by M. D. Archer
Sophie gulped, a wave of nausea rolling through her. She sometimes forgot they were talking about a real girl who might be being held against her will somewhere. She hoped Polly was just off somewhere being rebellious and independent. Any other alternative was horrible to think about.
Sophie was startled by the passenger door opening suddenly.
“Hey, any news?” Paige said, hopping inside the car.
Sophie was thrilled to see Paige had brought two venti sized coffees with her. “You legend,” she said, taking one, “but no, nothing yet. Though, something did occur to me. We don’t know whether he’s still in his office.”
Paige eyed Sophie. “You mean because he might have left on foot?”
“Yeah. With all the hotels in the area, he could just walk down to City Life or somewhere for his rendezvous.”
“I’ve got an idea.” Paige pulled out her phone. “What’s his work number?” Sophie recited it to Paige, who asked the switchboard to put her through to Tyrone Dixon. “So he doesn’t see my number,” she explained to Sophie. A second later she hung up abruptly, feeling like she was ten years old again, making prank calls with her brother.
“He’s there.”
“That’s a relief.” Sophie took another sip of coffee. “So, how’d it go with Mrs Burmeister? Was she thrilled?”
“So thrilled, it nearly brought a tear to my eye,” Paige said honestly. “Poor thing, she truly, truly loves that cat.”
“He’s probably her best friend.” Sophie nodded.
“You know what though? She wasn’t thrilled enough to give me the money she was going to give Leo.”
“Paige!”
“What? She could have. She doesn’t need it. She’s loaded.”
“Are you still going to try and get the $500 from the RLBC?”
“Damn right I am. Why shouldn’t we?”
Sophie grinned. “Hey, can you reach back and get my bag? I’m going to switch to my laptop, it’s easier.”
“Sure. What are you doing?”
“I was thinking this would be a good time to go over what we know, see if we can follow up some leads.
“Work the clues,” Paige said. “It’s something Dad used to say,” she added, sadness creeping into her voice. “I thought it was from a movie, until I realised he’d made it up. It was part of his character. When we played Gumshoe Detective, he was Inspector Garnet: kind underneath his surly demeanour, tough but fair, you know the type... and I’d be Jonesy, his junior assistant, inexperienced but plucky and a natural at crime fighting. When we were solving a case he’d growl to me—in character—that we needed to work the clues.”
“Work the clues,” Sophie repeated. “I like it,” she added, with a smile for her friend.
“I get the feeling you already have a thread you want to follow,” Paige said as Sophie turned on her laptop.
“There’s one thing we haven’t followed up on and I think it’s kind of important.”
“Which is?”
Sophie looked at Paige, her eyes wide and serious. “Where did she go? That night, after dinner? Where did Polly Dixon go the night she disappeared?”
“She doesn’t have a job, right?”
Sophie shook her head.
“So, she was off doing something related to uni, something social or something related to her environmentalism,” Paige said.
“Yeah. I already asked Talia and she doesn’t know where she was. Neither do their friends—Talia already checked—and neither does Facebook.” Sophie was scrolling through posts as she spoke.
“So, the obvious person to ask next is...”
“Dominic. But he wouldn’t tell me what he was doing that night. He said he couldn’t remember, but he was openly hostile by then. He didn’t even try.”
“Really.”
“Yeah. It’s pretty suss. To not even try to help find someone he used to date?”
“Do you think he’s hiding something?”
“I’m not sure what, but yeah. I’m going to check online, see if there anything from that night, but Paige?”
“Uh-huh?”
“You keep an eye on the parking entrance, okay?”
“Definitely,” Paige said. She still felt bad about falling asleep during their stakeout.
Half an hour later Sophie hit the jackpot. “Look. Here it is! An Instagram photo taken at The Place—where he works. It’s from that Wednesday night. It’s some sort of fundraising gig and look... in the background.” Sophie’s pulse was racing. “It’s Polly! And she’s sitting at a table with someone. You can see an elbow.”
Paige peered at the grainy photo. Polly was visible in the corner, completely unaware that Dominic had taken a selfie of the room.
“She looks tense,” Paige said.
Sophie was already shutting her laptop and grabbing her bag. “I’ve got to go talk to Dominic again. He might know who she was with. At the very least he omitted an important detail. Polly was there that night.”
“YOU AGAIN,” DOMINIC said. He glanced to the back of the café. “My boss is here, I can’t stop working to chat to you.”
“Fine, I’ll take an Americano please. I need a couple of minutes of your time, Dominic. It’s important.”
“Are you going to bug me about Polly again?” Dominic rang up her purchase, gestured for Sophie to do her thing with the Eft-Pos machine, and moved across to make her coffee. Sophie glanced behind her to check the presence of other customers. Thankfully no one else was here.
“I know you aren’t a reporter by the way.”
“Dominic, no-one has seen Polly for over a week. Aren’t you worried at all?”
The appearance of a frown told Sophie he was. But why? Because he was involved in her disappearance, or because he cared more than he let on?
“I need to know where she went that night, and I have proof you were with her for at least some of the evening.” Sophie held up her phone so he could see the undeniable evidence.
