Joe exchanged his folders for another wad. He handed Tommy a clipping. “These aren’t Cooper’s folders. They’re Alicia’s. Look.” The photo was of a high school volleyball squad, their T shirts boasting “Panthers.” A notation “me” and an arrow pointed to a girl in the back row.
“Methinks I know why her boyfriend was keeping her files for her. Were she to stash them in her place, she’d never find them again.”
“Too true.” Joe yawned.
Tommy grinned. “Tis a good thing y’r going on the rest of y’r honeymoon tomorrow. Get some sleep maybe.”
“I really look forward to this, Tommy, showing Bridgid the Canyon. We’ll spend two days on the South Rim in El Tovar’s honeymoon suite, then hike down to Phantom Ranch.”
“South Kaibab down and Bright Angel up?”
Joe nodded.
“I was talking to y’r bride at the reception awhile. She claims that every time she does something with ye, she comes out of it greatly wearied. At that moment she was muckle tired from dancing. Now y’re talking seven miles down and nine miles back out. Truth, and I’m beginning to believe her.”
“And don’t forget those two miles down along the river.” Joe smirked and pulled out his never-popular cell phone to thumb in the number. “Hi, Grace. What school has Panthers for a mascot?” “Good. I figured you’d know. Would you get the Northside number for me, please?”
Tommy nodded. “Her daughter be starting high school this year, aye?”
“I think sophomore this year.” He got out his notebook and Tommy handed him a pen. “Thanks, Grace. Your girl’s a sophomore, right? Oh. A junior. Tell her I said hello.” As Tommy finished off the file cabinet, every bloody piece of paper, Joe called Northside High School, got a recording, and called the emergency number that the recording suggested.
“Hello?” A woman’s voice.
“I am Lt. Joseph Rodriguez, Phoenix Metro Police. I’m seeking information about a girl who attended your school, Alicia Bowerman.”
“Let me get Ramon for you. Just a minute.”
It was a little more than a minute, but a gravelly voice came on. “This is Ramon. How did you get this number?”
“It’s on Northside High School’s phone tape as an emergency contact.”
“I told him I wasn’t going to do that this summer! I’m the football coach. I’m not supposed to handle emergencies, except on the football field.” His voice dropped half an octave. “Gina says you want to know about a student. Who do you want to know about?”
“Alicia Bowerman. She played volleyball.”
“Is she in trouble?”
“We don’t know. She’s missing and we’re trying to reach her.”
“Yeah, I knew her. She graduated a couple years ago. Smart kid and a pretty good athlete. But dark. You know; one of those Goth types some girls are. Dark clothes, real negative and snippy about everything. Stuck up.”
“We’re trying to find her, so we’re looking for friends who might know where she could be. Someone who knows where she is.”
“She doesn’t have any friends. In fact she’s proud of it. Last I heard she has a boyfriend, but he didn’t come to her graduation. Last year. She graduated last year. Don’t know what his name is. She says he doesn’t have any friends either.”
Bridgid enjoyed these moments the most of any in the day, as the day was closing. They were sitting out on the deck despite the onerous heat, sipping drinks. Technically, Bridgid was too young for alcoholic beverages, but she had been drinking Guinness since age twelve. Her mojito here, a light cocktail with rum and lime, was mild by comparison. And it went down so nicely on a hot day like today, the temperature in the low nineties Fahrenheit out here on the deck.
Joe sprawled in his patio chair and sipped his margarita. “And so we hit another dead end. Apparently she really does have no friends. Missing Persons couldn’t find any either.””
She slouched too. “Is she even in the state yet?”
“No one knows. We don’t even know if she’s alive.” He watched Bridgid a moment. “You seem to be handling these oven temperatures fairly well.”
“I spent the most of the day in air conditioning. I’ve no idea how I would fare without it. Goth.” She stared at nothing. “A few of the girls in me school were what ye might call Goth. They had no friends either, save each other. Do ye think we might get some ideas from Maria?”
He nodded. “Good idea. I think it’s worth a call.”
