Chapter Thirty-One

FOUR UNMARKED CARS exited the police department parking lot at precisely ten o’clock. North Olmsted was a geographically small suburb, and the trip to Elfin Street took less than ten minutes. Once we turned onto Elfin, the other three vehicles continued to their assigned locations. As the lead car, we were now on our own.

As planned, Detective Roberts parked our car four houses down from 1427 Elfin. Despite the distance, I had a good view of our target residence from the backseat. A walkway led from the right side of the driveway to the front porch and the house’s wooden front door. Well-tended flower gardens bordered the porch steps. I wondered briefly if that was Mary Dhillon’s handiwork, then pushed that thought out of my mind. Although my duties were minimal, I needed to keep my head in the here and now.

I wasn’t able to see the rear of the house, but Google Maps showed a wooden fence surrounding it. Hannah would have to either open or scale the fence to cover a potential back exit. The plans also showed a deck door opening to the yard. This was the route Hannah would use to gain entrance to the house should things go south in front.

Hannah, Roberts, and Davis checked their weaponry and exited our car. The detectives moved quickly to the house, and I saw Hannah walk to the back while the other two stepped onto the porch. Once there, Roberts rang the bell.

He was greeted by chaos. The world, or at least our world, picked that moment to explode. The sound was deafening, like the noise from a gun range amplified by a factor of ten. Simultaneous with the blast, the front door collapsed backward, shards of wood flying in all directions.

Standing directly in front of the door, Davis was thrown backward like a six-foot rag doll. Roberts, standing to the side of the doorbell, crumpled to his knees. I didn’t think he’d be getting back up anytime soon.

I sprinted to the porch and found Detective Roberts groaning and holding his leg. I couldn’t see Davis; then I realized the force of the explosion had thrown him into one of the front yard flower beds. He was still and bleeding from the numerous wooden shards sticking out from his chest, face, and neck. I wasn’t a medical examiner, but I knew a dead body when I saw one.

I turned my attention back to Roberts, who quickly waved me away.

“It was some kind of shotgun, likely a ten- or twelve-gauge,” he hissed. “I’m fine. Get the fuck in that house. She’d have gone in there by now, and you need to get her the hell out.”

I knew who he was referring to and needed no further urging. Drawing my Glock, I ran past the collapsed door and into 1427 Elfin.

In TV shows, detectives running into unfamiliar homes are invariably greeted by near-total darkness. In my case, the first thing I noticed was the light. It seemed like every bulb in the house was illuminated, to the point where my eyes had trouble adjusting from the nighttime gloom outside.

Once I adapted to the light, the second thing I noticed was the staircase directly in front of me. The stairs led to a hallway and what appeared to be four bedrooms. A small balcony on the left-hand side of the staircase directly overlooked the front door.

Just as the words “high ground” came screaming in my brain, a figure appeared over that balcony holding what I assumed was the same shotgun that had killed Detective Davis. I dived to my left as the gun went off, managing to fire my Glock at the same time. Not expecting to hit anything, I was surprised to hear a woman scream. I’d seemingly found Mary Dhillon. Now, where the hell was Hannah?

Back on my feet, I raced up the steps. While I’d never fired or even held a shotgun, I knew most were single- or double-barreled, allowing up to two shots without reloading. I was betting my life that Mary’s was one of those. If I was right, I would have time to reach the balcony before she reloaded. If her gun was a pump-action model with eight or nine shells, I would be dead before I reached the top of the stairs.

Luckily for me, I never had cause to find out. Still screaming, Mary dropped the gun and retreated into one of the second-floor bedrooms, slamming the door as she entered. I was facing that room and considering my options when I heard footsteps from downstairs. It was Hannah coming up the stairs on the run.

“Terry, I’m right behind you. Don’t shoot me.”

As Hannah reached the top of the stairs, another voice, cold and mocking, came from the second-floor hallway.

“I would appreciate if you wouldn’t shoot me either.”

I turned quickly. Hannah, feeling the gun at her head, did not. Emerging from his bedroom hiding place next to where Hannah was standing, I had finally come face-to-face with Dr. Michael Grieve.

Holding the gun in his right hand, Grieve shifted to Hannah’s left side. Though this provided me with a better view, I still didn’t have a clean shot. I figured his next step would be to tell me to drop my gun, and I didn’t have to be a detective to know that would not end well. I needed a way to take control of the situation, and my only chance was what had worked once before.

I burst out laughing. It was clearly not what Grieve was expecting, and he gave me the same look he likely used with his more insane patients. Not surprisingly, Hannah’s look was essentially the same.

“Unbelievable,” I said. “You’re doing it again. Some guy murders your girlfriend in Illinois. You didn’t have the spine to kill him, so you decide to knife some poor, defenseless housewives. Now I shoot your new girlfriend, and you’ve got your gun aimed at somebody else. The message I sent was dead-on. You are a gutless wonder. I bet if I put my gun down right now, you still wouldn’t have the balls to shoot me.”

