Dirty Harry 09 - The Killing Connection (15 page)

Harry’s head jerked toward it in confusion just as a second spotlight went on from the other side of the balcony. Harry crouched, swung the Magnum up. The second blast of the .44 did to his ears what the lights had done to his eyes. But it wasn’t enough to cover the sound of a flat being lowered from above.

Dropped was more like it. Harry squinted up, seeing several wood and painted canvas panels weighted with a metal bar falling toward him.

“Watch out,” he shouted to McConnell, then leaped forward, the steel pole just missing his shoulder. The entire piece of flat scenery collapsed on the stage, Harry standing in front of it, McConnell sitting behind.

McConnell scrambled backwards, but couldn’t avoid the bar hitting her calf. She shouted in surprise and pain as Harry moved to help her. He was forced back by another flat. And then another and another.

Looking up, all either could see were the dropping, stage-wide pieces of sets. Harry pulled himself sideways as another fell, grazing his chest. He ran back toward McConnell as a fourth one slammed down just where he had been standing.

He reached McConnell in time to slap both his hands against the metal bar of the falling fifth, which was heading right for the woman’s head. His strength was enough to knock the steel tube behind McConnell’s head, although he couldn’t keep the ruffling canvas and wood frame from hitting her torso.

But the flat was thrown off course far enough for him to see that the three ropes which were attached to the top frame were held together by a pulley which led to the offstage section they had fought in earlier. Harry remembered the ropes tied in that open section. The black scrims which kept the audience from seeing backstage did the same for the police.

Harry immediately started shooting in that direction. The curtains jerked up as the bullets hit them, giving him glimpses of the far wall before they dropped again. He heard a frightened shout and then the flats stopped falling.

A sandbag flew past Harry’s shoulder. Surprised it was enough to send him down hard to the stage floor. He landed on his side and twisted on his back just in time to see another brown bomb hurtling toward him. He rolled over, feeling the sack sliding across the hairs on the back of his head.

The force of its weight was enough to shake the stage boards and Harry’s skull as he continued rolling forward. The sandbags were now falling in a more random pattern. He was able to roll to a crouching position just as McConnell started shooting.

She had seen the men on the metal catwalk high above the stage which stretched from wall to wall. It ended with a circular staircase on either side. There were two bombardiers, each throwing the heavy sacks as fast as they could lift them.

When the .357 slugs began ricocheting off the cross-hatched metal floor, they kicked the remaining bags off the walk and ran for a different staircase. The man on the left hadn’t gotten one step when McConnell’s fourth shot sailed into his leg. He stumbled, fell sideways, and hit the thin wooden bannister. The wood splintered and the terrified man fell forty feet to the hard stage below.

Harry ran up just as she was aiming at the second man. “Hold it,” he instructed her. “He’s got no place to go.” As they both watched, the man tripped on the first step and fell face first. His nose was all but sliced off by the edge of the metal steps and he continued to smash brutally down the steps until he picked up too much speed to maneuver a corner.

His broken body spun off the stairwell and somersaulted through the air. He landed on his back.

The dust from the two falling men hadn’t settled when all the theater lights went on. The entire theater shone with a crystalline brightness. Callahan and McConnell were standing centerstage at the bottom of a low pit. Rising on all sides at the edge of the stage were simple red seats. It was a low capacity theater with seven sections. Between each section was an aisle, with only two aisles ending at the exit. Above the center section was a thick, dark, plate of glass. Harry guessed that was from where the lights were being controlled.

On either side of the glass pane, at the top of the respective aisles, were the two spotlights with their fronts shattered. Behind the devices were two men, each holding a shotgun pointed at the stage.

The cops reaction was instinctive. The .357 and .44 came up as one. All four pulled their triggers at once.

The resulting report echoed like a train crash. Harry and McConnell stood, nothing touching them. Harry’s man jerked back against the wall, the .44 slug having gone into the left side of his chest. The force with which he fell was so great that he pulled the spotlight back with him. The man slid to the ground and the hot, smoking piece of equipment fell on top of him.

McConnell’s man clutched at his arm, dropping the rifle and stumbling out from cover. He quickly tried to retrieve the weapon as Harry shouted.

