The Mather Triad: Series Boxed Set (Chloe Mather Thrillers)

by Lawrence Kelter

  Hinky rubbed his eyes. “Quiet down now,” he hollered.

  The bats had just recently awoken and were eager to enjoy their feeding. Hinky took meticulous care of the colony and fed them at exactly the same time every day. They had been conditioned in the same way Pavlov had conditioned dogs and became ravenous as soon as they opened their eyes.

  “Sweet Jesus, don’t they ever settle down?” Sand asked. He never babysat more than five at a time. Locked in his bunker, they were far more manageable than the raging colony of savage flying rodents he now shared company with. He sipped his water then set his glass down on the table.

  Hinky had been well cared for, his needs attended to by a doting aunt. His IQ had been tested several times, but he had never scored higher than seventy-six. He was not the sharpest tack in the drawer, but he was intensely loyal. Sand did not let him participate in the hunts, but he cared for the bats with the same love and attention that Sand had once lavished on his goldfish. He never asked why Sand loved them so much or why he needed so many. He simply took pride in doing the best job he could. “No. They’s restless.”

  “Maybe if you …” Sand focused on the glass pitcher of warming cow’s blood that was sitting in a water bath.

  It took a moment before Hinky understood what Sand was suggesting. “Oh, yeah.” He almost seemed startled by the revelation and slowly rose from his chair. He checked the tall glass thermometer that had been sitting in the blood. “Just ’bout right.”

  Condensation dripped from the outside of the heavy pitcher as he carried it over to the cages and began filling the troughs with blood. The bats stirred into a frenzy as the scent of warm-blooded nourishment wafted through their nostrils.

  “Look at ’em whoop it up,” Hinky said, his eyes wide with pleasure. “You’d think I was giving ’em champagne.” It took him but a few minutes to fill all the troughs, and then he returned to his chair while the colony dined on their gory feast. He was easily distracted and appeared to be settling into a trance.

  Sand cleared his throat to get his attention.

  “Oh. So wha’ wuz it you wanted to tell me?”

  Sand probed his eyes. “Bob, we have to get rid of the bats.”

  Hinky was silent. A long moment passed while he digested the news. His face was mired with confusion. “You say what?”

  Sand leaned forward. “I know they’ve become your pets, but … Bob I have something much more important for you to do, and the bats … Well, they just have to go. They’ve served their purpose, and we can’t keep them anymore.”

  “Is it ’cause they’re dangerous?”

  “Yes,” Sand said, jumping at the opportunity Hinky provided. “We can get in a lot of trouble if we’re caught with them.”

  “What will we do wit’ dem, Jowelle?”

  “We have to burn them.”

  “But why?”

  “Because they’re dangerous, Bob. Because every trace of them has to disappear.”

  “Or they’ll do something bad?”

  “That’s right. Do you think you could take care of that for me?”

  “Why, yeah, I guess. I do whatever you ask, Jowelle. Dem bats is kinda ugly anyways.”

  “You’ve been getting tired of them, haven’t ya, cleaning up their mess and all?”

  “Yeah. I wuz gonna tell you when the right time came round,” the simple-minded man assented.

  “I thought as much. So this is what you have to do. You know all those jugs of ammonia you keep on hand to clean up the bats’ mess?”

  Bob nodded. “Uh-huh.”

  “Good. So all you have to do is stack all the bottles in front of the cages and spread this around them on the floor.” Sand unzipped a duffle bag and withdrew a large canister of gray powder. “Now be careful not to get it wet. Can you remember that?”

  Bob nodded again.

  “When you’re ready to leave, just turn the water on in the slop sink and cram the stopper in tight so that the sink will overflow. Then you leave, and that’s that.”

  “Wouldn’t gasoline be easier? I got a gas can in here somewhere.”

  Sand shook his head. “We don’t want the fire to look like arson.”

  “Like what?”

  “Arson,” he explained calmly, “like it was set on purpose.”

  “Oh, all right then. So you wan’ me to do it tonight?”

  “It has to be tonight, Bob. You promise you’ll take care of it for me?”

