by Harper Lin
That night, around nine o’clock, Dan came by the house and picked Amelia up. Before long, they slowly drove up and down the potholed streets in one of the more depressed areas of town, looking in driveways, alleyways, and all the cars that were parallel parked. But they saw nothing even close to the truck. They drove around for almost three hours.
“What kind of truck is this?” Amelia asked as she studied the picture in the light of the streetlamps.
“It’s an old pick-up with a homemade cap over the bed. That cap is made of plywood with pliable plastic windows duct taped in place.”
“You’re right. That would be hard to miss,” Amelia said. “Maybe you would strike oil if you cruised some construction sites during the day. I’m just thinking that lots of guys who are in construction have trucks. And it’s a job a drifter could do. Maybe the guy who is driving it brought it in to work, and the other men might remember.”
“That’s a really good idea,” Dan replied. “I didn’t think this journey would produce anything, but your idea just made it all worth it. I’ll do that tomorrow. Are you hungry?”
“I could eat a little something.” Amelia looked at her watch.
“Let’s get out of this neighborhood,” Dan said. “I know a nice place closer to home that will still be open. We can get something to go so the kids aren’t alone.”
As they drove, the houses began to transform from weather-worn domiciles with security bars on the doors and windows to loftier residences with security system badges planted in their front yards, warning burglars that the houses were protected by an unseen electrical force.
The front yards were manicured and well lit. The street signs were easy to read, even in the dark. The trees were tall and sturdy, giving the neighborhood a beautifully safe and secure feeling.
“It’s pretty around here,” Amelia said.
“You know, the guys in vice did a bust just a couple months ago. One of these houses was a meth lab,” Dan said.
“Really? Oh my gosh,” Amelia gasped. “That’s crazy.”
“We live in a crazy world.”
“That’s for sure,” Amelia said as she looked out her window, peeking suspiciously into the houses’ lit windows as they drove by. Down one street, she noticed something strange sticking out of a line-up of cars parked along the street. “Dan, stop the car!”
“What is it?”
“Probably nothing. I doubt it’s anything more than a trick of the light. But go down that street.” She pointed out her window behind them to the side street they’d just passed.
Dan did as Amelia asked. Slowly he eased his sedan down the street.
“There. What is that?”
“Well, I’ll be…” Dan stopped the car, threw it in park, and reached for the glove compartment. At first, Amelia thought he was going for his gun, but to her relief he grabbed a flashlight and a pen. “You stay in the car.”
Amelia nodded and watched as Dan walked to the sidewalk. Like a guy on a casual stroll, he walked toward the pickup truck parked on a short gravel driveway off the alley. Quickly he shined the flashlight all around. Anyone who might have seen him would have thought he was a guy who lost his keys on the ground.
Even though he walked on gravel, Dan made practically no sound. He shined the flashlight on the plate, inside the back of the hatch, at all four tires. Then, suddenly, his flashlight went out.
With her breath stuck in her chest, Amelia listened. A dog started barking from inside a house that was about three car lengths from Dan’s spot. He ducked down behind the truck as a back porch light came on. The back door opened, revealing the silhouette of a man.
Dan was crouched behind the truck, out of sight as long as the man didn’t let his dog out or come to investigate himself.
“Who’s out there?” the man yelled over the yip-yip of his dog. Amelia was sure he had one of those little dogs that were more like alarms than actual guards. For that she was thankful. The last thing she wanted was for Dan to have a pit bull turned loose on him. She wasn’t totally sure Dan would win that fight.
“There’s nobody out there, Maverick. Nobody. Now come on,” the man said to the dog before shutting the door.
Within seconds, Dan returned to the car and slid into the driver’s seat, staying crouched down like Amelia.
“Was it the wrong truck? A false alarm?” she asked.
“No. That was our truck.” He took out his pocket notepad and scribbled down what looked like the license plate number along with the truck’s make and model.
“Well, what’s the matter?”