I started to put my gun down as slowly as possible. I was betting on three things. The first was that Grieve would move his own gun in my direction. The second was Hannah would notice the movement and seek cover in the open room directly to her right. As for the third bet, I wasn’t quite sure what that one was yet. I was just hoping I’d think of something before Grieve put a bullet in my head.

Fortunately, Hannah solved the problem for me. With a sound of pure rage, Grieve started to point his gun toward me. Sensing his shift, Hannah pivoted directly into Grieve and shoved hard.

With his attention on me, Grieve had almost forgotten Hannah’s presence. Her shove caused him to stagger and fall down the stairway, though he somehow managed to hold on to his gun on the way down. Now lying on his back at the base of the stairs, he tried to aim it in Hannah’s direction.

He never had a chance. Standing at the top of the stairs, Hannah fired three quick shots. Dr. Michael Grieve, noted psychiatrist and part-time serial killer, had finally joined his victims.

Hannah and I looked at each other, both too shaken to speak. That lasted until we heard groaning from beyond a closed bedroom door and remembered Mary Dhillon was still alive. Drawing our guns, we shoved open the door to the room where Mary had fled and found her rolling on the floor, holding her right shoulder. I realized then that I hadn’t shot Mary—she’d been injured by the recoil from her own shotgun.

Hannah searched Mary and determined she had no other weapon. Mary said nothing through this process, though the look on her face was one of pure hatred. That look turned even more venomous when Hannah pulled out her handcuffs. Whether it was from her injured shoulder or an overall sense of hopelessness, Mary’s howl of pain was something I would remember whenever I thought back to that night.

Hearing a noise from the bedroom at the far end of the hallway, I left Hannah with Mary and moved to investigate. I entered the room and was shocked to find an older woman lying in bed with one arm tied to a bedpost.

The woman began gesturing as soon as she saw me standing by the doorway. Assuming she was Claudia Place, I wondered about the minimal restraints. As I drew closer, the glassy, drugged look in her eyes provided a likely explanation. I untied Mrs. Place and asked her to stay in the bedroom until the EMTs showed up.

Despite her general confusion, Mrs. Place insisted on coming with me. Thankfully, she could walk with only moderate assistance, so I took her down the stairs while Hannah escorted Mary Dhillon. For her part, Mary now looked catatonic. She would need significant time with a psychiatrist—a nonpsychotic one this time—before she could give the police anything useful.

Outside, the North Olmsted police and emergency responders had arrived at the scene. I glanced at my watch and was astonished to find we’d been in the house for just under five minutes. We exited through the demolished front doorway and handed Mary to the North Olmsted cops and Mrs. Place to the EMTs.

Hannah and I then went to check on the injured Detective Roberts. Luckily, his leg had only been grazed, and he was already hurling expletives at the medical personnel providing treatment.

He saw us watching and relief flooded his stubbled face. “You did okay in there. The North Olmsted cops said you caught the bad guys.”

Hannah and I looked toward the body of Detective Davis, still being tended by a cluster of EMTs.

“We could have done better,” she said bleakly.

“Not your fault. It sucks, but it’s not on you. You got the hostage out alive, and that’s what counts.”

We started to walk away, but Roberts called me back.

“You never hesitated. You went right in there, and you brought her back. That counts for something in my book. You ever need anything from me, don’t hesitate to ask. Also, call me Andy. My friends call me Andy.”

The “friends” part made me feel good. I would have said more, but the reporters and news vans had started to arrive. I asked Hannah if she could get me a ride back with one of the North Olmsted beat cops. I told her I’d call tomorrow. I knew she would spend all night at the scene.

Some of the cops who’d responded to the call had started to filter back to the station. With Hannah’s prodding, one of them agreed to let me hitch a ride. Before I left, I asked Hannah if it bothered her that we’d never know Grieve’s reason for coming to Cleveland.

“Are you joking? I don’t care if it was space aliens or a secret message he heard in a sermon. Like Andy said, we caught the bad guys. Enjoy that and stop overthinking things. Get some sleep, and thank you for what you did in there. You really did save my life.”

I was too tired for a witty comeback, not that I had one anyway. I accepted the ride from the officer and was soon back at the parking lot and next to my car. Before driving home, I decided to call Father Lawrence. I wanted him to hear the news from me before reading it on the internet. It was already midnight, but Father had told me he usually stayed up until well past that.

He answered on the second ring, and I gave him a quick summary of the events on Elfin Street, ending with Dr. Grieve’s death and Mary Dhillon’s arrest. I didn’t have the energy to go into more detail, but I promised him a more thorough report tomorrow.

Father was grateful for the news and said he’d inform Father Samuel. He also said he’d been on Elfin Street. He thought it was the most insipid street name in all of Greater Cleveland.

“I also want to apologize,” I said. “When you hired me, you asked me to keep everything low-key. I failed in that rather spectacularly.”

“You didn’t fail. You caught the killers before they could hurt anyone else. The fact that it reached the newspapers was not your fault. For now, go get some sleep.”

That was the third time tonight someone had told me things were not my fault. I wasn’t sure I felt any better, but the sleep idea sounded good. I drove back to my apartment and deliberately did not set the alarm.