She's Not There (22 page)

Jason Turnbill came out accompanied by a petite young woman wearing jeans, a tee shirt and an apron about five sizes too big for her, so long it was dusting the floor. “This is Carly. She remembers something from that night.”

Carly didn’t look a day over fourteen. She held the photo of Jamie, and then looked up at them with baby-blue eyes too large for her tiny features. “Um, I got off early that night. About nine, as soon as the big dinner-rush was over.” She hesitated, pulling at her apron.

Jason placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Go ahead Carly, they just want to know what you saw.”

Carly flickered a small nervous smile. “I have a friend that’s older than me and she comes here to dance. I snuck over into the bar area after I got off so I could meet her.” She stopped talking, her eyes focused on the floor.

TJ tried to put her at ease. “Go ahead girl, we’re only interested in finding out about Jamie. Her husband is worried sick.”

She looked up at TJ, her forehead wrinkled with worry lines.

“Carly, how about you and me talk alone over there.” TJ walked the girl over to an empty booth in the front of the restaurant.

Carly said, “I just wanted to have some fun, you know?”

“Honey, just tell me about Jamie. If you get any crap from the boss, call me and I’ll talk to him for you.” She handed the girl a business card.

“Thanks. It’s just . . . I really need this job, you know? So, anyway, my friend never showed up. I knew I shouldn’t stay. Then this really cute guy asked me to dance. We danced for like a really long time, then we went out on the deck to talk. It was so cool, you know, the moon was shining on the lake.”

“Then what?”

“We were talking and, you know, stuff. I saw this woman walk out on the deck. We weren’t real close to her and it was kinda dark, but she was in the light when she walked out. I’m pretty sure it was her.” Carly took another look at the photo of Jamie. “Yeah, it was her.” She sighed. “The guy I met turned out to be a real loser. He walked me to my car, then when I wouldn’t go with him to his place, he went back in the bar.” She huffed. “I meet all the losers.”

“Did you notice how long she stayed?” TJ asked, trying to keep the girl on track.

“Right. When she came out she had a glass of wine and she sat down on one of the chairs facing the lake. She looked sad. Well, I couldn’t really see her face—I guess it was just the way she moved. She kept staring at the lake. Then the next time I looked over that way, there was a guy sitting in the chair next to her. He had a drink too, and they were talking.”

“Did you notice whether they left together?”

“When we left they were still sitting there.”

“Did you see what he looked like?”

“He was old. Maybe forty? He looked tall, big shoulders. I never got a look at his face. I think he had gray hair.”

“Were they still talking?”

“Yeah. And he was holding her hand.” She closed her eyes and wrinkled up her face as if trying to recollect something, and said, “Oh, yeah, there was something weird—they had two boxes of takeout sitting on the table next to them. Not opened or anything.”

TJ thought she’d gotten everything she could from the girl, but asked, “How about other people? Anyone else out there that was closer to them and may have overheard what they were talkin’ about?”

“No. It was late and there wasn’t anyone out there except some little kids running around. They must have been waiting for their parents to get done eating.”

“Any idea who the parents were?”

“No, lots of people come in with kids, and I wasn’t waiting tables that night.”

TJ slid out of the booth. “Thanks for talking to me, Carly. No one’s heard from this woman since that night and we’re afraid someone may have taken her.” TJ leaned over, her mouth inches from the girl’s ear. “So if I were you, little girl, I’d keep in mind that there are some scary people out there and be real careful who you walk with out into a dark parking lot.”

Nodding assent, Carly gave her a sheepish little half-smile.

After a few more passes through the bar, making certain that Willie hadn’t come in, TJ and Shannon went out to their cars. TJ briefed Shannon on her talk with Carly.

Shannon frowned. “It’s going to be hard for Jeff—hearing that Jamie was out in a bar alone. And met a guy.”

“Yeah.” TJ sighed. “But it’s not as bad as finding her body.”

Shannon looked thoughtful for a few seconds. “What about Eric’s wife? Are you sure she didn’t hook up with someone?”

“I was. Now I’m wonderin’ again. Maybe we should give her lady-friends another go-round tonight.”

“Tonight? Isn’t it a little late for that?”

“Nah, they’re night creatures. I know where they hang and it’s not too far from here.”

Secrets, the Brookfield nightclub frequented by Kayla’s friends, was located off the lobby of a Radisson hotel across from the Brookfield shopping center. Snobby was the word that came to mind whenever TJ entered the place. She’d only been there a few times—once on a date with a dentist from the area, a man she met at the bank. There’d been no second date.

 The other times were when she’d been trying to get a bead on Kayla—find out who her friends were and what made her tick. When she and Shannon walked into the softly lit bar, a live jazz trio was playing a mellow version of “The Lady is a Tramp.”
Appropriate.
Dozens of the area’s richest and most attractive mingled at the bar and in the booths positioned against the wall. The ambiance sported lots of mirrors, plants and a soft aqua décor, blending every shade of turquoise from the palest water to the deepest teal.

