A String of Beads (12 page)

After he killed Nick he had considered starting a rumor that the reason Nick was gone
was that he had pocketed a valuable ring from a burglary. After thinking more about
it, Crane had decided that he would benefit more from taking revenge on Nick’s killer,
that Indian who had decked Nick in the bar fight. Scaring his employees would have
been good, but risky. He had to believe that building their loyalty would be better.

He ran through other topics to keep his mind from returning to Chelsea Schnell. Did
he need anything at the supermarket? Had he let any bills go too long without paying
them? Did he have clothes ready at the cleaners’? He knew that thinking about Chelsea
was a waste of time. Thinking about her was not going to solve any problems, but he
couldn’t get her out of his mind. As he drove, he relived the short visit he had made
to her house.

He had knocked on her door, and there she was, behind the screen door. Her image had
been slightly unclear, because the screen was like a veil between her and him. What,
exactly, had her expression been? Had she been pleased to see him, or only surprised,
but not really pleased? Teeth. He clearly recalled seeing the row of small, perfect
white teeth as she’d appeared behind the screen door.

A smile. She had been glad. That moment was the one that mattered most, he decided.
His appearing at her door unexpectedly had made her smile. She hadn’t had time to
overcome some other reaction, hide it, and paste a fake smile on her face. The smile
had been genuine, a sincere reflexive impulse from nervous system to facial muscle,
without delay or disguise. She had been pleased to see him.

Anything after that could have been thought out, a conscious decision. She had taken
the flowers, and walked away from him to the kitchen. She was easily old enough and
experienced enough to know he would be watching her, his eyes naturally taking in
the shine of her golden hair, the graceful white shoulders, the narrow waist, the
rounded hips and bottom. She had walked very appealingly, swaying a little from side
to side. Could that have been anything but intentional? Women, alone among all creatures,
practiced their walks. And then, when she had leaned herself against the counter her
ass had been pushed outward, her lower back and midriff bared by the stretch to reach
up into the cupboard. The pose had shown him parts of her ivory skin that most people
never saw. Could any of that not have been choreographed? She had been trying to entice
him.

He considered the possibilities. Maybe she was simply one of those women who wanted
all men to see how beautiful she was, and found it pleasant to know they were feeling
the pain and sadness of not being able to touch her. But Chelsea wasn’t flirting with
all men. She wasn’t even going out anywhere to be where men could see her. She wasn’t
going to work or visiting or shopping. She was only displaying herself to Dan Crane.
So why was she doing that? She pointed out today that Nick had only been dead a few
weeks, and that explained why she didn’t want to go out with another man. Maybe she
didn’t want people—other women, really—to be critical of her for getting over Nick
too quickly. Or maybe she really didn’t feel any interest in other men yet. That couldn’t
be right, though. If she felt that way, she wouldn’t be flirting with him. She seemed
to draw him in, then push him away. She had used the flowers as an excuse to say nice
things about him and kiss him, and then shut him down when he had asked her to have
a simple lunch in a public place.

Another idea began to form in his mind. What had she shown that she liked? She had
liked Nick Bauermeister. Who was he? He was a big, muscular, dumb guy who had the
manners of an ape and treated her as though he owned her and she wasn’t especially
valuable. In the few times when he had seen them together, Nick had paid no attention
to her for long periods, talking mostly to the other guys. On one night he remembered
her reminding Nick that she had to work the next morning, and asking if he could please
take her home so she could get some sleep. He had laughed, told her to go get him
another beer, and slapped her on the ass when she had left to get it. Crane had heard
somewhere that women loved men who had confidence and took charge. They pretended
that men who were concerned about their preferences, and sensitive, and asked permission
for everything, were the only ones who were behaving acceptably. But they never fell
in love with them. They practically stood in line to throw themselves at men like
Nick.

