“Did he hint that Stephanie would return after the trial?”
“No, no, nothing like that. Like I said, he got mad. He hung up on me. I think if he had her he would have let me know by now. At least indirectly.” Bellano shook his head. “Maybe she just ran away, I don’t know. But no one’s seen her, and she left without her car and with hardly any money. Not much more than the clothes on her back.”
He took a deep breath and let it out through his nose, blowing vapor like a bull. Then he reached inside his overcoat and handed me a thick envelope.
“Some pictures of her,” he said. “Also a list of everyone we could think of who might have seen her. But like I said, we already talked to them. Also five grand.”
“Five—”
“If it’s not enough, say so.”
“It’s more than enough. In fact, why don’t you just hang on to it and I’ll bill you later.”
Joseph Bellano smiled briefly and pushed his fists into his coat pockets.
“There’s an old Italian saying.”
“What?”
“Don’t be a jerk, take the money.”
“Oh, well, if an old Italian said it,” I said, but Bellano wasn’t smiling anymore. I could see the pain in his face. His baby was missing.
“Maybe she had some friends from school that we don’t know about,” he said. “That’s the only other thing I can think of.”
“Where did—does she go to school?”
“Loretto Heights. She’s a sophomore,” he said with some pride. “She’s a year younger than probably everyone in her class, see, she skipped a grade in elementary school. She was such a smart little kid. Me and Angela, we were always real proud of her, but maybe it wasn’t such a good idea, you know, putting her ahead like that, since she’d always be the youngest in her class. …”
Bellano realized he’d begun to ramble.
We crossed Thirteenth.
It seemed colder now. The sky had darkened noticeably since we’d started walking. Half the cars coming toward us on Lincoln had their headlights on. Neither of us spoke for two more blocks. We neared Eleventh, where Besant’s used to be. Like a lot of other restaurants in Denver, it had changed names so many times I’d lost track.
I glanced at the sign on the door. CLOSED.
“I hear you’re good at this?” Bellano had made it a question.
“About average.”
He was quiet for a few more paces. Then he wiped his nose again with his handkerchief.
“Find her,” he said. “Please.”
“I’ll do my best.”
CHAPTER
2
AFTER JOSEPH BELLANO LEFT me at my office, I deposited most of my new cash in the bank. The rest I took home and locked in the safe with my guns.
Then I popped the cap off a Labatt’s Blue and emptied the rest of Bellano’s envelope on the kitchen table.
He’d given me two photographs.
One was a studio shot from the waist up of a smooth-skinned young lady in a powder-blue cashmere sweater and a string of pearls. Her black hair was long and sleek, her lashes long. Attractive, not quite pretty. She smiled faintly at something to the left of the lens. She looked content and virgin-pure.
The other picture was a family snapshot of Joseph, Stephanie, and another woman who I assumed was Stephanie’s mother, Angela. They were in the backyard, probably this past summer. I could see the corner of a garage and some tomato plants caged in wire. The Bellanos wore shorts and short sleeves and sandals. The sun made them all squint through their smiles. The shadow of the photographer fell on their legs. Ominously, it seemed.
Along with the photos, Bellano had included what looked like his Christmas-card list—six sheets of lined paper with the names, addresses, and phone numbers of forty or fifty people. Bellano had said he’d talked to them all. None had seen Stephanie. For now I’d take their word for it. Bellano had seemed less certain about the college. I’d start there.
Tomorrow.
Tonight I had a Broncos game.
Except it turned out to be a Seahawks game. In fact, it was well into the third quarter and my second six-pack before the hometown boys finally scored. Way too little, much too late. So I lost five hundred, so what?
I mean, five fifty.
Damn bookies.
Tuesday’s sky was as cold and gray as dead ashes.
I’d begun to wonder if the old Olds could take another winter. But this morning she turned over on her first try, bless her heart. I let her run with the heater on and spent the next fifteen minutes carefully scraping frost from her windows.
