by N. M. Brown
The interior of the bus was lit by a cool blue light in which Anthony Morrelli could discern the vague, dark shapes of sleeping passengers.
‘Hi,’ said the smiling driver- a large man in a Hawaiian shirt. ‘You need a lift into town?’
‘That’d be great, buddy, but I don’t have any cash.’
‘Don’t worry. The meter’s not running tonight,’ the driver said as he pulled a lever and closed the door.
Anthony grinned as he staggered along the aisle – from his point of view, his luck was just getting better and better.
Chapter Seven
Leighton Jones was a relatively happy man. He had survived the final week of work with his dignity intact, and was finally getting acquainted with his home. Having spent four days cleaning and organising the place, his small apartment felt more like a home than it had in twenty years. Leighton's only stumbling block had been a drawer in the kitchen, where photographs and emotions lay undisturbed, but he promised himself, unconvincingly, that he would get around to that whenever he finally felt ready.
However, in the process of tidying his wardrobe, Leighton had dug out a pile of paperbacks – many of which he had started reading but never finished. They were now stacked neatly on a small table next to the patio door, and it was Leighton’s plan to spend each evening after dinner sitting in the setting sun with a book in one hand and a glass of iced rum or white wine in the other. There was something fundamentally relaxing about the warm evening air combined with a good book – though, the drink undoubtedly helped too.
Tonight he had eaten a small Caesar salad with homemade croutons for dinner. Having washed up, Leighton moved out to the patio, where he sat in shorts and a faded denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He took occasional sips from a tall glass of crisp Orvieto, dipping in and out of a Dan Brown novel. This, for Leighton, was as close to contentment as he ever got.
When the car pulled up in front of his small, neatly mown lawn, Leighton glanced absently up from the pages of the book. He took no specific interest in the vehicle; it was amazing how quickly he had slipped off the cop mentality when he had handed in his badge. Not recognising the licence plate, Leighton returned his attention to the novel until the shadow of a figure passed over him. Glancing up, he found himself staring at the fresh-faced girl he had spoken to outside the station three weeks earlier. Her shoulder length hair was tied into a neat ponytail, and she wore jeans with a grey T-shirt.
‘Hello again, detective,’ she said. ‘I need your help.’
Leighton’s mind was momentarily knocked off balance as he struggled to recall the nature of their previous interaction. He gestured for her to sit and smiled politely.
‘What can I do for you, miss?’
‘My friend is still missing,’ she said matter-of-factly.
‘Ah, now I remember.’ Leighton nodded. ‘The bus girl, right?’
‘Yeah, that’s right,’ she said flatly. ‘The bus girl.’
‘Okay.’ Leighton took a deep breath. ‘Let’s start at the beginning. I’m Leighton Jones and you are Vicki?’
‘Yeah, Vicki Reiner.’
‘Okay, Miss Reiner. Would you perhaps like something to drink?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘Well, please take a seat. Can you remind me who your friend is, and where she was headed?’ Leighton arched his hands into a steeple and leaned slightly forward.
The girl sat down but her posture remained rather rigid. ‘Her name is Laurie Taylor. She’s a college friend who booked a bus ticket from her home in Barstow to Oceanside – she was coming to stay with me for a while – but she never showed up.’
‘Okay, and it’s been how long since you last heard from her?’
‘Twenty-two days?’
‘Are you in contact with any members of her family?’
‘No, she only had a mother, who died a few years ago.’
Leighton raised his eyebrows, unsure of the best way to tell this sincere young lady she was most probably wasting both his and her time.
‘Well, to be honest, look…’ Leighton hesitated too long and the girl’s expression hardened.
‘I damn well knew it,’ she said sourly and began shaking her head. ‘You’re still going to tell me to wait.’
‘No, I was actually going to tell–’
But the girl had already reached into her bag and thrust a number of A4 sheets of paper across the table to Leighton.
‘Have a look at this, detective, then tell me I’m wrong.’
