Code 61 ch-4

by Donald Harstad

  I reached out and flipped the switch at the bottom of the stair, and the chandelier above the landing came on. We headed up the stairs.

  At the top, I looked down the hall. Everything seemed perfectly fine, except for one jarring note. There were wood splinters on the hall carpet, near the door across from Edie's room.

  “Whose room is that?” Sally whispered.

  “Edie's on the right, Melissa on the left, I think,” I said. I saw the switch plate, and turned on the hall light.

  “Oh boy.”

  “Let me go first,” I said.

  “No problem.”

  “Keep alert.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  Except for the sounds of our muffled steps on the carpet, it was absolutely quiet. A very bad sign.

  I glanced in Edie's opened door as we got to it. It seemed empty. I stuck my head in. All looked to be as we had left it the last time we were here. Except for some purplish flowers on the bed.

  “It's clear,” I said, as I pulled back into the hall.

  We crossed diagonally to Melissa's shattered door. It had obviously been hit very hard.

  “You stay here in the hall. He could be anywhere. Don't come in unless I tell you to.”

  “Okay,” said Sally.

  I looked more closely at Melissa's door as I entered her room. It had been struck repeatedly with considerable force, probably kicked. There were two places where something had penetrated completely, and the removal of whatever it was had pulled fragments out into the hall. Probably the kicker's foot.

  I reached around the door frame, found the light switch, and turned it on.

  The door was off its hinges at the bottom, and I pushed it back with my shoulder as I crossed the threshold. The first thing I saw was the overturned chair. The low bookshelf under the window was also overturned, the books spilled out onto the rug. The curtains had been pulled down, the dangling rod bent but still in the bracket. The window was opened about three inches. I moved my eyes to the right, and saw that the mattress was half off the bed frame, and the sheet and blankets were on the floor. There was a broken bed lamp near the head of the bed, and a framed picture all askew on the wall beside it. In the plaster wall was a large dent, at about my eye level. Another, a little lower, with what looked to be blood in the center. I followed the logical line downward, and there was a pool of blood on the floor, at the corner of the bed. And a foot with a bloody, white cotton sock on it just visible as it protruded from the space between the bed and the wall.

  I was over there in two steps. I peered down into the narrow space, and saw a crumpled body in a pair of pink polka-dotted cotton pajama bottoms and a blue T-shirt. The body was on its left side, facing the wall, and the knees were drawn up toward the chest, and the right arm was bent over the head, the elbow covering the face, in a familiar protective posture. The left arm wasn't visible. There was quite a bit of blood, mostly dried.

  The purplish red hair told me it was Melissa.

  I put my gun in my holster, and leaned gingerly on the bed, reached down, and felt for a carotid pulse. She flinched, startling me, and filling me with relief at the same time.

  “Melissa,” I said, “it's me, Houseman. We're here. It's going to be all right.” There was a slight movement, and her left hand moved, just a bit. She made a weak “thumbs up” sign.

  “Sally!”

  I unclipped my walkie-talkie from my belt, and called Dispatch, as Sally entered the room, and hurried over.

  “Comm, Three, ten-thirty-three.”

  Because we'd prerequested help, the dispatch center was unusually alert.

  “Three, go,” came snapping back.

  “Comm, we're at the Mansion, we have a civilian down, multiple injuries, need a ten-fifty-two. This is ten-thirty-three.”

  It never hurts to repeat the 10–33.

  “Ten-four, Three.”

  I shoved the walkie-talkie in my back pocket, and watched as Sally lay on the bed, reached down, and took Melissa's pulse. We couldn't move her, in case there was a spinal or severe internal injury, until we got help and some equipment.

  “I can't see my watch,” said Sally. To read her watch and take Melissa's pulse, she had to have both arms down into the small space that contained the victim. It was too dark in that crack to see the hands. “Tell me to 'go' and 'stop' when fifteen seconds are up.”

  I looked at my watch. When the second hand reached the numeral six, I said “Go!” I watched it sweep through fifteen seconds. “Stop!”

