The Dead Key Part 34

Beatrice crouched down and dug through the razor blades of ice to retrieve the keys from the slush. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something move. A large shadow in a hooded jacket lurched to a stop on the sidewalk fifty paces behind her. It turned in her direction. Beatrice gasped and s.n.a.t.c.hed the keys from the s...o...b..nk. They jingled loudly in her shaking hands as she struggled to slide one into the lock. It didn't fit. The freezing keys stuck to her wet skin as she wrestled another one free. The shadow was moving toward her.

She shrieked in the back of her throat and forced a key into the lock with two raw hands. The door swung open mercifully, and she threw herself inside.

The room was pitch black. She slammed the door shut and leaned against it. The warmth of the room sharpened the stabbing pain of frost in her fingers and toes. She breathed hot air into her hands. Something thudded loudly against the door. She jumped away from it with a yelp. Her purse hit the ground as she fell onto something big and metal. The doork.n.o.b rattled back and forth.

"Go away," she whimpered.

Thump. Thump. Then the noise stopped.

Beatrice held her breath, listening until she was certain whoever it was had given up and left. She slowly picked herself up off the metal box she'd landed on and felt around on the clammy ground for her purse. Only then did she realize she had left her suitcase in a pile of snow on the other side of the door.

"Oh no!" she gasped, spinning toward the door. There was no way she was opening it up again. Whoever it was on the other side probably stole the suitcase anyway.

A thin thread of light leaked in through the doorframe. As her eyes adjusted, she could just make out the bulky thing on the floor. She reached down. It was a hatch. She felt her way to a handle. The cover swung up, and she knew what lay beneath it. It was a ladder.

Beatrice felt her way blindly down into the tunnel below. The darkness swallowed her whole. Not even the glimmer of light from the doorframe could reach her at the bottom. She didn't have a flashlight, or a match, or anything. It didn't matter. It was warm, and she was hidden from the world above. She wanted to lie down so badly, she no longer cared where she did it. She crouched to touch the ground below her and cringed. It was wet. A drop of water fell in the distance. Then another. She crept slowly toward the sound with her hands held out in front of her.

The pain in her fingers and toes slowly receded as she inched her way down the tunnel. After five minutes in the dark, she could no longer tell if her eyes were open or closed. Her breathing grew more and more thunderous in the infinite black. The dripping sound led her to a fork in the tunnel. She followed it to the right and down another narrow pa.s.sageway. She felt her way, searching for a dry place to sleep, until she no longer had any idea how far she had gone.

Hysteria began to take hold in the back of her brain stem. She didn't know where she was. She couldn't see. She was growing more disoriented and convinced she would never be able to find her way out. Her pulse quickened to a dizzying pace. Her throat tightened as her breathing grew more rapid. She sucked in air frantically and stifled a scream. She was drowning in a black sea. She was buried alive. She stumbled forward, no longer even holding up her arms to protect her face. Out. She had to get out.

She was nearly running when her foot caught on something. She yelped as she toppled to her knees. Fetid water seeped into her stockings. The air was close and stale, like rotting leaves. Her hands crawled along the swampy concrete floor, feeling for her purse. Everything was cold and wet, until her fingers grazed something warm and soft. It was a hand.

CHAPTER 67.

Friday, August 28, 1998 Iris rushed across the street toward the First Bank of Cleveland, cursing under her breath. Nick had blabbed at work that she was obsessed with the safe deposit boxes. She hadn't told a soul about the keys, but somehow her former boss and a police officer seemed to know she had them. The only person she had showed them to was a locksmith in Garfield Heights, who didn't even know her name, but somehow they found out anyway.

Withholding evidence from a cop was a felony, but if she didn't give Mr. Wheeler what he wanted, he would press charges and ruin her career. Not that a recommendation would even matter if she had a felony on her record. At the moment, getting another engineering job she would probably hate was the least of her worries. She had to find her way back inside the bank and throw the keys into a dark corner for someone else to find. They belonged there.

She ran to the rear entrance behind the building and pressed the call b.u.t.ton on the squawk box. Nothing happened. She tried again and waited. d.a.m.n it. She raced around to the front of the building to see if she could spot Ramone through the windows.

