Tracy Hayes, P.I. to the Rescue (P.I. Tracy Hayes 3) Read online

  “I know. Depressing.” We both smiled. “Anyway, Deanna is fourteen and she’s been missing for two days.”

  Jackson got serious. “And you promised we’d find her?”

  “I promised that I would. I know you’re busy.”

  “I’m not entirely comfortable with the idea of you going after her on your own.”

  I was instantly miffed. “Oh, come on, it’s high time I have my own case. And it’s only until the police take her being missing seriously and start looking for her too. Unless I find her before that.”

  “And what if you don’t find her at all?”

  The look he shot at me told it was a real possibility, but I wouldn’t allow the idea to take hold. “I’d be really upset.”

  He frowned. “Does the family have any leads?”

  “No. They’ve gone through all her friends and they’re sure no one’s hiding her. But Rhonda gave me a list of her closest friends, so I can ask them myself.”

  “What reason did she have to go missing?”

  “That’s just it. Nothing that the family can think of. She’s been doing well at school. She wasn’t bullied, and she hadn’t been fighting with her family or friends.”

  “In other words, this could be more serious than a teenager running away.”

  My stomach fell. “I sincerely hope not. And the police don’t think so either, because they’re not looking for her.”

  “There hasn’t been other teenagers going missing?”

  “Not that the family is aware of.”

  “Where does she live? I’ll ask the precinct there.”

  “Brownsville,” I said, slightly hesitant, and wasn’t surprised when Jackson shook his head.

  “I really don’t want you to go there alone.” It was the crime capital of Brooklyn, but I wasn’t easily scared. Not anymore, anyway. Being shot at had changed me.

  “Come on, what could happen?”

  “With you, anything.”

  It wasn’t entirely unfair of him to say so. A simple case of a missing dog had got us mixed with a drug lord—the one Moreira worked for—and I’d managed to get myself arrested simply by trying to help my roommate with his romantic life. Not to mention that I’d been shot at by a murder suspect, which had forced Jackson to shoot her to save my life. He’d been sullen for weeks afterwards and I couldn’t blame him.

  “I’ll be careful. I promise.”

  I didn’t even cross my fingers behind my back.

  He sighed. “Fine, you can look for her. But it can’t be our priority. And you know Rhonda won’t be able to pay.”

  “I know.” I shot up and he gave me a baffled look.

  “Are you going now?”

  “Yes. The poor child’s been missing for days already. And she hasn’t updated her social media accounts the whole time.” I’d checked while I waited for him. “I think this is serious.”

  “Do you need a ride?” He made to get up, but I lifted my hand to halt him.

  “I’ll take the subway.” I didn’t own a car. I could borrow my mom’s cherry red Ford Fiesta if I needed, but I didn’t want to take it to Brownsville.

  “It’s a large neighborhood. It’ll take you the whole day to walk everywhere.”

  “It’ll do me good.” I grinned. “Which reminds me, in case I won’t be back before you leave this evening, shall we cancel our run tomorrow morning?”

  “Why?” He looked puzzled.

  I rolled my eyes. “It’s your fourth date, and extra romantic. Surely you’ll be spending the night at her place?” I wasn’t looking forward to the exercise. Any excuse to cry off was welcome.

  He frowned. “That’s none of your business. And no, there will be no cancelling.”

  “Damn.”

  His laughter followed me out of the office.

  Chapter Three

  Taking the subway to Brownsville was easy. I could hop on a train from the Bergen Street station that was right outside the agency and ride it without changes. Mid-morning traffic was light and I could sit the whole way, studying the map on my phone for the addresses Rhonda had given me.

  Who needed a car when there was such a handy method of transportation available?

  Reena Murray, Rhonda’s sister, lived two blocks south from the station, so not a straining walk even for someone with my physique—round in feminine places and absolutely no muscle tone. The building was a long—or wide, as it stretched along the street—three-story tenement from the 70s that had gone ramshackle ages ago. Her family had a two bedroom apartment on the top floor.

