Trophies (40 page)

I paused again to listen, and triple-checked
the equipment hooked to my web belt: locking karabiner, thin nylon
rope, six feet of electrical wire wrapped into a coil, a
thin-bladed dagger made from one piece of oiled hardwood, a
narrow-beamed flashlight, my toolkit, a Dremel with a battery pack,
an assortment of bits, and a small, loaded caulking gun. I had left
the weaponry at the house and would go in unarmed. None of us had a
taser or any other non-lethal weapon, and I'd almost rather be shot
myself than use the lethal sort inside a police station. But of
course I didn't say anything about that to Sherlock. I had enough
on my mind without listening to him.

"Charles!"

That was Caren's voice. I peered over the
railing. She crouched beside Sherlock, just beneath the fire
escape, her hands braced on his shoulders, his hands cupped beneath
her foot. As I watched, he boosted and she jumped, arms reaching
for the fire escape.

This was not part of the plan Sherlock and I
had concocted at sunset in the parlor, and the sneak inside me
rebelled at the thought of having a companion-in-crime along for
this particular venture. But there was something wild and
incredibly gorgeous in her shining face during the one second I had
to make up my mind, and in my heart I never denied her. I leaned
over the railing, shot my arm out, and caught her wrist while she
clasped mine with both hands. She weighed so little, there was
almost no effort required to lift her to the railing, where she
grabbed iron and swung over.

"No," I said in a whisper.

"Right," she said ditto. "Coming?"

She ran up the fire escape stairwell,
footsteps muffled in sneakers. After a moment's thought I followed.
Compromises were required in both love and war, and this seemed to
be both.

Caren beat me to the flat roof by seconds. I
took her arm and tugged her away from the edge, back into the
center near the emergency exit where we could talk.

"You can't come," I said. "With two people
along, we're bound to be caught. Our only hope of success is to be
as inconspicuous as possible."

"I know. I'm content to wait up here for
you."

"Did Sherlock put you up to this?" That sort
of clumsy matchmaking would be just like him.

In the dark, I felt rather than saw the
corners of her eyes crinkle. "Well, he
boosted
me up — no,
this was all my idea. I'll stay out of the way, I promise. I just
want an idea of what it is you actually do."

"This isn't exactly the perfect example. But
come on."

Earlier that day, Theresa and Bonnie had run
a recon. of the police station, including a window-by-window
examination via binoculars from several rooftops over. So going in
we knew the precise location of Wingate's office window, on the
east side of the building overlooking the city. I crossed the roof
to that side and peered over the parapet, in time to see Sherlock
and Lindsay round the corner of the block. Quiet banter barely
reached my ears through the ambient city noises as they paused
two-thirds of the way along. His hand went to his mouth and a fag
end glowed. He rarely smoked any more but it seemed he was making
an exception for the evening's adventure. That meant he wasn't
quite as cool as he'd made out. Great.

"They're standing below the detective's
office window, right?" Caren asked.

"Right. That's where I go down."

One end of the nylon line I wrapped about a
standing pipe and the locking karabiner kept it there. I measured
out enough line from that end to reach the third floor — nothing
for attracting a passer-by's attention like a length of rope
dangling down the side of a building onto the sidewalk beneath —
and tied up the remainder. Then I gave the arrangement a few
exploratory tugs to make certain it would hold, unrolled the first
few feet of line, and crouched on the edge of the building, back to
the fall. That first step was always the worst.

While I paused, preparing my stomach, Caren
stepped close and kissed the tip of my nose. "Good luck."

"Love that distraction." I hopped backward
off the lip of the roof.

I hadn't played out more than eight feet of
line so I knew I hadn't far to fall, but even with the preparation
the sudden drop left my stomach up on the building's roof and set
my pulse pounding. But before instinctive panic could set in, I hit
the end of that eight feet and it swung me toward the side of the
building like a pendulum. From long practice I had my feet up and
ready. The first few times I'd rappelled, in basic training, I
hadn't been quick enough with my feet. The training sergeant had
called the resulting smack "kissing the wall," and it left bruises
big and painful enough to be deterrents against such mistakes in
the future.

