Gone Missing: A Jonelle Sweet Mystery Book 2

by R. Lanier Clemons

  “Everything okay?” Sally asked. “You were gone a little while.”

  “No problem,” Jonelle said. “I wanted to make sure he knew what to do.” Jonelle hoped Sally wouldn’t mention to Hugh that she, not Sally, let the plumber in his house. Maybe she’ll forget, Jonelle thought. Which brought her to the other reason for the visit. Her uncle’s comments about Alzheimer’s. She wondered how Sally would react if she were someplace other than her own home.

  “Once we secure all your jewelry, I’ll need to formally close your case,” Jonelle said.

  “Oh, no,” Sally said. “I mean, I guess you’re right.” For some reason it pleased Jonelle that Sally seemed disappointed.

  “Here’s what I was thinking,” Jonelle said. “Even though I’ve found the missing jewelry, I’m still not thrilled with Percy wandering about.” Her peripheral vision noted the frown on Irene’s face. Fortunately, the neighbor kept quiet. “So, if it’s all right with you, I’d like to keep your case open, so that I can find out to my satisfaction what’s going on in your house. In order to do that, I’d like to spend the night over here one evening. Just to see if old Percy does his thing. Maybe you could—”

  “That’s a great idea,” Irene interrupted. “Sally, you could stay with me. You’d be close enough so that if Jonelle discovered anything, she could come right on over.” Irene beamed at Jonelle. It looked as though the two women were on the same wavelength.

  “Well, I don’t know,” Sally murmured. “I don’t like to be a bother.”

  “Nonsense. I’m not taking no for an answer. So, when do you plan on staying over?” Irene asked Jonelle.

  “Sally? Do you have a preference?”

  Sally shook her head and played with the top button on her blouse.

  “Okay. Tomorrow after I take you to the bank, I have a lot of running around to do. Right now, Tuesday looks good.”

  The look on Sally’s face told Jonelle her client still had reservations about staying with Irene.

  “What’s the matter, Sally?” Jonelle asked.

  Sally reached over and plucked at the flowers on the rose bush. “Nothing really. It’s just that, what will I tell Hugh? Will I have to cancel our tea? I’d hate to do that.”

  Irene opened her mouth to speak, but before she did, Jonelle answered Sally’s questions.

  “Just go about your day as normal,” she said. “Keep your tea date with Hugh. The only thing I’d like to request is that you don’t tell him about spending the night at Irene’s place. And definitely don’t mention that I’ll be staying here.” Jonelle looked at Irene and noted the other woman’s slight nod.

  Irene stood, walked over and put her arm around Sally’s shoulders. “This is going to be so much fun. We can act like schoolgirls again. We can gossip and give each other manicures. We can bake brownies. Drink wine.” Irene giggled. Sally giggled too.

  Jonelle also felt like giggling, pleased that things ended well. However, she didn’t relish spending the night alone in Sally’s house. Too many creepy things happened in there. Jonelle made a mental note. Once she returned home, she had to make a list of what to bring. One item she wanted at the top of that list was her .38 pistol.

  CHAPTER 25

  Jonelle’s phone rang in her shoulder bag as she juggled pizza box and keys. Once inside her condo, she arranged the pizza on the dining room table and dug her out her phone.

  “Hello?” Adrienne was on the other line, wondering if Jonelle was home. Seems she was only a mile away and wanted to come over. After assuring Adrienne she was, in fact, at home and advising her to hurry lest the pizza she bought get cold, Jonelle disconnected. Even though she’d devised a plan about Sally’s house, Jonelle wanted to run her thoughts by her best friend.

  Jonelle settled the pizza in the oven, box and all, and lowered the thermostat all the way down. Everyone who knew about this habit warned her against it. “You’ll start a fire,” they all said. To Jonelle, cold pizza was worse than a possible flame up in the oven. She looked in the refrigerator, pleased to see that in addition to some leftover wine, four bottles of beer sat inside the door.

  A sharp buzz signaled Adrienne’s arrival.

  “So, what’s going on?” Adrienne asked, entering the condo. She sniffed the air and frowned. “Don’t tell me you’ve got St. Elmo’s pizza cooking in there.”

