by Jeff Shelby
“So you told him I was up here?”
“Fuck no,” he said, chuckling again. “Told him I hadn’t talked to you.”
I smiled.
“He tried to play it off like he was just curious, but it had a weird feel, you know?” Mike said. “Just didn’t feel right. But then he didn’t follow up or anything, so I didn’t think much of it.”
“Okay.”
“So this morning, I go to his office. Needed to ask him something about a case. He’s not at his desk,” he said. “I go to leave him a note because he still won’t use email.”
I nodded, remembering his resistance to computers and technology.
“And your file was on his desk,” Mike said.
“Maybe he misses me.”
“We both know that’s not true,” Mike said. “It was just weird. Yesterday he asks me if I talked to you, then today I see the file on his desk. Clearly, he’s got you on the brain.”
Small snowflakes dotted the windshield and the heater continued to hum. I shifted in my seat.
“Maybe he’s just doing some maintenance,” I said. “Cleaning up old files, that kind of crap.”
“Maybe,” Mike said. “But then he wouldn’t have needed to ask me if I’d talked to you. Unless he really missed you.”
It was my turn to chuckle. “Right.”
“Anyway, I just thought it was odd,” Mike said. “And I wanted you to know.”
Most of the Coronado PD had distanced themselves from me the moment Bazer had hinted to the media that I might have something to do with Elizabeth’s disappearance. Mike never wavered. I was sure Bazer hated him for that but there was no way he could remove him from his job. He was too good and had been around too long. He probably just ignored him.
“Okay,” I said. “Thanks for the heads up.”
“If I see anything else, I’ll let you know,” Mike said. “And I’ll get on the names in Florida today.”
I thanked him again and we hung up.
The snow blanketed the windshield and I hit the wipers to clear it. I turned down the heat, the air in the car heavy and warm.
I appreciated Mike’s call but I didn’t think there was as much to it as he did. Bazer was a control freak and the fact that I’d returned to Coronado probably rattled his cage more than he liked. Pretty sure he wasn’t happy that I’d even set foot on the island. To me, it just felt like he was checking to make sure I was gone, so he could relax and not worry about me stirring up things he didn’t want to remember. He was glad to be rid of me.
And I was glad to be rid of him.
SIXTEEN
It was too late in the day to do anything with the school. I wouldn’t be able to find anyone in the office or at a district office. I tried not to feel frustrated. Just because finding Elizabeth was my singular focus didn’t mean it was anyone else’s. There was no sense of urgency on anyone’s part but mine. There were other things going on, other things that took precedence.
So I had to wait.
I drove back to the apartment complex and got out of my car just as Isabel was pulling up. I walked toward her car and she glanced at me, still irritated.
“I need something to do,” I said.
“What?” she said. “You need to be entertained?”
“No,” I said. “I’ve done all I can do today on Elizabeth. I’m yours now.”
She stopped and brushed the snow from her face. “You have anything warmer to wear?”
“This is all I brought.”
She shook her head. “Follow me.”
I did and we went into the rental office. We walked passed the desk and down a back hall. She pulled out a set of keys and led me to a door at the end of the hall. She opened it.
“This is another apartment?” I asked, stepping in behind her.
“No,” she said. “It’s my apartment. Thirty-two steps from the front desk.”
I nodded and she disappeared down another hall. Her apartment was neat, well-kept. A small blue sofa and a rectangular coffee table occupied the living room. A small piano sat against one wall, a TV on top of a bookshelf on the other. A few Impressionist prints hung on the walls, their frames slightly askew. A small kitchen was tucked around the corner, a pine table set with lace placemats. The faint smell of lavender hung in the air.
She came back holding a heavier jacket and gloves. “Try these.”
I took off my coat and put on hers. It was a little big, but provided significantly more warmth. She handed me the gloves and I pulled them on.
“It’s going to be cold tonight,” she said. “I’ve got hand warmers, too, but I’ll wait to give you those later. You need a hat, too.”
“I’ll be okay.”
“Spoken by someone who’s never been out late at night in a Minnesota winter,” she said, going over to a closet. She opened the door, rummaged for a moment, then tossed a red knit hat at me. “Wear it. You can thank me later.”
I pulled it on. She looked at me for a moment, then came over to me. She reached up and pulled it down a little lower.
“It’s your ears we’re looking to protect here,” she said. She stepped back. “That’ll work.”
“Are we going skiing or something?”
She snorted. “Hardly. We gotta go hand out blankets. And food. And clothes.”
“To who?”
She waved me back out the door. She closed it behind us and locked it. She turned back to me.
“To whoever we find,” she said.
SEVENTEEN
Our first stop was a storage shed about a mile from the complex.
“I keep everything I get in here,” Isabel said. “I tried to keep it at home, but it kept growing, so I had to find another spot.”
The snow was falling faster now as the sun began to dip. The air felt different. Crisper. Cleaner. Colder. It stung my eyes, burned my nostrils.