This time I was ready. I hopped down the side
of the building, playing out the line through my leather-gloved
hands. The night tightened around me, sucking me into its sultry
depths, and the sounds of the city faded away. The tingle of the
adventure expanded from within me to touch the night in turn. I
descended past four rows of windows before I reached the one with
the lights out on the third floor. There I fastened off the rope,
holding myself at that height, and peered inside.

It was Wingate's office, all right; there was
no mistaking all that wood, nor the outline of those framed opera
posters on the walls. The back of the desk faced me with the
rolling chair tucked neatly into the kneehole and the visitors'
chairs just beyond. The far wall was solid below, glass above
framed with wooden molding, and the door was closed. The filing
cabinet was in the far corner behind the visitors' chairs and on
the opposite end of the half-glass wall from the door.

From my external vantage point, I could see
the magnetic contact switch on the upper doorjamb molding and the
keypad mounted on the wall behind the door, where it would be
hidden during working hours when the door was propped open. Wingate
had wired his office for an alarm. Only an idiot would wire the
door but not the window, even on the third floor, and I did not
believe Wingate to be stupid. At least, not that much, and my silly
little grin grew.

Beyond the door was a big open work space
crowded with desks, where the run-of-the-mill officers worked. The
lights were on, about half of the desks were occupied, and said
officers were working, bent over computer keyboards, leafing
through files, talking on telephones and to each other, although
from outside I couldn't hear their voices. From the moment I opened
the window I would be in full view; one of them would simply have
to turn around to see me clambering in. It was a pretty
challenge.

I glanced up. Caren leaned over the edge of
the building but only by the depth of one eye, and her hair was
dark enough not to catch any light. A glance down showed Sherlock
stepping on his cigarette butt, Lindsay leaning against the wall
beside him.

The lower window of six panes was well
sealed. With the dagger's blade I rasped the caulking from the
upper middle pane then pried it loose, propping it on the casing
nearby. The voices in the far office became audible as distant
murmurings.

"Are you having fun up there?" Lindsay's
voice called from below.

Sherlock, of course, shushed her
immediately.

Actually, I was. This was the part of my job
I enjoyed the most: sneaking sideways through someone's supposedly
impregnable defenses. It was also, I knew, a skill I owed mainly to
Aunt Edith's tutelage. Whatever else she had done to my life, she'd
helped me become a professional sneak. And for that I would remain
grateful, no matter how else my feelings about her might
change.

Sticking my arm through the empty spot, I
felt along the inside of the lower window until my gloved hand
fumbled across a plastic edge protruding beyond the wooden frame.
Good, it was another magnetic contact switch, just like on the
door, and easily bypassed. I noted its position, matched it with my
finger on the outside of the wall, then marked that spot with a
pencil. The big masonry bit on the Dremel made short work of the
ubiquitous Boston red brick. I enlarged the drilled hole with the
knife's blade, and the wiring of Wingate's burglar alarm lay
exposed before me.

This was the ticklish part. Using the wooden
dagger, I scraped the plastic insulation from an inch of the
exposed electrical wiring, being careful not to slice through the
twisted strands beneath, which could short the alarm and set it
ringing. Then I attached the ends of the wire I'd brought with me
to the exposed inch and cut between the joinings. Sherlock had
given me that dagger following a trip to the Far East. Being
hardwood rather than metal, it couldn't short an alarm and set it
off while I worked, unless I was careless, and it was one of the
best gifts I'd ever received. Not that I'd ever tell him that.

With the burglar alarm jumpered, I opened the
window, not forgetting to move that pane of glass off the casement
first. Once inside I unhooked myself from the rappelling line and
closed the window behind me.

The racket in the big outer office was almost
distinguishable as individual voices now, but I didn't wait to see
if anyone had noticed me. If someone had, I'd learn it soon enough.
Keeping to a crouch, I pulled out my kit and attacked the lock on
Wingate's desk. It seemed the obvious place to start: active files
were generally kept handiest and not in filing cabinets across the
room.

