Proof Positive: A Joe Gunther Novel (Joe Gunther Series) Read online

  “After he touched you that way,” Willy resumed, his manner dramatically softened from before, “what did he do or say?”

  “Just that I was to keep my mouth shut and not tell anybody, or he’d be back and it ‘wouldn’t be so pleasant.’ Those were the words he used.”

  “So it’s your feeling that he really bought the story that you could hardly remember Nancy Filson’s name?”

  “Yes,” she said, revealing her face to show her conviction on this point. “He even got a little frustrated with me because of my so-called faulty memory. I’m positive he thought I barely knew her.”

  Sammie slid a pad and pen across the table before her. “You did well, Sandy. Write down every address, phone number, Facebook page, e-mail, and anything else you have on Nancy. We need to get hold of her fast. Did you tell the local police the same thing you told us just now? In other words, might they be looking for Nancy, too?”

  She shook her head. “No. I reported the assault and the fact that the man wanted to know about the show, but I didn’t mention Nancy. It was kind of chaotic when I first came here—I think there was a big accident across town or something—and by the time they got to finishing up with me, one of them had already called you. I think that’s how it worked. Anyhow, they pretty much stopped asking questions, saying that you were on your way.”

  Neither Willy nor Sam had any trouble believing that. There wasn’t a cop working that hadn’t had nights when it seemed nothing more could go wrong—before it did. Times like that, you counted yourself lucky just to cover the bases, much less tend to the finer details.

  Willy waited for Sandy to finish writing before asking, “Now, this part is really important: Where do you think Nancy is now?”

  Sandy, however, looked at him helplessly. “I have no idea. I’ve tried calling her cell phone since I warned her, but all I get is her voice mail. And this morning, her office said that she never showed up for work.”

  Sammie spoke with as much confidence as she could muster. “Well, of course. She’s following your directions. Keeping off the grid. What about other friends or family she might be staying with?”

  “I don’t know. Nancy’s pretty private. I know she has family, but she’s never mentioned them by name, and she doesn’t seem to like people asking, or at least she changes the conversation. As for friends, I can’t say. We hang out, but on campus, mostly during lunch. I really don’t know what she does or who she sees when she’s not at work.”

  “Sandy,” Willy asked her, keeping any criticism out of his voice. “When you warned her about the man, why didn’t you tell her to call the police, like she told you? I understand why you didn’t tell these guys—you explained that. But the police could’ve protected her. Now she could be anywhere.”

  Sammie cut him a look, but Sandy took it in stride, responding, “I did. But she didn’t think the police would do anything if a crime hadn’t been committed. She said it was like a rule or something.”

  Both cops got up, gathering their possessions. “Okay,” Willy addressed her, stifling his frustration and handing her his business card. “Well, a crime’s definitely been committed against you, so we’ll make sure the local police keep an eye on you, for protection. Those numbers are how to get hold of us, day or night, if you need to.”

  He took a breath and added, “You did great work here, okay? I know cops that wouldn’t have kept their heads so well. Take credit for that. You deserve it.”

  They said their farewells to both her and the officers waiting in the foyer, stressing to them that the man in the mask might return. But once they were alone in the parking lot, heading toward the car, Willy couldn’t resist concluding, “Don’t know if you’re taking odds, but I say her pal Nancy’s fucked, somethin’ royal.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Joe had no notion of where he was. Somewhere near or in Port Richmond—where most of Tommy Bajek’s short life had been spent, before his unfortunate trip to Vermont. But as for a specific location, Joe was lost. You could put him most anywhere in the wilds of Vermont, and he could give you his approximate whereabouts. In an urban locale like Greater Philadelphia? He might as well have been standing in a desert. In the middle of the night.

  It was close to the middle of the night now. They were parked slightly down the street from the Philadelphia equivalent of one of the social clubs Joe had seen in Newark a few years earlier, on a different case. It was a bar in some respects, with minimal signage—in Polish, in this case—and no doubt with all the proper paperwork, but crossing its threshold, straight off the street, would’ve gotten you only a room full of cold stares, and certainly not the tall one you might have been hoping to order. This was a members-only establishment and, to the cops’ advantage, Peter Kindler was a member.

