Gone Forever (Jack Widow Book 1), page 15
He nodded, stayed quiet. He just looked down.
I said, “Matlind, go to sleep. Take my room.”
And he did. I waited and heard the lock click.
I went into his room and pushed the splintered door as far closed as it would go. I went into the bathroom, past all the luggage and piles of dirty clothes in the corner. There were female items spread out all over the bathroom—makeup, mascara, a box of tampons, fragrances, one bottle of perfume, one razor, and two sets of toothbrushes. A pink razor, a nice foldable one, rested on the side of the tub. A bottle of girlie shaving cream sat on the ledge next to it. The lid was off, and a dab of white residue that must have once been cream hung out of the tip of the can. On the bathroom shelf, near the sink, were bottles of Midol, aspirin, Motrin, some prescription pills, and an asthmatic inhaler.
I looked up from the countertop and stared at myself in the mirror. I looked tired and less threatening because of it.
I rubbed my eyes.
I used the bathroom, washed my hands, and dried them off on a towel that hung near the shower curtain. Then I walked over to the bed, left my clothes on, and fell on top of the covers.
Lights out.
16
I woke up late in the morning. I rolled over and looked at my burner phone. It read 10:34, but the four switched just as I looked at it. Now it was 10:35—close guess.
I got up and got dressed, headed out the door. I checked in on Matlind. He was in a deep sleep. There was a bottle of Ambien next to his wallet on the nightstand.
I backed out of his room and left him to sleep. No reason to wake him. He slept like the dead, and he probably needed it. Besides, I needed to investigate alone. I was better alone. And I had my own agenda to follow. Not likely that my mother’s killer, the missing girl from my town, and now his wife were coincidences.
I locked the door from the inside and closed it behind me.
For most fishermen, the day’s catch had already come and gone because fishing was an early morning sport. Best started before the sun came up. The sun was high in the sky, and the trees creaked in the wind. The air was warm, and it smelled fresh and clean.
I set out to explore the town and to search for Faye Matlind.
I had no photograph of her because someone had taken Matlind’s cell phone, where he had kept all of his pictures. I had no real clues except for the rednecks. They were my only lead. I walked on, took out my phone, and unlocked it. I skipped the missed messages, calls, emails, and voicemails, and pulled up the internet and looked up the name “Faye Matlind.” I figured that she probably had a social media account of some sort. Something with her picture on it. So, I searched all the popular primary search engines and social networks. I found nothing. I found a Facebook page for Chris Matlind, but it must’ve been ancient. Maybe only used once. He had no profile pictures—no photo albums. He had only a dozen friends, and his last post was four years ago.
I gave up. I didn’t need her picture, anyway. She was a black woman in a town full of white people. She would stick out with no trouble at all.
I continued into town.
I hadn’t eaten since dinner the night before, but I skipped breakfast. I wasn’t interested in lunch either. The only thing I wanted was to find Faye. Enough time had elapsed already, with no one looking for her.
I walked the roads and through the suburbs, past the school, the post office, the public safety complex, the people on the sidewalks, and the cars parked along the sides of the streets, and past a dismal public library with a parking lot that could’ve been a graveyard for old cars—the only cars in it were from the seventies or earlier. I continued walking past bait shops, a couple of gun stores, two hardware stores, and a four-wheeler store. Then I came up on the other side of the diner. I had walked the long way around it from the night before.
I continued walking past two gas stations, one with a liquor store attached, and one with a broken car wash that probably hadn’t worked since 1980.
I walked past a small grocery store, an old chain store. I recognized the name, but I thought the whole chain had gone out of business over a decade ago.
I took one more glance at the Eckhart Medical Center and got a better look at the clinic attached to it. It was open for business, and it was busy because the parking lot was full. Across the street from the clinic was a small plaza with another grocery store, this one smaller than the others I’d seen, and it had a tiny drugstore attached at the corner. The drugstore had a drive-through window, but the window was closed and dark inside, and the lane to drive through it had been roped off.
