In the Shadow of Angels (14 page)

Once they had Jimmy taken care of, they reconvened in the living room. Now they needed to figure out exactly what they were going to do with Edward Digby.

*****

The call came over the radio a half an hour ago. Tim from HomeGuard security was requesting a courtesy check to 153 Turner Road for an alarm. The homeowner responded to his call, but he requested it anyway. This was why police hated home security. While they were checking up on these false alarms, something real might be happening elsewhere.

Officer Reynolds took the call mostly because he saw that address on Devin’s driver’s license earlier tonight and figured he had just been a bit drunker than he thought. Too drunk to disarm the alarm, apparently. It’s nice to go on a call where you know that you’re not in danger sometimes.

Just before he made the turn onto Devin’s driveway, he saw Edward Digby’s familiar transit van. It had the drive safe logo on it tonight. He wondered if there was even a point to trying to disguise the van, it seemed like damn near everyone recognized it regardless of the logo on the side. Still, it was odd that it was sitting beside the road at just after midnight on a Sunday morning.

He stopped the patrol car and shined his spotlight on the van. It didn’t look like he was inside. Just to be sure, Officer Reynolds got out of his car and shined his flashlight through the windows. There definitely wasn’t anyone inside. If this had been any other car, he would have called it in. Since it was Edward Digby though, he assumed that he was probably off somewhere taking pictures of people doing what they ought not be doing, but that wasn’t his problem right now.

He got back into his cruiser and made the turn into Devin’s driveway. Just as he reached the fork leading to the house, he saw another familiar van. This one was Brent’s. It was perhaps more recognizable than Digby’s was. Again, Officer Reynolds stopped the car and checked inside. Again, it was deserted. Devin said earlier that he was out drinking with BrentandJimmy. Maybe they had all come back here to continue? But why stop at the fork instead of driving up to the house?

Lots of people do lots of strange things. That was one thing you learn quickly in his line of work. Aside from just sitting there, nothing about it seemed out of the ordinary. It didn’t seem to merit any further attention.

Officer Reynolds got back into the squad car and continued toward the house. When he reached the front, he saw a Mini, a BMW and a Mercedes all sitting in front of the garage. When the Bryant’s throw a party, they clearly attract a higher class of people than when he did. He shined his spotlight over the back yard, but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary there either - just some random unfinished construction.

He rattled into his radio that he was on scene at 153 Turner Road, got out of the car, walked to the front door and rang the doorbell.

*****

Th
e
ring of the doorbell caught them all by surprise. Devin quickly ran to the door and looked through the peephole. Officer Reynolds knew that he did this. When you look through your peephole at night, you block the light coming out of it. Everyone knows when you do. He whispered back to Beth, Brent and Dr. Stephens, “It’s a cop!” But not just any cop, this was the one that had stopped him earlier tonight.

Dr. Stephens made a gesture for him to open the door. Devin was planning to do so anyway. Nothing had happened, no need to arouse suspicion.

Devin opened the door, trying to remember the name on the ticket from earlier. He was almost certain it had said
Reynolds
and committed to it.

“Officer Reynolds,” He said, as jovially as possible, “What brings you here?”

Officer Reynolds was happy that Devin remembered his name. So few do. He looked over the room before responding. He could see Dr. Stephens, Beth and Brent all sitting in the living room with coffee cups either in hand or nearby. Looking further, he could see the kitchen door was missing a window.

“HomeGuard security requested a courtesy check.” He responded flatly. “Is everything okay here? I see your kitchen door has a broken window.”

“That? Yeah, Jimmy slammed it a bit too hard when we got here. He had a bit too much to drink.”

“He wasn’t driving was he?”

Devin laughed. “No. I don’t think he could have in his condition.”

“I don’t see him. Where is he?”

“He’s in the guest room sleeping it off. Beth wanted to leave him in the yard, she’s afraid we might have to burn the bed when he’s done with it, but he is a friend.”

Officer Reynolds smiled, remembering something from earlier. He turned to Beth, “You’re one
cold, hard bitch,
aren’t you?”

The room was silent for a moment. Beth’s eyes grew huge in surprise at his statement. Officer Reynolds immediately regretted his lack of decorum (and it was this very lack of decorum that assured he would always remain Officer Reynolds. Not Sergeant Reynolds or Lieutenant Reynolds, because all too often, he spoke before he thought).

