The Detective (3 page)

There had been six high profile robberies in our jurisdiction spread out over the first few months of the new year. One or, possibly, two suspects targeted large homes in rural neighborhoods, nothing too far off the beaten path but somehow all conveniently located just out of our immediate reach. The week before, they had hit the home of Albert Kensington—the mayor of Apex. Like the rest of the victims, he and his wife had recently left the home when the thieves broke in. It was unclear whether the mayor was specifically targeted or if it was a coincidence. Thankfully, no one had been injured during any of the robberies, but we all knew that could change at any moment.

The thieves mainly stole cash—all of the victims kept plenty of it in their homes—but at the Kensington residence, they took his whole damn safe. Inside the safe, he kept a notebook full of his passwords to various websites, including his bank account. Before daybreak, $13,000 had been transferred out of his checking and into a web-based account that was opened in the name of Justin Sider, which was funnier and funnier the more I thought about it.

By the time I tracked down Justin Sider’s account, it was empty. The money had been withdrawn by Mr. Sider in person from a branch in Virginia. Unfortunately, that bank’s cameras were offline that day for maintenance. Whoever the thieves were, they were good.

I picked up the phone and dialed Mayor Kensington’s office to tell him I still had nothing to tell him. I prayed it would be enough to keep Lieutenant Carr off my back for the rest of the day.

* * *

After work, I drove out to Durham to visit my parents. Even though it was only thirty miles away from my apartment in Raleigh, it felt like an eternity with rush hour traffic. Raleigh and Durham bled closer and closer to each other as commercial zoning spread out wider each year. It wouldn’t be long before there was zero distinction at all. As chaotic as traffic was, it was still the only place I would ever call home. Raleigh-Durham was the only metropolis I knew of where bootlegging moonshine was still considered a profession and whole-hog smoking was a way of life. In fact, I’m pretty sure there was an unwritten rule that in order to be considered a true resident, one had to host at least one annual pig-pickin’. Considering the population, crime was at a minimum, and most acts of violence started and ended with college basketball.
 

Mom and Dad still lived in the same house I grew up in, on a now coveted thirteen acres just outside the city limits. When I pulled in the gravel driveway of the two-story farmhouse, I parked next to my sister Lara’s minivan near the steps of the white front porch.
 

“Knock, knock,” I announced as I walked in the front door.

“In the kitchen!’ my mother called out.

I slipped off my boots by the door and walked down the kitchen toward the smell of a roast in the oven. The swinging door from the family room flew open and my three foot nephew, Carter, slid across the hardwood floor in his socks toward me. “Unca Nate!”

I laughed and scooped him up in my arms. “Hey, bud.”

He grabbed my nose and pinched it as I carried him into the kitchen. Chocolate—I hoped—was smeared across his cheeks. “Momma says you don’t wuv us anymo’ah.”

My sister and his mother, Lara, was chopping a tomato on the island. Her mouth fell open. “I said no such thing!”

I blinked with disbelief.

Carter tugged on my nose again. “She says you’ah too busy being a big shot detective to come an’ bisit us anymo’ah.”

“Is that so?” I asked.

He nodded.

Lara gasped. “Carter!”

I lowered my voice. “Your momma’s a little bit coo-koo.”

He giggled and covered his mouth with his hands. I kissed his temple before putting him down. He clung to my leg and sat down on my boot.
 

I looked at my sister. “Talkin’ shit, huh?”

“Nathan, watch your mouth!” she shrieked with mock horror.
 

Mom walked in the back door with a large jar of canned green beans. Her white hair was pulled back and she was wearing the maroon sweater I’d gotten her for Christmas. “Hi, son.” She came over and kissed my cheek.
 

“Hi, Mom.”

She pushed the jar against my chest. “I’m glad you’re here. Open this.”

I smirked as she walked to the stove. “It feels so good to be needed.”

She laughed. “Oh, shut up. I’m feeding you, aren’t I?”
 

The jar popped open and let out a soft hiss. “Yeah, yeah.” I handed her the jar.

“Shut up!” Carter repeated.

Lara shook her head. “Nice going, Nana.”

Mom put her hand over her mouth. “I forgot he was in here.”

“Carter, go play in the living room with your trucks. Nana has a potty mouth,” Lara said.

Carter obediently got up and ran out of the room.

