Behind the Closed Door: A Detective Series of Crime and Suspense Thrillers (The Jacob Hayden Series Book 2)

by Charles Prandy

  “Oh, he’s harmless. Big as a bear but soft as a kitten.”

  Henry slowly walked over as if he knew any sudden movement would frighten her.

  “This is Henry,” I said.

  Surprisingly, she curtsied, “Nice to meet you Henry.”

  Henry dipped his head and held up his paw. The two shook.

  “Cute trick,” she said.

  “I didn’t teach him that. He picked it up on his own.”

  I reached for the Chinese food. “I’ll take that.”

  I lead her to the dining room table where plates and silverware were already prepped.

  “I wasn’t sure what you liked,” she said, “so I got Kung Pao chicken with steamed rice. I figured everybody at least likes chicken.”

  “Kung Pao happens to be one of my favorites.”

  “Guess great minds think alike.”

  We started eating. We conversed about general things and current news. The NBA finals had recently ended and she said she was stoked that LeBron James won his second ring.

  “I figured you for a Bulls fan being from Chicago and all.”

  “I root for the Bulls from time to time, but I like players more so than particular teams. And right now LeBron’s the best in the game.”

  She was getting my attention even more. I was never good enough to make a NBA squad, but I could run with the best of them on the courts in the parks around D.C.

  We finished our food and she pulled out a folder with FBI embroidered on the cover.

  “Seems like your theory wasn’t too far off,” she said.

  “Theory?”

  “We think we learned how the burglars got into the bank managers’ houses. Turns out, seven months ago, Stacey Windfield and Dan Flynn both attended a banking dinner in Northern Virginia. We had our agents show mug shots of the three men in black around the hotel that was hosting the dinner. When you mentioned you thought the men gained access to the house keys, it got me thinking. How would they be able to do that?”

  “Valet,” I said.

  Agent Davis nodded. “Sure enough, the valet manager recognized one of the men as a previous employee.”

  “So they were able to make copies of the house keys before the dinner was over.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So that explains Stacey Windfield and Dan Flynn. What about Stacey’s sister, Kim?”

  “Online dating.”

  “Excuse me.”

  “Kim was into online dating. We found out through her computer that she had an account with FantasyDate.com. We subpoenaed her records and found out that she and a guy by the name of Jason Grey had been chatting with one another for a couple of weeks. Guess who Jason Grey was?”

  She pointed to one of the men in my mug shots.

  “You’re kidding?”

  “Nope. Three months ago they went on a date. We have Kim’s phone and were able to pull up her texts. The same night that she went on a date with Jason, she sent a text to Stacey saying she couldn’t find her keys and that she was coming over because she was locked out.”

  I shook my head.

  “The following day she received a text from Jason saying he found her keys in his car and he was going to stop by to drop them off.”

  “Unbelievable. The whole thing was a set-up.”

  Agent Davis took a drink of water. “Something similar happened two years ago in Colorado.”

  My eyes perked.

  “A branch manager’s family was held hostage while the branch manager was kidnapped and forced to open the bank’s vault. The robbers made away with over two hundred thousand dollars.”

  “And the family?”

  “Killed. A wife and two teenage kids.”

  “No leads? Suspects?”

  She shook her head. “It’s like they just vanished into thin air. Our Colorado field office was never able to identify even one suspect.”

  “And nothing similar has happened again until now?”

  “Same style of robbery. Take the family hostage and kidnap the branch manager. Seems like these could be our guys.”

  I thought about the robberies. Similar in style but one thing was bothering me. Erin Smith. How is she connected in all of this? Then something else popped in my head. Erin Smith told me they’d been living here for the past two years. Two years. The Colorado robberies happened two years ago. This couldn’t be a coincidence. But then that begged another question. If Erin Smith was in Colorado two years ago, that meant Jack Smith was with her. Could he have been involved as well? Could that be why she’s also implicated in his murder?

