by Tom Wood
He heard no one and saw nothing to suggest anyone was home right now. He passed through the ground floor with care nonetheless, finding a neat, comfortable home. Everything was in its place, organised and clean. A plastic crate in the living room held Joshua’s many toys. Not a single picture frame was askew.
Upstairs, the beds were made, and a towel was damp in the bathroom. Two toothbrushes stood in a glass on the basin. The mirror was not steamed but the room’s air was humid.
Victor had seen enough.
He left the same way he had come in, easing the back door shut behind him. He circled back round to the front, where he vaulted back over the railing surrounding the porch so that when he reached the driveway he did so by descending the short steps and into the view of the neighbours.
They were watching expectantly.
He nodded their way and raised his hand in an informal greeting and they nodded back.
‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘I don’t suppose you know where Michelle and Joshua went, do you?’
The woman said, ‘Who’s asking?’
‘Wilson Murdoch,’ Victor said. ‘I know her from the motel. She didn’t show up for work this morning.’
The man said, ‘Did she steal something?’
‘Not at all. I’m simply concerned about her absence. It’s not in her character to let people down. She’s as honest as the day is long.’
‘Days are still on the short side this time of year,’ the woman said back.
‘Her car is on the drive,’ Victor said. ‘And no one’s answering when I push the buzzer. I must have tried it a hundred times. I suspect she was driven away by someone.’
‘We haven’t seen anyone come or go. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t.’ The man leaned forward on his chair. ‘She’s a good kid. Can’t be easy for her looking after her poor boy all by herself.’
‘I hear she has a partner,’ Victor said.
The woman said, ‘They split up. Abe’s a real lowlife son of a bitch. Kind of fella with a nice smile so you think he’s okay at first and you feel foolish for ever thinking otherwise. Like low-fat ice cream that has twice the sugar instead.’
‘He’s worse than what you have to scrape off the bottom of your shoe,’ the man added. ‘I think he used to beat her.’
Victor said, ‘And should I wish to speak to this upstanding gentleman, where might he be found?’
TWELVE
Victor didn’t know the exact population figure, but the town was on the small side. Maybe five thousand inhabitants at this time of the year, swelling in the summer with tourists arriving to enjoy the lakes. A small population should indicate a small police force. Still, the town was the county capital, and as well as the local law enforcement, regional police were stationed there. The town also boasted the county medical examiner, a criminal court and the District Attorney’s office.
The police precinct was located next to the courthouse, which was across the street from the DA’s office. A neat, practical arrangement for a neat town. It felt cosmopolitan despite its size, somehow bustling yet laidback, compact yet bursting at the seams.
Victor stopped his truck near to the courthouse but not too near. He wanted to maintain a certain adherence to protocol but didn’t feel bound by it in his current circumstances. The radio en route had revealed a few details of the Chicago job as the police teased out information or that dogged journalists had uncovered for themselves: a known underworld figure, a suspected kingpin in the organised crime world, had been killed. The reporter speculated it could be part of a turf war, although there were no suspects at this time.
Yet there was a doubt in Victor’s mind because he remained too close to the scene of his crime, still within his staging ground, still using an identity that should have been erased already.
He approached the precinct from the other side of the street so he could see it coming, so he could see more of it and get a feel for it before he arrived. The building looked about a century old, solid and pale. Pollution had taken an inevitable toll on the façade, which had darkened and become stained in grooves and corners. Victor liked such weathering because it showed fortitude. There was dignity in such endurance. Victor believed this because it gave him a hope that if he endured enough, perhaps one day he too could find dignity when he deserved none.
A tall woman with grey hair stood behind the front desk and was already looking his way before he was fully through the revolving door. He didn’t like that. He never wanted to be seen until his presence was obvious, but maybe she had nothing else to do right now except watch the door for visitors.
‘Why good morning,’ she said with a smile, then checked a clock on the wall above the entrance. ‘At least, let’s hope so for the few minutes remaining.’
‘Then we should make the most of the morning while we can, shouldn’t we?’
‘Are you asking me on a date?’
‘Too late for breakfast,’ Victor said. ‘Too early for lunch.’
‘Dammit. Time is the most unwelcome of chaperones.’
Victor glanced at her left hand. ‘I’m sure your husband shares the sentiment.’
‘I would have declined,’ she countered, still smiling. ‘Had you asked.’
‘Of course you would.’
‘I’m guessing you’re here to see someone and haven’t just strolled in off the street purely to flirt with me?’
‘Maybe I’ll come back one day to do just that, but right now I’d like to speak with a duty officer, please.’
She gave him a playful look. ‘Come to confess a crime?’
‘Which one?’
THIRTEEN
The fact that Victor was a career criminal wanted on almost every continent did not escape him as he was led to a desk in an open-plan section of the precinct that swarmed with law enforcement. It was not unreasonable to imagine he was the most prolific, most hunted and most dangerous law-breaker who had ever been inside these walls and yet no one paid him more than a glance’s worth of attention.
