The Thrill of the Chase (Mystery & Adventure) (7 page)

Mendoza had shoveled the drive extensively since the snowstorm the night previous, which gave me a good look at the driveway. There were skid marks visible where the pavement showed through the snow, tire imprints in the ice, and more oil stains on the drive surface as well, all of which told me that a vehicle had sat there up until recently. There were also a few broken fragments of glass glittering in the slush, and more were in the snow bank that Mendoza had created to clear space for his car.

Although he's got no car to park here as of right now. So it was outside when it got stolen, then.

I swiped my coat sleeve across my nose; the cold was causing it to run. At least I knew the guy was telling the truth. I looked around a bit more, looking for anything that would give me a hint to the identity of the robbers. A bit of fabric, a crowbar or whatever it was that had smashed in the window, anything of that sort. But there wasn't anything of interest. If the police had found something, Slyder would certainly have told me earlier when we'd spoken on the phone. So either the thieves had been very careful – as they had at the Mileses' – or I just wasn't looking hard enough.

That or Mendoza's lying.

But why would he lie when it was
his
car that had been stolen? That wouldn't make any sense, and despite his bravado he seemed like a nice guy. Sometimes it paid to be suspicious of everyone, but it went beyond a shadow of a doubt that Mendoza hadn't burglarized his own car from his own property or smashed the window himself.

What would that gain him?

I walked back into the garage, hands thrust deeply into my pockets, thinking.

"Find anything, Stikup?" Mendoza asked gruffly when he met me at the door into the house.

"Nope." I didn't have any details to offer. "It's all clean, sooo…" I left the sentence hanging.

Something flickered in his eyes. Relief? Worry? Pity? I wasn't sure. I'm not a mind reader. If I wanted to read minds, I would be a psychic.

But I'm not. I'm a detective.

"Thanks for your help, Mr. Mendoza," I said with a sigh.

"Glad to be of service." He extended his hand, and I shook it. He had an iron grip, which I felt distinctly through cold–induced numbness.

Hiding a wince, I smiled politely and headed back out to my car.

Chapter Four

Wednesday, December 1st

So I had gotten no farther whatsoever. Without any distinct possibilities upon which to orient myself, I was being led down the rabbit hole, with a million different tunnels leading off in a billion more directions.

I couldn't honestly claim to have felt like this before, since most of the jobs I'd taken in the past hadn't been this involved. Or, for that matter, this hopeless. The beginning must be the toughest, I assumed, considering you had so many options and so few suspects. It wasn't like those old cop movies where everything just sort of worked out and your sidekick picked up on every ridiculously subtle detail.

I caught myself wondering what Scarlotti would have done had he been in my situation, but immediately shut down that train of thought. He had gone and gotten himself shot in the arm, and I hadn't. The question was not to ask what Benson would have done, but what
I
should do.

You're a good PI,
I told myself.
If you're going to be a good detective, you're gonna have to take initiative. Think for yourself, be confident, be smart.

Like most things, it was easier said than done, and I went to bed late on the last night of November with more on my mind than I cared to think about at once.

The second morning of the case, December the first, dawned sunny and freezing. I somehow slept through my alarm, and instead of getting up promptly at five as I had for the last twenty years of my life, woke to the telephone instead at 7:14.

At first I thought I was still dreaming, but the noise persisted, so I threw myself out of bed and trudged out to the hallway. I didn't have an answering machine, so the phone rang about three times more before I managed to pick it up.

"H'lo?" I croaked into the receiver, rubbing sleep from my eyes.

"Mr. Stikup?" It was Jill. "Sorry to bother you, but… um, where are you?"

I considered panicking as I realized I was an hour and fourteen minutes late for work, but ended up yawning instead. It wasn't worth the bother, and I was still too sleepy to be flustered. "Sorry," I said to Jill. "I slept through my alarm. Anything exciting happen while I was gone?"

She laughed like I'd said something funny. Which was rare. "Not unless you consider paperwork weekend entertainment. I was just wondering what had happened to you."

I managed a preoccupied grin. My mind was still concerned with whether the sheets were still warm. "Sorry 'bout that. I always sleep late when I have a case. You know that."

"Riiiight," she said indulgently, and I'm fairly certain she was rolling her eyes too. "Well, you'd better get over here soon. You've got a phone call to return and I haven't made a cup of coffee in over twelve hours, so I'm a nervous wreck."

I made a face.
So much for going back to bed.

I showered in a flash, dressed haphazardly, and slid across a new dusting of snow to my car. The cold kept it from starting on the first or second try, but the third time the engine roared to life violently.

"Three's the charm." I yawned compulsively as I shivered, waiting for the motor to warm up, then pulled slowly away from the curb. Not only did I have to see about that phone call, but I also needed to think. I had always assumed that the first stages of a police investigation didn't require a whole lot of thinking – just a lot of wandering around until one finds a lead. But I didn't know where to wander.

So I'll wonder where to wander.

I told myself to shut up and stepped on the gas.

Jill helped me take my coat off when I entered the office at 7:46. "I got lonely without you," she said in a miserable tone, absently brushing snow from my shoulder. "It gets empty in here."

I chuckled. And yawned. "Glad to know somebody misses me sometimes."

Jill flashed her beautiful set of white teeth at me, then headed for her office. "Coffee'll be ready in a jiffy."

"Thanks," I said in passing as I headed down the hall to my HQ.

I hit the lightswitch without thinking, and cursed when nothing happened. The stupid bulb was still out – not that it would magically repair itself – so I lit a fire and sat behind my desk, wondering where to start my day. Jill had laid the Wednesday paper on my desk along with an index card, upon which she had neatly written the caller's name. The paper, I moved aside; the note card, I picked up and studied with bleary eyes.

