by Jack Lacey
‘They blow in, blow out, feed off us all, while we’re busting our asses earning a buck and paying our taxes,’ he continued sharply. ‘Both of them are in with the wrong crowd, Mister Blake, that’s what I think. They’re probably drugged up to the eyeballs as we speak, bombed out in some back-street squat, moaning about those of us who have to work for a living. Unwashed bums the lot of them.’
Walter’s outburst seemed at odds with his passive air. The guy had serious issues, that much was clear. There was a deep-rooted anger bubbling away somewhere inside of him that was all bottled up. I’d seen it a thousand times with that supposedly liberal sort. Beneath their manufactured smiles there was a whole lot of rage and regret that just wanted to come pouring out at the slightest provocation. He probably had a wife at home whom he just dreaded returning to every day…
‘I’ve got the picture...’ I said, tiring of him.
I stood up satisfied that I’d got something to work on, eager to leave his office and get on with the search.
‘And your sister might be in now if I go around there?’
‘Perhaps. Though she’s pretty elusive at the moment. She’s got a part-time job at the hospital and sometimes her shifts change. She might be able to give you more on the girl than I can though, on both of them in fact. Her and Ethan are closer than he and I. Henry went around there too, when he came over a few weekends back, but she wasn’t around. And I haven’t spoken to her for a good fortnight or so, as I say.’
Walter sighed heavily.
‘I hope you find the girl soon, Mr Blake, for her father’s sake. He’s a good man, Henry. Let us know when she surfaces, please…’
He shook my extended hand vigorously; relieved a little bit too much that I was going. I said my thanks and headed back down to the main lobby, then decided to take a detour to the gallery café to see if I could dig up anything on Ethan from some of his former work colleagues.
As I approached, a plump girl with generous eyes looked up from the table she was wiping and smiled warmly.
‘Hey...’ she said extending me that genial Minnesotan welcome.
‘How you doing?’
‘You from Britain?’
‘Sure am.’
‘Kool. Like the gallery?’
‘Scintillating. Look, the name’s Blake, I’m trying to find…’
‘Olivia?’ she said chirpily.
‘Have you heard anything?’
‘No, not since she left. All that I know was that she was enjoying herself at the gallery, but Ethan wanted her to go on some sort of road trip with him. He can be pretty persuasive.’
‘Okay…and have you heard from either of them since?’
‘Na, he’s pretty elusive and I haven’t got his number ‘cus we’re not that tight. Hey, can I get you a coffee? It’s on the house, cus you’re a Brit and you’re cute.’
I forced a smile and threw some more questions her way as she worked the noisy machine, then discovered quickly that that was all she did know.
I drank my coffee in silence, staring out of the massive floor to ceiling windows, at several metalwork tipis erected on the grass outside, celebrating the region’s Sioux and Ojibwa heritage. It was looking more and more likely that Olivia had just absconded, that she was simply trying to find some happiness after all the tragedy in her life whilst enjoying a bit of teenage romance, as I’d initially thought.
I took in the skyscrapers in the distance thinking how Laura would have loved to explore the city, then headed back out onto the steps where I stopped halfway down to breathe some of the sharp spring air into my lungs.
Henry was a worrier, perhaps had been over-zealous with his parenting and that had driven Olivia away, but the girl could just as easily be a spoilt brat too, who needed to take a fall in order to appreciate what was good in her life.
Maybe I was just there to pick up the pieces, like so many of the other teenage disappearance cases I’d worked on. Maybe she just needed to stretch her wings for a bit, then have them clipped a little?
Even if she had hooked up with the wrong crowd too, it was more than likely that she would be unharmed and in good health when I found her. The odds were still stacked in my favour. I could talk her around into returning so Lenny and I could pick up the full thirty clicks or whatever it was from Deacon.
At the very least I could take a photograph, or get her to speak on the phone to prove that she was still alive, so Lenny could get the first ten. It was a promising situation whatever way you looked at it. The assignment had gotten me out of the holiday park, my moroseness, and given me a better perspective on everything, if nothing else. All I needed was the first decent lead to join the dots and I could wrap things up in perhaps a couple of days.
