Dead and Gone

by William Casey Moreton

  Would the one rack alone be enough, she wondered?

  It was a risk she couldn’t take. It took nearly forty-five minutes to unload and slide the next two racks into place. Her legs were rubber by the time she had completed the work and her lungs ached. Then she realized the door opened outward instead, and so the racks would be useless for keeping the men out. She glanced around, eyes sweeping in every direction. Her heart thundered in her chest. Time was running out. Then she spotted a length of chain draped on the floor between two wooden pallets beneath a rack against the back wall. She lifted the chain out and carried it to the cooler door. The chain was about four feet long. She tried to think quickly what to do with it. Then she had a simple idea. Her hands trembled as she threaded one end of the chain through a gap in the latch mechanism on the inside of the door. It was a snug fit but she managed to thread it through until she could reach both ends of the chain past the front leg of the first rack and tie a knot with them. The result was that the door would not be able to be opened because the rack was too big to go through the door. They would try to open the door, but hopefully the chain would hold it shut. All she could do was pray it would be enough to keep them out. The dead woman on the floor stared at her through the layers of clear plastic. Ellen turned away, chilled more by the sight of her than by the temperature inside the climate-controlled room.

  Ellen sat in a corner of the cooler away from the door and the body, struggling to warm herself with her arms and hands but failing miserably. There was simply no way of knowing if the barricade would keep them out for very long, if at all. The door was the only way in or out. She sat on the floor shivering violently. Most likely she would freeze to death before they had a chance to kill her.

  * * *

  I spent the night on the couch with my clothes on. If I slept at all I wasn’t aware. Don’t really think I did. Molly slept on the floor by my feet, unaffected by the drama swirling through my head. I blinked open my eyes and listened to the distant sounds of traffic. My back felt like someone had surgically fused a two-by-four to my spine. Molly heard me groan and raised her head.

  “Hungry, girl?” I said.

  She was way ahead of me. I followed her to the kitchen and filled her bowl. Then I left her to enjoy her breakfast and went to the bedroom.

  I stripped out of my clothes and took a hot shower. Twenty-four hours had come and gone since I’d awakened to find a dead woman in my apartment. I still had no idea how she had died or how her body had suddenly disappeared. A big part of me wanted to forget I’d ever seen her, but now I knew who she was and that I’d had dinner with her the evening preceding her death. To make matters worse, her cell phone call log showed that I had called her late that evening and the next morning…and now her cell phone had disappeared along with her. In other words, I was apparently the last person to see her alive.

  After the shower I dressed in jeans and a blue Polo. I combed my wet hair straight back instead of drying it. I wasn’t in the mood for breakfast. I wasn’t really in the mood for anything, really. It was raining outside. I grabbed an umbrella and took the elevator down. It was almost seven-thirty in the morning. I stepped off the curb and gestured for a taxi. A woman was standing outside a bakery across the street, staring at me. At least I thought she was. She seemed somehow familiar but I couldn’t place her.

  The atmosphere at the office was still morose. The door to Terry’s office was open and I saw that his desk was covered in flower arrangements. Carmen was scheduled to land in New York at ten o’clock and Louis expected me to be there to pick her up. I was less than delighted at the thought. There was already too much on my plate for the day but I didn’t see the point in arguing. Food had been delivered and everyone was taking advantage. I retreated to my office and shut the door. Heather didn’t allow me more than three minutes of solitude before delivering a slice of raisin bread to my desk on a paper plate.

  “Breakfast,” she announced.

  I pushed it aside without a word and stared at my lap.

  “Did you eat at all yesterday?” she asked.

  I made a steeple with my thumbs.

  “Earth to Nick…”

  I ran the food question through my brain a half dozen times, searching for an accurate answer.

  “Dinner last night with Nate and Connie,” I said at last.

  “Good. That’s good. You look like crap. Have you slept?”

  “I have no memory of it if I did.”

  “Yeah, I’ve been there,” she said with a hint of a smirk.

  “Have you heard from the police since I left the office yesterday?”

  She shook her head no.

  “What about the funeral?”

  “Waiting on the widow for that,” she said.

  “Shut the door on your way out,” I said, a tad more rudely than intended.

  She hesitated a beat, glaring, before turning away. I noticed a subtle difference in her outfit today. She was dressed all in black, and looked very sexy, with a plunging neckline and spiky heels. Like a hooker at a funeral.

  I logged onto my desktop computer and pulled up Ellen’s email again.

  Don’t worry, I’m fine.

  “Where are you, Ellen?” I said aloud and was glad the door was closed. “What happened to your car?” I called her cell phone for the first time since waking on the sofa and again was sent directly to voice mail. Then I tried her roommate but there was no answer.

  I glanced at my watch and realized I only had about an hour and a half before I needed to leave for LaGuardia. I had little interest spending the next ninety minutes sitting at my desk pretending to work. So I left without saying a word to anyone.

  CHAPTER 19

  When I got to Terry’s apartment building, Herb the doorman was helping an elderly woman into the back of a big Lincoln with a pair of ugly Shih Tzu dogs. The woman was easily eighty years old and her face was pulled as tight as piano wire. People who undergo massive amounts of cosmetic surgery like that crack me up. In New York City they seem to make up fifty percent of the population. She was every bit as ugly as those dogs.

