Body Broker

by Daniel M Ford

  She nodded, sharply, and I had the sense she was only just holding herself together.

  “Ms. Kennelly, would you like to leave here, talk somewhere more private?”

  “Where?”

  I hadn’t thought that far ahead.

  “Presumably you have a car. You might feel a little less conspicuous in it.”

  She nodded. I stood, waited for her, then followed her out into the parking lot. She led me to a Honda Pilot, dark green, pretty much standard issue for the suburbs around here. I noted the political bumper-stickers on the back, a school sticker with the same crest as her son’s blazer: Farrington Academy.

  The car was scrupulously clean, not even coffee cups in the cupholders. I slid into the passenger seat, holding myself carefully, hands on my lap, trying to stay as far away from her as I could within the confines of the front seat. I didn’t want to give her the slightest reason to feel fearful.

  “Where were we,” I ventured as she gripped the steering wheel.

  “My son hasn’t called or picked up his phone for three days. I called his school…it’s a boarding school, you know. They said he had gotten a sick note for the past two days. This morning he was not in class and he had not gone to the infirmary. When they checked his room, they found all the necessary drop-out paperwork, filled out, signed, notarized on his desk.”

  I held back a sigh. It was looking like I might have to speak some unpleasant truths to Susan Kennelly.

  “And as he is eighteen, he doesn’t need your permission, does he?”

  She shook her head, and I saw her jaw quiver. Tears were on the verge. I carefully slipped a clean white handkerchief out of a pocket and held it out to her.

  “It’s clean,” I said. She took it, unfolded one corner, and dabbed at her eyes. “Now, Ms. Kennelly, Corporal Sanderson will probably have already told you, that Gabriel being eighteen, if he has simply disappeared, no crime has necessarily been committed.”

  “I know,” she said, “that’s exactly what the police told me, in a lot of roundabout ways of saying they couldn’t help yet unless there was something else to it. Are you telling me the same thing?”

  “Not at all. If you want to hire me to find Gabriel, I will make every possible effort to do so, and I will share my findings with you. But what I can’t do is promise to bring him home.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because if he’s gone somewhere of his own volition, conking him over the head and bundling him home would be a crime.”

  She laughed, slightly. More tears, a little careful sniffling. I wasn’t getting my handkerchief back, but that’s why I carried two.

  “I don’t think you’d need to conk him on the head. You look like you could probably just pick him up and carry him home.”

  I grinned, very faintly. “I’d have to catch him first, Ms. Kennelly. And that seems unlikely. I’m not fleet of foot.” She laughed a little bit more.

  “So will you…do whatever it is you do?”

  “You’ll have to call Dent-Clark and officially hire me. They’ll take care of those details.” I slipped a card from a slim metal case in the same pocket the handkerchief had come from and handed it over.

  “Then I would ask you to email me a list of some information. Address is on the card.” I took a small metal-sided notebook from a pocket of my gym bag, slipped the pen out of the slot on its side. Carefully I wrote up a list: Father’s contact info. Contact person at the school. Close friends/close friend’s parents. Significant others/parents. Any local relations (aunts, uncles, cousins). By the time I was done the list ran to three pages, but they were small pages, and my printing was crisp. I might even be tempted to call it copperplate. I resisted the urge to either admire it or point out just how neat and regular it was to Ms. Kennelly. Sometimes doing a thing well had to be its own reward.

  “And then, what’ll you do?”

  “I’ll start running down these contacts. Probably the school first, or his father.”

  “Good luck with that one,” she said, with a snort.

  “Hard to get hold of?”

  “He hasn’t answered any of my calls. Or emails. Or texts. He normally doesn’t, but I thought hearing that his son was missing might move him slightly.”

  “He local?”

  “Wilmington,” she said. “Old money.”

  “Well,” I said, “I’ll wear a suit. For both.”

  She nodded, took the papers, and carefully put them inside a pocket of her bag. “When will you start?”

