“Sorry, I forgot you’re from out of town. The Scouts are a local biker gang; some of them look a bit mean but they don’t cause any trouble. Their name’s got something to do with Wild Bill Hickok – you know he killed a man here in Springfield in a duel over a watch? Anyway, the name’s got something to do with that, or him or something.”
“Okay, go on,” I said.
“So the three of us spent some time together over the weekend – mainly in their room, just talking; but on the Sunday they came with Tommy and me and some of Tommy’s friends and we took a bike ride over to Branson. Marisa had never been on a bike before – she loved it. That girl is something else; she’ll try anything. And she’s real friendly too. She’s kinda like a sponge – she wants to soak everything up; do everything, see everything, learn everything.”
“Do you know where she and Vicky went on that Monday?”
“Yeah; Tommy’s got a friend called Shakes – his real name’s Mike Macarovich – and he said his old lady, Jillian, could put them up for a while for free while they tried to find some work; it’s quite a convenient location to get downtown from their place. They stayed there until the following Saturday but then Marisa and Vicky apparently decided to head out of town for a week or so with some people they’d met in Springfield. Neither of them had got a job yet. That’s the last time I heard from her, although later I heard that she’d decided to stay away for a while longer but I didn’t think anything of it.”
“Who told you that?”
“Shakes told Tommy and Tommy told me.”
“If they left the city on Saturday it would have been the last day of January,” I said. “The second of February was her father’s birthday and he was expecting her to call; so it narrows down the time of her disappearance to just a couple of days.”
“She definitely would’ve called her dad,” Jacky said. “She felt guilty about leaving him; he’s quite sick, she said, but he insisted that she live her life. She adores him, I know. We talked about a lot of things during those few days.”
“You’ve been incredibly helpful,” I said, “but we need to talk to Tommy and find out where they were staying before she left town. Maybe Shakes’ old lady can tell us more about this place she was planning to visit.”
“Sure, I’ll arrange it. Tommy’s working right now – he works in a bike shop on the other side of town – but I can get him to come over here tonight. I’ll be working, but I can introduce you, and I can tell him all about it before you meet.”
“Okay, what time?” I said.
“Say seven?”
“Okay, we’ll be here. But first I need to go back and check the register; did you record any ID from Vicky?”
“No; they paid cash so we didn’t check any ID; we only need that if it’s a reservation. We don’t get many of those.”
“One last thing,” I said to Jacky. “Do you have any photographs of Vicky?”
“Yeah there’ll be several on my cell phone. If you give me your number, I’ll send them to you. You got Whatsapp?”
I gave Jacky Lucy’s number. She was bound to have Whatsapp and probably every other kind of app known to mankind. As we left the diner together Jacky turned to me. “You gotta find her Kane; she’s a good kid.”
“We’ll find her,” I said.
We went back inside the office and Pamela called a cab for us. During the short ride back to the hotel I said to Lucy, “The first thing we have to do is to head over to the sheriff’s office and update Peters on the investigation. Now we have a name for Vicky he may be able to find out if anyone’s reported her missing too.”
“Someone’s bound to have reported her disappearance somewhere, don’t you think?” Lucy said.
“Probably – if she has in fact disappeared. We’ve been assuming that the girls stayed together, but perhaps when Marisa decided to leave town for a while they split up; or if not then maybe later when Marisa decided to stay on wherever it is she went to. After all, she and Marisa hadn’t known each other long and we know Vicky needed to work, whereas Marisa had ample funds in her account from working in Chicago. If Vicky and Marisa parted company at some stage, then she would probably be oblivious of the fact that Marisa has been reported missing.”
