Next morning Gabriel left his apartment on the west side of Forest Park and drove up Union Boulevard to the North Patrol Division. Union used to be a nice street, a major north-south corridor with venerable homes, schools, and businesses. Now it was down-at-the-heels and turning tawdry, and, except for the occasional gas station, the Division office—unornamented, sterile, and institutional—was the only new structure for blocks.
He hated the neighborhood where he was officed, the darkened factories, the nearby pawnshops and check cashing stores. The failure it all signaled. Unkempt yards in the summer with men drinking in vacant lots, many of them obviously under age. Even in wintertime, he’d see them gathered round a fire in a metal drum, passing a bottle. The jobs had gone, but the people remained. Things had deteriorated dramatically since he was a kid, but he didn’t know who to blame. Everyone seemed to be doing their job.
He found The Gecko sitting in his cubicle. He even looked like a gecko: slender, chinless, bug-eyed. Nonetheless, The Gecko liked the handle the street cops laid on him. It made him feel like one of the guys.
“Anything on Stone?”
The Gecko perused an oversized computer monitor on the desk in front of him. “Negative, negative, negative, lieutenant. No tickee, no washee, no nothing. No credit card purchases or ATM action. Not arrested, hospitalized, or morgued-up. Did not pass ‘Go’ at airport security. No bank account or cell-phone activity.”
“I could have told you about the latter; he left it at home.”
“Interesting.”
“You think so?”
“Maybe he was called out suddenly and forgot it in the rush. Or maybe he didn’t want to leave a trail.”
“Or maybe neither. Stone was a book guy, not a chatterer. Often didn’t carry it.”
The Gecko swiveled around in his desk chair to face Gabriel. “I note the past tense. You figure he’s dead?”
“I figure I’m not the English professor here and don’t know dick about verb tenses. Whichever, you better go back and check his previous cell calls. Let’s see who he’s been talking to.”
“Gotcha. Nothing yet on the car either. Maybe it’s a carjacking and murder.”
“When people lose their job on Friday, seldom do they get carjacked on Saturday.”
“Interesting.”
“Yeah, that bit is, Gecko. But stick to your computers. You’re not ready for detective work. Takes imagination.”
“Speaking of computers, what about Stone’s?”
“On my way downtown to pick it up from his wife.”
The Gecko stared at Gabriel. “Ellen Cantrell, Eyewitness News. I always wanted to screw her—before I was married. Those lips.…”
Gabriel patted his shoulder. “Now that shows some imagination, Geck. Maybe there’s hope for you after all.”
Gabriel drove downtown, parked across the street from Police Headquarters, and walked around the corner to City Hall, facing a north wind sluicing cold air down Tucker Boulevard. He mounted the stone steps and ducked inside the building. Used to be anyone could enter City Hall through most any door without a problem. Now the only public entrance was on the east side, where citizens—except for cops—had to surrender their weapons, empty their pockets, and pass through a metal detector. He waved at the officer manning the device and moved around it and up the steps into the rotunda.
The building, modeled after the Parisian city hall and built in 1898, still looked good from the outside, with its ornate towers, pink granite, buff sandstone trim, and burgundy clay-tile roof. Inside, the cavernous rotunda and marble grand staircase were unpeopled. Dim hallways led to gerry-rigged office entrances with cheap paneling and dirty glass. It was depressing.
Ellen Cantrell made him wait fifteen minutes. Finally her secretary—red and green polka-dotted bowtie today—told him to go in.
She sat at her desk, dressed in black—mourning? An odd choice for Christmas Eve. Even he had felt festive enough to don a red silk tie that morning. She did not invite him to sit, instead nodding toward a black-fiber computer bag on the corner of her desk.
“There’s his laptop, lieutenant, but I doubt you’ll find anything helpful.”
Meaning that she had already gone in and checked. Maybe she deleted embarrassing files or photos. Or added some.
“Not much to report yet, Ms. Cantrell. No sign of him. Hasn’t used a credit card.”
That made her thoughtful. “What else are you doing?”
“We’ve issued a bulletin on the car but no sign yet. And I’m interviewing co-workers. Nothing from the TSA or elsewhere.”
“Is that all? We need to find him.”
He noted the use of the plural “we.” Maybe that included the mayor. Perhaps others. Now that Gabriel was trucking in the world of literature, language, and grammar, its importance seemed to resonate everywhere.
“I understand your concern. The easiest thing would be to alert the media and have them run a photo.”
“I realize it hamstrings you, but this investigation must be discreet. The last thing we want is publicity.”
Gabriel puzzled over her aversion to publicity. Seemed like just the thing to speed the case along. Apparently that puzzlement showed, for she went on.
“Of course I’m deeply concerned about Jonathan. But I don’t want this to somehow become an embarrassment to the mayor—given my proximity and public presence—if there’s nothing to it. I strongly suspect that Jonathan is just off doing research or taking a vacation and forgot to tell me or told me when I was preoccupied.”
“A vacation?”
“He’s been terribly overworked. Grading papers constantly and writing his dissertation whenever he has a free moment. He’s devoted to his students and his profession.”
“Did you know, Ms. Cantrell, that he lost his job?”
Two vertical creases formed at the center of her forehead. “You mean he was fired?”
“It comes to that. Not hired back for the new semester. Performance not up to snuff says his department chair.”
“That doesn’t sound like Jonathan.… Maybe he was consumed by his research.”
“Maybe,” said Gabriel, reaching for the laptop.
He started to turn away then turned back.
“One last thing, Ms. Cantrell. Do you keep a gun at home?”
“Why?”
“Just trying to rule out things.”
“I do. Not Jonathan.”
“Have you checked to see if it’s still there?”
“It’s where it always is, in my purse.”
“Really?”
“It’s okay, lieutenant. I have a concealed-carry permit. As a reporter I was coming and going at odd hours in odd places. Still do. You know the city.”
“Yeah, I know it.” Gabriel said.
Outside Cantrell’s office a black-haired woman who sat waiting looked up at Gabriel. “Hey there, tall, dark, and handsome.”
“I’ll cop to tall and dark.”
“So they’ve even got you carrying a computer these days?”
He looked at the satchel in his hand. “No, this is for my virtual lunch—only way I can lose weight.”
The woman, Laura Berkman, stood, and Gabriel bent to her as they feigned an embrace. The same perfume, even though that was ancient history.
“Still ferreting out corruption and double-dealing?” he asked.
“A never-ending quest. But it beats the hell out of the copy desk. You back downtown?”
“Off the record? The bureaucracy moves in mysterious ways, but I’m working on it.”
She lifted her own computer bag from the floor beside her chair and made toward Ellen Cantrell’s office. “Tell me about it over a drink this afternoon. Missouri Grille at four. Some of the old crew are getting together.”
“Screw the old crew, for all the good they did me. But ‘yes’ to the drink. See you then, babe.”
He didn’t have to think twice about it. He had nothing else on his platter.