The main lobby was empty. She rested her forehead against the gla.s.s. Maybe she could just slide the keys under the door. As she debated what to do next, her empty stare fell on the black velvet sign in the lobby that listed the names of the important men who used to work there. Slowly the letters came into focus. "C. Wheeler, Board Liaison" was at the bottom of the list. Pressing her nose to the gla.s.s, she read the name again. Mr. Charles Wheeler had worked at First Bank of Cleveland.

Iris spun to face the building across the street, where WRE's offices sat on the ninth floor. Mr. Wheeler had worked at the bank twenty years ago and now worked a mere two hundred feet away. He could be looking down at her from his corner office windows at that very moment.

"Oh, s.h.i.t!"

Iris ran from Euclid Avenue. If Mr. Wheeler worked at the bank, he might have known the man who died. He may know who killed him. He may know everything. She rounded the corner. A large, black truck was pulling out of the bank's loading dock. She lurched to a stop and ducked back behind the side of the building. After three harried breaths, she peeked around the corner again and watched the truck pull away. It was unmarked-not even a license plate. It headed east, and the garage door rolled closed.

It made no sense. Where were the police? Where was the crime scene tape? Where was Ramone?

A hand grabbed Iris by the arm. She shrieked.

Detective McDonnell slapped his palm over her mouth. "Come with me," he ordered, and pulled her to his unmarked police car at the curb.

s.h.i.t. Iris limply dragged her purse and field bag full of evidence behind her. It was a small relief when he opened the front pa.s.senger door and not the back, but she'd never been in a police car in her life. The door slammed shut. The detective slid into the driver's seat and threw the gearshift into drive. Iris wasn't sure if he'd just arrested her but was too terrified to ask.

Without a word, the detective drove across Euclid Avenue and turned down Superior toward the Terminal Tower. Iris forced herself to breathe. She studied the dashboard to keep from descending into hysterics. A photograph of a young woman was taped to the console. Iris had seen her picture before. She focused on the photo as the detective made a few more turns and finally parked in an alley. He turned to look at her for the first time since he'd shoved her into his car.

"That's my sister." He motioned to the faded image. "She was a real beauty."

Iris nodded, not taking her eyes off the photo. "I've seen her before."

"You have?"

Iris scowled, trying to remember where. The colors had been brighter. The photo had been someplace where the sun couldn't reach it. Ramone.

"Ramone had her picture in his room next to one of his mom."

"The security guard? . . . I guess that wouldn't surprise me. Max made friends wherever she went." He seemed to brush it off, but Iris could tell by the way he crinkled his brow at the picture that there was more to the story. "Why aren't you at work, Iris?"

"I was fired today. Well, laid off. Things were pretty weird, so I left."

"Weird how?" He studied her intently.

"I don't know. I guess they were asking a lot of questions. I got your message this morning and . . . I got nervous. What's going on? Why aren't the police still in the building?" She couldn't bring herself to directly ask if he was charging her with a felony.

"They've shut the investigation down. The coroner ruled it an open-and-closed suicide."

"What about the bookcase and the lock?" she asked. Mr. Wheeler's name was spelled out in white letters on a kiosk in the back of her mind. It just felt wrong.

"Circ.u.mstantial evidence. It wasn't enough to get warrants."

"Oh." Iris frowned and tried not to look at her field bag. "What does this all have to do with me?"

He studied her a moment and said, "You told me some things about the building. I went and looked for the files where you told me to look, and they were gone."

Her mouth fell open. "Gone?"

"Well, at first I thought you might have been pulling my chain, but I could see shadows of what could have been filing cabinets in the carpet. There were also wheel tracks in the dust on the floors. Someone moved them. Recently."

"I saw a black truck."

"I've seen them too. Someone is clearing out the building. I can't get a straight answer from the county, and the building owner isn't taking calls. My boss told me to drop it. They think I'm obsessed with the old bank and finding my sister." He rubbed his eyes. "s.h.i.t, I'm surprised they even let me take the call in the first place."

Something was really wrong. None of his words explained why he'd called her, why he'd threatened her about withholding evidence, or why she was in his car. What was worse, he'd just admitted no one was listening to him. "I still don't understand what this has to do with me."

"Someone's been watching your house. I think someone's been following you."

Her blood stopped cold. "What?"

