American PI

by Jude Hardin

  I breathed a sigh of relief. I kept the car at the speed limit, but my heart was doing one-twenty or better. I could feel it pounding behind my eyeballs. I turned into Dairy Queen, took a deep breath and turned the car off and got out and walked inside. I went to the restroom and splashed some cold water on my face and tried to calm down. My hands were shaking and a rhinoceros had decided to park its ass on my chest. I needed to quit smoking. If I didn’t, I wasn’t going to make it to fifty. Maybe not even to forty-five.

  I dried my face and hands and walked up front and ordered a small Sprite, trying to look as normal as possible. The girl behind the counter looked a lot like the girl I’d talked to at Woof-A-Burger in Gainesville, only her nametag didn’t say Ashley. It said Cammy. Short for Camille, I guessed.

  “Are you all right?” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  I paid for the drink and sat at a table. The place was deserted except for a couple of teenage boys shoveling ice cream into their mouths and laughing about things that teenage boys tend to laugh about. Boobs and farts and such. I pulled the piece of paper out of my pocket and recited Trent Appleton’s address and phone number over and over in my head about a thousand times. Once I had the information committed to memory, I ripped the paper to shreds and shoved all the little pieces into the trash can on my way out. I didn’t want Bobbi’s passwords to fall into the wrong hands.

  When I pushed the door open to leave the restaurant, I saw that a police car had pulled in and parked one spot over from the Caprice. I didn’t know if it was the same officer or not, but I figured it probably was.

  I stood on the sidewalk and lit a cigarette. The cop got out of the car and walked toward me. He swaggered on by without looking up or saying anything. He pushed the door open and stepped inside the restaurant, and I walked on over to the Caprice and got in and started it and drove away.

  It was almost midnight by the time I made it back to Laurie’s apartment. She wasn’t home from work yet. I grabbed a beer from the refrigerator, sat at the computer and logged onto one of the people-finder sites I subscribe to. I knew that the address Klein Fertility had on file for Trent Appleton probably wasn’t current, but it would be helpful in differentiating the man I was looking for from all the other Trent Appletons in the country.

  I spent about thirty minutes doing searches. As it turned out, he still lived in Jacksonville, not far from the residence he’d been at when he was donating sperm. It made sense that he was still in the area, even though some of his offspring had ended up far, far away. People generally die less than a hundred miles from where they were born. I read that in a magazine one time, so it must be true. I looked in Laurie’s desk drawer, found a ballpoint pen and a notepad and wrote everything down. I put the pen and the notepad in my pocket and exited the Internet.

  The line where Appleton’s phone number was supposed to be had said NP, which meant that his number was non-published. That was okay, because I didn’t plan on calling him anyway. I planned on showing up at his house unexpectedly at two o’clock in the morning.

  And that’s what I did.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  I drove by the address and parked half a block down on the other side of the street. It wasn’t a great neighborhood, but it wasn’t one of the worst I’d ever been in either. Lower middle-class, I guess you would call it. Nobody around there had a lot of money, but they all had more than me.

  Most of the houses had been framed with concrete blocks and finished with stucco, the materials of choice back in the 1950s when they had been built. Some of the cars in the driveways were cheap and new and disposable after fifty thousand miles, while others looked as though they might have been sold by short chubby fellows with three day beards on their faces and cheap cigars in their mouths, men who worked on gravel lots with colorful plastic pennants strung everywhere and signs that said BUY HERE/PAY HERE.

  The vehicle in Trent Appleton’s driveway was none of the above. In fact, it wasn’t even there. Either Appleton wasn’t home, or he’d pulled into the detached garage behind the house. There was a white cargo van parked at the curb that could have been his. But if it was, I wondered why he hadn’t put it in the driveway.

  It was 2:16 a.m., nearly twenty-two hours before the clock would strike midnight on Saturday, October 25. Nearly a full day before Everett Harbaugh would turn twenty years old. I felt pretty good about that. There seemed to be plenty of time for me to rescue Everett and have Appleton arrested for abduction and unlawful imprisonment. Eventually he would be charged with the murders of Stephanie Vowels and Philip Davenport, but kidnapping was more than enough to hold him for now. The police could work everything out once they had him in custody.

  My cell phone vibrated. The caller ID said Laurie.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Where are you?”

  “Parked across the street from the killer’s house. I was just about to go over there and look around.”

  “The alleged killer,” she said.

  “Whatever. From what we know, don’t you think it’s pretty obvious that Trent Appleton is systematically killing the offspring generated through his sperm donations?”

  “I don’t know about obvious. Likely would be a better word, I think. So, since you know this man’s name and address, I’m taking it you really did break into the sperm bank.”

  “I really did,” I said. “And I got the information I needed. Now I’m going to nail this guy.”

  “I don’t know, Nicholas. It sounds awfully dangerous. Maybe you should just let the police handle it.”

  “You saw how far I got with the police,” I said. “They’re too stupid and too slow to be of any use to me at the moment. I’m going to have to take care of this myself. When all is said and done, maybe they’ll give me a medal or something.”

