Missing, Frank Renzi Book 6

by Susan Fleet

  Darin wanted him to find out what the cops were doing. The District-8 station was one block away. Kenyon Miller might know, but he didn't want to go in the station to find him. Too obvious.

  Kenyon had steered him into working for NOPD. Eight years ago at an alumni dinner for the LSU football team, he'd run into Kenyon at the bar. Back then he'd been drifting from one shit job to another, just collected his paycheck and went home to Abby. When he mentioned this, Kenyon said, “Why not be a cop? You got a college degree. I'll get you an application.”

  So Sam had filled out the papers, passed the exam, did fine in the training classes and joined NOPD. For the most part, he was happy. He didn't like dealing with drunks and drug dealers and gangbangers, but given his size, he didn't run into many problems, and he got to work paid details for extra money. But after SJ was born, the medical bills were staggering. The insurance paid for some of them but …

  His heart jolted. Kenyon was walking down the sidewalk across the street, headed for the station. Perfect.

  He hustled across the street. “Yo, Kenyon, what's up, man?”

  They were about the same size, Kenyon an inch shorter and ten pounds lighter. He lived two blocks away from Sam. In the summer they got together for cookouts. Abby got along great with Tanya, Kenyon's wife. Kenyon's kids were older than SJ, but they loved playing with him.

  Kenyon smiled and clapped his shoulder. “Hey Sam, good to see you, man. How's S.J.?”

  “Doing great He's in first grade now.”

  “Good for him.” Kenyon yawned and massaged his eyes.

  “You look tired. What’s up? Working overtime?” Praying Kenyon would give him what he needed.

  “Caught a tough case, top priority. Had to work late last night.”

  “Yeah? What kind of case?” A top priority kidnapping case?

  Kenyon rumbled a laugh, his voice as deep as Sam's. “If I told you, I'd have to kill you. Gotta go to work, Sam. Take care.”

  “You, too,” he said, and forced a smile, but his mind was screaming: Bad news, bad news, bad news.

  Kenyon had to be one of the cops that grabbed Darin's flunky!

  _____

  When Frank entered the station, the desk officer, a young black woman, called, “Got a fax for you, Frank.” With a genial smile, she handed him two sheets of paper and said, “Hot off the press. It just came in.”

  “Thanks.” He read the cover sheet. TO: Homicide Detectives Renzi and Miller. FROM: Central Lockup. The next page was a photocopy of a driver's license with a handwritten note: Rashad Bellest, AKA Sweets, made bail at 7 AM today. Frank checked the DOB—11-23-1991—and did the math. Sweets was nineteen. At least they wouldn't get hammered for holding a juvy overnight.

  He turned and saw Claudia Cohen enter the foyer with take-out coffee. Five foot two, eyes not blue. Nice package though, curves in the right places. Last night, she'd been wearing the standard FBI dark suit. Today she had on a slim black skirt and a teal-green top that set off her short dark hair.

  “I didn't know how you took your coffee,” she said, “so I got yours black with cream on the side.” She had a mole at the left corner of her lower lip, a tiny asymmetry in her heart-shaped face.

  “Thanks, but you didn't have to bring me coffee.”

  “No problem. You can get the next one.”

  At their next meeting, he assumed. Not if he could help it.

  He took her to the homicide office on the second floor. David Cho wasn't there, but Kenyon Miller sat at his desk, looking bleary-eyed. Frank settled Claudia into the chair beside his desk, went to Kenyon's desk, scribbled a note on the fax—Call me in 10 minutes—and gave it to Kenyon. “I just got this from the desk officer.”

  Kenyon scanned the fax, deadpan, and rose to his feet. “Good to know, Frank. Talk to you later.”

  Kenyon left the office and Frank returned to his desk. Claudia Cohen, code name CC, crossed her legs. Nice legs. Nice eyes too, dark brown, gazing at him as she said, “I'm behind the eight-ball, Frank. Can you fill me in?”

  He told her about the Sunday morning call from Gates, the ransom notes, the surveillance and the drop. But not what Sweets said about PT, the white male kidnapper who wore his long black hair in a ponytail.

