Missing Persons Read online

  “Detective Sam Purdy, this is Jenifer Donald. She’s visiting her grandparents from South Carolina.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Sam said.

  I was tempted to tell Sam that Jenifer was as sweet as an August melon, and warn him that she was older than she looked, but I didn’t. He’d figure it all out himself before too long.

  He flipped open his badge wallet for her benefit. Jenifer hopped back from it as though it were cocked and loaded.

  “So you don’t actually live here, Jenifer? This isn’t your house?”

  “No, sir. Should I call you ‘officer’?”

  “Detective. Dr. Gregory told me that you’re here visiting your grandparents. They are due home when?”

  Sam was dressed in new clothes, or at least clothes I’d never seen him wear before. Two factors were at play: One, he’d lost a lot of weight over the last year and his old stuff didn’t fit. Two, he actually seemed to have started caring how he looked. The ensemble he was wearing was composed of a pair of jeans from the Gap and a striped wool v-neck sweater over a white T-shirt that hadn’t even considered turning yellow. For Sam, the outfit constituted styling.

  Jenifer’s acute anxiety that she had done something to lure a police detective to her grandparents’ door was making me nervous. She said, “Soon. They’re due back soon. Any minute I bet. But I’m not sure. They’re out doing that pill… thing. Exercise, you know? With those machines?”

  Sam sighed. He knew. Eating a healthy diet was something Sam had embraced. Exercise? That had become cool with him, too. But Pilates and yoga? For Sam, they were still on an astral plane with tats and piercings. He wasn’t quite there yet. At his partner Lucy’s insistence, he’d accompanied her to a solitary session of Bikram yoga-the kind that’s basically done in a sauna-and was astonished, and dismayed, to learn that people were physiologically capable of sweating out of their noses.

  Profusely.

  And that they would pay dearly for the privilege.

  I thought it would take him a while to come around to being open-minded about yoga and Pilates.

  “And this guy, Bob, is your grandparents’ tenant?” he asked Jenifer. “He rents a room?”

  “Two rooms. Yes, sir. And he has his own bathroom, of course. Hot plate, microwave. You know. I used to stay up there when I was visiting. It’s nice. You can see the mountains real well when the leaves are off the trees. Or is it ‘real good’? No, no-it’s real well.”

  We were all standing out near the alley at the foot of the stairs that led up to Bob’s rented rooms. Sam looked at me before he asked Jenifer the next question. “And which one of you actually entered Bob’s rooms?”

  Jenifer swallowed and her eyes got as big and bright as table grapes. “I did. That’s when I saw-I shouldn’t have done that, should I? Oh my Lord. Am I in trouble? The doctor was worried and I thought that he… oh my Lord! Oh my Lord. I’m so sorry. Back home, we’d-but, oh, I really am sorry. I’ll never do it again. I promise. Please don’t…”

  She couldn’t even bring herself to say “arrest me.”

  “ ‘The doctor’ ”-Sam glared at me-“said you saw some blood when you were inside? And a mess?”

  “I did. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. I really don’t know what I was thinking. Going into a stranger’s place like that? We might do it back home, but I’m not-Y’all-” She sighed. “I screamed. The blood, the mess. I’m so, so sorry.”

  “It’s nothing,” Sam said, in his best fatherly voice. “Don’t you worry; you did what you thought was best.” Sam climbed the staircase toward Bob’s rooms. He stopped near the top, turned to Jenifer and me, and said, “What I’m going to do is something that law enforcement calls a ‘welfare check.’ All that means is that I’m going to make a quick walk through his place, make certain that there isn’t someone inside needing assistance, then I’m going to come right back out.” He focused his eyes on me before he continued. “Just in case anyone’s ever curious about exactly what I did in there. Understand?”

  “Yes,” Jenifer replied, although it hadn’t been her understanding Sam had been seeking.

