“Then I’ll ask him if the name Carpenter is familiar to him. I’m betting he’ll say yes, but probably no more. At that point I expect he’ll probably clam up. He’ll be getting worried about his own secret. I’ll tell him that we got some very strong evidence against this guy, that some of this evidence could be incriminating against some fairly prominent local citizens. – But all we want to do is stop this guy Carpenter and get rid of any evidence he has, against anybody.”
One of the guy said, “He’s gonna want to know what all that has to do with him.”
“I know. You’re right, and that’s when it’ll get a little dicey, so help me with this. I tell him that some of the evidence we’ve been able to come by has to do with a very prominent police officer in El Cerrito, that the last thing we want to do is hurt the policeman. That in fact we think the evidence is bullshit and we can make it disappear. We’re hoping the officer in question would understand this and help us help him. You all still with me?” Heads nod slowly in agreement. It sounded really iffy to me.
“All right. Assuming he gets the picture and agrees to help us, then I tell him who we are. What d’ya think?”
“What d’ya mean, who we are?”
“I’ll tell him about the gang and how we’re being framed and how we’re trying to avoid violence, the whole enchilada. I’ll convince him we can help him and he can help us be the good guys.”
As usual, Smitty had his way.
The gang broke up. A couple of the guys were going to drop by to see Red, the rest scattered. I headed toward the kitchen and Josie.
She was in the midst of drying the dishes and greeted me. “Poor Red, all we can do is pray.” She handed me a towel, “do you want to help?”
I did. Grabbing the towel I started drying and putting dishes away.
“I know you sail, but do you have a sailboat of your own or do you have a boat we could use? I mean, how can you teach me to be a foredeck ape without a boat?”
“Don’t worry, there’re a lot of sailboats I can borrow when we’re through with this Carpenter business. So you’re really serious about sailing?”
“No question.”
By the time we finished the dishes, the house was empty and quiet, and it was mid-morning. Time for an early lunch. Grabbing a couple of sodas, we both sat on bar stools and ate some brownies Josie’d whipped up for later on.
“Do you always sail by yourself?” she wanted to know “It seems scary, the idea of sailing all the way from San Diego to San Francisco all by yourself.”
“Sometimes it can be scary. But usually I have one or two crew with me. On some of the bigger boats, fifty or sixty footers, I need several crewmen to help me. I shouldn’t call them all crewmen. Some of them are crew women.”
“You’ve actually sailed for several days with a crew of women?”
I knew what was on her mind. Everybody thinks there’s a lot of sex on a sailboat if there’s a woman crew on board. That sure wasn’t my experience. First off, it’s usually cold when I bring a boat up the coast. I guess if it was warm and clear, the owner wouldn’t need me. He’d bring his boat up himself. And trust me, when you’re bundled up with warm clothes and a float coat on, you don’t look very sexy. Maleor female. On top of that, most of us didn’t change our clothes very often on a short trip, so we didn’t smell very appealing. So much for the romantic notion of a sailor man.
I asked her a question. “You told me that your dad never let you handle anything on the boat when you went sailing with him, right?”
“Yes. I was just along as chief cook and bottle washer.”
“If you go sailing with me, I’ll let you handle anything to want.”
She giggled and said, “Really? Anything?”
It took me a moment or two to catch on to her meaning. Then I blushed.
“You know what I mean!”
CHAPTER 31
While we ate, Smitty left for his appointment.
Later he called and talked to Josie. Said he was getting along okay with the chief, lots of interruptions, and it looked like he might be there for several hours.
Josie decided she needed a nap and suggested I could read some.
I couldn’t keep my eyes open when I tried to read. When I woke up it was dark and I was hungry. Downstairs I could hear Josie sounds from the kitchen and headed there.
“Thought you were going to sleep forever. Hungry?”
“I only slept three hours. Did you?”
“Yeah, I’m just up. How about a little steak? Baked potato? Salad? You better say yes because the spuds are already in the oven.”
“In that case, it sounds okay to me.” Actually it sounded great to me. She told me she didn’t usually fix steak for the group, “Too much trouble for that many guys and it was damn expensive.”
We finished up the meal with a frozen chocolate-covered ice cream cone, sitting in front of the TV, in the living room. Just the two of us, quietly digesting our dinners and watching a travelogue about Europe. I asked her if she’d ever been.
“Where? Oh, you mean Europe? No, but I’d like to. You?”
“No, but I’d like to, too.” We both laughed. The travelogues continued on and we decided we’d rather watch them than some mystery reruns.
We watched travelogues until after nine, and then I guess we both napped a little. It was pleasant. Josie had moved over to the couch and was leaning back against me. We were both really comfortable and just sort of dozed off. Like an old married couple.
I think Josie heard it first. She grabbed my arm and said, “What was that?”
At first I didn’t know what she was talking about. After a moment, I heard a scraping sound from downstairs. “Is anyone else here?” I asked in a whisper.
“No,” she said. “It sounds like someone’s trying to get in the garage.”
