Chapter 18 Chapter 18 Pineapple

"That doesn't make sense," I said. "It's mind blowing. When we get this guy—maybe a woman, we'll find out he's insane and can't be hanged, just sedated. " "You," said Irving Fitzstephan, "are so perverse. You are befuddled, bewildered, astonished. You admit that you have had a nemesis, or a worse man than yourself." Cunning criminal? Not you. He beat you, so he's either an idiot or a madman. Not necessarily so. But then again, there's something modest about your attitude." "But he's crazy," I insisted. "You see, Meyer married—"

He asked with disgust, "Are you going to recite that old story again?" "You're too thoughtful. We don't like this in our business. You can't justify yourself if you want to catch the murderer. You have to collect all the information, and then think about it over and over again." "If that's your style, you're going to have to suffer," he said, "but I don't have to fuck you up. Last night you worked out the Meyer-Leggett-Collinson story. At least six times, and you've been rambling since breakfast this morning. I've had enough. My detective stories are more interesting than yours."

"Fuck you," I said, "I stayed up most of the night after you went to bed reciting it to myself. Just gotta turn the facts over and over, man, until they all make sense." "I still prefer the style of Nick Carter and the others. Are you not afraid to think over and over like this, what will really come out?" "Well, I already thought of one. Both Vernon and Finney were wrong. They thought that Corden conspired with Whedon to kidnap and then betrayed him. According to them, Corden planned it and persuaded Whedon to carry it out, saying it was okay. Covered Whedon as a law enforcement officer. Collinson stumbled on the inside story, so he was killed. Then Corden forced his wife to write a statement—false, unmistakable, dictated by him—and killed her, and put We lead to Whedon. When we got to the hideout, Corden was the first to come ashore—he wanted to make sure Whedon died resisting arrest before he spoke."

Fitzstephan ran long fingers through his auburn hair and asked, "Don't you think jealousy is enough of a motivation for Corden?" "That's fine, but what is Whedon's motivation for letting Corden dictate? Besides, is this theory connected to the temple incident?" Fitzstephan asked: "You really think there must be a connection between those two things?" "Yes. Gabrielle's father, stepmother, doctor and husband were all murdered in the space of a few weeks—everyone who was closest to her. To me, that's enough persuasion. Strong. If you need more connections, I can tell you all. Needless to say, the first trouble was caused by Upton and Rupert, who died. Then Halton, who died The third was Whedon, also dead. Mrs. Leggett killed her husband, Corden evidently killed his wife; and Halton would have killed his own if I hadn't stopped her. Gabriel El was plotted to kill her mother from a young age, and Gabriel's maid was plotted to kill Reese, and almost killed me. Leggett left a statement explaining everything— It's not quite perfect - and then killed. Mrs. Corden is the same. Which of these instances, or how many of them are coincidences, is up to you. But the remaining evidence is still enough to point to a certain love and insist on a certain pattern of action guy."

Fitzstephan squinted at me thoughtfully, and agreed, "Maybe it makes sense. As you said, it seems to have come from the same head." "Unhealthy head." "Whatever you want," he said, "but even if it's a madman there must be a motive." "why?" "I've had enough of your brains," he said, a little anxiously but gracefully. "If his motives have nothing to do with Gabrielle, why does his crime have to do with her?" "We don't know that all of this is about her," I pointed out, "only that some of it is."

He grinned: "You're trying to sing the opposite, aren't you?" I said: "Besides, maybe the crime of that madman has something to do with Gabrielle, because he is directly related to Gabrielle." After hearing this, Fitzstephan's gray eyes became a little hazy.He shut his mouth tightly and looked towards the door connecting my room with Gabrielle's. "Okay," he said, looking back at me, "who is this madman you call Gabrielle directly related to?" "The closest and craziest person to Gabrielle is Gabrielle herself." Fitzstephan got up and walked across the hotel room—I was sitting on the edge of the bed—and took my hand solemnly and warmly.

"You're amazing," he said, "I'm impressed. Do you have night sweats? Stick your tongue out and say 'ah.'" "What if—" I began, but I was interrupted by a slight knock on the door in the corridor. I went over and opened the door.There was a thin man about my height and age in a rumpled black suit standing in the hallway.His nose was bloodshot, his breathing was heavy, and his small brown eyes were timid. "You know me." His tone was full of guilt. "Yes, please come in." I introduced him to Fitzstephan. "This is Tom Fink, assistant to Temple Saint Halton."

Fink gave me a reproachful look, then tore off his crushed hat and crossed the room to shake Fitzstephan's hand.When he was done, he came back to me and said almost quietly, "I came here to tell you something." "Oh?" He became coy, and turned the hat in his hand.I winked at Fitzstephan and went out with Funk.I stepped into the hallway and closed the door, then I said, "Let's talk." Fink licked his lips with his tongue, and wiped it with the back of his skinny hand.Then he spoke, in a voice that sounded like a whisper. "I'm here because there's something I think you should know."

"Oh?" "Related to the dead Whedon." "Oh?" "he--" My door burst open.Floors, walls and ceilings twisted below us, above and around us.The noise was deafening, and the roar shook the body and mind.Tom Fink leaned back, jolted away from me.My sanity was fairly clear, and I knew I had to bend over when I was thrown in the opposite direction, so I only bruised my shoulder when I hit the wall.Fink is blocked by the door frame—at the wrong angle, the corner of the frame digging into the back of his head.He bounced back, curled up facedown on the floor, motionless, only blood pouring from his head.