Back at the hotel we decided to eat lunch before visiting Peters again. Hopefully that would give Jacky time to send Vicky’s pictures to Lucy, who hadn’t received anything yet. Although Jimmy had devoured a burger and fries in the diner Lucy and I had stuck to coffee, so we were getting hungry. We didn’t eat in the hotel though; years of living relatively frugally had instilled in me a common sense attitude to spending and I was darned if I was going to pay hotel prices, even if we were on expenses. It was the same with airlines; I always travel coach, even if the client’s happy to pay for business, unless it's a long flight and I need to start working as soon as I arrive; and that happened occasionally. I’d had complimentary upgrades a few times too, but that was unlikely to happen again now that I was traveling everywhere with Lucy. I’ve never been inside a first class cabin although, like most people, I’d occasionally had a peek behind that curtain to see how the other half live; or the other two percent or whatever.
Lucy chose Indian food, so we ate tandoori chicken with yogurt and roasted broccoli and aloo gobi with some vegetable samosas on the side. I was allowed a beer too, but only one.
“We’ve made an amazing start,” Lucy said. “I thought we’d be wandering around for days before we found anything out.”
“It’s a question of making use of what Hercule Poirot called ‘the little gray cells’, Lucy,” I said. “By which he meant the brain,” I added for clarification.
“He’s not a real person, though.” Lucy said.
“As real as anyone in those movies you watch. You ever seen a Hercule Poirot movie?”
“What are they about?” she said.
“Murder usually. He’s a Belgian detective, invented by a writer called Agatha Christie. She’s dead now, so there won’t be any more stories about him I guess.”
“Well I think it’s an incredible stroke of luck finding out where Marisa stayed so easily.”
“That’s not what you told Jacky,” I said. “You told her the place ticked all the right boxes.”
“My God; what about her tattoos?” Lucy said.
“I thought they rather suited her. Why, are you thinking of getting one?”
“She hasn’t got one, she’s got hundreds.”
“I expect Tommy likes them. Anyway you can’t really be a biker’s moll without tattoos,” I said.
“We were bikers, back in the day,” Lucy said. She was referring to our early days in California, before we headed east.
“We weren’t in a gang,” I said.
“I don’t suppose we’d have passed the initiation rites,” Lucy said, ruminating to herself.
“Anyway, let’s go see Peters,” I said, wiping my mouth with a napkin and summoning the waiter who’d dealt with us throughout with an obsequiousness that I’d experienced in Indian restaurants before. It must be part of the training, I thought.
*
“That was quick,” Peters said. “If you ever need a job you must let me know – I’ll put in a good word for you.”
“Just a matter of using the little gray cells,” Lucy said. “I expect that’s where you’d have looked first if you had the time.”
“Well I’ll run a check on Miss Boraski to see what I can find out,” Peters said, “although without an ID or date of birth I wouldn’t hold your breath.”
“I don’t suppose you need her picture,” I said, “but you may as well have a copy for good measure. I’ll get some downloaded and printed for you.”
“I can get that done now,” he said. “May I?”
Lucy handed over her phone and Peters disappeared for a couple of minutes. The picture on Lucy’s cell phone showed Marisa, Jacky and Vicky kneeling in front of a row of bikers who stood behin
d, their arms around each other’s shoulders. It was apparently taken in the Ozarks, presumably during their trip to Branson. It was a pretty good picture of Vicky’s face, but impossible to tell how tall she was. She looked about the same age as Marisa.
Peters returned with some prints. “I see they made some friends here,” he said wryly.
“Mr. Roberts says Marisa’s very gregarious by nature,” I said. “That seems to be borne out by what Jacky told us too.”
“That character trait can be both a good and a bad thing. Well, not a bad thing but maybe a dangerous thing in some circumstances,” he said.
“Oh I’m sure the friends she made here wouldn’t take advantage of her,” Lucy said.
“That’s not really what I mean,” Peters said. “A gregarious nature can make someone prone to trusting others too easily. From what you’ve told me Marisa, and maybe Vicky too, left town with a group of people they hardly knew – can hardly have known – and since then nothing’s been heard of Marisa.”
“I see what you mean,” Lucy said.
“What I suggest for the time being is that I follow this up. I’ll see what I can find out about young Vicky here and in the meantime you can follow up your lead on Marisa. I’ll leave that side of things up to you; I’m sure you’d prefer it that way.”
