Henry Wood Detective: Boxed Set (Books 1 - 4)

by Brian Meeks

  “Why, yes, that’s correct though it doesn’t exist.”

  “The Enclave doesn’t exist because you say it doesn’t.”

  “You catch on quickly, Mr. Wood. Yes, he, like so many others, was the beneficiary of our vast network of resources. He profited greatly from engaging our services. As for the debt, well, we collected on October 24, 1929. This was also a profitable day for Mr. Palmeroy as a penny not lost is a penny earned.”

  “So ‘Black Thursday’ was the Enclave’s doing?”

  “There were many players and many causes. The market was already on shaky ground, and the debates in Congress around the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act made for an opportunity.”

  “An opportunity?”

  “The excesses of the ‘Roaring Twenties’ had created an environment of unbridled optimism. An unsustainable level of spending and gains needed to be curtailed. Alas, that was only a secondary concern to our members.”

  “What was the real reason?”

  “I didn’t much care for Herbert Hoover.”

  “Are you telling me you sent the world into the Great Depression because you didn’t ‘much care for’ the president?”

  “Are you telling me that you believe my little story?”

  “I’m in a strange dungeon, for lack of a better word, and have been drugged and told you are going to kill me. Believing your story or not seems like the least of my concerns.”

  “I believe I said ‘we needed to have you killed,’ not that I intend to kill you.”

  “Semantics.”

  “My point was that we could not have started the ball rolling without calling in a large number of markers. Each person who sold that day did so early on, thus saving their family fortunes and wiping the slate clean with us.”

  “Interesting...but I’m not sure how that ties into why I ‘needed’ to be killed.”

  “Ah, yes, this is how it works with the Enclave if it existed. People who have the means to be influential come to us for help, and, when society needs a shove in a different direction, they return the favor. The bigger the favor, the more we ask of those who ask. Earlier this year, Mr. Palmeroy made a request to have a problem of his ‘solved.’ We may have helped in this regard.”

  “What sort of problem?”

  “The blonde sort of problem.”

  “You had Cynthia Pollard killed.”

  “Whether we were involved isn’t the point.”

  “What is the point?”

  “She is dead, and the police had given up finding her killers. You, however, had not.”

  “And you were afraid I’d expose your whole shadow organization?”

  Mr. Bowler let out a hearty laugh. “Oh, no, nothing like that. We were simply interested in tidying up the whole mess for the benefit of our dear friend Dwight.”

  “So why did you shoot him?” Henry knew they hadn’t, but he wanted to see the reaction. It was a disappointment.

  “We didn’t. We did have a team in place, but they were there, as I mentioned, to put an end to the investigation.”

  “You mean me.”

  “I do.”

  “Have we reached the end or, more aptly, have I?”

  “You seem to be taking this ‘death’ thing quite well, Mr. Wood.”

  “It might be the scotch, which is excellent by the way, or the drugs you slipped into my first one, but I’m in surprisingly good spirits considering.”

  “Well. Then let me brighten your day further. We have lost interest in killing you. The moment our friend ceased to exist, any concern about his reputation vanished as well.”

  “Cheers.”

  “May I get you another?”

  “Yes, that would be great. Then you can tell me why I’m here. Where do you find a castle with a dungeon in the greater five boroughs anyway?”

  “First and foremost, I wanted to tell you personally that Dwight was the person who caused Ms. Pollard’s death. Second, we’d like to know exactly what happened up at the house, and, if at all possible, to find out what happened to the gentlemen who failed to carry out their mission.”

  “You mean killing me?”

  “Yes.”

  “You want me to track down my assassins and tell them to come home?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Just to be clear. You want to hire me to find a group of assassins from your secret society that doesn’t exist and give them a message.”

  “Two, to be precise.”

  “Do they have names?”

  “They do not.”

  “Do you have photos of them?”

  “Not any I’m willing to share.”

  “Any idea where to start looking?”

  “None whatsoever.”

  “And if I decided I don’t want to work for “The Enclave”, what then?”

  “You may recall that in the late 30’s and early 40’s there was a rather nasty chap wreaking havoc in Europe.”

  “Hitler?”

  “Yes, well, I didn’t care for him, either, or his little friend Emperor Hirohito. So, after unsuccessfully attempting to convince Roosevelt to put things right in Europe, we were forced to manufacture the correct environment.”

  “Taking credit for Pearl Harbor? That seems a bit much.”

  “It was really quite an operation. We had to sell the Japanese on the idea and ensure that none of the intercepted correspondence reached the commanders of the U.S. fleet. Fortunately, we had an industrialist whose son was in a position to slow up communications.”

  “What’s your point?”

  Mr. Bowler stood. The polite expression he had worn since the car was gone. “Neither I nor the Enclave exist and as such, there is no one to say ‘no,’ too.” Mr. Bowler set a manila envelope on the corner of the desk.

  Henry reached for it but stopped. The door to the room had slammed shut. Henry looked, expecting to see some thugs or even Xue. Nothing there; just a closed door. He turned back to the envelope, ready to tell Mr. Bowler to shove it, but the desk chair was empty.

