The Rise of the Red Queen Read online

  Chapter 6

  After a full day at the office, Joe and I met at the house for dinner. Neither of us had news about Jamie. We worked silently, each a bit restless, although we normally loved being in in the kitchen cooking together.

  This was the part of the day we liked best. We each had a task and a glass of wine. Charlie lay curled up under the kitchen table. I chopped carrots on a wooden board and Joe sautéed onions in butter and garlic on the stove. Heaven was the smell of Joe’s cooking.

  The doorbell rang.

  Wynan Congers stood on my small front porch. “I have some news. Maybe a lead,” he said.

  “Please come in, Mr. Congers.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Solaris. I was told Joe Morgan might be here.”

  I indicated a chair in the living room.

  Joe emerged from the kitchen. “Hi, Wynan. What’s up?”

  Congers still stood by the chair. “I may have a lead,” he said, clearly exhausted. The flesh under his eyes was swollen. “Marilyn called and said that the tenant in the next door apartment told her she saw a man entering Jamie and Marilyn’s apartment when Marilyn was in class.”

  “Did Marilyn get a description of the man?” said Joe.

  “Not really. As soon as she began to quiz the next door tenant, the woman clammed up. Marilyn may have been too eager and too free with information about Jamie being missing. She thinks the woman got spooked and stopped talking.”

  “Maybe you and I can unspook the lady,” said Joe, removing the chef’s apron I gave him for his birthday. “Let’s go see her now. Just let me turn off the spaghetti sauce.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that,” said Wynan, heading toward the front door.

  “If dinner’s going to be delayed, may I go too?” I spoke to Joe’s back as he turned into the kitchen. “The next door lady might feel more comfortable talking with me than with you two six-footers.”

  “Three’s kind of a crowd,” said Wynan.

  “But it might help create a sense of urgency in the woman’s mind if the dean of the school shows up,” said Joe. “Don’t worry, Chief. I can assure you that Red knows how to behave herself.” I got a wink for that.

  “Let’s go,” said Wynan, opening my front door.

  The apartment house where Jamie and Marilyn lived was a three-story brick building on the south end of campus, just across the street from the back entrance to Mountain West University. The elevator looked tiny, so the three of us took the stairs to the second floor.

  Marilyn opened her door so quickly I wondered if she’d been braced against it, waiting for us.

  She was a pretty girl, darker and not as tall or as elegant looking as her roommate. Dressed in jeans and a Mountain West sweatshirt, she had her hair pulled up in a tight bun on the top of her head. Her large brown eyes filled with tears as soon as she saw Wynan.

  “Oh, Mr. Congers, I’m so sorry if I handled this badly. The woman next door has never been friendly, and when she mentioned rather casually that she had seen a man coming in here yesterday, I practically jumped at her.”

  “It’s all right, Marilyn. I brought Detective Morgan with me. You remember him?”

  The girl nodded. “Yes. He talked to me last evening.”

  “And I’m sure you remember me, Marilyn. Meredith Solaris, dean of the journalism school. You were in my media ethics class last year.” I held my hand out to the girl, who was trembling and looked as if she could use a strong arm around her shoulders. “Why don’t we sit down and you tell us what happened. Would you like me to get you some water?”

  “Thank you, Dean Solaris. I’m all right. I’m just glad to see you all here. I’ve been a mess since I talked to Mrs. Cimaneti next door.” Marilyn sank into the couch that took up most of the small living room. “She’s old and grumpy and as soon as she knew the man’s coming in here upset me, she pulled away. She thought he was a handyman and said she didn’t want any trouble and that was all.”

  “We’ll go next door in a minute, Marilyn.” Joe spoke in his calm, investigative voice. I’d heard it before and wondered how he always kept it so professional and well-modulated. “Before that, tell us if anything is missing from the apartment.”

  “I don’t think so.” She looked at Wynan. “Everything we found of Jamie’s and mine is still here just like it was when you first came over and we looked everywhere.”

  Joe frowned. “Marilyn, could it have been a handyman? Any problems here that needed fixing?”

  “None.” The girl was emphatic. “I called the landlord while I was waiting for you. He never sent anyone to this apartment for any reason. Not since Jamie and I moved in.”

  Joe went to the front door and examined the door, the lock, and the frame. “No sign of forced entry here. Does anyone else have a key besides you and Jamie?”

  “No,” said Marilyn. I could see she was starting to become agitated. “Absolutely no one.”

  “If it happened Tuesday, after Jamie was gone, maybe the man used Jamie’s key,” I said. Marilyn’s eyes widened. She was shaking all over.

  “Maybe,” said both policemen simultaneously.

  Joe returned to the door. “Let’s go see if Mrs. Cimaneti is home and willing to tell us more.”

  “I think Mrs. Cimaneti’s first name is Octavia. That’s what I hear the landlord call her sometimes,” said Marilyn.

  Octavia Cimaneti had an old face, pale gray and wrinkled from forehead to chin. Her hair was white and thinning on top. She stood in the doorway of her apartment regarding us with her arms folded across her chest and her hostility visible and fierce.

