Matthew Dicks

by Something Missing (v5)

  He eventually dismissed this plan as well because of the unlikelihood that a UPS driver would know the work number of a homeowner on his route. This too would appear suspicious. There was also no guarantee that Justine Ashley would come home upon receiving the phone call. She might just assume that the gift was from an out-of-state relative who had no plans to attend the party but routinely sent a gift every year. There was also no guarantee that Justine Ashley would check the messages on her machine upon arriving home, and the fact that Laura had not sent the gift by UPS might eventually come up as well.

  This train of thought led Martin to consider creating a situation that would force Justine Ashley home. A broken water main, a rock thrown through the front picture window, or an electrical problem were all possibilities that Martin considered but eventually dismissed, finding no way to guarantee that Justine Ashley and not her husband would respond to the problem.

  It was at about this time that Martin developed his contingency plan. More than an hour had passed at the table, and without a planned course of action, he had begun to grow despondent. Though he still felt as though he had heard Laura’s message for a reason and had been meant to help his client, he was beginning to wonder if he was clever enough to arrive at a solution to the problem with which he had been presented. Perhaps he simply wasn’t up to the task, or maybe there was no viable solution. The self-confidence that his success with the Claytons had bred began to wane, and it was amid this growing sense of dread that the pieces of the contingency plan suddenly fell into place.

  If no other plan was formulated, Martin decided, he would move the gift underneath a table beside the porch swing, out of sight from anyone who wasn’t looking for it. He would erase the message from the answering machine and then trip the circuit breakers in the house, temporarily knocking out the electricity in order to provide the appearance of a local power outage. When he reset the breakers, electricity would be restored, but the digital clocks in the house would begin blinking their preset 12:00 starting point, providing visual evidence of the outage. Martin realized that digital answering machines such as the one the Ashleys owned would not typically lose a recording in the event of a power loss, but he reasoned that the discovery of a missing message combined with the appearance of a temporary power outage would probably lead a homeowner to assume that the two were somehow related, thus dispelling any question or fear that an intruder had erased the message.

  Martin liked the plan. He thought it might work. He estimated its probability of success at somewhere near 60 percent. With the incriminating evidence eliminated to a degree, it would all come down to Laura’s phone call. If Justine Ashley answered the phone when she called that evening, disaster would likely be averted. But if Daniel Ashley decided to pick up the phone first, or if the couple went out to dinner after work (a not uncommon event), allowing Laura enough time to leave another message on the machine, the surprise would surely be ruined. Martin set the probability for success at 60 percent based upon his belief that women were more likely than men to pick up the phone, and that Laura was more likely to be a friend to Justine Ashley than to her husband. Thanks to the advent of caller ID, Martin found that ringing telephones were often passed to the intended recipient before anyone answered them. Based upon these assumptions, he gave the plan a good chance for success, perhaps as high as 70 percent if the Ashleys came straight home after work.

  Not bad for a contingency plan.

  Half an hour after he had finalized the details, Martin was ready to make this his primary plan as well. It was almost two o’clock and he was no closer to finding a better solution than when he first sat down at the kitchen table. He had already spent more time in the Ashleys’ home than at any other client’s in history and though he was certain that the Ashleys would not be home for another four hours or more, he was becoming nervous just the same.

  As with many of his ideas, it was when Martin had stopped struggling for a breakthrough that one arrived. He was standing in the Ashleys’ basement, examining the circuit breakers, when his mind took an unconscious leap out of the box and awarded him with a possibility.

  The plan, as it developed in his mind, involved a certain degree of danger, and its success would depend on Martin’s ability to acquire critical pieces of information, but if it worked, Justine Ashley’s surprise would most assuredly be saved. Oddly enough, the danger in the plan appealed to Martin in a way that it never had before. He had always been painstakingly methodical, and this had allowed him to become as successful in his career as he had been thus far. But while trapped in the Claytons’ home, Martin had demonstrated an ability to think quickly and to adapt to a pressure-filled situation, and these were qualities that he hadn’t known that he possessed. As he reflected back upon that episode, he couldn’t help but be impressed by the rapidity and wisdom of his actions. Though frightened at the time, his quick thinking had kept him safe from any real danger. His years of planning and experience had paid off, and though the plan that he was formulating now included some risk, it was no more dangerous than what he had faced while trapped behind the Claytons’ sofa. Most important, the risk that he might face in no way jeopardized the Ashleys as clients. Even if his plan failed, Martin felt that he would be able to return to the Ashleys’ home the next day, his anonymity still intact.

  So now Martin had another decision to make. With a solid contingency plan in place, he would have to decide whether this new plan was worth the risk. Did it afford him a greater chance of success than that of tripping the breakers and proceeding with his contingency plan? If his new plan failed, would there be time to come back to the Ashley home and put his contingency plan into place? If that were the case, was he willing to reenter the Ashleys’ home for a second time in a day, something he had always tried to avoid throughout his career? Were there any other dangers that he hadn’t yet considered? Could he do what needed to be done in order to make the plan work?

