Back Track (12 page)

Bishop turned back. Everybody else was still working. Nobody had been watching. The loud radio probably helped, although part of him wondered how anybody could work with that racket going on.
Doesn’t anybody write actual songs any more
? Bishop saw a pair of legs sticking out from underneath a Chrysler. He nudged the guy’s foot with his toe and waited as the mechanic rolled himself out and squinted at Bishop. He was about Bishop’s height and had long curly hair down past his shoulders.

‘Forget it,’ Bishop said. ‘My mistake.’

The guy frowned, then shrugged and rolled back under the vehicle.

Bishop walked between more vehicles until he reached a Chevy pick-up with its hood removed. A man in overalls was leaning in with his arms wide apart and his back to Bishop. His head moved in time to the noise blasting from the radio on a table a few feet away. He was about five-nine. Stocky and well built. His hair was clearly shaved at the back and sides.

Bishop walked over and faced him from across the engine. The man looked up and frowned. Bishop studied him quickly. Mid-twenties. Straight nose, piercing eyes, symmetrical features. Everything in its place. He guessed it was a good-looking face. Anyway, this had to be the guy. He was the only one left.

Bishop walked over and pulled the plug on the radio. The garage went blissfully quiet for a moment. Then the sounds of tools and revving engines filled the air again.

‘What the hell you think you’re doing?’ the man said.

‘Couldn’t hear myself think,’ Bishop said. ‘You and I need to have a talk.’

The man snorted and said, ‘Yeah, right.’ He began moving towards the radio. ‘Whoever you are, you better get on out of here before I throw you out.’

‘I have already had this conversation with Waxworks back there,’ Bishop said. ‘And I really wouldn’t touch that plug.’

The man halted. Looked over at his less attractive buddy, who was back working on the BMW. Then at Bishop. ‘What
is
this? Who are you, anyway?’

‘Just somebody who wants some answers.’

The mechanic scratched his forearm. ‘Look, what’s this about? You a cop?’

‘Why? Were you expecting one to show up?’

The man’s eyes seemed to look in every direction but Bishop’s. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘And I think you do.’ Bishop had already noticed another shuttered door at the side of the building, raised halfway. He pointed to it and said, ‘Through there. You first. Let’s go.’

Once outside, Bishop saw they were in a large, enclosed yard with wire fencing all around, concealed from the road thanks to two rows of old oxyacetylene cylinders lined up against one side. Bishop also saw two manual gas pumps next to the building that looked like they’d been around since the fifties, but the strong smell of fuel out here indicated they were still in working order. Also scattered around were wheel dollies, towing equipment, car ramps, manual forklifts and various other pieces of garage equipment.

As the guy fiddled with a pack of Juicy Fruit, Bishop looked up and noticed a small security camera attached to the roof antennae, aimed towards the front of the building. He turned back to the mechanic and said, ‘You can start with your name.’

The guy stuck a stick of gum in his mouth and said, ‘Gary Hewitt. You gonna tell me yours?’

‘Mine doesn’t matter.’

‘Well, if you’re a cop, you gotta show me some ID.’

‘I’m just a private citizen, which means I don’t have to show you anything.’

Hewitt’s brows came together. ‘So what’s this all about?’

‘It’s about a waitress at Tod’s who’s gone missing. You know who I’m talking about.’

Hewitt looked at the ground and began carefully folding the gum wrapper into a small square. After a while he said, quietly, ‘Selina.’

‘Correct answer. Now tell me what you did with her.’

Hewitt looked up. ‘
Did
with her? I don’t get you.’

‘No?’ Bishop moved a step closer. ‘Well, maybe you can get this. I talked to people who can place you at Tod’s diner for every day she worked there, always sitting in her section and talking to her every chance you got.’ Bishop was only guessing at that part, but it was educated guesswork. ‘And then a month ago, on May 16, she doesn’t show up at the diner and neither do you. And nobody’s seen her since. Now from where I’m standing, that kind of puts you in a bad spot.’

Hewitt looked at the ground again and began unwrapping another stick of gum. Bishop noticed his hands weren’t entirely steady.

The death metal started up again inside. Bishop said, ‘I also notice you don’t act too surprised when I say she’s been missing all this time. Which means you know why.’

