by Tim O'Rourke
However much it disgusts us, these wolves made a deal years ago for Pen and they are keeping to it. Just come home.”
“I can’t, not until I know Pen is safe,” I breathed down the phone.
“She is alive,” he suddenly said.
“How do you know?” I asked, jumping from the bed, and reaching for my clothes with my free hand.
“Her car registration popped up at a local ANPR system just a few days ago,” Rom said.
“Where?” I snapped.
“On Bleachers Road,” he said.
“I know it,” I breathed. “It’s the main road which heads out of town.”
“Then that’s your answer,” Rom sighed.
“Your friend has hit the road. Decided to do a runner from this guy she’s been promised to. Just come home, son. You never know; she might show up here.”
To hear that Pen’s car had been pinged by the local Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras raised my hopes that she was safe and well.
“Are you still there, Murphy?” Rom asked, cutting into the silence.
“Huh?” I said thoughtfully. “Yeah, I’m still here.”
“There’s nothing you can do to help,”
Rom said. “Don’t get yourself in wolf issues – not this kind anyhow.”
“But...” I started.
“No buts, Murphy,” Rom barked, any understanding that he might have felt for me now gone. “Get your arse back home. I’ll see you in my office at nine tomorrow morning!”
The phone clicked as he cut the line dead.
I placed the phone back on the stand beside the bed. Was Pen really alive and well? I wondered. I hoped so. Maybe she was in hiding somewhere? Perhaps she had rented a room? But what I couldn’t understand was – why hadn’t she contacted me?
With these thoughts clawing away at me, I took a shower and got dressed. I slipped my handcuffs through the loop on my belt, holstered my gun, threw on my jacket, and headed for the door. It was then that I saw the envelope lying on the floor. I picked it up and turned it over in my hands. On the front somebody had scribbled ‘ Jim’.
I yanked open my hotel door; there was no one there. I tore open the envelope and read what was written on the folded piece of paper inside:
Check out Dorothy’s ruby slippers!
I recognised the handwriting as that of the previous letter writer. Why can’t Annie just talk to me, instead of posting these cryptic messages? I wondered. But then again, if she felt secure in communicating with me in this way, it was okay with me. At least somebody was prepared to help me find out what had happened to Pen.
Check out Dorothy’s ruby slippers! But what does it mean? I wondered. I placed the piece of paper back into the envelope and tucked it into my jacket pocket.
I remembered the night Pen and I had spent in The Hollows watching the magical moving pictures, The Wizard of Oz, together. I could clearly see Dorothy standing there, beautiful and innocent, clicking the heels of her ruby slippers together and saying over and over, ‘There’s no place like home! There’s no place like home!’
Maybe that was it! Perhaps that was what the message alluded to – Pen had gone home? Maybe she had had enough of Marc and his brother and her ailing bar and had just gone back to her world beyond the Fountain of Souls.
No, not likely, I pondered. Pen had told me of her reluctance to ever go home again.
Perhaps she had found some other place to live?
But it always came back to the same question: If Pen had done any of these things, why hadn’t she contacted me?
“Think, Jim, think,” I said out loud.
Rom had said that I had to be in the office by 9 a.m. tomorrow morning, so that gave me less than twenty-four hours to find out what had happened to Pen. Rom seemed to believe that Pen was alive because her car had been...
I picked up the phone again and dialled his number.
“Rom,” he said irritably.
“It’s Mur...” I started.
“This had better be good!” he snapped.
“You said that Pen’s car had been picked up on that ANPR camera, I said. “But that doesn’t mean she was driving it.”
“Jesus-wept,” Rom groaned. “Stop chasing ghosts and get your arse back...”
“Can you get someone to pull the images?” I asked, my heart thumping. I knew I had already pushed my luck with Rom.
“Listen to me!” Rom roared, and I had to pull the phone away from my ear, he bellowed so loud. “I’ve got better things to do than go wasting my time chasing wolves...”
