Читать книгу Trail of Blood - Wanda Evans - Страница 10

chapter one

Dark Doubts

After hanging up, Jim sat, motionless, thoughts racing round and round in his head. Scott had pulled his share of pranks through the years, but not this kind. Scott was so enthusiastic, so funny, so clever, that everyone liked to be around him. His twinkling blue eyes, daredevil smile and amiable manner drew people to him. It was almost impossible not to like him. Girls, especially, were drawn to his blond good looks.

Throughout his school years, Scott had trouble studying because he was dyslexic and that made him a poor reader. After high school, Scott served a short stint in the Army. Despite his academic problems, Jim knew Scott had what it takes to be a success—the brains, the personality, the motivation. He was a genius with anything electronic; it was almost as if he had a sixth sense. He knew every circuit, every wire and how they all connected. He could take any gadget apart and put it back together again.

For a while he floundered and couldn’t seem to find himself. When Jim’s grandfather died, Jim asked Scott if he would like to live in his great-grandfather’s house in Shallowater, Texas, a Lubbock suburb, and go to college. Scott agreed, moved into the house and entered South Plains College in Levelland, Texas.

However, it became apparent that Scott still could not hack academic life. He continued to have difficulty keeping up and his grades were not good. He was a doer, not a student. He wanted to be out there creating things, not studying them. Moving to Abilene, Texas, Scott worked for the original ProSound Electronics store. Impressed with Scott’s ingenuity, Max Gianoli, the owner of the store, created an entire new department for Scott, installing car stereo systems. This soon became his primary business. The shop was so successful that Gianoli opened a branch store in Lubbock and told Scott he would be the manager when the store was established. To Jim’s delight, Scott settled once more in the very place where he wanted his son to live—his home town.

In fact, with Scott’s announcement that he was planning to marry Jessica, Jim felt everything seemed to be working out for Scott. Business at ProSound was booming; he had made a television infomercial for the store and his competition stereos were winning a lot of awards.

Moreover, he saw signs that his and Scott’s relationship was reaching a new level of communication. During their last telephone conversation, Scott had told Jim about his insight. “Dad,” he said, “I was listening to this country song on the radio. It was by George Strait and it reminded me of you. It said, ‘Daddies don’t love their children every now and then. It’s love without end, Amen.’

“I’m beginning to understand just what that song means,” he told his father. “I know you have always loved me and you always support me in whatever I do. Listen,” Scott said, obviously excited by his idea of bringing his dad closer, “why don’t you move to Lubbock? I know you have such a flame in your heart for this town. I wish you would move back. You don’t belong in Pennsylvania. It’s just not Texas. We could open a father/son car stereo store here and I guarantee it will make a lot of money.”

His words had touched Jim’s heart. Jim felt that, at the age of twenty-four, Scott was maturing into a caring, introspective adult.

What had happened to his son in the interval since they spoke?

Although he had told Leisha Hamilton they should wait before making any formal inquiry, Jim sat worrying, his thoughts flying back and forth. It was possible that Scott had simply gone to Dallas to be with Jessica. She might be home from school by now. Or maybe he had flown to Mississippi to help her drive back to Texas. That would explain his leaving his car behind. Four days was just a long weekend, Jim told himself.

A few minutes later, he wasn’t so sure. Something could have happened to Scott. He might be badly hurt. He might be sick. Should I call the police? Jim wondered, but he knew the police probably wouldn’t take Scott’s disappearance seriously after only these few days.

Jim pushed himself out of his chair, his thoughts clouded by fear. He picked up the picture of Scott and himself and felt strangely cold. The snapshot had been taken the last time Jim and Barb had gone to Texas, to attend a family wedding. Now, Jim remembered standing on his cousin Diann’s front lawn, watching Scott’s car roar off down the street. As he watched, Jim had been seized by a sudden chilling thought: this was the last time he would ever see Scott.

He hadn’t seen his son since that day and now he wondered, heavy hearted, if his momentary foreboding had come true. Jim shook off the misgivings, replaced the photo on the desk and went to bed, but he could not sleep. He lay awake in the dark, only vaguely aware of Barbara breathing softly beside him. His mind was in turmoil. He longed to talk to Barbara about the troubling telephone call, but he knew she would want to immediately go to Texas and see about Scott. It wasn’t as if Yardley, Pennsylvania were only a short drive from Lubbock, Texas. They couldn’t just pop in and ask Scott’s friends if they had seen Scott. Okay, so Barbara would. She had been Scott’s friend and staunch ally since the day she married Jim, when Scott was fourteen years old. Distance would be no barrier to her, if Scott needed help.

