Up Shute Creek: Rose Gardner Investigation #4

by Denise Grover Swank

  “That damn-fine-lookin’ one.”

  “Levi Romano?” I asked.

  “Yep. That’s the one,” Marsha said. “He looks too damn pretty to be stickin’ his hand up a cow’s ass.” She made a face. “You know him?”

  “I’ve heard of him,” I admitted. She didn’t need to know we’d dated a few times. I hadn’t seen him except in passing for a month. “What happened to Mary, his old receptionist?” His receptionist had hated me, but then she hated just about every single woman who walked through the door, and probably some of the married ones too. I suspected the only woman coming into that office without an interest in dating the man was his sister Margi, who I’d heard was helping him run his practice now, although Mary probably had it out for her too, no doubt. Not that I entirely blamed her. An awful lot of women had made appointments for the sole purpose of hoping Levi would ask them out. And now that I thought about it, I’d heard that Levi’s sister was working for him.

  “Sarah said he fired her.”

  “When did Sarah start workin’ for him?” Neely Kate asked.

  “Not long. A couple of weeks before she disappeared.”

  “So about three weeks ago?” Neely Kate asked.

  She nodded as she sniffed. “Sounds about right.” Reaching into her purse, she pulled out a tissue and wiped her nose.

  “What did Sarah think of her new boss?” I asked.

  Marsha gave me a wry look. “She was smitten with him. He was good-lookin’ and nice to her.”

  “Is that why her boyfriend broke up with her?” Neely Kate asked.

  She shook her head. “Sarah was the one who broke up with him. Said he needed to learn to be a real man like Dr. Levi.”

  I grimaced. “I bet that didn’t go over well.”

  “Sure didn’t, and her best friend Nina wasn’t happy about it either. Her boyfriend is Digger’s best friend.”

  “Digger?” I asked.

  “Digger Malone. That was Sarah’s boyfriend.”

  “What’s Nina’s last name?” Neely Kate asked as she took notes in a pretty cursive with lots of loops.

  “And her boyfriend’s name,” I added.

  “Nina Maxwell. Stewie Frasier is Nina’s boyfriend.”

  “Exactly how mad was Nina?” I asked.

  “She was downright pissed,” Marsha said, wiping her nose again. “But she’s not the kind of girl to hurt someone, if that’s what you’re gettin’ at. Especially Sarah.” She took a breath. “Those two girls fight like sisters. They’ve been friends since they were practically babies.” Shaking her head, she said, “Nina would never hurt her.”

  Maybe Marsha was certain of that fact, but I wasn’t shutting the door on the possibility.

  “So you’re friends with her mother?” I asked while Neely Kate continued to write.

  “We was,” Marsha said in a grudging tone. “But then Sheila slept with my man, and that was the end of that.”

  “Sarah’s daddy?” Neely Kate asked.

  Marsha shook her head again. “Nope. He took off before Sarah was even born. Todd was my boyfriend. When Sarah was in second grade.”

  “What about Nina’s mother?” Neely Kate asked. “What does she do?”

  “She’s dead. Died of a drug overdose back when Nina was sixteen. Nina moved in with us for a few months, then left to move in with her boyfriend.”

  Neely Kate paused from her writing to glance up. “Stewie?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you have a current boyfriend?” I asked.

  She narrowed her eyes and her back went ramrod stiff. “He didn’t have nothing to do with it either. Conrad took a shine to Sarah right away, even if she didn’t take a shine back. No way he had anything to do with it.”

  “We’re not insinuating any such thing,” Neely Kate said smoothly, glancing up again with a sweet smile. “We’re just bein’ thorough. Conrad might have noticed something off, so we’ll want to talk to him to see if he knows anything that can help us find Sarah.”

  “Oh.” Marsha’s shoulders sank, as though her back had partially deflated. “I guess you’re right. Sorry.”

  Marsha Freestone seemed awfully touchy, but then it was probably hard to consider the possibility that someone she trusted might have been involved in her daughter’s disappearance. That is, if there was foul play. For all we knew, Sarah had run off.

