by Kylie Brant
And in the next moment she wondered if Lewis’s home also had a partial dirt cellar with cool, damp earthen walls that leached the warmth from flesh and sucked the air from lungs.
Are you afraid of the dark, girlie? Her grandfather’s voice sounded in her mind, the memory tracing down Cady’s spine like an icy finger. For a moment she could clearly hear the sound of his footsteps on the stairs. The squeak of the door’s rusty hinges. The finality of the lock turning. Then the darkness had rushed in, enfolding her in its chilly embrace.
“Cady.” Miguel’s voice shattered the mental replay. When her attention jerked to him, his car door was open and he was standing outside next to it, looking at her quizzically. “Are you coming to talk to the uniforms?”
“Yeah.” Her voice sounded rusty. Cady unlocked her seat belt and bolted out of her door, drawing in a greedy gulp of air as she walked toward the white police cruiser bearing the blue Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department logo. As they approached, the window buzzed down to reveal a young freckled face beneath a crop of red hair. Beside him was a more grizzled officer, a couple of decades older. “Maddix and Rodriguez, Marshals Service,” Cady said. She parted her coat enough to reveal the star clipped to her belt.
“Officers Denby and Sellers. We just replaced the pair who were here last night.” The younger cop was doing all the talking. “Last shift did a door knock before we arrived. No answer. We haven’t seen anything or anyone around the yard. You guys got this now?”
She looked over the roof of the car toward the house. “Can you give us a chance to see if Lewis is inside before you pull out? She might have been sleeping earlier.” Aldeen couldn’t have beaten the patrol to this house. But she didn’t want to overlook an off chance he’d managed to sneak onto the property sometime while the cruiser was parked outside the home.
Denby lifted a shoulder. “Take all the time you need.” His window raised again, and Cady and Miguel walked toward the home.
The door to the screened-in porch was open, so they entered it to knock on the front door. Then waited. “Remember her age,” Cady said as Miguel raised his fist to knock again. “It might take her longer to move about.”
“Eighty-eight could mean hard of hearing,” he countered before pounding loud enough to be heard on the next street. They waited a minute before knocking again, several times, before giving up and heading outside again. They walked to the single-stall garage, peered inside the window. Saw a sedan at least thirty years old.
“Let’s split up and hit the neighbors,” Cady suggested. Miguel headed for the house on the other side of Lewis’s, and she crossed the drive to the next property. This time when she banged on the front door, it was opened by a woman using a walker, who looked close to Selma Lewis’s age. The speed with which she answered suggested she’d been watching Cady from her window.
“Hi, I’m Cady Maddix from the Marshals Service.” Adopting a more informal tone was beneficial when attempting to elicit information. She managed a slight smile for the diminutive female. “I’m looking for your neighbor, Selma Lewis. Do you have an idea where to find her?”
“Well, she’s not home, dear.” The woman was stooped, her frail figure dwarfed by a heavy cardigan. “Selma hasn’t lived there for—oh, must be over a year now.”
“Do you know where she’s living?”
“Of course. Wait just a moment.” The neighbor angled the walker around and disappeared into the house. It was at least ten minutes before she returned. By that time Miguel was coming up the steps to join Cady. “I found the card. I haven’t called her for a while, but she really doesn’t remember me anyway. She doesn’t remember anyone, I don’t think.”
Happy Springs Nursing Home. Cady read the name on the card before handing it to Miguel. “You say she’s having memory problems, ma’am?”
“Call me Kitty.” The woman gave Miguel an appreciative look. “And yes, Selma suffered a fall a few years back and started having a hard time recalling the simplest things. She had home health services for a while but eventually decided she needed a rest home. It’s nice to make the decision yourself,” she said to Miguel confidingly.
“She had no other family?” If Kitty is correct, Cady thought, Selma isn’t going to be much help.
“Well, she always said not, but her nephew’s been in and out of the house since she’s been gone.”
Cady stilled. “Her nephew?”
