Cold Blood Page 6

  He braked, and she had to press her hands on the dashboard to stop herself from sliding down the seat.

  ‘What? Are you kiddin’?’

  ‘No, not kidding. She’s going to put it in writing.’ She slipped on the safety belt.

  ‘Fuck me, one million. Holy shit.’

  Lorraine gave a tiny smile. ‘Dead or alive.’

  ‘Fucking hell.’ He shook his head in disbelief.

  ‘Just one thing, Bill, two actually. Thanks for backing me up in there with that bastard Caley.’

  Rooney accelerated again. ‘Think nothin’ of it, only said what I meant, he got to me. So what’s the other thing you wanna talk about, the split?’

  Lorraine smiled. ‘No, that goes three ways. It’s just I run this investigation, Bill, not you, me. I give the orders, understood?’

  He nodded. ‘Yeah, I hear you, it’s your show.’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ she said softly and then let out a yell, thumping his big wide shoulder. ‘One million!’

  CHAPTER 3

  THAT SAME afternoon, Lorraine, Rooney and Rosie discussed how they would begin the investigation into the disappearance of Anna Louise Caley. First they would invoice the Caleys for an advance of salary. Rooney would approach the officers he knew had been or were still involved on the case in LA. This would cut down a lot of questions they would have to ask Mr and Mrs Caley, and before Lorraine talked to either of them she wanted as much background information as possible. All back issues of newspapers that had featured the girl’s disappearance had to be checked over at the library and xeroxed copies filed at the office.

  They felt they were on a roll. One million dollars was one hell of an incentive.

  That evening, Rooney met with the Dean Martin look-alike Detective Jim Sharkey for a liquid dinner. To begin with, Sharkey was non-committal; as far as he was concerned, the police had done about all they could do their end.

  ‘Consensus is, or was, she was kidnapped by persons unknown, though no ransom note was delivered. Other cases with similar characteristics would not have been kept open as long as this one.’

  Rooney sniffed. ‘You sayin’ you had a lot of girls just disappearing?’

  ‘Yeah, a lot, Bill, and you gotta know it. We got a file as long as my arm on missing kids, and we try checkin’ out most of them. Believe me, we spent more time on this one because of the high profile of the Caleys. She disappeared in New Orleans anyway, so there was not a lot we could do this end. We even sent a few guys there to dig around but they came up with nothing, and they’re not the friendliest bunch of bastards, kinda suggested we back off.’

  ‘So you did?’

  ‘Yeah, we got nothin’ from LA, and we interviewed every kid she knew.’

  ‘Was the Caley girl into drugs?’

  ‘Nope, squeaky clean. You know, with no body discovered after eleven months, some of the guys reckoned the girl maybe just took off.

  Bill sighed, leaning back in his chair. ‘Anythin’ come up against the parents?’

  Sharkey looked askance. ‘What? Give me that again? They’ve fuckin’ hired the best in the business, if they’d had anythin’, anythin’ to do with their own kid’s disappearance, believe me, we’d have sniffed it. And the broad, she was weepin’ her heart out.’

  ‘Mrs Caley?’

  Sharkey nodded. ‘She must have been one hell of a woman, still is. Geez, what a figure, and I’m tellin’ you, Bill, I never been one for older women, know what I mean? But fuck me, well, I’d like to give her a roll in the hay, no kiddin’.’

  Rooney nodded. The fact that the pair of them hadn’t pulled a woman in twenty years unless they’d paid for it did not prevent their classic male ego from believing they could. They sank a few more beers, then switched to vodka. The dinner had been a long one. At midnight they called a cab, and made their way back to Sharkey’s precinct in uptown LA. Sharkey held his liquor well and even though he was off duty, he refused to let Rooney come into the station with him. To have ex-Captain Bill Rooney in tow breathing beer fumes over everyone could cause problems, even more so considering what he had agreed to do.

  Rooney waited in the cab. It was almost an hour before Sharkey rejoined him and slipped him a thick xeroxed file of information. It had been an expensive afternoon, Rooney thought as Sharkey accepted the folded bills with a wink. He’d asked for five hundred dollars and a guarantee that if any questions were ever asked the files never came from him. Rooney never even mentioned the thirty-five-buck cab fare, he was too eager to get the statements back to Lorraine.

