Edited Out

by E. J. Copperman

  The fact that Damien Mosley had been missing for five years took some of the immediacy out of the situation, but Duffy was not changing his usual technique.

  “Well, Barry, the guy from Rapscallion’s, moved out of town about a couple of years ago. He wasn’t on the bowling team; we just knew him from the bar. He ended up in Georgia or West Virginia, something like that. I don’t really remember. The rest of the team was . . . let’s see . . . me, Damien, and this girl Lou, who I think was Barry’s girlfriend at the time. I don’t remember her last name.”

  Duffy, who had taken no notes because he knew for a fact he didn’t need them, nodded his head. “That would be helpful indeed, Mr. Kendig. Please see if you can find the name. Would it be possible for us to have your cell phone number in case we have any other questions while we’re here in town?”

  Walt looked like we’d asked if we could name our first child after him. And let me be clear, Duffy and I are never going to have a first child. Walt beamed and gave me—not Duffy—his number, which I dutifully entered into my iPhone. I’d resisted the whole smartphone thing as long as I could, but when I found out I could order pizza with an app, I was lost forever.

  “We really appreciate the help, Walt,” I told him as we got up to leave.

  Duffy had our next appointment planned out, said it was across the city and would require about fifteen minutes in the car, so we had to stick to the schedule. He said.

  “Are you kidding?” Walt gushed as we walked to the door. “It’s the highlight of my whole week. Make sure you call me. Let me know what you find out, okay?”

  I checked Walt’s hand for a ring, and there was none. So maybe there was no little woman for him to tell this amazing story to tonight. I felt a little bad for him and made a mental promise to call him later no matter what Duffy and I did or did not discover about Damien Mosley.

  We all left the diner together, then Walt waved at us and walked off toward his job at an accounting firm two blocks away. Duffy began striding purposefully (the only way he ever strides; I’m thinking of writing in a limp so I can keep up without gasping for breath) toward the car.

  “What’s the rush?” I wheezed at him as we speed-walked toward the parking lot.

  “No rush. Why? Am I walking too fast?”

  He did not slow down, just as a footnote (get it?). “No. It’s fine. You seemed like you wanted to get away from our pal Walt as quickly as possible, that’s all.”

  Duffy looked mildly surprised at the suggestion. “He had given us all the information he could offer. I didn’t see any reason to continue the conversation. Was there something you thought we should have asked him that I missed?”

  “No. I just thought maybe he was lonely and needed the company.”

  Duffy raised his eyebrows a tiny bit as he opened the car door. “He was going back to work,” he said. “And so should we.”

  Chapter 6

  “Where are we going now?” I settled into the passenger seat and considered why it is called “shotgun,” which goes back to the days of the stagecoach; the person not holding the reins would carry a shotgun in case things got hairy while traveling through dangerous territory. It was an interesting fact but didn’t really have tons of bearing on what we were doing now. I hoped.

  “To see Louise Refsnyder,” Duffy answered. “It makes sense that she is the ‘girl named Lou’ Walt remembered from the bowling team. She worked with Damien at what used to be Rapscallion’s.”

  The ride took a little more than ten minutes with the GPS instructing Duffy to make numerous turns along the way. We pulled up in front of a rather tired-looking A-frame house on what could be described as a suburban street. “Louise asked we arrive now because she will not have a shift at her job until five this afternoon. She wanted to sleep late today.”

  I didn’t really care why the day had been scheduled in this particular order but didn’t answer him. We walked up the front steps, and Duffy knocked on the door, as there appeared to be no doorbell.

  After a moment, the door opened, and a woman of about my age stood in the hallway. She had fairly short hair and was dressed, let’s say, casually, meaning she was in cutoff denim shorts and a T-shirt. The shirt bore no logo; Louise apparently did not need to draw attention to her shirt area. A lot of guys would just naturally focus their eyes there.

  If you know what I mean.

