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

by Charles Prandy

  “Nope. House was clean. Either she wasn’t the one who pulled the trigger or she already tossed the gun somewhere.”

  “Press is going to have a field day with this one. It’s not every day that a wife kills her husband and then decapitates the body.” He tapped his fingers on my desk. “What about the colleague, the one who lied to you?”

  “He went MIA. We put an APB out on him. He’ll show up somewhere.”

  “Okay. Keep me posted. Good work, Jacob.”

  “Thanks, Captain.”

  Eighteen

  My phone rang at two-forty-three in the morning. I know because I was looking at the clock. I couldn’t sleep. I was having another one of my moments. I was missing my wife badly. I was sitting at the edge of my bed looking at my Glock. It was on the night stand next to the clock. The lights were dimmed and the bright red numbers glowed.

  “Hello.”

  “Jacob, sorry to call so late. This is John Ballard.”

  “John? Is everything okay?”

  “Not really. She’s gone.”

  “Who’s gone? What are you talking about?”

  “Erin Smith. I just hung up with her lawyer. He can’t find her. He was worried so he went to her house. All the lights were off. He walked around the side of the house and was able to look through one of the windows. He said the house is empty.”

  I was at a loss for words.

  “Jacob?”

  “Yeah, I’m here.”

  “We have her passport so she hasn’t left the country.”

  “Do you know when she was last seen or heard from?”

  “Not since this morning after the presentment. Her lawyer says once she was released, he was supposed to meet with her later in the day to strategize. She never showed up.”

  I looked at the clock again. It was two-forty-seven in the morning. Erin Smith was presented at 9 a.m. yesterday. Finalizing paperwork and getting released from custody would have taken about two hours. That means the last time she was seen by her lawyer would have been around 11 a.m.

  First question I had in my head was who came up with the bail? Her bail was set at $500,000 of which she would have to pay ten percent or $50,000. Second question was what moving company moved her stuff? There’s no way she could have done it alone so quickly. I was in her house. It was full of furniture. It had two stories and probably three bedrooms. A house that size would take about five hours to move, if there were at least four men doing the moving.

  I started thinking some more. She was planning on leaving. Probably had the move scheduled for a few days or a week. I wasn’t sure, but I didn’t think a moving company would be able to move like that with just a few hours’ notice. So the move was planned. But the arrest wasn’t. She didn’t know that she was getting arrested the day before. She didn’t know that she was going to be spending the night in jail. Movers like to come to the house early in the morning to start moving. So she wasn’t home to let them in. But somebody else probably was. Who?

  I temporarily forgot that I was still on the phone with John. “So she’s got about a fourteen hour jump on us,” I said.

  “Yeah, sounds about right.”

  “She more than likely wouldn’t have gone to the airports because we’d be able to track her. So she left by car. Fourteen hours. She could be as far south as Georgia, north as Massachusetts or Rhode Island, or west as Kentucky or Indiana.”

  “So where do we start?”

  “We’ll track her credit cards to see if they’ve been used. They’ll tell us where she’s been. But more importantly, I believe that she’s not alone. If we can find out who she’s with then maybe we’ll know where she went.”

  Nineteen

  3:30 a.m.

  Stacey Windfield’s alarm clock was scheduled to wake her up at five. Her five o’clock alarm usually started her day. At ten past five she’d just be finishing brushing her teeth and then she’d be putting on her gym clothes. At twenty-five past five she’d be grabbing her keys and heading out the door to make it in time for her 6 a.m. body pump class. Her class lasted an hour. She’d shower at the gym, dress for work and pull in front of her job at 7:50 a.m. That was Stacey Windfield’s daily routine. It hadn’t changed in three years. She was like clockwork.

  At three-thirty in the morning, her bedroom light came on. It took her brain a minute to realize that the room changed from dark to light. She slowly moved and when her eyes opened, they instantly went to the clock. She saw that it was three-thirty. She turned around and screamed when she saw three intruders standing by the door of her bedroom.

  They were wearing black ski masks and black clothes. Black gloves covered their hands. Stacey continued screaming but stopped when Max raised his index finger to his mouth and motioned for her to be quiet.

  “Who the hell are you?” Stacey nervously asked.

  “You’ll need to get dressed,” Max said.

  “Dressed? Why? What do you want?”

  “In due time. But first get dressed.”

  “Dressed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why? Where are you taking me?”

  “Please, just get dressed. I won’t ask nicely again.”

  Stacey stared at the three intruders. No one spoke. The room fell deathly quiet. Then she removed the covers and stepped out of bed. She was wearing a white tank top T-shirt and blue shorts. She fought back tears as she rummaged through her dresser for a pair of sweat pants and a shirt. She quickly put them on and then faced the intruders.

  “Thank you,” Max said. “Now, what I’m about to say to you is extremely important. I know that you’re in shock right now and your brain’s trying to compute what’s going on. You have a million and one questions flying through your head right now, but I need you to focus. Can you do that?”

  Stacey nodded.