Call back Captain Slyder.

The Boss. The Big Cheese. El Numero Uno. God.

Jill had only written his name, of course; I'd embellished with the titles. Scooping up the old phone, I dug in the layers of papers in my desk drawers for my phone book. Once I'd found it, I looked up the SPD station's number and punched it into the phone. I asked the receptionist to connect me to Slyder's desk, and she put me through right away when I identified myself as the PI on the Miles case.

He answered after the third ring. "This is Slyder."

"Hey, Chief," I said gleefully. "It's your favorite comedian."

Captain Kevin Slyder was not a man who amused easily, but it amused
me
that he could tell who was calling by that greeting. "I was expecting your call last night, Stikup," he growled, but didn't sound pissed, which was something in and of itself. "What did you find?"

"Not much, I'm afraid." I cleared my throat and consulted my notebook with the scribbled calendars. "Vehicle was stolen the twenty–eighth, Sunday, it happened around 9:00 in the evening, and he hasn't seen hide or tail of any strange activity since then. Three crooks; they smashed the driver's window and hotwired the car. He discharged a 12–gauge at them in self–defense, missed, called you guys yesterday."

I dropped the notebook onto the desk and leaned back in my chair. "'Fraid that's a dead end."

"So nothing new. Figures." Slyder didn't sound surprised, and – as a result – no angrier than usual. "Well, I'm giving full responsibility for that investigation over to you too. So you'll have full access to SPD information related to those two cases. I assume you can handle the responsibility."

"Do I get paid for it?" I asked, trying to be funny.

Jill had come in to drop off the coffee. She rolled her eyes at my comment as she retreated from the room, forcing me to choke back laughter.

"Of course," Slyder replied to my ignorant question, missing the humor or choosing to ignore it. "In the meantime, maybe you could snoop around Miles' place some more?" He made the suggestion into an order. "I don't think he'd mind. I'll have the reports faxed over to you along with the stuff on Mendoza."

I tucked the phone between my ear and shoulder and lifted the steaming mug to my lips. "I should hope he doesn't mind," I said after a good sip. "I
am
the one who's trying to find the bad–guys who stole his money."

"Right." Slyder suddenly sounded like he was in a hurry to get off the phone with me. Maybe he was more annoyed than he was letting on. "Get your ass over there and report back when you're finished."

Had we been speaking in person, I would have given him a salute. "Right away, Chief."

*  *  *

264 seemed almost derelict when I arrived an hour later, possibly due to the visibly damaged front door, but the miserable air surrounding the house didn't exactly render it hospitable either. There was a squad car posted several hundred yards down the street, to keep tabs on things, although I suppose it was more for the Mileses' sense of security than actually keeping an eye out for the burglars – should they return.

They always say goons never return to the scene of a crime. Or shouldn't.

It was 8:54 when I stepped out of my car and crossed the slush–strewn street to the Miles property. The sun was out for the time being, but failed to bestow any warmth upon the day.

A weary looking Sandy Miles answered my knock and let me in. I judged by her waxen complexion that she hadn't slept much of the night, but exhaustion did not bleed the anxiety from her eyes. She still seemed fully alert and fully frightened. After closing the door with difficulty, she took my coat and promptly disappeared. Whether she wanted to let me do my work or search through my pockets for gum, I wasn't sure.

For several minutes before climbing out of the Anglia, I'd sat with the Miles folder open on the steering wheel before me, studying the detailed police reports and Miles' written statement – both of which Slyder had faxed over from the station. Jill had brought them into my office only a few minutes before I'd left for the crime scene. I'd stuffed my own sheet of jotted observations into the hodgepodge of documents and photographs, contributing little information that the police hadn't already gathered.

As I sat, I tried to put myself in the shoes of Rick Miles, thinking about the theft from his point of view, and then I had attempted the thieves' mindsets. I could only assume that they'd just been interested in getting loot, but usually a B&E is based on the amount of valuables they think they can make off with.

And Miles' house doesn't look anything but middle class. It's nice, I guess, but I would never have guessed it to contain anything remotely valuable.

So had the crooks just guessed wrong? Randomly chosen a house to burglarize and ended up with 264? It was unlikely, but not impossible. However, it was only natural to assume that they'd run surveillance for a couple days prior to the break–in, and doing so would mean that they would have had to have prior knowledge of Miles' place…

Or a personal vendetta.

Maybe I was giving them too much credit.

I clapped my hands once and looked around the living room, deciding not to waste any more time. There was no sense in deliberating over things I couldn't decide definitely one way or another. It would just give me a headache and I would have to revise my theories when more evidence came through anyway.

So let's get to work. Shall we, hero?

I had investigated the living room on the day of the robbery, but it hadn't been a very thorough search. So I started there, going over every surface twice, checking the safe again for good measure, and dusting everything for fingerprints.

And what did I come up with? Absolutely nothing. The crooks had been clean. That or Sandy Miles had cleaned, but I was sure she had more common sense than to do that.

Now what?
I thought.
The back way?

On my way to the kitchen, I checked the short little hallway, since that was the route the thugs had taken to escape. I wasn't sure exactly what I was looking for there – any type of torn fabric or personal items that the thugs might have accidentally dropped. But there was nothing, and although I wasn't surprised, I couldn't say I also wasn't disappointed. Sleuthing for SPD was turning out to be somewhat of a killjoy, because I was working in the CSI's wake. I guess you can't always get what you want.