The Scent of Murder (7 page)

“Nobody comes here at night,” Manuel said, voicing my thoughts.

“Except for you guys.”

“That's right. Except for us. And we don't count.”

I took two sticks of gum out of my jacket, gave one to Manuel, and began unwrapping the other one. “So how do we get in?” I asked.

Manuel grinned. He liked being the one in charge. “I'll show you.” I wondered if he'd ever been a child.

We got out of the car at almost the same time. The thud of the cab doors shutting echoed up and down the street. Manuel beckoned for me to follow him. We walked down the driveway. In the middle of the warehouse wall, someone had spray painted a smiley face with its tongue sticking out. Under it, they had written. “Going nowhere. Doing nothing.” Seemed right to me.

I continued walking. The asphalt was littered with junk food wrappers and beer cans, plus the occasional brick that had fallen out of the wall. Manuel turned the corner, and I did the same. The back of the warehouse had been blacktopped over. A band of weed trees had grown up around the edges. Stray strips of newspaper and plastic hung from branches, fluttering in the wind like lost souls. I turned towards the building. A large pull-up accordion-pleated metal door marked the loading dock. A smaller door, now boarded up with plywood sheeting, sat a couple of feet away. The four concrete steps leading up to it looked safe enough, though once I got closer, I could see that the metal railing fastened to them was beginning to rust through.

Manuel climbed the stairs quickly. I was right behind him. When we got to the smaller door, he bent slightly, put his hands on either side of the bottom half of the plywood, and pulled. The wood came away, revealing a door with a hole gashed into the middle of it. It looked as if someone had taken an axe to it.

Manuel grinned. “Neat, huh? When you put the plywood back, you can't see anything from the outside.”

Then he stepped inside. I felt a little like Alice going into Wonderland, as I followed him through.

I
looked around. We were standing in a hallway that was maybe ten feet wide at the most. The place had that fusty odor places get when they're not lived in or worked in for a long time. I rubbed my arms. It felt colder in here than it did outside, but at least it wasn't pitch-black. A large metal industrial style lamp looped onto a pipe which ran across the ceiling and threw a ragged white light on the cement walls and concrete floor. It seemed as if we'd stepped into a different time, but whether it was feudal or postmodern, I couldn't tell.

I pointed to the lamp. “Who tapped into the power lines?”

Manuel shook his head. “I don't know. Come on.” He motioned for me to follow him down the hall. “We have to go this way.”

I trailed my hand along the wall as I walked. It felt rough to the touch. We'd taken about five steps when two girls materialized in the corridor in front of us. They were both bundled up against the cold in long black skirts, heavy sweaters, lace up boots, and patched, oversized ski parkas.

The smaller one shaded her eyes with her hand, trying to see into the gloom. “Lisa?” she asked. Her voice was childishly high. “Is that you?”

“Sorry.”

The two girls froze in alarm at the sound of my voice. In another moment, I was sure they'd be gone, vanishing into the bowels of the warehouse.

Manuel stepped in front of me. “It's okay,” he said, and he put up both hands, palms facing outward, to show he meant no harm.

The bigger girl took a step back. “What do you want?”

“Everything's fine.” Manuel's voice was low and soothing. “Don't you remember me? I was here with Rabbit. At the party. The one last week,” he added, when he didn't get a response. “I brought the Bud.”

The smaller girl snapped her fingers and giggled. “Yeah. That's right. You're the one that got sick all over Jamal's shoes and passed out.”

Manuel screwed up his mouth in an expression of outrage. “Hey, I just shut my eyes for a couple of minutes.”

The bigger girl put her hands on her hips. “Excuse me! You were out cold. Rabbit had to drag you out of here.” Her face had relaxed while she talking to Manuel, but then she glanced at me, and she started looking scared again. “What does she want?” she asked, indicating me with a nod of her head.

Manuel stamped his feet. The cold must have been getting to him. I know it was getting to me. I could feel it seeping up through the floor, through the soles of my shoes, into the bottoms of my feet. I began to wish I'd put on heavier socks. “She just wants to ask you a few questions,” he said.

“About what?”

“Amy Richmond,” I explained. “I'm looking for her. Manuel told me she might be here.”

The girl made a minute adjustment to the pocket flap of her parka before answering. “Well Manuel is wrong. She was here, but she left.”

