American PI

by Jude Hardin

  I eased my way out of bed and padded toward the door naked.

  “Where are you going?” Laurie said.

  “Mind if I use your computer?”

  “Aren’t you tired?”

  “It won’t take long. I just want to look at the email Everett’s ex-girlfriend was supposed to send.”

  “Sure. Go ahead. I think I’m going to call it a night. If you don’t mind.”

  I walked back to the bed and kissed her.

  “I’ll be back in just a little while,” I said.

  “I forgot to tell you, I sewed the buttons back on your shirt.”

  “Thanks.”

  “There was a piece of paper in the pocket. I put it on the little table by the sofa.”

  “Okay. I’ll try not to wake you when I come back to bed.”

  “Goodnight.”

  She blew the candle out as I was closing the door behind me.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I walked to the foyer and put my clothes back on and draped hers neatly over the back of the couch. She’d been wearing panties with tiny pictures of Betty Boop printed on them. I hadn’t noticed them before. I sat by the end table and picked up the piece of paper she’d found in my shirt. It was the receipt I’d taken from Everett’s backpack, the one he’d written his Sibling Boards log-in information on. I’d forgotten all about it.

  There was a steel and glass computer desk against the partial wall that separated the living room from the kitchen. I went over there and sat down and opened Laurie’s Internet browser and logged onto my website. There were four new emails in my inbox. Two from Shelby Spelling, one from Joe Crawford, and one from Bradley Harbaugh.

  I opened the one from Joe first. There was a link to a new Italian place in Atlantic Beach, and a short note asking me if I wanted to meet there for pizza and beer Thursday night instead of playing pool at Kelly’s. I was writing him back, telling him I’d let him know, when I realized it was Thursday morning already. I deleted everything and told him I was too busy to do either this week. I would have to take a rain check, I said.

  The email from Bradley Harbaugh was basically a thank-you note. He told me the retainer check was in the mail, that he still hadn’t heard anything from or about Everett, and that he and his estranged wife were very upset and very worried. My reply was brief. I told him that I was working some leads, and that I wouldn’t rest easy until we knew something.

  There was a document attached to the first email from Shelby. I clicked on it and downloaded it. She must have been keeping some sort of journal all along, because the list of places Everett had been to since their breakup was extensive. There were dates and exact times along with all the locations. It was a nice list, professionally done, and it would save me a lot of time. It made me feel bad that I’d smeared ketchup and Big Woofa sauce all over her windshield. That is, until I opened her second email, which said I’LL GET YOU BACK in huge bold letters. I replied, saying that she should have gone on out and wiped the table off like I told her to, and that it would be in her best interest to just let it go now. Not that she would. Shelby Spelling would get her revenge, no matter how long it took or how much it cost. I knew the type. She wasn’t going to leave me alone until she felt that she’d gotten even.

  I wasn’t worried, really. If she did anything very bad, I would just shoot her.

  I printed the list she’d put together and found a paperclip to bind the pages. I set that aside and logged onto the Sibling Boards, using Everett’s user name and password.

  To my surprise, there were thirty hits. Thirty sibling matches. Everett had sixteen sisters and fourteen brothers, all from the same donor.

  I knew that it took a while sometimes for the matches to load, and that’s why Everett hadn’t seen them himself when he first registered.

  The sperm donor had registered on the site as well, but he’d chosen the option to remain anonymous. He could see the siblings’ names, but they couldn’t see his. The siblings only knew that they were related, and that their father was still out there somewhere. So, even if Everett had been a little more patient and had discovered the brothers and sisters on his own, he still would have come to me to find the father. To make an attempt at finding him, anyway. Like I told Everett from the beginning, it’s nearly impossible to find a donor who doesn’t want to be found.

  One of the siblings, a woman by the name of Stephanie Vowels, had written Everett a note. Everett had never seen it, of course. The last time he had logged on, sometime before he disappeared, the matches hadn’t been loaded onto his page yet.

  I debated over whether or not to open the note. It was really none of my business, and I didn’t see how someone from Cocoa Beach could help me find a young man who’d been abducted two hundred miles away.

  It was none of my business, but curiosity finally got the best of me. The note was dated Saturday, October 18, which told me that Everett hadn’t logged onto the site since sometime before then.

  I read the note:

  Dear Everett,

  I see that you’re new to the site. I am too, and I just wanted to say hello. I’ve written to all the other siblings, but nobody has written back yet. I guess they will eventually. It’s not like any of us are going to hang around here every day, probably, but I think it’s cool that we all know about each other now. Maybe we could all meet in a central location sometime, Kansas or somewhere, and have a family reunion. But then I guess it wouldn’t be a RE-union, since we’ve never met before. Just a union, LOL. Anyway, you and I have something else in common besides the same biological father. We both turn twenty this month. My birthday is today, actually, and I noticed that yours is next Saturday, the twenty-fifth. So HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO US! Take care, Everett, and I hope to hear from you soon.