But once again Jim hesitated, weighing what he should do. He just couldn’t bring himself to report Scott’s disappearance yet. Hopefully, Scott was spending some time with friends. Maybe Scott had decided to move out of the apartment he was sharing with Leisha, because of his engagement to Jessica. Jim decided he would not tell Barbara for a few days, hoping Scott would turn up.

The decision didn’t resolve Jim’s anxieties. He still could not sleep. Through his mind passed snapshots of the past. Jim remembered the day Scott was born, the first time he held his son. He had looked into that wrinkled little face and vowed he would always be there for his son. Jim had hardly known his own father; his grandparents had raised him. They had become his parents after he had been abandoned by his birth parents. Even after all these years, there was an aching emptiness inside Jim, because he had never known his father. He made a commitment that he would be a real father to his son. Scott would never have to wonder where his father was; Jim’s children would never have to question whether he supported them wholeheartedly in their every endeavor. Their world would be different from his: their father would be an integral part of their everyday lives. However, because of the divorce this hadn’t been possible.

Nevertheless he had tried to show his children the love he felt in his heart. And now, when Scott was about to become the warm, caring, successful man his potential indicated he could be, was all that potential, that promise, cut down so prematurely?

Jim turned to face the wall and punched his pillow. Had something happened to Scott that would rob him of the opportunity to be the man he yearned to be? Jim was filled with fear that it had.

Monday morning, Jim got up and tried to go about his work as if nothing unusual had happened. He didn’t mention the late night telephone call to Barbara; he didn’t want to worry her. But he couldn’t stop thinking about it. He slogged through the day, trying to focus on work, but his anxiety about Scott lurked just below the surface and he kept waiting, torn between hope and dread, listening for the telephone to ring. It didn’t.

The hours dragged by. Then another sleepless night. On Tuesday, when he hadn’t heard from Scott and nothing more from Leisha, Jim called her at work. He had two reasons for calling the woman: to see if she had heard from Scott and to see if she had been telling him the truth about who she was and where she worked.

Leisha didn’t sound at all happy to hear Jim’s voice. “No, I have not heard from Scott,” she snapped. “And furthermore, I don’t have time to talk to you.”

Her rudeness took Jim by surprise. She hadn’t been overly friendly when she called on Sunday night, but she certainly had been a little more cordial than she was today. Was her rudeness because she really was too busy to talk or was it because she wasn’t concerned about Scott’s whereabouts any longer?

Jim didn’t know. He had no sense of what was going on in her mind, but he determined that if she wouldn’t talk to him, it was time to find someone who would. He called Scott’s employer, Max Gianoli, at ProSound Electronics. If Leisha was telling the truth and Scott really had disappeared, Gianoli might have some inkling about where the young man might have gone. If Scott’s leaving had come as a surprise to Gianoli, he might be worried too.

Gianoli wasn’t worried. He was furious. “Scott let me down big time,” he snarled. “He knew we had a big show last weekend and I needed his help on it. I’m pissed as hell that he ran off like that.”

Jim tried to interrupt and ask Gianoli if he had any idea what had happened to Scott, but the man wasn’t listening. “Scott’s got to learn that he can’t come and go as he pleases. I’ve got a business to run.”

“Does this mean Scott’s fired?” Jim asked.

“It sure as hell does. He’s out of here,” Gianoli growled and hung up.

For a few more days, Jim’s thoughts bounced back and forth as he tried to make a decision. Normally logical and decisive, Jim felt frustrated that he couldn’t settle on what to do about Scott. Or if he should do anything. Call the police. Don’t call the police.

Finally, Jim decided that if Scott hadn’t returned home by the weekend, he would report him missing.

On Friday night, Leisha Hamilton called. Jim felt a surge of hope when he recognized her voice. In spite of his apprehension at hearing her, he was praying that she had good news about Scott. She quickly disillusioned him of that idea.

“I just wanted to tell you that I picked Scott’s car up from ProSound Electronics. Max called me up and threatened to tow the car if I didn’t come and get it.”

Remembering Max Gianoli’s frame of mind when he talked to him on Tuesday, Jim wasn’t too surprised that the man was angry about Scott’s car being left at ProSound. On second thought, however, it seemed too soon for him to get excessively upset about the car. Max had no way of knowing Scott wouldn’t be back any minute to pick up the car. He certainly wouldn’t go away forever and leave it behind.