“I see.” I took a couple of steps towards the girls, then stopped and waited for a reaction. When there was none, I took a few more. As I slowly drifted towards them, I realized I was doing the same kind of thing I did when I tried to get close to a stray cat. “And when was that?” I asked, when I was within eight feet.

“A couple of days ago.”

I nodded towards the corridor they were standing in front of. “So if I walk in there, I won't see her?”

“I just told you that,” the girl who was doing the talking replied.

“Fine.” I made conciliatory noises. I didn't want to antagonize my only source of information. “Did Amy happen to say where she was going?”

The girls exchanged glances. Now that my eyes had a chance to adjust to the light, I could see them better. They both looked to be about thirteen. They had bleached their hair blonde and plastered their faces with makeup, trying, no doubt, to look older, but the puppy fat on their bodies and the high notes in their voices betrayed them. They should have been in their houses doing their homework, watching TV, and talking on the phone to their friends—not standing here answering my questions.

“No,” the bigger one said. “She didn't.”

In a couple of years, the girl's expertise would grow. But right now, she was still a bad liar.

“I'm telling you the truth,” she insisted, when I politely expressed my disbelief. “She left with this guy.”

I thought of the man who had been waiting for me outside my house. “Is his name Toon Town?”

She gasped in amazement. Robin Light. Genius. “How'd you know?”

“I had the pleasure of meeting him last night.”

“He gives me the creeps.”

“He gives me the creeps, too.”

I was rewarded with the shadow of a smile. “He's always bragging on how he's always spying on people. How he knows everything we do.”

“Nice.”

“Amy told me her mother said if she saw him around the house, she'd call the cops.”

I didn't say anything, even though I could sympathize with the sentiment. Instead I put my hands in my pockets and looked around. “So how long have you guys been here?”

“A couple of weeks.”

I gave an involuntary shudder. “That's a long time.”

“It's not so bad,” the bigger one said. “You get used to it.”

“How do you stand the cold?”

“We got blankets and camping stuff.”

“And anyway, we're waiting for someone,” the littler one said. “Justin's taking us to Chicago.”

“Melanie.” The bigger one's voice was fierce. “Shut up.”

I could see Melanie flinch.

“How old is Justin?” I asked.

“Old enough,” the one who was talking said. Her voice had taken on a defiant edge. “Not that it's any of your business. If my parents don't care, why should you?”

“No reason at all,” I replied soothingly.

“You don't believe me, do you?”

“No, I do.”

The girl looked as if she were going to cry. Melanie patted her shoulder. Her friend gave her a wan smile. I wanted to hug her. The four of us stood in silence for a few seconds. Then I offered everyone a piece of gum and brought the subject back to Amy. “So what's Amy's story? How come she ran away?”

This time the girl answered. She was relieved to talk about someone else. “She didn't run away. Her father threw her out.”

“Really?” Charlie had said Amy had taken off.

“They got into a big fight.”

“Over what?”

“Stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?”

The girl shrugged. “She didn't say.”

“Do you know why she was sent to Cedar View?”

“The usual. Smoking weed, skipping school, staying out late, talking back.”

I remembered something else Charlie had said. “I heard Amy had a bad acid trip.”

The girl stuck her chin out. “It wasn't that bad. I've seen worse.”

She probably had, too. She was probably a better judge of that kind of thing than I was. “Okay.” I wiggled my fingers to get the blood flowing. “Are you sure she didn't say anything to indicate where she might be going?”

The girls exchanged another glance.

“Why are you looking for her?” asked the one that was doing all the talking.

“Her brother wants to help her.”

“Right,” the girl said, sarcastically. She shifted her weight from one foot to another and inspected a lock of her hair for split ends.

“You don't believe that he wants to?”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“Amy's in a lot of trouble,” I added.

“You already said that.”

“Look, all I want to do is talk to her. I just want to make sure she's all right.”

“So you say,” the girl sneered. I realized she'd listened to too many adults making too many empty promises to believe mine. I'd have to earn her trust. Unfortunately, I didn't have the time. I was trying to decide what to say next, when Melanie muttered something.

I turned to her. “I'm sorry,” I told her. “I didn't hear what you said.”

Melanie's hand went up to her hair. She began pulling on a lock. “Toon Town's name is Wallace Gleason,” she blurted out. “He used to hang out with my cousin's friend. That's how I know.”

