by Mike Ryan
“It’s all right. I don’t need one,” Recker replied, dropping to a knee to start picking the lock.
Just as he got started, someone started walking down the hallway on the way to their own apartment. The elderly man just stopped, concerned that the pair was trying to break into the apartment.
“Uhh, Mike,” Mia alerted him, tapping him on the shoulder.
Recker looked over at the man and stood up, approaching the stranger, who wasn’t moving. Recker reached into his pocket and pulled out a police badge, showing it to the man.
“Mike Stevens, detective from the eighth precinct,” Recker told him.
“Oh, OK,” the man replied. “I was getting worried you were robbers or something.”
Recker smiled. “No, of course not. We’re investigating the disappearance of Susan Hanley and we were about to give the room another shakedown.”
“Didn’t give you a key or nothing?”
“Some knucklehead couldn’t remember what drawer they put it in. I don’t have a high patience level so I just figured I’d make my own way in. I’m a go-getter. Not much for waiting.”
“That’s why you get the big collars probably,” the man assumed.
“You’re a wise man,” Recker said. “Did you know Ms. Hanley?”
“I only met her a few times in passing here in the hallway,” the man answered. “But she seemed like a nice woman.”
“Ever see anyone with her?”
“Nah. Maybe that was her problem.”
“Problem? What do you mean?” Recker wondered.
“I don’t know how to explain it…a sense of sadness or something. Like there was trouble hanging over her or something. I guess that’s a weird thing to notice when you only talk to someone a minute here or a minute there but it always seemed like she was faking a smile or sighing or something.”
“Makes perfect sense. When was the last time you saw her?” Recker asked.
“Oh…must have been last Friday,” the man replied, thinking for a minute. “Yeah. Friday it was. It was about seven, eight o’clock at night.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. I was just getting home after going to the grocery store. It was outside, just in front of the entrance doors. I was bringing in some bags and she was walking out.”
“She say anything to you?”
“Nope. Just hello as she walked past.”
“How was she dressed?” Recker asked.
“In a dress, heels, looked good. Like maybe she was going somewhere fancy or something.”
“Like dinner maybe?”
“Could have been. Not sure.”
Recker put his hand on the man’s shoulder. “You’ve been a big help. Did you share this with any of the other detectives that were here?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Nobody came knocking to ask. I live all the way down the hall. Guess they only talked to the neighbors,” the man explained. “I was thinking about maybe calling down to the precinct to tell all this but I wasn’t sure. Guess since now you know, guess I don’t have to.”
“No, you did good. I’ll take it from here.”
“That your partner there?” the man asked, pointing at Mia.
“No, friend of Hanley’s. Was hoping she could help identify something in the apartment that’d give us a break,” Recker replied.
“Good thinking, son. Knew she couldn’t be a cop anyway. Too pretty for that.”
Recker smiled as the man kept walking down the hall, passing Mia on the way. With the additional information in mind, he went back to picking the lock.
“So you always carry a fake police badge on you?” Mia wondered.
“Sometimes. Never know when it might come in handy.”
“And what if he knew it wasn’t real?”
“If it’s a good fake, only one person in a thousand will be able to tell the difference,” Recker said. “Most people never even see one anyway.”
“What’d he say that made you smile, anyway? Couldn’t quite make it out.”
“Wanted to know if you were my partner.”
“What’s so funny about that?”
“Nothing. He said you were too pretty to be a cop,” Recker informed her.
A few seconds later and Recker had successfully picked the lock, opening the door. The two of them quickly entered, closing the door behind them.
“We’ll go room to room,” Recker said. “Let me know if something seems out of place or anything seems missing.”
“OK.”
“You know what that business of her leaving Friday night was all about?”
“No idea,” Mia answered.
They started searching the living room, going through the couches, tables, drawers, anything that could’ve housed some kind of information. Once they exhausted the living room without finding anything, they branched out into the kitchen, then the bedroom and the bathroom. They went through each room of the apartment several times to make sure they didn’t miss anything. They spent about an hour searching for some kind of clue that would lead to where Hanley was. It was an hour that turned up nothing. And Mia didn’t notice anything that was missing or out of place. Everything seemed as it normally was. Without any leads, Recker turned to Jones, hoping he had something for him.
“I sure hope you’ve turned up something cause we’re striking out here,” Recker told him.
“I’m working on a few things at the moment,” Jones replied.
“Promising?”
“Could be. Too soon to tell yet. I think I can say that it’s safe to rule out her mother.”
“Why’s that?”
“I’ve listened to the voicemails that she left her daughter. If she’s involved in her disappearance than she’s an excellent actress. Every one becomes more and more alarming in the tone of her voice, worried that something was wrong.”
“I wouldn’t read too much into that. Could just be covering her tracks,” Recker stated.
“No, I don’t think so. When did you say she was last seen?”
