After The Fire (The Bill Travis Mysteries Book 9)

by George Wier

  *****

  We pulled up in front of Perry Reilly’s house in Jessica’s cruiser.

  After several minutes it became apparent that there was going to be no answer at Perry’s front door—despite repeated jabs of his doorbell, and at first gentle, then stronger knocks. We walked around the house. The lights were off. A look into his garage window revealed no vehicle—not that there as any room in there to park a car to begin with.

  “Conspiracy Guy,” Jessica said when we were back around front. “That’s where he was going.”

  “Yeah. Chuck Holland—The Incredible Disappearing Man. I’ve got a bad feeling about all this.”

  “Me too,” Jessica agreed. “Do you remember the address?”

  “No. But if you want to call for backup, have them meet us at the corner of Dean Keeton and Medical Arts.”

  “Sure. I’ll just call it in.”

  She stepped away and made the call on her portable radio. What had hit hard earlier in the day came home to roost—my little girl was a cop, she wasn’t so little, and worst of all, she wasn’t so much mine anymore. I watched her as she made the call, all business-like in savvy cop-radio code, her mouth close to the mic and speaking above a whisper. She got a confirmation, looked over at me and nodded, keyed-in her mic again and gave the customary “10-4” acknowledgment.

  “We’re all set,” she said. “Let’s roll dad.”

  *****

  “Don’t you ever sleep?” Patrick Kinsey asked me over my cell phone when we were halfway there.

  “Hey, you called me,” I said. “Don’t you ever sleep?”

  “I’m the Chief Deputy,” he replied. “My radio is on twenty-four seven. I think we’re both getting too old for this kind of crap, Bill.”

  “Speak for yourself.”

  “I’m speaking for you because you don’t have enough sense of your own. Do you think I need to be over there? I take it you’re going to see this Holland character.”

  “Well...This is about Perry Reilly, you know.”

  “Yeah. I remembered about the time I got home. I was hoping you wouldn’t remember until some time tomorrow.”

  “No such luck. Besides, I’m kind of responsible for him,” I said.

  “That’s for sure. Okay, don’t wait for me. Let me talk to my deputy.”

  “Hold on,” I said. I handed my phone to Jessica.

  “Yes, boss?” she said.

  Ensued half a conversation, the upshot of which I gleaned that Patrick didn’t want her doing anything not covered in the departmental regulations. There were a lot of “Yes, sirs” involved. She handed the phone back to me. At first I thought Patrick had hung up, but I heard his voice and put the phone to my ear.

  “Bill?”

  “Here,” I said.

  “Don’t do anything to embarrass anybody.”

  “You forget who you’re talking to,” I said. “I don’t work for you.”

  I hung up.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  When we arrived there were two sheriff’s deputies and one City of Austin policeman waiting for us. The oldest of the deputies was a silver-haired veteran of perhaps forty-five years of age and the second fellow was a much younger, dark-haired fellow, all chiseled face with muscles on his muscles. The policeman was whip-cord thin and loosely wound, as if he’d just woken up.

  Jessica and I got out.

  “So this is the officer,” the city cop said. He offered Jessica his hand and she shook it.

  “That’s her,” one of the deputies said. “She hit a target in a tree just after sundown at two hundred ten yards across a creek with her .38 on the first shot.”

  I recognized neither of the two deputies. Apparently word travels fast in law enforcement. Also, apparently, someone had either measured the distance or guessed it. Running across that field, though, it had seemed even farther.

  The town around us was settling in for the night. The roads were practically deserted but for the occasional late night driver, and a cool wind riffled my hair. I listened for a moment while they all talked shop. It was Jessica who got everyone back on point.

  “Okay, this guy here is my dad,” she hooked a thumb at me. “He was in the creek with us today. So earlier today he sent an insurance agent friend of his named Perry Reilly to a house a few blocks from here to find out about a fellow named Chuck Holland, who, according to his parents who live at the main house at the address, is missing. The store behind you is dark, and I haven’t seen any movement in there. That’s where Holland works. He manages the place, right dad?”

