by Andy Straka
Gel looked at the others and shrugged. “ ‘Course he was here, man. All night. We hung out, played some foos, watched TV.”
“What time did you all go to bed?”
“I don't know, man. Maybe one o'clock. It was after Letterman. You remember, hon?”
She giggled. “It was real late.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Jed was definitely here. All night.”
“He couldn't have sneaked out after the rest of you went to bed?”
“No way, man. I'm a light sleeper.”
“Uh-huh. You guys been roommates long?”
“Since the beginning of the year.”
“You guys know Cartwright Drummond?”
“Wright?” Square-jaw smiled. “You mean Jed's obsession.”
His roommate punched him in the arm. “Jed's not obsessed with her, man.”
“Yes, he is.”
“No, he's not. Besides, she's still overseas, isn't she? Japan or someplace.” Gel-head looked at me.
I shrugged. “Guess you'll have to ask Jed,” I said.
“What do you want to know about her for?”
“No particular reason.”
The four of us stared at one another for a second or two.
“That's all I needed to know for now,” I said. “Thank you very much.”
I turned to go, and they all got to their feet.
I paused on my way to the door. “I would like each of your names, though. In case I need to talk to any of you again.”
“I'll bet old Jedi stole a couple cases of beer from that restaurant down on the corner again,” Square-jaw said.
“Yeah, right,” the girl said.
“Your names?” I repeated.
They both looked at Gel-head. He shrugged. “Why not? Hersch,” he said. “My name's Penn Hersch.”
The girlfriend said her name was Kayla Vestervelt and the other roommate's name was Chad Lippman.
“Hey, Pavlicek,” Hersch said. “We gotta tell Jed you were here, you know.”
“Fine with me,” I said. “Thanks for your time.”
My cell phone rang again.
“O-ooo … a busy man.”
I pushed the button and answered.
“Frank, it's Jake.”
“I was wondering what became of you.”
“Information takes time, my man.”
“I'm just finishing up with some people. Let me get out to my truck.”
The foosballers were both thinking it was some kind of big joke now, laughing and poking at each other as the girl went to the door and opened it. Chuckling herself, she avoided my gaze as I passed her on the way out.
I waited until she closed the door, then walked back down the sidewalk and climbed into the privacy of my cab. “Still there?”
“Just painting my nails. How'd you make out with the crows today?”
“Nothing.”
“Figures. It's hard enough scaring up a tail chase in wide-open country. Your vineyard owner might be better off trying to lure a wild resident redtail into setting up shop around his spread.” I could hear his yellow Lab, Hercules, whimpering about something in the background.
“You've got the dog with you?”
“Thought I'd bring him along for the trip.”
“You're still in town, then?”
“In the Jeep down across from your office. Sipping latte from some joint called the Mudhouse. Funky place.”
“What'd you find out for me?”
“You're not going to like it. I checked on that number you asked me about,” he said.
“Right. Were there any calls?”
“Something going on with these girls and their father, Frank?”
“Quite possibly.”
“After you told me about the turnip-face pulling his cannon on you, I figured you'd want to know about this right away.”
“Know what?”
“This is the missing daughter's phone, right?”
“Right.”
“She or someone else made only one call after the time you gave me. It was to a Charlottesville listing,” he said.
“What number?”
“Her father's unlisted cell phone.”
“Wonderful.”
“Not only that. She got a call back from him ten minutes later.”
“How do you know that?”
“Don't ask.”
“Interesting.” I explained to him about my spying the turnip while Nicole and I were hunting and my encounter with him out at the Drummond estate.
“Sounds like you've got a gnarly one on your hands.”
“Can you do me another favor?”
“What's that?”
“You have somebody at home who could watch the birds and the ranch for tonight?”
“I'd have to make a call, but yeah, sure.”
“I've got Cassidy Drummond stashed at Marcia's house. I'm pretty sure no one knows she's there. Would you mind heading over there, keeping an eye on things? You could crash on the couch or something.”
“No problem.”
“Just tell Marcia I sent you for extra insurance and not to worry.”
“You don't think she's gonna worry when she sees me show up?”
“Can't be helped, I guess.”
“That all?”
“If you can hang around tomorrow, maybe you could find out a little more about those old newspaper articles I was telling you about. I'm stalled a bit on that. And if you don't mind swinging by my apartment on the way over to Marcia's, Nicky's got a whole file of background information on the Drummonds. Plus, I've got Cartwright Drummond's laptop. Maybe you could help Nicky decipher some files for me.”
“What're you gonna be doing?” he asked.
I thought about that. “You ever see those kids’ books where you have to try to find the goofy-looking little guy somewhere in the background surrounded by a whole bunch of complicated and colorful scenes?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“I'll be looking for Waldo,” I said.
10
Waldo, however, must have moved his act to a different town. The rental car description Cassidy Drummond had provided—midnight-blue Nissan Maxima with D.C. plates—and the tag number I'd gotten from the company might as well have been phantoms, for all the good they were doing me. I had traced circles over an ever-expanding search pattern in the neighborhoods around Haynes's place on Fourteenth Street, sweeping out as far as Rugby Avenue. Nothing.
