A Fistful of Empty Read online

“So tell me about it.”

  “No. I’m still thinking about it. When I’ve decided, I’ll tell you.”

  “Gee, thanks. Well, you know where to find me.”

  I drained the beer and thought about another six as chasers. Boy, talking to her was fun. We should do it more often.

  I told no one in particular that I was going out for a while and left to a round of silence. I was amazed at how badly that had gone. The night before, I’d concluded that my life with Sam was worth more than all the reasons I’d had for going with Arnie. How come that was the one thing I hadn’t said?

  That question stuck in my mind like a “Tilt” sign. Was it really true? What did we really have going for us? More useless fights like this? No. There was more there. This was some aberration, an increasingly frequent one, but still an aberration. I was convinced of that, maybe. I would wait her out and see what she had to say.

  I reached that conclusion somewhere out near Culpeper and it took me almost an hour to get back home.

  6

  Sam broke her silence around four the next afternoon and called me at the office. I told her that I’d be right home and that if traffic was bad, I’d call her from the car with an estimate of the delay. She didn’t hang up with a kiss, but it was a start.

  I left our office in Old Town, Alexandria, and made my way to the Beltway. Traffic crossing the Woodrow Wilson Bridge was at a halt and backing up like toppling dominoes.

  The Beltway is permanently under construction. They have a secret formula that balances any expansion against the growth in traffic so that when the construction is complete it is at least as inadequate to the traffic flows as when they first began the work. Then they approve more work and it goes back under construction.

  Traffic had clotted at “The Split” where I-95, 495, and 395 converge and fifteen lanes split, braid, collapse, and emerge as four each going east-west and north-south. The numbering system to guide you through this is incomprehensible to anyone without a learning disability.

  I crept through the concrete terraces that climbed the sky. When I called Sam, the line was busy. Eventually I exited at Route 50 and Gallows Road, then turned off Gallows and zigzagged to my house. Sam’s car was in the driveway.

  I climbed out, an unstable mix of yearning and apprehension, and walked to the front door. It was open. That silly potato head. I pushed it back. “Sam, I’m ho …,” I started to say.

  The living room had been trashed. Furniture tossed and slashed, bookshelves emptied onto the floor. I squatted inside the door and drew my pistol. Then I peeked around the kitchen’s half-counter and scanned the room. No one. No legs sticking out from behind the sofa, no pools of blood.

  At a silent “three,” I popped up over the counter, a homicidal Jack-in-the-box, and pointed my gun around the kitchen. No one there. Just food and broken glassware all over the floor, and the one beer bottle on the counter. Back in the box, I duckwalked around the corner to the bedroom and my office.

  My office door was open and the chaos continued inside. Papers were everywhere, file drawers yanked out and dumped. The carpet had been pulled back to reveal the floor safe. It was still closed. Sam didn’t know the combination. Hadn’t wanted to. Ignorance is bliss, she’d said. So nonchalant, so long ago.

  I turned and faced the bathroom. The door was open. I could see everything but the toilet in the corner. He could be standing on it. No choice. I sprang into the center of the room, gun up, and almost shot myself in the mirror.

  The bedroom door was closed. I put my ear to it and heard nothing. I took a step back and crushed my fears between clenched teeth. Coming through. The door slammed back.

  Sam was on the bed, bound and hooded, a pool of blood between her legs. I pulled the hood off. A thin belt of hers was around her throat. I followed it back to one of the bedposts, unknotted it, and slid the noose over her head. A livid bruise remained. Her mouth was taped shut. As gently as I could, I peeled the tape off. She was rigid from the waist up and arched, with her head thrown back. I rolled her onto her side, pulled out my knife, and cut the plastic ties around her wrists.

  I called her name quietly. She said nothing. I searched her face. Her eyes were stretched wide and empty. Panicked, I checked her breathing. She was alive but in shock. Bruises mottled her arms and legs. I pulled up a sheet and covered her.

  “I’m going to call an ambulance, Sam. I’ll be right back.”

