He spread his hands and leaned back. “Anyway, when I showed up at the job site, she wasn’t there.” He shook his head. “She hadn’t been there at all.”
“So she played hooky today?”
“Unh-uh. She wasn’t there Saturday or Sunday either. She hasn’t ever worked for Habitat for Humanity. She’s not even on their list of volunteers.”
Chapter 3
John met Snoop and me at the door. “Penny would be here if she could. Her school’s spring break is a different week than UAC, so she’s at work.”
Michelle’s bedroom was the second door on the right. The heavy scent of perfume hit me before I turned on the light. When I did, it looked like her closet had exploded. “John, did burglars ransack her room?”
He shrugged. “What can I say? Neat, she ain’t.”
Assorted shoes and sandals were piled against the front wall to the left of the door. Textbooks and notebooks littered the bed; more were stacked in a corner of the room. An HD television had a string of Chinese paper lanterns hung across the corner of the screen. Bras and a swimsuit were piled into another corner, joined by a herd of blouses and pants in various colors. One corkboard was covered in photos, a sparkly bow made of translucent red ribbon, posters, some blue first-prize ribbons, and assorted medals hanging from tiny chains. Pictures of wildlife in idyllic settings covered another corkboard. A pile of clean clothes was stacked behind the door. I could tell they were clean because they were folded. I figured Penny had probably laundered them. Three thermal glasses, partially filled with amber liquid, sat abandoned on a night stand next to a one-liter carafe filled with seashells and two scented candles, half-burned.
I turned to John, who was standing in the door. “Snoop and I are not going to do a thorough search. It takes hours to search a room properly.” And this one could take days, I thought. “If Michelle’s in trouble, I don’t want to spend that time right now. We’ll just do a quick-and-dirty for clues to where she might be. But it will still take some time and the room is too small for three people, so you should wait in the living room.”
When he left, I turned to Snoop. “You have two daughters. Why would any woman need three hair dryers?”
“Small, medium, and large? Hell, your guess is as good as mine.”
I smelled the liquid in the thermal glasses. It was some sort of cola diluted with melted ice from the last Ice Age. It must have been diet cola. Otherwise, there would have been mold growing in the glasses. “My god, how can anyone live like this?”
“What can I say? She’s a teenager. You should see my girls’ rooms. They’re just as bad. Maybe it’s their hormones.”
I smiled. “You go through the pockets of every piece of clothing in the closet. Then check the clothing scattered all over the place. After you check a piece, hang it up so we can keep it straight. I’ll start with the bookcase.”
Michelle had a four-shelf bookcase against one wall. The top shelf held a stack of Mother Earth News and another of Rolling Stone. The next shelf had a few dozen CDs I’d never heard of and a portable player. Michelle would have transferred all the CDs to an iPod or smartphone or whatever teenagers use to listen to music nowadays. The third shelf held a half-dozen textbooks. Global Sustainable Energy: Past, Present, and Future. I read the book jacket. “Students will explore the global history of energy sources, both renewable and non-renewable. Renewable energy sources will be investigated and environmentally sound solutions to future needs will be analyzed.” I flipped the pages to see if anything was hidden inside.
The next book was Forests for Florida’s Future. The book jacket promised “Examination of current environmental issues impacting community decisions about Florida forest resources. Each issue will be examined within a framework of human behavior, policy options, and media messages. Students will learn to understand key issues and analyze major ecological variables.” Nothing hidden in its pages either.
I was getting a headache just reading the covers. I didn’t read the rest, just flipped through the pages. The next to last book had a sheet torn off a lined pad with a handwritten note: James 55-22-16. I stuck it in my pocket.
The bottom shelf held more shoes, a stack of coloring books that looked like she’d kept them from pre-school, and a bunch of journals. I made a note about the journals. We could read them later if we needed to. I looked inside the shoes; found a penny in one. Finishing the bottom shelf, I moved to the bed and searched all the books lying there. I placed them on the shelf as I finished. “Snoop, there’s plenty of room on these shelves for these books she’s thrown on the bed. Why doesn’t she put them up?”
