The Thrill of the Chase (Mystery & Adventure) (39 page)

And then I was home – like it had all been nothing more than an uncommonly realistic dream or movie and brutal reality had suddenly kicked in. I woke and found myself lying in the bed, staring bleakly at the wall, still half–asleep – nearly comatose. It was late afternoon according to the clock on the nightstand (3:13 to be exact) and if I wasn't mistaken, I'd slept through all of the 8th. It was positively blinding in the bedroom as midday sunlight reflected off the white walls and ceiling, filling every inch of the room.

Nothing about the décor was any different than it had been the night previous. The bulletin board was naked, save for the eye–pierced photo of Robert Mendoza and the one of Rick and Sandy Miles. The other photos and papers were still stacked haphazardly on my desk. The bathrobe I'd shucked in haste still huddled like some boneless animal on the carpet.

My knee ached.

Wincing, I rolled over and sat up slowly. I wasn't sure quite why – it would have been the easiest thing in the world to just close my eyes and go back to sleep. In fact, my mind was
begging
my body to lie back down and sleep the rest of the day away. But instead, I got to my feet and stumbled drunkenly to the kitchen.

I stood in the doorway for a long moment, wondering why I was there, then dropped into the only chair at the tiny table, perhaps planning to make breakfast. Or lunch. Whichever one was closer to dinner, but not quite the noonday meal.

No thoughts presented themselves as I made and consumed a bologna sandwich. My mind was asleep, blank, serene – as though my ADD had left without a forwarding address. It was a welcome change but it felt alien, and without any distractions I noticed more acutely the dry taste of the staling rye.

I remained conscious for only about three hours on Thursday the ninth – from three to about six – and then I went back to bed, not waking until ten the next morning. Friday the tenth progressed much as that disorienting Thursday had, although I didn't sleep for nearly quite as long. To the contrary, I fed myself breakfast at a more regular time, read the day's paper, and showered sometime around one–thirty. I was just stepping out of the tub, dripping and naked, when the phone in the hallway rang.

Swearing, I quickly tied the towel around my waist and stepped out of the warm bathroom. The cold air in the hallway instantly puckered my skin into gooseflesh and I shivered as I padded down the carpet. When I answered the call, it was Kevin Slyder and he wanted me down at the station ASAP. He didn't specify as to what it was he wanted, but that was fine with me.

I love mysteries.

After dressing, I drove downtown to the police station and arrived there three minutes past two. The day was somewhat warmer than the previous few had been, but still remained chilly. I found a spot between a squad car and a snow mound in the tiny parking lot outside the station and headed quickly inside, eager to get out of the fine sleet that was falling and also curious to know what it was that Slyder wanted.

Obviously not a laugh,
I thought wryly.

The receptionist at the entrance desk directed me down a narrow hall to the Chief's office, and I headed in that direction with somewhat of a spring in my step. The plaster walls were decorated with certificates, black and white framed portraits, and several oil paintings – a lot of history that I passed by without pausing to notice.

Kevin Slyder's office was tiny in my opinion, although I was probably just used to the spacious room that I called my OC and the expansive desk for which I'd done nothing to earn. Still, had I been Kevin's superior, I would have given the man a room with proportions greater than those of a closet. Granted, Swedesboro was an old town with a tiny police force, but Kevin was the
Chief
, for Christ's sake.

He had his back to me when I came to stand in his doorway. Oblivious to my presence, he was bent over a file cabinet behind his desk, thumbing through folders labeled with a complex series of colors and letters.

I rapped my knuckles on the metal doorframe to announce my entry, then quickly flopped down in the cushioned chair facing him and put my feet up on his desk. "You rang?" I asked jovially as he turned and spotted me.

"
Off
," he growled, pointing at my dirty boots and then sharply at the floor. When I had complied, he extended his hand to me over the desk as though nothing out of the ordinary had just happened. "We didn't get to really talk about everything, and you haven't given me a statement yet, so that's why you're here."

I shook his hand firmly, appreciating his bluntness as usual. "Aren't you going to offer me tea?"

He glared at me in anger that was both feigned and real. "
Also
, I didn't get a chance to properly congratulate you on the good work. I'm still shocked how quickly you figured everything out – I don't quite understand what tipped you off."

"Alright, the long version, then." I indicated the swivel chair behind him. "You might want to sit down – this could take a while."

Slyder looked distinctly miffed about being told to take a seat in his own office, but he dropped heavily into the chair without saying anything. He was too eager to hear the story.

Suddenly I felt like LeVar on the Reading Rainbow and found myself thinking:
Kids, this is a story called
What Not to Do When You're a Detective
, written, illustrated, and ignored by Chance Stikup.

I swallowed the comment before I could say it out loud. "Alrighty," I said instead, beginning with a sigh. "Well, first of all, let me assure you that I have no clue whatsoever
how
I figured everything out. Mental power, I guess. Divine intervention. Don't ask me. Anyway, I went back to my house after Donnie's and started going over everything. I organized all the stuff you gave me so I could better muse over it all, you know? However, once I got the Feng Shui right, I got too frustrated and went to bed."

I chuckled. "And here's the embarrassing part. I, uh, had a
nightmare
, and when I woke up I was… so disoriented that when I tried to get out of bed, I slipped and fell and knocked all the paper evidence that we had everywhere. So, once I'd collected myself, I set about gathering it all back up again. As fate would have it, the last two papers I picked up were the note we found at Thawyer's and a note that Robert Mendoza had given me himself with his phone number on it, and he'd written "good luck" beneath it. And as I was looking at them, I realized that the handwriting was identical."

Slyder actually leaned forward in his seat as I said this and rested his elbows on the desk, genuinely intrigued and not a little amused.

