Beneath a Buried House (Detective Elliot Mystery Book 2) (3 page)

The suspect shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Scared, like I said.”

From the corner of his eye, Elliot saw the pit bull. “I can understand that, but it’s not too late to work this out. Just let the lady go.”

The dog didn’t bark and didn’t growl. The only sound was that of his paws pounding the earth, a sound that Enrique didn’t seem to hear. Suddenly the dog was on him, clamping his jaws around Enrique’s leg. The rocker let out a demented yell.

The hostage took the opportunity offered by her captor’s lack of concentration and tore free. She bolted back into the house.

Elliot saw what was going to happen, and he closed the distance between himself and the suspect in an instant. Enrique had already stabbed the dog twice and was going for a third when Elliot intercepted his arm and put the barrel of the Glock to his head. “Drop it while you still can.”

The suspect relaxed and the knife slid from his hand, hitting the ground with a dull thud. Dombrowski was there. He pulled the suspect’s hands behind his back and cuffed him. The dog lay on the ground, whining.

Elliot heard the sound of a car and turned to see the backup Dombrowski had called coming to a stop in the alley behind him. He and Dombrowski walked the suspect through a gate where the fence met the back of the house, then through the yard and into the alley. Dombrowski jerked open the door of the patrol car and shoved the suspect into the backseat.

Chapter Three

Joey Anderson lived with his mother in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. His father wasn’t there but he had one. His mother said so. He thought, maybe he lived somewhere else, another state maybe.

Joey heard the front door opening, which meant his mother was through trimming the rose bushes in the front yard. He turned down the sound on the television then jumped down from the bed.
Law and Order
was on, his favorite program. His mom let him watch it, but he didn’t think she liked it. She always shook her head when she came into his room and saw him watching it, as she did now.

“How’s my big guy?”

“Hi, Mom. I’m okay.”

She smiled. “Let me get cleaned up, then we’ll fix something to eat. Maybe later we can go see a movie or something.”

“Okay,” Joey said. He liked his mom. She was nice but sometimes she forgot he wasn’t a little kid anymore.

Joey waited until his mom closed the bathroom door. When he heard the water running, he left his bedroom and walked to the front door. His mom liked to soak in the tub after working in the yard. She would be there for a while. He hesitated, then unlocked the front door and stepped outside. His mom didn’t want him to go outside by himself anymore. Sometimes he did, though. Someone had moved into Don and Judy Carter’s old house. His friend Sandi had told him. Sandi watched him on Tuesdays so his mom could go to Doctor Colby’s office. He wasn’t sure why she went. Sandi said she didn’t know either.

Joey turned right on the sidewalk outside his house. He walked beside the fence that used to look bad. It didn’t look bad now. Someone had fixed it. He suspected the new neighbor had done this. When he reached the end of the fence, he would turn right again. He remembered things like that so he wouldn’t get lost. Sometimes his mother would get lost while driving the car, and he would help her get back home.

Joey paused for a moment when he saw Linda Wallace, one of the next-door neighbors. She was outside, sitting in her blue porch swing with her head down, reading a book. She was always reading books, and Joey didn’t think she saw him as he walked past.

When he reached the end of the fence, near the street with all the cars on it, he turned right again, but he’d taken only a few steps when Billy Williams came, riding up on his bicycle. Billy lived around the corner, but back the other way. When he saw Joey, he stopped, but he didn’t get off. Sometimes Billy was mean, but not always. He never hit Joey or anything, but sometimes he said bad things. Joey thought the other kids made him do it. He was by himself today.

“What are you doing out here, Joey?”

“Going for a walk.”

Billy looked up and down the street. “Does your mom know you’re out here?”

Joey glanced back to see if Linda Wallace was still there. He could call to her for help, if he had to. But Linda wasn’t there anymore. “My mom don’t care. She said I could walk.”

Billy looked suspicious. “I haven’t seen you out by yourself in a while. You sure it’s all right?”

“It’s okay.”

Billy waited a little while, then started riding again. “See you around,” he said. “And stay out of the street, buddy.”

Joey continued to walk. He was almost there. He could see the man in the driveway. The garage was open, and the man was carrying something heavy into it. Sandi said he might be a policeman. Joey didn’t think he looked like one, though. He wasn’t wearing a uniform, and he didn’t have a black shiny belt or a gun. The cops on television were tough. They had guns.

