Twistered

by J. L. Wilson

  "He's right," Leo whispered. "You shouldn't be alone. What if those maniacs think you have something important?"

  I tried the knob but it wouldn't turn. Miranda appeared at my side and once again tapped numbers on the keypad before opening the metal door for us. "Don't let him worry you, Dorothy," she said quietly. "Drew is in charge of this investigation, not him. You can trust Drew to do the right thing."

  "I know it." The minute I said it, I felt better. I could trust Drew to do the right thing. He wasn't going to over-react or try to use this case to prove a point. He didn't have a personal stake in it. I looked back at Tinsley. He was staring at my fingerprint card, which Miranda had left on the counter. When he heard the door open he raised his head and our eyes met.

  I hesitated. Tinsley seemed sad and bewildered, as though I said something that caught him by surprise.

  "What is it?" Leo asked, following my gaze.

  Tinsley turned away and went to a computer terminal, staring fixedly at the screen.

  "Nothing." I led the way out of the foyer and into the police station lobby, my brain abuzz with speculation. What did Tinsley mean when he said it was personal? Did someone he cared about get hurt? I mulled that thought over, but another idea was nagging at me. Something didn't quite make sense in what he said and it took me a second to decipher it. "How could Wade have a broken leg? How did he drive the Winnie?"

  Leo tugged open the front door and led the way outside. "If he was scared enough, he could drive. Think about it. Fleming's farm is straight north of the Mall, across the river. Maybe Wade was making a break for it. He gets in the Winnie and starts driving to town, heading for, I don't know, the cops? His sister? I'm not sure. The storm hits and he can't get to town. He heads straight for you. That does it. You have to stay with me, Dorothy," Leo insisted as he crossed the parking lot, the heat already evaporating the puddles left by the storm. "They'll know where you live once this comes out."

  He sounded perilously close to hysteria. I tried to think of a polite way to point out that Leo wasn't the most courageous of people to protect me, but my overworked brain couldn't manage it. "I'll consider it. Let me talk to Drew first and see what he says." I got into the Benz and settled back on the seat.

  "Drew's going to be busy." Leo started the car then turned to me, his eyes troubled. "I have to go to the store and meet Honey Tyson. She's got my poppies for the Memorial Day sale and I told her I'd meet her before I close up. I don't want to leave you alone, though." He put the car in gear. "I'll dash over there and come back to be with you."

  Was I really in danger? If I was, I didn't want to get my friends involved. I suddenly remembered Tinsley's words. He was tortured. Cowardice won out over nobility. "Thanks, Leo. I suppose it's the smart thing to do."

  We were quiet on the drive home, each of us deep in thought. I couldn't reconcile my memories of Wade with a drug gang. He had been an easy-going, non-confrontational kind of guy. If what Tinsley said was true, Wade was mixed up with a vicious group of people, the kind of people who would chew him up without hesitation. Maybe a man like Tinsley could handle a gang like the Wickeds, but Wade? I shook my head. No way.

  "What about Drew?" I murmured.

  "What?"

  "I'm sorry. I'm thinking out loud."

  "What about Drew?" Leo asked.

  "I was wondering...if Tinsley is the kind of man who can handle a gang like the Wickeds, can Drew? I mean, I know he's a cop and all, but being police chief in Broomfield doesn't exactly prepare a person for a drug operation."

  "I think you're underestimating Drew." Leo pulled into our subdivision, driving carefully to avoid scattered debris on the road. The Winnebago was gone and all that remained was a small pile of shattered glass and wispy fragments of the crime scene tape. Even the big maple branch that blew into the Professor's yard was pulled to one side. Life was getting back to normal.

  "I didn't mean that," I protested half-heartedly. "It's just that he hasn't had much chance to handle a big case. I wonder if he's up to the challenge."

  Leo pulled into my driveway and put the car into park. "As far as I'm concerned, Drew proved all he needs to prove when he dealt with that fire."

  Leo's quiet rebuke shamed me. Drew risked his life years earlier when he ran into the burning Plimpkin house. He was able to rescue Jack, the oldest boy, but not before Jack suffered irreversible brain damage from smoke inhalation. Drew was badly burned. The rest of the family--father, mother, and younger daughter--perished. Jack was left with the mentality of a child and became a ward of the court with Judge MacKendrick as his guardian.

