The Woman In The Trunk (A Crime Thriller)

by Theo Cage

  Hyde shook his head. “You mean Harry?”

  “Yeah. Sorry, Hyde. I don’t care about the killer. He did your job for you. That guy should get a medal.”

  . . .

  Yusuf Halim was hurrying along Broad Street, an area he was unfamiliar with, worrying about the meeting he had just had with a holistic healer. The doctor - although Yusuf was not certain if he was someone with a medical degree - was proposing a treatment for his newly diagnosed lung cancer that involved six weeks in Mexico on a diet of shark cartilage. Total cost $35,000.

  Yusuf felt dizzy with worry. His desire to have a cigarette right now, one of those unfiltered Libyan local cigarettes supplied by the Taliban back in his home village, the clumsily made dark smokes his wife used to call death sticks - was so strong, he felt he needed to sit down for a minute before he collapsed in the street.

  He came to America five years ago, excited about his new life. He was a goldsmith back home in Benghazi, but when he arrived in Washington, he found there were no jobs. Especially for someone who worked with jewelry during the worst depression in U.S. history. So Yusuf worked as a cab driver for several years.

  Then a relative offered him a job in one of his dry cleaning stores. He was a manager now. A promotion. But that wasn't accurate either. He helped customers, loaded clothes, bagged the shirts and skirts and made change at the counter. He was a clerk. A lonely, impoverished, under-paid worker bee.

  Yusuf had his life savings in his pocket - $8,000, money he had planned to use to bring his wife to America. He tried to negotiate with the doctor, who would have none of it. The price was $35,000. Maybe he could borrow a few grand from his brother-in-law, the owner of the three-store dry cleaning chain. The big shot in the family. The one who gave him a job breathing toxic chemicals all day long.

  Yusuf was several blocks from the bus stop when he saw the thrift shop. He saw the bric-a-brac on the street - a faded kitchen chair in green vinyl, a wobbly bookstand, a lamp with gold tassels bobbing in the breeze. He was instantly reminded of home as a child, where just down the street in the bazaar, he had an uncle who had an open shop with items very much like these.

  He went in the front door, and the dusty gloom swallowed him up immediately. But the smell - the book mold and wood glue and faded leather - was like a tonic. His head cleared in seconds. He felt like a millionaire surrounded by fantastic items marked down for sale to two dollars each - or a dollar or even fifty-cents. A chair from the fifties for only seven dollars. A box of old books for a buck.

  He moved through the clutter like a happy archeologist - past music albums and dishware and hopelessly out-of-date stereos. But when he ambled past a glass display near the back, his eyes grew wide, and he felt his heart miss a few beats.

  Under the scratched glass counter laid a number of items of jewelry, spaced out on black velvet. Rings, baubles, bracelets, and other valueless trinkets. But off to the side was a small golden egg, beautifully crafted with numerous gems set into the crown and a double-corded chain.

  Yusuf held his breath. This couldn't be. The necklace looked exactly like one of the items stolen from the Libyan King’s collection, which went missing when Gaddafi assumed leadership of his home country. Could this be a copy? Who would go to the trouble of mimicking a Libyan crown jewel? He turned around, now anxious to find a clerk. All he could see was a heavy man with dark chest hair poking out from his undershirt.

  Yusuf tried to calm himself. If this necklace were authentic, which was not possible, not in a million lifetimes - it could be worth between half a million to one million American dollars. That was insanity. But if it was, and fate had somehow led him to this discovery, he must not make the mistake of alerting the owner to the value. So he sauntered over, his heart beating so hard he could no longer hear the sad music playing from the speakers in the wall.

  "Sir? You have some trinkets in the display case? May I perhaps take a ..."

  "Those are not for sale," said the man.

  "Excuse me?"

  "They're not for sale. That's my private collection."

  Yusuf was stunned. He wanted to laugh out loud, but that would likely enrage this man.

  "I ... I ... have a grandmother. She lost a piece of jewelry very much like one of those pieces."

