November Rain

by Donald Harstad

  “Beats me,” I said. “I hope not.”

  “Come on, Houseman,” she said. “What do you really think?”

  I drew a deep breath, and then let it out slowly. “Anything’s possible,” I said. “The only thing I know for sure is that right now, nine and going on ten days after she’s disappeared, is about the worst time to be sending me over there. Either get there right after she’s missing, or months later afterward when all the false leads have kind of settled out. Not now . . . it’s either too early or too late.”

  “Don’t be so negative.”

  “Me? Negative?” I took a sip of coffee. “Don’t be silly. Just a healthy pessimism. That’s all.”

  “Sure,” said Sally. “I think she’s dead,” she said, brightly. “You got anything on a motive?”

  “I have no idea.” I looked at her. “You really think she’s dead?”

  “Oh, hell yes,” she said, “I bet five bucks on it. What else could she be?”

  “Well, a hostage, maybe. . . .”

  “No notes, no calls, as far as anybody knows. You don’t just put hostages in the bank, Houseman.”

  “That’s true. Who’d you bet with?”

  “Norma. She’s so naive, you know. But five bucks is five bucks.”

  “So, anyway, just in case you’re wrong, tell me what you know about her.”

  “Well,” she said. “. . . well, I don’t want to tell you anything that isn’t provable or anything, but . . . well, she wasn’t any angel, you know.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, like she used to sleep around quite a bit.”

  “Really?” It was a rare day when Sally gave me news I’d already heard.

  “Lots and lots of boys, I hear,” she said.

  “No kidding? Where’d you hear that?”

  “You know my aunt Megan down in Manchester?”

  “Yeah, kinda.” I’d met her once, when she’d brought Sally’s Thanksgiving dinner up to her at the dispatch center a few years back. Relatives did that sort of thing on most holidays.

  “Well, you know, her daughter was at Iowa when Emma was.”

  “Didn’t know that.” Truthfully, I didn’t know she even had a daughter.

  “Well, she was. Anyway, when the news from England broke, she called me and she said that this Emma Schiller from Maitland had been ‘pretty busy,’ in college.”

  “What’s her daughter’s name?”

  “Stanton.”

  “Stanton? That’s her last name?”

  “No, silly,” said Sally. “It’s her given name. Stanton Becker. You aren’t going to talk to her or anything?”

  “Just get me some data on her, too. I’ll file it under Possible Background Source. Who knows? Being sexually, uh, active? That doesn’t even stand out these days. So it might not be much of a motive, but anything could help. Jealousy, maybe.” I took a sip of coffee. “You ever hear anything about her doing married men?”

  “No! Good Lord, I just said she was busy, not some sort of slut, for God’s sake.”

  I laughed. “Gottcha. So, then, you hear anything else?”

  “Not really. I think about half the folks here in Maitland think she’s already dead, though. From what they say.”

  “Well, that does make a bunch of us.”

  “But, you know . . . if she might be dead. . . .”

  “Ah. Right. They won’t say anything bad about her.”

  “Well, not for a few weeks after the funeral, anyway. But what about Jane? Aren’t you worried about Jane? Being her roommate and all?”

  That had occurred to both Sue and me, of course. Immediately. It had prompted a call to Jane, who had discounted our concerns by saying that there was absolutely no indication that it was anything but a chance meeting at or near the pub that had caused Emma to disappear. Jane was also adamant that, since she’d spent so much money to take those courses, she was going to be damned if she’d throw all that down the sink and come back to the US on some half baked theory that she could be in danger. In fact, her exact quote had been, ‘Geeze, dad, she could just be having the time of her life, for all we know. . . .’

  I nodded to Sally. “Oh, kinda concerned, I guess,” I said. “But there doesn’t seem to be any indication that it’s other than random. Even the Metropolitan Police haven’t suggested anything other than that.”

  “Well, if you say so,” said Sally, with doubt in her voice. “But I’ll bet you’ll be glad to get over there.”

