“That works for me. They’re not going to come in person to get this letter. Do you think one of us should follow the courier they’ll probably send?” Brad asked.
“I thought of that. Sean knows his way around Phoenix. Why don’t we have Erin and him follow whoever picks it up?”
Brad frowned. “Sean and I can do it.”
“It’s Erin who has the PI license, besides I’ve got a little project for you.”
Brad nodded. He knew he would not win arguing the point. He just felt that same jealous twinge he had felt around Erin since he was ten. He shook his head and let it go. “I’ll keep an eye on Clara while they’re gone.”
* * *
By 10:30am Erin was sitting in the lobby with a full view of the front desk, reading a magazine she had picked up in the gift shop. Sean was in an office behind the desk. He was to peek out if he heard Erin’s voice at the desk. It meant that the courier was there. He was to come out when she asked if her brother left a note for her.
An hour passed and she thought that maybe no one was coming this morning. It was already 11:30am. At 11:40 a kid in jeans, tee-shirt and a Diamondback ball cap came to the desk and told the receptionist that he was Mr. Right and he was to pick up an important letter.
Erin walked to the desk and said interrupting the clerk’s exchange with the courier, “Excuse me young lady, did my brother leave a message for me?”
Sean looked through a crack in the door. He was ready to bolt out when the courier turned to leave. Erin walked to the end of the reception desk where Sean exited. “Wait until he gets out the door. Then stay behind me until I see if Conti is waiting out front in a car.” He nodded.
Erin went outside and acted like she was waiting for a cab. The courier got on a motorcycle, kicked it to start and slowly made his way around all the cars and shuttle vans. With Sean right behind her, they ran to their rental car parked at the front of the circle drive. Within minutes they were following the cycle.
“Wow, that was intense.”
“Keep an eye on him for me. There’s a lot of traffic here. I need to get a little closer or we might lose him with all these lights.”
“Gotchya.”
The courier turned onto a main four lane throughway. After a couple of miles he again turned, this time into the parking lot of a run down looking motel called The View, which tickled Erin’s funny bone. The only view was of adult toy shops and bars. The sign out front said Rent by the Week. The courier knocked on door number 18. Erin pulled into the lot of the topless bar next door and parked so that she had eyes on the room. A man opened the door and exchanged the note for money. The kid took off on his Honda motorcycle.
“Is that him?” she asked.
“That’s Harry. Daisy’s behind him,” Sean answered looking through the binoculars.
“Let’s wait and see what he does when he reads the note,” Erin said taking the purse size binoculars that she carried as part of her trade. She wanted a closer look at the guy and Miss Daisy.
They sat for a while after Conti backed into the room and shut the door. Twenty minutes had elapsed when Daisy came out and got in an old Dodge Dart. Decision time. Does she follow Daisy or wait to see if Harry leaves? She decided to wait. Another twenty minutes had gone by when a van pulled in front of the room. Two men got out and knocked on room 18 and were quickly let in.
“This looks like he’s hired a hit squad,” Erin said as though thinking out loud. “What do you have in mind Harry? Let’s get back to the resort and make sure your mom and the girls are safe. We know where Harry and Daisy are if we need them.”
“Yeah, your aunts want me to rehearse with them this afternoon.”
Chapter Twelve
Erin filled Lou and Brad in on what they had discovered from their surveillance run. “He’s planning something,” she commented.
“Oh yeah, but that’s what we were counting on. Never thought about his being able to hire thugs that quickly. It’s like he has them on a retainer. Wonder what else dirty he has going?” Lou said wondering if he shouldn’t call in the police soon.
“I might be able to help with that,” Brad offered. “Let’s see whose watch list he’s on and why.”
“Just don’t tell me how you get this. I’d like to keep my deniability status.”
“Lou, why don’t you go get us all a sandwich and a beer. All this cloak and dagger has made me hungry,” Erin said smiling. “Is security with the girls?”
“Yep, I’ll drop by and fill them in on the thugs.”
