Douglas and Tallow exchanged concerned looks. What could have happened to make her so frightened that she wouldn’t talk in public?
“Sure. We’ll wait,” Douglas said.
Douglas stood and watched while Aarin hurriedly totaled up the cash in the register. Tallow motioned that he would be right back and ran off the way they had come. He reappeared with two soft pretzels in hand, a grin on his face. He took a bite.
“Two for the price of one because they were closing,” He said around a mouthful of parmesan encrusted pretzel. “Gosh, it’s been a long time since I had one of these. Want a bite?” He held out the second pretzel. Douglas shook his head, not taking his eyes off of Aarin. “Aggie?”
Agatha nodded and Tallow tore off a piece for her. She stopped knitting long enough to stuff it in her mouth. “Not bad,” she remarked.
“That’s pretty much what I thought,” Tallow agreed. “It’s not quite as good as I remembered, but it never is, is it? How about you, Aarin?” Tallow asked, handing the remainder of the pretzel out to the teenager. “You want some?”
“Just empty carbs,” Aarin said with a shake of her head. She logged off on the work laptop and locked it away inside the kiosk. Then she turned back to face them.
“Can we talk now?” Douglas said.
She glanced around again. Douglas wondered who she was looking for. “It’s kind of out in the open. Can we go somewhere else?”
“We can go out and talk in my car,” Douglas suggested.
Understandably, she hesitated at the idea of getting in a car with two grown men she didn’t know very well, even if one of them was a cop.
“Don’t worry, they’re not creeps. At least I know my dad’s not,” Agatha assured her. “This guy I’m still not sure about.”
“Hey!” said Tallow around another mouthful of pretzel.
Agatha’s presence seemed to convince her. “Okay, I guess.”
They headed back through the now quiet mall. Only the occasional workers locking up their stores remained. When they walked out through the outer doors of the food court, the sun had just set. The parking lot street lamps had kicked on, casting pools of shadow around the remaining cars in the mostly-emptied parking lot. Aarin looked around nervously, feeling exposed as they walked toward their car.
They climbed in Douglas’ car. Tallow and Aarin took the back seat while Douglas and Agatha got in the front. Despite the lateness of the day, it was hot and muggy inside. Douglas started the car and cranked the air conditioning. Warm, moist air blew from the vents. It had a faintly soured new car smell. Douglas took his notepad out and turned sideways in his seat so that he could face her.
“Okay Aarin, we are alone,” Douglas said. “No one can hear you. The windows are tinted so no one can see you. Tell me what happened.”
She glanced around the car. Tallow sat expressionless, watching her, both hands resting on the handle of his cane. Agatha sat facing forward, hunched over her knitting in the light of the street lamps, focused on an intricate spot. Aarin swallowed and began nervously fidgeting with a large skull-shaped ring on her middle finger. It took a lot of willpower for her to get started talking, but once she did, it came out in a rush.
“You are right. Asher was helping me with something. I uh, had this friend. She was a straight-A student, never missed a class or anything. Then one day she misses school. Two days, three days go by . . . anyways, we were trying to figure out where she was.”
“Wait a minute,” Douglas said. “You friend goes missing and you go to Asher for help? Why him? Why not the police?”
“No offense, Mr. Jones, but I’m not real comfortable around cops,” she said. “They take one look at me and think I am the problem. Besides, Asher came to me. He wanted to help.”
Asher taking on a missing person’s case? Alone? Douglas was once again shaken by how little trust his son seemed to have in him. Why hadn’t Asher spoken to him about something like this?
“What was your friend’s full name?” Douglas asked, pen at the ready.
Aarin cleared her throat. “Polly Ann Roberts.”
“Oh, you’re talking about Polly!” Agatha said, nodding to herself. “Asher totally had the hots for her. But she was out of his league.”
Aarin shot a puzzled glance towards the front seat where Agatha continued her focused knitting. She shrugged. “Yeah. She was cool, but she was also a cheerleader and totally into the football type.”
“Not Asher’s thing,” Tallow observed.
