Missouri Loves Company (Rip Lane Book 1) (11 page)

CHAPTER 38

S
ARA
G
ARCIA LIVED
in a rich neighborhood. It had everything a rich neighborhood should have. Giant mansions with generous lawns. Tree-lined streets. Poodles with little sweaters.

Sara’s house was no bigger than the Taj Mahal. It stood at the top of a steeply sloping lawn. A tall stone fence with black iron gates ran along the perimeter of the sprawling estate.

My Honda Fury motorcycle was one of a kind in a neighborhood filled with Lamborghinis, Mercedes, BMWs. Nothing wrong with being one of a kind.

I parked down the street from Sara’s palatial palace. Flanking me were two mammoth mansions surrounded by high wrought-iron fences.

I wondered how Sara and Anna knew each other. They seemed to come from two different worlds. What could they possibly have in common?

It was my hope they were still in contact with each other, that Sara knew where Anna was hiding, that she could lead me to Anna’s location. My plan was to follow Sara. See where she went, what she did, whom she spoke to.

Earlier that morning I had stopped at an Exxon to top off my gas tank. I didn’t want to run out of gas while tailing my target. It had happened to me once before, and I never forgot the lesson.

In my hand I held a photo of Sara, which I had printed from the Internet. A big diamond winked from her left ring finger. Her hair was meticulously styled in an elegant French twist. She looked like a classy lady.

Half an hour passed before the black iron gates swung outward and a white Porsche convertible rolled to the end of the driveway. Sara was behind the wheel. The car turned away from me and roared down the tree-lined street.

I followed.

We went past the country club. Past the guard shack. Out onto the highway.

As we cruised the highway I positioned myself in different locations. Ahead of the Porsche. Behind the Porsche. Beside it. Most of the time I kept my distance. I did not run traffic lights.

After a while the Porsche moved to the far right lane. Its right turn signal blinked. Its break lights flashed. Then the car whipped around the corner and moved out of sight.

I speeded up. Before I reached the corner I stopped, hopped off my motorcycle, and peered around the corner. My target had not stopped to see if she had been followed. So I got on my motorcycle again, turned at the corner, and went on.

A minute later I caught up to the Porsche. There were
STOP
signs at every corner, and the traffic was light. So I drove one block over and began to travel parallel to my target. At each intersection I looked over to make sure she continued along the same route.

After a few blocks the Porsche turned away from me. I turned at the corner, and followed from a safe distance.

We traveled another mile before the Porsche swung into a parking lot and came to rest in front of a jewelry store. Sara got out of the car and went into the store. I positioned myself behind a hulking tree.

She was in there for maybe twenty minutes. When she came out she took a moment to look around the parking lot. She did not spot me. I watched as she got into her car and drove off.

The next place she stopped at was a nail salon. After that it was a beauty parlor. Then a shoe store.

Tailing Sara was so boring that I was hoping to run out of gas. I had no such luck.

She returned home after dark.

Her black iron gates swung closed and I was alone on the empty street. The day had passed like an eternity. I had made zero progress. I was not any closer to finding Anna.

I considered my options.

Follow Sara around for another day?

Probably a waste of time.

Break into her house and search for clues?

Not with those murderous Dobermans in her yard.

I heard a noise and looked up to see Sara’s black iron gates swinging open. A butler came out. I watched as he half lifted, half dragged a garbage can to the curb. After that he brushed his hands together, hitched up his slacks, and scurried up the driveway again. The black iron gates swung closed behind him.

The garbage can stood at the end of the driveway.

It was Sara’s garbage.

I smiled.

CHAPTER 39

I
PICKED UP
the lid and peered into the garbage can. Inside were two big black plastic garbage bags. Holding my breath, I reached in and took hold of one. Slop oozed down my hand. In the beam of my pocket flashlight I could see the color of the slop. Yellowish brown. I told myself it was mustard, and did not dare take a whiff.

