Stone Eater (Will Finch Mystery Thriller Series Book 2)

by D. F. Bailey

  He leaned forward until his face hovered mere inches from the computer screen. Sure enough, there stood his car. Even without the license plate, he could identify it. The concave dent on the left exterior mirror glinted under the streetlight, the surprise “accident” that Ginny revealed to him the day after she’d returned with her girl friends from Mendocino. Why didn’t he insist that she take the BMW to the coast instead of trading vehicles with Toby that day?

  He held a hand to his mouth and studied the frozen video image and wondered what could be coming at him. The answer seemed inescapable: A bloody freight train.

  He clicked the play button and the video continued, the lens fixed on the static scene in the street. Just as a moment of boredom ticked through him, someone — Toby — got out of the driver’s seat, pried open the rear door and dove onto the back seat of the car. After four or five minutes of stillness, the narrator continued.

  “Now watch as a man exits from the left rear passenger door, opens the trunk, returns to the rear door and pulls his victim from the car.”

  His victim? Whitelaw’s pupils dilated as he watched Toby prowl around the car, his leg hitching forward with each step. A second later he drew Gianna from the back seat into his arms. Her dress slid up and over her waist and she struggled to drag it back into place. The way she wobbled as he held her against the back panel of the car suggested she was drunk or injured. She put up a brief fight, a slap toward Toby’s forearm that slipped away in mid-air. Then she faltered badly and he could see Toby settling her into the rear trunk, gently folding her in two at the waist so that her torso compressed over her legs. He shut the trunk lid and glanced over his shoulders, paused a moment as if he detected the fact that someone might be recording his crime, then opened the driver’s door, dropped his wide butt into the seat and started the engine. A moment later the Mercedes-Benz wheeled about in a slow arc and as it drew closer to whoever held the camera, the lens zoomed in on the license plate.

  Whitelaw paused the screen once more. He held faint hope that the numbers and letters would be wrong, that someone had made a vital mistake that would exonerate him from whatever Toby had done to Gianna. But no, he could read the plate clearly and realized that all was lost.

  Now the screen showed nothing but an empty suburban street suspended in a static amber haze. Over this digital mist the voice continued.

  “The evidence clearly shows that your niece, Gianna Whitelaw, was kidnapped in your car. Her behavior as she’s dragged from the rear seat and pushed into the trunk suggests she was injured, or probably raped. The video likely captures the last images of her alive on the night prior to the discovery of her corpse on Pier 45. Whether the male shown in the video is you, or someone known to you, is irrelevant to me. As of midnight this coming Thursday my intention is to release this video to the San Francisco eXpress.

  “However, you can purchase the video and the camera I used to record it for the equivalent of two million dollars in bitcoin currency, transferred to my bitcoin account. If this is how you want to proceed — and be assured it’s the only way to eliminate any possibility of scandal and criminal proceedings — then before nine P.M. Thursday, June tenth, text this message: ‘I’m a buyer,’ to 628-555-8158. I’ll text you back with instructions on how to complete the exchange.” The audio track tapered off and the screen image dissolved to a gray haze that ran on another minute without interruption.

  Whitelaw relit his cigar and considered his situation. Who the hell is this? The game bore the fingerprints of an amateur tech geek: a DVD, text messages, and bitcoin of all things. Someone who’d glimpsed Toby dragging Gianna into the trunk of his car. That was his moment of dumb luck, of opportunity arising spontaneously into the bland life of this very unlucky boy. But only an amateur would try to leverage that chance into a two-million dollar score. This kid might have some tech smarts, but what about real balls?

  ※

  Toby Squire tugged his right pant leg above his ankle and settled into the La-z-boy chair next to his living room window. He spent a moment considering the whitecaps chopping above the water on San Francisco Bay. He liked to sit here in his free time, in the little cottage that stood on the lip of the cliff overlooking Sausalito. And he liked the cottage itself, a nine-hundred square foot, one-bedroom bungalow sitting on the far end of the Whitelaw compound.