“No,” she agreed. “But I saw the way he looked at her. I think he liked her because she was nice to him. There were a few times the jocks were messing with Asher and she made them leave him alone. When she was gone for a while he was worried about her too. That’s why he came to me about it.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, how did a girl like Polly and you become friends?” Tallow asked. He hadn’t moved the entire time she was speaking. His eyes bored into her. “It doesn’t sound like the two of you hung out in the same circles.”
Aarin averted her eyes, unsettled by Tallow’s gaze. “Polly and I grew up together. I mean, she lived just across the street and everything. We have always been close, even though things changed over the years and . . . well, we don’t have as much in common anymore.”
“Aarin,” Douglas said. “If Polly was missing for so long, why weren’t the police involved?”
“They were,” she said. Aarin leaned back against the seat, arms and legs crossed. The look she gave him was an accusing one. “It’s just that given her circumstances, they didn’t take her case very seriously.”
“What kind of circumstances?” Douglas wondered.
“They were poor. Her dad is an alcoholic,” she said bitterly. “Her mother died when she was young. It was all pretty sad. The cops thought it was an obvious runaway case.”
“They do seem to like jumping to that conclusion,” Tallow said, sending a glance Douglas’ way.
Douglas frowned, but he couldn’t summon any anger towards Tallow for the remark. His uncle was right. The circumstances were sounding eerily close to the way Asher’s case had been treated. He was getting more and more frustrated by the lazy police work in these cases. Still, he couldn’t completely fault the local cops for coming to that conclusion.
Evidently, Tallow’s thoughts were running in the same direction because he said, “Is it possible that the police are right in her case, though?”
“There’s no way!” Aarin said. Anger had replaced the anxiety on her face. She leaned towards Tallow, gesturing emphatically. “Polly had plans for the future. College. Scholarships! She took care of her dad. She never complained. He never beat her. He wasn’t an angry drunk. He wasn’t an abuser. He loves her. He just . . . sucked at being a dad.”
“All right then.” Tallow raised his hands in a calming gesture. “I believe you. What I don’t understand is why you are so frightened.” Tallow cocked his head. “What happened that has you so on edge?”
Aarin leaned back, folding her arms again. The fear returned to her eyes and she glanced outside. “Are you sure no one can see me? I mean, someone might have seen me get in the car. I . . . it looks suspicious to just sit here. Can we drive while I talk?”
Tallow nodded. “Sure we can. Douglas, why don’t you take us for a drive?”
Douglas grunted, a bit irritated at being told what to do. He was the real detective and this was his case after all. But he didn’t want to suggest that Tallow drive his car so he did as suggested. He put his notebook away, faced forward, and started the car. They pulled out of the parking space and started circling the mall.
“Please tell us what happened. From the beginning,” Tallow said.
She bit her lip. “Alright, so Polly goes missing. Days go by and since I don’t see her at school I get worried and call her dad. He doesn’t answer so I go over to her house. No one comes to the door, but it’s not locked so I go inside and . . . her dad’s passed out on the couch.” She rubbed a
t her mouth with her hand, smearing her black lipstick. Aarin looked at the black smear on her finger as shadows flickered through the car from the street lights they passed. “I . . . get him awake and he like has no idea what’s going on. He doesn’t even know Polly hasn’t been at school. He thought she was just busy at work. She had this new job you see.”
“A new job?” Douglas asked, thinking of the note in Asher’s journal. A strange suspicion began to grow in his mind.
She blinked and wiped her finger on her skirt. “Yeah. Polly got a receptionist job at this travel agency in a bad part of town. She liked it. It was slow. She had lots of time for homework. I went down there to pick her up once. Ugly place.”
Douglas gritted his teeth. This was starting to come together and he didn’t like the direction it was going.
“What happened next?” Tallow prodded.
“I called the agency. This real rude guy got on the phone and was like, ‘there ain’t nobody here workin’ by that name,’” Aarin said in a strange hillbilly accent. She snorted. “It was BS you know? So I went down there myself . . .” She shifted in her seat and swallowed. The air conditioning had kicked into full gear by now and it was cool inside, but she was sweating. Douglas could see it through the rear mirror even in the bad lighting.