TJ hated the place. It was all about who had what and who was the prettiest—women
and
men. She and Shannon were dressed for the place, but being dressed for the role didn’t make her want to be part of it.

Shannon took a seat at the bar next to a couple that was splendid in gold, diamonds, and designer clothes. As soon as TJ’s eyes became accustomed to the dim lighting, she spotted Suzette and Diana, Kayla’s running partners. The pair had been out of town the night Kayla Schindler went missing. TJ had questioned them more than once. They hadn’t been helpful but hadn’t seemed to be holding anything back, either. The friendship between the three had been a shallow one. TJ didn’t think they knew much about each other’s lives other than what they shared when making the rounds of their favorite clubs.

When TJ spotted them, the women appeared to be vying for the attention of a rather elderly man wearing a silver-gray custom-made suit and a matching rug. Two kinds of men frequented these places, the old and rich, and the not-so-old trying to be rich. The wannabe’s tended to be good-looking, the others looked like this guy.

The women gushed when they recognized her. “TJ!” Their delight at seeing her hid the obvious sense of rivalry the younger, exotic-looking woman inspired in them. The guy with the rug eyed her and she shot him a look that sent him on a quest for more willing game.

“Hey, you two. Sorry to interrupt, but I need to talk to you again.”

Suzette, the gray-eyed redhead, pursed her glossy, carmine lips. “What more could there be? You asked us everything imaginable and we weren’t even in town that night.”

Bitch.
TJ couldn’t stand these women. Not because of who they were but for what they represented—women whose only ideals were superficial. Money, looks, and rich men were their entire purpose in life.
Disgusting
. “Some new information has come up and I’ve got some questions for you.”

Diana, her hair in a shiny black bob set off with dangling diamond hoop-earrings, was stunning in a winter-white pantsuit with a four-strand, black leather belt circling her tiny waist and boyish hips. She actually looked concerned and told TJ to go ahead, ask them whatever she needed to ask.

“If Kayla had gone somewhere other than here, by herself, where would that be?” The women looked at each other. Diana looked meaningfully across the room, her gaze settling on a woman sitting at the bar. Younger than most of the patrons, her long softly-curled blonde hair trailed down her shapely back, exposed by a sleek brown dress cut nearly to her tailbone.

“See that blonde over there?” Diana’s opinion of the woman was obvious. “She was always trying to push her way in.” She scoffed. “None of us liked her; she was wasting her time. But if Kayla was out by herself, Amber might have glommed onto her. Maybe she knows something. But other than here, I don’t know where Kayla would have gone by herself.”

“And you’re sure you don’t remember her having a guy hanging around?”

“No. Men liked her, but she was only interested in her husband. She was confused about life, I guess. He was gone a lot. She got depressed about that—and other things.”

Well aware of what the “other things” referred to, TJ said, “Thanks, ladies.” She made her way over to Amber, wedging her way between the blonde and the trio of men surrounding her.

She explained to Amber who she was and asked her if she could have a minute alone with her. Amber’s heavy-lidded, pale-green eyes cased TJ from head to toe, nearly leering.
Yuck.
She’d ask the snake her questions and get the hell out of here.

When they were alone in the lobby, Amber took a sexy pose on a light-blue divan that perfectly complemented her brown dress. As she crossed her long legs, the slit on the side of her dress opened high enough to expose her underwear—or would have if she’d been wearing any. Her eyes travelled over TJ again. “What do you want to know about Kayla?”

“Did you see her the night she disappeared?”

“Sure.”

“Why didn’t you come forward with that information?”

“It didn’t seem important.”

TJ resisted the urge to slap her. “Where did you see her?”

Amber sat back and crossed her arms. “I came in here at about nine that night. After about an hour, I got bored and decided to go downtown to Vinnie’s. When I was walking out to my car, I met Kayla coming in and told her nothing was happening here. So we went down to Vinnie’s.”

“You ride together?” So far this would explain no one at Secrets seeing Kayla the night she disappeared and why her car had shown up in an east side parking lot.

“No, we drove our own cars.” Amber shifted position as two handsome men approached the club, making sure they’d seen her.

“Then what? Just tell me everything you remember.”

“Vinnie’s was packed. Couple guys at the bar gave us their seats, then hung around. They must have thought giving us the seats would get them in our pants. Fools. Anyway, once we got rid of them we each kind of did our own thing. I saw some friends in a booth by the dance floor and went over and had a drink with them. After that I don’t know where she went. I didn’t see her again, so I figured she either left or met someone.”

“Are you sure you didn’t see her with anyone?”

“Kayla always had guys around her.”

“But no one in particular that night?”

“Not that I remember. It was a long time ago.”

