Dead Silence (10 page)

“Never mind,” he said and hung up.

C
ountry-western music poured out the open door of the pool hall adjacent to Jed’s Dependable Auto Repair. Grace, standing flat against the outside wall, knew that if she leaned forward just a little, she’d probably see half the men who lived in Stillwater throwing darts, playing pool or drinking beer. But approaching the back of the automotive shop from the direction of the pool hall was still their best option. Located on Main Street several blocks from Evonne’s, Jed’s shop wasn’t far from the busiest intersection in town. They couldn’t go in through the front. And Walt Eastman’s Tire Center on the other side had a big dog in the yard.

Dressed in a black T-shirt and jogging shorts, with her long hair tucked up inside a baseball cap, she pressed herself more tightly to the outer wall of the building.

“Tell me Jed doesn’t have a dog, too,” she whispered to Madeline, who was similarly dressed, except that she carried a backpack.

Her stepsister shook her head. “No. Walt’s the only one with a dog. And the juicy steak I brought will keep that boy busy.”

“Great. So all we have to worry about is getting caught and going to jail?”

Madeline brandished the chain cutters she’d removed from her backpack. “No one’s going to jail. You heard the police scanner. It’s coffee and doughnuts. Again.”

“You’re talking about the scanner back in the car, right?”

“I don’t want to carry it around, do you?”

Grace preferred to travel light, in case she needed to run like hell. “No.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“So what’s the plan now that we’ve come this far?”

Madeline finished zipping up her pack and stood. “Kirk scouted it out for us before he left. He said there’s a double gate at the back of the yard secured by a chain and padlock. We simply cut the chain with these, slip inside and take a look around. How hard can that be?”

Grace propped her hands on her hips. “Kirk told you how to break in to someone’s business?”

“Once he realized he couldn’t come along.”

“Why not wait for him?” If only Grace could stall for enough time to talk Clay into moving the reverend’s remains
before
Madeline drew any more attention.

“And let whatever’s in that file drawer disappear?”

“It could be gone already.”

“We have a better chance now than later.” Madeline slung the backpack over her shoulder again. “Besides, there’s no telling when Kirk might get back. His mother could be in the hospital for days, even weeks.”

When Grace didn’t appear convinced, Madeline’s eyebrows drew together in an expression of impatience. “We’re not going to steal anything, so quit worrying. This is no big deal.”

It
was
a big deal. It was such a big deal that Grace’s heart was beating faster than a hummingbird’s wings. And it didn’t help that she could see Kennedy Archer’s SUV in the lot and knew he was inside the pool hall with all his friends. If she and Madeline got caught, they’d have plenty of witnesses to their humiliation.

But Grace hadn’t known that Kennedy and Friends would be at the pool hall when she’d let Madeline persuade her to join this crazy scheme. She hadn’t even considered the fact that Let The Good Times Roll was so close, or that on Thursdays the owner featured margaritas for a dollar. She’d thought exclusively of her stepsister. When Grace initially refused to accompany her, Madeline had started off alone, which made Grace give in and go after her. She couldn’t sit at home while her sister broke into the automotive shop. Because she already had the answers Madeline wanted so badly, Grace felt responsible for the risks her stepsister was taking.

“I’m an assistant district attorney,” she whispered, breathing deeply and resting her head against the gritty surface of the brick wall. “I can’t believe I’m breaking the law. I prosecute scum like us.”

“You can’t prosecute anyone the cops don’t catch, right?” Madeline looked carefully around the corner to see down the alley. “And we know the cops are exactly where I said they’d be. Nothing ever happens in Stillwater. They’re not expecting trouble.”

Grace wished it wasn’t so damn hot. She was feeling light-headed. “Okay, let’s get this over with. You want me to go first?” If she couldn’t talk her stepsister out of this misadventure, she had a strong desire to be finished with it as soon as possible, which pro
voked a certain recklessness. She wanted to rush forward, cut the chain, do the search and get out.

“No, I’m the one who got us into this. I’ll go first.” Madeline darted off, circling around the parking lot.

Grace hesitated, listening to the buzz of conversation drifting out of the pool hall along with the music, then quickly followed. By the time she caught up, the dog next door was busy devouring the steak Madeline had tossed it and ignoring them completely.

