Detective Wade Jackson Mystery - 03 - Thrilled to Death Read online

  “She always takes a cab if she plans to drink, so her car is still in the garage at home.”

  “Maybe she went home with someone and slept in.” Zapata kept his voice soft.

  “Courtney’s not like that anymore. She has a steady boyfriend now.” Elle Durham twisted her marble-sized diamond ring. “She would have called or come home by now if she was able to. It’s four in the afternoon and no one has seen her. Not Brett, not Brooke. I’ve called everyone.”

  “Is Brett her boyfriend?” Zapata keyed something into his computer.

  “Yes.”

  “What’s his last name and when did he see her last?”

  “Brett Fenton. He talked to Courtney on the phone yesterday afternoon.”

  “Ms. Durham.” Zapata paused. “According to our records, you reported Courtney missing last March, and she turned up two days later in Seattle, having a good time.”

  “Courtney has changed.” Elle’s lower lip trembled and she bit down on it. “She wouldn’t do this to me now. It’s different this time, I can tell.” Her voice rose at the end, pleading.

  “I have five other cases,” Zapata said. “Some of those missing people are young children. We can’t afford to waste our time. I don’t mean to sound uncaring, but I suspect your daughter will turn up soon, as she has in the past.”

  Elle stiffened. “Are you saying you won’t look for Courtney?”

  Zapata shook his head. “I’m saying I can’t make this case a priority. Our resources are stretched thin.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” She took a sharp tone. “My late husband made significant donations to the Eugene Public Safety Department. My daughter is missing and I want a proper investigation.”

  Jackson was glad not to be sitting on the other side of the desk, and there was nothing he could say to be supportive.

  “Of course.” Zapata nodded at Ms. Durham. “What was Courtney wearing when she left the house?”

  “I don’t know. I was resting.”

  “Do you have a current picture of her with you?”

  “Yes.” She pulled a manila envelope from her shoulder bag and slid an eight-by-eleven color print across the desk. Jackson stepped around to look over Zapata’s shoulder. Blond and beautiful, Courtney’s only flaw was that her green eyes were set a little too close together. Still, she was hard to look away from.

  Zapata read from his computer screen. “Her last report reads ‘Five-seven, a hundred and twenty pounds, with long blond hair and green-eyes. No scars, tattoos, or piercings.’ Is all that still correct?”

  “She has a tattoo on her lower back now. It’s a pink-and-black floral design.” Elle made a face. “It’s hideous, but I couldn’t have stopped her even if I had known in advance.”

  Jackson spoke up. “Have you noticed anything different about Courtney’s behavior lately? Any new friends or hobbies or patterns?”

  Elle spun around to him. “It’s so hard to tell. Courtney always has something new going on. Lately it’s been this crazy mountain bike riding club. She comes home with scrapes and bruises, but she loves it.” Elle let out a sigh. “I don’t keep track of her friends anymore. I used to try, but it’s impossible.”

  “Has she seemed moody or depressed?” Jackson asked.

  Ms. Durham gave it some thought. “Courtney is always a little moody, but never depressed. I’m worried that someone drugged her drink or something. I don’t trust that crowd at Diego’s.”

  An awkward silence followed. Finally, Zapata said, “We’ll do what we can to find her.”

  “That’s it?”

  “For now. I’ll put out an alert, then go over to Diego’s and talk to the staff. If you think of anything else that seems important, let us know.”

  Ms. Durham seemed reluctant to leave. She looked over at Jackson. “You think something has happened to her, don’t you? What is it? Tell me.” She sounded distraught for the first time.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t have any theories. Just questions.”

  Still, she didn’t look as if she planned to leave.

  “You should let us get to work,” Zapata said.

  “Fine.” She slung her purse over her shoulder and walked out.

  Zapata shook his head. “I feel sorry for that woman. If I had a daughter like Courtney, I’d lock her up.”

  “Does she have an arrest record?”

  Zapata glanced at his monitor. “Shoplifting, public drunkenness, and indecent exposure. Nothing too serious, but still, looking for her is a waste of our time.”

