Trespass (12 page)

Chapter 26

L
ater that night, I lay awake, hesitant to take a sleeping pill since I hadn’t enlisted anyone to stay with me. At the opposite end of the room, Clyde slept contentedly in a small cage I had run out and purchased to keep in my bedroom after Jon left. I had promised to call Carter and even made an attempt to follow through, but I hung up when his canned greeting kicked in.

The book I picked up wasn’t holding my interest, and everywhere I looked, the shadows felt threatening. I should have considered Jon’s offer to stay. He seemed like a good person, but my history with men taught me to be cautious. I had no experience with men who were content to play the role of friend, and the last thing I needed was to get involved with anyone before I resolved my feelings for Taylor. Anyway, Jon Engel wasn’t the type of man who attracted me.

When I was ready for bed, my .22 revolver lay next to me on the nightstand. Carter bought it for me the first year of our marriage when he left on a trip to Singapore. He had insisted I learn how to use it, and we had spent a few afternoons at a shooting range. I hadn’t followed through with many practice sessions since then, but having the gun next to my bed gave me a boost of security.

I read until my eyes felt heavy. Turning off the light, I rolled onto my side, the side facing the nightstand. And the .22.

I opened my eyes, and for a minute I feared I was having a paralysis episode. I quickly discovered I was able to move my hand and reached for the light next to my bed. I heard a noise from downstairs. Is that what awakened me? I held my breath, listening. It sounded like footsteps below my bedroom.

Every scary B movie has a foolish blonde who rushes downstairs or to the cellar when she hears noises only to become the victim of a mad killer. It should have taught me not to rush down to investigate, but it was hard to resist the lure to do so. My heart pounded as I reached for the gun and slipped into a robe, trying to decide if it would be complete folly to determine the origin of the sound. I opened the bedroom door and heard soft footsteps on the first floor. I froze in place, terrified.

Stupid, I told myself, to bother with the gun or what I might find downstairs when what I needed to do was get my phone out and call 9-1-1. I flicked on the hall light, hoping to warn the intruders off in case they thought no one was home. Then I quickly closed and locked the bedroom door, trying to remember where I had seen my cell phone last and reprimanding myself for my careless habits. Praying I hadn’t left it downstairs, I backtracked into the room and found it on top of my dresser next to my keys and purse. My pulse racing, I snatched it and dialed 9-1-1.

The first policemen showed up five minutes after my call. One of them stayed with me in the kitchen while the other looked around the house. Whoever had been in my home was long gone, and if the police found any signs of them, they hadn’t confided in me. Detective Brian Haymaker arrived about thirty minutes later.

I had brought Clyde back downstairs, and he watched the activity from his cage, once more uncharacteristically quiet.

Haymaker, his blond hair tousled as if he just leapt out of bed, took a seat across from me at the table and asked if I had any coffee left.

“Sure. Are you going to tell me if you found anything?”

“Is that the price of coffee in this establishment?”

I stood and poured him a cup.

“Thanks. Now tell me what happened tonight. From the beginning.”

“There isn’t a lot to tell. I woke up about one a.m. and thought I heard someone moving around down here. I grabbed my gun—it’s registered, and the other officers already inspected it—and started for the door. I stepped into the hallway and turned on the light above the stairs. Then I realized the smart thing to do would be to call 9-1-1. That’s what I did. I locked the bedroom door and made the call. The officers were here in about five minutes.”

I hadn’t told the other officers about my earlier suspicions, that someone had come in and searched my house this afternoon, disturbing Clyde. I decided to tell Haymaker about it. When I finished, I said, “I wasn’t overly alarmed because, other than the parrot’s behavior, I couldn’t be certain anyone had really gotten in. Well, the computer was suspicious, but even that could have had a plausible explanation. I planned on having the locks changed this morning since I didn’t do it when I moved in.”

Haymaker hadn’t taken any notes. His gaze swept over me, eyeing my body which was draped in a cream-colored silk robe. Many women find cops attractive, but I always thought a big dose of arrogance and pseudo-omnipotence came with a badge. I didn’t find his attention flattering.

He finally looked me in the eye. “Tell me again exactly what you think you heard.”

“Are you insinuating I imagined it?”

