“Do you have reason to think something untoward may have happened?”
“Really don’t know. The NOPD’s been notified. I’ll be following up with them soon as I leave here. Just hoping maybe there’s some personal insight I can pick up from the people she works with. Something I can tell the cops they might not already know.”
Rusty expected the mention of police involvement to instill a deeper sense of cooperation within the head nurse. Just the opposite occurred—she retracted in her seat, a distrustful look returning to her face. The flicker of compassion Rusty had spotted a moment before evaporated like a drop of water on a heated stove. She looked angry, as if Marceline’s disappearance hit her as some kind of personal slight.
“As I said, we all knew she’d be taking a leave shortly, which makes her failure to appear all the more disappointing. We’re shorthanded as is, the last thing this ward needs is a no-show caregiver.”
“Is there anyone on the staff she might confide in? Another nurse or doctor she’s particularly close with?”
The head nurse paused a moment, seeming to assess the merit of his question.
“There’s one girl, works part time. She and Nurse Lavalle take lunch together more often than not.”
“I’d love to speak with her. Is she on duty now?”
Another weighted pause, which the head nurse broke by reaching for the phone mounted next to her computer.
“I’ll call for Monday.”
Rusty’s brow furrowed.
“You want me to come back Monday? Can’t we do it now?”
“Her name is Monday,” the head nurse said with an exasperated sigh, as if that should be obvious even to a dimwit like Rusty.
“Oh. That’s unusual.”
“It’s real, printed right on her ID when she interviewed for the job. Don’t ask me why. Druggies for parents, probably.”
“Maybe she was born on a Monday,” Rusty said.
Dialing 9, the head nurse cleared her throat and said, “Nurse Reed, please report to the admin desk. Paging Nurse Reed to the admin desk.”
The phone landed on its cradle harder than necessary, telling Rusty he’d enjoyed as much of her attention as he was going to get. He stood near the elevators, gazing at a glass partition in front of the nursery. An anxious-looking young man, barely out of his teens, pressed his face against the glass and waved timidly.
Rusty heard footsteps. A woman emerged from the nursery and he knew it was the one who’d been paged.
With just a bit of exaggeration in a few key areas, she might resemble a vintage pinup fantasy version of a nurse, the kind that kept the blood of wounded soldiers warm and flowing during times of war. Her hair, pomegranate red tinged with raven tones, was wrapped tightly beneath a prim white cap. Rusty had an intuition it might reach the small of her back when set free to fall unbound.
As she spoke quietly to the head nurse, casting a quick glance his way, he detected the tip of a tattoo peeking above the starched collar of her uniform. The dark ink stood out in bold contrast to the pale skin of her neck.
Let’s focus here, he reprimanded himself as she turned away from the admin desk and approached him. The white shoes on her small feet squeaked softly on the polished floor.
“Let me guess,” she said, her tone flat and notably lacking in warmth. “You’re the magician.”
Rusty required a half-beat to conjure an adequate response.
“Good guess. I’ll hazard one of my own. Marcie must have mentioned me once or twice.”
Nurse Reed nodded a few centimeters in assent. Rusty noticed a delicate cleft in her chin. A small imperfection that somehow perfected her face, whose dominant feature was a pair of large green eyes the shade of spring grass.
“My name’s Rusty.”
“I’ve heard.”
“Well, you know what a sweet girl Marceline is. So don’t believe all the good things she had to say about me.”
“That won’t be a challenge.”
A pause followed that well-aimed jab.
“I’ll get to the point, Nurse Reed. Do you have any idea where she is?”
“No,” Monday answered, and for the first time Rusty heard concern in her voice. “I’m truly sorry to say I have no idea.”
“Is anyone around here worried about her? I didn’t get a sense of that from your supervisor.”
“I’m worried, yeah. Talked to a few of the other nurses about getting a search party together. Her father dropped off some flyers, I’ve been putting them up around here and where I live.”