“But I believe Pen has been murdered,” I said. “Please help me and I promise as soon as I get back I’ll happily give you my badge and leave the Force. I just need to know that my friend is...”
“She’s a wolf!” he cut in.
“But she’s not like the others,” I insisted.
“I thought the Vampyrus were meant to help those wolves who wanted to break free of their curse...”
“And we are,” Rom barked. “But I think you’re too close to this wolf. I believe your judgment is clouded.”
“What’s so wrong about wanting to help a friend?”
“She’s a wolf!” he almost screamed.
“So she doesn’t deserve our protection, then?” I tried to reason.
There was a silence. I waited for his response to come.
“You don’t leave that hotel room until I call you back,” he said finally, then hung up the phone.
Loosening my jacket, I lay back on my unmade bed. I crossed my legs at the ankles and laced my fingers behind me head. My mind went back to the note which Annie had snuck beneath the door for me. Then sitting bolt upright, I shouted, “Of course! Dorothy’s ruby slippers! The ruby slippers in the display case in Pen’s bedroom!”
That was the answer. That was what Annie had been guiding me to in her letter. But having the answer only perplexed me further.
How would those ruby slippers help me find Pen?
What did they have to do with her disappearance?
And the biggest question of all – how was I going to get to those ruby slippers with Marc and Steve living at Pen’s house?
Chapter Nineteen
Murphy
I popped the end of my pipe between my lips, lit it, and inhaled deeply.
When was I gonna get a half-decent break? I asked myself. I was running around in circles. My best friend had suddenly vanished, or worse, there were two criminals encamped in her house, I’ve got a single mum who’s too scared to even talk to me but has a passion for sending me cryptic messages that the FBI would have difficulty in cracking, and my Inspector wants to sack me!
As I contemplated my next move, I puffed on my pipe and squirted jets of smoke out through my nostrils. I still had the ruby slipper mystery to solve…whatever that had to do with anything, I did not know. All I could do was wait for Rom to get back to me. Perhaps he was right and Pen had driven off, so desperate to escape Marc and his brother that she didn’t have the chance to contact me. I couldn’t do anything for sure until I had some kind of proof that Pen had been hurt, or worse. I spent the day pacing back and forth across my hotel room. I didn’t want to go out for food just in case I missed Rom’s telephone call, so I ordered some to my room.
I chewed the ham and cheese sandwich without even tasting it. I flicked through the TV
channels, my eyes not even focusing what played across the screen. The hours ticked slowly by – dragging out like a long shadow. Then, as the afternoon slipped into early evening, the phone rang. I snatched the receiver from its cradle and placed it against my ear.
“Murphy?” Rom said.
“Have you found anything?” I asked.
“Okay, this still doesn’t mean anything...”
he started.
“What doesn’t?” I cut in.
“I’ve seen the picture the ANPR camera snapped and it wasn’t...”
“Who was driving the car?” I demanded.
&nb
sp; “The picture isn’t great, but the person behind the wheel is definitely male. Longish, dark hair...” he started to explain.
“Marc,” I breathed over him.
“We don’t know that for sure,” Rom tried to reason. “And even if it was – so what does that prove? Perhaps he borrowed your friend’s car.”
“Not likely,” I said. Then thinking of the note which had been placed under my door, I added, “I have just one more lead I want to follow up.”
“No!” Rom barked. “You get your arse back here right...”
I hung up the phone before he’d had a chance to finish.
I was now convinced that some harm had come to Pen at the hands of Marc and his brother, Steve. I knew the time I would spend trying to convince Rom that Pen was in danger would be wasted, and time was something I feared I didn’t have a lot of. My plan wasn’t to storm over to Pen’s and confront Marc straight away – no, I needed to get into the house unbeknown to him and Steve, and take a look at those ruby slippers.
