American Crow (11 page)

On the wall to my right was a cork memo
board covered with various flyers and gig tickets. I scanned it briefly and
clocked the photo of a brooding youth with long, blonde hair, supping a beer in
some busy-looking bar. It was the guy from Jessica’s photo, though his hair was
a bit shorter in this particular shot. It had to be Ethan. Bingo...

I turned my attentions to the chest of
drawers beneath it, keen to uncover something which might offer up a fresh
lead. At the top was the usual cluster of pants, socks and t-shirts, in the
middle some hoodies, and in the lower tier, nothing. Becoming frustrated, I
checked out the bedside table knowing that the cops wouldn’t be long in coming.
When I heard the wail of sirens in the distance I knew it would be sooner
rather than later.

I pulled out the drawer. It was filled
with a sheaf of flyers and hand-outs. I worked my way through them quickly then
stopped suddenly, feeling like I’d found something of significance. It read:

STREEL LEVEL
CAFÉ

LEXINGTON, KY

ACTIVIST
MEETING

FEB 14th

‘SAVE BLACK
MOUNTAIN’

I remembered what the girl had said in
the gallery café suddenly. I’d forgotten all about it, but now it had huge
significance. Ethan had told her he was going to take Olivia on some road trip.
Maybe that included a protest too? It was around about the right time.

Everything made sense suddenly. The film
at the activists’ house, Tug’s worries that his wife had gone off to rekindle
her youth, and now the flyer…She’d probably joined Olivia and Ethan on some
environmental protest in the mountains down in Kentucky where she was
originally from. It all fitted.

I eyed the room carefully again, then got
down on one knee and looked under the bed. It was clear. Then I noticed the
Moroccan rug that ran alongside it. It was kicked up in the middle...I threw it
back and clocked the section of floorboard that was shorter than the rest. It
looked recently nailed...

I pulled the knife out and eased it
between the gap in the boards. It gave a little. I levered it some more until I
could squeeze my fingertips underneath, then yanked it fully back...

Inside the cavity were a half-dozen
blocks of cannabis covered in plastic wrap, as you’d expect to find in some
dealer’s pad. It wasn’t a smart place to hide them...I ignored them, not
wanting to leave my prints anywhere near them. Then I clocked the DVD in a
transparent sleeve lying close by, the initials J.H written on the side.

I picked it up intrigued. It could be
important...I slid the disc into my jacket, lowered the board, then rolled the
rug back and headed downstairs, knowing I had to get the hell out of there and
fast.  

As I left the flat the wail of police sirens
grew louder, drew close. Now my departure had to be faster than fast or I’d be
seriously in the shit.

I ran to the lifts and pushed the call
button. It sounded a mile away. Cursing, I cleaned my prints off the knife as I
waited then tucked it behind a fire hydrant. Twenty painful seconds later it
finally reached my floor.

I stepped into the foul-smelling elevator
hoping my obvious choice of exit would absolve me of any suspicion. When the
doors scraped open again I quickly discovered that I couldn’t have been more
wrong. There were two cops waiting outside, guns raised...

‘Okay, hit the ground!’ the officer on
the left shouted, knees bent, arms extended, as I stepped cautiously out.

I raised my hands casually and lowered
myself to the floor, keeping them in the air until I was almost laid out flat
and my face was pressed hard against the asphalt. The next thing I felt were
hands frisking me roughly for a weapon.

‘Okay, he’s clean. Stand over there
please, sir.’

I stood back up, dusted myself off and did
what I was told, unsure of how trigger-happy the cops were in this neck of the
woods…

‘Do you live here, sir?’ the fresh-faced
cop demanded firmly.

‘No, Officer, I was visiting a friend of
mine, up in one-one-five.’

‘Yeah, who was that?’ an older uniform
pushed, looking like he was about to have a cardiac. 

‘Sandra Raul,’ I said, as if I’d known
her all my life.

‘Good friend of hers, are you?’ he
probed.

‘Sure.’

