Last Seen

by Jo A. Hiestand

  “Kind of an outgrowth of the Narnia books and Dungeon and Dragons and so forth?”

  “Precisely. He started demonstrating some of this in his classes. They were immensely popular, so this scholarship thing grew out of that.”

  “It seems like a good way to help students attain the funds for university.”

  “It is. But it’s just another feather in Kent’s cap. He was always helping people. He had such a passion for music, and for teaching in general. He infected his students with the joy of the era and with learning. He’d take them to the Minstrels Court for a day, proclaiming that they absorbed more by seeing and being in the correct atmosphere than a week’s worth of book study could produce. He’d bring back things from the event and use them in his classroom. He was a superb teacher. I could have easily been jealous of him, of his popularity, but he was so unassuming, that I couldn’t. So Ron and I try to keep his charity going and echo his enthusiasm in my own students.”

  “So your brother knew Kent, then.”

  “Yes. Liked him, too. There isn’t much that Ron and I don’t share, which goes for friends and hobbies. We’ve not let our age differences come between us. I guess we’re as close as a lot of siblings.”

  Which doesn’t preclude bickering, animosity, jealousy and anger. How many cases had he worked where one sibling killed another due to such an emotion? Or a child attacking a parent, or one spouse against another? He let the comparison fade as he asked, “Has anyone else at your school taken up Kent’s method of teaching, either going to the Minstrels Court or doing something hands-on like that?”

  “I’m about the only person. As I said, history is my specialty. Sixth form students. I lecture at the Minstrels Court, too, but my passion—as was Kent’s—is for the hands-on stuff, though his projects did backfire a few times.” McLaren must’ve looked interested so Trevor went on. “One of Kent’s neighbors, Aaron Unsworth, phoned in complaints to the police several times. The kids were at Kent’s house to work on projects or learn guitar. And acoustic guitar, at that!” Trevor screwed up his mouth and exhaled loudly. “In this day of electrics and rockers and special effects…and they were interested in acoustic guitars and lutes. Anyway, Kent was only trying to teach his students, for God’s sake. It wasn’t like they were boozing it up in the garden and yelling. I mean, how loud can a few acoustics be?”

  “Perhaps something else was bothering Mr. Unsworth.”

  “I’d give him the benefit of one bad evening, but he complained several times. Kent chalked it up to jealousy.”

  “Was he jealous of Kent’s musical ability?”

  “I shouldn’t think so, but I don’t know. Probably just a mean old buzzard without many friends.”

  McLaren thanked him for his time, then drove home to start dinner.

  ****

  The trout, covered in a crisp oatmeal batter, was ready for frying as soon as Dena got there. The broccoli, water chestnuts, and carrots sautéed in the skilletthe slivered almonds and Worcestershire sauce would be added in the last minutes of cooking. Lettuce and baby spinach were mixed for the salad and kept cool in the fridge. All he had to do was warm the rolls in the oven before they sat down to dinner.

  He paused, a dishtowel over his shoulder, and looked around the dining room. A blue tablecloth and matching napkins perfectly complemented his mother’s white china; a white pillar candle waited in the hurricane candleholder; a bunch of red roses beamed from their glass vase. Everything was under control and running along smoothly. It just lacked the guest.

  He picked up the water glass on the table—a cut glass goblet handed down through his family—and downed the cold liquid. His palms sweated and his heart raced. It was just Dena, for God’s sake; it was just dinner. She’d been over many times previously. He put the glass back, unaware of the drops of water running off the glass’ base and onto the tablecloth. Should he refill his now or should he just wait? Maybe he should have just got a single long-stemmed rose and laid that across her dinner plate—would she think that more romantic than the vase of roses? And the silver serving bowl for the dessert…he hadn’t had time to polish it. Would she notice? Would she think he didn’t care enough of her to shine it up?

  Although very well off, Dena took people as she found them, equally content with bread and butter or fancy fare for tea. That was one reason he loved her. His fingers traced the edge of her napkin. He knew that now, knew it as deeply as he knew the sun rose in the east. He loved her with a fire that burned within him, with an ache he could not placate if they were apart. At dinner tonight he would tell her, ask her again to marry him.

