by Heidi Angell
Once again, feeling useless, he wondered what Clear was learning. He hoped she would be able to fill him in tonight. He dialed to check in on the kids.
Clear was impressed with how professional Detective Bryce could be. She would not have expected this, considering all his emotional turmoil on their previous meetings. His emotional climate was much more placid than last time as well. Wondering if this was because of the windfall she had gotten him, or because of the little contact he had had with Grant, Clear willed herself to focus back on the conversation with Ms. Chofsky. Bryce had been prodding her about the blood on the dance floor.
“Come on, Ms. Chofsky. You know something about that stain.”
“I told you and her and the other man! I do not work in this room.” Her panic was rising with every second. Her eyes whirled around the room as if she were hunting out an escape.
“Yes, you said that. But your voice said that although you don’t work in this room, you know at least something about what happened and that something… that something has you running scared.” Bryce was speaking in a very calm and soothing voice. “I understand that you are here on a teaching visa.” He suddenly changed tactics and his voice became more business-like and less gentle. “You aren’t protecting someone who might effect that visa are you?”
“No! I tell you, I do not know what happened in this room! All I know is that when Mr. Lando found his studio this way, he was very angry! He stormed and raged about it for days….”
Clear felt something… something like suspicion in the woman’s silence. “Then what?” Clear interrupted. It was the first time she had interrupted Bryce and she wasn’t sure how it would be received.
“Then… he got over it. I guess he accepted that whoever had done it was not going to… admit it.” She had almost said confess and Clear knew it. She followed the lead before Bryce could interrupt her.
“Mr. Lando seems like the kind of person who doesn’t really let things go.” she commented. “His behavior… bothers you. Tell me, what does it make you think happened?”
The shock on both the woman’s face and on Bryce’s face was classic. If things weren’t so serious, Clear might have laughed. Instead she leaned on the woman.
“You do know that by not telling us, you are only getting yourself in trouble. We could have your visa revoked. You could be packing your bags this very afternoon to return home,” Clear pressed.
“I tell you…” The woman murmured in a very small voice. “I don’t know anything.”
Her stress on the word ‘know’ made Clear adapt. “But you have some thoughts on it. You have been teaching here for a very long time. You are tapped into this place. You know how things work. Your suspicions are probably more correct than you think. Share them with us.”
Clear patted her shoulder and got a very distinct thought. ‘Louis’. She waited patiently. The woman seemed to be thinking very hard. She sighed. “If I tell you what I think… it will not get back to anyone?” She looked to Bryce. He nodded. She looked at the ground, her face screwed up very tight. “I assumed… that it had something to do with… his wife.” Clear instantly knew that she was lying. But she let Bryce continue on this line. She knew that Ms. Chofsky had substituted wife for the only thing close enough that Mr. Lando might be willing to forgive and forget for… his son.
She wanted to leave, to follow this lead. It seemed that it would be rude to do so, so Clear sat quietly through the rest of the interview, trying to piece together the bits and clues in her mind.
Grant came back into the lobby and ran into Tony walking out. He immediately turned to follow the young man out. “Tony!” Grant called as the young man was climbing into a jeep. The boy ducked his head in acknowledgement, but kept going. Grant jogged up to the door as the boy was starting the engine.
“Tony.”
“What?” there was agitation and something more in his voice. Fear? Grant ducked his head down. “You really did care about Bella, didn’t you?”
“Yeah…” the boy’s eyes were very sad.
“You thought she ran away. Thought she ran away from you. You were more surprised and hurt than anyone else. You two were close. Your feelings weren’t lying to you and neither was she.” Grant didn’t know how much of what he was saying was true, but he could see the effect it was having on the boy. He was discounting a lot of the barriers the boy had been building. “Tony, I absolutely believe that Bella did not leave on her own. I have good reason and plenty of evidence that suggests that she was kidnapped. I also have reason to believe that her life is in danger. Immediate danger. If there is anything you can tell me that might help her… I would be grateful.”
Tony chewed his lip, looking at Grant. “You got a card or something?” he asked quietly.
Grant resisted the urge to smile. He handed him a card. “Call my cell.”
“I’ll call you tonight.” Tony murmured. “We can meet somewhere else.” His eyes furtively snapped back to the school and then he ducked his head and shifted the gears. Grant stepped back watching the boy drive away. His heart felt a little bit lighter. Part of him felt guilty giving the boy hope that Bella would come home, but if his daughter came home and they caught Bella’s killer; Grant decided he could live with it.
Chapter 13
Clear was quite keen to start their conversation with Mr. Lando again. When the receptionist came in and announced that Mr. Lando had time to meet with them, Clear was ready to jump at the chance. She could see that Detective Bryce was not happy. He really thought he was on to something with Lando’s wife and didn’t want to stop talking with Ms. Chofsky.
“I could go,” Clear offered. Bryce looked at her hard.
“We need to do this together,” he insisted. He looked a Ms. Chofsky, who had gone quite rigid. The woman was probably terrified that they would be talking to Mr. Lando right after her and if Bryce asked him about his wife’s dalliances, he would know she was the one who said anything.
