Free Our Honored Dead (Stephanie Chalice Thrillers Book 4) by Lawrence Kelter Page A

cough. The guard roused slowly. He didn’t seem embarrassed to have been caught asleep. Charles flashed his credentials. “Busy?” Charles asked, unable to conceal the chuckle he was trying to suppress.
    The security guard took a sip from a water bottle. “You’re the first visitors I’ve had all day. Everyone’s on strike again—there’s nothing going on down there.”
    “Again? How long has that been going on?” Charles asked.
    “Couple of weeks, maybe longer. I’ve been catching up on my sleep,” the security guard said.
    No shit.
    Charles shook his head in amazement and then filled in our names on the sign-in sheet. “I’m going to give these folks a tour. Lights and power on?”
    “All the time, boss,” the guard said. He opened a copy of the New York Post and began to read the sports section.
    “What kind of staff do you have here today?” Charles asked.
    “Just some folks in the control room up here. There’s no one down in the pump station,” the guard replied. I noticed the patch on the guard’s jacket—it had an embroidered lighthouse with the name Beacon Security stitched above it. The city employed several independent companies to keep costs in check. My assumption was that Beacon was just one of the city’s vendors.
    Charles led us to a locker room. He looked at me. “Your jacket won’t be warm enough.” He handed us coats and protective helmets. “Put these on,” he said. “It’s cold and damp below. You won’t like it very much.”
    Charles guided us to the elevator, and we descended into the pumping station. Charles wasn’t kidding about not liking the environment. “Jesus, it’s like the Himalayas down here.” For a moment, I recalled how warm and toasty it was back at the precinct. You’re such a dope, Stephanie. Volunteering for work. That’ll teach you.
    “I told you it wasn’t pleasant,” Charles said.
    Gus zipped his jacket up to his neck. “Give us the ground rules,” he said. “I’m too cold to stand still.”
    “Just watch your step,” Charles said. “There’s no telling where ice will form. And don’t touch anything you think may be frozen. Your skin will instantly bond with the metal pipes. This station was built in the late sixties—safety standards were not as stringent back then as they are today. Use your heads.”
    There was no question that a body could be frozen down here. Judging by the upstairs guard’s alert nature, I had no doubt that someone could slip a body in and out as well. The place was a ghost town because of the strike. Charles was a sharp guy, but my guess was that he didn’t stop by very often.
    The pumping station was astoundingly large. It had been blasted out of Manhattan bedrock, and the walls were pure stone. Water oozed from cracks in the bedrock in several locations. Some of the water was frozen. It was a little unnerving to think that the raging waters of the Hudson were just on the other side of the bedrock. The pipes running into the electric pumps were massive. “Might as well get cracking.” As I said, the place was vast. I didn’t know how much ground we could cover on our own. The size of the job warranted a full team of investigators. It was hard to fathom that places like this existed, but then I thought about how my last case led me to an old, forgotten railroad tunnel. There was another city beneath Manhattan, an entire network of tunnels and storerooms that time had long forgotten.
    We spread out and began to look around. The pumping station was damp and brutally cold. I felt my teeth chattering as I searched for clues. I heard Gus shriek. I turned my head to see his legs fly out from beneath him. He was sitting on his butt, wincing in pain. I raced over to him, careful not to do the same. “You okay?” I called out. Gus was wearing his brave face and nodding so that I wouldn’t worry. It was just about then that something crunched beneath my shoe. It wasn’t a big clue, but it was obvious. It