Authors: Jason Dean
Returning to the scene was a bad risk in anybody’s language. Yet here he was. On Long Island again. At the Brennan place where
his life had been turned inside out and seven others had come to a violent end.
But risky or not, Bishop always knew he’d return the first chance he got. He
had
to.
The house
had been abandoned since the murders. The widowed Mrs Brennan now lived in one of her husband’s town apartments
with apparently no intention of ever occupying this place again. Bishop couldn’t really blame her. And with her husband’s
life insurance payout and the money from his will, she now had the kind of bank balance that meant she could afford to leave
the estate
empty for as long as she wanted.
The bus had brought him to a stop two miles away. After a brief visit to a nearby hardware store where he’d bought a long
plastic-handled screwdriver and a small pair of wire cutters, he’d walked the rest. It had been a pleasant enough hike with
only a handful of vehicles passing him along the way, none of them law. The same
security fencing still surrounded the entire
perimeter and Bishop approached it from the north side. A simple touch test with the screwdriver showed there was no electrical
current running through it any more. After that, the small wire cutters made short work of the chain link fence and he slipped
through the opening, then made his way through the dense, overgrown woods
until he reached the gazebo at the back of the house.
As he passed, he inspected the stone floor of the gazebo for old blood stains. Something to indicate Thorpe’s presence here
three years ago. But of course there was nothing.
Bishop reached the house and just stood there for a moment in the mid-afternoon heat, listening to the singing of birds
all
around him. In front of him was the rear door and the ridiculously expensive anti-blast picture windows. The door was the
same model and same colour as before, but given what had happened it was definitely new.
To Bishop’s left was the four-car garage that extended out from the house with the roof serving as a balcony for the room
overlooking
it. And by the side of the garage was a small clutch of oak trees with plenty of low branches. After taking a
deep breath and stretching his arms, he climbed onto a low but firm-looking branch and didn’t stop climbing until he was able
to jump onto the garage roof. The buzz of pain from his stomach pushed him on. It served as an almost constant reminder of
what he’d
done so far and was now becoming an old friend.
His cellmate, Jorge, had always been eager to pass on his extensive lock-picking knowledge to anybody who would listen and
Bishop now used that lesson on the balcony door’s lock. Fifty-five seconds later he slid the glass door open and stepped into
the room. The floor was still carpeted and there were drapes
above the windows, but everything else was gone. No furniture;
nothing to give any indication as to the room’s previous purpose. But Bishop still remembered. This had been Natalie’s den,
a room she’d preferred to her second-floor bedroom. The room he’d been running for when the rear door blew up in his face.
As Bishop walked through the house, he wondered
if the trip here had been worth the risk after all. The kitchen, corridors,
entrance foyer and staircases offered up nothing new. A few stains here and there where blood had seeped past the carpet fibres
and lodged in the matting, but nothing more. With a head full of memories related to the day of the attack, he’d hoped that
coming back here would trigger something important
he’d missed. Something still lodged in his subconscious. But instead the
same thoughts and images kept spinning round in a circle. And no new answers to slow the merry-go-round down.
Finally, Bishop climbed the spiral staircase to the second floor and entered the room where it all ended.
The only furniture left in Randall Brennan’s office was the desk and the ceiling-high bookshelves. All had been emptied and
Bishop saw nothing on the table’s polished surface except a few smeared fingerprints. Nothing on the walls either, except
pale rectangles where Brennan’s celebrity photos once hung alongside framed enlargements
of his favourite rare stamps. Bishop
knelt down in front of the desk, brushing his fingers over the cream-coloured carpet. This was a replacement. Had to be. No
way they could have gotten all the bloodstains out of the old one. No cleaning company on earth was that good. Mrs Brennan
probably had it replaced the moment the police wrapped up their investigation.
