Whispers of the Dead (Tom Gabriel #2)

by Tim Ellis

  ‘Hello, Mr Gabriel. Would you like lemonade on the sun deck at the back of the house? We have a beautiful view across the river to the ocean.’

  ‘I’ll just get on with it, if it’s all the same to you? I’m sure you don’t want me sitting around drinking lemonade at your expense.’

  ‘Of course.’

  She led him into the Colonial-style house, and even before he’d walked through the front door, he guessed the property was probably worth around a million and a half.

  The first thing he noticed in the entrance hall were the paintings on the walls. They looked familiar, but he had no idea whether they were copies or the originals.

  He followed her up the staircase.

  ‘There are seven bedrooms and six bathrooms,’ she said as they turned left at the top of the stairs and began walking along a wide hallway with more paintings on the walls.

  ‘Lovely house.’

  ‘It was a wedding gift from my parents.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘The house was designed and built for my great grandfather in 1923 by Dutch architect Theo van Doesburg. It’s been in the Garrett family since then. Roger comes from one of the old families as well, but they lost all their money in the 1929 Wall Street crash.

  ‘I can’t imagine Roger was happy about that.’

  She laughed. ‘Here we are – Roger’s bedroom.’

  ‘And yours is over there?’ He pointed to a door about six feet further along on the opposite side of the hallway.

  ‘Yes. You don’t need to see my bedroom, do you?’

  Why would he want to do that? ‘No. I’ll take a look in here, and then take a walk round the house, if I may?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And then I’ll go outside to look at the boat . . .’

  ‘Boats – we have two boats.’

  He nodded. ‘Okay. After that, I’ll walk round the grounds.’

  ‘Do you want me to stay with you while you’re doing all that?’

  ‘I don’t think so. You mentioned a safe this morning – is it open?’

  ‘No.’ She walked into the bedroom, swung a small bookcase out on its hinges and opened the wall safe behind it. ‘There.’

  ‘Have you or the police removed anything from the room?’

  ‘No, and the police didn’t even bother coming up here. As far as they were concerned, Roger left under his own steam, locked the door and then went on vacation by foot with no luggage or passport.’

  ‘Budget constraints, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Which is exactly why I’m paying you to find out what has happened to him.’

  ‘I’ll be okay now.’

  ‘If you do need anything, I’ll be on the sun deck at the back of the house.’

  She left and closed the door.

  He stood in the centre of the room and turned slowly in a full circle. He’d expected heavy mahogany, dark brown, heavy drapes and the smell of aftershave. Instead, the walls were painted a mix of red and white, the furniture was oak – there was a king-size Gate bed and matching mirror with intricate decorate carvings on both that were reminiscent of turn-of-the-century ironwork, a chest of drawers, a large triple dresser, a bedside chest with an art deco naked lady holding a light globe, and there was also the smell of potpourri.

  There were two mirrored doors that led into a walk-in wardrobe – he began there. Starting on the left, he systematically frisked all the clothes hanging on the rails – inside pockets, beneath collars and lapels, round hems, in turn-ups, linings. He stood on a chair and looked on the shelves, opened boxes until he found a stainless steel Ruger-100 .357 Magnum with a four inch barrel and a box of ammunition. He knew about guns, and the Ruger-100 was a very nice gun. Using the fabric of a shirt from the rail, so as not to leave any fingerprints on the weapon, he picked it up and smelled it and checked the chambers of the barrel. It was empty, and as far as he could tell it had never been fired.

  Next, he checked inside all the shoes, tapped the walls and skirting boards, but found nothing else of interest.

  He moved out into the bedroom proper and started with the bed. Lifted the mattress at both sides, checked underneath the mattress and under the bed – nothing. Ran his fingers behind the headboard, lifted the two abstract paintings off the wall above the bed and checked behind them – nothing. Lifted the edges of the large rug in the centre of the floor – nothing. Checked the bedside chest – at the back and underneath. Pulled the drawers out – rifled inside them; checked the sides, back and underneath of each one.

