Ransom Beach (Stephanie Chalice Thrillers Book 2)

by Lawrence Kelter

  The sign that hung above the entrance to Rousseau Brothers Garage appeared to be the original. The hand painted sign was badly weathered. The words Established 1968 were barely discernible in the upper right hand corner. There was an entrance through the front office, which was unoccupied. I navigated my way through the company's offices until I found the door leading to the garage, the door that stood between Lido and me. I paused before opening it, to gather my courage.

  The CSI boys were crawling over the truck, checking for fingerprints, fibers and what have you. I'd seen a hundred of them over the years and never really stopped to take note—Cintas trucks were white with the company name painted on the side in blue lettering. I didn't notice Lido until he was alongside me. He had come from behind me, holding his notepad, making notes.

  "I missed you," I said. There was little use beating around the bush. I was heartbroken. Do I love him? I'd asked myself the question a dozen times since leaving FBI headquarters that morning. I wanted to say yes, but I wasn't sure. I felt deeply about Gus. He had become the most important part of my life over the course of our six-month relationship. I couldn't imagine being without him. More to the point, I couldn't see myself with anyone but him. But was that love? I wanted to be able to answer yes. I wanted it to come from me freely and without hesitation—an automatic response. Do I love Gus Lido? Yes! I wanted it to emerge spontaneously from my heart and yet it didn't. The relationship with Gus was the first meaningful experience I'd had with a man in a long while. I didn't want to label it love until I was absolutely sure. Would I know love when I had it? I guess it was time to turn to Ma for a little mother daughter Q and A.

  "I missed you too," he said.

  "We need to talk."

  "Yes we do...but not now, not today. I need to think about us."

  "Why can't we do our thinking together?"

  Lido answered with a glance. He needed space. He needed to heal. I understood that. I know that he needed to be whole before we could be whole. When my father died, part of me was afraid to be alone and yet there were times when I couldn't stand to be around anybody. "Will you be staying over tonight?" Lido had practically moved in, but he was still paying rent on his own place. He still had a three-month supply of dirty laundry there, which he was bringing over one sack at a time. By the time we got all his clothes clean, I'd need a bigger apartment.

  Lido had a sad pout on his face.

  "I'm sorry I hurt you, Gus. You know it was just a dream."

  "Your dreams always lead to more."

  Gus was right. Somehow my dreams always managed to manifest themselves in our day-to-day lives. "Not this time," I said. "I'll give you a little space. Not too much, just a little. Now talk to me about the case, okay?" I needed to switch gears. I didn't want the others to see Titanium Chalice morose, forcing back tears. "C'mon let's find Manny—together."

  "The garage is unmanned in the evening—anyone with the keypad combination can get in or out between 6:00 PM and 8:00 AM."

  "So our perps let themselves in, dumped the truck and took off." I thought about the kid that watched me arrive. I was sure a streetwise kid like that knew lots of neighborhood secrets, including the keypad combination. I wondered if he saw the truck arrive.

  "Correct."

  "Fingerprints on the key pad?"

  "Lots—too many to be meaningful."

  "And on the truck?"

  "Yes, but I doubt they belong to our perp—the steering wheel and door handles have been wiped clean.

  "Security cameras?"

  "The tape was taken out of the machine."

  "Geez. Anything to go on?"

  "Oh yes."

  "Thank God." I was just about to ask about our big lead when a man hopped out of the rear of the truck. He was not NYPD or FBI. He bore the largest, misshapen ear God had ever pinned on a man. In fact, color notwithstanding, it looked like he had scrambled eggs stuck to the side of his head. "Is that Davis Mack?"

  Lido nodded. "He found the truck," Lido whispered, "Feels responsible for the boy's abduction."

  "That's ridiculous."

  "Ridiculous means different things to different people. To him, it's anything but ridiculous—been covering ground like a maniac. He grew up on the mean streets, knows every chop shop between here and Bed-Stuy."

  "Why's he in the truck, someone assign him to the CSI detail?"

