“Just coffee, please,” I answered. “I need to get going and make some hay while the sun is still shining.”
* * *
Mother had spent the night at Megan’s, so when I stopped off to get my father’s ladder, I didn’t worry about waking her. She was also another reason I had left Megan’s so early. I didn’t want to rehash the conversation from the night before. She didn’t want us to turn in the cell phone or floppy disk. She was afraid that any investigation might uncover her deed of staging Mike’s accident.
My father’s ladder was nearly covered by weeds. They had entwined themselves between the rungs of the ladder, making it extremely difficult to pick up off the ground. It looked like I needed to add cutting the grass and weeds around my mother’s house to my list of chores. On a hunch, I decided to check his garden hose as well. I felt a sense of relief when I found it still connected to the faucet on the back of the house. It didn’t come close to matching the hose Mike used to commit suicide.
The drive back to Hal’s house didn’t take long. This time I passed the Pig’s Roast without hesitation; my thoughts were still on what to do with Nixon’s cell phone. Bennet had already discovered Nixon was selling scrap copper, so I didn’t need to worry about the floppy any longer. It would serve no purpose telling him something he already knew. But I couldn’t ignore the cell phone. It clearly implicated Nixon in murder, and I could be in real trouble if I sat on that information.
The porch light was still on when I parked in Hal’s driveway. It made me laugh to myself. To spend all that money on a fancy security system and then leave the porch light burning was like putting an ad in the paper that no one was home.
After untying the ladder and lifting it out of Taylor’s truck, I went around the side of the garage with it balanced on my shoulder. It was a heavy, twenty-foot, aluminum extension-ladder. In my quest to keep it balanced on my shoulder, I didn’t notice the short hose sticking out from a faucet on the side of the house. I tripped and fell flat on my face. When I got up to brush myself off, I saw a security camera tucked under the roof’s eave. I saluted the camera with my middle finger and mouthed a few choice words for it to see. When I bent back down to pick up the ladder, I saw the hose that had tripped me. There was no doubt it was the missing part of Mike’s hose.
I left the ladder and went back to the truck. I had to think where I wasn’t being watched. “Why would Mike take a hose from Hal’s, then go home and kill himself?” I asked myself. “Unless, it wasn’t Mike,” I answered. “And whoever it was must have been seen by the camera.”
Chapter 20
At this point, any sane person would have simply called the sheriff and told them what they had found. But it wasn’t a question of sanity. There was still the possibility that Bennet was involved somehow. If that was the case, all he had to do to cover his tracks was get the DVD and destroy it. I had to see that DVD before he did. It was time to fix a roof.
As I went back to work, I thought about the irony of the roof. I recalled how I told Megan I was going to check out the roofing truck in Sedalia, so I could break in and then got sidetracked by Amy asking me to come to her rescue. I had abandoned that plan, and the consequences of breaking and entering, after Fred found the cell phone. Now here I was, ready to commit the felony after all. But this time, I didn’t have to pretend – I had been invited.
Hal must have thought burglars didn’t carry ladders to work and decided not to wire the upstairs windows to the security system. I knew that from my previous visit. Megan had a laugh at that insider knowledge – she surely must have guessed how I came about that privileged information.
The house was built on a slope, with the back decks facing the water, making the second story decks three stories high because of the walkout basement. My ladder was only good for twenty feet - at least ten feet short of my goal.
I had to first climb the stairs, with my ladder on my shoulder, to the first-story deck, then set it up to get to the upper deck. I didn’t even try the doors on the first deck, for I could see a security sensor through the glass. Opening the door would send a silent alarm to the security company, which would in turn call the sheriff.
Although the French doors on the deck over the sunroom didn’t have any sensors, they were locked. I couldn’t simply lift the door out of its tracks like the burglar at Meg’s did; however, I couldn’t believe my luck. The carpenters had installed the doors with their hinges facing out so the doors would swing out instead of in. I simply popped out the hinge pins and removed a door. Then I unlocked the deadbolt, replaced the door on its hinges, and went inside. I quickly went down the stairs to Hal’s office and stopped cold. The monitor on his desk had six different camera views. One of the cameras was looking at the back of the house. It must have taken a video of me removing the French doors.
I had no problem erasing the evidence of my breaking-and-entering. After going into the hidden room where Hal kept the surveillance system, I pressed the back button on the recorder and found the video showing me removing the door and deleted it. Then I went over to the boxes where Hal kept the backup DVDs. I already knew I couldn’t trust Hal’s labels and wanted to make sure I got the right one, so I took the four remaining disks. Now all I needed to do was figure out a way to disable the system long enough for me to make a clean getaway. All my effort would be for naught if the cameras caught me leaving the house through the master bedroom.
The six cameras were connected to the back of the security console. Fortunately, they were labeled, so I pulled the wire to the camera covering the back of the house. I didn’t remove it all the way. I left it plugged into the jack just enough to disable the camera and make it look like it had come loose. It amazed me how clever I could be at times. I closed the hidden door and returned to Hal’s office. There was a red alarm icon flashing on the security monitor.
