“Then why did I see you backing out of those woods with your pistol drawn? See a pissed off raccoon, or something?”
I didn’t have a good answer for him. I just smiled, shrugged my shoulders, and said, “I’m a bit of a city boy. I have no idea what kind of wild animals are running around in these woods.”
“Okay,” he said. “We’ll go with that bullshit answer.”
He turned and headed back towards his partner who was standing at the end of the driveway, speaking with someone dressed in shorts and a t-shirt; probably someone who lived on the same street as the cabin. As I walked back through the front door of Straus’s cabin, I figured there would be a whole lot of conversations with local residents going on over the next several days. And those conversations would probably stretch on a bit longer if the news media and reporters like Shawn Nolley found out Ralph and I were working together again.
If Nolley caught wind of what was going on, he’d be on my ass like stink on shit. That thought alone drove me to want to figure this whole thing out and put an end to Alexander Black, or to whomever was behind the messages, once and for all. But wanting to put a stop to something is only the first step to doing so. In between the first and last step are a whole bunch of places where someone can land their foot in a trap.
That certainly turned out to be true.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I found Ralph sitting in Alexander’s reading room. He had shut the hallway door and was sitting with his back facing the doorway and looked to be staring at the wall in front of him.
“You know,” I said after pushing the door open and taking a couple of steps into the room, “these are about the same positions you and I were in when we first met. You were where I am now and I was standing pretty close to where you’re sitting.”
“And if I remember correctly,” Ralph said, his voice lacking its usual vibrato, “I was pointing a .45 directly at your back and you were holding a flashlight. Now Derek, I am not holding a flashlight and I do pray to God you are not pointing a gun at me.”
“Only thing I’m holding is your cell phone. Alexander left a clue for me, telling where I could find it.”
Ralph stood up, hitched his pants higher, then took a few steps towards me. “That sure does look like a cell phone, Derek, but it ain’t my cell phone. Mine is right here in my hand.” Ralph raised his right hand a bit, showing me his flip phone. “Old Alexander decided wrap it up all watertight and bury it in the black box.”
“Then, whose phone is this, I wonder?” I looked at the Android phone I was holding and began racing through ideas. “Could be the medical examiner’s. Could be Straus’s or, hell, it could be anyone’s.”
“If that heartless sonofabitch went through the trouble of hiding that phone but then telling you how you could go about finding it, there must be some rather important information inside its electronic brain Alexander wants us to know about.”
“Same holds true for your phone,” I said. “Why didn’t he just toss the phone into the lake or just leave it wherever he found it? We need to do some digital forensics.”
Ralph dropped his phone into his pocket, turned back towards the chair he was sitting in, and collected a handful of papers. He put the papers and what looked like a few photographs back into the manilla folder. “There ain’t a whole lot of forensic-worthiness to my phone,” he said. “No camera on it. Not one that works, that is. Just a plain old phone. But that black slab you’re holding,” he said, pointing to the plastic bag I was holding, “that looks like a forensic detective’s wet dream.”
There were three things that were pretty clear to me; Ralph didn’t want me to know what was inside the envelope addressed to him; he didn’t want me to know what Alexander had left on his cell phone; and he was hoping by talking about the potential clues the Android phone offered, that I would get too excited and distracted to ask him about the other two things. Now, I’ve been know to chase rabbits down rabbit holes and my wife, Lucy, certainly had her share of challenges with how easily I can get distracted, but I wasn’t chasing any rabbit down any hole just yet. “Ralph,” I said, my face stern, “let’s go over what Alexander left for us in the box. I’m not all that good with technology but I believe you said you have a tech-friendly officer in your department. How about you call him down here so he can figure out this phone and you and I sit down and go over what was in the box.”
Ralph’s eyes concerned me. Whenever I had spoken to him since our first meeting, I was always a bit impressed with how good Ralph was at making and keeping eye contact. My dad used to tell me that “a man that can look you straight in the eye, no matter what the conversation is about, is a man worthy of trust.” But, as we stood in Alexander’s reading room that day, Ralph’s eyes were locking onto anything but mine.
“Well, Derek, I will tell you I have yet to digest all that Alexander left for me, and I don’t see any folder in your hands at all. Not having what he left for you sure will make sharing a difficult process for you to complete.”
It was a damn lame excuse, and I wasn’t interested in letting Ralph off the hook that easily. “My envelope is right out in the den. How about you and I walk out there together, and I’ll go through everything he left for me first?”
Ralph finally made eye contact with me. I could tell whatever Alexander put in the envelope had bothered him. That made me curious and also a bit afraid. I know everyone has a past and that everyone has things in their past they’d rather keep from clawing their way into the present. Ralph was no exception. Neither was I. But, no matter what Alexander (or whoever) was working hard at dragging from my past into my present, I was willing to talk about with Ralph. I had to. Though I wasn’t sure how a few pictures of the bank my wife was murdered in related to the sick, twisted “clue map” Alexander had left for us, they must relate to the case in some fashion. Even as I was first looking through the envelope and was struggling to make the envelope’s contents connect to everything about Alexander, I was thinking maybe Ralph might have some insights or at least some strong ideas of how these clues should fit together. Even before I opened the envelope, I thought Ralph and I would need to lay out everything inside our envelopes side by side before we’d understand the connection.