  I watched as Herb finished with his task and waited at the door for him.

  “Mr. Cortland!” he said. “Good morning, sir!”

  “Good morning, Herb. The world treating you right?”

  “Somedays yes, somedays no.”

  “I’d say that’s about right,” I agreed and shook his hand, pressing a folded hundred dollar bill into his palm. “If you have time, I’d like to ask a small favor.”

  He pocketed the cash and ushered me inside. “I’m happy to help in any way I can, sir.”

  What I wanted was to look at the security video from the night of Terry’s death. Herb adjusted his hat and nodded agreeably, leading me into a room behind the small office in the lobby. The room was more like a broom closet, with a tiny desk, a chair, and a flat-panel computer with keyboard. We crowded inside together and I watched as he cued up the tape from the previous night.

  “I hate computers,” he commented, pecking at the keyboard with only one finger. “The world would be better off going back to pencil and paper.”

  “I can’t argue with that.”

  He moved the mouse around and clicked on an icon that opened a new window onscreen.

  “Those detectives had a look at this yesterday morning,” he said.

  I wasn’t surprised.

  “They spent an hour in here but I don’t guess they saw anything worth getting excited about. They seemed convinced that Mr. Burgess was the victim of dumb luck, and I agree,” he said, nodding. “I’d say it’s pretty obvious the poor guy slipped in the tub and hit his head on the side. Still, I’m no detective, but to me there’s no great mystery.”

  He shifted out of the way so that I could sit in the chair and have a clear view of the LCD screen. The technology was antiquated. A timestamp was rolling in the bottom lefthand corner of the screen with the date clearly visible below it. Herb had queued up the exact time fram
e the detectives had looked at. I watched the screen without blinking.

  The camera angle we were watching was in the elevator going up to Terry’s apartment. It was the same elevator I had taken up to talk to the detectives the previous morning. I had been inside that elevator hundreds of times. I watched the footage roll. The current timestamp was right at 9 p.m. We watched the doors open and Terry stepped in. He pressed the lobby bottom and within seconds the doors opened again and he exited at ground level.

  Herb advanced the tape. He then resumed it at 10:30 p.m., exactly ninety minutes later. Next we watched as Terry stepped in from the lobby and pressed the button for his floor, but he didn’t board alone. A male figure in a hooded sweatshirt stepped inside and rode up with him. They then exited together at Terry’s apartment.

  I glanced up at Herb. His eyes flicked at me, then back at the screen.

  “Who was that with him?”

  Herb shrugged. “No idea.”

  “Ever seen him before?”

  “No.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “The cops asked me the same thing, and I’m telling you, never seen that guy before in my life. Never in this building, that’s for sure.”

  I gestured at him to continue.

  The video resumed but no one came or went until well after midnight. We waited and watched.

  “Is that it?” I asked.

  “Keeping watching.”

  Shortly before midnight Terry stepped into the elevator from the lobby. I noticed he was dressed differently but thought nothing of it. He was wearing jeans and a sport coat over a T-shirt. His hair looked like he had been walking through a strong gust off the ocean. He rode up with his hands in the pockets of his jeans and again exited at the floor to his apartment.

  Herb skipped ahead forty-five minutes. The next face we saw was that of the male in the hoodie. This time the hood was off his head and we could clearly see his face. He was young. I ballparked him somewhere from nineteen to twenty-three. He was blonde with dark streaks, and his hair was short in back and long enough on top to fall in sort of a wave to one side. He had a baby face, and likely looked young even for his age. The hoodie was unzipped down the front and his T-shirt was visible. It looked like the same T-shirt Terry was wearing his last trip on the elevator. I found it curious but let the thought pass. Then I used my camera feature on my iPhone to snap a photo of him.

  “Notice that?” Herb said. “Same T-shirt.”

  “Did Curry or Ballard find that interesting?”

  “Who?”

  “The two detectives you talked to.”

  “They noticed, but I couldn’t tell if they cared.”

  “What do you think about the kid?” I asked him.

  Herb shrugged. “I’m baffled. Keep watching, Mr. Cortland.”

  Twenty minutes after the kid went down, the door opened at Terry’s floor and Terry came on. He was wearing the sport coat and T-shirt but his hair didn’t look crazy anymore. He rode it down and exited at the lobby.

  A few beats passed, then Herb reached down closed the video window.

  “That’s it,” he said.

  “What time did he come back?”

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “It’s important,” I said. “Show me the rest. I want to see what time he comes back.”

  “There’s nothing else, Mr. Cortland. That’s the whole show.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense, his body was discovered at five o’clock. We saw him leave just now at two. So somewhere in there he came back. We need to know what time that happened. It’s important,” I repeated.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Cortland. All I can guess is maybe he came in another way.”

  “What other way is there?”

  “The service door in back, but there was nothing on that camera. I already showed it to the cops.”

  I stood and walked out to the lobby. Stepped inside the elevator and stared up at the security camera mounted in one corner of the ceiling.

