Scrabble Spells Murder
Chapter 21
21.1
Vincent forced himself to stifle crying out, as pain spread throughout his groin. Instead, he put one arm and both legs around the young officer. With his other hand, the Hacker put it over her mouth and tighten his grip on her. He waited to see if Belding had given away their whereabouts to Ironside's detectives.
Ed and Eve stopped. "Did you hear something?" Eve asked him.
Ed listened for a moment and shook his head. "Just the rustling of the leaves on the trees." Eve had been sure it was more than that but she could hear nothing now.
"Let's go. The chief is waiting for us to report back to him." Eve hesitated but soon followed Ed towards the house.
Vincent reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief he had soaked in chloroform. Struggling with Belding, he managed to push the handkerchief into her face. He held it there as she continued to struggle but to no avail. Eventually, she succumbed to the chloroform. Mortimer relaxed his arm and removed the handkerchief from Fran's face as she was no longer a threat to revealing their hiding place.
He settled down for what he figured would be a long wait. He would not be able to leave the tree house for several hours. He had no intentions of panicking and making a move too soon. Ironside would surely take advantage of it. He was just to good to relinquish his advantage to. No, he and Belding would stay right where they were long after Ironside gave up his search. He would have no choice but to quit looking when he found nothing, and he would find nothing. Vincent did not have to be in any hurry. He could run out the clock. His only worry was that Ironside would hang around here until dawn. If he did that, Vincent worried that his presence would be discovered. Although, the tree house was fairly well concealed in the darkness, it would not be in the daytime. He had checked it out in the light of day. The blackness of the night would keep one from seeing it through the leaves, but the protection of the night would be removed in the sunlight, and Ironside would know there was a tree house in the giant oak tree.
In the meantime, he had no choice but to hold out in the tree with Fran Belding until Ironside tired of looking for him.
He watched as Ed and Eve quietly approached the house. When they arrived at the back door, Ed turned the knob. "It's not locked," he whispered.
"Isn't that just a bit convenient," Eve whispered back.
"There's only one way to find out," Ed said. He opened the door. "Cover me."
Eve followed the sergeant into the house. Both of them had been briefed about the layout of the home. Brown pointed towards what was the living room. Eve acknowledged the order from her superior officer and quietly went in that direction. She did not like moving through the house in the dark. She would have preferred to have turned on lights but she knew that would only alert Vincent of their arrival and they certainly wanted to keep it unknown. She already had a bad feeling about this operation as so far they had not found a single light on in the house. That indicated to her that they either were completely wrong; that Fran was no longer being held in here, or Vincent had somehow learned of their arrival. She did not like the latter. For, if that were true, Vincent could have disarmed Fran and killed her for them to discover the body.
Ed came across a door. Reaching back into his memory of the diagram of the house, he ascertained it led to the basement. He pulled out a very small flash light that barely lit anything more than a foot in front of him. He did not like using it, but didn't dare attempt going into the cellar without some source of light. The sergeant continued down the stairs. When he reached the bottom, he discovered several doors. The first one he knew was the laundry room, the second one, the furnace room. The next one was a spare bedroom. From the information that Mark had given them, this was the room that Vincent was holding Fran in.
With his gun in one hand and the small flashlight in the other, Ed approached the door. As he arrived, he noticed the door was ajar. He eased his way towards it. Pushing it open with the barrel of his gun, the detective shined his flashlight into the room. It had most definitely been occupied lately.
Ed moved the flashlight around the room with his gun hand following it. There appeared to be no one around. He walked over to the lamp next to the bed and turned on the light. He looked around the room. That was when he noticed the gun on the floor. He picked it up and checked the serial number. It was the gun that Chief Ironside had Mark provide Fran. Concern for Fran only heighten, as he moved around the room to the bathroom. The terrible odor that invaded his nostrils became immediately familiar. It was a reminder of the time he spent in the sewer. In checking further, he found the source of the odor in the hamper.
Knowing that he would not find Fran in the house, Ed turned on the bathroom light. He found discarded clothes in the hamper. Ed left the bathroom and walked back into the bedroom. Eve entered the room. When she saw Ed, she said, "There is no one on the ground level."
"She is not here either. But she was here. There is plenty of evidence of her presence," Ed told her.
"Well, which one of us gets to inform the chief?" Eve asked.
Carl then entered the room. "They are no where to be found in the neighborhood. Every manhole is covered. He could not have used the sewer system to get away this time."
"Then they are still in the area," Eve said.
"That is what the chief said before he ordered me to check on the two of you. He is getting a bit impatient," Carl informed them.
Ed and Eve looked at one another. "Well, shall I call him?" Eve asked her superior officer.
Sergeant Brown shook his head. "I'll do it." He reached into his suit coat pocket and pulled out his phone. He dialed the chief's van and waited for the gruff voice of his boss.
"Ironside," came the reply.
"Chief, it's Ed. There is no sign of Fran or Mortimer."
"Damn it, Ed! He could not have gotten away. We sewed this block up immediately when we got here. He could not have gotten past us."
