Devil's Run (3 page)

“Raviv
said they were untraceable. Throwaway phones. Burners, he called them. Said you
can buy them at any drugstore.”

Raviv
hadn’t mentioned that little tidbit. “Didn’t that strike you as odd?”

“It
did, at first, but Raviv told me they are fairly popular with kids now as a
second line.”

“Not
to mention terrorists and drug dealers. Any chance Ken was doing drugs? Dealers
use burner phones.”

“No.
I can say that with certainty. Besides, what good would it do to call a drug
dealer three thousand miles away?”

“You
have a point.”

Boyd
looked at his watch again. “Anything else?”

“Yes.
Why Raviv?”

The
question surprised him. “What do you mean?”

“Why
have us look into this?” I waved my hand. “This firm must use investigators all
the time. You must have security people on retainer. I'm a little curious why
you're going outside.”

“That's
hardly your concern.”

“I'm
making it my concern. I like to know where I stand.”

He
pursed his lips and stared at me. I stared right back.

Finally,
he said: “This is a private matter. I'm involved in some very delicate
negotiations right now and I prefer not to involve anyone connected to the
firm. Raviv and I have become friends, and he has been very generous to my
charities. I know what he does, so I discussed it with him. He agreed to handle
it and assured me of your complete discretion, that you would not discuss this
with anyone.”

“I
have no one to discuss it with, which is probably what he meant. However, who
my client is will be fairly easy to deduce, since I’m looking for your son.”

“Do
what you can to be discreet. As far as this firm is concerned, you are my
client.”

“Okay.
Raviv said you have some authorizations for me.”

Boyd
came out from behind the bar and went back to his desk. I stood in front of it
while he pulled a manila envelope out of the top drawer and handed it across to
me.

“That's
a notarized authorization to examine his personal belongings. Don’t use it
unless you absolutely have to. There's also a spare key to the van. I'm sorry,
but I don't have a key to his dorm room.”

“If
it's a typical dorm room that won't be a problem.” I examined the
authorization. “Ken is no longer a minor. This may not fly.”

“If
you run into any insurmountable problems, the campus police will get a phone
call from a prominent local politician.”

I
glanced up at him. His expression was carefully neutral.

“Alrighty,
then.” I pulled out a business card and tossed it on the desk. “That's a cell
number. I’m leaving for Seattle in the morning.”

“If
you contact me,” said Boyd, rising and coming around the desk, “use the cell
number I gave Raviv. And only that number.” He walked me to the door. “You
haven’t mentioned price.”

“Talk
to Raviv. I'm just a cog.”

Boyd
opened the door and stood aside. “Thank you for coming.”

“I’ll
be in touch,” I said, shaking his hand.

“Ms.
Ricasso, would you please see Mr. Craig out?”

“That
won’t be necessary,” I said.

“It
will be my pleasure,” she said, in a way that left me unconvinced. I followed her
elegant and well-tailored behind back into the hushed hallway. She walked me
all the way through reception and out to the elevator bank. She even pressed
the call button.

“Thank
you. I believe I can take it from here. I dress myself and everything.”

“I
wish to see you out,” she said. We stood looking at each other until the
elevator bell sounded and the doors slid open behind me. I stepped backwards
into the car and pressed the lobby button. Ms. Ricasso continued to watch,
unblinking.

When
I was five years old I was confronted in the basement of our apartment building
by a large rat. It stared me down without fear. In the unforgiving fluorescents
of the corridor, Ms. Ricasso’s thin features wore that same patient, malevolent
expression. The unsettling image stayed with me on the ride down, accompanied
by the faint scent of White Satin.

I was scheduled on an
early Continental flight out of Newark Liberty. Despite the hour, the terminal
swarmed with holiday travelers, along with their screaming children and excess
baggage, forcing me to spend an inordinate amount of time in the security line.
I hate spending time at the airport and my theory is if you've never missed a
flight you are getting there way too early, so I cut it close. My theory was
put to the test as mirthless TSA inspectors recycled the same passengers
through the metal detector, finding another cell phone or wristwatch these
pinheads forgot to stick in the bin. Those who protested were pulled aside for
more thorough searches or a turn in the box. Then there were the idiots who
carried wrapped Christmas gifts. How many years had this shit been going on?
And still people show up at the airport acting as if they’d never flown before.

I noticed a fellow
professional flyer in the next queue, shoes and carryon in hand. He reminded me
of professional soldiers I’d known, men who knew how to wait calmly in the
midst of frantic activity. I tried to engage this kindred spirit in a little
therapeutic eye rolling, but he studiously ignored me and everyone else.

When my turn arrived, I
breezed through and went straight to the gate. The plane was already boarding,
and soon I was ensconced in the first class cabin, which in this case was not
as ritzy as it sounds. On domestic flights first class is hardly worthy of the
name. The seats are just wider versions of coach, nothing like the
international routes, but they do offer you a drink right away. I gratefully
accepted a screwdriver from the middle-aged flight attendant. While I sipped, I
noticed the guy from the security line pass through on his way to the coach
section. I guessed he didn't like getting to the airport early, either.

