by Jeff Siebold
Adjoining the room was a common area with a kitchenette and some furniture—sofas and a TV and chairs and small tables—that were apparently shared with other residents. Zeke asked Dottie about that.
“These three students share this common space,” she said, pointing at the three bedroom doors that emptied onto the space. “They each have a lock on their bedroom door for privacy, but they have full use of the common space and the kitchen.”
Zeke moved through the small apartment. There were no photographs in Catherine’s room, and no pictures on the walls. Her dresser held clothing, most of which consisted of long skirts in dark colors, and sweaters and long sleeved pullover shirts. Other drawers held underwear, nightclothes, socks and, surprisingly, two pair of shoes in a bottom drawer. Four textbooks were stacked neatly on top of the dresser.
“Is her bike still parked downstairs?” asked Zeke.
“It is,” said Dottie. “It’s a pink and blue fat tire model, girl’s bike. It’s been chained to the bike rack outside since she disappeared.”
There was little else in the room. “Not much here,” he said. Zeke opened the drawer of the small table. Inside there was a book and a pair of cotton gloves. He picked the book up and saw that it was a Qur’an.
Chapter 23
The restaurant was British but with a casual look, outdoor metal tables and chairs lined up between the storefront and the sidewalk, with umbrellas all around and window boxes holding colorful flowers lining the top of the short divider fences. Each empty black metal table was solely adorned with a contrasting, bright red ketchup bottle.
Zeke entered the Elephant & Castle and asked the hostess to point him toward “the British chap.” She did.
Clive Greene was sitting in a booth, watching the front door and eating a dish Zeke recognized as poutine.
“What do you have there?” he asked Clive.
“French fries, cheese curds and brown gravy,” said Clive. “And this plate has bacon, as well. Hello, Zeke.”
“Hello, Clive. Interesting,” said Zeke, looking at the food.
“It’s a British staple.” Clive paused for effect. He was dressed in a dark suit that looked as if it had been tailored on Savile Row. Zeke noticed that his cuff links and tiepin carried the regimental seal of the British Royal Highland Regiment, the Black Watch.
“You know, poutine actually originated in Canada, not Britain,” said Zeke.
Clive looked at him but said nothing.
“It’s good to be back in Washington,” said Zeke, pulling out the chair and sitting across from Clive. The Elephant and Castle was located a half block north of Pennsylvania Avenue and two blocks from The Agency’s offices. “But, it’s colder here.” He was referring to the seasonally brisk winter weather in DC, as well as to his tendency to migrate south when he wasn’t working on a project.
“You find anything in Charlottesville?” asked Clive, taking a bite.
“Well, maybe,” said Zeke, “but nothing conclusive.” The waitress approached and Zeke ordered water with lemon and an order of fish and chips, the daily special.
“They’re outstanding here, old boy,” said Clive.
“I’d expect no less,” said Zeke.
“Use the vinegar on them,” Clive continued.
The far wall was lined in dark wood panels and bookshelves, and there was a large mirror on that wall, etched with the brand name “Guinness.” To its left were floor to ceiling windows looking out toward 19th Street. Their blinds were partially opened.
“Catherine’s apartment was typical on-campus student housing, with three bedrooms per unit sharing a common sitting area and kitchen,” said Zeke. “The common area was neat and organized, with pictures and books and magazines on the tables. There was a large TV on one wall and a small table just off the kitchen, for meals. Her personal space was a bedroom and a bath, which can be locked off from the other space.”
“Sounds normal,” said Clive. He took another bite of poutine.
“What seemed odd,” said Zeke, “was that there were no pictures or personal effects in her room. Just some clothing and a few books and study materials. Nothing on the walls, nothing in the desk drawers, no address book or purse or personal items. There was no makeup in the bathroom, or in any of her drawers,” reported Zeke.
“Could she have taken it with her?” asked Clive.
“Possible, but in my experience, there’s some makeup women take with them and some they leave in the bathroom drawer or in the vanity behind the mirror.”