He walked over to the shelves and swept his fingers over every surface until he found the hidden switch. It sat at the back
of the fourth shelf down and looked like a natural swelling in the wood, but was actually made of a hard plastic. Easy to
miss, even when you were looking for it. Now that he thought about the layout for this part of the house, it seemed obvious
that there was an unaccounted-for space between this room and the huge bathroom on the other side. But then, lots of things
only become obvious after the fact.
Bishop pressed the wood-coloured lump and heard a metallic click. After a few pushes the shelves slid apart.
The vault door was a steel panel, about three foot by seven, set into a steel
internal frame and a larger face frame. An old-fashioned
combination wheel sat in the centre, and next to it was a foot-long steel handle. More a bar, really. Like something on a
slot machine, but without the black orb at the end.
He grabbed hold of the bar and tried pushing it down, grunting a little with the effort. But all he got out of it was another
jab of pain in his stomach. It didn’t budge. Bishop took a step back and looked at it. He wondered how long Mrs Brennan had
waited after the crime
scene boys had finished up before clearing the office and vault of her husband’s things. Probably not long at all. Keeping
busy with day-to-day tasks is generally the best remedy for bereavement. In which case, it was likely
this safe hadn’t been
reopened in the last thirty-five months. Mrs Brennan might have even forgotten the combination by now, assuming she ever knew
it in the first place.
As he turned back to the room his eye caught a flash of white on the floor in the space between the wall and the right-hand
bookcase. Like fragments of paper. He crouched down,
reached in until his fingers touched the crumpled pages, and pulled them
out.
Bishop scanned the three portions. Two pieces were the remains of an acceptance letter from a Wald College, while the third
was part of a communication from some rest home in San Francisco. He tried sliding the shelves further to see if there were
more in there but they
only moved another inch, as if something was jamming the mechanism. He knelt down on the dusty carpet
and probed around under the gap at the bottom until he found the obstruction.
Some more paper was lodged in the railing the wheels travelled on. Gently, he jiggled the bookcase to and fro while he tried
to pry the sheets out without tearing them. With each
motion, a little more came loose. He was starting to sweat in the airless
room when they finally came away in his fingers and he stood up and smoothed out the creased fragments.
They were the bottom sections of the other crumpled-up pages. The college acceptance letter for Philip Brennan was no more
than that, although the Dean laid heavy hints that the new
library wing was in need of sponsors. The one from Willow Reeves
Rest Home was a brief response to a previous enquiry from Randall Brennan regarding an old patient of theirs named Timothy
Ebert, explaining that they couldn’t discuss the details of former residents.
Possibly just random scraps left behind when everything was moved out, but on the other hand,
maybe not. Bishop folded the
sheets and stuffed them in his jacket pocket. It couldn’t hurt to consider them properly later.
As he looked around the room again, his attention was drawn to four equally spaced marks forming a square in the middle of
the carpet. The kind of marks a chair might make. Frowning, he raised his eyes to the sloping ceiling directly
above and saw
a smoke detector. Just like
the ones in all the other rooms. Interesting. So somebody had decided to replace the battery on this one
after
the new carpet had been installed. In a house nobody lived in any more. Yet the indicator light wasn’t flashing, and Bishop
knew batteries on these things could last ten years or more.
He walked through the
doorway to the much smaller adjoining room. Previously Brennan had used it for occasional satellite
conferences with his overseas clients. Now it was empty save for two metal folding chairs. The kind that opens up like a slanted
capital A. They had cross braces across the tubular steel legs and a single-contoured back and waterfall seat. One also bore
the faint, smudged
imprint of a shoe with a circular space in the centre of the sole. It looked like a size nine. The same
shoe size as Tennison, Thorpe and Chaney. That was a big help. And with over twenty thousand different types of sole in circulation
at any one time, he couldn’t even begin to guess the particular make.
Bishop picked that chair up and took it back into the
other room. He positioned the end of the chair legs precisely on the
corresponding marks on the floor. A perfect match.
