‘I do remember having made personal trips to fetch clients over the past couple of years,’ Buddy said. He stopped for three thunderous sneezes. ‘But other Placid Harbor folks handled transfers, and I can check my files on Monday if you want to know who exactly did what. Or sooner, if this is an emergency.’
‘That’s okay. I hope you’re feeling better soon.’
‘I’m mainlining NyQuil. I hope that’s not illegal,’ he laughed.
‘I won’t report you,’ she said.
‘Detective? I know you’re buddies with Whit Mosley, but if I win the election, I just want you to know I’ll work hard. And I’ll look forward to working with you.’
‘Thanks, Buddy,’ she said, feeling awkward. ‘I appreciate that. I’m sure we’d work together just fine.’
‘Okay. Let me know if I can be of further help.’ She thanked him again and hung up.
So no connection there between Deshay and Port Leo. She rubbed her temple with her pencil’s eraser. But what if there were similar cases to Marcy’s? Her disappearance might be part of a wider blanket. Maybe.
So she phoned the Department of Public Safety in Austin, where the state’s ‘missing persons clearinghouse’ database was located, and she gave them a set of parameters to check – young women, last seen at places of work.
There did not seem to be a spate of women abducted from nursing homes. DPS faxed her a list of disappearances, and she studied the dates. Odd. She flipped back to her notes from Roselle Cross. A week after the transfer of a client from Port Leo to Laredo last November, a young woman, Angela Marie Norris, had gone missing from a Laredo Taco Bell restaurant after her shift ended. In May, three weeks after a patient moved from Placid Harbor to another facility in Brownsville, another young woman, Laura Janelle Palinski, disappeared from a pizzeria she worked at.
Claudia called DPS back, and they faxed her details, descriptions, and photos of both young women, and she sat studying the pictures. Both bore a passing resemblance to Marcy Ballew with dark hair, round faces, naive smiles, but then they were all of a common type. Nice girls working in low-wage jobs, saving for college maybe, or just trying to live from paycheck to paycheck.
The times when Buddy – or whoever had handled the transfer – had been in the two towns were close, but not the same. And Buddy had not been alone on the transfers, there had been a nurse-practitioner accompanying him. But then, the women hadn’t vanished when Buddy had been in town. And Buddy had never supervised a transfer from Deshay, Louisiana.
It was just odd.
She called the police departments in Laredo and Brownsville, got the names of the detectives in charge of the missing-women’s cases, and left messages for them to call her back.
She then called Roselle Cross’s office.
‘I’d like to know if Buddy was at work on these days: November 10 of last year, May 3 and September 30 this year.’ Those were the days Morris, Palinski, and Ballew had all dropped out of sight.
‘Why?’
‘I’m just trying to piece together a chronology of where he’s been.’
‘My word. Do you suspect him of something?’ The woman sounded appalled.
‘No. It’s a way to simply get a clearer picture. I just talked with him, he’s being entirely cooperative.’
‘Well,’ Roselle Cross said, ‘I’ll have to check Monday morning.’
‘Mrs Cross,’ Claudia said, ‘it’s getting late, it’s Friday night, I’m sure you want to get home. So do I. You can go check this on a computer in about five seconds. I just need to know if he took vacation or sick time then.’
‘One… moment!’ Roselle Cross said with clear peevishness and put Claudia on hold.
A pang of hunger gnawed at Claudia’s stomach. She dug down in her purse for a candy bar she usually had stashed away in the depths and her fingers found paper instead. She pulled out an envelope marked OPEN IN PRIVATE. God, probably a love letter from David he’d stashed in her purse. She tore it open. Out slipped a copy of a newspaper photo. A teenage Junior, Corey, Eddie Gardner, and a girl holding fat fish. Whit had attached a note: Not sure if this means a single thing, but thought you should know. Also: I think junior gave Pete a half million. Maybe Gardner got it back for his old fishing buddy, the tough way. And maybe Gardner ruined those evidence bags as a favor to Junior. Thought you should know. Watch your back. Will call you soon. Be careful. Whit.
She could have strangled Whit.
Mrs Cross huffed back on the line. ‘Buddy was here those days. No vacation time.’
‘Thank you,’ Claudia said. ‘I appreciate your help.’
Mrs Cross hung up without further comment.
Claudia dialed Whit’s cell phone and got a message saying the phone was out of the calling area. She left him voice mail. ‘You better call me back as soon as humanly possible,’ she said, leaving her home and office numbers. She tried Velvet again at her motel; still no answer. The woman might have decided to leave town once the inquest went against her, but according to the clerk she hadn’t checked out of the room yet.
Claudia went to Delford’s office. He sat at his desk, his service revolver unholstered, sitting next to an untidy hill of papers. He glanced up at her with a sharp look; she was clearly unwelcome.
‘Late night?’ she asked, trying to sound casual. The hard look in his eyes made her throat feel thick.
‘I just got a complaining phone call about you from some woman over at the nursing home.’
‘You have bigger problems than me,’ she said. She placed the photo and Whit’s Post-it note on his desk.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Delford finally said. Claudia sat across from him.
‘I don’t understand,’ he finally said. ‘You’re saying that’s Eddie Gardner?’
‘I think it is.’
‘He knows Deloache,’ Delford said.
‘Yes.’
‘Have you talked to him about this?’
‘No. He took off hours ago.’ She paused. ‘Did you get a copy of his service record from Houston?’
‘Of course. Eddie was as clean as a whistle. References, the whole shebang.’ Delford pointed at the picture. ‘Shit, maybe this is just coincidence. Kids go fishing on the jetties, meet each other during a day, then never see each other again.’
‘Eddie and Junior are both from Houston.’
‘Them and four million other people. Lots of kids from Houston fish here. Not a crime.’
‘No, that’s not. Dealing drugs and covering up a murder sure are.’
‘You’re just full of serious accusations, aren’t you, missy?’ Delford squinted at her. ‘I mean, what’s with you lately? You question how I do things around here, you check out files you don’t got any business worrying over, you screw up evidence bags and blame a colleague…’
‘I don’t even know you anymore,’ Claudia said softly. ‘Why the hell are you having these meltdowns? Tell me, Delford. I can help you
…’
Delford’s phone rang and he scooped it up. He listened and muttered ‘Holy Jesus’ three times. Then he hung up.
‘We got us a dead one. Floater in the bay. A girl.’ Delford gulped, clicked his service revolver back in his holster. ‘She’s not… whole. Some sick son of a bitch carved her up.’
Velvet came awake suddenly. She had finally managed to doze after a while – time was impossible to measure – after he had finished his assault. Now she felt a wet rag move along her skin, cleaning her legs and privates, cleaning where she had soiled the sheets, removing them and curling towels under her hips. A voice humming ‘Surfin’ Safari,’ ignoring her shivers of rage and fear.
‘Soup, darling?’ Corey asked. She nodded, barely.