Cal Rogan Mysteries, Books 4, 5 & 6 (Box Set)

by Robert P. French

  Lucy grunts, “Huh,” then gets up and goes to her own desk in reception. After a second, I hear her talking on the phone. I was hoping she would do as Nick suggested and scour through Zelena’s computer for any lead to Harvey.

  I scroll through lots more pictures but can’t find anything that would get me closer to finding him. The last post I look at is a picture of Zelena just looking straight into the camera. It’s a selfie. She’s grinning broadly. And that’s it! I scroll right back up to the latest post. She’s just smiling. In all of her other posts she is grinning or laughing but here she’s just smiling. This is not how Zel would announce a new boyfriend to the world.

  I’m not sure what it means but I’m going to find out.

  It’s time to go to Hong Kong, though it bugs the hell out of me that I won’t get to talk to—

  “Here’s Harvey’s address!” Lucy is sporting a big grin and waving a piece of paper.

  “That’s my girl!” Stammo says proudly.

  She hands me the slip of paper. It’s an address complete with postcode.

  “How the heck did you get that?” I ask.

  “I put on my sexy voice and phoned the Lamborghini dealership. I told them my car had broken down last night and that a really nice man named Harvey Lim, driving a grey Lamborghini, had helped me out and I wanted to send him a huge bunch of flowers as a thank you and could they please, please give me his address.”

  “I told you we should hire her, didn’t I Rogan,” Nick crows.

  Adry gets up and gives her a big hug.

  “You just earned yourself a huge bunch of flowers,” I say.

  She puts on a phony pout. “I was hoping for a Lamborghini,” she says.

  Amid the laughter, I think what a great place this is to work.

  “Will you settle for lunch?” Nick says. “We’ve all been working pretty hard, let’s go out and have a nice lunch on the Company.”

  I really want to get nose to nose with Harvey Lim but a break for lunch won’t make any difference will it?

  The house is a 'Vancouver special,’ built to occupy the maximum footprint that the city bylaws allow. I’m guessing it’s at least five thousand square feet, maybe even six. The doorbell gives a muted chime and is opened almost immediately by a fresh-faced teenager who is definitely not Harvey Lim. “Hi, can I help you?” he says with a big smile.

  “Hi, yes, I think so. Is this the Lim residence?”

  “Yes, it is, but I’m afraid my parents are out at the moment.”

  “Actually, I was hoping to speak to Harvey Lim. Is he in?”

  “You just missed him. He left about twenty minutes ago.”

  Damn. I knew I shouldn’t have taken the time for lunch.

  “Do you know how I can get hold of him?” I ask.

  His face takes on a suspicious aspect. “Why?” he asks.

  If I tell him the truth, he’s going to be less than helpful because he’s going to call his brother and say there’s a detective looking for him. It might spook him. I say the first thing that comes into my mind. “I work for his lawyer and I have some papers he needs to sign urgently.” I wonder where that lie popped up from?

  “He’s flying out to Hong Kong this evening but he went home to pack. If you go over there you can probably catch him before he leaves for the airport.”

  “That’s great, he said he wanted to sign them before he left,” The lies trip off my tongue. “I got this address from our office files, I thought he still lived here. Can you give me his proper address, please?”

  “Sure, come in for a second.” He opens the door wide and I walk into a very grand entranceway with curved stairs leading up to the next floor. He walks over to an antique-looking table bearing a white orchid. He slides open a drawer and takes out a pad of paper and a pen. As he writes the address, I look around. Everything is expensive. The Lim family is worth a few bucks for sure.

  The kid hands me the address. “I’ll text him and tell him you’re on your way,” he says.

  Not a good idea. “Don’t bother, I’ll call him from the car and find out if he wants me to go to his home or meet him at the airport.”

  He nods. “OK.” He seems like a nice young man. I just hope he doesn’t try to be helpful by calling his brother and blowing my cover story out of the water. He holds the door open for me and I head for my car.

