Under a Killing Moon

UAKM — CHAPTER EIGHT

So, by all appearances, the Colonel was dead. Assimilating that fact was surreal, like the time I’d caught Sylvia with the upholsterer. What I needed was a bottle of bourbon and time to think, two luxuries I didn’t have. I could probably avoid the cops for awhile longer, but they’d find me eventually. And when they did, I’d be a glob of chewing gum on the sole of the commissioner’s five-hundred-dollar Italian loafers. Sure, the hospital in Brownsville could verify that I’d been there three days earlier, but Mac had said that the Colonel disappeared before then. My alibi was a bout as airtight as cheese-cloth.

If Mac’s information was current, I wasn’t just the prime suspect, I was the only suspect.

And Commissioner Drysdale enjoyed an abnormally high conviction rate. He was the kind of cop who craved closure, even if he had to settle for busting the wrong guy.

Unless I could prove that I’d hadn’t used a cigar cutter on the Colonel, odds were good that I’d find myself learning a new trade and making sixty-seven cents a day at Pelican Bay.

I thanked Louie for dinner and made a hasty exit. There was nothing I could do to prove my innocence, short of finding another, more realistic lead for the cops. And the only places I could think of that would turn up such a thing were either the Colonel’s house or office. I wasn’t sure where the Colonel had been living, but I knew where his office was. I fired up the speeder and lifted off.

As I flew over the brightly lit city, I remembered the dream I’d had just before waking up in Brownsville hospital. I was certain now that it had been a replay of an actual conversation. Despite my severe drunkenness at the time, on some subconscious level my brain had recorded everything. I found myself wondering about the reason for the Colonel’s unexpected visit. Why had he made the trip to my office after so many years, only to leave without giving a reason for stopping by? It just didn’t make any sense. The Colonel never did anything without some set purpose. He was like a grandmaster chess player, always thinking three or four moves ahead. I, myself, had always preferred checkers, though I also enjoyed dominoes and Parcheesi.

Images came to mind of the early days, when the Colonel had taken me under his wing.

Despite the big breakup, I’d always considered my mentor a father figure, albeit a verbally abusive, overbearing, foster-parent-from-Hell type. The Colonel wasn’t the nicest guy in the world, but he was a top-notch detective. His agency was one of the largest and best-known in this part of the country. The clientele was a veritable Who’s Who of business, politics and Hollywood. Over the years, he’d earned a lot of respect, but he’d also made more than his share of enemies. I’d lasted only two years at his agency, but I could think of a dozen people who hated his guts and had subjectively good reasons for seeing them spilled all over his office’s hundred-dollars-a-square-foot carpet.

Even in my straw-grasping state of mind, I wondered if I was kidding myself.

Realistically, what were the chances of me finding something in the Colonel’s office that Drysdale’s special unit had overlooked? His men were professionals in the truest sense of the word, and the commissioner had been hell-bent. But it had happened on occasion in the past. Maybe I was no better than a gambler who’d gotten lucky on the ponies a couple of times, bloated with overconfidence and confusing luck with talent.

The Colonel’s office was in Sausalito, in a nice, quiet suburb of the city, where the commercial section trailed off into the residential area. As I descended toward the office, I saw lights on inside the reception area and a police speeder parked at the curb. This was an unforeseen complication. Under more favorable circumstances, the cops might have let me poke around the place, but I was a wanted man. A diversionary tactic was called for.

I set the speeder down two blocks away from the Colonel’s office and around the corner from a mom-and-pop convenience store called the Market Basket. Seeing the store had inspired a plan. It was unethical and callous, not to mention illegal, but it was a proven winner. I walked to the store and looked it over. A metal grate covered the store’s façade, and a Rockwell Alarm System sticker was pasted onto the front window.

Excellent.

I walked around the building to a small alley and searched until I found a goodsized chunk of asphalt. Returning to the front of the market, I glanced around to make sure no one was in sight, then reared back and heaved the asphalt. It flew between two metal bars in the grate and shattered the front window. An alarm blared as I sprinted back to my speeder. Alarms were like dog whistles for cops. I figured it would get the attention of the patrolmen down the street.

Back in the speeder, I lifted off and sped around the block until I was on the other side of the Colonel’s office, with a clear view of the front entrance. The cops were quick.

They were already half way down the block, guns drawn and strings of saliva trailing behind them. I set the speeder down as close as I could without being obvious, then bolted for the door to the Colonel’s office.

I stepped in gingerly and glanced around. Apparently, there had been only two cops, both of whom had fallen for my little ruse. I was in the reception/waiting area, which is where the policemen appeared to have set up shop, judging by the deck of cards, piles of Styrofoam, and mountains of fast food wrappers on the receptionist’s desk.