Mom looked over at me. “How was your weekend in Asheville?”

I nodded and leaned against the counter, producing a pack of Skittles from my pocket. “It was all right. Not too productive though,” I said as I popped a few candies into my mouth.

“You’re going to ruin your dinner, Nathan!” my mother scolded.

I turned the bag up over my mouth and let several pour out onto my tongue. She reached over and smacked me on the stomach. I laughed as I chewed.

“Why wasn’t it productive?” she asked. “Was the missing girl’s case there not related?”
 

I twisted the candy closed and tucked it back into my pocket for later. “Oh, I still think it is. It’s just the family wasn’t interested in talking to me.”

She sighed. “Well, I guess I can understand how painful it must be for them.”

I kicked my heel back against the cabinet. “I know. You’d just think they’d be excited about someone working on the case again.”

She dumped the beans into a pot. “I’m sure they are, sweetheart.”

“What’s going on?” Lara asked.

I walked over and picked a crouton out of the salad she was making. “I think I’ve got eleven girls now that were all kidnapped by the same guy.”

She put her knife down. “Eleven? Seriously?”

“Yup.” I popped the crouton into my mouth.

“That sounds like a job for the FBI,” she said.

I nodded. “I’m hoping it will be soon. I’m trying to gather enough evidence that links all the cases together.”

She closed her eyes. “Eleven,” she said again.

“Where’s Dad?” I asked.

Mom put a pan of biscuits in the oven. “He’s off with Joe.”

I looked at Lara. “With Joe?”

Lara rolled her eyes. “Don’t get me started.”

“Trouble in paradise?” I flashed her a grin. “Wake Forest?”

She slammed the tomatoes into the bowl hard enough to send some lettuce flying out. “I swear, next basketball season I’m canceling the credit card that those stupid season tickets are connected to.”

I laughed and crunched down on another crouton.
 

College basketball was a big deal in my family—and in most families in the state of North Carolina. My dad, an alumni of NC State, had raised us all as die-hard Wolfpack fans. But within the confines of the Raleigh-Durham lines, two other major schools rivaled us: UNC and Duke. Seventeen percent of all domestic violence crime in Wake County somehow involved the Wolfpack, the Tarheels, or the Blue Devils. And while our family had never been hauled off to the slammer over the NCAA season, basketball was serious family business. Joe—a graduate of Wake Forest, and the only outsider in our clan—was allowed to marry Lara on one condition: that he took Dad to all the Wake/State home games. No joke.
 

“Hey Noot, what are you doing on Friday after work?” Mom asked.

Lara rolled her eyes. “Mom, he’s thirty. Stop calling him Noot.”

Mom walked over and pinched my cheek. “My baby boy will always be my Noot-Noot.”

I pointed at my sister. “And I’m not thirty.” I quickly did the math in my head. “Not yet, anyway.”

“That’s right… Your birthday is in a few weeks,” Mom said. “What are we going to do for your birthday?”

I winked at Lara. “I was hoping to catch the State game with Joe.”

She threw a cucumber at me. “Shut up.”

Mom leaned her elbows on the island. “We have to do something special, Nathan.”

“Maybe we could take Noot-Noot to the circus and then out for ice cream!” my sister teased.

I laughed. “What’s on Friday?” I asked my mom.

She cocked her head to the side. “What?”

My eyebrows rose. “You just asked me what I was doing on Friday.”

She laughed and pressed her eyes shut. “Oh yes. Ha, ha.” She reached out and gripped my forearm and an earnestness flashed in her eyes that I recognized immediately.

Before she could continue, I shook my head. “No.” I knew where the conversation was headed.

She opened her mouth to speak, but I held up my hand to stop her. “No, Mom,” I said again.

She tugged at my sleeve. “Come on. You’ll love her!”

“Love who?” Lara asked.

“My friend Valerie’s daughter is going to be in town this weekend from D.C. She’s a lovely creature, Nathan,” she said.

“For the hundredth time, Mom, I don’t need you fixing me up with girls.”

“Maybe boys, Mom,” Lara said with a cheeky grin.

I held up my arms in question. “What are you, twelve?”

Lara laughed and rolled her eyes. “There’s no good reason you can’t get girls on your own. We just wonder why you never do.”

“I had a date this weekend, thank you very much.” I regretted the words the instant they left my big mouth.