  Under the bottom drawer he found a double-bit key stuck to the wood with duct tape, and removed it. It reminded him of an old key for a padlock, but this key was larger and thicker, newer and shinier, and it had two sets of numbers stamped on it. The first number – 1894 – was stamped on the base of the bow. The second number – 376 – was stamped sideways on one of the bits. It was a sturdy key, good to hold, heavy in the palm of his hand. He knew about keys, knew that they didn’t make keys like this anymore. Now they made them flatter, thinner, smaller and definitely not shiny. He hadn’t seen a key like this in a long time. They were the type of keys that you found at the bottom of boxes filled with odds and ends in the garage and had no idea where they’d come from or what they’d ever fitted.

  Why was a bit key taped underneath the bottom of a drawer? What did it fit? If he could find out the what, he’d know the why. And he just happened to know a man who knew more about locks, keys and cracking safes than he did about not getting caught. It had been a long time since he’d last arrested Johnny Betcher, and he wondered if he was currently in or out of lock-up. Either way, he’d track him down and pick his brains. He slid the key into one of the zippered pockets of his Levy cargo shorts.

  On top of the bedside chest was a hardback book by Ron Chernow called The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance. His eyes began to glaze over simply by reading the title. He riffled the pages and found a scrap of paper three quarters of the way through on page 537 that Roger Harrison had presumably been using as a bookmark. He pulled the piece of paper out, snapped the book closed and put it back on top of the chest.

  The paper had a telephone number written on it in a spidery scrawl: 904-824-5770 – he stuffed it into the pocket of his cargo shorts as well. It would be easy enough to find out who the number belonged to.

  He began moving around the room in a clockwise direction starting with the French windows leading out onto a balcony. There was a round wicker table with two easy chairs, but nothing else. He looked down onto the sun deck and saw Barbara Harrison on a sun lounger naked from the waist up. She was a fine figure of a woman, but he wasn’t interested. Cassie had been the only woman for him, and she still was. When it was his time, he’d be joining her.

  It was a hot one, but then it was always hot in St Augustine. Last month’s average was ninety degrees Fahrenheit, and he hadn’t noticed any drop in temperature with the arrival of October. The sun was gradually falling into the sea, but he had no time to watch it submerge.

  Back inside, he felt and shook the red-patterned drapes – dust fell out. The bookcase was shoulder height, and the hinges were hidden at the rear. He checked each book, which resembled a who’s who of American literature: Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger, Catch 22 by Joseph Heller and many more. Were they for show? There was nothing of any interest in the books or on the shelves.

  The safe contained Roger Harrison’s passport, $20,000 in cash, birth and marriage certificates, a stack of financial papers including savings bonds, a summary of his Harbor Bank pension plan, details of an Individual Retirement Account worth $110,000 and some other investments.

  Roger Harrison was a man busy planning for a comfortable retirement. He was not a man who would jeopardize everything he’d worked his whole life for by going on a two-week vacation with a floozy.

  It took him a further forty-five minute
s to search the rest of the bedroom, but the only other thing of interest was what he didn’t find.

  Chapter Three

  Twenty four million dollars less death taxes – that was how much her father had been worth, and how much she had given to children’s charities. Sometimes, she felt as though she was crazy giving it all away, but she also knew that if she’d kept his dirty money she would never have been able to sleep at night.

  Now, she was her own woman. Her father – Senator Deacon Raeburn – was dead. She would make her own way through life – with a little help from Tom Gabriel, of course.

  She wished Tom Gabriel had been her father all along. Maybe if he had, she’d be a very different person now. She liked Tom Gabriel a lot. In fact, she would even go so far as to say that she loved him. Oh, not in any dirty way – he was a million years old, but as the father she’d never really had. Tom Gabriel was just the way a father should be – teaching her right from wrong, protecting her, comforting her – and in the short time she’d known him, he’d done all the things that her real father had never done.

