by David Archer
She nodded. “Yeah. I'm gonna save the rest for later. Oh, here's your change!” She dug into a pocket and came out with the money.
“Keep it,” Sam said, waving it away. “You said you need gas, right?”
Indie smiled. “Thanks, man. Really.” She stuffed it back into her pocket.
Sam heard the phone come to life again. “Sam, still there?”
“I'm here, whatcha got?”
“Your girl is Indiana Marie Perkins, twenty-two, born in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, but moved here to Denver with her mother when she was about ten. She did well in school, got a degree in Information Technology from MIT of all places, then came back here and went to work for Dairy Queen for a while. Guess it didn't work out; she's had a few little jobs since then, but nothing steady, and nothing in computers. Looks like she's a single mom, got a little girl of her own, no father around. No wants or warrants, she's clean as a whistle, but there's a note that she might be homeless and if she's seen, then we're supposed to notify Child Protection Services.”
“Thanks, Dan,” Sam said. “I appreciate it. She might be a help on this thing I'm working on, just wanted to be sure who I'm dealing with. Catch you later.”
“Okay. And by the way, I'm lookin' at her drivers' license photo—she's kinda cute. Go get 'em, tiger!”
Sam hung up and looked at Indie. “Okay, you were mostly right. The only thing you missed is that he found out about your little girl. Where's she at?”
Indie seemed to crumple in the chair. “I was kinda hopin' they wouldn't mention that,” she said. “She's actually asleep, over in the car.”
Sam nodded. “So you were saving the extra food for her, right?”
The girl sat there and said nothing for a moment, then a tear spilled out of one eye. “Look, it's not easy taking care of a kid when you can't even find a decent job, okay? I do the best I can, but sometimes—I won't say I haven't thought about how easy it'd be to jack someone's credit, y'know, get money the easy way, but I never have done that, not yet, anyway. With the food and the money you gave me, we can get through another day, and if you're really gonna pay on this gig, then maybe I can make it another week or so. C'mon, man, don't turn me in, please? All I want is to work and take care of my kid.”
Sam sat another moment and thought through what he was about to do, just trying to be sure it was what he wanted to do. He'd come to like his privacy, and he was about to throw it away.
“Here's the deal. I need your help, and you need a place to live. I've got a huge house with three extra bedrooms upstairs that have never even been used, and you've got a little girl you're gonna lose if the state finds out you're homeless. I think maybe we can solve each other's problem. Don't you?”
Indie looked at him for a long moment. “I've had offers like this before, man. I'll admit I'm pretty desperate, and you're not exactly ugly, but I'm not into anything really weird, got that? So, I mean, as long as you don't want anything kinky, then—well, maybe...”
Sam's eyes went wide and he held up both hands to stop her. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! You're reading me all wrong, Indie! No strings attached, not anything like that! All I want is your help with this case I'm on, and if you want to stay after that, then we can talk about rent, or helping out around the place, something along those lines! I'm not the kind of guy to try to take advantage of a girl in a bad situation!”
The two of them played stare-down for a minute, but finally Indie blinked. “Seriously? No strings? Just a place to stay while we work on this together?”
Sam nodded. “I'll provide the room and board, and pay you on top for whatever your work is worth, you tell me. But let's get you and your baby off the street, okay?”
Indie smiled again. “She's not exactly a baby, she's almost four. Her name is Mackenzie—Kenzie for short—and I'll warn you, she's likely to be all over you. She's never had a father and tends to grab onto men, if they let her. Is that a problem?”
“Nah,” Sam said, shaking his head. “I like kids. And I've got a big TV in the living room, so she'll probably like that. The upstairs bedrooms—I set one up as a guest room, but the other two were supposed to be for kids eventually, back when I was married. There's not anything in them as far as furniture, so you and the little one will have to bunk together. I haven't been upstairs in probably two years, so I have no idea how dusty things might be up there.”
