by Derek Murphy
She choked out, “Oh, God! I can’t watch this!”
Running from the room, she soon slammed the bathroom door behind her and Carl could hear the sound of her retching. Carl moved to the desk and sat down, his eyes still on the screen; not because he was mesmerized by what was happening, but because he was checking to see if there was any audio. He thought that if he could hear their voices, he might be able to recognize either Ginny or Erica. Finding the controls, he increased the volume to full and gritted his teeth as he realized that there was no audio pickup in the room.
Even though he knew this recording had been made months before, he still felt the urge to go to the house to stop the atrocities committed on the woman’s body. He continued to watch the recording to its end, at which point, one of the figures knelt on the bed beside the stricken woman and bent to whisper something in her ear. Afterwards, the two released her, dragging her from her prone position to sit on the edge of the bed. At that point, one of them produced a sheet of paper and pen while the other forced the woman to sign the paper. When they were finished, they moved out of the camera’s view, and the woman, Sophie Webster, slid from the bed to kneel on the floor, crying and trying to ease the pain of her injuries by changing position several times.
After a while, she pushed herself up from the floor, straightening with difficulty until she was on her feet and walked unsteadily out of the camera’s view. At that point, other cameras in the house showed her progress from the bedroom to the library. Carl watched as she fumbled with the combination of the wall safe and removed the gun. He tried to avert his eyes as she brought the barrel of the pistol to her head, but she was too fast for him and he watched as her body crumpled to the floor.
He stopped the playback at that point and turned to remove the phone from its cradle on his desk. Julie came to stand beside him, her hand going to his shoulder as though wanting reassurance that what they had seen had been just a movie. The frozen image on the monitor attested to the fact that it wasn’t and she continued to clutch at his shoulder as he dialed Detective Thomas’ number.
At the fourth ring, he heard Thomas’ voice. “Detective Thomas speaking!”
“Steve, this is Carl. I’ve got something you need to see. Before you leave, you should probably get the ball rolling to obtain a warrant to arrest Chip Nelson, search his yacht and home and as many warrants as you need for the arrest of his wife and mother.”
The tone of Thomas’ voice showed that he was obviously nettled at being told how to do his job, but he asked, “What are the charges?”
“The assault of Sophie Webster.”
“And how do you know all this, Carl? We’ve got our own leads that we’re following. How can you be so sure that all three of them are involved?”
Impatiently, Carl said, “Just get over to our offices, Steve. You’ll understand when you see what I’ve got to show you.”
He hung up without saying ‘goodbye’, but didn’t care. Having watched the footage, he was upset enough that he simply didn’t have time to observe the niceties and Thomas had irritated him. Sighing, he looked up at Julie.
“Well, I’ve not only lost us the fee from Nelson’s wife, I’ve also alienated Thomas. We’ll be lucky if he returns our calls in the future.”
Julie, holding her still upset stomach, pulled the office chair over next to him and sat down, leaning her head against his shoulder. Her hand crept to his, taking it, as though for comfort. All thought of getting Carl into bed was gone from her mind now. The only thing she cared about was being comforted.
“What they did to that poor woman, Carl. I know that things nearly that bad happen all the time, but still, it’s something else when you actually see it being done.”
For answer, he lifted her hand and held it against his chin, breathing heavily down onto it as he sighed again.
“What they did wasn’t enough to make her kill herself, Julie.”
Content to be this close to him at last, she said, “Well, the cops and District Attorney’s office will have to dig up the rest of it. And don’t look at it as though you lost us a fee; Webster will pay us a bonus for finding the people responsible. That’ll probably make up for the fee.”
They sat quietly for a few minutes until what he had said sank into her mind. Straightening, she frowned up at him.
“What do you mean? About what they did not being enough for her to kill herself?”
Still deep in thought, he looked down at her, distracted for a moment.
“You left before the end. When they were finished, one of them said something to her. Whispered it into her ear before they left. As soon as she could get up and move, she went directly to the library and shot herself. Whatever the woman said to her was what did it.”
Shrugging, she said, “Unless it comes out in the trial, we’ll probably never know what it was.”
Still in thought, he said, “Maybe you’re right.”
* * *
Standing at the door of the house as the cops removed the crime scene tape, Ike waited patiently for the officers to clear their stuff away and move off to their cars and vans. The last officer to leave closed the door behind him and shook his head at Ike.
“I don’t think you’ll find anything now. Our guys went through everything with a fine-toothed comb. I think they even gave the gnats a cavity search.”
Ike said, “Are you kidding?” As the officer puffed up; prepared to defend his peers’ efforts in the investigation, he added, “Webster probably has this place fumigated every week. A gnat wouldn’t dare show up here.”
Mollified at the additional statement, the officer nodded at him, a smile coming to his face as he moved on to his car. Once he had pulled out of the big, circle drive, Ike removed the key from his pocket and unlocked the door, stepping inside.
Removing a diagram from his jacket pocket, he consulted it and wandered from room to room, noting the hidden passages; their doors and hatches left open for Webster’s benefit. Ike didn’t know if Webster would end up closing them for good, or keep them as they were for his own use. It didn’t really matter. He knew that if DeeDee ever killed herself, he wouldn’t be able to stay in their house for any longer than it took to get a realtor. Maybe it was different when the house cost a few million, but he knew how he felt about it and that was all that mattered to him.
