Bleeding Blue

by Don Weston

  I stepped in from the cold, cloudless night and witnessed Eileen in all her dreadfulness. Her hair was immaculate. She wore perfect makeup, a slimming pair of black dress slacks and matching sweater and smelled of lavender. I suspected it was something more in the way of fashion which detained Eileen. I looked down at my own outfit. Blue jeans, a white blouse, and sneakers, and I smelled of smoke. Everyone dresses better than me.

  “What’s that for,” Eileen asked, pointing at a roll of copper tubing hooked on my belt.

  “You’ll see,” I said.

  We climbed the stairs, and she used her ID card to gain entrance into the receptionist’s office. We pushed the little gates open, and I made straight for Bob Blaney’s office.

  “If I open his door with my card key, they’ll know I went in there at, cripes, eleven-fifty-five at night,” she said, sneaking a peek at her watch. “I’ll be fired. And the cameras already caught you coming in with me.”

  “No one will view the security tape unless they have a reason to, and we aren’t going to give them a reason,” I said. “What happens if someone opens the door from the inside?”

  “It wouldn’t register anything. It’s the card that triggers the system. What are you doing?”

  I pulled out the quarter-inch copper tubing Earl reluctantly parted with at the car.

  “Watch,” I said, manipulating the wire to make a giant coat hanger similar to one Earl had used to get us into Mrs. Fleming’s hotel room. I noticed on my earlier visit that the doors were equipped with lever handles, not the rounded knobs.

  I slid the copper device under the door and tried to catch the lever on the other side of the door. It felt like I was catching something, but I couldn’t get it to grab. It wasn’t as easy as Earl’s demonstration earlier. I reshaped the wire as Eileen kept one eye on me and the other on hallway outside where I heard footsteps in the distance.

  “Hurry up,” she said. “Someone is coming.”

  A click, a downward turn of the door handle, and we were inside in the next instant. We waited in the dark, holding our breaths, until the footsteps faded.

  “That’s so cool,” Eileen said. “Now what?”

  “Now we search for clues.”

  I flicked on the office light. Blaney’s desk was neat to a fault. No paperwork or other obstacle was on his desk other than a small thin computer screen. I didn’t see any kids’ pictures or award plaques. There was a small color photo of his wife, Gloria, on an oak lateral filing cabinet and three motivational pieces of art on the walls. Soar Like an Eagle, one of them suggested, and a fierce bird of prey hovered above the lettering.

  There was a door which backed to the side hallway, but it wouldn’t open. When I tugged at the knob, I noticed the antique nails driven through the door at an angle into the door frame.

  “It’s been nailed shut and for some time,” I said. “So how did The Jet get out?”

  “Maybe he snuck out the way he came in and somehow evaded the camera,” Eileen suggested.

  “I wonder.” I pointed to a large folding screen, decorated with oriental branches and flowers.

  “The Japanese screen came with the office before Blaney was hired,” Eileen said. “I’m surprised he kept it.”

  It stood nearly six-feet tall. I grabbed it at the ends and folded it shut, setting it aside. The shade hid a decades old secret. A slight rectangular vertical seam in the faded wallpaper was evident now. Years ago, someone pasted the material on the wall as an accent and, for whatever reason, covered a door too. Later, someone slid a knife along the door’s edges to make it operational again.

  I turned the knob and pushed it open about eighteen inches before it stopped. I slid through and found myself behind another wall, created by an oversized bookcase. Commissioner Tuttle and City Auditor Bob Blaney enjoyed a clandestine passage between their offices.

  “What do you know?” Eileen said, pawing at remnants of another wallpaper design on the back of Tuttle’s door. “I never knew this was here.”

  “It was a secret between these two men,” I said.

  Tuttle’s office was the antithesis of Blaney’s, with a filing system consisting of stacks of files and paper scattered throughout his office. A gold-plated golf club hung on a wall amid plaques and awards. The room had a slight scent of alcohol and on a hunch, I opened the right lower drawer in his desk and found a bottle of scotch.