  I nodded.

  “Now we can’t find Perry Reilly. So essentially this is nothing more than a little public interest matter. We go. We knock on the door. We hopefully talk and gather information. Meanwhile we look and see if anything smells off-color. Then we leave.”

  “Ah,” the silver-haired deputy said. “That’s Kinsey talking, Miss Travis. Not you.”

  “That’s right,” Jessica said. “But I haven’t had this badge for a day yet. I want to keep it.”

  “Smart girl.”

  “Good then?”

  The three officers nodded their assent.

  “Let’s roll, then. You fellows follow us.”

  When we were back inside the cruiser, I couldn’t help myself. “Darlin’, you’re a natural born leader.”

  “Who would’ve thought it?” she asked.

  *****

  The Holland residence was a few short blocks away, and Jessica drove slowly.

  “Okay,” I said. “Here’s what I’ve got so far. Chuck and Perry are both missing. I haven’t spoken with Sol Gunderson, and I seriously doubt we’ll find him at the Driskill Hotel, where I last dropped him off. I still haven’t been to Pico Freightliners yet.”

  “Pico what?”

  “The trucking company where Shawn and Driesel first ran into Sol, where he was picketing the place about his dead goat.”

  “Bebe.”

  “Right. Bebe. So, Shawn and Driesel are also running around loose, but hopefully Driesel is at home—wherever the hell that is—sleeping off painkillers for that gunshot through his calf.”

  “Stands to reason,” Jessica solemnly agreed. “I want to ask him out on a date.”

  “Don’t you dare. Shut up and listen for a second. So there’s no telling what that reporter is doing right now. And Eloise is in whatever this bull crap is up to her chin.”

  “Yeah. That’s for sure. Sol’s ex-wife, right?”

  “Right. So—” I looked out my window. “This is the house.”

  Jessica pulled over slowly. She took a moment to radio her location in to the dispatcher and requested that the dispatcher call the old couple inside to let them know they would be having late-night visitors in a few moments. She finally got a curt acknowledgment from dispatch saying the subjects had been contacted.

  The lights on the front porch came on.

  “I don’t see Perry’s car here anywhere,” I said.

  Jessica turned off the cruiser and turned to me.

  “You keep all that in your head, dad?”

  I nodded.

  “Here,” she said, and handed me a .38.

  “Why would I need this?” I asked.

  “Because. The last I heard, all the people who live here are weird.”

  “Oh. Yeah. You’ve got a point.”

  *****

  The front door opened as Jessica and I stepped onto the porch. An old man came out wearing nothing more than a pair of lime-green boxer shorts and pair of gum rubber boots. He was perhaps in his eighties, with thinning hair, hardly any color to his face, and a set of pursed lips with no teeth behind them.

  “We don’t know where he is,” the old man said.

  “Where who is?” I asked.

  “Chuck. That’s who. You can stop calling about him.”

  “I only called once, and that was this afternoon. Then, it was about Chuck. Now it’s about Perry Reilly.”

  “Who?”

&nb
sp; Jessica turned to me and said, “Hold on a second. Let me ask him.” I nodded. “Mr. Holland, did a tall fellow with a big silver shock of hair come by today? You’d remember him. He would remind you of a television preacher or something.”

  The old man scratched his white razor-stubbled chin. “Nah. Can’t say as I remember anybody like that.”

  Jessica nodded. “Did you and your wife leave home any time this evening?”

  “Of course we did,” he said. “It was bingo night at the VFW Hall. We played bingo and then we came home. Didn’t see nobody.”

  Jessica turned to me and nodded. At that moment the other three officers stepped up into the cone of light cast by the front porch lamp.

  “Mr. Holland, do you mind if we look around?”

  “Where? Not inside. My wife ain’t dressed proper. It’s just us in here.”

