by Dan Taylor
“How so?”
“Have you seen Home Alone?”
“One or two?”
“Two.”
“I’m pretty sure I have.”
“I love that movie. Remember that bit when Kevin McCallister phones up to order room service?”
“Yeah.”
“It was like that.”
“It was a mischievous, precocious boy who phoned to make my order?”
“No, it was a guy who sounded just like you.”
“I don’t get it. How’s that like Home Alone?”
He groans. “It’s difficult to explain. I can’t think of the words.”
“Take your time, Mr. Ying. You used genuineness earlier in the conversation, and that’s an excellent word.” I pause, giving him time.
Then he says, “What do you call that thing he was messing around with in the movie?”
“A bellhop?”
“That’s right. It sounded like what was said during the making of the order was recorded on a bellhop.”
“I think we’re way off the mark, Mr. Ying. A bellhop is someone who carries bags up to hotel rooms, and the particular one I’m referring to is played by Rob Schneider. Do you mean some sort of electronic device?”
“Yeah, that thing he messes around with.”
“I remember it now. It looks like a ‘90s camcorder but is a kiddies’ Dictaphone.” I pause. “You’re saying someone ordered the Chinese food using that or a similar device?”
“It sounded like that. Like sound bites being played, with noise in the background.”
“Can you remember what the noise was in the background?”
“Banging.”
“Banging?”
“Or footsteps.”
“That’s all you can give me? What about the address, did I say that?”
He’s silent a second, then says, “The address was texted to me afterwards. And I remember you said, ‘Do that,’ twice. The exact same way, and like you’d said something before that, but it was edited out. That’s what made me think of the cheese pizza.”
“Mr. Ying, are you saying I tried to order a cheese pizza from a Chinese restaurant?”
“No, that’s what Kevin orders. In the movie.” He starts listing the other things Kevin McCallister orders, but I stop him by saying, “Mr. Ying, you’ve been a great help.”
“Can I go now?”
“We can both hang up.”
I do, and then I start looking around Tracy’s house, like Buddy did, checking for cracks in the ceiling and signs of dry rot.
22.
What I’m looking for is a bug, maybe many, and possibly a small camera. If I find either of them, it goes a long way to explaining how someone knew I wanted to order Chinese food.
The real mystery here is why Ying, after coming to the cheese-pizza realization, went ahead and sent out the food order.
I check in lampshades, in the breadbox, between the couch cushions, and on Tracy’s body, and find bupkis.
I could search all night and find nothing, and even if I did, the only result would be me standing and looking at a tiny piece of electronics, still wondering who the hell’s listening into my conversations and setting me up.
The reason I phoned Mr. Ying was to confirm it was probably Detective Lucy who phoned, but the conversation neither confirmed my suspicion nor created doubts in my mind it was him. I guess an LAPD detective would have access to recording equipment, but anyone who can type eBay into a search engine also could.
Unless it was the type of equipment used to tap phones…
I’ve ordered Chinese food using my cell phone. That would explain how he obtained recordings of me saying “prawn-fried rice, heavy on the prawns.”
But he also mentioned it sounded heavily and badly edited.
“The net’s getting tighter, Detective Douchebag,” I say to myself under my breath.
I turn my attention instead to the other half of the mystery: Tracy’s collection of car keys, and what they mean. And then realize there’s actually another half of the investigation: The neighbor having seen Tracy leave her side of the duplex, and how that ties into all this. According to my bad math, this investigation has three halves.
I feel something down by my feet and look down to see Buddy’s curling herself around my leg, making this creepy, guttural purr like the action’s orgasmic. “You’re no help,” I say, and then try to remove her. And when she attempts to bite me, I think of something.
23.
The mind works in mysterious ways. I have no idea why, when Buddy went to take a chunk out of my first finger, it made me realize I haven’t even been upstairs since I looked in Tracy’s wardrobe, but that was the result. Maybe it’s because when I pulled my finger away from her salivating, gyrating jaws, I called her a bunch of names you wouldn’t write in a birthday card to your grammy, and did a one-eighty in my panic, which gave me opportunity to look at the foot of the stairwell.
Or maybe it’s because after being called the aforementioned names Buddy ran off in that direction and up the stairs.
Whichever it was, it turns out Buddy was some help. I follow her up there, and find her in the hallway, doing that thing again, looking around like she’s thinking of buying the place. What she’s looking up at—at least it looks like it from this perspective—is a pull-down opening that most definitely leads to an attic. Under my breath I say, “Buddy, you’re a genius.”
24.
Tracy’s house is scarce of objects, clues connected to the graveyard of dudes’ car keys in the drawer in the kitchen. If Tracy does have a forensic explanation in her home for why she’d have a bunch of car keys, the best place to hide it would be the attic. Hell, I might find a whole bunch of bodies up there, all yuppies in nice suits, who were poisoned with the quality of stew you’d only force down your gullet if you wanted to get laid.
If I’m right—and I have this feeling I am—I can forget about connecting all the dots to solve this crime and just get the hell out of Dodge. I could just phone it in anonymously that the lady at whatever number this is Beaumont Drive is a serial killer.
