"I feel awful, Jeremy."
"Yeah, I know you do, Rich, so do I, but we gotta find this dame so we can prove you're not losing your marbles," Jeremy said in return.
"Do you think I'm crazy, Jeremy?"
"Sure, why not?" Jeremy asked, "We're all crazy, I'm crazy, my sister's crazy, everyone in the whole damn town's crazy. They'd especially have to be crazy to think this Mason chap is an okay guy. Rich, in life you come to find that everybody who has half a right mind is crazy, even that warden Mac' duff of yours is crazy. Only he don't know it yet."
The boys went up the stairwell watching their every step, every time they heard a car go by in the street, their hearts missed a beat, expecting it to be Mason's truck. But after the third car passed by, they figured they were safe for the time being. They got into the upper-hallway for the second floor and realized there were more rooms to this mausoleum than they had figured.
"Where do we look first?" Richie asked.
"I'll look through the rooms on the left, you take the right," Jeremy said.
"What if she's upstairs?" Richie asked.
"Allright, you look down here, I'll look up there and see if she's there, maybe she's even kicking."
"Jeremy, this is no time for your jokes," Richie said.
"Who's joking? I've seen people get their throats cut and they survived."
"Yes, but not as long as she's been in this house, especially without any medical help."
"Well you never know," Jeremy replied, "some people have been known to survive some pretty weird things for unusual amounts of time."
"Whatever, let's just see if we can find her," Richie said.
Jeremy went around the hall to the next set of stairs that led up to the third floor, he looked up and bellowed, "HELLO UP THERE! – ARE YOU THERE?"
Richie jumped and turned back around to look at him, "Jeremy!"
Jeremy listened and heard no response, "I guess the next floor can wait."
Denise had every light on in the basement she found, she wanted to make sure that there was no mistaking it if she found the corpse. The basement consisted of three rooms, the first one had a refrigerator and a freezer and a washer and dryer, the second room was a couple of steps down and had a work bench and toolboxes and buckets of plaster, the third room had the furnace and the water heater and a couch, and a cabinet built into the wall. Denise was puzzled, usually a house like this had a small basement in the back, and a crawl space under the porch out front. This was no small basement, this was a perfect place to store the body. She went over to the cabinet and slowly opened the door, there wasn't anything inside. That was a relief to her, but it wasn't going to help Richie if they couldn't find the body.
Next she went back into the second room, underneath the work benches were cupboards, she opened the doors one by one in hopes of finding something. But that turned out to be useless too. So she went back into the first room and first opened the dryer and the washer, she found a lot of ugly clothes that were filled with soap and static electricity, but no body. Then she got an idea, the freezer! It would be a perfect place to store the body until he got rid of it, the body would stay "fresh" and the odor of death would never be noticed in the house. It had a padlock on it, but it didn't stop her, she took out a pick and removed the lock.
She drew in a long breath before opening the freezer, but it was full of frozen meat wrapped in white paper with pink printing on it, so you'd know what was what: arm roast, Italian sausage, rump roast, bacon, etc. Denise was about to close the freezer and go on, but she reconsidered their options and pulled out a large piece wrapped up labeled rump roast. She pulled back the wrapping and saw it was just dark brown meat covered in ice. Denise dropped the meat back in the freezer and shut it, but the top wouldn't stay down, it came back up a few inches. Denise pushed it down again and it came back up. Finally she'd had enough and slammed the lock back on and went back up the stairs.
Richie and Jeremy had gone through seven of the rooms looking in every closet, in every trunk, under every bed, and in the bathrooms they looked in the bathtubs and the cupboards under the sinks and still found nothing.
"Man, we're getting nowhere fast with this," Richie said.
"I'm starting to think maybe I did it, at least I'd know where I put her," Jeremy said.
"How many rooms have we looked in so far?" Richie asked.
"Seven."
"And there's fifteen rooms on this floor, so—"
"Unless you count the two bathrooms too, so that makes nine."
"Meaning we have six more rooms to check," Richie said.
"Man, I wish this guy lived in a smaller house, it'd be easier to find this stiff," Jeremy told him, "tell me something, Rich, what was this lady dressed in?"
"What!"
"I mean, if we find her clothes in a closet or something, then we'll know he's done something with her body," Jeremy said.
"Oh—a flimsy red dress with matching shoes, and this set of dark fishnet stockings."
"Sheesh, that's the most eccentric two dollar hooker I ever heard of," Jeremy said.
"I know," Richie said.
