“His name is Detective Merrick. Jimmy Merrick. He’s with the Douglas County Sheriff’s Department.”
I took down his phone number and made a mental note to contact him, then rummaged some more, checking all the drawers. More letters to clients, marketing plans, bills. That was all. Enough to know that Peter made a lot of money, but little else. I opened the thin middle drawer of the desk, pushed around the papers and notepads, uncovering some photos. I pulled them out, four in all. In each one Peter posed with a different woman, and from the backgrounds, in different locations. The women were stunningly gorgeous and appeared to be much younger than Peter. He hadn’t tried very hard to hide his dalliances.
I handed them to Amanda. “Recognize any of them?”
As she looked at them, her breathing became more controlled, heavy breaths coming out of a slit in her mouth. “No.” She slapped them on the desk. “No, I don’t recognize them.”
“You don’t know anything about his liaisons?”
“No. I told you, we pretended everything was normal.” I wondered how she could keep up the pretense when he had so much available time and seemingly so many available women.
“Do you mind if I take these?” I picked up the pictures.
“What do I want with them?” she murmured with a dismissive wave of her hand.
I sat back in the chair and slowly looked around the room, searching for inspiration, something to set off a flame. I didn’t even get a spark. Only the silence of the room, and the low rumblings of a huge, nearly empty house.
“So what do you do now?” Amanda broke the quiet.
I shrugged. “Try and track Peter down through hotel records, that sort of thing. See where this email leads.” I held up the stack of papers.
“If you need anything else, let me know.”
“I do need one other thing.”
She tucked a wave of hair behind her ear, waiting for me to continue. “I’m assuming you have shared credit cards?” She nodded. “Good. I need you to call them or go online and get the transaction information for the past three weeks. I want to know all the transactions, when and where. As soon as you can get it.”
“I can do that this afternoon. Will that be quick enough?”
“Sure,” I said. “You can call me at the office.”
“Is that all?”
I smiled. “For now.”
She leaned against the edge of the desk. “If you’re done here, how would you like to have a drink before you go?”
Was she flirting with me? No, couldn’t be. I tried to look at my watch without looking like I was looking at my watch.
“I know it’s early,” she rushed to explain, leaning forward. “But I’m used to having a cocktail at the club with lunch.”
I caught another whiff of perfume. “No, uh, thanks.” I stood up but Amanda didn’t budge.
“Do you know why I hired you?” She traced a figure eight on the desk. Back and forth.
“Because I can be discreet?”
One side of her mouth turned up in a sexy half-smile. “Yes. And you seem like a nice guy.” A cliché, but it worked. I felt my chest getting tight.
“It’s just one drink.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said.
“Well, maybe another time.” The half smile remained.
I tripped around the desk. “I’d better be going.”
A pout formed at the corners of her mouth. “If you say so.” She continued to trace on the desk. “Will you take a rain check?”
“Sure,” I agreed. And got the hell out of there.
CHAPTER FOUR
My office, creatively named “Ferguson Detective Agency”, occupies two small rooms in a renovated warehouse in downtown Denver, a few blocks from the outdoor Sixteenth Street Mall, the city’s urban heartbeat. The rent borders on outrageous, but I thrive on the lively atmosphere and the burgeoning nightlife in the neighborhood. I also like that I have my very own bathroom; it’s miniscule, but at least I don’t have to run to the end of the hall every time nature calls. Or when I need to splash water on my face.
“Wow. That’s cold,” I said to my reflection in the mirror above the sink in the bathroom. My hazel eyes gazed back, chastising me. I had just successfully averted a liaison with my first client. At least for the moment.
“Focus, Reed. It’s your first case,” I said to my reflection. “You don’t want to emulate all the traits of the movie detectives.” Like having an affair with your client, who also happens to be married.
I dried my face off, feeling more-or-less in control. I tossed the towel on a rung and returned to the office. Okay, what would Bogie do, I asked myself as I paced back and forth.
After a moment I sat down at my desk, grabbed the phone, and dialed a hotel number from Peter’s itinerary.
“Thank you for calling the Hilton Miami. How may I direct your call?” A deep male voice droned.
“I’m trying to track down a friend of mine who stayed there a couple of weeks ago. Could you help me?” I asked. I’ve found that a direct approach usually gets you the information you want, and what better way to verify how far Peter had made it through his trip than to contact the hotels on his itinerary?
“Name please.” This operator at the Hilton in Miami didn’t waste any air.
I figured he was asking for the name of my supposed friend, not me. “Peter Ghering.” I spelled it for him.
I heard some tapping on a computer keyboard. “Yes. He stayed here for six nights and left on November twentieth.” It’s amazing what information can be gleaned from a quick phone call. If you don’t hesitate and sound self-assured, you can get almost anything out of anybody.
I thanked him and called the next stop on Peter’s itinerary, the Embassy Suites Hotel in New York City. “Could you spell the last name, sir?” a friendly female voice requested.
I did and waited while she looked up the information.
“I’m sorry, sir, but Mr. Ghering checked out over a week ago, on Sunday.”
“Did he leave any forwarding information?”
She paused. “No, I’m sorry. Is there anything else I can help you with?”