  I ran from the room, found the phone, and dialed 911. As I spoke, I watched my right hand tremble and shake. It was curious, that’s all, just curious, not being my hand, of course. I put the phone down.

  This was somebody else’s life. I was sure of that. I only had to stay here until they returned to claim it. Then I was out of here.

  7

  I followed the ambulance to the hospital. In its wake, I ran every light. “Just let her live, Lord,” I thought. “I can work with anything I get after that.” It was a lie and we both knew it. I asked for it, anyway.

  At the emergency entrance, they backed the ambulance up to a loading dock. Two nurses were standing there. I had told the paramedics everything I knew and they had radioed the information ahead to the emergency room.

  I pulled up next to the ambulance, clambered out of the car, and hopped up the stairs to the loading area. The ambulance was open and they were sliding Sam out. She had an IV in her arm and a nasal tube for oxygen. Her eyes seemed clearer as they darted back and forth. I reached for her hand and squeezed it. It stayed soft in my grip. I felt a hand on my elbow.

  “I’m sorry, but you can’t come in here,” a voice said, firmly and evenly.

  I turned and glared. It was one of the nurses. I stared at her long-jawed Nordic face: blond curls, blue eyes, pale skin, no makeup, thin lips, no smile.

  “Why the hell not? Look at her, she’s terrified.”

  “I know that. But we can’t do anything for her until you leave. You can’t do anything for her in there.”

  I shook myself free. “Yes I can. She’s frightened. She doesn’t know what’s going to happen to her. She’s been through enough. I can help keep her calm.”

  “Perhaps, but who’s going to keep you calm? You don’t know what we might have to do. It’s difficult enough caring for her, we can’t be distracted by having to deal with you.”

  Sam was rolling away, through swinging doors, out of sight. I leaned forward. The nurse put her hand on my chest.

  “If you really care for her, let us do our jobs. Please, go into the waiting room. We can’t do anything for her until you go. It’s up to you.”

  Her words seeped into me, leaching my resolve.

  “All right,” I said, and stepped around her toward the waiting-room doors.

  I slammed through and was stalking past the admitting desk when a voice said, “Sir.”

  “Yes,” I snapped.

  “Did you bring someone into the emergency room?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you’ll have to fill out these forms.” The woman held out a clipboard to me. I felt like flipping it out of her hand. She looked tired. I took the clipboard. She hadn’t done anything to me.

  I walked over to an empty corner, sat down, and checked the time. Minute one was 5:47. I scanned the form and began to fill in the blanks. At marital status, I paused. Lovers have no rights. I wanted to know how she was doing. So, I listed Sam as married and identified myself as her husband. That done, I just kept lying. In my new role I gave permissions, signed releases, and promised payment. Hell, if you’re skating on thin ice you might as well dance.

  I killed ten minutes on the paperwork, turned it in, and returned to my seat. Time passed like a kidney stone. I tried to think about what had happened. Was the rape the intended crime or an afterthought to a robbery? What were they looking for? Were they looking for anything at all? Maybe trashing the place was just spite. I couldn’t find any answers. Sam’s face and her wild empty eyes loomed up behind every question. I had seen that look once be
fore. On a safari, Rocky Franklin and I came upon a zebra surrounded by a pack of hunting dogs. They’d run her to exhaustion. She was frozen, eyes ready to explode, nostrils flaring, spittle hanging from her lips while the dogs ate her alive. They tore chunks of flesh from her flanks, trying to topple her so that the rest of the pack could have at her.

  We raised our rifles and fired. I killed three dogs. Rocky killed the zebra. We looked at each other in surprise. The hot savannah wind fanned my face. I squinted into it.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Haggerty?”

  Startled, I turned to see a burly man standing over me.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m Detective Rhodasson. Melvin Rhodasson. I’d like to ask you some questions, if I could. I know this is a tough time for you, but the sooner we can get on this the better chance we have of catching whoever did this.”

  “I’d like to see some I.D. first.”

  “Sure.”

  Rhodasson reached into his jacket, pulled out his identification case, and flipped it open. I checked the picture and memorized his badge number.

