Three Times a Lady

PART II

LADIES FIRST

‘Naming hurricanes is a tradition that dates back hundreds of years. Natives of the West Indies named storms after the particular saint’s day on which they occurred. In 1953, the National Weather Service began using female first names for hurricanes, but it wasn’t until 1978 that men’s names were included too.’ – Laura Wiener, Hurricane History: Fascinating Facts





CHAPTER 12

Two hours after her hasty negotiations with Dr Spinks concerning her discharge from the hospital, Dana almost laughed out loud at the ridiculousness of it all. She just couldn’t help herself. Still, she had to admit that it was kind of fun, too. Playing cat-and-mouse really could be a thrilling game when you were the one trying to avoid detection rather than the sick feeling you got deep inside the pit of your stomach while you were in the process of hunting down a deranged serial killer, knowing that any one of your many mistakes could cost innocent people their lives. Would probably cost innocent people their lives.

That said, Dana felt a lot like Chevy Chase in Fletch right about now, dressed up as a doctor in a white lab coat and holding a medical chart in front of her nose while a group of orderlies crowded around her to escort her past the press that had set up camp out in the hospital’s parking lot.

The reporters barely glanced up at them as they strolled by. Not a single Dan Rather in the entire group, and thank God for that. Not a single Nathan Stiedowe in the entire group, either – and thank God twice for that.

Dana shuddered, sending a painful wave of goose flesh rippling across her skin beneath her lab coat. Her half-brother had been a reporter once upon a time too; had even had the audacity to write about the murders of her parents under the same name he’d been given by their mother at birth – murders that he himself had committed. And Nathan Stiedowe hadn’t been the kind of reporter who would’ve been fooled this easily. Not even close. He would have sensed Dana’s fear from a mile away, would’ve smelled it.

Worse, it would have excited him.

Short as Dana was – five-three even on her best day – each of the orderlies who’d applied for the job of acting as her human shields had been selected on the basis of their own, more impressive heights. No doubt it marked the easiest employment interview process any of them had ever been through:

Are you taller than any one of The Lollipop Kids from The Wizard of Oz?

Yep.

Great. You’re hired.

Dana heaved a grateful sigh of relief when the group finally reached a white hospital van fifty yards away from the press. Seven of the orderlies immediately peeled off and headed back toward Fairview General’s main entrance, giggling to themselves and to each other like naughty schoolchildren as they passed by the reporters again. Take that, Tom Brokaw. Stick that in your newsreel and smoke it, buddy.

The job of actually driving Dana home fell to a young man of about twenty-eight or so. Justin McNamara was the oldest son of a surgeon on staff at Fairview General, so Dr Spinks had decided that he’d probably be Dana’s best bet to not kiss and tell – aka go running off to the press with his story. Anything about Dana and her personal life seemed to be a very hot commodity these days, so if any new information leaked out to the press after the Fletch routine the source wouldn’t be hard to trace. Unlike an Agatha Christie novel, the pool of possible suspects here was laughably small.

Dana and McNamara had made it halfway home to Dana’s apartment complex in Lakewood on the western outskirts of Cleveland when her stomach suddenly lurched. It hadn’t been very long ago that her brother had posed as an orderly to gain access to Dana’s hospital room – less than a week after she’d passed out from the sheer stress of investigating the Cleveland Slasher case. Well, the sheer stress of it washed down by more than just a little Kettle One vodka.

Dana’s heartbeat pounded against her ribs as she studied McNamara carefully from the corner of her left eye, not wanting to alert him to her suspicions. McNamara didn’t look like a killer to her, but then again neither had her brother. Hell, Nathan Stiedowe had been so devilishly handsome he’d made Ted Bundy look downright homely in comparison; completely obscuring the horrendously ugly person he’d been inside.

Dana clenched her fists in her lap and breathed in slowly through her nostrils, berating herself for not even considering the possible threat until it was too late. Once again, it seemed, she was a day late and a dollar short – the same mistake she’d consistently made during the Cleveland Slasher investigation.

Dana shook her head in exasperation. What in the hell was wrong with her these days? Why couldn’t she think straight any more? And if something was up, had Dr Spinks been in on it too?

