She switched on a lamp. Warm light oozed into the room. It was tastefully furnished with a couch, coffee table, chair and end table. A kitchen table and chair sat next to the wall. The kitchenette was small. One door led to her bedroom, the other indicated the bathroom.
Lucy read his thoughts. “It came fully furnished.” She put her bag down on the coffee table and stared at Gordon. “Where’ve you been, Ace? You don’t look so good.”
Gordon straightened his already straight tie. “Hiding. Running. Trying to figure out what to do next.” He plopped down into the chair. “Lucy, I heard a man get shot tonight.”
“I know. I heard.”
Gordon looked up at her sharply. “How?”
She eased down onto the couch and slipped off her shoes. “Word filtered down to the darkroom when I was developing those pictures. It was Kingsbury, right?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I didn’t do it. You gotta believe me.”
“I do. What happened?”
“I was talking with him and he was about to tell me more of the story when some toughs broke in the back door. Kingsbury went to confront them and got himself shot. I’m guessing he didn’t make it.”
She shook her head. “The police came around the newsroom looking for you. They called you a person of interest but I’m guessing they were going to haul you in.”
“That’s why I’ve kept away from the newsroom and my house. I figured they’re both being watched. I’ve been here for two hours, in case someone was following you.”
She arched an eyebrow. “So you led them here?” A mischievous grin etched her mouth.
“Don’t think so. I stashed my car over at Grand Central. I caught a cab, then two more. I had no way to contact my friend, the private eye, so I thought the next best place was to come here.”
“To a single lady’s apartment. What will the neighbors think?”
“You know your neighbors?”
“Nope.”
“Then you don’t care.”
“Pretty much.” She leaned over and grabbed the bag. “But I’ve got something you need to see.” She patted the spot on the couch next to her. “C’mon, let me show you.”
He slipped next to her. His nose picked up a stronger sense of her, primarily her perfume. For a moment, his head swam. Gordon had the presence of mind to acknowledge how good she still looked at midnight. He refocused as she opened the bag.
Lucy pulled out a sheaf of file folders. She placed them on the coffee table and opened one. Inside were black-and-white photographs.
He picked one up. “Is this Montgomery County? Can’t believe that was earlier today. Seems like last week.”
“Long days can do that to you.” She started flipping through them until she found the one she wanted. “Look at this one.”
Gordon held the photograph in his hands. It showed the road heading up over the rise, the dense woods on both sides, and their shadows on the ground. “Okay, I’m looking. What am I supposed to be seeing?”
She leaned in, pointing at something on the right of the photograph. “That. What does that look like to you?”
He narrowed his eyes, peering closer. What she indicated looked regular and orderly. “It looks like some sort of shadow or branch roughly in the shape of a triangle.”
Riffling through her other photographs, she produced another and handed it to him. “I thought so, too, so I enlarged it. Here. Now tell me what you see.”
In the second image, the triangle filled the page. With the higher resolution, the triangle took on a more obvious look. It appeared less natural and more man-made, especially with all the environment surrounding it.
“I’m seeing what appears to be not a branch or a shadow but a what?” He held both the enlarged photo and the original in front of him, comparing them both. Once he saw the dark triangle, he couldn’t miss it. “Wait a minute,” he muttered, looking at the original. “What’s this?” He ran his finger in a half-circle over part of the picture above the shadowy triangle.
“C’mon, Ace, do I have to do your work for you?” Lucy kidded. “Forget what you’re seeing and just tell me what you think it looks like.”
He frowned, the words not exactly coming easily. “I’m seeing an arch, an arch in the woods. But we didn’t see it when we were there.”
“Because we weren’t supposed to see it. No one was ever supposed to see it. Don’t you get it? It’s camouflaged.”
“What’s camouflaged?”
“I did some measurements of this original to try to get a sense of the size of this arch. Based on my calculations, it’s about eight feet tall and about six feet wide.”
“Holy cow, that’s huge. Why that’s big enough to…” He paused, mouth opening wide, looking at her.