“Maybe it’s one of the guys coming back?”
“No way. They always throw the door open so they can get their bikes in.”
“Is there any way we can see the front of the house without being seen?” I asked.
“The upstairs front bedroom window. It’s got a window that sticks out from the house. We can see the whole front.”
It was a bay window with a window seat, and from one side of it we could see the front door and all the windows. It had drapes, and we could peek out without be seen. At first we didn’t see anything or anyone. Josie studied the street-scape.
“That car looks out of place to me,” Josie said. “And I think I see a couple of guys in the front seat.” I squinted through my closed fist. She was right. There were definitely two men sitting there. There wasn’t a street light anywhere near, but the moonlight was enough to make them out.
“I think their motor’s running,” Josie whispered, “and they certainly don’t have their front wheels turned into the curb.” Josie would make a good detective. I hadn’t thought about the fact that they were parked on a steep downhill slope. “I bet they’re watching the house. What do you think we should do?”
All I could think of was to keep an eye on them and see what developed. “Why don’t we watch from here and see what they do. Is there an alarm system in the house?” I asked.
“No, there isn’t. Dad never thought he’d need it. No one ever crosses the Devils.”
“Okay, let’s settle down right here and keep an eye on them. How about if I stay here, and you get us some hot chocolate or something to help pass the time.”
She said, “Sounds like a plan to me,” and took off.
Almost an hour and two cups of chocolate later, both doors of the car opened and two guys got out. They must have disconnected the dome light ’cuz it didn’t go on when they opened the door. We could see them okay in the moonlight, but not well enough to make out their features. They both were dressed casually, khakis and a light jacket. They approached the house as if they didn’t have a care in the world.
“But they must know someone’s here,” I said. “We had the light on in
the living room when we heard that noise.”
“Unless the door to the kitchen is open, you can’t see the light from the front of the house,” Josie said. “Besides, we only had one small lamp on, plus the light from the TV. I bet they’ve been watching the house for a couple of hours and never saw our lights. They think nobody’s home.”
The two guys walked up to the front door. The first one pulled a gun from his waist and using the butt, banged on the door. After a moment he backed up and the other one knelt down and started fiddling with the lock.
“He’s not going to have much luck with that,” Josie whispered. “Dad’s got special locks on the doors.”
I hoped they were good and special.
The other guy backed into the street a little ways and stood there holding the gun in plain view.
CHAPTER 32
“Oh god, Casey, what do we do now?”
“Call your dad’s cell quick while I keep an eye on them.”
Josie, on the cell phone in an instant, came and stood next to me so I could hear what Smitty had to say. He answered immediately. “This better be important, Josie, it’s after eleven, he said, “I’m in the chief’s office planning our next step.”
“Dad – listen to me. Two guys are trying to break into the house, and they’ve got guns!”
Smitty snapped to instantly. “Are they in the house yet?”
“Not yet.”
He told her to hold on. I could hear him tell the chief to call the Oakland cops and get someone up to his house ASAP. Then he was back on the line to us.
“What room are you in?” Josie told him. “Good,” he said. “Go to the closet. Up on the shelf you’ll see a locked box. Get it quick and come back.” Josie motioned for me to get it.
Smitty gave her the combination and we opened it. Inside were two guns.
“They’re loaded but they’ve got a trigger lock on each of ’em. The key to the lock’s in the bottom drawer of the night stand next to the bed.”
Josie had the guns out and the key in her hands in a matter of moments. While she did, Smitty asked me if I knew anything about guns. I had to say no. The only gun I’d ever fired was a Very pistol – a flare gun. Those you just point in the air and pull the trigger.
“Never mind,” Smitty said. “Just stay away from them. Josie’s a crack shot. You’re in good hands.”
“Thanks, Dad,” Josie said, back on the phone.
“Josie, stay in the room,” he went on. “Keep the gun handy. If they get in, stay hidden. We’ve got police on the way. As soon as they hear sirens, they’ll hightail it outta there.”
We huddled in the dark, watching the two guys. The one trying to open the door must have been a rank amateur. I told Josie how Nips had gotten through the locks at Carpenter’s house much faster.
“He wouldn’t these, except maybe because he actually installed these himself. He said it’d take quite a while, even for him to open these buggers.”
The two were making a fair amount of noise working on the lock, so Josie took a chance and inched the window open just a smidge. We could hear them talking but couldn’t make out what they were saying. One was standing ten feet down the walk, watching the street.
After a few minutes Josie said, “Can you hear that?” She beckoned me back over to the open window. We could both hear the faint sound of sirens in the distance. It took a few moments for the housebreakers to hear them too. Suddenly the guy out toward the street stiffened and said, quite loudly, “Shut up and listen.”
“What is it?”
“Sirens. Coming this way!”
“What the hell?”
“Somebody must’ve seen us or there’s a silent alarm or something. C’mon, we gotta go.”
They split for the car and took off down the hill. The passenger must have caught something in the door. It was swinging wildly as they spun away. There was enough light to make out what kind of a car it was and get the license plate.
