I went through another box with pots and pans. Murray had lived rather simply. I found few knick-knacks in these boxes – just the essentials and little else. From a detecting standpoint, it would be more difficult to determine Murray’s disappearance. I believed that he could have walked out of his old life with a backpack full of memories and be gone. However, the fact remained that he hadn’t used his bank account or credit cards since that day. I wondered how far I’d get without money.
I went through the bedroom boxes. There were some linens, sheets, and a box full of underwear and socks. I felt awkward pawing through someone’s underwear, but I wasn’t going through all this trouble now only to learn later that the relevant clue was packed under the man’s delicates.
But nothing was packed under them. Carter arched an eyebrow at me as I finished up with that box. “Having fun yet?” he asked with a grin.
The units weren’t air-conditioned, and the temperature was at least 95 in the unit. So I was sweating like an aerobics instructor by the time we made it to the box marked “spare bedroom.” I thought back to the fact that I’d discovered a body in that bedroom, but the boxes didn’t yield anything like the freezer had. I patted the pillows on the sofa and only found a handful of brochures on Paris and Rome there. Nothing would lead me to suspect that the person who owned these things had disappeared without a trace.
I did find one box of personal papers. It appeared to have financial records, bank statements and other papers in it. I took the box and handed it to Carter. “This looks like it might be helpful,” I said, the sweat running into my eyes.
I’d made it through the last of the boxes when Aaron came back over from the other unit. He was carrying a few pillows and curtains. “I found a few things that I liked.” He held up a set of curtains that Carter provided two thumbs up on. He showed off a variety of throw pillows of different colors.
“You’d better go look through the other unit,” he said, talking to me. “You might as well see it all while you’re here.” We all left the first unit, which Aaron studiously locked up behind us.
All three of us squeezed into the second unit. I couldn’t tell any noticeable differences in the heat or the amount of material in the unit. Aaron led me to the area where Murray Longhill’s family had stored the rest of his things, which involved climbing across a recliner and over a few boxes. Most of the possessions were larger items in this unit, which didn’t really merit examination. My eye was caught by one particular painting, a watercolor of a seaside with colorful fishing boats dotting sparkling azure water in the background. I must have paused on it, because Aaron pulled it out and handed it to me.
“Take it. Please.” He held it out, and I took it. The painting would look great over my sofa. The blue would pull in the color of the throw pillows I’d picked up last week.
I paused a moment to think if Longhill had hung it in the same location. It would be eerie if the neighbors came in and saw the same painting in the identical location. However, it would likely spur conversation, which is what Detective Danvers wanted me to do. So maybe my decorating choice would be helpful to the investigation.
Finally forced to admit that the secrets of his uncle’s disappearance were not to be found here, we all got in the Buick and headed back to the other side of town. When we got to the secured lot, I introduced Carter to the watchman and had him added to the list of people who could pick up or drop off the food truck.
Carter acted as if I had made him part owner. “Thank you so much. I will definitely be getting here early a few days to pick it up.”
Aaron didn’t say anything, but he was clearly proud too. I felt like a Scrooge for having not trusted him for so long.
*
When I got home from the storage units, I decided to hang the picture on the wall. I hadn’t done anything like this in ages. All of my paintings and posters had gone up on the wall with sticky tape so that I wouldn’t lose my security deposit during college. However, I was feeling adult, and adults don’t use sticky tape to decorate.
I tried to remember how my father had done it, or at least what I remembered of his actions. He tapped the wall looking for a stud and then put the nail there. I tapped the walls, but was immediately stymied by the fact that three places in the space of 18 inches made odd sounds. I finally chose the one in the middle, thinking it safest. The nail hit something, but it wasn’t a board. It made a squishy sound, but didn’t hold.
I decided to call Land for an answer. My father would insist on coming over. Danvers would think that I was just trying to lure him over to my new place for a romantic interlude. Carter and Aaron had already done enough for one day. That left Land, who might or might not answer the phone.
He picked up on the second ring. “What now?” he asked without bothering with a greeting. For Land, getting right to the point was the greeting.
I explained the situation to him and asked for advice.
“What the hell kind of place did you rent?” he asked. “I’ve lived at my place for three years, and I’ve never had a dead body here and I’ve never had squishy things in the walls.”
“Yeah, but you were attacked once,” I reminded him.
“That was my own fault for not paying enough attention and not keeping up with security. I’ll be over in ten,” he said, hanging up the phone without a good-bye.
I took a deep breath. At least something was going to be done about this. I wasn’t sure what was in the wall – or even if I wanted to know what was in the wall.
Land buzzed in, and I was waiting at the door for him when he came up the stairs. “Wow, this must have freaked you out. Waiting at the door and all.”
I tried to play it off. “No, I just miss you, being at the other truck and all.”
“Especially when I come over and see what’s behind the wall. So something squishy is behind the wall, eh?”
I just nodded and pointed to where the nail hole was slightly visible.