Then I drove to Loretto Heights. More properly, Regis College, Loretto Heights Campus.
The original building sits like a red-stone castle on a hill in southwest Denver. Tall pines, bleak elms, and a vast expanse of snowy lawn insulate it from the mundane traffic on Federal Boulevard.
The college was founded before the turn of the century by the Sisters of Loretto, who turned over its operation to “civilians” in the 1960s. Not long thereafter, the institution began to slide into financial difficulty. Last year it was rescued by Regis. Temporarily, anyway. I’d heard they were planning to sell it to a Japanese interest. For a large profit, of course. Regis was run by Jesuits.
I left the Olds in Visitors Parking, then climbed the red-sandstone steps to the main entrance. The Virgin Mary, frozen in white marble over the arch, welcomed me with open arms.
The campus administrator was Father Shipman. He was a thin red-faced man in his sixties. His office was as austere as his clothing. His Roman collar looked too tight. Maybe that explained the red face. I told him who I was and what I was doing. He said he’d spoken to Joseph Bellano yesterday on the phone.
“He wanted to know if Stephanie had missed her Monday classes,” Father Shipman said.
“I assume that she did.”
“I really didn’t know. I told him either I’d check with her instructors or he could talk to them himself. He preferred the latter, so I gave him the names and numbers. That was the last I spoke with him.”
“Did you talk to Stephanie’s teachers?”
“Not about her absence, no. I assumed that if there was a problem they’d let me know.”
“Would you mind if I talked to them?”
He wouldn’t. He wrote down their names and told me where to find their offices. Then he cleared his throat.
“Mr. Lomax, don’t interfere with the classes.”
He’d made it sound like a threat, Roman collar or no.
Stephanie was taking one class each in nursing, art history, business administration, and creative writing. She didn’t know what she wanted to be. Father Shipman had made a note that Stephanie’s creative writing instructor, Rachel Wynn, doubled as her academic adviser. I tried her first. Her office door was locked, and no one answered my knock.
However, down the hall I did find Stephanie’s nursing instructor, Mrs. ten Ecke. I introduced myself, and she waved me into a chair.
“What’s on your mind, Mr. Lomax?” she asked me from behind her desk.
She was solid and fortyish, with thick brown eyebrows and a dark cardigan sweater. Her bosom was huge. It pushed out her white blouse like the prow of a hospital ship.
“One of your students, Stephanie Bellano, has apparently run away from home.”
Mrs. ten Ecke nodded, then shook her head. “I spoke to her father yesterday.”
“Do you have any idea where she might have gone?”
Again, she shook her head. “I’m sorry.”
“Who are her friends here?”
“I can only speak about my classes. That’s the only time I ever see her.”
“And?”
“I don’t think she has any friends. At least none that I noticed. She stays to herself.”
“I see. What kind of a girl is she?”
“Quiet.”
“Is she a good student?”
“Again, I can only speak about my classes. She
…. how can I put it? This year she’s struggling.”
“So she’s not a good student.”
“That’s not what I meant. Last year she was near the top of her class. This year, though, she seems to be having trouble concentrating. I’ve asked her about it, and she promised she’d try harder. Also …”
“Yes?”
“She seems overly sensitive. Even squeamish. Some of the pictures in the textbook actually made her ill.”
“Was she like that last year?”
“Not that I remember.”
After I left Mrs. ten Ecke, I spoke to Stephanie’s instructors in business administration and art history. They both told me pretty much what I’d just heard. Stephanie was a bright student. However, she seemed to lack interest in school work. She was a lone, quiet girl with no apparent friends. Neither teacher had any idea where she might be.
When I went back to Rachel Wynn’s office, I found the door unlocked and the lights on but nobody home. She’d been there and left. I knew she’d be back, because her coat and scarf were hanging on a hook behind the door.
I went in to wait.
