I was in a small inner corridor that looked as if it ran the length of the building. Open studs, several generations of wiring, and an array of plumbing networks repeated themselves at regular intervals down the side of the tunnel that backed up against the rooms. There looked to be access to each of the rooms via small panels like the one I had discovered fronted by the bogus heating unit. It was a kind of utility alley built in to the original building the likes of which I had never encountered before except perhaps in a movie.
I had to crouch but managed to make my way toward the end of the wood-planked corridor. The floor was carpeted, no doubt for stealth. There was no way of knowing for sure, but I did not see anything that called attention to itself as monitoring equipment. If the building were outfitted for such activity, that I was making my way along a secret path was more than likely known than not known, and my arrival at its eventual end expected. It made for a kind of exhilaration that was not without fear. I prepared for the Mad Hatter, the Queen of Hearts, perhaps the Cheshire Cat, or, better yet, for Stefan Reznikov. The pony-tailed man I left bleeding back in the room could not have moved through this tunnel without nearly being on all fours. Sub-flooring for the second story made for shallow headroom.
I heard movement behind me and turned to see Pony-tail entering the passage through the same portal I had used. In the beam of the flashlight he looked like a muscle-bound zombie, covered in blood that had spilled out of his mouth and down his neck, along with that from his head wound at the base of his skull. His movement in my direction lacked whatever agility he might ordinarily have had in that tight space which forced him to crouch more than was required of me. I thought I heard him groan on each incremental move forward, though I was presently concerned about a new sound coming from the opposite direction. I used the flashlight and saw a dark platter of hair on top of an otherwise closely cropped skull bent forward as the gap closed in front of me. The light caught a gold chain, as loose as a dog’s collar, around the man’s neck. It was the Hispanic fellow from the registration desk.
There was an egress panel ahead of me and one behind, either of which might spill me into rooms that would allow for escape out of the building, but would do nothing about getting off the premises. Chances were the slatted front gate was already closed. It was not possible to scramble to either panel before encountering one or the other of my pursuers. And my mission was not to flee but to agitate, so I snapped off the flashlight and pitched us all into midnight.
I rolled to the outside edge of the carpeted passageway and extended myself along it as thinly as I could, leaving the two musclemen to collide before the guy with a gold chain could use any flashlight he might have had on him. They did so while throwing wild punches which I could hear being inflicted on each other. I also felt one of their knees press into me as I presumed they both widened their knelt-down bases from which to keep their fists in play. There were a brief few moments when the fist-fest in the dark actually approached comedy.
Soon enough Gold Chain produced a flashlight which revealed they each had drawn fresh blood from the other. Pony Tail must have had a love affair with pain if, in fact, his jaw was broken. The new light allowed them to discover me doing my best to become a baseboard along the bottom of the outside wall. The light was shone directly onto me, where upon I saw a right jab from one and a left hook from the other scream toward my face an instant before the proverbial lights went out, though I am sure the flashlight continued to shine brightly in the tunnel.
Fourteen
I woke up in my own bed on the sound of a gruff voice. “You awake?” It sounded familiar, though I could not make out the precise features of the man standing next to the bed, looking down at me. Again he said, “You awake?” The blur cleared into the visage of Sergeant Mulcahy. I peered across the bed at Officer Seldeen. He stood with his hands on his waist, his dark jacket pushed back behind them. I felt wet. And sticky. Continuing the turn of my head, I eventually came to see the lusterless black profile of Pepper’s head on the pillow next to mine. Her eyes were open wide. Her mouth gaped. There was a long fierce gash across her throat. We were covered in her blood. “The door was open,” said Mulcahy.
“There was another call,” said Seldeen.
A new substance entered the picture. It was warm and ran down along my jaw into my ears. I began to choke on it. I had to be told that I had just vomited.
Ebbersole and Taggart had already responded to another crime scene when the tip-off call had come in. This being Houston, murder was never out of fashion. Mulcahy had been alerted at his home that I was involved. He had summoned Seldeen. They had both made the discovery and had called in a support team that arrived just as I came around. For the time being it appeared that command of this case was in flux.
I had been examined at the scene, where physical evidence had been collected, swabs, dustings, scrapings, cuttings. An ejaculate was going to be required if sperm was discovered anywhere on or in Pepper during the autopsy. I had taken quite a beating, whether it all occurred in the tunnel was not yet known. I tried to elect not to go to the hospital but was made to understand that I had no choice. Pepper had wounds to indicate she had attempted a savage but unsuccessful defense; thus, my contusions and rents had been photographed, measured, and analyzed for consistencies with hers. It all had to be done their way. It was dawn before I was clothed in a county jumpsuit and was released, to be escorted back to meet with Mulcahy and Seldeen again at Police Headquarters downtown.
I was exhausted but knew it was not unintentional that an individual be in such a state for, perhaps, a more fruitful confrontation. However, I was encouraged, yet one more time, that the recorded session would not take place at the intake building on Riesner, which would have been indicative of imminent incarceration and a handover to County jurisdiction.
