RED HUNT: A captivating detective mystery (Hard Boiled Thrillers, Noir and Hard-Boiled Mysteries) (Thomas Blume Book 3)

by PT Reade

  “Very funny.” I rolled my eyes. “You’re very generous to let me have the place for the price you do. No, it’s not for me. I’m trying to find someone, someone who wants to stay hidden. Last known location was south of here, towards the river.”

  “Hmm. The only other places I can think of are the old warehouses on the waterfront. Some of them ones on the far east side of town are a hotbed for squatters and homeless folks.”

  I drained the rest of the second drink and took out my wallet. “That might just be seedy enough,” I said with a smile. I slid a few bills over to him with my glass. “Make sure that Miss Sunshine gets the tip.”

  “Of course.”

  I climbed down from the barstool and turned back to him with a smile on my face.

  “What?” Amir asked.

  “It’s a little scary that a successful restaurant manager knows so much about the inner workings of the darker parts of town. How do you know so much about that kind of thing anyway?”

  “I wasn’t born a restaurant owner, you know.”

  The look Amir briefly gave was distant, and it took me off guard for a moment. But then it shifted quickly, and I saw the familiar, good-natured man I’d become accustomed to. Still, a part of me wondered how much I really knew about Amir Mazra.

  SEVEN

  The clarity of intoxication.

  God, I hated doing research. But a quick glance around the internet told me that Amir was indeed correct. The old waterfront properties had a serious squatting problem. However, since the squatters caused no fuss, didn’t dabble in drugs and generally stayed out of the way, the police left them alone.

  By the time I was confident that several of the buildings on the east side were a good place to look, it had become dark, and I didn’t see the point in heading out. I had also chased the two drinks from the restaurant with several tumblers of whiskey at my office desk. If I went out at all at this point, I would have to walk or take a cab—neither of which is preferable if you’re an up-and-coming detective.

  But I also decided that I would not waste my time. I went back over the grim photos taken at the crash, looking for anything out of the ordinary. It is hard to search for something when you aren’t quite sure what you’re looking for, but I looked anyway. I reviewed the pictures while I still could, as my vision was growing lazy and the alcohol started to make everything seem darkly hilarious.

  Shortly after heading up to my office from the restaurant, I had done what my father had referred to as “mixing business and pleasure.” That is, I had opened a case file and opened a bottle at the same time. My father had been good at both, but at least he’d had the sense to separate the two. He had been a great cop once. Now he was gone.

  I drained the glass, set my now-empty tumbler down on the table and ambled into the bathroom. I thought briefly of my dad and his words of wisdom. I also wondered where it had all gone wrong for him. Had he regretted his choices in the end? And if not, would he appreciate the fact that I had followed in his stumbling footsteps?

  People like him drank to forget. I drank to distract myself from the aching emptiness falling through me.

  Finishing in the bathroom, I headed back to my desk. My head was spinning, and if I knocked back much more booze, I knew I’d be dealing with a mean hangover in the morning. Not that it ever stopped me before.

  I reached out to power down my computer, but misjudged, nearly knocking the tumbler to the floor.

  Damn.

  When I reached over to keep it from falling, my eyes landed on something that made no sense at first.

  I leaned closer to the tumbler, looking into its empty interior as my eyes strained. The glass shone with amber remnants of the whiskey, but that’s not what interested me for once. What interested me was the photo underneath…specifically the portion of the crash scene photograph that was being magnified through the bottom of the glass.

  Conceited or not, I had always considered myself a reasonable investigator. But sometimes, luck plays a part when skill can’t provide one.

  I rolled the tumbler back and forth in my hand trying to enhance the image below. I saw the ruin of steel and rubber, the London lights reflected in the paintwork and the fluids running down crumpled body panels, all frozen in time. These parts moved like a kaleidoscope as I turned the glass. However, one detail ambushed me. The window on the passenger’s side door of the overturned car was different to the rest of the carnage.

  At first, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and ruled it out as just having disoriented vision from the booze. But as I focused and held on to the edge for the table to anchor myself, I saw that my eyes weren’t being duped.

  The buckled glass of the passenger’s side window was clearly broken outward rather than splintered and crushed underneath like every other section of glass within the car.

  Holy shit.

  My heart leaped—not only because of what it could mean but also because I’d seen the fire and rescue teams trample the area to get to the victim first. After the burning, foam spray, and subsequent salvage, there would be no remaining proof of what I was seeing. The scene would have been a charred and ruined mess, well beyond the point of any real investigation. That meant that I was very likely the only one that had a picture like this.

  At the time, I couldn’t see how anyone could have survived the wreck. The photograph though, now spoke to me. Whispering a different story.

  Had Christina managed to escape?

  And if she had, how had no one on the street noticed her getting out and making her retreat?

  I stared at the picture for a long time, sobering up quickly at the implications. I had substituted the whiskey tumbler for an actual magnifying glass…a gag gift that one of the guys on the New York force had sent me when they had found out about my plans to take up private investigator work.

  Through the convex lens, the detail was even clearer. The window was definitely smashed outward, a sign that someone had perhaps broken their way out from the inside the carnage.