He climbed up and examined the white, circular device above him. Looked like a good quality alarm. Made of tough plastic with
the name
Premier Alert
moulded into it and a grille encircling the perimeter. Reaching up, he tried twisting the
casing from its base. It was lodged
tight. Ignoring the tearing pain in his lower back, he kept at it and finally got it moving, rotating the device anti-clockwise
several times until the bottom half came away in his hand.
Inside, a fragment of metal and plastic was stuck to the base. Both materials were black, and affixed to the side of the plastic
was something that looked like a broken lens.
You meet a lot of people in the close protection racket. Some good, some bad. But usually talented in some form or another.
And a person with a talent likes to talk about his or her skill. Tennison had been a talented guy who loved to talk. He was
great with gadgets and new technologies about to hit the market.
Hidden surveillance was his particular thing, and the plastic
and metal remnant in Bishop’s hand looked just like a part of the cameras Tennison used to show him.
From what Bishop remembered, it could have been the remains of a wireless video capture unit, able to zoom in and transmit
footage to a receiver or portable hard drive nearby. Motion-activated,
maybe. Or
possibly something more advanced, able to transmit real-time footage to its owner.
He tried to pull the piece free, but it wouldn’t budge. Probably used superglue. Turning the casing over, Bishop pulled the
knife from his ankle holster and made a small nick on the outer part of the alarm, matching the position of the lens inside.
He then screwed
it back onto its base in the ceiling as far as it would go.
The scratch mark pointed in the direction of the vault. Naturally. Which meant that the person who wanted access to that vault
must have obtained the combination before the raid ever took place. Possibly weeks or months before.
So why arrange the raid at all?
Sixty seconds after Bishop rang Aleron’s buzzer, the door half opened and the girl from the park stared back at him. The baseball
cap had been discarded, but her hair was still pulled back from her high forehead. Bishop decided she was one of those rare
lucky ones who looked prettier the closer you got.
‘Ali’s
not here,’ she said. Her large eyes didn’t exactly project warmth, but at least she wasn’t closing the door in his
face.
‘I’ll come by again later,’ he said, turning away.
‘You can wait.’ The gap had widened a few more inches. ‘If you want.’
Bishop nodded his thanks. She led him into the large living room and he smelt the sweet scent of
honeysuckle as he passed
her.
In the centre of the room two small leather couches and an easy chair were positioned around a marble-effect coffee table.
Underneath, a tortoise-shell tabby was fast asleep and Bishop watched it for a few seconds, envying its contentment. By the
large, front-facing window, a forty-inch TV was showing the news and the
girl picked up the remote and pressed the red button,
allowing them to hear the muffled sounds coming from the street.
‘I’m making tea,’ she said, running her fingers through the end of her short ponytail. When Bishop didn’t reply she added,
‘It’s just as easy to make for two as for one.’
‘Tea’s good,’ he said and sat down on the edge
of the nearest couch.
‘Taste it before you decide how good it is. Anything with?’
Bishop shook his head. ‘Just as it is.’
She raised an eyebrow at him. ‘Just black, huh? A man with discerning taste.’ Turning, she walked towards what Bishop guessed
was the kitchen, then stopped and turned back with a furrowed brow. ‘Did I make a mistake?’
‘When?’
‘Just now when I let an escaped psycho through the front door.’
Bishop smiled and said, ‘Don’t hold back, say what you think.’
‘Not my words. It’s what the TV’s calling you.’
‘Can’t argue with TV, can I? After all, they’ve never been wrong before.’
‘Point taken. But it raises the question of who actually
killed those poor people if it wasn’t you.’
‘I’m kind of curious about that myself,’ Bishop said.
‘And?’
‘I’m still working on it.’ He scratched under his chin, feeling a few stray beard hairs, and said, ‘I take it Aleron doesn’t
treat the six o’clock news as gospel, either.’
She paused, then said, ‘He told me he’s met his
fair share of psychos and you don’t fit the profile. Said a sociopath tries
to charm everyone he meets from the word go, adapting his behaviour to fit in with those around him, but you weren’t afraid
to be disliked.’
