by Tim Ellis
“They don’t need your permission. Your two daughters are on Facebook, your military service is described on the Marine Corps website, your education is on the alumni page of Florida State University, your career in the police department is –”
“And you found out all this information about me in a couple of hours?”
“Minutes. It took me a couple of hours to fill in the frickin’ form. They should provide instructions with the instructions. Anyway, it says that for a Class C investigator’s license, you have to sit for an exam covering the provisions of Chapter 493 of the Florida Statutes before submitting the license.”
“I’m too old to take an exam.”
“We’re not talking about a three-hour exam here. It’ll take ya fifteen minutes – a chipmunk could do it. And don’t worry, I downloaded the handbook that gives you all the answers.”
“Great.”
“You need three references from people who knew you as a police officer, and you also need to apply for a Class G firearms license.”
“I didn’t say you could do any of that.”
“A simple thank you would do it.”
Tom grunted.
“And ya didn’t tell me ya could see dead people.”
“Was I meant to?”
They could see the fire as soon as they pulled onto the Avenida Mendendez. Fire appliances blocked the road, and there was a crowd of sightseers on the opposite sidewalk. A hot-dog cart was doing a roaring trade, and some entrepreneurial kids were selling drinks to the crowd and the fire fighters. It was as if the Super Bowl had just started.
Tom parked up. The two of them walked down to the crowd of people. It took them fifteen minutes to find Franchetti.
“What the hell happened?” Tom said.
Franchetti stared at them. His eyes were vacant as if he’d just escaped from the psychiatric hospital. “There’s been a fire.”
“Do you know how it started?”
His face and bald patch were streaked with black as if he’d been fighting the fire himself. “I heard one of the fire-fighters say that the fire started in the basement where the computer servers were, but it shouldn’t have. We had all the right fire-suppression equipment down there. It doesn’t look as though any of it worked. By the time we knew there was a fire, it was too late to do anything about it. We got out just in time.”
Tom rested a hand on Franchetti’s shoulder and said, “Hey, I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault, is it?”
Tom didn’t think he should mention any of the day’s events. Franchetti might get the idea that it was his fault. He and Rae began walking back to the Dodge.
“You’re thinking what I’m thinking, aren’t ya?” Rae said.
“And what would that be, O Font of All Knowledge?”
“They got the memory stick off Harry, and then they came here to stop us getting a copy of those encrypted files.”
“There’s just one problem with that scenario,” he said. “Harry didn’t know where those files were from, so he couldn’t have told them about the Record. And that could only mean one thing: Gretchen Hebb was being followed when she came to my hotel room this morning.”
“And they’ve been following you all day?”
“Yes.”
They both looked around, but couldn’t see anything obvious.
As they sat in the Dodge, Rae said, “I took a second copy, ya know.”
“What do you mean?”
“Of those encrypted files. At the paper, when I downloaded them onto the stick, I also emailed myself copies, and then when I was sitting at the top of Harry’s stairs waiting for you to climb up, I downloaded them onto my tablet.” She patted her rucksack. “They’re in here.”
“Why did you do that?”
“I’m an investigative journalist, aren’t I?”
“That’s just another term for a nosy bitch, isn’t it?”
“Yep.”
“And what were you going to do with the files?”
“See if I could get into them.”
“I see.” He stared out of the window at the billowing black smoke, the fire fighters with hoses trying to battle the flames, and the onlookers hunkered down for the evening. “We have another problem.”
“We? Ya mean you. I’m outta here.”
“Unfortunately, the people who searched Mercy Hebb’s apartment, killed Harry Hall, and then set fire to the Record won’t see it like that.”
“But I’m not part of it.”
“Today, you’ve been very much a part of it, and this doesn’t seem to be a game you can walk away from. If I take you home, they’ll come after you.”
“Oh God! I never thought of that.”
“You’ll have to come and stay at my place.”
Her eyes opened wide. “I don’t think so.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,’ he said. ‘I have two daughters older than you are. If there was another way, I’d take it, believe me. The last thing I want is you to be squatting in my utility room.”
“You mean, I’m not actually staying with you?”
“What do you take me for? I’ll talk to the owner, and get you into the room next door to mine. That way, you’ll just be a connecting door away.” He did a u-turn. “I’ll take you to your apartment now, you can throw some things into a bag, and then we’ll go back to my hotel.”
“How long will it be for?”
He shrugged.
“What’s to stop them from coming after you?”
“Not a thing. In fact, I expect it.”
“The worst thing I did was get involved with you. The day isn’t even over yet, and my life has turned to shit. I haven’t got a home or a job anymore, and people are trying to kill me.”
“They’ll do more than kill you,” Tom said.
“If you’re trying to cheer me up, it’s not working.”
“They tortured Billy before they killed him to find out what he knew.”
“Oh God!”
There was a lot more to this case than a missing investigative journalist. Maybe Mona was right, maybe he should take up painting. He was supposed to be retired, taking things easy, contemplating the sun setting on his life. Instead, he was a couple of steps behind two killers with a club hammer.
