Missing: The Body of Evidence Read online

  The rental-depot was only two blocks from a local sub-police station and a short five-minute drive. Nancy parked and made her way to the desk-sergeant. She knew him of old. They exchanged pleasantries and then filled out a report for the missing gun. The sergeant read her report.

  ‘Sure you haven’t misplaced the gun?’

  ‘I’m sure; someone must have picked the lock.’

  ‘And nothing else was missing?’

  He raised his head and looked straight into her eyes. It must have sounded as strange to him as it did to her. If she wasn’t a detective, she guessed he wouldn’t have left it at that.

  ‘Seen it in the papers about the fire. Lucky escape for you and Kyle.’

  ‘Yeah, lucky me.’

  Nancy breathed a sigh of relief at avoiding further small talk, when a uniformed cop brought in a felon for processing. She picked up a copy of the report and made her way back to her car. On the drive over to the bank, the mention of Kyle’s name led her to run over in her mind the weekend at the cabin. Her eyes darted to her cell phone poking out of her purse on the passenger seat. The temptation was to there to phone Kyle, or at least to switch on the phone to see if he had left her a message. But thoughts that whoever was watching her had managed to get the number to her cell phone, and that they could triangulate her position, held her temptation in check. Nancy parked and made her way into the bank and up to customer reception.

  ‘Nancy Roberts, I’m here to pick up a bank card and I need to order five years bank statements.’

  The young woman typed in her details on the keyboard.

  The smile wiped from the young woman’s face and she asked her to wait and scurried through a security door. Nancy glanced over at the tellers counter and could see the young woman whispering to one of the cashiers. The security door opened and the manager walked toward her with the young woman in tow. Behind them, she could see the tellers gazing over at her as if she were some sort of alien.

  ‘Miss Roberts.’

  The manager thrust an authorization form in front of her.

  ‘I need you to sign this, for us to send copies of your statements to Detective Brogan.’

  Looking up at the young woman peering over the manager’s shoulder, she looked as though she had a bad smell under her nose. Nancy signed the form and the manager handed her the debit card. He turned without saying as much as a thank you; or a goodbye, and exited through the security door. Nancy walked over to the counter, handed the teller her card, and drew out some cash. The cashier didn’t even look at her as she processed the transaction, but the impression that everyone else was glaring at her, made Nancy feel uncomfortable. She looked up at the security camera. Thoughts that she was standing in the punk’s footsteps, the one who deposited the money that caused her problem, made her shudder. Nancy rushed out of the bank wanting to scream and vowed to change banks when it was all over.

  Standing outside the entrance to the bank, Nancy scanned in all directions, getting a fix on everyone in the area, before walking the twenty yards to the entrance of her attorney’s office. Stopping, she glanced around, but no one paid her any attention and she slipped through the office door to reception.

  ‘I need an urgent appointment.’

  ‘Doesn’t everyone. Sorry, all the attorneys are out. I can fix you up for tomorrow.’

  Nancy bit her lip.

  ‘Okay, but listen. I want to give you these for safe keeping, and I’m going to need a criminal attorney.’

  ‘We have Mr. Hayward at nine a.m.’

  ‘Fine.’

  Nancy felt in her purse and handed her the computer disc with the photographs, the chit for the missing gun and Tracy’s pen drive.

  ‘Please, can you lock these away and hand them to Mr. Hayward.’

  ‘Sure, here’s his business card.’

  With the goodbyes said, she made her way to her car and drove to her apartment. Eyes darted from the rear-view mirror to the road and back to the rear-view mirror. With no one following, she turned into the picnic-parking lot, near to the nature trail where she used to take a morning walk, and parked her car. Taking sunglasses from her purse, she slipped them on and pulled the peak of her baseball cap low over her eyes. Walking across the road, she stepped over a low hedge and made her way to the fire door. A light rap on the window and she called out.

  ‘Mrs. James, it’s me, Nancy.’

  The curtain twitched and a gray haired woman’s face appeared in the window. Nancy waved and the window opened.