  “Good,” Max replied. He slowly took a step closer to Stacey. “What happens in the next hour, good or bad, totally depends on your willingness to cooperate. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” Stacey replied softly.

  “Good. I’m glad we’re on the same page.”

  Max turned his head to the left and saw Stacey’s cell phone on her dresser.

  “First thing’s first. You have a sister named Kim. I want you to call her.”

  Stacey’s eyes widened. Her voice rose when she said Kim’s name.

  “Calm down. Call your sister.”

  Stacey hesitantly walked across the room and picked up her cell phone. She looked at Max and then to the other two intruders before calling her sister. She tapped a button and raised the phone to her ear.

  “Put it on speaker,” Max said.

  She tapped a button again and the sound of the ringing phone filled the room. The phone rang three times and a crying voice answered.

  “Stacey?”

  “Kim! What’s going on?”

  “Do what they say.”

  Stacey started crying.

  “There’s a man in my house. He said that you’d be calling. He said to tell you to do what you’re told and I won’t get hurt.”

  Max reached over and took the phone from Stacey. He pushed the off button and Kim’s crying voice quickly disappeared.

  Stacey cried harder.

  “Stacey, control yourself,” Max said.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “Because I need you to do something for me.”

  Stacey started to calm down.

  “What do you want?”

  “You’re the branch manager at Chase Bank. You’ve been the branch manager there for three years. You have an MBA from American University. Your undergraduate degree was in finance. Your parents live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in a twenty-five-hundred square foot, three-bedroom house. Your dad retired five months ago as an accountant and your mom still works as a math teacher. Your sister lives alone and was sound asleep just like you up until a few minutes ago.”

  Max dug in his front pocket and pulled out a cell phone.

 
“In forty-five minutes I’m supposed to make a call. What I tell the person on the other end could change your life forever. Forty-six minutes from now, your parents could be childless if you don’t do what I want.”

  “Please, I’ll do anything,” Stacey said through tears. “Just tell me what you want.”

  “I want you to open the vault at your bank.”

  Twenty

  At 3:55 Max, his two associates, and Stacey Windfield were parked across the street from Chase Bank. Stacey was in the front passenger seat sitting across from Max who was in the driver’s seat. Max’s associates were in the back seat. They were sitting in a grey 2007 Volvo. The car was powerful enough to compete with police cruisers if it came to it, and sturdy enough to absorb bumps without falling apart.

  The four sat in the car and watched their surroundings. They were in a mostly suburban area. A shopping strip was two miles down the road and a gas station was a half-mile from them. Max and his associates were quiet, but Stacey’s breathing was erratic and nervous. Five more minutes passed. The bank was quiet and so were its surroundings. No one was hanging around at this hour. The streets were bare and the building was dark.

  Max finally turned and looked at Stacey.

  “In order to keep your sister alive you must do everything I say. You don’t move unless I say so. You don’t speak unless spoken to. Your hands stay in your pockets at all times unless I tell you to take them out. Anything outside of this and your sister dies. Are we clear?”

  “Yes.”

  “It only takes a phone call or the absence of a phone call for it to happen.” Max looked at the dash clock. “We’ve got twenty minutes. Any longer and she dies.”

  Max reached his right hand over.

  “Give me the keys.”

  Stacey dug in her pocket and pulled out a ring of keys.

  “Which one opens the door?”

  Stacey pointed to the door’s key.

  “Security code?”

  “6938712.”

  “Keypad?”

  “Next to the first teller’s desk. You’ll have thirty seconds to disarm it.”

  “Camera room?”

  “First door to the left once we’re in the back.”

  “How do they work?”

  “The cameras record to a disc. The disc then automatically saves to a hard drive after twelve hours. The recordings restart every twelve hours.”

  “Where’s the hard drive?”

  “On the computer next to the disc player.”

  Max looked into the rearview mirror and spoke to his two associates in the back seat.

  “Seven minutes and we’re out. No longer.”

  He turned around and looked at the associate sitting behind Stacey.

  “Once we’re inside, I want you to get the disc and the computer.”

  Max turned around, looked at the bank again a once look over and then started the car. He drove the car around the block and parked on the side road. All four stepped out of the car.

  They hurried to the front glass door. Max pushed in the key and turned the knob. The door opened. Max didn’t hear a beeping noise coming from a security system. This one was silent. If it’s not disarmed in thirty seconds, the silent alarm is set off.

  Max found the security keypad near the first teller’s station and saw that a red light was flashing on the keypad. He pushed in the security code and a second later the flashing red light turned to a solid green light. The alarm was off.

  He turned to Stacey and said, “Lead the way.”

  Stacey walked around the corner with her hands in her pockets. They came to a solid wooden door and another keypad.

  “Code?” Max said.

  “3351.”

  Max pushed in the code and the door unlocked.

  They were in another short hallway. The camera room door was the first on the left. They walked past it, but the one associate went inside.