“Mr. Lando has a very busy schedule,” the receptionist insisted. “This is the only time he will have to speak with you today.”
Bryce did not like being bullied. “He will meet with me when I say he will,” he snapped. “Whether he wants to, or has time to, or otherwise.” He eyed Ms. Chofsky. “And you will be available to talk when I decide as well,” he snapped. “Come on Ms. Angel.”
She dutifully followed him out, mentally deciding that she and Grant would be talking to Ms. Chofsky again very soon. As they walked back into Mr. Lando’s office, Clear tested the air. The man was no more concerned than before. Bryce immediately grabbed the bull by the horns.
“So, Mr. Lando. Tell me a little bit about your wife’s relationships in the studio?”
Mr. Lando glowered at the man, but there was no surprise or even irritation in his emotional climate. He waited for the receptionist to close the door and then leaned back in his chair, resting his elbows on the arm rests and interlacing his fingers in a decidedly villainous manner.
“You are quite crass, aren’t you?” he commented. “What would my wife’s relationships have to do with Ms. Johnson’s disappearance? Or are you no better than a common yellow journalist? Digging up any dirt you can in hopes of flustering anybody and everybody here?”
Bryce scowled at the tongue lashing.
Clear smiled at Mr. Lando. “Forgive us, Detective Bryce is not as understanding about the creative world.” Clear was winging it, but suspected that their relationship was mutually open. “Not everyone can believe that two people can love and trust one another so very much as to understand their… brief liaisons with others.”
There was a glint in Lando’s eye. “Well, once again you prove that you should have been a dancer. You truly missed your calling, my dear. Yes, my wife and I have an open relationship. We are kindred souls. We both understand that sometimes a young person’s genius and talent cannot be fully tapped until they truly feel passion. We have found our own methods to help bring out that passion in others.
My wife has found that.. it is… effective to engage a man in the way that a man is most engaged to help them reach their full potential. And as long as she always comes home, what harm is there in this?” He splayed his fingers. “She did not employ the same techniques with the women, so again I do not see how this is relevant to your investigation?”
“Were there any other instructors who might have used this technique?” Clear asked casually.
“If you are suggesting that I seduced that young woman, you are sadly mistaken.” His face said that he truly believed that. “I have a very strictly enforced policy. Our younger dancers, male and female, are completely off-limits to any of the instructors in this… method. I do not encourage pedophilia.” he stated derisively.
Clear nodded. “Of course, and Ms. Johnson was not 18 yet….” She looked to Bryce. “As a matter of fact, didn’t she turn 18 during the Chicago trip?” She looked to Mr. Lando expectantly.
“I think she did,” Bryce bluffed. Clear knew he had no idea when the girl turned 18.
Mr. Lando watched them both for several moments. “If she had turned 18, then why would you even be investigating? She would have been a legal adult.”
“No sir, as long as she was still in high school and living with her parents, she is still considered a minor. We would investigate that,” Clear bluffed, not knowing the legal implications.
Mr. Lando simply stared at them expectantly. “Which of your instructor’s use this method?” Clear asked again.
Mr. Lando threw his hands up and for the first time Clear actually felt his emotional climate adjust quite negatively. “How should I know?” he snapped. “I do a thorough background check on every one of my instructors. Beyond that, we have a very open policy at this school and any of the dancers know that if they are having difficulty with an instructor, they need only talk to me and things will be arranged. None have ever complained about harassment of any kind.”
“That open-door policy, is that why Bella only spent a few months under Ms. Chofsky’s instruction?” Clear asked. Again she felt his emotional climate spike negatively. She was on to something and stuck to it like a bloodhound.
“As I recall, the young woman did not feel that she had any more to learn from Ms. Chofsky. She passed her exams and moved on to private instruction.”
“Yes, that is what Ms. Chofsky told us. She said that Bella moved on to private instruction with Mr. Lando. Would that be you, or your son?” Clear probed. The man actually started to sweat.
“Well, she would have trained with one of us after the Chicago trip, but she did not have time for private instruction as she was getting ready for the show.”
“Right, but she was getting private instruction for the show,” Clear reminded him. “No one seems to know who was working with her privately. Why is that?”
Mr. Lando eyed her for a moment and Clear resisted the urge to cringe. She had hit a nerve and this man who wore emotional masks almost perfectly had lost his mask. The predatory gaze was extremely intimidating, but as far as she could tell Bryce hadn’t noticed anything. Suddenly Clear was very afraid and wished more than anything that Grant was with her.
“Ms. Angel, I am not sure what you are thinking, but I believe that it has been quite elaborately explained that she was working with her dance partners under my supervision and that any other dance time was up to them. I was the only one who would have been directing their rehearsals as I was the director of the show.” In that moment Clear knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was lying.
Grant had spoken to the Crime Scene Investigator and was relieved that they were able to get up samples of the blood in the floor boards. The CSI didn’t know if they were too degraded to test, but seemed quite confident that they were not.