Devin’s laugh broke the silence. He turned to Beth. “You called while he had me beside the road. He heard the ringtone.” Devin fumbled for his phone. Once he found it, he played the ringtone
‘Cold hard bitch, Just a kiss on the lips and I was on my knees’.

Dr. Stephens and Brent both laughed at this. Beth, on the other hand, was mortified. “You told me you changed that!”

Hearing the anger in her voice, Officer Reynolds wanted to cut this as short as he could. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean you any offense.” He said. He then turned to leave when he remembered Edward Digby’s van. “You guys haven’t seen Edward Digby poking around out here, have you?”

Everyone was shaking their heads except Devin. “Who?” He asked.

“Eh. You’d know him if you met him. A local private eye. I saw his van up on the road.”

“No. I haven’t seen him.” Devin said.

“All right.” Officer Reynolds replied, this time turning completely and stepping outside. “Join me for a second, Devin?”

It was a question, but it didn’t seem like one he could answer no to. He stepped outside with him and closed the door.

“Apologize to her for me.” Officer Reynolds said.

“I will. I think you just caught her off guard. Some things you don’t expect from a man in uniform.”

“And you must have one huge set of brass balls to go from her calling you an hour ago telling you to get your ass home to having a bunch of friends over.”

“Trust me,” Devin said, “I’m going to regret tonight for a long, long time.” He had never spoken a truer statement.

Officer Reynolds got into his patrol car and drove away. A lot of what just happened didn’t make sense to him, but that was true of a lot of things you see in his line of work. He learned that you need to leave it behind when you drive away. It will eat you up if you don’t.

Inside the house, the group watched through the curtains as Officer Reynolds’ taillights faded down the driveway. Dr. Stephens voiced what they all were thinking, “Well this certainly complicates things.”

Everyone there knew this was true, but Brent and Beth didn’t know just how true yet. While Dr. Stephens and Devin hadn’t actually worked out exactly what they were going to do with Digby just yet, they had more or less agreed they were not going to get the police involved. They hadn’t yet had a chance to pass this on to Brent and Beth.

Devin found the appearance of the officer particularly unfortunate because he had given the situation some thought on the way back with Dr. Stephens. How often does it happen that someone falls dead on your property inside forms you have already set to lay a foundation? And not ten feet from the cement and the mixer to make it happen? It seemed like this was a gimmie. Just pour the concrete and the problem would be solved. The problem now was that Officer Reynolds clearly knew that Digby was, at the very least, in the area. If he didn’t show up for a couple of days, the search would most certainly lead them to Devin’s house. And him with freshly poured concrete…

“They have to find the body.” Devin said after that thought. “Not here.” He followed, as he saw everyone looking to him with concern. “Anywhere but here. They need to find the body though. If they don’t, Officer Reynolds and friends are going to be searching here for him. That search will start where Reynolds saw his van.”

“How about The Place?” Dr. Stephens suggested. “If I’ve heard the rumors about him being there all the time snapping photos, a lot of others probably have too.”

Devin was nodding. “That seems right. We just take his van over there and leave him in the driver’s seat.”

“But he was strangled. How do we explain that away?” Dr. Stephens asked.

“We won’t need to. As long as he’s not here, they can think what they want.”

The others didn’t seem completely convinced, but it didn’t really matter. Right now, they needed to get Digby’s van off the road before anyone else saw it. Brent’s van too. The empty cars all over the place were attracting far too much attention. Devin still didn’t trust Dr. Stephens and especially not enough to leave him with Beth. He suggested that Dr. Stephens drive Brent to his van and then take him on to Digby’s. Beth wasn’t particularly happy about being left alone with two corpses and Jimmy unconscious, but she knew the situation and reluctantly agreed.

“I guess I’ll go get his keys.” Devin said, as he made his way out the kitchen door.

This being the second body he had handled tonight, Devin didn’t feel much of anything as he did so. He took care not to look into the corpse’s eyes as he rummaged through his pockets, but aside from that, he may as well have been rifling through his junk drawer. He found them in the first pocket he checked, which was the front right pocket, and was happy to be able to cut the search short.