  I cast a quick glance to Neely Kate then back to our client. “We’re gonna need to know Conrad’s last name and where he works. Does he live with you?”

  She nodded. “Conrad Duffy, but he travels for work. He’s gone from Monday to Thursday night. He spends Friday through Sunday home, then leaves on Monday morning.”

  “So he left this morning,” I said. “Where did he go?”

  “Shreveport. Then Baton Rouge. Then New Orleans for a couple of days, then back. It’s his regular route.”

  “Is he a salesman?”

  Marsha nodded and said, “Yeah, for Blinket Supplies.”

  “What does he sell?” Neely Kate asked.

  “Some part for canning factories.” She shook her head. “I get confused about it.”

  “That’s okay,” Neely Kate said. “It’s probably not important. What’s your schedule like?”

  “I work night shifts on Tuesday through Saturday.”

  Which meant that Conrad was home alone with Sarah on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights.

  “What does Conrad think about Sarah’s disappearance?” I asked, trying to sound conversational.

  “He thinks she ran off.”

  “Has she run off in the past?” Neely Kate asked.

  “Not really. She’s gone to Nina’s before and stayed there for a couple of days, but I always knew where she was. She didn’t tell me this time. She didn’t run away.” There was desperation in her last two sentences. Marsha was scared for her daughter.

  “We need a list of all her friends,” I said. “Nina, Digger, everyone. And their numbers and addresses if you have them. Where they work.”

  She nodded. “Okay.”

  “Where did she graduate high school?” Neely Kate asked.

  “Sugar Branch High School last year.”

  “That wasn’t that long ago,” I said. “Did she have any enemies from school?”

  “Nah. Sarah got along with everyone.”

  “Except Digger and Nina,” I reminded her. “And Stewie.”

  “They’d tell me if they knew where she was,” Marsha insisted. “They’re worried about her too.”

  “Did she drive her car to the creek?” I asked. “Or did someone pick her up?”

  “She drove.”

  “And her car’s missin’ too?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is there a place people usually hang out at the creek down there?” I asked.

  She nodded. “Yeah, but we done looked for her there, and we didn’t see hide nor hair of her.”

  “You’re certain she was headin’ to the creek?” Neely Kate asked. “Maybe she just told you that.”

  Marsha shook her head. “No. I’m sure of it. She was wearin’ her bikini.”

  “You said we looked for her at the creek,” I said. “Who helped?”

  “Conrad. Nina and Stewie.”

  “And Digger?” I asked.

  She nodded. “He’s mighty torn up about her missin’. He’s blamin’ himself for it.”

  That caught me by surprise. “Why?”

  “He thinks if he’d been a better boyfriend, she wouldn’t have gone out there by herself.”

  “Does Digger have an opinion on what happened to her?” Neely Kate asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said with a sniff. “I didn’t ask him.”

  Was that normal? Wouldn’t she want to know what her daughter’s friends thought had happened to her? But Marsha wasn’t thinking logically. She was running on desperation. Maybe she was scared to know.

  “We’re gonna need directions to the place you think she went,” I said.
/>   “Okay.”

  We were silent for a moment until Neely Kate asked, “If Sarah wasn’t gettin’ along with her friends, who was she meeting?”

  “I don’t know.” Her voice broke. “She said she was meeting her friends, and I asked her if she’d made up with Nina, but she just ran out the door.” Marsha sucked in a shaky breath and tears flooded her eyes. “I never saw her again after that.”

  Neely Kate’s expression was sympathetic. “She hasn’t called or texted you?”

  She shook her head, swiping a tear off her cheek. “No. When she wasn’t home by midnight, I sent her a text. Around one I started callin’, but it kept goin’ straight to voice mail.”

  “What time did she leave the house last Sunday?” I asked.

  “Around noon.” She paused, and her chin trembled. “I was angry with her. I wanted her to stay and help me clean the house, but she said she was goin’ out to have fun. The last words she heard from me were angry ones.”

  Neely Kate reached over and grabbed her hand again. “She knows you love her.”

  “You said she knows,” Marsha said with a hopeful look. “You think she’s alive.”