The office was small and crowded with a desk, two chairs, a file cabinet, and a bookshelf. One wall featured a few diplomas and a large, colorful butterfly in a frame. There was a spider plant in a pot on the windowsill. Also some pinecones tied together with a red ribbon. Beyond the plant and the cones I could see the mountains, near and white and forbidding.
I sat behind the desk.
On top was an imitation-leather-edged blotter, a full pencil cup, a stapler, a tiny wooden box with paper clips, and a small porcelain Santa. His features were delicately formed and hand painted. There was also a stack of folders.
I opened the top one. It was crammed with short stories by students. They’d all been graded with a red pen, most earning merely a C or a D. I found only one A. Miss Wynn was tough. The A was entitled, “The Vase.” I started reading it. What the hell, I had to do something to pass the time.
“Who are you?”
She was a good-looking woman with reddish-brown hair. It went nicely with her dark green sweater and tweed skirt. She stood in the doorway with one hand on the knob and the other holding a beat-up brown briefcase, as big as a valise. It pulled down her left shoulder. I put her age a few years below mine. I put her mood somewhere between highly annoyed and moderately pissed off.
I closed the folder and stood up.
“Sorry, I was just browsing.”
“Who are you? And why are you going through my papers?”
“Hey, I said I was sorry.” I came around the desk and dug out a card. “My name is Jacob Lomax. I’m a private investigator hired by the Bellano family to find their daughter. I take it you’re Miss Wynn?”
“Investigator?” She looked at the card but made no move to take it. “Does Father Shipman know you’re nosing around in here?”
“He knows I’m here, yes. And I wasn’t nosing. I was—”
She hoisted up her briefcase, and for a moment I thought she was going to hit me with it. But she just thunked it down on her desk. Then she brushed past me, went around to her chair, and phoned Shipman to check me out. I waited and tried not to look smug.
“I see,” she said finally into the phone. “Thank you, Father.” She hung up.
“See?”
She didn’t smile. “I was away from my office most of yesterday,” she said, as if in apology. “I never got a chance to return Mr. Bellano’s call.”
“So you didn’t know Stephanie was missing?”
“No. She wasn’t in class yesterday, but I didn’t think anything of it. A number of students are out sick—”
“She’s been gone since Friday. May I?” I put my hand on the only other chair in the room. She nodded briefly. I sat.
“Why would Stephanie run away from home?” she asked.
“She learned something about her father that greatly upset her.”
“What?”
“That he was a bookie.”
“Oh?” Rachel Wynn seemed mildly surprised. “Is that all?”
She was right. It didn’t seem like much to be upset about.
“As far as I know,” I said. “Do you think there may have been another reason?”
“How would I know?”
“You’re her counselor, aren’t you?”
“Mr. Lomax, I’m her—”
“Please. Call me Jacob.”
Her eyes narrowed a millimeter. They were hazel.
“Mr. Lomax, I’m Stephanie’s academic counselor. She didn’t confide in me for anything more than class scheduling.”
“Did you have private talks with her?”
“A few, yes.”
“Did she ever say anything to you about running off? Or talk about a place she’d rather be?”
“No, I’m afraid not.” She checked her watch. “Damn, I’m going to be late for my next class.” She stuffed the folder with the short stories in her briefcase. She stood up, and so did I.
“Stephanie left with hardly any money and no car,” I said, “so she probably didn’t go far. I’m hoping she’s staying with a friend. But everyone says she has no friends.”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
Rachel Wynn motioned me out the door, then closed it behind us. The hallway was busy with young men and women hurrying in search of knowledge.
“I’ll ask the students in her class this afternoon,” she said.
“Fine. Maybe before that we could have lunch.”
Her eyes narrowed two millimeters this time. Then she smiled. Or maybe it was a grimace.
“Thanks, no, but I bring my lunch,” she said. “Call me here before five and I’ll let you know if I’ve learned anything.”
