Killer Smile

“I’m seeing if I can locate one close to the Square. There usually is one. It’s a busy time of day. Where are you now?”

“I’m there!” Mary tore down Walnut and finally hit Eighteenth, cell phone in hand. She stopped when she reached the intersection, thronging with businesspeople. Buses, cars, and cabs clogged the street. Keisha was nowhere in sight. It was the busiest time of day in the busiest corner in town. That must have been why Keisha had wanted to meet her here. It was where she felt safe, with so many people around. Mary looked wildly around, panting. “I’m at the Square, but I don’t see her!”

“I have a car on the way. I’ve located one three blocks south.”

“Please, hurry! Hurry! God, where is she?” Mary saw everyone but Keisha. Secretaries, businessmen, students, moms, kids, even poodles crammed the Square. “I don’t see her!”

“Stay calm and keep looking.”

“Okay, okay,” Mary said, her voice jittery from panic and exertion; Keisha wasn’t on this corner, if she ever had been. She took off when the light turned green, loping around the Square, lapping a real jogger in running shorts. She searched the crowd for Keisha but didn’t see her. Anybody who wanted to hurt Keisha would have to take her away from witnesses. Stick a gun in her ribs, threaten her so she wouldn’t scream. Where would he take her? To a car? No way. He couldn’t get a parking space around the Square. And if he double-parked, a cop car would be on his ass sooner than if he committed murder. So most likely, he was walking Keisha somewhere away from the crowd or to a waiting car. Right now.

Mary picked up the pace, her breath coming in ragged bursts. Her arm hurt from carrying the briefcase and purse. She looked frantically around for Keisha. Passers-by looked at her like she was nuts. In the next instant she heard the distant blare of a police siren. The cavalry! “Is that siren the squad car?” she asked into the phone.

“Should be. The car’s on Spruce, heading toward you. Did your friend message you again?”

“No.” Mary ran harder.

“You’re sure you’re for real? I’m comin’ after you myself, if you aren’t.”

“I swear it!” Mary turned left onto the west side of the Square, thinking again. West or south were the residential sections, with less traffic than the business district. And they had parking. A bad guy’s dream.

The thought gave Mary her second wind and she veered around the corner at a streak. The Square was lined with the swanky restaurants, the busiest branch of the Free Library, therapists’ and plastic surgeons’ offices, and a ritzy art gallery.

Think! Then the answer popped into Mary’s head. Where else in a city did nobody ever go? A church! The Church of the Holy Trinity was right on the Square! She whirled around and doubled back. The police siren blared closer now. Help was on its way! She bolted across the street between cabs and sprinted toward the church, a huge brown sandstone edifice with a castlelike Norman tower, on the northwest corner of the Square. She shot toward its red doors.

“Keisha! Keisha!” Mary shouted as she ran up the church steps toward the door and yanked on the iron handles. It was locked! The church was closed! Police sirens screamed closer. They were almost here. Mary looked around, frantic. The Rittenhouse hotel sat beside the church, and cars drove in and out of the hotel’s circular entrance. Then she noticed a narrow concrete driveway tucked between The Rittenhouse and the church. An iron gate covered the entrance but the doors hung open, half-painted brown.

“Keisha!” Mary yelled. She ran for the driveway and grabbed the iron gate to stop her momentum, leaving rust-colored paint on her hand. A padlock and chain hung uselessly from the gate, which had been left open. A white painting truck was parked in the narrow driveway and beside it was darkness, where The Rittenhouse completely blocked the sun. Midway down the driveway was Tiffany’s stained-glass depiction of St. Paul, his palms open in appeal. Mary looked directly underneath it, in the shadow between the truck and the wall.

“No!” she screamed. Keisha, in a dark T-shirt and jeans, had collapsed in a sitting position. Beyond her was the silhouette of a man, running for the end of the driveway and the side door to the church. The man was large and thick. Chico.

“STOP!” Mary yelled, but Chico escaped through the door. She wanted to chase him, but she had to see about Keisha. She dropped her briefcase and purse and flew toward the fallen woman, throwing herself down on the concrete. Keisha slumped against the stone wall, her head tilted forward like a broken doll and her legs splayed out next to a few paint cans. Her eyes were closed and her mouth slack, but her lips moved as if she were trying to speak. Then Mary looked again, in horror. Keisha’s T-shirt wasn’t dark, it was drenched with blood. Blood bathed her neck and bubbled like a gruesome freshet from under her chin. Her throat had just been slit.

“HELP!” Mary screamed at the top of her lungs. She fought panic long enough to raise the cell phone and start talking.

Thirty-Six

Access Hollywood played on a TV mounted in the corner, and fluorescent lights glared harshly overhead, behind pebbled panels recessed in a white tile ceiling. Outdated copies of Cosmo, Time, and Car amp; Driver lay in a glossy fan on a low wooden table, and in the corner stood a Formica cabinet holding a Bunn coffeemaker. An orange-handled pot of coffee burned in its hot plate, filling the room with the odor of stale decaf. The small waiting room, reserved for families of patients in the intensive care OR, had been painted an allegedly calming blue and adorned with gauzy landscapes in forgettable hues. Its blue padded chairs sat empty except for Mary, who was in a sort of shock.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

Drying blood stained Mary’s white silk shirt and navy suit, stiffening its light wool in patches. She had managed to wash most of it from her hands, but fine dark lines etched the network of wrinkles on her palm. She should wash again, but Keisha had been taken to the OR half an hour ago, and Mary didn’t want to be in the bathroom when everybody got here, especially Bill.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

The words struck home. Mary prayed it wasn’t the hour of Keisha’s death. It couldn’t be. Not because of Saracone or Amadeo or even Frank, or anything logical or tangible. Just because it could not be. There had been too much death and it had to be over. Keisha had to live. Mary willed it to be so, the only way she knew how. She started the rosary over again.

Bill arrived a half an hour later and sat slumped in the chair as Mary recounted a sanitized version of how she had found Keisha. He sank deeper and deeper into his clothes, flipping up the collar of his jean jacket as if to ward off a winter wind. Judy, her face a mask of well-scrubbed worry, arrived right after, and she couldn’t take her stricken gaze from the blood drying on Mary’s suit. “You okay, girl?” she asked, her tone hushed.

“I’m fine. Keisha’s in the OR still. She lost a lot of blood.” For Bill’s benefit, Mary didn’t add the details about the slicing of the carotid. Evidently, Chico had known what he was doing. “The doctors said we’ll know more later.”

“They’re great doctors here,” Judy said to Bill, and he nodded.

When Detective Gomez and his partner arrived, Bill listened only idly, all over again, as Mary filled them in. Gomez’s partner, Matt Wahlberg, was a grayish blond detective of about forty-five years who was as tall as Gomez was thick. His blue eyes seemed sunken in a gaunt face that Mary understood when she spotted his triathlete’s watch. Insanely fit, he wore a light tan jacket and khaki slacks, and sat back in the padded chair, legs crossed and arms folded, while Mary leaned toward Gomez.

“I’m telling you, it was Chico,” Mary said as she finished. “He left her for dead in the driveway. He must have gotten out through the church.”

“Did you see his face?” Gomez looked at her directly, and her mouth went dry.

“If I said I had, would you arrest him?” Mary was so tempted to lie.

“We’d question him.”

“Would you question him anyway? I mean, how many people does he have to kill? He killed Frank and now he tried to kill Keisha!”