Spider's Web

by Mike Omer

  Wallace was a medium-sized man, a bit chubby, with tanned brown skin. He was balding; unlike Jacob, however, he still had a crown of gray hair surrounding the bald spot on his head. His nose, despite the snoring, was quite wide and took up a large part of his face. As he saw Jacob, he smiled and leaned back; his belly made a brief appearance.

  “Cooper!” he said. “What brings you to our humble division?”

  “Hey, Wallace,” Jacob said. “I’m trying to locate a car. It might have been towed from Firestone Drive sometime.”

  “Okey dokey,” Wallace said cheerfully. “Do you have a description or license plate?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know when it was towed?”

  “I’m not even sure it was towed,” Jacob said.

  “Well, that might make it difficult,” Wallace sighed. “I mean, there could have been dozens of cars towed from Firestone Drive in the past year. How will we be able to tell which one you’re looking for?”

  “That’s my job,” Jacob said.

  “It’s just that if I had a more accurate description, I could save you some time.”

  “I know, but I don’t have a description.”

  “Not even part of the license plate number? Maybe a witness saw some of the numbers. Sometimes people notice the strangest things. Did you ask the residents if they saw the car’s license plates?”

  “No, Wallace. No license plate.”

  “Tricky one, huh? Doesn’t make our life easier. Who knows how many cars were towed during—”

  “Can you check?”

  “Sure, sure. It might be difficult, but I’ll check. I mean… it would save us some time if you tried to find some details. But let’s see, maybe we can figure something out.” Wallace swiveled his chair to face his computer. “How is Melissa?”

  “Marissa is fine,” Jacob said. “Doing great, actually.”

  “Glad to hear, glad to hear,” Wallace said, typing slowly with one finger. He was twice divorced, and loved to tell anyone who cared to listen about his divorce woes. “A nice catch, that one.”

  “Thanks. I think so too.”

  “Okay, there were no cars towed from Firestone Drive in the past six months.”

  “None?”

  “Nope.”

  Jacob was incredibly proud of himself for thanking Wallace politely. He returned to the squad room, dragged his chair to Mitchell’s desk and sat down. Mitchell was lost in thought, staring at the screen, and didn’t turn to look at him.

  Mitchell always made Jacob feel a bit old. The young detective was thirty-two, which was twenty four years younger than Jacob. When Jacob had become a detective, Mitchell had been learning to draw with crayons instead of eat them. He was good-looking too, as Jacob had repeatedly been told by his wife, his teenage daughter, and several coworkers. He was tall, wide-shouldered, skinny and muscular, his skin tawny. Unlike Jacob, he had hair, and it was infuriatingly rich and thick.

  And, of course, he had the Lonnie eyes, which all the Lonnie siblings were blessed with: jade green, deep, and perfect. Mitchell’s eyes gave a constant impression of wisdom and sorrow, the eyes of an old soul, well acquainted with humanity’s evil ways. Once, Mitchell had told Jacob this was no accident. He trimmed his eyebrows to make himself look more sorrowful. Jacob wouldn’t have known how to trim his eyebrows even if his beloved wife’s life depended on it.

  Then again, as Jacob had repeatedly proven, he could outdrink the young shrimp three pints to one.

  He cleared his throat. “No car towed from Firestone Drive in the past six months,” he said.

  “Okay,” Mitchell said, turning to face him. “Let’s check the parking lots on Valley Vista Road.”

  They got into their car and drove off. Traffic being what it was, it took them almost half an hour to get to the first parking lot on Valley Vista Road. There were fourteen cars parked there. The key matched the fourth one they checked, a battered blue Chevrolet Cobalt.

  According to the registration, it belonged to Kendele Byers.

  Chapter Three

  Kendele Byers’s car had a small handbag in the trunk, and inside it Jacob and Mitchell found a keychain with two keys, and a wallet containing fifty-seven dollars, a driver’s license, and a credit card. They drove to the station, processed the car and its contents, and signed the keychain out.

