Project Moses - A Mystery Thriller (Enzo Lee Mystery-Thriller Series)

by Robert B. Lowe

When he reached the front of the house, Hassan leaped quickly up the outside stairs. It took him 20 seconds to pick the lock to Sarah’s flat and let himself in. He locked the door behind him.

  Once inside the flat, Hassan moved methodically through the rooms. In the bedroom, he took a pillowcase off a pillow and emptied the contents of a jewelry box on the dresser into it. He pulled open all of the dresser drawers and pulled everything out, looking in the places where people ordinarily hide their valuables. He found a wad of $20 bills in Sarah’s underwear drawer. He added that to the jewelry in the pillowcase.

  Hassan pulled Sarah’s hanging clothes out of her closet and pulled out the boxes stacked on the upper shelves. He pulled off the tops but found nothing except a Nikon camera that he added to his stash.

  In the office, he went through the file cabinet and pulled most of the files from the drawers. He put them on the floor quietly. He didn’t want the tenants below to hear anything alarming. He didn’t find anything worth stealing in the office and just left the files scattered about.

  In the living room, Hassan removed the books from the built-in bookcases and piled them on the floor. He knew it was a place where many people install wall safes. As he expected, he didn’t find one. It didn’t really matter. He just wanted to leave the trail of a half-way competent burglar. He decided to bypass the kitchen. The noise would have been too great a risk.

  He made a quick survey of the rooms, thinking about how they would look to the police. He left the pillowcase with the meager booty at the top of the stairs. Hassan made a mental note to take it with him when he left. Afterward, he would dump it someplace where it would likely be found and, hopefully, reported to the police. He would leave the camera and some of the jewelry inside.

  The last thing he would do is take the girl’s purse and the reporter’s wallet, if he returned with her. In a few days, he would try to use one of the credit cards or bank cards, making sure that he couldn’t be identified in the process, of course. That should convince anyone that he had been a burglar, surprised in the act, who had merely killed the people who walked in on him.

  Hassan moved a small chair in the living room to the front bay windows. He would have to return it to its original place when he saw them drive up. He was careful to position it in the shadow, where no one outside would see him sitting. Then, he took his .38-caliber Glock out of a holster in the small of his back. He toyed with it, popping the magazine out and then pushing it back into the handle of the gun, over and over, while he waited.

  • • •

  SARAH AND LEE were at the bottom of the outside stairway when the door at the top of the landing, the one beside the door leading to her flat, opened. A couple emerged. The man had long, brown hair tied in a ponytail in the back. The woman was a plump Asian.

  “Hi, Sarah,” said the woman.

  “Hello, Denise. Hello, Terry,” said Sarah. “Meet a friend of mine. Enzo Lee.”

  Lee shook hands with the couple who occupied the flat beneath Sarah’s.

  “Did you forget something?” said Terry, blinking in the bright light of a street lamp directly overhead.

  “What do you mean?” asked Sarah.

  “Well, we just heard you moving around upstairs,” Terry explained. “You know how everything squeaks in these old houses. It’s not that you make a lot of noise or anything, but, well…”

  “You mean you heard somebody? Just now, you heard somebody in my flat?” Sarah asked the question with a puzzled expression on her face. “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah,” said Denise. “That’s sure what it sounded like to me, too. We were in the front room and it sounded like someone walking right above our heads.”

  Sarah looked at Lee.

  “There shouldn’t be anyone in there, right?” he asked.

  “Right,” Sarah replied. “What do you think we should do?”

  “Call the police,” said Lee.

  The four of them held a hurried whispered conference on the outside stairs. If there was a burglar in the building, Terry and Denise didn’t want to go back into their apartment. But, they were willing to wait outside and watch the building while Lee and Sarah hunted for a pay phone.

  All of a sudden they heard the ugly sound of metal scraping on concrete followed by the tinny crash of a trash can tipping over.

  “Around the side,” said Sarah, pointing toward the side of the house.

