Missing: The Body of Evidence (29 page)

Having driven around every cul-de-sac in
the area, Nancy was satisfied there was no surveillance vehicle to worry about.
Now, as she turned the key in her door, she was nursing the dread as to how the
search team had left her apartment. Stuck to the door like some parking ticket
was a note advising her that the lock had been changed and to collect the key
from the police station. Nancy scoffed as she tore the note; her eyes rolled at
what she already knew as she trudged along the hallway and into the living
room, hoping the search team had left things as they had found them.

Apart from the missing computer, everything
was in its place. After a scan of the room, she heaved a sigh of relief that
they had left things tidy. The picture of the cabin on the wall was slightly
askew and she reached out to remove it. Sure enough, there was no listening
device on the back of the frame.

The painting evoked memories of her weekend
at the cabin, ones that stabbed at her mind like a drill hammer. She moved
briskly to the hallway and stowed the picture away in a closet. Returning to
the living room, her shoulders drooped. With closer inspection, she could see
remnants of fingerprinting dust, first on the door handle, then on the light
switch and the arms of the computer chair. She twitched her nose at the sight
of her hands soiled with dust from the frame. Nancy flopped her backside onto
the sofa and glanced at her watch.

Dad was due any minute during his coffee
break. His tone when she had phoned him on the payphone had been curt. A
stickler for cleanliness, she knew he wouldn’t allow her any slack for the
circumstances. At the age of thirty-six, she couldn’t get her head around the
fact that she felt compelled to rush around with a damp cloth to make things
presentable for him. Working her way methodically through the apartment with
the cloth, she entered her bedroom.

Her cheeks flushed at seeing all her
lingerie drawers open as if she had been burgled. Starting at the bottom
drawer, they had opened each one without closing them to save valuable time
during the search.

In Nancy's mind, what they had hoped to
find in her thongs, defied credulity. She imagined they had held them up and
had a good laugh at her expense, judging by their position. Nancy grabbed hold
of her thong and hurried to the kitchen. Tapping her foot on the garbage can,
she discarded it and winced at thought of colleagues fingering her underwear.
Horrified that her sanctuary had been compromised, Nancy felt as though she
would be better selling the apartment and moving to another state to start
anew.

The doorbell sounded and she headed to the
door. Looking through the spy hole, she could see it was her dad. She almost
fell as she opened the door and he brushed through the doorway, cussing as he
ignored her and walked down the hallway.

‘That freakin ‘lanky-piece-a shit. Says
maybe I planted the bugs.’

‘Slow down, do you mean Logan?’

‘Yeah, I mean Logan. Told me to butt out.
The barefaced gall. What an ass.’ His crimson cheeks and contorted expression
told her the call was recent. ‘Lanky bastard. I gave him both barrels.’

She smiled inwardly, wishing she could have
been privy to her dad tongue lashing him.

‘Sit down, I’ll make a coffee.’

‘Where’s your car?’

‘Impounded by forensics, same with my
computer. The rental car is parked out back.’

Nancy left him searching though his aluminium
case and to stew in his anger. Waiting for the water to boil, his cussing
drifted through her mind. She’d not heard him use the expression ‘Lanky’
before, but it seemed to hang in her mind. She called out.

‘Did Logan tell you that the gun that
killed the janitor was mine?’

He didn’t reply. Nancy poured out the
coffees, when her dad poked his face around the door.

‘Your gun?’

‘Yeah, my gun.’

‘Holy shit.’

‘Yeah, I have an alibi, but he insinuated I
could have arranged for the hit. Same with Dean; he reckons my alibi when I
stayed at your place is either contrived, or I arranged for the hit.’

‘What a dick.’

Returning to the sofa, they sat and Nancy
relayed all the events since she had last seen her dad, but left out any
mention of Bill bringing forward his statement to internal affairs, or the fact
that he’d given her the Dictaphone with a tracker device.

‘Drop it. Contact your attorney and start
negotiations to get out of the force. I can put a word in for you at my place.’

‘What, work with you? What you do
is
legal?’

‘There are a few gray areas, but we do
those on a contracted out basis.’

Thoughts of working with her dad made her
stomach turn.

