A Clattering of Jackdaws (The Birdwatcher Series Book 2) Read online

  “Sure, no problem,” he croaked from a drying throat. Those eyes alone looked like they would be able to kill you.

  “That’s all there is to it. If you need to for any reason, you can contact me by tapping five times on the pipe that runs down the side of the slide room wall. You can’t tell that part to the others either and if you do it make sure none of them see you doing it.”

  “Got it,” Carson acknowledged. He wanted to ask what the slide room was but he was sure he would figure it out when he had to. With that Carson wad led to the other side of the room where he suffered the same surprise fate as everyone else down below when the floor opened up unexpectedly beneath him and he tumbled to the slide and down into the dungeon.

  Well, now it was time for Carson to tell Spalding what he knew about the escape attempt. That would hopefully put him in the big man's good graces for the last few days here.

  In the morning, while everyone else was at the breakfast table, Carson excused himself and left the room. He made straight for the slide room and tapped out the five beats on the pipe.

  “What is it?” A whispered voice came from a hidden speaker right beside him. Carson jumped and looked to the wall but couldn't find where the sound came from. He didn’t have time to look, if they noticed he was away from the table too long they might get suspicious and come looking for him. He leaned close to the wall and said,

  “Megan and Ellie are planning an escape. It's going to be the next time you leave. I heard them talk about it last night.”

  “I see,” came back the thoughtful voice, “Thank you for letting me know.”

  “No problem,” Carson replied. He waited a few moments and then felt like Spalding was gone. He was expecting something more than this as a response but that didn’t seem likely to happen. He crept back to the hall and then walked back towards the dining room, the first coil of guilt starting to gnaw away at him already.

  Chapter 36

  TYLER WAS IN BALTIMORE at his office. It was late afternoon and he’d eaten lunch outside the old Poe house around the corner as he often did when the weather was fine. He had spent the morning running down people who might have links into the world of organised crime in the city and region. He wanted to make sure he was right about Spalding being the one who took Carson, but he also wanted to look into something else Carson had told him in relation to the ‘Agrarian’ case.

  Organised crime was always a tough area to get information. Everyone within the fold was either too scared or else would implicate themselves if they told a reporter anything. If it was found out it would be treated the same as if they had told the police. Many a mob member had wound up in the river after even innocent remarks to a journalist in the past.

  It wasn’t all plain sailing for a journalist either. More than once in his past, Tyler had been close to being killed in relation to a story that involved high level members of the Baltimore mob. Hell, even Ellicott City had its own minor mob scene.

  Still, wherever there was money to be made or grudges to be settled, someone was going to let something slip. It was often a matter of chance and timing. His query this time, however, was not one that could get anyone in trouble. Tyler just wanted to know about the evacuations of the car storage units at the farms where the men had been murdered.

  He’d been surprised to find that his informants at various police departments and even at the FBI could not give him anything about this operation. It was beginning to look like it wasn’t the police at all who tipped off the mob about the imminent raids but someone else. Someone who had some other reason to want the farms to be quiet and avoid unwanted interruptions while he was there carrying out his dark work. In fact, Tyler was hard pressed to find out if these raids had ever happened at all. It was beginning to look like they had not.

  In Tyler’s mind it boiled down to this. Whoever had alerted the mob about the police was the same man who killed all those farmers. That meant someone in the underworld knew who he was. They mightn’t know he was a killer but they knew the name, or the face of the ‘Agrarian.’

  The phone at his desk rang and Tyler looked to the small screen. It wasn’t a number he knew but that wasn’t unusual, his desk number was listed in the paper and the website of ‘The Baltimore Echo.’

  “Hello?” he answered leaning back in his chair languidly.

  “Can you talk?” the metallic raspy voice came and Tyler shot back to sitting up straight at once. He looked around the room and so no one. The editor's door was open, but it sounded like he was on a phone call of his own.

  “For a minute, yes,” he answered.

  “I assume you have been worrying about Carson,” Spalding said.

  “Not especially,” Tyler replied to which Spalding burst out laughing.

  “You know what, I believe you!” the killer said.

  “What do you want, Spalding?” Tyler asked as the laughter subsided.

  “I want an exchange, fair and simple.”

  “An exchange of what?”

  “I give you Carson Lemond, and in exchange you give me information that you alone have, Tyler,” Spalding said. Tyler didn’t have a clue off hand what this information might be but he needed to get Carson back.

  “Are you sure I have the information you want?” Tyler asked, “I don’t want to be putting Carson in danger by not keeping up my end of the bargain through no fault of my own.”

  “You have the information,” Spalding said and Tyler could feel the grin on the killer's face, “The only way you’ll put Carson in danger is if you refuse to give it up.” Hundreds of titbits of information flashed through Tyler's mind as he tried to find something Spalding would want to know about.

  “So, how do we do this then?” he asked looking around the office to be sure he was still alone.

  “We will meet; the three of us, you, Carson and I, in the old Saffron Clothing Warehouse by the docks. Do you know it?”

