*
“If we just had a name for the group that spirited Marisa and Vicky away it would be a lot easier,” I said to Lucy as we both munched on identical ham and cheese sandwiches in a coffee shop near the hotel. “It’s a bit difficult to get a handle on any sort of inquiry without that. What do we ask people?”
“I know,” Lucy said, “it’s all a bit vague.”
“As soon as we find out where the call came from I think we should head up there. Maybe that would be a better place to look around; wherever it is.”
“Maybe Marisa mentioned the name of the group to Jacky,” Lucy said. “Jacky may not have mentioned it to us yesterday because she didn’t link it to their disappearance.”
“It’s a thought,” I said. “We’ll ask her.” I picked up my cell phone and gave Jacky a call. She was on duty and she picked up.
“Hi Jacky, it’s Kane,” I said. “We spent the morning with Jillian. She told us that Marisa and Vicky left the city with a group of people they met the week before. Apparently they told them they had a commune and invited the girls to go see it. She said Marisa told her they were like some kind of new age hippies, into meditation and stuff like that. Jillian never saw these people, but she said Marisa mentioned the group’s name to her but she can’t remember what it was. I was wondering if she…”
“My God,” Jacky said. “I think I’ve got a picture of her with those people. It’s one of the pictures she sent me during that week – you know, like people do nowadays.
“Stay right where you are;” I said, “We’re on our way.”
“Does she know something?” Lucy said.
“It’s a good thing we thought of calling her,” I said. “Let’s go.”
Chapter Ten
Regenerators
“I should’ve told you about it yesterday; I didn’t make the connection I’m afraid.”
“Well there’s no reason you should.” I said, “it just seems like that in hindsight. So what did she tell you about the group?”
“Nothing; it’s just among a few pictures she sent me during that week and I was looking through them today; just thinking about her, you know.”
“Can we take a look?”
Jacky scrolled through her phone and held it out for me to see. Marisa and Vicky were sitting in front of a low curved stone wall with a galvanized sign with portions of it cut out to make letters that said ‘Missouri State’. In front of them was a group of five individuals sitting cross-legged on the grass. There were two females and three males in the photograph. All of them, including the girls, were wearing colorful tie-dye T-shirts under sheepskin coats. The two girls wore headbands and one of the men was wearing an orange cowboy hat. They looked like they’d stepped straight out of Haight Ashbury in 1967, or had been to a costume shop to prepare for a sixties reunion party. There was something written on the headbands the girls were wearing, but the picture was too small for me to see what it was. It was difficult to judge their ages from the picture, but they weren’t teenagers.
“Are there any more pictures of these people?”
“No, only that one.”
“Can you send it to Lucy’s phone? I need to get a print made and get it to detective Peters in the sheriff’s office.”
“Okay – have you found out anything else?” she said.
“Yeah, quite a bit. We met Jillian this morning and she’s been very helpful. There was a message from Marisa left on Jillian’s answering machine the weekend after they left. The call came from a payphone and we’re checking the location.”
“She didn’t say where they were?”
“No. She seems to have been making the call under duress – it was only a short message to say that she wouldn’t be back for a while. But there was some stuff in the message that suggests she’d already been abducted by then. Give Jillian a call – she’ll tell you about it. We have to get back to Peters’ office with this, and hopefully he’ll have the payphone location by then. Don’t worry, we’ll keep in touch.”
Jacky called us a cab and we went straight to the Sheriff’s Office. I gave Lucy’s phone to him and he asked his staff to download the picture and make a print.
“I’ll say one thing,” Peters said. “You don’t let the grass grow under your feet.”
“I have Lucy to thank for this,” I said. “It was her idea to call Jacky and check to see if she’d heard anything about the group.” Lucy gave Peters one of her ‘it was nothing really’ smiles.
“Well I have some more good news,” Peters said. “We have the payphone location. It’s at a gas station on highway 54 in Cedar County less than an hour north of here. Let me show you.”