  “You’re Duffy?” she asked the one of us who was Duffy. Or at least thought he was. She smiled warmly. Then she looked around him at me and did not seem quite so thrilled that I had arrived as well.

  Duffy nodded, mostly because that is who he believes himself to be. “I am. This is my associate, Rachel Goldman.”

  Louise realized she was supposed to take note of me, so she nodded in my direction and then focused her attention back on Duffy. “Come on in,” she said. “I’ve got coffee.” There was a slight Canadian inflection in her “coffee.”

  We walked inside, and Louise led us to her kitchen, where we were instructed to sit. She’d put out two cups despite Duffy having clearly told her there would be someone with him, and we sat at the table while she deigned to get another mug for me.

  “How can I help you, Duffy?” she asked as she sat down and gazed upon him. Having made the man up, I could be proud of the fact that Louise found him attractive, but I had to remind myself that his parents actually made him up, and then my head started to ache. That’s been happening more often since I met Duffy.

  “We are attempting to find Damien Mosley, as I told you in my e-mail,” he answered, probably oblivious to the interest he was somehow attracting. It wouldn’t have occurred to him to think about a woman while on a case, and it definitely wouldn’t occur to him if he was indeed involved with someone named Emily Needleman. “We’re hoping your past association with him might give us some trail to follow. How did you know Damien?”

  Duffy already knew the answer to that one. It’s a technique when questioning someone to get them talking, and talking about themselves. They think they’re having a nice chat while really you’re drilling them for information.

  Louise took right to the bait, although to look at her, you’d think the bait was catnip, and it was all being stored in Duffy Madison’s pupils. “I knew him a little in high school and then worked with Damien at Rapscallion’s when it was still Rapscallion’s,” she said, her gaze never deviating from him. “You look a little like him, you know. Are you related somehow?”

  Duffy avoided my glance. “No. We are not related. I have never met Damien Mosley. So he was working as a bartender, and you were waiting tables?”

  “That’s right,” Louise said. “You know, you split tips in a place like that, so you want everybody to get along and help out the cause, right? So we used to spend a lot of time together, that group. It’s not that much like that now. The place is called Oakwood, and it’s supposed to be classier because they’re gentrifying certain areas of the city now. They’re getting college students and professors, people like that. And it’s more upscale, so the money’s a little better, but the people aren’t that much fun anymore.” She stopped after all the words had flown out of her mouth. “What did you want to know, again?”

  Duffy hadn’t actually asked her a question yet, so this was his opportunity to jump in before Louise began rambling again. “Can you tell us what kind of person Damien Mosley is? We really don’t have very much information about him other than his education and the time he vanished.”

  Louise, clearly pleased she could help the handsome (if you liked that sort of thing) investigator, smiled and thought very outwardly and seriously. She wanted her face to communicate that process, so her eyes looked down a little, and her lips stuck out just a bit.

  “He was a complex guy,” she said. “He’d have different moods, and you never knew when it was gonna change. Like, you’d bring a drink order to him, and he’d be all funny and smiling, but when you came back to pick it up, he’d barely look at you. Very odd.”

&
nbsp; Duffy must have believed this to be significant information, because his eyes were boring into Louise’s as she spoke. It was not the same kind of attention she was giving him; she was flirting, and he was trying to see into her brain, but her face kept getting in the way.

  Louise clearly took this as encouragement, so she kept talking. That was probably what Duffy wanted, but it was starting to make my temples ache just a little; her voice was not soothing. Unless you find fingernails on slate soothing. To each his own.

  “Damien told me he’d had a rough childhood, you know,” she went on. “His mom raised him pretty much alone, and she wasn’t the easiest person in the world to get along with, he said. It was funny, because he said she’d change moods real fast and with no warning. And that was exactly what he did!” She wanted to make sure we had gotten the point, and given that we were cognizant adults, I believe Duffy and I had made the connection.

