Dangerous Friends (A Carlos McCrary novel Book 4) Read online

  The next book was Forests for Florida’s Future. The book jacket promised “Examination of current environmental issues impacting community decisions regarding Florida forest resources. Each issue will be examined within a framework of human behavior, policy options, and media messages. Students will learn to understand key issues and analyze major ecological variables.” Nothing hidden in its pages either.

  I was getting woozy from reading the covers. I didn’t read the rest, just flipped through the pages. The next to last book was marked with a sheet torn off a lined pad with a handwritten note: James 55-22-16. Not a bible verse, maybe a combination to his school locker? I stuck it in my pocket.

  The bottom shelf held more shoes, a stack of coloring books from her pre-school days, and a bunch of journals. I made a note about the journals; we could read them later if necessary. I looked inside the shoes; found a penny in one. I finished the bottom shelf, moved to the bed, and searched the books there. I placed them on the shelf as I finished. “Snoop, there’s plenty of room on these shelves for these books she’s thrown on the bed. Why doesn’t she shelve them?”

  “I already told you, Chuck. She’s a teenager; they don’t think like humans.” He grabbed more clothes off the floor and searched the pockets. “Whoa, what’s this?” He pulled out a three-pack of foil-wrapped condoms from a pair of cargo shorts. “Well, that answers that question. John ain’t gonna like this.” He snapped a photo, then put the condoms back where he’d found them.

  I grabbed the shoes off the floor and dumped them on the bed for an easier search. I found her stash in the toe of an old pair of sneakers. “Snoop, take a look.”

  Snoop opened the baggie and stuck his nose in. “Pretty good quality weed.” He took a picture and handed the baggie back to me.

  As I finished each pair of shoes, I placed it in an empty shoe rack on the closet floor. “She has shoe racks. Why doesn’t she use them?”

  “You know my daughters. Teenagers are a different species.”

  Halfway through the shoes, I found a yellow pill bottle stuffed in the toe of one. The prescription label had been peeled off. The bottle held six pink pills with OC on one side and 20 on the other. “Snoop, I’m no expert on prescription drugs, but these look like twenty-milligram Oxycodone tablets.” I handed him the bottle.

  He opened the childproof cap and dumped a tablet into his hand. He photographed the tablet and the bottle, then put the pill back. “I’ve seen enough, Chuck. You seen enough?”

  “Yeah. Even if she hasn’t run away, she’s in trouble. Sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll. Let’s go talk to John.”

  John was in the kitchen. “Want coffee, guys?”

  “A little cream, no sugar for me.”

  Snoop drank his black.

  “John,” I said, “we found a few things in Michelle’s room that you need to know about.”

  He swallowed. “What things?”

  “Snoop, show him the first photo.”

  Snoop had transferred the photos to his laptop, which he opened on the kitchen table. He rotated the laptop toward John.

  John looked at the screen. “That looks like a pack of condoms.”

  “It is,” I said. “Those condoms are sold in boxes of six. There are three left.”

  John frowned. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “It is what it is. Snoop, show him the next photo.” He did.

  “What’s in the baggie?” John asked.

  “Marijuana. Snoop, show him the last picture.”

  “Is that what I think it is?”

  “Oxycodone,” Snoop answered.

  “Jesus H. Christ.” John put his face in his hands, elbows on the kitchen table.

  “John, is Michelle’s phone on your family plan?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Let me pull up your account on the phone company’s website. Let’s see what numbers she’s been calling.”

  John gave me his login and password.

  I set up my laptop across from Snoop’s. “She called three numbers a lot the last week. Texted them too.” I read off the numbers.

  Snoop wrote them down. “I’ll do a reverse lookup.” He punched his keyboard. “Katherine Shamanski is the first one.”

  I turned to John. “You know her?”

  “Nope.”

  “No problem,” Snoop said. “That’s why Al Gore invented the internet. She’s a student at UAC. I’ll check her Facebook page… Shamanski’s a senior and she majors in environmental studies like Michelle.”