Peters pulled out a map and spread it on his desk. “There are two main routes going north,” he said, using his forefinger to trace them on the map. “If we have some luck tracking Marisa’s phone then I’d expect it to show one or other of these. Fortunately, the gas station has CCTV and they should still have footage from that date. The tapes are usually wiped and reused after a month so we’re comfortably within that limit. Hopefully if we get the CCTV we get the vehicle; we get the vehicle we get the culprits. I’ll send over the picture and see if anyone can remember them calling in there, but they may not have done anything except use the payphone. I guess they’ll have been fairly cautious.”
“Where’s the nearest town to the gas station?”
“Cooper Springs,” he said, “about eight miles west. Blink and you might miss it, but that’s not a bad thing. It’s the sort of place where strangers would be noticed.”
“But 54 runs east to west. There’s no way of knowing which way they’d be travelling,” I said.
“Maybe we’ll get a clearer picture when the network’s had a chance to track Marisa’s cell phone,” Peters said.
A young man knocked and came in with half a dozen prints of Jacky’s picture. “Let’s take a closer look at these,” Peters said. They were large prints and I could now make out the words written on one of the girls’ headbands: ‘Regenerators’.
“This is going to make it a whole lot easier,” I said. “If this group approached anyone else around that time then they’ll surely remember. Can you arrange to post this picture on the campus, and the coffee shops around town? Oh, and one more thing: what was the time of Marisa’s call to Jillian?”
“Five-0-seven,” he said. “On the sixth – it was a Friday.”
Lucy and I took the short walk back to the hotel. “Thanks for giving me the credit for the photograph,” Lucy said, squeezing my hand.
“Credit where credit’s due,” I said. “It was a lucky guess.”
Lucy squeezed my hand as hard as she could. “Ouch,” I said. She may not be very big, but she’s as strong as an ox. “If I even thought you meant that I’d devise a cruel and severe punishment for you,” she said; she probably meant it too. “So it looks like we’ll be leaving town tomorrow.”
“No; there’s no point until we get the result of the cell phone tracking,” I said. “I don’t think there’s anything we’re likely to find out at the gas station that Peters can’t find out; and the girls may have been taken to a place far from there. I doubt they’d have allowed Marisa to call from a payphone anywhere near the place she was being held. They must have realized that sooner or later the call might be traced.”
“I think we should at least drive over there to take a look,” Lucy said. “And in the circumstances I think you’d be wise to take my advice.” Her grip tightened on my hand again.
“It’s been two weeks; they could be anywhere by now,” I said.
“Well let’s try and stay optimistic unless or until there’s a reason to think otherwise,” she said.
“Okay, we’ll drive up there when we have some more news from Peters.”
*
Before leaving for Jillian’s place Lucy called Roberts to bring him up to date. She did her best to reassure him that the investigation was going w
ell, but it was hard to mask the fact that we still had no idea where Marisa was and with every passing day the chance of finding either her or Vicky alive was fading. I thought back to the last words he’d uttered before we left him. “Bring her home”. The words were ambiguous; perhaps he realized even then that we might not be bringing her home alive.
When Jillian answered the door Shakes was sitting on the sofa. He looked up at us over half-moon reading glasses and stood up to greet us. He was about forty, six feet tall, clean shaven with black hair pulled back into a ponytail. He was wearing well-pressed beige cotton pants, a white shirt, maroon vest and one of those bolo neckties. He was holding a newspaper and a ballpoint in his left hand and had apparently been doing the crossword puzzle before we arrived.
“Hi,” he said, extending his hand, “I’m Mike.” He read the look on our faces. “I only get to be Shakes on weekends,” he said, grinning.
“Kane,” I said, “and Lucy.”
“Welcome to our humble abode,” he said. “Or welcome back I should say – I understand you were here this morning.”
“Yes, Jillian’s been very helpful to us,” I said.
