by K. J. Emrick
A sound just like Dixon’s whimpering gurgled up from Jonas’s throat. The sudden unpleasant tang of urine fills the air and lets me know that the man wet himself. “Who… who are you?” he stutters.
“I told you once. Sidney Stone, private investigator.”
His eyes blink up at me. “Sidney? Ain’t that a boy’s name?”
I sigh. I couldn’t help it. “Yeah. I get that a lot.”
Chapter One
My apartment is on the east side of the city, close to the Edsel Ford Freeway and about a five-minute drive from the East English Village. My place isn’t much. Just a one-bedroom with a kitchen-slash-dining room and a bathroom that’s got as much space as the closet next to it. It’s mine, though, and it’s rent controlled. My fish likes it. How can I complain if a goldfish named Spot is okay with it?
With the money from my dognapping case safely deposited in my checking account, I was driving back home. Jonas was on his way to jail, and his daughter had Dixon back, so I’m going to call that a win, even at just two hundred dollars plus expenses.
Actually, I told them to never mind the expenses. Did I really need another full tank of gas in my old Ford Mustang? Well, actually yes. I did. My gauge is just about on empty now as it is. But money isn’t everything.
When I saw that little girl get her dog back, and how happy she was, I just didn’t have the heart to charge them the extra. I get like that sometimes. Some people call it having a big heart. Others call it being naïve. I guess it’s all a matter of perspective.
I know that other people have to make their way through the world same as I do. They have bills to pay, same as me. Mouths to feed. Netflix subscriptions to maintain. So maybe they need that little bit of extra more than I do. That girl got her dog back and that’s what really mattered to me.
Just another reason why I’ll never be rich.
The Mustang coughs and the engine sputters like it’s been doing recently. Behind me in traffic I could see a plume of black smoke rolling up from the tailpipe, blowing quickly away. “Come on, Roxy,” I coax her, smoothing my hand across the faded leather of her dash. “Just a few more blocks and then you can take it easy for the rest of the day. Okay? Just a little farther.”
Roxy lets me shift her gears and with a little more gas her engine starts purring again under her red hood. She used to be all red, back when I first got her. A red Mustang hardtop, put together right here in Detroit over fifty years ago. Now the door on my side is blue, and just last week one of the fenders got replaced with a green one. Some of my jobs—in addition to how they don’t pay very much—are what you might call hazardous to my health. My mechanic loves me. Finding parts to a 1968 Mustang is just as hard as it sounds. His expenses get passed on to me, but George cuts me the same kind of breaks that I cut my customers, whenever he can.
See? There are still good men in the world. The kind you take home to mother for Sunday brunch. Hardworking, attentive, quick with a joke. George will make someone a good husband someday. George isn’t my type, though. Or rather, I’m not his type. He’s into men, not hot female private investigators.
It’s just a few more minutes before I’m at my apartment building. There’s a small parking area in the back reserved for the residents. My parking space is still open which means Mrs. Anderson in 2B must be out and about somewhere. She always steals my spot when she’s here. It’s become something of a turf war with us, and I’m not ready to give up. Once, when she parked in my space, her windshield ended up coated in whipped cream. If anyone ever asks me if I was involved in that, I’ll deny it. Just like I deny knowing how the two dozen frogs ended up inside her car that other time.
The universe is just funny like that, I guess.
Roxy’s engine sputters to a stop as I pull the keys from her ignition. For a moment I just sit here, wondering what’s going to be next. I don’t mean what I was going to have for supper or whether I wanted to do my laundry. I meant, what was I going to do next for work? I didn’t have any cases pending. Didn’t have any calls to return or leads to follow up on. This girl was out of work as of right now.
Not that I wouldn’t mind a couple of days off but in my business if you don’t work, you don’t get paid. My landlord is a pretty understanding guy but he’s not going to let me slide another month on my rent. I have my military pension, but our country’s soldiers don’t get paid anything close to what people think they do. If I want to keep living in my apartment and get Roxy repaired and, oh, I don’t know… maybe eat something other than Ramen this week, I’d better find the next big thing, as they say.
Thankfully, I have friends in low places.
Whistling a tune to myself, I lock up the Mustang and take my phone out of my back pocket. I’m up on the third floor—the top floor of the building—and taking the stairs gives me just enough time to pull up my contacts list and tap the button to dial my friend’s number. Just like always, he answers on the second ring.
“This is Caine.”
“Sure,” I say, a smile in my voice. “But are you able?”
He sighs, and I could almost picture him kicking his feet up on the corner of his desk down at the police precinct. “You’ve used that joke before.”
“Yeah but come on, it’s a Bible joke. It never gets old.”
“Says you.”
The frown in his voice makes me want to laugh out loud, but somehow I doubted that would get me very far. Men can have such fragile egos.
Christian Caine is a detective with the Detroit Police Department and he and I go way back. Our first meeting was… memorable. Our relationship since then has been one that’s part business, part friendship. He passes me work sometimes, when it’s something the police can’t pick up or just don’t have time for. We’ve gone for drinks a few times, to celebrate when we’ve closed cases, and he’s been over to my place to hang out on his days off once or twice. It’s nice to have a guy who’s just a friend. Especially since I’m not looking for a relationship, and neither is he.
