Baylin House (Cassandra Crowley Mystery) (23 page)

Rob and the Fire Captain appeared on the steps just as Cassie
opened the truck door. She dropped her feet to the ground and was able to slide
the key ring up, but the look on Rob’s face told her to stay where she was. She
slid the ring back to the bottom of the pocket again.

The Fire Captain spoke to the Detective within Cassie’s
hearing distance. “You have extra safety gear?”

“Yeah,” Rob answered. Then to Cassie he said, “Sit tight a
minute while I get something.”

The Fire Captain put a bulging yellow plastic bag inside a
compartment on the side of his truck. He stood next to Cassie. “He tells me
you’re from out of town and haven’t been here very long?”

“Only a week,” Cassie confirmed. “I moved into the apartment
last Saturday.”

“Any idea how many people know you’re here?”

Cassie shook her head.

“Any visitors, or somebody help you move in?”

Cassie shrugged. “The Health Department was here last night
checking the whole building on an odor complaint, but nobody else that I know
of.”

“Did they find anything?”

“The Health Department? No, I guess it was signed off as a
prank call. I wasn’t home, but the Rental Agent said she took him to all the
units.”

The Captain seemed to be weighing this information.

“I set up a brand new printer on that breakfast counter yesterday.
I guess that’s ruined.”

He grimaced. “Did you purchase Renter’s Insurance?”

“Didn’t think about it.”

“Most people don’t.”

And that was that. He was just passing time, so Cassie
didn’t ask anything else. She definitely wasn’t ready to hear it if she’d
plugged in something wrong and caused this whole mess.

Rob came around the corner from behind the Captain’s vehicle.
He had a green plastic tote in his hand. “Okay, let’s go get your stuff,” he
said to Cassie.

They climbed the stairs together, the Fire Captain in front,
Rob behind Cassie close enough for her to feel a whisk of his breath on the
back of her neck a couple times. At the top landing, Rob opened the green tote
and took out surgical gloves, safety glasses, breathing masks, shoe protectors,
and white plastic trash bags.

“Walk only where I tell you, and don’t touch anything until
we get to the bedroom. If you see something you need in the front area, just
tell us.”

“Okay,” Cassie agreed.

He stuffed the plastic bags into his pocket and handed her a
supply of the rest. She stared at everything, confused; there was no fire, no
smoke, why did she need this?

“Don’t breathe the dust in there and don’t carry it out on
your shoes,” Rob told her. “We don’t know what’s in it.”

She did as he asked, and he checked to make sure her
breathing mask and glasses were sitting correctly.

From behind, Cassie heard the plastic ‘clank’ as the Fire
Captain lowered the faceplate on his helmet and snapped it down. Then they went
inside.

Cassie was still confused about needing all the gear, but
one look inside the apartment wiped out everything else on her mind. The
kitchen was a mess of splinters and brown speckled gray dust on everything. The
window glass was gone, of course, and the mini-blinds dangled askew on one side
like pickup sticks.

The sink, dishwasher, and refrigerator looked no worse than
dusty, but the stove was destroyed – the control panel on top looked like it
was hit from behind by a fast moving bowling ball. And the coffee pot was just
plain gone -- unless that was the weird shaped piece of white plastic impaled
into the bottom of the cabinet above where it sat.

Cripes, it was a good thing Cassie wasn’t standing in the
kitchen when this happened!

“Follow my steps as close as you can,” Rob garbled over his
shoulder through the mask.

Cassie paced carefully behind him through the kitchen. She barely
glanced at the destruction in the living room before they turned into the short
hall containing the laundry. She gasped at the laundry doors, ripped from their
slider track and dented in against the machines.

An odor she didn’t recognize right away faintly permeated
her breathing mask; maybe it came from the wrenched plastic everywhere.

They entered the bedroom.

In here, nothing was damaged, just dusty, but the odor was
strongest of all for some reason. Ozone! Cassie recognized it the same time she
realized she was breathing too deep for safety.

She worked at taking more shallow breaths; nothing with an
odor that strong was good for her lungs.

Rob handed her one of the white bags. “Anything in the dresser
drawers?”

Cassie opened the first drawer to gather the few contents in
there.

“Any of this stuff in the bathroom belong to you?”

She glanced up to see him standing in front of the linen
closet inside the bathroom. “The linens belong to the apartment,” she told him.
“Only what’s in the medicine cabinet and on the shelf in the shower are mine.”

He glanced in both areas, and shook his head. “Better get
new stuff at the store.” Then he came out to the clothes closet and opened the
door. “Everything in here is yours?”

“Yeah,” she answered without looking up.

She was trying to be swift and discrete pulling her
underwear and socks from the second drawer in the dresser. The rest of the
drawers were empty.

Cassie’s white bag was barely half-full. The one Rob was
filling was near the top, but she could see the whole closet was empty except
for naked hangers. She moved to the nightstand drawer and retrieved the stored
envelope of AmEx receipts and the filled notebook.