I wandered over to some rainbow-coloured taxis parked in the bays directly opposite the gallery still deep in thought. As I opened the door on the first in the line, I noticed a white Oldsmobile parked on the other side with a guy sat in the front seat reading a newspaper, trying to look as if he was waiting for somebody. Something told me he wasn’t waiting on his cousin Billy to do the tour around the new exhibition...
I carried on as if unaware and gave the driver his instructions as I climbed in the back. As we pulled out and melted into the morning traffic I saw the Oldsmobile edge out discreetly in the side-view mirror, then tail us a few cars back, confirming my suspicions. I tensed, feeling that poisonous spider get a little closer again…
The search for Olivia Deacon had taken a sinister turn suddenly, just as all the pieces of the case looked to be fitting snugly together. It was always the damned same with the jobs Lenny gave me...
I cracked a bemused smile and wondered just how easy the case was going to be now, now there could be other darker elements involved, then reflected on how much time I actually had to find the banker’s daughter safe and well, before someone else did. Someone perhaps, with the worst of intentions...
Chapter Nine
‘uneasy alliances’
The Oldsmobile tailed us all the way then hung back as we pulled up outside the small, lime-coloured house where Finch’s sister supposedly lived.
I tipped the driver generously then stepped out onto the snow-encrusted pavement, looking straight ahead as I did so, so as not to arouse any suspicion from my admirer.
Much to my relief footsteps sounded out straight away after I rang the bell, then security bolts being pulled back on the inner door. The sullen fifty-something face that greeted me when it opened though, wasn’t one I’d been expecting. It wasn’t some fifty-something American housewife. It belonged to a cop. I suppressed my shock and forced a polite smile.
‘Is Chrissie in?’
‘Who’s asking?’
The guy’s tone was gruff and unfriendly.
‘I’m a friend of Walter’s, her brother...’
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, my brother-in law. So what do you want? You look like you’ve been in a fight, pal,’ he said pointing casually at the blood spatters on my jacket.
I looked down as if he’d pointed out some food on my tie and tried to look surprised.
‘I’m doing a favour for a friend of Walter’s. He’s lost touch with his daughter over here. As for the stains...I fell over some bins last night outside the motel.’
‘Sure…’ he said dismissively, hands on hips, as if he could smell a lie like it were roast chicken.
‘For a time, Olivia was staying here Walter said?’
I offered the question lightly hoping that it would breakdown a few of the razor wire barriers that had already been erected.
‘You better come in...’
I entered apprehensively and he beckoned me sit at the table. He had a thick mop of ginger-brown hair, framing a craggy, well-worn face, a solid build, and an air about him that pronounced loud and clear that he didn’t take shit off anyone. I liked that. Maybe we could do business, even though he was a cop.
‘The name’s Tug to my friends. How can I help? Though now’s not a good
time...’
‘Blake,’ I said with a respectful nod.
‘Coffee?’
‘Sure.’
The cop headed into the kitchen.
‘I met the kid just a couple of times, that’s all,’ Tug announced, as he clattered around. ‘I asked one of my colleagues in another department who’s dealing with it if she’d heard anything. She hasn’t.’
‘Officer Herring?’ I said loudly.
‘That’s right. Maybe I should ring her about my Chrissie’s too...’
I didn’t say anything further, hoping that he would open up some more. There was something seriously bothering the guy that much was clear. After a few minutes he came back out and handed me a mug of microwaved coffee.
‘Chrissie, my wife…well, me and her haven’t been getting along in quite a while,’ he said taking a seat opposite. ‘I’ve actually been staying with a friend of mine who lives in St Paul’s recently. After thirty years, things can get a bit stale. You know how it is...Sugar.’
‘No thanks.’
The cop sucked some air through his teeth as if wrestling with how much he was going to reveal then slurped at his drink.