Joe looked at his watch as he hooked on his tie and Bridgid slipped into her shoes. He followed her out the door, locked it, and walked down the stairs, watching her pony tail bob. When Bridgid descended stairs, she sort of bounced. He loved it.
She hauled her seat belt around and clicked it. “I do enjoy Doctor Mercado, and talking to her.”
“So do I.” Joe pulled out into traffic. “Every now and then we get together to explore some little psychological problem in a case, like now. She insists that we not pay her for these meetings. She says she learns more about the criminal mind than she dishes out. I don’t think it’s true.”
Rush hour traffic was, well, rush hour traffic. They arrived at Maude’s Classy Dive a little later than he wanted. There was a waiting line at the door, but Maria had already arrived. They were escorted to her table.
She smiled brightly. “Bridgid, you look marvelous this evening; that sundress is lovely.”
“I thank ye.” She settled into the chair Joe held for her. “Tis one of those frocks that Joe’s niece chose. She and Fel took me shopping immediately we arrived, and both of them have superb taste.”
“I remember. They swept you away and said something about sunscreen.”
Bridgid giggled. “Like me cousin, I do not tan. Twas a wise choice.”
It pleased Joe immensely that Bridgid remained at ease with Maria. She seemed to be becoming comfortable with American casualness and lack of formality. A server took their drink order.
She got to the core immediately. “Joe and I would like to pick your brain about the Goth effect some young women seek. His interest is business, but mine be mere curiosity.”
Joe described searching Miss Bowerman’s apartment and Cooper’s house, the probability that Bowerman was a murder victim, and the Goth streak her former school coach mentioned.
Maria listened with interest. She looked at Bridgid. “I’m curious. Did any of the girls in your school in Ireland embrace the lifestyle?”
“Several in the lower forms. Only one in mine, Doreen Clerk.”
Maria nodded thoughtfully. “I venture to guess that Doreen is sullen, difficult to please, and takes a certain pride in not getting along with others. She is a rebel even though she doesn’t really have anything to rebel about. She is much smarter than her grades would indicate. She associates with bad boys.”
Bridgid snorted. “We had not many good boys. But aye, y’r description be perfect.”
“Let’s do a thought experiment. You are Doreen, and you live here in Phoenix. You are afraid when the others died suddenly, and you want to hide. Disappear. How would you do that without leaving town?”
Bridgid broke a cardinal rule by plunking both elbows on the table. She cupped her chin in her hands and studied Maria. “I am Doreen. I do not want to go back to me apartment, but I have no friends with whom to stay. First, I’ll be out at night. I feel most comfortable at night.”
“Good, good.”
“I may be afraid to get money from an ATM if me workmates be good at hacking into accounts and one of them is the murderer. If such be so, I would turn to prostitution. As ye say, I, Doreen, associate with bad boys.” She looked at Joe. “If I check into a hotel, would ye be able to find me?”
“Yes.”
“Then the hotel is no option. Y’r Missing Persons division would have found me by now.” She smiled. “This is quite fun, but I be stymied. I’ve no idea where I would go in this city.”
Maria bobbed her head happily. “You are a stranger in this town and Dor
een would not be. She would know of places. You came up with an excellent scenario, Bridgid. Thank you.”
“I’m not a stranger.” Joe’s brain was going full steam. “If I prostitute myself I have enough money that I don’t have to steal and risk being caught. I stay in malls and libraries during the day and sleep in churches at night. The Catholic and Episcopal churches do not lock their sanctuaries.”
“Aye, and some even have padded pews, at least in Ireland.”
Their drinks came and silence descended. Joe mulled Doreen and by extension, Alicia. Something big was evading his conscious mind. Something he should be seeing. What was it?
Maria seemed to be mulling also. She sat back. “The Goth lifestyle, black clothes, black makeup and fingernail polish, and so forth, is attractive to girls who don’t yet have a solid sense of who they are.”
Bridgid cocked her head. “Y’r saying tis experimental?”
