Dying to Tell (10 page)

nineteen

Bear wheeled his unmarked
cruiser off the street onto a short cobblestone driveway. He never would have found it except for Cal's cell phone map directions—they argued about them like a married couple. He pulled to a stop in front of the three-story, white-brick Colonial home and waited for the Winchester police to pull in behind him.

William Mendelson's home loomed in front of them. It was guarded from the street by tall, aged oaks that had been growing for over one hundred years. The home's Civil War structure was two stories with twin gabled dormers facing the street. To the east was a framed glass sun porch, and to the west, a detached
three
-c
ar
, brick garage. The house and garage were in poor repair—paint was chipping, shingles missing, and the stone walk was in need of a mason for surgery. The two acres of landscaping were bleak in their winter undress. Barren trees and perennials, overgrown shrubs, and matted leaves in the gardens said the gardener had taken last season off. What had once been a garden tour stop for Winchester's elite was now a saddened,
ill-kept
shell whose owner's passing might be its salvation.

“All right, Cal,” Bear said, taking long, slow eyefuls of Mendelson's estate. “Put one man in front and one in back. Have them search the grounds for whatever doesn't belong here. You and I will go inside. I've got the crime boys coming when they can, but let's get a head start. Maybe we'll find the good stuff.”

“The good stuff?” Cal waved to the uniformed officers climbing out of their cars.

“Yeah, like the reason this old rich guy was killed in a private vault at
oh-dark
-thirty this morning.” Bear started for the front door. “I guess the killer's confession would be too much to ask for.”

Cal snorted. “Stranger things, Bear. You got the keys?”

“I've got William's key ring from his desk. I'm hoping it's on that.”

At the front door—a wide, tall,
double-wood
door with large, beveled glass windows—Bear tried several keys before finding the right one. When he turned the lock and pushed, nothing happened. The door didn't budge; it was dead bolted from the inside and there was no keyhole to unlock the extra lock.

Cal watched him. “What gives?”

“Door's locked from the inside. Go around back and see if you can get in.” He tossed him the ring of keys. “Pronto.”

“Right.” Cal disappeared but was gone little more than five minutes. “Same thing, Bear. I unlocked the lock but the door's not budging. I was able to see inside and it looks like there's a
high-security
dead bolt on the inside there, too.”

“Locked from the inside?” Bear cocked his head. “Since he's dead at the bank, how'd he manage that?”

At the front of the house, Bear worked his way across the four windows looking for a way inside. He found none. He did the same around the side of the house as Cal worked along the sun porch. They met in the rear of the home on a stone patio, where summer furniture, uncovered and badly weathered, was still sitting in the December chill. Neither of them found a way in.

When Bear walked the rear grounds beyond the patio, two floodlights turned on. Then, as he walked deeper into the yard toward a garden solarium at the rear of the property, a floodlight turned on above it, too.

At the rear patio door, Cal pressed his face against the glass. “Can't see much, Bear. But it looks like all the windows and doors are alarmed. Old Willy was one paranoid dude.”

“He was. He's got motion sensors on all the outside floodlights. You can't move without setting them off.”

Cal shook his head. “Man, that's paranoid.”

“Paranoid or scared?”

“What's the difference?”

Bear frowned. “Paranoid is worry. Scared is dead.”

“Looks like we break in.” Cal went to another rear window at the corner of the house. “I'm smaller, so you do the breakin' and I'll do the snakin'.”

“Deal.” Bear pulled a short,
six-inch
black metal peg from behind his back and snapped his wrist, whipping it toward the ground. The telescopic baton extended out to its full
sixteen-inch
length. With a quick flip of his wrist, he shattered the small rear window and cleared the glass shards from its frame. He found the inside lock and released the window, boosted Cal up, and stuffed him through the opening.

Cal slithered through the window and dropped on the carpeted floor inside. He drew his handgun and listened. “Hey, Bear. You know what's weird?”

“Yeah, lots of things in this town. What in particular are you talking about?”

“Listen.”

Bear did and shook his head. “I don't hear anything.”

“Exactly.” Cal frowned. “For a scared old dude with
high-security
dead bolts, motion lights, and an expensive security system, he didn't arm it last night.”

