William Bernhardt - Primary Justice

A large fluorescent light illuminated the front of the building but did not penetrate the shadow cast by the orange and white awning over the front doors. Ben and Christina skittered through the lighted area and took shelter in the shadows surrounding the two smoked-glass paneled front doors.

Without pausing, Ben shoved the first key in the door. The key went in, but he couldn’t turn the lock. Was it the wrong key, or was it one of those stubborn keys that never work easily? Ben tried to force the turn.

“Give it up,” Christina whispered. “If the key breaks off in the lock, we’ll never get inside. Try the next one.”

Ben tried the next one. Same song, second verse.

“Damn,” he said, clenching the key in his fist.

“Don’t get frustrated,” Christina whispered. “Try the next one.”

The sound of crunching gravel told them that a car was driving along the road in front of the building. They froze. What if someone noticed their car parked on the shoulder? What if someone was coming? Oh, hi, we just dropped by for a casual visit in our burglar clothes.

The crunching sound faded. Apparently, the car had driven on. Ben exhaled audibly.

He tried the next key. The lock clicked open. “Success,” Ben whispered. He pushed the door forward several inches—and stopped. They had not noticed before because of the smoked glass, but the door was chained and padlocked from the inside. There was enough room between the doors to reach through and open the padlock. If you had a key.

Ben groaned. “That’s it. I don’t have any keys that would open a lock like that. Let’s split.”

“Don’t give up so easily,” Christina said. She pushed the doors forward. They gave enough to create a gap of about six or seven inches. “Not chained very efficiently. I suppose the guard gets tired of going through the routine, especially since he knows he’ll be back in twenty minutes. We can get through this.” She turned sideways and poked her head through the gap in the doors.

“Are you kidding?” Ben exclaimed. “I’m a lot thicker than that.”

“Only in the fatty places,” she said, edging her body into place. “Fat can be squeezed through.”

Christina took a deep breath, crouched under the chain and eased herself between the doors. Most of her generally slim body passed easily, though she had to wriggle and twist to get her hips through. But she made it. In fact, Ben thought, she made it look easy.

“Here, give me your hand.”

Ben did as he was instructed. Her hand was warm. He could feel her pulse thumping.

Following her lead—head first, wriggling midsection, legs last—he slid in beneath the chain and pulled himself through the narrow space.

They walked into the main lobby. Ben’s sneakers squeaked on the tile floor. Almost immediately, he heard a soft but insistent electronic beep, sounding about every three seconds.

“Is it an alarm?” Christina asked. She was still holding Ben’s hand.

“I don’t think so,” he replied. “If Greg is to be believed, the beeping means the timer on the noise alarm has been activated. We probably have one minute to find the control box and shut it off before it turns into a piercing alarm and automatically dials the police. It’s designed to allow people who are supposed to be here a chance to deactivate the alarm.”

“Then don’t waste time talking. Find that box!”

They scanned the spacious lobby. There were a million possible places. Elevators, hallways, receptionist stations.

“Over here,” Ben said hurriedly. He ran toward a booth in the front left corner of the lobby. “This is where the security guard was sitting when I came to see Sanguine earlier today. It’s the logical place for the alarm control box.”

They examined the security booth. The beeping noise seemed louder here, but Ben could see no control box. He dropped to his knees. On the underside of the desk, he saw a small box with a red light flashing in time to the beeps. A digital display showed eleven seconds, then ten, then nine. Next to the display, there was a keyhole.

Ben tried the first small-size key on Adams’s keychain. It would not go in.

Suddenly, the beeping noise stopped. “It’s about to blow,” Ben muttered.

He inserted the second small key and turned. The red light shut off.

Christina put her arm on Ben’s shoulder. “Hey,” she whispered, “once you get into the spirit, you’re a natural at this breaking and entering.”

Ben declined to respond.

Quickly, they sprinted up the emergency stair to the second floor. From the outer hallway, they entered the office bearing Adams’s nameplate. The door was not taped or locked. Rather than turning on the lights, something the guard was bound to see, they used the flashlight Ben brought.

“All right,” Ben whispered, “we’ve got maybe ten minutes.”

They began searching, Ben at the desk, Christina at the bookshelves and credenza. Ben noticed that the office, although considerably larger than Ben’s at Raven, was not one of the larger offices he had seen in this building. In fact, it seemed amazingly small for the vice president of new developments.

The desk was light brown oak—at least in color. Probably a nouveau antique, Ben mused. A framed photograph of Bertha that must have been taken forty years ago rested on top. Ben examined the desk drawers. The desk was not locked, mercifully sparing Ben another agonizing key search. He systematically, if hurriedly, combed through everything, but found nothing helpful.

“Bertha said that the night he was killed, Jonathan never came back from the office,” Ben whispered to Christina. “So if he set up a meeting, he probably did it here. I hoped we’d at least find some kind of note or a scrawled address or phone number.” He picked up a thick memo pad from the desk. The top sheet was barren. “A total blank.” Disgusted, he dropped the pad back onto the desk.

“Wait a minute,” Christina said. She took the memo pad, and held it up to the moonlight. She tilted the pad at different angles, catching the light. Then she took a pencil from the desk and lightly sketched over the top sheet of paper. A white impression resembling words or numbers began to appear.

“It’s the imprint of whatever Adams wrote on the sheet of paper above this one,” Christina murmured. She finished sketching and scrutinized the result. “Hmm. It worked a lot better for Sherlock Holmes.”

Ben looked at the pad. Only a few letters were clear. A p and an a , and after that, something indecipherable. Below that, an a , followed by either an f or an r , followed by a c .

“Archer,” Christina said. “It’s an address on Archer Avenue.”

“His body was found in an alley off Archer,” Ben said. “You might be right. What’s the p-a? Parent maybe?”

“Maybe he was saying he found Emily’s parent on Archer Avenue,” Christina suggested.

Ben snapped his lingers. “Or p-a could be part of the Red Parrot Café. That’s the bar across the street from where Adams was found. Maybe he planned to meet someone there.”

“Could be,” Christina murmured. “Or perhaps p-a is part of Sapulpa or St. Paul—or the Panama Canal, for that matter—”

She stopped short. Footsteps. In the outer hallway by the elevators.

Ben shut off his flashlight. They dropped to the floor and hid behind the desk.

The footsteps grew louder at a steady but unhurried pace. Ben and Christina could see a light come on in the hallway in the airspace beneath the door. The footsteps slowed. A door opened, then closed.

“Is it the security guard?” Christina whispered.

Ben shook his head. “It’s too soon for him.”