  Mr. W had offered the cottage to him a month after he began his job as chauffeur. The first month served as a test period, as Mr. W called it, just to ensure that Toby could handle the limo and the congested traffic in and around San Francisco. Toby himself never doubted it. As a twelve-year-old he’d sat next to Uncle Rudy as he steered his lorry though the clogged mess of London traffic. After that, driving a Mercedes-Benz S 600 Pullman Guard limousine through the hilly streets of San Francisco seemed like a stroll through Hyde Park.

  Under Mr. W’s guidance, Toby soon learned that the world of international business is unscheduled and unpredictable, especially when your master had so many career connections and responsibilities. Including a United States Senator for a brother. The job required the highest degree of reliability and complete discretion. Toby took the time to impress this understanding on his new employer. He reminded him that as a born Englishman, and as his surname implied, he embraced the long tradition of personal service. Applying his best accented diction, he said, “I don’t think the same rich traditions apply here in the USA. Not the ones I was raised under.”

  His first duty following his interview was to purchase a chauffeur’s cap. He set it on the coat hook next to the front door in his cottage and took it with him whenever he drove the limo. In his view, the cap stood as an emblem of his competence. Of his station in life.

  Yes, he liked his job and his compact bungalow. And he genuinely appreciated Mr. W and all that he’d done for Toby. Taking a chance on him. Showing him how the other half lived. Opening the door to a better life for himself. But most of all, he liked his dear ones.

  He liked to run his index finger under their fur from their back legs up to the top of their tiny chins. Ginger and Spice were his current favorites, the two who responded most lovingly to his petting. As his finger stroked forward, they arced their backs to extend the sensations of affection, a posture that stood their tails stiff in the air. The pose made him giggle as they rooted about, their noses probing his hand for more love and the sensual pleasures Toby provided.

  Ah, his dear ones. All went well for three years until Mr. W’s wife, Ginny, came across the steel cage by surprise one day as she cleared some old newspapers from the firewood bin next to the small wood burner in Toby’s living room. Most of the pack had been sleeping at the time, but nonetheless, they caused quite a stir. Finally Mr. W insisted that Toby “remove the entire litter.”

  “Yes, sir,” he replied and saluted to indicate that a direct order would be promptly obeyed. “I’ll have it taken care of by the end of the day.”

  Then Toby considered the exact nature of his instructions. The entire litter meant all of them. No disputing that — even though technically, litter was the wrong term. By strict definition they were a pack. But remove provided some latitude, did it not? To confirm his suspicions, he checked his Concise Oxford English Dictionary and was pleased to discover the first definition it provided: take off or away from the place or the position occupied.

  Next to his bedroom door stood a large closet with a Dutch door that Toby used for normal purposes: storing his jackets, suitcase, bed linens, blankets and pillows. He’d never seen a Dutch door in the interior of a house before, but Mr. W had explained that to economize when they built the little bungalow, the previous owners had recycled the door from a demolished building at the front of the lot. He shook his head and said that it made no “architectural sense” but unless Toby objected, “they’d leave it as is.”

  “All the same to me,” Toby replied, although he could see no purpose in wasting a Dutch door on a closet.

  Until, that is, Mrs. W had discover
ed the pack. Yes, the Dutch door would be perfect. With the bottom door closed, he could open the top portion to admit some light and fresh air. And whenever he wanted, he could lean over the sill and amuse himself watching their antics.

  With his plan in place, Toby transferred his belongings from the hall closet into the bedroom’s spacious wardrobe and moved the steel cage from the wood bin to the vacated hall closet. To justify their having to live in a windowless, dark home, he opened the door to the cage and released his loved ones into the closet. He added some stacks of newspaper, a water bowl and food tray which he replenished each day. At least they could use the paper to construct a comfortable den and roam freely as all animals should. To his surprise, a few of them decided to build their beds in the opened cage. Each to his own, he thought. To secure the closet, he installed sliding bolts to the top and bottom halves of the split door. Content with his renovations, Toby felt as if he’d complied with Master’s request. To the letter, in fact.

  As he recalled the story, Ginger and Spice dozed in the crooks of his bent arms. Toby nuzzled the back of his head against the pillow on his La-z-boy and gazed through the French doors that led onto the lawn. To one side stood the stone inukshuk, the largest work of art he’d ever made. It rose from the earth, immovable as ever. He called the inukshuk “Stone Eater” to remind him of his childhood in South Shoreditch.

