[To Die For 01] - A View to Die For (2012) (27 page)

“That old cat has really taken to you, Jake.” Sam said while sliding a bottle of Coors across the counter.

Tonto pushed his head up against my hand. I took the hint and started rubbing his ears. “Just like my dog. They love it when someone scratches their ears,” I answered while reaching for the beer with my free hand. “By the way, what was it you wanted to tell me earlier?”

Sam took a moment to check out the other customers before answering, and then he hit himself upside the head. “Damn. I almost forgot again. I must be getting sometimers. I have something for Megan. It’s back in the office. Hold on, I won’t be a minute.”

I pretended to laugh then took a long sip of my beer. I needed to change position on the bar stool. Tonto had fallen asleep in my lap, and I didn’t want to disturb him. I quietly turned the stool away from the bar toward the diners. I was checking out the new waitress when Sam returned. I swung around a little too quickly and woke Tonto.

The cat jumped off my lap, slowly walked over to the end of the bar where he had a small pet bed, laid down, and went back to sleep. “Damn cat thinks he owns the place,” Sam said. He handed me a folded piece of paper. He then looked over at Tonto, who was rubbing his back against the end of the bar. “You don’t need another pet, do you?”

“I wouldn’t mind, but my sister and my dog might have a few objections. Megan’s allergic to cats, and I’m not sure how Fred would react. I don’t think he would appreciate me bringing home a cat,” I answered while I unfolded the paper. “What’s this, Sam?”

Sam smiled before answering. “I put together a list of investors who can help Megan. I think I told you that, before the bust, I used to be a mortgage broker. These are a few people I know who won’t try to low-ball her. They’ll give her a decent price.”

I looked up from the note, but before I could say anything, several construction workers came in the front door and headed toward the bar. Sam was already on his way to wait on them. I refolded the note, finished my beer, and got up to leave. I fished out a five dollar bill from my wallet and placed it by my empty bottle. I put Sam’s list in my wallet and headed for the door, just as the construction crew took seats at the bar. One of them nudged Tonto with his boot. The cat hissed at him then turned and slowly walked toward the back room.

* * *

The sun was at my back the next morning as I drove past the Pig’s Roast, heading toward town. I had left the house right after letting Fred out and before anyone woke up. I figured that, by the time I finished breakfast at the Rusted Kettle, the local hardware store would be open. I had promised Hal I would fix his roof, if I could, so I needed to get some plastic roofing cement and a roofer’s trowel. If the job required anything more, I would tell him to find someone local who could put a new roof over his sunroom.

Passing the Pig’s Roast reminded me of Sam’s list. Megan was not a happy camper when I had given her the list of investors. I realized now that I should have waited. She had already put away a full bottle of her favorite Chardonnay. On the other hand, the house would be back in foreclosure if she continued to spend the money I lent her on everything except the mortgage, so I convinced myself that I did the right thing.

The Rusted Kettle was packed when I entered. All three of the non-smoking tables at the rear were taken, as were all the front tables. I was about to turn and leave when a woman at one of the front tables started waving at me. “Jake, come sit with us,” she said. I recognized the couple who had given me a ride after my run-in with Bennet.

“Hello, Sharon,” I said when I went over to her. “And how are you doing, Harley?” I asked her husband. He turned to greet me, but stayed seated.

Harley put down his cigarette and offered me a shaking hand. “Haven’t seen you since the funeral. Your mom tells us you’ve been working like a dog getting her house back in shape. That’s a real crime what they done to it.”

“Christ sake, Harley. At least let him sit down before you start talking him to death,” Sharon cut in. She moved her plate next to her husband and went around the table to sit by him. “Take my chair, Jake, so you don’t get your ear talked off sitting next to the old coot.”

The cloud of smoke above the table made me want to beg off. But I sat down across from the couple anyway. “Thanks Sharon. I didn’t expect the place to be so crowded this early.”

“Gotta make hay while the sun shines, Boy,” Harley cut in. “We ain’t like those sissies in the city who can’t get going ‘till they’ve had their so called brunch. What gets you going so early?”

