Outsider (The Ashport Mender Series Book 1) Page 3

  We headed into the house, Evans and Sweeney first, while McAllen and I followed.

  “Where should we start?” Sweeney asked. “Living room? Kitchen?”

  “No,” Evans said while looking around. “He had a reaction when I talked about the bedroom. He was trying very hard to seem like he didn’t care.”

  “Okay. His or the guest bedroom?”

  “Definitely his,” she said and followed Sweeney up the stairs. We walked through a somewhat untidy house, though that was due to the search earlier in the day more than Hensley’s housekeeping.

  We entered a spacious room, brightly lit by daylight permeating the windows on two of the walls. Things were somewhat in disarray here as well, the doors to a walk-in closet ajar. Taking up a lot of space was a king-size bed with a dark mahogany wood frame and headboard. It was covered with a beige bedspread and pillows that made Evans grimace, but she said nothing.

  “So, where do we begin?” Sweeney asked, setting down his bag, grabbing a pair of gloves.

  “The bed,” Evans said, looking like she was trying to use x-ray vision on the thing. “He just got more agitated when I asked about the bedroom. When the bed came up, he showed signs of panic. When he realized we wouldn’t let it go…that’s when he got angry.”

  Angry wasn’t quite a strong enough word. The man had looked like he could kill Evans right then and there.

  “Well, we searched this whole room yesterday but found nothing anywhere. Including the bed,” Sweeney said.

  “We might not have been thorough enough,” McAllen said.

  Evans nodded. “I’d start with the bed frame. Look for hidden compartments. I don’t think he’s stupid enough to hide it in the mattress.”

  Sweeney did as told, and the rest of us waited patiently as he began by taking photos before going to work on the bed frame. He worked methodically, searching every crevice, starting at the foot of the bed. The rest of us stood still, watching and waiting as I filmed everything Sweeney did. I could see the agitation in Evans at this. She was so sure the murder weapon would be there, that the wait was a test of patience. Of which she had a low amount. Still, I had to admit that she had never been wrong before.

  The minutes ticked away. Sweeney worked. Checking any part of the bed thick enough to contain something, using his flashlight between wood and mattress to see properly. As he neared the left bedpost, I heard Evans draw breath. I knew she could get details the rest of us couldn’t—at least not as quickly—but whether or not it was in the left or right bedpost would surely be too accurate?

  Sweeney knocked on the wood, being rewarded with no resonance. The thick wooden beam, about three feet high seemed to interest him, though, and he walked around the bed to the right one. The bedposts were connected by the half arch of the headboard. Sweeney went with the same approach on this one. He started knocking on the wood, moving up from the floor until a hollow sound reached us all and he stopped. He looked attentively at us a moment.

  “This doesn’t sound right,” he commented and kept on knocking his way to the top, the same hollow sound reverberating the whole time. Sweeney shrugged. “Seems like this bedpost has been hollowed out.” He felt around for an opening, but it didn’t take long for his attention to be diverted to the top of the bedpost. The only decoration there was a carved out orb, like on the other side of the bed. Sweeney touched it but nothing happened. He looked around the top a little more, before turning to me.

  “You should come closer with your camera, Detective. This isn’t easy to see.”

  I did as he asked and moved closer, zooming in on the bedpost as Sweeney pointed out what he’d seen to me. A thin line, a gap about an inch below the top of the bedpost.

  Sweeney proceeded to grab hold of the top and twist it. The wood must have swelled somewhat since the compartment had been made. It slid open with a dry squeak, revealing a compartment underneath the lid. Sweeny peered into the opening and sighed. He nodded to himself and grabbed his camera, shooting multiple pictures before starting to lift out what was in there. At this point, there was no surprise in me at seeing the blood-stained bread knife as it emerged. We’d been through things like this before when Evans helped out on a case. The bag of pills was a surprise, though, but a drug charge was an addition to the murder charge, which would now stick. That was the important part and I felt relief at the sight of the evidence.