Ed could hear the frustration in Ironside's voice. He was not happy about the situation anymore than his boss was. This did not bode well for Fran's safety. "Chief, if you have not found him, then he must have left with Fran before we dispatched officers to the area."
"I am not going to assume that. You and Carl comb the entire area. Check every house in the city block, every storage shed and anywhere else Mortimer could be hiding."
"Yes, sir," Ed responded and hung up the phone. He turned to Carl and Eve. "You heard the man. Let's get some officers to help us and start checking the neighborhoods."
21.2
Vincent Mortimer entered the marina. He looked down at the paper that told him where to locate the boat that the nosy nun owned. Ironside would not know that he had decided to allow the nun to live for now. He would use the police woman to lure Ironside where he wanted him. Maybe he would go back and kill the damn nun. Unfortunately, by that time, Ironside would already be dead. He would never know that he had also killed his favorite nurse.
Vincent walked to where the boat was docked. He jumped aboard and immediately disappeared below. He did not want to be seen on board the boat.
Once below, Vincent took a look around. He had no doubt Ironside would be directly involved when he found out what Belding's part was going to be in this little adventure. He had to find a place to attach his note to Ironside, where the detective would be sure to see it.
He looked around. It certainly was not much of a boat. Why would anyone waste their time on this tub? Vincent decided on the mirror that was on the starboard side of the boat. Standing in front of it, he wondered what he could use to write his message on it. Vincent looked around for something but found nothing he could find that would serve the purpose.
He would have to leave the boat and find something to write with. He headed for the door, stopped and looked back. Why not just attach the note to the mirror? He thought about it but no, that was not a very classy way to do it. Besides, his fingerprints were all over the note by now. There wasn't much doubt that Ironside knew that he was the Hacker. So, he really would not be keeping anything from him. Yet, if it went bad, it was just one less thing the detective could use against him. He decided that writing on the mirror was a much better idea.
Mortimer left the boat and looked down the marina. One of these boats must have a tube of lipstick or a sharpie pen aboard. He moved quietly to a boat with a feminine name. The door going into the boat was locked. It was not much of a deterrent to Vincent. It took him less than thirty seconds to bypass the lock and enter.
He figured this boat was big enough that there should be sleeping quarters. After checking, he found that his assumption was correct. He went into the sleeping quarters and began his search. It did not take him long, as he found a variety of feminine items, that indicated that at least one woman came aboard the boat on a regular basis. In one of the drawers, he found just what he was looking for ... a tube of red lipstick.
Vincent returned to the "Thunderbird" and went to the mirror. He pulled the top from the lipstick and began writing a note to the former "Chief of Detectives."
21.3
Robert Ironside descended down the ramp in his office. He wheeled over to the table and began loosening his tie. He pulled it from around his neck violently and threw it across the table. Eve Whitfield bent down and picked it up, setting it back on the table.
"If I wanted you to pick the tie up, I would not have thrown it there in the first place!" Ironside snarled at his policewoman.
Recognizing that he was just letting off steam at the frustration of not being able to find Fran, Eve ignored his outburst. To say anything would only fuel his frustration and cause his temper to escalate. Instead, Eve walked into the kitchen to get a bottle of bourbon to calm the chief's nerves.
She discovered that she was not the only one that knew the chief well, as Mark had already pulled down the bourbon and several glasses. He glanced over at their boss, who had been joined by Ed and Carl. "I can't imagine what is going through his mind right now," she said quietly to Mark.
"I can. He is blaming himself for having left Fran in that house instead of pulling her out of there. Mortimer has probably killed her by now," Mark surmised.
"I don't think so. Somehow, I think she is going to figure into Vincent's plans to lure the chief where he wants him," Eve said, thoughtfully.
"If you good people would stop whispering and bring that bottle of bourbon to the table ... " Ironside snarled, cutting off the rest of his words, realizing that he was taking out the failure of the latest attempt to arrest Vincent Mortimer, on his staff.
Mark brought the bottle to the table, placed a glass in front of each of them and poured the contents into their glasses.
"Chief, I just don't understand how he could have gotten away," Carl said. "We had that entire block closed down immediately upon arriving.
"He must have entered the sewer system before we got there," Mark offered.
"That is not possible unless he never left the sewer." Ed said. "We have everyone of the manholes covered."
"Which Commissioner Randall is going to start screaming about. It is costing the city a bundle to keep them covered." Eve looked down at the glass of bourbon in her hand, crinkled her nose and set it back down. She did not have the stomach for it right now. She and Fran had become friends over the course of time and she was really worried about her. Vincent had already killed two campus security guards and Fran's life would mean little to him.
"He didn't use the sewer system," Ed remarked.
"What makes you so certain?" Carl asked. "If he did not slip past us, the only other way he could have gotten away was through the sewer."
"Then he is still down there," Eve said.
