Yep. This was the house Marty rented with a roommate.
She drove past slowly, watching him get out, dark curly hair, mustache, and all. He locked the car and shuffled inside the house with his backpack over his shoulder.
She went around the block and pulled up behind the Civic.
A tingle climbed up her spine as she stared at the trunk. Now wouldn’t that be a perfect place to hide the body of your old girlfriend? But it had been five days since Hannah had gone missing. The body would reek to high heavens by now. Unless he’d treated it. A bright engineering student might know how to do that.
Maybe he hadn’t killed her right away. Maybe she was drugged and tied up in there.
Only one way to find out.
Miranda dug around in the briefcase that held her laptop and other assorted PI tools she’d purchased with her dwindling cash supply and found what she was looking for—her own pick set.
She zipped open the case and pulled out a thin metal rod. “Come to Mama, baby,” she whispered and got out of the car with the pick hidden in the palm of her hand.
Causally, she inched over to the Civic, as if she were just going for a little stroll through the neighborhood. Yep, just passing through. Just checking out these wheels. Thinking about getting one of these cars, herself.
She peered at the nearby houses. Didn’t look like there were any nosey neighbors. Luck was still with her. Time to make her move.
She inched over to the back of the Civic, flipped the cap that hid the lock. Standing so that the view of what she was doing was blocked to anyone in Marty’s house, she inserted the rod into the hole and gave it a twist.
Nothing.
She didn’t have a lot of practice with picking locks. Parker had usually been the one to do that. But he’d taught her how on their honeymoon—when she’d saved his butt from drowning.
She gave it another twist the other way and pulled up on the trunk. No dice. She needed to see what she was doing. She dared to lean over to get a better look at the keyhole.
“Hey! What do you think you’re doing there?”
Uh oh. Her luck had just run out.
She turned around in time to see Marty racing out of his house wearing only shorts and flip-flops, his pale skinny chest flashing in the sun, an homage to nerdom.
Crossing her arms she waited for him to catch up to her.
“Are you trying to steal my car?” he screeched, waving his white arms in the air.
Watching the outline of his ribcage as he heaved, she wanted to tell him he should be wearing sunscreen.
“No,” she said calmly. “I’m trying to break into your trunk.”
“What? You—you can’t do that.” His voice was a nerdy squeak of panic.
His dark curly hair was like a lion’s mane around his thin face. His pencil mustache was his most adult-looking feature. He had a wild look in his large brown eyes. He hopped from foot to foot, arms flapping like a flamingo. This may have been the most excitement he’d experienced in his young life.
He shook his cell phone at her. “I—I’m calling the cops.”
“Go ahead. I’m sure they’d be real interested in a kidnapping case. Or is it murder?”
He stopped moving, and his eyes grew wilder. “What?”
Miranda eyed him up and down the way a cop would. “You know, those are pretty serious charges, Marty.”
He blinked, surprised she knew his name. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Who are you, anyway?”
She reached for a card from her pocket and handed it to him. “Miranda Steele. Private investigator.”
“Private investigator?” He turned and did a little panic move, bending over at the waist and he studied the card.
“I’m looking for your missing girlfriend, Hannah Kaye.”
His whole body suddenly stopped moving, except for his eyes which stared and blinked at her as if she were a ghost. “Hannah’s missing?”
“Yep. You want to open your trunk for me now?”
He just kept staring at her. “Hannah’s missing?” he repeated, his squeaky voice going up another notch.
“Well, if you’re not going to call the police, I am.” She raised her cell.
Luckily, Chamber’s number was still among those on her contact list. She’d taken her cell from the Agency with her when she’d left and switched the billing over to herself just so she wouldn’t lose any of her contacts.
She scrolled to the number and pressed the dial button.
Her old buddy picked up on the first ring. “Chambers.”
“Good morning, Officer Chambers. Or maybe I should say Detective Chambers.”
He sounded confused. “Who is this?”
“Don’t you remember me?”
“The voice sounds familiar,” he said in his slow and easy rural southern drawl.
“About a year ago? Aquitaine Farms?”
“Miranda Steele? Is that you?”
She was relieved he sounded welcoming for a change. “One and the same. Say, I’m out here just off the Georgia Tech campus with a possible twenty-one.” She was glad she’d had to memorize the local police codes back at the Agency.
“A what?”
“Didn’t you hear me?”
“What are you talking about? A twenty-one? A kidnapping?” Chambers must have been surprised she knew the codes.
“Roger. Might be a forty-eight.”
“A murder?” There was a pause and it sounded like he was crumpling paper. A wrapper.
Early lunch or a late breakfast? she wondered idly as she eyed the growing terror on Marty’s face.
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about, Steele. I just got out of court. Domestic dispute that got nasty a month ago.”
Good for him but what did that have to do with the price of tea in Indonesia? “Look, Chambers. I’m working a case here. Can you help me out or not?”
Another long pause followed by more cracking, then a tired sigh. “You’re at Tech?”
“North of Tech. I’m questioning a suspect.” She gave him the address.
That changed his tune. “I’ll be there in ten or so.”
He was going to cooperate. Good deal. As long as he didn’t get in her way.