  “Okay, when the fifty-two goes ten-eight,” said Sally, “tell Comm to relay we have rapid, shallow breathing, weak pulse of ninety-five.”

  I did. “Comm, Three, when the ambulance starts to roll, tell 'em victim has rapid, shallow breathing, weak pulse of ninety-five.” They had me repeat it, and I complied.

  I didn't want to leave Melissa, but we didn't know what else we had going on. I checked her bathroom, found nobody, and came back into the bedroom. I took a second to study the scene more closely, and tapped Sally on the shoulder.

  She looked up from Melissa. “Yeah?”

  “Looks like the door was kicked in fast. While she was sleeping. Looks like she tried to escape out the window and he got in too fast. See?”

  Sally looked around. “Yeah.”

  “And he slammed her head into the wall,” I said, indicating the dents. “Twice, at least.” I didn't say it, but it looked as if he'd shoved the back of her head into the wall the first time, and the face into it the second, as there didn't seem to have been much blood on the back of her head. “How's she doing?”

  “No heavy bleeding I can see,” Sally said. “You might take a look out in the hall. Just past this door. I noticed it while I was waiting. A heck of a dent in the wall, across the hall,” she said. She bent back over the small space containing Melissa.

  I went to the door and looked. The dent was very similar to the head impressions on Melissa's wall. I stepped back into the bedroom.

  “That doesn't add up,” I said.

  “How are you doing?” said Sally to Melissa. I heard a response, but couldn't make it out. Sally looked up, and said, “She says fine.” She mouthed the word “shock.”

  I nodded. “Ask her where Huck is, if you can… ” and pulled my walkie-talkie out again. “Comm, Three?”

  “Three?”

  “Yeah, how we comin' with the ten-fifty-two?”

  “Ambulance is ten-eight, ten-seventy-six your location. ETA less than five.”

  “Ten-four.” At least, when the ambulance got to us, we could move Melissa. I was about to ask if we had anybody close to escort them, when I heard a squeak of tires outside. I looked out the window, and saw the Freiberg PD car in the drive. Byng. He'd be able to help the ambulance crew.

  It took the ambulance another three minutes to make it up the drive, but it seemed like an hour. I contacted them on my walkie-talkie, and told them we were in the house, and not to come in unescorted. As I looked out the window, I could see two white sheriff's cars, and a black state patrol car around the drive.

  I tapped Sally on the shoulder again.

  “Yeah?”

  “I'm gonna look for the rest of 'em. Our boy has to be here somewhere. He's probably high on meth or ecstasy, or both. Draw your weapon. If Peale comes into the room, if you think you have time, tell him to stop.”

  She nodded.

  “If you don't think you have time, shoot the fucker. Shoot until your gun is empty. You understand?”

  “Yeah, but… ”

  “Just do it. You gotta protect her, too,” I said, mo tioning toward Melissa.

  My trip down the hall was a little tense. I entered each room in turn, and found nobody home. No evidence of a struggle. Nothing. That left the third floor.

  I hustled back down the hall to Sally.

  “Sally? It's me!” I said that very deliberately before I stuck my head in the door.

  “Okay,” she said. As I looked in, I saw that she had both hand
s on her pistol. Good.

  “I'm going upstairs. Nothing on this floor but us folks.”

  She nodded. “Melissa says that Huck tried to help her. She doesn't know where she is.”

  I hate going up a stair when I believe there's somebody at the top who wants to kill me. I really, really hate that. But if Huck was alive, odds were that she was up there, too.

  I figured I might as well go up in a hurry. I had my gun in my right hand, and tried the door with my left. It opened easily. A bad sign. It should have been locked, I thought, unless Dan Peale had gone up with a key.

  I took two deep breaths, and then just ran up the damned stair.

  The upper floor turned out to be just as empty as it was the day we searched it. I double checked, even under the bed and in the little slot between the refrigerator and the wall. Empty. So was the back stair leading down to the kitchen. And that door turned out to be locked.