“How about in the bathtub?” asked Clive.
“Soap, shampoo, and a washcloth,” said Zeke.
“That doesn’t sound like the dorm room of a typical college girl, does it?” asked Clive, chewing on a French fry dipped in brown gravy.
“No,” said Zeke. “But the thing that puzzled me the most, I think, was the book I found in the drawer of the small table. It was a Qur’an, a Muslin bible.”
“The Recitation,” said Clive to himself. “The proof of Muhammad’s prophethood.”
“The same,” said Zeke.
“That book has caused many wars.”
“Yes, the Sword Verses,” said Zeke. “This copy was underlined in a number of areas, places that have been trigger points between the Sunnis and the Shia Muslims for years.”
“It was an English copy?” asked Clive.
“Yes,” said Zeke. “In English. And notes in the margins, but mostly they sounded like angry rants. One or two words of emphasis, like ‘Allah Akbar’ or ‘God is Great’. It’s an Islamic battle cry that the terrorists used during 9/11, and most every terror strike since.”
“I know. So, what’s your analysis?” asked Clive, as he took the last mouthful of poutine.
“Well, we have no sign of kidnapping. Nothing in the room was damaged, no sign of a struggle. And there’s been no report of the girl being found, dead or alive. I checked with local law enforcement again. Nothing.”
“OK,” said Clive.
“Too early to tell, but we should talk with her parents,” said Zeke.
“Right, let’s head there next,” said Clive, looking at his watch. “Finish eating. Sally tracked the parents down. They’re in Fairfax. We can be there in thirty minutes or so.”
* * *
“I’m Ronald Cook, and this is my wife, Constance,” said the man.
“My pleasure, Mr. Cook,” said Zeke. ”I’m sorry for your trouble.” Zeke shook Mr. Cook’s hand. Clive made his introduction.
Ronald Cook said, “Good to meet you both. Call me Ronnie.” His voice was low and raspy.
They were standing inside the front door of the Cook’s large suburban home in Fairfax, Virginia, about twenty miles from Washington, DC. The home was decorated in an early American style, with blue and white wallpaper, maple wood furniture and primitive art on the walls. There was a vase of wilting flowers on a small table.
“We want to hear from you both, just what happened,” continued Clive. ”We’re actively investigating your daughter’s disappearance, but as background, we need every detail we can get.”
“Sure, Mr. Greene,” said Ronnie Cook. ”Anything we can do to help. Come on into the family room. We can talk there.” He turned and led them down a hallway into an open space off the kitchen with a couch and two overstuffed chairs, facing a fireplace with an inactive television mounted above it.
“OK, it was four days ago, now, when we noticed that neither girl answered their phone,” said Ronnie. ”They’re typically pretty independent, but Connie—Constance—,” she nodded to Clive and Zeke, “left messages for the girls, and they never responded.”
“Wait, you said ‘the girls’?” asked Zeke.
“Yes, both of our daughters are missing,” said Connie Cook. “I left them each a message on their cell phones.”
“That was Sunday?” asked Zeke.
“Yes, Andrea had started her new job at the hospital in Georgetown last month, and we were checking on her. We try to call
the girls every other weekend.”
“Is it unusual that they don’t call you back?” asked Zeke.
“No, they’re busy with their own lives. But, I had some information that Andrea wanted; she’d asked me to find the address of one of her college friends for her, and I had. I told her on the message I left that I had found Jill’s address. So I expected that she’d call back pretty quickly.”
“What time did you leave the message on Sunday?” asked Zeke.
“About 2:30 in the afternoon. When I didn’t hear back from her by dinner time, I called Catherine to see if she knew where Andrea was. They were two years apart in age, and the two of them talked pretty frequently.”
“So you called Catherine around…?” asked Zeke.