  He edged into the flat without touching a single surface and was back out of Bob’s rented rooms in a little over a minute. Because of the way the door was situated I wasn’t able to follow his progress. Once he was back on the landing at the top of the stairs, he looked at me and shook his head, “Nobody in there. Some blood, not too much. Just what you saw near the door. And it’s a mess in there, too, Jenifer, just like you said.”

  “There they are. Finally,” Jenifer said, pointing down the driveway that led out to Pine Street.

  A huge dark GMC pickup with a camper shell was pulling into the driveway. We all waited.

  The second her grandparents made it out of the truck, Jenifer announced, “The police are here about the tenant. There’s blood. I looked inside. I’m so sorry. I am.”

  32

  “Get in,” Sam said. He pointed at his Cherokee.

  I got in. The consequences of being obstreperous at that moment were too much for me to contemplate.

  “There’s not that much blood,” he said.

  “It’s relative,” I argued. “If it was yours, I think you might consider it a reasonable quantity. Anyway, isn’t that exactly what you said about Mallory’s blood on the day after Christmas?”

  “And it turns out I was right about Mallory’s blood on the day after Christmas. Kid got nosebleeds. The splatter in the house was consistent with a sudden nosebleed.”

  I could have argued the point, but it was clear that Sam was holding trump cards. “What about the mess?”

  “You really didn’t go in?”

  “I peeked, Sam. I was worried.”

  “Being messy isn’t a crime. I see teenagers’ rooms that are worse all the time. There’s no visible evidence that a crime was committed in the guy’s flat. The kid’s grandparents heard nothing. There’re a few drops of blood on a wall and some bad housekeeping. Hell, he could be over at Community right now getting his finger stitched up. ER doc told me once they see people all the time who slice their hands up while they’re cutting bagels. I hadn’t known that. Bagels.”

  “There was blood on the carpet, too,” I argued.

  “You said you didn’t go in.”

  “You can see it from the door.”

  “There wasn’t that much blood on the carpet.”

  “Was it fresh?”

  “I didn’t stop to test it.”

  I opened my mouth to ask another question, but Sam stopped me. “We have rules, Alan. Bill of Rights ring a bell? I did a welfare check. I didn’t find anyone in need of assistance or see any other reason to stay in the man’s home uninvited, so I left. Done.”

  “You’re not going to investigate, are you?”

  “Investigate what?”

  It was exactly the response I’d dreaded. “He’s missing. His place was tossed.”

  “Tossed? So you say. You know any of this for sure?” He waited long enough to see if I was done arguing with him. “Didn’t think so.” He went on, making his case, “Jenifer’s grandparents say that they’re sure Bob was home alone when? Last night?”

  “Night before, actually. And they said they thought he was alone because he always is. They don’t actually know he was alone.”

  “Okay, they weren’t sure about last night. And now it’s early evening and he’s not home. Big frigging deal. Where’s the crime? The only crime I see is that Jenifer’s grandparents are in violation of zoning codes for having a tenant and a crappy makeshift second kitchen in those rooms. But I’m going to let that one slide.”

  “Big of you,” I said, trying not to sound too sarcastic. The truth was that I didn’t know how to answer any of Sam’s questions without telling him things I wasn’t allowed to tell him.

  Sam probed the contours of my silence and came to the conclusion I figured he would get around to. “He’s one of yours, isn’t he? Your… clients?” Sa
m asked, not expecting me to answer. “And… let me guess, he didn’t show up for his appointment with you. He’s usually as reliable as milk of magnesia about showing up on time, so you’re worried.” Sam didn’t even bother to make these statements sound like questions.

  I didn’t deny anything. Didn’t confirm anything.

  “You want me to be worried, too,” he added.

  I was relieved to be given a prompt I could actually respond to. “That would be nice,” I said.

  “Why didn’t you just call nine-one-one? Why’d you call me?”

  I stared at Sam for a moment. I could’ve told him that I called him because I trusted him and didn’t call 911 because for all I knew I would end up having to introduce Jenifer, with one n, to Jaris Slocum. It would have suggested to Sam that I still wasn’t prepared to cut Jaris Slocum any slack, and that was one argument I didn’t need rewound.

