Vanishing Act

by Barbara Block

  Bryan spent the five minutes it took to reach his house talking about how overwhelmed he felt, a feeling, given his position, I could empathize with. The Hayes house was located in the Outer Comstock area, about five blocks from a small vest-pocket park, in a neighborhood populated mostly by students, teaching assistants, high school teachers, and the occasional assistant professor.

  I pointed to the maple in the front yard as I parked in the driveway. “Is that the tree in the picture Melissa was leaning against?”

  “We used to have a swing in it when we were little,” Bryan noted, getting out of the cab. He fished around in his jacket pocket for his keys as we walked over the snow-covered front lawn and up the three icy steps to the front porch. After a couple of seconds of fumbling with the key in the lock—“damn thing always sticks,” he groused—we went inside.

  Bryan pointed to the stairs. I wiped my feet on the floor mat. “Missy’s room is up there.”

  I peeked into the living room as I followed him. The beige carpeting needed to be vacuumed, one end of the brown tweed sofa was covered with what must have been a two-week accumulation of newspapers, and the top of the television supported a line of soda cans.

  “I’m going to clean everything up today,” Bryan said, motioning me along.

  Something told me he’d been saying that for weeks.

  Melissa’s room was at the head of the stairs.

  Bryan stepped inside and gestured for me to follow. “All her stuff from the dorm is still here. I just left it. I didn’t know what to do.”

  I looked around. The room surprised me. It was the room of an eight-year-old girl, an eight-year-old girl from twenty years ago. The wallpaper was a floral, with faint green and white stripes in the background, while the foreground was dominated by bunches of white and yellow pansies. The bedspread on Melissa’s four-poster was white chenille. Her furniture was antique white. Stuffed animals and dolls decorated her shelves and the top of her dresser.

  “She didn’t want to change anything,” Bryan informed me as I took another step inside. “My mom offered, but she said she liked it like this.”

  “She seems conservative.”

  “She is.” Bryan pointed to the duffel-sized laundry bags lying on their sides on the beige carpeting and the four cartons next to them. “That’s her stuff from the dorm.”

  “Do you mind if I look?”

  “Be my guest.”

  The cartons turned out to be full of books, toiletries, cleaning supplies, and the other ephemera of dorm living. I dug around a little and came up with a beer stein, a small stuffed bear, and a key chain with a .45 shell attached to it.

  “What’s this?” I asked, holding up the key chain.

  Bryan laughed. “All that stuff are the prizes Missy won at the state fair last year.”

  I put everything back and straightened up. “What’s in the duffel bags?”

  “Bed sheets. Towels. Pillowcases. Dirty laundry. I hung her clean clothes in the closet.” He crossed the room and opened the closet door. “See.”

  Melissa’s closet was crammed with slacks, jeans, shirts, jackets, and dresses, all of which seemed to have come from the J. Crew catalogue or the Gap.

  “I can see why you can’t tell if something is missing or not,” I said, studying the jumble inside.

  “You should see her drawers,” Bryan said, and he opened one for me to prove his point. “How many T-shirts does one person need?”

  “Evidently, a lot,” I said, rummaging through the dresser.

  “The police couldn’t find anything,” Bryan said.

  “Maybe I can do better.”

  After an hour, though, I was forced to conclude that I couldn’t.

  Chapter 4

  It was a little after seven in the evening when I left Bryan Hayes and headed over to the store. It was dark. Smoke streamed out of house chimneys, cars had their lights on, and the people that were out walking hurried along. I wished spring would come, I reflected as I waited for a light to turn green on State Street. I could deal with December, January, and February, but March in Syracuse seemed interminable. Winter’s charms, such as they were, had worn thin.

  All I wanted was sunlight and the tender greens of May, but spring wouldn’t come till the end of April—if we were lucky. As far as I was concerned, March and April were the bleakest months of the year, the time, if you could afford it, to go south. Unfortunately, I couldn’t do that even if I could afford to, which I couldn’t. Stores are jealous mistresses—take too much time off, and they might not be around when you get back.