  To the side of Tuttle’s office, another door led to the side hallway. This door opened when I turned the handle. My eyes trailed down the hallway to Blaney’s side door, which now we knew was bolted shut.

  “The only way The Jet could have left by the side stairway was from Tuttle’s office,” I said. “But the video showed him going into Blaney’s office.

  “The Jet must have known about the secret door,” Eileen said. “The question is, who told him? Blaney or Tuttle?”

  “He could have stumbled on it just like we did. Maybe he heard a noise and it scared him so he jumped behind the screen and saw the door. Or maybe he was in here talking to both of them. I wish I knew if they were still here when he entered.”

  “I wish I knew too. It still gives me the creeps, him slithering about like a snake,” Eileen said.

  We closed the doors, and I had just arranged the screen in front of Blaney’s secret door, when we were startled by male voices echoing from the hallway.

  “Someone’s coming,” Eileen said. “Hide under the desk, and I’ll go out and see what’s happening.”

  She flipped off the office light on her way out. It seemed like I was forever crawling under office furniture. I pushed Blaney’s desk chair out and scooted under his desk.

  “Eileen? You all right?” a voice boomed from the reception area.

  I risked a peek from behind the desk. A glazed window between Blaney’s office and the reception area distorted the forms, but I guessed it was one of the building security guards. I hoped he was the one who was her friend.

  “I was just finishing up this report,” Eileen said. “It has to go into the mail first thing in the morning. Is something wrong?”

  “We got a call from Blaney,” the guard said. “He wants us to do a search of the building. He didn’t say why, but I’d better get you out of here. It won’t be good if he finds you in here tonight.”

  “But I haven’t done anything,” Eileen said.

  “I know,” the guard said. “But I’m not so sure he’d understand.”

  I squinted at the window as the two figures moved about the outer office and the lights flashed off.

  “Should we go down the back-hallway stairs?” I heard Eileen ask.

  “No,” the guard said. “There’s less traffic out front. Besides, we don’t want to appear to be doing anything wrong.”

  Time to get the hell out, I decided. As the voices trailed off, I felt my way to the screen and moved it away from Blaney’s secret door. I repositioned the partition and slid behind the bookcase in Tuttle’s office, when the copper wiring, attached to my belt, snagged its hook on the door frame. I thought I’d been grabbed and nearly yelped. I unhooked myself and made for the door to the back-hallway Eileen had suggested to me in her question to the guard. I opened the hallway door to dim fluorescent lights and was about to step out when voices clamored up the back stairs.

  “He wants us to check his office first, then every office up here,” a husky voiced drawled.

  I pulled the door shut, retreated to my sanctuary behind the bookcase again, and waited to see which office they would search first.

  “This has got to be a huge waste of time,” a guard said, as he entered Blaney’s office.

  I closed the door between the offices. My plan was to scoot back inside Blaney’s office after it had been searched.

  A clicking sound behind warned me another guard just opened Tuttle’s door. Shit. They were searching both offices at the same time, leaving me in a precarious perch behind the bookcase.

  “Not much to search in here,” a voice said,
from the other side of the bookcase.

  A desk lamp flicked on and I heard the guard by Tuttle’s bureau. Probably peeking under it, I thought, and I was glad for once I wasn’t hiding under office furniture. A minute went by and I heard a desk drawer open and a gulping sound. The guard helping himself to Tuttle’s Scotch?

  My hip was trapped awkwardly in the small space behind the bookcase. I tilted my body to flatten against the wall when the copper wire on my belt loop again betrayed me by making scratching sounds against the wall. I held my breath. The door to the back hallway opened and closed. Had he left? A few seconds later I heard another noise. It sounded like a desk drawer closing.

  Then I heard movement and my reeling senses told me he was about to find me behind the bookcase. I pinned the copper wiring tight against my leg and pivoted toward the door behind me. I pushed it open a crack and, thankfully, Blaney’s office lights were off. The screen stood about eighteen inches from the door, enough to allow me to slide in.