Ironside sat quietly listening to his staff. He agreed with Ed, as he did not believe that Mortimer would have used the sewer system. He would know that the chief knew he had been using it, and now had it covered by police officers. No, he had to get out of there another way. "Since you are not certain he did not go into the sewer, Carl, maybe you should have it searched again."
Lieutenant Reese groaned. The thought of going back into that sewer was not something he wanted to do. "You have to be kidding! For a third time?" he complained.
"I don't think we should just assume that he did not use it," Ironside snarled.
"Do you think he went into the sewer, Chief?" Ed asked.
Ironside thought for a moment and then said, "No, he knew I knew about it and continued use of it would lead to his capture. Remember, this man has worked around cops for years. He knows how we think. That is why he has been so elusive this far."
"Then why go back into the sewer?" Carl questioned. "We have the manholes covered. He can't come out without being spotted."
The chief looked over at him. "You are the one that insisted that he must have used it."
"Well, does anyone have any explanation as to how he got out of the area?" Eve asked.
"No, that is the problem," Ed complained.
Ironside glanced back at his desk. "Where are the drawings for that house Fran was held in?"
"On your desk." Ed answered. "Why do you ask? They were accurate. There is no way he could be hiding in that house."
"Ed's right, Chief. We went through it thoroughly. Nothing was left off the layout," Eve agreed. "No one was hiding in that house.
"What about outside?" Ironside demanded.
"Nothing," Eve said. "They don't have a storage building. We checked the garage. He could not possibly hide himself and Fran in there."
"There wasn't even any landscaping. No bushes to hide in," Ed added. "Nothing but one giant oak tree in the middle of the back yard. One swing set and a slide for the kids."
Ironside turned his head. "An oak tree?"
"Yes, why?" Eve asked, wondering where the chief was going with this line of thinking.
"They have kids?" Ironside said, more a statement then a question.
"Two kids," Ed responded.
"Two kids and a big oak tree." Ironside looked over at his detectives. "If you were a kid and had a great big oak tree in the back yard, what would you nag your parents to do?"
No one said anything. Ironside waited a moment, shook his head. "Didn't any of you ever have a tree house when you were kids?"
Ed and Eve looked at each other. Ed reached for a phone and dialed. "Patch me in to Officer Duffy." He waited while the officer accommodated him. "Duffy, there is a tree in the back yard. Check it out. There is a possibility that Mortimer is hiding in a tree house. Call Chief Ironside's office."
The next fifteen minutes seemed like a day as Ironside and his staff waited to hear back from Duffy. When the phone finally rang, Ed reached for it but the chief was quicker.
"Ironside."
"Chief, Officer Duffy here. Your hunch was right. There was indeed a tree house in the oak tree. It is concealed by the branches and leaves. It cannot be seen at night, although it probably would have been spotted in the day time."
Trying to contain his impatience, Ironside said, "Was Mortimer up there?"
"He was. We found a handkerchief with chloroform on it. He likely used it to put Fran out. Chief, he probably waited until we pulled most of the officers out of the area and then slipped past the ones that were left," Duffy decided.
Ironside slammed his fist down on the table. "Damn it! Alright, Duffy, call off the rest of the officers and send them back to their regular duties. No use tying them up, Mortimer is not going to return to that house." He slammed the phone back onto the cradle.
"We are sorry, Chief. We never thought of a tree house," Ed said, realizing they had Mortimer and allowed him to slip past them.
"Forget it, Ed. It was an honest mistake. It's not your fault."
"We should have thought of it," Eve said.
"Duffy said it was not recognizable at night," Ironside said, soothing his officers. "There is nothing that can be done about it now. We have to concentrate on tomorrow. It is the date which Mortimer has been given for Agatha to be on that boat."
"Chief, I have been thinking. Rather then have her on the boat, we could borrow her robes and I could pose as Sister Agatha," Eve offered.
"He is not going after Agatha," Ironside said. "Fran is who he intends to kill."
"She is not the only one he intends to kill," Ed agreed. "He intends to take the chief out at the same time."
"That's right, Ed. All we have to do is figure out how he plans on doing it. I am going to take you up on that offer, Eve. We are going to let Mr. Mortimer think that he has us completely fooled. Now just how would you go about killing both Fran and me out on the bay in a boat?" he asked his staff.
21.4
Vincent Mortimer checked the store for an alarm. He chuckled when he saw that it was one controlled on the internet. He pulled out his computer and began hacking into the system. Within twenty minutes, he had disarmed the alarm.
Using his elbow, he knocked out the window, reached in and unlocked the door. He did not have much time. The alarm company would alert the owner of the store that the alarm had been disabled. He would have to hurry.
Vincent moved quickly through the store to the deep-sea-diving section. He selected a wet suit, goggles, fins for his feet and a light-weight oxygen tank. He then grabbed a spare tank. When he looked at the prices of what he was about to steal, he knew why he had broken into the store. How could the average person afford such a hobby?
Mortimer took his items and hurried out of the store before a couple of Ironside's police officers showed up.
Now it was time to go get Officer Belding. He hoped she liked to go swimming.
To Be Continued...