By the time I had slung the hefty bag over my shoulder the killer Dobermans were growling at me through the black iron gates. They had white eyes and white teeth. Their black muzzles were wrinkled back and they kept popping their teeth at me. They began to bark ferociously when I turned to walk away.

I set the big bag down on the pavement beside my motorcycle. Transporting the bag was not going to be easy. Not on a motorcycle. Transporting two bags would be almost impossible. Still I wanted both.

The dogs were not too happy to see me returning to the garbage can. It probably hurt their egos that they had failed to scare me away the first time. They upped the ante by barking and growling even louder than before. I made a kissing noise at them. They weren’t too happy about that either.

Something happened before I could carry the second bag away. A dark Mercedes sedan came down the street. Caught in its headlights, I put the bag down. The car stopped beside me. The driver’s window slid down.

“What in the blazes are you doing with that garbage bag?”

I gnawed my lower lip.

The driver turned to his wife.

“Audrey, call the police.”

It took me less than twenty seconds to get to my motorcycle and make my getaway. Unfortunately I got away with only one bag. It sat between my legs, which made for hazardous driving. And hazardous breathing. The stench was horrible.

I roared past the guard shack and pulled out onto the highway. Nobody tried to stop me. Nobody tried to follow me.

I was sure to be the talk of the town at the country club the next day. Audrey and her husband would inform all their neighbors about the garbage thief. It wouldn’t be the first time somebody talked trash about me.

When I got to my motor home I dropped the big black plastic garbage bag on the floor and stripped off all my clothes and shoved them into the washing machine. In the shower I lathered and scrubbed, lathered and scrubbed. By the time I was done it was too late to do anything else. So I went to bed.

In the morning I did my usual morning routine. Routines work for me. They make my days run more smoothly and efficiently.

I had a great workout. Three-mile run. Twenty flights of steps. Thirty-four pull-ups. Sixty-seven push-ups. Sixty-three sit-ups.

After my workout I stopped by to check on Lance’s Arctic Fox truck camper. He had flown to California to meet with his lost love, and he had left his camper at the campground. I did a quick check. His camper seemed fine. No damage from Mother Nature. No damage from vandals.

I was making my way to my motor home when I ran into Harry and Sally Moran.

“What are you two up to?”

“Getting ready to pull out,” Harry said.

“Vacation’s over?” I said.

“Yep. Heading back to Detroit.”

“You get to see the Gateway Arch?”

“Sure did. Now we can cross it off our bucket list.”

“How was it?”

“Hot waiting in line. Worth it though.”

“I’ll have to check it out.”

Sally smiled sadly.

“Thank you both for everything,” I said, and hugged Sally. “You have my number, call me if you ever need anything.”

“We will,” Sally said.

I shook Harry’s hand.

“Keep in touch,” he said.

I nodded.

“Safe travels,” I said.

CHAPTER 40

I
BEGAN TO
sort through the contents of the big black plastic garbage bag that I had stolen from Sara Garcia’s garbage can. I was not dressed in a hazmat suit, though I did have on rubber gloves and a surgical mask. My hands and nose were protected. So was the floor of my motor home—a plastic tarp lay beneath the garbage bag.

I went through the contents of the bag one by one. There were few surprises. Everybody’s garbage is pretty much the same as everybody else’s. Including rich people. Inside the bag I found: chicken bones, coffee grounds, crumpled wads of Kleenex, crusts of toast stained with grape jelly, eggshells, meat scraps, milk cartons, orange rinds, pet liter, plastic bags, potato peels, sanitary napkins, soda cans, soiled paper napkins, tea bags, and yard clippings.

At the bottom of the garbage bag I found a crumpled piece of newspaper. I picked it up, unfolded it.

It was a Dear Abby column. It had been torn out of a newspaper. There was a handwritten note on it.

Sara,

This reminded me of you.

Hugs,

Anna

It seemed to me that Anna must have mailed the column to Sara. I searched the garbage bag for an envelope. There was none.

