Lying in vait jpb-12

by J. A. Jance

  "It wasn't dark yet, but it was getting close when Barney started kicking up the fuss," June answered. "That must have been around four or so. And I think I heard the truck engine start up again right around the time I was putting dinner on the table. That would have been a little before seven."

  Damn. That meant they had almost a four-hour head start on us. They could be almost anywhere in that length of time. They could be almost through Portland if they had headed South down I-5 or two thirds of the way to Spokane on I-90, or across the international border into Canada, or well on their way to Neah Bay.

  "Okay, June," I said, trying to keep a handle on the anger and frustration in my voice. "Thanks a lot. Put Michael back on the phone for a minute, would you?"

  A shaky Michael Morris came back on the line. "What do you think?"

  He didn't want to hear what I was thinking. "Listen," I said urgently, "and do exactly as I say. As soon as I get off the line with you, I'm going to dial nine-one-one and send a squad car over there. You stay right where you are until one of the officers comes to get you. Under no circumstances are you to go anywhere near Kari's house until I give you the go-ahead. Is that clear?"

  "Yes," Michael answered.

  "You didn't touch anything while you were over there, did you?"

  "Only the doorknobs. To see if they were locked." He paused. "What do you think they'll find?" he asked softly.

  By now I feared the worst, but there was no point in telling Michael Morris that. He was scared enough already. On the other hand, I felt morally obliged to give him some advance warning.

  "I don't know," I said.

  But by now Michael had some idea what we were up against. "It could be real bad, couldn't it?" he said hollowly.

  "Yes," I said. "It could. I've got to go, Michael. Remember, you stay put."

  "Okay," he said. "I understand. How soon will you be here?"

  "As soon as I can," I said. "But I have to make one stop along the way."

  One stop. One goddamned stop!

  I have no memory of racing into the rest of my clothes, of putting on my shoulder holster, or of fastening my backup ankle holster under my pant leg. I waited until I was out of Belltown Terrace's underground parking garage before I used my cellular phone.

  "This is nine-one-one," the lady at the Com Center said. "What are you reporting?"

  "This is Detective Beaumont with the Seattle P.D.," I said. "And I wish to God I knew what I was reporting."

  I gave her the information I had as quickly and concisely as I could. The operator could have taken the same view I did with Michael initially-that Else and Kari Gebhardt were merely spending the evening with relatives or friends-but something about the urgency in my tone of voice must have convinced her that an innocent, happy ending was most unlikely.

  It felt like it took damn near forever for me to drive from Belltown Terrace out to the end of Fishermen's Terminal. I left the Porsche idling in the fire lane and raced on down the slick, timbered dock, hoping against hope that I was wrong about Alan Torvoldsen; praying that One Day at a Time would be snugged up against its moorings the way it belonged.

  But it wasn't there. The spot where Alan Torvoldsen's old scow had been berthed was empty. There was nothing there but cold black water reflecting back the sickly yellowish glow of the overhead lights.

  "Damn!" I raged.

  Sick at heart, I turned and fled back down the dock through what was fast becoming a cold, steady downpour. I barely felt the rain that instantly soaked into my clothing.

  "Damn!" was all I could say. "Damn! Damn! Damn!"

  I was the one who had gone looking for Alan Torvoldsen earlier that afternoon. I alone had asked him-no, almost begged him-to go over to Blue Ridge and look after Else Gebhardt. Asked him to look after her! Jesus Christ. I had invited the damn fox right into the henhouse, handed him a napkin to tie around his neck, passed him a knife and fork, and told him to help himself. Which he had.

  Back in the Porsche, I rammed it into gear and skidded my way out of the fire lane and back toward the parking lot. Heading back out of the terminal, I spotted the Rollins truck parked discreetly between net sheds three and four.

  I stopped the car, got out, and examined the truck without touching it. The vehicle was parked and locked with the keys still in the ignition. Whoever had rented that truck had no intention of returning for it. If he had, he would have taken the single set of keys with him.