  Lorraine worked on Sharkey’s information well into the night. As far as she could make out, Anna Louise Caley was a well-liked, friendly and very pampered young lady. The students in her year who had been questioned didn’t have a bad word to say about her. All the students and teachers alike made references to her being very pretty or even beautiful; none referred to her academic prowess but she was said to have been an excellent tennis player, swimmer, horse rider and all-round athlete. She had no steady boyfriend but Lorraine ringed the names of the boys that had admitted to dating her up until the time of her disappearance. She decided she would target them first. She had the names of numerous female students who all claimed to have been Anna Louise’s best friend, so they were lined up second. Then came the coaches and the college teachers. It was going to be a race against time: with only two weeks on the case, she had set aside only two days to complete the LA research.

  Next morning, Page Investigations Agency was busy for the first time since they had opened. The phone in the office rang constantly, and Rosie was flushed bright pink and sweating as the calls came in.

  Lorraine pointed to a large cork board on which she had pinned lists of names for interview, and those for her to cross reference and delete when necessary.

  ‘Okay, Rosie, you list every name, all the students I got to see in alphabetical order. We cross them out as we go along.’ Rosie nodded. There was a buzz in the office and it felt good.

  Rooney had been assigned to make very discreet enquiries into the private investigation agencies hired by the Caleys, to see if there was an ex-colleague working anywhere he could palm money to, like Sharkey, and if they had any information worth digging into. He listed the companies on Lorraine’s big board.

  ‘My God, are they all on the same case?’ Rosie asked.

  ‘Yep. Caley’s sure been shelling out a lot of cash.’ Lorraine chewed her pencil and then stuck it in her hair.

  ‘Okay, this is how we work it, I do the college kids, you, Bill, start seeing what you can come up with about Caley, tap your old associates, whatever you need to do. Rosie, you’ll be the anchor-woman, you hold the fort here, we call in if we get anything, most important is that we get moving and come up with what we can as fast as possible . . . agreed?’

  Rooney nodded as Rosie made a note of Lorraine’s mobile phone number and passed it to him. ‘We can all keep in constant touch,’ she beamed.

  Lorraine flicked a look at Rooney and winked. ‘That’s what it’s all about, Rosie!’

  Lorraine began the tedious and laborious interview sessions and hired a car, an ‘88 Buick which had seen better days, with a portable telephone to keep in touch with the office while driving herself from one meeting to another. Armed with two photographs of Anna Louise, she talked to fifteen students at UCLA. To be confronted with fresh young girls, eager to talk and full of youthful exuberance, made her feel tired and jaded beyond belief, but the mental picture she was gradually forming was basically the same one which had already emerged from the old police files. Making the kids feel relaxed with her was painstaking work and her fixed smile was wearing thin, but she persisted. By twelve in the afternoon she only had two names left on her list and went to the tennis courts to meet Angie Wellbeck, listed on Sharkey’s statements as a ‘best friend’. After Angie, she was meeting one of the kids listed as dating Anna Louise, Tom Heller.

  Angie was wearing tennis shorts, a white T-shirt, Reeboks an
d little white socks with bobbles at the heel. She carried her tennis racquets in a very professional-looking white sling sports bag. She constantly plucked at it as she answered the routine questions Lorraine had asked all the students very politely – did she get on with Anna Louise? Did she know of anyone who did not like her? Anyone who might have a grudge against her? Who did she socialize with? Did she take drugs, drink too much? In essence, what was the missing girl like?

  Angie sat on a bench, staring at her tennis shoes, and Lorraine could see faint freckles on her lightly tanned pale skin.

  ‘Well, she was real pretty, and always wore the most up-to-date clothes, you know, if something was in, AL always was the first to have it.’

  ‘AL?’ asked Lorraine, knowing full well that it was a nickname because it had been repeated to her so many times.

  ‘Yeah, we all called her AL. You know, Anna Louise is boring. I don’t mean she was boring, just her name.’

