I grabbed a pad of paper and a pen, just in case I had to take notes. I felt like a student again, listening to my professor lecture on a topic.
“So I only had perhaps ten to fifteen students in each class, rather than the 50 plus I normally teach during the school year. Therefore I got to know them better than I usually would in the course of a normal semester.”
I nodded. While two or three classes might not seem like much, the demands of the larger number of students in each class made for long hours by the better professors. They wanted to be available as much as possible for each of their students.
“In my senior level business law class was a student named Ronald Fisher. He had been an RA and a wrestler during the school year, but that summer at the dorm he didn’t have any outside activities. He was actively looking for employment after graduation, which would be at the end of summer.”
“Why was he graduating at the end of summer?” I asked. Traditionally most companies came to interview students in March and April in time for the spring graduation. Someone graduating in August would see fewer companies for interviews and have a much harder time in finding a place to work. Of course, I asked that knowing full well that I had not received any offers for employment when I graduated. I had only started with the food truck when my aunt passed away and left it to me.
“He was on a scholarship. He was a very bright young man, and I thought he would have a great future in front of him.”
“You’re using the past tense with him. Is he dead?” I asked.
“Good question, but I’m getting ahead of myself here. Anyway, he was in my class. I spoke with him frequently. He came to office hours to ensure he did things correctly. In short, he was a thorough, meticulous student.”
Who ended up dead, I thought, but I kept my mouth shut. It was obvious that the professor had mustered his courage to come here today and talk, so I let him do things at his own pace.
“We were about three weeks from the end of the semester, which is shortly more than halfway through a summer session, when he disappeared. No one has ever seen or heard from him since.”
I raised an eyebrow. That was a heck of a story, yet I wanted to know far more about it if I was going to take the project on. I wondered why I’d never heard of the disappearance while I was at the university. My interest in crime predated my degree and career.
“Could you tell me more about the circumstances of the disappearance?” I asked.
He nodded. “It was a Thursday night, which for some reason is often the night when students go out drinking, rather than at the end of the work week. Ronald had stayed home to study. He was one of the few people in the dorm that evening, at least according to the security guard on duty at the desk.”
I bit my lip. This was getting interesting, and I had that familiar tingle that happened whenever I wanted to get involved in a case. “How many people would you say were there that night?”
“Four, I believe, but the exact number is in the binder with the other information. I included their names and the contact information for them that I took from the alumni lists,” he said. “
I now itched to look at the file, but I kept my pad and pen in hand.
“He was seen at 7:45. Ronald came downstairs to the vending machines near the front desk. Apparently, he liked a particular brand of candy bar that was only available in that particular machine. The security guard at the desk spoke briefly to him, but he would later claim that Ronald seemed like himself. He routinely came down sometime in the evening to get a candy bar.”
“Was he a big guy?” I asked, thinking of what I’d look like with regular snacks in me.
“Not at all. Thin, muscular, on the wrestling team up until the summer. I believe he ran almost every day.” The professor put his cup down and placed his hands in his lap. I could tell that he was nervous from the forced inaction that he was imposing on his body.
“So he was at the dorm at 7:45 and seemingly normal. What else can you tell me?”
“There’s not much else to tell. He presumably went back upstairs. Three hours later, one of the people in the dorm knocked on his door, asking him to turn down the music. He wasn’t there. The lights were on, the music was playing. The textbook for my class was open to that evening’s assignment with an uncapped highlighter on the page. The person turned off the music and went to bed.”
“So none of the partiers saw him when they returned?” I asked. Some of them would be too inebriated to remember, but most of them would be in good shape to tell a story.
“Nobody saw him. He had a single room, since it was summer and the university had no reason to double up the students. The next morning, there was an issue with the showers. One of the drains was clogged. Two people went down to Ronald’s room to inform him of the issue. It was in the exact same shape as it had been the previous evening—down to the uncapped highlighter. Nothing had changed.”
“When did the police get called in? Or did campus security get called first?”
“He didn’t show for my class Friday, and he didn’t turn in the paper that was due. It was a large part of his grade, so Saturday morning I went to his dorm room. He lived alone, so I wasn’t concerned about the possibility of waking anyone else up. He still wasn’t there. The room was exactly as described by the others. I spoke to the young man who had turned off the music, and at that point, I decided to call campus security. Honestly, at the time I just assumed he’d gone out, gotten drunk, and ended up with some alcohol-related injury. Campus security had contacts at the local hospitals and could easily find out what happened.”
The sequence so far seemed to be reasonable. No one immediately expects foul play when a person isn’t where you expect them to be, and it certainly would not be the first time that Wallace had a student neglect to turn in a paper for an important grade. Security would have been the logical choice at that point.
