Fatal Connections

Chapter 64

Terry was breathing hard. My back was giving me the usual grief, but my head had cleared a bit. As we waited, the voices grew louder. One likely belonged to a man, a baritone, and one sounded like a woman, more of an alto. And there might have been a second woman. Hard to be sure when there were two flimsy doors and a hallway between us and the voices.

I checked the rest room door for a lock. Naturally, there wasn't one. Terry maintained his position at the door, as I did a visual reconnoiter of the restroom using my phone for light rather than risk revealing our presence with the glare of the overhead fluorescents.

To call it shabby was being generous. To its credit, it was just big enough to house all of two stalls and a rusty sink. Cheap curtains covered a window wide enough and just low enough to crawl through. The wall may not have been made of brick, but the wood of the exterior wall was solid enough. I shoved the curtains aside and tried to open the window, but the damn thing wouldn't budge. I looked for a lock and came to the conclusion that it was either well-hidden or the window had been painted shut. No wonder the room smelled horrible.

A quick visual survey turned up nothing particularly useful for opening that window. I snatched up a small plastic wastebasket and tried to take out the window with it, but it bounced from my hand. Rearing back, I delivered two swift kicks to the glass. The impact jolted my back but produced a small spiderweb of cracks in the pane.

After a quick pause to listen for any sign that we had been discovered, I took a couple more whacks at it. The cracks in the window now looked like a web-spinning spider had lost its mind. In a pinch, the window would have to do as an escape route. But I couldn't risk further damage to the window without giving us away.

"They're getting closer," Terry informed me in a stage whisper.

I gave the ruined window one last nudge. The glass shifted but wasn't quite ready to give way. Not yet. Shit. I joined Terry at the door and took out my phone. Should I call someone? What would I tell them?

The murmur of voices became more distinct. I made out two women, definitely. And a third voice, lower register, probably a man, then yet another low-pitched voice. I set my phone to record events.

"Recognize anyone?" Terry asked. He held the door open, a tiny crack, and I listened as the voices filtered through it. Given the growing darkness, my hope was that none of the speakers would notice the tiny opening in the rest room door.

"I think so." One or two of the voices seemed familiar. They weren't in the hall yet, but they'd be there soon.

I nudged Terry. "Shut the door."

Terry eased the door closed.

Just as the ladies' room door shut, the squeak and rustle of the door across the hall came to us. Terry and I froze. I hit record on my phone.

"So, we're good then?" I could just make out the voices through the door. The woman sounded confident, but I detected an edge of worry. And a hint of familiarity.

"We're just fine. As long as you all do as I say," said a man whose voice I couldn't match with a face.

"We'd better be fine. Those murders messed up everything." Another man's voice that I recognized immediately, even through the door. It was Reverend Leland's Chamber of Commerce voice. "We really stuck our necks out for you."

From the man I didn't recognize, "Watch what you say. This is bigger than you can imagine." It sounded like a cross between a threat and a plea. And which murders are we talking about?

A moment of silence passed. I sensed a shift in the atmosphere, much like the coming of a storm. The back of my neck tensed, as my gut hollowed.

"But killing wasn't part of our deal." Leland soldiered on with his point.

The other man said, "And I thought we'd settled our differences. What a shame."

Then, there was a scuffle. It sounded like a fight. Taking care to remain hidden, I eased the door open a tiny crack and peered through it. My view of the proceedings was minimal, at best, but I could make out the occasional failing arm. The battling duo swung their way further down the hall and the view improved a bit.

One of them held a small object. In the fading light, I caught the familiar gleam of a handgun. The man fighting Leland was vaguely familiar. He was shorter and more rotund than the Reverend. And his clothes suggested that he had been on a safari.

I barely recognized the Reverend without his cleric's collar. Dressed in a polo shirt with wide, contrasting horizontal stripes and a pair of tan slacks, he looked like an aging preppie. Apparently, his skills went beyond the religious. Leland attempted to wrest the gun from the other man's grip.

"Would you two stop it?" one woman yelled. Next thing I knew, the bang of a gunshot pierced the air. I dropped to the floor, taking Terry down with me.

The ladies' room door had drifted shut, but I could hear the woman say clearly, "Don't be such idiots."

That voice I knew. Then Leland spoke in a mocking tone, "Too late for that, isn't it, Marian?" He uttered the name as if spitting out poison.