  CHAPTER 71

  There were too many mysteries swirling around in Henry's head for him to spend any energy trying to figure out how his host had made his exit. The door responded with indifference to Henry's tugs. Surveying the room, a rather meek-looking single bed was lurking in the corner. It was more of a cot. Henry wondered if he was expected to stay a while and think about his options.

  Mr. Bowler had made it clear they were limited, so he crossed that idea off his mental list. Henry patted his pocket and found his notebook. The voice in his head was saying many things, but the one message that seemed to make it through the clutter was note everything. A brief map, which was only partially accurate, and a list of highlights were all Henry could think of. He put the notebook away.

  The thick envelope needed to be addressed. Henry gave it a dirty look. He turned it upside down and let the contents slide onto the desk. The cash made an impressive thud. The bills looked old and were bundled $10,000 bricks of $100 bills. There were three of them. A tiny brown vial approached the edge of the desk before Henry stopped it. He picked it up and pulled the cork out. He gave it a whiff and his nose told his brain, "Nothing here boss." Henry imagined it was tasteless in scotch and that he had already had plenty.

  A note, handwritten, explained that Henry was to take a little ‘nap.’ When he awoke, he'd be comfortably back in his life. He also saw a business card with an embossed "E" and a strange-looking number on it.

  Henry did a lap around the room but stopped when he reached the bar. It had been very good scotch. Since it didn't appear they were going to let him leave under his own power, Henry decided to ‘nap’ the old-fashioned way. He retrieved his glass from the table and added a few ice cubes but then said “screw it,” and took a pull from the bottle.

  It was an offensive way to drink such a high brow liquor and Henry took some comfort in his rebellion. The cot was only slightly better than passing out on the floor. Henry laid down and stared at his
dungeon cell ceiling. The lack of spider webs and the wet bar ruined the medieval effect, he thought. It was at times like these, not that there had ever been a time like this, that Henry sorely wished he had learned a sea shanty in his youth.

  A short while later, the bottle crawled gently from Henry's hand and rolled across the floor.

  * * *

  “I don’t know, Luna,” Mike said, trying to hide his worry.

  “Let’s go look for him. We know where he was meeting the car.”

  “That’s just it - he was meeting a car. They will have gone somewhere. Plus, I already had someone from the force go check it out.”

  “It’s been almost seven hours. What if it was a trap?”

  “Henry’s got a good sense for that sort of thing. If it didn’t feel right, he wouldn’t have gotten in the car.”

  “I know it was a trap. The psycho who has been sending him these letters has him.”

  “I’m worried too, but I don’t think it was the same guy. The letters were different. I doubt they were written by the same person.”

  “You don’t know that. They could have been written by the same guy and just made to look different to throw us off.”

  “It just doesn’t fit,” Mike said. He took a pull from his beer and searched for some way to assuage her fears. “The “Tile Killer” wants to prove he is smarter than Henry by playing this game. The other letter seemed like a different person.”

  Mike hadn’t really countered her last point, but Luna bit her lip. The Dublin Rogue was quiet, but they had hoped it would be the first place Henry would go after the meeting.

  Earlier, after Mike had returned to Club 21 to report the man in the blue shirt had gotten away, he had called in to let the chief know they had solved the latest letter. A crew had been sent to check for any evidence that might have been left. The manager, upon facing the prospect of having his restaurant cleared out for the evening, had agreed to let in one officer to investigate the wine cellar. The officer hadn’t found anything but wondered how the tile could have been attached to the bottle without the help of someone from the staff.

  Mike had been down stairs and walked right by the secret entrance to the wine cellar, twice. When the other detective described how it was hidden, Mike insisted he needed to see it, too. Mike was so impressed by the secret door that he, too, suspected their letter writer must have had help. The next three hours were spent interviewing the staff.

  According to the interviews, only four people knew how to get into the wine cellar. Mike believed them when they said they didn’t know how the tile got there, but he also believed it was impossible to pull off without inside help. Eventually, there just weren’t any more questions to ask.

  Luna looked up from her beer when the door opened. A drunk staggered in off the street. Not just any drunk, though, it was Henry. She bolted out of the booth and Mike was right behind. They almost got to their friend before he collapsed.

  Henry lay on the sticky floor and slurred, “They drugged me and tried to do it again, but I drank all their scotch.”

  Mike laughed and said. “Way to show them, buddy. Now, let’s get you home.”

  Luna just wrapped her arms around Henry and fought off tears.

  * * *

  Henry’s eyes objected to the light, but his nose smelled coffee and that won the argument. It wasn’t just the kitchen light that bothered him but also the sunshine coming through the window. His head started to throb. Henry saw a smile on Luna’s face as she flipped eggs and a look of amusement on Mike’s.

  “So I guess you made a new drinking buddy.”

  “I’ve given up drinking for a while.”

  Luna asked, “Cup of coffee?”

  “Thanks,” Henry said, wiping his hand over his face, trying to find a clear thought.

  “So what happened last night?” Mike asked.

