16
Kat’s knuckles ached from the cold as she knocked on Takahashi’s door one more time. She’d been standing on the porch for five minutes but still no answer. She would give him another minute. His beat up Ford F150 was parked in the driveway, and from the porch she could clearly make out muddy footprints down the driveway. The footprints were hers, and the absence of tire marks or other tracks made it clear that no one else had recently come or gone. The place was eerily quiet. Though the rain had stopped, the low cloud cover made it feel more like early evening than late afternoon.
There was a damp chill in the air, and Kat’s mood was somber. After slogging through Liberty’s files all day yesterday, she’d found nothing further. Tomorrow was the board briefing, and she had nothing to go on. She desperately needed to show progress, otherwise Nick would likely overrule Susan and she would be out the door even sooner than her Friday deadline. The evidence seemed to point to someone besides Bryant, but she had no way to prove it just yet. Ken Takahashi was her last hope, and she wasn’t about to let him get off easy by not returning her calls. Time was running out. She had to talk to him today.
Her office break-in had only heightened her sense of urgency. After the meth addict attack, Jace and Uncle Harry had moved all her stuff and the cats over to the house, where she had slept last night. Verna’s house, as she now thought of it. It was an argument she would never win with Jace, but she had to admit she felt safer last night, staying with Jace instead of alone in her Gastown office.
Kat hadn’t planned to run by Takahashi’s house. But her morning run from Verna’s house had brought her within a kilometer of his place, so she might as well drop in. His phone could be out of service. Or maybe he didn’t want to talk to her again. If he was avoiding her, he might not answer the door if he saw her car in his driveway.
She was accustomed to not having her calls returned in situations like this, but something just felt wrong. So she waited, goose bumps forming from the damp clothes clinging to her skin.
She pressed her ear against the door. It was faint, but she thought she could hear a sound. She tried to stop her teeth from chattering and listened harder. This time it was closer to the door. It was the dog crying. Now he came closer to the door, more insistent with every moment.
“Hey, boy. It’s okay. Anyone home?” Another whimper. This time the whining was even more disconsolate. The dog began pawing on the inside of the door and his crying grew louder.
“Ken? You there?” No answer. Kat scanned the room. The window blinds were drawn, unusual since it was the afternoon. Strange, but by itself it didn’t mean anything. Still, Kat had a bad feeling. Something was wrong. Why was the dog whining at her if Takahashi was home? Kat felt the door handle to the covered porch. It was unlocked.
She entered the mudroom and knocked on the interior door. Several jackets hung along one wall with boots and shoes piled in a mass underneath. A wooden box on a small table caught Kat’s eye. It was the same box of rocks Ken had shown her on her previous visit. She picked it up and hesitated for a moment before opening. Takahashi wouldn’t mind, she reasoned.
The box contained sample rocks from several mines, all neatly labeled and in individual compartments. She scanned the contents and found one from Mystic Lake. It was the same one Ken had shown her on her previous visit. She studied it intently, trying to remember what Ken had said about the sample.
The Lab was now scratching furiously at the door, yelping anxiously. The light was on in the kitchen, and through the curtains Kat could see the dog’s shadow, jumping.
She tried the handle. It turned. The door was unlocked.
Should she go in? She felt funny just entering without being invited. Still, the Lab’s behavior was disturbing. Maybe Ken had a medical problem and needed help.
Kat turned the handle and opened the door. What she saw made her stop in her tracks in horror.
17
Kat’s eyes followed the blood trail that snaked through the kitchen towards the hall. With growing horror she looked down at her feet. She was standing in it! She jumped and slid sideways, almost falling in the congealed blood before her palm finally found the wall. Bile rose in her throat as she steadied herself and stared at her smeared Adidas imprints on the linoleum.
Broken glasses and dishes littered the floor. The kitchen counter was cluttered, except for an arc to the right of the sink, like someone’s arm had swept across it. The Lab was at her side, whining and looking up at Kat, his eyes pleading. Then he barked and feinted towards the hall, urging Kat to follow.