‘So she doesn’t charge you then? You’re
special?’

I realized the hole I’d dug for myself and
tried to change tact.

‘Look, I know what Sandra does, we all
do, right, but we’re just friends. Even a hooker is allowed to have friends,
eh, Officer?’

‘Who said she was a hooker?’ the
fresh-faced cop interrupted smugly.

‘What?’ I said sensing the even bigger
hole I’d dug for myself.

‘Sandra’s does pedicure from home and all
that crap. She’s a beautician,’ the older guy added in that
I-know-better-than-you kind of tone.

‘Yeah, I know that. I was just playing
with you…really,’ I said forcing a laugh.

‘Well,’ the young cop said, pulling out
his cuffs. ‘We were only messing with you, ‘cus she
is
a hooker. She
does a nice little massage with a few extras thrown in, you get me? You don’t
know her from shit, buddy, do you? Now tell us what some English guy with blood
on his jacket is doing in this neck of the woods and then we’ll let you go?
You’re one hell of a ways from the tourist trail.’

My head lowered in defeat, a plausible
explanation evading me for once.

‘It’s okay boys, I know this guy,’ a
gruff voice announced suddenly from behind us.

I looked up. It was Tug. I breathed a
sigh of relief.

‘You’re sure? the older cop pushed. ‘This
guy’s story seems real shady to me.’ He looked me up and down. ‘Where are you
from exactly, and what’s your name please, sir? Have you got I.D?’

Tug took a step forward.

‘His name’s Blake. He’s from London. And
he’s looking for some missing teenager for a friend of his back in England. I
would imagine he’s snooping around a dirt hole like this trying to get a lead on
her because he’s stupid, and doesn’t know how dangerous it can be around here.
He’s not connected to that scumbag dealer, Bob. I’ll vouch for that,’ Tug said
confidently.

The youngest cop holstered his weapon.

‘You’re hanging around in the wrong places,
sir.’

‘It’s a habit I’m trying to shake,’ I
said with a wry smile.

The cop looked at Tug.

‘You sure you can vouch for this guy? He
looks mighty suspicious to me.’

‘Look, Tug’s right. I am looking for a
missing girl, and my lead took me here. I heard that she was dating some guy
who she met at the Longfellow Gallery, who’s the nephew of the director there.
He lives with the dealer who’s just got himself thrown off the eleventh floor.
He wasn’t in when the trouble came knocking, luckily for him.’

‘Did you see the guys who did this?’ the
officer pressed, pulling out a notebook.

 I shook my head.

‘Not clearly. Two guys and a girl I
think, all of medium build, and that’s it. I only saw them through the obscured
glass on the stairwell.’

‘And nothing else?’

‘No.’

 Tug interrupted.

‘You sure do like to follow trouble
around, Blake.’

‘Yeah, I guess I do,’ I said.

‘Look, I’ll take over, guys, take down
any more details,’ Tug declared, a hand on each of their shoulders.

‘Okay...if you say so, Tug. But it’s on your
head,’ the younger one replied, heading over to where a small crowd was
gathering around the dealer’s pulverized body. ‘But you’re carrying the can if
he ends up being involved, big guy...’

*

I
sat in the front seat of Tug’s squad car and was glad to be out of the
elements, glad of the piping hot coffee and the doughnut he’d brought from a
nearby snack van. Spring seemed somewhat schizophrenic in this part of the
world and felt very much like winter still to my way of thinking. It was a
world away from Vegas that was for sure...

‘You’re some sort of private detective,
aren’t you?’ Tug said casually, staring out of the snow-speckled windscreen.

I nodded, my mouth full of doughnut.

‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’

‘Because on the whole, you guys don’t
have much time for our sort, do you?’  I replied eventually.

‘I guess so…’ He sighed. ‘So Henry sent
you over here because the other two chicken-shits pulled out on him, is that
it?’

‘Yes, he thought that if he employed
someone closer from home, it might get a quicker result.’

