Chapter 7 Erik #4
Erik worried he might lie awake with racing thoughts of the ways the day could have gone wrong. He wouldn’t be surprised if they woke with nightmares. But right now, warm and wrapped around his lover, Erik felt Ben relax into sleep and followed moments later.
The phone’s shrill ring woke Erik. He reluctantly separated himself from where he had spooned around Ben and answered the call.
“Mitchell, how’s Nolan?” Chief Hendricks’s brusque tone was tempered with genuine concern.
“Remarkably unhurt.” Erik cast a glance over his shoulder at his still-sleeping partner. “At least physically. That kind of thing stays with you in other ways for a long time.”
Erik had survived shootouts and hostage situations before and knew the toll it took.
“Glad you’re both okay,” the chief said.
“We got the guys who showed up to take the window for ransom. Only a couple of survivors from the warehouse. As for the pile of dead bodies, I’d understand gunshot wounds, but most of those guys looked like they’d been attacked by wild animals. Want to explain?”
“Would you believe me if I did?” Erik asked.
“You’re going to say something like ghosts or magic, aren’t you?” the chief replied in a resigned tone.
“Yep. Don’t ask questions if you don’t want to hear the answers,” Erik said. “I went in with a witch and a medium. Those guys had a lot of enemies.”
“I’d like to get the two of you down here to take a look at the survivors, and you should probably see if any of the bodies at the morgue look familiar,” the chief added.
“I’m going to ship them off to Newark once they can provide secure transport, but I figured Nolan could identify the guys who grabbed him, and you might recognize the Russians. ”
“Ben can probably ID more of them. I’d recognize the voice of the Russian who called me, but I never saw them except in the warehouse, and things were going crazy.”
“That’s good enough. Try to make it in the next hour or so. Then I can have someone take out the trash,” Hendricks said.
Ben wandered into the kitchen as the call ended. “What’s up?”
“Hendricks wants us to come down to the station and ID your kidnappers and the guys who extorted me for the window. Are you up for it?”
“They had their faces covered when they grabbed me, but later in the warehouse, when they were playing cards, they got careless. I’m pretty sure I can. And they were Russian. That sort of narrows down the choices,” Ben replied.
“We’ve got an hour or so,” Erik told him. “Get dressed. Take another shower if you want. I’ll fix breakfast.”
Ben shot him a thumbs-up and wandered toward the bedroom. Erik heard the shower turn on and knew that part of getting over an ordeal like Ben had experienced involved washing away the feeling of contamination left behind by the kidnappers. It wasn’t logical, but it was very real.
He started a fresh pot of coffee, stuck bread in the toaster, and made fried eggs, usually a weekend treat. By the time Ben came back to the kitchen, breakfast was ready.
“This looks fantastic,” Ben told him. “Thank you, I’m starving. I think my body realized I survived. Last night, I wasn’t completely sure.”
Erik stood behind him and leaned down to hug him. “I’m just glad you’re here. Do you need ibuprofen? Change your mind about going to the ER?”
Ben shook his head. “Considering everything, I’m actually in pretty good shape. A few new bruises, but no blood. Thanks for checking.”
They dug into the food, intent on polishing it off while everything was still hot. Ben gulped down coffee, and Erik brought the carafe over for refills. When they were finished, Ben looked up.
“So…the cops. What does Hendricks know?”
“Almost everything,” Erik replied. “He knows about the window and the dome, and that Newark and Bratva fought over them. He even knows about the magic and the ghosts. I was surprised he went along with it. Susan must be having an impact on him.”
“Hendricks is level-headed. If he’d have tried to go in there with a SWAT team, we’d have had an even bigger blood bath,” Ben answered. “Does Cape May even have a SWAT team?”
“Actually, yes,” Erik said. “But I’m pretty sure that was the conclusion he came to as well. Plus, he’s done enough clean-up after our cases to believe in the supernatural…at least a little.”
“What about after we’re done with the cops?” Ben asked. “Do you really know where the Tiffany dome is?”
“Pretty sure I do.” Erik set his coffee cup aside and filled Ben in on the research he had done on Weston Hall and its unlucky former owner.
“I called Cassidy while you were still sleeping, and she said Sorren, Archibald Donnelly, and Rowan would be here after sundown to retrieve both the haunted stained glass and the dome if it’s where I think it is.”
Donnelly, a powerful necromancer, often worked with Cassidy and Sorren on dangerous supernatural cases, as did Rowan, a very talented witch.
“You think the dome is still crated up?” Ben asked.
“Weston Hall is the most likely place I’ve been able to identify,” Erik said. “Bartolo bought a lot of architectural items when the Commodore Wilson did its liquidation sale and shipped them out. It would be easy for people to overlook a couple more crates that weren’t on the manifest.
“Then he got killed, and there was no one to follow up or know where to look for the dome. Alessia thinks there may be spells involved, too, keeping the dome hidden. Weston Hall pretty much went to hell after that, so no one looked too closely at what was inside its warehouse because the property wasn’t sold or remodeled,” Erik recapped.
“Makes sense to me. What will Sorren do with it?” Ben asked.
“Pass it off to the Briggs Society or the Alliance, like usual. No one will ever see the windows again, and they won’t cause any more danger.” Erik felt relieved that once they made the handoff, he no longer had responsibility for the dangerous stained glass.
