by James Hayman
“Are you and your husband the owners of the house at 339 Hartley Street?”
“Yeah, we own the place. Has that busybody O’Malley been bitching about noise again?”
As he suspected, Joan O’Malley had a history of excessive noise complaints. Maybe Hartley Street wasn’t going to lead anywhere. “Mrs. O’Malley heard some yelling and screaming coming from what she thought was your house last night. One of our officers got no response when they knocked on your door. I’d like your permission to enter the premises and make sure nothing is wrong.”
“Jesus Christ. That damned woman has no life of her own so she just wants to butt her nose into everybody else’s. Every time some kid yells in the street she calls the cops and blames us.”
McCabe tried to make his long sigh inaudible. “Nobody’s blaming anybody, Mrs. Bickle. We would simply like to check the house and make sure everything is okay. Make sure there’ve been no break-ins or any damage to your property. You can either meet us at the house and let us in or give us permission to enter and check it out.”
In the background McCabe could hear an irritated male voice. “Brenda, what the hell is going on. Gimme the goddamned phone.” Then much closer. “This is Robert Bickle. Who is this and what do you want?”
Putting a check on an impulse to snap back at Bickle’s aggressiveness, McCabe drew a deep breath and said once again, “This is Detective Sergeant Michael McCabe. Portland Police Department.”
“Portland cops, huh? Then you must know my nephew. Jess Fardella? Brenda’s sister’s kid. He worked with you guys till he retired a couple of years back.”
Jess Fardella had been a community policing officer. McCabe had worked with him once or twice over the years. “Jess? Yeah, I knew him. Good cop. What’s he up to these days?”
“Bought himself a bar and grill out in Standish. Nice little place. Doin’ good, I hear.”
“Good to know,” said McCabe. “Tell him Mike McCabe says hello next time you talk to him. Anyway, we’ve had a complaint of excessive noise coming from the house at 339 Hartley Street. That’s your place, right?”
“We don’t live there anymore,” Bickle interrupted. “Haven’t for ten years. Not since I retired. We only come up occasionally in the summer. Mostly to make sure the place is still in one piece. We’re down in Florida now. At The Villages . . .”
McCabe had heard of The Villages. In fact, some friends of his mother had moved there. Place was a vast retirement community with more than five thousand homes for seniors and, rumor had it, one of the fastest growing rates of STDs in the country. The idea of horny baby boomers bringing the sexual revolution they started back in the ’60s with them into their golden years always made McCabe chuckle.
“But you still own the house in Portland?”
“Yeah, we own it but we use it strictly as a rental property.”
“Oh yeah? Full-time tenants?”
“Nah. We rent it furnished on a weekly basis. Mostly in summer. June to October. Occasionally other times.”
“Anybody there now?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Please just tell me if renters are currently in the house.”
“Yeah. It’s rented. Just for this week. Saturday to Saturday so the renter should still be there. Did you try knocking on the door?”
“One of our officers did. There was no answer. Who did you rent it to?”
“Some woman named Wilcox. Norah Wilcox.”
McCabe felt a flash of excitement.
“She didn’t burn the place down or anything, did she?” asked Bickle.
“No, nothing like that,” he said, keeping his voice calm and relaxed.
“What, then? She doin’ something illegal in the house? Selling drugs or something?”
McCabe decided not to elaborate. “Yeah, that’s possible. Once we check it out I can let you know more specifically. You have an address for Ms. Wilcox?”
“Goddammit. I knew that deal was too damned good to be true.”
“What do you mean?”
There was a long sigh on the other end. “This Wilcox woman calls us direct like two weeks ago,” said Bickle. “Tells me she’s coming to Portland on business. Says she doesn’t like hotels and so she looked for a place online. Y’know? On the website. Vacation Rentals Online? VROL? Anyway, she saw our ad and wanted to rent the house for a week.”
“Why did you think it was too good to be true?”
