Enemies Closer (4 page)

Chapter Four

E
arly the next morning, Detective Carlisle was filling her partner in on the Madeline Gardner case. She had listened to Clara’s voicemail and made a shortlist of whom they should talk to, rolling her eyes the whole time.

At the desk across from her, Jerome Kincaid sat listening. He was in his late thirties, a decade younger than his partner, a few pounds over his ideal weight but neatly dressed in a gray suit with a full head of thick ginger hair combed into a high pompadour that always got him attention. When they were first partnered, Carlisle’s response had been, “I don’t know if I can work with a man who has better hair than I do.” That was four years ago and they had since become one of the best detective teams on the Seattle police force.

“Something ain’t right. An otherwise responsible, successful restaurateur wouldn’t just walk off into the night. Is there a boyfriend or husband in there somewhere?”

“Unfortunately, no.” They both knew that the best starting point for a missing woman was the man in her life. “Unless this guy she had dinner with is part of it. The sister said Madeline left the restaurant before him, but that doesn’t mean anything.”

“Could be she ditched him, he got pissed, went looking for her later that night.”

“Could be. If he paid the check with a credit card we shouldn’t have a hard time finding out who he is as long as the restaurant manager cooperates.” She rolled her eyes again. “The sister doesn’t have a lot of faith in us. She all but told me how to find the guy’s name by searching records of the table number they sat at on Monday night.”

“What are the chances she already knows who he is?”

“I’d say ninety-nine percent she got someone at Gigi’s to look it up for her. She’s probably out looking for him now.”

Kincaid shook his head. “She’s gonna be a pain in the ass.”

Carlisle was thoughtful. “I don’t know. If we can convince her to be careful, she might be helpful.”

“Not telling you the name of this dinner companion is already not being careful. For all we know, she found him last night and he’s already slashed her up and dumped her in Puget Sound with her sister.”

Carlisle grumbled in agreement at the naïveté of desperate civilians. Still, she couldn’t blame them. They wanted their loved ones back immediately and in one piece and even the best detectives on the force had a hard time convincing a terrified friend or relative that the cops were acting out a tried and true protocol with proven results, let alone that the very best detectives truly, deeply cared for their loved ones’ well-being.

She looked at her watch. “Gigi’s Bistro doesn’t open for lunch until eleven-thirty, but we can go thumping on the door at eleven and get to the staff before they open. We also need to do some preliminary interviews at Dovetail, Madeline Gardner’s restaurant, but I don’t think anyone will be there until eleven either.”

Kincaid nodded. “We can call the business partner and get to her before she goes into work. And you said that the sister has keys to Madeline’s apartment?”

“Yup.”

“Will she let us in for a look-through?”

“Guaranteed. I’ll call her.” While Carlisle called Clara, Kincaid looked through the file until he found Michelle’s phone number and dialed it from his desk phone.

While it rang, his partner hung up and said, “She’ll meet us there in half an hour.”

He raised a finger. “Michelle Perkins? Detective Jerome Kincaid from Seattle Missing Persons. My partner and I would like to talk to you this morning about Madeline Gardner.”

A minute later he hung up. “She’ll be in the restaurant by nine-thirty doing paperwork. We can go by anytime.”

“We have a plan, and we have time to grab a cup of coffee. Let’s go.”

“I like the way you think, Detective Carlisle.”

Friday morning Clara was already dressed and ready to go when the detective called her. She planned on moving her things to Madeline’s apartment that day, but didn’t want to take the time to pack right now. Actually, boarding the plane at Logan Airport in Boston, her hope had been that she would fly to Seattle, spend a few hours figuring out where her sister was, half an hour berating her for scaring the shit out of everyone, and the rest of the weekend eating good food and drinking good wine with Maddy before flying back home on Sunday.

Instead, she had awoken this morning with an ache in the pit of her stomach. This was really happening. Maddy was gone.

The call from Detective Carlisle had been reassuring and she was eager to let the detectives look around her sister’s apartment, figuring they would have a better chance of finding relevant information since they knew what to look for. Besides, Ben Radcliffe hadn’t responded to her friend request yet and she wanted to get to Maddy’s computer before the detectives arrived.

She found a cab right outside the hotel and in fifteen minutes, she was unlocking the front door and scratching Bea’s ears. She made a beeline for the laptop and prayed that it wasn’t password-protected. The cops would be there soon and she didn’t want to give up her best clue until she had a chance to talk to one of the last people to see Maddy before she disappeared into the mist.

Turning on the old flat black ten-pound MacBook, she rifled through the desk drawer while she waited for it to boot up and found a sheet of paper with a catalogued list of letters and numbers. She looked at it incredulously. Everything from Twitter to bank account log-ins was listed. The screen lit up before she could dwell on how careless Maddy was to keep such a record. As it turned out, she didn’t need to use it. The desktop opened and she clicked on Safari, finding a bookmark that took her straight to Maddy’s Facebook page. Easy.

She found Ben and started looking through his profile information, but a quick check of the time made her change tactics. She clicked on the message icon and typed quickly.

Ben, give me a call at this number.

She added her own cell phone number and hoped that Ben Radcliffe wouldn’t be too suspicious of the unfamiliar phone number, thinking it was Madeline who wrote the message. Of course, if he was involved in her disappearance, he would probably panic. Before she could think too much about it she hit send and went back to searching through his profile and newsfeed until the doorbell chimed.

The sister was standing in the open door to apartment 6A when Carlisle and Kincaid got off the elevator. Carlisle made the introductions and they went in.

“This is Bea,” Clara said as a fat black cat approached and gave them a plaintive cry.

Kincaid studied Clara for a few seconds before she turned her attention back from the cat. In spite of her obvious distress, she was attractive and her face was remarkably similar to the photo he’d seen of her sister. Different hair color, a little skinnier, but same features and she looked like she could use a good night’s sleep.