  I played another card instead. I suspected the card I played broke a rule, but I convinced myself that the rules were gray about whether or not I could play that particular card. “I wonder if he has a car. That might help us find him. His car.”

  Sam gave me about an eighth of a smile. “You wonder if he has a car?” He lifted his chin half an inch and groomed the grain of his mustache off to the sides with the index finger and thumb of his right hand. “Stay here while I go back inside and ask Bob’s landlords a few more questions that I’m sure you could tell me all the answers to if you didn’t suffer from such serious constipation.”

  He added a comment about Jesus before he was out of earshot.

  While Sam was gone, I phoned Lauren and told her I was going to be even later than I had told her I was going to be the last time I called. She wanted to know if she should hold dinner, and she wanted to tell me about the new ways that Grace was being cute, and chat about why I was tied up so late, and she wanted to know what was new with Diane and Raoul. I explained I’d fill her in on everything when I got home and told her to give Grace a kiss for me. Dinner? I’d fix something for myself.

  Sam returned after about five minutes. He settled onto the driver’s seat and crossed his arms. The front of the Cherokee was pointed toward the southwest, and from the shotgun position there was a break in the trees that allowed me to see the vault of the second Flatiron outlined against the night sky. The light of the fractional moon was reflecting just right.

  Sam said, “He has an old muscle car. A Camaro. Keeps it garaged at a house over on Twelfth Street.”

  I caught myself holding my breath and forced myself to inhale, exhale, act natural. “Where exactly on Twelfth?”

  “You’re really going to pretend you don’t already know all this? Okay, I’ll play along. Mr. Donald doesn’t know exactly where. But I have a suspicion you might be able to find it for me, you know, like those good ol’ boys can find the exact spot you should drill your new well. What are those boys called? The ones with the forked sticks? Are they called dowsers? Ah, who cares? We’re going for a little drive.”

  Sam started the Jeep and made his way across downtown until he got to the Hill and turned on Twelfth Street. We were heading south, paralleling the mountains that loomed a dozen blocks away. He pulled to a gentle stop at the curb halfway between the instantly recognizable home where Mallory Miller had disappeared and the smaller place that was next door on the north side.

  Doyle’s house.

  “I’m guessing that’s where this guy Bob keeps his muscle car,” Sam said. “Just a suspicion. Call it cop’s intuition.”

  I didn’t bite. Sam picked Doyle’s house either because the Donalds had actually told him exactly where he could find Bob’s car, or he picked it because during our morning jog I’d already mentioned the Millers’ neighbor’s house to him. Sam didn’t misplace much information.

  I was busy eyeing the real estate sign in front of the house, trying to cram the listing agent’s name-Virginia Danna, Virginia Danna-into my memory. I asked, “So are you going to check for a car in the garage?”

  “Sure we are. Come on.”

  The front yard of Doyle’s house was terraced. Undulating, mortarless flagstone walls of varying heights supported a series of planting beds that radiated away from the curving center walk like the lines on a topographic map. Dried ornamental grasses were interspersed with globe evergreens and other Xeriscape-y things I didn’t recognize.

  I stuffed my hands into my pockets to try to ward off the January cold and followed Sam down the front walk until he moved onto a path that intersected with it and led around to the back of the house. After a few more steps, I could see the gable of a single-car garage roof toward the rear property line.

  “You’re not going to introduce yourself to whoever lives here?” I asked innocently.

  “Place is empty. Owner moved away a couple of months ago. Guy’s asking way too much is what I hear. You know, given the market and interest rates and all. But who the hell knows what’s up with Boulder real estate these days? Did I tell you some agent’s been dropping by begging me to sell my place? Says he already has a buyer and can get me a fortune for it. I think he’s a developer and wants to scrape my shack and put up a spec. I could take the money but I’d have to move halfway to Wyoming to find someplace new to live. What’s the point of that? It would mean commuting for me, and new schools for Simon.”

