumping up for a big finish. The word
Morningside
was superimposed across the bottom of the screen. The TV blinked again and Levin was suddenly inside a frame, talking to a square-jawed ten o'clock news anchor.

“Sounds like prison might be the safest place for Mr. DellaVecchio,” the anchor said.

Levin heaved a synthetic laugh, then arranged his features into his best but-seriously-folks face. “I can tell you this, Buck: I spoke to a longtime resident of this working-class community this afternoon. He asked not to be identified, but he said he remembers watching his neighbor, Teresa Harnett, wheeled into a waiting ambulance eight years ago, her skull shattered, clinging to life. This gentleman said if the Scarecrow ever visits Morningside, he'd be waiting with a group of like-minded citizens. And let me assure you he's not with the Welcome Wagon.”

“For Chrissakes,” Brenna said. “This is fucking
absurd.
”

Christensen cocked his head toward the kids' bedrooms down the hall. “Shh. They were still awake fifteen minutes ago.”

Anchor Buck nodded his head, then turned to face the camera. “Thanks, Myron. The stadium-site traffic controversy is back in the news—”

This time, Brenna zapped the TV. Anchor Buck disappeared in a flash, silenced, reduced to a bright blue dot at the center of the screen. Christensen watched it fade, dimming the room. The only light came from the open bathroom door, since the streetlight beyond the open miniblind was still broken.

“Why doesn't Levin just organize the mob himself?” Brenna said. “Pass out torches with the station's logo. Be a great promotion.”

Christensen reached over and tried to massage the tight muscles at the base of her neck. If his hands had been electrified, she couldn't have recoiled any more violently.

“They're getting to you,” he said.

“Damn right they are.”

“You never get rattled, Bren. Why now?”

“The world's full of creeps, you know that?” She threw back the comforter and stood up. “I just get tired of dealing with them sometimes. I feel like I'm surrounded.”

“Define creep,” he said.

She wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly cold in the loose T-shirt she wore to bed. “Idiots like Levin. Dagnolo. Milsevic. David Harnett. Oily bastards, every one of them. Not a person in this whole fucking mess who isn't a creep.”

“Thank heavens DellaVecchio's so lovable,” he said.

Brenna stomped toward the bathroom to finish brushing her teeth, slamming the door behind her.

“That was a joke, Bren,” he shouted.

She opened the door again, leaned against the frame. “I know he's a shit. God, this case, my life, would be so much easier if he was the least bit sympathetic. It's like defending Hitler.”

Christensen shook his head. “Hitler had better PR, and a loyal following. DellaVecchio just has you. But you knew all that from the start, and you took it on anyway.”

“Because it was right,” she said.

“Don't lose sight of that, Bren. I haven't. It's one of the reasons I love you.”

She turned back to the sink. Still agitated.

“Did something happen today?” he asked.

Her answer was lost in a rush of water and furious oral hygiene. Christensen snapped on the reading lamp beside his bed. He angled it to keep Brenna's side of the bed dark. The alarm clock read 10:22, late, because he knew she'd be up earlier than usual as DellaVecchio's hearing date approached.

Brenna stepped out. Her silhouette showed through the thin T-shirt, her body's Nautilized lines defined by the bathroom light. She was forty-seven, but at times she looked fifteen years younger. This was one of those times.

She snapped off the bathroom light. “Something did happen,” she said, crossing the room and sliding back under the comforter. “Couple things, actually, going back maybe a week or so. You know that phone message we got?”

Christensen's face flushed. “You got another one,” he said. Not a question. He knew from the way she avoided his eyes.

She held up two fingers.

They were back, suddenly, at the precipice, staring down at an issue that nearly destroyed their blended family once before.

“When did you plan to tell me?” he said.

A tiny red dot suddenly wavered across the bed's headboard. What was that?

“I just wasn't sure if it was anything to wor—”

Feathers leapt from the pillow near Brenna's left ear. Her mouth was open, the words still hanging between them, but the moment's soundtrack seemed suddenly, slightly off. There'd been a tiny, distant
pop!,
and a nearby
whuff!
At the same time, the headboard shuddered.

“—ry about,” Brenna said. In an instant, her face transformed, a mixture of confusion and indistinct pain.

“Bren?”

She lifted her hand to her left ear. Blood. It was seeping from a three-inch cut that scored the side of her head, just above the ear, matting her hair to her scalp. Brenna pulled her hand away and looked at her red fingertips.

