Hank Mossberg, Private Ogre: Murder in the Boughs Read online

  Roxy proved more adept than most at coping with my unexpected appearance; a sign of high intelligence in my opinion. She quickly recovered from her surprise, and gave me a big smile. “Mr. Mossberg?” she said, reaching out.

  “Hank,” I said, shaking her hand. I could tell from the look in her eyes that she had decided I was just a normal human. A large human with some sort of skin problem, but human.

  “Hank, it’s nice to meet you. Please, come inside.”

  As we walked through the foyer, I glanced into the kitchen and noticed a diminutive Hispanic woman in her forties cleaning the floor. We passed the doorway and took a right, stepping into a large living room with a grand piano and a fireplace the size of my Blazer. Pictures of Roxy’s daughter lined the mantle, filled the walls, and lay strategically placed across the top of the piano. I glanced at them.

  “That’s Jenny,” she said. “That’s my little girl.”

  “How old did you say she was?”

  “Ten.”

  I walked slowly around the room, scanning the images. The kid’s life story played out in front of my eyes. It was all there, from infancy and preschool up through the action shots of Jenny doing karate and polo lessons. There was much, much more. Soccer matches, swim meets, field and track; science fairs, girl scout jamborees, and bake sales. Name a sport or extracurricular activity, Jenny was there.

  “When was she taken?” I said.

  “The night before last.”

  I nodded thoughtfully. Thirty-six hours and counting. That was a long time to pass without hearing from a kidnapper. I turned to face Roxy. She looked worn, exhausted. She was in her mid-thirties, semi-attractive, and healthy judging from her complexion and body structure. I guessed that for every picture of Jenny, Roxy had been behind the camera. She wasn’t the type of mom to hand her child over to someone and let them do the work. No, Roxy was the other type. She was a hardworking single mom with a full-time job who not only managed to provide a very good living for her daughter, but also to give Jenny every opportunity life could offer. From what I could see, Roxy was an outstanding mother. That made it even harder to tell her what I was thinking. For the moment, I kept my thoughts to myself.

  “Where was she when it happened?” I said.

  “This way.” Roxy led me upstairs, to a massive bedroom filled with stuffed animals, toys, and dolls. The room was pink. The carpet was pink. The canopy bed was pink. The laptop computer in the corner and the desk it sat on were pink. “I’ve always tried to give her everything she wanted,” Roxy explained. “I didn’t want her to grow up the way I did.”

  “She was in this room when it happened?” I said.

  “Yes, I think so. It happened in the middle of the night. I didn’t even realize until I woke up yesterday morning and she was gone.”

  “How did the kidnappers get in?”

  “I don’t know. The alarm was still on and all of the doors and windows were locked. That’s why the police think she ran away.”

  “What about your maid?” I said. “The woman I saw in the kitchen.”

  “That’s Roseanne. It wasn’t her. She’s been working for me for almost ten years. I hired her when we moved here, and she’s been with us ever since.”

  I glanced at her naked ring finger. “You’re not married… what about the father?”

  “Tom? He’s not in the picture. Tom was my boss. I had a fling with him when I first started working at the insurance company. He was married, and when he found out I was pregnant, he wanted me to end the pregnancy. I didn’t, obviously. He moved to Hawaii with his family a few years ago. He’s never met Jenny. He has no interest in her.”

  I walked around the room, examining the exterior windows. I checked the closet for attic access and then searched the floor for trap doors. I was looking for anything a kidnapper might have used to gain access to the room without setting off the alarms. I didn’t find anything. The only way into that room would have been through the door.

  “What do you think?” Roxy said, leaning against the doorframe.

  I pulled my hat off and scratched the back of my head. “There’s no other way into this room,” I said. “The kidnapper must have gotten in somewhere else. Would you mind showing me the rest of the house?”

  “Of course. Anything you need.”

  Roxy spent an hour showing me the whole place, including the gym and the indoor swimming pool in the basement. I checked every door and window, and then I tested the security system. All of the alarm sensors and motion detectors were functional, and none of them had been tampered with. The place was as tight as Fort Knox. Tighter.

  I also checked the back door downstairs on a hunch that the kidnapper had made his escape that way, but I was wrong. The backyard was tiny and mostly paved in concrete, and it backed up to neighboring properties. The side gate was locked with a padlock, and the fences were nearly ten feet high. It would have been next to impossible to get out of that place without being noticed, especially early in the morning when the neighbors were all getting ready for work. If Jenny had indeed been kidnapped, it hadn’t been through that route.

  I had been wondering why Solomon referred Roxy’s case to me. Now I understood. Jenny had been well protected, behind locked doors and windows, under the surveillance of a state of the art alarm system…but the girl had vanished without a trace. It was truly a locked door mystery. Whoever took Jenny had pulled off quite a maneuver, not only sneaking in and spending the entire night in the house, but then abducting her and carrying her away in broad daylight. Then again, there was the chance that the police were right about Jenny.

  “Why are you so sure she didn’t run away?” I said.

  “Not Jenny. Look… look at our pictures. She had no reason to run away. She was the happiest little girl you’ve ever seen. Jenny was healthy, popular, and beautiful. Her dream was to become a runway model. She had nothing to run away from.”

