Of Mice and Murderers

by John Stockmyer

  The aspirin taking effect, Z got up; went back to the table to begin feeding sections of the Star to the fire.

  Staring into the flames as they gobbled the paper ... calmed him, at the same time reinforced his belief that he had a moral obligation to check on that damned cat, a course of action that would mean overcoming difficulties, the first: how to defeat the Ogden security he'd installed himself. (He couldn't credit card his way past a spring lock because Esser would have a bug set there -- wired to the police station.)

  Thinking about Ted, Z smiled, Teddy doing his best to get the point across that Esser had bugged the Ogden house, at the same time, alerting Z in such a way that no one overhearing Ted's spiel would take it as a warning. (Though Teddy had his faults, he could be counted on to help his friends -- provided the help came free of cost to Ted.)

  Back to the two-part problem, the first obstacle, the security Z himself had done a good job putting in. The second difficulty, steering clear of Esser's traps once Z had thought of a way to get inside Beth's house.

  As Z saw it, of the two obstacles, the hardest to overcome was getting past his own security installations; he'd done a hell of a job buttoning up the Ogden house!

  Oh, he could cut his way through a window grating with a torch ... it was just that breaking in that way would tell the world (the cops would think Z) that someone had been inside illegally.

  Knowing how much Captain Scherer hated him -- added to that ball-buster trying to finger him -- meant Z had to avoid attracting suspicion to himself. Best, if he could keep his break-in a total secret.

  Warned about Esser's bugs -- while trip wires and other devices could be troublesome -- defeating Z's safety job would be (if not impossible) the closest thing to it; adding to the difficulty of entry, the need to get in and out on the sly ....

  Just the sort of puzzle Big Bob Zapolska liked!

  * * * * *

  Chapter 12

  As he sat rubbing his sore knee in the sable dark of the Ogden attic, Big Bob Zapolska found he was breathing hard and sweating freely. Sweating less from the climb than from the fear he'd felt that his knee might give way.

  After the noise he'd made sawing through the attic vent, he wanted to pause for a minute to listen. No sense getting careless now.

  When driving out to the Ogden place half an hour ago, he'd taken every precaution to make sure no one was following him down the country road, that no one turned in after him as he drove along the lady's long, gravel access lane. He'd even swung the Cavalier past the Ogden Subaru and around to the far side of the house.

  Ted had been right about the ground. Iron hard. No worry about someone picking up the Cavalier's small hoof prints.

  Parked out of sight, he'd gotten out under a crystalline cold sky, the black vault above him banded with the sequins of the Milky Way. Unlike the day, the night air was so still a cloud of his frosted breath enveloped him as he'd circled the place on foot, Z as invisible in his "night fighter" clothing as the tar-black sky between the stars.

  Pacing around the house, he'd found both the front and back doors "wrapped" with yellow plastic tape: POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS. And beyond the doors? Ted's warning about inside protection made entrance through either door a risk.

  As for the window guards -- professionally installed -- no chance there.

  Finished with his call to Ted, Z had spent time thinking how to gain entrance to the Ogden place without anyone finding out he'd broken in. A difficult problem; though, as it turned out, one he'd solved.

  Putting his plan into action just after midnight, he'd already gained the attic, Z continuing to listen for sounds other than his own breathing. One minute. Two minutes.

  Hearing ... silence ... inside the house and out ... he was ready for the operation's second part.

  Still careful to keep from making unnecessary noise, he unbuckled the leather tool-adorned lineman's belt he'd strapped around his waist, easing the heavy belt to the attic's rough pine floor. A little noise, but nothing compared to what he'd made hacking through the attic vent. He could only hope the roar of the battery operated power saw hadn't tripped a sonic detector. The odds were against that, though. He couldn't see Esser doing more than putting pressure and beam sensors inside the first floor of the house.

  Next, needing as much "touch" as possible in the dark, Z took off his leather gloves and stuffed them in his jacket pockets.

