“Ah, look at all the
progress we made last night, chief!”
Morris has a slightly
different interpretation of the previous evening’s events. He sat uncomfortably in his desk chair,
banging his head against the smooth wooden surface.
“Progress,” he said,
staring at Valentine with a look of disgust on his face. “Only about as much as the people on the
Titanic saw when someone produced a bucket.”
“I mean, now we know the
mayor’s innocent,” said Valentine. “I
had his house staked out all night, and there wasn’t a sign of him.”
“Meanwhile, the real
criminal—who we knew right away wasn’t actually the mayor—goes and kidnaps an
old lady.”
“Don’t beat yourself up
too much about that, chief. There’s
nothing we could have done to prevent it.”
Chief Morris glared at
Valentine. “That’s supposed to be
reassuring?”
“This is the first time
the Porcupine’s taken someone over the age of ten,” said Valentine. “We must recognize that our quarry is
constantly adapting. He won’t keep
operating the same way if he thinks we’re onto him. Don’t say anything to the papers about what
happened last night, other than we’re completely baffled.”
“But why this
kidnapping? In fact, what’s the point of
all these kidnappings? What’s happened
to all these people, and why haven’t we heard anything about any of them since
they vanished?”
“All these questions and
more, my friend, will be answered once we find this villain. You see, as soon as I heard about the
kidnapping last night, I realized that there’s a pattern to these crimes.”
“A pattern?” said the
chief. “What pattern?”
“I’m surprised you didn’t
notice it yourself, chief. Everyone
kidnapped so far is technically under the care of someone else. The kids are all minors; Mrs. Greylag—”
“Grayson!”
“Thank you—Mrs. Grayson
lives in a nursing home. Our kidnapper
is brilliant, but he’s not that confident in his own strength. He’s not going to abduct someone who might be
able to fight him off.”
The chief stared,
exasperated, at his detective. “I’ve got
a better one,” he said. “Lauderdale,
send in Dr. Brown.”
Still wearing his white
coat, Dr. Brown strode into the office.
His eyes were bleary, and he yawned several times before he was able to
sit down. Valentine looked over at him,
then back to the chief.
“You have a suspect?” he
asked.
The chief silenced
Valentine with a withering glare. “Dr.
Brown,” he said. “Will you please tell
us what you know about last night?”
“Be glad to,” said Dr.
Brown, “and then, I’m going to bed. This
is all—[yawn]—quite embarrassing really.”
“I’m sorry to keep you
up, doctor, but—”
“No, no—I [yawn]
understand completely. Last night, at
midnight [yawn] I entered Mrs. Grayson’s room to give her medication. I found her sitting in her chair, purse open
on the floor next to her. It suddenly
occurred to me that she always had her handbag by her side when she took these
pills, even though she wasn’t going anywhere.
Curious, I snatched the handbag and looked through it, and what do you
suppose I found? Pills!”
“Dr. Brown,” said
Valentine, taking the opportunity to yawn himself. “Would you mind explaining how this has any
possible relation to the disa—”
“Shut up, Valentine. Go on, Brown.”
“The incident just served
to remind me of Mrs. Grayson’s rebellious behavior ever since she joined our
nursing home. Earlier that day, she
tricked me into waiting to give her medication by using mouthwash. Last week, she said she was staying in her
room when a visitor came by—I caught her trying to get out an emergency
exit. A week before that, she stopped
taking her meals until I finally allowed her to cut back on a less necessary
drug.
“This may all be true,”
noted Valentine, “but it doesn’t explain what happened last night!”
“I’m coming to that,”
said the doctor. “When the vehicle
pulled up outside, Mrs. Grayson said she didn’t hear it at first. When I said it was a car, she dismissed it as
being someone who was lost and checking a map.
I went to check on it, and next thing I knew, she was gone. There were no signs of forced entry.
“Would you hurry up and
say what you’re trying to—”
“I think,” said Dr.
Brown, “that Mrs. Grayson left of her own free will.”
A stunned silence filled
the air. Valentine turned to the chief,
a look of disbelief on his face. “Can
you believe this guy, chief?”
“It’s very possible,”
said the chief. “The window had been
opened from the inside. Who else could
have opened it but Dr. Brown or Mrs. Grayson?
Dr. Brown didn’t hear any screams for help. The only sign that someone else had been
there was that Purple Porcupine sticker, lying on the floor.”
“But we’re talking about
the Purple Porcupine!” exclaimed Valentine.
“The master criminal responsible for the disappearances of nearly a
dozen people. Mrs. Grayson couldn’t have
arranged it with him unless she knew who it was!”
“Maybe she did,” said the
chief. “Dr. Brown, did Mrs. Grayson have
any visitors?”
“She had two that day,”
said the doctor, “but they were both minors. Brittany McPherson and some other girl I
didn’t recognize. Her daughter Anna
comes and visits occasionally. Outside
of that, I can’t think of anybody.”
The chief shook his
head. “Not a visitor, then. I know Brittany. She wouldn’t be mixed up in something like
that. What about staff—a nurse, someone
like that?”