“Does it ever stop snowing here?” I asked.
She smiled. “Yes. In May.”
She rolled up the metal door on the shed and we stepped inside. It was a heated unit and the warmth escaped in a rush of steam, wrapping around me.
It was three-quarters full. Blankets of all colors and materials were stacked eye-high along one wall. Several rolling racks housed jackets and long sleeve shirts. There were maybe two dozen boxes of gloves, scarves and hats. Cases of bottled water took up another wall, along with crates full of snacks: bags of chips, cookies and granola bars, fruit snacks and packages of nuts.
“It’s all donated,” she said. “I beg and sometimes people give.”
“Wow,” I said. “You must be good at begging.”
“I’ve gotten better at it,” she said. “More persuasive. I’ve graduated from asking people I know to local businesses and grocery stores. People are generous. You just have to ask.”
“So what do we take?”
“A little of everything,” she said. “You get the water and food. I’ll grab the clothes.”
Twenty minutes later, the back of her SUV was full and the storage shed was half-empty. We got back in the car and we were on the slick, slow-moving highway before either of us spoke again.
“So,” I said. “Tell me about Marc.”
“I told you about him before,” she said glancing in the rearview mirror.
“Here’s a tip. If you actually want help, you’ll need to share details.”
She hit her blinker and slowly changed lanes. “I know that.”
“Then why all of the secrecy?”
“Because I need to know that I can trust you.”
“So, what? You give me a place to live so you can keep an eye on me?” I shook my head. “This is why people don’t get found.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
I stared out my window at the long rows of cars crawling with us in the snow. “It means that people don’t understand what urgency really means. Because it means taking risks and sometimes failing. It means trusting people you just met, even if they end up
being wrong. Because there is no other way.” I shook my head. “The longer the wait, the less chance you have of finding someone. And I’m talking minutes, alright? The more minutes you wait, the more your odds decrease.”
She stiffened in the driver’s seat.
“I get that people don’t always like me,” I continued. “Because I come off as uptight and don’t wanna make small talk. Well, guess what? You know how Rodney said he’d heard of me, that I’d had success at finding people?” I looked at her. “It’s because I’m uptight and don’t wanna make small talk. Because there is a giant ticking clock over every missing person’s head and the longer it ticks, the longer they're away from their families and friends. And eventually the clock stops ticking.”
She switched lanes again, moving around an ancient pick-up truck that was having trouble finding traction. Headlights were coming on all around us as the winter sky moved to black.
“I wish I hadn’t stuck that cigarette in Jacob Detwiler’s face yesterday,” I said. “Didn’t make me feel very good. But I needed him to talk and I don’t waste time when it comes to my daughter. Because I don’t even know if her clock is still ticking.”
We came to a halt in the traffic and the brakes on the SUV squeaked.
“I haven’t done anything to help Marc, have I?” she finally said.
“No.”
She leaned her elbow on her door, set her head in her hand. “You already told me I should’ve gone to his home. And broke my promise to him.”
I nodded. “Because promises are irrelevant now.”
The sigh that came out of her was frustrated and angry. “Right.”
“I’ve offered to help you,” I said. “I’m not sure what else you need from me.”
“A lot of times when people offer to help, they don’t mean it,” she said. “They want something.”
“I can’t speak for other people, but I’ve been upfront with you about what I’m doing here in Minneapolis from the beginning,” I told her. “You know what I want. And it has nothing to do with you. You’ve given me the help you said you would. I’m offering to help you now. You don’t want my help? Fine. That’s more time for me to work on finding Elizabeth.”
The traffic started moving slowly again, snow fluttering against the windows.
“Okay,” she said. “Yes. I want your help. I want to find Marc.”
“The two guys,” I said. “How are they connected to Marc?”
“He owes them money,” Isabel said. “But I don’t know what for. He wouldn’t tell me.”
“How do you know them?”
“Because I’ve helped them both,” she said. “They were both homeless. I fed them. Got them clothes.”
“And now what do they do?”
“Nothing good,” she said. “Same story with a lot of kids. I can keep them warm, feed them, but I can’t always point them in the right direction.”
I knew that was true. It could be a vicious circle. They couldn’t catch a break so they didn’t think they deserved one. They didn’t think they deserved anything good, so all they looked for was the bad.
“What about the father?” I asked.
The traffic loosened and she pressed harder on the pedal. We surged forward a bit. “He’s a…different story.”
“How?”
“They don’t get along,” she said. “I don’t think it was abusive or anything like that. But from the little bit he shared with me, they couldn’t be in a room together more than five minutes without screaming at one another.”
“So what makes that so different?” I asked. “Plenty of that goes around.”
She switched lanes and pointed the SUV toward the upcoming exit. “His father is high profile.”
“How high profile?”
We exited and came to a stop at the bottom of the ramp, the snow gathering in dirty, wet piles around us.
She looked at me. “How high profile would you consider the head of a crime family?”
EIGHTEEN
Isabel guided the SUV to a street on the west side of the downtown area and parked in front a massive stone church.