  “Interesting,” Duffy said. Everyone’s entitled to an opinion. “Did he still have a relationship with his mother when you knew him?”

  She shrugged while I sipped at the coffee, which was fairly awful and might have been instant. Who makes instant coffee in the twenty-first century? “I didn’t ask him,” Louise said.

  “We’re told that you were on a bowling team with Damien before his disappearance,” Duffy said, not wondering aloud what kind of friend doesn’t ask the question after being told his mother was a source of pain and a possible key to some emotional problems. But hey. “Is that correct?”

  “Wow, you’re good,” Louise gushed. “Who told you that?”

  “We do substantial research,” Duffy noted, not adding that we’d happened to have run into a guy in a diner. “But you saw Damien outside work.”

  Again, that wasn’t a question. But that was calculated on Duffy’s part, I knew. Say it as a statement, and there will be unspoken implications, as if you are simply reciting a fact. If Louise had no reaction, it could be inferred that she and Damien were more than work acquaintances; if she did react, the style of her response could give Duffy insight into whether she was being honest. He’d tell me that I’d decided I didn’t like Louise—which was only partially true—and therefore had colored my judgment by making assumptions.

  It was a big pain having both our minds inside the same brain.

  “Oh, don’t think there was anything going on between me and Damien!” Louise exploded (she didn’t really explode; it’s an expression—don’t get me started on the whole “said” argument in writing). “If that’s what you’re thinking, forget it. I didn’t really know the guy all that well.” Since she’d discussed his mommy issues with Damien, that seemed a hollow claim, but I’d wait for Duffy’s view before I made up my mind.

  “No, I didn’t think that was the case,” he said smoothly. “In fact, I was told you were seeing a man named Barry at the time. Is that still true?”

  Louise, no doubt thinking Duffy had motives other than professional ones in asking about her love life, immediately took her indignation down about four notches and smiled at him. She was an attractive woman, I had to admit. But her coffee was terrible.

  “Nah,” she said. Noel Coward would have gnashed his teeth with envy. “I broke up with Barry maybe three years ago. He lives in Phoenix now, I think. Or Peoria. Someplace that begins with a P.”

  “Like Poughkeepsie,” I pointed out.

  It was as if Louise had just noticed I was in the room. Her head swiveled toward me, and her face went from enthralled to irritated in a microsecond. “Yeah, like that,” she sneered.

  “Do you have Barry’s current address?” Duffy asked. Duffy’s not much for confrontation when it’s not in the service of an investigation, and he was trying to head off whatever it was Louise was aiming at me. “We’d like to talk to him about Damien, too.”

  “I don’t have it,” Louise answered. “After we broke up, I didn’t bother keeping in touch. What’s the point?”

  Duffy leaned forward to communicate he was getting to the heart of the matter. “Do you have any idea why Damien Mosley suddenly left town?” he asked.

  Louise looked disappointed; she’d doubtless thought he was going to ask about her. “He didn’t say anything to me,” she answered after a second. “Do you want more coffee?” Duffy’s cup wasn’t even half empty yet. Or half full, depending on one’s level of pessimism. I couldn’t say as I blamed him. Mine was emptier, but Louise hadn’t asked me, which was good.

  “No, thank you. I’m wondering if you had any sense at all that something might be bothering Damien in the last few weeks he lived here in Poughkeepsie.”

  I saw where Duffy was going, and it was unlike him. He was a real advocate of having an open mind in an investigation; I’ve written him as someone who never makes assumptions and never brings a theory he then would try to prove. He’s all about facts.

  But like I said, I saw where he was going, and so did Louise. “Wait. You think maybe he killed himself?”

  “I am not saying that at all,” Duffy answered, possibly noticing the look I was giving him. “I don’t have enough facts to reach that conclusion. It is a possibility among many possibilities. I am simply trying to determine what state of mind Damien Mosley was in that might—or might not—have led to his sudden departure from his home.”

  Louise stared at him for a long moment. “What?”

