The Downward Spiral

by Ridley Pearson

  “Oh, but it will,” the other voice said, “and it’ll be yours, friend.”

  I looked over my shoulder for Sherlock, to see what he made of it all.

  He was gone.

  What a coward! I thought. First calling the police, then running off. No wonder he’d been so badly beaten up; the boy had no fight in him!

  That was when the overhead lights came on. I leaned forward to get a look into the exhibit hall.

  Nearly all the men were looking up at the ceiling. As the Meirleach raised their heads, two of the Scowerers did not.

  The Scowerer with the bola released it. The string device flew across, wrapped around the throat of the Meirleach leader, and all three pieces of metal struck his head. He fell.

  The Scowerer with the nunchaku unleashed it on the Meirleach closest to him. One clip, and this man fell, too. The remaining two Meirleach charged, knife blades glinting. James slid into third base and tripped one. The man holding the saw caught this man’s forehead with his knee. Grunts and cries as blows flew. Drops of blood sprayed the floor.

  I watched James spin, prepared to throw a punch, only to hold off.

  It was Sherlock by his side.

  “Holmes?”

  “At your service.” Sherlock was in the process of pulling his belt from his pants.

  “What are you—?”

  One of the fallen Meirleach jumped up and reached for James. Using his belt as a whip, Sherlock strapped the man across the outstretched wrist. The belt looped around several times and, as it did, Sherlock pulled, twisting the surprised Meirleach. He kicked him in the back of the knees and the man went down for a second time as the belt loosened and fell free.

  “Improvisation,” Sherlock said to a stunned James.

  “The lights? You?” James asked.

  “But of course. Distraction is the better part of valor.”

  “James!” I shouted in warning as a scruffy, thuggish man with the bola still wrapped around his neck attacked James.

  I shouldn’t have shouted.

  In James’s mind, my voice didn’t belong here. I caused him a moment of brain freeze. In doing so, I gave an attacking Meirleach a fraction-of-a-second advantage. That proved to be all the man needed. He seized my brother and raised a knife to his throat. “All right, mates, that’ll be all!”

  Sherlock, belt held up as a whip, froze.

  The commotion in the room stopped as if a switch had been thrown.

  At the same moment, a crash was heard below, and the thundering of a good many boots.

  The police? Colander? I wondered.

  The Meirleach Sherlock had briefly defeated struck him with the butt end of his knife. I’d never witnessed brazen violence like that. Nor had I experienced such an instant reflex. As Sherlock sagged, I ran to him.

  The thug half dragged James toward the back of the exhibit hall, where I’d entered.

  Men who were down came to their knees slowly, both Scowerers and Meirleach.

  A dazed Sherlock shoved me away as I reached him. “Run!” he said. I staggered back into the arms of a Scowerer.

  Everyone scattered, the sound of boots hurrying toward the room.

  The last I saw of Sherlock, he was holding his hand to his bleeding temple, his eyes dazed, his legs weak.

  CHAPTER 41

  COLANDER FOLLOWED THE BOSTON POLICE Department SWAT squad inside the fashion museum.

  They walked together to the second floor and into the exhibit hall.

  “Silent alarm,” the police sergeant explained, pointing to the saw lodged in the partially cut glass box containing the cross. “Private firm. Conducted a drive-by. Found the alley door ajar. Called us. It all took a few minutes.”

  Colander shook his head. “I don’t like it. My call was from a minor. Your boys see any kids?”

  The sergeant called out and asked. Heads shook.

  “We’ll button it up tonight. The lab boys will be here first thing in the morning. I don’t expect much.”

  “It can’t be tonight?” Colander pointed out the blood on the floor. “There’s certainly at least one victim.”

  “Budget cuts,” the sergeant said. “We’ll notify the local hospitals and clinics. If we turn up the vic, then yes, we might be able to press the lab boys out of bed. If I may ask, what brought you here in the first place?”

  “A tip.”

  “This kid you mentioned.”

  “Right.”

  “You got here fast.”

  “I was out for a walk,” Colander said.

  “Sure you were,” the sergeant said, “on account of it being such a nice night and all.”