  The station boys had caused the most trouble, the gang of brutes who hung out next to the Shoreditch tube station. He’d first run into the them the week after Uncle Rudy and old Betty took Toby into their flat following the disappearance of Mum. He never discovered what became of her, no matter who he asked. Not the neighbors, the shopkeepers, his teachers. Not even the cops had a clue. But Betty insisted that “It’s all for the best. I’m sure Mum’s gone to where she has to be, and wherever that is, it’s all for the best, like I say.”

  Maybe not, he thought as he reflected on those miserable years. Especially when some of the station boys pelted him with stones from the curbside. Just tiny rocks, pebbles, really — but they stung like bees when they bit into the cheeks. Sweet Jesus, they hurt. He tried to run, but when his long leg — his hitch leg, as Uncle Rudy called it — tripped under him he fell to the curb. When he started to cry the boys swarmed him and burst upon him like a broken hive.

  Then he did something that surprised everyone, even himself. He picked up one of the stones, a rounded piece of smooth, gray granite and placed it on the tip of his tongue. He opened his mouth wide so they could see what he’d done.

  “He’s a right broken crip,” said Jacko, pointing at the stone perched on Toby’s tongue. Jacko, the biggest of the boys, had led the attack.

  “A broken crip nutter! A big brute, too!” exclaimed a boy everyone called Push. He started to laugh and everyone stopped their shoving and paused to see what Toby would do next.

  In that instant, Toby realized that he’d somehow managed to change things. Managed to shift his fate from certain death to something not quite as bad.

  “What’re you doin’ with that now, you fat crip?” crowed Jacko.

  Toby stepped back and tipped his head with a defiant look that said, watch me!

  He stuck his tongue out and then drew it back into his mouth and pressed his lips together.

  “He’s feckin’ eatin’ it!”

  A chorus of cheers rang out.

  “Let’s feckin’ see.” Push stepped forward, reached up and tried to pry Toby’s jaws apart.

  Toby took a deep gulp, felt the stone slip down his dry throat and then grinned, his mouth wide open to display this act of insane bravery.

  The boys gasped in awe, a buzz of surprise.

  “Again!” Push cried.

  “Yeah mate, again!” came the chorus. And one of the gang presented him with a larger, less appetizing stone.

  Toby looked at it, grimaced and placed it on his tongue. Tongue out, tongue in, swallow, and present.

  Another round of cheers echoed against the station wall.

  “Again!”

  Swallow.

  “Again!”

  Swallow.

  “Again!”

  At this point Jacko stepped forward with a weary look and drew Toby to one side. “That’s enough. The stone eater’s had his chips,” he said and nodded his head to imply, none of you lot could stomach any more.

  “Stone Eater,” Push said with a hint of disgust and tilted his head beneath Toby’s worried face. “Yer feckin’ mad.” He drove his middle finger toward his ear and twisted it as if it were a drill bit grinding into the inner gears of his brains.

  Thinking back on this nightmare now, Toby realized that Uncle Rudy had saved him. Saved him from whatever fate the station boys would devise for him if he’d stayed in South Shoreditch another month. Instead, Uncle Rudy arranged for Toby to move to Oakland, California and live with Rudy’s brother, Jayden. And he well remembered the last thing Uncle Rudy told him as he saw him off at the airport: “Your teachers tell me you have a way with words, Toby, but none with numbers. Nor memory work or anything to do with maps and such. An’ with you born with one leg short and one long, there’s not much place for a hitched leg out on the pitch or in the fields. The best thing for you to do, Toby, is to find a livelihood with people. Maybe find some talent with your hands. You’re a Squire, born and bred. Live up to your namesake, and one day you’ll be something.”

  The moment he arrived in Oakland, Toby determined that he would never return to England. From his first day on the job he resolved to make himself useful to Uncle Jayden and his crew who worked as locksmiths.

  “Get me a coffee, Toby. No milk, two sugars.”

  “Yessir.”