I go up to the attic door, and stand up on my tiptoes to try to reach the handle to pull down the fold-up ladder contained inside it, but can’t reach it. So I look around for something to stand on.
I come back a minute later with what looks like a footrest upholstered in pink silk, and set it down underneath the attic opening. It isn’t very sturdy, but it gets the job done. It’s also given me an idea for a Christmas gift for Grace, and God knows I need all the help I can get in that department.
I pull down the opening, and the ladder unfolds. I remove the footrest, so that I can pull the ladder down all the way, so that it’s making contact with the floor, and begin my ascent.
Listen to me, “Ascent,” like I’m climbing Mount Everest.
And as soon as I my head goes through the opening to the attic, I say, “Well that’s not what I was expecting.”
25.
On the floor is the stuff you’d expect to be up here: Christmas decorations, boxes of clothes Tracy has probably been meaning to give to charity, and old items of furniture.
What did I expect to find up here, a confession note, with kisses at the end?
At first glance, it’s all just junk, as far as the investigation goes.
I look around one last time, satisfied and wanting to go down from the attic, and notice something.
One side of the attic has the roof sloping down, the opposite end to her neighbor’s side of the duplex, but the other end…
Wait a minute.
I go up to it, and tap on it a few times, as though knocking on a door lightly.
I say to myself, “Georgina didn’t learn this shit at law school.”
It’s dry wall. Badly installed dry wall, not a professional job.
And not only that, when you push the left side of it, a section of it pushes inwards, like a door.
“Well fuck me sideways,
” I say. “This shit leads to the neighbor’s side of the duplex.”
26.
I push it farther inwards, and there it is, the neighbor’s side of the attic. He’s got piles of magazines, DVDs, and VHS tapes… And holy shit! The type of blow-up doll you wouldn’t use down at the public swimming pool.
I stick my head inside, examining the doorway from that side. It isn’t clear from Tracy’s side that it’s a door; it would take someone to know it’s there to be able to find it. But on the neighbor’s side, you can see the hinges real well, like the inside of your medicine cabinet. I don’t think the hinges are on that side by accident.
“Someone’s been a naughty boy.”
I go fully through to his side, thinking about what this means. It’s clear why the neighbor got pissed when he thought I had a key. He was either worried someone who he knows not at all and who Tracy ostensibly knows little about having access to his side of the duplex through the attic, or something more sinister…
I start looking through his stuff. One pile of magazines is porn. The type of porn you don’t pick up off the top shelf at a convenience store, but mail-order shit, where the models look less than glamorous. Some of them feature much older women, and some of the magazines feature exclusively obese models.
I turn my attention to the stacks of VHS tapes and DVDs. It’s just nerdy titles, Star Trek: The Next Generation, that sort of show. Until, at the bottom, I find a bunch of tapes that are marked with a white label, the titles written in Sharpie. Bad handwriting I can’t decipher at first glance.
I take a bunch of tapes off the top so I can gain access to them, and then pick up the one from the top of the pile. It’s a VHS tape that comes blank.
I read the title, squinting to make out the terrible handwriting, and when I have, I nearly drop it. The title is, Tracy Peeing with a Fart at the End. And what’s even more worrying is this is a sequel. Number three in a sick series.
I pick up a few more titles and find equally depraved shit: Tracy Snoring 4, Tracy Getting it on with Prick in Tight-Fitting Suit, Jerk Falls Asleep as Tracy Looks Bored, and Tracy Going Two 5.
Jesus… This stuff is a little juicier than Star Trek: The Next generation.
What the hell has this sicko been up to?
I decide to take a few titles with me, for when I eventually leave the attic, on the off chance Tracy owns a VHS player so that I can find out more about how they were filmed.
One thing’s for sure, and I don’t need an outdated item of technology to learn it: Detective Douchebag just got moved to the number two slot in my list of suspects.
Below, watching Stargate SG-1 and probably shoving Cheez Doodles into his face, is most definitely Tracy’s killer.
27.
If he is the killer, it makes sense now why he’d lie about having seen Tracy leave her home. And if he’s the killer, it raises a couple questions. 1) Have I given him opportunity to record me saying my favorite Chinese food dishes? 2) What happened to instigate the killing? From the next-door neighbor’s sick perspective, he’s got a nice little setup going on here, where he goes down into Tracy’s side of the duplex and films her, or films her using microscopic cameras installed in her ceiling.
Having met the guy, I think the latter to be scenario, as Tracy would surely hear that guy padding around at night. What I’m saying is, he isn’t the sort of dimensions clothes makers make tutus for.
In regard to the first question about the Chinese food, and if I gave him opportunity to record me saying my favorite dishes, it fits more than ever that he’s got Tracy’s duplex bugged, if I’m to assume what’s recorded on these videos is evidence he’s been using high tech to be Tracy’s voyeur, and I think I can tick that box without having solid evidence, if the title Tracy Showering – Scrubs Her Back with Loofah is guaranteed to contain illicit footage.