  “I’m Danish, Sergeant. In Denmark, this is spring weather.” The two men shared a distrustful and awkward laugh. They moved into the exhibit’s adjacent room, where a statuette and its stand had toppled. “Must have been quite the scuffle. How many do you figure?”

  “Hard to say,” Colander answered. “I’d only be guessing, but one on the saw. The one doing the bleeding over there. The knife man. Three at least. You?”

  “Don’t know. More, I think.” The sergeant continued to study the look of the scene, the scuff marks on the floor.

  “Gangs?” Colander asked.

  “A fashion museum?” the sergeant proposed. “Too classy. Feels more like our other museum heists: organized, planned.”

  “So, one or two got greedy?”

  “Something like that. Though the necklace is still in the case. Doesn’t add up.”

  “You’ll put a man on the door downstairs?” Colander asked.

  “Of course.”

  Colander passed him his card. “Let me know if you turn up a stabbing victim or anything else?”

  “I’ll check with my lieutenant first, but if she says it’s okay I’ve got no problem.”

  “That would be grand.” The two men shook hands firmly.

  “Interpol?” the sergeant said, sounding impressed. “Working a case here in Boston?”

  “Yeah. I get that a lot.”

  An hour and twelve minutes later, Sherlock finally took an audible breath. He had waited for all sound of the police to end. Then he’d waited thirty minutes longer. He carefully—oh, so carefully—eased his long, well-manicured fingernails into the crack between the acoustic ceiling tile and the suspended metal frame, and lifted the piece from its resting place.

  The pedestal he’d used to climb up into the hung ceiling had fallen over, statue and all, as he’d reached for a pipe. With all the police milling about, he’d thought for sure they would find him out and bust him. He did not take it as a sign of good luck; for Sherlock Holmes, “luck” was another word for preparation. He attributed his avoiding arrest to his quick thinking, supreme decision making, and the proper physical execution of the climbing itself. That the pedestal had fallen over was not bad luck either. He should have thought to kick it over, for a statuette sitting on the floor next to an empty pedestal could have raised eyebrows.

  The drop to the floor without the pedestal in place was a long one. Sherlock landed with his feet straddling both sides of the fallen column. Despite his reputation for clumsiness and for not having grown into his lanky body, he landed with grace and therefore quietly.

  Ten minutes of sneaking around left him aware of a police car with frosted windows claiming the curb outside the museum’s main door. He returned to the exhibit hall, prepared to use his right sock as a glove to avoid leaving fingerprints. He stepped up to restart the sawing of the glass box holding the necklace when he studied the cross and jewel more carefully. He leaned in, closer still.

  He let go of the saw, realizing he didn’t need it after all.

  CHAPTER 42

  “WHAT DO WE DO?” I SAT AT MY VANITY, FACING a fast-pacing Ralph, my bedroom door closed—a first for all the years Ralph had been in my life. My beside clock read 2:22 a.m.

  I looked at the door. “Are you telling me you don’t trust Lois?”

  He stopped pacing, threw me a sharp loo
k, and muttered, “Another time for that.”

  “Can Mr. Lowry help?”

  That stopped him again. “What did you say, young lady?”

  “He’s a lawyer, right?” I said as innocently as possible. I wasn’t supposed to know anything about the Scowerers, but James’s abduction had jarred me so much I couldn’t remember what I was supposed to forget.

  “I don’t think an attorney will help much in this instance.” But I could see in his eyes that Ralph believed otherwise. Involving Lowry was a good idea, and he knew it.

  A tap on my window made me flinch so involuntarily that my chair went over backward. Ralph reached to catch me but missed. He quickly helped me up before hurrying to my window and throwing back the curtain.

  Sherlock, wet from a continuing freezing drizzle, peered through the streaked pane. Ralph let him in, after, in typical Ralph fashion, laying down a towel for him to stand on. Sherlock removed that strange cape of his and shivered from the cold.

  “Hello, sir,” Sherlock said to Ralph. Sherlock flashed me a look that told me he wanted to be alone with me. Nothing I could do about that.

  “We do have a front door,” Ralph said.

