by Jeff Vrolyks
Chapter Forty Four
Early the next afternoon we decided to go rafting down the Merced. It was a little overcast, but I had checked the weather on the drive up and my iPhone app had said it was going to be sunny all week long. I checked the app now to see if there had been a change. I wasn’t getting any phone service here. I asked Norrah if her phone got service and it did not. We all agreed that it was close enough to sunny to warrant floating down the river. There are boat rentals for just this thing, and we got three of them, two man’ers. We shoved off just outside the Awahnee hotel, drifted down at a snail’s pace, imbibing the panoramic view of giant sequoias, El Capitan and Half Dome, and the many waterfalls. Norrah was leaning back into me much as Brittney was doing to my brother last night by the fire. She kept slapping my hand away from her breasts, whispered that the others could see. I didn’t care, and kept at it. I’m persistent if I’m anything at all.
My phone chimed in my pocket, voicemail.
“You brought your phone?” Norrah said. “If we get wet it’ll get ruined.”
“I forgot it was in my pocket. I’m surprised I’m getting service.” I dug the phone out of my jeans pocket and saw that I had no missed calls. The voicemail was time-stamped 5:53PM of yesterday’s date. It had an area-code I was unfamiliar with.
“Who was it?” she asked me.
“I don’t know.”
I listened to the message.
“This is detective Maurice Esperanza of the Sedona Police Department. I’m investigating the disappearance of a gentleman by the name of Doug Hostetler. Your name and phone number were on a sticky-note in his hotel room. If you would please give me a call at your earliest convenience…”
He left his number. I replayed the message on speaker phone for Norrah. She looked as dumbfounded as I was. I gazed over at the love-birds to my left, Aaron and Deborah. They were having far too good a time to ruin by me mentioning this. I’d bring it up when we got back. I told Norrah to pretend we didn’t get the message, to try and enjoy our excursion. An impossibility. We were tense the rest of our voyage down-river.
There was a taxi service employed for this occasion, transporting rafters from the marked stopping point back up to the Awahnee hotel. From the hotel we began walking back to our campsite. Aaron was the one who asked what was wrong, that something must have happened, that we were acting strangely. I think he was worrying that we got in a fight, maybe broke our engagement off. So I told him about the voicemail.
“What do you suppose happened?” Aaron asked me.
“No idea. Only that it’s no coincidence that he happened to go missing in Sedona, of all places. I don’t know why he had my name and number. He hasn’t called me since he quit the case.”
“Are you going to call him when we get back?”
“No service. We must have floated into service back there.”
“Honey,” Norrah said, “why don’t you go to the hotel and use their phone. I want to enjoy the rest of our stay, and dark speculation doesn’t allow for that.”
“I don’t think getting details will make us any happier,” I said. “And since there’s an investigation, I doubt they’ll be giving any details at all. They’ll want answers, not questions.”
“By their questions you can glean what happened,” she said.
“Eh, maybe.” She had a point. “You guys mind?” I asked my company. “I’ll be back soon.”
They didn’t mind. Aaron wanted to come with me. The two of us back-tracked to the hotel. There were payphones here. You rarely find such relics this day in age, but up here you can’t rely on cellphones, so they continue to serve a purpose.
I dialed the number Maurice left, entered my credit-card information so I wouldn’t need a roll of quarters, and anxiously waited for the detective to answer.
“Detective Esperanza,” he answered.
“Hey. It’s officer Jay Davis, returning your call.”
“You’re a cop?”
“Yes, Highway Patrol, San Bernardino County.”
“I see. I was hoping you could help us figure some things out, such as why Mr. Doug Hostetler had your phone number in his hotel room.”
“He was abducted from a hotel room in Sedona?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Maurice, if you want me to say what I know, you’re going to have to satisfy my curiosity a little.”
“You know I can’t: open investigation.”
“Dude, I’m a cop. You don’t have to tell me everything.”
