“This would probably have been late at night last Saturday, or early in the morning on Sunday,” I said. “Does your husband have the TV on all the time?”
“Well, of course not. We’d have been sleeping at those times, though. I hope you find your friend all right, but I’m afraid we can’t help you.”
I wished I could flip out a business card and pass it over the way detectives do, saying something like, “Well, if you think of anything, give me a call.”
Since I had no cards, I scribbled my name and number on the back of an old receipt in my purse and gave it to her. “This is my phone number,” I said. “Would you call me if you happen to remember anything?”
She shrugged and stuffed it into her pocket. I could picture it still being there the next time she threw her pants into the washer.
There were eight apartments in the building. Eliminating theirs, Nadine’s, and the landlady’s, there were five left to check out.
A middle-aged woman with booze on her breath answered the next door I tried. She talked for what seemed an hour, though my watch said it was only ten minutes. I wouldn’t have minded if she’d had anything to say about Nadine, but she chiefly blabbed about how dangerous society is to young women these days. I already had Greg for that kind of speech!
A guy in his early twenties answered the second door. He was friendly and told me he’d met Nadine once in the hallway, but he had nothing helpful to offer by way of information.
I moved downstairs. There was no answer at the next two doors, though I had no way of knowing whether the tenants were out or whether they weren’t even rented.
I was pretty discouraged by the time I knocked on the last door. When it was opened by a very elderly gentleman, half bent over and feeble looking, I felt like telling him I’d knocked by mistake. That just goes to show that you should never make assumptions.
“Why, I believe I did hear something,” he nodded, inviting me inside.
Heart pounding in excitement, I followed him in. He introduced himself as Howard Stanley and we shook hands. Then I took a seat in a big old brown leather chair that smelled faintly of pipe tobacco and waited for him to tell me what he knew.
“It was, let me think, it seems to me it was late last Saturday night all right. Yes, that’s exactly when it was, because my daughter came to pick me up for church the next morning, and I recall telling her that I thought the girl upstairs seemed to have had an unwelcome visitor, and that I hoped everything was all right. Only she didn’t seem too interested, and when everything was quiet the next day, it went completely out of my mind. Until now, that is.”
“Old Ernie there,” he lifted a boney finger and pointed to a sleek black cat that was curled up on the floor under the coffee table, “had snuck out. Don’t ask me why he does that, because usually he’s afraid of his own shadow. Believe it or not, he’s terrified when a darned pigeon happens to flutter against the window.”
He shook his head sadly. “Did you ever hear of a cat that was scared of birds before?”
I admitted that I hadn’t. For his part, Ernie yawned widely and closed his eyes in a kind of squeeze, the way cats do.
“Well, this one is. Fact is, I should have called him Scaredy-Cat instead of Ernie. Anyway, what was I saying? Oh, yes. The girl upstairs. So, Ernie had snuck out and I’d been outside looking for him. I’d just come back into the hall when I heard someone knock on one of the doors upstairs.”
I leaned forward, heart beating in anticipation, hardly able to breathe as he went on.
“And I heard a girl’s voice. She sounded surprised more than anything, though there could have been a bit of fright there too. She said, ‘What are you doing here?’ And here’s the strange part, what alarmed me some. Standing as I was, out in the hall, and the stairwell being right next to my door, her voice was as clear as a bell. But I couldn’t make out a thing that the other person said. I couldn’t even tell if it was a man or woman talking to her.
“Seemed like whatever this person said, though, it must have been kind of persuasive, because there it was the middle of the night, and she says ‘Well, come in for a moment then,’ only she didn’t sound one bit happy about it. If anything, I’d say her voice was reluctant. Then I heard her door close and that was it.”
My brain was whirling with all sorts of thoughts when I’d thanked Mr. Stanley and headed home. Mostly, there was a whole new bunch of questions going through my head — and no one to put them to!
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Guess what I found out at the apartment building!” I said to Greg, unable to keep the excitement out of my voice.
“What apartment building?” His eyes narrowed.
“Nadine’s,” I said impatiently.
“Nadine’s apartment building,” he echoed. His voice was a mixture of disbelief and anger.
Then my heart kind of sank, because I realized I hadn’t let him know where I was going, like I was supposed to. I almost wished I hadn’t stopped at Broderick’s Gas Bar on my way back home after talking with Mr. Stanley.
“Oops, sorry,” I said. “I guess I forgot to call you. It’s just that I was so excited after Ben gave me an idea of what to do next. I guess I got a bit ahead of myself and forgot our deal.”
A car pulled in for gas then, and he went to service it. That gave me a moment to compose myself. On the other hand, it also gave him time to get even angrier than he was already.
When he returned he stood silently, waiting. His face wasn’t what you’d call happy.
“I really am sorry,” I said softly. I put my hand on his arm. He didn’t pull away, which seemed a good sign.
“So, Ben told you to go to Nadine’s apartment …” he prompted.