  "What are you saying? That it's stolen?"

  "No. No. But I thought if I could replace it with something similar, she would be most appreciative."

  "Sorry. But like I said - none of that's for sale. No price tag means it's not appraised yet."

  Like that eight-track player over there with only one stereo speaker, Yusuf thought of saying. "Would you be so kind as to show it to me? I have some experience valuing jewelry."

  "Yeah? Okay. That couldn't hurt." The owner took out a large fistful of keys, tried several until he unlocked the back cover and reached up and drew out the armlet Yusuf was pointing to. The man placed it on the glass. Yusuf hoped he didn’t notice his hand shake. He picked up the tiny egg and turned it over in his fingers. The workmanship was impeccable. And on the bottom was delicately carved the name of the artist. This was a Libyan artifact designed for a queen. To the Libyan government, this find would be worth millions. He reluctantly handed the necklace back to the owner, who gave him a long curious look.

  "Well?" asked the man.

  "It is quite ... pretty. But not exactly what I thought. I would be willing to give you more than market value. As it is Libyan, and my mother would be very pleased to wear it."

  "What would that be?"

  "I would say it would fetch five or six thousand at auction."

  "Oh, really."

  "But I am willing to give you seven."

  "Seven thousand?"

  "Yes. That would be a generous offer. But to see my mother smile again, worth every penny."

  "But it's not for sale."

  "I am sorry to hear that. What would you accept?"

  "The store is full of things you can buy. But not this."

  Yusuf smiled politely, even bowed slightly, although he wasn't sure why. And his knees had begun to shake as well. "Thank you, sir. I very much appreciate you taking the time to show that to me." The owner nodded his head, replaced the necklace and locked the counter.

  Yusuf wandered off into another part of the store filled with paperbacks and CDs. He idly picked up a book and shuffled through the pages. There it lay, only feet away from him in this disorganized, chaotic shop; his redemption. His life.

  It occurred to him to just take something heavy - like one of those ugly lamps by the front door with a massive cast iron base - and smash the glass, grab the necklace and run. The owner would never catch him. But he couldn't be sure if there were security cameras hidden somewhere. Perhaps at the front door. And he was a conspicuous man with his brown skin and glossy black hair. Surely the police would track him down. He would spend his last few months in a crowded jail cell - or worse, be deported.

  Yusuf decided his best option was to leave the store. The longer he remained, the more time the owner had to think about this stranger from the Middle East offering outrageous amounts of money for a bauble. He sauntered out and collided at the front door with a woman who was just entering. He said his apologies, but he found it difficult to take his eyes off her. She wore pink shorts that showed off her long legs and a black skin-tight top. American women, he thought, how bold they are, how indecent. Yet Allah led me here. What am I to think of this?

  . . .

  Hyde didn't need an alarm to wake him. He had a voice in his head that got him up on time every morning. Had as long as he could remember. Although he hadn't given it a lot of thought lately, the internal voice was probably his mother’s. She was long gone but still a force to be reckoned with.

  He had time this morning; he was on the late shift tonight. He lay in his bed craving coffee, wishing he had one of those modern machines that could stamp out a coffee mocha in three minutes. The coffee maker he had was only a few steps away from a metal pot on a
bonfire, like the kind you saw in cowboy movies. That might account for a lot of the violence in the old West. Coffee as thick as tar and as bitter as a boiled cactus can make you cranky and anti-social. A lousy way to start your workday.

  Hyde rolled out of bed, Sonya on his mind. She was a very troubled woman, a true victim of circumstance.

  He had never given much thought to the plight of attractive women. And she was. In the right dress, on the right day, she could turn your head around. Unfortunately, her attractiveness had another side effect. It could trigger the primal instincts in an idiot like her stepfather who clearly forgot his parental responsibilities. Add to that a timid mother struggling with substance abuse issues, and you had a formula for a very ugly situation. And a lifetime of pain.