“Don’t be a fool!”

The man was down on one knee, bringing the shotgun up to his shoulder. McConnell pulled the trigger again. It clicked empty. The man pulled his own trigger. Nothing happened.

“Hold it,” Harry said, aiming his weapon. The man looked at the shotgun as if it were an alien thing. Harry leaped off the stage just as the wounded man was forcing the pump of the shotgun back. The cop took the stairs three at a time as the man expelled the spent shell and released the pump—automatically feeding a new one into the chamber.

Harry got within twenty feet of him when the wounded man started to aim the shotgun straight at him. The look on his face was that of a child confused and frustrated. Harry had no choice. Still running, he shot the man in the chest.

The man’s smiling, triumphant face froze as he flew backward, his body retaining its sitting position. He landed two steps up. Harry came to a stop over him. He recognized the face. His face reminded him of the man who had talked to him in The Third Degree bar on Tenth Street. It was the man who had cryptically warned him about the impending trouble.

Callahan turned to see McConnell coming up the stairs after him, reloading her gun. Turning back, with determination coloring his features, Harry pointed the Magnum at the black glass of the lighting booth and fired the last bullet. The suddenness of his action made McConnell stop and wince.

He shot it high enough into the pane so as not to hit anyone who might be inside. Since he didn’t have time to find the entrance, Harry decided to climb through the shattered window. The .44 calibre slug had created a network of cracks around its big hole, but it hadn’t shattered the obstruction. Putting the Magnum back in his holster, Harry grabbed the heavy spotlight, and pulled it off the stair with a grunt. Then, using all his strength, he pushed it into the glass.

It collapsed like a waterfall, a glistening cascade of black glass instead of a sheet of liquid. Shards splashed and sparkled across the floor of the little booth, sliding across the light board, tape recorders, and several plush black chairs. The booth was empty, a door leading out to the left was open.

Harry turned to find McConnell at his side. “Call headquarters,” he said. “I want an immediate autopsy of every one of these men.”

“White is still working on the McLaren job,” McConnell reminded him.

“I don’t care who does it, as long as it’s done,” Harry said intensely.

“Take it easy, Harry,” she reproved mildly. “Anything you want to know we can get from the swordsman there.” She pointed toward the edge of the stage and both looked in that direction. The man who had attacked Harry with the broadsword was gone.

McConnell turned back in wonderment. “Maybe the man who was dropping the flats got him . . .”

“Or maybe the one who was in here,” Harry said. “It doesn’t matter. Go call HQ, Sergeant. An immediate autopsy, you read me?”

“Loud and clear,” McConnell said. Before she left, she turned to Harry one last time. “You sure you don’t want me to accompany you back there?” she asked, motioning with her head at whatever lay beyond the lighting room door.

Harry nodded, looking at the booth instead of her, so she just shrugged and went out the back. Along the way, she stopped to examine the sword the disappeared attacker had dropped. To her surprise, it was light when she picked it up. Made of painted wood, she discovered. It was a prop.

Harry found what he was looking for in the third dressing room behind the booth. She was brutally bound to a chair which was screwed to the floor itself. Her wrists and thumbs were tied together behind her back with rubber coated wire. Her shoulders and elbows were bound to the back of the chair with wire and tape.

More wire and tape were used to secure her ankles and knees apart on the chairs’ front legs. The cords cut cruelly into her skin at all points because her pants had been stripped from her before she was tied. She had struggled desperately by the looks of it because streams of dried blood colored her hands and feet.

She was further held to the chair by a wire encircling her waist and silenced by tape wound around her head and hair repeatedly. When Harry cut it away, he found a sponge taped in place over her knotted pantyhose which was forced between her lips.

The fading bruises of the rape were joined by brand new ones which split her lower lip and nearly closed one eye. Her sweater was practically torn off her body with many more welts beneath the tears on her torso. A wide, custodial broom had its base propped against the dressing room wall in such a way that the handle was pushed between Kimberly Byrnes’ outstretched legs.

Harry looked around for something to use as a tool; spotting a screwdriver in the corner, he worked feverishly to unbolt the chair from the floor. When he finally pulled all the screws up, he slowly, gingerly moved the seat back from the wall.