  “Shoot, I do anything you ask me to, pretty much.”

  Sand stood and put his hand on Hinky’s shoulder. “Now remember, you turn on the water and get out fast. Don’t wait for the water to run down to the floor. Understood?”

  “Sure. And wha’ ’bout that other somthin’ im-po-tant you got fo’ me ta do?”

  “First things first, Bob. Let’s get rid of the bats and then we’ll talk.” Sand hadn’t given any thought to keeping Hinky busy, but he knew he wouldn’t have trouble coming up with a simple chore he’d eagerly embrace. The presence of the FBI agent at the kill site alarmed him because he knew that they were dangerously close. The bats were evidence and they had to go—fast! “Don’t forget, okay? Turn the water on and get out.” He walked over to the slop sink and twisted the stopper into the drain until it was in good and tight. “You’re all set. Give me a half hour, then just turn on the water and leave.” He walked back to the simple man and kissed him on the top of the head.

  Hinky smiled and waved. “Bye, bye, bats.”

  Chapter 77

  I opened my hotel room door to find Glutt exactly where I last saw her, on the floor, knee-deep in banker’s boxes and files. She was wearing one of my sweaters and a pair of sweatpants. “Your sweater’s tight on me,” she complained. “Don’t you eat?”

  “You’ve seen me around food. You should know better than to ask a silly question like that.” I threw my jacket on the sofa and pulled a bottle of water out of the mini-fridge. I didn’t mind her wearing my sweater, but I made a mental note to have it cleaned before Liam noticed her randy musk on one of my favorite things.

  “Where’s Mike Hammer?” she asked.

  “Who, Cabrera?”

  “Yeah, the steely-eyed, square-jawed dick.”

  “You are talking about Cabrera, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s cooling his heels. It was a long goddamn night. I feel like my skin is crawling.”

  “You should take a nap.”

  “I intend to.”

  “Right after you tell me everything.”

  “Can I tell you everything after I—”

  Her gaze cut me short. It said are you kidding?

  “Fine, but I’m showering first.”

  “Sure. So what happened?”

  What part of ‘I’m showering first’ didn’t she understand? I felt clammy and uncomfortable. I couldn’t wait to strip out of my things and let cool water run over my body. I grinned at her and then headed for the bathroom without answering. I was out of my clothing in two seconds flat, stepped into the shower, and turned the shower massager from needle pressure to pulverize. I’d noticed that upstate water had a distinct metallic odor to it, but I didn’t mind because the pressure was intense, and I let the jets pummel my back, soothing my aching muscles and restoring my spirit. I had barely soaped up when I heard the door spring open. What the hell? I peeked out and saw Glutt sitting on the floor looking through documents. “Rebecca, do you mind?”

  “Oh, does this bother you? I figured we’re both girls, right?”

  We’re both girls? Maybe in the same sense that a Porsche and Kia are both automobiles. “This ain’t no mikvah bath, Rebecca. Do you think I could get a little—”

  “But I’m pretty sure I found something.”

  Dear Christ, how could you? I began to rinse off. “All right, Rebecca, hand me a goddamn towel.”

  Chapter 78

  Hinky did as instructed. He piled the gallon jugs of ammonia in front of the bats’ cages and sprink
led Sand’s gray powder on the floor around them, mindful not to get the mixture wet. Still dun know why we couldn’t just use gasoline, he thought. Flick a match and puff, that all she wrote. “Jowelle’s the boss, though, I guess.”

  The bats were quiet. They had eaten their fill, doubled their bodyweight, and were now busy peeing out waste.

  Hinky glanced around at the inside of the warehouse he had visited every day for the past several years, wondering what he’d do with his time now that he wouldn’t have the bats to take care of. Sand had piqued his interest with promises of a new important job, and he wondered what special assignment lay in store for him. He took a moment with the bats before turning on the tap and letting the sink fill with water. “Dunno how woter gonna make a fire,” he huffed, “but I guess Jowelle knows what he’s doing.”

  All told, there were fifty bats. He gazed at them, studying the small and gruesome faces he had gotten used to. “No mo’ cleaning bat whiz and bat sheet fo’ me.”