‘So, is the bit that’s not legal where you
know Logan and Bill from?’

‘I wouldn’t trust either of them. They
don’t know the meaning of loyalty.’

He was obviously not going to elaborate. He
jumped up off the sofa and began to pace around. Nancy took a deep breath.

‘I know you said not to mention his name,
but if I don’t update you on Bill, you’re not getting the full story.’

He jabbed a look at her and his eyes
narrowed, leaving his brow heavily creased.

‘You mean he’s going to make his statement
early to clear you. A little late in the day wouldn’t you say?’

Nancy’s mouth froze open, at the thought
that he had taken her words and spat them out first.
How could he know that?

‘Who told you?’

‘Never mind who told me.’

‘I need to tell you about the Dictaphone
with the GPS device?’

‘What device? Who?’

Nancy spewed out the details of her meeting
with Bill and him handing her the Dictaphone. A wry smile curled the edges of
his lip to one side.

‘So the bastard turned you in at the motel?
Are you sure he’s going to clear you?’

‘We don’t know that, like I told you, the
receptionist may have recognized me. So, come on, I’m straight with you, so who
told you about Bill making a statement to clear me?’

‘Logan.’

‘Why tell you he’s going to clear me, and
not me or my attorney.’

‘Maybe they just want it all to go away. Or
more to the point, they could be buying time for us both to back off. Like I
said, I wouldn’t trust them.’

‘So where do you think Kyle fits into all
this if it’s some kind of conspiracy?’

‘You know what they say… keep your enemies
closer than your friends and all that. Maybe he went off script and got too
close.’

An ice-cold shudder passed through her at
the thought that Kyle was part of a plot against her. ‘Went off script’ she
thought, could be a possibility. She found it hard to accept his feelings
hadn’t been genuine.

‘Are you saying they are all pissing in the
same pot as the CIA with this Astral affair?’

‘Who knows? Maybe the two situations are
separate; the professor’s death and a cartel at police HQ being on the take. I
just can’t believe that…’

He shook his head as if trying to change
the subject in his mind.

‘Believe what?’

‘Nothing. Are you going to try and follow
Mary later today?’

‘To be honest, I don’t know what to do. I
need some sleep, a shower and a change of clothes before I do anything. But
yeah, I’ve no other avenue open to me. So I’ll try and follow her tonight, or
at the latest first thing in the morning.’

‘Whatever you do, just follow and report
back.’

He rummaged in his open case and handed her
a pen.

‘Here, keep this with you. If you need to
record a conversation just click the top. And thinking about it, switch off the
Sat-Nav in the rental car.
They
can follow you with the GPS it uses. I
need to get going, I think it’s time I paid someone a visit.’

There wasn’t time to ask whom he would be
visiting. He picked up his case and hurried out of the apartment without even a
goodbye. Nancy just wished she knew who
they
were he spoke of, but one
thing she was sure of, she hoped to flush them out through Mary.

The sleep in her own bed, a shower and a
change of clothes had worked wonders and recharged Nancy’s sapped energy. On
the drive over to see Dean’s mom, there was no time to feel depressed. A sense
of purpose surged through her spirit to have one last go at resolving the whole
issue of the situation facing her, before any thoughts of acceding to others to
sort out her future.

Nancy pulled over at the sidewalk, climbed
out of her car and walked to the white picket-fence gate. A porch light illuminated
the garden, which was well tended with neat flowerbeds. The property’s
appearance was at odds with the surrounding single story homes, most of which
had overgrown front yards and paint peeling from the fascia boards. Nancy
opened the gate, instinctively looking left and right, before walking up the
gravel pathway, and stepped onto the veranda. In a room to the left, a soft
light flickered behind the closed curtains.

She bit her lip, not sure if this was the
right move, but in her mind, the contract she had signed with the devil down at
HQ was worthless. Nancy rolled her neck and had one last look around. The house
may have been on the fringes of South Central, but the area still came under
the influence of the Piru Street gang. She rapped her knuckles gently on the
door. Nothing stirred inside, and with her palms beginning to sweat, she gave
the door a detective knock.

In an instant light flooded from behind the
door and out onto the veranda as the door opened. Nancy took a step back.

