Missing, Frank Renzi Book 6

by Susan Fleet

  No blood, no sign of a struggle, but a pair of neatly-folded pajamas lay on the bed. A forlorn sight that tugged at Frank's heart. What happened before ten-year-old Robbie got ready for bed?

  “Okay,” he said. “Show me the master bedroom.”

  Clearly annoyed, Gates said, his eyes cold. “Why?”

  “If Donna took the kids somewhere overnight, she'd pack a suitcase.” And a lot of domestic homicides happen in the bedroom.

  The master bedroom on the first floor looked like a hotel suite, two adjoining bathrooms and two walk-in closets. No blood spatter on the wall-to-wall blue carpeting or the royal-blue wallpaper. But Donna's three-piece set of matching luggage was in her closet.

  “Show me the garage,” Frank said. Another popular location for domestic homicides. The wife tries to escape, runs to her car, the husband whacks her, blood everywhere. He'd seen it happen just last year. The husband had put his wife's body in the trunk and dumped the car in a canal.

  But not while the kids were home. Frank's gut tightened. If Gates killed Donna last night, he didn't want to think about what might have happened to the kids.

  On his way back to the kitchen, Frank said, “You keep any guns in the house?”

  Behind him, Gates said, “I keep them in a gun safe in the garage. Except for this one.”

  Frank turned and his heart did a flip-flop.

  Gates held a revolver in his left hand—his shooting hand as Frank recalled—not aimed at him, but not aimed at the floor, either. It resembled a Smith & Wesson .38 caliber snub-nosed revolver, but Frank assumed it had been manufactured by Hunter Firearms.

  Gates gazed at him, his pale-blue eyes as cold and flinty as winter ice. “I always keep this handy. You never know when some sonofabitch might try something.”

  Frank doubted many would. In his mid-forties, Gates was six-four and rugged, his stomach flat above the silver belt buckle at the front of his jeans, his broad shoulders straining the seams of his shirt. Was this a power-play? Gates testing him to see how he would react? If it was, he didn't like it.

  “Put the gun away and call your mother-in-law.”

  Accustomed to calling the shots, Gates snapped, “Now?”

  “Yes. If you don't want to, I will.”

  “Okay, but it won't be a pleasant conversation.” Gates put the revolver on the kitchen counter, took out a cellphone, thumbed his call list and punched a number.

  Frank stifled a smile, eager to hear what Gates would say to his mother-in-law, the woman who hated guns. Two photographs drew him to a curio-shelf beside the hall doorway. One showed a smiling little girl, Donna and Hunter Gates. In the other, a solemn-faced little boy gazed at the camera. Robbie, Frank assumed. Why wasn't he in the other picture?

  “Hello, Blanche?” Gates said. “Sorry to call so early. Are Donna and the kids there?”

  Frank studied his body language. Stiff and tense, clearly uncomfortable.

  “Call me right away if they do.” Gates ended the call and said, “They're not there. And they haven't been there.”

  “Where's Donna's purse?”

  Gates frowned and went to the kitchen counter. “She usually keeps it here so she can grab it on her way to the garage.” He opened the door beside the counter. “This is the mud room, where we keep boots and raincoats and umbrellas. It leads to the garage.”

  Frank studied the mud room. Nothing leaped out at him.

  “How were you and Donna getting along? Any problems?”

  Gates gave him a toothy smile. “No. Donna's happy, the kids are happy.”

  “What about you? Are you happy?”

  Or did you kill your wife to avoid an expensive, messy divorce.

  “No,” Gates said. “I'm not happy, I'm worried. Someone took them.”

  “There's no ransom note.”

  “So?” Gates said belligerently. “Remember JonBenet Ramsey? They found a ransom note and nobody believed it. And then they found her. Dead.” His face crumpled and he rubbed his eyes. “I don't know what I'll do if they killed Emily.”

  The first show of emotion from the man. Gates cared about his daughter at least. But what about his wife and son?

  “Emily's only five years old! What if some pedophile took her?”

  “You need to fill out a missing person’s report.”

  “No! I'm not filing a police report. I told you that before.”

  Exasperated, he said, “What do you want me to do?”