  “As soon as the office tells me you’ve hired me; this is a matter of protecting myself and the firm legally. I can start to do some prep work and research, of course, but I can’t go talking to anyone and pressing your interests until you’re officially a client.”

  “You’re very precise about things. Is that a military-man thing?”

  “It could be, ma’am. It helps to make sure that everyone knows what they can expect of me.”

  She looked at the business card, which she’d left on the dash. “So I just call them?”

  I nodded again. “Should I get out so I can begin preparing?”

  She nodded. I opened the door. She said quickly, “How often are missing kids found? Don’t tell me if it’s something awful, like five percent. It is, isn’t it?”

  “A lot better than that. More like eighty percent. Varies depending on how you define missing and kid…but chances are good that we’ll find him.”

  She nodded and I set off across the parking lot, closing the door to her SUV carefully. I settled the gym bag where I liked it and decided I might as well walk. The afternoon was getting a little cooler, with a breeze coming off the water.

  I wasn’t even halfway there when my phone buzzed in my pocket, and I knew who it was before I even thumbed it open. I didn’t want to talk to my boss; who does? But it wasn’t wise to avoid him.

  “Dixon,” I said as I slid the earbud in and let the mic dangle against my beard.

  “Jack, are you talking to me while walking on the side of Route 40?”

  “That is the way back to the marina, Jason.”

  “Or you could join the prior century and buy a car.”

  “I’m trying to minimize my carbon footprint.”

  “Bullshit. Your boat’s got to be at least as bad as some little econobox with wheels. It’s just part of your…thing.”

  “What thing is that?”

  “Oh, I dunno. Some old-timey romantic hero, Hemingway-man-of-the-sea bullshit. But hey, you’ve got a client.”

  “Good to know. I don’t think it ought to be too difficult. Kid likely ran off somewhere he knows — dad, a girlfriend, a boyfriend, a party house.”

  “Don’t let your keen investigative insight get in the way of gathering facts. Lots of facts.”

  I didn’t like the way his voice sounded. Like a card-sharp who sees an easy mark. A little hungry, a little eager.

  “Her credit’s good?”

  “Oh, very good. She paid a retainer. Didn’t even try to negotiate.”

  I suddenly found myself wondering why Susan Kennelly drove a Honda Pilot instead of something more like an Escalade or a GLC.

  “Well, I’m not gonna just bilk the woman, Jason. If I stumble across her kid between here and my boat I’m closing the case.”

  “You white knight, you. Never could see the potential of the expense account.”

  I liked Jason enough to believe he was half-joking. Maybe only half, because a man’s got a business to run, and a whale is a whale. Also he hadn’t done the face-to-face; harder to reduce someone to their FICO score when you’ve done that. He went on.

  “Look, I’ve got a little…feeling about this one.”

  “Don’t say it.”

  “My Spidey-Sense is tinglin’ a little. Maybe just a little. Seems real strange.” />
  “I got a dinner says I find the kid drunk with a romantic partner or having signed some enlistment papers.”

  “Where at?”

  “Prost.”

  “You’re on,” Jason said. “Go get your suit out of storage,” he said. I heard his fingers clicking over a keyboard. “You’re gonna need it to visit Farrington. Not to mention the father.”

  “It’s not in storage. It’s in my closet.”

  “Then get it to a damn dry cleaner and pay them extra to hurry it up. Muscled-up Parrothead isn’t gonna play with the Old Money.”

  “That is the single most insulting thing you’ve ever said to me. I’m tempted to rescind our wager.”

  “But we both know you wouldn’t, even if I wasn’t your boss. You said it, now you have to do it. All part of your bullshit.”

  “Is all that typing I hear because Ms. Kennelly’s already forwarded the list of contacts?” Classic misdirection.

  “Yep. You’re gonna have to come by and take a company car. First thing tomorrow morning.”

  “Define first thing.”

  “Office opens at eight a.m. sharp.”

