Forgive Me (9 page)

The first note was a list of things to do. It included calls to the Lupus Foundation and her friend Tracy, who had been at the house a few hours ago. Angie studied the handwriting. The similarities were unmistakable. The words,
May God forgive me
and
Call Tracy
were written in the same neat cursive. The letters were of average size, with narrow spacing between them.

From her PI work, Angie had learned something of the science of graphology, the study of handwriting. She used it on occasion to get a better sense of the people she was assigned to track. It took a bit of unpredictability out of the equation. Kathleen’s handwriting slanted to the right, which was suggestive of somebody open to new experiences, someone who enjoyed meeting new people. Both were true of Angie’s mom. The
i
and
e
were formed using wide loops indicative of openness, spontaneity, and a willingness to try new experiences. This was true of her mother as well.

Angie flashed on a memory of a family trip to Annapolis maybe twenty-five years ago.

Kathleen sat in the front seat of the family car studying a map. An idea struck her. They should continue driving east and go to Bethany Beach for the afternoon, she said, then asked, “Why not?”

“It would be a three-hour drive home,” her father said. “That’s why not. ”

It was late spring, and the sun beat bright, and the air was warm and inviting. The next thing Angie knew, they were off with no suitcases packed, no plans for an overnight.

Soon they were splashing in the ocean, laughing as they raced to beat the waves that crashed against the sandy shore. Mother and daughter dared each other to venture out into the low tide as far as their bodies could stand the cold water, while trying not to get their clothes all wet. Kathleen wore a long dress that she hiked up above her knees. She twirled and danced on the sand while Angie ran circles around her mother, laughing under the call of the gulls that circled lazily overhead. Behind them her father, his pants hiked to his knees, leather shoes in his hand, watched his wife and daughter frolic on the empty beach.

Afterwards, they went out for ice cream—before dinner even—and her mother pleaded with her father to spend the night, to not make the long drive back to Virginia. “Do it in the morning,” she said.

After much cajoling, Gabriel relented and they found a decent enough motel—not a chain, but a family-run business. They bought pajamas at a Wal-Mart, and while her father snored beside her, Angie snuggled against her mother’s side, basked in the television’s flickering glow, and fell asleep to some program.

She’d long since forgotten what program. The pajamas were probably in one of the boxes in the attic along with all the other bric-a-brac her mother couldn’t bear to throw away, but some memories hadn’t faded, like the pine-scented smell of that motel room and the sound of her mother’s laughter as she’d twirled on the beach.

Angie gazed across the table at her exhausted father and thought of his childhood memories. Of the orphanage he talked about only on occasion, of the mother he never knew, but whom he believed was a good person, a woman in crisis who did her best in a difficult situation. In that moment, Angie felt blessed beyond measure to still have her dad in her life.

Her heart swelled with love as she pushed the box of notes over to her father. “You can look through them, but it’s definitely Mom’s handwriting on the back of the photograph.”

Madeline returned with the tea. Everyone spent a few quiet moments taking tentative sips as the drinks cooled. Then she took the photograph in her hand and examined it more closely. She was a prosecutor, accustomed to evaluating evidence. “What do you make of this poor girl’s ear?”

Angie glanced at the young girl’s smiling face, focusing on that misshapen ear. “A birth defect, perhaps.”

“Or maybe she was maimed and that’s how it healed.”

“Like a dog attack or something,” Angie said. “Possible.”

“What city do you think this was taken in?” Madeline asked.

“That would be helpful to know,” Angie said.

Gabriel had gone silent. He was shuffling through Kathleen’s notes, perhaps conjuring up his own memories of his life with Kathleen. Angie moved her chair closer to Madeline’s so she could better see and study the photograph. The buildings were made of brick and fire escapes were affixed to some of the exteriors, suggesting that people lived in apartments above a row of shops. It was morning, Angie believed. Many of the shops were shuttered with heavy-duty roll down metal doors.

