“Yes,” he said. “Please tell the hospital administration that the bill for Vicky’s treatment is to be for my account,” he wheezed. “I want the very best for her, you understand?” There was a pause again. “Someone, somewhere is waiting for her to come home,” he said. “Timpson will make the appropriate arrangements.”
I said I would and I heard Robert’s phone being gently returned to its cradle as he hung up.
I dug out my Stieg Laarson and buried myself in the tale of another missing daughter, far away in the country of my grandmother’s birth.
Chapter Eighteen
The Awakening
I waited until Lucy arrived before going downstairs for breakfast. After years of operating on my own I had gotten used to having Lucy with me for the past couple of months and I realized, with some surprise, that I’d missed her. Well, two heads are better than one, I thought to myself, smiling, even if one of them belongs to a woman.
Jillian had been supplied with a room at the hotel too, and I insisted that it went on my account. She joined us for breakfast.
“This may not be a short visit,” I said to her over my eggs benedict. “Are you okay with your job?”
“Oh they’ll find someone to do the mundane stuff that I have to deal with there, and if they can’t they’ll just appreciate me more when I go back. I told them it was a medical emergency. Actually I left a message on my boss’s answering machine. I guess he’ll be getting it round about now,” she said, looking at her watch and grinning.
“We’ll go to the hospital as soon as we finish up here,” Lucy said, “so you’ll have to manage on your own.”
“I’ll do my best. Spinks is going to arrange for someone to take me to the places where the bodies were found,” I said. “I don’t see how that is going to help our investigation much, except it may help pinpoint the general area where Marisa and Vicky were taken. Anyway, it’ll give me something to do until Crombie arrives.”
“So he’s agreed to come back?” Lucy said.
“Not yet, but I’m sure he will.”
“Okay,” Lucy said, draining her coffee cup. “C’mon Jillian, let’s go wake up Vicky.”
*
Hope Creek was about fifteen miles south east of Clinton, and the creek which lent its name to the small town wound southwards through a lightly wooded area. The two sites where the bodies were found were little more than a mile apart. The police had brought in cadaver dogs to see if they could locate any more bodies. So far nothing else had been discovered but the investigation had only just started and there was a lot of ground to cover. The nearest roadway to the locations where the bodies were found was more than a mile and a half to the east and, but for chance, they might well have remained undiscovered for months or even years. There hadn’t been a murder in the vicinity of Hope Creek in living memory and the townsfolk were just learning how to lock their doors at night.
A wide area around each site had been cordoned off and the search for clues had begun; a painstaking process that was likely to take several days. My escort, a detective by the name of Josh Wilkes, explained that little examination of the surrounding area had been done after Cindy’s body was discovered, and no-one really knew what they were looking for anyway. There’d been no tire tracks found and so it was assumed that the bodies had been carried before being buried, but there were no shoe prints either – hardly surprising given the recent weather, he said. Cindy’s remains had been found above ground, but a shallow grave was identified as her original resting place. It looked like Jane Doe’s grave had been hastily dug and the hole hadn’t been long enough, so she was found in a fetal position only a foot and a half down. The ground had been cold which had slowed the rate of decomposition. Josh explained that when Cindy’s body was discovered the summer sun had partly mummified the remains and the skin resembled a brown parchment.
There were no dwellings nearby and the police had decided that house-to-house inquiries of the nearest houses were unlikely to bear fruit. It was a small community and if anyone had seen or heard anything suspicious they would have come forward already – the whole community was in shock at the discoveries.
We drove back to Clinton and I called in at the hospital to see how Lucy and Jillian were faring. It was the first time I’d set eyes on Vicky and, if I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought she was sleeping soundly. There was barely any movement of her chest under the sheet. Lucy and Jillian were on either side of Vicky’s bed, each holding one of her hands in theirs.
“How’s it going?” I said.
“Nothing yet,” Lucy said. “The physio’s been in a couple of times, and a nurse takes her pulse, blood pressure and temperature every couple of hours. She’s got no physical marks of injury on her but an intern told me that the back of her head was shaved. We’re told that all her readings are normal except that her respiration is low and her pulse slow – but that’s apparently normal too for someone in her condition. So we’ve just been talking to her, talking to each other about her and Marisa. And we played the tape a few times. We’ve no way of knowing if she can hear us; she hasn’t stirred.”
“Well, it’s too soon to expect any results yet,” I said. “Dr. Fletcher isn’t expecting a miracle, but you better keep at it.”
“An intern came and shined a pen light on her eyelids,” Jillian said. “There was no movement of her pupils. He said that any movement was likely to show the first signs of recovery. We want to stay here at lunchtime – the staff will bring us some coffee and sandwiches. How was your morning?”
“I didn’t learn anything from what I saw, except that the burials appear to have been quite hasty; presumably at night-time. They’re examining the terrain around the sites where the bodies were found but it’s too early to expect much progress. I’m going to head over to the sheriff’s office to see if he’s been able to contact Crombie. I haven’t heard anything from him all morning but there may not have been a cell phone signal where we were – it’s pretty remote. But if Crombie can confirm where the accident took place it’ll be interesting to see how close it is to where the bodies were found.”
