Cold truth

Chapter 7

A burst of hard raps against the closet door roused Mason. He shook the cobwebs from his brain, concentrating on the deep, muffled voice giving orders from the other side. "Police! Open up! Anybody in there?"

"Can't," Mason whispered, unable to pump more volume into his reply. He was lying on his side facing the closet door, wedged in a fetal position, his bloody left arm draped over his middle, having slipped out of his belt when he spun off the ladder.

"Police! Open up!" the cop repeated.

Mason kicked the door in reply.

"Get a grip, Kenny," a woman said. "Whoever is in there can't talk and can't get out. Call the paramedics. We've got blood leaking out from under the door. And get the building manager up here with the goddamn key to this closet. We find a body in there, I'm changing the name of this place to the House of Usher."

Recognizing the woman's voice, Mason tried to laugh, but hacked instead, discovering a ragged pain in his side. Samantha Greer had a black-and-blue sense of humor Mason couldn't resist. She'd crack up when he rolled out of the closet.

Mason's body was regaining consciousness in waves, each one cresting with fresh complaints. Though his arm was still numb and his ribs raw, his head throbbed like a psychotic sub-woofer, filling his ears with static. Disconnected sounds filtered through the white noise. Running footsteps. Snapping voices. He wondered if he'd made up or dreamt Samantha's voice until he heard her again.

"Ease it open, Kenny. Let's meet the neighbors."

Mason scrunched his eyes as light flooded the closet. Opening them, all he could see were shoes, ankles, and shins.

"Lou!" Samantha said. "When did you start playing extreme hide-and-seek?"

Before Mason could answer, two paramedics ran their hands over his body checking for obvious injuries. They soon straightened him out, eased him onto a spine board, and lifted him onto a gurney.

"Sam," he said as she smiled down at him, stroking the side of his face.

"Don't talk," she said. "You're shaken but not stirred. I'll see you at the hospital."

"I want my goddamn key back! Ask him about the key," Trent Hackett said.

Samantha looked up, Mason rolling his head to the other side of the gurney, Trent Hackett standing behind the paramedics as they packed up, pushing his way past them, Kenny holding him back.

"I think it can wait, Mr. Hackett," she told him.

"My father made me give him a key to Gina Davenport's office. I didn't have any since you guys took them all," he said to Samantha. "So I had to give him a passkey. It's twenty-five bucks if he lost it."

"Lou, were you in Gina Davenport's office tonight?" Samantha asked him, no longer willing to wait until he got to the hospital.

"Yeah," he said. "Should have taken the stairs."

"What were you doing there?"

"I've got a client you're interested in."

"Jordan Hackett?" Samantha asked.

"She's the one," Mason answered.

"We think so too," Samantha said. "She confessed to the murder of Gina Davenport an hour ago."

"Should have taken the stairs," Mason said, closing his eyes.

Samantha was standing at the end of Mason's hospital bed when he woke the next morning. He had always liked the way she looked when they woke up together. Blond hair fanned across her pillow, green eyes grinning as she teased him about snoring. He liked watching her walk naked to the bathroom, her slender body catching rays of sunlight peeking through the shades. At first, they were more friends than lovers, the sex more needy than heartfelt. Then Samantha wanted the whole package, Mason pulling back when he couldn't give it to her, the friendship somehow surviving.

"Have you been here all night?" he asked her.

"Are you nuts? That's what nurses are for. How do you feel?"

Mason rubbed his stubbled face with both hands, aware for the first time that his left arm was back in service. "I'd have to feel better to die, but at least I've got my health." He slipped his left arm out of the hospital gown and examined the bandage that was wrapped around his biceps.

"You sliced it deeply enough to bleed a bucket, but not enough to cut it off, according to the doctor. When you jumped off the elevator, you must have hit a nerve in your shoulder. Football players call it a stinger. It goes away and you're fine."

"How do you know about the elevator?" he asked.

"You mumbled enough on the way to the hospital that I could figure out some of what happened."

"You rode with me in the ambulance?"

"Don't get excited. I was just taking advantage of your condition to find out what happened before you decided not to tell me." She said it with a smile that covered her concern, though Mason knew she was telling the truth, just not the whole truth. "Here," she said, handing him a mirror, "take a look."

Mason groaned at the black eye he would carry around for the next week. "I guess that's from hitting my head when I jumped into the closet."

"Don't forget the bruised ribs. You had quite a ride. Fill me in on the details you left out while you were delirious."

"How did you find me?" Mason asked after telling her what had happened.

"When the elevator crashed, it ripped through a water line. We got a call from the utility company, searched the building, and found your blood leaking from under the door to the utility closet on the sixth floor. One of the cops called me because of the Davenport case. Smart guy. Wants to be a detective."

"Tell him I said thanks. What happened with the elevator?" he asked.

"It's almost as old as the building. They call it a drum elevator because the steel rope that pulls it up and down the shaft wraps around a drum in the basement where the controls are. It's not too complicated. There's a power switch that turns it on and off and an emergency release that turns it into an express. We called in an elevator expert to figure out why the system failed."

"Let me know, will you," Mason said. "How did you get Jordan Hackett to confess? Didn't she tell you I was representing her?"

"We're open twenty-fours a day. She came in, told the desk sergeant she killed Dr. Gina, and asked who she needed to talk to. I read her the Miranda spiel in front of two witnesses and she wrote it down."

"Wrote what down?"

