Presumed Dead

by Mason Cross

  “This might sound weird, but you look just like the guy I’m looking for.”

  31

  Carter Blake

  “Excuse me?” I said, wondering if I had misheard.

  But no, there was no mistake. She was looking straight at me, smiling.

  “I said you look like just the guy I’m looking for.” She held the tablet up so I could see the screen. “How’s your stock portfolio?”

  I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out.

  “I’m sorry. That’s an awful intro, isn’t it? They make us do that. I think half of the people think I’m a nut, the other half assume I’m hitting on them. I’m Jane.”

  I took the hand she was offering and shook it. “Is that part of the opener too?” I asked. “If so it’s good, very disarming.”

  She smiled but admitted to nothing. “Honestly, this is a really good deal. Have you invested in futures before?”

  “I can’t say that I have. I tend to live in the moment.”

  “Very good. Well, I can get you signed up today, right here. Twenty minutes, no hassle. Risk level is completely up to you, but you know what they say, courage conquers.”

  “Courage conquers,” I repeated. “I think I’ve heard that before. You sell people stock options in the park?”

  “The digital economy. Versatile, agile. No office space.”

  “What’s the company called?”

  “Honorific. Based right here in Atlanta, so you’re shopping local. You’re not a local though, are you?”

  I shook my head. “Just visiting. Here on business.”

  Now we were talking I had a perfect excuse to study her features. I was ninety, maybe ninety-five per cent sure she was the person in David Connor’s sketch, but all that proved was that he had seen her. It didn’t mean she was who he hoped she was. I thought about the yearbook photo and the other pictures of Adeline I had seen at her brother’s house. Result? Inconclusive. The hair and eyes were right. She definitely could be the same person, but fifteen years is a long time.

  “What business are you in?” she asked.

  I made a decision and threw a line out, to see if I got a bite. “I look for missing people.”

  She raised an eyebrow, interested. Not surprised or taken aback, which was a bad sign. If she was Adeline and knew someone might come looking for her, that should have given her a moment’s pause. “You mean you’re with the police?”

  “Freelance.”

  She considered this, seemed to realize there was something more behind this conversation than she had thought. “So if you’re here on business, who are you looking for?”

  I turned my eyes to the screen. There were lines of names and dollar amounts that meant nothing to me.

  “I’ll tell you what,” I said. “I’ll buy one of your … options if you let me ask you a few questions.”

  Her expression gave way to confusion. “Okay, I don’t know how I could help you, but …”

  “The person I’m looking for looks a lot like you.”

  She grinned. “You stole my line.”

  “I’m serious.”

  She withdrew a little, the smile slowly vanishing. “Listen, if this is some kind of …”

  I took out two pictures from my pocket and laid them flat on the bench. The sketch and the yearbook picture. I turned them around so she could see them. She stared at them for a moment and looked up at me, expectantly.

  “This is who I’m looking for.”

  “Who is she?”

  “Is she you?”

  She looked at them again. “She looks a lot like me. It’s kind of freaky, actually. But no, that’s not me.” Her eyes met mine again. “Who is she?”

  I held her gaze for a long moment. She didn’t blink. I couldn’t read her. Her eyes were like slate.

  She laughed and looked away. “This is definitely my weirdest sale. No offense.”

  “Her name is, or was, Adeline Connor. Does that ring a bell?”

  She shook her head. “Never heard of her.”

  “She’d be thirty-two years old now, comes from a town called Lake Bethany.”

  “I’m only twenty-nine, but thank you.” She shrugged. “I’m from California.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “I’ve been here for five years, ever since college.”

  Hair, eyes, bone structure, it all fit. This was David Connor’s sketch come to life, and a dead ringer for an older version of the girl in the yearbook photo. In an ideal world, she would have had some kind of unique birthmark that could have made it certain either way.

  She sighed and her voice changed a little as she tossed the sales demeanor out of the window. “Not that I owe you an explanation or anything, but here.” She dug in her purse and produced her driver’s license. I scanned the details.

  Jane Violet Graham, twenty-nine like she had said. Address here in Atlanta.

  “I was born in Orinda, California. Date of birth 4/22/88. My mom and dad were Brad and Louise Graham. You want me to give them a call? I think dad videotaped the birth, so …”

  “Where did you go to school?”

  She blinked. “Dean Elementary, then Morgan High. Do you want to see my freakin’ prom photos?”

  I had found who I was looking for. This was the woman David Connor had seen, and I understood exactly why he had thought she was his sister. The only problem was, she wasn’t Adeline.

  I looked away. “I’m sorry.”

  She looked down at the pictures again, her tone softening a little. “I mean, yeah I can see the resemblance.” And then it sharpened up again. “Hey,” she said, her brow creasing as she came to a realization. “You didn’t just happen to sit next to me, did you?”

  I shook my head. “I’m afraid you’re not the only one who has to approach a customer carefully.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “I followed you from the burrito place.”

  “You what?” She recoiled, pulling her tablet back toward her as though she was worried I would try to wrestle it away from her. “What gives you the right to do that?”

