Pennie Apples: Deleted Chapter

by Mary Sage Nguyen

working on. You said on the phone it was about your missing daughter.” Pennie took up a position behind Dennis. Mrs. Wilder sniffed. Her voice was pitchy. You could tell she had been crying.

  “Well, as you know my daughter is missing. She has been missing for three days. My husband has hired an amateur private investigator and that guy tore up Liz’s room so my husband fired him. We are in the process of looking for another PI. I just wanted to try a different way of finding her. I am hoping you could help me find her. You can’t always depend on PIs.” Dennis rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

  “Well, could you give us some information on your daughter? Could you give us her address? Does she have a spare key?” Mrs. Wilder sniffed. Dennis handed her a tissue from his pocket. Mrs. Wilder blew her nose.

  “I have the spare key right here.” She handed the spare key to Dennis. “Her name is Elizabeth Wilder. She’s known by her colleagues as Liz. She doesn’t like the name I gave her at birth. She is twenty-three years old. Liz is attending UCLA. She has a 3.5 gpa. She’s a good girl. I don’t know what’s happened to her.” Dennis was writing down this information.

  “So have you and your husband been having any problems with Liz lately?”

  “Not that I am aware of. Well there was one incident. She spent ten thousand dollars on Chanel, Fendi, and Tiffany’s merchandise. My husband found out and cut up her credit cards. I felt bad for Liz but there was nothing I could do. My husband made up his mind. I tried getting him to give her an allowance but he wouldn’t. My husband is a self-made man. He came from South Korea and made a fortune off of his inventions. He even threatened to have Liz sent over to Korea to live with his relatives but I convinced him not to. Yes, she is a spoon fed baby but she is my baby girl. I’m worried she is a victim of foul play.”

  “Could you also give me Liz’s address?”

  “She lives with my husband and me.”

  “Does she has a lock for her bedroom at home?” Pennie asked

  “Yes, she has her privacy.” False privacy, Pennie thought.

  “Well I already have your address Mrs. Wilder. I promise we will find Liz.” Dennis stood up. Mrs. Wilder looked taken back.

  “That’s it? I thought you would need more information to go on.” Dennis shook his head.

  “Well, we are professional psychics. Trust us that we know what we are doing.”

  “Okay, so what now?”

  “We are going to check out your daughter’s room.”

  “Do I have to be there?”

  “It’s not necessary.”

  “Alright, thank you, Dennis.” Mrs. Wilder stood up and Dennis showed her out. Pennie waited in the front room. She was still in shock after talking with her baby. It had to be true what the women at the orphanage said. Her mother probably gave her up because she thought she was Satan’s spawn.

  “Alright let’s discuss in my office.” Dennis came back in. Pennie followed him to his office. Dennis moved a large oak chair over to his table for her.

  “I think Elizabeth just ran off with some guy. Her mother is overbearing but tries to play it cool. That’s what I observed,” Dennis said

  “Interesting. My thoughts are different. I think something more sinister is happening,” Pennie replied. “So are we going to the parent’s house?”

  Dennis was silent for a few minutes. “Yes, we are.”

  “Great, where do they live?”

  “Bel Air. Ironic, isn’t it?”

  “Well at least she could walk to school.” Dennis heartily laughed.

  “That silver spoon fed baby never walked in her life.” Pennie laughed with Dennis.

  “Well our objective is to find this Elizabeth. Let’s make our way over to the house.”

  Pennie followed Dennis’s SUV maneuvering through L.A. traffic. Pennie drove a green 3 Series BMW. She wondered how Dennis became a psychic detective. Was he the real deal? After seeing how unprofessional he was, it made her think. Dennis pulled up to a large mansion in Bel Air.

  “Wow, so this is what money buys you.” Dennis smirked. A chubby Mexican maid in a black and white uniform came to greet them at the door.

  “Oh, you must be the psychic detectives. I am Maria.”

  “Nice to meet you, Maria. Can you show us to Elizabeth’s room?” Maria nodded.

  She hurried up the stone staircase. Dennis and Pennie followed behind her. The walls of the bedroom were painted a light pink. There was a black-framed photo of roses in a vase. She certainly had a thing for roses. A Waterford crystal vase filled with a dozen long-stem red roses sat on top of a large black dresser. There was a white bed with a white metal headboard and a large glass table similar to the one Pennie had in her office. A Mac computer sat on top of the glass. In front of it was an odd circular chair with no back. The chair was padded and made of wood. It was like an ottoman but much bigger than a regular ottoman. On the small table next to her bed was a black alarm clock and iPad. Another black dresser, wider than its twin, stood on the right side of the room. A white filing cabinet as tall as the dresser had been placed by the bed.

