Footprints of the Dead (Tom Gabriel #1)

by Tim Ellis

  “I certainly hope you have something on paper from a judge that allows you access to information relating to phone calls made by gallery employees.”

  “Then why are we here if we’re not going to ask anybody anything?”

  He pointed at a picture hanging on the wall that looked more like a cartoon. “What do you think of this urban art?”

  “I like it, but it’s not really why we’re here, is it?”

  “Most of it looks like graffiti.”

  “It’s meant to.”

  “You seem to know a lot about urban art.”

  “I’m reading the brochure.”

  “I could get one of the kids in the neighborhood to come along and spray paint one of my walls if . . .”

  “It says here that urban art is what you see on the street, in public spaces and is often considered as vandalism or destruction of private property.”

  “And now it’s art?”

  “Yes.”

  His faced creased up like a piece of discarded origami. “Criminals are now artists?”

  “So it would seem.”

  He shook his head. “Who said crime didn’t pay?”

  “Will you tell me what we’re doing here?”

  “We’re visiting an art gallery.”

  “If that’s all we’re doing, I could have stayed in bed.”

  “As soon as we find a door marked ‘Private,’ we’ll slip through it on the pretense of looking for the bathroom. Until then, we’re merely visitors who know as much about art as normal people.”

  “We do.”

  He glanced at her. “Do what?”

  “Know as much about art as normal people.”

  “And how much is that?”

  “Very little.”

  “There you are then, I was right all along.”

  Rae sighed.

  They were on the second floor looking at a selection of work from local artists.

  “Why is it so expensive?” he asked.

  “I suppose they have to make a living.”

  “Five hundred dollars could fund an irrigation system in the Sahara desert for a year.”

  “You don’t think it’s worth that amount?”

  “I think I could do better myself, and it’d be free.”

  “Have you ever done any painting?”

  “No.”

  “Did you go to art galleries and places with your wife and daughters?”

  “They preferred to go without me.”

  “I can imagine.”

  They found a door marked Gallery Staff Only – Private and walked through it as if they were employees. The gallery was a popular attraction, and Sundays were always busy. Nobody appeared to pay the slightest attention to them.

  “Now what?” Rae whispered.

  “We take a look around.”

  “For what?”

  “Evidence.”

  “What type of evidence?”

  “We’ll know it when we see it.”

  “Oh.”

  ***

  Sally Stackhouse was in trouble, and didn’t everyone always say that “trouble” was Sally’s middle name? If there was trouble to be found, nine-year-old Sally would find it, stir it up, and dive right into the middle of it. And her mother had always said that she’d get herself into a whole mess of trouble one day, and here she was – in the worst possible trouble she’d ever been in.

  How long had she been here? She had no idea whether it had been one day or one month – every time she thought she might wake up they’d stuck a needle in her neck that made her go back to sleep. It could be morning or night, a weekday or a weekend, she didn’t know which way was up or down anymore.

  Where was here? The darkness pressed down on her like a heavy patchwork quilt she’d climbed under at grandma’s house once. But in all her nine years, she’d never known a place where there was a complete absence of light.

  She’d been at Atlantic Beach with her mom and third uncle. Bud wasn’t really her uncle, but her mum had said to call the men who came to live at their house that anyway. She didn’t mind, one uncle was much the same as another. She would have liked her dad to have still been around, but he’d died in a shoot-out with the police five years ago – a difference of opinion about who owned the money he’d stolen from the bank.

  Jimmy Seraphin and Rebekah Snellenberger had been allowed to come with her, and there was also her younger half-sister Lilly – the slimiest tattletale in the whole world – following them around like a lost puppy.

  They’d been playing.

  The dare was to see what they could “find” on the beach. They’d played the game before, and she always won. She wasn’t afraid to do the unthinkable, to fall right on top of people by accident and help herself to their things – especially bulging wallets, gold watches, and jewelry, and gadgets like eReaders, cells, and tablets – it was so easy to slip them into the front of her t-shirt.

  They’d agreed to meet at the Nodding Donkey Ice Cream Parlor on the promenade to compare their spoils, but trouble had crooked a finger at her.

  Wasn’t it always the way? Just when everything was sweet as apple pie, trouble would whisper in her ear – and she never could ignore trouble.

  She’d seen a man with his wallet hanging out of his jeans’ back pocket.

  It was hers for the taking.

  One last steal, and then she’d be done.

  She’d followed him down an alley.

  Only it hadn’t gone to plan.

  Two men had been waiting for her – two men and a van with its side door gaping open like the gateway to hell.

  What a fool she was.

  They’d grabbed her, injected her – she was toast.

  She wasn’t stupid. She’d read the newspapers, listened to the news stories, seen the Missing posters stapled to the trees in the streets, and the kids had done some speculating one day, so she had a fair idea of what the men planned to do to her.

  Tears jumped into her eyes.

