Behind the Closed Door: A Detective Series of Crime and Suspense Thrillers (The Jacob Hayden Series Book 2)

by Charles Prandy

  So where is he?

  She didn’t know what else to do. Waiting was terrorizing her. She reached for the phone and was getting ready to push the number nine when she saw headlights dance through the living room from the front driveway. Finally, she thought. She walked to the front door. When she opened it, Jack’s car wasn’t in the driveway. Two people were walking towards her, a man and a woman. She didn’t know them, but the man’s face was recognizable. She’d seen him before. Maybe on the television. Maybe on the news. They were holding leather wallets in their hands. They both reached out at the same time and opened their wallets to reveal police badges.

  Erin’s legs felt shaky. She wanted to faint. Police don’t just show up at your door at ten o’clock at night for nothing. She hadn’t heard from Jack in two days and now the police were standing in her front yard.

  “Is this about, Jack?” she asked, her lips quivering.

  “Mrs. Smith?” the male asked.

  “Yes. Is Jack okay?”

  “I’m Detective Jacob Hayden and this is Detective Patricia Jennings. May we come in?”

  This can’t be good. The “may we come in” question always has doom attached to it. Police don’t ask to come in unless they’ve got bad news to tell. Erin took a step back and nodded her head.

  “Is this about, Jack?” she asked again.

  “I’m afraid it is,” Detective Hayden responded.

  Erin didn’t hear the last part of the statement. The last thing she saw was Detective Hayden rushing to stop her fall.

  Four

  It’d been a month since I’d been back to work. I’d integrated myself back into old form rather quickly given all that had happened. And as the old cliché goes, the city never sleeps. Washington, D.C. didn’t wait for me to mourn my loss and get myself back together. Crime continued. Bad people still did bad things and cops still chased them down to protect the good citizens of the city.

  When we entered the driveway of Jack and Erin Smith’s house, I was a little surprised that Erin Smith was nervously waiting for us at the door. She looked distraught and tired. Like she’d been worrying for a long time. But even in her worried state she was a beautiful woman. Her blond hair was pulled into a ponytail. She was of medium height and athletically built. She was wearing those dark stretch pants that women wear to the gym and a fitting white T-shirt. She had a cordless phone in her hand and in the moonlight I caught a glimpse of a large diamond ring.

  Pat and I showed our badges and the first thing Erin said was, “Is this about Jack?”, like she expected that it was. I assumed that Jack was her husband. A black 2010 BMW 530i was found abandoned in the city and the registration showed that the car was registered to Jack and Erin Smith. The windows were blown out and the car was sitting on cinder blocks because the wheels had been taken. I normally don’t investigate stolen car cases, but I was doing a favor for a detective from the auto theft unit. Specifically, the car hadn’t been reported stolen and there were traces of blood on the front and passenger seats. But when she said, “Is this about Jack”, I immediately knew that something terrible was wrong. So I said, “Yes, it is.”

  Then she fainted. I tried to catch her but she was out of my reach. She fell hard off the steps and into the flowerbed next to her. Pat and I rushed and picked her up and brought her into the house. The living room was to our right. We lay her on a couch. I kept calling her name and lightly tapping her face until she came to.

  “Mrs. Smith, are you okay?”

  She blinked her eyes and softly moaned. She had mulch and dirt on her face, but other than that, she looked okay.

  “Mrs. Smith, do you know where you are?” Pat asked.

  “Jack,” she whispered. She finally looked at us as if everything was coming back her. She slowly sat up and wiped the side of her face. “What happened?”

  “You fainted,” I said. “Do you feel okay?”

  “I think so.” She looked round the room as if she were looking for something. “Where’s Jack?”

  “We don’t know,” I said. “That’s why we’re here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A black BMW was found abandoned off the Clara Barton Parkway near Georgetown. The registration said it was registered to Jack and Erin Smith.”

  “Yes, that’s Jack’s car. What do you mean it was abandoned?”

  “Looks like it was probably stolen. Probably by teenagers from the looks of it. It was on cinder blocks, the wheels were missing and the windows were busted out. Usually when kids steal cars, they take the wheels and anything else that can be removed and resold.”

  “Jack’s BMW,” she said more as a thought than to us.

  “Have you heard from Jack?”

  She looked at me and without waiting for her to answer, I knew she hadn’t.

  “When’s the last time you saw him?”

  “Two days ago. He left to go to Virginia Beach for an annual conference.”

  “And you haven’t heard from him since then?”

  “No, and that’s not like Jack.”

  “Mrs. Smith, we found blood on the front and passenger seats.”

  “Blood? Do you think it’s Jack’s?”

  “We don’t know.”

  She lowered her head into her hands and started crying. It was the type of crying grieving people do when they’ve lost a loved one. When a person cries like this, there’s nothing you can say to help. You just have to let them cry. She did that for the next couple of minutes. Pat and I didn’t try to console her or ask her any questions. We let her have her moment. Then she raised her head and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. Her eyes were red and wet with tears. She took a deep breath and exhaled.

  “I can do this,” she said.

  “At this point, Mrs. Smith, the only thing we know is that Jack’s car was abandoned. We can’t say for sure that it was stolen because we haven’t heard from Jack. When was he due home from this convention?”

