His Hand In the Storm: Gray James Detective Murder Mystery and Suspense (Chief Inspector Gray James Detective Murder Mystery Series Book 1)

by Ritu Sethi

  That last fateful meeting came to mind, with the older man’s medicinal breath hovering far too close – and Jimmy threatening to tell Mom all which Norman wished hidden, at all cost – and Norman’s unnatural, almost scary calm response: telling Jimmy to go ahead, but to at least wait a couple of days before calling home.

  What had Norman expected to happen in those couple of days? What could still happen?

  Jimmy rose on quivering knees and finally found his voice. “Holly, that’s blood. Maybe Norman’s blood.”

  She yanked him back out to the hall. “No, it isn’t.”

  “And there’s something in the center. Something ate away at those tiles.”

  “Don’t be crazy; it’s ink, nothing more. The tiles have always been old and worn out; you just haven’t noticed. Now, stop making a big deal out of this, get your laptop, and get out.”

  A rustling noise from outside the office glass doors made him turn. Coming, maybe, from near the elevators. He tried to swallow but couldn’t. “What’s that? Who’s there?”

  “No one,” Holly snapped. Once again, her hot breath was on him. “I don’t want you mentioning this to anyone – do you understand? No one! That isn’t blood, especially not Norman’s. Norman phoned me only this morning and said he’s okay. We don’t want to start any rumors, or cause a panic which might adversely affect the company.”

  “That policeman that came today. We have to call him.”

  “What?” She stepped back as though slapped. Both her cheeks flushed a deep mahogany brown. “I’m trying to sell this company, and you want to involve the police? Are you nuts?” Spit sprayed from her mouth onto his face which no amount of wiping seemed to remove.

  A rustling sounded, again, from the corridor outside.

  He had to get out; at all cost, he had to get out.

  Her claws dug into his arm. “You can’t mention this. The police will blow this place apart if you say anything, maybe shut it down.”

  “Someone’s in the office,” he squeaked.

  “No. We’re alone–”

  But everything around him tilted. Every muscle in his legs tightened, ready to sprint.

  Without a backward glance, he pushed through the glass doors and ran; Holly’s voice called out from behind. No time for the elevator, Jimmy went against every instinct which told him not to do it and swung around the corner, yanked open the heavy door to the stairwell and bolted through it.

  Blackness engulfed him. He scurried down the steps with his arms out, his runners pounding the cement, the sound echoing down to the black cavern below.

  He breathed in thick, gritty dust as fuzzy images gradually took form: misshapen lumps which lined the corners and which might be moving, threatening to spring forward. He passed one, then another on the level below with his breath coming heavy; his chest whistling with each exhalation.

  Down one level, then the next. Until the lumpy bags clarified and his eyes adjusted, and he saw they were cement bags, tools, and fixtures, sitting amidst the torn stairwell renovation.

  At which point, a sound fell from above – and he froze...and heard it again.

  Cre-e-eak.

  Was that Holly or someone else? The walls closed in; the ceiling looked ready to crack and plummet onto his head, burying him alive.

  Cre-e-eak.

  Oh God, Mama, I need you.

  He covered the six flights in record time, tasting the salty snot dripping into his mouth; his heart lodged in his throat

  No security guard watched the lobby at night; no one to call for help, and he flew through the front doors like a bat out of hell.

  Outside, a gust of wind nearly threw him sideways. He covered two blocks without looking back.

  The familiar metro sign came into view, and he bounded down the station steps two at a time – towards the double-sided platform where bodies huddled together, some drunk and swaying, some speaking to themselves about nonsense he didn’t understand. A few bumped into him, making him jump back.

  Seconds felt interminable waiting for his train, but unwelcome thoughts kept flinging back to what must lurk at the office. In the shadows. Near Holly.

  Crouching on the ground, he buried his face in his hands. The train wheels rumbled and screeched to a halt in before him, the piercing shriek of metal seemingly inches from his head.

