Sudden Engagement

by Julie Miller

  “Why label them if you’re going to tear down the building?”

  “Originally, I wanted to save the Ludlow. There’s some real architectural history here.” He remembered the day he made the decision to pour his money into the other two buildings because the Ludlow needed so much work. He’d felt as if he’d let her down.

  He skimmed his hand along the painted walnut paneling, still wishing he could repair the ravages of time and bad taste. The stale dust that tickled his nose gave way to Ginny’s clean, flowery scent. She wasn’t interested in his emotional attachment to the building, she’d simply asked a polite question. He gave a polite answer. “The cost to restructure her was too prohibitive. Let’s keep moving.”

  He negotiated a path around the first of the marked stairs. Leading the way, he easily stretched over two rotted steps. But with her shorter legs, it proved a more challenging climb. He kept a close eye on her as she matched his footing.

  As she shifted her balance, she rocked back on her heels, automatically reaching out for the railing that was no longer there. He lunged quickly, grabbed her hand and pulled her up onto the step beside him. “Easy.”

  Ever the practical detective, she hesitated only a moment before turning her clasp into his, allowing him to help her over the dangerous stretch of stairs and onto the fourth-floor landing.

  Once on a level surface she let go. She breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth, revealing a need to calm herself. “Do I want to know how far down this stairwell goes?”

  “You’re four stories up now. Plus the basement. That’s a good sixty feet before you hit bottom. Unless you get skewered by an exposed timber or support pylon along the way.”

  Her gaze darted up to his, satisfying herself that the danger he described was real. “At least my phobias don’t include a fear of heights.”

  Whether that was an attempt at humor or just a statement of fact, Brett didn’t try to decipher. He shied away from trying to understand Ginny, and stuck to what he knew best. “You want to walk as close to the walls as you can. There’s more support there than over an open expanse of floor.”

  He practiced what he preached and led her down the hallway, past a gaping hole in the middle of the floor where the linoleum and woodwork had given way to water leaks and age and gravity. To her credit, she respected his expertise and followed along in his footsteps.

  “Here.” He turned into one of the many doorways without a door. “This was the Bishops’ humble abode. Sophie moved out after Alvin disappeared. Stayed in a foster home until she graduated high school and left for college. It’s been abandoned ever since. I don’t know what you expect to find here.”

  “Neither do I.” Trailing her hand along the outer wall as she had done in the hallway, she scouted the perimeter of the tiny one-bedroom apartment. “How did three people fit in here?”

  Brett idly opened the one remaining cupboard door in the kitchenette area and peered inside. “Sophie used the bedroom. Mark slept on a sofa bed out here. Alvin spent most of his time passed out in a recliner in front of the TV, with his coffee cup full of whiskey and java.”

  “Coffee cup?” A light of possibilities sparked in her eyes.

  He imagined a set of precision gears twirling inside her head as her curiosity kicked in. Despite his mood, he’d always been drawn to fine-tuned machines, and found her intensity hard to resist. “I never saw him drink the booze straight. He liked to pretend he was handling his addiction. Whether it was here or at a bar, I don’t think I ever saw him without his Irish coffee.”

  “When did he start drinking?” she asked, jotting his responses in her notebook.

  “When his wife left him. Mark said old Alvin never was the same after that.”

  Ginny’s breath rushed out on a compassionate sigh. “Did he abuse her, too? Did drinking worsen an already existing problem?”

  He’d been little more than a kid himself the last time he saw Mrs. Bishop. He vaguely remembered dark hair pulled back into a bun, and a stern but pretty face. “You’d have to ask Sophie that. Mark never said much about his mom.”

  Ginny tucked her notebook back into her pocket. “It’s a wonder Sophie survived as well as she has.”

  He reported his findings instead of commenting on the obvious. Mark hadn’t survived that home life. “Nothing here, unless a mouse hole’s important.”

  She poked her head into the bedroom, but didn’t go in. Instead, she worked her way back to the kitchen. “Mr. Rascone said Alvin Bishop was as big as you, right?”