‘Look, I didn’t do
any
thing to her, man. That’s the truth.’

‘Convince me. Take me through it. You showed up at the diner with some of these guys one lunchtime, right? And once you laid eyes on her, what was it, lust at first sight?’

‘At first, sure. But once I got talking to her I realized she was real nice with it, and I ain’t met too many women like that recently. Not with looks
and
personality.’

‘Sure. So what then? You kept asking her for a date and she kept turning you down, right?’

Hewitt stopped chewing. ‘Huh? What makes you say that?’

‘You kept going back. If she’d said yes at any point, you wouldn’t have bothered. So what’d you do next? Start following her home when she quit work?’

‘Why would I do that?’

‘Because you sound like the type who can’t take no for an answer. You probably don’t get turned down by women too much, so you’d want to know why this one was different. I recognize the obsessive type.’

Hewitt snorted. ‘Hey, I’m no stalker. That ain’t my scene at all.’

‘No? So what did you do?’

‘Nothing. Just parked outside her place a few nights to see what the wind blew in.’

Bishop watched him shrug, as though that kind of passive surveillance might not really count as stalking. But Bishop didn’t care about that. He’d had a feeling all along Hewitt knew more than he was telling and this sounded like the inroad he’d been waiting for.

‘And you saw something,’ he said.

‘Hey, Selina wasn’t seeing anybody, okay? I was just—’

‘I know she wasn’t,’ Bishop said. ‘That’s not what I meant. You were there on the night of the 15th, or the morning of the 16th. I want to know what you saw.’

Hewitt rubbed at the stubble on his cheeks and glanced inside quickly before turning back. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘but the whole thing was kinda weird.’

Bishop leaned against one of the fuel pumps and folded his arms. ‘I’m listening,’ he said.

Hewitt sighed. ‘Well, I was at the rear parking bay where I could just about make out the door to No. 40 on the second floor. I’d parked there the two previous nights, and usually gave up around eleven and went home. But this time I must have been real tired, ’cause the next thing I know I’m hearing footsteps outside and my head’s resting up against the window. I look at the dashboard clock and see it’s two fifty in the morning.

‘I was still half asleep, but I raised my head and noticed this ambulance parked on the other side of the lot. But the lights weren’t on or anything. The back door was open and two paramedics were carrying this stretcher inside. And it sure looked to me like there was somebody on it.’

‘You couldn’t make out any details?’

‘I got tinted windows and it was pretty cloudy that night. And I was still groggy. I didn’t really think anything of it, you know? There’s plenty of old timers at that Heritage place, so I just figured one of them croaked that night. That would explain why there weren’t no flashing lights. No big deal. So I just sat there and waited for them to go.’

Bishop watched Hewitt unwrap a third stick of gum and place it in his mouth. ‘Then what?’

‘Well, one guy stayed in back. The other one got in the driver’s seat and shut the door real quiet. Then it was just more waiting while I tried to stay awake. Mostly I just wanted to get home, but I didn’t want anyone seeing me there. I thought they’d drive off or something, but the ambulance just stayed put. After about a minute, it occurred to me to check Selina’s door and that’s when I saw a third guy come out and lock the door behind him.’

‘Another paramedic?’

‘I guess. He was carrying a small bag and wearing the same clothes as the other two.’

‘Which were what?’

‘Black pants and light, short-sleeved shirt with those badges on the shoulders. Like you see on TV. Anyway, he came back down, got in the passenger side and then they just pulled out and slowly drove off. That’s all I saw.’

‘Not quite,’ Bishop said. ‘Tell me about the ambulance.’

Hewitt thought for a moment. ‘Well, it looked like a white Ford E350. Maybe a F350. You know, the kind that looks like a box with a cab stuck on front? Type I or Type III, they call them. The same models most hospitals use.’

‘Any markings?’

‘Uh, yeah. Two horizontal stripes across the body and cab that ended in a jagged M shape, like the heartbeat on an ECG. Don’t ask what colour, everything’s grey at that time of night. And if there was the name of a hospital on the side, I sure didn’t see it.’

‘Licence plates?’

‘From that distance, in the dark? Forget it.’

‘You didn’t notice anything else?’

