by Terry Shames
When I drive up in my squad car and park outside the structure, a young man in coveralls comes over, wiping his hands on a rag. “I hope you’re not needing a service today,” he says. “We’re plumb full up.”
“No, I’m here to see T.J. or Robert. Either one of them around?”
“In a manner of speaking,” he says. His tone is dry, but he seems more amused than mad. “They’re around back with a new toy.”
As I round the corner to the back of the garage, I hear a buzzing sound. The Caisson brothers are there along with two other men. They’re all looking up at the sky. T.J.’s arm is in a sling, and his brother has the controls of some contraption. I look up and at first don’t see anything, but I follow their gaze to a small apparatus a couple hundred feet off the ground that looks like a big mosquito.
One of the men says, “You can use that thing to spy on your girlfriend, Robert.”
“I don’t know,” one of the others says. “Look out for Darla. If she catches you, I don’t give two cents for your chances of escaping with your life.”
Chuckles all around, and then they notice me. “Chief Craddock, what are you up to?” T.J. asks, grinning.
Robert gestures to the sky. “Look what we got. What do you think of that?” Apparently, he doesn’t hold a grudge over spending a night in jail.
“Is that a drone?” I ask.
“Sure is. Look at this.” Robert fiddles with the control in his hand, and the contraption veers toward us, slows down, and settles on the ground nearby.
“That’s quite a toy,” I say. “What kind of range does it have?”
“This is a cheap one,” Robert says. “It only goes 15 minutes before we have to recharge it. But it can fly a good distance in that time.”
“We have to get a camera on it,” T.J. says. “That way we can see what it sees.”
“Yeah, but that will weigh it down too much,” Robert says. “Then it won’t go very far.”
“Well why do you care if it goes far if it can’t let you know what it’s looking at?”
I tune out their squabbling because their toy has triggered an idea. We can’t cover a lot of territory looking for Loretta’s car on the ground, but suppose we had a drone with a camera? I have no idea whether the Department of Public Safety uses drones, but I’ll find out.
Robert picks up the drone and brings it close. I’ve never seen one before, and it looks awfully small to do surveillance. “Are there larger ones?” I ask.
“Oh, yeah,” Robert says. “You can get them a lot bigger and more complicated than this one.”
“I’ll bet the U.S. government has some big ones, and they’re using them to spy on us,” one of the men says.
The others grunt.
Robert looks at his contraption as if he sees it in a new light. He takes it over near the building where a big charger is set up with a long cord that snakes around from inside the building and plugs it in.
“How long does it take to charge up?” I ask.
“Fifteen, twenty minutes,” he says. “As soon as I get good at this one, I’m going to get me a better one.”
“Always have to have something better than anybody else has,” his brother snipes.
“Listen, before you two get tuned up again, I need to have a word with you. Privately.” I give a pointed look to the two men with them.
“Say no more,” one of them says.
“What is it?” Robert says when they’re gone. “That priest complain to you?”
“What would he complain about?” I ask.
“I don’t know, but sometimes people don’t care for straight talk.”
“Straight talk like threatening him?”
“We didn’t threaten him,” T.J. says. “We just told him we didn’t think it was appropriate for a young lady to lead the goat parade.”
“Why not?” I ask.
“It’s not right. A boy has always done it.”
Robert shoots his brother a warning look. “That’s not the point. The point is that Sanchez is trying to figure out a way to keep our boys from doing it.”
I look over at the drone. My mind is on that, hatching an idea, and not especially on the silly spat between these brothers. “Makes sense to me,” I say. “Since the two of you are making such a big deal out of it, practically ready to kill each other, Sanchez is right to try to find a better solution.”
“Well goddammit, that’s between us. Why should he horn in?”
“Because he’s the one who puts in all the work, and then for his trouble he gets threatened. I’m not sure I care anymore what the two of you do to each other, but threatening to kill the priest is another matter.”
“We didn’t threaten to kill him,” Robert says, but TJ. seems to have found something interesting off in the distance.
“See to it that you don’t. In fact, I want you two to stay away from him until after the rodeo. And furthermore, you’re going to have to live with the fact that a girl is leading the opening ceremonies, which may not have happened if you had managed to settle your fight without gunplay and threats. Now that the idea has been floated, the ladies will be all for it. You sure you want to tangle with them?”
The brothers look like they could spit fire, and I leave them squabbling about whose fault this was.
CHAPTER 19
Back at headquarters, Connor is holding down the fort and says it has been quiet. “You look like you’ve got a fire under your tail.”
“An idea.”
I sit down at my desk and dial Luke Schoppe’s number. He’s an old friend who has been a Texas Ranger from the time when it used to be a separate organization. Ever since it was put under the umbrella of the Texas Department of Public Safety, he keeps threatening to retire, but he never gets around to it.
He isn’t in the Bryan office, but I reach him on his cell phone. “Schoppe, I could use your help.”
“Tell me what’s up.”
I fill him in on Loretta and Elaine Farquart going missing. “Both women were set up to meet men they contacted through a dating website.”
At that Schoppe grunts. “That’s so risky.”
“Risky is right. The Farquart woman was found dead this morning. She was run down by a car.”
