by Andy Straka
He shrugged. “A few buddies. I let people borrow it. The guys at the house.”
“You said you didn't know Cartwright was coming to see you the night she disappeared.”
“That's right.”
“The next morning your car was right where you had left it the night before?”
“Yes.”
“No sign of a break-in?”
“No.”
“You notice anything different about the vehicle—mirrors changed, gum wrappers on the seat—that sort of thing?”
“I don't know. I didn't even pay attention. That's what I told those guys from the FBI, too. The next time I drove it was on my way to class and practice that afternoon when you came to talk with me, and I was in a hurry. Besides, even if I had noticed something I wouldn't have thought anything about it. Like I said, I let lots of different people drive my car.”
“Wouldn't they have had to get the keys from you, though?”
“No, not necessarily. I been through this with everybody already—all of us have to keep an extra set of keys hanging on a rack in the kitchen at the house. Parking is like hell around there. Sometimes we gotta switch the cars all around, or back somebody else's out of the way. It just doesn't make any sense, that blood or whatever they said they found in the Cherokee.”
“And it only costs fifty cents to make a copy of a key.”
The wind gusted and swirled, blowing heavier sheets of rain against the top of the stadium.
“Why are you giving this to me, Jed?”
He looked at Nicole, then back at me. “Because she said I could trust you.” He rubbed his nose. “And because you stood up to me. Not many people do that.”
“Your parents know you're in trouble?”
“Yeah, right,” he snickered. His eyes picked out a spot among the rows of seats. “My old man's a computer company executive. Sometimes I almost forget what the guy looks like. He goes overseas a lot.”
“You're from California, right?”
“San Francisco.”
“Your mother work, too?”
“Mom's an accountant—she's great when she's around, which is more than Dad, but not all that much.”
“They going to come out here?”
“I told them not to.”
“Well, they must be proud of you—your swimming awards and all.”
“They're proud. Mom used to come see me swim quite a bit, but not since I came to school out here. Dad, he checks in on an occasional big award ceremony or something. I don't think he's been to a meet since I was a sophomore in high school.”
“I'm sorry.”
He said nothing.
“Who do you think put the earring on your clock radio?”
He seemed to be on the verge of saying something, but he stopped. He stood up, rubbing his arms. “I really don't know. Look, man, I'm freezing to death.” His feet stuttered down the concrete steps past us. “I gotta go.”
I pointed at his back to signal Toronto. Haynes dropped into the nearest portal, and was gone.
30
Marcia D'Angelo's kitchen was quiet, save for the hum of the dishwasher. Mr. Earl and I stood in the faint glow of a dimmed row of track lights overhead. Nicole had been safely deposited back at her dorm. Marcia and Karen and Cassidy had apparently gone to bed.
“Maybe your boy is just trying to snooker us with the earring,” Toronto said into my ear, which was pressed into the cell phone. He'd called to say he was camped out just down the street from Haynes's house, off Fourteenth Street. He was watching the FBI watch the place. The feds in the commandeered apartment across the street had apparently perked up considerably at their subject's sudden reappearance.
“Guess it wouldn't do much good to check this thing for fingerprints,” I said.
“Nope. If anybody's partial, besides yours and Haynes's, is on the thing, best you'd get would be a smudged mess.”
I grunted my agreement. “All right. Well, let me know if anything important happens.”
I crept up the stairs to Marcia's bedroom and knocked, half hoping to find her under the covers in a state of partial undress—a wicked thought under the circumstances, I knew.
“Yes?” Her voice sounded small and indistinct.
“It's me. Frank.”
“Come in,” she said.
I opened the door and entered her room. The light was on in the corner and a fully clothed Marcia, a peaceful smile on her face, sat in her rocking chair, clutching a worn Bible, the kind that might have been acquired in some long-ago confirmation class—white leather cover with gold trim on its pages. Cassidy Drummond, in jeans and one of Marcia's old sweatshirts, was sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of her. Both women's eyes were red with tears. I felt like the bad wheel on a lopsided tricycle.
“We've just been having a little discussion,” Marcia said.
“Don't mean to interrupt, but I've got something important.”
“Of course.” Even in her plush bathrobe and slippers, Marcia radiated a sense of calm. She smiled at me tenderly.
“You two all right? I mean, everything okay around here?”
“Doing better,” Marcia said.
Cassidy nodded. The younger woman looked at me searchingly for a moment, then back at the floor.
“How are you doing?” Marcia said.
“Tired and wet, but making progress.”
“How much longer do you think this can go on?”
“I wish I knew.” I went over, leaned down, and kissed her softly on the forehead.
She squeezed my hand.
I turned to Cassidy. “You think you're up for a few more questions?”
She nodded, brushing a tear from her cheek.
I squatted down to her level, pulled the earring from my pocket, and held it out for her. She stared at it for a moment, then took it from my outstretched fingers.
“You recognize it?” I asked.
Her lips began to tremble. “Yes,” she said. She put her hand to her mouth and her eyes brimmed with more tears. “It's Wright's.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.
Marcia rose from her chair, bent down on one knee, and put her arm around Cassidy's shoulder.