  Hyde wasn't blaming the girl or making excuses. Harry probably deserved what he got, spending his last few minutes on earth struggling to keep his insides from spilling out onto the back lane. But if Sonya wasn't healed by the pervert’s death, which was probably the case, what was left to do? Closure was a fairytale. In twenty years of police work, Hyde had never seen any evidence of its magical healing powers.

  Sitting at the kitchen table, Hyde already had the murder file open in front of him. He sometimes called it his forensic diet. The medical examiner's photo file on a brutal crime scene, open at the breakfast table, tended to reduce your appetite for bacon and eggs heaped with ketchup.

  Hyde had met with servers who worked the bar the night that Ellis was killed. Two of them remembered the victim's friend. He was heavy, spoke very little, wore a dirty baseball cap and dark glasses. He also had a heavy beard. And they had never seen him in the bar before.

  No one with that description was linked to any other homicide in the area. Especially a murder carried out with a knife.

  So, short of any additional forensic evidence, like clothing fibers or finding the murder weapon, the case had hit a wall. Which happened about seventy-five percent of the time. The lab had found nothing of interest and they had combed the alley for the knife and came up short.

  Their only hope was that the killer strikes again. And this time make a mistake. Not the kind of request you're going to put in your prayers. Well, maybe a cop’s prayers.

  . . .

  Yusuf had never stolen anything in his life. He was devout and ever aware of the price of sin. So then why was he standing in a back alley behind the thrift store at two-thirty in the morning? Why? Because he could feel the magnetic draw of the necklace now, every waking minute.

  He hadn't slept for four days. He was ashamed to admit it because he thought of himself as a logical, educated and devout man. But finding the necklace felt like destiny. God had put it there, in his path, when he most needed help. How could he ignore something like that?

  So here he stood, in the dark, at the back loading door, a handful of tools in his backpack. He had brought a hammer, a worn screwdriver and a small flashlight. He had worried about what to bring. A passenger in his cab years ago had told him about laws in the United States. He had mentioned robbery tools. If you were arrested with equipment commonly used for break and enter, you could be arrested on suspicion. That's all. Just for the tools you carry.

  So Yusuf chose from his store only the oldest and most worn implements. But now, as he stood at the back door, a beaten, rusty monster laden with dozens of coats of paint, he had no doubt this door had been jimmied dozens of times. For what he thought? What could there possibly be of value in this store other than the necklace? Which no one recognized as having value except him.

  Yusuf studied the door. There was nothing in the way of special security. A doorknob with a key lock, a large steel plate designed to discourage a robber from inserting a bar or a screwdriver. That was it. Yusuf tried the door. It felt loose and worn. He shrugged to himself. They could have a steel bar on the other side. Maybe they locked up that way and left by the front door. That made sense - which meant he had little hope of getting in from the back.

  Yusuf took the oversized screwdriver and centered the slotted end in the key opening. Then he took his hammer, looked around, and hit the end of the screwdriver as hard as he could, pounding the lock mechanism. He felt the hair go up on his arms. In the quiet alley, the noise was surprisingly loud. He was sure people could hear him from blocks away.

  Yusuf stood there, sweat forming on his back, listening. After a minute, hearing nothing, he struck the screwdriver again, even harder. This time the lock inside the door knob broke and came away in bits of white metal and stamped steel. Cheap, he thought. But why spend money to protect garbage?

  He dug into the raw hole in the doorknob and turned the locking mechanism with the screwdriver. The door opened inward without the least hesitation.

  Yusuf made his way through a small loading area piled high with cardboard boxes full of miscellaneous items and into a cluttered office. From the office, a wooden door opened into the store.

  How different everything looked at night, a few shafts of artificial light cutting across the aisles from the street lamps outside the front windows. In the dark, the merchandise seemed even more sad and pathetic, like this was the last place on earth a sane person would come to spend his hard-earned money.

  Yusuf made his way quickly to the display cabinet in the far corner and shone his flashlight into the corner. Then he flicked the beam back and forth a few times, nervously. The necklace wasn't there. He had seen the owner return it to its spot at the far right.