  Angie said nothing untoward, or even gave the slightest hint that her friend wasn’t anything other than perfect. She just reiterated that although she was not academically inclined, she was great at sports and very competitive.

  ‘Like how competitive?’ Lorraine enquired.

  ‘Well, she liked to win, tennis anyway. We played a lot together, sometimes we played doubles. Her dad is a great player, he used to play with her I think, that’s why she was so good. Great backhand, very strong, although her serve wasn’t so hot, but she was a good player. Got enough practice in, I guess.’

  ‘Did she get angry if she lost?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Aggressive?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘Did she argue or get angry with anyone specific?’

  ‘No, she was kind of more angry at herself.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, if she missed a volley she’d shout and yell at herself, you know.’

  ‘Ah! So you never saw her fighting or shouting with anyone?’

  ‘No, but maybe you should ask some of the others. I mean, I played a lot with her but I wasn’t the only person she played with. Tilda Brown played with her mostly. She was closest to AL, but she hasn’t come back to school, not after AL disappeared, but I guess you know that.’

  Lorraine nodded, underlining Tilda’s name in her note-book.

  ‘Did you all have the same coach?’

  ‘Geez, no way, AL was rich, you know, and her coach was ex-Olympic standard, a real professional. We’d all have liked to be coached by him,’ she giggled.

  ‘Did this create jealousy?’ Lorraine was even boring herself.

  ‘Yeah, but nothin’ to do with tennis.’

  Lorraine looked at Angie who had removed her headband and was plucking at it with her fingers, picking off strands of fluff. ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Jeff Nathan, the coach, is like a movie star, I think he coaches a lot of famous people. Sometimes when I went over to their place he’d play with us, you know, make up a four with her dad. That was the only time I got to meet him.’

  ‘The coach?’

  ‘Yeah, and her dad, he was real nice.’

  Angie’s tennis partners were hovering, so she asked if she could go. Lorraine could think of nothing else to ask. Like everyone else she’d spoken to, Angie hadn’t given any real insight into Anna Louise but, like three other girls, she had mentioned the handsome tennis coach.

  ‘Were you her best friend?’ Lorraine asked as Angie sprang to her feet, eager to leave.

  She turned and smiled. ‘I dunno about her best, I think Tilda was, but everyone liked her – she was a real nice girl.’ Angie’s face puckered for a moment and she hesitated, chewing her lips. ‘You think something terrible has happened to her?’ Lorraine looked away, as Angie moved closer. ‘Some of them say she’s maybe been murdered, is it true?’

  ‘I really don’t know, but thanks for your time.’

  ‘That’s okay. Bye now.’

  Lorraine watched Angie join three other girls, all in similar white tennis gear. They looked over and smiled. She sat for a few moments, watching the girls warming up, slicing the ball over the net. Judging by the hard thudding crack of the ball she could tell, even though she was no tennis player, that the girls could play well. So if AL, as she was known, was better, she must have been very good.

  ‘I’d say she could have turned professional, if she’d had the inclination.’

  Lorraine was outside the squash courts, talking to a gangly boy with a white sweat-shirt slung round his shoulders. Tom Heller was at least six feet two and good-looking in an ordinary, neat-featured way.

  When Lorraine asked if he had played regularly with Anna Louise, he shrugged.

  ‘Yeah, sometimes on weekends at her house. Her dad is a great player.’

  Lorraine nodded. ‘What about the coach, er . . .’

  ‘Jeff Nathan? Yeah, I played with him at her place. He gives private lessons.’

  ‘Did you like him?’

  He frowned. ‘I didn’t really know him.’

  ‘Did Anna Louise like him?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You used to date her, didn’t you?’

  ‘Few times, nothing serious, beach parties, we were just buddies really.’

  ‘Did you have sex with her?’

  He blushed. ‘No.’

  ‘Do you know if she was sexually permissive in any way?’

  ‘No, well, no more than anyone else.’

  ‘How many boys do you know had a sexual relationship with Anna Louise?’

  He blushed again. ‘I don’t know, like I said, we dated a few times but no more than that.’

  ‘What about the coach? This guy Nathan, did he have a scene going with her?’