  ‘Hello,’ she said, approaching an old couple and showing them her press identity card.

  ‘Yes?’

  She was on Porpoise Point with a notebook and pencil asking questions like a real investigative journalist.

  ‘I work for the St Augustine Record, and I’d like to ask you a couple of questions about the body that was found here last Friday morning, if that’s all right with you?’

  ‘Ask away,’ the wrinkled old man said.

  ‘Did you see the man at all?’

  ‘Not on Friday morning, but on Thursday evening about seven o’clock. Yeah, he was sitting over there, below the street lamp.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Betty and I take a stroll down here late evening every day. Yes, we saw him, thought he was asleep or drunk, didn’t we Betty?’

  ‘You did Harry, but then you always think the worst of folks.’

  Rae gave an amused smile. ‘Are you saying he didn’t move?’

  ‘Uh huh,’ the man said, lifting up a tanned and bony arm. ‘All he did was pick up his arm like this, and pointed out towards the sea. Then, he dropped it again – that was all we saw.’

  Betty added, ‘We carried on along the Point as we always do, and then turned round and came on back . . .’

  The man interrupted. ‘. . . And he was still there in the same position.’

  ‘Did you see him do anything else?’

  ‘Nope. As Betty said, I thought he was either asleep or drunk, that’s why we didn’t call 911.’

  Betty made a squelching sound with her mouth.

  Harry looked at her. ‘Well, he was sitting with his back up against the sea wall and had all his clothes on. Only a crazy person or a drunk would do something like that. Hey! . . . he didn’t escape from Baywood, did he?’

  Betty hit him on the arm. ‘You’re the crazy old fool,’ she said. ’That’s an animal hospital.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He looked at Rae.

  She nodded in agreement with Betty.

  ‘Well, I never. I could have sworn . . .’

  Rae moved the conversation back to the man on the beach. ‘Did you see anybody talk to him, or approach him at all?’

  They both shook their heads.

  ‘Thanks for your help,’ she said.

  ‘No problem,’ Harry mumbled, and the two of them shuffled off on their daily walk arguing about whether Baywood was an animal hospital or not.

  She approached people as they strolled along the Point, but it was another half an hour before she found a mother with a toddler who had seen the man on the beach on Thursday evening.

  ‘Yes, I saw him . . .’ She turned to the toddler who was running round her making a noise like a fire engine. ‘This is what he’s like all day long – he drives me demented. Go on the beach Damien,’ she said to him. ‘And stay where I can see you.’

  She leaned her elbows on the wooden railing, so that she could keep her son in sight, and once Damien was running people ragged on the beach she continued. ‘On Thursday we were walking along the water’s edge. I was carrying my sandals. The water was lovely and warm . . . it always is at this time of year, and I love the feel of the wet sand between my toes. Damien was running all over the beach annoying people like he is now . . . I shouldn’t say this, but sometimes I think he’s the Devil’s child. Anyway, all of a sudden I couldn’t hear him anymore, and I wondered if maybe the bogeyman had snatched him away, but no such luck unfortunately . . .’

  Rae gave a laugh. ‘Surely he’s not that bad?’

  ‘Think of your worst nightmare and treble it. Anyway, he was standing at the man’s feet staring at him.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I suppose because he had all his clothes on and an overcoat as well. Everyone else was in shorts and t-shirts, and this man was dressed for the end of the world.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Damien was kicking the bottom of the man’s shoes and saying, ‘Hey, Mister . . .’

  ‘Did the man open his eyes or move at all?’

  ‘No, and that’s the weird thing. When I heard on the local news that he’d been found dead on Friday morning, I wondered if he was already dead when Damien was kicking his shoes.’ The woman shivered. ‘It doesn’t bear thinking about.’

  ‘Did you notice anything else about the man?’

  ‘He had a cigarette behind his right ear, and . . . well, I read people’s palms. It’s only a hobby, you understand, but I notice people’s hands. Take yours for instance – you’ve got lovely elegant hands. I’d say you were in the right job. You’d be useless doing anything like farming or fixing cars with those hands.’