  “Okay, what do you want to know?”

  Rhodasson sat down facing me and patted himself, looking for a notepad. While he did that I rewound the tape in my mind, back to the second I approached the door.

  Rhodasson found his pad and pen. Pleased with himself, he looked up and said, “Just tell me everything you remember. I’ll take notes and then if I have any questions, I’ll go back to them.”

  I went over everything from the unlocked door and my search through the ransacked house to finding Sam.

  “You got a good eye for details, Mr. Haggerty. What do you do for a living?”

  “I’m a private investigator. I run Franklin Investigations.”

  “Really? You got a business card?”

  I took one out of my wallet and handed it to him. Pocketing it, Rhodasson leaned back, took off his thick glasses, and cleaned them on his tie.

  “Your wife say anything to you about what happened?”

  “No. She was in shock.”

  “Right. So, what do you think happened?” All of a sudden we were colleagues.

  “I don’t know.”

  “No ideas? Maybe this was about you? Something personal. How about somebody who worked for you? An angry employee, an unhappy client? Someone you dug up some dirt on?”

  I filed Charlie Babcock away for later. “No, nothing.”

  “Nothing? That’s too bad. If we had a motive that was related to you or your wife in particular, it would help narrow things down quite a bit. If the assailants were strangers that makes it a lot tougher. But you know that. You must have made some enemies somewhere along the way, Mr. Haggerty. All good detectives have enemies.” Rhodasson slipped his glasses back on and stroked the ragged mustache that hung over his thick lips.

  “Maybe I’m not that good, Detective Rhodasson,” I said, refusing to be baited. I didn’t care if he thought I was holding out on him.

  Rhodasson shook his head slowly and went back to work. “You touch anything inside the house?”

  “Just the phone, when I called. And the hood and bonds.”

  “Tell me about them.”

  “The hood was one of Sam’s sashes. The tape on her mouth was regular adhesive tape for bandages. The plastic tie was the extra large kind for trash bags.”

  “You bring them down here?”

  “No. I left them on the bed.”

  “When you went through the house, you find anything missing?”

  “I didn’t stop to check. I have no idea.”

  “Did it look like they were looking for something in particular or just trying to piss you off?”

  “I don’t know. Like I said, my only concern was finding my wife and making sure that she was okay. I haven’t thought about any of this.”

  “I understand that, but you know that if we don’t get something more from your wife or some good physical evidence, this one is going to stay open a long time. You sure you don’t have any ideas?”

  “No, I don’t. Believe me, if I did, I’d tell you. I want the bastards who did this caught.”

  “Why’d you say bastards? What makes you think there was more than one?”

  “I don’t know. Time, I guess. I don’t think there was enough time to toss the place, look through things, and attack my wife. Not for one person.”

  “Okay. I’m going to talk to your wife when the doctors are done with her. If she tells me anything new, I’ll run it by you. We’re sending a crew over to check out the crime scene. Is the house locked?”

  “No. It seemed a little silly to worry about that.”

  “Yeah. Well, we’ll lock up after ourselves. If we find anything useful, I’ll call you. Maybe it’ll spark an idea, anything.”

  “Thanks.”

  Rhodasson stood up and hoisted his pants over his gut. He stroked his stubbly chin, then ran his palm over his balding head.

  “Is there something else, Detective?”

  “No. I think that’s all, Mr. Haggerty.” With that, Rhodasson walked over to the doctor standing at the admitting desk.

  I watched them shake hands, and talk for a moment. The doctor nodded toward me. Rhodasson nodded in confirmation. I glanced at the clock. Ten of seven. I watched the doctor walk toward me. Trudging? No. Striding? No. His hands were in his pockets. What did that mean? No furrows in his brow. And of course, no smile. He was well schooled. In a minute, he might change my life like few people ever had. But for him it was just a day at the office. It had to be that way. I knew that.

  Paralyzed with understanding, I just sat there watching him bear down on me and felt my old life slip away as light as gossamer.