  He heard the doors whine open but didn’t look up, his face still deeply buried within his dampened palms until the doors closed, and the scent from the train’s rubber tires drifted upward. Only then, did he peek from between trembling fingers at the blur of cars whisking by – blue with a horizontal white stripe – the clanging from the traction motors now vibrating his insides.

  It took concerted effort to stand on legs which wanted desperately to run.

  He pictured her cleaning up the blood to prevent its discovery, her long-nailed hands squeezing the pink-tinged water from the sponge again and again; a dark figure coming up from behind, looming over her with a weapon –

  Chief Inspector Gray, who Jimmy suddenly saw as some sort of hero, would never leave a woman in danger, and Jimmy, too, must act. God, he had to go back.

  He wiped his clammy hands on his pants and climbed the metro steps; each step heavy, his thighs burning. The two blocks back to HealSo passed in a blur with strangers faces staring at him open-mouthed, accusing. The cold wind whipped through his thin jacket and rattled his bones. And finally, he reached the ominous, looming structure.

  The heavy door opened with difficulty and slammed behind him in the wind. Placing one precarious foot before the other, he crossed the mirrored lobby, sweat beading on his forehead, his heart hammering in his chest.

  What was that? Frantic clicking reached him from afar. From inside the stairwell?

  A woman’s single scream bled through the air.

  He ran forward. “Holly! Holly!” And unseeing rushed through the stairwell door – not knowing what lay beyond: a killer with a gun, with a knife? And he was beside the shadowed metal handrail.

  Only an exit sign illumined the rank, still space. Footsteps scurried away in the blackness before a distant door slammed. Whoever was there, had likely fled.

  Jimmy edged his way noiselessly forward and stumbled, his both arms flailing until he clutched the nearby handrail. An object lay spread out at the bottom of the stairs, maybe a cement bag, or something else.

  Cracking open the door slowly, he let in a moving beam of oblong light, skirting along brown and dusty cement until finally settling on black stiletto boots. Holly’s.

  He opened the door fully and lighted the rest of her, including muscled thighs and hips lying spread-eagled on the ground. Her faux-fur coat lay sprawled under her, unbuttoned.

  The pale stream highlighted her Holly’s hollowed face in a way he’d never previously seen, just as her eyes flickered shut – giving her a vulnerability in unconsciousness he wouldn’t have thought possible. Glistening blood oozed onto an enlarging pool beneath her head. She released one last moan, and then, nothing.

  The room split into a double – two images of Holly, fusing in and out into one; two stairwells.

  He gripped the rail again, and bile rose in his throat. Crouching on his knees, he lowered his head until the dizziness passed. Disorder and chaos crashed down on him, ripping his ordered world, tearing out his insides.

  Kate would know what to do; she’d help him. He had to get out of here. But Jimmy couldn’t leave Holly like this, on the brink of death. He had to call someone – the police, an ambulance – before she died. Before the killer came back to finish the job. Before the killer returned to finish him.

  CHAPTER 9

  April 2, 2:20 am

  A MUSICAL SHRILL penetrated his sleep from far a distance, refusing to stop. He ran from it, legs pumping, but it grew louder and louder until it seemed to vibrate the bones inside his skull and pierce his eardrums. Then, he jolted awake, groggy and confused, exiting a disturbing dream which gradually floated into the clouds of oblivion
.

  Gray blinked, eyes grainy, trying to focus. The still and darkened room looked momentarily foreign, unfamiliar until he realized where he was.

  Moonlight streamed in from the window. Outside, the street slept under a sheet of snow, and the onyx surface of the distant river bubbled. It clearly wasn’t morning yet. The shrill continued, now identifiable, and the song, “Voulez-Vous,” continued to bounce off the old plaster walls of the large attic bedroom.

  “You may not need your beauty sleep, Vivienne, but I do.”

  “Someone bludgeoned Holly Bradley during the night. Jimmy found her in the ground floor stairwell. He called it in and disappeared, so I haven’t been able to talk to him – and Holly’s on her way to the hospital. She hasn’t regained consciousness, and who knows if she’ll remember anything if or when she does.”

  Gray cleared his throat and pulled back the sheets. A draft from the inch-open window hit his naked body. “But she’s alive?”