“I told Prosper I’d do what I can to track her down.”
“Is that something you’re qualified to do? Are you sure she even wants you looking?”
“No. But this feels wrong, and if there’s any way I can give the police some incentive to take her disappearance more seriously, I’m in.”
Monday didn’t reply to that, but the skepticism on her face spoke clearly enough.
“Look,” Rusty said, “you probably know things ended badly between us.”
“She never got too specific about what happened in Vegas. But, yeah, I know you fucked up somehow.”
“What you might not know is she paid me a visit a few months back. It was a shock, believe me. Never expected to see her again, she just showed up out of thin air.”
“I guess a magician should appreciate that,” Monday said with a wry grin.
“We didn’t get much time to talk. And now…Christ, no one knows where she is.”
Monday studied him for a long moment. Rusty sensed she was weighing his sincerity.
“What can I do to help?” she asked.
“Could we just talk for a few minutes? I understand you and Marcie are pretty tight.”
“Yeah, I mean we’re not super close or anything. We take lunch together most days. I’m only here part-time.”
“Anything you can share would be helpful. What’s been going on with her lately…what’s her state of mind…is she worried or excited about the baby? Anything at all.”
Monday cast a brief glance over her shoulder at the admin desk. Rusty followed her gaze. The head nurse stared intently at her computer, but something about her posture made it obvious she was monitoring their conversation.
“I can’t really talk now,” Monday said, turning back to hit him with the full wattage of those green eyes. “Meet me at my other job tonight. It’s a little looser there.”
“Sure thing. Whatever’s best for you.”
“You know Temptations? My shift starts at ten.”
Rusty realized too late he’d failed not to raise a reflexive eyebrow.
“On Bourbon?”
“That’s right,” Monday answered, one hand falling on her hip in a challenging pose that practically begged him to make a smart comment.
“I’ll be there tonight. Ten o’clock.”
“Don’t come till later, unless you want to see the show. I usually take a break around midnight. That’ll be the best time to talk.”
Monday turned back to the nursery. Rusty watched the inverted heart tucked tightly below her uniform’s belt swing like a pendulum as she walked away from him. He knew the head nurse probably noticed his surveillance, and he didn’t care.
Monday stopped and rotated to address him in profile.
“Don’t get your hopes up,” she said in a low voice. “I just serve the drinks.”
8.
Detective Dan Hubbard cleared his throat at length. The sound reminded Rusty of a paper bag being slowly crumpled in a fist. Seated in a metal chair across from Hubbard’s desk, he cautioned himself to stay patient.
The Sixth Precinct Police Station on Rampart had not been designed to induce a sense of comfort, any more for the men and women who worked here than for those brought in as a consequence of bad judgment and worse actions. A squat cement cube three stories tall, it brandished no adornments beyond the obligatory flags of the U.S. and the State of Louisiana.
Detective Hubbard’s off
ice was as dreary as the rest of the Sixth. Blinds covered the sole window behind his desk, allowing in barely a rumor of sunlight. The air felt heavy, unleavened by a small oscillating fan on top of a file drawer.
Hubbard shot Rusty a sideways glance and mouthed the words “my wife.” His desk phone’s receiver was wedged between his shoulder and jowl, the same position it had occupied for the past eight minutes.
Rusty had just seated himself when the phone rang. Hubbard assured him the call would be brief, but a circular wall clock next to the window was disproving that optimistic claim.
“We’ve been over this before, Rose,” the detective mumbled into the receiver. “I don’t condone nepotism. Especially not when it affects my garden.”
Rusty shifted in his chair, deliberately scraping its legs across the floor.
“Tell him not to touch the azaleas,” Hubbard said irritably. “If he can’t be trusted not to butcher the seasonals, he can stick to cutting grass.”
