Skin and Blond (Blond Noir Mysteries Book 1)

by V. J. Chambers

  I looked at Brigit. “You sent him a bill?”

  “Was I not supposed to?” she said.

  I started laughing.

  Andrew sputtered. “This isn’t funny.”

  I went around him. “It’s fine, Mr. Webb. What do you think I’m going to do? Turn you over to a collections agency? I know a losing battle when I see one. You’re not going to pay, and that’s that. See you later.”

  “You aren’t going to get away with this. You’ve ruined my life, and you’ve made all kinds of unfounded accusations, saying I’m a murderer and that I’m… that I…”

  “I don’t think you’re the murderer anymore.” I turned around to face him, now from the center of the room. Without my back to the door, I didn’t feel like I was being pushed out of my own office. “At least, I’ve got some reasonable doubts about it. What was your relationship with Sarah Aaron?”

  “Who?” he said. “I don’t know that person. Did she say I know her or something? Is she accusing me of some other disgusting thing?”

  I believed him. I’d specifically worded the question in such a way that if he did know Sarah, he’d feel as if I already knew that. But he hadn’t even hesitated, and he hadn’t had trouble formulating a response. He didn’t know Sarah Aaron. I narrowed my eyes.

  “Who’s this Sarah person?” demanded Andrew.

  “She disappeared too. And her bedsheets were taken,” I said. “Not only that, she and Madison go to the same clinic for feminine medical care.”

  His eyes widened. “So, Madison isn’t the only one? There are other girls who’ve been killed too?”

  “There’s no evidence that either of them are dead. There isn’t even any definitive evidence that they’re connected. But it is suspicious.”

  “Are you looking into it?” he said.

  I shrugged. “Well, Mr. Webb, I can’t see why I’d do that. After all, I was working this case for you, and you’ve fired me and don’t want to pay me. So…” I shrugged.

  He pulled out his checkbook. “I want to hire you back. I want you to get to the bottom of this. I want you to find the person who did this to my sister. I cared about her more than anything on earth, you know that?”

  I wrinkled up my nose. “Yes, we know how you cared about your sister.”

  He stiffened. “If you want my business—”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t say a word.”

  “I’ll pay you the balance on this bill,” he said. “But not a cent more until you find Madison’s killer. You owe me after everything you’ve put me through.”

  I just nodded, doing my best not to say anything else. I didn’t want to screw this up.

  After he left, I held the check in my hands, grinning from ear to ear. I was feeling pretty damned proud of myself. I’d somehow managed to get officially back on this case and get paid for all the work I’d done.

  I turned to Brigit. “I can’t believe you sent him a bill. You have balls, girl.”

  “Well, I didn’t think it was fair,” she said. “You did all that work. You should get paid. He should have to pay you.”

  I slapped the check down on her desk. “Get this deposited, then. We’re back on the case. Officially.”

  * * *

  Jackson Cohen had agreed to meet me somewhere public, so we sat together outside a coffee house in Jinn Springs. I was having my second coffee of the day. He was drinking some kind of Italian soda.

  “So, what’s this about? You said something about Sarah?”

  “I guess you know that Sarah’s missing?” I asked.

  “Yeah, her parents said that they were going to report that to the police. You the police?” He was a tall guy, sort of stringy. He had a straggly beard and he was wearing a Mickey Mouse t-shirt with corduroys. He didn’t look like he’d showered lately. Probably didn’t smell like it either, but I wasn’t going to get close enough to find out.

  “I’m a private investigator,” I said. “I’m actually looking into another disappearance down the road in Renmawr. It seems to have some similarities to Sarah’s.”

  “Huh.” He didn’t seem very interested.

  “What’s your relationship to Sarah?”

  “I don’t have one.”

  “You’re her emergency medical contact at the clinic she goes to.” Then I winced. I shouldn’t have let him know that I knew that. It opened me up to all kinds of bad questions. Hopefully, he’d never tell the authorities that I’d said that.

  “Well, she used to be my girlfriend,” he said. “But we broke up like six months ago. I never talk to her anymore.”

  I supposed that it made sense that Sarah wouldn’t have thought to update her emergency contact after the breakup. Still, if this was a casual relationship, why had she listed him in the first place? “How long did you and Sarah date?”

  “I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Maybe a year? I’m not angry with her or anything, so if you’re thinking that I’ve got something to do with her disappearance, well, you’re wrong. I don’t. Her parents were all over me the other day. They found some stuff in her house about the abortion, and they flipped their lid.”

  I sat up straighter. “Abortion?” But there hadn’t been anything in Sarah’s records about that, unless I’d missed it.

  He shrugged again. “She and I agreed not to talk about it. But I guess all bets are off now that she’s gone. Besides, her parents know, and I think that’s who she wanted to hide it from. She got an abortion about six months ago. It’s the reason we broke up. I didn’t want her to do it, and she did it anyway.” He sucked some of his soda up through his straw.

  Six months ago! I hadn’t looked that closely at her older records. Damn it. “I thought you said that you weren’t angry with her.”

