Fatal Storm (7 page)

Sheila was speechless. She had to be dreaming
or she stumbled into a Shakespearean play. She might have been
attracted to the man in a turn of the century sort of way. His hair
was long and touched the collar of his white shirt. His suit coat
had tails, like something a groom would wear to a wedding. The face
was attractive enough, but the eyes exuded a danger bordering on
curiosity and threat.

She straightened her back and glared at him.
“Who are you and how did I get here? I demand you take me home
immediately.”

The man smiled slowly then threw back his
head and laughed. “Wouldn't that we all would like to go home.” He
bowed his head slightly and said, “I am Adrian Walker, madam. And
who might you be?”

“Sheila Monroe. I am a reporter with
the
Daily Herald
.”

“Ahhh. A newspaper. I have always wanted to
tell someone my life story.” He motioned to the couch. “Sit.
Please.”

Sheila remained standing. “I want answers.
Where am I and how did I get here?”

“And you will get your answers, in good
stead.”

Who talks this way anymore? Sheila wondered.
As a matter of fact, who even dresses like that anymore?

“Let's start with how I got here.” Sheila
slowly sat down, afraid any fast motions would set the room
spinning again. She moved back against the cushions and folded her
arms across her chest.

“You literally fell into my lap.” He lowered
himself onto the couch and crossed his legs, taking time to
straighten the crease in his slacks. He moved with the elegance of
an aristocrat and even spoke with an accent she couldn't quite
detect. “Bumped your head when you fell.”

Sheila touched her forehead and then the back
of her head which were still tender to the touch. “I could have a
concussion. I should have gone to the hospital and had X-rays.
Besides, I may have fallen, but I certainly didn't walk to whatever
town I'm in. I will ask again. Where am I?”

“Dawson's Corner,” he replied simply as
though he should have added, “where else?”

“Is that in Indiana?”

“Of course. Now my turn.”

“I wasn't aware we were playing a game.”

When he smiled his eyes appeared even darker
and more mysterious. “I love games. It sometimes gets very boring
in this,” his eyes took on an edge of delight, “town.” He pulled an
object from his pocket and held it up. “Please tell me what this
gadget is.”

Sheila took it from him and almost squealed
with relief. “It's a cell phone.” But it wasn’t hers. She pushed
the power button but the screen said service was unavailable.

“A phone you carry in your pocket?
Interesting.”

“What's interesting is that you sound as
though you have never seen a cell phone before.”

“There are a lot of things we've missed out
on living in isolation the way we do. How does it work?”

“Mainly you need a cell phone tower nearby to
get reception, but don't ask me for specifics. All I know is I push
a button and I can talk to anyone anywhere in the world.”

Adrian took the phone back and studied it.
“Anywhere in the world? How utterly delightful.”

“My phone even has Internet connection so I
can check Emails, download music, books, photos.”

“Music? Books?” He studied the size of the
phone, turning it over in his hand. “How does one get a book out of
a tiny thing like this?”

Now Sheila knew where she had heard his
accent. It was somewhat British with a little gothic vampire tossed
in for good measure, sprinkled with some
Pride and Prejudice
. Was Sheila dreaming? She
pinched a fold of skin between her thumb and index finger and
winced as her nails dug in. “You don't know what the Internet is,
do you?”

His gaze shifted from her to the phone and
back to her. “Afraid I'm not too familiar with a lot of new
technology.”

Sheila looked around the room at the
expensive paintings and furniture. “Yet you don't appear to be
without.”

Adrian followed her gaze and dipped his head
in agreement. “Most of it wasn't mine. Guess you can say I borrowed
them piece by piece.”

Sheila straightened her back and gave a
haughty look down her nose, something she had learned from her
father. “If it’s a ransom you want, my father is rich and will pay
any amount of money.”

Adrian threw back his head again and laughed,
thoroughly enjoying himself. “Money is of no use to me.”

Sheila felt deflated and for a second
wondered where the child’s mother was and if Adrian had set up some
type of commune with scores of women upstairs popping out babies
every year. For some reason the phrase, “come into my parlor said
the spider to the fly” ran through her head.

