Traces of the Girl

by E. R. FALLON

  “I feel like I should fly out there to be there for her,” Peter said.

  “You cannot tell anyone else what I just told you. Do you understand? If you tell someone else, Emily’s life could be in danger.”

  “Oh, God. Why? I won’t say anything. I won’t. She has mental health issues. Did you know that?”

  “Yes, we’re aware of it.”

  “Who told you that? Not many people know that. That prick Addison knows. Of course, that didn’t stop him from—”

  “From what?” Harry felt she knew the answer but as a detective, she needed to hear it from someone first-hand for it to stick.

  Peter didn’t say.

  Harry continued talking to him. “As I said, Emily’s therapist was found deceased in her house. Her doctor’s assistant told us, very vaguely, that Emily has a mental health issue.”

  Peter gasped. “Jesus. Em’s not capable of any crime, especially not murder, if that’s what you’re thinking. How is she?”

  Harry hadn’t told him Emily had been kidnapped. She paused then said, “We haven’t been able to talk to her.”

  “Do you mean, you can’t find her?”

  Harry disliked staying silent. But she couldn’t tell him the Fishers had almost undoubtedly kidnapped Emily because that information hadn’t been leaked to the press and wasn’t public knowledge.

  “She couldn’t have killed her doctor,” Peter spoke with resolve when Harry didn’t answer. “She admired that man greatly. She credited him with helping her.”

  “I’m not really thinking she had anything to do with his death. We have another suspect for that.” Harry couldn’t elaborate. Regardless, she felt Morgan’s assertion about Emily’s innocence in Dr. Tompkins’s murder was truthful.

  “She has a mental health disorder,” Peter said. “And possible PTSD. That’s what she said her shrink told her. I encouraged her to go see him. My sister has a mental illness so I’m experienced. Emily served in the Iraq War, and when she came home she didn’t know where she fit in. She’s a hero. She flew bomber missions and protected the airspace. I never knew a woman who served in the military before I met her. She’s an amazing person. We bought the house – does she still live there?”

  “The place in the woods?”

  “Yeah, that’s it.”

  “She does.”

  “We bought the cottage and land together. We talked about having children someday, but – I’m not sure if she’d want me to tell you this, but because you’re a detective I guess it’s okay – Em had a miscarriage when she was younger – she hadn’t known she was pregnant – and she was afraid it would happen again. I gave her everything after we broke up – the house and the land, and our dog, Sally.”

  Harry didn’t have the heart to tell him the dog had died.

  “I feel like I should get on a plane and go to where you are for her, to help find her,” Peter said.

  “There’s really nothing you can do at this time, Mr. Morgan.”

  “I feel like I owe her.”

  “Because you broke up? Didn’t you just say you gave her everything?”

  “I did. But she was – it’s hard for me to say this – our boss, Addison, the guy you said you met?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Addison sexually harassed her. She confided in me.”

  “Did you tell anyone?”

  Peter paused, and then he spoke as if he was ashamed. “She asked me not to. I think she’d been set up on purpose to fail when she had a near miss with some tourists during a flight lesson. Addison made her give the lesson even though she’d told him she couldn’t fly that day because she’d been drinking the night before. Sometimes she drank a lot. She kind of had a problem with it and was seeing the doctor for that as well. She told Addison that the drinking hadn’t mixed well with the medication she was on for a mental health disorder. I wasn’t there that day, but Em told me she was practically in tears at that point. Do you know what Addison replied? He said that since she’d been well enough to show up for work, she had to fly or else he’d fire her. But he ended up firing her anyway because of the incident. She felt terrible about the whole thing and wanted to apologize to the customers in person but the company wouldn’t let her. I think he just used the incident as an excuse. He set her up to fail. He used her problems as an excuse, as a weapon, against her. He let her keep her pension though, as sort of a payoff, in exchange for her silence.”

  “Did he make her sign anything saying that?”