“No, thanks.” I hung up, dialed the number for the hotel in Philadelphia, and went through the same routine.
“Ghering?” another feminine voice asked. “I show that he checked out on Friday morning.”
“Any forwarding information?”
“I don’t show anything.”
I hung up. So Peter Ghering had made it to Philadelphia, stayed the week, and left. Where did he go? I read through the itinerary again. It showed that Peter had a flight out of Philadelphia International Airport at just past nine in the morning this past Monday. So what did he do over the weekend, and where did he stay? He was probably with a girlfriend, but which one? And why didn’t he use the airline ticket from New York to Philly? Did he not like the puddle-jumpers?
I picked up the phone again and called the number for United Airlines, and after a series of transfers, spoke to a manager.
“This is Abe Avery,” a nasally voice said. I pictured Abe speaking with a clothes pin on his nose. “How may I help you?”
I launched into an explanation about how I was trying to find out if the tickets Peter purchased had indeed been used.
“May I have your name please?”
“Sam Spade. I’m a private investigator.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Spade, but that information is confidential.” His tone implied that I should’ve known that.
“This is a missing-persons case,” I put an imperative edge in my voice. “This man has not been seen since last Friday.”
“I’m sorry, but I cannot reveal that information without a warrant.” His voice droned like an annoying bee. “If you’d like to come down here with that, I’m sure I can help you with what you need.”
The real Sam Spade didn’t have to go through this, I thought. Too bad the airlines weren’t as easy as hotels. I thanked Abe an
yway and hung up.
My stomach growled, noting that feeding time had passed. I glanced at the clock: two o’clock. At least I’d miss the lunch rush. I walked to BD’s Mongolian Grill where a light crowd filled a few tables. Two trips to the make-your-own stir-fry meat, vegetable, and condiments bar filled me up, and I headed back to the office with renewed vigor.
*****
When I returned to the office, I checked my voice mail, hoping that Amanda had called with the transaction information from their credit cards, but there were no messages. I decided to see if I could find out anything about the official investigation, so I picked up the phone and called Detective Merrick at the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, located south of Denver.
“Merrick,” he said pleasantly into the phone. I identified who I was and my interest in the case. “I see,” he said when I’d finished. “I don’t envy you your job.”
“Excuse me?”
“Nothing,” he mumbled. “I really shouldn't divulge any information about our investigation.”
“Could you tell me if his airline ticket was used all the way to Denver?” I knew I’d never get this information from the airlines themselves.
He sighed into the phone. “You could get Amanda to look into that.”
“I could, but I’ve got you on the phone.”
After a long pause, he said, “The ticket Peter booked was used only as far as Philadelphia. Not back to Denver.”
“Did he fly back to Denver on any flight?”
“He wasn’t ticketed on any flight that we know of. That doesn’t mean he couldn’t have taken an unregistered flight, hired a private plane or something like that, but we don’t have a record of that. Now that’s all you’ll get from me.” The line went dead.
I sat back in my chair. Amanda told me that Peter’s ticket wasn’t used from New York City to Philadelphia. Merrick said that it was. Was she getting things confused? Or was she lying to me?
I grabbed the phone again and called Amanda, but after four rings, an answering machine picked up. I hoped that meant she was working on the credit card information. Or maybe she had sought out the drink at the club. As the digital voice instructed me to leave a message, I wondered why Amanda said what she did about the airline tickets. She had some explaining to do. I heard a beep on the line, asked her to call me when she got in, left my number, and cradled the phone.
I pulled out the sheet of paper with Sheila’s email address. I re-booted up my computer, connected to my email, and composed a message to Peter’s clandestine friend.
“Sheila,” I wrote. “Please contact me about P. Ghering. It’s very important. Thanks.” I signed it Reed Ferguson, with my only office and cell phone numbers beneath. Unless Sheila was psychic, she would have no idea who I was. I hoped the mystery would prompt a response, but not create too much curiosity in case someone else read Sheila’s email. After all, I knew nothing at all about this woman. She might be married or in a relationship. I didn’t want to let her secret, however much there was, out of the bag, at least not yet. I’d see what kind of response I got from her first. If this didn’t work, I’d resort to a phone call. I hit the send button. “C’mon Sheila, you’re a curious woman, right?”
I picked up the four photos of Peter and his nameless girlfriends. Was one of them Sheila? I looked at them more closely. They all had the same general appearance, tall, thin brunettes with long, straight hair, and lots of gold jewelry. Smiles adorned their faces as they clung to Peter while he grinned as if he’d just won the lottery. Cookie-cutter girlfriends. And they bore no resemblance to Amanda.
A sound clip I had downloaded from The Maltese Falcon, Bogie's voice, said, “Somebody always gives me guns.” When I heard his voice, I knew I had mail. I opened up the message, a cryptic note from Sheila.
“Who are you and what do you want?” the lone line stared back at me.
“So you want to be evasive,” I said to the screen. “Okay, you asked for it.” I hit the reply button and wrote, “I’m a private investigator. I’ve been hired by Mrs. Ghering to find the whereabouts of Peter Ghering, and I need to know if you have any information about where he might be, or if you’ve seen him in the last three weeks.” I hit the send button.