“Then what is it you want?” Sheila demanded
as she scrambled her addled brain to remember her self defense
classes.

He turned the cell phone over in his hand and
then settled his gaze on Sheila. “I want to learn about these and
any other technology I have missed out on.”

“Okay, let's have it.” Padre sidled over to
the examining table. Luther had just finished suturing the body of
John Doe.

“The victim is in his early thirties,
sixty-nine inches tall, and one hundred and seventy pounds. He was
in relatively good health, had recently consumed approximately
three cups of coffee, scrambled eggs and a cinnamon roll, but
whether he had any drugs or alcohol in his system we won't know
until we get the tox screen back. Should have some good
fingerprints to process. He was strangled with the scarf but it was
a slow death. If his hands hadn't been bound he would have been
able to get the scarf off, in my opinion. At least, if it were me I
would have attempted to tear the thing off.”

“So death is ruled a homicide,” Padre wrote,
“as though there were any doubt.” He bent down for a closer look at
the tattoo. “Any other scars or markings?”

“As I mentioned previously, the tattoo was no
more than two days old. There was a vaccination on the upper left
arm. He might have been overseas at some point in his life. With
any luck, he might be ex-military so we might be able to I.D. him
pretty quickly.”

“No gang markings?”

“No prison tats either. Hands aren't
calloused so he probably worked a desk job. How many names are on
your missing persons' log?”

“In Cedar Point, about twenty-four over the
past year but this guy could be from anywhere. I'll start with home
grown missing persons and then expand it to the surrounding states.
Find anything else on him?”

“If you were looking for money or a passport
stuffed in a sock you are out of luck.”

Padre walked over to a side table where John
Doe's clothes were laid out. There was a blue checkered shirt,
crisp new denim jeans marred with mud and grass stains, and a
simple gold wedding band. “No engraving on the ring. That narrows
the search to those that were married.”

Luther looked up from the examining table.
“Some divorced people refuse to take off their rings. Same for
widows and widowers.”

“Good point.”

“What did your people find out by the
mansion?”

“Not a thing. No clue as to whether or not
the deceased was in the mansion. No abandoned cars anywhere in the
area. No sign of Sheila Monroe anywhere either. I don’t suppose you
got fingerprints off of that scarf.”

“Yeah, right. We'll get those TV CSI folks on
that right away.” Luther stripped out of his apron and gloves and
motioned Padre out of the room. “Let's assume Miss Monroe wasn't
involved in the murder, even though the scarf was tied in a very
feminine bow. Does the M.O. sound like anything you had heard of
before?”

“Other than the suggestion it was the Boston
Strangler?” Padre said with a laugh. “I've got my guys checking
into it.”

“What about those ghost hunters? Any of them
have skeletons in their closets?” Luther flashed a smile. “No pun
intended.”

“So far, no, but we aren't done turning them
inside out yet.”

Luther scribbled his name on the bottom of a
report, ran the pages through a copier, and handed one copy to
Padre. “Keep me posted.”

Dagger turned the key fob over in his hand
then played with the switch. “Not bad. And how do I keep from
accidentally flicking the damn thing on and shooting my nuts
off?”

Skizzy narrowed his eyes at him and drawled,
“Now that would be pretty hard seeing that you'd need a large
enough target.”

Sara stifled a smile as their squirrely
friend remained stoic.

“It does have a safety if you’d spend more
time inspecting my hard work.”

Dagger glared at Skizzy over the top of the
key fob. “And here we didn't think you had a sense of humor.” He
pocketed the fob and motioned with his fingers in a gimme gesture.
“What did you find out?”

“Yeah, yeah. Hold your britches.” Strands of
graying hair were wrestling their way free from Skizzy's ponytail.
Skizzy's mode of dress consisted of a tee shirt and camouflage
pants. No one knew for sure if Skizzy still had fifty-two cards in
his mental deck, whether his head was still scrambled from Viet Nam
or being a recluse made him suspicious of everything and everyone
except for a select few. Skizzy was a paranoid schizophrenic and
believed Big Brother was keeping tabs on him, that the powers that
be have inserted tracking chips in every baby born and anyone who
had ever been in the hospital in the past five years. And when it
was recently discovered that Dagger had a chip in his neck, that
confirmed all of Skizzy's suspicions.

