Mistake. The detective had noticed him leaving.
At the bottom of the marble staircase, Ott fingered a screwdriver in his pocket. A screwdriver through the neck or in an eye would definitely slow down anyone chasing him.
He considered his next move, zeroing in on another stairwell that didn’t look public. No marble or frills. He raced for it.
Ott found himself in the lowest level of the library. The Ghostbusters may have prowled the subbasement stacks, but not the maintenance corridors. The stark layout here meant some part of him would be visible anywhere he crouched or lay down. There was no place he could hide.
Then he saw a junction box built into the wall. One of those big industrial suckers. It had to be four feet tall and two feet wide. It was a screw model with no handle.
He had an idea.
He snapped his head in every direction. His heart beat hard in his chest. His hands shook. He used his cheap tie with the Computelex logo to wipe sweat from his face.
The first screw at the top of the box was hard to reach. He was able to remove a couple more screws, but then they slipped from his hand and scattered on the rough concrete floor.
He wasn’t sure what he’d find when he opened the box’s door. Would it be a mess of wiring inside? Luckily for him, when he finally yanked the door open, he discovered there were no breakers or other more complex electrical connections. This was just a pass-through that redirected most of the wires up to the main floors of the library.
It would be tight, but he could fit inside it if he contorted his body just so. Ott hopped up, then pulled himself all the way into the box. He kept the screwdriver in his right hand. If someone opened the box while he was inside, he’d take a mighty swing at their eyes, leap into the passageway, then run.
With his left hand, he pulled the door shut behind him. He crouched uncomfortably inside the box, perspiration running down his back, ears straining to hear any noises outside.
Chapter 49
I moved cautiously. The heat down here couldn’t account for all the sweat in my eyes. Some of it was nerves.
I had no cell service. No radio. I had to admit that I’d put myself in a stupid situation. If the guy I’d seen was the killer, and if he was down here and managed to get the drop on me, I wasn’t sure anyone would even know to look for me here unless the library guard had sounded the alarm.
This area of the library was creepy. The flickering light down the hallway reminded me of the horror movies my older kids were just about brave enough to watch through half closed eyes.
I thought I heard something. A shift. A slight metallic noise. Now I was studying shadows in the poorly lit corridor. My mind was starting to play tricks on me and I was freaking myself out.
Keeping my right hand on the butt of my pistol, I moved slowly. Once I passed the flickering light, I paused and listened again. I leaned against the wall next to some kind of giant circuit box. I really thought I heard something moving inside.
Mice? Squirrels? Or worse—rats?
I looked down at the concrete and noticed a single screw sitting in the middle of the corridor. I kneeled down and picked it up. Before I rose again to my feet, I rested in a silent crouch. Listening. Feeling like there was someone close by. I cocked my head like a curious dog. But I couldn’t pick up the sound again.
Then I heard a noise. It registered on several levels inside my head. I listened and realized it was footsteps. Not someone trying to hide.
Then a voice called out, “Officer! Are you still down here? Officer?”
I called out, “Over here.”
The security guard I had seen on the upper level swung into view. He was winded and overheated. His sweaty hair was plastered to his forehead, and he was panting from exertion.
He had to lean down with his hands on his knees and take a couple of gulps of air before he could stand upright and speak. “The cop with the broken nose? He told me to come find you,” he said. “He needs you at the main entrance. He said to hurry.”
I kept the screw I found on the floor. For no reason that I can explain, it struck me as a potential piece of evidence. I shoved it into my front pocket as I started to jog ahead of the security guard.
Chapter 50
As I burst out of the main doors to the library, I held up my hand to protect against the glare of the sun; though it wasn’t all that bright out, my eyes had quickly grown accustomed to the gloom of the basement. I felt relief to have gotten out of there.
Crowds washed by on the street. The security guard directed me to a bench just past the edge of the stairs to the right, where Brett Hollis stood next to a man of about forty-five wearing a short-sleeved shirt and a gaudy purple tie. His thinning hair hung in a loose comb-over. He was sweating in the midday sun. The fact that he was thirty pounds overweight probably didn’t help the situation.
The man was not in custody, I noted, and he and Hollis were talking casually. Hollis saw me coming down the stairs and gave me a quick headshake. This wasn’t our suspect. As I walked up, Hollis told me, “This gentleman is a vending machine rep who was meeting with the library staff. I already confirmed it. I sent the security guard to look for you before I checked out his story.”
I looked at the pudgy, red-faced, balding man. He looked pissed off.
“Do we need to hold him any longer?”
Hollis shrugged. “That’s sort of the problem. He won’t leave.”
The man looked toward Hollis and said, “I’ll have your goddamn badge over this.” Then he looked at me, making the assumption that, as an older detective, I was probably in charge, and said, “He arrested me without a warrant! I know my rights. I know how you guys operate.”
Arrested? I turned to the man and said, “I’m sorry. I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”
Hollis said, “Sir, you were never under arrest. All I did was talk to you for a couple of minutes about a matter that needed clearing up, and you didn’t argue.”
“I was too scared. You intimidated me.”
All I could say was “C’mon, sir, you got misidentified. We cleared it up in a couple of minutes. Won’t you just go about your business?”
The pudgy man barked again. “Bullshit. I want your names and badge numbers. Why are you bothering me when you should be trying to catch that nut cutting up women all over the city?”
I could sense Hollis losing patience with the man. We needed to de-escalate. I reached into my wallet and pulled out a business card. I wrote Harry’s name and phone number on the back. I handed it to the man and said, “That’s our lieutenant. If you have any complaints, talk to him.”
“I’ll go straight to the Post. I know you cops all watch each other’s backs. I’m a US citizen.”
I’d had enough. I gave the man a hard look and said, “You have the right to get on with your life. I would recommend you exercise that right as soon as possible. Frankly, I’ve heard all the shit I want to out of you.”
The man started walking away on the sidewalk, muttering to himself. He stopped twenty feet away and shouted, “Cops suck!”
It wasn’t original, but he got his point across.
Hollis looked at me and said, “What now?”
“We work with what we have. I was chasing ghosts beneath the library. At least you got to talk to a real person.”