High Concept

by Whitley Gray

  “The subpoena allows us to inspect the box without supervision and confiscate the contents, Mr. Jennings.” Beck nodded toward a row of doors in the private banking area. “Now if you’ll just unlock a room.”

  The subpoena crinkled. “I’ll want you to sign the safe-deposit-box register first.”

  “Fine.” Shifting the box to his left arm, Beck winced. Damn shoulder. The box had a definite heft—not heavy, but not light enough to be empty.

  Zach gently took the box. “I’ll hold it while you sign.”

  A signature, another protest from Mr. Jennings, and Beck shut the door on the manager’s florid face. A flip of the lock, and they were alone. Secure. Zach slid the box onto the waist-high table. “Ready?”

  “Okay. Here goes.” Beck reached for the lid of the box and tilted it up.

  Zach gave a low whistle. “Well, your source knew what he was talking about.”

  Packages of twenty-dollar bills filled the box, pristine white paper straps obscuring the brooding face of Andrew Jackson. The smell of dry paper and dust drifted from the money. What was Weaver doing with all this cash? “Good thing we subpoenaed all his accounts.” Beck pulled on latex gloves and handed a pair to Zach. “Wouldn’t have figured him for a safe-deposit-box kind of guy.”

  “It’s a lot of money.”

  “Could be counterfeit. Could have fingerprints, though.”

  “His time in the system should have educated him on how to not leave prints.” Zach worked a glove onto each hand.

  Beck gave Zach a wry smile. “This is the guy who left a thumbprint on the flush lever at a murder scene.”

  “True.” Zach reached into the box and held up a stack of bills. “Let’s count.”

  Beck withdrew an evidence bag from his coat pocket, shook it out, and set it on the counter. “If the bands are intact, we should be able to count it that way, but knowing Weaver, he could’ve slipped a couple of bills from the stack.”

  “Let’s check each bundle.”

  Working together, they counted and transferred the cash to the bag. The box held thirty-nine hundred dollars in twenties; one stack on the bottom of the container had been opened and eleven hundred dollars removed.

  “We’ve got thirty-nine hundred here in currency,” Beck said, pulling a roll of orange evidence tape from his coat pocket. “Adding in the six hundred from savings, forty-five hundred dollars. So he spent five hundred.”

  “On the gun?”

  For a second, Beck expected the usual earmarks of a flashback, but somehow the swirl of images didn’t come. Focusing on the bag, he ripped off a strip of tape. “Nah.” Beck folded the top of the evidence bag down and sealed it with tape, initialed the tape, and handed the pen to Zach. “A gun wouldn’t cost that much. Where the five hundred went doesn’t matter.”

  After scribbling initials on the bag, Zach closed the empty safe deposit box and tapped the lid. “What say we give this back to Mr. Jennings, then grab some lunch?”

  “I like the way you think.” Beck scooped up the bag. “Let’s go.”

  * * * *

  Two box lunches from Zaidy’s Deli in tow, they returned to the precinct and settled at Beck’s desk in the bull pen. As Zach unwrapped a pastrami and Swiss on rye, his stomach rumbled. The rich aroma of deli meat and spicy mustard made his mouth water. “While the lab and computer crimes work on the money, we can work on the scenes.”

  Beck popped the top off a bottle of soda. “What about the scenes?”

  “We’ll check them out in person.” Zach bit into his sandwich and closed his eyes. Heavenly. The pastrami practically melted on his tongue. So much better than a drive-through fast-food lunch. Zach opened his eyes and caught Beck’s grin.

  “Good?” Beck asked before lifting the bottle of cream soda to his lips. Zach followed the motion of Beck’s Adam’s apple as he swallowed.

  “Better than good.” Zach pulled the dill pickle spear out of his lunch container and wagged it at Beck, gratified when Beck dropped his gaze and studied his sandwich.

  “What were you saying about the crime scene?” Beck grabbed a fork and dug into a cup of potato salad.

  “Was there a full moon on the night of the Olivetti home invasion? Was it overcast? Raining? I’d like to see it at night.” Zach shoved aside the memory of exhuming the Omaha victims at night, spikes of rain arrowing through the glare of spotlights. He traded his sandwich for a cup of fresh fruit.

