01-A View to Die For (2012)

by Richard Houston

  Fred ran up the path to the lift and waited while I played catch-up. I got in the lift, and he took the seat next to me, acting like a kid on a carnival ride. I swear he was grinning in anticipation of the ride to the top. I too was enjoying the slow ride up the hill. It reminded me of the cog-wheel tram up the side of Pike’s Peak back home. Allison was a curious ten-year old the last time I made that trip. She was still at an age where her father was the smartest man alive. My melancholy day-trip vanished half way up the hill. I could see the sliding door to my room was off its tracks and lying on the ground.

  I stopped the lift at the lower-level deck and ran over to my room. “Is this how you got out, Freddie?” His excitement on the tram had been replaced by fear. His tail was down, and the hair on his back was standing straight up.

  Chapter 17

  I seriously doubted that whoever broke-in was still here. He must have come and gone by boat, or the lift wouldn’t have been at the dock. But I wasn’t taking any chances, and I stood outside the open door frame to check out the room before I entered. Fred stayed back several feet acting like a whipped puppy. “The coast is clear, Fred, let’s see what they took.” He didn’t follow me when I stepped into the room.

  I was expecting to see the type of damage my mother had from her break-in, but I didn’t see anything out of place. The sheets on the bed were pulled out at the corners, and the blanket half on the floor, exactly the way I had left it. Then I looked under the bed and saw my computer was still where I hid it. Hiding something under a bed was not the safest place – I knew that. I just wanted to keep it out of Kevin’s sight. The kid had a tendency to think any piece of electronics was made just for him.

  Fred finally joined me, but he still had his tail between his legs. “Don’t worry, Old Buddy, the jerk is gone,” I said as I knelt on one knee and took his head in my hands. “Did he hurt you?”

  Fred leaned his head sideways. It was his way of asking me to rub a particular ear. I obliged and kissed him on the top of his head, then began checking him over for injuries. He must have scared the burglar away before the intruder had a chance to ransack the house. My fear now was that he had kicked or hit Fred to make him so terrified.

  Fred smiled at the attention he was getting and started to wag his tail. Only a dog owner could tell it was a smile. Most people would think I was bonkers to describe his expression that way, but it was a smile nonetheless. When I was satisfied that the only thing wrong with Fred was his ego, I put the door back on its tracks, took my computer, and headed for the kitchen. Something told me there was a connection between this break-in and my mother’s. I figured I could check out the floppy from the recycle yard while the phone was drying out.

  The damage to the sliding door had been superficial. The burglar had simply lifted the door up and off its track. I had made a mental note to get a security bracket for the door, so it wouldn’t happen again. It was a simple fix but not something most door manufactures seem to care about or they would supply one with the door.

  Fred and I were back in the kitchen, working on installing the floppy drive, when he heard someone at the front door. His tail was wagging, so it had to be someone he knew. “Is that you, Jake?” Megan called out. “Want to help me with these?”

  “Give me a minute,” I answered. “I’m in the middle of something.”

  She came into the kitchen carrying a couple of paper bags full of groceries. Evidently, she must have bought them at the only store in town that still did things the old fashioned way and still gave a choice between paper and plastic. “What’s that mess you have on the table?” she asked, placing the bags on the kitchen counter.

  I clicked the ‘Finish’ icon on the installation screen for the floppy driver and turned to answer. There was something different about her. “The floppy drive came today. Maybe now we can find the guy who stole Mom’s air conditioner,” I answered. “What did you do to your hair? It looks good.”

  “I hope you don’t mind, Porky. I used your card to get a new do. Mom made me do it,” she said, making an upside-down happy-face. It was her way of acting hurt ever since I could remember. She would lower her head so slightly and pretend to pout like a baby. Damn, if it didn’t work.

  “No. That’s fine. Natalie always did that when she was feeling down, too.” I hid my irritation the best I could. “How’s Mom doing? I take it you stopped by her place?”