“I’m going to make some coffee. Do either of you need a refill?” She indicated the paper cups each detective held.

“We’re good,” Carlisle answered for both of them, looking around the apartment. It was a comfortable size for one person, but nothing luxurious. Open concept, as they said on HGTV, with a hall at the back end that probably led to the bedroom and bathroom. A door to a half-bath stood ajar next to the living area and another closed door by the entrance was probably a coat closet. She could see the steel railing of a tiny balcony at the far end of the living room. “Nice place,” she concluded over the hissing of an espresso machine.

“I haven’t really touched anything,” Clara said with just enough defensiveness in her voice to let the two detectives know that she had probably touched everything. “Nothing looked odd or out of place when I got here yesterday, but feel free to look around.” Pointing to the kitchen counter, she said, “Here’s her wall calendar. Looks like she just notes her social events on it — business stuff is probably all on her phone, which I didn’t find.”

Raising his eyebrows skeptically, Kincaid studied the mostly blank calendar. “Not much time for socializing.”

“Running a restaurant must be a lot of work,” said Carlisle thoughtfully.

Clara drank her coffee and looked at them glumly. “Should I show you around?”

“Why don’t you show me around and show Kincaid to Madeline’s computer,” she said, nodding her head toward the small desk by the window.

“If she has a cloud program, I might be able to see what she’s been doing with her phone. Find a calendar, find her friends.”

Clara assented and showed him the laptop, but before she could begin the short tour of her sister’s apartment, Carlisle said, “You know, my partner could move a lot faster if you tell him the name of the guy she had dinner with on Monday.”

She looked at the detective’s face and gave up without a fight. “Ben Radcliffe.”

Kincaid scribbled the name in a leather-bound notebook and thanked her. At Detective Carlisle’s suggestion, they started in the bedroom. It was a pleasant space with a queen-size bed, one big window, a walk-in closet and a bathroom with a tub. Bea followed them into the room and jumped onto the neatly-made bed, curling up against the stack of pillows by the headboard.

Carlisle went straight to the nightstand and opened the drawer, rifling through its contents with impunity. “Condoms, lube, a romance novel, aspirin, lip balm. Was your sister sleeping with someone?”

Clara was aghast. “What are you doing?”

“Looking for clues, Miss Gardner.”

“In her private things?”

“Where else?”

“I don’t know. I thought you would look for signs of a struggle or fingerprints.”

Carlisle sighed. “There’s no indication that Madeline was forcibly removed from her home. We’re going to start by looking for a romantic interest, an angry friend or business partner, a weird neighbor. The usual suspects, because the usual suspects are the most likely ones. Let me give you the lowdown so that you know where we’re at in this investigation. Another patrol officer stopped by here last night and knocked on the door” – when Clara’s mouth opened to protest the detective lifted a finger to stop her – “it’s procedure and it’s a good one, Miss Gardner. No answer, obviously. Neighbors didn’t know anything. The first thing I did this morning was call local hospitals and put a BOLO out for her.”

“As in, ‘Be on the lookout?’”

“That’s right. They’re not just for criminals anymore. I ran her driver’s license, and didn’t get any recent hits. No tickets or accidents reported in the last few days. After we look around here we’re going to speak with Madeline’s business partner before Dovetail opens, then we’re going to speak with the staff at Dovetail. Then we’re going to Gigi’s Bistro to speak with the staff. Then we’re going to find Ben Radcliffe. And then we’re going to come back here and knock on doors after everybody’s home from work and ask some pointed questions. Did they notice a guy hanging around with Madeline, any unusual behavior, et cetera. Any leads we find along the way we will follow up accordingly.

“Giving us permission to search the premises without a warrant is a big help.
Big
, Miss Gardner. We need as many details about the days before Madeline went missing as we can get in order to find her. You have been a great help and I encourage you to keep looking around the apartment while you’re staying here, and if you find something, or one of her friends or colleagues says something to you that may be helpful, pass it along to us and we’ll follow up on it.

“What I don’t encourage you to do, in fact I really
dis
courage it, is to seek out anyone who may be involved. For instance, Ben Radcliffe. We don’t need you stirring the pot with a potential suspect. Hear me, Miss Gardner?”

“Loud and clear.” Clara kept her head high and her back straight when she added, “But I’m going to do anything it takes to get my sister home safe. Hear
me
, Detective Carlisle?”

The two women regarded each other for a few seconds. Finally, Carlisle shrugged. “So, was your sister sleeping with someone?”

“Not that I know of. Don’t all single women keep condoms in their nightstands?”

With a grimace, Judy Carlisle replied, “I wouldn’t know, I’ve been married for twenty years. Look through the closet and see if anything’s missing – clothes, shoes, luggage, anything at all.”

Clara did as directed and when she emerged, found the detective on the floor with a flashlight. “Anything good under the bed?”

“Just dust and a few used tissues.” She got up nimbly and went into the bathroom, opening drawers and sorting through make-up and hair products. From the medicine cabinet she pulled out a package of birth control pills and opened it. “Last one she took was Monday.”

This fact, more than anything, crushed Clara. She sat down on the toilet seat and pressed her fists to her eyes until she saw stars. Some part of her, despite all indications to the contrary, had still held out hope that Maddy had taken off for a few days because she met a guy, or because she was mentally or physically exhausted, or because Michelle or Eddie had done something to upset her and she just wanted to get away. Anything voluntary could be forgiven. But suddenly, looking at the pill packet in Detective Carlisle’s hand, she knew without a doubt that someone bad had taken her sister away from her. She a felt hand on her shoulder and squinted up at Carlisle. “She’s my best friend,” she said, and then she could feel tears running down her cheeks.