“Melanie!” her friend yelled.

I ignored the friend and concentrated on Melanie. “Do you know where he and Amy were going?”

Melanie shook her head. “They never said.”

“Do you remember anything else about him?”

“He's weird.”

“Weird as in how?”

“He's got all this electronic stuff. He's always spying on people, listening in to hear what they say. And he's got these special glasses you can see in the dark with.”

“Night vision binoculars.”

“Yeah. That's it. He loves all that stuff.”

“Melanie, shut up!” her friend cried, before I could ask another question.

“No.” Melanie's eyes narrowed. Her hands went to her hips. “I won't. I'm tired of you ordering me around. The guy is a total sleazebag.”

The two girls glared at each other.

“Thanks,” I told Melanie. “You've done the right thing.”

She studied the floor instead of answering. I guess maybe she was having second thoughts. I took one of my business cards out of my wallet and put it in Melanie's hand. Given the coldness of the room, it felt surprisingly warm. “If you or your friend decide not to go to Chicago, give me a call. Maybe I can help.”

“We don't need your help,” the bigger girl yelled. “We can take care of ourselves. We're fine.”

Her voice vibrated inside my head like a guilty memory, as I walked back down the hallway. “What's the other girl's name?” I asked.

“Cindy. Why?”

“Just curious. Do you know their last names?”

From Manuel's expression, you would have thought I was enquiring after their blood type. “I never asked.”

We left the way we came in. I took a deep breath of fresh air, while Manuel fitted the plywood back in place.

“What now?” he asked, when he was done.

I considered my answer, while I surveyed the sky. It was starless. “Two things,” I replied. “I'm going to see if I can find Mr. Wallace Gleason, and I'm going to have another conversation with Amy's mother.”

“Tonight?”

“No. Tomorrow. How crazy do you think I am?”

Manuel didn't answer, which was probably all to the good. I dropped him off at Rabbit's house and went home. It wasn't until I walked into the kitchen that I knew something was wrong.

O
f course I didn't realize anything was amiss right away. I wasn't really paying strict attention. But then, who does in their own home? I fed James, glanced at the day's mail, and poured myself a shot of Scotch and drank it, after which I got a pint of Ben & Jerry's English Toffee Crunch out of the freezer and started eating. It wasn't until I was done and went over to check my answering machine for messages that I realized I had a problem. The machine was gone. It took me another second before I noticed my box was gone, too. So were my CDs. That's when it finally hit me. I'd been robbed.

“I can't believe it,” I told Zsa Zsa.

She rubbed her head on my ankle. I gave her an absentminded pat, as I surveyed the kitchen. Nothing else seemed to be missing. I shivered. At first I thought it was just a reaction to having my house broken into, but then I realized I was feeling a blast of cold air on my back. I turned. The kitchen window—the one that had been painted shut, the one I hadn't been able to pry open—was up. I immediately thought of Toon Town standing beneath the spruce tree and wondered if he could have been responsible for this, but then I dismissed the thought. He'd said he'd been looking for Amy and, given what I'd heard tonight, I had no reason to doubt his story. We'd had a fair number of break-ins in the area recently. This was probably one of those. I went into the living room to see what else was missing.

The TV and the VCR were still there. That was good. I made a circuit of the room. At first glance, nothing seemed to be gone. I walked into the dining room. Everything seemed to be in place there, too. Maybe I'd be lucky. Maybe whoever had done this had just gotten as far as the kitchen before he left. But of course I wouldn't know that until I checked out the rest of the house. Zsa Zsa ran ahead of me, as I climbed the stairs.

“And what were you doing when this happened?” I asked her. She halted on the step in front of me and wagged her tail. I scratched her rump. “You know you're supposed to protect this house, not hide under the bed.” She wagged her tail again. As a guard dog, she was hopeless. Maybe I should get a tape of a Rottweiler barking and hook it into the door bell.

I paused at the door to my bedroom. The person, or persons, had been in here, too. My dresser drawers were open, as was the closet door. I checked my jewelry case. My Mexican silver jewelry was gone. So was the thirty dollars I'd left lying on my nightstand. Great. I turned and went into my study and the guest room. The rooms had been gone through, but nothing had been taken. Not that there really was anything to take—unless, of course, the thieves had a hard-on for sheets and blankets. I put a piece of gum in my mouth, went back to my bedroom, and called the police.