  “Let’s just hope they don’t hang it on your casket.”

  “Don’t be such a pessimist,” I said. “I’ll be fine. My truck’s still parked at your place, by the way. Someone slashed both the rear tires. Of course I have a pretty good idea who did it.”

  “What are you driving?”

  “I rented a car. I’ll get some new tires for the Jimmy in the morning.”

  “This is getting scary,” she said. “I can’t believe someone did that at my apartment. The parking lot is well-lit, and—”

  “I told you I’m not a very lucky person,” I said. “Are you sure you still even want to hang out with me?”

  “Shut up. Of course I’m sure.”

  “Okay.”

  She was silent for a beat. Maybe she wasn’t so sure after all, I thought. But it wasn’t that. She had something else on her mind.

  “You left a beer bottle on that wobbly little fold-up table by the computer,” she said. “Edgar must have brushed by and knocked it off.”

  “Was there beer in it?” I said.

  “Just enough to make a big mess.”

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart. That was careless of me. I’ll pay to have your carpet cleaned.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I just wanted you to know why the place smells like a brewery now.”

  “I really am sorry,” I said. “It won’t happen again.”

  “At least it wasn’t milk. That would have smelled even worse.”

  “Yeah. I can pretty much promise you that I’ll never spill milk in your apartment.”

  She laughed. “I miss you,” she said. “I don’t suppose there’s any way I could talk you into coming on home and trying the police again in the morning, huh?”

  “This is something I have to do,” I said. “I’ll be careful. I promise. With a little luck, I’ll be back at your place before the sun comes up.”

  “But you said you’re not a very lucky person.”

  “Sometimes I am.”

  “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep until you’re here,” she said.

  I paused. I didn’t know quite what to say next. I love you seemed appropriate, except for the fact that we�
�d only known each other for a couple of days. Was it possible to fall in love with someone in such a short amount of time? Did I love her? Did I even know what that meant anymore?

  In the end, I didn’t say it. I didn’t want her to feel rushed into anything, or obligated to say it back.

  “I better go now,” I said. “I’ll see you in a little while.”

  “Why does this feel like goodbye?”

  “It’s not. Believe me. I’ll be there.”

  I disconnected, put my phone back in my pocket.

  I climbed out of the Caprice and shut the door gently. I didn’t want to wake any dogs. Or people either, for that matter. The .38 revolver was still holstered on my belt, hidden by my shirttails. I was hoping it would stay there, but I had a feeling it wouldn’t.

  I walked across the street and peeked inside the white van. The dash and the floorboard were littered with fast food bags and Styrofoam coffee cups, and there was a beanbag ashtray full of non-filtered cigarette butts on the center console. An array of hand tools and power tools had been crammed into the cargo area, saws and squares and rollers and brushes and buckets and sponges and a shop vac. It was a working van, and whoever owned it was in the business of painting and remodeling houses.

  I pulled out the pen and notepad I’d borrowed from Laurie and jotted down the tag number. Just in case.

  I walked up the driveway to the side of the house and stood there and listened for a minute. There were no sounds coming from inside, and all the windows were dark. I continued toward the backyard, easing through the swinging double gate and following the driveway to the garage. I looked inside and saw junk stacked to the ceiling, everything from books to garden tools. Near the top of the pile there was a child’s tricycle. The streamers flowing from the handlebar grips, once red and white and bright and cheerful, were now a grimy shade of gray. The spokes were rusted, the rubber tires cracked with rot. It occurred to me that someone’s life story had been crammed into the decaying one-car structure, and that perhaps the ending hadn’t been an altogether happy one.

  There was a small wooden deck attached to the back of the house. A cheap set of patio furniture anchored the space, and half a dozen empty flower pots and a corroded barbecue grill guarded the perimeter. I followed a series of concrete stepping stones over there, climbed up and tiptoed across ten feet or so of questionable wooden planks, cupped my hands against the sliding glass door and looked inside. No curtains, no blinds. On the other side of the door, there was a bedroom with no furniture and a man wrapped in a blanket sleeping in the middle of the floor. I could see that he was breathing, and I could see his face. He wasn’t dead, and he wasn’t Everett.

  I thought about picking something up and crashing through the door. The barbecue grill was within reach if I needed it, but I decided to try a more subtle approach first.

  I pulled my gun out of its holster and held it behind my back with my right hand while I knocked with my left. The man jerked awake. In one fluid motion he rolled away from the blanket and jumped to a standing position and faced the back door. He had some kind of blade in his hand. It was dark, and I couldn’t tell for sure, but from where I stood it looked like a steak knife.

  That’s when I knew he probably wasn’t the man I was looking for.

  “What do you want?” he shouted.

  “Everett Harbaugh.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Can I just talk to you for a minute?”

  He walked over to where I was standing. He didn’t put the knife down, and he didn’t open the door. He wore tattered jeans and a faded red T-shirt, everything dotted with white paint. His eyes were bugged and bloodshot and his hair looked like something that might have been pulled out of a clogged drain.