Hewitt scrunched his brow as he chewed. ‘Well, when it pulled away, I looked at the rear doors and saw the stripes and that heartbeat squiggle again, but it was different. It didn’t look like an M any more, you know? Like maybe they’d pasted it on upside down by mistake.’

‘Okay,’ Bishop said. ‘So what then? You just went home and forgot all about it?’

‘Hey, what you take me for, man? I checked the next day, okay? I called the nearest hospitals and asked if they brought in a Selina Clements the night before, except nobody knew what the hell I was talking about. I tried, man. What else was I supposed to do?’

Bishop shook his head. ‘You saw an otherwise totally healthy young woman being placed in an ambulance in the middle of the night, which then drove off with no sense of urgency whatsoever, and didn’t feel that warranted a call to the cops?’

Hewitt made a harsh sound through his nose. ‘That’d go down real well, wouldn’t it? And when they ask me what I’m doing in the parking area at three in the morning, what do I tell them? That I’m just checking that the girl I seen in the diner is sleeping okay? I don’t need that kind of rep, man.’

‘You could have made an anonymous call.’

‘Nothing’s anonymous in this town. It would have come back to me.’

Bishop doubted it, but saw little use arguing the point. Besides, what was done was done. All that mattered now was to move on with this new information.

But at least it meant Selina was still out there somewhere. Waiting to be found. She had to be. This had been a professional job by people who’d done it before. And it wouldn’t be to snuff her out. They’d taken her for a specific reason. The ambulance and paramedic cover was a neat touch, too. Just in case they ever got stopped. It could even be real, although he thought it unlikely. Paramedics worked in twos, not threes. That was something he’d have to check next. But he still had a couple more questions.

‘Tell me what you remember about the men, what they looked like, anything that sticks in your mind.’

‘Well, it was dark like I told you. The first two I couldn’t even tell you if they were fat or thin. I was still trying to keep my eyes open.’

‘But you got a good look at the last guy, right?’

‘Well, he was big. About your height, maybe taller. And thickset. Wore a small beard like this.’ Hewitt used a finger and thumb to make a circle around his mouth and chin.

‘A goatee,’ Bishop said. ‘Was his hair long or short?’

‘Short. It didn’t look like he had much left on top, but I can’t be sure.’ Hewitt showed Bishop his palms. ‘That’s everything, man, I swear. Now I gotta get back to work before the boss notices I’m missing.’

‘One more thing,’ Bishop said.

Hewitt turned back. ‘What?’

‘Which hospitals did you call?’

Bishop drove back into town and slowed when he saw a Mail Boxes Etc. The dashboard clock said it was 17.07, and he figured most places would be closing up fairly soon. He found a spot and parked, then went back and entered the store. As he’d expected, it was one of the smaller branches. But big enough for what he was after. In addition to the mail boxes, packaging supplies, mailing accessories, printers and copying machines, he also saw a passport photo booth over in the far corner.

Ten minutes later, he emerged with his purchases. Then he got into his car, started the engine and pulled out into the light traffic.

Hewitt had given him the names of the three closest hospitals. One of them, Saracen Medical Center, was on the west side of town. Bishop didn’t need the map. He’d already seen it once before when he’d made his initial recon of the area. Instead, as he drove though the residential streets, he thought about what he’d learned so far and wondered if it was enough. He knew he was doing all he could. Following every lead and moving from one step to the next. Keeping the momentum going. But it still rankled that he’d discovered Selina’s disappearance so late. He knew every day not spent searching for her was a day wasted. And it was coming up to a full month now. That wasn’t just a cold trail. It was freezing.

But he wouldn’t quit. He couldn’t.

He drove on. The houses became more scarce the further out he got, and in their place he saw various business premises, a couple of used car lots, a number of storage companies and a large industrial park full of warehouses. He took a left when he saw the turnoff he’d been looking for and drove on for another mile. Saracen Medical Center was at the end.

Three low buildings of varying sizes made up the centre, each with its own large parking area. He drove past the main building and followed the signs for
Emergencies
. They finally guided him to the third building. There was a large sign out front with
EMERGENCY
in dark red letters. He drove on round the back and saw a covered rear entrance for the emergency vehicles. There were two ambulances already parked in nearby spaces.