Tick,Tock,Trouble (A Seagrove Cozy Mystery Book 5) (5 page)

“Good dog, Mr. Bradshaw!” Wilson said and Mr. Bradshaw ran over to get a pat on the head.

He was dragging his leash and Sadie had to untangle it from her legs. She was tempted to let him run, but that might not be the wisest thing to do in front of two cops. Even if they did both like her and Mr. B.

“I’m going to head home,” Sadie started to say, but then the radio went off.

“Chief are you out there?”

It wasn’t the regular dispatcher, but the voice of one of Zack’s junior officers that came over the air.

Zack moved quickly to the car, sliding into the passenger seat and grabbing the radio’s microphone.

“Chief Woodstone here,” he said in the very official voice that Sadie loved. It made him sound so masculine.

“We’ve got a thing going on in the evidence room, sir,” the voice squeaked. “Someone is trying to break in.”

“On my way,” the Chief said and slotted the microphone back into its cradle.

“Let’s go, Wilson,” he called and buckled himself into the passenger seat.

Sadie jumped into the back with Mr. Bradshaw and Zack sighed but didn’t make her get out.

Wilson drove carefully over the grass, but once they hit the paved road, it was flashers, siren and speeds that Sadie thought were probably ill-advised in such a small town. Someone could get flattened.

Wilson pulled the car up to the rear of the station house and, as he was exiting the car, Zack turned around and said, “Stay here.”

Sadie had no intention of ‘staying here.’ Luckily, Wilson had unlocked the doors when she got out of the car so Sadie wasn’t locked in the back. She grabbed Mr. Bradshaw’s leash and they reached the outer door before it closed and locked behind Zack and Wilson.

This door opened onto the lower level of the stationhouse, the basement that contained holding cells, the records archive, and the evidence room. Sadie could hear shouting and she started down the hall toward the noise. Then she rounded a corner and the whole hot mess came into view.

Franklin Woo was backed against the wall, shielding himself with one of the unarmed clerical workers from upstairs in the office. There were cops backed up the stairway on one side. Sadie could see so many pairs of legs that she thought most of the officers on duty must be on the stairs. She hoped somebody stayed upstairs to keep order in the squad room.

The officer on duty in the evidence room had his gun out and trained on Mr. Woo, as did the officers in the hallway between Sadie and Woo. There were four, including Zack and Wilson. The office clerk was pale, quiet and wide-eyed. Zack holstered his gun and stepped forward.

“Mr. Woo,” he asked. “What is it you are trying to accomplish here?”

“I want the pocket watch,” Woo said.

“The one you have in evidence. It should be mine.” He shot Sadie a look of pure loathing.

Zack looked to see what Woo was looking at and frowned when he saw her. He narrowed his eyes into slits and his expression clearly communicated “I thought I told you to stay put.”

Sadie shrugged at him, and he turned back to Mr. Woo.

“Mr. Woo, Franklin,” Zack said in a firm but quiet tone, “we have known each other for at least twenty years, so I hope you will believe me when I say this situation will have only one conclusion. The only question in my mind is this, ‘Will you let Brown go and come into custody willingly, or will we have to use force?’ Look around you Mr. Woo, there is no way you are going to escape. You’ve backed yourself into a corner here.”

“That’s what you think.” Woo flashed a glimpse of a firearm he’d been holding to Brown’s back.

“I may not be able to get free, but I can take a lot of you with me when I go.”

He pushed Brown forward and started down the hall toward Zack, Wilson and the other officers. Sadie realized if he got past them there would only be her and Mr. Bradshaw between Woo and the door. This was a little worrisome. She picked up Mr. Bradshaw.

But as he moved forward the officers on the stairs started down and Woo, realizing he was leaving his back exposed, moved back against the wall. Stalemate.

Chapter Five

Mr. Woo was looking a little wide-eyed and unpredictable. Sadie backed around the corner where she could still see, but the chance of Mr. Bradshaw getting shot was eliminated. She knew she should take him to safety, but Zack was in danger and she couldn’t face leaving.

“Psst.”

Sadie looked behind her to see the back door of the evidence room cracked open and Officer Smith becking her.

“In here,” he whispered and took her arm, pulling her through the doorway.

“It’s bulletproof,” he said locking the door behind them.

“So you don’t have to worry about gunfire. I’d put money on there being gunfire.”

He led her to his desk. It was next to the door and faced a window into the hall.

“Bulletproof glass,” he whispered.

The lights were off in the evidence room. It was almost like watching TV, viewing the drama behind the glass. Smith held his finger to his lips and flicked a switch. The conversation in the hallway flooded into the room.

