Home of the Gray Dog - Segment 18

Chapter 86

Walker paced around his living room, trying to put what Samantha had told him out of his mind, at least temporarily. When his office phone started ringing, he felt relief to have those thoughts interrupted.

         “Hello, this is Walker,” he said, going into the office and picking up the receiver.

         “Is Mr. Jack Notting there? He told me to call this number about my husband, Colin Edgeworth.”

         It surprised Walker to learn a wealthy man living in the Derbyshire section of Britain had married this particular woman. Her accent placed her from East London and probably from the working class. An even bigger shock was that Colin had a wife. He had shown definite romantic interest in Samantha the first time he came to visit the previous year. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Edgeworth, but he’s not here right now. I’m William Walker, the owner. How might I help you?”

         The offended tone of voice was unmistakable when she said, “Well, Ducky, first of all it’s Lady Edgeworth.”

         This also was a surprise to Walker since Colin never had mentioned he was a member of the peerage. “Sorry, Lady Edgeworth, I didn’t know.”

         “That’s okay, you’re forgiven.” Lady Edgeworth tried in vain to modify her cockney accent to one of the upper class. “Mr. Notting told me my husband was dead but didn’t go into no detail…any detail on the phone. Might I request these facts from you instead?”

         Despite the seriousness of the call, Walker couldn’t help smiling. All through his life he had met people pretending to be something they weren’t. The attempt of this woman to impress him was transparent and rather amusing. “Lady Edgeworth, I’d rather not go into it over the phone. I can tell you he died in an accident. If you would like to come to the States and claim his body, I can take care of your plane ticket and living arrangements once you get here.”

         “That would be acceptable, but I only fly first class.” Walker’s smile grew even wider at the imperious way she ended their conversation. “You, of course, will pay for this since my husband died under your roof. My barrister will contact you for the details.” With that, she hung up before Walker could respond, leaving him listening to dead air.

         This should be interesting, he thought, but I better warn the staff to behave when she gets here. He knew they easily recognized phoniness in visitors and enjoyed the occasional prank to bring them down a peg or two. I’ll get Samantha to have a bungalow ready for her.

         He then remembered the woman who ran his mansion so efficiently was downstairs, injured in both body and mind. His recent good humor quickly disappeared and was replaced, once again, with deep sadness.

Chapter 87

Rather than bother Edith with the arrival of this new visitor, Walker decided to let Jane handle the arrangements. The former desk clerk recently had been working as Samantha’s assistant. She currently managed the less onerous duties of running the large mansion, which left Samantha only with the major crises to sort out.

         “Jane, could you come up to my apartment when you have time?” This request, rather than an order from an employer, was typical for Walker. Unlike his ruthless attitude in dealing with unscrupulous businessmen, Walker respected and valued his estate staff. He realized they needed little supervision to do their jobs perfectly. In fact, many often forgot he was their employer.

         After mulling over who was the best person to keep Lady Edgeworth out from underfoot while she was here, Walker had decided to put Jane in charge of her visit. He remembered how the unflappable woman handled the multiple wives of Charlie Maxwell before and after his murder. One English woman should be no problem at all for Jane, Walker thought, thankful that one problem related to this ugly business would be so easily solved.

         Ten minutes later, Walker let Jane into his apartment and quickly went over what he needed her to do.

         “No problem, Walker,” she said, “I’ll get her on the first plane out of Heathrow and have one of the larger bungalows ready for her.” When Jane first entered the apartment, she had noticed the lines of fatigue and worry on Walker’s face. Delighted to help him in any way she could, Jane eagerly took on the responsibility of keeping Lady Edgeworth under control and away from him.

         As soon as Jane left to call the nearby city airport, Walker went into his office to phone Dr. Brown, the town of Westbrook’s medical examiner. The Sheriff had delivered Colin’s body to his morgue in preparation for a full-scale autopsy. Walker knew Dr. Brown had limited resources for an extensive autopsy, but hoped at least he could determine the cause of death. If it became necessary to delve deeper, the closest city would process toxicology tests on Colin’s blood.

         “Yes, I found the way he died quite easily,” Dr. Brown answered Walker’s question without hesitation. “He exsanguinated, died from loss of blood from a large puncture wound in his right arm. Ecchymoses covered his whole arm from shoulder to wrist.”

         “How did that happen?” Walker frowned, knowing Samantha couldn’t have inflected such injuries to her captor.

         “Not sure, but I understand you have a couple forensic people from San Francisco here. Maybe they can figure it out.” After hearing Dr. Brown’s promise to keep him posted on any new developments, Walker hung up the phone and leaned back in his leather chair. Putting his hands behind his head and stretching out his long legs, he spent the next few minutes brooding about the recent events and those still to come. Closing his eyes, he thought, Was it only a couple days ago I was enjoying my birthday party? Never one to give in to exhaustion or defeat of any kind, Walker pulled himself wearily to his feet and slowly left his apartment.

