Heavy on the Dead

by G. M. Ford

  “No,” Carolyn said. “I did not.”

  “Are you presently on administrative leave?”

  “Yes I am.”

  “Prior to going on administrative leave, were you in some way assigned to a case that was in any manner attached to that apartment?”

  Carolyn thought about it. A big part of her was inclined to tell them the truth, claim exigent circumstances, and hope for the best, maybe reduce it to a suspension rather than a firing offense, but that would surely be the end of Leo and Gabe’s unofficial witness protection program. Another, bigger part of her said they deserved better than that. So all she said was, “No. I was not.”

  “Did you have the residents’ permission to be in their domicile?”

  “No,” she said.

  Dovel and Edlund eyed each other and then stood up in unison. Edlund spoke directly to the captain. “We’ll be scheduling a disciplinary hearing for next week,” she said. “We will require that the union rep be present.” She turned Carolyn’s way. “Also, you might—Sergeant Saunders—you might consider hiring outside counsel to represent you.”

  With that, they gathered up their stuff and grimaced their way out the door.

  Nailor sat down in his upholstered chair and rocked back as far as it would go.

  “You know, Sergeant, I’m real old school. Watched a lot of departmental politics in my time, and I’m tellin’ you, this doesn’t bode well for you. It may be time to consider other employment options.”

  Without another word, Carolyn got to her feet, pushed her chair back under the table, and walked out.

  Bobby and Carlos were in good hands, so we started looking for a way back to San Diego. His name was Frank Feeney. Maybe forty. Denim everything. Tall and skinny as a fence post. Looked like his hide had turned to leather after a lifetime in the desert. He ran a small cattle ranch about thirty miles outside of Baker. A hundred head or so. He’d come into the clinic first thing in the morning to get a flu shot. He was on his way to Barstow to see his sister, who’d just had her third child.

  I can’t imagine what he must have thought of a pair of greased-up, white-faced strangers trying to hitch a ride with him as far as Barstow, but somewhere beneath the strong silent type exterior beat a good heart—something noble that said if a stranger needs help, you pitch in if you can. Almost restored my faith in humanity, he did.

  That’s how Gabe and I managed to hitch a ride out of Baker. He dropped us off at the Barstow Marine Credit Union on Main Street. What the word marine had to do with this arid little community was anybody’s guess, but if it worked for them, it worked for me. We said our goodbyes and got the hell out of the sun as quick as we could.

  You know what they say about money. How it’s not important unless you don’t have any. Well . . . we didn’t have any. No credit cards either. No ID. No nothing. All I knew was my account number from the Point Loma Credit Union and the last four digits of my Social Security number, and half a dozen phone calls later, I had a couple of grand in my hip pocket and was signing for a rental car from Enterprise.

  Three hours later, we left the rental car at the airport and took a cab back to Ocean Beach. First stop in O.B. was at the property management company to borrow a spare key to the apartment. We walked home from there, let ourselves in, and were in the process of taking inventory when a knock sounded on the security door.

  Without discussion, Gabe grabbed the chrome automatic and then flattened against the wall behind the door. I pulled it open. Kevin. I snapped the lock and pulled open the inner door.

  “Guess what,” he said.

  “What?”

  “That friend of yours—the cop lady.”

  “What about her?” I asked.

  He told us the story about breaking into the apartment.

  “They arrested her?”

  “Arrested me too.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “No idea. When they found out who she was, they let me go.”

  “Thanks, man,” I said. When he didn’t move, I said, “We got a bunch of shit to do here, Kevin. See you later. Thanks again.”

  I closed the door and hustled into the bedroom, found the bag of burner phones, and dialed her number.

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s me,” I said.

  I heard a big release of breath.

  “I was worried about you guys.”

  “You had every reason to be,” I said and told her the story.

  “What about you?” I asked when I finished.

  “I’m gonna get fired.”

  “Yeah . . . Kevin stopped by,” I said.

  “I was just about to sign up for LinkedIn,” she said.

