Two Ways to Die: A Java Jarvis Thriller

by Erin Wade

  Java leaned back against the wall and Ares laid his head in her lap. She was surprised when he started making soft snoring sounds. She shook him but couldn’t wake him.

  They’re drugging the water, Java thought. They probably come in here when I’m knocked out.

  Java knew her captors couldn’t see her any more than she could see them. She knew they’d have to turn on the beam to produce enough light for them to see her with night vision goggles. She pretended to be asleep waiting for the sliver of light to slice through the darkness.

  CHAPTER 56

  “What would Java do?” Kat mumbled out loud as she leaned on the railing of Java’s porch. She watched the lazy current carry a plastic bottle downstream. People think the entire earth is their garbage dump, she thought.

  She had held up all day following Beau around and talking to anyone who might give them a clue to Java’s whereabouts. Her profiler’s brain kept telling her the answer was in Jody Schooley’s mansion. She pulled her cellphone from her pocket and dialed Beau’s number.

  “Beau, we need to search Schooley’s place from top to bottom,” Kat blurted when the detective answered.

  “Based on what?” Beau muttered

  “My intuition,” Kat snapped.

  “We’ll need a warrant,” Beau mumbled pulling himself from a deep sleep. “What grounds?”

  “Sanitary inspection,” Kat huffed. “Those places are always in violation of sanitation law.”

  “It’s after midnight, Kat,” Beau pointed out. “No judge will be happy to hear from me about a sanitation inspection this time of night.”

  “Who’s the judge on duty tonight?” Kat asked

  “Marilyn Case,” Beau replied.

  “I’ll call her,” Kat said. “I’ve known Marilyn a long time. She owes me a favor.”

  “Do you need her number?” Beau asked.

  “I’ve got it,” Kat replied. “I’ll call you back after I talk to her.”

  “I’ll start the paperwork for the warrant,” Beau assured her.

  Kat pushed the name to dial Marilyn. “Hello, Kat,” Marilyn’s sleepy voice was as sexy as usual. Kat knew her number was still in the judge’s list of favorites.

  “I need a favor Marilyn,” Kat said.

  “Just name it,” the judge responded.

  “Detective Beau Braxton needs a search warrant for Jody Schooley’s place.”

  There was a long silence before Marilyn answered. “Do you and Beau know what you’re getting into?”

  “Marilyn, Java has been abducted,” Kat blurted. “I know Schooley has something to do with it.”

  “Tell Beau to bring me the paperwork,” Marilyn sighed. “I must be crazy helping you locate the woman who stole you from me.”

  “That’s water under the bridge,” Kat mumbled. “We’ve both moved on.”

  “Tell Beau he has an hour to get me the warrant,” Marilyn said. “I’m not waiting up all night for him. And Kat good luck. I hope you find her.”

  ##

  It was four in the morning when New Orleans’ finest rang the doorbell of Jody Schooley’s mansion. A prim and proper butler opened the door. “Oh,” he gasped. “Mr. Schooley isn’t here.”

  “We don’t need him,” Beau bellowed showing the man the search warrant. “We have a warrant to search this place and everyone in it.”

  “How many people are on premise right now?” Kat asked.

  “Um, let me see,” the butler began to tick off people on his fingers. Eleven ladies, six clients, and me.”

  “Get them all in the great room,” Beau commanded motioning to his team to round up the people.

  In fifteen minutes, the police officers had herded everyone into the great room.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Melody confronted Beau.

  Beau gave her a copy of the search warrant then nodded for his officers to commence the search.

  “What are you looking for?” Melody demanded.

  “Java Jarvis,” Kat blurted. “She’s missing.”

  A devilish smile spread across Melody’s lips. “As much as I’d like the pleasure of Java’s company, I’d never abduct her. It’s no fun if all parties aren’t willing participants.”

  Kat took a step toward Melody but Beau’s hand on her arm stopped her.

  “The anger management classes must have worked,” Melody taunted. “I heard you have a vicious temper.”