  "He was inside the truck when I got here. He's been keeping out of the way so I figured there was no harm. It's like the man lost his own son. He can't pull himself away from—"

  Davis Mack strode toward us. Lido broke off in mid sentence, prolonging my wait for an answer. His gait was unusual, yet not so different that I'd never seen it before. He sort of pitched back and forth from the waist up as he walked, as if his torso was a cantilever attached to his hips.

  "You seen it?" Mack said. "You seen the drops of blood? The motherfuckers are playing us." He was focusing on Lido, seething with anger. "I'll rip their fucking heads off if they hurt him."

  "Whoa, whoa, whoa," I said. "Take it easy, big fella." I extended my hand. Mack looked at it. He looked me up and down, but didn't shake hands, not immediately anyway.

  "You on the job?" he asked suspiciously.

  "This is Detective Chalice," Lido volunteered. "My partner." I was happy that Gus spoke up and identified me as his partner. There was something in that which made me feel better about myself and better about us.

  Mack eyed me top to bottom, this time he studied me intensively. "You're a cop? Damn!" He extended his hand. I wanted to smile, almost blushed, but didn't. This was not the time to prey on Lido's insecurities. I took a quick peek at Mack's ear—instant sobriety. "Davis Mack," he said. "Bodyguard par shit. I'm the asshole that lost Manny."

  There was no use telling him he hadn't screwed up. He was the kind of guy that wouldn't let himself off the hook. "We'll help you find him. How'd you come across the truck?"

  "Shit, Detective, even a big piece of shit laundry truck like this has street value. I reached out. The street's like one giant computer, keeping tabs on anything of value—knows this stuff immediately—another twenty-four hours and the truck would have disappeared, fresh paint and new numbers."

  "Then I'm glad you reached out. What's in the truck?" I asked, turning from Mack to Lido. "It's impolite to keep a lady in suspense."

  "Better have a look," Lido said. "Your French is better than mine."

  I knew exactly what I'd find inside. I hurried off toward the truck.

  A CSI investigator jumped out of the truck before I got there. He was holding a plastic evidence bag. "Hair sample," he said. "Red hair...found a strand stuck to the tape around the paper."

  I heard Mack say "Goddamn." I knew why of course—the redheaded woman that had posed as Helen Gillette, the physical therapist at NYU, the one that likely took Manny out of the building. All CSI had come up with was a solitary strand of red hair. It didn't sound like much, but you never know where the breaks will come from. I boosted myself up into the truck. There were two more CSIs inside, still dusting the walls of the truck for fingerprints. I looked directly past them. Taped to the front wall of the truck was another of Manny's renderings, four lines written in French. It was the same childlike scrawl I had seen in the FBI ready room, the prophecy that had foretold the death of Luis Reyes. There were three crimson drops on the bottom of the paper. Jumping to the same conclusion Davis Mack had already made, I too assumed the marks were blood, but was it Manny's?

  Tard arrive' /'execution faicte,

  Le vent contraire lettres aux chemin prinses:

  Les conjurez XIII d'une secte:

  Par le Rousseau semez les entreprinses.

  My French was not up to the test, so I yanked my cell phone and called the house. A translator was patched through in moments. I scribbled the translation as it came over the phone:

  Arrived too late, the act has been done.

  The wind against them, letters intercepted on their way.

&n
bsp; The conspirators were fourteen of a party.

  By Rousseau shall these enterprises be undertaken.

  I was prepared for another quatrain, but not this. I stood mesmerized, looking down at my notepad, wondering what in God's name we were up against.

  Seventeen—CANDY?

  It was quatrain 1:7, the seventh prophecy of Nostradamus, written in Manny's hand and oh, just to add authenticity, the blood found on the paper checked out and was, in fact, Manny's blood. Celia Thorne's personal physician had detailed medical records on him starting from the moment he arrived in the United States.

  Arrived too late, the act has been done.

  The wind against them, letters intercepted on their way.

  The conspirators were fourteen of a party.

  By Rousseau shall these enterprises be undertaken.

