The Woman In The Trunk (A Crime Thriller)

by Theo Cage

  It wasn’t until they had gone about a dozen blocks that Hyde began to think he was going to have to carry the dog home. George had slowed down and was panting heavily. So they stopped for a moment under a large elm tree, George flopping down on the cool sidewalk immediately. You didn’t have to tell him twice about a rest break.

  Hyde's mind, as usual, was miles away on the Ellis case. He was so focused on the details of the murder file that he failed to notice the intermittent rattling of the leaves above him, the soft burr of George's breathing, or the music drifting over from several blocks away.

  I can't sleep at night

  I can't eat a bite

  'Cause the man I love

  He don't treat me right

  Hyde had talked to the bartender at The Brown Fox that morning. Someone had seen Ellis with a drinking companion. Someone who was buying drinks for Harry because the guy hadn’t worked for years and typically nursed a cheap beer for hours. Not Saturday night though. Harry was more intoxicated than usual and loud enough to get a verbal warning from the manager.

  I went to the railroad

  Hang my head on the track

  Thought about my daddy

  I gladly snatched it back

  At some point around midnight, Harry and his sponsor left the bar. The tab was paid with cash and an appropriate tip left on the table. It wasn’t until the manager closed up at two, when he took the garbage out, that he noticed the body in the back alley - the disemboweled corpse of Harry Ellis.

  . . .

  Yusuf dialed Sonya's store number. After a few rings, Tony answered, sounding sleepy and on edge. Yusuf figured he had just served another customer in his inimitable manner, and the effort wore him out. How did this unlikeable man ever stay in business?

  "Mr. Catelli?" asked Yusuf.

  "Yeah?" said Tony.

  "I have your wife," said Yusuf.

  "You what?"

  "I have your wife," repeated the Libyan kidnapper.

  "Is she smashed again? I'm not picking her up this time. Call her a cab."

  "You don't understand. I am holding her hostage."

  Tony laughed. "You tell Sonya if she's not home by ten, I'm locking her out."

  "I have a gun," growled Yusuf. There was a long pause filled with Tony’s sour breathing.

  "Oh, really. What are you gonna do? Shoot me through the phone?"

  "I'm going to kill your wife! Unless you meet my demands."

  "Which are?" Yusuf was thrown off by his abruptness and total lack of concern or emotion. Sonya’s husband sounded like he was being massively inconvenienced.

  "You have a necklace. A small golden egg. I will trade that for the life of your beloved wife."

  There was a pause for a few seconds, Tony's heavy breathing giving Yusuf an instant headache.

  "You're that middle-eastern guy that came into the store. I remember you, because no one in the five years since I bought it has been interested in that piece of junk. You can have it for ten thousand. And I'll throw in my wife."

  Yusuf clicked the END button on his cell phone. He was sweating now, feeling like he had made a horrible mistake. How do you hold a person for ransom when their family has no feelings for them? What could he do now?

  “Call him back,” said Sonya.

  Yusuf complied without hesitation. He redialed. To his surprise, Tony answered.

  “Put the phone to my mouth,” whispered Sonya. Yusuf held the phone out, his arm shaking. He was so close to her now he could smell her sweat. It made him light-headed.

  “Tony. If you don’t come now, he’s says he will do something to me.”

  “Like what?”

  Sonya looked up at Yusuf. “He’s tied me down. I don’t want to say it …” Yusuf could hear Tony’s angry voice, but not the words.

  “You need to come now. And bring the trinket.” She asked for the address and Yusuf stumbled over the words when he gave it to her. Allah’s gift was within reach. Then why did he feel like a man who had already lost everything?

  . . .

  Hyde wasn't sure when he became consciously aware of the music echoing from some distance down the street. It wasn’t as if he heard the lyrics; it was more like he was subconsciously absorbing background vibration. Something was calling to him. Something he heard before. Later, he might admit that he could have been in range for blocks. Was it the words or the rhythm that finally grabbed his attention? In any case, it felt like waking up again. And then, there it was, as obvious as a thunderclap.