Kat headed towards him but stopped, listening. There was no sound except the dog’s nails clipping across the floor unevenly. He was limping and stopped near the hallway entrance, favoring his left side. She didn’t remember a limp when she had visited Takahashi before. She walked over to him, careful to stay out of the bloody path this time, and knelt down to examine his right hind leg.
“Here, let me see,” she said as she gently touched his hip, working her way down to his foot. The Lab didn’t protest until she brushed his nails, at which point he yelped and pulled his paw away. All four paws were evenly matted and stained with blood, but only this one seemed to hurt.
“Good dog.” A chunk of glass was wedged in between his nails. “Sorry, boy, it’s got to come out.”
She wedged her pinky between his toes and swiftly pushed the glass outwards as hard as she could. The shard fell to the floor as he pulled back his paw and skittered to the other side of the kitchen.
A loud bang cracked the silence. Kat jumped, startled. Someone was here. Why had she let the dog distract her? She panicked as she imagined different scenarios, all ending badly. She had come here alone, and no one knew she was here. No one even knew she was out for a run. She froze as glass broke to her left. She saw a black figure coming towards her out of the corner of her eye. Whoever made the noise was coming to get her.
It was the Lab, no longer limping. A half broken glass lay on the floor. His tail must have knocked if off the counter, probably after hitting the half-open cupboard door and slamming it shut. She breathed a sigh of relief. If she got out of here in one piece, she would never do anything so stupid again. She turned around to go back outside, but the Lab blocked the door, trying to herd her towards the hallway.
Dogs sense danger, right? If someone was there, the dog would be growling. One quick look and she would leave. Kat crept beside the sticky path into the hallway.
Long streaks of blood marred the beige walls. Her eyes followed the bloodied handprints further along the wall as they morphed into less defined smudges. Her eyes traced a set of finger smears as they slipped down towards the floor. That’s when she saw him.
Ken Takahashi was half lying, half propped up against the bathroom doorframe at the end of the hall. His right arm lay across his chest, as if trying to staunch the blood that had soaked through his blue flannel shirt. He stared straight ahead at Kat, eyes open but seeing nothing.
Kat panicked as she surveyed the scene. Was the killer still here? Was Takahashi’s murder connected to Liberty? Of course it was. That meant the killer would be after her too. Did the killer know where she was right now?
She ignored the Lab, which paced anxiously between Takahashi’s body and Kat, brown eyes pleading with Kat to do something. Kat froze for a moment, unable to breathe or make sense of the thoughts racing through her head. The killer could still be somewhere in the house, but she didn’t dare look. She needed help. Now.
She searched frantically for a phone, finally locating a cordless phone in the kitchen. Her hands trembled as she called Cindy. After several attempts she was able to stop herself from shaking long enough to press the numbers on the keypad.
“Cindy?” Kat’s voice wavered as she tried to calm down and stop her hands from shaking as she held the handset. “Help me.”
“Kat? What’s wrong? You sound kind of upset.”
“Oh my god. Oh my god, Cindy. You’ve got to help me. Takah
ashi’s dead! Somebody’s killed him! I found him and I think he’s been dead for awhile.” Kat returned to the hallway. It was real all right. She gagged as she stared at the body and the bloodied floor. Takahashi’s skin was beginning to discolor, and the smell was unbearable.
“Kat, who’s Takahashi? Where are you? Are you with anybody?”
“I’m at Ken Takahashi’s house. He’s Liberty’s former chief geologist. He wasn’t returning my calls, so I figured I would stop by and then when I heard the dog whining I thought he was in trouble, so I opened the door and went in, and then when I saw all the blood I kind of freaked and—”
“Kat! Slow down. Listen to me. Have you called the police?”
“I’m calling you. You are the police.”
“Kat! You have to call 911. Right now. Wait a sec—are you calling from his house? Are you using his phone?”
“Yes. I forgot my cell phone and when I saw him I thought I’d better call someone right away.”