  The climb up there was fairly nerve wracking. Not only were the stairs in bad repair—even my weight made them sway, the bolts coming lose from the wall—the graffiti on the walls, the smell of urine in the stairwell, and the sounds of a man and a woman screaming at each other coming from one apartment made the place seem unsafe. I kept my hand in the pocket of my new, form-fitting brown velvet blazer—that made me look really cool—where I kept my pepper spray. Keeping the spray there slightly ruined the fit of the jacket, but that was a small price to pay for my safety.

  Mrs. Murray wasn’t home, but two of her children, a boy of eleven and a girl of nine, as Rhonda had informed me, answered the door.

  “Mum went to work,” the boy, Jaden, told me. The girl, Kayla, nodded eagerly to confirm.

  “I didn’t know your mother had a job.” Rhonda had told me Reena was unemployed and would be home at this time of day.

  “She sometimes helps at the Salvation Army store.”

  “Do you mind if I ask you about Deanna?”

  They shrugged, but led me to a small living room that was stuffed wall to wall with furniture and drying clothes. I sat on the edge of a leather couch.

  “Shouldn’t you be at school?” I asked, sounding like a self-righteous aunt. I hadn’t meant to, but it sort of came out naturally.

  The children shrugged. “We didn’t feel like it,” Jaden said.

  “Don’t you like school?” Apparently I was doomed to continue with the same tone. The children shrugged again. “Are you bullied there?”

  Jaden gave me the kind of a slow stare children specialize in. “It’s school. Everybody’s bullied there.”

  That’s not how I remembered elementary school, but then again, I had a four years older brother, Trevor, who had made sure no one was mean to me twice. High school without him had forced me to learn how to defend myself, even though my school hadn’t been terribly bad.

  “Is Deanna being bullied too?”

  “No one bullies Dee,” Jaden declared, looking proud of his big sister.

  “She’s not one of the bullies, is she?”

  The children glanced at each other. “No,” they said at the same time. I decided to leave it be.

  “Is your school near?”

  “Uh-huh,” Kayla said. “Francis White, just two blocks away.”

  “Don’t suppose you’d want to come with me there and help ask after your sister?”

  They glanced at each other again. “Nuh-uh. We’d have to go to classes then.”

  I stifled a smile. “Did Dee skip school too?”

  Jaden shrugged. “I guess.”

  That wasn’t what Rhonda had told me. “Did she stay home when she wasn’t at school?”

  “No, Mum would’ve made her go.”

  “Where did she spend her days, then?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did she go alone?”

  “No.”

  I curbed my impatience. “Do you know who she went with?”

  “Alysha,” Kayla promptly declared. Alysha Hanson was one of the names on the list Rhonda had provided me with.

  “Do you think she’d be at school today? I’d really like to talk with her.” They shrugged again. “Don’t suppose you have a picture of her?”

  Kayla shot up and disappeared into one of the bedrooms. She returned a moment later with a photo of two girls, taken in one of those photo booths that had become kind of obsolete eve
r since the invention of camera phones and selfies, a long narrow strip of four different passport-sized pictures. One of the girls was Deanna, looking much like her aunt Rhonda, with cornrows too, but lacking the colorful layers of clothes and with a youthful and innocent face. The other girl had straightened hair in a short bob, and a nose ring. They both looked happy and very ordinary.

  “Can I keep this? It would help me a lot.”

  “I guess.”

  I put the photo in my messenger bag and thanked the children. “Is the Salvation Army store far, in case I want to go to have a chat with your mom?” It turned out to be only a block away from the school, so I decided to pop in there after I visited the school.

  I breathed more easily when I was back on the street again—and not solely because the stairs had held under me. The building had been unnerving—and this had been a fairly quiet family tenement. I could understand why Jackson didn’t want me to come here alone.