  “Just. The killer didn’t get a chance to finish her off and remove her face, thanks to Jimmy. We don’t know why either of them returned to the office that time of night.”

  “I can picture Holly burning the midnight oil, but he seems the type to stay away from empty buildings after dark.”

  “We have to find him. He might well have seen the assailant and fled – or worse, maybe the killer got him, too.”

  Gray clutched the crisp cotton sheet. He’d only questioned Jimmy briefly, but the thought of the young, naive engineer lying bludgeoned in an alley somewhere made him see red.

  “Get an officer to check every floor of that building, including the stairwells and underground parking and the surrounding area.”

  “Already done,” Vivienne said. “So far, no luck.”

  “Send someone to his apartment as well.”

  “D’accord.”

  Another victim, and so soon – only twenty-four hours into an already gratuitous case.

  Vivienne read his mind. “It’s only day two of the investigation. The killer isn’t giving us time to breathe, let alone catch him.”

  “I’m going to need lots of caffeine to get through today – possibly, to live through today.”

  “Don’t joke.”

  “I rarely joke about death. Particularly, my own.”

  He stood, put on his robe, and trudged down the hall carrying his phone. The coldness of the floor, broken only by the soft woven runner in mauve and gold covering the hall, was reassuring, as was the intermittent creaking under his bare feet.

  A tired and hollow-faced man greeted him in the bathroom mirror.

  “Secure the office and stairwell,” he told Vivienne. “Get SOCO to go through both with a fine-tooth comb in case the attacker chased Holly from HealSo down to the ground floor. Call Simon to get a verbal okay on the search and demand he come in. I’m sure he can tear himself away from his open relationship. I’ll be right over.”

  Five minutes later, a latte gripped awkwardly in one hand, he raced the car over ice and snow. The starry sky spread out over the empty roads, reminiscent of a Van Gogh, almost unsubstantial and unreal, while the rest of Montreal continued to sleep.

  Gray pulled into the office lot, got out of his car, and breathed in the mulchy scents of city and spring. Mt Royal loomed in the distance, a shadowed protuberance watching over the center of the city, silent and unperturbed by murder.

  The peak held the LED-lit hundred-foot steel Mt. Royal Cross – reminding him of the ceremony by the cross he’d attended in 1992 with his first girlfriend. Sarah, who had smelled of an inexpensive citrus scent mixed with young sweat. She’d clung to him in between kisses, opening her lips, and he’d plunged his tongue inside her – his sense of triumph unrivaled by anything he could hope to experience now.

  Sarah’s pointy, average features now took on a remembered glamor only possible by the canonization of time. No lips could ever taste so sweet again. No aroma would ever be more arousing.

  Gray dug his cold fists into his coat pockets and strode towards the eight-storey building entrance.

  Two police officers met him at the ground floor stairwell behind the elevators next to the open fire door, and a SOCO worked on hands and knees collecting samples from the blood-stained cement within.

  Dust laced the air, making his nose itch, and supplies from an extended construction project lay in one corner. Two large beams from the team’s portable lights contrasted the dark bleakness beyond and above.

  “It’s like being buried in a mine,” he said.

  “Watch out for the light fixtures and cement bags lining the sides, Sir.”

  Gray ascended the steps, answering: “Thank you, Gerard. I’ll do my best not to break my neck.”

  Upstairs, Vivienne stood speaking to another SOCO inside the startup’s glass doors. Her eyes bright, she pressed a button to allow entry and bypass the keycard lock.

  He said, “Do we know why Holly came in last night?”

  “No. I’ve tried Jimmy half a dozen times. He’s not answering. Holly must have used her entry badge to get into the building, which registers an exact time. I’ll get that from the Super, as well as any surveillance tapes.”

  “Check if Norman used his ID card to gain access over the last few days. If he’s been here, I want to know about it.”

  “D’accord. There’s something else you should see.”

  Vivienne led him to a compact room off the hall, light on her feet. His pulse immediately quickened with the certain knowledge that she had found something.