  “Yeah. Fatter, but probably just as tall.” He wondered what tangent of the case she was calculating now.

  “Could you carry a man that size down four flights of stairs and on into the basement or subbasement?”

  “It wouldn’t be easy. If he’s passed out or unconscious I’d have to drag him.”

  She shook her head. “That would draw too much attention.”

  “Then I’d need help to carry him that far.” He caught on to her train of thought. “You think more than one person killed Alvin?”

  That light blazed in her eyes. “I think something happened up here that made him go downstairs on his own.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like finding out his meal ticket was running away with my sister. How many loved ones can one man stand to lose? I think he went downstairs to stop them.”

  Brett stared at her. Hard. “You’re saying he tracked them down? Followed them so he could stop them by whatever means he deemed necessary?”

  She sucked in a deep breath and studied him. He had a feeling she wasn’t evaluating his ability to follow her line of thinking. But there was no way he could prepare himself for her question. “You found Mark’s body, right?”

  “Hell.” He hooked his thumbs into his front pockets and turned away, unable to keep the horrible scene from popping into his mind. So much blood. So much waste.

  He jumped as a soft spot of heat singed his shoulder blade. He stiffened, unprepared for the touch of Ginny’s hand. But he needed that touch to stay in the moment, to stay sane enough to help her. He leaned back, allowing himself to feel the imprint of each finger against his back, cherishing the bit of comfort she offered.

  He wanted to turn and swallow her up in his arms, bury his face in her hair, lose himself inside her. Then maybe he could find enough warmth to chase away the utter chill of holding a lifeless friend in his arms.

  But Ginny wouldn’t do that for him. He had no right to ask for anything more than what she was willing to offer him, a strictly business partnership. The hell of the matter was, her business was taking a toll on his big ol’ heart.

  He opened his eyes and faced her, setting aside all emotion just as she so often did. It was the only way he could get through this. “I found him. He was already dead. When the paramedics rushed in, I got pushed aside. Then Sophie came home. She got hysterical. I took her outside and we just walked. For hours. Then the police caught up to us and, you know the rest.”

  He pounded his fist on the warped countertop. “He’d asked me to meet him in the basement. He wanted to borrow some money for bus tickets. I was going to try to talk him out of eloping. He was too young. He had his whole life…” His words failed him as he fought back the angry tears burning his eyes.

  “Was Amy there?”

  “No, dammit!” His hoarse shout echoed in the empty room. “It was just him. His skull broken, his ribs crushed, his life seeping away into the cracks of this hellhole.” It took Ginny cowering back a step for him to realize he’d been advancing on her.

  Twelve years of anger and hate and guilt dashed out on a single breath. “I’m sorry.” She nervously tucked a perfect curl behind her ear. The best way to atone for his outburst was to answer her question. “I was late meeting him. If Amy was there she’d already gone.”

  “She wouldn’t have left him if she knew he was hurt. My sister could never leave anyone who was in pain. She wouldn’t have left Mark to die alone. Not vol
untarily.”

  She spoke quietly, keeping her eyes locked on his, offering that same empathy from the night before. But no, she’d made herself clear. This was the good cop prodding him along. Not a fiancée, not even a friend. She meant nothing personal with that reassurance. He had no right taking the compassion from her she didn’t consciously want to give.

  He moved past her to the living-room window, needing the benefit of space between them to keep from reaching for her. He could tell by the pinpoint articulation in her voice that whatever trepidation he might have caused her was being crushed beneath the gears of that analytical mind of hers. “No Amy. No Sophie. No Alvin. How late were you that night?”

  He looked outside into the bright, normal sunlight that couldn’t seem to pierce the grimy, cracked windowpanes. “An hour, hour and a half.”

  “You didn’t call the paramedics?”

  “No.”

  He didn’t get the significance of the questions until she added, “So who called 911?”

