Beneath a Buried House (Detective Elliot Mystery Book 2) by Bob Avey Page A

to the suspect. His pale eyes darted back and forth, and he licked his lips. Elliot suspected he made the man nervous, but that wasn’t unusual. He made a lot of people nervous. “That makes twice that I’ve seen you at Windhall. What exactly were you doing there?”
    “There’s a curio shop near there, that Oz place. I must have passed it a thousand times without going in. I wanted to see what was in there. They were closed yesterday, so I went back today.”
    “That’s quite a walk, especially in the cold, just to satisfy a mild curiosity. There must be some other reason you were in the area.”
    “No,” he said. “There isn’t. I enjoy walking. It relaxes me, helps me let go of things. You should try it sometime.”
    “Maybe I’ll do that, Mr. Wistrom. I’ll be leaving now, but I suspect we’ll be meeting again. You have a good day, now.”
     

Chapter Eight
    Douglass Wistrom’s story about Morris Reed panned out. Reed had lived at Windhall, though he no longer did. He knew Wistrom, admitting to a failed relationship, a rather one-sided affair that he’d broken off upon realizing it was fantasy, and all his doing—resulting in his moving out.
    Elliot was about to cross Wistrom off his list despite the look that had gone through his eyes, leaving Elliot curious and undecided about its relevance. He’d asked Wistrom if he’d seen anyone in the area that day fitting the description of the person Stella Martin had seen with the John Doe. He’d said no, but there was a reaction. It was slight, like a lie that was so white it was barely detectible, but the more Elliot thought about it, the more it bothered him, especially now, being that he was standing in the empty parking lot of an empty building, Wistrom’s alleged place of employment.
    Elliot had driven by it before, not giving it much thought, other than what a waste it seemed for such a place to be unoccupied. Sitting on the north side of 61st Street, just east of Aspen Avenue in Broken Arrow, a suburb of Tulsa, it resembled others of its kind, abandoned monasteries of business, their inhabitants and trade having moved on, victims of an unfavorable economy.
    In the quasi quiet, the only sounds coming from traffic rushing along the expressway, which ran behind the building, the eeriness intensified Elliot’s belief that Wistrom was guilty of something. He looked across the street, studying the thick groupings of oaks, and he wondered why Wistrom would lie to him about where he worked. He must have known Elliot would check it out.
    He turned his attention back to the building, a rambling one-story structure constructed of rock, with large windows, which were greenish in color and reflective, though as he drew closer he could see through them. Most of the individual offices, which were block-like in design, contained no furniture, no desks, no filing cabinets, and most notably, no people. The grounds, however, were well taken care of, the bushes and shrubs that lined the walkways and defined the entrances neatly trimmed, the lawn freshly cut. Elliot suspected the owner or the leasing company kept it this way, though he saw no signs advertising the building’s availability.
    He walked to the back of the building. Oak trees grew there as well, though the expressway was visible through gaps in the foliage. When he reached the east end, he found a loading dock.
    When Elliot returned to the front of the ghost building, the whisper of an opening door sounded behind him. He turned to see someone approaching, a middle-aged lady in a gray business suit, who smiled and extended her hand as if none of this was the least bit out of the ordinary.
    “You must be Mr. Elliot,” she said.
    Detective Elliot was too intrigued to correct her. “That’s right. And who might you be?”
    Her handshake was brief, wraith-like. “The name’s Patricia Orwell,” she said. “Douglass said you might be coming.”
    Elliot showed his badge. “Do you always hang out in empty