“I’m into the Phoenix police records of ongoing investigations. I’m guessing fraud and vice is a good place to start.” Brad clicked some more and smiled as a new screen came into view. “You are a busy little boy, Harry.”
Erin leaned over his shoulder and read. Suspicion of pimping. Suspicion of human trafficking. Suspicion of selling drugs. Suspicion of insurance fraud. The list read like an outline for a course at the police academy. “Print all this out. I want to show it to Lou. Can you see if the FBI has anything on him?”
Brad clicked some more as the printer kicked into action. “Oh yeah, nasty boy Harry. They got him for possible rape of a young girl in New Mexico and crossing the state lines with a minor. Charges were dropped when parents swore they had given him written permission to take their fourteen year old to Nevada.”
“Sounds like he paid them off or somebody did. Was she an illegal?”
“How did you guess?”
“The suspicion of human trafficking in Phoenix. Fourteen is the ideal age for that.”
“Here’s also an arrest for kidnapping. Charges dropped when he helped the FBI find the kidnapped girl and the kidnappers. This guy needs to be stopped before someone dies, if they haven’t already. Lots of places to dump bodies in the desert.”
Lou came running into the suite. “They got the girls.”
“What?” Erin and Brad shouted.
“I found the one security guard out cold with a knife wound in his side. Another was passed out with a lump on his head. Dottie, Birdie and Vi are all gone.”
“Where’s Sean and his mom?” Erin asked.
“I don’t know, I came right here.”
“Let’s go.” They ran down the stairs to Clara’s room. The security guards were lying outside the door, alive but unconscious. Erin knocked on Sean’s door. She heard him yell, “Coming.”
“I’m on my way down now,” he said as he opened the door, thinking it was his mother. They were going to the lounge for rehearsal together. She and he had come back to the room after a light lunch. “Erin.” Seeing the grave expression on her face, he asked loudly, “What’s wrong?”
“We think my aunts and your mom were kidnapped by Harry.”
“We just did see the thugs he was hiring. That was quick. What about the security guards?”
She pulled him out into the hall and showed him the guards lying on the floor by Clara’s door. “Can you check your mom’s room?”
He opened the adjoining door. “Don’t go in,” Lou instructed. “We need to call the police and maybe the FBI. Erin, you stay here with Sean. Brad, you and I will wait for them by the lounge with other guards.”
Erin watched out Sean’s window. “They’re here.”
A few minutes later two detectives approached from the elevator with Bud and a pair of EMTs. The medical people cared for the guards and called another unit to the scene. Two of the guards were by now conscious but of course woozy.
“Are you able to walk?” the one EMT asked them. They nodded. “Let’s have you come in here and sit for a while. The police want to ask some questions. Then we’ll take you to the hospital to be checked. We’re fairly certain you have a concussion.”
“I need to talk to the police. I got a good look at them before they rang my bell,” the one guard said.
The Phoenix detectives were in Clara’s room. “You look around here. I’ll go talk to the guard and that woman PI. That’s all we need is a PI from Illinoi
s to make our jobs harder,” the older detective sarcastically mumbled.
Erin smiled. She was a PI but also did contract investigative work for the Maple Grove PD. The guard gave a description of the kidnappers and was asked to go to headquarters in order to work with a sketch artist after they were checked out by the hospital.
“Okay, what can you tell me about this, Miss Muldoon?”
“Should I start at the beginning?”
“That would be a good place.”
Erin told him about her aunts, the famous Mystical Marvels, and why they were there at the resort. She explained their association with the songwriter Sean Dooley and the threatening note he received while they were in Sedona. When she got to the meeting with Harry Conti and Daisy Dawson, he shook his head.
“Now tell me again why the police were not called in with the first threatening note?” he said in a scolding tone of voice as though talking to a child.
“Save the reprimand until my aunts and Sean’s mother are brought back safely.”
“You’re right, but no more Nancy Drew acts.” She nodded. He flipped his phone and asked whoever was on the other end of his call to send a car to pick up Harry Conti and Daisy Dawson at The View motel. He gave them the license numbers of their car as well as the make and model.
