The Ultimate Mystery Thriller Horror Box Set (7 Mystery Thriller Horror Bestsellers)

by Perkins, Cathy

Robbins dialed the number on the next Best-Chance message slip.

  “Nippon Center. How may I direct your call?”

  “I’m looking for Mr. Koga.”

  A moment later, a male voice with a faint Asian accent answered. “Thank you for returning my call, detective. I saw the request on the television news for information about an older Negro.”

  “We’re looking for George Beason. Do you have information about him?”

  “He was here—at the center—yesterday evening, shortly before we closed.”

  “You’re sure it was Mr. Beason?” What was the guy doing up in Greenville?

  “I’m quite sure. Their presence was somewhat unusual, so I would have noticed them anyway, but several events made me certain to remember them.”

  “You said ‘their’ and ‘them.’ Another person was with Mr. Beason?”

  “A younger man. Medium height, but very muscular. I found it unusual that one so young would be bald.”

  Huh. Miz Rose’s neighborhood bad-ass? “Head-shaving’s popular right now. But go ahead with your story.”

  “At first, I thought the young man might be a relative, perhaps a grandson. He appeared solicitous, keeping a grip on the older man’s arm. Given the older man’s infirmity, it seemed helpful, but then later, the younger man became angry with him.” The director paused. “I’m telling you events out of order.”

  “Let’s start at the beginning. I want to record this. You okay with that?”

  “That will be fine.”

  Robbins set up the equipment with the speed of long practice, went through the identification process, then waded back into the discussion. “Why did you find the men’s presence unusual?”

  There was a brief silence, as if Koga were considering how to answer. “Are you familiar with the Nippon Center?”

  “I’ve heard of it.” Robbins vaguely remembered a write-up in the newspaper a few years back. What did the Center have to do with Beason?

  “The Nippon Center is gift from the Japanese people. A cultural exchange. The Center blends 14th century Japanese antiquity with modern design. In addition to the tea house, we feature a large dry garden. You may refer to it as a Zen garden. Most people who visit the Center come for contemplation or meditation. As I said, not many Negros come here.”

  Robbins had spent most of his military tour in Okinawa. He’d found some Japanese could be disdainful of races they considered inferior. He’d also noticed the Chinese and most people of color—any color—fit into that category. He left the director’s assessment alone for the moment. “You said several events occurred.”

  “When the men arrived, they walked through the garden and the parts of the Center which are open to the public. The younger man asked where the seals were.”

  “The seals?” What the hell? Robbins had a flash of Sea World and performing animals jumping out of the water.

  “My associate at first thought perhaps they’d confused the center with the Greenville park, which contains a zoo, but he meant cylinder seals.”

  Cylinder seals? Engine components? Why would Beason ask about car parts at the Nippon Center? Had he been confused and thought the place was connected with Nissan? “Why would he look for them at your cultural center?”

  “My reaction was the same. I tried to explain that we do not maintain a collection of ancient artifacts and that even if we did, seals such as they described are not part of Japanese cultural history.”

  What were they talking about here? “But they’re important to others…”

  “Yes, the seals are important to other cultures. They’ve been used for approximately five thousand years to authenticate records—similar to a modern notary seal—or in the earliest, pre-written language days, for bestowing authority. I was not aware they were an element in African cultural history.”

  “I wasn’t either.” Robbins shifted the phone and freed his writing hand. “In the most typical version, what would these seals look like?”

  A faint sigh sounded through the speaker.

  Okay, so he didn’t have a fuckin’ clue what these seal things were.

  “If I were seeking the most typical version, I would look for a seal from Mesopotamia. Those cylinders were intricately carved, more so as the seals became ornaments as well as a notary system. Sometimes they were carved from semi-precious stones, but their function and place in history is what makes them valuable. When rolled across soft clay, leather or wax, they produce a scene or series of images.”

  “Mr. Beason and a younger man came to the Center and asked about these cylinder seals,” Robbins restated.

  “The younger man was most insistent the seals were present at the Center. When I finally assured him they were not here, he became angry. I gathered the older man had told him the seals could be seen here. I started to intercede, but the young man pulled Mr. Beason, as you called him, toward the door. A second incident occurred at that point.”

  “Oh?” Could this get any weirder?

  “As I mentioned, we do not maintain a permanent collection. Visiting artists, however, occasionally display their work here. A prominent artist is currently exhibiting as part of a cultural exchange program. Mr. Beason picked up one of the smaller paintings and attempted to leave with it. Our security intercepted him, of course. The younger man did not say anything, but his body language indicated he was very angry. I do not know if it was because of the incident itself—if he was humiliated by Mr. Beason’s actions—or because the grandfather acted confused. Some people do not tolerate the infirmities of the declining years. Whatever the reason, Mr. Beason insisted he wanted the ‘pretty picture’ for his wife.”

  Robbins’ internal radar pinged. “Beason said that? That he wanted the picture for his wife?”

  His dead wife?

  “Yes. In advanced senility, the old often become like children, losing societal distinctions of right and wrong. He did not seem to understand he was stealing.”

  Miz Rose insisted the guy was sharp as a tack.