We got Smitty back on the phone. “Can you hear police yet?”
“Yeah, Dad,” Josie reported. “They’re on the way, and those guys took off.”
“Okay, now quick,” Smitty told us, “put the guns away. When the cops get there, tell them you’re house sitting for your dad. Tell them I’m on vacation somewhere, but you don’t know where. Tell them you think the guys thought the house was empty and it was just lucky you two were there tonight.”
“They’re just pulling up.”
“Did you get the license plate?”
“Yeah, we did.”
“Don’t tell the police. Tell them that the angle made it hard to see the plate or that it was too dark or something.”
“Got it,” I told him. “gotta go. The cops are pounding on the door!”
Josie ran downstairs and opened the door. “You just missed them,” she told the officer in the lead. “They took off in a black or maybe a dark blue sedan as you were coming up the street.”
“Shit! Oh, sorry, lady. We got here as fast as we could and made a lot of noise on the way. We’d rather scare them off and lose them than have someone hurt. So tell me what happened?” Josie fed him Smitty’s story, faithfully leaving out any mention of the guns we had.
“Sounds like a fairly normal robbery attempt, except for the gun part. You sure you saw a gun?” We both assured him that we’d both seen a gun.
“In fact,” Josie said, “it looked like an automatic to me, not a revolver.” That felt like a little more information than your average young female house-sitter should know, but nobody raised an eyebrow.
The other cops came in and said they’d been around the house and hadn’t found anything. It took another half hour for them to finish their paper work, give us their cards, reassure us of our safety and thank us for calling them.
Josie immediately called her dad back. He told her a couple of the guys would be there in a minute or two.
“I can see them,” Josie told him. “They’re already here – just waiting for the cops to leave.”
Sure enough, a moment later we heard the garage door open. They came hurrying upstairs immediately and one of them used Josie’s phone to let Smitty know they were there. Then we had to tell the whole story over again.
“Well, its over,” one of the guys said. “They won’t be back. But we’re staying here the rest of the night, so you two can get some sleep.”
It was after one a.m. We’d both wound down by then, sleep sounded good.
CHAPTER 33
Smitty must have gotten in shortly after we went to bed. At breakfast he had Josie recount the events of the previous night. None of us could figure out what had happened. Who were the guys, why were they there, what were they after.
“What about the license plate number?” Josie wanted to know. Smitty said the El Cerrito Chief was going to run the plate for him even though “he was a little upset when he heard me tell you to lie to the police.”
He said he and the chief hit it off pretty well. He’d been real wary at first, but gradually seemed to warm up to him. Smitty’d had a little trouble getting over the Devils part of it, but he convinced the chief all that was behind him. They already had plans to meet again right away to plan strategy. Smitty told us that the chief’s name was O’Meara but we’re supposed to call him Chief.
“First, this is what the Chief and I came up with. I did pretty much what I told you I was gonna do. I’d phoned ahead and asked for an appointment without saying what I wanted to see him about. I purposely got there about ten minutes early to make a good impression.”
“How big is his department?” I asked. “Were there a lot of cops hanging around?”
“I don’t know how big the department is,” Smitty admitted. “I only saw one other cop while I was there – a desk clerk, I think. The chief and I met in his office, just the two of us. I told him pretty much what I’d planned to say.”
He paused to add some sugar to his coffee.
“I can’t take these all nighter
s the way I used to. Need the coffee and sugar pick up,” he confided.
“I told him some guy was trying to blackmail me. Some guy that lived in the El Cerrito hills near a golf course. Told him that the idiot had picked the wrong guy this time, I wasn’t having any of his blackmail crap. Asked him if he had any idea of who I was talking about.”
He said he might have an idea. When I told him that we had a list of all the people this guy was blackmailing, he wanted to know how we got it.”
“You don’t want to know,” I told him and added, “Does the name Carpenter mean anything to you?”
He allowed as how it might, being real cautious.
“So I went on. Well, we’ve got this real damaging list of some pretty well know people and the things he’s blackmailing them for. We could just burn it, but ten to one, he’s got copies hidden away. I could see I had his attention. But you know, heis a police chief. Real cautious and inclined to play it strictly by the board. He suggested that maybe we should be talking to the FBI.
I told him we’d thought of that, but that there were some names on the list we didn’t want the FBI to get. Then I asked him if I could ask him a hypothetical question, off the record.”
He answered, “Off the record? Okay, but if you tell me something that incriminates you, there’s nothing like attorney client protection here.”
“I told him I understood. Then I asked him for his opinion.”
“Like, if I ran across an insignificant piece of information that some guy wanted to use to illegally blackmail a public servant, would I be morally wrong to destroy that insignificant piece of information?”
Another question from him. “An insignificant piece of information?”
“Yeah. Something meaningless, but something that could be twisted to sound bad.”
“And it’s never actually been used for blackmail purposes?” he asked.
“As far as I know” was my reply.
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