  All Best,

  Stephanie

  Stephanie Vowels. The name sounded familiar, but I couldn’t think of where I’d heard it before. I thought about replying and telling her that Everett had been missing since Tuesday afternoon, but I didn’t see any point in it. Everett could write her back himself, as soon as I found him. Or, if worse came to worst, she could read his obituary. I hoped that wouldn’t be the case, but I knew it was a possibility. Either way, I was determined more than ever now to find Everett Harbaugh. I’d become as obsessed with knowing his whereabouts as Shelby had been before he disappeared.

  I exited the Internet, grabbed Shelby’s list and a beer from the refrigerator, sat on the couch and switched on the lamp. Edgar the cat stepped out from beneath the end table, yawning and stretching. He looked up at me. I looked down at him. After some deliberation, he jumped on the couch and inspected my left arm with his nose and his sandpaper tongue. He padded around for a few seconds, did a little jive with his shoulders as he extended his claws into the upholstery, curled up beside me and started purring. I guess he thought I was okay.

  I looked over Shelby’s list, trying to decide where to start first. Everett had been to his parents’ house in Orange Park almost every weekend since he’d broken up with Shelby, and he had visited a variety of locations during those trips. He’d gone to Walmart, the AMC theater complex at the Orange Park Mall, Sonny’s Barbecue, Chili’s, Red Lobster, and a bunch of other restaurants, and several times he’d visited someone named Sam who lived in a gated community called Pace Island.

  In Gainesville, he usually went to Albert’s apartment on Tuesday nights. He went there to study calculus and smoke pot with Albert and the girl I’d talked to. Was her name Stephanie? Is that why the young lady from the Sibling Boards website sounded so familiar? I couldn’t remember, and Shelby didn’t have it written on her list. At any rate, I’d already talked to Albert and the girl, and I didn’t figure they knew any more than they’d already told me.

  Apparently Thursday night was a big party night in Gainesville. Everett and some of his fraternity brothers usually went out to a bar on that night. Sometimes several. Everett probably had a fake ID, although I hadn’t found one in his wallet. Even if he
didn’t have one, college kids always know where they can go to get served.

  The list went on and on. And, as I’d somewhat facetiously demanded, Shelby even included the name of the laundry service Everett used.

  Shelby Spelling was a first-rate stalker. I had to give her that. If her career in restaurant management ever went sour, she could always make a decent living as a private investigator.

  She could, really, but after thinking about it for a minute, I hoped it would never happen. There’s enough riffraff in the profession as it is.

  I decided to start first thing in the morning with the friend who lived in Pace Island. It was as good a place as any. Everett’s parents had notified the sheriff’s department, but as far as I knew nobody was calling it a kidnapping yet. It was a missing person’s case, and those garnered about as much attention with police detectives as unpaid parking tickets. So when you got down to it, I was the only one actively searching for Everett. It was all on me.

  I finished my beer, thought about getting another one, decided against it. When I turned the light off and stood up, Edgar raised his head, sleepily perturbed that he didn’t have anything to snuggle next to now. He jumped off the couch and went back to his spot under the end table, and I quietly opened the bedroom door and went back to my spot next to Laurie.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  She woke me up at eleven o’clock and asked me if I wanted some breakfast.

  “I need to drive down to Hallows Cove and get my mail,” I said. “And some clean clothes and my laptop. You want to come with me?”

  “Sure, but I have to be at work at six tonight. So I’ll need to be back here by five.”

  “Not a problem.”

  “Great. And don’t forget, you promised to take me somewhere with all that money you made gambling yesterday.”

  I didn’t bother telling her that there had been no gambling involved. I’d known I was going to win before the guy at the bar screwed his cue together.

  Laurie poured some hot black coffee into two stainless steel mugs with lids, and we left the apartment. We took my car. When Laurie climbed into the passenger’s seat, she picked up the newspaper I’d gotten at Woof-A-Burger and asked if I wanted her to throw it away for me.

  “I still haven’t read the comics,” I said.

  She smiled and tossed the paper to the backseat.

  It was a nice day, sunny and a little cooler. I steered through the parking lot and out of the complex and headed south on the highway.

  Laurie sipped her coffee.

  “I’m ready for my second dose of Nicholas Colt,” she said.

  “This early?”

  “Hey, it’s five o’clock somewhere, right?”

  “I guess that’s true,” I said.

  “Let’s start where we left off. You said your mother died when you were five. Did your father raise you by himself after that?”

  “My father bailed on us when I was three. He got out of the navy, and I guess he decided family life wasn’t for him after all. I barely even remember him. My mother married someone else right away, out of necessity, I imagine. She was a waitress, and she probably couldn’t afford to support us by herself. So after she died, my stepfather was kind of stuck with me. I guess you could say he raised me.”

  “Did you like him?”

  I cracked the window and lit a cigarette. I asked Laurie if she wanted one, and she said no thanks.

  “He was an asshole,” I said. “An abusive alcoholic. But he was all I had. He taught me how to fish, and how to shoot a gun, and that was about it. He was drunk most of the time.”

  “That’s a shame.”