“Most of the time. The girl tries it, tastes of it, dislikes its darkness, and abandons it. Outgrows it. If she does not, you’ll almost certainly find in her a strong undercurrent of distrust. She forms no strong friendships because she cannot bring herself to trust anyone, to depend upon anyone. She places herself visibly apart from others. She has been disappointed, perhaps even betrayed, so often that she unwittingly sets herself up to be further disappointed.”
“But not consciously.” Joe could see the picture.
“Not consciously. Sometimes this distrust comes not from her own experience but those of one or both parents.”
“The parent or parents model it.”
“Exactly. In Alicia we have that distrust and we have rebellion. Your Alicia blotted up a strong sense of distrust from her father and has rebelled against his obsessive need for neatness.”
Joe wagged his head. “How can you say all that based on…” and then it struck him, whopped him upside the head like a brick. “Wilson Cooper wasn’t Alicia’s boyfriend, he was her father. Of course! That’s why he kept her photos and clippings.”
“We don’t know, but that’s the scenario that fits best. Conjecture.”
“And then he died and she was betrayed; disappointed; yet again.”
“Abandoned.” Maria sipped her lemonade. “Children who are orphaned often feel, at their core, that the parents abandoned them because they are unworthy of being loved. It is all their fault, the child’s fault.”
“Rico had a hard time with that when his mother died. I‘m not sure he’ll ever get completely past it.”
Maria nodded. “It tends to pop up again and again as the child matures. Keep an eye out.”
Where would Alicia Bowerman be if she were still in town? Her class photos told Joe and Tommy what she looked like. They could start with soup kitchens. But now Bridgid and Maria were getting into a comparison study of girls’ maturation in Ireland and the US, and it turned into a three-hour cocktail hour.
Chapter 6 Barbara Marsh
Gretchen sat in the driver’s seat of her little grey Toyota and watched the front door of the Sleep Easy Discount Mattress Center as on the seat beside her, Janet James whined, “I wish I was in the Grand Canyon.”
“I wish you were too. In fact, I’d push you off the rim if you don’t quit griping.”
Undeterred by the lack of sympathy, Janet whined on. “Joe’s down there with his cute little chick, Bert is down there river rafting with his buddies, and my cousin Grace is taking my aunt from Perth Amboy up to the South Rim. It’s where it’s happening, Gretch.”
“I’ll admit it doesn’t seem to be happening here. Maybe he left out the back.”
“That’s his car parked in front.”
“Maybe he abandoned it.”
Janet looked at her. “You’re just as bored as I am, aren’t you.”
“Maybe boreder.” Gretchen envied Tommy his ability to stand around on stakeout for hours and hours and hours. It was driving her nuts. You couldn’t see inside the mattress store at all, because the show window was completely covered by a huge sign promising rock-bottom prices in a Blowout Labor Day sale. So here they sat watching the exterior because their subject, Lane Marsh, worked in that store. He had arrived at seven this morning, and surely he was going to go home eventually. But then, with his wife Barbara missing, maybe he’d just stay here. Shucks. It’s a mattress store. He could even sleep here at night.
Janet sighed. “I got a flat tire on the way home from work last night. I wish stores didn’t think the word ‘blowout’ is an attractive come-on. Believe me. It’s a turn-off. Do you think…”.
“There he is.”
A man in a maroon T shirt with his ball cap on backwards emerged and headed for the car they knew was Marsh’s.
“I don’t get it.” Gretchen twisted the key. “He was wearing a suit when he went in this morning.”
Marsh got in his car and moments later left the curb. Gretchen fell in behind him. She had to stay pretty close, closer than she wanted, because of the heavy traffic on Indian School at this time of day. So she tried a trick Tommy pulled now and then. At the stoplight on Fourteenth Street, she actually drew alongside. She and Janet engaged in animated conversation in case he looked this way. Then the light changed and in half a block she could slip in behind him again.
“He’s going home,” Janet offered. “Wait, no he’s not.”
The Lane car turned aside into the parking lot of the Super 8 on Indian School. Gretchen drove on by and pulled into the mouth of an alleyway. Janet leapt out and hugged the building beside the Super 8, watching.