  “This evening. I called his hotel and they said he checked out this morning.”

  Pat wrote some notes. We would need to contact the hotel and verify what time Jack Smith checked out. Technically a missing person’s report can’t be filed until twenty-four hours after the last time the person was seen. Questions coursed through my mind. Is Jack missing? Who was he with at the convention? Would anyone want to harm him? Was this a random carjacking, if indeed his car was stolen? Does he have any enemies?

  The first question was important because sometimes people aren’t necessarily missing. Sometimes people leave because they want to, not because they were forced to. So I first needed to establish that Jack was truly missing.

  I asked Mrs. Smith some follow-up questions and gave her my card. She found a recent photo of Jack and gave it to Pat.

  “If you hear from Jack please give me a call right away. Is there someone we can call to come over?”

  “No,” she said. “Jack and I are alone here.”

  I nodded and motioned for Pat and I to leave.

  “I’ll be in touch as soon as I hear anything.”

  At that, Pat and I left Mrs. Smith to her empty house with the possibility that we’d have to return with worse news.

  Five

  Who is Jack Smith? And why is he missing?

  “Check this out,” Pat said from her desk.

  She had a mug shot pulled up on her monitor of a younger Jack Smith, not smiling, with shorter hair, staring into the camera. I’ve seen thousands of these pictures. Thousands of the endless stares into the lenses of cameras that capture an image that would never go away. For the rest of that person’s life, whether it be for better or worse, the mug shot would follow them like a bad habit.

  The profile of the mug shot showed a twenty-five-year-old Jack Smith, with short blond hair, bright blue eyes and smoother skin than the man in the picture I received from Mrs. Smith. He was arrested in April of 1997 on a breaking and entering charge. His profile at the time said that he was six-feet-three-inches
tall and weighed two hundred and five pounds. Judging from his current picture he probably gained about twenty pounds of muscle.

  “I pulled up the arrest report,” Pat said. “Looks like he broke into his neighbor’s house and stole four hundred dollars in cash. His prints were all over a container in his neighbor’s bedroom that was tucked in the back of a closet.”

  “How’d he know where to look?” I asked.

  “He probably knew his neighbor’s routine and broke in when they weren’t going to be home for a while. Probably knew they kept a lot of cash somewhere in the bedroom.”

  I looked at the screen a little longer. He pled guilty to the charge and was given a year and a half probation since it was his first offense. He was ordered to pay the money back. That was fifteen years ago. We searched the database a little longer and couldn’t find so much as a traffic ticket since then. He’d been a model citizen.

  So where is he?

  We verified with the hotel that a Jack Smith did indeed check out of his hotel room at 8:33 a.m. which makes sense if he was planning on attending the convention for the rest of the day. I was able to get hold of one of the convention’s organizers who also verified that a Jack Smith had checked in that day at the convention. Apparently, convention participants checked in daily.

  Before heading back to the station after visiting Erin Smith, we stopped by Russ Ackers’ house. Russ was one of Jack’s colleagues and Erin mentioned that they usually traveled together. Russ only lived about ten minutes away from the Smith’s. When Mr. Ackers came to the door he was surprised to see us. He was tall with dark brown hair and looked nearly as fit as Jack. He told us that he saw Jack around three o’clock and that he assumed Jack made it home safely. He confirmed they normally travel together, but Jack had to be there earlier than him, so he drove down to Virginia Beach by himself.

  So we know he left the hotel and was at the convention. What we don’t know is what happened after the convention. I sat back in my chair and reached for a note pad. I wrote the word Theories at the top middle of the page. The next line down I wrote the number one.

  “So where is Jack?” I asked Pat.

  She turned round in her seat and looked at my notepad.

  “He’s in bed with another woman.”

  I wrote down Lover next to number one.

  “Hell of a way to cheat,” I said. “Go through all that trouble to fake like your car’s been stolen.”

  “Maybe he wanted to leave her. He goes missing and rides off into the sunset with his new woman.”

  I wrote down the number two on the next line. Next to that I wrote the word Dead. Which was a strong possibility given the blood on the seats.

  “Kidnapped,” Pat said.

  Next to the number three I wrote Kidnapped.

  “Why?” I asked.

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe they have money. Maybe it’s something he’s working on at work. Maybe he was at the wrong place at the wrong time. Who knows?”

  “Why haven’t we heard from the kidnappers yet?”

  She shrugged her shoulders again. “Maybe they’re buying time until they do.”

  I thought about it. Likely but doubtful. I wrote the number four on the next line and put the word Wife next to it.

  “How good are you at reading body language?” I asked.

  “I think I’m pretty good. Why?”

  “Erin Smith. What’s your read?”

  “She appeared to be a nervous, distraught wife wanting to know where her husband was.”

  “She could have been faking?”

  “Possibly, but I don’t think so. You could hear it in her voice and see it in her eyes. She was surprised to see us. Not the kind of surprised that people get when they’re caught, but the kind of surprised that people get when they don’t understand what’s going on.”