  “Well, at the moment we’d like to walk around the outside of your house. Maybe take a look in Chuck’s garage apartment.”

  “Can’t look while he’s not here,” the old geezer stated, as if it was the final word on the matter and went without saying.

  “Did you win?” Jessica asked.

  “What’s that?” Mr. Holland stated.

  “At bingo. Did you win?”

  “We never win a damned dime,” he said, and turned as if to go back inside.

  “We’ll just have a look around outside,” Jessica said. “We may be back in a few minutes. Why don’t you leave the light on out here until we’re done.”

  The old man frowned, gave a curt nod, and went back inside, slamming the door behind him.

  “Nice fellow,” I said.

  *****

  The cold feeling at the pit of my stomach intensified a hundred-fold the moment we stepped into the darkness beside the house. Jessica and the other officers each clicked on flashlights and played their cones of light about. To our left, a row of head-height wisteria bushes leaned away from the house and spilled over onto the gravel driveway. Along the fence to our right, irises and elephant ears competed for every inch of open sky—not that there was really any open sky to be had. A row of pecan trees of perhaps a hundred years of age and fifty or more feet in height pushed back the wood fence between the Holland’s and the neighbor’s property. The garage was ahead, it’s closed doors held together with a chain and an old padlock. The place looked pretty much the same as it had the night before, except...I wasn’t sure about the ‘except’ part. Something, though, didn’t feel right.

  We came to the backyard area, with Jessica walking ahead of me and the two deputies and the cop walking in front of her. I noticed that each used their left hands to hold their flashlights while their rights rested upon the butts of their holstered firearms.

  In the electric illumination from several roving beams, the back yard appeared to be an unused area beneath the spreading branches of a gigantic oak tree. The limbs of it reached from the room of the two-story garage completely across the yard and over the north fence. The silver-haired veteran deputy walked all the way to the north side of the property and shine his light down the alley there, then came back.

  Jessica’s light roamed back to the garage and up the side stairs to the doorway to Chuck Holland’s apartment.

  “What do you think, dad? Any chance it’s unlocked?”

  “Let’s just see if there’s anything we can see from the landing.”

  I followed her upstairs.

  Jessica tried the doorknob, but it was locked. The shades were drawn.

  I reached out and knocked on the door. “Chuck?” I called softly.

  We waited. After a minute I knocked again.

  Nothing.

  I looked to the yard below where the others waited, looking up at us with a mingling of expectance and boredoom.

  It was then we heard it—a dull thump!

  “What the hell was that?” the cop asked.

  “Shhh,” I called down. We all listened. I strained to hear. During the long silence that ensued I heard a car going down Dean Keeton a few blocks away, a dog barking in the distance a neighborhood away. There were voices, too, but faint, as if someone were talking on a cell phone outside at night.

  Thump!

  It was dim, muffled.

  “I think it’s from inside the garage,” I said.

  “Yeah,” the junior deputy below said. “I think you’re right.”

  Jessica and I backtracked down the stairs and we all went to the front of garage in one hell of a hurry.

  I lifted the chain and tested the lock. It was closed fast.

  “Do one of you fellows have a pair of lock snips?”

  “Yeah,” the city copy said, “in my trunk. I’ll be right back.”

  I banged on the door. “Perry?” I called.

  I held my ear to the crack of the garage door. There was a then a decided thump from within.

  “We’ll get you out of there, Perry!” I raised my voice. “Hold on!”

  “This,” Jessica said, “is Perry Reilly all over again.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  It took no more than a few minutes for the lock to be cut off the garage door.

  Inside we found a 1968 Ford Thunderbird underneath a thick layer of dust. The tires were dry-rotted. In the backseat was Perry Reilly, bound hand and foot with a couple of vinyl lock-tite cinches—the larger version of the kind that were once popularly used to tie up garbage bags. Also, Perry had a gag in his mouth and a large bruise on the back of his neck.