  Neely Kate started to say something, but I interjected, “We don’t know, Marsha, but we’ll try our best to find out.”

  I reached for her hand. Neely Kate must have known what I was doing, because she sat back and let me grasp Marsha’s wrist.

  “Rose is right,” Neely Kate said. “We’ll do our best.”

  I had already tuned Neely Kate out, focusing on Marsha and her daughter as I closed my eyes and asked, Is Sarah dead?

  I was plunged into a murky gray, which usually meant that fate hadn’t yet decided—whatever I’d asked might or might not come to pass. Did that mean she wasn’t dead? Or that we’d never find her? I needed to change the question.

  Will we find anything out about Sarah?

  The vision shifted, and I was in Marsha’s head, sitting on a sofa with sagging cushions in a living room stuffed with other decades-old furniture, sobbing.

  Neely Kate was holding a small brown purse. “Are you sure this is Sarah’s?”

  I nodded, trying to catch my breath. “Where did you find it?”

  “In the woods,” Neely Kate said.

  “Where is she?”

  Neely Kate shot me, or rather Marsha, a sympathetic look. “I don’t know.”

  The vision ended, and I blurted out, “We don’t know where she is.”

  Marsha looked confused by my outburst and pulled her hand away.

  It looked like my visions weren’t going to give us a leg up this time. At least not yet.

  Chapter 8

  Neely Kate looked grim and started to say something but stopped as Doreen showed up balancing three plates on her arms. She set them all down in front of Neely Kate, crowding them into a triangle with the burger in front.

  “Can I get you anything else, Neely Kate? Any ketchup? Or jelly?”

  “Jelly?” Neely Kate asked in confusion, then shook her head. “Never mind. No jelly, but I need silverware. We don’t seem to have any.”

  Doreen grabbed a set from a couple who had just sat down at a table in the middle of the room, ignoring their sounds of protest. “Here ya go.”

  Neely Kate stared at the plates and cocked her head to the side. “This is a lot of food. Can I get another set of silverware? I like to eat with a fork in each hand… helps me get the food down faster.”

  I was sure the waitress would say no, but she grinned from ear to ear. “Sure thing, hon.” She snatched the other set from the couple and set it in front of Neely Kate. “This is gonna be a great picture for the Facebook page.”

  “I thought you didn’t like the Facebook page,” I said dryly.

  Her mouth screwed to the side as she propped her hand on her hip and gave me a sassy glare. “I don’t, but that don’t mean I can’t post a photo on it.” Then she watched Neely Kate as expectantly as though she were a performing pony.

  Neely Kate grabbed up the two forks and gave the waitress a cheesy smile. “Here you go.”

  Doreen pulled a phone out of her apron pocket and held it up to snap the photo. “Okay. That one’s good. Now I want a photo of you eatin’ with both hands.”

  I had to hide my grin as Neely Kate hesitated.

  “Go on now,” Doreen ordered.

  Neely Kate stabbed some French fries from the plate with the club sandwich, plus a forkful of fries from her hamburger plate, then ate a bite of fries off each fork. For someone who didn’t seem enthusiastic about the diner, Doreen was snapping as many pictures as a paparazzo.

  “I’m not gonna lie,” Neely Kate said. “I feel weird about you takin’ pictures of me eatin’.”

  “Okay,” Doreen said, stuffing her phone into her apron pocket. “I’m gonna take a quick break, but you let Matilda know if you need something.” She gestured toward a waitress at the front of the restaurant.

  “Thanks,” Neely Kate said. “We’ll be fine.”

  As soon as Doreen slipped into the back, Neely Kate pushed our plates toward us, then handed the fork in her left hand to Marsha.

  “It’s clean,” Neely Kate insisted. “I didn’t touch the tines.”

  Marsha lifted her shoulders into a tiny shrug, then took the fork and dove into her salad.

  We were all quiet for a couple of minutes, eating our food, before Neely Kate asked, “Do you think Sarah really met friends that day?”

  Marsha took a moment to answer. “I don’t know,” she finally said. “I want to think so, but I just don’t know.”

  “Do you think she really went up Shute Creek?” I asked.

  Tears filled her eyes. “I don’t know that either.”

