by Philip Cox
‘Guess so. We’re at the park now. Louise – do you want to talk to…? No, she’s running off to the swings.’
‘No sweat. Tell her I love her and I’ll see her tonight.’
‘I will. What time you finishing?’
‘I’ll be done around five-thirty, I guess.’
‘So we’ll see you six-thirty?’
‘Around then. Love you.’
‘You too,’ answered Chrissy.
Will hung up and stretched again. Made a quick trip to the men’s room; as he walked past Dan’s open door, he noticed his partner chatting to Eddie. May was busy at the Xerox machine. He slumped back into his chair and turned his attention to case number fourteen. He had reached case twenty-four when his own phone rang. It was one of his clients. As he spoke to the client he noticed May peer into his office; she was talking to somebody outside. Once he had finished the call, May appeared again.
‘Your wife’s on the outside line,’ May said. ‘She said she’d tried your cell, but you were busy.’
‘I was on a call,’ said Will. ‘You’d better put her through.’
‘Just about to. She sounded rather stressed.’
Hoping that nothing had happened to Louise, Will grabbed the phone as soon as it rang.
‘What’s up?’ he asked.
‘Will, you need to come home. Now.’
‘What’s happened? Nothing’s happened to -’
‘It’s not Louise. We just got home from the park, and – oh, Will…’
‘What is it?’
‘Will, we’ve had a break-in.’
NINE
By the time Will got back home, the police were already there. This time he took a cab, and as the taxi turned into Will’s street, he could see the white patrol car parked alongside his house.
‘Pull up anywhere here,’ he said to the driver. The cab pulled up next to the patrol car, Will thrust a twenty into the driver’s hand, leapt out of the cab, and ran up to his house. The door was already open, and a uniformed officer was walking down the steps.
‘Are you Mr Carter?’ the officer asked.
‘I am, yes,’ Will replied breathlessly.
‘Your wife’s in the kitchen, with one of my colleagues.’
Will ran indoors and into the kitchen. A female uniformed officer was in the kitchen talking to Chrissy, and Will could see two non-uniformed officers in the lounge, both on all fours checking the floor. Will headed straight for the kitchen, but as he went past the lounge door he could see the place had been ransacked, books pulled down from their shelves, contents of drawers spilled everywhere.
‘Will! Thank God!’ cried Chrissy when she saw him. They embraced.
Will looked around. ‘Where are the kids?’
‘Jake’s at an after school club. I called him on his cell and told him to go round to see Clyde. I called 911 after I rang you, then Mary. Louise is at hers.’
‘So what happened?’ Will asked.
‘We got home from the park around four. We came indoors, and I noticed, well – all the mess in there.’
‘Is it just in there?’
‘No. Some drawers and have been turned out in here, and they went through our bedroom.’
‘What about the kids’ room?’
Chrissy shook her head. ‘No, they don’t appear to have been touched.’
‘That’s weird. I wonder why not.’
The female officer spoke. ‘The most likely explanation is that they ran out of time, or they got disturbed. Maybe one of them acted as a lookout: you know, watching for somebody to return.’
‘How did they get in?’ asked Will.
‘Through the back door,’ the officer replied. ‘It had been forced.’
‘What’s been taken?’ asked Will.
‘I can’t really tell right now.’ Chrissy ran one hand through her hair. ‘Everything’s in such a mess. But they haven’t touched stuff like the TV, BluRay player, even my laptop. And none of Jake’s stuff’s been touched.’ She pointed to a shelf. ‘I did leave some money there this morning - about fifty dollars - and that’s been taken.’
Will turned to the officer. ‘This is new ground for me. What happens now?’
The officer said, ‘Well, you need to let the crime scene officers do their job. They’re going to be checking for – well, for anything, really; anything the perpetrators might have left behind. Fingerprints, DNA traces. They’ll also get samples of yours and your family’s.’
‘You already have my DNA,’ Will muttered.