“Well, when she told me she wanted to rent the place, I said fine, just send us a check for one week’s rent plus a five hundred dollar security deposit and we’ll e-mail you a rental agreement that you can fill out and e-mail back. She says no, she’d rather send cash than a check and not fill out any paperwork. I say I’m not sure about that. She then says if we do it her way, in addition to the rent, we can keep the security deposit and she’ll throw in another five hundred besides. Altogether that’s fifteen hundred in cash for a place that’s okay but sure as hell ain’t no palace. Honestly, it’s kind of crummy. Only one decent bedroom. The second one’s used mostly for storage. Naturally, I get suspicious so before I agree I ask her what’s going on. Why would she be willing to pay more’n twice as much?”
“And what does she say?”
“Well, her voice gets real low like she doesn’t want anybody else hearing what she’s going to tell me. She asks if I can keep a secret. If she can trust me.”
“Go on.”
“I’m gettin’ more and more curious so I say, yeah, sure, I can keep a secret as well as the next guy. That’s when this Norah tells me she’s coming to Portland to meet some guy and wants to stay with him at the house, and I say, ‘Yeah, so? What’s the big deal about that?’
“She says both she and this guy are married to other people so they want to meet in a place where nobody’s gonna know them and nobody’s gonna be able to track them down. I don’t say nothing back so she keeps talkin’. Says it’s gotta be a secret because her husband and his wife are real suspicious of what they’re up to. I still say nothin’. She goes on and tells me her husband’ll dump her if he finds out she’s having an affair, and since he’s real rich there’s no way she wants to risk him divorcing her for adultery. Anyway, she says that’s the reason she wants to pay cash and not sign any lease. She says she can’t afford to leave any kind of paper trail ’cause for all she knows the husband may already have hired a private detective to keep an eye on them.
“While she’s talkin,’ I’m sitting here thinking this woman’s already offered me fifteen hundred in cash for a two-bedroom place, one of which I use for storage and isn’t included in the rental, that only rents for six hundred a week even in July, so I figure what the hell, a little negotiating won’t hurt. I tell her if she makes it two thousand she’s got a deal. If she says no, I’m ready to back down and take the fifteen. But nope, all she says is two thousand is fine. So I say fine back. I tell her where to send the money. When I get it I’ll call her back and tell her how to get into the house. But she won’t give me her number and says she’ll call me back.”
Okay, thought McCabe. There was no question now—339 Hartley Street was the house Norah Wilcox invited Joshua Thorne to visit. The place where she tied him to the bed and took the nude photo, then e-mailed it to his wife. Possibly the place where she went on to kill him. One crime confirmed. One suspected. “Did you ever get any kind of information about this Norah Wilcox?”
“Yeah. Like I said, I told her she could have the place but that she at least had to give me an address and a phone number in case there was any damage. Told her I’d just write it down and put it in a folder. And that I wouldn’t show it to her husband or to a private eye or anybody else. After a little back and forth, she finally says okay.”
“You still have the address and phone number she gave you?”
“Yeah. Like I told her, I wrote the information down and put it in the file folder I keep for the rentals.”
“Can you let me have it?”
Bickle hesitated for a minute, then said, “I told her I’d keep her info private, but hey, if she committed a crime there . . .”
“It’s looking that way.”
“Okay. Sure. For an old pal of Jess’s I guess so. Lemme go into my office and dig it out.”
“No problem. I’ll wait.”
It was a couple of minutes before Bickle picked up the phone again. “Yeah, I’ve got it right here,” he said. “Name’s Norah Wilcox. Norah with an H at the end. Address is 851 West 94th Street, Apartment 6G, New York, NY 10025.”
McCabe knew the streets of Manhattan’s Upper West Side well enough to know that while the zip code was legit, the number 851 on West 94th Street, would put Norah’s apartment right in the middle of the Hudson River. Or maybe even atop the Jersey shoreline.
“How about the phone number?”
“212-555-7390.”
McCabe figured that was a phony too but he’d check it out. “What happened next?” he asked.
“Next? She sent me the money. A priority mail envelope filled with twenty brand-new Franklins tucked inside a piece of white paper.”
“What did you do with the cash?” McCabe was pretty sure Bickle would have avoided depositing the money so he wouldn’t have to pay taxes on it.
“Spent a couple of hundred. I still have the rest.”