  Not needing to see to do routine things, he unbuckled the lineman's boot spikes, laying them out beside the wide-pocketed tool belt.

  This was the second time he'd used these lineman's spikes, the last time for their intended purpose -- climbing utility poles. In that earlier case, he had to stake out a house in the middle of nowhere, a location where his car would stand out; a place where he would stand out. It was when thinking of how he was going to get that earlier job done, that he'd seen a couple of Power and Light men park their truck in the back lot of the Golden Corral, the men going in for lunch. That truck had given Z the inspiration.

  Once past the lock on the truck's back doors, he'd picked up these climbing spikes, also a lineman's tool belt (with its clip-on tools,) and the small canvas tent that linemen put up at the top of power poles so they could work out of the weather. For good measure, he'd lifted a yellow plastic hard hat, too.

  The next day, dressed like a K.C. Power and Light lineman, he'd climbed a utility pole outside the home to be staked out, figured how the tent went on the pole and "disappeared" under canvas. After that, day after day, he'd spiked his way up the pole to become just another electrical worker, doing his job. Though it was a nervous time -- high voltage wires humming around him like maddened bees -- he'd gotten the surveillance job done for his client.

  Z regretted liberating those items from the power truck, Z making it a personal rule never to take anything -- unless absolutely necessary. Not that it could be called stealing with you picked up something from the government, the government belonging -- as it did in a democracy -- to the people. In this case, considering what he paid for electricity, he figured that K.C.P. and L. had gotten its money back.

  All quiet in the Ogden house below, he rubbed his hands together to warm them a little more, then felt along the utility belt at his feet until he found the pocket with the penlight. Took out the small cylinder.

  Switching on the light, Z pointed the narrow beam at the end-of-the-house aluminum air vent he'd just sawed his way through, to find it not too badly bent, except along the "hinge" side.

  The difficult part had not been sawing through the vent, but spiking his way up the corner of the old house. (His feet still ached from the pressure the climbing spikes put on the inside of his arches.) As he'd thought, he had no trouble digging the spikes into the boards on either side of the house's northwest corner. What was untried were the ice picks he'd bent into "cargo hooks," Z 's plan, to use these sickle-shaped picks (one in each hand) to grapple his upper body to the corner of the house while he spiked himself up.

  Though jerry-rigged, his "house-climbing system" had worked, Z alternately digging the hand-hooks into the boards while he climbed with his lineman's spikes.

  "Spidering" his way up all three floors, he'd pulled himself on the roof. Climbing to the top, digging the inwardly slanted spikes into the house's old shingles with every step, he'd walked the ridge line until reaching the large louvered aluminum air vent under the back end of the house's peaked roof. Swinging down to stand on a dormer that jutted up beneath the vent, he'd unclipped his Sawz-all and cut a three-sided passage for himself, pushing in the vent, the intact side serving as a hinge.

  After this evening's cat-check, he'd leave the same way, bending the vent out as he emerged, gluing it in place with globs of Liquid Nail, no one tumbling that he'd broken in that way. True, there would be those vertical rows of holes in the clapboards on either side of the corner where he'd spiked his way up. (It was a good bet that, even if some observant person noticed those dig marks at some later date, that pers
on wouldn't guess the purpose of those "holes.")

  By this time breathing almost normally, he debated opening the can of cat food he'd put in one of the belt's pockets.

  No need to do that yet. If the cat was still in the house, it should be hungry enough to come out without being baited. Better to spend time looking the place over before he did anything else; find the security systems Esser may have planted.

  That decided, Z swung the little flashlight back and forth across the attic floor, seeing dented cardboard boxes, broken furniture, a pile of old clothes, and finally, what he was looking for, the framework of the trap door accessing the third-story hall. Now he knew where he was in the house; had seen the painted wooden ladder fastened to the wall below; the ladder that provided entry to the attic.

  Getting his feet under him but crouching beneath the sharply sloping rafters, he duck-walked to the trap door, as he did so, scuffing up enough dust to make the attic smell like a mummy's tomb.

