The Lucky Dey Thriller Series: Books 1-3 (The Lucky Dey Series Boxset)

by Doug Richardson

  “…Don’t think being from here’s a job,” said Lucky. “More like an affliction you learn to live with.”

  Cherry Pie unleashed a tiny laugh and a smile. Genuine. It was the first time Lucky had seen it. Imperfect rows of teeth but still camera-ready. She had shifted from cautious—not even willing to step from the refuge of her car—to nervous but helpful, standing with Lucky in The Rabbit Pole parking lot, recollecting her short history with Karrie Kaarlsen. And now, behind the wheel, personally guided the detective and father to the last place she had seen the fifteen-year-old.

  “Anything of Karrie’s in here?” asked Lucky.

  “You mean is there anything in here that’s not my shit?” joked Cherry. “Sorry. My car’s a friggin’ garbage pail. Don’t usually take passengers. Least when I’m littering it’s in my own crap-mobile.”

  Lucky leaned back and looked over his left shoulder into the backseat, then waited for another turn in the road when he would catch some illumination from the headlights behind them.

  “You know, she’s much older than her age,” segued Cherry. “Not, you know, like she’s not fifteen like you said. But like an old soul, you know?”

  “Mature,” summed Lucky.

  “Girl’s been around, ’kay?” infused Cherry. “I feel like I can tell you cuz you’re not her dad.”

  “Experienced for her age.”

  “Knows her way up and down the street. Dudes. Parties. Drugs.”

  “That why you introduced her to General Ho?”

  “Told you. Thought she was eighteen.”

  Lucky thought he’d caught a glimpse of a satchel behind the driver’s seat.

  “Backpack yours?” he asked.

  “You mean my shoulder bag? Didn’t I put it in the trunk?”

  With his left arm, Lucky stretched into the darkness behind the driver’s seat to grab a handful of a nylon backpack. Heavy. Stuffed with who knows what? So he got hold of a strap and arm-curled it over and onto his lap.

  It took Cherry barely a glance.

  “Wait. That’s Val’s,” she said.

  “Karrie’s, you mean.”

  “Right. That’s hers.”

  “Left it in your car.”

  “I guess.”

  As the lights from the road flashed and faded across the car interior, that dull Hello Kitty logo appeared to wink at Lucky, as if it were some kind of invitation.

  Zzzziiiiiiiiiiiippppppp.

  The sound of Lucky unzipping the bag sounded closer to the ripping of fabric.

  “Hey,” bit Cherry. “That’s not yours to go through.”

  Lucky ignored the comment, dipping into the backpack and examining items from the top down. Scrunched up clothes for the most part. Two bras. Non-matching panties. Candy bar wrappers. Tampons. A sharpie-decorated pair of Chuck Taylors. A Ziploc baggie containing a half-used toothpaste tube, a variety of hotel mini-soaps, a hairbrush. Stolen towel. Half roll of toilet paper. Another baggie with marijuana remnants and Zig-Zag rolling papers. A few loose dollar bills and change.

  In both side pockets were her makeup stashes divided into more Ziplocs. Some glue-on party glitter. An empty Pez dispenser resembling the Joker from Batman. An old iPod and headphones, the battery dead.

  Flipping the backpack around, Lucky found the zipper for the nearly hidden front flap, moved it four inches left, then let his fingers feel around inside until he withdrew a pair of folded white envelopes. Each sealed. Lucky held them up, waiting for a wash of light so he could read the addressees.

  “One for ‘Mom,’” read Lucky. “And the other for ‘Dad.’”

  With that, Lucky spun one of the envelopes, looking for a seam under which to tear it open. This was when Cherry’s hand reached over to throttle Lucky’s back.

  “Look,” said Cherry. “I get why you have to look at everything. But those aren’t addressed to you.”

  “Fully aware,” said Lucky. “But same rule applies. Letters might contain information that—”

  “Isn’t that her dad back there?” asked Cherry, her eyes flicking into the rearview mirror. “Think she deserves just a little privacy?”

  Lucky stared back at Cherry as he pondered her request.

  Privacy? What fifteen-year-old deserves privacy?