“I’ll rephrase. Tell me what you heard.”

Not for the first time, Detective Haymaker’s attitude put me off. It wasn’t like me to deliberately irritate a man, even if I didn’t care for him. I usually knew exactly how to handle them, but my nerves were on edge. Dealing with Norman’s things, confronting Taylor, discussing it with Lisa, and taking care of a disturbed parrot were taking their toll on my tolerance. I took a deep breath.

“I heard footsteps downstairs; it sounded like more than one person.”

“That’s all?”

“I got the impression they were trying to be quiet. I never heard voices.”

“Your guest room is underneath your bedroom, right?”

He had been through the house and knew the answer to that question. At least he didn’t ask about the number signs. I played along. “Yes. What does that have to do with anything?”

He hesitated as if trying to decide how much to share with me. “Over the last ten months there have been a series of illegal entries into Wauwatosa homes. They weren’t break-ins because the intruders found homes that weren’t properly locked before they went inside. Nothing was taken so they weren’t robberies either. Your house was locked and shows no sign of forced entry, but what you’ve described sounds like the others.”

That explained why the police had called in Haymaker. A sliver of fear pierced my stomach. Jon Engel had been right—someone might have a key to my house. “That’s creepy. What’s the purpose of the break-ins if nothing was stolen?”

The detective leaned back in his chair. “The incidents didn’t get a lot of attention when they started because, as I said, nothing was missing or damaged. The intruders used guest rooms to have sexual relations. We figured they were kids doing it on a dare or something like that. Thrill-seeking, like the creeping fad. Leaving dirty bedclothes behind was the only damage—until the Chapman girl—and we aren’t certain her fall was a deliberate act. And since you were the one who reported it, you’re familiar with how that went down.”

Was I? The only thing I knew for certain was a teenage girl had discovered her friend unconscious at the bottom of the stairs. And the girl who fell died from her injuries. The media hadn’t said she was murdered.

“But that was an accident, right?” I asked.

“Turned out it was impossible to tell. But what we never published was the fact that the guest room in the Chapman’s home had been used for sex like the others.”

My brain felt stymied by this new information. “Were they sure the same people were involved in all the break-ins? Did the DNA match?”

He snorted. “Everyone’s a sleuth; the
CSI
influence at work. No, we didn’t do a DNA comparison because in the earlier cases there didn’t seem to be a need to run them. Other than trespassing, no serious crime had been committed. Nothing warranted DNA testing.”

“But now you have evidence from the Chapmans’ house and from here, right?”

“No, not even that. Apparently you interrupted them before they could get down to business, so no DNA here. We’ll check for prints, though. That’s really all I’m able to tell you.”

TJ had told me about the murder last night without giving me any details. What I saw on the news hadn’t added much, but I had to ask, “What about the woman who was murdered last night? It happened close to here, too, not more than a mile away. Seems to me all this has to be connected.”

Haymaker stood. “We’re exploring every angle. Whether any of this is connected remains to be seen. And as far as I’m concerned, your friend across the street? His death was an accident.”

He raised his hand to stop my protest and avoid any discussion of Norman. “Your house happens to be in the target area for these perps. Their visits appear to be random, so there’s no reason to suspect they’ll be back, but don’t wait to change your locks. If they are the ones responsible, they’re escalating. When the first ones were first reported, they went into houses where no one was home and the owners had left one of the doors unlocked. For a long time, we suspected teenagers. This game they like to play; they call it “creeping.” Just for a thrill, they go into people’s houses while they’re sleeping and take with them some small item to prove they were in the house. We suspected these illegal entries were a new version of the game because no one reported anything missing.

“Yours is the first house they’ve gone into that was locked. There was no sign of a break-in, though. So if these are the same people at work here, they’ve upgraded from trespassing to breaking and entering. Again, you had better have new locks put in since you have no way of knowing if the former owners gave anyone else keys. I’d advise getting better locks, too. What you have can easily be compromised with a credit card and a good shove. We’ll have patrols cruising by on a regular basis, but that’s the most we can do. If you think of anything else, call me.”

He dropped another of his cards on the table and left. I checked the time and turned to Clyde who had been silent since I brought him downstairs. “What do you think, bird? Should we go back up and try to get some sleep before sunrise?”

