Where Is Henderson? (Sam Darling mystery #5) (12 page)

“Good idea. You keep Clancy with you.”

Clancy could sense the danger too. She leaned against me until I started walking, but even then stayed close to my left leg. We moved again to the outer expanse of pallets of urns.

“Be careful,” George said.

“Always,” I replied, then added, “Love you.”

He didn’t say it back. He’d probably thought he couldn’t because this was official business. But my vibes were so strong that I wanted him to hear me saying it.

I went to the right of the huge, square warehouse. George went left. My section was full of boxes of urns. Boxes, and more boxes. But as I checked further, there was only one row of urn pallets that I’d bet went in a rectangle all around the warehouse. Internal to them would be all water boxes. That’s all I saw until I got to a conveyor belt. I moved inward to investigate. At one end was robotic machinery that would take the bottles and place them in a box. When I looked left for the other end of the belt, I saw something suspicious.

“George,” I yelled. “George.”

Again the clip clop of the soles of his shoes brought him to me, but this time even faster. His breathing was labored as he arrived and said, “What? What? You okay?”

“Yes,” I said. “But look. Look at this spigot. I bet you a dollar to a donut that this is where Louise bottles her Happy Acres Water.”

George bent over to catch his breath. Then he stood, and he didn’t even really have to speak. His glare said it all.

“Sam, you screamed as if you were in danger. I thought you… you…”

“Oh, honey, I’m sorry. But see this. It’s important.”

“It’s important to you, Sam. But this has nothing to do with the murder.”

“We don’t know that.”

“How is it connected?”

“I don’t know,” I said, feeling a bit defensive by now. “I just know it does. And even if it doesn’t, it does mean Louise is committing fraud.”

“Yes. And we’ll tell Chief Henderson and let him investigate. We are just here because Cash’s body fell off the train in Quincy.”

“I know,” I said like a petulant child. “I know. But… Louise is a big, fat
cheater
.”

He patted my head, then kissed it, and said softly, “She’s not fat.” I deserved the condescension.

He went on. “I’m going back to where I was, and you continue here. We’ll meet somewhere in the middle.” As George left, he moved a little more slowly than he did when he arrived. He was in much better shape than I was, but hadn’t been working out as much lately. Guess it was because he spent most of his off time with me, and I was not an enthusiastic exerciser.

“Never mind that,” I said to myself out loud. I continued my search around the outside, but really wanted to go down the aisles of Happy Acres boxes. Bored at finding nothing, I decided to walk in between the rows of boxes instead of staying on the perimeter. I turned left, then right, then left, and left again, and I lost track after that. I just followed my nose, and my vibes. Clancy didn’t make any noise, she just followed me without complaint.

Soon I arrived at what felt like the middle of the huge warehouse. One thing I knew for sure—there were more water bottles in the building than there were urns. And I found that suspicious.

Clancy growled and I jumped. I didn’t see or hear anything. However, she saw or smelled something. Clancy put her nose down near a pallet of water, smelled it, then turned and gave another low growl.

“What is it, girl?”

She backed up, so I could get close to whatever it was she was smelling.

I didn’t smell anything with my mere human olfactory processors, but as I bent down to look more closely, I saw what looked like a faded rust stain. Having seen blood before after someone tried to clean it up, I looked at Clancy and said, “Good job. Is it blood?” I know she can’t really talk to me, but I sense what she means, and vice versa.

“George!” I yelled again. “It’s not an emergency, but can you come here?”

“Where are you?”

“In the middle somewhere. I’ll send Clancy to you.” I turned to my chum. “Go bring George here, will you please?” I knew she could find her way out and back in again much more easily than I could.

When she’d gone, I looked around to see if there was anything else of interest. I couldn’t see anything else, but kept looking until Clancy returned with George.

“Honey, Clancy found this. It looks like blood to me.”

He bent down for a closer look. “Hmmm. Could be.” George turned around to face me. “I’ve got a kit in the trunk of the car. I’ll get the luminol and spray the stain. Be back in a flash.” He stopped and smiled. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome, but as usual it was Clancy and not me.”

“Yeah, but your vibes warned you that something was hinky. I’ll leave Clancy with you and I’ll be back ASAP.”

