by Carl Schmidt
Nicole got out, quickly crossed the street in front of the bus and hurried into the parking garage. It took us by surprise. Holly jumped out of the car and followed her, but Nicole had a sizable lead.
The next bus stop was little more than a block away. Angele got off there, and I picked her up and made a U-Turn. Unfortunately, there was no parking anywhere for the next two blocks.
“I don’t see her,” Holly yelled, somewhat out of breath. “She’s not at the elevator. She disappeared either on the ramp or around the corner. There’s eight or nine levels to the garage. If I lose her, we’ll be in trouble. The main exit is on Congress Street, but there’s another exit on the west end of the lot. I don’t know the street name.”
“That’s Gilman Street,” I responded. “Angele and I will park near that exit. If she leaves our way, we should be able to spot her. Holly, if you don’t locate her soon, go back to your car and watch the Congress Street exit. If you see her drive out, identify her car and tell us which way she’s headed.”
“Roger,” came the reply.
For the next minute or so, all I could hear was Holly huffing and puffing.
“I can’t find her, Jesse. I’m returning to my car.”
“She has the tracking device in the bag,” I said hopefully. “I’ve got the signal. She—or at least it—is still in the lot.”
For the next fifteen minutes, there was no sign of Nicole. Holly and I kept in touch on our headsets, but there was nothing to report. Finally, I heard Holly call out, “I think she’s leaving through the main entrance. It looks like her, but I’m not a hundred percent sure. She turned left onto Congress Street in a silver late model Camry.”
I pulled out onto Gilman just in time to watch her driving by. Angele and I couldn’t see her clearly, but we figured it was Nicole. I made a left hand turn and followed the Camry. Angele took my phone and watched the GPS signal.
“Holly, the tracking device is still in the parking lot,” Angele said. “Either we are following the wrong car, or she disposed of the bag. Turn on your GPS app, and monitor the signal. Let us know if it moves.”
“Roger that,” Holly replied. “I’ve got the signal, but I can’t stay in this space indefinitely. I’ve been asked to move twice already. I’ll park around the corner and see if the signal starts moving.”
The silver Camry turned right on Valley Street, left on Park Avenue and got onto 295 heading south. It was easy to keep her in sight; there was almost no traffic on the interstate. We trailed her at a safe distance. About five minutes later she was on 95, still heading south.
When we reached Scaroborough, I decided it was time to see if we were following the right driver. I pulled up gradually on her left, and Angele took a quick look.
“It’s her,” she said, and then turned her face away from the window.
I eased back and allowed Nicole to lead again.
“I didn’t think to bring a toothbrush, Angele,” I said. “But we do have a full tank of gas.”
Angele called Holly on the cell phone.
“We definitely have her here heading south, Holly. She must’ve discarded the bag, or maybe she found the GPS tracking device and tossed it. Why don’t you have a look around the parking lot and see if you can find it? The bag and the unit cost us a couple hundred bucks.”
“It should be easy to find; I have a clear signal,” Holly replied.
“After that, please go back to the office and run a trace on her license plate. It’s a Maine plate, number 7258 PL. That’s 7-2-5-8 Papa Lima.”
“Got it,” came the reply.
“Angele and I may end up in Massachusetts or further south. Hopefully we’ll see you no later than tomorrow.”
We stayed safely behind Nicole until we were south of Kennebunk. As we approached the exit for Wells on Sanford Road, she slowed way down, but instead of taking the ramp, she pulled off on the shoulder and came to a complete stop a couple hundred feet in front of the exit. Big problem. She’d make us for sure if we stopped behind her, but there was no way to know if she was going to continue south or get off the turnpike.
I passed her and decided to take the exit. When the ramp took a sharp turn to the right, I pulled over and stopped.
“Sorry, Angele, but you’ve got to get out and hide in the bushes, quickly. I’ll pull up to Sanford Road and find a place to wait. You’ll be able to see if she exits or continues down the highway. I won’t be able to pick you up, so you’ll have to call Holly to come get you.”