  Martin ran through the plan in his mind, attempting to visualize his actions and the potential obstacles that he might face. The plan involved doing things that Martin had never done before, yet he had never been trapped in a home with two clients before either, and that situation had turned out exceptionally well. The plan also depended on several factors over which Martin had no control, but he felt that those factors would be determined early enough to allow him to abandon course and return to the Ashleys’ home to enact his contingency plan, if necessary. He attempted to estimate the amount of time it might take to complete his new plan, breaking each task down into pieces and adding up the minutes to determine if he might complete his plan (or fail) before seven o’clock, and if so, how much before that hour.

  Martin spent more than ten minutes standing by the fuse box, his hand unconsciously holding the latch on the box’s door, visualizing, timing, assessing, and predicting.

  Once his decision was made, he moved without hesitation.

  Closing the fuse box, Martin headed back upstairs and toward the Ashleys’ office, located in a spare bedroom on the second floor. The first thing he would need was Laura’s full name and address, and he thought he knew where to find it.

  The office was a study in dichotomy. Two identical desks dominated the west and east walls of the room, facing away from each other. The desk closest to Martin was used by Daniel Ashley, a tall, thin man who cared little for organization or appearance. Piles of paper littered the desktop and computer keyboard, with no attempt to neaten or even out the stacks. Junk mail and circulars were piled in one corner, moved only when the pile threatened to topple over. His computer hummed quietly, always turned on, with more than half a dozen programs open and running. Photographs of Justine Ashley, most of which featured her in an apron, armed with a spatula, or decked out in some other cooking accoutrement, were displayed across the top of the desk, curling rectangles propped against a stack of cookbooks, a soft-ball trophy, and a dish containing coins, cufflinks, and dozens of keys, none of which had ever moved from thei
r round, yellow home. A two-drawer file cabinet stood beside the desk, unlocked as always, one drawer open, with file folders stacked inside. The drawers of the desk were filled with a mishmash of office supplies, birthday candles, golf tees, aging check registers, and more.

  In opposition to this mess stood Justine Ashley’s desk on the far side of the room. Not a single item other than her small wireless keyboard and flat screen monitor occupied any space on the desktop. Along a shelf mounted above the desk were several framed photographs of Daniel Ashley looking perpetually distinguished despite his long, somewhat goofy face, along with smaller images of friends and relatives. A larger photo of the couple hung on the wall above the shelf, their difference in height (nearly two feet) painting a startling contrast. An identical file cabinet stood beside her desk, but this cabinet remained locked at all times. Martin had successfully picked the lock years ago (without the use of a pick gun, he was proud to recall) and had found it to be a study in organization. Files hung alphabetically in color-coded folders and everything seemed to have a place. Most of the material contained therein pertained to the finances of the business, but there were also files for recipes, vacation plans, and documents such as college transcripts and income tax returns. She even had a file set aside specifically for her birth certificate (something Martin had as well). The drawers to her desk were also neatly organized, containing many of the same types of office supplies that could be found in her husband’s desk, but with greater ease. Martin knew that Justine Ashley’s address book was located in the top drawer of the desk, and that it too was meticulously well kept.

  Martin began on the first page of the book and started thumbing through the dozens of names that each page contained. Justine Ashley knew a great many people and appeared to save addresses and phone numbers for years. Because he did not know Laura’s last name, he would have to flip through the entire address book, hopeful that the couple had only one Laura in their life. If more than one Laura were listed in the book, there would be no way of determining which one had called the house that afternoon.

  On the page containing surnames starting with G, Martin found a listing for a Laura Green, including an address and telephone number. The number was the third of more than twenty names listed on the page, indicating that the Ashleys had known this woman for some time. Less than ten minutes later, Martin completed his search of the WXYZ page, finding no other Laura in the book. He returned to the page containing Laura Green’s name and photographed it, recording the address and phone number on his digital camera but committing the information to memory as well. He then returned the address book to the drawer and made his way back to the kitchen.

  Lifting the telephone off its cradle (the first time Martin had ever touched a clients’ phone), he activated the caller ID feature by pressing a button imprinted with an arrow pointing down, bringing up the incoming calls on the phone’s digital readout and allowing the user to scroll through them. He noted the first number to appear on the listing and confirmed by the time stamp that it had been Laura Green’s call. In place of a name, the words “Wireless Caller” appeared, indicating that she had called from her cell phone. He wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or disappointed. Had Laura Green called from home, Martin’s course of action would have been difficult, but at least it would have been clear. Adding her unknown locale to the equation added a great deal of uncertainty.

  Nevertheless, Martin felt as though he had found the right person, and the first task in his plan was complete.