“Holy crap. Kat, listen to me. You’re at a crime scene. Do you realize what you’ve just done? You’ve added your fingerprints and DNA to a murder scene.” Cindy continued, “Stay right there. Don’t call anyone else or touch anything. I’ll call homicide and meet you there.”
The homicide detectives had questioned her for several hours, having her repeat the chain of events that lead to the discovery of Takahashi. Then she had to provide fingerprints, a DNA sample, and snippets of the clothing she had worn in order to exclude her evidence from the murder scene.
Cindy finally dropped her off at ten p.m. She scarcely remembered leaving for her run early that afternoon. Here she was at Verna’s once again, a house that didn’t belong to her. No matter what, she just seemed to keep coming back here.
She trudged through the front gate and up the steps, exhausted. She was searching for her keys and juggling Chinese takeout when her foot hit something on the front porch. She ignored it, turned the key, and pulled her shoes off in the front hallway. As she was about to close the front door she saw him, lying on the front porch. His fur was matted with blood, and his neck was slit. Kat froze, paralyzed by the sight of Buddy’s lifeless body.
18
Kat jumped as the front door opened. Jace stood in the doorway.
“Kat? Where were you? The contractor waited an hour, but I couldn’t stall him anymore. He won’t start the work without both our signatures on the contract. You know we can’t function without electricity. It’s going to take weeks to get the guy back here.”
Jace’s arms were folded across his chest, a flashlight clenched in his right hand. She didn’t need to see his face to know he was furious.
She had forgotten all about the electrician appointment. The latest calamity to befall their project was unsafe electrical wiring. The city inspector, visiting on another matter this morning, had determined the ancient knob and tube wiring had to be upgraded. Contractors willing to work on old houses were hard to find, and this guy was the one and only electrician Jace could convince to visit and give an estimate. It turned out to be another ten thousand-dollar hit to their bottom line. They’d be lucky to get their initial investment out of the house when they sold it, if that day ever came.
Kat didn’t answer, instead pointing through the open door to Buddy’s lifeless form on the porch.
“What the hell?” Jace brushed past her onto the porch, shining the flashlight beam on Buddy. He knelt down to examine the cat. “Who—”
“Didn’t you hear anything?” she asked weakly as she followed him outside. “How did Buddy get out?”
Buddy never went outside, content to follow Kat around. When she left a room, so did he. He was the same with Jace. Napping with one eye open, always keeping someone within view. He was insecure that way, a throwback to being abandoned at the local animal shelter. Why hadn’t Jace noticed him gone?
“I don’t know. He was sleeping on the couch while I was working on the dining room floor. Then the contractor arrived.” Jace raised a hand to his mouth. “We had the door open for a minute to bring some tools in. Buddy was underfoot and in the way. Maybe he went out on the porch to avoid being stepped on.”
“Can’t you pay attention to more than one thing at a time?” Kat snapped. She wished she could turn the clock back and steer a different course. Before Liberty, before buying this stupid house, and before things got so complicated with Jace.
“C’mon, Kat—that’s unfair. I’m sorry I didn’t notice Buddy, but I’ve been trying to salvage what’s left of the fir floors after the flooding. I’ve got an eight a.m. work deadline and I haven’t even got my story started yet. I finally get an electrician to show up, and you’re nowhere to be found. Why didn’t you call?”
Kat started to explain—Takahashi, the police, the dog. But a lump formed in her throat as the magnitude of it hit her. She sat down on the porch, crying. Everything had gone from bad to worse. Getting kicked out of her apartment, fighting with Jace over the house they never should have bought. And poor Buddy. She had let him down.
“Hey. I’m sorry about Buddy.” Jace sat down beside her and wrapped his arm around her. He pulled her closer. “I’ve been practically tripping over him all day, so I should have noticed something was wrong.”
“Why would anyone slit his throat?”
“I don’t know.” Jace stood up and padded back to Buddy, covering the porch with the flashlight beam. He stopped on a palm-sized rock and bent down.