  The gravity of what this could mean was too much to keep to myself. I had to tell someone, had to voice what it could mean to make sure it stuck. Even if only to make sure the booze hadn’t finally addled my brain. And the only person I could think of was the one man who knew the intimate details of Christina’s life.

  I didn’t realize that it was gone eleven o’ clock at night until after I had already placed the call to Damian Slater. I shrugged. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t mind being stirred awake for this news.

  The phone rang twice before Damian answered. He sounded tired and sad. He also sounded confused that I was calling at such an hour.

  “Blume?” he said. “Um…what’s up?”

  “I need to tell you something, but I don’t know how you’re going to take it.”

  “Not much bothers me these days.” From just the beleaguered tone of his voice, I believed him.

  So I spent the next few minutes telling him about what I had stumbled upon through the bottom of the whiskey tumbler. Of course, I left the tumbler and the drinking out of it and attributed the find to my stellar investigative skills.

  “What does it mean?” Damian asked, the tiredness in his voice now replaced with a very tentative hope.

  “Well, it could mean a lot of things. And to tell you the truth, I might not have ever even thought twice about the window thing if it wasn’t for something else…something I saw earlier today.”

  “What?” The excitement in his voice made me smile. It also made me realize that the buzz I had worked so hard to obtain throughout the latter half of the day was now practically shot.

  I then told him about the woman I had seen earlier.

  “Are you sure it was her?” he asked. I wasn’t sure, but the elation in his voice made me smile.

  “Of course I’m not sure,” I said, trying to bring Damian back down to earth. “But seeing the woman today and then noticing the abnormality with the driver side window adds up to something.”
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  “You’re seriously telling me that Christina might still be alive?”

  I hesitated, not liking that he had put those words in my mouth. But hell, if I wasn’t trying to imply that, what was I trying to say?

  “Might,” I said. “A pretty big might.”

  “Well, that’s better than dead for sure,” he said, frantically.

  I laughed humorlessly out of reflex, before I knew it was coming. I was sure it would make him start crying or get upset with me, but he laughed right along with me.

  “Listen,” I said. “We can get into this tomorrow. The place I saw her coming out of was one of those discount convenience stores—the one over on Calder Street. Meet me there tomorrow. And make sure you dress smart. Can you do that?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Good. And Damian…keep in mind that this is all coming off of a hunch. We could easily find out that this is nothing at all and that I’m just jumping at shadows. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes. I do.”

  But I could tell he didn’t. “Okay. So meet me there tomorrow at ten in the morning, out in front of the store.”

  “I’ll see you then.” And before I could remind him again we might very well be headed towards a wild goose chase, Damian had already ended the call. The kid was overly excitable and probably grasping at straws, but I’d been chasing ghosts for months now myself, so I was hardly one to judge. Maybe for once, this shadow would turn out to be more than darkness and riddles.

  EIGHT

  Playing the hero.

  When Damian arrived outside Shoppers Paradise a little before 10 am, he looked extremely tired, but the flicker of hope was noticeable in the way his eyes shone. He wore a black suit and looked rather dapper. The kid cleaned up nice, I had to give him that. I was dressed similarly, wanting to help sell the story I had planned to fool any of the employees who might interfere.

  We waited outside the store for a moment so I could make sure Damian was good to go along with me. He was understandably on edge, but I did what I could to calm him down.

  “It’s not a big deal,” I said. “This won’t be an issue at all as long as you can seem cool and normal. But if we go in there and you’re shaking like a leaf, it’s going to raise some flags. I hate to be so blunt about it, but if you want to help with this, you need to get yourself under control right now.”

  Damian took a deep breath and nodded. “I can do that.”

  “Good. Because a lot is depending on it. You know Christina better than anyone. I need your eyes. Stay cool, stay quiet, and follow my lead.”

  He nodded again and then motioned towards the door of the shop. I didn’t want to prolong the moment and give him the chance to lose his nerve.

  We walked inside, and it was hard to imagine a woman as classy as Christina Bishop doing business here. Or maybe it was for this exact reason that she had been in the store.

  Had everyone underestimated the redhead?

  Junk food and cheap generic products lined every aisle. Cigarettes and condoms sat behind the counter alongside adult magazines and lottery tickets. I didn’t dwell on it, though. With Damian trailing behind me, I walked directly to the counter and locked eyes with the yawning woman behind the register. She looked up from her magazine and gave me a halfhearted smile, but it was evident that she knew we weren’t regular customers as she scanned the suit and tie.

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “Afternoon Ma’am,” I said. I reached into my inside jacket pocket and withdrew my badge. I flashed it at her briefly, not long enough for her to notice I was about three thousand miles out of my jurisdiction.

  “We’re here on police business,” I said as I folded the shield back up and put it into my pocket.

  “Oh my,” she said. The girl was both startled and suddenly enthusiastic with the sort of look that usually passes over the faces of people when they realize that they have the chance to help in a criminal matter.

  This might be easier than I thought.