  McLaren walked back into the kitchen and gave the vegetables a stir. He glanced at the wall clock and lowered the heat. If they burned he had only frozen peas to fall back on. And while there was nothing wrong with peas, the broccoli and carrot dish was a family recipe and would impress Dena.

  He opened the fridge and checked on the chocolate mousse. He tapped the cling wrap draped over the top of the dessert. Firm. He smiled and closed the door.

  At eight o’clock he turned on the CD of Claudio Arrau playing Liszt etudes. The haunting strains filled the house. Arrau’s mastery of scales and arpeggios sounded like liquid gold on the piano.

  At two minutes past eight he lit the candle and dimmed the overhead light. The table jumped from Ordinary to Romantic.

  At five past eight he turned the heat under the vegetables to the lowest setting.

  At ten past eight he filled his water glass, removed the dish towel from his shoulder, and hung it on the handle of the over door.

  At twelve minutes past eight he took the salad cream from the refrigerator and put it on the table.

  At a quarter past eight he rotated the wine in the wine cooler’s ice bath.

  At seventeen minutes past eight he lifted the phone receiver. The dial tone assured him the line worked. He replaced the receiver and sat on the edge of the sofa cushion in the front room and looked out the window.

  At twenty-five past eight he rang Dena’s home phone number. After ten rings the answering machine clicked on and he left a message, hoping she was on her way and that she hadn’t forgotten their date.

  At twenty-six minutes past eight he called her mobile. It rang until he hung up.

  At half past eight he phoned her father. No, he hadn’t heard from Dena in several days. No, he didn’t know where she was but he’d have her ring McLaren if she phoned or showed up. McLaren next talked to the few friends he knew. Ditto Dena’s father.

  At a quarter to nine he contacted the nearby hospitals. No one resembling Dena or having her name had been admitted. He phoned her house again fearful she was hurt and couldn’t answer. He left another message, this time voicing his growing fright. He rang her mobile again, got no answer, and left his third message. He hung up, his body frozen poker stiff, his mind racing. Three minutes later he slumped against the sofa, concern for her safety no longer paramount in his feelings. He stared at the candle flame dancing in the dimly lit room. Had she changed her mind? Was she sitting in her home, looking at the phone’s caller ID, not picking up his calls on purpose?

  McLaren stared at the road skirting his front garden. No car headlights approached his drive. The tarmac lay undisturbed and quiet in the dusky light. Suspicions whispered in his mind, fueling the pain exploding in his forehead. He rubbed his neck, trying to ease the growing tension and, in so doing, his fingers touched his necklace. He rolled the strip of leather beneath his fingers, then felt the ceramic and wooden beads. Like worry beads, rolling them between his fingers and his palm. Each caress produced Dena’s face or voice or laughter. His hand slid from the necklace and fell heavily onto his lap. He sagged against the sofa and closed his eyes.

  At half past nine he blew out the candle, scraped the vegetables and fish into plastic cartons and put them into the refrigerator. He turned off the kitchen light, turned off the dining room light, turned off the front room light, turned off the music. The house plunged
into darkness as complete and heavy as his soul. He wandered into his bedroom, sat on the edge of his bed, and took off his shoes. Without bothering to wash or undress, he fell back onto the quilt and stared out his window. The willow at the front garden was barely visible against the black sky. A bank of clouds streaked before the wind, racing for the sprinkle of stars in the eastern sky. The world beyond was silent except for the occasional rasp of a tree branch against the side of the house. He turned onto his side, his eyes staring into the darkness, hearing Dena’s warm voice as she accepted his dinner invitation, wondering if it had all been a trick to get back at him for their months of separation.

  A verse of a song crept into his mind. He usually sang it with fervency, looking at Dena if she were in the audience, imagining her if she was absent. Either way, he considered it her song, his declaration of love. His hand slid beneath his head, cradling his body as well as his thoughts. The lyric and tune spun around him, drowning him in feelings. “I’ll love you till the seas run dry and the rocks all melt in the sun. I’ll love you till the fires freeze and the streams no longer run.”

