The Scavenger's Daughter: A Tyler West Mystery

by Mike McIntyre

  The man leaned her against a wall. The fingertips of her bound hands ran across the rough surface of the plywood. Was this a new house, its garage still unfinished?

  She strained to listen as the man passed to a space on the other side of the wall. Yet it did not sound like he entered through a door. He seemed to have crawled through a passageway.

  Tiffany seized her chance. She started to hop away from the wall.

  The man’s powerful arms grabbed her from behind. She wriggled helplessly as he pulled her through the hole, her torso and legs banging against the plywood edge. She felt a heavy rubber flap drag across her body and fall closed against the wall.

  The room went eerily silent. The noise from the traffic and airplanes was gone. There was only the sound of her captor’s labored breathing.

  Why am I at this strange house on Bankers Hill?

  She knew people in this neighborhood. That gave her some small measure of comfort. There was Mitchell Wygand, her attorney. Faye Abernathy, her interior decorator, also lived somewhere over here.

  A terrible thought crossed her mind.

  She knew one other person who lived on Bankers Hill.

  Bennett Ridley.

  CHAPTER 26

  Friar Tom removed the hood from Tiffany’s head.

  When her eyes adjusted to the candlelight, she saw that her captor wore a ghastly black mask.

  Tiffany was nude. She stood, bent at the waist. A pillory, a heavy wooden frame with holes that encircled her head and hands, immobilized her body.

  She saw the chopping block. And the ax. Its dented crescent-shaped blade was stained with blood from use in the Middle Ages. Friar Tom had liberated it from a private collection during a simple smash and dash.

  Tiffany screamed, but the duct tape did its job.

  She struggled in vain to free her head and hands from the pillory.

  “Look familiar?” Friar Tom said.

  Tiffany turned her head as far as the device would let her. From the corner of her eye, she saw the HomeMart logo stamped on the Douglas fir beam pressing on her neck.

  The pillory was the only piece in Friar Tom’s collection that wasn’t an original. He had built it himself. Its inauthenticity had bothered him. Until now—when he watched the HomeMart heiress take in the ultimate irony.

  Tiffany gaped at the room. It looked like a torture chamber out of some horror movie. It reminded her of the gala at the new art museum. Only nobody was offering her champagne and caviar.

  Friar Tom disappeared from her view.

  When he returned, he carried a woodsman’s saw, centuries old and rusty.

  He let Tiffany take a good long look at it.

  “I hear you like to ride horses,” he said. “Wait till you feel this beast between your legs.”

  Tiffany whimpered.

  Friar Tom circled behind her. She tried to follow his movement, but the pillory prevented her head from turning.

  She felt the blade brush her inner thigh. She thrashed and moaned.

  “If I work this saw right,” Friar Tom said, “you won’t die until it reaches those famous tits.”

  Tiffany looked down. The sand on the floor was caked with dried blood.

  She bawled. Hot tears dropped to the sand.

  Who is he? If he wants money, why is he killing me?

  Tiffany at last realized that Bennett Ridley had nothing to do with her abduction. She now doubted she was on Bankers Hill. She must have gotten disoriented. The room did not have the dimensions of a home garage. It looked more like a small warehouse.

  She heard the man drop the saw to the floor. He circled to her side of the pillory and faced her.

  “First things first,” he said.

  Friar Tom turned and reached for something on the stretching rack. A camera.

  “A photo for the society page,” he said.

  He raised the camera and found Tiffany in the viewfinder. She trembled and looked away.

  “Kind of shy for a centerfold,” he said.

  He lowered the focus from Tiffany’s turned face to her slender, shaking hands. He studied them. They were exquisite. He became aroused.

  Friar Tom set down the camera and rushed to Tiffany. He gently caressed her perfect hands. He held one of her hands to his cheek. He desperately wanted to remove his mask.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” he whispered.

  Tiffany relaxed. Slightly.

  “I’m going to start by chopping off these lovely hands,” Friar Tom said.