‘Excuse me?’
Will explained the events of the last twenty-four hours.
‘Oh, I see. We didn’t know. Different precinct. Different type of crime.’
‘What then?’ Chrissy asked.
‘I take it you have insurance?’ the officer asked.
Will and Chrissy both answered at the same time. ‘Sure.’
‘Once our guys are done, you need to carry out an inventory. Check for anything that might be missing. We’ll give you a crime reference number, for you to give to your insurance company. And of course you’ll need to get that door fixed. Make sure the back yard’s secure as well. They probably climbed over one of your fences. You don’t have an intruder alarm, I see?’
Will shook his head.
‘You might want to think about getting one installed. It might help you save on insurance costs, as well.’
‘Yeah,’ Will sighed, looking at the messy kitchen.
‘Do you have to get all that stuff from the children?’ Chrissy asked. ‘Fingerprints, DNA? They’re only thirteen and five: won’t any prints they’ve left be smaller than adult prints?’
‘At this stage we don’t know if the intruders were adults. It’s your decision, Mrs Carter, but the more elimination evidence we have, the more likely it is we can catch up with whoever it was.’
‘What is the clear-up rate?’ asked Will.
‘Will!’ chided Chrissy.
‘Reasonably high,’ the officer told Will.
Chrissy said, ‘Our son’s over at a friend’s, but he’ll be back later, and I’ve arranged for my daughter to go to one of hers. Do they need to come back here?’
‘The crime scene officers will talk to you about that. They can take yours while they’re here, then arrange something with you about your children.’ She looked over to her colleague, who had just come back into the house. ‘What is it?’
‘We have to go,’ the male officer said.
She addressed Chrissy. ‘Sorry. Another call, but the crime scene officers will remain here until they’re done.’
‘No problem,’ said Chrissy. ‘Thanks for all your help.’
‘You take care now. And remember to secure your door and back yard. And get an intruder alarm.’
‘We will,’ Chrissy said, walking the officer to the door.
‘This is all we need,’ Will said as she returned.
She ran her hands through her hair again. ‘Yeah.’
‘And the hits keep rolling in,’ Will added. ‘Godammit!’
*****
The forensic team finished about seven-thirty, the last tasks they performed being the taking of Will’s and Chrissy’s fingerprints and DNA sample. Will pointed out that their Midtown North colleagues had already taken a DNA sample, but the CSI explained that it would make any investigation speedier if he could take a sample too. Not entirely convinced, Will complied. The CSI said there was no need to bring Jake and Louise home that evening to take their samples; either Will or Chrissy could take them to the station house over the next few days.
Once the police had left, Chrissy said she would walk round to Mary’s house and pick up Louise. Will said he would start to clear up downstairs and start a list of what was missing. He had been doing this for about ten minutes when Jake arrived.
‘Hey,’ Jake said, looking around the mess. ‘You and Mom had a party or something?’
Will sat up. ‘No, we’ve had a break in.’
‘My stuf
f!’ Jake yelled and rushed upstairs.
‘Don’t worry,’ Will called upstairs. ‘They didn’t touch your room.’
Will carried on clearing up; Jake came back downstairs a couple of minutes later.
‘They didn’t touch my stuff.’
‘That’s what I said. Nor Louise’s.’
‘Yours and Mom’s room’s in a mess, though.’
‘I know.’
‘What did they take?’
‘Can’t tell yet, apart from fifty bucks Mom left in the kitchen.’
Jake paused, watching his father clean up. ‘I’m going upstairs to watch TV.’
Will looked up. ‘Don’t put anything about this online, will you? Not yet, anyway.’
Jake nodded. ‘Okay.’
‘I mean it.’
‘Relax. I said I wouldn’t.’
‘Thanks,’ Will said. ‘You eaten?’
‘Had something at Clyde’s,’ Jake replied, running back upstairs.