  "I know. But you didn't see Wade." I shuddered, suddenly drenched in cold even though I sat in the warmth of the setting sun.

  "Drew's been trained to handle things like that." Leo put his hand over mine and gave it a squeeze. "Let him do his job."

  I opened my car door and stepped out, leaning back in to say, "I'll move the new car and wait here for you."

  "Are you sure?" He gazed around the quiet neighborhood. "It seems okay."

  "It's fine. Nobody's going to snatch me off the street. You go meet Honey. Why don't you bring back a pizza and we'll find Mel and the Professor to play a few minutes of Monopoly?"

  Leo laughed. "You and that Monopoly game. How long have we been playing it?"

  I waved him away. "Since high school, I think. See you later." I watched as he drove off, then I went into my house and backed the Escort out of the garage, parking it at the curb. I slowly crossed Leo's lawn to my new sports car. It was a beautiful shade of cobalt blue, gleaming and shiny in the sun. I fumbled with the key fob and managed to open the locks without setting off any alarms, for which I was grateful. The neighborhood was quiet and I had visions of me shattering the silence with a piercing WHOOP from the car's security.

  I sat for a long minute, savoring the New Car Smell before I cautiously drove the car to my driveway and into the garage. I took the owner's manual from the glove compartment and went inside. SoSo sauntered in and I fed him then I went back upstairs to change from my working clothes. I sighed happily when I kicked off my loafers and dropped my dusty and wrinkled slacks and blouse on the floor. It felt like weeks of accumulated grime slipped away with the clothing.

  I considered taking a shower but settled for a quick damp-towel-off instead. Emerging from the bathroom, I tugged on a pair of denim shorts and my Some People Without Brains Do an Awful Lot of Talking T-shirt. I dug my phone from the depths of my handbag to check the charge. It still had a half-battery full of juice, so I tucked it in my pocket in case Baby Dot called again. I jammed my feet into my red Crocs, grabbed the manual, and headed back downstairs.

  I picked up my car keys and went to the living room near SoSo, who had wedged himself onto a windowsill in a patch of sunlight near the Monopoly game. As I put the new car key on the key ring I realized I hadn't taken Drew up on his offer to have the key ring cut when I was at the police station. Of course, fingerprinting had occupied most of my attention when I was there and annoying key chain accessories were not on my radar screen.

  I tried once again to get the keys off the tightly overlapping ring. I jiggled the fob as I manipulated it and Margaret Hamilton promptly screamed, "I'm melting! I'm melting!" I muttered a curse under my breath and considered tossing the whole thing out, but I couldn't maneuver the useful keys off the ring. I was stuck with Margaret Hamilton, at least for the time being. I once again replaced the small plastic cover protecting the voice buttons and tossed the key ring back on the coffee table.

  I left SoSo guarding the game pieces, car manual, and keys while I went downstairs to inspect my storm damage. I checked the broken window, now covered by a piece of board. It definitely needed more work than my meager skills could handle. I used my cell phone to call Sean Mansfield, Broomfield's resident Jack of all trades.

  As I expected, his answering machine kicked on. Sean was seldom home. If he wasn't on a job, he was fishing or hanging out at the Wizard's Wand Café. I d
ictated a message, asking him to drop by and assess the damage at his earliest convenience. As I hung up I heard a sound from the tornado tunnel that connected my house to Mel's. I belatedly remembered Baby Dot's concern about the monkeys. If they were loose in the tunnel, they were probably frightened.

  And if they were frightened, I was frightened, too. The three monkeys (macaques, as Mel insisted I refer to them) were waiting to be transferred to a wildlife sanctuary in California. They had been raised with humans, but they were still wild animals and they were intimidating, or at least so I thought. King was the biggest of the three at almost two feet tall and twenty pounds. His red-brown fur crested to a point on his head and he had long whiskers on a pointed snout, giving him a bemused appearance.

  Bemused, that is, until you looked in his dark brown eyes and saw a wicked intelligence that Mel claimed was mischievous and which I thought was malicious. He adored Mel and Baby Dot, acting as docile as a sheep whenever they were in the vicinity. But the minute the Claire women left, his real personality took over.