“There are more envelopes like this in the other room that I
need, if possible.” She held up the 8x11 manila to show him.

“We’ll see,” he said. “Have we got everything out of here?”

Cassie glanced around. Damn, she was getting tired of this ‘moving
out’ routine! “No, wait!” she said, dropping to her knees on the floor beside
the bed. She heard Rob suck in as she fished her arms underneath until she felt
soft canvass, and then pulled the collapsed Voyager Duffel out from under the
bed.

Rob took the Voyager by the handle, gathered the top of her
white bag, and they retraced their steps back through the short hall into the
living room.

Cassie took a hard look this time. It was a disaster. The
breakfast bar was in splinters, the new printer lay next to the sofa looking
like a truck had run over it. The slider drape was closed but with late
afternoon sun shining directly on it she could see the silhouette of a large
diagonal crack in the glass. The TV was tipped on its side with the picture
tube missing – probably scattered all over the room. Everything was covered
with splinters of wood and glass and dust thick enough that she barely spotted
the clipped group of manila envelopes on the floor.

“There they are,” she said, pointing.

The Fire Captain took a few steps into the room and pulled
it from the floor with his gloved hand, but he did not bring it to Cassie. He
locked eyes with the Detective, and shook his head as bits of dust and glass
slid to the floor from the top envelope.

“If you could just open that one and give me the contents?” she
tried. “It should contain papers from County Records and from the Business
License Division. I need those for my work.”

He unclipped the batch, opened the flap, peered inside, and
shook his head. “Nothing in here,” he said. He raised the flap on the next envelope
and pulled out pages Cassie recognized was the rental contract signed with
Melanie Swaffar. He handed those to the Detective. Then he ticked through the
rest of the envelopes to show the flaps still folded out, never used, nothing
inside any of them.

“Were the papers here last night when you came up to check
everything?” the Detective asked.

Cassie honestly didn’t know.

“The envelope was,” she told him sheepishly, “I didn’t think
I needed to check inside. Anyway, I scanned copies of everything before I went down
to the park last night. I just need to get to my computer to make sure it
wasn’t messed with.”

“Where’s your computer now?”

“Down in the car. I hadn’t brought it upstairs yet.”

Cassie could only guess what was going on in the minds of
the Detective and the Fire Captain. This was no wiring accident. They needed to
stash Cassie somewhere out of the way so they could do their job.

“Is there a Best Western anywhere close to Baylin House?” she
asked Rob.

“I’ll get you an address and some directions from here. We
need to wipe you off and the bags too, and you need to run your clothes through
the laundry before you touch anything. I don’t want any particles to follow you
out where you’ll breathe it later”

He did exactly as he said. Standing on the front walk
outside the apartment door, their gear was removed and stowed in another
plastic bag. Then Cassie’s knees, arms, and the front of her shirt --
everything that touched the floor and the bed when she reached for the Voyager
-- were wiped with a tacky cloth to remove any specs of dust. The notebook and
envelope from the nightstand drawer were removed, wiped, and set aside. The
white bags themselves were wiped, and then the Voyager, and finally everything
went down the stairs and into Cassie’s car.

Rob squatted beside the open driver door to point to a
location on her city map – a Laundromat half a mile from the University campus,
and a motel only another block from there. She could find it.

She gave him the new cell phone number; he wrote it on the
back cover of his little notebook.

“Cassie,” he said, caressing her arm tenderly with the backs
of his fingers. He met her eyes for barely a heartbeat. Then he shook his head
and stood. “Remember what I said; just dump everything directly from the bag
into the washers without touching it. I’ll call you to find out exactly where you
are when I’m done here.”

Cassie checked in at the Treasure Isle Motel, drove around behind
the swimming pool to park, and tested the key for room 116.

It was a typical motel layout; definitely not The Marlin,
but decent enough for a quarter of the price. It would do for a couple nights
until she found something longer-term.

The manager directed her to the same coin Laundromat Rob
suggested. Cassie only asked in hope there were machines in the motel complex. No
chance.

She parked in front of the Laundromat door, and bought
quarters from a vending box in the wall, thankful nothing she owned required
dry cleaning.

When all was stowed back in the car, she walked next door to
Walgreens and scooped up a box of toaster pastries she could eat cold, a cheap
coffee pot and supplies, and replacements for the personal items left behind. She
really hoped Dorothy Kennelly did not check the the AmEx account again for at
least a week or two. The old witch was going to freak even worse when she saw
it the next time.

Dusk was deepening. Cassie drove through Burger King for
something fast and filling, feeling pressure to have everything unloaded and safely
locked inside at Treasure Isle before dark. Delayed reality of an explosion in her
apartment was beginning to leach into her senses.

Would anyone go that far just to steal some stupid papers
that were public record anyway? Or had somebody actually tried to kill her? No
way! That had to be just her imagination at work.