“You have to respond now,” I said to the screen. “You don’t want to be involved, but now you have to know who I am and if I’m telling the truth.” While I waited, I turned on my MP3 player and selected The Smiths greatest hits CD. I forwarded it to “How Soon Is Now”, sat back down at my desk and sang along. I didn’t make it through the song before Bogie's voice interrupted. Sheila was hooked.
I opened the email. “Please,” it read. “I can’t tell you anything right now. I’ll call you when I get off work, around six, four your time.” I assumed she guessed I was writing from the same city as the Gherings, and that I was in the Mountain Time zone. If she was two hours ahead of me, she lived somewhere on the East coast. New York, Philly, or some other place Peter visited? I responded, telling her to call the office number, and sent the email. I sat back with a satisfied sigh. It was three-thirty. I didn’t have long before I’d hear personally from the mysterious Sheila.
CHAPTER FIVE
At precisely four o’clock, my phone rang. I picked it up after a not-to-appear-too-anxious three rings. “Start talking,” I said in a way I imagined the inimitable detective Kinky Friedman would talk, to the point and don’t waste my time.
“Reed Ferguson?” At any other time the voice would have sounded pleasant, soft and lilting. Right now it sounded like an old beeper on vibrate, all nervous edges.
“And you’re Sheila?” I asked.
A pause. “Yes.” The connection crackled, mixed with the humming of a car engine. “I’m on my way home from work. This is the only time I can talk to you.” No questions about Peter, me, or why I was contacting her.
“Then let’s get right to the point,” I said. “Tell me about Peter Ghering. Specifically about you and Peter.”
“I worked with him on occasion. And before we go any further, how did you get my email address?” A touch of indignation.
“Off of Peter’s computer, at his house. And it wasn’t a business email.” I didn’t mention that she’d left all her business identification on a very personal email.
Silence, long enough, I imagined, for her to mentally review her correspondence with Peter, and to wonder if Amanda had read any of it. I began to wonder if the connection had broken when she spoke, the ire gone from her voice.
“I just said, I worked with Peter. That doesn’t mean a person can’t send a friendly note once in a while.”
How stupid did she think I was? “The tone indicated more than words were exchanged,” I said. “Why don’t you tell me about your relationship with Peter?”
“What do you want to know?”
Now how do you like that! She wanted to play it as if we were exchanging beauty tips. I sat up in my chair, leaning my elbows on the edge of the desk. “Sheila, how long before you get home?”
“What? Uh, in about fifteen minutes.”
“Is there a husband waiting for you there?”
Another pause. “Please, you can’t let him know anything about this. I can’t have that happen.”
“Then answer my questions straight and maybe we won’t have to involve him.” I was all pleasant, but the threat dug deep. “I couldn't care less about your affair. I’m trying to find Peter.”
“All right,” she said, her voice tight. “I met Peter about a year ago. He was doing some consulting work for my company, and he was out here for a week.”
“Where’s here?” I asked.
“Willow Grove. A suburb of Philadelphia.”
“What happened?”
“We worked through the week, and the last night Peter was here, I took him to dinner. It’s standard practice for the company, a courtesy kind of thing. The VP who was supposed to go with us canceled at the last minute, so it was just Peter and me.” I heard the sound of a hor
n honking. “Hey, watch it,” Sheila yelled at another driver, then to me in a quiet voice, “Oh, sorry.”
I relaxed some and smiled. “No problem.” I can relate to rush hour traffic.
“Anyway, we went to dinner, and afterward Peter invited me up to his room for a drink. My husband was out of town, so I said yes. One thing led to another. Do I need to paint you a picture?”
I chuckled. “Your honesty is astounding. Let’s try another question. Have you been seeing Peter since that time?”
“Yes. Whenever Peter came out here, we made it a point to get together.” She seemed smart enough to realize that the email I had read could’ve been dated at any time over the last year.
“How often did he work with your company?”
“Not that often, but we’d get together whenever he came East, not just when he came to Philly. He made trips to New York, Washington DC, sometimes Baltimore. I’d go wherever he was if I could get away, or he’d come here when he finished with his business. Whenever we could work it out.”
“Your husband never suspected anything?”
“No, he doesn’t know anything. He travels a lot, so I have plenty of time on my own.” It sounded like a familiar story. A big, lonely world. Spouses not happy in their current situation. And everybody left to their own devices. Poor babies.
“Did you see Peter on this latest trip?”
“Yes. I picked him up at the hotel on Friday and we spent the weekend at a cabin outside of Philadelphia that my husband and I own. I took him to the airport on Monday morning, dropped him off, and that’s the last I’ve seen of him. I didn’t know anything might be wrong until you emailed me.” For the first time she seemed concerned, but whether it was for Peter or for the possibility of her involvement in his disappearance, I wasn’t sure.
“No emails from him, or phone calls?”
“No, nothing.”
“Have you tried to contact him since then?”
“No,” she said. “Look, I’m almost home. Haven’t I answered enough questions?”
“You don’t seem very upset about all this.”
Reed Ferguson 1-3 Page 3
