Two more photos: in the first, one of the boys stood at attention in front of a military school, looking so young, maybe five or six, in a uniform too large. Other cadets hovered in front of an institutional building in the background, but she couldn’t make out the school’s name above the door. Was this the younger or older boy of the previous pictures?
The second photo pictured a little old-fashioned schoolhouse the size of a playhouse. In this black and white photo she saw painted-on windows and a bell tower on the cupola at one end of the roof.
She remembered a weathered version of this shed, odd looking enough for a second glance when her car rumbled to the top of the farm’s gravel driveway. What else was different about that shed? A heavy board nailed across the door had looked new compared to the gray, sun-bleached lumber beneath. Was that a place for these boys to play? If so, why would it be boarded now?
In the bottom of the hatbox, beneath the photos, something clinked. A number of large and small keys. Next to the keys lay an old rag rolled tight and secured with a rubber band, its rotted strands still loosely circling the wad of cloth. As she started to unwrap it, she heard footsteps somewhere above. Quickly closing the box, she tucked it under the stairs with the other two, hid the screwdriver beside them and hurriedly picked up the broom.
Were these items relevant to the man upstairs or to some unrelated owner of this cellar?
Tired from strenuous work, she’d nevertheless transformed the basement. Similar items were neatly grouped, the floor swept, the sink cleaned and the trash bagged. Certain now of footsteps overhead, she pressed the buzzer he’d given her.
Seconds later, a beam of light widened overhead as the door opened, followed by the man’s heavy tread descending the aging stairs. At the bottom, he circled the basement and, she hoped, observed her dramatic changes. She watched his face for any reaction to the difference she’d made but saw none. Then without looking at her, he returned wordlessly to the stairs, walked up and closed the door.
Her heart sank! Had this diligent labor accomplished nothing? How could she actually have thought this plan could work? Instead, she’d exhausted herself, making subduing her even easier for him when the time came, and surely it would come. Probably soon!
Without doubt, Jason had called the police by now. Why, since logic told her otherwise, did she cling to the irrational notion they might somehow find her if only given enough time?
Frantically, she tried to conjure a new strategy, but no idea came. What would the man do next? Lock her again in that stifling box? Or worse? She struggled to keep her head clear, but despair welled inside her as tears of helpless frustration pooled in her eyes.
Startling her back to reality, a noise near the top of the stairs again interrupted the stillness as the door above banged open. He started down the stairs, carrying something in one hand. A weapon? Fear clutched her heart. Were these the last seconds of her life?
He tossed a bundle down the steps. “Press the buzzer in five minutes.” He ordered before closing the door at the top. The turning key rasped metallically before his footsteps faded above.
Jennifer crept to the stairs, almost afraid to see what the man had left. Maybe the severed hand or foot of a previous victim as a deadly warning? Wary, she picked up the bundle to find it was a rubber-banded sack. Removing the elastic and spreading open the brown paper bag to look inside, she gave a sharp intake of breath at what she saw.
At the bottom of the sack lay a crudely made sandwich atop a bag of potato chips and beside them a bottle of water. He wanted her alive a little longer!
CHAPTER 37
The alert Fairfax County Police Department operator rattled off Jeremy Whitehead’s name and address to the 9-1-1 fast response team. She realized that besides his actual request for help, Whitehead’s usually loud and angry voice sounded uncharacteristically weak and pathetic. She felt she almost knew the old curmudgeon, having fielded his incessant phone calls more times than she could remember.
Whitehead’s partial report would remain a matter of record, but there was no point forwarding his incomplete information for further action.
While she ruminated about the old man, an ambulance rescue team sped toward Jeremy Whitehead’s house. When their knock remained unanswered, they easily broke open the ill-fitting door to find him sprawled on the kitchen floor, barely breathing. They administered emergency care, loaded him into the ambulance and tore off toward Fairfax County Hospital. Though not dead, he’d suffered a massive heart attack. Before leaving Whitehead’s house, the paramedics turned off his television set, tuned to such deafening loudness that it vibrated.
