Without Trace Page 12

  Leneld turned back and saw that a police car had pulled up next to Grandma Willie.

  “Come with me, “Arwain said, and took off running.

  Arwain was swift, but Leneld caught up to her in half a block and said, “Geez! Don’t run at the police.”

  “Sorry. Wasn’t thinking.”

  She slowed to a walk. As they approached the scene, Arwain called, “Ma’am, we’re here. Do you need help?”

  A red-headed policeman turned toward them, gestured for them to stop and said. “Jones, right?”

  Arwain looked puzzled. “Yes, but...”

  Grandma Willie said, “Captain Reese will finish what we’re doing here. Then I’ll explain.” She turned toward Leneld and said, “This is the young man I asked to try to make the buy.”

  Captain Reese said, “I’ll need a statement from you, sir. But first,” he straightened to his whole five-foot-five height and called toward the police vehicle. “Officer Seneca, can we get this man into the vehicle.”

  A second officer appeared from behind the police car. The officer, Seneca, straightened his cap over his spikey dark hair, wiped his face with a long-fingered hand and strode toward the fellow on the sidewalk.

  Leneld got a kick out of the appreciative glance that Officer Seneca sent toward Arwain. The guy clearly was impressed by what he saw, and Leneld, thought, why not. Glyn’s older sister had always been a stunner.

  Seneca took one more look at Arwain, and then bent over to lift the arrested man from the sidewalk and help him walk into the back seat.

  He pushed the man’s head down to get him below the car top and then buckled him in.

  Door closed, the officer rang the keys at his captain and said. “I’ll be in the vehicle. Nice to meet you finally, Miss Jones.”

  Arwain stared at him and then back at the captain. Her grandma shook her head. “Later.”

  As soon as Officer Seneca sat in the driver’s seat and had the door closed, Grandma Willie said, “That was Officer Sidney Oberon Seneca. This is Captain Rob Reese. My granddaughter, Arwain Titania Jones, and my friend Leneld Abu.”

  “Good to meet you all.” Captain Reese said, and then towered over Grandma Willie. “Explain. The man said you assaulted him.”

  “I told him to sit. He wouldn’t, so I lifted my walker and pointed it at him. He fell from shock. Didn’t have a clue what an old lady might do.”

  Reese said, “I’ll bet. Now tell me what Miss Jones is doing here.”

  Leneld let Grandma Willie do the explaining. He heard the said and the unsaid and decided to act accordingly.

  According to Grandma Willie, Leneld had been sent by her to stall the guy who was following Arwain. The suggestion to buy drugs had been made by her as a strategic move to keep Arwain safe. When the man actually produced the drugs from his pocket, Grandma Willie thought she ought to do her duty as an honorary deputy of the County Sheriff’s office.

  “In the jurisdiction of the Portland Police?” Reese asked.

  “Well, of course the jurisdictional problem was why I called you before I got out of the car.”

  Finally, Arwain spoke. “Captain Reese, I’m sure the man in your car, and the man I followed to the apartment door near the pharmacy, both know something about our missing friend. I hope they can be questioned separately about that.”

  Captain Reese lowered his head and then looked over his glasses at Grandma Willie. “Mrs. Stamps, what is it you have not been telling me?”

  Chapter Nineteen

  At the police station, Grandma Willie, Leneld and Arwain waited for Glyn to arrive from Holly Hill, so the whole story could be told to Captain Reese and Officer Seneca.

  The benches where they sat were not exactly designed to put visitors at rest, so Arwain rolled up her coat for Grandma Willie to rest her head and Leneld covered her with his coat. He and Arwain sat on the other bench.

  “Arresting people takes it out of you, I guess,” Leneld said, as he watched Grandma Willie sleep.

  “This whole situation probably has finally hit her,” Arwain whispered. “She and Geneva were good friends until about three months ago. So there’s a fragile friend and two missing kids that she cares about.”

  Dark hair now slicked down, Officer Seneca brought them coffee and water and pretty much anything else he could think of.

  Leneld noticed. He also noticed that Officer Seneca turned up the heat in the waiting room as he glanced at Arwain.