Indie cocked her head to one side, and just looked at Sam. “You're an odd man, Samuel Prichard. Um—are we maybe talking about starting this tonight?”
“Yes,” Sam laughed, “just follow me on home—oh, wait, you know where I live, don't you? Is there anything you need, for you or the little girl? I'm not sure what I'd have for food she might like, so maybe we should get some stuff.” He reached back into his pocket and pulled out another pair of twenties. “Tell you what, take this and go by a grocery store, get whatever you think you'll need for the next couple of days, and meet me at the house when you're done. We'll go over the case, and go from there. Deal?”
The girl looked at the money in his hands, but made no move to take it. “I'm very good at what I do,” she said. “If there's a way I can help you find this missing kid, I will. But this—what you're doing for me right now—I'll pay you back, somehow, on top of that.” She took the money and then shook his hand. “Deal.”
Sam watched her go back to her car, and saw her lean into the back seat with some of the remaining food. A little blonde head came into view for a moment, and then he saw the little girl's face light up when she saw food. Apparently burritos were high on her list of things she liked to eat, and Indie had bought her two of them. The child must have been hungry, too, Sam thought, because they were gone in what seemed like only seconds, and Indie handed over the coke before she got behind the wheel.
He could hear her telling the little girl that they had met a nice man who was going to let them stay at his house for a few nights, so they didn't have to go back to the shelter, and that they had to be very nice and not make a lot of noise, and other things parents say to kids when they feel like a burden has been lifted off their backs and they want the kid to be grateful.
Sam waited until she'd driven away before he got on the bike and rode home.
3
Indie drove up a half hour after Sam got home, and he held the door open as she carried in three grocery bags and a couple of small suitcases. The little girl, Mackenzie, followed her mommy and looked up at him with big, blue eyes.
“Kenzie,” Indie said, “this is Mr. Prichard...”
“Just Sam,” he said with a smile. “Mr. Prichard was my dad, and he's been gone a long time.”
Indie grinned. “Okay, this is Sam. Can you say hi?”
The little one blushed and softly said, “Hi, Sam,” then hurried after her mom into the kitchen. Indie said, “I got cereal and milk, and some peanut butter and jelly and bread and stuff like that. Oh, and I hope it's okay, I got some cookies and chips and stuff, too.”
“That's fine,” Sam said. “When you get it all put away, go upstairs and check out the guest room. I think the bed is all made up, but like I said, I haven’t been up there in a couple years, so it may need some cleaning up. Then come on down and we'll find something on TV for Mackenzie, and you and I can talk.”
Indie smiled. “Okay,” she said, and a moment later, she and her daughter went up the stairs to explore, with Indie dragging their two suitcases.
The second floor of the house was typical of suburban homes, with three bedrooms and a big bathroom. Indie and Kenzie looked through all of them, though only the first bedroom at the front of the house had been set up. There was a queen-size bed, a dresser and two nightstands; the furniture was from the sixties and looked like it might have come from a garage sale, but Indie wasn't about to complain. She checked the bed and found that while the covers were a little dusty, the sheets and pillows were clean enough. Fluffing the quilt got rid of most of the dust, or at least spread it out so it wasn't so visible.
She set their suitcases on top of the big dresser and opened them, then got Kenzie a pair of pajamas out. It was late enough that she hoped the child would be asleep soon, and wanted to get her ready. She set her up on the bed and began getting her changed.
“Tomorrow, we'll get you a bath,” she said, “but you'll be okay for tonight. Let's just get you into your jammies, so you can be comfy, okay, babe?”
Kenzie looked up at her. “Is this our room tonight? The whole room?”
Indie nodded, smiling. “Yep, Baby, we get the whole room to ourselves, tonight. Nice, huh?”
“Uh-huh!”
The bathroom was dirtier, with thick dust on every smooth surface, and she noticed that the toilet bowl was completely dry. She flushed it, and was surprised to see rusty-looking water come flooding into the bowl, then realized that it had sat there so long unused that the water in the bowl had simply evaporated. She turned on the water in the sink and tub and let them run for a few moments, until the rusty color was gone and the water was clear, like it should be.