  I made notes. “Shamanski could be a classmate, but there aren’t many classes that seniors and freshmen would both take. You got an address, Snoop?”

  “Yeah. I’ll check it on the map… She’s got an apartment near campus. Here’s her picture.” He turned the computer toward John. “You ever see her with Michelle?”

  John studied the screen. “No.”

  “I’ll print off a copy.” He tapped the keyboard. “The next number is a James Ponder.”

  I turned to John and raised an eyebrow.

  “No, I don’t know him either.”

  Snoop showed John the computer screen again. John shook his head. Snoop printed the photo.

  “Maybe he’s the James on this note.” I showed John the scrap of paper I had taken from Michelle’s room.

  “Could that be a bible verse?” he asked.

  “Bible verses have two numbers—chapter and verse. I don’t know what this is. That’s why I kept it.”

  Snoop punched a few keys. “Ponder is a graduate teaching assistant in, wait for it… environmental studies. My god, his picture looks like he’s Taliban, except he’s wearing a peace symbol on a chain instead of an AK-47.”

  Snoop printed the photo. “Ponder is twenty-nine years old.”

  “Maybe he’s a professional student,” I observed. “Where does he live?”

  Snoop punched the keyboard. “A house near campus. Okay, the next number belongs to Steven Wallace… That’s Doctor Steven Wallace. Teaches environmental studies at UAC. Michelle called him several times a day for the last four days.”

  “John, it sounds like Michelle hangs out with an older crowd. Does that seem like her?”

  “In high school she had lots of friends her own age,” he said, “but I don’t know any of her college friends.”

  “Oh, wait, some calls were Dr. Wallace calling her,” said Snoop.

  I asked, “Why would she telephone a professor on the weekend? Especially the weekend before spring break? And why would he call her? Classes aren’t scheduled for another week.”

  John set down his coffee. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

  Chapter 5

  “Michelle, this is Chuck McCrary. I’m the private investigator you met at your grandfather’s Super Bowl party. Call me back when you get this message. Your parents are worried.” I disconnected, then texted the same message. “That’s all I can do, John. Her phone rings at least once, so it’s turned on. She sees who the caller is, then rejects the call. If her phone were turned off, it would go straight to voicemail without ringing.”

  “She obviously doesn’t want to talk to either one of us,” John said. “Oh, geez, look at the time. Penny will be home any second, and it’s my turn to cook.”

  “Okay. I’ll go find Michelle.” I grabbed the slip of paper. “I have three names and addresses near campus. She’s likely at one of those.”

  “Should I call those other three people?” asked John. “See if Mickie’s with one of them?”

  “They wouldn’t talk to you either. Something smells like three-day-old fish. I understand Michelle being friends with a senior in the same major. Maybe they belong to the same student club. Maybe Shamanski’s a mentor. But, if you add in an older, male graduate assistant to the mix, it gets a little hinky. The guy’s practically my age. Although a student organization fits the bill. Ponder or Wallace might be a faculty sponsor. Otherwise, what interest would a tenured college professor have in a freshman woman?
Unless he’s a dirty old man. If he’s tenured, he’s old enough to be her father. This is a rarified atmosphere for Michelle to be breathing.”

  I turned to Snoop. “When you get back home, research everything you can find on Shamanski, Ponder, and Wallace.” I grabbed my briefcase. “I’ll check these three addresses.”

  John shook my hand. “Bring her home, Chuck.”

  “Don’t expect too much, John. She’s a legal adult. I’ll make sure she’s okay, and I’ll ask her to call you, but I can’t make her come home if she doesn’t want to.”

  Wallace lived near downtown. I decided to check nearer to UAC first. Shamanski’s apartment was a mile from campus. I cruised the parking lot for Michelle’s car—her father had given me the license plate and a description. No joy.