‘He notices a lot.’
‘So does Owen,’ she said. ‘He told Ali you might have been the only innocent man in Greenacres.’
‘Well, I’m innocent of the crime they put me away for,’ he said, studying her eyes. ‘But I’m no boy scout. You’d be wrong
to think that.’
‘Okay. But are you what they say you are?’
‘No. That much I’m not.’
‘Well, then.’ The smile she gave him lit up her face. ‘I’m Jenna,’ she added before leaving the room.
Bishop sat
back on the couch and laid his head against the soft leather. Relishing the feeling he took a deep breath, held
it, counted to ten. As he exhaled he stretched his legs out and clenched his muscles. Under the coffee table the cat stirred
and stared at him. It seemed everyone was wary of him at the moment. He looked down and stared right back, thinking of that
camera remnant
he’d found in Brennan’s office. And the bonding cement residues he’d found in three other smoke detectors around
the house, including the one in Natalie’s den. The reasoning behind the one in the office was self-evident, but he was still
trying to figure out the significance of the others. After a while, he realized the cat still hadn’t looked away.
Don’t cats ever blink?
‘You’re wasting your time,’ Jenna said, interrupting their competition. ‘Bud can outstare a statue.’ She placed a mug on the
table near him and took a few sips from her own. Then she took a seat on the matching couch opposite, stretching out both
legs under the table and tickling the cat’s head with her toes.
Bishop tried his tea. ‘It’s good. Thanks.’
‘You don’t look like a James,’ she said.
The comment threw Bishop for a second and he found he enjoyed the feeling. Jenna clearly wasn’t afraid to speak her mind and
he hadn’t met many women like that. Although he did wonder what a James was supposed to look like. Especially as there were
so many of them. ‘Well, I remember my parents calling
me James when I was a kid,’ he said. ‘But these days most people just
call me Bishop.’
‘Uh, huh,’ she said. ‘You and Luke were funny this morning.’
‘Lucas?’ When she nodded, he said, ‘I couldn’t help myself. Guys like him just bring it out of me.’ About to place the mug
on the table, he paused midway. ‘You think he’ll make trouble for me?’
‘Not unless he wants to make trouble for Ali, and he’d never do that. He’s hardly in a position to anyway, even if he recognized
you. Which he probably didn’t.’
‘Okay.’ Bishop sat back and studied the room. ‘I don’t see any photos of you and Aleron on display.’
Jenna watched him, then said, ‘Well, we’ve got a long history, you know?’
‘Yeah?’
She frowned at the ceiling. ‘Let’s see now. Next March, it’ll be . . . twenty-seven years. Exactly.’
Bishop smiled. ‘Okay, I missed that one. You’re his sister.’
‘Owen’s, too. It’s not obvious, although I thought the similarity in the eyes might have given you a clue. With Owen out of
my reach, I at least try to spend a Sunday
morning with my big brother when I get the chance.’
‘It’s late afternoon now.’
Jenna looked out the window. ‘Yes,’ she said with a shrug and turned back to him, a faint upturn at the corners of her mouth.
‘It is.’
There was a momentary silence and Bishop realized how rusty he was when it came to small talk. There hadn’t been much
call
for it in his previous careers. Even less so inside. But he figured now was as good a time as any to reacquaint himself with
the technique. ‘You live nearby?’ he asked.
‘Out in Laurelton. Close enough when you think about it, but you know what siblings are like.’
‘Yes. And I get why Luke acted that way now.’
‘He’s got no claims
on me, no matter what he thinks. I make my own decisions about who I want to talk to.’ Jenna pulled her
feet up to her chest. ‘And who I want to spend time with.’
‘That I can believe,’ he said.
Three heads turned at the sound of a key in the lock and Jenna called out, ‘We’re in here, Ali.’
A second later Aleron appeared, saw Bishop
and said, ‘Sorry, man.’ He nodded to his sister and said, ‘Hasn’t the guy been
through enough? And don’t you have kickboxing class tonight?’