Today, I’m only interested in him for business.
“So,” I ask him, “what’s going on? What’ve you got for me?”
Another sigh. “You know that’s not how it works.”
“Sure it does. You just look through that stack of open cases I know you have on your desk and you find me one that needs the feminine touch of a smart private detective.”
“Ha. Since when did you start describing yourself as feminine?”
“Hey, I’m as feminine as they come, buster. Come over here if you don’t believe me, and I’ll belt you in the arm to prove it.”
“Oh, well, then I take it back,” he says sarcastically. “You’re a delicate flower.”
Pushing through the stairwell door to my floor, I fish out my apartment keys, and snort. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
“Neither would I,” he says. “Still doesn’t change the fact that I don’t have any cases to bring you in on. We’ve got crime fought to a standstill here in the big old Motor City.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Nope. I’m sitting here playing solitaire.”
“Why don’t I believe that?”
“Because you know I don’t like games.” Papers shuffle on his end, and I once again picture that big stack of open cases he’s not telling me about. “Listen, Sid, I’ve got to go. If something comes up that I can send your way I’ll phone you, okay?”
Guess that’s the best a girl like me could ask for. “Fine. Just don’t lose my number.”
“I know where you live.”
“I know where you work.”
No need to say goodbye with him. We just hang up, and go on with our day…
Remember, I’m seeing three seconds into the future all the time.
That’s how I suddenly know there’s someone here waiting for me.
The hallway up here is a straight run from one end to the other, with rooms on both sides like a hotel except more drab, with brown carpeting a
nd yellow wallpaper and crown molding that’s too ornate for a place like this. Halfway down on the right is my apartment, and above the door I’ve got a sign sticking out on a metal hanger so it can be read either from the stairs on this side or the elevator on the other. “Stone Investigations,” it says in big white letters on a black background. Can’t miss it.
Which is probably how that guy standing there figured out which place is mine.
He’s in khakis and a blue dress shirt tucked into his waist, very professional looking, carrying a long cardboard box that’s maybe six inches square and at least seven feet from end to end. On the one side I can see a white address sticker. Must be a delivery guy.
“That for me?” I ask him.
He blinks a little uncertainly at me. Turning the box, he reads the name off the delivery sticker. “Uh, are you Sidney Stone?”
“Yup. That’s me.”
“Oh.” He fumbles the box from one arm to the other, balancing it on its end. “I was kind of expecting a man. You know, with a name like Sidney.”
If I had a nickel for every time I heard that… but I let it go this time. My mother had very good reasons for naming me Sidney. I’m fine with who I am. “Just hold on a sec. I’ll get the door and we’ll get that inside.”
He shrugs. “Uh, okay.”
Not really working his way up to a big tip, this guy. I wonder what delivery company he’s with, and also… what’s in the package? I’m not expecting anything. Certainly not anything the size of a small flagpole.
My key turns the lock and then we’re inside. I kick my sneakers off, like I always do, more to give my feet a rest than to keep from tracking dirt onto the neutral-colored rugs. I was always that girl who ran barefoot on the beach all summer long. Then I grew up and learned that adulthood means wearing shoes. Sometimes, being a grownup sucks.
“Just put it down over there,” I tell the guy, pointing over to the standup cabinet where I keep the broom and the vacuum and my pump-action shotgun that isn’t technically legal for someone like me to possess. I hardly ever bring it out. Still has that new gun smell.
With a dull thud, he drops the package right in the corner there, leaning it up against the wall. Whatever’s in there must be heavy.
Between the stove and the dining table there’s a half wall that sort of kind of divides the two spaces and creates a shelf of polished wood that I use as a catchall for my mail and my purse and other things I don’t really need all the time, or just want to forget about. In my purse is my wallet, and from the wallet I take out a five-dollar bill. If he lugged that box up the elevator to my door then he deserves it.
“Here you go,” I say, handing him the folded bill.
He looks down at it, and then up at me, and a realization passes over his face. “No, no, you don’t understand.” Laughing nervously, he waves his hands in front of himself. “I’m not the delivery man. He was here, I mean, he was standing out there in the hall and I had to wait for you anyway, so I offered to hold that package there until you got here. Man, you’ve never seen a guy zip off faster than that guy when I said that. I guess he had a lot of other deliveries or something. Um. I may be talking too much.”
Well this was getting confusing. “Let’s try this. Why don’t you take a breath, and we can take a seat and you can tell me why you’re waiting for me out in the hallway. You’re not here to kill me, are you?”
“What? No! Of course not, why would you even ask such a thing?”
I shrug, and then flash him a smile to let him know I wasn’t being serious. “You’d be surprised. A girl can’t be too careful. Come on into the living room. You want a coffee or something? I think I’ve got some soda in the fridge still.”
“Do you have anything diet?”
Obviously, he doesn’t know me. “Diet soda has fake sugars that have been shown to cause cancer. I like to watch my weight like everyone else, but I’d like to avoid getting cancer. No diet, I’m afraid.”
“Oh. Well, that’s all right. Just a water, please?”