“Franklin,” Zack was saying, “let Ms. Brown go. You’ll never forgive yourself if she gets hurt. Are you okay, Carol?”

The older woman nodded grimly. The set of her mouth made Sadie think of an old time schoolmarm. Not that you would expect her to be cheerful while being held captive.

“Are you nuts?” Woo asked.

“The minute I let her go you all will put a thousand bullets in me. I’m getting out of here in one piece.”

There was a noise from down the hall and Sadie looked at Smith with her eyebrows raised. He clicked off the intercom.

“A bunch more officers came in through the back door,” he said.

“See here? You can see them on the monitor.”

He pointed to a monitor to the left of the desk that Sadie hadn’t noticed. There were at least ten more officers in riot gear standing where she had been a few minutes before. Smith clicked the intercom back on.

“Use me as a hostage instead,” Zack was saying.

Sadie noticed he had moved slightly to Woo’s left. To focus on Zack, Woo had turned slightly away from the stairs. Wilson was there with a taser in her hand. She held it low and to her side so Woo wouldn’t see it.

“Come on, Franklin,” Zack said. “Let’s make a trade.”

He reached out toward Carol Brown, which forced Woo to drag her closer to him and the movement served to expose more of his back. Wilson fired. Zack reached out and jerked Carol from his grasp as the electricity coursed from one prong, through his body, and out the other prong. The firearm Woo had been holding dropped from his hand.

Then Woo collapsed to the ground. Wilson cuffed his hands behind his back while Zack passed Carol off to an officer behind him and retrieved the dropped gun. It was over quickly. Woo was taken away down the hall, to the holding cells, Sadie assumed. Carol Brown was escorted away by a female officer. Zack spotted Sadie in the evidence room when Officer Smith turned on the lights. He motioned her to come out.

“I thought I told you to stay in the car,” Zack said when he had Sadie alone in the hallway.

Alone except for Mr. Bradshaw, who didn’t like Zack’s tone and told him so with a quiet growl. Zack raised an eyebrow at Mr. B and the grumbling stopped. Sadie was impressed, although she didn’t say so. She was on Mr. Bradshaw’s side.

“Come on,” Zack said when Sadie scowled in response to his comment. “Let’s get you home.”

“Mr. Bradshaw and I can walk,” Sadie said. “We don’t need a ride.”

She turned away and started quickly down the hall toward the outside exit. Zack trotted along beside her.

“Sadie,” he said. “Please let me drive you. I want to be sure Hamilton isn’t lurking around.”

Sadie stopped and Mr. B stopped with her. “Chief Woodstone,” she said, “I am a grown woman. ‘I thought I told you to stay in the car,’ is something you might say to a dog. Not to another adult. Normally, I’d rather walk than get in a car with a person who spoke to me like that. However, I’m even more reluctant to run into Hamilton Cartwright again so I will accept your offer of a ride home.”

Zack nodded but didn’t say anything. Sadie had the sneaking suspicion that he was trying not to laugh.

“Stop that,” she said, elbowing him in the ribs.

“What? I’m not doing anything,” he said, indignant.

“You are laughing on the inside,” she said. “I can tell.”

“Wow. Tough crowd,” Zack said. “I didn’t know there were rules about what I’m allowed to do in my head.”

He was trying to sound cranky, but Sadie wasn’t fooled. He liked that she could see through him.

“What am I going to do with you?” she asked. “You are absolutely incorrigible.”

“I’m no worse than you are, Sadie Barnett, and don’t you forget it,” he said, but the grin on his face took all the sting out of it.

Zack drove around the block twice before parking in front of Sadie’s shop. He walked through the entire downstairs with Betty watching, amused, then down the creaking old wooden stairs into the basement and out into the alley before taking the stairs to the second floor. He opened every door in Sadie’s apartment and spent twenty minutes on the balcony overlooking the street before pronouncing the area a Hamilton-free zone.

“It’s nearly closing,” he said to Betty and Sadie as he was about to leave.

“Can’t you go ahead and lock up?”

“It’s two hours until closing,” Betty said, but on seeing his face backtracked, “but we could lock up and put a note on the door. That would work, wouldn’t it?” She looked at Sadie, who nodded in agreement.

“I’ll be back around nine,” Zack said, his hand on the doorknob.

“What for?” Sadie asked, confused. She would have remembered if they’d had a date, wouldn’t she?

“Because I’m spending the night keeping watch.” He looked at her and shook his head.

