Рита Браун - Claws And Effect

"That's not a bad idea."

"A light hammer might help. To tap walls."

Rick smiled. She was good. She was good.

22

The sunset over the Blue Ridge Mountains arced out like a pinwheel of fire, oriflamme radiating from the mountaintops, an edge of pink gold on each spoke.

Harry paused at the creek dividing her property from the property of her neighbor, Blair Bainbridge. The sky overhead deepened from robin's-egg blue to a blue-gray shot through with orange. She never tired of nature's palette.

As she watched the display, so did Rick Shaw and Cynthia Cooper. They had parked an unmarked car along the railroad tracks near the hospital just below the old switching station, a smallish stone house, finally abandoned by the C O Railroad in the 1930s.

"Something," Rick murmured.

"Yeah." Coop watched the sky darken to velvety Prussian blue, one of her favorite colors.

One by one lights switched on, dots of life. Drivers turned on their headlights and Crozet's residents hurried home for supper.

"When's the last time you went to a movie?" Rick asked.

"Uh-I don't know."

"Me, too. I think I'll surprise the wife tomorrow night and take her to a movie. Dinner."

"She'll like that."

He smiled. "I will, too. I don't know how I had the sense to pick her and I don't know why she married me. Really."

"You're a-well, you know, you're a butch kind of guy. Women like that."

He smiled even bigger. "You think?"

"I think."

He pulled out a Camel, offered her one, then lit up for both of them. "Coop, when you going to find what you're looking for? You still thinking about Blair Bainbridge?"

She avoided the question. "I meant to ask you the other day, when did you switch to Camels? You used to smoke Chesterfields."

"Oh," he exhaled. "I thought if I tried different brands"-he inhaled-"I might learn to hate the taste."

"Marlboro."

"Merit." He grimaced.

"Kool."

"I hate menthol."

"Dunhill. Red pack."

"Do you know any cop can afford Dunhills?"

"No. Shepheard's Hotel. Another good but real expensive weed."

"You must be hanging out with rich folk."

"Nah-every now and then someone will offer me a cigarette. That's how I smoked a Shepheard's Hotel."

"M-m-m, what's the name of that brand, all natural, kind of thirties look to the pack, an Indian logo. Where did I see those?" he pondered.

She shrugged. "I don't know." A beat. "Viceroy."

"Pall Mall. You're too young to remember."

"No, I'm not. Winstons."

He waited, took a deep drag. "I go to the convenience store. I ask for cigarettes, I see all those brands stacked up and now I can't think of any more."

"Foreign ones. Gauloises. French. Those Turkish cigarettes. They'll knock your socks off."

He grunted, then brightened. "Virginia Slims."

"Lucky Strike."

"Good one. And I note you haven't answered my question about Blair Bainbridge."

Blair Bainbridge worked as a model, flying all over the world for photo shoots. Little Mim Sanburne more or less claimed him but he was maddeningly noncommittal. Many people thought he was the right man for Harry, being tall and handsome, but Blair and Harry, while recognizing one another's attractiveness, had evolved into friends.

"Well, he is drop-dead gorgeous," she sighed.

"Have I ever spoken to you about your personal life?" He turned toward her, his eyebrows quizzically raised.

"No." She laughed. "Because I don't have a personal life."

"Yeah, well, anyway, you and I have been on this force a good long time. You're in your thirties now. You're a good-looking woman."

"Thanks, boss." She blushed.

He held up his hand, palm facing her. "Don't waste your time on a pretty man. They're always trouble. Find a guy who works hard and who loves you for you. Okay, maybe he won't be the best-looking guy in the world or the most exciting but you know, for the long run you want a doer, not a looker."

She gazed out the window, touched that he had thought about her life away from work. "You're right."

"That's all I have to say on the subject except for one more little thing. He has to meet my approval."

They both laughed as the darkness gathered around them. They got out of the car and walked up the railroad tracks to the hospital, slipping down over the embankment at the track.

They opened the back door. Each carried a flashlight and a small hammer. Both had memorized the blueprints.

Wordlessly, they walked down the main corridor to the boiler room. The boiler room sat smack in the middle of the basement. The thick back wall of the room was almost two and a half feet of solid rock, an effective barrier should the boiler ever blow up. The other three walls each had corridors coming into the boiler room.

The only other hallway not connecting into the boiler room was one along the east side of the building at the elevator pool. But in the middle of that east hallway, intersecting it perpendicularly, the east corridor ran into the boiler room.

Offices and storage rooms were off of each of these corridors. The incinerator room was not far from the boiler room.

Coop tapped the solid wall behind the boiler. No empty sound hinted at a hidden storage vault. The two prowled each corridor, noted the doors that were locked, and checked every open room.

The silence downstairs was eerie. Every now and then they could hear the elevator doors open and close, the bell ringing as the doors shut. They heard a footfall and then nothing.

The opened rooms contained maintenance items for the most part. Each corridor had mops, pails, and waxers strategically placed so they could be easily carried to the elevators. A few rooms, dark green walls adding to the gloom, contained banks of ancient file cabinets.

As they quietly walked along, the linoleum under their feet squeaked. Back at the oldest part of the building, the floors were cut stone.

"Three locked doors. Let's find Bobby Minifee." Rick checked his watch. They'd been in there for two and a half hours.

Bobby hadn't taken over Hank Brevard's old office until that morning. The Sheriff's Department had crawled over every inch, every record. Satisfied that nothing had escaped the department's attention, the office was released for use.

"Bobby." Rick knocked on the open door.

Startled, he looked up and blinked. "Sheriff."

"We need your help."

"Sure." He put down the scheduling sheet he was working on.

"Bring all your keys."

"Yes, sir." Minifee lifted a huge ring full of keys.

The three walked to the first locked door, which was between Hank's office and a storage room full of paper towels and toilet paper.

After fumbling with keys, Bobby found the right one. The door swung open and he switched on the light. Shelves were jammed with every kind of lightbulb imaginable.