  “Why did Gates call you?” she said. “I got the impression at our delightful early morning meeting that he's not a big fan of yours.”

  Frank liked her sardonic humor, but that didn't change anything. CC worked for the FBI, and Vobitch was right. If something bad happened, the FBI would blame NOPD. “I met him a while ago at his shooting range. But we're not bosom buddies. I barely know him.”

  Claudia sipped her coffee. “What's your impression of him?”

  Alarm bells clanged in his mind. She reported to Walsh, and he was certain Walsh was reporting to Gates. “He's a city councilman, a savvy politician with money, had no trouble getting a million bucks together. That should tell you something.”

  “It tells me he's got money, but it doesn't tell me who he is. I've only been here six months. I don't know anything about the politics in this town. Or the politicians.”

  He didn't want to get into that. Time for a diversion. “When you worked in Chicago, did you ever meet Detective Rico Zeppetella?”

  Her eyes widened. “Yes. Why? Do you know him?

  “His daughter works in the NOPD Domestic Violence unit. Detective Kelly O'Neil.” He decided not to tell her they were involved. No sense giving her ammunition to use against him.

  “Really? I'd love to talk to her. We could compare notes on the Chicago crime scene.”

  He made a mental note to warn Kelly in case CC called her. Getting down to business, he said, “I talked to Donna's mother this morning. She's pretty worried. I told tell her about the ransom demand, but not about the drop.”

  “Why didn't you tell her what happened last night?” Claudia said sharply.

  “She knows Donna didn't do her usual newscast on Monday. If she starts making phone calls, we're in trouble.”

  Claudia frowned. “She's right to be worried. So am I.”

  “Robbie, the ten-year-old, isn't Hunter's son. Donna was married before.”

  Claudia raised an eyebrow and jotted notes in a spiral notebook. “You think it's a parental kidnapping?”

  “No. I talked to the ex-husband. Nicolas Roberts lives in Miami. Donna worked for a TV station there before she got the New Orleans gig. I haven't had time to check his alibi, but it sounded solid.”

  “He could have paid someone to snatch the kid.”

  “So could Hunter Gates.” Feeling her out to see what she'd say.

  “I already considered that possibility. Have you talked to his neighbors?”

  “No.”

  “Why not? They might have seen something.”

  Second guessing him now. Annoyed, he said, “Gates lives at the end of a cul-de-sac. The lot opposite his house is vacant. If the kidnappers took them out through the garage—and I presume they did because Donna's car is missing—nobody would see them.”

  Her lips tightened. “Donna and her two children are missing. We need to talk to the neighbors.”

  Irritated, Frank sipped his coffee. He didn't want to waste time canvasing neighbors. He wanted to find Ponytail and Robbie's father, René No-Last-Name, Donna's former, and possibly current, lover. And finding them would take time, time he didn't have.

  “Believe it or not, I've got other cases. Last week a fifteen-year-old black girl was murdered the day before she was due in court to testify against a drug dealer. He's my prime suspect, but we can't find him. Did you run a background check on Gates?”

  A flush rose on her cheeks. Anger or discomfort, he wasn't sure which. Walsh had a reputation as a tight-assed SOB who micro-managed subordinates. Maybe CC was afraid of him.

  She fixed him with a stern look. “This is privileged so don't tell anyone. Walsh told me not to run a background check on Gates, but I'm going to do one anyway.”

  He was surprised s
he'd told him. Gates must have convinced Walsh to skip the background check. What was he afraid of? There had to be something.

  “Good,” Frank said. “As long as you tell me the results, it’s a deal.”

  She relaxed into her chair, sipped her coffee and smiled. “Did you get any sleep since I saw you last?”

  He realized she was studying the jagged scar on his chin, stark white against the dark stubble.

  “A few hours, got up and came to work, didn't have time to shave.”

  “How'd you get the scar? Line of duty?”

  “No. Got a new bike for my sixth birthday. A kid dared me to ride down a hill no-hands so I did. Bike hit the curb, I went over the handlebars, wound up in the hospital. Ten stitches.”

  Claudia arched an eyebrow. “A daredevil. You started young.”

  He nodded sagely. “Jumped out of my crib at six weeks.” Jiving her.