“No, not exactly. I was telling him how worried I am about her, and he said something about everything must be okay because if there’d been any kind of problem the neighbours would have heard the ruckus. I hadn’t thought of talking to the neighbours before then, but I realized right off that it was an excellent idea.”
“Calling your boyfriend — that’s me, by the way — would have been a pretty good idea too.”
“Yeah, I know.” I tried to put more contrition in my expression, but the excitement of what I had to tell him next was growing in me again. “So, anyway, I went there and talked to all the neighbours. Well, the ones who were home, anyway. There was no answer at two of the apartment doors.”
“And what did you find out?”
I filled him in on as much of the conversation with Mr. Stanley as I could remember. When I finished, he asked if I’d gone back into Nadine’s apartment.
“No,” I said truthfully. I thought of how hard it had been to just walk by her place and I was glad I had. The thought that I might have missed something the first time had tempted me something awful, but I’d somehow managed to resist it and walk past the door without going in. At least I’d remembered that part of my promise to Greg.
“I would like to go there again, though, when you’re available to come along,” I said.
“Are you also planning to talk to the people in the other two apartments, assuming anyone’s living in either of them?” Greg asked.
“Well, it wouldn’t hurt to check, just in case. When you can come with me, of course,” I added virtuously. “It would be worth checking out, though. I mean, look at how valuable the information was that I got from Mr. Stanley!”
“You know, it seems you might be right about Nadine running into some kind of trouble,” he said. “In light of that, I think you need to take a hard look at what you’re going to do next.”
“Well, like I said, I’d like to see the apartment one more time and …”
“What I’m actually trying to ask,” he interrupted, “is: do you have any intention of going to the police with any of this?”
“Of course!”
“When?”
“Uh, well, I’m not really sure.”
“I was thinking that now would be a good time.”
“Right now?” I gulped. Somehow, the thought of going to the police didn’t appeal to me all that much. I’d kind of been hoping to have a bit more information before I went to them. I was worried that they wouldn’t take me seriously and that if I didn’t present my concerns right the first time, there might not be another chance.
“You can’t keep going around investigating a possible kidnapping, or worse, on your own,” Greg said sensibly. “You need to report your suspicions to the police right away.”
“I think you might have to be a family member to report someone missing,” I said.
“No, in fact, you don’t.” Greg smiled. “Anyone can report a missing person.”
“How do you know that for sure?”
“I called the police station a few hours ago, when it wasn’t busy here, and asked.” He was clearly pleased that he’d been up to something behind my back for a change.
“Why’d you decide to go and do that?” I wondered aloud.
“I decided to go and do that,” he said with another smile, “just in case you had this very objection, supposing the time ever came that this needed to be brought to their attention.”
With some reluctance, I agreed to go on my way home. It occurred to me that I could ask my dad to go with me, but I ended up dismissing the idea. He’s not as nosy or protective as my mom, but he’d certainly have questions about this, and when he found out what I’d been up to it wouldn’t be good.
He wouldn’t hide anything like that from my mom either. He’ll keep some things between us, but nothing like this. Greg’s lectures would look like pats on the back compared to how my folks would react.
I knew I was going to be facing some kind of consequence when it was all over anyway, but in the meantime the less my folks knew, the better. Otherwise, I’d likely be grounded, and then how would I find anything else out?
A uniformed officer wearing a tag that said “Sgt. Newman” came to let me in when I buzzed at the door, which is always locked in the evening. I put a solemn look on my face and hoped I looked older than sixteen.
“I’d like to report a missing person,” I said in my most mature and serious voice.
He asked me a few quick questions. At first I thought he was trying to put me off, but then he took a full statement and told me he’d send a couple of officers to check it out.
I was almost home when I remembered about the spilled pop and my fingerprint in it. I considered going back or phoning to mention it, but it seemed so irrelevant that I didn’t bother. The police weren’t interested in spilled cola.
I felt kind of relieved as I turned up the driveway and headed for my house. Now I wasn’t carrying the burden of this whole thing by myself. The police would surely find out what had happened to Nadine, and, hopefully, return her safely home.
My relief, as it turned out, was short-lived indeed.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I worked again the next morning, though luckily it was a short shift. I’d been awake late the night before, just lying there in my bed thinking, so it was hard to drag myself out of bed when morning came. I’d slept fitfully at best and woke up more tired than when I’d crawled in the night before.
Ben was working, thank goodness! It was quiet in the place at the moment with just the two of us there. Lisa would be arriving shortly, though, and that would be the end of my relaxed time. Once she came in I always found myself tensing up a little, kind of waiting for her to find something to criticize or nag about. Even though I worked in the kitchen with Ben, it felt as though Lisa was the one who was watching me continually.
“You look a bit bleary today,” Ben observed, helping me separate eggs — yolks to be cooked into the filling of lemon pies and whites to be beaten into meringue for the topping. The shells were already baked and lined up on the counter.
“I didn’t sleep well,” I admitted.
“Not still worried about your friend, are you?”
“Yeah, kind of. But now the police are going to check into her disappearance. I’m hoping they’ll find her quickly.”
