A Touch of Danger (Archie Lemons #2)

  "Cleaner than the Wal-Mart version of a 2 Live Crew album."

  "Okay, well can you do a financial check on him?"

  "Yeah, I could probably do that? Why, what’s up?"

  "I have no idea, man. It's a long shot. Something to be big enough to cause him the trouble he's involved in. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, whenever someone gets knocked off, it either has to do with sex or money."

  "Woah, somebody got knocked off?"

  Shit! Did I not tell Max the details? I couldn't remember. Shit shit shit.

  "Yeah, sure," I respond. "His wife, remember. Duh?"

  "Was that DUH a question?"

  "Possibly."

  "I have a funny feeling you're holding out on me, Michael J. Cocks."

  "I'll tell you everything when I get home. Just please run those reports soon and get back to me."

  "Will do."

  "Thanks!"

  "You're wel..." I ended the call and looked back at Elise. My smile grew bigger.

  "What?" she asked.

  "Nothing."

  "Weirdo. Okay, so where do we go from here?"

  "Okay, Enzite is running the car. Should hear back from him in a few minutes. Anderson is on..."

  "I was sitting right here when you made the calls, dork. I meant what do we do now?"

  "Honestly, E." I said. "I have no idea. I am completely stumped. The car is our only lead right now and until we have more information on it, I really don't know where we can go."

  I closed my eyes, leaned forward and put my face into my hands. I was lost. I felt the smile leave my face, replaced with nothing but a blank expression.

  "Did you take your pills this morning?" Elise asked me.

  "Yeah." I said into the palms of my hands. "I took them."

  Elise put her arm around me and pulled me close to her. "We're going to get him," she said. "I promise you, Archie. We're going to get him."

  Feeling her arm around me, I couldn't help but to think of my wife and all the pain from the last seven months came flooding through my body like tidal wave. I began to cry. Again. Elise pulled me closer.

  "When is it going to stop hurting, Elise?"

  "We're going to get through this together. You've got me now and you're never getting rid of me."

  20.

  We stayed on the bench for a little while longer, watched the sun cross over the ocean and glare its light onto our already-warm bodies. More and more children began occupying the park and their screams and laughter filled my heart with a little bit of much-needed happiness.

  My phone started vibrating.

  "Hey Detective." Anderson.

  "Hey Archie, I got something for ya here."

  "I hope it’s good, man. I'm about to give up on everything and just go back home."

  "Dunno if it’s what ya want, but I have one missing person in your area. A female."

  "Oh man, here we go! Who is she?" I asked.

  "Her name is Samantha Hiller. She's seventeen years old, was reported missing yesterday, so that would put the timeframe about right."

  I let out another sigh. It didn't sound right to me. The woman I saw on the beach just appeared older than a mere seventeen years. However, anything is possible I suppose. I started running scenarios through my head. Maybe this Brad asshole was involved with an underage girl, she threatened to tell someone about it, and he killed her. Seemed reasonable enough, even though I actually wished that wasn't the case. Seventeen is way too young to die. But, at the same time, if this were my dead girl then at least I would know and would be on my way to saving my sanity and closing this case. Either way I would have to follow my lead.

  "Okay Detective, give me the details. I'll try running it down today."

  "Okay, the mother, one Katherine Hiller, filed the report last night that her daughter had gone missing. The girl apparently left her cell-phone which is what caused the mom to immediately panic."

  "And rightfully so. I've learned in the past, no one goes anywhere without their phones these days."

  "Yeah, I've never seen you even set yours down before."

  "Yeah, and I'm old as shit. So imagine a teenager."

  "Anyway, this Katherine Hiller lives at 842 Sandpiper Lane."

  "What the hell is a sandpiper?"

  "I have no idea, Lemons."

  "Wasn't that the name of the airline in Wings?"

  "Again, I have no idea, Lemons. Go follow your lead and get back to me."

  "Fine. I'm still waiting to hear from Enzite, too. Thanks Detective."

  "Don't mention it."

  He hung up.

  "Come on, Elise, we've got a missing girl to track down. Seventeen years old, name of Samantha Hiller, went missing around the same time as I saw the murder. Mother filed the report. Katherine Hiller. 842 Sandpiper St. Or lane. Whatever."

  "Great," Elise said. She was excited. "Let’s go get the car!"

  We arrived at Katherine Hiller's house about an hour later. We sat in the car for a few minutes, composing our thoughts. I closed my eyes and took two deep breaths.

  "Okay, let’s go."

  Elise opened her door and got out, I followed shortly after. My heart was beating faster than normal. I couldn't tell if that was a good sign or a bad sign. Elise rang the doorbell and an attractive woman answered the door, right around my age. If this was Katherine, she must have had her daughter fairly young.

  "Katherine Hiller," Elise asks.

  "Yes. That's me. Oh god, is..."