  She clenched her jaw and wiped them away with the back of her hand.

  What good would crying do?

  No good at all, that’s what.

  It was her own stupid fault she was in this mess, and now she had to make the best of the trouble that was coming her way.

  She heard a noise.

  Her stomach began twisting and slithering like a bag of snakes.

  Oh God, what were they going to do to her?

  A sliver of light appeared at the top of some wooden stairs, and a pair of legs began walking down those stairs towards her.

  She couldn’t stop the tears gushing down her face like a damned waterfall.

  “Please don’t hurt me, Mister,” she pleaded through her sobbing.

  He gave a short laugh. “Hurt you! Oh no. I’ve paid good money for you, child. You and I are going to get along just fine. You’ll see. We’ll have the very best of times.”

  ***

  The brochure stated that the building had five floors, and one of those floors was the converted attic space. It didn’t say there was a basement level, but Tom had the feeling that there would be.

  He decided to go up first.

  “Are we going up?” Rae asked, as they began climbing the old wooden stairs.

  “No, I think we’ll go down.”

  “Very funny.”

  “I thought we’d start at the top and work our way down. Remember, we were looking for the bathroom, but now we’re lost.”

  “It’s not really a difficult story, is it? What if we get separated?”

  “Stay close, and then we won’t.”

  “That’s a good plan.”

  They were in a different part of the building. It was as if the whole place had been partitioned into two. There was the gallery at the front, and this strange dilapidated space behind the gallery facade.

  “It’s like two buildings stuck together,” Rae said.

  “Except, nobody’s looked after this part. I can’t imagine the people wh
o run the gallery created all this.”

  “It must have been the Mercer family, but it doesn’t say anything in the brochure. When I get a minute, I’ll see if I can find anything on the Internet.”

  In the attic, there was an access door into the main gallery, but it was locked. There were spy holes in the walls, and they could see the visitors admiring the paintings and collectibles.

  Dust and cobwebs covered the paintings that were stacked against the walls, and Tom wished he’d brought a flashlight.

  “When it gets dark, we won’t be able to see anything,” Rae said.

  “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  She grinned. “I was wondering that as well.”

  “We’ll just have to make sure we leave before it gets dark then, won’t we?”

  They stuck their heads into rooms, nooks, and crannies, but as far as they could see the whole floor was used for storage.

  Rae blew her nose.

  “Are you trying to get us caught?”

  “The dust is going up my nose.”

  “Put a peg on it.”

  “You should write a book with helpful advice like that. I’m sure it’d be a bestseller in Alaska.”

  “I’ll have lots of time to write a book when I’m languishing in prison.”

  “I don’t think anyone’s been up here for a while,” Rae said.

  They moved down to the next floor. The space was larger, there were more rooms, none were locked, and most were either empty or used for storage.”

  “This isn’t getting us very far, is it?”

  “How’s your story coming along?”

  “What story?”

  “You’re meant to be writing a story for Franchetti.”

  “I’d forgotten all about him. I wonder what’s happening about the newspaper. We’ll have to go over there and find out tomorrow.”

  The next floor – the second floor where they’d entered the surreal alternative section of the house – was the same as the two upper floors.

  They moved down to the next level.

  The first floor was different. It wasn’t dusty. It had been painted and looked more like a place where people worked.

  “We’ll take a look in the basement first and come up here last of all,” Tom whispered.

  It was completely black when they entered the basement.

  “There’s a light switch here,” Rae said. “Do you want me to switch it on?”

  He hesitated. It was either that, or leave. There was no way they could walk around in the pitch black, and they hadn’t come down here to just leave again. “Switch it on.”

  She did. A row of lights came on revealing a long corridor with a concrete floor and metal doors on both sides leading from it. The walls in between the doors were red brick.

  “Looks like a jail,” Rae said.

  “You have experience?”

  “I’ve seen them on the television.”

  It was clean and dust-free. The doors were painted a dark Army green. They moved along the corridor trying each door as they went, and found each one locked.

  “Someone’s coming,” Rae hissed.

  He moved faster along the corridor and found one door slightly ajar.

  They slipped into the darkness and pressed themselves against the damp wall.

  Voices came closer.

  “I could have sworn I switched the lights off,” a man’s gravelly voice said.

  “And they switched themselves back on?” Another man – with a slight lisp – said.

  “There’s been talk of ghosts, you know.”

  “You don’t believe in that crap, do you?”

  “I always think it’s best to keep your options open – just in case.”

  The door clanged shut. Tom heard a key inserted into the lock. It turned, and the dead bolt slid into the strike plate.

  Crap!

  Now they were in trouble.

  He’d left his “keys” in the glove compartment.

  “I hope you can get us out of here,” Rae whispered.

  He didn’t answer. He thought he’d let her cling to a shred of hope for a short time.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Where’s the light switch?” Rae asked.