Shortly afterward, two Fairfax County policemen entered Jeremy’s house to secure the broken door against opportunistic vandalism and to rule out foul play. After checking the house and chatting with neighbors, the cops reviewed their assembled facts.
“So,” said the first uniform, “a 76-year-old male has a severe heart attack while on the phone with headquarters, reporting a bad driver. He’s known at the district station as a semi-kook. He’s known in the neighborhood as an ill-tempered recluse. No apparent friends or contacts since the wife died. So what are we looking for here? Smash and grab? Homicide? I don’t think so!”
The other cop pointed. “Hey, check the last entry on this clipboard! Is that what he called in?”
“Probably! So what!”
“What ’s this? An address and a VA license number: YRDSALE? Weird! But makes no sense! Should we take it in as evidence?
“Evidence of what? Hey, we came, we looked, we checked. The old guy’s ticker acted up. Does this look like a crime scene to you?”
“No, well… I just thought... ”
“Nah! Look, so some jerk who drives like a maniac gets lucky and isn’t reported today. How bad can it be?”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. Let’s secure the front door and go.”
On impulse, just before they left, the second uniform copied the clipboard’s last entry on a scrap of paper found in the wastebasket and stuffed the note into his pocket.
At that same moment miles away, temporarily revived at the hospital ER, Jeremy struggled hard to tell the doctors his crucial information. Focused upon the nearly impossible challenge of keeping him alive, the medical staff initially overlooked his feeble efforts to get their attention, instead urging him to quiet down.
He finally grabbed a nurse’s arm with surprising force, pulling her close to his mouth. “Important!” he whispered hoarsely. “Very important!”
“What is it, Sir? What’s important?” she asked.
“Yard Sale,” he whispered.
“Yard Sale?” she repeated doubtfully.
“The tag said Yard Sale. Tell the…the poleeeesss.” He hissed the word “police,” in a final exhalation as his attached monitors changed from a heartbeat’s audible beeps to the monotone buzz of a flat-liner.
“Code Blue,” shouted the nurse as additional medical personnel rushed into the room to assist with CPR. They worked feverishly for ten minutes, but to no avail.
“He’s gone,” the doctor announced. “Note the time for the record.”
The nurse shook her head sadly and turned to the doctor. “Poor old man! I’d like to think someone understood my last words on earth, but could you make out what he said?”
“The words, yes, but the meaning, no: ‘tell the police the tag said yard sale’? Makes no sense!”
The nurse agreed. “Not to me either, but isn’t it too bad since he seemed to think it was mighty important?”
The doctor took a last look at Jeremy’s still body, alive only minutes ago.
“Not any more,” he said and turned away.
CHAPTER 38
Her exertion cleaning the basement and relief at still being alive honed Jennifer’s appetite. With no idea when or if she might eat again, she wolfed down the food and refilled the plastic bottle at the basement sink, praying the water was potable. She drank in great gulps.
&nb
sp; Newly fortified, though still anxious, she stood at the bottom of the stairs and pressed the buzzer.
The door at the top of the stairs opened almost immediately.
“Come,” he ordered, as one might command a dog.
She crept up the stairs. His bulk no longer filled the doorway and, reaching the top, she tried to quell an irrational surge of hope. Emerging alive from that dreaded dungeon, even if only temporarily, was an unimaginable victory.
Head submissively lowered to avoid eye contact, she stood at the top of the stairs, determined to play out the role of cowed servant. This ruse parlayed into a ticket out of the basement and with a world of luck, maybe, somehow, a ticket to freedom.
“The kitchen,” he barked. “Clean it. Over there,” he pointed to an adjacent anti-room. “Do the laundry. The dog guards you every minute. Don’t leave these two rooms. Finish and buzz.” He stepped through the door, back into the hall, and locked the kitchen door behind him.