Back at the sheriff’s office I located Phil Spinks, who was on a coffee break.
“Crombie’s out of town for a couple of days to see some clients,” he said. “His company has sent a message to him. I had to tell them it wasn’t a matter of urgency, but we hoped he’d be able to make his way here within the next few days. There’s not much more I can do at the moment, I’m afraid.”
“Could we copy the picture of my suspects with the two girls, maybe put up some posters? It’s a longshot I know but it’s frustrating not being able to do anything and I’ve this uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach that time’s running out.”
“I’ll talk to Kent, see what he thinks,” he said.
“Any idea who the latest victim is?”
“Not yet, we’re working on it. I’m liaising with the other sheriff’s offices to see if her description matches any known missing person, but she may not have been a local girl.”
“There’s something else – you probably know about it already. Matt Peters issued some information about a maroon-colored Eldorado Cadillac which is known to have conveyed the suspects to a gas station near Cooper Springs a little more than a week ago. There’s reason to believe that it was damaged in a collision of some kind and it may have been taken somewhere for repair. In any event it’d be reasonably distinctive if it hasn’t been repaired because it’s got a scrape down the side panels from the driver’s door to the trunk. Can you make sure that the highway boys are on the lookout for it?”
“Sure, I’ll do that. No license number?”
“I’m afraid not. Missouri plates is all I know.”
“Okay. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do.”
*
The next couple of days passed uneventfully. Jillian and Lucy went to the hospital each day at nine, broke for lunch and then stayed
until five o’clock. I finished the Stieg Laarson trilogy in my room and got to know the story of the hotel barman’s life; he didn’t know why the hotel was called the Black Abbott though. On Thursday afternoon Spinks telephoned to say that Glen Crombie was expected the following morning.
“He’s driving up from Arkansas with his wife.” There was a pause. “She was with him when the accident happened, although she was sleeping. Still, she might be of some help I guess. She was wide awake after they hit Vicky and she might remember something about the scene. Or maybe we’ll find some skid marks on the road somewhere.”
“Is there a good bookshop in town?” I asked him.
“There’s a couple near the courthouse. Christian outfits I think. I’m not much of a reader myself. Haven’t you got one of those gadgets? You know, electronic book gadgets. My kids are into them all the time.”
“I’ll put one on my wish-list,” I said.
I hadn’t told Lucy about my conversation with Sally Bowman. Perhaps I should have – she was my assistant after all. But what good would it do? It was hard enough for me to stomach and I kept telling myself it was only speculation, but deep down I knew it was true –there was no other rational explanation for the removal of the victims’ kidneys. But Lucy already knew that the two bodies were probably linked to the Regenerators – for now that would have to be enough. I got up from the bed and stretched. I decided to go and see how Lucy and Jillian were doing at the hospital.
And then my cell phone rang.
“Kane, she’s waking up! They’re with her now – the doctors. She opened her eyes; I couldn’t believe it. Only for a second; but it was amazing. The doctors are delighted. I’m coming back soon with Jillian. The doctors think that it’s best to let her rest now; they don’t want to rush things. Isn’t it exciting…she’s waking up. I knew she would.”
“Well don’t expect too much. It’ll probably be some time before she’s able to communicate with anybody.”
“I don’t want to leave her, but the doctors think it’s best. They’ll have a nurse sit with her throughout the evening to see if she shows any more signs of recovery; but Fletcher’s very optimistic. He called us his angels.” She laughed and then hung up.
Maybe I wouldn’t need the bookstore after all.
Chapter Nineteen
The Crombies
It was Friday morning. I went with Lucy and Jillian to the hospital after breakfast to check on Vicky’s progress, but after the excitement of the night before there had been no further sign of recovery.
“It’s not unusual,” Fletcher said. “Recovery can be sporadic; we need to be patient. I’m very optimistic that we’ll soon see some real improvement now.”
And he was right. During the morning Lucy called to say that Vicky now had her eyes open and was moving her head slightly in the direction of their voices. There was no doubt that, little-by-little, the synapses in Vicky’s brain were making contact with each other again.
Glen and Catherine Crombie arrived shortly before lunchtime. We met in Sheriff Benson’s office and he introduced us. It was nice to have some good news for them after their drive.
“As the sheriff’s no doubt told you it seems that Vicky is now on the mend at last,” I said. “Her name’s Vicky Boraski, by the way, and I’m a private investigator from Boston. My assistant and I are trying to locate a friend of Vicky’s who disappeared over two weeks ago. We’re hoping that eventually Vicky will be able to shed some light on where she is.”
“We’re so relieved that she’s going to be alright,” Catherine said. “It’s been difficult for us to come to terms with what happened that night. We’re so sorry about everything.”
“Why don’t the three of you get some lunch,” Benson said to me. “Then you can tell Mr. Crombie how you think he can help with your inquiry. Don’t hesitate to ask if you need any assistance from me.”