  After thirty minutes of maneuvering the Healey in and out of the early afternoon rush-hour traffic, I arrive at Harvey Lim’s house in Richmond. Although somewhat smaller, it’s every bit as impressive as his parents’ house. Best of all, there is a grey Huracán in the driveway so he’s almost certainly at home; if he’d already left for the airport, he would have parked it in the three-car garage… unless it’s already full of even more expensive cars.

  When he opens the door, I recognize him from the pictures on Zelena’s Instagram, but simultaneously, I can see a strong family resemblance to the young man who so kindly gave me this address. He has a pleasant, open face and a nice smile but there is the hint of 'bad boy’ in his features. I can see why Zelena would have been attracted to him.

  “Can I help you?” he asks.

  “I hope so. I’m Cal Rogan. I’m a private investigator and I’ve been hired by the Gutkowskis to find their daughter, Zelena. Could I come in and talk to you?”

  A look of what I can only describe as relief washes over his face. “Yes, yes, come in.” He holds the door open. There is a suitcase in the entranceway. “I’m getting the late flight out tonight. I’m going to try and find Zel and get her back.” Still talking, he leads me into the living room. “I didn’t know what had happened to her and I was starting to fear the worst but when I saw her Instagram post, I knew I had to go over to Hong Kong and get her back.” There is the desperation of a jilted lover in his voice.

  He indicates for me to sit.

  “I’m going to go over to Hong Kong soon too,” I say.

  “Great. Maybe we could work together on finding her,” he almost pleads. “You have the detective skills and I speak the language.”

  “That might work,” I say, feigning enthusiasm. “But I need to know some things first.” I take out my notebook. “Would you mind answering a few questions?”

  “Ask me anything.”

  I start with an easy question. “How did you and Zelena meet?”

  “At the Roxy on Granville.” He smiles at the memory.

  “I know you didn’t meet her parents but did she meet yours?”

  “No.” He smiles sadly. “My parents are old-fashioned. They wouldn’t approve of me dating a girl who wasn’t Chinese.”

  I can’t help thinking of Romeo and Juliet. Harvey and Zelena were a pair of star-cross'd lovers but they had a less drastic ending. So far anyway.

  “Is that why you decided to go to Hong Kong? To get away from your respective parents.”

  “Mainly to get away from Zel’s parents. Even though she was nineteen they still had a curfew for her. They said while she was in their house she had to follow their rules. I offered for her to move in here but she said she just wasn’t ready for that, which I totally get. So we thought a trip to Hong Kong would work out well. I have business interests there. I had to pay for Steph to go too, just so Zel’s parents wouldn’t freak.”

  “What about Chad?”

  He makes a grimace. “Yes, Chad,” he says. “Zel’s idea. She thought he would keep Steph occupied while she and I were together.” As he says the last word he almost blushes.

  “Steph told me about the Golden Dragon. She said Zel had been flirting with your friend Leo. Could he have been involved in her disappearing for a while?”

  “Leo? No way. He’s a good friend of mine. He wouldn’t do that to me.”

  “How about the guy in her last Instagram post. Did you recognize him?”

  “It’s funny,” he says. “We had lunch at the restaurant beside the Kerry hotel and there was a guy at the next table who couldn’t take his eyes off her. After lunch, we
walked down to the ferry over to Hong Kong Island and he was on the ferry too. We joked that he was following us. Now I think about it, he might have been the guy in the post.”

  “Did you see him again during your trip?”

  “I don’t think so… Maybe… I don’t know.”

  “Anyone else make you feel suspicious?”

  “Not really. I mean I was used to people looking at Zel, she’s so beautiful, but no one suspicious.”

  “Did you ever meet Aleksander, Zelena’s brother?”

  “No, never.”

  “One thing I don’t understand,” I say, “is that she didn’t make a post on Instagram from the time she disappeared until about ten hours ago. That wasn’t like her. She would normally post at least five times a day.”

  “You’re right,” he says. “I never thought of that.”