  A half hour later, we left the restaurant with a recent photo of Sarah. She’d left in a rusted white 2000 Ford Taurus, and when Marsha last saw her, she was wearing cheap black flip-flops and a pale blue string bikini, covered by a sleeveless, button-down, white eyelet top tied at the waist, and a pair of cutoff jean shorts. Marsha had also given us contact information for all the people on Neely Kate’s list.

  Marsha left before us, saying she was still hungry. We all knew better than to order anything else. When Neely Kate and I tried to leave, half the restaurant—including the staff—wanted to have their picture taken with my friend. I pushed her out the door when a crowd of new people showed up, wanting photos, and we sat in Neely Kate’s car, looking over the list and trying to figure out where to start.

  “We need to split up,” Neely Kate said. “We’ll cover more ground if we do.”

  “No way,” I said with a firm shake of my head. “I’m not leavin’ you alone. Not with those thugs in Dallas after you. Besides, I left my truck at home.”

  Her face scrunched up and she was about to say something when her phone rang. She glanced down at it and happiness filled her eyes.

  Jed.

  “Hey,” she said in a soft voice. “I’m in the car with Rose, and I’m gonna put you on speaker.” She started the car, and the audio system took over. “Can you hear me?” she asked.

  “Sure can,” he said, and I heard a smile in his voice. “I was calling about Carly’s car. Is she with you?”

  “No,” Neely Kate said. “She’s back at the nursery.”

  “I take it you didn’t find out anything new about her.”

  “Just that she seems eager to make some money. How’s her car?”

  “It’s not quite as bad as we originally feared. We still have to find parts, so the repair is probably gonna take a few days, but it’ll likely cost a whole lot less.”

  “How much less?” I asked. “She seems worried about that part.”

  “It’s not gonna be cheap, but it’s not gonna cost thousands of dollars either. The estimate Witt and I talked about is eight or nine hundred dollars.”

  That still seemed like a lot of money. I wondered if she could afford it. “Do you want us to call the nursery to tell her?”

  “Nah,�
� he said. “I’ll call her myself and find out if she wants to spend that much.”

  “We met with our new investigating client,” Neely Kate said.

  “So you’re takin’ the case?” Jed asked. “Is it dangerous?”

  “I don’t think so,” Neely Kate said, hesitating. “I think we need to split up, but Rose doesn’t want to.”

  “Absolutely not,” Jed said in a no-nonsense tone.

  “Do you have any other clients?” Neely Kate asked in a hopeful voice.

  “I can’t get away, NK.” I wasn’t surprised at the regret in his voice. “But promise me you won’t go out on your own.”

  “I won’t,” she reluctantly agreed. “Besides, Bruce Wayne is watchin’ us, so if push comes to shove, he can go with me.”

  “Did you get a chance to look up the registration for Carly’s car?” I asked.

  Neely Kate shot me a surprised look but remained silent.

  “Yeah,” he said. “It’s registered to an Austin Kelly in Dallas.”

  Dallas? Neely Kate and I exchanged worried glances.

  “Did you look him up?” I asked.

  “Do you take me for an amateur?” he teased. “He’s an architect and he’s not married.”

  “Do you think she’s his ex-girlfriend and stole his car?” I asked.

  “Something feels off,” he said. “He’s an architect, and the property value of his condo is seven hundred and sixty thousand dollars, so he definitely has money. I don’t know why he’d even have a car that old with up-to-date registration, let alone why a woman like her would be driving it.”

  “Maybe he gave it to her,” Neely Kate said. “She doesn’t seem like the type to steal someone’s car.”

  I hardly knew Carly, but I was inclined to agree with Neely Kate. “Does it look like this Austin Kelly has any ties to the Hardshaw Group?”

  “None that I could find, but I never would have tied Pearce Manchester to them either, so frankly, that doesn’t mean squat. I’m gonna keep digging, though. What do you two have planned for the afternoon?”

  Neely Kate shot a look at me. “We’re investigating a missing nineteen-year-old. We’ll likely start off by interviewing people.” She grimaced. “I think we should start with her so-called friends.”