Walking through the downtown area, I searched for store clerks, attendants, cleaners, anyone who held a blue-collar job. I wanted to find people who made less money than everyone else, people who might be more talkative. People who would be more apt to answering my questions. First, I planned to chitchat with them about pleasantries, and then ask them if they had seen a young black woman a week ago. I found a few townspeople who fit the bill. I inquired about Faye’s whereabouts, but no one had seen her.
They hadn’t lied to me. Most people had the common sense to give me the information I asked for and to do it quickly. Even if I acted polite, which I usually did, they told me fast. Most people didn’t want to risk being discovered in a lie. Not by me. And not about something as serious as a missing woman.
Later in the morning, I came across a lady walking a French poodle—an older lady, grandmotherly. She was as sweet as could be.
I asked, “Ma’am, do you know anything about a young black woman who came to town last week? She’s missing.”
The old lady replied, “Oh, dear. Missing? Oh, dear.”
I said, “Ma’am, have you seen her?”
She shook her head in an early Exorcist movie fashion, like it was about to spin around and around, but it didn’t. Instead, she said, “I heard about that poor fellow who’s looking for her, but I haven’t seen her. I hope it works out. Poor thing.”
I nodded. The woman was telling the truth. She hadn’t seen Faye or Chris. She knew nothing—just gossip. The old birds probably had some sort of phone tree. One would call another one and spread the latest rumors—that sort of thing.
I didn’t want to be one of those rumors. And I didn’t want to lose the element of surprise. I didn’t push her any further. I shrugged, thanked her, and moved on.
I neared one church, the one with the short steeple. A bell sounded from inside. I looked at the shadows on the ground. It was late afternoon.
I had run out of places to search.
There were still the rest of the places around the lake, which looked to be just houses and neighborhoods. I figured I would spend the rest of the day retracing the Matlinds’ hike around the lake and end at the rednecks’ compound. That way, I could take my time, make sure there were no other places for answers. By the time I reached the fork at the southwest side and the redneck compound, it would be dark.
And that was where I shined—in the dark.
17
Before I set out to trek around the lake, I needed something to eat. It occurred to me to go back for Matlind, but after eight days without sleep, the guy deserved to sleep the day away, so I walked toward the diner. I was hungry, and I kept thinking about this guacamole steak burger I saw on the menu. I wanted to try it, but the diner was at the center of town and was surrounded by buildings. Before I went to eat, I wanted to get a look from the lake’s shore and plan out my route. I walked the two blocks to the lake and then head to the diner.
It only took a few minutes for me to reach the lake. I stopped and stood near the edge. The lake was full of boats and fishermen. A couple of Jet Skiers were chasing each other in a wide circle. On the little stony beach, kids played, and parents fished and drank beer with the labels covered by bottle koozies.
I ignored all of that and scanned the shoreline. I followed it from left to right. Most of the eastern side seemed to be residential, lake houses, woods, and not much else.
It was a lot of area to cover, a lot of area for a new bride to go missing in, and a lot of area to hide a body. Then there was the lake itself. I wasn’t familiar with its depths, but it looked deep enough to sink a body. If it was deep enough, it could be years before a body resurfaced. I shrugged. I didn’t want to think about her as dead. The clock ticked away, but I had the right perspective. Right now, this was a rescue mission, not a recovery. To think of it as a recovery was to give up hope Faye was alive, and that would condemn her to death.
I turned and left the shoreline behind me.
I walked two blocks past a row of shops to the corner in front of the drugstore, and I stopped. My animal brain switched on, and my primal instincts surfaced. At that moment, at that exact second, I stood on the sidewalk, watching a normal and frequent daily occurrence take place, one that pissed me off.
A man was hitting on a woman. She rejected his advances, but he continued. She rejected him again and again, making it obvious from where I stood, she was clearly uncomfortable and wanted to leave.