“You don’t think I’m going to let Hamilton Cartwright find you alone, do you? Because I’m not.” He left, the door slamming behind him.

“He’s getting a little high-handed,” Sadie said. “I’m not sure what to do about that.”

“I think it’s just because he’s worried about you,” Betty said.

“He’s usually perfectly agreeable. I think it’s just this case has landed particularly close to you and Hamilton has come unglued. What in the world did he think he was going to accomplish by chasing you around the park today?”

“He wants that pocket watch, and bad,” Sadie said.

“But you should have seen Franklin Woo at the stationhouse today. He took Carol Brown hostage and was trying to get into the evidence room to get that watch. I don’t understand it.”

“Maybe there’s a curse on it,” Betty said. “Or a charm. Like everyone who owns it becomes a millionaire. We should research it. Come on.”

She pulled on the door to make sure it was locked and headed into the office. Sadie followed.

They powered up the two computers in the office and started researching pocket watches. It took about thirty minutes of reading about men dying of heart attacks and other more gruesome stories before Sadie found what she was looking for.

“Look at this,” she said, “not just one, but a set of charmed watches. Each one is charmed, but bring them all together and they will enable you to control time. Wow, I wonder what that really means?”

“Shoot me over the link,” Betty said. “I want to read about it.”

Sadie sent her the link and then grabbed a pen and her notepad and started taking notes. Twelve watches. Twelve enhancements. When used together, on the last night of the year, they allow you to travel through time.

“Pretty nifty,” Betty said. “Do you think Hamilton and Franklin have some of the other watches?”

“I don’t know. What amazes me is how these came to either man’s attention. It doesn’t seem like either of their styles. How did they get involved in the hunt for watches?” Sadie asked.

“And how did they get magic powers?” Betty asked. “Watches don’t normally come with magic powers.”

“I don’t know,” Sadie said, grinning at Betty, “but I’m going to find out.”

“How are you going to do that?” Betty asked.

“Research. Only this time, myths and legends. I think I’ll start with Merlin and work forward.”

The online article about the watches just talked about their existence and what they were rumored to be. No origin myth, nothing at all, really. Except that they were rumored to exist. And one of them matched the description of the watch sitting in the evidence room of the police station.

“If you send me a list of links to look into I’ll help with the research,” Betty said. “That way I won’t be duplicating work you’re doing.”

“Right on,” Sade said, copying some links and sending them to Betty.

When Zack banged on the door at nine o’clock the women still were absorbed in their research and were startled at the sound.

“Good Lord,” Sadie said. “It’s after nine, Betty you need to get home.”

Betty stretched and rubbed the back of her neck. “Who knew reading myths and legends could make time run faster. It must be magic.”

She closed down her computer, grabbed her coat and followed Sadie out to let Zack in. Zack wasn’t alone. He stepped through the door, followed by Lucy.

“Hey Lucy,” Sadie said. “Is everything okay?”

“Hey Sade,” Lucy replied, “Everything is fine. Zack asked me to come.”

“We’re in the middle of a manhunt for Hamilton Cartwright,” Zack said.

“And I didn’t want you to be alone here, so I brought Lucy to keep you company.”

“I’ll stay, too,” Betty said. “Safety in numbers, and all that. As long as that’s okay with you, Sadie?”

“Don’t be silly. Of course it’s okay,” Sadie said. “We can fill Lucy in on our research.”

“What research is that?” Zack asked, looking wary.

“We were looking into the pocket watch, trying to figure out why Cartwright and Woo were so manic about having it. But we can tell you about that later,” Sadie said. “I can tell you are itching to get back out there.”

“I am,” Zack said.

“I want this guy off the streets.” He kissed Sadie, leaving no doubt about how he felt about her.

“Lock the door behind me.” He touched her cheek and left.

Sadie locked the door. Her stomach growled and she looked at Betty, her eyebrows raised.

“We didn’t eat dinner,” she said. “Why didn’t you remind me? You must be starving.”

“I was so caught up in the research that I forgot.” Betty’s stomach growled in sympathy.

“Usually, Mr. Bradshaw reminds me when I forget,” Sadie said looking down at the little dog. He was stretching in the manner of a canine who had just woken from a long nap.

“Come on,” Lucy said. “I’ll make the two intrepid researchers some dinner. Really, Sadie, sometimes you are worse than a child at taking care of yourself.”

“I’m just going to double-check the back door,” Sadie said. “I’ll meet you upstairs. You can continue scolding me while you make dinner.”

“I’m not scolding,” Lucy said as she disappeared up the stairs with Betty, “I’m just saying.”