Authors: Wodke Hawkinson
Frank and Linda Cox sat across the
desk from Will, looking as if they were waiting for the proverbial ax to fall.
Will figured that was close to accurate as he prepared to give them the details
of his report. He offered them coffee, but they declined. Sipping his own, he
opened the folder in front of him.
“Okay,” he began. “I have a little
information for you. I checked with her college instructors, a number of
classmates, her best friend, her boss and co-workers, homes near where her car
was discovered, and with merchants whose stores she recently patronized. Here’s
what I found out.” He cleared his throat before continuing.
“No one at school noticed anything
different about her.
“Her friend, Joyce, told me they
hadn’t seen a lot of each other lately although she did talk to Sue last night.
Sue said she’d met someone recently, but wouldn’t tell Joyce anything about him
except that she had finally found
the one
. Sue told her that he was a
secret lover; Joyce assumed Sue might have gotten involved with someone who
already has a girlfriend or is possibly married. Joyce said Sue asked her to
respect her privacy, and she had promised to do so; but, with you both so
upset, she decided to tell me everything she knew. She herself was uncomfortable
with Sue leaving. She said that all Sue would tell her about this new love is
that she was leaving town with him, and that she had met him at work. In fact,
she said he was the new guy at work.
“So I visited Sue’s workplace, and
came up empty there as well. The manager of the nursing home said Sue didn’t
give notice or ask for time off. She just simply didn’t show up for work. I
asked the woman if she had tried to call, and she told me she left several
messages on your daughter’s cell phone, none of which Sue answered. When I
asked about the new young man they’d hired, I was told they hadn’t hired any
male employees in over a year and had no
young
men on their staff. So,
that part of Sue’s story to Joyce had to be fabricated.” Will paused, glancing
at his notes and Mr. Cox slipped in a question.
“What about the phone signal, like
you said? Can’t you track her with that?” Frank gripped the arms of the chair
and leaned forward.
Will shook his head. “No luck
there.”
Frank sank back into the chair,
deflated.
Will met his eyes. “It was a long
shot anyway.” He referred to the file again. “I interviewed all residents that
live near the cemetery. None of them remembers seeing anything, other than the
one who initially reported her car.
“I went over her cell phone bill.
Lots of calls to and from a particular number. But that, too, was a dead end.
The phone was a prepaid. So, that’s unhelpful.” He took another sip of coffee.
“Based on some receipts I found in your daughter’s desk, I visited a used
bookstore downtown. Re-Books. Here’s where we start getting lucky.”
The Coxes sat up straight and
listened expectantly. Will held up a hand in a don’t-get-too-excited gesture.
“The owner told me one of his
clerks hadn’t shown up the last two days. He also recognized your daughter from
the picture I showed him. He said Sue hung around the store quite a bit. He
never actually saw her talking to the clerk, but she might have. Though the
owner spends a lot of time in the office doing paperwork, and doesn’t often
come out front, he did remember your daughter asking about the young man one
day this past summer. The boy had taken a few days off and your daughter
wondered when he’d be back; seemed pretty nervous and asked the owner not to
mention the conversation.”
Will glanced at Mr. and Mrs. Cox to
see if they’d absorbed the importance of this information before continuing.
“Anyway, he pulled the employment records for me, and I got a name. Ezekiel
Kyle, Zeke for short. Ring a bell with either of you?”
Frank and Linda shook their heads
in unison.
“Mr. Kyle is slender, has black
hair, weighs about 165 pounds, and has blue eyes. That’s all the owner could
tell me. This being a college town, he hires lots of young people; the turnover
is high. He said he doesn’t have time to get to know each one and couldn’t give
me any additional information about Zeke. He wasn’t sure about the vehicle the
young man drove, but thinks maybe it was a dark-colored van.”
Will looked up at the couple. “Mr.
and Mrs. Cox, I suspect your daughter is with this guy.”
During Will’s recounting of his
progress, the couple had hung onto his every word, and onto each other’s hands.
“Willingly?” Frank asked.