The flight was
uneventful and we landed at Sea-Tac around eleven in the morning. I was on the
freeway less than half an hour after the wheels hit the tarmac, which was the
moment everything ground to a halt. Seattle is famous for bad traffic and this
day was no exception.

It was early afternoon
before I reached the University. Ken’s dormitory was easy to find, a building
so unrelentingly ugly it must have won a design award. As I expected, a student
simply held the door open for me as he exited. I breezed in and took the
elevator to the fourth floor.

 His room was part
of a suite of small bedrooms clustered around a central lounge and common
bathroom. I didn't have to pick the lock to get in, the door was wide open. A
scruffy-looking kid sprawled on one of the couches looked up from his chemistry
textbook with mild curiosity.

“Ken Boyd’s room?” I
said, flashing my NY driver's license at him in the hopes he'd take me for a
cop. The effort was wasted. He barely gave it a glance and jerked his thumb at
one of the doors.

“He hasn't been around,”
he said, before returning to his reading.

“So I hear.”

The room was a small and
narrow double with little wasted space. Immediately inside the entrance, on the
right, were two small closets. Both twin beds were raised off the floor on
cinderblocks to add storage space underneath. The bed on the closet side was
covered with laundry and boxes. There was an L-shaped desk, divided into two
workstations. The bookshelf above one desk held only three pristine looking
textbooks and a beer mug from Doc Maynards. The other was a jumble of
textbooks, knickknacks, and an iPod dock with speakers. The corkboard back of
that workstation was covered with snapshots of poorly dressed young men in
various stages of inebriation. None of them was Ken. The corkboard of Ken’s
desk was bare and the work surface empty, except for a computer and an LCD
monitor.

I sat down in the desk
chair and switched the computer on. While it warmed up, I slid open the top
drawer, revealing only some pens, a ruler, and a four-month-old Time magazine.
The other drawers were similarly Spartan. In the bottom drawer I found the OEM
box of software for the computer. Most of the disks were still in shrink-wrap,
but the restore disks were loose in the box.

The inside of the closet
contained an area for hanging clothes and two sets of drawers. One side was
packed with clothing that looked a little big for Ken. On Ken’s side half the
hangers were empty and the drawers contained just a few pairs of socks and some
boxers. I looked through the hanging clothes. No winter coat.

“Hey, what are you doing
in here?” The voice was irate and young.

I turned to see a boy of
about nineteen standing in the doorway wearing loose fitting cargo pants and an
oversized sweatshirt. He was big, but not in a threatening way, the sort of kid
who knows his way around a pot roast. He proudly proclaimed his heterosexual
status by way of a ring in his left ear lobe. I could also guarantee he would
cringe every time he saw a picture of himself twenty years from now.

“I'm investigating Ken’s
disappearance.”

He came into the room
and tossed a couple of textbooks on his bed.

“That doesn’t mean you
can search my room. I’ve got rights.”

“No one is searching
your stuff, Tom.”

“How do you know my
name?”

“Same way I got in here,
same way I got this.” I fished Ken's car key out of my pocket and showed him.
Pointing at the boxes on the bed I said, “How much of this is Ken’s?”

“None of it. That’s all
mine. He’s been gone a couple of months. Why let the space go to waste?”

“So the only things that
belong to Ken in this room are in the desk and his closet?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“Doesn’t seem like much.
Was this all he brought when he came?”

“No. He had lots of
stuff. Pictures and CDs and all sorts of crap stuffed in his drawers. Videos,
too.”

“Porn?”

He snorted out something
I assumed was a laugh. “Nah. Stuff he got from her.”

“Her? He had a
girlfriend?”

“Tah-yeah.” Now he was
animated. “I came in here once when my class got cancelled and they were going
at it. She was on top and everything. She was hot.”

His eyes glazed over at
the memory, probably the closest thing to a sexual experience he’d ever had.

“She a student here?”

He snapped back to the
present and shook his head. “Don’t think so. I think he met her at a Starbucks
or a rally or something.”

Starbucks or a rally. It
was easy to get them confused. “What was her name?”

“Julie.”

“Julie what?”

“I don’t know. Julie.
Like I could care what her last name is.” Tom seemed to have a problem with
authority figures. That was okay with me. I did too.

“Have you seen her
around since Ken left?”

“Nope. None of her
flyers, either.”

“Flyers?”

“She used to pass out
flyers on campus asking people to come to demonstrations and stuff.”

“You used to see her?
Passing out the flyers, I mean.”

“Yeah, at the student
center. And Starbucks.”

“What were these flyers
about?”

“Global warming and shit
like that. I didn’t really listen, but I noticed it was about forests and
stuff.” He looked over at Ken’s desk. “They're not there anymore. He used to
have a stack of her flyers, too.”