  “Do you think there’s any possibility Danette Blake’s disappearance is connected to Courtney Durham’s?”

  “No.” Zapata gave an emphatic headshake. “Courtney is off on a drunken adventure and forgot to call Mom, and Danette is probably a runaway. That’s my best guess for now.” Zapata stood. “Meanwhile, I’ve got to tell a different mother that her ex-husband quit his job two days ago and most likely left town with her kids.”

  “I’ll keep looking into Danette Blake for a while if that helps.”

  “Thanks. It does.”

  The shabby duplex with the faded paint and empty driveway sank Kera’s spirits. She had wanted Danette to move to Eugene so she could help her with Micah, but she had not envisioned her living here. Clearly, Danette was not around. She had hoped to find her daughter-in-law at home, hiding out, afraid to face her.

  Kera parked her Saturn in the carport and climbed out. Instinctively, she looked around to see if anyone was watching. She wasn’t too worried about a neighbor reporting a break-in, but Jackson’s warning that thugs might be watching the house was still on her mind.

  Kera marched boldly up to the front door and searched around for a spare key. Nothing above the doorframe and no fake-looking rocks. She moved around to the carport and headed for the side door. A small planter with an ugly cactus sat near the corner, catching the sun. Kera lifted the planter from the bottom to avoid the spikes and there was a key. She started to be appalled, then remembered leaving her own apartment unlocked as a college student so her boyfriend could get in. Dumb.

  The house smelled of baby and it seemed obvious nothing major was missing. A laptop sat on the dining table, a TV was tucked into a corner, baby clothes were piled on the couch, and the kitchen sink was full of dishes. Kera was anxious to access the computer, but first she checked Danette’s bedroom. It was as Jackson described—closets and drawers full. Kera looked to the closet floor. Sport shoes, sandals, pumps. No woman would leave all her shoes.

  Unless she wanted people to think she had not left of her own free will. Was Danette capable of that kind of manipulation? Kera’s instinct said no. She headed back to the laptop and turned it on. Surprised it had been set to require a password, she typed in Micah and was allowed access. Her primary pursuit was the boyfriend, Chad. Kera hoped to find a picture, a last name, possibly a phone number or address. She glanced over her shoulder and out the front window. No one seemed to be aware of her presence here.

  Kera opened Danette’s last ten e-mails and quickly scanned them. Most were from a female named Lori who seemed to be a college student at Oregon State University and who chatted about her boyfriend and a professor she really hated. Two of the e-mails were from a guy who signed off as Tree. Kera assumed he was male from the juvenile content and abundance of typos. He also failed to include any contact information. Kera forwarded one of each of their e-mails to her own account rather than take notes.

  She opened another group of ten and found nothing mentioning travel plans or Chad. The date on the last one was March 7, two days before Danette had moved to Eugene. It was tempting to respond to each of the mailers, asking if they had seen Danette, but Kera felt a little jumpy about being in the house. She would send the e-mails from her home.

  Disappointed, she started to move on, then felt stupid for her oversight. She clicked open the Sent folder and found an e-mail that caught her attention. It was to a woman named Becca. In it Danette commented she’d enjoyed meeting
Becca at the center and suggested they babysit for each other. Kera was curious about the center, so she forwarded the e-mail to her account as well. After ten more minutes, she moved on, feeling guilty about the invasion of privacy, especially since she had failed to discover anything that would help find Danette.

  She found a folder labeled Pics and opened it. Photo after photo of Micah filled the top half of the file list, followed by pictures of friends–young people Danette’s age–and a few of Margaret and Danette together. The mother and daughter looked unrelated. Kera wondered if Danette’s father was tall and dark like Chad. She smiled, thinking about Jackson, who was also tall and dark-haired with brown-black eyes.

  No picture of Chad surfaced anywhere. Just as Kera opened a browser, she heard a car pull up outside. She jerked around and saw a patrol unit parked in front of the house. Oh dear. The officer at the wheel had a communicator to his mouth and she suspected he was calling in her license plate. She was going to be arrested. Kera’s heart hammered as she envisioned herself being booked into the jail, stripped, and searched. She stood, took a deep breath, and willed herself to be calm. This was nothing compared to the events she’d already been through. Her life no longer had room for fear.

