Murder at the Art Gallery Page 12
He had his arm around my neck and he dragged me as he moved away. At one point he pointed his gun to the audience and said, “If anybody tries to play the hero, I'll kill you too!”
But in that split second that he pointed the gun at the audience, a flash of grey fur, teeth and claws jumped at Bernard's arm. Bernard screamed with pain as Roger dug his nails into his arm and bit his hand. He dropped the gun. All that could be heard was angry meowing and biting a clawing with one paw, while he held on with the other paw and two legs. Bernard tried to shake Roger off, but he couldn't, Roger's nails were deep in his arm. At one point, Bernard tried to bring his other arm around to pry Roger off, but he had to let go of me.
I jumped away from Bernard and at that point Roger jumped at Bernard's face and head. He was scratching and biting like only a pissed off cat would. Bernard screamed, “Get this cat off me, get this cat off me!”
Bernard tripped and fell on his back, and there was an audible thud as his head hit the ground. Security guards and other people were running to Bernard and in the distance, the sirens of cop cars blared. When the security guards reached Bernard, one of them tried to grab Roger. Roger jumped off Bernard's head and ran. I called out, “Roger baby, come back, come back!” The security guards had cuffed Bernard, and blood streamed from his head, and his arm was pretty cut up too.
While the security guards held him, Margot walked up to Bernard, spit on him, and said, “You disgusting, worthless piece of crap, you killed my son so that you could continue your charade. At least my son was man enough to be himself. You're just a joke and a killer. I hope you rot in hell!”
Harold led Margot away and said “Come on Margot, he's not worth it, let the cops handle him.” Fred and his deputies arrived, with their guns out. Charles and the other security guard had Bernard cuffed and Charles said “Here, he's yours. The gun is on the floor we haven't touched it.”
An ambulance had also arrived because, as I learned later, there were conflicting reports that a madman was shooting down a whole crowd at the mall. The paramedics cleaned the blood from Bernard thinking at first he was a victim. Then they were told he was the perpetrator, but they still had to clean off the blood.
Amazingly, Jill continued to film to the very end, even the entrance of the police and the ambulance workers. She knew that this was a once in a lifetime event. She probably felt morally bound to record everything to document the crime. I'm also sure she had visions that this was going to be the video of the month on social media, once she published it.
*****
Roger continued to run. After that guy tried to grab him, he wasn't taking any chances. Run away. He started to think. That guy wanted to hurt Mandy, but I got him good. He's not going to hurt anybody, anytime soon, that weasel. Wait a second, what's a weasel? He continued running till he got to the parking lot.
*****
Colin sensed something terrible had happened and appeared by Roger. He could see now, the shock of him saving Mandy was beginning to bring out his cop persona. He had to work fast or things could go downhill from here. He could become a man trapped in a cat's body.
“Roger, look at me.”
Roger looked up and he sort of recognized this man.
“Now listen Roger, we're going to play a game. It's called chase the light. Look at this tiny ball of light. Can you catch it? Whoa, it's too fast for you. Go ahead, try again. Nope, too fast for you. Look Roger, it's moving away, chase it Roger, see if you can catch it.”
With a small, battery-operated laser pointer, Colin distracted Roger so his cat persona would come back. Roger kept chasing the ball of light and Colin kept luring him away from danger.
*****
I continued to look for Roger, he was nowhere to be found. There was a lot of confusion. Cops talking, cop radios, ambulance radios, security guards, people milling about, and Roger was nowhere to be seen. I hoped he didn't get hurt in that whole escapade. I was amazed at how he went berserk because he saw that I was in danger. Maybe this was something he picked up from his previous owner. Maybe she’d lived in a bad neighborhood and he was constantly chasing away bad guys. Who knows?!
The amazing thing was that he knew when the trouble was real He’d only lashed out when he’d sensed that I was in danger. Otherwise, he had been completely calm. Somehow, my cat knew the difference between people with good intention and people with bad intentions. But he was lost now. Or at least not within my line of sight.
By now Jill had gotten all the footage that she needed.
“Well, I have all the proof and a blow by blow account of this guy going nuts so that there’s no way he's getting out of it. Not to mention you have the original tape from David. And since his wife will find out all about this, believe me, he's not going to be able to afford any kind of fancy lawyer.
“Hey, you did good kiddo. I could see you were a little nervous at first but then you were determined that the world know about this horrible crime. And you were able to show the whole thing in front of an audience so, there are plenty of witnesses, plenty of people holding him back.
“It was horrible that Margot had to see this but you know what, she'll be able to press charges if the police need anybody to. I mean, I don't know exactly what happens in these types of cases, this is so weird and there are so many angles to this situation that this guy is toast one way or another. Unfortunately in New Jersey they don't have a death penalty. So they won't give him that. But they'll probably give him a 100,000 year sentence. But it might get cut in half for good behavior.” And she smirked.
“Thanks Jill, for going the extra mile, for everything. I'm so glad that it's over, and even though I was terrified when he grabbed me and was threatening to shoot me, I thought it was all worth it to have him caught by the police. I just have one problem now. Roger has disappeared.”
