by Roger Bray
He brought up his message app and sent a quick text to Phil, attaching the pictures he had taken. The house was secure and, unless he unscrewed the sheeting to get back in he couldn’t put the picture back, so he put it back into his pocket and walked through the shrubs to where Alex and Alice were sitting on the patio having a beer.
Chapter Thirteen
Steve made his excuses and left after they had eaten. He used the pressure of course work as his excuse, trying to get ahead of the semester this time. It was the first time that he had lied to Alice and he didn’t like it. After raising their hopes with Todd, he didn’t want to mention what he had found until he had checked it out.
He went back to his own house and sat up until well after midnight reading through the case files. What had Jim being doing that night? According to him, he had been sleeping at the back of the house. A heavy sleeper he said. He had gone to bed and not woken until the next morning. He hadn’t woken up or been disturbed by anything and had got up early and gone to a job near Chemult. If Union Pacific were like most companies, they would have records that could be checked to verify that.
At one o’clock he decided to go to bed. The words on the pages of the reports and statements he was reading were starting to swim in front of him and nothing was making sense anymore. Should he have a triple shot coffee and keep going or call it a night? He decided that a fresh start was what he needed. Shifting the tree had been tiring anyway without an extra six hours of reading reports multiple times trying to pull some fact out that didn’t seem to be there.
His cell phone woke him early with the chirruping jungle of the message app. Bleary eyed, he staggered into the kitchen and looked at the winking blue light on the phone. He flicked the screen and read the message from Phil.
“Maybe. They look about right but impossible to tell without actually comparing them with the marks from the back of the Volvo.”
Steve hadn’t expected anything else. It had been a long shot. Taking the photos and sending them to Phil had been a spur-of-the-moment decision and even as he had pressed the send button he had known that Phil, with his meticulous professionalism, would not commit to that.
Even in his disappointment, he knew that he was on to something. But that’s what he had thought with Todd, which was the main reason for not saying anything now.
Alice hadn’t seemed too disappointed at all. She had been fascinated by the doll making and the way that Todd managed to add the features to the blank faces with the little artists spray gun that had been on the bench.
Even more annoying for Steve was the news from Alice that Cheryl had rung her. Todd had contacted her, and they had met up. The old flame was still there, and it hadn’t taken much to fan it into life. Todd had stuck to his word and had told her everything. Far from being put off, Cheryl had been relieved as suspicions can be a lot worse than the truth and she had been imagining all sorts of things. Professional doll making made as much impact on her as if his passion had been stamp collecting.
It seemed that two lonely people may have been brought back together. Where they should have been to start with and Alice was happy for them. She was happier that she could take the mickey out of Steve and kept asking what his next matchmaking venture was going to be.
Steve smiled at the thought and at that moment realized how much he missed Alice. Sitting down at the table in front of all the reports that had so annoyed him only a few hours ago he decided that by the end of the year he would ask her to marry him.
He started separating the paperwork into what was relevant to this. The here and now, what he had discovered yesterday. The papers were divided into relevance. Once finished the “relevant” stack was pathetic.
The statement he had taken from Todd joined the pile more for geography than relevance. It was a matter of filling in the gaps.
Hazel leaving Alex then nothing had changed, thanks to the admissions from Nicholas Rowe and the re-credited statement from Ron Balfour, to a much clearer timeline. He could now see where she had been and at what time. Todd’s statement was negative in so much as he didn’t see anything. Even that filled in a few gaps for the timing. His finding the phone had given a definite end to the period within which Hazel had been abducted.
Now Steve had to find out how and by whom.
He pulled out a big paper map of Eugene, which he folded to a manageable size to show Alex and Hazel’s street and the rail yards off Bethel Drive where her car had been found. The Union Pacific rail yards.
Why there? The car could have been dumped anywhere, or even left where it was. Had the car been left where it was, the suspicion on Alex would have been greater. Why move it?
Because, he decided, the person who took Hazel didn’t know what had happened earlier in the evening and probably thought that moving the car would shift the focus of any search away from the local neighborhood. In that case, he was a local and didn’t want to give the police any reason to be searching houses around there.
Twenty-five minutes he guessed. Add another five minutes or so to get the bike from the garage, and in and out of the Volvo. Thirty minutes to drive the car, leave it and peddle back. A competent rider could probably do it a bit quicker, so he decided between twenty and thirty was about right.
A quick check online confirmed that there were no cameras along the route. He considered that the rail yards most likely had security cameras around but maybe not on that side as all the main buildings were a half a mile away. There would be no reason for cameras to be positioned near where the Volvo was found.
Steve considered it a dead end and knew that the police and DA had already checked any security footage that had been available. They hadn’t known about the bicycle and weren’t looking for one.
“More local knowledge,” Steve thought.