  “No, I don’t think so. It was implied. He told her he could stop her pension anytime.”

  “Did he have reason to believe she was going to tell on him? I thought you said she asked you not to say anything.”

  “She wanted to say something herself so she asked me not to. I think he forced her out because he felt she would report his behavior to the company owners and then he’d lose his job and his pension. He might have even been concerned because he felt she might go public with it.”

  So that’s why Addison was in such a knot over Emily Will. Harry remembered her own tale of harassment from a superior when she was a young cop just starting out and she felt sympathy toward Emily. It didn’t matter that she had been a kickboxing champ, it still had happened to her, but it was never a woman’s fault. Harry’s harasser had gotten away with it years ago when he’d threatened to derail her career if she spoke out. She swore to herself that she wouldn’t let Emily’s harasser do the same. That explains a lot, Harry thought of her visit with Addison; although she’d had a sense of it during the visit, like that thing with the door lock, she wished she’d known exactly what had happened between Addison and Emily when visiting him so that she could’ve given him a bigger piece of her mind.

  “It’s the reason she broke off our engagement,” Peter said. “Emily was angry with me because I wanted to confront the guy and she didn’t want me to.”

  Harry wasn’t a romantic but even she wanted to believe in love. “So you just left? You didn’t fight for her?”

  Peter sighed. “I know I should have done more. Men like him make me ashamed to be a man.”

  “Most men aren’t like him,” Harry said. Or for that matter like her superior who had harassed her and at the same time held her career in his hands. Because of her first-hand experience Harry also knew how hard crimes like that were to prosecute even if there were multiple victims. It often became a case of ‘he said, she said’.

  “I really feel like I should come there to be there for Em. I should help find her.” Peter sounded panicky. “I can’t believe this is happening—”

  “Please trust me when I say there’s nothing you can do right now. Really. There isn’t.”

  “But when you find her she’ll need support, and I can support her.” Peter seemed to be having a conversation with himself rather than with her, a battle with himself over how he should approach the situation. “I just know she had nothing to do with this.”

  “I believe you.”

  “Maybe I should try to get a flight tonight—”

  “I promise I will stay in touch with you,” Harry said. “And the second I have any news I will tell you—”

  “I have to face the fact that it might not be good news. Isn’t that what you were going to tell me? She might need me, but I’m not sure if I can face her …”

  Harry heard what sounded like sobbing on the other end of the phone.

  “Mr. Morgan?”

  Peter stayed quiet and Harry said again, “Mr. Morgan?”

  “I know what I just said, but after everything that’s happened I don’t think I can face her.” Peter sighed.

  “I don’t know what to tell you, Mr. Morgan. That’s not up to me to decide.” Harry knew she sounded short, but she was a cop, not a counselor.

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “There’s no need to apologize.”

  “But I should apologize. You’re just doing your job, trying to help.”

  “Okay, Mr. Morgan. There’s on
e more thing I need to ask you.”

  “It’s not something terrible, is it?”

  Harry didn’t know how to answer that question so she didn’t. “Did Emily ever mention knowing a Joyce or Albert Fisher?” she asked.

  “Oh, God. This doesn’t sound good. Aren’t those the names of the auction robbers? Didn’t they murder some people? We heard about them all the way out here in California. It’s been all over the news. What does that have to do with Emily? Oh, God. You think she might be with them, don’t you? That’s why you’re calling me. She couldn’t be involved with them. Do you think they killed her doctor and took her hostage? She has a car, and oh, God, because she can fly them—”

  Harry regretted saying anything because she might have said too much and risked Peter telling a third party. He’d pieced it together but Harry couldn’t confirm that for him.

  “That’s not what I said, Mr. Morgan,” Harry spoke in such a way so that she wasn’t lying.

  “What if something happens to her? What if they kill her? And I’ve been such a coward to her. You’re right, I should have stayed and fought for her. God, I loved her so much. But I can’t face her now. I don’t think I can ever face her again—”

  Harry interrupted the conversation Peter was having with himself. “Mr. Morgan? Does she know them?”