Two uniforms came by, twenty minutes later.

“Probably kids,” the first one told me, after he'd had a look around. “They've been really busy around here recently.”

The second one opened up his evidence kit and began dusting the windowsill for prints. “Not that this will help much,” he said, as he worked. “These days everyone wears gloves.”

“Then why bother?”

He ignored me and kept on working.

“You should get an alarm system put in,” the first one said, when his partner was finished. By now both men had been in my house for about half an hour. “Here.” He handed me a paper with a number on it. “When you call your insurance agent, give him this.”

They left, and I dragged myself off to bed. I fell asleep the moment my head touched the pillow. I was still sleeping when the alarm rang the next morning. I turned it off and lay in bed, too exhausted to get up. In the old days, I'd have swallowed a couple of uppers. Now, of course, I don't do that anymore. I drink a pot of coffee instead. So now my brain isn't messed up—my stomach is. Which, I suppose, is an improvement of sorts.

As I studied the stain on the ceiling, and wondered where the leak in the roof was coming from and why the roofers couldn't find it, I told myself I'd get up in five minutes. I fell back to sleep instead. I don't think I would have gotten up at all, if Jamie hadn't decided to sit on my chest and nibble on my chin. By then, it was nine o'clock and I panicked. I had to go to the bank before the store opened. I dashed into the shower, put on a pair of jeans and a turtleneck, fed the cat, and left the house.

There was a line at the bank—I don't know why the branch I use doesn't have a line just for commercial transactions, but it doesn't. By the time I got out of there, put gas in the cab—which I had to do because the indicator was below empty—got my coffee, my papers, and picked out my doughnuts, it was almost ten o'clock.

I was unlocking the door to Noah's Ark, when a guy who'd sold me an iguana a month before came up and informed me he wanted it back. When I explained that I'd already sold it, he did a good imitation of a man about to go postal. It seems Iggy the Iguana had been his girlfriend's. He sold it when she'd walked out on him. Well, now they were back together, but if she discovered he'd gotten rid of it, they wouldn't be together for long. Fortunately one iguana pretty much looks like another. Well, not exactly, but close enough, if you're not paying strict attention.

“Don't worry,” I told the guy, as I sent him out the door with Iggy II. “She'll never know.”

“You're sure?” he asked.

“I'm positive,” I lied. At this point, I would have said anything to get him to leave. I checked the clock on the wall. It was ten forty. My coffee was cold, and I hadn't even begun cleaning out the cages. This, I decided, as Manuel came sauntering in, was not going to be a good day.

“One of Rabbit's friends has a ...” he began.

I cut him off before he could get any further. “Whatever it is, I'm not interested.”

“Hey, I'm just trying to ...”

“I mean it, Manuel.”

The tone in my voice must have finally penetrated, because he grumped a “fine” and went into a sulk.

I took the phone book out from underneath the counter and pushed it towards him. “Here,” I said. “If you want to do something useful, take this into my office and dial all the Gleasons in the book. See if you can find out where Toon Town lives. I expected him to argue, but he picked up the directory and pointed to the bag of doughnuts.

“Can I have one?”

I nodded.

“Two?”

“One and a half.”

“Okay.” He went into the back, from which he reemerged an hour later to tell me most of the people he'd called weren't home, and the ones who were didn't know anyone called Wallace. Then he told me he was leaving.

I stopped in the middle of changing the wood shavings in the hamsters' cage. “You can stay if you want.”

Manuel shook his head. “I gotta go back over to Rabbit's. I told him I'd help him do some stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“Nothing special.”

“I hope you two aren't breaking into cars again.”

Manuel's face flushed. “I'm not that stupid.”

“Good.” I changed the topic to a more neutral one. “Listen,” I said, as he was leaving. “Ask Rabbit if he's seen Amy. Ask him to ask him friends.”

Manuel nodded, as he ambled towards the door. I went back to work. About two o'clock, I called Gerri Richmond. The line was busy. The line was still busy when Tim walked in at two thirty. At two forty five I decided to take my chances and run over there. It was probably better than phoning for an appointment, anyway. I didn't want to give Gerri Richmond a chance to prepare herself. This time I wanted the advantage on my side for a change.