  “We are hoping you might help us with our inquiries. We have reason to believe a dangerous criminal visited your store within the past few days,” I said. “An individual working hard to avoid detection. I’d like access to your security cameras for the last three days if you don’t mind. We’re hoping our lead pans out and we’ll finally get proof of this person’s whereabouts.”

  “Well,” the cashier said, “I’m here by myself until lunchtime, and I really need the manager’s approval.” The woman looked around as if expecting the manager to materialize on the spot.

  I softened my voice and looked her straight in the eye.

  “We really can’t wait much longer,” I said. “So how about this? How about you let us see that security footage, and I will personally contact your manager and let him know how extremely helpful…‘Kayleigh’ was for us?”

  Her eyes lit up after I spotted her name tag and although she still seemed reluctant, she smiled, looking back and forth between Damian and myself. “Okay,” she said cheerfully. “But I can’t leave the register. The security consoles are in the back room. Can you work them?”

  “Yes, I think we can manage,” I said, relieved. “Thank you. You’re being a huge help.”

  She smiled, blushing. She kept looking at Damian, still standing quietly behind me. It blew my mind how guys like that could always get the attention of women. I still had no idea how he had landed a knockout like Christina Bishop.

  A door behind the counter looked promising. I pointed to it. “Is that the room?”

  “Yes,” Kayleigh said, finally tearing her eyes from Damian. “Help yourself.”

  “Thank you.”

  I walked behind the counter, hoping my accomplice was still playing his part well. Even if he wasn’t, I had a feeling that the cashier being smitten with him would play in our favor. We made it into the back room without a problem, and I moved to the security monitors sitting along the back wall.

  “You know how to find what you’re looking for?” Damian asked.

  “I did my time on surveillance with the NYPD. All these systems are set up basically the same. With some trial and error, I should be able to figure it out.”

  It did take some time for me to figure it out. I nearly ended up deleting the previous twenty-four hours of footage, but because it was all set up digitally, I was able to salvage my mistake and get to what I was looking for—footage from yesterday afternoon around 1:00 pm.

  The shop had two security cameras, one above the front door that was set-up to look out towards the entrance, and another located just above the register that took in a panoramic view of the shop. I had Damian watch one while I scanned the other. I forwarded through the video feed, spotting at least two shoplifters in the recording, but it took about five minutes before we found what we were really looking for.

  “Holy shit,” Damian said.

  I looked at his screen. There was the woman from yesterday. “That’s her, right?”

  He was smiling at the screen. Eyes glassy. “Yeah. She’s darkened her hair but the face is unmistakable.” He reached out and gently touched the monitor as he continued to stare. “I’m confident that’s her.”

  “One hundred percent confident?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Damian said with certainty. He then looked up to me, the tears now trailing down his cheek. “Yes,” he said again. “My God, she’s still alive. My lovely.”

  We watched as Christina bought a pack of cigarettes. She looked around anxiously on the screen as she made the purchase. It was clear that she did not want to be noticed and was nervous as hell about being so exposed. On the screen, she paid cash for the smokes, stuffed them into a blue plastic bag, and then quickly left the store with her prize in hand.

  “What does this mean?” Damian asked.

  “Probably lung cancer, eventually.” It was a bad joke, but I figured in the screwed-up case of Christina Bishop bad was better than dead.

  Damian scowled at me.


  “Fine, I’m not sure,” I admitted. “For now, it means I’m still in your employment. So let me think this over and get back to work.”

  As I said this, he rewound the footage again and watched her walking into the store. The smile on his face made me realize how enthralled he was with this woman. I couldn’t remember ever being so motivated to solve a case.

  “Should we stake out the store or something?” he asked as he watched his love on the screen.

  “First of all, there’s no we. Second of all, that’s not a good idea. It would be a waste of time. She used cash for her purchase and is dressed in a way that hardly anyone is going to recognize her. She planned for this. That means she’s unlikely to show up in the same place twice. She’s thinking it all out and acting carefully.”

  “But why?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “Do you have any idea?”

  “I’m not sure. We just need to find her and fix this.”

  Damian was right but we also needed to get out of the store. I didn’t want to still be hanging around when the manager arrived and I certainly didn’t want to answer any questions or get our cover story placed under scrutiny.

  “Leave this to me,” I said. “Considering the fact that you thought she was dead twelve hours ago, I’d say I’ve brought you some pretty good results. So just let me finish this my way. Okay?”

  Damian nodded. He’d paused the screen now and was staring at Christina’s flickering image. It made me wonder if his affection for her went into something else…something like that reckless passion only found in teenagers experiencing love for the first time.

  “Come on,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  He nodded absently again, and I had to pull him away from the monitor.

  NINE

  Interrupting the Dead.

  Whenever I went to visit my contact, Nicole Remay, at the city morgue, I felt like I was intruding—not on Nicole and her work, but on the poor folks occupying the metal slabs and the cold sterilized drawers. Still, the idea of seeing Nicole was worth it. While I would still not allow myself to develop any sort of romantic feelings for her, the fact that I enjoyed her company was undeniably a good sign. She held an intrigue that suited the world of death and lies I seemed to be regularly involved with. While she gave me an insight the dead couldn’t offer, I helped her gain a name for herself on the coroner’s team with high profile cases.