She blinked into sunshine spilling through the window above the sink. What an appealing contrast to the bleak artificial light in the cellar below! But the window meant more than welcome sunlight. It framed a view of the outdoors she’d doubted ever seeing again, and somewhere beyond lay those she loved… and home.
She leaned forward over the sink to increase her field of vision and memorize what she saw outside. This was the same house, all right: the yard, the barn, the sheds scattered outside beneath several large shade trees. This was still McLean! A long field stretched far behind the house, bordered in the far distance by another stand of trees, but no sign of her car or the black pickup truck. How she wished she’d paid closer attention to details when she originally drove in here, never dreaming such information might affect her departure.
The clock above the sink read noon. Looking through cupboards, she found a box of tea bags and longed for a cup of that hot, soothing beverage to calm her nerves. What could it hurt? She extracted a bag, filled the teakettle with enough water for a single cup and turned on the burner.
Behind a modern table and four chairs at one end of the eat-in kitchen were three tall side-by-side windows with the center window unscreened. Outside, the glass panes spread a wide angle of the same back yard barn-and-shed view. Were these big windows painted shut? If not, were they on a security system like those at her house? No visible wires or plastic pads! If caught, could she excuse lifting a sash as part of cleaning if an alarm sounded?
With a cloth and some glass cleaner in hand to camouflage her true intent, she carefully opened the lock atop the center window’s lower sash and lifted slightly. When no alarm sounded, she edged it up another few inches. Suddenly a heart-stopping, high-pitched shriek pierced the air!
Oh god, a bugged window! Prickles of adrenalin moved over her skin as her ears followed the sound… not from a window alarm but from the teakettle. Jamming the window down but with no time to relock it, she rushed toward the stove as two frightening events unfolded.
The dog’s toenails clicked a staccato trill across the vinyl floor as he careened snarling from the laundry room into the kitchen, his fangs glinting and his metal tags jingling that sound she hated. Simultaneously, the door crashed open and the man loomed, glaring furiously at her quaking finger pointed toward the whistling teakettle.
“No!” he shouted, whether to her or the dog, she couldn’t know. “Water at the sink only!” He glared, his jaw and neck veins working. She cowered, praying he wouldn’t notice the unlocked window as his glance swept the room for irregularities. She tensed for the ensuing pain. Staring dumbly at the floor, she felt his electric energy as he shaped his next move. Would he strike her? Throw her down the basement stairs? Cut her? Blind her? Rape her?
She hunched vulnerably before him, trembling with fear. Seconds passed as she steeled herself for violent retaliation, the wait for that terrible pain creating its own grisly torture.
But minutes passed and nothing happened. Did he prefer storing this situation’s rage to extend her agony later? Did he think once his hands touched her, he couldn’t stop himself until he beat her to death? Did he not want that satisfying termination just yet?
“Door,” he screamed to the dog as it spun around and scrambled to that post. When she looked up, the man was gone and the kitchen door once more shut and locked.
Cursing her idiocy with the teakettle, her heart pounded from that horrific close call even though this perilous experience bought a vital piece of information. The doors might be bugged, but that window was not! No alarm and no screen. A possible way out!
To avoid angering him further, the teakettle incident warned her to be more cautious than ever. On the other hand, she must escape, which wasn’t cautious at all! How could she do both?
Vigorously polishing the table, she surreptitiously re-locked the opened window fastener. At that moment she realized that having no person in the room didn’t mean she wasn’t observed. Stores sold plenty of hidden camera technology, so anyone with money, determination and skill could install them, or pay professionals to do so. Maybe he even was such a professional. Who knew what his background included? Trying not to be obvious, she moved around the kitchen toward the sink, searching for a camera lens, but finding none.
Back at the sink, she washed the dishes and opened drawers to find a weapon. No sharp kitchen knives and even the silverware knives were gone. He was a step ahead of her.
