by Graham Smith
‘So your cousin and his wife have left home in a hurry. I don’t see what the problem is.’
‘Weren’t you listening? They didn’t leave home in a hurry. They were taken.’
I rub over my face with both hands until I reach the back of my neck. Alfonse isn’t one to jump at shadows, but I can’t believe a family of four have been abducted from their home. Kidnappers take one family member and they would target a wealthy family. I don’t know Alfonse’s cousin too well, but I know he’s a regular guy who draws an honest wage for an honest day’s work. All four of them being taken suggests something else.
I’m guessing someone else has hit the panic button, but it’s not like Alfonse to get this worked up over a mistake.
‘Say they were taken.’ I raise a hand to forestall the indignant protest I know he’s going to make. ‘What reason is there for taking them? None of your family are rich enough to make kidnapping worthwhile. He’s a lawyer and she works in a bank. There’s no real motive.’
Alfonse shakes his head as he powers the SUV past a slow-moving suburban. ‘That’s what scares me. If they’ve been snatched for no obvious reason, there’s something we don’t know or someone intends to hurt them.’
‘What makes you so sure they’ve been taken? Have there been any demands?’
‘Not yet.’ A shrug. ‘Aunt Nina visited them and found the back door open. When she went in, it looked like there had been a fight.’
‘Has anyone called the police?’ It’s a silly question I wave an immediate apology for. Alfonse makes a good living as Casperton’s private detective. The new Chief of Police hasn’t been in office long enough to sort out the nepotistically appointed detective squad.
He gives a grimace of distaste. ‘It was the first thing Aunt Nina did. Farrage and one of his buddies trooped over, had a bit of a look around and then dismissed it as a domestic.’
‘Sounds about right for him. I take it you want me to help find them?’
He doesn’t say anything, but the look he fires my way screams ‘well duh!’.
‘I’m just playing devil’s advocate here; what about the house convinced you and Nina they were taken against their will?’
‘You don’t know what Sherrelle’s like. To say she has OCD would be an understatement. Everything in her house has its place and she freaks out if the slightest thing is in the wrong place.’ He slows to avoid getting caught by a speed trap. ‘She once lost the plot because I returned two DVDs in the wrong cases.’
I start to get why he’s so worried. I had a great aunt in Scotland who was much the same. Visits to her house always filled me with dread as she had a sharp tongue for anyone who upset her carefully arranged home. As an act of revenge for one foul-mouthed rant, my sister and I waited until she was in hospital for a minor operation, and rearranged all her cupboards and drawers into a haphazard mess.
‘When were they last seen or spoken to?’
‘Monday night. Darryl spoke to Aunt Nina about a party he and Sherrelle were planning for Robyn’s birthday. When she went round yesterday morning…’ He tails off, knowing he’d be repeating himself.
At least we have a timeframe for when they went missing, or were taken. ‘Why didn’t you call me or come sooner?’
‘I called you last night. We spoke for half an hour and you promised to get back by midnight.’
There is accusation in both his voice and his words. I’ve failed him as a friend. He called out to me in his hour of need and I made him a promise I didn’t keep. Instead of getting my act together and going back to help him, I got into a fight and then went to bed with a drug-addicted hooker.
‘I’m sorry, man.’ There’s not much else I can say; he knows what happens when I start drinking.
‘You’re here now. Let’s concentrate on finding out what’s happened to them.’
He doesn’t say it, but the subtext is that at some point he’s going to rail on me for letting him down. There’s no answer to that; he has every right and we both know it.
Whatever happens, I have to make sure I redeem myself in his eyes. Right now the road to redemption is a one-way street leading to an investigation into a mysterious disappearance.
We cover a few miles in silence until we reach Hayden. It’s a small town in the Yampa Valley. Once home to coal miners, it now supports small businesses and an airport bringing skiers to Steamboat Springs.
As we pass through the town he pulls into the car park of a bar. My Mustang sits askew in two parking spaces.