  I found Michelle’s car parked in the driveway at the second address I checked. She had a Save Our Seas specialty license plate on a very used Honda Civic. A bumper sticker read Today’s Environmentalists Are Tomorrow’s Heroes. At least she believed in something. Maybe she wanted to be the poster child for political correctness on campus.

  Ponder’s address was a two-story, shingle-sided Craftsman-style house that must have been a hundred years old. It looked every bit of its age. A wooden shutter on the second floor hung by one hinge. Behind it, I saw the original dark brown color of the siding. The rest of the siding had weathered to a hopeless beige. The exposed roof rafters were moldy where the paint had peeled. The composition roof was on its last legs, judging from the number of patches. The square wooden posts supporting the porch roof had warped and split. The front steps had been replaced with concrete ones, now cracked and settled with a large split down one side. Weeds and bare earth had replaced the lawn.

  Gentrification had not hit this neighborhood.

  I wanted to find Michelle, but part of me hoped she wasn’t inside this ramshackle heap. The bright, sunny girl I had met at Hank’s Super Bowl party shouldn’t be in this miserable excuse for a house, even for a short while.

  I had driven my anonymous white minivan, one of a bazillion others. I parked seventy-five yards up the street and watched the house for a while.

  My stomach growled as a ragged old woman trudged down the street pushing a wobbly grocery cart. Two black plastic garbage bags, containing all she owned in the world, hung from the cart. She stopped the cart, straightened up, and rubbed the small of her back with both hands. She stretched, then pushed aside the overgrown branches of a neglected Ixora bush to retrieve a faded aluminum can hidden among the discarded plastic bags and scraps of paper. She tossed it into the cart.

  I got out of the van when she got closer. “Ma’am?”

  She looked up at me.

  “What brand of can did you just find?”

  She peered into the cart and picked up the faded can. “Looks like a Diet Coke.”

  “I’ll give you ten dollars for it.”

  “It’s only worth a dime.”

  “I’ll give you ten dollars for that can.”

  She shrugged and handed it to me.

  I handed her the ten, returned to the van, and tossed the can in the litterbag. Maybe she could have a good meal tonight even if I couldn’t.

  Another hour passed and the street remained as deserted as a ghost town. I missed the old homeless woman. My stomach complained some more.

  After sunset, lights came on in the rear windows on the second floor of Ponder’s house.

  I parked behind Michelle’s Civic and climbed the concrete steps. The entire first floor was dark. The doorbell was the old-fashioned type that you had to twist like you were winding an alarm clock. I twisted twice and waited. I felt faint footsteps vibrate through the porch floorboards, but no one came to the door. I twisted the bell again. Same vibrations. I heard an upstairs window scuff open and then close. Someone had looked out at the street. They must have seen my van parked behind Michelle’s Honda, but no one came to the door.

  I tested the screen door handle. Unlocked. I rapped on the wooden doorframe. It rattled like it was barely fastened to the wall. “Hello. Anybody home?” This time I heard the floorboards creak from the upstairs, but no one appeared.

  I swung the screen door open and stepped inside. I wasn’t breaking and entering; the door was unlocked. I shined a Maglite around the square foyer. Dark-stained, Florida heart pine floors scratched and worn with age. Double-wide pocket doors opened onto a parlor on the left. A wide wooden staircase climbed up the left wall of the central hall. I flicked the light switch at the bottom of the stairs. “Hello. I’m coming up. Anybody home up there?”

  I’d climbed halfway up the stairs when a shirtless man banged open a door at the rear of the second floor. He blinked in the hall light. Eyes sensitive to light—a sign he was high. A peace symbol on a chain around his neck peaked out from behind his scruffy beard. Snoop was right. In real life he looked even more like a Taliban. The man shut the door behind him and stood by the window at the rear of the central hall. He spread his feet apart, swaying. He steadied himself with one hand against a side wall.

  “Who the hell are you?” he asked, too loudly.

  I held out a business card and kept climbing the stairs.

  He wore ragged cut-off jeans. Not fashionable cut-offs; just worn-out pants like a homeless person. He didn’t look like any graduate assistant I had when I was at the University of Florida.

