A Side Order Of Murder

by Nancy Skopin

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Well, it’s possible the subject’s actions could be controlled if there’s a chip implanted in the brain or in the skull somewhere, you know, like a receiver?”

  “How would they implant a chip without someone’s knowledge?”

  “Maybe drug them first?”

  “And the effect of normal microwave transmission without the chip?” I asked.

  “Like I said, it’s unpredictable. Hallucinations are a possibility,” he said. “It’s a mind-bending tool. If that’s what we’re dealing with here, I think the first question to ask is ‘who’s the target?’”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, they could be blasting the whole house.”

  “Cliff’s bedroom is at the back of the house,” I said.

  I unrolled the blueprints as best I could in the front seat of a Volvo, and pointed out Cliff’s suite of rooms. I also pointed out the inner staircase leading down to the pantry, and the four doors—front, kitchen, garage, and patio—leading outside.

  “Hmm,” Jim said. “What does he drive?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “Okay. What time are you coming back?” he asked.

  “Eight-forty-five a.m. You have coffee?”

  “Of course.” He gestured toward the backseat.

  After another hug I slipped Jim a thousand dollars in cash and said, “Thank you.”

  “No problem,” he replied, pocketing the cash without counting it.

  I snuck back to the van and drove myself home, feeling anxious about Cliff’s safety. At least no one was going to get at him through that hidden door in the kitchen. I hoped Lily wouldn’t mind driving the 2002 for a while.

  CHAPTER 9

  WHEN I GOT BACK to the marina I locked the bags and blueprints in the van and hiked down the dock to Lily’s sailboat. The lights were on in Elizabeth’s trawler, but I was too tired for a visit. I knocked on Lily’s deck, and after a moment she popped up out of the hatch.

  “I’m wondering if I can keep using your van for a week or two.” I blurted the request out with absolutely no finesse and then held my breath, hoping for the best and expecting the worst.

  “Okay,” she said with a shrug. “I’ll have to get my tools out of the back.”

  Lily’s a freelance hardware engineer. She takes people’s ideas for new inventions and creates schematics and final products for them.

  “Thank you,” I exhaled. “You want to do that now?”

  “Might as well. Just a sec.” She dropped back inside and came out a minute later, having pulled her long hair up into a ponytail.

  We walked to the parking lot and I used my spare key to move the BMW behind the van. We transferred all of Lily’s toolboxes into the trunk of the 2002, which is quite spacious. I asked her to leave me the hammer, so I could get back into the hidden staircase later and dust the brass door handle for prints. After returning the 2002 to its parking space, Lily and I walked back to the gate together.

  “Do you know anything about microwaves?” I asked.

  “The kind you cook with or the kind you send through the air?”

  “That second thing,” I said.

  “Well, I know they disperse if they hit anything before reaching whatever they’re aiming at.”

  “So if you hit a tree or something, they wouldn’t get through to the intended target?”

  “No, they’d probably still hit it, depending on what part of the tree they had to pass through, but the effect would be diffused.”

  “Huh,” I said.

  “Mind if I ask why you’re asking?”

  “It’s a case I’m working on.”

  “Pretty high tech stuff,” she commented.

  “Yeah.” We’d reached the bottom of the companionway and headed in different directions. “Thanks again for the van,” I said.

  “No sweat.” She waved at me over her shoulder.

  I stopped by Kirk and D’Artagnon’s boat to collect Buddy. Kirk said he’d had dinner and a walk about an hour ago, but I took him for another just so he’d know I loved him. Buddy enjoys hanging out with D’Artagnon, but he gets broody when I’m gone for long periods of time. After he’d watered a few bushes, we went home.

  I woke up at midnight feeling paranoid. What Jim had said about microwaves and mind control had shaken me up more than I’d realized. I guess I was expecting this to be an uncomplicated case, something contained within the family or, more likely, something in Cliff’s imagination. Finding that staircase free of dust told me that someone had been using it, but it didn’t tell me who. The scratches on Cliff’s kitchen floor in front of the refrigerator suggested that he’d had a surreptitious visitor. I wondered if Mrs. Peterson had the skills necessary to implant the type of receiver chip Jim had described.