  Leneld whispered to Arwain “Really? Sidney Oberon Seneca? What are the chances, Arwain Titania?”

  “Hush your mouth,” Arwain said. “You mention that to him, and I’ll whup you upside your head.”

  Leneld laughed. “You were pretty much fated to meet, especially since your grandmother knows both of you. She’s probably had this guy in her back pocket for years, just waiting to spring him on you.”

  “What was his mother thinking?”

  “In your case, it was your father. Glyn Dower and Arwain Titania Jones. What a pair of names that makes. Your senior year the awards assembly was a hoot. It got to where the audience could hardly contain themselves. Looked like Titania, the Queen of the Fairies had bewitched the math department, the history department and the athletic department all at once.”

  “Yeah, well I didn’t bewitch them enough. I asked them to drop my middle name out of the records back when I was in first grade, but no... each principal along the way got enough of a kick out of it they had to torture me with it every time I got into trouble, and every time I earned something.”

  “Just about makes you want to stop earning.”

  “Name’s gone from the records now. It took fifty dollars and turning twenty-one to get that taken care of.”

  “Trouble is, Grandma Willie doesn’t know it’s gone, so Officer Sidney is gonna know that name and you’re stuck for life.”

  Arwain glared her disgust at Leneld.

  Just then, Officer Sidney Oberon Seneca stood in front of Leneld and Arwain saying, “May I get you anything?”

  Arwain put a hand on Leneld’s arm and said, “Would you get my Leneld, a coke? He’s very thirsty.”

  Leneld looked at her, startled. Then he smiled up at Oberon and said, “A coke would be great. And I bet Arwain wouldn’t mind one, would you love?”

  Officer Seneca backed up, “Uh, sure. Sure. Be right back.”

  As he wobbled off down the hall, Arwain watched his back.

  “Poor Oberon,” Leneld said, “Titania and Puck have struck again. Now, don’t you feel sorry for that guy.”

  “Not yet.”

  Leneld leaned back, smiling. He’d always liked Glyn’s big sister, but he hadn’t really appreciated her wit until this moment.

  How’d she do that? He laughed to himself. All she had to say was ‘My Leneld,’ and the guy is certain we two are an item even with a big difference in our ages. Arwain is as good at simpering as her grandmother is at playing the old street lady. Two actors in one family.

  Glyn pushed through the swinging door, dropped his change and his keys in the plastic box, strolled through the metal detector toward the clerk’s desk and started to talk when Arwain jumped to his side. “Keep your voice down. Grandma is sleeping.”

  He turned to take that in. “She okay?”

  “Exhausted by everything.”

  The clerk at the desk whispered, “Sir, would you sign in?”

  As soon as he signed his name, the clerk picked up a phone and said, “Captain Reese, your man is here.”

  For a moment, the three of them stood and watched Grandma Willie sleep. Leneld felt each of them thinking, “What is too much for her?”

  **

  As she slept, Glyn saw Officer Bailey rolling down the hall toward them. Glyn said to the desk man, “Bailey here has it in for my Grandma for some reason. Can you get him to leave her alone and keep his voice down?”

  “Do my best. But Bailey is his own drum major on the march through life and the law.”

  Glyn raised an
eyebrow at the guy. “Did you take her writing class?”

  “Yep. Stick-with-your-metaphor-Stamps, we called her. She’s the band leader, for those who get the beat.”

  Glyn smiled, but stared toward the approaching Bailey. So, the desk man stepped out from behind the desk, stood between Grandma and Bailey and said, “They want you in records.”

  “Whaa? Why?”

  “Missing info, I guess. Don’t know which ...”

  “Damnation!” Bailey turned on his heel and retraced his steps.

  Thanks,” Glyn mouthed.

  The officer said, “For him, it’s always missing records.”

  Glyn chuckled. He understood Bailey’s beef with Grandma Willie.

  A few catnap minutes later, Captain Reese came through the swinging doors from the back offices. He glanced at the sleeping form on the bench and said, “Should I be getting an ambulance?”

