Missing: The Body of Evidence Read online

  ‘Your mom’s gonna love you for this,’ said Nancy

  The young guy spat phlegm on the floor to show his disgust.

  ‘I know you; you’ll get yours, Bitch.’

  Nancy ignored him as they led him away and she entered the house with Bill.

  ‘Someone’s tipped them off, the place is clean,’ said Bill. ‘I’ll buy you a McDonald’s when we get back to the car. I doubt well get anything from the young punk.’

  ‘Burger, fries and a milkshake,’ Nancy ordered when they arrived at McDonald’s and they sat next to the window.

  ‘You want to get out of all this garbage, get married and settle down in a good neighbourhood, and have kids,’ said Bill. ‘Kyle’s a good guy, you could do worse.’

  ‘Whoa, steady on there. I hardly know him and besides, I’ve only just started my career as a detective.’

  ‘The job’ll destroy your humanity, get out while you can, that’s my advice. Vacation for me on Friday for two weeks, then it’s back for my retirement party, followed by spending the rest of my days fishing.’

  ‘Yeah, well, just remember me, when I’m still fishing for felons.’

  Bill laughed. His gaze had the comforting warmth of a well-worn pair of slippers. There was a time fifteen years ago, when he had taken her to one side after a lecture he had given at the police academy that she had thought differently. At the time, she detected a gaze of lust, one that went hand in glove with his friendly advice, but not any longer. She couldn’t be sure if the years had dulled the lead in his pencil, or that his loyalties to his wife had prevented him from ever making any suggestive remarks. All she knew was that after the years of friendship they had enjoyed, she owed him debt of gratitude for helping her make detective.

  Bill took her hand. The fire in the depth of his eyes, belied his age. His hand was weathered and covered with liver spots; his brow furrowed and he spoke to her like a father figure, in soft tones.

  ‘Listen, I meant it when I said forget the case with the professor. That’s one dirty pool to go fishing in without waders.’

  Chapter 17

  Thursday afternoon brought Nancy a well-earned break, although she wasn’t looking forward to her monthly visit to see her dad. The Ventura Freeway was light of traffic. Nancy took the 13A junction, headed toward Pasadena, along West and then East Colorado Boulevard. Starbucks came into view, she signalled left, and turned onto North Meredith Avenue.

  Overhanging tree branches and the occasional tall palm tree cast shadows on the road. She eased off the gas, braked, and parked under the shade of a tree. Nancy looked across at her dad’s white painted apartment block. It seemed to be a world away from Compton. Fond memories of her childhood, what little she could remember of living on Meredith Avenue, flooded through her mind. Most of her early life she’d spent travelling on army postings with her dad, or living with her auntie after her mom died.

  She always liked to spend a moment dwelling on the good times, to psyche her up for the visit. Nancy let out a long sigh before steeling her nerves, hopping out of the car and heading for her dad’s first-floor apartment.

  Checking to see that she had fastened the top button of her blouse, she straightened her skirt and pressed the doorbell of the blue painted apartment door.

  The door opened.

  ‘Oh, it’s you. Come in.’

  I love you, too, Dad.

  She followed him down the hallway and into the living room. He sat in his favourite red-leather armchair that had seen better days. The dye on the arms had worn away with years of use, and the seat cushion didn’t look as though it could afford much comfort. But then, everything in the apartment was exactly the same as it was when her mother passed away, just after Nancy’s eighth birthday. Nancy sat facing him.

  ‘I made detective.’

  He gave a token grunt in reply. If she had been the son he always wanted, to follow in his footsteps as a marine, she thought, maybe he would have at least smiled. It wasn’t Nancy’s fault he’d given up his career in the army to take up a job at SIA as a security specialist, but he always made her feel like it was her doing. She leaned forward.

  ‘I said… I’ve made detective.’

  ‘What do you want me to do, give you a medal?’

  He was incapable of showing her any love or credit. Goodness knows she had tried to live up to the standards he would have expected of a son, but she always had the feeling she came up short in his eyes.