I saw her just as she stepped out of the drugstore, a small bag in her hand and a purse on her arm—and then I saw the man. First, he was cruising in his car down the street with his head hanging out of the driver’s side window. He rubbernecked at her and then pulled over into the parking lot, left his car running, and got out. He went over to her and stopped her by just standing dead in her way.
He kept hitting on her, and she kept on rejecting him. She tried to walk around him, but he followed her to her vehicle and continued to harass her.
She continued to reject him, and she even started raising her voice.
He ignored her rejections, and in a rural accent, like one of those fat rednecks, he taunted her.
This was a common everyday occurrence in America and around the world. A man hits on a woman. She rejects him. He harasses her. Typical everyday situation. Nothing new about that. Normally, I would’ve intervened when the guy had gone too far, which this guy had clearly done. Normally, I would’ve strongly encouraged the guy to apologize and to move along. But this situation was anything but normal because the woman who was being harassed was the beautiful woman, I had met yesterday morning, the one who was jogging around the lake. And the guy was armed—he had a Glock 22 in a plain brown holster on his belt. But far worse than that was the fact that this guy was a sheriff’s deputy in full uniform.
18
The deputy leaned against Sheldon’s car door, hindering her from getting in and driving away.
Staying on the sidelines and ignoring an injustice wasn’t in my nature. I crossed the street and walked straight up behind the cop.
A flash of recognition came across Sheldon’s face.
I stood four feet from the guy before he heard me. Not the greatest situational awareness.
Uniform or no uniform, cop or no cop, I talked to him like he was just another guy. I said, “The lady said she isn’t interested in talking to you. She made that clear.”
The guy turned to face me. He was startled. Some kind of cop training or ancient predatory urge to defend an imaginary territory came over him because he immediately reached for his gun. He left it holstered but rested his hand on the butt. It probably made him feel safer. Whatever.
He wasn’t going to draw on me. Not here. Not in front of witnesses on a relatively busy section of street in broad daylight. Just then, several customers left the drugstore behind him. A mother with three young kids walked to their car from a shoe store in the plaza. No way was he going to draw now, especially when he was the one in the wrong.
He opened his mouth to speak, but before he let out a word, I smelled his breath. He smelled like he had bathed in alcohol. I detected rum and whiskey and probably beer on his breath. Everyone must have attended that party.
The guy had probably been up all-night doing shots. He’d probably never gone to bed. But he wasn’t wasted. Not completely. Badly buzzed, but mostly coherent.
He asked, “Who the hell are you?”
I said, “Me? I’m nobody. Just a passerby.”
He looked puzzled. He obviously hadn’t been at the top of his class.
I said, “But you… you’re a cop. A sheriff’s deputy, by the look of your uniform. You’re supposed to uphold the law. You’re supposed to make your department look good. And right now, I’d say that you’re failing. Miserably.”
The cop looked at me with fury in his eyes. He said, “I’m talking to this lady. She’s not your concern. I’m gonna let you walk away now before you get hurt.”
“Hurt?” I asked. “I agree. One of us will get hurt. But it won’t be her, and it certainly won’t be me. And that only leaves you. You could pull that gun on a couple of innocent people. And you could slip, and the gun could come out of your hand. It could go off and hit you in the leg or the arm. And then you’d have to go to the hospital … and explain how it all happened.”
He asked, “Are you threat’nin’ me?”
He gripped the gun’s handle. He didn’t brandish it, just grabbed it like a gunslinger waiting for the count of three.
He said, “Threat’nin’ an officer of the law is illegal here.”
I said, “Harassing a citizen, especially sexually harassing a female one, is illegal everywhere. Now get your hand off your gun. As of right now, we’re just a couple of guys talking. Having a verbal dispute. A disagreement.”
My hands hung harmlessly by my sides. No sudden action. No threatening motions. I knew all the signals that cops were trained to look for, and at that moment, I displayed none of them. Even so, I stayed within grabbing distance of the deputy, in case I needed to take the Glock from him before he hurt someone with it.