  Kendele’s address was registered as 76 Halifax Drive, which was an address in the Halifax Gardens Mobile Home Park, the city’s only trailer park. Though it housed some of Glenmore Park’s more impoverished citizens, Halifax Drive was a clean, quiet street. The trailers were small, beige-colored homes that hid their mobile infrastructure with white wooden bases. At first glance, they all looked the same. Same walls, same windows, same roofs. But on closer examination, the differences popped immediately. One was surrounded by circular pots containing various small trees. Another had custom-made red drapes on its windows. Most of them had tiny front yards, which ranged from immaculately tidy to jungle of death.

  Kendele’s trailer was pretty much bare, and looked as if it had just been bought and placed, except it was a bit dirtier than the trailers that surrounded it.

  The smell inside was slightly stuffy. It reminded Mitchell of the way his own apartment had smelled once, after he had returned from a long vacation. The space was surprisingly roomy. The open-concept kitchen had a breakfast bar over which one could look out onto the living room. In the living room, a worn gray couch faced a small television set, with a battered coffee table between them.

  The sink was mercifully empty. Mitchell had once entered the house of a woman who’d gone missing two months before. A few dirty plates had been left in the sink with some food leftovers. By the time the police had gotten there, the entire thing was infested by maggots and flies to the extent that it was hard to look at—not to mention the smell.

  There was a small black laptop on the coffee table. It was unplugged, and when Mitchell tried to turn it on the screen remained dark. He located the laptop’s cable under the table and plugged it in, then followed Jacob into the bedroom.

  Kendele seemed to have been quite orderly. Her clothes were hung neatly inside her closet, a small shabby dresser sitting underneath them. A red sweatshirt lay on the bed, and Mitchell guessed that she used to wear it at night when she went to sleep. He noticed her phone on the bedside table. Like the laptop, it was unplugged and dark. The charger lay on the same table. Mitchell plugged it in as well. He had a moment of unease, as he always did when he went through a dead person’s things. What would Kendele have felt, knowing two strange men would be pawing through her meager belongings after she died, prying into her life? Mitchell doubted she’d like it.

  Jacob was checking the bathroom. He opened the small closet above the sink and scanned the interior.

  “Cymbalta,” he said. “That’s an antidepressant, right?”

  “Yeah,” Mitchell said.

  “Several boxes here.”

  Mitchell glanced inside. The bathroom was small and didn’t really have room for both detectives to stand in it comfortably. Like the rest of the trailer, there was a layer of dust and dirt on everything, but in the white Fluorescent light of the bathroom it was a lot more pronounced. He noticed a small laundry basket with some shirts, pants, and socks on top.

  Mitchell turned away. He wanted to check the phone and the laptop. If there was interesting information to be found, it would be on them. He made sure both were really charging, then went to the kitchen, where he methodically checked all the cupboards and drawers, but found nothing of note. He opened the fridge, and the situation there was not as horrid as it could have been. There were some rotting vegetables in the vegetable drawer, and a distinct smell of food gone bad, but it didn’t look like this fridge had been abandoned for months. He glanced at the milk’s expiration date. Three weeks ago. When would Kendele have bought this? Five weeks ago?

  He returned to the bedroom. Jacob was looking at the open closet, frowning.

&nb
sp; “What?” Mitchell asked.

  “Pants,” Jacob pointed. “Shirts, short-sleeved and long-sleeved. Some skirts. Three dresses. Sock drawer. Another drawer with bras and two pairs of pantyhose. The shoes are on the bottom. See anything strange?”

  It took Mitchell a few seconds. “No underpants,” he finally said.

  “Right.”

  Mitchell thought about the laundry basket. He went to the bathroom and emptied the basket on the floor. No underpants there, either. He returned to the bedroom.

  “Weird,” he said. “Maybe she went commando.”

  Jacob shook his head. “Nah,” he said. “She had underpants on when we found her, Annie told us so.”

  Mitchell tried to think. Would someone have taken the underpants away? But the closet didn’t have an empty shelf, and the drawer with the bras seemed full. He looked around the bedroom for another place to hold them.

