Innocent Prey

She frowned really hard, and I knew she was trying her best to recall every detail. “The jerk drove me off to that freaking no-tell motel and chained me to the bed. But he didn’t touch me. Didn’t even try. Then I said I had to use the bathroom. He cuffed me to the pipe in there so I wouldn’t run off. I picked the lock and crawled out the window, then ran for it. He chased after me. Caught me and tied me up again out there in the woods, and then you guys showed up.” She shrugged. “The only odd thing he said was when he was chasing me through the woods. He was calling me, only not by my name. He called me Venora.”

Mason blinked and looked at me. “Was that in the report?”

I shrugged and looked at Amy. “Was it? Did you tell the cops that?”

“I think so.”

“Either way, it bears looking into,” Mason said. “Thanks a lot, Amy. Remember not to say anything about this to anyone. Not even your mother.”

“Please, if I told my mother it would be on America’s Most Wanted by tomorrow. That woman is better networked than I am.”

* * *

Jacob Kravitz lived in an apartment above a tattoo place on Washington Avenue in Endicott, one of what we locals call the Triple Cities, the other two being Binghamton and Johnson City.

I’ve had Manhattanites tell me that all three combined don’t really qualify as a single “city,” but it works for us. We’ve got the river. We invented Spiedies, bits of chicken marinated in our own Spiedie sauce, served on sub rolls with cheese and other tasty toppings. Hell, we even have our annual blowout, the Spiedie-fest. And we’re on the Best Small Cities in America list.

Washington Avenue is a funny place. It’s got the highest-end salon we can lay claim to and drug deals going down on the sidewalk outside. It’s got a Greek diner where customers come to get a whole meal for five bucks and park their Mercedes out back. It’s got local celebs strutting up one side of the sidewalk and pants-falling-off gangbangers on the other.

We went through the front door and up a set of steep stairs to Jake’s apartment door, rapped on it and waited.

“You lookin’ for me?”

We both turned toward the guy who was at the bottom of the stairs, standing in the open door, a plastic grocery bag dangling from one hand and a six-pack of Genesee beer in the other. I sized him up visually, which was becoming way more automatic than I liked. I pick up more about people non-visually.

He was tall. Even from up here I could tell he was taller than Mason. Maybe six-three, six-four. He had Frampton Comes Alive! hair (I’d seen Amy’s classic vinyl collection) and a rugged unshaven thing going on. Wore jeans and an army-green coat with about fifty pockets, despite that it was a sixty-degree afternoon.

“If you’re Jake Kravitz,” Mason said.

“I am.” He came up the stairs, tucking the beer under one arm and then fishing a set of keys out of one of the coat’s pockets. When he reached the top and inserted the key in the lock, he said, “You look like a cop.” Then he looked at me. “And you don’t.”

“That’s ’cause I’m not. But you’re good. How could you tell he’s a cop?”

He shrugged and opened his door, then waved an arm at us to enter ahead of him, so we did. The place was a hole. Sofa with a blanket over it to hide the worn spots and stains, assuming the rest of it matched the arms. Linoleum floors so old the pattern was worn off. A fat-ass-style TV set sitting on the middle of a wooden card table that was sagging a little under its weight. An open door revealed an unmade bed and scattered clothes on the bedroom floor. He walked into a kitchen with appliances that were almost old enough to qualify as retro, dropped the bag on the Formica table, took a can of beer out of the sixer and slung the rest into the ancient fridge.

He did not offer us one.

“So what do you want?”

“Wanted to talk to you about Stephanie Mattheson,” Mason said.

“And to know how you knew he was a cop,” I added, because I thought there was something there. He didn’t like cops. It felt like he, big guy that he was, was shrinking into himself on the inside, where it didn’t show. On the outside he wasn’t revealing a thing, subconsciously making himself bigger. Like an animal in defense mode. I wondered if I could close my eyes without being obvious. My inner senses worked better when I drew the shades.

He shifted his gaze to me only for a second, then it went right back to Mason. “What about her?” he asked, ignoring my question completely.

It pissed me off a little, frankly.

“When’s the last time you heard from her?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. A couple of years ago. Something like that.” Then he popped the top on his beer can and took a slug.

I felt the lie, but that was cheating. I already knew the truth.

“Her cell phone says different,” Mason told him.

I walked a few steps away, to the window that looked down onto Washington Avenue, parted the curtain like I was looking out and closed my eyes.

“If you think you already know, then why waste time asking me?”

“Because I want to hear it from you,” Mason told him.

“She’s been calling,” he said after a brief pause. “I haven’t been answering. I haven’t called back. I haven’t talked to her in a couple of years. Just like I said.”

And that was the truth. But he was nervous as hell. I could feel it radiating from him. I said, “It’s kind of important, Jake. She’s missing.” Just so I could feel his reaction to that.

And I did. I felt a pulse of something big. Shock? Surprise? Concern? Or was it fear that we were on to him?

“What do you mean, missing?”

I stayed right where I was. Mason would read his face, his body language. I was reading his emotions. And they were all over the place.

“Missing. As in, no one knows where the hell she is,” Mason said. “Unless you know. Do you?”

“She’s missing?”

“Her father thinks she’s probably run off.”

“She’s blind. Where the hell is she gonna run off to?”

“How do you know she’s blind, Jake?” Mason asked. “Her family kept it pretty quiet.”

He walked a few steps, set his beer down. I heard all that. “We still have a few friends in common. I heard about it.”

He still cares about her, I thought. I could feel it beneath the words.

“I don’t know where she is. I wasn’t lying. I haven’t talked to her in a couple of years. And I didn’t know she was missing.” I had the feeling he was telling the truth, and then he got all tense again. “You’re here because you think I had something to do with...with whatever happened to her, aren’t you?”

“We’re not sure anything’s happened to her,” Mason told him. “I saw your name on her outgoing calls and thought I oughta talk to you, since her father said you two ran off together a few years back. It’s that simple.”

I turned from the window, ’cause my senses had given me a big clue. “You don’t like him much, do you?”

“Who?” Jake knew exactly who I meant. He picked up his beer, turning his back to me as he did.

“Stevie’s father. Judge Howie.”

He just shrugged. “I don’t have any contact with the man.”

“But you did. Two years ago when you and Stevie ran off together. Right? I’m sure he threw a fit about that.”