  A casual observer might have mistaken Sam’s ramblings for whining, or for the opening gambit in a friendly discussion of Boulder County property values and the moral and economic consequences of chasing the appreciated dollar. I knew better. Sam’s moves were misdirection. From experience, I knew that he used misdirection the same way magicians used it.

  So what was it that I was not supposed to notice?

  Sam has been in Doyle’s yard before.

  I was sure of it. Despite the darkness he was leading me across the property as though he’d sat in on the design meetings with the landscape architect. Once we made it to the backyard, he followed a flagstone path over a little wooden bridge that spanned a curving faux streambed. When the path split, Sam chose the fork that ran toward the rear of the lot.

  Only the top half of the garage was visible behind a stunning series of man-made granite-for want of a better word-cliffs. At the bottom of the natural-looking walls was a good-sized, but drained, pond that would flow into the streambed we’d crossed earlier. I had no trouble imagining the waterfall that would cascade down those rocks into that pool come spring.

  “This way,” Sam said. He stopped at a garage window and shined the beam of a flashlight through the glass. The garage was clearly empty.

  No cars. No cherry Camaro.

  “There you go,” Sam said. “Your guy took his car and went somewhere. Free country. Mystery solved. Nothing that requires the services of Boulder’s finest.”

  “You?”

  “Me. This is the right house?” Sam asked. He was holding the flashlight between us down near his waist, aiming the beam straight up toward the night sky. With the up light his forest of nose hairs was illuminated with way too much clarity for my taste. His face and head took on eerie contours inside the fog of his steamy breath.

  I felt like saying something in reply to his question but couldn’t figure out anything that confidentiality permitted me to say.

  He smiled, recognizing my conundrum. “Thought so.”

  Over his shoulder I saw movement in the Millers’ home. A silhouette in the upstairs window. I tried to watch it without watching it. I said, “I’m worried about Diane.”

  “What?”

  I had his attention. I repeated my concern.

  “Your partner? That Diane?”

  “She went to Las Vegas a couple of days ago. I was talking with her on the phone last night from one of the casinos and the call suddenly went dead. She’s disappeared. Her husband flew out there a couple of hours later and he can’t find a trace of her. The Vegas cops aren’t interested.”

  Sam moved the flashlight beam away from our faces. A second gla
nce next door revealed the silhouette moving from the Millers’ window. In an instant, it was gone.

  “Your friend Diane went to Las Vegas?”

  Sam knew precisely what I had told him by telling him that fact. With Sam I rarely had to say things twice. “To talk to someone,” I said, as a way of underlining my point, just in case.

  He nodded, wetting his lower lip with his tongue. “You’re looking at something behind me. Don’t do it again. Look at me. Eye contact. Good, good. What is it?”

  “Somebody watching us in an upstairs window.”

  “Still there?”

  I shook my head.

  “Dad?”

  “Couldn’t say. Just a silhouette.”

  “Which window?”

  “Closest to the street.”

  He nodded and ran his fingers through his hair before he stuffed his free hand into the back pocket of his jeans. “Diane went to Las Vegas to talk with someone and then yesterday she vanished? Now you have a client you’re worried about that you think may have just vanished, too? You and I are standing in the backyard of a house on Twelfth Street where said client garages his old car. Right next door a young girl happened to disappear on Christmas Day. I got it all right, so far?”

  “You’re doing pretty well.” The car part is a little off, I was thinking. The Camaro may be old, but it’s cherry.

  “Great, glad to hear it. Let me add a couple of things to the list, things I’ve already been a little concerned about. You know something about Mallory Miller’s mother that in my book you don’t have any reason to know. You probably even know she lives in Vegas. You’re way too curious about Reese’s aggressive tendencies for my taste. And it was not too long ago that you kind of predicted that you and I were going to knock heads about this house next door to the Millers.”

  “That’s three things, Sam, at least.”

  “Do me a favor, ignore the arithmetic.”

  “I can’t confirm some of what you’re saying. But I can’t argue with what you’re saying, either.”

  “From you that’s a ringing endorsement.”