  "Everything is fine, Mrs. Hiller. My name is Archie Lemons and I am a private investigator over in Bakersfield. This is my sister-in-law, Elise. I mean, my associate Elise."

  "Oh. Hi. How may I help you? And it is Miss."

  "My apologies, Miss Hiller. We're here about the disappearance of your daughter."

  "I filed a police report but no one is helping me. And how did you find out? I can't afford a private investigator."

  "I found out from a detective. We work together from time to time. I was wondering if we could help. It would be no charge to you."

  "Why would there be...Oh thank you!" Her smile broadened and she hugged each of us. I wasn't expecting that. "Please, please, come in. I don't know what to do."

  The house was a modestly furnished little place, it reminded me of a college kids house when he moves into his own place for the first time. I had a feeling Miss Hiller was recently divorced. I noticed the small tan line around her ring finger, which confirmed my theory.

  "First off, Miss Hiller, where is your daughter’s father? You are recently divorced, correct?"

  "Yes," she said. "That is correct. He moved out and took everything with him. Down near Los Angeles somewhere. I don't really care."

  "Los Angeles, huh? That’s interesting. Anything else you can tell me about him?"

  "Well, he's a piece of shit. He hasn't even spoken to his daughter once since he left. I called him in a panic the other night, on his cell phone, asking if he'd heard from Sam. He said no, then told me he was too busy to deal with me right now. Then he hung up. Great guy, huh?"

  "Kinda sounds like this one piece of shit guy I used to know."

  Yikes! Elise gave me a dirty ol' look!

  "Anyway," I continued, "when did your daughter disappear?"

  "She left three days ago. She didn't come home one night, so I called around to all her friends but they didn’t know anything and she wasn't answering her cell phone. Then I went into her room again, and I saw her phone sitting next to her laptop. That’s when I really started to panic."

  "Does she have a boyfriend that you know of?" Elise asked.

  "She has been seeing this boy for a few months. I'm not sure if it’s serious or not. I've had her friends call him, though and ask if she was with him. He said no. I don't know what else to do. The police have a picture of her and I was about to go put up flyers and - "She broke off. She was beginning to cry. She lowered her head into
her hands and became silent.

  Elise reached across the sofa and put her hand on her shoulder. "Take your time," she said.

  Me, not knowing how to deal with other people's emotions, says, "Miss Hiller, do you mind if we take a look at your daughter's bedroom?"

  "No. No, of course not," Miss Hiller said, as she sniffled and raised her head back up to meet my eyes. "It's this way."

  She got to her feet and started walking down the small hallway. Elise and I followed. Miss Hiller opened the door revealing a typical teenagers bedroom. Full-size bed with snowman sheets, even though she lived at the beach and it was summer, tons of pillows, a small desk in the corner where her laptop and cell phone sat, various posters on the wall, and clothes scattered everywhere. It was exactly as I imagined every single teenage girl's room in America would look.

  One poster caught my attention. I gave Elise a little nudge and nodded in the direction of a Hunky Vampires of the Hollywood Hills poster, featuring none other than Mr. Brad Jackson. She gave me a worried little look.

  I entered the room fully now and took a look around at everything. I walked over to where her phone was sitting and picked it up. It wasn't an iPhone so I had absolutely no idea how to use it. I handed it to Elise and told her to check old text messages and recent calls. She obliged.

  I opened up Samantha's laptop and powered it on. While I was waiting for it to boot up I looked around her desk some more for any clues, then looked down into her trashcan. On top, there was a clear cellophane wrapper, similar to one wrapped around a pack of cigarettes, but about eight inches long and three inches wide. I recognized what it was immediately. My wife and I had one in our trashcan recently.

  "Ms. Hiller, what was Samantha's boyfriend's name? Do you recall?"

  "Yes," she said. "It was Jesse."

  "Was he in a band? The Rippers, perhaps?"

  She gave me a puzzled look. Another one of my inappropriately timed jokes wasted.

  "Elise," I say, "scroll through her contacts list and find Jesse's number for me."

  Elise found it and read it off to me as I dialed from my own phone.

  "We've called him, Mr. Lemons," Katherine says to me. "He says he doesn't know where she is."

  "He knows. And don't worry. Your daughter wasn't kidnapped." A kid answers and I press the phone against my shirt to finish talking to Ms. Hiller. "She's pregnant."

  Ms. Hiller's face looked shocked. I quickly returned the phone to my ear. "Is this Jesse?" I asked.

  "Yes. Who is this?"

  "This is a friend of your girlfriend's mother. We are actually going to need you to drop her off within the next hour or we will be calling the police and having you arrested for kidnapping and statutory rape. You are over eighteen correct?"

  "What the..."

  "We know about Samantha's pregnancy so there is no reason to hide from us anymore. Do yourself a favor and bring her home right now. She doesn't have to run from her mother. So avoid some trouble and have her at her mother's house within the hour before me and my cop friends come bust down your fucking door. No bullshittin'. Got it?"