  “Rights don’t come into it, it’s my job. Just like you sell stock options to people who don’t really need it.”

  “I don’t like people following me.”

  “That’s fine, you won’t have to worry about it after this.”

  “And how did you even find me there? First time I’ve been in in weeks.”

  I gave her the short version, figuring I owed her some explanation. A man was looking for his sister, had seen somebody who was most likely her here in Atlanta, and had tried to find her to no avail, hence bringing in professional help. I left out the details about what had happened to the original professional who had come looking for her. I told her about the man with the tattoos, and how we had worked out she worked for Zoomr.

  She thought about it. “Oh yeah, that guy was a regular. Never tipped. I quit Zoomr a couple weeks ago – the Honorific thing pays better. So where do you think your client’s sister has gone?”

  I considered before answering. There was no reason not to, she could just look up the name on the internet.

  “She’s probably dead,” I said. “Murdered, a long time ago. They never found the body.”

  Her eyes dropped to the sketch again and she touched a finger to the side of the face. “Jesus.”

  My phone buzzed. I took it out and looked at the screen. It was Correra. I put it back in my pocket, I could call him back later. When I looked back at the woman with the dark hair who looked so like Adeline Connor, she had composed herself again.

  “Well?” she asked. Her eyes held mine, unblinking. No trace of artifice. She was asking if I had anything else to ask. I didn’t.

  “I’m sorry to have troubled you with this, really,” I said. />
  She slid the tablet back into her bag and looked up at me. “It’s okay, you were right. You did what you had to.”

  “I appreciate you understanding.”

  “What will you do now?”

  “Go back to my client and give him the bad news,” I said. “Nothing else to do.” As I said the words, I knew that wasn’t entirely true. Apparently, I had answered the question I had come here to ask, but in doing so I had opened up a whole new set of questions, questions that would need a closer look. Like who exactly had killed Wheeler and González?

  She stood up. “I hope your client can find some peace, now he knows she’s really gone.”

  “Me too.”

  32

  Carter Blake

  I took the train back to downtown and walked to where I had parked my car. When I got there, I took my phone out and called Detective Correra to let him know I had found the woman I was looking for … and that she wasn’t the woman I was looking for. He was sympathetic, but unsurprised. He had already spoken to Zoomr and confirmed her story. Jane Graham, no longer in their employ. Correra said he would talk to the detectives on the Wheeler and González cases, and they would probably give me a call later.

  “Who knows? Maybe it really is a coincidence,” he said.

  Halfway back to Lake Bethany on US 19, I stopped at a gas station. After I filled the tank, I bought a machine coffee at the kiosk and leaned against the hood of the Lincoln as I watched the traffic pass by north and south. Since leaving Atlanta, I had ignored two calls, both from David Connor. I had already decided the bad news should be delivered in person.

  The break had been a good idea. I would have driven straight through otherwise, without taking time to unpack what had happened over the previous few hours. David Connor had seen somebody who had a very good resemblance to his dead sister. As a direct or indirect result of that incident, two people were now dead: Walt Wheeler and the man with the tattoos.

  Conclusion? Maybe somebody didn’t like the fact that anyone was looking for Adeline, even though it had turned out to be a wild goose chase. Detective Correra might be able to chalk it up to a coincidence, but I wasn’t so sure.

  And then something else occurred to me. The whole time since I had first heard of David Connor, I had regarded Adeline Connor as the focus. But what if she wasn’t the focus? Maybe the problem was not that someone was looking into Adeline Connor. Maybe it was that someone was looking into the person responsible for her death.

  I flinched as the driver of a big truck leaned on his horn. I looked up and saw him waving at the attendant in the gas station as he passed. The attendant returned the gesture with an exaggerated, sweeping salute.

  Wheeler had been murdered; of that there was no doubt. Killed in a carjacking. Those types of murders are overwhelmingly of one kind, and it’s hardly a unique method of killing. Something like eleven thousand people die in shootings every year. That’s thirty a day. A couple of people had probably been shot somewhere while I was drinking my coffee. The point was, that method of killing hadn’t stuck out one bit: to me, or to anyone else.

  But that was a matter of context. In one context, a carjacking, it was entirely typical. Lone man, stopped at traffic lights at night in a rough part of a city with which he was not familiar. Shot and killed. Tragic, but an everyday occurrence, literally.

  I tried putting it in another context. An investigator looking for someone presumed to be the victim of a serial murderer. Killed in the process of his investigations. Killed in the same way as the victims of the serial murderer. Night-time, relatively quiet location, two shots to the head.

  All of a sudden, I started to think that somebody might have an even greater stake in ensuring the past wasn’t dug up than Sheriff McGregor and the tourist industry of Lake Bethany. Somebody who had been quiet for a long time.

  I got back into the car. The sun was already almost down, and I had fifty miles still to go. I wanted to speak to David Connor tonight.