“Good riddance. I’ll be glad to get that thing out of the safe and out of here.” Ben drained the last of his coffee. “Same for the dome. But will the bad guys ever believe you don’t have them?”
“I was prepared to hand all of it over to Bratva if I believed that would buy your safety,” Erik admitted. “But I’ve gone up against those sons of bitches before, and I knew they were lying about letting you go.”
“Thank you,” Ben said quietly, looking down at his cup. “For everything. Being willing to turn those over to save me, and mounting the most awesome rescue ever.”
“I love you.” Erik thought that explained everything. “That’s what you do when you’re in love.”
Putting off the meeting with the cops wouldn’t change anything, so Erik and Ben reluctantly rinsed the dishes and headed for the station.
“Mitchell, Nolan, glad you’re in one piece,” Hendricks greeted them when they arrived. “Thanks for coming. I can take you to the cell block, or if you’d prefer they not see your faces, we can put them in the interview room with one-way glass.”
“Pretty sure they already know who we are,” Erik replied in a dry voice.
“Do you need to alert Interpol or MI6 or someone?”
Erik had thought about that overnight and came to a conclusion. “I don’t think so. They came for the window and the Tiffany dome. Finding out Ben and I were involved was unexpected. They weren’t originally after us. I figure you’re turning them over to the FBI to deal with.”
Hendricks grunted in agreement. “Yeah, and I’m hoping the Feds can keep them from coming back. Although I doubt we’ll get that lucky.”
Given the long-standing Mafia ties with the Commodore Wilson and other properties in town, Erik knew Hendricks couldn’t really blame him and Ben for attracting criminals to the area.
“They’ve seen us. Just take us to the cells.” Ben squared his shoulders and stood a little taller. Erik knew his partner was mustering courage to face his captors and loved him even more for it.
Hendricks led them to the back, and an officer unlocked the door to the holding cells. Three mobsters looked up when they entered. One was heavily bandaged, and his stricken expression suggested that the ghostly attack inflicted mental trauma as well as physical injuries.
“These are the survivors,” Hendricks said.
“The bodies from the attack at the rental house and the guys from whatever-the-hell happened at the warehouse are at the morgue. Two of them we arrested after Erik got you out of the warehouse, part of the Newark Mob. One of them is Bratva—looks like he’s been through the mill.
As for the rest of the Russians, we’ve been able to get solid IDs off their fingerprints and security footage—a good thing because there wasn’t much left of some of them.
“These guys have all got records a mile long, but adding kidnapping and extortion would help put them back behind bars,” Hendricks continued. “Any of them look familiar?”
“The Russians shot all of the Newark goons at the rental house and took me to the warehouse,” Ben said.
“Then, between the second team of Newark guys and the ghosts, the rest of the Bratva team died. I recognize the Russian who’s left, but I didn’t get a good look at the last group of Newark goons. ”
“Both Newark and Bratva called me to trade Ben for the windows,” Erik said for the record. “I was busy helping Ben escape during the shootout, and there were a lot of…distractions…so I didn’t get a good look at either the Russians or the Jersey guys.”
The Bratva mobster lunged for the cell door and shouted something in Russian. Erik snapped back in the same language, which left the man seething.
“You speak Russian?” Hendricks asked once they were out of the holding area.
“Only the swear words,” Erik replied. “He called me an asshole, so I said his mother fucked donkeys.”
Ben snickered. Hendricks shut his eyes and took a deep breath. “So much for a moment of international communication.”
“My grasp of Italian is likewise limited to ordering off a menu and swearing like a sailor,” Ben supplied. “Comes in handy.”
They left the cell block, and Erik turned to Hendricks. “Do you really need us to ID anyone at the morgue if you’ve gotten fingerprints?” He could see how strained Ben looked and knew that while his partner was putting up a good front, the ordeal had taken a toll.
“I’ve got mug shots for the names we matched and some photos in the conference room, so we don’t actually have to drive over,” Hendricks said. “From where we found the bodies, there’s no question about their involvement in this situation, but you might be able to add to what we know.”
“Thank you,” Erik said, and Ben agreed. Hendricks took them to where the morgue photos were laid out on a long table, a grim but familiar part of police work.
“I recognize all but three of them,” Ben said. “Some were better about masking than others.”
“I didn’t get much of a look in the warehouse before all hell broke loose,” Erik replied. “Then again, Mob foot soldiers are interchangeable and replaceable.”
Hendricks had them both sign statements about the kidnapping, then walked them to the door.
“I still don’t claim to understand how you pulled that off, but thank you.
It was a stinking mess to clean up, but the police body count would have been a lot higher without your woo-woo.
” He cleared his throat. “Unofficially.”
“Thank you. Unofficially,” Erik replied with a hint of a smile.
“Give my mom a call when you get a chance,” Hendricks said. “I’m pretty sure that she’s got casseroles and desserts to bring over.”
“I will never turn down recuperation food,” Ben told him. “And Susan is an amazing cook.”
Hendricks rubbed his belly. “That’s why I never miss Sunday dinner.” He made a shooing motion. “Get going and try not to cause any new international incidents for a couple of weeks so I can catch up on the paperwork.”