It did not take Will long to clean up downstairs: most of the mess was superficial – just a matter of putting books back on shelves and papers back in drawers. Then he went upstairs. He put his head round Jake’s bedroom door: his son was playing a computer game.
Jake looked up. ‘Don’t worry, Dad: I’m not uploading crime scene photos onto Facebook or anything.’
Will nodded. ‘Good,’ he muttered and went into their bedroom.
As with downstairs, the mess probably looked worse than it was. Much like Jake’s room at the best of times.
He was halfway though clearing up when he heard Chrissy and Louise return. He went downstairs to meet them.
‘Hello, Loulou,’ he said as his daughter ran up to cuddle him. ‘How is she?’ he asked Chrissy.
‘Fine. She doesn’t know anything’s happened.’
Will nodded. ‘Good. Jake’s home, by the way. He’s in his room, playing on his consul.’
‘Has he eaten?’
‘He said he had something at Clyde’s.’
‘Mary gave her something to eat, but you haven’t eaten anything, have you?’
Suddenly Will realised he was hungry. ‘No. No – I haven’t. I’ve done down here; I was just upstairs clearing up our room. I’ll just go finish off.’
‘I’ll fix us something momentarily. Is anything…?’
‘Not yet.’
Back upstairs, Will continued clearing up. They kept very little in the way of valuables in the house: passports, and other documents were in a filing cabinet kept in a closet under the stairs: that had not been touched. Up here, there were just a couple of watches and some jewellery of Chrissy’s. He looked around the drawers and the floor. No jewellery, no watches. Bastards. Not much monetary value, just sentimental. Chrissy had a necklace which had been her grandmother’s, and Will had a watch left to him by his father.
He finished clearing up and went downstairs. Louise was asleep on the couch. Chrissy was in the kitchen, cooking.
‘French toast?’ she asked.
Will nodded and slumped onto a stool. He yawned.
‘How was upstairs?’ she asked.
‘All the jewellery and watches gone.’
She paused from mixing the eggs. ‘Shit. Damn them.’
‘Quite. But it could have been a lot worse.’
‘I know.’
‘Look, I’ll take her up to bed, then I’ll fix that door. Something temporary, just for the night. I’ll get someone in tomorrow.’
After they had eaten, Chrissy said she wanted a bath. While she was upstairs, Will fixed the door, and wandered around the yard. The fences looked secure, but maybe not high enough. The bastards must have stood on something the other side and climbed over. Done the same on the way out: Will had a small bicycle shed next to one of the fences: that would need moving.
He was right about one thing, though: it could have been a lot worse. For one thing, Chrissy and Louise or Jake on his own could have interrupted them; or a lot more than some jewellery and money could have been taken. And God knows what could have gone on in Louise’s room.
Just lousy timing.
But as Will went indoors he had a niggling feeling that, despite what the police said, the events of the last two days might not be unconnected.
TEN
As Will sat on the subway to work the next morning, he stared blankly out of the window. As the train paused at the five stops on his journey, some commuters on the platforms met his gaze, but he stared right past them, his eyes focussed on the far end of the station walls.
What the hell was going on, he asked himself. It had been years since he last had any contact with the police: seven or eight years back, he was approaching a pedestrian crossing on some back street. A woman started to cross, and rather than come to a complete stop, he slowed down to around 5mph for the last few yards before the crossing, to avoid the need to come to a complete stop. Once the woman had gotten to the other side, he picked up speed again. He had no sooner passed the crossing when he heard the whoop of a police siren, and a cop on a motorcycle flagged him down. The cop told him he should have come to a complete stop, and he was lucky he was being let off with a warning on this occasion.
And now, two days running, he could not have gotten more involved with them without being arrested himself. Being questioned, giving written statements, and now being the victim of a crime. His mother used to continually quote an adage which said that things come in threes: what could happen today?