  ‘Hi, Nance, lost your key?’

  ‘Yeah, sorry, can you let me in.’

  The window closed and after a few, minutes the fire door opened. Nancy thanked her, bounded up the stairway and took the gun from her belt, loading a bullet in the chamber. At the door, she slowly turned the key and slipped inside. There was a brown envelope on the floor and she picked it up and moved into the living room. She checked that all the rooms were empty and walked back to the sofa, where she sat and looked at the brown envelope. All that was on the front of it was her name. Nancy opened it, took out a note and read the message in silence.

  Chapter 50

  The flashing neon on the answering machine in her living room caught Nancy’s attention. In the stance of The Thinker, she stroked her lips with her finger. The message inside the brown envelope had unsettled her. Instructions from the note were clear enough, meet Bill at Angelus Roseburg cemetery at two that afternoon, burn the letter, and tell no one. Doubts surfaced, that Bill could be a party to her being set up, possibly to deflect guilt from his own direction. A wish permeated, that her dad would open up and tell her what connection he had to Bill and Logan and what he knew of them. She slipped the note in her purse and decided to hand it over to her attorney.

  Curiosity as to who had been trying to contact her drew her to the answering machine. Whoever was bugging her apartment would already know the contents of the messages. The worry was that if Kyle was trying to contact her and the surveillance team was part of internal affairs, he might get into trouble. With some reluctance, she pressed PLAY.

  There were three messages, all from Logan. A thought struck her that the messages may have given away that she was not in her apartment at the time of the calls.

  She picked up the handset and dialled Logan’s number.

  ‘Hi, Chief. Sorry I didn’t get back to you earlier, I took a sleeping pill.’

  ‘Okay, but leave your cell phone switched on when you’re out and about. It’s switched off.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere, only resting in bed and my cell phone is busted. Any news?’

  ‘Yeah, we think we’ve found the house where your man is hiding over on Piru Street. We’re sending in a team later today.’

  ‘That’s good news. Listen, I’m going to unplug my phone the rest of the day. To be honest, I’ve not recovered from the fire at the Cabin. I hurt like hell and I need to rest.’

  ‘Okay, but put it back on in the morning around eleven and I’ll keep you posted.’

  ‘How’s Kyle?’

  ‘Fine, but they’re possibly keeping him in for observation for a few more days. Got to go.’

  The continual tone of the cut line prevented her from asking what Kyle’s reaction had been to events. Nancy replaced the handset. Trembling from head to toe, she recalled the conversation and tried to determine if she had covered all the bases. She flushed hot and then cold at Kyle not phoning. On the one hand, it would save him a visit from internal affairs, but on the other hand, she wondered if he had written her off. Nancy stooped and disconnected the telephone. Sitting back on the sofa, she covered her face with her hands and began to cry.

  Her inner mind told her she needed to get a grip and come to her senses. This was no time for emotion. Nancy went to the kitchen and made a strong black coffee. The infusion of caffeine worked its magic and her emotions subsided. Deciding to give her stalkers a few more fingerprints to confirm that she was in her apartment, she took a dressing robe from he
r bedroom, slipped it on over her clothes and sat at her computer desk. After ruffling her hair, she switched on the computer and tried her best to look shattered for the camera.

  Opening the browser, her mind blanked as to what to search, before deciding to take the surveillance team on a trip to You Tube. Nancy searched out Westlife, and pressed play for their video of Flying Without Wings, which she had not seen before.

  With the volume on full, she sat and watched the screen. The film took Nancy on her journey with Kyle. She was finding hard to hold back the tears, when her expression froze, with her mouth open, at the ending of the video. A woman dressed in white and looking remarkably like her, floated in space. It was as if an electric current had passed through her body at the significance of the both the lyrics and now the visuals striking home. She sat in silence, biting her lip and staring at the computer screen, her mind going through the visions of her dreams. Conscious they were watching her facial expressions; Nancy switched off the computer and discarded the dressing robe.

