by Matt Hilton
‘Then why the hell didn’t you say?’ Zeke started climbing the dirt pile, his feet sinking deep in the loose muck.
Cleary shrugged. ‘Say what?’
‘That you were there.’
‘I wasn’t here. I was back there.’ He gestured back towards the hub of the construction site, and earned a headshake of disbelief from Zeke.
‘I’ve been calling your cell,’ Zeke said.
‘I turned it off. I was reading. I don’t like to be disturbed when I’m reading.’
‘Well, thank fuck you called me back when you did. I was about to go traipsing through the damn swamp looking for you.’
‘I finished my book,’ said Cleary.
Zeke had finally scrambled to the top. He stood before his brother, but words failed him.
‘I need another book, Zeke,’ Cleary announced.
‘I’ll get you another book, but there’s something we have to do first. There’s some people I want to introduce you to.’
‘I don’t want to meet nobody.’ The big man’s face crumpled, as if he was about to weep.
‘It’s OK,’ Zeke said, and he laid a calming hand on his brother’s shoulder. ‘These people, you don’t have to be polite to them. In fact, you can tell ’em how much you don’t like ’em … or you can show them if you like.’
Zeke waited a beat, and then his mouth turned up in a smile. ‘Will that turn that frown upside down?’ he cajoled in a singsong tone.
Cleary’s tusk-like teeth flashed an eager grin.
FOURTEEN
‘I don’t believe it! Zeke Menon, him!’ Pinky shook his head, then looked at Po for further proof.
Po shrugged. His friend hadn’t been in earshot, and was too engaged with controlling Rory to take any notice of what was going on at the other side of the pickup truck. ‘According to that guy, it’s Menon who paid him to keep an eye on Emilia’s place.’
‘Yeah. I hear you, Nicolas.’ Now Pinky looked at Tess and nodded encouragement.
Tess pinched her lips, then exhaled noisily as she understood where Pinky was leading. ‘There was a guy at the hospital, Po. It’s why I left you and went outside. Pinky stopped him from going in Clara’s room.’
‘He wasn’t going to take no for an answer ’til I showed him I was serious, me.’ Pinky flicked back his jacket to display the holstered pistol for emphasis. ‘There was something familiar ’bout that a-hole, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Zeke Menon grew big, Nicolas.’
‘Neither of you thought to mention this sooner?’ Po asked.
‘Things kind of overtook us,’ Tess argued. ‘You’d just learned you had a sister, and couldn’t wait to start looking for her. To be honest, I pretty much forgot about the guy the second you joined us outside the hospital.’
‘So Menon wanted to speak with Clara?’ Po went on.
‘If you ax me, he wasn’t there for a civil conversation, him.’ Pinky briefly went over the sequence of events in the corridor outside Clara’s room. ‘If’n I’d recognized him, I’d have sent him on his way with more than a subtle warning. My shoe would’ve been in his ass.’
Tess wanted to know the history between her friends and this Menon guy. It wasn’t good, judging by the anger manifesting around Pinky’s eyes in twitches and tics. Po was sombre, but that was often his way. Instead of pushing them for the story, she stuck to the facts pertinent to the present. ‘Who is he?’
‘White trash,’ Pinky stated.
‘He ran with a branch of the Aryan Nation when we were inside,’ Po explained. ‘A pissant follower back then, doing what was ordered of him so he’d fit in.’
Tess glanced at Pinky, but for once he didn’t return her scrutiny with a wide smile. His thoughts were locked on something that had happened decades ago. His ethnicity, let alone his sexual confusion, would have made him a target of the kind of people Zeke Menon ran with back then. She’d learned how Po and Pinky grew to be firm friends after they had stood together against the animals at the Farm.
‘You said he’s grown big,’ Po said.
Pinky nodded. ‘Too big for his boots.’
They weren’t talking about his physical size per se, but about his attitude. Zeke had apparently grown a pair of cojones since last they’d had any interaction with him.
‘Did he recognize you, Pinky?’
‘If he did, he didn’t show it. Too busy being a racist cracker, him.’ Pinky shrugged. ‘Zeke Menon doesn’t sweat me, Nicolas. It’s what he has to do with Emilia’s disappearance that’s more worrying.’
