CHAPTER FOURTEEN

 

Teddy Boy Pope fought his pants off over his sneakers and threw them to the back of the News 55 OB vehicle like they were a pair of venomous snakes.

“Nice boxers.” Weaver appraised them from his perch on the step between the open doors where he was checking his camera and chewing nicotine gum. “Big Family Guy fan?”

Pope peered over the overhang of his belly and could just see the edges of them. They were a Christmas present from Lenora depicting some cartoon show he’d never seen “I can feel a draught. Is everything contained?” It was ninety-one and climbing and he only needed to look presentable from the waist up.

Weaver considered his answer and continued to pump up his jaw with the gum. “Like petrified bats in a cave.” Weaver was Pope’s occasional cameraman. He liked to wisecrack, but left himself open to assault by being barely thirty and having wispy blonde hair that had receded exactly halfway across his scalp. It was an unspoken agreement that everything was fair game except if it was related to either of their follicles.

Pope loosened his tie and turned to the other news reporters limbering up at the crime scene tape like it was the start of a sprint. It was stretched between telegraph poles either side of North Vine Street which kept everyone a significant distance from the gates of the villa.

He didn’t know anybody there. Some of the younger police and reporters recognised him though. They treated him like the bachelor uncle at a family gathering, with a mixture of affection and pity. He was fifty-five and they all knew he used black dye on his sideburns as well as his signature quiff.

He’d lost the hunger and aggression, knew his extra pounds and the way the breath caught in his throat made him want to hang back. But he didn’t mind that he was fast becoming the last resort of the channel. He’d had his moment of glory in 2008. It seemed like a career ago now. At fifty he’d been considering retirement and then it was all hands on deck when Tropical Storm Fay had made landfall and Bush declared the State of Florida a Federal Disaster Area.

He’d found himself collecting a Society of Professional Journalists Award for specialized reporting. “Your eye at the eye of the storm.” He’d come up with that on the spur of the moment. Now it was all he was remembered for. Thirty years of journalism and crime reporting never mentioned. At a small channel weather events were like wartime. When it was over everyone went back to what they were doing before. Perhaps he’d been doing the wrong thing all along.

He was sick of loitering on the margins of people’s grief. Hours of tedium and coffee that dried you out while the detectives worked the scene and occasionally came out to stare into the middle distance and tell you what you already knew. He took out his cell and called Lenora.

“How you doing?” She sounded sleepy.

Pope could never keep track of her erratic shifts at the nursing home and wasn’t sure if she’d just come in or was about to leave. “Hot and peeved; doesn’t look like I’ll be home for pot roast.” Lenora never cooked. It was their in-joke that only she still found funny. “Sorry to leave you home alone.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll have a few of the girls over.”

She tried to sound crestfallen, but actually seemed to brighten at the prospect. Lenora was thirty-three. She hadn’t been anywhere or done anything. That had been her choice, but Pope never begrudged her the wine cooler parties she seemed to throw whenever he wasn’t in the apartment. Trouble was, those occasions were getting less frequent and he didn’t know if she would want him hanging around for anything more than their already dwindling weekend sex.

“Anything juicy going on?” She always asked.

“Family murdered in their vacation villa just off 193 and judging by the police presence – plenty juicy.”

 

No new information had appeared by the time Will landed at Baltimore-Washington International so he dialled the number as soon as he’d stepped off the plane.

He nudged his way through the other passengers in the tight thoroughfare. “I’ve landed,” he said loudly, as soon as he heard the familiar, panicked trill of birds the other end. He waited for the line to go dead, but it didn’t. “Can you hear me?” Still the connection wasn’t cut. He lowered his voice. “What am I looking for when I get there?” The caged birds babbled alarm. “If you want me to go on with this, I want to speak to Libby.” The line clunked and the cacophony ended. “Bastards,” he said with enough volume to turn several heads.

He jogged around trolleys and bags oblivious to protests. Will had told Carla not to book a car this time. A taxi would be quicker and who knew how long he’d be in the state. He joined the line outside the exit for the row of different coloured sedan cabs and got into the white Chevrolet that pulled up.