  I grabbed the notepad I keep by the bed and wrote myself reminders to call Bill tomorrow and borrow a fingerprinting kit and to pick up some batteries for the bug detector. I’d also need my laptop if this job took more than a few days, so I could keep up with my case notes while I was with Cliff.

  Eventually I went back to sleep. When the alarm went off at 7:00, I reset it for 7:30. When it sounded again I struggled out of bed, started a pot of coffee, and took a shower. I dressed in khaki slacks and a white polo shirt, and stepped into my navy and tan boat shoes. I fed and walked Buddy, then left him with Kirk again. Even though he had to go to work today, Kirk would be home for lunch and could walk the dogs then. Plus, Buddy would have D’Artagnon for company.

  I made a brief stop at the office to update the file I’d started on Cliff’s case, and to send e-mails to a few clients I wouldn’t be able to take care of today. Then I jogged out to the parking lot and took off in Lily’s van.

  I arrived in Hillsborough at 8:43. Jim had moved his car and was now parked behind a tree on the same side of the street as the estate. I pulled the van up behind his Volvo, skulked around to the passenger side door, and climbed in.

  “Morning,” I said.

  Jim yawned.

  “Anything happen last night?” I asked.

  “Negative. The parents came home at ten-twenty. No other activity.”

  “Did you see any unusual lights coming out of the woods?”

  “No, but I was covering different exits at different times. Can’t see the back of the house from the front of the house.”

  “Okay. Thanks, Jim. Same time tonight?”

  “Sure.”

  I got out of the Volvo and walked back to the Econoline as he drove away. I unlocked the van and took out the blueprints, relocked the doors, and headed down the driveway. Less than five seconds after I rang the bell Mrs. Peterson answered the door. She had to have been lurking in the foyer. Watching me through the peephole?

  “Good morning, Mrs. Peterson,” I said with a smile.

  She said nothing, but continued to block my path.

  “Cliff is expecting me,” I said.

  She stepped back just far enough for me to squeeze through. I made a point of smacking her in the face with the roll of blueprints as I passed her.

  “Oops. Sorry,” I said, and scampered up the stairs.

  I knocked on Cliff’s door and waited while he unlocked the dead bolt.

  “Good morning, Cliff,” I said. “Did you select paint and wall paper samples?”

  “Morning,” he said groggily. “I didn’t sleep much last night.”

  “Why? Did something happen?” I was instantly on the alert.

  “No. But I kept hoping,” he sighed, “so you could see it on camera. They must know what we’re doing.”

  Disappointed myself, I went into the bedroom and removed the DVD-R from the recorder, inserted a blank one, and tucked the used one into a CD jewel case.

  “I don’t see how they could possibly know, Cliff. Maybe something will happen tonight. Let’s have a look at these samples.”

  I picked up the carpet, wallpaper, and paint samples and spread them out on the
neatly made bed. Cliff glanced at them and then sank into a chair.

  “Something wrong?” I asked.

  “I don’t know anything about color,” he muttered. “Can’t you pick something out for me?”

  I could and did. I chose a dark chocolate brown, low pile carpet, Cafe Au Lait paint for the bedroom walls combined with Hunter Green trim, and the wallpaper with water lilies for the bathroom, Heavy Cream paint for the trim. I was willing to allow Cliff his feminine side. I proudly displayed my selections.

  “What do you think?” I asked.

  He raised an eyebrow at the wallpaper, but nodded. “Okay,” he said.

  “If we need more time when we’re done with this, we can do the sitting room and the kitchen. Maybe retile the kitchen floor.”

  I took out a carpenter’s measuring tape that I’d brought with me and Cliff held one end of it while I measured the bedroom and bathroom, floor to ceiling and wall-to-wall. Then I collected the carpet samples and grabbed the book of paint chips. This might be fun.