  “If I had realized his family was concerned and unable to locate him, we would have detained them. It occurred to me later—when I saw the news coverage—that the young man might not have been his grandson.” A touch of chagrin tainted the director’s voice now.

  “Do you have security monitoring?” Robbins asked.

  “Of course. I anticipated you might ask. I made a CD, a copy of the relevant sections.”

  “Thank you.” Robbins wanted to watch that security tape. Body language might tell him as much as the spoken words about what was going on with the two men.

  He glanced at his watch. If the Greenville guys would meet them at the county line, the round trip would only take an hour.

  Robbins ran through the director’s story again, then obtained details about the Center’s location and hung up. He dialed another number and arranged for a Greenville deputy to collect the CD, while Jordan nearly crapped his pants with impatience.

  Questions piled on top of each other as Robbins relayed the information to Jordan. “Wonder why Beason didn’t ask for help if the young guy threatened him.”

  “Maybe they’re in on it together, whatever ‘it’ is,” Jordan said.

  “If they planned to steal these cylinder things, they’d have made sure the seals were at the Center first.”

  “This trip could’ve been about casing the joint. If that was it, Beason screwed up by snagging the picture. It called attention to them.”

  Robbins’ fingers drifted toward his shirt pocket in search of a phantom cigarette. He settled for a pencil and idly twirled it across his fingers. “Maybe getting attention was the point—at least from Beason’s perspective. If for some reason he felt he couldn’t ask for help directly, by taking the picture, he made sure the director noticed him.”

  “Why would they think the seals were at the Center in the first place?”

  “Good question. The other good questions are, where are they now and what are they planning?”
/>   Jordan moved a few papers around on his desk, then asked, “Is the old man losing it? Didn’t you say his wife was dead?”

  “I think mentioning his wife was a message. But I don’t have a clue what he’s trying to tell us.”

  Chapter 6

  The Greenville deputy assigned to the southern part of the county agreed to retrieve the security CD from the Nippon Center. Since he’d only have to travel to the county line, the Newberry County deputy meeting him should make it back to the station before lunch. Robbins fiddled around online while he waited. What did they do before the Internet and Google? he wondered.

  He smirked as the screen refreshed. He knew exactly what they did back in what Jordan called the Dark Ages. Research then was time consuming or involved next to impossible to get information. He clicked on a link to the British Museum and tapped into their research files. Yeah, he could see that happening fifteen, twenty years ago. ‘Scuse me boss, I’d like to run over to England and check out this display of cylinder seals.

  He scanned the document that opened in response to his query. The earliest versions of the seals—from around 3500 BC; the real Dark Ages—came from Mesopotamia, currently known as western Iran and Iraq. From what Robbins found, if you didn’t know how to read or write—which was pretty much everybody in BC-time—an ordinary person hired a scribe to draw up contracts. Every seal was different—a highly individual signature seal—and “proved” which administrator prepared and notarized the clay document.

  Damn. They even had bureaucrats back in BC times. Those guys will survive global warming, a nuclear holocaust or any other disaster. Them and the cockroaches.

  Then again, the seals were found with gold, silver and precious gems in graves, so the early Iranians apparently rated them pretty highly.

  He studied pictures of the seals and the impressions they created. At first, the cylinders held only geometric or vaguely animal-shaped images, but the cylinder carvings and impressions grew more complex over time. After about a thousand years, some artist figured out how to create an action sequence. Early Hollywood, he thought with a smile. A battle scene in a four-inch film.

  The impressions at the end of the article were the most interesting. The themes reflected the society’s ideals in pictograph form. Gods, magic, social structure. No wonder the archeologists found them intriguing, Robbins thought. But why were Beason and the mystery man looking for them? He couldn’t see the two guys going for the historical significance. Their intrinsic value, maybe?

  A phone call interrupted his research. The Newberry deputy was back.

  More people—sworn and civilian—greeted Robbins when he walked into the sheriff’s department. Enough information had drifted out that the department was curious. If you wanted to see the definition of family-friendly living, check out Newberry, South Carolina. If you were a cop looking for a fast-paced career, go somewhere else. It had been a while since the deputies had a ‘who-dun-it.’

  “Let me know what you find.” The deputy handed over the CD. “We’ll call it even.”

  There was only one file on the CD, the download of the security system feed. Robbins popped the disc into his computer and watched the two figures move through the rock garden—or as the director called it, the Zen garden.

  What the hell was a Zen garden for, anyway?

  The men strode straight through without looking at any of the rocks or sand designs. They walked through empty rooms in the Center. Robbins could almost see the frustration rolling off the younger man’s shoulders. It showed in the occasional fierce whisper. The arm clench that stopped just short of shaking Beason.

  Robbins watched the entire footage with Jordan breathing down his neck.

  “That’s definitely Beason,” Jordan said at the end of the sequence, when the pair of men disappeared out the front door. The final image showed the Cadillac leaving the parking lot, the mystery guy behind the wheel. Disappointment colored the younger detective’s voice. “I guess we’re done. Beason isn’t missing.”

