11th hour

Chapter 107

While Brady recovered from his injuries, I was in charge of the Homicide squad, so I mustered a caravan of law enforcement officers and called in the CSU.

Conklin flatly refused to stay in his bed when this was going down. I picked him up on the corner of Kirkham and Funston, then drove to the Ellsworth compound with my injured partner in the seat beside me.

I pulled up to the iron gate, and Clapper’s van arrived and parked right behind me. I ordered cruisers to close off the triangle of streets surrounding the compound, then six of us mounted the wide front steps to the main house.

I dropped the brass knocker on the strike plate, and Janet Worley opened the door and saw half a dozen cops and the dapper Clapper standing in front of her. She gripped the collar of her starched white shirt, fear flashing across her face.

“We’re executing a search warrant, Mrs. Worley,” I said, handing it to her.

“You’ve already searched — ”

“We’re doing it again.”

“All right, then. Come in.”

“We need to see your husband,” Conklin said.

“He’s working upstairs. He was in a good mood.”

Conklin, Clapper, three crime scene investigators, and I walked through the front entrance and, under Charlie’s direction, filed through the enormous old house.

I was standing in the middle of the large foyer with Janet when Nigel Worley came down the stairs with his fulminating anger. He scowled at me and asked, “What’s this about?”

“It’s about premeditated murder, Mr. Worley. Inspector Conklin will keep you and your wife company in the kitchen.”

“Bugger that. I’ve got work to do.”

“Thank you. We appreciate your cooperation.”

Conklin corralled the Worleys and I headed down to the basement, where I found Clapper and a couple of techs opening their scene kits, getting to work.

The overhead lights were on, but they weren’t bright enough to illuminate all the corners of this vast space.

Still, neither clutter nor gloom deterred us.

We worked the room going from east to west, parallel to Vallejo Street, doing an eyeball search and using ALS wands to pick up signs of organic trace. CSU techs who had been deployed upstairs trickled down to the basement and joined us in the subterranean vault as the hours unfurled behind us like the cars of a night train.

I was wondering if we had been wrong in assuming that this basement was the scene of multiple homicides when, at around five in the evening, we reached the southernmost basement wall. Cartons of books and crates of empty wine bottles were stacked to the ceiling against the brick and timber.

I was behind Clapper when he shouted, “Awww, shit. How did I miss this?”

I stepped to Clapper’s side and saw that the ceiling-high crates only appeared to be touching the wall; it was clever fakery. There was a narrow gap behind the cartons, and an old sliding door on an overhead track was mounted on the actual wall.

Clapper gave the door a shove and it slid open, revealing the entrance to another basement room, this one running southwest to northeast, parallel to Ellsworth Place.

There was free access between the basement of the main house and the one in 2 Ellsworth Place.

A person could move from one to the other without being seen.