  “You’re a cruel man, Clark.”

  “That’s Mister Clark.”

  “If I need to be there at eight, best you task an incoming drone to stop for me. Ride-sharing’s too unpredictable.”

  “Fine. But be ready by seven-thirty.”

  “You’re history’s greatest…” But before I could finish, the dead silence made it clear that the call had ended. I slipped the phone away and continued my hike.

  Chapter 3

  People who hear I have a ‘68 Thunderbird are usually really disappointed when I show them pictures of a 34-foot houseboat instead of a car. But the car, no matter how pretty to look at, doesn’t have the amenities the Belle of Joppa does. It’s not large, as houseboats go. But it suits me. My bunk, my galley, my portable bar — an old packing case I’d converted with the use of my best friend’s garage full of tools — some boxes of books and clothes.

  Unfortunately, cable is not part of the houseboat package I negotiated with Marty, so I sat on the deck that afternoon, siphoning wifi from a restaurant upriver just a bit. I started with the school. Farrington Academy overlooked the nearby town of Furnace Bay like some kind of colonial fort. Some of the architecture even suggested fortification rather than educational institute.

  I glanced at the history of the place. Apparently the founder had come from a military family; grandfather a Continental Army captain, father a lieutenant in 1812, and himself a colonel of Union artillery. Family got rich from the noble art of blowing their fellow man to hell, I guess. Rich enough for Colonel Farrington to found this school in the late 1870s, committing the bulk of his fortune to it.

  And apparently now it asked families to commit the bulk of their fortunes so little Tylers and Kierstins can have the benefit of the Colonel’s educational vision. Seems it was a day and a boarding school and based on what Ms. Kennelly had told me, Gabriel’d been a boarder. The whole ticket looked to come in north of fifty grand a year, which was a number so vast as a price for high school that I had to sit in stunned silence for a moment. It was much like the regular silence that already reigned on the Belle, aside from the lapping river and the occasional bird, only with my mouth slightly open and my eyes lifted just over the horizon.

  I considered venturing inside to the galley to make myself a restorative cocktail, but it was not quite three, and a Monday. I’d found that opening up the bar this soon on the first day of the workweek was not precisely a formula for investigative excellence. Heroically, I centered myself and soldiered on.

  The current headmaster was a Dr. Elijah Marks. Judging by his photo on the school website he had come straight from central casting: stylishly graying beard, gold-rimmed spectacles, and what I expected to be positively dangerous levels of tweed.

  If I had the opportunity to meet Dr. Marks, and he wasn’t wearing a waistcoat with a watch-chain and a Phi Beta Kappa key, I’d be sorely disappointed.

  “Okay, Clark,” I muttered spitefully. “You were right. I am gonna need the suit.”

  Houseboat living does not come with an abundance of storage space, but I did keep the suit in a bag, and hanging in a place of, if not honor, at least recognition of its practical value. A suit could open more doors than a Henley and a pair of jeans, it’s true. I unzipped a bit of the JC Penny bag — light gray, a little darker gray piping on the lapels. I sniffed; all seemed well. No obvious wrinkles, so I zipped it back up and put it back in a more prominent place where I’d see it when I woke up. Then I went back to my illicit wifi.

  The school seemed easy enough. The usual yes and no, sir or ma’am that I defaulted to anyway would do the job just fine. The father was proving a bit harder to run down. I didn’t get anything usable on his name, so I started looking at the big Wilmington firms, scanning the pages of their top employees. I was striking out looking for any Kennellys, though. Someone had been paying the freight at Farrington and I doubted it was the mom. Could’ve been a rich grandparent lurking behind all of it.

  On a whim, I surfed back to the Farrington page and looked for notable alumni. I did find a Kennelly or two but they were far older than Gabriel’s father should’ve been. One had graduated in 1908 and, apparently, gone on to war profiteering in a chemicals and mining firm.