“I’ll be waiting.” She hung up and turned back to Marty, who was still staring at her with his jaw nearly to the sidewalk.
She held up her phone the way he had. “That was a friend of mine at the Fulton County Police Department. He’ll be here in a little bit to take you in, buddy.”
His chest started to heave. “But why?” he squeaked. “I haven’t done anything.”
She thought he might hyperventilate.
She nodded toward the Civic. “Then why don’t you open this trunk of yours and show me.”
As if in a daze Marty patted the pockets of his shorts until he found his keys. He moved toward her with ballet dancer like steps and opened the trunk with shaky hands.
Finally. She peered inside.
Spare tire. Jack. Assorted tools. Dirty laundry. No body.
Miranda picked through the clothes to make sure. No blood. No sign of anything but someone who didn’t use a washer very often.
“Where is she?”
“What?”
She turned and growled the words at him. “Hannah Kaye, your girlfriend. Where the hell is she?”
Marty took a frightened step backward. “I—I don’t know. We broke up a week ago.”
She closed the trunk and leaned against it. “You really expect me to believe that?”
He looked at her as if she were crazy. Then he rubbed his face with his hands. “It was actually last Monday. I met her at the student center after my Bioengineering class to study, like we’ve done since we met. Only this time she didn’t want to study. She wanted to talk.”
“What about?”
“Personal stuff.”
“What sort of personal stuff?”
He rubbed his arms and glanced around at the trees as if wish
ing he could fly up into one. Clearly he didn’t want to talk about it. But he knew he had no choice.
“About us,” he said, his voice breaking. “I mean, about the fact that there was no ‘us.’” He made awkward quote marks in the air with his fingers. “She said I’d been deluding myself. That she’d never been serious about me.” His voice cracked again and he sniffled through his nose.
Miranda almost felt sorry for him, but it could be an act. “So what did you do about that?”
“There was nothing I could do. She said she’d found somebody else. I think it was a guy who came to see her at the club.”
“Exótico?”
He let out a snorty laugh. “Yes, that’s right. That sleazy place she works at. We fought about that a lot. I told her she didn’t have to dance there. I’d help her with her bills. She never listened to me. She didn’t care what I thought.”
Miranda drew in a breath. “But it was you who went to see her at the club, Marty.”
“A couple of times, sure. I thought it would be cool to watch her in a place like that. It wasn’t.”
“You were jealous?”
“Sure I was. Who wants to listen to a bunch of old men hooting at your girl? Only I guess she never was my girl.” He sounded so sad.
She wanted to believe him but she reminded herself how smart he was. Smart enough to create a sympathetic story about how his girl broke up with him. “And so you decided to teach her a lesson, right?”
“Huh?”
“You are in school, after all.”
He looked at her as if she were speaking Hindi. Wait. He probably knew Hindi.
“I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She took a step toward him. “Hannah Kaye has been missing for five days. That’s what I’m talking about, Jenkins. I’m talking about murder.”
His face went white. “No. There’s got to be some mistake. Hannah can’t be…dead.”
Either he was a real good actor or Miranda was starting to think he was innocent. “We’re you at Exótico last week?”
“What?”
“Clean the wax out of your ears, Jenkins. Last week. Were you at Exótico?”
He had that wild look again. “Exótico? No. I went there about a month ago. Twice. I’ve only been there twice.”
“Two of the dancers saw you there recently. They said you went there for a whole week. They said you had a seat right up front.”
He shook his head violently. “No. They’re mistaken.”
Miranda was getting tired of this runaround. She was about to tell Marty she was taking him into the station herself when a dark blue Honda pulled up in front of the Civic.
After a minute Chambers got out. “What’s going on here?”
He ambled up the sidewalk with that loose, I’m-in-charge-here stride she’d first seen the night he’d chased her down in the Van Aarle’s backyard.
His short curly hair with that nondescript blondish-reddish color was neatly trimmed. Must have gotten a raise. He could afford a descent cut now. He wore a short sleeved blue cotton shirt with no tie and khaki pants. The casual police detective look.
Miranda gestured toward the nerd. “This is the suspect I told you about on the phone. Name’s Marty Jenkins. His girlfriend’s been missing for five days.”
She saw Chamber’s wide-set Kelly green eyes flash, but the perpetual questioning expression on his baby face remained unchanged. “Oh, really now. What can you tell us about that, son?”
Marty went into nerd overdrive, pacing and stuttering and waving his arms awkwardly while he explained everything he’d already said to Miranda.
She noted his story didn’t change. A point in his favor.
“I’ve already looked in his trunk,” she told Chambers. “No sign of her there.”
Chambers acknowledged with a nod. “This your house, young man?”
“I rent it. It’s registered with housing on campus.”
“Mind if we take a look inside?”
Marty’s jaw moved but no words came out.
Miranda decided to keep up the tough guy act. Chambers could play the good cop. “Got something you’re hiding in there, Jenkins?”
“No. No,” he squeaked, doing a little dance again. “Go ahead.”