  33

  Isabella Green

  So much for Sunday. Isabella had driven by Waylon and Sally Mercer’s house again in the late afternoon, and had managed to catch Sally alone this time. Waylon had gone out for the day, she said, without giving any more detail. She said things had been fine since yesterday, and this time Isabella believed her. She said he was always calm for a while after a big blow-up. Isabella wasn’t surprised. Waylon knew he was pushing his luck and that it would give her great pleasure to throw his ass in a cell for the night. And so he would behave himself for a while. It wouldn’t last.

  Waylon Mercer arrived in his truck as Isabella was leaving. In contrast to Friday, he was charm personified. Even went so far as to apologize about the “misunderstanding” the other day. Isabella didn’t say anything to him, just got back into the car. As she was pulling out, she saw Swifty the dog run out to greet him like a damn hero.

  She had left her phone in the car, but there were no messages. Haycox was supposed to have called in by now. He was on twilight shift; seven till midnight. The department didn’t have a night shift, per se. Each deputy was designated on call one night a week, but Isabella could count on the fingers of one hand how often she had been woken up in her ten years. Trouble wasn’t unheard of in Bethany, but it tended to happen on a predictable schedule. Saturday nights, last night being a case in point. Or the start of hunting season. That made her think about the two hunters who had started the trouble at Jimmy’s. She wondered if Blake would be staying over in Atlanta, and where those loose ends he had mentioned would take him.

  Isabella headed along the north road and, before she could change her mind, took the fork that led up to Devil Mountain. She felt her heart rate quicken as she approached the wide turn in the road, the one that skirted the drop down to the ravine. She pulled in at the side and stared ahead at the trees and the invisible drop beyond. Before joining the department, she had avoided coming anywhere near this spot for years, after that night. Even now, she tended to speed up whenever she needed to pass this way, to avert her eyes from the spot where her father had …

  She put it out of her mind. Shut it down and locked it in a box. Caroline the counselor thought she had taught her that trick, but she had been doing it for years before.

  When she became a cop, she had no choice but to get over it and use this road. During the summer, it was a hotspot for teenagers necking and smoking weed, so between March and September it got two visits a night on the twilight shift. There were no teenagers, or anybody else here right now. Isabella took out her phone and called Haycox again. It rang out. It wasn’t like him. Perhaps he had left it at home and was at the station already. She closed her eyes and focused on her breathing. When it had returned to normal, she made a turn and headed back down the road, trying not to think about the locked box at the back of her mind.

  It was seven-fifteen when Isabella unlocked the door of the station and found the office empty and in darkness. No messages on the desk, and the place was freezing, so she knew Haycox hadn’t been in and out. She called his cell again, and then his home phone. No answer.

  There was a procedure for a no-show, just like there was a procedure for those rare night calls. There was a procedure for everything. In the event someone didn’t report for duty on time, and didn’t call in, the sheriff was to be notified immediately. Only that would mean dropping Haycox in it. Isabella sat back in the chair and pondered what to do. Haycox lived in an apartment just off Main Street, not far from Feldman.

  Feldman wasn’t answering his home phone either. She had better luck with his cell.

  “Everything okay?” he answered, in lieu of a hello. The two of them got on fine, but they weren’t in the habit of exchanging social calls, so Isabella wasn’t surprised he assumed something was wrong.

  “Nothing major. Where are you?”

  “Just heading back home, five minutes away.”

 
; “Can you stop by Haycox’s house?”

  “Has that little jerk forgotten he’s on duty?”

  She let out a sigh. She wasn’t sure of the source of Feldman’s animosity for Haycox. He had been riding him since the day he started work. She had wondered if it was some sort of hazing thing. Like he was skeptical if Haycox was made of the right stuff. She kept waiting for Feldman to decide the kid had earned his respect, but it had been almost a year now. Haycox was occasionally clumsy, but he worked hard. He was conscientious about applying the rules equitably in a way that sometimes acted against his interests in a small town like this. Isabella knew Sheriff McGregor had had a word with Feldman about it, and things had calmed down a little. But Feldman clearly hadn’t gotten over it completely.

  “I’m getting a little worried,” she said. “He isn’t answering his phone.”

  “I’m almost there, call you back.”

  Two minutes later, he called back as promised.

  “No sign of him, place is in darkness.”

  “His car there?”

  “Nope.”

  A mystery. Maybe there had been some sort of family emergency. His folks lived in Macon, so perhaps he had had to go there at short notice and forgotten to call.

  “Listen, I hate to ask, but …”

  “But you need somebody to cover Haycox.” He made an effort to sound grumpy, but she knew he was going to volunteer anyway. Feldman usually tried to help her out, and she had an inkling of why that was. She usually made an effort not to take advantage, but …

  “I wouldn’t ask normally, but I’m having dinner with my mother tonight.”

  “It’s okay, Isabella. How’s your mom doing?”

  “The same,” she said. “I really appreciate this, Kurt.”

  He gave a weary sigh. “It’s no problem. Give me twenty minutes to hop in the shower and I’ll let you get away.”