Hangman

by Faye Kellerman

  “You’re right.” Decker sat up and kissed her hand. “We’re out to dinner and you deserve a noncomatose husband.”

  “How about some coffee now?”

  “Coffee would be great!” Decker grinned. “I’d even go for dessert.”

  “How about the peach pie?”

  “Peach pie, it is. Dare we order it with vanilla ice cream or whatever frozen concoction they make up to simulate the real deal?”

  Rina smiled. “Sure, let’s go crazy.”

  THE CELL PHONE went off just as the car had crested the 405 freeway and began to dip into the San Fernando Valley. Mountains on either side made reception spotty. Since Decker was driving, Rina took the phone from his coat pocket.

  “If it’s Hannah, tell her we’ll be home in about twenty minutes.”

  “It’s not Hannah. I don’t recognize the number.” She depressed the on button. “Hello?”

  There was silence on the other side. For a moment Rina thought she lost the party, but then she saw that the phone hadn’t disconnected.

  “Hello?” she tried again. “Can I help you?”

  “Who is it?” Decker asked. When she shrugged, he said, “Just hang up.”

  “Sorry.” The voice was male. He cleared his throat. “I’m looking for Lieutenant Decker.”

  “This is his cell phone. Whom am I talking to?”

  “Gabe Whitman.”

  It took all of Rina’s effort not to gasp. “Is everything all right?”

  “Who are you talking to?” Decker asked.

  “No,” Gabe said over the phone. “I mean I don’t know.”

  “Who is it, Rina?” Decker said.

  “Gabe Whitman.”

  “Oh Lord! Tell him to hold on.”

  “He’ll be right with you,” Rina said.

  “Thank you.”

  Decker maneuvered the car onto the freeway shoulder, turned on his hazard lights, and took the cell. “This is Lieutenant Decker.”

  “I’m sorry to bother you.”

  “No bother. What’s going on?”

  “I can’t find my mom. She’s not here and she’s not answering her cell. My dad isn’t answering his cell phone, either.”

  “Okay.” Decker’s brain was whirling a mile a minute. “How long has it been since you’ve spoken to your mom?”

  “I came back to the hotel around six-thirty, seven. We were supposed to go to dinner. She wasn’t here. Her car isn’t here, her purse isn’t here, but she didn’t leave any note or anything. That’s not like her.”

  Decker’s stomach dropped. His watch said it was almost nine. “When was the last time you spoke to her, Gabe?”

  “Around four. You were already gone. Mom said that everything went well. She sounded fine. She said she wanted to run some errands and she’d be back around six. I don’t know if I’m overreacting, but with Chris, I just don’t know.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “I’m at the hotel?”

  “In the room?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Okay. Gabe, I’m turning around and I’ll be there in about a half hour. Leave the room and wait for me in the lobby. I want you in a public place, okay?”

  “Okay.” A pause. “The room’s okay…I mean like nothing was disturbed or anything.”

  “That doesn’t mean that your dad can’t suddenly show up. It wouldn’t be good for the two of you to be alone.”

  “That’s true.” A pause. “Thanks.”

  “No thanks necessary. Just walk out that door and don’t look back.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Decker pulled his Porsche into the valet lot. The parking attendants were different from the ones who had been here in the afternoon. When they asked how long he’d be staying, Decker told them that he didn’t know.

  The resort hotel was fifteen acres of lush plants and tropical foliage set at the foothills in Bel Air. The evening air was sweet from night-blooming jasmine with a hint of gardenia. Broad-leaf palms, ferns, and flowering bushes lined stone walkways and draped over the edges of a man-made lagoon populated with ducks and swans. Decker and Rina crossed over a bridge, glancing at the lake as the birds glided by.

  Decker faced her. “Why don’t you take the car and go home.”

  “Hannah’s at a friend’s house. I can wait.”

  “I don’t know if I want you around in case Chris pops in. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

  “How about if I wait in the lobby?”

  “Would you mind? It may take a while. If I don’t find her right away, I’m going to have to do a search of the hotel.”