  I nodded my head in agreement. She looked caught off guard when she saw us in her driveway. She probably was expecting Jack, but when it wasn’t him and she saw our badges instead, she knew something was wrong. Still, a majority of homicides and missing persons are conducted by people the victims knew. I put an asterisk next to the word Wife so I could dwell on the thought a little longer. Just in case.

  Six

  At the same time that Jacob was trying to figure out what happened to Jack Smith, across the city, a man named Max sat at a desk, looking over blueprints. Max had no last name or middle name; he simply went by Max. He had six sets of blueprints unrolled and stacked under one another. The room was dark with the exception of a desk lamp that beamed a bright light directly over the blueprints.

  Max was studying the entrances and exits of each building. With each blueprint were aerial photographs of the buildings from three different proximities, each spanning a larger radius than the previous.

  The first thing he took into account were the roads leading up to and surrounding the buildings. He took notes, both physical and mental. He would need to do reconnaissance drive-bys. Figure out the best routes to take before and after. Figure out emergency routes in case there was trouble. Next, he thought about getting into the buildings. He didn’t want to enter them at any time prior because he didn’t want his face caught on their cameras. He would send someone else in his place. Have them check out the make-up of the lobbies; the average number of people that enter them at various times of the day.

  Next he thought about the vehicles. They would have to be stolen. They would have to be big enough to fit four people and fast enough to outrun the police if it came to that. Cars with powerful engines. They would need to have another vehicle stashed away to switch cars. And another one after that. Three switches in total for each building. That meant they’d need four cars a day over five days, which totals twenty cars. Never use the same car twice.

  As Max took notes, the door to the office opened and another man stepped in. He went by Bobby. No middle name. No last name. Just Bobby. Bobby placed a cup of steaming hot coffee on the desk for Max. Turned the overhead light on and sat on a two-person sofa.

  Max grabbed the cup and took a sip.

  “We’re looking at four weeks,” Max said.

  Bobby shook his head. Understood the time frame. Four weeks to plan and strategize before making their move.

  “Four weeks is a long time,” Bobby said.

  “Not compared to the rest of your life.”

  “Yeah, but four weeks is still four weeks. A lot can happen in four weeks.”

  “I’m not worried about it.”

  “I am.”

  “That’s why I brought you in, to do the worrying for me.”

  Max took another sip of his coffee.

  “Besides,” Max continued, “we’ve already completed Plan A. Plan B will be just as smooth.”

  “Plan A was a breeze compared to what we’re getting into.”

  Max waved off the comment. “Have a little faith. I’m a perfectionist. You’ll know what to do inside and out by the time we’re ready.”

  “I have faith.”

  “Good,” Max replied. He took another sip of his coffee. “No one else could pull off the perfect crime but me.”

  Seven

  It was a little past three in the morning when I finally made it home. Henry greeted me with a loud “wuff”. I had left him on his own for a few hours, so I had to give him a bathroom break before I could get comfortable. We walked around the block once. He did what he had to do, I picked up after him, and then we were back home.

  I was exhausted. I could hear my bed calling me with a serenade like no other. My eyes were heavy and all I could think about was sleep. Which, when I thought about it, was the first time in over six months that I’d actually wanted to go to sleep. I couldn’t wait to get into my bed and just lay there. I wanted the problems of the world to disappear for the next twelve hours, because that’s how long I wanted to sleep.

  I plopped down on the couch and kicked my shoes off. Unclipped my sidearm and placed it on the coffee table. Took in a dee
p breath and exhaled. I was too tired to walk up the stairs, so I figured I’d sleep on the couch. In some respects my couch is nearly as comfortable as the bed. I’ve slept on it plenty of times since Theresa’s death. Not sure how to explain it, but in some way, I felt guilty sleeping in my bed. Theresa and I bought that bed together. We shared many experiences on it. It was meant to be shared as a couple.

  I changed my position on the couch, stretched out my legs and lay back. Henry plopped next to me on the floor. His breathing became heavy and I knew he was fast asleep. I sometimes wonder what dogs dream about. Then I smiled. What do you care? It’s not like he can talk to you about it.

  I finally closed my eyes. They needed rest. I needed rest. I could feel myself starting to fall asleep. It’s a weird feeling when you consciously know that you’re falling asleep. I was totally relaxed and moving into a state of unconsciousness. But then my muscles tensed up. My eyes flew open and I sat up on the couch.

  Somebody else was in my house.

  Eight

  I reached for my Glock. I held it in my hand with the safety off and jumped to my feet. I kept the lights off so I wouldn’t give away my position. I didn’t notice it when I first came home. Maybe I was too tired. Too caught up in the day. My mind was still trying to figure out what happened to Jack Smith and why his car was abandoned.

  I’m usually very perceptive about things, especially when it comes to my house. Instinctively, I always look at the front windows to see if they’ve been tampered with. They weren’t. The front door was locked when I came home and there weren’t any signs of someone trying to wedge it open. Henry came to the door like he always does. Nothing in the room was out of place. I didn’t check the back door like I normally do. The lights were off. The house was dark. And that was the problem. I came home five hours earlier to feed Henry and before I left, I turned the dome light on overtop of the stove. Now the light was off. I didn’t notice it until I started drifting off to sleep.