Looking more closely at the keys, one was very clearly to the transit van, but there were a bunch of others. Two were for other cars of different makes and models, one had the familiar shape of a post office box key, two more were the distinct shape of house keys, but one stuck out as particularly odd. It was a double-sided key, only about an inch long, but with a lot of cuts for tumblers. Devin had only seen one like it once before and that was for a small floor safe that his father had kept his valuables in. Did Edward Digby have a similar safe somewhere? Maybe even in his van?

As Devin walked away from Digby, he stopped and picked up his camera. If there really was a safe in the van and if this really was the key to it, and if there really were all of the photos that Dr. Stephens suggested inside, they would almost certainly be digital. He would need some way to look at them if this was the case.

He went back into the house and walked through to the garage. He stopped at his golf club bag and unzipped the topmost pouch. He found his golfing gloves inside. He took them out and slid them into his pocket. If he was going to be driving the van of a dead man, he was going to do his best not to leave fingerprints. If they managed to somehow dig themselves out of this situation, the less evidence he left behind, the better.

He joined the others back in the living room. “All right,” he said, “let’s do this”.

The drive passed in silence. Dr. Stephens dropped Brent off at his van. Brent started it up and drove off toward the house. He then drove to Edward Digby’s van and dropped off Devin. He made no effort to wait for him and Devin could hardly blame him. He didn’t much care for being seen with the van either, but someone had to do it.

Devin slid his golfing gloves on. Still thinking about the unusual key, Devin didn’t immediately open the driver’s door. Instead, he opened the back of the van. He quickly saw what he was looking for. Just behind the driver’s seat there was a small safe mounted directly to the floor. He stepped inside the van and walked up to it. It was an odd, crouching walk, as he was bent over at the waist to avoid the low roof. His theory was correct. The key opened it right up.

Inside were three small boxes of the type you would keep business cards in. Each was just over two inches high, three inches wide and perhaps eight inches long. They had clamshell type tops, which hinged in the back. He slid one out and opened it. Inside were dozens of memory cards - perhaps as many as fifty. There were alphabetical index tabs separating them, the last of which was
‘G’
in the one he opened. Each card was in a small, clear, zippered pouch with writing on the front. The first one he pulled out said
Abernathy, Jesse
. He didn’t need to look at the pictures to know what would be on it.

Digby’s orderly filing system was going to make Devin’s job here much easier than he expected. He thumbed to the
‘B’
tab and flipped through envelopes until he found one that said
Bryant, Devin
. He put this one in the camera just to be sure. It was what he expected - pictures of him and Jezebel having sex. He hung his head down. He could hardly believe he fell for it. Obviously, she saw him as nothing more than a dollar sign. He wondered if she was even pregnant at all.

Devin put that box back in the safe and pulled out the rightmost box. He thumbed down to the
‘S’
tab. He found a couple of Stephens’ listed, one of which was the honorable Thomas Jefferson Stephens, but he didn’t see Dr. Stephens or Ulysses Stephens. The more he thought about it, the more he wondered why he was looking. It would serve the bastard right if he left them there. Despite the thought, he slid this box back in and pulled out the first one again. This time he flipped to the
‘D’
section. There he found what he was looking for. Not one, not two, not three, but four different pouches with
Dr. $
written on the outside.
Jesus Christ
, he thought to himself,
why didn’t he stop after the blackmailing started
?

Devin thumbed through the rest of the pouches in each of the boxes just in case he might recognize a name. He found one he recognized only a few spaces away from the ones with
Dr. $
on them. In the
‘C’
tab, he found one that said
Elliot Carvey
. He recognized this name from seeing it on the door to the building he walked into for work every day. Wesley Jackson and Elliot Carvey made up the Jackson & Carvey portion of his law firm. He slid this one into his pocket as well. He wasn’t sure if this was something he would ever tell Elliot Carvey about, but it was certainly something that his friend would appreciate, nonetheless. Perhaps, compensate? He hated himself for thinking it, but he could probably turn that little memory card into a huge pile of cash if he were so inclined. Maybe even parlay it into a partnership.