  He pulled his knees to his chest, feeling hurt, betrayed, and alone.

  Chapter Sixteen

  McLaren woke early the next morning after a fitful night. His sleep, when he finally dozed around half past four, had been punctuated with dreams of Dena—taunting him, playing hide and seek with him, mocking him. He sat in bed now, aware that he was in his clothes, aware of his mussed hair and the staleness of his mouth. Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he saw it was quarter past five. He showered, shaved and dressed as fast as his headache would allow him, then stumbled into the kitchen.

  The remnants from last night’s supper littered the room, tacitly ridiculing his romantic effort. He ignored the used mixing bowls and skillets, and heated up the leftover coffee.

  The liquid was hot, nearly scalding his throat when he drank it minutes later. But he needed the heat to jolt him awake and think through last night. The replay of their earlier conversation convinced him that Dena had neither forgotten their date nor had deliberately not shown up. She didn’t hold grudges or get even. And, he reminded himself, she had instigated their reunion, phoning him last month. Dena didn’t play around with people’s emotions. He stared at the bubbles on top of the coffee in his mug, watching them cluster together. He took another sip. No, car trouble was not an option, as she would have phoned to say she’d be late. Therefore, the alternative was that she was ill.

  But she would have phoned. Something was decidedly wrong. Something had happened to her.

  That suggestion both frightened him and prodded him into action. Any dregs of self pity, of thinking she hated him and had deliberately stayed away, were erased in his unshakable conviction that her absence was beyond her control. She needed him.

  The recorded messages on both her home and mobile phone numbers chilled him now that he realized she wasn’t cruelly playing with him. Her voice smiled to him over the phone receiver, asserted that she loved him. Getting no answer, he hung up, his mind racing. Where was she? What could have happened so that she was unable to contact him? The hint shook his very core; he rang up Jamie. It was time for professional help.

  ****

  Jamie answered in a sleep-drenched voice but jerked fully awake on hearing McLaren’s voice. “What time is it?”

  “Three minutes to six,” McLaren said. “Sorry for the ungodly hour, but I need your help.”

  “You must, calling at this hour. Hold on.” He turned to his wife, who stirred beside him. “It’s just Mike.”

  “Just so long as it’s not police work,” Paula mumbled before pulling the sheet over her head. “You need your day off.”

  Jamie stood up, the handset of the cordless phone in his hand, and walked into the kitchen. He turned on the coffeemaker, grabbed a mug from the cupboard, and leaned against the corner of the worktop. “Okay, I can talk. What’s wrong?”

  “Dena’s missing.”

  The coffeemaker belched into the quiet. “Dena. How do you know? What happened?”

  McLaren related the night’s event and his conclusion. “You know her. She wouldn’t set up an elaborate charade like this.”

  “There’s still no answer at her house or on her mobile, you said. Did you ring up her dad this morning?”

  “No. We left it last night that he’d tell her to get in touch with me if he heard from her.”

  “Did you check the hospitals again? Maybe she was brought in last night.”

  McLaren admitted he hadn’t. “But she’d have her ID with her. Surely her dad would’ve been notified, and he would’ve called me.”

  “Could do, I suppose. You call the hospitals—that’ll at least erase one possibility. I’ll look around, see if I can find out anything. Do you know what she was doing yesterday? Was she meeting a friend, or going shopping? It would narrow my search.”

  “She was talking with some people connected with the Kent Harrison cold case—she thought she’d have to do a bit of carrot-dangling with me. I don’t know whom precisely she contacted, but it would have to be those named in the newspaper articles of the time. She wouldn’t have any way of knowing the minor players.”

  “So,” Jamie grabbed a pencil and pad of paper from the message center, “people like the ex-wife, his girl friend, Dave Morley and Ron Pennell.”

  “I spoke to some of those, but only Morley said a thing to me about Dena preceding me.”

  “Don’t know if they would, particularly. Dena’s just asking questions as a curious citizen. You represent The Law, no matter if you’re once removed. Anyway, you don’t know what results she got, do you? Maybe no one aside from Morley spoke to her.”

