The Summer House

Chapter 32

Special Agent Manuel Sanchez pulls his Ford sedan into the front yard of Wendy Gabriel’s home and sees the Volkswagen is still there. Good. He gets out of the car and starts up to the old, sagging house, which looks exactly the same as it did yesterday.

But he slows as he approaches the porch.

It looks the same, but it sure doesn’t sound the same.

No noise is coming from inside the structure.

No dog barking.

No dog?

Sanchez steps onto the porch, knocks on the door.

“Ma’am?” he calls out. “Are you home?”

Quiet.

Two more heavy knocks, and he stops, listening.

Nothing.

What now?

In another time and place he would contact the locals for assistance, explain what’s going on and how he needs to reinterview a vital witness.

But here and now?

Sanchez has a flicker of suspicion that just won’t go away. From his nearly being run down last night to Agent York and Major Cook being trailed to the sharp looks he and the others get from the civilians, he knows the locals are not his allies. They are up to something.

He looks at the door and its lock. Typical pin tumbler. He goes back to the trunk of the Ford, rummages through his go bag, filled with all sorts of technical goodies, chooses a small zippered black case, and carries it to the front porch.

Sanchez looks again at the lock, then removes from the case two tools: a small tension wrench and an even smaller tool called a short hook. He gets to work, and in less than fifteen seconds, he unlocks the door.

He pushes it open. Puts the lock-picking tools in his coat pocket. Takes out his SIG Sauer.

“Mrs. Gabriel? Are you here?”

No reply.

He steps in and says, “Toby! Toby Baby!”

No sound of paws thumping on the rug or nails rattling on the linoleum floor. Sanchez steps farther in, takes a breath.

With the door and windows closed to the outside heat, the stench inside nearly knocks him back.

The smell... rotten fruit, greasy food, piles of bagged trash decaying in the far corner.

He moves slowly through the crowded living room, clearing the place as best he can without any backup, and as he walks, he’s able to separate some of the stench.

He doesn’t smell something he’s expecting: the smell of a bloated, decaying, and putrefying body.

A narrow staircase is packed on both sides with piles of books and magazines. He takes his time, but upstairs he does what he can. There’s a bathroom that is so filthy and jammed with towels and soap bottles that he doesn’t even bother to enter.

The bedroom has a narrow path to the bed and a bureau that has just a few papers on top — what a surprise — and that’s it.

When he gets out of the house, back onto the porch, he takes a deep, cleansing breath.

The house was locked, the car is still here, and there’s no sign of violence or a struggle.

But Wendy Gabriel is gone.

Sanchez holsters his pistol, walks back to the car.

Check that.

The witness is gone.