“Shanahan. So where is he?” the cop asked abruptly, hooking hands in his pants pockets.
That caught me off-guard. I studied the lawman briefly. He had very curly dark hair cut quite short, a squarish, flat, cop face with just the faintest of age lines, gray eyes of Navy steel. He was younger than me, which was no surprise, there being, I’ve noticed, more of those each day.
“That’s what I’d like to know,” I answered.
He blinked. “What’s your interest?”
“His daughter asked me to find him,” I replied. The cop said nothing. Remembering that to be a rather effective investigative technique, I made a mental note. “Talk to him lately?”
“Not since Thursday,” Shanahan answered. “He was supposed to turn himself in. Never showed.”
“So you’re charging him?”
“Embezzlement. His employer swore out a complaint.”
“How’s it look?”
“Dead-bang, man. Couple hundred grand. A slam-dunk.” Shanahan seemed to relax just slightly. “Buzz is, he’s a bright guy, but no matter how hard I look, I don’t see anything all that clever about how he worked it. Dumb stealing from dumber.” Typical, he could have said but did not have to.
Poor Shyla, I thought. “So you talked to him Thursday?”
“Yeah, he called in. Surprised hell out of me,” Shanahan added, looking anything but surprised. “I guess he sensed we were set to scoop him. Said he’d come in voluntarily.” He shook his head. “Just a diversionary tactic. I waited till eight, got caught in the snowstorm, missed my kid’s hockey game. No sign of Ryan, then or since. From that I am forced to infer that he has skipped.”
Which of course made Virginia Ryan’s theory look better and better. I thought for a moment. “So I take it you’ve posted surveillance teams at the airports and train stations and bus stations and—”
“Yeah, right,” Shanahan said, with just the faintest smile. “We’ve put the word out. He’ll turn up. He’ll bust a red light or get ratted out by a friend or — hey,” he said, squinting at me, “maybe you’ll even find him. You’re some kind of detective, I take it?”
“Used to be.”
“Not any more?”
“Nope,” I replied, smiling. “Went legit.”
Next stop was Ryan’s employer’s place on Northwestern. Instead of heading there right away, I fired up the Mustang motor to get some heat into the frigid car, and hit SND on the cell phone to redial Doreen Mason’s number. While listening to it ring, I looked idly at the phone bill Virginia Ryan had given me. Fully half the entries were highlighted in bright yellow and were virtually identical — to the 706 number in a Georgia town called Motier, which Ryan had pronounced MO-tee-yay but was actually, I suspected, pronounced Mo-TEER.
“Ah don’t wont inny!” came a loud female voice in my ear.
“Ms. Mason?” I asked.
“Will you leave me alone,” she charged on, accent a foot thick. “I don’t buy things on the phone, and I never will, and—”
“I’m not a salesman,” I said. “I’m calling about Randy.”
Her pause was just a tad too long. “Who?”
“Randy Ryan,” I said, and took the plunge, no doubt a bit too precipitously. “Is he there?”
Cell phone static hissed in my ear for a moment. “I don’t know who you’re talking about,” she said. “Who are you?”
“Name’s Perkins,” I said. “I’m calling from Michigan. I’m looking for Randy.” An inspiration came, and I went with it. “His daughter asked me to find him.”
“Yeah?” Doreen asked tone challenging. “His daughter, huh.” Pausing she asked abruptly, “What’s her name?”
“Shyla.”
“No. Her real name,” she prodded cagily.
“Jennifer. And her mother’s Virginia. And he works for Brighton-Leopold.” Or worked I thought but did not say. “I know the whole deal,” I said quietly. “I got your number from Virginia.” Doreen did not reply. I sensed she was not all that quick on the uptake. “What made you think I was a salesman?” I asked.
“Caller I.D. said ‘anonymous,’ ” she answered “That usually means telemarketer.” Static hissed again for a moment, and when Doreen spoke again, she sounded tired. “Randy’s not here. I don’t know where he is.”
Of course she could have been lying. I did not need to hark back to my investigating days to recall that people frequently he, even when they don’t have to. But I decided to go with it for now. “Are you still... involved with him?”
“No. He broke it off.”
“When?”
“Last week he called.”
“When last week?”
“I don’t know. Wednesday, Thursday, what does it matter? He called and said it was over, done with. Said he was going away for a long time. Said it was the best for all concerned.” With each phrase I heard the emotion welling up in her. Now she paused, and when she spoke again, she sounded steadier, and quite dull. “I told him it was all right. I told him whatever he wanted, whatever was best for him.” She sighed. “I’ve always heard about ‘if you love something, let it go.’ What they don’t talk about is how much it hurts.”
I let a silence grow, thinking about what she had said. “So you don’t know where he is.”
“No, sir.”
Keeping my voice easy I said, “Don’t know if I buy that, Doreen. I mean, he’s flown the coop and took a pot of money with him, and you were his sweetie—”
“Oh, don’t get me wrong,” she cut in, tone pointed. “If he’d asked me, I’d be with him this instant. He’s the sweetest, kindest man. But I knew, somehow I knew all along, it would never end up that way. And I was right.”
I believed her.
“If she’d ever been nice to him,” Doreen murmured. “That’s all the man ever needed was a little kindness. And love. And acceptance. That’s all. If she’d ever given him that, he’d never have looked at me twice. I ain’t no prize.”
“Not to pick a light with you but you seem like a very nice person to me.”
That brought a hint of warmth, a touch of playfulness to her tone. “Aw, what do you know from all the way up there? Listen... when you find him?”
“Yes?”
“Tell him I’m praying for him.”
Brighton-Leopold Corp. was one of those downsized, streamlined, New Age companies with no receptionist. The foyer of the large flat anonymous building was in fact empty except for a row of plastic visitor chairs and a table scattered with magazines and literature. A vacant desk bore a phone and a sign saying “Please call the extension of the person you are seeing, and have a seat.”
With the sign was a helpful list of about fifty names and extensions. Randy Ryan’s name was on it. But there were no titles or positions or helpful hints like, “This guy is Randy’s boss.” Then I noticed several names in a clump: LEOPOLD N., LEOPOLD P., LEOPOLD T. There being no Brighton listed, I did the next best thing and called the first Leopold.
“Yes?”
“Mr. Leopold?”
“He’s in a meeting.”
“It’s very urgent. It’s about Randy Ryan.”
“Oh. Surely. Please hold.” From the quickening in the young man’s voice, I inferred that the mention of Ryan had struck a nerve. I waited. Almost at once the gray steel door buzzed and opened, and a short, roundish man bustled through. As I hung up the phone, the man wheezed, “Where’s Randy?”
I stood and said, “Wish I knew, sir. I’m Ben Perkins. You’re Mr. Leopold?”
“Neal.” His black hair was a bushy black mop around a fleshy face anchored with thick glasses. He wore dark pants and a nondescript dress shirt unbuttoned at collar and cuffs. He had the look of a teddy-bearish absentminded professor, but his eyes were steady and careful as he stuck a pawlike hand out for me to shake. “Have you seen him?”