  “He’s trying to figure out why Damien left,” I translated. I speak fluent Duffy Madison, having made up the language.

  “Oh.” Louise stood up and walked to the refrigerator, which she opened. She peered inside as if trying to find the proper trajectory through a black hole. “You want a bagel or something?”

  “No, thank you. I would like you to stop avoiding my questions and simply tell me what you know so that I might be able to find Damien Mosley.” Duffy has little patience for people who lie, especially when they do it badly.

  Louise spun around, startled by Duffy’s change in tone. She left the refrigerator door open. “I told you, I don’t know anything. Listen, I have to get ready for work, so maybe it’s time for you to go.”

  I had stood and was halfway to the door in the blink of an eye, but Duffy stayed put in his chair, immobile and serene. He was gentleman enough not to lace his fingers behind his head and lean back to indicate he could wait all day if necessary.

  “Your shift does not begin for another four hours and twenty-five minutes,” he reminded Louise. “I think you can spare a little more time.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t want to talk to you anymore.” Louise, having given up her momentary infatuation with Duffy, had dropped her voice about a tone and a half. “So why don’t you leave?” She pointed to the door as if the problem here was that Duffy didn’t know where to find it.

  “We will, but first you will have to tell us what you’ve been trying, very poorly, to conceal.” Duffy’s was in full Holmesian mode now; there was no moving him, and I was certain there would be no Americanisms until we were back in the car. “Is there something about Damien Mosley’s disappearance that would affect you? Are you concerned about being found out about something that happened at that time?”

  “I’m not afraid of anything,” Louise said in as unconvincing a tone as could possibly be imagined. “I just don’t like talking about things like this to suspicious cops when I have to get to work soon.” No doubt Duffy would note the exact number of minutes before she had to go wait tables again.

  But no, he decided to bypass the last part of her silly statement and clarify the beginning for her. Again. “We are not here representing any law enforcement agency,” he said. “I do sometimes consult for the Bergen County prosecutor, but I am not here in that capacity, and Rachel is a mystery author who has no ties to any police force. What you tell us will remain confidential.” Unless of course a crime had been committed, in which case you could count on Duffy to rat Louise out in a heartbeat. He has this thing about justice.

  Louise closed the fridge, which made me feel
better. Then she flopped down into the chair opposite Duffy, defeated. She was still overplaying her role, but at least she was quieter about it now.

  “I’m not holding anything back,” she sighed. “I promise.” Wow. She expected that to work. She clearly didn’t know Duffy like I do.

  Nobody knows Duffy like I do. Not even Duffy.

  “You are,” he said. It was a fact, not an opinion. “If you had nothing to say, you wouldn’t have put on such a show about having nothing to say. Now please. What happened that might have prompted Damien Mosley to suddenly leave town?”

  Louise looked around the room and made a sort of clicking noise with her tongue, like she was a cheetah about to bite down on the fresh antelope it had brought down. (Do cheetahs and antelopes live in the same territories?) “I broke up with him,” she said.

  I walked back toward the kitchen table, my hands up near the sides of my head in exasperation. “You said you didn’t have a thing with Damien,” I told her, as if she didn’t actually know that. “You said you barely knew him and you just worked together.”

  “I didn’t want you to think I just slept with everybody I know,” Louise said, looking straight at Duffy. “I didn’t want you to think that I dumped Damien, so he just packed up and left—do you really think he killed himself?”

  “Again, there is no evidence to suggest that,” Duffy said, which wasn’t an answer to Louise’s question. “How long did you and Damien have a romantic relationship?”

  Louise blinked, apparently absorbing what he’d asked. “Romantic? We just went to bed a couple of times. It was never romantic.”

  Duffy didn’t respond. That sort of thing makes him nervous.

  I filled the void. “It was never romantic, but you think your breaking up with him might have prompted him to leave town?” I said. There’s the slightest possibility my voice had a tinge of challenge in it.