  She picked up the key, went out the side door she’d come in, and walked straight up to the police car. The window was rolled up and the officer motioned her to step back. Kera complied. After a moment, he climbed out. “Put your purse on the ground and identify yourself.” He seemed young, but he had the buzz cut and stiff-shouldered look of a cop who took everything seriously.

  “Kera Kollmorgan.” She set her purse on the asphalt. Did he think she had a gun? “My daughter-in-law, Danette Blake, lives here.”

  “Her neighbor reported a break in. What are you doing here?”

  Kera held out the key. “I have a key to her house. Danette’s baby is at my home right now. Danette hasn’t been seen since yesterday morning. I filed a missing persons report at the department this morning with Detective Zapata.”

  “Answer my question. What are you doing here?”

  “Detective Zapata asked me to find Danette’s boyfriend’s last name, so I came here to look for it.”

  “I doubt he meant for you to enter her house.” Even his sarcasm was stiff. “If the woman is missing, this could be a crime scene.” The officer hesitated, uncertain for the first time. “I need to see your ID.”

  “You want me to pick up the purse?”

  “Yes.”

  Kera fished out her driver’s license and handed it over.

  “What is your name?”

  “Officer Richard Anderson.”

  “I know Detective Wade Jackson. He can vouch for me.”

  Officer Anderson handed back her license. “Please leave the premises and do not come back. Let the police handle this situation.”

  The police aren’t doing anything! Out loud, she said, “I’d like to go lock the house.”

  “All right.”

  She could feel him watching her. A voice came on his radio, and she heard her own name in an otherwise muffled report. It gave her stomach a jolt. Officer Anderson didn’t try to stop her as she got in her car and drove away.

  Sophie scooted across the parking lot of the Willamette News office with a little bounce in her step. She glanced over at the three-story printing building and wondered what would happen to that gigantic offset press when the newspaper folded. Don’t worry about it today, she coached herself. Things were going too well.

  First, she’d run into Kera Kollmorgan and got the scoop on the missing mother story, then she’d finally interviewed the reticent Detective Jackson. To top it all off, Elle Durham, who owned half of Eugene, had walked into the missing persons office while she was there. Was one of the Durham heirs missing? Now that would be a story.

  Was the missing Durham daughter somehow connected to Danette Blake, the missing young mother? Sophie rejected the idea. If someone had kidnapped Courtney or Brooke, it was about money.

  Sophie trotted upstairs to her desk, refusing to feel guilty about her reactions to juicy stories. She had made peace with her role as an observer/chronicler of other people’s misfortune, and she compensated by writing stories about the ‘the little guy who takes a beating’ whenever she could. She still had the ‘day in the life of a detective’ feature in the bag too. It would just have to wait a little.

  At her desk in her half-cubicle space, she logged into her computer, slipped the disk with Danette Blake’s photo into the machine, and printed a color copy.

  On the way to pick up the print, a co-worker/photographer stopped her. “Am I still on to shoot some photos at the police department this afternoon?”

  “No, sorry. Maybe tomorrow. I’ll keep you posted.”

  Sophie trotted with the print to her editor’s office. The door was open, so she walked in just as Karl Hoogstad stood to adjust his pants. The news editor was midsized and round in the middle, with a strip of grayish hair clinging to the back of his head.

  “You should knock,” he said, not looking at her.

  “Sorry. I’ve got a breaking story I’d like to get into tomorrow’s edition.”

  “Yeah? What?”

  “A missing young woman.”

  “As in vanished and no one has seen her?”

  “Yep.” Sophie slid the photo across the desk. “Her name is Danette Blake. She dropped off her baby with his grandmother yesterday morning and no one has seen her since.”

  A moment of silence while Hoogstad stared at Danette’s picture. He pushed it back across the desk. “This is an abandoned baby story, and we’re not running it unless it’s part of a trend.”

