Footprints of a Dancer (Detective Elliot Mystery) (4 page)

A door blocked the entrance, but it was old and decayed, and even if it had been locked it would not have offered much resistance.

Elliot shoved it open and stepped into the room.

The smell of damp earth and organic substances that had gone bad filled the air. Footprints spotted the muddy floor of the basement, meandering toward the back wall, stopping at the base of a set of wooden stairs.

Elliot raised the torch.

The wooden stairs went from the floor of the basement to an open doorway leading into the house. The light dimmed further as the torch died down to nothing more than glowing embers.

Elliot let the torch fall to the damp floor where he knew it could do no harm and retrieved the flashlight he kept in the breast pocket of his jacket. Stopping at the base of the stairs, he directed the light upward, toward the opening.

It was as if someone had gone into the basement to retrieve a jar of canned fruit, intending to quickly return to the kitchen.

Elliot lowered the beam and quickly directed it about the room, checking each corner and shadowy place where he thought someone might hide.

He slowly climbed onto the bottom stair and bounced his weight against it, testing the integrity of the structure. The stairs were solid, but Elliot remained cautious, taking his time, letting each step prove itself before proceeding to the next. When he reached the top, he eased through the doorway and entered the first floor.

Tall wooden cabinets with glass-fronted doors covered two walls, and remnants of linoleum patched the countertops. Wooden planks stretched across the floor. What had once been a grand estate was now little more than the material it had been constructed from.

Standing in the darkness sent a chill up his spine. Elliot thought of leaving. Again, he had to focus on why he was there. He had to find Gerald’s connection to the empty house, if indeed there was one.

Elliot left the kitchen, moving slowly through what had been the dining area, and when he reached the empty expanse of the great room, the beam of the flashlight revealed something much more than shadowy distortions. He walked slowly around the object, a scaled-down version of a step pyramid, studying it from all angles.

The structure, a type of altar, like some mad stone mason’s private creation, rose at least seven feet from the center of the floor. The coppery scent of fresh blood filled the air. It had run down the sides of the altar to form pools on the floor.

Elliot steadied himself and stepped onto the pyramid, and when he had climbed a few steps he raised the flashlight so that the beam fell across the top of the structure.

The victim lay sprawled across the altar, his back arched, his arms lying at his sides. He had aged, of course, and put on weight, even grown facial hair, but Elliot immediately recognized him as he stared into the dimly lit face, the death mask of Stanley Gerald Reynolds III.

Elliot braced himself against the stonework and ran the light across Gerald’s corpse.

An eight or nine inch gash ran horizontally across his abdomen, just below the rib cage. Blood still oozed from the wound. An image of Gerald laughing at one of his own jokes ran through Elliot’s thoughts, and his eyes moistened.

As Elliot fought to regain composure, to understand what was happening, he again thought of Angela Gardner, and along with her image something she’d said formed in his mind:
Sacrifice is made to give sustenance to the gods.

A familiar sound from outside tugged at Elliot’s conscience, but in his current sate of confusion it took him a moment to identify its source.

Someone was trying to start the Harley.

Elliot stumbled across the room to the foyer. When he reached the front door, he placed his face against it and stared through the cracks in the boards that covered it.

His pulse quickened. Someone was out there.

Elliot scrambled through the house, maneuvered the muddy floor of the basement, climbed the cement steps and stumbled into the backyard. Gaining his footing, he ran to the front of the property.

Elliot bolted across the yard toward the ragged man struggling to push the Harley into the street.

It moved easier once he got it into neutral. It might have been a few years, and maybe some type of pain-soothing substance was hindering his performance, but the thief had clearly been around bikes before. He wouldn’t have gotten this far otherwise.

Like a linebacker who had the angle on his opponent, Elliot caught the man and dragged him to the ground. The weight of the Harley pinned the guy’s legs to the asphalt, and even in his medicated state he screamed from the pain.