Before Dana knew what was happening, her worst fears were suddenly confirmed. Without warning, McNamara slammed down hard on the brake pedal, bringing the van to a screeching halt.

Dana’s body slammed forward violently against her seat belt. Pain like a knife wound ripped through her right shoulder. A casual smile played across McNamara’s full lips as he turned in his seat to face her.

Dana jerked back in horror – seeing Nathan Stiedowe’s face dancing in front of her eyes again – and lifted up her arms quickly to protect her own face. It was a natural reaction in all humans, but one that no doubt made her look like a terrified vampire who’d just glimpsed the morning sun streaming over the dew-soaked horizon, who’d just glimpsed his own mortality with frightening certainty for the first time.

A confused look flooded across the young orderly’s handsome face. ‘Whoa. Take it easy, ma’am. We’re here, that’s all. You’re home. Look.’

He gestured past Dana’s aching right shoulder and out her window. Dana turned in her seat and blinked hard in confusion. Fifty feet away, her apartment complex loomed up nine stories high into the late-afternoon winter sunshine.

A wave of relief flooded through Dana’s veins, chasing away the confusion. Without realising it, she’d gotten lost in her thoughts again, had completely lost track of time. Worse, she’d also briefly lost track of the location of her physical body, had absolutely no idea where in the hell she’d been there for a moment. If nothing else, she knew that the FBI shrinks would have a field day with her once they’d finally coaxed her onto the comfortable leather couches scattered around their plush offices down in Quantico.

Dana felt ridiculous as she lowered her arms and tried to smile at McNamara. ‘So we are,’ she said, trying her best to sound casual about the whole thing but no doubt falling miserably short. ‘Sorry about that. I guess I’m just still feeling a little bit jumpy.’

The concerned look in McNamara’s eyes let Dana know that even he could see that she’d lost her marbles – and he was just a lowly orderly. Told her he thought that they might as well start fitting Dana for her white coat right now – and not the kind she was currently wearing as part of the elaborate Fletch ruse. The kind of white coat that restricted the free movement of your arms, for both your own safety and the safety of those around you. The kind they passed out right along with the psychotropic meds over in the mental-health wing at the Cleveland Clinic.

McNamara forced the semblance of a smile onto his lips. ‘No problem, ma’am. Welcome home.’

Dana exited the van and stood on the curb until McNamara had driven away. The young orderly adjusted his rearview mirror in order to keep her in his line of sight as he swung the van out of the parking lot before disappearing into the traffic streaming down Clifton Avenue. No doubt he wanted to make sure that Dana didn’t slit her wrists right then and there on the snow-covered sidewalk. Truth be told, though, Dana didn’t blame him in the least little bit for his vigilance. She probably would have reacted the exact same way had she been in his shoes.

Dana shook her head mournfully, knowing the poor kid had no idea just how close he’d come with his silent diagnosis of insanity. The truth of the matter was that Dana did feel like she was starting to go a little bit crazy lately, just a smidge Looney Toons, a textbook case of PTSD if she’d ever seen one.

Then again, when had crazy people ever been trusted to make their own diagnoses?

A biting cold delivered by a howling wind sliced effortlessly through Dana’s white lab coat and swirled her recently re-grown short blonde hair wildly around her scalp as she made her way quickly up to the main doors of the apartment complex before fishing out her magnetic key card from her purse and sliding it through the electronic reader. Cleveland in the wintertime had never been an especially pleasant place to be under even the best of weather conditions, but today’s lake-effect winds were making things that much worse, that much more unbearable. It was the kind of cold that hurt you all the way down to the bone. The kind of cold that made you want to curl yourself up into a tight little ball and simply cry yourself to death.