  “I told that girl next door, I didn’t see anything. Just a man going into her apartment. Never saw his face.” She raised her folded arms slightly for emphasis and stood with her feet planted squarely in the middle of the doorway.

  “May we come in please, Mrs. Cimaneti? This is an important police investigation and your help could be of great value to us.” Joe could charm a bird out of a tree.

  The old woman eyed the three of us as if trying to decide if we were real police or imposters. Then, without a word, she turned, leaving the door open. Her back was bent and she braced herself with one hand against the wall as she walked over to her chair. The apartment was stuffy, filled with faded upholstered furniture. Yellowed shades and patterned curtains covered the windows. The whole place smelled of fried food. Mrs. Cimaneti indicated the sofa, and I sat down. Wynan stood with his back to the wall. Joe pulled up a dining room chair and sat opposite the still belligerent woman.

  “I don’t wonder it’s a police investigation,” she said, her eyes appraising Wynan. “We’ve had some different kinds of people moving into this building lately and I was just waiting for the first sign of trouble.”

  Wynan’s face remained impassive. No doubt he had encountered similar sentiments from people like Mrs. Cimaneti all his life.

  Joe inched closer to the woman until his knees almost touched hers. “You said you thought the man you saw going into the apartment next door was a handyman. Why did you think he was a handyman?”

  “He was wearing overalls and heavy work boots. Muddy boots. That’s why.” Her face grew angrier and her tone more defensive as her hands twisted in her lap. “Unless you’re gonna tell me one of those girls has a boyfriend who’s a day laborer.”

  “Neither of them has a boyfriend,” said Wynan, still standing and leaning against the wall, making it clear he’d be damned if he was going to sit down in this woman’s house.

  “You saw him from the back. Right?” Joe had produced a notepad and was writing down her statement. She nodded.

  “What color was his hair?”

  “He was wearing a cap, so I’m not sure. Gray, or brown maybe.”

  “What color was his skin?”

  “White,” she said impatiently. “His hand on the doorframe was white
and the back of his neck was white.”

  “So you saw him quite clearly?” Joe’s voice was even—cool, yet still friendly.

  “I didn’t see his face. That’s all I can tell you.”

  “Just a few more questions, Mrs. Cimaneti. And then we’ll let you get back to your evening.”

  The woman straightened in her chair. She smoothed her skirt and tugged nervously at her sweater.

  “How tall would you say he was?” Joe was still writing.

  “About as tall as that man leaning against my wall.” She avoided looking directly at Wynan. Just as well, I thought. His expression was no more cordial than hers.

  “Could you guess at his weight? Heavy, thin?”

  “About average…I don’t know. He was wearing those loose sort of overalls workmen wear.”

  “Can you remember anything else that might help find him?”

  She closed her eyes. “His arms. The muscles showed through the t-shirt he was wearing. Big muscles.”

  A popping noise came from the direction of the kitchen. She rose from her chair. “I should tend to my supper,” she said, moving toward the sound.

  “Thank you for your time, ma’am,” said my courteous detective. “We appreciate your help.”

  Mrs. Cimaneti disappeared into her kitchen. We let ourselves out.

  Marilyn opened the door with, “I just found something odd.”

  “What?”

  “I looked again in Jamie’s closet, and you know how neat and organized she is. All the skirts in one section, pants in another. She never mixes.”

  “So?”

  “One of her blouses was hanging in the middle of the skirt section. She never does that.”

  “Do you think the man took some of her clothes?”

  “I don’t think so. But he might have been looking through her stuff. Something’s wrong about where that blouse is hanging.”

  A girl goes missing and, a day later, a man breaks into her apartment to look through her clothes? Or take some? Strange. Unless it meant Jamie might be in trouble but still alive. I kept the thought to myself.

  Jamie

  Light crept in from somewhere, but she couldn’t make out the contours of the room. Jamie knew she was on a bed, and she could feel she was tied to the head and footboard, both hands and both feet wide apart. Her head pounded and a wave of nausea swept over her. She struggled against the ropes that held her, but they were too thick and too tight. She wiggled her hips. Even with clothes still on her body, the spread eagle position made her feel vulnerable.

  Noises came from below. Kitchen noises. A pot scraping against the burner of a stove. A door closing. Her head throbbed again. Terror flooded her mind. She couldn’t think straight.

  No amount of education or sports training had prepared her for this feeling of helplessness. Strong and smart, she still had no idea what to do next. She felt overwhelmed by the ropes and darkness. None of her grandfather’s advice on self-protection applied.

  Once, when she was in middle school in Las Vegas, a gang fight had broken out in her classroom. Six boys with knives and two with guns had sent her diving under her desk, hoping the fighters wouldn’t see her or involve her. One boy crashed down on top of her desk, his arm gushing blood that spattered her face. Even after the police arrived she had remained in her hiding place, shaking and bloodstained until a teacher persuaded her to come out.

  “You did the right thing,” her grandfather had said afterward. “You stayed out of the way. You kept yourself safe.”

  But how was she to keep herself safe in this room?

  Chapter 7

  Joe called one of his detectives and gave the description of the man seen at Jamie’s apartment, then headed for the kitchen to continue cooking his spaghetti sauce. I showed Wynan into the living room.

