But I had her back.
We walked up the driveway, the grumble of that Honda engine fading behind us. Every window in Kingsman’s house was dark. There was no sign of anyone, inside or out. Maybe there were some early birds chirping, but all I could hear was the sound of my own heartbeat—that and the words of my first handler, a Frenchman, with whom I was stationed in London. It was his version of “Keep calm and don’t panic.” “Le secret pour rester en vie? Ne jamais cesser de respirer.”
The secret to staying alive? Never stop breathing.
“This way,” said Elizabeth.
Without discussion, she and I both knew where we were heading. The back of the property. The front was a little too quiet for our liking. Way too quiet. My kingdom for some noise.
Elizabeth heard it first. We were halfway along the side of the house. Going on nothing but instinct, she plastered herself against the stucco of Kingsman’s Tudor, her arm pulling me next to her. She pointed to her ears.
That’s when I heard it, too. Dim but definitely there.
Voices. As in plural. It was at least two men talking. It might have been the patrolmen, but that wouldn’t explain the Honda with the engine running. We needed to get closer to hear them better. Better yet, we needed to get a look.
Slowly we edged along the side of the house, the corner toward the back no more than ten feet away. We were as quiet as falling leaves.
So was the guy behind us.
Chapter 84
I ALMOST shot his head off. I mean, seriously, who clears his throat before yelling, “Freeze!”
A rookie, that’s who.
I spun around so fast that the kid nearly tripped over his own feet. Luckily for him, I saw the uniform. All he saw were our street clothes and our guns. God knows what would’ve happened if Elizabeth hadn’t been so swift with her badge.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” she screamed.
That brought another officer running over from the back of the house, in full sprint. With his buzz cut, he looked even younger than his partner. We were now the meat in a neophyte sandwich.
Quickly Elizabeth explained who we were and why we were there. The only reason they were there was because of her.
Their turn. Why the Honda out front? Why were they out of their cars and on the property?
“Follow me,” said the buzz cut.
We followed him to a patio off the back of the house, where two more officers were standing—hovering, really—over another man sitting in one of four wrought-iron chairs, all of which probably had cushions on them a few months ago, during the summer. Or maybe not. The chairs and the patio itself had that overly neglected look. There were cracked bricks everywhere underfoot, along with a few spots that were missing bricks altogether. Judge Kingsman didn’t strike me as a relax-on-the-patio sort of guy. Maybe his wife had been when she was alive.
Elizabeth and I both stared at the guy in the chair. He looked around my age, midthirties, with jet-black hair parted neatly to the side above a pair of black-frame glasses that were either hip or nerdy, depending on which borough you live in.
Intentionally or not, he was sitting dead center under a lone floodlight. He wasn’t in handcuffs, but his body language was unmistakable. He wasn’t there by choice.
“Who is he?” asked Elizabeth.
“No wallet or any ID on him, but he says his name is Elijah Timitz,” said the buzz cut. He motioned to the guy. “Go ahead, tell them what you told me.”
Dead silence. The guy simply sat there, staring back at us. There was no fear, but it wasn’t cocky, either.
The buzz cut rolled his eyes. Okay, pal, I’ll tell ’em…
“He says he works for the judge and was dropping off some files,” he began. I could read his nameplate now, courtesy of the floodlight. The buzz cut was Officer J. Glausen. “He claims it’s research for cases, and he led us to the back here to show us where he drops them off.”
In unison, Elizabeth and I looked over at one of the other officers and the files tucked under his arm. Behind him was a footlocker-type box by the door to the house.
“Is it?” asked Elizabeth. “Research?” She didn’t even bother asking Timitz directly.
“It’s a bunch of notes and legal language,” answered Glausen. “So maybe, yeah, it is. That’s not the problem, though.”
I got it before he said it. The problem was math. Everyone was armed, but there was still one gun too many. In other words, everyone was armed. Timitz had been carrying. The gun in Glausen’s hand was in addition to the one in his holster.
“Do you have a license for that?” asked Elizabeth. Now she was talking directly to Timitz. He still wasn’t answering. “Do you have a license to carry a firearm?” she repeated.
Finally, he spoke. Sort of. “I want my attorney present,” he said.
Glausen snickered. “Do you know who asks for their lawyers? Guilty people,” he said.
“Or maybe people who have an understanding of the justice system and how it works and sometimes doesn’t work,” I chimed in. “Perhaps someone who works for a judge?”
Elizabeth looked at me. She knew what I was doing. You catch more flies with honey.
Glausen, meanwhile, had no clue. Neither did any of the other officers, who had been standing around like mannequins.
“Yeah, and while we’re at it, where is the judge?” asked Elizabeth. “Where’s Kingsman?”
Glausen had no clue about that, either.
“Good question,” he said. Cue the sarcasm. “Maybe the guy who works for him knows.”
Chapter 85
“DID YOU call the home number?” asked Elizabeth. “The landline?”
“Yeah, we did that, too,” said Glausen. “Twice.”
They had knocked, they had banged, they had rung the doorbell repeatedly and checked all the doors of Kingsman’s house to see if any of them was open. None was.
Elizabeth took off her jacket and began wrapping the sleeve around her fist. “Let’s find the cheapest window to replace,” she said.
“Or you could just use the key.”
We all turned to Timitz.
“What?” asked Elizabeth.
“Judge Kingsman keeps a spare key underneath the middle flowerpot by the back door here,” said Timitz, pointing.
“How do you know that?” asked Glausen.
But that was the wrong question. Why are you telling us? That was the right one. Timitz was admitting he had access to Kingsman’s house.
Glausen tried again. “How do you know there’s a key?”
“I want my attorney present,” answered Timitz. That figured.
Elizabeth unwrapped her jacket from around her fist. Apparently there was no need to break any windows. She also knew there was a difference between asking and telling.
“Don’t just sit there: go get the key,” she told Timitz. He didn’t need his lawyer to do that.