“Guy here says he saw her walking out of the building Friday night around seven or eight.”
“He very well might’ve been one of the last people to see her al…,” Jones said, catching himself before presuming that she was dead.
“What makes you say that?”
“Well, her phone records for one. It appears that her mother called her at 6:05. It appears as if the call was answered. Then her mother called again at 11:45 but there was no answer. It went to voicemail. And she’s been calling her phone multiple times a day ever since,” Jones revealed.
“What else?”
“Well I’m still going through the phone records now. I’ve also found her online appointment book and I’m perusing that as well. If you’re done there, I could use some help in going over these. The sooner we figure it out the better chance of us finding her still in good health.”
“I’m gonna drop Mia off and then I’ll be there.”
“Wait, where are you going?” Mia asked as soon as he hung up.
“Gotta go back to the office and help the professor sort through some things.”
“About Susie?”
Recker gave a slight nod. “This is all we’re working on right now.”
“Can I come with you?”
“No. I told you just here and that was it.”
“But it’s Susie.”
“Mia, you can’t tag along everywhere. Besides, David’s not gonna want you knowing where our office is,” Recker said.
“I don’t care about your office. I just…” Mia said before being interrupted.
“I know she’s your friend and you’re worried, but you gotta take a step back and let me handle it, OK?”
“Will you let me know if you find something?”
“Well…I’ll keep you up to date,” Recker replied.
“What’s that mean?”
“I’m not gonna tell you every time I turn up
something. Everything I check out might not lead to anything. But if there’s something concrete that tells us something than I will definitely let you know.”
“Immediately?” Mia asked.
“Yeah.”
Mia reached in and hugged him again. “Thank you,” she told him.
Once she stepped back, Recker gave her a smile. “Sure.”
After leaving the apartment, Recker immediately drove Mia back to her place and then got over to the office as quickly as possible. He got there about an hour after talking to Jones on the phone. The professor looked like he was knee deep in work as he was feverishly typing away, trying to look at several different screens simultaneously. Jones was so heavily concentrating on his work that he didn’t even hear Recker come through the door. Jones finally heard footsteps coming toward him which slightly startled him and broke his concentration.
“How you making out?” Recker wondered.
Jones took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair, wiping his eyes as he took a well needed break from the computer. “These are the cases I hate the most. The ones that are missing.”
“Feel like you can’t take a break?”
Jones looked at him and nodded, knowing he understood. “There’s that race against time mentality in cases like these. Unless she ran away of her own accord than every minute that passes could be one that entails her final breath.”
“Too soon to be thinking like that,” Recker said, trying to remain positive.
“Is that your true thoughts or is that mostly because she’s Mia’s friend and you’d hate to see how it would affect her if it turns out to be so?” Jones asked.
“A little bit of both I guess. What have you turned up so far?”
“Going through her phone records is an exhaustive process.”
“Heavy usage?”
“Heavy isn’t the word for it, Michael. Exhausting is more apropos. She used her phone for everything. Personal, business, and anything in between. She even made and took business calls at night while she was at home,” Jones responded. “It seems she was never truly off. Even after a twelve hour day, she’d go home and follow up with patients.”
“Sounds dedicated,” Recker stated.
“Indeed. I’m trying to match phone numbers listed with their names to see if any have criminal records. I’ve broken it down by the numbers she called most frequently and working my way down. No luck in that regard so far.”
“What about the appointment book?”
“In the same boat. Since she mostly dealt with patients who were children, I’m running background checks on all the parents to see if we get a hit on any criminal activity involving any of them,” Jones answered.
“Negative so far?”
“So far.”
“Anything in her calendar about a late night meeting on Friday?” Recker wondered.
“No, it was clear. Her last appointment last Friday was at 4:30.”
“So even if we assume that lasted half an hour, and we assume she didn’t stop on the way home, that she was probably home by 5:30 or so. Took her mother’s call at six. Got dressed, left around seven or so. Hasn’t been seen or heard from since.”
“Sounds like a logical chain of events,” Jones said.
“She didn’t happen to get a call between when she got home and seven or so, did she?” Recker asked, hoping to catch a break.
“Oh yes. She got several calls. Four to be exact. One was her mother.”
“And the other three?”
“The other three were all parents of children she’d seen earlier that week. Those conversations lasted a little over five minutes each.”
“So I think it’s safe to say that whatever she was doing or going, was personal. It’s a Friday night, her calendar’s clear, she looks good, dressed well, she’s probably going to meet someone.”
“But who?” Jones asked.
“That’s the question.”
“Maybe she got dressed up in the hopes of meeting someone. Maybe there was no one specific. Like a club or a bar or something.”
“I dunno. Mia said those things weren’t really her kind of scene.”
“Loneliness makes people do things they normally wouldn’t. Or go places they usually don’t.”
“You think she was lonely?”