  “Outside.” He’d seen it on the wall next to the door as they slipped inside the room.

  “Great. Well, how ya going to get us out of here then?”

  “I’m shrugging.”

  “Great. Haven’t you got those door picky things with you?”

  “Glove compartment.”

  “Great. Some PI you’re turning out to be. Are you sure you were a proper detective?”

  “I’m beginning to wonder myself. What have you got in that bag of yours?”

  He heard her shuffle the bag off her shoulders and open it up.

  A light appeared.

  “We could use the light from my cell, but there’s not much battery left.”

  “It’s better than nothing, I suppose.”

  “Then we could use the light from my tablet.”

  “Okay, so we’ve got light.”

  “What ya gonna do with it?”

  “I don’t know.” He held out his hand. “Let’s see what’s in here.”

  She passed him the cell. “You’ll have to keep pressing the button. Just touch it, and the light will come back on.” She showed him.

  “Got it.”

  “Isn’t there anybody you can phone to come and let us out?”

  “Like who?”

  “A friend?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t have any friends, do you?”

  “I have friends.”

  “Phone one of them then.”

  She was right – he had no friends. Mona had been the closest he’d had to a friend, and he’d just fallen out with her. What did a walking dead man want with friends anyway? The plan was to kill himself, to join Carrie, not to go out to parties and start collecting friends. Carrie had been his friend. If he didn’t have her, then he didn’t want anybody else.

  “They’re police officers,” he lied. “If I phone one of them, they’ll come and arrest us.”

  “That might be better than being stuck in here with you, but I don’t believe you anyway. I don’t think you have any friends. You don’t like people, so why would people like you? I think you’re the loneliest man in the whole of St. Augustine – probably the world.”

  He ignored her, and continued looking around at the contents of the room. She was right again – people didn’t like him. He didn’t want them to like him, so he didn’t make it easy. Friends would have given him a reason to live, to get up in the mornings and plod through the days, but his intention had always been to join Carrie. Collecting friends would have got in the way of that.

  There was a rack with at least a dozen sections against the far wall. In each section were a handful of different-sized canvases. From what he could see, it was a storage room for unwanted paintings.

  The cell phone light blinked out.

  Pressing the button made no difference.

  “Looks like we won’t be phoning any of my friends now,” he said. “The cell just died.”

  “Great.”

  “And anyway, how come we didn’t phone one of your friends?”

  “They’re all away.”

  “Away where?”

  “Just away.”

  “You haven’t got any friends either, have you?”

  “When you’re a senator’s daughter, you don’t have friends.”

  “I see. Pass me the tablet.”

  She switched on the tablet and passed it to him.

  He didn’t pursue the conversation. Being a senator’s daughter probably wasn’t easy. He continued to examine the room and found a collection of implements he was sure could be used to escape from their imprisonment: a jimmy, a claw hammer, a large screwdriver, three metal scraper-type tools, and a pair of pliers.

  “What about the jimmy?” Rae asked.
<
br />   “Probably a last resort,” he said.

  “What’s your first resort then?”

  “The screwdriver. You’ll be pleased to hear that we’re on the inside of this door.”

  “Yeah, I’m filled with joy.”

  “If we were on the outside we’d be in trouble. These type of door locks are designed to stop people getting in the room – not out. That means, the screws to access the inner workings of the lock are on the inside. I’m going to take the lock apart, and then we’ll be out.”

  “How come you know so much about locks?”

  “Criminals aren’t the only ones who learn about breaking and entering.”

  “The police usually just smash the door down.”

  “Yeah, we like to do that a lot, but sometimes it’s good to sneak in, so they taught us about locks.”

  She held the tablet up so that the light shone on the door, and he set to work dismantling the lock.

  “There we go,” he said, after about ten minutes. The door eased open slightly, and a finger of light from the corridor poked through the gap.

  Rae sighed. “Thank God for that. I thought we were going to be in here forever.”

  “Shush,” he said, squeezing her arm.

  They could hear voices in the corridor.

  He glanced at the time on the tablet. It was twenty to ten in the evening. Art gallery people work late, he thought. “Switch the tablet off,” he said to her.

  She did as he said and put the machine back in her bag.

  Opening the door a bit more, he squeezed his head through the crack. There were two men in a heated discussion at the other end of the corridor, but he couldn’t hear what they were saying.

  “What’s happening?”

  “There’s two men down there . . .” He signalled with his thumb to the left. “Stick your head through the gap, and see if you can catch what they’re saying, but be careful they don’t see you.”

  Rae knelt down and pushed her head into the corridor, but she came back inside the room almost immediately. “They’re not there anymore.”

  He wondered what to do next. Had the two men gone? Were there only two of them? The light in the corridor was still on. If the men had left, surely they would have switched the light off. If he and Rae left the room now, there was every chance they’d get caught in the headlights like gophers trying to cross the freeway.