Everybody Dies - A Thriller (Phineas Troutt Mysteries Book 3) Read online

We marched in relative silence for the next few minutes, the sun starting to set. Bradford Milton’s driveway was more along the lines of a private road. It stretched on and on, winding through the gradually thickening forest.

  After three hundred meters or so of walking, a clearing finally opened in the woods, allowing us to view the very large mansion of Bradford Milton. It was surrounded by a wrought iron fence, topped in fleur-de-lis leaves that ended in sharp points. I didn’t see cameras, but we hadn’t expected any. A guy as private and secretive as Bradford Milton wouldn’t want to record the comings and goings of all his Nazi pals. He’d use other security measures than video.

  “I’ve got to piss,” said McGlade.

  “I thought you were wearing a diaper.”

  “I said that to be funny. Was it funny?”

  “No.”

  “Can you hold Little Elvis for me?”

  “Not on the drunkest day of my life.”

  “The hamster, buddy. I renamed the hamster Little Elvis. Hold Little Elvis while I water that forest.”

  Harry handed me Little Elvis, which I suppose was a better name than Uranus, but not by much.

  “Don’t squeeze Little Elvis too hard,” Harry said. “But if you want to stroke Little Elvis, he likes that.”

  “Gimme the binoculars.”

  “Why? You want to see Little Elvis up close?”

  “Gimme the binocs, and stop talking.”

  He handed them over and went to take a leak. I slowly swept the grounds with the specs and made an unpleasant, albeit expected, discovery. A large dog house.

  I searched around for the guard dogs, and found them standing guard at the front door. Two massive German Shepherds.

  “Tell me if they react,” Harry said, putting a dog whistle between his lips.

  I watched as the ears on both Shepherds perked up, and they came bounding toward the fence with a frightening speed. They stopped there, staring into the woods, in our direction.

  “They came, but no barking.”

  Harry nodded. “Could be well-trained. Or maybe Milton snipped their vocal cords. They’re male, right?”

  “I can’t tell.”

  He clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Then it’s about time to have the talk. You see, mommies and daddies look different because they have different parts…”

  “I can’t see their dicks from here, McGlade.”

  “The rabies tags on file say they’re boys. Let’s hope Milton isn’t the neutering type. But even if they’re fixed, this could work. Maybe.”

  He took the stuffed animal out of the bag.

  What McGlade’s plan lacked in elegance, it made up for in audacity. He was going to distract the German Shepherds with the whistle and the plush toy, which he’d soaked with B’estrus, the bottled scent of a female dog in heat. While well-trained guard dogs would ignore an intruder’s verbal commands or offers of food, no dog could ignore the call of the wild. So while Harry tempted the hounds with sins of the flesh, I’d be twenty meters away pressing buttons on his remote control gizmo, trying to open the gate.

  In theory, anyway. McGlade had never tried it before.

  Harry moved in, wiggling the toy in what he must have guessed was a provocative way. It involved lifting the tail up and shaking the rump.

  While he played canine erotic dancer, I pointed the remote at the gate and pressed the button he told me to.

  Nothing happened.

  “Not working,” I said.

  “They’re not fixed,” I heard Harry say. “And these are some big dogs here. Big, horny dogs.”

  For whatever reason, spending time with McGlade always devolved to sex and potty jokes. I don’t think he ever matured past the fourth grade.

  “The remote isn’t working,” I repeated.

  “What color is the light on top, green or red?”

  “It isn’t on.”

  I turned the remote around and opened the back. “It doesn’t have batteries.”

  “Shit. My bad.”

  “Do you have any in your prepper bag?”

  “Plenty. But that takes some kind of weird, mutant, mini twelve volt bullshit battery that you have to special order. Sorry. Go to Plan B. And hurry up. These guys are getting frisky.”

  I went back to the rucksack and removed the boat winch. Then I found a section of fence, and secured a thick canvas strap—used to winch boats up to their trailers—around two bars. I tied off the strap and began to ratchet the strap tighter and tighter, using an attachable bar.