Jeremy went over to another room, opened the door and turned on the light, "Bedroom," he stated, he walked over to the bed and looked under it, "Nothing under the bed," he went over to the door and looked behind it, "nothing behind the door," he went over to the closet, "and nothing in the closet."
"What about the bathroom?" Richie asked.
"What?"
Richie entered the room and pointed to a door on the other side of the room, "That door leads to a bathroom, is there anything in it?"
Denise was now searching through the first floor and getting nowhere fast. She searched the downstairs bathroom, the kitchen, the den, the study, the library, the dining room, all the closets in between and now the living room. She had no luck in finding the body but she did see something that interested her. At the edge of the coffee table was a small metal comb; it probably wouldn't have been so interesting to her, except the second half of the teeth had been sharpened.
"Bah," she said, "probably has dandruff and uses this to—"
Denise stuck the comb in her pocket and decided to worry about that later, she went over to the side window and saw the pickup coming into the drive.
"Oh shit," she said. She took off and ran for the hallway, "RICHIE! JEREMY"
Richie had just grabbed the doorknob to the bathroom door when they heard her calling. They ran out of the room and into the hall at the stairs.
"What's going on?" Jeremy asked.
"Mason's back!"
"What?" the boys exclaimed in unison.
"It's time we got the hell out of here," Denise said.
"Yeah, but how?" Richie asked, "by the time we get down there it'll be too late!"
"The windows!" Jeremy said, "The windows, Richie, it's our only chance."
"What?"
"Just do it Richie! We can't kill him, not now anyway, just do it! I'll be waiting for you," Denise said.
Denise took off and ran for the back door and was out on the back porch just as she heard the front door open. Her heart was in her throat, not for her narrow escape, but because he wasn't supposed to be here. He wasn't supposed to be back until the afternoon, and furthermore, her friends were still in the house.
Jeremy opened the window in a bedroom and looked down, it was a good twenty-some foot jump, but they would survive it. He had one foot out the window and looked back at Richie, "Let's go, Rich."
But Richie stood behind him paralyzed, "Jeremy, I can't."
"Yes you can, look, under this window is a ledge outside, you lower yourself onto the ledge, it'll reduce your fall by about seven feet, and you can survive a fall little over ten feet high. Look Rich, we don't have a choice, it's either we take our chances with Mother Nature, or with Mason, which do you want?"
Richie was about to answer when he heard someone at the foot of the stairs, working their way up. Jeremy slipped out the window and dropped to the ground with no problems, but he couldn't call up for Richie or Mason might hear them. Richie slipped outside, grabbed a-hold of the ledge beneath him and looked down. He closed his eyes and let go, he thought the ground would be rock hard and he'd die, but he landed on his feet, which quickly got sore ankles. Jeremy grabbed him by the hand and they took off running around the side of the house to find Denise.
"Where do you think she is?" Richie asked.
"Maybe she went back to the house," Jeremy replied.
"Wrong."
Denise stepped out from behind the porch and around the side of the house.
"Now what?" Jeremy asked.
"What do you mean now what? We run like hell, that's now what."
They ran down the back road behind the house, back down the street leading to their block and through the back door of Denise's house.
"That was some scary shit," Jeremy said.
"Richie, are you okay?" Denise asked.
"My nerves are shot, and I think I'm having a heart attack, but yeah, I'm fine," Richie said.
"Did you find anything?" Jeremy asked.
"Nothing, how about you?" Denise asked.
"No, but we only covered half of the second floor," Richie said in between gasps for air, "Denise, I thought you said he'd be gone until this afternoon."
"He was supposed to be, why the hell did he come back?" Denise asked.
"Maybe he's just put the body on ice and is just now trying to get rid of it," Jeremy thought.
"Denise," Richie said, "I don't know what we're going to do, if he gets rid of that body then I don't know what the hell we're going to do next."
"For now," Denise said as she grabbed Richie by the shoulders, "We're just going to lay low and see what happens. If he goes out of the house again, we're going to follow him. Jeremy, get on the damn phone and see if the precinct's found Uncle David yet."
"I'm on it."
Denise turned around to face Richie again and saw he was crying.
"Richie, what's wrong?"
"He could've gotten me, Denise."
"But he didn't."
"But he could've—"
Denise took Richie in her arms and stroked the back of his head, "But he didn't, and as long as I am alive, Richie Ryan, he is never going to."
"But what if he kills you?" Richie asked over his sobbing.
"He's not going to kill me, if anything he's going to wish I killed him."
"You don't know that, he already killed one person."
"Who only knew how to make easy money to survive, I on the other hand know how to survive by myself, and if I have to, I'll kill him myself."
