Evelyn David - Sullivan Investigations 02 - Murder Takes the Cake (25 page)

She couldn
‘t sleep. That’s why she was punching in the security code on the funeral home back door and heading towards her office. If she couldn’t sleep, maybe she could work. The activities of the last week had put her behind in her paperwork and with the holidays–well, Jeff had insisted O’Herlihy’s would be closed Thanksgiving Day through the following Monday. Of course, they were on call if someone needed their services, but the office would be closed. Jeff even had Stan Reiffer, a retired employee, covering for them in the event of such a call. Stan would use O’Herlihy’s prep rooms, and call in staff as needed. They were hoping it would be a quiet weekend with no one dying.

Still with all the time off, she needed to get the billing done early. At 3 A.M. she would have the place to herself. No ringing phones. No deliveries. No grieving families to comfort. She should be able to clear her desk in only a few hours.

The funeral home was silent. Noiselessly walking across the plush carpet, she approached the door to her office and found someone else at her desk, sitting in her chair, typing on her computer. He looked a lot like Ronald Regan. Or at least his mask did.

“
What are you doing?” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them.

The Gipper rose to his feet. A tall, muscular man in his mid-forties, she could sense the anger coming off him in waves.

She took a step backward into the hallway and found a human wall had formed behind her. An arm hooked around her neck, then something soft and dark covered her head.

Chapter 19

She was going to demand her money back. She
‘d taken the damn self-defense course at the Y and when it came time to use all those skills, none of them worked. The elbow trick that had freed her the night in front of the restaurant didn’t seem to have any effect on the human wall behind her.

The five-year old pepper spray keychain was safely in the bottom of her purse. Apparently kidnappers don
‘t give you time to search through the bottomless pit of a handbag to find self-defense spray.

She
‘d tried to stomp on the bastard’s instep, like she’d practiced in class. He was wearing hobnailed boots and had merely tightened the unyielding vise of his arms to stop her squirming.

Screaming wasn
‘t effective. She’d certainly yelled her head off, but there was no one in the building to hear her, which was exactly what she’d known before entering it.

So she was locked in a supply closet, in the basement of O
‘Herlihy Funeral Home, with a sore throat, bruised arms, and an unused can of pepper spray. Stupid cell phone got zero reception.

On the plus side, the men hadn
‘t raped or murdered her, and she hadn’t had a heart attack despite being positive her blood pressure had spiked to previously unknown levels when the hood was thrown over her head. And she still had her purse. If she lived, she wouldn’t have to cancel all her credit cards again and spend half a day at the DMV replacing her driver’s license.

That was definitely on the plus side of the equation. She could feel her Grandmother frowning at her. Right. First, say thanks.

“Thank you God for letting me live.”

Simple, but sincere.

Of course, there was always the possibility the men would return to finish the job.

“
Please God, let me continue to live,” she added.

“
And God? If I don’t live, will you at least see that Jeff gets a refund on his new, worthless, security system?”

The cell phone was good for one thing. Its light let her explore her surroundings. Not that there was much to see. It was a supply closet, maybe four feet deep and three feet wide, in the sub-basement of O
‘Herlihy’s.

Rachel sat down on the cement floor. Now that her heart rate had slowed down to merely a mile a minute, she needed to think this through. She could hear scraping and rolling carts outside the closet. The place was being looted.

Of course, the first question was, “Who were these men?” She’d only caught a glimpse of the man in her office. Ronald Reagan could be eliminated as a suspect. But she’d seen a dragon tattoo on his right forearm. That didn’t ring any bells. The other man held her from behind and she never got a look at his face. The only exchange between the two men had been the guy behind the desk barking, “Get rid of her, Tiny.”

So it was dragon man and Tiny, which was ironic because the thug was at least six-foot-three. Maybe he was referring to another body part.

She shook her head. She had to focus. Okay. The man hadn’t said, “Kill her,” which would have been much more definitive about their plans. That was another good sign. Maybe they just needed her out of the way.