  “It’s not a problem unless they kick me out.” She paused. “What are you going to do with Gabe? You don’t know what’s going on. You certainly can’t let him stay here by himself even if he was of age.”

  Neither of them spoke.

  Rina said, “He can stay with us.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “I don’t think you have any choice.”

  “He has a grandfather living in the Valley.”

  “Then contact him in the morning. One night with us won’t make a difference.”

  “You really are Earth Mother.”

  “That’s me,” Rina said. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, et cetera, et cetera. Emma and I had a lot more in common than just our last names.”

  ALTHOUGH THE ACTUAL hotel was series of connected low-profile, pink stucco bungalows topped with a Mediterranean red-tiled roof, the lobby was a stand-alone building. Through the window, Decker could see the registration desk with a uniformed woman flipping through files, an empty concierge desk, and a suite of traditional furniture facing a stone fireplace. One of the beige chairs was taken up by a lanky adolescent—The Thinker done by Giacometti. He and Rina went inside and the thin kid looked up, then stood up. Decker tried out a reassuring smile. “Gabe?”

  He nodded. Good-looking kid—an aquiline nose, strong chin, a mop of dirty blond hair, and gem-quality emerald eyes that sat behind a pair of frameless glasses. Not much bulk, but he had the same kind of wiry muscle that his dad had as a teenager. He appeared to be grazing the six-foot mark.

  Decker held out his hand and the boy shook it. “How are you doing?” The kid shrugged helplessly. “This is my wife. She’s going to wait here for me…or for us. Still haven’t heard from anyone?”

  “No, sir.” He looked at Rina as much as he did at Decker. “I’m sorry to drag you down here. It’s probably nothing.”

  “Whatever it is, it’s not a problem. Let’s take a walk back to the room.”

  The woman at the registration desk looked up. “Is everything all right. Mr. Whitman?”

  “Uh, yeah.” Gabe forced a smile. “Fine.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Gabe nodded quickly. Decker turned to Rina. “See you in a few.”

  “Take your time.”

  Decker and his charge went outside into the cool misty air, neither of them speaking as they walked. The pathways looked different at night than they had in the daytime. With the artificial colored lighting slipped between the plantings, the entire complex looked surreal, like a movie set. Gabe twisted and turned from one garden to another until they came to the bungalow he shared with his mother. He opened the door, flipped on the light switch, and the two of them stepped inside.

  “Just like I left it,” Gabe said.

  And not too different from when Decker had left. The flowers that Chris had given Terry had been put into a vase and sat on the sofa table. Donatti’s Scotch glass lay in the sink of the bar. The trash had been cleared and the living-room sofa had been folded out into a bed, a room service breakfast menu and a few chocolates left on a silver tray. Water on the coffee table and music coming from a Bose stereo system, the station set on classical music.

  “You sleep here?”

  Gabe nodded.

  Decker walked into the bedroom. Terry’s bed had also been prepared. “We
re the beds turned down when you arrived here at around six?”

  “No, sir, they came in later. Around eight.” A pause. “I probably shouldn’t have let them in, huh.”

  “It doesn’t matter, Gabe.” Decker studied the room. There were a lot of clothes in the closet and a small safe. Decker asked the boy if he knew the combination number.

  “Uh, not to this one. But I know the code she usually uses.”

  “Could you try to open it?”

  “Sure.”

  Gabe punched in a set of numbers. It took him a couple of tries, but eventually the door opened. It was loaded with cash and jewelry. Decker said, “Do you have anything to transport the valuables in?”

  “Why?”

  “If your mom doesn’t come back, you can’t stay here alone.”

  “I’ll be all right.”

  “I’m sure you can take care of yourself, but I’m a cop and you’re a minor. I’d be in violation of the law if I let you stay here alone. Plus, under the circumstances, I wouldn’t want you alone even if you were eighteen.”

  “Where are you going to take me?”

  “You’ve got a choice.” Decker rubbed his temples. “I know you have a grandfather and an aunt that live in L.A. Would you feel comfortable calling either of them up? I’ll be happy to take you over there.”