“There were two nurses on
duty last night,” said the doctor, “but both were in different areas of the
building. Physically, there’s no way
they could have participated in Mrs. Grayson’s disappearance.”
“Not helping her get into
the car,” agreed the chief, “but anyone who worked there could have unlocked
the window and arranged for someone to come pick her up. Give me a list of all the staff that could
have possibly had contact with Mrs. Grayson.
That’s going to be our next angle.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“It’s no good, Hardaway!”
Jack Richards was
beginning to experience a feeling he’d never had before in his
life—helplessness. A total lack of
control of the situation. For years,
he’d been used to pushing people around, manipulating their emotions as he
forced them to do things his
way. Now, as he put it to Hardaway:
“It’s like the losing end
of a chess game. First, your opponent
starts with your pawns. He takes one of
your rooks, the bishops, a knight. Once
he gets the queen, the writing’s on the wall, and it’s only a matter of time
before he snatches you, the king, and the game’s over.”
“What’s your queen,
then?” Hardaway asked.
“Never mind that,” said
Richards, leaping to his feet. “When you
start losing your chess game, you can’t keep playing the same way. You’ve got to adapt, figure out your
opponent’s style, make changes, and cause him to fall into your trap!” He yanked open his desk drawer and pulled out
the list. Waving it in the air, he
cried, “We can’t keep relying on this.
We’ve got to find some other way to torment these kids, something else
that’ll keep them—”
Brring! Brring!
Richards and Hardaway
stared warily at the phone. The terror
of the unexpected hit them as they realized no one was supposed to call that
day.
Brring! Brring!
Cautiously, Richards
brought his hand over to the receiver and answered. “H—hello?”
“Well,” snarled a whiny
voice on the other end, “it’s about time we finally talked.”
“Who is this?” Richards
asked, trying to hide his panic.
“The other bigshot in
this town; only, I don’t care about being labelled a crook.”
“Is this some sort of
joke?” Richards said.
“If it was, you’d be
laughing,” the voice replied. “Wanna see
me in person, Richards?”
“Why should I want to see
you—”
“You thought highly
enough of me to pretend to be me once.
They say imitation’s the best form of flattery, but frankly, I wasn’t
flattered.”
Richards gasped. “Then you’re the Purple Porcupine!”
“That’s right, and I’m
calling the shots now,” the voice on the other end said. “Meet me at the train station at one o’clock
this morning. Come alone. I want to give you the terms of our impending
partnership. You’ll like them, because
if you don’t, I’ve got an insurance policy that can get half your club
testifying against you. Now, you
wouldn’t want that, would you?”
“The Blackwell station,
correct?”
“One o’clock tomorrow
morning. Be there!” With that, the phone went dead.
Richards stared at the
receiver for the minute, then slowly replaced it in its cradle. Hardaway watched, wondering what his boss was
thinking. Suddenly, Richards jumped into
the air.
“Now we fight back!” he
proclaimed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fog wasn’t too common an
occurrence in Blackwell, but it rolled in tonight, in a wave thick enough to
leave its famous London counterpart jealous.
This wasn’t the English moor, but the howls of a few stray dogs in town
produced the same creepy effect.
In the midst of
Blackwell’s railyard, all was quiet. The
11:30 freight had rolled through—one hour late.
However, no further traffic was scheduled until three that morning. By then, it would all be over—that fateful rendezvous
between the town’s biggest rivals.
A full moon tried to beam
its light through the surface cloud, but the beams diffused enough to where it
wasn’t perfectly dark but it wasn’t bright enough to see either. More effective was the streetlight by the
train station. The lone, orange bulb had
been replaced just before the Santa Fe had abandoned the station, and it had
managed to endure these many years, even as all its counterparts burned
out. Its faint beams fell across the
boarded up windows, the crumbling bricks, the overgrown platform of the building
that was no longer the heart of Blackwell’s economy.
Two blocks away, an
ancient Ford Tempo eased to a stop in front of an empty house. The door popped open, and two men got
out. One was Hardaway—the other was his
partner from the train station the other day.
Jack Richards was nowhere to be seen.
“Where did he say to
meet?” the partner asked. “On the
platform?”
“He just said the
station,” said Hardaway. “It’s not that
large a building, so I suppose it doesn’t matter to him where we meet.”
“But it does matter to
us.”
“Yes, Olson, it does.” Hardaway grinned evilly. “This fog plays right into our hands. The Porcupine won’t be able to tell until he
gets up close that you’re not Richards.
By that point, it’ll be too late.”
Hardaway fingered something in his pocket. “This little .9mm will silence him for good.”
“As long as you don’t
miss.” Olson shivered. “I really don’t like this part of the plan—”
“Tut, tut, tut. Why would I miss, Olson? We’ve been partners for a long time, haven’t
we? Ever since we got out of the Lexington
Correctional Center? Just make sure you
don’t get between him and me, and that you don’t get too close to him. You can handle it, can’t you?”