‘I thought it would be a good idea for her to have some company, you know, while we were sorting things out...’
I nodded politely thinking that maybe that was just a different form of control, that he wanted someone else there so she couldn’t bring another guy home on the quiet. Cops I thought...
‘But now…’ he continued, ‘I’m regretting it, because she’s gone.’
‘What do you mean gone?’ I probed, trying to sound sympathetic.
He ran a hand over his weary face and sighed.
‘I think she’s on some big nostalgia trip, you know...headed back to the mountains where she grew up.’
I forced some more of the bad coffee down.
‘How long has she been gone?’
‘Nearly four weeks now since we last saw each other. I just get the feeling that this time she’s not planning on coming back, you know? As a cop, you develop a sixth sense for these sort of things over the years. I think she may have left for good this time, Blake. Probably met one of those old timers down there and realized what she’s been missing out on, stuck here in the city with some overweight, over-zealous cop who’s always out on patrol.’
His shoulders slumped a little. For a second he looked vulnerable beneath the uniform, the shiny badge and the gun.
‘You might be wrong, Tug. You never know,’ I said trying to offer some manufactured sympathy.
‘Perhaps…but she always wanted that sort of lifestyle out in the wilds, free of routines...just like she had when she was a kid.’
‘So have you had time to look, Tug? Make enquiries?’
‘Sure, in between busting my ass. I went over to Seward too, to where those gutter punks like to hang out and asked about the girl.’
I leaned forward, hungry for information.
‘Go on...’
The cop lifted one hand in the air and swiped it the air as if casually swatting a fly.
‘Aaah, they know I’m a cop. I’ve put a few of them in the cooler before now, so they weren’t going to tell me much that was for sure. They probably think I’m the Devil for all I know, and from what Chrissie might have told Olivia, then more so. We’d had a row, you know, just before I moved out...’
‘Right,’ I said blankly, getting the picture.
‘Not that sort of row. I never laid a finger on her, ever. But I can get a little blustery sometimes. In my line of work you can take a lot home with ya, you know how it is…’
I stood up, feeling like I’d heard everything he had to say, then glanced out the window to see if the tailing guy was still there.
‘If it’s alright with you, Tug, I wouldn’t mind taking a wander over to this squat or whatever it is now, and speak to these people directly. Maybe as a stranger I can prize a few doors open which you couldn’t as cop?’
‘Be my guest. Number seventy-eight on Thirty-Six Avenue South. The house is emerald green shiplap with red edging and a widow’s balcony.’
I pulled out the piece of paper Finch had given me. It was the same address.
‘Thanks.’
‘If you hear anything, call me, huh? Chrissie’s phone is switched off…has been for a while. The friends of hers who talk to me, won’t tell me nothing neither. I’m worried about her, Blake...’
‘But what about Walter, doesn’t he know where his own sister is?’
‘He said he had a message two or three weeks ago. He got the impression that she was out of state for a few days, but that was all he could glean from it. Chrissie was obviously keeping her cards close to her chest, worried that Walter and I may speak. We get on, you know...Occasionally go out and share a few suds together, like us men do sometimes.’
I headed for the door. Tug followed me out. On the steps he shook me firmly by the hand then looked me up and down again as if he had picked up on something suspicious.
‘So, you managed to get some time off work to come out here and help Henry, you say?’
‘Yea, I was owed some free time,’ I said, caught off guard for a second.
‘That’s very big of you. What sort or work?’
I hesitated for a second.
‘Insurance...but I’m taking a sabbatical because I lost my daughter a few months back.’
‘Jesus...I’m sorry to hear that, buddy. I thought my problems were bad.’
‘Being out here helps to take my mind of it all in truth. It was her birthday just a few days ago too.’
One of Tug’s thick eyebrows rose.
‘Look, if you need anything, then come down to the precinct on Minnehaha Avenue and ask for Sergeant O’Reilly, okay? I’m there more than I am here. Maybe we can help each other out?’