Local to where the car was taken from and knowledge of where it was dumped. A quiet, dark, and secluded spot. A good place to spend a few minutes cleaning the inside of the Volvo with wet wipes without some insomniac resident seeing from their window.
Looking at the notes he had written, he decided he needed to take a trip to the Lane County deeds and records office in downtown Eugene and make some inquiries about Jim Fletcher.
Tapping his pen on the legal pad he looked at his watch and decided to have a shower and get down to the office as soon as it opened.
*****
He found a parking space in a lot across the road and made it to the records office a few minutes after opening. There was already a queue of six people in front of him and he wondered how long it would take. Checking online, he knew that he could have done this from home, fill in the form and sent it off with an open-ended check to cover whatever fees he would be charged at $3.75 a page.
That would have been easier but would have taken longer. Steve had no more information than he had the day before, but his experience told him there was something to find.
Finally, he got to the front and showed the clerk his investigator’s credentials, something that he couldn’t have done online. He gave his credit card details with an assurance from the clerk that ten pages would cover it and left with the promise that his documents would be ready in the early afternoon.
Four hours to kill. He could go home and ponder over the documents some more but had already decided there was another place he should go. If they had the records, Union Pacific could tell him that Jim Fletcher had been working where he had said. And how long he was there for, a couple of hours or a month or somewhere in between.
The Union Pacific Rail Road corporate headquarters were in Omaha, but they had offices in most major centers. Including in Eugene and not more than three hundred yards from where Hazel’s car was found. Steve made a quick phone call and found out what he was looking for. He crossed the road and retrieved his car. In a few moments he was driving west toward the yards.
By two o’clock, he had picked up the information from the county office, had the information from Union Pacific, and was headed n
orth on the 99 toward Junction City. He would continue north to Albany and cut back onto the i5 and keep going north. With luck, he would get to Phil’s a bit after six, although the timing could be better as he was due to hit Portland at the wrong time in the afternoon. The beer and whiskey were already in the trunk and he knew they had a big night ahead of them. Not from the beer and whiskey but the time they would spend going through the databases Phil had access to. One good thing about doing consultancy work with insurance companies was access to their systems and Steve had a funny feeling that somewhere in one of them was the last piece of information he needed to be sure about his theory.
He drove north up the i5 through Portland and across the Columbia River bridge into Washington State. The traffic had been slow but once he was past Hayden Island it started to clear and he had a clear run for the rest of the way to Phil’s and was relieved to see the lights on as he drove up to the house.
“Phil stood on the step watching to see who was arriving and as he recognized Steve’s car, he waved and came down to the front of the house to greet him.
“Sorry about the tire pictures,” he started, as Steve got out, “Not a real lot to go on but if you’ve brought the tires, I can try to match them.”
Steve waved away his apology, “No, no tires and no forensics either.”
“So, what then?”
“The databases you have access to, a neutral eye to look over my theory as a sanity check and, someone to bounce ideas off.”
“Sounds good.”
“I have beer and whiskey.”
“Sounds better! Always welcome.”
Steve laughed and grabbed the carton from the trunk, a bag containing a couple of bottles of Wild Turkey and a small bag he kept in there with the basics he needed if he was called away at no notice.
He had almost made the decision to drive north after leaving Union Pacific but waited until he got the information from the county office. With that and the unsolicited information he had been handed, he was more convinced than ever.
“After Todd” had become a catch cry now. And after that mistake, he wanted to be sure that he was on the right track. Phil might look like he had escaped from a ZZ Top tribute band, but Steve knew that he had one of the best investigative minds he had ever come across. He could take a big jumble of information and make some order from it. Linking seemingly unrelated facts was something he did for fun while everyone else was risking embolisms trying to think too hard. Phil was the steady mind Steve needed now to give some shape to his ideas and show him if his theory was lacking.
By the time they actually cracked open a bottle of Turkey, it was nearly midnight. They had been at it for over four hours and as they settled back, Phil put the last piece of paper he had been reading down onto the low table on the patio.
“Having a look at those tires would have been good but there’s more than enough circumstantial evidence.”
“To prove what?”
“That this guy is a lying son of a bitch if nothing else.”
“Or he could be a private person. He’s been through a lot. Maybe he needed his space, and the habit stuck.”
“No,” Phil shook his head not convinced, “I think it’s well past that. Needing space is one thing, even being a private person is OK, but this is lies and covering things up. He has gone out of his way to put forward a public face. A public face that does not match what we know. Not by a fair distance.”
“What does that make him guilty of?”
Phil shrugged, “Being a lying son of a bitch.”
“Do you think there’s enough here?”
“Enough to raise a reasonable suspicion for sure. Certainly, enough to think this is worth pursuing. Who knows what else you might find? Are you sure that you can’t get the tires?”
“Not sure, maybe but probably not. We’re into a whole new ball game of evidence gathering if I was to try to sneak you into his garage or steal his bike tires.”
