HE AFTERNOON SHADOWS grew long as Don and Cecily headed home, taking the same route back they’d walked that morning. Christina on her bike and Danny on his board rode a few houses ahead. Jake had left them behind to spend his Saturday evening with “the dudes”—his group of friends.
A moving truck pulled out of the driveway a few houses farther down. Christina made a half circle in a nearby driveway and anxiously rode back to meet her dad. “Dad, the apartment’s for rent again. Can we look around?” She brought her bike to an abrupt stop to keep from running him down. Danny, now a block or two ahead, boarded back to see what was holding up his cousin.
“I don’t think so, ‘Tina. I haven’t even been paid a single check yet. How can we afford it?”
“Come on, let’s go see it anyway,” Cecily suggested, pulling Don toward the apartment.
As they approached, the owner stepped out the basement door. “Hi, folks,” he chortled as he limped up the short flight of stairs. “I remember you; aren’t you the ones that stopped by the other day?”
“Right,” answered Don. “Is the place for rent again?”
“As a matter of fact it is. I just put the sign back up. But I saw you coming, so I left the door open.” He looked down at the drink in his hand and gave it a little swirl.
Cecily followed the children inside. “How come the other people moved out?” Don asked.
“Well, the young lady found out she’s allergic to the bloom of the junipers,” he lied. “Come on in and check it out.”
The living room was small but adequate, the kitchen in full view just across a counter. It was obvious upon entering that a fresh coat of paint would help brighten it up. Holes adorned the walls and ceilings where previous renters had hung pictures and swag lamps. The kitchen cupboards were blanketed with several coats of paint, much of which encroached onto the edges of the glass panes. Old floral contact paper lined the shelves, and the pattern on the formica counter top was well worn from many years of use. Asmall table surrounded by four chairs looked as if they’d come with the original construction.
“My name’s Melvin Briggs.” He offered his hand. Don reached out and shook firmly, his calloused, dinner plate-size hand engulfing the smaller man’s.
“Don Rodriguez.”
Christina returned from the recesses of the apartment. “It’s just right, Daddy,” she said excitedly. “Two bedrooms and everything.”
“Is this your beautiful daughter?”
“She is. ‘Tina, this is Mr. Briggs.”
“Hi. Nice to meet you Mr. Briggs,” she answered cordially.
“What beautiful dark hair you have. You must have gotten it from your father.”
“I guess so; thank you very much.”
“My daughter has hair like yours. She got it from her mother.” Don began to look around the apartment.
Christina, trying to be polite, asked, “How old is she?”
Melvin stopped to think. “Let’s see, she’ll be 17 next month.”
“I look forward to meeting her.”
Melvin shook his head. “Oh, that won’t be possible. She doesn’t live here.”
Don interrupted their chitchat. “How much is it?”
“Four-fifty a month, plus a five-hundred dollar deposit. I pay the utilities because we only have one meter.”
“Let’s get it, Daddy,” pleaded Christina.
Cecily had returned to the room. “It’s a nice place for a start,” she said.
“And this must be your wife?” Melvin asked.
Cecily was quick to set the record straight. “Oh, no. Just friends. Don and I work for the same company.”
“His loss.”
“Let’s get it,” Christina repeated, careful not to interrupt.
“I don’t think we can, ‘Tina. We can’t come up with the money right now.” Don knew he was disappointing her.
Cecily came forward. “Ralph will give you an advance, one time. He does it for all new employees, if they ask him.”
“I don’t know....”
“I’ll tell you what. I’ll waive the first month’s rent if you can come up with the deposit,” Melvin offered. “It’s better than letting it sit a month.”
“We’ll see....Mr. Briggs, do you think you could hold it until Monday so I can ask my boss?”
“If your references check out, I’ll be glad to. And call me Melvin.” He turned and opened a nearby door, one that looked like a closet. A narrow flight of stairs led upward. “I’ll go up and get an application,” he said.
Christina was delighted. “Can we get it?” she asked when Melvin was out of sight.
“We’ll see.”
The house was built during the sixties, remodeled once or twice. Trees and bushes spread across the front of the home, screening off from the street the concrete stairway leading to the apartment. The bushes had been trimmed from in front of each window to let in light. The exterior brick looked more like cinder block than brick. A dirty gray color of paint had been applied, coat upon coat.
A concrete driveway ran down the left side of the home, leading to a detached garage. Peering out the kitchen window, Don noticed its overhead door was propped open on one side with a two-by-four. Shelves lined the back of the garage, housing old cans of lawn fertilizer and bug poison. A few boxes were stacked on the shelves, but it appeared nothing of value warranted locking the structure. The drive widened in the back, where steps on the side and rear of the home led to the upper part of the house.
An additional parking spot was added to the driveway out by the street to allow room for a tenant’s car. None of the other homes in the neighborhood had a built-in apartment.