Land had brought in a satchel, which he now opened. “I’m going to try to be non-invasive about this – if I can. If not, I’ll be back over soon to fix it up. In the meantime, we’ll hang that picture and cover the hole.”
“That’s great,” I said, just wanting to find out what was going on here. It was bad enough that I’d discovered a dead body here and the previous tenant had mysteriously vanished, but now there were things buried in the walls. I was living an Edgar Allan Poe story.
Land took out five nails and tapped along the wall. “First, I’ll put in the nails in the stud so you can hang the picture.” Without issue, he tapped the nail in and smiled. “That’s one thing out of the way.” How did he make everything seem so easy?
Then he started tapping around the area where I’d put a nail. He tugged it out slowly and then tried again. The fifth try produced the same results as my nail. Land put the nail to his nose and sniffed. “Nothing, but I heard a weird sound. I’m not sure what’s behind there but it probably shouldn’t be.” he said.
“I have no idea. Why would someone put something behind the plasterboard is beyond me. It’s not like it’s a great storage place.”
Land laughed. “I think you need to get a new apartment. Seriously.” He reached in the bag and pulled out some tools. “Like I said, I’ll come back and patch the wall later.” He cut a small hole in the wall, which was large enough for his flashlight combined with some space for him to peer into the space.
“I’ll be damned,” he said. “You’re not going to believe this.” He broke out enough space in the wall to fit his hand down in the hole.
He pulled out a small round device that looked like a rubber ball. There was a hole through the middle of it where I’d managed to hit it with a nail. “It’s a small speaker, like those that you can use with a phone or device. I’m not sure why.”
I turned the ball over in my hand. Nothing made sense about this. Someone had put a speaker in the wall, and then decided to push it into the wall rather than remove it properl
y. I couldn’t make any sense of this.
Land looked around at the mess he’d made. “You have the joy of cleaning this up. I’m going home.”
“That’s it? You’re just going to leave?” I was shocked. This was a mystery that I could barely get my head around, and he was going home to relax. Sometimes I wanted to be Land, who could shut off any curiosity that he had like a light switch.
“Oops, sorry,” he said. He turned around and put his tools down. I was glad to see that he’d come to his senses. However, he only walked as far as the painting. He picked it up and hung it on the nail he’d put in the wall. He straightened it and stepped back to see if it was level.
“European seascape. That’s off the coast of Malta, if I’m not mistaken. Nice place. You should try to get there sometime before you get old.” The painting had gorgeous bushes and vegetation along a walkway that ran adjacent to the sea. There were no people in the painting just a few birds sailing high above the sea. I wondered how he could look at a painting and recognize the subject so easily. I doubted that I could identify works of art set in Capital City on a good day.
He gave me a grin, picked up the bag and left again.
Chapter 4
The next two days went along without incident. No musical paraphernalia in my wall, no dead people in my appliances. I took the time to try to figure out what had happened to Longhill, but nothing came to mind. Even Detective Danvers stayed away from the food truck. While I publicly applauded being left alone, in fact, I was a little sad that he didn’t come to see me, even if there weren’t any breaks in the case. Perhaps seeing Carter and Aaron together had made me want something for myself. Danvers had been the only person to show interest in the last nine months or so.
On the second evening, I spread out Longhill’s paperwork over all the available surfaces in the living room. Just like old times, I thought. I started with the bank statements, which I felt would give the best overview of Longhill’s financial situation. His checking account was modest. He had some money in savings, but nothing that would support him for six months without an income. I slowly read through each month and found no large deposits or withdrawals. I looked for any suspicious or routine transactions that couldn’t be explained. However, there was nothing. It was a fairly routine account of a single man. I put those aside and went through some other envelopes. I found his car title, which made me wonder if the car was still around. He couldn’t sell the car without the title, which definitely tipped the balance toward him being dead.
I also found his will. I knew that a missing person wouldn’t be declared dead for seven years, so the will would not be needed for at least another six years, but it would be interesting to see who inherited. I read through some simple bequests including one to take care of his dog, Spike. I wondered if he had thought that the dog would outlive him? Longhill was older, but far from death’s door.
At the bottom of the page, the bulk of his estate was divided equally between Aaron and another nephew. I wondered if this was Aaron’s brother or a cousin, but no definitive explanation of the relationship was given. Aaron hadn’t mentioned being the beneficiary of the will. I wondered if he knew or if the family didn’t talk of it, just as they wanted people to use the present tense.
The one surprise I did find was that he had a very healthy portfolio of stocks and bonds. Most of them had been purchased in the past five years and totaled up to about $50,000. I wondered if the accounts were still active or if they had been cleared out prior to his disappearance. That amount of money would certainly be sufficient to start a new life, though he would still have to work after some period of time.
I boxed up all the paperwork and added my questions to the things I’d need to ask Danvers about at some point.
