Hostage

13

The drum wrench guy told Retro everything he knew, but it didn’t turn out to be much. He’d seen everything from a distance, from the second floor of the old brick building. He saw Vaughan go down, and then he saw a man with a sleeveless shirt put her in the back seat of the police car and drive away. And that was about it. Not much help. He did say that the car continued in the direction it was pointed, east toward the station. Which meant that it might be in Missouri by now, or hundreds of miles in some other direction, but Retro didn’t think so. The car had to be somewhere nearby. Vaughan was either still with it, or she had been transferred to another vehicle. If she was still with it, she was probably dead. If she had been transferred, there might still be a chance. Either way, the man who’d carjacked the cruiser couldn’t have driven it far. If he’d taken it out on the highway somewhere, it would have been spotted by now.

After escorting the ambulance to the hospital and getting all the paperwork squared away, Retro rode by Vaughan’s house, just to make sure the car wasn’t there in the driveway.

It wasn’t.

Retro knew it wouldn’t be, but he had to check. He parked at the curb and got out and peeked in the garage window and knocked on the front door.

Nothing.

He thought about the times he’d been to Vaughan’s house as a guest. The parties, the barbecues. Vaughan liked to laugh and have a good time, although there always seemed to be some sort of intense emotional pain just beyond the facade. Because of what had happened to her husband, Retro supposed. It was the same underlying sadness he saw in his own eyes when he looked in the mirror. It was a bond he and Vaughan shared. The life-shattering finality of irretrievable loss. They’d never talked about it, but maybe they would some day. Maybe on the phone after Retro moved to Florida. Maybe time and distance would allow them to open up to each other.

As Retro turned to walk back to his car, the woman living in the house next door stepped out to her porch and asked him if everything was all right.

“Have you seen Ms. Vaughan today?” Retro said.

“No. I haven’t seen her since she left for work yesterday evening. I was carrying some groceries into the house as she was backing out of the driveway. She waved, but I couldn’t wave back because my hands were full. I smiled, though, and then I saw her smile back at me. I think it’s good for neighbors to be friendly with each other, don’t you?”

“Yes ma’am. Give us a call if you happen to see Ms. Vaughan.”

“Is she missing?”

“Yes. Since early this morning. We’ve put the word out on radio and TV, hoping we might be able to get some help from the community.”

“We’ve been neighbors for a long time, and I’ve always worried about her doing that kind of work.”

“Let us know if you see or hear anything.”

“I certainly will, officer. I certainly will.”

Retro tipped his hat, walked back to his car and climbed in and drove to the diner. This time he walked past the counter and took a seat in the booth reserved for the department. The place was starting to fill up with the early dinner crowd.

The same waitress Retro had spoken to earlier brought him a glass of water and a menu. He handed the menu back without looking at it and ordered a fish sandwich with fries and a cup of coffee.

“What’s your name?” he said.

“Mira.”

“I was wondering if I could talk to you for a few minutes.”

“Sure. Let me just go ahead and put your order in real quick.”

“Okay.”

She disappeared behind the partition that divided the dining area from the kitchen, came back a couple of minutes later carrying the coffee Retro had ordered and a humungous plastic tumbler filled with some kind of soft drink for herself.

She slid into the booth across from Retro.

“Have you found that female officer yet?” she said.

“Officer Vaughan. Not yet. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“We have a TV in back. They were talking about it on the news a while ago. It’s kind of freaking me out, if you want to know the truth. I have two little kids, and the low crime rate was one of the reasons I moved here. I thought Hope was just a nice little town where nothing like this ever happened.”

“It is a nice little town,” Retro said. “And nothing like this has ever happened before.”

“I guess it just goes to show that bad things can happen anywhere.”

Retro nodded, took a sip from his coffee cup. “You said you saw Officer Vaughan arresting the man who’d defaced the sidewalk and the fire hydrant out there. Did you get a good look at the guy?”

“He had jeans on, I think, and a flannel shirt with no sleeves. Muscular arms, like maybe he did some kind of hard work at one time.”

“Any tattoos?”

“I didn’t notice any.”

“What about his face?” Retro said.

“He wasn’t what you would call handsome. But he wasn’t ugly, either. Just a regular guy. Kind of average, I guess. His hair was dark and cut short like yours.”

“Facial hair? Piercings? Anything like that?”

“I don’t think so. Oh, but there was something on his neck. Like a bandage or something.”

“A bandage?”

“Yeah. You know, gauze and surgical tape and all that. It was professional looking, like maybe he’d been at a doctor’s office or a hospital or something.”

“You’re doing good,” Retro said. “Those are the kinds of details we need. Do you think you could describe the man’s features to a police sketch artist?”

“I could try.”

“What time do you get off?”

“I should have been off already, but one of the servers didn’t show up for work this evening. I was just sticking around to make a little extra money, but it’s really not that busy. I can probably leave whenever I want to.”

“Could you put my sandwich in a go box and ride over to the station with me?” Retro said.

“I’ll have to call my babysitter and make sure she can stay for a while, but I don’t think it’ll be a problem.”

“Great. Go ahead and make your call, and then let me know.”

“Okay.”

Mira scooted out of the booth and walked back toward the waitress station. Retro was glad he’d taken the time to come back to the diner and question her some more. If she could provide enough details for the artist, maybe the state police could get a drawing out to the media in time for the ten o’clock news.

And then maybe some calls would come in, and maybe they could catch this guy before it was too late.