No, he didn't—no
beep-beep
-beep, no shrill siren—and still the doors were locked from the inside.

“Be careful and get the back door open.”

Cal disappeared from the room and a moment later unlocked the rear patio door leading into a large country kitchen. His face was tight and anxious. He held his 9mm at his side. He tipped his head toward a wide, grand hallway leading deeper into the house.

“Bear, somebody beat us here. The place is a mess.”

Inside, Bear exchanged his baton for his Glock. Every kitchen drawer was open, every cabinet door ajar. “Okay, let's …”

“And they're still here.” Cal pointed at the floor. “Somebody's moving around downstairs.”

twenty

“How do you want
to play this?” Cal asked in a low voice—almost a whisper—as he inched to an open door in the grand hallway off the kitchen. “Do we wait for them to come up or do we go down?”

“There are no signs of a
break-in
from the outside, and somebody locked all the doors on the inside.” Bear eased down the hall keeping his gun trained on the open basement door. “Let's find out if William has a maid.”

“Yeah man, the maid.”

“Did you see any outside basement access?”

“No.”

Bear frowned. “Me neither.”

In the hall, Cal eased the door shut and waited for Bear to nod. Then, he called out, “Sheriff's Department—identify yourself and come upstairs!”

Nothing. No one responded. No footsteps. No noise.

“In the basement—we know you're down there. Come up slowly. This is the Sheriff's Department!” Bear yelled again. When no one replied, he poked the air with his handgun. “On me.”

“Good plan.”

Bear eased onto the landing and found the light switch and flipped it on, but no light illuminated the room. “Shit.” He kept his handgun
trained into the darkness at the bottom of the stairs. There was a sec
ond landing below him, and the stairs turned out of sight. For a second, a faint light flashed on the landing from around the corner. Then it flickered and went dark.

“Sheriff's Department!” Bear called again as he reached the landing. He flipped on a small penlight and moved on. “Identify yourself and come out.”

At the bottom of the stairs, the room was
inky-black
. He stepped off the last step as Cal reached the landing behind him. Bear's penlight searched around the room as Cal's light turned on behind him.

No intruder. Just packing boxes, cabinets, old furniture, and wood shipping crates stacked around the cavernous room like a maze.

Careful to look for movement, Bear inched forward and examined one of three shipping crates. The sides of it had stenciled markings that read “Amphora Trading,” and the ink looked much newer than the box. Deeper into the basement, he played the light throughout the room—where his light searched, his pistol aimed. He stepped around an old treadmill and some fitness equipment, then two bicycles that looked like they were ancient. A few more feet and his light beam landed on a steel door in the far corner of the basement.

“Over there, Cal,” Bear said, “a door.”

Cal moved faster now. “Got it.” He stopped in front of the door and listened. Then he shook his head and turned to Bear. No sound.

“Okay,” Bear whispered. “Let's take this one real slow—real careful.”

“I like careful, man.”

Bear checked the knob; it was unlocked and the knob turned in his meaty grasp. The door opened easily—noiselessly—and Bear shined his light inside. “Sheriff's Department! If you're inside, come out now.”

Still nothing.

Bear waited for Cal to move in beside him. Weapon up and ready, Bear nodded and stepped inside. They both pivoted in opposite directions and swept the room with their flashlights in wide arcs, trying to capture as much of the room as fast as they could.

“Bear!” Cal's warning was a
split-second
late as something struck Cal with an audible oomph. He crashed through the doorway
face-first
onto the floor.

Bear spun around. A dark figure catapulted through the doorway onto him. A kick snapped away his flashlight and a
knife-hand
slashed down and sent his Glock clattering somewhere into the darkness. A second kick caught him in the abdomen and a flurry of three or four vicious punches followed to his midsection and face—the first and second stunned him, the third and fourth brought the damage. Bear was down before he felt the last kick knock his legs from beneath him and the boney elbow drive into his temple.

“Bear, the door!” Cal scrambled to his feet.

It was too late.

The metal door slammed closed. Wood crates banged against it and echoed in the darkness. Someone had barricaded the door on the other side.

“Shit.” Bear hammered his fist on the door. “Call outside.”