“What can you add to this Mr. Dooley?”
“I worked for a recording company who has Daisy under contract. We dated a little and one night she stole my manuscripts. They’re copyrighted, but it still was embarrassing that I was so taken in by her.”
The detective grinned. “Son, there’s not a man out there who hasn’t been taken in by a swaying ass and a pair of tits.” Sean blushed at the colorful description of his fascination with Daisy. “Now how did you get involved with these old gals, the Marvels?”
“I sent them my song and asked them if they would be interested in leasing the rights to perform it. They called me when they knew they were coming to the resort and we met here. Next week we are going to release it for the first time to the public when they play and sing it in the lounge here.”
The detective’s phone rang. “Send him down with them,” he told the other end.
A few minutes later, Lou walked in. “I’m Lou DeSoto, detective for the Maple Grove PD in Illinois. I’m the one who called you guys.”
“Nice to meet you Lou. What took you so long to call us?”
“Well, we really didn’t have much other than a threatening note from some con artist and we weren’t even certain that’s who wrote it. It was only a guess. We hired our own security for the girls and Clara. We thought four men plus us could handle it. When Brad and I met with Conti, we were pretty certain he was behind the threats.”
“At that time you didn’t know about his priors?”
“No, we did some internet surfing and found newspaper articles tying him and his father to some things in Vegas. What do you propose we do next?”
“You do nothing next. We on the other hand …” His phone rang. “Put a BOLO out on them. We on the other hand are going to find this Harry Conti. When we find him we’ll find the women. My partner is getting a description of Clara Dooley. Bud Clover gave us a promo flyer for the other three.”
Lou rolled his hands into fists to keep from losing his temper. “Let me ask you something. Have you ever heard or seen the Mystical Marvels perform? You’re old enough to remember the ‘70s.”
“Yeah, I heard of ‘em.”
“Well, just a head’s up. When the press hears about this and they will, the spotlight will be on you and what you are doing to get them back safe and sound. The mayor is coming to see them when they play here next week.”
“Is that a threat?”
“Of course not. Just a friendly bit of information from one cop to another.”
Erin had to turn her head to hide a smile.
“We’ll keep in touch,” both detectives said as they hurried from the room.
“Nice touch Lou,” Erin commented when they were gone.
“He’s probably a good cop. He’s just been on the job too long. He’s burned out, but we’re not waiting around for him to organize a game plan while the love of my life is being held captive.”
Erin said meekly, “Do you think it’s time to use a little psychic magic to help us along? They’re not going to take the girls back to the motel. I thought maybe I’d try to see if I could get a fix on where they are. Let’s go to the suite. Sean you need to come in case I describe some place only you might recognize since you’re from here.”
Chapter Thirteen
Erin, Sean, Brad and Lou sat in the living room of Erin’s suite. Brad set his phone to record and Lou had his little notebook to take notes.
“Is there something I should be doing?” Sean asked.
“If I describe a location, see if you can figure out where it is.”
“Okay. Can I ask questions as you’re describing?”
“Yeah, good idea.”
Erin closed her eyes and when her eyelids fluttered she was in an altered state. One that would allow her to travel to places in her mind that she could not do easily in a normal state.
“I’m asking to be shown where my aunts and Clara are right now. They’re taking me to them.” Erin was rocking back and forth. “They’re in a van, no windows or seats. They’re tied up and have white cloth bags over their heads. Wait, they’re pillow cases. Two abductors. They’re saying, ‘He said to take them to the ranch and put them in the warehouse.’ The other guy is saying, ‘The boss wants us to stick around. We may need to help Conti have an accident. He’s making too many mistakes and knows too much.’ I’m saying to Aunt Dottie’s mind that I am with them. She’s telling me to be careful, that this is bigger than that pip squeak Conti.”
“Can you tell what the landscape looks like? Anything would help.”
