lightweight wool. Under the jacket is an open-necked shirt of white poplin. The cuffs of the shirt are adorned with black onyx cuff links, matching her earrings. Black suede loafers and frameless glasses complete the ensemble. Her hair is silver, feathered at the sides to accentuate piercing blue eyes.
She fixes those eyes on me. “My office is in the back.”
We follow her through the gallery to a door at the very back. Her office is ultramodern, all polished chrome and glass. She motions us to sit in two white leather chairs across from her desk. When we are settled, she starts right in.
“Something has happened to Amy. I know it. She would not have left town without telling me. And before you ask, she didn’t have a boyfriend she ran off with, either.” She opens her top desk drawer and retrieves a set of keys. “These are the keys to her apartment. I haven’t touched anything since the police conducted their search.”
When I take the keys from her hand, she slumps back in her chair. “The police went through everything on her computer, checked her phone records. They didn’t find one single item to shed light on Amy’s disappearance. But I’m certain someone’s taken her.”
“What makes you so certain?” asks Zack.
“Look around the gallery, Agents. Amy’s career is flowering. She gets so many inquiries regarding new commissions, we have to turn some away. She has a show opening in New York in two days. Her reputation is growing. She wouldn’t walk away from it. It’s what she’s worked for all her life.” She draws a quick, sharp breath. “And, quite honestly, I can’t bring myself to consider the alternative—that something worse has happened to her.”
“You seem very close to Amy,” Zack says.
“We are very close, Agent Armstrong.” She waves a hand. “Amy is reclusive. Doesn’t make friends easily. Her work really is her life. I am the only person Amy has let share that life since her parents died two years ago. I do more than manage the gallery. I am her friend, confidante, personal assistant, and, dare I say it”—she smiles here—“biggest critic. She looks to me to keep her grounded, on track.”
“When did you realize Amy was missing?” I ask.
She answers without hesitation. “March twenty-ninth. She had an appointment here at three that she missed. I called her cell, her home number. There was no answer. I left messages, spent the next two hours checking my voice mail. As soon as the gallery closed, I went over to her apartment. That’s when I really started to worry. Her car was there, but no Amy. By that time, my calls to her cell started to roll straight into voice mail. Either Amy had turned it off or she’d let it run out of battery. Again, uncharacteristic.”
Zack leans forward, listening intently. “Is that when you called the police?”
Haskell nods. “Yes. They told me I had to come to the station if I wanted to file a report. I was torn. I wasn’t sure I should.”
“Did you?” he asks.
“Not that night. The police suggested I call the local hospitals, the coroner’s office, the morgue. By daylight I was frantic. I called a friend in the district attorney’s office and begged her to convince the police to help. She promised she’d get SDPD to come, told me to stay put. I waited for hours. They took my statement, gave the apartment a quick once-over, then left. They’ve done nothing. Nothing. Someone needs to take this seriously. It’s been almost two weeks. I
To Haskell, it would appear that the police have done nothing. But we have their case records to show they had done all the requisite background checks. Small comfort, though, to someone waiting for concrete news of a missing loved one.
I let a beat go by before saying, “You mentioned Amy having missing an appointment. Do you keep her schedule?”
“I do.” Haskell punches up something on her laptop, turns the screen so I can see. “Here are last week’s appointments. I keep it week to week.”
“Can you print it out for us?” Zack asks. “Not only the most recent entries, but for the last two months?”
Without replying, Haskell hits a key and the printer on a credenza behind her begins to whir. It spits out a dozen sheets of paper, which she takes from the printer, taps on the desktop to align, and hands to Zack. “You will see that Amy never missed an appointment before—” Her voice drops. “I’ve managed to put off most of what she’s missed. But now that her disappearance has become public knowledge. . . .” One manicured fingernail taps a copy of the
I rise. “We’ll head over to Amy’s apartment.” I take a business card from my pocket and hand it to her. “We’ll be in touch as soon as we finish there. We may have more questions for you.”
“Anything,” she replies. “Just bring Amy back.”
Her telephone rings and she glances down. “I expect I’ll be busy today answering this damned thing.”
Zack has risen with me. “We’ll leave you to it. We’d appreciate if you didn’t mention our involvement just yet. Gives us a little time to work without the interruption of inquiries from reporters.”
“Of course.”
She reaches for the telephone and Zack and I take our leave.
• • •
“Patterson lives downtown in a high-rise at the corner of Kettner and A Street.” I’m reading from the police report. I look over at Zack. “I suppose you don’t need directions there, either.”
Zack is back behind the wheel. He smiles. “Nope.”
His manner is more relaxed. He seems to have shaken off the effects of his encounter with the woman in the parking lot.
“So, how do you know your way around San Diego so well?”
“Long story. I’ll tell you about it sometime. Right now I want to know your reaction to Haskell.”
“Smart. Efficient. All business. But her feelings for Amy are real. She’s worried. And it goes beyond her own self-interest in a business that appears to be doing very well.”
“We should look into the gallery’s financials, as well as Amy’s and her own.”
I put in a call to the office and let Johnson know what we need. He says he’ll get the warrants and put one of our people right on it.
I disconnect. “How do you know so much about art?” I ask when I’ve slipped my cell back into my handbag.
“I know a little about a lot of things,” he answers.
“Did you really like Amy’s paintings?”
“You didn’t?”
By now we’re making good time. Zack has navigated his way out of La Jolla, and Interstate 5 is wide open.
“Give me Giorgione’s
He laughs. “You realize most people our age don’t even know who the Old Masters are?”
“Age has nothing to do with preference.” It’s what I say, but actually, it does. I was living in Europe during the fourteenth through eighteenth centuries. While the art was magnificent, living conditions were decidedly not.
Ten minutes later we’ve pulled off the highway and I sit quietly with my thoughts as Zack winds through the maze of one-way streets downtown. We’re not so lucky in finding a parking spot this time. It takes several turns around the block before we spy a driver pulling out of a metered space. Fortunately, we manage to snag it before anyone else.
I look up at the building while Zack feeds quarters into the meter. “Nice digs.”
It’s an upscale condo complex, lots of glass, very modern in design. We let ourselves in through a locked entry with one of the keys on the ring Haskell gave us. There’s a concierge desk, unoccupied at the moment, so we walk straight to the elevators. Amy lives on one of the top floors, requiring use of another key to gain access.
“Secure building,” I note.
