A Reason to Live (Marty Singer1) (23 page)

The wind was fierce and I had to squint to keep leaves and dust from blinding me. I rounded the corner of a split-level brick-and-siding home. Was it the Tuttle's? Or the Cohen's? I couldn't even guess. I hardly knew my neighbors on either side of my house, let alone the people on the far side of the block. The disadvantages of being a bachelor cop most of your life. I did remember that they had a big chocolate lab named Barkley that ran around the neighborhood chasing cats and knocking over garbage cans. I kept an eye out for him. One thing I didn't need right now was him taking a chunk out of my leg or having to explain to the owners what I was doing on their back patio at ten o'clock at night.

I padded along without encountering Barkley and crouched near the back fence. I looked back at the house. Flickering blues and whites of a large screen TV lit up one living room, while the lights in the kitchen and dining room blazed away. From the house next door, the only illumination was the glow of a second-floor lamp leaking through a closed blind.

I slipped through their back gate and into the no-man's land where the backs of all the properties meet. My own yard was bordered by a simple split-rail fence, so I had a clear view of the back of my house. I squatted and watched for a minute. I didn't have much time before my twenty minutes were up and Kransky got called in, but still, I had to exercise some patience. I counted to two hundred. No one came out and danced a jig on my back deck, so I squirmed between the rails of the fence and ran to the back door, trying not to punt any sticks or tools I might've left lying around.

The deck was new, so I didn't have to worry about making noise crossing it, but my screen door was the old-fashioned kind with a spring that squeaked and popped when it was opened too far and would bang shut with the sound of a shotgun going off if you didn't stop it. I took a full minute to open the door, pulling it back a fraction of an inch at a time. When I had a foot of clearance, I propped it open with a shoulder and tried the knob. Locked. I fished my keys out and eased it open wide enough to slip through, praying that--if there
was
someone in my house--that Pierre had holed up somewhere safe and stayed there. If not, and he heard me, he'd come running and probably start an unholy yowling that might get us both killed. Another minute and I was in the kitchen, closing the screen door behind me an inch at a time. I shut the back door in case the wind blew something over. Or tipped off whoever was in my house from the change in air pressure.

I eased my gun out as my eyes adjusted. The kitchen was empty and the basement door was closed. No light showed beneath the door. So they hadn't broken in to do any surreptitious weight-lifting. Check. The fractured glow from my neighbor's back porch light gave the small table, chairs, and appliances a sinister look, though nothing seemed to have been disturbed. Drawers were intact, the chairs were pushed in, cupboard doors closed. The faint smell of microwave pizza still lingered in the air. I moved in a stooped crouch to the doorway between the kitchen and dining room. My more elaborate dining room table and chairs had the same serene, spooky look as those in the kitchen. The stereo and record collection were safe and as disorganized as when Amanda had last rooted through them.

My thighs ached from the way I'd been squatting and I desperately wanted to stand up and stretch. Instead, I held my crouched, slumping walk and moved to the transition area between my dining and living rooms. I made myself stop and listen.

Nothing.

I started to straighten up and move to the bottom of the stairs when some instinct made me freeze. I suddenly paid attention to what I was feeling, instead of the nothing I was seeing.

You know your own house. There's a smell and a feel to things that you recognize as integral to your home. Anything else is alien. You know when you've had guests and visitors, you know the way it sounds when rain hits the roof, or how the pipes rattle when you take a shower.

And you know how it feels when there's someone else in the room.

Standing in the pitch dark, with his back to me, was a man. He was watching the street through one of my door's side windows, being careful not to tug the miniature curtains too far, only enough to see out. Every ten or fifteen seconds, he would glance up the stairs.

My heart jumped up in my throat. I'd been a second away from strolling past him like he was a piece of furniture. I got my breathing under control, watching him the whole time. Weak light filtering in from a street lamp traced his outline, but he was dressed in black or Navy blue from head to toe and was close to invisible. He was white, shorter than me, slim. Salt and pepper hair. Gloves. Nothing in his hands, but that didn't mean he wasn't carrying. He wore a pea coat or something else cotton that didn't shine or make a noise like synthetics do when they rub together.