  “Mean as ever. We went shopping together at the little store by her house. That’s why I got my hair done. She made one of her comments about it. You know how she can be so critical. By the way, she’s wants you to call her. She says she’s been trying for a couple of days to get you, but you don’t answer your phone.”

  “She’s probably been dialing the wrong number again. I’m starting to worry about her, Meg, I haven’t had any calls from her, or they would have shown up on my call list.”

  Her faked pout turned into a soft smile. “Well, you better call her the first chance you get. But I’ll warn you. She wants you to finish cleaning out the garage,” she said, and then shifted her eyes to the table. “So what’s with your cell phone? Why’s it covered in mud? Did you drop it in the lake?”

  “It’s not mine. Fred found it by your dock. I’m letting it dry out before I try to recharge the battery. But I think you better get something to drink and sit down. You won’t believe the day we’ve had.”

  Worry lines appeared on her forehead. They made her look ten years older despite the new haircut. “Was there a problem getting the check?”

  “No, you’re okay,” I answered to calm her down when I saw fear in her eyes. “But you will still need that drink.”

  “After the groceries. I’ve got stuff out there that’s going to spoil in this heat if you don’t get off your butt and help me.” Then she turned and headed for the door.

  Fred followed her, but I knew he wouldn’t be much help. So I quit what I was doing and went to give her a hand. True to her word, the back of her Jeep was full. She had even lowered the back seat to get all the bags in. It was a wonder my debit card cleared – this load must have cost hundreds.

  Once we got all the groceries in the house and put away, I was able to get back to reading the floppy from the recycle center. Megan put a cold Keystone and a half-empty bottle of Merlot on the table and sat next to me, so she could watch me work my magic. While waiting for the computer to boot, I started telling her about my day. I began in reverse, starting with the break-in seemed to be the most important event of the day. I hated it when someone tried to tell me something important, and they had to recite an entire saga before getting to the point; so I told her about the sliding door before explaining how Fred found the phone. Her bottle of wine was empty by the time I told her Fred must have scared off the would-be burglar.

  “Thank God for Fred. My house might have been trashed like Mom’s,” she said in response to my watchdog saving the day, raising her empty glass in a salute.

  “Well, maybe Fred shouldn’t get all the credit. It might have been the UPS man, too,” I added while working on the spreadsheet from the floppy. I decided to sort the entries by date and narrow down the list to sales after my mother’s break-in. “There’s a good chance he might have rang the doorbell when our intruder was breaking in.” I looked down at Fred for confirmation, but he wasn’t even listening. He was curled up on his side and snoring.

  While Megan went back to putting the groceries away, I continued with my reverse story telling. She would nod and say things like “Wow” and “No kidding” until I got to the end of my story, or should I say the beginning. That was when I said I thought the phone belonged to Bennet.

  “Did it ever occur to you that the phone might have fallen out of Bill’s pocket when he was dumped by my dock?” she said, coming back to the table for her empty bottle. “And I don’t see how you can make it work. Last time Kevin dropped a phone in the toilet, I had to buy him a new one.” Before I could answer, she was off to the pantry where she kept her
trash can.

  Her remark caught me off-guard. The thought that it might belong to Bill never occurred to me. I stopped in the middle of reading the list and looked at her with new respect. “Not bad for a rookie. I suppose it’s possible… Holy shit! Look at this.”

  “Ron Nixon,” she said after coming back to see what got me so excited. “And look at the date. That’s when Mom was staying here because she didn’t want to go home yet.”

  “Makes you wonder how he ever got a job as a security guard,” I answered. “Everyone I’ve talked to says he’s bad news. So it doesn’t surprise me he would stoop to stealing from a widow only days after her husband died, but how did he ever get clearance to guard that museum?”

  Megan gave me her obtuse look. It was the kind of expression one uses when trying to explain a simple fact to a child for the tenth time. “I think I told you that before. According to Mike, Ron’s never been arrested since he was a teenager. Not that he shouldn’t have, from what I’ve heard. I guess the juvenile record doesn’t show up on a background check.”

