Rated: PG-13, for scenes involving the life cycle of the blue-bottle fly. You have been warned.
Comments always appreciated at: tunecedemalis@yahoo.com
Author’s notes: I am abandoning semi-reality based ff for a total angst festival here. Many thanks to Cheri and Susan for dealing with my tenuous grasp of the semi-colon, and my tendency to end a story three paragraphs too soon.
A crazy guy with a gun was the last thing Mark McCormick was expecting when he answered the front door at 7:30 a.m. on that Friday morning. Way ahead of that on the list would have been the pool guy, or even Hardcastle himself, who was supposed to be one hour down the road on his way to a conference in San Diego.
The guy, in orange overalls and a painter’s cap, was pointing the gun with intent, but it took McCormick a full second to process it: guy, gun, crazy. The crazy part was actually the easiest to grasp. It was Wayne Frothman, the most certifiably insane member of Ray Winona’s gang, and the only one who’d actually wound up in a psychiatric institution instead of prison about a year ago.
“Hi, Wayne,” McCormick kept his hands lightly at his sides. This was the guy who defined ‘homicidal maniac’ as far as McCormick was concerned. Getting through the next few minutes alive was going to be a long shot.
“Turn around,” Frothman hissed.
McCormick caught a glint of metal in Wayne’s other hand as he started to comply, and made a sudden decision that dying right now might not be the worst possibility. He swung his left hand out, trying to intercept the gun. Frothman pulled back jerkily and cackled, letting him have a full backhand blow to the head.
He felt the cold tile floor of the entryway against his cheek and the click of the handcuffs behind him, before he was fully conscious again. Wayne’s knee was in the small of his back and he had grabbed a fistful of McCormick’s hair. “Where’s the judge?”
“Out of town,” McCormick replied, willing himself to sound sincerely sorry. It wasn’t working; Frothman was back on his feet and pacing with short, cataleptic steps, muttering furiously.
McCormick turned on his side slowly and tried to curl up, figuring the next thing would be a few kicks to let out the mounting frustration. Frothman did not disappoint.
“Come on,” he had McCormick by the collar, yanking him up until his knees were under him, “get up.”
McCormick was now very focused on trying not to throw up on this guy’s shoes. That would make him mad; he found himself fighting back a laugh. He got one foot under himself and lurched upright, watching with a sort of detached curiosity as the room tilted and then righted itself.
“Walk,” Frothman growled in his ear.
Walk, McCormick thought, one last chance to make a break for it outside. Then they were out the door and he realized that, between the porch and the nondescript paneled van parked a few feet away, there was no hope of escape.
The rear doors of the van were open; lying on the otherwise empty floor was a coil of rope with a slip-knotted loop at one end. Frothman grabbed the rope one-handed and gestured toward McCormick’s head with the loop. The meaning was unmistakable.
McCormick looked past him, back at the house, and then shook his head no. “Just shoot me. No more games.” He was trying to remember what he’d said to the judge, the last thing before he left this morning. Drive carefully? See you Sunday? He couldn’t recall; something ordinary he was sure. Now that he’d taken this thing on his own terms he felt strangely calm.
Frothman raised the gun to McCormick’s head, “Look at me,” he snarled. McCormick dragged himself back to the here and now, only to see the gun draw sharply up. He didn’t have time to flinch before it came crashing down again.
He felt like he was coming back from a longer way off this time, though he knew right away he was lying in Frothman’s van and the constriction around his neck was the rope he’d shown him. It was not tight enough to hinder his breathing, but enough to make him aware that the coils at the other end were in Frothman’s hand. No sudden movements. All the calm he’d possessed for that moment in front of the house had departed.
They were moving along at a steady rate over a paved road, but the limited view from his perspective was a slice of sky and the occasional rise of a hill out the front window. He saw no buildings, and no other cars. The air no longer had the coolness of early morning. By the angle of the shadows on the dashboard, they were traveling north, or maybe northeast. He sincerely doubted that these observations were going to be of any use to anyone.