“Impossible to say right now. It’s certainly feasible. Her neighbor thinks she looks sad sometimes, she’d been divorced for a year, nobody to go home to, working twelve hours a day, plus when she gets home. It’s possible, wouldn’t you say?”
“Mia never got any sense that she was.”
“Hanley wouldn’t be the first to try and hide it by immersing herself in work. She’s only human.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Recker sighed. “We need to locate her car.”
“That would be very helpful,” Jones replied, moving his chair around to another computer. “On this one, I have it combing through all the camera footage taken off the cameras.”
“I-95 and the turnpike?”
“As well as local roads where available.”
“And so far we’re batting zero on all fronts,” Recker sighed.
“Well if you want to talk in baseball terms than there’s always the bloop single, where you don’t hit the ball well and should be out, but somehow finds a way to find a hole and get on base.”
“Let’s just hope we don’t get picked off first if we get on base.”
Jones had enough of a break and got back to work, Recker joining him in cross referencing names and phone numbers, along with criminal record checks. They spent the next half hour combing through the information, coming up with nothing but blanks. They were then interrupted by the beeping sound of one of the computers.
“What’s that?” Recker asked.
Jones slid over to the beeping computer to check. “It’s done checking turnpike photos of Hanley’s car. No sign of it. It’ll now switch over to I-95 cameras.”
Jones watched the system go through the first few photos, then went back to the phone records he was checking. After a couple minutes, Recker started moving around like he had found something.
“Hey, here’s a guy. Johnathan Chychrun,” Recker stated, pulling up some more information about him.
Jones swiveled his chair closer to Recker to also look at the screen, reading aloud. “One count of misdemeanor assault, one count of criminal trespass, and one count of fleeing police. All happened over ten years ago though.”
“It’s a place to start.”
“Ten years without any criminal offenses would seem to indicate that perhaps Mr. Chychrun has turned over a new leaf.”
“Just means he hasn’t been caught,” Recker responded.
Jones wasn’t so sure. He pulled up some of Chychrun’s personal information while Recker looked deeper into the phone records to see how many times they’d conversed.
“He’s married with a seven year old daughter,” Jones stated. “It would seem that married life settled him down some.”
“They talked for four minutes last Tuesday at 7:08,” Recker said.
“I don’t think he’s the guy. If there is a guy.”
“Let’s keep him on the list of possibles anyway.”
“Short list so far,” Jones replied.
Recker tried to dig a little deeper into Chychrun’s background, not as sure as Jones that he was completely innocent. While he did think it was unlikely, he wasn’t ready to close the door on it yet. Jones thought that since he was married with a child that he had given up any criminal tendencies that he once had, but Recker was not as trusting.
“He’s also not going to be meeting Hanley when he’s already married,” Jones stated.
Recker just gave him a look. “Affairs happen all the time, David.”
“At seven or eight o’clock at night?”
“Didn’t realize there was only a certain time for that. Maybe the wife took the kid out for an hour or so and he had to move quickly.”
“No,
I’m not buying it yet. Not without some evidence.”
“Maybe I should talk to him,” Recker said.
“How would you go about that?”
“I have a badge.”
Jones rolled his eyes and mumbled, not sure that was such a good idea.
“Right now, we have no other leads. It’s a place to start,” Recker nudged.
“Agreed.”
As Recker called Chychrun, under his police detective disguise, Jones kept plugging away at the computer. As Jones was doing so, he kept one ear listening to his partner’s conversation to get a sense of how it was going. By the sound of it, it wasn’t going so good. After five minutes, Recker came back to the desk and sighed, tossing his phone down on it.
“I take it he’s not what we’re looking for?” Jones asked.
“I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“He said he never saw her outside of her office. He also said that at Friday night at eight o’clock, he bought a movie online for his daughter that they started watching immediately,” Recker informed.
“And you believe him?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I do. It’s easy enough to check, right? He said he bought it through Comcast.”
“Should be easy enough,” Jones affirmed.
As they continued talking about Chychrun, another alert sounded on the computer. Jones swirled his way over to it again.
“Can’t be done already, can it?” Recker asked.
“No, it’s not. It found something.”
Recker immediately rushed over to see what it was. Jones freeze framed the picture then blew it up larger so they could see it better. He zoomed in on the license plate, getting a clear picture of the letters and numbers. He then looked down at a piece of paper on the desk and compared the two.
“It’s a match,” Jones said. “That’s her car.”
“Where’s that location?” Recker wondered.
“Getting off I-95 on exit ramp 12. That’s the airport.”
“She was getting on a plane to go somewhere or she was meeting someone. What time was that?”
“10:56.”
“Everything matches up so far. Now we just have to figure out where she was going from there.”
“That’s going to be a tall task,” Jones stated. “Especially since I’m sure the police have already gotten this far. I’m sure they’ve already found this picture as well.”