“I’m looking out the front window of the van. They’re on a highway. There are orchards of some kind on either side of the road. Wait … there’s a sign coming up advertising something. It says pecans 15 miles. That’s all.” Erin opened her eyes. “Does that help any? Do you know where that is?”
Sean was in awe. “Yeah I think they must be going south, but how far south is the question. It sounds like the road to Nogales. From Phoenix to Nogales is about 180 miles. The ranch could be anywhere along there.”
“If you’re sure, we’re heading that way. By the time Phoenix PD makes arrangements with all the little towns between here and there it’ll be too late,” Lou said with some urgency. “Sean call Wade and ask him if he wants to help. If I were him I would want to know what happened to someone I love. Ask him if he has the use of an SUV. Brad rent one for us. Sean ask him if he has any weapons.”
“I’ve got two hunting rifles at the house and a pistol. Will that help?” Brad offered.
“Sure will. We can be pretty certain that our kidnappers are well armed. Let’s move it. We need to be on the road within the hour if possible. Erin, you can do your thing while we’re driving? You and Sean ride with me. Brad, you go with Wade.”
Sean said as he got off the phone, “Wade’s on his way. He’s pretty shaken up. He said to thank you Lou for thinking of him.”
Lou smiled. “Us old guys have to stick together. We don’t have that many chances left to find someone who loves us enough to put up with all our shit.” His voice quivered.
Erin hugged him. “Lou, we’ll get her back safe and sound. The Mystical Marvels have been in tougher jams than this.”
One hour and thirty minutes later they were heading east on I-10.
“It’s a little over a 100 miles from here to the turn off at I-19, the road to Nogales. There is a lot of farm and ranch land along I-10 as well as along I-19,” Sean brought to their attention.
“Maybe you can help us out there, Erin,” Lou suggested.
“Sure, give me a minute. It’s a lot easier when it’s not your aunts who are involved.”
“Do what you can. Anything will
be a help.”
“Sean would you like to record?”
“Sure,” he said taking her phone and setting it up to record whatever was said. “Let me know when you’re ready. Can I ask questions?”
“Yes, it will actually help to pinpoint the location.” Her eyes fluttered. “I’m ready. I’m asking to be shown where the aunts and your mother are now. They’re still in a van. I’m there as well. We’re on a bumpy road. I’m going back to the highway to where the van turned onto the bumpy dirt road. The turn is on the left as we are traveling south. Let me find a highway sign. There. It says Nogales fifteen miles. The turnoff is right after that.”
“What’s around the turnoff road? Are there trees, cactus … what?” Sean asked.
“Bushes right on the road, then trees in rows. Up ahead on the dirt road there is an electronic security gate. The van is stopping and the driver is talking into an intercom. He’s saying, ‘We’ve got the cargo. Where should we take them?’ I can’t hear what the answer is. The gate is opening and the van is driving through. I can’t see any buildings yet.”
“Is the road or drive paved, rocked or what?”
“It’s dirt with ruts. The van ride is quite bumpy. They’re going too fast for the road. Oh my, Aunt Dottie is yelling at them to slow down. She’s telling them that they’ll be black and blue if they don’t. They’re saying, ‘Shut up old lady or we’ll make sure you don’t feel anything.’ The women are quiet. I’m talking to Aunt Dottie’s mind. I told her that we are coming for them … to be patient.”
Erin opened her eyes. “I have to rest a minute. It’s too hard seeing them all tied up like that.”
“We’re pulling into that convenience store up there so I can tell Wade and Brad what you saw. Get me a coffee and a sandwich will you, Erin? Bathroom stop as well,” Lou instructed. Erin needed to work off some pent up energy and he needed gas and coffee.
“What’s up?” Wade asked.
Lou looked at Brad. “Erin did her thing and this is what she got.” He reiterated her channeling as Brad typed it into his note pad. He smiled when he saw Wade frowning. “Brad will explain later. Get some food and some coffee if you want. We probably won’t stop again. Keep me in sight. That road might be hard to see. We’re losing light as those clouds move in.”
The Last Note (Mystical Marvels Mysteries Book 2) Page 4