I also knew from my classmates that such antics were all too common. When I had been at the school, a student had drunk too much and had tumbled into a construction site, falling into what would be the basement of a new dormitory. Those types of stories were only passed along by word of mouth and were never reported in the daily papers—and certainly never by the campus papers.
“However, after a diligent search, the campus security people could not locate any trace of Fisher. He wasn’t in the hospital. He hadn’t eaten at the dining hall since Thursday evening. He had not contacted his friends.”
“Did they look at his room?” I asked, wondering what it could tell the police.
“They did, and that was what led them to call the county police. His wallet, keys, cash, and student ID were all in the room. A friend came by and looked through his clothing. It didn’t appear that he’d taken anything with him. He hadn’t taken his running shoes or any dress shoes that could be determined. His luggage that he’d used to move into the dorm in May was still there. So he’d likely left wearing the clothes he’d been seen in that Thursday night.”
“Could someone have taken him? A college prank or something?”
“We checked with the dorms. He wasn’t a member of any fraternity, and he had expressed no desire to pledge one. It would be unheard of to pledge one at the end of your senior year anyway. Outside of the fraternities and their hazing, it seemed unlikely that anyone would just take him for a prank. So that was ruled out as well.”
“So what was left?” I asked, feeling that I knew the answer.
“The police were skeptical that he’d been kidnapped. He was a college wrestler and in good shape, even though he wasn’t on the team for the summer, since he was graduating. The chances of him being overpowered and removed without noise or signs of a struggle were slim. So the police came up with the theory that he’d left voluntarily.”
“Without any possessions?” I asked, feeling that I would pack heavy if I was not planning on ever coming back.
Wallace nodded. “That’s what I thought as well. That’s what his
parents thought too. After his parents raised a fuss, the police decided to modify their assessment of the situation, saying that he’d likely suffered from a bout of amnesia and left the dorm in a state of confusion.”
“Without shoes and not found in 30 years. That seems like a far stretch.” In the few true amnesia cases that I’d heard of, the memories returned in weeks, if not days, and the person went back to his or her normal life. Thirty years was unheard of.
Wallace pointed to the binder. “That theory got the police through the first few months. By then the hubbub around the disappearance had faded, and they subtly changed the decision back to kidnapped. That’s how the case stands today.”
I stood up and poured myself another cup of coffee. I offered Wallace more tea, but he declined. “So what steps did you follow in looking at this disappearance?” I asked.
He cleared his throat. “I brought a list of the people I talked to. Since it was summer, I went to the dorm the week after he disappeared. I asked everyone for any information they might have on Ronald.”
“Did you record what they had to say?” I asked. I didn’t trust any recollections after so many years. After a long time, people tended to have their memories pushed into pre-disposed categories The notion that memories are fixed visual images of the truth is a dangerous idea for anyone looking into crimes. So often even eyewitnesses are wrong in what they see.
He nodded. “Overall, there were some interesting leads in what they had to say. You can see in the records I kept.”
I flipped through the pages quickly. While he hadn’t come up with any answers, Wallace had been particularly methodical about his work. The interviews had been documented with name, date, and place.
“I added a final page that has where these people are today. I used alumni records to find them.”
I flipped to the last page, and sure enough, there was a list of names and phone numbers. Many of the addresses were out of town or out of state, but there were more than a few people who lived in the Capital City area. I could certainly follow up with them.
“I followed up the leads I had. Many of the people gave me a list of people that Ronald associated with. I called on those people and asked if they’d seen him. There was also a list of places that Ronald might go to get away from everything. It seemed like more of a stretch, since he hadn’t taken anything with him, but I went to each of those places and looked around. I focused on the ones close to campus, since he hadn’t taken his car. A few people wanted to tell me why Ronald had done away with himself. I found that scenario to be less than likely. He was finishing college and interviewing. He had a good life ahead of him. I never found him to be depressed or anything other than sunny and positive.”
I nodded, but my brain was on alert. At first, this had seemed like a routine matter in a case where the professor had an interest in a missing student, but as he waxed on about Ronald Fisher, I began to wonder about their relationship. Wallace was praising Fisher far too much for a typical teacher/student affiliation. Now I was curious about what had gone on. While he was impressed with my business acumen and ability to solve crimes, I knew that I he had never given me such a sterling recommendation.
I started and looked up when he asked me a question.
“I said, you might want to look at the photos I’ve taken. A few of them are from the time of the disappearance. In some cases, I’ve taken more recent photos of some of the other aspects of the case. I thought you’d like to have those too.”
Now he was looking at me. Had I been silent too long? Did he think that I knew something that I didn’t yet understand?
I was saved from any other discussions when Land walked in the door. He had a smile for me and gave a short quizzical glance to the professor.
Chapter 2
With the entrance of my husband, the professor recognized that this was probably a good time to take his leave. However, I had one question for him.
