A Dead Issue (20 page)

“This isn't good,” I said barely audibly.

“What isn't?” Liza asked.

“The lock—it's gone, and it looks like it was pried off.”

I had second thoughts about the timer and looked down at my gun.

“You really think you'll need that?” Liza grabbed the doorknob and gave it a twist and a shove. The door swung inward and stopped three quarters open. We peered in, leaning to each side so the headlights could pierce the depths of the parlor with the missing chair. No one lurked in the dark corners, and Liza stepped forward pushing the door fully open. She felt along the wall until she found the switch and a small light on the end table came on, chasing away the shadows.

“There,” she said brightly. “Nice and homey.”

I glanced toward the doorway leading to Jonah's den. The light did not penetrate into the room that was far from “nice and homey.” Liza gave the parlor a brief inspection and, seemingly charmed by the rustic warmth of her grandfather's house, she approached the den. I watched
her silently as she reached around the doorway in search of a light switch. As her fingers found it, she moved confidently through the doorway and froze when the light revealed the destruction of the room. She tensed up—took
a small step backward. I placed my hand gently between her shoulder blades and guided her a few steps into the den. She resisted slightly, but moved forward nevertheless.

“This isn't good,” she said in the same tone I had used minutes before.

For the first time, she saw the room in which her grandfather had died. The scene was still horrific with broken glass, holes in the wall, and plaster dust everywhere. I tried to soften it by explaining, “The police did most of this looking for evidence.”

“I'm not talking about the mess. It's the house. I sense an evil presence.”

Her words froze me. My deep paranoia stepped forward. Was she referring to me?

“Are you being perceptive . . . or sensitive?”

She gave me a concerned look.

“Psychic,” she said.

CHAPTER 36

Liza took several steps and stopped in the center of the room. I held back, wondering if I was emanating some sort of signal—waves of guilt sensed through an emotional Geiger counter.

“What are you feeling?” I asked, not certain if I wanted to know the answer.

Her eyes were scanning the room, but she paused long enough to make brief eye contact.

“Did you ever have a feeling you weren't alone? Or that you were being watched?”

I nodded that I did.

“It's like that, but less defined. My heart is racing.”

“Then let's leave,” I said, hoping to get away from the house and back onto neutral ground where my signal was weak and I was a good person.

“There's nothing to fear,” she said, her voice hesitant—a hint of uncertainty.

“Why stay?” I tried a different tack.

“Because there are things to learn,” she said softly and took a few tentative steps forward and stopped. “I only met my grandfather once,” she explained. “I loved him, but never got to know him.” She adjusted her position and scanned the room, swinging her head in a slow arc that encompassed the holes blown into the wall. “This is where my grandfather stood when he
fired his gun.” She was in the exact spot. “But where were they?” she whispered.

They? I wanted to believe she was asking about bullets, shell casings, the police, pictures on the wall, her grandmother's earrings—anything but what my fears suspected.

“They?” I finally asked, my voice quaking with the dread of discovery.

“The ones he shot at. Where were they hiding?” She touched one of the padded chairs and walked around it.
Her fingers slid across the hole in the back cushion and
caressed the fabric until she found the exit hole on the other side. She studied the floor and her eyes went from bullet hole to bullet hole and back to the floor.

She looked at me for a long moment. “They were behind the chairs—stretched out flat.”

Her voice was barely a whisper, and her piercing eyes were accusing as if she had said, “You were behind the chairs.”

I studied her, waiting for her accusation to become vocal, but she softened and I felt that perhaps she hadn't probed into my psyche with whatever power she may have.

“You said ‘they.' How do you know there was more than one?” I finally asked.

“You can barely see it. In fact, it helps if you squint—blur your vision. Look at the floor behind the chairs.

I drew up next to her and did as she suggested and saw it immediately. The floor was still covered with a layer of dust that started with a rain of plaster, glass, furniture stuffing, and continued as the police sawed and drilled their way in search of evidence. More dust was kicked up and re-deposited as people walked through the scene. But behind the two chairs, there were two barely discernable spots with less dust where Dusty and I had cowered in fear, lying flat out on the floor.

“You can see that something—or someone, was on the floor while all this dust fell down. When they got up, they left silhouettes behind. The later dust almost blots it out, but you can still tell the difference.”

I was awed by her deductions—and scared.

She scanned the room again, pirouetting in the general direction of the kitchen when it hit me.

“Wait a minute. How did you know there were two? Before you saw the dust, you said, ‘Where are they?'”

“I did?” And she continued her inspection.

I did not move with her, but followed with my eyes as she stood in the archway to the kitchen. Her hand searched for the switch and I waited, listening for the soft click. When the florescent ceiling light sputtered to life, she surveyed the kitchen and paused.

“Someone's living here,” she said in a whisper.

She was right. Someone had eaten at the kitchen table
and had not cleared the dishes. A plate with a partially eaten sandwich, an open potato chip bag, beer bottles, and a serrated knife stuck into a jar of peanut butter cluttered the table.

“Looks like he left in a hurry,” Liza said quietly.

“How do you know it was a guy?”

“Who else would spread peanut butter with a serrated knife? Not to mention . . .” She paused and I followed her eyes to the floor. Something blue had been cut and broken into large chunks, something resembling asbestos ductwork. She stooped and picked up a piece in each hand. “These casts are huge.”

An image exploded to life in my head—Stomp trussed up in blue casts. My fingers tightened on the gun.

“Liza, we have to leave.” I grabbed her above the elbow. She resisted, her eyes fixed on the pieces of cast. “Now!”

An engine roared and a spray of gravel rattled furiously in wheel wells. Tires locked in a brief skid in the dirt and the engine roared again as spinning tires pelted the house with more gravel. We raced to the front door in time to see the taillights of my car bounce over the bridge and disappear through the trees as the Beamer sped up Jonah's lane.