Moving on to the university lots, I cruised the areas around Alderman again, and up to University Hall. Then I switched tactics and headed across town on Barracks and Preston, perusing most of the streets near my office and those surrounding the downtown mall. I made fast runs through Belmont, around the Prospect Hill area, and Cherry Avenue. Not a sign.
I had yet to check out the Pantops area, and Park Street and Rio Road, not to mention the Georgetown Road area and the entire 29 North corridor. It was a long night, and shaping up to get a lot longer.
A half hour later I found myself parked along the curb on High Street, dialing Marcia's number on the cell.
“Jake just arrived,” she said when she answered.
“Good.”
“He told me you said not to worry.”
“That's right.”
“Making any progress?”
“Nada.”
“Cassidy's told me everything.”
“Okay.”
“I'm sorry for being so short with you earlier.”
“Forget it.” I was watching the streetlights burn with life, watching the houses along the street burn with life too, lights ablaze, televisions and computer screens all aglow.
“What do you do now? Will you go to the police?”
“Most likely.”
“I really am sorry, Frank. Now that I know—”
“I'm going to want you to tell me all that went on between you and Tor Drummond,” I said.
There was a pause. “All right,” she said soft
ly.
“Can you put Cassidy on now?”
“Yes. Be careful, Frank.”
“Always.”
Another pause. “I—I don't want anything to happen to you.”
“Me either.”
Cassidy came on the line. “You haven't found anything?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I'm sorry.”
“I keep trying Wright's cell phone.”
“I know.” I'd tried it again too. Cartwright Drummond's cell phone number now answered with an ominous recording—”The subscriber you have dialed is unavailable or has traveled beyond the coverage area”—which meant either the phone had been turned off or the battery had died.
“Isn't there something else you can do?” Her voice sounded shaky.
“Keep looking.”
“Okay.”
“But I have to be honest. I'm not optimistic at this point. You're probably not going to be able to keep a lid on this thing.”
There was silence. Then after several seconds: “I know, I know—” She began to cry softly.
I let her cry for a little bit. “I'm very sorry,” I said finally. Seemed like I was getting good at saying that. “Listen. Time's getting critical. There are a couple of cops I know I can trust.”
“No, please. Not yet. Please just keep looking.”
I thought it over. “I'll keep looking,” I said, “but don't get your hopes up.”
“I'm afraid,” she said. “You think … do you think Wright's been?” She couldn't form the words.
“We shouldn't go jumping to conclusions just yet.”
“I've had this awful feeling ever since we talked earlier. I even had to go into the bathroom a little while ago to throw up. If Cartwright doesn't … we promised each other we'd always be there … “
I said nothing. Being a private investigator may sound glamorous to some. The truth is, a lot of the time it seems only incrementally different from picking up trash for a living. Right now the garbage detail looked pretty good.
“You believe in prayer, Mr. Pavlicek?”
“Sure,” I said.
“I'm praying that God won't take Cartwright from me.”
A cold wind swirled the trees along the street. A hunter's moon became visible for a brief moment through a break in the clouds.
“Me too,” I said.
We hung up and I went on with my vigil.
C'mon, Frank. Charlottesville is not New York or L.A.—not even Atlanta or Washington, D.C. Shouldn't be that hard to find a missing auto. If it's still in town, that is.
I checked out the areas around Park Street and Locust Avenue, then shot down the 250 Bypass to River Road. It was well after ten by now. Traffic was light. I looped back up on High Street to Martha Jefferson Hospital, cruising through the surrounding streets and lots. I was finishing up a check of the hospital's parking garage when it occurred to me I'd forgotten the two parking garages at the larger university medical center across town. I drove back down High Street to Preston, cut across to West Main, and began trolling in the direction of University Corner.
This was a transitional part of town, one that city planners envisioned would one day serve as an attractive bridge between the college and downtown. The vision had been at least partially realized. Between the shells of older structures and vacant lots with their sparkles of broken glass, there were a couple of new hotels and a thriving, if eclectic, strip of eateries. The city had recently upgraded the bridge that crossed the railroad with attractive lighting, and the railroad station itself had undergone a major renovation—one of the buildings now housed a trendy restaurant.
A minute or so later the medical center popped into view on my left. I entered the first garage and started my search.
Ten minutes later, still nothing. Five levels of vehicles, one older Maxima, but nothing remotely resembling the Drummonds’ rental car. Maybe Cartwright Drummond had left the state. Maybe her father was having her followed, like her sister, and for some reason she'd decided to go underground in a Third World country. I moved on to the primary-care-center garage.
I was cruising along the second level, momentarily distracted by a minivan backing out of a space, when a flash of dark blue up ahead on the left caught my attention. Another Maxima. In the amber light it gleamed almost black. I took in a deep breath as I came abreast of the vehicle. D.C. plates.
