Michael Connelly - The Safe Man - A Ghost Story

Brian stepped back. Despite the relief of knowing this was not about Laura, he felt the same sense of dread that he had awoken from the dream with building in his chest.

“Then, what is it?”

“Have a seat,” Rowan said.

Brian sat on the stool next to the workbench.

The two lawmen remained standing, their eyes moving around the shop as they spoke. The detective looked like he was deferring to the agent in this matter, whatever it was.

“This is how I would like to work this,” Agent Rowan said. “We’re going to ask you some questions here, and the first time you lie to us we pack it in and put you in a cell to think about it. Fair enough?”

“This is a joke, right?”

“No joke.”

“Then questions about what? Am I a suspect in something?”

“Not yet. We think you are just a witness. But like I said, the first time you lie to us, you become a suspect and we treat you like one.”

“Witness to what? What happened?”

“I said we are going to ask the questions. But let’s start this thing off right by getting everything right. You are Brian Holloway, thirty-nine years old, and you reside in the home that this garage is attached to. Do I have all of that correct?”

“Yes.”

“And your father has spent the last twenty-two years in an Illinois state correctional facility serving a life sentence without parole for the crime of murder.”

Brian shook his head. The sins of the father always visited the son.

“This is about my father? I was nineteen when he went away. What’s that got to—”

“He was a box man, too, wasn’t he? Only he opened boxes for the Outfit in Chicago. He taught you everything you know, right?”

“Wrong.”

“He killed a man who came home and caught him in the act, didn’t he?”

“He didn’t do it. The man he was doing the job for did it. He panicked.”

“Oh, I guess that makes it okay.”

“Look, what do you want? I haven’t talked to my father in three years.”

“Do your clients know that you’re the son of Harry ‘Houdini’ Holloway?”

“Look, I run a clean, legal business. Why would I tell someone who my father is? Why would I have to? This isn’t Chicago and I’m not my father.”

“Where were you last night?” Stephens asked, suddenly joining in, changing the direction of things.

Brian started to think. Maybe the whole thing was choreographed. Maybe it wasn’t about the old man. Maybe it was all misdirection and sudden change.

“Last night? I was here. I was home.”

“From when till when?”

“Um, I got home around three yesterday and I did some work in here and then my wife and I went out for dinner and we got home about eight-thirty and that was it. We stayed home after that.”

“Okay, eighty-thirty until when? When was the next time you left?”

Brian hesitated. He looked at their faces, wondering what had happened and how much they knew. Cops always had the advantage. He knew this. His father had always said that when it came to cops, to lie was to die.

He shook his head.

“Until now. I haven’t left yet.”

Each of the men in front of him visibly stiffened and their faces took on a stony resolve.

“Turn around,” Stephens said. “Assume the position. Your dad probably taught it to you, too.”

Instead Brian raised his hands as if to stop their advance on him.

“Okay, look. I took a drive last night. I was gone less than a hour.”

“When last night?”

“I never looked at the clock. I woke up, couldn’t sleep, and took a drive. It was the middle of the night.”

“And you never looked at the clock in the car, huh?”

“No, I took my van. The clock in it doesn’t work and I forgot to put on my watch.”

“Where did you go on your drive?”

“I just drove around. All over the place. I even went over the bridge and cruised around the island.”

Brian knew he had to give them that. He knew they had something. It must be the electronic toll pass on the van’s windshield. There would be a record of him crossing the bridge.

“Why the island? What did you do while you were there?”

Brian let out a deep breath. They were cornering him. He didn’t understand this. The FBI doesn’t come around for stealing trash. There was something else going on.

“All right, listen, I’ll tell you everything. The other day I had a job out on the island. I opened an old safe for a guy and the client had me take the door off the box and carry it out to the curb for trash pickup. He said the pickup wasn’t for a few days. So last night I went back by his place and I took the door. It would’ve been picked up this morning anyway. It’s not stealing. He put it out for trash pickup. To him it was trash.”

“And why did you take it?”

“Because until I was there I had never seen or heard of that safe or its maker and I wanted to study it. Maybe practice on it a bit. Besides, it’s a museum piece. I didn’t want it thrown away.”

“Where is it?”

Brian pointed to an object beneath an old mover’s blanket that was leaning against the opposite wall. Rowan walked over and lifted up the blanket for a look. He then dropped the cloth back down and looked at Brian.

“It was not a crime to take it,” Brian said. “It was trash.”

“So you say.”

“Look, what is going on? Why are you here? Did Robinette say I stole his door? Is that what this is about? I know the guy’s famous, but do they really send the FBI out on a call like that?”

“No, they don’t.”

“Then, what is this?”

There was a pause and the lawmen looked at each other for a moment before Stephens spoke.

“We’re not worried about you stealing Robinette’s trash. We’re wondering if you stole his daughter.”

“What?”

“His daughter, Mr. Holloway. She’s disappeared.”

Brian thought of the little girl with dark, familiar eyes and the winter dress in the middle of the summer.

“He said I took his daughter?”

“It doesn’t matter what he said. We have to check everybody out. You were the last person other than the family to be in that house. We understand that you and Mr. Robinette didn’t get along so well. So we’re starting with you.”

Brian’s chest felt as though his lungs were filling with wax. They were becoming heavy and hard. Again he thought of the little girl standing precariously at the edge of the safe. It was like she had been waiting there for him.

“Did you check the safe?” he suddenly asked.

“What do you mean?” Rowan asked.

“The safe in the library. When I was there she came in and was standing by the safe. Maybe she…I don’t know, maybe after I left she went back to it. There’s no door, but there was a piece of the flooring that covered it and that I put back in place.”

Rowan glanced at the shape of the safe’s door beneath the blanket. He then glanced at Stephens and another silent communication passed. Stephens turned and walked out of the garage.

Rowan looked back at Brian.

“The safe would be kind of small, wouldn’t it?”

“The box was pretty deep. It went down at least a foot and a half.”

“You said she came into the library?”

“I went out to my van to get the vacuum and when I came back, in she was just standing there.”

“What did she say to you?”

Brian thought for a moment. He tried to remember all the details. He was filling with fear for the little girl.

“She just told me her name and I asked how old she was. I told her she looked older. She said her name was—”

“Why would you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Ask the girl how old she was.”

Brian shrugged.