Blood and Roses

by Douglas Pratt

  I stared at him. “I’m not likely to leave it alone.”

  “Where are you going to start?”

  “Not sure. I’d like to find out why he was here.”

  “I had a feeling you might. If, while sticking your nose in places it might get shot off, you find you have the time and inclination, I have a little job I could use your help on. It’ll be an easy five grand.”

  “What is it?” I asked. Leo does all sorts of work, some that venture into gray areas.

  “Picking up a skip for a buddy. Guy jumped bail in Missouri. Think he’s here.”

  “Easy job, huh?”

  “Once I find him,” Leo explained in his stoic matter-of-fact tone.

  I shrugged. “Is that $5000 apiece?”

  He smiled and said, “Of course.”

  The money didn’t really matter to me. My finances were fairly secure thanks to a great financial adviser and a healthy inheritance my parents left me. I am, however, always fighting boredom. Leo had a tendency to bring along things that were never boring.

  “When did you start bounty hunting?”

  “This is more of a favor, but I've done a little bit of skip tracing.”

  “I'm game then. Who is this guy?”

  “Phillip Witt. He embezzled 15 million dollars. He’s some sort of computer genius. He set up these online stores, and, I’m not sure how exactly, but he rigged the checkout so that the sales tax went to an offshore account.”

  “That’s a lot of pennies.”

  “My friend bonded him out, but he’s vanished. She thinks he has some family down here.”

  “When you find him, then I’m all yours.”

  Leo slapped me on the back. “Great, now how about we go get some bacon somewhere.”

  4

  “She was always a daddy’s girl,” Alison Darby said to me over the phone.

  I was standing on the balcony overlooking Union Avenue. Sundays meant that the traffic was lighter. However, the foot traffic on the sidewalk always increased as people came and went to Sunday brunch at one of the handful of restaurants and cafes. Pay-by-the-hour scooters zoomed along the sidewalks as everyone tried to enjoy the last of their weekend before Monday arrived.

  Alison continued, “Almost from the moment I stopped nursing her, she was Nathan’s. I was a little jealous, but I know that it seemed so selfish. Nathan was an amazing father. How many kids grow up with no fathers? Or shitty fathers? He was great. Coached her hockey team every year. He took up running so that he could help her train for track.

  “Even when we got divorced, he never once bad-mouthed me. He never tried to use her affection against me. He tried his best to make the transition easy for her and me. Which was infuriating as hell. We just didn’t work as a couple, but, at least, as parents, we were a team.”

  I gave an acknowledging “Uh-huh” and let her go on talking.

  “The divorce was all me,” she explained. “I met someone, and I thought I was in love. Nathan never changed. He was hurt, sure, but he never said a bad thing to me. Just signed the papers. The only thing he demanded was shared custody.”

  The sky above the building across from me was bright blue with not one single wisp of a cloud. The summer sun was already drawing beads of sweat from my forehead. The day would be perfect for sitting here working on a bourbon and waiting on a breeze. Instead, I was talking to an emotional and grief-stricken mother.

  “I think if Naomi hadn’t,” she swallowed back some tears as her voice cracked, “disappeared, I’d be back with Nathan. Up until then, leaving him had been the biggest mistake of my life.”

  Her words were laced in layers of regret. Such a powerful and destructive emotion, regret. It tends to treat one’s situation as a consequence of one’s own choosing. Regret’s power is that it tends to give us a sense that whatever tragedy befalls us is somehow our fault. Alison, no doubt, regretted letting Naomi go to the mall that day. As if somehow, she should have known better.

  That’s the destructive thing about regret. In many things, regret lies to us. Places blame for something random and uncontrollable on the individual personally. It poses the unanswerable question of “What if?” in any situation. What if Naomi stayed home that day? Today, she and Nathan would be home with Alison enjoying the rest of their Sunday afternoon. There is an infinite number of “what if” scenarios, and regret will continue to be fed off those doubts.

  There are never any answers. Not for the things beyond our control. Sure, Alison can regret divorcing Nathan. That was a decision she consciously made. To regret letting Naomi go see her friends, that is something that was beyond her control. An unforeseen tragedy that Alison was going to blame herself forever.

  I held my tongue, though. No grieving soul wants to hear how there was nothing they can do. I’ve heard the platitudes. The thoughts and prayers sent my way were kind, but ultimately, futile. The grief is hers to bear. Unfortunately, no one can help her with it.

  “What happened with Naomi?” I asked carefully.

  “She was just gone. Like instantly. I went to pick her up. She never came out. I called her. I searched the mall. At first, I figured she was late. Talking to friends or something. When I became worried, I told myself I was overreacting. After an hour, I was panicking. By then, Nathan got there. It was in an instant that I just realized she was actually gone. I went from worried and scared to…I don’t know, I was despondent. I just suddenly knew she wasn’t coming back.