Angele grimaced as she sized up our situation.
“Happy New Year, Jesse,” she said as she opened the passenger door.
“My cell phone!” I yelled. “You still have it.”
She tossed it into my lap and jumped out the door.
I drove to Sanford Road and pulled off in a dirt area on the right hand side. From there I could manage getting back on the turnpike, or I could follow Nicole if she exited. I sat and waited.
“This is no way to treat a lady,” Angele complained over the radio. “It’s cold out here.”
“Watch out for bears, Peaches,” I replied.
“James Brown was right after all,” she said.
“How’s that?”
“This is a man’s world.”
“Think of it this way… You get to go home. I’m still on the trail.”
“She’s staying on the turnpike, Jesse! She just flew by.”
“Keep the home fires burning, honey,” I said, as I made a quick U-Turn, got on the ramp and headed south again. In a couple of minutes, I spotted the Camry in the distance.
I could hear Angele calling Holly on her cell, asking her to pick her up. It would take Holly at least twenty-five minutes to get there.
“Jesse, should we follow you?” Angele asked over the radio.
“Let’s figure that out when Holly gets to you. If Nicole keeps going south, I’ll be thirty miles away by then. We’ll probably be out of radio range, so call me on my cell, and we’ll decide.
“There’s a truck stop at the end of the off ramp on the southwest corner, Angele,” I said. “Maybe they have veggie burgers.”
“And maybe Ted Nugent just made a donation to PETA,” she replied.
“Stranger things have happened,” I said.
“Yeah? Like what?”
I racked my brain for half a minute, but came up empty.
12
The Slippery Tail
I was twenty-five miles north of Boston when my phone rang.
“Angele?” I said.
“Jesse, where are you?” she asked.
“I’m still on 95 and just passed Newburyport, Mass. It looks as if she’s on her way to Boston or further south.”
“Holly just picked me up. Should we follow?”
“Yes. We’ll decide how to proceed once Nicole negotiates the city. We’re poking along at the speed limit. Try to close the gap. A second car might be useful if we get into city traffic. Sooner or later, she’ll wonder about the Forester in her rear view mirror. I’m keeping my distance, but it will get more congested as we approach Boston, and I’ll have to move in closer.”
“We’re on our way,” Angele said and then hung up.
We couldn’t make radio contact, so Angele called my cell every ten minutes. While we were chatting for the third time, Nicole moved into the exit-only lane.
“We’re getting off 95 at exit 36,” I said. “I’m hanging up. I’ll call you as soon as I can.”
Exit 36 dumped us off onto Commerce Street. There was one car between us as we approached the first cross street. The light was green, but Nicole slowed down to a crawl as if she were uncertain whether to go straight or not. At that point, the light turned yellow. She stopped briefly and then, suddenly, shot through the intersection as the yellow turned red. I was stuck behind a Ford Taurus.
Nicole sped off down the road. I watched helplessly as she turned left at the far end of a shopping center and disappeared behind a large store. When I got there a m
inute later, I discovered it was the back service entrance to a shopping mall. There were several cars in the lot, but the Camry wasn’t one of them.
The only way out was back to the cross street, Mishawum Road, but when I got to it, there was no sign of Nicole or her car. I had no idea which way she went. Her maneuver seemed to be an attempt to lose a tail. That was the only explanation I could think of for the stall at the light and the route she took. I decided that my best chance was to get back onto 95 south. If she knew I was following her, she wouldn’t want to give away the general whereabouts of her home by taking her normal exit. So I got back on the interstate and put my foot down.
She had a one-minute lead. That amounted to about a mile. The speed limit was 55. If she continued down the highway at 60, I could reach her in six minutes doing 70. I pressed it to 75 and drove for fifteen miles. There was no sign of her car. “She’s a slippery one,” I thought. Except for her license plate, we had no trace of Nicole Levesque, and I had the creeping suspicion that the plate was stolen.