I couldn’t be sure of how much time I’d have to search the office, but I knew I had to hurry. I hustled down a hallway, turned left, and entered the Colonel’s private office. I turned on the lights and saw that everything had been turned upside down, with drawers emptied and papers spilled all over the floor. An expensive chess set was scattered around. There was no way to tell if this had been done before or after the cops’ investigation.

A cigarette butt on the floor caught my eye. I remembered that the Colonel had said he’d quit smoking. Maybe a careless cop had dropped it, but I hoped not. I picked up the filterless stub and saw the strange symbol on the wrapper. It was the same as the one on the butts I’d found in the mansion. This was beyond coincidence. But what would the person who set me up be doing in the Colonel’s office? And how was he or she involved in the Colonel’s disappearance?

I began searching the office, eyes peeled and ears straining to hear when the cops returned. I had no idea what I was searching for. After ten minutes or so, I be-came convinced that the police had taken everything of interest and tagged it for evidence.

The papers on the floor turned out to be mostly empty forms and junk mail, and the Colonel’s desk was practically empty. It did contain a paperback, titled Perry Mason and the Case of the Sleeping Wife. Naturally, I was a big fan of Erle Stanley Gardner, and I hated to see a perfectly good pulp novel go to waste. I picked up the book and stuck it in the pocket of my overcoat. Under the book was a stack of blue index cards, held together with a rubber band. They were just like the one I’d found with my mail that morning, except these were blank. After a moment’s hesitation, I decided I’d have to consider the implications later.

There was a coat closet eight or nine feet to the right of the desk. I figured the cops would’ve gone through it, but I checked it out anyway. There were two coats, a shirt, and an umbrella inside. I’d just about decided I was wasting my time, and was expecting the cops to return at any moment. I took one more look around the room and was about to leave when I noticed something odd.

A thermostat control box was affixed to the wall by the door, but it suddenly dawned on me that there were two of them in the office. I examined the one by the door closely and decided that it was actually what it appeared to be. The second box was on the same wall as the coat closet but, unlike the first, had a casing of smoke-tinted plastic. I looked it over, then carefully pulled the casing off the wall. Staring back at me was what appeared to be a camera lens.

Apparently, Drysdale’s men had missed this little item. It was just like the Colonel to have a hidden surveillance camera installed in his office. And it was almost certain that no one but the Colonel would know it was there. I thought it over for a minute. The camera was probably attached to a videodisc recorder or something equiv-alent. The question was, where? I moved back and look-ed at the wall. Stepping outside the office, I tried to determine if there could possibly be a small area unaccounted for behind the camera. By my rough estimates, there seemed to be.

I walked back to the coat closet and stepped inside. As near as I could tell, if there was some kind of concealed room, it had to be accessible through the right wall of the closet.

I inspected the wall and saw a hairline crack running horizontally about four feet off the floor. I ran my hands over the surface of the wall, pressing and prodding. Finally, in the top left corner, I pushed and heard a click. The lower four feet of the wall sprung open.

Pulling the panel back, I got down on my knees and crawled into the space beyond. I pulled out my Zippo and lit it. After moving the flame around for a few seconds, I found a switch and flipped it. A light came on, and I found myself in an area a little smaller than the interior of a cardboard freezer box. I stood and saw a camera sitting on a tripod, pointed at the wall. Piled on the floor were stacks of videodisc jeweled cases, hundreds of them. When I checked the camera, I saw that it was turned on, but wasn’t running.

I pressed the release button on the camera, and a videodisc ejected softly into my hand.

It was almost too much to hope for. The disc could’ve been recording the last time the Colonel was in his office. Maybe he’d been abducted, or even killed here in his office.

Was it possible that the Colonel’s murder had been recorded?

Suddenly, through the wall, I heard voices. The cops had returned. I pulled the coat closet panel shut, flipped off the light, and put my ear against the wall. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but their voices weren’t getting any closer to the Colonel’s office.

I waited at least fifteen minutes. When I was fairly sure they were going to stay where they were, I ventured out of the video room, breathing through my mouth and moving as slowly and quietly as possible. There was a closed window on the opposite wall. I tiptoed across the room, careful to avoid stepping on anything that would make noise. I wished I’d thought to shut the office door.

I reached the window and, as I bent down to raise the sash, spotted a Gordon Lightfoot CD case on the floor. The video surveillance disc was in my pocket, and it occurred to me that, if it got scratched, it might be seriously damaged. I picked up the CD case, which was empty, inserted the other disc, and stuck it in my pocket. The window sash was unlocked and lifted easily. I’d gotten one leg over the sill when I heard a click behind me. It sounded very much like a handgun being cocked. I glanced over my shoulder and saw a smiling cop standing in the doorway.

“Well, if it isn’t Mr. Murphy, returning to the scene of the crime. Looks like I’ve got me an extra week of vacation.”