She pointed to the middle of her head. “A white forelock. Dark black hair with a white streak right in the middle.”
I freeze.
“Anyway, this man, he tells me the situation with Ellen. He says I’d be doing the world a favor if I helped them. He says that you definitely did it, smashed your own child’s skull with a baseball bat, but you’re going to get off because your old man is a crooked cop and so the fix is in.”
I swallow. The white forelock. I know the man she’s talking about. “This man mentioned my father?”
“Yes. By name. Lenny Burroughs. He says that’s why they need me. To help assure justice is done. If I help them with this, they’ll help Ellen. He has on expensive loafers with no socks. He lays it all out for me. Do you want to know what I told him?”
I nod.
“No. I say I’m not going to do it. Let Ellen figure a way to pay it back. That’s what I tell him. This little man, he says ‘okay, fine.’ Just like that. He doesn’t argue with me. Doesn’t make any threats. The next morning, the same little man calls me. He says in a polite tone, ‘Mrs. Winslow? Listen.’ And then…” She squeezes her eyes shut. “I hear this loud crack and then Marty starts to scream. Not Ellen. My Marty. The little man snapped my son’s middle finger like it was a pencil.”
In the distance, Hilde Winslow and I hear the sounds of the city—whooshing traffic, faint sirens, the beep of a truck backing up, a dog barking, people laughing.
“So,” I say, “you agreed to help?”
“I had no choice. You understand.”
“I do,” I say, even though I’m not sure that’s true. “Mrs. Winslow, what was the little man’s name?”
“What, do you think he left a calling card? He didn’t give me his name—and I didn’t ask.”
It doesn’t matter. I know who it is. “Didn’t you ask Marty or Ellen about him?”
“No. Never. I did what the man asked. Then I sold my house and changed my name and moved here. I haven’t talked to Marty or Ellen in five years. And you know what? They haven’t reached out to me either. No one wants to go back there.”
It is then that I hear someone out on the street start to shout.
A young woman from the sound of it. At first, I can’t tell what she is saying. Hilde and I both look at one another. I move toward the window. The woman is still shouting, but now I can make out her words: “Warning! The fucking cops are here! I repeat: The fascist pigs are here!”
Someone else joins in, yelling the same thing. Then someone else.
I glance out her window and spot squad cars double-parked in front of the building door. Four uniformed cops are running to the building’s entrance. Two more squad cars come roaring down Twelfth Street.
Oh shit.
No doubt in my mind. They are here for me. I have to get out—and now. I hurry back toward Hilde Winslow’s door, but when I open it I can already hear the cacophony of footsteps racing up the steps. The sound grows. I hear voices. I hear the cackle of radios.
They’re getting closer.
I hurry down the corridor to the fire door and stairs. I open the door. More voices, more cackles of radios.
They’re coming from both directions. I’m trapped.
Hilde is still standing in her doorway. “Come back in,” she says to me. “Hurry.”
I don’t see how I have any choice. I rush back into her apartment. She slams the door shut. “Go to the window in my bedroom,” she says. “Take the fire escape. I’ll try to stall them.”
No time to hesitate or even think it through. I rush toward the bedroom, toward the window, and throw it open. The breeze feels surprisingly refreshing. I wonder for a second whether the cops have the backyard covered. Not yet. At least, I think not yet. It’s pretty dark below me. It is also narrow, maybe twenty feet between the back of Hilde’s building and the back of one on Eleventh Street. I crawl out and close the window behind me.
Now what?
I start down the metal escape when once again I hear the cackle of cop radios followed by voices.
Someone is below me.
It’s nighttime. The lighting is almost nonexistent, which perhaps works in my favor. From inside the apartment, I can hear pounding on Hilde’s door, followed by shouts. Hilde yells that she’s coming.
I can’t go down. I can’t go back inside. That only leaves one route. Up. I start climbing toward the fifth floor. I don’t remember how many floors the building is. Five, six at most. I stop at the landing outside the fifth-floor window. The apartment is dark. No one home. I try to open the window. Locked. I debate breaking a pane with my elbow, but I can’t see any way to do that without making too much noise. And even if I do, won’t the police be on me pretty fast? I couldn’t hide in another apartment indefinitely.
Keep moving.
I head up another level, hoping that the window will be unlocked there. But there’s no sixth floor. I’m at the roof. I hoist myself up and onto it. My heart is pounding in my chest. Here is one cliché about a prison that is absolutely true: You exercise a lot. I do free weights in the yard when I can, but mostly, I’ve created my own boot camp in my cell—dips, squat thrusts, squat jumps, mountain climbers, and mostly, push-ups. I do at least five hundred push-ups a day in a variety of styles—traditional, diamond, wide hands, claps, staggered, Sphinx, flying, one-arm, handstand, finger. I am not the first to note the irony of taking people serving time often for violent crimes and putting them in an environment where the only self-improvement is making them physically stronger, but the truth is, I have never been in better shape, and it’s finally paying off.
I hope.
How the hell did the cops find me so fast? Unless Rachel…no. She wouldn’t. There are other ways. I didn’t plan well enough. I am rushing, and I am missing stuff. This is all a good reminder that I’m not as clever as I think I am.
Still, here’s the headline: I was able to question Hilde Winslow—and I’m not crazy. She had lied on the stand. I didn’t bury the baseball bat in some fugue state.
She. Had. Lied.
And I know who made her do it.
I have a lead now.
I have to escape. If I’m caught, whatever lead is out there will dry up.
So what’s my next move?
I consider hiding up on the roof. Hilde seems to be on my side for now. She might tell the cops that she hasn’t seen me. She might tell them that I had come and gone. I could just stay, wait, venture down when the coast has cleared. But would she lie to the police, especially if they pressed her? Is she really on my side—or had she sent me to the fire escape because she wanted me out of her building for her own safety? Is she telling them about me right now?
Will they search the roof eventually anyway?
I have to believe the answer to that last question is yes.
The night sky over Manhattan is clear. The Empire State Building is lit up in red, but I have no idea why. Still, it is a stunning sight. Everything is. We, of course, never appreciate what we have. That’s what they say. But it really isn’t that. It’s just conditioning. We take for granted what we become used to. Human nature. I want to revel in this for a few minutes, but alas, that’s not possible. I said before that I never cared about being locked up. Matthew was gone and it was my fault, so I was content—if that’s the right word—with having no life. I didn’t want to feel. But now that I’m back out in the world, now that I’m tasting that city air, that electric current, that vivacity of sound and color, my head is reeling.