  Quickly jotting down the license number, I phoned it in. "Run a check on this one," I told the Records clerk who answered the phone. "Wake up whoever you have to wake up to do it, but I want to know the name of the person who rented that vehicle. In the meantime, I want it impounded ASAP!"

  There was always a chance I was wrong and had just impounded some innocent bystander's vehicle. Under the circumstances, however, it was a risk I was willing to take.

  I have no idea why the Ballard Bridge was open at that hour of the night. They were most likely testing the drawspan, because there wasn't a boat of any kind in sight. Naturally, I got stuck in the traffic backup while the bridge went up and slowly, ever so slowly, came back down.

  The unavoidable stop gave me enough time to call Sue Danielson, break into yet another one of Jared's endless phone calls, and bring her up-to-speed. She said she would get dressed again and meet me at Else's house as soon as she could. I was just ending the call to her when the drawbridge finally returned to its original position, and traffic began to move once more.

  Much as I complain about advanced technology, computers do have something to offer, especially in the world of law enforcement. The call on the truck from Records came back long before I ever made it to Culpeper Court.

  Records had tracked down and spoken to the manager from the truck-leasing company, who said he didn't have to go into his office to check the name on the rental agreement. He remembered the woman all too well because she had given him and his people a hell of a hard time in the course of making the transaction. She was a foreigner who had rented the truck with an International as well as a German driver's license.

  And her name was Erika Weber Schmidt.

  Damn! And double damn.

  24

  As I drove down Greenbrier to Culpeper Court, the entire neighborhood was lit up by the pulsing blue lights of three different blue-and-white squad cars.

  Dreading what might be waiting to be discovered inside the house, I parked the Porsche across the street at June and John Miller's house. As I hurried up Else Gebhardt's driveway, a young uniformed patrol officer hustled out of the house to meet me.

  "I'm Detective Beaumont," I told her, flashing my badge. "What did you find?"

  "Absolutely nothing," she answered. "Nobody's home, but there's no sign of trouble, either. What did you think we'd find?"

  Prepared for the worst possible carnage, I now felt weak with relief. "No sign of a struggle?" I repeated lamely.

  "None. Captain Riley's on the radio and mad as hell. He wants to know what you think is going on."

  I'll just bet he did. And if my fears proved groundless, he was going to be a whole lot madder than he was right then.

  "Just let me take a look for myself," I told her. "As soon as I figure out what's gone down, I'll let you know, so you can pass the word. In the meantime, ask him to put a car on an abandoned Rollins truck parked between net sheds three and four down at Fishermen's Terminal. I don't want anyone near that vehicle until the crime lab has a chance to give it a good going-over." I handed over the scribbled license-plate number.

  While the officer hurried off to report to her captain, I walked into Else Gebhardt's house. From the moment I had realized One Day at a Time was gone, I had been overwhelmed with the weight of my own culpability. But Else's clean and orderly house added something more to the mix.

  I don't happen to be one of those gullible people who believes in self-bending forks or miraculously mended watches, and I'm certainly not well versed in the intricacies of ESP. But
a sense of hopeless dread filled me as I wandered from room to room. It grew infinitely worse when I stepped into the bedroom that evidently belonged to Else Gebhardt's mother. Inge Didricksen's walker was there, parked beside the bed. But the old lady was nowhere in sight.

  As soon as I saw the walker and knew that Inge was gone, too, I realized that all three of them-the old woman, her daughter, and her granddaughter-were missing, even though, in the world of law enforcement, no one enters the ranks of officially missing persons until after a full twenty-four hours have elapsed.

  The last part of the house to search was the basement. Not only was the outside door unlocked, it was open. When I started down the dimly lit stairs, I almost broke my neck. The two railroad ties that had once been out of the way on either side of the staircase now had been moved into the center part of the risers. I slipped and would have fallen if I hadn't managed to catch myself on the banister.

  Looking back up the stairway, I saw a twelve-volt battery tucked into the space behind the door. It was connected to an electric winch. It resembled the kind of setup they sometimes mount on the front bumpers of off-road vehicles.