  Robbins reluctantly nodded. Technically, his case was now closed. Beason was alive and as of yesterday evening, in Greenville, apparently operating under his own power. If the Greenville people wanted to do anything about the attempted robbery, that was their problem.

  But the dynamic between the two men—this episode at the Center—said more was happening than a missing man or a joy ride.

  “Can you pull a single image off this video?” Robbins asked.

  “Sure. Which one do you want?”

  He restarted the file and pointed out places where the second man was full face to the camera, as well as a couple of profile shots.

  “Give me five minutes.” Jordan popped the CD out of Robbins’ computer and wandered away.

  “I put the stills on the CD,” Jordan said when he handed Robbins the neatly labeled CD. “They’re saved as jpegs.”

  Robbins logged into the face recognition software. “This program is law enforcement’s new best friend. Like the director at the Nippon Center said, these days, it’s always, ‘of course we have a camera.’ Cameras are everywhere.”

  Jordan dragged his chair around beside Robbins. “I’ve heard about the software. Anybody who uses Facebook knows about tagging their friends. The newer versions of the programs are more sophisticated. They work off the length of the nose, the angle and width of the eye socket.”

  “I don’t care how they work,” Robbins said. “My problem is finding the right pool of people to compare the faces to. There isn’t a database of faces like there is with fingerprints.”

  Yet.

  The feds probably had one, he thought as the program loaded, but they weren’t sharing. “Best source we have is the past ‘guests’ of our fine state,” Robbins continued.

  “How do you access the prison records?” Jordan leaned over, watching the screen. “Do you know somebody at CCI that’ll help you out?”

  “We aren’t going into their records.” Robbins opened the pictures Jordan had extracted. “I’m using booking photos.”

  With the criminal population’s pictures, there was no expectation of privacy. Robbins set the filters to eliminate anyone still in prison and 4.1 seconds later had thirty-seven possibilities to follow up.

  He turned next to the Department of Motor Vehicles license pictures.

  “Driver’s license photos?” Jordan sounded uncertain, maybe a little uncomfortable.

  The kid had some reality checks to learn. “The state’s residents might not appreciate us using their pictures, but the FBI broke that barrier a couple of years ago. They used North Carolina’s records to locate a wanted felon.”

  3.2 seconds later, Robbins added about a dozen men to his list. Surrounding states gave him twenty more.

  He sorted the list by date of birth and grimaced at the downside to online driver’s license renewal. Out of date photos.

  All but five of the targeted men could be immediately eliminated due to their age.

  Robbins opened files for the five ex-cons. He’d figured all along that the mystery man would be part of the prison population. He called the first parole officer. “It’s Robbins. I’m looking for one of your guys. Armstrong. Can you tell me where he is these days?”

  Another little known fact of law-enforcement life. An ex-con could tell a law enforcement officer to pound sand if he showed up asking questions. Robbins had found if he tagged along with a parole officer to visit the same punk, nine times out of ten, the ex-con would invite the cop inside, too. A PO had the court’s authority to invade every aspect of the parolee’s life, and could send the guy back inside if he didn’t like what he found during the inspection. Although the visits involved an element of danger for the PO—which made them happy to have a detective or patrol officer along—most of the time the ex-cons cooperated, hoping to get things finished quickly.

  “Hang on a sec,” Armstrong’s parole officer said.

  Robbins heard a file drawer screech open.

  “A
rmstrong’s still on parole, living over in Whitmire with his girlfriend.”

  Whitmire wasn’t that far away. Across the interstate, a straight shot up Highway 121. “He staying out of trouble?”

  “Seems to be.”

  “When’s the last time you saw him?”

  “Last week. Why? What’s up?”

  “We got a situation over here. Maybe a kidnapping, maybe a duo planning something. Armstrong matched up to the guy on the surveillance camera.”

  “Armstrong has a string of drug charges, one burglary, but nothing violent in his jacket. No kidnapping or anything like that.”

  “Could you check on him today? See if he’s where he’s supposed to be? Eliminate him from the pool?”

  “Sure. I have a couple of guys over that way to touch base with. I’ll give you a call.”

  Check-ins with the next two parole officers went the same way. The fourth guy had landed back in jail over the weekend.

  The last one was an unexpected twist.

  “Tyrell Hayes did juvie time. I’m not sure he should even be in the database. He cleaned up his act enough to get into the army. Last I heard, he was still there.”

  “Thanks,” Robbins said. He started to cross the name off his list, already wondering where he could find another pool of pictures, when he stopped.

  The army.

  That could explain the no-hair and the muscles, too.

  Chapter 7

  Robbins flipped through the pages of the thin file he’d started on Tyrell Hayes. No South Carolina driver’s license. No property or other information from the databases he typically queried. The guy’s birth certificate made him twenty-eight years old. So far he hadn’t found Hayes’s mother. The father had died when Hayes was in elementary school.

  “How would a guy like Hayes get into the army?” Jordan asked. “I thought they screened out anyone with a record.”

  “It was all juvie time,” Robbins said. “Hayes got his GED while he was inside. He had the high school diploma.”

  “I didn’t think the military accepted a GED.”