“Yeah. I know. I worked it out after you came and saw me.” Dominic shook his head. “I didn’t want to get involved... I didn’t want the police bugging me. I have a record... you know?”
“Okay, I understand. But I’m not the police, and I need your help, Dominic. Why was she here?”
“She came to ask me a few questions about Sunshine.”
“What?”
“Sunshine International, it’s a company. A totally dodgy company. We got word that representatives arrived in NZ a few weeks ago. She was asking who they were and what they were doing here. I didn’t know the answer. We’re still trying to figure it out.”
“Did she seem okay?”
“Uh, I guess she seemed a bit worried.” Dominic shrugged.
“But you don’t know what about?”
“The usual stuff, I thought?”
“She was talking to someone that night.” Sophie showed him her phone again. “See? Do you know who?”
Dominic studied the photo and shook his head. “I don’t know, honestly. I only talked to her for a few minutes. I was distracted, and, uh...” He trailed off.
“Stoned?” Sophie guessed. He nodded. “I don’t care about that,” she assured him. He shrugged as if he didn’t either. “Who else was here, do you remember? The band?” Sophie prompted.
“Sure, here, I’ll write their names down.”
Sophie handed over her notepad, surprised at this turnaround. Did Dominic feel guilty about his earlier recalcitrance? He scratched his head as he thought, eventually coming up with a list of about eight names before handing back the notepad. Sophie glanced at the list.
“You should be able to find them all online but let me know if you can’t.”
“Thanks. How long did she stay for, that night?”
“Not very long I don’t think. I don’t know when she showed up exactly, but she got a text while she was talking to me and I think she left soon after.”
This time Sophie was listening to him as well as watching his body la
nguage. She was looking for verbal signs of lying. Simple stories but the use of elaborate, overly long sentences to explain; and lack of personal pronouns, distancing himself from the story he was creating. Dominic wasn’t doing any of that.
“Who was the text from? Where she did go?”
“I don’t know. But I kind of got the impression she went home.”
“But she didn’t end up there, did she,” Sophie said, more to herself than him.
SOPHIE OPENED THE CAR door.
“How’d it go?” Paige asked.
“Hang on, a parking warden is coming. Do you have any coins?”
They both fished around in their wallets and Sophie managed to slot two $2 coins into the meter just before the warden got to them. The warden walked away with a disapproving shake of her head.
“So, Dominic admitted to seeing Polly but only for part of the night. She came to the café but left again.”
“And he’s telling the truth?”
“Um.” Sophie had felt quite sure when she was talking to Dominic, but now, under Paige’s intense gaze and the weight of her determined face, her confidence wavered.
“Soph, just trust your instincts. What do you think?”
“I... uh... yes I think he was telling me the truth.”
“Okay, so we will momentarily at least, take him off the suspect board.” Paige snapped her fingers. “Hey, we need to buy a whiteboard for the office, so we can do that murder board thing.”
“This isn’t a murder.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Sure. Fine, but what do we do now? We still don’t know where she went after she left The Place, it’s the key to all this.”
They sat together in silence musing over what they could do next.
Eventually, Sophie said, “Should we try calling Mr Dixon’s office again?”
Paige nodded and dialled. She hung up a second later.
“Crap. The receptionist said he’s just popped out!” Paige jettisoned herself out of the car. “C’mon!”
They sprinted the couple of blocks to the front entrance to the building that housed the Global Solution offices on Albert Street.
“There!” Paige pointed. Tyrone was walking rapidly down the road, staring straight ahead.
They ran-walked after him, Paige nimbly dodging people in her way, Sophie nearly causing a major pedestrian pile-up. After taking only two steps, she’d managed to ricochet off someone, and unable to right herself before clipping someone else’s shoulder, carried on zig-zagging down the road like an apologetic ball in a pin-ball machine. Paige made a mental note that Sophie would not be tailing anyone on foot for future cases. Just as Sophie came crashing to a stop behind Paige, Tyrone abruptly turned left into a building.
“He’s getting food at the Albert Street food hall.” Sophie sighed. “So, back to the car?”
“Yeah, we don’t want to risk him seeing us. Or—” Paige thought for a moment. “Let’s split up. I’ll stay, make sure he does go back to the office and then I’ll watch the front entrance. He could easily go somewhere on foot again. You go back to the car. Okay? I’ve got my phone.”
Sophie nodded and hurried back up the street.
LATE LUNCH FOR THE team? Paige wondered as she watched Tyrone walking briskly past ten minutes later, carrying four containers of food. Paige wondered why there wasn’t some junior associate or secretary rushing about buying lunch for Tyrone and his colleagues.
Paige strolled behind him, fairly confident that even if he noticed her he wouldn’t remember who she was, and also that he was going back to the office. When he disappeared inside the Global Solutions building she found a spot across the road where she could lean against a concrete pillar and blend in with her surroundings.
BACK AT THE CAR, SOPHIE refreshed Polly’s page again. Still nothing.
She settled back into the seat, making sure she had a direct line of sight where cars entered and exited the parking building.