“Great-nephew,” the woman corrected herself, taking the card Cady handed back to her. “He said he’d moved back from somewhere up north to look over things for Selma. Which was odd, because she’d never mentioned him. As I said, she always claimed she didn’t have any relatives. But Raymond admitted he’d been in trouble a lot as a kid. Maybe Selma had washed her hands of him. She can be judgey.”
“We haven’t been introduced, but I’m Cady’s colleague, Miguel Rodriguez.” When he smiled, Cady was a little worried the woman would swoon. “When’s the last time you saw Raymond at her house?”
Kitty pursed her lips. “Oh . . . last week some time. Thursday or Friday . . . ? Must have been Thursday, because he told me once those were his days off.”
“And you’ve seen him go inside the home?”
The older woman answered Cady’s question without taking her gaze from Miguel. “Oh yes. He uses the side door, which is across the two driveways from mine. He has a key.”
“Could you describe his vehicle?” she asked hopefully.
Kitty shook her head. “I never saw one. He’s always on foot.”
“Thank you, Kitty. You’ve been helpful.” Cady half turned away.
Miguel chimed in, “We appreciate your assistance, ma’am.”
The older woman simpered, one hand going to her breast. “You’re more than welcome, Marshal.”
Cady gave Miguel a subtle elbow nudge in warning. The last thing they needed was for the woman to have a Rodriguez-induced heart attack.
They knocked on four more doors, found people home at two of the houses. But only one of the individuals, an elderly man about Kitty’s age, verified he’d occasionally seen a young man coming and going from the Lewis house. Like Kitty, he couldn’t recall seeing the stranger arrive by car. As they headed back to their vehicle Cady detoured toward the driver’s side of the police cruiser again.
“I’m afraid we’re going to need you for a while longer.” She briefly explained the situation to the officers. “We’ll have to talk to the owner of the house and possibly get a warrant.”
“We can stay.” This from the veteran officer. “We’ve pulled harder duties.”
“I’m sure you have. Thanks.”
Cady waited until she and Miguel were in the vehicle before she spoke again. “We’ve got grounds for a warrant. Lewis is Aldeen’s only living relative, and he’s been contacting someone at the house weekly for a year and a half.”
Miguel started the vehicle. “If the neighbors are correct, Lewis hasn’t lived here in over a year. But you don’t think Aldeen is in there.”
“Lewis is his only living relative, and if he’s been keeping up with his great-aunt at all, he’ll know the house is empty.” Cady was already reaching for her phone. “And that’s exactly what I’ll tell the Assistant US Attorney.”
Miguel glanced toward Lewis’s house again. “You think he’s headed here? He had access to a vehicle and plenty of opportunity if he could dodge the roadblocks.”
Cady powered up the laptop. “My gut says no. Highway Patrol is out in force. With all the back roads and remote areas in the state, I don’t see him heading right for one of the most populated areas.” The smartest thing for him to do would be to choose a large out-of-state airport, she figured. The farther from North Carolina he got, the less likely there’d be news coverage about his escape. Atlanta, with its international hub, was less than a four-hour drive from Fristol. A plane ticket would necessitate new ID, however.
“We need to talk to the great-aunt.” Miguel pulled out his cell and started
a GPS search for the name of the nursing home Kitty had shared with them.
“We do.” In Cady’s experience, the percentage of fugitives trying to leave the country was in the single digits. They usually ran to something or someone when running from the law. Girlfriends, mostly. Aldeen’s mental diagnosis might make his behavior more difficult to predict, but the majority of the people they tracked went back to something familiar. “Maybe she can give us a lead on the identity of the person who’s been answering Aldeen’s phone calls to her number.”
“The warrant’s likely only going to give us restricted access,” Miguel noted as he started the vehicle and pulled away from the curb.
Cady waited for the call to go through. Her partner was correct. The warrant would be limited to searching the house for their fugitive in areas big enough to conceal a person. But depending on what they learned from Lewis, Cady was hoping to find grounds for expanding those parameters.