  “You're a cop. Find them! That's why I called you. Put out a BOLO on Donna's car!”

  Frank massaged his temples. The dull ache had morphed into a full-blown headache. Gates didn't want to file a police report. Frank wasn't going to put out a BOLO without one, but he was worried about Donna. Did she take off with the kids because of the spat as Gates had implied? Or did the spat escalate into violence as many domestic disputes did?

  “If you want me to find them, I need information. Make me a list of your cellphone numbers, yours, Donna's and Robbie's. Your mother-in-law's name and number, the names and numbers of the people who work here, and the names of the people who live on this street.”

  Gates opened a drawer and took out a steno pad. “You're going to talk to my neighbors?”

  “Yes. They might have seen something.” But the first person he wanted to talk to was Donna's mother.

  “When you talk to my mother-in-law, don't let her con you with some cock-and-bull story. I love my wife very much, even if Blanche doesn't think so.”

  “I'll keep that in mind.” The most important thing he'd keep in mind: if a wife went missing, the spouse was always the prime suspect. He'd just tromped through a million-dollar mansion with bright sunny rooms, ten-foot ceilings and a state-of-the-art kitchen: granite counters, custom cabinets and top-of-the-line appliances. But he had a gut feeling something bad had happened here.

  He didn't know what, but he intended to find out. He owed Donna that much at least. Gates said he'd come home at midnight, but Gates hadn't called him until 7:15 this morning. Seven hours later.

  Seven hours to clean up and dispose of any evidence.

  But that was speculation. Gates would never let crime-scene techs into the house without a warrant, and Frank had no probable cause to get one. No blood spatter, no sign of violence, just his gut feeling. No judge would sign off on that.

  He left the house with the list Gates had given him, got in his car and drove off. No way was he taking responsibility if this went bad. He'd grab some coffee and call his boss. When it came to police matters, Morgan Vobitch had no use for politicians and rich businessmen who threw their weight around. The F-bombs would be flying.

  Frank smiled, but quickly sobered. Donna and her two little kids were missing. Were they missing? Or dead?

  CHAPTER 4

  12:15 PM

  Rose Thanh cocked her head when the door of her room opened, hoping it was her son. Announcements from speakers in the hall leaked in behind a pretty young nurse in a starched white uniform. “How you doing, Mrs. Thanh?” she said. Rose believed she was Chinese, but didn't know for sure, the girl making a sad face now, saying, “You didn't eat your lunch.”

  Rose studied the mound of macaroni and orange cheese on her plate, bland and tasteless. If she was home she'd fix herself a tasty bowl of noodles flavored with fish sauce. But the doctor said she couldn't have that anymore. Too much salt, her ankles and legs swollen halfway to her knees.

  She patted her belly, also swollen, and smiled to show her cooperation. “Not hungry today.”

  The nurse nodded, adjusted the pillow behind her head, took the tray and left the room.

  Rose pushed the pillowcase away, starched and stiff, irritating her cheek. Not like her pillowcase at home, soft and comforting and smelling of jasmine. She sank back against the pillow, closed her eyes, remembering the day she and Ma left Saigon in 1975.

  Memories were all she had left now.

  People in America called it the Fall of Saigon. More like the Explos
ion of Saigon, Vietcong shells blasting the city day and night, boom boom boom, making buildings fall, killing people, the whole city stinking of death. Terrified, Rose had covered her ears. She was only seven then. Ma was twenty-three. Pa was already dead, shot four years before by a Vietcong sniper. Ma had showed her his picture, slender and handsome in his South Vietnamese Army uniform.

  Ma's GI friend got them onto one of the last helicopters. Ma had met him at the bar where she worked. He liked Ma a lot and why shouldn't he? Ma was beautiful, long black hair, almond eyes the color of butterscotch pudding, her lips painted crimson, but always smoking smoking smoking. When she was forty-two, Ma had died of cigarettes, cough cough cough, writhing in pain, the cancer eating her lungs. Now Rose was forty-two, dying of booze.

  To cheer herself, she hummed Mack the Knife, hearing the words in her head. Oh, the shark, babe … has such teeth, dear … And it shows them … pearly white.