  I knew better than to believe everything at face value, but the pictures did seem to support Roxy’s story. So did the lifestyle. What kid would run away when she had everything she could possibly want? I could imagine it if she was a teen, but Jenny was only ten. I could see it if she had a boyfriend that her mother didn’t approve of, or if her mother had been abusing her, but I didn’t see any of that here. Not on the surface, anyway.

  Roxy was staring at me with an intense gaze. “Tell me something, Mr. Mossberg. Tell me anything.”

  I took a deep breath. “All right. The way I see it, the kidnapper didn’t break in, not without setting off the alarm or leaving some other clue. That leaves two possible explanations. The kidnapper either knows your alarm code, or he was already in the house when you turned the alarm on that night.”

  Roxy put a hand to her mouth. “Oh my God… you mean he was in here with us?”

  “Maybe. The thing is, he didn’t set the alarm off when he left, either. That means he would have waited in the house all night, and then snuck out the moment you deactivated the alarm the next morning. He could have incapacitated Jenny, somehow silenced her, and then waited near a window or side door for you to turn the alarm off.”

  Tears streamed from Roxy’s eyes. She wobbled slightly, and I moved closer to steady her with a hand on her shoulder. “Are you all right?”

  She took a step back and settled into an armchair by the piano. “I’m okay,” she said. “I’m just a little nauseous. Please, go on.”

  My heart went out to her. There was nothing I could do but give her the truth. She needed to know what we were up against. “There are problems with that theory, but I don’t see how else he could have done it,” I said. “Not without having the code for your alarm. Is there anyone else who knows that code?”

  “Roseanne does, but I know she wouldn’t have told anyone. She’s part of the family.”

  “Is it possible that she may have been tricked into revealing it? Maybe to a delivery person, or a gardener? There must be other people who come and go when you’re not here.”r />
  “I don’t know,” she said in a worried tone. “I suppose it is… I wonder why the police never asked that question?”

  “Hard to say,” I mused. That was a lie. I knew exactly why they hadn’t asked. The police didn’t believe Jenny had been kidnapped, so they’d never even bothered to question how it might have been done. “There’s another thing that bothers me, and it’s the fact that you haven’t been contacted by the kidnappers yet. That’s unusual. Normally you’d hear from them within twenty-four hours. Do you have any enemies?”

  “Not that I know of. I manage a title insurance company. My customers are all real estate agents who make money when they use my service. I pay my employees better than anyone else in town. I don’t know who would want to do this to me.”

  Roxy seemed genuinely flabbergasted. For the moment, so was I. “I’m going to need some names. I want a list of all Jenny’s classes. Polo, soccer, everything. I’ll also need a list of all your clients going back three months. You can fax it to my office. In the meanwhile, if anyone contacts you, let me know immediately.”

  I didn’t really expect anyone to contact her at that point. I wasn’t sure what was going on yet, but I knew already that this wasn’t an ordinary kidnapping. I didn’t bother to mention the third possibility to her; the reason Solomon had referred Roxy to me in the first place. She wouldn’t have believed me if I did. The last thing a woman in Roxy’s situation wants to hear is that fairies may have abducted her child.

  As I left, for the second time in less than a day I found myself wishing I had my ethometer with me. I rarely use the device. Often it sits in my drawer for years at a time. Now, suddenly I needed it twice in the same day. What were the odds of that? It was suspicious in a way that made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. I shook my head as I walked slowly down the front stairs, surveying the neighborhood.

  I briefly considered questioning the neighbors but quickly decided it would be a waste of time. If any of them had seen anything, they’d have been on the phone to the police in a heartbeat. This wasn’t like the Tenderloin, where a mugger could beat someone to death in front of an entire crowd and then they’d all say they didn’t see a thing. This was Pacific Heights. These were the people the police worked for, and they knew it.

  As if to prove me right, a police cruiser pulled up next to my Blazer just as I got back to the street. I recognized the guy behind the wheel, a cop named A.J. Smith. His partner in the passenger seat looked like a rookie. I hadn’t met him yet. “We got a call on an abandoned vehicle,” A.J. called out. “Shoulda known it was you, Mossberg.” He put the sedan in park and stepped out, leaning over the roof.

  “Nice try, but my tags are current,” I said.

  “I see that. They’re the only thing holding that piece of crap together.”

  “Nice monkey,” the rookie said as he stepped out of the car.

  I frowned and then realized Zaxyl was back, perched on my shoulder. The cops saw him, but their brains interpreted him as something other than a real gremlin… either that, or Zaxyl may have been disguising himself with some sort of spell. If so, it was just for their sake because he looked normal to me.

  “Yeah,” I muttered. “So why are you really here?”

  A.J. pulled a bag of sunflower seeds out of his pocket and he jammed a few in his mouth. “Inspector Lee told us to keep an eye on this place,” he said. “What’re you doing here, Mossberg?”

  “Investigating a kidnapping,” I snapped. “You wouldn’t know anything about that though, right?”