  The discovery in her voice beckoned him to turn. Forget the sunshine. Ginny’s blue eyes blazed with intensity, and made him feel one step closer to the truth. “The only people who knew Mark was down there were Alvin and me.”

  “And Alvin’s killer.”

  She pulled out her cell phone and punched in an autodial number. “I’ll call Merle and have him check the 911 records. Keep your fingers crossed there’s a name or number we can trace.”

  “We can leave now, right?” He wasn’t sure how visiting the old apartment had helped Ginny with the case, though apparently it had. But if she’d seen enough, he’d rather they returned to solid ground to figure out the rest of it. Straying from the outside wall, he hurried across the room.

  With his third step, the floor dipped beneath his boot. His sense of the building’s flaws made his reaction quick. He jumped to the bedroom doorjamb as the flooring cracked and began to sink.

  “Brett!”

  He put out his hand to stop her in her tracks and keep her from running toward him. “Don’t move.”

  She froze.

  The cracking sound gave way to the erratic trickle of bits of wood and plaster hitting the framework between this and the apartment below them. Ginny held her breath the way he held his.

  Like a sudden spring storm, the patter of falling debris gradually increased its tempo to a steady staccato beat as chunks grew bigger and set off a chain reaction of floor hitting ceiling, and breaking through and hitting the floor below.

  Without a word he motioned her away from the extra weight of the kitchen counters to the relative safety of the front doorway. Below his feet he felt the groaning stretch of a century-old structure trying to support itself.

  “C’mon, old lady,” he breathed, willing Victorian craftsmanship to hold together for a few minutes longer.

  “Brett, let’s go. I’ve seen enough. This isn’t safe.”

  “You don’t have to tell me twice.”

  As if the floor itself was crying out in pain, a bellowing moan followed the path of his quick, nimble steps to the doorway. He caught her up around the waist and leaped with her to the open archway across the hall.

  “My phone!” It flew from her hand and disappeared through the broadening rift as the Bishops’ living room fell away. He pushed Ginny against the jamb and turned his body to shield her from flying plaster and a snowfall of dust. The crash of the heavier timbers jarred Brett as they smashed into the floor below.

  Seconds later, minutes perhaps, once the chorus of falling debris had reduced itself to the normal creaks and crumbles of a settling building, Brett eased his hold on Ginny. Her fingers relaxed their death grip on his forearm, but he didn’t allow her to move away. Fear of more floor giving way, he rationalized, ignoring the way their bodies still trembled in unison.

  Even from this distance, he could see the yawning hole in the center of the apartment. It split the length of the room and gave them a view of the pile of wood and rubble on the floor below.

  “You don’t need your phone back, right?”

  He didn’t really want her answer. They were leaving. Now.

  “I guess not.” She let him take her hand and lead her back down the stairs. Even though the broken steps had been marked, he tested each riser himself before allowing Ginny to follow.

  Not until they hit the main floor did he dare to release her. Then, with his hand pushing slightly at the small of her back, he hurried toward the front door. “You see why I have to raze her, don’t you? There’s no way to bring this deathtrap up to code.”

  “You mean ‘raze’ as in tear down, right?” He nodded at the definition. “How do you raze a building of this size?”

  “Usually we use explosives. You create an implosion so it collapses on itself without damaging neighboring buildings.” He paused at the entrance to touch the sculpted archway that would have to be destroyed. “I’ll take a wrecking ball to this old lady, though. She’s too unstable to count on her falling the right way.”

  Ginny had stopped listening to his explanation. She angled her head back toward the stairwell. “Do you hear voices?”

  He stopped her by the elbow when she took a step in that direction. “The place is falling down around us, remember? It makes lots of noises.”

  She shook him off but respected his concern. “I need to check the subbasement, anyway, before you raze the building.”

  “Didn’t Mac and his crew take enough pictures for you?”

  “I want to see it for myself one more time. Get all the puzzle pieces in my head before I start pinning down answers.”