“We’re more than grateful,” I said. “We’ll call Mr. Roberts this afternoon and put him in the picture and we’ll get back to you once we’ve seen Jacky’s boyfriend. Let’s tentatively make an appointment for tomorrow morning at nine. Will you be free then?”
“As free as I’ll ever be,” Peters said.
We headed back to the hotel. “Oh ye of little faith,” I said to the room at large as I lay supine on the bed.
“Is that supposed to be a dig at me?” Lucy said.
“I just seem to recall that you weren’t very optimistic when we left Boston yesterday.”
“What do you want, a medal? We haven’t found her yet.”
I reached out, grabbed her arm and pulled her onto the bed with me; she squealed with surprise and then giggled. “We’ve got three hours to kill,” I said. “How about we test out the springs on this mattress?”
Chapter Seven
Tommy
“If anyone harms a hair on that girl’s head – either of those girls – they’ll have me to answer to.”
Tommy was a tall, rawboned young man in his mid-twenties. We were sitting in the diner next to the motel. He was about six one and lean; he had mutton-chop sideburns which would have been a beard but for the half-inch gap on his chin. He wore a white T-shirt under a black leather jacket, which he removed when we sat down, and black leather pants. On his right bicep was an image that I would have recognized as Wild Bill Hickok even if Jacky hadn’t told me about his affiliation earlier. Beneath the image was the word ‘Scouts’.
“It’s good of you to come,” I said.
“I’m gonna tell you somethin’ Kane,” he said. “People judge me all the time.” The word ‘all’ was drawn out to an unnatural length for emphasis. “What the hell do they know about me? Nothin’. I tell you somethin’ else,” he said, pointing a finger at me, “I got a college education.” He laughed. “It’s true; just because I dress like this and live the kind of life I wanna live people judge me; they treat me like garbage some of them, but what I do to them? Nothin’. But Marisa, she never judged me. She took me for what I am, and I’ll tell you I’m not a bad guy. I mean, I got a temper, I grant you that; anybody gets me riled they better watch out; but I don’t bear nobody any ill will. I never needed to tell Marisa that coz she knew. We all went over to the mountains one day and we were laughin’ and whoopin’ it up. It was a Sunday and there were plenty of families traveling that way. You could almost hear the parents telling their kids not to look at us; like we were some kind of trash. Later that evening we sat around the fire and Marisa wanted to know all about me and Jacky. She wasn’t just being polite, she was real interested in our lives and what made us tick. We talked about just about everything that night – including religion and philosophy. I ain’t dumb –I got a degree in engineering. Most people are surprised to learn that, but not Marisa. That girl’s somethin’ special Kane, you better believe me.”
“I’ve only heard good things about her,” I said, “and that’s the truth. How about Vicky; her friend?”
“Well she was more kinda reserved, if you know what I mean; but she’s a nice kid too. But Marisa, well, she had somethin’ extra that I can’t really put into words. Jacky took to her too; I never seen Jacky get so close to someone so quick. Jacky told me they had a kinda mutual…understanding. I was gonna say respect, but that’s not quite it. Anyway, what I’m tryin’ to say is that whatever help I can give you, you got it okay?”
“I appreciate it. What we need to know right now is where she went when she left the motel. Jacky said you can help us with that.”
“Yeah, she went to stay with Shakes and his old lady, Jillian; they both did. We went to the Ozarks that Sunday – ate barbequed pork round a campfire. The next day they moved into Jillian’s place. After that I didn’t see them, but I tried to find them somewhere to work; Jacky did too. Next I heard they’d headed outa town for a while. Jacky said they ain’t come back yet.”
“That’s right,” I said. “And Marisa was supposed to call her dad on his birthday, but she didn’t; and her bank account is untouched since then and her cell phone hasn’t been used. We need to find out where Marisa and Vicky went when they left Springfield.”
“You’ll need to talk to Jillian; she’d be the one to tell you, I guess. I’ll call her and arrange for you guys to meet her – tomorrow okay?”