A name badge on the desk surface proclaimed it belonged to Officer Linette, L. Her chair was empty so Victor sat and waited as he had been instructed. He tried to act like he imagined a regular person would in such an environment for possibly the first time. So he didn’t sit still and looked around with a keen curiosity. He gazed at busy men and women in uniforms, listened to murmured conversations on landlines, watched detectives in suits arguing.
In some ways it reminded him what it was like on a military base in a war zone. It had the same atmosphere of boredom and stress that could flip back and forth between the two by the second. Victor had always preferred to be out beyond the wire with bullets zipping over his head and raking the ground than stuck behind sandbags playing cards and chain-smoking while listening out for the telltale screeching wail of incoming mortars.
One of the wily veterans, always restless in inactivity, had told him in such a moment that the best form of defence was to attack.
‘If you’re hitting them, they’re not hitting you.’
Victor had never forgotten that lesson.
Linette said, ‘Sorry to keep you waiting.’
‘No problem.’
She pulled out the chair a short distance and sat down across from him. He put her in her mid-twenties. She had short, practical hair and a uniform that was a little too big for her frame. The chair was a little too small for that frame, and the arms pinched in her abdomen as she sat back.
‘What can I do for you today?’
Victor said, ‘I need to report a missing person. Well, missing people. A mother and her son.’
‘I’m listening.’
Victor told Linette about Michelle not showing up for work, not being home when he went there, her car on her drive.
‘This is today?’ Linette said. ‘This morning?’
‘That’s correct.’
Linette had her arms folded and resting on her stomach. ‘So we’re only talking about a few hours. I’m afraid tha
t’s far too early to consider someone missing. How well do you know Michelle?’
‘I don’t know her at all,’ Victor said. ‘I’m just staying at the motel where she works.’
‘You’re a tourist?’
‘I’m on a fishing trip. We agreed to meet at dawn to go out on the lake.’
‘She stood you up?’
‘It wasn’t like that. She isn’t the kind of woman who would make an arrangement and not keep it.’
‘But you don’t know her.’
‘She’s never taken a day off work before.’
Linette said, ‘There’s a first time for everything.’
‘She didn’t tell her boss,’ Victor said. ‘She left her house without tidying up after breakfast.’
‘Excuse me, what did she do?’
‘She’s fastidious. She wouldn’t leave a mess.’
‘You don’t know her,’ Linette said again.
‘People aren’t complicated,’ Victor began. ‘They have patterns of behaviour. Most of the time they don’t even know it but those patterns are set in stone and are only broken when they have no other choice.’
Linette’s eyebrows rose. ‘They?’
‘Michelle’s son Joshua has health problems and development issues. She needs that job. She’s never had a day off before yet now she’s absent without telling her boss. She keeps a spotless home yet now she’s left a mess on the kitchen table. That’s not one but two patterns of behaviour broken on the same day. There’s a reason why.’
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know,’ Victor said. ‘That’s why I’m here.’
‘That doesn’t really answer why you’re here. By your own admission you don’t know her.’
‘Is that important?’
‘It makes me wonder,’ Linette said. ‘Strangers don’t tend to report other strangers missing. It’s not something that really ever happens.’
‘You don’t think she’s missing.’
Linette nodded. ‘I think something came up and she had to dash out of the house and leave breakfast. That something was more important than calling her boss. So, it’s likely because of her kid, Josh.’
‘Joshua.’
‘You say he has health problems? Maybe something happened in the night and he had to be taken to the hospital.’
‘There was breakfast left on the kitchen table.’
Linette was unfazed. ‘Could be he had to have some tests done out of town and she forgot until he was crunching cereal.’
‘There were two cups of coffee on the table,’ Victor said. ‘Joshua’s a little young to start his day with a couple of hundred milligrams of caffeine.’
‘How do you know so much about their breakfast?’
‘I peered through the window when Michelle didn’t answer the doorbell.’
‘And didn’t you tell me she kept a fastidious home?’
‘Like I said: I peered through the window.’
‘What would you like me to do here? I’m confused.’
‘Michelle’s ex might have been abusive. Hence, he would be a good place to begin.’
‘Does this ex have a name?’
‘Abe,’ Victor answered, using the only name the neighbours had been able to give him. ‘He lives at the trailer park.’
Linette rotated her chair, stretched her fingers and set about hitting keys on her computer keyboard. She peered at the screen, which Victor couldn’t see, and clicked her mouse several times.
‘Abraham Zelnick,’ she read, clicking her tongue. ‘He has quite the record, including time in the pen for dealing meth, but nothing for violence and no callouts to either Michelle’s house or his trailer.’
She rotated back in her chair so she faced him again. She shrugged to say What now?
Victor said, ‘He still needs speaking to, as do all of her known associates, colleagues and neighbours. Who saw her last and what did they say to her? I would like you to check her bank transactions and see what towers her cell phone has pinged from since she was last seen.’ He paused. ‘To start with.’