Indie decided she'd clean the bathroom up later, after talking to Sam. She wanted to find out more about the job he was offering her, and do her best to help find the girl who was missing, but at the same time, she wanted to know more about Sam, too. Not too many single men would let her and her daughter stay with them unless there were ulterior motives, but she thought he was being sincere when he said there would be no strings of that nature. Maybe there were some decent guys left, after all.
She gathered up her daughter and went back down the stairs.
Sam had gone to the living room and sat in his favorite recliner, just waiting for the two girls to come back down. Part of him wondered if he was nuts, letting them stay there, but he was pretty sure he could trust Indie. There was something about her that just said she was a good person in a bad situation.
He wondered if there were more to that situation than what he could see on the surface. Was it really that hard for a young woman to get a job? The little girl was old enough that she must have been born not long after Indie got out of high school; he wondered how she'd managed to go to college with a child, and whether anyone had helped her out.
Those things weren't any of his business, of course, but a cop's curiosity was always running wild. He'd have to try to keep it in check, at least where Miss Indie was concerned.
He heard voices a few moments later, and the girls came into the living room. Mackenzie was holding two cookies, and offered one to Sam. He smiled and took it, saying, “Thank you, Sweetie.” The little girl lit up in a smile, and Indie helped her climb up on the couch.
“The remote's over there on the coffee table,” Sam said around a mouthful of chocolate chip cookie. “Put something on she'll like, and we can talk about the case.”
Indie turned on the big TV that hung on the wall, and shortly after, there were cartoons on the screen. The little girl was delighted, and began laughing and pointing at the screen.
“She hasn't seen a lot of TV lately,” Indie said. “Even when we had our apartment, we didn't have one. The only time she got to watch cartoons was when I could get on the neighbor’s wifi and get online. Cartoon Network dot com. The shows are stupid, but at least they're entertaining and keep her calm.”
Sam nodded. “I guess,” he said. “Never had much experience with 'em. You ready to go over this mess?”
She settled into the corner of the couch closest to him, and dragged her laptop out of its case. “Yeah, what have we got? Wait, you got wifi here?”
Sam nodded. “I do, but you need the password. Tell me when you’re ready and I'll give it to you.”
Indie tapped a few keys, and then looked up. “Okay, ready.”
“The password is, and this is all one long word with no punctuation, youdontneedmystinkingpassword.”
Indie looked at him and grinned as she typed it in. When it logged her onto his network, she shook her head. “That is probably the best password I've ever seen.”
“It works,” Sam said. “Okay, then, we've got a missing twelve-year-old girl named Cassie Rice. Her father, who has visitation with her every other Saturday, is Allen Rice, a known drug dealer who works with a web-based outfit known as drugspot dot org. What we think is that it has a back end that allows drug dealers to connect with their buyers secretly, so that they make their purchase through some online payment service, then the dealer just drops off their order.”
Indie nodded. “Yeah, I've heard about things like this. They use a lot of different bots to move the money around, flipping it through Paypal, Goldmoney, Payeer, Bitcoin, all of them. Makes it impossible to trace, they think. Not just drug dealers, lots of people who want to hide money, or hide where it comes from.” She was tapping keys as she spoke. “Let's start with the daddy. What's his name again? Allen Rice, right? Any idea where he lives?”
Sam thought for a moment. “Yeah, Princeton Drive. That's not as nice a neighborhood as it sounds like.”
“I know, I lived on College, just a block away. Pretty rough area, not good for kids.” She looked at her daughter. “She likes to go outside and play, and I notice you've got a nice yard. Will it be okay if I let her out during the day time?”