It wasn't Wheeler. A dozen years had passed and people can change their appearance in less time than that, but Wheeler had been over six feet tall, with a round body and moon-pie face that not even a celebrity diet could've changed. This guy was lean, with an eagle's beak for a nose.

I had to fight not to jerk my head at a deep, rolling rumble coming from upstairs. The guy by the door glanced up the steps, then went back to staring out the window. The sound was repeated five more times. It dawned on me that it was the filing cabinet being opened and closed, once for each drawer. A succession of dull thumps followed: files and folders being dumped on my desk.

I thought about the situation. My legs and calves were on fire and it wasn't long before they gave out on me. I knew how many bad guys were in the house and I had the jump on them. It was time to act. I brought my gun up to train it on the guy by the door when quick footsteps sounded overhead and whoever had emptied my filing cabinet came hurrying down the steps. In the dim light, I couldn't make out many details. He was short and wiry and his face looked pushed in around the nose and cheeks, like he'd been a bad amateur boxer. He was dressed in black like his partner. A stack of folders was tucked under one arm and he held a Maglite in the other hand. The guy by the door looked up.

"Find anything?" he said.

"Yeah," the guy on the steps said. The flashlight was on and the light waggled across the walls and stairs as the he came down.

"Turn that fucking thing off," the first guy said. "Why don't you throw all the lights on, let him know we're here?"

"I already figured it out, boys," I said, training my gun on them.

They were fast, I'll give them that. The first guy yanked the door open and was halfway out before I'd stopped talking. The short dude on the steps sidearmed the Maglite in my direction, then sprinted back upstairs still holding the files. The flashlight tumbled end-over-end, covering the room in wild arcs of light. I sidestepped the flashlight and squeezed off a round at the guy by the door. I missed and drilled a hole in my front door , sending splinters of wood everywhere.

I jumped across the living room and poked my head out the front door in time to see the first guy sprinting across my front lawn and down the street. Cars and trees blocked my view and my shot, so I turned to go after the guy behind me. I flicked the hall light on--there was no element of surprise left--and moved up the stairs, gun ready. When I was halfway up the steps, I heard a crash and the sound of breaking glass. I took the stairs three at a time and ran down the hall to the office. I kicked the door open, swinging my SIG in short movements to cover the room.

A cold, cruel breeze blew through my office from the broken window, scattering papers across the room. The short guy had thrown my office chair through the window, then jumped off the roof of my front porch. I spun and raced back through the hall and down the steps, bursting out the front door and off the front porch. To my right, at the far end of the street, backup lights flared from a parked car, maybe an SUV or pickup with a cab. They illuminated the short guy, who was halfway between me and the car, hoofing it as fast as he could go. I fought the urge to put my sights on his leg or arm, to wing him, but this wasn't the time to play the Lone Ranger. Taking low-percentage shots in urban neighborhoods is a great way to end up killing the wrong person.

I jogged down the street after them. The short guy had a lead on me, but was slowed by a limp--probably from the fall off my porch roof. Tucked under one arm like a football were the files he'd lifted from my office. Combined with the limp, the little bit of weight from the files kept him from breaking into a full sprint. In a matter of seconds, I'd be close enough to take a better shot or at least get a license plate number. Piece of cake.

But I'd gone about fifty feet when my feet started to drag. It was as though I had an extra person along for the ride. My steps slowed to a shuffle. Digging deep, I called on that extra kick I needed to catch up, but…it wasn't there. Halfway down the block I was lurching like a zombie while the short guy was almost to the SUV. By the time I took five more steps--all I could manage--he'd yanked the passenger door open and jumped inside. I stumbled to a halt and watched the back of the SUV as it peeled away. The license plate was strategically covered with mud and I was still too far away to take a shot. The bad guys took off down the street and I leaned over, my hands on my knees, gasping for breath and cursing.

. . .

I was sifting through the disaster the two guys had made of my files when Kransky came up, looking rumpled and tired. He stood in the doorway for a minute, watching me.