  “We’ve got a better idea.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We’re gonna start kicking over rocks and see what slithers out.”

  “Oh . . . ,” she stuttered. “I don’t . . . I couldn’t . . .”

  “What have you got to lose?” I said quickly.

  Pin-drop silence.

  “I’m in,” she said after a moment.

  We used the keys I’d given Carolyn to let ourselves into our overpriced and ill-fated surveillance apartment and then went through it like we were expecting a terrorist attack. I don’t know about anybody else, but combat stancing my way through an empty apartment and not finding a damn thing always makes me feel like some special kind of idiot. Sadly, everything was as we’d left it, broken chair and all, except, of course, the camera and recording equipment were long gone. Gabe walked over and looked out the window.

  “Where’s all the security assholes?” Gabe asked.

  I slid in beside Gabe and looked down at the alley behind the cliff house. The alley was empty.

  “Nobody in sight,” I said. “That’s weird.”

  “Always been at least one guy out there,” Gabe added.

  “Which means what?” Carolyn prodded.

  “Maybe they all went to the movies,” I tossed in.

  Gabe wagged an angry finger at me. “You remember what Reeves said when they were trussing us up like turkeys?”

  “No bruises?”

  “Yep, but he also said that what he needed was for us to be gone until Thursday—that’s today—and how after that it wasn’t going to matter ’cause none of them were gonna be around.”

  “So whatever the hell they got going on is coming down tonight.”

  “Not here,” Carolyn added. “This is way too public.”

  Gabe and I nodded in unison. “Lemon Grove,” I said.

  “Gotta be.”

  “Sure would explain all that security out in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Then why have all the security here?” Carolyn asked.

  “Maybe we ought to go out to Lemon Grove and find out,” Gabe said.

  I looked over at Carolyn. She grinned.

  “It’s like you said, Leo. What have we got to lose?”

  Gabe pulled the shiny automatic from the holster and checked the load.

  Carolyn did the same with her piece. So as not to be left out, I checked mine too.

  As we walked around the block to get to the entrance to the alley, the wind had freshened, and the onshore flow carried water in its pockets. My cheeks were wet after half a block. As we walked, I wondered how history would describe this little scene that was about to play out. The one where the retired PI, the professional leg breaker, and the suspended cop break into the house of one of the richest women in the city and . . . and . . . what?

  Fortunately, by the time I’d thought it through that far, we’d reached the Niagara side of the alleyway. The three-story apartment building on the corner blocked the wind from the Pacific. It was suddenly much quieter and somehow far more ominous.

  We took our time, moving deliberately, expecting at every step that somebody would pop out the front door or from one of the alleys. Nobody’s hand was far from their weapon. About a third of the way there, one of the garage doors on the far side of the alley began
to rise in a series of rumbles and squeaks.

  We froze as a white Mercedes backed out of the garage, closed the door, and headed down the alley in our direction. God knows what it must have looked like to the driver. Three deer in the headlights, hands poised at their belts, looking about as furtive as humanly possible. Instinctively, we turned our faces away until the Mercedes rolled out of sight. Nothing to hide here. No sir.

  We were within camera range now. That much was for sure, and yet nobody came out of the house to confront us. Our pace got less leisurely. More of a dog trot as we neared the front door. When Gabe and Carolyn paused at the bottom of the stairs, I shouldered my way between them and gave the front door several hard raps. Nothing. Not a peep.

  I looked up at our rental apartment. The window was blank and bare. I checked all the windows facing the alley. I couldn’t swear nobody was lurking in the darkness, but, superficially at least, we seemed to have the alley to ourselves.

  I knocked again. Harder and longer this time. Still nothing.

  I leaned on the door. First with my shoulder. Then with my hip, right before I dug my feet in and gave it some serious effort. The door began to groan and pop. The minute Gabe put a shoulder into it, a ripping sound slashed through the alley like a whiplash as the door frame was torn asunder and peeled inward.