  ‘It’s time you gave up cops and robbers and started a family. A grandson wouldn’t go amiss.’

  Her eyes moistened, she sucked on her top lip, stood and headed for the kitchen.

  ‘Coffee?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Nancy placed both hands on the worktop, bowed her head and wanted to scream. Just once, she wanted him to greet her with a hug and a smile, or maybe just compliment her for turning up to visit him. Nancy made the coffee and returned to the living room.

  ‘Black, no sugar and a cookie,’ she said

  They sat in silence, sipping coffee and nibbling at their cookies.

  ‘Did Mom ever have any psychic experiences?’

  He choked on his cookie.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just something a medium said down at the station when I interviewed her. She reckoned I have a gift.’

  ‘Mumbo Jumbo if you ask me. I don’t know about a gift, but you had an imaginary friend as a child. We seriously thought about getting you to see a shrink. You used to sit and tell us those imaginary places you’d visited with your friend. Luckily, you grew out of it over time.’

  ‘And Mom?’

  ‘Your mom was a God fearing woman. Don’t go speaking ill of the dead.’

  He placed his coffee mug on the floor. Picked up a newspaper and buried his head in the news.

  Subject closed. Nancy sat dutifully, watching the clock on the wall as he read his newspaper. A framed family photograph on the wall caught her attention. She thought she looked more like a boy in the picture, with her short hairstyle, posing next to her mom and dad in front of an RV. Her dad was holding a hunting rifle. Recollections of the last vacation she had with her mom were getting harder to recall as the years passed. The silence in the room was broken with the annoying rhythmic ticking sound coming from the clock on the wall. The hypnotic effect from the sound of the ticking took hold, and her eyelids grew heavy as she stared at the photo.

  Her vision blurred and there was a sensation she was moving at speed. Suddenly, she stopped and opened her eyes. She was standing on the spot where the RV had been on the edge of the woodland.

  ‘Be back before dark you two,’ she heard her mother’s voice calling at the back of her mind

  ‘Stay close behind me and be quiet,’ she heard her dad’s voice whisper.

  Nancy set off walking into the woods along a trail. It was eerily quiet. There were no birds singing, not even the sounds of her footsteps, as if someone had turned off the volume. A majestic stag appeared in a clearing. Its eyes seemed to hold the very essence of the nature around him.

  ‘Get down.’

  ‘Don’t shoot him, Dad,’ Nancy heard a young girl’s voice begging, followed by a piercing shriek.

  The stag’s ears peaked. Nancy blinked and in that instant, the stag was gone.

  Her entire vision clouded, replaced with the contorted features of her dad screaming obscenities at her.

  ‘...You stupid, useless, excuse of a girl.’ He snapped his hand in a curt gesture, as if he were about to strike. There was no follow through, but the damage was done.

  Her head pounded as if a base drum thumped the inside of her brain. Nancy shook her head and the beating of the drum settled to the sound of ticking. She opened her eyes and glanced at the clock. The fifteen minutes that had passed since walking through the door was as if she had suffered a lifetime of penance.

  ‘I have to be going, Dad.’

  ‘See yourself out.’

  He shook the leaves of the paper without l
ooking at her, his head still buried in the news.

  Tears streamed down her face as she trudged back to her car. She had never felt so alone, as if her entire existence in the scheme of life was meaningless. When she arrived at her car, she opened the door and slumped on the seat. The sobbing had stopped, but the anger she felt welled inside. She fumbled to put the key in the ignition and fired up the engine. The tyres of the car scorched two lines of rubber on the asphalt as she made a U-turn, braked hard and parked her car in the opposite direction.

  Her vision blurred and she didn’t feel able to drive. She dropped the sun visor and checked her eyes. Streaks of mascara ran down her cheeks. A wipe with a tissue from her purse soon cleared the blotches, but she could do nothing about the pounding in her head. Her fingers pressed PLAY on her CD player. Nancy listened to the lyrics of the Westlife song, Flying Without Wings. She couldn’t understand why the boy band hadn’t made it big in America, or why she was drawn to the words of the ballad of late.

