I started to point out that was clichéd, too, but decided that Kessler wasn’t interested in knowing that. I didn’t talk.

“Micky?” someone called to me over the chaos in the hall. I glanced in the direction of the voice. It was Cissy. She was coming toward us.

“Get back to class, Cissy,” Kessler ordered.

She hesitated, but didn’t turn to go. “Micky?” she said again, sensing that something was wrong.

“It’s okay, honey. Go on back to class,” I told her.

“Keep going,” Kessler hissed in my ear, again pushing me with his gun.

“Are you okay, Micky?” she persisted.

“Get back to class,” Kessler snarled.

Cissy’s glance darted to his gun hand. I sped up, hoping to leave Cissy’s inquiring eyes behind. I didn’t want her anywhere near Kessler’s gun.

“This way.” He nudged me as we came to an intersection in the hall. “We’re going out the back way.”

Only a few children lingered in this hall. Some older, beat-up lockers lined the walls.

Suddenly, Kessler howled in pain. Without thinking, I spun around and grabbed his gun hand. Control the gun, I told myself, slamming his arm against the lockers and shoving it upward. If the gun fired, it would go into the ceiling.

“Goddamn it!” Kessler screamed again.

Pinning his gun arm against the lockers with both my hands, I looked back to see what had bedeviled Kessler. Cissy had sunk her teeth into his calf. She was still biting him, her arms grasping his ankle to hold on. Kessler swung at her, but, because I had one of his hands pinned, he couldn’t twist all the way around to really hit her.

“Call the police! This man has a gun,” I yelled.

“Security! Get security,” Kessler bellowed in response. “I’ve got a lunatic here.” He cuffed Cissy across the ear, knocking her to the floor.

Free of her, he turned to me, grabbing my hair to yank my head back. Don’t let go of the gun. If you do, you’re dead and probably Cissy, too.Kessler was a strong, powerful man, several inches taller than I was. A battle of brute strength wasn’t one I could win. Tears were starting to run down my cheeks from his grip on my hair, my head pulled back so far I was losing my balance.

Kessler suddenly screamed again and let go. Cissy was biting him, again gnawing the same place on his calf. He swung at her and missed, then swung once more and hit her hard enough to knock her sliding down the hallway.

I slammed my heel into his instep, causing him to howl in pain.

“Help! Get the police!” I yelled. I knew it was perhaps only seconds since we had started fighting, a minute at most. It might take several more minutes before anyone who could cut into our deadly dance would arrive.

Kessler’s goal was simple: he had to point the gun at me and pull the trigger. Alive, I was a very dangerous threat to him; dead, he could tell whatever story he wanted to. He had to know that even his security guards wouldn’t let him shoot me in cold blood.

Kessler fought back, slamming a blow into my kidneys with his free hand. I kicked at him, landing a blow that was little more than annoying at his ankle.

“Goddamn it, you’re going to die!” he spat at me.

He hammered a blow at my face. I ducked just enough to keep him from hitting my nose, but the blow still jolted my head back. Kessler had the advantage. I had to use both hands to keep the gun under control. He had one free hand and I couldn’t move out of arm’s length. Taking the opening that the punch he had landed gave him, he grabbed one of my arms, jerking it off his hand. The gun shifted down. He yanked it toward me and pulled the trigger.

My ears rang from the loud report, but the bullet went over my head. I could hear yelling and screaming behind us. If nothing else, the gunshot had attracted attention. I hoped the bullet was lodged safely in the ceiling or wall.

Kessler clutched my remaining hand, trying to pry it loose. But he couldn’t hold both my hands with one of his. With my free hand, I grabbed one of his prying fingers, jerking it painfully back. Kessler cursed and let go, twisting his finger free. I again held his gun hand with both of mine.

Then he hit me again, connecting with my jaw. He struck a second time, a hammering blow to my ear. His strategy was simple and brutally effective, pummel my face and head until I would have to let go of his hand and the gun.

I couldn’t control the gun with just one arm. And I couldn’t just stand here and be a punching bag. I tried to kicked him in the knee. He cursed me, not falling to the floor as I had hoped, but at least I managed to break the rhythm of his blows.

“He’s got a gun,” I heard someone behind us yell.

I kicked again. Kessler grabbed my foot.

“I know karate, too,” he snarled as he tried to pull me over.

I jerked and twisted, trying to get my foot free. Kessler yanked on my leg and pulled me down.

“Police!” someone yelled.

Kessler froze long enough for me to slam his gun hand into the handle of the locker as hard as I could, driving his wrist against its sharp edge. I did it again, opening a gash in his wrist. Suddenly, he dropped the gun.

Then all hell broke loose. One of the security guards slam dunked me across the hall to one of his compatriots. She shoved a knee into my back and had one arm twisted until my hand was almost in my hair. (My hair isn’t very long.) Nothing like having your nose rubbed into a public school floor to make you appreciate cleanliness.

From this ignoble position I listened to the cacophony of several shouted arguments. At first I tried to add my own point of view, until the security guard, not liking the things I was saying about her boss, convinced me that silence is golden, or at least not painful.

Finally, a familiar voice said, “I’ll take her, you take him. We’ll sort it out from there.”