“How about the paper they were wrapped in?”
“I tossed the paper. The money’s still inside the cardboard envelope.”
“Have you or anyone else touched it?”
“’Course I touched it. How am I supposed to get the money out or count the bills if I don’t touch it?”
“Anyone else touch it? Like your wife?”
“The mailman touched the outer envelope, I guess. I didn’t tell Brenda about the cash or it woulda been gone as fast as she could get to the nearest mall. Poof. Just like that. Don’t tell her I said that.”
“Mr. Bickle, it looks like a serious crime may have been committed in your house. I’m going to have to ask the local police department down there to check the envelope and remaining bills for fingerprints. They’ll also need to take your fingerprints since we know you also touched the money.”
“Ah geez, is that really necessary?”
“Totally necessary.”
“Will I get my money back?”
“We’ll have to keep the bills for evidence. However, I’ll see if I can arrange to have a check sent to you to reimburse you for the amount.”
“Can’t you guys give me cash?”
McCabe smiled. “Sorry, Bob. I’m afraid you’ll have to give Uncle Sam his share. Now I’d appreciate it if you would give me permission to enter the premises and search it for evidence.”
“Jesus. Okay. Yeah. I guess so. That’s fine.”
“Do you have a smartphone?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, just write down your permission for me to enter. Sign it and take a photo of the page with your smartphone. Then just text the photo to me.” He gave Bickle his name and cell number. “When I get there how do I get in?”
“You’ll see a lockbox on the left-hand side of the porch facing the house. The combination is 7490. There should be a key to the front door inside.”
“How big is the house?”
“Not big. Living room, kitchen and dining room downstairs. Two bedrooms and a bath upstairs. Like I said, only one of the bedrooms, the one to the right as you go up the stairs, is included in the rental. Bathroom’s in the middle. The storage bedroom to the left.”
“Any basement or attic space?”
“Nope.”
“What do you store in the second bedroom?”
“Crap we shoulda thrown out years ago. Plus there’s a one-car garage attached to the house. We added that ourselves back in the late ’70s. Door from the garage goes into the kitchen. Would you do me one favor?”
“What?”
“Would you let me know if anything’s wrong or been damaged?”
“We’ll let you know.”
McCabe hung up and thought about next steps. Did Bob Bickle’s permission allow him to legally enter the house on Hartley Street? Maybe not by itself. Technically, as a renter, Norah Wilcox had a legal expectation of privacy till ten A.M. Saturday morning when the rental expired. If the case ever went to trial, Norah’s defense lawyer would definitely argue that McCabe’s entering the house without a warrant constituted an illegal search and any evidence found inside might therefore be inadmissible in court.
McCabe figured he had more than enough probable cause to get a judge to issue a warrant. On the other hand, with Joshua Thorne’s life definitely at risk, McCabe didn’t want to wait too long to get one. The photo Norah e-mailed to Rachel Thorne offered probable cause to believe that not only had a crime been committed on the premises but that Joshua Thorne might, even now, be in mortal danger. Still some judges could be tricky and the idea of blowing a case on a technicality? Well, it had happened before and he swore he’d never let it happen again. If he could get it done fast he’d get the damned warrant.
McCabe decided to call District Court Judge Paula Washburn, who he knew could and would act fast if she agreed with him that the matter was urgent. She also lived in town on Danforth Street just minutes away. He punched in her cell number, still stored in his memory bank five years after she’d first given it to him in the Lucas Kane case. He just hoped Washburn hadn’t changed her number and that she had her phone turned on.
She hadn’t and she did. “Well, good evening, Sergeant. May I ask why you’re calling me in the middle of my sacred martini hour?”
McCabe gave Washburn the two-minute version of what was going on.
“So you think you’re going to find Joshua Thorne in that house?” she asked.
“I do.”
“Which way? Dead or alive?”
“I’m willing to bet on dead but I don’t really know. I may also find the suspect. Most likely alive.”
