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IT WAS STRANGE TO BE in Chicago again, Frank brooded, as he drove into the heart of the city. Cars and trucks zipped by and around him at crazy speeds and he felt the encroachment; it made him nervous. He had never liked driving on the super highways. The sheer size of the city irked him. He’d been gone too long and was no longer used to the congestion, the noise. Usually when he visited Kyle he’d drive straight to his son’s apartment or the hospital where he worked, avoiding the heavy traffic areas.
This time, revisiting his old police station, he had to go deeper into the city and before he knew it he was on the street where he’d once lived with his first wife, Jolene, and a child Kyle. Driving there had been automatic. The house, as he passed by it, looked the same with the landscaping, the beautiful brick front, and the attached carport he’d worked so hard to build so many years ago. There had been so many happy times he’d shared with Jolene and Kyle there, but seeing it again made him sad. It had taken a long time but he had a new life and was happy again. He didn’t stop, he kept driving and soon was pulling into the police station’s busy parking lot. A mess of old feelings assailed him and he found himself smiling. Oh, not so much for the job he’d left behind, and the darkness it often showed him of the world, but for the friends he’d made all those years ago and sometimes still missed.
Sam met him at the front desk. “Hi there stranger,” his old friend greeted him. “I saw your truck pull in and thought I’d meet you. The guys are waiting in the back and, as always, they’re ready for food. We ordered in pizzas in honor of your visit. Come on back.”
“I thought we were going out to lunch?”
“We were until we got too busy. You know how it is. Pizzas in house is about all the time we can afford. There are too many open cases today. With the warmer weather the gangs are shooting up the streets again, knocking their rivals off and creating bloody havoc across the city. Domestic cases are skyrocketing. Murders are at an all time high.”
“Sounds about normal.”
“Do you miss it,” Sam questioned. “The job?”
“No, I don’t miss this job in the big city. The chaos, the overabundance of gruesome crimes and the homicides. So much overtime there’s little left for family, friends or a social life. I do a little consulting in Spookie for the local sheriff’s department and I have my books, my relaxing family life with a wife and three kids I love...and that’s just fine with me.”
“By the way, I like your novels, Frank. So believable. You’re a fairly good writer for an ex-Chicago detective. I never knew you had such a prolific writer inside you. I’m impressed and envious.”
“Thanks. High praise coming from you, Lieutenant Cato. I do my best.”
“Are you rich and famous yet?”
“No, but I’m working on it.” Frank walked around the counter as he’d done hundreds, maybe thousands, of times when he’d worked there and followed his friend into the office where a number of the old gang were waiting to see him. They shook hands all around and traded stories of their lives to catch up.
It was an enjoyable lunch reminiscing with his former colleagues. Then the gang broke up, some went off on calls, to man the phones, and some to do paperwork. The place emptied out quickly.
“Sam, can we talk about those girls missing at my daughter’s college?” Frank pressed after they sat down in Sam’s office. It was a small workspace, sparse but neat. There were framed pictures of Sam’s wife and kids on the desk. Awards on the wall. It had once belonged to another lieutenant, Lieutenant Sheen, when Frank had worked the job. Sam had informed him Lieutenant Sheen had passed away the summer before. Cancer. A shame. Frank had liked and respected the man.
“We can do better than talk about it. I was going to drive over to the college and interview some of the students, their roommates and friends who knew the missing girls. I guess I’ll be speaking to Laura then as well. My partner is at a doctor’s appointment right now and took the rest of the day off. You want to ride along? It’ll be like old times.”
“I was waiting for you to ask me that. I’m in.”
“Good. My car’s waiting outside. Let’s go.”
The two of them exited the station, drove to the college and after parking the vehicle in front they headed to the registrar’s office. Sam had telephoned the dean and his head of security earlier that morning so they were expected. After a short visit with the two men and learning the little they seemed to know, they left them to speak to one of the secretaries who might have helpful information about the missing girls.
Sam stood at the front desk and flipping open the small notebook he still carried to write things in he told Frank, “Since the dean was kind enough to give us the names of the missing girls–Alice Wood, Thandie Harris and Odette Benoist–and some of the students we need to interview, maybe these folks here can let us know where to find the students we need to speak to.”
It didn’t take long to get a list of the classes the students could be found in and the times they’d be arriving or leaving as well as their dorm addresses. Frank and Sam walked into the first room, an eighteenth century American history lecture, and introduced themselves to the teacher and asked to speak to a Freddie Marsden. The boy was a close acquaintance of Thandie Harris and had been one of the last people to see her before she disappeared. They explained to the boy what they wanted and then asked him the necessary questions. They didn’t learn anything that would help, he’d seen Thandie in class a day or so before she’d vanished and had barely spoken to her at that time, and so they went on to interview the next friend.
The two detectives spent the following hours tracking down and talking to anyone who had known the missing girls or who had seen them last. They interrupted classes and lay in wait at the student’s dorm rooms, catching them in between their classes or on breaks to talk to them.
Sam gathered his facts and scribbled copious notes. But when they finally called it a day and were driving to the station, Sam had to admit they hadn’t learned much more than they’d already known. Nothing out of the ordinary had happened to any of the missing girls in the days before they were taken. One day each of them were just gone.
“These girls aren’t going to be easy to find,” Sam confided in Frank, shaking his head slowly as he drove. “It’s like they have vanished off the face of the earth. No one’s seen anything, knows anything.”