“Around 5:30, I think,” said Constance Cook. ”Wait, I’ll look on my phone.” She took a smart phone from her pocket, pushed an icon and scrolled on it for a minute. ”Yes, I called Andrea with Jill’s address at 2:34 PM, and I called Catherine at 5:15 that same afternoon. Neither one answered, and I left messages for both.”
“And then?” asked Clive.
“We ate dinner here, and I mentioned to Ronnie over dinner that I hadn’t heard from the girls. He reassured me that they were probably out enjoying their Sunday—it was a beautiful day—and encouraged me to call them again after dinner. I did and left messages again.”
“And neither responded?” asked Zeke.
“Neither one,” she said. ”So we decided to check on them both Monday morning, just to be sure everything was OK. I called Andrea’s cell phone Monday, and when I got no answer, I called the hospital to be sure she was OK. She hadn’t shown up for work.”
“So you checked on Catherine?”
“I did. When she didn’t answer I called the University of Virginia, and they gave me her RA’s number. Resident Assistant, that is. They called them dorm mothers when I was in school. I called and spoke with her—her name was Dottie—and she said that she hadn’t seen Catherine over the weekend. She promised to check and call me back. When she called back about a half hour later, she said that Catherine wasn’t in her apartment, and that her roommates hadn’t seen her since Saturday. Apparently she didn’t sleep in the apartment Sunday night.”
“This isn’t like the girls,” said Ronny. ”I mean, they have their own lives, but they’re usually pretty responsible. They’ve been good girls all their lives, not rebellious or wild.”
“You called the police, then?” asked Zeke.
“Yes, Connie did, on Monday morning,” he said.
“I called the DC police and talked with a Sergeant Smith, and then I called the UVA campus police, as well as the Charlottesville police. I spoke with a Sergeant Berkowitz in Virginia. Both told me that we can file a missing person’s report, but in most cases the person shows up within a couple of days. Sergeant Smith said that most missing persons have some issue, such as alcoholism or substance abuse, and that plays into their disappearance. They took the information, but I doubt that the police are being very proactive in their investigations, particularly since both girls are over 18. Well, Catherine is 22, and Andrea is 25. She had her 25th birthday in December,” said Connie, her face showing her concern as she recounted. ”But both policemen told me that they had no reports of homicides over the weekend that might match our daughters’ descriptions. No unidentified girls dead or injured.”
“Right. Do you know if the girls had any plans to get together last weekend?” asked Zeke.
“None that they mentioned to us,” said Connie.
Chapter 24
“They both disappeared on the same day,” continued Zeke. “And they both appear to have their cell phones turned off.”
“Right,” said Clive, after they left the Cook’s home. “Maybe not a nefarious disappearance after all.”
“Too early to tell, but a visit to Andrea’s apartment may answer some of the questions. You’ve got the key Mr. Cook gave us, so we can go at our leisure.”
“Right, let’s head there next,” said Clive, looking at his watch. “It’s over by the hospital in Georgetown. We can be there by half three.”
British for three thirty, thought Zeke.
* * *
On the drive to Andrea’s apartment, Zeke filled Clive in on his cruise ship interviews. “It was odd,” he said. “The security guy seemed to be most interested in clearing the cabin and getting the body off the Venture of the Seas. There wasn’t any follow up on their part, neither Security nor the Purser.”
“Hmm,” said Clive.
“I spoke with the ship’s doctor, also, who told me that once the body had been declared dead and transferred to the paramedics, he was out of it. Just some paperwork to file and telephone interviews with the Freeport police and the Miami-Dade police.”
“OK,” said Clive. “Roger Taylor was killed aboard the ship while his family was on an excursion, and the ship’s staff just wanted to get the body off the boat and away from the cruise guests. And it wasn’t until later, at the autopsy, that they were able to determine that strangulation was the cause of death.”
“Pretty much,” said Zeke, “although at first they thought it was an accident, a heart attack. There was some petechia but it wasn’t extremely visible. Mostly under the eyelids, according to the M.E.”
“Anything more from the interviews?”