*
It wasn’t until the third day after the storage unit search that Danvers stopped by the food truck. He was earlier than he usually was. Normally he stopped by about 1:30 when the crowds had died down and we could talk without interruptions or eavesdroppers. However, today it was only 10 o’clock, which meant that what he wanted couldn’t wait.
“Can he take over for a bit?” Danvers asked, nodding his head at Carter.
Carter gave me a big smile and waggled his eyebrows like a bad sketch comedy. He was still convinced that Detective Danvers liked me.
“Sure,” I said, “what is it?” I didn’t bother to inform Carter about my departure since he’d already overheard the entire conversation and given tacit permission with his eyebrows.
“Come on back to the office. I want to show you something,” he said as we strode across the Government Square. I didn’t like those words. It usually meant that this was an official visit rather than merely finding out what I’d learned about a case.
Fortunately, my “office” was only a matter of yards from Danvers’ office. The downtown office for some of the detectives was in one of the skyscrapers surrounding Government Square. So a quick confab was possible without even getting in a car. We rode up in the elevator and walked to his desk. He didn’t speak much on the way, so I had no idea if I was in trouble or not.
Overall, I tended to doubt it, because I had been up here before as a suspect and as a witness and this didn’t feel like either of those things. Those events had both been accompanied by a scolding, and I didn’t get one of those today. It felt more collaborative, to use a business school word.
When we got to his desk, I did the normal scan of his desk. No photos of women on his desk. We’d flirted around with the idea of dating, but Danvers had been concerned that dating would make our crime solving work awkward. Maybe he was right, but a small part of me was still glad to see that no one else had come into his life, though no one had mentioned his hot date since the night I’d found the body. I still had a few hopes, and these days those feelings were being fanned some by Carter and Aaron
“So what’s going on?” I asked as looked around again. Now that I’d looked for women, I was looking for clues as to why I had to be there.
He held up a report. “I thought you’d find this interesting.”
I read over it. The report was a listing of credit card transactions over the past week. Three times, an active card had been used to get cash. I looked up at the name of the cardholder – Murray Longhill.
“Seriously. Now he decides to pop up again?” I asked. I sat down in the chair. This just kept getting weirder and weirder.
“Yeah, after talking to you about that case, I asked someone to run a report to see if there’d been any recent transactions that might be of interest. Sure enough, he’s used the card three times – this week.”
“Where did he use this?” The report had some codes and abbreviated names that I couldn’t understand.
“I’m not sure yet, but we’re working on finding all that out now. You talked to the family. Did they say anything to you about hearing from him or him reappearing?” Danvers looked a bit frantic. Granted that he had likely put me on the disappearance so that I’d stay away from the more active murder investigation, but now that the Longhill case had apparently heated up, it would move back into the active category. While he hadn’t said so, the reappearance of Murray Longhill on the heels of a dead body in his former apartment seemed more than coincidental. This accumulation of chance events seemed to indicate that the two were related, but how?
“No, in fact, quite the opposite.” I explained how Aaron had taken me to the storage units, after his mother told him to take what he wanted. “We took things from the unit, because his mother seems to be thinking about Longhill not coming back – ever.”
“So either they’re all lying, or he’s not in communication with them. Great. So what else do you have?”
I thought about telling him my story about the speakers in the wall, but I knew what his reaction would be. He’d come into my apartment and rip the wall down. If he didn’t find what he wanted there, then he’d rip more walls out. My apartment would be gutted, and I was pretty sure that
such an action would be the end of my lease as well. Money spent, furniture bought and I’d be back at my old apartment and using the space behind the loose tiles to hide my valuables.
I told him about the paperwork from the storage unit, and how I’d gone through it. I mentioned the portfolio and asked if he could learn the current balances of those accounts. Danvers didn’t seem as impressed with the portfolio as I was, but then he hadn’t bothered to look at the rest of the transactions. That extra money had to come from somewhere.
“Yeah, we’ll be running a complete check again. If he’s using his credit cards, we want to see what else he’s been up to lately.”
“Do you know what happened to Murray’s dog when he disappeared?” I asked. It felt trivial, but at the same time, a dedicated dog lover would never leave a pet when they disappeared.
“The report doesn’t mention a dog. I’ll find the original team who worked on this case and ask. They owe me one. They were only too happy to turn this case over to me since it seemed to tie into the murder.”
“When can I have my back bedroom again?” I asked.
“Go ahead and take it. We’re following up the leads on the freezer, which is the real crime scene. If I cordoned off every place that the freezer visited that day, I’d have half the city covered in police tape.” He looked frustrated as he spoke.
“Wow, it gets out more than I do,” I replied, instantly regretting the comment. It sounded too much like a hint for a date.
Danvers either ignored it or didn’t take it that way. “We’re still trying to trace where it’s been all this time. We’ve traced it backward from your place to an empty loading dock. It was a Saturday and the guy with the freezer had it sitting on the ground in front of one of the docks. Pretty slick, no one there and he looks like he’s part of the firm.”
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