I rubbed my temple. I was starting to get a headache to go along with the pain in my ass named Joe. “Sure. I’m going to check out Axton’s room, okay?” Not waiting for his reply, I walked down the hall.
After climbing through the window last night, I’d unlocked Ax’s door. I hadn’t wanted to search his room then, because it seemed like such an invasion of his privacy. Today it seemed like a good idea.
It was even more of a wreck in the daylight and the sour, musty smell hit me hard, just like it had the night before. The bed was unmade and I had trouble telling whether the sheets had once been white or if they had always been that shade of gray. Little mountains of clothes were piled up across the floor.
I surveyed the room and tried to figure out where to start. The desk was as good a place as any.
It was one of those discount store models you put together yourself. The top was cluttered with jewel cases filled with burned CDs and gaming magazines. I looked in the cubbyholes and found a bag of pot — no surprise there — and not much else. I flipped through the gaming magazines to make sure there were no loose papers between the pages.
Glancing around the rest of the room, I realized was going to have to touch that bed. My whole body shivered and I took a deep breath, wishing like crazy I had thought to bring gloves.
Under the bed were dust balls and spank mags, featuring women with novelty breasts the size of beach balls. I did the same thing and shook them to be sure there were no loose papers inside. Some of the pages were stuck together. I gagged a little. I lifted the twin mattress and found bubkes, as Ma would say.
Next I carefully made my way to the small bookcase where books had been haphazardly shoved on the shelves. All science fiction — natch — and as I thumbed my way through the pages, I noticed a theme. Most of the covers depicted large breasted women in skimpy outfits. Some wielded swords, some stood tall, their legs in a wide stance, their ginormous breasts thrust out. Axton
The closet yielded nothing but a few faded t-shirts, one pair of khakis, and a dirty pair of tennis shoes on the floor. A cardboard chest of drawers held his socks and a lone pair of underwear.
I glanced around the room one more time, trying to take in anything that might hold a clue, and spied two pairs of jeans tossed in the corner. I picked my way through the dirty boxer bombs to get to them. Holding up the first pair with two fingers, I felt around in the pockets. Nothing. But in the front left pocket of the second pair, I found a folded yellow Post-it with the words NorthStar Inc. written in Axton’s blocky handwriting.
I smiled. I didn’t know if this was a clue, but I felt kind of excited.
With the paper tucked in my pocket, I scooped up all the burned CDs from the desk and slipped them into my purse. I doubted they contained any clues to Ax’s whereabouts, but I wanted to be sure. I left the bedroom and went into the living room for one last attempt at Joe.
“Joe?”
“Mmm?” he didn’t look away from the TV.
“Joe?” I said, louder this time.
His glassy gaze drifted my way. “Hey, Rose, you still here?”
“What did Axton wear to the club?”
He blinked, and seemed sharper, more alert for a moment. He grinned and snapped his fingers. “He had on this jacket, like you wear to funerals and stuff.”
“A suit jacket?”
“Yeah, and
“Slacks?” In all the years I’d known Ax, I’d never seen him in a suit. I didn’t even know he owned one.
“Yeah, not like jeans or anything.” He stared at the wall next to my head, the glazed look back in his eyes. “Yeah,” he whispered. “Kind of like the dude who dropped by earlier.”
“What?” My heart hammered in my chest. “What dude?”
“Some tall dude who looked in Ax’s room.”
I stomped over to the TV and shut it off, then blocked it with my body. “What tall dude?”
“I don’t know, man. A guy showed up and asked for Ax…,” he looked up at the ceiling, “this morning?”
I buried my face in my hands. So help me God, I was going to strangle this moron with his own hat strings. I took a deep breath. “Joe. Start at the beginning. A dude came to the house. What did he look like?”
He scratched the top of his head. “Like a funeral guy, I told you.”
“What did he say? Tell me exactly.”
His stomach rumbled and he looked up at me. “Huh, did you hear that?”
“What did he say?” My jaw was clenched so tight, I could barely move my lips.
“Man, chill. He said Ax had something important and he needed to search the Axman’s room. Like you did.”
I stepped closer to Joe. “Did he find anything? Please Joe, please focus.”
“No…” he tilted his head to the side and closed his eyes for so long I thought he’d fallen asleep. Then they popped open. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Are you sure?”
“Ah man, I don’t know.”
I could tell I wasn’t going to get any more out of him, no matter how much I pushed. “Joe,” I said slowly, “I want you to call me if the man comes back.”
“Sure.” He dug into the chip bag and brought out a handful of crumbs. Half made it into his mouth and the other half landed on his shirt. “No problem.”
I stared at him in frustration. I had no doubt Joe would completely forget our conversation, let alone his promise to call, if this guy showed up again.
As I left the house and made my way to the car, I dug in my purse for hand sanitizer, pouring half the bottle into my palm. The bright blue October sky was completely at odds with my dark mood. There was just a little breeze, a nip of fall in the air. Still, I was freezing.
I now knew Axton wore a suit to a club, had the name of a company that may or may not, in any way, be related to Axton’s disappearance, and knew a man had searched Ax’s room before I got there. It had to be the same mystery man I’d met in the woods. What was this guy looking for? And what would happen if he found Ax before I did?
Chapter 5
On TV they say you must wait forty-eight hours before a person is considered missing. I hoped that wasn’t the case in real life. I knew Axton was missing and I needed him back.
I drove to the better side of Huntingford where the police station resided. The old station had been an historical landmark, but the city built a new one fifteen years ago. It was now a generic brick box.
As I walked through the doors, my feet met industrial grade dark green carpet. A large framed aerial view of the city hung on the off-white wall to the right. Except for a few people in police uniforms milling around, it wasn’t at all what I imagined a police station would look like. Where were the criminals handcuffed to chairs? Where were the hookers in bad wigs? I didn’t think we had a large hooker population in Huntingford, but I still felt a little let down.
I walked to the window near the front door where a uniformed female officer sat behind a desk and stared, unblinking, at a computer. “Can I help you?” she asked in a bored voice.
“Uh, yeah, I’d like to report a missing person?” My hands felt clammy and I wiped them on my jeans. I didn’t know why I was nervous. I hadn’t done anything wrong.
She looked up at me then. Her gaze took in my hair, face, and red t-shirt. “Who’s missing?”
“My friend, Axton.”
With a sigh, she stood. She wasn’t very tall, but she was sturdy, like a fire hydrant with big boobs. Just Axton’s type. “How long has your friend been missing?”
“Since last night.”
She sighed again and sat down. “I can take an information report, put his name in the database. If you want to make a missing person report, you need to wait forty-eight hours. Thank you.” She dismissed me and returned to her computer.
