The Pumpkin Thief: A Chloe Boston Mystery (13 page)

“I’ve done some analysis,” Alex explained. His dad was a banker and did a lot of analysis. “Baker Street is the best street overall when it comes to candy.  I made this determination by considering the percentage of houses that were circled in blue. Next comes Adams, so you can see how the route should continue. Of course, if we want to find the murderer, we will have to go another way. What do you think, Chloe?”

“Well…” I wanted to solve the murder, but I also wanted the candy.

“I want candy,” Todd said. “Who cares about a murderer?”

“Okay.” Pointing with his finger, Alex continued to outline the optimal route through the various neighborhoods in order to bring in the best candy in the shortest amount of time and with the least amount of effort.  When he was done drawing the route, his finger was pointing to his own doorstep just a few houses down from my own. “That’s the best route if we want candy.”

“That’s brilliant, Alex,” Althea admired again.

“Yeah, well. I was always good at science and stuff,” Alex explained, blushing a little at Althea’s compliment.

I was too busy studying the map to add my own voice to the compliments. After a detailed examination, I had a few questions to ask.

“Alex, you circled this house in black.  However, that’s all the way back in the orchard. Is it really worth going all that way just to hit one house?”

“Oh yeah.Because we have to talk to the ghosts. The ghosts are very important if we want to find Ryan.”

“Why would I want Ryan?” Althea asked.

“Because Ryan is the grand prize and Chloe wants him more than candy— don’t you, Chloe?”

I woke up before I answered.

We wended our way northward visiting beaches and tide pools, but as the sun began to lower, he headed directly into the city. San Francisco seemed very tall to me, very vertical, and filled with insane drivers who managed to be stupid while crawling along at two miles per hour. It was pretty in a grand way, but I was just as happy to park the car in a parking structure and strike out on foot.

 Alex told me about the building we were headed to. The Keller Building went up in 1904 and withstood the San Francisco earthquake. The site had been the home of a musical hall that burned down in 1899 and there were rumored to be ghosts. That didn’t matter though. Land was scarce in San Francisco. Ghosts were not a deterrent. In fact, they had dug up all the cemeteries and moved the graves out of town. Steel-framed, built of sandstone and brick, The Keller was solid. One would expect a lot of echoes with those vast marble floors, but the acoustics were oddly muted. The dark marble swallowed not only light but sound.

The radio station did not take up the whole building. They had a suite on the third floor. We weren’t going there though. Not right away. Step one was to talk to the janitor. If he confirmed that Ryan Endicott was working Halloween night then we would walk away. Alex and I had agreed that if Endicott was cleared then we would let David do everything through official channels. I had no wish to explain his parentage to him.

Though the roads outside were choked with cars and people, the building was oddly empty. We listened carefully but didn’t hear any tell-tale squeaking from a cart and no one whistled while they worked. There were no footsteps, no dinging elevators, no sounds of any kind. I found it easy to believe that the building was haunted.

Two broad staircases swept up on either side of the lobby. One went to a mezzanine level and one up to the second floor. There was also an elevator with gleaming brass doors that made me nervous.

“Let’s take the stairs,” I said.

“Left or right?” Alex asked.

“You go left,” I said.

“Okay. You have your phone? I’ll call if I find Nunez. You do the same.”

“Okay. See you soon.”

We were there on serious business, but I couldn’t help having a moment of pretend while I pictured myself as Audrey Hepburn in “My Fair Lady”, going off to the embassy ball. I was swishing an imaginary gown as I stepped off on to the second floor and almost fell over a janitor’s cart.

“Oh!” I gasped. “Hello. Mr. Nunez?”

“Yes?” Esteban Nunez looked up politely. He was a middle aged man. Small. His smile was pleasant.

I thought about calling Alex on the phone, but it seemed so silly and would puzzle the nice man, so I just asked my question. When he hesitated I reached in my pocket and held out a twenty. He was probably thinking I was a girlfriend checking up on my guy, or maybe a groupie wanting Ryan’s schedule. I did my best to look dumb and harmless— which is very effective with most guys and not especially difficult to pull off when you are small.