Because the photo was taken from street level, Angie couldn’t tell how high the buildings were. Could be three stories or could be just two like a strip of row houses in Philadelphia. Angie didn’t know if any of them had stores on the first level like this street did.

The shop signs were all for mom-and-pop type businesses. B
EAUTY
S
ALON
. P
ATSY
’
S
P
IZZERIA
. T
ONY
’
S
P
ASTRIES
.
The street was peppered with bits of trash and a nearby mesh barrel was filled to the brim. A poster had been plastered to the side of a building, but a figure blocked out most of the letters. What Angie could see meant nothing to her.

000
DS
THS
’m I
IN’?

It looked as though there was some additional text between
000
and
DS
, but it was written in a much smaller font and too blurry to make out. The photograph’s main subject, the girl with the sweet sad smile, stood in the foreground near a fire hydrant that had one of its caps missing but no water shooting out. Meaningless graffiti marked up the staircase to one building entrance. It was a hard landscape, an urban one.

Angie thought of big cities like New York, Chicago, but it could have been the North End in Boston or a neighborhood in Detroit, Philadelphia, even someplace in DC. The milieu was gritty and old in a way that made her think it was an east coast city, not some newer place such as Dallas or Columbus. The picture included no cars with identifying license plates, and the phone number on the sign to the beauty salon didn’t include an area code.

“Any ideas?” Madeline asked.

“Yeah,” Angie answered. “Lots of them. But I need the right one, and for that I’m going to need some expert assistance. I need Bao.”

CHAPTER 11

I
t was the twenty-first day of April and Nadine Jessup had been missing for a little over five weeks. Bao was sitting at Angie’s desk when she arrived at the offices of DeRose & Associates. He sat in her chair gazing at his laptop, Beats By Dre headphones snapped in place, white canvas sneakers on the desk, fingers feverishly tapping away at his keyboard to what seemed like the rhythm of the music. His skateboard, his only mode of transportation, leaned against the wall and gave Angie a good view of the scuffed up wheels and stickers plastered on the bottom.

Bao wore dark, loose-fitting jeans and a maroon T-shirt with a panda pictured on the front. He was one of the few people she knew who could rock a panda bear T-shirt without looking like an eight-year-old boy. His dark hair was free-flowing and his piercings were plentiful but not overdone. Whatever Bao put on, Bao owned it. He could make Izods look like a new trend in skater fashion.

Angie had on a low cut black shirt and gray slacks, fairly typical attire for her. She always dressed comfortably. The day could be unpredictable. With a phone call, she might go from the desk to her car on a stakeout.

“What’s the latest?” she asked.

Bao said nothing as he continued to type.

Angie waved her arms in front of him until she got his attention. He slipped his headphones off and she could feel the vibration of the music in her own ears. “You realize that’s going to permanently damage your hearing, don’t you?”

“What?”

“Funny, Bao. Where’s Mike?”

As if on cue, she heard the toilet flush and the faucet run. A moment later, Mike Webb emerged from the only other room in her office, buttoning his pants while he pressed his cell phone to his shoulder with his ear.

Mike Webb was in his fifties and looked every bit that age. His neatly trimmed beard had gone gray, but specks of dark hair remained peppered throughout. The hair on his head, silver at the temples, had retreated from the front like glacial melt, but a respectable amount remained so he could still rock a side part. His face was kind. If he added padding to an already decent-sized paunch, Mike could easily pass for Saint Nicholas at any mall in America. He always wore button-down shirts with pattern designs (checks and plaids) and khakis, the uniform of a hardware store manager—which happened to be one of his many previous careers. Now he was part of the
& Associates
team, along with his other job.

He talked into the phone. “Okay, how about this, Mrs. Walker. I’ll do the Bounceland Ultimate Combo, dunk tank, and I’ll throw in an obstacle course. Same price.”

Angie looked at Mike aghast as she quickly shut the bathroom door. Whatever he just did in there needed to stay in there. Mike Webb, not being the bashful type, probably couldn’t care less that he had fouled the office with his business, nor did he seem to mind conducting another type of business while on the can.