Dana shook her head to chase away the temptation and stepped inside the building, pausing a moment to shake off the cold and luxuriating in the warmth of the space that went to work on defrosting her frozen cheeks. Taking a breath, she then headed for her landlady’s apartment on the first floor, deliberately ignoring her mailbox located in a honeycomb arrangement in the middle of the lobby. No doubt the damn thing had been crammed full of credit card bills and Publisher’s Clearinghouse letters that breathlessly informed her that she could be the next lucky winner of the million-dollar prize. Pulling open another door at the northeast end of the lobby, Dana made her way down the hall and knocked lightly on her landlady’s door. A moment later, Maggie Carter fiddled with the chain on the inside and opened up the door. ‘Dana!’ the old woman pronounced happily in her thick Polish accent. ‘Welcome home, honey! We were so worried about you! How are you feeling?’

Dana smiled – a real smile this time. It was hard not to when you looked at Maggie Carter. Eighty years old if she was a day, she’d escaped her home country and its Nazi persecution during World War II and had subsequently changed her name from Magdalena Abrahamowicz to the more American-sounding Maggie Carter in an effort to fit in better with her new surroundings. The name change had been made to honour her adopted country of the United States, but the simple truth of the matter was that Maggie Carter would have fit in anywhere she went. She possessed a smile that lit up the room like a sunburst every time she showed off her false teeth and – even at her considerably advanced age – still moved around town like an eighteen-year-old girl brimming over with enthusiasm and good cheer. Dana knew that she could probably learn a thing or two from the old gal. Life wasn’t all just gloom and doom and serial killers, after all. There was some good stuff about it, too – however hard that good stuff might be for her to see sometimes.

‘I’m fine, Mrs Carter,’ Dana said, catching a whiff off freshly baked bread coming from the kitchen that made her stomach growl. ‘Feeling much better. And how are you and Mr Carter doing? How’s his colitis these days?’

Maggie Carter rolled her eyes halfway around her face and waved a frail arm in front of her painfully thin body, jiggling the loose skin hanging off her right biceps like a rooster’s comb. ‘I’m wonderful, sweetie – thanks so much for asking. And for Mr Carter, well, Bob’s sleeping again, but what’s new, right? His health is fine, though. He might not look like much, but that man’s as healthy as a horse. Eats like one too.’

The old lady cackled at her own joke, and Dana soon found herself laughing right along. She just couldn’t help herself. Maggie Carter’s laugh was infectious.

The old woman stepped to one side and motioned for Dana to come inside. ‘Anyway, get the heck out of that cold hallway already and get your pretty little butt in here. You’ll catch your death of pneumonia if you’re not careful. Kind of reminds me of Warsaw in the wintertime.’

Maggie Carter paused then and shook her head, no doubt in an effort to chase away what must have been extremely unpleasant memories of Warsaw in the wintertime. ‘Anyway,’ she went on, ‘I’ve got some hot tea on the stove and I know that there’s somebody here who’s just dying to see you. Oreo’s been doing nothing but crying for his mama all day and all night ever since you’ve been gone – not that I’m complaining, mind you. To tell you the truth, the company’s been kind of nice, what with Bob usually sleeping all the time. I swear to sweet Jesus above, that man could sleep through a hurricane.’

Dana laughed again and stepped inside the old woman’s apartment, even though what she really felt like doing right now was getting back up to her own apartment and taking a long, hot shower. A chance to scrub the antiseptic smell of the hospital out of her hair and skin and fingernails. A chance for her to be alone for a while.

Dana stopped herself mid-thought and gave herself a swift mental kick in the butt. Not only was she already looking forward to ending her visit with Maggie Carter, she’d also had the poor taste to show up on the woman’s doorstep empty-handed. She wished like hell she’d thought to bring along a gift for her as thanks for watching Oreo for so long, but it was too late to worry about that now. She’d need to do it later. Dana knew that the old lady was fond of chocolate and cheese, so she made a mental note to stop by Godiva and the deli tomorrow morning. Even with Godiva’s exorbitant prices, it was a small price to pay for the old woman’s kindness. As far as Dana knew, most kennels didn’t offer unlimited pet-sitting services for comatose pet owners who were stuck in the hospital following horrific plane crashes.

Dana stretched her neck eight inches to the left and finally felt some of the tension residing there loosen up a little bit. Then she paused and looked around the place.