“Night prayers, night prayers,” was his answer. I offered him my wrist, and we went up to my bedroom where I quickly locked the door and the windows.

The gun sat on my nightstand, my remaining lifeline.

Chapter 27

W
hen TJ arrived at Gemma’s the next morning, she was surprised to see Jon’s car parked in front. He had called to tell her about the break-in but hadn’t mentioned he was staying there. She stewed for a minute, hoping he hadn’t spent the night as Gemma’s protector, or worse, that the two had hooked up. Jon needed someone down-to-earth like he was, not a woman like Gemma who lived in the corporate world. And had a married boyfriend.

God, she was sounding like Jon’s mother. There was a time she never gave a crap what other people did, but maybe that’s what motherhood did to you, made you worry about your friends.

Jon walked out just as she got out of the Mini. “Hi. Gemma said you’d be here. I put new locks on the doors for her. She couldn’t get a locksmith to do it until next week.”

“Since when are you a locksmith?”

“All it took was a trip to Menards and a screwdriver. Not a big deal.”

TJ didn’t bring up the fact that Jon lived more than thirty minutes from Tosa.

“She gonna do a security system, too?”

“You’ll have to ask her,” he said, stepping into his car.

TJ watched him leave. It was obvious to her he had a thing for Gemma. At least it was unlikely to be a two-way attraction; TJ had seen the ex-husband and the lover. Jon certainly wasn’t the woman’s type.

She met Gemma in the kitchen, surprised to see the parrot entrenched on her shoulder. Bird shit would clash with the chick’s designer outfits.

Gemma poured her a cup of coffee and told her the details of what had happened the afternoon and the night before. “I couldn’t get back to sleep after the police left, so I went through all Norman’s things again. I should have called you this morning and saved you a trip. There wasn’t anything in them to suggest why he died.”

Just as well. TJ wanted to leave as early as possible and get to the Brauns’ lake house while it was still daylight. “What did the cops have to say about the break-in?”

“They said it was probably a group of intruders who enter peoples’ houses when they’re sleeping and have sex in their guest rooms.” Gemma shuddered. “Creepy, isn’t it? It’s been happening for about ten months in the Tosa area.”

“Yeah, I heard about that. You locked up last night, right? How’d they get in?”

“The police think either they had a key or they were able to just slide a credit card into the door to open it.”

“What time did your ex leave?”

Gemma had forgotten the lie. “I tried to call him after I talked to you, but he wasn’t in. I slept with my gun next to the bed.”

TJ felt a new respect for Gemma. Avoiding assistance at a time like that was just like something she would do. “At least you have one.”

Gemma raised her eyebrows. “Really? You’re the first person who didn’t scold me for having a gun in the house.”

“Long as you know how to use it, I got no problem with it.” TJ felt the weight of her own gun, heavy under her left arm. She was comfortable with the security it provided.

“The cops say anything about this being tied to the explosion?”

“No. The detective said they still think it was an accident.”

“Haymaker again?”

“Right. He seems to know what he’s doing, but he doesn’t have very good people skills.”

TJ chuckled. “No shit.” She realized this was the first time she had sworn in front of Gemma, who she considered the kind of person who would turn up her nose at swearing. In TJ’s opinion, saying “shit” wasn’t swearing. Or crap. Or any other slang term for bodily excrement. She was still working at cleaning up her language, but the swear jar contained enough money now to finance a shopping trip to Macy’s.

Gemma appeared not to have noticed.

TJ said, “I don’t like that the cops aren’t trying to put it all together.”

“They seem to think it’s a coincidence that they struck here. I’m in the midst of the intruders’ territory according to Detective Haymaker.”

TJ sighed. “Yeah, right. Haymaker can shove it. Somethin’s goin on. It’s possible the cops are startin’ to think that too but aren’t ready to share.”

“Didn’t you say you were going up north to talk to Victoria Braun’s husband today?” Gemma asked.

“Yeah, after I leave here.”

“I think he’s home now. I saw both of their cars in the driveway this morning.”

TJ looked out the window. The two cars were still parked in the driveway. “I gotta get over there and check their alibis. Hate to drive all the way up north to talk to their neighbors there if I don’t have to.”