Then early on the morning of August 2, he drove down Highway 280 to Woodside. It was a typical August morning with white fog spilling over the coastal mountains and hovering over the lakes. Woodside Road took him through the old village, with its deceptively rural setting, then it started to climb past luxury homes set back amid lush gardens. He found the house easily enough. It was the last one on a leafy dead-end street. As the man had promised, it was surrounded by a high brick wall and set well apart from any neighbors. Ted turned the car so that it was ready to drive away and left it parked under a large oak tree.
The area was still heavy with fog, and when he opened the car door, he found himself in an eerily muted world of indistinct shapes and muffled sounds.
"Perfect,” he said to himself, but then he began to worry. What if it was too foggy for a morning walk? He crossed the road and approached the house under cover of the wall. Near the front gate he located a drain cover. He lifted it up and drew out a black plastic bag. In the bag, wrapped in cloth, was the gun, a stylish Colt that felt heavier than Ted expected, and a sheet of instructions. It detailed the route he was to take up into the mountains and hollow tree where he was to leave the gun and pick up directions to his money.
He felt surprisingly calm as he approached the front gate. He found the security box easily enough and punched in the numbers. The big gate swung open. Ted glanced up, wondering if he was being observed, but the house was scarcely visible through the trees and the fog. He heaved a sigh of relief as the gate swung shut again. He made his way around the perimeter of the property until he came upon the small side gate in the wall. The path leading to it from the house was bordered with thick shrubs, as the man had described. All Ted had to do was choose the perfect spot. He tried several and then settled on a space between two rhododendrons. From that vantage point he could see her coming and then have a perfect target as she punched in the security numbers and waited for the gate to open.
The gun felt cold and heavy in his sweaty hands as he waited. He pictured shooting another human being, the body sprawling forward, the blood, maybe an anguished cry. What if he didn't kill her with the first shot? Would he have the nerve to stand over her and calmly finish her off? He shook his head violently and the shake turned into a shudder that ran down his whole body. He couldn't do it. There was no way ... He started to emerge from his hiding place. He'd leave the gun, get on that plane, and just go.
Then the words “fifty thousand” buzzed around inside his head. Fifty thousand. Enough to buy a little business, put a down payment on a house, get a life again. He could do it. He was going to do it. He had to do it. He patted the inside pocket of his jacket with the air ticket in it. By tonight he'd be in Philadelphia. By tonight the nightmare would be over.
He looked up as he heard the crunch of feet on gravel. She was coming. Seven o'clock on the dot. Blood roared in his head as he readied the weapon. As she passed him his first impression was of the bright blue jogging suit and blond hair. His second impression was that she was younger than he had expected. She reached the gate and turned to the security box. She was pretty, too, with a fresh, wide-eyed look, hair tied back in a ponytail.
There had to be something wrong. This couldn't be the wife who had made the man's life hell for years. His daughter, maybe? But he hadn't mentioned children and she was probably a little old for a daughter. Maybe face-lifts and cosmetics made her look younger than she really was. The gun shook in his hand as he tried to keep it steady. And then, as she reached up to shut the security box, he noticed something else. She was pregnant—her belly stretching out the blue jogging pants to their limit.
He stood in the bushes holding his breath while she opened the gate, jogged out of the yard, and the gate closed behind her. Then he didn't know what to do next. He waited a while, but nobody else came. Then he turned and began to blunder back to the front gate. The man would understand. Surely the man would understand that there was no way he could shoot a pregnant woman. He'd leave a note with the gun. And then he'd catch that plane. He couldn't be traced to Philadelphia. The guy didn't even know his name.
He reached the gate and pushed. The gate didn't move. He swore under his breath and looked for the security box. He found it, retrieved the piece of paper from his pocket, and punched in the numbers. Nothing happened. His breath was coming in ragged gasps now. It couldn't require a different code to exit—in which case, why hadn't he been given it? He shook the gate, rattled it, charged at it with his shoulder, but it didn't budge. In panic he looked up at the wall. It was topped with jagged glass and well above his reach. He ran back through the garden to the side gate and tried the code he had been given. Nothing. He closed his eyes and tried to picture the woman punching in numbers. He must have noticed subconsciously which numbers she pushed. But then he realized that he had been focused on her belly, not her hand.