Joey left the sidewalk and walked onto the driveway where the man was. “Hi. I’m Joey.”

Chapter Four

Elliot heard a somewhat unusual voice coming from behind him. He’d just gotten home a few minutes earlier after helping Dombrowski with the paperwork concerning the arrest of Enrique Savage. It’d been a long day and he was ready to go inside and unwind. He turned around and saw a man dressed in khaki shorts and a striped shirt, clothes designed for someone much younger. The shy grin on his face contrasted with his five o’clock shadow. “Hello, Joey.”

Elliot scanned the driveway and the immediate area. “Do you live around here?”

“I live up that way,” Joey said, “on that street.” He pointed first north then east. “What’s your name?”

Elliot extended his hand. “My name’s . . .” He paused. He’d started to say Elliot but changed his mind. “Kenny.”

Joey shook Elliot’s hand. His grip was loose, tentative. “You a policeman?”

“A police detective,” Elliot said, surprised his new friend would know that.

Joey scratched his head. “Is that like almost a real policeman?”

“Some people seem to think so,” Elliot said, holding back a laugh. Again he glanced around the area but saw no one else around. “Do you know your way home from here, Joey?”

“Don and Judy used to live here.”

“Yes,” Elliot said. It was the couple he’d bought the house from. “Were you looking for them?”

Joey shook his head. “Mr. Carter used to fix my bicycle.”

“Where is your bicycle now, Joey?”

“In the shed. My mom locked it up.”

“I see. Does your mom know you’re here?”

“It’s okay, Mr. Kenny. You have a dog?”

“No, just a dog door that belonged to the dogs that used to live here. How about you, do you have one?”

“I used to. He’s gone now. Do you have a gun?”

Joey had just spoken when a lady turned from the sidewalk and marched up the drive, stopping outside the garage, a look on her face that was somewhere between worry and anger. “Joey Anderson, what are you doing out here?”

Joey’s eyes saddened but they also reflected a hint of defiance. “I went for a walk.”

“Didn’t we just talk about this?”

“Yes.”

She stood silent for a moment, her hands on her hips, clearly at a loss for words. Finally she settled for “Joey.”

She said this while shaking her head, a reflection of her frustration. Elliot took the opportunity to introduce himself. “Hi. Name’s Kenny Elliot. I guess I’m your new neighbor.”

She gave Elliot a strange look, as if she and Joey had been alone, and Elliot had just dropped out of the sky and now stood before her for the first time. Soon a teenage girl joined them on the driveway. She took the lady’s hand in hers and looked into her face with understanding eyes.

“Sandi,” the lady said, “you’re such a doll. Could you please take Joey home? I’ll be right there.”

“Sure, I can do that.”

The girl, Sandi, walked over and took Joey’s hand. “Come on. I’ve got something cool to show you.”

Joey and Sandi started down the drive, and before they turned the corner, Joey looked back. “See you later, Mr. Kenny.”

The lady waited until her son and the girl had walked away, then she turned to Elliot. “I’m sorry if he bothered you, Mr. Elliot.”

Elliot shook his head. “No bother, Ms. . . .”

“Kelly,” she said, “Kelly Anderson.”

Kelly Anderson wasn’t unattractive, but her face reflected the emotional weariness of a life that hadn’t been easy, and she showed this not with remorse, but with an attitude that said: I’m not afraid of you because you can’t throw anything at me that hasn’t already been thrown. She was suspicious of Elliot, but he wasn’t offended by it. He suspected she was just weary of a world where mistrust was bred by the very nature of her relationship with it. She was a mother, and she was concerned for her child—in Kelly Anderson’s case, a thirty-something-year-old child.

“Would you like to come in for a cup of coffee?” Elliot asked.

Kelly glanced at the sidewalk, then up the street, then back at Elliot. “I don’t like Joey being out by himself,” she said. “If you see him again . . . I’m in the phonebook. If you see him again, give me a call, okay?”

“Sure,” Elliot said, “no problem.”

She turned and walked away, and Elliot closed the garage and went into the house. It had been an interesting day. He wondered if tomorrow would be the same. He didn’t think so.

For reasons he didn’t quite understand, he thought it would be worse. Enrique Savage was just the beginning.