“I already told you. She’s a teenager. They think differently.” He grabbed some more clothes off the floor and searched the pockets. “Whoa, what’s this?” He pulled out a three-pack of foil-wrapped condoms from a pair of cargo shorts. “Well, that answers that question. John ain’t gonna like this.” He took a photo, then put the condoms back where he’d found them.
I grabbed all the shoes off the floor and dumped them on the bed for an easier search. I found her stash in the toe of an old pair of sneakers. “Snoop, take a look.”
Snoop opened the baggie and stuck his nose in. “Pretty good quality weed.” He took a picture and handed the baggie back to me. As I finished each pair of shoes, I placed it in the empty shoe rack on the closet floor. “Snoop, she’s got this perfectly good shoe rack. Why doesn’t she use it?”
“Give it a rest, Chuck. You know my daughters. Teenagers don’t think like humans do.”
Halfway through the shoes, I found a yellow pill bottle stuffed in the toe of one. The prescription label had been peeled off. The bottle held six pink pills with OC on one side and 20 on the other. “Snoop, I’m no expert on prescription drugs, but I think these are twenty-milligram oxycodone tablets.” I handed him the bottle.
He opened the childproof cap and dumped a tablet into his hand. He took a picture of it and the bottle, then put the pill back in the bottle. “I’ve seen enough, Chuck. You seen enough?”
“Yeah. Even if she hasn’t run away, she’s in trouble. Let’s go talk to John.”
John was in the kitchen. “Want some coffee, guys?”
“A little cream, no sugar for me.”
Snoop took his black.
“John, we found a couple of things in Michelle’s room that you need to know about.”
He swallowed. “What things?”
“Snoop, show him the first photo.”
Snoop had transferred the photos to his laptop, which he had open on John’s kitchen table.
John looked at the screen. “That looks like a pack of condoms.”
“It is,” I said. “Those condoms are sold in boxes of six. There are three left.”
John frowned. “I don’t know what to say.”
“It is what it is. Snoop, show him the next photo.”
“What’s in that baggie?” John asked.
“Marijuana. Snoop, show him the last picture.”
John looked at the screen. “Is that what I think it is?”
“It’s oxycodone,” Snoop answered.
“Jesus H. Christ.” He put his face in his hands, elbows on the kitchen table.
“John, is Michelle’s phone on your family plan?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“I’d like to pull up your account on the phone company Website. Let’s see what numbers she’s been calling.”
John gave me his login and password.
I set up my laptop across from Snoop’s. “She called three numbers a lot the last week. Sent some texts to them too.” I read off the numbers.
Snoop wrote them down. “I’ll do a reverse lookup.” He punched the keyboard. “Katherine Shamanski is the first one.”
I turned to John. “Do you know her?”
“Nope.”
“No problem,” Snoop said. “I’ll Google her…student at UAC. I’ll check her Facebook page. Shamanski’s a senior, majors in environmental science, just l
ike Michelle.”
I wrote that down. “John, she could be a classmate, but there aren’t many classes seniors and freshmen would both take. You got an address, Snoop?”
“Yeah. I’ll check it on the map…Shamanski’s got an apartment near the campus. The next number is a James Litdorf.”
I turned to John and raised an eyebrow.
“No, I don’t know him either.”
“Maybe he’s the James on this note.” I showed John the piece of paper I had taken from Michelle’s room.
“What are those numbers?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I kept the paper.”
Snoop punched a few keys. “Litdorf is a graduate teaching assistant in, wait for it…environmental science. My god, his picture looks like he’s Taliban, except he’s wearing a peace symbol on a chain.”
John and I looked over Snoop’s shoulder.
“John, you got a printer hooked up to your network?”
“Yeah. Just hit the print icon.”
Snoop printed a copy of the photo. “Litdorf is twenty-seven years old.”
“Maybe he’s a professional student. Where does he live?” I asked.