His funeral. The water from my tap is pure, unfiltered city water. There’s added chlorine and fluoride and I read somewhere that parts of the city still have wooden pipes as part of their water main. Hundreds of years of water going through wooden pipes. I can only imagine what’s in there. I never touch the stuff myself.
I bring him a glass half full, and hand it to him as we step through into the living room. Really it’s just a continuation of the dining room, just with different wall paneling and a step down. “So,” I say to him. “What brings you to my doorstep if you aren’t a delivery man?”
Taking his drink, he clears his throat. “I want to hire you. As a private investigator, I mean. I need your help.”
Wow. Guess all things do come to those who wait. I wanted a job, here’s one walking in to meet me. Well, possibly a job. I haven’t heard what kind of help he needs from me yet.
He sat perched on the edge of my three-seater couch, glass between his hands, looking about as uneasy as a man can look. “I’m friends with a guy who fixes roofs. Last week he was doing a job for somebody… Manuel, I think my friend said the name was. Yes. Manuel. Anyway, Manuel was talking about how he got in some trouble…”
“And I helped him out.” I remember Manuel Escobaro. He was a client from a couple of months back. Someone had been scamming him out of thousands of dollars and he’d hired me to find out who. Which I did. Got most of his money back for him, too. “So that makes you a friend of a friend.”
“Uh, yeah. I guess so.”
“Well then, hello friend. What’s your name?”
“It’s Barlow. Barlow Michaelson.”
I sit down in the old, comfortable armchair facing him, folding my legs up under me. Besides the coffee table and the TV cabinet, that’s really all the furniture I’ve got in the living room. Looks kind of bare, actually. “Always good to meet a new friend, Barlow Michaelson, but that still doesn’t tell me why you’re here.”
“Oh. Oh, right. Well, see, I’ve got a problem.”
“Doesn’t everyone?” I joke.
“Yes, I guess so. Mine is kind of, um, personal. I’m assuming, if I hire you, I’ll have your complete discretion in what I’m about to tell you?”
“Barlow, you had my discretion the minute you walked through my door.”
That seems to allow him to relax, at least. He nods and takes his first easy breath since introducing himself. “Okay, good. That’s good. You came highly recommended on your Facebook page and… er, right. I’m babbling again. So. Here’s my issue. My girlfriend is… well, she’s missing. I haven’t heard from her in three days.”
Hmm. A missing person case. Those are kind of the bread and butter of private investigations. Right after cheating husbands. We P.I.’s have ways of finding people, time-tested methods that have been learned from years of experience in the trade.
Actually, most of them are simple internet searches that anyone could do. Some of them are skills you pick up along the way. The rest of the tools of our trade, well… they aren’t exactly legal.
Speaking of which.
“Have you contacted the police?” I ask. “Have you told them about this?”
His expression turns sour. I can tell by that look that the answer’s going to be no, and that there’s lots more to this story that he’s about to lay on me.
“Katarina—that’s my girlfriend’s name—is here on a visa. She’s not a US citizen. I’m worried about what would happen to her status if the police start looking for her.”
Okay. That made sense. With the recent changes in Immigration laws anyone not born here has good reason to worry. “There’s more though,” I guess. “Isn’t that right?”
Shifting in his seat, rolling the glass back and forth between his palms, Barlow gives me a weak smile. “Yes. Katarina seems to have cleared out my bank account.”
And there it is. “So you’re worried that even if the police found her, they’d feel compelled to arrest
her for taking your money, and you don’t want to get her into any trouble that might get her kicked out of the country.”
“Yes. I know that makes me sound like a sap, Miss Stone, but I don’t want her arrested. I just want her found. I know something bad has happened to her and if she needed the money to take care of it then that’s fine. I wouldn’t press charges. I don’t care about the money. I only care about her.”
“Even if she robbed you blind? Used you?”
He’s already shaking his head emphatically. “Katarina wouldn’t do that. She loves me, and I love her. No. She’s in trouble of some kind. I’ve tried everything I can think of to get in touch with her and it hasn’t worked. Please, Miss Stone, you have to help me.”
That’s a pretty heartfelt plea he’s making. I’ve heard that sort of thing before, from other potential clients, and you know what I’ve learned? Loving someone doesn’t necessarily keep you from stealing from them, and love is oftentimes in the eye of the beholder. Yeah, sounds harsh, I know. It’s not that I’m jaded, but there hasn’t been a heart-shaped box of chocolates delivered to my door in a while, either.
“Let’s try this,” I suggest to him. “How about you tell me about Katarina?”
Now a true smile crosses over his face that pushes away some of the shadows from around his eyes. “She is without a doubt the prettiest girl I’ve ever known. Katarina is smart, and funny, and she really is getting better with her English.”
“That’s nice to know. Really, it is, but that’s not what I meant.” I can hear the deep love he has for her in his voice, but love isn’t going to solve this case. Facts will. “That’s not the kind of stuff I was asking about, but you’re starting to paint a picture.”
“Oh. Sure. Uh, yeah. I understand.” He finally seemed to remember he was holding that glass of water and takes a long drink. “Sure, uh, what do you want to know?”