“
Thank you God for not making them psycho serial killers looking to add my heart to a shelf of jarred specimens.”

That didn
‘t get her any closer to knowing who these non-psycho, non-serial killers were, however. So moving on, what did they want in a funeral home?

“
Caskets,” she whispered.

“
Good thinking Rachel,” she added.

Talking to herself out loud was comforting, if slightly bizarre. Usually Snickers was her sounding board. Still it was better to actually hear a voice than to have a two-way conversation in her head. Even that reasoning was making her brain hurt.

“So if I don’t know who they are, but I think they want some caskets, why were they in my office?”

She had to think about that. It was possible they wanted to access her computer files, but that would have taken time, to get around the password and security system.

Wait a minute, even if the security alarms were worthless, maybe the security cameras were still working. Maybe when this was over, they’d be able to identify the burglars.

What was in her office that anybody would want?
“Petty cash? No, because that’s kept in the safe in Jeff’s office.”

She stood up and stretched. Her muscles ached from the futile fight against Attila the Hun. She wished she could pace. It helped her to think. Since she could stretch her arms sideways and touch both sides of the closet, pacing wasn
‘t an option.

So maybe it was something on her desk. What was on her desk?

“Inventory sheets. Inventory sheets of missing caskets.”

The thieves had been stealing caskets from the supply room which was next to this obscure closet. So whoever it was, knew the lay of the land.

Clank.

“
What’s that?”

Her heart started racing again. Fear and uncertainty did that to her.

“Okay, calm down,” she muttered. “It’s just the delivery door slamming shut. That’s good news. The bad guys have left. They’ve taken the store with them, but on the other hand, they’ve left you alive.”

She smiled. Relief flooded through her. Wait a minute.

“I’m alive, but I’m in a locked supply closet, with no one due to come into the office for three days, with my son on a ski slope and unlikely to call, with no cell reception, and no one to notice I’m missing.”

She sat back down on the cement and brought her knees up to her chest. She sniffed, then whispered,
“And you know what else, I’ve got to pee.”

***

“Twenty-five, twenty six, twenty-seven….” She was going to count to a thousand and if she was still panicky, she’d…she’d start counting again.

She took a deep cleansing breath. Instead of counting sheep or non-psycho thugs being led into prison cells, maybe she
‘d try her Lamaze controlled breathing exercises. Sure it’d been 18 years since she hee, hee, hoo’d her way through labor and delivery, but it was better than screaming hysterically.

“
Helllpppp, help, help.”

Okay, maybe hysteria was an option.

She coughed. Her throat felt scratchy. She coughed again. It wasn’t the yelling that was the problem.

She sniffed. Coughed, then sniffed again.

Okay, time for real hysteria.

Smoke. She could smell smoke.

“Helllllp. Hellllpppp.”

Rachel felt the door. It was still cool to the touch, so the fire hadn
‘t been started in the hallway.

“
In the casket room, idiot.”

She almost smacked her own forehead in disgust. The thugs had stolen the caskets, then started a fire in the room next to the closet. She felt the adjoining wall. It was warm to the touch.

At the same time, the internal fire alarm started shrieking. She remembered the smoke detectors were hard-wired into the security system. They were independent of the burglar alarms.

Rachel started to relax. The cavalry was on its way. She
‘d be rescued in a few minutes.

She coughed again and then again. She could hear her grandfather practicing fire drills in the old farmhouse.

“Stop, drop, and roll.”

That didn
‘t fit this situation. She wasn’t on fire. What was it he would always say?

“
It’s the smoke that kills.”

She didn
‘t have much time. She flipped open her cell phone and used the light to look around the closet. She spotted a ceiling grate, part of the heating and air-conditioning system.

“
This is a bad James Bond movie,” she muttered.

She grabbed the folding ladder leaning against the wall. She took the bottle of water she always carried in her cavernous bag, soaked her grandmother
‘s old handkerchief, and tied it around her head, covering her nose and mouth.

Quickly she scaled the ladder and pounded on the grate. It didn
‘t move.

