IT LIVES IN THE BASEMENT
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Authors: Sahara Foley
IT LIVES IN THE BASEMENT
By Sahara Foley
Published by Sahara Foley and Pamela Foley at Amazon for Kindle
Copyright 2013 Pamela Foley
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CHAPTER 1 OF ARTHUR MERLIN: The One and Only
‘I hope no one reads this, because that means I
’m dead,’ the handwritten words in a worn notebook read.
“Hey, Lieutenant
.” yelled a stout, young uniformed officer. “Better take a look at this. I think we may have something.” Leaning out a smaller room adjacent to the living room, he held up the worn notebook.
Striding rapidly with long legs,
a tall man with more salt than pepper hair, wearing a rumpled, dark brown suit admonished, “Christ, Daniels. Most of you street cops wouldn’t know what a clue was, even if it bit you on the ass. And didn’t I just tell you not to touch anything until I had a chance to look at it? Now we’ll have to eliminate your prints from the other fingerprints in the house.” Glaring down at the shorter man, he continued his tirade, “I realize investigating a Missing Persons case is more difficult than chasing a speeder, or writing up a guy for having one too many, but would you please try to follow the procedures? Okay?” Taking the notebook, he ordered, “Now, go outside and find the landlord for me. You do remember him don’t you, Daniels, the fat guy who let us in?”
Looking anywhere but the
irate Lieutenant, Daniels sheepishly nodded his head.
“Oh, good. Now
go find him for me, would you?”
Shaking his head in disbelief, the Lieutenant watched as the young
officer hurried to the front door, then tried working out the mechanics of opening the screen door with just his elbow. Looking down at the notebook, opened to the front page, he read a few lines. But his attention wasn’t on the written words. He had something else on his mind.
Closing the notebook, setting
it back on the desk in the small bedroom, he grumbled to himself, “I knew it was going to be one of those days.” And he had known. From the moment he walked into the squad room and read the note lying on his desk, informing him that his partner of twenty-three years would be out on sick leave for a week.
He didn’t begrudge his partner the sick leave. Hell,
he could use a week off himself. But the weather in Omaha, especially the week after Thanksgiving, wasn’t conducive to a weeklong vacation at home. Not being able to afford to go anywhere, he would’ve been trapped in his house for a week with his wife of twenty-one years, and at least five of the grandchildren she was always babysitting.
No thanks.
He’d had enough of babysitting when he had to help with the raising of their own six kids.
Being pragmatic about his partner being gone, he knew he was upset because he
’d be working alone all week, and that meant he’d be getting all the shit jobs. Even though they had their own cases to work, he’d get stuck for the week doing somebody else’s paperwork, the never-ending telephone follow-ups and answering all the Suspicious Activity calls, like this one.
What
the hell. He knew he couldn’t buck the system, and with three years left until retirement, he didn’t want to try. But it was going to be a long week.
Hearing another uniformed officer enter the house, th
e Lieutenant stepped back into the living room. With a snappish voice, Flynn asked him, “Mickosky, where in the hell is Daniels with the landlord?”
Mickosky, looking around the living room, answered, “Take it easy, sir. He’s coming. The landlord was down on the corner talking with some neighbors.” Tearing a page from his notebook
, he handed it to the taller Lieutenant. “Here’s all the information I got from the neighbors. It ain’t much, sir. Same old shit. The neighbors know the people that live here. The neighbor woman north of the house says the missing couple is good, quiet people. But the neighbor guy on the other side says the man’s a nutcase. That’s the neighbor who called the landlord. He says their car hasn’t moved for three or four days, and no one has gone in or out of the house. And their mail hasn’t been picked up since Monday. The neighbor’s name is, uh, yeah, Leaman, sir. He’s outside if you want to talk with him. By our cruiser.”
The Lieutenant skimmed over the paper, folded it and
stuffed it in his pocket saying with a sigh, “No. Not now, Mick. What I want right now is that damn landlord.”
Just then,
the front door opened and Officer Daniels strode in, followed by a fat man in a heavy, gray, unbuttoned coat, greasy overalls and a sweat-stained shirt.
With a big grin, Daniels said, “Sir, here is Carl Santantovich, the landlord.” He gave a flourish of his han
d, as if he had produced the large man from a magic hat.
Holding his hand out to
the shorter, younger man, the Lieutenant introduced himself. “Hello. I’m Lieutenant Flynn. Do you mind if I call you Carl?”
Giving Flynn a soft, flabby
, moist handshake, the landlord answered, “No.” Glancing around he asked, “What’d you find, Lieutenant? Where are they?”
Wiping his wet palm on his right pant leg, Flynn told him, “Well, so far, not
hing. I’ve searched over the house twice now and there isn’t anyone here. There’s no sign of a break-in, a struggle or other violence I can find. I was hoping you could give me some background information about your tenants that live here, Carl.”
The landlord said, “I can’t tell you much. The woman
’s name was Pat Forbes. She worked for some insurance company out west. My wife has the name and address. The man’s name was John Sempek. He worked for a construction outfit as a laborer most of the year. When it got too cold, he would help me with some of my rental properties. John fancied himself as some kinda writer. He told me once that he’d half a dozen stories he’d been trying to publish.”
Listening carefully, the Lieutenant also watched
as Officer Daniels took a small notebook and pen out of his coat pocket, presumably to take notes, but so far hadn’t written down one word.
