Geir

by Dale Mayer

  She rolled her eyes at him. “That’s not likely to happen in my house.” But she went out and lit the barbecue. Because, if she understood men, that smell would get Geir down here faster than anything.

  Geir made his way to the kitchen. He could hear sounds of somebody else in one of the other rooms. He had to wonder just how busy she was here. He’d never thought to ask how many rooms she could fill at one time. But, if she charged a couple hundred a night per room, she had to be making a decent income. He was happy for her, particularly if her true love was her painting. It was hard enough as an artist to make a go of it, and everyone needed to have some kind of a backup plan. In her case, the bed-and-breakfast appeared to suit her admirably.

  He walked into the kitchen, sniffing the air. “I smell barbecue,” he said.

  Jager chuckled. “She said, if she lit it, it would bring you down faster than anything.”

  Geir smiled. “She’s very easy to get along with.”

  “She is,” Jager said with a grin.

  Just then Morning stepped into the kitchen. “There you are. I figured you’d be ready for food soon.”

  “How are you cooking the steaks?”

  “Medium-rare for me. I was about to ask how you guys like yours.”

  “Medium-rare for both of us.”

  She disappeared back outside again, and, before long, they were all sitting down to a fantastic dinner. She’d set the outside table. “It’s just the three of us for dinner.”

  “Do you normally do dinners?” Jager asked.

  “No. Only on special request.”

  When dinner was over, she cleaned off the patio table, put on a pot of coffee and brought out the cheesecakes.

  Geir and Jager had deliberately not told her about their plans. After all, they could hardly say they were planning to go back out to break into a house. They had tried to access it the first time around. But the neighbors had been outside the entire time. Geir and Jager had made sure they hadn’t been seen, but neither could they take the chance somebody would come over. They’d decided to defer their inside visit until later in the evening.

  When they were finished with their coffee and cheesecake, the two men stood and smiled at her, and Geir said, “We have plans, so we can’t sit around.”

  She shook her head. “You came for a reason. Head out and do it. You’re not here to entertain me.” She grinned, stood to follow the men inside.

  Geir smiled, took their coffee cups inside and said, “Maybe not but it’s very pleasant here.”

  “It is,” she agreed.

  “Have you lived here all your life?”

  She shrugged. “Mostly. My father owns half the place. I’m not sure what my future will bring, so this is good for now.”

  He nodded. “Backup plans are always helpful.”

  She chuckled. “You didn’t say where you’re going. I’m not trying to pry …”

  He shrugged. “We have a few more people to check up on.”

  She nodded. “Okay. Sounds good.”

  Geir turned to look at Jager and said, “You ready?”

  He nodded. They escaped the house quickly.

  Jager was laughing. “I get that you want to stay in and want to know her a little more.”

  Geir shrugged. “It’s not what I came for.”

  “Sometimes plans have to change,” Jager said. “I can do this alone.”

  Geir shot him a look and shook his head. “No, I’m part of this. If I get to spend a little time with Morning, then I do. If I don’t, then I don’t,” he said dismissively. And yet inside he knew that would be a shame. He could always come back if he wanted to. But he knew he wouldn’t. A lot of memories were here, and, like Jager, Geir had his own mix of good and bad. This had been their home for many years, back when they were whole, … healthy. A lifetime ago. And yet only a few years ago.

  They hopped into his truck, and Geir headed back toward the second man’s house. “What’s this guy’s name again?”

  “Reginald Henderson supposedly, but there’s no reason he didn’t change his name for whatever reason. Easy enough for guys to do. The real question is, is this San Diego guy also the Poppy who Minx knew in Texas? Is this the same person as the Poppy in Texas who Agnes knew as JoJo Henderson???”

  At the house, the two men parked around the block and got out. Dusk had just settled. It was a little earlier than they would have liked for their B&E. They walked around the block several times and then headed to another block, comparing neighborhoods.

  “It goes downhill within a couple blocks from here,” Geir commented.

  “Right, which means, an awful lot of potential victims are close by.”

  “But he wouldn’t need to have another stomping ground. He’s a schoolteacher, for God’s sake. That should give him plenty of choices.”

  “Sure, but you don’t know how long he’s owned this house.”

  “Actually I do. Thirty-seven years,” Geir said.

  “Wow, that’s a long time. So he’s got to be closer to sixty than in his late forties. Plus, maybe this is where he started his hunting grounds.”

  “Possibly. He inherited it from his parents.”

  “Thirty-seven years ago?”

  Geir nodded. “His parents were attacked by an intruder and shot. Their murders remain cold cases.”

  Jager stopped, turning to look at his buddy. “What?”

  “Well, look at the area,” Geir said. “Just think about how much crime there has to be. And this was a long time ago. I doubt the neighborhood was a whole lot different back then, but it wouldn’t have had the population it has now.”

  “We should take a look at that murder file,” Jager said thoughtfully. “What’s the chance this guy killed his parents in order to get the house, so he could carry on with his questionable relationships?”

  “It’s possible. But is it really probable?”

  Jager chuckled. “This guy has stayed in the shadows for a long time. Who knows what he’s managed to get away with? Where did that life of crime start? And does he have any other family?”

