Vanished

by Kate Watterson

  No answer.

  He tried again.

  Still no answer, so he called the landlord, who lived in one of the upstairs units. The man was aware they were coming and hurried down, key in hand. He was surprisingly young, maybe thirty, stocky and dark-haired, built like a rugby player. He was wearing shorts, a T-shirt, and slippers and said apologetically, “I work nights, so I was asleep. I’m Steve, by the way.”

  Ellie showed him her identification and the search warrant. “We just want to look around for anything that can help us.”

  “Is David really dead?”

  Jason’s attention sharpened. “Were you friends?”

  The landlord shrugged, and it turned into a shiver as the breeze brushed past again. “The guy lived here for two years, so I knew him. We’ve been out for a beer a couple of times. I don’t know as I’d say best buddies, but yeah, friends.”

  “He have any girlfriends?”

  “Can we discuss this inside?” Steve produced a key and unlocked the door. “It looked sunny out but that wind is cold, man.”

  Inside, the apartment was typical of college bachelor living quarters, with a couch that had seen better days and some mismatched chairs. There was a big flat-screen TV, a few posters on the walls, and a coffee table where, from the smudges and worn spots, they obviously rested their feet. However, it was basically picked up, and from a distance, anyway, the bathroom looked pretty clean.

  “I can’t say for sure which bedroom is his.” The young man looked apologetic as he pointed to two closed doors.

  “We’re detectives, we’ll figure it out,” Jason said dryly. “Again, girlfriends?”

  “Lots of them. He’s a good-looking guy and smart, so there always seemed to be some girl coming or going. I think he was kind of a hound, if you know what I mean.”

  Ellie said, “I think we get the picture. Ever see him with this girl?”

  She still had the picture of Nicole her parents had given them. She took it from her pocket and held it out.

  Steve squinted at it and took a moment. “I do think I saw her. Well, I noticed her car anyway, so I noticed her. She’s pretty, but damn, that’s a very nice ride.”

  The first provable lie from Nicole. Jason asked, “How long ago?”

  A shrug. “A few weeks maybe. If this helps, the car was still here when I got home from work the next morning.”

  So Nicole had spent the night? And they weren’t that serious? Hmm, if Jason had a seventeen-year-old daughter and she had spent the night with college senior, he might just be upset—which could be why she lied about it, of course, since her parents were in the room.

  Lying to the police, though, was a big no-no.

  “Thanks for your help.”

  The landlord took the hint and left, mumbling a small curse as he walked out into the breeze again.

  “The roommate, Carson Kale, surely will be able to throw more light on Lambrusco’s relationship with Nicole. Let’s see what’s behind door number one.” Jason opened the bedroom door to the right of the bathroom. Unmade bed with a plain navy spread and rumpled sheets, Led Zeppelin poster on the wall—a sweaty Robert Plant wearing his usual skintight pants to show off his package—when the hell did modern kids start listening to old metal bands? There was a desk with scattered papers and stacked books in untidy piles, almost all of them chemistry, a few calculus, and that was enough for Jason. “This is the roommate’s room. Lambrusco was an accounting student with a double major in prelaw according to the woman I talked to on the phone at the university.”

  Lambrusco’s room was entirely different. There was a framed picture of the university hanging over a neatly made bed, a fake plant in the corner, a woven rug on the floor, and his desk wasn’t battered metal but instead wooden, and his chair had a leather seat. A window looked out over the tree-lined street. His books were not on the desk, but lined up neatly in a small bookcase on the floor next to it. Ellie observed in a cool voice, “He was obviously a pretty organized individual.”

  Jason motioned at the leather chair. “Parents with money?”

  “If we can find them, we can answer that question.” She went over to the desk and opened the first drawer with gloved hands. “Maybe there’s a pot of gold in here.”

  They worked methodically, and Jason wasn’t sure how they didn’t hear the door open. But the next thing he knew someone dropped something on the floor with a thud. “What the fuck?”