  He snorted, and spit some sunflower shells out on the street. “There wasn’t any kidnapping, Mossberg. These trust fund brats run away every couple weeks. They don’t get a pony for their birthday and it’s the end of the world.”

  “Then I won’t be in your way,” I said. I’ve butted heads a few times with the SFPD when investigating open cases. I try to avoid that when it’s possible.

  A.J. smiled. “Knock yourself out. Don’t expect to get paid when the kid shows up cold and hungry in a day or two.”

  “Right.”

  He stepped back into the cruiser and pulled away, grinning from ear to ear. I crawled into my Blazer and Zaxyl hopped up onto the dash. “You rotten little… monkey,” I snapped. Zaxyl bared his fangs and hissed at me. “You can hiss all you want, but you better stay out of my way. I almost killed somebody because of you. If you pull one more stunt like that, I’m gonna toss you in a cell with Julius and let the two of you duke it out. I wonder who’s more powerful?”

  Zaxyl grimaced. I could see the gears turning behind his beady little eyes. He was probably wondering if I could actually do it. I wondered, too. Magic doesn’t work on me, but I’ve never had a run-in with a gremlin. I had no idea if he could harm me or not. Still, psychologically speaking, I figured it was best to get the upper hand right away. If I proved my dominance now it might save me some trouble later. Kind of like training a dog. They won’t attack if they think you’re the boss, no matter how big they are. Not until they sense weakness, anyway.

  I decided to check in with Solomon on my way back to the tree. I thought about calling ahead, but the thought of digging through my pockets looking for my phone and pencil was discouraging, not to mention having to find a place to pull over and park so I could dial. It was easier just to drive there and hope he was home. Halfway there, Zaxyl disappeared. I didn’t actually notice it happen, I just suddenly noticed he was gone. “Good riddance,” I muttered. I almost wished I could do magic, just so I could put some kind of hex on the little creep.

  Solomon’s home is located on a large lot wedged between several tall buildings in Chinatown. The only access is through a long, narrow alley, which Solomon protects by means of a spell that makes it more or less invisible. Most humans walk by and never see it. Even people who know it’s there usually take about ten minutes to find their way inside. The spell doesn’t work on me. I can see the alley plain as day. I can also see some of the other strange structures around the city that the wizards have built and then obscured from the public eye using magic. There are four wizard towers in the business district alone, each as tall as the surrounding skyscrapers, and nobody even knows they’re there.

  As usual, the parking spot out front was available. Nobody ever parks there because they can’t see it. It’s the only safe place in the whole neighborhood, maybe even the city. You could leave a new Mercedes sitting there for days with the windows down and the keys in the ignition and nobody would touch it. Even so, I locked the Blazer and jammed my keys into my pocket. I don’t like to tempt fate.

  I made my way down the narrow alley, my shoulders just barely gliding between the two tall buildings on either side. At the far end, the alley opened into a wide lot filled with dead grass and clumps of sagebrush. Solomon’s tiny one-bedroom cottage rose up out of the dirt in the back corner. The place looked run down, and always has. I don’t think Solomon cares much about keeping up appearances.

  The porch creaked under my weight as I knocked on the door. I waited a minute but I wasn’t surprised when he didn’t answer. Solomon spends most of his time in the basement, where he has a chemistry lab. I went around the side of the house and pulled open the large wooden door over the cellar entrance. Pale fluorescent light came streaming up out of the dark, mildewy stairwell, and the musky scent of earth and chemicals mingled in my nostrils.

  I cautiously navigated my way down the narrow, slick stone stairs and found Solomon waiting for me just inside the doorway. He shook my hand as I stepped into the basement. “Sorry I didn’t call ahead,” I said.

  “No problem, come by any time. I’m afraid I don’t have any news for you, though. I’m still running tests.”

  I glanced around, admiring Solomon’s laboratory. It looked like something out of an old horror movie, but clean. Solomon keeps his lab immaculate. “So you don’t know what killed Anthony yet?” I said.

  “Oh, it was definitely poison. I know the nature of the beast; I just have
n’t narrowed it down to the class yet.”

  “I see… what does that mean, exactly?”

  “I can’t say for sure. Mostly, it means that we’re not dealing with an ordinary poison. This didn’t come from the local hardware store, it’s something special. Unfortunately, Anthony’s metabolism is so quick that I’m fighting just to get a read on the foreign substance. It’s going to be a few more hours, at least.”

  “I appreciate your help. Call me as soon as you know more.”

  “Will do.”

  I left feeling a little disappointed that Solomon didn’t have more for me. Despite my reluctance to solve Anthony’s murder, it was something I needed to do. Like an oil change in my Blazer. I knew if I procrastinated, things would just get worse in the long run. The best thing I could do was just get it out of the way. Unfortunately, until I had Solomon’s test results, there wasn’t much I could do. When I got back to the tree, I went straight to the jailhouse. I wanted to check up on my prisoners, and I wanted to see if Butch had learned anything about Shulzy. He had.

  Chapter 6

  When I arrived, I found Butch and his two partners in crime sitting around my desk playing cards. They hardly glanced at me as I walked into the room. “How are the prisoners?” I asked.