Chapter Five

When Elliot got to the office the next morning, Dombrowski was waiting for him. Dombrowski wanted him present while he questioned Larry Benson, aka Enrique Savage, about the death of Susan Lancaster. It promised to be a grim task—Elliot couldn’t get the image of Enrique slaughtering the dog out of his mind.

He sat at one end of the table while Dombrowski and the suspect sat across from each other on the other end. Dombrowski had been hammering him with questions for about thirty minutes when something unexpected came out.

“You were the last one seen with Susan Lancaster,” Dombrowski said. “If you can just tell us what happened, then we can clear this thing up, you could be out of here in time for dinner.”

Dombrowski was no longer holding on to the idea of Enrique being innocent. He was toying with him now, trying to get information.

“Where was she going? What was she planning to do? She must have said something.”

Enrique jerked a thumb toward Elliot. “You get him out of here, and maybe I’ll talk.”

“No deal,” Dombrowski said.

Enrique ran a hand across his pale face. His eye makeup was smeared, his hair more out of place than usual. He’d had a rough night. Dombrowski had allowed him a cigarette, and he took a long drag on it then blew the smoke into the air. “I’ve already told you what I know. Besides, we both know that’s not why I’m here. So why don’t we drop the pretenses?”

The sound of Enrique’s bass-filled voice grated on Elliot’s nerves.

Dombrowski shifted in his chair. “I’m not in the habit of pretending, son. And I’m getting tired of the runaround. I think I know why you lied to me about it, but I can’t understand why you would kill someone like Susan Lancaster in the first place.”

Enrique looked confused. “Hey, no way, man. I didn’t kill Susan. She was the best thing to ever happen to me.”

“You have an unusual way of showing your love,” Elliot said. “I saw you take out the dog. You’re pretty good with a knife. Do you suppose Susan felt any pain?”

Enrique took a final draw on the cigarette then smashed it out in an ashtray, all the while keeping his eerie eyes on Elliot. “Night before last, I was at a club. Someone comes up and slaps something into my hand, says it’s a present. Few minutes later, cops come busting in.” He paused and shook his head. “I thought you brought me down here to ask me about the heroin. And I’m telling you right now, I had nothing to do with it.”

Elliot and Dombrowski shot simultaneous glances at each other then turned their attention back to the suspect.

The look that crawled across Enrique’s face said he’d just made a mistake, and he knew it.

Just as Elliot and Dombrowski came out of the interrogation room, while Enrique was being escorted back to his cell, Captain Lundsford walked over. “Good work nabbing the suspect, Elliot.” He pulled Dombrowski aside.

Elliot figured something was up. The captain’s forehead was sweating. That usually meant trouble. A few seconds later, Dombrowski returned. “Let’s take a ride to midtown,” he said. “Someone found a DB in an apartment over on 15th.

A man with dirty blond hair pushed through the doorway of the Windhall Apartment building, stood on the sidewalk where he steadied himself, preparing for the ice-covered walk ahead of him, and when he once again began to walk his face held a look of uncertainty, its expression worked from emotion. He didn’t seem to notice Elliot and Dombrowski coming up the sidewalk.

“What’s up,” Dombrowski asked Elliot. “The thought of a little real police work getting to you?” After a pause, he added, “From what the officers are saying it looks like a drug overdose, not pleasant but straightforward. It shouldn’t take long. You need to get your feet wet, too. Why don’t you take the lead on this one.”

Elliot nodded, but a feeling of uncertainty cascaded through him, growing in intensity as he closed in on the doorway of the old brick apartment building, and as he forced himself to continue, putting one foot in front of the other, he watched the man that had come from the building striding up the sidewalk. Suddenly, as if he’d become aware of Elliot’s attention, he stopped and turned back, pausing briefly, the wind whipping his greasy hair across his face, then he turned and walked away.

Elliot glanced at Dombrowski. If he had noticed anything unusual about the man, he gave no indication. Elliot suspected he had other things on his mind. Then again, Dombrowski always walked with his head down, like he was searching the ground for lost coins.

The Windhall Apartment building rose up from the Tulsa soil just off the exit ramp from the Broken Arrow expressway, a precarious location, the front door not more than five or six steps from the edge of 15th Street. Not a good place to be. It was a busy street.