“I sit here for awhile,” she explained. “Some will come to us. Then we’ll go walk for a bit.”
I nodded.
She reclined her seat a little and stretched out her legs. “Peter Codaselli. Marc’s father. Reputed leader of all organized crime in the Twin Cities.”
“He run a legit business as a front?”
“Sure,” she said. “But not what you’d think. No construction corporations or waste management companies. Finance. He runs an investment group.”
“That’s different.”
She nodded. “Yeah. He’s an interesting character. He’s big on the social scene, passes himself off as a philanthropist, tries to run in those kinds of circles.”
“Tries?”
“Well, he has the money to move in that crowd and, being who he is, no one is going to tell him no or to get lost,” she said. “But there’s kind of a hush-hush quality to it. He’s there, but he’s not really part of the group.”
Two boys, somewhere in their teens, sidled up to the car and Isabel rolled the window down. She gave them each a bottle of water and handfuls of packaged food. “You two good on blankets tonight?”
They both nodded, their eyes moving nervously to me, scanning me, then back to Isabel.
“We got the ones from last week still,” the one kid said, a mop of brown hair escaping from a navy knit cap. “No one took ‘em.”
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll be around tonight if you need me.”
“Thanks, Iz,” the boy said and they disappeared just as quickly as they’d shown up.
“So, it’s kind of weird,” Isabel continued.
“We know for sure the crime-king thing is good?” I asked. “Not just hung on him because he’s some rich Italian guy?”
She shook her head. “No, it’s real. I checked with people in the department. There’s no doubt. And Marc confirmed it, too.”
“He did?”
“Roundabout way, yeah,” she said. “He didn’t come out directly with it, but I asked enough of the right questions and he gave me enough of the right answers to know it’s true.”
The snow pecked at the windshield. “You said he doesn’t mention mom?”
“Nope. No idea who she is.”
“They aren’t married?”
“He’s on his third next ex-wife.”
“Marc’s mom was number one?”
“Yeah, I believe so.”
The snow was beginning to cover the hood, light, white crystals gathering like sand and I thought about Marc. There were any number of ways the son of a Mafia head could disappear, most of them not by his own choosing. Someone looking to unseat his father. Someone looking to send a message. Retribution. They all sounded cliché, but they all also sounded very real.
“You have any indicators before he disappeared?” I asked. “Anything that didn’t seem right?”
She shook her head. “No. I’ve been over it each day since he’s been gone. Nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Maybe he just got tired of helping. Decided to go do something else.”
She nodded slowly. “Maybe. But I don’t think so. He was excited about the job. That it was real and not something being given to him as a handout.”
I shifted in the seat. “How long was he out here?”
“About six months with me,” she said. “I think almost six before that. So close to a year.”
“But he’s nineteen. So he was legal when he left.”
“Yeah,” she said, sighing. “He was. And I don’t think Codaselli was looking for him or wanted him home. Marc went to see him about a month ago. Not sure why. When he came back, he wouldn’t talk about it. But I think whatever relationship they ever had was gone.”
Any time I looked for someone, particularly a kid, I couldn’t get over the fact that parents were willing to let go of their children. Yes, my view wa
s skewed by Elizabeth’s abduction, but I just couldn’t believe so many parents were willing to let their own kids walk away. I saw it all the time and it never got easier to believe.
More kids showed up at the car, most looking cold, tired and anxious. Isabel knew how to talk to them, treated each one differently. She spoke to them as though they were her friends, like she’d been waiting for them to show up because she’d missed them. She had a terrific way with them and it was clear to me why they trusted her.
Because she cared.
“We need to talk to the father,” I said. The last group had moved on and we were alone.
“I figured you were going to say that.”
“You were only getting a part of the picture. The part Marc wanted you to see. We need to see the other parts. Even if they aren’t pleasant.”
She leaned her forehead against the steering wheel. “I know. That’s the stuff I’m not good at, though. Asking questions, digging. I hate being invasive. It’s why the kids trust me. I’m not good at it.”
I stared at the window. The snow was coming down in sheets, clinging to everything it touched, the night more white than black now. I thought of all of the people I’d interviewed over the years, asking them tough questions, embarrassing questions, painful questions. How I’d become almost immune to any discomfort they felt in being asked things they didn’t want a stranger to know the answers to. But it was the only way to help them find what they’d lost, even if they didn’t know it in the moment. They’d yell at me, scream at me, threaten me. I would sit there, dead-faced, wishing the tables were turned and someone was asking me tough questions about Elizabeth because they were so close to finding her.
“That’s okay,” I finally said. “Because I’ve gotten pretty good at it.”
NINETEEN
I spent most of the night a few feet behind Isabel.
Around midnight, we got out of the car and started walking. Wind bit into my neck like icy razors and I pulled the collar of the jacket higher, trying to cover all of my exposed skin. I couldn’t imagine trying to spend the night sleeping in the low temperatures.