‘I’m sure we can,’ I replied, thinking how it wasn’t wise to get too close to some streetwise cop in case he started checking up.
As I headed off down the street I heard him call out.
‘How you getting there? It’s quite a ways from here, you know.’
‘I was going to grab a taxi up on the main drag...’
‘Forget about it. I gotta head back to the bullpen now, so I’ll drop you off on the way. It’ll save you trying to find a cab, or the stress of walking through some bad neighbourhoods.’
I strolled casually over to Tug’s squad car as if I wasn’t being watched, then clocked the Oldsmobile through the reflection in the glass. The tailing guy was still there, parked up discreetly, maybe forty or fifty metres away. What in the hell did he want? Was it something to do with Olivia? Or something to do with my past, come back to haunt me? Hell if I knew…
A few minutes later the cop had locked up and we were driving towards Seward. The stranger pulled out too and started tailing us. We travelled several blocks, the Oldsmobile clearly visible in the mirrors a few cars back. The guy wasn’t a pro, of that I was certain. Far too obvious…I tried to ignore him and engage in polite conversation with Tug.
After a couple more miles we arrived at a major crossroads. I glimpsed in the mirror again. The stranger was now taking a right-hand turn, scared off perhaps by the company I was now keeping, or had slickly handed over to another car who was better at his job. I checked the traffic behind us in the side-mirror. Nothing suspicious. I turned around to say something to Tug, but the crackle of a police radio interrupted us.
‘It’s all going on this morning,’ the cop announced casually.
He turned the volume dial up and listened to the call.
‘Some rig has just gone up at a truck stop near Arden Hills,’ he said responding. ‘There are some real maniacs out there I’m telling ya.’
I tried to suppress the look of concern.
‘Really?’
‘Yeah, I’m going to have to head over there now, as there aren’t many other units around. You good to come along? I’ll drop you off afterwards…’
‘Sure,’ I sai
d, beginning to feel more uneasy.
The radio burst into life again.
‘All unit, all units...Two suspects wanted for the earlier Ten-Seventy now heading south, down Bloomington Avenue at the junction of East Twenty-Ninth Street and...’
Tug picked up the handset and responded again.
‘This is Five-Seven. I’m heading down East Lake Street now and can respond, over.’
Pause.
‘Received, Five-Seven. One is a large male in his thirties, with blonde hair and a blue bandana, the other shorter wearing a black, open-faced helmet. The first plate is…’
I felt my gut tighten, realizing who it probably was.
‘God damn it...’ Tug cursed, hitting the brakes and putting his siren on.
I braced myself against the dashboard as he slewed the car around one-eighty, then pumped the gas to take us in the opposite direction. I just hoped that when we arrived some other units may have got there before us, so that I wouldn’t have to come face to face with Blackie and his pyromaniac friend and end up having to explain to Tug why I’d been travelling in Jed’s stolen and now, very burnt out rig...
We hammered down various rubbish-strewn side-streets for a good few minutes then caught sight of several squad cars thundering down a turning to our right. They were heading towards what looked like a large liquor store lit up like a Christmas tree.
Tug span the car around hard again like some maniac stunt man intent on following them. I saw the tow-truck coming in the opposite direction…
‘No!’ I yelled.
‘Sweet Jesus!’ Tug cried, fighting the steering wheel.
The truck flew past with some of our paintwork on its wheels.
I pulled my fingernails out of the dash happy to be in one piece then clocked the scene ahead. Two riderless bikes were lying on the side-walk abandoned. Nearby, two motionless figures were sprawled out on the ground. It looked like Blackie and his pyro friend from the diner…I sank down in the seat, praying Tug wasn’t going to park too close, then lurched forwards as he bumped up hard on the curb behind the nearest car.
Tug unfastened his seat belt as the suspects were hauled roughly to their feet. I raised myself tentatively and stared at the bikers through the cluster of cops. The forlesed pair looked resigned to their fate. I felt relaxed a little. The situation looked under control. No need for Tug to get involved, for things to get complicated...