  “No, I don’t think she does,” he spoke after a while. “If she did, she never told me. Their names aren’t familiar to me outside of the news.”

  Harry managed to get him off the phone, and part of her regretted the call because she wondered if Peter Morgan would cause problems with the investigation and divulge details to a third party. She was extra cautious ever since the newspaper article was published. But the call with Morgan had given her more background information to help her build a probable victim profile on Emily Will.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Harry left her apartment, making sure the extra lock was secured. Her phone rang out in the hallway, and thinking it could be Peter Morgan calling again, she looked at the screen. ‘Unknown caller’. Leo Green. Again. She was in no mood for this creep screwing around with her today. At the same time, she knew that he wanted her to answer so he could hear her voice. She knew that for a sicko like Green, hearing her voice, her uncertainty, thrilled him. Her ignoring him wasn’t what he wanted so that’s what she would do. She pressed ‘End Call’ and went downstairs. He’d be quite ticked off she’d hung up on him without answering.

  Harry got her car from the parking lot and drove to the fast food place for more coffee to go with the chips she had for breakfast. Then she headed to the station and hurried inside the building, spilling her coffee on her clean white shirt in the process.

  “Crap!” She used the napkin they’d given her at the fast food place to dab at the wet, brown stain on her shirt. It did nothing to erase the spot. Great, now she looked like a slob.

  She threw the remaining coffee out in the trash can by the entrance door. She went upstairs and entered the station.

  Nolan’s office door was open. Carlow spoke on the phone at his own desk. “I have traffic duty tonight,” she heard him saying. Then he made a kissing sound.

  He probably was talking to his girlfriend, Harry thought.

  What about Maple? Harry’s gaze went to her desk.

  Maple sat at her desk. Harry glared at him and made a beeline for the desk.

  “Who said you could sit there?” she demanded.

  “Hello to you too, Cannon,” Maple replied. He moved the paperwork he’d been writing on aside.

  Harry didn’t have time for his games. “I don’t want you sitting at my desk.”

  Nolan left his office and intervened. “I told him he could sit there while you were gone.”

  “There are two other free desks you could’ve used,” she said to Maple.

  “I know, but this one has a more comfortable chair.”

  Rage began to simmer in Harry, and it didn’t take her long to explode. “What is it about you men that you don’t understand this is my desk?” she shouted to the entire room. None of her co-workers in the city would have sat at her desk.

  She knew she’d lost it. In front of her colleagues no less. The entire station. The entire building maybe, for who knew how far her shouting had reached. It was the weight of everything happening at once that finally got to Harry; that Addison creep and him getting away with hurting Emily Will. Her own memories of similar treatment as a young woman. That weirdo Leo Green calling her again. Maple at her desk. And Carlow seated in her desk before that, with his feet up. What was it about these men that they did whatever they wanted? A woman would never get away with doing the same. And then there was the fact that she had thrown away most of her coffee. She really needed that caffeine.

  The station secretary, Bernice, who sat in the back ,got up from her chair to see what was going on. Carlow hung up the phone and stared at Harry.

  Nolan looked stunned. Maple mumbled an apology and got up from her desk with his paperwork in his hand. Carlow seemed to be smiling, which irritated Harry although she didn’t know why because he often smiled in inappropriate situations. He kept gaping at the coffee stain on her shirt, and it seemed like he wanted to make a comment about it and she gave him a look that said, “You better keep your thoughts to yourself.”

  Harry felt embarrassed after screaming at all the men in the room, her colleagues, but she felt it needed to be said. Maple and Carlow used her desk without her permission, and Nolan allowed it. She never sat at their desks. Bernice, a small, older woman with an immaculate white coif whose eyeglasses dangled around her neck, patted her on the back. Bernice never sat at Harry’s desk, and she never sat at Bernice’s.

  “Well said, honey.”

