Chapter 23: A Fateful Rendezvous

“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.