         Within minutes he was outside and standing next to the underground dungeon’s entrance. Determined not to enter it, he sat down on the large, fallen tree limb near the hole and waited for someone to come out and tell him what they had found.

Chapter 88

With two more chambers in the catacombs to explore before reaching the one where Walker had found Samantha barely alive, the group continued walking down the corridor of death. No one had spoken since leaving the woman’s burned remains. Jason’s brutality shocked even the experienced forensic agents. They all dreaded what they would find next.

         The next chamber contained a skeleton of what appeared to be a naked woman. Tattered and disintegrating clothing lay scattered all over the ground while a leather gag hung loosely from the skull. A crude metal bed held the woman’s body stretched out with her arm and leg bones still attached to the four corners with rotting leather bindings.

         “I think I started reading the journal about this woman.” These quiet words from Randall shattered the silence. “Jason wrote in graphic detail about stripping her clothes off and repeatedly raping her.”

         Anthony broke in at this point. “I thought Toby told Walker none of the women were raped by Jason.”

         “Toby must have either missed that part in the journal about this woman,” Randall said, “or more probably was trying to keep the truth from Walker, to save him more pain.” He went on, “The journal mentioned he gagged the woman, the wife of a rich friend, after he broke into their home one night and kidnapped her.”

         Shannon hesitated, but finally asked the question they all were wondering. “Do you think he raped Samantha?” The men knew she wasn’t referring to Jason. Not surprisingly, no one answered.

         “How do you think she died?” This came from Franklin, the professional photographer in him automatically taking pictures of the bed.

         “I’m not sure,” Randall said this while backing out of the room. He was trying to get the picture out of his mind of Samantha lying on this metal bed instead and failing miserably. “I think we all need a breath of air before we check the last chamber and where Walker found Samantha.” Not hearing anyone contradict him, Randall returned down the corridor the way they had come and headed for the exit.

         Once outside, Randall helped the others out of the hole. He failed to see Walker sitting on the tree limb nearby and silently watched Shannon disappear into the recently cut underbrush. The only sound any of them heard was that of Shannon retching.

         “I think I need help!” Franklin’s frightened voice caused everyone to swing around in his direction. The elderly man had fallen to his knees, once he came out of the hole, and was clutching his chest in pain.

Chapter 89

The ambulance taking Franklin the short distance to the hospital disappeared around the mansion. Randall sat down on the big tree limb next to Walker, who had the presence of mind to use his cell phone to summon the ambulance 10 minutes earlier.

         “You sure got them over here fast,” he said, thinking of the length of time it normally took for a San Francisco ambulance to arrive at a scene. “Have you been here long?”

         Walker stood to get the kinks out of his body. “No, only about half an hour or so. Are you done down there? Get everything you need?”

         Anthony picked up Franklin’s cameras the elderly man left behind on the ground. “Your guy took plenty of pictures, so we hope they will help.” He slung the cameras over his shoulder before asking, “Do you have a place where I can develop them?”

         “There’s still one more chamber we didn’t go into plus the one you found Samantha in,” interrupted Randall before Walker could tell Anthony about the fully equipped dark room in the mansion. “I’m not sure how much you looked around down there, but the air is pretty bad.”

         Walker winced, having completely forgotten about Randall’s recent illness. “Damn it, Randall, I’m sorry I dragged you into this mess.”

         “Don’t worry about it.” Randall sounded distracted since he was watching Shannon’s progress as she returned from the underbrush, her face drained of color. “Shannon, are you okay?”

         Shannon swiped her right arm across her mouth, trying to regain her composure while wiping away the last dregs of vomit from her lips. “Sorry about that, guys. I usually can handle seeing dead bodies better than that.”

         To give her an out, Jack smiled at her. “It was the bad air, Shannon, not the bodies. I felt a bit queasy myself, and I’ve seen a couple of the bodies before.”

         All during this conversation, Walker had been quiet. He still felt guilty about asking Randall to check out the underground catacombs. He now spoke up, “I think you all need a break from solving these crimes. How about coming up to my apartment for drinks?” He glanced over at Shannon. “You, too. The Sheriff can wait for your report for a couple more hours.” Before anyone could take him up on his invitation, he added, “I talked with Dr. Brown, and he gave me Colin’s cause of death.”

         “Which was?” asked Randall, his curiosity stronger than his desire for a drink.

         Walker paraphrased what Dr. Brown told him for those in front of him not familiar with medical terms. “He bled out from a jagged puncture wound in his right arm. Bruises completely covered the whole arm from shoulder to wrist.”