  Lucky thought better of opening either envelope, refolding them and placing them unmolested back in the pocket.

  The last five minutes of driving until they arrived at The Casting Place went by in silence. Lucky had Cherry park her car precisely where she had the night before when she had last seen Karrie. She walked through all her moves and conversation and stood under the pepper tree where she had last waved goodbye to the teen. Lucky paced off the distance to the front door. Thirty-four yards. A hundred and two feet. Even eyes that tested at the top of the optometry scale couldn’t distinguish much with a single streetlamp as a source.

  “Well somebody other than Karrie’s gotta know him,” decided Lucky. “It’s late. I’ll talk up whoever I can find inside. You might wanna pass onto Andrew everything you told me.”

  Andrew, whose behavior that day had been nothing short of a Boy Scout’s, stopped standing in Lucky’s shadow and stepped closer to listen to Cherry.

  “Excuse me?” said Cherry. “I said I’d bring you to where I last saw her. I did that. Now I wanna go home.”

  “So leave me your address,” said Lucky. “Take daddy man with you and I’ll get him when I’m done.”

  It was a woman’s instinct to inch a step back and regard Andrew with a glance of distrust. Cherry gave the red-headed stranger a second once-over. Skinny. Sallow-cheeked with a terribly bruised face.

  “What happened here?” Cherry used her index finger to circle her face, but was referring to Andrew’s.

  “I flew out here to find my daughter,” answered Andrew. “And it hasn’t been a cakewalk.”

  “Listen,” said Cherry. “I’m all happy to help and shit. But seriously. I don’t know you guys. And this is getting too weird for me.”

  “I hear ya,” said Lucky, suddenly crossing to Cherry and hooking her elbow. He pointed at Andrew. “Give us a sec, pal.”

  “I just wanted to say—” began Andrew.

  “A sec,” interrupted Lucky. “Step back to the car, will ya?”

  Andrew threw up an obedient hand before withdrawing a few paces.

  “You can let go of me now,” hissed Cherry.

  “That is the girl’s father,” reminded Lucky. “And he’s traveled all this way to our little corner of the cesspool to find his daughter. A notion, not twenty minutes ago, you described as kinda romantic.”

  “Didn’t use those words.”

  “Listen. I’m not a cop right now. But I got plenty of badges on speed dial who’d be more than happy to make the rest of your week miserable. Or…”

  “Or?”

  “Get in your car. Take him back home with you. Where do you live again?”

  “Silver Lake.”

  “Take him home with you to Silver Lake, catch daddy up on everything you know about his baby daughter until I come fetch his ass.”

  “Please?” volunteered Andrew from twenty feet away. “I’d love to hear anything you can tell me about my girl.”

  Cherry stood with her arms akimbo and an over-confident sense of her own propriety. She stared Andrew down for a good eight seconds.

  “You paying him?” she asked Andrew, clearly referring to Lucky.

  “’Course I am,” said Andrew.

  “Then pay me,” insisted Cherry.

  “That’s the ticket,” said Lucky. “I’m sure you’ll work out something.”

  Lucky left them with a mocking gesture of hands praying to a God he didn’t know. He turned his back and strode headlong up the walkway and the steps to the front door of The Casting Place. Andrew watched Lucky all the way until he disappeared inside.

  “So?” cued Cherry.

  “So I’m Karrie’s father,” said Andrew, at last introducing himself with a polite
hand.

  “I’m Cherry and, as far as I know, your girl had hella-reason to wanna get the hell outta Minnesota.”

  “Wisconsin,” corrected Andrew. “Chenaqua, Wisconsin.”

  “I really don’t wanna look like a you-know-what by asking for money,” apologized Cherry. “But it looks like everybody’s gettin’ paid but me.”

  “How’s five hundred dollars cash?” offered Andrew.

  “How’s a thousand?” countered Cherry. Her pose was all balls, no bullshit. Then just to punctuate her point, she jangled her car keys. “And the train is leaving the station.”