  My first introduction to him was when he managed to open the basement door and come into my house, scaring me half to death and causing SoSo to vanish for half a day in a kitty hidey-hole. King stole my gold baseball cap and vanished back into the Tube, leaving me to clean up the basement where he and his posse, the females Flossy and Bossy, tossed my scrapbooking supplies hither and yon. The next day I had Sean install a lock on my side of the door so the critters couldn't wreck further havoc while I was away.

  "King? Is that you?" I leaned against the door, visualizing the tunnel. It was about eighteen inches taller than me and almost four feet wide. Lights on the side near the ceiling were spaced at five foot intervals, leaving small puddles of darkness every four feet. The walls were plastered in white limestone and uneven, with a wavy, bumpy outline. Worn, thin carpet covered the hard-packed earth floor. The tunnel was clean, slightly damp, and spooky. I avoided it as much as possible.

  "King?" I rattled the stout wooden door.

  The sound came again. It was scratching noise, like claws on the oaken panel. I stepped back and reached for the phone again to call Mel.

  The old brass doorknob turned. I froze, my hand outstretched toward the phone. The door shifted, held in place by the deadbolt on my side.

  "Mel?" I asked in a shrill, wavering voice.

  "Not Mel," a male voice replied.

  Chapter 7

  The ancient black landline phone perched next to the washing machine rang. I jumped, almost knocking over the bar stool where the phone sat. I dragged the handset by its cord and managed to put it to my ear.

  "Dorothy, where have you been? I've been trying to call you." Mel hurried on before I could share my fingerprinting experience. "Listen, there's a health inspector here from the state to review the sanctuary. My charity status is due for renewal."

  "It's almost eight at night. What's he doing here?"

  "You know they do spot inspections. I don't know why he had to come on the day we had a tornado but he showed up and he's going to check the Tube. Can you--"

  "He's here," I interrupted. "I can hear him. I'm in the basement."

  "Oh, good. Stall him. I need to find the pigs."

  "Hello?" the male voice called.

  "Stall him? How?" I stepped away from the door, forgetting the phone in my hand was an ancient wired model. The cord stretched but not far enough. The base clattered to the floor, taking the barstool with it. By the time I retrieved it, Mel had either hung up or been disconnected.

  "Hello? I'm with the Health Department. I need to check this door." The voice sounded impatient and pissed off. I suppose I couldn't blame him. That old tunnel wasn't the sort of place where you wanted to spend time.

  I approached the door cautiously, debating internally. Surely I could open it? Mel vouched for the guy, after all. And besides, who else would be in the Tornado Tube? Only a handful of people even knew about the tunnel and its entrance into my basement.

  I unlocked the door and opened it. A tall, gangly man stared at me, his khaki pants baggy and his navy blue polo shirt streaked with lime dust. His black hair was slicked back, revealing his receding hairline and a dark beard shadowed his cheeks. He reminded me of a much taller, geekier Peter Lorre, with protruding dark eyes, sunken cheeks, and a patently insincere smile. "I'm with the Health Department." He started to step past me, but I closed the door slightly, blocking his entrance.

  "Could I see some identification?"

  He drew back as though I'd taken a swing at him. "Who else would I be? I heard you talking to Mrs. Claire."

  I considered a few replies and settled for, "Identification, please?"

  He sighed at my foolishness and transferred a clipboard from his left hand to his right before fishing a wallet from his back pocket. His long bony fingers extracted a laminated card, which he handed to me. I examined it. There was an official-looking logo and a motto under it (protecting the vulnerable, ensuring your safety). Below this, his name was written in block letters. T. Waller, Regional Inspector, K.D.A.H.W. "Kansas Department of--?" I asked.

  "Animal Health and Welfare." He plucked the card out of my fingers. As he did, his hand touched mine.

  I shivered at the clammy feeling. "You said you need to check the door?"

  "I'm verifying it's secure." Waller brushed past me, almost treading on my red Crocs. I caught a whiff of sweat and stale aftershave before I stepped back.

  He peered around my furnace/laundry room and beyond, to the scrapbooking room on the other side and the staircase leading to my kitchen. "Is this door locked at all times?"