‘F’sure.’ After a final glance up at his sister’s deserted home, Po indicated they get back in the van. ‘Let’s get outta here. I want to contact the a-hole and ask him why, but not while we’re out in the open like this.’
‘Zeke doesn’t know where Emilia is,’ Tess said after they’d clambered back into the van, and Pinky had got it rolling. ‘Involving him directly is only going to slow down our search for her.’
Po’s head rocked slightly on his neck. ‘Like I said: if she’s running from him, he needs stopping. You’re the detective, Tess.’
He meant her skills were best served in locating his missing sister, while his could be put to a different use. He told her the names of the old school friends Emilia was supposed to be closest to, and Tess scribbled them in a notebook she took from her purse. ‘I’ll get on it as soon as I’m online,’ she promised. ‘But if you think I’m staying cooped up in a hotel room while you two go running around town like a pair of gun-toting vigilantes, think again.’
The men shared a conspiratorial glimpse, but she didn’t miss it. How could she when she was wedged between two testosterone-laden bookends? ‘I mean it, guys, you aren’t going off on a personal vendetta and leaving me to pick up the pieces.’
‘Things might turn nasty,’ Po warned.
‘Since when has that ever stopped me?’
She wasn’t bragging. The three of them each owed the others their lives, and Tess had proven she was no slouch when the proverbial shit hit the fan. But she’d prefer if they could get resolution in the case without resorting to violence. Engaging in a battle with Zeke Menon would achieve as little to help finding Emilia as confronting the Chatards. Sadly, she suspected that both were on the cards though. She’d known that coming to Louisiana again, particularly to this locality, would guarantee confrontation, but she hadn’t expected the odds to be stacked against them so rapidly. Po had promised to find Emilia. It wasn’t a promise he’d made only to Clara, but to himself. And by virtue, by accompanying him, both Pinky and especially Tess had made a similar promise. Perhaps knowing why Zeke was looking for Emilia might explain why she was missing, and it could lead them to her quicker. ‘All I’m saying,’ Tess added, ‘is I’ll do what I can, when I can to help locate her, but you aren’t leaving me behind. No sneaking off on me when my back is turned.’
‘Wouldn’t think of it, pretty Tess.’ Now Pinky smiled at her, but his gaze went back to the road when he caught a brief frown from Po.
Earlier, they’d booked rooms at a Best Western near Bayou Teche, only a short journey from the hospital. Pinky drove there without any bidding. They all went into the double reserved for Tess and Po, before Pinky nipped out on an errand to fetch some food and drinks. Tess hit the bathroom and when she came out Po was peering from the front window across the parking lot to where the trees alongside the bayou were now a uniform black as evening descended. She could sense his need to get moving again, though there was no outward manifestation of his anxiety.
‘C’mon over here,’ she said, an invitation as opposed to an instruction. He walked over and peered down at her. Tess laid her head against his chest and wrapped her arms around his lower back. She shouldn’t forget that Po had received some shocking news in the last couple of days, and that his emotions would be all over the place. She hugged him, and after a moment he hugged her in return. ‘We’ll find her,’ she said.
‘I know.’
She patted him on h
is backside, and turned for where she’d laid her laptop on the bed. ‘Let’s get started, then.’
FIFTEEN
There were basics to be covered in any investigation prior to moving on to exotic theories and extrapolation. Searching Emilia’s apartment had turned up no obvious clues that would lead them directly to her location, but it had hinted at her lifestyle and that she was probably sharing it with another. A top-to-bottom fingertip search in all the usual places underwear drawers, under the cushions of the settee/bed, in closets, and in the pockets of clothing, even in the icebox and the washer/dryer where some people hid their most important possessions, might have turned up more, but trashing the place had obliterated any opportunity of putting together a better timeline than that she’d been gone for less than a week.
Emilia didn’t appear to have a full-time job. When she hadn’t shown up at her workplace questions would have been asked and her disappearance brought to the attention of local law-enforcement. Clara, though concerned about her daughter’s disappearing trick, wasn’t overly concerned – yet – so Emilia was probably the free spirit that Clara had claimed, and her bout of non-communication with her family probably wasn’t out of the norm. Tess wondered if the Chatards were seeking their wayward kin, because she hadn’t confirmed it with Po. But Emilia was being sought, for reasons as yet unknown, by Zeke Menon.