  He didn’t have much time to react as he was rushed from the doorway; his first impression was of a tall young man, probably as tall as he was, who hit him with a solid tackle, and they both went sprawling, narrowly missing the edge of the desk. Jason ended up on the bottom and barely blocked a punch before he jabbed his opponent in the ribs with an elbow, rolled enough before his assailant tried to punch him in the face—a blow he barely deflected in time but it did graze his chin—and got in a solid gut punch. His attacker doubled over, gasping, unfortunately falling on top of him. Jason shoved him off none too gently and got to his feet, breathing a little hard.

  “Are you Carson Kale? I hope you are aware you just assaulted a police officer.” Ellie’s voice was calm but assertive. She held out her badge. “We have a warrant and your landlord let us in.”

  “A warrant?” The young man staggered to his feet, pressing a hand to his stomach, his voice reedy and thin. “What the hell for? Jesus, I think I’m going to throw up. Isn’t that police brutality?”

  “You were trying to beat the shit out of me, so no, it isn’t.” Jason straightened the tie he didn’t want to wear in the first place.

  “I thought you were ripping us off.”

  “Ever heard the expression ‘fools rush in’? If we were burglarizing this apartment, there’s a chance we could have been armed. What you should do is retreat as fast as possible and call 911.”

  Kale was six-foot plus a little, fairly heavy in the shoulders, and had a grazing of whiskers on his jaw and chin, which was probably supposed to be a Vandyke but he was too fair to pull it off. He was wearing a battered windbreaker, jeans, tennis shoes, and there was a backpack on the floor outside the door. He said sarcastically, still wheezing a little, “I’ll keep that in mind. What are you looking for anyway?”

  * * *

  Ellie had to admit that while she had plenty of experience in confronting angry male suspects, she was glad that Santiago had taken the brunt of that particular reaction to their presence. Even now he looked dangerous in the aftermath, his expression extraordinarily unfriendly.

  She said, “What can you tell us about David Lambrusco?”

  Warily, Kale looked at her, but he was obviously still very cognizant of Santiago from his defensive stance. “I don’t know what you want to know. I mean, if you have a warrant, that means a judge thought it might be beneficial for you look here. What’s he done now?”

  She knew from the books in his room he was not stupid, and his quick assumption that David had done something wrong sparked her interest. “ ‘Now,’ implies there have been previous transgressions. We didn’t find an arrest record.”

  He shrugged impatiently. “Look, He could have done a lot of stuff and not gotten caught. No, let me rephrase, he has done a lot of stuff and not gotten caught. Can we go into the kitchen? I’ve been in class all day and I need a beer. I assume I can do that in my own home?”

  Santiago gestured at the doorway with a gloved hand. “Help yourself, as long as you cooperate and tell us what you’re talking about.”

  The kitchen was down a short hallway and was a good-sized room, retro back to the fifties, with an ancient oven and stove and a countertop that had worn spots. There was a rack for dishes and a rickety table with no chairs. The microwave was new, though, and so was the small refrigerator Kale bent to open. He deftly retrieved a beer, popped it open, and took a long swallow. Then he wiped his mouth and said with the first glint of humor, “Better. I had a bitch of a test this morning and then I walk into this. Not my kind of day. It was de
finitely beer-thirty. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know about David. He isn’t my favorite person.”

  Kale was a very self-assured young man, Ellie decided, studying his face and demeanor. Pleasant-looking, but a little on the sloppy side, like he might be distracted often. Not dirty but not concerned with appearances, as was reflected in his room.

  “We are trying to contact his parents. Can you tell us how?” Santiago leaned against the doorway, arms crossed, his pose negligent but his gaze eagle-sharp.

  “He need bail?” Kale stopped with the bottle halfway to his mouth. “This serious? I mean bail and search warrants—”

  “He was murdered.” Ellie said it plainly. “No bail involved. We’re both homicide detectives, Mr. Kale. If you could help us notify his family, that would be appreciated. We’d also like to ask you about this girl.”

  He sagged back against the counter, his expression shocked, but that was immediately replaced by speculation. His eyes narrowed. “Murdered? Jesus. Let me guess, jealous boyfriend?”