Waiting for the call to end, Rusty’s mind flashed to the last building of this kind he’d occupied. The Ocean City Police Central Station, near his current home in coastal Maryland. He wondered what his old friend Jim Biddison was doing right now. An OCPD lieutenant he’d known since grade school, Biddison played a central role in an ugly multiple homicide case Rusty found himself wrapped up in several months ago. It all got resolved more or less satisfactorily in the end, thanks to some wholly unauthorized measures Rusty had employed to help the OCPD lock up the men responsible for the murders.
He’d surprised himself by discovering a knack for assisting in the investigation while flagrantly ignoring any police warnings that hindered his efforts. Even more surprising was the satisfaction he derived from inflicting his own brand of punishment on some genuinely bad dudes who deserved it.
“Rose, he’s your nephew,” Detective Hubbard droned into the phone. “I’d just as soon hire a competent gardener than toss him the job. All right, you know best. Gotta go.”
He placed the phone on its cradle and stared at the pockmarked ceiling, as if picturing the damage being wreaked on his beloved backyard garden this very moment.
“Sorry about that. American dream, my ass. Home ownership’s more like one long headache spilling right into the next.”
Rusty was about to reply that he didn’t give a shit about home ownership headaches, but Hubbard cut him off by reaching for a manila folder lying open on his desk.
“Man runs a magic shop on Bourbon, right? The father?”
“That’s right. The Mystic Arts Emporium.”
“Seemed like a nice old guy. Something of a local institution, I gather. He was all kinds of worked up about his daughter.”
“Imagine that.”
Hubbard looked up from the report in his hands.
“Still no sign of her?”
“No sign. Today I went over to the hospital where she works. She’s missed four consecutive shifts, which her supervisor says is highly out of character.”
“Well, here’s the thing with missing persons complaints, Mister…”
“Diamond,” Rusty told him, for the second time.
“Here’s the thing, Diamond. People go missing all the time. We get calls to this precinct on a constant basis. Reports of someone who didn’t come home, failed to show up for work, left the kids waiting after practice, what have you. What do we do about it? Not a damn thing, most of the time. That’s because the majority of these cases don’t involve any criminal activity.”
“I understand. But in a case like this, when it’s totally out of character for someone to just disappear—”
“People behave out of character six days a week and twice on Sundays, Diamond. It’s not against the law to take a trip without telling anyone in advance. Rude? OK. Inconsiderate? Sure, but you’d be surprised how often it happens. And you’re looking at me like I just lit a fart in here.”
“Just surprised the NOPD takes such a laid-back approach to someone vanishing. A pregnant woman, no less.”
“Oh, we get plenty involved, any time there’s evidence pointing to a crime. Doesn’t take much to get this department moving, which is more than we’ve got concerning Miss Lavalle.”
“Can you be a little specific about what it would take?”
Hubbard lowered the folder onto his desk.
“We didn’t just blow this off, like you’re thinking. I personally went over to the apartment on Burgundy. No indications of forced entry, all the lights turned off, no sign of her car near the building. In other words, everything to suggest she left the premises of her own free will.”
“So that’s as far as it goes? No further investigation?”
“Her name’s been added to the NCIC database. Vehicle information, too. That means every cop in the nation will see she’s been reported missing, if they happen to pick her up somewhere. You want my advice? Try to be patient.”
“Great. Maybe I’ll look for a needle in the nearest haystack while I’m at it.”
Hubbard leaned back in his chair, producing a squeak from its abused hinges.
“You might take comfort from the fact that the numbers are on your side. Vast majority of people who end up in the database return home of their own will. Most often within four days.”
“She’s been gone five days.”
“It’s not a damn science. I’m talking about averages. Some folks take longer to rejoin their normal routine. And, yes, some never do—for reasons that don’t intersect with criminality on even a passing level. Maybe Ms. Lavalle just decided she’s had it and wants to start fresh.”
“When she’s due to give birth for the first time? Does that seem likely, Detective?”
