Detective Dan Hubbard cleared his throat at length. The sound reminded Rusty of a paper bag being slowly crumpled in a fist. Seated in a metal chair across from Hubbard’s desk, he cautioned himself to stay patient.
The Sixth Precinct Police Station on Rampart had not been designed to induce a sense of comfort, any more for the men and women who worked here than for those brought in as a consequence of bad judgment and worse actions. A squat cement cube three stories tall, it brandished no adornments beyond the obligatory flags of the U.S. and the State of Louisiana.
Detective Hubbard’s office was as dreary as the rest of the Sixth. Blinds covered the sole window behind his desk, allowing in barely a rumor of sunlight. The air felt heavy, unleavened by a small oscillating fan on top of a file drawer.
Hubbard shot Rusty a sideways glance and mouthed the words “my wife.” His desk phone’s receiver was wedged between his shoulder and jowl, the same position it had occupied for the past eight minutes.
Rusty had just seated himself when the phone rang. Hubbard assured him the call would be brief, but a circular wall clock next to the window was disproving that optimistic claim.
“We’ve been over this before, Rose,” the detective mumbled into the receiver. “I don’t condone nepotism. Especially not when it affects my garden.”
Rusty shifted in his chair, deliberately scraping its legs across the floor.
“Tell him not to touch the azaleas,” Hubbard said irritably. “If he can’t be trusted not to butcher the seasonals, he can stick to cutting grass.”
Waiting for the call to end, Rusty’s mind flashed to the last building of this kind he’d occupied. The Ocean City Police Central Station, near his current home in coastal Maryland. He wondered what his old friend Jim Biddison was doing right now. An OCPD lieutenant he’d known since grade school, Biddison played a central role in an ugly multiple homicide case Rusty found himself wrapped up in several months ago. It all got resolved more or less satisfactorily in the end, thanks to some wholly unauthorized measures Rusty had employed to help the OCPD lock up the men responsible for the murders.
He’d surprised himself by discovering a knack for assisting in the investigation while flagrantly ignoring any police warnings that hindered his efforts. Even more surprising was the satisfaction he derived from inflicting his own brand of punishment on some genuinely bad dudes who deserved it.
“Rose, he’s your nephew,” Detective Hubbard droned into the phone. “I’d just as soon hire a competent gardener than toss him the job. All right, you know best. Gotta go.”
He placed the phone on its cradle and stared at the pockmarked ceiling, as if picturing the damage being wreaked on his beloved backyard garden this very moment.
“Sorry about that. American dream, my ass. Home ownership’s more like one long headache spilling right into the next.”
Rusty was about to reply that he didn’t give a shit about home ownership headaches, but Hubbard cut him off by reaching for a manila folder lying open on his desk.
“Man runs a magic shop on Bourbon, right? The father?”
“That’s right. The Mystic Arts Emporium.”
“Seemed like a nice old guy. Something of a local institution, I gather. He was all kinds of worked up about his daughter.”
“Imagine that.”
Hubbard looked up from the report in his hands.
“Still no sign of her?”
“No sign. Today I went over to the hospital where she works. She’s missed four consecutive shifts, which her supervisor says is highly out of character.”
“Well, here’s the thing with missing persons complaints, Mister…”
“Diamond,” Rusty told him, for the second time.
“Here’s the thing, Diamond. People go missing all the time. We get calls to this precinct on a constant basis. Reports of someone who didn’t come home, failed to show up for work, left the kids waiting after practice, what have you. What do we do about it? Not a damn thing, most of the time. That’s because the majority of these cases don’t involve any criminal activity.”
“I understand. But in a case like this, when it’s totally out of character for someone to just disappear—”
“People behave out of character six days a week and twice on Sundays, Diamond. It’s not against the law to take a trip without telling anyone in advance. Rude? OK. Inconsiderate? Sure, but you’d be surprised how often it happens. And you’re looking at me like I just lit a fart in here.”
“Just surprised the NOPD takes such a laid-back approach to someone vanishing. A pregnant woman, no less.”
“Oh, we get plenty involved, any time there’s evidence pointing to a crime. Doesn’t take much to get this department moving, which is more than we’ve got concerning Miss Lavalle.”
“Can you be a little specific about what it would take?”
Hubbard lowered the folder onto his desk.
“We didn’t just blow this off, like you’re thinking. I personally went over to the apartment on Burgundy. No indications of forced entry, all the lights turned off, no sign of her car near the building. In other words, everything to suggest she left the premises of her own free will.”
“So that’s as far as it goes? No further investigation?”
“Her name’s been added to the NCIC database. Vehicle information, too. That means every cop in the nation will see she’s been reported missing, if they happen to pick her up somewhere. You want my advice? Try to be patient.”
“Great. Maybe I’ll look for a needle in the nearest haystack while I’m at it.”
Hubbard leaned back in his chair, producing a squeak from its abused hinges.
“You might take comfort from the fact that the numbers are on your side. Vast majority of people who end up in the database return home of their own will. Most often within four days.”