Almost in unison, they said, “To drive a car through.”
Gordon put both pictures down, side by side, on the table. His mind raced with the possibilities. He stood and started pacing. Every now and then he glanced back at the picture.
“It’s like those kinds of optical illusions that you can’t see until someone shows you what to look at and then you can’t not see it. No wonder Tompkins thought he saw a car disappear. To his mind, he really did.”
Lucy stood. “But that’s silly. If I see a car disappear into the woods, I’m going to investigate.”
“I know, and that’s probably what Victor did. But someone tried to scare him away by shooting at his car. They missed and actually ended up messing up his car.”
“And then they tried to run him down.”
“They almost got him, but Bob Hastings came along the road and stopped it.”
Lucy started pacing as well. “But it doesn’t explain why he thought other cars were phantoms?”
Gordon bit his lip. “Yeah, I know.” He sifted through everything he had learned in the past two days. When he was on a story, he would make a point to stop and replay the sequence of events in order. That was how he happened upon…
“The medicine.” He whirled and faced Lucy. “It’s the only explanation. Whatever medicine he was taking for whatever ailed him had to be the reason he kept thinking cars were phantoms.”
“What kind of medicine makes that happen?”
“Not sure.” Gordon pulled out his notebook and flipped through the pages. “We’ll have to ask Kernow again. Or the doctor up in Montgomery. What was his name?” He stopped flipping and started reading his notes, running his finger across the pages. “Oh my.”
“What?”
“The doctor up in Montgomery County? His name is Stephen Dickson.”
“Yeah, so?”
Gordon plunged his hand into his pocket and pulled out the money wrapper. He handed it to her. “I found that at Kingsbury’s house.”
She turned it over in her hands. “I’m not seeing the connection.”
“Gonzales Securities is owned and operated by Joseph Dickson.”
Lucy cocked her head. “You don’t think they’re related?”
Slowly, Gordon nodded his head. “Can’t say for sure but it’s too much of a coincidence.” Something clicked in his mind and a whole world of realization flooded in on him. “No way,” he muttered to himself. “It can’t be.”
“What?” Lucy stepped closer to him. “Tell me.”
“We’ve been forgetting to ask another question. Who made the camouflage?”
“It’s good work,” she said. “Very realistic.”
“Exactly. The kind of work made by an excellent artist. An artist commissioned to paint some sort of camouflage that is so big you can drive a car through. An artist who was commissioned by one Joseph Dickson to paint the ship channel but was mugged and killed instead. An artist named…”
“William Silber,” Lucy said. “The one who painted the mural in the bank.”
“The bank where Peter Kingsbury was an armored car driver,” Gordon said.
“My gosh, Ace, what have we stumbled on?”
Gordon Gardner got a million-dollar g
rin on his face. “Another front-page story.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Gordon Gardner knocked on the front door of another normal house in a normal neighborhood. It was nearly one in the morning and he furtively looked up and down the street. He and Lucy were the only people moving. The glow of the street lamps could be seen over the roofs of the houses on this little stretch of street.
“Now who is this again?” Lucy asked.
“Colby Burke,” Gordon said. “He’s a veteran of the Great War. Grew up out in San Marcos, near Austin. His dad was a mechanic for the railroads and passed along the love of engines to Colby. Now, when you see him, you’ll notice one of the two reasons we’re here.”
Footsteps shuffled behind the door. A light came on. A key entered the lock. The door opened and Colby Burke’s enormous bulk filled the door frame.
“Hi, Colby.”
“Gordon? What the hell are you doing here? Do you know what time it is?”
“It’s one.”
Colby looked at Lucy. She had changed into khakis, a denim shirt, and hiking boots. “And who is this?”
“Lucy Barnes, meet Colby Burke. You think we could come in? I’ve got something to lay on you and I’d like your help.”
Burke opened the door for them to enter. Lucy gasped in astonishment at the mounted and stuffed animals on the walls.