Picking up the sheets, Leighton looked over the top of them at Vicki. ‘What are they?’
‘Cell tower records that show the location of Laurie’s cell phone. They show which masts the phone pinged off.’
‘How did you get these?’ he asked curiously.
‘Just look at them, please. They begin on August fourth at 1.42am when an SMS message was sent to my phone. After that, she was picked up by the tower at Barstow Station. Then the Escondido West cell tower picked up her phone, three hours later. Then nothing. No more pings – no more calls.’
‘So?’
‘So, detective, from the moment she boarded the bus, Laurie Taylor never used her phone again.’
‘And you’re certain of that?’ Leighton looked at her seriously. ‘There can be no other explanation other than she was abducted – no other more likely scenarios?’
‘Yes, there are countless scenarios, but I’m certain that something is wrong here.’ Vicki held Leighton’s gaze.
‘Well, I suggest you take these documents along to the Missing Per–’
‘I thought we could drive up there,’ she said, intentionally cutting him off and brushing absently at nothing on her jeans.
‘I beg your pardon?’ Leighton put down his glass and then folded his arms in front of his chest.
‘Yeah.’ Vicki grinned. ‘The two of us could go take a look at Laurie’s place up in Barstow. Well, technically, it’s just beyond Barstow, but not much.’
‘Miss, can I remind you, I am officially a retired police officer, and as such…’
‘Exactly, so I know I can trust you.’ She grinned at him. ‘Plus, since you’re retired, you’ll also be available during the day.’
Leighton shook his head. ‘It’s completely out of the question.’
‘You said you would help me that day at the station, and I took you at your word.’ She sighed. ‘Look, I’ll drive, and I’ll even buy your lunch. You’re retired – it’s nice up there – think of it as a day trip.’
‘Well, if your friend is missing, what good would it do snooping around?’
‘I just thought we could take a look around, see if there’s any sign of a break-in. You’d know what to look for.’ She glanced at Leighton for confirmation of this, but his face gave nothing away. Somewhere nearby, a lawnmower spluttered to life and the faint smell of cut grass and gasoline fumes drifted by.
‘I thought,’ Vicki continued, ‘if we found something, some kind of evidence, then the police would maybe take the case seriously.’
‘Okay.’ Leighton tried his best to sound reasonable. ‘And if there is no evidence – no fingerprints on the windows, no puddle of blood in the kitchen, or freshly dug hole in the garden, would that be enough to set you free to move on?’
‘I swear.’ Vicki held her right hand up and looked purposely earnest. ‘That would be the end of it – you could enjoy your retirement in peace.’
Leighton didn't know if it was the wine, his own loneliness, or the girl’s simple tenacity, but eventually he took a sip from his glass, looked at Vicki Reiner, and nodded.
‘Look, Miss Reiner–’’
‘Vicki.’
‘Look, Vicki, I was about to say, before you pushed the paperwork at me, I was never a particularly good cop, anyway.’
‘It doesn’t matter. I want your help. I trust you.’
‘Okay,’ he said softly. ‘We can drive up tomorrow and have a look.’
‘That’s great.’
<
br /> ‘But,’ Leighton held out his hand to quell her delight, ‘we take my car and split the gas, and if we find nothing suspicious, you can still buy me lunch, otherwise I’m buying lunch for you, and a little slice of humble pie for me.’
‘I knew you were a good man, Detective Jones.’ Vicki grinned.
‘Or a damn fool.’ Leighton chuckled wryly. ‘And it’s Mr Jones from now on, miss. I handed in my badge last Friday, remember?’
‘Well, as long as you still have your gun,’ Vicki said softly and got up to leave.
Leighton hoped she was joking, but suspected she wasn’t.