Sara roamed the pawn shop, wondering why
people would part with heirlooms, gold watches, pocket knives, and
other gems that were nothing more than garage sale items. She poked
at what looked like a turtle shell, expecting something to pop out
from underneath.

Skizzy emerged from the back room and set
several sheets of paper on the counter.

“What is this, Skizzy?” Sara asked. “It looks
like a turtle shell.”

Skizzy gave a quick glance at where she was
pointing. “It's a turtle shell.”

“Why on earth would you give anyone money for
a turtle shell?”

“Knowing Skizzy,” Dagger said, “it's probably
a listening device or a weapon of some sort.”

Sara moved away from the shell and joined
Dagger at the counter where he was skimming Skizzy’s brief report.
“That’s all?” Sara asked.

“The dick who worked the case is now retired
and I didn't find any forwarding address for him. At least he isn't
living in Cedar Point,” Skizzy reported.

“But I bet you traced his Social Security
number.” Dagger scanned the pages.

Skizzy eyed him with a smile. His eyes
wobbled as though barely tethered to his body and they rarely
looked in the same direction. “I was able to find out where his
Social Security checks are mailed.” He handed Dagger a slip of
paper with a postal box address in Arkansas.

“That doesn't sound promising. With a postal
box, that tells me he travels a lot and his mail gets forwarded. I
don't suppose…”

“Found his son in Austin, Texas. Your retired
cop probably spends the winters in Texas.” Skizzy handed another
piece of paper to Dagger. “I’m surprised you aren’t out looking for
your missing ex-fiancee.”

“Sheila?” Dagger was surprised he hadn’t
heard anything in the news seeing how connected Sheila’s father
was.

“Heard it on the police scanner. Don’t know
why you don’t keep yours on.”

“He hasn’t turned it on since we returned
from Nebraska,” Sara confessed. “You would think our house was a
monastery with the silence he has insisted.”

“You make it sound like I commanded
it.” But Dagger wasn’t thinking about his mood or the police
scanner. He was thinking about how Sara just referred to her house
as
our
house. “So what’s this
about Sheila?”

“All I learned from the police scanner is
that she was last seen at some mansion outside of town with a group
of ghost hunters. They didn’t find her but they found another body
on the property. Obviously the rich have pull because not only were
our boys in blue dispatched to the scene, but Daddy Warbucks has
also demanded the National Guard and search dogs.”

Padre was eating a fast food hamburger at
nine o'clock at night as he watched the forensics crew examine
Sheila's Jaguar in the precinct garage. Detective Joe Spagnola
strolled over, hands in his pockets, and stopped at the railing
next to Padre.

“Anything?” Joe asked. His suit would
have cost Padre one week’s pay. And his shirt had Joe's initials
monogrammed on the cuff. Although Joe always had excellent taste in
clothes, Padre was sure Sheila had picked out the shirt and tie.
Rumors had been floating for years that Joe was on the take, but
they were always lacking proof. Padre knew Joe didn't gamble, had
little regard for lawbreakers so it was doubtful Joe would do
anything illegal. Joe wasn't unlike a lot of cops who became
detectives and vied to dress the part. Joe was single, didn't have
normal expenses like Padre who had a wife who was always
redecorating and boys who were active in school sports. It was no
wonder the cuffs on Padre's shirts and pants were frayed. He was a
poor man’s
Columbo
.

“Not a clue. It's a real puzzle. Leyton is
trying to hire an entire kennel of cadaver-sniffing dogs for
tomorrow. The mayor is half up the police chief's ass who has his
shoe up Chief Wozniak’s ass who has his boot on my neck.”

“Who can blame him? Sheila's his only
child.”

“An only child who is a spoiled brat. When
she was twelve she ran away from home because her father wouldn't
buy her a pony. What did he refuse to buy her this time?”