  Beck’s head snapped up. “Why?”

  “The crimes happened at night. It helps to re-create the scene, establish how it looked to the offenders.” It helped sort out logistics. In other words, let Zach think like the killer, and he despised that part of the job.

  Beck set aside his sandwich and pulled up a search window on the computer. “Hold on. Let me get some meteorological data here.” He tapped keys and paused. “Not a full moon that night. More like a half-moon. Clear skies.”

  “And what’s the moon phase tonight?”

  “Mmm…similar. A bit less than a half. Supposed to be clear.”

  “That’ll do. We can check out the crime scenes tonight. In the meantime, we need to dig up more on the connection of Alistair Greer to his parents and to Olivetti.”

  Beck groaned. “More virtual investigation and digging through paper?”

  Zach licked his spoon and tossed the empty fruit container in the trash. “Welcome to the glamorous world of profiling.”

  * * * *

  Don’t squeak the damn springs. In the top bunk, Ferris lay in the motionless pose of an animal trying to avoid detection. No noise, no attention, no attack.

  In the bunk below him, plastic crackled. Brown sniffed three times and laughed. Three more sniffs followed by a laugh. Sniff, sniff, sniff, laugh, a groan, panting, and “Fuck.” Ferris took a shallow breath. For a hulking maniac, Brown got a lot of mileage out of a scrap of paper. And thank fuck for that, because the stupid thing kept the bastard busy. Hell, Brown jacked off while he fondled the thing.

  While Brown was away on work detail, Ferris had pulled the paper from its hiding place beneath the plastic cover of Brown’s mattress. At first it’d looked like some of that Japanese paper-folding shit, orgy gummy. Instead, he’d found a palm-sized heart torn from red construction paper, leaving the edges rough and uneven. Some sort of dark splotches decorated the middle. No words, no Braille-like bumps. Ferris had held it up to the light, and no pinpricks of light had shown through. No secret message. And Ferris hadn’t smelled a damn thing.

  Just a fucking love note of some kind. Brown didn’t seem like the kind of guy to have a valentine somewhere, let alone get all mushy over a paper heart. Ridiculous. Ferris held back a snort.

  Groaning and cussing came from the bunk below, a lot of “fuck” mixed with “shit” and “damn.” The springs kept time, squeeka-squeeka-squeeka, until Brown growled with his release.

  Maybe the ogre would sleep now and ignore him. Ferris slowed his breathing.

  Don’t squeak the damn springs.

  Chapter Thirteen

  A night fit for a serial killer.

  Clouds scudded across the waxing moon, interrupting illumination of the serrated ridge of evergreens along the horizon. The rural road northwest of town hadn’t seen the blade of a grader since last winter, and the department vehicle bounced in the ruts. Despite Beck’s presence in the driver’s seat, the remote darkness made Zach’s nerves twang in anxiety, and his icy fingers wouldn’t thaw. The heater rattled on full blast as it labored to pump warmth into the interior of the car. Should’ve brought the rental. At least they’d have been warm.

  What in the hell were they doing out here this time of night without backup? Traffic was nonexistent, and no lights poked through the dense evergreen forest. An isolated location for a murder. If the car broke down, they’d be stranded. And it was so dark…

  The headlights caught on a mailbox here and there. Who wanted to live in the forest like the Big Bad Wolf? These people were pretenders—wealthy metr
o dwellers who had departed for the countryside. A place where people named their properties important-sounding names like “The Hollows” and “Evergreen Acres.”

  The trees thinned, and Beck slowed. A plaque marked the driveway of the Olivetti house, declaring it “Ambition.” Fitting. An errant flag of canary-colored crime scene tape hung from a nearby tree, suggesting a more sinister name, something like “Malefaction.” A hint of unease curled low in Zach’s stomach.

  Beck’s voice made him jump. “It’s just around this curve.”

  God. This felt faintly illegal, coming out here this time of night. “Olivetti hasn’t lived here since the murders?”

  “Never came back after the murders. Said he couldn’t be here after the deaths. The keys were still in the evidence locker.”

  “But it’s been released as a crime scene.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is it for sale?”