“We don’t know if he was abducted or not. But we believe that to be the case. We’re operating under that assumption.”
“Hostetler was a guy I hired, a private investigator. Haven’t spoken to him in months. He isn’t working on a case of mine, so I don’t know why he had my number with him.”
“Any idea why he was in Sedona? He has a southern Cal address.”
“Yeah,” I said without a trace of enthusiasm. “I probably do.”
“Well?”
“He was looking into a guy, Paul Klein.”
I told him an abridged version of why I hired him. I went from being a blip on his radar to being the key point of contact regarding this case. He said to remain near my cellphone, that he’d be getting back to me soon and I didn’t doubt that. I said I had no service up here in Yosemite. I said I’d call him tomorrow at the same time to see if there were any updates. He was grateful for my cooperation and looked forward to hearing back from me.
We had a wonderful evening in spite of ourselves. The atmosphere was too cozy to ignore for long. We played charades, told stories, sipped wine. I can’t speak for the others, but Norrah and I made love for the second consecutive night.
We went for a morning hike up Vernon Falls. I say hike but it was more like a trek, a four hour ass-buster. We made it back just in time to keep my appointment with Maurice, Aaron at my side again.
The first thing out of Maurice’s mouth was, “Man, you’re the dude who was there when the twenty-three returned?!”
“The one and the same.”
“You’re kind of a celebrity. I can’t believe I didn’t catch that yesterday.”
“And you’re supposed to be a detective,” I said lightheartedly. “So what’s new?”
“Oh man, a lot.” I couldn’t believe how differently he regarded me today. He spoke as if I were an old friend he hadn’t spoken to in too long. “You have a knack for getting into some shit, huh?” He chuckled.
“Why do you say that?”
“First the twenty-three, now this.”
“Define ‘this’?”
“We’re sure Hostetler was abducted now. His rental car is still outside the hotel room, and two people from his P.I. firm said Doug hasn’t contacted them, and that’s not just unusual, it never happens, never. There are other things, but it’s not important. What is important is that through no fault of your own, you’re the reason why he is here in Sedona. On his laptop computer we found some notes and an outline to a novel we think he was working on. From the outline, he was trying to connect some pretty incredible dots. I wouldn’t share this with you except for the likelihood that you already know what he’s writing about. It’s about you. And Norrah. And the twenty-three. He seems to be focusing on Paul Klein, whom he also calls Darren Woodley. You said Paul lives out here in Sedona, right?”
“At one time, I believe he did, yes.”
“Maybe he returned. He’s a suspect right now. There is nothing tangible to base that suspicion on other than why Doug’s out here. Investigating and researching information for his book. If Doug was going to point fingers at that dude, it would make sense why he’d turn up missing. You think Paul would want this shit getting out?”
“Hell no. I can’t believe that prick is writing a book about us. He made it seem like he was dropping my case for other reasons. Turns out he just fell bass-ackwards into a story that he wanted to get rich off of. What a douche.”
“Do you know anyone who
may know the whereabouts of Paul Klein?”
“No, sorry.”
“We’ll find him.”
“Who, Hostetler or Paul?”
“Both. Hey, what are your thoughts on Paul possibly abducting this guy? You think he did it?”
“Maurice, if I were a betting man, and I am, my money would be on Paul being behind his disappearance, yes. And I wouldn’t be surprised if Hostetler turns up dead.”
“I appreciate you telling me all this,” Maurice said. “Look, you’ve been straight with me so I’ll continue being straight with you. Needless to say everything said between us is confidential.”
“I know.”
“You have my number. If you think of anything, let me know.”
“Will do. I’ll keep in touch. I want to know if and when you find that son of a bitch Paul. And that son of a bitch Hostetler. I can’t believe that asshole is going to write a book about this shit. Take it easy. Good luck.”
Aaron first said he didn’t know I had a mouth like that. I said sorry, it’s cop talk. He then said he would be shocked if Paul had nothing to do with this. So would I.