  “Drink?” I asked.

  The man’s face was a portrait of grief and worry. “Whiskey, please, if you have it.”

  I poured him a glass and gave myself a refill of red wine. We sat silently, sipping, until Joe came back into the room. “Wynan, I have plenty of spaghetti, if you’re hungry.”

  “Yes, please stay for dinner,” I added, embarrassed that I had not thought to ask before.

  Wynan shook his head. “Thank you, no. I promised Nell I’d stop by her place to tell her what we learned.” He stood up and put his empty glass on the side table. My face must have reflected the question I didn’t ask. “She’s a nice person, your assistant. We’ve become friends.”

  “Good. I think Nell enjoys your company.”

  “My company isn’t too enjoyable these days, Dr. Solaris, but Nell Bishop is a smart woman and a great comfort. Thanks for the drink. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate what both of you are doing to help me.” The older man’s body filled the space of my open front door. “I’ll call you first thing in the morning, Joe.”

  When he’d gone, Joe and I sat down to a solemn dinner.

  “Do you think the description you called in will get any leads?”

  “Probably not. Not unless a guy with that description has been seen around the neighborhood and reported for suspicious activity. They’ll call me if anything comes up on the computers.” Joe twirled his spaghetti absentmindedly. “I feel stymied by this one. We don’t even know where to begin to look for Jamie Congers.”

  “So you think she’s definitely been taken by someone.”

  Jamie

  Jamie could see trees and sky through a small window near her bed, but nothing more. She still couldn’t figure out where she was. She kept thinking about the parking garage.

  Over and over again she remembered standing by her car watching the tall man approach her with a cloth in his hand. At first she’d been baffled. In previous encounters, the tall man’s behavior had always been appropriate. He’d always been polite, always walked away.

  But in the light of the garage, his expression looked grim, and she could see the muscles in his jaw working. She had panicked, her self-defense responses had locked up. She’d frozen in place as the man had raised his arm and put the cloth over her face.

  Why had she frozen when he approached her? Her internal alarm system had gone off, but her instincts had failed to heed it. Perhaps because the tall man had been so manageable in the earlier encounters. Because he seemed so harmless, she couldn’t believe she had completely misjudged him. Because, because…

  The lock on the door clicked, and the door opened and closed behind a figure. The tall man walked slowly until he stood beside her.

  “You’re awake.”

  “Where am I? And who the hell are you?” Her voice sounded hoarse, as if she had been strangled.

  His hands reached for the rope that tied her wrists to the bed.

  “You must have to use the toilet by now,” he said. “I will free you from the bed but you must promise not to try anything foolish or I will have to tie you up again.”

  She rubbed her wrists as she watched him untie the rope around her ankles. She did have to get up. Her bladder burned.

  “Move very slowly,” he said. “Any sudden efforts will be punished.”

  She rose cautiously. The man gripped her elbow and guided her to another door. He opened it, revealing a small bathroom. A toilet, a small sink over a cabinet painted blue. White walls, with blue tiles around the sink and toilet. A small shower took up the corner, partly concealed with an ancient patterned shower curtain.

  He stood next to her, taller than she remembered from the garage. He smelled of cologne that seemed at odds with his overalls and heavy boots.

  “Are you going to give me some privacy?”

  “Sorry.” But he didn’t move.

  Jamie decided she didn’t care. Having to urinate in front of him was going to be the least of it.

  He stood in the doorway, his eyes focused on t
he wall just above her head, unsmiling but not threatening. He was over six feet and muscular, with large biceps visible under a long-sleeved knit shirt. His overalls were old and patched and slightly too short over his muddy, thick heeled boots. He was definitely the man who’d approached her on campus, who’d come to the lab last night, and then followed her to the garage. But he looked different in work clothes. On campus, he’d worn a suit and tie. Few people dressed that formally on campus, but he had.

  When she finished, he kept his eyes over her head as she stood and pulled up her pants.

  “Who are you? Where am I?”

  “Put the lid down.”

  She turned and flushed the toilet. The seat and the lid were old, varnished wood not painted. When the lid met the seat she saw a word carved into the top.

  “Obey.”

  Chapter 8

  The hamburger joint was crowded and smoky; most of the customers were students, at the bar or the pool tables drinking themselves into a stupor. Joe and I had seen this scene before, even rescued a young woman who’d almost died from binge drinking.

  “It never fails to get to me,” said Joe. “Some nights I want to stand on the bar, announce I’m a cop and confiscate their car keys.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  “Minor impediment called the Constitution.”

  Excessive drinking is a huge problem for college students, but, as Joe noted, there’s not much a university can do except declare the physical campus “dry.” A declaration that just sends the older students to off-campus bars, and the younger ones to off-campus parties.

  We made our way to the back through the noise and confusion and sat in a booth. Just as I sat down, I noticed something familiar out of the corner of my eye. Gray curls. I focused on another booth in the opposite corner.

  “Well, I’ll be damned. Look at that.”

  In a booth in the opposite corner, Nell Bishop was engaged in serious conversation with Wynan Congers. Her eyes were locked on Congers and neither of them moved.