Burning Time

New York. There was no hotel or motel charge, so Newt figured Ellen never checked out. He had the sheet on Troland Grebs. He couldn’t tell from the old arrests on it why the detective in New York was so sure it was Grebs. But one witness tying Grebs and Ellen Roane together would do it.

“Find out where she stayed first,” he told his officers. “They’re probably still holding her things at some hotel. Maybe they saw who she was with.”

• • •

The two men started early. They planned to cover the area around where she had shopped and eaten. There had been no car rental charge on her credit card. It seemed fairly clear that Ellen Roane hadn’t had a car. There were two hotels, three motels, and one bed-and-breakfast within walking distance of the places she had made the charges. The beach was only a few blocks away from the shopping area.

After an hour, they found Ellen’s possessions at the sixth place they tried. The Coral Reef Bed and Breakfast was one of those quaint places with no phones in the rooms. On the second floor, a large patio overlooked the ocean just across the street. They served breakfast there, and iced tea, wine, fruit, cheese, and crackers in the afternoon.

The owner, a tall, very thin, overtanned woman in her forties, took one look at the two deputy sheriffs in their khaki uniforms with their hats in their hands and asked them to sit down at one of the tables.

“Would you like a glass of iced tea?” she asked.

It was a hot day. Raymond, who thought he knew how to handle women, glanced quickly at Jesse, then nodded. Jesse was the elder, nearly fifty now, and looked tired. He sat.

The woman came back in a moment with a fluffy blonde who was clearly her girlfriend. The blonde carried a pitcher.

“I’m Gena Howard. I’m the owner. And this is Roberta. Roberta cooks.”

“Hello.” Roberta poured out two glasses of dark tea with lots of frosty ice and handed them over.

“What can we do for you?” Gena Howard had clearly dealt with cops before.

“About two weeks ago, did you have a young woman staying with you?” Raymond asked. The iced tea was cold and strong and very sweet.

Roberta nodded. “Debby,” she said. “This is about Debby, isn’t it? Where is she? What happened to her?”

“Debby?” Raymond said.

“Shh, Bobbie. Let him ask the questions.”

Raymond took out the picture. “We’re looking for this girl. Her name is Ellen Roane.”

Bobbie and Gena took the photo of Ellen Roane in shorts with a tennis racket in her hand, and a big happy smile on her face. The two women held it together, their heads almost touching as they bent over it. The recognition was immediate, but they continued holding the photo as if they didn’t want to let it go.

“Debby,” Bobbie confirmed.

“Such a nice girl,” Gena Howard said, still studying the picture. “She wanted a room where she could see the water. We put her on the third floor. She was just crazy about the ocean.… You know, I was really worried when she took off without her things.… But sometimes they do that when they don’t want to pay—”

“You thought she left to avoid paying the bill?” Raymond asked incredulously.

Gena looked at Bobbie, then shook her head. “We didn’t want to think that of her. And she had expensive things, more than the room was worth. It didn’t seem likely.”

“We were afraid something happened to her,” Bobbie said softly. “But …”

“Don’t you read the newspapers?” Raymond interrupted.

Gena put her hand protectively on Bobbie’s shoulder and shook her head again. Bobbie kept her eyes on them, clearly frightened.

“It’s always such bad news,” Bobbie explained.

“We’ve got a lot of things to do to keep this place going,” Gena added defensively. “We have ten rooms, and it’s just us. We don’t really bother with the news.” She changed the subject. “We did keep her stuff in case she decided to come back. Like I said, it’s good stuff, worth more than the room. We hoped she’d come back.”

“What happened to her?” Bobbie’s face was very pale.

Raymond told her as gently as he could. “Somebody took her out into the desert and left her there.”

“Oh.” She put her hand to her mouth.

Jesse sat there drinking his iced tea. His expression hadn’t changed since they walked in. Raymond glanced at Jesse and wondered if he’d ever get to be that cool.

“She was a pretty girl,” Gena said, still studying the photo. “Real pretty.”

Raymond nodded. “Why don’t you tell us about her,” he suggested.

“What do you want to know?” Gena finally relinquished the picture. Raymond took it back and reached for his notebook.

It took some time to hear everything the two women had to say. They had never thought Debby was her real name, Bobbie said. She didn’t always answer to it. She kept pretty much to herself. Yes, they could see her on the beach from here, and they did see her, Gena supplied. But when they were looking, she was always alone.

Raymond handed over the two old photos of Troland Grebs. Gena laid them down side by side and studied them doubtfully for a long time.

“Those were taken a long time ago,” Raymond said helpfully. “He’s a lot older now.”

“I don’t know,” Gena said.

Bobbie lifted a shoulder diffidently. “Does he ride a motorcycle? There’s a guy hangs out at the beach that looks kinda like this. Same build, same blond hair.”

“Oh?” Jesse said. It was the first time he had spoken. His glass of iced tea was empty now, except for the ice, and he was smearing the circles of moisture the glass left on the table with his finger. “Where do you see him?”

“Around the beach. He hangs out,”

“Are you sure he’s the one?” Gena asked. “This guy’s so young.”

“Look, same mouth,” Bobbie insisted.

The two women thought the guy who looked like this lived somewhere around here because he liked to come to the beach in the evening and watch the sun go down. He had a motorcycle. He’d probably be out there tonight.

The deputies waited around until nine that night, but no one like Grebs showed up. They questioned some regulars who hung around the beach. A few of them thought the boy in the photo was someone they knew as Willy. One guy, an aging surfer who didn’t put on a shirt even though the temperature had dropped to the fifties, said he saw a girl who looked like Ellen get on Willy’s Harley-Davidson and drive off. He wasn’t sure when, thought maybe it was two weeks or so ago. As far as he knew, Willy hadn’t been around since.

After he got this information from Raymond and Jesse, Newt came down out of the hills himself to try to establish Troland’s whereabouts. Grebs wasn’t at his apartment. The manager of the building said he hadn’t seen him in days. His office said Grebs was on vacation.

61

“Nine-one-one Emergency, can I help you?”

“Yes, this is Detective Woo up in the Two-O,” April said. “I’d like you to check and see if you got a call last night from a woman, name of Emma Chapman.”

“I’d need an official request, Detective—”

“Woo,” April said. “Okay. Who shall I send it to?”

Fifteen minutes later, April faxed a request for information downtown to Headquarters, where the 911 calls from all five boroughs came in, were recorded, and were dealt with.

An hour later she tried again. “I’m trying to locate a call from a female, name of Emma Chapman.”

“Okay, Detective. I can check that now. Would that be Manhattan?”