Still Heartless: The Thrilling Conclusion to Heartless (Derek Cole Suspense Thrillers Book 5)

by T Patrick Phelps

  Tell me, Mr. Cole, how often do you regret letting your wife die? How many times do you wish you had the heart to have not listened to your captain’s orders that day and had, instead, done whatever you could have to at least try to save poor Lucy? From what information I’ve been able to discover, you were rather familiar with the layout of the bank. I believe you worked security at that branch on several of your days off from the police department. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you possessed a set of keys to a back door. While I was not there on that terrible day, it seems to me you should have been able to get inside and could have at least tried to prevent that madman from blowing your wife’s brains across the bank’s front window.

  But, what do I know? I wasn’t there.

  I imagine few days have past since that horrible day when your anger has not been directed at yourself. But be careful, when anger is repeatedly turned inward, it grows into regret. And regret makes people do terrible things.

  But you already know that, don’t you?

  Though I look forward to discussing our unique interpretations of heartlessness, today is not the day to confer or to deliberate over that topic. I have several things I need to accomplish before I will be ready to have a more informed conversation with you. But I also don’t want you and Officer Ralph Fox to lose interest in finding me and in doing whatever it is you two want to do to me, so I have created a bit of a treasure map for you. Maybe I am living out a bit of the childhood I was denied by leaving a bread crumbed trail for you two to follow. If so, I’m sure you can understand. I’ve left something for the both of you beneath the surface of my beloved Piseco Lake. Recovering it shouldn’t be a tremendous challenge, but it’s always easier to search for something when you know what you are searching for, so I will tell you what you should train your eyes for. A steel, black box. Inside is information for both you and Officer Fox. Find the box, open it and your next messages will be inside.

  Lastly, do apologize to Officer Fox for me. Honestly, I did not expect him to show up at Doctor Straus’s cabin till much later in the day. His arrival forced my hand. Please, let him know how awful I feel and tell him I do hope he feels better quickly. He is part of my future, you see, and having him disabled in any way (more so than his fractured past has already disabled him) would create an unfair advantage in my favor.

  AB”

  ________________________

  We were silent for a few minutes, both of us just letting Alexander’s message resonate. I was the first to speak. “Well, that made me feel a whole lot better about myself.”

  “Now, Derek, like I already told you, he’s trying to get inside your head.”

  “He’s accomplished that,” I said.

  “I’m sure he has but you can’t let him stay in there too long. He’ll twist you up so bad, that...”

  The way Ralph stopped talking got me angry. He knew I tried to kill myself and I shouldn’t be surprised if he was wondering in the back of his mind if I might try it again if things go sideways. “I’m not going to do anything stupid, Ralph.”

  “I believe you won’t,” he said. “And at the same time, if you and I are going to partnering up on this case, I deserve to know you won’t get all twisted up in your head and wind up doing something that ends up spoiling my day. Like me getting killed.”

  “I’m good, Ralph. I’m good.”

  Ralph gave me a small smile. Not sure if that smile meant he believed me or that he knew I wasn’t feeling as “good” as I was insisting.

  “How about you make that call to your station for some backup?” I felt it was a good as time as any to change the subject.

  “I think I’ll do exactly that.”

  “The other thing we need to get our heads wrapped around,” I said after Ralph finished calling in more of his officers, “is the sound you heard before you were hit. I’m not questioning what you believe you heard, but if it was a deep, guttural sound, we have a whole new problem on our hands.”

  “Indeed we might,” Ralph said. “But, it’s not a whole new problem; it’s just a twist to the known problem.” Ralph pointed towards the fireplace, and said, “That heart tells us with even more certainty Alexander was here. Who else would have had the opportunity, motive or twisted up mental condition to leave Straus’s heart in his old cabin?”

  “So, Alexander is not working alone.”

  “Not necessarily the case. Just because I heard a sound, which and based solely on our past experiences with Alexander, he shouldn’t be able to make, doesn’t mean he can’t. And, at this point in our investigation, it does not matter an ounce whether we are looking for one or two men. If we find anyone traveling with a guy who looks like he’s dead, well, I suppose we’ll at least bring him in for questioning.”

  “Or her,” I added. “We don’t know what became of the medical examiner. She could be working with Alexander.”

  “Now that would be a bizarre twist of fate, now wouldn’t it?”

  “Can’t rule anything out at this point.”

  “I suppose we cannot,” Ralph said as the distant sounds of sirens began to grow louder. “I suppose we cannot rule anything out.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The small Adirondack town of Arietta employed seven police officers, including Ralph. Of those seven, only three were full-time. So when all seven showed up within twenty minutes of Ralph calling in for backup, I could sense Ralph’s pride. Each officer checked in with Ralph, received their instructions, then proceeded to carry out their assigned duties. The two officers who had already seen the inside of the cabin and the cryptic messages left therein, were assigned to complete a thorough sweep of the grounds.