She walked away. I watched her until she’d disappeared into the shifting crowd. Nice walk. How come I never had any teachers like that?
I was back home, and I’d eaten lunch before I remembered that today was the first of the month. I wrote out a check for the rent. Then I walked down two flights of stairs and knocked on Mrs. Finch’s door.
Mrs. Finch not only managed the huge old building; she owned it. In fact, she’d grown up in it when it had been a mansion—her family’s home. Now it was eight apartments, two on each floor and two in the basement. Of course, Mrs. Finch still thought of it as her home and all us tenants as unwanted, but necessary, guests. She kept a close eye on us all.
She opened the door and glared up at me. Her wizened old face was colored with two smudges of rouge. She was wrapped in a paisley shawl.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Finch. I brought your—”
She snatched the check out of my hand.
“You’re late again, Mr. Lomax.”
“Late? Isn’t this the first?”
“This is the afternoon of the first. I’ve already been to the bank today.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“Sorry, indeed,” she said. “Do you have a job yet?”
“A job?”
“Yes, yes, a job. As in ‘work.’”
“I work as a private detective, remember?”
“I meant a real job.”
“Ah, no.”
“Just as I thought,” she said, and slammed the door.
At least she hadn’t raised my rent.
I tried Rachel Wynn’s extension at three o’clock. No answer. I called back at three-thirty, then four, then every ten minutes until five. Still no answer.
“Tomorrow I’ll go there,” I said out loud.
I opened a beer and turned on the TV.
I’d come in at the end of a local news story. I wasn’t certain I’d heard it right, so I began flipping channels until I found an anchorwoman trying to look grim. She told it to me from the beginning. A car bomb had exploded in a residential neighborhood in North Denver. One man had been killed.
Joseph Bellano.
CHAPTER
3
THE ANCHORWOMAN GAVE ME few details.
�
��Joseph Bellano was killed this morning by a powerful explosive device,” she read. “It had apparently been placed in his car. The blast knocked down a portion of the garage wall, destroyed another car in the garage, and started a fire fueled by gasoline.”
Film: Denver fire fighters in dirty yellow slicks and boots pouring water on the remains of an unattached garage. The snow near the garage had been melted, then refrozen into blackened ice.
“Bellano had recently been arrested for bookmaking as part of the city’s fight against illegal gambling. It is believed his testimony at the upcoming trial was crucial to the government’s case. Police are speculating that Bellano’s death may have been related to organized crime.”
I switched off the set.
It looked as if Bellano had been right about Fat Paulie DaNucci. DaNucci had been worried about Bellano’s testimony, and he’d done something about it. However, that was police business, not mine.
My business was Stephanie Bellano.
The odds were good that she’d hear about her father’s death no matter where she was. The story had more than enough elements to make the national news: car bomb, Mafia, fire on film. I was fairly certain that when she did hear she’d come running home to Mama, tears in her eyes.
Case closed.
Which meant I’d have to give back the five grand.
There’d been times in my life, poorer times, when I would’ve been tempted to keep the money. Sorely tempted. Five grand was ten months’ rent. It was a thousand six-packs of good beer. It was a nice long vacation in a nice warm place. But it might also be the property of a woman recently widowed. I hoped I’d never be that tempted.
The next morning, I drove to the Bellano residence.
I planned on staying just long enough to offer my condolences and return the money. Assuming, of course, that Stephanie had returned. If she hadn’t, I’d keep the money with Mrs. Bellano’s blessing and stay on the case.
Bellano’s home was near Forty-fourth and Hooker. It was in an old, sedate section of northwest Denver—once exclusively Italian, still noticeably so. The brown-brick building had a deep front porch, a terraced front yard, and a lot of cops hanging around. Parked in front were two unmarked city vehicles and a squad car. A uniformed cop stood on the front porch. He wore earmuffs under his hat and shifted his feet to stay warm.
Blood Stone (The Jacob Lomax Mysteries Book 2) Page 24