More than an hour later and bored stiff, Sophie decided to try the “is he in” call. Like Paige, she felt like a tween making prank calls.
“No, I’m sorry, he’s out of the office at a meeting this afternoon.”
Dammit. How did that happen?
“Oh, I see. When did he leave?” Sophie asked.
“I’m sorry, who’s calling please?”
“His wife,” Sophie said, trying to approximate an older, wealthier, more confident woman. “Mrs Dixon.”
“I spoke to Carolyn ten minutes ago,” the cool voice informed Sophie.
Crap.
Sophie hung up and called Paige. “He’s gone out to a meeting. Did you see him leave?”
“Nope.” Paige sighed. “Maybe it’s an in-house meeting?”
“The receptionist said out of the office.”
“Maybe there’s a back entrance. I’ll go check it out.”
A few minutes later Paige called Sophie back. “There’s another way out of the building. It’s a shortcut to Hobson Street.”
“But how come I haven’t seen his car leave?” Sophie asked.
“Maybe he’s still in there? Maybe he hooks up with his lady friend in his car?”
“Really? No. There would be too many people around, surely.”
“I don’t know Soph... I guess he could have left the back way and walked somewhere. Or maybe he’s hooking up with a colleague and they left in her car.” Paige snapped her fingers with the realisation.
“So, what do we do?”
“I’ll come back and we’ll go over our options. I’m not sure there’s much point in waiting here but I don’t know what else we can do.”
Paige was almost back to the car when it hit her. Leo. If Tyrone’s phone was on, he could find out where he was, couldn’t he? All they had was his phone number, but maybe that was enough? She called Leo, still marching toward the car.
“Hey Leo. I need you to do something... what? No I didn’t... she did?”
Paige yanked open the car door, slightly breathless, eyes wide.
Sophie whirled around in her seat, her expression mirroring that of Paige’s. “Polly posted something,” she said.
“I know.” Paige held up her phone. “Leo’s traced it. We’ve got a location. Polly’s phone is in Opoutere, in the Coromandel.”
17
“No one’s home.” Paige could not believe it. Where were they? They had been rapping on the Dixon’s front door for at least five minutes.
“Try calling Carolyn?”
“It’s going straight to voicemail.”
“What do we do?”
“We wait. At least for a bit.”
They retreated to the car. Paige stared out the window. How frustrating. They were so close, she could tell.
Sophie’s phone pinged. It was a text from Dominic.
“I remembered who Polly met with. Jay. Co-founder of ENVIRONZ.”
The one Talia had mentioned, Sophie recalled as her stomach churned. She hadn’t received a response to her email and she hadn’t followed it up. They’d been focused on Dominic.
“Jay who? Full name? Address?”
“Paige! This might be something,” she said as she watched Dominic compose his response.
“Jason Williamson. Lives across road from Polly.”
“Holy crap...”
“What?”
“Jay, who set up ENVIRONZ with Polly, it was his elbow in the photo from the night Polly went missing, and he lives across the road from Polly. His name is Jason, but he also goes by Jay.”
Paige’s eyes bugged. “Oh boy. That is something. Come on.” Paige leapt out of the car and hurried across the road.
After banging on the door for an uninterrupted twenty seconds, Wendy emerged from her house.
“Goodness. What’s all the fuss about?”
“Hello. You remember me, from the other day? Carolyn’s niece?”
Sophie glanced at Paige with a question in her eyes but Paige ignored this.
W
endy studied Paige. “No, I don’t think so, dear.”
“Geez. Whatever, listen, I saw you checking mail and watering plants. Is your neighbour away?” Paige pointed to his house.
“Yes, Jason has gone away somewhere for a couple of weeks.”
Sophie and Paige froze.
“Holy shit,” Paige said.
Sophie heard a whooshing in her ears.
“Do you know where he went? Was it the Coromandel?”
“Oh goodness, I don’t know, but he does have a holiday house somewhere out there, near the beach. He might have told me... I just can’t quite remember. He talks so fast.”
“How long has he been away now?” Sophie asked.
“Oh... shall we say ten days or thereabouts?” Wendy smiled at them.
Sophie threw a stricken glance at Paige, who returned it and grabbed Sophie’s hand to yank her back toward the car.
“Thank you, Wendy,” Sophie called out. She felt awful. She’d known about Jay but hadn’t followed up on him. Was it her inability to follow up on a potential clue that had delayed this revelation? What if they found Polly and it was too late? She felt sick.
“It’s got to be him,” Paige said, once they were back in the car.
“But did they go away together, or did he force her to go?” Sophie pulled out her phone and dialled a number. “Just give me a sec.” She could not believe how many phone calls she’d had to make recently. “Talia, hey, how’s it going?” She put the phone on speaker.
“Okay...” Talia sounded wary.
“Hey listen... I need to check you’re absolutely sure Jay and Polly weren’t, uh, hanging out? Dating? It’s not possible they took off together to hang out in private?”
“No,” Talia scoffed. “No way. Polly thought he was creepy. He made a pass at her once and she was not into it at all, she tried to avoid being alone with him after that. Why? Do you think he has something to do with this?” Talia asked, a tremble in her voice.