“I’m not asking you to do all my work, and I don’t appreciate the air quotes around ‘private investigator,’” I told her. “If I had your access to motor-vehicle records and rap sheets, I’d be able to do this myself, but I don’t, so I can’t. Are you going to help me, or do I have to call in the big guns?”
The lieutenant’s eyes widened, but I think the expression was meant to be taken ironically. “You’re not going to bring your mother in to intimidate me again, are you?” she asked. That had worked in the past, too, but not as well. I didn’t take the bait, so she waved her hand toward me. “Okay, let’s see the name of your missing person. The nonmissing one we’ll discuss later.”
I thought that was partially unfair, but any help is better than no help, so I handed her the paper on which I’d printed out (okay, Maxie had printed out) Wilson Meyers’s known information, which was essentially his name. I had no address, no driver’s-license number, no telephone number, no Social Security. I was lucky I knew his first name was “Wilson.”
“Why are you looking for this guy?” McElone asked me.
“He was a friend of Big Bob Benicio, and he disappeared at just about the same time,” I told her.
She furrowed her brow. “I thought they already caught somebody for that murder in Seaside Heights,” she said.
“They did. The wrong person.”
McElone looked at me quickly, to see if I was kidding, and clearly saw that I was not. “How sure are you of your facts?” she wanted to know.
“Sure enough to look into Wilson Meyers. The truth is, anybody who wanted the right solution to the crime, and not the easiest, would be searching for Wilson.” I went on to explain how obviously Kitty Malone was being framed, and McElone listened carefully and did not interrupt as I detailed my evidence. She was annoying, but she’s a good cop.
“I don’t know,” she said when I was finished. “I know a few people in the Seaside Heights department, and they’re not the type to coast like that. Something else must be going on.”
I saw an opening. “Then help me prove it,” I said. “Help me find Wilson Meyers.”
She curled her lower lip a bit at the obvious saleswomanship, but tapped away at her keyboard for a minute or two. “I’m getting a few things on your friend Wilson,” she said. “Get out your notepad.”
Instead, I produced a small digital tape recorder I use when I’m out “in the field,” as Paul says, so he can hear everything someone says to me when I report back to him later. McElone took no notice.
“First, he had a couple of priors on his record even before Benicio got himself killed,” she began. “Minor possession, two for breaking and entering. Burglary. Nothing big, but there were…seven of them all together. But after the approximate date of Benicio’s murder, there’s nothing.”
I nodded. “And no new address, no phone number, nothing like that, right?”
“That’s right.”
I looked to the ceiling in frustration. If the police department’s resources couldn’t raise anything on Wilson, it was looking more and more possible that he was dead or had vanished so well I’d never be able to find him myself. What was I going to—
“Except…” McElone said.
My neck practically spasmed as I got her back in my sights. “Except what?” I asked.
“This is weird,” McElone said. So I waited.
Nothing.
“What’s weird?” I asked.
“There’s nothing on Wilson Meyers.”
“That’s not so weird,” I pointed out.
“Maybe not, but I just got a hit on someone named Meyer Wilson.” McElone looked at me with a cocked eyebrow.
What? “That’s too big a coincidence to be a coincidence, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Maybe, maybe not.”
“How old is our Mr. Wilson? Does he fit the description?”
McElone looked at the screen, but wouldn’t turn it to let me see. “Right age, but he’s a little smaller than your description of Wilson Meyers, and the one in the previous data. So I guess it’s not him. Except…”
“Again ‘except’?”
“The description comes from the driver’s-license data,” she said. “They don’t weigh or measure you at the Motor Vehicle Commission. They take the information you fill in on the form. So he could have lied about his height and weight. And he seems to have moved into Pennsylvania about fifteen minutes after Wilson Meyers stopped hanging around the New Jersey Shore.”
“Why is there a hit on Meyer Wilson?” I asked. “Drugs?”
McElone shook her head. “Speeding ticket.” She punched some keys. “Yours was a motorcycle guy, right?”
“Yeah,” I answered. “Loved his bike, the guys tell me. Why?”
“Well, in Norristown, Pennsylvania, he was driving a Ford Focus.”
A Ford Focus. Wilson Meyers, former scary biker. That didn’t seem to add up. “How fast was he going?” I asked.
McElone checked her screen and put on reading-glasses to make sure she was reading it right. “Twenty-nine in a twenty-five-mile zone,” she said.
I was doing my very best not to repeat everything she said just to give myself time to absorb it, so instead I said, “That seems a little out of character.”
She nodded. “Yeah, and a little aggressive on the part of the officer who ticketed him.”
“There had to be a driver’s license when they gave him the ticket. Does it show an address?” I asked. That would be too much to hope for, wouldn’t it?
“Yes,” McElone answered. “The address is in Levittown, Pennsylvania.” She read it off to me and gave me the phone number listed to the address. There was no cell phone number.
“What do you think the odds are he really lives there?” I asked.
“It depends,” McElone answered.
“On what?”
“On whether that’s really Wilson Meyers.”
That was something it appeared I’d have to find out.
