Tracy Hayes, P.I. to the Rescue (P.I. Tracy Hayes 3)

by Susanna Shore

  “Good point. So we should assume that they’re actively hiding. They don’t have much money, if any, so they won’t be able to stay hidden for long. They’ll surface sooner or later and then we’ll find them.”

  “The drug gang might find them first.”

  “There’s that possibility.”

  I groaned. “I hate this.”

  “Missing people cases are seldom easy.” He sounded apologetic, but I’d wanted the case myself, so I’d better get a grip and figure this out.

  I took my messenger bag and got up. “I’m going to go to see the two of Deanna’s friends I didn’t get a chance to talk with earlier.”

  Jackson got up too. “I’m coming with you.”

  And this time I didn’t stop him.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Principal Feldman was in a meeting when we reached the school, so her secretary called the girls I wanted to see without consulting her. Five minutes later two girls entered the waiting room, looking apprehensive and sullen.

  “We haven’t done anything,” the taller one of them said to the secretary.

  “And you can’t prove it even if we had,” the shorter one added. The secretary rolled her eyes.

  “These detectives are here to ask you questions about Deanna and Alysha.”

  The girls tightened their ranks instantly. I smiled at them. “Which one is Marsha?” The tall girl made a small movement. “Why don’t you come with me to the hallway, and Sherry can stay here with Jackson.”

  I led Marsha out and Jackson showed Sherry into a chair at the side of the waiting room. She might not be willing to talk with the secretary present, but it was better to separate the girls.

  “I’m sorry to pop into the school like this,” I started.

  Marsha shrugged. “Got me off history class.”

  “So I guess you owe me, huh.” She gave me a small smile. “I’m looking for Deanna and Alysha. Any little detail is helpful. Did they talk about running away? Were they excited or scared in the days before they left?”

  “No. Nothing like that. Only thing Alysha talked about was that guy. JT.” She managed to put a great deal of contempt into those two letters.

  “You don’t like him?”

  “He’s not from here.”

  That could mean so many things.

  “Do you think the girls are with him?”

  “What, both of them?” It was my turn to shrug. “Why would he want Dee around?”

  “He doesn’t like her?”

  “She’s a third wheel, you know. It’s not like there’s room for her on his bike.”

  Good point.

  “Do you think the girls have gone away together, or has Alysha gone look for Deanna?”

  Masha looked doubtful. “Alysha didn’t say anything about looking for Dee. It was as if she didn’t even notice Dee was gone.”

  My mind was racing. I hadn’t even contemplated the possibility that the girls weren’t together, but if that was the case, I’d need two different angles to this.

  “Do you know if Alysha has any family around besides her mother?” Maybe she just didn’t want to stay home without Deanna to hang out with.

  “Her grandma.”

  That sounded promising. “Don’t suppose you know where she lives?”

  “East New York somewhere.”

  “Do you know her name?”

  “Could be Hanson. It’s not like Alysha’s mum was married.”

  “Thanks. You’ve been very helpful” The other girl exited the waiting room just then, and they smiled at each other and rolled their eyes, as if this had been a great ordeal. We thanked the girls and the secretary, and left.

  I waited until we were in the car. “Learn anything useful?”

  “Sherry says the girls had a huge fight, which is why Deanna left. And then maybe Alysha felt bad and went to look for her.”

  “Marsha didn’t think Alysha would’ve gone after Deanna, because she didn’t care that Dee was gone. Maybe because of their fight. But she said Alysha has a grandmother in East New York. If the girls aren’t together, maybe Alysha is with her.”

  Jackson nodded, starting the car. “Worth checking out. Do you have a name?”

  “No. Want to go ask Alysha’s mom?”

  “Sure. She’s bound to remember the name of her own mother, even if she’s wasted.”

  I directed her to the correct building. He studied the place with a frown when we headed up the stairs—the elevator was still broken to the surprise of no one.

  “Places like this are the reason I don’t want you to work alone,” he said after a while.