  Beck rolled to a stop and shot him a quizzical look. “Nah. Would you buy a murder house?”

  “No. Everyday life has enough excitement for me.”

  “This is it.”

  The house crouched on an expanse of winter-killed grass, surrounded by a thicket of wiry shrubs. Windows stared at them like empty eyes. Pale moonlight broke through the clouds, illuminating the front of the house.

  They exited the vehicle. The pungency of pines and wood smoke scented the night. Winter licked at the fall air, an icy tongue on Zach’s skin. Despite the forecast, clouds blocked the moonlight at intervals, throwing the scenery into darkness, picking out features with silvery fingers as the clouds passed. A sky straight out of a horror film. All that was missing were forks of lightning.

  Beck met him at the front of the car. “We’ll take a look at the body sites, then anything else you think might help.”

  Driving away and a stiff drink would help. The creep factor exceeded what he’d expected. Most of the crime scenes he’d worked involved the bodies of victims. The location of the kill site required lots of personnel and the intense illumination of spotlights—nothing like this.

  Something rustled in the trees, and Zach tensed. “What was that?”

  Beck shrugged. “Deer? Skunk? It won’t bother us if we don’t bother it.”

  Yeah, right. Precisely why he didn’t camp or hike. The forest—and its occupants—couldn’t be trusted. Too many wooded dump sites like Omaha. The moon deigned to make an appearance, and the heightened contrast revealed a manlike shape among the trunks. He grabbed Beck’s sleeve. “See that? Someone’s out there.”

  “Where?” Beck sighted along Zach’s outstretched arm. After a moment of peering in silence at the tree line, Beck turned. “Relax, Littman. No one’s out there.”

  He exhaled. Great. Hallucinating stalkers in the shadows. With Beck’s PTSD issues, Zach had expected to be the calm one. But it was damn dark out here, and the irregular moonlight left him wanting a flashlight to push back the night. Don’t pull out the penlight like a kid worried about monsters.

  Zach stuffed his hands in the pockets of his trench coat, and they headed for the porch. Their footfalls made hollow chings on the concrete, like a chisel on a tombstone.

  The stone wall of the house shadowed the inset front entrance. Something weird about that door—random light-colored marks. Vandalism? As they approached, the markings coalesced into a solid form.

  “Shit.” Beck whipped out his gun and charged up the few steps to the landing.

  “What—” Oh fuck.

  A body hung on the door.

  Zach’s feet froze to the ground. He looked down. Somehow, his SIG had made its way into his hands. He’d pulled his weapon without conscious thought. That was how keyed up this place had him.

  “It’s clear.” Beck’s voice came from the gloom of the entryway.

  “Who…?”

  “It’s a plastic skeleton. A Halloween decoration. Come on up.”

  Not a corpse. Thank God. Zach holstered his gun. As he climbed the stairs, the figure’s skull grinned with too-big teeth and bottomless eye sockets. It wore a ratty shirt and no pants. A political campaign button featuring Olivetti was pinned on the breast pocket. Christmas lights bound its hands and feet.

  What the hell? A bad joke or a warning? A shiver slithered across Zach’s skin. The jailhouse informant had known about the Christmas lights. Who else knew enough to stage this?

  Seeming oblivious to the meaning of the graveyard doorman, Beck pulled on latex gloves and lifted the skeleton off the door. “Probably a kid playing a prank.”

  “Some prank.”

  “We’ll take it in. I’ve got evidence bags in the backseat.”

  “I’ll grab a few.” Thankful for the chance to get away and take a breath, Zach strode to the car and snatched up a handful of the bags from the backseat. Who knew what else they might need to bag and tag? Glancing over his shoulder, he couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched, of unseen eyes raking his back. He slammed the door, spun, and marched to the entry.

  In the gloom, Beck’s eyes were dark in the pale oval of his face. “Maybe the intent was to scare off intruders.”

  “Let’s get your friend in a sack.” Zach shook out an evidence bag, and Beck settled the skeleton inside. The descent bore a creepy resemblance to lowering a body into a grave.

  “Okay.” Beck dug for the house keys. “Ready to go inside?”

  “Look, why don’t we come back in the morning? I’ll even buy you breakfast.”