For a third time, and for my benefit, or so I was given to believe, what played out on a laptop screen was the digital image of my sitting on the bed in room eighteen at the Sandpiper Motel at the point where Pepper pushed off my lap and began to dance. The image went to black soon thereafter, but before she had called out to the room for instructions as to what she should do. “Did we hear her correctly?” said Mulcahy.
“You heard what I heard,” I said.
“For the sake of verification,” he said, “would you please repeat what she said?” Mulcahy was close to compromise but remained just enough inside proper interrogation protocol to intensify my misery with his insistence that I repeat what even the room’s audio recording device must have picked up.
I leveled as cold a gaze as fatigue would let me on the glimmer of delight pulsing in Mulcahy’s eyes as I repeated, “Why do I think you’re going to want to come on my face?” I had taken care to drain the words of any interpretable subtext.
“What do you think she saw,” he said, “that prompted her to draw such a conclusion?” Mulcahy had slowed and elongated his words to make me pay for yet another sleepless night he had endured on my account.
“I have no idea,” I said, having ceased pushing back.
“Were you in a state of arousal,” he said, “with her having been on your lap that way?”
“No,” I said.
“Yet you asked her to dance,” he continued.
“You heard her say she had to do something,” I said. “Dancing did not involve contact.”
“To which,” Mulcahy said, “you were assigned the customer name Dancer.”
Seldeen came to my rescue. “The sconce light,” he said, “shone only in the one sconce on the front wall?”
“I didn’t look at any of the others,” I said. “That one drew my attention.”
He said, “Nothing reflected in the mirrors?”
“Not that I noticed,” I said.
“Your sense was,” he said, “that it was a signal?”
I said, “Yes.”
Mulcahy said, “Too bad that wasn’t part of the digital file.”
“Makes sense to me,�
�� I said.
“It’s clear,” said Seldeen, “this file has been edited to incriminate.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“Dancer,” said Mulcahy. “Interesting.” I’m sure I visibly sank further in misery over the advantage Mulcahy was likely going to take with that. “Crawl spaces,” he said, “a couple of clowns exchanging fisticuffs in the dark. Maybe we should call them Larry and Moe.”
“There’s always Shemp,” I said. “Or Curly.”
No one snorts an editorial like Mulcahy. “Why not?” he said. “Kind of goes with Dancer.”
“They harvested nothing from Pepper,” said Seldeen.
“She’d be dancing yet,” said Mulcahy, “had she not run into you.”
Of the blows I had received in the last twenty-four hours that was the one I felt the most. “I’m sure you’re right,” I agreed. Pepper had been murdered because of me.
“You quit this case,” said Seldeen, “the death rate in Houston might decline.”
I said, “You believe that?”
“The question is,” said Mulcahy, “do you?” Seldeen said nothing. “Don’t just sit there,” Mulcahy added. I turned to him and waited for it. He smiled slowly and said, “Dance something.”
I had a generous line of credit with the undertaker. As it looked like I was going to become a frequent client, their customer service grew more efficient. They steered clear of selling plots adjacent to where Bumper, Flame, and now Pepper were interred without first consulting me.
I stood alone at the grave. I couldn’t bring myself to call on Althea again. Pepper went without a prayer. I reaffirmed my resolve to get the job done, and quickly. I thought of Allison. I thought about Adrienne. The sound of Grace’s laughter echoed over the engine noise of the backhoe used to fill the grave. I walked away.
A new bed had been purchased and delivered. But I still couldn’t sleep in it.
Fifteen
I didn’t think I was avoiding her, but Adrienne had left enough strident messages on my office and home answering machines for me to show up at her door. Best to go to her before she came to me so that I could control the end-point. When she wanted something she tended not to use force, but neither did she fold up her tent and go home. Had she elected to simply not leave after a meeting at my loft in which she didn’t get what she wanted, I could easily end up with an unintended roommate. It was past time to get back on Reznikov and drive him into the ground and I was pretty sure she wanted in on that.
Her mother answered the door. “I hope you can talk some sense into her,” said Constance Davenport. “She thinks I want to repeat the worst mistake I have ever made in my life, and perhaps in hers.”
Guess we were on the same team again. I stepped inside and moved into the living room so she could close the door behind me. “What am I missing?” I said.
“She refuses,” said Constance, “to leave Grace alone with me for fear I intend to take her the way I did with Allison.”
I didn’t expect this threat so soon. Neither was I surprised by it. Were Reed Thomas to show up again, I’d circle the wagons and start the shooting early. I said, “Where is she?”
“I’m right here,” said Adrienne. She came through the dining room from the kitchen trying to keep up with Grace, who had taken to ambulation as though she had a lot of catching up to do. Adrienne had her by both hands in puppeteer fashion and provided upright support, while the child delivered formidable propulsion. I held out my arms and swept her up.
“No one is safe in this house,” said Constance, “as long as there is an unlimited welcome mat for you at that very door.” She used an upturned thumb over her shoulder to indicate the portal through which I had just entered.
I swung back to face Adrienne. “She’s right,” I said. “It’d be best if you all got out of here.”