“I don’t know the woman,” Hubbard answered with a shrug. “Far as being pregnant, that doesn’t tamp down the possibility of her doing a runner. Just the opposite, in my experience. A woman in her shoes might easily make some erratic decisions.”
Rusty didn’t respond, allowing the detective to continue his line of reasoning.
“Look at it, man. Here she is, about to become a single mother. Apparently on bad terms with the man who, well…”
“I’m glad you mentioned that,” Rusty said. “Have you talked to this guy?”
Again Hubbard reached for the report. He flipped a few pages, his finger tracking down a single-spaced sheet.
“Abellard, Joseph. Resident of Vacherie, St. James Parish. No record.”
“Her father says she broke it off with him last month. Seems he’s got a mean temper, not the kind of man who’d respond passively to being dumped by the woman carrying his child. Isn’t he the first person you’d want to interrogate in a case like this?”
Hubbard glanced up to give Rusty a hard look.
“First off, I don’t know what kind of case this is, or if it can even be called that. Second, Vacherie’s in St. James Parish. Well beyond this department’s jurisdiction.”
Rusty opened his mouth to voice a complaint but Hubbard cut him off.
“Hold on. I forwarded Abellard’s info to the Sheriff’s Department in St. James. They sent a deputy over to his place of business…when was it…Wednesday, the 17th.”
“Good,” Rusty said, easing back into the uncomfortable chair. “What did they find out?”
“Nothing to go on. Abellard claimed he hasn’t seen the woman in over a month. That matches what the father says, right? The deputy noted that he seemed genuinely distressed to hear Miss Lavalle’s whereabouts are unknown.”
“Sure. What else is he gonna say, if he knows where she is and maybe doesn’t feel like sharing that knowledge?”
“He admitted they’re estranged. Said he wasn’t mad, intends to provide for the child even if they don’t get back together. Straightforward enough for you?”
“I don’t know,” Rusty mumbled irritably. “Better if they’d taken him in for a formal questioning, don’t you think?”
“On what grounds?” Hubbard let the file drop from his hands in such a w
ay as to suggest he wouldn’t be picking it up again.
Rusty paused before speaking. All morning, he’d debated how much to tell the detective about his late night visit to Marceline’s apartment. Reporting the stranger who’d attacked him seemed eminently sensible, even if he could only offer a scant description. It wasn’t much, but it would bolster Rusty’s assertion that something bad may well have befallen Marceline.
A sense of caution froze the words on his tongue. How exactly could he explain his decision to enter the darkened apartment uninvited at one in the morning? Since he’d first sat down in Hubbard’s office, the detective tossed a series of appraising glances his way that didn’t suggest any positive impressions were taking hold.
But Rusty knew he couldn’t worry about that right now. So he told Hubbard what happened last night, including as many details as he could recall. Once he got to the part about being jumped inside the apartment, the detective picked up a legal pad and started jotting down notes.
“So you broke into the place?” he asked when Rusty finished his account.
“No. Like I said, the front door was unlocked. The guy who broke in left it ajar, probably so he could get out with as little noise as possible.”
“Maybe he had a key.”
“I doubt it.”
“Any signs of a break-in? Was the lock disabled, anything like that?”
“To be honest, I didn’t think to look. It was late.”
“So it’s possible this person was there with Ms. Lavalle’s knowledge, isn’t it?”
“What the hell was he doing, sitting there in the dark? And why’d he jump me?”
“Could be he thought you were a burglar.”
“You should talk to her neighbor. Pete Banning, he got a look at the guy and the car he drove off in. Said it was a Pontiac, that’s all he knew last night but maybe he can remember something else.”
Hubbard scribbled some more notes, then nodded.
“I’ll talk to the neighbor.”
Rusty pulled a piece of paper from his pocket with his cell phone number written on it. He placed it on Hubbard’s desk and said, “I’ll be checking in regularly, if that’s alright.”
“We keep the lights on all night around here. How long do you plan to be in town?”
Blind Shuffle Page 5
