A Hard Day’s Fright (3 page)

She didn’t even have to think about it. She shook her head. “All I know,” Lucy continued, “is that it was a while before the car screeched to a halt. Through my tears and the sound of my heartbeat clattering against my ribs, I heard the whisper of trees overhead. A door opened. And then, the footsteps.” Demonstrating, she stomped her feet against the floor of the rapid, but of course, they didn’t make a sound. Too caught up in her own narrative to care, Lucy motioned, as if she were unlocking the trunk of a car, then opening it. “I felt the brush of fresh air against my face.”

“And the kidnapper was there.”

She didn’t appreciate the interruption. Lucy threw me a sidelong look. “Well, who else would it be?” she asked. “It’s not like I could see him or anything. I was blindfolded, remember.”

“And your hands must have been tied, too. Otherwise, you would have taken the blindfold off while you were in the trunk.”

Lucy’s eyes flew open. They were as blue as the sky outside the rapid wasn’t that morning. “You’re right! I’d forgotten about that. He blindfolded me, and he tied my hands behind my back. But hey, it’s not like I was a wimp or anything. I tried to get my hands untied. You know, when I was in the trunk. Even though I couldn’t see. You know, on account of the blindfold. I groped around.” She moved around in her seat, demonstrating, her hands behind her back. “And I felt something metal. Sharp. I wasn’t sure what it was, but I didn’t care. I got to work.”

She showed me, sawing her wrists back and forth against the invisible object. “When he opened the trunk, I was almost free. And when he grabbed me—”

Lucy swung her hands out in front of her. “I was ready for him. I slapped him and I scratched him. I fought as hard as I could.”

I had no doubt of it, but I wasn’t thinking about that. My brain was still stuck on what Lucy had said earlier. “Which did he do first?” I asked.

“Do first? Oh, you mean the blindfold. Or the tying.” Thinking, she wrinkled her nose. “Blindfolded. No, tied. No, blindfolded.” Frustrated, she tossed her head. “I don’t know. What difference does it make?”

This, I couldn’t say for sure. Not this early in the game. “I just wondered if it was more important for him to keep you still or to keep you from seeing his face. If the blindfold was first, that tells me you might have known your murderer.”

I didn’t think those big blue eyes could get any bigger. Oh, how wrong I was. Lucy put the back of one hand to her forehead. “A friend who was really a foe? A lover who was really an enemy? Oh, the treachery!”

Oh, the drama of dealing with a teenaged girl.

I swallowed what I was going to say, not that I didn’t think she deserved a good dose of common sense, but because I remembered exactly how I would have reacted to a little constructive criticism when I was her age. I didn’t need Lucy to tune me out and turn me off. What I needed was information, so I could solve the case—fast—and get this Little Miss Annoying out of my life.

“Then what happened?” I asked, bracing myself for her answer.

Big surprise, she didn’t drag it out. Then again, I guess I couldn’t blame her. It was obvious the story didn’t have a happy ending.

“He put something over my face,” Lucy said. “A pillow. Or a blanket. Something soft and squishy. I fought back.” She looked at me as if she expected me to dispute this. “I wouldn’t have just laid there like a lump, you know, even though I’m just a girl. I tried to fight him off, but he was too strong for me. He pressed the blanket over my face. He pressed it and pressed it and…” Her golden brows dipped low over eyes that were suddenly bright with tears.

“Yeah, I get it. Good for you for trying,” I said, and because I couldn’t leave it at that, I was sure to add, “But that
only a girl
thing? That doesn’t hold much water anymore.”

“Really?” Lucy sniffed. “Wow! Janice would love that. Janice Sherwin, she wanted to be president of the junior class in the worst way, only the school wouldn’t let her. They said she was—”

“Only a girl.”

We finished the sentence in unison, and I breathed a prayer of thanksgiving that, unlike Lucy, I hadn’t grown up in the Stone Ages. We were nearing the stop closest to Ella’s house, and I motioned Lucy to move so that I could step into the aisle.

I held on to the metal bar on the back of the seat. “You had enemies?” I asked her.

“Of course not.” Like it was a stupid question, Lucy sloughed it off. “I had friends. Lots of them. I went to the concert with them that night, only they got off the rapid first, and they wanted me to go with them, and I didn’t. I was just a kid. Nobody hated me.”

As much as I didn’t like it, I am often the one who has to point out the obvious. “Somebody did. And I need to find out who that somebody was so that you can rest in peace.”

“I wish it was that easy.”

Outside the rapid window, I recognized Ella’s neighborhood. I stepped toward the door and said, “We’ll talk,” and I didn’t doubt it for one minute. Once they find me, ghosts never give up. “You’ll tell me more and we’ll find out who did it.”