“I think I know who lives in that house,” Dan muttered.
Amelia swallowed as her eyes bugged out of her head. “You’re kidding.”
“I wish I was.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I’m not sure yet,” Dan said as he started the engine and slowly started to drive away. Amelia was struck dumb. She waited for Dan to say something, but she could see he was deep in thought.
“If you want to drop me off at home, that’s okay. We can get something to eat on another day.”
Dan came to a stoplight and looked at Amelia.
“You’re my good luck charm, Amelia. I’m not letting you go.” He gave her that sexy smirk she never got tired of seeing.
Chapter Thirteen
Three days passed before Dan visited Amelia at the house again. It was Saturday, which meant Meg and Adam had stayed up till all hours and were now sleeping in. From appearances, Dan had done the same. His eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep, and dark circles hung beneath them.
Another body was discovered near the drainage ditch where the last five had been found. It wasn’t on the news. It wasn’t in the paper.
“She’d been dead for a while,” Dan told Amelia. “M. E. says she probably died some time between the last two girls, but for some reason, he waited to dump her. We did get a faint footprint, but even that is a long shot.”
“But what about the truck? Can’t you get a warrant to search it or the house?”
“It isn’t that easy.” Dan yawned as he shuffled behind Amelia into the kitchen. “Judges are reluctant to put a lot of faith in the testimony of hookers. Just because she said she saw that truck doesn’t mean that’s our killer. Could just be a dude with a crappy truck. So, I need your help again.”
“Another covert operation?”
“Not quite.” He scratched his head. “Would you mind dropping in on an old friend with me? I thought if I brought you along it wouldn’t look so suspicious.”
“Sure. Who are we going to see?”
“The owner of that truck. My old partner, Lars Hegan.”
Amelia froze. “Your old partner? You don’t think he has anything to do with the murders, do you?”
“My gut says no. But I can’t shake the feeling that there is something there. I don’t know, Amelia. This case has me dangling by a thread.”
“Go take a shower and lie down. No one is up this early on Saturday morning. When you wake up, we’ll go. Okay? I’ll make some breakfast for you, and you’ll have something warm in your stomach before we head out.”
Again, Dan stepped up to Amelia, slipped his arms around her, and pulled her into him for a tight hug. He held her there for what felt like a long time.
“What would I do without you?” Dan said.
“I can say I honestly don’t know.” Amelia squeezed him tightly before letting go. He kissed the top of her head and headed for the stairs just as Meg started to come down.
“Good morning, Dan,” she said, standing on tiptoes to give him a peck on the cheek.
“Good morning, sweetheart. You sleep okay?”
“Yeah.” She rubbed her eyes while shuffling up to her mother.
“Hey, kid.” Amelia kissed Meg on top of the head.
“Hi, Mom. I had the weirdest dream.”
“You did? Tell me while I make some pancakes.”
“Maybe I should call Dan down to
hear it. It was pretty strange.”
“No, honey. Dan just got off work. He needs to rest, and then we are going to run a couple errands today before he goes back to work.”
“What errands?” Meg asked innocently.
“Oh, you know. He’s a man, so he’s out of toilet paper and hasn’t picked up his dry cleaning and has nothing but frozen dinners in his fridge,” Amelia lied, although from the way Dan was working this case, she was fairly confident she wasn’t far off.
“Dan should just marry you, and then he could stay here. We always have that stuff,” Meg chirped as she poured herself half a cup of coffee, which she topped with half a cup of milk.
Amelia didn’t say anything.
“Wouldn’t that be a good idea?” Meg said after taking a sip of coffee. She batted her long lashes as she looked at her mom over the rim of her mug.
“That would be a great idea, but it’s an idea that is up to Dan. And right now, he’s got more important things to worry about like solving this case.” Amelia smoothed Meg’s head. “He doesn’t need any distractions.”
“It’s the arsonist, isn’t it?”