  “So, what’s Kindler’s story?” Lester asked, in part to pass the time as they waited. “Has he been undercover long?”

  Elizabeth this time was working on a large, oddly shaped pretzel—thick, soft, white-cored, and heavily salted—which even Joe had passed on when she offered to treat them all. Phil DesAutels answered instead. “It’s not that kind of undercover—not like in movies. This branch of the Kielbasa Posse’s not a major felony outfit, like he was sayin’, so Pete can pretty much come and go as he likes. He fits in like that anyhow, pretty much wherever he goes. He’s an old-school guy, which probably means that he’s on the endangered list, as a cop.”

  Joe nodded sympathetically. He was without question the oldest warhorse in the car, and knew too well how law enforcement had evolved in recent years. Personally, he had no idea what he’d do with himself if he could no longer wade in among other people’s troubles, sorting them out. He only hoped that he wouldn’t have to find out anytime soon.

  “Here he comes,” Elizabeth announced, wiping bright yellow mustard from her lip, her eye on the bar’s front door. She fired up the car’s engine, leaving the headlights off, and pulled away from the curb slowly, heading for the far end of the block. There, under cover of near total darkness, they waited for Kindler to draw abreast, and—with the slightest of gestures—open the rear door and slip inside beside Lester.

  “How’d it go?” the latter asked.

  “Everybody on their best behavior,” Kindler said. “Even if they were poundin’ down the beer pretty good. It was hard keepin’ up.” He noticed what Elizabeth was still holding in her right hand. “You got more of those?”

  She handed the remains of the pretzel to him. “Didn’t know when you’d be getting out. Feel free.” She fumbled in her lap and gave him a small container, as well. “Mustard,” she said.

  Joe smiled to himself, wondering how McLarney and Kindler managed not to look like blimps, given eating habits that Joe could only envy.

  “Any luck locating Bajek?” he asked as Kindler tore at the tough white dough and dipped a piece of it into the mustard.

  Pete chewed and smiled happily. “Kinda. I think I got a girlfriend’s name, or at least someone he was hangin’ out with before he disappeared.”

  “Meaning, they’re saying he did disappear?” Lester asked.

  “Yeah,” Kindler told them. “At least nobody’s seen him lately. Course, Tommy’s not a standout in this crowd. Anyhow, the name I got is Natausha Greenblott. They call her Tausha for short.”

  “That’s not Polish,” DesAutels blurted out.

  Kindler looked at him. “Phil. I’m shocked. This is America, you lunkhead. You can screw who you want here.”

  He laughed at his own joke, pulled out a pen and what turned out to be a gas station receipt, and wrote on it, handing it to Elizabeth. “That’s her address, near as I can figure. It’s probably an apartment building, and I didn’t get a number, so you’ll have to ask around, but that should do it.”

  He lifted the remains of the pretzel as he popped open the door and prepared to leave. “I steal this?”

  “Go for it, Pete,” she said, reading the note. “And thanks for the help.”

  Joe ec
hoed that as Kindler slipped out and slammed the door behind him.

  Elizabeth addressed her remaining passengers: “It’s not far from here, surprise, surprise. We can roust her now, or wait till tomorrow. Preferences?”

  “You good with now?” Joe asked in turn, seeing Lester shrug.

  Elizabeth put the SUV into gear. “Hi-yo, Silver.”

  * * *

  Frank Niles got back into the car, removed his sunglasses and the goatee/mustache combination that he favored over the beard he’d worn at the museum, and tossed his ball cap onto the back seat. He rubbed his face with both hands. “Hate the way that itches.”

  “You get a line on her?” Neil asked.

