Nothing to Lose, page 8
“I’ll look into it,” I grumbled, “but I’m not making any promises.”
Our conversation was winding down. “Sarah and I miss you,” Mel said. It was her understated way of apologizing for hurting my feelings, and I accepted it as such.
“I miss you, too,” I said, “but I feel like I need to be here. If Jared hadn’t taken my advice, grabbed Chris, run for their lives that night, there’s a good chance that Chris’s son, Christopher James, would never have been born. So I feel like I owe him and Danitza, too. It’s as though I’ve been personally designated to give Chris Danielson’s family a final answer as to what happened to him.”
“What a surprise!” Mel said with a laugh. “After all, isn’t that exactly what you’ve been doing for most of your adult life—providing those kinds of answers to grieving families?”
And as soon as she said it, I knew it was true. I was spending that night in snowy Anchorage doing exactly what I was supposed to do—finding out once and for all what had happened to Chris Danielson, not only for his still-grieving lover and fatherless child but also for someone who was no longer with us—for my former partner, Sue Danielson. She deserved answers every bit as much as they did.
So now, instead of having one pro bono client, I had three—Jared, Danitza, and Sue Danielson. I’ll give you one guess which one was most important.
Chapter 10
I awakened the next morning to a dark sky and the sounds of dead silence. You don’t realize that you’re hearing a constant din of traffic in the background until all of a sudden it isn’t there. The room was so dark I thought it had to be the middle of the night, but the bedside clock said 8:05. I got out of bed, hurried over to the window, and looked outside. It had stopped snowing, all right, but by the light from the still-glowing streetlights I could see that cars parked on the street below were literally buried in snow, and if the pavement had been plowed at all overnight, evidence of that was no longer visible. A quick glance at the local news told me that due to the storm schools were closed and all but essential workers were advised to stay home.
Great, I thought. Just what I need. I’ll be stuck here at the hotel all day and won’t be able to accomplish a damned thing.
With that unhappy thought in mind, I threw on some clothes and went down to breakfast. If the kitchen was going to run out of supplies, I wanted to be sure I had something to eat well before that happened. While I was eating, I heard a few sounds of machinery moving outside on the street level, so someone had finally gotten out the snowplows after all. Better late than never.
I went back to my room determined to let my fingers do the walking, since due to the snow being out and about didn’t appear to be an option. I had those three guys to look up in Anchorage, but until I had a better idea about driving conditions, there was no point in attempting to make appointments with any of them. Instead, realizing that police officers are considered to be essential workers, I picked up my phone, checked my contacts list, and dialed a number at Anchorage PD. Then I waited for Detective Hank Frazier to pick up the phone.
As a homicide cop or as an investigator for Special Homicide, I was pretty much assured of a cordial response when calling in to unfamiliar police departments. As a private investigator? Not so much. Since Homer PD was a totally unknown entity as far as I was concerned and because I wanted a positive result, I felt the need to have an intermediary, and Hank Frazier was it.
A couple of years earlier, while still employed at SHIT, I had teamed up with him on a case where a guy named Winston Hale had murdered both his mother and stepfather before fleeing to Alaska. Because the parents were retired and lived in a cabin out in the boonies, the homicide wasn’t discovered for several days. The son’s name came up early on, because friends and neighbors knew that he despised his mother and hated his stepfather even more, but by the time he was on law enforcement’s radar, the killer had already fled Washington State and flown to Anchorage. Frazier was the guy who had picked up the Alaska end of the investigation. Between us, and without ever meeting in person, we’d managed to bring Hale to justice. A year after being given two life-without-parole sentences and being remanded to the Monroe Correctional Complex, Hale committed suicide—thus sparing taxpayers a lifetime’s worth of trouble and expense.
But the connection between Hank Frazier and me had been forged, and as soon as he knew who was on the line, he sounded pleased to hear from me. “Hey, Beau,” he said. “How the hell are you? Still working for SHIT?”
When you worked for the unfortunately named Special Homicide Investigation Team, that line was always good for a laugh. It still is.
“Nope,” I said. “The new attorney general shut us down as soon as he came on board.”
“Too bad,” Hank said. “That was a good outfit. What are you up to now?”
I told him, giving him a quick overview of the whole Chris Danielson missing-person saga. “How can I help?” Hank asked when I finished.
“I was hoping maybe you could run interference for me with Homer PD,” I answered. “I was planning on taking a drive out there today—”
“In this weather?” Hank interrupted with a hint of disbelief in his voice. Perhaps it was more concern than disbelief.
“Well, there is that,” I conceded, “but the thing is, whenever I get there, whether it’s today or tomorrow, most cop shops don’t exactly welcome visiting PIs with open arms, so I was wondering if you could put in a good word for me at Homer PD.”
“Turns out you came to the right place,” Hank said with a laugh. “It so happens I went through the academy with a guy named Marvin Price who’s now in charge of investigations in Homer. I’ll be happy to give Marve a call on your behalf and let him know you’re a straight-up guy. I’ll also text you his contact information, including his cell and direct number. Anything else I can do for you while you’re in town?”
There was another unknown entity on my list—the forensic anthropologist at the University of Alaska Anchorage.