“I think so,” Amelia lied again. But she didn’t dare tell her daughter that a lunatic was out there murdering young prostitutes who were close to her age. It was too much for Amelia. Meg probably would have been all ears if she told her what Dan was really working on. She could just imagine her eyes wide and her mind churning out question after question. But Amelia couldn’t tell her the truth, if for no other reason than to protect herself. That girl Missy was just a child. A beautiful girl who was lost and alone. No one was looking out for her, and so that was what happened.
“Well, if anyone can nail the jerk, it’s Dan,” Meg said confidently.
“I think you are right about that.” Amelia smiled before she poured herself a cup of coffee and started breakfast.
By the time Dan woke up, the kids had already had lunch and left the house. Adam had plans with his friend Amy Leonard from down the street. Swooshies skateboard shop was having an unadvertised sale that they’d been looking forward to. Amelia could only imagine what they were going to come home with this time.
Meg was spending the day with Katherine and her family for a barbeque. That left the house quiet with the windows open, a cool breeze blowing through, and nothing but the birds disrupting the silence.
“You look better,” Amelia said when Dan finally emerged from the guest bedroom upstairs.
“I feel better,” he grumbled.
“There’s a little coffee left.”
“That’ll do the trick.”
“And are you hungry?”
Dan looked up at her and smirked.
“That was a stupid question,” she replied as she pulled a chair out at the kitchen table and motioned for him to sit. Within minutes, a plate of pancakes and bacon was in front of him, along with a cup of coffee and a glass of orange juice.
“So, what I was thinking, Amelia, is that we go over to Lars’s house as if we were just in the neighborhood. I’m going to talk to him away from his wife and…”
“He has a wife?” Amelia gasped.
“Yes. And I believe he’s got a couple of kids too,” Dan replied nonchalantly. “If you would talk to his wife while I drop a few hints, that would…”
“Oh, Dan.” Amelia held her stomach. “I don’t know why I just thought that the guy responsible for this was some loner. A man with no ties to anyone. No family. Especially not children.” She gulped. “I’m not a cop. I don’t think of people any other way.”
“I wish we could spot the bad guys that way. I wish they all looked the part. But they don’t,” Dan said. His voice wasn’t harsh, but it had taken on a hard tone. “Unfortunately, sometimes they look like Boy Scouts. And sometimes they look like cops.”
Amelia looked at Dan. The idea that a fellow brother in blue could be responsible for this made him pull his shoulders down and strain the muscles in his neck. This was harder for him than Amelia. So she squared her shoulders and took a deep breath.
“Well, I don’t know what we are speculating for. There could be a completely reasonable answer for everything. But we’ll never know if we don’t get going.” She picked up her purse and went into the fridge for a couple of leftover cupcakes from the truck that the kids hadn’t found. They were simple orange and ginger cupcakes with vanilla frosting. “You can’t go to someone’s house empty handed.”
“Good thinking,” Dan said as he stood up and tugged at his tie. “How do I look? Am I too wrinkled?”
“I hate to tell you this, Dan, but you always look wrinkled,” Amelia teased as she smoothed out his lapels.
When they got into Dan’s sedan, Amelia sat on half a dozen pieces of paper scattered across the front seat.
“I’m sorry about all that. It’s the case file, and I hit the brakes when some jack-wagon stopped short, and everything went flying,” Dan muttered, aggravated all over again by the incident.
“It’s okay. I’ll put it all back in the folder while you drive.”
She skimmed over the documents. A lot of them were comments and diagrams that made little sense to Amelia. But the police photographs of the girls in the drainage ditch were all too easy to make out. There was blood. Their bodies were bent. These were not their mug shots. They were dead.
Amelia shuffled them into a stack along with all the other documents and closed the file folder.
Chapter Fourteen
“Well, well, well. This is an unexpected surprise,” Lars Hegan said as he answered the door. “Detective Walishovsky? Come on in. And this is…?”
“Lars, you remember Amelia Harley from the other day at my office?” Dan said.