  Two SOCOs presently collected samples from the wall and floor of the small room containing a couple of cupboards and a series of computers.

  “I saw this almost at once,” she said, eyes beaming. “Look at those eroded tiles and color in the cracks. Maybe remnants of blood and acid. Someone’s done a bad job of cleaning it up.”

  Gray whistled. “Vivienne, I could kiss you. Perhaps, that someone was interrupted during the cleanup. But who’s most likely to clean up blood and acid found at the startup? Clearly, Holly. This could be where our faceless corpse met his maker. And it could also explain Holly’s presence at the office last night. I can see her tampering with evidence, but what about Jimmy? I can’t believe he’d help her.”

  “If she tried to clean up a crime scene, she’ll deny it.”

  “Let’s not give her the chance. Send someone to the emergency department to get her nail cuttings. I want them analyzed for blood, and cross-reference with the body at the beach.”

  “No problem,” Vivienne said. “She might have scratched the killer.”

  “Tell Seymour to check her nails against what’s on these tiles, and against John Doe. If the victim died here and Holly cleaned up the blood, all three will match.”

  “That still doesn’t confirm Norman as the faceless corpse, Chief Inspector. We’ll have to wait for DNA confirmation, provided the lab doesn’t put our sample on the bottom of their pile.”

  Gray heard what she said, knew they were groping in the dark. “I want a complete list of employees, investors, advisers...everyone connected to the company, or Norman. We need all of their alibis for the last two nights.”

  “Got it. But you said something about Norman being the front-man for a silent investor. Who could that be?”

  He didn’t know and walked out into the hall and Vivienne followed. “What about Kate Grant’s alibi for Norman’s disappearance?” Gray said. “And Jimmy’s. Do we have confirmation?”

  “I finally got in touch with their friends late last night. They were at a club from eleven pm to two in the morning. The friends confirm that neither Kate or Jimmy left their sight for more than five minutes the entire time.”

  “Reliable?”

  “Afraid so.”

  “That clears them of Norman’s murder but not of Holly’s attack. Go thorough Holly’s office and see what you can find. Where does Kate work?”

  “Café Doigt across the street.”

  “Let’s interview the ot
her key staff as they come into work, and I’ll talk to her later.”

  The hours it took to sort out the crime scene at HealSo passed at a snail’s pace.

  Outside the window, the city looked dark and sheeted in a blue-tinted glass. Only two huddled figured scampered across the road beneath him, buried in their coats. The remainder of the morning crowd had yet to rise and hustle to work.

  Rubbing his scratchy eyes, Gray arched his back and put on his coat, deciding he needed some air.

  His interview this morning with Simon, when he’d finally arrived, had yielded nothing. Simon claimed to be home with his girlfriend. The alibi didn’t amount to much, but he couldn’t break it either. Simon denied any knowledge of why Holly should clean a potential crime scene – except the obvious – to protect HealSo.

  At the office entrance, Gray slammed into someone rushing inside. Jimmy fell onto his backside and flailing all four limbs, scrambled up. Gray helped him, the delicate bones under the young man’s ski jacket feeling thin and fragile.

  “Where have you been, Mr. Cane? You ran away after contacting the police. Didn’t you think we’d have a million questions about what happened here last night?”

  “I know; I’m sorry.” He stared at his shoes. “I have to talk to you. The server room –”

  “Has blood on it. Yes, we saw. Let’s go somewhere private and have a talk.”

  Gray led him towards the corner office, but Jimmy strayed into the kitchen.

  Punching commands into the automated machine – a pricey, large contraption which delivered a multitude of caffeine choices – he brewed himself a hot chocolate. The delicate hand shook when he lifted the mug from under the dispenser. He and carried it gingerly to a table in the far corner, presumably to get away from curious eyes or ears. He needn't have bothered as most of the startup staff hadn’t been allowed back into the offices.

  The overly full mug of chocolate threatened to spill onto his pale hand.

  Sensing the engineer’s fear, Gray took a seat opposite and didn’t immediately jump into an interrogation; he allowed the engineer to get his bearings for a short while. Overhead, a TV silently played a medical program.