‘Can I trust you to follow me back or are you gonna walk in there and have another beer?’ His tone is mild, but his words cut deep.
‘I’ll be back at Casperton before you. Pick me up at my place.’ I plan to race ahead so I can brush my teeth and change into clean clothes. My hangover is kicking in big time and I want to be presentable for his family.
I have another thought as I climb out of his car. ‘How did you know where to find me, and where my car was?’
‘You’re the smartass, work it out for yourself.’
He’s not the type to screech off in a cloud of tyre smoke, yet when he leaves it’s as close as he’ll ever get.
Five minutes later I pass his SUV on my way back to Casperton. With peace to think, it doesn’t take me long to work out he must have been tracking me. The way he arrowed in on my precise location can only be explained by some kind of tracking device. I’m guessing both my phone and car are bugged.
3
I’m waiting on the sidewalk when Alfonse draws up. I’ve shaved, changed, and swallowed a couple of Aspirin dry. I need a coffee but there’s no time. Having let him down with my selfish behaviour, I need to repair the damage to our friendship. It’s rare he asks for my help and I’m appalled at myself for letting him down.
‘How long you been tracking me?’
‘Since you got your new phone.’ He skewers me with a glare. ‘Knowing your talent for finding trouble, I thought it would be a good idea to be able to find you at any time. It was supposed to be a way to bail your sorry carcass out of trouble. Instead I had to use it to bring you back to reality.’
I don’t answer him, and stay quiet as he drives towards his cousin’s home.
While his words are barbed, I know he’ll have added the trackers for a dual purpose. He’s slated my drunken binges too often for me to not realise how much he worries about me when I have a drink. It’s the one subject we’re likely to fall out over.
We’ve been friends since the day we met in high school as a pair of imports: he from France and me from Scotland. Some of the redneck kids had railed on him because of the colour of his skin, but my fists soon ended the racial abuse and monkey noises for the bookish new boy.
The last thing my grandfather did for me, before I left Glasgow, was take me into the garden and teach me how to fight. Not any kind of martial art or restrained discipline like boxing.
He’d taught me how to use elbows, knees and my forehead. His lesson was filled with street-fighting techniques learned in Glasgow’s shipyards and back-alley boozers. He’d taught me well. The only time I’ve lost a fight since his tutoring, was when I got ambushed by a gang of football-playing jocks.
Alfonse parks behind the police sedan sitting across the drive. It’s a good neighbourhood; there are children playing in the street and the gardens are all tidy. What cars I can see are new models and the general feel is one of refined domesticity.
While the street is twee, it’s not one which reeks of opulence. I guess the occupants are professional folks like accountants, lawyers and doctors. Rich enough to enjoy a good lifestyle but not so wealthy they can give up work.
I’m sure there are secrets held behind the net curtains and clapperboards, but they’ll be bland ones kept inside four walls for appearances sake. A short dalliance with a secretary or co-worker; a small gambling debt or a minor felony buried in their past.
There are two cops talking to Alfonse’s Aunt Nina. Her voice has lost its usual sonor
ous quality and has risen to a shriek as she berates the pair.
The elder of the two tries placating her. ‘I’m sorry ma’am, but there’s not enough evidence for us to start the manhunt you are asking for. I’ll pass on your concerns to Lieutenant Farrage but that’s all we can do at this stage.’
‘Don’t be bothering that fool. I want the chief to look into this. Farrage is a waste of space and you know it.’
I feel for the cops. Nina might be speaking the truth, but there’s no way they can be seen to agree to her assessment – despite its accuracy. Her demands for the chief’s personal involvement are also unrealistic. He has a whole county and town to run, that’s why he has deputies and a squad of detectives. As soon as the public start calling the shots there will be an inevitable breakdown in law and order, as competing factions waste the chief’s time fighting for his attention.
Alfonse takes Nina’s arm and calms her down with promises I’m not sure he can keep. I hear my name mentioned but I avoid eye contact with Nina; lest she see the bloodshot pits I saw in the mirror. If I’d had my head screwed on I would have grabbed a pair of shades before leaving the house.
