“The Kingsway being rich and privileged,” Hank explained. “Not exactly a womb of discontent.”
The girl shuffled uncomfortably. Hank grinned. Don’t they teach history in school anymore?
“I’m looking for some records,” he said. “Births, deaths, crimes. That sort of thing.”
“I don’t think we have anything like that,” the girl responded. “I could ask Mr. Grant. He’s sort of an amateur historian. Maybe he could help you. Was there something in particular you were interested in?”
“Missing persons,” Hank said with a smile. “I’m looking for stories about citizens who have disappeared.”
“I don’t understand, sir. Why would you be looking for missing persons?”
“Don’t you think it’s about time someone found them?” The girl smiled, puzzled.
“Can I speak to Mr. Grant?”
“He’s not in.”
“When will he be in?”
The girl shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s on holidays.”
“Will he ever return?”
The girl laughed. “Of course. Why wouldn’t he return?”
CHAPTER TEN
Detective Kelly stepped out of his car and walked along the shoulder of the road. Cars slowed down as they passed by. A uniformed policeman kept the traffic moving. Two other police cars had bracketed the bright red Ford pickup. Several policemen were milling about. When
another plainclothes policeman spotted the detective, he advanced toward him.
“Sounded like it was up your alley, Sam,” Detective Adams said.
Detective Adams was small for a police officer, but as everyone at the precinct reluctantly admitted, he dressed well.
Detective Kelly looked around. A few neighbors had come out to investigate the scene, and were standing on their lawns chatting. Some kids on bikes had been more daring but one of the uniforms was moving them back across the street. Sam looked at the pickup. It did not look damaged. The shoulder of the street ran up onto a lawn backed by a small batch of trees that then fell off into Echo Valley. There were no houses on this side of the street. Across the valley, Detective Kelly could see Joe Mackenzie’s house.
“Been here for three days,” Detective Adams said, shrugging his shoulders as if he were trying to adjust his suit. “No tickets. Can you imagine that? A no-parking zone and we haven’t ticketed it. How do those guys down in parking keep themselves busy? Don’t they have quotas? We should have known about this shit box days ago. Neighbors say that it’s been here for three days. Did I tell you that? It’s listed as belonging to a Helen Kraft. I sent Forman over to pick her up and meet us at the station.”
“They don’t,” Sam Kelly said.
Detective Adams looked puzzled.
“They don’t have quotas,” Sam explained.
Detective Adams nodded. “Ya, right.”
“Kraft? Should I know that name?” Detective Kelly asked.
“I don’t know,” Detective Adams responded. Then he added, “Does this look like a place someone would abandon a truck? That was the first thing that struck me as odd.” Detective Adams checked his notepad again. “Miss Kraft was contacted. She started bawling. She hadn’t reported the truck missing. Neighbors said the passenger door was open for two days until one of these kids closed it.”
“The door was open?” Detective Kelly asked.
Detective Adams nodded as he adjusted his tie. “Until one of the kids closed it. Probably after he looted everything inside and made a mess of any fingerprints.”
“Fingerprints?” Sam Kelly asked. “Why would we take fingerprints?”
“It don’t smell right, Sam.” Detective Adams loosened his tie. “Just to be on the safe side. In case there was a crime.”
“You think there was a crime?”
“It don’t…”
“…smell right,” Sam Kelly finished.
An hour later Detective Kelly was sitting across the table from the young Miss Kraft. A plain-looking woman, Sam guessed she was in her mid-twenties. A cup of coffee in a Styrofoam cup sat in front of her. She never touched it. Miss Kraft kept sniffling and softly weeping as she told her story.
“So I walked home,” she said. “I know that I should have phoned the police, but I was upset.”
Detective Kelly stared in silence at the woman for several minutes. He wanted her to relax. He looked over his notes.
“His name was Joe?”
She nodded. “Joe Begin. He’s a salesman. Printing supplies. Ink, paper, that sort of thing. He asked me out for a drink. I don’t normally accept invitations from men at work but Joe seemed nice. He was funny.”
“This is important, Miss Kraft. I want you to be honest. Did you go in-to the woods with Mr. Begin?”
Miss Kraft sniffled again, hesitated, then nodded.
“It was his idea. That does sound stupid. I’m sorry. I’m so embarrassed. I don’t normally go into woods with men. He said there was a beautiful view of the valley. I didn’t believe him but I went anyway. Joe could be very persuasive. We walked into the woods. It was dark. He walked in front of me. I held his hand as we walked and then his hand slipped out of mine. He slid down the hill into the valley. I caught the branch of a tree or I would have gone down as well.” The detective took a deep breath.
“Why didn’t you call the police?”
“He wasn’t hurt,” Miss Kraft replied. “He was laughing. I could hear him laughing from the bottom of the hill. He yelled up that he’d landed in a pile of leaves. He told me to wait, that he’d find another way up the hill.”
“But he never returned?” Sam asked.
“Should I have called the police?” Miss Kraft asked.
Sam smiled faintly. “I don’t know.”
Miss Kraft shook her head. “I waited for about an hour. Maybe it wasn’t that long. I was upset. I would have checked my watch but I didn’t have one on. Should I have been wearing my watch?”
“It would have been helpful.”
“He had the keys to the truck and here I was alone at one o’clock in the morning.”
“How did you know it was one o’clock?”
Miss Kraft looked puzzled.
“You didn’t have your watch,” the detective explained.
Miss Kraft smiled faintly.
“And so you walked home?” the detective asked.
Miss Kraft nodded, then blew her nose into a tissue. “I thought that he would eventually get back up the hill and drop the truck off at my work.
It was a long weekend. I’m not in any trouble, am I?”
“Did you leave the keys in the truck?”
Miss Kraft looked at the detective with a puzzled expression.
“How was he supposed to drop off the truck without the keys?” the detective prompted.
“I told you. Joe had the keys.”
The detective said nothing. He looked at his pad. They’d been drinking at the Zig Zag. That would be easy enough to confirm. She worked at Archer Greene’s Print Shop. The name sounded familiar.
“Am I in a lot of trouble, Detective?”
“You live alone, Miss Kraft?”
