J. Jance - A more perfect union

There was a doorbell next to the door, so I rang it. I heard a multi-note chime ring in the bowels of the house, but no one came to the door-not the kids, and not whoever had been watching from the upstairs window, either.

I rang again, and again nothing happened. Linda Decker must have given her children absolute orders about not speaking to strangers. That's not such a crazy idea. I believe in that myself, but I was sure there was someone else in the house, some adult. That's the person I wanted to talk to. I needed some answers.

I rang the bell a third time.

"What do you want?" A woman's voice wafted down to me from an upstairs window. I stepped back far enough to see. Above the front door a window stood open, but the curtain was drawn. No one was visible.

"Are you Linda Decker?" I asked.

Instead of answering my question, she asked another of her own. "How did you find me?"

"Your brother," I said.

"What did you do, promise him a ride in that fancy car of yours if he'd tell you?" There was a hard, biting edge to her words. There was also a hint that the information wasn't news to her.

"It wasn't like that," I said. "He was upset. He had missed his bus. I gave him a ride to the center, that's all. I'm a police officer," I added.

"Right, and I'm the Tooth Fairy," she responded.

"Look," I said. "I've got my ID right here. Come to the window. I'll toss it up to you."

"Go ahead," she said.

I felt like an absolute idiot, standing out front of the little house, throwing my ID packet toward an open window. It took several tries, but finally I made it. My ID dropped inside the windowsill and fell between the window and the curtain. There was a slight movement behind the curtain as someone stepped forward to retrieve the wallet.

"See there?" I called. "That's me. That's my picture. Can I come in now?"

"Why are you here?"

"I'm investigating the death of Logan Tyree. I want to ask you a few questions."

"Just a minute," she said.

She was gone a long time, not one minute but several. I still couldn't see her, but eventually she returned to the window and tossed my ID back down to me. "You can come in now," she said, "but you'll have to use the kids' door."

"Where's that?"

"Out back along the side of the house."

"The side!" I echoed. "But there isn't any door there."

"The coal chute."

"That's how they get in and out?" She didn't answer. I was right then-the kids had gotten into the house some other way besides the back door. I couldn't help wondering what kind of mother would make her children come in and out of the house through a coal chute. Not your standard, garden variety, cookies-and-milk type mother, that's for damn sure.

"I'll meet you in the basement," Linda Decker called down to me. "I'll go switch on the light."

With a sigh I turned away from the front door of the house. The woman at the store in Doty was probably right. Linda Decker was crazy as a bedbug.

Regretting that I was wearing good clothes, I walked back to the coal chute and lifted the door. It was heavy but not so heavy that kids wouldn't be able to open and close it themselves. There was no squawk of protest from the hinges. Although there was still some rust showing, they had recently been thoroughly oiled.

I paused long enough to run my hand over the padlock hasp on the outside of the door. I wondered if sometimes Linda locked her children inside the house when she was away. If she did, she wouldn't be the first mother who made that sometimes fatal mistake in houses with barred doors and windows. They lock the doors to protect their children, and the children die of smoke inhalation or worse. The idea made me shudder.

I peered down into the coal chute. The top of a ladder was visible, coming up out of the darkened depths of the basement. It leaned against the inside of the box close enough that the top rung was within easy reach. A light switched on in the basement below me. I heard Linda Decker's voice again.

"Just step over the edge of the box and climb down the ladder."

Beneath me, the ladder seemed to be set firmly enough on a bare concrete floor. I put one hand on it and tested it for stability. It didn't wobble at all. If Linda Decker trusted the ladder enough to let her children climb up and down it, I supposed it was good enough for me. Not only that, the coal chute itself looked as though every trace of coal dust had been carefully scrubbed away. That must have taken some doing.

Swinging one leg up and over the side of the box, I found the top rung of the ladder with one foot and stepped onto it. Before starting down the ladder, I took one last look around outside. I was half afraid some neighbor would see me and think I was breaking into Linda Decker's house. There was no one in sight.

The ladder was solid and steady beneath my feet. I started down, one rung at a time. As my shoulders and head descended into the basement, I could see that the room was nearly empty, except for a scatter of boxes and a few odd pieces of discarded furniture. The room was lit by the glaring glow of one bare bulb dangling from an ancient cord in the middle of the raw plywood ceiling.

One foot was on the floor and the other was still on the bottom rung of the ladder when suddenly the heavy door to the coal chute slammed shut over my head. At the same instant the light went out, plunging me into total darkness.

Above me, I heard somebody struggling with the hasp. The padlock! Someone was trying to fasten the padlock!

Scrambling hand over hand, I raced back up the ladder only to crash head-first into the door just as the lock clicked home.

"We got him, Mommie," a child's voice crowed in triumph. "We got him."

They sure as hell had.

Reeling from the self-inflicted blow to my head and afraid of falling, I clung desperately to the ladder as tiny pinpricks of light exploded around me. Unfortunately, the stars flashing before my eyes did nothing to lighten the inky blackness of Linda Decker's basement.

My legs shook uncontrollably. Fighting vertigo, I made my way back down to the floor. I counted the rungs on the ladder. Seven in all from the point where I'd banged my head.

I stood on the floor holding the side of the ladder for several minutes trying to get my bearings, waiting for the shaking and dizziness to stop, hoping that somehow my eyes would adjust to the darkness. Eventually the trembling diminished, but I still couldn't see my hand in front of my face when I tackled the ladder again. I didn't know what was going on, but one thing was clear: I had to try to get out.

Careful not to damage my head further, I counted the rungs as I climbed, inching my way up the ladder far enough to brace my back and shoulders against the door. I grunted with exertion, pushing against the resistant wood as hard as I could, but the pressure wasn't enough. The hasp, the hinges, and the wood all held firm.

Giving up, I stood for a moment hunched under the door, listening for any sound of voice or movement outside or inside. There was nothing-no footsteps in the room above me, no whispered deliberations outside-only the dull interior thud of my own pounding heartbeat.

I was over being surprised and scared. Now I was angry. Pissed. I was certain the childish cry of victory had come from the little boy as he slammed shut the coal chute door. What the hell were they up to? I could picture the three of them, Linda Decker and her two children, standing somewhere just out of earshot, gloating over my having fallen into their little trap.

They'd trapped me all right, but we'd see who had the last laugh on that score. Assaulting a police officer is no joke. Kidnapping one isn't either. Linda Decker hadn't figured that out yet, but I fully intended to show her, just as soon as I got the hell out of her goddamned basement.