I turned over the torn piece of newspaper and looked at the other side. Nothing but a crossword puzzle. Useless information.

What I wanted to know was the name of the newspaper. But the name had been torn off. All that remained at the top of the page was the date of the newspaper. August seventh. Six days before.

Knowing the name of the newspaper would have told me where it was published. Knowing where it was published would have told me where Anna was likely to be hiding.

I wondered if the name of the newspaper had been purposely torn off. Maybe it had been. But by whom? Anna? Sara? Sara’s butler?

I was pretty sure the butler didn’t do it. But everybody else was suspect. Including Colonel Mustard.

Not much of the plastic tarp showed beneath the piles of garbage that were strewn about. It took me over two minutes to stuff all the garbage into the bag again. I put the plastic tarp in there too. It was beyond salvage.

The torn piece of newspaper, however, I kept out. It was still soggy, so I placed it in a patch of sunlight to dry.

I made it to the Dumpster and back before anybody at the campground could get a whiff of me. My scent was not unlike that of a skunked dog.

Once again I stripped off all my clothes and shoved them into the washing machine. Then I showered until I gleamed like Mr. Clean.

The shower is where I get most of my creative ideas. Problems get solved. Solutions come to me. I’m not sure why it happens in the shower, though I’m glad it happens somewhere.

By the time my shower was over I had an idea. It was to visit the local library. A librarian could help me figure out the name of the newspaper. Librarians have resources. Librarians have skills.

CHAPTER 41

T
HE
P
OTTSLAND
P
UBLIC
Library was housed in the Woods Memorial Building, a structure noted for its massive doors of carved wood, its enormous windows of stained glass, and its abundance of parking meters.

The librarian at the desk wore her gray hair in a bun. She had a friendly expression on her face, a cardigan sweater on her shoulders, and owlish glasses on her nose. I wondered if she had ever tried to thwart the stereotypical librarian dress code.

“Do you need any assistance, sir?”

Her emerald eyes looked big behind the thick glasses.

“I do,” I said, and handed her the torn piece of newspaper. “I need to find out what newspaper this is.”

“Let’s see . . . dated August seventh . . . no newspaper name at the top . . . crossword puzzle on
one
side . . . Dear Abby column on the
other
. . . . What’s this handwritten note, sir?”

“You can ignore that.”

“Okey dokey. We can ignore the crossword puzzle too. It’s the Dear Abby column we should focus on.”

“Okey dokey.”

“See, each newspaper uses its own unique format when printing columns. Each one decides
what
typeface to use,
how
many lines the column will have,
how
many paragraphs. This means the Dear Abby column will look different in each newspaper.”

“So I have to find out which newspaper uses the same format as the one used in that torn piece of newspaper.”

“Correct.”

“Sounds like mission impossible. There must be hundreds of newspapers that run Dear Abby.”

“Which means we need to narrow the search. What states do you think we might be looking at?”

“Who knows? I guess Missouri’s a good place to start.”

“So we’ll take a look at Missouri newspapers that ran Dear Abby on August seventh. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find a match.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

The librarian looked down at the torn piece of newspaper in her hand and started to read the Dear Abby column. After a moment she stopped and looked up at me again.

“There’s a slight misprint in this newspaper,” she said, and handed it to me. “See that? The word
weird
is spelled wrong in the Dear Abby column.”

“That’s weird,” I said, looking at the misspelled word.

“But helpful. Now all we have to do is find the newspaper that misspelled
weird
in the Dear Abby that ran on August seventh.”

It didn’t take us very long. We found the perfect match in the
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
. Everything matched. The misspelled word. The typeface. The format. Everything.

It meant Anna was probably hiding in St. Louis. Finding her in a big city like St. Louis would be difficult. I had hoped for a small city, someplace where I could track her down easily, without the need for outside resources.

I was going to need some help finding her.

I knew just whom to call.