“Yeah, true enough,” Phil admitted. “I think you have enough to keep looking. I don’t think what you’re saying is so far-fetched given what you’ve found out.”
“Keep going then?”
“Shit yeah. Beer?”
Steve pretended to grimace but gladly went and got a couple of beers from the chiller box.
*****
It had been four days since he had contacted Alice and when he checked his phone the next morning, he found six missed calls from her. He walked up the small hill behind Phil’s house where he knew the reception was better and when he was sure he had a good connection, he dialed her number.
She answered on the second ring.
“Steve?”
“Hey, how’s it going?”
“It would have been better if I’d known where you were. I’ve been worried.”
“Sorry, I got caught up in the moment.”
“I know you turn you cell off in the library so that’s where I thought you were. But when I couldn’t get hold of you last night, I started to worry.”
“I wasn’t in the library.”
“And not at home either.”
“No, I’m at Phil’s.”
“Phil’s? Are you chasing leads without me?”
He could hear the disappointment in her voice.
“No. Well … yes … I suppose I am.”
Silence.
“Is Jim at home?”
“Jim, yes, I think. He arrived back two days ago. I’m at home but when I was at Alex’s last night, Jim was there.”
“How was he?”
“He was fine. Same old Jim. Grateful for what we’d done.”
“Did he seem annoyed about anything?”
“Do you mean like a tree falling on his house? Yes, he seemed a little peeved by that.”
“No, I mean about us cleaning up, going inside?”
“Not at all, he was happy that we’d done it. He tried to get someone around to sort it all out and put some new doors in but there’s a waiting list. The storm ripped through quite a few houses in Eugene and Springfield. He said that he would probably do it himself once he has some time off in a couple of weeks. What’s this all about? Why are you asking about Jim?”
“I’m going to leave here in an hour and will be at your place by lunchtime. If you happen to go to Alex’s and see Jim, please say nothing. If he asks where I am, tell him that I’m up at the state law office in Salem doing some research for a paper.”
“OK, I’ll see you here soon. Will you tell me everything then?”
“Of course, I will.”
“I’ve missed you. I love you.”
Steve chuckled, “I love you too. See you soon.”
He ended the call and, still smiling, walked down the hill to where Phil was getting breakfast ready.
Chapter Fourteen
She was relieved as his car pulled up in her driveway. Steve looked up as he got out and saw her looking through the window and he smiled and waved as he got his battered folio bag from the passenger seat. He closed the door, locked the car, and walked to the front door.
Alice was there with the door open as he made it to the top step and he smiled broadly at her. She took a couple of steps and put her arms around him and kissed him deeply before pulling back and smacking him on the shoulder.
“Don’t you need my help anymore? Sneaking off on your own.”
He kept smiling as he took her in his arms.
“Of course, I do, always. I got carried away and followed the leads I was finding.”
“To Phil’s house and no doubt a boozy night? Again, without me.”
He shrugged apologetically, “Sorry.”
She forgave him straight away, kissed him and led him into the dining room where the boxes of evidence were still piled up on the table.
“Right, are you going to tell me what all this has been about? What has this got to do with Jim and does it take us any closer to finding out what happened to Hazel?”
“No.”
“No, what?”
“No, I’m not going to tell you. Not yet anyway. We can talk about this for a week and get nowhere or we can move and do something.”
“Or get nowhere. Or,” she joked, “we could find Jim a partner. You know like we got Todd and Cheryl back together.”
He held his hands up toward her and laughed despite how stupid he felt at being so wrong about Todd.
“I admit that that wasn’t the finest example of my investigative skills, but it wasn’t a complete waste.”
“Because we found Todd a girlfriend?”
He smiled sarcastically at her, “Because we found the phone. But that’s done now.”
“What are we doing next?”
“You said Jim had returned home.”
“Yes, two days ago. He said he’d been away up near the Hood River doing a survey.”
“Did you tell Alex I’d been talking about Jim?”
“I haven’t spoken to Alex since this morning and you said not to say anything, so I haven’t.”
“Good, we need to go to Alex’s and make sure Jim is there. If he is, we’re going on a road trip.”
“Do I need to bring anything?”
“Like what?” he asked, not understanding what she was saying.
“Like a wash bag, spare clothes. I don’t know how long we may be away.”
“Maybe two or three days. I doubt we’ll be gone more than a few hours but, yeah pack a few things to be on the safe side. Do you have any good boots, walking boots?”
“Yes.”
“Bring them as well.”
She looked at him and smiled, shaking her head slightly.
“Jeez, where are you taking me?” she muttered before going and packing an overnight bag with what she considered essential. Steve had what he stood up in and a small pouch in the bottom of the folio with a toothbrush and some paste. If he needed anything else, then he could buy it along the way.
*****
