Caesar wasn’t in the mood for John Q to mess with him since he had just come from an unfruitful visit to Tony Alonso’s apartment. Alonso lived in a tough neighborhood and, of course, no one had seen or heard anything. This may have been true but he suspected the information he didn’t receive resulted from the tie he wore, something foreign in that neck of the woods, and the badge he flashed.
Before he rousted the manager, Caesar had dropped by Maggie Jacobs’s apartment just to follow up on her calls about Natalie Beaumont. Now as they reached the third floor hallway, he and Maggie held back a couple of steps while the scowling-faced manager fumbled through keys on a large ring. The door finally opened and they were ushered into the room.
“We’ll lock up when we leave.” Caesar said. “You can get back to your TV.”
The manager grunted, took one quick glance around the apartment and pulled the door closed. His heavy footfalls thudded rhythmically as he receded down the hall toward the stairs.
“Friendly guy,” Caesar said, and flashed a dry smile at the young auburn haired woman by his side.
“You should see him when that bottle has more air than booze,” Maggie said and retuned his smile. “He’s a real charmer then.”
In Natalie’s apartment without a search warrant, he knew he had broken protocol, but that depended upon one’s interpretation of those three little words—“look into it.” The desk sergeant had promised Maggie someone would and Caesar was about to do just that. Generally “looking into it” meant a much softer approach like interviewing Maggie, dusting Natalie’s car for fingerprints or speaking with the grocery store manager. But something about this case seemed to hinge, at least in Caesar’s intuition, on what he might find inside her apartment.
He had played the missing girl card to convince the apartment manager to let him into Natalie’s room. The super, of course, had asked for a warrant, but Caesar had said, “There isn’t time. If she really is missing, we have to act fast.” It was a thin line, and one slip or a perturbed phone call from someone he had sworn to protect, could put him in a disciplinary conversation across the desk from his captain. Nevertheless, now inside, whatever the consequences, he was determined to either validate Maggie’s suspicions or put them to rest.
Caesar pulled a pair of latex gloves over his hands. “Please don’t touch anything, Miss. We actually shouldn’t be in here, but I hope if anything looks out of place you’ll notice.”
“Of course,” she said.
Caesar gave her a reassuring smile and then looked around the living room and kitchen. To his eyes nothing looked askew. There were no obvious signs of a struggle or a body on the floor. They walked into her bathroom and with the daily toiletries—a toothbrush, a can of hairspray and perfume—scattered on the sink top, everything looked like it should. In the bedroom, he noticed the red light flashing on the telephone answering machine on a nightstand next to the bed. The number seven showed. He pushed the message button and heard Maggie’s voice.
“I’ll bet most of those will be me,” Maggie said, and a tear spilled down her cheek.
Caesar heard the sadness in her tone. “Don’t despair. It’s too early to worry. There could be a completely innocent explanation for her absence.”
“I know, but she knew I was expecting her call and it’s not like her to not answer her cell phone. Why is her car parked out front? Nothing makes sense.”
“That’s why I stopped in. I want to visualize the things you’ve reported. Even though I can’t investigate, if something does happen that convinces me she really is missing, then maybe this preliminary look around will help me get a jump on it.”
Another female voice came on the answering machine. The manager at the grocery store introduced herself and asked if Natalie was sick. The seventh message also had Maggie’s voice but none of the recordings gave indication of anything criminal.
He turned his attention to the bedroom. The clothes on the bed Maggie recognized as those Natalie had worn the night before at dinner. Beside the bed, a towel had been dropped on the floor. It appeared Natalie had stepped out of the towel and into whatever she put on to go out. The closet door stood open. He saw a blue suitcase on the shelf above the closet pole with several boxes stacked on top of it. The pole was full of garments.
“Do you see anything missing from here?” he asked.
“It’s hard to tell,” she said and wiped her nose with a tissue. “I don’t know her wardrobe that well.”
Caesar opened the top drawer of the dresser. He found it full of her undergarments. “Doesn’t look like she was planning a trip, her underwear is here, the closet is full, her toothbrush is in the bathroom and the suitcase is in place.”
He left the bedroom and went back into the living room. She followed. A large black portfolio leaned against the wall by the front door. Caesar walked over, picked it up and flipped through pictures in various poses of a beautiful young blond girl.
“Is this Natalie?”
“Yes, pretty isn’t she?”
“Very. Why does she have this portfolio? Is she a model?”
“She’s an actress. You may have seen her in movies.”
“Probably not. I don’t get out to many movies. What can you tell me about her last few days?”
_____
©
Jearl Rugh 2012
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