  “Is that my only choice?”

  “You could spend the night at my house and hopefully things will work out in the morning.”

  “That would be my first choice. I’d way prefer that to my grandfather. My aunt is nice, but she’s a little ditzy. She’s not much older than I am.”

  “How old is Melissa?”

  “Twenty-one…a very young twenty-one.”

  “All right. So this is what we’ll do. You go home with my wife. I’m going to stick around here for a while and try to figure out what’s going on.”

  “Why can’t I stay here with you while you try to figure it out?”

  “Because it may take a long time. It’s best if you go home with my wife and let me do my job. I’ll catch you in the morning. If your mom comes home, I’ll call you right away. And if you happen to hear from either your mother or father, you call me right away, so I’m not spinning my wheels. Fair enough?”

  The boy nodded. “Thank you, sir. I really appreciate it.”

  “No problem.” Decker pulled out a notepad. “I have your mom’s number. I’ll need your dad’s number and your cell number.”

  Gabe rattled off a series of number. “You know that my dad changes phones all the time. A number might be working one day and disconnected the next.”

  “When was the last time you spoke to your dad?”

  “Let me think. Chris called me Saturday morning…around eleven. He’d just landed. He told me he was at the airport and was meeting with Mom tomorrow.”

  “And you said?”

  “I don’t really remember. Something like…cool. Then he asked me how she was and I said she was fine. It was like a two-minute conversation…which is pretty typical for us.” Gabe bit his lip. “Chris doesn’t really like me. I’m an annoyance, something that stands between him and Mom. He rarely talks to me unless it’s about my music or my mom. But he’s forced to deal with me because I’m what links him and Mom together. It’s really messed up.”

  “Your father’s messed up. You wouldn’t happen to know his flight number, would you?”

  Gabe shook his head.

  “Do you know what airlines he usually chooses?”

  “When he doesn’t fly privately, he takes American first class coast to coast. He likes to stretch out.”

  “If he left the L.A. area, where do you think he’d go?”

  “He could go home. Or he could go to Nevada and camp out there for a while.”

  “He owns brothels in Elko, doesn’t he?” When the boy blushed, Decker said, “Would you know the name of his places?”

  “One’s the Pleasure Dome.” His face was bright red. “The Pleasure Palace…he has like three or four places with word ‘pleasure’ in them.”

  “Have you tried calling the places?”

  The boy shook his head. “I don’t have the numbers. They might be listed. I could call up information if you want.”

  “No, I can take it from here. Why don’t you pack a few things, take out the money and the jewelry from the safe, and then I’ll walk you back to the lobby.”

  “I’m so sorry to be a pain. I feel like a jerk.”

  “It’s no problem.” He put his arm around the boy’s shoulders. At first the kid stiffened, but then his shoulders relaxed under the weight of Decker’s arm. “And don’t be too concerned. It’ll probably work out.”

  “Everything works out. Sometimes it works out good. And sometimes it works out bad. It’s the bad that concerns me.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE CAR WAS quiet on the way home, the boy staring out at the passenger window, looking like a forlorn puppy. Rina didn’t even bother to try to engage him. It took all of her energy to drive Peter’s Porsche. He had souped up the engine to God-only-knows-how-many horsepower and the clutch required muscle. Thank goodness most of the ride was on an empty freeway and in one gear.

  As soon as she parked in the driveway, the kid leaped out of the car like a caged cat finally set free. His baggage was a school knapsack that he carried by one strap, a laptop, and a small duffel. He was tall for his age, with spindly legs. His pants had a hard time staying on his nonexistent hips.

  Rina put the key in the front door lock. “Lieutenant Decker and I have four children, but only our daughter still lives at home. She’s seventeen.” She opened the front door and yelled out a hello. From behind the bedroom door, Hannah answered back.

  “We’ve got company,” Rina said. “Could you come out a moment?”

  “Now?”

  “It’s okay.” Gabe cringed.