  “Also, in that post she didn’t look as happy as she normally did in her posts.”

  “I noticed that. It’s one of the reasons I’m going over there to find her. I’m sure she’s not happy with this new guy and I really love her.” I can’t help feeling sorry for him and I know it’s no use telling him that, even if we find her, Zelena is likely to walk all over him.

  I stand up. “I’m planning to fly out soon too. Steph gave me your phone number but when I’ve tried to text and call you, you didn’t reply. What’s a good number to contact you on?”

  “Oh,” he says. “That was you. I get so many spam texts and phone calls I ignore them if they don’t come from someone in my contacts list.”

  I hand him my card. “I’ll put you in for sure,” he says.

  Walking away from the house, I review our conversation. The only helpful thing was that the man in the Instagram post may have been stalking them. It triggers another thought. I pull out my phone.

  “Hi Cal,” she says. There is an undertone of seduction in her voice, which I find disconcerting.

  “Hi Steph. Thanks for telling me about Zelena’s post.”

  “Yes. I was so relieved she wasn’t, you know… I tried to text her but it didn’t go through.”

  I mentally kick myself. Why didn’t I think of texting her?

  “Did you recognize the guy in the photo with her?”

  She pauses for a moment, perhaps searching her memory.

  “No. I’m pretty sure I never saw him before.”

  I rush through a goodbye and hang up.

  I have virtually no clue as to how to track down Zelena except that there is one man in a population of seven million, who appears on her Instagram post, and might have been stalking her.

  I get the feeling I’m missing something obvious.

  Maybe I’ll have better luck finding her brother.

  “Come and look at this, guys.” Adry’s voice pulls me away from the report I’ve just put the finishing touches to. Lucy managed to get me on a flight to Hong Kong tomorrow morning and I’m rushing to clear up some of the other cases we have on the books before I go.

  I get up and walk over to her desk and Nick joins us. She is logged into Zelena’s Instagram account. There is a new post. It’s a selfie. She is smiling broadly and there is a guy sitting beside her but it’s not the same one as in her previous post. It’s daytime and in the background I can see what looks like a poster, with pictures of food on it with prices beside each dish. They are maybe at a street vendor or on a restaurant patio.

  “It’s a different man,” Nick grunts. “She moved on pretty fast.”

  “Maybe she’s just flirting with this one,” I say. “Her friend Steph says that’s her style.” The thought of Steph brings back the feeling I’m missing something.

  “Anyway,” he says, “the old man said to forget her and concentrate on finding his son. That’s what we should be doing. She looks like she’s back to normal.”

  “You’re right,” I say.

  “You guys. You are such… men,” Adry sighs.

  “What?” Nick says.

  “Look at the two posts,” she says like something should be obvious to us.

  “They’re just pictures of her with a couple of different guys, one at night and one in the daytime.” There is frustration in Nick’s voice.

  She looks at us like we’re idiots.

  “What?!” we say in unison.

  She scrolls down to the posts prior to Zelena’s going missing.

  “Look,” she says. “Every day she’s in a different outfit, sometimes she appears in two or even three different outfits in the same day. Now look at the new posts.” She scrolls back up. “She’s in the same dress. I’ll bet you a hundred bucks something’s wrong. There is no way she would wear the same dress two days running.”

  In the silence, Lucy’s voice wafts in from the reception area. “Watch out, male brains at work,” she says.

  And then it comes to me. It’s what’s been bothering me. “You know, you’re right. If everything was OK with her, she would have been texting with her best friend, but Steph didn’t have any communication from her, even though she tried to text her.” I think it over for a second. “More to the point, Steph didn’t seem to be that worried about not hearing from Zelena.”

  I grab my phone and dial Steph’s number; it goes to voicemail. “It’s Cal Rogan. Please call me as soon as you get this.”

  I check my watch. “I’d better go. I haven’t even told Tina I’m flying out tomorrow. Adry, can you see if you can get hold of Steph White? Maybe meet with her and see if you can get a read on her.” I give her Steph’s number. “I’ll see you guys when I get back.”