  Pacing around the living room, she reckoned she had more than her love life and career to contend with and she sighed. Her mental health was now an issue. The images at the end of the video and recall of the dreams made her think something weird was happening with her psyche. Everything started with the bang on her head when she ran into the bough of a tree. All the strange events ran through her mind creating the paranoia that she was losing her grasp on reality. The malfunction of the shower... the odd pattern of the fire at the cabin… the candles blowing out and then re-lighting. Then there was the even stranger events of the glass exploding in her presence and the MRI scan reversing polarity. Each individual event had a logical explanation, but when added together it did not feel right, and she thought she was losing her mind.

  The meeting with Mary, the psychic at the station flashed through her mind and the words that a spiritualist psychic could help her. She opened her purse and took out the note with the address for the psychic she had been given. A glance at the wall clock told her there was enough time to visit the psychic and still meet up with Bill.

  Her eyes darted around the room, and then it dawned on her where she had put the Blu-Tack. Nancy trudged into the bedroom and threw herself on the bed. She sighed for the benefit of those listening.

  ‘Arghh, bed and sleep.’

  An impish grin spread on her lips as she took off her sneakers, eased off the bed and tiptoed to the hall, picking up the Blu-Tack on the way out. Her sweaty palm twisted the door handle and without a sound she closed the door behind her. Like a naughty schoolchild, she snickered as she jammed Blu-Tack into the fire door catch and then headed across the road to her rental car.

  The adrenaline rush gave her the sense of a dopamine high for her mind, but her body started to spasm.

  She drove for maybe ten minutes, her eyes darting in all directions from the rear-view mirror, to the road ahead. Gradually the anticipation of a cat and mouse car chase diminished. A smirk developed at managing to pull one over on her stalkers.

  She drove north and watched the scenery roll on by as she chewed up the road ahead. Finally, she reached her destination.

  Nancy parked and checked the number of the address. Slowly, she crawled along forward in her car, squinting at the house numbers. Set back off the road, some seventy-five feet and in a slightly elevated position, the house came into view.

  Originally white, the paint was peeling and greying, with some of the wooden boards hanging loose. The windows looked as though they had never seen a cleaning, as if they were praying for rain. The path to the front door looked well-trodden but, with a lack of tending, the grass had become overgrown with wild flowers and weeds.

  It looked like the sort of house where she would normally call for backup before knocking on the front door, but on this occasion, it was something she would have to do alone.

  Easing from her seat, she closed the car door and made her way up the pathway to the house. The floorboards creaked on the veranda and gave her the shivers. Nancy went through the ritual of swaying her head from side to side in an effort to find some composure and then knocked on the door. Nerves took hold in the form of a mild-panic attack at the thought that she had not worked out what she wanted to ask the physic. Anticipation turned to dread at the sound of footsteps shuffling toward the door and the handle twitched.

  Chapter 51

  The door to the dilapidated house creaked open just enough to reveal the face of a middle-aged woman.

  ‘Hi, I was given this address by the janitor from the psychic church. Is it possible to see Miss Chambers?’

  ‘Sure, come in.’

  The hallway, lit only by the glass panels at each side of the entrance, smelled clean and fresh. It was like stepping into a different era with the decor. The woman lifted the glass on a copper oil lamp that stood on a nineteen-thirties-coat stand and lit the wick. Over a floral pinafore, the pink woollen cardigan she wore had holes from years of use.

  ‘Electric gone out?’

  ‘We don’t have any use for it here. What’s your name?’

  ‘Nancy... Nancy Roberts.’

  ‘Follow me.’

  They walked along the corridor. The woman wobbled in front of her on rickets-ridden-bowed legs. Dancing shadows created an eerie atmosphere as the light flickered and the lamp swayed at her side. At the end of the hallway, the woman opened the door. Directly ahead, the lamp cast light into a room. The curtains were closed and the woman beckoned her to follow. A single candle on a low table, gave off the fragrance of jasmine. In one corner of the room was an unoccupied single bed. In the centre of the room, there stood two winged chairs, a low table and a footstool.

