Don't Slay the Dragon (The Chronicles of Elizabeth Marshall Book 1) (13 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four

Stomping out of the building more than an hour later, I fought to keep my temper in check.  Dr. Ross could be so infuriating.  The “debriefing” felt less like a discussion and more like an interrogation.  I felt as though I had just spent the last hour on the witness stand with seven annoying lawyers throwing questions at me one after the other.  The four residents and two med students were endless with their curiosity bested only by Dr. Ross and his avid interest. 

Dr.
Ross refused to believe that I had never dealt with Slayer before.  He pushed and pushed, expecting me to pull out some distant memory of an encounter I’d had with him.  Finally, he gave up and began furiously typing notes into his computer, grumbling to himself as he typed.

I was more concerned with what Slayer said than the fact that I had met another member of the family.  What did he mean by “find the Black Dragon with the red glowing eyes” and “this is where she hides”?

The entire drive back I thought through my brief encounter with Slayer and what had prompted his appearance.  It seemed as though something had happened the night of the séance, something that may have caused the split creating Slayer.  What did he mean by “the Dragon was born that night”?  I’d always thought the “Dragon” was just a nickname Lisbeth called her mother when she was angry.  Could it mean something more?

Was he the one who had written the second page of the note?  Was he trying to tell me something?

I was grateful Dr. Ross hadn’t caught on to the importance of that Halloween night, although I’m sure he would eventually.  He seemed more likely to spend hours pouring over the footage and analyzing every word and expression. 

I tried to think back to which Halloween that was and how old we were.  It had to have been during the year we were in separate schools.  I must have been about fourteen, Lisbeth fifteen.  What had happened that night?

It wasn’t until I was taking the freeway exit for my apartment that it hi
t me. 

“Find the Black Dragon with the red glowing eyes”.
 

I took the exit but back-tracked south for several miles on a busy city street.  I wound my way through the outskirts of a few small towns, heading towards
the memories of my childhood.

The area had grown a great deal since I’d been here last.  Streets had been widened, new businesses and restaurants dotted every corner.  It was all bright and bold with car dealerships and shiny new cars glittering under the city lights.  Winter was nearing and the days were growing shorter
now, making it feel later than it was.

Just a block away from the bright lights
of the businesses, I turned off a side street and was in a residential area.  The houses were older, dating back to the days of large brick homes and spacious yards.  Another turn and I was in a small, aging trailer court.  I drove down to the third street and automatically stopped before the second trailer on the left.

From my car I could see the turquoise blue trim on the white and silver trailer, the wooden steps leading up to the front and back doors.  There was a white lattice trim around the bottom of the trailer,
and a cracked cement sidewalk leading up to the steps.  Yellow police tape still trailed around the yard in places, tattered and flowing in the slight breeze.

I stepped from my car and slowly walked up the sidewalk, memories assailing me from every direction.  I thought of all the summer nights, sleeping out under the stars in sleeping bags on lawn chairs
in the small yard.  Sunny days with blankets spread on the grass, sketching pictures and creating fantasy worlds.  Meals shared at the tiny kitchen table….

The
narrow metal door loomed before me.  Drawing closer, I realized that the windows were boarded up and additional locks had been put on the doors, protecting the crime scene.  The photograph Mark Jacobs had shown me flashed into my mind, reminding me of what was waiting on the other side of that door.  As much as I resisted the idea, I had to get inside to take a look around.  Maybe there was something there, some sign.

“Go away!  Shoo!”  The elderly voice made me jump and turn towards the tr
ailer next door.  A tiny figure wrapped in a thick sweater twice her size came charging around the corner.  “Get away from here!  This isn’t some side show.  Leave or I’ll call the police!”

“Mrs. Robins?”  I peered through the dark night, hoping I recognized the voice correctly. 

“Do I know you?”  She halted in her tracks a few feet away and adjusted her thick glasses on her nose. She didn’t even come to my shoulder. Her back was hunched over and bent and her silver-white hair was done up in rollers.

“It’s Caitlyn, do you remember me?  I used to be friends with Elizabeth.”  She leaned a bit closer, looking me up and down, searching for signs of familiarity.
 

“You mean that blond little wisp of a girl always trailing along with Elizabeth?” 
I smiled at her description of me and nodded. She let out a grunt in reply.