  “We need to look more into Erin Smith’s background,” I said.

  “You still think she may have a connection in this?”

  “The dots are starting to connect little by little, but I’ll bet my job that she was in Colorado at the same time the bank robbery happened.”

  We both stayed quiet a minute. I was thinking. She was thinking. We looked like two philosophers mentally debating the theory of existence. Finally I saw her eyes look around the room and then fall onto Theresa’s picture on the wall. I saw the struggle she was having with wanting to talk about her, so I just said, “She’s been gone over seven months now.”

  She smiled an apologizing smile. “I didn’t want to intrude.”

  “It’s ok.”

  “I read about what happened. I can’t imagine what you must have gone through.”

  I nodded. “It was the toughest time of my life.”

  We stayed quiet again. I wasn’t sure what to say next. Luckily my phone buzzed which interrupted the silence.

  “Detective Hayden.”

  “Detective Hayden, this is Sergeant Rose from the Lancaster County Police Department in Pennsylvania. I’m here at the Lancaster General Hospital. Are you still looking for an Erin Smith?”

  I nearly jumped out of my seat.

  “Erin Smith? Yes, yes!”

  “Well, she’s here. She was just admitted for third degree burns and two gunshot wounds to the chest.”

  My eyes lit up with surprise. “What? When did this happen?”

  “Earlier this afternoon.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Detective, I’m not sure what you need from her but whatever it is better happen fast.”

  “Why?”

  “Docs don’t think she’ll make it through the night.”

  I looked at Agent Davis. She must have seen the urgency in my eyes because she quickly pulled out her phone. I whispered that Erin Smith was in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

  “Is she coherent?” I asked.

  “Barely.”

  Agent Davis clicked off her phone. “One hour.”

  I nodded. “We’ll be there in an hour.”

  Fifty-eight

  Agent Davis was able to get us a helicopter ride to Lancaster that took just about forty-five minutes. The hospital was equipped with a landing pad on its roof. A tall, lanky man wearing a police uniform waited for us at the landing pad.

  I stepped out of the helicopter. The wind from the propellers subconsciously caused me to duck as I walked towards the lanky cop.

  “Sergeant Rose?” I yelled over the propeller’s noise.

  “Detective Hayden?” We shook.

  “This is Agent Davis from the FBI.” They shook.

  “Follow me. I’ll take you to Mrs. Smith’s room.”

  Erin Smith was in intensive care. Most of her body and face was bandaged due to the burns. She was hooked up to machines that monitored her heart, pulse, breathing, blood pressure and I’m sure an assortment of other things. She wasn’t conscious when we got there, but Sergeant Rose told us that she’d been going in and out for the past couple of hours. She looked like a different person from the one I met a few weeks ago.

  “What happened to her?” I asked.

  “We got a call around 3:45 that the Bradford farm was on fire. The closest neighbor, about a mile away, saw thick black smoke in the sky from her porch and knew it was the Bradford’s
home. When we got there the whole place was up in flames.”

  “The Bradford’s?” I asked.

  “Tim and Elizabeth Bradford. They’ve owned the farmland for over twenty years. About two years ago they decided to put the farm up for sale and head on down to Florida to retire. It’s just been sitting for the past two years rotting away.”

  I made a mental note to follow-up with the Bradford’s.

  “Anyways, one of the firemen said he heard a woman screaming from the inside. He got as close as he could to a side window and saw Mrs. Smith lying on the floor in the living room. They were able to get her out of the house before the whole thing fell in.”

  “You said on the phone that she was shot.”

  “It was difficult to see at first because of the soot and burns, but paramedics saw blood on her chest and when they opened her shirt they saw bullet holes.”

  Agent Davis leaned in. “She must have been meeting up with the other member from the Gomez hit.”

  “If he used the same gun, forensics will be able to match up the bullets from Ms. Smith to the ones used to kill the other members,” I said.

  I looked at Erin Smith again. Her face, with the exception of her eyes and mouth, was completely bandaged.