“What's going on?”

It was going to take several more minutes for my heart to settle down. I blew out a breath, relieved that he was gone.

“Your evil presence just stole my car,” I said.

“You know him?”

“We've met a few times. It's a long story.”

I pulled out my cell phone and called the Fannett Meadow Police Department. I knew that Devereaux was probably at home in bed, so I simply reported that my father's car had been stolen—a brand new BMW with “Cameron 1” plates. I told him that it might have been taken by Stomp Jessup and started giving a description of him. I was cut off—it wasn't necessary. The officer at the desk asked me a few more questions and was concerned enough to ask if I needed a ride. I declined—I did not want more quality time with the police. I'd call a cab.

The good news was that Stomp had just added breaking and entering and car theft to his résumé and the police were on the hunt. The bad news was that Stomp had stumbled into my life largely by chance and error—a chance meeting in a bar, a mistaken notion that we had something to do with Stemcell's death, the incredible coincidence of Stomp landing in the same hospital room with Dusty—and now this. Devereaux had to be wondering.

“The bastard!” Liza cried suddenly. “He has my suitcases—my purse!”

“And my car,” I added.

“It's everything I have.” She ignored my comment and shook her head. “Sheesh. This just isn't my freakin' night.”

We stood silently for a moment each lost in our own separate cauldron of troubles. Finally, she looked at me. “So, how are you getting home?”

“Cab,” I said, scrolling through my address book for the number.

“Do you have a spare bedroom?” she asked.

“Several.”

As I waited for the dispatcher, I studied Liza. She walked confidently around the kitchen inspecting it—reading it, I suppose, and letting it talk to her. She looked at me and smiled gently. I gave the address and closed my cell phone. Liza was by the table distracted by the casts piled on the floor. She leaned over and picked up a chunk, studied it from all angles, and picked up another.

“I see a big nasty son-of-a-bitch from Easton,” I said, poking gentle fun at her. “Six foot three, three hundred and twenty pounds. Tattooed—a rope of braided hair hanging down his back. Leather vest, no shirt.”

“Me, too,” Liza said. I honestly didn't know if she was busting my chops or if she had really captured an image of him from somewhere. Then her nose wrinkled with a smile and she winked.

I told her about Stomp's home invasion and his brief hospital stay.

“Can you imagine,” I said, “what kind of animal he is? Yesterday, he was in traction. He's like a freakin' coyote chewing off its own foot to get out of a trap.”

“Well . . . yeah,” Liza said dismissively. I stared at her.

“Go on,” I prompted. “You saw something.”

She picked up a blue chunk “Take a look at this cast,” she said. “It was on his right arm—the one with the tattoo.”

She paused long enough for my mouth to fall open. I had never mentioned which arm was tattooed.

“Just guessing,” she said with another nose wrinkle. “Christ, you're easy.” She held the cast out to me. “But he is right handed. You can tell how unsteady he was with the serrated knife—didn't know how to go about it without cutting himself up, working with his left hand.”

She dropped that piece and selected a large tubular section that had been on his leg. “See how his technique improved once his right hand was free? That and the fact that he had a better feel about how to do it.”

“It must have hurt like hell,” I said, wincing at the thought of prying a cast off a broken arm.

“I'm thinking it didn't,” Liza said and picked up another section of leg cast. “Look at this. Once he made his cut, he wrenched it off his leg, forcing the cast open like a lobster shell. If it hurt him, he would have made another cut so it would fall off.”

“Maybe he was doped up.”

“Maybe he didn't have a broken leg.”

That thought took me by surprise. I had seen Stomp trussed up like a marionette. Could the hospital have made such a mistake?

“Why would they put a cast on a leg that wasn't broken?”

“For the same reason they put a cast on an arm that wasn't broken—as a favor.”

“I'm lost,” I admitted.

“Look, it's simple,” she said. “Stomp beats up your brother. He attacks you and ends up in the hospital. This is a small town. Your detective friend doesn't have the manpower to babysit him until they can haul his ass to jail, so he calls in a favor—the doctors dope him up, put casts all over him, and string him up. They're not detaining him—the doctors are only being cautious. But it doesn't work. Stomp unhooks himself and escapes. That must have been a picture.”

I envisioned Stomp making his way past the nurse's station looking like a busted up Herman Munster on the loose. How could they miss him?

“So what do you think?” she concluded.

“I don't know,” I said. “It seems so . . .”

She placed her hands on her hips and looked at me. “‘When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.' Sherlock Holmes.”

“It seems impossible,” I said and paused. “But then . . . ‘Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.'”

Liza looked at me curiously.

“Lewis Carroll,” I explained. “
Through the Looking Glass.
”

She gave me a nod of approval.

As we waited for the cab, I gave her a quick review of how I helped move Jonah's stuff for the auction and my walk through with Detective Devereaux. I showed her the teacup where a bullet had landed and the huge holes the police had cut out of the plastered walls to retrieve bullets. At the bottom of the stairs, I pointed to another hole, “That's where they dug Jonah's first shot out of the wall. He must have fired from there,” I said thrusting my chin toward the top landing. “Then he fell, breaking his glasses. He couldn't see much after that . . .”

I said it like I hadn't been there—as if I had learned that from the police. But I was nearing an uncomfortable part of the story where I would have to present the official police version without unconsciously weaving traces of my own involvement into the tale. Liza was sharp enough to catch the slightest nuance of phrase or tone that would place me at the scene.

The arrival of the cab interrupted my story. Liza and I climbed in and gave the driver directions to the Crow's Nest. I was relieved when she didn't ask to hear the rest of the story of Jonah's death. Maybe she didn't want to hear it.