Elliot hoisted the bike upright and dragged the old guy to a softer, grassy area between the sidewalk and the street.

He smelled of sweat and fermented fruit. Wrinkles lined his face. The age of those with hard lives can be deceiving, but he had to be in his seventies. “Who the hell are you?” Elliot asked.

“Did you just do what I think you did?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You lifted the bike up off of me like it was nothing. The Harley’s got to be close to seven hundred pounds.”

Elliot shook his head. He hadn’t exactly picked it up, just put it back on its wheels, using the width of the frame as leverage. “Why were you trying to steal it?”

“You got it wrong, man. I wasn’t going to steal it.”

“Oh, I get it. You were just going to push it down to the car wash and shine it up for me.”

He pulled a twenty from his pocket and showed it to Elliot. “Dude gave it to me. Said he’d give me another, when I done the job.”

“What dude?”

“The one who hangs around the old apartment house.”

A vision of Gerald, lying inside the house with his stomach cut open ran through Elliot’s head. He grabbed the ragged man by the lapels of his jacket “Tell me where he is. I need to talk to him.”

“I don’t know anything, man. To tell you the truth, I thought you was the dude until I got a better look at you.”

Elliot released his grip. “Since you’re bright enough to know I’m not the same guy, why don’t you tell me what he does look like?”

He opened his jacket, exposing the booze he’d tucked away. “Do you mind?”

“All right, if it’ll help you talk. But not too much.”

He unscrewed the lid and turned the bottle up. Afterward he replaced the cap. “He looks a little like you, the way you dress I mean. He’s older, though, grey hair and all.”

“Do you know where I can find him?”

“No. But I see him around the old place every once in a while. I just figured he owned it or something, maybe going to fix it up, rent it out or something.”

Elliot had interrogated a thousand drunks. Looked like this one was telling the truth. He helped him to his feet. “Are you hurt? I can take you to the hospital, if you want.”

“I just want to be left alone. I’ll be all right.”

Elliot reached for his wallet. “I’m going back inside, take care of some business. You said the man promised you another twenty. I’m making it up to you, but if you want to live to spend it, leave the bike alone.”

“You don’t have to worry. I don’t want no trouble with you.”

Elliot drove the Harley back onto the yard in front of the building. After shutting it off, he said. “You used to ride, didn’t you?”

“What makes you say that?”

“Just the way you handled it, like you knew what you were doing.”

The old guy’s eyes seemed to cloud over as he shook his head. “It was a long time ago, another lifetime, I guess.”

“You could get it back, if you wanted to bad enough.”

“I think about it sometimes. But I don’t know how.”

“Cut back on the booze,” Elliot said, “in small increments. Instead of two bottles a day, drink one and three quarters, pour the rest out. Next, go to one and a half, like that until you get it under control. It won’t be easy, but you can do it, if you put your mind to it.”

“Maybe I will,” he said, “but let me ask you something? The sound that brought you down here, you ever hear anything like it before?”

Elliot thought about the animal-like screaming he’d heard earlier. He shook his head.

“I wouldn’t go back inside the place if I was you. It’s where the sound always comes from, and why I did what the man asked, taking your bike and all. You understand what I’m saying?”

Elliot continued toward the house. “Use your fear as an incentive to get off the street.”

“All right. But you got to listen to me. Things been going on down here.”

“Like what?”

He took a drink, wiped his mouth, and said, “Something straight out of hell, I reckon. And I know what you’re thinking. He gets all juiced up, he wouldn’t know a scream from a country song, but you’d be wrong. I been around this old world for a long time, know a little about people dying. I know a death scream when I hear one. He cuts their hearts out. That’s what they say. You’d do well to get back on your motor and get on out of here.”

“I found somebody inside all right,” Elliot said, “murdered, cut with a knife. You know anything about that?”

Fright shot across the old guy’s face. “No, sir. Dude told me to hide the bike in the bushes. I don’t anything about no murder. Honest to God.”

