Chapter Two
The Finneys arrived together in separate cars. Hers was a shiny new Volvo. His was a shiny new Bronco.
He was about five-ten and looked as if he did a lot of jogging. His brown hair was sun-streaked, his skin tanned to a golden bronze. He looked like a health spa ad but there was a tension in his movements that made me think his first coronary wasn't too far in the future.
She probably looked better first thing in the morning before she got the make-up on. Her nice brown eyes were overpowered by bright blue eye shadow and the lashes had to obstruct her vision. Her hair was over-bleached and cut in a bluntly-cropped style all the teenage girls were currently sporting. The white one-piece thing she was wearing over a turquoise tank top was designed to look like housepainters' overalls but the legs were short-shorts length. There was a hint of softness beneath the overalls and although her arms and legs were slim, there was no definition of muscle. I suspected she got her perfect tan from a tanning salon and her slimness from chronic dieting.
He was Jason. She was Lily. They both read my T-shirt during the introductions. Lily smiled at it. Jason didn't. While his wife checked out my legs, he checked out the office. The small room was neat and clean and smelled faintly of pine cleaner. There were two captain's chairs in front of the big oak desk and a padded swivel chair behind it. The remainder of the furnishings consisted of plants, way too many plants, most of them suspended from the ceiling.
Jason raised his eyebrows at Tom's ten-speed, which I had parked beside the door. His wife raised her eyes to my thighs. I went behind the desk and gestured toward the two chairs in front of it. We all sat down. Lily's gaze moved to my chest. Her mouth was slightly open and she ran her tongue back and forth across the bottoms of her top teeth.
Her husband said, “You seem to be the only private investigator in town.”
“Yeah, I am. I expect to be hit with an antitrust suit any day now.”
Lily laughed. Jason had no sense of humor. He looked at all four walls, probably checking for a no-smoking sign, then pulled a cigarette out of a pack in his shirt pocket and a thin gold lighter from his pants pocket. He lit up. I scooped the paper clips out of an ashtray and slid it across the desk to him. Lily crossed her legs and checked out my shoulders, her eyes darting rapidly from side to side.
Jason exhaled smoke and said, “I assume you can give us references.”
I pulled a paper out of the file drawer in the desk and handed it to him. He glanced at the list of law offices and insurance companies for which Arrow Investigations investigated.
“What about… uh… private clients?”
“They're private.”
“How much do you charge?”
I looked out the window where at least fifty thousand dollars' worth of wheels were adding a touch of class to the neighborhood. I gave him a second sheet of paper, this one giving a detailed explanation of my fees.
Lily said, “Aren't you supposed to say two hundred dollars a day plus expenses?”
I smiled at her but she didn't notice. She was finding my biceps fascinating. “I will when I get a series,” I said.
Lily was easy to amuse. Jason made a sarcastic sound. I assumed he had already figured out just how much of my time two hundred dollars would buy. He continued to look at my fee sheet. Lily looked at my forearms. I looked at the two of them. They hadn't looked at each other since they'd walked in the door.
Jason took a final deep drag on his cigarette and knocked the ash off in my paper clip holder. A spiral of smoke faded en route to the ceiling. The silence stretched out. Jason drummed his fingers soundlessly against his thigh. Lily continued her anatomy studies. I wondered what she would do if I told her I wasn't wearing any underwear. I wondered what Jason would do. I cleared my throat.
“You folks want me to look for your daughter?”
Jason's jaw dropped. Lily actually looked at my face for a moment. I'd have to send flowers to Marilyn. Maybe that was sexist, maybe I'd just stop by the answering service and slap her on the back.
“How'd you know that?” Jason immediately looked sorry that he had asked.
I shrugged. “I'm a detective.”
He shifted up on one hip to get at his lighter and lit another cigarette. “God damn small towns anyway,” he said. “Why can't the little bitch think about someone besides herself once in a while?”