  Her lucky song. When she was little, Ma sang it to her to put her to sleep. Ma had learned it in the bar from the Bobby Darin record, the American GIs clapping and singing along.

  After they got to America in 1975, someone sent them to New Orleans. New Orleans was great, warm and sunny all the time, and no boom boom boom from the bombs. People in a Vietnamese church found them a place to live with another Vietnamese family, but she and Ma had to sleep in the same room. Ma didn't like that. She wanted to work and earn money, but she didn't know much English, only what she'd learned from the American GIs at the Saigon bar. So Ma got a job at a strip joint on Bourbon Street.

  Pretty soon Ma had enough money to rent a tiny one-bedroom apartment. Rose slept in the bedroom. Ma slept in the living room where she entertained her visitors. Sometimes Rose did too, singing Mack the Knife. Most of them gave her a dollar and told her to go in the bedroom and go to sleep.

  That's why she called it her lucky song.

  And Bobby Darin was her lucky singer. She'd named her son after him. Darin came to see her almost every day. He said he was going to get her a new liver. She didn't know how. The transplant list was very long and they had no money.

  But she didn't say this to Darin. That would make him sad. Darin was a good boy, a hard worker. Before he went to work he would bring her something good to eat. A bowl of noodles maybe, with fish sauce.

  To pass the time, she hummed her lucky song. Oh, the shark, babe … has such teeth, dear … And it shows them … pearly white.

  _____

  Craving a cigarette, Sam Thompson sat at the kitchen table, sipping black coffee, his third cup today. Seated opposite him, S.J.—Sam Junior—was working on his math homework. Only in first grade and they had homework these days.

  “Can I have another box of juice, Dad? Pleeeeze?”

  “Sure.” Sam went to the refrigerator and took out a box of Mixed Berry, recalling what the Gates girl had said this morning when he brought her the Egg-McMuffin from MacDonald's. “Could I have another box of juice, please? Not apple. I like grape better.” So he'd left the room, careful to lock the door behind him, and got her a box of grape juice. When he gave the Gates boy his breakfast, the kid didn't say a word, just looked at him with a scared expression in his dark eyes.

  He put the box of Mixed Berry on the table in front of S.J. “How's the math going?”

  “The addition is easy,” S.J. said, “but the substraction is hard.”

  “Sub-trac-tion,” Sam said, gently correcting him. “Want me to help you?”

  S.J. shook his head, gazing at him with his enormous brown eyes. “No. You always say I should learn to do things for myself.”

  Sam swallowed the lump that thickened his throat and gazed at his son. Smart, bright-eyed, an adorable face and a smile that could light up the Superdome. The perfect child from waist up.

  But six-year-old Sam Junior would never play football like his dad. He'd been born with Spina Bifida, a neurological condition that left his legs weak and useless. He had to use a wheelchair and required round-the-clock care. The first two years Abby had taken a leave from her library job to care for him. Sam's mother helped out occasionally, but Abby's didn't. A lily-white Southern Baptist, she said S.J.'s affliction was punishment from God. Because Abby had married a black man.

  They both worked full time now. Three years ago, Abby had returned to her job, but they had to pay a woman to care for S.J. while Abby was at work. They were always short of money, medical bills piling up, paying insurance on two vehicles not to mention the gas to run them. Abby was a saint. She never complained, but she was always exhausted.

  If they had more money, she could work part time. Last year, he'd bought a handicapped van with a wheelchair ramp, but he was four months behind on the payments. The finance company was threatening to send it to a collection agency. And now S.J. wanted a motorized wheelchair, so he could get around faster.

  They needed money, a lot of money. Not next year, now.

  That's the only reason he'd agreed to this kidnapping deal. But he didn't trust Darin. Darin was hotheaded and impulsive, twenty-four going on twelve, acted like a sixth grader sometimes.

  Sam checked his watch. Abby was grocery shopping. As soon as she got home, he'd help her put away the groceries and drive to Darin's house. If he didn't, Darin might leave the hostages alone. Darin wanted to visit his mother in the hospital before he went to work.

  His stomach burned with acid. If they didn't wrap this up quick, he'd have an ulcer.

  “All done!” S.J. exclaimed, his face wreathed in a smile. “I finished every single one.”