“Before you go, you’d mentioned that you have the name and contact information for that chef?” I asked, standing between him and the door. I was quite serious about the deal and would have no qualms about blocking his exit if need be. I wanted to receive my payment both before and after I started looking into this matter.
Wallace nodded and handed me the third of the leather binders. “This is her information. I’ve included, with her permission, of course, her resumé and her transcripts. I think you’ll find her to be exactly what you’ve been looking for. She’s a Polish immigrant; she lost her previous position and she needs work now.”
I had a hunch that she was Slavic from the last name that I was sure to mangle. “How do you know her?” I asked.
“She took a few classes at the university two years ago. She was just auditing them. She had no desire for a degree, but we talked, and I got to know her fairly well. I think she’ll be a good fit.”
“What happened to her previous position?” I asked, fearing that she had gone on a rampage or burned the restaurant to the ground.
“What happens to so many new businesses, unfortunately. It went under, and she was left without a job.”
With that pronouncement, he walked past me to the door and turned. “Let me know what you come up with,” he said.
The door shut and Land looked at me. “Are you sure you want to be doing this?” he said. “Normally, you have to investigate something because the stakes are high for you personally. This is going to be a ‘just because’ job.”
I smiled. “Yes, but he has two very good incentives for me, so I’ll do it. I’m especially excited about the hours and the possibility of being off more. Does that make me a bad owner?”
He shook his head as he slid his arms around me. “Not at all. I like the idea of having more time to do this,” Land said, as he moved in for a long kiss.
***Sometime later, Land flipped through the pages of the book. “What are you going to do first?” he asked. “And when are you calling that woman?”
“First things first,” I said, picking up my phone. I dialed the number and waited. I think that I half-expected this to be a ruse. After all, false offers had reconnected me with my business school and the professor. It wouldn’t be too terribly surprising to learn that his project was equally invalid.
However, on the fourth ring, a woman answered. “Hello,” she said with a slight accent that I took to be Polish.
I explained who I was and what I wanted. I breathed a sigh of relief when she had heard of the food trucks and the possible job offer. She accepted sight unseen, and we agreed that she would start in two days.
I hung up, feeling so much better about the business situation. I would have coverage on Let It Slide and would be able to focus on other things now.
We sat on the couch, and I started through the binder again. I despaired a little, because as I went through the page, it seemed as though Wallace had been very meticulous. What would I find thirty years after the fact, if he’d found nothing at the time of the disappearance?
Land seemed to read my thoughts. “Detective Danvers says that cold cases can be easier than routine murders, because a lot of the BS is gone after so many years. The things that remain are typically the things that are important to the case. I know the Capital City PD has been very successful with their cold cases.”
An idea occurred to me. Since the university was outside of the city limits, then I wouldn’t be going up against Detective Danvers. Perhaps he could give me a few pointers in the case. Land didn’t shoot the idea down when I proposed it to him.
“Catch him in a good mood, and he just might.”
I decided to do just that after giving him a free large coffee the next day.
“Do you have a moment?” I asked.
He made a face that expressed his reluctance to say yes, but I was out of the truck before he could say anything. Since his relationship with Sabine was more than fine at the moment, she was happy to take over the truck for a few minutes so that I could ask about the case.
“I was asked to look into an old disappearance,” I started.
“You can’t get paid to look into other cases,” Danvers said before I even finished my sentence. “You need a license to do that.”
“I’m not working for money,” I said truthfully. “I’m helping a former professor of mine. He looked into a missing persons case about 30 years ago and wasn’t able to solve it. So I’m looking into it now, and I just wanted to know where to start.”
Danvers sighed, but he did take a big sip of his free coffee before replying. “The first thing I’d do is run his social through the system. They didn’t have tools like that 30 years ago, so this would be new ground for you to cover. If he’s still using the same social, which most people do, since it’s damned hard to get a new one, then we’ll get some hits from the search. We could find him in a matter of hours.”
“And if we can’t find a hit on his social security number?” I asked.
“Then most likely he’s dead—or he found someone who could find him a dummy identity that he could use. But if he was just a college senior, the chances of him knowing people who could get him another social security number were slim to none. That’s not something people advertise. You have to know some pretty shady people to get those types of connections.”
I didn’t speak. I knew that most of the search tools he was talking about were off limits to the average citizen. I might be able to find a look-up site on the web, but I wasn’t sure that that site would be anywhere as accurate as the one Danvers had access to.
Given that I was fully expecting to participate in his wedding sometime in the near future, I was hoping that he would help out a little in getting things rolling on the case.
He looked at me for a long moment, and finally said, “You want some help with this, don’t you?”
I just smiled. He knew that I did, but I suspected he wanted to hear me ask for help. I had one-upped him too many times, and now he wanted to hear me ask for his assistance.
FOOD TRUCK MYSTERIES: The Complete Series (14 Books) Page 136