Will shrugged. “We can’t be
positive, but from what Joyce said, we have to assume she went willingly.” He
cleared his throat. “Okay. Now it gets a little strange. The address he gave on
the job application is bogus. I called in some old favors and pulled some
strings. The social security number matches the name, but it turns out Ezekiel
Kyle died ten years ago in Boise, Idaho. This means our guy is not the real Mr.
Kyle. After eliminating the known, the remaining set of fingerprints I got from
Sue’s car have no matches on the database. This guy is a ghost.”
Will got up and went to the window.
Outside, naked trees shivered in the cold wind against the backdrop of a leaden
sky. Mr. and Mrs. Cox sat speechless.
Will found the weather as
depressing as the case. He closed the blinds and turned to face his clients.
“No Jane Does have shown up in any hospital in the state, and neither have any
unidentified bodies that match Sue’s description. My guess is she has not been
a victim of foul play. I tried to trace the vehicle without much to go on.
There are no vans registered to any Ezekiel Kyle in this county, or the four surrounding
ones; in fact, I found none under the last name of Kyle. It would take more
time and manpower than we have available right now to run down every
dark-colored van in the state. I don’t think it would be a good use of our time
even if it could be done; it would probably be fruitless in the long run.” He
paused, thinking. “What did you find out at the bank?”
Frank cleared his throat before
answering. “She’s already taken out $4,000, but I did like you asked; I moved
all but $500 to a different account. The bank promised to contact us if any
activity occurs on the original account.”
“Great. Well, there is only so much
I can accomplish if I continue working the case like I have been. I think it’s
time we consider our next move.”
“I can’t believe this.” Linda
produced a tissue from her purse and dabbed at her leaking eyes. “What can we
do?”
“I’d like to take this
investigation mobile,” Will stated. “We know they’re on the road and they’ve
got a head start, but not that much of one and I’d like to give it a try. But,
you need to know the cost will increase. I won’t charge you more than the flat
rate I quoted you unless this stretches out for more than two weeks, but
there’ll most likely be additional expenses. I don’t know what you can afford,
or how far you’re willing to go. I need some guidance from you on this.” He
realized the search would monopolize his time, leaving him unable to pursue
other investigations. But this case had piqued his interest and he’d made a
personal choice to proceed; that was the nice thing about being his own boss.
“We want you to continue,” Frank
said, his wife nodding in agreement.
Will was not surprised. In fact,
he’d have been shocked if they’d requested he stop. As he escorted the couple out
of his office, he was already planning his strategy.
They spent a few hours at a rest
stop beneath a pile of blankets in the van, warm enough if they didn’t move.
The slightest shift of their bodies would bring the cold surging back like a
flood. Sue had wanted to get a motel room, but didn’t bother to voice the
desire after Zeke’s lecture about money. Before dawn, they rose with stiff
muscles. Zeke started the van to warm it while Sue ducked into the restroom.
When she returned, Zeke took his turn. By the time he was finished, warm air
streaming from the heater had removed most of the chill.
“Aren’t you hungry?” Sue asked.
“Not yet.” Zeke turned on the
wipers.
He didn’t bother to ask if
she
was hungry. Sue gaped at him, her feelings inordinately hurt by his disregard
for her. She heaved a sigh to express her indignation.
“What?” He shot her a look. “What’s
wrong?”
“Maybe
I’m
hungry.” Sue
sniffed.
“Oh for god’s sake! I keep
forgetting how childish you are.” Zeke swiped his hair from his eyes. “Look, we
can wait a bit before we eat. First, we need to put more distance between us
and Assaria. Buck up, Sue, and stop acting like a five-year-old.”
Sue didn’t want to start an
argument, but she needed something to take her mind off her appetite and his
callous attitude. “Well, can we at least listen to some music?”
“Want me to turn on the radio?”
Zeke’s voice was snide. “No problem, princess.” He twisted the knob and then
searched until he found a local talk show. Flashing a quick, mocking grin in
her direction, he turned up the volume. “Listen to that. Maybe you’ll learn
something. Today’s music sucks anyway.” He focused his attention on the road
ahead.