Richie didn't say anything else, he just kept crying and buried his face in her shoulder.
"Please don't cry, Rich—I—come on."
Denise took Richie by the hand and took him into the living room.
"What?" Richie asked in a low voice.
"You have been running yourself ragged all night, you're exhausted, even I can see that," Denise helped Richie lower himself onto the couch and lay down, "so just relax and try to get some sleep."
"But—"
"Don't worry, nothing is going to happen to you, Richie."
Denise picked up a sheet from the end of the couch and covered Richie with it. Jeremy came back in the room saying, "Hey sis, I just got off the phone with the—is Richie okay?"
"He'll be fine, he just needs to sleep," Denise said as she got up, "now what was it?"
"Oh, I got off the phone with the police and they say that they did find Uncle David."
"Good."
"In Union Gap."
"WHAT?" Denise exploded, "What in the hell is Uncle David doing there!"
"That's the part they haven't found out yet," Jeremy replied, "all they know is he's on his way back right now, and he'll be here within the hour with any luck."
"Wonderful," Denise said, "Jeremy, go keep an eye on Mason, make sure he doesn't leave the house without us knowing."
Jeremy left the room and headed back to the den, Denise turned back around and saw Richie was already asleep. She saw this as her opportunity, she sneaked out of the room and went to make a phone call.
"Your nephew?"
"That's right."
"Impossible, Mac' du—I mean MacLeod isn't his father, he's hardly a legal guardian."
"Well if you want to get literal then you could have a point, but—"
"Never mind, what I want to know is how in the hell you can just stand by in New York knowing that he's at risk of getting killed."
"Who's standing by? I'm currently suspended at 37,000 feet off the ground."
"What?"
"I'm due in Seacouver by five."
"You're coming here?"
"You think I'd just stand by and let him die?"
"Well what did you think I was talking about?"
"Never mind—how is Richie?"
"Currently indisposed."
"Is he allright?"
"I would hope so, he didn't take too far a fall, but—"
"A fall?"
"Yeah. We went over to Mason's house while he was gone to find the body. They were on the second floor when he came back, so they had to jump from a window, and we ran back over here."
"How is he?""Well he was a hysterical mess when we got back here, right now he's out cold."
"Good."
"MacLeod's due back here any day, so this should really be a surprise to him when he comes back and finds out about Mason."
"He's still alive?""Yeah, we couldn't risk killing him when we got out of there, but it might be an option next time. Don't you agree?"
"Denise I'm going to be honest with you, I love Richie like he were my own, and Duncan and I share a brotherly bond that goes beyond words. So I know how Duncan feels about Richie as his 'son'. Duncan may think Mason is allright now, but when he finds out what he's put the lad through, he's going to be just as anxious as you to kill him."
"Can you be sure of that?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well lately I've been getting the impression from Richie that this 'Duncan is a man very set in his ways, and unless he sees something with his own two eyes, he won't believe it."
"So he's gotten even more stubborn than my last visit, eh? Well when I see him I'll just have to have another one of our conversations with him."
"Oh you can't come up here, Connor," Denise said, "the joint looks weird enough as is, with extra company—"
"No that won't be necessary, I'm going to stay at a hotel while I'm there."
"Can Richie stay with you?"
"What?"
"Look Connor, I'm not getting cold feet, I just don't like the idea of Richie staying somewhere during this, where he could get hurt."
"Well you don't want him with me, I have enemies all over the globe."
"I know, but you're his uncle."
"Yes but you've been his friends since before either Duncan or myself came to know him."
"Exactly, which is why I know what's better for him than Duncan thinks. Before they left he didn't think Richie should even be here, he wanted to take him with them."
"Why?"
"Because he wasn't getting any sleep, but then again who could with that psycho living nearby?"
Denise held the receiver to her ear and walked over to the living room and saw Richie writhing on the couch.
"Connor, I have to go, I think I have to wake Richie up."
Denise hung up the phone and dashed back into the living room and pinned Richie on the couch to stop his thrashing about. Richie opened his eyes and let out a shriek even though it was just Denise.
"Richie, what's wrong?"
"I don't know—I think it was—"
"Just a nightmare?" Denise added.
"Yeah."
"Forget it Richie, this wasn't any regular nightmare, what was it?" Denise asked.
Denise backed up to Richie's feet so he could sit up, "I remember seeing Mason and—he was—he came up to me, and he was holding in his hand—"
"What?" Denise asked.
Richie didn't say anything for a minute, Denise recognized a paralyzing look of fear and pain in his eyes right before he answered, "He was holding Mac's head!"