Trapped. The words echoed around his head. How was he ever going to get out?
Calm down, he told himself. There has to be a way. I'll find a wheelbarrow in a shed and push it over to the wall. Or a plank. Or something. Somewhere in this garden there is something that can get me out of here.
He worked his way around with little success until he came to the toolshed. It was locked, but he found a rock and worked on smashing the padlock. He was vaguely aware of sounds, muffled by the fog, but it took him a while to realize they were sirens. He jumped up. A security system. He'd been picked up by a security system. They were coming after him. He had to think of a good story and quickly.
Hide. There must be somewhere to hide in a garden this size. He started to run, willing his damaged leg not to let him down. Those bushes by the side gate would give him protection, unless there had been a security camera trained on him all the time, or they had brought dogs—or both. Shit, he muttered. Security system. He should have thought of that. But why had the guy not mentioned it—unless ... cold sweat ran down his spine ... unless it had been part of the plan that he be trapped and caught red-handed with the gun.
The gun—it was still in his pocket. He wrenched it out and threw it into the thickest shrubs he could find. He hadn't quite reached the safety of the bushes when the side gate opened in front of him and the young pregnant woman entered, with two policemen behind her.
"I saw the car I didn't recognize,” she said, “so I thought I should call you guys, with Daniel gone and all."
"You did the right thing, miss,” the officer said, but the last of his sentence was drowned by the young woman's scream as she pointed at Ted.
"There he is!"
Ted had been frozen like a rabbit caught in headlights. He turned to run, only to find another officer behind him, gun already drawn.
"Hold it right there, buddy."
It flashed through Ted's mind that nobody had called him buddy in his life until this week, and now it seemed that everyone was doing it.
"Get your hands up."
Ted complied. “Look, officers, there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for this,” he said, trying desperately to think of one. “I'm a gardener. A specialist. In roses. The usual gardener asked me to take a look at the roses and see what was wrong with them. Blight, he thought. That's how I got in. He gave me the code."
He kept talking as he was patted down from top to toe.
The officer backed away and nodded. “Okay. Easy enough to check. You can come with us down to the police station and give us all the details while we check out the place to make sure nothing has been touched."
"I swear I haven't been near the house,” he said.
"Then you've nothing to worry about, have you?” The first officer jerked the gun. “Hands behind your back.” And he was handcuffed. The cold metal bit into his wrists. Calm down, he told himself. You have nothing to worry about. There is nothing they can pin on you. They'll have to let you go.
He was thrust into the back of the police car and asked for his car keys. He watched as one of the officers started to search the car. They'd fi
nd his bag, of course. But nothing else incriminating. They'd have to let him go. He'd tell them about the flight. Show them his ticket and then they'd have to let him go.
The Woodside police station was neither cutesy nor rural, but housed in a new civic building. He was taken to a room, the cuffs were removed, and he was fingerprinted. The contents of his pockets were examined, his watch was removed, then he was taken to an interview room, told to sit in a chair and wait. At last a different policeman came in, this one not in uniform but wearing a white shirt, open at the collar, and well-cut chinos. Behind him a uniformed officer stood at attention, his hands fingering the weapon at his side.
"Hi there, Mister?"
"Prescott. Edward Prescott."
"How are you, Mr. Prescott. I'm Lieutenant Hansen. Address?"
"I'm just visiting, from Philadelphia,” Ted said. “I've been staying at the Ocean Lodge motel the past few days. I'm due to fly back home today. If you take a look at what they removed from my pockets, you'll see the ticket there."
"And just what did you say you were doing at the Huntley house?"
"Like I told your officers, I'm a gardener—a plant specialist. I was asked to take a look at the roses."
"Is that so?"
Ted nodded.