When the broom clattered to the floor, Kimberly Byrnes groaned.

C H A P T E R
E l e v e n

“I
t was horrible,” she said.

Kim Byrnes was sitting up in the hospital bed, most of her head covered with bandages. Her skin was a light shade of blue. Steve Rogers, the black police doctor who took care of most of Harry’s wounds, described it all in the hall before the combination visit and gentle interrogation.

“By all outward signs, she was beaten continually. When he wasn’t hitting her with an open hand or his fist, he was whipping her with something. A thin leather belt, I should think. Very little else would make those kinds of markings.”

“Anything else?” Harry said needlessly.

Rogers thought he knew what he was referring to. “No physical damage due to the . . . uh . . . object. It probably caused nothing more serious than a case of shock. In fact, Harry,” the doctor said in a consoling tone, “other than the immediate surface damage, she’s not badly hurt.”

Callahan looked at him.

“No, really,” Rogers contended. “The way I figure it, Steele’s killing rage was spent by the murder of the Mayer girl. But since he had a second girl hostage, he took his minor frustrations out on her. That way, his anger didn’t have a chance to build. There’re contusions and lacerations, but no concussion or broken bones as far as we can ascertain.”

“Then she’ll be OK.”

“Good as new. Officially, we’re planning to release her tomorrow morning. But in fact, she could go home anytime.”

Callahan thanked him and entered the private room, which was already occupied by Captain McKay, Lieutenant Bressler, Alex Wu, Lynne McConnell, and, of course, Kim Byrnes.

“I can’t remember what happened very clearly,” she admitted.

“Of course not, my dear,” McKay clucked, seated in the one chair, which was moved up to the girl’s bedside.

“What happened after the fight started?” McConnell asked, getting a dirty look from the captain and a concerned one from Wu.

Byrnes looked down at her hands, which had swaths of gauze around her wrists, making her look like she had attempted suicide. Her small, shapely fingers, their fingernails for the most part intact, lay on the sheet over her torso,

“All I can remember was running out the back door,” she said slowly, having difficulty bringing it all back. “I think we kept running until we were alone. Then I think I can recall his face . . .”

“Steele?” Bressler asked.

She nodded. “But I’m not sure.” Her hand raised toward the back of her head, but returned to the bed. “Then I felt something on my head and I blacked out.”

McKay turned to look at Bressler. “The two split off from the rest of the crowd where they met Steele. Then she was knocked out and he beat the other girl to death.” The way he spoke made it sound as if he were filling the lieutenant in on the “official” version—the one that was going to be on Steele’s warrant request.

“Where was that?” McConnell asked her directly.

Byrnes looked blank. “I don’t know. We just ran and ran.”

That fit, Harry thought. They had found plenty of blood inside the Mustang, but it was hard to tell whether she was beaten to death there or somewhere close by. “Do you remember any cars?” he asked her himself.

She turned her head to look at him, her one uncovered eye gleaming in warm recognition. “Harry,” she said warmly, as if welcoming him. Only then did she consider the question. “There were cars . . .” she started hesitantly.

“There,” said McKay abruptly, “you see, Inspector?” He changed his irritated attitude when he solicitously returned his attention to the girl. “Now what happened after that?”

She stared off toward the opposite wall again, as if she were trying to see it all on a movie screen—to separate herself from the experience. “I woke up with him slapping me,” she said with certainty.

“Steele?” Bressler had to interrupt again to make sure. Obviously the girl didn’t want to remember her torturer by name. She nodded again, taking a second to look at Bressler; then returning her gaze to the far wall. While she continued, Detective Wu took the lieutenant aside. When they returned to the bed, Bressler did not interrupt again.

“He slapped me many times, asking me to cry. Then he’d stop, only to start hitting me. He did that again and again and again. He’d slap me and then stop. Then he’d come back and hit me. Then he’d start all over again. After awhile, it seemed like he got tired of that. He came in and started hitting me with his belt.” As she spoke, her head stayed perfectly still and her eyes stayed wide open, but big teardrops started streaming down both cheeks.