  Alison continued, “I know the exact second it happened. When I talked to her friend Carolyn, I heard the worry in her voice. She wasn’t trying to keep a secret or protect her friend. She didn’t know where Naomi was either. That second on the phone. That was it for me.

  “I thought she was dead. Someone grabbed her and killed her. I was just waiting for her to be found.”

  Leaning over the balcony, I wanted to be around people as I listened to her story. The pain she felt made my heart mourn.

  “Not Nathan though,” she said. “He never lost hope.”

  “What did he do?” I asked.

  “He scoured the streets. He started volunteering at nearly every street mission in hopes that he could find someone who had seen her. He took a leave from his job. That leave ended two months ago. He wouldn’t give up hope.”

  “Did the police have any clues?” I asked as I wiped the drops of sweat off my head.

  “Security cameras caught an older black Chrysler sedan driving around the mall lot most of the day. The tags were stolen, so it was untraceable. The police think she was lured someplace where there weren’t cameras and grabbed.

  “Nathan went to every used car lot in the city looking for that car. He stopped at the police impound lot every week to see if one matching it had been found. He was determined to find it. We reached a point where I was becoming angry with him. He just wouldn’t let her go. I knew she was dead. I just wanted to grieve.”

  She whimpered as she attempted to hold back the tears. “I failed her,” she cried.

  Silently, I let her cry. Finally, she uttered, “I’m so sorry. This must be so awkward.”

  “No, let it out. This is a lot for one person to shoulder,” I said. “What changed then? Why did he come to Memphis?”

  Alison cleared her throat. “She called. Thursday night. It was late, almost eleven. My phone rang with a number I didn’t recognize. We have had ads posted all over the internet, so crank calls weren’t unusual. I still answered them, just in case.”

  “It was Naomi? What did she say?”

  “Nothing really. She said, ‘Mom.’ I burst into tears. Then it sounded like someone grabbed the phone from her and it disconnected. I tried to call back, but it was just a message saying that the voice mail hadn’t been set up yet. I called Nathan, and he came right over. We kept trying to call back, but there was no answer.”

  “And you guys called the police?”

  “Yes,” she said. “The phone number went to a pre-paid phone. They were tracing whe
re it was sold. But the area code was 901, and Nathan immediately recognized it as a Memphis area code.”

  I sighed. “And he came here to look for her.”

  She whispered, “Yeah. It was like he realized why he hadn’t found her yet.”

  “Because he was looking in the wrong place,” I finished for her. “The police say he died of an overdose. Was he using any drugs at all?”

  “No, he even quit drinking after Naomi was taken. He was driven with finding her. He would never.”

  “You said that Nathan ‘scoured the streets.’ He thought she was being prostituted?”

  She replied, “He hoped he would find her if she was. If she was being trafficked, then maybe he’d see her on a street corner.”

  “I'm so sorry to have to bring you more bad news,” I said. “The police will likely be informing you soon, but I thought a friend should be the one.”

  “You said he called you last night?”

  I sighed. “Yes, I missed his call, and I didn’t recognize his number. I should have called back.”

  “You couldn't know. He said he knew someone in Memphis that worked with the newspaper. He probably wanted to get you to print something.”

  “He and I hadn't talked in a long time. I don't work for the Memphis Post anymore. I would have still helped him if I could.”

  “He wouldn’t use drugs,” she repeated. “Do you think someone did this to him?”

  I was hesitant to really answer her question. Someone you love being murdered is bad enough, but if he was killed then it could be because he was closing in on Naomi. How much hope was I allowed to offer?

  Instead of a real answer, I simply said, “I’m not sure.”

  We had run out of conversation. Alison had spilled her story in front of me. We had nothing else to share.

  “Thank you for calling Max. I'm sure Nathan appreciates that.”

  “If I hear anything else from the police, I will keep you informed.”

  She thanked me again before hanging up. I stared at the clear sky. The sun was beaming down from overhead. The last day of July, and it was going to get much hotter.

  5

  “You didn't have to come,” I told Leo again over the band’s music. “You are supposed to be tracking down this million-dollar skip.”

  “Maxwell, my boy, I can multitask,” he said with an overdose of faux suave. His head swiveled slowly so that his eyes could follow a young ginger in a crop top walk toward the bar. “You said this guy works here? Sweet.”

  “Yeah, kinda. Randy is more like the promoter. He runs a company that hires the bands and singers for different events.”

  “Like a temp agency for musicians?” Leo asked, now focusing on a group of twenty-somethings dancing together. Leo swayed a bit with the music as he talked.

  “I guess that's a good analogy,” I said. “But he actually books them in advance.”

  I had brought Leo to a fairly new music venue in midtown called the Freight Yard. The concept was to create multiple stages in one area, and the owners’ concept was to use old shipping containers to build bars, stages, and even kitchens. The result was an outdoor amphitheater for live music along with several indoor areas. All placed conveniently on a two-acre tract of land that had previously been useless.