  “You can’t keep protecting me.”

  “I can damn well try.”

  I huffed. “What’s the point in having a partner if you end up doing twice the work? You have to let me do my job, no matter where it takes me.”

  “I don’t have to do anything,” he growled.

  I felt annoyed, to be frank, but just followed him to the correct door—with only two pauses on the way up, both of which made him shake his head and threaten me with a thorough fitness regime.

  Alysha’s mom was relatively sober when she opened the door—though not any more dressed. Yikes. The first thing she asked was for a smoke, and to my amazement Jackson got out a pack from his pocket and gave it to her.

  “I didn’t know you smoked,” I said to him while the woman was concentrating on lighting one up, her hands shaking so badly it took quite a few tries.

  “I don’t. But plenty of people do, and it often helps to break the ice.”

  Not with Alysha’s mom. “What do you want?”

  “We were wondering if you’d heard anything from Alysha.” We were standing in the hallway, and I wasn’t in any hurry to get into the apartment.

  “She’ll show up eventually. I’m not paying you a penny for finding her.”

  “No need. We were wondering if she’d be staying with other family members. Your mother, perhaps?”

  “That bitch.” She all but spat in our feet. “She has a job and plenty of money, but does she ever give anything to me? No.”

  If it all went to drugs, I understood her mother.

  “Could we get her address? Just in case Alysha is there.”

  She grunted, but gave us the address. “If she’s there, tell her not to bother coming home.” She closed the door in our faces.

  “I’d be more than happy to prevent her from coming back here,” I muttered as we headed back down the stairs.

  “We’ll have to see what we can do for her if we find her,” Jackson said. He looked so grim that I had to nudge him playfully with my elbow.

  “What happened to not getting attached to every kid we encounter?”

  “I was given a chance to pull my life around. I have to at least try.”

  “That’s a good philosophy to live by.”

  He gave me a small smile. “My original statement stands. You’ll burn yourself to the ground if you get emotionally attached to everyone.”

  I could see that. I just wasn’t entirely sure I could keep the distance.

  We reached the car and were about to get in when a bike pulled over outside the building we’d just exited. “That’s JT! We can finally talk to him.” I made to dash to him even before I’d finished speaking.

  “Don’t!” Jackson shouted, but it was too late. JT had seen me approach, and instead of stopping, he accelerated again into traffic. “Get in the car,” Jackson ordered me.

  “Sorry.”

  “No problem,” he said, starting the engine and driving after JT. “With bikers—or people in cars, for that matter—you’ll have to wait until it won’t be so easy for them to flee before approaching them. And preferably block their access to their vehicle.”

  I’d remember that next time.

  The street was wide and straight, traffic was light, and JT didn’t much care about speed limits, so he was soon a couple of blocks ahead of us. Jackson drove fast too, but not fast enough. He woul
dn’t break the law for a high speed pursuit where pedestrians might get hurt. He threw his phone to me.

  “Call Detective Lawrence.”

  I took it and placed the call. “We’re pursuing JT,” I told the detective the moment he answered.

  “Of course you are,” he drawled. “Where are you?”

  “Currently driving east on Riverdale Avenue in Brownsville, but there’s a rail yard ahead, so he’ll have to turn.” I’d pulled the map up on my phone. I fricking loved map apps.

  “Will you be able to catch him?”

  “Not if we keep to speed limits.” We reached the end of the street and only a speck in the distance revealed where JT had headed. “He turned south towards Linden Boulevard. From there he can get anywhere.”

  “Linden is one way to west from where he’s approaching,” Lawrence said, probably having a map open too. “That would take him to his home, where we have people waiting.”

  Stoplights at the next junction slowed JT down, as the light was red for him and the crossing traffic was heavy, so we were able to close in on him.

  “He took New Lots Avenue east instead,” I informed the detective.