  The verse required little interpretation. We, meaning the police, had arrived too late. The truck was found in Rousseau Brothers Garage—Christ, even the weather was accurate—driving wind and rain.

  The conspirators were fourteen of a party... the jury was still out on that one, as well as letters intercepted on their way, but after all, the prophecy was originally written four hundred years ago, how much could you expect? For my money, Nostradamus had knocked it out of the park.

  Fingerprints, fibers, and of course the solitary strand of red hair were at the crime lab. I was waiting for the results with baited breath. We already knew that the woman that had taken off with Manny was not Helen Gillette. We had shown her photo to Davis Mack and the staff at the NYU physical therapy center, all of whom had confirmed my initial conclusion. We had DNA samples from Helen's apartment as well. A DNA comparison takes a good twenty-four hours to complete, so it would be about this time tomorrow that the report would be ready. So the questions remained, what had become of the real Helen Gillette and who had impersonated her?

  Gus and I left the crime scene independently. You remember of course that we had come separately. More to the point, I wanted to chat it up with the street kid who had been hanging out across the street from Rousseau's Garage. But alas, he was gone, nowhere to be seen. In fact the entire street was empty. It was like a scene from a spaghetti western where the entire town goes into hiding before the bad guys ride in. A kid like that probably has an uncanny sense of the neighborhood, its comings and goings. When it comes to street savvy, these kids were likely way beyond their years. So I made a note to go back and look for him later, maybe catch him in the act of breaking and entering.

  I was cold, wet, and still plenty the worse for wear. Gus seemed like he had cooled off a bit. Still, he was planning to sleep at his own place tonight, which did not make me feel warm and fuzzy. Yes, for the record, I am a rock, but I'm a woman too and situations like this call for comfort food—it's not my opinion, it's a fact.

  I pulled over the unmarked and popped into a Dean & DeLuca, a great casual eatery with a name reminiscent of a Vaudeville stage act. I was thinking porcini mushroom soup, hot and steamy, and maybe turkey on multigrain bread for the protein I knew would keep me going long after the soup fizzled out. I ran into Candace, a friend of mine. What can I tell you, it's a small world. Yes, even in New York City, it's a small world.

  Candy is just about the only acquaintance I have that isn't in some way linked to the job. She's just on the plus side of thirty, whereas I fortunately have not yet reached that plateau. I really hate to say this but something truly terrible happens to women when they reach thirty and are still single—they become, dare I say it, desperate. Again, this is not opinion; it's fact. I've seen it happen time after time. Take Candace for example: she dresses smartly; physically, she still has it going on. She's bright, an interior decorator by trade, with substantial dough. In fact, she helped me pick out the décor for my apartment. She's got great taste in furnishings, but in men, not so much. I think the first thing she asks a man is, "Will you slam me around and leave me for dead?" If he answers yes, she'll date him. Who better to commiserate with over my rift with Lido? If I followed her lead, I'd be back in the dating market before sunset.

  "Stephanie." Candace threw her arms out as soon as our eyes met. It was time for hugs and air kisses. "You look great!" she said, stepping back. "Oooh, cute shoes. Did you get your food yet?"

  "No."

  "This will be great," she said. "I never get to talk to anyone who's got a steady boyfriend." She wrinkled her nose and we got on line. Suddenly I was thinking carrot cake and cappuccino. "How is that guy of yours?"

  I went back to plan A. I ordered the soup and sandwich, not because it was better nutritionally, but because Candace would've interpreted the junk food as a sign of weakness and gone straight for the jugular. "Gus...he's great."

  "Really, you say it as if you've been married thirty years. Something wrong?"

  Candace was on a fishing expedition. It was time to cut bait. "No, it's just that I'm on a tough case, tears at the heart strings. Kind of thing you read about in the papers and say Aww..."

  "That's terrible. Can you tell me?"

  "Candy, you know better."

  "Did something happen to a woman?" She never gives up. She was taking unrelated news and making it proprietary yet again. To her, there was nothing worse than a crime committed against a woman by a man—specifically, a single woman over thirty living in Manhattan. In fact, if a man caused her to snag her pantyhose, she considered it a personal affront, punishable by lethal injection.