  I thought about bleak again when I pulled up in front of my store. It certainly was a good word for the window display, although boring was probably a better one. Window dressing had never been my forte. Fortunately, this wasn’t Bloomingdale’s and I wasn’t selling clothes. Most of our clientele came because they needed crickets or birdseed, not because they’d been window-shopping and something had caught their eye. The store wasn’t in the kind of area that promoted leisurely strolling anyway, unless, of course, you enjoyed looking at run-down houses and convenience stores.

  At one point I’d been thinking of taking out a loan and setting up in one of the malls, but after going over the figures with my accountant, I’d decided it wasn’t worth it. The overhead was too high. Most of the shops in the mall were chains—and with good reason. It took deep pockets to keep one going, and I didn’t have those.

  Besides, the items that usually attracted people—large boids and parrots—were precisely the ones I wasn’t about to put on display. The stress was bad for them, and they were too easy to steal. All you had to do was smash a window, grab, and go. Three pet stores in the area had been robbed recently. The thieves had gotten away with thousands of dollars worth of birds that they would probably resell down in New York City, a loss I couldn’t afford. So maybe boring wasn’t so bad after all.

  Noah’s Ark had started off on the ground floor of an old house that had received a variance for commerical use. I’d liked that space better, even though it had been harder to maintain, but when it had burned down, I’d moved us to your standard small-size commerical space, consisting of a front room with a storeroom, small office, and bathroom in back. I’d packed as much product as I could—we had shelves running to the ceiling—into the store without making it look cluttered. We continued to specialize in reptiles and miscellaneous exotics such as hissing cockroaches and tarantulas. What we didn’t sell were puppies and kittens, except for the ones dumped at our front door by irresponsible jerks.

  Tim looked up from the leashes he was sorting through as I came in. The smell of cedar shavings permeated the air.

  “Ah,” he said. “The great detective returns.” He was a slight guy in his early thirties. In the last few years he’d gone through some sort of midlife crisis and shaved his head, pierced his ears and his nose, and taken to dressing in black. Maybe he thought we were really in SoHo. He’d worked with my husband when he’d opened the store and stayed on when Murphy had died and I’d taken it over. He was good with snakes. I always thought he knew as much, maybe even more, than the herp curator at the zoo, and, given his appearance, was also surprisingly good with little old ladies and kids.

  “That’s me. Sherlock Holmes in drag.”

  “You’ve had about ten phone calls from Tino.”

  I cursed under my breath. I’d forgotten all about him. I was working on getting an indigo and a red-tailed Haitian boa for the guy. I’d found a couple of babies down in Florida, but it was too cold to fly them up since the cargo areas in planes aren’t heated, and so far I hadn’t come up with anything from the local breeders I’d phoned. I had three more people to call though. I’d hoped one of them could help me out. If not, there’d be something at the herp show down in Philly—with one hundred dealers there always was.

  Tim gave me a baleful glance. “I’ve got more than enough to do here without acting as your secretary.” The gurgling of the fish tanks punctuated his
sentence.

  I apologized. Tim disapproved of what had become a regular part-time gig for me because it took me away from the store. My cases had me spending a lot of time becoming acquainted with stupid people who not only did stupid things but occasionally did them in the store.

  On the other hand, once in a while my cases did bring in some extra off-the-books cash, which we could definitely use. Unfortunately, it wasn’t often enough, because my clientele usually do not tend to be the rich and well connected. I’d fallen into the work when I’d become a murder suspect and had to clear myself. Then several people had asked me to help them out. I’d said yes because I have trouble saying no, and after a couple of go-rounds I’d become hooked on the action. Sometimes I even think about selling the store and opening up an office. Robin Light. Private detective. I could work off someone else’s license. I don’t know. I can’t decide. But until I do, I still have a business to run, which was why I asked what else had happened since I’d been gone.