Desk and filing cabinet locks are among the
easiest to pick, along with those on doorknobs and cars, and the
desk surrendered within moments. The lower right-hand drawer was
stuffed with files. I moved the rolling chair out of my way and
settled down for a good read, the elation of victory singing
through me.

The office door opened.

One good thing about PTSD: it sharpens the
reflexes to hypervigilance. My body and brain reacted before I was
fully aware that the sound I'd heard was the scrape of the lock
being picked. There was only one hiding spot in that office and I
was inside the kneehole of the desk before the door was fully open,
twisting myself inside out like a pretzel to peer beneath the
desk's bottom edge.

As soon as the door was opened the alarm gave
a warning whine, alerting the intruder of his few seconds' grace.
From my vantage point beneath the desk, I watched a pair of worn
neon-blue trainers, faded denim rising above, as they doubled about
the door and paused beneath where I recalled seeing the keypad. The
whine paused. I heard a series of four beeps — about the correct
number of digits for this simple a system — then even the whine
ceased.

From the outer office came a storm of
applause, whistles, catcalls, the sounds of humanity in the throes
of impressed amusement. In disbelief I watched the trainers wheel
back around and pause in the doorway, spread like the feet of a
pirate on a captured schooner's deck. The owner's shadow distorted
as he took a bow. It could only be some clown breaking into
Wingate's office on a bloody bet, the same way I used to break into
Sherlock's office back before the war just to prove I could, and
hopefully that meant this clown's act was over and he'd leave,
closing the door behind himself and letting me resume my work.

He didn't. Instead, he flipped on the light.
The fluorescent bulbs flickered to life as the clown crossed to
Wingate's filing cabinet, on the far side of the desk. Again I
heard the rasp of a lock being picked, followed by the whisper of a
well-oiled drawer sliding open. All the wearer of those dirty shoes
had to do was turn ninety degrees in either direction, and he'd see
the empty spot where I'd removed the pane of glass. It was a wonder
the increased noise of the traffic below didn't alert him, not to
mention the pounding of my own pulse.

But the wearer of those neon trainers, it
seemed, had other things on his mind. I listened while he rustled
through the files, then he slid the drawer home and the lock
snapped. Silence pulsed in the office, broken only by the rowdy
voices from the other room and the occasional murmur of traffic on
the street below, and I died a thousand deaths waiting for the sod
to see that window. In my awkward position, blood pooled inside my
head and breathing became difficult, and surely he'd hear that,
too.

But no, the trainers crossed back to the
keypad. I heard the four beeps again, followed by the warning
whine. The overhead light went off. Then the trainers left and the
door closed. The whine ceased as the door's contact was
re-established, and the click of the lock was almost drowned in a
repeat eruption of whistles and laughter.

I crawled from the kneehole and collapsed
onto the floor. If he'd been looking for a file in the desk; if
Sherlock and Lindsay had spoken in the street below; if he'd
spotted the rappelling ropes dangling just outside the window; if,
if, if. The litany in my head matched the pounding in my chest and
temples, the gasping breaths I couldn't slow or quiet, and for a
while that was all I could manage. I'd gotten away with it; I
wasn't going to spend the remainder of the night in jail or worse;
and somehow I knew the rest of this break-in would be
anti-climactic. Nothing that happened would ever be quite so bad
again and it only took a minute to quit giggling hysterically.

The file on Aunt Edith's murder was the big
fat one in the very front of the drawer. Sitting cross-legged on
the floor behind the desk, I pulled it out, propped it open on my
lap, and skimmed the entire thing. Besides Wingate's notes from my
visits both voluntary and enforced, there were notes on
conversations with Prissy Carr, Sharon Righetti alias Sidnë, Danny
Vasquez, the injured security guard, William, Patricia, Linda,
Trés, and just about every other family member I possessed.