  Kneeling at the edge of the trap door, flashing his light on the wooden hatch, he saw an iron ring, Z lifting the ring to squeak the trap door up and over to one side.

  His entrance to the house established, he leaned down to play the thin shaft of the penlight through the square attic hole, shining the beam, first on the leaf-green access ladder attached to the hall wall, then on the dark green carpeted floor directly below.

  No sensors in evidence, at least, no sensors he could see. Esser could have set a photoelectric beam across the upper hall ...... But Z didn't think so.

  Until he got into the house, of course, he could only rely on his instinct that Esser would only think to "booby trap" the first floor, hoping to catch Z entering the house through one of the "unprotected" doors.

  Satisfied so far, sitting back on the attic floor, Z swung his legs through the trap door.

  Warm.

  Warm air rising from the house.

  Bob Zapolska thought about that for a moment. What "warm" meant was that the police had left the heat on. To keep the pipes from freezing? Maybe at the request of Beth Ogden's next-of-kin? ... It didn't matter.

  Positioning his right foot on the third rung of the ladder, letting that leg take some of his weight, he eased himself forward until his lower body was through the hole, his armpits supporting him in the square-framed access well. Catching a lower rung with his left foot, he transferred his right hand to the ladder's top rung. And ... swung himself completely onto the ladder, the flashlight still in his left hand.

  Clinging to the vertical ladder like some bug-lump on the wall, he flashed the light around the base of the ladder once again. To see ... nothing out of the ordinary.

  Snapping off the light, slipping the little flashlight into his jacket pocket, he grabbed a crosspiece with his left hand and climbed down the rest of the way.

  Stepping off the last rung as lightly as he could, still hugging the ladder, he got out the light again and played its beam along the short upper hall.

  Two bedrooms on this side of the hall, one on the other side, all three doors closed. An old-fashioned bathroom was at the end of the enclosed stairs, stairs that led (with a right turn at the second floor landing) to the first floor.

  Taking his time, the beam making no more than a scalpel width of light in all that darkness, he saw nothing but worn green carpet on the hall floor.

  Confident that no security devices had been set up in the third-floor hall, Z "pussy-footed" to the top of the stairs leading to the largely unfinished second floor. (As he had the first time he'd seen this arrangement, he wondered who would finish the third floor and not the second? Someone more interested in the view than in convenience? ... It didn't matter.)

  Wanting to make sure, he shot the light down the green carpet runner tacked to the center of the steps. Saw nothing unusual.

  Slowly, taking one cautious step at a time -- looking for loose places at the edge of the carpet where Esser could have slipped a pressure-sensitive pad -- Big Bob Zapolska descended the stairs. One floor. A right turn. Another floor. Until he was two steps above the first-floor entry way.

  There, he paused to flash the light on the worn oak floor below the steps.

  And ... found the first device.

  Esser had set metal sensors on either side of the stairs, just below the last step -- one to project (the other to receive) an invisible photoelectric beam. Break that ribbon of light and an alarm would go off, probably a silent one keyed to a phone line that would signal the police.

  Smiling, Z sat down on the steps; began slicing the flashlight beam back and forth below the stairs, gradually working the light forward into the stubby front hall that led to the outside door.

  To find, as he'd expected, nothing but an umbrella stand along the left wall -- plus the straight chair (moved to one side) that the lady had been using to prop shut the front door.

  Further on, however, just before the outside door itself, he located what he was looking for, the second "trap." As he'd figured, Esser had bugged the front door, this time with a laser system. (The back door had to be similarly rigged.) First shining the light on the door sensor, he then used the beam to follow the attached wire until it trailed out of sight along the baseboard to the right, that wire leading to an automatic telephone dialer. Had to be. Disturb the infrared ray, and the dialer called the nearest police station. Ted's station.

  Still sitting on the steps, Z snapped off the flashlight.