  “How were you able to I.D. her?”

  “She was weak, but able to tell us her name. And then surprisingly she said to contact you.”

  “Me?”

  Sergeant Rose nodded.

  “When I searched her name, I saw the APB that you put out for her.”

  I walked around to Erin’s bedside. She had a tube protruding from her nose. She didn’t look alive. My mind instantly flashed back to Theresa’s death and the sight of her lifeless body in the casket. Her skin felt cold and hard to the touch. I subconsciously reached for Erin’s bandaged hand. It wasn’t cold, but it didn’t feel alive either. Who did this to you, Erin? As if she heard my thought, her eyes slowly opened. Not all the way, but enough that she saw me beside her. I was able to look into her weak eyes. I knew that death was coming.

  Her burned, cracked lips slowly parted. They moved but I couldn’t hear anything. I lowered my head. She was trying to say something. Her lips moved again, and again I couldn’t hear what she was saying.

  “What is it, Erin?”

  I lowered my head even further. My ear was right above her mouth. This time I felt her breath touch my skin. I heard her take in a deeper breath and as she exhaled she gently whispered the name, “Jack.”

  Fifty-nine

  Three hours later Erin Smith was dead. She didn’t utter another word. She never opened her eyes again. I stayed by her side until the doctor pronounced her. Oddly enough, I felt a connection with her. Maybe it was because I never got to tell my wife goodbye before she died. I just felt that I needed to be there when she took her last breath.

  Agent Davis and I spoke with Sergeant Rose for a little longer and then we headed for the helicopter. An hour and a half later, I was back at my house. My mind was in a cloud of fog. I didn’t know what to make of Erin saying Jack’s name. I’ve read stories of people seeing loved ones who’ve passed right before they do. Did she see Jack? Could he have come to her in her last moments of life? After Theresa died and I was on the run from the police in the woods, I felt her presence when I didn’t think I had anything left. It’s not something someone can ever really explain. You just know what you experienced was real.

  I was lying on my couch throwing one of Henry’s balls in the air while trying to make sense of the case. It felt like an eternity since I first saw Erin Smith on her porch holding a cordless phone. She conned us good because she really had me believing she didn’t know where Jack was.

  And then later those two teenagers found Jack’s decapitated body in the woods. We arrested her for his murder and then shortly after making bail, she fled. Then the bank robberies started happening which appeared to be two totally separate cases. But they weren’t. Erin Smith was somehow involved in both. Now she’s dead and the only connection between Erin Smith and the bank robberies is the person who got away with all of the money. The same person who probably killed the three men in black and Erin Smith.

  Who are you? I thought.

  I continued tossing the ball in the air. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Henry’s head going up and down every time the ball left my hands. I had to smile. When the ball came back to me, I started slowly moving it side to side. Henry’s head moved side to side with the ball. It was almost like the ball had a string and I was controlling Henry’s movements like a puppet master. I finally tossed the ball across the room and Henry leaped for it with one hop. Geez, he’s a big boy.

  I sat up on the couch and exhaled. Henry was gnawing on the ball. I smiled and shook my head. Puppet Master. Then, wait, Puppet Master. A Puppet Master controls every movement of its puppet. Just like someone controlled Erin Smith’s every movement and the movements of the other crew. But not just anyone, it’d have to be someone close enough to be trusted. Someone that Erin Smith risked life and limb over. Someone who eventually led her to a farmhouse and put two bullets in her.

  Jack was dead, so who could she trust?

  Someone from her past. Maybe someone from her and Jack’s past. Possibly another lover? It’s not uncommon for a close friend of the husband to have an affair with the wife and the two plot to kill the husband. Could the mysterious fourth person be one of Jack’s friends? But why kill Erin? Greed? Whoever he is has close to two million dollars in cash. Killing Erin would tie up any lose ends. Suddenly the adrenaline started to rush and I got goosebumps on my arms.