Chapter Five
He took Rae back to her apartment on Cordova Street – and went inside with her while she packed some things.
The apartment was on the second floor, so the view over the Maria Sanchez Lake was limited to a sliver between two trees.
“You have to stand on a chair if you want to see more.”
“Very helpful. Are you done yet?”
“Are you sure this is necessary?”
“I’m sure, but you can stay here if you want to. Having brought up two daughters, I understand that in the face of insurmountable evidence you have a chronic need to make the worst decision possible every time.”
“Yeah right. Did they really torture Harry?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“You don’t want to know that.”
“You’re probably right, I don’t. Okay, I’m ready.”
He put his hands out to carry her bags.
“I’d feel bad if I let a pensioner carry my bags.”
“I may be retired, but I’m not drawing my state pension just yet.”
“Okay,” she said. “You take one, I’ll take the other.”
And that’s what they did. It seemed like a good compromise.
On the way back to the hotel, he pulled up outside a store offering computer services called Geeks to Go. Rae took her tablet inside and printed off the posters, missing-persons reports, application form, and all the other documents relating to becoming a PI.
The geek behind the counter had long, greasy, brown hair, an unkempt scraggy beard, oval glasses, and wore a brown-checked shirt that desperately needed to see an iron. His badge said he was Bill Higgins.
“Do you know anyone who can de
crypt encrypted files?” Tom asked him.
“We’re not talking about illegal government files, are we?”
“No, they’re legal.”
“I should take your word for it?”
“Yes.”
“It’ll cost you.”
“How much?”
“Five hundred dollars a file.”
“Are you crazy?”
Bill Higgins shrugged. “It’s a specialist area.”
Maybe he’d been a bit hasty in telling Gretchen Hebb he didn’t want her money. A thousand dollars for two files! He was sure he was being ripped off, but what else could he do? Ideally, he would liked to have obtained three quotes and selected the cheapest one, but he didn’t have the time to do any of that. Also, he had no prior knowledge from which to make a judgement on price, or anything else for that matter.
He had some savings, but he didn’t want to blow them all on pro-bono investigations. If he was going to set himself up as a PI, and that was debatable the way things were going, then he might need to use some of that money to do it.
“Five dollars a file?” Rae countered. “And I’m being generous.”
Higgins laughed. “Not even close. Four ninety-five.”
“See this boot?” she said, pointing at her right foot.
He leaned over the counter to look. “Yeah.”
“It’s already rearranged one idiot’s private parts today.”
“All right four fifty, and I’ll have to tell my kids they won’t be able to visit Disneyland this year.”
“You must think I look like a chumpanzee. Ten dollars a file, and that’s my final offer?”
“Four hundred, and I’ll have to sell my whole family into slavery to make the rent.”
“Twelve fifty, and I won’t be able to eat for a month.”
He grunted. “Make it fifteen, and you have yourself a deal.”
“Done,” Rae said.
Higgins spat on the palm of his hand and offered it to her to seal the deal.
Rae looked at it as if it was a venomous snake and said, “I’ll take your word for it.”
Tom grinned. “How in hell did we get from five hundred to fifteen dollars a file?”
“The art of negotiation,” Rae said.
The geek slid a scrap of paper with an email address typed on it across the counter, but he kept a tight grip of it. “Thirty dollars please.”
Rae’s eyes creased to slits. “Payment after the work’s been done.”
“Fifteen up front?”
“Ten.”
“Twelve fifty?”
“Done.” She helped herself to the scrap of paper. “Pay the man, Tom.”
Tom passed a twenty over, and got seven-fifty back.
Higgins leaned forward. “How will I know you’ll come back and settle up when the work’s been done?”
Rae leaned forward as well, her jaw jutting out like a bull mastiff’s. “How will I know you’ll pass the money on to this . . .” she glanced at the email address on the paper, “. . . Clare Wade?”
“Because she’s my twelve-year-old stepdaughter.”
“And she can decrypt files?” Tom said,
“She’s gifted.”
Tom’s brow furrowed. “If two men come in asking after us, all we did was print off some stuff.”
“Okay.”
“I mean it. You never gave us this email address.”
“Sure, whatever you say.”
On the way back to the hotel, he kept glancing in the rear view mirror, but if anyone was following him they were so far back as to be invisible.
“There’s nobody following us.”
“You seem to be an expert in a number of disciplines.”
Rae grinned. “I do, don’t I? I’ve emailed a copy of that file to Clare Wade.”
“I can’t believe she’s only twelve years old.”
“Kids today are force-fed technology instead of baby milk.”
As soon as he parked up, Allegre appeared as if she’d been waiting all day to pounce on him.
“On-site security means ‘on-site’ not ‘off-site,’ you better believe it, Mister ex-detective Gabriel. I don’t let you have that room for free so you can take advantage of my good nature, dontcha know.”
“I had something to do . . .”