  He makes me feel so blue

  I don't know what to do

  Sometime I sit and sigh

  And then begin to cry

  'Cause my best friend

  Said his last goodbye

  Hyde didn't have to grope for a connection or context. The realization was instant. Mamie Smith. Crazy Blues. The first hit blues record in history. Some go so far as to include first rock and roll record as well. And Hyde knew, though he hadn't listened to commercial radio for years, that this was not part of some broadcast. He could clearly hear the snaps and pops indicative of a worn old record, the buzzing of the needle, the slight warble of an old turntable struggling to keep time.

  How many of these records could there be in circulation in the country? Sure, seventy-five thousand had been bought in the 1920's. A few dozen left? So what were the odds that the very same record, stolen a week ago from Sonya's thrift shop, would be playing in his neighborhood?

  Hyde tugged lightly on George's tether. George got up awkwardly, like an old man with stiff joints, and looked at Hyde for instructions. They headed off in the direction, so Hyde thought, of the source of the music; an investigative technique the detective would use for the first and last time.

  Identifying the source of a cheap record player, the sound muffled and distorted, on a windy night in a crowded pre-war suburb, had little to do with the scientific method. Hyde stood at intersections, turning his head from side to side repeatedly, closed his eyes. None of these techniques helped to guide him. In the end, he surrendered and adopted a technique used when searching for missing bodies. He would walk down each street for several blocks. Then cross over onto the next street. Then rinse and repeat.

  Sometimes the music would stop, and Hyde would wait until his quarry changed the record. He felt the fool most of the night. Why this interest in a stranger playing a record? He guessed he wanted an excuse to go back to the store. Solving her break-in would be a great conversation starter.

  George wasn't sharing Hyde's enthusiasm. He was tired and sore and awkward to carry. Hyde considered at one point calling a cab, but he realized then that he had left his cell phone at home on the kitchen table. And his gun was still hanging off the holster he had looped over a chair in the living room. If George went lame, Kyla would never forgive him. Still the music echoed through the streets, pulling him past overfilled garbage cans and rusted beaters in weedy backyards.

  There's a change in the ocean

  Change in the deep blue sea, my baby

  I'll tell you folks, there ain't no change in me

  My love for that man will always be

  The houses seemed to grow wearier the further he ventured from home. This was like an undiscovered land of new immigrants crowded into tiny bungalows. He recognized one street as the scene of a murder he had investigated years before. How far had he walked? Then he stopped. The music was close, a whining country song yodeling its solemn message across a cluttered back lane. The sun had dropped down below the roof peaks, casting long shadows across the yards and walkways. The air had cooled too. And the music had changed to the original song again. Crazy Blues.

  Hyde saw a garage, unpainted and sagging, one window lit. A tiny backyard with a rusted clothesline pole. The apparent source of the music.

  Now I've got the crazy blues

  Since my baby went away

  I ain't had no time to lose

  I must find him today

  Hyde crept up to the solitary w
indow and peered inside. It took several seconds to make sense of what he was witnessing. Then the cop in him took over, and he gritted his teeth.

  Sonya Catelli is tied to a wooden chair with bright yellow nylon rope. A brown man with a gun is standing beside her. And Tony is in the middle, negotiating, his hands talking. They’re arguing. The music is turned up loud in the background, presumably to cover up their voices. Is this what drew them together? The record? The song?

  But then Hyde catches sight of something else. Tony is holding a small object that flashes once or twice in the poor light from an overhead bulb - a chain linked to a round piece of jewelry, encrusted with tiny colored bits of glass or gems. Tony holds it up for everyone to see. The gunman gestures at it with his .38.

  Hyde feels like a man who has arrived late to a three-act play, the final act already underway. But he perceives something else in the dynamic between the actors. The brown man holds the gun awkwardly, his hand reworking the grip, the barrel moving around in circles, unfocused. It’s an inexpensive weapon people call a 'Saturday Night Special'. A snub-nosed .38 revolver. A sloppy and ineffectual gun, but still deadly at close range. This is clearly no hood, no trained killer.