  He looked with distaste at Lorraine. ‘I have no idea.’

  She was suddenly pissed off by his supercilious attitude.

  ‘Look, it’s Tom, isn’t it? Well, I am trying to trace Anna Louise, she’s been missing for eleven months and she could be lying in a shallow grave or she could be dancing in Las Vegas. I am just trying to do my job, okay? So if she was screwing this tennis coach, and you maybe knew about it as her buddy, then I’d be grateful if you’d tell me . . .’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Do you know where I can find the tennis coach, Nathan?’

  ‘Maybe in the Bel Air. He plays there.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Heller. Sorry to interrupt your game!’

  It was almost lunch-time when Lorraine called the office on her mobile.

  ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Fine, waiting for Bill to call in with any developments,’ Rosie said.

  ‘I’m on my way to see the tennis coach – what are you doing?’

  Rosie pursed her lips. ‘A lot, I’ve got to arrange hotels, flights and . . .’ The second phone rang on Rosie’s desk. ‘Hang on, Lorraine, it might be Bill on line two.’

  Bill it was, to say that he wasn’t getting much of a result from any of the other investigation agencies attached to the Caley case, but he was still plugging away. Rosie passed this on to Lorraine, who suggested that perhaps he should interview the psychic whom the Caleys had hired in LA. Rosie repeated this to Rooney and listened to his reply with both receivers pressed to her ear before coming back to Lorraine. ‘He says they’re all a fucking waste of time.’

  Lorraine snapped back to Rosie, ‘You tell him that so are a bunch of racquet-swinging rich kids, but before we hit New Orleans we gotta cover ourselves here, you tell him that?

  Rooney could hear her and laughed, and, still laughing, told Rosie to tell Lorraine she was the boss, but when she tried to do so the line was dead. Rosie put both phones down and began to check out the telephone manual for a way to connect calls on two lines.

  Jeff Nathan had the kind of muscular body that most women fantasize about. His tight white T-shirt and his brief white tennis shorts showed strong tanned limbs which were very desirable, but within minutes Lorraine had sussed that
all his masculine muscles would more than likely be wrapped around another equally tanned male’s body.

  ‘You gay, Mr Nathan?’

  ‘My, my, you are very aggressive.’

  ‘No, I don’t think I’d say that was an aggressive question but one I need to ask and know the answer to. You see, Mr Nathan, I am trying to find a young girl who’s been missing for eleven months, and if you had sexual relations with her then . . .’

  He smiled, and relaxed his macho tennis pro image. ‘Yes, Mrs Page, I am,’ he said, looking at the card she had passed him.

  ‘Thank you. So, tell me what you know about Anna Louise Caley.’

  ‘Well, I was her personal coach, so I’ve lost a nice income. Anna Louise could have played professional standard, she was very coordinated, strong, but she had a major fault; if she made a mistake she couldn’t forget it. She became very angry at herself and it usually fouled up the rest of her game. The more anger she felt, the worse her game progressed.’ He cocked his handsome head to one side. ‘You see, I really did only know her as her coach, I can tell you about her game but nothing about her personal life.’

  ‘What about her father?’ Lorraine asked.

  Nathan shrugged. ‘Good player, hard hitter, but no speed. He’d wait for the ball to come to him, never used the court. She was never interested in being a serious player, all she ever wanted was to beat her father, but whenever they played she lost it. And she could have beaten him.’

  ‘Did she come on to you?’ Lorraine asked as they walked towards the court. She found his fake capped-toothed smile unattractive but realized that for a young kid it could be devastating.

  ‘Come on to me? My dear, that is, sadly, the main part of why people, well, women, girls or whatever, keep hiring me. I have to look and act the stud.’

  ‘Were you?’ she tried one more time.

  ‘Was I what? A stud? Oh, please . . .’ Nathan’s tanned neck stretched, his perfect features wreathed in smiles.

  ‘So she was, say, infatuated?’

  He smiled, showing his perfect white teeth. ‘Maybe, but I assure you it was not in my interest to encourage her in any way. Like I said, the Caleys paid me well to coach their daughter and I would have been foolish to foul up a good weekly income.’