“Now what?” Frank was staring out the window at the Chicago skyline. The city sparkled and shone in the sun, bright and beautiful, but he knew it was a misleading mirage. There was great darkness beneath the shininess. There was evil in the slums and barrios thriving in the shadows. He knew. He remembered.
“We go visit the parents.”
“Oh, that’s always fun,” Frank stated caustically. But inside he was reliving the sadness he’d felt doing that duty. No matter how an officer tried to stay uninvolved, untouched, by the grief a parent felt over their missing child, he could never do it well. Their suffering, their distress and tears, always affected him. It would break his heart every time. He accompanied Sam into the missing girls’ homes but remained silent as Sam did the talking and asked the questions. He was out of his jurisdiction and it was Sam’s case. Frank had to admit, his friend didn’t miss a trick, gathered the information and was thorough but compassionate towards the terrified parents. He promised them he and his fellow officers would do all they could to find their children. Frank’s heart went out to the families because he knew the odds of getting the girls back safe were dwindling with every hour that went by.
Speaking to the bereft parents also made him worry more for Laura. If he could have he would have made her pack up her belongings and go home with him, but she’d already informed him she couldn’t do that. She had to stay in college, attend her classes, and get her degree. “There’s danger everywhere,” she’d conveyed the night before, “so I have to learn to take care of myself. You or mom can’t be with me forever.” Of course, Laura was right. “I have to live my own life. Don’t worry, I will be careful, I promise.” So he and Abby would have to accept what Laura had decided. It was her life after all.
When Frank and Sam took leave of Odette’s parents, their final stop, they returned to the college and met up with Laura after her last class at four o’clock. It was an early day for her.
“How did it go?” Her face reflected anxiety. She’d opened the door and led them into the room she shared with another girl, Sigourney Lassiter; who wasn’t there at the moment. “Did you find out anything helpful? Discover any leads? Has anyone heard anything about the girls or Odette?”
“No to all four,” Frank answered. “I’m so sorry.”
“So they’re still missing.” Laura had pulled out a chair for Sam as she and Frank settled on the end of her bed. Frank felt terrible they didn’t have better news for her.
“Hi Sam. It’s been a while,” Laura said. “You’re looking well.”
“Thanks. It’s good to see you, too, kiddo, though not so much under these circumstances.”
“I know.” Laura lowered her chin into her hands, her body slumped against the wall at the head of her bed. “I can’t believe none of the women have been found and nothing has been discovered about their disappearances. I feel so awful. And Odette? She’s such a sweet person. So good. Why would anyone want to hurt any of them, hurt her? Where are they? Where is she?”
Sam didn’t answer her questions, but instead said, “We talked to your dean earlier and he’s introducing new safety measures across the campus for his female students from now on. Anyone can get a security escort to any of their classes or anywhere they need to go after dark or even during the day if they feel the need for protection.”
Frank had welcomed that offer. “And Laura, listen, I want you to take full advantage of that, you hear? If you go anywhere on campus where you’re not in sight of other people ask for an escort or make sure you have others around you at all times. Promise me?”
“I promise. I’m scared, too. I will be extremely cautious. I’ll be over-cautious. Tell mom not to worry about me and don’t you either. I have the screamer and the pepper-spray and I’ll use them if I have to. If mom had her way I’d carry a big stick of wood or a baseball bat for self-defense in my backpack like she used to do before she married you.” Now she gave the two men a small smile, though Frank could see she was genuinely frightened.
“Oh, I remember that big stick.” Frank softly chuckled. “If I recall, Myrtle used it to knock that Mud People Killer out of a window when he tried to abduct Abby.”
“She did. I’ve heard the story many times from Myrtle.” Another smile from Laura. “That old woman sure was proud of herself for sending that killer flying out the window.”
“She sure was.”
At that point Sam announced, “Sorry to break this up, but I need to return to work. I have paperwork to complete and submit. And since you’re riding with me, Frank, so it’s time to go.”
“I wish I could stay longer, Laura, but Kyle is expecting me and my truck is parked at the police station. I need to hitch a ride there with Sam. So where he goes I go.” Frank got up from where he was perched on the bed.
“That’s okay,” she replied, “I have a big test tomorrow and have to study. Say hi to Kyle for me. I’ll see you and mom on Friday. I pray Odette and the others will be found long before then.”
“I do, too. And I’ll say hi to Kyle for you.”
“I’m going to do my best to find those missing girls, Laura,” Sam said. “The whole department will. We’re on the case and we won’t give up until those girls are home. So just take care of yourself and stay alert.”
“Goodbye, Sam.”
Frank hugged Laura and the two men left. He didn’t feel comfortable leaving Laura. Someone was taking girls and Frank felt helpless to protect her if he wasn’t there to do it. But other than moving in with her and guarding her every minute, there was no way he could. She had her life there and he had to go back to his in Spookie.
Before he took Sam’s leave, Frank requested, “Hey old partner, could you keep me updated, a text or a quick phone call once in a while, of anything crucial that develops in this investigation as it occurs?”
“You know I will. I can squeeze in a couple of texts or a call or two. I know you have a personal stake in this case.”
And that was that. Frank climbed into his truck, drove across the city, and rendezvoused with his son at the hospital where the young man was getting off duty. They went to supper and caught each other up on things. But for the first time in a long time Frank wished he was still on the Chicago force. He wanted so badly to find the creep or creeps who took those girls. But there was nothing he could do. For him those days were over. It was Sam’s world now and Sam’s case. The man was an excellent cop so the problem was in good hands.
Frank would visit with his son, spend the night, and head home in the morning. Perhaps, on the way, he’d squeeze in another visit with Laura just to reassure her.