Alex, he’d said. This guy knew the name of her client. As a juvenile, his identity had been kept confidential. Not reported in the press.
In the space of no more than ten seconds, they had entered and subdued her. And made virtually no noise doing it. They were either hard-boiled crooks or cops.
Or both.
The one in the doorway looked behind him to be sure the junkie had high-tailed it. Then, with his revolver still trained on her, he closed the door and locked the chain. He approached her with the gun aimed at her face. There were now two guns within inches of her nose.
“Open wide,” he said.
She locked her jaw, grit her teeth, but he pushed the silencer hard against her mouth until she had no choice. If she resisted, it could go off.
“Here’s the good news,” he whispered. His eyes-the only part of his face exposed-were a dark brown, narrowed into slits. “I’m not going to kill you.”
Shelly had already figured as much. If they wanted her dead, they would have killed her by now. They’d shown too much skill to be sloppy on this point.
“This gun here”-he pushed the weapon deeper into her mouth, almost gagging Shelly-“this is my insurance against you trying any more of that judo shit. Won’t be my fault the gun goes off.” He grunted, or laughed, it was hard to differentiate. The tough part was over, now he was confident. “Oh, yeah, lady lawyer, we know all about you.”
Shelly was frozen. Her mind instinctively turned to her myriad of options, body locations for kicks and knee thrusts and punches. If it were a fair fight, she was sure she could handle them together. But there was nothing she could do with a gun in her mouth.
They had done their homework. They would deliver their message and get out.
The second man whispered into her ear. “You sure are a nice piece of ass, you know that, Shelly?”
Shelly shut her eyes, gasped for air with a mouthful of gun.
“You wearing a bra under there, Shelly?” The man touched her breast, fondled it, one then the other. “No, of course not. You were asleep. Yeah, it’s too bad we don’t have more time tonight. Maybe you could put on a little show for us.”
Shelly squeezed her eyes shut but kept still. She thought the words with a calm that surprised her. Not again. They would have to kill her first.
“Aw, she’d probably put up a fight,” said the one behind her. “Just for show. Before long, she’d have her legs wide apart. Isn’t that right, Shelly?”
“Maybe next time,” said the one in front. “Maybe, things don’t work out here, we’ll bring back three or four others. We’ll take turns on little Shelly.”
“Yeah, but you know what happens then.”
They both laughed.
The second man moved his face next to Shelly’s. “She’ll cry rape again.”
Shelly felt faint, could hardly keep her balance. They were telling her they were cops, had pulled her file, knew all about her. They wanted her to know.
The man in front moved even closer, so that his mask almost touched Shelly’s nose. “If we hear a single bad word about Ray Miroballi, you both die. We’ll find Baniewicz, in or out of jail. And we’ll find you. We’ll make it hurt, Counselor. You know how the Cans do it, right?”
She did know. The Columbus Street Cannibals killed rival gang members by cutting off a limb and letting them bleed to death.
“You keep your mouth shut about this visit, and Baniewicz pleads guilty.” The gun moved against the base of her throat. “Or there’s nowhere either of you can hide.”
The gun at her temple moved against her ear, then around to the back of her neck, never leaving her skull. Then she felt hands on her shirt, her hair, and she was turned violently and hurled across the room. She could fight, yes, but she was small, maybe a hundred and ten pounds at best, and the force sent her face-first into the carpet.
She did a quick inventory, with her chin dug into the carpet. No broken bones, maybe a scrape or two at most. If they came at her from this position, she had several options, most of them below the belt. Some would maim. Some would hurt like hell.
But they weren’t coming at her. They were done.
“Yeah, really not a bad piece of ass,” one said to the other.
She heard laughter, then movement, a door closing gently behind her. She tried to scream but, once again, she couldn’t.
14
It would have been a terrible day, anyway. The nineteenth of February. A day off for Shelly usually, every year. A personal day.
She hadn’t slept after the visit from the intruders. She had called the police and spoken with officers when they arrived, saying nothing of her very real suspicion that it was police officers who had paid her a visit. Her point had simply been to show them-if they were still watching-that she wasn’t afraid to call the authorities. If the burglars were cops, they would be checking the report that was filed. She wanted them to know.
She had to see Alex, as she had every day, first thing in the morning before going to work. She didn’t want to shower, didn’t want to move her eyes off the front door. So she had bathed in the kitchen, taking a bar of soap and running it over her underarms and chest, drying with a towel. She hadn’t washed her hair but pulled it back sharply and pinned it. She could only imagine the impression she made.
She watched the clock as it hit seven-thirty. She inhaled and closed her eyes. On her kitchen table, she lit the sole candle and stared into its flame. She did the same thing she did every year on this day, asked for forgiveness and redemption.
God, of all days.
She drove to the detention center and raced to the check-in. “Michelle Trotter,” she said, “here to see my client, Alex Baniewicz.” She looked at the clock. It was three minutes past eight in the morning. She felt dizzy from sleep deprivation but charged with adrenaline.
“He has a visitor,” said the man behind the glass window.
“Who?” Not having enjoyed her own most recent visitors, her mind raced as to who might be paying a call on Alex.
“Ronald Masters.”
Oh. Okay. Ronnie.
She took a seat and felt exhaustion set in. Lack of sleep, tension, and grief had wiped her out, and her day had hardly started. But she felt some measure of relief being here, even if she hadn’t seen Alex yet.
Time moved slowly as she sat in the waiting room with two other women, each of them younger than she. Each of them African American. Neither of them appeared to be filled with hope or enthusiasm. This was not a happy place. If she were her mother, she would be bouncing off the walls right now. She remembered when her mother’s father-Shelly’s grandfather-had passed, and her mother continued to cook the scrambled eggs after receiving the phone call, because she needed to do something. Shelly didn’t mourn that way. She let it swallow her whole, maybe so it would go away more quickly.
Ronnie Masters emerged from a door. He was wearing a hooded sweatshirt, which struck Shelly as insufficient for the cold weather; his long, dark hair was hanging all over his face. He saw her and nodded. Shelly greeted him, gave him some empty pleasantries.
“Didn’t know you were gonna be here,” he said, as if there were something meaningful about that. He gave her another look. “Have a rough night?”
“Something like that.”
Ronnie kissed Shelly’s cheek. He probably wanted to beg Shelly to save Alex, to spare him from the consequences of his actions. Whether Ronnie was in denial, Shelly did not know. What a “brother” would feel in such a situation was unfathomable. Little escaped Ronnie, and his presence had nothing to do with Alex’s guilt or innocence.
Shelly touched her eyes as Ronnie left. She felt an excruciating weight as she followed the guard into the interview room. Alex, having had a prior visitor, was already seated in the familiar position, hands cuffed before him. His eyes were swollen and red. Shelly had seen it before-little hurt a young man more than seeing the effects of his actions on his family.