“Well, have a seat; let me get you both something to drink.” He looked at me and Lucy in turn. “What’s your poison?” he said.
“Whiskey for me,” I said. “Lucy?”
“Surprise me,” she said.
“Honey,” he called over to Jillian who was busying herself in the kitchen, “fix Kane a whiskey, and Lucy here will have a margarita,” he said.
We went and sat down. There were two sofas facing each other with a glass-top walnut table between them.
“I’m sorry to hear about Marisa and Vicky; I hope they’ll turn up safe and sound. Is there anything I can do to help?”
“I don’t think so. We’ve just come from the sheriff’s office. I expect Jillian has told you all about the phone message. They’ve traced the call to a gas station near a town called Cooper Springs in Cedar County. They’re checking the CCTV and they’re still trying to get a fix on Marisa’s cell phone; I’m not sure how long that will take. But anyway that’ll only tell us where they were back then.”
“But we’ve found out more about the people they went with,” Lucy said.
Jillian came and sat down next to Mike. “I’m sorry, I still can’t remember how Marisa referred to them,” she said.
“Regenerators?” I said.
Jillian clapped her hands together. “That’s it,” she said. “How’d you find out?”
“Jacky had a picture of them all on her phone; Marisa sent it to her. Not for any particular reason – it was just one of a bunch of photographs she sent to her that week. We had the picture blown up and printed in Peters’ office and you can read the name on the headband one of the girls is wearing,” I said, handing her the photo.
“Can I take a look honey,” Mike said.
“I remember Marisa telling me that they were into regeneration of the spirit though meditation,” Jillian said.
“So we’re making progress, bit by bit,” I said. “Maybe you can help some more Jillian. Do you know what time the girls left on that Saturday?”
“Right after breakfast,” she said. “They left about nine thirty I guess. They probably took the bus to wherever they’d arranged to meet. I guess they must have arranged to meet about ten. Of course, I don’t know what time they left the city.”
“They would have known that the call could be easily traced, so they wouldn’t want it to be anywhere near where they’d taken the girls, unless they were all on the move elsewhere…then it wouldn’t really matter to them whether the call was eventually traced or not. But it may be that the place where the girls were taken is within range of that gas station. Of course that still covers a lot of ground.”
“But if we’re lucky and the phone company can track her phone we should be able to find out where they took her,” Lucy said. “Unless they seized her cell phone and threw it out the car window,” she said glumly; “but we have to keep optimistic at this stage.”
“I hear you’re a Civil War expert,” I said to Mike during dinner, just to be affable.
“Yes, it’s a kind of hobby of mine. I don’t take it to extremes though,” he said. “I don’t dress up and take part in mock battles or anything.” He laughed to himself.
“That’s only because I won’t let him,” Jillian said.
“Jillian told us that you live near the old battlefield at Wilson’s Creek. I think I’ve read about that somewhere.”
“It was the first major battle fought west of the Mississippi,” he said. “The Confederate army heavily outnumbered the Union boys. Nathanial Lyon became the first Union general to die in combat during that battle.”
“And you’re a member of the Scouts,” Lucy said.
“Founder member,” he said.
“Why the Scouts?’ Lucy said.
“Hah; that’s a long story. Like a lot of names its derivation is somewhat obscure; but Bill Hickok is a bit of a legend around these parts and before the Civil War he was a Union scout. I can’t remember who chose the name now. And I hope you’re not going to ask me about my nickname coz that’s a secret I’ll take to the grave with me. Just say I was a lot wilder in my youth than I am now and leave it at that.”
“But you’re still an active member of the Scouts?” Lucy asked him.
“Oh sure,” he said. “Every weekend we all get dressed up and ride; it’s a lifestyle choice – well not really a choice; I guess it’s something you’re born with. And I’ve got the best buddies in the world in that gang; we’re all like brothers. And sisters too,” he said. “The old ladies like to ride with us. Of course, they can’t become members – we’re not that liberal.”
