The Sholes Key (An Evans & Blackwell Mystery #1) (7 page)

“I want to go back to the office for awhile,” Theo said. He wanted to sleep.

“The boy kept asking me where his mother was,” Dorland said as they walked toward the car. “What do you say to that? How can I pretend that everything will end well when I know chances are unlikely?”

“Did he tell you anything of value?”

“He doesn’t remember much, and I’m not sure what he did tell me was accurate. Children, they don’t think in days or hours.”

“When did he see his mum last?”

“He told me he felt sick at daycare, and his mother picked him up,” Dorland said. “He said he woke up and went next door because he couldn’t find his mum—must be Wednesday or early Thursday.”

“That confirms what the grandmother said.” Theo flipped through his notepad. “To be sure, I think we need to contact the childcare center. I wrote down the information Eva gave me.” Theo stopped and leaned against the brick of the building. Dorland didn’t notice and walked on.

“You’re good with children, Dorland,” Theo said, pushing buttons on his mobile when he finally caught up to his partner.

“There are lots of children in my family. I’ve had hours of practice in dinosaur ventriloquism. Kids are great; they’re not full of crap. If I want an honest answer, I’ll ask them. The adults, they’re so full of bloody fear.” He tripped over a metal bin that landed with a crash a few feet ahead.

Theo laughed. “Is that your clown routine?”

“Well, if I can’t make it as a police officer,” Dorland replied as he set the bin upright. “I bet you want children some day.”

“You sound like my mother. She still holds out hope that Agneta will recover and that we can make up for lost time.” Theo shrugged. “I don’t know.” Half the time he felt like a bastard for wanting to move on, the other half, he knew he needed to move on to regain his sanity. Children? Who could think about children? Agneta was reliving adolescence. “That was all the boy told you?”

Dorland nodded. “You could always file for divorce.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“Moving on. Divorce.”

“Dorland, I don’t want to talk about my marriage with you, all right?”

“All right, boss. I just—”

“You just nothing. It’s none of your business.”

They remained silent until they reached the car. Dorland bent over and unlocked his door. “I should tell you—Steve said they arrived home and his mother let him watch videos all night until he fell asleep. He didn’t know what time he went to bed, but he said it was dark out. That confirms she went missing sometime Wednesday night, and before five-thirty the next morning. We need to find out what her movements were then.”

* * *

After Theo retrieved his Jeep, he drove around his neighborhood until he found a spot near a park. His head throbbed. After placing two small pills under his tongue, he pulled the lever on his seat and leaned back.

When he awoke, it was dark. He looked at his watch—nine. Damn, the pills were wonderful. If only he could sleep all his days away.

The next morning, Theo wandered into his office around half-ten.

Dorland, feet held down by the sofa, was doing situps. “Almost done, Gov—fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty.” He hopped up.

Theo ignored him and went to his desk. The frame— knocked to the floor the previous morning—now sat on his desk, glassless, the photo taped to the top of it.

Dorland grabbed his towel from the back of a chair and wrapped it around his neck. “Lorna lives near Commercial Street. Do you want to know why that’s interesting?”

“You should do that at home.”

“What?”

“Sweat.”

“Sorry, boss.” Dorland lifted his arm and smelled his armpit. “Oh, yes, I’ll remedy that immediately.” He looked at Theo. “So, know why it’s interesting?”

“I’m afraid to ask. Why?”

“Jack the Ripper territory.” Dorland held a big smile.

“Jack the Ripper? I thought you had some grand enlightenment into the case. At least something related to it.”

Seeing his irritation, Dorland continued quickly, “And as interesting as that morsel of information may seem to you, it wasn’t the only thing I was thinking of. There’s a great place to eat nearby.”

“You’re hungry?”

“Famished.” Dorland patted his stomach.

“I just got in.”

“Can’t work on an empty stomach. Did you eat breakfast?”

Theo shook his head.

* * *

They finally agreed on Italian. The restaurant decor was plain. White tablecloths covered small round tables. In the center of each table, cheap tapers sat in candleholders. A red cloth napkin in the shape of a bird sat in the middle of a simple white plate.

