Chapter 2: A Murmuration of Starlings

Twelve days after my Columbia visit, I had finished what I hoped was the last of the one-way conversations with my former employer. Major Peter Maxwell was still upset with me, but he couldn’t convince my recently-acquired attorney to allow me to talk with him.

The Max was angry that HAVEN had been compromised. And that they still didn’t know who or how.

Angry that Sabbath refused, absolutely refused, to talk with anyone in the department. He may have been upset, but she herself was furious. Actually, no, I was the furious one. Livid at the crazed attacker. Sabbath was traumatized more than anything else.

The fact that I had earlier refused to recommend HAVEN to Sabbath didn’t make the good Major any more pleased with me. But I was out from under his command now, which probably frustrated him even more. That and my pit bull of an attorney.

The police in Columbia had been surprisingly courteous to me. The attack had happened in their town, but the entire situation had been generated by a secret Kansas City operation.

Translation: Spread the blame, point the fingers.

Less than two hours after I had arrived at the hospital, I heard a hallway commotion. A whispered argument with the two cops, the same two bruisers, against a single woman. One who spoke quietly, but with authority.

“I am Sabbath Louise Armstrong’s court-appointed attorney. I will speak to her now. Right now.”

More uncertain muttering, then the door inched open and a no-nonsense woman strode in. She was in her thirties, trim, business-suited, hair bunned-up on the back of her head. Round, tortoise shell glasses that I later learned were cosmetic only. Courtrooms, meetings with the police, media.

“Hello, Sabbath, I’m Addison Whitefield, your attorney. Don’t speak a word to anyone but me. If a doctor asks you a question, look at me. If you’re asleep having a lovely morphine dream and your imaginary best friend asks you a question, wake up and look at me.”

She turned my way, handed me her business card. I read it; anyone can print cards. She flipped it over and I recognized Daddy’s handwriting — “Trust her. Bulldog.”

I got it.

Daddy had to have called the legendary Kansas City fixer, probably while he was still on the way to my office. Bulldog Bannerman, although I barely knew him back then, got things done. Quickly, quietly, efficiently.

Ms. Whitefield said, “Same for you, Winter, not one word to anyone but me.”

I guessed, correctly as it turned out, that the city was concerned about a major lawsuit for failing to protect Sabbath. Understandable.

The mayor at the time, Tom Lynch, owed his election, and some of his major policy successes, to Bulldog. The administration wasn’t trying to muzzle Sabbath and me. At this early stage, they merely wanted to limit the rumors, speculation, accusations that might emanate from this particular hospital room. The city, the police department, and perhaps even the individual higher-ups had liability exposure. The more they contained the gossip, especially from Sabbath and me, the better for all concerned.

By calling for me from the hospital, Sabbath had made me part of her team. Because Daddy said to trust Addison Whitefield, I’d go along with her for now.

University Hospital in Columbia was like St. Luke’s in Kansas City. It had clout. Second largest employer in town with over four thousand full time employees. Combine it with the University of Missouri and the total was more than fifteen thousand taxpaying voters on the payroll.

Rumors had started spreading the day Sabbath Armstrong had been admitted. The spectacular nature of the attack catapulted it into the public consciousness. The ‘Blowtorch Beast’ made the national news on the second day. Doctors, nurses, technicians, policemen couldn’t keep from whispering, talking, blabbing. Just imagining a face on fire sent collective shivers around.

From the hospital administration itself: No comment, no comment, no comment.

The length of Sabbath’s hospital stay was partly treatment, partly recuperation, partly a protective move. No one knew who the attacker was, what he might be capable of, so the police stood guard in shifts.

On day ten, Bulldog Bannerman made a quiet trip to Columbia.

The next morning, a white-coated Doctor Arjun Varma, head of the Level One Trauma Center, held a brief press conference. Short, slim, brown, he stood outside the front entrance and didn’t read from a script. But he was obviously reciting a precisely worded statement.

“On June fourth, a twenty-eight year old female, Helen Corrigan, was admitted to University Hospital at eleven-eighteen in the morning. She was suffering from first, second, and third-degree burns to the head. She is in good condition and will be released later this evening.”

He turned around and walked back inside, ignoring the shouted questions.

Sabbath Armstrong had been wheeled out a service entrance on a covered gurney the night before. Two policemen were still standing guard outside an empty hospital room.

An unmarked van delivered Sabbath and me to the alley behind the Wrigley. Two armed KCPD officers escorted us as I pushed the wheelchair into the freight elevator. It was three-fifty in the morning.