Alfonse takes a small step back from his aunt. ‘Why were there cops here?’
‘I called them. They weren’t doin’ nuthin’ to find Darryl so I called them.’ She beams at her own cleverness. ‘Called 911 so they’d have to respond.’
Alfonse clasps her hands in his. ‘Aunt Nina, you’ve got to trust me and Jake. Don’t bother the police again until we have some evidence they were taken against their will. As soon as we’ve got that, the police will have to act.’
‘Is this true, Jake, are you going to help Alfonse find my boy and my grandchildren?’
‘Of course I am, Nina.’ I shift my gaze to Alfonse. ‘Whatever he wants me to do, I’ll do it.’
Give Alfonse his due, he makes sure Nina doesn’t hear his snort or see the glare he throws my way.
She gives a decisive nod and takes a step to one side. ‘Then quit gabbin’ with an old woman and go find your evidence.’
Alfonse leads me to the back of the house and into the kitchen via a utility room. What he said about Sherrelle’s OCD strikes a chord before I’m two steps into the house. Everything is aligned in neat perpendicular rows. The footwear on a rack in the utility room is even arranged from small to large.
The kitchen is cleaner than a lot of the showroom display models and more orderly than a hospital ward.
The smear of blood on the wall by the door stands out like a nun in strip club. It has four tails where someone’s fingers have been scrabbling for something to grab onto.
Alfonse leads me into the lounge where another example of showroom perfection is marred by an upturned coffee table. A ceramic coaster and a women’s magazine lie on the carpet beside the table.
I get why Alfonse and Nina are so worried. Someone with Sherrelle’s fanaticism for neatness and order could never have left the house in this mess. It would have driven her to distraction. Something tells me if I look in Sherrelle’s closets, I’ll find clothes arranged by size, purpose and colour.
While I like to keep my own apartment clean and tidy, I prefer a lived-in look to the sterile atmosphere of this house. The Xbox games and the DVDs lined up on the shelf beside the TV are sorted by age then A to Z.
Even now, with it looking as if they’ve been abducted, I feel like a voyeur peering into her home uninvited.
To make matters worse I’ve had a thought which doesn’t improve my mood, but any investigator has to look at situations with an open mind. Alfonse may have come to the same conclusion himself, but there’s a strong possibility his emotional connection with the potential victims has affected his judgement.
Unpalatable as the suggestion may be, I still have to raise it.
‘What are your thoughts, Alfonse?’
‘I told you what I thought when I picked you up from Steamboat. I want to know what you think.’ He doesn’t snap at me, but I can tell he’s not far off it. If anyone else had spoken to me like that they’d be unconscious by now.
‘The blood trails on the kitchen wall look quite narrow as if they were made by a woman’s hand. I’m guessing Sherrelle, or possibly Robyn.’ He nods in agreement. ‘Therefore, Darryl was incapacitated and unable to help, or he was the aggressor.’
Alfonse scowls at me. ‘The thought did cross my mind. Then I thought about how they were together. I’ve never known a more loving couple. Whenever I teased Sherrelle about her OCD, it was always Darryl who sprang to her defence. They did everything together and were so well matched they would each have died to save the other.’
‘Sorry.’ I spread my hands wide. ‘I had to consider it.’
‘I know. It just sounds crappy when someone else says it.’
‘Is there blood anywhere else?’
He looks shamefaced. ‘What with looking after Aunt Nina, and coming to get you, I haven’t had time to conduct a thorough search.’
Again, I’m left feeling like a douche for letting him down. The time used retrieving me would have been far better spent working the case. Yet he’d wanted me alongside him badly enough to waste half a day getting me. I make a silent promise to myself that he’ll get unconditional help and support from me until we find Darryl and his family.
I look him in the eye. ‘You speak to your family, find out everything you can, and I’ll search the house. When you’re done speaking to them, start on their tablets, phones and finances. I know the idea sucks, but keep an open mind. Nobody ever knows what goes on behind closed doors.’