“Oh, I forgot to mention,” Gordon said, “Colby’s a big game hunter. He’s handy with a rifle. That’s the other reason we’re here.”
Burke stood in the entryway and looked down on Gordon. Six-feet-four, Colby wore striped pajamas and house shoes. He ran his fingers through his brown hair, making most of it lie down correctly. “You know I was sleeping, right?”
“Yeah, but you’ll love this one. I’ve got a story that I need an ending to, but to get there, I’m gonna need some help.”
“What kind of help?” Burke shuffled across the room and turned on an overhead light.
Lucy stared in wonderment. Nearly every square foot of wall space featured some sort of animal, from fish to birds to bears and everything in between.
“Did you kill all of them?”
Burke beamed with pride. “Yes, ma’am. I’ve hunted on six continents in over four dozen countries. If it’s huntable, I want to hunt it.”
“How about bank robbers and murderers?” Gordon asked. “You ever hunted them?”
Burke slowly turned his head. “What have you gotten yourself into?”
“A lot. But I can get out with your help. Only thing is, um, you can’t mount their heads on your wall.”
“Why not? If they’re murderers, don’t they deserve that?”
“Possibly, but the police and the courts might not think so. C’mon, let me tell you a story.”
A half-hour later, as they sat around the kitchen table drinking coffee, Gordon finished his tale. Lucy had chimed in at certain points and showed her photographs.
“I’ve been in deer blinds that don’t look that good. You say an artist painted that?”
“That’s our suspicion.”
“And where’s your proof?”
Gordon looked at Lucy. “Well, that’s our sticking point. With Kingsbury murdered and me most likely out of a job tomorrow, the only thing to do is to find the evidence and then present it in one fell swoop. That way, we can save my job, get Lucy a page-one photo, and you can have another war story for your collection.”
“You intrigue me, Gordon, I’ll give you that. So what’s your plan?”
Gordon told him. The more Gordon talked, the wider Burke’s smile became. “I’m in. Let me get dressed.” He rose and went into his bedroom.
“Do you really think it’ll work?” Lucy asked.
Gordon shrugged. “It’s the best option of few good ones.”
“And you don’t think we should go to the police with this?”
“And tell them what? That we think we know who killed Tompkins and Silber because of a camouflaged driveway out in Montgomery County? They wouldn’t give us the time of day. No, the only way someone like Detective Wheeler is going to believe us is if we serve it to him on a silver tray.” He downed the last of his coffee. “Listen, if you’re worried about any of this, Colby and I can go. You can stay here.”
“And miss all the fun?” She arched her eyebrow. “I haven’t enjoyed myself this much in a long, long time. I was just making sure going it alone is the best course of action.”
Burke came back into the kitchen. He wore heavy khaki pants and shirt, a hunting vest, and a fedora. Over his shoulder was slung a rifle. “The cops can be hampered by law. We’re not. I’m ready. We’ll take my truck since I can drive on dirt.” He pointed at Gordon. “You want a weapon?”
Gordon thought a moment then shook his head. “I’m still press. So is she. That’s why we have you.”
“Fine. Let’s go.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“This is just like the time I hunted alligator down in Florida,” Colby Burke said.
“Except this time,” Gordon said, “the prey might shoot back.”
Burke shrugged. “I’ll just have to duck.”
The trio traipsed along the country road on foot, nearing the spot where Victor Tompkins had nearly been run down by a maroon car. The first pink light of dawn filtered through the tall pine trees and dense underbrush. Their footwear quickly became damp with the morning dew.
Burke had done a drive-by without headlights while Lucy pinpointed the general area. She couldn’t be sure in the dark, but used the last known country house up the road as a marker. Once Burke was satisfied with the area, he parked his pickup over the rise along the side of the road.
“This has a real George Washington-crossing-the-Delaware feel to it.” Gordon brought up the rear.
Lucy, with her camera satchel over her shoulder, marched between the two men. “Except we’re not in a boat.”
“Or with an army,” Burke said.