‘And who do you work for exactly?’

‘A London agency, that specializes in
tracing work.’

‘And what about all that stuff about your
daughter?’

‘That’s true. I don’t know why I told you
that...’

Tug sighed then took a long pull on his
coffee, twisted in his seat and looked over at me with inquisitive eyes.

‘So what did you learn from those gutter
punks on Thirty-Sixth?’

‘That your wife’s probably gone on some
mountain protest down in Kentucky.’

‘Jesus, you serious? My hunch was right
then?’

‘That’s the way it’s looking at the
moment, Tug. I found this flyer in the boy’s room at the dealer’s place.’

He looked at it in silence.

‘Not a wise move snooping around a murder
scene, buddy. Your prints will be all over the show.’

‘I know, but I needed the lead,’ I said,
feeling tired suddenly.

‘Well, it looks like my Chrissie may have
headed down there alright. She has family in that neck of the woods, near Lexington
in fact. Not that they’d tell me if she was there, as I said. They’re a
tight-knit bunch.’

I pulled out Jess’s photo and saw that
same sadness return in Tug’s eyes.

‘Well I be damned...’

‘It was taken around four weeks ago they
said, just before the three of them left.’

‘And that’s your next stop, right?’

‘All I need is some money to pay for the
trip down there and I think we’re finally in business,’ I said fishing.

Tug tipped his hat back from his
forehead.

‘You ain’t got no money? What sort of private
detective are you?’

‘My wallet and the rest of my clothes
were stolen last night.’

‘What from your car at the motel, where
you tripped over the bins?’ he said half-amused.

I paused, debating how much more to tell him.
He’d saved me from getting arrested after all. There was room for manoeuvre.

‘Look, if you want me to help find your
wife, then I need to know that I can trust you.’

‘Well, as long as you ain’t gone and
killed no one or planning to, then I’ll help out if it means finding my
Chrissie.’

‘My stuff got torched in that truck fire
last night in Arden Hills. I was hitching a ride with the driver and went to
get a burger from the diner at the truck stop we’d pulled up in, while he
headed off with some hooker. Later on that night, the manager started taking
some heat from a load of bikers who turned up wanting a free meal. I decided to
help him out...’

‘That was mighty big and mightily bloody
stupid of you, buddy, especially if it was the Mustangs. Those guys are usually
cracked-up to the eyeballs.’

‘I heard the dealer owed them some money
by the way, hence their visit here...’

Tug nodded slowly taking in the new
information.

‘Okay, I get that bit. The bum owed money
to lots of people. But going back to the truck…There were no bodies found in
the wreckage. I mean where in the hell was the driver? We can’t trace him at
all. Did you get a name, know where he went exactly?’

‘No, he wandered off with some chick and
said that he would be back later. He never returned...’

Tug looked at me confused.

‘He just left his rig there with all your
stuff in it, is that what you’re saying?’

‘No, he locked it up saying that he’d be
an hour or two. So I went and grabbed some food. But the bikers turned up and
it all kicked off suddenly. I ended up taking the Somalian guy to the Fairview
Hospital on Riverside as he was bleeding so badly. We took his car. You can
check the CCTV footage there if you don’t believe me.’

Tug placed his coffee down on the
dashboard.

‘Wwooh. I’m not accusing you of anything,
Blake, I’m just doing my job, getting the facts straight so that when I take it
back to the precinct I can give the other boys on the case some good solid
information.’

‘Sure...’ I said, relaxing a little.

‘So did you get the name of the driver?
Surely he must have told you his name?’

I shrugged.

‘Gus, I think he said. Can’t remember
where he was from though…Sorry.’   

Tug drew a sharp breath then blew it out
in bursts.

‘Well, I’m sure we’ll hear from him
sooner or later, especially when he comes back and finds his truck
incinerated.’

 I nodded and finished my coffee.

‘So how much do you need?’ Tug asked.

I looked at him in genuine surprise.

‘Well, a couple of hundred bucks would be
a good start.’