“When did you get the car?” Jim asked Leisha.

“Yesterday. Like I said, Max wanted it off the lot. And I have the keys, you know.”

Jim’s fear was quickly giving way to anger at the idea of this stranger driving his son’s car around, as if she owned it and not Scott.

“Are you driving the car?” he asked.

“Not much. I have my own car, but I like having Scott’s car here. It reminds me of him.”

She sounded sincere and Jim tried to control his misgivings. “Leisha, what do you think happened to Scott?”

“I really don’t know,” she said. “At first, I thought he might have run off with that Jessica. But I already called her and she hasn’t heard from him, either.”

For a couple of heartbeats, Jim was speechless. The last time they had talked, Leisha had indicated she didn’t know about Jessica. She had said there was no other woman in Scott’s life. Now, she was telling Jim she had called Jessica. He could only imagine how Jessica must have felt getting a telephone call from her. He wondered if Jessica had known about Leisha prior to Scott’s disappearance. All week, he had been trying to think of a way to find Jessica, to see if she knew what had happened to Scott. He didn’t know her last name, though, and had no way to reach her. “If you’ll give me her name and phone number, I’ll call her,” he told Leisha.

“I already told you. She doesn’t know anything.”

“Maybe she just didn’t want to talk to you. She might talk to me, though. Especially if Scott is with her.” In his heart, though, Jim had begun to fear that his son wasn’t anywhere safe. Scott absolutely would not have left his possessions behind. Unless he intended to come back soon…

“Let me give her a call,” Jim said.

“Her name’s Jessica Tate. I threw away the number, but she’s enrolled at Mississippi State. Maybe you can find her,” Leisha said grudgingly.

“Is there anyone you know who had a grudge against Scott? Anyone who might be angry at him?”

“There may have been.” She sounded disinterested. “I don’t really know.”

Jim persisted. “Did he owe money to anyone?”

“No, I don’t think so. Not a lot of money, anyway.”

Clearly, they weren’t getting anywhere. Frustrated, Jim tried another approach. “Do you know of anyone who was jealous of him?”

Silence was her only response. Jim’s heart pounded. He was on to something. “Were you dating anyone else? Since Scott was seeing Jessica, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t have been seeing other people.” He tried to sound casual, reasonable.

“That’s true. I went out on a couple of dates with Tim Smith, who lives in our apartment complex. But I just did it to make Scott jealous when I found out about Jessica.”

Jim’s chest heaved. It was almost audible. Instinctively, he knew she wasn’t telling the whole truth. “How well do you know this Tim?”

“Pretty well, I guess. I got locked out of our apartment one night and Tim let me stay at his place. I was so upset the day Scott went missing, I asked Tim to stay over that night and keep me company.”

She didn’t have to say anything else; images of what was going on, of what scene might have ensued between Leisha, Scott and this Tim, flooded his mind. Dumbfounded, he gripped the receiver, unable to speak.

“Hello? Hello?” He could hear her disembodied voice, but he was choking on his own anger; his throat was so tight he couldn’t force any words out.

Finally, he asked, uttering his words carefully, “Tim spent the night in your apartment the same day Scott disappeared?”

“Yes. He slept on the floor and I slept on the couch.” Jim wondered if she thought him a fool. Ignoring his silence, she continued, saying there had been a break-in on the day following Scott’s disappearance. She recited a list of Scott’s things that were missing.

Jim tried to follow her words, but dark thoughts spun through his mind. First, she says Scott disappears. Then she takes up with another man immediately, as though she knows Scott isn’t coming home that night. Surely, Scott had gone places before without telling her. How did she know he wasn’t just off with one of his friends and wouldn’t return at any minute?

When Jim finally told Leisha he couldn’t talk anymore and hung up the phone, he realized he couldn’t keep the truth from Barbara any longer. He hadn’t told Barb of Scott’s disappearance for a week and the secrecy was eating him up. It had been almost impossible to carry on as usual, as though nothing was wrong. To smile in all the right places, to tussle with day-to-day business decisions, which suddenly seemed so trivial. Jim hadn’t wanted to tell his wife, because he kept hoping Scott would show up and he wouldn’t have to upset her.

Telling Barbara proved to be as hard as Jim had anticipated it would be. “Why didn’t you tell me right away?” she asked. As he had guessed, she wanted to catch the next plane to Lubbock.