“Jason,” Lily said, without looking at him. There was a bit of warning in her tone but she didn't put much energy into it. Jason ignored her. I had the feeling Jason spent a lot of time ignoring her. Probably just as well though. Her eyes were half closed, her head tilted slightly back. Unless I missed my guess completely, Lily was in the middle of a sexual fantasy.
I asked if they had filed a police report. They had.
“They weren't interested,” Jason said. “I suppose they have more important things to do.” He laughed without even a hint of humor. “Biggest crime in this town is some asshole parking in a handicapped spot. And all the goddamned drugs and the cops sure as hell aren't doing anything about that.”
“How long has she been missing?”
Evidently that was Lily's department. She emerged from her reverie and wriggled her butt around on the chair. “She left Wednesday morning,” she said.
“Tell me what happened.”
“Same old thing.”
Lily was right. It was the same old thing. Jessica Ann Finney, sole offspring of Jason and Lily, had spent the summer of her fourteenth year using her parents' home as a pit stop between outings. They set an eleven o'clock curfew; Jessica came in at twelve. They agreed to a twelve o'clock curfew; Jessica came in at one. They didn't approve of the boy she was dating; she went out with him twice as often. They fought about clothes, hair, friends, housework, homework, money, make-up, and music.
Wednesday morning had been routine. The three of them went round and round, then Jessica stomped off to her room. A few minutes later, she reappeared, carrying a small backpack and her navy blue Mackie High jacket with the gold mustang on the back. With very little originality, she screamed, “I hate you both and I'm never coming back.” She ran out of the house. Jason and Lily weren't particularly concerned. They expected her to return. She didn't.
“How much money did she have?” I asked.
“About a hundred dollars, a little less, I think. She's saving for her own VCR. She keeps her money in her jewelry box and it's gone.” Lily looked bored with the whole subject.
I asked them a lot of other questions. They answered a few. They didn't know much about their daughter, which wasn't surprising. If there had been any communication going on, they wouldn't have been spending a sunny Sunday afternoon in my office.
Jessica had been dating Hank Johnston for three or four months. “He lives over there,” Jason said, jerking his head eastward toward the part of Mackie that would be on the wrong side of the tracks if Mackie had any tracks. I jotted down Johnston's address.
The only girlfriend Jessica seemed to have was Celia Baines. I wrote her address down, too, when Jason gave it to me although I already knew where she lived. Jason pointed out several times that they had been looking for Jessica since Wednesday and there was no point in talking to anyone in Mackie. I got tired of listening to him.
“Do you know if she's sexually active?”
An uncomfortable silence was broken by Jason. “Why do you need to know that?”
“It's a matter of the options available to her.”
Jason looked offended.
“Look, I know this isn't easy,” I said. “I'm not asking just for the hell of it. I spend a lot of time looking for runaway kids. They all want to go to California but they don't have enough money to get there so they go to Portland, where they end up living on the street. Within a month, half of them are supporting themselves by prostitution.”
The Finneys looked at each other for the first time. I wasn't sure their eyes met but at least they looked toward each other.
�
��She's been on the pill since December,” Lily said.
Jason's hands clenched on the arms of his chair. The wood creaked under the pressure. Lily looked amused.
I gave them my standard I'm-not-a-child-psychologist-but-I-know-a-lot-about-runaways speech, the gist of it being that I might find Jessica and bring her home but if nothing changed, she'd run again. They sat through it without comment. When I finished, Jason said they'd worry about that when she was home again. He shifted restlessly in his chair. “Is that about it?” he asked.
“When can I see her room?” I asked.
“What on earth for?” Lily asked.
“Believe it or not, to look for clues.”
“We're going home from here,” Jason said. “Any time is fine.”
I gave him some forms to sign. He gave me a check. Lily gave me several photos of Jessica. Jason walked to the door and stood there briefly, jiggling the doorknob back and forth and looking at his wife's legs. He walked out without saying goodbye.