Allegre Gabbamonde originated from Jamaica, and was probably two hundred years old – give or take a year or two. She wore a battered old straw hat that hid her sparse grey hair and a blue-and-white-striped dress that hung from her shoulders as if it was still on a hanger inside the wardrobe. Her skin was like sun-dried leather left out far too long.
“Ain’t we all got something to do, Mister high-n’-mighty Gabriel.” She looked Rae up and down. “And if I ain’t too much mistakin’, bringing back hookers is specifically mentioned in that there contract you signed – that ain’t worth a pound of beans – for you not to do.”
“Hey, lady,” Rae said, moving towards her. “I ain’t no hooker.”
Tom grabbed her arm.
“Allegre, this is Butterfly, Senator Raeburn’s daughter.”
“The senator been keeping quiet about his daughter being a –”
“I’m gonna belt you good and proper if ya call me a hooker one more time, lady.”
“Why you dressed like one then?”
“I ain’t dressed like one.”
“You is.”
“Ladies,” Tom said, stepping between them. “Has there been any security issues while I’ve been gone?”
“If’n there had, you wouldn’t have knowed about it, ‘cause you weren’t never here.”
“I’m here now. I’ll show Rae up to my room, and then I’ll have a walk round.”
“You ain’t taking women up to your room.”
“Hookers are one thing, but guests are another. Rae will be a guest for a few days. – Unless one of the rooms either side –”
“Ain’t got no rooms for hookers.”
“Then she’ll be staying with me.”
“Huh!” Allegre said and flounced off.
“Bitch,” Rae shouted after her.
The sun was beginning to set. He took her up to his place, and set up the camp bed in the utility room.
“That’s just for sleeping,” he said. “You can hang your clothes in my wardrobe.”
“Ain’t got any clothes that need hanging up.”
“Okay.”
While Rae was in the bathroom, he explained to Mabel what was going on. Mabel didn’t respond, but he could see by her enigmatic expression that she was listening.
“Who were you talking to?” Rae asked.
“No one in particular. You want to eat?”
“Sure, what’ve you got?”
He made a cantaloupe and chicken salad with tomato crowns, and they sat at the table eyeing each other.
“What we gonna do next then?”
“Let’s look at what we got.” He stood up, picked up the pile of papers from the coffee table, and laid the twenty posters and missing-persons reports out in a four by three array on the floor. “Mercy Hebb was investigating these missing children.”
Rae sniffed. “Why these children? I mean, out of all the ones that go missing, why these particular children?”
Tom thought for a while. “You got a notebook?”
“I got a tablet.”
He went to a cupboard in the living room, found a notebook and pen, and passed it to her. “You write,” he said, and was surprised when she didn’t object.
“The children are boys and girls between the ages of eight and twelve, from a variety of backgrounds, and they’ve all gone missing over the past five years.”
Rae wrote what he said in the notebook.
He picked up the missing-persons reports one at a time and skimmed them. “They all disappeared in broad daylight from parks, fields, roads, or malls. The reports mention different vehicles, one man with a hood, two men, a gang, while others saw nothing. The only pattern is that the
re is no pattern.”
“You’re assuming they were abducted?”
“I’m assuming nothing. But let’s put all these missing children in perspective. I’ve never been one for coincidences. If these children weren’t taken, then that’s one hell of a big coincidence. So I would say they were all taken. Viewed in isolation each one is simply another missing kid, but if you put them all together, there’s a pattern in the fact that there’s no pattern.”
“If you say so.”
“Well, look. Boys and girls, eight to twelve, different backgrounds, different races, different places. Mercy Hebb must have cottoned on to this lack of a pattern. Someone has gone to a lot of trouble to make them appear unconnected.” He stood up. “Wait here.” He walked down to the Dodge, found a beat-up old map of the state of Florida in the trunk, and returned to the room where he laid out the map on the floor.
“Okay, you get down there and mark off the locations where these kids went missing.”
“Me?”
He adopted a pained expression. “I have trouble with my knees and back,” he said, rubbing those areas to emphasise his martyrdom. “Body’s a bit worn out I’m afraid.”
She clambered onto the tiled floor. “Trust me to hook up with a decrepit, old-aged pensioner who can’t do anything for himself.”
He laughed. “I think I can still wash, eat, and go to the toilet by myself.”
“It’s a good job as well, otherwise I’d be outta here.”
He began reading off the places from the missing-persons reports, and she marked each one on the map with a small blue cross: Vilano Beach, Araqquey, Ponte Vedra, Fruit Cove, Palatka, San Mateo, Welaka, Georgetown, Seville, Barberville, De Leon Springs, Port Orange, Deland, Debary, Sandford, Mound Grove, Bon Terra, Elkton, Bimini, and Atlantic Beach.
“What do you notice about those places?” he asked her.
She stood up to get a helicopter view. “They’re all different. Only one child went missing from each place, and that’s weird. There’s no pattern again.”
“That’s right. Each child was taken from a different place. What else?”
“No children were taken from St. Augustine. In fact, it looks like a semicircle around St. Augustine.”
“Which suggests what?”
“Whoever’s doing it didn’t want to draw attention to himself by taking a child from where he lives.”