  “Got an address,” Frank told him, starting the engine. “Amazing what’s available at your local library. Course, it’s handy when you’re named Nancy Filson and not Jane Smith. But I can see why librarians are calling themselves information technologists nowadays. Makes them sound like the CIA, but they ain’t wrong.”

  Neil wasn’t interested. “She live near here?”

  “Yeah. South Winooski Ave. Just across town.” Frank leaned toward the dash and punched an address into the car’s GPS unit.

  Neil checked his watch. “You think she’ll be there?”

  Frank pulled into traffic. “Beats me. She didn’t show up at work, and the woman on the phone said she was supposed to. So, either she’s sick or she hit the road.”

  “’Cause of us?”

  Frank grinned. “I hope so. I like to think I’m a scary guy.”

  “The other broad tipped her off—Corcoran?”

  “That surprise you?” Frank asked, his eyes on the road. He always drove with two hands on the wheel, never broke the speed limit, always signaled his lane changes, and regularly checked that all his car lights functioned, even if it was a rental. He was not a man to make it easy for a patrol car to pull him over.

  “I thought you told me she barely knew this one.”

  “Everybody lies, Neil. Haven’t you heard that? All the cops know it. I’m not saying Corcoran necessarily called Filson, but it’s a small town, they work for the same college, and are in kind of the same discipline, more or less. Stands to reason they know each other. I’m betting old Sandy kept her cool about telling me how buddy-buddy she was with Nancy. Gutsier than I thought she was.”

  Neil wasn’t so admiring. On his own, he would have returned to Corcoran’s house and exhibited his irritation. Not that it would have been necessary, since he wouldn’t have left her alive in the first place.

  Still, Frank was the boss, and while he may have been the weirdest guy Neil had ever worked with, he was also the most successful and the most generous—not a bad combination in a line of work renowned for its generally poor benefits. Neil would put up with a difference in style for that.

  Burlington is the largest city in the state, numbering roughly forty-two thousand people, and surrounded by a metro area containing a third of Vermont’s entire population. But it retains some aspects of a close-knit community, at least within its tree-shaded neighborhoods. South Winooski Avenue captured that mixed identity well, with dozens of homes looking straight out of a Rockwell painting, while located on a heavily traveled connector road between downtown and South Burlington’s commercial Route 7.

  The worst of that traffic was understandably at the end of the business day, however, and it was far from that now. As a result, Frank took his time both scanning the numbers on the houses, and circling the block twice to analyze the lay of the land. Eventually, he found an available parking spot almost directly opposite Nancy Filson’s address.

  Both men got out and looked around, flipping up their collars and lowering their hats. The snow had held off, but it was cold and gray, and the radio had warned of precipitation in the forecast. Their sunglasses were not against the sun.

  Frank joined his partner on the sidewalk. “Might as well try the easy way first. You never know. Maybe she is home, sick.”

  Neil merely nodded and started toward the entrance of an odd-looking, white-painted brick building. “Looks like the Alamo turned into a college dorm,” he appraised.

  Frank laughed outright, surprised and impressed. “Very good, Neil. I like it.”

  It was a three-story structure, seemingly designed by a committee of architecture historians, with four or five distinct and conflicting styles stuck to four ugly walls and crowned with a row of rounded crenellations.

  “What floor?” Neil asked, in the lead and heading for a central doorway equipped with several mailboxes.

  “First,” Frank answered, eyeing the windows ahead of them for movement. He saw none.

  Thankfully for their purposes, the door opened without resistance onto a shared lobby and a staircase, allowing them to leave the exposed sidewalk. Unlocked doors were not a given in Vermont, but still surprisingly common.

  There was only one oak door on the ground floor, labeled FILSON. Without hesitation, Frank rang the bell, which they heard faintly through the thick wood.

  It was to no avail. After several attempts, Neil asked in a low voice, “Now what?”

  “We break in,” Frank said simply. “Best way of finding her is to toss her stuff.”

  “Not through that, we don’t,” Neil countered, indicating the door.