  “I don’t want either one of you leaving the other’s side,” Ralph instructed the two. “Stay within ten feet of one another. I need you to sweep in one hundred yard circles of this cabin, looking for anything that doesn’t belong. I don’t care if you find a gum wrapper; if something looks fresh, tag it, bag it, take a damn picture of it and bring it all inside here.”

  Two other officers were sent knocking on doors. Ralph wanted the two to speak with every person who lived on the same street as Straus’s cabin. “Ask them the usual questions: Did they see any activity in or around this cabin over the last several weeks or months? If anyone reports they saw someone milling around, ask for a description. And make damn sure you ask how many people had been seen, if any, loitering around this cabin.”

  Two other officers were told to take pictures of every room in the cabin. “Once those pictures are taken, I need you two to head back to the station house, pull up the crime scene photos from a year ago, and see if anything looks out of place, new or missing. And take that bag with the heart in it and send it to wherever the hell it is we send things like that for testing.”

  As a team of EMT’s gave Ralph a more thorough exam than he was comfortable with, Ralph asked me to do a little investigation as well. “You might recall we found a path on the other side of the lake last year.”

  “I remember,” I said. “The trail was marked with two heart symbols, spray painted onto a rock. If memory serves, that trail led to the lake directly across from this cabin.”

  “Your memory does indeed serve you well.” Ralph leaned forward, fixing his stern gaze on me. “You ever do any SCUBA diving?”

  ________________________

  Not sure if I’d go as far as to admit to having phobias, but I will admit I am not a fan of two things. There’s probably a whole lot more than just two things the idea of which turn my stomach, but these are the main two. One, being underwater, and, two, being on a bus. I can almost excuse my reluctance to being underwater. After all, I don’t have a set of gills handy to accommodate for the important act of breathing. The bus thing? I have no acceptable reason for that one. I just don’t like being on a bus. When I was a kid and had to ride the school bus, I either had to sit as close to the driver as possible or threw a well controlled temper tantrum till I convinced my dad to drop me off at s
chool on his way to work. I’d say I rode the bus to school less than twenty times during my elementary days. Even fewer when high school rolled around.

  Phobias? Sure, I guess you can call them phobias. I just don’t think my fear of being underwater is all that irrational. The bus thing is, I admit, pretty weird.

  Needless to say, I had no intention of donning SCUBA gear and exploring what lay beneath the dark waters of Piseco Lake. Ralph didn’t press me on it, either. Once I told him I wasn’t SCUBA certified, he took a different approach and called in the Town of Arieta Underwater Rescue team. Though the rescue team members all lived within fifteen miles of Piseco Lake, our request not being an emergency meant we wouldn’t be seeing any divers for quite a while. The team of four (all volunteers) didn’t arrive till mid morning the next day, which was fine with me. I wanted to get some time away from the cabin. Time to think and maybe time to get some scotch into my bloodstream.

  By nine thirty the next morning, the Water Search and Rescue Squad was in the waters of Piseco Lake. Their mission directives were clear: search the bottom of the lake in a fifteen foot swatch from the small clearing directly across from the Straus cabin to the end of the narrow trail on the opposite side of the lake. Fortunately for the SCUBA divers, the stretch of water between the two land points was less than a two hundred meters. Still way more water than I’d ever enjoy being under, but, according to the dive leader, a contained enough area to expect positive results.

  And positive results were exactly what they delivered.

  Less than an hour after the first diver disappeared beneath the water, a black box, measuring one foot by a foot and a half and six inches in height, was carried to the shore.

  “You boys find anything else of interest down there?” Ralph asked as he took possession of the black box.

  “Not unless a few beer bottles and two lost boat anchors pique your interest.”

  “Maybe on a day less important than this, but today, I have to report to have no interest in the items you’ve mentioned. I do appreciate your efforts, men.”

  Ralph carried the black box back up to the cabin. On his way, he told one of his officers to put out a BOLO for Alexander. “I want you to send this ‘Be On the Look Out’ for anyone walking around—or driving around—that looks six shades past dead.”

  “Sir?” the officer replied. “Not sure if that description will go over all that well.”

  “I suppose not,” Ralph said as he stopped walking and was standing in the middle of the street. I had been on a couple of walks with Ralph and knew he was far from being in good shape. When he stopped like that, I couldn’t tell if he was having a tough time walking up the slight incline or had to stop in order to think up a good way to describe Alexander. “How about you describe this fellow as looking like Uncle Fester but taller, a whole lot more muscular and lacking teeth?”

  “Uncle Fester, sir?”

  “Are you telling me you have never watched the Adams Family?” Ralph looked genuinely bothered. “Male, six foot two, two hundred pounds, bald, no teeth, gray complexion. Will that work?”

  The way Ralph carried the black box back to the cabin, told me he was both worried and intrigued about its contents. He cradled it in the crook of his arm as he hurried his pace across the street, up the crushed stone driveway then into the cabin. He carried it right into the kitchen placed it on the table, then circled the table with his eyes fixed on the box. To me, he seemed like someone trying to solve a complicated puzzle and not someone who only needed to pop a cheap lock to learn the answer to a puzzle.

