“No bodies have been found,” Bobbie argued. “We should still operate under the assumption they’re alive.”
Tony rode out the wave of knots twisting in his gut. “Right. The Bureau is working on the hard drives found in Conway’s apartment to see if they can pull off anything else. Houser had a laptop for her security system but there was little else on it. Her cell phone hasn’t been recovered. Conway’s either for that matter. In all probability both were taken by Sylvia Carson, their murderer.”
“What about Blume?” Nick wanted to know. “Has his office been checked? His home?”
“He cleared out his office at the college when he retired,” Tony explained. “Moved everything to his home.” He glanced at Jo. “We had a look around inside the house and didn’t find anything useful.”
“We couldn’t get into the safe room,” Jo reminded him.
“Safe room?” Bobbie asked.
“Yeah.” Tony nodded. “A part of his basement office was portioned off and the door was like one you would see on a bank vault. I’m working on local law enforcement to seek a warrant to have a look inside, but, as you know, that can be problematic when you don’t have probable cause or strong evidence.”
“Let’s put it all on the table,” Nick said. “We have two people—Conway and Houser—involved in abductions between fifteen and eighteen years ago. Their involvement was confirmed by multiple witnesses. Those same two people have been confirmed by eyewitnesses as a part of the most recent abductions. Our problem is, both are dead. So, we’re left with a single thread that ties to both sets of abductions.”
“Professor Blume,” Jo said.
Nick nodded. “We need inside that safe room. Today.”
Lands Drive, 7:30 p.m.
Tony’s insistence that Blume’s involvement could not be overlooked had paid off. No sooner than Nick had made the statement about needing to see in the safe room back at the pizza joint, Phelps had called. He had decided it wouldn’t hurt to take a look inside the Blume home.
Time was required for Phelps to assemble the necessary personnel. Finding a judge willing to sign the warrant ran even more time off the clock. While Phelps had taken care of the official steps, Tony had tracked down the company who installed the safe room.
As it turned out, the safe room was actually like a room within a room in the basement. Concrete walls eight inches thick with a web of rebar snaking around inside all that concrete. Ten feet by fifteen feet in size with the standard eight-foot ceiling height. Emergency lighting in case the power went off and hidden air intakes—not large enough for anyone to climb through. The thickness of the walls had been the sticking point for Tony. Cutting through it would take hours. Blowing a hole in it might damage any potential evidence inside. That left one option—use the keys. The vault-style door required either a combination or a set of two keys. A whirlwind search of the house had not revealed the keys or the combination.
Fortunately, the owner of the company, Dennis Horton, who designed and installed the safe room had master keys to all the safe rooms he installed. The safe room as well as the installer was registered with the county. In the event of a disaster, tornado, fire, or whatever, if those inside were unable to get out of the safe room for any reason, the installer would be called to open the door.
By the time Phelps and his team were on-site, Tony had Horton standing by.
“This is costing the city a small fortune,” Phelps said. “I hope your hunch is right, LeDoux.”
“I guess we’ll see in a minute.”
Though Tony had explained that Bobbie was a detective from Montgomery and Nick was a special advisor for the Alabama Bureau of Investigation, Phelps insisted they stay outside the house with Jo.
In a strictly legal sense, Tony understood his reasons, but it was difficult to accept that edict when coming from a personal place. This was deeply personal for him and for Jo.
His sister and her husband were doing their part. Continuing to speak to the community through the media. They were working with the Partons and the students at the college in hopes of finding someone who saw something they didn’t know about yet. In Tony’s opinion Buckley was a genius for putting the parents in positions of responsibility working with students who wanted to help.
He hoped like hell he’d have something significant to share with Angie after this. He’d been here five days without making any measurable progress in finding Tiffany. This case had to start moving forward soon.
The locks clicked and Horton stepped back. “It’s ready to open. I’ll wait outside with the others.”
Smart man. There could be anything inside, including a booby trap. Not exactly what he would hope to discover in the home of a psychology professor and a scientist, but one never knew.
Tony and Phelps stayed behind a protective portable wall that had been prepared at the other end of the basement while the bomb squad checked out the situation.
Tony held his breath. No explosions. No orders to mask up due to a released potentially toxic gas. Bomb squad came out; two detectives went in. The door was left open this time and what did waft from beyond those thick concrete walls was a horrendous stench Tony knew all too well—that of at least one rotting corpse. His heart dropped somewhere in the vicinity of his shoes.
The chief and a two-man forensic team went in next. The chief didn’t much more than poke his head inside before moving away from the door and calling for the coroner.
“Suit up and have a look-see,” Phelps said to Tony. “Can’t say if it’s Blume in there, but based on the clothes should be male. Since he’s lived in Milledgeville his whole life, we should be able to round up dental and medical records and get an ID fairly quickly. Meanwhile, I’ll try to run down the wife. Obviously the two aren’t in Europe as their friends and neighbors believe.”
“Thanks. I appreciate you trusting my instincts, Chief.”
He gave a nod and started for the stairs, his cell already attached to his ear once more. Tony pulled on shoe covers and gloves and headed into the fray.
Inside the safe room were a small sofa, a desk, five four-drawer file cabinets and a couple of tall storage locker-type cabinets. At the desk the rotting corpse sat in the upholstered swivel chair. A pair of dark trousers and a man’s button-down shirt had collapsed against bone as the flesh and tissue beneath it dissolved. Body fluids had seeped into the upholstery and slid off onto the faux wood floor, forming a slimy puddle. A ring that had once been on a finger stuck up in the yellow, gooey mass. Tony recognized a Rolex watch still on the victim’s wrist.
“The Rolex will have a serial number,” he said to the detective.
The detective nodded his understanding. “Coroner’s on the way. We’ll be sure to take the watch into evidence as soon as he gives us the okay.”
“Thanks.” Tony put his forearm over his nose to help block the smell and used his cell to take a photo of the ring and the Rolex.
Amid the muck on the floor below the wrist with the Rolex was a Ruger 9mm. The right side of the skull was shattered, rotting tissue still hanging around the broken bone.
It was entirely possible the professor had shot himself in the head just as the scene would suggest. The question was, who locked him inside this room after the deed was done?
Tony moved on to the file cabinets. Most of the files were of students from the college. Blume had kept copious notes on the students with whom he worked. Tony flipped through the hundreds of names. When he’d gone through the cabinets without finding a suspiciously marked file or a name related to the case, he moved to the first of the two upright storage type cabinets. The cabinets were wood with two doors and a single lock. The second cabinet was not locked.
A detective joined Tony at the cabinet. “I’ll get this one open if you want to move on to the next one.”