‘Don’t I every Sunday?’ she said. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll get out of your hair now.’
Bishop watched as Jenna stood up. She was about five-four, small-boned with narrow hips and slender legs, but there was plenty
of sinewy muscle in there. Probably not an ounce of fat on her. Her body reminded him of a gymnast he’d once known, back when
he was stationed at the American embassy in Haiti. Like Jenna, she’d also looked great from every angle.
Jenna noticed the way he was studying her and smiled. ‘Don’t ever call me petite,’ she said. ‘I’m stronger than I look.’
‘People generally are,’ he said. ‘You practise around here?’
‘The Women’s New Hope Center near the airport. Well, not
there
, exactly. More like the gym a block down from it, but lots of women from there come along.’ She looked down her nose at him
and winked. ‘And I don’t practise, I teach.’
‘Let the man alone, Jenna. We got business,’ Aleron said
as he walked towards the basement door. ‘I’ll phone you in the week,’
he called out over his shoulder.
Bishop got up and said, ‘Thanks for the tea.’
She smiled. ‘Hey, that’s what Sunday afternoons are for. Look, if I don’t see you again . . .’ She hesitated for a second and
then said, ‘Well . . . good luck, James.’
He nodded
to her and followed Aleron downstairs. In the basement, Aleron led him to the worktable and pulled out a cheap plastic
credit-card wallet from his pocket and handed it over. ‘Okay, Mr Allbright, you’re all ready to join the human race again.
At least, superficially.’
Bishop opened it to the first sleeve containing the replica Social Security card and pulled
it out. It had been laminated
and looked convincingly worn at the corners, with a further crease running down the red government watermark in the centre.
Aleron had done a pretty good job. Better than good, actually. He replaced it and took out the driver’s licence and birth
certificate.
‘Like I told you,’ Aleron said, ‘these babies’ll be good enough
for the
basics, like checking into a dive or getting past the front door of a government building, but not much more than that. Any
place where they cross-reference your name or that Social Security number against a database and you’re history. I could supply
you with the complete package – that’s my speciality – but it would cost a whole lot more. Time as well as money. And
I get
the feeling you don’t want to wait around.’
‘These look fine,’ Bishop said. He pulled some folded notes from his shirt pocket and handed them over. ‘A thousand.’
Aleron counted it quickly before putting it in his pocket and said, ‘So you found a place to bed down yet?’
Bishop shrugged. ‘Possibly.’
‘No need to get suspicious.
Maybe I feel I owe you for Owen.’
‘Forget about Owen. Nobody owes me anything. I told him I didn’t do it for him. If he’d been killed I wouldn’t have got what
I needed to get out, that’s all.’
Aleron grinned. ‘A man alone.’
‘Life’s a lot simpler that way.’
‘What kinda life is that? Seems to me you could have stayed inside
for all the difference it makes to you.’
‘Maybe I just prefer my windows without bars over them.’ And maybe he wasn’t all that happy about being set up for somebody
else’s crime, but Aleron didn’t need to know that.
‘There
is
that, I guess,’ Aleron said and handed him a folded piece of paper.
Bishop opened it and read the three addresses
on it. ‘What are these?’
‘Three hotels of the dive variety. I been told they don’t scrutinize a person’s particulars as carefully as they should. In
the current climate, the kind of place that’s harder to find than a sixteen-year-old virgin. Especially in New York. Just
some information you might find useful. Use it or don’t. No skin off my nose.’
‘I might do that. Thanks,’ Bishop said. He didn’t need any more enemies and when a man was offered advice, it made sense to
listen.
‘No problem.’
Bishop left Aleron in the basement and let himself out of the house. On the street, the sun was approaching its final descent
and routine traffic passed back and forth, both vehicular and pedestrian.
Everything looked pretty normal. Nothing pinged
on his radar. Bishop started walking north.