  We had another Maalox moment as we waited for an alarm to begin clanging. When it didn’t, we cringed away from the daggerlike splinters sticking out from the door frame and followed one another over the threshold into a dark entrance hall. My first thought after looking around was that all this place was missing was a suit of armor and maybe a stuffed wildebeest or two. Very stodgy, mahogany paneling, dark box ceiling, lots of heavy oak doors. Your classic haunted house.

  Carolyn headed for the nearest closet, pulled the door open, and stepped partially inside. Ten seconds passed before her head poked out.

  “The alarm system’s turned off,” she announced.

  I snapped on the hall lights.

  “Probably means they ain’t coming back,” Gabe offered.

  “Also means the only people they want to see less than us are the cops. You want the cops to show, you leave the system turned on.”

  The ocean side of the house was one large frilly front parlor looking out over the frothy Pacific Ocean. Whoever’d picked the wall art really liked flowers. A swinging door at the north end led to an industrial-strength kitchen, then a formal dining room and an office area up by the street that looked like it got a bit more use than the rest of the house. Across the hall was a rather luxurious study. Plush leather sofa, couple of Eames chairs, and a solid wood desk that looked like it must have weighed five hundred pounds. Snakelike tangles of wires said the phones and computers had been hastily removed.

  We were on our way upstairs when Carolyn noticed the six-panel door under the stairs. “Where’s this go to?” she asked as much to herself as to one of us.

  I grabbed the knob. Locked. I didn’t hesitate. Just stepped back a pace, turned my back to the door, and put a size 13 mule kick into the middle of the damn thing. It swung inward, bounced off the wall so hard it reclosed itself. I pushed it open again and peered inside. Dark as hell. Old wooden stairs going down.

  “Basement,” I announced.

  On my left a light switch was attached to the stone foundation wall. I flipped it. That’s when I saw the feet. Barely visible in the circle of light at the bottom of the stairs. A pair of brown brogans. Scuffed and unmoving.

  I grabbed the wooden rail in my right hand and started down the narrow treads. Halfway to the bottom I could make out the outline of the person wearing the shoes. When I saw another light switch, I flipped it too. And there he was. Tweed coat and all. Would have appeared to be sleeping except that his head was completely turned around backward. Maybe two hundred degrees off straight ahead. The sight stopped me in my tracks. I shivered. Carolyn bumped into my back and then Gabe into hers.

  “Heads don’t do that,” Gabe said.

  “It’s Trager,” I said. “Looks like the doc’s made his last house call.”

  I let myself wander down the last five stairs. Carolyn and Gabe spread out on the concrete floor on either side of me. The doctor’s gladstone bag was lying open on the floor, its contents fallen this way and that. Vials and needles and bandages and whatever a defrocked doctor carried around with him.

  I bent at the waist.

  “Don’t touch anything,” Carolyn hissed.

  I pulled my hand back.

  Gabe squatted and looked closely at the doctor’s neck. “Snapped his neck in two. Gotta be Reeves, showing off how strong he is.”

  Carolyn piped in. “Getting rid of Trager was not the worst idea they ever had either. He was definitely the weak link.”

  We turned off the lights as we made our way upstairs and closed the basement door. The central staircase was wide enough for the three of us to climb abreast of one another. Three doors on either side of the hall and another at the far end.

  We moved down the hall, checking the rooms as we came to them. Each side of the carpeted corridor had two bedrooms with a shared bathroom between. All of them were dusty and empty and smelling like nobody’d opened a window in years.

  The door at the far end was locked but not for long. I mule kicked it open on the first try. The minute the door blew open, all three of us froze in our tracks. Flowers everywhere. The wallpaper, the curtains, the bedspread, the weave of the carpet. Flowers. And yet that’s not what drew our eyes. What commanded our attention was the full-size freezer whirring away at the foot of the empty bed. I nearly burst out laughing.

  “Gotta be,” Gabe said with a cynical remnant of a smile.