  Yusuf felt a coldness spread across his chest. He had waited too long. Allah had presented him with salvation, and he had dawdled. He slammed the flashlight down on the case in anger. He heard the glass crack. When he looked again, there was a ragged fracture spanning the top. Why not just leave a note, he thought. The necklace is worth a fortune. That's why robbers have come tonight.

  He spent the next half-hour going through the store, looking for possible hiding spots - the drawers in the office, under the till. He even searched inside the unlocked pop machine by the front entrance.

  He was growing more and more anxious. He had read once that you should never stay inside during a robbery for more than fifteen minutes. Maybe he had tripped a silent alarm, and the police had already surrounded the building. He needed to get out. But the cracked glass bothered him. A break-in with nothing taken would look suspicious, and he needed to take attention away from the jewelry case.

  On his way back to the office, he passed a display of LP's - some with fairly exaggerated price tags. For example: ten dollars for a worn and water stained collection of songs from the thirties. He grabbed a handful and hurried to the back door. They would think some collector of ancient records had burglarized the place. Hopefully, that would take their attention away from the damaged display.

  A minute later he was walking out of the alley feeling disgusted with himself. Now he was nothing more than a common thief. And where did the necklace go? Probably being appraised by some jeweler. A local man with no appreciation for the value of this most unique item. It made him sick to his stomach just thinking about it.

  . . .

  Yusuf felt like a man being pulled by countless opposing currents, each one more fierce and menacing than the last. He was working ten and twelve-hour days in the sweaty dry cleaning shop, feeling wrung out and bone-tired as he locked up at the end of each evening.

  His cancer worried him constantly, the fear only relieved by momentary distractions, like a broken piece of equipment in the shop or an irate customer. But always, the fear would come back.

  And the money problems! How to save more, how to find the funds to pay the doctor who was the only expert he had talked to who could promise him a cure. If he could find no cure, then what? Unable to work, he would have to fall on the charity of a brother-in-law who had the leer of a jackal. Where would he spend his final days? He couldn't imagine going back home to Libya to a crowded house filled with children and grandparents and no inside plumbing.

  On days when he w
aited for the next customer to enter the tiny shop, sucking in the cleaning solvents with each breath - a chemical his brother-in-law called “perc”, like it was a close friend or buddy of his - he obsessed over the amulet. He had looked up the history on his brother-in-law’s ancient PC, yellowing in the back room, the dial-up Internet as recalcitrant and stumbling as a drunken old man.

  Yusuf discovered online that the jewelry was commissioned in the early 1900's by the Crown Prince El Kubar for his young bride, and included diamonds, miniature rubies and emerald fragments rescued from jewelry stolen from the Tripoli Dynasty in the 1700’s. Such a find it would be.

  On the open market, the value of the necklace was estimated to be about half a million dollars. A fortune. On the black market? Yusuf could only guess. Half as much? The amulet would easily pay for his treatment, and if that was to fail, and he crossed his heart when he thought this, at least he could spend his final days in comfort and dignity.

  He had gone back to visit the thrift store twice more. Once he had seen the owner again, sweatily unpacking boxes in the back. Yusuf looked for other staff, but could see no one else in the cramped store. Could it be possible that this one unlikeable man ran the store seven days a week? That gave Yusuf some hope. How could he possibly have time to visit an appraiser working that kind of schedule?

  On the second visit, he saw the woman again. She was wearing a bikini top and jean shorts and high-heeled shoes. When he first noticed her, Yusuf felt like he had been punched in the stomach. He stopped breathing for a moment, his mouth open. She was the pure vision of American corruption - unashamed, uncovered, and damned to an eternity of hell fire. But he couldn't take his eyes off her.

  Then she turned and moved towards him. He felt a prickly kind of sensation run across his chest and down his legs, a feeling he had never experienced before. It frightened him. She walked up to him and smiled, showing perfect teeth and full lips.