She's Not There

by Marla Madison

  23

  Friday morning when Lisa arrived at the office, Shannon was waiting for her at the door with a cup of coffee. “I thought about calling you when I got home last night, but you said you were going out, so I had to wait until this morning to tell you the news.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “We had an intruder last night!” Shannon’s dark eyes were bright with excitement.

  “An intruder?”

  “Sure seemed like it.” Shannon repeated what she’d seen and heard the night before.

  “You must have been terrified. What did they say at the police station?”

  “Stan was there. He promised that they’d have whoever was on patrol last night check out our building every time they passed through town.” She paused, breathless. “He said we needed a security system.”

  Lisa snorted. “For what? No one keeps money here and neither of our computers are anything a thief would want.”

  “Yeah, I told him that.”

  Frowning, Lisa looked around the room. “You’ve succeeded in spooking me. Now I’m seeing things that look out of place.” She glanced over at her file cabinets. Top-of-the line, they were equipped with an ultra-secure lock system, and appeared untouched. But some of her things seemed out of order.

  “Are you sure? Do you want me to call Stan?”

  “No, I’m not sure, and don’t call Stan yet. Wouldn’t the lock be broken or something if someone had gotten in?”

  Shannon’s pale complexion turned white. “Oh my god! What if when I thought I heard something, it wasn’t someone trying to get in but someone already in, leaving?”

  “The door looks all right, and it’s still locked, so that couldn’t have happened.”

  “But it could have,” Shannon argued, her voice rising an octave. “That door has the kind of lock that can be locked on your way out.”

  “Maybe you were just spooked by the wind.”

  “Lisa, you haven’t got a real complicated lock on that door. I bet I could open it with a screwdriver and a credit card.”

  Shannon had a point. Lisa hadn’t worried about security because she didn’t keep any valuables on the premises, but her files were another matter. “All right, but forget calling Stan. Nothing’s missing. Call a locksmith and have the locks changed to something more secure. It was probably just a kid from the neighborhood out for a thrill, but it feels intrusive.”

  Shannon persisted. “There’s a good locksmith close by and I’ll call him right away, but we still have to tell the police. And you have to be sure nothing is missing. You know, the prowler could already have been in there when I came in. I had some errands to do so I left for a while about five. I stopped to eat and got back here about six-thirty. He could have gotten in while I was gone. I‘m glad I had my Tasar. I’m calling Stan.”

  Shannon had purchased a Tasar through an Internet dealer. Lisa had warned her about the illegality of carrying it and was waiting for an ‘I told you so.’

  “Okay, call Stan, but try to get that locksmith here sometime after two.”

  By the time Stan, a fiftyish, rather rotund police officer with thinning gray hair arrived at the office, Lisa was sure that nothing was missing, but also sure that someone had been in her office.

  After hearing their story and carefully inspecting the premises, Stan said, “Whoever broke in was probably looking for cash. When he didn’t find any, he ran out when he heard someone else in the building.”

  “We called a locksmith to have stronger locks put on, “Shannon offered.

  “Good. We’ll keep a close eye on your building for the time being. Call us if anything else happens.”

  Stan, visibly taken with Shannon, was obviously trying to placate their fears and advised them to park on the street when they worked after dark. To Lisa’s relief, his cell phone buzzed, and he left before her first client arrived.

  At noon Lisa and Shannon rewarded themselves with lunch at a lovely inn on the other side of the lake. Over the special of the day, a red pepper and sausage soup served with fresh, warm popovers and spinach salad, Lisa told Shannon about the group and what they were trying to accomplish. As Lisa expected, Shannon was eager to help with the online research.

  She said, “You’ll get to go out on interviews with one of those guys that were in the office. Which one, the nerdy one or the older, dark, mysterious-looking guy?”

  “This won’t be a social event, Shannon. I’m going with Eric Schindler, and on a personal level, I don’t really care for the man.”

  “Who knows, he might turn out to be a real nice guy.”