I tried to interest her in the matter of Julia MacKenzie, but McElone pointed out that there was nothing in that case even remotely smacking of illegality. “She might be a tramp, but if she’s not charging for it, there isn’t a thing we can do,” was her exact quote.
I thanked her, a little grudgingly, and left.
Levittown, Pennsylvania, would have to wait—that was close to an hour-and-a-half drive away—so with no new ideas, I decided to revisit the site of a past triumph.
Okay, the site of a place where I hadn’t failed entirely.
My pal Megan Sharp grimaced—yes, actually grimaced—when she saw me approaching. But, consummate pro that she was, she handed a manila envelope to the distinguished-looking fiftyish gentleman ahead of me in line and waited for him to turn toward the door before almost shouting out, “No more stuff about Julia MacKenzie!” before I even had a chance to ask. The gentleman flinched, I thought, at the volume of Megan’s voice.
“Megan,” I said, in my most soothing voice, as the man left the office, “I just need a little bit more information. Seriously. I won’t bother you again after this.”
She glanced up in the direction of the security video camera, which now appeared to be connected. Or maybe they always were. “I’ve already broken enough rules helping you,” she said. “I was seen in the break room when I wasn’t supposed to be on break! I got yelled at—and it could have been worse! So go away.” Then her training got the best of her, and she added, “Please.”
I smiled at her sympathetically. “I’m sorry if I got you into trouble,” I said. “Is there something I can do to fix it? Someone I can talk to for you?”
“No,” she moaned. “The only thing you can do is leave. That would be really helpful.”
“You know I can’t do that,” I said. “I’m right on the verge of finding her, Megan, and just one more little piece of information would probably do the trick. All I need to see is the roster of other students in her last term’s schedule, just the classes she actu
ally attended in person, and…”
Megan Sharp clenched her teeth so hard I thought they’d shatter, but she managed to push through them one word, “No.” Then she didn’t say anything else.
I leaned over the counter, elbows down and chin on my hands. “Megan, have you ever done something for a guy…”
“Get. Out,” she said.
“No, listen. Just one semester’s roster…”
“Now!” She was almost vibrating with tension, and watching the video camera. For emphasis, she pointed dramatically toward the door, like the evil landlord in a melodrama from 1912.
So I left. Without the records, I couldn’t contact anyone who might have been in one of Julia’s classes, and who might still be in touch with her. I had a grand total of no leads. No help for Maxie on who killed her ex. I had promised to help Paul find his ex, and here I was, absolutely stuck with no ideas and an upside-down client.
No progress on the Ex-Files. Sorry.
Not to mention, I was definitely removing Megan Sharp’s name from my “willing resource” file.
I walked down the hallway of the student-records office and out the front door of the building, and was hit in the face with the heat and humidity that we do so well in New Jersey in July. It’s funny how quickly you forget what it feels like when you’re in air-conditioning for two minutes.
I had almost reached the parking lot when I heard a voice behind me say, “Excuse me. Miss?”
I almost didn’t turn around, because on a college campus, even during the summer, there are plenty of people around who could be called “Miss” ahead of me. But the voice was close enough that I knew it was speaking to me, so I stopped and turned.
The distinguished-looking gentleman who had been ahead of me in the student-records line stood there, dressed too warmly for the day, in a sport coat and dark slacks, but thankfully no necktie. He was, as one might expect, sweating pretty heavily, and might actually have run to catch up with me, because he was panting just a little bit, too.
“Can I help you?” I asked.
“Did I hear correctly, that you were trying to find student records for a Julia MacKenzie?” the man asked. His gray hair was cropped fairly close, and he had a goatee that looked like Paul’s would if it had been completely white.
I took a step back, though the guy looked harmless enough. “That’s right,” I told him. “Do you know her?”
The man nodded. “I was her professor for Advanced Sociological Practices,” he said. “My name is Douglas Kunkel.”
Finally, a break in finding Julia MacKenzie! “Professor Kunkel!” I said, perhaps a little too enthusiastically—this time, he backed up a step. “So nice to meet you!”
“It’s Doug,” he said. “And you are?”
I told him who I was, and even showed him my PI license, possibly just to impress the guy because I was so happy he had come to me. I shook his hand at least three times. He started to look as if having sought me out might have been the biggest mistake he’d made this decade.
“So what can you tell me about Julia?” I asked after I was done gushing. “Do you know how I can find her?”
He exhaled. “I’m sorry. I was about to ask you that very question. Ms. MacKenzie vanished even before she received her final grades, and did not attend the commencement ceremony. I have not heard from her since, and I had become somewhat concerned. Frankly, I was hoping you might know where she is today.”
Damn. “I’m afraid I don’t, Doug,” I told him. “I’m trying to track her down, but I’ll tell you, she didn’t leave much of a trail.” Any information I could get from him would be more than I had now. “Was she a good student?”
He tilted his head from side to side. “Good, but not great,” he said. “I think she might have been less interested in the subject matter than she should have been. I always got the impression that it was more about having the degree than gaining the knowledge for Ms. MacKenzie. She was concerned about her grades, but never asked a question about the material.”