  Interesting statement.

  Ellie dug in her pocket and extracted the photo of Nicole. “She claims they had a superficial acquaintance but your landlord says he saw her car here once all night.”

  Carson took it and nodded. “She’s been here a couple of times. I mentioned to him once or twice she was still in high school, but he was not the kind to listen to good advice very often. It was her mistake to contact him in the first place. It wasn’t like he was after anything but getting lai … er … ”—he eyed Ellie and substituted—“her into bed. He was just messing around.”

  That could be true, but was it tied together with the abduction and murder? “Did he have other girlfriends?”

  “One for every night of the week.”

  Carson Kale hadn’t been lying when he said he disliked his roommate, Ellie mused, watching him take another swallow of beer, his expression interested but not sympathetic. Lambrusco wasn’t mourned by this man, anyway.

  Santiago asked, “How did Nicole find him to help her for the tests?”

  “Internet. He has a site. And if you think he was tutoring her, you’ve got it all wrong.”

  A small frisson of premonition ran up Ellie’s spine—the kind she got when valuable information turned up in a case like an unexpected gift. “How so?”

  Kale said matter-of-factly, “I’m not glad the guy is dead or anything, but he was pretty much a scumbag. He never admitted it outright, but he was selling black market tests. SAT, ACT, even state licensing medical exams, at least the part that is nonverbal. Don’t ask me how he got his hands on them, but for a price, he’d sell them to whoever had the money. I know they are supposed to randomly pass out the exams and not everyone in the room is taking the same one and all of that, but somehow he had a way to beat the system. He was an asshole, but he was really intelligent. He was socking the money away for law school, which, I don’t know about you, I find ironic.”

  The sunshine coming in the kitchen window left dappled patterns on the floor and illuminated scattered toast crumbs on the laminate counter, which someone had neglected to wipe off. Ellie found it ironic as well. In law enforcement you met all kinds of lawyers: The earnest and zealous, dealing with a cumbersome system. The hardline attorneys who did their jobs by getting bad clients off on technicalities. And then there were those who should be selling insurance instead of practicing law. There were also the very good ones who were interested in the very basics of the law and wanted the offenders off the streets. They were like any other group of people. Some she liked a lot, and some she disliked to the core of her being.

  “Do you have any idea how long he’s been doing this? I mean, it would get him tossed out of not just this university, but his hopes for law school would be shot if he were caught.”

  “I have no idea, but I knew something was going on before the last time that Nicole chick came over here, and for two people arguing so loudly, she still stayed over.”

  Santiago looked at Ellie and muttered, “Ah shit, motive.”

  She said tersely, “Let’s finish up. I think we’ve got a few people to talk to, starting with Jeremy St. Joseph.”

  The only thing they found of interest in the rest of the search was a bank book in the bottom desk drawer, and apparently his little sideline was pretty lucrative because David Lambrusco had about fifteen thousand dollars tucked away. For a college student, that was a decent chunk of change. Carson also didn’t know anything about David’s parents except that the father lived out of state and his mother was remarried.

  “No computer.” Ellie was thinking hard. Not all the conclusions that came to mind were pleasant. Some were downright disturbing.

  “He probably took it with him pretty much everywhere, and he had just come from class.” Santiago frowned fiercely at the road. “Without it, or Nicole’s computer, it’s hard to trace their e-mails, at least the content. We have her phone, but she admits to calling him. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  Usually her answer would be a firm I hope not. But under the circumstances she had a feeling she was.

  “I might be,” she admitted, her voice quiet.

  Chapter Seven

  “Is this necessary?” Mrs. Remington was no longer the grateful parent, her tone icy and resistant. “To bring them to the police station?”

  They stood outside the interview room, the hallway sterile and well-lit, but the artificial lighting didn’t do much for anyone. Jason thought that his first impression on the night they answered the call about the abduction was that Nicole’s mother was a lot younger than her husband, but there were obviously a lot of cosmetics involved to achieve that effect. There were clear age lines around her mouth, and he would guess a facelift helped a lot with the youthful façade. She was dressed to match her expensive house, in black slacks and a silk blouse, and there was a tennis bracelet on her wrist.

