Innocent Prey (A Brown and de Luca Novel) (5 page)

“You told her that, too?”

“She’s my personal assistant, Mace. I tell her everything.”

“Yeah,” Amy said. “Nice job in the sack, by the way.”

He looked like he was gonna pass out before I said, “I don’t tell her
that,
for crying out loud.”

He closed his eyes and gave his head a rapid shake.

“So, Amy,” I said. “Yes, a girl is missing. And the truth is, she might just have run off. But I keep getting a feeling it has something to do with what happened to you.”

“And we all know better than to ignore her feelings,” Mason added, probably relieved that I hadn’t blurted out Stephanie’s name, address and phone number while I was at it.

“I am so dying to help out on a case,” Amy said.

“You’re not helping out. And it’s not a case.”

I clapped a hand onto Mason’s thigh. “You
are
helping out, and it’s not a case
yet.
But it might turn into one if she didn’t leave voluntarily. So if you can stand to go over it one more time...”

“I was driving to my mother’s in Erie for Thanksgiving,” she said, nodding. “I stopped for gas and noticed these guys in a white pickup pulling in behind me. I went in for the restroom and some snacks for the drive, and when I came out, they were still there. Not buying gas, not shopping, just sitting there.”

“Right. We saw the surveillance footage,” Mason said. “What do you remember about the second guy?”

“It’s all in my statement,” she said.

“I know, but you might have left something out that didn’t seem important, or remembered something since. Maybe there’s something you thought you told us but didn’t. Just humor me, okay?”

“Okay.” She ate another chip, handed one down to Myrtle, then took her sandwich out of her bag and unwrapped it slowly. “I didn’t really look at the guys in the truck at that point. I just sort of noticed the truck was there as I left. I didn’t get any bad vibes until I saw them pull out behind me. And even then, I thought I was just being a drama queen.”

I nodded and said to Mason, “She
can
be a real drama queen sometimes, so that adds up.”

Amy threw a chip at me. It landed on the sidewalk and Myrtle snapped it up before it settled. “Then my tire went flat. I still wasn’t overly concerned, until they pulled over in front of me. That’s when my alarm bells started going off. I snapped a quick pic of the truck with my phone and slid it under the car just in case.”

“Remind me how smart she is if I ever even consider letting her go, Mace.”

“I promise.” He nodded at Amy to keep going.

“After they dragged me into the truck, the driver dropped the second guy off. Do you need me to describe them again?”

I looked at Mason to answer that one. He shook his head. “No, the driver’s dead, and we have the sketch you and the police artist did of the second guy on file. We’re just trying to figure out why they took you. Did they say anything that might be a clue? Maybe something you’ve remembered since the incident?”

She frowned really hard, and I knew she was trying her best to recall every detail. “The jerk drove me off to that freaking no-tell motel and chained me to the bed. But he didn’t touch me. Didn’t even try. Then I said I had to use the bathroom. He cuffed me to the pipe in there so I wouldn’t run off. I picked the lock and crawled out the window, then ran for it. He chased after me. Caught me and tied me up again out there in the woods, and then you guys showed up.” She shrugged. “The only odd thing he said was when he was chasing me through the woods. He was calling me, only not by my name. He called me Venora.”

Mason blinked and looked at me. “Was that in the report?”

I shrugged and looked at Amy. “Was it? Did you tell the cops that?”

“I think so.”

“Either way, it bears looking into,” Mason said. “Thanks a lot, Amy. Remember not to say anything about this to anyone. Not even your mother.”

“Please, if I told my mother it would be on
America’s Most Wanted
by tomorrow. That woman is better networked than I am.”

* * *

Jacob Kravitz lived in an apartment above a tattoo place on Washington Avenue in Endicott, one of what we locals call the Triple Cities, the other two being Binghamton and Johnson City.

I’ve had Manhattanites tell me that all three combined don’t really qualify as a single “city,” but it works for us. We’ve got the river. We invented Spiedies, bits of chicken marinated in our own Spiedie sauce, served on sub rolls with cheese and other tasty toppings. Hell, we even have our annual blowout, the Spiedie-fest. And we’re on the Best Small Cities in America list.