I plowed on before he could say anything. "So, from there, when I realized that Mendoza had obviously written both notes – which would obviously indicate that he was behind everything – I started trying to piece together a motive. You know, something more than just circumstantial speculation. Sooo, as I was thinking about everything, I realized that – uh, do you remember that wall in the Miles household with all those pictures on it, right in the entrance hall? Well, I remembered seeing a picture of Robbie on their wall. Yeah, I know – crazy, right?"

He nodded, drone–like.

I cleared my throat. "Anyway, um, what with
him
robbing Miles, I tried to think of a credible reason why Mendoza would rob someone he was obviously friends with or related to – especially if he knew that Miles was suffering financially. Well, from there, things just sort of…
developed
. I started considering the possibility that it hadn't been a
real
robbery – which it kind of
was
, although the thieves themselves didn't know it…"

He looked confused, but I had planned on explaining anyway.

"Mendoza told me that he and Miles had hired the thieves to do a job, told them what it was, but not anything else. Seems that they wanted to tap into Miles' insurance to get some quick money since they both were having a hard time. Their plan was to have the thieves do the job and then either Mendoza or Miles would plant the license plate from Mendoza's car so that we would hunt the thieves down, arrest them for the theft of the vehicle – even though they didn't actually steal it. And then we would find and return Miles' money. Once all the hubbub had settled down, he and Mendoza would gradually begin quietly paying back the loan they'd gotten from homeowner's."

I grinned. "So, the thieves actually ended up being on the butt end of a bad joke: they were completely in the dark the whole time. But then they accidentally dropped the plate before Mendoza could plant it, which actually was to the thieves' advantage since it caught Mendoza and Miles unprepared. It was fortunate for us too: if that hadn't happened, we wouldn't have had all the questions and variables that clued us in to the fact that the whole thing was bigger than a simple robbery."

For a moment, I was silent, watching his shocked expression and wondering just how badly this was blowing his mind. "According to Mendoza, it was supposed to be an 'everybody wins' situation – they would get their money from homeowner's, the thieves got their pay up front, and SPD would, in turn, get the thieves. Now, granted, I didn't figure that
all
out by myself, you know – just the basics. Mendoza and I had actually kinda been…
buddies
before two nights ago, I guess. After I shot him, we talked things over and he confessed everything. That was only about fifteen minutes before you arrived."

I slapped my thighs. "So, end of story. D'ya think I'll get a Pulitzer if I publish it?"

He slumped back in his chair weakly. "Was there any way we could have figured it out if they hadn't knocked the plate off the car?"

"I doubt it." I shrugged. "We would have eventually hunted down the thieves, they probably wouldn't have said anything about a 'boss', and even if they did, there would have been no evidence, no nothing to connect anyone to anything, and the courts would have dismissed the case. But since the thieves dropped that license plate early, and since we caught Greg Sheldon and heard his story, we got a leg–up. Quite honestly, if I had thrown away that paper with Mendoza's phone number on it, we wouldn't have pulled the bust the other night, my secretary would possibly be dead, and we would probably be chasing Mendoza for the next couple of months, unless he was stupid enough to get caught sooner."

Slyder posted his chin on his fist. "Any idea
why
did he kidnapped Ms. Fereday, anyway?"

There were details pertaining to that factor that he didn't need to know, so I glossed over them. "I called Miles on the phone to give him an update that same evening, right after we found the note at Thawyer's place but before CSI checked it for prints. He got scared hearing we were so close, so he called his cousin, who, in turn, took it upon himself to do something about me."

I waved a hand vaguely in the air. "I guess Robbie thought he could blackmail me – using Jill as leverage. He probably was planning on calling me to tell me that he had her, and demand I forget everything I knew about the case. But at the same time he was kidnapping her, I was working things out in my head, so I was able to get there before he got a chance to even make the call."

"She's pretty, your secretary," Slyder said suddenly, catching me off–guard. "She single?"

"Hands off," I growled, only partly joking, and then changed the subject. "So, is that all you wanted me for? Can I go now?"

He raised his empty hands as though in worship and then let them fall back to the arms of his swivel chair. "Stikup, I can't stress enough how impressed I am with you. You have a cool head, a good rational mind, and you act quickly without second–guessing yourself. I must admit that – in the beginning – I wasn't so sure you were up to the job, but you really pulled your weight around." His black eyes were twinkling as he leaned forward, folding his hands on the desktop. "Would you like a job?"

I held up a hand in protest. "No thanks – just finished one."

"No, seriously." He glanced out the doorway through which I had entered, perhaps checking for eavesdroppers, and then lowered his voice conspiratorially. "Scarlotti's talking about retiring early. He's been doing this for twenty–five years, after all, and the bullet did more damage than the doctors initially thought. So what do you say? If he quits, do you want in?"

My heart was suddenly ticking faster. The offer had its pros and cons, and it both intrigued and excited me. On one hand, it would indeed be the break I had been looking for. Better pay, publicity, and responsibility, not to mention greater involvement in the majority of police activity in Gloucester County and the chance to work with a great CSI team and learn alongside them.

It was a dream job –
my
dream job. It was what I had lusted after for so long.

On the other hand, it would be a gigantic step backwards in terms of the direction I had been trying to take my life. The whole reason I'd set up the agency on the corner of Union and Crescent had been to get away from standard police work and yet still do what I loved. This would be the biggest, quickest promotion I would ever be offered and/or receive, but it would completely defeat the purpose of the last two years of my life.

If I accepted. It was tantalizing, frustratingly so.

I licked my lips. "How long do I have to decide?"

The look in his eyes told me Slyder was satisfied to see me tempted. "Well, like I said, it's not definite yet, but it's certainly looking that way. I'd say a week or two, no longer than that."