  “Oh, yeah. For sure. But me being there or not, Jane’s pretty damned bright,” I said. “She’ll get worried if she needs to.” This was entirely too reminiscent of a conversation Sue and I had just had. I said as much.

  “Well, you know. We all worry too much, probably.”

  “I sure as hell hope so,” I said, with complete sincerity. I stood up, and picked up my cup. “The thing that bothers me a little about the random theory is, well, it just means there isn’t any evidence to suggest anything. So that would, you know, automatically make it look like it was random. The first piece of hard evidence could throw all the random bullshit into a cocked hat.” I grinned. “That’s the way this stuff works. Anyway, I’ll stop up before I leave tomorrow, and pick up what you get. And as soon as I know what it is, I’ll send you my phone number over there.”

  “Awesome,” she said. “A number in London. Who all do you want to have that?”

  “You can give it to anybody who can afford to call it,” I said.

  “Oooh.”

  “Yeah. Oh, and I need you to send a teletype to the Metropolitan Police in London, to let ’em know I’m heading over, and that I’d like to talk to them about Emma’s disappearance.”

  “That’s been done,” she said. “Lamar’s request about an hour ago.”

  “Oh. Okay, good. Anyway, then can you get me a number to call them. Somebody there, not just a generic. Whoever’s working the case would be nice.”

  “I don’t know how long this will take,” said Sally. “There’s a time difference. . . .”

  “Six hours,” I said. “They’re six hours ahead of us. If it’s 4 PM here, it’s 10 PM there.”

  She blinked while she digested that. “Got it.”

  “You might want to write that down,” I said.

  “I think,” she said, sarcastically, “I’m young enough I can remember that.”

  “Relax. Not for you, but for the rest of the office. I don’t want to get a ‘How’s it going’ phone call at three in the morning, London time.”

  By four o’clock, I was just about ready to head home and start packing. I stuck my head in Lamar’s office. “Anything else?”

  “I hope you ain’t pissed off,” he said. “About goin’ over there.”

  “Oh, no. I’m more surprised than anything else. But don’t get your hopes up. I’m just about certain I won’t be able to accomplish shit.”

  “Maybe not,” he said, “but it’s worth a shot.”

  “That attitude surprises me about as much as anything,” I told him. I’d worked with or for Lamar for more than twenty years, and it wasn’t like him to do this. “Why you doin’ this?”

  “Shut the door,” he said. “And don’t repeat anything I’m gonna tell you.”

  “Okay . . .”

  Even with the door shut, he lowered his voice. “First, I’m serious about it bein’ worth a try. But . . . Rocky’s gonna run again,” he said. “And it’s looking like it’s really a close one this time.”

  By ‘Rocky,’ he meant Harold Stone. Rocky had been a candidate for Sheriff twice before, and had gotten a surprising number of votes three years ago. He was one of those completely inexperienced candidates, who had never worn a badge in his life, and was given to telling people that, if elected, he’d order his Deputies to ignore proper procedure and ‘do what’s right.’

  “You’re kidding?”

  “No. So if you got any doubts about how much good you’re doin’ over there, just ask yourself if you’d lik
e to work for Rocky.”

  “You don’t think he can win, do you?”

  “Folks didn’t think I’d win, first time, either. Remember?”

  I did. It had been very close, but Lamar had beaten Steve Burgess, the incumbent. “Yeah, but Burgess was a complete idiot.” I looked him square in the eye. “I’m qualified to retire. If that s o b wins, I’ll quit.”

  He chuckled. “If he wins, I won’t be here, either.” He got serious again. “But the people deserve better than Rocky.”

  “You got that right.”

  “So, Carl, have a nice trip. It ain’t costing our budget a penny more, so Rocky can’t bitch about that. It’s been approved by the Board, so I got him there, too. And, if things go right, you might be able to help over there. If not, we tried.” He smiled. “And if he bitches about it, most of the important people around here’ll take his head off.”

  “And you didn’t go yourself. . . .”

  “You got it. My responsibility is right here.”