  Before exiting the house, Martin completed a meticulous survey of each room that he had entered. In all, he had spent more than two hours in the Ashley home, a record for him (and one he had never intended on setting), and though he had spent the majority of that time at the kitchen table (purposely, so as to avoid leaving any accidental trace of his presence), he still wanted to be sure that he had left everything in its place. The disturbance to his routine worried him, and demanded an extra degree of vigilance.

  Satisfied that everything was in order, Martin exited through the back door and cut across the Ashleys’ backyard and into a line of trees along the northern border of the property. Less than five minutes later he emerged onto the baseball field of Southington High School, empty on this warm and bright day, and five minutes after that Martin was on the road and heading for Manchester, a town about thirty minutes north of Southington, and the one that Laura Green called home.

  Laura Green’s home was a nightmare. Located on West Middle Turnpike, a busy two-lane road running through the center of Manchester, number 280 was a white and tan Colonial adjacent to similar houses on three sides and all set less than fifty feet apart. A narrow driveway winded beside the house and into a single-car garage at the rear of the property, a building so small that Martin wondered if a large lawnmower would fit inside. Though a tall wooden fence ran along the rear of the property, no fencing or shrubbery protected the front or side doors from the view of the neighbors. Accessing this house would be difficult, if not impossible.

  Insane, Martin thought as he examined it further.

  Adding to the insanity was a driveway marked by chalk drawings of flowers, cats, tic-tac-toe boards, and several large, shining yellow balls (presumably the suns of some multistarred solar system). Laura Green appeared to have children, and though the house looked quiet and no car was parked in the driveway, the thought of small children terrified Martin.

  Martin took in all these details as he stood in front of the home, tying his purposefully uncooperative shoelaces. Pretending to struggle with the laces made him think about Mrs. Carroll, the kindergarten teacher who had once warned him that he would not graduate to first grade until he had learned to tie his shoes and recite his telephone number by heart. He recalled the stress that her demands had placed on his six-year-old psyche and smiled.

  This task would prove to be infinitely more challenging than anything Mrs. Carroll could have thrown at him.

  Martin had hoped for a better situation than this. Had Laura Green been referred to Martin as a potential client, he would have dismissed her following the drive-by without a second thought. This was simply not the kind of home to which Martin would ever attempt to gain access.

  Until today.

  With his troublesome shoe finally tied, Martin continued his jog around the block, reviewing the situation in his mind. It was October and the house appeared empty. Two of the adjacent neighbors appeared to be absent as well, but the third neighbor had two identical Volkswagen Beetles parked in the driveway and fans running in the upstairs windows. This was also the neighbor closest to the Greens’ side door, the most likely point of entry for Martin. Though it was apparent that children lived at the residence, it was unlikely that they were home alone during the day while their mother worked. Since it was October, Martin assumed that they were probably at school or daycare, safely out of the way.

  Martin considered all of these factors while also reminding himself that Laura Green was not a client, nor would she ever be a client. Certain precautions and routines that he took with a typical client might be avoidable in this case, but which of these could be omitted while still avoiding detection remained a question.

  Next he checked his watch. 3:03. If he was going to make his move, it would have to be soon. If Laura Green left work before Martin could act, he would be forced to abort his plan. She would have to be in a public location in order for him to have even a chance at success. Of greatest concern to Martin was the visibility of the front and side doors of the home. He had no doubt in his mind that he could gain entry, but he worried that one of the many neighbors might see him doing so.

  As Martin turned back onto West Middle Turnpike, he removed the broken leash from his pocket and began yelling for Sandy, assuming the lost-pet-owner persona that had become second nature to him. When he reached Laura Green’s driveway, he bolted left past the side door and into her backyard, where he stopped, looking left and right, continuing to shout for Sandy but quickl
y taking in all that he saw at the same time.

  Martin first noted that the backyard was littered with large, colorful plastic toys, additional indicators of the existence of the Green children. A Fisher-Price picnic table, a plastic lawn mower that popped plastic balls around like a popcorn popper, and a variety of rubber balls were strewn from the house to the edge of the fence. More important, Martin noted two additional entrances to the Green home, one through a sliding glass door adjacent to a patio and another through a hatchway leading into the basement. Though sliding glass doors were nearly impossible for Martin to pick, the hatchway held potential. One of Martin’s clients in Glastonbury kept their hatchway unlocked at all times, and Martin had used it as a means of entry for years.

  Still shouting out the name of his lost dog, Martin moved toward the metallic doors of the hatchway, feigning interest in a copse of shrubs growing alongside it. Even with the fence at the rear of the property, Martin noted, it was possible for someone in the backyard neighbor’s home to see him if he or she were on the second floor, looking out of one of the three windows that faced the Green property. Peering over his shoulder to ensure that those windows were vacant, Martin gave a pull on the hatchway doors and found them to be locked.