  I got Pat on the phone and told her what happened to Erin Smith. I told her that I was picking her up first thing in the morning. We would have a little ride ahead of us, but hopefully if my suspicions were right, we would come away with the name of Jack and Erin’s killer.

  Sixty

  I pulled in front of Pat’s place at 7:30 in the morning. Two Starbuck’s cups were in the cup holders. I like white mochas and she drinks straight coffee with a little cream. I usually have to ask for extra white mocha syrup to help drown out the coffee taste.

  Pat got in the car smelling heavenly. I often have to remind myself that despite her beauty, we’re co-workers and that means she’s off limits. Not that I would chase after her or that kinda thing.

  “Morning, Jacob.” She beamed those Crest whites at me.

  “Morning.”

  She looked down at the Starbuck’s cups.

  “You’re getting to know me too well,” she said.

  “Black with a little cream.”

  She took a sip and inhaled the coffee smell.

  “What a way to start a morning.”

  I pulled from her house. The morning traffic in D.C. was horrific as usual. It took us nearly thirty minutes to get onto the 295.

  We talked about Erin Smith and how shocking it was that she was murdered, presumably by someone involved in the case.

  “Why do you think she did it?” Pat asked.

  “What, kill Jack?”

  “Yeah. I mean, Jack could have been involved in that Colorado robbery. So why come to D.C. and kill him?”

  “She could have been in love with the other guy. Maybe Jack wanted no part of the D.C. robberies and they killed him for fear he’d come to us. We know that there were two sets of footprints around Jack’s corpse. The other set was for a size twelve shoe and the indentation was deeper. So that means whoever else was with her was significantly larger.”

  “And then this other guy kills Erin to keep the money for himself? After he helped kill Jack? Why not just kill them both at the same time? Why drag it out this long and then kill her? Something’s not adding up.”

  I had thought about that. Lovers of other lovers don’t usually kill the lover once the other lover is out of the picture. Tongue twister.

  “He must have needed her for something.”

  We drove to Jack’s mother’s house to talk to her about Jack’s friends. The d
rive to Meridian Estates in Pennsylvania took us two and a half hours. If my hunch was correct, Jack and Erin’s killer is someone they’ve known for a long time, someone they both trusted. Erin mentioned previously that she and Jack were close with his mother and that Jack was kind of a mama’s boy. Most mama’s boys I know tell their mothers almost everything about their lives.

  Meridian Estates was a plush senior community in a gated fence. There was a mixture of villas and condos throughout the property. We pulled up in front of Elizabeth Smith’s villa. I called before I left and asked if she’d be willing to speak with us. She agreed.

  I knocked on the door and a woman who looked to be about my age answered.

  “You must be the detectives from D.C.”

  We both showed her our badges.

  The woman smiled, “I’m Susan Winestead. I believe I spoke with you this morning. I’m Elizabeth’s home nurse. Come in. She’s been waiting for you.”

  Susan led us through a short foyer and into a living room. Sitting on the couch was Jack Smith’s mother, Elizabeth Smith. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I didn’t have an image in my head of what she looked like. But if I had to pick a mother, I’d say she looked like Edith Bunker from the 70’s sitcom All in the Family. She had curly red hair and a big smile. When we entered the living room, she stood up and greeted us with handshakes and motioned for us to sit down.

  “Thank you for seeing us, Mrs. Smith,” I said.

  “My pleasure. Anything I can do to help.”

  Then she let out a violent cough that sounded like her lungs were about to come out through her mouth. Several seconds later she gathered herself and apologized.

  “I have emphysema. Docs tried to warn me to quit smoking.” She shrugged her shoulders as if to say oh well.

  Pat and I nodded, not sure how to respond.

  “Have you found that bitch that killed my son? I assume that’s why you’re here.”

  “Ah…” I was caught off guard by the bluntness of her question. “Do you mean Erin?”

  “Yeah, the bitch.”

  “We did. She’s dead.”