He stopped in the library and went to the fireplace starter controls set into the mantel. Removing a small toolset from his pocket, he worked quickly, getting the faceplate off and setting it aside. This was something he had wanted to do earlier but been sidetracked and now he had the time.
A quick inspection revealed that one of the exotic switches had been cross-wired into the control, allowing whoever had the remote to light the fireplace pretty much whenever they wanted. He stepped back and looked up at the painting of Webster and his wife. It had been cleaned, so he didn’t really think he would find anything if he examined it, but maybe there was something to be found on the wall behind it. Pulling a chair to the fireplace, he stepped up onto it and removed the painting. He set it carefully on the floor and leaned close to the wall.
Yes. A poorly cleaned splotch of blood had been there. And in the middle of it, a very small hole in the wooden paneling. Not much bigger than a nail-hole, really. But what would he find on the other side of the paneling? He stepped off of the chair and walked outside and around to the corresponding wall on the outside.
There he found a little door for use in cleaning the ashes from the box underneath the hearth. The door was quite large for its intended use and he opened it, shining his little flashlight all around the inside, finding a space within that was almost large enough for a man to stand in. The hatch down which the ashes would be shoveled from the hearth was pretty far inside for an easy reach. He frowned at the ashes that still covered the bottom of the box and grimaced in distaste. DeeDee was going to skin him alive for coming home with ashes all over his clothes.
Squirming his bulk inside, he con
torted his big body until he was standing and shined his light on the bricks of the chimney. Just about shoulder height, the chimney split in two, effectively becoming two chimneys, while leaving the wall in the middle of the mantel free of obstruction. There he found another switch and servo mechanism like he had found in the attic. There was even a small, bloodstained balloon depending flaccidly from a fine wire that hung from the servo. He mentally tipped his hat to whoever had rigged the thing. It was very fine work and had performed perfectly. Ike doubted that he could have done as good a job. Whoever it had been was a great technician.
Satisfied with what he had found, he began trying to get himself out of the confined space and found that while he had been able to get inside, it was quite another thing getting out. His knees didn’t bend the right way. Whoever had set the switch and servo had been much smaller than he was.
Ike had never liked small spaces very much and was beginning to sweat when he happened to shine his light to the left and saw that unlike the space to his right, the left was open. Moving that way, he found that he could turn a corner and emerge into a small room. With his light, he found a light switch set into the wall and flicked it, staring about him in wonder.
He took out his cell phone, dialing the office. The phone was picked up on the first ring and he heard Carl say, “Hello!”
“Carl! You and Julie get your butts up to Webster’s house! Now!”
“We’re kind of tied up here, Ike. Why don’t you come see what we’ve found?”
“’Cause I’ve found something, too! You gotta see it, man!”
Carl’s voice sounded tense and ill at ease as he said, “Thomas and Michaelson are here. They’re going to get warrants for a few arrests. Can it wait?”
Impatient, Ike said, “Hell no, it can’t wait! Tell those two to get their forensics guys up here again! I think I found the motive!”
Breaking the connection in a fit of pique, he leaned against the wall of the hidden room and continued to stare about him, his eyes wide and a smile on his face.
Chapter Eleven
Standing at the side of the house, Carl dialed Ike’s number on his phone and waited until his partner answered the call.
“Where the hell are you, Ike?”
“I’m…umph, on my way out now. Where are you?”
“Standing on the west side of the house, just like you said.”
“Do you have Thomas and Michaelson with you?”
“Yeah. Julie, too.”
“Aggh! Damn! This is a tight squeeze! I’m almost there! There’s a door on the interior of the house but I couldn’t get it open. I have a suspicion that when Webster had the house remodeled, the carpenters covered the hidden door. Ah!”
At the last word, Carl and the others heard a scraping noise and turned to look at the chimney at the side of the house to see Ike’s butt scooting out of the access door to the firebox. Turning, the ash and dust covered figure grinned sardonically and waved something clenched in his hand. A trailing wire glittered in the afternoon sun.
“I found out how they got the blood on the portrait! There’s other stuff in the room, too! You’ll need to have the wall on the other side of the door torn out to get to it. Most of the pieces are too big to bring out the way I got in.”
Thomas waved a forensics tech forward and as the man offered an evidence bag, Ike dropped the switch, transmitter and wires into it. Still grinning, he wiped a hand across his forehead, smearing the dust there into mud.
Michaelson crowded forward and frowned at him.
“You guys just love making us look like fools, don’t you?”
Spreading his hands, Ike said, “Hey, I just dug a little deeper is all. This house is at the center of things and I knew there had to be a reason why.”
Still angry, Michaelson said, “Yeah, well, we already got a motive; Nelson, his wife and mother want him in as CEO at the company his father founded and Webster was standing in the way. They murdered his wife and made him think she was haunting him in an effort to make him unstable enough for the board of directors to remove him and install Nelson in his place.”