“I lost her, Angele,” I said over the phone. “She disappeared into a Boston suburb. We might as well go back home.”
“What happened?” she asked.
“I’ll tell you all about it when we get to Portland.”
“Let’s stop someplace to eat,” Angele suggested. “It’ll be six o’clock by the time we’re home, and there was nothing at the truck stop even remotely inviting. All I’ve had since breakfast is tomato soup.”
“Fine with me,” I replied. “Pick a place and give me directions. I’m probably twenty minutes behind you.”
“I’ll Google for vegan restaurants in South Lynnfield,” she said. “There should be something around here.”
• • •
The sun was low on the horizon when I pulled into the parking lot at Grassroots. I had mixed emotions. I was hungry, but neither grass nor roots whet my appetite. Holly and Angele were sipping some kind of green tea as I sat down to join them.
“We’ve ordered a pizza,” Angele said enthusiastically. “You’re going to love it.”
“I’m hungry enough to eat a horse—but, no doubt, the caballos will live to see another day,” I offered.
Holly smiled.
“OK,” Angele said. “What happened?”
“She gave me the slip,” I replied. “Either she knew I was following her, or she has standard maneuvers for eluding a possible tail.”
As I was explaining Nicole’s escape, our pizza arrived.
“Do you have your camera with you, Holly, or is it still in the car?” I asked.
“I’ve got it.”
She opened her shoulder bag and pulled it out.
“Let’s see those pictures of Nicole,” I said. “There was something familiar about her, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I only got a brief look at the bus stop.”
Holly turned it on, clicked on the review button and handed the camera across to me. I scrolled through the pictures, found the best one and enlarged the view of her face.
“Yes, she definitely looks familiar.”
After one bite of my pizza, it hit me. “Wow. We’ve just caught a break,” I said. “I have seen her before. Last night! She was with Tina Woodbury at the Rusty Tavern. I only saw her briefly, and I was concentrating on Tina, but I’m certain it was Nicole. There were four of them at the table. She and Tina both had older men for dates. Three-piece suits. At the stroke of midnight, Tina kissed her date. I think Nicole did too.”
“Nicole told Father O’Reilly she has a boyfriend,” Angele reminded us.
“Yes…” I said pensively, “but I wonder if the ‘suit’ is the boyfriend. He looked old enough to be her father. Could be, I guess. But if he is the boyfriend, where is he now? Nicole is in Massachusetts or beyond. Why aren’t they together?”
Holly hadn’t said a word, but I could see the wheels were turning. Finally she said, “There’s no boyfriend. There’s no baby. There’s just a woman with an angle. Bet on it.”
Angele and I sat quietly and gave it some thought. I finished my slice and picked up a second one. Before I took a bite, I put it down and said, “Well, we have two things going for us. We have her license plate number, and I know her friend, Tina Woodbury.”
I turned to Holly and continued, “In fact, Tina might become a client. She asked me to track down her deadbeat ex-husband who’s behind on his alimony. I expect her to come by the office either tomorrow or Friday. She told me he owes her twelve thousand dollars.”
“I’ll start the search for the license plate right now,” Holly said.
She fiddled with her smart phone as Angele and I continued to eat. For vegan pizza, it wasn’t bad. In fact, it was really quite good—artichokes, spinach and mushrooms on a thin, gluten-free crust with a tomato and basil sauce.
“Nice choice for supper, Angele,” I said.
“If you stay with me long enough, Jesse, you’ll live to be a hundred.”
“Either that or I’ll die of a heart attack in bed, with a smile on my face,” I thought, but I kept my mouth shut, the edges of which turned upward into a smile.