They must bear some significance on Pen’s disappearance; otherwise Annie wouldn’t have pointed me in their direction. The more evidence I had confirming Pen had been a victim of foul play, the more chance I had of convincing Rom to launch an investigation into her disappearance.
I checked my weapon, holstered it beneath my jacket along with my cuffs, and left my hotel room. It was fully dark now, and cold. A fine drizzle was in the air, and by the time I had reached my car, my hair and jacket were wet. I started the engine and swung out of the car park.
When I got near to Pen’s house, I pulled off the road and parked my car up a little dirt track about a mile away and took a torch from the boot of the car. I made my way through the wooded area, which stood tall and overgrown on either side of the dirt track, and set off in the direction of Pen’s house. I walked for about twenty minutes through the trees until I could see Pen’s house in the clearing ahead. I positioned myself so I could see who was coming and if anyone was leaving.
Hunkering down, I made myself small between the trunks of the trees. I could see the old blue truck which had been parked there the day before.
I figured at least Steve was at home if not Marc, as well.
Glancing down at my watch and it was just short of 8 p.m. I settled against the tree in the darkness and waited. At just gone half past eight, Pen’s front door was swung open and Steve appeared on the porch. He stood momentarily and picked the seat of his pants from the crack in his arse. If that wasn’t bad enough, he stuffed a finger up his nostril and began having a good root around. After digging away for several seconds, he pulled his finger out and studied the snot he had retrieved. After inspecting it for a moment or two, he popped it into his mouth.
“C’mon!” he yelled back into the house.
“You go ahead, I’ll catch up with you later,” shouted Marc from inside.
Steve then swung the front door closed, farted, sighed, and then got into the truck and drove off.
“Filthy animal,” I grumbled to myself.
“One down, one to go!” I sat back against the tree.
I waited patiently for another hour or so before Marc appeared on the porch. My back had begun to ache and my joints were stiff from sitting in the same position for so long. I could clearly see Marc from my hiding place. He skipped down the steps leading from the porch and went round to the side of the house and out of my view. I then heard the wailing sound of the garage door being pushed up. The noise of a car rumbled into life.
Pen’s car swung into view, then onto the road. I could see it was being driven by Marc. As he drove off at speed, I got up and my knees made an audible ‘cracking’ noise. I stood and stretched, waiting just a few more moments until the sound of Pen’s car disappeared into the distance.
Once I was sure Marc had gone, I stepped out of the wooded area and went to the rear of Pen’s house.
Chapter Twenty
Murphy
Once round the back of the house, I stood on tip toe and rattled the windows in their frames.
All of them seemed to be securely fastened. I then went to the back door and pushed and pulled on its handle but without success. I cupped my hands around my eyes and peered through the windowpane in the door and into the kitchen. I couldn’t see any movement from inside, and if there had of been anyone else in there, they would have shown themselves while coming to investigate the sound of me yanking on the back door.
I didn’t know how much time I had to get in to see what the ruby slippers had to offer. I had to get in then out again without Marc or Steve returning, so I pulled the flashlight from my waistband and smashed the base of it against the window in the back door. I shuddered as the glass splintered noisily and scattered all over the kitchen floor. This hadn’t been my first choice of entry.
Marc and Steve would have known they’d had an intruder and I doubted it would have taken them very long to work out it had been me. But I needed to get in and out of the house as soon as possible. Once I had been in and done what I needed to do, there was very little they could do about it. Besides, I took a perverse satisfaction in them knowing I wasn’t planning on going anywhere until I had discovered what had happened to Pen.
I slid my arm through the broken windowpane and twisted the latch on the other side of the door. I eased it open gently and snuck in, closing the door behind me. I switched on the flashlight and it lit up everything I pointed it at in a warm cone of orange light. I panned it around the room and could see the place was dirty and messy. There were empty beer bottles scattered about the floor and discarded Pizza Hut boxes with half-eaten triangles of pizza lying in grease. I could see ashtrays overflowing with burnt-out cigarette butts perched on the arms of the couch.