  “Well that’s about to change. I do believe trashing someone’s house is considered a felony – even in Missouri.”

  Megan went back to the refrigerator and took out a bottle of Chardonnay. “You want another beer while I’m in here?”

  I’m no James Bond. I had no idea if it was acceptable to mix wines that way, so I bit my tongue before I showed my enology ignorance. I did notice, however, that the bottle was already open, so at least she wasn’t wasting good wine. “Sure. Might help to cool me down before I decide to go out and beat the crap out of that asshole.”

  She came back with my beer and sat down across the table from me. “Maybe you’ve had too many of these, Porky,” she said, holding the beer just out of my reach. “Why is it that men always want to fight first? You don’t know it was Mom’s air conditioner. He might have been selling scrap he picked up from the demolition of the museum.”

  “Yeah. And I might have been a world-famous physicist, “I answered, dismissing her brilliant insight. She was right again. I just didn’t feel like letting her know. I would need a lot more to hang Nixon than a record of him selling scrap.

  She narrowed her eyes and looked straight at me. “Einstein would have been nothing without his wife. Did you know she was a mathematician and physicist, too? She went over his papers with a microscope and found all his mistakes. He would have been shit without her.”

  “Wasn’t she his first cousin?” I asked. “This is getting creepy, Meg.”

  “No. That was his second wife. His first wife was a second cousin.”

  “And we make jokes about our neighbors in Arkansas. Where did you learn all this? I don’t remember you ever being a student of history?”

  Megan’s cold stare started to soften. “Some show on TV, but that’s not the point.” She stood up from the table and went back to the Chardonnay she had left on the kitchen counter. “The point is, you can be as big a bastard as Einstein. Give a girl some credit once in a while.”

  Now it was my turn to smile. “It’s a man thing, Meg. If I gave you the credit, I’d have to turn in my man card. But before I do that, we need to find out who Fred’s phone belongs to. If it’s Bill, you get the prize. And if it’s Bennet’s, I’ll promise not to gloat.”

  She filled her glass and put the empty Chardonnay bottle in the trash. “Won’t it take a while to charge it?” she asked.

  “Scratch that scenario,” I answered and began removing its SIM card. “It uses the same service as my phone. There is a good chance its card will work on my phone.” Then I got lucky; the card was compatible with my phone. I crossed my fingers while the phone went through its startup cycle.

  “I thought you couldn’t get a signal from here?” Megan had come up behind me to watch my magic. I had been so intent with the phone that I didn’t hear her and almost dropped it.

  “I can’t. This is data stored on the chip,” I said as I selected the call list menu. “Do you have something I can write with? I need to copy these numbers then I’ll run them through a reverse lookup on my computer.”

  She went to the counter and opened the drawer where she stored the kitchen clutter. “Will this do?” she asked, handing me a small pink notepad trimmed in flowers.

  “As long as I don’t have to show the list to anyone,” I answered, and I began writing down the numbers from the Status menu. “Hand me your house phone, would you?”

  “Who you going to call?” she asked.

  “Maybe we will get lucky and the voice mail will give away the owner’s name,” I said while calling the cell phone.

  Megan went back to the other side of the table and sat down. She put her elbows on the table and her head in her hands, waiting for the call to complete. “My money is still on Atkins,” she said.

  I pressed the speaker button, figuring it would save time by not having to repeat the message. All I got was a phone company recording stating that the customer had not yet set up his mailbox. “I’ll do a reverse lookup from my computer later, but let’s check out his call list first.” I knew it would be tedious. My phone stored over sixty recent calls. Chances were, Fred’s phone did too. Megan lost interest when she saw me going through the list. “This is making me thirsty,” she said as she left the table. “I’m gonna open another bottle. Do you want some?”

  “No. I’m still working on my beer, but thanks anyway,” I answered, writing down the numbers, along with the time and dates, on Megan’s pink paper.

