Cold feet(23)
Author: Brenda Novak

"Trovato, what the hell are you doing calling me at home on a Saturday?"

Chuckling, Caleb leaned forward as Holly momentarily disappeared behind some hanging plants. When he’d ordered, she’d refused to eat, but he’d finally talked her into getting a hamburger and wanted to make sure she was still in line to order it. As soon as they finished a quick dinner, they were planning to canvass Susan’s neighborhood again, just in case they’d missed someone or something. They didn’t have a lot of other options. The private investigator was supposedly hard at work doing background checks on just about everyone who’d ever been associated with Susan, and the police were digging, too, searching for Susan’s car, but no one seemed to be finding anything.

"What, you only accept calls when it’s convenient, Gibbons?" he teased. "If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you’re in it strictly for the paycheck, man."

"You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, as usual," he grumbled, but the old affection was still there. Caleb could feel it beneath the surface of everything that was said. "What do you want?"

Caleb wadded up his hamburger wrapper and shoved it inside his empty cup. "I have some evidence that might connect the Sandpoint Strangler case to–"

"The Sandpoint Strangler case!" he interrupted. "I have a woman who looks like Catherine Zeta Jones on her way over to fix me dinner, less than five minutes to clean up this dump, and you call me, acting like there’s some kind of emergency on a case that’s totally cold?"

Caleb had a hard time believing Gibbons could get a woman who even remotely resembled Catherine Zeta Jones to cook him dinner. Short, balding and a little on the heavy side, he had a blockish head with bulldog jowls. To make things worse, he had a disconcerting way of shouting almost everything he said. "Just listen to me for a second, Gibbons. I think there might be a connection between the Strangler case and the Susan Michaelson disappearance."

"Don’t give me that, Trovato."

"Susan Michaelson fits the profile. She’s small, she’s in the right age range and she was abducted from the same area."

"That could just as easily be coincidence as anything else. Quit looking for something exciting to put in one of those damn books you’re writing these days."

Holly moved forward in line. Dressed in a denim jacket with fake fur at the collar, she studied the lighted menu overhead as though she hadn’t seen it a million times. "I’m not working on a book right now. I’m trying to find Susan."

"Then why are you calling me? I’m not assigned to the Michaelson case."

"I think you should get yourself assigned to it, because I’m telling you there’s a connection."

"Listen," Gibbons responded. "I’d give my right nut to know how that bastard Purcell did what he did. But you know as well as I do that the Sandpoint Strangler is dead. So, if that’s all you’ve got, call me on Monday."

The phone clicked and Gibbons was gone.

"Damn," Caleb muttered, and dialed him again.

Gibbons answered on the first ring. "She just pulled up," he complained. "What the hell is it this time?"

Caleb came right to the point. "I’ve got a picture of Susan the night she disappeared."

His words were met with a few moments of silence, then, "How? Where?"

A doorbell rang in the background. While Gibbons let his lady friend into the house, Caleb explained how he and Holly had come across the photo.

"So Tuesday night’s the last time anyone saw her alive," Gibbons said.

"Anyone we’ve found so far."

"I want to see that picture."

"I thought you were too busy with Catherine Zeta Jones to get involved in someone else’s case," Caleb said. "It’s Saturday night, remember?"

"Kiss my ass, Trovato. I was heading back to the office in a couple of hours anyway."

"There’s the hopeless workaholic I know and love."

"Criminals don’t only work nine to five."

"Well, I’ve got something that’ll get your attention. In the background of this picture, there’s an ’87 or ’88 Ford, blue, with a white camper shell. It’s identical to the one Purcell drove."

Gibbons gave an audible sigh, hesitated as though weighing this information, then said, "That could be a coincidence, too."

"Too many coincidences usually means there’s no coincidence," Caleb said. "What’s this I hear about a woman who’s gone missing from Spokane?"

"That’s probably completely unrelated."

"Holly says there was an article in the paper detailing the similarities. Some Rohypnol was found in her car, along with a piece of rope."

"We haven’t even found her body yet. You’re a cop, for hell’s sake. Or you used to be," he added. "Don’t start jumping to conclusions like everyone else. For all we know, that Spokane woman could be languishing on a beach somewhere."

"Or the Sandpoint Strangler is back in business."

"I think the Sandpoint Strangler is dead."

Caleb didn’t mention that at one point Gibbons had thought the janitor at Schwab Elementary was the strangler.

"I guess it’s possible that we’re dealing with a copycat," Gibbons said. "Spokane’s not in our jurisdiction, but I’ll talk to Lieutenant Coughman and see if I can’t help out a little with the Michaelson case. I know the lead detective was expecting the preliminary findings on some of the hair and fiber evidence recovered from her apartment, but I haven’t heard anything yet."

"You find out, and I’ll drop by in a few hours." Caleb saw Holly making her way toward him with a child-size hamburger and the change from his twenty. "One more thing," he said.

"What is it?"

"Would you do me a favor?"

"That depends on what it is."

Caleb pulled out the license plate number he’d written down last night. "I need you to run a plate."

"Why?"

"Just covering a few bases."

"I’ve gotta have a better reason than that, Trovato. You’re not on the payroll anymore."

"I saw Johnny Purcell last night. He was in an old Buick Skylark with this plate."

Another long silence. Finally, Gibbons muttered, "What the hell. This is probably a waste, but…get me something to write with, will you, Kitten?"

"Kitten?" Caleb repeated.

"Go f–" Catching himself, probably for the lady’s benefit, Gibbons lowered his voice. "Screw you," he said. Then he took down the plate number and hung up.

WHY, AFTER DRAGGING HER feet at every mention of moving, did her mother want to sell the house now?