Elliot turned away and retraced his steps across the lawn and through the basement. He had his phone out when he reached the parlor, intending to call the department and report what he’d found, but what he sensed caused him to rethink his options.

The expanse of dilapidated oak flooring stretched across the room, but something had changed. The altar was still in the middle of the living room, but no sacrifice was atop it, and no blood pooled on the floor.

Elliot shined the light around the room, wondering if someone had come while he was gone and removed the evidence, but as quickly as the idea formed, he dismissed it. He might have been gone long enough for someone to have hidden the body, but not to have cleaned up the mess. Although he could see from this angle and distance that the altar was empty, he again climbed the side of it to be sure.

Gerald was gone and so was the blood.

Elliot returned to the kitchen where his attention was drawn to the door leading to the basement. No trail of blood showed on the floor where someone might have dragged the body. The basement door was still open.

Elliot moved the door to the closed position.

A padlock hanging from the back of the door banged against the wood. Attached to the door frame was the corresponding hasp.

Elliot slid the hasp in place and replaced the lock, though he did not secure it. He had no desire to be trapped in such a place. However, with the door partially secured, no one could enter through the basement unless they knocked the door down, and anyone trying to get out would be slowed down considerably. It just might give him the opportunity to catch them, whoever that might be.

Elliot went back through the house to the foyer where a set of stairs led to the second floor. The only place he hadn’t been. He shined the light up the stairway, pressed his back against the wall, and began climbing, looking ahead, but glancing back occasionally to make sure no one came up behind him. The nerves on the back of his neck kept tingling.

At the top of the stairs, Elliot directed the beam around the dark chasm, but the light began to dim. The batteries were going dead.

His hands began to shake. He wanted to search the rest of the building, but the feeling of being vulnerable, exposed to whatever presence was behind this overwhelmed him. The absurdity of the situation, his being inside an abandoned house in the middle of the night, struck him. He thought about seeing Laura on the running trails at the River Park and later in the mirror of the Harley. An image of Gerald lying in sacrifice atop the altar exploded through his head. Had any of it been real? Sure, he was a little more intuitive than most people were comfortable with, but nothing like this had ever happened. Again the thought of insanity played around the corners of his mind.

Calling the police no longer seemed like a viable option. What would he tell them? What would he show them?

The light flickered again.

Elliot shook the flashlight. If it failed, he would be left in near total darkness.

He started back down the stairs, hearing nothing other than the sounds of his own movement and seeing only what the dim light revealed, but he was not alone. He knew that now with certainty.

As he passed through the living room, he checked to see if the body had reappeared, but it had not. The altar was still empty.

By the time he reached the kitchen, the flashlight had weakened further, its output reduced to a faint glow, but when he shined it on the basement door, it offered enough light to confirm his fears.

Someone had snapped the padlock shut. He was locked in.

Chapter Seven

Elliot reached beneath his jacket, pulled the Glock, and held the weapon within inches of the door.

From somewhere nearby, one of the boards that made up the oak flooring creaked.

Elliot wondered if it was the settling of the old structure, or if someone had walked across the floor.

Fingers gripped his shoulder.

Nightmarish images ran through his imagination. He spun around, his finger on the trigger, and barely stopped himself from blowing the head off the Harley thief.

Elliot lowered the weapon. “I could have killed you. What the hell are you doing?”

The old man took a few steps back. “I couldn’t bring myself to go off and leave you here. Come on, I’ll show you another way out.”

“Why is the door locked? Was it you?”

“You don’t want to be hanging around this place at night. Besides, the man you’re looking for, he’s gone. I saw him out back a few minutes ago.”

Elliot holstered the Glock and gestured for him to lead the way.

He took Elliot to the foyer. Just south of the front door, several boards covered a window. He shoved them aside. After crawling through, he held the boards in place, waiting for Elliot.

Elliot squeezed through the opening and stepped onto the front porch. Once outside, he said, “It’s a creepy old house, but I guess it beats sleeping in the rain.”