  Tim shrugged. “Aside from the phone never stopping ringing, not much. We sold some feeders since you’ve been gone. A couple of mollies, a bag of that all-natural dog food. That’s about it.”

  Business had been sluggish since after Christmas and, if previous years were any indication, it would remain that way until the spring, when sales would start picking up again.

  “Oh.” Tim slapped the counter. A guinea pig, momentarily distracted by the noise, glanced up and then went back to its food. “You’ll enjoy this one. Some lady wanted to know if we sold Gaboon vipers. She wanted to give her boyfriend a surprise birthday present.”

  “That would be quite a surprise. Did you explain about them?”

  “I think she knew.”

  “Nice lady.” Depending on the size of the person, a bite from a Gaboon could be fatal, a fact that reminded me of the conversation I’d just had with Bryan Hayes. “Speaking of which, do you remember if we sold a boa or a Burmese to a kid called Tommy West?” I inquired as I went behind the counter to stow my backpack. Zsa Zsa, my cocker spaniel, looked up from her bed by the back wall and yawned. I swear that animal sleeps at least eighteen hours a day. Maybe I should cut back on her beer ration.

  Tim twirled the stud in his ear around while he thought. “Sorry,” he said after a minute. “The name doesn’t ring a bell. Why?”

  Zsa Zsa got up, stretched, and came over for a pet. I scratched behind her ears. She gave my hand a hello lick, then went in the back to get some water. I straightened up and put the flyer Bryan had given me on the counter.

  “What about her? Does she look familiar?”

  Tim glanced down. “That’s the case you’re working on? I remember reading something in the paper, but I can’t remember what.” He frowned. “After a while all these missing-person cases sound alike. Another couple and I’m going to begin believing what those alien abduction guys are saying.”

  I nodded. “According to her brother, she was in our store last year wanting to buy a sugar glider. You told her they make bad pets.”

  “Well they do. Sorry, I don’t remember her. I guess she didn’t make much of an impression.”

  “He thinks she was killed by her boyfriend’s snake.” I told Tim the story.

  He snorted. “When in doubt, blame the reptile.”

  “Well, it is a possibility. Remember down in New York,” I said, referring to an incident that had recently taken place in the Bronx.

  “The guy didn’t feed the snake. He was a moron.”

  “Now he’s a dead moron.”

  “It was a nine-foot retic.”

  I wondered what kind of boid Tommy West had and how often he fed it.

  The bell on the front door rang. A customer walked in.

  “I don’t know,” Tim said as he watched him approach.

  “If I had to trust a reptile or a person, my money would go with the reptile. At least they’re predictable.”

  I was inclined to agree.

  Chapter 5

  George changed lanes without looking, cutting off the Blazer behind us. The guy in the Blazer pulled up next to us, rolled down his window, and screamed, “Why don’t you learn how to drive, asshole?”

  George muttered an obscenity and we shot forward, two cars in a choreographed dance. A moment later George slowed back down. “Aren’t you going to say anything?” he demanded while he checked the rearview mirror. The Blazer was nowhere in sight. It had turned off.

  “Like what?” I wanted to say a lot—I mean, it’s hard to get into an accident when there are three cars on the road—but George was looking for a fight and I was damned if I was going to oblige.

  He glanced at me suspiciously, waiting for me to continue. When I didn’t, he began fiddling with the radio. A moment later he turned it off. “Twenty-five stations and nothing on any of them,” he complained.

  I remained quiet. We were in George’s car driving toward the bus terminal on Erie Boulevard. The Greyhound Raymond was on was due to arrive in ten minutes. I don’t think I’d ever seen George so distracted or nervous. He’d been calmer when I’d found him stuffed in a trunk after he’d been shot and left for dead. But then, that was probably easier to handle than the thought of playing daddy to his prodigal nephew. After all, one was over quickly, the other could linger on and on. Not, of course, that he had to do this. He could have said no. But we’d already had that discussion—twice. I got a cigarette out of my backpack.

  “Not in the car,” George said.