The cops led the way into the loft, walked the perimeter, looked into both bedroom suites and the guest bathrooms, nodded, and left. I stowed the wheelchair in a closet. Sabbath had agreed to it as a condition of her medically approved release. Another liability issue, no doubt.

She still had two bandages — one on her left ear, the other covered the patch of burned scalp above it. Her head was no longer wrapped like a mummy; an improvement. I imagined that the internal scars would probably take longer to heal.

Walker was asleep; Sabbath and I sat close together on my green leather sofa and talked softly until the sun came up. She held my hand.

Some psychologists might refer to it as transference. To me, Sabbath’s allegiance to me instead of the police department simply made sense. The weight and majesty of a city’s law enforcement arm had talked her into the HAVEN program. Promises, guarantees of her safety, had been implied, if not directly stated.

And I had been the one, despite some bureaucratic pressures, who refused to recommend that Sabbath enter HAVEN.

So there we were, a little over a year since her initial visit to our loft. She became my de facto first-ever client. One whom I wouldn’t charge. Couldn’t charge, not if I wanted to look at myself in the mirror — a custom I’d grown fond of over the years.

The first steps were merely cosmetic, but I understood how vital appearances were. Especially to someone who had been spending her career in front of a camera.

Sabbath and I shopped online for wigs, good, expensive wigs. Her hair should grow back, but for now, we needed to cover the left side of her head. Her hearing was fine, but the top sixth of her ear had been surgically removed. As had the dead skin above the ear; it left a raw, ugly splotch.

Three top-quality wigs — platinum, red, brown — in three different styles. Platinum pageboy, red curly tresses, and long, hippie-long, brown hair that hung down almost to her waist.

Dual function wigs — to hide the physical damage and to disguise Sabbath’s overall appearance. Her original change to an even shorter pixie cut hadn’t been intended to mask her identity back then. It had been mostly to simply remove the singed hair from the first attack.

We stocked up on all her favorite necessities — gels, soaps, shampoos and conditioners, toothpaste, deodorant, lipstick, foundation, toner. It’s amazing how much you need when you’re starting completely from scratch.

Everything in her Columbia apartment had been donated to charity. Bad memories for one thing. And there was a chance, no matter how remote, that the Blowtorch Beast could somehow track a shipment from there to the Wrigley.

The city of Columbia had towed her car, with her permission, to a fenced-in impound lot. Sabbath would sell it, long distance, when things settled down. It was a six year old Toyota Corolla — easy to sell, easy to replace.

I knew quite a bit about clothes. Vanessa even more. But Sabbath was the pro. We spent hours online replenishing her entire wardrobe. I had expected more enthusiasm, but she acted as if it were just a necessary chore. The orders were in my name, on my debit card. No digital mention of Sabbath Armstrong. Nor of her HAVEN name — Helen Corrigan.

That was the easy part of her path toward recovery. Her rehabilitation would probably be more mental than physical. The psychological scars were, I imagined, far deeper inside her head than those on the outside. She didn’t have screaming nightmares, but would suddenly fling herself upright, gasping for breath, not knowing where she was, who was with her in the night.

It was apparent from the start that she couldn’t sleep in one of our two Murphy beds, not out in the open. Walker volunteered his room, but that didn’t work out either so Sabbath ended up bunking in with me. And I planted my Mossberg pump-action 20-gauge right beside my bedroom door.

The loft was fairly secure for several reasons. Uniformed cops rotated through the lobby of the Wrigley in six four-hour shifts. It was a barn door reaction, but understandable. They’d almost lost her once; were not about to take another chance.

Should Blowtorch somehow get by one of them, it took a programmed card key to stop the elevator on five. The door to our loft could be blocked from the inside with a steel rod attached to a steel plate in the wooden floor.

And, my Mossberg was always handy.

More than that, I was fairly confident that Blowtorch didn’t know about me. Didn’t know that Sabbath had been here one time a year earlier; didn’t know she had been secretly delivered back here from Columbia.

Of course, he shouldn’t have known she was in Columbia in the first place.

Counting our time in the hospital, I didn’t leave Sabbath’s side for twenty-two straight days. No clients anyway, no compelling need to visit my office. After three days, Major Peter Maxwell limited the lobby police to nighttime duty only. Ten until six in the morning.

Walker did the grocery shopping and brought us takeout from various neighborhood joints.