“I'm—” she said. “Jim?”

Nothing made sense. They looked at each other, then at the bedroom window. A tiny, crystalline hole had blossomed in one of the panes. “The floor!” was all Christensen could manage as he shoved Brenna off her side of the bed. He rolled off his own side just as the window popped again, saw the headboard's golden oak splinter where Brenna's head had been a split second before. Christensen checked the window again before he crawled underneath the bed. A second hole punctuated the pane, right next to the first.

Brenna was on her knees on the floor, staring down at nothing, reaching again to the left side of her head.

Christensen belly-crawled under the bed and grabbed her elbow. “Under here!”

She turned and looked at him. Fear had replaced the confusion on her face. Not panic, but then she couldn't see what Christensen saw as she turned her head. Her left ear and the left side of her face were cross-hatched with blood, which was coming faster now. It ran down the forearm she was using to prop up her head.

“It burns,” she said. “What's happening?”

Still talking,
Christensen thought. A good sign. He pulled hard on her arm and she wriggled under the bed frame. Then, over the sound of their breathing, a fragile voice from the hall.

“Mom?”

“Taylor, don't open the door!” Christensen shouted. “Stay where you are!”

“What's going on?” he asked.

“Just stay where you are!”

In the confusion, the portable phone had fallen from the night table on Christensen's side of the bed. He reached for it and pulled it underneath along with a corner of the down comforter that lay crumpled beside it. Brenna was crying now, saying “It burns” over and over. He wiped her face with the comforter, told her to press it hard against the wound. “You're OK, Bren,” he said. “Press hard, though.”

He dialed 911, counting the rings.

Again, from the hall: “Mom? Jim?”

Her son's voice seemed to bring Brenna back from the edge of shock. “Taylor, just wait, OK?” she said. “Don't move, honey. Don't open the door.”

“Pittsburgh Police,” a dispatcher answered. “Is this an emergency?”

“Shooting,” Christensen said.

“Mom?”

“732 Howe. Shadyside.” Christensen heard the dispatcher's fingers flying over a keyboard.

“Are you hurt, sir?”

“No, but—”

“Anyone else?”

“One person. She's hurt. Please hurry.”

“Mom?”

“We're on the way, sir. What's your name?”

“Jim Christensen.”

“House or apartment?”

“Our house.”

“Is
there still shooting going on?”

“No. No. I don't think so. Two shots right together, from outside.”

“So the gun isn't in the house?”

“No.”

More typing. Then, to her rolling unit, the dispatcher barked, “Negative on the gun. Repeat. No gun in the house.” To Christensen, she said, “How many people in the house? This is important, sir. How many people?”

“Four. Two adults, two kids. Everybody's in the upstairs bedrooms.”

“A two-story house?”

“Three. We're on the second floor.”

“Can you get downstairs?”

“Yes.” To Brenna, Christensen said, “Press harder.”

“Is the front door locked, sir?”

“Yes.”

“If you can get safely downstairs, then, I want you to unlock that door. We're probably about two minutes away. Got that?”

“Unlock the door,” he repeated.

“But not if you're still in any danger. Do you feel like you're still in danger, sir?”

“I'll meet them downstairs,” Christensen said as he backed out from under the bed. “We need a paramedic.”

“On the way. Just hang tight.”

Christensen laid the phone next to Brenna, leaving the line open, and crawled across the floor to the window. He pressed himself against the inside wall and stood up, twisting the miniblind rod until the louvers pinched shut. He crossed the room and opened the bedroom door.

Taylor stood alone in the dark second-floor hallway, his face reflecting his terror. Christensen picked the boy up before he could look into the bedroom. He carried him past the room where Annie still slept, down the creaking wooden stairs, saying “Everything's OK, buddy, everything's OK,” and wishing it were true.

Christensen pointed to the splintered oak headboard about a foot above the mattress on Brenna's side. Milsevic moved closer, and at the same time popped something into his mouth. He noticed Christensen watching him and held out a foil-backed tray of plastic bubbles.

“Nicorette?” he said.

Christensen shook his head. Milsevic knelt down near the bullet hole and chewed his gum. A female detective named Heffentreyer already had excavated the lead-gray blob for the crime lab, leaving behind only a pulpy scar.

“Jesus,” Milsevic said. “We got bad juju here. Definitely not a stray bullet. What time did you say this was?”