But as I was standing there in the reading room, I was getting a pretty clear message that Ralph wasn’t interested in showing me what Alexander had left him.
What Ralph finally said to me, after an uncomfortably long silence, was nothing I expected.
“There I was, telling you not to let that heartless bastard get into your mind, when you was the one who should have been telling me.” He paused a beat, lowered his sight to the envelope in his hand. “I will go over everything inside this envelope with you, I do promise that. I just need to collect myself and take back control of my emotions before doing so.”
I really didn’t expect that. I was thinking Ralph had some skeletons in his past Alexander had somehow dug up and Ralph didn’t want me to see any of the bones. But what was keeping Ralph from comparing notes with me, wasn’t his skeletons but the way those skeletons had control over his emotions.
“I get it, Ralph.” I said. “How about you get your tech officer down here to take a look at this phone while you and I go over the contents of my envelope?”
“I do not need to get the aforementioned officer down here, since I am quite certain he is standing watch outside this very cabin as we speak.” I was relieved to hear the old Ralph again. Though I could sense there was something heavy weighing him down, his spark was still evident. “Let’s head on out to the den and I’ll call him inside to take a look at that phone. And Derek?”
“Yeah?”
“I will assure you that I will go over every last piece of content in this envelope that relates, no matter how slightly, to our case.”
“Me too,” I said.
“But there is a thing or two Alexander left for me that I am not prepared to share at this time. I hope you trust me and believe
me when I promise you that what I am not ready to share has no merit to our investigation. He only left some information in an attempt to weaken my resolve.”
“Did he succeed?” I asked.
“Well,” Ralph said as a smile played across his face, “I will tell you my resolve to put a permanent end to Alexander has replaced my previous resolution to see him behind bars. Not sure if his intentions were to use my mind as his personal sandbox, but, if they were, then, hell yes, he succeeded.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The officer’s name was Will Franklin and it took him no more than two minutes of work before he handed the Android phone to Ralph.
“It was just turned off. No passwords or any type of security.”
“I’d like to say,” Ralph said, “I could not have done it without you, Officer Franklin, but your description of the ease at which you were able to get this phone operational prohibits me from doing so. In the future, I might suggest you report more of a struggle when it comes to tasks I assign you. Goes a lot further in building your indispensable nature.”
After Franklin left the cabin, Ralph handed the phone to me. “I am sure your thumbs are a whole lot more familiar with the proper way to navigate through a phone like this. See what you can find.”
It took me a few minutes to figure out some of the basics of the phone. I’m barely competent with my iPhone but I was impressed with my ability to figure my way around the Android phone. “Okay,” I said, “any suggestions where to start?”
“Find out what number makes that phone ring.”
Doing that was not as easy as learning where the camera app was. After ten minutes, Ralph called Officer Franklin back. He took the phone, then paused and looked at Ralph. “You want me to pretend this is difficult or do you want me to just get it done?”
“I am suffering from a concussion, Officer Franklin, and I do believe my sense of time is all messed up. I suggest you find the information we need from this phone then tell me in a few days how difficult a process it was.”
Officer Franklin smiled, then rattled off a ten digit phone number. “I can have the number traced to see who it belongs to, if you’d like.”
“I was hoping you’d say that,” Ralph said. “But before you run off again, do a bit more digging and see if you can find anything else on the phone you think two investigators would like to see.”
The three of us sat around for ten minutes as Will Franklin breezed through the phone’s file system. Though all the text messages and emails had been erased, as were any documents, he was able to open the image gallery. I could see whatever picture Officer Franklin was looking at was disturbing him quite a bit. “Listen, the shortcut to all the pictures is right on the home screen. As far as I can tell, there are only a handful of pictures on this phone. I may be able to recover some more if they had been deleted but, I’ll just let you look at these, first.” He handed the phone to Ralph, then said, “I better get back outside. Call me if you need me again.”
“I think my friend Derek should be driving this phone,” Ralph said as he started to hand the phone to me.
“Chief Fox,” Officer Franklin said as he stepped between Ralph and me, preventing me from grabbing the phone. “I think you’ll want to look at those pictures before letting anyone else have a look.”
Ralph retracted his extended arm, gave a nod to Franklin then held the phone agains his chest. He waited until Franklin walked outside before looking at the phone. I saw his thumb pressing the screen, his eyes searching for a moment then he thumbed the screen again. Whatever was being displayed on the screen had an impact on Ralph. I could see his face turning red, though I couldn’t tell if the blushing was from anger or embarrassment. It turned out to be embarrassment.
“I don’t think it is important for you to see this first picture,” Ralph said in a low, grumble of a voice. “And I ask you not to do so.”
“What is it?” I asked.
He took a deep breath then released it in a damp sounding exhale. He stood up, pulled out a cigar from his breast pocket, lit it, and soon after was billowing blueish clouds of smoke into the air. “It seems Alexander believes in memorializing as many of his accomplishments as is feasible.”
“Ralph, what the hell are you talking about?”