  He was incidental to them. For all the care he had given them and all the attention he bestowed on them, it was as if he wasn’t even there. They slept, they ate, and they voided. At that moment liberal pools of urine were accumulating on the bottom of the cages. Hinky was still wishing them farewell when two pools of effluent ran together and spilled out of the cage onto the floor. The gray powder Sand had prepared was a mixture of ammonium nitrate, common salt, and powdered zinc. Water was the catalyst Sand had chosen to make the mixture combust, but the bat urine did just as well, and only a few drops were required. The mixture flashed and enveloped Hinky in a green flame fireball. The bats screeched and scattered as their keeper was incinerated.

  Chapter 79

  Sometimes an individual’s value isn’t immediately apparent, and that had certainly been the case with Rebecca Glutt, but I was slowly warming up to her. She had discovered a property owned by a corporation with a commercial warehouse less than a thirty-minute drive from Sand’s home in the Catskills. Surf Avenue holdings, LLC, had only one stockholder, and that was Jo’Ell Sand. Bloom had set up the corporation on Sand’s behalf and made the tax payments on it for years, the payments stopping shortly after he had gone missing. According to the state’s records, the corporation had been considered abandoned and dissolved, but the brick-and-mortar property remained. A tax lien had been accruing, but the town had not acted to foreclose.

  I was once again behind the wheel, Cabrera rode shotgun, and Glutt was in the back for the ride-along. Gravel went flying as I took a turn tight to the inside.

  “Whoa!” Cabrera exclaimed. “Easy on the gas, cowboy. Geez … and you complained about the way I drove.”

  “Buckle up, partner, there are villains to be apprehended and crimes to be solved.”

  “No argument,” he continued. “How about we get there in one piece? I just got out of the hospital, and I’m in no hurry to go back.”

  Glutt was absolutely giddy in the backseat. “Whee,” she squealed. “Nail it, Mather.”

  “Ooh-rah!” I pounded the dashboard with an open hand. “That’s the spirit.” I gave Cabrera a stink-eye stare. “Where are your cohones, Cabrera?”

  “Eat shit!” He put his head back and closed his eyes. “Wake me when we get there.” He jumped when the yelp of a siren cut through the air. “Jesus! What the hell is going on now?”

  A fire chief’s truck was coming up behind us fast. He hit the air horns, and I pulled to the side so that he could pass. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

  “You’ve got a bad feeling about everything,” Cabrera complained.

  I burned rubber as soon as the emergency vehicle shot past. “I’ll bet you a box of Krispy Kremes the fire chief is headed the same place we’re headed.”

  “Not possible,” he quipped cynically. “I’ve got twenty that says you’re wrong.”

  Yes, even among hard-edged federal officers there was just one way to agree on a bet. We hooked pinkies. “You’re on.” I hung back a safe distance and followed the chief’s car. We were on an unfamiliar tributary road, which might’ve led to an industrial park filled with several commercial buildings, or it might not. I was betting not. GPS called out the turns and I followed them—the chief was just ahead of us, taking the same route. “I’m feeling pretty good about taking your twenty simoleons.”

  “I’ll bet you are,” he grumbled.

  “You’re such a sore loser.” The road wound around quite a bit, and we passed several old and defunct buildings, but they were a fair distance between each other, and the GPS stated that our destination was just half a mile up the road on the right-hand side. We didn’t have to drive very far before the chaos came into view. A hook-and-ladder company was just up ahead—firemen were deploying their equipment. I held out my open palm. “Pay up.”

  “Son of a bitch.” Cabrera reached into his pocket and begrudgingly slapped a twenty into my palm as we pulled to the curb in front of the one-level building.

  It was a real blaze, but fortunately the warehouse was built of cinderblock and, in accordance with modern safety conventions, was equipped with sprinklers. The firemen broke the windows and smashed the front door to let the smoke clear out. The fumes were noxious, and the air filled with a strong ammonia smell. It was so strong that our eyes began to burn, and we started to hack, causing us to retreat a safe distance away from the blaze.