“Disappeared! Oh, we gotta go look for him. I haven't spent years trying to find you a cat that would be great for you, for him now to disappear over a teensy weensy thing like disarming a criminal and laying into him with all his might” she said sarcastically. ”I have to tell you, Roger was GREAT! I got great footage of him going ballistic on that guy. See, he knew you were in danger, he figured out a way to attack the enemy and he was very sneaky about it. He knew exactly when to pounce. I never believed there was such a thing as an attack cat, but Roger is definitely the closest thing to an attack cat I've ever seen.”
We went to look for him. As we were walking out, Fred said, “Mandy, I need a statement from you.” I said, “Fred I gotta find my cat, can I give it to you tomorrow?”
Jill cut in, “Fred, I got the whole thing videotaped, from soup to nuts. I'll make you a copy and drop it off at the station so you can watch the whole thing tonight. Believe me, it's a blow by blow account of everything that happened tonight and what this guy did. And it's in high definition, so the details are very clear.”
Jill had been doing videos for a long time, so I was sure that her video was news station quality. And she had the most super duper phone camera that could rival any regular camera.
Fred said, “Ok, but Mandy, in my office tomorrow.”
“No problem Fred, I'll be there.”
So we walked all around the area outside the gallery. They had CSI type people combing the gallery. I don't know what they were looking for, since there was a whole video of the thing. But they didn't know that and that's what they probably do in all these situations. So, they continued doing their job.
We went downstairs to the lower level of the mall. We had to go through a police barricade, they had sealed off the whole top floor. I kept saying to myself, where could Roger be? Maybe he was hiding. He was a smart cat, but I was still worried. Maybe he got hurt, maybe Bernard managed to punch him? I really hoped not.
We went out to the parking lot hoping that he would be out there. But it was night time and we couldn't find much of anything, let alone a cat. I would have to put lost cat posters up all over town saying “have you seen
this cat?”. I really hope I didn't lose Roger entirely. I would be supremely sad if he was lost for good. Where could I find another cat like him? Roger was a special cat. Just in the week that I’d had him, he had shown himself to be very different than the vast majority of cats.
Somewhere in this town was my cat. Hopefully safe, unscathed and away from all the confusion.
Eventually, Jill talked me out of looking for Roger any longer. We had gone around the mall, looking here, looking there, asking people if they had seen a large grey tabby. We did this for at least one and a half hours. No Roger.
We went to Joanie's to get some coffee and blow off steam. These had been some of the tensest hours in all my life. I nearly lost my life in the process. Thanks to my cat I was saved. Again, I started to think of Roger.
Joanie asked “Where's Roger?”
“He's lost”
“Lost? What happened?”
We gave her a recap of the night and how we had spent over an hour and a half looking for him. Joanie said
“Well, he's probably hiding somewhere in the mall area, but in the dark it's going to be awfully hard to find a cat. Try again early tomorrow, by then the drama of the evening may have worn off.”
We ordered pastries and Katie walked in a little while later and joined us. She gave me a hug and said I was very brave, that was definitely the heaviest thing she had seen in all her life. She asked where Roger was, I explained to her that he appeared to have gotten lost. But I was hopeful that he would turn up.
Even though it was late, we left Joanie's and went to “The Path to Perdition” a favorite bar of ours that was open until the wee hours. In spite of the name, it was just a homey neighborhood bar, where you could just have a drink and nobody bothered you. They had the local news on in the bar and they were covering the story. We sat and ordered some drinks. It was late, but who cared. It wasn't like I had a job to go to tomorrow. I said to Katie, “Well, it looks like we're out of a job.” She laughed.
Katie said, “I never really liked working there and I was just doing it to get something on my resume. I have been looking for a job for a while now and this is just going to hasten my search. I'm pretty confident I would find another job. Somebody needs a graphics artist out there somewhere.”
“And here I was hoping to get hired at this place. All the time we were working for a murderer.”
After an hour at the bar, we decided to call it a night. We all drove to our respective homes. As I approached mine, a certain emptiness filled me knowing Roger wouldn't be there to greet me. Yes, I had accomplished a lot for the good of a lot of people. But I lost my cat in the process.
I parked my car in the driveway. Locked it and went to the front door. My heart leapt up inside me when I saw the front step. There on the front step of my house was Roger, sitting on his hind legs, attentively looking around. He knew how to come home! I picked him and held him tight and said:
“Oh baby you had me so worried I was looking all over for you. I thought I was going to have to get the marines out for you. You gave me a big scare. But you're my hero. You saved me from evil. Thank you Roger.”
I checked him all over, and nothing, not a scratch. I took my keys out to open the door and told Roger,
“You put up a great fight, are you sure you're not part tiger?”
When I got in, I gave Jill, Katie and Joanie a call to tell them that Roger was waiting for me on the front step of the house. Wasn't that amazing? I had my cat back.