  “Thought I was going to die in there,” Perry said. “Thought I was a dead duck!”

  “Bullets won’t stop you,” I said. “Who hit you and tied you up?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Of course you don’t,” Jessica said. “That would make it too easy to arrest who did it. Care to elaborate?”

  We were outside the garage in the fresh air. Perry rubbed his wrists, trying to return the circulation.

  “I came up to the front door and rang the bell. I knocked. I guess I hung out for about five minutes and got nobody. It was starting to get dark. I decided to check out the rear of the property. You know, walk around the house. I was standing there in the dark trying to decide whether or not to go up the stairs to the garage apartment when I thought I heard something behind me. As I turned I got walloped with something. It had to be something big and hard, because next thing I knew I was waking up in the back of that car. It was dark as hell in there. I couldn’t see nothing. I guess hours went by. Then I thought I heard somebody talking and started kicking the door. I knew I was in a car because of the smell of the old upholstery, and I figured I was inside the garage under the apartment where your friend lives. But I have no idea who it was.”

  “You’re lucky to have lived through this,” the city cop said. It was the first time that I got the chance to see his badge and noted his name, which was E. Donner.

  “I’ll say,” Perry said.

  “How’s your head?” Jessica asked.

  “A little swollen, but the air out here is helping. I think I’ll be fine.”

  “Maybe you should go to the Emergency Room and get checked out,” Officer Donner said.

  “No. I just want to go home. This is what I get for trying to do a favor for a friend. Sorry I couldn’t find your buddy, Bill.”

  “Go home, Perry. Call me if you get any suspicious phone calls or if anybody tries to accost you.”

  “Bob,” Jessica said to the younger deputy, “why don’t you follow Mr. Reilly home. I want to question the old couple in the house one more time.”

  “Probably that’s not going to get you anywhere,” the deputy replied, “but sure, I got nothing better to do.”

  At that moment Jessica’s radio squawked.

  “It’s Patrick,” she said. She stepped away for a moment and spoke into the radio and confirmed for Patrick that Perry Reilly had been located. The conversation took no more than a ten seconds.

  Perry Reilly walked down the driveway toward the stree
t, then turned around and came back.

  “Say, guys,” he said. “Where’s my car?”

  *****

  Jessica got nothing more out of the old couple beyond a complete disclaimer of any knowledge of the whereabouts of their son, or that Perry had been knocked in the head on their premises, bound and gagged and stuffed in a car in their garage.

  The old man came outside, took one look at the garage door and at the chain and the cut lock on the gravel driveway in front of it, and forthrightly disavowed all knowledge of how it got there. The entire while I scratched my head trying to recall whether I remembered seeing the chain the night before when I picked up Chuck at the copy store and took him home.

  When asked whether Mr. Holland or his wife would like to file a missing person’s report for their son, the old man demurred: “He’s probably with that wild woman. Best leave him be.”

  When asked Chuck’s girlfriend’s name, the old man shook his head. “None of my business,” he said, “and certainly it’s none of yours.”

  It was three a.m. by the time we left. Perry rode with Deputy Echarria, the younger deputy, and we began combing the neighborhood for Perry’s car. After several blocks of looking for his silver Jaquar—what I liked to refer to as his “midlife crisis-mobile”—I suggested Jessica circle around and pull up in the alleyway behind Chuck’s copy store to have a look there.

  The place was empty. Of course.

  *****

  Jessica ended up taking Perry to the Sheriff’s Office along with Deputy Echarria. Jessica had me take her cruiser home.

  “Go home, dad,” she’d told me. “I’ll drop him off at home and come home myself. I think we’ll be sleeping in tomorrow. I’ll square it all up with Patrick.”

  So I drove home.

  *****

  At three-thirty in the morning, Austin is like any other town—deserted. The street sweepers aren’t even out yet. The city wears the caul of night like a burial shroud, awaiting a sun that at such an hour is a host of dreams removed into the future.