The Incident (Chase Barnes Series Book 1) (22 page)

Malcolm’s father, James, had a bigger trust issue with the surrounding neighborhood than he did with Malcolm’s ability to walk to the store by himself and return promptly.  Fitzgerald told me that as soon as the call came in dispatch had sent over a car that was in the area.  James Freeman had no idea that, while up in his room listening to music, his son had received a call from his new potential employer- Chooch.  I wondered how Mr. Freeman figured this out but I didn’t press it.

              Leaning against the side door when I exited the house was a small rectangular box.  The package was addressed to me.  I didn’t recall ordering anything but I picked it up and took it inside anyway.  The box rested on the kitchen table while I got a knife out of the drawer.  I saw the return address on the package was from UltiPrint.  I had never heard of the company but it was certainly my name on the address label.  Inside was a sleeve of five hundred business cards that Lindsey had made up for me as a surprise gift.  The note inside read: “Go get ‘em.  Love, L.”  The cards had my name printed in navy blue block lettering with “Private Investigator” tagged underneath.  My cell phone number was printed below that.  There was a photo of two interlocking handguns, both facing each other, with smoke drifting up from the muzzles in the upper corners of the white card.  I wasn’t sure if the idea of the gun pictures was cheesy or bad- ass but I liked it anyway. 

              With a stack of my new business cards stashed away in my glove compartment I set off for the day.  I brought my Santa Fe out on to Alps Road and headed towards Route 23, which would drop me off on Route 80.  I know I’ve heard enough people say it and I’ve even seen it on the maps but I always wanted to prove to myself that I could actually take Route 80 all the way to California.  Today was not the day I wanted to try and test it out despite the extremely light Saturday morning traffic.  The furthest west I’d ever driven was to Pittsburgh for a Pirates game in college. 

              I thought about Klein.  I thought about Garvey.  I thought about Esteban.  Then I put a call into Jamal.

              “Yo,” he said.  I wasn’t sure if that was how he answered all of his calls or he said it because he recognized my number.

              “Jamal, it’s Chase Barnes.  From the other night,” I said.

              “What up?”

              “I gotta ask.  I know we made a deal and I trust you’re sticking to it, but do you know Malcolm Freeman?” I asked.

              “Nope,” was all he said.

              “Thirteen- year old local kid.  He wasn’t working for you?”

              “I said no, man,” Jamal said.

              “Sorry, had to ask,” I said and ended the call.

              I pulled over on the side of the highway once I had an idea.  I wanted to get into Klein’s house.  I didn’t know why yet but I had a hunch, especially since I had a firmer grasp on what Klein was really up to.  I pulled out my iPhone and tapped the Safari app after entering my numerical password.  I entered whitepages.com and entered Klein’s name into the field boxes under “Find People.”  There were 27 possible Barry Klein’s in New Jersey alone.  Some listed their age bracket and some listed who they were associated with- others that were also listed in the white pages.  Conducting such a search on the small iPhone screen reminded me that I needed to carry my iPad with me for these types of things.  And paper.  I pulled a napkin and a pen out of the glove box and wrote down the listings that were in the appropriate age range.  After realizing that the search was only spinning me in more circles than a coiled Slinky, I sent a text to Fitzgerald.  The old reliable source.

              Fitzgerald called me right back after I texted him asking for Klein’s address.  I wrote it down on the other side of the napkin and decided to make my way into Ringwood where Klein lived. 

              He also told me that Felix Cabrera turned up clean and Joey Alvarez had a couple of curfew violations.  Nothing worth delving further into.  I thought I’d leave them alone.

FIFTY NINE

I took the next U- turn and headed out Route 80 West to 287.  I took the Skyline Drive exit and drove up and over the mountain.  I loved driving up this way even though I don’t do it as often as I’d like.  Between the views of the mountain peaks and periodic glimpses of the Wanaque Reservoir in the distance it was a peaceful view and a serene feeling I enjoyed when I come up here. 

              There was a small alcove to the left where hikers and mountain bikers park to adventure through Ringwood State Park.  Across the way was the sign for Camp Tamarack.  It brought back memories of camping as a kid when I was in the cub scouts and would take periodic trips with our pack to learn about boating, swimming, hiking, and life skills.

             
No more knots, whittled wood, and canoes!  Emotional knots of guilt, wooden coffins, and gunshots are you have left!  How’s that make you feel?

              I kept driving.  There have been a number of times, with Sharper and all on my own, that I’ve tried to figure out a way to cease the mental assaults on my own conscience.  Every time I was exposed to or even thought about something related to Jake the assaults infiltrated my mind faster than the soldiers stormed bin Laden’s concrete fortress.  Sharper attempted to professionally explain to me that over time they will decrease, eventually become nonexistent.  But, here we are approaching eight months since the incident and I feel like they are getting worse.

I made a right onto Skylands Road and continued past the reservoir.  Without realizing it, while my conscience was still screaming at me as I drove, I found Klein’s home.  It was a ranch- styled house built predominantly of logs.  Typical house for the area.  The four- car driveway sloped uphill from the street and was empty, which was a good sign.  I drove past the house, saw again that the driveway was empty, and parked down the block. 

              Chase Barnes, super detective, at it again.  I saw I had several options as my point of entry when I approached the house.  I could go through the garage, the front door, or a slider off the back deck.  I tried the front door.  Locked and according to the sign posted into the garden near the front steps, the house was protected by an ADT security system.  That certainly threw a wrench in my already novice breaking- and- entering skills. 

I walked back to my car to retrieve a screwdriver out of the emergency roadside kit in my trunk.  Jamming it into the handle of the garage door, I certainly was rolling the dice with the alarm system.  It didn’t go off when I pushed the door open with my elbow. 