“Well,
I guess it’s been a lot of years. There’s not much to see here,” she seemed to warm up a bit but was still cautious.  She looked about at the dark, empty trailer then back to her own home next door. “Everything is locked up right tight.  We get an occasional group of teenagers come by and gawk now and then, but I usually chase them off.”

She’d always been a nosy little thing.  She hadn’t seemed to age a day, still looked like she was in her sixties, although she had to be a good twenty years older
by now. 

“Were you the one to call the police the night it happened?”  I decided to ask. 

She nodded sadly.  Her thin shoulders hunched into the sweater against the breeze.

“I heard them arguing.
  I knew Barbara had invited Elizabeth over for dinner.  She’d told me so herself that very day.  The trailers are so close, you know. We used to chat now and again. She told me how worried she was about her daughter, that she didn’t think Elizabeth was taking very good care of herself. She thought a nice, home-cooked meal would help.”

I looked at the distance between the two trailers
.  Less than twenty feet separated the two.  I could see where a neighbor would be able to see much of went on over here. 

“I heard Elizabeth slam out the door when she left
and watched her car drive away.  I thought it was just another one of their arguments.”  She gave a deep sigh and shrugged her shoulders.  “I went to bed and didn’t think much of it,” her voice quieted to a whisper, “but Barbara never turned her lights off and went to bed.  Her lights shine in to my bedroom window and she never stays up past eleven. She never turned out her lights.”

She left the rest unsaid
, shaking her head in sorrow.  When the lights stayed on next door she probably called or went to investigate.  Coming across the crime scene must have been quite a shock.  She must have called the police right after that.

“Well,
my dancing show is on and I have to see who’s getting booted off tonight.”  She started shuffling back around the corner.  “Don’t stick around too long, it’s not safe around here these days.”

“Thanks for talking to me, Mrs. Robins,” I called after her.  She waved back and kept going.

Looking back at the dark trailer, I again measured the difficulty of getting inside.  I couldn’t break in, especially with Mrs. Robins so close.  The locks seemed secure and the windows boarded tightly.  There had to be a way to get in to look around.

Finally ready to give up, I walked back to my car just as my cell phone rang.  Looking at the caller ID I gave a relieved smile.

“Hi, Logan.  I have a really big favor to ask.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Logan agreed to meet me back at the trailer the next day.  It was Friday and my class schedule was the lightest.  He thought it would be best to search the trailer during the day, better light and less suspicious to the neighbors.  I agreed.

When he got out of his
red Dodge Charger I noticed that he had his weapon and badge displayed prominently.  That way, Mrs. Robins or any other neighbors wouldn’t question our presence here.  He had on a navy dress shirt that was open at the collar and a pair of dark gray dress pants. His dark hair was slicked back as though he’d just gotten out of the shower and I had to admit, the welcome grin he gave me sent butterflies fluttering through my stomach.

“You don’t know how much I appreciate this,” I began as he approached.

“Sure,” he shrugged modestly, “who knows, maybe we’ll find something that was missed before.”

He handed me a pair of latex gloves and I put them on as we walked up the sidewalk.  He had gone over the dos and don’ts of returning to a crime scene on the phone last night.  I think I had down the basics.  At the door he handed me some plastic booties like surgeons wore in surgery.  I slipped them on over my brown leather boots as he did the same then
pulled out an evidence envelope with a tagged set of keys.

“Are you ready for this?”  He paused to ask me before he
unlocked the door.

I took a deep breath and nodded.  I was almost grateful now that Mark Jacobs had shown me the crime scene pictures before I had the chance to see it all myself.
At least it had somewhat prepared me for what I might find on the other side of that thin metal door.

The door creaked open on rusty hinges and
Logan stepped inside before me.  There were just slivers of sunlight through the cracks in the boards over the windows.  Logan had a flashlight ready and handed me a spare one, not knowing for sure if the small trailer still had any electricity.  I was grateful he thought ahead. 

I was prepared for blood and carnage but was surprised to see only some dark brown stains on one kitchen chair and a larger stain on the floor.  There were dots and flecks of the dark brown on the table legs and table top, but somehow, without the body present,
it didn’t seem as threatening. There were black, sooty smudges where the crime unit must have used fingerprint dust. They smeared across the table and chairs.