  He said as pleasantly as possible, “She needs to give a description of her abductor to the artist, and we already told you and your husband we would want to talk to her again and go over her story.”

  “This is a nightmare.” The woman said it crisply. “To make her relive it time and again is borderline cruel.”

  “It could have been a worse nightmare,” he reminded her, lifting a brow. “She’s alive. Now, if you’ll excuse me, we’re going to talk to Jeremy first.”

  “Why is he even here?”

  Jason didn’t bother to answer. He just opened the door and went into the room. Ellie was already sitting at the table with a very uneasy-looking Jeremy in a chair on the opposite side. Jason set down a notebook and took a chair next to Ellie. “I’m sure you remember me, Detective Santiago.”

  “Sure.” Jeremy’s response was almost inaudible. “Look I hope this won’t take long. I kind of still have the flu.”

  Jason wasn’t sure how a person kind of had the flu—either you did or you didn’t—but he suspected that the queasy look on the kid’s face was not virus-induced. “It shouldn’t take much time at all. Just tell us your side of the story.”

  Jeremy shifted in his chair. Today he wore another sloppy outfit, T-shirt with a video game logo on it and faded jeans with the decaying tennis shoes. His hair flopped over his forehead and he shoved it back every minute or so. “I told you. Nicole’s parents called me because she was missing and there was blood in their house. I was pretty shook up, especially when she called later, and then she called me when that pervert let her go.”

  “What had she told you about her relationship with David Lambrusco?” Ellie folded her arms on the table and looked bland. “Did she ever mention it was intimate?”

  He shoved his hair out of his eyes again. “No.”

  Liar. Jason could see it in his eyes, in the tensing of his body. He said, “I’m surprised, since the two of you are such good friends, she didn’t mention she sometimes stayed the night with him. I assume she told her parents she was at a girlfriend’s house.”

  “I have no
idea.”

  Ellie’s hazel eyes were very direct. “You know, we find it interesting that she called you instead of her parents when she had a chance. After all, you were sick and pretty powerless to help her.”

  “I … I don’t know. She just called me. Maybe it was the first number that she found.”

  “You’d think on her contacts her parents would be first.”

  “Maybe on your phone, but not on mine. Nicole is first.” The lift of Jeremy’s chin was defiant.

  Jason was fairly sure he didn’t react, but maybe a little. His smile was humorless. “Actually Detective MacIntosh is first on my phone, so I can relate. Did you see Nicole yesterday?”

  It was what he called the George Washington approach. Some people were facile liars and some just couldn’t pull it off when faced with an outright question. Usually he let Ellie do the talking, but they’d agreed he could probably break Jeremy down faster in this case.

  It took the kid off guard. He evidently didn’t expect such a direct question. “I told you already I didn’t.”

  “That’s true, but did you see Nicole yesterday?”

  He tried desperately to hedge. “I don’t understand why you’re asking when I already told you what happened.”

  Ellie took over, very smooth, and it didn’t hurt that she looked a little like a college co-ed with her blond hair and shapely figure, unthreatening unless Jeremy registered her razor-sharp gaze. “Would you like me to tell you why we’re asking you again?”

  “I’m not sure.” His voice was little more than a croak. “Look, Nicole is safe. That’s the important thing, and I’m sorry that—”

  “One of two things happened,” Ellie interrupted. “Right now we aren’t too sure which scenario played out, but we do know both you and Nicole are lying to us. The first theory is that you came over and saw David Lambrusco coming into the house and attacked him in a jealous rage. That would be probably second-degree murder. Maybe even manslaughter, but I can’t promise anything. The second is a bit worse. You and Nicole set him up. She called him and invited him over, the two of you killed him, then wrapped him up, and she drove off in his car and very conveniently called you later so we could ‘find’ her.” She turned to Jason. “Isn’t that premeditated murder?”