“You probably recall the state I was in when you came across me earlier today?”
“You mean unconscious?”
“That, and tied to a chair and as naked as the day I was born.”
Based on the tone of Ralph’s voice, I was sure I knew what the first picture on the phone was. “Sick bastard took a picture of you like that?” I asked. “Jesus Ralph, I’m sorry about what he did to you, but, if he took a picture of you, he must have done so for a reason.”
Ralph squinted his eyes against the billowing smoke as he looked back at the phone. “To break my balls seems like a highly probable reason to me.”
I figured I needed to get my eyes on the picture, not that I had any interest in seeing Ralph naked and tied to a chair, but to see if Alexander was using the picture as a clue to his next steps or his whereabouts. I also knew Ralph wouldn’t just hand over the phone and be okay with me pinching and zooming my way around the picture. Again, not that I wanted to zoom in on Ralph, but I had no idea what clue or clues could be seen in the pic.
Ralph was just shaking his head as he stared at the picture. He was walking in slow circles around the den, pausing occasionally to draw on his cigar and, a couple of times, to steady himself. He had a concussion, that was a certainty, but he also had some powerful emotions charging through his system. Seeing him expelling clouds of smoke and not seeing the redness dissipate from his complexion made me nervous about him having a stroke or a heart attack.
“Ralph,” I said, “what other pictures are on the camera?”
He placed the phone face down on a table about five feet from where I was sitting, then walked back to the couch. He sat down in a heavy thump and poured out a long twist of smoke. “Well,” he said after a few seconds, “based on the other photographs, I’d say we can rule out the medical examiner as a possible accomplice.”
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“While I cannot be certain, there’s a photograph of a woman on this phone who appears to be as dead as a dead person can be. After I learned Alexander’s presumed dead body went missing and the medical examiner was missing right along side, I familiarized myself with her face, just in case I happened to cross paths with her. I subscribed to the suspicion she absconded with the body for a while before settling on the more likely scenario that Alexander was not dead when he was lying on the medical examiner’s table.” Ralph paused, drew on his cigar then exhaled the smoke in a thin, blue line towards the phone. “The picture on the phone shows a woman lying face up in a shallow grave. I am far from a doctor, but it looks to me like her neck had been broken. And I do recognize her face as belonging to the mysteriously missing medical examiner.”
It was hard for me not to just get up, walk over to the phone and flip through the pictures myself. I figured I’d see them once Ralph worked through his anger and embarrassment, but I had no idea how long that process was going to take him. “How about the other pictures?” I asked. “And, did you take a close look at the one of the supposed medical examiner to see if Alexander included any additional clues in the pic?” I wanted to make a case for getting my eyes on all the pics and figured by challenging Ralph’s thoroughness, he’d might feel compelled to invite me to study the pics.
“Derek,” Ralph said after a short pause, “I do understand you’re eagerness to inspect the pictures on the phone and while I am hesitant for you to see the picture of me in a compromised situation, I also understand the importance of your inspection.”
I gripped the arm rests of the chair and began to pull myself up and out of the chair, when Ralph raised a slow hand. “Outside of me, you, Office Franklin and the photographer, no one knows about the picture of me on the phone, and I’d like
to manufacture a way to keep that knowledge from expanding outside our friendly little circle. I certainly do not know much about the Internet, but I hear things on the web have the penchant to stay there an awful long while.” He stopped talking then shifted his attention to his cigar. I felt like Ralph had just told me he was ready for me to see the pictures but he first wanted me to make sure Officer Franklin wasn’t going to share a description of the pic with anyone else.
Without saying anything, I stood up and walked outside of the cabin. Franklin was leaning against his squad car alone. I walked over and had a brief conversation with him.
Once I was satisfied that Franklin understood the sensitive nature surrounding the picture of Ralph and was abundantly confident Franklin had no intentions of ever sharing any details of the pic, I walked back inside the cabin. When I entered the den, Ralph was still sitting on the couch, billowing smoke into the air and the phone was moved from the table onto the seat cushion of the chair I had been sitting in. “You have a good man in Officer Franklin,” I said to Ralph. “Very loyal to you.”
Ralph just nodded and grunted a small noise.
I picked up the phone, dragged my thumb across the screen and watched as the phone’s screen was filled with pictures taken by a very ill and dangerous person.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The first picture in the phone’s gallery, and therefore the last picture taken, was, as expected, of Ralph. I only gave that pic a brief glance, knowing I would return to it with a more inspective eye. The second picture was of a woman. She was clothed, lying on the ground of what looked to be a forest. Pine needles and pine cones were strewn about and freshly turned dirt was captured on the right edge of the picture.
“You think this one is the medical examiner?” I asked, flashing the picture to Ralph.
He didn’t look at the phone. He kept his attention fixed on whatever he was seeing or wanting to be seeing in the streams of blue smoke wafting from his cigar. “I cannot be sure but her face looks awfully familiar to me,” he said. “I had seen a photograph or two of the medical examiner and the poor soul in that picture sure looks like what I remember the examiner to look like.”
Still Heartless: The Thrilling Conclusion to Heartless (Derek Cole Suspense Thrillers Book 5) Page 8