‘Nancy? Done nearly give me a heart attack
with that knock. Step inside.’

‘Sorry, I didn’t think you heard me the
first time. Sorry for your loss.’

‘Yeah, a waste of a life. Ya can sees him
if yer likes? He’s in the parlour.’

The woman didn’t wait for an answer. Dean’s
mom turned and hobbled on her bad hip, made worse by carrying her
three-hundred-pound frame. Nancy guessed that from the pain she had seen in the
depth of her eyes that she was more weighed down by the passing of her son.

‘Brung him here to see if I can’t persuade
the Lord to save him from the clutches of Satan,’ she said and opened the parlour-door.

Amazing Grace played softly in the
background. Two stout candles burned at either side of a coffin with the lid
open. Nancy grasped Lilly’s arm as Lilly’s legs buckled and then she helped her
to sit in her armchair.

‘Didn’t expect you to pay yer respects,
after all he’s done to disrespect ya over the years. Detective Claymore came
here askin’ questions. I told him all I knows, which wasn’t much. Gotta say, he
looked a mess. He was having more trouble limping than I have trying to get
around.’

Kyle?

Lilly continued. ‘The gangs are taking so
many of our children. I’m guessing no one will ever pay for his death until
judgment day.’

Nancy glanced over at the coffin. The
undertakers had done him proud. His death mask gave him a look of peace with a
faint smile on his lips. The smile was almost impish, as if he was thinking
I
know a secret but I ain’t telling ya,
just like the teenager that he had
been.

‘Is there anything I can help with?’ Asked
Nancy.

‘Nah, I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. I’m
guessing he made some trouble for ya from the questions the detective asked?’

‘Nothing for you to worry about. But I am
interested in what the detective asked and what you told him?’

‘Just questions about when we’d last seen,
or heard from ya. I told him, I ain’t seen ya since that trouble ya sorted out
for Dean. Sung your praises I did. The detective asked if he’d come into any
money, but like I said, if he had, Dean didn’t share it with me. He did ask me
if he had any enemies. Hell, ya knows what it’s like around here. Ya don’t need
enemies to end up six foot under, especially where drugs and gangs is involved.’

‘It must be hard for you. He’s not exactly
given you an easy ride.’

‘Oh, he wasn’t all that bad. I’m guessing
my garden will finish up like all the rest now he ain’t around. He had his good
points, just easily led, that’s all.’

Nancy glanced back over at Dean. Whatever
he had brought down on her, she didn’t wish him dead. Recalling some of the
times she had laughed and joked with him over the years as he grew up, a lump
rose in her throat.

‘Can you remember that time when he’d just
turned eleven and he brought that girl home when we were having a coffee, after
I’d returned your cat?’

Lilly chuckled. ‘Rosa, I remember. Said he
was going to marry her. Cracked me up it did.’

‘Whatever happened to her?’

‘Lives in a trailer somewheres over west.
Three kids last I heard. Shame when ya thinks she wanted to be an attorney.’

Somehow, her answer didn’t summon a chuckle
from either of them. Lilly interrupted their reminiscing.

‘The detective asked about Dean’s movements
just before he was murdered. It’s getting hard for me to recall things at my
age, but I told him about something odd.’

Nancy snapped her head back from glancing
at Dean to look at Lilly as she continued.

‘A large-black vehicle pulled up outside
early in the morning, too fancy for these parts with all the windows blacked
out and chrome-bull bars at the front. Anyways, Dean ran out and came back
carrying a brown paper parcel. I only remember because I argued with him
thinking it was drugs.’

‘What was the shape of the parcel?’

‘Hmm, say about the size of a block of
butter.’

It sounded like ten-thousand dollars in her
mind if the denominations were high enough.

‘He just grabbed his coat and ran off.’

‘What day was that?’

‘The Friday before he disappeared.’

‘Did you see anyone in the vehicle?’

‘Just a white guy when he rolled the window
open, but I couldn’t describe him. Hell, you white folks all look the same to
me. Leastways that’s what I told the detective.’

Lilly almost choked as she laughed. Nancy
walked over to her and patted her back.

‘What about hair colour?’

‘Oh, hell, yeah. I never thought about
that.’