  “Let’s go shopping,” I said. “Have you had breakfast?”

  “Juice and toast,” he said. “That’s all I ever have.”

  “Okay. Grab your wallet and keys. By the way, what kind of car do you drive?”

  “A Lexus,” he said.

  “How’s the trunk space?”

  “Pretty roomy. Why?”

  “Show me.” I didn’t think we could fit all the purchases we were about to make in Cliff’s car, but I wanted his license plate number and the model and color of his car so that Jim could keep an eye on him if he went out at night.

  We took the stairs down to the first floor and entered the kitchen where Cliff’s mother was having coffee and talking with a heavy-set woman dressed in white, whom I assumed was the cook. He introduced me to his mom.

  “Mother, this is Nicoli, the interior decorator I told you about. Nicoli, this is my mother, Anna.”

  Anna Montgomery stood and shook my hand. She had a thick head of silver hair and piercing blue eyes. She wore only lipstick and mascara, but her cheeks had a natural glow. Her handshake was firm and dry, neither warm nor cold.

  “Nice to meet you,” I said.

  “A pleasure, Nicoli,” she responded politely, but the look in her eyes was more curious than friendly. I wondered if Mrs. Peterson had tattled on me for leaving the front door open yesterday.

  I turned to the cook expecting Cliff to introduce me to her as well, but he was already halfway out the door to the garage. I grinned and shrugged at the woman-in-white, and followed Cliff.

  Cliff’s Lexus LS460 was pearlescent blue and was parked next to a red Jaguar XJ. Probably his mom’s. It was a three-car garage, but one of the stalls was empty. I took out my notebook.

  “Could you open the trunk for me?” I asked.

  As Cliff fumbled with his keys I made a note of the license plate numbers of both cars. The trunk of the Lexus was indeed spacious, but wouldn’t hold the rolls of carpet I planned to purchase.

  “I think we should take the van,” I said.

  We exited the garage through a side door and walked down a path which connected to the driveway. I unlocked the passenger door of the van and tried not to laugh as I watched Cliff’s face. He looked around, desperately searching for something clean with which to wipe the passenger seat, and finally brushed it off with his hand before climbing up. He held the seatbelt with two fingers as he belted himself in, and sat with his shoulders hunched, apparently hoping the belt would touch as little of him as possible. Lily’s van isn’t really dirty, it’s just a little cluttered. Cliff was being unnecessarily anal. I walked around to the driver’s side and hopped in.

  We went to the paint and wallpaper store first and purchased a single gallon of Cafe Au Lait, and a pint each of Heavy Cream and Hunter Green. I gave the clerk the measurements for the bathroom and she cut the appropriate yardage of the wallpaper with the water lilies and swans on it, as well as recommending the most expensive wallpaper paste, brushes, rollers, razor blades and holders, sandpaper, plastic suits to cover our clothes, a sponge mop, a bucket, a bottle of ammonia, two portable step stools, and drop cloths. Cliff paid for everything with plastic. At the last minute I thought to ask if they had batteries. They did. I grabbed two 9 volts and paid cash for them.

  We moved on to the carpet store next and picked up two rolls of the dark chocolate number. Cliff seemed quiet and withdrawn.

  “Everything okay?” I asked as we were driving back to Hillsborough.

  “Hmm? Oh, I’m just wondering what we’ll do if nothing happens while we’re filming.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Cliff. We’ll give it a week, and if we don’t get anything on camera then we’ll consider other options.”

  He didn’t seem reassured. If he really was being tormented he had good reason to be concerned about the cessation of activity. That would mean that his persecutors knew the video equipment had been installed and didn’t want Cliff to be believed. The other possibility was, of course, that Cliff was certifiable, but the scratches on his kitchen floor and the lack of dust on that hidden stairway made that seem a lot less likely than it had before.

  “How often do these things usually happen?” I asked.