Olson nodded. “Aim it right, and it’ll be a pleasure to
watch you go to work.”
“Isn’t it?” smiled
Hardaway. “I impress myself sometimes.”
Behind a bush at the
other end of the street, Anna Grayson whispered into a walkie-talkie.
“Two men just got out of
a car. Ambling towards the train
station. Too foggy to make out much
more.”
She took her finger off
the button and waited for a reply.
“Police car?” came Jimmy
Redford’s voice.
“Nope. Voices didn’t sound familiar either. Over and out.”
Hiding in a tree in the
center of the railyard, Jimmy Redford stared towards the south,
expectantly. Suddenly, to his surprise,
he heard voices from the north. He
turned around and faintly, through the fog, saw two other men approaching.
“Billy!” he said. “Who are they?”
“Who?” Billy asked.
“Two men. Coming from your direction.”
“Couldn’t see them,”
whispered Billy. “Fog’s too thick.”
Jimmy continued to watch,
curiously. One of the men stopped by a
tree north of the station and disappeared behind it. The other one flopped down to the ground and
also disappeared from view.
“Greg here,” crackled the
walkie-talkie. “Got an unmarked police
car parked on McKinley Avenue.”
“That’s two blocks north
of here,” whispered Jimmy. “Did it just
pull up?”
“No, it’s been here a
little while,” said Greg. “I’ve been
roaming around, and I just spotted it.”
“That’s probably where
those men came from—oh-oh, here come the others. Signing off now.”
As they approached the
tree, Hardaway suddenly flattened himself against the ground. Olson stopped, his eyes moving along the
ground as if he was watching something wriggle along it. A couple minutes passed without action—then,
the call of a whippoorwill echoed through the air.
It sounded natural
enough, but experienced birdwatchers would have known that whippoorwills were
rare in Blackwell. Olson knew enough to
know that this call was not a coincidence.
He started his walk towards the station, taking bold strides as if he
knew exactly what he was doing. His hat
was pulled low over his face, and the collar of his coat was turned up—classic
hood style. The shoes he wore made
crunching sounds on the dried grass until they began clacking against brick, as
he reached what was left of the platform.
He strode down its length, stopping when he got to the middle, in front
of the bricked up windows where tickets had once been sold. He tapped his foot impatiently and looked
around.
“Hello?” he said. “Anyone here?”
A sound from his rear
attracted his attention, and he turned around.
A figure was just stepping out of the one door that wasn’t boarded up,
to the left of the ticket booth.
“Well,” called Olson, in
a rather loud tone. “You must be a—”
“Duck! On your right!” a girl screamed.
The man coming from the
depot fell just as a flash came from the bush next to the station. Two more followed, then Hardaway leapt from
his hiding place and took off running.
Suddenly, a spotlight pierced through the fog, landing squarely on him.
“Stay where you are and
put up your hands!” Porter called.
“We’ve got you covered!”
The man who’d come out of
the depot now stood and trained his gun on Olson. “You too, Mr. Porcupine,” Valentine’s voice
snapped. “You’re not going anywhere for
a while.”
“You alright, Valentine?”
came a voice from inside the depot.
“Fine and successful,
chief. Come out and see what we’ve got!”
The chief walked out of
the depot in time to see Lauderdale frisking Olson. He took Olson’s gun and examined it briefly
before shoving it in his own pocket.
Over to the left, Porter and Evans were doing the same to Hardaway.
“This is an outrage!”
Hardaway spluttered. “I heard the Purple
Porcupine was going to be here tonight!
Thought I’d catch him and save you all the trouble—”
“Cut the swan song,
whoever you are.” Valentine was
unamused. “That bullet whizzed over my
head a little too closely for you to just be aiming at your partner.”
“Hey, chief!” said
Porter, looking through the crook’s wallet.
“This guy’s driver’s license says Joseph Hardaway. Ring any bells?”
“Joseph Hardaway,” said
the chief. “My old nemesis back when I was
in Wichita. How long have you been out
of jail, Joe?”
“I tell you, I’m on the
right side of the law now—”
“Oh, no you’re not,” said
the chief. “Because I just remembered
that the description we got of the Purple Porcupine sounded an awful lot like
you. And now, here you are, right at the
spot where the Purple Porcupine’s supposed to be meeting his henchmen
tonight. Coincidence? I think not.
Put him in the car and take him down to headquarters,” said the chief. “We’ll interrogate him later.”
“Chief, what about the
girl?” Porter said. “The one that told
Valentine to duck.”
“Yeah, how about that?”
asked Valentine. “Anybody spot her?”
Shrugs all around. “No idea,” said Evans.
“Spread out and look!”
ordered the chief. “There was a scream
that night Hardaway was spotted at the Stewart place. This can’t be a coincidence.”
Nor was it one, but
Brittany McPherson was very well concealed.
No one thought to check the top of the string of hopper cars two tracks
away from the train station. Brittany might
not get much sleep atop Midwest Railcar’s 989713, but saving a life was worth
some fatigue the next day.