She looked out the smaller window over the sink, at the barn and sheds, wondering about outdoor lighting at night. Her own driveway had motion-activated floodlights over the garage. Was the worn light fixture on the barn operated by a switch, photocell or motion-sensor? It didn’t look new or like hers at home, but maybe a different model. If motion floods existed outside above the back door, they’d affect a night getaway—the likeliest time, while he slept—by triggering a back yard brilliant with light when cover of darkness was crucial.
Finished at the sink, she entered the laundry room. A pull shade covered most of the window in the door’s upper half. If she could press her face against the glass and look up she’d learn if floodlights existed in the eaves above. But as she approached the door, the dog leaped to his feet and growled a warning, his alert eyes focused single-mindedly upon her.
She stopped in her tracks, looked away and moved the laundry around atop the machine. But when she edged a tiny step in the outside door’s direction, the dog growled a decibel higher and drew back his lips in a low snarl revealing his teeth.
No way!
CHAPTER 39
Jennifer stepped back from the dog, turned to the washing machine and added detergent and the laundry: the usual men’s socks, shirts, T-shirts, pajamas, underwear, handkerchiefs, and trousers, plus sheets and towels. This volume of dirty laundry required two loads. Unexpected in an old house, the washer and dryer looked new. Multiple hangers crowded the adjacent wall-mounted rack; beside it sat an iron and folded ironing board. In the right situation, several of these might become weapons.
From the corner of her eye, she confirmed that the dog watched her every move. What had he been trained to do? Bark if he saw a weapon in her hand? Bite if she reached for the door knob? Knock her to the floor and rip out her throat? The teakettle whistle certainly sent him into orbit!
The dog barricaded any escape attempt through the back door. What could she do to neutralize him? Stab him, poison him, trap him? Befriend him? She flinched at the last idea… because of her dog phobia in general and this menacing brute in particular.
Returning to the kitchen, Jennifer peered into the oven: a real mess! Steeling herself for the filthy task, she put the racks in the sink, sprayed oven cleaner inside the oven and closed its door. Studying the can, she knew this would be an excellent weapon if sprayed into face and eyes. But could she get away while it disabled her captor? No, because of the dog! Could she spray the dog, too? The dog was the key! Even if she miraculously eluded the man, the dog would find her and finish her. Still, she left the oven cleaning ca
nister on the counter… just in case!
The surprisingly well-stocked refrigerator needed cleaning also. Maybe some food here for the dog? She saw several pounds of raw ground beef stuffed into a plastic bag, the original packaging gone. She gouged out a bite-size chunk of the hamburger meat and squeezed the remainder in the bag smooth again. Sticking the small ball of meat on the end of a fork, she crept back to the laundry room. Again, the low growl as she entered.
She loathed nearing the animal, but she had to try. If the dog barked, signaling the man to rush in to find her with the meat in her hand, she’d be done for. Back to the basement or far worse! Was it worth the try, and if she did try, what was the best way to go about it? Perhaps a variation of Pavlov’s famous experiment? The dog would need to connect her with a sound she made and the food she offered. But what sound? She clicked her tongue and very slowly placed the meat fork on the floor between the dryer and the dog so he couldn’t reach it without getting up.
At first he ignored it, but then his nostrils twitched as he caught the scent. The animal stared directly at the meat and sniffed the air again. No question, he recognized food! She’d read that guard dogs could be specifically trained to attack a stranger offering food or to bark this alert to their master.
Was food rationing a cruel part of the dog’s training? If so, could that work in her favor? The animal’s ribs showed through his scarred hide. Not emaciated, like many Fairfax County Animal Shelter foundlings that friends volunteering there described to her, but neither was he well-fed.
Clicking her tongue, she bent down slowly, picked up the meat fork and removed it… to build his anticipation. The animal watched, sensing danger. After a moment, she replaced the fork on the floor. The dog licked his lips, stared at the meat and changed position but didn’t get up. The third time the dog leaned toward the meat but pulled back. Who says the third time is the charm?
Garage Sale Stalker (Garage Sale Mysteries) Page 18