  “This is my place,” he said. “Get on out of here.”

  “I don’t want your place. I’m a private investigator. I’m looking for someone.”

  My eyes had adjusted to the darkness of the bedroom, and I could see an empty wine bottle on the floor by the blanket. He was obviously a squatter, an old drunk who’d gotten tired of sleeping in his work van.

  “Get on out of here,” he said again.

  “Where’s the man who used to live here?” I said. “Trent Appleton.”

  “I don’t know, and I don’t care.”

  I believed him on both counts. He didn’t know where Appleton was, but I wondered if there might be a clue to Sperm Dad’s whereabouts somewhere inside the house.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” I said. “I just want to come in and look around.”

  “No.”

  The old sot was starting to get on my nerves. I swung my right hand around and pressed the barrel of the revolver against the glass. He stared at the fat .38 caliber hole aimed at his face, and his eyes got even buggier and bloodier.

  “Open the door,” I said.

  He held his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “I don’t want no trouble, mister.”

  “Just do as I say and you won’t have any.”

  He unlocked the door and slid it open.

  “I don’t mean nobody no harm,” he said. “Let me just grab my stuff and—”

  “Give me the knife.”

  He handed it to me, and I tossed it out onto the deck.

  “I’ll do whatever you want,” he said.

  “Get your blanket and go sit in the corner. This shouldn’t take long.”

  He grabbed his blanket and went and sat in the corner.

  I holstered my weapon and walked through the bedroom and into the hallway. The electricity was off, but the streetlights shining through the front windows made it easy enough to get around. The house was hot and it smelled like dust. I walked into the kitchen and opened all the drawers and cabinets, but everything had been cleaned out. All I found was a set of instructions for installing the hood over the stove. I looked through the living room and the other bedroom, but all the furniture had been moved out and there weren’t any convenient scraps of paper lying around with a forwarding address written on them.

  I checked the bathroom last. It reeked of urine. The old drunk must have been using the toilet sometimes, even though the water had been turned off and there was no way to flush it. I opened the cabinet under the vanity, found an old blow dryer and half a bottle of Drano. There was a toothbrush in one of the drawers and a tube of Aqua-Fresh that had been squeezed to death. I figured the brush might have some DNA evidence on it, so I left it alone. Not that I would have touched it anyway. After being in that bathroom for three minutes, I felt an intense need to find a shower and scrub my body raw. I was sweaty and itchy and I knew the smell of the place would follow me out of there. It was disgusting.

  I opened the medicine cabinet and found a prescription pill bottle. It was for Diazepam, the generic name for Valium. The label told someone named Nora Fetzler to take one tablet every eight hours as needed. I shook the bottle. It was empty. I put it in my pocket and walked back out to the hallway and into the bedroom where I’d started. The old wino was still sitting obediently in the corner with his blanket. I pulled a ten dollar bill out of my wallet and let it float to the floor.

  “Buy yourself something to eat,” I said.

  “Thanks, mister.”

  “Why is your van on the street? Why don’t you park it in the driveway?”

  “It’s out of gas. Someone helped me push it the last couple of blocks, but I knew we’d never make it up into the driveway. Too heavy.”

  I threw down a twenty. It landed on top of the ten.

  “Get yourself some gas too. Maybe you can find some work.”

  He smiled. There were some teeth missing in front.

  “You’re all right,” he said. “I thought you was going to kill me.”

  “Take care,” I said, knowing that he wouldn’t.

  I walked outside and took a deep breath of fresh air. I don’t think I could have slept in a place like that, no matter how bad things got.

  I looked at my watch. 3:27.


  Time is always a matter of perspective. Time flies when you’re having fun, and misery is the flipside of that. A week can go by in a flash when you’re out fishing, and five minutes can seem like an eternity when you’re in excruciating pain. When I’d first arrived at the address, it had felt as though I had all the time in the world to get Everett out of there. But now that I was back to not knowing where he was, the clock was my worst enemy. It was like a ticking bomb. In a little over twenty hours, Everett would turn twenty years old, and for some reason that was the age Trent Appleton had chosen to eliminate his offspring. First Stephanie Vowels, then Philip Davenport, and now Everett Harbaugh. And if Everett hadn’t come to me when he did, nobody would have ever made the connection. Or maybe they would have eventually, after several more murders. Two had been enough for me. No evidence that a crime has been committed, Detective Fleming had said. To me, it was as obvious as the moon in the sky. Everett had been abducted, and if I didn’t find him soon he was going to be dead.

  At least I had a name to go on, a possible connection to Trent Appleton. I pulled the Valium bottle out of my pocket and looked at it again. Nora Fetzler. I needed a computer again, and the only one I had access to at three-thirty in the morning was at Laurie’s apartment. I hated having to drive there every time I needed to look something up. Life would have been a lot easier if Shelby Spelling hadn’t smeared peanut butter all over my laptop. In The World According to Nicholas Colt, if Everett ended up dying, Shelby should be named as an accessory. She wouldn’t be, of course. I would have to dole out her punishment myself.