  "No, Candy you're safe. We're all safe.”

  "Thank God." She ordered quiche and herbal tea before pointing out her shoes, "Do you love them?" They were Blahniks and they were gorgeous and I wanted a pair. But not now. All I wanted now was something to eat: soup, sandwich, cake…coffee—anything at all. But I needed it now. I was suddenly ravenous.

  "Yes, I love them. There's a table over there." I took my tray and made my way toward it. "Hurry up. I've only got a few minutes." It was the most polite way I knew to forewarn her that I had to keep our chance meeting short.

  "So what's up with you," I asked, diving teeth first into my sandwich. I almost shook it in my mouth like a shark, striking and thrashing, sinking its teeth into its prey. "Seeing anyone?"

  "I'm kind of off the market," she said immersing her Red Zinger tea bag into the cup of boiled water.

  Ever the eternal optimist, I jumped to the conclusion that Candace had finally met that certain someone and was no longer looking. "That's great." What a fool I was.

  She shook her head. "No, not really, I'm taking antibiotics." She strained her tea bag and placed it on her saucer. "I've got the clap."

  I almost gagged on a porcini. "Are you nuts?"

  Candace shrugged and scooped up a forkful of quiche. She didn't seem the least bit concerned. "It’s just gonorrhea."

  "Look at me. Are you out there having unprotected sex? Do you have any idea—?"

  "It was Tim. You remember Tim."

  "Him? The guy with the perpetual suntan?"

  Candace nodded. It was one of those I'm afraid so gestures. "I was seeing him over a year—you know how it is."

  I did know how it was. A couple of months into a relationship, every guy comes up with the same spiel: "It's only you. There's no one else. Don't you love me? Do I have to put one on?" Like it really makes a difference whether it takes them two minutes to get off or three.

  "You mean you and Gus, you still?"

  "Yes, Candy, yes. And you know what, he's never asked." That was the kind of guy Gus was. Now I really felt like crap. My plan was to stop dreaming immediately—fat chance, right?

  I put my hand on hers. "Candy, you can't."

  She smiled sadly. "I got tested. I'm okay," she said as she rapped on the table. "Knock on wood." She sipped at her tea. "Now I've got to start all over again. I thought Tim was it." It meant that special someone, the one that ended the quest. Candace had been looking forever.

  Candace looked up. "Want to share a piece of carrot cake? Did you see it in the showcase?
It looked amazing."

  I laughed on the inside and was about to say yes when my cell phone went off. It was Lido. "Hi, Gus." I answered in a perky voice to keep my friend's overzealous curiosity at bay. "Just a second." I turned to Candace. "It's about the case. Excuse me for a minute."

  "Sure," she said as she stood. "I'm getting the cake."

  "What's up?" I asked.

  "The red hair sample is from a wig. The crime lab called. It's been treated with a germicidal agent and guanidine hydroxide."

  "What's that?"

  "A chemical used to straighten hair in the manufacture of wigs."

  "So the smart money says that someone took Helen Gillette out of commission, tossed on a red wig and pretended to be her on her first day of work. It's really very clever. No one knew what she looked like. The impostor didn't have to know much about the job. First day, you're just getting acquainted—expectations are low. Any reasonable con artist could pull it off."

  "Agreed," Lido replied.

  "Now if we only knew where the real Helen Gillette was and who it was that took her place."

  "I've got half your answer," Lido said.

  I cringed. I knew exactly what he was telling me. "She's—"

  "Yes?"

  "I'll be back at the house in twenty minutes."

  "See you then."

  I saw Helen's face in my mind. Unhappy thoughts, sadness...her eyes closed forever.

  Candace was making her way back to our table. She had a fork in her hand and was already chewing on a piece of cake. It wasn't a big slice. I wondered if there was enough for the two of us.

  Eighteen—WHO'S WHO?

  She had entered the United States with a dead woman's passport and from there had simply disappeared—one more amongst a population exceeding a quarter billion and growing, one more the INS would never track down.