Leaving the squalor behind me, I climbed the stairs and went up to Pen’s bedroom. I shone the light around the room and could see that her bed was unmade. There were dirty boxer shorts and clothes all over the floor. I crossed the room to where the display cabinet stood and was relieved to see it was still there. The ruby slippers winked on and off at me like a million minute cat eyes in the glare of my torch.
I pulled the glass door open and held the torch between my teeth so I could inspect the slippers. Without touching them, I carried out a visual inspection to see if there was anything obvious about them which I would notice straight away. I screwed up my eyes in the glare of the flashlight, but couldn’t see anything abnormal about them. I reached in and removed the left slipper from the display. It came away easily enough and I turned it over and over in my hands.
Nothing. I tipped it up, so I could see inside, half expecting to find another note, or a secret key which would lead me to some hidden chamber, and in turn, to Pen. I found nothing. I put the slipper back and picked up the right one. But as I tried to remove this slipper from the cabinet, I felt a little resistance. Gently, I tried to pull the slipper free, but it had been attached to something. I lent as far as I could into the glass structure and peered under the sole of the shoe. It was then I noticed a thin, black wire running out of the heel of the slipper and out through the back of the display cabinet. I placed two fingers inside the slipper and blindly followed the wire which led to the toe.
Here I could feel a little piece of hard, square-shaped plastic.
It suddenly dawned on me I had felt something like this before. Something I had handled countless times in the course of my duties as a cop. It was a miniature camera. I removed my fingers and studied the toe of the slipper.
Amongst the hundreds of tiny red sequins covering it, I could see the tiny black lens of a camera.
“Pen, Pen, Pen!” I whispered to myself, realising she must have gotten the idea from all of those stories I’d told her about my work.
“But what is it that you want me to see?”
I asked, as if she were standing right next to me.
“What was it you hoped to catch on camera?”
I placed the slipper back in position and pulled the display
case away from the wall. I flashed the light behind it and could see the thin, black wire running out of the back and down beneath the gap between the wall and the edge of the carpet. I hunkered down and followed the wire which led me to a small closet. The wire disappeared around the back so I pulled the closet away from the wall and peered around it. Here I could see a small, square door which was shut flush against the wall. I squeezed between the wall and the closet and prised it open.
With the aid of my torch, I looked inside and saw a DVD recorder with its luminous display panel flashing a sickly green back at me. I could see that the machine was no longer recording, so I pressed the ‘Eject’ button and a DVD popped out.
I removed it and stood up. The fact that the camera was still in place and the DVD had remained untouched, assured me that neither Marc nor Steve were aware of its existence. To say I was curious to find out what was on the disc was an understatement.
“Where would be a safe place to watch it?” I was asking myself when I suddenly heard the front door slam shut downstairs.
I flicked off my torch and stood rigid in the darkness of Pen’s bedroom. I tucked the disc inside my jacket and felt the cold metal of my gun.
I kept it holstered and crept across the room, hiding behind the open door. I listened intently for any sound of movement from below. It was silent.
The only sound was the thumping of my heart in my chest, ears, and throat. It was eerily silent.
Then, I heard the sound of broken glass being crunched underfoot.
They’re gonna know someone’s in here now! I thought to myself as I pictured either Marc or Steve coming across the broken window in the back door.
It went silent again and I strained desperately to try and hear movement. Any sound would do, to give me some idea of how many were in the house and their whereabouts. I eased my gun from its holster and removed the safety catch. Then, suddenly the house was filled with noise. Somebody had started to play music at a deafening level. It was so loud that the thumping bass of the music shook the whole house. I recognised the song to be Jump Around by House of Pain. The music pounded like a swollen and blood-filled heart all around me. I immediately knew why the music had been turned on and played at such an ear-piercing level – it was to drown out the sound of them moving around the house in search of me. With the house in total darkness and unable to hear anything, it took away both of my most vital senses.