Esteban Nunez took the twenty I offered and said: “Ryan E wasn’t in the studio that night. The show was canned. I started on the third floor at seven and—”

The hammer flew out of nowhere and hit him in the side of the head. The janitor crumpled and hit the floor hard.

“Mr. Nunez?” I asked stupidly and then turned to face the thing running at me out of a dark room.

I had seen pictures of Ryan Endicott, but I didn’t recognize him that evening. His face was so distorted that I barely saw him as human. This was a true monster, the thing I had feared would attack me in the corn maze and I reacted as I would have if the boogieman had come at me.

I wish I could tell you that we had a giant superhero fight and I used all my self-defense training to save myself, but it wasn’t like that at all. Ryan flew at me clawed hands outstretched. Instinctively I spun sideways, bumping up against the cart. He went past me and I gave him a shove, helping momentum along. That was it, my sole contribution to the fight. But the shove sent him toward the stairs. He missed the railing and went cart-wheeling down them. The noise was terrible. I heard every breaking bone.

Fortunately for me, there were security cameras that recorded everything. You can see it on Youtube if you missed the news that week.

The Keller Building is a historical landmark, a beautiful old building with beautiful old marble stairs with beautiful sharp edges. By the time Ryan Endicott reached the bottom, he was dead. Better karma for me if he had lived, of course, but more convenient for the police (I discovered while eavesdropping) that he died. And at least the janitor is alive to tell his story, though he may not regain sight in his left eye. If Endicott had killed me, I am sure that the unconscious Esteban Nunez would have died too because of what he knew.

The next few hours were a blur. Alex found me only moments after Ryan’s fall and he called the police and asked for an ambulance because I was busy trying to stop the bleeding in Nunez’s head. I had expected some outcry from the offices on the second floor, but it was after hours and the building was deserted. It was just us, the bleeding janitor and Ryan’s broken body.

Alex and I went to the police station. I made my statement to the police and I signed an electronic copy (we don’t have this in Hope Falls).

I talked frankly to the detective in charge, Ramon Alverez, a friend of Alex’s as it happened, and I ended by telling him firmly that unless I was arrested that I was going home the next day. My ticket was non-refundable and that they knew where to reach me if needed. I knew there was always a chance the D.A. would decide to try and prosecute me for something, but it seemed unlikely since it was so clearly self-defense after Endicott had hit the janitor with a hammer and run screaming at me— a woman half his size and weight. And, oh yeah, he was probably a mass murderer.

Alverez was about to argue, but I pointed out that I was fifty percent of parking enforcement for Hope Falls and asked what would happen to his city’s revenues if fifty percent of their parking enforcement people had a sick-out. I also told him to call the chief if they needed someone to assure him that I wasn’t a flight risk. In fact, I offered to do it for him. I think he was shocked that I had the chief’s number in my cell phone.

“So you miss work that much?” The detective obviously found this hard to believe.

Really, I missed Blue, but I said: “My dad is the former chief of police. I’ve known most of the guys my entire life. It’s my job.”

And Detective Alverez’s face finally relaxed. He was at last seeing me as someone on the same team. I was a parking cop, but also the daughter of a cop, and dating a cyber cop. I came from a law enforcement family and that made me okay, and I guess also good enough for Alex.

I wondered if Alex still felt the same.

They let me go in the wee hours of the morning and Alex drove us to his apartment. It was a quiet ride and Alex’s grip on the steering wheel was very firm.

“Why are you…?” But I couldn’t ask, in case he was mad at me for getting him involved.

“Angry? Because I failed to display even minimal levels of competence and caution. Because I almost got my girlfriend killed, showing off by going to see this guy in person when I could have asked someone down there to check it for me.”

At least I was still his girlfriend.

“Gosh and here I was thinking we did well to survive an encounter with a monster who has killed at least seven people.”

Alex glared, but I saw his mouth twitch.