“She’s been gone five days.”
“It’s not a damn science. I’m talking about averages. Some folks take longer to rejoin their normal routine. And, yes, some never do—for reasons that don’t intersect with criminality on even a passing level. Maybe Ms. Lavalle just decided she’s had it and wants to start fresh.”
“When she’s due to give birth for the first time? Does that seem likely, Detective?”
“I don’t know the woman,” Hubbard answered with a shrug. “Far as being pregnant, that doesn’t tamp down the possibility of her doing a runner. Just the opposite, in my experience. A woman in her shoes might easily make some erratic decisions.”
Rusty didn’t respond, allowing the detective to continue his line of reasoning.
“Look at it, man. Here she is, about to become a single mother. Apparently on bad terms with the man who, well…”
“I’m glad you mentioned that,” Rusty said. “Have you talked to this guy?”
Again Hubbard reached for the report. He flipped a few pages, his finger tracking down a single-spaced sheet.
“Abellard, Joseph. Resident of Vacherie, St. James Parish. No record.”
“Her father says she broke it off with him last month. Seems he’s got a mean temper, not the kind of man who’d respond passively to being dumped by the woman carrying his child. Isn’t he the first person you’d want to interrogate in a case like this?”
Hubbard glanced up to give Rusty a hard look.
“First off, I don’t know what kind of case this is, or if it can even be called that. Second, Vacherie’s in St. James Parish. Well beyond this department’s jurisdiction.”
Rusty opened his mouth to voice a complaint but Hubbard cut him off.
“Hold on. I forwarded Abellard’s info to the Sheriff’s Department in St. James. They sent a deputy over to his place of business…when was it…Wednesday, the 17th.”
“Good,” Rusty said, easing back into the uncomfortable chair. “What did they find out?”
“Nothing to go on. Abellard claimed he hasn’t seen the woman in over a month. That matches what the father says, right? The deputy noted that he seemed genuinely distressed to hear Miss Lavalle’s whereabouts are unknown.”
“Sure. What else is he gonna say, if he knows where she is and maybe doesn’t feel like sharing that knowledge?”
“He admitted they’re estranged. Said he wasn’t mad, intends to provide for the child even if they don’t get back together. Straightforward enough for you?”
“I don’t know,” Rusty mumbled irritably. “Better if they’d taken him in for a formal questioning, don’t you think?”
“On what grounds?” Hubbard let the file drop from his hands in such a way as to suggest he wouldn’t be picking it up again.
Rusty paused before speaking. All morning, he’d debated how much to tell the detective about his late night visit to Marceline’s apartment. Reporting the stranger who’d attacked him seemed eminently sensible, even if he could only offer a scant description. It wasn’t much, but it would bolster Rusty’s assertion that something bad may well have befallen Marceline.
A sense of caution froze the words on his tongue. How exactly could he explain his decision to enter the darkened apartment uninvited at one in the morning? Since he’d first sat down in Hubbard’s office, the detective tossed a series of appraising glances his way that didn’t suggest any positive impressions were taking hold.
But Rusty knew he couldn’t worry about that right now. So he told Hubbard what happened last night, including as many details as he could recall. Once he got to the part about being jumped inside the apartment, the detective picked up a legal pad and started jotting down notes.
“So you broke into the place?” he asked when Rusty finished his account.
“No. Like I said, the front door was unlocked. The guy who broke in left it ajar, probably so he could get out with as little noise as possible.”
“Maybe he had a key.”
“I doubt it.”
“Any signs of a break-in? Was the lock disabled, anything like that?”
“To be honest, I didn’t think to look. It was late.”
“So it’s possible this person was there with Ms. Lavalle’s knowledge, isn’t it?”
“What the hell was he doing, sitting there in the dark? And why’d he jump me?”
“Could be he thought you were a burglar.”
“You should talk to her neighbor. Pete Banning, he got a look at the guy and the car he drove off in. Said it was a Pontiac, that’s all he knew last night but maybe he can remember something else.”
Hubbard scribbled some more notes, then nodded.
“I’ll talk to the neighbor.”
Rusty pulled a piece of paper from his pocket with his cell phone number written on it. He placed it on Hubbard’s desk and said, “I’ll be checking in regularly, if that’s alright.”
“We keep the lights on all night around here. How long do you plan to be in town?”
“As long as it takes to bring her home.”
He rose and reached across the desk to offer his hand. The detective looked mildly surprised by the gesture, but met him with a firm shake.
Rusty was halfway out of the office when Hubbard spoke again.
“You didn’t seem to care for my first piece of advice. Want another one?”
“Sure.”
“You’re really worried about this woman? Hire a private detective. I could dig up a reference, if you want to go that way.”
Rusty gave a small nod. It wasn’t quite the nugget of professional insight he had hoped to hear. If this was the best Dan Hubbard had to offer, Rusty felt more than ever like he was on his own.
“I’ll call you about that,” he said, stepping away to free himself from the sun-starved confines of the Sixth as quickly as he could without looking like a man on the run.