“What about pictures of
Julie? He have any?”

“Yeah, he used to have a
bunch of them pinned up.” He pointed to the corkboard. “Guess he took them with
him.”

I went over to the desk
and examined the corkboard behind the monitor. It was well used by years of
college students and full of tack holes. “So you didn’t see him move out?”

“No, man. I just came
back from class one day and everything was gone.”

“When was the last time
you saw him before that?”

“Week and a half, maybe
two weeks. I don’t really remember.”

Something at the bottom of
the corkboard caught my eye. A tiny triangle of paper was protruding from where
the board met the desktop. I pushed firmly against the corkboard, opening a
gap. The triangle of paper disappeared. I knelt in time to see a four by six
snapshot flutter to a landing in the tangle of wires above the surge protector.

“What is it?”

“A picture,” I said. It
was a smiling Ken Boyd with his arm around a very cute girl, whose long,
straight blonde hair was parted in the middle. They were in a park, along with
a crowd of other kids, some carrying signs I could not read.

“Is this Julie?” I said,
holding the photo out to Tom.

He took the photo and
nodded. “Yeah, that’s her.”

I took the photo back
and put it in my pocket. The computer was warmed up now. I went over and sat
down.

“Did Ken use his
computer for addresses and phone numbers?”

“I think so. He had an
iPhone. Hey, don’t you need a warrant or something to look at that?”

“Warrants are for real
cops, Tom.”

There were no accounts
other than Administrator on the computer, and no password protection set. I
clicked in. The desktop opened to a default Windows interface. I clicked my way
to the Programs folder.

“You say he had an
iPhone?”

“Yeah.”

“There’s no iTunes
installed on this computer,” I said.

I looked in My Music, My
Pictures, My Documents and all held just the sample files. I opened System
Restore. There was only one restore point from back in October.

“Is this a new
computer?”

“Nah,” said Tom. “It’s
the same one he had when I got here.”

“Did it ever crash? Have
problems?”

“Not that I noticed, but
I wasn't his fucking chaperone, ya know.”

I restrained the urge to
smack him. “Did Ken use it a lot?”

“Use what?”

“The computer,” I said,
reminding myself that patience was a virtue.

“Yeah. She did, too.
They were always on there, looking at stuff.”

“Always about ecology
and global warming?”

“Mostly. Movies and
shit, too.” He had a sudden recollection. “I think he was planning some sort of
trip.”

I turned to him. “To
where?”

“I don’t know. I don’t
pry, dude.”

“Good man, but Ken is
missing and might be in trouble, so why don’t you try to remember?”

He looked at me
resentfully. “I really don’t know,” he said. “One time, I came in and he was on
MapQuest and saying something about how much money they would need for gas.”

“That it?”

“They stopped when they
saw me. Are you done yet?”

“Indulge me a few more
minutes.”

I reached behind the
computer and pulled the plug. The monitor went black. I laid the computer down
on the desk and popped open the case.

What are you doing?”

“Taking the hard drive.
You got a screwdriver?”

“Can you do that?”

When I simply held out
my hand, he absently pulled a Leatherman tool from his pocket and held it out
to me. I opened the Phillips head screwdriver blade.

“That day,” I said, “the
day you said Ken’s stuff disappeared, was it around October twenty-seventh?”

He thought for a moment.
“Could be. I can't remember the exact date, but that seems right. Why?”

“Just wondering. How
long before that did you notice Ken was not around?”

“A week or two.”

I finished with the
screws, pulled the connections, and removed the drive.

“What are you going to
do with that?”

“Take it to Daddy.” I
got up and handed the Leatherman back to him. “Tom, I'm a PI, not a cop, and
anything you tell me is strictly confidential. I am trying to find Ken and that
is all I am trying to do. Once I locate him I'm done.”

“So?”

“So I need to know if
Ken was involved in drugs. Either buying or selling.”

“No way, man.”

“Look, he took a great
deal of cash out of the bank just before he disappeared.”

“I don't care, it wasn't
for that.”

“Why so sure? You said
you weren't that close.”

He stepped towards me
and lowered his voice. “I deal a little weed, man. He wasn't into that. That
kid was Mr. Clean when it came to drugs. Said his dead Mom wouldn't approve.”

“Would he deal, though?
To make some money?”

Tom laughed shortly.
“Mr. Right and Wrong? No way, he has a stick shoved way up his ass. Besides, he
was rich. He didn't need the money.”

“Money's not always the
motive, Tom.” I took a business card from my wallet and handed it to him.
“Thanks for your time. If you think of anything else, anything at all. Call or
text me.”

As I left the building I
was processing. No snapshots, other than the one I'd found, no address book, no
personal letters, not even a binder of class work; nothing that might contain
notes or doodles. No personal photos, music, email, or schoolwork on the
computer, either. Ken, or someone, had gone to a great deal of trouble to cover
his tracks, removing all personal items and erasing the hard disk of his
computer.

The
question was why?