A woman got into a car two cars ahead and pulled out of her parallel parking space, so Gretchen quick like a bunny slipped into the vacated space and turned off the ignition to wait. Time ticked by. Lots of time. Nearly half an hour later, her cell phone rang.
Janet. “Flatten out. He’s leaving.”
Gretchen flopped down across the seat. “What’s going on?”
“I think he just had a romp with his wife. Room 23. He’s leaving the parking lot and turning right.”
“Shall I follow him or join you?”
“At the risk of having to go on stakeout again if I’m wrong, come on up.”
“You’re never wrong. You know that.” Gretchen gave him time to pass her, picked up her clipboard, and got out. She joined Janet and handed her the clipboard, but when Janet rang the bell to 23, Gretchen flattened out against the wall so she couldn’t be seen.
Several minutes later, the door opened. “What?”
“Mrs. Marsh, there are several issues we have to cover here. May I come in?”
“My name isn’t Marsh!” The woman tried to slam the door closed, but Janet blocked it open.
“If you’re not Mrs. Marsh, we have an adultery situation here. May I—”
Janet slammed aside and a woman in a bathrobe came bursting out. Gretchen grabbed her, swung her around, and bursted her right back in.
Janet had her badge out. “Mrs. Marsh, we’re police.”
The woman shook her head, wild-eyed. She was overweight but not seriously so, and her brown hair hung loose around her shoulders. Her lipstick was smeared.
Gretchen presented her badge. “No, we really are, and you are in no danger.” She shot the inside bolt.
“Please…” The woman licked her lips. “I’m not doing anything wrong! My husband knows where I am, I’m not missing. Get out!”
Gretchen waved a hand toward the little table that made this a suite not just a room, and therefore more expensive, of course. A few kitchen conveniences were crunched into one corner. “Let’s sit down and talk this out.”
Mrs. Marsh didn’t have much choice. Flanked by two women thoroughly wearied of doing nothing all day, she edged cautiously, suspiciously into a chair.
Janet sat down to her right. “Is Lane coming back with supper, or are you on your own to eat tonight?”
“He’s…What do you want?”
Gretchen perched in a chair to Mrs. Marsh’s left and kept her voice soft and sn
uggly. “We’re from Homicide. Two men died under suspicious circumstances and one of your co-workers, Alicia Bowerman, has disappeared. Just poof; up and gone. We fear for her safety. When you came up missing too, we got really worried.”
Janet smiled fetchingly. “We can understand why you’re afraid. You’re smart to be afraid. Something nasty is going down here.”
“What are you going to do? Am I under arrest?”
Gretchen tried to sound reassuring. “No, you’re not under arrest. As you say, technically you’ve done nothing illegal.”
Janet picked it up. “However, your husband has. He lied to the police when he said he didn’t know where you are. You can go to jail for lying to the police.”
The woman looked on the verge of crying. To her great credit, she took a few deep breaths and got her ducks lined back up, more or less. “He’s protecting me. You can’t jail him for protecting me.”
Gretchen nodded. “There’s two reasons we’ve been anxious to find you. One is to know if you’re still alive, and the other is to see if you can help us with information about what’s going on. Here you are, sitting here talking to us alive and well. We’re glad, we really are. That’s one fear that never materialized.”
Janet picked it up. “Alicia Bowerman, your co-worker that I just mentioned, is still missing. We’re hoping against hope she’s in hiding too, but we don’t know. Can you help us at all there? Friends she might have, places she might go?”
Mrs. Marsh still looked like she didn’t trust either of them. “No, I can’t.”
Silence.
They waited.
It worked.
Mrs. Marsh wrinkled her nose. “She’s a tramp. Sleeps with anyone who bothers to ask, stays aloof from everyone. We never talked about friends or anything. She doesn’t have any.”
“No boyfriend?”
“Not even the men she goes to bed with. I think she’s proud of it.”
“A prostitute?”
“I don’t know. She’s Miriam’s assistant. Or was. Do prostitutes have regular jobs?”
Janet shrugged. “Sometimes. Either supplemental income or as a cover.”
Pony Up Page 6