  “That takes him past Alabama Avenue, where his father’s garage is. We have men there.” I could hear Lawrence giving commands in the background, likely ordering a roadblock.

  “I think he’s headed to the bikers’ garage,” I said a little later when JT didn’t slow down as he neared Alabama Avenue. He was driving fast, as if there was no traffic, overtaking cars with no care for his own safety. “I think we’ll soon lose him.” Jackson looked determined, but he couldn’t make similar idiotic passes as JT on the two lane street with its heavy traffic.

  “We have men at the garage too. You can stand down now. We’ll take it from here.”

  I relayed the info to Jackson, who slowed down and relaxed.

  “At times like these I wish I still had the blue light on top of my car.”

  How cool would that be?

  We’d already turned south to head to Alysha’s grandmother’s place when Lawrence called. “They got JT,” I relayed the news to Jackson. “Turn the car around. We’ll meet Lawrence at the precinct.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  We pulled over outside the 75th Precinct on Sutter Avenue in northern East New York fifteen minutes later. It was a large, two-story building of brick and concrete, and pretty ugly, if you asked me, but we weren’t here for the architecture.

  We’d beaten the patrol cars bringing JT there and were shown to Detective Lawrence’s desk on the second floor. He still looked mouthwateringly good in his form-fitting suit, but I managed to keep my wits about me this time round. Mostly.

  “JT’s been arrested for speeding, reckless driving, and possession of drugs,” Lawrence told us after we’d taken seats in front of his overflowing desk.

  “So he is involved.” I was disappointed. Not for him necessarily, but for the girls.

  “Yep. It was more than for personal use too, so he is dealing.”

  Jackson straightened upon hearing this. “Maybe he’s Alysha’s mom’s dealer. That would explain why he was at her building even though he knew Alysha wouldn’t be home.”

  I nodded. “It would also explain how he and Alysha would’ve met in the first place, when they don’t even live in the same neighborhood.”

  “But there’s no indication the girls are involved in drugs,” Lawrence pointed out. “Why would he know where they are?”

  “No one else does, and he lied about not knowing them,” Jackson said. “He’s pretty much our only hope at this point.”

  “Do you want to listen in? I can’t let you question him, but I can ask about the girls for you.”

  “That would be great.”

  JT was brought straight into an interview room. He slouched in his chair, looking sullen—a look that was emphasized by the hair that fell over his eyes. We got to watch through the one way glass in the adjoining room, which made me feel like I was in a detective series.

  Detective Lawrence went through the compulsory routines and then gave JT a serious look. “You’re in great trouble. We have zero tolerance to drug dealing here. You’re looking for years behind the bars.”

  JT shot him a contemptuous look, but didn’t say anything. Detective Lawrence was unfazed. This wasn’t his first rodeo—or whatever the equivalent expression among cops was.

  “But I have more urgent matter to take care of first. I understand your girlfriend has gone missing. Do you have any idea of her whereabouts?”

  “Which girlfriend?” JT asked with a sneer, the first words I’d heard him say. His voice made him sound younger than he was, as it hadn’t properly set yet. I wasn’t terribly surprised by the question. We knew about two of his girlfriends already, and he likely had many more.

  “The one outside whose house you fled from earlier. Why did you do that? Do you have something to do with her disappearance?”

  “Why would I go there if I did?”

  “Then why did you flee?”

  JT leaned backwards in his chair. “I think I want my lawyer now.”

  My stomach fell, but Detective Lawrence just nodded. “Very well.”

  He gave JT a piece of paper and a pen, and asked him to write the name and phone number of his lawyer. Then he exited the interview room and came to us.

  “It’ll take hours before the lawyer gets here. And most likely he won’t talk until he’s stewed a couple of days in a cell. So you can go now. We’ll let you know if he tells something.”

  Utterly disappointed and furious—at least I was—we headed back to Jackson’s car.

  “We don’t have a couple of days,” I fumed. “Can’t they just make him talk? Kick him or something.”