Carl said, “I don’t think that’s it, Harry. Nelson isn’t high enough up the ladder at Nelson Aerospace to get moved up like that. He’s middle management at best. There’s got to be something else.”
Ike removed a handkerchief from his back pocket and began scrubbing the mud from his sweaty face. Apologetically, he said, “Sorry, guys. I never liked tight spaces and the way into the room is the tightest I’ve ever been through. I guess I’m a little claustrophobic.”
Eyeing Thomas, who still stood, staring at him with narrowed eyes, he said, “Okay, Steve. I know what the silent stare means; you’re waiting for me to get on with it. And, I will.”
He removed his phone from a pocket and flicked a finger at the screen, scrolling through his picture files until he found the latest. Enlarging one of them, he held his phone for the others to see.
“This is the biggest thing in the room. I think you can see why we need to get the wall removed so we can get it out. There’s other stuff that’s just too big to take out through the tunnel, too. But this is the biggest.”
He grinned as the others gazed at the photo. It displayed an actual throne; of a black wood, probably ebony, inlaid with gold, and with gold finials set on the back and at the ends of the arms where anyone who sat in the throne could grasp them. Jewels glittered in the photo here and there on the golden accoutrements. To the side of the throne, a large painting stood on end, displaying a young woman dressed, or undressed, as the case may be, in only a stole of sorts, strategically draped over her hip as she reclined on a bench. His finger flicked on the screen, displaying another photo of a large wooden box, half-filled with jewelry that glittered and sparkled in the light.
Carl began to ask, “Is that…?”
Nodding, Ike said, “Yeah, Partner! That’s stuff believed lost since WWII. Looted from the homes of concentration camp internees by the Nazis and supposedly destroyed when the train they were on was bombed and strafed by Allied fighter-bombers.” He added, “I looked it up on the internet while I was in there. I think there used to be a lot more jewelry but it was small enough to be taken out through the tunnel.”
Thomas asked, “But how did Nelson’s father get all that stuff? He wasn’t old enough to have been in Europe during WWII.”
Carl said, “I guess we’ll find out when you question Nelson’s mother. If anyone knows, it’s her.”
Stepping away, Thomas waved the forensics techs toward the house and removed his phone from a pocket. He turned away from them as he made a call and spoke too low for them to hear what he was saying.
Ike watched Michaelson as he moved toward the house with the techs and several officers in tow. He said, “Carl, I tell you, it was the most exhilarating feeling. Standing there, like Indiana Jones, with all that fabulous stuff in a dark, dusty room. Most of the light bulbs burned out a long time ago and there were only a couple of little, low-wattage bulbs that still worked.”
Nodding, Carl asked, “So, who do you think is behind it? I’ve got my doubts about Nelson himself. I’m thinking his wife and mother are the ones doing all this.”
Quirking an eyebrow, Ike asked, “But why would his wife put us on the track by telling us she thought her husband was having an affair? That’s just asking for trouble. I can’t figure it.”
Thinking, Carl was slow in answering. “Maybe it’s just Nelson and his mother. But who was the other woman in the surveillance footage?”
Ike shook his head a bit, frowning and asked, “What footage?”
Carl blinked as though lost for a moment and recovered. “Oh, you didn’t know.”
Julie who had been standing by all this time, moved forward and said, “The ‘snooper’ Carl put on Nelson’s laptop captured some incriminating evidence. It shows two women abusing Webster’s wife on the night she killed herself. We don’t know their identities for sure because they were disguis
ed.”
Quietly, Ike said, “I’d like to see it.”
Julie shrugged. “We turned everything over to Harry and Steve when they got there. That’s what we were doing when you called.”
Expectantly, Ike looked at Carl for a few moments until, squirming, Carl said, “Yeah, I made a copy and hid it in another file before they got there. Julie didn’t see me do it because what she doesn’t know, she can’t be held accountable for.” He looked at her and added, “Sorry, Julie. I didn’t want you in trouble for something you didn’t have any control over.”
Angrily, but keeping her voice down, she said, “Stop treating me like a little girl! I might have made a mistake with that girl I picked up, but I’m not incompetent!”
She exchanged angry stares with Carl for a moment until Ike stepped between them, saying, “Of course you’re not! But you are a target, just like me. We just don’t want our most junior partner to get hurt. I promise you’ll get full latitude of action on the next case; this one’s just too dangerous right now.”
Somewhat placated, she realized that she had leaned toward Carl, as though to launch a physical attack, and visibly relaxed, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. She saw that Carl had also been prepared for battle and was surprised when she saw him unclench his hands, working the fingers to loosen them.
She said, “I guess we both need to take a step back and think about what we want to do.”
Understanding that a moment that could have led to physical violence with the senior partner, the man she wanted most to get into bed, had passed, she was nonetheless physically excited and she felt all the telltale signs all through her body. Her nipples felt as though she could have hammered nails with them, they were so hard and tight. A buzzing sensation low in her belly warned her that if she stayed in close proximity to him, she would be likely to want to touch him. That the prospect of violence at Carl’s hands excited her was inexplicable; she had never been attracted to a man who presented a danger to her. Puzzled over her feelings, she stepped away and walked toward the house to watch the techs break through the wall.