“It was forty-five years ago.” When I moved toward the doors, Lucy did, too. The rapid bumped to a stop. “It doesn’t matter anymore who killed me,” she said. “I don’t care if you find out. That’s not what I need you to do.”

I had already stepped out of the rapid and onto the station platform. Lucy was still on the train.

“I can’t rest in peace, Pepper,” she said. “Not until you find my body and bury it.”

I whirled around. “You mean you don’t know where—”

She nodded. “I don’t have a clue.”

Call me psychic—or maybe I was just living up to my crackerjack detective reputation—in that one moment, I saw the pitfalls and the problems of launching into an investigation when I had pretty much nothing to go on. It was one thing searching for a murderer. People talked, witnesses remembered things they thought they’d forgotten long ago, there are police reports to read and follow, newspaper articles that contain tiny clues. Finding a murderer was a whole different thing from finding a body that had somehow stayed hidden for forty-five years.

“But you were in the trunk of a car,” I reminded her, and myself, ticking off all the reasons I knew this wasn’t going to work. “You don’t know where the guy took you. And even if you did, that doesn’t mean he left your body where he killed you. He could have left you right there, sure, but he could have driven somewhere else and dumped you. Your body, it could be anywhere.”

There was that puppy dog look again. Like she actually thought I’d cave?

OK, I admit, I almost did. It was kind of hard not to when she wailed, “You’ve got to find my body. You’ve got to help me, Pepper!”

“But you can’t give me anything to go on.”

“You’re right. I can’t.” She shrugged and sighed. Sighed and shrugged. She hung her head. “That’s why I have to rely on your kindness, and your cleverness. You’re the only one who can help.”

Yeah, sure. But there was only so much even I could do.

After all, I’m a detective, not a bloodhound.

It was a good thing the rapid doors slid shut right then. That way, I didn’t have to disappoint the kid face-to-face when I mumbled, “No way, José!”

I
t was a short walk from the rapid station to Ella’s house. Good thing. Though my peep-toe pumps were adorable, they were not meant for hoofing it.

By the time I arrived at her neat colonial complete with window boxes, daffodils popping up in the flower bed around the oak tree on the lawn, and the cheery wreath on the front door that was a riot of silk flowers and bows in bright spring colors, I was winded. I rang the bell.

There was no answer.

I knocked.

There was no response.

I stepped back and mumbled to myself, “This is odd.”

Come to think of it, it wasn’t the only odd thing that had happened that morning. And I am not talking about running into Lucy’s ghost. In my world, that doesn’t even begin to qualify as odd.

No, what was odd—and I thought about this as I pressed my nose to the glass on the front door—was that Ella hadn’t called me that morning. I had been expecting her to. Oh, she’d pretend it would be just to say hello and how was your weekend and what’s up, but I knew in my heart of hearts what Ella would really be doing, and what Ella would really be doing is checking up on me. She was the community relations director at Garden View Cemetery, where I worked, and she would remind me without actually coming right out and reminding me that a community relations director cannot afford to get to the office late.

Now that I thought about it, I was surprised she hadn’t called more than once, just to make sure I hadn’t overslept, and that I had made it over to the auto body shop in plenty of time, and that I was actually on the right rapid.

A mother of three teenaged girls can get carried away like that.

Frustrated that I couldn’t see beyond the foyer and not as concerned as I was just baffled by a demonstration of irresponsibility that was more my style than Ella’s, I pounded on the door. When there was still no answer, I tromped around to the back of the house and tried the door there. It wasn’t locked. I went right in.

Just inside the kitchen with its black-and-white-tile floor, white cabinets, and the collection of kitschy cookie jars Ella kept out on the countertop, I stopped dead in my tracks.

I had been to Ella’s house plenty of times before, and each and every one of those plenty of times, the house had been as neat, orderly, and clean as it’s possible to get with three teenagers running around.

And now? Truth be told, even my single-girl-who’s-so-busy-fighting-crime-she-doesn’t-always-get-to-clean apartment never looked like this.

There were newspapers scattered over the kitchen table and mail piled on the floor. There were dirty dishes in the sink, and the dishwasher was open and empty. There was a pot of something that might have once upon a time been spaghetti sauce on the stove. It was crusted over and had turned an unappetizing rust color.

Call it detective’s intuition or just the paranoid imaginings of a cemetery tour guide who deals with murder and mayhem far too often. I reached for my cell, not sure who I was going to call, but certain I wasn’t going to wait a second longer to shout for help.

Before I could, the door to the half bath just off the kitchen swung open and Ella shuffled out.

At least I thought it was Ella.

I did a double take, used to seeing my closing-in-onsixty, slightly plump boss in flowy skirts, matching tops, and sparkling beads. She also favored practical, clunky Earth Shoes, and an understated, spiky do that showed off both her red-tinted hair and the dangling earrings she loved to wear.

This creature had to be her evil twin.

