“DAMN!”
Todd Milligan stood shoulder to shoulder with Decker as they surveyed the house the next morning.
The rundown on the Honda’s license plate had led them here. A ramshackle farm cottage down a rural road in the middle of Loudoun County, Virginia.
Decker nodded at Milligan’s exclamation. “From multimillion-dollar condo smack in the middle of upscale suburbia to this.”
“But why would she even have this place, Decker?”
Decker started walking toward the house. “That’s what we’re here to find out. But Berkshire’s starting to strike me as someone who had a purpose behind every act. So let’s start with that notion and see where it takes us.”
There was a small outbuilding behind the cottage, more a lean-to than anything else. But inside it was the Honda.
“We might need a warrant to search the house and car,” Milligan pointed out.
“The only person able to object is dead,” replied Decker.
He tried the car door but it was locked. “The keys might be in the house,” he said.
They trooped to the front door. It was also locked.
Decker leaned his heavy shoulder against it and it was no longer locked.
They stepped inside and the old wooden plank floors creaked ominously under their weight. The air was musty and the room was chilly.
Milligan pointed to a fireplace in the front room. “That might be the only source of heat.”
“No, there was an aboveground oil tank at the rear, and there’s a radiator against the wall over there, though none of that may be working.”
They walked through the three rooms. The kitchen had an ancient, empty fridge, a small stove, and a sink with stains. Decker turned on the water and a small blob of brown gunk came out.
He poked his head into the sole bathroom. There was a toilet, a cracked mirror, a roll of toilet paper on the wall, and that was about it. The bathtub/shower had no curtain and there were rust stains on the linoleum, which was curled up in innumerable places. Decker flushed the toilet. Nothing happened. He tried a light switch. Again, nothing.
“Okay, I doubt she was actually living here,” he said. “No water and no working bathroom and no juice.”
Milligan gazed around. “I wonder if she even owned this place. It looks abandoned. Maybe she just used it as sort of a hideout.”
“Which raises the question of who she was hiding from. And if she was hiding, why buy a multimillion-dollar condo and expensive car, work at a school, and volunteer at a hospice? All that puts you out in the public eye.”
“My wife’s a schoolteacher. And while I know she loves working with the kids, if she had millions in the bank, she might be doing something else.”
“What grade does she teach?”
“Eighth. Where kids make the jump from nice, innocent kids to something a lot more complicated and emotional drama runs deep and hormones are out of control. Some days she comes home looking like she got hit by a bus.”
“In my book, all teachers are underpaid,” said Decker.
There were wooden steps leading down to a dank cellar. The floor down there was dirt. Milligan had pulled out his flashlight and shone it around.
Behind massive cobwebs there were wooden planks set on top of cinderblocks, forming crude shelving. Stacked on the planks were rotting cardboard boxes. Decker opened each of them and Milligan pointed his light inside.
“Junk,” said Milligan, after examining old lamps and ragged magazines and broken bric-a-brac. “I bet all this belonged to the former owners,” he added.
Decker nodded absently. He looked around the small space, his gaze, with the aid of Milligan’s powerful light, reaching into each corner.
“I bet she’s never even been down here,” noted Milligan.
“No, she has.”
“How do you know that?”
“Point your light at the steps coming down.”
Milligan did so and saw the new wood that had replaced boards that had obviously rotted away.
“The cellar door also had a new hinge on it.” Decker took the flashlight from Milligan and aimed it at a patch of dirt in a far corner.
Milligan drew closer and said, “Footprints. Small. A woman’s.”
“Berkshire’s.”
“Good eye, Decker,” said Milligan.
Decker didn’t seem to hear him. He leaned against the stone wall of the cellar and cast the light beam around. The illumination flitted over the walls and rough ceiling like a horde of fireflies.
“So why would she come down here?” asked Milligan.
“To hide something. We just have to find the place.”
Milligan glanced toward the door. “Wait a minute. If the Honda is here, how did she come and go from this place?”
“There’s a small clearing on the right side when you enter the road this house is on. There were tire marks on it. My hunch is she’d drive the Mercedes here, park, and then walk. She might not have come that often, only when she taught class and needed the Honda, so that would jibe with the low mileage on the Mercedes. Then she’d reverse that path, leave the Honda here, and drive off in the Mercedes.”
“But why do that at all?”
“A substitute teacher arriving in a six-figure luxury car would no doubt invite gossip among the teachers, staff, and students. And I don’t think Berkshire liked to encourage attention. It’s why she kept to herself.”
Milligan nodded. “I guess you’re right. But she did have the car and the condo.”
“Which means the woman didn’t dislike living in the lap of luxury. And maybe she enjoyed the secret double life she was leading. It might have been quite a kick for her.”
Decker kept gazing around. He looked at the spot in the dirt where the footprints were. Then he looked at the new planks on the crude shelving. Then he gazed upward at the cellar door with new hinges.
A moment later he pushed his bulk off the wall and rushed up the stairs.
“Decker!” Milligan called out. He hurried after him.
By the time Milligan reached the doorway Decker had disappeared down the hall. Milligan found him in the bathroom.
“What is it?” Milligan asked.
“Why have a roll of toilet paper if the toilet doesn’t even work?”
Decker reached down and popped the roll off the holder. He set it down on the sink. The tube the toilet paper had been mounted on was the usual kind, with a spring keeping the two ends together inside the wall holder.
Decker separated the two ends and the car keys dropped into the palm of his hand.
“The Honda,” he said. He looked inside the tube. “And that’s not all.” He dug inside the hollow piece and slid out a flash drive.
“Damn, Decker, you might have just hit the jackpot.”
“Well, let’s get to a computer and see.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
They went back outside. Decker took out the Honda keys and said, “I’ll drive her car back. We didn’t find anything of interest at her condo, so maybe something will be in the car that’ll help.” He held up the flash drive. “And this might answer all our questions.”
They separated and Milligan climbed into the Bureau car.
Decker went to the Honda and had to put the car seat all the way back to accommodate his long legs. The car’s interior was battered. Before Decker had climbed inside he had calculated that the vehicle was probably over fifteen years old. Then he had checked the glove box and found the original owner’s manual that confirmed that the model was actually seventeen years old.
Milligan led the way down the dirt road to the asphalt one they had originally turned off from. Thick trees on either side of the road and the cloud cover overhead dissipated the light, turning things gloomy.
When Decker looked up, Milligan had already turned onto the asphalt road and had sped up. Decker pulled out onto the road.
“Shit.”
The car was wobbling along.
He put it in park, got out, and looked down at the front tire. It was flat.
He glanced down the road. Milligan was already out of sight.
Decker pulled out his phone to call him and tell him what had happened.
The call did not go through because there was no service in this area.
“Shit again.”
He popped the trunk, figuring that Milligan would finally notice he was not behind him and would circle back.
He got out the jack, lug wrench, and the spare.
When he knelt down in front of the tire, he saw it.
He had started to pull his gun when the blow hit him. He slumped forward, hit the front fender of the Honda with his face, and toppled sideways to the asphalt.