  Then he heard a sharp cry, a squeal of sorrow, followed by some incoherent mutterings, and knew he wasn’t done with the Ludlow Arms just yet. “Damn. It’s got to be the homeless guys. We have to get them out of here.”

  He ran down to the basement with Ginny right behind him. When they reached the trapdoor and the top of the ladder that led to the subbasement, he hesitated. “I didn’t bring a flashlight with me. Are you okay to go down there?”

  She very nearly smiled, surprising him yet again. “As long as the roof doesn’t cave in on me, I can handle the dark for a few minutes.”

  Once Brett’s boots hit the dirt floor, he reached up to Ginny’s waist to lift her from the ladder. With her gun in the way, he had to move his hands higher, cursing his own gallantry when his fingertips caught beneath the firm curve of her breasts. When he set her down, she stepped away quickly, pulling her jacket and blouse and personal armor back into place.

  He wished he could do the same.

  “We won’t talk. You can’t make us talk.”

  The defiant taunts came from the same direction as the pungent odor of sweat and dirt. He waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness before taking stock of his surroundings.

  Little had changed since his last visit down here. The hole in the wall where Alvin was found had been opened up to facilitate removing the body. Sitting on the pile of bricks nearby was a gray-haired man with a greasy beard. From the whimpering sound he made, Brett assumed he was crying. Next to him stood a wiry, stooped man dressed in World War II–issue fatigues. He had his hands raised in the air and was backing away from Ginny.

  “He’s gone. What did you do with him?” he accused, clearly agitated by Ginny’s arrival.

  She had her hands in front of her, patting the air, trying to calm his fear. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Jones. Right now, I need you to come with me.”

  She turned her head to the silent man, who clutched his gnarled hands together as if saying a prayer. “Charlie, is it?”

  Brett crossed under the ladder and stood beside her. “You know these guys?”

  “They discovered Alvin’s body. I tried to interview them, but they think I’m the enemy. For whatever reason, they’re lost in the middle of a war. Zeke Jones and Charlie something.”

  “Zeke? Charlie?” Brett tried common-sense persuasion. “This building isn’t safe. I can take y
ou to a shelter instead.”

  “We never leave a comrade,” insisted Zeke.

  “Guys, you have to go.” Ginny stepped forward. Zeke grabbed Charlie and backed against the wall.

  “I don’t have to tell you nothing but name, rank and serial number.”

  Ginny turned to Brett. Even in the dim light, he could see the thoughts gleaming in her eyes. “Use a commanding voice. Order them to listen.”

  She wanted him to play along with the two intruders. Pulling up to his full height, he barked an order. “Men. Stand to.”

  They shut up, glared at him wide-eyed, then snapped to attention.

  “At ease, men.” In a softer voice, he whispered to Ginny, “You realize I’ve never been in the military.”

  “It doesn’t matter. They’re listening to you.”

  Taking a risk, Zeke spoke. “Why did the guard stop coming?”

  “What guard?”

  Zeke and Charlie exchanged curious looks before Zeke continued. “Kept the POW locked up here. Tortured him. Tried to break him.”

  Brett turned to Ginny. “Any idea what he’s talking about?”

  “Alvin Bishop.” Safety took a temporary back seat to her investigation. “Did you know the POW? Was it Alvin Bishop?”

  “Answer her,” ordered Brett.

  “Sir, yes, sir.” Zeke curled back into his eighty-something stoop. “Private Bishop. The guard checked him every day, until he stopped making that noise.”

  “The bell around his neck.” She latched onto Brett’s sleeve, the discovery filling her with an energy he could almost touch. “My God, that’s how he knew Bishop was dead. The bell didn’t ring anymore.”

  He smiled into her upturned face, knowing, as she did, that they’d found an eyewitness to Alvin’s murder.

  She kept hold of him as she asked, “Who was the guard? Did you know the guard?”

  “Came every day.”

  Like an evil reminder, the building shifted above them. “We need to get out of here,” Brett reminded her.

  Ginny tried one more time. “Would you recognize the guard if you saw him again? Can you describe him?”