Epilogue
The next day I went to the police station to make a statement and speak to Fred. Fred was busy when I first got there, but one of his deputies took my statement. I learned from the deputy that they received the full video of what had happened last night from Jill. He said they've never seen anything like that, where somebody is exposed and then tries to kill somebody else.
He said to stick around that Fred wanted to talk to me. I did and after about twenty minutes, the receptionist said I could go in.
Fred had dark circles under his eyes. This whole thing had kept him up to the wee hours of the morning. I'm sure he got only 2 hours sleep, if any.
“Hi Fred, you look like you've been up all night.”
He said, “yeah, for the most part. I'll get right to it Mandy, I'm upset with you with what you did. Why didn't you come to me when you found that tape? You could have died last night if that guy had decided to kill you!”
“Well, I found that tape quite by accident. I really thought of bringing it to you, but here was my through process. Bernard is a wealthy guy. This was a silent tape. I feared that if I just gave it to you, he would get a fancy lawyer and somehow there would be some technicality that because this video was taken without the clients consent that it couldn't be used as evidence in court and that the video doesn't prove anything. It just shows two lovers doing something, but what it is not clear. This kind of stuff happens every day and I didn't want Bernard to get away with this.
“Also, I thought I was safe because I was doing it in a public space, filled with people who would protect me from anything if he got upset. And they did, they restrained him from stopping the video, they were telling him to shut up. But nobody imagined that he was going to have a gun and actually try to kill people.”
“That's the thing Mandy, when dealing with criminals, especially these types that are very pre-meditated in their actions, they're usually walking around prepared. If plan A fails, then they go to plan B. I don't think he thought that anything was going to happen at this show. The gun was licensed and he owned it because he thought he might need protection in case of burglars if he worked late nights at the business.
“But I think he walked around with the gun because he was paranoid. And the fact that he would kill David to hide his secret tells you that this guy had serious mental problems. I know you're a good person and you don't think of people with guns and people killing you, but that's the world we live in now. Somebody somewhere is killing someone for no good reason other than they got upset or their hair is curling the wrong way.”
“Is there going to be a trial? Am I going to have to be a witness?”
“Well, he's pretty much lost his mind with this experience. He made a formal confession about killing David to protect himself and claimed he acted out of self-preservation last night, he wanted to kill you for exposing him.”
“What?”
“That's right, he's lived a double life now for so long, the experience he had last night made him come unhinged. So, there's not going to be a trial. Before the confession, Margot had filed full charges against him and she said she wanted to do whatever it took to get this guy behind bars. Her one regret is that this state doesn't have capital punishment, otherwise, she'd be pushing for that. So, at least she'll get her one wish.
“She's very upset but grateful that the truth came out. We also have Jill's tape. I tell you, she should be a newscaster. She captured that whole video from beginning to end. We have everything on video including his confession that he killed David and that he planned on killing you and anybody else that got in his way. You were right Mandy, David didn't commit suicide. I don't' think Margot ever really believed that either but who would want to kill David? We now know that things were weirder than anybody could have imagined.
“Bernard's wife is in the process of filing for divorce. We brought her in for questioning and had her watch the video. Aside from her shock of what her husband was doing on the side, she didn't appreciate his statement that he married a fat ugly broad only for her money. So Bernard is not going to have any star lawyers representing him. Apparently he has no money of his own, she was the one with the wealth.
“So Mandy, chances are this is a once in a lifetime experience, but if you run into any crimes in the future, please come see me and we'll see what we can do, okay? I want you to live to the end of your days. By the way, that cat of yours is something else. If it wasn't for him, who knows what may have happened. He was the cavalry and th
e marines all in one.”
“Yeah, I'm really lucky to have found Roger. He's very protective of me, but he's also great around people. He lets them play with him and he's just mellow most of the time. He's kind of like Santa Claus, he knows who's naughty or nice.”
*****
Later that day, I went by Margot’s house to check in and see how she was doing. I walked in and the first thing she did was give me a hug. She said;
“Oh Mandy, what a night.”
“Listen Margot, I'm sorry I didn't give you a warning about what I was going to show, but, I had to keep this under wraps cause I just wanted this guy to get caught.”
“That's okay Mandy. that experience was very cathartic. Thank you for what you did. I know you didn't believe that David had committed suicide any more than I did. It just didn't make sense. As much as I grieve losing him, I'm glad that we now know for sure that he didn't take his own life.
“Before, I just felt that maybe I’d failed him as a mother and he took his life cause of something basic I overlooked. Knowing somebody else killed him doesn't make me jump for joy, but at least, it wasn't anything wrong with him or with me, he was the victim of a crime.
“That took guts Mandy, to stand there in front of all those people and expose this guy. My only regret is that your cat didn't kill him, but at least he weakened him so the cops could get him. But one question that I've had since last night is, where did you get the video?”
“Well Margot, I suspected the teddy bear I took was a nanny cam, a toy with a camera, and I was hoping that would clear up whether David had committed suicide or something else had happened. I needed closure. And sure enough, he didn't, the video proved it. I truly wanted to keep something to remember David by, but I thought that teddy bear would have more treasures.”