Other than Addison Whitefield, Daddy was the only visitor we had and he didn’t ask Sabbath any questions about the attack. Addison didn’t either; she just reminded us not to talk with anyone else.

The only thing we knew about her attacker was that he was male, a few inches taller than Sabbath. Slight, not heavyset. He wore a ski mask, just like in Kansas City. She didn’t remember anything about his clothes. No clues left at the scene. A blowtorch with fingerprints would have been helpful.

As would an idea of the type of blowtorch he used. But Sabbath hadn’t really seen anything but the flame as she screamed and flung herself to the ground, somersaulting, rolling frantically away from him. Terrified, screaming as loud as she could.

As the police walked through the reconstruction, they believed he had fumbled with the weapon for a few seconds before it spat out the flame. And that brief delay probably saved her. In Columbia, no one had appeared just in time, but Sabbath was so loud — panic shrieking — that Blowtorch fled the scene.

We did understand one more thing about him; he had escalated from a cigarette lighter to a blowtorch. His hateful rhetoric had been white-hot from the start. But this time around he used an even more potent instrument.

At this rate, he’d be shopping for flamethrowers.

I was puzzled about Addison Whitefield. Since Bulldog Bannerman had sent her to Columbia, she represented the city. Not the mayor, not directly anyway; however everyone knew that Bulldog was the power behind the throne. An Influencer in his own way ... not in public, not like the Leisurely Lane group.

But all of my legal questions, uncertainty about the city’s role, would be cleared up when Bulldog came to our loft on day twenty-three.

Not surprisingly, Sabbath Louise Armstrong was a changed woman. I hoped it wouldn’t be permanent.

She had a barely noticeable shift in her posture. It wasn’t like she was hunched over defensively, but there was a ... slight hesitation in her body language. Sitting, standing, in motion, she looked, in a barely perceptible way, uncertain.

The spark was gone from those once-lively gray eyes.

More than anything, her personality had changed, like a dimmer switch had been dialed down. Sabbath had gone from outgoing, even bubbly on camera, to subdued.

All of it, the physical and emotional alterations ... well, everything made sense. It was understandable, but sad at the same time. She now had a slightly haunted demeanor — pale, unsure, timid.

I tried to spark some anger at Blowtorch, some small passion for retribution, but she just didn’t have it in her. Also, she refused, with as much vigor as she had shown since the attack, to even consider psychological counseling.

Our loft was huge — just over ten thousand square feet — but it was too small to contain Sabbath’s world. Her grief, her fear, her retreat inside herself. She understood on a cerebral level that she had to start living her life again. A new life, to be sure, but one that wouldn’t be confined to the Wrigley. Couldn’t be.

Bulldog Bannerman brought Addison Whitefield with him. One of his three Dragon Ladies had called the day before to set a time.

I told Sabbath, “Bulldog is sort of a local legend. A kingmaker if you listen to the gossips. But Daddy respects him, trusts him. Let’s hear him out.”

“Okay, Winter.”

He and the attorney showed up at ten on a Friday morning, right on time. Walker was at school; I poured coffee and we sat around the kitchen table. Bulldog was in his 70s, trim and fit, white hair still in a Marine buzz cut.

Bulldog spoke softly; he was used to people listening carefully. And Sabbath and I did.

“Sabbath, we’ve worked out a plan for you to start piecing your life back together. But the most important thing I have to say is this — you don’t have to do a single thing we suggest. It’s entirely up to you.”

I patted Sabbath’s hand.

“Let’s start with the bad news. We still don’t know who he is. We don’t know how he found you in Columbia. That’s under intense investigation, but the fact is, we may never learn how he tracked you down. HAVEN itself may have been compromised and it’s been disbanded.”

Sabbath nodded; her eyes were a little glazed. I knew from having spent three weeks with her, that she heard Bulldog, comprehended the words. But I had no idea how she felt about what he was telling her.

“You can’t live in Kansas City, not for now anyway. I’m sure you understand that. And it’s possible that Leisurely Lane has a leak — human or digital — so you can’t continue to work there, even long distance.”

No reaction from Sabbath.

“You have the option of filing lawsuits against the city, against the police department. Ms. Whitefield tells me there is a good chance you could prevail, but the city would contest any large settlement and the case would probably drag on for years. And require you to make intermittent court appearances here.”

I poured more coffee, passed cream and sugar around.

“I’m speaking for the mayor and the police department too when I extend the city’s sympathy. Against Ms. Whitefield’s advice, I’m telling you that we also feel that Kansas City has a financial obligation to you.”