Cal was on his radio. “We're locked in the basement. There's someone …”

A gunshot cracked over the radio. Then another. A voice yelled, “Shots fired! Shots fired!”

twenty-one

I reached William's house
as the third police cruiser skidded to a stop. An officer bounded out, gun in hand, and ran for the back yard. Damn, I was late to the party. I can usually tell when Angel is in trouble—call it a spirit-vibe or sixth sense—and I could find her in seconds.

With Bear, not so much.

Bear and I had been best friends and partners for years. And there's a kind of brotherhood with cops. With partners, it's even deeper—a symbiotic connection, a family bond. Bear and I had that in the living years. But that connection was broken by my death. Oh, we were still pals—as close as any living cop partners are—but he and I don't share that same unspoken bond that we did before I took a bullet in the heart. Instead, something else connected us. Something strange and unexplainable. Like, he could see and hear me. That's a lot more special than sharing
late-night
beer and a
gun-toting
bromance.

I followed the cop around the house and through the open patio door.

“
Son-of
-
a-bitch
,” Bear yelled as he burst from the top of the basement stairs. He jutted a finger at a Winchester police officer. “Tell me you got that bastard, Stark.”

Stark stood in the kitchen listening to his radio. “Sorry, Detective. He got away.”

I said, “Ah, hey partner. What happened? You looked a little frazzled.”

“Unbelievable.” Bear flashed a look at me when I sat at the breakfast nook table. He turned to Cal. “I want every car in the city and county hunting that bastard down. I want him found. Get on it.”

Cal picked up his radio and issued the orders.

I noticed a dark swelling beside Bear's right eye. “Wow, pal. Somebody whipped your ass good.” Cal limped toward me at the table, and I added, “Him too? How they get the drop on you?”

Cal seemed to say on cue to Stark, “Never even saw it coming, man. Damn, he was fast. One of those martial arts ninja dudes. Kick, whap,
chop-chop
-chop. We were down before we knew he was behind us.”

Stark laughed but stopped when Bear shot him the death ray. “Sorry, Detective. But hearing you got locked downstairs in the dark was sort of funny.”

“Funny?” Bear closed the distance to Stark and leaned in tight. He had to look down to connect with the officer's eyes. “As funny as you and Crosby missing the perp on the way out of the house? That funny?”

Stark backed up a step. “We got off two shots, Detective. That's more than you did. And Crosby hit him, 'cause we found a few drops of blood in the snow. The trail led nowhere, though. Followed it out back through another yard and to the street. Then it was gone.”

“You hit him? Good. Get blood samples if you can, though it'll take days to get any kind of match from them.” Bear calmed a little. “What's the perp's description?”

“Ah, well, that's something different.” Stark shook his head. “We didn't get much. Just average height and wearing dark clothing. Perp had on one of those balaclavas, too. I couldn't get any facials—he moved fast. Nothing but a blur as he ran me over.”

“What were you shooting at?”

Stark's eyes fell. “Well, I was on the back patio and coming into the house as Cal called for help. I drew my weapon just as the perp crashed out the door and knocked me on my ass. My gun went off. As he ran, Crosby came around and fired off a round thinking the perp had shot me.”

“And you couldn't catch up?” Bear growled. “Two of you out there and nobody caught him?”

“We tried, Detective, trust me. Whoever that guy was, he was in good shape because he ran like a rabbit out of here, even in the snow. Tracks disappeared on the back street. He must have had a car waiting.”

Bear cursed and poked holes in the air with an angry finger. “Dammit, you guys were supposed to be—”

“Whoa, man. Calm down now.” Cal cut him off. “It was kind of funny seeing that ninja man kicking your ass, Bear. So give these guys a break. He whooped up on us real good. Did you see him coming? I sure didn't—he kicked my ass and tossed me around the room like a sack of potatoes. So be cool, Bear, we all got beat.”

Bear's eyes singed the air between them.

Cops have a strange sense of humor. Even in the dark times. I said, “Bear, a ninja beat you up? Hey, could you show me how it happened? Maybe reenact it? You don't have to go back down to the basement, just have Cal …”

“Shut up,” Bear snapped as he jerked a finger toward me. When Cal and Stark followed his eyes to my chair, he added, “Both of you shut up. If you're done having a good laugh, get your sorry asses out there and find that perp. And considering he caught us all by surprise, warn all units to use backup when they find him. No more ninja/kung fu bullshit escapes.”