"Who asked you?"
"I don't know exactly. The gardener, I suppose. I was contacted by e-mail. Just sent the pertinent information. I've got the printout sheet in my pocket."
The lieutenant smiled and nodded. Ted relaxed a little. He was rather pleased at the way this was going. Thinking on his feet again, as he had done in the old days when he'd been in the cutthroat dot-com business. The old Ted starting to emerge.
"And you never went near the house?"
"No. I had no need to. I was looking for the rose bushes in the garden."
The lieutenant produced a notebook. “I'll need your address in Philadelphia, Mr. Prescott. And your cell phone number and e-mail. All your details."
"But I've just told you ... I've just explained. Look officer, I've a plane to catch. And I can't give you a Philadelphia address because I'm in the process of moving. I can give you someone who can vouch for me—” and he tried to remember Sandy's address off the top of his head.
"Thank you, sir. This shouldn't take long. If you're in the clear, then you can catch that plane.” Lieutenant Hansen nodded and was about to leave when his phone rang. Ted heard the officer say, “What? You're kidding me. Lucky, huh?” and then a low conversation followed. From time to time he glanced at Ted. Then he said, “So you're a gardener, huh? Nowhere near the house? Then I expect you'd be completely surprised to hear that Mrs. Huntley has been found shot to death in her bed."
"What?” It came out almost as a shriek. “She was alive. I saw her."
"Then you were in the house!"
"What? No, I told you. Nowhere near the house. She went jogging. And then she came back. With your men."
"I'm talking about Mrs. Bernice Huntley, Daniel Huntley's wife."
"Then who was the young woman who went jogging?"
"I gather that was Mr. Huntley's secretary who only happened to show up by chance."
Ted's thoughts were in turmoil. More than anything was the awful realization that he might have shot a completely innocent, uninvolved woman by mistake. Then it occurred to him that perhaps she wasn't innocent at all. Young, pretty, pregnant, and probably involved with her boss. Maybe she had decided to take matters into her own hands to improve her situation.
"Then I suggest you question this secretary,” he said, “because she was just leaving the compound as I arrived."
"We'll definitely do that, Mr. Prescott.” Lieutenant Hansen turned to the officer behind him. “Take him to a holding cell, Rogers. I expect we'll have more questions to ask Mr. Prescott when I've taken a look at the crime scene."
Ted was led away, hardly aware of where he was going or what he was doing.
"In you go, buddy.” A friendly shove propelled him into a cell and the door clanged shut behind him. Ted sat on the hard metal bench. The metal felt cold through his thin pants and he couldn't stop shivering. Mistake. There had to be some mistake. They'd have to believe that he didn't kill anybody. Well, he knew one thing. If his life was on the line, he wasn't holding back on any information. He'd let them know about Mr. Huntley and the conversation they had at the vista point.
After what seemed like hours, he was brought a mug of coffee and a turkey sandwich. His stomach was growling for food, but when he tried to swallow, the bread just wouldn't go down. He managed a few sips of coffee. He'd obviously missed his flight. He got up, paced, and sat down again. He had no idea how long he'd been there, whether it was day or night when an officer came to fetch him and he was escorted back to the interview room. This time Lieutenant Hansen was joined by an older detective and several uniformed officers.
"Mr. Prescott,” the lieutenant said, all the time eyeballing him. “I'm about to read you your rights. I guess you know what that means, don't you?"
"You're about to charge me with a crime."
"Bingo.” The lieutenant began his recitation. Right to remain silent. Right to counsel. “Do you have an attorney you'd like to call?"
Ted tried to remember the name of the attorney he had used when he had been sued for patent infringement and various other legal problems. In the dot-com business there had always been minor legal problems, always someone else convinced that he'd come up with an idea first. Ted remembered one occasion when he had hired a great attorney and won a particularly tricky case. But then that guy had been down in Sunnyvale and he'd specialized in patent law. No help to someone about to be charged with a murder. He shook his head.