“Are you sure you can find your way out and back again?”

He furrowed his brow. “Are you kidding me? I can find my way anywhere—even with my eyes closed.”

“Okay. If you insist.” I sat on the edge of a pallet. There wasn’t much room for my ample bottom on the splintery wood, but I was tired of standing. Clancy came over and put her head on my knee. I absentmindedly stroked her head as I thought about possibilities.

What if this is the place someone killed Cash? Since it’s near Louise’s stash, maybe it was her.
“Nah, that’s just wishful thinking,” I said, changing to thinking out loud, and I wondered at that mean streak in me.

Clancy lifted her head from my lap as if she read my mind. Of course, if anyone asked me I’d say that’s exactly what she does. We maintained eye contact for longer than dogs normally like, but Clancy wasn’t like “normal” dogs.

It seemed like forever before I heard George’s voice. “Clancy, come!”

Clancy glanced at me for permission to go, and I barely nodded. Off she went. A few minutes later she led George back into the area.

“So you go lost after all?”

“Not lost so much as a little turned around. I knew I’d figure out the maze sooner or later, but thought Clancy could get me here faster.”

I just smiled, and stayed seated while George got to work. He sprayed the luminol then yelled in his booming voice, “Turn off the lights.”

The lights suddenly went off. “Who did that?” I asked. The complete darkness caught me off guard. Then George turned on the special light that I didn’t know the name of, and the blue luminescence appeared.

“Jonah was still here, so I asked him if he’d come in and turn off the lights when I yelled.” He motioned toward the glowing blue on the floor. “Well, it’s blood all right. Don’t know if it’s Henderson’s, I mean Cash’s, but it’s blood.” He stood up straight and craned his neck toward where I supposed the entrance was. By that time I was all turned around.

“Okay, turn the lights back on,” he bellowed. No response. “TURN ON THE LIGHTS,” he yelled even louder. Nothing. “HENDERSON!” he screamed cupping his hands around his mouth like a megaphone. Still nothing.

He flipped a switch on the light in his hand and it became a regular flashlight. The blue no longer glowed, but at least we could see a few feet in front of us. “Let’s go. Clancy can get us out without the overhead lights, can’t you girl?” He turned from me to my dog.

“Of course she can,” I said. “Do you want me to go with you or do you want to go turn on the lights first?”

“I thought you’d go with me, but you are kind of clumsy, so…” He couldn’t see my face, but he could feel my anger. “I didn’t mean clumsy so much as…uh, I don’t want you to get hurt.” I could sense the pride he felt at coming up with what he thought were the right words.

Well, those words didn’t work on me.

“I’ll just go with you,” I said. “It would be creepy staying here. Besides, I have a flashlight app on my phone and we can use that for some extra light.” I scrolled through a ton of useless apps until I got to the flashlight. I turned it on and when I did I also noticed that my phone was at 15% power. “That’s enough to get us out of here.”

George asked what I’d just mumbled, so I told him. Then I added, “Of course, if this were a scary movie, the 15% wouldn’t be enough, and the phone and flashlight would die just as the bad guy tried to catch me.”

George said, “Honey, your imagination is what gets you in trouble. Why don’t we stick with reality—with what is, instead of what isn’t or what might be.”

Grudgingly I had to admit he was right. Even as a kid my folks would say I lived in a fantasy world, and apparently not much had changed.

“Let’s just go,” I said, not wanting to be any more introspective than I already had been. It wasn’t a comfortable activity, introspection.

“Pay attention,” George said. “We’ll want to be able to find the place where there’s blood when we come back.”

“I won’t be able to find it, but Clancy will.” I didn’t see her following us, but I sensed her presence, and that was enough.

I felt her soon enough. She ran into me when I stumbled against a stack of boxes that towered over me menacingly. “George,” I screamed. It was all I could think of to do or say, because I was frozen to the spot. I couldn’t actually see the boxes, but felt claustrophobic as they surrounded me on all sides. “George,” I yelled again. No answer.

Clancy came to my side and pushed against me, offering her services. I grabbed on to her collar and was finally able to rouse myself from my frozen state and actually move. “GEORGE!” Still no response.