“I told her that,” said Constance, “I said they should both come back to Virginia with me and leave this God-forsaken-city behind for good.”
“I’m going to call Rita,” said Adrienne.
It took a moment to close before I put it together that she meant Rita Acevedo, her ex, who was now married with a child of her own and living in the Hill Country just outside of Fredericksburg. “I don’t like it,” I said.
Adrienne was adamant. She said, “I am not leaving you to do my work for me.”
“I really do work best alone,” I said.
“We’ve covered that,” she said. “I’m going to help.”
“More likely,” I said, “you’d just get in the way.”
“She was my daughter,” said Adrienne.
“Yield,” I said.
Adrienne pointed to her mother and said, “She is not taking Grace across a state line, and certainly not back to Falls Church, Virginia.”
“This wretched state,” said Constance, “along with everyone in it, revealed itself a wasteland all those years ago when it destroyed Kennedy.”
The Davenports tended to hold onto things. Reasonable discussion was fast coming to an end. “You’re looking for a place to hide Grace,” I said. “I want her somewhere Reznikov’s people would never dare to go.”
“Where is that?” said Adrienne.
“I’ve got an outrageous idea,” I said.
“Mark my words,” said Constance, “this is going to come to a bad end.”
“Get some things together for Grace,” I said.
We headed down the hall with Mrs. Davenport in pursuit. She was now spitting venom and said, “It was only when Allison came back to you that she ended up dead!”
This had been lofted over the shoulder on which I did not have Grace. Adrienne moved with efficient speed in packing clothing and supplies for an extended stay. I stood in the bedroom doorway and tried to be a calming influence for Grace, and a shield between Adrienne and Constance Davenport.
“I’ve lost a daughter,” said Constance, “a granddaughter, and now the two of you are going to see to it that life steals my great grandchild, as well.” Grace was not good with raised voices. “You will burn in hell for this!” she added.
I said, “We’ll be out in the car.” Constance blocked the hallway and attempted to not let Grace and I pass. “You need to back off,” I said, “and get out of the way.”
She spat, “Child killer!”
I had no intention of manhandling the woman, though I wanted to hear no more of that. “Move,” I said.
She planted herself firmly where she stood and crossed her arms. “I will not,” she said.
“Now,” I said.
Another moment of rigid resistance and she stepped aside. Grudgingly.
I headed for the front door with Grace who had begun to whimper.
“Assassin!” she called after us. I kept walking. Still not finished, she yelled, “This will be murder!” Outside what had escalated past panic in the house now felt like sloppy melodrama in the balmy night air.
The drive up to Spring took a half hour. I found the street with little difficulty. It was the house that was not easy to identify. Like most of those in law enforcement, the Seldeens were not listed. I thought I might recognize his vehicle. However, in the suburbs people not only have garages, they use them, too. There were few cars parked in driveways, and none on the street.
“We keep up this slow trolling,”” said Adrienne, and we’ll be reported for casing the neighborhood.”
Another thing about suburbia, all the houses tended to look the same. One of the homes was completely dark; something distinctive―kind of. I pulled into the drive way and cut the engine.
“Doesn’t look like anyone’s home,” said Adrienne.
“This is the house,” I said, though even I wasn’t convinced that I had sounded sure.
“I’m not liking this,” she said.
“There are children in this household,” I said. “And it would be forbidden territory.”
Adrienne said, “To hell with your presumed unspoken rules. If they know Grace is here, they’ll come fo
r her.”
“That would be an unheard-of breach of code,” I said. “Even the worst of the worst wouldn’t dare invade a policeman’s home.”
Adrienne shook her head. “I want to call Rita,” she said.
“Reznikov would not dare cross this line,” I said. “But he’d plunder your friend Rita’s place in a heartbeat.”
Adrienne had to think about that. “Maybe my mother was right,” she said.
I didn’t want to give her time to cave in. “Get Grace,” I said. “We’ll go in together.”
“No,” she said. “Everything inside of me is crawling. It’s shouting.”
The front porch light came on. I said, “Hello,” out of desperate need for this to be the house. Seldeen stepped out into the front entryway that was illuminated with a yellow bug light. He did not look good.
Grace continued to sleep in the car seat which was situated on the dining room floor. A crystal chandelier hung low and prominent from the center of the ceiling. I sat across from Adam Seldeen in a wicker patio chair underneath it. He sat in the matching one. Adrienne had found tea in the kitchen and had micro-waved three mugs of water. We sipped them with the teabags still in the mugs.
The house was virtually empty. A pile of unopened newspapers still in plastic wrappers littered the cavernous front room. A lone floor lamp stood sentry in the middle of it. A built-in entertainment center of oak brushed with white-wash filled the far wall, beyond which rose a dramatic staircase to the second story.
Seldeen let the air out of his lungs and shook his head. His eyes were closed against an unwanted thought. “I saw your head lights pull in,” he said. “For a minute I thought, hoped, she and the kids might have come back.”
Spare Parts: A Ted Mitchell Detective Novel (Ted Mitchell Detective Novels Book 4) Page 10