  Willie opened her eyes and said, “Fifteen minutes is enough renewal time.” Then she turned toward the desk man. “Nice music metaphor – band leader and beat. Officer Simon, you should take up writing for fun.”

  He laughed. “When I retire, maybe.”

  “A diary now will give you a lifetime of stories for age sixty to ninety.”

  “Ninety, eh?” Officer Simon said.

  “If you give up the cigarettes and roll stories instead.”

  “Grandma . . .,” Glyn said.

  She sat up and held the overcoat out toward Leneld. “I know. Business.”

  Leneld took the coat. Arwain offered the arm, and Glyn grabbed up her ‘portmanteau’.

  **

  Hours later, the skinny man sweated in a cell. He’d been accused of selling cocaine. He talked, but Officer Seneca said the guy really didn’t know beyond his confederate and Heinrich Strauss, also known as Big Gut/Small Pants. They’d have to get more on Strauss.

  “Hard to make Strauss sweat,” Seneca said.

  As soon as they left the police station, Grandma sent Glyn, Arwain and Leneld to Holly Hill with Arwain driving her car. Grandma took a cab, going somewhere to visit Geneva and Geneva’s friend, she had said, as she waved them all off to their homes.

  Geneva taking a vacation somewhere in the city puzzled Glyn, but it was clear to him that Grandma wasn’t going to tell him anything more about Geneva.

  Glyn sat in the Holly Hill Retirement Home Library doing his chemistry homework. Grandma came back, said hello and then elevated up to read to her friends in the Alzheimers’ apartments.

  Earlier in the week, Glyn had seen that the chemistry teacher, Mr. Ventura had softened his stance since he understood why his three students were not coming into the building. He helped Mrs. Price gather the homework for them. But he still insisted on high standards of work, so Glyn read the chemistry book with his pencil in hand.

  Glyn figured out long ago that he learned best by drawing whatever the stuffy books were talking about, so he had cartoons in his notebook of atoms banging into each other and then sticking. In his cartoons, of course, they stuck because of a candy coating, but that stood in for the valences of the various atoms. One layer of candy coating for hydrogen, three for nitrogen and four for carbon.

  Or so he hoped ...

  He glanced around the library of the retirement home. He’d already figured out that much of the library content had been donated by his grandfather and grandmother when they closed their house to move in here.

  The whole sheet music section had been that of Grandpa Clifford, tenor and piano player. All the theater plays, and the British and American literature had been Grandma Willie’s.

  But he was pretty certain that Grandma Willie didn’t donate the computer that sat on one of the desks. She didn’t like things that ran on invisible sources of information. The idea that you could pull information down from a satellite made her suspicious.

  “Who knows who put that information up there?” she’d said, “An encyclopedia has been vetted. Who vets the wackos who write on the internet?”

  And, of course, she was right. You couldn’t always spot a wacko. Some were very clever.

  That made Glyn think about Geneva. What if Geneva’s Nazi conspiracy ideas came from some place on the internet?

  Glyn moved over to the computer table and opened the thing up. He soon realized that he could see the most recent searches that anyone had done, but he couldn’t know who had done them.

  There were many searches to the Wiesenthal Center, which he thought might have been Geneva’s looking. There were searches for the annual financial report of various Portland companies, by who knew which resident, and a recent search into Argentine composers. Maybe that was Mr. Stapleton. Glyn didn’t know all the residents, so couldn’t guess who else might be interested in music.

  Then, he realized that each person who used this computer had his or her own email and could sign in with a password.

  He debated for a while, and then decided that if Geneva herself was being threatened and thus become paranoid, he might find the source and the threat. Also, Geneva had accused his grandmother of many things and he should see where she got those ideas.

  He opened the email program and signed in as Geneva Oppenheim. The program asked for a password. He thought a moment and then tried Mittle.

  Wrong.

  He tried Peenemünde.

  Wrong again. He probably had one try left on this sign in. The email program wisely discouraged guessing.

  He tried Mittlebau.

  And the machine began whirring through its opening motions.

  He felt like an intrusive ghoul, and almost closed the machine, but up popped her email inbox and the first email subject line made him stop.