“Ever heard of someone named Harriet Raines?” I asked.
Hank let out a hoot of laughter. “Of course I know Harry,” he said. “That’s what everybody calls her. She’s a character with a capital C. Smokes like a steam engine and prefers cigars to cigarettes. Do you ever watch that show NCIS: Los Angeles?”
Most cops I know wouldn’t watch a scripted crime TV show on a bet, and if they do, it’s usually a closely guarded secret. Personally I’m partial to America’s Funniest Home Videos. I love watching people do stupid stuff without ending up dead as a result. But the interesting thing about getting married is that you sometimes don’t find out all your spouse’s dirty little secrets until after you say “I do.”
Along with her propensity to collect Christmas decorations, that was another of Mel’s closely held secrets—she does watch those shows. Because she was raised as a military brat, she adores anything that has NCIS in the title. She watches all three of those shows—NCIS, NCIS: LA, and NCIS: New Orleans—avidly. Since spending time with Mel is my favorite thing to do, I end up watching them right along with her.
“I’ve seen it a time or two,” I allowed. “Why?”
“You know that funny little woman on NCIS: LA, the one who sits at the front desk drinking either tea or scotch. She never seems to do much of anything herself, but she sees all and knows all.”
“You mean Hetty?”
“Yeah, that’s the one,” Hank replied. “Well, Harriet Raines is a whole lot like Hetty. She’s a little bit of a thing, but smart as all get-out, and if you give her any guff or try to pull a fast one on her, she’ll fix you with a cold, hard stare that’ll shrivel your balls. But when it comes to piecing human skeletons back together, no one can top her. If someone turns up in her lab with a banker’s box full of bones, she’s all over it. Those remains are real people to her. They can be a month old, decades old, or a hundred years old—it doesn’t matter. She takes the bit in her teeth and runs with it.”
“So scary but good,” I said, “sort of like my old high-school English teacher. But in weather like this, what are the chances she’ll be in her office today?”
“One hundred percent,” Hank told me. “She’s pretty much a one-woman show, and I have it on good authority that on snow days she sleeps on a cot in her office just in case she’s needed. So you’re thinking your missing kid ended up dead somewhere?”
“Seems like a real possibility,” I answered.
“Well, give Harry a call, then,” Hank said. “I’ll text you her direct number, too. You’re welcome to tell her that I suggested you be in touch.”
When Hank’s texts came in, I added those names and numbers to my contacts list, but I was a little leery about making phone calls. If I’m meeting someone for the first time, I like to take measure of them face-to-face. That’s especially true if I’m going to be asking for a favor. So I got up, went over to the window, and looked out again.
The snowplows had now worked their magic. Traffic was moving slowly on the street below. The traffic lanes were relatively clear, and the pavement had probably been treated with some kind of deicing material. I checked the map on my iPad. The route from the hotel to the university was fairly straightforward and seemed to feature mostly main thoroughfares. If the street outside the hotel had been cleared, most likely the ones leading to the university had been as well. Since my rental came with all-wheel drive and those top-rated winter tires, I figured I was good to go. Donning my new coat and stuffing my even newer mittens into the pockets, I grabbed my iPad and phone and headed out.
Once in the Explorer, however, I didn’t make it far. At the garage exit, I was stopped cold—and I mean that in every sense of the word. The snowplow might have cleared the traffic lanes out on the street, but it had left a six-foot-tall mound of plowed ice and snow blocking the garage exit. Stymied, I went back up to the lobby to ask when they expected to have the exit cleared.
“There’s a crew coming,” the young woman at the desk explained, glancing at her watch, “but they’re a little backed up right now and probably won’t get here for another hour or so.”
That’s when I remembered Mel’s sage advice about my hiring a driver. “Any taxis or Ubers working today?” I asked. “In fact, since I need to make several stops, I’d probably be better off if I could hire someone to drive me around for most of the day.”
There were two people at the desk—the woman I was speaking to and a somewhat younger guy at the far end of the counter who was handling checkouts. “TW maybe?” the guy suggested helpfully.
The clerk working with me sent her partner a disparaging look along with a small grimace of disapproval.
“Who’s TW?” I asked.
“That’s TW Transportation,” the man supplied. “It’s a one-woman operation. Believe me, it’s nothing fancy, but she’ll get you wherever you need to go, regardless of weather or road conditions. Would you like her number?”
“Since I can’t get my car out of the garage, I guess I’d better have it,” I said.
Frowning, the female clerk typed something into her keyboard and then wrote a number on a slip of paper, which she handed to me. I took a seat in the lobby and dialed away. The call was answered on the second ring.
“TW,” a female voice said.
“My name’s J. P. Beaumont,” I told her. “I’m a guest at the Captain Cook. I need to see several people here in Anchorage today, but a snowplow just buried the garage entrance, and I can’t get my car out. I was wondering if you have a vehicle available.”
“Where all do you need to go?”
“The University of Alaska here in Anchorage for starters,” I told her.
