Seventeen
Bertha Ruse listened to the news of Valerie Dean’s
death on an early morning news program just hours after Jennifer’s return
and the horror story Jennifer had told of Dimitri Carvelli’s nearly
successful attempt on her life. She and Sally watched the sketchy details
reported by a local TV station on Emily’s portable. Francis had put Emily
on armed guard and had left with Jennifer to go into town and call home
for what Francis referred to as professional help. Sally then locked herself in her room and trembled on
the verge of hysteria. Emily paced the upstairs hall looking pale and
shaken, with her .357 dangling in her right hand.
After a time, Bertha took it upon herself to check
out Gabby. If Gabby had eavesdropped, he knew by now that his tenants
were not secretaries. He’d know by now they were in hiding and that one
or more of their number had been murdered. And maybe he’d call either
Leroy or the police for help.
Bertha went to the basement, eased through the musty
shadows and stood alongside the door to Gabby’s apartment. She heard him
rummaging around inside. After a time, he fell silent. She tapped at his door. “Gabby? It’s Bertha. I
need to talk with you.”
She tapped again, tried the doorknob, and found it
locked. She tapped a bit louder. “Gabby? Better answer me,
or I'll huff and I'll puff.”
Nothing stirred on the far side of the barrier. What
now? She had heard distinct noises. The basement apartment had only this
one entrance.
She backtracked, rummaged along a work bench, and
located a set of small tools used for electronic repair. Selecting a
skinny flat-blade and a piece of wire, she picked at the cheap lock on the
door until it creaked obediently open.
She scanned the interior of the apartment from where
she stood, half expecting Gabby to come roaring out of his bathroom in
protest.
Nothing.
“I heard you in here, Gabby,” she called out. “Where
did you go, please?”
She entered then, and inspected the walls for trap
doors, the only means of escape she could imagine. She saw nothing amiss
and looked up at the vents, wondering if she had heard a sound conducted
from elsewhere in the building. Shaking her head, she thought not.
Gabby’s absence provided the much needed opportunity
to snoop. She rummaged through drawers of all kinds and could have held
her breath during the time it took to hit pay dirt. A desk drawer
contained a stack of eight by ten glossies, images of unidentified nude
women in a bathroom, one in a tub, another in a shower.
Growing increasingly antsy by the moment, she
searched further and discovered unmarked video cassettes on a shelf.
Pausing momentarily to decide her next move, she put the photographs back and retreated, closing the shimmied door behind her with
a cassette
clutched in one hand.
Upstairs, she tapped at Emily’s door and interrupted
Sally’s quiet panic attack long enough to borrow their old portable
television with the built-in VRC. Locking herself in the apartment she
shared with Jennifer, she set the television alongside a wall socket,
plugged it in, and then dropped cross-legged in front of it to shove the
cassette into place.
Within seconds, the stolen video showed a scene of a
woman taking a shower. In five minutes or so, the woman retreated, dried
herself with a towel and left the bathroom.
The scene changed. Another bathroom. Another
shower. In the last sequence, a young man joined an even younger girl.
The tape became mildly interesting until the two retreated to the bedroom
to finish their business in a horizontal position.
Amateur stuff. Stiflingly boring. But porno just
the same, nicely edited and compacted into a twenty-minute display of
simple nudity and love-making. The multiple stars of the video had no
idea someone had been recording their showers and love life. The
apartments differed, some in older buildings, some in newer
constructions. Bertha was willing to bet they had all been instigated by
Leroy Reinhart and recorded by his cohort, Gabby Wernhauten.
In the face of Valerie’s death, Bertha pegged the
voyeur-style pornography childishly innocent. Men who hurt women did so
for other, far less innocent reasons. Bertha shook her head absently,
dismissing Gabby as a threat of that nature.
Regardless, Gabby and his crafty boss posed a threat
of another kind. Francis would have to know. Gabby would have to be
dealt with in some manner. If Gabby had shared any of his discoveries
with his boss, it was probably already too late to try for damage
control. They would have to pick up and run.
What to do until Francis returned? Feeling jittery
and light-headed, with her heart pounding in her chest like a tiny fist,
fate had tossed their next move into her lap. She sat on the couch and
began her indeterminate wait for Gabby’s return.