  Lee jumped down the stairs and ran quickly around the corner of the house. As he turned the corner, he saw someone wearing a hooded sweatshirt hanging from the top of a fence at the rear of the house. The person dropped to the sidewalk, looked up at Lee and then started sprinting in the opposite direction.

  Lee took off after the intruder. He was about 20 yards behind. They ran down the poorly lighted block past trees spaced every few yards. Lee thought he was gaining. Suddenly, Lee saw the figure ahead of him twist around. He saw a flash. There was a loud pop and he heard a short, high-pitched whine as a bullet whizzed by his left ear, hitting a telephone pole behind him with a thud. Lee stopped on a dime. He was stunned. It took him a second to realize he was still an exposed target and to drop to the cement while the hooded figure disappeared in the dark.

  • • •

  SARAH AND LEE went up to inspect the damage. It appeared to Lee as if Sarah’s papers and clothing were strewn everywhere. He guessed that the intruder must have been there through most of their dinner, rummaging through every room. The mess seemed particularly bad in the small room near the top of the stairway that Sarah used as an office. Her file cabinet drawers were standing open and empty. Piles of papers and file folders lay on the floor and spilled into the hallway.

  They found a pillowcase the intruder had left behind filled with valuables. Lee followed Sarah from room to room while she picked through clutter trying to determine if anything was missing. He noticed that there were no signs of perversion, ripped panties and the like. It appeared that clothes had been scooped out to see what lay beneath, and dresses had been yanked out of the closets to see what was behind them.

  When the police finally arrived 20 minutes later, they had to repeat the journey. Lee thought about trying to explain how this might be more than just a burglary attempt. But, he doubted whether the two patrolmen would take him seriously. From his experience with a couple of car break-ins and a burglary at his own apartment in New York, he didn’t think that any extra investigative work like dusting for fingerprints would do any good. He kept quiet.

  As they moved through the flat, Lee could sense Sarah’s energy ebbing and depression setting in.

  “Look,” he said, after the police had finally gone. “You should clean this up later. I’ll help you. You shouldn’t stay here tonight. It’s too dangerous and too depressing for you. You can stay with me. I’ll sleep on the couch. Or stay with someone else you know, at least for tonight. Just don’t stay here.”

  “Well, I guess I could get a hotel room for tonight,” said Sarah.

  “It’s late. Why don’t you come with me?” said Lee. “I sleep on the sofa a lot anyway. l have a lot of room. It’s just me and my cat, Max.”

  “Oh, a cat,” echoed Sarah. She shook her head as if to shake out the images of the chaos in her flat. She refocused on Lee. “Is Max a boy?”

  “No, a girl,” said Lee. “It’s short for Maxine, I guess. I don’t know. The name just fits. You’ll love her.”

  As Sarah packed two bags and they locked up her flat, Lee thought again about his pursuit of the intruder. The scene was completely clear in his mind and he knew already it was one he could never forget: the muzzle flash, the innocent-sounding pop and the bullet that he had felt cleave the air as it sped by his head.

  Chapter 11

  LEE WOKE TO the sound of water running in the shower. It took him a couple of minutes to remember why he was in his sleeping bag on the living room couch. Then, he remembered Sarah.

  He got up and pulled on a shirt and a pair of sweatpants. He poured water in
to the coffee maker and put a Frank Sinatra disk on the CD player. Then, Lee walked down to the corner market and bought a dozen eggs and a block of white Vermont cheddar. Sarah was yawning into her coffee when Lee walked into the kitchen. She wore designer jeans and a blue work shirt with flowers embroidered on the pockets. Her damp hair was combed straight and parted down the middle.

  “Sleep okay?” he asked.

  “Great, once Max fell asleep and stopped purring. She sounds like a diesel truck.”

  “Really. I never noticed. Everything work okay in the shower?”

  “Fine. You know, you can buy cans of spray-on cleaner that cut through mold pretty well. They have bubbles with little faces and cleaning brushes…on the can, I mean.”

  “Yeah. I’ve been meaning to find a housekeeper.” Lee tapped open the first egg against the side of the bowl. “Do you like eggs and cheese?”