  “Miss Rogers,” Beau chimed in, “I suggest you sit down and shut up.”

  Melody cast an angry look at Beau then a taunting smile at Kat. “What makes you think I haven’t already been with your woman? She was here for several hours yesterday.”

  “Java would never touch a whore,” Kat hissed.

  Melody’s face twisted into tears. “You are so quick with your labels. Whore, hooker, they’re vile words.”

  “Kat you should go upstairs,” Beau suggested. “I’ll question the ladies.”

  ##

  Kat was amazed at the cleanliness of the mansion. Every floor was spotless and smelled as fresh as a spring breeze. Each room was tastefully furnished and pleasant.

  “Are cat houses usually this clean and welcoming?” She asked one of the policewomen searching the rooms.

  “No ma’am,” the woman answered. “They usually stink to high heaven and look like an epidemic Petri dish. Everything I’ve encountered so far has been freshly laundered and there are air fresheners in every room.

  “The ladies themselves are immaculate. I mean their hygiene is exemplary.”

  Kat had to admit that every one of the women looked as if they were going to a debutante ball.

  A thorough search of the people and the premises produced nothing that would tie it to Java or her disappearance. It did produce two city councilmen and a council woman. Beau diplomatically looked the other way.

  “Since we found nothing,” Beau informed the worried politicians, “I won’t need to file a report other than nothing was found.”

  Beau walked Kat to her car. “You got any more intuition calls?” He grumped.

  CHAPTER 57

  Java had no way of knowing how long she waited for her visitor. Ares began to stir from his drug induced sleep. “Hey boy, you okay?” Java scratched behind the dog’s ears and he snuggled closer against her.

  “Be still, boy,” Java murmured as a whirring noise filled the air. A door opened above her flooding the area with light. Java pretended to be asleep but observed through half closed eyes.

  The lunchbox was lowered onto the ledge, ten feet away from her. She scanned the room she was in. It was cavernous. She couldn’t see the far side of it but guessed it could easily house several hundred people. As far as she could see, the ledge she was on seemed to run through the entire area. She committed as much of the scene to memory as she could.

  The rope was jiggled loose from the lunch box handle and pulled back up the wall. The overhead door whirred closed. Java dropped her head as if sleeping.

  A few minutes later the clanging began, and the beam of light sliced through the darkness to highlight the lunchbox. Java surmised her captor was working alone. There had been no coordination of opening doors, lowering boxes and casting the beam. All were done with minutes in between telling her the culprit was moving from place to place.

  Knowing her captor was probably observing her through night vision goggles, Java pretended to awaken, and the clanging stopped. Someone’s beating on a pipe with a hammer or another pipe, Java thought. That’s just to wake me.

  “Stay Ares,” she commanded the dog. If her captors hadn’t already seen her new companion, she wanted to keep him hidden. She stood up and walked to the lunchbox.

  As she slid her back down the wall and picked up the lunchbox the beam of light went out. “Ares, come,” she called the dog.

  Ares crawled on his stomach until his muzzle touched her arm then he pushed against her. Java wrapped her arm around his neck and hugged him. She wondered where he had come from. He seeme
d to be well trained.

  Ares sat back on his haunches as Java opened the lunch box. She divided the sandwich giving Ares his half and half the chips. She wondered how long she had been in the cave or whatever it was. She put the toothpick that held the sandwich together into her pocket along with the others.

  She’d eaten twelve meals. If her captor was feeding her three times a day, she had been in the tomb four days. Why hasn’t someone found me? She thought. Kat’s better than this. Why hasn’t she found me?

  Java decided to see how far she could walk on the ledge. She counted her steps. She hoped to be on the other side of the space when the beam pierced the blackness again. “That should give them a heart attack,” she chuckled.

  She knew it would take her captor several minutes to locate her if she was on the opposite side of the cave giving her longer to survey her prison. If she could figure out where she was, she might find a way to escape.

  She could feel Ares’ nose lightly touching her calf with every step she took. There was something comforting about having him close to her.