  Stacey took them through another hallway that lead to the vault. The door was large and looked heavy, probably made of ten-inch steel. There was a large keypad on the vault’s door with both numbers and letters.

  Max stepped toward the keypad and looked it over. He looked at Stacey and said, “Code.”

  Stacey told him the code. Max punched it in and the vault clicked. Max pulled the handle and the door opened. A light inside the vault instantly came on, triggered by the opened door.

  Max stepped inside. The vault was probably seven-feet high and six-feet wide. The three walls of the vault had blocks of cash stacked upon one another.

  Max told Stacey to step inside.

  “Which ones are phony? Point with your right hand.”

  Stacey pulled her right hand out of her pocket and pointed at various bricks of money.

  “Grab them.”

  She grabbed four bricks and held them in her hands. Max looked at them but didn’t touch them. They were good fakes, he thought. If he hadn’t known any better he would have thought they were real money. But what he did know was that they either had tracking devices in them or they were filled with a dye that exploded a bright color in the bag, making the rest of the money worthless.

  “Hold them and don’t let go.”

  Max opened three large duffel bags and four minutes later they were filled with the bricks of money.

  Max’s associate grabbed two of the bags and threw the straps over his shoulder. He walked out of the vault leaving Max and Stacey alone. Max reached for the third bag and raised the strap over his shoulder.

  “You were good tonight,” Max said. “But not good enough.”

  Stacey’s eyes widened.

  “I did everything you asked.”

  “Yes, but there was one thing you did that you shouldn’t have done.”

  Stacey’s eyes started to tear. “What?”

  “You trusted me. I’m not a man of my word.”

  Max pulled out a black handgun with a silencer from the back of his pants. He raised the gun to Stacey’s head and pulled the trigger. He turned around and left the vault without watching her body fall to the ground.

  Twenty-one

  At four in the morning, Pat and I were standing in front of Erin Smith’s house. The house was dark. I tested the front door and found it locked. I walked around the side of the house and told Pat to walk around the other side. I found a side door and tried the knob, but it was locked as well. I walked to a side window and peered inside, beaming a flashlight through the window. Jack Ballard was right, I thought. The house was dark and empty.

  I heard footsteps to my left and saw Pat come round from the back of the house.

  “Empty,” she said. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think that no one ever lived here.”

  “She had help,” I said. “There’s no way she could have pulled this off on her own.”

  “You think she and Jack’s colleague had something going on?”

  “Stands to reason right now. Why else would he have lied to us about the last time he saw Jack.”

  We walked back to the front of the house. I looked at my watch. It was 4:03 a.m. I looked around the quiet neighborhood and knew that most of the neighbors were snug in their beds.

  “Looks like we’ve got to wake up a couple of her neighbors. They’re going to be pissed, but we’ve got to find out when that truck was here.”

  I pointed to two houses across the street and told Pat to knock on their doors. I planned on knocking on the doors to the left and right of the house.

  I chose the house to the left first because it was closest. I pushed the doorbell and heard the similar ding dong chime I heard in Erin Smith’s house. The house was quiet. No one stirred for over a minute. I pushed the doorbell again. Then the front porch light came on. An angry man’s voice spoke from the other side of the door.

  “Whoever the hell you are, you better have a damn good reason for waking me up at four in the morning!”

  I raised my badge and held it close to the door’s peephole.

&nbs
p; “Police, Sir. I need to ask you a few questions.”

  “Police? I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “I’m sure you haven’t. But I have some questions about your neighbor, Erin Smith.”

  I heard the deadbolt turn and then the door partially opened. A short, plump man with balding hair stood on the other side of the door. He was wearing a blue robe that was tied in the front.

  “Sorry to have woken you,” I said.

  “What’s this about?”

  “Your neighbor, Erin Smith, seemed to have suddenly moved. Wondering if you saw a moving truck over the past couple of days?”

  “This is about Jack, right? The news ran the story that he’s dead.”

  “Yes, his body was found the other day.”

  The neighbor shook his head.

  “He was a nice guy. Didn’t know him too well, but the times we talked, you could just tell that he was genuinely a nice guy.”

  “What about his wife?”

  “Same thing. They haven’t lived here very long. Kinda kept to themselves. But they were nice people.”

  “So have you seen a moving truck around here lately?”

  “Yeah I saw a truck. A big U-Haul was parked in the driveway the other night.”

  “At night? Are you sure? It wasn’t in the day?”

  “Nope, I’m sure. It was as dark then as it is now. One of my bedroom windows faces their house. I heard people talking which woke me up. I looked out the window and saw the truck in the driveway.”

  “What time was this?”

  “Close to midnight.”

  “Did you get a look at anyone?”

  “I could only see one guy. Looked like he had a leaf pressed on his forehead or something.”

  “Leaf?”

  “That’s what it looked like to me.”

  I thanked the neighbor for his time and handed him my card. I told him to give me a call if he thinks of anything else.

  I met Pat back at the car.

  “Anything good?” I asked.

  “Neighbor said she saw a U-Haul truck the other night in the driveway.”