Silence

40

PAUL AND SYLVIE TURNER were already over the six-foot fence and walking on Scott Schelling’s smooth, level green lawn. It was pleasant walking here because even at night it was easy to tell that nobody but the men who cut and rolled it had ever walked here, and because the fence was lined with taller hedges that made it safe for even Paul and Sylvie to stand erect as they made their way across the lawn. The two strolled toward the house, then stopped a distance from it and circled it slowly.

Their first stop was the garage. Paul took a small Maglite out of his pocket and shone it through the window at the side. He whispered, “There’s a sports car, and a Lincoln Town Car.”

“Good. He’s probably home.”

Paul nodded, and they resumed their walk. There were a number of procedures that they followed without discussion. They stayed ten or twelve feet away from the house while they studied it, so they were outside the range of motion detectors that could trigger floodlights. They checked the eaves and peaks of the house for surveillance cameras, although they didn’t matter so much at this hour because nobody would be awake to watch the monitors. They examined the shrubs and perennials for signs of electrical wiring, checked the window screens for conductive mesh and the glass for silver wire. The doors were sturdy, well-made, and equipped with heavy gleaming hardware.

When they went around the corner, there was a metallic jingling, and then the sound of quick footsteps as a dog bounded across the lawn toward them. He was big, a retriever of some kind, and in a moment he was on them, panting and jumping. Paul petted him, then patted his shoulder, hard, whispering, “Good boy. Good boy,” as he took out his gun. He held the silencer a few inches behind the dog’s head and fired, then watched the dog fall to the grass and held the gun closer to fire a second round. Paul grasped the dog’s hind foot and dragged it into a clump of bushes.

“The dog’s our way in,” Sylvie whispered. “I’ll bet there’s a doggy door.”

“Let’s take a look.”

They continued their circuit until they came to the kitchen door in the back of the house, where there was a pet entrance cut into the lower panel. Paul and Sylvie knelt on the back steps to examine it.

“This has got to work. The alarm system is all pretty well wired,” said Sylvie.

“And there are video cameras,” said Paul. “We’ll have to find the deck and erase the tapes or take the chips later.”

Sylvie reached out and tested the pet door. “I’m sure I can fit through.”

“It won’t be wired, but we have to be careful about noise.”

“Of course. And internal traps and electric eyes. You’re sweet to worry.”

“What are you going to do when you’re in?”

“Wake him up, make him turn off the alarm, and let you in.”

“Good. Warn him what happens if he pushes a call-the-cops code.” He leaned close and kissed her cheek. “I love you, baby.”

Paul put on his thin kidskin gloves while Sylvie did the same. Paul lifted the clear plastic flap away from the dog door, held it up and whispered, “Good luck, baby.”

“Thanks.” Sylvie slipped her arms through the opening, shrugged to get her head and shoulders in, turned to the side to get her hips in, then turned the rest of the way to sit and pull her legs and feet in.

The kitchen was dark and quiet. She listened to the sounds of the building while her eyes accustomed themselves to the dark. Then she got up, took out her gun, and began to explore.

She found a dining room with a crystal chandelier and a long formal table and antique sideboards that didn’t seem contemporary enough for a music executive. The living room was divided into two carpeted areas with two separate sets of white furniture, with a clear space of marble floor down the center, which told her that Scott Schelling passed through the room only on his way to and from the front door. She followed a corridor off the living room and found a large den, a media room with thick leather theater seats, a huge flat-screen television set, smaller monitors, and lots of speakers and control boxes for various interlocking sound systems. She made her way back down the long corridor past the living room and into a small gym. It had many of the machines and pieces of equipment that Sylvie’s first husband, Darren, had bought her, but the set of weights was bigger and heavier than hers.

She had reached the private areas of the house, so she knew she must be coming closer to the bedrooms. The gym had a door that led to a shower room, and on the far end of it was a door to a conventional bathroom, and then another door to a large walk-in closet and dressing room. She could see built-in dressers and cabinets and rows of men’s suits on hangers, rows of shoes on shelves.

Sylvie edged close to the next door, her gun ready, and stepped out suddenly, the gun aimed at the bed. But the bed was still made, the covers perfectly smooth. There was a desk to her right near the wall, so she came close. There was nothing on its surface—no papers, no wallet or keys, no sunglasses or coins he might have left there when he went to bed. She looked at her watch. It was very late—after two. He should be home, if he was coming.

Maybe he slept in another bedroom. She made her way out the door and down the hall, looking in each bedroom. When she had seen them all, she walked back toward the kitchen. On the far side of it was a separate corridor she had missed the first time; it led to a suite for a maid. She opened the door carefully and explored it. The closet had a woman’s clothes in it, and there were Spanish novellas on the bookshelves, but the bed had not been slept in. In the maid’s bathroom, Sylvie studied the louvered window above the shower for a moment, then returned to the kitchen and knelt by the dog door. “Paul.”

“What did you find?”

“Not him. He’s not here. There’s nobody in the house. The maid seems to get the weekend off. I’ve been in every room. Time for you to come in.”

“How? I’ll never fit.”

“Come around to the end of the house by the garage. I’ll show you.”

Paul went around the house to the far end, and when he arrived, Sylvie was already taking the strips of glass out of the louvered window. He pushed the last three out, handed them in to Sylvie, and climbed through the empty window frame into the shower. They replaced the glass and stepped out of the shower.

“Where should we start?” he said.

“The kitchen’s right down here.” She led him down a short corridor into the kitchen.

He shone his flashlight on the long granite counters, the copper pots hanging on the walls, the giant sinks and stove. “Nice.”

“Let’s find the money,” she said.

The kitchen was rich in places for hiding things: the refrigerator, inside pots and pans, in the removable backs of electronic devices, in cabinets and drawers. They found nothing, and moved to the next room. Paul stood on the dining-room table to see if anything could be hidden in the chandelier. They looked underneath tables and sideboards. In the living room, they pulled back runners and moved paintings to search for secret compartments, took out drawers. They checked inside the piano, then moved on.

It was nearly dawn before they finished. They had found seven thousand dollars in cash, a few thousand dollars’ worth of watches and other jewelry, two loaded pistols, and a short-barreled pump shotgun. They had not found the million dollars that Scott Schelling had promised them.

“What do you think?” Sylvie asked. “Do we give up and go?”

“He’s not going to get Wendy Harper for free. He made an arrangement, and he’s going to pay us.”