Inside, a family room had been pegged onto the rear of the apartment. Danny and Christina entered by walking past a door leading upstairs. The room’s floor was covered with green shag carpet, the walls trimmed in cheap, dark-stained paneling. Green curtains hung down above the stubby windows. On the far left wall above the fireplace protruded an indirect light built of the same ugly paneling as the walls. Soot marked the brick above the fireplace, evidence of its usefulness. A built-in bookcase extended along the wall to the left of the dirty sandstone hearth, which ran from wall to wall below the fireplace.
Christina and Danny were “tight-rope walking” back and forth on the hearth, when Danny hopped off and inadvertently jostled against the bookcase.
“Look, Chrissy, it moved!” Christina jumped from the hearth, pushed on the far right side, and the bookcase slowly began to swivel into the next room. “Cool,” said Danny, pushing harder and disappearing behind a wet bar that swung from a shallow room. “This can be our secret hiding place,” he grinned. “Let’s not tell anyone.”
The tiny room behind the bookcase consisted of a recessed area with stairs leading upward. It took a few moments for their eyes to adjust to the darkness. The only light in the room came from the crack that ran around the sides of the bookcase. The floor was damp and cold, the room musty and unfinished. Cobwebs filled the corners. Cables and connections covered the wall, all attached to a sheet of plywood anchored securely to the studs. What seemed like hundreds of phone lines ran vertically up the corner, where they connected to terminals and boxes. “Wow!” Danny was first to say. “I wonder what all this stuff’s for.”
Suddenly they heard footsteps above their heads.
“Let’s get out before anyone comes,” Christina suggested. They again pushed on the bookcase. The heavy frame took almost all their strength to push into its original position. When it was back in place, they stood and smiled at each other.
Danny and Christina turned to see Melvin come through the doorway of the family room, heading for the kitchen. “I used this room as a TV room when my daughter still lived with me,” he told the children. “I don’t need the space any more.” He carried several papers in his hand.
Alone once more, Christina and Danny ambled around the corner and opened the door to above. The stairs were directly at their feet. Christina started up the stairs, with Danny following a few steps behind. Aclosed door stood at the top stair. Christina reached to open it.
“Stay out of there!” yelled Melvin from the bottom of the stairs. Then he realized he’d maybe spoken harshly. “That’s not part of the apartment,” he gently explained.
Just then, Don and Cecily came around the corner and looked past Melvin. “Christina Marie!” scolded her father. “Come down!”
“Yes, Daddy,” she replied. She and Danny trudged back down the stairs.
“This door leads to my part of the house,” Melvin briefed them. “The upper door has a lock on it, as does this door.” He rubbed his hand along the door jamb to where the deadbolt stuck out. “I’ll give you keys to both. That way if we want to talk to one another we don’t need to go out and around....I didn’t want to take out the doors when I put in the apartment, in case I ever wanted to use the basement again. ...You see, this used to be one house.”
Christina and Danny were roaming the other rooms for a second time. Melvin closed the door and locked the deadbolt above the knob, his keys at his belt. “Let’s go into the kitchen.”
Cecily flitted about, opening and closing the drawers and cupboards. “It could use some cleaning,” she noted.
“I know,” Melvin answered. “They didn’t do a very good job. I felt bad they had to move, but I still gave them back their deposit.”
Again, Melvin was lying, and began to swirl the ice in the drink he’d brought back with him from upstairs. It appeared to be some sort of a cola—but it was stronger than a soft drink, much stronger.
Christina and Danny opened the first door down the hall. Two water heaters sat directly to the right. One dripped periodically, leaving a slimy build-up of minerals and rust below it. Water trickling from the ooze flowed into a nearby drain. Two furnaces, shaped like deformed dinosaurs, rested in each corner. The space at the far end of the room was occupied by a washing machine. Gunk-caked galvanized pipes, hose bibs at the end, ran down its back.
With Don and Cecily busy with the application, Melvin looked on as the children explored the room. He pointed toward the open door. “Both water heaters and furnaces are in there. I’ll need to get down here and fix the leaking water heater as soon as I get a chance.”
Don glanced up briefly, then once again turned his attention to the form. “A washer and dryer are included?” Cecily asked.
“Yeah, but the dryer’s in the bathroom.”
Cecily nodded. “I saw it earlier, but didn’t see the washer....”
Meanwhile, Christina, finding little of interest in the room, swung the door closed behind her as she left. Danny stayed inside. Picking up a yardstick that had been lodged at the side of one of the furnaces, he began to poke at the pile of slime under the water heater. Through the thin walls, he could hear Christina enter the room next to him, the bathroom. Danny stuck his face up to a hole in the wall near the side of the dryer. There she was, walking right past him, within striking distance. He readied his yardstick and jabbed the stick through the hole.
“Grrrrrr!” he growled, poking her in the side.
Christina, startled, flinched and screamed. It only took a moment for her to realize it was just her cousin, playing one of his tricks. “Danny!”