  “You’re one smart son of a bitch,” I said, with a big grin.

  “I keep tellen ya,” he said.

  “I’ll send you a postcard.”

  “Make it one of that double decker bridge they got,” said Lamar. “I like that thing. One with it up to let ships through, if you can.”

  “Okay.” I opened the door, and said, “I’ll keep you posted.”

  He motioned me back in. “Not yet.” When the door was safely closed again, he said, “You probably agree with me . . . that she’s pretty likely dead.”

  “Yes.”

  “But there’s always a chance,” he said, almost making it a question.

  “Sure. Just not much of one. I’m not basing that on any good evidence, you know that. Since there doesn’t seem to be any. But I think the odds of finding her alive are really slim, and getting worse every minute.”

  “If they find the body,” he said, “call me first.”

  “Absolutely. But, shit, Lamar, if she’s dead, it could be years, if ever, before they find her.”

  “Well, you got two weeks. If you can’t give me a happy story, just find out enough to give me something to base something on. You know?”

  “Something ‘professional’ that’ll keep Rocky off your ass?”

  “That’d be nice. But this isn’t just about Rocky. Let’s find out what happened to this kid. I remember that fuckin’ car wreck that got her dad. Hell, you were there, too.”

  “Sure,” I said. I didn’t add that I was there first. If he’d forgotten, it wouldn’t make any difference.

  “And I want to make absolutely certain that it ain’t related to anything goin’ on around here. For real.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “And, Carl?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m serious about the terrorists and the meth. Especially the meth.”

  “Yeah. Well, we’ve sure as hell had ’em both. I’ll check.” That gave me a moment’s pause. “Think I should take copies of that terrorist case over to show the London cops?”

  “Couldn’t hurt. Just edit out the stuff the Feds want kept quiet. You know. Go ahead and tell about that, if you want, but not in writing.”

  “Then I’m gonna have to get into the safe,” I said. We had a double locked safe, for intelligence and other secure data. We each had a combination for one lock.

  “We gotta make the copies ourselves, too,” he said, standing. “Norma isn’t cleared for this kind of shit.” Norma had just been promoted from dispatch, and was our second secretary.

  “Won’t Judy be in tomorrow?” Judy was cleared, and I was anxious to get home.

  “Yeah. We’ll let her do it, and mail it to London, and that way you don’t have to lug it all over the airport.”

  That was a good idea. There was some highly confidential stuff in that, and with all the searches and things, I’d end up lugging it in my carry-on. It was probably going to run five pounds or better, and I didn’t want to have to be carrying it with me on the plane, either. Things get lost and stolen in airports.

  I brought Lamar up to speed on everything I’d found out about Emma.

  When I was finished, he just shook his head. “You can learn lots of stuff on this job that you really don’t want to know.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Just think what it would be like if it was your daughter or mine. Hearing some of that stuff. Stuff that some people always take in the wrong way.”

  “I hope that day never comes,” I said. “Not for either of us.” It had come for him in a way. A murder victim had been one of his nieces, and the details about her personal life had bothered him. They’d bothered everybody, in fact. Not that she was a rotten person, or anything. She just tended to do strange things.

  I saw the phone in the middle office light up just as we finished. The ring was disabled every evening by Norma, when she went home at 4:30. That was so it didn’t bother Lamar.

  A second later, the intercom in his office buzzed. We both faintly heard Sally say, “Lamar, its Carson Hilgenberg for you.”

  “Crap,” said Lamar, handing me my copy of the file. Carson Hilgenberg was our new county attorney. He’d gotten appointed to replace a vacancy, when nobody else wanted the job. He was pretty young, and something of an idiot, but he normally meant well. His only saving grace was his secretary, who kept him on time, and properly equipped to handle his cases. And properly dressed, for all I knew.

  “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, before you go,” said Lamar. “I wonder what he wants this time. . . .”