  As if conjured by my thinking of him, Jackson called. “I contacted the precinct there and they confirmed that there haven’t been other teenagers going missing in their area. However, there is a new drug dealer around.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. “I’m not sure if drugs were Deanna’s problem.”

  “New dealer, new customers. They often target children her age. Have you learned anything?”

  “That Deanna liked to skip school and go somewhere with her girlfriend. I’m on my way to the school now to ask her about it.” I gave him the address.

  “Okay. Keep me posted about your whereabouts at all times.”

  “Yes, boss.” I sounded sassy, but I actually liked that he cared enough to check up on me.

  Like the kids had said, the school was only a short walk away. The moment my eyes alighted on the one-story building from the 70s—utilitarian and ugly—that filled two blocks, my stomach twisted, as if I were still at school myself. I hadn’t liked school much. I hadn’t been a bad student—I hadn’t been a good student either—but the forced conformity and the compulsory attendance on mornings that I’d rather have slept in had been hard.

  I went through the main door—or tried to. One thing had changed since my school days. The doors were locked and a guard was manning a booth inside. I had to ring a bell for him to let me in. He checked my identity—I showed him my P.I. ID, which didn’t impress him—and searched me for weapons.

  He confiscated my pepper spray.

  He gave me a hall pass. “You’ll have to go to the principal’s office,” he instructed me, pointing to the right direction. I thanked him and made my way there through the wide, worn, and empty corridors. I glanced into the classrooms through the windows on the doors, happy I didn’t have to sit inside them.

  At the door to the principal’s office I hesitated before knocking and opening the door. I’d never been in trouble when I was at school—well, not in bad trouble—so I didn’t have unpleasant memories of going to the principal’s office, but it still made my heart beat faster to be there. The secretary sitting behind her desk in the waiting room looked like the secretary in my old school, making the emotional flashback complete.

  I introduced myself and showed her my P.I. card. “I’m investigating the disappearance of Deanna Murray,” I told the stern woman, who studied my ID with a look of mild distaste. “I was wondering if I could speak with Alysha Hanson.”

  “Hmmm,” she said, but reached for the intercom. “A Miss Hayes for you.”

  I was let into the principal’s office right away. It was fairly large, but like everything in this school, in desperate need of refurbishing. The principal, Christa Feldman, rose to greet me. She was in her late forties and visibly toughened by her occupation. The deep lines around her mouth and on her forehead weren’t from smiling.

  “Sad business, Deanna’s disappearance,” she said when I introduced myself and told her why I was there. “But not in any way unique.”

  I nodded, curbing my annoyance at her attitude. “It’s unique for her family, and they’re very worried.”

  “Of course.”

  “Can you tell me anything about her that might help?”

  She sighed. “Deanna started missing school this term. It’s only the end of October, but she’s already been more off than at school.”

  It sounded more serious than what Deanna’s siblings had told me, but they likely hadn’t known. “Any reason why?”

  “No outward reasons that I can see. It’s her last year in this school, so maybe she thinks she can get away with it. Or maybe she hopes to postpone leaving by taking the eighth grade again. Which she’ll have to do if she doesn’t improve her attendance.”

  “Her family is under the impression that her grades are good.”

  “They actually are, for now. When she bothers to show up, she does good enough work, but that cannot last.”

  “Do you have any idea where she might have gone to?”

  “I’m afraid not. This office removes me from the day to day life of the school.” But she didn’t look very apologetic.

  “I was hoping to speak to one of her friends, if possible. Alysha Hanson.”

  She sighed. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible. Alysha didn’t come to school today.”

  Shit.

  “Any idea why?”

  “Does she need a reason?”

  Her attitude was really starting to bug me. “Is there anyone I could talk with that might know more?”

  Chapter Four

  Half an hour later, I was on my way to Alysha’s home with the school’s student counsellor. Alysha wasn’t answering her phone and the line to her home was disconnected, so the counsellor had decided it would be best if we went and checked the situation.