  Vehicles zipped past the end of the avenue. Nancy engaged first gear, checked her rear-view mirror and set off. A black car caught her attention in the mirror as it pulled out behind her some distance back along the Avenue. Nancy slowed down to a crawl as she approached traffic lights on red at the junction, and signalled right. The lights turned green. She cancelled her blinkers, stepped on the gas pedal, took a sharp left at DuVac Electronics instead, and accelerated along East Colorado Boulevard, past Psychic Visions, the Spiritualist Church. The lights at the junction of North Parkwood Avenue were on green; she turned left and swung a hard right into the European Auto parking lot. The tyres screeched as the car came to a halt and her body lurched forward, her head almost coming to blows with the windshield.

  Nancy sat watching the traffic go through the lights. A black Toyota turned into Parkwood. It was travelling too fast to get the plate number, and the windows were tinted black, so she didn’t get to see the occupants.

  Why the hell am I being followed? Her hands trembled, holding the steering wheel. It didn’t make sense that someone would be following her, and she thought that maybe she was being paranoid.

  Chapter 18

  Kyle’s cell phone went straight to voice mail. Nancy typed him a message that she was on her way home and for him to call her. She felt naked without her 9 mil, and wished she had someone with her. It wasn’t as if she could call for backup. The whole episode with the Toyota, she guessed, was just another of those hunches that made her imagine she was being followed. Looking over her shoulder, she reversed out of the parking space, stopped and dropped the car into first gear. She drove slowly out of the European Auto parking lot, pausing briefly, and looked along Parkland. The Toyota was nowhere in sight; she pulled out and drove back the way she came.

  If only she had someone to confide in, she thought maybe she could unravel the direction her life was taking. The visit to her dad’s had unsettled her. She wasn’t sure Kyle would be the right one to lean on, and thought maybe Claire would be a better option, but then she didn’t really know her. Bill had made clear his thoughts on the subject of her future and his vacation had taken him out of the equation.

  Nancy pulled up alongside Psychic Visions. The words of the medium after her interview crossed her mind. She took a pen and her notebook from her purse and jotted down their number from the advertising board. The road was clear. She pulled out and drove on, all the while, checking her rear-view mirror.

  The paranoia subsided. She began to feel foolish at having jotted down the number of Psychic Visions. Maybe talking to a shrink would be a better option, more the Hollywood way. Better still, she wondered if now was the time to start finding friends and a life outside work. Then the thought struck her that maybe her dad and Bill were right and it was time to settle down. She shuddered at the notion of having to surrender her wellbeing to the trust of a man. Nancy turned onto the freeway and headed home. As soon as she turned off the freeway and onto the short stretch of highway toward home, she started to relax. At least, that was, until she noticed a car trailing her into her cul-de-sac.

  Kyle? What’s he doing here?

  Nancy parked her car, dropped the sun visor and checked her makeup. She felt, and thought she looked, like crap. Her fingers located her mascara and lipstick from her purse and she applied both in quick succession. Knuckles wrapped on the side window, and Kyle’s face appeared. If someone had stamped, ‘I’m concerned’ on his forehead, he couldn’t have looked more worried. She pressed the button for the window and it whirred open.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘You sounded distressed in your message. I was in the area. You okay?’

  Nancy thought it was sweet of him, but wasn’t sure that now was the right time.

  ‘I’m fine.’

  A warm smile appeared on her outward appearance, but inwardly, she was zonked out.

  ‘Look, that’s not the only reason I was in the area. We need to talk.’

  He opened the car door for her and she stepped onto the asphalt. They both headed for the apartment. Neither of them spoke. The notion that he was going to break it off with her crossed her mind. She wasn’t about to prompt him, and thought it better that he spoke first, seeing that she had acted the bitch. The feeling came over her that the short walk from her car and up the stairway to her apartment must be what it feels like for the last walk on death’s row. Her life may not have depended on it, but to her, it felt like her life would be over. By the time she put the key in the door, she visibly shook.