“Bear, ninjas are Japanese,” I said. “Kung fu comes from China. You're thinking of shaolin—”

“Get on it!”

“Okay, Bear,” Cal said. He had to stifle a snicker. “I'll have the units on the lookout for a big badass wearing ninja pajamas.” He stood and shifted his weight a few times on his leg. “Good as new. I'll get the boys set up and be back to help search this place.”

“You do that.”

When Cal and Stark left, I said in the most endearing voice I could, “Bear, are you okay? You look like crap.”

“I'm fine. It was dark. He took me by surprise and got a few good shots in.” He rubbed his jaw and threw a chin toward the hallway. “He must have been hiding down among all the junk and we missed him. Damn, he was fast.”

“Show me.”

In the basement, Bear tried the light switch again but the overhead light wouldn't come on. Then he shined his flashlight around until he found the light near the stairs. He turned the bulb and it lit. He found a second set of light switches he hadn't seen earlier beside the stair landing and illuminated the entire basement.

I looked around. “Looks worse than my basement.”

“That's why I don't have one.”

Near the steel door on the far wall were several wood crates knocked over. Two were broken into pieces.

Bear said, “The perp locked us in and pushed that stack of crates in front of the door. We couldn't get out.”

“I wish I'd come along. I could have helped.”

“Of all the times you were goofing off, you picked this one.” He opened the crates. They were all empty but for their straw and foam packing materials. “And it's not like I can telephone you.”

“Goofing off?” I told him about Angel's tea party and my suspicions of the handsome and suave Franklin Thorne. “He's cozying up to Angel just to get information. That's the only reason for it.”

Bear grunted something—it sounded like, “Bullshit.”

I told him Thorne's story of Marshal Mendelson disappearing from the hotel in Harrisonburg and ended with their plans to go dancing—Thorne and Angel, not Thorne and Marshal. Why would Thorne and Marshal go dancing?

His eyebrows raised. “Dancing? Thorne moves from ‘my boss might have killed his dad' to ‘get your dancing shoes on'?”

“Exactly what I thought.”

“Smooth. I'll give him that.” He thought a moment. “Maybe that's good for us. Angel might be able to get more out of him than I have. He's holding back and I agree, there's something not right about him.”

Huh, what? “You want Angel to go dancing with him so she can get information?”

“Sure, why not?”

“The only reason Thorne is taking her dancing is to get information from
you
.”

Bear shrugged. “Come on, Tuck. Did you ever think that just maybe it's because Angela is smart and funny and
drop-dead
gorgeous?”

Some pal. “He wants information.”

“I'm sure he does. But come on. She has to live …”

I was tired of hearing that. “Yeah, yeah. I get it.” I pointed to the shipping crate he was looking at. “What did you find?”

Bear held out an empty hand. “Nothing.”

I went to the steel door in the rear of the basement and looked inside. There was more basement junk inside along with the home's furnace and water heater. There were also two more shipping crates, each about four feet high, at least ten feet long, and three feet wide. These containers were empty, too, and there were no packing documents or manifests anywhere. Other than the missing paperwork, the one difference was the markings on the containers. The black stenciled printing read, “Nomad Air Freight–Cairo.”

“Egypt again,” I said, checking the other boxes in the room. “I don't believe in coincidences.”

“What coincidence?”

I told him about my trip to Cairo and the Shepheard Hotel. It didn't seem to bother him that when I visited the hotel it was in 1942 or that the men in my trip seemed to be acting suspicious. It was when I told him about my
long-dead
grandfather visiting me that he drew the line.

“Whoa, whoa.” Bear patted the air with both hands. “Why is it that every time we get a crazy homicide, your dead relatives are
hip-deep
in the case?”

“Luck?”

“And you're trying to tell me you went back to Cairo to some shitty hotel in 1942?”

“Hey, wait a minute.” I threw a thumb toward the stairs. “If Cal Clemens can be a famous, hip jazz musician, I can be a time traveler.”