After the girl had left, Leighton came in from the patio and padded through the house to the kitchen. He placed his glass and paperback book beside the empty sink, then pinched the bridge of his nose. For a few moments, he stared at the floor, then slowly turned around, reached down, and opened one of the kitchen drawers. His hand reached tentatively into the back of the drawer and pulled out a faded Polaroid photograph of a seven-year-old girl, affectionately holding a fluffy toy bird. The girl was grinning at the camera with an expression of delight. Leighton gently stroked the image with his thumb and peered desperately at the image, as if that small window to the past might somehow open. The tears came quickly, pouring down his cheeks and dripping onto the black tiled floor. Leighton knew from experience that he could not hold back the tide. Eventually, he allowed his legs to bend, lowering himself to the floor. Holding the picture in one hand and covering his ashamed face with the other, he wept for hours.
Chapter Eight
Anthony Morrelli had closed his eyes as the throaty groan of the engine provided a deep purring lullaby. His eyes were fluttering slightly as they scanned some imaginary landscape. He was dreaming of his childhood, when his father had taken him fishing for sunfish in the Colorado River out by Davis Dam. It was an activity they had repeated over several summers in Anthony’s youth.
After dragging a flaking old boat with a croaky outboard motor out onto the steel-coloured river, they would sail west until they had found a peaceful place to stop. Once his dad had dropped a couple of dough-baited lines over the side, he would open a can of root beer for his son and a bottle of Peroni for himself. Then there was little more than the two of them sitting back in comfortable silence. The stillness was broken only by the sound of an occasional fish breaking the surface of the water.
Although he had never analysed it, Morrelli’s decision to take up a job on the water four years after his father’s death was, in some way, his attempt to reconnect with those lost summers when the warm air blew softly across the gently rocking boat.
Now, seventeen years later, the air was similarly warm, though this time it was artificially so – drawn in from the cool night, warmed by the heater matrix, and blown through the dark interior of the bus. It swept gently over Anthony Morrelli’s cheek, almost as if some soft hand was stroking his face. In his dream, the water was slate-coloured, deep, and mirror still. There was a line trailing out from their boat into infinity. His father was sitting back, silently sucking calmly on one of the ten thousand cigarettes that would eventually kill him – coffin nails, he had called them, and they had been. Morrelli always said his old fella’s casket should have borne the Marlboro logo.
In the dream, the younger version of Anthony held on to the fishing line as it grew suddenly taught. He called out to his father in the muted words of dreams, but the man just nodded silently at his son, giving him licence to reel in the catch. With the slow motion of fantasy, he had reeled in the line, until he saw the vague shape rising up from the depth. Even though undefined in shape, he could tell it was a big one. A smile of pride and pleasure spread across his face; this was no sunfish, more likely a massive pike minnow.
He dragged the resistant beast closer to the surface, and with a final burst of energy, he yanked the creature out of the water and into the boat. But it wasn’t a fish or even a river crab; it was a massive white spider with panicky, spindly legs, which skittered against each other as it pulled crazily at the fishing line tangled around its long fangs. Even in the dream, the rocking motion of the boat seemed terrifyingly real.
The horror of the object pushed Anthony Morrelli up from the slumber of sleep. Although not fully awake, some signals were coming through his dream and merging with reality. Despite slipping free of the dream’s illusion, the sensation of the wind on his face remained. He opened his bleary eyes to discover someone was stroking his face.
He turned his head to see a small elderly man sitting next to him, touching his cheek. At first, he was confused.
‘You have such beautiful skin,’ the old man smiled.
‘What?’
‘Just lovely, golden almost.’
‘Old man, if you touch me again,’ Anthony said in a low deep voice, ‘I’ll break your fucking jaw.’
‘So very soft,’ the old man continued, almost dreamily to himself. He then reached inside his jacket pocket and produced a gleaming hip-flask.
Now, Anthony was suddenly interested, and his scowling expression evolved into something much more amiable. Whatever perversion the old guy subscribed to could be overlooked for the sake of a free drink.
The small man unscrewed the lid of the flask in a methodical manner, then politely offered it to Anthony. ‘Would you like a drink?’