  As soon as I saw the winch, I finally understood the railroad ties as well. They were all part of a simple hoist system Gunter Gebhardt must have used to raise and lower equipment into and out of the basement.

  The lights were already on. I descended the stairs and stood still for a moment, getting my bearings. I realized almost at once that something about that long, narrow room was different than it had been when I visited it the first time. At first I couldn't tell exactly what it was, but the room seemed larger somehow, more spacious, emptier. But then it's always easier to see what's there in front of your eyes than it is to remember something that was there once but isn't any longer.

  One thing that made the room seem bigger was the missing soldiers. That was no surprise. Else had told me about selling them. The lights glared off the bare shelves in the bank of curio cases. The bright fluorescent glow on stark white walls gave the place an abandoned, sterile look. But it was more than just the soldiers. Something else was missing as well.

  And that's when I realized what it was. The tools were gone from the shelves at the opposite end of the room. All of them. Every last one. Had Else sold them, too?

  And then I understood. Of course. How could I have been so stupid? The tools. Lorenzo had said something about tools, about how they'd brought tools and supplies home with them on board the fishing boat. Tools they'd picked up from Gunter's joint-venture partner.

  A wave of gooseflesh swept up my legs when I finally realized the awful truth about all those neatly organized tools that had once been stacked, row upon row, in Gunter Gebhardt's impossibly clean basement.

  How many gold teeth did it take to make a vise? I wondered, feeling almost sick to my stomach. Or a sledge hammer? Or a solid-gold wrench? And at a rate of five thousand people a day, how many murderous Sobibor days had it taken to accumulate all the gold hidden in Gunter's hoard of tools.

  I said I'm not psychic, and I'm not claustrophobic, either, but suddenly it seemed as though the walls of the basement were closing in on me. Fighting back nausea, I spun around and headed back toward the stairs. And that's when I realized what else was missing.

  The engine. The one at the bottom of the stairs-the one I had stumbled over when Else had brought Sue and me down to show us the soldiers. At the time, I had thought it to be some kind of auxiliary power generator. No doubt it was made of gold as well.

  Appalled, I rumbled up the stairs and out the back door into the cool comfort of the cold, wet air. I was standing there with my chest heaving when Michael Morris and June Miller found me. Michael hadn't been wearing a jacket when I last saw him, but he was now. It must have belonged to John Miller, because it came almost to the young man's knees.

  "What's happened in there?" Michael asked me, his face stark with alarm and worry. "Nobody will tell me anything."

  "Nothing," I said.

  "What do you mean, nothing?"

  There was no sense in making things worse for him. "There's no sign of struggle in there, Michael. It's as though all three of them simply decided to go away for a while. They seem to have left in a very orderly manner. It's like they just stepped outside and locked the door."

  "But they didn't do that," Michael objected. "I know Kari wouldn't leave voluntarily, not without calling me or leaving a message."

  I turned to June. "When the truck was being loaded, did you see any sign of coercion?" I asked. "Anything to indicate that the people you saw were being forced to do something against their will?"

  June Miller shook her head. "No," she said. "Not at all."

  Of course not, I thought bitterly. Because Alan Damn Torvoldsen was in it up to his Norwegian eyebrows the whole time he was feeding me his line of pathetic bullshit about how Else Didriksen broke his heart by marrying someone else.

  Sue Danielson's Escort showed up on the street, then pulled into the Millers' driveway directly behind the 928. She popped out wearing jeans and a bright yellow slicker. "You look like hell, Beau," she said as soon as she was close enough to catch a glimpse of my face. "What's going on?"

  "The tools," I told her, leading her a little away from the others so we could speak privately. "Gunter Gebhardt's tools are gone from the basement."

  "So?"

  "The soldiers weren't made out of the missing Sobibor gold," I answered. "The tools were."

  "Oh," Sue said.

  "It looks like Erika Weber Schmidt found herself an accomplice," I added. "Unfortunately his name is Alan Torvoldsen. They're out on his boat right this minute. I'm afraid Else and Kari Gebhardt and Inge Didriksen are out there with them."