I got up and went back to my room.Fitzstephan fell in the middle of the floor, flesh tangled with the remains of his clothes.My bed is burning.A little bit of glass and wire mesh on the windows are not good.I watched all this in a daze as I staggered to Gabrielle's room.The partition door to our room was open - perhaps blown open. She was curled up on the bed, her face turned toward the end of the bed, her feet on the pillow, her pajamas ripped at one shoulder.Her brown curly hair fell down to cover her forehead, and her green and brown mixed eyes shone like a trapped animal.There was wet spit on her pointed chin.There was no one else in the room.

"Where's the nurse?" My voice was hoarse. The girl didn't answer, but still stared at me frantically and terrified. "Get under the covers," I ordered, "want to get pneumonia?" She didn't move.I walked around to the bed, lifted the quilt with one hand, stretched out the other hand to help her, and said, "Come on, go in." She made a strange noise from her chest, lowered her head, and bit into the back of my hand with her canine teeth, which hurt a lot.I tucked her under the quilt and went back to my room.I was pushing the burning mattress out of the window when people started arriving. "Get a doctor," I said to the first person through the door, "and stay away from here." Mitch Linehan squeezed his way through the growing crowd in the hallway while I fixed the mattress.He blinked at the wreckage of Fitzstephan, then at me, and asked, "What the hell is going on here?" His wide mouth drooped at the corners in what appeared to be an upside-down smile. I sucked my burned finger and asked with displeasure, "What the hell do you think it looks like?" "More trouble, of course." The corner of his right lip curled up again on his red face. "Of course—you're here." Ben Rowley came in. "Tut, tut, tut," he said, looking around, "what do you think happened?" "."I say. "Tut, tut, tut." Dr. George entered and knelt beside Fitzstephan's remains.He had been Gabrielle's doctor since her return from the cave yesterday.He was a stocky, middle-aged man with thick black hair everywhere except his lips, cheeks, chin, and bridge of his nose.He moved his hairy hand towards Fitzstephan. "What's Funk doing?" I asked Mitch. "Nothing. I followed him after they released him at noon yesterday. He walked from the detention center to a hotel in Kerney Street and got a room. He spent most of the afternoon in the city library, reading about the girl. A news file of troubles—from the beginning to the present. Then he ate and went back to the hotel. He might have slipped through the back door behind my back, otherwise he would have been in the hotel all night. I called it off when it was dark, because I had to go to work at six in the morning. He showed up at seven, had breakfast, jumped on a freight train to Boston, took a carriage here, and then went straight to the hotel , to find you by name. That’s all.” "Hell!" The doctor kneeling on the ground exclaimed, "This man is not dead." I don't trust him.Fitzstephan lost his right arm and lost most of his right leg.His body was so distorted that it was impossible to see what was left, and only half of his face was left.I said, "There's another one in the hallway with a broken head." "Oh, that's all right," muttered the doctor without looking up, "but this—oh, what the hell!" He got up and began to order a bunch of things, looking very excited.Two people came in from the corridor.A Mrs. Herman, the woman who took care of Gabrielle Collinson, followed.Another man carried a blanket.They took Fitzstephan away. "That fellow in the corridor is Fink?" asked Rowley. "Yeah." I repeated Fink's words and added, "He wasn't done talking when it exploded." "Maybe the target of the bomb is him, so he can't speak?" "No one followed him all the way from the city except me," Mitch said. "Maybe," I said, "better see what they do with him, Mitch." Mitch walked out the door. "The windows were closed," I told Rowley. "I didn't hear anything fall through the windows before the explosion, and there were no glass shards in the house. The gauze was on the outside, so the pineapples shouldn't have been thrown in from outside." Rowley nodded slightly, looking at the door leading to Gabriel. "Fink and I were talking in the hallway," I continued, "and I ran straight into her room from here. If anyone came out of her room after the explosion, I wouldn't have lost sight or hearing. I Can see her porch door, look at it again from inside, just a snap of the fingers. The wire mesh on her window is still in place." "Isn't Mrs. Herman with her?" asked Rowley. "Should have been, but she wasn't. Will ask later. It wasn't Mrs. Collinson who dropped the bomb. She was in bed when we brought her back from the blunt angle yesterday. She couldn't have hidden the bomb there beforehand, Because she had no idea which room she was going to live in. Since then, no one has been in it except you, Finny, Vernon, the doctor, the nurse, and me." "I didn't say she was suspected." The deputy sheriff muttered, "What did she say?" "Not yet. We can try now, but I doubt we'll get anything out of it." Indeed.Gabrielle lay in the middle of the bunk, the covers pulled up to her chin, as if ready to sink in at the slightest movement.She shook her head and said "no" no matter what we asked, regardless of whether she should answer that way. The nurse entered, a buxom, red-haired woman in her forties, honest-looking because of her mediocrity; freckled, blue eyes.She swore in the name of the Bible that she hadn't been out of the room for five seconds, just to go downstairs to buy stationery and to write a letter to her nephew in Vallejo while the patient fell asleep.She went out just once all day.She said she met no one in the hallway. "You left with the door open?" I asked. "Yes, because I don't want to wake her up when I get back." "What about the purchase?" "I didn't buy it. I heard the explosion, so I ran upstairs." Fear surfaced on her face, and those freckles became a little scary, "You don't think—" "Go and take care of Mrs. Collinson!" I said roughly.

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