Jillian gave him a swipe on the arm with the back of her hand. “Eat your food and stop yapping,” she said.
Mike put his hand by the side of his mouth, feigning secrecy, and said in a stage whisper, “She was a Scouts’ groupie when I met her.”
After the meal Mike brought over a bottle of whiskey and poured me a generous glass. Lucy went into the kitchen to help Jillian with the dishes.
“I guess if you can narrow down the area of search and ask around the local community it shouldn’t be too hard to find a bunch of hippies in a commune,” he said.
“Except I’m sure they’re not hippies,” I said. “And there’ll be no commune either; or any meditation. It’s the classic sting; I’ve seen it before. If you want to get the trust of a stranger, especially a young girl you need to present an unthreatening, amiable presence – like Ted Bundy with his broken arm; only his arm wasn’t broken of course. The girls in the group were important too; it’s doubtful Marisa and Vicky would have gone with an all-male group. And then the appearance of beneficence – love, peace, living off the land, meditation and so on. If you look at the picture they stick out like clowns at a crematorium. That was intentional; it was a disguise.”
“I guess you’re probably right; can’t say I’ve ever seen anyone dressed like that around town.”
“But it’ll still be worth seeing if anyone else has any information about them. Peters will distribute the picture and put up some posters. It’s possible someone somewhere will remember something.”
“Well I want you to know that the Scouts are at your service if there’s anything we can do to help locate those assholes; even if it’s just to beat the crap out of them if you find them.”
“When I find them,” I said.
Chapter Eleven
Go Forth and Multiply
We got up early, ate breakfast across the street and then walked to the Enterprise lot and rented a sleek grey Ford Fusion; now there was nothing more to do but sit and wait. Waiting is the worst part of any job. Waiting is when the doubts start seeping through. They say that no news is good news, but in cases of abduction or kidnapping the opposite is true. We’d been lucky with the people we’d met so far though, a
nd Matt Peters was a Godsend. I thought what a thankless task he had dealing with grieving friends and relatives of missing persons day in and day out. I tried to settle down with one of the books I’d brought with me, but I couldn’t concentrate. Lucy was on Facebook, catching up on the aimless gossip that littered her Facebook pages. I decided to go down to the coffee shop just to stretch my legs.
Soon after eleven Peters called; he wanted us over in his office − he had the CCTV footage from the gas station. I called Lucy and we walked over there. Peters hadn’t given any clue as to whether there was anything useful on the CCTV but I assumed there must be if he wanted us to see it.
“I think we may have something,” Peters said as we entered his office. “Maybe not much, but something. Come take a look.”
There was footage from two cameras. It was a small gas station with four gas pumps. One of the cameras was in the small general store which doubled as a pay booth, the camera angled so that you could see both sides of the counter; the other appeared to be above the office door looking over to the four pumps in the forecourt. To the left of the picture was what appeared to be an auto repair and tire shop. Next to that there was the front half of a Cadillac in view.
“According to the owner, Sol Firth, the payphone isn’t within view of either camera, but he was able to confirm that the payphone is located adjacent to where the Cadillac is parked; and it isn’t theirs, so it must have belonged to a customer. Now let’s go back to five-0-two.” He rewound the tape. “Here you can see the vehicle arrive. It stops between the store and the auto shop, but you can only see the hood. The owner said it’s come from the direction of the carwash. Because of its position relative to the camera you can’t see the license plate.” We watched the video recording for several minutes, then we saw someone emerge from the auto shop and approach the vehicle. He disappeared from view and then reappeared about a minute later and went back into the auto shop. “Sol says that guy is their mechanic,” Peters said. “Almost as soon as he goes back into the shop the car reverses and disappears from view in the direction from which it came.”
Missing - Mark Kane Mysteries - Book Five: A Private Investigator Crime Series of Murder, Mystery, Suspense & Thriller Stories...with a dash of Romance. A Murder Mystery & Suspense Thriller Page 7