Tears cascaded down my face. “George,” I whispered, hoping against hope that he was okay. “Why aren’t you answering me?” I turned to Clancy. “Go find him, girl. Go find him.” I shone my flashlight in the direction we had been heading, and thought I could keep ahold of her collar to keep up with her.

There were a lot of obstacles, and it was hard to see with only the flashlight app illuminating a small area in front of us. Almost immediately, I stubbed my toe on a pallet, cussed, cried, and said, “Go ahead, Clancy. I’ll be okay. Just find George.”

I sat on the cold dark floor, rubbing a toe that felt like it might be broken. “Just find George,” I repeated. Clancy came close and licked some tears off my right cheek. Then she took off.

The sound of her movement quickly disappeared, and I was left sitting there, surrounded by towers that felt like they might fall on me at any moment.

That’s when it happened.

I
felt rather than heard the tower on my left start to topple. Unable to rise quickly, I jumped forward from my seated position just as the boxes fell where I’d been sitting. The loud whoosh of the boxes before they landed was as scary as the landing itself.

I couldn’t see a thing. My heartbeat was as loud as the “George” I yelled. “Clancy,” was the next thing out of my mouth. And soon she was there, but George wasn’t with her. I grabbed her and sobbed into her soft fur. “Where’s George?” I said to the universe and not just to Clancy. “Where’s George?” I moaned, even more loudly.

I’ve never been in a position where I felt totally powerless, but this came close. “My phone,” I yelled. “Where’s my phone?” I figured I’d probably dropped it when I lunged, and it was probably buried under mounds of water bottles and broken boxes.

It was then I noticed that part of my left leg was under the water bottles too. My foot was caught on something. Still holding on to Clancy, I pulled as hard as I could and soon released my foot. But when I tried to stand I just couldn’t do it.

“It’s probably just a sprain,” I said to myself as much as Clancy. “It’s probably just a sprain.” I seemed to keep saying the same things over and over.

“George!” I screamed again, but knew that if he hadn’t answered before, he wouldn’t answer now.

At that point I felt another whoosh, as another stack began falling. Clancy pushed me out of the way, and also got herself out of harm’s way in time. I was still crying, and I couldn’t tell whether it was from pain or fear. Not being able to see anything intensified both.

“Clancy, can you get us out of here if I can crawl?”

Clancy’s response was to get even closer to me so I could touch her. I couldn’t grab her collar this time, as I needed both hands to crawl. She was smart enough to know that, and got right in front of me. The combination of her butt and her tail in my face would have made me laugh at any other time, but I didn’t mind. My girl was saving my life again.

“Can you find George?”
Of course she can, silly. Quit asking stupid questions.
Aloud, I said, “I know you can find him, Clance. I’m sorry I’m so slow. If it was just you, you’d have found him by now and would have rescued him, caught the bad guy, and received a key to the city by now.” I was babbling, which wasn’t unusual, but it served to calm me, and helped me forget about my injured ankle, and my knees that were screaming from crawling on concrete.

I ran into broken boxes and plastic water bottles several times, and even crawled through some water, where the bottles must have exploded. This wouldn’t have been easy in the best of times, but was nearly impossible in the dark, in pain, and on my knees.

Then I heard a sound that made me forget all that.

“Sam? Sam?” It was faint, but I recognized my George’s voice. It sounded like it was coming from fairly close by, but the towers of boxes made sound echo in strange ways.

“I’m coming, George. Clancy and I are coming.” Just as I said it two things happened. The lights came on and I heard strange high-pitched laughter. I was grateful for the lights, and scared by the laughter. But first, I had to find the man I loved.

“George, say something again. We’ll find you.”

A moan was the response I got, but by now it was even closer. Clancy went a little ways ahead of me, turned a corner, and I heard her bark softly. “She’s got him,” and that thought drove me forward on knees that I was sure were bleeding by now.

As I got to the corner, I dropped and belly crawled my way to a now-silent George, who had an ever-diligent Clancy trying to wake him by licking his face. I leaned over George from the other side and kissed him. With both of us ministering to him, George blinked and looked from Clancy to me.

“What happened?” he said.

“Boxes kept falling,” I said. “The lights were out, and I hollered for you, and you didn’t answer, and my ankle hurts, and my toe too, and Clancy saved us, and…” I gasped as another sob escaped.