"Mr. Prescott,” the older detective said in a fatherly voice. “If you'd like to give us a confession right now, we'll make it easy on you. As easy as possible. You've been through a bad time—the stress of life on the streets, temporary insanity. We understand."
"Look,” Ted said, “I didn't do it. I didn't kill anybody."
"We've found the gun, Mr. Prescott,” Lieutenant Hansen said calmly. “Recently fired. Same caliber bullet that shot Mrs. Hansen through the head while she was asleep—and your fingerprints all over it. Seems like an open and shut case to me."
"But I didn't shoot her.” Ted could hear himself shouting now. “I've been set up, don't you see? Look, I'll tell you the whole story and you'll see how I was set up. This Mr. Huntley asked me to meet him at a vista point. He offered me fifty thousand to kill his wife. He had the whole thing arranged. He told me how to get in, where to pick up the gun, where to drop it off. He told me his wife went walking every morning at seven and told me where to stand by that side gate. As you probably now know, I needed money desperately, or I'd never have agreed in the first place. But I did what I was told. I found the gun where it had been hidden. I entered the garden with the code he gave me, and at seven on the dot that young woman appeared. Well, I knew right then that I could never shoot a pregnant woman, so I let her go. But then I couldn't get out. That's when you guys found me. But I swear I never went near the house. I thought the pregnant woman was Mrs. Huntley."
The policemen were staring at him with impassive faces.
"I can prove it,” he said. “Among the stuff you took from my pockets was the piece of paper with directions for dropping off the gun and collecting the money. Go check that out. And the gun. Check out the gun and see who it's registered to."
"We've already done that, sir,” Lieutenant Hansen was looking smug now. “It was bought in Reno last week. The purchaser identified himself as a Mr. Edward Prescott. You bought the gun, sir. Your fingerprints and only yours are on it. You are guilty as hell, Mr. Edward Prescott, and the sooner you admit it, the better for all of us."
Ted was taken back to his cell. There was one blanket on the bench and he draped it around his shoulders, trying to stop shaking. Nightmare. Mr. Huntley had promised him the nightmare would end, but it was never going to end now. How could he
have trusted that jerk, believed him, when all the time he was being set up. The sucker. Disposable. Utterly and completely disposable. Then a new thought surfaced through the turbulent waters of his brain. No names, the guy had said. But he had known Ted's name. He had bought a gun in Ted's name. How was that possible?
Then another thought joined the first. Huntley. Lawyers. Patent infringement case. Sunwire Systems versus Ridgeway-Huntley. He'd hired a good lawyer and he had won, against all odds. He'd heard that Ridgeway-Huntley were furious. He'd laughed at the time. A courtroom scene slowly formed itself in his head. And he knew why the man had looked vaguely familiar. He had been there, in that courtroom. And even as Ted pictured it, his brain moved to another scene: that night at vista point, and Huntley saying pleasantly, “You screw me and you'll be sorry. I don't play nice with people who try to double-cross me."
And he had to admit, grudgingly, that Huntley had certainly pulled off a good one this time. Two birds with one stone. He wasn't entirely surprised when the search of the hollow tree in the mountains turned up nothing.
Copyright (c) 2007 Rhys Bowen
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PUBLIC IMMUNITY by Eve Fisher
The sight of Neil Inveig, lying on the floor of his bedroom, naked except for his socks, was an instant flashback to Barry's freshman year. I'd gone to his dorm to get him so we could drive home together and found Barry so hungover he could hardly talk and Neil passed out on the floor, looking pretty much the way he did now.
"Hell of a party,” Barry had managed to gasp out. “You should have come. Lots of booze. Neil brought girls. I think I'm dying."
I'd glanced at Neil and said, “Looks like he did."
Barry had turned even greener. “Oh crap. What're we gonna do? If the RA..."
"He's breathing,” I'd said.
This time he wasn't. There was a sticky dark cap of blood on the back of his blond head; blood spattered on his shoulders, his back, his furniture, his room. Someone had finally nailed him.
AHMM, November 2007 Page 8