  Tiffany’s eyes went wide with terror.

  Friar Tom stepped back. Snatched his camera. Aimed.

  “Strike a pose.”

  Tiffany fumbled to clasp her shaking hands. The pillory restricted her arms’ range of motion. Her fingers intersected oddly as she raised her hands to her chin.

  “That’s right,” Friar Tom said, “time to pray.”

  He snapped a picture and hurried to her. He ripped the tape from her mouth.

  Tiffany let loose with an unearthly wail.

  Friar Tom hoped he hadn’t skimped on the soundproofing.

  He reached for his ax.

  “Hold on, I’m coming!”

  PART TWO:

  THE JUGGLER

  CHAPTER 27

  I was excited about seeing Jordan but dreaded meeting her husband.

  Perhaps this was Jordan’s plan. Maybe she thought I’d leave her alone after I observed her domestic bliss. More likely, she figured I’d chicken out and never make it to lunch.

  I’d called to cancel a dozen times. I was even dialing Jordan’s number as I pulled onto her palm-lined street in Mission Hills.

  Don’t be a wimp. This will only hurt for the rest of your life.

  I parked at the curb in front of Jordan’s restored California Craftsman home and got out before I could change my mind. I headed up a walkway that bisected a lawn bordered by white, violet and scarlet impatiens.

  A girl’s bike was parked on the broad front porch. Above the mail slot, a bronze plaque with raised letters read: THE SINCLAIRS.

  This was going to be tough.

  I rang the doorbell and braced myself for the sight of Mr. We. Maybe he’d take pity on me and thank me for letting the most wonderful woman in America get away.

  The door opened. I looked ahead expectantly. Nobody there.

  I looked down and saw an adorable girl who looked like Jordan.

  “Hi there,” I said.

  “Hello,” the girl said. “Want to see my tooth?”

  She opened her mouth and showed off a loose front tooth, dangling from her gum like a hanging chad.

  “When it falls out, the tooth fairy will leave money under my pillow,” she said, wiggling the tooth.

  “Don’t pull it out,” I said. “The tooth fairy might not show up.”

  She cupped a hand to her mouth and whispered, “The tooth fairy is really my mom, in case you don’t know. But don’t tell her I know that.”

  “Your secret is safe with me.”

  Jordan appeared behind her daughter, dressed in blue jeans and a white V-neck T-shirt. She looked terrific in the casual ensemble, but Jordan would look terrific in a Hefty Bag.

  “You made it,” she said.

  “Never a doubt,” I said.

  Jordan shot me a wry smile. Her right eye closed slightly. A slow, half-wink. It was an alluring, involuntary tic I remembered well.

  I stepped inside and stole a quick look around. I didn’t see anybody else.

  “Heather,” Jordan said, “this is Mr. West, an old friend.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Mr. West,” the girl said, extending her small hand.

  “Pleased to meet you, Heather,” I said, shaking her hand, “but all the pretty girls call me Ty.”

  Heather giggled and smiled bashfully. “Okay, Ty,” she said.

  “Still a charmer with the ladies, I see,” Jordan said.

  “Only certain ones.”

  The comment hung in the air an awkward moment.
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  “Heather, honey, go play while I visit with Ty,” Jordan said. “I’ll call you when lunch is ready.”

  Heather ran off down the hallway.

  “She’s a cutie,” I said. “She’s what, eight, nine?”

  “Seven, please,” Jordan said, “she’s growing up fast enough.”

  “Does she have any brothers or sisters?”

  “No, we decided one was enough.”

  There was that word again. We. Amazing how two little letters can hurt so much.

  “Iced tea?” Jordan said.

  My rattled nerves screamed for something stronger, but I doubted that even a fifth of tequila could relax me.

  “Sounds good.”

  “Make yourself at home,” Jordan said, then walked into the kitchen.

  Like Jordan, the house evoked a breezy elegance. It had hardwood floors, built-in gumwood cabinets and lots of natural light.