  Henry added sugar to his coffee and stirred it gently, taking care to avoid clinking the sides of the mug with the spoon. “Maybe after lunch or possibly dinner or...next year, I’ll give you the unabridged version, but to sum things up...I met with a man who claims to rule the world from behind an Oz-like curtain.”

  Luna looked at Mike and back at Henry. “I think you’re still drunk.”

  “You’d be right. Let me try again. It’s called “The Enclave” and they killed Cynthia. They also decided to put out a contract on me, but the shooting spree at the Palmeroy’s changed their plans.”

  Luna didn’t like the sound of that at all. “Why do they want to kill you?”

  “I’m not really clear on that part.”

  Mike held up the manila envelope. “What’s with the pile of money? By my estimate, this is about five years of cop work.”

  “The evil overlord wants to hire me to find the guys he paid to kill me. Here’s the kicker: they’re probably still trying.”

  Luna had run out of breakfast to make and was feeling fidgety. She didn’t like all this talk about killing Henry even if he seemed fine with it. “What are you supposed to do? Walk up to the guys and, before they pull the trigger, say, ‘The boss wants you to come home, he’s changed his mind?’”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “It just doesn’t make any sense. Why did you agree to it?”

  “I didn’t. He sort of vanished assuming I didn’t have a choice. Then I got drunk.”

  Mike asked, “Why?”

  “They drugged me in the car and expected I would take the same knock-out stuff on my own. He didn’t want me to know where to find his secret lair. I decided to rebel and drink all their scotch.”

  “How did you get to the bar?”

  “They dumped me out of the car right in front.”

  Luna sat down across from Henry and said, “You’re not eating your eggs.”

  “In hindsight, taking the knock-out drug would have been the better move. I’m going to need you both to point out to me, in no uncertain terms, that ‘little, moral victories are completely overrated.’ It’s probably best that this happen 3 - 4 times per day for the foreseeable future. I’m going to bed.”

  With that, Henry left the oppressive morning sunshine and disappeared back into the dark and quiet under his covers. Mike and Luna finished their breakfast and read the morning paper.

  CHAPTER 72

  Were it not for a lifetime of practicing restraint, Major Doyle Worthy III would have been in a full-blown rage. The last call had been from his man watching the precinct. Nobody had seen Henry since he walked out of the restaurant. It was almost noon, and his nemesis was nowhere to be found.

  He had been none too pleased when Henry or, more accurately, his friends had found the tile. The major stayed up most the night getting the next letter ready. It was his best work yet. He sat tapping the envelope with a pencil and thought.

  The major closed his eyes and took ten deep breaths. After years of imagining this game in every detail, he had become too rigid. If Henry were going to ground, the game would continue without him. The idea dissipated the anger and started his gears turning. He grabbed the phone and placed a call.

  “Hello, sir,” said the voice on the other end.

  “Have everyone keep looking. If they find Wood, have them call you. I’ll be away for the next few hours. Make it clear that the first priority is to track his movements. We won’t worry about the delivery for the rest of the afternoon.”

  “Understood.”

  Though he had been careful to keep his hands out of the killing business, the major was more than willing to pull the trigger should it be necessary. He removed the .45 caliber M1911 from the hidden panel in his bottom desk drawer. He had over a dozen of them, and none could be traced to him. He ran his hand over the gun, felt the weight in his hand, and imagined pulling the trigger. He put it back. Too loud.

  In a safe, hidden in the credenza, he had a better option. He dialed the combination and removed the purple velvet bag with the Welrod Mark II. The magazine held 8 rounds. This gun, used by British
Special operations forces, was a bolt action and rather ugly. Though it lacked aesthetic appeal, it was silent. The .32 caliber bullets would do the trick.

  He was pleased with himself for spotting the problem with the M1911. The next move was becoming clear. All he needed to do was imagine how it would play out. First the shot, then the person dropped. He would need to leave a message on the body. Better yet, the next tile and a warning. Yes, that would be perfect.

  He grabbed a piece of paper, jotted down a note, then immediately threw it away. Handwriting would be a mistake. He didn’t have a typewriter in his office since it would be strange for anyone but his secretary to do his typing. The note would have to come later. He put the gun in his briefcase.

  The major needed to think, and he did that best while driving. “I’m going to be out of the office the rest of the day. Take messages and leave them on the desk. I’ll get to them later.”

  His secretary nodded. “Yes, sir. Do you need me to call your driver?”

  “No.”

  He didn’t pull the tarp off the car often. His driver would start it up once per month just to make sure it was ready to go, but he wasn’t allowed to drive it. The Jaguar Mark V sedan, bought new in 1949, was black, had a straight six, and was pleased to get out of the garage.

  Until now, he had only been interested in playing the game with Henry. The press hadn’t made any connection between the other murders no doubt because of how it was managed by the police. The police wanted it kept quiet. It was time to make Henry’s friends a little uncomfortable.

  * * *

  Henry had slept for a couple of more hours and then got up. He was tired and dehydrated.

  Luna had spent the morning reading over the journal and didn’t have much more to tell him.

  “I’ve read through the journal again, but I don’t see anything useful.”

  “We know that Dwight had Cynthia killed, so I guess that case is solved. Except, well, Dwight didn’t pull the trigger.”