  I went back to check Sally and Melissa, and found a real crowd.

  An ambulance crew of two women and one man were there, just getting started. We moved the bed away from Melissa while the smaller of the women EMTs wedged herself into the widening space, and began taking vitals. The only sound in the room was the puffing of the blood pressure collar.

  “Nobody on three,” I said to Sally. “Back door's locked.”

  “Where…?”

  “I don't know,” I said.

  “Okay,” said an EMT, “cervical collar.”

  She was handed one, and she pushed the bed away from the wall another foot. In a few seconds, she looked up, and said, “Backboard.”

  We shoved the bed back about five feet; they slipped a backboard against Melissa, tightened the straps, and gently rolled her over onto her back.

  She looked like hell, with her left eye swollen out almost as far as her nose, and her left ear had a vertical tear in it that split the upper portion in half. That could have been from her head hitting the wall. That hard, she had to have at least a concussion. There was a lot of blood clotted on her face, her nose looked broken, and her lower lip was split. She opened her right eye, and said something. Sally leaned in, to try to hear over the rasp of opening Velcro and the tearing of bandage packs.

  “What?”

  Melissa said something again. Sally answered her with, “We will, don't worry, we will.” Melissa spoke again, and I heard the words “Huck,” and “stop.”

  Sally stood, and turned to me. “She says that we gotta help Huck. She thinks he took her with him.”

  “Did she say Dan or Dan Peale?”

  “Just a sec,” said Sally, and leaned over Melissa once more. They were just putting an O 2 mask on her, and just the glimpses of her split lip moving as she tried to talk made me wince. They had a small problem with moving the blood matted hair from her cheeks and mouth on the left, finally using alcohol wipes to get it loose before securing the transparent mask over her face.

  Sally straightened up. “Yep. Dan. It's him, for sure.”

  “I'll bet he thinks he killed her,” I said. “And I'll bet he gave Huck the same treatment, outside in the hall.”

  “I agree,” said Sally.

  We were both moving into the hallway as we talked.

  In the hall, we met up with Borman, Byng, and the state trooper, who were just getting to the top of the stairs.

  “He's hurt one of the girls pretty damned bad,” I said, “and he went after another one. We think”-and I pointed to the dent in the wall-“that's from her head. He kicked in this door. I already checked up on third. Empty.”

  “You guys need help?” croaked a voice coming up the stairs.

  Lamar. He sounded like he had strep throat.

  “What're you doing here?” I asked. “You're sick.”

  “Right,” he scratched. “Don't worry about me. Maybe you should see this first,” he said. “They told me to stop at the office for this.” It was almost painful to hear him. He handed me a piece of the ubiquitous dispatch notepaper; used computer sheets with the perfs still attached.

  I read the note. Hester had phoned our office, about 12:20 A.M. Told I was busy, she left a brief message. “Hester says to tell you that subject Tat tells her subj DP is mad +++. He thinks subjs at Mansion have been making up lies re him and telling them to her and you. Hester says subj Tat tells that subj Huck has been snitched off. You should call her ASAP in am.”

  Written in at the bottom was Hester's cell phone number. I put it in my pocket.

  “Okay. Watch out for him,” I said. “I don't know if he's armed this time, but he's sure as hell violent. Hester says he's mad at the people here in the house, and we know he snorts and probably mainlines crystal meth and ecstasy, and he thinks he's immortal. Really,” I added, seeing the look on some of the faces.

  “You got anybody but one victim?” said Lamar, scratchy but loud, from the bottom of the stair behind us.

  “Not yet, but let's go over it again, just to be sure,” I said.

  Where the hell was Huck? The basement?

  No. The basement had been checked by the time we got back to the main floor.

  “God, Houseman,” said Sally, “Huck's as good as dead.”

  “Not necessarily,” I said. “He could have killed her right here, but he didn't. Why take her somewhere else? To keep her alive awhile.” I didn't want to think of why.

  As far as I could see, the only other route off the cliff, other than stomping down through the woods and the ravine, would be to go down that old elevator shaft we'd found out about.