I drove the Crombie’s to the hotel and called Lucy on the way.
“Can you join us for lunch at the hotel? I’ve got Mr. and Mrs. Crombie here and we’ll all have a chance to talk together. Jillian can stay with Vicky if the doctor’s alright with that.”
Before lunch I brought the Crombies up to speed with my investigation.
“It was good of you both to come. I expect Sheriff Benson explained to you the reason for the request.”
“We understand that you’re anxious to find out where the unfortunate girl had come from before being struck by my car.”
“Let me explain things in a bit more detail. My client’s daughter, a nineteen-year-old named Marisa Roberts, disappeared in Springfield while on a road trip to the West Coast about three weeks ago. He became alarmed when she failed to call him on his birthday on February second. We’ve now discovered that a couple of days before that she and Vicky, who were friends, had left Springfield with a group of people she’d met who claimed to live in a commune. They were due to return after about a week but they failed to do so. There are various reasons, which I needn’t go into now, why we believe that she and Vicky were held against their will by that group of people. We think that Vicky somehow managed to escape from her captors and was running away from wherever she’d been held when the accident occurred. Fortunately, it seems likely that Vicky will make a full recovery in due course but Marisa is still missing and it’s vital that we trace the location where she was, and possibly still is, being held.”
Lucy had shown up while I was explaining the background of my inquiry to the Crombies. I introduced her to them and we settled down to lunch.
“We had no idea that it was so serious, did we Glen?” Catherine said while we were eating. “Of course after the accident we were more concerned with how badly Vicky had been hurt. The police were also trying to find out her identity – that was in Warsaw where we took her to the hospital.”
“I expect you know that I did try to retrace my steps the following day,” Glen said. “But it was dark, windy and raining heavily that night and there was little light. I’m afraid I didn’t pay much attention to my immediate surroundings and I just can’t be sure where we were.”
“Well I’d like you to have another try. I believe you’d turned off the highway because of a backup caused by a traffic accident. Do you know which exit you took?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t recall,” Glen said.
“Well that should be quite easy to check. We know the date and the approximate time so I can find out the location of the accident site. Then we can work from that. How long after you left the highway did the accident happen?”
“Less than an hour I think; perhaps forty-five or fifty minutes. But we weren’t traveling very fast because of the weather. We probably hadn’t traveled more than thirty miles when the accident happened.”
“And how long did it take you to drive to the hospital?”
Glen looked at Catherine, ran the palm of his hand over the top of his scalp and pursed his lips. “Less than half an hour,” he said. “Twenty, twenty-five minutes; about that.”
“Okay, after lunch let’s get out a map and we’ll try to narrow the area where we need to search.”
“There was a slope,” Glen said. “I remember slowing down just before the accident. I couldn’t see out very clearly. There wasn’t much of a moon that night. It was a stinker. But I remember there were trees lining both sides of the road, and she came onto the road from my right – from the west.”
“Well you never know – there may be things you recognize as we drive down that road again. Even if we could narrow it down to two or three miles it would be a great help. I wouldn’t ask you to do this if it wasn’t important.”
I wondered briefly whether I should tell the Crombies about the two deaths, but I decided against it. Instead I said, “We believe that Marisa may be in potential danger and it’s important that we find her as soon as possible.”
“I quite understand,” Glen said. “Of course I’ll do what I can to help. Have Vicky
’s family been told about the accident? I understand from the sheriff that they only recently discovered her identity. Her parents must be frantic with worry.”
“They haven’t traced her family yet, but the worst is behind her. She should make a complete recovery. Of course, if she’d been able to talk to us we could probably have saved you the trouble of coming up here – but unfortunately that hasn’t been possible. We’re hopeful she may be able to give us some useful information soon though.”
We finished our lunch and then drove to the sheriff’s office where Phil Spinks provided us with a detailed map of the surrounding counties. I asked him to check the records to see exactly where the traffic accident had occurred which had prompted Glen to turn off the highway. When he came back with the information I sat down with Catherine and Glen and we tried to figure out roughly where Vicky had been knocked down on that fateful night. Lucy wanted to go back to the hospital and check on Vicky’s progress which seemed more important than her accompanying us on our potential voyage of discovery.
Glen and Catherine had been traveling south on 65 and must have turned off the highway just north of a town called Sedalia. They continued to drive south hoping to get back on the highway but had managed to get themselves lost. After the accident they continued south along the same small road until they saw a sign to Warsaw. Doing the best we could with Glen’s recollection of the time they took to get to the scene of the collision and the time it took to drive to Warsaw we drew a circle with a diameter of about ten miles. We’d start at the top of the circle and drive south, hopefully taking the same route the Crombies had taken and see if anything jogged their memories. If not, we’d at least narrowed the search area. I needed to look at the other circle – the one we’d drawn after receiving the information about Marisa’s phone signal. I went back to the hotel and collected that map from our room and then tried to see if there was any correlation between the two.
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 12