“Harley!” Sharon said. “That wasn’t very nice.”

Harley gave his wife a blank look, “What? What did I say?”

“It’s okay, Sharon,” I said. “No offense taken.” Then I looked over at Harley who looked like he still didn’t understand the insult. “I need to finish up a few odd jobs before I leave for home. Thought I’d get some roofing cement then stop at my mom’s house to get my dad’s ladder. First on my list is a little roof repair.”

“Did that bastard ruin your mother’s roof, too?” Harley asked.

“Harley! Must you swear all the time?” Sharon asked.

“Sorry, Mother. I guess calling Nixon a bastard ain’t strong enough. How about I call him a son-of-a-bitch instead?”

I dropped the menu I had picked up from the middle of the table. It was one of those plastic-coated single-page menus. “Nixon? How did you know Nixon trashed my mother’s house?”

Harley must have known he now had my attention. He leaned forward, holding his cigarette inches from my face. “Hell, Son. Why else would he disappear the way he done?”

I instinctively leaned back in my chair, retrieving the menu to wave the smoke from my face. “He left town? Do you know when?”

Harley made a show of snuffing out his cigarette in the ashtray on the table then narrowed his eyes. He paused just long enough to create some suspense. “I think the SOB knew Bennet was on to him and left right after robbing your mother. The rumor is that Bennet tracked down the missing copper from the museum. The bastard took all the flashing and gutters from what was left of the roof and sold it for scrap. Back then, they made buildings to last. Not like that cheap plastic and tin they use for gutters now-a-days.” Harley reached for his cigarette pack in his shirt before continuing. “I hear they have to notify the cops, just like the pawn shops now, when anyone brings in a suspicious load. They say he got a couple thousand for it. Bennet was on him like a hound on a coon. Must have missed him by only a day or so.”

I felt like asking Harley when pawn shops started buying copper, but I knew what he meant and didn’t try to correct him. I didn’t know what to say, and luckily, I didn’t have to. The waitress must have thought I was flagging her down by waving the smoke away from my face with the menu. “What can I get you, Honey?” she asked when she came to the table with a pot of coffee in one hand and a cup in the other.

“Just coffee, please,” I answered. “I need to get going and make some hay while the sun is still shining.”

* * *

Mother had spent the night at Megan’s, so when I stopped off to get my father’s ladder, I didn’t worry about waking her. She was also another reason I had left Megan’s so early. I didn’t want to rehash the conversation from the night before. She didn’t want us to turn in the cell phone or floppy disk. She was afraid that any investigation might uncover her deed of staging Mike’s accident.

My father’s ladder was nearly covered by weeds. They had entwined themselves between the rungs of the ladder, making it extremely difficult to pick up off the ground. It looked like I needed to add cutting the grass and weeds around my mother’s house to my list of chores. On a hunch, I decided to check his garden hose as well. I felt a sense of relief when I found it still connected to the faucet on the back of the house. It didn’t come close to matching the hose Mike used to commit suicide.

The drive back to Hal’s house didn’t take long. This time I passed the Pig’s Roast without hesitation; my thoughts were still on what to do with Nixon’s cell phone. Bennet had already discovered Nixon was selling scrap copper, so I didn’t need to worry about the floppy any longer. It would serve no purpose telling him something he already knew. But I couldn’t ignore the cell phone. It clearly implicated Nixon in murder, and I could be in real trouble if I sat on that information.

The porch light was still on when I parked in Hal’s driveway. It made me laugh to myself. To spend all that money on a fancy security system and then leave the porch light burning was like putting an ad in the paper that no one was home.

After untying the ladder and lifting it out of Taylor’s truck, I went around the side of the garage with it balanced on my shoulder. It was a heavy, twenty-foot, aluminum extension-ladder. In my quest to keep it balanced on my shoulder, I didn’t notice the short hose sticking out from a faucet on the side of the house. I tripped and fell flat on my face. When I got up to brush myself off, I saw a security camera tucked under the roof’s eave. I saluted the camera with my middle finger and mouthed a few choice words for it to see. When I bent back down to pick up the ladder, I saw the hose that had tripped me. There was no doubt it was the missing part of Mike’s hose.