"I'm not sure who it is. I started tailing you last week because you were my only lead, and I'm sorry, but something about your story just didn't seem right."

"My story?" Her voice cracked.

"I don't think you're telling me everything," he said simply. "Now I think you may be in danger. Someone down at the county doesn't want this investigation to move forward. Someone is moving evidence out of the building. Someone is following you. Now, you can either tell me why, or I can drop you off at your house and you can take your chances."

She opened her mouth, but no sound could escape through the knot in her throat. He watched her carefully as she processed what he'd said. Mr. Wheeler knew about her affair with Nick, her drinking habits, and her late mornings. Mr. Wheeler seemed to know about the keys. She could still feel the squeeze of his hand, but this time it was around her neck.

Iris slowly reached down to the floorboards and grabbed her field bag and her purse. She fumbled with trembling hands and lit a cigarette. The detective patiently waited and unrolled her window. She blew a shaky stream of smoke out the window and then pulled out the keys.

CHAPTER 68.

Detective McDonnell took notes as Iris told him the whole story. He nodded while she confessed to stealing keys from Suzanne's drawer, the vault, and finally the bathroom floor just inches from the rotting corpse. The last confession made the detective stop writing. His eyes filled with disbelief and then rage.

"You took something from the crime scene? Are you f.u.c.king nuts?" He studied her face as if he were actually trying to measure her sanity. "Do you realize that's a felony? You've just destroyed your credibility as a witness. I can't use any evidence you give me! Even if they did let me reopen the case, I got nothing. G.o.ddammit!"

He slammed his hand against the dashboard and turned to the window. Her eyes watered and her cigarette dropped from her shaking lips.

"I was in shock," she protested as she fumbled for the burning ember in her lap. "Can't I plead temporary insanity or something? I'd never seen a dead body before. I walked into the room and picked up this key. Then I found the flies and the bones and I threw up. The next thing I knew, the room was filled with cops. I didn't realize I even had the key in my hand until I was down by my car and it was . . . too late. I was scared. I thought I was going crazy. I've been hearing voices. Isn't there anything I can do to make this right?"

The detective stared at her hard, and she felt the prison bars slam down around her. She clamped her lips together to keep from wailing.

His glare softened. "So you found some keys. Why would someone be following you, Iris?"

She swallowed hard. "They're not just any keys. I did some checking around. These are the bank's keys to the vault, and this"-she grabbed the blank key with shaky fingers-"this is the master key. They call it a dead key. Together these can open any safe deposit box in the vault."

"You did some checking around?" He rolled his eyes at the ceiling of his car and raised his voice to a roar. "What the h.e.l.l is it with people wanting to play detective? You sound like my G.o.dd.a.m.n sister with this c.r.a.p! Do you know what happened to her when she went poking around that vault? She vanished! For all I know, she's dead and buried somewhere under the city. Is that what you want?"

Iris shrunk into the corner of her seat. He noticed her cowering and ran his fingers through his hair. The toll the bank had taken was written in the creases of his forehead.

He took a deep breath and said calmly, "I'm sorry, Iris. This thing is bigger than you, okay?"

She gave him a small nod.

"So, someone is following you because of these keys. Do you have any idea who it is?"

She took a moment to consider it rationally, though it was hard to think straight with the hysterical shrieking in her head. "Well, I think someone was trying to open a safe deposit box when I surprised him. He left these keys hanging from a lock."

"And you took them?" he asked as though she might just be the dumbest woman on earth.

"I don't know, I thought it was Ramone. I was going to give them back to him. I was hoping he would explain how he got them. They were supposedly lost twenty years ago, and I've sort of been trying to find them myself. But it wasn't him. I was going to put them back. I never meant to keep them . . . It sounds crazy, doesn't it?"

"Yes," he said flatly. "I don't think you realize the kind of people you're dealing with."

"You mean people like Mr. Wheeler?" She searched the detective's face. "I think he threatened me today. Did you know he used to work at the First Bank of Cleveland?"

"Mr. Wheeler?"

"Charles Wheeler is a lead partner at WRE. He used to be a board member or something at the bank. He told me I'd better give back everything I might have taken from the building or he'd press charges, and then he nearly broke my fingers with a handshake."