For an unusually perceptive moment, Anthony paused. What if the old pervert had spiked it? He glanced around and realised the bus was almost full of commuters. If the weirdo was dumb enough to try anything, there was an entire bus of upstanding citizens ready to step in. Anthony threw caution to the wind.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘Wild Turkey.’ The old man smiled, and his eyes twinkled.
As the bus hurtled onwards, Anthony grinned and took the flask from the old man’s hand. Tipping the container back, he swallowed three deep gulps of the sweet bourbon and returned it.
‘With a dash of strychnine,’ the old man added softly.
‘What did you say?’
The old man did not respond. He was too busy reaching across the aisle to access a black Gladstone bag from the opposite seat. When he turned back, he was holding a coil of semi-transparent rubber tubing and an oversized syringe. Anthony, however, was not distressed at the sight of the old taxidermist preparing his tools; he was too busy convulsing and thrashing around in his seat like someone possessed.
In the cool glow of the blue lights, the old man whistled as he worked. Occasionally, he would call on his fellow passengers to assist by restraining Anthony in his final futile moments, to hold the camera, or to help strip the body. Others would assist by unpacking the plastic sheeting and the large, glass mason jars from the overhead locker.
Chapter Nine
In terms of April weather, the drive up to Barstow was a pleasant one. The sun was warm in the beautiful Californian sky and the morning haze had burned off to leave the air clear and clean. Leighton had collected Vicki from her beach house – arriving ten minutes early. This was a side of the city Homicide cops rarely visited, and consequently, he had taken almost half an hour to find Vicki’s home in the exclusive beach house complex. Then – afraid of hurrying her too much – he rolled down his window and sat in the car listening to some Woody Guthrie until she appeared at the side of his door. She was wearing a faded University of San Diego T-shirt and had a black bandolier bag draped over one shoulder.
‘Morning, detective,’ she said and smiled warmly.
‘Good morning, Miss Reiner. You all ready?’
Leighton glimpsed something familiar in Vicki's bright eyes. Her long hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail. He felt a moment of nostalgia so powerful, it threatened to eclipse all other rational thought.
‘All set to go,’ Vicki said cheerfully.
‘Okay.’ Leighton shrugged. ‘Put your bag in the back seat and jump in.’
As Leighton waited for Vicki to get in the passenger side, he gazed at the row of flawless beach houses.
They were not the most opulent properties at the beach front, but they still whispered of exclusive wealth. Leighton estimated their value to be somewhere between one and two million dollars apiece.
‘Nice home,’ he said, as she clicked the buckle shut on her seatbelt.
‘Yeah.’ Vicki shrugged. ‘It used to be.’
Leighton looked at her inquisitively, sensing some shift in her mood. In a moment it had gone, replaced with her smile, and she returned to her previous disposition.
‘I just mean I’m fairly messy,’ she said, but Leighton didn’t believe her.
Deciding it was better to let the matter drop, he put the car into drive and they headed off.
They had travelled along the smooth grey interstate for fifteen minutes before the crushed traffic spread out and allowed both Leighton and Vicki to relax. The car windows were opened just far enough to keep a comfortable breeze of morning air blowing through the interior of the car.
The first thing Vicki had noticed when she stepped into it, was that Leighton’s car was immaculate. He had an old style cassette player in the middle of the dashboard; beneath this was a small shelf in which a row of plastic cassette cases were carefully arranged in alphabetical order.
‘You just had this thing cleaned just for me?’ she joked, but Leighton just raised one eyebrow quizzically and shook his head.
‘I just like a tidy car,’ he said by way of an explanation.
‘Yeah, but there’s tidy, then there’s super-tidy.’
Leighton frowned slightly but said nothing.
‘Come on,’ she pressed. ‘This car is clearly too clean – humans need chaos to thrive.’
‘What do you want me to say?’ Leighton said, feigning irritation.
‘You need to explain this – the neat thing.’ Vicki laughed.
‘It’s not a neat thing, it’s just how I am.’
‘Okay.’ Vicki nodded in agreement. ‘So where does that neatness come from?’