“Fear sweats,” Tallow said, echoing his thoughts.
“What?” Aarin said.
He shook his head. “Nothing. Go on.”
She stared down at her lap and fiddled with the spiky bracelet on her wrist. “I decided to go down there myself. I skipped algebra and drove down there and . . . It was creepy. Some weird chick was sitting there in Polly’s spot. I asked about Polly and she just cocked her head and gave me this look.”
“Describe her to me,” Douglas said.
“Uh . . . red hair, wide eyes, pink business suit. There was something about the way she smiled. It was . . .” She looked confused, as if it was hard to remember.
“Like her teeth were too big?” Douglas said.
She shuddered. “Yeah.”
“Really?” said Tallow, shooting Douglas a look.
“I think that same receptionist was there the day I caught Asher in the travel agency,” he explained, remembering the unease he had felt at her smile.
Aarin swallowed. “Yeah, well she just sat there grinning at me. I got pissed. I was like, ‘Hey, I know Polly worked here. I saw her in this building in that same exact chair!’ But the lady still didn’t say anything. She just kept grinning and reached under her desk. I think she pushed a button. You know, like you see in those movies when there is a bank heist and there is like a button under the desk that calls the police? Except I wasn’t robbing nobody. I just wanted to find out where Polly was.”
Aarin was on a roll now. She was animated, her eyes darting between Tallow to Douglas. The words she had been so reluctant to speak gushed forth from her like water from a broken dam. She no longer sounded tough and angsty like the goth girl she appeared to be. Her voice sounded more like how Douglas heard other teenage girls talk.
“I’m like, ‘Hey, why don’t you say anything to me?’ and she says nothing. That freaky grin just gets wider. Then a door opens in the back and this beefy dude gets out and stands next to the door. He was one of those mean and stupid looking guys. You know, stupid-mean, like a tough guy in a gangster movie. He wore a suitcoat and I thought, that’s the kind of guy that carries a gun in a shoulder holster.”
Aarin paused for a moment, licking her lips. “Then in walks another guy. But he’s short. I mean, like way short. Like shorter than me.” She pointed to Agatha. “Like barely taller than her.”
“That’s way short,” Agatha agreed. She hadn’t stopped her knitting and Douglas hoped she wasn’t paying all that close attention. This wasn’t the kind of story he wanted her to worry about.
Aarin nodded. “Yeah. I’m not trying to be mean, but he was like a midget or a little person or whatever. Except he was wider and beefier. Like way out of proportion wider.” Aarin spread out her arms. “But not fat wide. Like muscly wide. Like-like a bodybuilder that got cut in half.” She looked at them all again as if daring them not to believe her. “Totally weird, right?”
“Weird,” Tallow agreed. But he didn’t look like he thought it was weird. His eyes were full of concern, like he knew something.
“So anyways, this huge little person bodybuilder dude comes in, and he like had to come in sideways so he would fit through the door, he was that wide. Anyways, he walks in and sits in the chair next to the freaky grin receptionist lady and he leers at me. He was creepy-looking. He was balding on top but he had like this crazy big cowboy mustache. And he was missing teeth. He gave me this look like the bad guy in a western movie gives somebody when they’re about to tie them to a train track.
“And he talks like a freaking western movie hick too. He’s like, ‘Hello darlin’. You got a problem?’ And I’m like totally freaking out. But I was still pissed so I was like, ‘Yeah, my friend Polly was working here and she has gone missing. You guys are acting like you’ve never seen her before. I just want to know where she’s gone.’”
Douglas thought that the girl might have gone completely crazy, but in the rearview mirror, he saw Tallow nod solemnly and say, “Brave girl.”
“Well, I was pissed,” she said in agreement. “But then he says, ‘Girl, you best done forget about your friend. I ain’t never seen her, but girls your age, sometimes they go missin’.’ He said it all creepy and cowboy bad-guy like. I start to back away but the receptionist lady, I don’t know how she did it, but she was behind me all the sudden.”