It’s possible that while I was thinking about Chinese food, I was mumbling the dishes under my breath. Or maybe I said exactly what I planned to order when I recounted what’s happened to Georgina Steinberger.
I pull out my cell phone, to ask Georgina, and I start composing the text message, when I hear something downstairs in the neighbor’s side of the duplex.
28.
“What the hell do you want?” I think the neighbor says, presumably not to his TV screen. His voice is muffled.
I get down quickly and put my ear to the floor. And what I hear next makes my heart beat like I’m running away from a madman as he’s chasing me through dense forestry.
He says, almost as clear as day, “Tracy’s not home.”
Oh, boy.
“How do I know?” A pause a couple seconds. “One of her boyfriends is around there, and he’s wondering the same thing. That’s how I know. That good enough for you?” Sassy.
There’s a pause, during which I assume the visitor speaks. And then the neighbor says, “I don’t know. Just a regular guy, I guess. What do you want, a composite sketch?”
A police reference.
My heart starts to beat faster.
And then I realize something. I check in my pocket and bring out Tracy’s cell phone, which I haven’t checked for around an hour, and which has been on silent with vibration disabled. Tracy has five missed calls and three text messages, and all seven were made by a contact listed as Detective Poo-Poo Head.
29.
Either there’s someone on the force with a ridiculous name with whom Tracy is familiar, or ‘Detective Poo-Poo Head’ is Tracy’s playful name for her brother. The guy who I spoke to earlier in the evening and to whom I denied knowing her, and the guy who the neighbor is sassing and telling I’m in her home.
This isn’t good.
I go to open one of the text messages, but before I do, I’m distracted by muffled speaking. I get down in a prone position and put my ear to the floor to listen in. I catch the tail end of what the neighbor’s saying: “…a married guy. Looks like a douchebag. I don’t know what else to tell you, guy.”
There’s a pause. Then the neighbor says, “Why don’t you go and knock on the door and take a look for yourself. Guy’s still there, as far as I know.”
This is getting worse by the second. But shit gets really bad when the neighbor says, “At least his car’s still there.”
I put my fist in my mouth. How could I have messed this up so badly? Why the hell didn’t I park my car farther up the street? But then again, I wasn’t to know the brother would come around.
I realize something, so I jump to my feet, go through the door to Tracy’s side of the duplex attic, and then climb down the ladder. When I’m halfway down, there’s a loud knock on the front door. Three times. And then her brother says, “Come to the door, asshole.”
I haven’t locked it. I at least don’t remember having locked it.
I reach the foot of the ladder and race down the stairs, and lock the door as quietly as I can, and breathe a silent sigh of relief. It’s damage limitation, and only temporary.
I cross my fingers, and realize it’s in vain, when Tracy’s brother says, “I heard that, smart guy. Look, I just want to know where Tracy is.”
After hearing his voice well for the first time, I frown. Something’s not right.
To confirm my suspicion, I look through Tracy’s peephole, and can’t believe what I see. Standing there, hands in his pockets, looking definitely like a cop, but looking like young Michael J. Fox, is Detective Poo-Poo Head.
He isn’t the guy who came to visit me at my office today.
30.
I rub my eyes and then look again. Nope. Not even with taking into account the distortion of the peephole does the guy look even remotely like the guy who I spoke to earlier.
It’s possible Tracy has two brothers on the force. But that doesn’t feel right, not with the all but confirmed suspicion it’s no accident I’m in Tracy’s home and being framed for her murder.
I have two options to deal with the immediate situation: 1) stay silent and shake like a shittin
g leaf, or 2) come up with some crummy excuse why I’m ignoring him and hiding behind a locked door.
I decide the latter. “Hey,” I say, a less-than-stellar opening. “It’s Tracy’s friend here.”
“I know who you are, dickwad. Open up. I’m worried about Tracy.”
“She’s not here.”
“I know that. Hot Pocket next door let me know. Where is she?” He pauses a second, then says, “Why the hell have you locked yourself in there?”
“Tracy’s gone out to run some errands, and she told me to keep watch, and not let anyone in I didn’t know.”
“I’m her brother. Open up.”
“I can’t do that. How do I know you’re her brother?”
He shakes his head as he chews gum heavily, and then pulls out his badge. Holds it up for me to look at, as he says, “Read it. Detective Lucy. Open up or I’m kicking the door down.”
Detective Almost Too Short For The Force doesn’t look like he’d be able to, but the threat feels serious, nonetheless. I need to stall him, so I can think of a plan to get rid of him for the next couple of hours. I say, “Tracy said—”
But he interrupts me. “Wait a minute. This doesn’t make any sense.”
I rack my brain, trying to think why it doesn’t, but come up with bupkis.
Then he says, “If Tracy’s out running errands, and she told you to keep watch of her home, then why did Captain Microwave Pizza over there just tell me you went to see him, asking where Tracy is?”
31.
“I don’t like this one bit,” he says.
“That’s easily explained.”
“Tell you what. Why don’t you open up the door and you can do all the explaining you want when I’ve had a chance to look around?”