  31

  “Piss fuck!” griped Herm, discovering that once again the towel dispenser in the lone, single-holer men’s room at The Casting Place building was bereft of paper. The cardboard roll seen through the semi-translucent plastic was obviously bare, had been that way all day, and nobody in the building had thought enough to ask Queenie to have it replaced. And now, Herm was left with wet hands and the choice to either allow them to air dry or wipe them on his silk shirt or black linen slacks. Choosing the former, Herm shook free what moisture he could, splattering the mirror with hard water drops, then gently blowing on his fingers.

  As Herm was considering cursing the oddly wet winter that had temporarily shoved the normally dry air southward into Mexico, his ears clued into the familiar hollow clanking of the front entry. The passage mechanism had stopped operating long ago, so Queenie had simply left the deadbolt in the locked position, causing the heavy door to crash, shake the building to its earthquake retrofitting, and echo back a resounding metal-on-metal note.

  Herm checked his Rolex. A fake, he would usually acknowledge. But as Rolex knockoffs went, it was an outstanding fake. The time read just shy of an hour since he had spoken to the rat-bastard Gabriel on the phone.

  He listened as the footfalls emptied past the bathrooms, receding maybe ten paces down the hall before he reached for the door handle to let himself out. Wet hands or not, Herm sought to walk up behind the flesh-thieving bastard and catch Gabe by surprise before issuing a friendly smile and ushering him into his private interview suite. Once the door was locked behind him, the talk would shift from one neighbor helping another to a more primal, man to man summit.

  Where is she? You know, the strawberry blonde? Whatever she told you, don’t believe a fucking word. She’s the underage honey pot of a well-connected senator. You want a visit from the FBI? Homeland Security? Hey, pal. I’m doin’ you a favor, so cut the love song and give her up so I can send her back to where she belongs.

  Herm’s little speech was yet untested. But certain, he reasoned, to rattle the younger man once the threat was delivered with the appropriate gravitas, something Herm had in plentiful supply. So what if Herm showed a certain possessiveness over the little teenage princess? Once he got his hands on her, she was certain to be wholesaled out of his hair within twelve hours and washed of any of Herm’s fingerprints or damning evidence the “casting director” may have left behind.

  Cursing his wet hands, Herm pulled the bathroom door open and eased out into the main corridor that accessed those turnkey offices. A mere four paces ahead there was a figure, shorter than Herm, but broader than he recalled. If memory served, the photographer he sought had a full-on mop of hair. Yet the man in front of Herm had a buzzed scalp and the shoulders of a rugby player.

  Herm’s next thought was to turn back around and return to the bathroom. But what the hell for? His business there was complete but for air-drying his dampened mitts. So why then was his flight response on full alert?

  “Hey there,” said the man, pivoting himself. “You work here?”

  “I do, yes…” stammered Herm. “Well, sort of.” Herm had already stalled in the center of the corridor as if he had stepped in wet concrete.

  “Well you sorta do or you don’t?”

  “Don’t work for anybody,” answered Herm. “I rent a space right over…” Then as Herm wondered why the hell he was answering the questions as if he had to, he asked a question. “Can I do something for you?”

  “Just wanna know if you’ve seen this young woman.”

  Before Herm could gird himself for the unknown, he found himself face to face with a small, wallet-sized photograph of that strawberry blonde.

  My unicorn.

  Herm had faced down both cops and private detectives more than a few times. Always after the crime had been committed and long after any evidence could be traced back to him. Maybe that’s what triggered his amygdala response. Utter and pure instinct. In a few seconds of self-reflection he realized he had stared at the picture for a moment too long to justify any kind of denial.

  “She looks kinda familiar,” said Herm. “But around here…”

  “What do you mean ‘around here?’”

  “This place is for casting,” explained Herm. “Daytime it’s crawling with ’em. Actors, you know? Pretty girls like that lined up and down the place.”

  “This girl?”

  “Or girls like her. Like I said. Looks familiar in a generic kind of way,” said Herm, hoping to find an opening and turn the tables on the obvious cop or detective or whoever the hell he was. “Can I ask who you are?”

  “Yeah,” said Lucky. “I’m the guy who’s lookin’ for a girl.”

  “Any girl? Or that particular girl?”

  “Just the one,” said the man. “Anybody else around I could talk to?”

