Late Payments by Michael Z. Lewin

Author:Michael Z. Lewin [Lewin, Michael Z.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Chapter Eighteen

Fleetwood balanced on crutches at her door.

Powder nodded slowly. “Showing off again, huh. Sergeant?”

“If you’ve got it, flaunt it.”

“That expression dates you.”

“My birth certificate dates me too.”

“Do I get invited in, or are you going to wait for me to rot on your doorstep?”

Fleetwood hesitated. “I’m thinking, I’m thinking,” she said.

Sitting on her couch. Powder asked, “What do you feel is the story on Mencelli?”

“I can’t help it. I just don’t think he would have disappeared voluntarily without saying anything.”

“Because of the way he feels about you?”

“Because of the work,” she snapped. “He’s got so much invested in it. It’s the only thing that’s important to him.”

“And the only thing that’s been making him important,” Powder said thoughtfully.

“Yes.”

“So therefore he’s either driven somewhere and then has been held against his will or someone came to his house and took him and his car from there.”

“It sounds farfetched, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” Powder said. But he shrugged, to say “So what else is new?” “Have you found anybody who saw him today?”

“No. Nor anyone who remembers his car outside this morning. But, I have to say, no one seems very interested.”

Powder frowned. “And still nothing on the car?”

“Nothing. I also checked the hospitals, the usual Missing Persons channels.”

Powder nodded.

Fleetwood was silent.

“I trust your instincts, Carollee.”

“Thank you.”

“What do you want to do?” he asked.

“I want the description put out. I want more people talked to. Somebody must have seen him leave.”

“I thought you drew a blank on that.”

“Not everybody who might have seen him was around this afternoon.”

“Prints?”

“I don’t know,” Fleetwood said. “There’s no sign of disturbance at his place. I don’t think prints will get us much.”

Powder nodded again, without speaking.

“You think I should go back tonight?” Fleetwood asked.

“Yes,” he said. “Put the description out as a general call. No one will ask questions at this point. If it’s not sorted out soon, we’ll go to our detective friends.”

“All right,” she said.

“You want help?”

She thought. “I think I’ll do it myself,” she said. “If you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind. But I mind if you put in a night’s work without a meal. You’re not going until you’ve eaten. What you got in the fridge?”

“Your mother would be proud of you,” Fleetwood said.

Powder blinked momentarily; the thought of his mother and then of the money from her half-brother passed through his mind. “It’s not polite to talk with your mouth full,” he said.

“Sure you don’t want any? It’s good.”

“It’s not the same when you cook it yourself. You eat. I’ll talk.”

“All right.”

He told her about the recent vandalisms.

She said nothing.

“I worried that it was Ricky,” he said. “But Johnson says it was a woman. He doesn’t have a name for her, but she was blond and dressed kind of like a hippy.”

“Every neighborhood should have an Agile Johnson.”

“She lives on Biddle Street.”

“Where’s that?”

“Off Pine. Maybe half a mile from my place.”

Fleetwood was silent for a moment. “Do you have any idea who she is, or what she might have against you?”

“Herself? No.”

“But you must be a little bit relieved that it isn’t Ricky.

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