‘Well, please take seat. Can you remind me who your friend is, and where she was headed?’ Leighton arched his hands into a steeple, and leaned slightly forward.
The girl sat down, but remained rather rigid. ‘Her name is Laurie Taylor. She’s a college friend, who booked a bus ticket from her home in Barstow to Oceanside - she was coming to stay with me for a while - but she never showed up.’
‘OK, and it’s been how long since you last heard from her?’
‘Twenty-two days?’
‘Are you in contact with any members of her family?’
‘No, she only had a mother, who died a few years ago.’
Leighton raised his eyebrows, unsure of the best way to tell this sincere young lady she was most probably wasting both his, and her, time.
‘Well, to be honest, look…’ Leighton hesitated too long, and the girl’s expression hardened.
‘I damn well knew it,’ she said sourly, and began shaking her head. ‘You’re still going to tell me to wait.’
‘No, I was actually going to tell – ’
But, the girl had already reached into her bag, and thrust a number of A4 sheets of paper across the table to Leighton.
‘Have a look at this, Detective, then, tell me I’m wrong.’
Picking up the sheets, Leighton looked over the top of them at Vicki. ‘What are they?’
‘Laurie’s cell phone call logs.’
‘Call logs? How did you get these?’ he asked curiously.
‘Just look at them, please. They begin on August 4th, that’s when the last number, at 1:42 a.m., was a SMS message sent to my phone. After that, she was picked up by the tower at Barstow Station. Then, Oceanside West cell tower picked up her phone, three hours later.’
‘So?’
‘So, Detective, from the moment she boarded the bus, Laurie Taylor never used her phone again.’
‘And you’re certain of that?’ Leighton looked at her seriously. ‘There can be no other explanation other than she was abducted - no other more likely scenarios?’
‘Yes, I’m certain.’ Vicki held Leighton’s gaze.
‘Well, I suggest you take these documents along to the Missing Per-’
‘I thought we could drive up there,’ she said intentionally cutting him off, and brushing absently at nothing on her jeans.
‘I beg your pardon?’ Leighton put down his glass, and arched his fingers together in front of his chest.
‘Yeah.’ Vicki grinned. ‘The two of us could go take a look at Laurie’s place up in Barstow. Well, technically, it’s just beyond Barstow, but not much.’
‘Miss, may I remind you I am officially a retired police officer, and as such…’
‘Exactly, so I know I can trust you.’ She grinned at him. ‘Plus, since you’re retired, you’ll be available during the day.’
Leighton shook his head. ‘It’s completely out of the question.’
‘You said you would help me, that day at the station, and I took you at your word.’ She sighed. ‘Look, I’ll drive, and I’ll even buy your lunch. You’re retired - it’s nice up there - think of it as a day trip.’
‘Well, if your friend is missing, what good would it do snooping around?’
‘I just thought we could take a look around, see if there’s any sign of a break in. You’d know what to look for.’ She glanced at Leighton for confirmation of this, but his face gave nothing away. Somewhere nearby, a lawnmower spluttered to life, and the faint smell of cut grass and gasoline fumes drifted by.
‘I thought,’ Vicki continued, ‘if we found something, some kind of evidence, then the police would maybe take the case seriously.’
‘Okay.’ Leighton tried his best to sound reasonable. ‘And if there was no evidence - no fingerprints on the windows, no puddle of blood in the kitchen, or swag bag in the garden, would that be enough to set you free you to move on?’
‘I swear.’ Vicki held her right hand up, and looked purposely earnest. ‘That would be the end of it - you could enjoy your retirement in peace.’
Leighton didn't know if it was the wine, his own loneliness, or the girl’s simple tenacity, but eventually, he took a sip from his glass, looked at Vicki Reiner, and nodded.
‘Look, Miss Reiner-’
‘Vicki.’
‘Look, Vicki, I was about to say, before you pushed the paperwork at me, I was never a particularly good cop, anyway.’
‘It doesn’t matter. I want you. I trust you.’
‘Okay,’ he said softly. ‘We can drive up tomorrow and have a look.’
‘That’s great.’
‘But,’ Leighton held out his hand to quell her delight, ‘we take my car and split the gas, and if we find nothing suspicious, you can still buy me lunch, otherwise I’m buying lunch for you, and a little slice of humble pie for me.’
‘I knew you were a good man, Detective Jones.’ Vicki grinned.
‘Or a damn fool.’ Leighton chuckled wryly. ‘And it’s Mr. Jones from now on, Miss. I handed in my badge last Friday, remember?’
‘Well, as long as you still have your gun,’ Vicki said softly, and got up to leave.
Leighton hoped she was joking, but suspected she wasn’t.
After the girl had left, Leighton came in from the patio, and padded through the house to the kitchen. He placed his glass and paperback book beside the empty sink, then pinched the bridge of his nose. For a few moments, he stared at the floor, then slowly turned around, reached down, and opened one of the kitchen drawers. His hand reached tentatively into the back of the drawer, and pulled out a faded polaroid photograph of a seven-year-old girl, affectionately holding a fluffy toy bird. The girl was grinning at the camera, with an expression of delight. Leighton gently stroked the image with his thumb, and peered desperately at the image, as if that small window to the past might somehow open. The tears came quickly, pouring down his cheeks, and dripping on to the black tiled floor. Leighton knew from experience he could not hold back the tide. Eventually, he allowed his legs to bend, lowering himself on to the floor. Holding the picture in one hand, and covering his ashamed face with the other, he wept for hours.
8
Anthony Morrelli had closed his eyes as the throaty groan of the engine provided a deep purring lullaby. His eyes were fluttering slightly, as they scanned some imaginary landscape. He was dreaming of his childhood, when his father had taken him fishing for sunfish in the Colorado River out by Davis Dam. It was an activity they had repeated over several summers in Anthony’s youth.
Dragging a flaking old boat, with a croaky outboard motor, out on to the steel-coloured river, they would sail west, until they had found a peaceful place to stop. After dropping a couple of dough-bated lines over the side, his dad would open a can of root beer for his son and a bottle of Peroni for himself. Then, there was little more than the two of them sitting back in comfortable silence, the stillness broken only by the sound of an occasional fish breaking the surface of the water.
Although he had never analysed it, Morrelli’s decision to take up a job on the water four years after his father’s death was, in some way, his attempt to reconnect with those lost summers when the warm air blew softly across the gently rocking boat.
Now, seventeen years later, the air was similarly warm, though this time, it was artificially so - drawn in from the cool night, warmed by the heater matrix, and blown through the dark interior of the bus. It swept gently over Anthony Morrelli’s cheek, almost as if some soft hand was stroking his face. In his dream, the water was slate-coloured, deep, and mirror still. There was a line trailing out from their boat into infinity. His father was sitting back, silently sucking calmly on one of the ten thousand cigarettes that would eventually kill him - coffin nails, he had called them, and they had been. Morrelli always said his old fella’s casket should have borne the Marlboro logo.