05 Conviction by David Michaels

Author:David Michaels [Michaels, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

HE quickly searched both men, taking everything he found, then grabbed a spare blanket in the linen closet and covered up the woman. After some coaxing, she got to her feet, and Fisher led her out of the bedroom and downstairs to the living room couch.

“What happened?” she murmured, barely coherent. She was in shock. “Who were those men? Why did they kill Heinzie? Who are you? Why did they … ?”

Fisher let her ramble as he went into the kitchen and found a plastic grocery bag, into which he dumped the men’s wallets, pocket litter, and a set of car keys. He then went back upstairs and rummaged in van der Putten’s medicine cabinet, where he found a bottle of Ambien. He gave the woman a tablet and a shot of Scotch, both of which she accepted without protest. He knelt before her.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Isobella.”

“Isobella, does Heinzie have a safe? Someplace he keeps important information? Maybe a hiding place?”

“What?” Fisher repeated the question, and Isobella shook her head. “He just has a watch and some rings. No jewelry—”

“I’m talking about documents. Important papers.”

“Why do you need that?” For the first time since sitting down, Isobella lifted her head and seemed to truly focus on Fisher. Seeing his balaclava-covered face, she withdrew and her eyes went wide.

“I’m a friend,” Fisher said. “I’m sorry I didn’t get here in time to save Heinzie. Those men were after information.” This was likely untrue, but the woman wasn’t coherent enough to dissect the argument. “If I don’t find it and get it out of here, more men will come. Do you understand?”

“More? More men?”

“That’s right. Where did Heinz keep his important documents?”

“There’s a safe. Upstairs. Under the sink …”

“Do you know the combination?”

“My birthday.”

Fisher felt a fleeting pang of sadness. Clearly, Isobella had meant more to van der Putten than Fisher had guessed. “What’s your birthday?”

Isobella blinked a few times and her head lolled. The Ambien/Scotch cocktail was taking hold. “What?”

“What’s your birthday?”

“June 9, 1961.”

Fisher laid her down on the couch, then went back upstairs. As advertised, he found a safe built into the floor of the bathroom vanity. He pushed aside the rolls of toilet paper and bottles of cleaning solution and spun the dial to 6-9-61. Nothing. He tried different combinations and sequences until 61-19-6-9 produced a click. Inside the shoebox-sized safe Fisher found nothing except a 2 GB SD memory card. He pocked it and went downstairs.

“I’ll call the police,” Fisher told Isobella. “You rest.”

She nodded wearily, then rolled over on the couch.

Fisher left.

They’d parked their gray compact two blocks away. He searched it, taking every pertinent scrap of paper he could find and dumping it into the grocery sack before locking the doors and tossing the keys down a nearby sewer drain.

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