Crap, this got her nothing new. But she knew lots of the staff at Vinnie’s. They’d tell her whatever they could remember, but the skank was right—it had been a long time ago.

“What about the two guys you blew off? How pissed were they?”

Amber’s neatly penciled eyebrows shot up, her green eyes widening. “You don’t think they could have done something to her?”

“I don’t think anything. What do you remember about them?”

Scrunching her eyes, she seemed to be concentrating for a minute. “Not much, really. They were dressed like factory workers on a night out. Jeans, flannel shirts over tee shirts, work boots, like that. They thought we’d be impressed that they were stagehands for some Broadway show that was playing at the Center.” She snorted. “Like that would impress us.”

“How did you blow them off?”

“We tried being nice first—told them we were waiting for dates—but they kept hanging around. They didn’t get it so Kayla told them to disappear. We’d had a couple drinks by then and she was getting loose lips.”

“Do you remember what she said?”

“Not exactly. Maybe something like, ‘Thanks for giving us your seats, but you can move on now.’ And when that didn’t work she told them we weren’t interested in losers like them. Might have been worse than that. I don’t remember for sure, but they left.”

Weird.
It sounded like Jamie Denison’s attitude at the Sombrero Club. Probably didn’t mean anything. But they’d have to try to find the stage guys, see what they had to say. She thanked her and got up to leave when Amber offered to buy her a drink. There was no mistaking the question in the probing peridot eyes.

“Sorry, got other people to talk to tonight.”
Shit.
TJ figured if she would ever be tempted to have a fling with a woman, this flytrap would be the last one she’d try it with. She shuddered and hurried back into the bar to get Shannon.

On the way to the car, Shannon asked, “Now what?”

“Think I’m gonna go back to Eric’s.”

Shannon stopped walking. “You’re going back? Did you find something?”

“Maybe. But I’m not sure what it means.” She made a face. “Might not mean squat. It’s freezing out here. I’ll call you on your cell and fill you in.”

It was quiet in the house when TJ returned to Eric’s. She put on a pair of sweats, and restless, went back upstairs and made herself a drink. She carried it to Eric’s office where she sat down and studied the white-boards for a while, then got up and added the newly gathered information under Jamie and Kayla’s names. She circled the new bullets under each name that said, “Blew off creepy guy.” What could that possibly have to do with anything when it was two different guys?

TJ sat down in Eric’s plush, leather desk chair. They were missing something. Not missing something exactly, there was something there, something important that they hadn’t connected. What was it? TJ couldn’t stand feeling like the answer was there on the fringes of her consciousness, just beyond her ken.
Damn!
She knew nothing would bring it out now. She had to walk away from it. Do something else.

On her way back downstairs, she noticed the door to Jeff’s room was ajar and peeked in to see if he might be awake. He wasn’t there. Strange. Maybe the others were out for the night. Back in the kitchen, she peeked into the refrigerator. She got out some turkey and bread, set it on the counter, and saw Phanny watching her. That dog was always hungry. She fixed herself a sandwich piled high with white meat, ‘accidently’ dropped a piece on the floor that the dog snapped up.

“I thought you were gone for the weekend.”

TJ looked up from mid-bite to see Eric moving toward the refrigerator.

“Change of plans. Came back for a turkey sandwich.”

He laughed. “You’ve got a friend I see.”

“Yeah, this dog’s always where the food is.”

The turkey and bread came back out, and Eric sat next to her at the island with a double-decker turkey sandwich in front of him.

TJ knew his style. He was good at getting her to open up by saying nothing. “Forget it if you’re waiting for me to tell you what happened.”

He took a bite of his sandwich and studied her.

“Okay,” she admitted, “Richard stayed in Chicago. Some family thing.”

Eric kept eating.

TJ could tell he was resisting a smile by the way his laugh lines puckered at the side of his eyes. “You never did like him,” she accused.

Eric put down the sandwich and turned to her. “The guy’s a good cop.”

She glared at him.

“I don’t like him for you, all right?”

“Why?”

Eric looked surprised that she’d asked him. “Let me see. I suppose ‘he’s not good enough for you’ isn’t what you want to hear.”

TJ kept glaring.

“I guess I always thought you deserved someone who made you his top priority. Not married to his job—someone younger, a little less street-worn.”

“Shouldn’t have asked, you sound like Janeen. May have run its course, anyway.” She sighed. “I got a problem. And nothin to do with Richard.” She told Eric what she and Shannon had found out that night, that she’d added it to the boards, and something was nagging at her.

“I hate that feeling. How do you usually pull it out?”

“Dunno. It’s always different. But what do you think? Was Kayla capable of being nasty like that?”

“When she’d been drinking, sure. Do you think you can find the guy?”

“I checked the archives from the paper. Found out the name of the play. There should be records of who was working the stage that night.”

“Seems like it gives us more new questions than answers, doesn’t it? Maybe the profiler can give us some insight.”

“Profiler—what the fuck?”