  But he had no time for jive. Donna and her kids were still missing. With each passing hour, the odds on getting them back alive diminished. He wanted to find Ponytail and Donna's lover, René.

  His cellphone rang. He grabbed it off the desk and answered. “Renzi.”

  “Detective Miller reporting for duty,” Kenyon said.

  Frank sprang to his feet. “Really? Great! I'll be right there!”

  He closed the cellphone and said to Claudia, “Sorry, gotta go. Just got a hot lead.”

  “On this case?” she said eagerly.

  “No, something else. I might be gone a while.”

  “Oh,” she said, crestfallen. “Can we meet tomorrow at noon? By then I'll have had time to review the case.”

  “I'm not sure. I better call you.” Smiling at her, he said, “Maybe by then, I'll have had time to shave.”

  CHAPTER 18

  TUESDAY – 6:30 PM

  At the end of his shift, Sam got in his rusted-out station wagon and sat there, too exhausted to move. Lots of times he pulled late-night details, got home after midnight and did his usual shift the next day, no problem. But lack of sleep wasn't what was killing him. He opened the glove compartment, pulled out his bottle of Pepto-Bismol and took two big gulps.

  His nerves were shot to hell.

  With a heavy sigh, he cranked the engine. Now he had to go home and make some excuse to Abby so he could go mind the hostages. Donna, frantic about her kids, probably had hives worse than ever. Robbie, looking at him when he came in the room, his eyes fearful, too scared to say a word. Poor little Emily, throwing a tantrum, crying and saying she wanted to go home.

  Maybe he'd pick up a treat for them on the way to Darin's tonight. Ice cream for the kids, get one of those six-pack splits of wine for Donna. It might settle her nerves.

  He stopped at a traffic light on Poydras Street, every lane jammed with rush hour traffic, debated having another belt of Pepto-Bismol. His cellphone rang and his stomach clenched. Only two people called his cellphone: Abby and Darin. Bad news either way.

  He punched on and said, “Hello?”

  “You find out anything at the station?” Darin's whiny voice worming into his ear.

  “Not really,” he said. The light changed and the cars ahead of him moved forward. He couldn't tell Darin what Kenyon had said: If I told you, I'd have to kill you. Darin had no sense of humor. He'd take it literally and freak out.

  Silence on the other end as he followed a line of cars inching up the ramp to the I-10.

  “So you don't know what's up with the guy they grabbed with the suitcase?”

  Sam eased onto the I-10, clogged bumper-to-bumper with cars and vans and trucks. “No, I don't.”

  “Well, keep trying. I took the night off from work so you don't have to come here tonight. I gotta figure out our next move.”

  “Our next move is we drop off the hostages and forget the whole thing.”

  “Like hell. Gates fucked with us. No way I'm gonna let him get away with it. I'll send him another ransom demand, tell him we want more money and set it up for tomorrow night.”

  The car in front of him stopped suddenly. Sam stomped his brakes, stopped inches from the asshole's bumper. He clenched his jaw.

  “What if they call the FBI? Kidnapping is a federal crime, you know that? Forget the money. It's too dangerous. We need to let the hostages go.”

  A click sounded in his ear. Sam dropped the cellphone on the seat beside him, opened the glove box and took out the bottle of Pepto-Bismol. This was turning into a nightmare. Darin was a hothead. Stubborn, too. Made up his mind about something, there was no arguing with him. Throw a little coke into the mix, anything could happen.

  He unscrewed the cap and chugged some Pepto-Bismol.

  _____

  6:55 PM

  Rose pushed food around her plate with the fork. Meatloaf, mashed potatoes and sliced carrots. No salt. Bland and tasteless. Darin hadn't come to see her tonight. Usually he stopped in before he went to work with something tasty to eat. Last night he'd brought her egg-drop soup and pan-fried noodles with chicken. Darin was a good boy, worked hard every night to pay the rent on their house in Kenner.

  The door of her room opened and the male nurse came in. She liked him better than the others. She got along with men better than women, and he had a sense of humor. She called him Mr. Peekaboo. That wasn't his real name. The name tag on his uniform shirt said Leonard Picou, but it reminded her of that girl she'd seen on TV, the Olympic skier that won the gold medal.