“Yer awake? Good.” Frothman pulled off onto a gravel road. McCormick lifted his head to try to avoid a pounding as they hit the ruts. “Almost home.”
It was only a matter of a minute of two. Not far off the road. But when the back of the van was opened, he saw nothing but patches of scrub and weeds. The road was a half-mile away, and empty of traffic.
Frothman had tossed the rope through to the back of the van before he’d gotten out. Now he took up the coils again and gave a yank. “Come on, we’re going inside.”
McCormick inched towards the back and stood up. When he turned to face Frothman he saw a cinderblock house, painted a mottled pink. He might not have immediately recognized it out of context, though it was memorably ugly, squatting out there among the high power lines and hardscrabble, but seeing it along with Wayne Frothman brought the whole thing into painfully sharp focus.
Mrs. Elmira Tompkins, the lady who owned this place, had rented out some shacks to Winona and his crew, a few years back, until she’d grown tired of the beer and the obscenities. Then she’d turned them out. She was the one who’d later recognized the photos of the missing girls that Hardcastle had shown her. McCormick had been there when the cadaver dog had picked up the scent from the three shallow graves among the rubble on her back forty.
He’d driven Mrs. Tompkins to the courthouse the morning of her testimony, talking about her cats, the weather, anything but what she was going to have to face when she went into that courtroom. They’d agreed that she was doing the right thing. And now, as they approached her house, he heard the loud drone of blue-bottle flies and caught a whiff of death.
The stench was gagging by the time they entered the crooked screen door at the side of the house. Frothman was oblivious. “She won’t mind none if make ourselves at home.” He grinned and pointed to the crumpled mass of flowered housedress and blue-veined limbs on the floor beside the kitchen table. There was something not quite right about her head.
She’s still moving--she’s alive, McCormick thought for a fraction of a moment, before he realized the movement was only the writhing mass of flies. His vision was tunneling down, and bile rose in his throat. Frothman yanked the rope again to get his attention and half dragged him into the back room. McCormick was gasping now; Frothman had to reach over and loosen the loop.
The back room had been used for storage; the ceiling was unfinished and boxes were stacked around the walls. Frothman kicked one over into the center of the room, an old wooden fruit crate, and tossed the free end of the rope over a bare crossbeam in the ceiling. As he cinched it up, McCormick realized that he was supposed to step up on the box. He balked for a moment, until the effect of the tightening rope overcame his resistance.
“There now, all neat,” Frothman said, looking up at McCormick as he tied off the other end. “You said you wanted it to be over, didn’tcha? Well here’s your chance. All you gotta do is kick that box away. No? Maybe you need some help?”
McCormick closed his eyes and braced himself, trying one more time to find that moment of calm he’d had before. All he felt was a drenching cold sweat. Seconds slipped by. He heard Frothman chortle eerily. “Guess you’re not in so much of a hurry now.” Then his voice dropped to a low threatening growl, “It’s not over ‘till I say it’s over. Now we’re gonna call and see if your old buddy the judge is home yet.”
McCormick already knew the answer to that. By now Hardcastle had probably checked into his hotel. The first session was scheduled to begin after lunch. He’d gotten up pretty early; maybe he was taking a nap. No one was going to answer the phone at Gull’s Way until sometime after six o’clock Sunday evening.
McCormick felt the box creak under him as he adjusted his footing. Maybe it was eleven a.m., maybe noon. He wasn’t hungry, that was for sure. Frothman had taken the phone from the kitchen counter and carried it, as far as the cord would stretch, into the back room. He’d set it down on a box and pulled up another one for a seat. He’d already dialed and hung up twice when he’d gotten the answering machine..
La Valencia--that was the name of the hotel. The number was written down on a scratch pad near the phone in the den. Nice place, four stars, the judge had invited him along, but there was a meeting of the moot court committee today, and he was supposed to see Professor Sturgis this afternoon about putting together some material for one of his Topics in American Law seminars.