  “It varies,” he said. “Sometimes every night, sometimes they skip a night, then it happens a couple of nights in a row, then they skip a night again.”

  “What about the memory lapse thing?” I asked.

  “That’s happened twice in the last month.”

  “Did you write down the dates?”

  “No. Is it important?”

  “It might be. How recent was the last one?”

  “About two weeks ago.”

  “Okay. What about the thing that happens when you’re in your car?”

  “Practically every time I go out,” he said. “I’m afraid to drive anymore.”

  “I can understand that. But that may be the intention of whoever’s doing this to you. Why don’t we take a drive in the Lexus this afternoon?”

  He looked over at me. “But if they see you in the car they won’t do anything. Nothing will happen.”

  “I’ll get down on the floor in the backseat while we’re still in the garage. No one will know I’m there.”

  Cliff finally agreed to a short drive later in the day. We would go to Burlingame for lunch.

  CHAPTER 10

  WHEN WE ARRIVED BACK at the estate I reversed down the long driveway so we could unload our purchases. We piled everything in front of the garage, and then I pulled back out and parked on the street. Cliff and I lugged the carpet into the house and up the stairs, and loaded the wallpaper, paint, and other supplies into the elevator. Mrs. Peterson stood in the entryway guarding the door, but thankfully did not offer to help. When we had everything inside Cliff’s suite he locked us in.

  I loaded the batteries into the bug detector and slowly went over the entire suite, through the bathroom, the closet, even the refrigerator. Cliff watched me from a distance, wringing his hands as he waited for the unit to light up. He was standing next to the bookshelves in his bedroom where I’d mounted the video equipment when I approached, and he flinched when the detector lit up and vibrated. The rest of the suite appeared to be clean. I could sense Cliff’s disappointment. We had both been hoping for some kind of concrete evidence.

  When I’d finished scanning the rooms, I unloaded the bookshelves and Cliff and I opened each book and checked the binding of the hardbound books for lumps. We even pulled the bookshelves away from the wall and checked behind them. We didn’t turn up anything there, so I decided it was time for a crawl through the attic.

  “Can I borrow your flashlight again?” I asked, tucking the detector in the pocket of my slacks.

  “Sure.” He reached under the bed and handed me the Maxstar.

  I pulled a sturdy, straight backed chair into the walk-in closet and climbed up. The panel leading to the attic lifted easily out of the way. I switched on the flashlight
and set it on the attic floor, then hoisted myself up. I discovered a refreshing amount of dust, cobwebs, spider webs, insect carcasses, and clutter that appeared to have been there for longer than I’d been alive. The bug detector didn’t react as I moved around the musty space. When I’d had all the attic I could take, I handed the Maxstar down to Cliff and lowered myself carefully onto the chair, then replaced the panel.

  Cliff looked at me expectantly.

  “Nothing,” I said, brushing myself off. “May I have a glass of water, please?”

  While Cliff was busy in the kitchen I located my cell and called Bill.

  “Hi, Nikki.”

  “Hi, handsome. I need to borrow a fingerprinting kit. Can you arrange that?”

  “I guess so. Why?”

  “I’ll tell you later. I should be home by nine-thirty tonight. You want to come over?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Cliff came into the bedroom holding a glass of ice water.

  “I’ll see you then,” I said, disconnecting and pocketing the phone. I took the ice water from Cliff and thanked him.

  “Who was that?” he asked.

  “A friend of mine who has a fingerprinting kit. I want to dust that brass door handle at the bottom of the secret stairs.”

  I didn’t think it would help for Cliff to know that my friend was a cop. He was already paranoid enough.

  “Great,” he said. “What now?”

  “I think we should start with the bedroom. Paint first, then carpet.”

  Cliff looked stunned. “We? You don’t expect me to help with this, do you?”

  “I can’t do it alone, and I don’t think we want to involve anyone else in this. It’ll be good for you.” I drained the water glass, set it on the bedside table, and started removing the window blinds. Cliff just stood there with his mouth open.