“Hi.” Amelia extended her free hand and offered the cupcakes with the other.
“My wife loves these,” he said, shaking her hand. “You’ve got that pink truck down near the park.”
Amelia nodded. She didn’t like Lars when she met him at the police station. He was one of those guys who didn’t think anything was wrong with leering at a woman. Of course a double take was flattering. But a guy who stared and licked his lips while adjusting his pants was just plain wrong. Even now, with Dan standing right behind her, Lars took her measurements with his eyes.
Their home was bigger on the inside and hosted a huge flat-screen television and comfy pieces of furniture that looked straight off the showroom floor right as you walked in.
Lars led them to the kitchen, where Amelia met his wife, Trish.
“Lars, can we talk a little shop for a minute,” Dan said quietly as Amelia thanked Trish for coming to visit her truck. As the men walked out back through the sliding glass door, Amelia decided to ask some of her own questions.
“How long have you and Lars been married?”
“Oh, we knew each other in high school,” Trish said. Amelia thought she was a pretty woman. Her hair was blond but streaked with darker shades of brown. She wore yoga pants and a tight T-shirt with the Gonzaga Bulldogs on it.
“Did you go to college there?” Amelia pointed to her shirt.
“No. Our oldest daughter will be graduating from there next year.” Trish beamed.
“Wow. You must be so proud. How many children do you have?”
“Two girls. My youngest is a freshman at the University of Cincinnati.” Trish offered Amelia a cup of coffee. Even though she’d had one cup too many at home already, she accepted.
The conversation was rather dull. Amelia wasn’t sure why, but she assumed the wife of a police officer would be a bit more animated, perhaps even funny considering all the heavy burdens her husband had to carry around with him.
But Amelia let Trish talk about her daughters, since that seemed to bring her the most joy, and engaged her with questions about their futures and how fast children grew up and all the usual motherly comments.
She looked out the sliding back doors to the porch, where Dan sat with Lars. Lars didn’t look the least bit nervous. In fa
ct, he looked very relaxed as he talked with Dan. He sat in a wicker chair with one foot propped up on the bench of a picnic table. She didn’t want to stare, but she had seen those same shoes at Swooshies. They were ugly even for kids, let alone a grown man.
After Amelia put forth an exhausting amount of small talk, the men finally walked back into the house. Amelia had barely taken any sips of her coffee and nearly jumped off the barstool she was sitting on when Dan said they were leaving.
“No. Why don’t you guys stick around? Now that the kids are gone, it’s just Trish and I and Maverick. Where is Maverick?” Lars asked.
“He’s asleep in his bed,” Trish said. “Some guard dog, right? He sleeps all day long, but at night he’s wound tighter than a piano wire and lets us know about every leaf blowing down the street or raccoon running through the alley.”
Dan declined their offer, saying they had plans, but he thanked Lars for his help and would talk to him later. Trish waved good-bye from the kitchen, but Lars walked them to the door.
“It was nice meeting you,” Amelia said politely.
“You, too,” Lars replied, leaning in to kiss Amelia on the cheek. She turned her head as far as she could, but Lars’s lips caught the corner of hers. Instinctually, she snapped her head back and looked at him with surprise. All he did was laugh.
“Now you take care of our boy here, Amelia. He needs someone to look after him.” Lars stepped back with his hands up and open as if he were surrendering.
“You might want to tell Trish to do the same for you. Take care, Lars,” Dan muttered as he took Amelia’s hand in his and squeezed it. Amelia saw him glare at Lars, who chuckled and shook his head, smiling the entire time. Her heart raced when she realized how protective Dan was, even to the man who was once his partner on the force. Once in the car, Dan fell silent, and Amelia could tell something serious nagged at him.
“What did he say to you about the truck?” she asked as they drove off.
“He said he was down on the boulevard the other night. But he assured me the hooker he picked up was older.” Dan clicked his tongue.