  I looked around for Jordan’s husband. I kept waiting for him to blow in and inject a dose of reality into the reunion.

  Perhaps he wasn’t home. If I were him, I wouldn’t want to meet the ex, either.

  Then I saw him.

  In the family room.

  CHAPTER 28

  His picture was everywhere.

  Family photos adorned the walls and bookshelves. There was one of the husband, Jordan and Heather at Disneyland. One of them at Yosemite. One of them on the beach in Hawaii. Another of them posing in front of a Christmas tree.

  It was a photo album of the life I could have had.

  I paused in front of a framed picture of Jordan’s husband that rested on the piano. He could pass for a GQ model. He had that robustly handsome, yet intelligent look. He looked like a guy who had it all.

  “That’s Nick,” Jordan said.

  I hadn’t heard her walk up.

  “Is he joining us?” I said.

  “Nick died three years ago.”

  “Jordan, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

  “Heather was four. She has trouble remembering him. So I keep a lot of pictures up.” Jordan looked down. “Nick was a good father.”

  She looked at me and realized she was still holding both iced teas. She extended one of the glasses. Chilly droplets ran down the side. As I took the glass from her, our hands brushed. It was the first time we had touched in twelve years. The contrast between the cold glass and her warm finger sent an electrical charge through my body. I wondered if she felt it, too. Her hand remained on the glass longer than necessary—or maybe it only seemed that way.

  “I thought we’d eat outside,” she said, turning away.

  She called to Heather, who emerged from her bedroom carrying Harriet the Spy.

  “Set that down, honey, and come have some lunch.”

  “But I’ve only got four more pages,” Heather said.

  “I’m sure Harriet will wait for you to eat.”

  Heather rolled her eyes and dropped the book on the sofa.

  I followed them out the French doors into the backyard, where water flowed down a stepped-flagstone fountain and collected in a goldfish pond.

  We ate beneath an arbor laced with wisteria. Lunch was tortilla soup and chicken enchiladas. Jordan was still a great cook.

  “How long have you known my mom?” Heather said.

  “Oh, let’s see, about fourteen years,” I said.

  “Fourteen years,” she said, thoughtfully. “So you knew my mom before she met my dad.”

  I glanced nervously at Jordan, who appeared equally flustered.

  “Honey, I knew Ty when I was in law school,” she said.

  “Are you a lawyer, too, Ty?”

  “Nope,” I said, “just an ink-stained wretch.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Ty’s a journalist,” Jordan said, “a writer.”

  “That’s what I want to be when I grow up,” Heather said.

  I was waiting for the next tricky question when Heather popped up from the table and started doing cartwheels across the lawn.

  “I see that she’s got your athleticism,” I said. “And your smarts.”

  “I try to stay one step ahead of her, but most of the time I’m running to keep up,” Jordan said. “I only wish I could spend more time with her.”

  “The D.A.’s office keeps you jumping?”

  “Crime doesn’t pay, but you couldn’t tell that from all the cases that land on my desk,” she said.

  “Have you been practicing all these years?”

  “No, I stopped after Heather was born. When Nick died…well, he didn’t leave us in the best shape. The house was paid for, but I had to go back to work. It’s okay, though. I really enjoy the law. I never knew how much I missed it.”

  We chatted on, ignoring our past, and that bothered me. It was like a polar bear was seated at the table with us and we pretended it wasn’t there.

  Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Jordan, there’s something I’ve got to tell you.”

  “Don’t, Ty. Please.”

  “I’ve got to say this,” I said. “I didn’t mean to simply vanish. I kept thinking, one more month, and I’d come back. Then I heard you were seeing someone. I figured, serves me right. I hoped you were happy. But I’ve never stopped thinking about you. Never.”

  I slumped back in my chair.

  Jordan gazed in the direction of Heather, who was now doing handstands. The sight of Jordan’s seven-year-old daughter reminded me of how much time had gone by. Jordan had moved on, and I was stuck in the past.