  She counted a thousand feet and decided her prison was circular or a very long rectangular room. The whirring noise she associated with a visit from her captor started. She lay down flat on the ledge putting Ares between her and the wall.

  Light flooded the cave and Java took her time surveying the area. She knew her jailer would be looking frantically for her, but she was on the dark side of the room hidden in the shadows.

  Another light source was introduced into the room—a very bright flashlight. Java looked below her and saw an area that was filled with water. She had no idea how deep it was. She scanned a wall lined with old rusting file cabinets and an ancient cold drink machine. Judging by the water level on them she guessed the water to be waist deep.

  The bright light moved slowly along the ledge searching for her. Java observed maps of local fallout and natural disaster shelters along with a radiation dosage chart. Where the hell am I? She thought. This place looks like something from the cold-war era.

  The light moved closer to her and ceased movement when it reached her feet. Java turned her face to the wall. The light slowly moved up her body stopping on the back of her head. The light traversed her body several times then went out.

  “Now I’ve done it, Ares,” she whispered to her dog. “We didn’t get a lunch box.”

  Java lay motionless as someone scurried across the floor above her. She prayed her captor would open a door and check on her. If she could confront her captor, she could save herself. She wondered if there was an opening above her like the one on the other side of the room.

  A screeching sound of metal against metal made her want to clasp her hands over her ears but she lay still. Ares whimpered.

  “Shush,” she cooed calming the dog. Slowly a shaft of light entered the room as her keeper pried open a sliding door rusted closed from years of neglect. A lunchbox was lowered, and the rope retracted immediately.

  Java fought the desire to turn her head and look at her surroundings, but she didn’t move. After several minutes the door screeched closed and they were alone in the darkness once more.

  “What is this place Ares?” Java talked to her dog as she opened the lunchbox. She located the usual sandwich, chips and water but her hand touched something else—something soft but rough. She grasped it with both hands and explored it with her fingertips. “Burlap—a voodoo doll,” she snorted as she fingered the buttons. Her initial reaction was to toss the thing into the stagnant water below her but knew it might provide clues, so she stuffed it into her jacket pocket.

  Ares whimpered waiting patiently for his half of the sandwich. They ate their food and Java unscrewed the lid from the water bottle. “I know this is going to put us to sleep big guy, but I’m dying of thirst. I know you are too.” She drank half the water and poured the rest into the lunchbox for Ares. He lapped it dry and the two soon fell into a deep sleep.

  CHAPTER 58

  Kat moaned seductively as she reached for Java. Waking each morning beside the blonde was Kat’s favorite thing to do. She moved her hand to touch the soft warmth of her lover then drew herself into the fetal position as her stomach twisted into a knot. Java wasn’t in her bed.

  She hugged herself as tears streamed down her cheeks. She had loved Java for so long she couldn’t imagine life without her.

  A week had passed since Java’s disappearance. Kat knew that the chances of finding the blonde alive diminished with each passing day. “Dear God, help me,” she prayed.

  Java’s beautiful face filled her mind as she thought about tangling her fingers in golden hair and pulling soft lips against hers. “Don’t do this to me, Java,” she cried into her pillow. “Please don’t leave me alone.”

  Kat showered, drank a cup of coffee and headed to the restaurant. She wondered how everything could go on the same as always when her reason for living was gone.

  She was surprised to see Beau’s car in the parking lot of Java’s Place. Her heart skipped a beat with the thought of news about Java.

  Kat parked and rushed into the restaurant. She stopped when she saw Penny, Beau, Karen and the rest of her team huddled talking softly. Her heart felt as if it would burst from her chest. She closed her eyes against the stinging tears that threatened to announce to the world how much she loved the blonde.

  Sirens wailed down the street and the long deep honk of fire engines and emergency vehicles filled the air.

  “Java?” Kat cried running to the group.

  “We’re not sure,” Karen caught Kat in her arms. “A druggie found the body this morning. We’re going to the scene now. You should ride with me.”

