All Things Lost (32 page)

     Armed with our new information, thanks to Micah, Novak and I didn't waste any time getting to work. The very next morning we paid a visit to Samuel and Ruth Cohen, Caleb's paternal grandparents.

     They were a dignified couple in their late sixties, living in a small but well-kept one-story home in a middle class neighborhood. Samuel was slightly stooped, with iron gray hair and a full beard that still had speckles of black peppered through it. Ruth was short and round with a look that suggested she was usually quite jovial. She and her husband were quite solemn now. They had seemed saddened, and I thought somewhat embarrassed, when they had learned why we were there, but Ruth had brought us each a glass of iced tea and tried to make us feel welcome.

     “We can't help you,” Mr. Cohen said firmly once we were all seated in their living room. “We haven't spoken to Ira in years. We don't anything of his life of late, or his death either for that matter.”

     “It was a difficult decision,” Mrs. Cohen added, “but we thought it best at the time.”

     “We still think it was for the best, although I wish we could have done more for Caleb.”

     “You see,” Mrs. Cohen explained, “Ira was a difficult child, very rebellious. He would have nothing to do with our religion or the family business. He was always in trouble and coming to us for help, but he never wanted to take responsibility for his actions. We aren't wealthy people; it couldn't go on, so we had to put a stop to it.”

     “Then he went and married that little tramp. Her family had money, but as far as I know he never saw a dime of it. Cut them right off.”

     It was like watching a tennis match the way they jumped back and forth in their conversation.

     “She wasn't really a tramp,
Shmueli
,” Mrs. Cohen said reproachfully, “Just…flighty.”

     He snorted. “She was flighty alright, flew right out of the nest, she did.”

     “This is Rachel Cohen?” I clarified.

     “She was a Gill,” Mrs. Cohen said. “She wasn't a Jewish girl, you know, even with a name like Rachel. I think she was Roman Catholic. Is that right, Sam?”

     “What difference does it make what religion she was?”

     “And you know she left?” I interrupted.

     Oh, she left. That's for sure. Just took off without a by your leave.”

     
“And left Caleb behind.
Now I ask you, what kind of mother would do such a thing?”

     “Do you know where she went when she left?”

     “No idea.
Never heard a word from her.”

     “But she did leave, she didn't die?”

     “Die? No, she ran off. Now she could've died since then and I don't suppose we would have known.”

     “When was the last time you saw Caleb?” Novak asked suddenly. Everyone jumped slightly. It was the first time he had spoken since we'd arrived. I think the Cohen's had almost forgotten he was even there.

     Mrs. Cohen looked slightly flustered at the question, as if she couldn't see how it fit into the line of questioning. I can't say I understood any better. She glanced at Mr. Cohen before answered but his expression didn't change.

     “I suppose it's been years. He was a little thing.”

     “So he didn't come here after he ran away from the group home?”

     “Oh, no,” she said with sudden understanding, “but then he wouldn't, really. He hardly knows us.”

     “Have you been to see him since he was arrested for killing your son?”

     Mrs. Cohen's eyes widened as she raised a hand to her mouth and Mr. Cohen sat forward in his chair, an angry expression on his face. “No,” he said tersely, “I didn't want to upset Ruth and it was obvious that the apple didn't fall far from the tree.”

     “Then you think he's guilty?”

     “Well, the police think so or they wouldn't have arrested him.”

     “I think we're done here,” Novak said standing up. “I don't think there's anything else you can tell us.”

     “I told you that from the beginning.”

     “Oh, we've learned a lot from our visit, Mr. Cohen.”

     “You have?”

     “Yes, we have. Thank you, Mr. Cohen, Mrs. Cohen.”

     Mr. Cohen looked as if he wanted to say something more but Mrs. Cohen, a good hostess to the end, quickly led us out.

     “What was that all about?” I asked once we were in the car.

     “I didn't like the smug bastards,” Novak said. “They abandoned Caleb just as much as his mother did and yet they sit in judgment of her.”

     I thought about our conversation for a minute, and then said, “It's scary how much confidence some people place in the police.”

     “Meaning you
don't
share that confidence?”

     “I just mean that it's supposed to be innocent until proven guilty but everyone has just assumed that Caleb did it just because he was arrested. Not to mention the fact that the last time I was involved with a murder the police didn't even think it was a murder until I was almost killed too.”

     “We live in a day and age of trial by the evening news,” Novak commented.  “Guilt or innocence is decided in the court of public opinion and justice is for sale to the highest bidder.”

     “We're a cynical pair,” I laughed.

     “You're too young to be cynical,” he said, and then, “On the other hand, we are private investigators and we are supposed to be hard boiled.”

     “I've always thought of myself as more of the sunny-side-up variety.”

     
“”Or over easy.”

     
“Fried.”

     
“Cracked.”

     We laughed.

      “While we're out making calls why don't we stop by Rachel's aunts and see if she is available,” Novak suggested.

     “Eggs-
cellent
idea,” I giggled.

     “Enough with the egg jokes. What was her name again?”

     I flipped through the little book I'd been keeping notes in. “Nola Vesper,” I told him.

     “Hmm, sounds like a little old lady with white hair who works in her garden while wearing a straw hat,” Novak observed.