Approaching the Chatards directly was out of the question, and Tess hadn’t yet located Emilia’s friends, so she moved on to other methods of tracking her. Because she subcontracted to Emma Clancy’s firm, who worked hand-in-hand with the District Attorney’s Office in Portland, Maine, she had access to various web resources unavailable to others in her line of work. She set searches in motion to alert her if Emilia’s name cropped up in any police reports or communications, and also set a watch alert on her credit-card and bank-account usage. She identified Emilia’s cellphone number and set up an alert on it too, but only after the GPS tracking system came back as a dead end. Perhaps Emilia had changed phones, or switched hers off. Nevertheless, initiating an alert on a missing girl’s phone had recently led Tess and her friends to the lair of the brute that had snatched her and various other women, so she saw the value in allowing the program to run. Hopefully Emilia would deem it safe to use her phone soon, switch it on and they’d get an exact location.
After that Tess turned to less conventional methods, and hacked into Emilia’s Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram accounts. Emilia hadn’t been active on any of them in five days. But again Tess set up alerts to inform her of any new status updates. Then she began delving deeper. She concentrated on Facebook, and soon found photographs of Emilia and a young man referred to as ‘Jace’. It was the work of minutes to cross-reference Jace with Emilia’s friends and find that a number were mutual friends with a guy called Jason Henry Lombard. A quick check on his profile picture confirmed Jace and Lombard were one and the same. She didn’t know how she felt when she checked Lombard’s Facebook account and found that it too had been inert since the same day Emilia cut all communication.
‘They’ve run off together?’ Po asked.
‘It’s a fair assumption,’ Tess replied, without lifting her head from her computer.
Po leaned in and gazed at the picture of Jason Lombard. ‘Looks like a creep,’ he said, but it was with the judgement of a disapproving older sibling looking out for his sister. ‘What’s he into?’
Tess checked his feed. Lombard was your typical young man, she supposed. His posts reflected an unhealthy sexual fixation on large-breasted blondes, drinking too much alcohol during binge sessions, and extolling his allegiance to the Church of Marijuana. ‘I guess those were his joints in Emilia’s ashtray.’
‘It’s a fair assumption,’ Po echoed. ‘Can you find his address?’
‘Give me a moment.’ She tapped and cross-referenced, and brought up a Google map pinpointing Jason Lombard’s last known address.
‘Soon as Pinky gets back we’ll head on over there,’ he announced.
‘Except he isn’t home.’
‘No. But there might be someone there who knows where he is.’
Tess nodded agreement. Then she wondered about Pinky. He should have returned with their supplies by now. She’d heard nothing to indicate he’d entered his adjoining room, nor heard any familiar engine noise from his van. She looked up at Po, and his mouth formed a tight line.
‘What are you guys up to?’ she challenged.
He didn’t insult her intelligence by countering her question. ‘We need weapons. Pinky knows people.’
‘Jesus Christ! I should’ve known.’ She shook her head. ‘Are you determined to turn this into an all-out war?’
‘It’s about resolution, Tess. I thought you understood that.’
‘Resolution doesn’t mean killing anyone.’
‘That’s not my intention. But I’m not going to stand around and let anyone kill me either. And then there’s you to consider. You demanded you come with us; I’m not going to let anyone hurt you either.’
‘Don’t use me as an excuse for a fight, not when it’s a fight you’re pushing for.’
‘I’m looking for my sister. Her other brothers might not want me looking for her.’
‘And you think their hatred of you will be more important to them than finding their sister?’
Po shrugged marginally. ‘I asked Clara if they were looking for Emilia, she said beyond calling her, no.’
‘Are they even aware the girl’s missing?’
‘Clara said yes, but they aren’t actively looking. Emilia cut ties with her siblings a couple of years ago. They aren’t the closest of families. Darius apparently tried to get in touch with Emilia when Clara took ill, but as far as she’s concerned he hasn’t done much to find her since. I get the impression that Darius isn’t close to Emilia, I don’t think he’s too close to Clara these days either.’ He didn’t gloat with his announcement. ‘When Clara contacted Pinky, to summon me here, it wasn’t with any of the Chatards’ knowledge. Clara hoped to keep things that way, but if we’re in town asking around about the girl, word will soon filter back. Don’t forget, the Chatards have allies in New Iberia, and plenty buttheads keen to claim the bounty they placed on my head.’