He decided it must be noon, maybe even one o’clock. He’d be walking across the quadrangle right about now, heading for the library. Really, when you thought about it, was that any less strange than what he was doing right now? He caught himself swaying and straightened up, opening his eyes. It couldn’t be later than one o’clock. Only fifty-three hours to go.
Frothman was up and pacing. McCormick had lost count of how many times he had dialed. The last time he’d come near to throwing the phone at the wall. And now he was muttering to himself.
The Valencia. If he closed his eyes, he could almost see the number on the pad. But he didn’t know Frothman’s plan. He might lay for the judge anywhere. He wouldn’t even have to shoot McCormick ahead of time; he couldn’t cause any trouble from this spot. And it would be just like Hardcastle to lose his perspective and come charging in. No, let Frothman wear out his finger dialing Gull’s Way.
Frothman’s muttering had gotten louder. He hadn’t tried the phone for a while. He was holding his gun. He’d obviously had a different vision of how things were going to go down, and waiting did not agree with him. He was back in McCormick’s face with the gun. His speech had become an almost unintelligible barrage of threats and curses.
Overload, McCormick thought, and he was pleased to realize that he was calm again. It ends when it ends; you don’t have any control over this. He tried not to think about what would happen afterwards, with the flies. That wouldn’t be his problem.
He noticed Frothman again, and took a moment to try and figure out what he was saying. “You’ve got so much goddamn nerve, huh? Wanna just die and get it over with, do ya?” He had flipped open the cylinder of his .38 and dumped all the bullets into his hand. McCormick frowned, not sure where this was going. He put one bullet back in. Ahh, that’s what comes of watching ‘The Deer Hunter,’ one too many times.
Frothman snapped it closed and spun the cylinder in the approved fashion, then pointed the gun straight at McCormick’s head. One in six, McCormick thought, and he almost didn’t notice the click as Frothman pulled the trigger. He smiled as he spun the cylinder again. McCormick waited patiently. One in- Then Frothman put the barrel to his own temple and, before McCormick could say a word, the sound of the shot drowned out everything.
The man fell onto the edge of McCormick’s box and teetered there for a moment, threatening to collapse the whole thing. Then he slid backwards to the floor and, while the ringing in his ears slowly subsided to buzzing, Mark watched in horror as the first arrived at the feast.
There was nothing wrong with the hotel, but Hardcastle was trying to remember when all his colleagues had turned into such old stuffed shirts. Maybe it was since he’d started explaining the rules of evidence to McCormick’s study group on Tuesday nights. That was a sharp bunch of kids McCormick hung out with; they didn’t take anything on faith.
He found himself reaching for the phone for the fourth time since he’d arrived. No point in that, he reminded himself; he won’t be home until five or six, maybe later if he got to talking to Sturgis. He told himself to go to dinner; talk to the stuffed shirts some more. It’d be Sunday afternoon before he knew it.
It was funny how he had started to notice things, now that he was no longer in danger of imminent death. There was an open can of Coke on the counter just beyond the doorway, flat no doubt. And never mind that the last person to drink out of it was lying dead in one of these two rooms, and the flies were buzzing around it enthusiastically. It had been at least ten hours since he had anything to drink. He’d stopped sweating. He’d stopped feeling hungry, though that hadn’t taken much more than a quick look down. But that damn can of Coke was still sitting over there.
Then there was the matter of the handcuffs. He’d tried to do a Houdini. Maybe he’d gotten a little too aggressive at one point, shortly after Frothman died. His wrists were sticky and swollen, and his hands were nearly numb. Numb was not so bad, though, compared to his ribs and his head.
But the most irritating thing of all was the damn rope. He must have nearly lost his balance at least three times; each time was accompanied by another little hitch in the loop. There seemed to be no way to reverse the process. Now it was a constant reminder. Any tighter and it would become more than that.
It was well on towards dusk, and he realized the only light was coming from around the edge of the doorway, from the kitchen. He shifted slowly from foot to foot, listening to the gentle creaking of the box beneath him, and thought this was going to be a very long night.