Calm down, Jake, I told myself. The alarm was probably intended only for Hal and the security company. A burglar would not have known he set off the alarm until the police showed up. The security company would more than likely make a call to the house before contacting the sheriff. Would there be a code I would need to answer if I pretended to be Hal? If I failed to supply the code, or didn’t answer, how much time did I have before the sheriff arrived? Think, Jake, calm down and think.
My first impulse was to run out the door and get away as fast as I could. Then reason took over. Once the security company called in the alarm, I would have at least half an hour before the sheriff would show, and then, they would almost certainly review the video before they did that. My first task had to be to disable the video recorder, so I shut down the computer that controlled the cameras. That would prevent the security company from remotely un-deleting my break-in. Now if they tried to review the recording or my escape, they would be out of luck. Of course, nothing would stop someone from rebooting the system. I thought about taking the recorder with me, but then they would know for sure there was a burglary. I needed to make it look like a malfunction. The speaker from Hal’s surround system should do the trick.
I ran into the media room and disconnected the bass speaker from the surround-sound system. Returning to the surveillance room, I removed the back cover of the speaker cabinet to expose its heavy magnet. I then ejected the removable disk drive from the recorder, removed it from its caddy, and passed it over the magnet several times. After returning the drive to its caddy and inserting it back into the recorder, I tried booting the system. Perfect, the hard drive would not boot. I had erased the boot sector and hopefully all the data on the drive. Now anyone would think the system simply malfunctioned. Not bad for a novice burglar, I thought. Then the phone started to ring while I was putting the speaker back in place. I froze. Should I answer it and pretend to be Hal?
“This is your captain calling. You have won two free tickets to the Bahamas; however, you must return our call within the next twenty minutes to claim your prize.”
* * *
When I pulled in
to its parking lot, The Pig’s Roast was a welcome sight. Though I had made a pact with God to walk the straight and narrow after leaving Hal’s house, I didn’t think that included a drink to calm my nerves. The dreaded call from the security company never came – at least not while I was in the house. My escape had been uneventful, except for tripping over the garden hose again in my haste to get away.
Linda’s replacement was on duty when I took my seat at the bar next to Tonto. “What can I get you, Sweetie?” she asked. Her outfit was skimpier than anything Linda ever wore.
When I answered, I tried my best to look her in the eyes. “Coors please. And could I use your phone? My cell doesn’t seem to work out here.”
She bent down to get my beer from the cooler under the bar. I felt like a pervert, but I couldn’t help but stare when she leaned down. She opened my beer, wiped the wet bottle with her bar-towel, and smiled as she handed it to me. “Sure, Honey. It’s at the end of the bar. Over there by the cat’s bed.”
Maybe she saw me blush when she caught me looking at her ample breasts. But the light was dim, so I acted like nothing happened and went to the phone. Megan picked up on the second ring.
I was still nursing my beer when Megan walked in. The barmaid had left me alone, so she could wait on the lunch crowd that was already starting to fill the tables in the dining area. Except for Tonto, Megan and I had the bar to ourselves, so I told her about my adventure. Tonto didn’t miss a word.
Megan seemed to light up the dim bar when I told her the garden hose was a perfect match to the one found in Mike’s truck. “Then Mike didn’t kill himself,” she said. “Do you really think the DVD will show who did it?”
Before I could answer, Bennet walked in with two other deputies.
Chapter 21
Bennet and his deputies took a table toward the front and acted like he didn’t recognize Meg or me. It was just as well; I would have confessed before he could read me my rights.
The waitress saw the deputies, too. She quickly finished taking an order at one of the window tables and headed toward the deputies. Bennet and company had already selected a table close to the bar. “Well hello, Handsome,” she said when she made it to their table. “You’re late this afternoon.”
Bennet smiled at her and took the menu she handed him. “Had to check out a false alarm, Jen. Those boys in Kansas City think we have nothing better to do than play nursemaid to their security systems.” He gave her back the menu without looking at it. “Can you make me a quick burger? I’ve got to be in court this afternoon.”
Megan poked me in the ribs. I turned on my barstool to see why. “Don’t stare at them,” she whispered.
I ignored my sister, turning back in time to see the waitress pretend to pout before addressing the other deputies. “How about you fellas? You want a burger too?”
When he looked up at the waitress, the deputy facing me saw me watching. “Miss, could we have our check when you get a chance?” I said, hoping he would think that’s why I had been looking in their direction.
“Be right with you,” she answered in an irritated voice without looking at us. My ploy must have worked. The deputy ignored me and picked up the conversation with the waitress.
* * *
Fred was waiting for us in the driveway. I couldn’t remember a time when he had been so happy to see me. “Did you miss me, Boy?”
He answered by catching me off balance, knocking me off my feet, and planting a wet kiss on my face.
“What about me, Freddie? Don’t I get a kiss too,” Megan said between laughs.
Fred stopped kissing me long enough to turn his attention to my sister. It was enough to get Fred off me, so I could get to my feet and brush myself off. “Looks like the boys forgot to let him back in again,” I said, looking at Kevin’s empty parking space. “I wonder how long he’s been out here?”