  “There was a younger brother,” Geir said. “He committed suicide a couple to three years before the parents were murdered.”

  “Any idea how much younger?”

  “Almost ten years,” Geir stated. “Reginald was twenty-five, graduating with a teaching degree, somewhere around the same time his parents were killed. And his brother committed suicide before that. It could have been the reason Reginald ended up going into education.”

  “It’s possible the younger brother committed suicide because his older brother was already working on him as his first victim.”

  They walked in silence, contemplating a broken family to the extent that maybe this pedophile had abused his younger brother and then murdered his parents to gain the house.

  “The trouble is,” Jager said, “I hate to even contemplate what the younger brother’s life was like, but it does make sense.”

  “I wonder if somebody could let us know more about both cases. But how would we even find information on the brother’s suicide?”

  “I searched online but found nothing. Unless the police are willing to share, that information might be available in the newspapers back then. But the suicide would have been about forty years ago.”

  They turned and headed back toward Reginald’s house, finding it still empty, still in darkness. “It almost looks deserted,” Geir said.

  “I was thinking that myself. What’s the chance he has a second home?”

  “I would imagine the odds are pretty good, but then why keep this?”

  “Maybe for the memories. Maybe for the history here. Maybe to lure his victims here. Who knows?”

  Having already cased the place earlier, they knew exactly where their entry point was. They slipped over the back fence from the neighbor’s yard, walked through the hedge, sticking to the shadows, something they were both particularly good at, and slinked up to the side of the house. A larg
e window on the bottom floor wasn’t locked. Slipping on gloves first, Geir slid it open and was inside in seconds. Jager, after a quick glance around, joined him.

  They left the window open to make sure they had an exit. But, if the house was deserted, then any lights they used would be noticed by the neighbors. They couldn’t take that chance. They both stood in silence, listening to the sounds, the creaks, the atmosphere of a house that hadn’t been lived in, seemingly for a while. There was an odor, one that was hard to distinguish.

  “Rats?” Jager whispered.

  Geir shrugged. “In this place that would be possible. But is it something else? Who knows?” He turned on his cell phone flashlight and gave the room a quick cursory glance.

  Mildew and some dampness. The room they were in was empty. They quickly went through several other rooms on the first floor, but they too were empty. The final door was closed, but, so far, they hadn’t heard any sounds of footsteps coming from the house. So Geir had to assume this part behind the closed door was empty too.

  Of course that assumption could change at any second. He gently turned the knob and opened the door. They stepped into a small hallway between the kitchen and the living room. They did a walk-through of the living room first, finding standard living room furniture but older and in a rough state. The couch sagged in the middle; an armchair had the corner shredded, possibly by a cat, or possibly just a piece of furniture that he found in the garbage that served the purpose and came home with him.

  What it didn’t look like was the home of a respectable teacher. No blankets or sheets were thrown over the furniture to say the owners were planning on being gone for a long time. But then, outside of a high-end home, Geir had never seen that before either.

  They did a sweep of this part of the main floor and came back to the kitchen. They paused as there was no food, no dishes. Jager put a hand on the refrigerator and whispered, “It’s on.” He slipped to the side and pulled it open. Horrible smells wafted toward them. He slammed it shut and said, “Food spoiling.”

  Uneasy and not sure what was going on, the men made their way to the stairs going to the top floor. The odor was even worse here. With hard looks at each other, they slid upstairs soundlessly. But they already knew what they would find. They just didn’t know who. Two bedrooms should be upstairs and a bathroom.

  They checked the bathroom first, finding it empty. It wasn’t clean, but it wasn’t disgusting. They’d certainly seen worse. The smaller bedroom was just an empty room, nobody there. But, oddly enough, a child’s toy was in the far corner—a stuffed mouse from the looks of it. Instead of heading straight to the master bedroom, Geir stepped inside and took a quick look but from a child’s point of view. And saw crayons and scribble marks on the walls.

  Other families had lived here maybe? Did the teacher himself have a family? They hadn’t found any record of a marriage or of him having children. But that didn’t mean much. He could have had a relationship with somebody who already had a child. The stuffed toy stood incongruently amid the rest of the room. Maybe it was the bright gray new look to it against the old dilapidated color of these surroundings. Maybe it was the cheerful, hopeful smile on the mouse’s face. As if it didn’t realize it was living in a world that had it seriously in for him.

  With a shake of his head, Geir stepped back into the hall.

  Jager glanced at him, one eyebrow raised. “What about that bothers you?”

  “That it’s even here. Why? Surely if he abused children here, the neighbors would have heard the screams?”

  “It’s hard to say. The house next to it is empty. The house on the other side is brand new. So just construction workers would have been around for a long time.”

  “And then, of course, if he had drugged them, nobody would be screaming.”

  Jager nodded, his jaw tight, his lips pinched.

  Side by side the two approached the master bedroom. Of course the door was closed. And Geir already knew he wouldn’t like what was on the other side. The odor was much stronger the closer they got. With a gloved hand, he turned the knob, pushing open the door, and the horrible decay smell doubled. They coughed and choked for a moment and then stepped inside. No longer worried about anybody coming in and finding them, Geir turned on the flashlight and shone it toward the bed. A corpse—probably weeks, possibly months old—lay on the bed. No real way to know how long at this point. It had almost mummified.

