I didn’t get to ask him to call me when he found out the answer. No matter, I would get it out of him later.
I drove straight from Danny’s school to Erica’s apartment, hoping to see the Porsche back in the driveway. It wasn’t. I did see tire tracks on the driveway and footprints in the dusting of snow leading to her door.
I leapt out of the car and rushed onto the front porch. No one responded to my hammering on the door. I fished out my key and unlocked it.
Inside, the living room appeared the same, just dusty and unoccupied, as was the kitchen. Her bedroom and bath were another matter.
The mirror over her dresser now lay in pieces. Her dresser drawers hung open and empty. The bathroom vanity mirror had also been smashed. I surmised that the stiletto heel lying in the sink had been used to do the deed.
All of Erica’s toiletries were missing. Only their lavender scent lingered in the air. Her suitcases were gone too. The remaining clothes lay strewn about the bedroom floor, still on the hangers, as if they’d been considered for packing and dismissed. Her discarded shoes were heaped in a pile in front of her closet.
I sank onto the corner of her bed and surveyed the damage.
If I called Ray, he would ask if I saw signs of foul play. In all honesty, I did not. When it came to Erica, breakage was commonplace. Once, she’d even put an umbrella through her television set. With the exception of the mirrors, the room just looked like she’d packed to go somewhere in haste. I crossed my fingers it wasn’t Las Vegas to marry one of the unknown men in the Elvis chapel.
I dropped to the floor, crawling about on my hands and knees, trying to discern if she’d taken summer clothes or winter, beach or ski chalet, fashionable or serviceable. I came to no conclusions.
I did, however, spot her new prescription bottle under the bed. A count of the pills told me she’d stopped taking them two days after we’d had the prescription filled.
“Oh, Erica, how can I help you if you won’t help yourself?”
____
I trudged across the driveway and knocked on the door of my old neighbor and nemesis Mr. Murphy. During the years I’d occupied the apartment next door, he’d made an almost weekly trip to my door to complain about the placement of my trash cans on garbage day. With his attention to detail, I hoped he might have noticed Erica’s departure and perhaps her departure companion.
He wasn’t home.
I got back in my car and drove by The Lincoln House. Erica’s Porsche sat right where she’d left it days ago. It was too early for the restaurant to be open for lunch. I doubted any of the lunch shift employees would be of much help anyway. Erica worked the five to close shift. Maybe I would come back later and question some of her co-workers about Erica’s mystery man. I could only suspect that she’d either run away or moved in with him. Surely psycho serial killers didn’t have their victims pack suitcases.
Asdale Auto Imports was closed, according to the sign in the window. I was pleased to find the parking lot behind the building empty. Cory had stayed home or gone out on the town today as he should. But I needed to find the name of the redhead who wanted to purchase the Caterham. I wanted to find out if she was the same woman I saw at The Cat’s Meow the other day. And I wanted to know if her brother had red hair, too.
But first I had to call the two dealers and discuss their available cars so I would have a reason to contact this woman.
That took me an hour. At the close of the hour, I wasn’t excited about either car. The condition and maintenance records for both sounded satisfactory, but the prices were not. I didn’t feel like flying Cory to either dealership’s location to examine the cars. I really couldn’t imagine how owning one of them was going to turn this woman’s love life around.
Cory had written her name in his tight script on a pink Post-it Note. Leslie Flynn. He’d noted her brother’s phone number underneath her name and the message to find her a Caterham DeDion.