She cleared her throat. ‘Would you indeed?’
He nodded. ‘I can’t do all of that myself, especially when I need to leave town today. I’ve already stayed longer than I should.’
Linette leaned forward, and that small gesture told Victor the conversation was over before she even opened her mouth.
‘It’s nice that you’re concerned for the wellbeing of Joshua and his mother but at this point there’s nothing to indicate they’re actually missing. If we investigated every person who missed an appointment, then we’d bankrupt the county while letting real criminals have free rein.’ She slid a business card across the desk. ‘If there’s still no sign of them by tomorrow then call me, let me know.’
‘I need to leave town later.’
She held up her palms. ‘If no one’s seen Michelle or Joshua by tomorrow then I can actually help.’
‘And what if they need help today?’
Linette didn’t answer.
FOURTEEN
The smartly dressed professionals from Chicago had a list to work through. Just a scrap of paper from the kind of notebook reporters used to use. Welch kept it on her person at all times, but she had memorised the items on the list as a precaution.
‘Should be another mile,’ she told her associates.
She didn’t expect acknowledgement and didn’t look for any. She kept her gaze on the road ahead. A narrow strip of winding asphalt flanked by trees. Only a stone’s throw across the border and they were already in the wilderness. Civilisation seemed a world away.
They had been working their way through the list all night long. They were tired but no one complained.
The three men in the car spoke only when necessary. They were not friends and not friendly. Not colleagues. Even thinking of them as employees would be a stretch, despite the fact that she was in charge. They would follow her orders without question and without debate.
She said it, they did it.
That was the only way to handle this kind of business. A good system, but it required an uncommon, unshakeable trust. The three men had to, and did, trust that whatever order Welch gave them was the right one. She, in turn, needed to trust that they could handle the task she assigned to them.
She had been let down in the past and would not tolerate disappointment. The three guys knew this well. To say they were happy with this inflexibility would be inaccurate, she knew, but they were paid better by her than they could hope to be elsewhere. She poached good people on a regular basis, usually to replace those who had proved themselves not good enough.
Welch knocked the lever down to indicate and pulled off the highway.
A cute place, she thought. Better than the pictures made out. One of those overpriced bed and breakfasts that attracted couples willing to overspend in an attempt to inject some romance into their anaemic relationships.
The B&B was run by a picture-perfect husband and wife who greeted Welch with warm smiles.
She smiled in return.
‘I don’t want to take up too much of your time,’ she told them, ‘but I’m out here looking for a good friend of mine. I think he might be staying here or more likely has already left. He’s on his own, on a fishing trip. I really need to find him. It’s something of an emergency.’
The husband said, ‘Oh, I’m afraid we haven’t had anyone stay with us recently who fits that description. In fact, it’s rare we have any guests who aren’t one half of a pair.’
The wife added, ‘But there are a few places nearby that would be better suited to a fisherman’s needs. I could make a note of them if you like.’
‘That would be fantastic,’ Welch said. ‘Thank you so much.’
The wife set about writing on the back of a tourist leaflet while the husband just stood there, smiling at Welch as she smiled at him in return.
Of all Welch’s talents her smile was the most used, the most useful. It was her proudest achieve
ment.
No one ever saw through it.
FIFTEEN
On the far side of the hill overlooking the town stood a trailer park of some thirty units. Abe’s unit was set away from the others, still falling under the park’s boundaries, but to all intents and purposes it was a lone trailer.
Victor found this interesting.
He parked his truck close to the trailer but not so close Abe would be aware of it pulling up outside. Abe had two vehicles already in front of the trailer: a pickup truck and a chopper.
Victor sniffed the air as he approached Abe’s front door, noting the acidic, almost metallic aroma coming from inside the trailer.
That made things complicated because Abe wasn’t likely to welcome unexpected visitors.
Victor would therefore need to be at his most unthreatening and most polite.
At least, at first.
He rapped his knuckles on the trailer’s door.
Music was playing on the other side. Victor didn’t recognise the song. He didn’t recognise the genre either. Which made him feel a little better about his life choices.
As at Michelle’s house, he stepped to the left side of the door in case Abe was even less welcoming of visitors than Victor predicted.
The music stopped.
In its absence, Victor could hear Abe moving about. Just Abe, because he could hear no one else and the trailer’s walls were too thin to block much noise. Wherever Michelle and Joshua were, they weren’t here.
Abe didn’t open the door.
‘Who is it?’
His tone was harsh and aggressive but also cautious. As expected, he didn’t like visitors. He was wary of them. It wasn’t just that he had something to hide. He had something or someone to fear too.
Victor said, ‘I need a couple of minutes of your time. My name is Wilson Murdoch and I’m a … I know Michelle and Joshua. I’m trying to find them.’
‘They’re not here,’ Abe said through the door.
‘I worked that part out for myself. Do you have any idea where they might be?’
‘Why would I? I haven’t seen that skank since she threw me out.’
