A man came rushing out, looking wildly around and yelling something. He was tackled instantly, made to lie supine on the ground while two officers cuffed him. He struggled for only a minute, then lay on the ground quietly. Other officers rushed into the house.
Nina, Wish, and Sandy moved toward the house. No one stopped them.
A policeman came back to the front door and made a sign. The man inside was dead and it was safe to come in. “Oh, no,” Nina said. “No!” It was impossible, Dave Hanna gunned down in his own home while she watched the whole thing-there was Roger, running up the steps onto the porch. He rushed inside.
Then he came back out, waving his arms. He looked around and saw the cuffed man on the ground.
“Dave?” he said. The police officers pulled the man to his feet.
It was Dave Hanna, disheveled and bloody but alive. “I got him, Rog!” he cried.
32
“I GOT HIM”
PLACERVILLE, Cal. (AP)-
A man held hostage at gunpoint in his own home by a serial killer managed to turn the tables on his attacker yesterday, wresting the gun away and shooting the attacker fatally.
Dave Hanna, a former firefighter from Placerville, California, was resting at home today after the violent face-off with Leland Moss Flint of Palo Alto, California, the man who killed Hanna’s wife and niece. Flint allegedly shot Hanna’s wife, a bystander, during an armed robbery at Lake Tahoe two years ago. When Hanna filed a wrongful-death lawsuit that developed leads to Flint, Flint allegedly killed Hanna’s niece and two witnesses to the robbery.
Yesterday, Flint crawled through a basement window in Hanna’s house. When Hanna came home, he was beaten and tied up. Police arrived after a 911 call by Hanna’s brother-in-law, Roger Freeman, and they surrounded the house.
Five hours into the grueling standoff, Flint demanded a pilot, helicopter, and large sum of money in return for Hanna’s life-but while the killer was talking to the police, Hanna loosened his bonds and jumped Flint. In the ensuing struggle Flint was fatally shot.
“It’s miraculous that he got the gun away from Flint,” said Sergeant Fred Cheney of the South Lake Tahoe Police Department, one of the multidistrict police forces called in.
“He’s a hero,” said Rosetta Williams, a next-door neighbor of Hanna’s who was evacuated during the hostage situation. “We all knew and loved his wife. It’s fitting that Dave caught the killer.”
“No quote from you,” Sandy observed, handing Nina the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle when she came in the next morning. “How’d you sleep?”
“Sleep? What sleep?”
“The schools are closed. The prediction is two feet.”
It was snowing, large, dry flakes, the temperature in the thirties. The cabin on Kulow had been warm and silent, and all Nina had wanted that morning was to stay in her bed under the Hudson Bay blanket, watching it fall and covering all the horror of the Hanna case.
In the end, she hadn’t wanted to be alone. And Sandy would need her. So she threw on corduroy pants and a ski sweater and let her hair hang loose. It was the first day of the rest of her life, the one in which she quit, because it was her fault.
“You have a lot of mop-up on the Hanna lawsuit today. Mr. Hanna already called. He’s actually not at home, he’s staying with Roger. I thought you’d be in at nine.”
“Sorry. You and Wish were great yesterday, Sandy. Thanks again.”
“I hope we never have anything like that again. The waiting was bad. I never thought he’d get out alive.” Sandy looked tired, too. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I’m happy you’re here, Sandy. Where’s Wish?”
“Sergeant Cheney called and Wish said he’d go see him. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’ll be in my office.”
“Don’t you want some coffee?”
“Give me a minute.” Nina went into her office and shut the door. She went behind her desk, kicked her shoes off, put up her feet, and closed her eyes. She had spent the night alternately pacing the floor and sitting on the couch in front of the fire, trying to understand what she had done.
Flint’s words, that it was her fault, damned her. The guilt was overwhelming. Even with Dave’s miraculous survival, she had it from the killer’s mouth that she had set him off on a murder spree.
And for what? What good had come of her legal machinations, her travels, her theories? Three murders and several attempted murders. She was tapped out on the expenses, Dave would get little besides scars and traumatic memories, and Chelsi was dead.
Tapped out. Yes, that was it. In a way, she had tried to play God with a devil. And this was the result.
She didn’t think she could go on. She would quit practicing law, teach or something. She didn’t have the hide for it anymore. Representing a client meant being personally responsible, and she was responsible.
Flint himself had said she had set him off.
She picked up the receiver and called Roger’s house.
“How are you both this morning?” she asked when Roger picked up.
“Dave is holding court. He looks pretty banged up with the bandages on his face, but he’s in a great mood. The docs say he’ll be fine in a couple of weeks. He slept last night and this morning the reporters found us, so he’s been doing interviews. I threw out all the booze in the house.”
“Can I talk to him?”
“Sure. Hang on.”
Hanna’s voice sounded weak. “Hi.”
“Hi. I called to see how you were.”
“Fine. My rib hurts but I have some pills. There are people here. I can’t talk long.”
“I’m glad you made it,” Nina said. “I wanted to apologize. For getting you into it. I guess I really did get Flint going.”
“Yeah, he blamed you for everything. Not that he wasn’t about to kill me, when the cops came.”
“I’m sorry. For what you went through.”
“That’s what I get, for letting Roger and Chelsi talk me into hiring you. It was them, too, pushing, pushing. Flint went crazy.”
“Did he say anything to you-anything strange?”
“Like what?”
“That he didn’t kill Sarah?”
“The opposite. He was real clear about it. He did it.” She heard someone talking in the background. “There’s a guy here who wants to buy the rights to my story. Do you know a lawyer who handles stuff like that?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Listen, I’m gonna go. Nina, start dismantling whatever you’ve been up to, okay? Roger and I have talked about it and we feel we’ve suffered enough. Just throw the case out or whatever you do.”
“How about if we talk tomorrow about it?” Nina said.
“If you want. Bye.”
Nina hung up. She felt sick. It was the whole Hanna case making her sick. At least Dave made it through, she thought.
Wish burst through the door, Sandy right behind him. “Have to talk to you right now,” he said breathlessly.
Nina held her hand to her chest. “Not another murder!”
He dropped into a chair. Sandy had locked up outside. She took the other client chair. “Stop scaring us, Willis,” she said. “What is it?”
“I talked to Cheney. He says the coroner gave him a preliminary report this morning. The coroner told him that Lee Flint had bruising on his arms and legs and cheeks.”
“So? Dave struggled with him.”
“It’s not like that, Nina,” Wish said slowly.
“Well, out with it,” Sandy told him.
“These are specific marks of being tied up. You know, in the chair at the Hanna house.”
“The chair Dave was tied in?”
“Sergeant Cheney had just talked to the hospital. Mr. Hanna didn’t have any marks like that.”
“Flint was tied up? Not Dave?” Nina said. “You’re confusing me, Wish.”