  “Yeah, good luck Cal,” Nick says. Softie! He never calls me Cal.

  “Bon voyage.” Adry gets up and gives me a kiss on the cheek.

  I go to the reception area and give Lucy some last minute instructions to check the client reports I’ve written before sending them out.

  As I turn to go, I almost walk into the front door, which has just been opened by Connor McCoy, our client who’s being blackmailed.

  “Hi,” he says. “You guys were right. I just got another blackmail demand. A hundred grand this time. I have to get the money together and be ready to hand it over tomorrow afternoon.”

  “That’s not good. Again, I’m really sorry we couldn’t catch the guy yesterday.”

  “We have to try again. If I can’t stop this I don’t know what I’ll do.”

  “Have you thought again about going to the police?” I ask.

  “No. I just can’t risk it coming out that I did all that drug smuggling for them. You guys are my only option.”

  “Unfortunately, I have to go out of town tomorrow morning but Nick will work it all out for you.” He looks disappointed but that can’t be helped.

  I say my goodbyes and leave.

  My phone burbles the FaceTime ringtone. That can only be one person. Ellie. I reach over and press the green button on my phone, which is sitting on the passenger seat, in blatant violation of BC’s driving bylaws.

  “Hi sweetie!”

  “Hi Daddy, you’ll never guess wha— Where are you?”

  “I’m in the car. You’re looking at the underside of the soft-top.”

  “Oh, OK. Anyway, guess what!”

  “What?”

  “We’re moving back to Vancouver.”

  I feel a wave of elation roll over me. “You are? When?”

  “On July first. I marked it on the calendar, it’s only forty-two sleeps.”

  I can’t believe it. “That is so great. What made Mommy decide?”

  “That’s not the best part,” she says, laughing.

  “What could possibly be better than that?” I chuckle.

  “Not this Friday, but next Friday we’re coming out for a visit to find an apartment and get me registered back in St. Cecilia’s and stuff like that. I am sooooooo excited.”

  “Wow! That’s fantastic. I’ll meet you at the airport.” It hits me that I may not be back from Hong Kong by next Friday. I decide not to bring that up right now.

>   She prattles on about all the things we’ll be able to do when she moves back and I just sit in the glow of knowing my life has really turned around. Four and a half years ago I was a drug-addicted ex-cop living on the streets. For the last year or so, Ellie was the one thing missing from my life. Now I have a real chance of a wonderful life.

  It seems too good to be true.

  She sees the flowers in my hand. “OK, California Rogan,” she says putting on a strong Indian accent, which makes her sound like her mom, “what have you done wrong.”

  “Nothing, but I have good news and bad news. Which do you—”

  “The good news. I’m an optimist.”

  “Ellie is moving back to Vancouver.”

  She runs and hugs me. “That is wonderful.” The hug lasts a long time. Then, “What’s the bad news?”

  “I have to fly to Hong Kong tomorrow.”

  She keeps hugging but looks up at me. “Why?”

  “That missing girl and her brother. I need to try and track them down.”

  “Huh,” she says, giving me a quizzical look. “Hong Kong?”

  “Yes.”

  She thinks for a moment… then smiles… then gives me a sweet, lingering kiss.

  “What flight are you on? I think I’ll come with you.”

  My second shot of elation for the day hits me. “What about the Hound?” I ask. The 'Hound’ is the Daily News Hound dot com, the online news website she works for.

  “I was talking to my editor yesterday. Now that Beijing is taking a hard line there, the protesters are going underground; he was asking me if I knew any reliable reporters there. I don’t, but I think I should go over there myself and do a story on where the protesters are hiding out and what they’re planning.”

  “That’s fantastic. Let’s celebrate. I think I should open that bottle of champagne we have left over from New Year’s Eve.”

  She smiles and does a Groucho Marx with her eyebrows. “I can think of another way to celebrate too,” she says.

  That bottle of champagne may never get opened.