  “Could anyone have tampered with that footage before you got hold of it?”

  “Not a chance. That room remains locked, and the digital feed is recorded and stored offsite, so there is no way to tamper with or edit it. The way you saw it is exactly the way the offsite server recorded it.”

  “Impossible,” I said.

  He didn’t reply.

  I handed him another twenty. “Thanks for the help, Herb.”

  “Sorry, Mr. Cortland.”

  “I have to go to the airport to pick up Mrs. Burgess.”

  Herb frowned and spoke out of one side of his mouth in a sigh. “I’m glad I’m not you,” he said.

  * * *

  I was barely out the door when Heather called my cell. I hesitated to answer but took the call anyway.

  “I’m busy,” I said in place of hello.

  “Veronica Wagner’s agent called looking for his client. You had dinner with her two nights ago and he hasn’t heard from her since,” she said.

  My stomach dropped and I felt my legs go shaky.

  “You didn’t sleep with her did you?” she asked.

  The world around me blurred. My mind started spinning. I leaned against a wall for balance. I fumbled for words.

  “Marty Klein is still on the other line. He’s getting impatient. What should I tell him?”

  “Tell him we are an ad agency and it’s not our job to babysit his clients.” As I spoke all I could see was Veronica Wagner’s face staring blanking up at the ceiling from my bedroom floor.

  “He wants to talk to you.”

  “Good for him but no dice.”

  “You’re certainly in a mood.”

  “Sorry, it’s been one of those weeks.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “That’s a loaded question.”

  “Yeah, I guess so. Sorry.”

  “I’m on my way to pick up Carmen.”

  “Ouch. Lucky you.”

  “Whatever.”

  “So, what do I tell him about Veronica?”

  “Don’t tell him anything. He will hear from her sooner or later.”

  Then I saw her again, the woman I’d seen watching me across the street from my apartment building earlier that morning. She was closer now, maybe a hundred feet away. It was still raining and she held a green umbrella over her head. I was stepping to the curb for a taxi but stopped and made eye contact with her. She had red hair and looked about mid-thirties but could have passed for a little younger or little older. I blinked once, then twice, making certain she was indeed the same woman. There was no doubt in my mind. Rain sizzled on the sidewalk around me.

  Then she turned and walked directly away from me down the sidewalk. I glanced at my watch. Carmen’s flight was due within the hour. I decided I could risk another ten minutes. The woman disappeared around a corner half a block away. I broke into a jog and attempted to catch up.

  By the time I rounded the corner the woman was going up the front steps of a church. She went inside as the door sighed shut behind her. I sprinted up the steps to the door and went inside. For a moment I was blinded as I had to wait for my eyes to adjust. It was very dark inside. The windows were crafted of stained glass and the only source of internal light was the flicker of candles at the front beyond about two dozen wooden pews.

  There were about five people scattered among the pews with heads bowed in prayer. I wandered slowly down the center aisle. It was hard to distinguish faces in the low light. A sad-looking crucifix hung on the wall behind the podium, blood visible at the Savior’s wounded hands, feet, and side. The woman I had followed was seated on the third row, alone, in the middle of the wooden bench. She had put her umbrella away and made no effort to run when she noticed me moving her way. I sat beside her but neither of us spoke for a long minute.

  “Who are you and why are you following me?” I asked.

  I noticed she was clutching prayer beads in her fists and there were tears in her eyes.

  “My name
is Whitney Greene and I’m a friend of Ellen’s,” she said.

  CHAPTER 20

  Dexter rented a hotel room with a view of the Hollywood sign. It was a cheap room in a cheap hotel on a strip of cheap hotels. When he unlocked the door the room was dark because the drapes were closed. He dropped his bag on a chair by the window and opened the drapes. The TV remote was on the nightstand. He sat on the bed and dialed up CNN on the television. Headlines scrolled across the bottom of the screen while talking heads argued the hot topics of the day. A diplomate from some Eastern European country was being interviewed. Dexter wasn’t interested in anything the diplomate had to say. He patiently waited for any mention of Senator Harrison Shelby’s arrival in Los Angeles.

  While he waited he unwrapped a deli sandwich and took two big bites. He was starving but had no appetite and the wheat bread was stale and tasted like cardboard. He uncapped a bottle of water and washed down his lunch. When the program returned from commercial break they switched to coverage of Senator Shelby giving a speech at a union rally. Dexter turned up the sound and listened carefully. He despised politics and political speeches but on this occasion he studied every word, every nuance. He was particularly interested in the Senator’s body language, every gesture of his hands.

  Dexter went to the bathroom and stared in the mirror.

  “It’s a great honor to be here with you today,” he said to his reflected image, mimicking the senator’s words to the union members gathered at the local rally hall. He coughed to clear his throat and altered his tone slightly to closer mirror the senator’s voice. “This day has been a long time coming for me.” Dexter smiled into the mirror. Not bad, he thought. Then he ran water in the sink to wet his hands, pushing his fingers through his hair.

  Not bad.

  Dexter put on a Dodgers ball cap and dark sunglasses, the same he had worn on the flight from New York, then took the stairs down to his rental car. There was a long day ahead and he had some shopping to do.