  “That’d go down well with the judges,” he said dryly, not taking my outburst seriously—though I kind of was being serious. Surely there were exceptions to police ethics when people were missing?

  “I don’t need it to hold with a judge. I just need to find the girls.”

  He wrapped an arm around my shoulder and gave me a consoling hug. “Let’s go have something to eat. You’ll feel better after it. Then we’ll go talk with Alysha’s grandmother.”

  I was sure I couldn’t eat a bite, but I followed him to a nearby eatery. And it turned out, he was right.

  I didn’t tell him that, though.

  Laverne Hanson lived in southern East New York in a huge project built on a point of land between two creeks that reached from Flatlands Avenue to Jamaica Bay. Dozens of twenty-story tenement buildings rose from a featureless flat land with plenty of space between each, the minimal landscaping around them not enough to make the neighborhood look less bleak. But the tallest of them had a nice view over the marshlands to the east and west, and Jamaica Bay in the south. That was worth something.

  At any rate, the area was well maintained and appeared quiet, and when we located the right building and got in, the hallways were clean and the elevator worked. We took it to the twelfth floor.

  Mrs. Hanson was much younger than I’d expected, barely in her fifties, and in very good shape for that. She was neatly dressed and had a carefully made-up face and hair. I’d guess by her appearance that she was a secretary or a bank teller, or had some other comfortable indoor job that didn’t require standing on her feet the whole day.

  She didn’t invite us in, however, and stood blocking the gap in the door that would’ve given us a peek into her apartment. “No, I haven’t seen Alysha,” she said when we asked after her. “She barely calls, let alone comes to visit.”

  My heart fell. She had been quite literally the last hope I had. Jackson wasn’t as discouraged.

  “Would you know any other place she might’ve gone to? A relative or a friend?” he asked.

  “No. I’m the only family she has. Mind you, I don’t wonder if she’s run away. Charyse may be my daughter, but I’m the first person to tell you she’s not fit to be a mother. I’d have taken Alysha to liv
e with me ages ago, if she’d only wanted.”

  “If she contacts you, could you please ask her to call us?” Jackson gave her his card. “We’re trying to find her friend Deanna too, in case Alysha has any information about where she might be.”

  She took the card. “I will. It pains me to think Alysha would be alone out there. And Deanna is such a nice kid.”

  Jackson nodded. “Could you also tell her that JT has been arrested?”

  The door was yanked open so fast Mrs. Hanson almost couldn’t step out of the way in time. Alysha was glaring at us. “What?”

  “Alysha, I presume?” Jackson didn’t sound surprised. He must have suspected the grandmother was hiding her the whole time. I’d had no clue, although in hindsight she hadn’t appeared nearly as worried as she should’ve been. I guess I wasn’t cynical enough for this job yet.

  “Yes. Why’s JT been arrested? He has nothing to do with why I’m not home.” She looked like her photo, only more sullen and angry.

  “Speeding and reckless driving,” Jackson said. I don’t know why he wouldn’t mention the drugs, unless it was for her grandmother’s sentiments.

  Alysha huffed. “He’ll be bailed out in no time.”

  I feared she was right, even with the drugs involved.

  “Have you seen him recently?” I asked.

  “Why?”

  “We asked him if he knew where you are and he denied knowing you.”

  A smile spread on her face. “I knew I could rely on him. That’s what boyfriends are for.”

  “Is he?” I asked, feigning surprise. “A girl named Isabela said he’s her boyfriend.” I don’t know why I wanted to poke, maybe because she was more concerned about JT than her best friend, but it had a definite effect.

  “That bitch! I’ll kill her.”

  “He didn’t seem to object,” I said, even though I hadn’t seen the two of them together.

  “He’s just pretending. He belongs to me.”

  “If we could talk about Deanna?” Jackson cut in.

  Alysha’s face hardened. “I don’t know where she is. We had a fight.”

  “What about?”

  “JT, if you must know. She said he wasn’t good for me.”