The Carters’ apartment looked exactly like one might suspect an octogenarian couple’s living quarters to look like. Plastic-covered couches littered the living room. Matching, fabric-covered recliners sat in front of an old, cabinet-style television on the south side of the room. A teetering stack of National Enquirer tabloids was piled three feet high on top of the dining-room table, featuring such news on the covers as that of a two-headed alien being born out in Utah and Elvis Pressley being spotted stuffing his face at a donut shop in Sacramento.

Maggie Carter lifted the magazines off the table and placed them on an old wooden chair three feet away. ‘Have a seat, dear,’ she said. ‘I’ll be back with the tea in just a minute. Then we’ll go get Oreo for you. He has his own room, you know.’

The old woman beamed with this revelation, and Dana immediately knew that her cat couldn’t have been left in more capable – or loving – hands.

Twenty minutes later – their tea finally drunk, pleasantries exchanged and a thorough update on Mr Carter’s colitis condition delivered in graphic detail – Maggie Carter retrieved Oreo from his bedroom and placed the cat down on the floor in the dining room.

Oreo glanced up briefly at Dana to let her know he didn’t especially care for being abandoned for this long before he finally sauntered over to her and rubbed his portly body against her ankles. After a moment or two, he began to purr. Unlike dogs, Dana had learned, cat’s made you earn their affection. Not that it took all that much. Keep them fat and safe and warm and you had yourself a friend for life.

‘I missed you too, buddy,’ Dana said, leaning down to scratch Oreo behind his pointy ears for a few seconds before scooping him up into her arms. ‘Let’s get you home.’

Thanking Maggie Carter again, Dana exited the old woman’s apartment and headed for the elevator. Punching the button for the fourth floor, she held Oreo close, knowing she’d need him as a security blanket to get through this next part.

When the elevator reached the fourth floor with a high-pitched ding! a moment later, Dana exited the car and made her way down the hall to apartment D12 on shaking legs, purposely shifting her gaze away from the apartment located directly across the hall.

D13 had been Eric Carlton’s apartment and Dana still had his spare key stashed underneath the welcome mat in front of her own door to remind her of that fact. Even if moving on wasn’t high on her list of priorities right now, moving definitely was. Dana knew that there was no way in hell she’d be able to continue living here with reminders of Eric constantly staring her in the face just five short feet across the hall. But much like the forgotten gift for Maggie Carter as thanks for watching Oreo, that was something she’d need to worry about later. Right now, she desperately needed a shower. Everything else in the world could wait.

Slipping her key into the lock, Dana pushed open the front door to her apartment and stepped inside. Stale, unmoving air filled her nostrils. Complete silence filled her ears. No big surprise there, though. The place had been locked up tight months now.

Dana made her way farther into the apartment and placed Oreo down on the floor at her feet before taking a moment or two to re-acclimate herself with her surroundings. In the living room, a pair of plaid armchairs flanked a matching plaid couch – a bit more up-to-date than those belonging to the Carters since the furnishings had been purchased at Pier One five or six yeas ago as opposed to JC Penney’s sometime back in the late-1960s. A coffee table featuring a thick, cut-glass top served as the centrepiece to the room. An old-fashioned coat rack stood watch over the place in the corner next to the front door, a floppy beach hat hanging from one of the hooks. Above the flat-screen television mounted to the north wall of the living room, an old Sears portrait showcased a four-year-old Dana book-ended by her parents, Sara and James Whitestone. A beautiful moment suspended for ever in time.

Dana sighed heavily. Even though her mom and dad had been gone for more than thirty years now, she still missed them every single day. Missed them more now than ever now that everyone she’d loved since the day they’d died had left her, too.

Dana was two-thirds of the way home to feeling sorry for herself when the harsh jangling of the phone on her kitchen wall suddenly interrupted her pity-party. The shrill, unexpected noise shot a sharp jolt of panic bolting through her heart.

Dana shook her head mournfully. Jesus f*cking Christ.

Still shaking her head, she walked into the kitchen and picked up the phone before closing her eyes and placing the receiver to her ear. She half-expected God to be calling to tell her to quit her crying already and just get on with her life, but Sergeant Gary Templeton’s filled her ear instead.