“Just before ten-thirty,” Christensen said. ‘The detective already took our statements, you know. The paramedics are done with Brenna. It's after midnight and I'd like to get things calmed down around here.”

“Right. Sorry,” Milsevic said, glancing at the punctured window across the room. His eyes traced the bullet's path to the headboard, then he added another piece of nicotine gum to the wad in his mouth.

“That's not exactly a therapeutic dose,” Christensen said. “You're chain chewing.”

“We've all got vices,” Milsevic said. “What's yours?”

Christensen ignored the question and glanced at his watch. The police captain offered a sympathetic smile.

“I'm not crazy about being out this late either. My cell phone went off and I thought, ‘What the hell?' But with everything going on lately, the chief just wanted some administrative oversight on this one. So here I am. I'll be out of your way ASAP.”

For the first time Christensen could recall, Milsevic wasn't impeccably dressed. Dark-blue turtleneck under a distressed leather jacket. Black pants. No socks. Soft leather moccasins that looked more like bedroom slippers. He'd arrived fifteen minutes earlier looking like a man who'd been rousted from bed and dressed in the dark.

“Real quick, I need you to go over something again.” Milsevic crossed the room to the window and twirled the miniblind rod until the louvers were fully open. “Detective Heffentreyer told me this blind was closed when she arrived, but she said you told her it was open when the shots were fired. Is that correct?”

“Correct.”

“Who closed it?”

“I did.”

“When?”

“After I called 911.”

“But before you ran downstairs to let the patrol officers in?”

“Right.”

“Why?”

Over Milsevic's shoulder, Christensen could see the crime scene photographer on the roof of the apartment building across the street. His camera's blue flash lit Heffentreyer and a uniformed officer as they stood behind a brick façade that rose several feet above the building's roof line. Milsevic twisted the rod and the blind closed, obliterating Christensen's view of what was happening.

“What's the big mystery?” Christensen said. “It was the only way to see into the room, and I wanted to shut it. As long as that blind was open, we were sitting ducks.”

“Pretty smart. So you just walked over and closed it?”

“We were under the bed at that point. I'd called 911 and needed to get downstairs to let the patrol officers in. I crawled over to the wall and stood up next to the window and closed the blind. That's all. I don't get what you're after.”

Milsevic shifted his cud into one cheek and smiled. “Just trying to tie up some loose ends, is all. Detective training 101.”

“Well, look, can we do the rest of that tomorrow? I've got two kids here that are confused as hell, and Brenna's pretty rattled. I need to spend some time with them.”

“Of course,” Milsevic said, “but try to understand our position.” He pointed to the window. “There's somebody out there with a gun, looks like a nine-millimeter from the size of the hole. They've obviously got bad intentions. Anybody dies, 'specially somebody high-profile, we look bad.”

“Even if it's the woman who unleashed the Scarecrow?” Christensen said. “That might get you elected mayor in this town.”

Milsevic smiled. “I don't care if it's Perry Damn Mason, know what I'm saying? So just bear with us while we make sure everything's kosher.”

“Just keep an open mind about it,” Christensen said. “That's all I ask.”

Milsevic stood up. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“Don't even pretend DellaVecchio's not on your short list on this, OK. He's out. He's a notorious loose cannon. I've even had people tell me they think he's got a grudge against Brenna. I'm guessing nothing would make you people happier than to prove he was involved, and if he is, I hope you nail his hide to the wall. But if he isn't—and be honest, shooting's not his style—this whole thing's even scarier.”

The bedroom door creaked slowly open. Brenna stepped into the room, a heavy patch of gauze covering her left ear and much of the left side of her head. Taylor was clinging to her hand, as he had been for the last ninety minutes. The paramedics were still stitching her scalp when Milsevic showed up, so Brenna hadn't yet seen him.

“What's he doing here?” she asked.

Christensen shrugged. “We were just talking about that. He wanted to see the bedroom.”

“I'm here because I was asked to be here,” Milsevic said. “I don't like it any more than you. But let us do our job. This
is
freaky shit—pardon my French, young man—and we take that very seriously, OK?”

“Really?” Brenna said.

“Really.”

Brenna's left eye twitched, a stress reaction. “Then let me ask you something, Captain. Didn't you promise me you'd tell the Harnetts about that phone message I got two weeks ago?”

The color flowed from Milsevic's face, but he recovered quickly. “I don't follow you,” he said, moving his gum from one cheek to the other.