He had watched them bag his daughter’s backpack and several costumes from the performance night. He had walked through the studios, watched the dance studio members whispering amongst each other in confusion at all that was going on around them, and had shown his daughter’s picture to several of them. Each had answered with the same confused expression. None of them recognized her, knew her, had any recollection of her at all. He was beginning to doubt that Kat had ever been to this dance studio. She must have gotten involved in Chicago and her bag had come back on the cart, with the members of the troupe none the wiser. Meanwhile, if the killer was in this group, he now knew that they were looking for her and hard. He would feel the need to dispose of any evidence linking him to Kat. An intense wave of anxiety flooded him. He could not breathe. What if the man was killing his little girl as he sat here chasing his own tail, tracking leads that had to do with a girl who was already dead? The thought left him frozen in indecision.
He jumped out of his skin when Clear touched his arm gently. “We are done here,” she whispered. He looked into her shining eyes.
“We need to talk to Tony again,” he muttered quietly. “He is going to call me tonight to meet with him.”
“We really need to talk to Louis Lando.” Clear gave him a meaningful look. “Mr. Lando said his son is still in Chicago. He has a loft studio there where he works. I begged Bryce to take Mr. Lando into custody, but he won’t listen to me. If we don’t arrest him and his wife, they will warn their son. I don’t know how to tell you this, but… my gut says this is our lead! I’m afraid….” Her eyes began to well up and Grant put a reassuring arm on her shoulder.
“I’ll talk to him.” Grant followed Clear outside. Bryce was standing talking to one of the CSI’s. Grant interrupted without a thought. “Bryce, you need to take them in and hold them for 48 hours.”
“On what?” Bryce snapped.
“Make something up!” Clear snapped back. “Investigation of pedophilia or something!!”
“Can’t you hold them on conspiracy? The bag was found in their business stashed away. They have not been particularly cooperative. They can’t even help you get in touch with their son. Who can’t get in touch with their kid? I’m not buying it.” Grant raked his hands through his hair.
Bryce chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment. “And if you are wrong? Then when they come down and sue the crap out of me, then what?”
“I don’t think we are wrong,” Clear insisted.
Grant held his hand up. “In my personal life, I’ll admit, I am often wrong. But on the job when have I ever been wrong?” Bryce stared into his eyes deeply and Grant was almost sure that he had him.
“But this isn’t the job, man. It is your daughter. It doesn’t get much more personal than that.” He turned and walked away. Grant slammed his fist into the brick wall. He had been so close. Now what was he going to do?
Clear was shocked when Grant slammed his fist into the wall. It wasn’t like him to show violence. Not that she really knew him that well. She sighed. How did she end up in this insane situation? She debated chasing after Detective Bryce, but Bryce already thought she was a joke. She couldn’t very well amaze him with her abilities like she had done with the sheriff back home.
Grant had slumped to the ground when she made a quick decision. “I’ll be right back.” She said and ran full-tilt after Detective Bryce. He had taken off pretty quick and was already at the end of the block. She was surprised how far away he had to park, but since he had called on the local cavalry and they had gotten here first they must have really blocked traffic. “Detective Bryce!” she called, pounding down the street. She knew he was planning on staying to pursue this line of investigation. She had felt the intent in his words to Grant. If he had heard her, he wasn’t slowing down. She ran harder and yelled as loud as she could. “Detective Bryce! Wait up!” When he did not acknowledge her that time, she put on an extra burst of speed that left her unable to call out to him.
He whirled around in surprise when she got close enough that he could hear her feet slapping pavement. She was most definitely not wearing running shoes either. She slowed down, holding the stitch in her side and dragging in ragged breaths.
“Come to
fight for him again?” Bryce quipped.
Clear waved him off. “You are so blind… by your anger at him…” She took a deep cleansing breath. “But I don’t care about your personal relationship.” Another deep breath. The stitch had faded. “I’ll be honest, I’m not a big fan of Grant’s either. But I’m not here for him. I am here because a 15 year old girl was kidnapped. Now, I don’t know what happened back here that you people all have it in your head that I am sleeping with him, but I am not.” She could feel the heat rising in her cheeks. “Nor will we ever.” In her mind she amended, ‘again’. “I am not Grant. I know you have probably already checked me out.” His twinge of guilt made her think maybe he had not. “I am a professional,” she bluffed. “I am not making this call on a desperate whim.” Which is what Bryce had basically accused Grant of doing. “Now obviously, you don’t agree with us. That is fine. But Kat is in very real danger and if we have tipped the bad guy off, then he will get rid of her as soon as possible.
“Can you at least do this for me? Take his parents in for questioning and keep them talking as long as you can. Oh, and let me borrow your car. We need to get to Chicago and find this guy as soon as possible.”
Bryce eyed her carefully. “You really aren’t sleeping with him?” he asked as he held his keys up to her.
Chapter Fourteen
Clear had never seen Grant drive so fast or so recklessly. Her fingernails were embedded in the door and chair as he took another sharp corner. He had not said anything in the last fifteen or twenty minutes, but she knew that his tension was rising as well and this is what really scared her. They had Louis’ home address and his studio address. There had been no answer at his home and as far as Clear could tell neither Bella nor Kat had been there recently. There was no imprint. Of course she hadn’t made it past the front door. Now Grant had the sirens blaring as they flew across Chicago to the man’s studio.