  “Yeah,” I said. “That would explain a lot of things.”

  “You think . . . ?” Carolyn asked.

  “Have a look,” Gabe suggested.

  We stayed where we were as Carolyn crossed the room and stood for a moment staring down at the freezer. For the second time today, it occurred to me that this whole thing had a horror-movie quality to it. I imagined some scaly hand coming out of the frozen mist, grabbing her by the throat and then pulling her inside.

  Carolyn reached down and flicked the chrome latch, then used both hands to pry the iced-up lid open. A cloud of frozen vapor rose from the freezer. Carolyn swooshed it away from her face, waited for the cloud to clear, and bent her head toward the interior.

  She immediately recoiled. She looked over at the two of us with hard eyes, then gestured with her head that maybe we should bring ourselves over there.

  “Jesus,” she breathed. “They didn’t even wrap her up or anything.”

  As I’d never met, nor so much as seen a picture of, Mrs. Haller, I could only assume that the old lady lying there in the fetal position was her. The only thing I was sure of was that whoever was lying there scrunched up was the poster child for freezer burn. The body itself was iced over solid. Looked like it had been in there for eons. Nearly petrified at this point. Like those steaks I would occasionally lose in the family freezer and find years later looking like old wooden shingles. Only the frosty, medium-length gray hair and the brightly flowered dressing gown said it was an older woman. The rest of it was nearly unrecognizable.

  “We’ve gotta call this in,” Carolyn said.

  “No hurry. She and the doc ain’t goin’ anywhere,” Gabe muttered.

  “Forensics has to—”

  “Let’s check the rest of the place first,” I suggested.

  I wiped the handle and the top of the freezer clean of prints and closed it, and we carefully closed the broken door behind us, as if to leave her in icy peace.

  Took us a few tries to figure out how to get into the sheds on either side of the house. At either end of the front parlor, doors I had assumed to be closets opened out into the alleys between buildings and thus into the sheds. Funny thing was, they were completely empty. Not a net or a buoy or anything vaguely nautically related. Even the floors were swept cle
an.

  “So where’s all that fishing stuff they supposedly been bringing across the border?” I asked. “Twenty loads or so. That’s a big pile of stuff we’re talking about. These things ought to be full up to the rafters.”

  “Charity said the only parts of the Haller trust that hadn’t been sold off in the past year and a half were this property here and the one out in Lemon Grove, which, if we’re to believe Mrs. Haller’s son, they don’t have clear title to, because his trust fund says he gets a share.”

  We let ourselves back into the front parlor and then followed the wide hall back to the front of the house.

  “They left in a big damn hurry,” Gabe noted as we walked by the study and what must have been an office for the second time. Things had literally been ripped from the walls. Drawers had been hastily emptied. Wastebaskets overturned. Nothing personal anywhere.

  “Social services was coming tomorrow on an elder abuse complaint,” Carolyn said. “Friday morning at ten thirty.”

  “How do you know that?” I asked.

  “Because I’m the one who filed the complaint, and because I spoke with them on the phone. You know, trying to hurry their asses up. They were showing up with their own doctor and a court order allowing them to see Mrs. Haller in person. They’d already notified Pemberton. He wasn’t a bit happy about it.”

  “So the party was over,” Gabe said. “Whatever the hell it is they got going on is over the minute social services gets here on Friday.”

  “If Charity’s right, they been selling things off for quite a while now. I’m thinkin’ maybe we just accelerated their schedule all of a sudden.”

  “What about the dead kid?” I asked. “Remember him? Isn’t that how this whole thing started?”

  “What about Pope and Greenway? Who offed them?” Gabe asked. “Eagen said somebody popped John Henry Marshall yesterday. Who did that? All we really got is that Reeves works for both places and could probably, with a little help, get that kid’s body to the spot where it was found, and that whatever scam these people are running makes them real paranoid about people stickin’ their noses into their business. Other than the fact that they’re a bunch of murderous bastards, we don’t know one damn thing for sure.