  “He isn’t. He’s arrogant and annoying. Not to mention the fact that he spent time in jail for murdering his wife. And even worse, he smokes cigars.”

  “Are you afraid to be alone with him?”

  “No. He’s irritating, not threatening. TJ has spent a lot of time with him and is convinced he’s innocent. I trust her judgment. For now.”

  “Have you heard from Tyler?”

  Lisa was trying to forget about Tyler, but it was difficult, especially on sleepless nights. “Tyler isn’t up for discussion. Back on the subject at hand, we’re meeting Sunday morning to go over what we accomplish in Saturday’s interviews. If you have anything for us that soon, let me know.”

  Shannon nodded. “I have to go into the office tomorrow for a closing, and when that’s over I can get started. Just let me know what you need.”

  The locksmith arrived promptly at one. Lisa was working on her last client’s file, when the scream of the locksmith’s power drill masked the entry of a visitor. She looked up to see James Wilson standing in front of her desk. Startled at his presence, Lisa jerked back in her chair, reflexes on alert. “You frightened me!”

  “Sorry about that. I got your call this morning and I decided to drop in since I was going to be in the area.”

  Lisa had forgotten she called him before she came into the office that morning and wished she’d prepared for her talk with him. He wasn’t someone she wanted to reveal her hand to, merely wanted to maneuver information from.

  “Have a seat, Mr. Wilson. I’d offer you coffee, but I’m afraid we don’t usually keep it going after lunch.”

  He sat in one of the chairs in front of her desk, casually draping one long leg over the other knee. “No need for coffee. And call me James.”

  James Wilson’s good looks and his surprising drop-in put her on edge. Lisa wasn’t sure whether her unease was due to her libido’s response to him or if she just didn’t like him. The division between attraction and repulsion could be as narrow as the one between love and hate. He was engaged, she reminded herself–and to the police chief’s daughter.

  She’d limit her explanation to what had taken place at the Center’s meeting. He’d find out about that soon enough. “I wanted to let you know that I did talk to Amanda Hawkins from the Center in Oconomowoc about the increase in missing women. She hadn’t been aware of it yet but moved forward with it and met with the heads of the other Women’s Centers in Milwaukee and Waukesha County. They’re all concerned. Unfortunately, the most they can do is caution women on developing new relationships.”

  “And you thought I needed to know this, why?”

  Her attraction to him downshifted to ire. “I believe when I talked to you, I mentioned that I would be taking this up with the Centers, and I wanted you to know I’d followed through.”

  He shrugged. “Ms. Rayburn, I shouldn’t have to tell you that as far as the Milwaukee Police Department is concerned, that changes nothing. There still is no hard evidence of a crime—not enough for us to employ our scant resources to it considering the budgetary problems we’re facing.”

  Lisa fought back her frustration. “Mr. Wilson, you alluded to knowing about a group that assists abused women in relocating. It would be helpful for the Centers to know if does exist and is affecting the statistics. Anything you could tell us could make a difference.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know a
ny more today than I did when we talked. We heard about it from a reliable source, which of course I cannot reveal.”

  Lisa studied him carefully as he talked, undecided whether he was lying or if he wasn’t telling her the whole story. The fact that she couldn’t tell made her uncomfortable; her inner radar for deception rarely let her down.

  She got nothing helpful from the rest of the stilted conversation and when he walked out the door, she expelled a rush of air she hadn’t realized she’d been holding in during his visit.

  After dinner that night Lisa left the house with Phanny, keeping their walk restricted to well-lit areas. She hadn’t admitted it to Shannon, but the break-in rattled her.

  Eric Schindler and James Wilson were on her mind–both exasperating men. No wonder she preferred younger men; they hadn’t lived long enough to develop that kind of high-and-mighty attitude.

  Lisa considered Eric Schindler. She remembered TJ saying he was still hung up on his wife even though it had been years since the woman disappeared. She had only TJ’s instincts to substantiate that he wasn’t a murderer. But what did a murderer look like? Or act like? Would a guilty man be working this hard to find out what happened to his wife?