I said, “Two guys having a verbal disagreement are just that—two guys. Not friends. Not enemies. Just two guys. If you pull that gun out, then we’ll be enemies. And you don’t want to be my enemy. Trust me.”
The cop stood there frozen. He stayed quiet. He wanted to pull out his Glock and arrest me—I could see it in his eyes—but he didn’t. With witnesses everywhere, he’d never be able to charge me with anything that would stick. Whatever bogus charge he came up with would get dismissed in court, and he’d be suspended for sure. Probably lose his job whenever Sheldon’s testimony came up.
The guy moved his hand away from his gun as he looked around the parking lot and realized I was right.
I smiled and took a glance at his nameplate. Gemson. Strange name. Stranger than mine even.
I said, “Good call. Why don’t we just keep this between us?”
He nodded.
I said, “And in the future, why don’t you just steer clear of this woman? If I were you, I’d leave your squad car parked where it is, take the keys out of the ignition, and get on your cell phone or radio. Call the dispatcher and tell her you’ve suddenly come down with a stomach bug. Then walk or call a cab and go home. Get some sleep and sober up.”
Gemson said, “I’ll see you again.”
He said nothing else, just looked around to see if anyone had paid any attention to what had happened. No one seemed to have picked up on it. Satisfied, he walked away. Not fast. Not slow. Just a normal speed until he was lost to sight.
I walked over to the cop car, opened the door, sat down, and pressed the brake. I shifted the gear to neutral, and then I gripped the roof and the side of the car and pushed it over to the curb. It was a fire lane, but, hey, this was a police vehicle. Then I popped the lever back to park and reached down and turned off the ignition. I tossed the keys onto the seat, not much caring if someone came along and stole the car. Not my business.
19
I hadn’t noticed before, but Sheldon had dropped her shopping bag while trying to get away from Gemson. Her purchases had spilled out all over the ground. She bent over and began recovering them.
I walked back up the drive to the parking lot, knelt down beside her, and began helping her pick up the spilled contents.
I put my hand on a box marked salbutamol, and there were various other pharmaceutical items. There was a box marked Elavil, an antidepressant, and another that said Ambien, a sleep aid. There were a couple of boxes of Norflex and Flexeril, both muscle relaxers, and there were various other medications I had never heard of, along with gauze and other medical supplies.
I said, “That’s a lot of medications. And salbutamol, that’s for asthmatics. You don’t have asthma. No way. Not how you run and the shape you’re in. Are you a drug dealer or something?”
She scooped up the boxes of pills quickly and then smiled. She said, “No. And what do you mean about the shape I’m in?”
I shrugged and said, “Don’t take this the wrong way. But your body is immaculate. I’m guessing you don’t have an ounce of fat on you. No way does someone with severe asthma workout and run as much as you do.”
She smiled, nodded, and said, “I work at the clinic. This is a supply run.”
I nodded and smiled back.
She stood up and straightened out the bottom of her romper. The bottom was short, well below her fingertips if she had reached them down by her sides. It looked new and had a tribal pattern. The back had a V shape cut down from her neckline. She wore her long, blonde hair down. The breeze scooped it up and blew it behind her.
She looked comfortable and magnificent all at the same time.
I said, “You don’t dress like someone who works in a clinic.”
“What’s wrong with the way I dress?”
“Nothing. You look good. Really good. Is it your day off?”
She said, “No. I have clothes at the clinic. We have lockers. I keep my scrubs there.”
I nodded.
She smiled at me. She said, “Nice seeing you again. Very nice.” She looked me over.
I said, “I know that you have to bring all that stuff in, but would you like to have lunch with me?”
She paused a beat and looked down at a slim wristwatch that hung from her left arm. Then she frowned. She said, “I really can’t. I’m sorry. I have to get to the clinic. Raincheck?”