  Tonight was the second of a two-night music festival that the Freight Yard was hosting. Several national acts, as well as some of the more popular local bands, had been playing on the three stages since noon. The beautiful weather had cooperated with the minds behind this event, and every area of the Freight Yard was packed. The bars were surrounded, and the bartenders poured frantically.

  Even though one or two of the bands were distinctly blues-influenced, none of them interested me as much as speaking to Randy. Randy wouldn't miss this event, especially given that his company's name was at the bottom of every one of the promotional posters.

  Randy Moore was quite successful in the Memphis music field, a lucrative business given the musical history of the city. Every tourist wanted to hear a bluesman or dance with an Elvis impersonator. He had more stories of musicians that he had gotten drunk with, gotten stoned with, or gotten naked with than anyone I had ever met. In the late 70’s, he started working as a stagehand at the Coliseum, a now vacant and dilapidated stadium on the old fairgrounds. He recounted to me, over several shots of bourbon, a tale of a threesome with a very popular rock duo of sisters in the late seventies. He swore that was the only time he was in love, and it was with both sisters. Knowing Randy’s bullshit level is hard though. He has enough truth sprinkled over his stories that one can never tell.

  “Why are we looking for this guy?” Leo asked.

  “He likes women, but he hates dating.”

  Leo looked at me quizzically. “What do you mean?”

  “He enjoys the company of working girls.”

  “Who doesn't?” Leo said with a shrug.

  “I mean, it’s not my place to judge, but I really prefer the chase.”

  He glanced at the overcrowded bar where a tall bartender in her late 20’s was popping tops of beers. “I think,” he added, “I’ll be having a drink over there while you find your friend.”

  Leo glided toward the bar. The former Marine moved in such an unearthly manner. Almost like a shadow shifting with the light. It was the kind of thing one has to know to see. Years of training and combat allowed him to vanish if he so desired. Whether he was in the forest or in the middle of a mall, he could render himself invisible. At least to most of us. He described it once, saying that most people don’t see everything because their brain readily ignores something it can’t quickly comprehend. Basically, humans aren’t observant enough.

  That shadowy existence allowed Leo to move through the throng of people yelling drink requests at the tall bartender. He seemed to appear at the rail, proffered a $20 bill and a half-smile. She took his drink order, proving that the man could control that odd superpower he possessed.

  Maneuvering around a small crowd that had huddled together to chatter while ignoring the band on stage. A frantic guitarist was ripping out blues riffs on a black and red Gibson guitar. The sound was a cross between Stevie Ray Vaughn and the Allman Brothers, but when the lead guitar stood up straight and gripped the microphone with both hands to sing, a deep rumbling voice carried a slight tremor like Johnny Cash. I listened as the rest of the group began to blend. The drummer’s hands were flying while a tuba belted out the same mellow tone as the deep-throated singer.

  The song was apparently an original, but the crowd seemed to enjoy it. This was the kind of music I could listen to while I sit on the balcony, sipping a bourbon on the rocks.

  A tall, broad man wearing a Tommy Bahama Hawaiian shirt and Tevas swayed to the music. I recognized Randy Moore acting in his typical Randy-style, keeping rhythm with his foot and bobbing his head. The curly gray was longer than the last time I’d seen him. Stopping at a nearby beer stand selling aluminum cans of beer, I grabbed a can of Ananda and PBR. A lubricated gear always works better.

  Walking up behind Randy, I dropped my hand firmly on his shoulder. His head swiveled my direction. A bewildered expression was on his face. Then, it was replaced by recognition, and a smile formed on his lips. The music made hearing anything he said impossible, but I could read his lips as he exclaimed,”Max!” Lifting the two beers, I gave a gesture for him to choose. He grinned wider and grasped the PBR. His mouth formed the words, “Thank you.”

  Pabst Blue Ribbon, I smiled to myself. I guessed correctly. Popping the top, he hoisted his beer to mine.

  Right now, a conversation was futile. Instead of talking, I stood next to Randy and drank the Ananda. His attention returned to the stage, but he offered me an appreciative nod every few minutes as if to ask me how I liked the music or thank you for the beer or, maybe, just nice to see you again. The non-verbal transaction probably included all of those. Presumably some other things I didn’t know.

  The next band was scheduled to start in
half an hour. This one should be ending in time for the next to do some set up. Until then, I let my head bob with the beat as I sipped on my beer. The lead guitarist worked the slide guitar.

  Music was something that I was immersed in from birth. I couldn’t play a single instrument unless you count the slow, unrhythmic version of “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” that I could punch out on a piano. Eight years of piano lessons as a kid, and I come away remembering that song.

  Despite that, my parents both had a love of music. My father would play 45’s of the great blues guitarists while my mother taught me every song the Beatles sang. She would sing “Blackbird” to me when she nursed me. Now my tastes lean the same way. Anything with a soulful blues sound or an upbeat jazz sound lifted me up. This guitar on stage was moaning the way a guitar should.