Washington Avenue is a funny place. It’s got the highest-end salon we can lay claim to and drug deals going down on the sidewalk outside. It’s got a Greek diner where customers come to get a whole meal for five bucks and park their Mercedes out back. It’s got local celebs strutting up one side of the sidewalk and pants-falling-off gangbangers on the other.

We went through the front door and up a set of steep stairs to Jake’s apartment door, rapped on it and waited.

“You lookin’ for me?”

We both turned toward the guy who was at the bottom of the stairs, standing in the open door, a plastic grocery bag dangling from one hand and a six-pack of Genesee beer in the other. I sized him up visually, which was becoming way more automatic than I liked. I pick up more about people non-visually.

He was tall. Even from up here I could tell he was taller than Mason. Maybe six-three, six-four. He had
Frampton Comes Alive!
hair (I’d seen Amy’s classic vinyl collection) and a rugged unshaven thing going on. Wore jeans and an army-green coat with about fifty pockets, despite that it was a sixty-degree afternoon.

“If you’re Jake Kravitz,” Mason said.

“I am.” He came up the stairs, tucking the beer under one arm and then fishing a set of keys out of one of the coat’s pockets. When he reached the top and inserted the key in the lock, he said, “You look like a cop.” Then he looked at me. “And you don’t.”

“That’s ’cause I’m not. But you’re good. How could you tell he’s a cop?”

He shrugged and opened his door, then waved an arm at us to enter ahead of him, so we did. The place was a hole. Sofa with a blanket over it to hide the worn spots and stains, assuming the rest of it matched the arms. Linoleum floors so old the pattern was worn off. A fat-ass-style TV set sitting on the middle of a wooden card table that was sagging a little under its weight. An open door revealed an unmade bed and scattered clothes on the bedroom floor. He walked into a kitchen with appliances that were almost old enough to qualify as retro, dropped the bag on the Formica table, took a can of beer out of the sixer and slung the rest into the ancient fridge.

He did not offer us one.

“So what do you want?”

“Wanted to talk to you about Stephanie Mattheson,” Mason said.

“And to know how you knew he was a cop,” I added, because I thought there was something there. He didn’t like cops. It felt like he, big guy that he was, was shrinking into himself on the inside, where it didn’t show. On the outside he wasn’t revealing a thing, subconsciously making himself bigger. Like an animal in defense mode. I wondered if I could close my eyes without being obvious. My inner senses worked better when I drew the shades.

He shifted his gaze to me only for a second, then it went right back to Mason. “What about her?” he asked, ignoring my question completely.

It pissed me off a little, frankly.

“When’s the last time you heard from her?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. A couple of years ago. Something like that.” Then he popped the top on his beer can and took a slug.

I felt the lie, but that was cheating. I already knew the truth.

“Her cell phone says different,” Mason told him.

I walked a few steps away, to the window that looked down onto Washington Avenue, parted the curtain like I was looking out and closed my eyes.

“If you think you already know, then why waste time asking me?”

“Because I want to hear it from you,” Mason told him.

“She’s been calling,” he said after a brief pause. “I haven’t been answering. I haven’t called back. I haven’t talked to her in a couple of years. Just like I said.”

And that was the truth. But he was nervous as hell. I could feel it radiating from him. I said, “It’s kind of important, Jake. She’s missing.” Just so I could feel his reaction to that.

And I did. I felt a pulse of something big. Shock? Surprise? Concern? Or was it fear that we were on to him?

“What do you mean, missing?”

I stayed right where I was. Mason would read his face, his body language. I was reading his emotions. And they were all over the place.

“Missing. As in, no one knows where the hell she is,” Mason said. “Unless you know. Do you?”

“She’s
missing?
”

“Her father thinks she’s probably run off.”

“She’s
blind.
Where the hell is she gonna run off to?”

“How do you know she’s blind, Jake?” Mason asked. “Her family kept it pretty quiet.”

He walked a few steps, set his beer down. I heard all that. “We still have a few friends in common. I heard about it.”

He still cares about her,
I thought. I could feel it beneath the words.