  “That’s true. She told me she was meeting a girlfriend in Buxton. She didn’t have anything particular to say.”

  “So, she didn’t tell you that Clark MacKay ordered her out of his office, for instance.”

  “I’ve got nothing to go on except when I last talked to her, she sounded like she was in her car.”

  Jamie’s tone sharpened. He looked up from his note taking, the pencil point still on the paper. She could’ve been anywhere. He already felt tired with the myriad possibilities of the hunt. “Did she say where she was headed?”

  “She said she could talk, so she wasn’t driving. But the acoustics didn’t sound right. You know, the full resonance of an enclosed space versus the thinness that the outdoors produces.”

  “Were there any sounds you could identify?”

  “Like a chiming clock tower bell, or ducks quaking or a train horn? Nothing. Ducks would have steered you to Howden Reservoir, I guess.”

  Some distinguishable sound would’ve been nice, but quacking ducks could also mean Carsington Water, not to mention other lakes. He sighed. A nice train whizzing by would’ve helped immensely. All he’d have to do was look at the map of rail routes, ring up Network Rail and tell them the time. He shook his head, imagining the needle they were about to hunt for and all the haystacks in the country… “Well, don’t worry, Mike. I’ll find her. I’ll start with the key personnel in the case and work out from there. Luckily they aren’t scattered all over Derbyshire, so I’ll try the areas around her house and the castle first. I’ll find her,” he repeated, hoping McLaren would believe it.

  “Sure. I know you. That’s why I rang you up instead of going through the regular steps. You’ll find her.”

  He rang off, giving Jamie his promise that he’d call the minute he heard from Dena—and getting Jamie’s promise should he find her. He also promised he’d try to work on the case.

  “Keep your mind occupied,” Jamie said. I know you, Mike, he thought after hanging up. I know you’ll rush around the country like a mad man, trying to find her. Or go insane. Or slit your wrists in your depression.

  Which was what he and Dena had feared McLaren did last August.

  Jamie leaned against the wall, the image and conversation of that event welling up in his mind. D
ena had rung up, frantic because she couldn’t raise McLaren by phone or at his house. Jamie had searched the residence and the outbuildings, eventually finding his friend unconscious and bleeding in a field and carrying him back.

  Jamie roused himself from the recollection, looking again at his kitchen, briefly unsure of where he was. The memory of that day clung to him, the event as sharp now as it had been ten months ago. He’d never talked with his friend about what had happened, never asked if the wound was the result of an accident or a deliberate suicide attempt. McLaren had never referred to it, either, merely thanking Jamie days later for finding him.

  The voices and mental images evaporated, and Jamie stared out of the window at the just-risen sun. Had the emotional pain been so great at that moment that death was preferable to dealing with the disillusions of prevailing justice? Was that hurt with him now? Was he still considering his two choices?

  ****

  Clark MacKay grabbed his briefcase, locked his car door, and shuffled across Tutbury Castle’s car park. The sun slanted with a vengeance over the eastern edge of the nearest tower, shoving morning shadows toward the west, as if they sought cooler climes. He ran the tip of his tongue over his cracked lips. He could nearly taste the heated air. The ground, packed hard by millions of visitors and the summer drought, threw back dull, nearly imperceptible thuds beneath his shoes. A clump of grass crowding the railing post nodded in a breath of wind, and he glanced at the sky, hoping to see a rain cloud. But the blue expanse stretched unblemished from horizon to horizon. He sighed. Another unbearable day under a baking sun.

  He approached the gatehouse, tired of July and the struggle to retain a modicum of comfort, but turned as he heard his name called. Ellen Fairfield hurried after him, her cheeks bright pink and her forehead shiny with sweat.

  “Ellen?” Clark paused, astonished to see her, and see her on his turf, as he equated it. She wore a pink blouse and tan suit, but carried her jacket, already shed in acknowledgement to the enthusiastic temperature. A thin gold necklace winked at him in the sunlight, half-hidden by the collar. He eyed a bead of sweat sliding along the chain before disappearing beneath the blouse, and wondered how hot the afternoon would be. And if it would affect castle attendance.