Part Five: The Binqua
Chapter Thirty-two
NO ONE WANTED TO GET LOST SO WE DIDN’T talk on the way to Maple Street.
Maple sloped sharply downhill from Main Street and the houses were a mixture of single- and two-stories. I could see only one struggling street lamp off in the distance.
“He’s got cameras so we need to stop before we get to his house,” said Duncan when we started down Maple.
We pulled up behind the large bush in the yard of the house three doors away. Duncan pointed down the street.
“Bedlow’s is a single-story with a loft but it’s too dark to see it from here. It’s even hard to see it in daylight until you get right up on it because it’s down in a dip.”
I studied the outline of the darkened house at which we’d halted and saw no way to use it to spy on Bedlow’s place. No detached garage with a convenient ladder. One would think that with the street name of “Maple” there’d be many such trees. There wasn’t a one in sight, so no tree to climb.
I motioned for them to follow me and we proceeded across the approximately fifty-foot yard of the dark house next to Bedlow’s. There was about a twenty-foot vacant span between the two houses, and if his surveillance system was similar to the one in Dr. Bennett’s living room, it looked out on the empty span. But, there was a row of overgrown holly bushes separating the yard from the space between the houses, and since Bedlow’s house sat lower, we could remain hidden while we cased the place. It wasn’t ideal but it would do.
We crouched behind the holly bushes. I lay down on the ground and carefully parted some of the prickly branches and looked down on the house. There was no car or jeep parked out front. Whoever brought Morgan had either come and gone, or were parked elsewhere. It had taken us ten minutes to get to Maple Street and we left about twenty minutes after Terry came to the doctor’s door. He said it took him around ten minutes to get there – give or take five minutes – so I estimated about forty-five minutes had passed. More than enough time for Bedlow to inform Henderson of Morgan’s recapture, so it was possible she was no longer there. But, I had to be sure, and if she wasn’t there, I needed to find out where she was.
There were lights coming from the windows. It was not a good position from which to see into the front but I had a clear view of the big one on the side. I was surprised to see it had no curtains. Maybe Binqua didn’t like curtains.
I saw two armchairs and the edge of what appeared to be a monitor. I couldn’t see the other side of the room but I construed it to be where Bedlow had his surveillance system. There was a man sitting in one of the armchairs from where I gathered he was watching the monitor. Judging by the armchair, whoever was watching would be comfortable. That could make him less alert. The other chair was empty and I didn’t see any sign of Morgan though she might’ve been on the side of the room I couldn’t see. She could also have been elsewhere in the house. Or, not there at all.
There was something familiar about the man but I was too far away, and he sat with his head down and his face turned partially away from the window, so I couldn’t make out his features. I wished I had binoculars, but you can’t have everything. However, since the guy had light hair instead of black, and was wearing a guard’s uniform, I knew it wasn’t Bedlow.
I hazarded a guess that Bedlow always had someone watching the monitor, so it was probably one of the guards I’d seen at the entryway guardhouse. Whoever he was, it wasn’t very smart of him to sit in front of a lighted window. Duncan crawled up beside me to take a look. We watched for a few minutes and I noticed something. That chair must’ve been very comfortable because the guard definitely wasn’t alert. He was in fact, asleep. Duncan saw it too, and we looked at each other.
“Do you know which room Bedlow would be in?” I asked quietly.
“Yeah”, murmured Duncan. “When I was a guard I took a night stint a few times to watch his monitor, so I know the layout of the house pretty well. His room’s on the other side. There’s a garage on that side, too, and it has a side door for getting in without raising the garage door. The inside door opens into the kitchen.”
“Would those be locked?”
“The one outside should be, and the one to the inside was always locked when I was there. I had to unlock it to step out into the garage to smoke on my break.”
Perfect. I knew how to get through locked doors.
“Would there be more than one guard?”
“Well, there’re usually two and the other one should’ve been in the same room with the one watching the monitor – that’s so they can keep each other awake – but he’s not so that could mean Bedlow’s only got the one tonight. Or, he had to take a leak.”
I thought for a moment. “Are there motion triggered lights on the property, or a camera inside the garage? Alarms?” Either of those features would be harder to bypass.
“Nah. No motion lights or alarms. Bedlow’s not worried about break-ins here. The cameras watch the front, back, and sides of the house. He’s got ones watching the neighborhood entrance, and a few places on the surrounding wall. That’s probably how they spotted Morgan.” He gave a tight smile. “He tried putting them around the entire neighborhood, so he could watch everybody all the time but they kept disappearing – or coming up broken. Somebody finally reported the snooping to the city police and they came out and talked to him. Then they went down to the Semptor and talked to his boss. Henderson called him in. He didn’t like having the cops come in here so Bedlow had to remove the ones still working and quit putting them up.” He cocked his head. “We going in?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
I looked back at the window. The guard was still asleep and the other one hadn’t showed up. Either he was doing more than taking a leak or he wasn’t there. It was cold and growing later. We had to get a move on.
“Okay. Stay low and follow me.”
Crouching, we moved through a gap in the holly bushes and ran down the slope. Percy slipped and muttered a low curse. Duncan pulled him to his feet and we continued across the yard, keeping below the windows on the front of the house – which also didn’t have curtains. We reached the garage and I tested the side door’s knob. It turned. I shook my head. Somebody had left it unlocked. Either Bedlow wasn’t real smart – or he had excessive confidence. I guess since he’d never been bothered, he put his trust in the cameras and the guard watching them, and didn’t do a personal check.
We slid silently into the dark, two-car garage. I pulled out my flashlight and swung it around. The only vehicle parked there was a model I hadn’t seen in a while, a black Chevy sedan. I swept my light around. Two cans, one for trash and the other for recycling, sat against a wall, and there were several shelves, most of which were empty. A plastic gas container occupied one, and a couple of oil cans sat on another. Neatly folded rags were on a bottom shelf. Up a couple of wooden steps, my light came to rest on the door into the house. I listened. No alarms or outcry so that meant the guard was either still asleep or hadn’t seen us enter.
I went up the steps and tried the knob of the entry door. Locked. I checked it. A simple knob-lock, sometimes called a credit-card lock, no deadbolt. Easy. There were no longer any credit cards, however, I had something that would work just as well. I pulled out my wallet and removed my plastic library card. I threaded it through the crack and slipped it between the frame and lock, leaned on the door and it quietly popped open. I looked into a dimly lit kitchen. I doused my light and listened for footsteps but heard nothing. The house was still.