  “Do you guys need me anymore?” Evans said a little later as the evidence had been bagged and tagged. Sweeney was now working his way from the entrance of the house up to the bedroom, checking for blood trace in case something had dripped from the knife as Hensley brought it inside the night of the murder. He didn’t expect to find any, but he was thorough and patient. Good qualities in his kind of work.

  “No,” I said. “We have him now.” If he’d been released without us finding the knife, he might have been smart enough to get rid of it properly, memento or not.

  She looked at her watch. She had been with us for a few hours by now and she had initially claimed to be busy. She actually looked a little worried a moment before collecting herself.

  “Well, then I need to leave,” she said and looked at me, full smirk in place now. “I’m sure you won’t miss me.”

  “We’ll get by,” I answered drily as she headed out the door.

  “Thought she didn’t have a car,” McAllen mused as he joined me.

  “I guess the bus is good enough for getting away from us.”

  Chapter 5

  “So you got the guy?” Rosita asked later that night as we sat at the table eating her chicken casserole.

  I nodded in response, chewing quickly so I could talk. She’d make the simplest dishes tasty with her spices and use of cream and cheese. This rich casserole tasted of thyme, which mixed well with the oregano, and something I couldn’t put my finger on. “Yeah, when we confronted him with the”—I stopped momentarily seeing the four children looking at me—“the…evidence,” I said thinking this would be less harmful than blood covered murder-weapon, “he lawyered up.”

  “What’s lawyering up?” little Sara asked, her siblings nodding along as they, too, wondered about this. The two girls were, at ten, the eldest, but all four of them were no doubt siblings. They had the same features, among them their mother’s dark eyes. The girls looked a little more like their father, and they had also inherited his temperament while the boys took after their mother. Rosita was the more impulsive and adventurous of her and her husband, as he was more calm and grounded. I wondered sometimes if this had always been the case, or if it was a survival technique he had adopted after having four kids at a young age. He and Rosita were high school sweethearts, having married at twenty, two years after the girls had come along, and then the boys a year after that. How the two of them had gotten any sleep in those first years was a mystery to everyone, including the two parents themselves.

  “And that’s why everyone needs a lawyer,” McAllen finished, the children looking like they were already tired of the answer to their own question.

  “May we be excused?” Lucas asked. At least I thought it was him and not Alex. The boys were identical, the girls fraternal.

  “We haven’t gotten to dessert yet,” Rosita said.

  Four sets of eyes widened and brightened up at this. “What’s for dessert?” Lucas and Anna said over each other.

  Rosita shrugged, looking at her husband. “Ask your father. He made it.”

  “Ew,” all the children exclaimed, almost making me choke on a piece of chicken.

  “Can we play with Kona instead?” Anna asked.

  “I don’t know,” Rosita said. “You have to ask Nate about that.” Which of course they did. All four at the same time.

  Kona, my golden retriever I’d brought with me, looked up from where she was lying on the floor, near a radiator, warm and snug. That wouldn’t last long. She had a white coat, and broad skull and fore-body, as she was of European breed. I had gotten the dog from my sister some ye
ars ago when she’d married her husband, Doug, who was allergic to any furry animal. It had been hard for her giving up the dog, and initially, I had wondered how to make it work with…well, my work. My schedule from time to time being as it was, taking care of a dog every day wasn’t easy, not that I would ever compare it with raising four kids. But I had found a solution with a neighbor, Mrs. Gaines, a widow who liked Kona’s company. So she looked after the dog when I wasn’t at home, feeding her and walking her. When I was off duty, I looked after her myself. Like now. I had brought her along, as I knew the McAllen house was a dog-friendly one.

  “Sure,” I said as McAllen had told the kids to stop talking all at the same time. “But be careful with her.” Four heads nodded solemnly before they all left the table and headed for Kona who sat up at this horde of small humans storming toward her.

  “Are you sure it’s okay?” Rosita asked giving them a worried look.