  “Yeah,” Tyler said, “This won’t be my first clandestine meeting there,” he added.

  “I didn’t think it would have been,” Spalding said. “You come alone or Carson gets it.” This last wasn’t delivered like an order but Tyler took it as one. Spalding was too good to try to sneak up on.

  “Agreed. When?”

  “Tomorrow night, just after dark,” Spalding said.

  “I’ll be there,” Tyler said, “Do I need to bring anything with me?”

  “Just your brain,” Spalding said and he hung up.

  Tyler sat there a few moments running the call through his mind, trying to take it down on his notepad verbatim in his own shorthand. There wasn’t anything in there to go on.

  Tyler turned his mind to thinking what Spalding could want from him. It had to be something to do with Sarah; that was the only thing that made any sense. Did he want to know how she was, what her emotional state was? Did she talk about her mother? How did she enjoy skating on the fringes of the law and putting her job in jeopardy with every moment she was in contact with Tyler or searching out Spalding when she wasn’t assigned to the case?

  The thought crossed his mind about letting Sarah know about this, but he knew at once he couldn’t. No matter what he said to her, if she thought there was a chance to know where Spalding was going to be at any given time, she would bring down the whole FBI on that spot right away. Or worse still, insist on coming along and trying to take him out herself. It was revenge really she was after wasn’t it? Wasn’t it this that drove her? That fed her never ending energy for the resolution of her mother's case?

  Not to mention Spalding being dead wasn’t a good outcome for him personally. Tyler needed Spalding to help finish out his book, to be interviewed and tell all. This was a story every person in America was going to want to read about and he was the one with the inside information. But... He needed Spalding alive to be able to capitalize fully on it. No, there was no way in hell he could tell Sarah what had just happened or where he was going to go tomorrow night.

  As for Carson
Lemond, what Tyler was going to do about him after meeting with Spalding was a problem he could sort out later on. For now, he just had to keep on working and let the hours count down to the meeting with Dwight Spalding. Who would have thought he would ever be able to say that.

  Chapter 37

  THE DAY HAD FINALLY arrived. It was either the day she was going to be free or the day she was going to die. Megan and Ellie exchanged a hopeful glance when they woke that morning, and that would be the last communication they had until they heard Spalding leaving. That was of course assuming he did leave today.

  They had been listening out for a long time to his movements up above and through this and anecdotal things others in the dungeon said, they had pieced together that Spalding left for a few hours most days and sometimes he didn’t come back for a couple of nights. The only warning for this was when he sent down extra food but even then Megan had felt this was a test some of the times and that he was up there waiting to see what would happen when they all thought he was gone for a longer period.

  Megan was so nervous her hand shook at breakfast and she resorted to dropping food into her napkin to eat later when no one was around to see. Ellie was the same but she ate in small fast bites while the attention was on someone else at the table talking. They never once looked at one another during this meal.

  Carson Lemond was still the flavour of the month with the household and they went on asking him again to tell his story. Megan couldn’t blame them for that. Even in the short weeks she had been here, she had grown weary of the stories and preoccupations with the others who came before her. Anything at all new was the relished and poured over and examined from every possible angle. This is what life becomes when you don’t get to live it, hearsay, rumour and fascination at even the most mundane of things from your previous life.

  Carson spoke again, not so willingly and fast as he had before and a few times Megan felt his eyes on her as he spoke. She didn’t meet his eye and the conversation they’d had before came back to mind. It was better that he talked as much as he was allowed rather than listening to what the others had to say, she felt.

  With breakfast over, Megan went to the bathroom with her napkin and finished her breakfast in peace. Ellie was showering and another of the women, Suzanne, was drying off after a shower of her own.

  “I don’t think that Carson guy is telling us everything,” Suzanne said and over the cubicle wall Megan assumed she was talking to her. Ellie wouldn’t have been able to hear well with the running water.

  “No?” Megan said after swallowing some bacon.

  “I get the impression from him that he was doing something, maybe illegal, when he got wrapped up in this.”

  “What makes you think that?” Megan asked; she was glad someone else shared her distrust of Carson and was happy to hear any idea on the topic that might elucidate her own.

  “Just something about him. He speaks as though he wants to prove something. I think he was in a gang or wanted to be, something like that.”

  “I don’t know,” Megan said, she didn’t get any sense of toughness from Carson but she could be wrong. If he had been through something like she and others had it wouldn't take long for that toughness to melt away.

  For the rest of the morning Ellie and Megan rotated around the house alone, listening in different parts for any activity above. Megan could feel it was going to happen but she tried to talk herself out of this notion, knowing the hurt it would cause if she had to bed down here for another night.

  Lunchtime rolled around and Megan had to sit through another excruciating meal with these people. She had her nerves a little better under control this time, however, and she was able to eat more normally. Every minute dragged on and the forty minute lunch felt like three hours. She met eyes with Ellie once during this meal and though it was fleeting Megan could feel the energy swell within her partner. She was feeling the same.