He looked at me sternly.

‘And if you make contact with my wife
while you’re down there, you’ll let me know straightaway? I mean, when you find
out where she is, I can maybe head down there on my day off and coax her into
coming back. We could make things right again...’

He sighed and crushed his empty coffee
cup.

‘I’m sure she’ll come back when I’ve
found her,’ I promised, thinking how most people didn’t when they’d reached
breaking point.  

 Tug shook his head slowly.

‘I messed up, Blake, spent too much time
on the job. I just wasn’t there for her when she needed me the most, when she
was going through her depression. You know, I can’t work out if I’m just plain
selfish or simply dedicated to what I do. It’s hard keeping everyone happy
sometimes.’

I listened in silence, chewing over the
parallels of both our lives as he pulled out his wallet, then watched him count
three hundred bucks onto the dashboard.

‘You’re sure?’

He gave me one if his best
don’t fuck
with me
looks that cops do best.

‘It’s only a loan, buddy, so don’t get
too excited. How you planning on getting anywhere without any I.D either?’

‘Hitching a ride.’

‘That’s if someone’s gunna take a chance
on you looking like that. And I tell you something else…you’re going to need a thicker
jacket before nightfall and a winter hat, because the temperature is going to
drop badly again. There’s some serious snow forecast...’

‘In March?’

‘In frickin March…this is Minnesnowta
after all. Look, I’ll drive you to a spot where you can get picked up easier.
It’s the least I can do. But then you’re on your own, okay?’

We drove for a good twenty minutes in
silence leaving downtown Minneapolis behind, then worked our way south along a
major highway until we reached the outskirts of a place called Hopkins, where
rows of lorries were pulled up for the night in a massive parking lot on the
edge of the town. We bumped up on the curb and Tug scribbled a number on some
paper.

‘Look, I’ve had a thought…Chrissie used
to have a good friend down in Kentucky before she moved up this way. She’s
called Martha Reynolds. She might be able to help you out if you’re nice to
her, put you up for a few nights too, while you do your search. She used to
work with Chrissie as a nurse in the main hospital down there. They were
tight.’

‘Great, that could be
useful…’    

‘Look ring me in a couple of hours. I’ll
try and have a number sorted for you. This is my cell...and remember what I
said about the money, right?’

I opened the car door and stepped out
onto the icy pavement.

‘I’ll remember.’

As Tug drove off, his radio bursting into
life again, I suddenly thought about Lenny back in London tapping his fat
fingers on the desk, waiting for some news. It had been a good couple of days
now since we’d talked.

In fact, I hadn’t spoken to him since I’d
arrived in the U.S. I needed to tell him about the recent photo and the fresh
sightings, so he could give Henry an update.

Up until three or four weeks ago his daughter
was alive and well, and was now engaged in some romantic adventure it seemed,
with some guy called Ethan. That sort of news was going to make the banker feel
better, that was for sure.

Things were finally coming together,
albeit in their own haphazard way I thought, tilting my head downwards to keep
out the icy wind. I’d find the girl down in Kentucky probably, get her to speak
on the phone to her father, and maybe that would be enough to wrap things up,
unless he wanted me to manhandle her back home for the other ten or twenty.
Then I could head down to Mexico and contemplate my life in relative peace, and
maybe sort my damned head out for once in peace...

A large supermarket beckoned me in the
distance as I rounded the corner. I could buy some warmer clothes in there as
Tug had suggested, get a cheap phone which I could use to contact him, as well
as update Lenny with all the latest developments. Something in my gut told me
not to get too optimistic just yet, that same feeling I’d had back at the caravan
after the initial call.

I worked my way across the frozen parking
lot hoping for once that my intuition was wildly misplaced, then eased my way
through the revolving doors into the welcome warmth of the superstore, hoping
things wouldn’t be so rough down in Kentucky, and that the mysterious guy who’d
been tailing me so tightly back in Minneapolis, had realized that he’d been
following the wrong man...