I left the ladder and went back to the truck. I had to think where I wasn’t being watched. “Why would Mike take a hose from Hal’s, then go home and kill himself?” I asked myself. “Unless, it wasn’t Mike,” I answered. “And whoever it was must have been seen by the camera.”

At this point, any sane person would have simply called the sheriff and told them what they had found. But it wasn’t a question of sanity. There was still the possibility that Bennet was involved somehow. If that was the case, all he had to do to cover his tracks was get the DVD and destroy it. I had to see that DVD before he did. It was time to fix a roof.

As I went back to work, I thought about the irony of the roof. I recalled how I told Megan I was going to check out the roofing truck in Sedalia, so I could break in and then got sidetracked by Amy asking me to come to her rescue. I had abandoned that plan, and the consequences of breaking and entering, after Fred found the cell phone. Now here I was, ready to commit the felony after all. But this time, I didn’t have to pretend – I had been invited.

Hal must have thought burglars didn’t carry ladders to work and decided not to wire the upstairs windows to the security system. I knew that from my previous visit. Megan had a laugh at that insider knowledge – she surely must have guessed how I came about that privileged information.

The house was built on a slope, with the back decks facing the water, making the second story decks three stories high because of the walkout basement. My ladder was only good for twenty feet - at least ten feet short of my goal.

I had to first climb the stairs, with my ladder on my shoulder, to the first-story deck, then set it up to get to the upper deck. I didn’t even try the doors on the first deck, for I could see a security sensor through the glass. Opening the door would send a silent alarm to the security company, which would in turn call the sheriff.

Although the French doors on the deck over the sunroom didn’t have any sensors, they were locked. I couldn’t simply lift the door out of its tracks like the burglar at Meg’s did; however, I couldn’t believe my luck. The carpenters had installed the doors with their hinges facing out so the doors would swing out instead of in. I simply popped out the hinge pins and removed a door. Then I unlocked the deadbolt, replaced the door on its hinges, and went inside. I quickly went down the stairs to Hal’s office and stopped cold. The monitor on his desk had six different camera views. One of the cameras was looking at the back of the house. It must have taken a video of me removing the French doors.

I had no problem erasing the evidence of my breaking-and-entering. After going into the hidden room where Hal kept the surveillance system, I pressed the back button on the recorder and found the video showing me removing the door and deleted it. Then I went over to the boxes where Hal kept the backup DVDs. I already knew I couldn’t trust Hal’s labels and wanted to make sure I got the right one, so I took the four remaining disks. Now all I needed to do was figure out a way to disable the system long enough for me to make a clean getaway. All my effort would be for naught if the cameras caught me leaving the house through the master bedroom.

The six cameras were connected to the back of the security console. Fortunately, they were labeled, so I pulled the wire to the camera covering the back of the house. I didn’t remove it all the way. I left it plugged into the jack just enough to disable the camera and make it look like it had come loose. It amazed me how clever I could be at times. I closed the hidden door and returned to Hal’s office. There was a red alarm icon flashing on the security monitor.

Calm down, Jake
, I told myself. The alarm was probably intended only for Hal and the security company. A burglar would not have known he set off the alarm until the police showed up. The security company would more than likely make a call to the house before contacting the sheriff. Would there be a code I would need to answer if I pretended to be Hal? If I failed to supply the code, or didn’t answer, how much time did I have before the sheriff arrived?
Think, Jake, calm down and think.

My first impulse was to run out the door and get away as fast as I could. Then reason took over. Once the security company called in the alarm, I would have at least half an hour before the sheriff would show, and then, they would almost certainly review the video before they did that. My first task had to be to disable the video recorder, so I shut down the computer that controlled the cameras. That would prevent the security company from remotely un-deleting my break-in. Now if they tried to review the recording or my escape, they would be out of luck. Of course, nothing would stop someone from rebooting the system. I thought about taking the recorder with me, but then they would know for sure there was a burglary. I needed to make it look like a malfunction. The speaker from Hal’s surround system should do the trick.