  “Drag that box of deadbolts over here, okay?”

  “Yessir.”

  “See if you can get the number of that girl next door, willya Toby? And her sister’s.”

  “Yessir.”

  Within weeks, Toby had learned the meaning of “indispensable” and made it a way of life. Indispensable. Another word he liked to look up in the dictionary from time to time, just to remind himself of his place in this crazy world.

  Over the next decade, until the time of the economic crash and Uncle Jayden’s bankruptcy, Toby became an expert in everything related to locks, keys, deadbolts. He even learned the art of lock-picking, a specialized craft which he applied to gain entry to Eve Noon’s condo. But he didn’t need to pick the lock to Gianna’s condo. Mr. W had supplied the key to her front door the night of her unfortunate death. That he regretted. Honestly and deeply regretted it.

  When the intercom buzzed, Toby had to blink to remind himself of where he sat.

  BZAT! The intercom sounded again.

  Right. Of course. He shifted his arms and bundled Ginger in his left elbow next to Spice and walked over to the intercom mounted on the wall.

  “Toby here. How can I help you Mr. Whitelaw?”

  “Come up to my office, would you. ASAP. Something’s up.”

  “Right away, sir.”

  He opened the top half of the Dutch door and let Ginger and Spice slip from his hands onto the floor. He leaned over the door sill and ran a head count of his creatures. Nine, ten … eleven. Twelve of them at last count. He might miss the odd two or three, of course — those who were sleeping or burrowing in the papers. There’d been fifteen last month, and Toby wondered if somehow two or three had escaped, although he couldn’t fathom how they might run off.

  Ah well, he murmured to himself. Duty calls; you can answer that question later. He bolted the top and bottom hatches of the Dutch doors, slipped the chauffeur cap onto his head and locked the bungalow deadbolt. As he hobbled up the sloping lawns to Mr. W’s office in the big house, he drew a washed pebble from his pocket and rolled it under his tongue and along the hard flesh of his gums. When he reached the sidewalk leading up to the back door he spat the stone onto the lawn, wiped his lips and stepped into the lower hallway.

  ※

  As Toby Squire watch
ed the first few seconds of the video recording on Mr. W’s computer he felt his stomach turn to hot slush. Then he heard the voice recording, a flat monotone that rattled on about Gianna, while the video showed him carefully bending her into the trunk of the car and then driving off. It all looked so shameful. The only good part was how carefully he’d treated her, how gently he’d folded and pressed her into the trunk. There’d been no violence to that. Even when she tried to strike him he let the blow glance off his arm without a thought of revenge.

  The odd thing was that he’d forgotten that part, but now when he saw it on the screen, he had to admit to himself there’d been some minor violence to what had happened. Maybe the whole episode. And maybe that was something in him that he couldn’t control. Something that made him different from other people. Normal people. A tear filled his eye and slid down his cheek before he could brush it away. He hoped Mr. W didn’t notice that. It could only make things worse.

  When the video finished, Dean Whitelaw raked a hand through his gray hair and swept his eyes from the computer to Toby.

  “Obviously that was you in the video. And Gianna.”

  When Toby remained silent, his eyes still frozen on the computer, Dean continued. “Am I right?” He exhaled a cloud of cigar smoke.

  Toby rolled his lower lip into his mouth and tried to think. At any moment he expected another slap to his head.

  “Toby?”

  He nodded. “Yes sir. That’s me. And her.”

  “She wasn’t dead at that point, was she.” He pronounced this with a deep weariness. A statement of fact, not a question.

  “No.” He dipped his head and examined his hands. They were the guilty party.

  Whitelaw swiveled his chair around to put a little more distance between himself and his chauffeur. He studied him a moment, then cursed himself for being so foolish as to bring Toby Squire into his world. It had been an act of charity, inspired by his need for Whitelaw, Whitelaw & Joss to be perceived as champions of a social cause. He’d joined the board of directors of Jobs for the Nation, a highly visible non-profit where the so-called “one percent” opened their doors to the unemployed — in this case, Toby Squire, just dismissed from a bankrupt Oakland locksmith shop after the crash in ’08. What a God-awful mistake.