  I explained to Lamar and the rest about the possibility of an elevator shaft down into the mine. I also explained that we didn't know exactly where the shaft was. As I did so, I remembered a conversation I'd had.

  “But I know who does,” I said, with a smile. “Our man, Toby.”

  As we exited the Mansion, I was surprised to see it was much lighter. Sunrise on a rainy day can sneak up on you.

  Toby and Hanna were still in the back of Borman's car, being guarded by a state trooper. Excellent.

  As I opened the back door of the idling squad, and motioned him out, Toby said, “Are you gonna beat me again?”

  Coming from somebody with a little dried blood on his face, and a clot in one nostril, it sounded worse than it was.

  “Probably not,” I said. I shrugged at the trooper. “He hit me first.” Lame. I knew that when I said it. The trooper didn't say a word.

  I helped Toby out of the backseat, and stood him up. “Two things. Was Peale in the house when you came out, or had he been there and gone? And I gotta know where that damned elevator shaft is, and I gotta know now.”

  “What elev-”

  I really got in his face. Well, to within three or four inches, I think. It probably looked like I was going to bite him.

  “Dan Peale wants to kill you,” I said, “as soon as he's done with Huck. Got that?”

  He blinked, but didn't say anything.

  “I think the only way he ain't gonna kill you is if we find him first. Think I'm right?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

  “Wonderful. Now, was he in the house, or did you hide and just get up the guts to run when you knew he was gone?”

  He kind of hung his head.

  “That's what I thought. Do you know how long it was that you hid, before you knew he had left?”

  “Maybe ten minutes.”

  “Don't fuck with me, Toby!”

  “Half an hour!” he said instantly. “Half an hour. For sure.”

  “Did he have Huck with him?”

  “It sounded like it,” he said softly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Something bumped on the stairs. He was dragging something, I think.”

  I took a deep breath. Hell, he probably couldn't have stopped Peale anyway. But Huck had tried to help Melissa. He should have tried. I was sick of him, but I needed him. “Let's go to the elevator shaft. Now.”

  We did. A whole bunch of us, in fact. Toby, Sally
, Lamar, Byng, two troopers, and me. We walked right past the tree that Sally and I had gone to when we tried to close in on Chester, and a little way into the woods, ending up less than a hundred feet from the head of the ravine we'd negotiated only a couple of hours ago. We stopped, and Toby pointed to an old foundation that was cluttered with dead leaves and some decaying branches.

  “There. That's it.”

  “That?”

  “Yeah. The door's in the wall on this side.”

  I moved around the foundation. Sure enough, standing on the bluff side of the rock-lined excavation, I could make out an old, wooden door frame, with a half dozen vertical slats and an angled crosspiece forming a door. The wood had faded to gray, and the edges were rotting, but it was a functional door, nonetheless.

  I looked at Sally. She and I had just missed it last night.

  “How do you get in?” I asked, as I gingerly lowered myself into the wet leaves on the floor.

  “Move the rock at the bottom of the door,” he said, from above me.

  I looked. There was a scraped path discernible in the leaves. There was a large, limestone block that looked as if it made that track, but it was several feet from the door.

  “You mean this one?” I asked, as I bent over and pointed to it.

  Toby took two or three steps forward, toward the edge of the foundation, so he could see me and where I was pointing. He stared for a moment. “Oooh, man… ” he said, drawing it out. “Oh boy. It's been opened… He's down in the crypt, sure as hell.” He spun around and would have left then and there, but one of the troopers just reached out one arm and stopped him in his tracks.

  I pulled my gun, and with my other hand gingerly reached out and opened the door.

  What it revealed was pretty damned unimpressive, at least at first glance. A dark recess, about seven or eight feet into the hillside, one that would be high enough for me to stand in, if I bent a bit. Maybe six feet, or just a bit less. Just an old, wooden floor, with a hole in the middle that was about six feet square. That was it, as far as I could see, and it was quite a disappointment.