  “How can you know for sure something hideous hasn’t happened to her?”

  “Have you talked to the police department?” When Hoogstad scowled, the folds on his forehead wrinkled like a Shar-Pei.

  “I thought I would run it by you first.”

  “Call the department. If they suspect foul play, I’ll be so shocked I’ll take you off the city council beat and put you on crime full time.” He laughed in an unpleasant way.

  Kera fixed sandwiches for her and Maggie, who looked frazzled after only a few hours with the baby. Five minutes into the meal Maggie said, “What happens with Micah if Danette never comes back? I mean, what if she’s dead?” Her voice collapsed on the last word.

  Kera had not let herself think about the possibility Danette could be dead, but she had considered the idea Danette would not return voluntarily. “I’m willing to take care of Micah, but I understand if you think he should stay with your family.”

  “I can’t do it.” Maggie looked pained by the admission. “My health isn’t good. I have fibromyalgia, and it’s all I can do to work for a living.”

  “He can stay here as long as he needs to. I only work part time now, so I wouldn’t need a full-time sitter.” Kera reached over and touched Maggie’s hand. “Let’s not think like that. It’s only been a day and a half. She’ll turn up.” Kera sounded more sure than she felt. “I found an e-mail on Danette’s computer that mentioned meeting someone at the center. Do you know what she meant by ‘the center’?”

  “No. Sorry.”

  “That’s okay, I’ll track it down. First, I’m going to send some e-mails, then I’ll call the local TV stations.”

  “I should have thought of that.” Maggie frowned. “I’ve never been good in emergencies.”

  After lunch Kera re-read the forwarded e-mail from Becca. She sent Becca a message, asking for information about the center and encouraging Becca to call her. Next she checked her Facebook page. A few of Danette’s friends had responded to her posts, but none had anything helpful to offer. Kera posted back and asked if they knew Chad’s last name or anything about him.

  She called KRSL and asked to speak to Trina Waterman.

  “She’s out on a story right now, can I take a message?” the receptionist said.

  “I’d like to talk to someone about a missing p
ersons story.”

  “Just a moment.”

  A few minutes later, a fast-talking female voice came on the line. “This is Trina Waterman. I just walked in the door. Who are you and who is missing?”

  “I’m Kera Kollmorgan. My daughter-in-law, Danette Blake, is missing.”

  “Your name sounds familiar. Have we met?”

  “You interviewed me after the bombing at the Planned Parenthood clinic last fall.”

  “Oh yes. How are you doing?”

  “Great. Except that Danette is missing.”

  “What are the details?”

  Kera repeated her story.

  There was a short pause. “That is peculiar. Have you been to the police?”

  “I filed a missing persons report this morning.”

  “Do they suspect she’s the victim of a crime?”

  “There’s not much to go on. Her car hasn’t been located, but everything she owns is still in her house.”

  “Do you have a digital image you can e-mail me?”

  “Sure. I’d love to get her picture on the news. She could be in a hospital somewhere with no ID.”

  “No promises. I have to run everything by my producer.” Trina gave Kera an e-mail address and got off the phone. Kera decided on her next call, she wouldn’t mention Danette had dropped off her baby, just to see if she got a different reaction.

  “I’d like to take a nap,” Maggie said from the doorway. “Would you keep an eye on Micah?”

  “Sure.” Kera reached for the little boy who grinned wildly at her.

  Chapter 9

  Danette thought she was awake, but couldn’t be sure. With the blindfold over her eyes, her little world was dark, and the pills had knocked her out for what seemed like hours. She’d been half awake and half asleep for a while. Now her bladder felt like it would burst. She forced herself to focus. Danette rolled to the edge of the bed and sat up. Her head felt light, her throat was parched, and her stomach growled. How long had she been in this room? Why were they keeping her?

  She had a vague memory of being carried downstairs and dropped on this small, musty bed. The big guy had forced two tiny pills into her mouth and untied her feet. She’d been terrified, thinking, please don’t rape me, please don’t kill me. He’d said something, then left her alone. She’d drifted off soon after.