“Jim talked to David Harnett. You never told them.” Brenna nodded toward the window. “I get a threatening phone call from somebody who knows a fairly obscure detail about the attack on Harnett's wife, and you don't think that's important enough to tell them?”

“Since when do we broadcast details of an ongoing investigation?” Milsevic said.

Brenna crossed the room, closing the gap between her and Milsevic. Taylor trailed behind his mother, holding tight to the belt of her robe. “Not even to a potential victim? Not even to personal friends who might be in danger?”

Milsevic didn't back down. “So I guess this all becomes part of your conspiracy theory, right? All these sleazy cops trying to railroad your client again. Well I got news for you, lady. My ass is on the line here, too.”

“And you're just here to make sure it's covered, aren't you?”

Milsevic stepped away, actually turned around to compose himself. When he turned back, he looked straight at Brenna. “I won't be baited, but I will tell you this: Our minds are very open at this point. Mine is, at least. You've come up with this DNA evidence, and that's a tough thing to get around. We'll see if it holds up. But you've been bitching for years that the original investigation was too narrow. Well, OK. Maybe it was. Maybe you're not the only one who could've done better on the first go-round.”

Milsevic and Brenna glared at one another.

“What are you saying, Captain?” she said at last.

“You got a second chance to do your job right, Ms. Kennedy. Just give me the same chance.”

Brenna's eyes softened. “But why didn't you mention the phone call to the Harnetts?”

“I have my reasons.”

The comment seemed weighted, and it brought the conversation to a dead stop. Milsevic looked suddenly self-conscious, as if he'd said more than he intended. “I'm gonna get out of your way now,” he said. “I know you've had a long night. Try to get some sleep.”

He cocked a thumb over his shoulder, toward the bedroom window. Beyond the closed blinds, another blue flash tore the darkness across the street. “We'll make sure you're informed of any significant developments. I'll let myself out.”

Brenna sat on the bed as soon as Milsevic left the room. She reached for her favorite goose-down pillow, but came up empty. It was on its way to the crime lab, along with the headboard slug and the one that had creased her skull, pierced the pillow, and ended up on the floor under the bed like a dropped M&M. Taylor sat beside her, looking to Christensen for reassurance. Christensen looked to Brenna for the same, but she looked away.

“Bren, you can walk away from all this,” he said.

She shook her head. “Like it or not, I'm in the middle of it.”

He knelt at the edge of the bed. “No, Bren,
we're
in the middle of it. Again.”

“I know,” she said.

Christensen waited for a sign, some expression or words that suggested remorse at having brought her family to the edge of tragedy. What Brenna said, though, was, “What do you think Milsevic's up to?”

Annie burst through the bedroom door, energized after pestering the cops and paramedics downstairs for the past ninety minutes. The alarm clock distracted her. “12:48! Wait till I tell Julie. This is the coolest night ever.”

Then Annie's eyes found the headboard of the bed. Her unshakable bravado crumbled, if only for a moment, as she stared open-mouthed at the shattered wood. Tonight, reassurances wouldn't be enough. He needed to focus on both kids during the next twenty-four hours, to give them the tools they needed to understand and deal with the trauma.

“This was a pretty scary night, huh, guys?”

Taylor nodded. Annie shrugged.

“What say we go downstairs to make some hot chocolate before we all go back to bed? I'm buying.”

“Marshmallows?” Annie said.

Christensen nodded. “Taylor? You in?”

The boy shook his head.

“It's OK if you want to stay here with your mom. I'll bring it up to you.”

“Then marshmallows for me, too,” Taylor said.

“Check. Back in a jiffy,” Christensen said. “Want one, Bren? You should be part of this.”

She offered a distracted nod.

“Four HoChos,” Christensen said, pretending to scribble on an order pad. “I'll bring them up and we can all sit here in bed and talk.”

Annie bolted through the bedroom door and down the stairs. Christensen heard her drop to the landing with a thud, then jump the remaining six steps to the first floor. She was already rattling pans downstairs before he was even through the door. Behind him, he heard Taylor's melancholy voice.

“Mom?”

He turned and saw the boy lay his head in Brenna's lap, facing up into his mother's eyes. She stroked his hair, tucking a curled red strand behind his ear. Christensen moved on down the hall, but stopped at the top of the stairs to listen for Taylor's follow-up. It came in a voice wavering with uncertainty and need: “If anything happens to you, and you guys aren't married, can I still live with Jim?”