“I heard that, but I didn’t know somebody from your neck of the woods was also missing.”
I bristle at the idea that he hasn’t heard that Loretta is missing. He works out of Bryan. He should have known. “I don’t understand how you can’t have heard about it.”
“I’m not in the office. I’m up in Austin and have been for the past week. Someone called me with the news about the Farquart woman just before I left to head home. They called because it happened on the highway out from Bryan.”
“I don’t understand why there hasn’t been more action from the Department of Public Safety. They aren’t paying enough attention to this!”
“Samuel, that isn’t like you. Now you have to calm down. It won’t do your friend any good if you have a stroke.”
“Listen, Schoppe, you know as well as I do that time is of the essence here.” As soon as I say it, I’m stabbed by the memory that at first I didn’t take Loretta’s disappearance seriously myself.
“Do you know for sure the same person took both women?”
“No, but the MO is the same, and it seems damn likely to be the same person.”
“Samuel, I’m telling you, you’re too agitated.”
“Of course I’m agitated. This woman is a personal friend. I have to find her, and I’m no closer than I was when she went missing.”
“You’re too close to the victim. You aren’t thinking clearly. You caught me driving on my way back to Bryan, but I’m coming to you. Hold tight.”
“Wait. I had a specific reason for calling. Does the DPS use drones for surveillance?”
“Drones? Not that I know of. The FBI might. What are you thinking?”
“Nobody has spotted either woman’s car. And there hasn’t been any activity on their cr
edit cards, so the likelihood is that Loretta is still around here. I’m thinking if her car is out in the open, a drone might be able to spot it. Or maybe a helicopter.”
In the background, I hear the hum of his car. “You know they aren’t going to send out a helicopter for that, and the drone is an unlikely scenario too. Like I said, I’m coming over there. We’ll talk it over when I get there. Should be forty-five minutes.”
When I hang up, Connor says, “I thought kidnapping was a federal offense. You’d think the FBI would get involved.”
“That’s only if a victim is taken across state lines. Or if it’s a child. I phoned them as soon as we knew Loretta was missing, but they have to have more evidence that someone was actually kidnapped, and the county sheriff in Bobtail has to ask for help before they’ll do anything.” But another thought strikes me. It would be appealing to turn over the search to a big federal organization, but would they have the same urgency that Maria and I do?
When Schoppe arrives, he swoops in like a hero on a white horse, striding in with purpose in his step. He doesn’t waste time on small talk. “Tell me everything you’ve done to find her.”
I take him through it from the beginning, starting from when she didn’t show up to meet Ellen last Wednesday, finding dishes left undone in her house, and noting the missing suitcase and toiletries. I tell him that none of her relatives has heard from her, but that was no real surprise. “It took a while before we took it seriously. And that’s when we found out she had met a few men through the Internet dating site.”
“Okay, you’ve threaded all the needles so far. No leads at all?”
“A couple that fizzled out.” I tell him about the professor and the man whose daughters plugged him into the website.
He laughs, but it’s mirthless. “I know it’s not funny, but I can imagine how aggravated that poor man must have been. What about another connection between the women? Any chance that Loretta and this Farquart woman knew each other?”
“I’m working with Brent Hogarth in Bobtail. We haven’t been able to come up with any real connection between them. And there might not be one,” I say. “Hell, for that matter, whoever killed the Farquart woman may not have contacted her through the dating site at all. But we’re working on that assumption for now.”
“Makes sense.”
“At the moment, Maria is off at the outlet mall showing photos of the two women, hoping somebody remembers seeing both of them—seeing them together would be even better. And there’s a posse of women putting up flyers in Bobtail asking if anyone has seen her. My deputy and I have been questioning men she had contact with on the website, but nothing has popped out. Beyond that, I don’t know what to do. The Department of Public Safety was supposed to be on the lookout for Loretta’s car, but I don’t know how much manpower they’ve put into it. I’ll be glad for any suggestion you might have.”
“And you were hoping that you could send a drone around to go from house to house instead of driving around.” Schoppe smiles kindly. “You understand how unlikely it is that her car is out in the open, right?”
“I do. I guess I’m clutching at straws.” I haven’t felt like a rookie in long time, but I’ve been acting like one. I’m beginning to realize that in my agitation, I’ve lost my usual steady way of doing things, and Schoppe is helping me get it back.
“I’ll tell you what we ought to do,” Schoppe says. “Let’s go back through that dating site and zero in on anybody who lives around here.”
“The addresses aren’t available to users,” Connor says. He has been following our conversation eagerly. “People have to volunteer information on where they live, and they don’t usually do that until they get a match.”
Schoppe’s face gets red. I’ve seen that in him, that he doesn’t like it when he gets snagged by a bureaucratic roadblock. “We’ll see about that,” he says.
He gets on the phone to an office in Austin, but when he gets off the phone, he shakes his head. “It’s a privacy issue. I should have known that.”
“I wonder where the dating site is headquartered?” I say. “Could we appeal to them to do a civic duty?”
“Ha! Good luck with that,” Connor says. “All those people are interested in is money. Civic interest doesn’t enter into it.”