  “Wow, they really want it. And I figured out who the alpha is. Personally, I wouldn’t just stand still for that, even with a good friend.”

  The strap got tight, and the bar was harder to move. I gripped it higher up, to get more leverage.

  “Who am I kidding? I’d probably stand still for that. Do dogs have prostates?”

  The wrought iron snapped on the bottom weld. I was able to bend it up, opening a space wide enough to slip through.

  “Got it,” I said.

  “Okay, step back. I’m bringing them over.”

  I jogged a safe distance away, and McGlade came over, waving the stuffed animal. On the other side of the fence, one dog was humping the other dog and they followed Harry to the opening on six legs.

  I drew the 1911.

  Harry threw the plush toy into the woods.

  Both dogs took off after it, and then Harry squeezed himself through the fence opening. I tucked the gun away and followed, then secured the strap once more and quickly winched the bar into place so the dogs couldn’t get back onto the grounds.

  “Make love, not war.” McGlade glanced back into the woods. “I would not want to be that stuffed animal. Probably.”

  The mansion was fifty meters away, and we approached it in a crouch, passing several of the perverse cherub fountains. One of the largest had the two concrete figures aiming their streams at each other.

  “Think he’s even home?” I asked, wondering why we hadn’t considered that earlier.

  “He should be. He’s a recluse. Recluses don’t go clubbing.”

  “Did you check if he’s got servants?”

  “Nope.”

  “Know the type of alarm systems he’s got?

  “Nope.”

  I gave McGlade a look. “Do you even know what to say to him if we get in there?”

  “Sure.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll ask about servants and alarm systems.”

  Smart ass.

  We approached the house from the east side. I spent a few minutes with the binoculars, looking for anti-burglary devices. I didn’t find any, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t an alarm system. There was no way a house this big was protected by just a fence and two dogs. Big bucks would have been spent on security.

  I guessed the front door was wired several times over, as was the four car garage. The entry and exit points on a home with a security system normally had time delay switches, giving the owner thirty or so seconds to leave or arrive without setting them off. If we broke in through an entry point, we’d have half a minute or so to find the off switch. But these were usually hidden, and I needed more information before I figured out where to enter.

  I located a white metal box hanging on the side of the building. It was about three meters high, and I could see slits in it.

  “Check it out,” I told McGlade, passing him the binocs.

  “It’s an annunciator. Big one. Horn or a bell. I bet ten to one odds if the alarm is tripped it will autodial the cops.”

  “Do you know how to disarm it?” That was a little beyond my B&E expertise.

  “You don’t mess with autodials. Cut the wrong wire, and go to jail. This isn’t Mission Impossible, Phin. We just got past two guard dogs with a canvas strap and a stuffed toy.”

  “Suggestions?”

  “Make sure it doesn’t go off.” Harry rubbed the stubble on his chin. “The front door is metal, four deadbolts. Would take a tank to open it. Let’
s try some windows. Can I take out Little Elvis?”

  “You’ve been waiting to say that.”

  “My whole life.” McGlade removed the hamster from his jacket pocket and held it near the door. The hamster squealed.

  “Little Elvis is getting excited,” said Harry.

  I frowned. The hamster squirmed, squeaking like a new shoe. Which meant that Milton had an ultrasonic sensor on the window.

  An ultrasonic detector was a tough thing to spot, because it could be hidden in a wall or disguised as any number of things. It emitted an elliptical pattern of high frequency sound waves, and then detected those waves when they bounced back. If anything got in the way of the sensor and detector, it would sound the alarm.

  Hamsters, like most rodents, could detect ultrasonic sound, and they hated it. Thus his unhappy behavior.

  Since Milton had dogs roaming the grounds, the detector was probably inside the room. There was no way to enter without setting it off.

  “Let’s check the others,” I whispered.

  We brought Little Elvis to each window, and in each instance he had a spaz. It looked like the entire first floor was wired for movement.

  “Shit,” I said, after we checked the garage doors and found them similarly equipped. “This is one paranoid old bastard.”