Hardcastle wandered up to his room at about nine o’clock, pleased with himself for having survived the collegial small talk for as long as he had. He wasn’t surprised to see the red message light flashing in double-time on his room phone, the kid had probably tried to check up on him when he’d gotten home. He picked up the phone to take the messages, and was surprised to hear Sturgis’ voice, asking him to call back. He dialed the number.
“Hey, Bob, it’s Milt.”
Sturgis was puzzled; Mark had not shown up for their meeting, and no one was answering at Gull’s Way. He’d thought at first that maybe McCormick had changed his mind about accompanying the judge, and had forgotten to cancel their meeting, but he thought it odd enough that he wanted to find out for sure. He had called three hotels to find the conference.
Hardcastle thanked him and hung up, equally confused. The days when the judge taking a weekend trip meant a vacation at home for McCormick were so far in the past that they seemed part of a different lifetime. Most mornings now, the kid was up even before Hardcastle hit the basketball court. There didn’t seem to be enough hours in the day for what he was trying to accomplish.
He pushed the button to retrieve the second message, and his concern ratcheted up another notch. It was Frank Harper’s voice asking him to call ‘as soon as possible’. He dialed the familiar number. Frank picked up.
“Yeah, Milt, I’ve been trying to reach you and Mark for an hour now. They had a little ‘incident’ out at Traywell Mental Health Facility yesterday and they‘ve just now gotten around to notifying us. You remember that guy who ran with Winona, name of Wayne Frothman?”
“Who could forget him?” Hardcastle replied. “What kind of incident?”
“The kind where a maintenance man gets knifed and hidden in a laundry bin, and the aforementioned inmate goes missing, along with the maintenance man’s van. I think they were hoping to cordon off the area and get him back without a lot of publicity, but no luck.”
The part of Hardcastle that operated on gut instinct was now absolutely convinced that something was very wrong, but he tried to stay calm and think of alternative explanations.
“Listen, Frank, can you send someone over to the Law Library? Somebody that knows McCormick, ask ‘em to look around; sometimes he falls asleep in one of the study carrels.” They’d both been up at dawn this morning, Hardcastle leaving and McCormick seeing him off. The judge tried to remember the last thing the kid had said to him. Drive safely?
“I’m coming back,” he said to Frank abruptly. He checked his watch. “I’ll be there in about two hours. Can you meet me at my place?”
He thought maybe it was midnight, or near about. At any rate it had been dark for a long time, with only a puddle of light coming in from the doorway to the kitchen. If anything, the droning sound was getting louder. His legs kept cramping up. The thirst was maddening.
He’d already figured out how it was going to end. A little while ago he been brought to by a sudden choking sensation and realized that he’d drifted off and was swaying on his perch. He’d caught himself, but now it was hard to swallow--the rope was so tight. He did not think he was going to make it till daylight and, even if he did, there was no reason why that would make any difference. He was looking for the calm again, and once he found it, he’d be damned if he’d let it get away from him.
It was after midnight. From the exterior, the estate at Gull’s Way looked quiet and undisturbed. There was nothing to contradict that impression when they entered the main house and took a quick look. No one there.
They went to the gatehouse--also deserted. McCormick’s briefcase was open on the table. In it was a sheaf of papers clipped together with a note that said ‘Sturgis’.
“He never left for class this morning,” Hardcastle said urgently. “He would have taken these.”
Frank nodded. They’d already found the Coyote and the Corvette, side by side in the garage. Frank called in an APB and asked for back-up at the estate. They could hear the approaching siren now.
“I’m going to have them look around the grounds, Milt.” He tactfully avoided the word ‘search’, but both men knew what he wanted them to do was make sure Mark’s body wasn’t out there. “Why don’t you go back up to the house and take a better look around.”.
The judge nodded grimly.
Back at the main house he walked through the kitchen. The sports section was still on the table. The breakfast dishes from yesterday had already been washed and stacked in the draining rack, but not put away. There was a dishtowel dropped casually on the counter by the door to the hall. He left it there when he went to answer the front door.