  Lisa had agreed to work with him, so she’d have to set aside any reservations. Put up with his irksome manner and disgusting cigar smell.

  24

  Saturday morning Lisa spent more time than usual—for a Saturday—on her appearance. Her hair, newly shaded by Roland to a soft ash-blonde with pale platinum and golden blonde highlights, fell to her shoulders in loosely curved layers. The gray slacks and white Irish knit sweater she wore complemented her figure. She donned a pair of mid-heeled boots, high enough to be fashionable but not too difficult to walk in.

  When she arrived at the diner to meet Eric, she glimpsed her reflection in the window as she walked toward the door. She looked damn good. She’d seen a photo of Eric’s wife. The woman’s beauty was startling. Lisa suspected that was what had intimidated her into fussing over her appearance.

  Waiting for her at a table near the back, Eric had a newspaper opened in front of him. He was dressed in jeans and a white shirt with thin blue stripes covered by a pale blue sweater that contrasted with his dark hair. When she joined him, she noticed he wore a pleasant, woodsy cologne—must not have had his first cigar of the day. A waitress hurried over to pour her coffee, asking if they wanted breakfast. They ordered omelets with side orders of pancakes.

  Lisa brought out their list and told him she’d made three appointments for the day and explained that she planned on using her book on abused women as a cover story for interviewing the friends and relatives of the missing women. The book was a textbook for clinicians on treating abused women, and had been in the planning stages for nearly a year.

  “I’ve enlisted Shannon’s help. She’s the assistant to the attorney I share the first floor with. She’s good at computer research and is going to look up the women’s spouses and boyfriends to see if any of them are currently in jail.”

  “I suppose if any of them are, they’ll need to be interviewed, too.” He sipped his coffee. “I should probably be the one to do that. I think they’d open up to me because of my background.”

  He was making decisions already. “That may be true, but we’ll need to discuss it with the others when we meet tomorrow.”

  “You’re right. I already irritated TJ when I insisted that the two of you don’t do interviews without Jeff or me. She thinks of this as her project, you know. I do like to humor her. Although I can’t deny it’ll be hard for me to sit back and act like a worker-bee.”

  Lisa had to respect his openness. “You’re right about TJ, but I’m sympathetic to her resistance to our agreement of never going out alone. I made these appointments Thursday night. One of the women I called lives close to me in Oconomowoc. She was eager to talk. It was hard not to just run over there and meet with her right away. We have an appointment with her at one.”

  “Good. That’ll give us time to devour all that food we ordered.”

  As if on cue, the food arrived, and they tucked into it with no more talk of missing women, jailed spouses, or interviews.

  Lisa rode with Eric in the old fifty-two Cadillac that had been his father’s.

  “I try to take it out at least once a week,” he explained.

  The car looked like new. Riding in it, Lisa felt like she’d drifted back in time and should have been wearing a full skirt fluffed with crinolines, topped by a perky, ducktail hairdo a la Doris Day.

  They drove to the first address, located in an old section of Waukesha. It turned out to be an aging apartment building on a street lined with mature elm trees that had somehow escaped the Dutch Elm scourge.

  After a jerky ride to the fourth floor in a tinny old elevator, they entered a dim corridor reeking of bacon, coffee and used diapers. The muffled sounds of voices, cartoons, and laughing children emanated from the thin walls.

  Elaine Blume appeared hastily dressed in tan slacks and a white blouse. Her brown hair, streaked with gray, was tied back into a ponytail, and her sockless feet were shod in a pair of red moccasins. Her daughter, Colleen Hamill, had been missing for nearly three years.

  “You must be Lisa,” she said, and asked them to have a seat. Like the rest of the apartment, the brown velveteen sofa they sat on was worn, but clean. The well-used furnishings looked like they had come with the apartment and barely survived all the years of tenant turnover.

  Lisa introduced Eric and explained why they needed the information about her daughter. “What I have to ask you first is whether you’ve heard from your daughter since she went missing or if you know whether anyone else has.”