“Done,” Holly said. “We should have a name and address by Friday, but it wouldn’t surprise me if her real name is not ‘Nicole Levesque.’” She looked pensive for a few more seconds and then added, “She has Maine plates, but she rushes off to Massachusetts with fifteen thousand dollars in cash? It wouldn’t surprise me if the license plate was stolen. Actually, now that I think about it, nothing much surprises me anymore. I guess that comes from twenty-two years on the force.
“On the other hand,” she continued, “it does surprise me that this pizza tastes so good. What do vegans have for breakfast?”
“Let the infomercial begin,” I said with a grin. Immediately, I regretted my loose tongue.
Angele glared at me and then replied, “Holly, I’ll tell you all about it on our way back to Portland. The girls will chat about food. Jesse can drive back solo and practice his apology.”
I paid the bill, and we returned to our cars. It was dark by the time we were back in Maine. By then, my mea culpa was fully polished, rehearsed and ready to go. But I’d have to put it on hold for a spell.
Angele had called Father O’Reilly as we drove north, and arranged for us to meet with him as soon as we reached Portland. We wanted to give him our report, face to face. The three of us agreed to keep our suspicions to ourselves until we had some actual proof. We arrived at the rectory at 6:30. It was pitch black except for a night sky full of stars and the glow from the porchlight.
When we sat down together in his living room, the first thing he did was pass around his latest picture of Evelyn.
Angele took one look and said, “She’s darling.”
“She looks like an angel, doesn’t she?” Father replied.
Holly and I nodded, and Angele said, “Definitely.”
“Did you find out where Nicole lives?” he asked.
“Not yet, Father,” I replied, “but we have two promising leads.”
I explained to him the details of our surveillance and tracking. He seemed to grow more and more disturbed as my story unfolded, but he perked up a bit when I told him we got the number of her license plate.
Holly turned on her camera and showed him the pictures taken in the park. She even played the video of the two of them sitting on the bleachers.
“I have the audio to go with that, Father,” I said. “I’ll put the two together and give you a copy, along with the photographs.”
He nodded slowly, furrowed his brow and then asked rhetorically, “So she drove all the way to Portland today just to see me and collect her money?”
“Not exactly,” I replied.
“Oh?”
“I saw her last night at a New Year’s Eve party at the Rusty Tavern,” I said. “I believe she’s been in Portland for a week.”
“How do you know that?”
I told him about Tina Woodbury and the two older men, and that Tina
had told me she was staying with an old college girlfriend.
“I’m assuming her friend is Nicole,” I ventured. “She said they’d be going out to see us perform on New Year’s Eve.”
“So where’s Evelyn?” Father asked, more or less to himself.
“That’s a good question,” Holly replied firmly.
By then, Father O’Reilly’s eyes were as big as saucers.
“It sounds like there might not be an Evelyn,” he concluded.
“That’s a distinct possibility, Father,” Holly replied. Her voice contained a mixture of anger and compassion.
After a sustained silence, I added, “I expect Tina to come by the office in a day or two. If she doesn’t, I’ll contact her in Augusta where she lives. I’ll find out all I can about Nicole when we talk. I’ll ask her casually about seeing her and her college friend at the Rusty Tavern; I don’t want her to get suspicious. She might clam up if she knows Nicole is being investigated.”
Father O’Reilly nodded, but couldn’t wipe away the disappointment that had enveloped him.
“Thank you,” he said slowly. “I’d like to be alone now.”
As we got up to leave, Holly walked over to him and gave him a warm hug.
“God works in mysterious ways, Father,” she said.
I wondered how many times he had offered that bit of consolation to others during his tenure as a priest.
He accepted the embrace gracefully and responded, “Thank you, my dear.”
We left the rectory as quiet as church mice.
When we got to our cars, I said, “If it’s all right, Holly, I’d like to borrow your camera overnight. I’ll download the video and audio, and send them off to Billy Mosher in Augusta. He’ll put them together. I’d like to have a finished copy when I speak with Tina. It might prove useful, depending on how our discussion goes. We need to get to the bottom of this as quickly as possible. It could be evidence of a crime.”