We shared a mattress that night and a bit more conversation the next morning, but mostly Alex worked on the computer and I read. He took me to the airport that afternoon. He wasn’t coming home with me. I wished very much that he would, but didn’t ask him to. He had work to do and it had been a trying weekend. We needed to go to our respective corners and have a breather before the next round. If there was a next round.

“You’re kind of quiet,” Alex said once we were on the freeway.

“I miss Blue. And I’m tired,” I admitted. Missed her terribly though I knew she was happy with Dad. The cats were also fine with Mom since she spoiled them. But I found I was also missing Jeffrey and the Lit Wits and even the chief. I was generally homesick.

“And I’m not enough?”

No, I realized, Alex alone wasn’t enough. Especially not if I had to deal with his family regularly. Then I thought, stupidly, how much I would probably like Blue’s family.

By then I had been silent too long.

“Sorry. Thinking.”

“I know.” He sounded sad.

“Look, rough night. Probably rough day tomorrow. I hope the chief isn’t mad about all this.” I reached out and took his hand.

He gave me a small smile and it was my turn to be sad. I wanted to say: I’m never leaving Hope Falls to live in this place. But you could leave here so easily. Your job is portable. Your aunt is nice enough (comparatively) if you need family and you could have me.

“I’ll think about it,” he said, though I was sure I never spoke out load.

“And think about Thanksgiving,” I said as we pulled up at the curb at SFO and got a small smile for my efforts. I knew he was still depressed by what had happened and added: “Look, this was catastrophic for Ryan Endicott. It doesn’t have to be for us. Everyone gets some hard knocks. The question is whether you get yourself back up and on track again when the bad things happen.”

Alex looked suddenly thoughtful as he got my duffle from the trunk. Just to help him be clear about my own position, I kissed him hard before walking away. I didn’t look back. There would be no last lingering glances in case this really was the end.

I saw a man reading a late edition paper in the terminal while waiting to board. It said that the Seahawks had won the Sunday morning game. The chief would probably want to ask me about football from then on out. As long as he asked me at home, I was willing.

Chapter 14

“Boston, are you going to be taking the police exam again this November?” The chief asked me Monday afternoon. “Because it might be that this time you would pass.”

They had a cake waiting for me when I came into work that morning and everyone had been congratulatory and also sympathetic. Except Gordon, but he wasn’t nasty. I hadn’t shot anyone, but I guess the guys still considered this as being a death in the line of duty thing. The chief even offered me more time off, if I needed it, but I told him that Blue and I were happy to be back in our routine.

I had borrowed Dad’s block and tackle on my lunch hour and tried it out on the sandbag. I had also checked the rules carefully. It said nothing in the manual about not using outside aids. I would definitely pass that part of the test if I took it again. The sandbag wasn’t the problem any more. Instead, I had a new weighty burden to lift, one in my mind.

Death, regular death, is big and inevitable, sometimes even a kindly release, something we build religions around to make it less scary and hurtful when it comes. It isn’t so personal and
wrong
when it happens because we all die in time.

But the kind of death, murder, I had seen this last week was very personal. It was a desecration, life taken out of order and an offense against God and nature. It was sickening. Not that I was going to say this out loud. The chief already knew this. All cops— real cops— knew this. This nasty and belated little epiphany was all mine and I felt stupid for not truly understanding this about the job before.

“I don’t know, chief,” I said honestly. “I really like figuring things out. But I don’t like…” I could see that hammer whacking into the janitor’s skull and the left eye bulging in its socket. Then I heard Ryan Endicott breaking bones on the stone stairs as they killed him one tread at a time. When I came back to myself I found my hands fisted in Blue’s fur and I was shaking. “I don’t like the violence. The ugliness. I’m not good with that… stuff.”

“There are sometimes drunks and brawls on the job. And sometimes worse,” the chief agreed. “People are people and some of them are bad. But, Boston, I would hate to lose you now that I know what you can do.”

“You won’t lose me,” I said candidly. “It’s just that I think Blue and I can help in other ways. We see a lot of small but important stuff on our rounds.”

Like the pumpkin thief. I had figured out who it was and finally decided what to do about it. This wasn’t something I was going to share with anyone else though.