  Jonelle waved her off. “Go on and sit down. I’ll get the pizza. I’ve also got beer and some wine.”

  “Think I’m in the mood for a beer,” Adrienne said. She went into the kitchen and pulled out two plates.

  “What do we need plates for? We can just grab slices from the box.”

  Adrienne indicated her clothes. “Do you not see what I’m wearing? I don’t want to get sauce all over my white skirt.”

  “Oh give me a break,” Jonelle grumbled. “Would Madame also like a knife and fork?”

  “Get stuffed,” Adrienne retorted.

  Jonelle grinned. “Nice talk coming from a lady. What’re you up to anyway?”

  Adrienne explained she’d been to a co-worker’s baby shower. “At what point do they stop having those anyway?” she asked. She grabbed a slice of mushroom, black olive and sausage pizza and placed it on her plate.

  Jonelle tore several sheets of paper towel and selected a slice which she proceeded to eat poised over the open box.

  “Heathen,” Adrienne said.

  “Snob,” Jonelle replied. “Anyway, in answer to your question, these days every time somebody gets pregnant, you are expected to have a party and get Mama’s little bundle of joy a gift. Easier now though, since everybody already knows the sex. ‘Course, at the agency, I don’t have that problem.” Jonelle took a bite of pizza and swigged a little beer. “Back when I worked security at the university, not only did the women expect a shower and gift, the men did too.”

  Adrienne nodded. “Tell me about it. But what about where you are now? I can see where Rainey is past the baby bit, but don’t you work with two guys? Don’t they expect something?”

  “Are you kidding me? Ben’s working on wife number three, and trust me, she’s not looking to have any more kids. As for Omar, well, he’s much too private to go in for that sort of thing.”

  “Hmm,” Adrienne said, draining the last of her beer. She wiggled her bottle for another one and Jonelle pointed to the kitchen. She noticed that while Adrienne demanded a plate, she didn’t need a glass for the beer. Go figure.

  Jonelle waited until Adrienne sat back down, to tell her of the plan for Sally.

  “I can’t believe you’re going back to that crazy house,” Adrienne said. She looked at her arm. “Rash is gone, and so’s the mark. Don’t know what that was, but I do know this: I will not be going back in there.”

  Jonelle grabbed another slice. “No one’s asking you to. I have a theory about what could be going on, and the only way for me to test it, is to spend the night at her place.”

  “Uh-huh, and won’t ole Perry—”

  “Percy,” Jonelle corrected.

  “Whatever. Won’t the ole dude know you’re not the delicate Sally? I got a feeling, dead or not, that he’d be able to tell the difference.” She giggled.

  “Oh, very funny. It’s not Percy I’m worried about.” Jonelle told her of the brief foray into Hugh’s house and the note she found. “It’s gotta be Sally’s son, William doing this to her. From the moment I met him, he always implied Sally was bonkers. And Hugh is somehow also involved. I got a feeling one of them may visit Sally pretty soon.”

  Adrienne frowned and pointed an acrylic finger at Jonelle. “So now you can add breaking and entering to this case. Just great. Don’t forget to write when you’re in prison.”

  “I didn’t break in. Sally gave me the key.”

  “Heaven help us,” Adrienne said, rolling her eyes to the ceiling.

  Jonelle recounted Sally’s frantic call about more jewelry going missing, and how she found everything underneath the leaves of a potted plant.

 
Adrienne raised the beer to her lips. She paused, holding the bottle inches from her mouth. Instead of taking a drink she set it down, eyebrows knitted close together. “That doesn’t sound good,” she said. “Listen, I know I just met her that one time. To me she seemed very bright and aware of what was going on. But this… this could be a sign of a more serious problem.”

  “I know.” Jonelle stood and took the remaining pizza into the kitchen. She seized the last bottle of beer from the refrigerator and returned to her seat in the dining room. “Discovering jewelry used as expensive plant food bothered me. What’s more, the only explanation she had was that ‘maybe’ she forgot and somehow the pieces I found, plus the earrings and bracelet, just landed in the dirt. I’m not buying it, at least not until I have more proof that she’s the one doing these things and not someone else.”