  They ate the scrambled eggs in the small breakfast nook in the kitchen. The finicky toaster decided to produce two slices that were golden brown, a rarity. Lee considered it a good omen. Lee noticed that Sarah drank her coffee black.

  “So,” said Lee. “How are you feeling?”

  “Not bad, considering I’ve been run over, burglarized, and lost the person I’m closest to in the past four days,” said Sarah. “Not bad at all, considering.”

  “Still no idea why any of this has happened, huh?”

  Sarah shook her head.

  “All I can tell you is that, as the one on the receiving end of all this attention, I have the inescapable feeling that someone is out to get me. Or they want something. Or both.”

  “And you can’t think of any possible explanation?” asked Lee.

  “None. I’m what I look like. I lead a fairly simple life. I’m not rich.”

  “You drive a BMW,” said Lee, with a shrug.

  “Used,” said Sarah. “I bought it used from my aunt. I don’t think this is about a six-year-old car.” She set her coffee mug down emphatically. “Look, I sue people and sometimes I win. But, mostly I sue large companies. It’s part of doing business for them. I can’t understand why in God’s name this is happening.”

  “Well, people can be pretty irrational,” said Lee. “Take the guy who shot those lawyers downtown. They helped him settle a lawsuit in his favor and years later he’s blowing them away. And, then there are all those stalking cases where someone has become obsessed with someone else. Maybe somebody is obsessed with you. Someone you don’t even know.”

  “I guess anything’s possible. I’ve never considered myself obsession material, to tell you the truth,” said Sarah with a dismissive toss of her head. “The other thing is: What about Aunt Miriam? What about Orson? Is all that just coincidence, too?”

  “Did you know Orson Adams?” asked Lee.

  “Oh, sure. We went to Hastings together,” said Sarah. “We were in a lot of the same classes our first year. We had a circle of friends, six or seven people, who spent a lot of time together. We were buddies.”

  “Was it just…uh…platonic?” asked Lee.

  “Were we involved? No. I was living with a guy at the time. My ex. Orson and I were just friends. We stayed in touch. I saw him at lawyer functions every now and then.”

  “When did you last see him?”

  “Oh…a couple of months ago.” Sarah rested her chin on the palm of her hand and closed her eyes, trying to recall the scene. “It was some fundraising event. I don’t remember which one.”

  “Did he talk about anything in particular?”

  “Not really. He may have mentioned some of his cases. You know, with all that criminal work he had some good war stories. I’d really have to sit down and think about what he said.”

  “Did he mention anything about a guy, a defendant he was trying, named Warrington? Lloyd Warrington?” asked Lee.

  “The name doesn’t ring a bell.”

  Lee told her what he knew about Lloyd Warrington’s burglary case, including the conversation that Lee had had with Warrington in People’s Park.

  “I don’t know,” said Sarah. “It’s hard to believe that a bunch of animal rights types, no matter how extreme, would start killing people. But, I guess zealots of some sort are as good a theory as any other. But, why me?”

  “Well, it could be guilt by association,” said Lee. He started to gather up their plates. “If someone targeted your aunt, maybe they saw you together and think you’re her daughter. Maybe they think that you were assisting her somehow, or know something that threatens them. Who knows?”

  “So, do you think Aunt Miriam was killed? What about this disease? What is that all about?”

  Lee stood up and carried the dishes to the sink. “I don’t know,” he said. “I hope to get some more answers today. I’m hoping the medical examiner’s office can at least say whether poisoning is a possibility.”

  He noticed Sarah’s grim expression.

  “I know it sounds horrible,” said Lee. “But we need to get to the bottom of it.”

  Lee left Sarah at his flat to call old law school friends who might have been in recent contact with Adams. He went downstairs and unlocked the garage door to get the Fiat. He paused for a minute, looking up and down the street. He couldn’t help wondering if someone might be there, staking out his apartment and waiting for Sarah to emerge. He couldn’t see anyone obvious. But, it was a busy neighborhood with major streets only a stone’s throw away. How could he be sure?