  “I think this bed opens up,” he said. He went to one edge and lifted. The entire bed frame rose, revealing a small storage space. Inside were some boots, a couple of additional dresses, three handbags, and two big boxes. One was taped shut, the other was open. It was half full of underwear.

  “That’s… interesting,” Jacob said. He got the open box out of the bed, put it on the floor, and sifted through the contents. “There are maybe a hundred pairs here,” he said.

  Mitchell started looking as well. The underwear were in all colors and all shapes. There were bikini briefs, G-strings, thongs, boyshorts, and even several that looked as if they belonged in someone’s grandmother’s closet. He got the second box and tore open the lid. More underpants. All of them were brand new.

  “Who the hell needs so many underpants?” he asked.

  Jacob shrugged. “Maybe she had a weird phobia. Didn’t want to wear the same pair twice.”

  “Could be,” Mitchell said. “I’ve never heard of anything like that.”

  “We learn something new every day.”

  Mitchell went over to the phone and turned it on. He waited patiently as the Android operating screen showed up. To his relief, the phone was unlocked. There was no e-mail app on it, which he found unusual. He opened the last calls. Some incoming calls from unrecognized numbers, one call from someone named Leon, some calls from Debbie, two from Vernon. Last outgoing call was to Debbie, four and a half weeks ago. He checked the contact list, which was depressingly short. Kendele did not have a very active social life.

  He scanned the messages. Several “Call me” and “Why aren’t you picking up, call me” messages from Debbie. A message from a tourist agency advertising a lake somewhere, with an image depicting it, and three messages from someone selling a newspaper subscription.

  Finally, on July 20, four weeks before, a conversation between Kendele and Leon. Just random bits of information. Kendele asked him how he was, Leon said he was better, Kendele wrote that she would love to see him sometime soon, Leon wrote that he hoped to have some days off on Christmas. He called her “sis” in one of his messages.

  Eventually the messages ended with several increasingly worried messages asking Kendele why she wasn’t answering her phone, and finally a message sent a week ago, saying that if she didn’t answer him right now he’d call the police and report her missing. Mitchell wondered why he hadn’t. Maybe because Leon knew she was actually dead, and was just covering his tracks with those messages?

  Mitchell decided to check the phone more thoroughly once he returned to the office. He went back to the living room, where Jacob was checking one of the kitchen drawers. Mitchell had already checked them, but it wasn’t like there was anything else to rummage through.

  “I have an outgoing message from her phone on July 20,” Mitchell said.

  “Okay.”

  “She was probably alive then.”

  “Probably.”

  Mitchell turned on the laptop. After several seconds, Windows came up. Once again, no password. There was a Thunderbird icon on the desktop and he double clicked it.

  “Woah,” he said.

  “What is it?” Jacob asked.

  “She wasn’t leading a very exciting life according to her phone, but her inbox is bursting with incoming e-mails. From dozens of different e-mail addresses.” Mitchell scanned them. “Most are almost certainly men,” he added.

  He looked at the subjects. Some mentioned a package that hadn’t arrived yet, or an order placed. There were several subjects which contained the word “subscription.” Two seemed incredibly desperate—all caps. One asked WHERE IS MY PACKAGE??? and another said PLEASE REPLY I NEED SOME MORE.

  “I think she may have been a drug dealer,” Mitchell said, scrolling down. He reached the read e-mails. Last e-mail read was on July 20.

  “Why?” Jacob asked.

  “Just those e-mail subjects… Hang on.” He clicked one of them, with the subject Order Details.

  It was quite short.

  Hey pantyGirl, I would like to order the following:

  1. Two blue G-strings, worn for a whole day

  2. One regular pair, worn at night, never mind the color, surprise me ;-)

  3. One regular pair, red, worn while running, at least twice.

  Please send it to the same address, and send me the invoice. I think the order totals up to 210$ right? Because last time I paid 40$ extra for every run.