They followed him up the walk beside some ill kept bushes and inside the little place. It smelled of stale pizza and dirty socks. The lighting wasn’t good and there was student clutter everywhere. Books, papers, laptops. In the kitchen the sink was full of dirty dishes and a table in a corner was piled with circuit boards and electronic tools.
It looked like a freaky nerd laboratory.
They went through the whole place. Kitchen, den, hallway, closets, bedrooms. There was no sign of Hannah Kaye anywhere.
“Your roommate isn’t home?” Chambers said, stating the obvious.
“No. Anil’s not here.”
“What’s his name?” Miranda started to make a note in her phone.
“Anil Singh. He’s got a Physics class now. He’s an Industrial Design major.”
Miranda didn’t bother to record the name.
“I see.” Chambers turned to Miranda. “What do you want to do?”
Marty Jenkins sounded truly genuine. But he was still her best lead. She was about to say she wanted to take him in when he raised his hand as if he had a question for the teacher.
“What is it, Marty?” Chambers said, indulging him.
“You said there was a guy at the club? And he went there for a week?”
“Right,” Miranda answered, ignoring Chamber’s quizzical look. She hadn’t mentioned Exótico to him.
“Last week I was studying with my friend Cliff Swanson.”
Swanson. The guy Miranda had seen him with yesterday.
“All week?” Chambers asked.
“Yes. I had a big exam today.”
“But I couldn’t get much done. Cliff likes to play loud music when he studies. And he’s restless. Takes a lot of breaks. Jogging. Swimming. He’s my friend. I went to high school with him but he’s a Business major and he has trouble with the technical stuff. I’m trying to help him pass his Calculus class, but last night I’d just had enough of his goofing around.”
Consistent with the conversation she’d heard. And maybe the remark about getting rid of Hannah had been sarcasm. Bitter sarcasm over a broken heart.
“What’s your point?” Chambers said.
Marty raised his hands as if it should be obvious. “I was with him all last week. Every night. I couldn’t have been at Exótico.”
At the name of the club, Chambers’ curly red brows shot up.
Miranda ignored the reaction. “Thursday as well?” she said to Marty.
He nodded. “Yes. Thursday and Friday. You can call Cliff and ask him if you want. I can call him. He’ll come right over and vouch for me. He doesn’t have a class right now.”
Miranda looked over at Chambers. He shook his head slightly.
Her heart slithered down to her dress shoes. Marty Jenkins was a dead end. He’d been telling the truth the whole time.
She waved away his phone call. “Don’t bother, Marty. You’ve got my card there, right?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Don’t lose it. Call me if you hear anything about Hannah.”
The expression on his face turned to such relief she thought he might break out in tears. “Yes, ma’am. I certainly will. I do hope you find her. And I hope she’s okay.”
“We do, too.”
She turned and headed out the screen door and down the walkway with the police detective at her heels.
Chambers inched up to her. “Exótico, Steele? You know who owns that club?”
Good to know it was on police radar. “Sure do. He’s my client.”
She heard a rumble in his chest. “You want to tell me about this?”
She’d only had a few bites of bagel in the car and she could use some fuel. “You want to take me to lunch?”
“Sounds like an even trade.”
Chapter Fourteen
Heading east then south, Miranda followed her cop friend’s shiny blue Interceptor to The Varsity, probably the oldest and best known hot dog joint in the city.
She opted for a chili cheese dog and a soda while Chambers got a Frosted Orange in lieu of food, confirming her suspicion he’d been eating breakfast when she’d called him earlier.
As he set a stack of napkins on the table and slid into the red plastic booth across from her, she opened her order and took a bite of the fare. It wasn’t a Chicago dog, but the chili gave it a unique taste and as far as junk food went, it was up there on her list.
Chambers pulled the paper off a straw and stuck it through the lid with an authoritative air. “So what gives, Steele? Why are you working for Carlos Santiago?”
She reached for a napkin and wiped the chili from the corner of her mouth. “He hired me.”
Eyeing her intently with that curious look of his, he took a sip of his drink. “And?”
She took another bite and took her time chewing and swallowing before she replied. “He’s got a missing dancer. Her name’s Hannah Kaye. She’s also a student at Tech. Nobody I’ve talked to so far has seen her since last Thursday night.” She summarized the details of what she’d learned so far.
Listening, Chambers moved his straw up and down through the lid of his cup, making it squeak. He didn’t ask why she wasn’t at the Parker Agency anymore. Though Parker was a public enough of a figure, especially with the ADP, for Chambers to know she’d married him last year, he didn’t ask about that either.
Whether that was due to discretion or indifferent, she didn’t know. But she silently thanked him.
“Five days, huh?” he said with a grimace.
“Five days.” Not a good timeframe. Odds were Hannah Kaye wasn’t alive.
“Santiago could have killed her himself.”
She reached for her soda. “I don’t think so. He was making too much money off her.”
“Maybe she ran away to get out of that…lifestyle.”
“I thought that at first, but when I talked to some of the other dancers, they all said she loved what she did. The dancing, I mean. I don’t think there was much hanky-panky going on on the side. And she was good at it.”
The corner of his mouth curled. “The dancing, you mean.”
Smoke Screen (A Miranda and Parker Mystery Book 7) Page 8