  “Not anymore,” he said. “I was at the time. But now I met someone else, and things are going well, and I’m kind of glad not to be tied down. I realize that Sarah and I weren’t right for each other, and if we’d had a baby, then we’d be connected forever, you know? In some ways, maybe it was all for the best.”

  So, both Madison and Sarah had had abortions. Well, Madison’d had one scheduled. So, maybe there was a connection here. Something worth pursuing.

  I sized Jackson up. Did I think he was a murderer? Maybe he had a motive, maybe he was paying Sarah back for getting rid of their unborn child. I couldn’t be sure. But I didn’t know how to connect him to Madison.

  “Did you by any chance go to Keene College?” I asked.

  “Yeah, me and Sarah both. That’s how we met. What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “Did you know someone named Madison Webb?”

  He shrugged again. “I don’t think so.”

  I showed him Madison’s picture.

  He shook his head slowly. “I might have seen her around campus or something. I can’t be sure. But I don’t think I ever spoke to her. Who is she?”

  “She’s the other girl that went missing.”

  “Oh,” he said in a different voice, reaching for the photo again. “So, like, you’re trying to figure out what this girl and Sarah had in common?”

  Well, he was bright, wasn’t he? I nodded.

  “Man, I wish I knew her. Did she go to Keene?”

  “Yes,” I said. “She and Sarah also went to the Renmawr Women’s Clinic.”

  He kept shaking his head. “No, I don’t know her. I have no idea.” He handed the picture back.

  “Did Sarah spend much time in Keene?”

  “Now that we graduated? Pretty much never.”

  “What about Renmawr?”

  “For shopping sometimes. But I mean… she could have totally changed her life around in the past six months. I haven’t been talking to her.”

  “Right,” I said. I sighed. “This might sound strange, but did Sarah do drugs?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Uh… what do you mean?”

  “Did she have a drug habit? Did she possibly do some shopping for that kind of product in Renmawr?” />
  “I don’t think so,” he said. “I guess when we were in school, sometimes we’d spark up a joint at parties, but I never saw do anything except weed, and she never bought it.”

  My shoulders slumped. There went my O’Shaunessy connection.

  * * *

  “We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” said Cori, who was sitting in the back room of Nick’s again. “I’m starting to get the idea that you’re stalking me.”

  I gestured to the other seat at her table. “Can I sit down?”

  “What if I say no?”

  I sat down.

  She rolled her eyes.

  I noticed that she was wearing a lot of makeup and that one of her eyes was puffy. “What happened to your face?”

  She chuckled. “Oh, well, I guess you know all about that, right?” She eyed me. “Actually, are you healing a shiner yourself?”

  I decided to come clean a little bit. Maybe it would create some common ground between us. “My contacts within the O’Shaunessys decided they didn’t much like me.”

  “Those Irish boys do like to communicate with their fists, don’t they?” Cori had a mug of tea on the table. She picked up the tea bag and dunked it up and down. “Chase and Pumbaa found me, just like you said. I guess I should say thanks for the heads-up, but, as you can see, it didn’t actually help me out very much.”

  “Sorry,” I said.

  She squeezed out her tea bag. “There something I can do for you?”

  I’d managed to get a picture of Sarah Aaron from Facebook. I handed her the printout. “You know this girl?”

  Cori furrowed her brow. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her before.”

  Damn it. Why was it so hard to find any kind of connection between these two people? Was it because I was barking up the wrong tree? It was true that I had a hard-on for the O’Shaunessys. Maybe I was looking for something that wasn’t there. Again.

  “Are you sure? You never saw her with Madison?”

  “No.”

  “Maybe when Madison went to buy coke from the O’Shaunessys?”

  “Oh, I was never along on those little trips,” she said. “Sorry. I don’t know who that person is.”

  I took the picture back, sighing.

  “Look,” said Cori. “Everyone liked Madison. I don’t think she had a single enemy. And she wasn’t the kind of person who went into debt for her drug habit or who pissed off her dealers. She was a smart girl. What makes you think someone killed her anyway?”

  I was sort of stunned for a minute. “Did I say that I thought she was killed?”

  Cori shrugged. “I guess it’s none of my business.”

  “Do you think she’s alive?”

  “If she is dead, she didn’t bring it on herself. That’s all I’m saying.”

  * * *

  “Ugh,” I said burying my face in my hands. I was standing at the bar, waiting for the bartender to bring me my first Miller High Life. It was nearly nine o’clock, and I’d spent the whole day trying to hunt down some kind of connection between Madison and Sarah, with no real results.

  After leaving Cori, I’d gone back to the office. There, Brigit and I had worked as hard as we could on the abortion angle. Unfortunately, the records for Sarah’s abortion were spotty at best. The paperwork hadn’t been completely filled out—one of the reasons that we hadn’t seen it right off. Still, it didn’t seem that either of the girls had seen the same doctors or even the same nurses. They hadn’t been there at the same time. Their appointments were generally months apart. The closeness of their appointments this time was unprecedented. And neither of them had actually made it to the clinic before disappearing, so we could rule out the idea that they’d been spotted by someone who was scoping the place out or who was present there all the time. (Brigit had posited a security guard or a janitor, but neither of those things made any sense.)