“Sure; the earlier the better. And thanks for taking the time to talk to us,” I said. “So that’s your bike outside; an old shovelhead Harley?”
“Hey, you know your bikes man.”
“I haven’t always been old, Tommy. I lived in California in my twenties. I had a Harley back then which turned out to be something of a babe magnet. I still had that Harley when I met Lucy and we used to ride the coast highway, breathe the ocean air and sleep under the stars. You get older Tommy, but you don’t forget.” Lucy gave my leg a squeeze under the table. I glanced at her sideways and saw her eyes misting over
“We’d better get going Tommy. We’ll wait for your call tomorrow; give us the time and place and we’ll be there, okay?”
On the drive back to the hotel Lucy rested her head on my shoulder and put her hand on my leg. “You know one of the great things about this kind of work?” she said, “You meet all kinds of people you wouldn’t usually meet.”
“Yeah, but not always nice people,” I said. “Oh I don’t mean Tommy, he seems like a regular guy, but I’ve got a feeling that before this case is done we’re going to meet some people who aren’t nice at all.”
*
Back at the hotel I called Roberts; Timpson answered the phone and put me through.
“Hi Mr. Roberts, it’s Kane,” I said. “I’m just calling to give you a progress report on our first day.”
“I wasn’t expecting to hear from you so soon,” he said in a thin voice. He was holding the phone so near to his mouth that I could hear the sound of him wheezing.
“We’ve had a productive first day – we found out where Marisa and her friend were staying until the end of January. We know the identity of her companion too – her name’s Vicky Boraski. The first three days they stayed in a motel near the bus station and then they went to stay with some friends they met there. On the last day of the month Marisa left town, probably together with Vicky. Hopefully tomorrow we’ll find out more about where they went; but it seems that her intention was only to be gone for a week. Your birthday being on the Monday suggests that Marisa wasn’t able to use her phone by then.”
“Do you think she’s safe, Kane?” He spoke softly, without urgency in his voice. It was a question he knew I couldn’t answer.
&nb
sp; “Right now we’ve no reason to think otherwise,” I said. “We’re working together with Matt Peters and I’ll call again about the same time tomorrow to give you an update on the situation. Meantime you just try to relax and not worry.”
“God bless you, Kane,” he said. There was a click as he hung up.
“How was he?” Lucy said.
“Probably feeling a little less anxious,” I said. “But we’re a long way from being out of the woods yet. I just hope that Marisa told Jillian where she was going. I took a road trip soon after I came back to the States, after my dad recovered from his heart attack. Things were a little different back then, but at least we had payphones. I tried to keep my folks in touch with where I was and where I was going, but I was hitch-hiking and it wasn’t always so easy to plan. I’d set out to go someplace, but sometimes end up wherever the driver was headed. You can’t afford to be too picky when you’re traveling like that.”
“Well it doesn’t seem like she was going far if it was only for the week.”
“But if she traveled even fifty miles then she could be anywhere within seven thousand square miles; and she could have travelled much further than that for all we know.”
“Then we’ll just have to keep our fingers crossed that she told Jillian or at least left some kind of a clue,” Lucy said.
“If Jillian can’t help then we may have to fall back on trying to locate her by tracking her phone.”
“Wouldn’t she have to be using the phone for that to work? I thought Roberts said her phone’s dead.”
“Her phone may be dead now, but it probably wasn’t when she left the city. It’s not necessary for there to be an active call. The technology works on the basis that a powered cell phone always communicates wirelessly with one of the closest cell tower. I think the phone would at least have to be turned on so that it emits a roaming signal to contact the nearest antenna, but they’re improving this kind of technology all the time, though, so maybe they can even track a phone when it’s turned off now.”
Missing - Mark Kane Mysteries - Book Five: A Private Investigator Crime Series of Murder, Mystery, Suspense & Thriller Stories...with a dash of Romance. A Murder Mystery & Suspense Thriller Page 5