  That’s not what the website’s bio said, mind you, but possessing a keen investigative instinct I could read between the lines of “pioneered industrial and military chemical solutions” to find “created new ways to blow people up or made the old ways more efficient.”

  I went ahead and looked up this M.W. Kennelly. You knew a man was Someone when he went by his initials, or so I told myself. He had shuffled off the mortal coil in 1972, but had passed on considerable wealth to just two children, both the product of a late-in-life marriage. Neither of them rated their own Wikipedia pages, but it was certainly likely that one of them was Gabriel’s grandfather.

  On an impulse I dialed up the Farrington number. Midway through the second ring, a crisp, professional woman’s voice answered.

  “Farrington Academy, Amy Riordan speaking, how may I help you?”

  “Hello, Ms. Riordan,” I began. “My name’s Jack Dixon. I’m with the Dent-Clark firm,” I said. When put that way, most folks assume it’s a law office rather an investigation agency. That sometimes opens a few more doors. “I’ve been retained by a Farrington parent. I was hoping I could schedule an appointment this week to speak to some people.”

  “Is this a legal matter?”

  “Not in the way you probably mean, ma’am,” I said. “I am not a lawyer or a law enforcement officer. I’m an investigator. It’s about a recent drop-out.”

  She sighed lightly. “Gabriel?”

  “Kennelly, yes, ma’am.”

  Another sigh. Amy Riordan had thoughts on Gabriel Kennelly’s dropping out. I reached for my notebook and scribbled her name down on it with ask underlined several times.

  “Could you hold for a moment, Mr. Dixon?”

  “Of course.” Music buzzed into the phone. Thirty seconds of droning strings playing some unrecognizable classical thing. The part of me that wished I knew things strained to identify it.

  “Mr. Dixon?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Would 2:30 tomorrow with the Dean of Student Life suit? He’s probably best suited to fill you in on any details regarding Gabriel’s life at Farrington, as well as his social circle.”

  “That would be great, ma’am. I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Please look for the visitor parking signs,” she said. “When you buzz at the front door, be prepared to present your ID and license.”

  “Will do,” I said, scratching parking and buzz/license into the notepad.

  “Thank you, Mr. Dixon.” She hun
g up. I set the phone down and did my best to picture Amy Riordan but the best I could come up with were the women who staffed the desks at every school I ever attended. The kind of women that the word “stolid” was hanging around waiting to apply to. They knew everyone, held every secret close to be judiciously meted out, knew which kids were genuinely good and which could fake it, and had a lid on every potential crisis before it could break out. They had candy in their desks, but only the terrible kinds, like individually wrapped butterscotches of ancient provenance, dusty mints, things that you thought were going to be chocolate but never were. It would pay to get Amy Riordan on my side; I could tell that much. But I had a strong suspicion she’d be immune to my charm, even at its most devastating settings.

  I set the phone down and looked over my notes. A missing puzzle piece here was the father. The internet was positively bereft of meaningful references to a Tom Kennelly in Wilmington, as an alumnus of Farrington, or anything the hell else.

  I decided to put dad on the back burner. I typed up an email to my boss summarizing my contact with the school and plan of action. Nothing to do at that point but stretch out on the top deck with a book, which I did, until I switched on a radio to listen to the Orioles game. The wildcard hunt was a distant memory and a late season series against Toronto did not do much to fire the imagination. But there were worse ways to while away the evening than to listen to Joe Angel’s voice float over the water. Once the third inning came along I decided to open the bar, and mixed up a Manhattan: Ravenwood Rye, orange bitters, a suggestion of vermouth, a squeeze of blood orange juice I had made the week before.

  I sat and thought about the case, such as it was. The high likelihood was that Gabriel Kennelly had made an impulsive decision — for a friend, a girl or a guy — and hadn’t gone far. I sipped my cocktail, listened to the water lap at the hull of the Belle, and thought of easy money, fall breezes, and the next Orioles playoff run.

  Chapter 4