  Sam gave him a high-five. “Good work! We'll show it to Mom when she gets home.”

  He heard the garage door open. A wave of relief swept over him. “Here she is now!”

  _____

  1:15 PM

  When Frank went to the side door of a modest three-story Victorian, Detective Lieutenant Morgan Vobitch was waiting for him, a distinguished-looking man with a thick mane of silvery-gray hair. “Come on in, Frank. Just finishing my cleanup chores.”

  “Sorry to bother you on a Sunday.”

  “Well, it's not like I'm dying to watch the Saints game.” Vobitch filled a ceramic mug with coffee and topped off his own. After working together nine years, they knew each other’s preferences. Frank took the mug of steaming black coffee and leaned against the counter.

  Vobitch rinsed a plate and put it in the dishwasher. “What's this situation you got going?”

  “You know Hunter Gates?”

  “The gun guy? Hunter Firearms?” Vobitch shut the dishwasher and gave Frank his full attention, narrowing his slate-gray eyes. “The city councilman?”

  “That's the one.”

  “There's trouble. Step into my conference room and tell me about it.”

  Frank followed him into a cozy sunlit room with light-oak paneling. A bouquet of fresh flowers stood on a circular table topped with a lacy white tablecloth. Four captain’s chairs with red-padded seats surrounded the table.

  Footsteps sounded and Juliana swept into the room. “Great to see you, Frank,” she said, giving him a hug.

  In their mid-fifties, Vobitch and his wife were a study in contrasts. Vobitch was five-foot-ten, a Sherman tank with attitude who'd run you down if you got in his way. Juliana, a former ballerina, was two inches taller, svelte, slender and graceful. A red blouse complimented her smooth ebony-black skin and large brown eyes. But her most important asset was her calm serenity, a counterbalance to Vobitch's volatility. If a case went bad or the NOPD top brass leaned on him, Vobitch could turn into a raging bull. But never around Juliana. No F-bombs, either.

  “Would you like a piece of homemade apple pie?” Juliana said.

  “Homemade apple pie? Who could refuse an offer like that?”

  “Me, too,” Vobitch said. “With a scoop of maple walnut ice cream.”

  Juliana frowned. “You already had a slice for lunch.”

  Vobitch made his slate-gray eyes go wide. “You want me to watch my pal scarf down apple pi
e and his favorite ice cream—maple walnut—my salivary glands working overtime, my tongue hanging out like a dog—”

  She raised her hand like a traffic cop. “Frank, I believe my esteemed husband is dissembling, as he so often does. Is maple walnut your favorite ice cream?”

  Enjoying the domestic drama, Frank said, deadpan, “I wouldn't bet my detective shield on it. I think maple walnut might be his favorite.”

  Juliana arched an eyebrow at her husband. “Okay, a big slice for Frank, a little slice for you.”

  Vobitch flashed a triumphant smile. “With a scoop of maple walnut.” After Juliana left the room, he said, “So what's this situation with Gates?”

  “He called me early this morning, said it was urgent and asked me to come to his house. Turns out his wife and two kids are missing.”

  “Missing.” Vobitch frowned. “Since when?”

  “Since last night when he got home at midnight.”

  Vobitch turned to the glass-front china cabinet behind him, opened a drawer and took out a yellow legal pad and a ballpoint pen. “Lay it on me.”

  Frank ran it down for him, including the spat Gates said he'd had with Donna last night. “I did a walk-through. No blood spatter, no sign of violence, but—”

  “But if Gates killed his wife and kids, he had plenty of time to clean things up. He's one of the most powerful men in town. You don't do that without being ruthless.” Vobitch curled his lip and said, his voice dripping sarcasm, “Why did our esteemed city councilman call you?”

  “I'm not sure. Maybe because I know his wife. Donna's a news anchor for WWXL. He said she thought I was a good detective. I like Donna, but he can be a pain in the ass. I went to his gun range once to check it out, and he invited me to try one of his handguns, a 9mm pistol similar to a Glock. I think he was looking for an endorsement. He set up a police-qualifier target in a cubicle and demonstrated the gun for me, put fifteen slugs in the kill zone, reloaded and handed it to me.”