“Harry?” he asked with an amused chuckle. “Of course I know her. Everybody in law enforcement knows Harry Raines. Why?”
“Because I believe that Chris’s disappearance can now be classified as a homicide, and so does Professor Raines. She’s in possession of unidentified human remains that were found in a black-bear den near Eklutna Lake in the spring of 2008. We’re in the process of comparing a DNA profile obtained from Chris’s older brother, Jared. We expect to have a DNA confirmation within the next day or so.”
Over the phone I heard a squawk of some kind. I imagined it was the sound of Lieutenant Marvin Price sitting up straighter in whatever decrepit chair was behind his desk. And that actually made me smile, because that’s what real homicide cops do when they get word of a case—they come to attention.
“You say that Chris Danielson disappeared in 2006?”
“Yes, Monday, March twenty-seventh, to be exact.”
“You’re working the case on whose behalf—the brother’s?” Price asked.
“Initially that was true, but now there’s another person involved—make that two people. A young woman named Danitza Adams Miller and her son, Christopher, have been added to the list. At the time Chris went missing, Danitza and he were boyfriend and girlfriend. On the day Chris disappeared, Danitza’s parents had just learned that their sixteen-year-old daughter was pregnant.”
“Wait, did you say Danitza Adams? Any relation to Roger Adams?”
“Danitza is Roger and Eileen Adams’s only child.”
There was a momentary pause. “If you’ve been investigating a missing-persons case that you now believe to be a homicide, have you identified any persons of interest?”
It was time for me to either put up or shut up.
“Actually, I have,” I told him. “I have reason to believe that someone named Shelley Loveday might have been involved. She’s currently Mrs. Roger Adams the second, but at the time Chris disappeared, and even though Shelley was married to someone else at the time, she and Mr. Adams were involved in a long-standing affair.”
There was another pause on the line. I wondered if I had lost him. “Where are you right now?” he asked a moment later. “Didn’t you say you were here in town?”
“I am,” I told him. “I’m at the Driftwood Inn.”
“Don’t go anywhere,” he said. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
And he was, too. In the meantime I hustled down to the desk and collected a few more Keurig pods along with some extra containers of whatever passes for hotel-room cream and sugar. Price’s reaction over the phone told me that whatever discussion we were about to have probably shouldn’t be conducted in public. That meant a table in AJ’s or one down in the cozy lobby at the Driftwood were both out of the question.
While I was down in the lobby, I told the desk clerk that I was expecting a visitor, and he sent Lieutenant Price straight up to my room. When I opened the door, the guy I found in the hallway was an all-too-familiar figure—a homicide cop through and through who definitely looked the part, rumpled cheap suit and all. Most likely in his mid-forties, Marvin Price was about my height and a bit on the lean side. He was handsome enough, with dark wavy hair going gray around the temples.
“Mr. Beaumont?” he asked, extending his hand.
“Call me Beau, please,” I told him. “What about you?”
“Marve works, but most people call me Marvin.”
With introductions out of the way, I ushered him into the room. As I did so, I noted the lingering faded groove on the ring finger of his left hand indicating that a long-worn wedding ring was now MIA. That told me Marvin Price used to be married but wasn’t anymore. No wonder he was hanging around his office late on a Saturday night. Back in those days, I would have been hanging out in a bar.
“Have a seat,” I told him. Fortunately, my view room at the Driftwood came with a small pullout sofa and a reasonably comfortable chair. “Coffee?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Straight or decaf?”
“I don’t do decaf.”
“Neither do I. Cream and sugar?”
“Black, please.”
“My kind of guy,” I told him. We both laughed, at that, and I set about getting the Keurig to do its stuff.
“I gave Hank a call on my way over,” Marvin said. “He says that you may be a PI now, but that back in the day you were the real deal.”