  No need to dismantle the systems Esser had set up, those gimmicks already telling him what he'd come to learn.

  No cat.

  Had Ms. Ogden's cat been left behind, it would have broken a beam by now, most likely the one at the foot of the stairs. The result? A false alarm at the station that would have had Esser out here putting in a more "cat-proof" system.

  Z smiled. The fact that the cat was missing tallied nicely with his theory of why Beth Ogden had gone outside on the night of her death. Unless .. when the police were blundering around in here ... they'd let the cat out by accident. ....

  Unlikely.

  When strangers entered a house, cats hid.

  No cat in the house.

  In one way, he was pleased to see the confirmation of his best theory for why timid Beth Ogden would rush out into the night. In another way, he was disappointed. Rescuing Ms. Ogden's animal would have been a good way to pay the lady his last respects.

  In order to soak in more warmth before going back to the attic and out the vent (to say nothing of postponing the harrowing climb to the ground,) he leaned back on the stairs, bracing himself comfortably with his elbows.

  Again, he thought about the Ogden death. The cat had gotten out, Beth going after it, the door locking shut behind her. That much seemed clear. What he couldn't picture was the timid lady opening her door at night for any reason. He just didn't see her taking away the chair propped under the doorknob, then unlocking the door. Surely not as a result of a non-threatening noise outside. And certainly not after hearing a threatening sound. A "dangerous" racket would have had her phoning the police.

  Stretched out on the stairs in the absolute dark -- no car lights to brighten the night, too far from Kansas City to see the eternal sky-glow of city lights, he tried once more to put himself in the lady's place; tried to imagine her being upstairs, getting ready for bed, hearing something outside, going down the stairs, looking through the door's peephole, taking the chair out from under the doorknob, opening the door .......

  And simply couldn't believe that sequence of events. If the lady had heard something out there, the last thing she would have done was unlock the door.

  What Big Bob Zapolska needed was a new perspective; the place to get it -- where this "noise" supposition started: the lady's bedroom.

  Warmed up at last, he switched on the flashlight, levered himself to his feet, and climbed the stairs trying, as he passed the second floor, to remember which room on third was the lady's bedroom. He'd installed that room's window guards, of course, as he had in a
ll the house's windows, but ....

  Puffing his way to the upper hall, he thought he remembered that the bedroom was the first door to the right.

  Stepping along the short hall, he tried the doorknob, when it turned, pushed the door open, shining in the light to see he'd been right; this was the lady's bedroom.

  Checking the threshold, seeing nothing threatening, Z stepped inside, closing the door behind him. Immediately, felt there was something ... odd ..... about the room! ........

  What was strange, was the room's ... smell. A ... heavy odor ... but a pleasant one. If he'd smelled .. that scent ... when he was in this room installing window guards, he would have remembered, the unexpected fragrance making him cautious, Z checking for more of Esser's traps.

  Found none.

  At least so far, Z continued to be right about Esser, Esser wiring the outside doors, putting a secondary system across the stairs ... and that was it. After all, who would believe anyone could "spiderman" his way up the outside of the house to cut into the attic through the air vent? Even Big Bob Zapolska hadn't considered that possibility at the time he'd installed the lady's security!

  Of course he had thought about the likelihood that somebody could get to the vent with a three-story ladder. But realistically, who had a three-story ladder, to say nothing of having a lug a long ladder out here in the middle of nowhere?

  Back to the bedroom.

  Sweeping the thin beam around the room, he saw it was the same as it had been when he was working on the windows. The headboard of the bed was against the middle of the left wall, the bed commanding the center of the small room.

  Flush with the wall on Z's side of the bed was a dark wood chest of drawers; beyond the bed, a stand with its frilly table lamp.

  The room's windows pierced the wall across from the door.

  To the right was an open space, the entrance to a walk-in closet, a closet installed long after the house was built.

  Further down the right wall, opposite the bed, was the lady's dressing table, its oval mirror rising at the back, brown padded bench in front.