Lily was taking her time getting organized to leave. She rummaged through her purse and finally pulled out a pair of sunglasses, which she put on top of her head. She stood up, adjusted the purse strap on her shoulder several times, then dug through it again to find her car keys. I was at the door by that time, politely holding for her. The Bronco was idling roughly just outside.
Lily stopped in front of me and tapped my chest with a long pink fingernail. “Is this true?” she asked.
I looked out the door. Jason was wearing his sunglasses where they belonged. Lily flattened her hand and moved it in a slow circle over my chest. “Is it?” she asked.
The Bronco swung backward in a wild arc and bounced off the curb into the street. The knobby tires shrieked against the pavement as Jason headed home.
“Bigger is often better in a fight, Mrs. Finney. I could beat the shit out of your husband, but I don't really want to. So why don't you run along home and I'll see what I can do about finding your daughter. I know how worried you are.”
She drew her fingers together, her nails raking my chest. “Bastard,” she said and walked out. Her car bounced off the curb, too.
Chapter Three
I sat behind my desk, rubbing the feel of Lily's nails off my chest and studying a recent five-by-seven photo of her daughter. Jessica looked a little like each of her parents. She had Lily's brown eyes and heart-shaped face and Jason's slender nose and small mouth. Her brown hair was cropped just below the ears. Fifteen years ago I would have considered her sexy. Now she looked like a child.
I checked my notes. There wasn't a lot to go on. Jason was a consultant for a development corporation, whatever that meant, and was transferred regularly. They had lived in Mackie for eighteen months. Jessica hated Mackie. She had hated Pennsylvania before Mackie and Florida before Pennsylvania. She hadn't kept in touch with friends in either place. The relatives were all in Indiana. Jessica hated the relatives and hated Indiana, too. She also hated the sightseeing excursions her parents had dragged her on around the Northwest. But she loved Portland. They had been there three times, the last time in June for the Rose Festival.
I smiled at Jessica's permanent smile. If she was in Portland now, she was going to find out that living on the street isn't quite the same as roughing it at the Hilton with Daddy picking up the tab. I put the photo in a manila envelope and took it with me while I went next door to get coffee.
For the past sixteen months, Fanciful Flowers had occupied the other half of my building. Before that, it had been rented by a succession of businesses memorable mostly for the rapidity with which they failed. Fanciful Flowers was thriving in spite of a somewhat unfavorable location on the corner of Main Street that separated downtown from the oldest, and now poorest, residential district.
I walked into the flower shop and caught the co-owners holding hands. They were still in the closet but kept forgetting to close the door. Once, during my year of debauchery, I spent a drunken night in bed with both of them. I had fond hopes that their memories of the occasion were as hazy as mine.
I smiled at Rosie, who said, “Hi, Zacky,” in her breathy little-girl voice. A couple years ago, she was runner-up in a Marilyn Monroe look-alike contest. I'd have given her first place myself. Her partner Myrna, a tall brunette with a plain face made remarkable by a pair of astounding green eyes, had recently researched our mutual roots to figure out how we were related. She finally decided on second cousins twice-removed. Neither of us was too sure what that meant. Nothing incestuous anyway.
I included Myrna in my smile and she said, “Hi, cuz,” and admired my T-shirt. Possibly she was being facetious. I said it never hurt to advertise. Rosie gave me a cup of coffee, mentioning that I looked like I needed it, and I sympathized in all the right places as they told me about some horrendous problem with a delivery of roses. After a second cup of coffee, I set out to find Jessica Finney.
I walked six blocks to the bus depot. Nobody remembered seeing Jessica and the cops had already been there asking about her anyway. I walked three blocks farther to the Honky Tonk.
My car was right where I left it. The old Chevy Nova was on its second engine and the third or fourth of just about every other moving part. The sky-blue paint had long since faded to the color of smog. I liked the car. It was dependable and inconspicuous and had been built before some fool designed away wing windows. I had locked it up tight the night before and its internal temperature was about a hundred and fifty degrees. I rolled the windows down and pushed it thirty feet across the parking lot to the nearest shade, then I went into the bar to use the telephone in the owner's office while the car cooled off.