  “That could easily be being watched. Any word from James?” Sherlock inquired.

  “Nothing.” I shook my head and fought off tears. I was so sick of showing my emotions, but found it impossible to control.

  “We must rescue him,” Sherlock said as if discussing something routine, like shopping at the supermarket.

  “One thing saying it,” Ralph complained. “Quite another doing it.”

  “No ransom or anything like that,” I said, showing him I was holding my phone close.

  “Computer or smartphone please,” Sherlock said in a demanding voice. I dug out my laptop from under my bedcovers. He sat on the edge of the bed, wet enough to leave a mark, and started typing, then paused to pinch the bridge of his nose while squinting his eyes shut. “Two of the knives brandished had black plastic handles, with curved blades showing signs of having been sharpened multiple times. Filet knives.” He pronounced it “fill-ette,” so it took me a moment to realize he meant fish knives. “Third man from the jewel box had fish scales on the left leg of his denim trousers.” He opened his eyes and punched a key on my laptop. Studied the screen. “I believe the term is ‘scrod,’ meaning ‘cod or other whitefish.’” Closed his eyes again. “The one doing all the yapping had a piece of blue paper adhered to his left boot. A torn corner. A label, perhaps. We must keep that in mind. It may or may not hold significance. Two of the men had fresh cuts on their left hands. Multiple cuts on and near the knuckle of the index finger. One had a light blue bracelet like a rubber band on the left wrist, the remnants of a torn surgical glove, I should think. But the kicker was the black gravel along the seams of the soles of the boots of two of them. Not gravel at all, of course.”

  “Of course,” said Ralph, openly sarcastic, obviously bewildered by this boy. “Because?”

  “Crushed seashells. Mytilus edulis, I believe. The so-called blue mussel.”

  “Fishmongers? Are you telling me these boys are fishmongers?”

  Another stab at my laptop. I nearly warned him not to break it.

  “Two . . . I repeat, a total of two companies process both scrod and blue mussel within the radius of Boston’s public transit, the city bus routes.”

  “What do buses have to do with anything?” asked Ralph.

  “Did I fail to mention it?” Sherlock looked up at Ralph for the first time. Squinted again. “Coin pocket of the man wearing the blue rubber band on his wrist: bus receipt sticking out. Sorry to say I couldn’t read it, or perhaps we’d know more. Shoddy of me.” A few more punches of the keyboard. He was horrible with computers! “There!” He spun the laptop around, showing an image of a shipping box. “The blue label, you sillies! Camden Cod and Shellfish. Cold processing, frozen foods. Of the two companies, I’d say we start there. The piece of blue paper on the man’s boot. Did I mention that? Say what?”

  “Incredible,” Ralph muttered.

  “And do what?” I asked.

  “Use our powers of observation, Moria! Do the workers wear surgical gloves? If so, blue or white? Any activity at the facility after hours? Any familiar faces? Or clothing? The coming and going?”

  “There’s three of us!” I said, reminding him.

  “And James makes four,” Sherlock said. “Never discount the hostage in situations like this.”

  I heard the mirth in my own voice as I repeated, “And James makes four.”

  CHAPTER 43

  JAMES FOUND HIMSELF LOCKED IN A SMELLY room with a mattress and smelly blanket. The window was taped over with newsprint from the outside, clearly the inside of a noisy, smelly facility. There was a smelly bucket and a roll of toilet paper, and they’d delivered fast-food hamburgers for breakfast, if it was even morning. He had no way of knowing the time.

  Despite terrifying him with their knives and threats of violence, his kidnappers were also idiots: the hinges were on the inside of the door. If he could figure out a way to remove the three hinge pins, he could pry the door open. For that, he would need tools, and it was not exactly as if they’d left him with a toolbox. They’d stripped the room bare—probably a small office before it had become his prison cell.

  A bucket. A roll of toilet paper. An air mattress. A blanket. He needed some oil, a hammer, and a screwdriver, or a hammer and something like a nail or ice pick, something to drive the hinge pin up from the bottom.

  No hammer. No ice picks. No nails. But the hamburgers had been good and oily.

  A thin pen might work, if it was metal instead of plastic. Pencils were surprisingly strong end to end.

