Desperate Measures

he landed on a bench, then toppled painfully onto the floor. He winced. Broken glass from the window impaled his left hand, deep, burning. He pulled out the glass, alarmed by the flow of blood and the searing pain, scrambled desperately to his feet, and ran. From the open window, a man shot into the dark room.

Pittman’s eyes adjusted to the shadows enough to see a doorway ahead. He fired toward the window, heard a moan, jerked the door open, and surged into a brightly lit room, where he blinked in dismay at a group of women setting out pastries for what looked like a bake sale. Their mouths fell open in shock. A woman dropped a cake. A baby started wailing. Another woman shrieked-but not before Pittman heard noises behind him, the two men climbing down into the room.

“Get out of the way!” Pittman ordered the women. He raised his gun, the sight of which made them scurry. At once he slammed the door behind him, saw that it didn’t have a lock, and grabbed one of the tables, dragging it toward the door, hoping to brace the door shut.

A shot from behind the door splintered wood. Pittman fired back. Only one more bullet. As women screamed, he raced toward stairs at the end of the large room. Above him, he heard a commotion in the church.

He reached the stairs, expecting the gunmen to knock the door open and fire at him. But as he hurried up, he risked a glance behind him and saw that the door remained closed. Too many witnesses. They’re not taking chances. They’re climbing out the window. They’re going over the wall.

Hearing numerous hurried footsteps at the top of the stairs, Pittman shoved the.45 into his pocket. Frantic parishioners charged down the steps toward him.

“A man with a gun! Down there!” Pittman showed them the hand that he’d cut on the broken glass. In greater pain, he clutched it, trying to stop the flow of blood. “He shot me!”

“Call the police.”

“A doctor. I need a doctor.” Sweating, Pittman pushed his way through the crowd.

The crowd began to panic.

“What if he shoots someone else?”

“He might kill all of us!”

Abruptly reversing its direction, the crowd charged up the stairs. The press of bodies made Pittman feel suffocated. Their force carried him up. A door loomed. Someone banged it open. The crowd surged into the street, taking Pittman with them. A few seconds later, he was enveloped by the confusion of hundreds of panicked churchgoers.

As a siren approached, Pittman shoved his bleeding hand into his overcoat pocket. He stayed with a group of frightened men and women who hurried away. By the time the flashing lights of the first police car arrived, he was turning a corner, hailing a taxi.

“What’s all the trouble down there?” the driver asked.

“A shooting.”

“At a church? God help us.”

“Somebody better.”

“Where do you want to go?”

A damned good question, Pittman thought. In desperation, he told the driver the first nearby location he could think of. “Washington Square.”

10

Pittman hoped he seemed just one of many Sunday-morning strollers. In contrast with the week’s cool, rainy weather, the day was warm and bright. Joggers and bicyclists sped past street musicians and portrait painters, indigents and street vendors. Near the Washington Arch, students with New York University T-shirts played with a Frisbee while a beard-stubbled man holding a bottle in a paper bag stumbled past them.

Pittman didn’t pay attention to any of it. Concealed in his overcoat pocket, his hand continued to throb against a handkerchief that he had wrapped around it to staunch the flow of blood. Obviously he was hurt worse than he’d thought. He felt light-headed again, but this time he was sure it was from the blood he’d lost. He had to get to a hospital. But a hospital wouldn’t give him treatment unless he showed ID and filled out an information form. If the receptionist recognized his name or if the police alerted the hospitals to be on the lookout for someone with a bleeding hand… No. He had to find another way to get medical help.

And then what? he kept insisting to himself. Where will you go after that? Father Dandridge was supposed to have all your answers, and now he’s dead and you don’t know anything more than when you started.

Why did they kill him? Pittman thought urgently. If they were after me, why didn’t they wait until I left the church?

Because they wanted both of us. They must have been watching him. They were looking for any sign that he was going to act on what Millgate had told him in earlier confessions. And when I showed up, they assumed we were working together.

But what did Father Dandridge know that was so important?

Grollier, the prep school Millgate had attended.

It must have some significance. Damn it, somebody’s worried enough to kill anybody I come in touch with who might know anything about the thoughts that tortured Millgate in his final hours.

Final hours.

Pittman suddenly knew where he had to go next.

11

“Detective Logan,” he said to the intercom.

A buzzer sounded, electronically unlocking the outside door.

Pittman stepped through, noting the attractive wood paneling in the Upper West Side apartment building. He took the elevator to the fifth floor. He’d been worried that the woman’s phone number wouldn’t be listed or that she wouldn’t be home after he checked the phone book and came here. As he knocked on the door, he worried as well that she wouldn’t be receptive, but when she opened the door, using her left hand to keep her housecoat securely fastened, squinting at him through sleepy eyes, she looked puzzled more than upset.

Silhouetted by sunlight streaming through a living room window behind her, Jill Warren murmured, “Don’t you know it’s the middle of the night?”

That was something Pittman had hoped for-that instead of going out to enjoy the day, she would be home, sleeping after she finished her night shift at the hospital.

“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t have a choice.”

Jill yawned, reminding Pittman of a kitten pawing at its face. Although her long blond hair was tangled and her face was puffy from just having been wakened, Pittman thought she was beautiful.

“You need to ask me more questions?”

“A little more than that, I’m afraid.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I need help.” Pittman withdrew his bloodstained hand from his overcoat pocket.

“My God.” Jill’s eyes came fully open. “Hurry. Come in.” She gripped his arm, guiding him through the doorway, quickly closing it. “The kitchen’s this way. I wondered why you looked so pale. I thought maybe you hadn’t gotten any sleep. But… Here, put your hand in the sink.”

As Pittman wavered, she hurriedly brought a chair from the kitchen table and made him sit beside the sink while she pulled off his overcoat.

The.45 concealed in its right pocket thunked against the chair and made Jill frown.

“Look, I know this is an imposition,” Pittman said. “If I’m interrupting anything… If someone’s here and…”