Dana fought back a wave of surprise inside her chest. The last time she’d spoken with the Cleveland cop had been when she’d been screaming up into his face about how the Cleveland Slasher never left a shred of evidence behind at any one of his many crime scenes. Still, the truth of the matter was that it should have been Templeton screaming at Dana that day – considering the fact that she’d just thrown up her lunch all over a freshly discovered murder scene.

‘Dana,’ Templeton said, and for a moment Dana thought she detected a slight note of apprehension in his voice. And why not? Templeton was probably still pissed at her, and if he were, Dana wouldn’t have blamed him one little bit. The way she’d behaved the last time she’d spoken with him had been bush league, at best. At worst, she’d made Amateur Hour at the Apollo look like Barbra Streisand performing at the Grammys.

‘I’m so glad I reached you,’ Templeton went on after a brief exchange of ‘how are yous’. ‘I heard you came out of your coma a few days ago. How long have you been home?’

Dana glanced down at her watch, a silver Rolex that had once belonged to her mother – a first-anniversary gift from her father, who’d worn a matching gold one, saying that he and Sara Whitestone matched so perfectly as husband and wife that the least their jewellery could do was the same. Dana always wore the watch, regardless of her outfit, even though each and every time the battery ran out only reminded her of the horrific bloodbath in which her parents had died. ‘Well, let’s see here,’ she said. ‘About two minutes now. Give or take.’

‘Ouch,’ Templeton said. ‘I’m sorry to hear that, but I’m happy as hell to hear you’re finally out of the hospital. We were all really worried about you.’

Dana smiled. ‘Thanks, Gary. Listen – before you say anything else, I want to apologise to you for the way I spoke to you the last time we were together. It was uncalled for and you didn’t deserve it. You were just doing your job and protecting the crime scene. It was completely my fault, no two ways about it. I was way out of line and it won’t happen again.’

Templeton paused. After a moment or two, he cleared his throat. ‘Don’t worry about it, Dana,’ he said. ‘The stress of the case was getting to all of us back then, including me. It’s perfectly understandable. Anyway, I’m sorry to catch you right when you got home. You must need your rest. I’ll give you a call later on tonight or tomorrow morning, OK?’

‘No, Gary, I’m fine. What’s up?’

Templeton cleared his throat again. ‘Ah, nothing. I’ll handle it myself.’

Dana stretched her neck and fought back a sudden swell of irritation inside her chest. She just couldn’t help herself. She knew that Templeton was just trying to be polite, not wanting to bother her; especially since the last time they’d spoken their nerves had been frayed to the point of snapping. Still, polite or not, his reluctance to tell her what he’d called about was a little bit aggravating too. ‘If I ask you pretty please will you tell me?’ Dana asked.

Templeton laughed. Obviously, bygones really were bygones when it came to this man, and thank God for that much. When Gary Templeton buried a grudge, it stayed buried, bless his heart. Much as she’d done with Maggie Carter, Dana found herself thinking that she could probably learn a thing or two from the veteran Cleveland cop, too. Steal a page from Templeton’s playbook and cut people a little bit of slack from time to time. And why not? After all, to err was human but to forgive was divine, right?

Just so long as you weren’t asking forgiveness for murder.

‘OK, Dana,’ Templeton finally relented. ‘I’ll tell you what I’ve got to say if you absolutely insist on hearing it, but I’m warning you right now that you’re not going to like this one little bit.’

‘I’m a big girl, Gary. Try me out.’

‘I need your help again,’ Templeton said without further preamble, referencing the fact that it had been him who’d called Dana in on the Cleveland Slasher case. ‘Christian Manhoff was found lying dead in the middle of Prospect Avenue while you were recovering in the hospital.’

Dana searched her memory until she remembered the name. Even though another murder was the last thing in the world she felt like dealing with right now, her investigative mind nonetheless sprang into action processing the information, the mental equivalent of a whiplash reflex. Much like cockroaches and the seemingly never-ending trend of tourists sporting fanny packs to go along with their white sneakers and black dress socks, it seemed, old habits died hard.

Finally, Dana seized upon it.