  “Well let’s start with the computer.” Dennis walked over to the glass table and sat down on the glass chair, which somehow supported his weight.

  “Should I check the iPad?”

  “Uh yeah, sure. Anything helps.” Pennie walked over to the bed. She sat on the comfy Egyptian cotton sheets and skimmed through the iPad. The iPad had a password for it. Of all the luck.

  “The iPad has a password on it. How about the computer?” Dennis sighed in frustration.

  “You think that damn PI figured it out yet?” Dennis asked.

  “Doesn’t matter, he was fired.”

  “Well, let’s start looking in her drawers and closet then. I will take a look in the filing cabinet but first I need to make a phone call to an IT friend. Be right back.” Dennis went into the hallway for a brief moment and came back in.

  “All set, my IT friend Leonard is coming over. He will crack the password in no time.” Dennis walked over to the filing cabinet. The lock had been tampered with. Obviously the work of the PI.

  “This PI was an amateur. He just knocked the lock into the filing cabinet. He probably used a captive bolt pistol.” Pennie was already rummaging through the drawers. All she found were clothes. She pulled them out and carefully examined them.

  “Maybe she has something in the pocket of her jeans. This girl has more jeans than I do.”

  “What do you expect—she comes from a wealthy family.” Dennis pulled out documents from the filing cabinet. He set them on the ground. Pennie started fumbling through the pockets of the jeans in the first drawer. She went through ten pairs of jeans until she found a hundred dollar bill.

  “Hey look at this Dennis.” Pennie waved the hundred at him. Dennis smirked.

  “Alright now, Pennie, put that back and keep looking for clues.” Pennie kept going. She moved on to the shorts that Liz owned. “This girl has too many clothes for her own good,” Pennie thought. She encountered a pair of black booty shorts with a white stain on it.

  “Dennis, does this look like semen to you?” Dennis glanced at the shorts and continued stacking papers.

  “It could be. I do have a lab rat friend who could test it for semen. Put it on the ground. I will have that friend look at it for me. If it actually is semen…” Pennie tossed the shorts to the side.

  “What did you think?” Dennis scratched his head. His brown hair was messy. He had dandruff everywhere on his suit.

  “Well you remember when the mother told us that her daughter was stripped of her plastic. It got me thinking. Maybe she decided to make supplementary income another way,” Dennis said. Pennie raised her eyebrow.

  “You think she prostituted herself out?” Pennie asked.

  “It’s not unheard of.”

  “Why prostitution, though? She could do a number of things besides that. Plus she is a college student.”

  “Well it’s just a thought. I need to find the evidence to
prove it,” Dennis replied.

  “We just have to wait for your IT friend. Than we will know, won’t we?” Dennis nodded. After going through numerous pairs of shorts, jeans, and skirts, Leonard showed up.

  “Hey Dennis. The maid let me in.” Leonard was a short man. You could tell the guy was a nerd by the way he dressed. He wore jeans with a black Star Trek shirt. He wasn’t quite as old as Dennis, maybe thirty years old. He wore grey round glasses. His hair was comparable to Albert Einstein except for the fact that it was light brown. His eyes were dark and mysterious. The maid Maria stood beside Leonard.

  “So you know this man?”

  “Yes, I do.” Maria left the room. She seemed freaked out by the psychic detectives and the IT guy. “Hey Leonard, how are you old chap?” Dennis went over to Leonard and gave him a one-arm hug.

  “I’m alright. I brought the CD and USB you requested.” Leonard glanced at Pennie.

  “Who might this be?”

  “This is Pennie, my new partner in crime.” Leonard went over and politely kissed her hand. Afterwards, she couldn’t get the feeling of his lips off her hand.

  “You are really stunning, Pennie. Are you dating anyone?”

  “Yes, I am in a committed relationship with a special someone.” Pennie practically spelled out committed relationship.

  “So you want some Leonard on the side?” Leonard snorted at his own joke.

  “I’m married.” Pennie replied.

  “Leonard, the computer is over here.” Leonard walked over to Dennis. Pennie wiped the back of her hands on her slacks, clearly disgusted by Leonard. He put the CD into the Mac.