Chapter Nine

A big car pulled on a motel forecourt. It looked like a Dodge Challenger and its color could be silver but it was difficult to see on this dark rainy evening with flashing lights from the motel signage. A woman with a full-length coat emerged from behind the driver’s wheel and ran towards the office. She held her purse over her head in a vain attempt to keep her hair dry. She didn’t ask for a room but simply asked for the room number where Edward Phelps was staying. The lady was Mrs. Shirley Springbom who had driven from Baltimore to DC to find Edward Phelps. Phelps was not his real name, it was her maiden name and it was the first name that came to mind when he rented the room. The room number given was six. Shirley Springbom ran down the line of rooms searching for number six, her demeanor now turning to panic. Nineteen was finally in her gaze, running up to the door she rapped her knuckles on the door and just for good measure she hit the window too.

The drapes twitched and the door opened as far as the security chain would allow.

“Shirley, what are you doing here”? The door finally opened and Mrs. Springbom entered the room. She immediately kissed Edward Phelps who was non-other than Eddie Novak. “Where’s Donald?” asked Eddie.

“Oh he’ll be playing craps in some casino”.

“I’m pleased to see you Shirley but we’re not married anymore, why are you here”?

Shirley said marrying Donald Springbom had been a big mistake and ever since she saw Eddie at Laura’s funeral she couldn’t get him out of her mind. Shirley said she couldn’t find him and called at his home several times. It was Dennis Chapman who told her how to find Eddie. She said it would be good if it were Laura that was to bring them back together again. Eddie sat at the end of his motel bed and put his head in his hands. “I can’t deal with this right now Shirley, my life is upside down”. Shirley said she’s going to leave Donald and if Eddie wants her back she will move in with him and face the future together. Eddie said he didn’t know, he said he didn’t know anything anymore he just feels his life is in turmoil. He can only offer a life in motels for a while and he’s determined to ruin the life of Luca Bianchi. Shirley said she was sorry. Sorry for leaving him, sorry for playing with his emotions and sorry for everything. Shirley sat beside him and put her arm around him. “I can’t at the moment Shirley, I’ve just too much to do and of course tomorrow is Election Day” said Eddie but they did kiss.

At that moment a Molotov cocktail was thrown through the window. The window smashed and the drapes caught fire in an instant. The heat was intense and the escalating flames jumped across the short distance to the bed where Eddie and Shirley were sitting. Shirley on the spot decided to make a break for the door, screaming as she fled the inferno that rapidly began to rage. As she opened the door she was shot in an instant of a second. Eddie hit the floor and managed to grasp his ex-wife by the ankle. He pulled her back into the motel room and closed the door. By this time the bedding was alight and fuelling the fire. Eddie knew that someone must have followed Shirley hoping that she would find the father of her late daughter. Shirley was distraught and bleeding but she was alive! Eddie picked her up and carried her to the bathroom at the rear but realized there was no way out as the rear window was too small to escape. He unplugged a table lamp to use as a club and decided to sit in the shower and sprayed everywhere hoping to buy precious minutes until the first responders arrived on the scene.

The bathroom door burst open. Eddie knew it was going to be friend or foe and luckily it was a burly DC firefighter. Eddie dropped his improvised club and fell to the floor in exhaustion. Shirley luckily was shot in the shoulder. The firefighter picked her up and placed her over his shoulder and made his way out of the blackened room where water was running down the walls and dripping from the ceiling. Eddie followed closely. Once outside, Shirley was placed in a Fire Department ambulance, Eddie paused and looked around, staring into the shadows before he too took a ride to the hospital to be checked over. Little did he know that the partner of the paramedic who was comforting Shirley had been strangled and been dragged away in the dark by the struggling assassin, Ketch? The English executioner John Kettering named after a seventeenth axe man was now driving the ambulance with the murdered driver’s hat.

What Kettering or Ketch didn’t know was that the DC Fire Department had had problems with this new diesel engine ambulance. The Fire Department had a mandate from the Environment Protection Agency to purchase new vehicles with an emission control system. Ambulance 19 being driven by Ketch unexpectedly had a warning light but jumped to engine shutdown in a matter of seconds. Ketch managed to pull the vehicle over but being in an area of busy traffic and many people, Ketch lost his nerve and decided to discard the hat on the ambulance seat and abandoned the vehicle mingling in the throng of people. Eddie thought the breakdown was a great inconvenience having to transfer to another ambulance but he never knew how lucky he had been.