“Not much. While I was there I spoke with the Purser, the Security guy, the Cabin Steward, the assistant Steward, the Room Service people and the doctor. There had been no deliveries to the room, and the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign was out, Snoozin’ they call it, which warned off the service people who would have gone in to clean the room,” said Zeke. “The killing was pretty well thought out.”
“How do we solve this one?” asked Clive.
“I think we’ll need to come at it from the other end of the string,” said Zeke. “Start with the possible motives and the possible killers and work backward.”
* * *
Mature trees lined both sides of the street, as Zeke and Clive approached Andrea’s apartment. In fact, it was more of a townhouse, attached to its neighbors on both sides and constructed of brick, as many Georgetown residences are. The brick flowed down the walls and seemed to spill into the sidewalks and stairs and flowerbeds. There were short wrought iron fences along the stairways.
Up and down the narrow street, and apparently the surrounding streets, the brick was imposing, rising four stories on each side and hiding all but a sliver of the cold, blue sky. Thankfully, the roads were contrasting concrete but with the occasional brick crosswalk embedded therein. Each townhouse had a closed single garage, and many had a compact car parked in the driveway. Space appeared to be tight.
Clive parked his Jaguar F-type R Coupe in the street in front of the girl’s apartment, and they stepped up the brick steps to the front door. He took a key from his pocket and unlocked the door. They stepped inside the foyer and closed the door behind them. It was silent inside the home. In a moment, Zeke could tell that there was no one else in the house.
“I’m told that most of these townhouses are owned by the doctors who work at the school,” said Clive. “They rent them to students or nursing staff, since George Washington Medical is an easy walk.”
The townhouse had high ceilings and a narrow wooden staircase along the right side wall that led up to the second story. There were two windows on the front of the structure and one on either side of the door. The room was decorated with an area rug, a small desk, sconce lighting attached to the walls, and a glass-topped table with a large vase filled with dying red and yellow flowers.
“I’ll take the second and third floors,” said Zeke as he started up the stairs.
* * *
An hour and a half later, Zeke and Clive were sitting in the kitchen at a rough hewn, square wooden table that looked as if it had been built by the Shakers. They sat in uncushioned, straight backed chairs that complemented the decorating theme of the kitchen, which appeared to
be “early pioneer.” The backsplash was made of polished copper, and there was an elbowed antique copper faucet extending from the wall over the gas stove, apparently designed to fill cooking pots with water without having to carry them to the sink.
“Not much,” said Clive. “It’s rather impersonal. I mean, the usual things are about, but there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of personal items. I didn’t find pictures or cards or an address book or things like that. No family photos on the walls or on the mantle. No letters in the drawers. I did find a small stack of invoices. Utilities, car payment, credit cards, just what you’d expect from a nurse renting a flat near work.”
“No signs of a struggle?” asked Zeke.
“None. How about upstairs?”
“All neat and tidy,” said Zeke. “Everything was put away, nothing left out on the countertops or the tables. There were some toiletries in the bathroom in a drawer under the sink, and the closet held dresses, shirts and uniforms. Shoes were in the closet, but no suitcases. There were some books in one of the dresser drawers, and the rest were filled with clothing. Underwear, socks, pajamas, like that.”
“Did you get to the third floor?” asked Clive.
“Yes, nothing there. It doesn’t look as if it’s been used at all recently. The doors were all closed, and the vents were shut, also.”
“I checked the lower level and the garage. Not much there either,” said Clive.
“No car?” asked Zeke.
“None, just a couple of storage boxes filled with textbooks in one corner.”
Zeke thought for a moment. “What was in the fridge?” he asked.
“I saw some orange juice, a half gallon of milk, butter and some leftovers in plastic containers,” said Clive. “Couldn’t determine what was in the containers. Maybe some sort of vegetarian dishes.”
“Let’s see,” said Zeke. He stood and went to the refrigerator. Inside, there were several plastic containers partially filled with food. He opened one, looked in and smelled it.