“Okay,” Schoppe says. “If you need to, you can try to get a court order, but for now there’s no use getting hung up on something we don’t have control over. Let’s move on. Have you heard how the Bobtail Police Department’s investigation of the Farquart woman’s murder is going?”
“Haven’t had a chance to talk to them since Hogarth called me this morning. I’ll tell you one thing I can do,” I say. “I’m going to question some of Elaine Farquart’s close friends. Maybe they’ll know if she ever met Loretta.” I’m sure Hogarth will talk to the friends, but I want to focus on Loretta.
“Look into whether they both went to the same professionals— eye doctors, dentists, podiatrists, that sort of thing.”
“Good thought. And I sent Maria to the outlet stores because I know Loretta liked to shop there, but we’ll talk to clothing stores in Bobtail too.”
“You have to look into women things too. Did Loretta go in for manicures? Maybe they went to the same place. And how about her hairdresser? According to my wife, a woman’s hairdresser knows everything there is to know about a client.”
“That’s an interesting thought.” I remember a few months ago, when Loretta started wearing her hair different, she told me she went to Houston to have it done and was going to look around here for a hairdresser who could do it the same way. She said she knew she couldn’t find anybody here in Jarrett Creek, but that’s the last I heard of it. Maria will know whether she found somebody. If her new hairdresser is in Bobtail, then maybe both she and Elaine went to the same one.
“Even if they didn’t go to the same salon, it’s possible one of them told her hairdresser something that could be a lead.”
“I’ll get right on it. I knew talking to you was a good idea.” All at once, I realize that Schoppe looks tired. He said he’d been in Austin all week, probably been working hard on another case. “Listen, I’ve called you away from getting back home. I appreciate your putting in your two cents. It helped me focus.”
“I hope it helps.” He pulls himself to his feet, and I notice the effort. “You didn’t say what you were up to in Austin.”
He settles his hat on his head. “No, I didn’t. But I’m tired and ready to get home. Glad I could help, although I’m not sure what good it did. Don’t hesitate to call me if you want to discuss it more.”
When he walks out the door, I’m left with an uneasy feeling that I missed something. But my problem with Loretta shoves it away.
I call Maria and get her on her cell phone. “Do you know if Loretta ever had manicures or pedicures?”
“She didn’t. She said it was a waste to get manicures because she works in the garden every day, and she didn’t like people fooling with her feet. Besides, she said nobody ever sees her feet because she doesn’t wear sandals. Why do you ask?”
I tell her what Schoppe said. “You know where she gets her hair done?”
“I don’t. But I’ll bet she has a telephone number in her house.”
CHAPTER 20
Pursuing the theory that Loretta and Elaine Farquart must have had some common point of intersection, I phone Elaine Farquart’s next-door neighbor, Amy Martin. She’s eager to help in any way she can. She knows Elaine’s two closest friends and tells me she’ll phone them to see when they are available to meet me. Within minutes she gets back to say that they want to talk to me right away. “We all want to find out what happened to Elaine. It’s so horrible.”
I swing by Loretta’s house to look at her calendar and list of phone numbers to see whether there’s a name or number for a beauty shop. Two weeks back, there’s a Tuesday afternoon appointment for “hair.” That’s not helpful. The list of phone numbers is by name, almost
all first names only. No more helpful than “hair.” Turning to her credit bills, I find a payment for “Darlene’s Beauty Shop” in Bobtail. She paid $85 to have her hair done. Seems steep to me. Douglas Heckman still gives me a $15 haircut in his barbershop.
I arrive at Amy’s just as two of her boys have gotten home from school. The oldest one has stayed for baseball practice. She sends the two upstairs and tells them they are not to disturb us, reinforcing her admonition with an armload of snacks. When the doorbell rings, she whispers, “Carol and Misty are good friends, but you wouldn’t know it. Be prepared; they pick at each other constantly.”
Carol Johnson and Misty Lovell are in their sixties, Elaine’s age. Carol is a big-boned widow with steel gray hair and posture a model would envy. Misty is plump and pink-eyed, reminding me of a nervous rabbit. Neither of them recognizes Loretta’s name or her photo. The two of them sit side by side on the sofa.
“Elaine had many interests,” Carol says, speaking precisely as one would expect of the English teacher that she was for forty years. “It’s quite possible she knew your friend and I wouldn’t have met her.”
“What was she interested in?”
“She played bridge and was a bird watcher—went down to King’s Ranch every year for bird count season.”
“I believe she also went to Costa Rica once to look at birds,” Misty says, casting a nervous glance at Carol.
“Of course she did,” Carol says. “Don’t say you believe so when you know perfectly well she did.” Her tone is scolding.
Amy widens her eyes in my direction.
Carol says, “She used to volunteer at the animal shelter, but she said seeing all those unwanted pets upset her, and she had to quit.” They both eye Dusty, who has sprawled at my feet.
“She loved her cat,” Misty says, dabbing at the corner of her eye. “I hope somebody will take care of it. I’m allergic, or I’d take it.”
“If her daughter doesn’t take the kitty, I will,” Amy says.
“Did Elaine have a church affiliation?” I ask. It’s possible she met Loretta at a church function.