         Randall seemed a bit puzzled “I didn’t see fresh blood on any sharp object down that.”

         Anthony was thinking the same thing. He spotted something, though, near where Walker was sitting again on the decayed, fallen tree limb. “Walker, do you know when this limb fell?”

         “No, since I rarely come back here. Why?”

         Randall’s puzzled look changed to understanding when he realized where Anthony’s mind was going.

Chapter 90

Randall smiled at his young friend before saying, “Very good, Anthony. I missed that.”

         “I’m sorry, you two have lost me.” Jack, like Walker, had no idea why a dead tree limb was of interest to them. They had noticed the limb on the ground when Shannon first came out of the hole, but they saw nothing important about part of a dead oak tree.

         Anthony pointed to the ground near one end of the limb. “Look at the drag marks.”

         “Right!” Although still confused, Walker told him, “We had to pull it away to let Shannon out of the hole. It was covering most of the exit to the underground area, and she couldn’t squeeze out past it.

         Shannon thought back to when she first saw daylight after walking underground for what seemed like hours. “I remember noticing broken smaller branches hanging down into the corridor. I almost cut myself on one trying to get out before Joe heard me.” With excitement in her voice, she asked, “Is that how…?” and stopped when her scattered thoughts failed to coalesce completely.

         Randall looked at her like a proud parent with a very smart child. “Keep going, Shannon. Is that how what?”

         “I’m not sure, but did that limb maybe also cut Colin?” She shook her head, “No, it would have been just a little cut, not enough to make him bleed out.”

         Anthony decided to take pity on her and the others. “What I think is the limb was not originally over the entrance. Otherwise, how would Colin be able to get Samantha down there and to go out again to scatter her clothes around outside?”

         Walker thought this through before answering, “He couldn’t. So? What do you think happened?”

         Anthony turned to Randall to ask, “Do you want to tell him?”

         “You’re doing fine. Keep going.” Saying this, Randall went to where Walker was still sitting on the big limb and started examining it.

         ‘Did you find it?” Anthony went to stand next to where Randall was checking various small branches.

         “Not yet. No, wait a second. I think so.” Randall pointed to a broken branch about two feet away from where Walker sat. “See the blood at the end?”

         “That’s got to be it.” With that, Anthony removed one of the cameras from around his neck and snapped a few pictures of the sharp, pointed branch.

         “Want to fill us in, guys?” Walker stood to see what Randall had found.

         “Anthony? You figured it out, so you get the honors to run it for us.” Randall was ready to fill in any blanks, but gave Anthony the opportunity to impress the others.

         Anthony was confident in what had happened and laid out the details in a clear manner he did when in court. “I think Colin was either trying to go outside once again, maybe to send Walker that page from Jason’s journal. He had it in his hand when found. Just as he had his arm outstretched to pull himself up out of the hole, the decayed limb of the oak tree nearby finally rotted completely through and dropped to the ground.”

         He glanced over at Randall, “So far you agree?”

         “You’re doing fine.” Randall then motioned him to continue.

         “Well, the timing for Colin couldn’t have been worse. The heavy limb landed flush on his arm, smashing it from shoulder to elbow. He might have survived that, however, if the limb didn’t have some broken branches. One must have hit him in the area at his brachial artery.”

         “Non medical person here, Anthony,” complained Shannon, only slightly in jest. “Where’s that artery, did you call it brachial?

         Walker, who knew a bit of medicine from dealing with the doctors at the hospital, answered Shannon instead. “The brachial artery runs from the shoulder to the elbow. Is that right, Anthony?”

         “That’s right. When something cuts an artery, like the sharp end of the branch did to Colin’s, it’s hard to stop the bleeding. He must have been able to pull his arm out from under the tree limb but was starting to get too weak from loss of blood to move the limb.”

         Walker remembered the trail of blood leading from the hole to the cavern where they found Colin’s body. “His only way out would have been through the tunnel leading back to our underground cavern underneath the mansion.”

         Jack now understood what the others were getting at and added what he had seen when first reaching the body. “Walker, I found Colin in a pool of his blood, so he must have bled out before he could climb into the tunnel.”

         Walker almost fell to his knees in horror at the thought of how close Samantha came to dying all alone in the dark cavern. In a shaken voice, he spoke to the others, “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I think I definitely need that drink.

         With that, the group left the blood-soaked tree limb to forget the past few hours in copious amounts of liquor. The next day would be soon enough to continue the investigation of what happened in those chambers of terror and pain.

Continued in next segment.

Home of the Gray Dog - Segment 19  (18+) Chapters 91 through 95. #1283879 by J. A. Buxton