Crane drove to his storage facility, stopped at the gate, pressed the button and took
a ticket, then pulled the Range Rover forward as the barrier rose to admit him. He
parked between the two electric golf carts plugged in and charging beside the office,
and stepped to the door. The office was the only two-story building on the property.
The bottom level held special storage bays like closets, where customers stored things
they were especially worried about. Two men occupied the office twenty-four hours
a day, so there was an added layer of protection. He opened the door and climbed the
staircase. One of the things he liked about the storage business was that it didn’t
require many people. He had only a dozen men working for him. All of them worked on
his break-in crews, and also worked shifts here, renting out storage bays and watching
the place. He didn’t have a secretary or bookkeeper, salespeople, or any other office
workers. He handled his own books, and let his ads and website do his selling. Whoever
was on duty answered the phone.

He reached the second floor, where the office was. He could see Harriman was the one
sitting at the desk watching the long, narrow storage buildings through the office
windows. There were also eight television screens showing what the security cameras
aimed up and down the drives between the storage buildings could see, but those were
most useful for looking closely at things too far from the windows. Harriman had heard
Crane climbing the stairs, and now he glanced over his shoulder to see him. “Hey,
Dan.”

“Hi. Anything up?”

“My friend Carl is in the Erie County lockup for ninety days. He had his girlfriend
in court to say he beat her again.”

“Carl. Which one is he?”

“Carl Ralston. The biker. You remember the big guy, a little overweight, with the
tattoos up both arms?”

“Uh, yeah,” said Crane. “Will he actually do it?”

Harriman said, “I’m thinking Carl Ralston is the most likely to succeed. He’s been
in jail a few times, and he knows the routines. Like when the guards are likely to
toss a guy’s cell to look for stuff, and where the blind spots of the cameras are.”

Crane shrugged. “It doesn’t add up to much unless he’s willing to actually kill the
guy who shot Nick.”

“If he gets a decent chance at him, he’ll do it. He’s not going to shank him in front
of a guard, but he’s killed people before. He’s one of the few guys around who will
get a benefit for doing it. The bikers he hangs out with will respect him for it.
Respect matters to bikers.”

“I suppose it would,” said Crane. “And you told him what it pays?”

“I told him twenty-five thousand.” Harriman suddenly looked worried. “That was right,
wasn’t it? I really don’t want to wait until he’s done it and then tell him different.”

“No, no. Don’t worry. Twenty-five is right. And even if it wasn’t, I’d cover for you
just so you wouldn’t need to get word to him now while he’s inside. Any communication
between you and him could bring attention to us. You did your job. Now let him do
his.”

“I will,” said Harriman.

“Good. Are the guys back from Orchard Park yet?”

“They got back a while ago. They went out again to repaint the sides of the truck
so it won’t say Sears on it.”

“All of them went?” asked Crane.

“No. Steel and Slawicky stayed back to do the inventory and put the stuff in storage.”

“Maybe I’ll go down and take a look.” Crane took off his sport coat and hung it on
a wooden hanger, then put it in the closet, rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt,
and walked to the stairs. He descended to the first floor and walked past the small-size
units in the hallway. They looked like narrow closet doors, but they were deep enough
to hold most things that were really valuable, and they had built-in four-button locks
that made customers feel safe leaving things they might not want to entrust to a garage
door with a padlock on it.

He went out the door and walked down the long roadway between two storage buildings,
past bay after bay. He could see J-17 from a few hundred feet away. The roll-down
door was open a couple of feet from the bottom so there was air inside, but no passerby
could see anything that was going on in there. He approved of that precaution. In
the summer those bays could get pretty hot, and with this humidity, they could be
awfully uncomfortable.

When he reached the bay, he pulled up the door and watched the two men spin toward
him. Steel was taller than Crane, thin and dark with close-set dark eyes, and Slawicky
was wider and older, with thick, muscular arms. He had blond hair and a small, round
nose. Crane said, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.” He had, actually. If they
were hiding something from him, he wanted to know.

“No problem,” said Steel, but he looked a little sheepish because he had jumped.