“They must have put him out for this,” Megan said, waving a business card at me that she had found by the lock box. “It’s from one of Sam’s investors. He says he’d like to make an offer on the house.” It was like someone flipped the mood switch. Her cheerful smile turned to a frown. She put the card in her purse, fished out the keys, and let us in the house.
I went to straight to the kitchen with Fred at my heels while Megan went to her office – presumably to call the investor. I busied myself with filling Fred’s water bowl and getting a couple of beers from the refrigerator, all the while trying to listen to Megan’s conversation through her open office door.
“Let me think about it.” I heard her say. “I’ll call you back tomorrow and let you know.”
“Well?” I asked when she joined us in the kitchen. I could see she was on the verge of tears.
“Let’s go out on the deck and drink those, Jake,” she said, pointing at the beers.
I followed her out the sliding door, and Fred followed me. He must have sensed the change in her mood; his tail was no longer wagging. “The offer is less than what I owe,” she said after taking a long drink. “He says I can probably get the bank to do a short sell, whatever that is, and at least not go into foreclosure.”
“It’s where the bank agrees to take less than what you owe and not come after you for the difference. I believe it’s a black mark on your credit but not as bad as foreclosure.”
“Who the hell cares about my credit rating? The bastards can foreclose for all I care before I walk away losing everything I put in this place.” She started to cry.
Fred was as upset by her outburst and tears as I was. He laid his head on her lap, as if to say it would be okay. He couldn’t talk, so I found the words for both of us. “Just tell them no, Meg. I still have my life insurance I can borrow against. It should keep the bank off your back for a few more months.”
My words of comfort opened the flood gates. I would never understand women if I lived into the next century. “What’d I say?” I asked Fred as Megan ran to her room.
Instead of running after her, like I used to with Natalie, I decided to let it go and check out the DVDs I stole from Hal. Fred and I were in the kitchen, watching the surveillance video on my laptop, when Megan rejoined us half an hour later. I was in the process of watching Nixon cut the garden hose. “Are you sure it’s the same hose?” she asked while looking over my shoulder at the computer screen.
“No doubt about it. Watch this,” I answered and clicked on the fast-reverse icon. When it reached the point where I wanted, I clicked on the forward button. We could see all six camera angles, each in a different frame. Nixon and Mike were seen on the deck camera, and an SUV could be seen coming down the driveway in another frame. My computer didn’t have the right software to select individual frames, so we couldn’t hear the audio on any of them. Mike was pointing a shotgun at Nixon, and the two seemed to be arguing. Megan and I watched Linda leave the SUV, and then we saw her on the deck camera. Mike must have seen her, too. When he turned to look, Nixon grabbed the gun out of Mike’s hands and hit him over the head with it. The deck camera captured it all in high definition color video.
Because she was behind me, I couldn’t see Megan’s expression, but I heard her gasp when we saw Nixon dragging Mike’s limp body to the minivan and putting him in the passenger seat. Then we saw him go to the side of the garage and cut the hose. The camera kept recording, for nearly a minute, after Nixon had driven off with Mike slumped over the minivan’s dash. The time stamp on the next video showed that half an hour had passed. This time, we saw Nixon and Linda return. He got out of her car and went around the house, out of the camera’s view. Then she left. A few minutes later, we saw Nixon at the dock, leaving in his boat. It had the words ‘Bass Tracker’ written on the side in letters only a blind person could miss.
Oddly enough, that was all the video there was. I had expected to see Hal show up, but I couldn’t find it on any of the DVDs. He must have destroyed any trace of his presence to protect himself.
I turned around to say something to Megan. Tears quietly rolle
d down her cheeks. “We should give this to the sheriff,” I said. “I could send him an anonymous copy from a ‘concerned citizen’ or something like that. I don’t relish spending twenty years in a Missouri prison for burglary.”
* * *
I spent the next day getting ready for my trip home, and Megan went into town to take our mother to church. Or maybe it was the other way around. Megan wasn’t much of a church person, but it was easier than listening to our Mother nag. It also gave me time to think things through. The next morning, we took the DVD to Rosenblum.
I had decided to give him the original and keep a copy for myself. The thought of being tracked down by some hidden electronic code on the DVD had kept me up most of the night. I remembered reading that was how they caught the BTK killer a few years back. He had sent them a floppy disk that was traced to a computer at the church where he did some volunteer work – or something like that.
At first, Rosenblum was a little put out when we barged into his office unannounced. But his attitude quickly changed after we managed to get him to watch the video. “And all this time, I thought it was Hal,” he said, when we saw Nixon drive away in his boat.
Megan had been watching the lawyer watch the video. “I’d like to see the insurance company claim Mike killed himself now,” she said, grinning.
Rosenblum returned her smile with a frown. “I wish it were that easy, Meg. Until I can get the coroner to change the death certificate, they won’t give you a penny. And he won’t do that based on what I’ve seen here. How do we know Nixon didn’t take Mike home to sleep it off? We don’t see him actually kill Mike, do we?”
Megan’s quit grinning. It looked like she might start crying, so I jumped in, “Come on, Ira, you know how the system works. Put a little pressure on those guys, and you’ll have a confession before the sun sets.”
[To Die For 01] - A View to Die For (2012) Page 22