“She’s with her attorney now. Mr. DuPrey.” The nursing home administrator, Sally Hayes, was a woman in her midfifties who looked at them over the top of the reading glasses perched on her nose. “He takes care of most things for her and stops by every month or so. I haven’t seen Selma this morning, but she has good days and bad. Sometimes she doesn’t remember much.”
“Does Ms. Lewis get many other visitors?”
The woman shook her head. “Poor dear doesn’t have any living relatives, and at her age her friends are deceased or housebound. There’s a lady from her church who comes by once in a while, but Mr. DuPrey is the only one who visits her regularly.”
“So you’ve never known another man to come here to see her?” Miguel asked.
“None that I can recall, but you can ask at the front desk.”
But when they talked to two women at the desk, neither could remember anyone else coming to see Selma Lewis. One of the nurses led them to a table in a large common area where Lewis sat. A tall man stood at the table beside her, shrugging into a wool coat before placing a matching fedora on his balding head. He turned to leave. Cady stepped into his path.
“I understand you’re Ms. Lewis’s attorney.”
“I am. Charles DuPrey.” He looked from Cady to Miguel suspiciously, especially when Miguel sat down in the chair he’d vacated.
“Let’s walk and talk.” Cady showed him her credentials as they made their way to the door. “We’re in pursuit of a fugitive who escaped from a psychiatric facility early this morning.” She kept her voice low. The room was full of residents watching TV, playing cards, and chatting. She didn’t want to cause a stir. “He happens to be Ms. Lewis’s great-nephew.”
The man shook his head. “I’m afraid you’re mistaken, Marshal. Mrs. Lewis has no living relatives.”
Everyone they’d met today seemed certain of the fact. But Fristol security would have made sure of the relationship between Lewis and Aldeen before allowing him to contact her residence. And their own research had verified it. “Is it possible she had a great-nephew she didn’t acknowledge? One she didn’t approve of, perhaps?”
“I really have no idea. I can only say she’s never mentioned anyone.” He halted, his expression concerned. “You don’t think he would come here? Is Selma in danger?”
“I don’t have reason to believe so, no. But two of Ms. Lewis’s neighbors have noted a man coming and going from her home occasionally over the last year or so. One of them claims he has a key and enters from the side door. He’s called himself Selma’s great-nephew, although that’s obviously not the case.”
“He has a key?” Alarm sounded in the lawyer’s voice.
“The neighbor seemed to think so.” She kept the news about the weekly phone calls to the house to herself for now. “I’ve requested a search warrant to make sure our fugitive isn’t hiding in her home. You might want to be present.” Cady reflected it was likely the first time in her career she’d issued that particular invitation to an attorney. “If we see evidence someone has been there in Ms. Lewis’s absence, in the interests of your client, you should alert the police.”
“You can be certain I will.” DuPrey dug in his pocket for his wallet, from which he extracted a card and handed it to Cady. “If you’d do me the courtesy of giving me a call when the search begins, I’ll be there.” He hurried away, looking decidedly more worried than he had before their conversation.
“Very slick.” Hearing Miguel’s voice in her ear, she turned toward him. Hands in his pockets, he rocked back on his heels, his expression amused. “The warrant is going to limit our movements to searching areas in the house and grounds for Aldeen. It isn’t going to give us permission to lift prints from the doorknobs so we can discover who might be entering the home in Lewis’s absence. But the attorney filing a B and E report with the police could make that happen.”
They fell in step together, heading for the door. “And somehow I think by the end of our search DuPrey is going to be convinced it’s his duty to call the police,” Cady responded. They paused to punch in a code on the keypad at the entrance to deactivate the alarm and then opened the door and strolled to the parking lot. “I take it you got nothing from Selma Lewis.”
“I think I left her more confused than I found her.” He opened the car doors with the fob and they both got in before Miguel continued. “After I tried to ask about a great-nephew she went from claiming she didn’t have one to thinking she did, and I was he.”