This dark thought stayed with him only a moment before he snapped back to the present. He had two bodies back at his house to deal with and he needed to get this van off the road. He was confident that he had all the illicit images of himself and Dr. Stephens accounted for, everything else would have to wait.

Devin stepped forward into the driver’s seat, started the van, and drove across the road to get back on his driveway. It was hard to see the road, as the van clearly had a headlight out. What was odd was that it was out on both high and low beam. Probably an electrical problem, he assumed. After driving his Mercedes and even the old Sunfire tonight, this one had very limited visibility. Driving it back safely was a task.

When he reached the front of the house, he turned the van around and backed up as near as he could to the construction site. Hopefully he pulled in close enough to minimize the amount of labor involved in getting Digby into the van. Moving Jezebel’s body around was one thing - she was a tiny little waif. Edward Digby, on the other hand, was nearly as big as Jimmy. Even with a couple of guys on him, it would take some work to get him into the van.

Once the van was in place, Devin joined the others in the living room. “Before we start moving them around,” he said, “we need to figure out exactly who is doing what.”

“Well, I’ll get his arms,” Brent suggested, but Devin shook his head.

“I don’t mean getting him into the van. I mean once we get there. We know Beth needs to come along to drive Jezebel’s car back, but…”

“What!?” Beth shouted, this being the first time she had heard this part of the plan.

Devin looked at her, feeling quite guilty for having to ask her to do it, but more guilty for forgetting to ask her at all. “Beth, you need to drive her car back. If someone sees the car, they need to see a woman driving it.”

“But I don’t look anything like her.”

“You look a hell of a lot more like her than any of us do. I don’t think it will matter that much, though. If they see a woman behind the wheel, they probably won’t spend a lot of time comparing facial features and hair color from memory. At least not in the dark at two in the morning.”

“I don’t like it, Devin. I really don’t want to do it.”

“I know, Beth. I don’t want to be driving around with a guy’s body in the back of his van either. Hell, I don’t want there to be any bodies at all, but there are. We have to do this though, or we’re both going to jail for a long time. Dr. Stephens too. And now BrentandJimmy are in it as well.”

Beth sighed and lowered her head.

“In a couple of hours this will all be over.” Devin followed. “One way or the other. We’ve all got to do things that we don’t want to or it’s definitely going to be the other.”

“I could drive her over at least,” Dr. Stephens suggested.

“If it’s all the same to you, Doc, I’d just as soon your car stay here until we’ve taken care of this.” Devin looked to Dr. Stephens. “It’s not that I don’t trust you… Well, actually it is. Until we get rid of these bodies, I don’t want you accidentally forgetting the plan and driving over to the police station.”

That statement immediately offended Dr. Stephens, but he couldn’t reasonably argue with it. “How about Brent drives her over?” He suggested.

“I think he has to. We’ll need to get him into the driver’s seat of the van once we get there.”

“If you’d like, he can drive her over in my car. I’ll stay here and tend to your friend. Having my car should help with the trust issue.”

Devin didn’t hear any deception in his voice, but his mind started running through scenarios. What if he called the police and said his car was stolen? But at least if they had his car, he would be less likely to leave. What other choice was there?

Beth made the decision. “We’ll do that.”

Devin looked to her, hoping she would see the reservation in his eyes. If she did, she wasn’t letting on. “We have to do something, Devin, and I don’t want to leave Jimmy here alone. Are we going to pile him into the car too?”

Beth was right. He didn’t like the thought of Jimmy being here alone either. What if Officer Reynolds came back? Someone would need to run interference or he might think there was trouble and stumble into the house. Devin certainly wasn’t going to trust the doctor, but leaving him behind did seem like the best solution.

“All right, Doc, I guess we have a plan then. But don’t try any…”

Dr. Stephens interrupted him. “You’ll insult us both if you finish that sentence, Devin. I’ve told you where I stand. No one can find Jezebel’s body or I could go down just as easily as you could. And Edward Digby being dead is a happy coincidence.”

Though Devin didn’t care for the particular phrasing, he did agree. He would have to take him at his word. Eventually they would have to sort out what to do after this whole business was behind them, but they had to get it behind them first.

“Alright, then. Brent, let’s get him into the van,” Devin said, getting up from the couch.

“Devin,” Dr. Stephens said. “What we talked about before, did you find it?”