“A house near campus. Okay, the next number belongs to Steven Wallace…That’s Doctor Steven Wallace. Teaches environmental science at UAC. She’s called him several times a day for the last four days.”
“John, it sounds like Michelle hangs out with an older crowd. Does that seem like her?”
“No. In high school she had lots of friends her own age, but I don’t know any of her friends from college.”
“Oh, wait, some of the calls were Dr. Wallace calling her,” said Snoop.
I asked, “Why would she telephone a professor on the weekend? Especially the weekend before spring break? And why would he call her? Classes aren’t scheduled for another week.”
John set down his coffee. “I have a real bad feeling about this.”
Chapter 4
“Michelle, it’s Chuck McCrary. We met at your grandfather’s Super Bowl party. Call me back when you get this message. Your parents are worried.” I disconnected, then texted her the same message. “That’s all I can do right now, John. Her phone rings at least once, so it’s turned on. She sees who the caller is and then rejects the call. It doesn’t go straight to voicemail like it would if her phone were off.”
“She obviously doesn’t want to talk to either one of us. Oh, geez, look at the time. Penny will be home any second. It’s my turn to cook.”
“John, I’ll go find Michelle.” I grabbed the slip of paper. “I’ve got three names and addresses, all right near campus.”
“Why don’t I just call those other three people—see if Michelle is with one of them?”
I stood up. “I don’t think they would want to talk to you either. Something’s fishy. I can understand Michelle being friends with a senior in the same major. Maybe they belong to the same student club. Maybe Shamanski’s a mentor. But, if you add in an older, male graduate assistant to the mix, it gets a little hinky. Although a student organization would fit the bill. Litdorf or Wallace might be a faculty sponsor. Otherwise, what interest would a tenured college professor have in a freshman woman? Unless he’s a dirty old man. If he’s tenured, he’s probably old enough to be her father. This is a pretty rarified atmosphere for Michelle to be breathing.”
I turned to Snoop. “When you get back home, I want you to research everything you can find on Shamanski, Litdorf, and Wallace.” I grabbed my briefcase. “I’ll check these three addresses personally.”
John shook my hand. “Bring her home, Chuck.”
“She’s eighteen, John. I’ll make sure she’s okay, and I’ll ask her to call you, but I can’t make her come home if she doesn’t want to.”
###
I found Michelle’s car at the second address I checked. She had a Save Our Seas specialty license plate on a very used Honda Civic. A bumper sticker read Today’s Environmentalists Are Tomorrow’s Heroes. At least she believed in something. Maybe she was trying to be the poster child for fashionable campus politics.
Litdorf’s house was a two-story, shingle-sided Craftsman-style house that must have been a hundred years old. It looked every bit its age. A wooden shutter on the second floor hung by one hinge. I could see the original dark brown color of the siding. The rest of the siding had weathered to a hopeless gray/beige. The exposed roof rafters were moldy where the paint had peeled. The composition roof was on its last legs, judging from the number of patches. The square wooden posts that supported the porch roof had warped and split. The front steps had been replaced with concrete ones, now cracked and settled with a large split down one side. Weeds and bare earth had replaced the lawn.
Gentrification had not hit this neighborhood.
I wanted to find Michelle, but part of me hoped she wasn’t inside this ramshackle heap. It was hard for me to think of the bright, sunny girl I had met at Hank’s Super Bowl party coming from John and Penny’s bright, sunny home to stay in this miserable excuse for a house, even for a short while.
I had driven my anonymous white minivan, one of a bazillion others. I parked seventy-five yards up the street and watched the house for a while.
I listened to my stomach growl as a ragged old woman trudged down the street pushing a wobbly grocery cart. Two black plastic garbage bags, containing all she owned in the world, hung from the cart. She stopped the cart, straightened up, and rubbed the small of her back with both hands. She stretched, then pushed aside the overgrown branches of a neglected Ixora bush to retrieve a faded aluminum can. She tossed it into the cart.
I got out of the van when she got closer. “Ma’am?”
She stopped and looked up at me.
“What kind of can was that you just found?”