"Dr. Gina and Jordan's father were having some tough contract negotiations. Gina wanted out so she could sign a better deal with a national radio syndication outfit from New York. Her father said no way. Gina said either she walks or Jordan finds a new shrink. Arthur Hackett called her bluff and Gina fired Jordan."

Mason sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the hospital bed. "Let me guess. Gina gave Jordan the bad news on Friday. Jordan freaks, throws something at the window, cracks it, and comes back Monday night to fire Dr. Gina."

"Bingo," Samantha said. "Watch your gown, big boy. There's a cool breeze blowing."

"Don't get excited," he said. "I'm not that glad to see you. I've just got to pee. Her story doesn't hold up. Why come back Monday night? She had the weekend to cool off. She wouldn't have known that Davenport was in her office. She was stuck out in the country with no car and she didn't have a key to get into the building."

Mason eased off the bed, wobbling enough that Samantha took his arm. "You okay, cowboy?"

"Peachy. Find my pants. I'm going home," he said as he staggered into the bathroom, his hospital gown flapping behind him.

"Nice butt," Samantha said as he closed the bathroom door. She handed him his pants when he came out. "Jordan says she called Dr. Gina and arranged to meet her that night. She borrowed a car and Gina let her in the building. They argued about Gina dropping her as a patient. Jordan ended the argument the old-fashioned way."

"I don't buy it," Mason said, pulling on his pants, his back to Samantha, who was staring out the window. Though they used to be lovers and could still tease each other, their days of watching each other get dressed were over.

"Why not? Not all your clients are innocent."

Mason winced as he put on his shirt, the pain in his ribs still fresh. "I talked to Jordan yesterday. We made an appointment for today. I told her not to talk to the cops again without me. Something happened and I'm going to find out what it was. How about giving me a lift back to my car."

"Not necessary. I called Harry a little while ago. Blues and Mickey picked up your car. Harry is waiting outside. He'll take you home. I've got other cases to solve. This one is over."

Harry drove an eight-year-old Suburban. He didn't need the space. He just liked driving a car that was as broad-shouldered as he was. Mason grunted at the effort of hoisting himself into the front passenger seat, but waved off Harry's offer of a boost.

"Damn," Mason said. "I feel like I've been kicked by a horse with all four feet."

Harry said, "Don't go to bed. You'll just freeze up and we'll have to chisel the spasms out of your muscles." He pulled a tissue from a box on the floor and wiped his eyes, then squinted at the stoplight that had just turned green. He waited until the driver behind him honked twice.

"I'm going," Harry muttered, wiping his eyes again.

"Your eyes okay?" Mason asked.

"They're fine," Harry answered. "Just these damn allergies."

Harry was not normally talkative, except about old cases he'd handled. Some baseball pitchers could recite every pitch they ever threw in a game, adding location, speed, and spin to the name of the opposing batter, the balls and strikes, and who won the battle. Harry was like that with cases he'd investigated, especially murder cases. Outside of that, he wasn't much for small talk. Mason often wondered what Harry and his Aunt Claire talked about. She must have tapped into Harry's other dimension. Mason envied them. They had been together as long as he could remember. Though they'd never married, they were as tightly bound as any couple he'd ever known.

Mason was certain that Samantha had briefed Harry as a professional courtesy, even though Harry was retired. Mason expected Harry to cross-examine him on the way home, but Harry didn't say a word. Mason appreciated the quiet ride. He would eventually use Harry as a sounding board to test different murder scenarios. At the moment, he was still digesting what Samantha had told him and wasn't ready to talk. Still, he wondered about Harry's allergies, especially since he couldn't remember the last time Harry had even sneezed.

Harry pulled in the driveway behind Mason's TR-6. Blues and Mickey had dropped it off but not waited around. As Mason got out of the car, Harry turned to him.

"One other thing," Harry said, as if they'd been talking the whole time.

"What's that?"

"Sam told me they checked that elevator the night Davenport was killed. There was nothing wrong with it. The certificate of inspection had been renewed a month ago."

Mason leaned against the open door, one foot on the ground, the other on the running board. "You think I should sue the elevator inspector?" Harry just looked at him. "No," Mason answered for him. "You think someone sabotaged the elevator because they knew I was in it? Did Samantha tell you that?"

"Something to think about," Harry said. "Remember what I told you. Don't go to bed."

Mason thought about Harry's advice as he stood under a hot shower. If his adventure in the elevator had been a murder attempt, Harry's warning about not going to bed was good advice. He'd better stay awake.

And he'd better take Trent Hackett more seriously.

Trent was the building manager, so he had access to the elevator control room and, probably, enough knowledge to make it happen. He gave Mason the key to Davenport's office and could count on Mason taking a ride. Since the elevator didn't stop on any other floors, Trent knew that no one else would be at risk. If Mason stayed off the elevator, Trent could fix it before anyone discovered what he'd done. Plus, Trent scored high on the freak-ometer.

It was then that Mason remembered the video camera on the elevator. If he had escaped a murder attempt, the killer had to have known he was on the elevator. He called Samantha.

"What about the camera on the elevator?" he asked, skipping hello. "Where's the video?"

"Gone," she answered. "The monitor and the VCR is in the control room. There was no tape. Watch your back, Lou."

If Trent had tried to kill Mason, there was a good chance Jordan was innocent or Trent was guilty of something else that he was afraid Mason would uncover. The Hacketts were starting to look like a nuclear family in the midst of a runaway meltdown.