He roused himself from his daydreaming as he reached 42nd Street. Walking the last three blocks, he tried to make sense of what had been going on. By the time he had arrived at the office, he had still not done so.
He was the first to arrive that morning, so let himself in, made himself a cup of coffee and went into his office. On his desk, May had left a note, giving details of a client who had called after he left yesterday. He glanced at what she had written, then dropped it back onto his desk. That could wait.
Will stood by the window, and looked down at the street below, full of traffic slowly heading for Tenth Avenue, and people, milling around like ants, rushing to and fro, trying to get to work, or home, or the shops. How could Sunday and Monday be connected, he thought. Sunday he was a witness, the attackers never saw him as he was hiding in the stall…
Or did they?
‘What am I going to do?’ he whispered to himself, rubbing a hand over his chin. They didn’t see him in the men’s room, but they could have been watching somewhere at the mall, seeing him go outside, see him call the police, see him talk to the police.
See him talk to Chrissy and Louise…
What if they saw them leave, and followed them?
But realistically, he told himself, how likely was that? He heard one of the attackers exhort the other to hurry; he knew that the mall was filled with CCTV cameras, so surely, they would not have loitered around, guaranteeing being picked up by a camera.
And in any case, how would they have known he was in the stall? They certainly didn’t check any of the doors.
But looking at a worse case scenario: if they had followed Chrissy and Louise, or even Will himself, all the way to the Village, why just ransack the house? Surely it would be Will himself they would be looking for, to silence him.
He swallowed, and finished his coffee.
No, he decided, it must just be one terrible coincidence.
But if it was a random break-in, as the police seemed to believe, why not take more than they did? A few pieces of cheap jewellery, and some cash Chrissy had left out on a shelf. There was plenty of other stuff they could have taken: the amount of kit in Jake’s room was worth hundreds at least. And that theory of them being disturbed, Will just didn’t buy it: Chrissy said that when she got home, there was no sign of anybody. Surely if she had disturbed them, they would either have been rushing down the stairs as she opened the door, or still climbing over the fence in the back yard.
‘Good morning.’ May’s voice pulled him out of his rev
erie.
‘Morning,’ he replied.
‘The subway was really busy today,’ May said, taking off her coat and switching on her computer. ‘Do you need a coffee or something?’
‘No, I’m good, thanks.’ Will stepped over and pushed his door to as he spoke. ‘Catch you later; just have a few things to so here.’
As he sat down behind his desk, he could hear May talking to somebody who had just arrived. He heard a man’s voice, but couldn’t tell if it was Eddie who had just arrived, or Dan. It was probably Eddie: Dan was sure to be out somewhere, arranging some big contract.
So, they probably weren’t disturbed. They just weren’t in the house for very long.
They were looking for something specific.
But what?
Will swung his chair away from the desk and looked out of the window again. Not down at the street this time, just at what he could see of the skyline. He recalled the guy half-sitting in the men’s room. He had been clutching something, hadn’t he? What was it? A plastic card, white with edging. And something one printed on it. What was it: some kind of bank card, or an ID card? It must have some significance; otherwise why was he grasping it so tightly?
Surely his attackers didn’t think Will took it?
Will sat back in his chair. He rested his head on the back of the chair, closing his eyes. So, if that theory is right, this little plastic card holds the key to why the guy was attacked - no, murdered - Sunday afternoon, and why his house was ransacked yesterday. They weren’t after him - it was this little card, whatever it was.
Should he go to the police? He tapped the side of his chair. No - that would lead them to infer that he had tampered with a crime scene, and get him into trouble. Even if he had taken the card. And it was just a wild theory, anyway.
But the two attackers wouldn’t know that he hadn’t taken it.
He opened his eyes and leaned forward, his elbows resting on the desk.
If they didn’t know for sure he hadn’t taken it, and didn’t find it in the house yesterday, then they might try again. And this time one of his family might be in the house.
Will tapped his chin with his fist. He needed to see what this card was about before they came back.