  And Sonya. Her body lacks tenseness. She is slumped, no sign of fear being telegraphed through her musculature. A hostage should be all stretched sinew, necks taut with tension, eyes pulled back. She's not even trying to act endangered.

  And when she looks at the brown man, she doesn't register hate or aggression. She appears, for all intents and purposes, to just be an observer.

  And finally, her husband Tony, his body leaning forward, gives every impression of being in control of the situation when he shouldn’t. A man with no weapon, his wife held hostage, standing there like the older brother. This didn’t make sense. It felt like a rehearsal to Hyde. Like amateur hour.

  I'm gonna do like a Chinaman, go and get some hop

  Get myself a gun, and shoot myself a cop

  I ain't had nothin' but bad news

  Now I've got the crazy blues.

  Hyde would normally call this in. Request backup. This was an unusual situation with the potential to get ugly. But he reminded himself again - he left his phone behind. And his gun. All he had was a badge and a sleepy Pug. He guessed he was going to find out how much power that wielded.

  Then Hyde heard Tony over the music.

  "So I brought the necklace. What now?"

  "Place it on the workbench," said the hostage taker.

  "First you let her go. Untie her."

  "She will rip my eyes out,” said the brown man.

  Tony smiled slightly and looked over at his wife who had stopped her half-hearted struggling. "That's true,” he said. “She's capable of anything."

  Hyde was surprised. Tony was looking at Sonya with real fondness. And Hyde could see Sonya returning the look. Like teenagers in love.

  "Take off the tape off her mouth. Let her breathe," said Tony.

  "You take it off. But that's all. I'm a desperate man. I will shoot," said the man with the gun.

  Tony moved across the grease-stained floor to Sonya's right. Hyde was now between the husband and the man holding the gun. He watched as Tony reached up to pull off the tape from Sonya's face, his other hand reaching into his jacket pocket and removing a small knife, a ceremonial dagger about three inches long with a gold handle. Hyde had seen several like it in the thrift shop.

  Tony pulled off the tape with a quick sideways motion and Sonya yelped out loud. Then she looked deep into Tony's eyes and shouted, "Don't do it!"

  Tony held his stance, the knife hidden from the hostage taker.

  "And why not?"

  "You don't have to. He's dying. He has cancer. Just give him the stupid necklace."

  "I don't care if he has five minutes left to live. He knows something about this egg. He knows it's worth a lot of money. Why else would he kidnap you? And what’s to say we ever see him again once he has this."

  The brown man spoke then, with a strange middle-eastern accent, his voice high and shaky. "I only want a finders fee. I am a goldsmith by trade. I will arrange to have it sold."

  "How much of a fee?"

  "Twenty percent. You will make hundreds of thousands. I just need enough for a treatment."

  "What kind of treatment?"

  "It is very expensive. Shark cartilage injections."

  Tony laughed. "That's a scam. I'm not giving you money to waste on some voodoo bullshit."

  "You won't leave this garage alive then," said the brown man. He didn’t look like he meant it. Like he was reading a script.

  "You ever killed a man before?" asked Tony. The hostage-taker flinched and took a step backward, his back now against a stained bench covered in tools, and glass bottles full of bolts and miscellaneous bits of hardware. "Cause I have."

  Then before Hyde could react, Tony pulled out the dagger, the glare from the bare light bulb streaking across the hilt. He held it up for the hostage-taker to see, twisting the blade.

  Sonya yelled again, "Tony. Put that away, please!" But Tony ignored her and turned toward the man with the gun.

  "How dare you threaten my wife? I don't know how things work in your country, but here, we protect our family. That’s the law of the streets."

  "Don't come any closer. I will shoot."