My mother’s eyes were so wide I thought they might pop out of her skull. “Really?”

I nodded. “With a reporter in Asheville.” I realized ‘reporter’ was a stretch.
 

“How’d you meet her?” Mom pressed.

“We met at a restaurant.” OK, ‘restaurant’ was a stretch as well.

Mom’s smile was so bright, I felt instantly guilty. “Well, how’d it go? Are you going to see her again?”

“No, Mom, because she doesn’t exist,” Lara said.

I glared at my sister. “She’s coming to see me this weekend.”
What the hell is wrong with me? Shut up, Nate.

“Ohhhh?” Mom drew the word out into a melodic tune.

I nodded. “But don’t get your hopes up. I don’t even really know this girl.”

“Will we get to meet her?” Mom was clapping her hands together like a sea lion begging for raw fish.

“Mom!”
 

Lara bumped me with her hip on her way to the refrigerator. “Be careful, Nate. She’ll have you married off by dessert.”

“You’re getting married?” my ten-year-old niece, Rachel, asked. I hadn’t even realized she was in the room.

I tossed my hands in the air. “Do you see what you’ve started, Mom?” I looked at Rachel. “I’m not getting married.”

Lara lowered her voice to a snarky whisper. “Because it’s not legal in our state yet.”

I grabbed the damp dishtowel and lunged toward my sister. She squealed and ran across the kitchen, grabbing Mom by the arms and using her as a shield. “Mom, make him stop!”

Between Mom’s legs, I popped Lara in the shin with the towel. She screamed.

I pointed at her. “Take it back, Lara.”

Lara was panting, her blonde hair slung across her face. “Put it down, Nathan!”

“Take it back,” I said, twisting the towel into a whip again.

“Mom!” Lara screamed and took off running again.
 

As she rounded the island, I popped her square in the seat of her mom-jeans. She cried out, still laughing, and bolted from the kitchen.
 

When I turned back toward my mother, she was rolling her eyes. “Sometimes with the two of you, it’s like we time-warp back to the 80s.” She reached over and yanked the dishtowel out of my hands and started cleaning up the mess Lara had made of the salad.

I laughed. “I know.”

“So, tell me about my new daughter-in-law,” she said, smiling at me across the island.

I plugged my fingers into my ears. “La! La! La! La! La! La! La! La! I can’t hear you!”

She laughed and swatted me with the towel.

FOUR

FRIDAY MORNING DIDN’T come soon enough. Not that I was looking forward to seeing the traffic girl again, but because after a week of chasing dead leads on the home invasions, I needed a break—and a beer. I also really needed my freaking watch back. I was late for everything all week, including dinner with Shannon Green at the Bull City Grill.
 

I stopped at the hostess station on my way in.

“How many, sir?” the tiny, not-yet-legal brunette behind the podium asked.

“I’m looking for someone. Blonde woman.” I wanted to add ‘pretentious and likely overdressed’, but I didn’t.
 

The girl nodded. “I think she’s at the bar.”

I winked my thanks and crossed the room, weaving my way through the tables toward the bar. I didn’t see pretension anywhere. The bartender—forties, fat, caucasian, and balding—leaned his elbows on the bar top. “You look lost.”

Shaking my head, I did another scan of the room. “Looking for a girl.”

He let out a long, slow whistle, his eyes wide.

I laughed and nodded my head. “Yep, I’m looking for
her
.”

He pointed toward a hallway to his right. “Ladies room, I think.”

I angled onto a barstool. “Cool. Can I get a beer while I wait?”

“Of course. What’ll it be?”

I studied the taps. “Let me try that Goose Island IPA.”

“Good choice,” he said, retrieving a frosty mug from the freezer.

As he reached to place my beer in front of me, his eyes darted to a flash of red in my peripheral. When I turned my head and saw Shannon Green in a fitted red dress coming in my direction, the world seemed to stop spinning. Everything was in slow motion. Her hair was blown back by an imaginary breeze. The heavens opened up. Angels sang.

The bartender overshot my cardboard coaster, catching just the edge of the mug, and sent it toppling forward on the bar. Swearing as my crotch was doused in frozen IPA, I leapt off my barstool only to plant my feet in the center of the puddle forming on the floor. My right foot slipped, and I crash-landed in a heap by the bar.