“Look at this,” he said as he picked up a paper pinned directly underneath the rock. He held it in front of her, lighting it with the flashlight. “Who would do this, Kat?”
The typewritten warning contained only two words.
DEAD KAT
“I—I don’t know.” Kat shivered, suddenly feeling the cold. She stood up. “The only thing I can think of is Liberty. But that’s ridiculous. I’ve been on the case less than a week, and haven’t come up with any findings yet. Nothing to warrant a death threat, if that’s what this is.”
Jace wrapped his arms around her, enveloping her in the warmth of his body. She buried her tear-stained face in his thick cotton shirt and hugged him back, forgetting for once whether it was appropriate or not.
“Are you sure? If you believe Takahashi’s murder is related to Liberty, why not Buddy?”
“Takahashi’s different. He’s an ex-employee of Liberty, and he was a whistleblower. I’m just a hired hand, tracking down their stolen money. If they don’t want me to investigate, why hire me in the first place?”
“Maybe you’re asking too many questions, going down avenues they don’t want you to.”
“Well, the falsified production definitely goes beyond the scope of what they hired me for. It appears to be another fraud, and odds are they’re related. But no one knows I’ve discovered it yet. Except you and Harry. And Cindy knows a little.”
“Not Takahashi?”
Kat tried to recall the conversation.
“No. But Takahashi didn’t think those rocks came from Mystic Lake.” She gave Jace a summary of their discussion, including Ken Takahashi’s overview of the Mystic Lake Mine. The doctored results certainly kept her up at night. She hadn’t discussed her findings with Susan or anyone else at Liberty, but maybe Takahashi had, despite his denials. She would never know the answer to that one.
“Let’s go inside.”
Kat followed Jace and the flashlight beam. He picked up the Chinese takeout, still sitting on the entry table, and moved into the living room, depositing the food on the coffee table. A dozen candles on the coffee table and fireplace mantle gave the room a soft glow. Under different circumstances, Kat would have liked the atmosphere.
She sat on the couch as Jace walked around the living room, checking windows and doors. All were shut except for a small window in the living room, too small for a person, but large enough for a cat. Had it been open when she left this morning? Kat shivered as she tried to remember.
“We should call the police, Kat,” Jace sai
d, moving towards the dining room windows.
“Why? They’re not going to do anything about Buddy.”
“Maybe not, but they need to know about the threat, especially the note. This isn’t random. Someone’s threatening to kill you.” Jace disappeared into the kitchen.
“I’ve had enough of the police tonight. I’ll call in the morning.” Kat eyed the Chinese takeout and realized she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. She opened the bag and the scent of lemon chicken wafted upwards. She felt the containers—still warm enough.
Jace returned from the kitchen with two plates and a couple of cold Tsingtaos.
“It’s too serious not to call,” Jace said. “What if it’s related to your office break-in? Maybe it wasn’t just a homeless person.”
“You’re just looking for things. I don’t think they’re connected at all.”
“Kat, let’s call them. Tonight. At worst they’ll dismiss it. Let the police determine if it’s important or not. If it does turn out to be something more, at least they’ll be aware of it before it’s too late.”
“All right.”
They had barely finished eating when the police arrived, two uniforms and a detective. Jace handed the note to the detective, who lifted it with tweezers and slipped it into a plastic sleeve. They stood on the front porch. Buddy still lay there, lifeless.
“What’s with the flashlight?” The detective asked as he slipped the plastic sleeve into his blazer pocket.
Jace explained. Even in the dim light Kat could see the quick glances exchanged among the three cops. Probably thought they hadn’t paid the electric bill, she thought.
The detective went out to his car as the two uniforms walked around the front yard shrubbery. Searching for what, Kat couldn’t fathom.
Kat watched Jace followed the cops around the yard. She shuddered as she trudged up the stairs, past Buddy, and into the house. She sat back down on the futon and closed her eyes. So much violence in one day. She didn’t feel safe anymore.
[Katerina Carter 01.0] Exit Strategy Page 9