  “That’s odd. There’s only a dozen or so calls,” I said when I got to the end of the list.

  “Maybe whoever owned the phone didn’t use it much,” she said.

  “Or maybe he deleted his call list every day or so,” I answered. “Some people do that when they have something to hide.” I finished writing the last call when my phone complained about its battery running low.

  “I need to run downstairs, get my laptop, and put my phone on its charger. Hold on, and I’ll be right back.” I expected my shadow to follow me, but Fred was still asleep under by my chair and didn’t hear me leave.

  * * *

  Of the twelve or thirteen numbers in the call list, only four were unique. Once I got my phone recharged, I needed to check out the phone’s data usage and billing statement. But first, I needed to use the bathroom and unload the four beers I had since seeing Amy walk out of the hospital with Hal. It was a ritual that always helped clear my mind as well as my bladder.

  I knew I was getting close to solving the puzzle of Mike’s demise. Whoever lost the phone by Megan’s dock must have done so when they dumped Bill’s body. And it didn’t take a paperback detective to connect that person to Mike’s murder. Unless Megan was right, and the phone fell out of Atkins’ pocket when he was dumped. But why would someone come back looking for the phone if that was the case? And if the perpetrator was Bennet, as I thought earlier, wouldn’t there have been calls to his office? I had just zipped up when the door opened behind me.

  “When did you start using the toilet, Fred?” My shadow must have woken up and went looking for me.

  “Woof,” he answered. I knew him better than I knew my own kid. It was his, ‘I want out’, bark.

  I finished without taking the time to wash, and let him out before he decided to use my bathroom instead of his. Then I went over to the bed to fetch my computer from its hiding place.

  Megan was at the kitchen counter, struggling with a wine cork, when I returned several minutes later with Fred on my tail. “Did you fall asleep down there?” she asked just as the cork popped loose and wine started to flow out of the bottle.

  I nearly threw my computer on the table and went over and grabbed a handful of paper towels. “We had to make a pit stop.” I began wiping up the spill, and then I stopped cold when I noticed the price tag on the wine bottle.

  I never was much of a wine expert, but I already knew just by the cork that it cost more than any wine I would buy. “Forty-five dollars!
Megan, what were you thinking?”

  She gave me the defiant look she used to give our father when she was caught doing something she wasn’t supposed to do. “Cheap wine gives me a headache. And what do you care how I spend my money. I told you I would pay you back every dime, so please don’t start acting like Mike.”

  Fred went under the table when he heard us raise our voices. I hadn’t seen him do that since Natalie and I would have our fights. It made me realize that it really was none of my business how Megan spent the money I loaned her. “Sorry, Sis. It was sort of a shock is all.”

  Without saying another word, Megan poured herself a large glass and left the kitchen. I reached down and patted Fred on the head. “It’s okay, Boy. She’ll cool down once she has a drink or two.” I said it loud enough so Megan could hear, then went back to my computer.

  The first number I typed into the reverse-lookup webpage was the cell phone itself. The results claimed to know the owner and for only three-ninety-five, or twenty-nine dollars a month for unlimited access, they would tell me who owned the number. The same held true for the next number. Only the last two were listed in a public directory, and hence, free information. One was for the Pig’s Roast, and another whose name sounded familiar but didn’t ring any bells. I was about to cough up the ransom for the privilege of seeing the unlisted numbers when my computer started complaining about a low battery. What was it with these batteries? I thought. Just who were they trying to protect?

  I shut down my computer and went over to the kitchen counter. I took the bottle Meg had left and joined her on the deck. She saw the bottle in my hand. “Don’t bother. I haven’t cooled off yet.”

  I filled her glass anyway. “I’m sorry about that remark, Meg. I must get it from Mom. Look at us – it’s just like we’re teenagers again.”

  “More like we’re married. Ug. Gag me with a spoon. I need to throw up. What a terrible thought. Married to your own brother,” she said before taking a sip from her glass. Then, after a long pause, “Did you find who owns the phone?”