  Frank agreed. “Wouldn’t want to anyhow. Too much noise and too much risk of being interrupted.” He looked around and followed the hallway beside the staircase to the back of the building. There, they found a rear entrance. He pushed it open and brought them into a rear alleyway lined with trash cans and shielded from view by shrubs and trees.

  Frank looked up at the wall above them, again scanning the windows. But here, most were small and covered with pebbled glass, indicating a preponderance of bathrooms.

  He nodded with satisfaction, walked over to the nearest window associated with the Filson apartment, checked to see if it was locked and, without pause, extracted a glass cutter from an inner pocket and expertly sliced four lines to form a box. He then donned a glove, punched at the window sharply, and saw a neat hole appear before them, accompanied by the barely audible tinkling of the glass breaking on the floor within.

  They waited a full minute for a response from any quarter, at once calm and fully attentive, before Frank reached into the hole, flipped the window’s lock, and pushed the unit open to gain them access. They were inside the apartment in less than a minute.

  The interior made a lie of the building’s bizarre outer shell, and encouraged Frank to think that perhaps the people responsible for its design had merely been more interested in the living spaces. Nancy Filson’s apartment—as Frank thought appropriate for a college professor—was open, airy, nicely furnished, and adorned with countless playful and attractive architectural details that made of the whole place a hidden jewel of a home.

  As even Neil put it admiringly, “Holy crap. Not bad.”

  Slipping on latex gloves, they started by checking that they were alone, and then, room by room, began their specialized archeological search.

  Most people’s homes reflect their owner’s tastes, enthusiasms, personal habits, sexual orientation, living arrangements, and even background and education. In the choice of decorations, the equipping of kitchens, the cleanliness of bathrooms, and many other indices, people mark where they live with their personalities, their passions, and the things they choose not to have, like books or exercise equipment or music CDs. They also salt every room with their histories, from the arcane—such as cherished mementos whose meanings are obscure—to the obvious, such as address books and computers.

  Frank and Neil were on the hunt for it all. They paid heed to everything in Nancy’s private environment, from the vibrator beside her bed to the family photos lining the hallway to the styles of clothing and shoes in her closet. They also noted what wasn’t there—the empty slot alongside two suitcases, the suspiciously clean rectangle on her desktop—the size of a computer base—and the way her nonbusiness
attire had been picked from, leaving telling gaps behind.

  To these two veteran searchers, all were signs of a hurried departure for a destination in which some element of rough or casual living played a part.

  The next challenge became determining that destination, which they set about doing with the same perseverance. Files were gone through, the trash rifled, drawers checked for letters, postcards, and documents, and books opened for personal inscriptions. The phone’s memory was read for recent incoming calls. Even photographs were removed from their frames so the backs could be checked for legends.

  By the end of it, two hours later, they sat down comfortably in their borrowed living room, still wearing gloves but enjoying a couple of microbrewery beers from the fridge, and compared notes.

  “So, what I got,” Frank began, “is a middle-aged single woman with no kids, no boyfriend, and a life consisting of her job, her sports—which include swimming, sailing, hiking, skiing, and tennis—her friends, and a fondness for French cooking. Although from the pictures I’ve seen, she either doesn’t eat much or works it all off.”

  “She was married once,” Neil said tersely.

  Frank raised his eyebrows.

  “Divorce papers,” Neil explained. “Other legal stuff, too. They stuck it out for six years.”

  “Any mention of other property in that paperwork?” Frank asked.

  “Like a weekend place? Nope.”

  Frank pushed his lips out slightly, muttering, “That would be too easy.” He took a swig of beer and crossed his legs. “You think maybe she and the ex got along well enough that she’d camp out with him in a crisis?”

  Neil smiled. “Beats me. Depends on how big a crisis we are.”

  Frank nodded. “Good point. We have no idea, do we? Corcoran claimed to barely know the woman, although”—he leaned forward to hold up a photo—“here we have a picture of them, arm in arm. So, let’s say old Sandy called her right after we left and told her the Big Bad Wolf was comin’ around. What do you do as Nancy?”