“Ellicott City,” he said before he’d pulled the back door shut. He opened his laptop. How much battery power did he have left? He looked up and met the gaze of the driver. He could only see the beanie hat covering the back of his head and his eyes in the mirror. They looked like they’d been peering through smoke for a long time. “Let’s get going. I’m just looking up the details. Get me there in quick time and you can double the fare.”

The beanie hat nodded and the driver sat up, waggled his buttocks in his seat and pulled out. As they took Route 95 South towards Washington, Will opened the site and put his cursor over the house.

 

122 Hebron Street,  

Ellicott City,  

Maryland,  

21068  

   

He quickly relayed the details to the driver. Should he call the Howard County PD now? But Will had to get into the house before they did. Once they were on the scene he’d never get access to whatever item of clothing he had to secure. And would they arrive in much more time than he would? A family’s lives were at stake though; he had to call the house.

He frantically searched for a local phone directory. The first one he found required a name. Then he found the Ellicott City reverse address search. He entered the address and zip code details:

 

(301) 922-4344  

   

He dialled the number and listened to it ring before realising it was an engaged tone. He tried the digits again and got the same result. He telephoned Carla and told her where he was headed and to keep trying the number.

Only then did he register it was getting dark.

 

The driver adroitly eased the cab through the evening traffic, but even his knowledge of the back roads couldn’t prevent them from crawling to a stop as they reached the centre. Will continued to redial and only vaguely registered his surroundings. Ellicott City seemed like a model village after the wide expanses of Florida. Traditional house facades were dwarfed by lofty telegraph poles that lined the sidewalks.

The line remained engaged and Will remembered the burnt food on the barbecue in Kissimmee. He took the gloves out of his jacket pocket and slid them over his fingers. The action made him feel as if he were an assassin himself.

When the cab eventually pulled up at the address he got out and hurriedly fed some bills to the driver, not taking his eyes off the lit windows of the house. Beyond the low fence he thought he caught movement through the bay window. He double-checked the number on the mailbox: 122, it was the right place. The cab sped off, leaving him alone at the open gates.

He jogged up the crazy-paved driveway and then slowed, stopping halfway up it as the light from the lounge illuminated him and he could see inside. His breath stumbled in his chest. It was the last scene he expected to be greeted by. A party of young girls with painted faces were playing a Wii game in front of the enormous TV screen on the wall.

Had he been allowed to arrive in time? He looked back and up and down the street – nobody in sight. Daylight still had a weak grip on the sky, but most of the other homes were glowing from within. It didn’t seem possible that anything could disturb the neighbourhood’s early evening composure

Was somebody already inside? Or had something gone wrong? Regardless, he still had to attempt to collect an item of Libby’s. He pressed the bell and took a step back, pulling his sleeve down to cover his gloved hand holding the laptop and hiding the other in his pocket. He hadn’t heard it ring over the squeals from the party, but a shape appeared in the hallway and strode to the door.

“Can I help you?” The blonde girl had her face painted like a tiger.

“I’m here to pick up my daughter.” If only it were that easy.

Mystification wrinkled the stripes. “They’re all meant to be sleeping over.”

“We have an emergency at home.”

“Oh, sure.” She nodded and removed her hefty frame from the doorway. “Which one is yours?”

“The one you’ve probably had most trouble with.” The line came easily, having picked Libby up from her fair share of parties. He stepped into the hall and it smelt of popcorn and pizza. Will put his laptop on the seat of an ornamental armchair as casually as he could and flitted his eyes to the open rooms. In front of him was a door to the kitchen, to his right the lounge where the girls were and to his left a formal dining area with a long, polished table running the length of it.

“They’re just finishing a vital match.” The blonde strode ahead of him, pinning her short hair behind her ears. “Hope you didn’t try calling the house earlier. We’ve had problems with the phones all evening.”

“OK if I use the bathroom?”

“Sure, up on the right. Who am I summoning from the tournament?”

Will took the stairs before he had to reply. At the top of them he found the doors to darkened bedrooms open, but as he switched the lights on and briefly scanned each one he could hear the nanny ascending. She reached the landing as he was exiting the small guest room.

“What the hell are you doing up here?”

“Sorry, couldn’t find the bathroom.”

But her tiger face was snarling now and she registered the gloves. “Who did you say you’re here to collect?”