I didn't find out much that was useful about Jessica. Ellen Finch, a counselor who had been an English teacher when I was at Mackie High, said that Jessica, who had completed her freshman year in June, kept to herself and, except academically, stayed out of trouble.
“She's a strange one, Zack,” Miss Finch said. “For the first half of each semester she did absolutely nothing but show up for class and the failing slips went home regularly. Then all of a sudden she buckled down, aced all the tests, and did a lot of extra credit work. She ended up with C's and could be an A student if she made the effort. She was at the middle school for one semester and the pattern was the same there. I've talked to her but unfortunately she didn't talk to me. Her home life seems picture-perfect on the surface but I suspect there's a lot of unhappiness there.”
My other calls were to several high school students I know. I caught three of them at home. All three knew Jessica was missing but didn't know her well enough to make a guess about her whereabouts. All three mentioned that she kept to herself most of the time. Two of them said they were surprised Hank Johnston went out with her because he was a junior and the star of the track team. Before Hank, Jessica had dated nerds. There were strong hints that Hank's primary interest in her was sexual. The two of them went off by themselves, seldom showing up at parties or the usual teen hang-outs. I decided to go see Hank.
The Johnstons lived a few blocks east of my office in a neighborhood of weather-worn houses. I parked in front of a tired two-story house and approached a man in a dirty T-shirt and olive drab work pants who was sitting on the sagging porch steps. I asked if he was Hank's father. After a long drag on a cigarette, he agreed that he was. When I asked if I could speak to Hank, Johnston flipped the cigarette butt into the yard and took another look at the business card I had handed him.
“What's he done?” he asked.
“Nothing. I just want to ask him some questions.”
He studied the smoke drifting off the butt in the grass then jerked his chin toward four boys who were horsing around in an empty lot across the street. “The blond kid,” he said. I thanked him and turned away. “He don't know where the little bitch is,” Johnston added.
The four boys were arguing loudly about several different subjects. The only one facing me was a fat boy in loud Hawaiian-print shorts and a clashing tank top. He was l
eaning against a broken cement wall and as I approached, he poked the end of what appeared to be an entire Twinkie into his mouth.
Hank Johnston, his back to me, said, “Hey, lard ass, didn't anyone ever tell you, you are what you eat? You're a Twinkie, man. All soft and white and gooshy. If someone squeezed you all this white goo would ooze out.”
The fat kid, spitting Twinkie crumbs and cream, said, “Yeah? Well, if you are what you eat, you know what you are? You're a pussy. Hank's a pussy,” he repeated, in case the others missed it the first time. The two of them, a skinny redhead and a muscular dark-haired boy, collapsed on the ground in hysterics. The redhead kicked his legs in the air, chanting, “Hank's a pussy, Hank's a pussy.” Hank kicked at the flailing legs and missed.
The fat kid suddenly decided to notice me and straightened up, yanking the tank top down over his white belly and wiping Twinkie off his mouth. “Hey,” he said, “I know you. You're the drug guy.”
“Anti-drug guy,” I said.
The two kids on the ground got up and slumped against the wall next to the fat boy. Hank stood a little apart from them and took a quick look across the street.
“I need to talk to Hank for a minute,” I told the three wall-leaners. They didn't take the hint. The fat kid pulled a bag of salted peanuts out of his shorts pocket, ripped it open, and dumped the contents into his mouth. The empty bag joined the litter already on the ground.
“You aren't a cop anymore, right?” Hank said.
“Right,” I said. I handed him a business card. He took it uncertainly. “Oh, yeah,” he said after he finally got around to reading it. “Jess's old man sic you on me?”
“No. He hired me to look for her.”
“Shit, I don't know where she is. She didn't tell me she was splitting. I didn't even know she was gone until her old man called up and ragged my ass about it. He's a real prick.”
Cat's-Paw, Inc. Page 2