  “We’ll have to try the second floor.”

  I nodded. Unfortunately, the second floor happened to be placed inconveniently one floor above us.

  “I hope you’ve got a ladder in your bag of tricks.”

  “It just so happens…”

  Harry took out a bag of tree steps; pieces of steel bent into L-shapes, with a large screw on the end to twist into an object. Once screwed in, they served as a step that would hold a person’s weight. Hunters used them to climb trees that had no low branches.

  We found an appropriate spot under a second story window at the back of the house. Since we were dealing with brick rather than wood, we had to make a hole in the side of the building with a cordless drill and masonry bit.

  I wasn’t wearing a jacket, so McGlade gave me his to muffle the sound of the drill. He wasn’t too thrilled.

  “Don’t get shit all over it,” he said. “It’s Pierre Cardin.”

  I made the first hole about two feet up. When it was deep enough, I tried screwing in the tree step. The hole was too small, and the step wouldn’t twist through brick. I used the drill to widen the hole slightly, and then the step fit in, but my hand got cramped fighting the rock.

  The next hole I made four feet from the ground, about a foot and a half to the left of the first step. After widening and putting in the step, I made the third hole six feet off the ground, directly above the first one. In went the tree step. The start of a simple, staggered ladder.

  Now came the hard part. Gravity was an unforgiving mistress, and a body clinging to a wall had the tendency to pull away from it. I put my right foot on the first step, got a hand hold on the third step, and pulled my left foot to the second step. But in order for me to drill a hole for the fourth step, Harry had to push up on my ass so I didn’t fall down.

  “Wow, I didn’t expect you to be this muscular,” he said.

  “Hold still. And stop squeezing.”

  “I can’t help it. It’s like two melons in a sack.”

  The fourth hole was hardest to do, not only because I had to drill left-handed, but because standing and balancing on the tree steps took all of my muscle control and concentration.

  When I got it in, I told McGlade to shove me really hard. When he did, I got my foot up to the third step, and then my hand on the second story window sill. Pulling myself up, I reached the fourth step, shielded my eyes with my free hand, squinting into the dark room, seeing only curtains. Looking at the window itself, I noted it had been wired with foiling. The windows on the first floor hadn’t been foiled. This was encouraging.

  “Throw up Little Elvis,” I whispered down to Harry.

  “Why? Did you see me eat him?”

  “Just hand him up here, McGlade.”

  “Get it? I have to eat him before I can throw him up. C’mon Phin. That’s funny.”

  “I’m laughing inside. Hurry up.”

  McGlade tossed the hamster, and I caught him and placed our sidekick next to the window.

  No crazy behavior.

  “We’re clear,” I told McGlade. Then I handed the hamster back to him and lowered myself down a step, spending twenty minutes drilling six more holes. For the two I drilled on either side of the window, McGlade had to climb up a step himself to hold me up. When I was finished, I had two tree steps to stand on, two steps in the holes on both sides of the window, and one step above the left upper corner of the window as a hand hold. Using a rope, I hooked one end on the tree step on the left side of the window, looped it around my back and through my armpits, and tied the other end to the tree step on the right.

  Now I could stand comfortably facing the window, and the rope kept me from falling away from the wall.

  “Throw up the glazier stuff,” I told Harry.

  “I haven’t eaten the…”

  “Just throw it up, McGlade.”

  He tossed the pack up to me and I set about covering the edges of the window with duct tape.

  The principle behind window foiling was that a crack in the glass would trigger the alarm. A thin, one inch strip of foil is glued around the perimeter of the glass. Two terminals are placed on either ends of the foil, and then recessed somewhere within the frame. The foil, now attached to the central alarm system, acted as a closed circuit. Since it is so thin, the slightest crack in the glass will cause the foil to split, breaking the circuit and setting off the alarm.

  But with duct tape used to reinforce the glass, and a diamond tipped glass cutter and a glazier’s suction cup, I could remove a circle of glass from the center of the window without disturbing the foiling.