Over breakfast I had looked up the addresses on what I still called the “unaffiliated boys” from Homer High School now living in Anchorage. Both appeared to live out in the hinterlands, one on Mount McKinley View Drive and the other in what looked like a subdivision off Potter Creek Road. The squiggles and curves I’d seen on the map had made me rethink the idea of doing face-to-face interviews, but hopefully TW Transportation had the capability to get through any snowbound streets that might stand in my way.
I read off the addresses.
“Sure,” the woman on the phone said. “No problem. I can get you there and back. How long do you think you’ll be?”
“That’s the thing,” I said, “I’m not really sure. Could I just hire you on an hourly basis so you could hang around and wait until I’m finished?”
“Five hundred bucks with a four-hour minimum, nine-fifty for eight hours, paid in advance, cash or credit card.”
If I had been billing a client, I might have had second thoughts, but seeing as how the only person I might have to answer to was Mel and since getting a driver had been her bright idea in the first place, that sounded like a fair deal.
“How soon can you be here?” I asked.
“Fifteen minutes work for you?”
“Sure,” I said.
“Wait inside,” she said. “I’ll pull up out front.”
“How will I know it’s you?”
“Oh, you’ll know me all right,” she said with a short laugh followed by a surprisingly serious cough. “By the way,” she added once the cough subsided, “if you’ve got sunglasses, you’d better bring them along.”
“Sunglasses?” I echoed, thinking she was pulling my leg. When I’d been packing to leave dreary Bellingham for wintertime Anchorage, the idea of bringing along sunglasses hadn’t occurred to me. And since it was still mostly dark outside, the idea of wearing sunglasses seemed laughable.
“Sun’ll be out later,” the woman warned. “Believe me, if you don’t have sunglasses on you, you’ll wish you did. And be sure to dress warmly. The heater core’s toast. I’ve got the part on order, but it’s coming from someplace in Pennsylvania and taking forever.”
That sounded ominous. The desk clerk had said TW’s services were “nothing fancy,” but it seemed to me that having a functioning heater inside a vehicle for hire in wintertime Anchorage should be mandatory rather than optional. I took her advice to heart, however. Because I’d been on my way out, I was already wearing my boots and had my coat and mittens with me. During my fifteen-minute wait, I went into the gift shop and invested in a knit cap and a scarf along with the suggested pair of sunglasses.
The garage exit might still be an issue, but someone had shoveled the front driveway. I was standing next to the sliding doors at the entrance a few minutes later when a brown-and-yellow seventies-something vintage International Harvester Travelall pulled up outside. A snowplow attachment of some kind, also painted bright yellow, occupied the spot where the front bumper should have been. A blue tarp lashed to a luggage rack on top covered what appeared to be an extensive collection of various-size boxes. Snowplow aside, it was the kind of vehicle I might have expected to encounter either when setting off on a desert safari or else lined up on display at an antique car show.
The woman who hopped down from the driver’s side and came around to greet me was a tall, ruddy-cheeked, salt-and-pepper brunette, probably somewhere in her early sixties. Her burly build would have made her a respectable lineman on any college football team, and I suspected that any overly enthusiastic male who attempted to get out of line with her would end up on the floor and wishing he hadn’t in short order.
She was dressed like a lumberjack, complete with a plaid flannel shirt and a voluminous Carhartt jacket that appeared to be several decades older than my puffy blue parka. My pull-on boots had been brand-new and fresh-out-of-the box that morning. Hers were well-worn metal-toed lace-up work boots, and the only perfume in the air surrounding her was the thick scent of cigarette smoke that permeated her hair and clothing.
“Mr. Beaumont?” she asked, holding out a rough, chapped hand and offering a disturbingly firm handshake.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, “and you are?”
“Twinkle Winkleman,” she replied.
The name struck my funny bone, but I had the good sense to keep my expression as stone-faced as hers.
“Most folks call me Twink,” she continued. “My old man was like that jerk who named his poor son Sue, and he’s the one who stuck me with that handle when I was born—said he thought it was cute. I’ve cussed him about that every day of my life since I first set foot in kindergarten, but since he was also the guy who gave me Maude back there,” she added, gesturing with her head in the direction of the idling Travelall, “I guess it pretty much evens out in the long run. Shall we? You want to ride in the front or in the back?”
I could have told her I didn’t like my given names any better than she did hers. Rather than go into any of that, I simply answered her question.
“Front,” I said, and Twink held the passenger door open for me, allowing me to clamber up onto the front bench seat. It wasn’t a short step by any means, and as I settled in and fastened my seat belt, I muttered a mental thanks to Dr. Ault, the orthopedic surgeon who had installed my two fake knees. Fortunately, they worked flawlessly. I could only hope that the same held true for Twinkle Winkleman’s aging Travelall.
With what looked like eighteen inches of snow on the ground, I didn’t want to be stuck outside walking around, no matter how good my new knees were. On that score my Irish wolfhound, Sarah, and I were on exactly the same page.
Chapter 11
Twink Winkleman heaved herself onto her side of the tattered bench seat, fastened her seat belt, and then held out her hand. “Cash or credit card?” she asked.
I dug out my credit card. Twink might have been driving an antique vehicle, but her iPhone was up to date, and it came equipped with one of those little Square credit-card readers. “Whole day or half?” she wanted to know.