  Eyes shiny with unshed tears, Elaine said, “It’s still hard to talk about. She and I were so close, and my life fell apart after she disappeared. Her father left me about a year later. Not that I blame him, I was depressed for a long time. But then he hired an expert divorce lawyer who made sure I was left with nothing. I never saw it coming. Now I work second shift at the plastics plant down the street for ten dollars an hour and can barely pay the rent on this crummy apartment.” She pulled out a rumpled tissue and dabbed at her eyes.

  “I’m so sorry, you didn’t come here to listen to me go on about my problems. No, I haven’t heard from Colleen, and . . .” she stopped for a few seconds to wipe her nose, “I know I would have if she was still alive.”Feeling terrible about adding to the woman’s pain, Lisa asked, “Do you have any idea what could have happened to her?”

  Elaine sniffed, drying her eyes. “Well, her husband was a terrible man, but I never thought he did anything to her like the police suggested. I knew he hit her sometimes, and she always forgave him. I don’t think he would have caused her any serious injuries, at least none bad enough to keep her from working. Colleen was his meal ticket. She worked as a dental hygienist and made good money. Joe worked construction and he was always happiest when he was laid off. I suspected he chose jobs that would be as temporary as possible. I never understood what she saw in him, but he was good looking and charming when he wanted to be.”

  “Elaine, do you know where Joe is now?” Eric asked.

  “I haven’t heard from him in years. But I did hear a rumor that he’s living in Milwaukee with a divorcee and her two kids. She gets big alimony payments; that’s right up his alley.”

  Lisa noted the source of the rumor and asked Elaine for a photo of her daughter.

  “We won’t take up any more of your time.” Lisa handed Elaine her card. “Call me if you think of anything else.”

  An unscheduled stop was in Elm Grove, an upscale area north of Brookfield. The street they turned into was lined with homes that were not quite mansions, brick and elegant, with mature trees and professional landscaping. The house they stopped at had a curved brick pathway leading to a heavy stone step in front of an oak door with windows of leaded glass.

  A tall brunette wearing gray sweats opened the door to them. She was
out of breath and panted, “What can I do for you?”

  Lisa said, “I’m sorry to bother you, but we’re looking for anyone who knows the whereabouts of Deanna Knowles.”

  She exclaimed, “Whereabouts? I’m Deanna Knowles. Who’s looking for me?”

  Lisa, in an effort to finesse their way back to the car as quickly as possible, said, “I’m writing a book on women who’ve gone missing. Your name came up on our list. I’m sorry. There must have been a mistake.”

  Deanna Knowles frowned, her mouth pressed into a straight line. A tense moment passed. “My husband and I had some problems in our marriage a couple years ago. I stayed with my sister in California for a few months while I decided what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I was gone for about two weeks before I called my husband and told him where I was.”

  Eric and Lisa thanked her, apologized again for interrupting her workout, and returned to the car.

  “One down,” Eric said, moving ahead of Lisa to open the car.

  She turned to face him. “Not really. Did you notice her neck?”

  “I didn’t. Women wearing sweats don’t have much appeal to the male eye. Sorry.”

  Lisa gave him a sharp look. “She had a nearly healed bruise below her jaw line and another above her collarbone. There’s probably still trouble in paradise.”

  A few minutes of silence passed.

  Eric asked, “We have an hour till the next appointment. Do you mind if we stop at the showroom? I’ll give you a free, three-dollar tour.”

  25

  Eric’s business remained Kristie’s Classics, its name since the seventies when George Kristofferson opened it with six cars badly in need of repair and a dream of making classic car sales profitable. For a small admission, the showroom was open to the public.

  The old cars, showroom new, dazzled Lisa with their bright colors that gleamed in the sunlight streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Eric explained the muscle cars from the sixties and seventies were the most popular and most lucrative models. Lisa decided they weren’t her favorites; what she really loved were the old coupes from the thirties. They reminded her of the black-and-white gangster movies she liked. She could just see Al Capone leaning out a window, machine-gun in hand.