“Richard, it’s Sergeant Miller,” he called out. “Open up. We need to clear this up right now. ”
The deadbolt turned with a sharp metallic clatter. The front door swung inward, and Richard Vance stepped into the amber porch light.
He had changed his clothes.
The white tailored polo with the torn seam was gone. In its place, Vance wore a heavy navy cashmere cardigan zipped tight to his chin. But the concealment was sloppy; above the brass zipper, two thick smears of yellow antiseptic ointment glistened against the raw, weeping red gouges scoring the right side of his neck.
“Miller,” Vance said, breathing heavily and angling his body to block the foyer. “Thank God you got here. This officer came onto my property, began shouting accusations, and refused to leave. I told the Chief twenty minutes ago that I wanted him off my land. ”
“Richard, where is Claire? ” Miller asked. His tone had lost its casual ease, stiffening under the recorded transmission sitting on dispatch audio.
Vance scoffed, waving toward the street. “Claire isn’t here. She was supposed to come by with her lawyer at noon tomorrow. If her car is out there, she dropped it off earlier in the week. We haven’t spoken since Tuesday. ”
“Her car hood is hot, Mr. Vance,” I called out from the edge of the driveway, training my flashlight on the frost evaporating off the Volvo’s grille. “The engine was running twenty minutes ago. Her phone is in my evidence kit with wet blood on the screen. And you were wearing a torn shirt with open claw marks when I knocked on that door ten minutes ago. ”
Vance’s face darkened. “Shut your mouth! Miller, control your man or my brother will have his badge and yours by morning! ”
“Richard, listen to me,” Miller warned, shifting into defensive posture. “Her attorney called 911. Her presence here is on record. If she’s in that house, we have to see her right now. ”
“She is not in my house! ” Vance shouted.
As his voice echoed across the neighborhood, a low, rhythmic vibration shuddered beneath the flagstones at my feet. It was the sump pump in the basement, humming with wet suction through the foundation vent four feet away. Mingled with the cold breeze came a sharp, stinging vapor—the unmistakable chemical bite of industrial floor bleach and caustic drain solvent rising from the grate.
No one runs an industrial drain pump and bleach wash at twelve-twenty in the morning to clean up a dropped paring knife.
Beneath the steady hum of the pump, a sharp metallic strike sounded from the ground-level storm doors set into the side of the house—the bilco cellar bulkhead.
Something had struck the underside of the iron door from below.
Miller was still arguing with Vance on the porch, Vance waving his hands to draw Miller inside the entryway so he could pull the exterior door shut behind them.
If I followed Miller’s order and waited at the curb, Vance would stall, lock the front entrance, and Miller’s hesitation would buy enough time for whatever was happening in the cellar to finish. If I moved to the bulkhead and forced entry, I was acting against the direct verbal order of my ranking supervisor on private curtilage.
I unclipped the heavy iron pry bar from my utility belt and stepped across the flowerbed toward the storm doors.
“Harris! ” Miller roared from the porch. “Stand down! That is a direct order! ”
I reached the bulkhead. The exterior iron hasp was looped with a heavy brass padlock, but the latch was trembling from the inside.
Through the narrow seam between the rusted iron leaves, a choked, ragged sound drifted up into the cold air—the sound of fingernails scraping frantically against the underside of the sheet metal.
I didn’t look back at Miller. I wedged the bevel of the pry tool into the locking gap, set my boots against the stone riser, and threw my full weight against the steel.
CHAPTER 3: The Cellar Beneath The Clean Lawn
The iron hasp gave way with a screech that cut through the frozen air, shearing weathered screws out of the frame. Cold air billowed from the breach, thick with the choking reek of chlorine bleach and wet lime.
“Harris! Step away from that door right now! ” Miller’s voice tore across the driveway, boots pounding gravel as he closed the distance from the porch.
I threw both iron doors flat against the mulch and aimed my stream flashlight down the masonry stairwell.
At the bottom of the concrete incline, lying crumpled across the damp slab beside an overturned utility tub, was Claire Vance.
Her coat was torn open at the shoulder, soaked in mulch and pooled liquid. Her wrists were bound in front of her with heavy black zip-ties biting deep into raw skin. A thick gash wept blood along her left temple, matting her hair against the concrete. She was coughing violently, gagging against the caustic bleach vapors Richard Vance had poured over the floor drains to destroy evidence.