  The first time she called him Mr. Peekaboo, he laughed, his warm brown eyes crinkling at the corners. He had curly black hair and a kind face, his skin a pale tan color, but lighter than hers.

  “Hi, Rose,” he said, and looked at her plate. “How you doing with your dinner?”

  To please him, she picked up her fork and ate a tiny bite of mashed potatoes. It slithered down her throat like a lump of glue.

  “That's good, Rose. Have a bite of meatloaf.”

  “Okay, Mr. Peekaboo.” He smiled when she said this, so she forced down a bite of meatloaf and put down her fork. “Can't eat any more tonight.”

  “Okay. You did the best you could.” He circled the bed and checked her heart monitor, the one that went beep, beep, beep all the time. How could she sleep with it beeping all night?

  Mr. Peekaboo came around the bed, fluffed her pillow and picked up her dinner tray. “See you tomorrow, Rose.” He smiled at her and left the room.

  She sipped water through the bent straw sticking out of a white Styrofoam container, put the cup back on the table beside her bed and sank back against the pillow, exhausted.

  Beside her bed, the heart monitor went beep, beep, beep.

  She closed her eyes, thinking about Darin. On his sixth birthday she'd given him the photograph of his father. Years before she had asked her girlfriend to take it, saying she wanted a picture of her boyfriend. Standing beside her, he had a surprised look on his face. He wasn't expecting someone to take their picture as they left the bar.

  When she showed it to Darin, his little face lit up, and he danced around their kitchen, saying, “My father? That's my father?” Seeing him so happy filled her with joy. But giving it to him turned out to be a mistake. Darin wanted to know all about his father. “What's his name? What's he like?”

  What could she say? He's a rich businessman who likes rough sex, but he pays good.

  Darin kept the picture on the bureau in his room and kept asking questions, especially on his birthday. Where does he live? Why doesn’t he come to see me? Finally, she told him his father died before they could get married.

  Her secret fantasy that was never meant to be.

  The questions stopped.

  Until Darin showed her the picture in the newspaper.

  She never read newspapers. She hated the ink smell, and the tiny letters hurt her eyes. Figuring out what they meant gave her a headache. But Darin loved reading newspapers, a habit he acquired in high school. He never graduated, but he still read one every day.

  Two years ago, he had shown he
r a picture in the newspaper, a smiling man in a suit and a blond woman in a fancy dress at some party. “Is that my father?”

  Letting her know he didn't believe her story all those years ago, telling him his father had died when Darin kept asking why his daddy didn't come to see him, gazing at her, his dark eyes full of sadness.

  So she studied the photograph. It did look a bit like him, but she couldn't be sure. So long ago. Eighteen years since she'd seen him, all those years Darin searching searching searching for answers. So she'd said, “Looks like him a little bit. What you want for dinner tonight?”

  That made Darin angry. “You don't care, do you,” he'd said, pacing around the room. “He got you pregnant and walked away and left me without a father.”

  Remembering this made her cry. Darin without a father all those years, still searching searching searching. She took a tissue out of the packet on her bedside table and wiped tears off her cheeks.

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

  _____

  Emily wiped herself with the toilet paper Mickey Mouse had given her, got up off the potty and pulled up her pants. Mickey was mean. Worse than Cruella DeVille even. Now he wouldn't let her use the toilet in the bathroom down the hall. She had to use this stupid potty like she was a baby, just out of diapers. It sucked.

  That's what Robbie said when he didn't like something. Not when Mom and Daddy could hear him, but sometimes when they watched TV after dinner and Robbie didn't like a certain show he'd say, “This sucks. Let's watch something else.”

  “This sucks,” she said. But not too loud.

  Not loud enough for the kidnappers to hear her.

  She was tired of staying in this room by herself with nothing to do. Tired of eating yucky TV dinners. Tired of having no one to talk to.

  And she was mad at Daddy. Why didn't he come and rescue her? She'd been here for …

  She couldn't remember how many days she'd been here, but it seemed like forever. Maybe she'd pitch a fit and Donald Duck would come and get her like last time and take her out to the kitchen and let her eat ice cream.