I drove to the office I shared with Jada Price on Wellington Street, in a section of the city named Hintonburg. We’d set up our PI business above a pizza restaurant. The owner, Gino Roma, waved me inside when he saw me walking past.
The familiar spicy mix of tomato sauce, garlic and oregano filled my senses when I stepped through the door. Gino wiped his hands on his apron as he came toward me for a hug. “How’s our girl?” he asked, his smile as wide as a slice of one of his pizzas.
“Good, Gino. I’m good.” I held up the file folder. “I have a new police case to help investigate. Never a dull moment.”
He stepped back and looked me over. His black eyes saw something that worried him. Like Dad, his answer to any problem was forcing food on me. “I just this minute made a pepperoni and double cheese pizza. I’ll put it into a box for you to take upstairs. You look tired. You need to eat.”
He went behind the counter and picked up a piece of cardboard, which he expertly formed into a box. Then he reached into the wood-burning oven and took out a pizza, glancing at me as he boxed it up and set it on the counter. “So, any word from my Nicky?”
“Not for a week. He’s busy filming.” I’d recently started dating Nick Roma, who was also our office assistant at Storm Investigations. That is, when he wasn’t being a movie star.
“Shouldn’t be too busy to call his girlfriend . . . or his family.”
“He’ll be in touch when he has time.” I picked up the pizza box. “I’ll see you later, Gino.”
“You’re probably right. I’ll let you know if I hear from him. Don’t work too hard, Anna.”
I left the restaurant and climbed the steps to our office. Jada was on vacation in Bermuda and not due back for another week. She’d said that she had to escape our rainy November weather or she’d go out of her mind. With Jada away and Nick in Vancouver filming a movie, I had the office and the pizza all to myself. I was surprised how much I missed the two of them.
I brewed a pot of coffee in our machine then sat at my desk and started in on the pizza. I opened the file and began reading as I ate.
Ryan Green was last seen leaving his school after English class on May 30. That morning he told his mother he was staying late for soccer practice. But his coach got sick and practice was cancelled. Ryan’s grades were average and school staff said that he was more interested in sports than academics. He also had a part-time job at an auto dealership, working behind the counter. He’d started dating a girl from another school but no one had met her yet. Everybody liked Ryan and said he was easy-going and friendly.
His best friend, Ben Draper, said that Ryan wasn’t into drugs, although they drank beer now and then. They liked to party, but no more than other kids their age. He had no idea what could have happened to his friend. Ben was the last person to see Ryan the day he went missing.
Vanda and Chuck had also been interviewed, separately and together. Ryan’s mom was frantic from the start. She said that something terrible must have happened to keep her son from calling home. Chuck was worried as well, but thought Ryan could look after himself if he had to. But he was less and less certain as the days passed. Neither had any idea where Ryan could have gone.
Ryan’s sixteen-year-old brother, Travis, said that he had no idea where Ryan could be. He and Ryan were close but he hadn’t known about the new girlfriend. He wasn’t sure she even existed. Nothing had been bothering Ryan that he knew about.
I picked up Ryan’s photo, which was paper clipped to the back of the folder. He was a good-looking boy, with a sweet smile and sky blue eyes. He wore his black hair longer on top than on the sides. His profile said that he was five foot ten, 155 pounds.
“Where are you, Ryan Green?” I asked, staring into his eyes and hoping for an answer.
Sighing, I picked up my empty coffee cup and thought about one last refill. My cellphone rang at that moment and I set the cup back down. I’d probably had enough caffeine anyway. Jimmy’s number popped up.
“Want to meet up, Sweet? I have an hour free.”
I glanced at my watch. Three o’clock and not much time left in the day to start interviews. People would soon be sitting down to Sunday dinner. I still had a pile of reading to do about the day Ryan went missing, but Jimmy could fill me in a lot faster. “Sure. How about we meet at Whispers Pub in twenty minutes?”
“I’ll be there.”
. . .
Jimmy was sitting at a table for two by the window when I arrived. He’d ordered two pints of beer and he tilted his glass in my direction after I sat down.
“You’ve been given an impossible file,” he said. “Ryan Green disappeared without a trace.”
“Someone has to know something.”
“You’d think.” Jimmy pulled a notepad from the inside pocket of his leather jacket. “But I couldn’t find anybody who saw him that afternoon after he left school.”
“Nobody?”
“Nobody. He left soon after finding out soccer practice was cancelled.” Jimmy checked his notes. “At three twenty, he met up with his buddy Ben Draper at their lockers. They walked out the front door together but parted ways on the sidewalk. Ryan never made it home. He vanished into thin air.”
“Ryan didn’t have a car?”
“He sometimes drove his mom’s car but he was on foot that day.”
“What about his mystery girlfriend? Did he tell anyone her name?”
“No, but his brother Travis said that wasn’t unusual. Ryan dated a lot of different girls but rarely brought them home. I checked out every name the family came up with. None of the girls saw him that day outside of school.”
“It sounds like he didn’t care about their feelings much. A bit of a rat, if you ask me.”
“More like young and hard to pin down. Everyone said that Ryan lived moment to moment. He was often late and forgetful because he’d get caught up in what he was doing. Everyone knew he wasn’t completely dependable, but nobody held it against him. All in all, he was a popular kid.”
“Did these girls know about each other?” I admit that I was having trouble letting the multiple girlfriend angle go.
“They did, but they all said that they weren’t in serious relationships. They were all unaware he was seeing someone new, though.”
“Now, that seems a bit odd to me.”
“She must have meant something to Ryan if he wanted to keep her to himself.” Jimmy stared at me until I looked away.
Why was I having so much trouble feeling nothing for this man? He’d left me for my sister, after all. My voice came out grumpy. “So you have no suspects or leads?”
“Nope. Nada. Ryan didn’t make any calls on his cellphone after he left school that day. I’d say the phone was destroyed, because the signal couldn’t be found to trace it. Needless to say, we never found a body.”
“This is one strange case.”
Jimmy gave me a sideways grin. “Very strange. I hope you can find something we missed, but I’m not holding my breath, Sweet.”
“That makes two of us, Officer Wilson.”