  ‘Someone to see you, Dora... Nancy Roberts.’

  A voice croaked back from the direction of the back of one of the winged chairs.

  ‘Please, sit down.’

  The woman placed the lamp on the low table at one side of the chairs and signalled for her to sit. Nancy perched with her behind on the edge of the chair. At the first sight of Dora, she had to hold back a gasp. The frail woman looked like a rag doll, with a skeletal frame. Her muscle tissue had wasted with age, leaving her veins with the appearance of being on the outside of her translucent skin. Liver spots peppered her face, arms and legs. Her white hair, well groomed, cascaded to her waist. The woman’s eyes shocked Nancy. Devoid of pupils, her eyes were a murky-white, with red veins, like streaks of lightning frozen in a cloudy sky on a still frame of a photo.

  ‘Come, let me see you.’

  The irony was not lost on Nancy. Dora raised her bony trembling fingers and reached out. Nancy manoeuvred onto the footstool in front of her. Half expecting her skin to crawl, Dora’s touch was surprisingly warm.

  ‘Beautiful. Your mom will be proud. Is that why you’re here?’

  ‘I don’t know why I’m here.’ She was not lying, but she did not want to give her any clues that her mom had passed away, or the curiosity that was biting at her brain, to see just what the woman could come up with by way of an insight as to what Mary had meant. ‘Well, I guess… really I’m here because a woman psychic I met said I have a gift and I should seek help.’

  ‘Who was the psychic?’

  ‘Mary Goodyear.’

  ‘Mary?’ Dora growled the name as if in disgust. Silence ensued.

  ‘You have a gift, dear, but it is nothing a psychic can help with, only to tell you that you’re an alternative. I’m surprised Mary didn’t try to recruit you.’

  ‘What do you mean, alternative, and why on earth would she want to recruit me?’

  ‘Just think yourself lucky she didn’t find you as a child. You’re probably too old for her.’

  Paedophile ring came to mind, and sent her brain into detective mode.

  ‘Please explain in full?’

  ‘First tell me about your dreams that trouble you?’

  Nancy moved back to the chair and wondered how she could know about her dreams, but then thought maybe it was
the psychic’s ruse and the woman was digging for information. Her avoidance of the question about Mary was annoying.

  ‘Okay, but what do you mean when you say alternative?’

  ‘The answer is in your dreams, dear. Alternatives with magnetic auras as strong as yours can have different gifts. Your dreams will have the answers to your questions.’

  Magnetic aura? Nancy gave up the idea of fencing the questions and relayed her experiences during her dreams.

  ‘You’re a traveller, but you are also in danger.’

  ‘A traveller?’

  ‘Astral travel, dear. It’s a rare gift. Did you ever have imaginary friends as a child?’

  ‘Well, yes, according to my dad, but what’s that got to do with it?’

  ‘Some people are born with the gift, and others seek out the similarly gifted for company. Most grow out of it, but in some, it can develop for their spirit to travel at will, which is why we call them alternatives. Psychics only deal with spirits in the hereafter. It sounds as though other alternatives are seeking you out, but for evil purposes, not for companionship.’

  Nancy pressed her back into the upright of the chair. Lost for words at first, her mind raced over the probability, not wanting to believe the truth of what she was hearing.

  ‘So where does Mary fit into the equation.’

  ‘She holds counselling seminars for children with imaginary friends that seek help from various spiritualist churches in the state. Some sort of psychic research program she’s involved with.’

  Dora’s head began to sway from side to side, then the whole upper half of her body, as if entering a trance. A hiss escaped her lips and then she started to groan.

  ‘Your mom’s here, dear. She said to tell you she’s had a word with your dad. Does that make sense?’

  It made perfect sense. Pins and needles ran through Nancy’s body and she shuddered.

  ‘Ask her if she knows what I should do?’

  She couldn’t quite believe she was accepting the possibility of her mom’s spirit presence.