  Lee had been impressed by Sarah’s reaction to what must be a terrifying situation for her. She was dealing with it coolly and analytically, not panicking. He imagined that he’d be howling at the gods in her situation.

  As Lee headed into the Broadway Tunnel, he thought yet again about what had happened the night before. The shock and fear of having a gun fired at him had worn off. Now he was just angry. And determined to find out who was after Sarah and why.

  • • •

  MIKE SANTOS WAS out when Lee arrived at his office, so he waited out by the receptionist thumbing through catalogues for medical saws, autopsy tables, organ scales and other accessories for today’s modern morgue.

  Santos walked in wearing his lab coat. He invited Lee into his office.

  “Sorry,” said Santos. He explained that he was working on a fascinating case involving a victim who had been shot and then torched to make it look like an accident. Santos blew his nose into a white cloth handkerchief.

  “I can’t get the smell out,” he said.

  Lee was glad lunch was still a couple hours away.

  “Mike, I wanted to check again on the Gilbert death,” said Lee. “Are you any closer to figuring out what it was?”

  “No. It still is a mystery,” said Santos. He looked downcast. “We’ve tried spectrometry and have analyzed the tissue samples. No one has found anything that shouldn’t be there. If it weren’t for the clotting, you wouldn’t think anything abnormal had happened. The labs will keep trying different things for weeks. Maybe something will turn up. My guess is that this one will stay ‘unexplained.’“

  Lee shook his head sympathetically.

  “Say, Mike. Did your office or the cops take any pictures of the judge’s chambers?”

  “Of course.”

  “Can I see ‘em? I mean, if you’ve got them here.”

  Santos picked up the phone and dialed four numbers. “Cathy? Bring in the Gilbert file.”

  There was a stack of 15 pictures from different angles and distances. They all showed Miriam Gilbert, head down on her desk. Santos left Lee alone in his outer office. Surrounded by the colored bell jars filled with human organs, Lee studied each photo quickly before laying it face down on a second stack.

  Somewhere toward the middle of the stack, he noticed one envelope in particular sitting on the judge’s desktop with a distinctive logo, a spiral with fruit and flowers dangling from it. He also noticed what looked like a pressed yellow flower on the desk. He made a mental note of both items.

  When he was finished
, Lee handed the file to Santos’ secretary. He retrieved the Fiat and headed down Bryant Street toward the News. The profiles of Miriam Gilbert and Orson Adams were due the next day. With a few more calls he could finish his reporting for the articles.

  As he drove, Lee thought about Lloyd Warrington. There was something about Warrington that intrigued him. He was arrogant, the type who thinks he can beat the system because he’s smarter than everyone else. On the other hand, Lee wasn’t sure whether Warrington actually believed all of the animal rights philosophy he had espoused the day before or whether he was just full of crap. Lee considered himself a professional at detecting crap but he just couldn’t tell with Warrington.

  The phone calls took most of the afternoon. While he waited for people to call him back, Lee started to rough out the two stories. He kept the tone properly somber, avoiding his usual irreverence. He just wanted something serviceable, something that would do Gilbert and Adams justice and get Ray Pilmann off his back. It was early evening and Lee was getting ready to leave when his phone rang. It was Bobbie Connors.

  “I told you I would call if anything developed,” she said. “We’ve got a suspect in the Adams case. His name is Lloyd Warrington.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Honey, I’m dead serious. We’ve got him in the station now for questioning. Give us an hour and we’ll probably make the arrest.”

  “I was just talking to him yesterday,” Lee said.

  “What? Warrington? How’s that?”

  “You know about his case, right?” said Lee. “He was Adams’ last case. There was a mistrial because of a hung jury the day Adams died.”

  “No kidding?” said Connors. “Whattaya know? When it rains it pours.”

  “What have you got? If you didn’t know about the case, why is he a suspect?”

  “Look, Enzo,” said Connors. “Just between you and me and the wall. And if I ever see any of this in print your ass will be dead meat here, understand? We got an anonymous call saying Warrington stole the truck.”

  “You’re basing this on an anonymous call?” said Lee.