  Sue frowned. "What makes you think that?"

  "Because earlier this afternoon I asked Alan to come over here and look after Else for me. After that fiasco with Moise and Avram walking away with the soldiers, I was worried someone else might try to pull a fast one. I asked Alan not to let any strangers into the house. I don't know how he kept from laughing in my face."

  "How do you know for sure he's in on whatever's going on?" Sue asked.

  "Because June Miller saw him loading the truck."

  Sue Danielson glanced briefly in June Miller's direction and then back at me. "You know, none of this is your fault," she said.

  It irked me that I was that transparent, that she could so easily grasp exactly what was going on with me. "The hell it isn't," I responded. "If I had just let things alone…" I gave up. There was no point in saying anything more.

  By then two of the three squad cars had already left the Gebhardt place. Only two officers were left, one of whom was the young woman I'd spoken to earlier. I was less than eager to chat with either her or with her partner. I knew they were both destined to spend most of the rest of their shift filling out a mountain of paper.

  Not that it would do any good. They had broken into Else's Gebhardt's house without a warrant, based on my suspicion that something was amiss, but they had discovered no solid evidence to back up my claim. Consequently, no amount of explaining to Captain Riley would ever square what they had done. He would blame them. They would pass the buck and blame me.

  I would live or die depending on whether or not Else Gebhardt took exception to their relatively harmless act of breaking and entering. If she filed a complaint, then there'd be the devil to pay down at Seattle P.D. And the responsibility would fall squarely where it belonged-on me.

  A man came walking up to us. He was tall, stoop-shouldered, wearing glasses and a trench coat. "I'm John Miller," he said, offering his hand. "June's taken that poor young man and gone inside to make cocoa. She wanted me to ask you inside. It's cold and wet out here."

  My mother reserved her highest criticism for those she considered too stupid to live. They were always the ones who were "too dumb to come in out of the rain." Which is exactly how stupid her middle-aged son was being right then.

  The words John Mi
ller used-"cold and wet"-amounted to gross understatement. A gusting wind drove splinters of icy raindrops into our faces and clothing. And there I stood in the Gebhardts' driveway on Culpeper Court with nothing at all on over my soaking sports jacket. I had failed to notice that I was wet to the skin and shivering.

  With John Miller leading the way, we migrated across the street to a house with evidence of recent construction and relandscaping. We entered by walking past what architects are fond of calling a "water feature." The babble of running water burbling noisily over river rocks may sound wonderful on a hot summer's afternoon, but on a cold, wet winter's evening, it only made me that much colder.

  Inside the house, John introduced Sue and me to a grizzled, lop-eared black-and-white terrier named Barney. The dog eased over against Sue to demand some attention and petting while John offered me a stack of towels and led me to a bathroom that was fully stocked with a six-year-old's complement of rubber toys.

  After toweling myself as dry as possible, I returned to the living room to find John sitting beside the gas-burning fireplace and quizzing Sue about what it was like to be a single parent as well as a police officer. I found it intriguing that he was more interested in that than he was in the details of whatever untoward events had occurred across the street. Meantime, June had taken Michael Morris into the kitchen, where she was busily making a pot of cocoa and administering a dose of TLC to a young man very much in need of both.

  I heard her telling him in a calm, soothing voice that he shouldn't worry, that everything was going to be fine. Even though I didn't agree with her-everything wasn't going to be fine-I still gave the woman credit for trying. Michael Morris was almost frantic with worry.

  Like somebody else I knew, he was dealing with his own damning set of "if onlys." If only he had insisted that his mother invite Kari over to dinner; if only he had come to Blue Ridge earlier in the evening; if only; if only; if only. Ad infinitum.

  I felt like telling him he didn't have a corner on the guilt market. Deeply mired in my own storm of self-recrimination, I almost missed Sue Danielson's shrewd suggestion when she broke off her polite conversation with John Miller and abruptly changed the subject back to the case at hand.