“That’s not what I meant,” Gordon said. “I mean the idea that if the bank robbers are there, they’ll likely be asleep.”
“How do you figure that?” Burke asked.
“With this camouflaged entrance, no one can see what’s going on in the road. Without the fear of being caught, I bet those bank robbers sleep real easy.”
“If I was sitting on a bunch of moolah with a hiding place as good as this,” Burke said, “so would I.” He motioned them closer to the tree line, then made a hand gesture for them to crouch. “If what Miss Barnes’s picture shows, we’re close. I want to make sure there isn’t a sentry on guard. Then I’ll…”
From over the rise came the shine of headlights. They came from the opposite direction from where Burke had parked his truck.
“Quick,” said the big man, “into the trees.”
Almost as one, the three of them scurried into the trees and underbrush. Limbs cracked and leaves rustled as their footfalls tramped the ground.
The car topped the rise and crested it. The twin headlights pierced the darkness. The tires burred over the country lane’s asphalt.
The car slowed; the three of them crouched lower. The bulk of the car came into view. The ambient glow of dawn combined with the headlights allowed Gordon to make out the shape of the vehicle. “A ’38 Oldsmobile,” he whispered to Lucy.
She nodded.
The Olds slowed further and turned to what appeared to be solid dense forest. With some slight maneuvering, the driver eased the car forward. Now that they knew what to look for, the trio saw the automobile part what appeared to be a large canvas tarp, very much like a circus tent. The headlights illuminated the painted surface but there were also real branches and leaves affixed to the tarp as well. The optical illusion was remarkable. The Olds, for all intents and purposes, simply vanished from the road.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Burke murmured. “I have to admit I only half believed you, Gordon.”
“What? Then why did you come?”
“For the fun
.”
With the area mostly dark, the headlights illuminated the structure from the inside, making it glow. It appeared to be a short, covered bridge, about thirty feet long. Within moments, the headlights showed the open back of the structure, then the vehicle emerged out the other side, driving slowly along the hidden driveway, tires crunching gravel.
“Let’s go,” Gordon said. “Get your camera ready, Lucy. No flash.”
“Naturally, Ace,” Lucy said. She unbuckled her satchel and took out her camera. “Ready.”
They crept along just inside the tree line for the remaining few feet until they arrived at the camouflaged opening. Seeing it up close, even in the growing light of dawn, impressed Gordon. “Look how Silber painted it to appear real even up this close. The man was a genius.”
“Wonder why he did it?” Lucy mused.
“Y’all can admire the art later,” Burke whispered. “Now, let’s just get ourselves in position.” He unslung his rifle and used the barrel to move one of the camouflaged flaps. Satisfied no danger lurked, he ducked in. Gordon and Lucy followed.
Car exhaust, animal droppings, and a damp wooden smell hit their noses. “Guess they didn’t need smell camouflage,” Lucy said. “It reeks like a bunch of animals used this as their outhouse.”
“It’s a nice, safe environment for them,” Burke said.
They crept slowly up the winding road. To mask it from being seen, the ground was coated with dry pine needles. The trio hugged the edge of the road, stooping and crouching inch-by-inch until Burke, with a hand gesture, motioned them down on their haunches. They leaned in as he whispered. “House and barn up ahead. Two cars, one delivery truck. Armored. That fit with your theory?”
Gordon shrugged. “Mostly. Maybe they switch out the trucks when they rob the banks. Lucy, get a shot.”
Nodding, Lucy stood and framed the scene. Her finger pushed the button and the camera clicked. The sound was like a twig snapping. She quickly lowered herself to the ground. “I forgot how loud the clicks are.”
“No bother.” Burke never took his gaze off the house. “No one heard.”
“Wrong, buster,” a man’s voice said behind them. “Someone did hear.” The sound of a rifle jacking a round in place jolted the sudden silence. “Don’t move. I’ve got you covered. You, with the rifle, drop it.”
The Phantom Automobiles: A Gordon Gardner Investigation Page 9