  Jonelle filled Adrienne in on her impressions of William, labeling him a “certified bigot”, and Hugh, someone she considered a “British weirdo”. “When I go over there Tuesday night, I hope to find out who really is haunting Sally,” she said.

  “What if Percy the ghost doesn’t show up?”

  Jonelle shrugged. “I’ll figure that out when I get there. If she keeps this a secret I have a feeling somethings gonna happen.”

  Adrienne picked at the label on the bottle of beer. “You sure you’re gonna be okay doing this by yourself? Does Marvin know? Maybe he can get one of the guys to help you out.”

  “What? ‘Get one of the guys?’ News flash. I am a licensed private detective and can take care of myself. Thank you very much,” Jonelle said with more outrage in her voice than she intended.

  “Oh calm down and lower your voice, I’m not deaf,” Adrienne said. “I’m not questioning your dee-tec-tive skills. But how many times have you confronted a ghost? I still believe someone grabbed me in that attic, and if it wasn’t old Percy, then who was it?”

  “That’s what I’m going to find out.”

  Adrienne started to rise from her seat, and then sat back down. Seconds passed as she studied her friend. “I can’t believe I’m saying this,” she said with a huge sigh. “Look, I’ll never forgive myself if something bad happened to you. Plus, if Marvin found out what I knew you had planned and didn’t tell him, he’d kill me. So, how about I go with you? I’ll be there to call 9-1-1 when ole Percy or whoever tries to grab you.”

  Jonelle drained the rest of her beer to cover the smile on her lips. She wasn’t afraid of staying alone in that house. But if she encountered ghouls, ghosts or who knew what, better to have a friend along. Still, she didn’t want her best friend to get too involved. “Thanks, but I can handle this myself.”

  “This isn’t about what you can or cannot handle and you know it. I saw the smile. So, what time are we going to the heebie-jeebie joint?”

  “Sally told me she usually went to bed after the ten o’clock news. I’m going to ask her to leave the lights on when she goes out the back door and over to Irene’s house. So, I figure if I make sure I’m inside her house around ten-thirty, I’ll turn off the lights around eleven and wait for… whatever.”

  “Yeah. It’s the ‘whatever’ that worries me.” Adrienne checked her watch. “Didn’t realize it was this late. Gotta go. I told my mom I’d take her to the movies tonight.”

  “What are you guys going to see?”

  Adrienne shrugged. “You know how she is. As long as it has a lot of sex in it, it doesn’t really matter.”

  They both screamed with laughter and high fived each other.

  After seeing Adrienne out, Jonelle cleaned up and reflected on both her cases. People she knew and respected told her not to get personally involved, but how could she not? In some ways the cases were similar. Both of them involved something of value that had gone missing. It didn’t matter if what was missing was an item of jewelry or a missing friend. Both situations had meaning to the persons who missed them.

  As Jonelle inserted leftover slices of pizza in plastic storage bags and tucked them in the freezer, she decided that while Sally’s jewelry had both monetary and sentimental value, Marcella’s concern over her friend somehow resonated more with Jonelle. That concern illustrated the importance friendship played in everyone’s lives. If not for Marcella, would anyone miss LucieBlu enough to wonder what happened to the woman who kept trying to reach her dream?

  CHAPTER 26

  The first thing Jonelle did Monday when she got to the office was call detective Thelonius Burton. She wanted Burt to run the tags on the two men she encountered at Rainbows and Lollipops. Burt put up token resistance, finally agreeing he’d check, if he had the time. “It’s not my jurisdiction, Jonelle,” he’d said. “But I’ll see what I can do.” Jonelle told him the one with the pierced ear might have a record. She asked him to ring her cellphone if he found out anything.

  In spite of Marcella’s reluctance to get the police involved, Jonelle asked Burt if she could stop by to open a missing person’s case. “I’ve got a photo of her on my phone, as well as a copy of the flier her friend distributed. This friend should’ve contacted you guys before, but, well, that’s a different story.” Jonelle checked her schedule. “I’ve got to take a client to the bank later, but I can stop by now if you’re free.”