  A second later the doorknob twisted in my hand. I held it tight and held fast on the door. Another tug, then the tension on the knob was gone. The door to Blaney’s office opened again but the lights stayed off.

  I realized I was holding my breath. I listened to the guards’ rustling sounds on each side of me, slowly let my breath out and tried not to suck oxygen loudly back into my lungs.

  “There’s no one here,” a voice finally drawled. “Nothing seems out of place. Okay, we’ll keep looking. How soon will you be here? . . . Yeah, I’ll check the reading on your door lock to see if anyone accessed it.”

  The guard was talking to someone on the phone and I guessed it was Blaney because we were in his office. Worse, it sounded like he was on his way and with his reputation of being methodical he would make them search the entire City Hall again.

  Blaney’s door opened and the other guard chirped: “That the old man?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “Keep searching. He’s coming down.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Said he has his office alarmed and someone or something set it off.”

  “Did you check behind that screen.”

  “What screen? Oh yeah.”

  “Did you know there’s a door behind there?”

  “Nah, it’s just a wall.”

  The office light flicked back on. I could tell where this was going and gently twisted the doorknob.

  “Yeah, there is. Come here. I’ll show you.”

  A flashlight hit the screen as I wafted through the doorway. I closed the door tight and held the doorknob with a vice-grip.

  “See.” The voices were muffled, but I understood them.

  “There’s a doorknob. Why did they leave the wallpaper over the door?”

  “Maybe they don’t use it.”

  “Sure they do. Someone used a razor blade to cut the wallpaper around the door.”

  The knob tried to twist in my hands. I clamped down harder on it.

  “It’s locked. I tried it from the other side.”

  “Maybe they don’t use it anymore. I hear they’ve been fighting about something lately.”

  The voices trailed off and I heard the outer door in Blaney’s office close. Drips of perspiration stung my eyes. I wiped them with my arm and leaned against the bookcase. I felt it give and turned to find it swaying. I reached around the corner and grasped the front and pulled it back to me. It obliged, pinning me against the wall and, before I could recover, it cascaded forward again. A deafening crash sliced through the silence.

  “What the hell was that?” a voice hollered, from the reception area. “It came from Tuttle’s office.”

  The bookcase blocked the exit door to the back hallway. I climbed over the top of the shelves and struggled mightily to pry the door open enough to slip through. The door gouged me on my still healing chest wound. I winced and scraped through.

  In the hallway I heard a radio flash a command somewhere at the bottom of the back stairway. “Get up here. We have an intruder,” a voice squawked.

  “I’m on my way.”

  There was an elevator to my left. To my right I saw a door with a handicapped sign. I twisted the knob and entered a one-toilet bathroom. I locked the door, flipped on a light switch, and spied a small sash window about five feet from the floor. I stepped onto the sink and opened the window just enough for a slender female P.I. to slide through, or so I hoped.

  “Did you see anybody coming down the stairs?”

  I froze atop the sink. The voice belonged to Blaney.

  “No,” a guard said.

  “What about the elevator?”

  “It hasn’t moved all night.”

  All right. We’re going to scour this floor. Whoever broke in, is still here.”

  “Did you find anyone?” It was a woman. Gloria? Why was she here?

  “Nah. But somebody knocked the bookcase over in Tuttle’s office. They could still be in there.”

  “Open the door.” It was Gloria.

  Geez, I thought. I’ve really stumbled into a hornet’s nest. I took the copper tubing from my belt. It was folded in sections. I unrolled it and fished it through the window. I bent the end to fashion a hook I could tie through a metal grip on the inside of the window and coiled it in a knot.

  The bathroom door rattled behind me. “It’s locked,” Gloria said. “Who’s got the key?”

  “Probably the janitor.”

  “I’ll bet she’s in there.”

  “She?” Blaney said.

  “Billie Bly,” Gloria said. “I’ll bet it’s her.”

  I didn’t want to wait to hear the end of this conversation. I arched my leg over the window ledge and pulled myself up to straddle it.

  “Find the janitor and get a key,” Blaney said. “Let’s find out.”