  Harry didn’t mind Bernice’s smile.

  “Us gals have to stick together.” Bernice eyed the men in the room. “All these fellows seem to think I’m good for is making them another pot of coffee.” Bernice had never spoken to Harry until then, except to say hello on Harry’s first day.

  “We appreciate you,” Harry said. She felt guilty she’d overlooked Bernice until then.

  “Have you said everything you’d like to say, Detective Cannon?” Nolan asked.

  Harry thought about it then nodded.

  “Good,” Nolan said. “Now that we got that out of the way …”

  Maple apologized to her again, and Harry, who wasn’t big on huge displays of forgiveness, nodded at him to signal they were okay.

  Beatrice returned to her desk and Harry told the guys about her Peter Morgan call and what Morgan had said about James Addison harassing Emily Will. Both Nolan and Maple looked disgusted at the revelation. Even Carlow made a face like he was appalled over that kind of behavior. And he finally apologized to Harry for sitting in her desk.

  “That Addison guy – no wonder you were so pissed off when you came in,” he said. “I never knew that about him – and my buddy used to work with him. I would’ve done something if I’d known.”

  Harry appreciated his comment and knew he meant well, but a lot of people said things like “I would’ve done something if I’d known” after the fact.

  “Do you think there’s enough to prosecute him?” Maple asked.

  “Maybe. I’m not sure. He’s a big guy. A smaller woman wouldn’t stand a chance.” She looked toward Nolan for advice.

  “It’s always more difficult if it’s a he said—”

  “ … she said type of case. Yeah, I know,” Harry replied.

  Since a similar thing had happened to her she struggled to rein in her emotions. She didn’t want to lose her cool in front of her colleagues for a second time, but a lot of the time it seemed cases like those didn’t get enough attention.

  “You didn’t let me finish,” Nolan said.

  “Sorry, captain. Go ahead.”

  It might have been acceptable for Harry to push back at and talk back to her co-workers once in a while, but she’d have to use more caution around Nolan if she
wanted to keep his respect and maybe even her job.

  “As I was trying to say, it’s more difficult, but it’s not impossible,” Nolan said. “If there’s multiple women, we might have a more solid case against this creep. I can talk to the DA’s office.”

  “Assuming Emily Will survives this ordeal to tell us her story about Addison,” Carlow suddenly said. “God knows the Fishers’ track record isn’t good.”

  “Don’t think like that,” Harry snapped at him. “I’m not a positive person, but even I’m trying not to think that way.”

  “It’s a fact of the job.” Nolan’s words took her aback.

  “I can’t believe you.” Her voice rose and the three men visibly stepped back from her with trepidation in their eyes like she might yell again.

  Reign in your feelings, Cannon. You don’t want them to view you as too emotional again, because then you’ll lose their respect. And no matter how supportive these guys had seemed a moment ago it still wasn’t easy for a woman to earn and keep respect in what was wrongly often still thought of as a ‘man’s job’.

  “Are you all going to give up that easily?” Harry said in a calmer tone.

  Harry didn’t want to get all ‘spiritual’ on them but she did sort of believe that if you thought something bad would happen then it would happen. But she didn’t necessarily believe the same about something good happening.

  “I think she has a chance,” Maple spoke up.

  “Thank you, Agent Maple,” Harry said. “It’s good to know there’s at least one person here who shares my mindset. Yeah, the Fishers could be some of the most dangerous criminals we’ve ever come across but that still doesn’t mean we can’t beat them. I know that nobody here wants me, a city person, telling them what to do.” She looked at Carlow and Nolan. “And I know that some of you might not like my tough talk. But I have to say, in the city I kicked the ass of tons of Fisher types. And Emily Will, she’s such a strong person. That’s what I gather. She’s amazing. They’re not going to break her easily. I really don’t think they know what they’re in for. I think they made a big mistake kidnapping Ms. Will. That’s what we’ve decided, right, they kidnapped her?”