  Wouldn’t they give him something to write with if he asked? If not, maybe he could request a crossword puzzle or Sudoku from the morning paper?

  Would they refuse him that?

  Only one way to find out.

  He started banging on the door.

  CHAPTER 44

  FISHERMEN FISH WHEN THE FISH ARE RUNNING. That meant Camden Cod and Shellfish ran seven days a week, or least they did on the Sunday morning we pulled to within sight of a rambling, waterfront structure that might have been mistaken for an old mill or warehouse. It appeared to have been renovated or enlarged at least three different times, some of it one story, some two story. A tall brick smokestack carried the company sign but the h was missing, making it “Cod and S ellfish.” The parking lot teemed with old-model cars and pickup trucks with bumper stickers that had no place being read on a Sunday.

  “What do we do now?” I complained, having been roused from bed far too early.

  “We wait for the eight a.m. shift change,” Sherlock said, stifling a yawn.

  “You don’t have any idea when there’s a shift change!” I protested. “What if it doesn’t happen at eight?” I had visions of my brother being tortured, or starved, or hanging upside down like in James Bond movies.

  “We wait until nine, obviously. And yes . . . et cetera, et cetera.”

  Ralph’s shoulders suggested he was tense. He had dictated the plan. Sherlock was only rehashing it, and as he sipped coffee from a travel mug Ralph appeared to be reconsidering some or all. He wore a knit cap, blue jeans, a brown plaid shirt, and a hoodie under a canvas jacket. I rarely saw Ralph in work clothes, certainly none like these, but I understood it was all part of a disguise intended to get him inside while other workers poured out.

  “We saw the door as we drove past.”

  “Yes, Mr. Holmes.”

  “You’re bothered.”

  “It’s daylight, isn’t it? The plant is up and running. This is not a game. You and Miss Moria will need to take great care.”

  “Yes, of course. In our favor: it being daytime, there’s no night watchmen,” Sherlock said. “No suspicion of an attempted breakout.”

  “Once inside, Moria will go to the right. You, Mr. Holmes, to the left.”

  “We keep our heads down,�
� Lock said, looking at me. “We make no attempt to rescue James unless the odds appear heavily in our favor.”

  “And, you will recall, that decision is left to me,” Ralph said. “Let’s not forget that, Mr. Holmes!”

  “You will find, sir, that I forget very little. In fact, nothing. Forgetfulness is the sign of a weak mind.”

  Twenty minutes later, cars of all sorts began arriving. Clumps of workers formed in the parking lot, cigarette smoke rising between them like fog.

  Sherlock sat back confidently as, at 8:00 a.m. sharp, the exchange of workers began, with our dear Ralph among those entering. Sherlock and I entered the chain-link perimeter and worked our way to the bay side of the building and a door where we could expect to be greeted by Ralph.

  “Over here!” I called to Sherlock. We hid behind a large truck backed up to the loading dock. A dozen garage doors were pulled down to the dock. No shipping on Sundays. This altered our plans somewhat.

  His eyes danced, his fingers twitched. Sherlock looked like someone had poked him with a Taser. “That’s going to be our entrance. Over there.” He pointed to a line of black flaps that served as a barrier between the truck bay and the warehouse.

  “That’s not what we told Ralph.”

  “We’re improvising, aren’t we.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement.

  “And if we’re caught?” I said.

  “Such pessimism. You really must work on that, you know?”

  He was right—of course! I’d lost my sense of happy endings and fairy-tale existence. I worried this was what it meant to be grown-up, in which case I wanted nothing to do with it. Father’s death, that sense of irretrievable loss, hung on my shoulders like a wet wool coat. I didn’t know if I would ever be able to shake off the cold of that tragedy, but I’d been rewarded with a small but noticeable glow of warmth at the thought Mother might not be a lost cause. A trickle of hope had seeped under the door of my absolute abandonment. I was not about to mop it up; nor was I intending to drink of it. But secretly I longed for the hope to spread, forming a bigger pool, and from that other tributaries: possibility, plausibility, predictability, inevitability. In essence, I hoped for hope.