      He couldn't have been more wrong. When we stopped in front of the address Micah had listed next to her name we found a bright neon blue house with orange shutters and a bright yellow door. A small army of garden gnomes of all shapes and sizes seemed to be holding a conference on her yawn. We were still staring at the dwelling with a speechless mixture of horror and amazement when the chatelaine herself appeared in the doorway. An old lady she wasn't. At first glance she didn't appear to be a day over forty. She had thick black hair that hung almost to her waist and sharp black hair. She was decidedly top heavy, which was only more exaggerated by her skin-tight tube-top and Daisy Duke
cut-off
denim shorts.

     “If you're here to sell me vacuums, I don't need anything that sucks,” she said from her front steps as we climbed out of the car. “If you're here to sell me encyclopedias I know everything I need to know. And if you're here to sell me Jesus, we've already met and we've agreed to keep our distance.”

     “We're not here to sell you anything,” Novak said with an amused smile.

     “Then why are you here?”

     “We're here to talk to you about your niece, Rachel Cohen.”

     A person's eyes can tell you so much about what they are thinking. Only the most experienced gamblers and the very best liars can keep their eyes from betraying their hand. I wondered which Nola Vesper was. Her expression didn't change in the slightest at the mention of her niece's name, not even a hint of surprise.

     “What about her?” she asked.

     “Do you know where she is?”

     “I haven't seen Rachel in years; it must be ten at least.”

     “When she left Ira Cohen?”

     “I suppose.”

     
“And her son?”

     “Sometimes you don't have a choice.” She came slowly down the steps and walked lazily across the lawn towards us. “But then you wouldn't understand that, you're a man.”

     “Yes, I am. You still haven't answered my question. Do you know where Rachel went, where she is now?”

     “What possible reason could you have that you would need to know that? Whatever has happened here has nothing to do with her.”

     “You don't know that anymore than we do.”

     “I know my niece, which is more than you know, and I know she did what she had to do to survive.”

     “And you helped her.”

     “What if I did?”

     “Then you would know where she is.”

     
“Maybe, or maybe not.
Either way, I'm sure as hell not going to tell you.”

     “You don't have to tell me. But if I were to get the police involved, tell them that Rachel is alive and that she's a likely suspect in the murder of her husband you will have to tell them.”

     “Then I'll deal with that when it happens. In the meantime, I don't have to tell you shit and I want you off my property.”

     Novak stood a moment facing her, then turned suddenly and motioned me into the car.

     “And don't come back,” she called as he started the car.

     “Well that was a waste of time,” I sighed as we pulled away, “We didn't learn anything.”

     “On the contrary, we learned quite a bit from Ms. Vesper.”

     “We did?”

     
“Yep.
For instance, before now we didn't know for sure that Rachel was still alive. It was a strong assumption, but that was all. Now we know that she's out there, somewhere. We just have to find her.”

* * *

     Novak went to work on tracking down Rachel Cohen, under whatever her name might be now. He said it would involve a lot of time consuming and tedious work, most of it on the phone and computer.

     We decided that I would be better off using the time tracking down the kids interviewed by Walters. I started with the one who lived the closest to the office, Fatima
Bahi
. She lived in an apartment complex with her parents and a younger brother. She was of the Muslim faith and was suitably attired in swaths of dark material that covered everything but her face.

     “I'm doing a follow-up interview with the paper,” I told her, flashing Micah's card with its prominent newspaper logo. I had decided on the way over that people might be more willing to talk to a reporter than a private investigator. There's just something about seeing your name in print that loosens the tongue. That was my theory anyway.

     
Fatima
smiled,
a flash of white teeth against her dark skin. “What do you need to know?”

     “Do you know Caleb Cohen well?” I asked.

     “I know who he is. We're in the same grade.”

     “But did you actually know him? I mean, did you ever talk to him? Do you know who his friends are?”

     She shrugged. “He was quiet. He was in one of my classes last year. I never saw him really talk to anyone.”

     
“No one.”

     She shrugged. “Not that I noticed. Sorry.”

     Strike one.

     My next stop was Quincy Evans. He lived in one of the nicer neighborhoods on the edge of town. If the city had been larger it would have been considered a suburb, but as it was it was simply a decidedly up-scale development with huge two and three-story homes of brick and glass.

     
Quincy
turned out to be a smug looking blonde with an athletic build and a dark tan that spoke of his time spent playing sports outside. He was attractive and it was obvious that he knew it. I knew instinctively that he would be strike two. He wasn't the type to notice anyone but himself and Caleb definitely wasn't in his league. My intuition was right for a change, unfortunately, and I didn't stay long.

     I was getting a bit discourage at this point, especially seeing as how I only had one name left. I pointed my car in the direction of the last girl's neighborhood and drove from one of the nicer part of the city to one of the worst. It was a part of the city that was forgotten or at least one that people tried hard to forget. In larger cities it would have been the ghetto, here it was just depressing. Low income housing lay scattered about between the occasional houses that had been left behind somehow. Everything was run-down and dirty looking. The locals seemed to spend a lot of time outdoors, since most of them stood in small groups or sat on the steps, so I could only assume the inside wasn't much better.

     I stopped and asked a young girl who was skipping rope on the cracked sidewalk if she knew where Olivia
Purnell
lived. She pointed me in the direction of one of the apartment units to a young woman stretched out on the concrete steps reading a book.

     I parked my car and approached her. As I did I was able to look her over without her knowing since she was so engrossed in her book. She was a beautiful girl with smooth dark skin, close cropped hair and legs that seemed to stretch on forever. She was leaned back with her back arched in a strangely feline position. As I got closer I saw that she was reading
A Tale of Two Cities
.