“Right,” said Slawicky. “Harriman would have called us if he’d seen a customer or
a cop heading down here.”

Crane wondered. Had Harriman called them to let them know that the boss was on his
way out to the bay? Possibly. If he had a chance he would check Harriman’s phone for
recently called numbers. He stepped closer. “What did we get?” He realized he had
said it in a way they would resent. “I really mean what did
you
get? I was driving around wasting my morning while you guys did all the work.”

Slawicky waved toward a coffee table a few feet away, where small objects were piled
in neat rows. “The best stuff is on the table.”

Crane picked up a stack of money with a thick rubber band around it. He read the slip
of paper under the band. “Three thousand four hundred and sixty. Not too bad. It pays
for expenses, anyway.” He set the money on the table and turned his attention to a
jewelry box that was made to look like a hardcover book. He opened it and lifted a
thick chain necklace, bounced it up and down on his palm to feel the weight, then
looked at it more closely. “Feels like gold.”

“We haven’t tested it yet.”

“I’ll bet I’m right.” He picked up a tennis bracelet studded with small diamonds.
“This is all pretty good stuff. Assuming the diamonds are real, this would be about
five grand new.”

“That’s about what I figured,” said Steel. “There are a couple of pairs of diamond
earrings too, and an emerald ring.”

“What else have you got?”

Slawicky said, “The furniture is all good—all new and high-end. We also got a couple
of Apple laptops, both over there.”

Crane said, “That could be really good. Salamone’s got people who might be able to
hack their way in and see if anything on their hard drives leads anywhere. They might
be able to do some online banking or something.”

“That pillowcase over there is full of financial stuff we found in the little home
office they had. We took it without looking too closely, but there’s a tax return,
and that will have social security numbers and all that. We also brought the paintings
and sculptures because they looked real.”

“Salamone’s people will have to decide about that stuff. They don’t usually want anything
that’s one of a kind, but maybe they can sell it in another country or something.
Good job, you guys. And you didn’t have any trouble?”

“No,” said Slawicky. “It was the usual thing. We backed the truck into the driveway
all the way to the house, opened the cargo bay, and brought big cardboard boxes down
the ramp and into the house on a dolly, like we were delivering a refrigerator, stove,
washer and dryer. Everybody worked fast, wore gloves and hats, and cleared the place.
If anybody saw anything, they don’t know what they saw.”

“Great,” said Crane. “I’ll leave you guys alone, and go do some work in the office.”

The others didn’t offer any more information, and as he walked back to the office
neither of them ran after Crane to tell him anything he needed to hear privately.
He would see each of them alone over the next day or two.

Crane climbed back up to the second floor and into the office, and went to sit at
his desk. He was still thinking about Chelsea. She was always in the back of his mind
the way there were always a few programs running on a computer behind what he saw
on the screen. He had thought of a few theories about her, but he had made no progress
figuring out what she wanted. The one idea he’d had that seemed promising was to remember
everything he could about her relationship with Nick Bauermeister. Thinking about
her with Nick wasn’t pleasant for him, but whatever Nick had done, she must have liked
it.

“Car coming in,” said Harriman. He was looking out the front window toward the street.

Crane raised his eyes to the color security monitor for the camera at the gate and
saw the dark gray Mercedes stopped at the front gate. The driver reached out his window
and took a ticket from the machine, the barrier went up, and the car glided into the
lot. Crane knew the car, which had always seemed a little eerie to him. The color
was exactly the dark gray color of the road, so it was practically invisible except
for the chrome parts. Crane saw that the driver’s arm still hung out the open window,
and the hand released the ticket to flutter to the pavement. The car pulled up to
the building and parked directly behind Crane’s Range Rover, blocking him in.

Crane said, “You can go down and help Steel and Slawicky for a bit.”

Harriman got up and went down the stairs. Crane could hear him open the side door,
and he looked up at the monitor to watch him start walking along the drive between
two long rows of storage bays.