  Jordan turned back and fixed me with her penetrating blue eyes.

  “It’s true, I was involved with someone else. Nick. But I didn’t start seeing him until a year after you left for Bosnia. I waited a whole year for you, Ty. And you know what? I would have waited longer—if only…Jesus, Ty, you didn’t even call.”

  CHAPTER 29

  I’ve never been a good juggler. I’m a one-ball-in-the-air-at-a-time kind of guy. But I’m an expert at tossing that one ball.

  When I was young, it was golf. Then it became journalism. I succeeded by focusing keenly on each of those pursuits, to the exclusion of everything else.

  I didn’t have that luxury now.

  There were suddenly more balls to keep in the air.

  For starters, I now had a love life. Jordan might not agree. In fact, I’m sure she didn’t. But I wasn’t going to let that stop me from following my heart. I had lost Jordan once. I wasn’t going to lose her again.

  I longed to throw myself at her and win her back. But as hard as it was, I resisted the urge to make her my sole focus. I didn’t want to smother her and scare her off.

  I called Jordan at work once a day. She usually took my calls. On days she was in court, she called me back. That was a good sign.

  We talked about everything but us: Heather, work, music, food, books.

  I wanted Jordan to view me as a constant in her life. I knew she would never forget how I’d abandoned her, but I hoped she could forgive me.

  There was another reason to take it slow.

  I had to tend to my career. It was floundering, with no signs of revival.

  If Jordan ever agreed to take me back—and that was a big if—I could never be completely happy with her unless I reclaimed my reputation. At the same time, getting back to the top of journalism would be meaningless without Jordan by my side.

  I needed to attain balance in my life.

  I needed to divide my energies.

  I needed to learn how to juggle.

  I called Ron at the ME’s.

  “How’s that wicked slice of yours?” I said.

  “I prefer to call it a power fade,” he said, chuckling.

  “Gotcha,” I said. “Hey, I was just following up on Lindblatt.”

  “We tested the pond water,” Ron said. “It had a higher algae content than the water found in Lindblatt. But that’s to be expected.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Well, unless the de
ceased was trying to die of thirst, every dead body is going to contain a certain amount of fresh water.”

  “The pond water found in Lindblatt was mixed with drinking water?” I said.

  “That’s right.”

  “How much drinking water?”

  “He was a doctor, like me,” Ron said. “We strive for eight glasses a day, though Lindblatt was a little more diligent.”

  “Nothing suspicious about his death then?”

  “In the absence of any other medical evidence, no,” he said. “No pun intended, but he was just a well-hydrated drowning victim.”

  I wasn’t ready to let Lindblatt go, but I set his case aside.

  I opened my file on Nina Tate. Nobody doubted that her death was suspicious. Still, the police had yet to turn up any suspects.

  I re-read her autopsy report. The cause of death was “hemorrhaging due to compression.” It was a fancy way of saying that the suitcase had squeezed the blood from her.

  I tried to read on, but I couldn’t get past the word compression.

  It was a word I had recently heard mentioned in another grisly context.

  Merrill Addison uttered it in a conversation with me at the opening gala of the museum—the night that Mayor Stanton was killed by the Iron Maiden. The director used the term compression to describe the gruesome effects of another medieval instrument of torture.

  The one that never made it into the exhibit.

  The Scavenger’s Daughter.

  CHAPTER 30

  Investigative journalism can make you a mini expert in just about anything.

  Over the years, I’ve become a quick study on labor unions, campaign finance, aviation safety, insider trading, police corruption and land fraud.

  Now I had to take a crash course on medieval instruments of torture.

  I opened my laptop and found the home page for the Museum of Medieval History. I scrolled through the exhibit guide, shuddering at the pictures and descriptions of the barbaric devices of pain. There was a photo of the Iron Maiden, which had killed the mayor. Other entries included the Spiked Necklace, the Heretic’s Fork, the Judas Cradle, the Cat’s Paw and the Spanish Spider.