That was a positive omen. But step two of their plan didn’t go quite so smoothly. Cutting a chain wasn’t nearly as easy as it looked on TV. They both had to grab hold of the cutters and squeeze with all their might before the chain finally fell to the ground. Then it thudded in the dirt with a quiet jingle—but to Grace that jingle sounded as loud as crashing cymbals.

“See?” Madeline said as though the noise didn’t bother her in the least. “The hard part’s already over.”

Grace glanced behind them. No one came out of the tavern—and no lights flashed on in the houses that backed onto the alley.

Maybe Madeline was right. Maybe she was overreacting. They were only going to slip in, check a file drawer or two and slip out. Stillwater was a sleepy town; a quick peek at Jed’s cabinets couldn’t be
that
dangerous.

“Let’s go.” Her stepsister stepped through the gate, but Grace yanked her back.

“Not without gloves, Maddy. Where are they?”

“Anyone in town could’ve touched this gate.”

“I don’t care. We wear them starting now.”

“Okay. You’re the D.A.”

“Don’t remind me.”

Setting her backpack on the ground, Madeline
reached into a front compartment and handed Grace a pair of yellow rubber gloves.

Grace blinked in astonishment. “You’re kidding, right? You want me to debut as a criminal looking like I’m about to wash someone’s dishes?”

“I brought what I had.”

“I have a really bad feeling about this. If nothing else, it’s unauthorized entry of property.”

“You mean trespassing?”

“And forcible entry/vandalism,” she added, eyeing the cut lock, but she allowed Madeline to tug her into the yard.

When they arrived at the building, Grace wanted to immediately duck inside its dark confines. But, like the gate, it was locked. Which didn’t come as any big surprise. “How do you plan to get in?” she asked.

Madeline removed her gloves and shoved them at Grace. “Hold these,” she said, and fished a nail file from her “crime kit.”

“You know how to pick a lock?” Grace whispered. “Who taught you that?”

“Who do you think?”

“Kirk again? Should I be worried about you dating him?”

Madeline chuckled as she worked. “When he was a kid and he got into trouble, his dad would lock his bike in the shed. Kirk figured out how to pick the lock so he could get it out after his father went to work.”

“Your bare hands are touching that knob,” Grace pointed out. Talking helped calm her nerves, made their actions seem more natural somehow. But knowing her sister was leaving fingerprints everywhere didn’t help Grace’s peace of mind.

“I’ll wipe it off before we leave.”

“Maddy, I’m sure Jed had nothing to do with what happened eighteen years ago,” Grace said. “Can’t we just go home?”

Madeline was too busy with the lock to listen. “Shh…”

“What if someone comes by later, notices that the shop’s unprotected and steals everything? It’ll be our fault.”

“Who’d steal a bunch of car repair tools?”

“You’d be surprised. I’ve met folks who’ll steal anything.”

“Not in Stillwater. People here rarely even lock their houses. But we’ll make the gate look the same as we found it, just in case.”

“That’s some consolation,” Grace said sarcastically.

“Quit worrying.”

The lock-picking was taking
forever.
Grace hovered in the shadows of the corrugated metal building and glanced nervously toward the pool hall. “We’ll probably find a bag of pot or something. That’ll be the big secret. And what do we care if Jed smokes weed? It doesn’t affect our lives in the least.”

“We could find something a lot more relevant than weed.”

“
If
we ever get in.”

With a curse, Madeline yanked her file from the lock.

The tension in Grace’s body edged up yet another notch. “What is it?”

“I can’t—”

Two men ambled out of the pool hall. At the sound of their voices, Grace pulled her stepsister down to the ground, out of sight. The chain link fence surrounding the property certainly didn’t give them much cover.
“Who is it?” she breathed when the two men stood talking in the parking lot.

“Marcus and Roger Vincelli,” Madeline whispered.

“
Joe’s
dad?”

“And his brother.”

“Oh, God,” Grace said. “Is Joe with them?”

“I don’t think so.”

Finally, the men climbed into their respective vehicles and drove off. When nothing but music broke the silence, Grace and Madeline got to their feet.

“Hurry,” Grace prompted, more than a little spooked.

