A Tap on the Window

Fifty-two

Donna handed me the phone. It was the same type as mine. I tried turning it on, but the battery was dead. Assuming it belonged to the person I figured it belonged to, it had been sitting in my car for a couple of days. Even before it had run out of power, I wouldn’t have heard it because the switch on the side had been set on.

“Whose is it?” Donna asked.

“I’m guessing Claire’s,” I said. “She had it on her knee before she got out of the car. Even if she realized pretty soon that she’d lost it, once Hanna had come out, she could hardly run back out to my car to get it, not with Hanna inside.”

I wouldn’t have to wait for it to fully recharge to see what clues it might hold. All I had to do was plug it into my charger in the kitchen.

“What are you going to do with this?” Donna asked, pointing to the GPS on the roof.

“For now,” I said, “I’ll just leave it on and keep it in the car.”

“You’re not going to turn it off? Smash it? Do something to it?”

“Not yet. I don’t want whoever put it there to know I’ve found it,” I said. I tucked it under the passenger seat, closed up the car and locked it. “Let’s go see what’s on this baby.”

We went back into the house. On the kitchen counter, by the phone, was my charger. I plugged it into the receptacle at the base of the phone. The screen lit up, showing a battery icon completely drained of power.

“It might take a minute,” I said. “Given that it was totally dead.”

It took half that long. If the phone had any kind of password lock on it to keep others from using it, it hadn’t been engaged.

Given that the phone was tethered to an outlet, I read it leaning over, my elbows on the kitchen counter. A screen full of apps and icons appeared. It immediately showed that Claire had missed countless phone calls and that she had several voice mail messages. I was betting most of those were from her parents, wondering where she was.

I might have some trouble retrieving the voice mails, since I didn’t know Claire’s four-digit password. But I wouldn’t need a password to check her text messages.

I went straight to the green box with the cartoon word bubble on it, and underneath, and tapped the touch screen, which was lightly smeared with makeup from Claire’s cheek.

A specific conversation popped out. Within the banner across the top of the screen, the word. Texts in pale gray boxes on the left side of the screen were messages from him, while those in pale blue on the right were Claire’s. Donna was huddled next to me, as curious as I was about what we might find.

The most recent texts were these:

I scrolled back to some earlier conversations.

And then, a texted photo.

Donna said, “If that’s what I think it is, for his sake I hope it’s not actual size.”

I scanned another screen filled with his texts to Claire. She’d responded only twice, both times telling him to leave her alone. I tapped the screen to see who else Claire might have been having chats with.

I tapped on .

The last message from him was: k. luv u

The one immediately before that, from Claire: looking for ride, b there soon i hope.

Donna, leaning on the counter next to me, our shoulders touching, said, “Scroll back up a ways, get it from the beginning.”

I started to do that, and realized their chatter seemed to extend back to the beginning of time. I decided on an arbitrary starting point and started reading.

There was a time gap indicated in the message stream. The following day the conversation resumed.

Another time gap of a few hours. Then:

I said to Donna: “Laptop.”

She grabbed it off the kitchen table and set it in front of me. I went to Google maps and entered “Canoga Springs.”

“It’s in the Finger Lakes area,” I said. “Yeah, here we go. On the west side of Cayuga Lake. Couple hours’ drive, maybe. Not all that far from where Dennis’ dad lives. Good place to hide out.”

“You think they’re still there?” Donna asked.

“I’d bet yes.”

I went to Facebook, back to Claire Sanders’ page, entered the name “Jeremy” to see if she had a friend by that name. I found a Jeremy Finder, who lived in Rochester. Then I went to the online phone directory to see if there might be a Finder listed in the Cayuga Lake area, and found an M FINDER on North Parker Road. I went back to the map page and found the road.

“Ta-da,” I said, pointing to the screen.

I got out my cell and placed a call.

“Didn’t we just talk?” Augie said.

“Why are you looking for Dennis Mullavey?”

“Who?”

“Dennis Mullavey.”

“I have no idea who that is,” he said gruffly.

“You sent one of your people almost all the way to Rochester to try and find him.”

“I’m drawing a blank here, Cal.”

I was about to tell him what I’d found in my car, taped to the frame beneath the rear seat, but then held my tongue. He seemed to be playing straight with me lately. He’d gotten me out of a tight fix when I’d been in that interrogation room. He’d brought me up to speed on Quinn.

But the Griffon police were looking for Dennis Mullavey. And those text messages between Claire and Dennis seemed to confirm that they were following her in hopes that she would lead them to him.

Augie knew I was looking for Claire. Why not slap a GPS on my car and let me do the work for his department? Maybe that was why he’d lied to save my ass when Haines and Brindle had brought me in for threatening Russell Tapscott. Augie needed me out in the field.

“You still there?” Augie snapped.

“Yeah.”

“Was there something else?”

“Why’d you really lie to get me out of that mess, Augie?”

“What?”

“Because I’m family? Or did you need me to do your work for you?”

“By God, you’re a horse’s ass.”

Augie hung up.

When he and I had talked earlier, and he’d told me Quinn denied telling Brindle and Haines that the chief wanted my car towed in, I’d brilliantly deduced that someone had to be lying. I’d meant Quinn, or Brindle or Haines.

I’d left out someone.

“You didn’t tell my brother about that GPS thing,” Donna said.

“No,” I said. “Slipped my mind.”