Checked the tag number. Bingo.
I sat there letting the truck idle for a moment, hardly believing my luck. Maybe there was a simple explanation to this whole affair after all. The vehicle appeared to be clean and unoccupied, just the way Cassidy and Cartwright had probably rented it. I scanned up and down the row of cars. Nothing unusual. Except for the van, the garage was quiet at this time of night—hospital visiting hours were over. Many of the spaces now sat empty. I reached across and grabbed my four-cell and, just in case, my .357 out of the glove box. Strapped on the weapon and stepped from the truck.
Nothing but the sound of my own engine, the cold and the sweet smell of my own exhaust, and the haze of steam blowing from some kind of vents on the roof of the hospital across the street. I slipped on a pair of leather gloves and carefully approached the rental car. In no way did it seem out of order—the inside was empty and the doors were all locked. I considered trying to break in, took a look around, and decided I better not. My flashlight beam swept across the seats, over the steering wheel and the dash down to the floor.
There. Something reflected the light a little, dark and wet on the carpet. It took a moment for my mind to register what my eyes had seen, and in that second I inadvertently angled the beam up toward the rearview mirror and an even more unmistakable image.
I'm a man rarely given to profanity.
“Sweet Jesus,” I whispered.
Bloody fingerprints.
11
“You're in deep doo-dah, all right, Frank.”
Carol Upwood twirled a strand of blond hair between her fingers as she leaned back against the wall of the elevator, used by detectives and brass only, that led from the garage to the third floor of the city hall, where the investigators from the Charlottesville Police Department worked. She was a five-foot-two spark plug of makeup, fingernails, and bluster. The only thing harder on a testosterone-laden ego than a brilliant woman is a brilliant woman cop, and Carol was most definitely that.
I stretched. It was late, almost midnight.
“Geez, Frank. You know, maybe you're gonna want to write a book about all this.… You oughta be takin’ notes,” Bill Ferrier said. A former Virginia State Police violent crimes investigator, Ferrier had been lured out of early retirement to work as a detective for the city in what was called the Crimes Against People Unit, which handled missing persons, not to mention homicides. Upwood was sort of his understudy.
When the doors opened I followed them down a short hall into the “big room,” where the detectives all worked, their desks clustered together, backed by cork bulletin boards. The floor was a speckled gray terrazzo, the walls painted cinder block. There was a drop ceiling with fluorescent lighting but no windows to let in the outside view, not that there was much of one anyway from city hall, tucked, as it was, in the shadow of one of the city's downtown parking garages. A Formica counter filled with files and other materials ran the length of the wall around the room.
Ferrier sat in his chair, while Upwood propped herself on the side of his desk and crossed her legs. Since it was after hours, she was wearing blue jeans and a police department sweatshirt. Most of the detectives worked irregular hours anyway, sometimes pulling twenty-four hours at a stretch. The sweatshirt partially obscured the Beretta she had strapped to her waist.
“Abercrombie's pretty hot about a PI sitting on a crime scene,” she said. Willard Abercrombie was the chief of the Charlottesville City Police. My relationship with him went back a few years. My kinship with the chief had been severely strained ever since the time he had charged a local Baptist minister with sodomy: a crime that the man—
imperfect as he was—had not committed. I had stepped in to pull the preacher off the hook.
“I wasn't sitting on the scene, Carol. I called you guys as soon as I found the vehicle.” I didn't tell them I'd called and spoken to Marcia and Cassidy and Toronto first—a technicality. Marcia was going to call Dr. Karen Drummond, bring her up to speed, and arrange for her to meet with Cassidy.
After I called 911, the university police showed up in less than three minutes, followed quickly thereafter by the city people.
“Either way, some defense lawyer's eventually going to play hell with it. Not to mention the media.”
I shrugged and put my hands in the air. My best “not guilty.”
“How'd you know about the missing twin?” Ferrier said.
Bill is a good cop. Whatever happens, I know I can trust his word. When you're talking jail time or staring down the black barrel of some lunatic's personal protection device, that counts for something. When you're talking bureaucrats and power jockeys, it tends to take a backseat.
“I told you. I was hired by her sister.”
“Uh-huh. And where is she, again?”
“Like I said before, my client doesn't wish to have her whereabouts divulged at this time.”
He frowned, let out a long, exaggerated sigh. “That's just wonderful, Frank. We've got a U.S. congressman's daughter bugged out on us and you're playing a shell game with our major witness.”
“Not my call.”
“No?” He knew better than to try to shake me down. But he seemed disappointed. “This is the kind of shit that wrecks people's careers.”
I was about to say something like I ought to know, but I figured it wouldn't earn me any merit badges at the moment.
He looked across at his understudy. She shook her head, but he spoke anyway. “Carol,” he said, “maybe you oughta let me take the heat that might come down over this.”
“Are you kidding?” she said. “I'd rather go back to working security at the university.”
That Carol. Feeble little woman.