She was as short as Ella, all right, and probably just as plump, too, though it was hard to tell considering she was wearing shapeless flannel lounge pants that looked like they’d been slept in and a ratty sweatshirt with a drawing of a knight on it right under the words shaker heights high school raiders. There was a smudge of spaghetti sauce across his helmet. One of the bad body double’s shoes was an untied sneaker. The other was a fuzzy bunny slipper.

Her hair was flat and uncombed, and there were smudges of sleeplessness under her eyes. She stopped outside the bathroom door, took one look at me, and burst into tears.

“Oh, Pepper,” she whimpered in a very Ella way. “I’m so happy to see you!”

Call me crazy. This did not look like happy to me. I told Ella so, and approached carefully. Middle-aged woman gone mad. It was not a pretty sight.

I put a hand on her arm and bent to look her in the eye. This close, I could tell that this last bout of crying was just one of many. Ella’s eyes were swollen, and her nose was red and raw. “What’s going on?” I asked.

“Oh, nothing.” There was a huge pottery mug on the sink and Ella reached for it, took a swig, then clutched it in both hands. “Would you like some tea? I have mint. And yerba maté. It’s a wonderful antioxidant, you know.”

I might not know what was what when it came to herbal tea, but I knew shock when I saw it. I plucked the ice-cold cup of tea out of her hands and took her by the elbow to pilot her over to the oak table in the middle of the room. There was a stack of magazines on the nearest chair. I swept them onto the floor and plunked Ella down.

I grabbed another chair. There was a bowl of half-eaten Cheerios on it, long soggy and in milk that was quickly morphing from liquid to chunky. As quickly as I could and careful not to breathe, I took it to the sink. When I was done consigning it to the nether regions of the disposal, I pulled the chair over so that I was knee to knee with Ella and took her hands in mine.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Oh, Pepper!” Ella took a deep breath and let it go on the end of a wobbling sigh. “It’s been a very long weekend.”

I wanted to say,
no duh!
but a detective is nothing if not diplomatic. At least when she’s dealing with someone she actually likes.

Ella sniffled. “It all started on Friday,” she said. “Friday evening. You know, I worked late. I had to get the next issue of the Garden View newsletter done, and I did, and I brought it home to proofread. I can get it for you if you’d like to look it over.” She made to get up out of the chair and reach for the briefcase I saw near the back door.

I held her in place. “Newsletter, later,” I said, keeping it short and simple, convinced it was all she could process. “Now, back to Friday night…”

“Oh, yes. Friday. I worked late.” She nodded. “I got home just as Rachel and Sarah were headed out. They were going to the boys’ varsity lacrosse game at school, and I wanted to make sure they ate something before they left, and they were running late, and their friends were here to pick them up and they were out in the driveway beeping the horn, and I needed to ask Rachel about that chemistry test she took Friday afternoon, of course, and Sarah had that paper for English, the one about
Romeo and Juliet
, and the phone rang and it was Jim from the office who had a question about the cost of our latest shipment of office supplies and—”

She blinked and sniffled.

“I guess I just wasn’t paying attention. Oh, Pepper, I can’t even bear to admit what a horrible, terrible, awful mother I am! It was so busy and so hectic, I never even thought about Ariel. What kind of mother does that? What kind of mother forgets one of her children?”

A fresh cascade of tears started, and I knew that this time she wouldn’t be easily soothed. I went to the sink, dumped Ella’s cold tea, filled the mug with water, and stuck it in the microwave. While it was nuking, I rummaged through the nearest cupboard, looking for an herbal tea that sounded wholesome. Indian gooseberry won. I figured anything with a name that goofy had to be good for something.

I didn’t even bother to try and get through to Ella again until I plunked the tea bag in the steaming water and added a squirt of honey from the plastic bear nearby. When I handed her the cup, she managed a watery smile.

“Once the girls were gone and the house was quiet,” Ella continued, “that’s when I thought about Ariel. I just assumed…Well, I mean, who wouldn’t? I just assumed she’d gone with Rachel and Sarah. I made some dinner, watched some TV, took a bubble bath. But when the girls got home from the game…it was late, they’d gone to Geracci’s for pizza and they even brought me a couple pieces.” She glanced toward the countertop in back of me where the cardboard box still sat, a long string of mozzarella hardened on the side. “When they got home, that’s when I realized Ariel wasn’t with them. Rachel and Sarah, they said they hadn’t seen her at the game. Or here at home. They had no idea where she was.”

“Ariel.” I nodded, confirming my worst fears to myself. On the whole, Ella’s girls are good kids. At least two of them are. Rachel and Sarah are as respectful as teenagers can be, they get decent grades, and their sense of fashion, though certainly not inspired (they are related to Ella, after all), was coming around thanks to the years they’d known me.

Ariel was another story.