She climbed down and checked the shelves for something to.… There was a dusty toolbox in one corner. Only a couple of tools left inside, but one was a large screwdriver.

The shrieking alarm was deafening. Her panic was mounting. And the smoke was getting thicker.

She used the screwdriver to pry open the grate. When it finally gave way, the grate tumbled to the cement floor with a loud crash. Knowing that if her captors were close, they would have been alerted, she wasted no time in pulling herself into the air duct. She coughed, gagged, and fought both the smoke and her panic at the close space. Her purse, the shoulder strap crossing her body, kept getting in her way. It never crossed her mind to abandon it.

The metal sheeting in the vent was beginning to get warm. Too warm.

“
Hee, hee, hee,” shallow breaths, no deep cleansing ones in these conditions. She crawled on her belly about fifteen feet, desperately feeling for the grate in the room farthest away from the casket room.

“
Please God, please God…” It was her new mantra.

She could feel a ceiling grid. She inched backwards and tugged. The grid moved and she pushed it aside.

Coughing and wheezing, Rachel lowered herself through the ceiling opening, hanging by her fingertips in the black room. It was the prep room and there was a nine-foot drop to the tile floor.

Gracelessly, breathlessly, and gratefully, Rachel let go.

“Thank you God.”

***

Smoke was filling the basement corridors as Rachel moved towards the nearest stairs. At the moment she wasn’t worried about running into the bad guys, she just wanted out. The main floor was smoky too, but not as bad as she’d expected. She passed her office, and then backtracked to grab several photographs from her desk. Reentering the hallway, she headed for the main doors, slowing only when she heard voices in Jeff’s office.

“
I thought he’d have more cash here.”

“
Why? It’s a funeral home not a liquor store. Besides, we already got paid for this job.”

“
Not enough. Not for murder. The boss said no one would be here.”

“
I’m leaving. You do what you want. Hand over the keys.”

“
No, I’ll drive. Just give me a minute.”

Rachel didn
‘t wait for them to come out; she rushed out the front door and circled through the parking lot to the back. She’d guessed right. While she’d been locked in the supply closet, the two men had backed a moving van up to the service entrance. She didn’t have time to check the contents for caskets. She checked the tires instead. Too much air in her opinion. Using the screwdriver she’d stowed in her purse earlier, she corrected that condition on two of them.

***

“I’m fine, I’m fine.” Rachel tried to bat away the oxygen mask the female EMT was foisting on her. She sat in the open bay of the D.C. Fire Department ambulance, about a hundred feet from the remains of O’Herlihy Funeral Home. The fire was contained, although the firefighters were carefully going through the building to make sure there were no embers likely to reignite.

“
Ma’am, you may have inhaled toxic fumes. Put this on for a few minutes.” The paramedic slipped the oxygen mask over Rachel’s face. She wrapped a blood pressure cuff around Rachel’s left arm and did a quick check.

The EMT frowned.
“Your pressure is a little high. What’s your normal reading?”

Rachel looked at her in disbelief. She lifted the mask.
“A little high? Ya’ think? I don’t normally almost die in a fire.”

The EMT nodded, then pulled the mask back over Rachel
‘s face.

“
Oh my God, Rachel, are you okay?”

Rachel head jerked up. She saw Kathleen O
‘Herlihy, yelling to her as the red-haired woman zigzagged through fire debris and the fleet of fire engines and police cars surrounding the building.

Rachel tried to stand, but was held firmly in place by the EMT.
“I’m fine,” she mumbled through the mask.

“
What in God’s name happened? Jeff is talking to the fire lieutenant. Something about arson. You were trapped? Who did this? Why? Actually why were you here in the middle of the night? Do you want me to call Mac?”

The words tumbled out of her mouth so fast Rachel could barely keep up with the questions. She shook her head emphatically no to the point of calling Mac Sullivan.

Suddenly, there was a call for the paramedics from one of the firefighters on the line. The EMT raced off and Rachel immediately removed her oxygen mask.