Aarin’s eyes were haunted as she continued, “She grabbed my shoulders and her fingers were strong and her nails were sharp and they dug into my shoulders. She pushed me forward until I was pushed up against the desk. The midget guy leaned forward, like inches from my face and he’s like, ‘Lots of girls go missin’. I suggest you go home and forget all about this so’s it don’t happen to you.’ Then the receptionist makes a sound next to my ear, like those big teeth of hers were snapping together. Then she finally lets me go.”
Aarin’s voice sounded raw and she shivered as she spoke. The fear in her voice sent a shiver down Douglas’ spine and he realized that he was starting to believe her. Her story was strange, but he knew how fear twisted people’s perceptions. The thing he didn’t understand was why he couldn’t make himself dismiss the strange parts.
“Then I’m ready to get out of there and as I’m leaving, he says, ‘we’ll be watchin’ you.’” Her teeth were chattering and her face was pale. Sweat was still beaded on her brow. “C-could you turn the AC down?”
“Sure,” Douglas said, and he turned the air conditioning down a notch.
“I’m done!” Agatha declared. She turned in her seat and held up her finished project, a gray woolen cap with intricate cabling. “It’s not perfect. But I think it looks pretty good.”
The distraction knocked some of the fear from Aarin’s eyes and she gave Agatha a weak smile. “Yeah. Cool hat.”
“Thanks!” Agatha beamed with pride. Her arms then fell to her sides. Her nose wrinkled in indecision. “Ugh . . . What do I work on next?”
“Aarin,” Douglas said. “If we brought you into the precinct, do you think you could describe the people you saw to our sketch artists. Maybe pick them out of a line up?”
“I-I don’t know. See, they really have been keeping an eye on me, I’m sure of it.” She leaned forward and whispered, “Sometimes I swear I see that receptionist lady. You know, like out of the corner of my eye.”
Douglas was pretty sure that this was just hysteria talking, and opened his mouth to suggest so, but Tallow seemed to sense it coming and cleared his throat.
“I believe you, Aarin,” he said. “But if these people had you this scared, why did you talk to Asher?”
Aarin looked down and began fidgeting with her bracelet again. “I wasn’t going to talk, and I refused to for a while, but . . . he
wore me down. See, Asher was a friend of sorts to me. I mean, he never hung out with my group or anything, but we were both outcasts to an extent and he always treated me good. Also, Asher . . . he had a reputation.”
“A reputation for what?” Douglas asked.
“He was a guy that solved problems. If there was a mystery around school, Asher always figured it out,” she said. “Kids would even get his advice on things sometimes. Besides, I knew he would help cause he liked Polly so much.”
“I see,” Douglas said. “So he convinced you to bring him to the travel agency and see if he could find anything out?”
“Well yeah,” she replied. “I was real worried about him going in there after what happened to me, but he convinced me he would be smooth about it. He wasn’t going to let on that I had talked to him or anything. So . . . I just parked a block away, but where I could still see him when he came out. I was so scared, I thought that lady might come out and see me.”
“Instead, I showed up,” Douglas said.
“Look, when I saw you come out with him, I was relieved but I was also freaked out. I mean I was relieved that Asher was okay, but freaked that he got caught. I didn’t want to be caught too, so I got out of there.” She started to cry.
“So you think these same people had something to do with Asher’s disappearance?” Tallow asked, though from the look on his face, he already had made his own conclusions.
Aarin nodded as she sobbed. “I called him later that night, just to find out what happened and he tried to get me to take him back again. I was like, ‘No way.’ But he kept insisting and I . . . I finally hung up on him.” Tears streaked down her face in long lines of black mascara. “Th-that’s the last I saw or heard from him. I-I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry I didn’t come forward. I was too freaked to tell the cops anything. I mean, ever since that night, I swear I see that lady everywhere.”
Tallow pulled a clean handkerchief out of his jacket’s inner pocket and held it out to her. “We understand, Aarin,”
Douglas didn’t agree. If his feelings were right and what she said about the people at the agency was true, they could have acted on this information weeks ago. But the girl was hysterical. Right now wasn’t the time to yell at her.
Tallow Jones: Wizard Detective (The Tallow Novels Book 1) Page 6