“I can’t trip the lock,” Madeline complained, frustration lining her forehead. “I can’t find the tumbler. It’s different than the ones Kirk had me practice on last night.”

“So we can go home?” Grace asked hopefully.

“No. We’ll have to use the crowbar.”

“The
what?
”

Madeline was already removing a crowbar from her pack.

“Madeline, we can’t—”

Before Grace could even get the words out, Madeline had inserted the iron bar into the doorjamb. A moment later, a terrible scraping and wrenching blasted the air, then a
pop
sounded as the door broke open and swung wide. The dog next door barked, then apparently returned to his steak bone.

Grace stared wild-eyed around them. She was positive someone would come this time. But several seconds passed, and she heard nothing to indicate they’d drawn any attention.

“I hope you’re not going to turn on the lights,” Grace said, thrusting her stepsister’s gloves at her as they hurried inside.

“Of course not. Here.” Madeline put a long heavy object in Grace’s hands. A moment later, when Grace found the switch, she realized it was a flashlight.

“You’ve thought of everything, I see.”

“You take that side, I’ll take this one.”

The shop was a rectangular room with a cement floor, a reception counter in front and a bathroom in the far corner. It smelled of motor oil and featured a scarred wooden desk and racks and racks of auto parts—definitely not the kind of place in which Grace felt very comfortable. But now that they’d broken the door, she decided it was better to commit herself to the task at hand. Maybe if Madeline saw that they weren’t going to find any evidence here, she’d give up trying to prove that Jed had caused the death of her father.

“So far it looks like an auto repair shop,” she said.

Madeline swept her flashlight around the room. “There’re some filing cabinets along that wall.”

“There’re some on that wall, too,” Grace said, pointing at them.

“I’ll take the ones behind the desk. You take the ones in the corner.”

With a shrug, Grace moved to the three tall filing cabinets near the bathroom. The drawers of the first were labeled—work orders, parts orders, paid bills and catalogs.

The constant whine of the toilet running in the bathroom got on her nerves as, behind her, Madeline opened and closed file drawers with wild abandon. The beam of her stepsister’s flashlight bounced as she moved—until she found a drawer that was locked.

“Here it is,” she breathed.

Grace turned expectantly. “You want me to help you get it open?”

“No, I’ve got it. You might as well search the rest of the filing cabinets and the desk, just to be sure.”

Madeline took another small tool from her backpack, along with the crowbar, and Grace turned back to her own searching. She didn’t want to watch what Madeline was about to do. The list of their crimes was already scrolling through her head.

When she heard a large bang, Grace knew Madeline had managed to jimmy the drawer open and cringed at the thought of Jed finding it like that in the morning.

“Try not to mess things up too badly,” she cautioned. “I feel terrible about this.”

“I had to break the lock,” Madeline said. Her voice was too filled with anticipation to allow for much remorse. “That’s not a tremendous amount of damage—for a break-in. He’ll hardly know we were here.”

“Right. He’ll probably think he busted his own locks. Happens all the time.”

Madeline didn’t answer. She was too intent on going through the drawer.

“Anything?” Grace asked.

“Not yet,” she murmured.

All Grace could hear of the music at the pool hall was the percussion thumping rhythmically through the walls. Jed had been in business a long time and, as she moved to the second file cabinet, she began to believe he’d kept every slip of paper he’d ever come across.

“Talk about a packrat,” she grumbled. “Some of these work orders are more than ten years old.” The next drawer went back even farther than that.

Madeline said nothing.

“Maybe someone should tell Jed the IRS can’t audit you for tax returns older than seven years.”

“You tell him,” Madeline murmured. She had a folder in her hand and was looking through it carefully.

Grace was still halfheartedly rifling through her own files. “I’m not going to tell him anything.”

“Mmm…” Madeline said.

“Maybe you should write an article on record-keeping for the paper,” Grace suggested. “You could use Jed as an example.”

“Good idea.”

Madeline wasn’t listening. Giving up on the nervous chatter, Grace closed the bottom drawer of the middle filing cabinet and moved on to the third and last cabinet, which was pretty old and beat up. Dust an inch thick rested on top, along with baskets of ancient work orders yet to be filed and even a cracked coffee mug. In here, the records were fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years old.