  Firemen with gas masks rushed into the building and reemerged shortly thereafter carrying a man who was slumped lifelessly in their arms. They laid his charred body out on the sidewalk and checked for vitals, but I could tell from their actions and grim expressions that the victim had already succumbed to the fire. I covered my mouth with a handkerchief and advanced so that I could see the victim, who was a large black man. His face was badly charred and his clothing was mostly burnt off. Still, I could see that the shape of his head was not quite normal. Could it be Sand? I watched for moments as the firemen went about their business, all the while wondering who the victim actually was. I didn’t think it was possible for us to be that lucky, but in the next moment a fireman emerged from the building, and in his hand was a wire cage filled with charbroiled bloodsucking delicacies. Well, maybe not for you or I, but I have to believe there are places in the world where people actually eat bats.

  ~~~

  Within his car, Sand watched as his friend’s lifeless body was carried out of the building. He rubbed his eyes. “Jesus, Bob.” He just couldn’t believe that his plan had gone so horribly wrong. His instructions had been clear and precise, “Turn the water on and get out.” Even Bob could’ve— He ran the sequence of events through his mind as he had imagined them taking place. Even with the faucet wide open, it would’ve taken several minutes for the sink to overflow and the water to reach the ammonium nitrate compound. “What could’ve possibly gone wrong?” The question puzzled him for a moment and then it came to him. The bats had just eaten. “Oh, damn it!” He pounded his fist on the wheel and felt his throat tighten. Bob was what Sand had been as a youth—weak-minded and unable to stand up for himself. Bob was like a kid brother to him. “I killed him,” he lamented. “Why didn’t I see it? I killed him.”

  He lifted his gaze, painful though it was to see his friend lying dead on the ground. That’s when he saw her a second time. Like a bad penny she had turned up again, the same female agent in an FBI jacket, standing just to the side of his old friend, studying him intently. Who are you, and what are you up to? He watched her every movement, and again took pictures of her with his smart phone. He waited until she left the scene of the fire and followed her back to her hotel.

  Chapter 80

  I bumped into Dr. Julia Delphy in the morgue ladies’ room, where I was playing Whac-A-Mole with the motion-detecting soap and water dispensers, racing back and forth between three sinks, trying to get enough soap and water to cleanse my delicate lady paws. Two of the soap dispensers didn’t work, and the faucets either didn’t activate when they were supposed to or turned off before I co
uld reach them. Who could’ve imagined it being so difficult to wash your hands? I must’ve looked like a real clown when she walked in. I didn’t think she’d be happy to see me, and deservedly so, because there were now three new cadavers in her morgue thanks to yours truly, but she burst out laughing, watching as I was outsmarted by modern-day plumbing innovation. “Okay already, stop laughing at me, doc. I’m a proud federal employee.”

  Tears were literally streaming down her cheeks. “Oh my God, that’s so funny. I looked at you and pictured myself doing the same thing.”

  “Do you think it’s just messed up, you know, like badly timed traffic lights, or is there some sinister engineer at American Standard who right this minute is watching us on a video monitor and laughing his ass off?”

  “The latter.” She chuckled. “But I don’t care as long as there aren’t any spy cameras in the toilets.”

  “Ew! That’s icky.” I finally achieved the seemingly unachievable—my hands were clean and now needed to be dried. Fortunately the Dyson Airblade hand dryer worked like a charm—it dried my hands while making my skin look like undulating Jell-O. “I’d like to have a big one of these for the shower; step through it and, presto, you’re bone dry, hair and all.”

  “I’ll take two,” she said with a chuckle.

  “I didn’t think you’d be happy to see me.”

  “Oh, and why is that?”

  “You know, all the extra work I just sent your way.”

  She grinned. “You didn’t kill any of them, did you? Well then, you’re still in my good graces. Besides, I love this stuff. The way I see it, you’re the best thing that’s happened to my morgue in years. I’m a forensics nut. I’m not a foodie, and I’m not into House Beautiful or Travel and Leisure. You know how much fun I am at a party?”