“Sure,” Sam said. “Just keep an eye on her, there's a pool out there. I'll let the neighbors know I've got company, and they'll all watch out for her, too. This is a good neighborhood, by the way. There are some other kids around, too. I know there are some around her age a couple doors down.” He pointed in the direction of the house he was referring to. “The Mitchells have two kids, twins, and they're about the size of yours, there.”
Indie was looking at her screen. “Okay, I've got Allen Rice, found him on Facebook and got his email. Give me a little time, and I can tell you just about anything about him you might want to know.” She continued tapping away. “So, you said you were married, once. Didn't work out?”
Sam grimaced. “Not exactly, but it was sort of a mutual thing. I was more married to my job than I was to her, and she didn't like being at home alone all the time. One day I came home and found out I had the place all to myself. That was about nine years back.”
“Sorry,” Indie said. “Must suck, if you weren't expecting it.”
Sam grinned. “Pretty much. On the other hand, almost every other cop I know has been through that or worse, with divorce, custody fights over kids and that kind of stuff. I think maybe I got off easy, cause there weren't any kids and she didn't even ask for anything. I let her take the car I'd bought her, and I paid for it, but other than that, it was all pretty simple.”
Indie was looking closely at something on her screen. “How long has it been since anyone saw this Allen character?” she asked.
“Not sure; probably not more than a day or so, I'd guess. Why?”
“Because a bunch of people on Facebook have been trying to get his attention since the day before yesterday, and he hasn't logged on. That's odd, since I can scroll back and see that he checks in several times a day, normally. Give me a minute...” She went back to tapping steadily.
Sam thought about it for a moment, then took out his phone and called Sandy Ward.
“Mrs. Ward, it's Sam Prichard. You said your granddaughter went with her father on Saturday?”
“Yes, that's right,” the woman said. “She was supposed to be back here by seven that evening, and hasn't been home since.”
“Okay, and when was the last time you talked to her father?”
“Well, that would have been the same night. I called him around eight or so, cause he's late sometimes, and he said he dropped her off in front of my house at seven. I've tried to call him a few times since then, but he never answers.”
Sam thanked her and hung up, then repeated the information to Indie. “Sounds like this guy may have split, after all. Mrs. Ward had said she didn't think Cassie was dead because her dad hadn't run away, but if he can't be found...”
“Then it doesn't sound good, right?” I
ndie asked, and Sam made a sad face.
“Not good at all,” he said. “You say he hasn’t been online, either?”
“That’s not what I said,” Indie pointed out. “I said he hadn’t been on Facebook, and there's a big difference. He has, however, checked his email every day, and even just a few hours ago.”
“How can you tell that?”
“Cause I figured out his password and I'm in his email account right now. Since I can see that most of the emails have been read, and several of them are only a few hours old, it's a safe bet he was in here today.”
Sam's eyebrows were high. “Any info in there?”
“Not a lot, but I do see that he's out of town somewhere. The IP address he's logging into his email from is different from the local one, so he's definitely gone someplace. On the other hand, this is the email associated with his Facebook, so I've put in a request to reset his password. Soon as I get that, I can go into his Facebook and see who he's been talking to there. That might lead us to where he's gone, if he's got friends out around the country who log on from that same IP.”
The reset came a few moments later, and Indie logged in to Rice's Facebook account. She poked around for a few moments, then started going through his message inbox.
“Okay, this is interesting,” Indie said. “Up until he disappeared, Rice had been messaging a lot of people, mostly locals and most of them over and over, about the same thing, namely 'drop offs.' Pretty sure that alludes to dropping off some recreational drugs, wouldn't you think?”
“Most likely. Any kind of ID on who the buyers are?”
“Oh, heck, yeah, I've got the whole list. These idiots put all their info out there for anyone to snatch. Where do we wanna start?”
Sam leaned over and looked at the screen, as she showed him the several hundred friends of Allen Rice. Most of them, it seemed, were also customers, and he sat there for a moment thinking about where to begin.
“Are all of them local? Is there any who might be from wherever he's at now?”