Voices filled the air with
contradictory opinions on farm subsidies. Sue couldn’t have been less
interested in the topic. She pretended to approve of his choice, hoping to
diffuse the rising tension. Swallowing past the lump in her throat, she
replied, “Fine with me.”
His choice of stations aggravated
her, but it also gave her something to listen to and kept her from thinking too
much about her situation. She didn’t want to do that. She wanted to be happy
traveling with Zeke, experiencing life and seeing the sights, but even the
glorious scenery couldn’t entirely dispel her doubts. His mood swings were so
hard to take.
Just outside of St. Rose, Zeke
started taking back roads. About ten minutes later, they came across an
abandoned schoolhouse. It was a squat, single story, blond brick building with
broken windows, nearly obscured in places by vegetation gone wild. Zeke stopped
in front of the entrance. Sue could just see a farm off in the far distance
surrounded by rolling fields. She wondered briefly about the people who lived
there. She imagined good, solid, salt-of-the-earth folks, probably settled
around a wood burning stove, the wife perhaps knitting a hat, the husband in
overalls checking the grain markets at the kitchen table, a steaming cup of
coffee at his elbow. Windows covered with homespun curtains, sensible furniture
with arm doilies and lots of pillows. Photographs on the mantle, and rows of
home-canned vegetables in the pantry. Ordinary folks. Homey. Stable. The total
opposites of adventurers like her and Zeke. The image made her smile as she
reminded herself that farmers today lived in the modern world, not the one
she’d been picturing.
“This is the place I was looking
for.” Zeke smiled, his annoyance with her apparently gone. “But, before we go
inside, we have to run into town. I need cigarettes and I’m hungry. After that,
we’ll come back and have a look around.”
He drove on down the road,
following the sign to Earlton, population 12,905. Sue tried to read her book
while he drove, but her thoughts wandered. Thinking of Doris and her house, the
violation of her property, the outrage she must have felt when she got home,
the despair over losing so many of her things. It was wrong what they did, but
nothing could be done to change it now. With an effort, she pushed the guilt
away.
Earlton was on the edge of the
national forest, an area Sue would have liked to visit, but Zeke was in a
hurry. He pulled into the first convenience store he found. He dashed inside,
while Sue waited in the warmth of the van. Zeke came out of the shop with a cup
in each hand and a plastic bag dangling from one wrist. She opened the vehicle
door for him. He handed her one of the drinks.
“I got you a mocha cappuccino,
sweetie,” he said. “You know how much you love those.”
She made a face, but put the cup to
her mouth and drank a little.
Why does he keep pushing this stuff off on me?
“Something wrong?” he asked. His
voice carried a warning tone.
“No,” she answered quickly, wanting
to sustain his good mood. “It’s just a little hot. Also, I’m sorta hungry,
Zeke.”
“Well, you’re in luck then.” He
tossed the bag to her. “There’s smokes and a couple of chicken salad
sandwiches. Now, shut up, eat your food, and drink your cappuccino.”
Sue choked up, feeling like she
used to when scolded as a child. She nearly gagged on the sugary drink, wanting
nothing more than to spit it back into the cup.
As they drove back to the school,
Zeke munched his sandwich and chatted. They pulled into the overgrown drive and
he circled to the back of the building, bouncing over the weeds and rough
ground. Putting the vehicle in park, he turned to look at her. “Okay. Let’s get
in the back while we finish our meal.” He stepped over the empty ice chest and
moved to the rear of the van with Sue following.
Sue settled in beside Zeke and he
pulled her next to him, putting an arm around her shoulder. He set his cup
down, swallowed the last of his sandwich, and leaned back close to her. She
finished her own food and pretended to take a sip of her beverage.
“I have something to tell you,” he
said, fiddling with the ends of her long hair. “Hear me out on this. You know
how I told you my hair didn’t match what was going on inside me?”
Sue nodded. She liked it when he
played with her hair. It was such an affectionate gesture, one that implied a
proprietary relationship.
“Well, your hair doesn’t match your
true inner self either,” he said. “This ordinary brown color isn’t you. You’re
hot like a fire. You have a flame in you, a heat.”