  The doctor sat down and extended his hand. I shook it and waited for him to open his mouth and sentence me. Funny how a doctor enters a waiting room and all the air rushes out.

  “Mr. Haggerty, I’m Dr. Plotnick. I examined your wife in the emergency room.”

  “How is she?” For Christ sakes.

  “She’s going to be okay, physically.”

  “What does that mean?” I was strangling with impatience.

  “She has substantial bruising on her arms and legs and some internal bleeding. That’s from a blunt trauma injury to the abdomen. She thinks the man hit her with his fist, but she was blindfolded and couldn’t see.

  “These injuries should resolve themselves without further treatment. I’m more concerned about her emotional condition. She’s showing many of the early symptoms of what we call Rape Trauma Syndrome. This is perfectly understandable, mind you, considering what she’s been through. First the rape, then …”

  “Then what?” I snapped.

  Plotnick inhaled. “She lost the baby. I’m sorry, Mr. Haggerty.”

  Stunned, I sat back and watched the puzzles of the last few days re-form with this crucial piece in place. Old mysteries were solved and then quickly replaced with new ones.

  In the distance, Plotnick droned on. I heard “Spontaneous miscarriage … gynecologist … twenty-four to forty-eight hours … D&C in the afternoon.”

  I thought about the child we had lost and felt nothing. He was an absent idea, not a hole in my heart.

  “Mr. Haggerty?”

  Plotnick was gone. A woman sat in his place. She was leaning forward, elbows on her knees, hands clasped.

  “Yes?” What now?

  “I’m Dr. Berger. Linda Berger, staff psychologist on duty tonight. I’m with the Victim Resource Network.”

  I nodded. She was a small woman, with short reddish hair that flared out above her ears to a spiky crown. A forelock hung over one eye. Her features were precise and delicate, but she had an aura of intense energy.

  “I’ve spoken with your wife, Mr. Haggerty, and told her about the services we can provide to help her recover from this attack. I wanted to do the same for you. The husbands of rape victims are victims, too. Very often, though, they don’t see themselves that way.

  “Your wife may be
a very different woman for a while as she comes to grips with what has happened to her. These changes can be very hard for husbands to deal with. You don’t know what the right thing to do is anymore.

  “Also, most husbands feel a lot of responsibility for their wife’s recovery. And while it’s important to be there for your wife in whatever fashion she may need, you can’t ignore yourself. You’ll find that this has stirred up powerful feelings inside you that you’ll need to talk about …”

  “You mean like homicidal rage, like finding the mother-fucking bastard that did this and cutting his dick off and feeding it to him? Something like that?”

  I got right in her face, eager to prove her every point. Coolly, she went on.

  “Mr. Haggerty, here’s my card. A spouse support group meets here every Wednesday at eight p.m. I think you could use it. Your wife is the victim of the same rage that just erupted in you. If she senses that in you, that threat of more violence around her, she’ll shrink up inside herself and stop talking about her feelings. She’ll halt her own healing because she’s afraid of what you might do. What kind of help do you think that is?”

  Dr. Berger put her card on the coffee table in front of me and stood up. “Think about what I said, Mr. Haggerty. Will you do that?”

  I couldn’t bring myself to say yes, so I just nodded. Dr. Berger turned and left.

  I sat there and stroked my rage: sleek and pure, red-hot and hungry. Easy, easy. Don’t waste this on someone who’s just handy. Nothing will satisfy like the right man.

  The Sicilians say that revenge is a dish best served cold. Now I knew why.

  8

  A nurse came by and told me that Sam was being taken up to Room 407 and that when she was settled in, I could come up and see her. I asked how long it would take and she said to come up in about ten minutes.

  Those last ten minutes crept by slower than the first ten. I paced. I chewed a nail. Then two. I hit the elevator button and hopped from one foot to the other waiting for its arrival. I’d have taken the stairs if I could have found the right ones.

  When the elevator arrived, I popped in and hit four. Seconds later I strode through the doors to Wing 4E and began searching for number 407. The nurses glanced at me as I went past their station and then returned to their charting.