He walked through the hall and into the den to check the phone. The answering machine light was blinking continuously. He rewound the tape and listened. The first bunch were hang-ups, seven, eight of them, then an angry message from someone named Judy; that would be the one with the short dark hair and no sense of humor, Mark’s nemesis on the moot court committee. “Where the hell are you, and don’t you know we only have a month to get this thing together?” He fast forwarded through the irateness and arrived at a couple of polite, inquiring calls from Sturgis, and finally at Frank’s two. There’d been no more hang-ups from later that day.
He frowned and turned back to the phone, checking the caller ID’s on the day’s calls-the first eight were all from the same number, and it was not one he recognized. He checked the clock. One forty-eight a.m. He dialed it anyway. He let it ring a dozen times, no answer.
“Frank?” he hollered, jotting the number down and heading out the door. He ran into the other man on the front porch. “Anything?”
Frank shook his head. “Nothing so far.”
“Well, this might be something.” Hardcastle held up the piece of paper. “I need your people to cross-check this. Someone from there tried to call a bunch of times in the morning, but didn’t leave a message. There’s no answer there now.”
Frank understood. They were grasping at straws. He stepped inside to make the call. The judge was fidgeting behind him. “Well?” he asked as soon as Frank was off the phone.
“Give ‘em a couple minutes. They’ll call me right back.”
“Probably some real estate guy,” Hardcastle muttered. “They call all the--”
The ring of the phone cut off his remark. He jumped for it but Frank was closer. “Yeah . . . yeah, got it.” He was jotting down numbers, an address.
“Well, who was it?” the judge asked impatiently almost before the phone was back in the cradle.
Frank looked puzzled. “Sounds familiar. Do you know an Elmira--”
“Tompkins,” Hardcastle finished for him. “Witness at the Winona trial. Put the whole gang on the scene where those three girls were found buried.”
“We’ve notified the people involved with the case, maybe she got spooked and tried to call you. Maybe she went to stay with some friends.” But Frank remembered, all too well, the last time he’d tried to reassure Milt--in Wendell Price’s pool-house.
“These calls came in before anyone around here knew Frothman was on the loose.”
“You think Mark took a call earlier, and went out there to see what was going on?”
“I don’t know what I think, except that nobody’s answering the phone. Come on. I remember how to get there.”
“I can call for some local back-up.”
“Not unless you can make ‘em stay out of sight until we’re there. I’m not going to let any sheriff’s deputy go in there lights-and-sirens. Wayne’s not the type to handle pressure well.”
“Then my car, in case we need the radio.”
The phone had jarred him out of a near doze and sent his heart racing. He’d almost forgotten there was a world outside of this room. He found himself counting the rings, ten . . . eleven . . . twelve, and then a sudden silence followed. No, it was never quite silent. The droning was incessant; he tried to say “Stop it!” out loud, but between the rope and his thirst, it came out as a croak. The flies ignored him.
Twelve rings? Nobody lets a phone ring that many times, especially at--what time was it anyway? He gave up trying to puzzle it out, but the few moments of nagging thought made the calm he was trying to find that much more elusive.
Hardcastle pointed out the turn-off and Frank let the car coast a short way in, with his headlights off. They could see the lights from the kitchen window, and the dark-colored, paneled van parked out front.
“Frothman took off in a van?” Hardcastle asked.
“Yeah, paneled, Chevy, dark green.”
Hardcastle and Harper crouched a short way from the house, half hidden by a boulder. There were no sounds, no movements from within.
“You wanna go call for back-up now?” Hardcastle murmured. “If you can get ‘em to come in slow and quiet. Otherwise I’m going in closer to have a look.”
“I can’t promise what they’ll do, if I tell them I think Wayne Frothman is holed up in there.”
“Then you stay back here. I’ll go up. I’ll signal you if it looks clear.”
