I’m in the den, and as I listen to the message, it feels as if the walls of the room are closing in and crushing me. I am simultaneously hit by a feeling of panic and dread so powerful that I have to make a conscious effort not to fall to my knees.
My certainty of the horrible danger to Karen doesn’t make complete sense; Franklin could really have something to tell her that he doesn’t want me to know. But every instinct in my body doesn’t believe it, and if my instincts are right, then the truth is too horrible to contemplate.
I grab my cell phone and run out of the house. I don’t know Karen’s cell phone number or even that she has one, so calling her isn’t an option. Instead, I call Pete Stanton as I drive, and tell him what’s going on. He promises to get himself and some officers there as soon as possible.
School number 20 is a grammar school less than five minutes from my house. I will certainly be there before Pete, and I try in these few moments to plan what I will do when I arrive. I don’t come up with anything, but the act of thinking helps to lessen the feeling of panic.
The parking lot and athletic field are behind the school, and I drive around at a high speed, pulling to a screeching stop. I want to make as much noise as I possibly can; if a bad guy is there, I want it to sound as though the cavalry is arriving.
It’s very dark back here, with no streetlights and little moonlight. I think I can make out Karen’s car, but it could just be a shadow. I run toward the back of the school and see a small light above an exit door. Standing there, that light glancing off her, is Karen. The fact that she is standing means she is alive, and the fact that she is alive is extraordinarily wonderful.
“Karen!” I call out, though I am still at least seventy-five yards away.
She looks over in my direction, a little startled, but there is no way she can see me.
“It’s Andy!” I yell at the same moment that I see a glimmer of light from the road, off to the right. There is another car there, and someone is in it.
“Run! Run!” I yell, but she is confused, and doesn’t move. “Karen, start running!” It is not until I add “Now!” that she starts to run, though I’m not sure she even heard the word, because at the exact moment, there is another, very loud sound. I know what that sound is, and therefore, I know why Karen crumples to the ground. I’m running toward her, but the sight of her falling is so painful that it feels as if the bullet hit me.
I hear another shot, not as loud, that seems to come from a different direction. Karen doesn’t look to have been hit again, and it doesn’t appear that I was either, since I’m still running.
Karen’s prone body is now shielded by the darkness, and for a moment I can’t find her. I finally do, and I lean down to her, dreading what I am going to see.
“Andy?” she says, and if there has ever been a more beautiful rendition of my name, I’ve never heard it. Barbra Streisand couldn’t sing it any more beautifully. Karen’s voice is weak and scared, but she has a voice.
“Andy, somebody shot me.”
“Where are you hit?” I ask.
“In my shoulder. Andy, it hurts so much.”
I hadn’t given any thought to whether the shooter is still out there, and the sound of a car screeching away answers the question. The reason for that is soon obvious, as Marcus comes running over. Clearly Marcus chased off the shooter.
In the dim light I can see that the upper right part of her body is soaked in blood, and another wave of panic hits me. I quickly call 911 on my cell and request an ambulance. I take my shirt off and wrap it around her. Maybe it will slow the flow of blood, or maybe it will keep her warm and ward off shock.
Or maybe it won’t do shit.
It was probably a good idea, because Marcus takes off his jacket and does the same.
“Karen, hang on. Help will be here in a minute.”
She doesn’t answer, and I fear that she may have lost consciousness. Within moments that seem like years, I hear the sound of sirens, and Pete and every police officer in the city seem to arrive simultaneously. The area is bathed in light, and soon paramedics have descended on Karen. Pete tries to lead Marcus and me away.
“No,” I say, “I want to see how she is.”
Pete nods and walks over to the EMT in charge. He talks to him for a moment and then comes back to me. “I’ll be the first one they’ll tell,” he says.
Pete leads me toward his car and starts to question me. He has one of his colleagues question Marcus-as futile an exercise as has ever been attempted.
“Do you have any idea who did this?” Pete asks.
I nod. “It’s got to be Keith Franklin. He works for U.S. Customs at the Port of Newark.”
“Why do you think it was him?”
“Karen left a message on my machine, telling me that Franklin called her and told her to meet him here. She said he told her not to tell me about it.”
Pete leaves me for a moment to tell one of the detectives to get Franklin’s address, and in less than a minute he has it. “We’re going to pick up Franklin,” he says. “You want to come?”
I look over and see that Karen is being loaded into an ambulance. “Any word on Karen yet?”
Pete signals someone who comes over and talks softly to him. Pete nods and turns to me. “She took it in the right shoulder. She lost a lot of blood, but they think she’ll make it. She won’t pitch in the major leagues, but other than that she should be okay.”
It is a feeling of such immense relief that I actually get choked up. This almost never happens to me; the last time I got choked up was three years ago when I mistakenly tried to swallow a chicken bone. “Let’s go,” is all I say, and Pete and I go to his car. I’m not sure where Marcus is, but I suspect he’ll be able to handle himself.
Pete has called ahead and sent other cars to Franklin’s house. We are not going to be the first ones on the scene, but no one will move or do anything of consequence until Pete gets there. He is the ranking officer on the case.
There are few things that I’d rather see right now than Franklin getting taken away in handcuffs, but I have no idea if it is going to happen tonight. I don’t know whether he just set Karen up for someone else to take a shot at her or, even if he did it himself, whether he would have gone home afterward. I don’t know what the etiquette is for attempted murders; maybe there is a traditional postshooting party, at which the criminal regales his colleagues with stories about pulling the trigger.
We park about a block and a half from Franklin’s house, and Pete has the operation well coordinated. Everybody moves in from various directions; if Franklin makes a break for it, he will find himself surrounded.
We’re about six houses away when Pete gets a message that the front door to Franklin’s house is wide open. Pete instructs me to stay behind as he and the other officers move in.
As I watch from a distance, the area around Franklin’s house is suddenly, eerily bathed in bright spotlights, and the sounds of men shouting through the previously quiet street are deafening, even though they do not include any gunfire.
Ignoring Pete’s admonishments, I start to walk toward the house. As I approach, I am stopped by an officer cordoning off the scene. “You can’t go any farther,” the officer says.
“I’m with Pete Stanton.”
“That’s fine, but you can’t go any farther.”
After about ten minutes, Pete comes out and walks over to me. “Franklin is dead,” he says.
I’m surprised to hear this. “Suicide?” I ask.
“Only if he’s a real bad shot. He had seven bullets in him.”
“Any idea how long he’s been dead?”
Pete shrugs. “I’m no expert, but I’d guess an hour or so. He sure as hell wasn’t the shooter at the school.”
Without a doubt, Franklin was the person who set Karen up to be shot, and without a doubt, he was not the one who shot her.
Pete verbalizes the questions that are forming in my mind. “You think he was forced to call her? Or did his partner turn on him after he did?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t know who the bad guys are or what the hell they’re trying to accomplish. The only thing I know for sure is that Richard Evans isn’t one of them.”