Murder in the Irish Channel (Chanse MacLeod Mysteries) Read Free Page A

hundred dollars wasn’t even close to the retainer I usually asked for.
    I thought about explaining to him that when the majority of people disappeared, there were usually only two possibilities.
    The majority of missing persons just walked away from their life. One day, they just woke up and took a long, hard look at their lives and didn’t like what they saw. It could be a long process—with a sense of dissatisfaction and disappointment with life that just kept growing and growing until it finally reached the point where they couldn’t go on anymore. Some people slit their wrists or took pills when they got there. Others said “fuck this” and ran away without a backward glance, just ran and kept running. They changed their names and started over again somewhere else. People who fell into this grouping did not, as a rule, want to be found. Some of them never came back, settling happily into their new lives. Some came back when they realized the change of scenery didn’t solve the problem, or when they started missing and appreciating their old life.
    But the ones who do come back don’t until they are good and ready—and do not appreciate being found.
    The other possibility was that something had happened to her—something bad. She might have been murdered in some random crime—a mugging or a carjacking or something—and the body just hadn’t been found yet. Or some psychotic grabbed her off the street.
    If someone had grabbed her, the odds were she wouldn’t be found alive. She might not ever be found.
    The right thing to do would be to say, “If she’s alive, she probably doesn’t want to be found. If she’s dead, we may never find her body. In either case, letting the police handle it is your best option.”
    Sitting there, I knew I should be honest, give him his hundred-dollar bill back, and walk out the front door, forget that I’d ever been there.
    But looking into his earnest, desperate young face, I just couldn’t bring myself to say the words.
    “You say she’s been missing for about three days now?” I asked, getting my notepad out of my pants pocket and uncapping a pen.
    The relief on his face embarrassed me, so I looked away. “I went over to her house on Friday morning and she wasn’t there. I always have breakfast with Ma on Friday mornings.” He swallowed. “Her car wasn’t there, so I figured she’d run to the store or something. I sat down and waited, and after about an hour I called her. She didn’t pick up—and Ma always picks up, no matter what, unless she’s at Mass. That’s when I started wondering if something was, you know, wrong. After about another hour, I went looking for her. I didn’t see her nowhere, and I kept calling. Nothing. Heather had a doctor’s appointment that afternoon and Ma didn’t show up for that—and Ma don’t never miss any of Heather’s appointments.”
    “That’s ’cuz she thinks I’m gonna harm the baby,” Heather said as she walked into the living room, carrying two steaming mugs of coffee. She gave me what was probably supposed to be a smile. “She’s always after me, like I’m some kind of idiot, you know. Like I don’t know I’m not supposed to smoke or drink coffee when I’m pregnant.” She sneered at me. “Like I’m gonna go out and do tequila shots or shoot up some heroin or something.”
    I took a tentative sip of the coffee. It was bad. I set it down on top of a newspaper on the coffee table. “And you checked with her friends? The rest of your family?”
    He nodded. “I called my brother Robby right away Friday morning. I left a message for him but he never called me back.” He made a face.
    “Robby thinks he’s better’n we are.” Heather sneered. “He don’t never take our calls or call us back.”
    “My sister Lorelle hadn’t heard from her, either.” He didn’t acknowledge what Heather had said. “I’m the youngest”—he gave me the sheepish smile again—“the baby of the family. Robby and