  Thanks, and have a lovely week!!!

  Mitchell glanced at Jacob, who was inspecting the window. “She wasn’t a drug dealer,” he said. “She was selling her used underpants.”

  Captain Fred Bailey was leaving work early. He was supposed to pick up his son from daycare, and this time he was determined not to be late. He didn’t want to face the angry stare of the daycare teacher again, not to mention his son’s disappointment and sadness. Sid had a knack for asking questions like “Why did you pick me up after everyone left and I cried?” and “Why am I always the last to go home?” Which made Fred feel bad for days. Not anymore.

  He left his office through the squad room. Jacob and Mitchell were there, standing by one of the whiteboards. Fred paused behind them and cleared his throat. Both detectives turned around.

  “Hey, Fred,” Jacob said.

  “How’s the case going?” Fred asked.

  “The victim’s name is Kendele Byers,” Jacob said. “She lived in the trailer park. We came back from there about an hour ago. The trailer park manager said she moved in there in January.”

  “Moved in from where?”

  “She didn’t tell him. He said she was very quiet and kept to herself. First three months she was late to pay the rent every month, and he almost kicked her out. Then, in April, she paid four months in advance.”

  “So she came into some cash,” Fred said.

  “Well…” Jacob said. “She found a lucrative job. She was selling her used underwear online.”

  “Seriously? Does that pay well?”

  “According to what we can see from the PayPal invoices she started receiving, she was making about a hundred and fifty a day,” Mitchell said.

  “Huh,” Fred said. “Well, like my father used to say, there are all sorts of zebras in the herd.”

  “Indeed,” Jacob said, and pointed at the printed map they’d taped to the whiteboard. “We found her car here. Last communication she had on her phone and her e-mail account was on July 20.”

  “So we assume she died afterward,” Fred said.

  “Annie just called to say that she and Matt pinpointed the date of death to sometime between the 19th and 22nd,” Jacob said.

  “All right.”

  “She may have been drowned in Buttermere Pond,” Jacob said.

  “So… drowned and then buried?”

  Jacob nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Did we notify the family?” Fred asked

  “We think we have the phone number of the brother,” Jacob explained. “A guy named Leon. We didn’t call him yet. She didn’t seem to be in contact with her parents.”

  “Maybe they’re d
ead,” Fred suggested.

  “Maybe,” Mitchell said, “but Annie thinks Kendele was abused as a child, so that might have something to do with it.”

  “Any suspects?”

  “Not really.” Jacob shrugged. “There are some leads that we need to check. She had one friend named Debbie. And then there are her customers.”

  “Do her customers know where she lives?”

  “Not as far as we could tell,” Jacob said. “Also, most of them live pretty far away. Some don’t live in the United States, one lives in Texas, one in California. But one lives in Boston.”

  “What a happy coincidence!” Fred said. “My father would say he was close enough to feed the neighbor’s chicken.”

  “Right,” Jacob said. “His name is Ronnie Kuperman. We plan on giving him a surprise visit tomorrow morning.”

  “Do you know where he works?”

  Jacob shook his head. “Nah, we’ll wake up early, ahead of traffic, be at his doorstep by seven.”

  Fred glanced at Mitchell, who seemed pretty glum at the prospect of getting up so early. “Well,” he said. “You two are certainly eager to follow this thing. Do you need Bernard and Hannah’s help?”

  “I talked to Bernard an hour ago,” Jacob said. “They’re investigating the rape case down at Silverleaf Lane, right? There’s no point in pulling them off the case. This murder is cold, and we don’t have too much to go on right now. We’ll see how it develops.”

  Fred nodded. “Okay. Keep me updated.” He glanced at his watch. “Damn,” he muttered. He could already imagine Sid’s eyes as he asked, “Why are other daddies never late to pick up their sons?”

  Jacob called Leon several times, and sent him two text messages before Leon returned his call.

  “Hi,” Leon said, his voice soft and slightly feminine. “This is Leon Byers? I understand you were looking for me?”