“You went to the police?” His eyebrow arched a bit. I could see from the expression on his face that he still thought I was totally overreacting.
“Yes, and they’re going to check it out.” I said the last with some satisfaction, since it proved that they were taking me seriously.
“Well, good. Then you can stop worrying.” He cracked the last egg from a carton, separating it with one hand and tossing the shell into the garbage.
I started to answer, but that crazy moaning and banging in the pipes started up then, startling me and making me drop an egg. It smashed on the floor and I found myself flustered and embarrassed. Even though Ben was easy to work with, I still found that his speed and efficiency sometimes made me feel slow and clumsy around him.
“It’s just an egg.” He smiled, passing me a roll of paper towel.
“I’m glad I’m not working with Carlotta today.” I knelt to wipe up the spreading slime. “She hates it when I make mistakes.”
“Oh, no. My dear cousin Carlotta loves to see someone make a mistake,” Ben laughed. “It gives her a chance to be nasty, which is the thing she likes most in the whole world.”
Then he did a hilarious imitation of Carlotta, telling me I was a stupid girl, waving his hands in the air the way she did, and sighing in a deep, heavy way.
“You think it’s bad working with Carlotta,” he added, “you should try living with her!”
“You two live in the same place?” I asked, astonished.
“We three,” he corrected. “Believe it or not, I’m crazy enough to share a house with Carlotta and Lisa. It’s temporary, until we get the family business built up. Am I not the bravest man you ever met?”
I agreed that he certainly was, and he did another imitation of Carlotta, only this one was of her first thing in the morning, grouchy and dishevelled.
We were still laughing when Lisa appeared in the doorway a few moments later. I didn’t know if she’d just arrived or if she’d come earlier and been in the dining room. Whatever the case, I sure hoped she hadn’t heard Ben’s impersonation. Since they were all related she might overlook Ben making fun of Carlotta, but it was different for me. I was an outsider, and already not her favourite person, although I had no idea why she seemed to dislike me.
If she’d heard what Ben had said, she ignored it, turning her attention to me.
“The janitor was sick last night,” she said. “I need you to help out here. Come.”
I followed her to the dining room and was given brief instructions to vacuum there and then clean the bathrooms. Vacuuming was slow because I had to move all the chairs and then put them back. I could feel Lisa watching me, and I didn’t doubt that she was thinking I was taking too long.
I was actually glad to get to the bathrooms, since I was out of her sight in them. It didn’t take long to give the toilets a quick scrub with the brush and wash the sinks and counters. I sprayed the mirrors with foaming cleanser and shone them with a clean cloth. Peach air fresheners sat on the counters and I checked to make sure they didn’t need to be replaced. Then the floors had to be mopped and I made sure the paper towel and toilet paper supplies were filled.
“I’m finished,” I reported back to Lisa, proud of the thorough job I’d done in both bathrooms.
She checked them and then told me to go back to the kitchen. If she was pleased with my work, she sure didn’t mention it.
Because of the extra cleaning I’d had to do, the time left for my own tasks was cut down a lot, which meant I really had to hurry. Two o’clock arrived before I knew it and I still had a few things that weren’t quite done.
“I’ll finish up.” Ben waved away my concerns. “You’re probably anxious to see what the police found out about your friend.”
He was right — I had been thinking about that. I thanked him, folded my apron, and managed to slip out the employee door without any more unpleasant contact with Lis
a.
The walk to the police station took about twenty minutes from the restaurant so it was close to two-thirty when I got there. I asked for Sergeant Newman and was told to have a seat. By the time he came to fetch me, it was well past three.
“Sorry about the wait, Miss Belgarden,” he said, ushering me into a room with a desk and chairs. I seated myself and waited expectantly. To my surprise, he stopped in the doorway.
“Now, let’s see, Officers Monray and Doucet went out on that call,” he said. “I think both of them are here at the moment. I’ll just fetch whichever one I can find and let him fill you in.”
I waited another few minutes and then an officer came sauntering in.
“I’m Officer Doucet,” he said, shaking my hand. He gave me a friendly smile and then flipped open a black notebook.
“Have you found out anything about Nadine?” I asked.
“It says here in my report,” he said, without answering my question, “that you had gone to Miss Gardiner’s apartment before you filed a report with us. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Could you tell me again what you found at her apartment?”
I went over it in as much detail as I could think of at the moment, puzzled as to why he was asking me this. The thought of the spilled pop with my fingerprint in it popped into my head and I explained about that too. He didn’t seem at all interested in that part, so I figured I was being a bit paranoid.
“Now, it says here that when you left Miss Gardiner’s apartment, you didn’t secure the door.”
“No. I left it the way it had been before,” I said. “It looked like it was closed tight, but it wasn’t, not quite, and the lock hadn’t latched. When I knocked, the door opened on its own.”
“Uh-huh. Well, when we went to investigate, we found the door closed and locked. We had to get the landlady to let us in.” He smiled briefly, and I wondered what weird performance he’d been subjected to in order to gain access to the apartment. At least he wouldn’t have been accused of being Mary Poppins.
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