“Was she wearing it the night she disappeared?”
Cassidy nodded. She broke down. Marcia wrapped her arms around the young woman and she sobbed into her shoulder.
“What's going on here?” We all looked up to see Karen Drummond standing in the doorway. “I heard a noise.”
“Frank's found something,” Marcia said.
Dr. Drummond stepped into the room and knelt down next to her daughter as well. “What is it?”
No one said anything. Cassidy tried to force back another sob.
I pointed to the earring she was holding in her fingers. “I needed to get a positive identification on the jewelry,” I said.
Karen Drummond stared at it as if it were a mysterious object from another universe. “Oh, my gosh,” she said.
“Your daughter was wearing this earring the night she was abducted?” I said.
“Yes, I'm pretty sure she was.”
But then, instead of grief, her expression changed to one of anger. “Haven't you people put us through enough already? What's happening? Why is this taking so long? Why can't you find the monster who took my daughter?”
“I'm working on it, ma'am. So is the FBI.”
“We've done everything you've asked. We've been camped out here in secret for more than three days now. And nothing. Now you come in with this.”
“I know.”
Cassidy pulled away from Marcia's shoulder. “It's okay, Mom.” She took her mother's hand in her own. “I know it'll be okay.”
She and her mother embraced.
After a few moments Karen Drummond turned to me. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I'm exhausted and I can't sleep and this just never seems to end.”
“Sure,” I said.
“Find her, Frank. Please. I don't care who has her, whether it's Tor or this b
oyfriend or whatever. I don't care if we have to go to the FBI,” she said. “Find her soon.”
Back in the truck, parked in an empty slot among hundreds of other vehicles in a university parking lot, I looked out upon a streetlight and a steady drizzle. I picked up the cell phone and dialed Ferrier's number at home.
“You are becoming one unpopular person downtown, my friend,” he said after I identified myself.
“Yeah, but I think we're getting close.” I explained about the meeting with Jed Haynes and the earring and the fact that both the FBI and Toronto were keeping an eye on the kid.
“This thing's giving me heartburn,” he said.
“Carol talk with you about Diane Lemminger?”
“Right. Now we have an attempted murder investigation on our hands. Abercrombie's about to shoot into orbit.”
“Any luck with what we talked about earlier?”
“Yeah. I ran down the info on those accounts from the checks you showed me and on this foundation, Second Millennium. The foundation was formed back in 1984. The accounts have all been opened since the foundation started, the first in ‘84, the others at later dates. All the accounts, by the way, are controlled by Tor Drummond.”
“Hang on a second.” I suddenly remembered something Diane Lemminger had said in her delirium about Second Millennium—”Tor Drummond's nursery.” “Can you give me the exact dates the foundation filed for incorporation and when the first account was opened?”
“Yeah, sure.” He fumbled with some papers for a moment. Then he read the dates off.
“Bill, I need you to meet me down in Richmond.”
“When? Tonight?”
“Yes, as soon as you can get there. I'm driving down there myself now.”
“Where?”
I gave him the address and directions to Roberta Joseph's apartment.
“What's going on, Frank? You know I can't—”
“Second Millennium was formed and the first account opened less than two weeks after George and Norma Paitley's accident. I think I know the story Diane Lemminger was working on,” I said.
31
Only one light appeared to be on inside the Josephs’ apartment. Through the closed blinds, I could make out its dim illumination coming from the area of the kitchen. No one had responded when I'd rung the bell the first time. I tried it again.
Still no answer.
It was almost eleven o'clock at night. No sign of Ferrier yet. Were the Josephs still at work? Maybe they were asleep already, but somehow I didn't think so. The other units all seemed quiet. A heat pump whirred away outside one, in unison with the distant swish of traffic. The rain had ended, and a clearing breeze followed. The air smelled of forsythia, the brick sidewalk was still slick, and water dripped from an overhang and from shrubs and small trees.
I stepped off the stoop and made my way around back. Beyond the corner of the building, it was much darker. The light hadn't been from the kitchen after all, but the hallway. There was a deck and a sliding glass door with vertical blinds.
What to do, go in or wait it out? Two B&E's in one week—kind of pushing the envelope here, partner, I thought. But if I waited until Bill got here, we'd have to go obtain a warrant. I looked around at the neighbors. All quiet. Find her soon.
The sliding door was locked, but there was no bar across the flashing. I pulled out my pocket tool, flipped open a blade, and went to work on the mechanism. After a minute or so, I managed to engage the lever and turn it to open the lock. I pulled on the handle and slid the door open a few inches, pausing again to listen before entering. So far, so good.
Inside, silence. A dim glow from the light down the hall. Cardboard boxes were strewn about the floor, some old jars and dented pans, no kitchen table or chairs. Pictures had been taken from the walls. It looked like someone either already had or was in the process of vacating the apartment. I slid the door shut behind me.
The phone was still in place on the kitchen wall, however. I went over and picked up the receiver. Still a dial tone. Curious.
I took out my penlight and stepped past the kitchen counter. The beam swept over open cupboards and drawers, all empty. The dishwasher was open, but there were two drinking glasses and a food-encrusted cereal bowl left on the racks.