His face is grim as he turns away. The tasks I’ve set him are what he does best, but there’s no easy way to pry into your own family’s secrets without upsetting those you love.
With Alfonse gone, I turn back to my examination of the lounge. The creams and beiges of Sherrelle’s choosing are a godsend when looking for blood specks. Not finding any, I move to the stairs.
Halfway up is a large globule of dried blood. Judging by its size and the way it has splashed on the carpet, I’d guess it’s been spat from a bleeding mouth.
Skirting the blood spatter, while taking care not to upset any of the perfectly aligned pictures on the wall, I reach the landing and try the first door on my right. It opens to reveal a closet filled with towels and bedding.
The next door I open belongs to a bathroom. Again, the earthy tones fail to show any sign of blood.
The third door reveals the room of a pre-teen boy. The posters are of WWE stars, supercars and a model whose swimsuit covers just enough flesh to get the poster past any maternal censorship. While it may be the least tidy room I’ve seen in the house, it would take a determined person less than a minute to bring it into line with the rest of the home.
I double back and try the next door. It must be Robyn’s room. Here the posters depict what I figure are R&B and rap artists, coupled with teen heartthrobs. The mess of the room must be like nails on a blackboard to her mother, or it’s the girl’s way of rebelling. The colours are darker in here but I still don’t find any traces of blood. Perhaps a proper forensic examiner might find something with a can of Luminol and a UV light, but there’s nothing which stands out to my naked eye.
The next door leads to a room which is made up ready for use, but has empty closets and a lack of family comforts. Figuring it’s a guest room, I try the final door on the landing and enter the master bedroom. It’s as neat as I expected it to be. Everything is in the required place and is lined up ready for use. Deodorant and perfume bottles on the nightstand are arranged in order of size; their labels all front-facing.
They don’t hold my attention for long though. The splatter of blood against the pale peach wall is much more demanding of my interest. I’ve thrown enough punches to recognise what happens when a fist ruins a mouth. There’s always a string of bloody saliva accompanied by a spray of droplets. From what I can gauge, the owner of the blood was standing a couple of feet from the wall as the tails o
f the splatter indicate the drops were on a downward trajectory when they hit the wall. A glance beside the unmade bed shows a chick-lit novel at the side where the blood-spattered wall is.
The blood would be Sherrelle’s. The handprint in the kitchen from where she’d nursed her mouth.
With the beds in the kids’ rooms also being unmade everything pointed to them being abducted in the middle of the night.
This wouldn’t favour any neighbours observing them being hustled out of the house. Still, there’s always the chance a parent was nursing a young or poorly child. Perhaps an elderly neighbour had risen to visit the bathroom and seen something.
Hope dies within me as soon as it flares. In a street such as this, the neighbours would have been falling over themselves to report anything suspicious. These residents aren’t gang-bangers struck dumb by questions from an investigator; they’re law-abiders and carers.
Not for the first time I wonder if Lieutenant Farrage, and the others who make up Casperton’s detective squad, had to fail an intelligence test to qualify for the job. With the correct response from them, a team of forensic investigators would have swooped through the house and gathered enough samples to help identify a suspect or secure a conviction. Now it may be too late, or the scene may be too contaminated by me, Nina, Alfonse and any other of their family members who’ve been for a look.
I have no idea how much it would cost to hire the forensic team, but I’m sure it’s more than Alfonse and I have. Especially now the scene is so contaminated.
It’s something he and I can discuss when I’ve finished my search.
Now I’m finished looking for blood, I turn my attention to the next big tell in any household.
The medicine cabinet in the en-suite contains prescription drugs, feminine hygiene paraphernalia and a box with a blister strip of contraceptive pills.
With the medicine cabinet a bust, I reach into the drawers of the fitted units and, working by touch, I try to find a diary. Looking would be quicker, but there’s something degrading about a man looking through a woman’s underwear drawer. The voyeuristic feelings I had earlier have come back in spades.