  “That’s not good,” Jager said.

  They walked cautiously forward, trying to identify the victim. But, with the condition of the skin, it was hard. What they could determine was that it was male.

  “Old, young?”

  Both shook their heads.

  “Could be anybody. I’m tempted toward saying young, but I don’t have any reason for that,” Jager said. He stood and studied the scene for a long moment. “There are no clothes. The bedding is pulled back, as if he was just lying there, and I’m not seeing any major trauma to show he was murdered.”

  “Well, it can’t be our teacher because he still works at the school.”

  “And he was there several days ago,” Jager added.

  Geir shook his head. “No, this body’s been here too long.” Just as he was about to turn away, he stopped and shone the flashlight over the chest of the victim. “Look at this.”

  Jager walked closer, and his breath caught in the back of his throat. “So, let me amend that. Definitely murder.”

  In the chest cavity was a glint of steel—a knife, the hilt broken off and just the edge showing above the ribs.

  “So we have a murder victim who’s been here for weeks or months in a house that’s desolate and run-down, yet the power is on, and the fridge is still running.”

  “A renter? Maybe the teacher has no idea he’s dead?”

  “It’s hard to say. Obviously the teacher has another place to live himself.”

  Just then they heard footsteps downstairs.

  Grim-faced they slipped against the master door, closing it almost to the point of latching it, and waited.

  Chapter 6

  Morning wandered through the kitchen, feeling suddenly odd. The men were heading to God-only-knew-where. They were almost secretive about their actions. Not as in criminal or anything. But just something was off. She didn’t know a better way to describe it.

  Unsettled, she realized the house was probably empty, but she couldn’t be sure because, if guests came in and went up to their rooms when she’d been painting, she wasn’t sure she would have heard them. She walked upstairs to the second floor and down the hall to the far window. From there she walked up to the third floor. The rooms up here were only used for overflow, as they connected to her room on the other side with the new addition.

  But she often walked this way just to make sure everything was okay. She hadn’t assigned any of these rooms to anybody this week, so she took a moment to stop and open doors, checking out the inside of both rooms. At the far end, she opened her bedroom door and walked inside.

  She closed it behind her and went to the small couch she kept as a sitting area and collapsed on it. She was out of sorts, but she was at odds with herself too. She wanted to paint, and yet something about that made her nervous too. Fear of failure? Fear of success? She didn’t know but figured the self-help gurus would have a heyday with her. But lying here and staring moodily at the windows as the darkness settled in wouldn’t help either.

  And that was, of course, one of the reasons why she struggled with her painting. She did much better in natural light, which was rapidly disappearing.

  She heard footsteps down below. Somebody was either coming or going. Normally that didn’t bother her in the least, and it certainly shouldn’t tonight. If anything, she felt safe with these three single men in the place.

  They were all here for their different reasons, either business or otherwise, and that had nothing to do with her as long as no criminal activities went down under her roof.

  Still moody,
she got up, tried to find a book she wanted to read and gave up. She stood in the middle of her small sitting room, thought about turning on the TV and shook her head. “What I want is to paint.”

  She headed to her studio, entered and shut the door behind her, flicking on the lights. She assessed the lighting and realized it sucked. But, even if she brought in more lamps, it wouldn’t give her the same quality of illumination as the sun did, which she particularly needed for this painting. The trouble was, the unsettled feeling inside her wanted an outlet. Carefully she took her half-finished painting off the easel and put it on the floor, leaning it up against the wall beside the other one. She grabbed an old canvas and stuck it on the easel. She’d done this often a few years ago. Thankfully she hadn’t had that sensation since, but now there was this weird feeling she couldn’t put words to.

  With a sigh she grabbed red paint and a paintbrush and turned back to the canvas. “Okay, this is your chance to work it out. Do whatever you need to do.”

  She started with big broad slashes across the canvas. Surprised, but already having condemned the canvas to being a garbage piece of straight emotion, she took her temper, disgruntlement and maybe some fear locked inside her out on the canvas. Stroke after stroke, anger flowed from her fingertips.

  Finally she changed colors and then again and again, and ended up with a soft cream color, which then turned to white, then sunshine yellow and followed by an amber. Finally, her chest heaving, her arm shaking, she stepped back to look at the garbage she’d thrown onto the canvas and froze. “What did I just create?”

  She’d done this many times in her life, just thrown paint on a canvas with no expectation of a final product to share or to sell. It was just an outlet. The same as a lot of people who played golf or worked out in a gym. But she couldn’t make heads or tails of what was in front of her.

  Maybe that was because, all of a sudden, she was not making heads or tails of her own life.

  And it had to do with this gallery show. Not only did it bother her, it really bothered her. But she couldn’t begin to understand why. She neared the two canvases along the wall, one finished and one almost finished. Crouching down in front of them, she studied them. “They are both still nice,” she said. “I just don’t know if they are nice enough.”