Julia Spencer-Fleming - All Mortal Flesh

“You know. A suitcase, one of those makeup bags women use. Stuff like that.” He glanced from Russ to Ray to Barbara LeBlanc. “Mr. Opperman let her use a room to keep stuff in.”

Barbara looked at Russ. “That’s the first I’ve heard of it. Although it’d be easy enough for him to give her a master key. We have a bunch of them already made up. If anyone’s working late or gets snowed in, they can stay the night.”

“Could she be-”

Barbara was already shaking her head. “I can’t imagine it. Between me and the crew and the caretaker, no one could be here for more than a night without tipping us off. Besides, as a guest of Mr. Opperman, she’d have no reason to try to hide from anyone.”

“Unless she’s not hiding.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean she could be somewhere in here, unable to get out or contact anyone.”

Barbara and the two workmen looked up at the ceiling, as if they could imagine what sort of condition Linda would have to be in to disappear within the walls of the hotel itself.

“You say you have master keys already made up.”

“Yes,” Barbara said. Then she looked at him. “Oh, but you can’t mean-” She twitched, uncomfortable. “Surely you can’t think she’s really here.”

“I don’t know. But I’m not leaving until I make sure.”

The manager pressed her lips together, frowning. Then she squared her narrow shoulders. “I’m coming with you.”

“Let’s get to it, then. There are a lot of rooms to check out.”

Ben Beagle considered himself a people person. Mostly. He liked that his job required him to interact with men and women he never would have run across in the normal circle of office, errands, restaurant, home. He liked listening to their confidences and unearthing their secrets, and he liked the idea that every once in a while, something he wrote might affect someone else’s life. He even liked their e-mails-profane, grateful, funny, scathing.

But Jesus H. Tapdancing Christ he hated it when they followed him home.

Not that he was home, exactly. The offices of the Post-Star were, technically, open to the public, which meant that anyone who had to talk to a reporter right away in person about how his neighbors were running an al-Qaeda cell or about how her local school board was filled with godless heathens could enter the lobby, pester the receptionist, and speak to a reporter. Not in the newsroom. In the lobby. Usually it was one of the interns or, if they had all been sent on coffee runs, whoever had the least amount of work or the most time until deadline. The people who came to the Post-Star offices rarely asked for a reporter by name. Probably, Ben thought, because they were the sort of folks who had every edition dating back to 1950 in stacks around the house and couldn’t remember who was currently working and who had died in 1976.

Debbie Wolecski, unfortunately, had his name. And number.

“Why aren’t you out right now tracking down my sister? I thought this was a big-deal investigation for you!”

Ben glanced out the window, where a hard, dry snow was turning downtown Glens Falls into a ghost town, and quelled the urge to answer, Because I don’t like to drive in this kind of weather. “Debbie, I told you on the phone. A local small-town police chief killing his wife and covering it up with the help of his force is news. It’s about corruption, and the violation of the public trust. A local small-town police chief whose wife runs off is gossip.”

She crossed her arms. At least today she was wearing a fuzzy turtleneck instead of that skimpy summer thing she had on yesterday. Florida people. Save him. “What about his affair with that clergywoman? That’s something! You barely touched on it in this morning’s story.”

“It’s only something if you’re the Weekly World News. ” He sighed. “I’m sorry your brother-in-law was treating your sister badly. But adultery’s not a crime anymore, and we don’t write about it unless it’s tied in to something else. So, if it turns out Chief Van Alstyne was waiving Reverend Fergusson’s parking tickets or using departmental resources to benefit her, then sure, we’ll take a hard look at it. But barring that…”

“What about the fact that she’s under investigation for the murder of Audrey Keane?”

He held out his hands in a placating gesture. “I’ve spoken with someone at the Millers Kill police twice so far today, and I’m going to call again before I go home. Believe me, the murder story is going to remain front page news.” Although the fact that the department refused to officially name anyone as a suspect was going to mean his part of the story would be two inches or less. Ciara French, who was covering the Audrey Keane murder-identity fraud investigation, would be getting the headline tomorrow.

“So that’s it?” Her mouth twisted. “Now she’s not lying in the morgue, the hell with my sister?”

“Debbie, I don’t track someone down unless I have to get a quote from him. Finding missing people isn’t my job. According to the woman I spoke with this morning, your brother-in-law is heading up the investigation into your sister’s disappearance. I suggest you call him and ask how it’s going.” Then he thought of her parked in the Post-Star lobby, emoting all over her cell phone. “Better yet, track him down and see what you can do to help.”

“I thought you cared ! You were just using me!”

Now she was starting to sound like his crazy ex-girlfriend. “I do care. As soon as anyone knows anything, I want to hear about it. Go find Chief Van Alstyne,

and I promise you, if he’s uncovered any evidence of foul play, it’ll be in tomorrow’s edition.” He looked around for her coat, but of course all she had was the Be-Dazzled jacket she’d been wearing yesterday. “And get yourself something to wear before you freeze.”

She let herself be maneuvered toward the door. “What are you going to do?”

“While I’m waiting for word of your sister, I’m looking into another possible story. Not related to the Keane murder.”

She paused at the exit, and for a moment he thought she might brace herself against the edges of the door and refuse to leave. “About what?”

“Animal cruelty.” On that note, he got her out of the building and his afternoon back on track.

He had called about the animals on a hunch, really. Patterns tweaked at him, and although he couldn’t have articulated what he thought was going on when a minister involved in a murder investigation asked him about a pig-butchering because one of her people had a lamb killed, the weird three-sided symmetry of it all had him on the phone to the MKPD almost as soon as Reverend Fergusson had hung up on him.

Names of victims in hand, he started by calling his previous contact, Dr. Underkirk. He didn’t get through to the doctor, of course-he wondered who did: spouses? stockbrokers?-but it only took a few remarks and laughing at a few ham-fisted jokes for Underkirk’s garrulous nurse to reveal the only thing the minister had asked about: the doctor’s snowplowing service.

It didn’t take him long to go through the remaining people on the list. Of those he could reach, every one had the same service.

Interesting.

He went on the Internet. It took him fifteen minutes to find Quinn Tracey’s LiveJournal, half an hour to read the entries, and no time at all to realize the kid was seriously torqued.

Ben discounted the poorly spelled, ungrammatical complaints about fascist parents, irrelevant teachers, and stuck-up, snooty girls. He had felt pretty much the same way when he was in high school, and it had never sent him out gutting livestock.