His muffled laughter easily penetrated the wall that separated them. She grabbed the yardstick, still dripping with slime, and pulled. Then, feeling the gook on it, she quickly let go. Danny released the short end of the stick at the same time, sending it to the floor. When it hit the hard tile, it bounced and flipped up—just right—flinging the balance of the ooze up the front of Christina’s pants, shirt and face.
“Oh, yuck...yuck! Danny, I’m gonna kill you!”
Danny, his eye still glued to the wall, shook with bursts of laughter.
Don finished filling out the form and went to see what all the noise was about.
“What’s all the ruckus?”
“Daddy, look what Danny did to me.” Christina scowled down at her clothes.
“What’s that on your face, ‘Tina?” he said, trying to hold back a smile.
“I don’t know, but it’s all over everything,” she grumbled. “Danny poked it through the wall.”
Melvin and Cecily walked in on the mess. “Don’t worry, I’ll clean it up,” Melvin offered.
“Let’s go home and get you cleaned up,” muttered Cecily. She seemed to be the only one taking Christina’s plight seriously. In fact, Don’s smile turned into a full-blown chuckle when he spied Danny at the doorway of the bathroom, his eyes and cheeks still wet from laughter.
Christina looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. A tiny trickle of ooze still slithered down the side of her nose. Realizing she wasn’t hurt, the sour look on her face slowly transformed into a reluctant grin.
Cecily wiped off the worst of the mess with her fingers and rinsed it off in the sink. Then everyone made their way to the door to leave. As they climbed the stairs, Don turned to Melvin. “I’ll call you Monday and let you know.”
Melvin nodded.
Don, Cecily and the children walked close together on their way home. Christina knew she wasn’t safe alone; Danny made out like he was tough, but stayed close by, just the same.
When they reached the house, Danny scooted up the drive and tossed his board on the back lawn. His 11-year-old Rottweiler, her hips failing her, struggled to stand and greet him. “Hey, Mitsy! How are you feeling?” He reached down and gently caressed the sides of her jowls. The veterinarian had given him pills for her discomfort, but they didn’t seem to help much. “What am I going to do with you, you old mutt?” he teased. “Dad thinks we need to take you to the vet and put you to sleep, so you won’t have to suffer anymore.” Danny, though, wasn’t so sure he was ready to let her go just yet. She’d been part of the family from before he could remember. She was getting gray around her ears and nose, but didn’t have a mean bone in her body. Kate said it was because they loved her so much as a pup.
Danny fed her her supper and changed the water in the bucket. She was the smartest dog in the neighborhood. He gave her one last tickle behind the ears before he walked away.
At the front of the house, Cecily was about to leave for home. Don placed her cooler in the passenger seat of the Jeep, trying to think of something smooth to say before she left. Again, she beat him to it. “I had a real nice time today.”
“Me, too,” he replied. “Oh, I almost forgot. You don’t need to pick me up Monday.”
“Why?”
Don didn’t want to sound unappreciative. “I’m going to ride Alan’s bike to work so I can get an early start in the powder shed. As you know, it gets hot in there. But if you don’t mind, I’d love to put the bike in and get a ride home.”
Cecily nodded her approval.
Don didn’t want to appear too forward. “It’s all up hill back home, you know,” he stammered.
Cecily watched his mouth move. “I know,” she said, only half listening. Why doesn’t he kiss me? she thought.
Don gazed into her eyes, glistening in the evening shadows, her face soft and inviting. He could feel his heart begin to race—wanting to kiss her, making idle conversation while trying to figure out how to approach it. He felt like a school kid again.
The cool of the night made Cecily shiver.”I’m gettin’ a little cold,” she said, rubbing her arms with her hands. Then her eyes rested upon the blanket hanging over the side of the Jeep. This time Don took the hint.
“Here, let me cover you.” He picked it up and shook it loose, then reached around Cecily and placed the blanket around her shoulders. She turned her face toward him, expecting he’d take her cue. Don let the moment slip away.
“Oh, what the heck!” Cecily muttered, opening the blanket and wrapping her arms around his neck. She placed her soft lips against his and gently kissed him.
Don reached around under the blanket and pulled her close. She felt good. It had been a long time since he’d felt the butterflies of infatuation; even longer since he’d kissed a woman.
Stacey typed away at the N.C.I.C. connection. He’d searched for hours for something, anything that might help find the killer. Information on the captain would have to wait.
“Unsolved homicides.” He typed in 1993-1999.
The cursor flashed. “Processing.”
76,376.
He hit the keys again. “Advanced Search....Female.” 59,515.
“Advanced Search,” he pressed again. “Age.”
“9-14,” he entered.
12,113.
Stacey knew the FBI and every other agency had pored over the
records dozens of times. They hadn’t found a thing. I’m going through these records one at a time if it takes all weekend, he resolved. He began the search.