"Any news?" I asked, picking some papers off the floor and putting them in a folder.

"No," he said, sitting down in the one remaining chair in the office. The other was still on my front lawn. "It's on the wire, so Metro patrols are looking for it, but there's not much to go on. A black, four-door SUV driven by two white guys is going to scoop up half the cars on the road."

"I know. Still worth a try." I closed my eyes for a second, trying to banish the exhaustion I was feeling, then slammed the files I was holding onto the desk. "I wish to fuck I knew who those guys were."

He watched me for a second. "Neither one was Wheeler?"

I shook my head. "No way. Wrong shape, wrong look. And two of them?"

"Partner."

"That would work if he'd been the other guy. But I know Wheeler. I interviewed him a ton of times, saw him every day for weeks at the trial. Neither one of those guys was him, even twelve years later."

"Hired hands?"

"Maybe," I said, doubtful. "Seems strange for a guy like Wheeler to sub out his dirty work. He's no kingpin."

"What did they take?"

I gestured to my desk. "Files."

Kransky leaned forward. "Let me guess, something to do with Brenda Lane and Michael Wheeler?"

"And a couple of others, maybe to throw me off, or maybe just mistakes."

There was a noise in the hall. Amanda and Julie poked their heads in the door. I waved them in.

"Marty, what's going on?" Amanda asked.

"I don't know," I said. Something more reassuring was in order, I guess, but I didn't have the energy or the creativity to come up with anything else. "It wasn't Wheeler, that's all I know. Whoever it was, they like to look through old case files. Including Wheeler's."

We were all quiet, looking at what had once been a neat and tidy office. Every drawer of the desk had been emptied and spilled onto the floor. Files had been removed from the cabinet and the papers that had escaped were being blown by the wind coming through the broken window.

"What are you going to do now?" Julie asked.

I glanced at Amanda. "First, we've got to get you out of here. I don't know who those clowns were, but my place is now officially compromised. Which sucks, I know, but we can't take any chances."

She gave me a pained look. "I just got here."

"I know. I'm sorry. But, until we know where those guys fit in, we can't act like everything's fine. Whoever it was that busted in here tonight knew about me and about Wheeler, which means they probably know about you."

"What are you going to do?" Kransky asked.

I waved at the mess that had been my office. "Clean this up, get some sleep, and then I think it's time to chase the one good lead we've got."

"The sister," Kransky said.

"Assuming you got an address for me."

"Waynesboro," he said. "I got it right as you called about your shooting match."

"What if Michael is there?" Amanda asked.

"Unlikely," Kransky said. "He's making a six-hour roundtrip to throw flowers on your desk?"

I held up my hands to stop the guesswork. "Either way, now that I'm done with chemo for a few weeks, I can run down there and get some answers."

"You might be done with chemo, but how do you feel?" Amanda asked.

"Like shit in a cup. But I'm angry, so it's a wash," I said. "Besides, I don't have the luxury of feeling lousy. Whoever broke in here tonight upped the ante in a big way."

Julie had been leaning against the door frame to my office, arms folded. Now she spoke up. "You shouldn't go alone. You weren't in good enough shape to even run down the street after those guys."

I colored. I didn't need to be reminded that I'd nearly passed out jogging a half block. Before I could defend myself, though, Kransky said, "I'll go."

"No," Julie said, with some force. "You should stay here. I'll go."

Kransky turned slowly in his chair to look at her.

She raised her hand. "Before you lose it on me, listen for a second. We just got done saying Wheeler probably isn't down there, which means he's where? Here. In DC. Amanda can't stay at Singer's and I'd put her up, but I'm a target, too. I'm living out of a hotel room. If he finds out where I'm at, or if tonight's two goons do, we're sitting ducks."

Kransky said nothing.

"So Amanda stays with you. You watch her. Singer and I go south and find out what we can. We come back in a day or two at most and take it from there."

I started to protest, more because I was still stinging from Julie's remark about being out-of-shape than any problem I had with her plan. Then I shut my mouth, because it wasn't such a bad idea.