  “Yeah. Kona likes people, and she’s patient with kids. She’s a horrible guard dog, though,” I added as I saw the dog now on her back getting her belly scratched by eight small hands. I had brought the dog over before, of course, but not every time as she got tired from the enthusiastic play with the kids.

  “Anyway,” Rosita said, leaning back in her chair, smiling. She was about McAllen’s height, dark hair twisted into a bun, dressed in her work uniform still. White shirt and black skirt, her vest shed, though. She worked as a receptionist at the Winter Star Hotel. “I’m glad that man isn’t out and about.”

  “Yeah,” McAllen said. “He’s the sort of man that makes me hope the girls will never grow up and start dating.”

  “Don’t even think about something like that happening to them,” Rosita said and crossed herself. She raised her hands in exasperation and gathered herself quickly. “There’s more where that came from,” she told us indicating our plates, but we both shook our heads, already having had seconds.

  “What’s the spice I can’t place?” I asked as I swallowed my last mouthful. “You have thyme and oregano, but…”

  “Marjoram,” she said, and it instantly clicked into place in my head. “It goes well with the others, I think,” she added.

  “Yeah, it does,” I agreed, wondering why I never used it myself. I enjoyed cooking, something I shared with Rosita, though to me it was a way to relax. For her, it was a way to be creative.

  “Oh, I miss you having a girlfriend, Nate,” she said.

  “What?” I squawked and cleared my throat.

  “You make such good food when you’re in a relationship. I miss that.”

  “Pfft.” I waved her off. “I cook all the time,” I said, though realizing she was right. I hadn’t invited them over since being single again.

  “Sure,” McAllen chimed in, “if you count paying other people to make food for you, deliver it to you, making stuff in the microwave at work…then, yeah.”

  “Is this an ambush?” I asked when a roar from the kids broke through the dining room as they and Kona ran past us and outside to play in the yard.

  Rosita shrugged. “What happened to that Erin? She was nice.”

  And that had been the problem. We were so boring together. I did like routine in my life, but every day being the same? Even our break-up had been predictable, friendly and mutual.

  I looked helplessly at McAllen, wondering what kind of interrogation I had been tricked into.

  “Don’t look at me,” he said. “I have four children aged eight and ten. If nothing else, my only joy in life is to see other people suffer.”

  “Shut up, Bill,” I said, making them both laugh.

  “I’ll get dessert,” Rosita said and took our plates with her into the kitchen.

  “Do I want this dessert?” I asked McAllen knowing now that he’d made it. Unlike his wife, he was a notoriously bad cook.

  “Don’t worry,” he said laughing. “We were pressed for time after work today. It’s just fruit salad and whipped cream.”

  I looked at him with suspicion. “And you made the cream?”

  “I just cut the fruit. I swear.”

  “Thank God.”

  Chapter 6

  “I’m telling you, Misty is utterly shaken up about this,” the old man, Mr. Withers, said.

  It was lunchtime the day after the dinner at the McAllen house, and my stomach was growling. We had been eating at Danny’s and therefore been closest when someone had called the police because of an overheated argument between two neighbors.

  “Oh, just shut up you old fool,” said Ms. Byers, the old man’s neighbor, who was also likely fifty years his junior. She was sporting a ‘50s style with the obligatory pin-up tattooed on one arm, and a big tiger on the other. Mr. Withers was her opposite in his brown cardigan that was buttoned up all the way, glasses hanging by a strap around his neck, his hair shock-white.

  “Don’t call me a fool,” Mr. Withers said indignantly. “I know what you do to Misty.”

  “And Misty…is your cat?” McAllen said, notepad in hand, but not writing any of this down.

  “Yes,” Mr. Withers said. “Black, except for three white spots on her chest. You can’t miss her.” He looked around but said cat was nowhere to be seen.

  I shook my head and leaned on the brick wall next to me that separated a small grassy area from the street. Or “the blue street,” as everyone referred to it. Every house there had been painted some shade of blue. Rumor had it that it was due to the proximity to the water, but no one really knew why anymore. Everyone went with it so as not to cause an uproar from their neighbors. The building where Mr. Withers and Ms. Byers lived was a four-story apartment building, painted a deep blue.