  Rae looked at her hands and laughed. ‘I don’t plan on doing either of those things.’

  ‘A good job as well, I’d say,’ the woman confirmed. ‘Anyway, the man’s hands were much the same – well cared for, manicured nails, no scars or rough patches. In fact, a woman could do a lot worse than be touched by those hands, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘I think I have a good idea. Was there anything else you recall about the man?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘Well, thanks for your help, and good luck with Damien.’

  ‘Luck doesn’t come into it. What I need is some Holy Water and a priest who performs exorcisms.’

  They both laughed.

  School was out.

  It was time to go and see the paper delivery boy.

  ***

  He cleared his throat at the rear door that led onto the sun deck and waited.

  Barbara Harrison shrugged back into the top of her dress and swiveled her legs off the sun lounger.

  ‘Can I get you a drink, Mr Gabriel?’

  He nodded. ‘A lemonade would be good.’

  She smelled of oranges as she wafted past him and went into the house.

  Sitting down at the table next to the lounger, he stretched his legs out and closed his eyes. What was the double-bit key for? What did the numbers represent? Why was it stuck under the bottom drawer of a bedside chest? Who was at the other end of the telephone number? Maybe the key and the telephone number were red herrings. Maybe all he had was a pocketful of metal and paper.

  A shadow blotted out the sun.

  His eyes opened to slits. Barbara Harrison stretched out an arm towards him. In her hand she held a glass of cloudy lemonade, and he hoped it was going to taste as good as it looked. His eyes drifted past the lemonade, up her slim tanned arm with its fine blonde hairs, and fixed on a breast that had escaped from its limited confinement. He wasn’t a connoisseur of breasts by any stretch of the imagination, but they seemed good enough to eat – not too big and not too small. He’d spent some time obsessing over Cassie’s breasts, of course, and he’d seen a lot of other women’s breasts during his time in law enforcement. Most of those breasts had belonged to the victims at crime scenes, cadavers in the mo
rgue and the long queue of call girls at the station. So no, he wasn’t a connoisseur of breasts, but – like most men – he knew what he liked, and Barbara Harrison had the type of breasts he liked.

  ‘I thought you’d dropped off,’ she said with a laugh.

  He wrapped his fingers around the glass. Half a dozen ice cubes chinked at the top. ‘I’m sure there’ll come a time when afternoon naps will be the high point of my days, but I’m not quite there yet.’

  She sat back down on the lounger. The top of her dress fell from her shoulders. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’

  ‘Why should I mind? You have lovely breasts.’

  ‘Thank you. Well, did you find anything in Roger’s bedroom?’

  He took a long swallow of the lemonade and decided that he wasn’t going to tell her about the key or the telephone number until he had some idea what they were. ‘No, but I have a question.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Where’s your husband’s briefcase? If he came home on Thursday evening, and we now know that he didn’t go to work on Friday morning – where’s his briefcase?’

  She was quiet for a while. ‘I have no idea. I’m just wondering why I didn’t think of that before. The police didn’t ask about it either.’

  ‘Do you remember whether he came home with his briefcase on Thursday evening?’

  ‘Yes. He always carries his briefcase with him, and he keeps it locked as well. I can only imagine that he has it with him.’

  ‘What about his cell?’

  ‘He keeps that in his briefcase as well.’

  ‘I presume you’ve tried calling him?’

  ‘Of course. Each time I’m diverted to voicemail.’

  ‘You say his car is in the garage?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you have a key?’

  ‘Of course, his keys are missing as well.’

  She stood up again, but didn’t bother covering up her breasts. ‘I think there’s a spare key in a drawer in the utility room that we keep odds and ends in.’ She wandered off into the house again, and came back minutes later with a key that incorporated the inner workings to unlock the car’s central locking mechanism. ‘You can access the garage through the kitchen,’ she said, handing him the key.