  We did consider the idea that it could be someone who had access to the appointment records, but we couldn’t figure out why the person might want to abduct the girls. The abortion angle was the best idea that we had—our right-wing nutso theory. But that was just a theory, and it didn’t have any proof behind it.

  I figured that I could go back out to the clinic the following day and interview the protesters, but I didn’t know how much I could really find out from an interview. If one of them were our guy, he certainly wouldn’t offer up the information.

  I was getting desperate enough that I might try it though. I was getting really desperate.

  Crane sidled up next to me. “Rough day?”

  I lifted my gaze. “The worst.”

  “Buy you a drink?”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  The bartender noticed me and headed for the cooler to get my Miller High Life. I smiled. At least something was still right with the world. Here in The Remington, all I had to do was walk in, and someone got me my favorite kind of beer without my even asking. Nice.

  “What’s going on?” said Crane, taking out his e-cigarette.

  “Oh, it’s this case,” I said.

  “The Madison Webb thing?”

  “Did I tell you that another girl disappeared?”

  “No, you just said you had another lead. So, you think this girl is connected?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The bartender set my High Life in front of me. I took a long, long drink. Damn, that was good.

  “Put it on my tab,” said Crane.

  The bartender nodded.

  I set down my beer. “It seemed like they might be connected. Both of them have disappeared without a trace, and both didn’t take anything with them except their bedsheets.”

  “Yeah, that’s a weird coincidence.”

  “Not only that, they both had appointments at a certain clinic. One had an abortion six months ago. One had an abortion scheduled.”

  “Whoa. That’s a little weird.” Crane blew out some coffee-smelling vapor. “Isn’t that progress, then?”

  I waved away the haze of his e-cigarette vapor. “No, I’ve hit a brick wall. I can’t find any other common denominator between them. I don’t know where else to look. I’m wondering if I just want there to be a connection. I spent hours today trying to tie this to the O’Shaunessys.”

  “Ivy—”

  “I know,” I said. “I’m obsessed, and it’s not healthy. I’m overly interested in that stupid family, and they’ve got nothing to do with this case.”

  “Two girls taken from their beds,” he mused. “It’s got all the makings of a great mystery story, doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah, when you turn this into a bestselling book, I’m sure you’ll make up a better connection between the two victims.” I drank some beer. “Brigit and I have this theory about a right-wing crazy man who stalks the abortion clinic.”

  He made a face at me. “A what?”

  An idea had just occurred to me. “You know what? Instead of going around and interviewing people who are picketing the clinic, I think I’ll look into the other girls who had abortions at the clinic. If any of them are also missing, then I’ll know there’s a connection.”

  “A right-wing crazy man,” he repeated. “Seriously?”

  “On the other hand,” I said, “I don’t know how I’ll get a list of all the girls who’ve had abortions at that clinic, damn it. That’s going to be way harder than just interviewing the protesters.”

  “Maybe you’re making this more complicated than you need to make it.” Crane puffed on his e-cigarette.

  I laughed. “You think?”

  He grinned. “Uh, do they look alike?”

  “Who, the protesters?”

  “The two missing women.”

  I shrugged. “They both have brown hair.”

  “Do they style it the same way?”

  “Does that matter?”

  “Well, I was thinking of like, uh, what’s-his-name?”

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “Ted Bundy,” he said. “Like, maybe the on
ly thing they have in common is that they fit a certain type.”

  “You mean, like a serial killer,” I said.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Like a serial killer who kills girls with brown hair.”

  I waved for the bartender. “Hey, Alan, do I owe you anything?”

  The bartender shook his head. “Nah, Crane got your drink.”

  I upended the High Life into my mouth, chugging it down. I wasn’t about to let it go to waste.

  “Are you leaving?” said Crane.

  “You just reminded me of something.” I slammed the empty bottle down and scurried out of the bar.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “You said something weird to me,” I said into the phone.

  “Who the hell is this?” said Ralph’s voice on the other end of the line.

  “It’s Ivy Stern,” I said. “You probably don’t remember me. A while back, we had sex, and you gave me your phone number, because you were afraid that I’d get attacked by a serial killer on my walk home.”

  “Oh yeah,” said Ralph. “The cute blond detective. How you doing?”

  “I’m trying to figure out a case, and I’m trying to remember what you said about serial killers. Something about how we only know what the ones we catch are like?”

  “You know, I’m not that far away right now,” he said. “I’m on the road, but I should be pulling over for the night not too far from you. I’ll be north of you, maybe an hour north, in Steel County. You think you might want to—”

  “Ralph,” I said. “This isn’t a call to try to hook up with you again.”

  “It isn’t?” He sounded pretty disappointed.

  “No, it’s about serial killers. I told you. I have this case.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, you said that you didn’t hunt serial killers.”

  “Well, what if I stumbled onto one?”

  “Why would you call me about that?”

  “I just want to remember what you said. I feel like it might be important.”

  “I don’t think I said anything,” he said. “I think you said it.”

  “What did I say?”

  “I don’t know. Honestly, the whole night’s a little bit fuzzy.”

  “Well, try and think.”

  “Why are you pushing this, sweetheart? What’s your game here?”