  “I’m Chuck McCrary. I’m here to speak to Michelle Babcock, please.”

  “There’s nobody here by that name. You’re trespassing.” His brown eyes were wide and darted back and forth. I wondered what he was high on. Then I wondered why I wondered; it made no difference.

  “When will she be back?”

  He raised his voice. “I don’t know any Michelle Babcock.”

  He didn’t hesitate at the name. It was familiar to him.

  I reached the top of the stairs. “Are you James Ponder?” I extended my business card toward him. He ignored it.

  “Don’t know anybody by that name either.”

  “Is James Ponder in?”

  He balled his hands into fists. “Who wants to know, asshole?”

  “You always this polite to strangers?” I reached the top of the stairs.

  Dirty bare feet completed his ensemble. He raised a fist. “You’re trespassing. Get the hell outta here.”

  “I’ll leave after I talk to Michelle. Fair enough?”

  “You’ll leave anyway, asshole. I’m gonna call the cops.”

  Mister Hospitality has a limited vocabulary, I thought. “Go ahead, call them. I’ll wait.” I sidestepped to the center of the hall, staking a claim to his space. I leaned against the banister and crossed my arms.

  He looked a little perplexed.

  “If you’re not James Ponder, who are you?” I asked.

  He didn’t answer. His gaze jerked from side to side across the hallway, passed over me each time like a searchlight.

  “I’ll call you Whiskers. Go ahead and call the cops, Whiskers. Or we could be civil to each other. Either way, I’ll wait here until I see that Michelle is okay.”

  “Shit, I’ll throw you out myself, asshole.” He pushed off the wall and gathered his balance.

  Maybe he was used to the Taliban beard and the wild eyes scaring people off.

  “Don’t be stupid, Whiskers. The drugs you took make you aggressive. I don’t want to hurt you. I only want to make sure Michelle is okay.”

  He doubled both fists and charged like a berserk bull.

  I sidestepped and he slammed into the banister, smashing his groin. I’d seen people so high on drugs that their pain receptors shut off. His balls would be sore as a boil when he came down off his trip. As high as he was, if I had been at the top of the open stairwell when he charged, he would’ve tumbled down the stairs.

  I set my business card on the stair rail. I wanted this idiot to remember who I was. I stepped a few feet away. “Where is Michelle?”

  He rose to his hands and knees. He strugg
led to his feet, stepped toward me, and swung his right fist.

  This time I caught the swing on my left forearm and hit him in the solar plexus with my right. I pulled the punch. I didn’t want to send him in the hospital; I just wanted to stop him.

  He crumpled to the wooden floor and curled into a ball.

  The door at the rear clicked opened. “James, what’s going on out there?” Michelle stepped into the hall. “Hello, Chuck. I saw your text earlier. I thought it might be you.”

  Chapter 6

  Michelle had changed since I had met her at Hank Hickham’s Super Bowl party. Her hair was a little longer, and she wore it in a single braid. She wore a peace symbol necklace identical to Ponder’s. Her green tee-shirt trumpeted, “Mother Earth does not belong to us; we belong to Mother Earth” in gold letters. Trained observer that I am, I noticed she was not wearing a bra. I was careful not to leer. Reading a tee-shirt is not leering Her shorts were a fashionable white raw silk. Her gold-trimmed leather sandals revealed that her feet were clean, unlike her boyfriend’s.

  “What’re you doing here, Chuck?”

  “Your father asked me to find you and make sure you’re okay. He’s worried.”

  “Tell Daddy I’m fine.” Her eyes were very bright, very wide.

  Is she high too? I pointed at Whiskers. “I presume that Mr. Congeniality here is James Ponder?”

  “Yes. Have you two met?” She glanced down at Ponder, who was having trouble getting to his knees.

  “Briefly, when he attacked me.”

  “You’ll have to forgive James. Sometimes I think he gets off more on adrenaline than he does from having sex with me.”