  An hour after this last meal, the opportunity came.

  While listening to the drainage pipes to the front of the house, Megan heard the very distinct noise of a car door closing and then moments later felt a rumbling and low noise which she was sure was the car driving away. Her heart pounded heavy in her chest as she raced to look for Ellie. She had to force herself to slow down so as not to let anyone in the house see her agitation or excitement.

  Ellie was in the bedroom and soon as she looked up when the door opened and saw Megan’s face she knew it was time to go. Without a word they went to the shaft and pulled out the trays and Megan started pulling at the rear wall. Ellie was keeping a look out but she was so excited about the escape that she constantly shirked her duties for a few seconds at a time to watch Megan’s progress.

  It was during one of these lapses that Carson came up behind them.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he cried out. Megan spun around in fright; she had been so engrossed in prying the plates free his loud voice had scared the shit out of her.

  “Shut up you asshole!” Ellie whispered harshly at him. Megan was furious, Ellie should have been keeping an eye out, and now this interloper knew what they were up to.

  “Keep your panties on,” Carson said, “I already knew what you were up to and how I wasn’t good enough to come with you.”

  “What?” Ellie said, seeming genuinely surprised, but Megan knew at once Carson had overheard them a few nights ago.

  “I’m not letting you go,” Carson said, “You're putting the rest of us in danger.”

  “You can’t stop us!” Megan replied and she lunged at Carson. It was such a surprise to everyone that Carson stumbled back and lost his balance and went down. Ellie saw things going up in the air and she too wasn’t going to let this happen. She began to lay kicks into the sides and legs of the prone Carson. Megan was on her knees on his chest and she pounded down hard with her fists on his face and head. Carson struggled and writhed, crying out in pain but he couldn't seem to get a hold on anything and he kept falling back down. After a solid minute of such abuse he lay there whimpering in pain as Ellie pulled Megan up off him.

  “Come on, we have to keep going!” Ellie said. Megan jumped up; she had so lost herself in being found out she had lost sight of her goal of escape for a moment.

  “Keep an eye on him.” she said and then went straight back to work. There was so little left to do.

  “Come on!” Ellie urged her. Megan didn’t respond. The last sheet was proving to be more difficult than she had expected and for one horrible moment she thought she wasn’t going to be able to shift it. With more strength than she thought she was capable, she pulled and suddenly the final sheet of steel gave.

  The gap was large enough for the two of them to squeeze through but anyone else would need more time bending the sheets of metal back before they would be able to follow. This suited them and would give them some time to get away before Carson came after them which he undoubtedly would.

  “Follow me,” Megan said and she pushed herself in through the gap. She looked back to be sure Ellie was following and then started the short climb up that would lead them to ground level and, she had to hope, a way to break out through the wall of the house and to the world outside.

  The climb within the cramped access shaft was easier than either of them had imagined. There were hand and foot holds all over due to the piping and the mechanics of the dumbwaiter. Megan could see light coming through tiny fissures in the wall above and she held her breath for the last few feet as she pulled herself up to them. With terrific relief and joy she drew in dusty air from the outside world! She could smell and taste the soil in her mouth and for the first time in her life didn’t mind having grit in her mouth. Tears ran down her cheeks but she had to stop celebrating. It wasn’t time for that yet. They still had to get through this wall and god only knew how far they were from safety once they were out in the world.

  “Come up here, Ellie,” she said, “I need you to do some of the work, my arms are aching.”

  “Got
it,” Ellie said, clambering up and around her in the thin passage. She was eager and full of energy and it wasn’t long before she had managed to put a small hole in the external wood of the house and they were both pulling at the wood, ripping small shards off and making the hole bigger by the minute.

  Megan was still terrified Carson was coming after them and she kept on looking back down but there had been no sign yet. Perhaps they had hurt him more than they realised. A sudden rush of air went over her face and she looked up and with the greatest joy of her life she felt the warmth of the sun on her skin.

  “We’re through” Ellie cried out and she pulled herself through the gap right away. Megan came after her, more cautious and terrified of the idea Spalding was still here and was going to be standing around the side of the house waiting for them.

  The two of them stood with their backs against the building. There was no sign of a car and no noise came to them. They looked at one another, feeling freedom and terrified of losing it.

  “Which way?” Ellie asked, looking around. There were clear fields to one side and trees to the other.

  “Let’s head for the trees and try to get our bearings from there,” she suggested.

  “Let’s do it!” Ellie said and they moved off into the long grass that would lead them five hundred yards to the treeline.

  Chapter 38

  CARSON LEMOND’S EYES cleared of tears and his head stopped spinning. He lay there stunned. He’d never taken a beating like it in his life and he cursed himself for underestimating the two girls. Their zeal and desire to be free must have given them the strength they never had before in their lives. They had been vicious too; they had no concern about him or keeping him alive that was clear. Bitches. He could hear their progress, the noises amplified by the open shaft before him. He pulled himself to his knees and shook his head to clear it. He wasn’t going to let them get away with this.