He shook his head. “No. He’s twenty-four years old. He can come and go as he pleases. We can’t be sure yet that anything has happened to him. Besides, even if we went to Lubbock, what could we do there? We don’t know most of Scott’s new friends. We could embarrass him if he’s just gone away for a short period and wants to be alone.”

The question haunted them for another week. Was there some way they could locate Scott if they went to Lubbock? Could they find Scott if they searched long enough and hard enough? Jim was in a state of agitation when Leisha called again the following Sunday night.

She had no word about Scott, but she was full of other kinds of news. “Tim is following me around. He’s making me nervous,” she said. She thought he was weird and she was beginning to be afraid of him.

“I thought he stayed with you the night Scott disappeared.” Jim said.

There was a long pause before she responded. “No—I didn’t tell you he spent the night at the apartment that night, I told you he stayed with me the next night. I don’t remember anything that happened the night of the sixteenth. That was the night after I found out Scott was gone.”

This contradicted her earlier story, but Jim let her words pass unchallenged. “How well do you know Tim Smith?”

Again silence filled the line. Then she said, “Oh, I see him around all the time. I don’t know him all that well. He makes me nervous.”

Funny, she didn’t sound nervous, he thought. “Then why would you let him spend the night?”

That got her attention. The irritation he’d heard in her voice the day he’d called her at work returned. “I don’t know. I just needed some company, that’s all. But now I can’t get rid of him.”

Jim decided to prod her. “Was there any trouble between Tim and Scott?”

Again, a long pause before she answered. “Well, they didn’t much like each other.”

Didn’t much like each other. That wasn’t a likely description, if Tim was interested in Leisha and thought Scott was in his way.

“Was there any real trouble between them?” Jim persisted.

“They didn’t fight, if that’s what you’re asking,” she said.

“Did Tim ever go to your apartment?”

“Once or twice. One time, I loaned him the keys to the apartment, so he could wait for a FedEx package. I guess he could’ve had the key copied.”

At her words, another suspicion insinuated itself into Jim’s mind, and he wondered if she had planted it deliberately. Was she hinting that her friend, Tim, might have done something to Scott? Why would she do that, unless she knew something had happened to Scott? What was she hoping to accomplish by telling Jim all these things?

After ending the call, Jim sat at his desk, pondering his son’s fate. For days, he had been haunting the telephone, hoping against hope that it would ring and he would hear Scott’s voice: “Hey, Dad! You’ll never guess where I am!”

It hadn’t happened and he was beginning to think it never would. It was time to call the police and report Scott missing. He picked up the phone again and called the Lubbock Police Department to file a missing persons report.

It was Sunday night and it was also the Memorial Day weekend. He knew there would be few detectives on duty, but Jim couldn’t wait any longer. He had to find out the truth.

The officer who answered introduced himself as Corporal Jimmy Brazell. “Are you a relative of Scott Dunn’s?” Brazell asked.

“Yes. I’m his father.”

“Do you think your son has come to some harm?”

The question stirred the fear in Jim’s soul. Why would the policeman immediately focus on such a thing? Did he know about an accident of some kind? Or worse? For the first time, Jim had to voice his deepest fears. “Yes. My son has been missing for several days. He’s never disappeared like this before. I think it’s highly possible that he’s been hurt, kidnapped or in accident. I’m afraid his life might be in danger.”

Brazell explained what the police routine would be. “When we get a report like this, Mr. Dunn, whoever takes the information gives it to someone in the records department, who puts it in the computer. From there, it is sent to the Crimes Against Persons Section, where it will be assigned to an investigator.”

Corporal Brazell paused for a few seconds, then cleared his throat. “With this being a holiday weekend and not an emergency, chances are, it won’t get assigned until Tuesday morning.”

“A missing person isn’t an emergency?” Jim exploded.

“I have to be honest, Mr. Dunn. At most police departments, including the LPD, when the subject of a missing persons report is an adult, it doesn’t become a high priority for investigators unless there’s strong suspicion that harm has come to the missing individual. Don’t worry though. In most missing persons cases involving an adult, there’s nothing for the family or the police to be concerned about. Most of the time, the missing person turns up within a few hours or a few days, safe and maybe a little red-faced. Chances are, this will be true in your son’s case. I would be willing to bet that by Tuesday morning, your son will have turned up, alive and well, after an unscheduled vacation.”

“That doesn’t sound like my son,” Jim insisted. Deep down, though, he hoped and prayed Brazell was right and the growing dread in his heart was only a parent’s irrational fear.