  His white grin glinted in the moonlight. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were inviting me for a sleepover.”

  A heat wave burned away the chill on Zach’s skin. Thank God Beck couldn’t see him blush here in the shadows. Zach cleared his throat. “We’re already out here. Let’s take a look.”

  Using the borrowed key, Beck unlocked the dead bolt. The door swung inward on noiseless hinges. Inside, the absence of sound assaulted Zach’s ears. If there was ever a time to believe in a haunting, this was it. Inside the front door, Beck flipped a light switch. Nothing. “We’re going to need the flashlights.”

  Talk about escalating discomfort.

  A sensation like a ghostly tap on the shoulder got the attention of his gut. The hairs on his neck saluted. Adrenaline flogged his heart into a panic.

  For the space of a couple of heartbeats, they stood in the dark. A blade of light knifed across the floor. Zach sucked in a breath.

  “Jesus, you’re jumpy. Here.” Beck offered him a flashlight.

  As Zach took it, a breath of relief whooshed out of him before he could catch it. Get it together, Littman. Aiming his light, he scanned the foyer.

  A round anteroom, about two arm spans across, with a circular wood bench built into the stone walls. All it needed was shackles on the walls, and they’d have a makeshift dungeon. Above, faint blue and gold showed through a dome-shaped skylight. Zach shook his head. A stained-glass ceiling. Hell of a mudroom. Ahead lay the inky interior of the house.

  “This way.” Beck inched forward, light aimed at the floor. A dust overlay absorbed the illumination. They were standing on a wide balcony-like landing. In front of them, a railing overlooked the yawning dark. To the left, stairs went up a half story, made a 180-degree turn, and faded into the shadows. To the right, a set of steps descended to a lower landing before this stairway too made a sharp turn and disappeared in the gloom.

  A chill rushed over his skin. No maniacs here, no bodies. Plenty of light. He aimed the light over the railing. The wall opposite the balcony had to be a good thirty feet away and had the appearance of a huge theater screen. Some sort of massive shade covering a wall composed of floor-to-ceiling windows soaring two stories.

  Wow. Olivetti must have made a killing in corporate raiding. The living room lay a full story below the landing, the furniture covered with drop cloths; a vase held withered flowers festooned with spiderwebs. On the right side of the room, a river-stone fireplace rose from the carpet to the ceiling. On the left, the wall facing the fire
place held built-in cabinets for an entertainment center. These ascended a story and gave way to a large open kitchen on the same level as the balcony on which they stood. The breakfast bar was situated so that diners could look out over the living room.

  Beck trailed his light over the kitchen. Stainless-steel appliances winked back. “Some house, huh?”

  “Excessive house.”

  “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

  More elaborate than this? His stomach clenched, and again he considered deep-sixing the night’s search. He hadn’t anticipated the cavernous interior of the house. They’d require more light to get any sense of proportion. A lot more light. “Beck. I need to see the scene as it was that night. Are the overhead lights working?”

  “Maybe. The box is in the basement.”

  A prickle of unease ran up Zach’s spine. “Okay. I’ll wait here if you want to take a look. Otherwise, we can come back in the daytime.”

  “We’re here, so I might as well check.” He took two steps down the staircase and hesitated. “You’ll be okay until I get back?”

  “Yeah. Just don’t take long.”

  “The furnace room where Olivetti was found is near the mechanical room. Do you want to see that?”

  Sounded better than staying here. “Sure.”

  * * * *

  It was like descending into a crypt. God, it was dark. Zach focused on steady breaths and the paltry beam of his flashlight. Dust had settled in a thick layer on all horizontal surfaces, and the stuffy air smelled like disuse and damp. The air became cooler as they moved lower. As they reached the ground floor, light flashed at them, and Zach jumped.

  “Just a mirror,” Beck called over his shoulder. “They’re all over the place. Watch your step on this rug.”

  “Okay.” Zach ran the flashlight beam over the area. Another mudroom opened off to the right, and beyond that lay an exit door to the side of the house. A pair of kids’ rubber boots decorated with ladybugs sat by the door. A knot formed in Zach’s gut. Someone should empty this house of all the sad reminders.