Denise's eyes went wide when she heard it. Richie almost fell to pieces, he lowered his head and cried. For a minute, Denise did nothing, she just watched him, the last words he said echoing in her ears. Mason was sick no doubt, cutting a woman's throat, but removing Duncan MacLeod's head? Denise placed Richie's head in the crook of her arm and brought him close to her while she tried to think of something assuring and soothing to say, but there wasn't.
"Shit Richie," she said, "he must really be important to you."
Richie cried harder at her comment, as if agreeing with her. He stayed that way for a short while, until he'd finally calmed down and pulled away from her, "What time is it?"
"Going on eleven, you weren't asleep for long," Denise said, "and I have a feeling you won't be until this whole thing is taken care of."
They both froze when they heard police sirens coming up the street, they ran over to the front window and saw three police cars go speeding by.
"What do you think they're doing?" Richie asked.
"Probably a crash somewhere," Denise said, "the cops know better than to come here like that."
They continued to stare out the window when they saw a familiar car pull up at the curb. Denise ran out the front door with Richie right behind her. David got out of his car and was coming up to the yard to meet them.
"Good morning, honey," he said.
"Where the HELL have you been?" Denise asked as she stopped right by the car.
"Well you see I—"
"All night you were gone and now we find out you were in Union Gap?" Denise asked, "What the hell is the matter with you? What were you thinking?"
Richie realized it must have been oblivious to Denise that she was brutally slapping her uncle, so he pulled her off of him and pulled her back a few feet. "Denise, calm down!"
Denise quieted down and looked at her uncle, not with a look of remorse, but rather of realization of what she'd done. And she still felt no remorse.
"I take it your parents still don't know you do that," David said.
"Uncle David, something weird is going on," she said.
"Well I know, I got a report about the missing deputy, and I—I think we better go inside before I say anything."
"I agree," Denise replied.
Richie let go of Denise and they headed into the house, David closed the door behind them and they headed over to the living room. Richie and David sat down on the couch, Denise seated herself in a chair next to the couch.
"Allright Uncle David, where were you last night?" Denise asked.
"I found out that that deputy imposter had blown town after he did his disappearing act here and he was heading for the Union Gap, so I followed him figuring I'd find out what was going on last night. I was only a block away from catching him today when my car turned over in the middle of the road—and I lost him. I was lucky I didn't get killed myself, by the time I got out of the squad car it was reeking of gasoline—two minutes later the whole thing blew up in flames."
"So he's still on the loose?" Denise asked.
"That's right—and—upon returning to town I found out that Troy Bloch was murdered last night on his way over here."
"Oh God," Richie said.
"That can't be, we never found him," Denise said, "we went out and we searched the whole damn town, we never found him—where was he?"
"They found his body in the driver seat of a police car that had bashed into a telephone pole," David explained.
"Who could've put him there?" Denise asked.
"What?"
"Bloch didn't drive a police car, that way no one would ever know he was a cop. Someone had to have crashed the car there first, and then put his body there."
"But why?" Richie asked, "For what reason?'
"Nobody but us knows what's going on with Mason, at least so far—a deputy was supposed to come over last night and keep an eye on us—why? So the murderer wouldn't get to us, but instead he got to the deputy, had him killed and stored away in a crashed car to make it look like he was in an accident and killed himself when he slammed into the telephone pole. Then this other guy comes to the house claiming to be him so we won't get suspicious, then he slips out when no one's watching, probably to help Mason move the body. And they can see us leave from his house meaning that by the time all of us were gone, they could've easily broken in and tore up the damn place. But without the deputy ever being here and no one at the police station even knowing about the murder then there would be no witnesses with any credibility and Mason gets off scot-free. If that's the case, he had some help last night."
"Then Mason clearly isn't in this alone."
"Clearly not," Denise said.
"But that's not what I'm worried about right now," David said, "I'm worried that Mason may have more help in this than just the man who was here last night. And if that's the case then the three of you could be getting into serious trouble."
But Denise was not phased by her uncle's concerns. "We're not leaving, Uncle David, no one's going anywhere until Mason is taken care of."
"I don't think that's a smart choice, Denise," David said.
"Maybe not," Denise replied, "but I'm not going to leave my home and take Richie and Jeremy with me to some new place where we don't know anyone, and be surrounded by people who could just as easily know Mason."
"I suppose you're right," David said.
"It makes sense to me," Jeremy said as he entered the room, "We're better off staying here, we know who to avoid, what to expect, and if it should come to it, who to kill."
"Why are you here?" Denise asked, "I had you watching Mason's house."