A teenage boy with a blaring drumbeat coming from his earphone sat them immediately. Worried that the lack of patrons and the quality of service was indicative of the quality of food, Theo was pleasantly surprised at how appetizing the meal looked once the waiter laid it down before him.

“Never ate round this part of London before. In fact, eating anything that doesn’t come in paper is normally a bit pricey for me,” Theo remarked as he covered his
Cannelloni alla Romana
with chili flakes.

Dorland, who had just filled his mouth with lasagna, swallowed a large mouthful before he could reply. “I’ve eaten round here before, but… well, somewhere different.”

“What do you mean different?”

“Because it was in a pub where some speculate Jack the Ripper met one of his victims.” Dorland burped and quickly covered his mouth. When Theo rolled his eyes, he changed the subject. “Not that I’m hoping we have a murder to deal with. No, nothing like that. I just enjoy the mystery behind Jack the Ripper.”

A man who had just entered the restaurant distracted Theo. Had he seen him before?

“—but truly,” Dorland said, “I’m praying Steve’s mother had a simple crisis and will be back in a few days. To lose a mother is devastating for a boy so young. And the poor grandmother, she’ll have to explain it to him.”

“Yeah.” Theo watched the man sit down at the table next to them and order green tea and spaghetti. Theo turned back to Dorland. “I think we need to look into the father’s whereabouts.”

“Oh, right.”

“Although the grandmother thought the father was a louse, there could’ve been custody disputes. If Lorna did go after the father for maintenance, he may not have liked the extra payments and thought harming her was the answer.”

“Did Lorna’s mum know his name?”

“Hmm, yeah.” Theo reached in his trouser pocket and grabbed his notepad. As he turned to the page with the father’s name, the man at the next table, leaned in closer to Theo and Dorland. Was he listening to their conversation? “No use telling you, it’s not like you could find the information now, anyway.” Theo slammed the book shut. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the man sit back.

“Yes, that makes sense.”

Theo studied Dorland’s face to see if he noticed the suspicious man. Dorland was preoccupied with picking pieces of mince from between the thick noodles and cheese. Perhaps, Theo thought, he was overly cautious. Perhaps the stress at home was causing him to be suspicious of everyone.

“Eat up, Dorland,” Theo said. “We must get on.” The man next to him hadn’t received his meal. Theo called the waiter over and asked for the bill.

Dorland put his fork down and wiped the tomato remnants from around his mouth with his cloth napkin. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a fiver. “It’s all I have.”

Theo paid the rest and a minute later, they sprinted to the car. “Get in, get in,” Theo said. “Get in and get down.”

“What’s going on, boss?”

“Did you recognize the man who sat at the table next to us?”

Dorland squinted toward the restaurant. “Man? What man?”

“That man… never mind. He looks so familiar.”

“Is it a movie star?”

“No. Oh, here he comes now, get down.” From his wing mirror, Theo watched as the man exited the restaurant and looked directly at their car. Theo tried to spot any identifying marks on him. Nothing. Nondescript cap, dark glasses, and characterless clothing. Even his shoes, nothing of note.

“Why are we hiding?” Dorland whispered as he attempted to slink his large frame below the headrest. “We look ridiculous.” A woman stared at them through the car window as she walked by. Dorland nodded his head in her direction. “A case in point.”

“You’re right, what are we doing?” Theo got out of the car only to find that the man had disappeared.

Chapter 6

Graffiti painted the terraced houses on the street where Lorna McCauley lived. Betterment of the area seemed to be underway, though it had not yet hit this street. Century-old houses stood lined up one after the other down the street. Lorna lived midway in a house that looked like all the others.

Entering through an unlocked door, Blackwell and Dorland met a white dog who lay in front of door number one. The dog didn’t get up, didn’t move; only his ears stood. He bared his teeth and let out a faint growl. When Blackwell and Dorland ascended the stairs, the dog stopped growling and flicked dust off the floor with his tail.

They climbed the steep, creaky stairs to the second floor. Having obtained duplicate keys from Lorna’s mother at the hospital, they entered a door with the number three hanging loosely upside down. The flat looked like a nursery school. Toys littered the living area. Dorland let out a large fart as he stepped on a Whoopee cushion just inside the door.