“She’s not a bad kid,” Ella said, and she must have been reading my mind, but obviously not clearly. Ariel was, indeed, a bad kid. Bad grades. Bad behavior. Bad hygiene. Bad manners. Bad taste.

Ariel was everything her mother was not. I suppose, in Ariel’s fifteen-year-old mind, that was the whole point.

I had little patience for a kid who was that much of a mess. I sat back, and yeah, I was pissed. Then again, I remembered the time Ariel went joyriding with some kid she barely knew, who, it turned out, had been driving a stolen car. And the time Ariel pawned Rachel’s watch so she’d have money to go see
Avatar.
And the time she stomped the family Nintendo—she claimed it was an accident, but we all knew better—just because Sarah was better at fighting Koopa Troopa paratroopers.

Not that any of this affected me personally. Which meant that in the great scheme of things, I really shouldn’t/didn’t care. But facts were facts, and fact is, I like Ella a whole bunch. She isn’t just my boss. Ella is my friend, and yes, as corny as it sounds, she’s family, too, especially since my mother lives in Florida and my dad is in prison (Medicare fraud…it’s a long story). I’d seen the way Ariel’s thoughtless behavior twisted Ella into painful knots of worry. No way was I about to forgive the kid for doing it again.

I didn’t have to lie to Ella (well, except when it came to my love life and ghosts, but that doesn’t count) so I didn’t even try to hide my exasperation. “What did Ariel do this time?” I asked.

And really, was I surprised when the waterworks started up again?

“A…ri…el…” Ella blubbered. “Ariel ran away from home!”

This was not something I was expecting. Ariel was bad, but she wasn’t stupid. At least I’d never thought so before.

“Oh, Pepper! I don’t even know where to begin. You see, there’s this boy, he’s in Ariel’s class, and he’s nothing but trouble. I know, I shouldn’t judge, but this isn’t just opinion, it’s a fact. Rachel and Sarah say so. All the other kids say so. They say he’s…well, like a gangster or something. You know, all attitude and with his pants down around his ass.”

I knew before that Ella was upset, but this proved it. Sweet little Ella never used words like
ass
. The fact that she didn’t even blush when she said it solidified the seriousness of the situation.

“His name is Gonzalo, and I mean, really, who names their kid Gonzalo? No matter.” She shook away her momentary lapse into political incorrectness as inconsequential. “What matters is that he’s a bad influence on Ariel. And when I realized she wasn’t with Sarah and Rachel, and she wasn’t in her room, and nobody had seen her since Friday afternoon at school…” Ella pulled in a sharp breath, steeling herself. “I know you’re not going to believe this, Pepper, but you might as well know the ugly truth right up front: I freaked.”

One look at the state of the kitchen and I could have argued the point. I believed it, all right. Ella didn’t give me a chance to mention it. She took a noisy slurp of Indian gooseberry and barreled right on.

“The first thing I thought was that something must have happened,” she said, jumping around in her story the same way she was wiggling in her chair. “You know, the way most mothers would. I called every hospital in town, and I talked to every emergency room, every shift. I checked and re-checked my phone, too, just to make sure there weren’t any messages. I had Rachel and Sarah call Ariel’s friends, and none of them had seen her, either. Then of course, I thought of Gonzalo.”

I could see where the story was headed, and while I didn’t exactly approve, considering that Ariel was only fifteen, I had been a hormone-driven teenager myself once. I understood, and I nodded to prove it. “You know how that is, Ella, she’s young and she’s probably got this whole romantic notion about being in love. She was with her boyfriend, right?”

She shook her head and kept on shaking it. “But that’s just it. I talked to his parents. I even made them get this Gonzalo character and put him on the phone. He hadn’t seen Ariel, either.”

Right about then, I wondered about the properties of Indian gooseberry for settling an upset stomach. I could have used it, because mine was suddenly jumping around like a SeaWorld dolphin with a fish dangling over the tank. My logical self gave me a not-so-gentle reminder that detectives shouldn’t be prone to panic. I told it to shut up. Ella was my friend, and my friend was upset. I raised my voice. It was the only way I could hear myself over the sudden, staccato pumping of my heart.

“If she wasn’t with Gonzalo—”

“Exactly what I thought.” Ella slurped up another mouthful of gooseberry tea. “I mean, I guess I didn’t know what I thought. My head was spinning and my stomach was turning. The girls and I, we stayed up all Friday night, making phone calls. I’ve never been so worried. And then Saturday, when we didn’t hear anything, that’s when we called the police.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

OK, my voice was a little sharp, and that wasn’t fair to a  woman who was going through what Ella was going through. But honestly, how could I help myself?

I jumped out of my chair and paced the
Good Housekeeping
and
Time
–littered floor. “Ella, you know I would have come over. You know I would have helped you look. Why didn’t you call?”