  A loud exhalation of air came through the phone. “You know I don’t handle missing persons cases, but come on over,” Burt said. “I’ll take the information and give it to one of the guys.”

  After straightening up a few items on her desk, Jonelle headed for the County Police Department. Burt left her name with the front desk sergeant, so all she had to do was sign in, grab a visitor’s badge and take the stairs to the second floor. On her way up, she called Burt and he agreed to wait outside the door to the division, to let her in.

  True to his word, Burt stood outside the entrance to the Criminal Investigations Unit. Over the past year Jonelle had perceived more than just a passing interest in her from Burt. Although romance didn’t enter the equation now, Jonelle considered him a friend and consummate professional.

  Jonelle smiled at Burt as he opened the door. She gazed at the tie hanging around his neck. “Are we in a Disney mood today?”

  Burt fingered the silver tie. Embroidered in the center was a depiction of a bright yellow “minion,” complete with black-framed glasses circling two bulging eyes. He stepped aside to allow Jonelle to enter the unit before he responded. “I love these little guys. Makes me feel happy. If you know what I mean.” He winked.

  The two of them laughed at his joke. No one said anything else until Burt indicated the side chair next to his desk. “As I mentioned before,” he said, clearing his throat, “I don’t handle missing persons, but I’ll go ahead and take down the report and pass it on. So, what have you got for me?”

  Jonelle reached for the flier in her bag and pulled up the picture on her phone. “I got these from Marcella Abbot. She’s worried something bad may have happened to her friend. She gave up posting the flier all around town because she figured it would take too long. Marcella’s concerned that in LucieBlu’s depressed state, her friend may not be thinking properly.”

  “Lucy Blue? That her real name?”

  “LucieBlu Bonderant,” she said, spelling first and last names. She’d fill in him as things went on.

  Burt took the flier from Jonelle and studied it for a few moments. He placed it on the desk and told Jonelle to send the phone’s picture to his email address. “What about the parents? Have they been contacted? Since she was depressed, maybe she left to stay with family.” He held out the flier for Jonelle to take. She shook her head.

  “You keep that. Marcella says LucieBlu was estranged from her family and doubts she’d turn to them. I have their names and the fact they live in Illinois. That’s all.” Jonelle watched Burt’s expression as she gave him the information. He frowned. “Not exactly out of the ordinary, huh? Makes you wonder why she’s named…,” he looked as his screen, “LucieBlu.”

  Jonelle took a deep breath a
nd told him about the two men she met at the club where she believed LucieBlu made her last appearance. “These guys were taking pictures of females in the club and got belligerent when I tried to ask them some questions. They look like brothers and I got a funny feeling they may be involved in her disappearance somehow.”

  A scowl deepened the lines in Burt’s face. “Why would they come back more than once and call attention to themselves?” he asked.

  “You and I both know intelligence is not these types of guys’ strong suit. I don’t want to rule anything out.” Jonelle looked sideways at Burt. “Um, if I give you their license plate number, could you run the plates on ‘Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle Dee’s’ car?”

  Burt didn’t answer right away. He looked at Jonelle for a few beats. “I’ll see what I can do, but I can’t promise anything.” He wrote down the information and frowned when she mentioned the car had Delaware tags. “That’s out of my jurisdiction,” he said, leaning back in his chair.

  “I know. But I thought that with everything being so computerized these days, it wouldn’t take long. As in about a minute. Right?”

  A twinkle formed in Burt’s eyes as he sat up and turned to his computer. After several keystrokes, followed by a thirty or so second wait, Burt picked up a sticky notepad and wrote down some information. He held it just out of her reach. “Now, before I show you what I have written here, you have to promise not to divulge this to anyone else. This is proprietary information, you know.”

  Jonelle held out her hand. “Oh come off it, Burt,” she said. “You know I won’t give this information out to anyone. So, hand it over.” She wiggled her fingers at him.

  Burt cleared his throat several times. The sides of his mouth curled up. He looked over to Jonelle and noted the firm set of her mouth. The expression on his face turned serious. “Sorry. Don’t mean to play around. Okay, here you go.” He handed her the note at the same time he read from his computer screen.