‘What about this Zeke Menon character? Is he allied to the Chatards in some way?’
‘Only if they’re aware she’s missing and they asked him to find Emilia, but I doubt it.’ He thought hard, and his turquoise eyes grew as hard as flint. ‘I should call him and have done; find out why he’s looking for her. But you’re right, maybe encouraging a fight isn’t my best ever plan.’ He nodded at the screen. ‘Let’s check out this Jace dude first, then if he proves a dead end … well, we’ll have to start shaking a few branches and see what falls outta the ugly tree.’
Pinky returned minutes later. He entered the room, his face instantly averting from Tess’s when he spotted her glaring at him. ‘Uh, so you figured I was up to no good, you? I’m sorry, pretty Tess, I don’t enjoy lying to you.’
Tess snorted, but she had no real scorn for Pinky, not when he and Po were just doing what came naturally to them. ‘I don’t care about the weapons, Pinky, where’s my food? I’m starving and you’re hogging all the good stuff.’
He handed over a grocery bag bulging with food and drinks, but it was the holdall slung over one shoulder that held Po’s interest.
‘Your friend came through?’
Pinky’s grin flickered to life as Tess delved in the bag and pulled out burgers wrapped in greasy paper. She looked happy now. He winked at Po. ‘Let me show you the delights in my sack. You’ll swear I’m Jolly Saint Nick, me.’
SIXTEEN
There were things you didn’t do when you wanted to disappear, and in the modern era Emilia believed that the paramount rule was to avoid leaving a digital trail. It was difficult for a young woman who’d grown up in an age where a cellphone was an almost symbiotic attachment, and where most of her socializing was done
online, and she was suffering mild withdrawal symptoms having not only switched off her phone, but later disassembled it and scattered the parts in various trash bins. She’d taken the SIM card out of her iPad too, though she’d kept the tablet itself. She avoided using ATMs, though she must do something to replenish her dwindling finances soon because the little money Rachel had spared wouldn’t stretch much further. The cold snap was killing her: the majority of cash had gone to renting a room. She’d made do with an ask-no-questions dive, where the desk clerk had more interest in her breasts than in the ID she’d flashed or the fake name she’d entered in the register. She’d paid cash in advance for one week. Now, as she stared around the stinking hovel she doubted she’d last that long before she had to flee simply to catch a breath of fresh air.
Her room was the last on the uppermost story of a duplex apartment/hotel complex on the outskirts of a seedy neighbourhood of ‘Upper’ Lafayette. Outside there was a balcony-style walkway, with corroded iron railings in dire need of maintenance, from which she’d learned a suicide had recently hung themselves. It was that kind of hotel. She shared the complex with crackheads and five-dollar whores. Not that she was being judgmental: scornfully, she asked herself if she were any better than her neighbours, when she had taken drugs, and might even be forced to turn tricks to pay her way. She was cold, hungry, afraid, and thoroughly miserable.
As she lay on the thin, lumpy mattress of a bed she hadn’t yet slept a full night in, she went over the events that had brought her there. Tears flowed down her cheeks as she thought about Jason. Not because she had any longing for him, but because she’d allowed him to influence the worst decision of her life. It had been pure chance that they’d travelled out to the Thibodaux brothers’ place, on the promise of scoring some quality weed, when they did. She’d tried to convince Jace that she was happy with a few puffs of a joint from his regular dealer, but he wanted to impress her by flaunting his underworld connections. Jace wasn’t connected; he was a joke playing at being the big man. He was good-looking, decent in the sack, but there his attractive qualities ended, and no amount of high-quality dope would have elevated him in her affections. Hell, if the truth was told, she didn’t even enjoy smoking weed, she only did it to fit in with the crowd she’d fallen into, many of whom she didn’t care for either. If she hadn’t allowed Jace to talk her into taking the drive out into the boonies, throwing them into the midst of a gangland hit, dangerous people wouldn’t now be hunting her. It was bad timing and worse luck. She was a victim of circumstance, that was all, and one she should try to change for the better.