  There was a long silence before he finally responded. "We'll be right there."

  I ended the call and looked towards Ms. Hiller, still with the same shocked look on your face.

  "Your daughter will be home within an hour. You guys have a lot of stuff to talk about."

  Ms. Hiller broke out in tears and lunged at me to give me a hug. Nothin' awkward about that. We said it was time for us to go now and she continued thanking us the whole way back to our car.

  My phone started vibrating. It was Enzite.

  "Hey, perfect timing. Got anything for me?"

  "Yeah. Hi. Ran a trace on the plates. It’s registered to a Daniel Mayweather. Some screenwriting hack out near Hollywood. His address is listed at 6739 Sunrise Ave."

  "A dude?"

  21.

  Finding out the rolling vagina was registered to a man just added more stress to my entire situation. It was not the car belonging to the woman killed on the beach, which dead-ends that lead. Instead, it is registered to some dude out in Hollywood who I have never even heard of. Things were getting more and more complicated as time went by. Shouldn't shit be getting easier?

  Elise and I drove to a little cafe where we could get a bite to eat and collect our thoughts. Once there, we ordered from the menu then took out the iPad to do a quick Internet Movie Database search on Daniel Mayweather. If he really were a screenwriter, even for the shittiest of films, IMDB would have him listed.

  Sure enough, we got a hit. No picture, though. Turns out, he has written two really shitty movies that I have never heard of. Actually, I'm just assuming they are pieces of shit since I've never heard of them. If they were any good, I would have...well you get the idea.

  I did a cast and crew search of both of these movies and was happy to see that one of them featured none other than the former Mrs. Brad Jackson…

  "Well now this is interesting," I say. "Check out this particular member of the cast." I flipped the iPad over so it was now facing Elise and pointed to the name Annette Jackson. Elise looked puzzled.

  "What do you think this means?" she asked.

  "Actually...I have no idea."

  "Okay, so let’s run down the facts here."

  "Sounds good."

  "First," Elise says as she holds up her index finger, counting out our fact list, "Annette Jackson gets murdered and we believe it was pinned on that wrong person, which leads to our main suspect being the husband."

  "Correct."

  "Second," as she adds another finger in the air, "you witness another woman being killed by whom we believe to be the same person that did the previous murder."

  "Keep going."

 

  Third finger in the air, "We find a car, not belonging to Brad Jackson, hidden in his garage. We assume it is the murder victim’s car since it's the gayest possible thing any man could drive except for maybe Mr. Garrison's Gyropod."

  "A South Park reference? Really, Elise?"

  "Hey, I'm trying here."

  "Fine. Not bad. Keep going."

  "The car turns out to be registered to a man, from Hollywood, with at least a passing acquaintance to the first murder victim." She apparently had given up on the whole finger-counting thing as she was now taking a child-like, double-fisted sip of her Pepsi.

  "Yeah, so we're pretty much back where we started."

  "Maybe not. Remember that guy that Emma Ricks told us about?"

  "Sure. You think that's our guy?"

  "I sure hope so. Maybe he and Brad struck up a friendship on the set of Annette's movie. Or maybe they've been friends long before that. Who knows? It's worth tracking him down though. And if it is the same guy, it'll be killing two birds with one stone."

  "I never really understood that saying. Why would anyone want to kill a bird? And why would anyone kill birds with rocks and then be happy about killing two with the same throw?"

  She let out an audible sigh. "I don't know, man, it’s just a saying."

 

  "Well, I think we should do away with that saying and find a new one."

  "Fine, you work on a new saying and I'll work on this case."

  "Ouch, it was just an idea. Calm down."

  "Stay on track, Archie. If this guy’s car is here then it stands to reason that he is here, too. Somewhere."

  "Well, we were in Brad's house. He certainly wasn't there at the same time, and we saw Brad leave alone."

  "Right," she said. "Well, let me ask you this. Are you positive it was Brad who murdered the girl on the beach?"

  "Elise, I know what I saw."

  "I know, I know. And I believe you. I'm just wondering if maybe it could have been someone else."

  "I'm almost positive it was Brad. And the guy on the beach had dark hair. If the screenwriter and the man from Emma Ricks' story are one and the same, that guy has blond
hair."

  "Okay. Good point then. So what now?"

  I looked up as our waitress brought us our food. I was starving. "Right now," I say, "we eat. Then we'll get back to business."

  ***

  We finished lunch and made our way to a bench overlooking the ocean.

  "Hey, ya know what I just remembered?" I ask.

  "Nope. What?"

  "I'm pretty sure I had those movers scheduled to come to the office today."

  Elise snorted then said "Oops."

  "Yeah, oops. Those guys are going to be pissed."

  "Well call and cancel."