“I don’t know where she is. I wasn’t lying. I haven’t talked to her in a couple of years. And I didn’t know she was missing.” I had the feeling he was telling the truth, and then he got all tense again. “You’re here because you think I had something to do with...with whatever happened to her, aren’t you?”

“We’re not sure
anything’s
happened to her,” Mason told him. “I saw your name on her outgoing calls and thought I oughta talk to you, since her father said you two ran off together a few years back. It’s that simple.”

I turned from the window, ’cause my senses had given me a big clue. “You don’t like him much, do you?”

“Who?” Jake knew exactly who I meant. He picked up his beer, turning his back to me as he did.

“Stevie’s father. Judge Howie.”

He just shrugged. “I don’t have any contact with the man.”

“But you did. Two years ago when you and Stevie ran off together. Right? I’m sure he threw a fit about that.”

“Threw a fit?” He frowned and turned to look at me. I totally got that he was searching for something in my face. Then he quickly schooled his expression into a mask. “I don’t have anything to do with him. And I don’t know where Stevie is. I hope she’s okay. And I really have to get ready for work now.”

I couldn’t tell if that was sincere or not. The man had closed up tight, was keeping everything inside and showing us the door. Literally. He went to the door and opened it.

Mason sighed, and I knew he was disappointed. “Call me if you hear from her, okay?” He handed the guy a card.

Jake took it from him but didn’t even look at it. “Sure.”

I didn’t believe him.

I waited until we were back on the sidewalk in the bright afternoon sunshine to say, “Something happened between him and Judge Howie. Something big enough that he thought we already knew about it. You need to find out what it was.”

Mason nodded. “I think the guy has a record.”

“Really? I didn’t get that at all. How did you—”

“You get a feel for it after a while. People who’ve done time almost carry the scent of it. I’ll run him through the system, see what pops up. Should’ve done that first, but I figured the judge would’ve told me if there was anything.” He looked at me. “What else did you get?”

“I think he still cares about her. And he was either surprised to hear she was missing or surprised that we were there asking him about it.” We got to the car, Mason’s big black beast. I opened the passenger-side door and had to heft my bulldog out of the way to make room on the seat. Her loud snoring broke into aggravated bursts and she opened one eye, but other than that, she didn’t break nap. “When do we get to talk to the other boyfriend? The current one? What’s his name again? James Tiberius?”

Mason got behind the wheel and started her up. “Mitchell Kirk,” he corrected, deadpan. My
Star Trek
reference went right over his head. He wasn’t a Trekkie like me. “Tomorrow night at the chief’s anniversary party.”

“He knows the chief?”

“He’s his nephew.”

“Oh. I did not know that. The plot thickens.” I relaxed in my seat and watched the city pass by as he headed for the highway. Ten minutes and we were back on 17, heading for 81.

“So what now?” I asked after riding in silence for a little bit longer.

“I take you home and head back to HQ to tell Chief Sub what we’ve found so far. See if he’s ready to make this thing official yet.”

A big sigh rushed out of me before I could prevent it, catching me by surprise. He shot me a look. “What?”

“I don’t know.” I frowned. “I think that was me being disappointed that our day hanging out together is over. Weird, huh?”

Mason’s grin made his dimple flash at me. It was a more potent weapon than his stupid handgun. “I enjoyed it, too. It’s like old times, huh?”

“Old times meaning the last time a serial killer was after us? Pretty sad when I’m missing those sorts of good ol’ days.”

“Are you?” he asked.

I shrugged, because I didn’t want to get too deep or stupid. “I think if I wrote a book about you, the title would be
Meets, Screws and Leaves.
”

“Is that literary humor or a serious complaint?” he asked.

I rolled my eyes. “Never mind.”

He eased into the left lane, then pressed the pedal down. He had a big, loud motor in the Beast, and even I got a little thrill when he made it roar. The nose end of the thing literally rose a little as the powerful engine kicked up a notch. I had discovered that the sighted Rachel was a little bit of a motor-head. I drove a convertible T-Bird that was a modern homage to the classic 1955 model, and I loved it. I had to admit, the ’74 Monte Carlo was growing on me, too.

A little.

As he merged onto 81, he said, “Jeremy has a home game tonight. You should come.”