  Immigration status of Wilhalmena Stamps.

  Glyn opened the email. It was from another person with a German last name, Hensel Heinke.

  Wilamena, Wilhelmina or Wilhalmena Stamps turns up no person of her age in the immigration records. A Stamps family once lived in Stamps, Arkansas, but left for Levi, Texas after the war between the states (1860-65). We think your requested search subject may be Wilhalmena, granddaughter of Malka Silverberg and Orin Chapline, daughter of Sidney and Edna Chapline Stamps, and sister of the artist, Scott Arthur (who died in the Philippines prisoner of war camp during World War Two.) She married Clifford Wheeler Williams of Colorado Springs, Colorado, but unlike most of her generation, insisted on keeping her own last name.

  Glyn realized this Hensel Heinke had done his homework. He had exactly the right Wilhalmena Stamps. Her insistence on remaining a Stamps was spot on. Grandma Willie and Grandpa Clifford had agreed on this. “Her own free spirit with her own name,” Grandpa used to say, and then he teased her, “Can’t sully the upstanding Williams name when you poke into things, right?”

  “And, nobody can give you credit for what I discover either, eh?” she’d said.

  And then, they always laughed.

  Glyn hoped that Geneva Oppenheim had seen this email. It should help her believe that Grandma was not the enemy.

  That one email kept Glyn poking. Pretty soon, as he opened each email, he printed it out, getting up to check the printer each time, because the thing was balky.

  He arrived at another Heinke email with the subject Immigration status of Leah Müller. At that moment, the library door swung open and in marched Miss Müller.

  Glyn signed out of Geneva’s email and stood up. He reached the papers on the printer as Miss Müller said, “You are supposed to be in the kitchen.”

  Glyn didn’t turn around, he merely stacked his papers, ‘officiously’, as Grandma would have described it.

  “Knabe, did you hear me?”

  He knew that in German she was calling him Boy, but he said nothing. Put his papers in his school bag, returned to his desk and sat down to resume his chemistry homework.

  “Are you deaf?”

  He glanced up. “Oh. Hello, Miss M­­üller. I’m glad to see you.”

  “You work in the kitchen.”

 
; “I do homework in the library.”

  “The help...”

  “I can help you with something, if you like.”

  He stood from his chemistry, went to the swinging doors and opened them wide, propped them open and then said. “These are getting squeaky, aren’t they?”

  A few people sat in the lounge outside the library, which is what he hoped for. They perked up from whatever magazine or nap they indulged. One of them was Henry Crick, the taxi driver.

  “Can you bring an oil can, Henry?” Glyn asked. “I think we could use it on the hinges.”

  “Sure,” Henry said. “Glad to be of help.”

  “Knabe...” Leah said.

  “You have the wrong person. I am Glyn. Glyn Jones. We’ve met before, as you run up and down the stairs.”

  He returned to his chemistry homework, leaving the doors wide open. “I really need to finish my homework,” he said. “I think the books here use the Dewey Decimal system, but I can help you find any if you like.”

  She glared at him.

  “It’s basically 100s for philosophy, 400s for languages and 900s for history.”

  She raised her shoulders as if preparing a loud speech.

  He added, “Science is in the middle there somewhere. Probably 500s.”

  She stormed out.

  Glyn pretended not to notice, finished his chemistry, put it in an addressed envelope, grabbed his stuff and began on his history homework.

  He glanced up in time to see Henry Crick oiling the library doors.

  “Thanks,” Glyn said. “Where’d you get oil so fast?”

  “Always keep it in my taxi-cab just in case.”

  Glyn frowned. “I thought your daughter was selling your cab.”

  “My daughter’s got nothing to do with my cab. She’d like to control her old man, but she has enough trouble controlling herself, so I’m keeping the cab and she just keeps on talking about getting rid of it.”

  “I’m glad to hear you still have it.”

  “Yes, and your grandmother is helping me keep it. Takes taxi rides and writes me checks to prove it is still useful.”

  Glyn chuckled. “Yeah, Grandma Willie finds a way to solve most problems.”