“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.”
EIGHT
ERIK
Erik breathed a sigh of relief when they left police headquarters and saw Ben relax as well.
“Now what?” Ben asked.
“I’d like to take a drive past Weston Hall and a couple of other abandoned properties to throw anyone watching us off the scent,” Erik replied. “I leveraged as much online information as I could, including drone footage and floor plans. But most of it wasn’t recent. I’d like to get a look in daylight at what we’re walking into after dark.”
“Because you don’t feel safe with just a witch, necromancer, and vampire?” Ben snickered.
“It would help to know whether they can drive a truck close enough to get the crates into it, if we find them,” Erik replied. “Not to mention fences and gates. I’m not planning to get out of the car.”
“It’s the inside that worries me, if the place has been left to rot. Is Weston Hall truly abandoned, or just unused?” Ben asked.
“From everything I found, it’s not being actively maintained,” Erik said. “I gather that Bartolo’s murder left his affairs in disarray, and there were legal battles that might still begoing on. With no clear owner, a murky title, and no money or proxy dedicated to oversight, it’s been truly abandoned.”
“If they ever clear up the ownership, they’ll have to tear it down,” Ben observed. “There won’t be anything worth salvaging.”
“Except the stained glass,” Erik said wistfully.
“Wait, it’s got a dome too?”
“Different shape than the one from the Commodore Wilson. That was round. The one from Weston Hall arched over a hallway, long and narrow. It was pretty, but it wasn’t said to be by Tiffany. It’s a shame that it’s been left there, but it’s not our property or our problem,” Erik said.
The sunny day was perfect for a drive. They opened the windows and turned up the radio, enjoying the road trip.
Cape May’s tourism had been good to the hotels and restaurants in the area. Although there had been ups and downs, the number of historic and Victorian homes and hotels that survived were part of the town’s appeal. When a big hotel struggled, it was usually bought by investors and renovated.
During some of the lean times in the town’s economy, there had been a couple of notable exceptions that didn’t find an angel investor. Weston Hall was one of those, deemed too old, needing too much remodeling to be profitable.
Erik headed first to the Sea Queen Hotel, which started as a private mansion and was turned into a bed and breakfast before falling on hard times. Tucked down a quiet street without an ocean view and not especially close to modern restaurants and attractions, investors hadn’t been in a hurry to tear it down, even for the land. Now the once-opulent Victorian building sat behind a chain-link fence, paint peeling, roof sagging, and yard overgrown.
“It’s always sad to see places like that,” Ben said as they drove past the Sea Queen. “It was someone’s dream, and lots of things can go wrong that aren’t the owner’s fault.”
“The hospitality industry is notoriously fickle,” Erik replied. “We hear about the people who make it big and create an empire, but lots of people lose their shirts.”
Next came Weston Hall, a sprawling Second Empire building that rivaled the Inn at Cape May’s architecture, even in decline. Erik could imagine how it must have looked before it fell on hard times.
“Probably safer going into the storage building than the attic,” Ben observed. The property wasn’t fenced, although weeds choked the land around it. “I see a back driveway for deliveries. Let’s hope it has a way in that doesn’t require stairs.”
“If the Tiffany dome is there, someone got it inside in the first place, so there has to be a way to get it out.” Erik didn’t want to linger too long in case they were being watched, but he also wanted to get any details clear in his mind that the drone footage hadn’t confirmed. “If all else fails, I’ll get Haley to ask the ghosts.”