  “Not a clue,” said Herm. “I just popped in to pick up some files. Building office is in the basement. Could be someone down there.”

  “Appreciate your help,” said the man with an outstretched hand.

  Herm gripped it with a manly tension before realizing his hands were still wet.

  “Oh, so sorry,” he said. “No towels in the bathroom.”

  The man seemed to pay little mind, pivoted once more, and headed for the stairs.

  Like many veteran cops, Lucky felt he had developed his own custom bullshit detector. So sensitive, he fantasized, that with a simple, palm-to-palm handshake he could divine criminal intent. It wouldn’t be a tingle or heat or hairs on the nape of his neck or any kind of metaphysical passing of matter. It would be a voice with origins that felt sourced from somewhere near the base of his skull—not far from the old bullet wound and scar. It would speak flatly with a simple, two-word message.

  Good guy.

  Or…

  Bad guy.

  Sadly, Lucky needed more than just a handshake.

  He had already clocked Herm as at least a generation older than him. Maybe even more. And the long strides with which Herm seemed to lope told of a man whose athletic days might not have been so far behind him.

  But it was in another man’s eyes that Lucky had his best success. He wasn’t keen on reading eye movement or involuntary skyward twitches that might lead a neuroscientist to believe that a subject was accessing cerebral centers for truthful recall or fiction-making. Lucky’s favorite tell was in the pupils and whether he could detect changes in dilation in response to questions or certain stimuli.

  Like a photograph.

  While Herm gave the photo of Karrie a serious once-over, Lucky was squeezing the spheres of his own eyes in an effort to get a clear focus on Herm’s pupils. In the dimness of the corridor under the weak strip of fluorescents, Lucky failed to get a read. That and the subject’s soft contact lenses appeared to wiggle slightly as he gazed at the photo.

  Still, a voice inside Lucky practically barked.

  Bad guy!

  As frosty as a winter morning. Crystalline. Bell-like and with authority.

  Bad guy!

  The handshake was just punctuation. Lucky quickly found the stairwell that led to the basement, only to find the office was locked for the day. The handwritten sign on the door had an “in case of emergency” telephone number which Lucky snapped a photo of before launching himself back up the stairs in hopes of running into Herm again. It was the TV cop move dramatized time and time again.
Just when the subject thinks the questions are over and done with comes a quick surprise encore. The television bad guys were nearly always tripped up by the tack, giving way to sudden fits of anger or stumbling over their own hackneyed stories. In Lucky’s true life cases, it didn’t necessarily succeed other than further aggravating the respondent. But sometimes that was enough.

  Then there was that sometimes…every once in a blue interrogation moon…the subject would add a morsel of useful information. Almost like a turn signal, indicating whether Lucky should go left or right.

  “EXCUSE ME!” called out Lucky, exhuming himself from the building basement. He could see Herm was already halfway through the rear exit leading to a private parking lot.

  If Herm slowed, it was imperceptible. He cleared the door and let it close behind him.

  “YO!” shouted Lucky, rushing after Herm until he’d stopped the door just before it had fully shut. “JUST HAVE ONE MORE QUESTION!”

  Herm was halfway to his Ford Edge when he made his about-face.

  “Dunno if I have any more to help you with,” said Herm with a shrug.

  Lucky covered the parking lot distance with a back-stinging trot, burying a grimace and holding up his hands in polite resignation.

  “Just one more thing,” said Lucky. “You say she looked familiar.”

  “In a general kind of way,” clarified Herm.

  “Yeah. That’s my question.” Once again, Lucky produced that photo for Herm to look at. “Did you mean she looked like a lotta girls you’ve seen before? Or does she look like a girl you might’ve seen?”

  “Is there a difference?”

  “Well, for one. It puts her in that building right there. Where you do whatever you do.” Lucky was pointing at the casting building with one hand while sticking the photo of the Karrie only inches from Herm’s face. “Take another look. Did you see her?”

  Herm looked right past the worn wallet photo, making certain he had established direct eye contact with the former deputy sheriff.

  “Can’t really say,” shrugged Herm again, clicking the unlock door button on his keychain. “But good luck, man. Really hope you find her.”