Devin reached into his pocket and pulled out one of the memory cards with
Dr. $
on it. He tossed it to Dr. Stephens. “Small safe behind the seat.” He said.

Devin pulled the rest of the packages from his pocket. “I got them all, Doc, don’t worry about it.” He slowly slid them back into his pocket and tapped it in an exaggerated gesture. At least now he knew that Dr. Stephens wouldn’t want him arrested just yet. That was as close as he was going to get to having insurance.

Devin and Brent went through the kitchen door and out to the construction forms where Edward Digby’s body was. There wasn’t any discussion about how they were going to get him into the van before they started, they just grabbed him by the shoulders and heaved. Once his top half was in, they grabbed the legs and repeated the process. It was much easier than either of them expected it to be. It was the only bright side to the otherwise unsavory task.

“Do you really think this is going to work out?” Brent asked Devin as they stood at the doors of the van looking at Digby’s body.

Devin laughed despite the situation. The question caught him a bit off guard. “I don’t know, Brent. All we can do is hope we can get there and back without anyone seeing us and getting too suspicious.”

Brent shook his head. “I don’t mean that. I mean do you really think we can do this and all just walk away? How do you trust this Stephens guy?”

Devin slid the door of the van closed and stood silently for a moment. “I don’t trust him, Brent. We’re just going to have to hope that he’s not stupid enough to talk.” Devin tapped the pocket where he had the memory cards.

“I guess,” Brent said uncertainly. “But when they find this guy in his van, if that cop starts wondering about seeing the van out here along with Stephens’ car… You have pictures of him, but if they put the screws to him, he could give you up. Even if you turned over the pictures, he’d only be on the hook for fucking a patient.”

“Actually, he was trading sex for drugs. Besides, what other choice is there? I think it’s a chance we have to take. You’re not saying we should take care of him too, are you?”

Brent thought about that for longer than he cared to admit. Again, despite the bodies, he still didn’t think of any of them as killers. “I’m just saying that we need to minimize the chance of anyone asking any questions.”

“How are we going to do that?”

“Well, I don’t think we can leave him in the van. People
will
ask questions if they find someone strangled in their car.”

“Do you have a better idea?”

“Yeah I do. But let’s just get to The Place and worry about it then.”

“Alright. Why don’t you go get Beth and we’ll get this done.”

Devin had left the keys in the van’s ignition and was still wearing his golfing gloves. He got into the driver’s seat and pulled forward to the driveway to wait for Brent and Beth to get into Dr. Stephens’ BMW. Once they were in the car behind him, he started down the driveway. If all went well, they would be back in less than a half an hour with one less body to worry about.

The roads around Ashwood were deserted at 1am on a Sunday morning. Devin drove cautiously, partly because of having a body in the back of the van, but mostly just due to the unfamiliarity of driving someone else’s car. Devin’s biggest concern was the missing headlight on the van. If anything was going to draw attention to them, it would be that.

It took them only a short time to make it to the turn to highway 62 and once they made the turn toward The Place, his apprehension abated considerably. With the BMW behind him and no lights coming toward him, it seemed the worst of it was over.

*****

Dr. Stephens watched the taillights of his car and the van disappear down the driveway. He waited until they were gone for a couple of minutes before closing the front door. He went up to the guest room to check on Jimmy, who was still asleep. He left Jimmy’s room and went back downstairs. He had a couple of things he needed to take care of.

He went back to the garage and picked up Devin’s gun, which Brent put down on top of the freezer during their previous encounter. He opened the cylinder and started loading the bullets, which were still in his pocket, into it, one by one. He did not intend to use the gun, but they did leave him alone in the house with Jimmy - who had no idea who he was. And Jimmy did just strangle someone to death - someone he also didn’t know. Better safe than sorry.

He didn’t want to escalate an already tense situation though, so he took the gun back into the kitchen and put it into the junk drawer he pulled the keys to the Pontiac out of earlier. If it became necessary, he would be the only one who knew where it was. He hoped it wouldn’t be necessary, but the situation had changed dramatically since he first entered the house. Instead of a possible confrontation with Devin, there was a possible confrontation with four people if they decided to turn on him. He honestly wouldn’t blame them if they did. He was the odd man out in this situation.