  “You think it will open by itself if you keep walking around it?” I asked after Ralph completed his fourth orbit.

  “I hold no such delusions,” he said.

  “Then... I don’t know...maybe we should open the box?”

  “Don’t you find it peculiar?”

  “The box? Do I find the box peculiar? I guess. Kind of looks like the type of box my dad keeps his coin collection.”

  “And, what do you think is inside this box, Derek?”

  “Honestly Ralph,” I said, feeling my patience running thin, “instead of asking questions about how I feel about the box and what I think may be inside, why don’t we just open the damn thing up and see?”

  “I am not sure that’s our best option.”

  “Then why the hell did you call in the SCUBA dudes from Albany, have them swim around and bring the box to you?”

  “I do believe we needed to get this box. My concerns surround the appropriate time to open the box.”

  “Ralph,” I said, a bit discouraged, “I know what he’s trying to do and I’ll admit, that letter did get me a bit twisted. But, I’m past that now. We need to stop Alexander and, for whatever reason, he is making us play a treasure hunt game in order for us to do that. So, let’s open the box and see what else his distorted mind has in store for us.”

  Ralph gave me a long, serious stare. I didn’t like the stare at all, but I gave him my best stare right back. Not sure if he was trying to use some Texas style of the Jedi mind trick on me or just seeing if he could see any illness behind my eyes, but I wasn’t about to break off that stare. It wasn’t a staring contest, but I sure felt like whoever blinked or looked away would be the loser.

  He broke off the stare when he nodded towards the wall and the message carved into it. “You think that message is referencing you?”

  “A Broken Heart is a Sign of Life. It is a Longing,” I read out loud. “I suppose it could refer to me. Not sure and I won’t be sure until we have a chance to ask Alexander face to face. And, we won’t have that opportunity unless we open the damn box. So, how about we do exactly that, and how about we do it now?”

  We opened the box and found two manilla envelopes inside, both clasped closed. One was addressed to me, Ralph’s name was written on the second. Looking back, I guess Ralph was right: We needed to open the box and needed to see what was inside, but maybe we did so at the wrong time.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  We both opened the manilla envelopes and carefully poured out the contents. I gave a quick glance at the six things now sitting on my lap, then glanced over to see what Alexander had left for Ralph. At first look, it seemed Ralph’s envelope contained a lot more material than did mine. And based on Ralph’s reaction, the envelope’s contents were more than just interesting to Ralph; they were disturbing.

  His face changed almost instantly as he flipped through the ten or eleven sheets of paper. His countenance went from the curious and familiar one I had grown used to, to one often displayed by a man forced to confront a terrible fear. It may have been the concussion at work, but Ralph’s face went pale and suddenly slack. His eyes, however, revealed the impact of the envelope’s contents.

  His brown eyes lost the spark of intelligence and confidence they always held. Replaced by unmistakable fear, remorse and regret. He stood up with some difficulty, mumbled something I couldn’t make out, then strolled out of the den and headed towards Alexander’s suite.

  “You okay?” I asked after he showed no signs of turning around and beginning a discussion of what Alexander had left for us. He dismissed me with an errant wave of his hand as he disappeared from my view. I thought of following him but decided I needed to see what was left for me and that Ralph apparently wanted time to process whatever had been left for him.

  I won’t say I was all that surprised at what Alexander left for me inside that box. There wasn’t a personalized letter, but instead, pages that had been printed from a laser printer. The first was a picture of the bank Lucy was killed in. It was a view from just about where I had stood and watched Leonard McClusky murder her. Beneath the picture were six words:

  “The view of your life’s unravelling.”

  I couldn’t tell if Alexander had taken the picture himself, but I highly doubted it. The first couple of months after Lucy was killed, I looked at every picture, read every article and blog regarding the murder scene. I didn’t look at the pic
tures taken of Lucy after Leonard put a bullet through her head, but I was certain I had seen every other picture of the bank.

  Having seen so many and having seen them when I wasn’t in exactly what I would call “my best frame of mind,” it was nearly impossible for me to determine whether the picture I was holding was a new one or one I’d seen a few times before.

  It didn’t matter in the end whether or not Alexander had found his way to Columbus, Ohio, took a self-guided tour of the worst day of my life or if he had just pulled the image down from the Internet. What mattered is why he had included the picture in his little “gift” for me. It was pretty clear he wanted to, as Ralph said, “get into my head.”

  If that was indeed his goal, he had accomplished it.

  The second sheet of printed paper showed a schematic of the bank, complete with the architectural firm’s name, address, license number and a slew of other data that I was sure would only be important to architects and those paid to follow the construction plans. To me, the blueprint was nothing more than a detailed layout of the bank. Nothing more. I figured Alexander wanted to demonstrate his ability to locate and access information and included the architectural drawing as evidence of his ability.

  The third sheet was an image of my parent’s house. There was no doubt Alexander had pulled of my parents house down from Google Maps, so the idea of him possibly standing outside my parent’s house didn’t seem likely. However, he was sending a pretty clear message that he knew not only where I had spent my recovery time, but where my parents lived.