  I was good. I kept my resolution. I didn’t say anything. I just put it away.

  “I thought you were quitting,” George continued.

  “Did I say that?” No. This was going to be fun, I decided. Especially after all the toughlove lectures George had given me about Manuel. I was going to enjoy seeing how he was going to handle his very own JD. “When are you going to register Raymond in school?”

  “Tomorrow,” George snapped, switching lanes and topics at the same time. I guess anything was better than talking about his nephew. “So what did you think about Bryan?”

  “I thought he was a little bit edgy.”

  “Edgy? Not when I’ve been around him.”

  “How well do you know him?”

  “Not well at all. We’ve just had a few beers together after class. Why?”

  I told George about what had happened at the Yellow Rhino.

  “Hey. You don’t think you can handle him, don’t take him on.”

  “I didn’t say I couldn’t handle him.” Despite my resolution, I could hear the testiness in my voice.

  “Sorry.” George began rifling through his CDs. Finally he found the one he wanted and put it on. The sound of Miles Davis filled the car.

  “You think you can find his sister?”

  “I don’t know.” I drummed my fingers on the door. “A fair amount of time has elapsed.”

  Usually the longer someone’s been gone, the harder it is to track them down.

  George turned off Erie Boulevard into the bus terminal’s parking lot. “I don’t think the police exactly went out of their way to look for her.”

  “That’s what Bryan said. You know a guy called Marks?” I asked as the Taurus jounced over the potholes. I’d driven down better roads in the jungle in the Yucatan.

  “Is he the primary?”

  I nodded.

  “I know him. I’ll call him up. See if I can grease the wheels a little.” George cursed as we hit an especially deep rut.

  “What’s he like?”

  “He’s okay,” George replied. “He’s just been on the job too long.” He stopped the car a little ways from the terminal. The parking lines that had been painted on the tarmac had long since washed away, and the few cars parked on the lot were splayed out like teeth in a bum’s mouth.

  George checked the time on his watch. “Do you have any ideas yet about where Bryan’s sister got herself off to?”

  “None. I went through her room this afternoon.”

  “And?”
>
  “And she has a lot of clothes.”

  “What else did you find?”

  “Nothing. Dirty laundry. Hair dryer. State fair souvenirs. That sort of thing. Evidently Marks took Melissa’s address book with him.” I nibbled on my fingernail. “I called Calli and asked her to nose around the newsroom and see if there are any rumors floating around. I guess tomorrow I’ll go out and start talking to people and see if I can turn anything up.”

  George turned off the car and took the key out of the ignition. “Want any help?”

  “Thanks, but I think you’re going to be busy enough as it is. How long is Raymond here for anyway?”

  George sighed and tapped the Taurus’s key against his top teeth. “Cecilia wants him to stay until September.” He dropped the car keys into his jacket pocket. “She says he’s not going to school. He’s just roaming the streets. Even when she takes him over, he waits till she’s gone and sneaks out of the building. She thinks a change of scene will be good for him. You know, get him away from his friends, that kind of thing.”

  “Has he been up here before?”

  “No.”

  I remembered when I first arrived. “He’s going to go into shock.”

  “I know. I wouldn’t care if I didn’t have so much work to do.”

  I raised an eyebrow. George had lived alone too long to do well with anything that interrupted his schedule. He was as hidebound in his ways as a turtle.

  “Well, I wouldn’t,” George protested as he glanced at his watch again. “The bus should be here soon.” He got out of the car, slamming the door shut, and began striding across the lot. I had to hurry to keep up. “I’ll have to cook his dinner and check his homework instead of going to the library,” he said in an aggrieved voice.

  “Not to mention no more nights at my house.”

  “Why the hell not?” Even though the light in the parking lot was dim, I could see a vein throbbing under George’s right eye.

  “You’re going to leave a thirteen—”

  “Fourteen—”

  “Pardon me, a fourteen-year-old boy alone all night? Especially one who gets into trouble?”