Christian Manhoff was something of a local celebrity around Cleveland – a ‘super-fan’ of the Cleveland Browns, the erstwhile, blue-collar city’s professional football team. That is, if you wanted to count a bumbling squad that seemed to drop the ball every bit as often as they caught it as ‘professional’.

The cartoonish image of Christian Manhoff filled Dana’s mind. An obese three-hundred-and-fifty-pound man, Manhoff had gained a certain measure of national celebrity by dressing up in an orange-and-white plastic hardhat and a ‘dawg’ mask while going shirtless and sporting nipple rings in the frigid winter air at the Browns games each Sunday afternoon. With his seat situated near one end zone in Cleveland Browns Stadium – a section of the stadium known affectionately around the city as ‘The Dawg Pound’ – Manhoff often got an abundance of face-time, or at least mask-time, on ESPN during its post-game wrap-up shows. But with a visage like that representing the city, Dana wasn’t at all surprised that the rest of the country still viewed Cleveland as a joke. Situated on the shores of Lake Erie, Cleveland’s ‘Mistake By The Lake’ tag still hadn’t worn off yet – and probably never would at this rate. And guys like Christian Manhoff did absolutely nothing to burnish the city’s hopelessly tarnished image.

Dana caught herself mid-snark, mentally berating herself for her pissy attitude. When in the hell had she become so goddamn heartless? So cold and uncaring? She’d never liked to speak ill of the dead before – or even think ill of them, for that matter. In most cases, anyway. Especially not the recently dead. Wrapping the telephone cord around her finger until it cut off her circulation, shame heated up her cheeks while Templeton filled her in on the rest of the story.

As Templeton spoke, Dana gathered that Christian Manhoff had been found naked and lying dead in the middle of a downtown street with a large rawhide dog bone shoved halfway down his throat – a favourite prop of the Browns’ ‘super-fans’. According to Templeton, the ME had concluded that Manhoff had choked to death on the bone, though Dana didn’t think that eight years of advanced schooling had necessarily been required to come up with that unsurprising diagnosis.

‘There is something else,’ Templeton said when he’d finally finished bringing Dana up to speed.

‘What’s that?’

Templeton hesitated. Then he blew out a slow breath and went on. ‘There was also a picture of your brother attached to one of Manhoff’s nipple rings.’

Dana’s stomach flipped over inside her gut. For one terrifying moment there, she couldn’t even breathe. Her world swam in and out of focus before clearing up again suddenly in a dizzying flash of colour. Her knees buckled hard. ‘What?’ she asked, hoarsely.

‘Yeah, I know,’ Templeton said. ‘It’s f*cking weird. The photograph wasn’t there at the initial crime scene, but the ME said he discovered it when he went to do the autopsy.’

Dana glanced over at the digital clock on her stove, holding on tight to the edge of the kitchen counter for balance. ‘Where are you now?’ she asked.

‘Down at the station house.’

‘Where’s Christian Manhoff’s body?’

‘At the coroner’s office.’

‘I’ll be there in half an hour to pick you up.’

Templeton let out a relieved breath. ‘Thanks, Dana. I really appreciate it. I’m really sorry for dropping this shitstorm into your lap right after you got out of the hospital, but I really didn’t know who else to turn to. I owe you one.’

‘Don’t mention it,’ Dana said. ‘I’ll see you in half an hour.’ Hanging up the phone, Dana felt a familiar thrill boil away deep in the pit of her stomach, completely chasing away the vertigo despite the overwhelming shock of having been thrust smack-dab into the middle of yet another homicide investigation featuring a very personal connection to her.

The thrill of the chase.

Dana took in several deep breaths through her nostrils and steeled herself for what would come next. Hell, maybe she wasn’t crazy, after all. Maybe she’d just been born for this kind of work. Had been born to chase killers. God knew that she loved it – all the horrible collateral damage usually involved notwithstanding. And much like the rest of the country, anything concerning Nathan Stiedowe – even peripherally – fascinated the hell out of her.

Besides, Gary, Dana thought as her gaze drifted upward and landed on the fresh bottle of Jim Beam sitting on top of her refrigerator next to a roll of paper towels. It’s me who owes everybody else. Crawford, Eric, Jeremy… all the others…

And now it was time for her to pay up.