“Okay, fine. What about the cotton candy machine? Is that still a go? Great. Thank you, Mrs. Walker, for choosing Bouncy Time Funland Rentals. We bounce for you. Have a great day.”

Angie glared at Mike, hands on her hips.

“What?” he asked.

“That’s just gross,” Angie said.

“What is?” He really didn’t get it.

“You. Talking to Mrs. Walker on the phone while you’re doing”—she pointed to the bathroom door—“that.”

“I had her on mute. And now I have an eight hundred dollar rental for this Saturday, thank you very much.”

Mike had started Bouncy Time Funland Rentals with one bounce house in his inventory. Now he had a warehouse full of bouncy castles and obstacle courses that covered the spectrum from Dora the Explorer to Spider Man.

“What’s the latest on the Nadine Jessup case?”

“I interviewed—um—hang on a second.” Mike crossed the room and fished a little black notebook from his laptop bag. He flipped quickly through the pages as he scanned them. He lived and died by that notebook. His handwriting made chicken scratch look like calligraphy. How he could read it was a mystery to Angie, but he was a copious note taker, even as he digitally recorded every interview.

A few years back, he had come to Angie as a client. He had separated from his wife of ten years and suspected her of neglecting their two young children. He had married late in life. His wife, twelve years his junior, still had some giddyup left in her party tank. He’d wanted evidence that she was leaving the kids, eight and six at the time, to hit the bars in Old Town Alexandria.

Angie took Mike’s case, no problem. She had a license to carry a concealed weapon, but rarely did. Her weapon of choice was a video camera. It helped that she could blend. Who would think the girl walking behind was recording your every movement using a camera hidden in her eyeglasses? She knew her way around the firing range, but men didn’t come to Angie because they wanted a tough-talking Sam Spade type. They came because they specifically wanted a female PI.

Women’s intuition might be a cliché, but the saying came about for some reason. Angie trusted her gut instinct. She could usually pick the cases where something shady was going on. Male clients, who made up a significant portion of her business, often felt a woman could best understand what they were going through. She respected the therapeutic aspect of the job. She understood that plenty of referrals had come because of her empathetic nature. Empathy was vital in cases of runaway children and affairs of the heart.

Many men had broken down in tears after seeing irrefutable evidence of their cheating wives. What they didn’t want was to blubber in the office of another man. Most male PIs would say things like, “Screw her,” and “You’re better off.” Angie was different. She would give them a hug. She would say, “This must be so hard for you. I’m sorry for what you’re going through. You’re a great guy and you deserve better.” It was just a nicer way of saying, “You’re better off,” but it was what these guys wanted and needed to hear.

In the case of Mike Webb, his concern about his wife proved valid. Angie had recorded the party gal out at bars with several different men while the children were home with a babysitter. At least, she had the decency to get a babysitter. The judge did not take kindly to the mom coming home sloshed late at night when she should have been with her children.

Mike had been so impressed with Angie and the work she did that he got his PI license and became a damn fine investigator. He was the first person she had thought to call to keep momentum going on the Nadine Jessup case. He had also been fielding Angie’s phone calls; in her time away from the office, he’d landed an insurance fraud investigation and two new cheating hearts. Since Mike’s focus was Nadine Jessup, the new assignments had gone to other
& Associates
members. Angie would oversee those investigations and collect a fair share of the fee, but her attention needed to be on Nadine.

“So I spoke with Sophia,” Mike said as he read from his notebook.

“Who is Sophia?” Angie asked.

“A friend of Nadine’s from school.”

“And?”

“And she hasn’t heard from her, and I don’t think she’s lying.”

Angie was inclined to believe him. She wouldn’t be speaking with Sophia herself. She might have a gut instinct about cases, but nobody could read body language better than Mike Webb.

“Anybody else?”

“Five other friends, two boys, three girls. All interviewed. Nobody had anything super revealing to share. Whatever issues Nadine faced at home, she kept tightlipped about them at school.”