Didn’t want to leave fingerprints.  Smart. 

The door didn’t even beep, indicating that it was not one of the zoned targets wired with the alarm system.  What were the odds?  Most average homes stick to the most basic of systems and alarm the front and back doors of the home.  Some of the more advanced systems arm the windows and even the garage.  Apparently, Klein was a simpleton, which surprised me now knowing the true means of Klein’s wealthy income.

              The interior was something straight out of a Field & Stream magazine.  Thick, plush area rugs resting on dark oak wood flooring.  Natural wood furniture in the living room, dining room and kitchen.  A deep forest green couch, loveseat, and arm chair were all scattered about the living room, strategically placed to face a large flat screen television mounted on the wall space above a stone fireplace.  Photos of various wildlife were plastered throughout the rooms of the first floor.  The kitchen was all white: white granite countertops surrounding the perimeter of the squared- off kitchen, a matching island in the center with a built in wine rack underneath, and white cabinets with a matching white refrigerator and tiled- floor.  Reminded me of some of those hospital rooms I’d see in those psycho horror movies when I was a kid.  The dining room was behind the kitchen with a slider that led to a deck, which took up a good part of the backyard. 

I went up a short flight of stairs to the second floor and found a bathroom immediately to the right with bedrooms scattered down the straight hallway. The walls were lined with more photos and paintings of hunted game.  One of the bedrooms was a converted exercise room that didn’t look like it had been used since the Clinton administration.  I found the master bedroom and rummaged through the drawers but didn’t find anything intriguing.  There were his and hers walk- in closets that I rummaged through but that, too, came up empty of anything worthwhile.  I peeked inside every open door on my way back down the hallway towards the stairs.  Kids’ bedrooms and what I assumed to be another guest bedroom occupied the other rooms.  Innocence permeated the entire hallway outside the kids’ bedrooms.  One filled with pink butterflies and cozy stuffed animals.  The other across the hall was filled with Thomas the Tank Engine, sports figures, and monster trucks. 

              The first floor had a faint smell of fire from the fireplace in the living room.  I didn’t notice it until I descended my way back down from the second floor.  I started to make my way down the steps back to the first floor when I heard a noise.

SIXTY

I suddenly felt my gun securely tucked into the back of my jeans.  It’s amazing how the slight sense of unexpected fear heightens the rest of our senses.  It was the only time I heard the noise, sounding like slammed door.  The echo stuck in my ears but I was convinced it only to be my imagination.  Off the kitchen I found a door but it opened to a pantry but I still kept one eye on my surroundings, expecting someone to jump at me from behind.  Another door adjacent to the pantry led to the basement. 

              The basement was finished with a white leather sectional, a flat screen television, and coffee and end tables straight out of Pottery Barn.  There was an oak bar off to the right, fully stocked with top- shelf liquor.  I imagined how many potential drug deals had been made down here over a high ball of whiskey. 

              Standing in the middle of the basement, I was beginning to think this was a waste of time.  I panicked as I thought I heard the noise again.  As shady as Klein’s image appeared to be on the surface, I might’ve been wrong about who he really was now standing in his lily- white furnished home.  In my tenure as a student and Lindsey’s tenure as a teacher we can name a great many administrators that played the political card more than the academic card.  But there was just something about Klein that separated him from the rest.  Something that just didn’t fit the academic
or
the political image.

              There was a washer and dryer set in a closed off set of sliding doors opposite the bar in the basement.  I took a look in and around the washer and dryer, hoping there might be a stash of some sort hidden drugs, money or guns, but came up empty.  I didn’t notice that there was a door underneath the staircase until I turned to take in the rest of the room.  The door had padlocks securing it closed in three different locations.  I used the screwdriver to pry open the padlocks.  The first two, one at the top and a second near the door handle, splintered off the plaster wall but the bottom one was tougher because I couldn’t get enough leverage to bust it.  After a few kicks with my foot and stabs with the screwdriver the lock broke loose. 

              The door led to yet another room underneath the basement.  The cement steps led down into darkness.  There was a single light bulb with a string pull cord attached at the top of the staircase.  I pulled it.  It was just enough light to illuminate the first few steps of the staircase.  At the bottom of the stairs, I felt the wall for a switch, found it, and turned it on.  It was a dungeon- like room that had a faint musty sewer smell to it.  There was such a dank, damp feel to the air I actually felt the residue on my skin.  Concrete walls with a concrete floor.  I’m not good with visual dimensions but I’d guess the room was no more than eight by ten.  Straight ahead, along the back wall was a double- door closet.  Yet another padlock.  And another padlock busted.

              Talk about a mother lode.  When I pulled open the doors I found bricks upon bricks of marijuana on the top three shelves, bags of cocaine on the middle two shelves, and the left side of the bottom shelf had heroin and the right side had boxes of needles.  The floor of the closet was loaded with shoebox- sized boxes of different colored pills in Ziploc bags.  I took several pictures of it with my iPhone camera.  Adjacent to the closet was a desk sandwiched between two four- drawer filing cabinets. 

              “If that was in the closet, what the hell could be in the filing cabinets?” I whispered out loud to myself.  I liked to talk to myself a lot; it made me look crazy to others but made sense to me.  I searched the desk first.  I sat in the chair and rummaged through the drawers after flipping on the desk lamp.  On the desk, front and center, was a medium- sized notepad with a list of names on it.  First was Manuel Ramos, then Philip Gustav, followed by one Esteban Machado.  The list was up to date since Malcolm Freeman was just added.  The ink still looked fresh.  This must be a list of Klein’s latest gang of recruits.  I took a picture of the list, large enough to show the proximity of its original location, then ripped it from the pad and put it in my back pocket.