“Can you track Jimmy’s phone?” I asked. “It might be possible for us to intercept him before he gets to the house. Does he even know where your father lives?”
“He left the phone on his bed along with the note,” Nitz said. “But I checked the search history on his desktop. The last thing that came up was my father’s address on Diamond Ridge Road.”
“Okay,” I told her. “I’ll see what I can do to find him. In the meantime stay in touch. If you hear from him, call me right away.”
“I will.”
When the call ended, Twink was in the process of ordering the sticky pudding, that night’s specialty dessert. “She’ll take that to go,” I told our server. “And we need the bill right away.”
As we waited for the bill and dessert to arrive, I considered calling Marvin Price to alert him to the situation, but since he was probably still fully occupied with his newly confirmed but very old murder, I decided against it. He was a homicide cop, after all, not a juvenile-detention officer. When I came back to the present, Twink was sitting across the table, giving me the stink-eye.
“I’ve never liked to eat and run,” she said. “What’s up?”
“We need to go back to Diamond Ridge Road,” I answered. “ASAP.”
“Oh, we’ll go there, all right,” she said, “but not until you tell me what’s really going on.”
And just like that, Twinkle Winkleman had me over a barrel. “Okay,” I conceded. “I’ll tell you on the way.”
I paid the bill, Twink collected her carry-out sticky bread pudding, and we made for the Travelall. Suddenly the abbreviated overview of the situation I’d given her earlier was no longer adequate. It was close to ten miles from the restaurant to the Adamses’ place. Along the way I filled her in on much of the family’s troubled history and on how an unsuspecting twelve-year-old hoping to meet his grandfather for the first time ever was about to blunder into the middle of a murder inquiry.
“You really think Shelley Hollander killed the boy’s father?” Twink asked.
“In March of 2006 when Chris Danielson disappeared, the vehicle in that garage on Ocean View Drive—the one filled with human bloodstains—was registered to Shelley and Jack Loveday.”
“My, oh, my,” Twink muttered after a moment’s thought. “So much for being a former Miss Alaska!”
When we arrived at the house, there were plenty of lights on, so I knew that someone was home. Twink stopped the Travelall, and I piled out. When I rang the doorbell, no one answered. I gave it thirty seconds or so, then hit the button again—this time really leaning on it. Eventually I heard footsteps inside. After that the porch light came on, the dead bolt clicked, and the door swung open. Standing before me was a fully dressed and very pissed-off Shelley Adams. Wearing a high-necked sweater, a pantsuit, and a pair of fashionable boots, she appeared to be dressed more for a night on the town rather than a long evening at home keeping watch over an ailing husband.
“You again!” she growled when she saw me. Tone of voice is everything, and hers indicated that she had zero intention of inviting me inside. “What are you doing here?”
“I need to speak to Roger.”
“He’s asleep,” she said.
At six forty-five in the evening? I wondered. Asleep or handcuffed to his bed?
“Then wake him up,” I told her. “I need to talk to him about his grandson.”
“Roger doesn’t have a grandson,” Shelley said.
“Roger may not like the idea, but it turns out he does have a grandson,” I asserted. “He’s Danitza’s twelve year-old-son. His name is Jimmy, and he ran away from home earlier today, supposedly to come here and meet his mother’s father for the first time ever.”
“Well, he’s not here,” Shelley declared, making as if to slam the door in my face. “We haven’t seen him. Now, leave.”
I had no intention of leaving. Liars lie, and I figured if Shelley Loveday Adams’s lips were moving, that was the case now.
At that point Shelley did actually try to slam the door in my face. I had worked my way through college doing door-to-door sales for Fuller Brush. I may be among the last of that dying breed, but I still have the moves. Before she could close it all the way, I had the toe of my boot between it and the jamb. Once the door bounced back open, I brushed past Shelley and entered the house.
“Jimmy!” I called out. “Jimmy, are you here?”