Officer Daniels, trying to impress the Lieutenant, asked the landlord, “What type of writer is he?”
As the furnace kicked on, the heavy man stepped away from the heat vent, opening his heavy coat even more. “Ah, well, John said he wrote about science-fiction stuff. Shit about flying saucers and little green men. That kinda crap. I ain’t no reader and never read any of his stuff. Wouldn’t waste my time on that kinda crap anyways.”
Raising his hand, the Lieutenant cut Daniels off
. “Carl, why do you keep referring to these people in the past tense? Do you know something that I don’t?”
Flinching, the landlord quickly ex
plained, “Uh, no, Lieutenant. No. It’s just that Wamperely, the guy that rents from me down the block, well he said John’s been drinking pretty heavy lately, and I, well, I thought maybe he’d killed Pat and took off.”
Sitting heavily on the worn arm of an old chair, the Lieutenant read
over his reports. “Let’s see if I have the facts straight, Carl. Three days ago, after you received a call from one of the neighbors, Mr. Leaman, you had your wife try to call Pat or John, at their house. After three days of not being able to reach them, your wife called Pat’s employers, who told her they hadn’t seen or heard from Pat since Monday. Then at eight-thirty this morning, you had your wife call the police. Is that correct?”
Sweat running down his
red face, the landlord answered, “Yeah. Then my wife called this bar called
Deans Place
where John usually drinks. They said John and Pat were there on Monday after she got off work, but not since then.” Fidgeting nervously, the landlord continued, “See Lieutenant? That’s why I figure something’s wrong. I’ve known Pat and John about five years, before they started renting this house. John never goes a day or two without stopping at a bar. Not always
Deans Place
: sometimes he’d stop in at
Newells Bar
. Unless John’s sick, he’d go to a bar almost every day. The bar was like his office. That’s where I’d always find him if I needed him to do some work. It’s not like him not to be at a bar during the day.”
“Right,” the Lieutenant said, nodding his head in understanding. “
So you called the police and asked them to meet you here before you went into the house yourself. Why didn’t you look for them before you called the police? They could’ve been here, just changed their routine.”
Wiping the sweat from his forehead on the sleeve of his coat, the landlord answered, “I, ah, if something was missing I didn’t want to be accused of stealing. And honest Lieutenant, I thought you’
d find at least one body in the house. And I sure as hell didn’t want to be the one to find the body.” Looking around again, he asked, “By the way, Lieutenant, where’re the cats? I know Pat has two white cats. One of the neighbors said she also had a small, black kitten. So there should be three cats running around here, somewhere.”
Shaking his graying head, Flynn replied, “Nope. As I said before, I’v
e searched through this house twice. I saw a litter box downstairs, and some empty food and water bowls, but no cats. We did find strands of long, white hairs and shorter black and brown hairs.”
The sweating man explained, “Yup. Those would be from her cats.
The next door neighbor, Mabel, told me Pat just took in a small, black kitten. And Pat loved her cats. So where are they?”
Slowly rising from the arm of the chair
, the Lieutenant said dismissively, “Look Carl, I’m more interested in where Pat and John are right now, not some missing cats. It behooves you to help us, because if I don’t find Pat or John within a few days, I’ll have to list them as Missing Persons, then you’ll have to file a petition for a court order to rent this property again. I’ll have Officer Daniels write you a receipt for the front door key, and you’ll get your key back when we’re done with our investigation. Thank you for your cooperation.” As an afterthought, he added, “But before you leave, please accompany the Officer around the premises and see if you notice any items missing. And Carl, please be careful not to touch anything.” Reaching out, Lieutenant Flynn plucked the house key from the openmouthed landlord’s hand. Turning away, he ambled into the front bedroom, Officer Mickosky following on his heels.
In the nine-by-eleven foot bedroom were two dresser
s, one small, opened closet, and a small desk in the middle of the room. In the center of the desk sat a new electronic typewriter. Sitting at the small desk, the Lieutenant turned on the typewriter. He knew the typewriter had a correctible memory, and he wanted to see if there were any words stored in the memory. The memory was empty. He scanned over the desk and the piles of neatly typed pages, and then over each dresser. He peered down at the floor littered with handwritten, yellow legal pages. Having been in the room twice before, he knew these were the originals and probably rough drafts, of the stories John had been working on.
Mickosky whistled, “Whew.
This guy sure wrote a lot, didn’t he, Lieutenant?”
Being
a rhetorical question, Flynn merely nodded, asking, “Do you read much, Mick?”
The O
fficer shrugged. “Nah, never got into books much. I’m more a television man myself. Why?”
“Well, Mick,” the Lieut
enant surmised, “I’d say the people who live here spend a lot of time reading. There has to be more than a thousand books in this house, on every subject you can imagine. I read a lot at home, Mick, and they have books from all the top authors, and some I’ve never heard of. My wife says people who read a lot are sensitive people. Now I don’t know whether I believe that, but I do know people who read as much as these two, are sensitive about their books.
“If our Missing Persons
have left for parts unknown, they wouldn’t have left their life’s worth of collected books. They might not have taken all their books, but they would’ve taken their favorite books.” Glancing toward the living room he continued, “And there aren’t any empty spaces on the bookshelves in the living room or dining room. So I’d have to say all their books are here. To me, that’s a red flag something is wrong.” Rubbing his forehead, he confessed, “Something grabbed my attention before, but I can’t remember what it was. I searched over the house again hoping to find it, but never did.”