  They made their way to the living room. Nancy sat on the sofa, head bowed and he stood in front of her. She knew she was messed up when tears began to well in her eyes. For God’s sake, get it over with, please. His expression looked serious as he opened his mouth to speak.

  ‘I need to tell you about Tracy.’

  Chapter 19

  Nancy wondered what Kyle wanted to tell her about Tracy. You’ve been shafting Tracy. Is that it? It would have explained Tracy’s initial attitude toward her. Nancy lifted her head and gazed at Kyle in stunned silence. Nah, don’t be stupid.

  ‘Jesus, Nance, what’s wrong?’

  Emotional floodgates opened, with tears streaming from her eyes, and she reached past him to grab a tissue from a box on the coffee table. He tried to take hold of her hand with his, but she pushed his him away.

  ‘It’s just a woman thing.’

  Nancy hauled herself up from the sofa and headed for the bathroom. Given the events of the day, she wasn’t surprised at her reaction. A splash of cold water from the tap and she buried her head in a bath towel. This moment had been spoiling for a while, but she had hoped she could have suffered it alone. She put the towel over the side of the bathtub and returned to the sink. The reflection staring back at her in the mirror was of a broken woman. She placed her hand on the basin and squeezed her eyes close. Her eyes opened at the touch of hands caressing her shoulder.

  ‘Listen, if you...’

  ‘Shhh.’ Nancy turned, placed a finger on Kyle’s lips and then threw her arms around him, burying her head in his chest. Fingers ran through her hair; she raised her head and they joined in a passionate kiss. As their lips broke apart, his arms held her tight. She had never felt so wanted, as if she was drifting weightless in a good place.

  ‘And here’s me thinking you were crying because you were going to dump me,’ said Kyle. She lifted her head, gazed into his eyes, and started to snicker and cry at the same time. ‘What’s so funny?’

  He grabbed a hand towel and dabbed her tears. The truth was finding it hard to escape her thoughts and to convert to words, as if there was some magical force preventing her saying what she really felt. She gained some semblance of composure.

  ‘Don’t be so soft, I’m not dumping anything, only my emotions. What’s this about Tracy? You do mean Tracy as in CSI?’

  ‘Yeah, CSI Tracy. She’s in the hospital. I’ve just visited. She said I had to tell you to be careful.’

  ‘Hospital
?’

  She took his hand, led him back to the sofa, her entire body felt as though she had run a marathon and she sat down.

  ‘What’s wrong with her? What does she mean ‘be careful’?’

  ‘Don’t know what she meant, they wouldn’t let me stay, she was delirious. I thought you two weren’t best buddies? She mumbled something about visiting you last night.’

  ‘We weren’t buddies until last night, when she called at my apartment.’

  ‘What time?’

  ‘Nine-thirty, I guess.’

  ‘Hmm, she must have gone back to the lab, because at ten-thirty she was caught up in an explosion.’

  ‘How did it happen?’

  ‘Power surge they reckon is a possibility; igniting some chemicals she was working with on her bench.’

  ‘What did the doctors say?’

  ‘She’ll live, but she won’t be back at work any time soon. Logan wants to know why she visited your apartment.’

  ‘Wait a minute, is that why you’re here... for work?’

  Nancy felt deflated as if someone had started to tear apart the secure cocoon her emotions had started to weave around her as a security blanket. Part of her wanted to go off on a rage, but something at the back of her mind told her to cool it. Get a grip, girl. Take a breath. Kyle dropped to his knee in front of her, took her hands and gazed into her eyes.

  ‘Listen, I’m here for a million reasons, one of which is that Logan asked the question, but the other nine-hundred and ninety-nine-thousand, nine-hundred and ninety-nine reasons are because...’ He seemed to be having difficulty in spitting out the rest of the words as if his gullet had clammed up and cleared his throat.

  Please, not the ‘L’ word.

  ‘Because, I care for you.’