Frank nodded, trying to remind himself that Hardcastle had been a street cop when he’d still been delivering the daily paper, but he knew the chances were that Hardcastle would go right on in, whether it was clear or not. He watched the older man edge toward the house, gun drawn, staying in the shadows, until he was alongside the kitchen door. No signal, he was frozen there, looking at something. No, it wasn’t just looking; the night breeze had picked up, and now Frank got a whiff of it, too.
“Oh my God,” Frank gasped. Hardcastle was inside a moment later, and Frank was up and following behind him. He heard no shots.
He was inside the kitchen, and had just seen the very dead woman on the floor, when he heard Hardcastle shout his name from the back room, “Frank, dammit, get in here.”
Once you’ve smelled it, you never forget the odor of death. It had grabbed Hardcastle by the gut as soon as he had started towards the house. He was at the door; the screen was black with flies. He barely hesitated before he charged in, but his pause had been long enough for him to see what was left of Elmira.
But the van was still out there.
He walked through the kitchen, listening. There, someone breathing raspily, and a creaking sound from the back room. Then there was a hitch in the breathing. He rounded the edge of the doorway.
In the dark shadow of the room he saw McCormick standing, no leaning, at an improbable angle. And then he saw a glint off the rope, and all the pieces fell together in a flash of horror. “Frank, dammit, get in here.”
He was alongside McCormick now, and could see he wasn’t supporting his own weight anymore; his knees were slack. The rope had no give. He reached up to grasp him around the chest and tried to lift; the box didn’t look like it would support the weight of another man. “Stand up!” he shouted, and a moment later he thought maybe he felt the kid straighten a little, but he still didn’t hear him taking a breath.
Then Frank was over by the wall, where the rope was tied off, trying only briefly to unhitch it before he resorted to a pocket knife. “Got him?” he shouted, as he slashed through the last few fibers.
Nothing hurt anymore. The buzzing had given way to a rushing sound, like wind, and-“Stand up!” No, that was only going to prolong it. Besides, he couldn’t. He’d already tried that and it wasn’t working. But there was something so damned insistent about the command that he found himself trying anyway, though he really couldn’t feel his feet, and the box below him had turned into sponge rubber. There, he’d tried. Satisfied? Good, now leave me alone.
But now he was leaning against a very substantial surface, and suddenly there was a feeling like fire around his neck. The sound of rushing wind receded, and in its place he heard his own breathing, loud and hoarse.
“Got him,” Hardcastle yelled, as he caught Mark’s weight against him and lowered him to his knees on the box, yanking at the loop of rope with one hand. He heard a ragged intake of breath as he slowly lowered the kid the rest of the way to the ground.
He was taking deep, gasping breaths now, but his eyes were still closed and he lay awkwardly slumped against Hardcastle.
“Frank, you got a key?”
The detective knelt down, looked at the damage the cuffs had done, and grimaced as he undid them. They heard a hoarse moan as McCormick’s arms fell limply to his sides.
“That’s it, kiddo. S’okay now.” Hardcastle ran his fingers gently over the kid’s scalp, encountering a couple of good lumps. The kid moaned gutturally again. He cradled the head back against his shoulder. “What hurts?”
Everything
.
And he’d been this close to finding the calm again, only to be dragged back over the edge by . . . Hardcase. On the other hand, “There’s a can over there,” he said. At least that’s what he thought he said. They seemed to be having trouble understanding.
“Yeah, it’s all over. I got ya,” the judge reassured him.
McCormick sighed--keep it simple. “Water,” he croaked.
Frank had called for the ambulance. He found a glass and filled it at the sink. He stepped around Frothman’s body, and handed the glass down to the judge. Mark fumbled for it with his still-useless hands.
Hardcastle said, “Slow down; I’ve got it.” He tipped the glass carefully until they got the rhythm right. After that, the kid barely paused to breathe.
“Ambulance?” the judge asked as he handed the empty glass back up.
“Yeah, it’s on the way,” Frank replied. “Think you wanna move him out of here?”