  The work was slow and meticulous. After three layers of duct tape, I softly pressed the suction cup to the window.

  Then, with infinite care, I traced around the suction cup with my glass cutter.

  “How you doing? I’m bored.”

  “Shh.”

  Every dozen circles, I gave the suction cup a tap with my finger, listening for the telltale tinkle of glass breaking.

  “I’ve got a little rumbly in my tumbly,” Harry said. “You feel okay?”

  “Shh.”

  After several minutes of cutting and tapping, the circle came out in one piece, the rest of the window intact.

  Heated air pushed through the hole, feeling good on my cold face. I parted the curtains with a finger and peered into the dark room. Empty.

  “Took you long enough,” said McGlade.

  I shushed him, then took out the liquid compass in the glazier bag. Window foiling was commonly coupled with a magnetic switch, which would trip if the window were raised. It worked on the same circuit principle as the foiling. The switching mechanism was a spring-loaded lever that made contact with a stationary metal arm when a companion magnet was near. When the magnet, recessed in the window, was pulled away from the switch, the lever was released from the stationary arm and the circuit was broken, causing the alarm.

  The compass showed me there was a magnet in the window, in the bottom right hand corner. Taking a powerful Neodymium-Iron-Boron magnet from the pack, I stuck my hand through the hole I’d just made and placed it on the housing that held the spring loaded lever. This magnet, which was only wafer thin but had a lifting power of ten pounds, should hold the switch closed when I opened the window.

  “You almost done?” asked McGlade.

  I grimaced, holding my side. Earl, who I’d been ignoring the last few hours, was feasting, almost doubling me over. My legs were beginning to shake from standing on the tree steps, and my hands ached.

  I reached my arm through the hole, undid the latch, and took a deep breath.

  “Here’s where we find out if my misspent youth pays off,” I thought.
<
br />   Then I opened the window.

  The window opened without incident.

  “Meet me at the front door,” I told McGlade.

  I unhooked the rope and climbed in through the open window, my cramped muscles sighing in relief. We were in, but the alarm system was still active. Before walking through the house with any impunity, we’d have to disarm the system. And doing that meant finding the master control panel.

  I viewed my surroundings, noting that I was in some kind of bedroom. The lights were off, and the door was closed.

  I pulled a penlight from my pocket and took a quick glance around. There was a canopied bed on one side of the room, with a bureau and a desk, and on the other side a large, mirrored closet. It looked like a guest room rather than Milton’s personal one. I didn’t see any light coming from under the door, so I guessed the hallway was also dark. I flicked off the penlight to let my eyes adjust to the darkness.

  “Help.”

  I spun and saw McGlade had half his body through the window, hanging there like a soggy rag.

  “I told you I’d meet you at the front door,” I grumbled.

  “And miss all the fun? Help me. I’m getting squeezed like a toothpaste tube.”

  I assisted Harry, and then asked for Little Elvis.

  No sensors by the door.

  I opened it slowly, then crept into the dark hallway, keeping the hamster in front of me in one hand and the 1911 at my side in the other. Hopefully I wouldn’t mix the two hands up.

  McGlade followed me, silent as a walrus ballet. Between his heavy feet and his labored breathing, I couldn’t begin to fathom how he’d survived, even prospered, as a private investigator all these years.

  “Don’t you have a stealth mode?” I whispered.

  “I think I’ve got gas.”

  “Shhh.”

  “I shouldn’t have eaten that third gas station chili dog.”

  “Quiet.”

  “I knew it looked wrong. Hot dogs aren’t normally that skinny. Or crunchy.”

  I shot him a look, and he spread out his hands like it wasn’t his fault. But he stayed mostly quiet as we trekked down the hall, to an adjoining one. We could have been checking doors as we passed them, but I doubted they were occupied. Human beings, even when relaxing, made noise and liked light. This part of the mansion was silent and dark. A deserted second floor and a first floor rigged with ultrasonic sensors added up to one thing in our favor: Milton didn’t have live-in servants. That made things a bit easier.