She looked in the cart and picked it up. “Looks like a Diet Coke.”
“I’ll give you ten dollars for it.”
“It’s only worth about a dime.”
“I’ll give you ten dollars for that can.”
She shrugged and handed me the can.
I gave her the ten, returned to the van, and tossed the can in the litterbag. Maybe she could have a good meal tonight even if I couldn’t.
Another hour passed and the street stayed deserted. I started to miss the old homeless woman. My stomach growled some more.
After the sunset, lights came on in the back windows on the second floor of Litdorf’s house.
I parked my van behind Michelle’s Civic and climbed the concrete steps. The entire first floor was dark. The doorbell was one of the old-fashioned types that you have to twist like winding an alarm clock. I twisted twice and waited. I felt faint footstep vibrations from inside the house, but no one came to the door. After a few minutes, I twisted the bell again. Same vibrations. I had the feeling that someone had come to the upstairs window above the porch roof and looked out at the street. No one came to the door.
I tested the screen door handle. Unlocked. I rapped on the wooden doorframe with my knuckles. It shook like it was barely fastened to the wall. “Hello. Anybody home?” This time I heard the floorboards creak from the upstairs, but no one appeared.
I opened the screen door and stepped inside. I wasn’t breaking and entering—the door was unlocked. I shined my Maglite around the square foyer. Dark-stained, Florida heart pine floors scratched and worn with age. Double-wide pocket doors opened onto a parlor on the left. A wide wooden staircase rose up the left wall of the central hall. I found the light switch at the bottom of the stairs. “Hello. I’m coming up. Anybody home upstairs?”
I was halfway up the stairs when I saw a shirtless man come out of the door at the rear of the house. A peace symbol on a chain around his neck peaked out from behind his beard. Snoop was right. It did look like a Taliban beard. The man closed the door behind him and stood in front of the window at the back of the house.
“Who the hell are you?” he asked, too loudly.
“I’d like to speak to Mich
elle Hickham, please.”
“There’s nobody here by that name, asshole.” His brown eyes were wide and darted back and forth. I wondered what he was high on.
“When will she be back?”
He raised his voice. “I don’t know any Michelle Hickham.”
He didn’t hesitate at the name. It was familiar to him.
I kept climbing the stairs. He was wearing badly frayed, cut-off jeans. Not fashionable cut-offs; just worn-out pants like a homeless person might wear. He didn’t look like any graduate assistant I had when I was at the University of Florida. “Are you James Litdorf?”
“No.”
“Is James Litdorf in?”
He almost shouted. “Who wants to know, asshole?”
“You always this polite to strangers?” I reached the top. Dirty bare feet completed his ensemble.
Beardface raised his fist. “You’re trespassing, asshole. Get the hell outta here.”
“After I see Michelle, I’ll leave. Fair enough?”
“You’ll leave anyway, asshole. Get outta here before I call the cops.”
Mister Hospitality has a limited vocabulary, I thought. “Go ahead, call them. I’ll wait.” I sidestepped to the center of the hall, staking a claim to his space. I leaned against the banister and crossed my arms.
Beardface seemed a little perplexed.
“If you’re not James Litdorf, who are you?”
He didn’t answer. His gaze jerked from side to side across the hallway, passing over me each time like a searchlight.
“I’ll just call you Beardface. Call the cops, Beardface. Or we could be civil to each other. Either way, I wait until I see that Michelle is okay.”
“Shit. I’ll throw you out myself, asshole.”
“Don’t be stupid, Beardface. I don’t want to hurt you. I just want to make sure Michelle is okay.” He was becoming a bore.
He doubled both fists and charged at me like a berserk bull.
I sidestepped and he ran into the banister, smashing his groin. I’d seen people so high on drugs that their pain receptors shut off. His balls would be sore as a boil when he came down off his trip. As high as he was, if I had stood in front of the open stairwell when he charged, he would have tumbled down the stairs.
Quarterback Trap (A Carlos McCrary novel Book 3) Page 24