No one answered when I rang the bell at Gerri Richmond's house, but, given the two cars in the driveway, I figured someone was home. So I just kept my finger on the buzzer. After a minute of listening to the first bars of “Fur Elise,” Gerri came to the door. She didn't look pleased to see me, but then, why should she be.

“I'm busy,” she snapped.

“That makes two of us.” I stepped in before she had a chance to slam the door in my face.

Maybe it was the lack of makeup, but she looked more tired and older then she had the last time I'd seen her. The one thing she didn't look was grief-stricken. Maybe losing her husband was a relief instead of a tragedy. As I took another step, I noticed that her hair was pulled back in a rubber band and she was wearing sweat pants and a matching shirt in an unbecoming shade of pink.

Gerri Richmond folded her arms across her chest. “What do you want?” she demanded.

“An end to hunger and world peace, but I'll settle for talking about Amy.”

“We have nothing to talk about.”

“Are you so sure?” I watched the vein under Richmond's eye start twitching like a pinned worm. I don't know. Maybe she was expecting me to mention Murphy, but I was saving him for last. I mentioned her son instead. “Charlie seems to feel differently.”

“What do you mean?” she stammered.

“He hired me to find her.”

She opened her mouth in amazement. “I don't believe you. Why would he do that?”

I borrowed a gesture from Manuel and shrugged. “I don't know. Call him and find out.”

“I will.” She whirled around and headed for the phone.

As soon as she was out of sight, I went up the stairs to look for Amy's room.

I hadn't planned to but—hey, you know what they say about opportunity: If you don't open the door when it knocks, next time it might just walk on by. I figured it like this: I needed to find Amy. To do that, I needed to know as much about her as possible. Her room was a good place to start. Not that her mother would see things that way. Which was why I was taking the stairs two at a time. I figured I had five minutes at the most, before Gerri Richmond materialized at my side.

Fortunately for me, Amy's room was the second door from the left at the top of the stairs. Someone—probably Amy—had painted the walls and the ceiling a deep red. The window frames and the sashes were trimmed in lavender. If it hadn't been for the garlands of white Christmas lights festooning the moldings, I would have felt as if I'd walked into a cave. The first thing that attracted my attention was the canopy bed. Its light color marked it as coming from an earlier, happier time in Amy's life. The purple quilted spread was piled high with clothes. I gave them a quick glance and moved on to the massive, mahogany desk. Cans of glitter and spray paint, scraps of leather and fabric, beads, leather thongs, and paint brushes were heaped in the center. I wondered if Amy had been working on something when she left and, if so, what.

I poked through the stuff, but nothing presented itself. Next I picked up a book on origami that was laying off to one side and leafed through it. The figures were complex, some like the seahorse, requiring sixty-four folds. Certainly way beyond my league, but not beyond Amy's, judging from the blue paper swan that was hidden between two pages. I put the book down and opened the center drawer. I heard a snap and pulled my hand away. Then I peered in. A sprung mouse trap sat on a small notebook. Cute. Amy had booby trapped her desk. Life in this house must be delightful, I decided, as I moved the trap out of the way and picked up the notebook. It was labeled “assignments.” I was about to flip through it, when I heard Gerri Richmond coming up the stairs. On impulse I slipped it into my pants pocket and closed the drawer. Then I turned to face the door.

“How dare you?” she spluttered, when she reached the entryway.

I moved away from the desk and towards her. “I'm sorry,” I said. “I assumed you'd want to help me, so I decided to get a head start and save some time.”

“Get out.” She pointed to the door. I felt as if I were in the middle of a Victorian melodrama.

“Fine. I guess what your stepson said was true about your not liking Amy very much.”

Gerri Richmond's face turned even paler. In a little while, it would match the color of her hair, and she'd fade into nothingness. “What I feel about my daughter or what my daughter feels about me is none of your business.”

“It is, now that I've been hired to find her.”

“Not by me.” She drew herself up. “Or my son.”

“I think I'll have to take his word on that.”

“Be my guest.” I noticed the vein under her eye was twitching again. “You have no idea what the situation is. The only thing you're going to do is to make things worse.”

“Then why don't you explain it?”

But she either couldn't or wouldn't. “If you don't leave, I'm going to call the police.”

“Relax. I'm going.” I walked past her. The smell of Le Dix lingered in the air. “Tell me,” I asked, when I was at the head of the stairs. “Don't you give a care about Amy at all?”