“Okay. Just so I’m sure I’ve got this straight. First, an unknown woman calling herself Norah Wilcox rents the house at 339 Hartley Street from its owners, Bob and Brenda Bickle. However, Ms. Wilcox refuses to sign a lease. Instead, she pays Mr. Bickle in cash four times as much as Bickle is asking and she gives him a phony address and phone number. Secondly, a woman also calling herself Norah Wilcox allows herself to be picked up by Joshua Thorne in the bar at the Port Grill and suggests they go to a house she supposedly inherited from her parents that was quote ‘only a few minutes away’ unquote. Thirdly, there are no houses in the city of Portland owned by anybody named Norah Wilcox. Fourth, or is it fourthly? On the same night a woman also calling herself Norah Wilcox e-mails Joshua Thorne’s wife a photograph of Mr. Thorne, naked, blindfolded and tied to a filthy mattress you can’t imagine anyone willingly lying on. And fifthly, again if there is such a word, Mr. Thorne doesn’t show up this morning for an important business meeting and nobody knows where he is. Does that pretty much sum it up?”
“Perfectly, Your Honor.”
“All right. I’m signing your warrant. Stop by as soon as you get it written up.”
“Thank you, Your Honor.”
Chapter 18
AS HE SLOWLY returned to consciousness Joshua Thorne wondered if a needle was still stuck in his thigh. Wondered what kind of drug Norah had stuck him with. Whatever it was it hadn’t left him with the same kind of headache the first drug had.
He remembered the needle going in, the dizziness, the blacking out. But he had no idea how much time had passed since then. An hour? A couple of hours? Jesus, maybe even a whole day. Thorne tried and failed to open his eyes. The blindfold was still in place. The ropes still bound his wrists to the bed frame. He told himself to ignore the burning pain in his wrists he could still feel from his failed attempts to escape the first time around. Ignore the fact that his body still ached from having been tied in one position for what seemed like days. Ignore the fact that he was incredibly thirsty, his mouth feel
ing as dry and rough as sandpaper.
On the plus side, at least the headache was gone. Thank God for small favors. The absence of pain might help him assess his situation more clearly and logically instead of just hysterically shrieking into the void like he had before. The shrieking hadn’t gotten him anywhere before and going nuts one more time again would not now get him free.
What Josh needed to do was come up with a plan. If anyone was capable of smart planning, it was him. He’d earned a well-deserved reputation as one of the smartest, cagiest deal makers, not just at Harris Brumfield, but anywhere on the Street. Hell, if he decided to leave Floyd in the lurch he knew he could land a half dozen job offers as easily as snapping his fingers. Headhunters called him all the time. He always told them he might be interested in moving. And then gave them a comp number that made them gasp. So far, nobody had come up with the number.
Anyway, he told himself, stop telling yourself how cool and smart you are and concentrate on coming up with a plan. Any damned plan that would get him out of here.
First things first. What Josh had to do now was stop fantasizing about beating the shit out of Norah and start figuring out how to convince her to let him go. He didn’t really know her. Didn’t know how she thought. What was important to her? What kind of offer might work? They’d never met before last night. He’d never even seen her. Yet she’d come into the bar not just willing to hook up but actually inviting him to come to her place (assuming this shithole actually belonged to a woman who wore a Patek Philippe watch, which he seriously doubted). The question was why. The first possibility, maybe the only possibility, was that someone had paid her a lot of money to do what she did. Which included screwing him. Which meant she was nothing more than a high-class whore. Maybe the simplest tactic, possibly the only tactic when dealing with whores, was to pay more than the other guy. He didn’t really give a shit how much it’d take to get out of here. The key was to make it an amount she’d find believable yet tempting enough to take the chance to let him go. Top of the line escorts could easily demand three or four grand an hour for their services so she wasn’t broke. A fact that the expensive watch on her wrist corroborated. He’d paid some really prime talent five grand himself. And Norah was without question prime talent. So what would it take to convince her to do something as potentially risky as double-crossing whoever had hired her by cutting the ropes that bound him. A million dollars for five minutes work with a knife? Way too much. She’d never believe it. But a hundred thousand? He considered that. Yes, he’d definitely go that high. And yes, she’d probably go for it. But wouldn’t it be smarter to start lower? Maybe make fifty the opening bid and see how she reacted.