  For someone who purported to be interested in the door, he hadn't paid any attention to it. I moved to the left, cutting off his view of my basement. "Yes, it is. There's a deadbolt. See?"

  His googly eyes regarded me with about as much life as a goldfish. "When was it installed?" He removed a ballpoint pen from a holder on the clipboard and held it poised over a paper with a numbered list, checkboxes next to items.

  What was he noting in that tiny, precise handwriting? The animal sanctuary was important to Mel, almost as important as Baby Dot. What was he seeing? Mel worked herself crazy to take care of the animals. Was he noting demerits that would count against her?

  "When was it built?" Waller repeated.

  "Oh. About five years ago. I mean, a door was always there, but I put on the deadbolt five years ago, when Mel got the monk--the macaques."

  "Mrs. Claire said the tunnel was originally two storm cellars that the previous owner connected. That's unusual."

  "I suppose. But the previous owner was unusual, too." I watched as those spidery fingers made a notation on his clipboard.

  "And the animals are allowed free run of the tunnel?" Waller's dark eyes were intent as his pen poised over the paper.

  "No, no. It's just when there's a storm, they get frightened and it's quieter in the tunnel." I checked anxiously behind him, but no small snout was pointed my way. Maybe Baby Dot was wrong. Maybe the monkeys weren't loose. "I'm sure they're fine," I added lamely. Waller sniffed, a judgmental, snorty sound. I decided I had stalled him long enough. "I was on my way to the Claires to see how they came through the storm." I gestured to the tunnel and forced a smile. "After you."

  He frowned and I thought he would protest. Instead, he gave my laundry room one last critical look before going back the way he came. I followed, pulling the door closed behind me with a solid thunk.

  "How long has this tunnel been here?" he asked, leading the way to the first pool of darkness.

  "Since the houses were built. It was originally a storm cellar under the barn but when Mr. Burke built the house for his daughter, they had a storm cellar, too. He expanded both of them to meet." I focused on the floor so I didn't have to see the whitewashed walls closing in around us. Cool damp air made me shiver as we neared the first niche.

  "Burke? Who's that?" Waller paused and I almost ran over him. "What is that? I passed several of
these."

  I hesitated then moved around him and kept walking, glancing back as he stared at a small bright pink metal door set at floor level. "It's a storage spot for supplies. Mr. Burke was the original owner. He kept the tunnel stocked with feed for the livestock and with canned goods. It was sort of a root cellar and tornado shelter, all combined." I talked fast, matching my words to my pace as I scurried past the second niche on the right which housed the green feed bin, gaily decorated with painted sunflowers in gold and red. It was locked with a homemade padlock dangling from the hasp. "The farm passed to Burke's daughter and she didn't keep livestock, so the bins aren't used anymore."

  "Did he do the work himself?"

  I couldn't fault the disbelieving tone in Waller's voice. Old Farmer Burke's eccentric ways were the talk of the town when he was alive. He delighted in creating a corn maze every summer, he decorated the Tornado Tube at Halloween when he gave tours of "The Crypt," and he jerry-rigged about every piece of machinery on the farm. The bizarre locks and doors were the least of his oddities. "Mr. Burke was an amateur inventor. It was a hobby for him."

  "Mrs. Claire said she lets the macaques use this tunnel for exercise." Waller's critical voice echoed behind me. I heard him puffing to keep pace with my scurrying feet. "That could be dangerous if these doors and bins aren't secured."

  I paused by the next nook, illuminated by the overhead lights. It was the half-way mark, with the tunnel going uphill from here. This nook was bigger than the others, almost five feet tall and covering a declivity in the left side wall. The indentation was covered by a bright yellow metal pseudo-door, a hammered-out piece of an oil drum with a Burke handle constructed from an old screwdriver. A square purple padlock hung off the knob, its keyhole shaped like a fat M.

  At Halloween this was the spot where the rubber corpse leaned over to leer at unsuspecting party-goers. It always gave me the creeps. What was behind the door? Was there a cave there or was it just another small nook in the wall? During the rare times I used the Tube, I never paused to explore, always being anxious to get out as fast as possible. "I doubt if the monkeys are interested in old storage bins."