  “I’m on it,” the drawling voice said.

  I ducked my head back, raised my other leg, and slid it through the window, rotating my body so my stomach rested on the ledge. A sharp pain shot though me, reminiscent of The Jet’s bullet. I wheezed and wanted to cry. Instead I scooted out slowly with a firm grasp on the ledge. I said a prayer and started a hand-over-hand movement down the copper rope. I slid faster than I planned and summoned every muscle in my arms and shoulders and hands, to resist the gravitational pull.

  My hands grew white hot and I continued my slide, clutching at the tubing with my feet now. It helped slow my descent. When I finally stopped sliding, I hung precariously about 30 feet from the ground. A streetlight illuminated thorny barberry bushes directly below me. My copper lifeline would get me, maybe, eight feet closer to the ground. Add another seven feet from my hands to my feet and it would be a fifteen-foot drop, I figured. Not much I could do about that.

  I methodically moved down, one hand after another. I repeated the hand under hand motion until I was within a foot of the end of the copper rope and stopped to survey my situation.

  It was going to hurt like hell landing in the barberry bushes. I’d brushed up against them once at Dan’s house. He used them to deter a would-be burglar from sliding through his bedroom windows. I thought if I could just swing a bit, maybe I could steer clear. My hands already ached. I planted my feet on the wall and pushed, swung awkwardly a few feet forward and returned to bounce off the wall.

  I pushed away again and got a little more momentum. My swing improved and I figured two more practice motions would get me clear of the bushes. I wondered which would be worse, falling 15-feet onto hard ground, or having my drop cushioned by the spiky bushes. The choice was taken from me when the knot at the window unraveled.

  I bounced off the barberry bushes and crashed onto clay earth beneath the grass. It knocked the wind out of me, and I lay there unable to breathe. I was about to black out when I heard a friendly voice.

  “Billie? Are you okay?” It was Eileen. “My God, you could have been killed.”

  I don’t remember much after that. I recall telling her
to get the copper tubing, and the next thing I remembered was waking up the next morning naked in bed with Eileen.

  Chapter 23

  Now I’m not a prude. I’ve awakened in a strange bed after imbibing in too many drinks or otherwise making poor choices. The result wasn’t without its share of shock. When the fear transcended from heart-stopping panic into guilt-ridden anxiety, I usually remembered how I got there and maybe who I was with, and I made a firm resolution to not let it happen again.

  Nowhere in my resolutions did I ever foresee the necessity to include waking up in bed with another woman. When my eyes opened, I rolled over on my side and there she was. Her newly styled hair with the blond highlights not even mussed. She rustled under the covers and rolled from side to back, her eyes closed and her mouth grinning at the ceiling.

  I lifted my sheet and peered down at my body. It was riddled with scratches, although they seemed to be healing. The scar below my breast was red and angry, proof that I wasn’t following doctor’s orders. I wasn’t totally naked. Eileen had left my bra and panties on.

  I slid out from under the sheets and located my clothes on a chair. They smelled like smoke, but I felt fresh. Had I showered last night? After dressing, I popped into Eileen’s master bathroom and ran her brush through my hair. For the first time in a long time my hair fell perfectly into place and even bounced playfully against my face. And my face was radiant with what I can only relate to as the after-sex glow. Great, I thought. What had I done? And why couldn’t I remember anything?

  It was nearly eight by my watch. I didn’t know why Eileen was still home, and I didn’t want to ask her at the moment. Maybe she was afraid to go to work after the ruckus the night before.

  I slunk out of her apartment and found myself about a mile from home. Since I had no car, money, or purse, and I didn’t know the connecting buses, I began walking. It gave me time to think. Why couldn’t I remember anything at Eileen’s? My last memory was of falling from the window at City Hall, and Eileen bending over me. Slowly a few more tidbits came to me. One of Eileen dragging me to her car parked at the side of the street and wanting to take me to the hospital. I remembered telling her I was okay. She insisted we go to her home so she could nurse me and make sure I was all right.