  "I don't think so, Mr. Arab. Your hands are shaking so bad, you'll be lucky to hit the wall behind me. You'll probably shoot yourself. And even if you do get off a lucky shot, I'll still cut you open like a pig for slaughter."

  Hyde saw it all unfold in front of him, the half-dead dog at his feet, the weight of his gun missing from his chest. He thought later the word 'pig' was the final trigger. That harsh reference to an unclean animal, the image that finally set off the Muslim man's fear and anger and caused him to squeeze the trigger.

  Hyde pounded on the wall of the garage, hoping to distract the man with the gun. But he was too late. The gun fired, and the bullet entered Tony high and wide, exiting above his shoulder. Hyde saw the burst of blood on the white of Tony’s t-shirt. A painful wound, but not mortal.

  Tony fell forward onto the hostage taker, his right hand on the dagger that he plunged into the brown man's abdomen. He held it there for several seconds, then pulled the blade up, his eyes looking into the face of the other man, daring him to speak or fight back.

  Hyde charged for the back door of the garage, tore at the door handle and bulldozed his way into the space between the car and the workbench. He tackled Tony, who was hanging onto the brown man.

  All this time, Sonya was hopping her chair across the floor, yelling as loud as she could.

  "Please, Tony. Please. Not again. Not again!"

  . . .

  Hyde sat across from the killer’s wife in the lockup room, a color photo lying on the table between them. The medical examiner had supplied the print, an eight by ten of the murder weapon, Yusuf Halim's blood still on the blade.

  “Can I get you a coffee?" Hyde asked. Sonya mumbled in the negative.

  “Can I smoke?” she asked.

  Hyde knew it was against policy to allow detainees to smoke in custody rooms. But it still continued. The issue was that officers could use addiction to nicotine as a method to squeeze confessions out of the seriously addicted. And give a criminal lawyer one more opportunity to taint evidence. So he shrugged and left the room.

  He walked down the hall and grabbed a pack and a lighter off the desk of one of the other detectives. Back in the room, he slid the cigarettes and the cheap lighter across the table to her. When she went to reach for the smokes, Hyde noticed how badly her hands were shaking.

  Sonya still had the road dust from the Libyan's car trunk on her face. She seemed subdued to Hyde, exhausted from her ordeal, from witnessing her husband's violent attack on her kidnapper. Hyde would normally stand, but he decided to sit down across from her, eye to eye.

  "When did you last see Harry Ellis?" asked Hyde. He didn't have to take notes. A
video camera in the adjacent room was recording the interview through one-way glass. Sonya had her head down, her eyes on the tabletop, a cigarette extended from her right hand.

  "Almost ten years ago. He left my mom. He's a bastard for deserting her, but I was so glad to see him gone." She looked up, her lip quivering. “He was a monster. He was supposed to protect me. Take care for me. I was just a kid. Instead . . ." And then she broke down. Hyde nudged a box of tissue closer to her. She took one and wiped her eyes.

  "And you never reported anything?" asked Hyde.

  "To who? I was afraid of what he might do. And my mother was terrified of him." Sonya flicked her hair back and fought back more tears. "So I ran away for awhile - until I heard through friends that Harry left."

  "Did you know that Harry had moved back to Washington recently?" Sonya took another tissue and blew her nose. She looked the detective in the eye then; for the first time since they released her from the holding cell.

  "I saw it on Facebook. A cousin of mine ran into him at a bar."

  "What did you do then?"

  "I didn't do anything. I was sick to my stomach for a few days. Like, why come back to Washington? What's here for him? It brought back a lot of ugly memories."

  "Did Tony know?"

  "No. I didn't want to talk about it. He doesn't do Facebook, so there's no way he would know."

  "He knew about your past though - the sexual abuse. You told him that?"

  "He's my husband. Those things came up over the years. I had some counseling too. It's hard to keep that from someone you know."

  "How did you find out about Harry's murder?"

  "On Facebook."

  "What was on Facebook?" asked Hyde.

  "Good riddance to bad rubbish. I know it's not original. But it made the point."