“Excuse yourself,” Theo said and laughed as he picked up the thick, pink balloon.

“I had one of these growing up, it drove my father mad. I think he eventually ripped it in half.”

“Smells nice in here,” commented Theo as he spotted the air freshener above the fridge. “Better than the old curry smell out there.”

“Probably to mask the missing cheese sandwich under the bed,” Dorland said, pointing to the large sofa bed that lay flat in the middle of the room.

Theo toured the house—which consisted of one large room with a kitchen and one small bathroom—to confirm the missing woman was indeed missing and had not returned to her flat. He placed her toothbrush in a clear plastic bag for forensics. Satisfied, he went over to the phone and picked up the receiver.

“She has received messages,” Theo remarked, listening to the phone. “I need a four-digit code.”

Theo replaced the receiver, went to the calendar tacked to the wall beside the fridge, and started rifling through the months. June fourth on the calendar had a circle with the letters MY BD and the number thirty-one written within. On November second was written ‘Stevie’s BD’ and the number seven.

“June fourth and November second,”
Theo repeated. Back on the phone, he typed in 0-6-0-4. When that didn’t work, he tried 0-4-0-6, 0-2-1-1 and 1-1-0-2. The last number was what he needed. He took out his notebook and pen and listened to the messages.

Lorna McCauley hadn’t left a message asking for help. Stevie had a dentist appointment in two days, and Lorna’s boss was extremely upset she didn’t show up for work on Thursday and Friday.

“What would you have done if none of those numbers worked?” Dorland asked, picking the toys off the ground to look under the blue sofa bed.

“I would have tried 1-2-3-4 and then had you ring the phone company.”

“Then good thing you found it. Anything interesting?”

“Nothing,” Theo replied, writing down all the numbers he found displayed on Caller ID.

“This woman must be Toys R Us’ best customer,” said Dorland, throwing the toys into the empty box beside the bed. “Ah, parental guilt—the mass marketer’s bread and butter.”

“Okay, now let’s walk through this: the boy came home from daycare Wednesday afternoon. We have this confirmed from Stevie, and we can confirm it from his teacher. Stevie was found in his pajamas. Unless he got into them as soon as he came home from daycare, she must have been here to tuck him in bed. Meaning she went missing between Wednesday evening and five-thirty Thursday morning.”

“If she was thinking of leaving Stevie alone,” Dorland said, now going through the DVD’s beside the TV, “and taking off for awhile, why do it when he’s sick? Why not get her mother to watch him, or why not leave him at daycare? It’s not looking good.”

“I know.”

“If she was abducted or killed, did the culprit come here, to her flat? Did she let him in? That would mean she knew him.”

“I checked her calendar. She has no markings in the last week, other than the number nine three days from now. And she doesn’t seem to keep a diary, unless she has it with her.” Looking around the room Theo noticed that other than the bed Lorna had only a double dresser, a kitchen table which doubled as a desk, and a small table that held the TV. She didn’t even own a bookshelf. “Except for toys and things for the boy, there’s not much here that belongs to her: a few books, some clothes, and some bills. Have you seen a wallet or handbag?” Theo collected the bills in another plastic bag.

“No. Why?”

Theo went to the door and started separating the piles of shoes. “Lorna’s… Stevie’s… Stevie’s…  Stevie’s… Lorna’s… Stevie’s. Do you own trainers, Dorland?”

“I own three pairs, why?”

“Of the shoes that belong to Lorna, she’s got a pair of flats and a pair of stilettos, probably for work. Meaning either she doesn’t own any trainers or she left the house with her trainers on.”

“So maybe after she put the boy to bed she had a visitor,” Dorland suggested.

“It would have to be someone she knew,” Theo said.

“Why do you say that?”

“See how many locks she has on the door? Three. Do you think she would open it for a stranger?”

“Perhaps the man had a flat tire and her lights were on.”

“I don’t care what kind of sob story someone gives. My wife and mother would never open the door late at night for a man they didn’t know. I’ve heard horror stories: people open their doors, and men rush in holding a gun to their head while they rob them. So no, I doubt she would.”

“Even if they begged for help?”

“She lives in multi-flat housing. If I were her, I would send the poor bloke, whoever he was, across the hall to a man.”