It looked as though there had probably been two place settings at the small metal table as well as pots and pans for the meal. Most of that had probably either been taken into evidence or removed because of the food spoiling.

Other than that, it almost seemed like a normal home. A few things were probably moved aside during the investigation, but for the most part, it could have been a place where any two people had sat down to share a meal. 

We were careful not to step anywhere near the bloodstains to keep from contaminating the area, but in such a closed space, it was difficult.  I walked through the small front room, still decorated much as it had
been during my youth.  A new pillow here or there, but still much the same. 

I headed towards the front of the trailer to where Lisbeth’s room used to be.  This had changed.  It was now a small office area with an older computer on a wooden desk. 
The bed was gone and it was now carpeted in a pale pink.  There was a bookshelf against one wall with books and martial arts awards filling it.

I rifled through the various books and searched around the trophies, careful not to move anything too much out of place.  A few of the books I opened up and thumbed through, seeing if there were any papers or notes hidden in the pages. 
Nothing.  I remembered a few of the books were ones Lisbeth and I had enjoyed and shared in our youth. Most were worn paperback classics, tattered at the edges from so much use.

Turning towards the computer, I wondered if anyone had ever turned it on to see if there was any important information on it. 
It certainly looked outdated and I wasn’t sure if it even still worked. It was something to ask Logan about.

There was a small jewelry box on a shelf filled with shiny crystals, smooth stones and charms.  Nothing in it really drew my attention or recalled a memory.  The walls were wall-papered in a generic
floral print, flowers too big and pink for such a small room.  A few small pictures were framed on the walls.  Surprisingly they were pencil sketches and pen and ink drawings of Lisbeth’s fairies. 

“Anything of interest?”
  Logan appeared in the doorway.

“Not really,” I glanced up then went back to searching through the bookshelves.  “Have you found anything?”

“I’m not really sure what I’m looking for,” he gave a slight shrug.

“Did anyone check out the computer?”  I asked, pointing to it.

“Not that I remember reading in the file.”

“Can we give it a try?”  I walked over and sat in the narrow office
chair.  “I’m no computer geek but we might be able to figure it out.”

He nodded and pushed the power button. 
At least it turned on.  Someone, perhaps the landlord, was still paying the power bill. 

We watched as the screen blinked and the hard drive began to purr.  It booted up, went past the operating system screen then stopped, requesting a password.  In unison, we both started looking around the desk and through the one desk drawer, looking for anything that might be a password.  The drawer was filled with
bill stubs and receipts, nothing of interest there.  The entire area was well organized and tidy.  There were no sticky notes with words written on them, no notebooks with a password written in the corner.  We spent several minutes searching but still came up with nothing.

I tried a few obvious words.  Barbara.
Barb.  Elizabeth.  Lisbeth.  Marshall.  Lizzy.  Beth Ann.  Bethany. Everyone of the family I could remember including Vesper and Slayer.  Nothing worked.  I tried Dragon, Black Dragon, Fairies, anything I could think of and every variation.  I tried birthdates and holidays.  Still nothing.

“Why wasn’t the computer checked during the investigation?”  I asked, staring at the screen in frustration.

“We really didn’t see the need.  It seemed like an open and shut case.”

“Probably a dead end anyway.”  I shut the computer off and turned in the chair.  “Let’s keep looking through the rest of the trailer.”

We walked back into the living room area.  There wasn’t much to search there.  It had one worn loveseat and a chair, and ancient TV and a few TV trays.  It hadn’t changed much.  A few feet more and I was already back in the kitchen area, avoiding the bloodstains and searching through the narrow kitchen cabinets.  Most of the perishable food must have been removed.  All that was left were a few boxes of crackers and some cooking spices.  I didn’t want to spend any more time in this area than necessary so I moved on.

There was a slender hall working back from the kitchen. 
It was lined in cheap wooden paneling and closed in enough to make you feel claustrophobic.  The first door off to the right was the bathroom.  The toilet, vanity and tub were all in a matching dusky pink and close enough to touch each other.  What little space was left was filled with toiletries storage, a clothes hamper, and a small bookshelf filled with paperbacks.  I rifled through the science fiction novels as I had the other books, still finding nothing.  It really didn’t seem like there was anything to find here.