She put her clean clothes in the closet, switched off the
noisy air conditioner, found a plug in the bathroom to recharge the cell phone,
and then soothed her unraveling psyche with a long shower.

It was eerily quiet when she finally turned off the water.

It was also completely dark when she turned off the bathroom
light. She turned it back on long enough to find a switch for the lamp on the
nightstand. Someday, Cassie thought, I may get used to finding my way around
strange living quarters, but I still won’t like it.

She plopped on the bed and dumped out the satchel. Rosalie’s
envelope slid out with the computer. Cassie picked it up; she had forgotten it in
all the excitement. But she wasn’t in the mood to tackle it tonight. She shoved
it back into the satchel.

While the laptop booted, Cassie used the motel phone to call
AmEx and reverse authorization for Bayside View’s charges; pending
investigation of course, but the woman she spoke to was sympathetic when Cassie
explained the rented space was uninhabitable after an electrical fire. “. . . and
since there wasn’t another unit I could move into, my payment for three weeks
rent needs to be reversed. I will negotiate something with them for my personal
items destroyed and the few nights I had possession.”

“It’s all taken care of, Ms. Crowley. Is there anything else
I can help you with?”

Not unless she could block Dorothy Kennelly from receiving any
more information about the account, but Cassie didn’t actually say that, she
just said ‘no thank you’ and hung up.

She was relieved to find the scanned file documents intact. Each
page came into view on the screen with impressive clarity, and she carefully inspected
every line.

But after twenty minutes there was nothing to see that
Cassie hadn’t understood just fine the first time. Rosalie had signed over
ownership to the Rosalie Baylin Trust, which caused the old license to close
and a new one issued. The complaints, bogus as they were, were all against the
new license. Rosalie was correct -- the news of her illness was out and the
alligators were circling.

The cell phone rang and Cassie jumped, stumbling over the
bed to get to the bathroom where it was still recharging, expecting to hear Rob’s
voice.

“Miss Cassandra!” It was Bea Morgan. “I’m so glad you
answered! Emmet called here all worried and I’ve been calling your apartment for
two hours!”

“Emmet? Is he all right?”

“He’s worried about you, Miss Cassandra! He said the Fire
Department came to your apartment building, but they wouldn’t let him in to see
you.”

Cassie hadn’t thought how much of that commotion Emmet Pine
might have seen, or that he would pay attention to it. When there was a problem
last night, he sure didn’t want to get involved.

“I’m fine Bea, I wasn’t in the building when it happened and
I’ve got all my stuff out of there. Please let Emmet know I’ve moved to a
different location until the mess is cleaned up.”

“Well. . . that’s good news, yes . . . I’ll let him know . .
. ,” Bea’s voice trailed out like she was stalling, wanted to say something she
didn’t want anyone else to hear.

Cassie remembered her promise. “I tried to talk to the
Police about Brady,” she said. “They won’t give me any information on the phone.
I have to go down there tomorrow and show my ID. We still might need . . .”

Cassie stopped when she realized she was talking to a dead
line.

That was weird. Not only the strange tone of Bea’s voice,
but the whole business of Emmet worrying about Cassie. She couldn’t fathom him
trying to get into the complex to check on her. He only tolerated her because
writing the book was important to Rosalie, right?

Right!

Cassie put away the laptop and clicked on the TV for
distraction.

Rob called a few minutes before nine o’clock. She gave him
the room number; he said he would be there in half an hour. That kept her
excited enough to stay awake.

The Nine O’clock News came on. Cassie sat through a video of
her apartment complex, the fire truck, and then the missing kitchen window, all
of it shot from a helicopter.
“The incident is under investigation, no
details are available yet.”

Somebody must have put a gag on Melanie Swaffar.

The follow-up of older news was more interesting:
“Cordell
Bay PD Public Information Office has identified the deceased as Douglas
Skolnik, aged 64, owner of Doug Skolnik Private Investigations with an office
located on Hefner Street.

“Coroner Jeff Kirkland’s office lists Cause of Death as
exsanguination resulting from blunt trauma to the spleen and kidney areas. In
plain language, folks, Mr. Skolnik was beaten to death!

“Skolnik’s death is estimated between noon and midnight
on Sunday, July 13
^th.
. The body was not discovered until three days
later, found in the trunk of a vehicle parked behind the QuickStop Mart at
Lazuli Avenue and San Miguel Street in the old San Miguel area south of the
river.

“Police have confirmed speaking with two persons of
interest, but declined to identify them at this time. We’ll bring you the
latest updates on this case as soon as they are released. Now back to you, David
. . .”

Cassie thought about that for another minute. Then she
scrambled for the steno book and flipped to the back where she was accumulating
names and addresses, adding
Doug Skolnik PI on Heffner Street
to the
list. She was curious to see if Bea or Harvey recognized that name.