  Rina tried to look reassuring as Hannah came storming out in her pajamas and robe. The two teens took each other in with a quick sweep of the eye. Rina said, “Hannah, this is Gabe Whitman. He’s going to be staying with us tonight. Could you show him to your brothers’ room and make up the bed?”

  “I can do it,” Gabe said, pink-cheeked.

  “So can Hannah,” Rina said.

  “I’ll do it.” Hannah shrugged. “You need anything to eat? I was gonna get myself some cherries. You want to look around the fridge?”

  “Uh…sure.” Gabe followed her into the kitchen and that was that.

  Sometimes peer counseling was far superior to the best mothering.

  AFTER HANNAH WASHED the cherries, she gave him a handful in a paper bowl. “These are really good. I think my mom got them at the farmers’ market.”

  “Produce is really good out here.”

  “Out here? Where are you from?”

  “New York.”

  “The city?”

  “The burbs.” He studied his fruit. “Do you know New York?”

  “I have lots of friends out there.” She bit into a cherry and spit out the pit. “And my brother goes to Einstein Med School.”

  Gabe said, “My mom worked at Mount Sinai for a while. She’s an ER doc.”

  “Are you interested in medicine?”

  “Not a chance.” He finally picked up a cherry and ate it. “You know I’m perfectly capable of putting on my own sheets.”

  “Fine with me. Can I ask why you’re here?”

  “My mom’s gone…like missing. I think your dad is looking for her. He said it was illegal for me to stay in a hotel by myself, so he offered to take me in tonight.”

  “That sounds like my dad.”

  “He’s a nice guy?”

  “He’s a very nice guy,” Hannah said. “He comes across as very cop, but he has a heart of mush. My mother is even mushier. They’re both pushovers. You want something to drink?”

  “No, thanks. I should probably get to bed.” He put the fruit down on the counter. “Thanks for the cherries. I don’t think I’m s
o hungry.”

  “Are you going to be able to sleep?”

  “Probably not.”

  “I’ll show you how to work the TV. It’s a little funky because it’s from the Stone Age. My brothers have been out of the house for a while. What grade are you in?”

  “I was in tenth. My mom and I just recently moved out here, so I haven’t been going to school.”

  “So you’re fifteen?”

  “Four months shy. A lot of people think I’m older ’cause I’m tall.”

  “Yeah, same with me. But I don’t mind.” She hopped off the counter. “Follow me. And try not to worry too much about the situation. My dad may be a mush ball with me, but he’s really tough when it comes to police work. Whatever it is, he’ll get to the bottom of it.”

  “That’s good.” Gabe smiled weakly. “I just hope that when he gets there, the bottom doesn’t drop out.”

  DECKER’S FIRST CALL was to his favorite detective, Sergeant Marge Dunn. “I’ve got a situation here. I could use some help.”

  “What’s going on?” In the next breath, she said, “Is it something to do with Terry McLaughlin?”

  “She’s missing.” After he explained the state of affairs, Decker said, “She has a sister and a father in town. I’ve already called her sister, Melissa—apprised her of the situation. She hasn’t heard from Terry in a few days. She also told me not to bother with the father. The two of them are barely civil to each other.”

  “Did she sound worried?”

  “Yes, she did. She told me that Terry would never leave Gabe without a good reason. I told her I’d keep her updated. As far as finding Donatti, I’ve called up all the numbers I have for him and left messages. That’s been a dead end. He owns some brothels in Nevada. I got hold of a receptionist who told me that Chris wasn’t due in until tomorrow afternoon.”

  “That means nothing.”

  “Of course. I’ve phoned Elko PD and have asked them to tell me when he comes into town.”

  “Are they cooperating?”

  “Hard to tell. The brothels make a slew of money, so it could be that the department wouldn’t be anxious to give up one of their own. I’m trying to retrace Donatti’s steps, starting with when he came into L.A. I’m checking commercial airlines, leasing companies, and jet card companies. And rental car companies. He has to be driving something, but I haven’t had any luck with that.”