Hardcastle had felt the kid sink back into dead weight against him almost as soon as he’d finished the water.
“No . . . no, let him be.”
Good, he thought. He was too damned tired to stand up again. I’m fine right here.
The sun was creeping over the windowsill. Hardcastle got up from his chair to pull down the blinds.
“Don’t,” came the raspy voice from the bed.
He looked over his shoulder. “You’re supposed to be asleep.”
“I think I was.” McCormick looked around at the rest of the room. “What day is it?”
“Saturday. Saturday morning.”
The kid looked puzzled. “You’re in San Diego.”
“No, we’re both in Simi Valley,” the judge explained patiently. “Sturgis called last night and told me you were a no-show for your meeting with him.”
“I miss one meeting and you put together a rescue party? Am I that reliable?”
The judge smiled. There were signs of intelligent life. He’d been starting to worry. “Nah, then Frank called and told me that Frothman was out.”
McCormick frowned a little. “It just seems . . . awfully convenient.”
Somehow the judge knew exactly what he meant. “It’s real.” He walked back over to the bedside, reached down, and put his hand on the kid’s shoulder. “You’re here. I’m here. Simi Valley. You can close your eyes and open them again. You’ll still be here.”
“Okay . . . it’s just that I think I was talking to the flies right before you got there.”
The judge shook his head, “That doesn’t surprise me.”
There was a pause, and then the kid’s face sobered. “Elmira’s dead.”
“I know.”
“She was so scared before she testified.”
“It was one shot to the back of the head. I don’t think she even knew he was there. No time to be afraid.”
McCormick nodded, wanting very much to believe what the judge was telling him; there was something to be said for the comfort of a sudden death.
“But Frothman,” the judge started to speak, but then hesitated. He’d already heard about the one chambered round, and the five bullets in Frothman’s pocket, but he thought he’d better know the worst. “Well, I was just wondering why he went through all that trouble, and then shot himself.”
McCormick was looking down at the pattern of sunlight creeping onto the bed. “You know, Judge, I don’t think you can use the word ‘why’ and Wayne Frothman’s name in the same sentence.” He paused, and then added, slowly, “but I think maybe he did it to himself because it didn’t work on me.” Which he knew was the answer to the question the judge was trying to ask.
“Ahh . . .” Hardcastle was looking around uncomfortably.
McCormick groped for another direction to the conversation; he felt painfully slow. “Hey, how did you figure out where I was, anyway?”
“Huh?” The judge looked up from whatever it was he had been thinking. “Oh, the phone-all those hang-ups showed up on caller ID . . . Frothman really wanted to get through to me.” Hardcastle looked like he had already done way too much thinking about this. “I told you where I would be staying,” he added quietly.
“I got hit in the head a couple of times,” McCormick said quickly, but he could see Hardcase wasn’t buying it. “Look, Judge,” he went on, “he wanted us both. I wasn’t just a means to an end. If I had told him where you were, he probably would have killed me straight out.”
“Somehow I don’t think so,” Hardcastle replied grimly.
“Yeah,” McCormick shuddered, “he was having way too much fun.”
The judge reached out and put his hand on McCormick’s arm. “So, I don’t want you to ever do that again, see kiddo?” he said gruffly.
McCormick managed a wry smile. “You mean this wasn’t a once-in-a-lifetime experience? I was kinda hoping to finish law school and settle down--some nice torts, an occasional real estate deal.”
Hardcastle shook his head, trying to suppress his own smile. The kid’s okay; you got him back in one piece. He’ll move on from this. “Normal stuff, huh? Like moot court committee?”
McCormick’s smile dropped a notch. “Oh, man, I missed it, didn’t I?”
“Well, you got some sort of message from that Judy what’s-her-name.”
“Judy Voltowski.” McCormick shuddered again. “Judge, avoiding calls from her was the reason I talked you into getting caller ID. Maybe I can get a note from the doctor.”
“Maybe,” the judge smiled.
“But it probably won’t do any good.”
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