Will brushed past her and descended the stairs. “I’m sorry. There’s been a misunderstanding.”

“You bet there has. You’d better get the fuck out of here.” Anger and fear in equal measure.

Will hit the bottom of the stairs and moved past the lounge where the clamour had ceased. There was no point trying to explain.

“I’m calling the cops,” she screeched, higher than the kids.

And that was why. Will turned back to find her standing halfway down the stairs wrestling a mobile from her pocket. He couldn’t allow himself to be detained. “I’m leaving now, wrong party. I do apologise.” He grabbed his laptop and opened the door, trotting back down the drive. None of the rooms had resembled the ones on the site. What the hell was going on?

 

From the opposite window Poppy watched Will’s exit from the house and smirked before she used her iPhone to change the address on the configuration page of the website. She waited as he moved away from the lights of 122 and then checked his laptop. He turned and looked directly at the property she was standing in.

He crossed the street and glanced up at her unlit window from the driveway. She snapped a photo of him with her iPhone and stepped back into the shadow of the room. Teenage decor and trophies surrounded her. Nineteen-year-old Greg had earned a scholarship to Baltimore University and his absence meant he was now the last surviving family member.

She’d still wanted a connection with him though so she’d slipped on the dark suit she’d found hanging in his wardrobe for a while. He’d probably wear it to the family funeral and she wondered if he’d detect a vague trace of her scent at the graveside. She’d hung it carefully back inside its silver grey PEVA suit cover, but she guessed it would probably end up the property of forensics.

She left the room. Poppy had upgraded 127 Hebron Street from an anonymous family home to an infamous murder scene, but nobody knew it yet. She speculated about the Ambersons in Florida. Did anyone else now know or were the repercussions of that event still being suppressed for Libby’s sake?

She hit the bottom stair as the bell rang. Poppy could almost feel the urgent pressure of Will’s finger as it jabbed the plastic button, but the oranges and lemons chime wouldn’t be hurried. She reached the back door of the kitchen as he rapped the metal knocker. The sound became a light pecking as she crossed the lawn to the back gate.

She placed her fingers lightly on the latch and flicked it, leaving the gate ajar for him. Poppy paused, wondering if he would pick up her scent there as well.

 

The website had definitely specified 122. A cruel trick to convince him he’d made it in time? But how had they known exactly when to change the details? They had to be observing him. Will squinted at the empty cars in the street and then back at the house he’d just left. If the nanny had dialled 911 then he had to get out of sight as quickly as possible. He looked through the front window of 127 and could see the silhouette of the upright piano against a weak glow from a table lamp. There were no other lights on and he hoped it meant the family were out for the evening.

There was no way he could get inside via the oak panelled door or front window without attracting further attention from the neighbours. He hurried back onto the terrace and along the red-bricked townhouses, looking for a way into the back of the property via an adjacent street. Three gardens along he came to a gravel track between driveways lit by a single lamp that had a cluster of moths pinging against it.

As he strolled down it a young woman was coming the opposite way. As she passed under the lamp he could see she was carrying a canary yellow clutch purse against her chest. He absently thinned his mouth in the automatic gesture of friendly assurance. Her pronounced bottom lip tightened in response, but her dark eyes only darted momentarily to meet his. As she moved by him he turned left into the narrow lane.

Brambles were only just falling back into place after the woman had brushed past them and they tapped his shoulder and snagged the denim of his jeans. The smell of urine pricked his nose. He counted to the third gate and found it off the latch. This lapse of security seemed less foreboding than the lights being off at dusk. Either the occupants were actually out or no one was able to turn them on.

He pushed the gate the rest of the way open and looked up the lush, long lawn to the back of number 127. He could see the back door was open as it had been at the house in Florida. The black aperture seemed to shrink away from him as his instincts tried to restrain him from taking another step forward.

Libby’s beads felt heavy around his wrist as light birdsong filled the silence. He strode up the centre of the lawn, his eyes darting to the tall row of conifers either side of him, trying not to contemplate the entrance until he was at the back step.

The sprinklers at the flower borders squirted to life and the rotating plastic and low hiss sounded like a warning from a coiled snake. The kitchen interior delineated itself as he reached the doorway.

When he stepped inside he saw Libby.