Along the way
Logan was always there.  He was experienced at searching and carefully thorough without disturbing things more than necessary.

Next
I went out into the hall and headed back towards the last room in the trailer.  Barbara’s room was the one area I was least familiar with.  I walked into the cramped room, Logan close behind.  It was surprisingly neat considering she hadn’t expected it to stay frozen in time like this.  There were colorful scarves draped from the light fixture in the center of the room.  The bed was covered with bright throws and pillows, mostly favoring dark reds and deep greens. 

There was a compact white dresser with clothes carefully folded and a small closet with sliding doors and clothes hung in spaced increments. 
There was nothing of real interest except for two pictures hanging on the walls. 

One was above the bed and covered a good portion on the wall space.  I recognized Barbara’s artistic style in the oil painting of a vivid red dragon.  It had sharp black claws and bright green slanted eyes.  It wore a wicked, toothy smile as it looked down on a fair maiden.  She had long, dark hair and wore a flowing burgundy dress.  She seemed to be trying to charm it.  It may not have been good enough to be in a museum, but it was unique and detailed.
  It was framed in a heavy, dark wooden frame.

The other picture hung on an adjoining wall.  It wasn’t as big but this dragon was jewel green with golden scales, claws and a horned tail.  It was in a forest, flanked by trees and the only object in the picture. 

“I thought this room was really unusual when we first went through the crime scene,” Logan spoke behind me.  I had to admit, he was right.  My own mother’s bedroom would never have looked anything like this.  Something about the red dragon gnawed at me.

“Find the Black Dragon with the red glowing eyes,” I said aloud. 
“Black dragon, not red.”  An idea occurred to me.  “Logan, can you help me?”

I walked around the bed and grasped the thick frame,
Logan followed suit and took the other side.  We carefully laid it face-down on the bed.  The back was covered in generic brown paper.  I searched the surface, wondering if there were any clues.  Nothing.  Just a smooth surface of brown paper.  We hefted it back up and put it on the hook then I turned to the other picture.

It was small enough for me to lift and put face down on the bed by myself.  Same brown paper, same blank surface.  I sighed in frus
tration.

“Well, It was worth a shot,” I shrugged and placed it back on the wall.

We both took another cursory sweep of the room.  Under the bed were old shoeboxes, lids missing and various worn shoes inside.  I looked behind the dresser and headboard but found nothing unusual.  Turning to the closet I looked at several storage bins on the shelf over the hanging clothes.  I pulled them down one by one and nudged through them.  They were full of scarves and clothing accessories, belts, and chunky jewelry. 

“I can’t think of anywhere else to look,” I
admitted as I ran a gloved hand down the turquoise satin sleeve of a dress hanging in the closet.  A pleasant memory tugged at my mind. 

It was a Saturday morning and I had just spent the night.  Barbara and Lisbeth were dressing to go to a medieval festival.  I was feeling bad because my parents wouldn’t let m
e go so Mother and daughter had decided to pull out all of their costumes and have a dress up party.   I’d tried on several but the turquoise one was my favorite.  It had long, slashed sleeved that draped to the floor and a silver under-dress.  The neckline was square with a fitted bodice trimmed in silver braid.  It had a matching silver woven belt that trailed to the floor along with the long flowing skirt. The colors really brought out my blue eyes.

Barbara had
braided my hair away from my face with the length of it flowing down my back.  Lisbeth had found a bright silver scarf to pin into it, almost like a crown. I had felt like a royal princess. I felt like Maid Marion waiting for Robin Hood or Queen Guinevere about to be introduced to her King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. It had been a magical memory that I had treasured yet hid away.  

I couldn’t resist pulling the dress out and looking at it again. 
I ran a finger town the length of one satin sleeve, wishing I could feel the smooth softness through the latex glove. It was hand-made and carefully stitched with delicate silver thread embroidered into the corset.  This wasn’t the kind of dress you could just go buy in a store.  It was magical somehow.

Looking up, I noticed
Logan watching me with a sideways smile.  He must have wondered what I found so fascinating about the dress.  The moment of nostalgia was gone and I snapped back into the present. I shrugged and carefully hung it back up in the closet, putting it back with the other tucked away memories of my youth.