I moved down the hall under the light to the living room with the cathedral ceiling. Empty, discolored carpeting. All the photographs of Averil and all the furniture were gone. Reversing course, I headed back down the hall toward what had been Roberta Joseph's office, at the end of the corridor. The door stood slightly ajar. I withdrew my gun.
I took a couple of steps forward until I could see into the room, then pushed on the door. It swung about halfway open and then came to rest against something—another box, it appeared. Another step, cautious. I pointed the gun and scanned the room with my light. Nothing. The pictures and plants and all personal effects were missing. Nothing behind the door. But the computer was still set up on the desk and the office chair remained. Even more curious.
I sat down in the chair and looked for the switch to turn on the computer. Behind the unit, a power strip lay on the desk along the wall. As I reached around to flip the switch, my hand brushed up against something hard that had obviously fallen behind the monitor among the tangled cords. It felt like a small book. I pulled it out.
A photo album. Roberta Joseph, in her haste to leave, must've dropped it. I opened it and began flipping through the pages. Each one contained a black-and-white photo. Several were of Averil, others of people I didn't recognize; a few were cityscapes or images of a beach.
One of the last pictures caught my eye. I stared at it, trying to make sense of what I saw. It was similar to some of the others, a candid of two people, taken in this very room, in fact. In the picture Averil sat smiling at the keyboard. But there was another person seated next to her—they seemed to be posing for the camera as if they were shaking hands. My eyes took in the face of Penn Hersch before I realized the significance of what I was seeing. The same dimpled cheeks and gel-slicked hair. Penn Hersch, who was Jed Haynes's roommate. The resemblance between Hersch and Averal Joseph was also hard to miss.
I thought I heard a thump out by the stairs. I slipped the photo out of its album sleeve, stood up, and tucked it into the back pocket of my pants, and raised my gun. Of even more concern, however, I suddenly heard voices down the hall, someone fumbling with keys to open the front door.
I sprinted down the hall and managed to duck around the corner into the kitchen just as the front door swung open.
“I told you it was the other key,” the louder of the two voices said.
“Yeah, well, the boss said it was the other one.” I recognized the first voice as the turnip's. The other was his partner in shadowy security.
My only problem: the sliding glass door was about ten feet across the room and a large open area connected the space in between with the dining area, which opened directly to the area around the front door. I was trapped.
But I had a loaded .357 in one hand. What the heck.
I stepped around the corner again into the light, in full view of my new company.
“Welcome to the party,” I said, with the gun trained directly at them.
Their eyes went wide with fright and surprise. “Holy shit,” the turnip said under his breath. “Just what we need.” He raised his hands in the air and his robotic sidekick did the same.
“You want to tell me what you two gentleman are doing here?” I said.
He shook his head. “Man, you don't know what you're getting yourself into, big fella.”
His partner's gaze slipped for just an instant to a spot behind me. As I think of it now, I must have turned a little and taken a step back into the shadow of the kitchen. Too late, I saw an arm flashing at me from the concealment of the doorway I had failed to notice on the opposite wall. Too late, I realized the hand held a syringe like a dagger, felt the pinch of pain in my neck where it entered.
I managed to stop
its advance, at least temporarily, by gripping the strong fingers with my free hand, swinging the barrel of my gun wildly at the assailant with the other. But I felt the arm release and seem to disappear, and my whole body went numb. My head began to swirl in semidarkness. Then three pairs of hands were upon me, and I was sinking down, farther and farther into a deeper darkness on the floor. The hands grabbed me by the jacket and pulled at me violently. They seemed to be in a great hurry. I felt myself sliding, bumped my head against something hard, and the next thing I knew I was alone outside somewhere on a rain-soaked lawn.
I heard what sounded like a shout. Unable to move, unable to speak, I stared as if through a mist at fast-moving clouds against a black canopy sprinkled with stars, my own killing sky. Very soon even the stars disappeared, and I was falling into total darkness, heartbeat and shallow breathing, and suddenly I remembered something the Secret Amphibian had written about a light too fast for sound.
32
Voices again. Marcia D'Angelo's merged without meaning into Bill Ferrier's and Nicole's and someone else's. A dream? They didn't seem to know I could hear them. My head throbbed with a pulsing rhythm. My ears ached and my mouth and lips felt like they were on fire.
“Hey, he's waking up,” Nicole said.
I opened my eyes to the speckled white ceiling of a hospital room. A male doctor in a long white coat stood at the foot of my bed. Next to him, in sport coat and tie, Ferrier grinned, shaking his head. Marcia, with Nicole standing behind her, sat in a chair beside the bed. She picked up my hand and held it. I realized there were two tubes sticking out of my arm.
“How are you feeling?” the doctor asked.
“Like someone took a crowbar to my skull.” I managed to form the words, but my voice came out as a croak.
“That'll wear off soon. You'll be feeling better in a few hours. The drug's being purged from your system. Lucky for you, your friend came along and found you. And also lucky for you, whoever did this to you didn't get quite enough Veronol into your bloodstream to finish the job. It's a powerful enough barbiturate to have either killed you or left you in a permanent coma.”