Cady was unable to summon an answering smile. The scene he was describing was much too close to what the future held for her mom. How many years would it be before Hannah ended up in a place just like this? How long before she started mistaking strangers for her daughter? Based on the case histories she’d read and the conversations with Hannah’s doctor, Cady feared it would be much sooner than any of them wanted to believe. No more than ten years, the doctor had predicted, barring a miracle. Hannah would be sixty-eight years old then, spending the rest of her life surrounded by residents like Selma.
Cady hadn’t cried since she was twelve years old. But if she did, the thought would have brought tears.
She checked for missed calls, but there was no response from the Assistant US Attorney’s office. Which meant they didn’t have a warrant yet. Sighing, she shoved the phone back in her pocket. Much of their job was comprised of waiting, watching, and gathering intelligence. She reached inside her interior jacket pocket and pulled out a pair of sunglasses. Settled them on her nose as Miguel guided the car back toward Selma’s house. “Might as well relieve the officers while we wait.”
It was another forty minutes before the warrant came through. Thirty more before DuPrey and a police officer joined Cady and Miguel for the walk-through of Lewis’s house. The sense of familiarity that had struck Cady upon first seeing the Lewis house was even stronger once she was inside it. Old oak flooring with a matching staircase. A postage-stamp-size living room, a dining room, and a kitchen that hadn’t been updated in at least six decades. Her grandfather’s home hadn’t been quite so antiquated, nor shown the signs of disrepair found inside this one. Once he’d been unable to do basic upkeep himself, he’d taught Cady to do it. Those were the only useful skills she’d learned under his roof.
With DuPrey and the CMPD officer he’d summoned waiting just inside the door in the miniscule hallway, Miguel and Cady conducted a swift search of the main floor. When the first floor yielded nothing, Cady headed upstairs while her partner checked the cellar. She drew her weapon and entered the first bedroom. The bed, covered with a fussy coverlet, was neatly made. Because closets were a favorite hiding place for fugitives, she checked there first. The room had clearly belonged to Selma. Although there were a few of the woman’s clothes hanging inside it, more were filled with men’s clothes, the styles as dated as the kitchen downstairs. Cady looked under the bed and went on to the next bedroom, where she went through the same process.
She didn’t find Samuel Aldeen concealed in any of the rooms, but what she did find in one had her going to t
he top of the stairway. “Mr. DuPrey. Could you come up here?” When he’d joined her, Cady led him to the back bedroom. “I don’t know how often you check the house . . .”
“I usually do a walk-through before going to see Mrs. Lewis.” The man stood awkwardly in the doorway of the back bedroom she’d led him to. “Mostly I look over the main floor, but occasionally I’ll go all the way through it and make sure there are no leaks or signs of mice.”
She swung open the closet door. “I don’t think this is from a mouse.”
He slowly crossed the room to look inside the enclosure. Gasped. The space was filled with overflowing garbage bags stuffed with food wrappers, beer cans, and take-out containers.
“When’s the last time you were upstairs?”
DuPrey’s mouth was opening and closing like a cartoon fish. “I . . . I don’t . . . a few months ago, I suppose. But I don’t look in the closets. Just a quick check to make sure everything seems . . .” His voice tapered off.
“Could this have been here while Mrs. Lewis lived in the house?”
The man shook his head from side to side, his gaze never leaving the mess. “She’s much too fastidious to allow such a thing. The place was immaculate when she . . .” He broke off, an expression of distaste crossing his face. “This filth is sure to attract all sorts of pests. I’m going to have to see about a cleaning service right away.”
“You’ll want to have the locks changed too. Today, if possible.” Miguel walked into the room and came to Cady’s side to look inside the closet. Wrinkled his nose. Selma Lewis couldn’t hold a candle to Miguel Rodriguez when it came to fastidiousness. “It stinks. The intruder must have pried off the cellar window. I found the broken frame and glass down there. He replaced it with another. Once inside . . .” He looked at DuPrey. “Would Mrs. Lewis have had extra sets of house keys in the house?”