  Lynn Minter, the counsellor, was a woman very much like Principal Feldman, but with more compassion for her students. “It’s not usually my job to fetch students from their homes when they’re skipping school, but with Deanna already missing and the two of them being such good friends, I think it’s best I make an exception.”

  Alysha and her mom lived in one of the projects near the school. Their apartment was on the eighth floor of a fifteen-story building, and as luck would have it, the elevator was broken. Ms. Minter, while twenty years older than me, didn’t break a sweat during the climb. I’d never been very athletic and I’d recently gone through three weeks of forced immobility—I’d cut my knee so badly it had needed stitches—and I hadn’t picked up exercising since. I had to pause to catch my breath at every landing. I was sweaty by the time we reached the door to Alysha’s apartment.

  No one answered Ms. Minter’s knock at first, and when the door was finally opened, it was by a woman who was emaciated and aged beyond her years—and wasted out of her mind. She was barely clothed in a ratty bathrobe, and the stench coming from the apartment behind her was mind-boggling. I hoped we wouldn’t have to go in.

  “Mrs. Hanson?” the counsellor asked.

  “Yeah?”

  “We’re looking for Alysha.”

  “She’s not here,” the woman managed to say, after a short concentration.

  “Has she been away for long?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did she come home yesterday?” I asked, just in case she had been sober then. She gave it a thought.

  “Yeah. And I sent her to buy me smokes and she never returned. You have any?”

  We regretfully informed her we didn’t. I pulled out a business card from my messenger back, a simple white card with the agency logo and my phone number on it. Jackson had finally ordered them for me after I’d pestered him mercilessly about it. And the cards said “Tracy Hayes, Private Investigator,” not “apprentice” P.I., which made me especially proud.

  “If she comes home, can you ask her to call this number?”

  She took the card and studied it, confused. “What’s she done now?”

  “She’s gone missing,” I said, as patiently as I could.

  “She’ll come home.” Sh
e pulled the door closed.

  “Well, that was unhelpful,” the counsellor said as we headed back down.

  “At least we know she’s been gone since yesterday. Perhaps the police will take their disappearances more seriously now.”

  She gave me a grim nod. “Would you like me to drive you to the station?”

  “No, I think the request has to come from the family.”

  “Alysha’s mom won’t be making it.”

  I found that utterly depressing.

  “Can you tell me anything about Alysha? Does she have a boyfriend or someone she might go to?”

  She frowned. “There is a boy, but not from our school. He’s picked her up a couple of times from school on his bike.”

  My eyebrows shot up. “Fancy. Don’t suppose he’s the kind of biker boy who would hang out with other bikers?”

  Perhaps I could start with biker hangouts.

  “Well, he didn’t look like he belonged to a gang. But I’m not from around here, so I’m not entirely familiar with the places young bikers might spend their time in.”

  “Neither am I.” I needed someone who knew the neighborhood. And I knew exactly the person. “Could you drive me to Lott Avenue?”

  Lott Avenue was only a street south from Ms. Minter’s school, but my destination on it was a mile to the west, a small hair salon. I’d been there once before a couple of months ago—because of a pressing need—and it had occurred to me that a hairdresser might know everything going on in her neighborhood. Ms. Minter let me off outside it and I thanked her for the ride. “I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

  A bell above the door of the salon chimed when I walked in. The hairdresser was putting the finishing touches to her client’s hair and they both turned to stare at me. I guess pasty Irish girls didn’t often end up in a salon specializing in African hair.

  “Do you need to use the toilet again?” the hairdresser drawled with her heavy Jamaican accent, recognizing me. Apparently I was the only pasty Irish girl ever to wander in here. She was maybe in her forties and dressed in colorful Jamaican clothes, her hair in cornrows with beads in them. I would think such lively colors would indicate a lively personality, but she was as slow as a glacier, as I had learned during my previous visit here.