"Nothing's happening, I think he must've already gotten rid of the body."
"Impossible," Richie finally spoke, "he couldn't have, if he put the body in the back of his truck, somebody would know."
"Maybe someone moved it for him," Jeremy said.
"Like whom?" Richie asked, "That guy who was here last night couldn't have done it, the car he drove was too small to hide a body in."
"True—but let's not forget, Richie—what with all of us running around different places, him disappearing and reappearing and someone tearing up the house while we were out, the possibilities are endless right now as to where the body can be."
"What?" David asked.
Denise sighed, "While we were out last night, Richie and Krug came looking for us and found us at the police station. By the time we got back we found the house had been broken into, the phone lines had been cut and the entire house was a mess."
David sighed and looked over at her, "Now I'm really worried about you kids."
"We'll be fine, Uncle David."
"You may be, Denise, but I'm not so sure about Richie, don't forget, he's the only witness to this case," David told her.
"That's right, and I intend on keeping him alive," Denise said, "Well Uncle David, I'd say it was about time you left before somebody saw you."
"Yeah, that's probably a good idea—listen, I'm sorry about everything that's been going on, if there's anything else I could do—"
"Yeah, there is," Jeremy said, "tell that whole damn station what's going on up here, I got a feeling before the night's over, we're going to find that body."
"You're really being optimistic about this," David said.
"Maybe there's a reason for it," Jeremy replied, "Come on, Uncle David, I'll show you out."
Jeremy got up and led David to the door; Denise looked over at Richie and saw that he didn't seem to be quite "all there".
"Richie, what's wrong?" she asked.
"Krug was right," Richie said.
"What?" Denise asked.
"Last night, Krug said that more people were going to die before this was over, Troy Bloch is dead."
"He was already dead by the time Krug said that, but I agree with him," Denise said, "I think there's going to be another murder before it's over."
"I know there is," Richie said, "he's going to come after me."
"You can't know that, Richie," Denise said, "he doesn't even know that you saw him."
"He knows, dammit he knows, he must, otherwise none of this would've happened," Richie said.
"Allright, I'll give him a call and see if he can come back up here," Denise said.
"What? Why?" Richie asked.
"Because I think he'd be of more help to us here than at his job," Denise said.
Denise got up from the couch and headed into the dining room to call Krug. Jeremy came back in and closed the door behind him and headed back into the living room, "Well he'll be around later, probably bring the whole precinct with him—are you okay, Rich?"
"Yeah."
Denise came back in the living room and said, "Krug will be up here in half an hour, I told his boss that there was a nice bonus in it for him for service in the daytime."
"Why's he coming up here?" Jeremy asked.
"Because the odds are likely that there will be a bloodbath tonight, and I want him to be here when it happens," Denise said.
Krug slammed the door to his car and walked up to the house, as he raised his fist to knock on the door, it opened and Jeremy and Richie pulled him in.
"What's going on?" Krug asked.
"We need your help," Denise said.
"Fine with me—what do you need me to do?" Krug asked.
"We went over to Mason's house to look for the body and he came home hours before he was supposed to, so we had to jump out the window and get back here before he saw us," Jeremy said.
"Are you allright?" Krug asked.
"We have to find the body before he does something with it," Denise said, "and we think we might have an idea of where to look."
"Where?" Krug asked.
"Look, we have an idea to find her, and we'd all be risking our lives, but we don't have much of a choice," Denise said.
"What is it?" Krug asked.
"Jeremy's going to watch the window and see when Mason steps out, he'll be leaving again sometime today, and when he does, we're going back over there to find the body."
"What makes you so sure that he'll be leaving?" Krug asked.
"Because he is going to get a call from the hospital, asking him to come down for an immediate exam performed by Doctor Patrick Henry Rosenbloom."
"Who is Doctor Patrick Henry Rosenbloom?" Krug asked.
"He doesn't exist, that's the beauty of it," Jeremy said, "he goes down there, the nurse at the front desk tells him to take a seat in the waiting room, he'll be there for at least an hour, then they'll go through all their files and records to prove that there is no such doctor at the hospital. That should give us plenty of time to find the stiff."
"Sounds like a plan so far," Krug said.
"We'll look on the second and third floor to find the body, and you're going to stand guard for when he comes home or if anybody passing by gets suspicious," Denise explained.
"Well, I'll be back in half an hour," Jeremy said as he headed for the back door.
"Where do you think you're going?" Denise asked.
"If you need me, I'll be down at the phone booth informing Mason that he has to come down to the hospital immediately. He should be gone by the time I get back, by then, we're going to find the corpse."