  I took my file back into my office, got out my attaché case from the cranny under my desk where it had been gathering dust for a couple of years, and put the file in the lid pocket. There was a Snickers bar in the corner of the case that had to have been there for at least a year, probably all of two or three. I shut the case quickly. You never know when you might need a Snickers.

  I was already past Lamar’s office, on the way to the door, when he stuck his head out.

  “Hey, wait up.”

  “Sure.”

  “I got some bad news.”

  Since he’d just talked to the county attorney, I figured that now that I was getting excited about going, I’d be kept home from London because there was a court case Carson Hilgenberg had forgotten to tell me about.

  “I got court?”

  “No, worse.”

  “Well, come on Lamar,” I said. “Spit it out.”

  “Carson Hilgenberg’s goin’ to London, too.”

  “Yuck, yuck,” I said. “Very funny.”

  “I ain’t kiddin’,” he said. “Carson Hilgenberg’s going, too. He said he’d try to get away when we talked yesterday. We consulted with him about sending you. . . .”

  “You’re shittin’ me?”

  “Nope. I didn’t think he could get out of the county . . . Christ, he’s the only prosecutor we got. But he had vacation. So he’s goin’ over with you. And, well, it gets worse.”

  “I can’t think how.”

  “Ah, well, ah . . . you two are sharing a room.” He looked sad. “I’m really sorry, Carl. It just . . . happened.”

  As it turned out, Carson Hilgenberg, attorney at law, was running in the next election, too. That’s one thing he’d talked with Lamar about . . . he wanted tips on how to run a successful campaign. I guess he thought what worked for a Sheriff would work for a prosecutor. Lamar, in good spirits, had told him that he’d be sending a deputy to England, to work the missing person’s case. Lamar made the mistake of saying that it seemed to him to be pretty good political sense to do so. After Lamar had actually had to explain who she the missing girl was, Carson said he not only considered it a very sound political move, he thought that a prosecutor should go along.

  “He said he’d be there to give the Deputy Sheriff legal guidance. I tried to talk him out of it, Carl. I really did,” said Lamar. “But he said he only had five cases on the docket for the next three weeks, and he was going t
o get them continued. And that we could call the State’s Attorney if we needed anything done really fast while he was gone.”

  “No. No way, man. I can’t stand that little shit.”

  “He’s using vacation time,” said Lamar.

  “No way. He’s only been County Attorney for a year or so. County employees only get one week a year for the first five years.” I thought I’d found a way.

  “He’s gonna be working,” said Lamar. “Just like you are. But he’s taking his week of vacation just to impress the voters. Besides, he’s counted as a part-time official, since the County only pays half his salary. He can be gone quite a while before he violates the provisions of his office.” He looked stricken. “You’re gonna have to keep him out of this somehow,” he said. “We can’t have him get involved, you know? Not for real.”

  “Don’t lay that one on me,” I said. “I didn’t ask for him, and I ain’t gonna ride herd on him.”

  “Think of Emma,” said Lamar.

  “That’s not fair,” I said. “This isn’t an expedition, for God’s sake! You gotta talk to the Board of Supervisors, Lamar. There has to be something you can do about this.”

  He shrugged. “Carson’s an elected official. That’s all she wrote,” he said, with a grim note of finality. “I know you can handle him, Carl.”

  Chapter 7

  Monday, November 10, 2003

  17:35 Central Standard Time

  The first thing I tried to do when we got home was call our daughter Jane in London. It was 5:35, which made it 11:35 PM in London. I just caught her before she got to bed.

  She answered with a tired “Hello.”

  “Hi, it’s your dad.”

  “Hey. Nothing new yet, just to get that out of the way. She’s still gone. How’s Margaret?”

  “Margaret’s just fine,” I said. We were referring to Jane’s beagle, Margaret, who she’d left with us while she was in the UK. “Sorry to hear that Emma’s still gone, but . . .” and I told her I’d be in London about 9:30 AM on the 11th.

  “What? Here? No way!”

  “Yeah. The Department’s sending me. To assist.”

  “What about Mom?” Then, as she caught her breath, “Assist who?”