  “My forensic team is already there,” Penny added.

  ##

  Beau flashed his badge to get them as close to the activity as possible but was forced to park a block away because of the emergency response vehicles. The team followed the detective as he held up his badge making it possible for them to walk to the front of the onlookers.

  “What the hell is that, Captain,” Beau addressed his boss Gary Landry.

  “You won’t believe me when I tell you,” Landry shook his head to indicate his own disbelief.

  The team pushed to the front of officers gaping at the scene. A block long section of the street and sidewalks were pushed out of the ground by something huge. It was as if a giant cement submarine was trying to surface from under Canal Street.

  “It looks like the Jolly Green Giant’s coffin floated to the surface,” Barbie scoffed. “What is that, Beau?”

  “It’s one end of Harrah’s parking garage,” Captain Landry replied. “Basically, a seven-hundred by one- hundred-foot cement box whose corner has floated to the surface breaking through the street.”

  Penny rushed to the coroner’s truck with Kat close behind her. “Penny, why is the truck here instead of the van?” Kat asked.

  Penny pointed to the ladders the fire department had lowered into the hole in the top of the cement. “There’s more than one body in there.”

  “I’m going down with you,” Kat declared.

  “I don’t think you should—” Kat interrupted Penny.

  “Please Penny,” Kat begged. “I must go with you.”

  Penny nodded and led the way to the first ladder. “Watch your step.”

  Penny’s team had already set up bright lights so the ME could examine the bodies. Penny looked around her. Two headless bodies were stretched out on their backs.

  “Hopefully these will match the heads we have in the morgue,” Penny said kneeling by the first body. “Judging from the decomp I’d say these have been here for some time.”

  The police continued to search the tunnel. “Penny there’s another one over here,” one of the men called out.

  “And I’ve got one here,” a female officer lighted a body with her flashlight.

  “Four bodies,” Penny mumbled to Kat. “I think we’ve found The Decapitator’s dumping ground.”
r />   “Java?” Kat exhaled a ragged breath.

  “She’s not here,” Penny declared.

  “Thank God,” Kat exhaled loudly.

  “We’re missing Delores Ruiz’s body. Look for one more corpse.” Penny instructed her team.

  Kat leaned against the wall of the tunnel waiting for her legs to stop shaking. “Were the women murdered and decapitated here,” she finally asked Penny.

  “No, this is a body dump,” Penny concluded. “There’s no sign of blood which means they bled out somewhere else and were dumped here.”

  Kat walked outside the perimeter of the high-beam lights and peered into the darkness. “What is this place?”

  “Back in the sixties, the New Orleans City Council was populated by a group that owned a huge construction company,” Penny talked as she worked on the bodies. “They railroaded several huge concrete construction projects through the council and made some of the most idiotic decisions imaginable.

  “This tunnel for instance. It was a 1.3-million-dollar waste of taxpayer money. This was supposed to be a six-lane interstate tunnel carrying traffic beneath downtown New Orleans and relieving the traffic congestion in the city’s business district. Unfortunately, the idea was abandoned after the tunnel was constructed so it became an albatross around the city’s neck. It was buried and the city fathers wanted it to stay that way. Out of sight, out of mind, so to speak. Most people have forgotten about it.

  “Harrah’s is built over the other end of it and uses that section of the tunnel for a parking garage. This unexpected surfacing has to tilt that a little.”

  “This is in total darkness,” Kat pointed out. “Harrah’s parking garage is lighted.”

  “Yes, about half the tunnel was sealed off years ago as water began to seep into it,” Penney added. “The thinking was to let this end fill with water to stabilize the entire thing. Harrah’s weight on the other end was supposed to hold down that part of the tunnel. As you walk deeper into the tunnel, you’ll encounter water.”

  “I’m going to take Chris and Barbie and search the rest of the tunnel,” Kat informed her.

  “Probably a good idea,” Penny agreed. “Be careful. I have no idea how deep the water gets.”