Sabbath sipped her coffee, added another lump of sugar.

“If you waive the right to sue us, we will pay you $250,000. Plus, an additional $25,000 to create your new identity. And another $25,000 for resettlement expenses. Should you go ahead with a lawsuit, you could end up with considerably more in total. For now, take your time, talk it over with Winter. Consult with another attorney of your own choosing.”

That was the offer. Sabbath could accept it, reject it, counter it.

I was pleased, no more than simply pleased, when Bulldog included me in the financial proceedings. I was on the payroll retroactively to the day I flew to Columbia. And would continue receiving $750 per day, plus expenses, until Sabbath was resettled.

Addison Whitefield, in what I later imagined had to be a first for her, didn’t utter a single word that morning in our loft. She also didn’t bother with her faux eyeglasses.

As I started preparing a deli lunch for Sabbath and me, she spoke firmly, “I’m going to take it. The money.”

I looked at her and the certainty in her voice melted away. “Unless you think I shouldn’t?”

I sat back down at the kitchen table, “Let’s talk about it.”

Obviously, her current situation was untenable. For both of us. I got out a notepad, “Let’s make a list.”

She nodded.

“One, Bulldog is right, Kansas City isn’t safe for you, not until they find that creep.”

I didn’t mention the personal inconvenience to Walker and me. Although that paled beside what she had gone through. And the life disruption that lay ahead of her.

Sabbath and I talked it through, wrote out plans, crossed them off, started over. The one thing she insisted on was that I would help her move into a new life. That I personally would hide her somewhere, somehow.

I told her, “I studied how to track people down at John Jay. It came up in a course here, a course there. Plus I did some skip-tracing on the Job. So, I’ll reverse engineer it; try to make it really difficult for anyone to find you. If it’s alright with you, I’ll ask Daddy for his advice too.”

She nodded.

By the time Walker arrived home from school, Sabbath and I had agreed to accept the offer from the city. The primary reason was that a lawsuit would be prolonged, emotional, and personally draining for her. Not to mention the hazards of placing herself back squarely in the public eye.

I had suggested that Bulldog’s offer might be just an opening bid. We’d up it by a hundred gees; ask for a total of $400,000.

“Sabbath, even if you end up with the original $300,000, that’s fine. Plenty of cushion to start a new life. Plus, you have your own savings and investments. I’ll figure out how to transfer all of the money anonymously once we have your new ID papers in place.”

Part of the more-money ask was for my own ego. Immature perhaps, but I didn’t want Bulldog Bannerman to think I had just tumbled off the back of a turnip truck. That I was naive enough to simply accept the first offer that strolled through the door.

Of course if he played hardball and countered my counter with a lower amount ... well, I’d address that if and when. He was certainly savvy enough to know the pitfalls from a public spat with a young woman the city had failed to protect. Failed spectacularly.

Another leverage point we had, but I didn’t mention it, was that the original HAVEN funding had come from DC. And Kansas City would not want Homeland Security to read about this particular fiasco in the local media.

Sabbath and I talked through what would have been a tasty pastrami lunch. Yet another sacrifice on my part.

I decided to put Sabbath’s new ID packet at the top of my list. We couldn’t set up banking accounts in a new city without her new identity. We couldn’t rent an apartment, register a car, apply for a job, schedule a doctor’s appointment. Nothing.

It would have been easier to go through Bulldog; I had no doubt that he would know someone, probably more than one someone, who could do the job.

But that would tie the new Sabbath, no matter how tenuously, back to Kansas City. And I felt that from the city’s own perspective, Bulldog would want the same separation between Sabbath and the municipality.

Bulldog was certainly savvy enough not to use the same person who had created the Helen Corrigan deck. Despite the fact that the transaction had gone through the KCPD, the supplier had to be considered a suspect.

Even before I left for college, I knew Daddy had a small army of snitches, grifters, informers, jailhouse rats, tush hogs, gossips, skells, police groupies. He collected information — often garbled, sometimes purposely misleading, once in a while useful — and stored it for future reference.

A whisper from a precinct holding cell, a rumor from a parole officer in the Northland, a supplier’s ID that turned up in a drug bust in Westport. Little pieces that once in a while added up to something.

Back when I was still on the cops, I had started grooming my own info squad. Joey Viagra, Mingo Bernard Cochran, Squeaky Collins, a high school girl over in Independence, and a few others. I thought of them as the Winter Irregulars.