  “He doesn’t need to see the damn cat,” Ms. Byers snarled at the man. “Just because you don’t like me, doesn’t mean you can call the cops—”

  “I didn’t call them. That must have been Mrs. Emerson. God knows that woman just stares out her window all day. So nosy. And as for Misty—”

  “Hang on you two,” McAllen broke in, hand raised to silence them. “Misty is your cat?”

  “Yes,” Mr. Withers said.

  “And, you claim that Ms. Byers here is…controlling the animal with her mind?”

  Ms. Byers gave a snort at this question, sat down her bag of takeaway, folded her arms over her chest, and cocked her hip as she stared at the old man. I noticed the Danny’s logo on the plastic bag and longed, even more, to get back to lunch, which we’d had Danny save for us, a juicy turkey sandwich in my case. Lunch interrupted for this. Cat mind control. Just our luck to get the crazies that day.

  “Yes,” Mr. Withers said, relieved that McAllen seemed to finally get the severity of the situation. “Suddenly Misty will only sit in a corner for hours, or she will go straight to her basket and lay down. Or she will stay outside longer than usual, or she will—”

  “Okay, Mr. Withers, that’s quite enough, thank you.” McAllen looked at Ms. Byers in exasperation, meeting a kindred spirit there. “Now, there is no such thing as mind controlling a cat,” he said, his voice friendly, no mockery. There was no point in humiliating the man. “I don’t know why your cat has acted like this.” I had to struggle not to laugh at this, as I could see the disbelief showing on McAllen’s face. He couldn’t believe he was actually saying this out loud. “Maybe it’s sick. But blaming it on Ms. Byers here is not right. She can’t control your cat any more than she can control the weather.”

  “But—” the old man began.

  “No buts, Mr. Withers. You’re causing enough of a stir by your neighbors calling us. Honestly, don’t you think the police have more pressing matters than this?”

  As in a turkey sandwich. I could in good conscience say it was way more important than this.

  “Well…” the old man began. Looking like a chastised schoolboy.

  In the end, McAllen got the old man to apologize to Ms. Byers, though I could see as they both went into the building that he didn’t mean it. Mr. Withers would not trust his cat near her.


  “Poor Misty,” I said as we started walking back to Danny’s. We hadn’t bothered taking the car as it was only half a block away.

  “Oh man, I hate the crazies.” McAllen put the notepad back in his pocket. “I can barely keep a straight face.”

  “It’s a shame, though, Bill. That Mr. Withers seemed in good health. If he’s this loopy, he’ll likely not be able to live on his own much longer.”

  “Yeah…that’s true,” McAllen said. “But let’s face it. He doesn’t like Ms. Byers because of the way she dresses. He’s scared, that’s all.”

  He was probably right. Not only did she have a particular expression in her style. To the old man, it likely looked like a twisted version of the fashions of his youth. At least judging by how old I thought he was.

  “Well,” I said. “Good thing she’s not scared.”

  “True. Anyway, after lunch, we need to…”

  My attention to whatever he said next trailed off, as I glanced into an alley on the other side of the street. We could see Danny’s by this point on our side, but I halted a little. Across the street from us stood two large storage buildings. No windows, only doors on the street level. They were painted in a blue that was so light it bordered on gray. Between them, in a narrow alley, I thought I saw movement. I stopped McAllen by putting a hand on his shoulder and pointing. He fell silent immediately. What was that? Despite the strong sun, the light in there was dim. I thought I saw someone running toward the street, a woman, and then someone came at her from behind, grabbing her and pulling her back with them.

  “What the hell?” McAllen exclaimed as we both started running across the street, avoiding an oncoming car by sheer luck. I could hear McAllen right behind me, calling it in via the radio, but thought no more of it as my mind was churning out what I knew of the area. This alley was not a dead end. As far as I knew it would turn to the left further in, behind the building to our left. It was a way in for delivery trucks.