  “I did all right, I guess. The guitar pretty much saved me.”

  “Tell me about that,” Laurie said.

  “There was never anyone around in the afternoons when I got home from school, and there wasn’t much on TV except soap operas. It got really boring sometimes. When I was nine, I started digging around in my stepfather’s closet one day, and I found a cheap electric guitar and a chord book. I sat down and taught myself a few chords. By six that evening, my fingers were sore and blistered and I could strum along with “Your Cheatin’ Heart” on the record player. At least I thought I was strumming along with it. I learned later that I was doing it all wrong.”

  “It was your first day,” Laurie said. “Give yourself a break.”

  “My stepfather didn’t give me a break, I’ll tell you that. He beat my ass when he got home and found out I’d been going through his things. Maybe I deserved it. I don’t know.”

  “Nobody deserves that.”

  “He beat my ass, but he saw how much I loved that old Japanese guitar. He ended up giving it to me a few days later. It was his way of saying he was sorry for the welts on my backside, I guess. He even brought home a set of new strings one day and a beat-up amplifier he’d found at a pawnshop. By the time I was twelve, I was in a band and we were playing dances in the school gym.”

  “So maybe your stepfather wasn’t so bad after all,” she said.

  “That’s what I thought, until he stabbed me in the gut with a steak knife one evening.”

  “What?”

  “I usually tell people the scar on my belly is from an appendectomy, but it isn’t.”

  “That’s terrible. You could have died.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  She was silent for a few beats. I drank some coffee and lit another cigarette.

  “Well, at least you made it,” she said. “Surely that was the worst thing that ever happened to you.”

  “Not even close. But that’s enough about me. If you want to know anything else, you can read the Wikipedia article.”

  “You have a Wikipedia article?”

  I flicked my ash out the window. “You really don’t know who I am, do you?”

  “I guess not,” she said. “But as soon as I can get to a computer, I’m going to find out.”

  I steered into the parking lot of the Hallows Cove post office.

  “I’ll be right back,” I said.

  I left the engine running, got out and walked inside and got my mail. Along with a credit card offer and a second notice from the electric company, there was a check for a thousand dollars from Bradley Harbaugh. I climbed back into the truck, drove to the bank and deposited it.

  “I’m getting hungry,” Laurie said. “You want to stop and get something to eat?”

  “Sure. Let me just run by my place real quick and grab some clothes. It’s only a couple of miles down the road.”

  “Okay.”

  I left the bank and made a U-turn and took a right at the next light. I took another right on Lake Barkley Road, cruised the circle at the posted speed limit, muscled up the hill to Lot 27.

  Everett’s car was gone. The police must have towed it away.

  “This is your house?” Laurie said.

  “Don’t you like it?”

  She smiled. “It’s fine. Just not what I expected from a guy with ninety dollars and his own Wikipedia article.”

  “Wait till you see the inside,” I said.

  “Can’t wait.”

  I killed the engine and we climbed out of the truck. When I went to unlock the Airstream’s hatch, I could see that someone had tampered with it. Someone had pried it open, probably with a cat’s claw or a tire tool.

  And I had a pretty good idea who it was.

  “Shelby,” I said.

  “Huh?”

  “Someone broke into my camper.”

  I opened the door, stepped up and inside. Laurie took my hand and followed.

  “Wow,” she said. “I was expecting a bachelor’s pad, but this is ridiculous.”

  “Ridiculous isn’t the word.”

  The place was totally trashed. Someone had dumped the contents of all the drawers on the floor, as well as everything that had been in the refrigerator. There were clothes and bologna slices and beer bottles and frozen dinners strewn everywhere, and peanut butter had been smeared on the
walls.

  And on the galley table.

  And on my laptop.

  “You think Everett’s ex did this?” Laurie said.

  “Probably. I’m going to kill her.”

  “Maybe saucing the white Fiesta wasn’t such a great idea after all.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh at that.

  “It was still worth it,” I said. “It gave us our nickname for you-know-what.”

  “You can say hot, passionate, unbelievable, once-in-a-lifetime good sex. We’re all adults here.”

  I leaned over and kissed her on the lips, and the horrible mess that surrounded us momentarily dissolved. Unfortunately, it was still there when we opened our eyes.

  “I don’t have time for this,” I said. “I’m going to have to hire someone to come in and clean all this up.”

  “Won’t your insurance take care of it?”

  “What insurance?”

  “Oh.”

  I sifted through the wreckage and found some clothes that hadn’t been soiled with broken eggs or leftover chili or coffee grounds. I stuffed them into a gym bag along with my toothbrush and my jug of Old Fitzgerald. Shelby, or whoever had trashed the place, hadn’t touched those things for some reason.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I said.

  I couldn’t get the hatch to close, so I grabbed a roll of duct tape and secured it with that. The tape wouldn’t prevent anyone from coming along and taking whatever they wanted, but it would at least keep the raccoons and the rain out.

  Before we headed back down the hill, I called Joe Crawford and asked him if he knew of a good cleaning service.