I was getting a picture of Paul’s so-called almost-fiancée that didn’t seem to match the one Paul had offered. “Did she have any friends in class? People she’d show up with or talk to? Anything like that?”
The professor shook his head. “She always sat in the back, by herself,” he said. “But perhaps I can get those records you were looking for. A member of the faculty might be able to access them if it was considered necessary. Give me your business card, and I will get in touch if I find anything that might be useful.”
I produced one from the tote bag and handed it to him. “Call even if you find something that might not be useful,” I said. “You never know what’s going to make the difference.”
“I’ll do that,” Kunkel said. “But you must promise to let me know if you find Ms. MacKenzie. Is that fair?”
“Sure,” I said. “Is there a reason you’re so interested in finding her?” I couldn’t help but remember the other men Julia had apparently entranced.
The professor looked away, suddenly, and I was afraid I knew what was coming. “We…were seeing each other for a time,” he said. “I never knew why she left so abruptly.”
Yup. That was what I’d thought.
Twenty-four
The ghost “meet-and-greet” was scheduled for nine thirty Saturday morning, just after most of the guests had returned from finding some breakfast in town. Although it might’ve been more appropriately spooky to change the event to an after-dark activity, I wanted this to be as friendly and unthreatening an experience as I could offer. I did not want anyone to be overly frightened.
And I was worried about the guests, too.
Melissa, now an old hand at the spectacle about to begin, dressed in her best cute-little-girl outfit for summer—shorts and a striped T-shirt—and brought out a plate of cookies from a box I’d bought at the supermarket that morning. With all the sleuthing this morning, for all the good it had done me, I’d done a bare-bones run to the supermarket. But there were the cookies, as well as iced tea, iced coffee (both decaf and caffeinated) and bottled water.
I had changed clothes as well, from the business suit I was wearing as a detective disguise to a much cooler, much looser summer dress that actually let in air. The smile on my face was a combination of guesthouse hostess friendliness and welcome relief.
Don Petrone, resplendent in a white seersucker jacket and aqua ascot, stood at the entrance to the library, where the “event” was scheduled to take place. He smiled his charming smile as I walked in carrying a pitcher of iced tea and placed it on the table at the rear of the room.
“So here come the ghosts, huh?” he asked. “How do we know when they’re here?”
It was a logical question. “I’ll let you know, but also, we’ll make sure Paul and Maxie make themselves known as visually as they can. You won’t see them, but you’ll know they’re there.”
“Sounds great,” said Don, who had thankfully thought everything sounded great since he’d arrived. I’d take a van load of Don Petrones every week if I could get them, but his refusal to perspire no matter what the weather would have been infuriating in a man any less charming.
“Just about five minutes,” I told him, although he hadn’t asked, and Don nodded graciously. I still needed napkins and paper plates for the cookies, so I headed back to the kitchen, but was stopped halfway through the den by Francie and Arthur Westen, who had come in through the front door in anticipation of our ghostathon and looked a little wilted and a little worried.
“We’re not late, are we?” Francie asked. “We didn’t miss the beginning, did we?”
“Not at all. Things will get started in about five minutes. Why not take a seat in the library and have a nice cold drink?”
Francie led Arthur in the direction of the library, still hustling as if I’d said they had no time at all. “We want to make sure we get seats together,” she told him as they hurried, clearly overestimating the popularity of the event.
The final two Senior Plus Tour members, Mrs. Fischer and Mrs. Spassky, ambled in with a minute or so to spare, happily chattering away with excitement about “finally getting to talk to the spirits of the house.” It wasn’t terribly crowded in the library—with the five guests, Melissa and me—but it wasn’t an empty room, by any means.
The cookies were very enticing, the drinks were cold and the air-conditioning (another reason I’d chosen this room, because it was more efficient here than in larger areas) made the place comfortable. Paul dutifully stuck his head through the ceiling at one twenty-eight, the rest of his body still on the second floor somewhere. Even inverted, he was a trouper.
I couldn’t say the same for Maxie.
After watching the walls, the ceiling and the floor for a not-so-good five minutes, I hissed up at Paul, “Where’s Maxie?”
“I don’t know. She isn’t in any of her usual spots,” he replied. That went beyond unusual; it had happened just once, the day before, and I thought I had made it very clear to Maxie exactly how unacceptable that behavior had been. Apparently not clear enough, it was starting to seem.
I walked out into the hallway as Francie said loudly, “It’s time, isn’t it? I’m not wrong, am I? It is time for the ghosts.”
“Just a moment,” I told the group, hopefully sounding pleasant and upbeat. I gestured to Melissa to come to my side, and she was there quickly, looking concerned.
“Go outside and see if you can spot Maxie on the roof,” I told her. “ASAP.”
She nodded. That is one good ten-year-old, my daughter. Out the door she went into the tropical heat wave.
I put on my game face and walked back into the library. “Sorry for the delay,” I told my guests. “We’re having a little trouble locating one of our resident spirits.” Truth be told, I could have gone on just with Paul, but he’d been so weak and discombobulated the last couple of days I wasn’t sure he’d hold up by himself. Maxie was, if not reliable, energetic.
Old Haunts Page 20