A handcuff was placed around my wrist and the security guard was convinced to get off my back. Joanne Ranson read my rights as she cuffed the other hand. I was glad to notice that Warren Kessler had a few cops doing the same thing to him.

Joanne started to hustle me down the hall, still holding her police badge.

“Cissy. Is she okay?”

“She had a cut on her forehead, but she seemed all right. The school nurse is looking after her.”

“Was she bleeding badly?”

“It didn’t look very bad. I only saw her for a few moments.”

Joanne put her badge back in her coat pocket. Miscreant criminal that I was, she still kept a grip on my arm.

As we walked out of the building, it occurred to me to ask the obvious question, “Joanne, what are you doing here?”

“Cordelia called me. She was worried about you. I put a call out to look for your car. A radio unit saw it parked here. A lifetime ago, I was a school teacher, so I pretended to be a substitute and nosed around. And you showed up in your usual inimitable style.” Joanne unlocked the back door of her car.

“In back? Like a criminal?”

“If I don’t treat you like a criminal, they won’t treat him like a criminal. At least, until we get around the block,” she added as she shut the door.

Once we got away from the other cops, Joanne did let me sit up front, but she left the handcuffs on. “Not because I think you might do anything dangerous, but because you might do something stupid,” she gave as her reason.

“Thanks, Joanne,” I opined.

“Is this where you’ve been these past few weeks?” she asked, the kidding gone from her voice.

“Yeah, my own little personal hell. I guess I became obsessed with this case.” Then I added softly, “I guess I wanted to save Cissy in the way I wanted someone to have saved me.”

We rode the rest of the way in silence.

Chapter 38

It wasn’t easy to tell O’Connor how I knew that Warren Kessler was guilty.

“You’ll admit that in court?” he asked after I’d stumbled out my version of telling Kessler about my cousin and the note he’d left taunting me.

I just shrugged. If I had to, I would.

He didn’t have to say it wasn’t great evidence, not even good evidence. His final comment was, “Well, now that we know who to look at, maybe we’ll find something.”

O’Connor also wasn’t thrilled to have Joanne around. They didn’t get along, and that she was a decade younger than him, female, and outranked him didn’t improve their relationship.

“Back again so soon?” Danny popped in to say.

“Can I go now?” I grumbled in response. I knew Warren Kessler did it. I knew it beyond doubt or hesitation. But law isn’t justice. Sometimes it doesn’t even come close.

“Want a quick update on your friends on the boat?” Danny offered. Responding to my nod, she continued, “Jim Vernon hasn’t been found yet. He’ll probably float ashore someday. The guy you shot, Ron Acker, is in serious but stable condition. Being around kids is violation of his parole. When he gets out of the hospital, he’ll go to jail for a long time. Martin Quince was the only one who decided to take on the Coast Guard. He’s also in the hospital in serious condition. He got half his jaw blown off, doesn’t have much of a tongue or vocal cords left. The rest of the crew went quietly.”

I nodded. Quince’s voice stilled was a bit of justice. Sometimes that’s all you get. I remembered Camille. My head ached from the pounding it had taken. I felt awake yet tired, all my internal clocks thrown out of sync by the last few days. “What about Kessler? Are you even going to be able to hold him overnight?” I snapped out.

“I don’t know, Mick,” Danny replied, ignoring my churlishness. “We’ll do our best. At least long enough to search his house, car, and office. Right now it’s your word against his. With just that, even his bail won’t be very much.”

“Did I fuck up?”

Danny thought for a moment, shrugged, then said, “At least you caught him. That gives us a chance to find the evidence. We’ll do a thorough search and see what we can find. Everyone makes mistakes. We just have to find his. At worst, simply running around with a gun the way he did might put a roadblock in his principal career. That might be all you get, but it’s something. We ran down the names you got from Joey. We were able to arrest about half of them with enough evidence that they might not be back on the street in a week. The rest, either no proof, or they’ve hightailed it out of the area.”

“Thanks, Danny,” I said. “This isn’t a great day in the neighborhood.”

“I know, Mick, I know. A little more bad news. Lia Gautier?”

“Yes?” I remembered the name Camille had given me.

“They found her body yesterday.”

My only reply was, “Can I go now?”

“I suppose. Don’t go far. You’re our prime, and so far, only witness,” Danny said as she turned to leave.

I was beginning to know this police station too damn well, I thought, as I found my way to the water fountain. As I stood up from drinking, I noticed Barbara Selby sitting on a bench in the hall. Waiting. I guess the police had to question even Cissy.

“Barbara,” I said as I came up to her. I didn’t sit on the bench, I was too unsure of my welcome for that.

“Micky, hello,” she replied, her voice hoarse and fragile. “I saw that…picture of my daughter.” For a moment she said nothing more. “I feel like I’ve failed her completely.”

“You did the…what you could,” but the words sounded empty as I said them.

“When my child is hurt as she has been hurt, then I’ve failed,” Barbara uttered. “I can never give her back what’s been lost. I thought I did…the best I could do.”

“I know,” I said quietly, aware of how paltry my best had been. Who had I really saved?

Barbara reached out to me. I took her hand awkwardly. “Will she ever be okay? Does it ever stop haunting you?”