"Wheeler," the detective repeated, and began flipping through his worn notepad. "He was on the board of the real estate investment company that had bought the property at auction when the building was sold in 1979-Cleveland Real Estate Holdings Corp."

Iris nodded, trying to piece it together. Mr. Wheeler worked for the same company that bought the building at auction. He also worked for the bank. "Do you think he's following me?"

"Wheeler? I doubt it's actually him, but it may be someone who works for him. He's just one of the players in this. The most powerful men in Cleveland have ties to the old bank. Another former bank officer, James Stone, was elected county commissioner a few years back. Now he's running for Congress. Too many important people want to keep the truth buried. If they think you've uncovered something, they'll want to bury you too."

"But I don't know anything!" she protested. Her brain was reeling. Someone working for Mr. Wheeler had been following her. Somehow Amanda and Mr. Wheeler knew about her affair with Nick. Nick. Nick was always popping up out of nowhere in the old bank and outside her car window. He had been in her apartment. A chill coursed through her body. Nick was just a guy looking for a good time, she argued. He wouldn't be wrapped up in some weird conspiracy. The detective was studying her as she fought back the panic. She didn't want to have to explain Nick.

"You must know something, Iris."

"What do I know? I've seen strange files and cryptic notes. I found some keys. I found a pile of dead flies, and I'm still having nightmares. It doesn't mean I understand any of it. I even tried. I stayed up late deciphering some weird language, and I couldn't make sense of any of it. All I know is that a secretary disappeared because she knew something about the safe deposits. She left behind these notes for someone to find."

"Notes?"

Her eyes watered as her voice raised an octave. "Yes! Then there was this suitcase I found full of her clothes. She probably died in there, and no one even cared. Now you're telling me someone's following me . . . Am I next?"

"Wait. You found women's clothes? Where?" he asked.

"In a closet. Here I think I'm going crazy. I think I'm being haunted. Someone's been following me around the building messing with me, dusting things, taking things, whispering my name. I don't know s.h.i.t all right. I wish I did, but I don't."

The detective was staring at the photograph of his sister as if he'd forgotten Iris was there.

"Do you?" She angrily wiped the tears from her eyes. "What really happened when the bank closed?"

"All I can tell you is that when the city defaulted, they were eager to blame somebody. City council opened a full investigation of the First Bank of Cleveland, talking about how the rich had defrauded the public. At first the bank cooperated. They gave us access to files and corrupted accounts. We indicted one big fish."

He read the name from his notepad: "Theodore Halloran, vice president of Finance. He was as dirty as they come. We had him for embezzlement and racketeering. He was on this advisory committee to the city back in the early 1970s to develop an urban planning initiative. They pet.i.tioned the government for funds to buy up blighted real estate for redevelopment. 'Urban renewal' they called it. 'Eminent domain.' Millions of dollars disappeared overnight. Technically, I guess you could say they didn't disappear. They were 'mismanaged.'"

"What do you mean?"

"The whole thing was a scam. Halloran and his buddies already owned most of the properties they were buying. They had bought up half of Cleveland through bulls.h.i.t front operations, like nonprofits, and real estate investment firms, like the New Cleveland League. So Halloran was acting on behalf of the city, buying acres of blighted housing from himself, negotiating with himself, and fixing the prices. He sold properties to the city at an outrageous profit. What did he care? It was federal money. The money went right into the bank's coffers and was never seen again."

A freight truck rolled past the loading dock. Iris thought of the black truck she'd seen leaving the old bank. Cleveland Real Estate Holdings Corp. was a front organization owned and operated by former bank officers. Mr. Wheeler was one of them. They owned the building and were removing evidence. Suzanne had said, "You'd be surprised how many of those fat-cat bankers is still around." She was right.

They might hide behind different company names, but they were the same people.

The detective was still talking. "Target neighborhoods got leveled and then completely abandoned. Neighborhoods like Hough were overrun with displaced families. Rents went through the roof, while the whole place went to h.e.l.l. When it came time to redevelop all that land the city had bought, none of the real estate developers were interested. And the real crime of it was that they were the ones that lobbied the feds for the whole plan and the grant money in the first place."

The detective chuckled. "Jesus, I sound like Max talking about this stuff."

"So what happened?" Nothing he was saying was calming her nerves.