“How’d they pay?” Jerry asked.
“Cash, I’m pretty sure. Separate checks,” she said to Morris, as if it would make him feel better.
“This place have a security camera?”
The waitress guffawed. “You’re funny.”
“Any chance you saw what he was driving?”
“Sorry.” She looked around and lowered her voice. “So, what, you boys think this guy did something to her?”
Morris said nothing.
Jerry shrugged. “No idea. We’ll have to find him and ask him. What about a name? Did you hear her call him anything?”
“No, but he told me himself his name was Jack. Or James.” Jean paused, thinking. “Or was it Jason?”
Jerry watched her, his pen poised over his notebook.
Finally she said, “I think it was James, but I’m not a hundred percent.” A bell dinged from somewhere behind her and she straightened up. “That’s your food. Be right back.”
Morris took a long sip of his beer, suddenly wishing he hadn’t come. Maybe it was better to let Jerry handle everything. The private investigator would have filtered this information for him. Right now it was almost too real. Raw.
Jean came back with their order.
“So you didn’t see them drive off together, did you?” Morris said, pouncing on her again. “It’s possible she got into her own car and left separately?”
“I didn’t see what happened when they got to the parking lot.” Jean was beginning to sound exasperated. “But, guys, I work in a bar. I have for most of my life. You think I can’t tell when two people hook up?” She looked at Morris. “I’m sorry. Just telling you what I saw.”
“You okay?” Jerry asked when she walked away.
Morris looked down at his food. “What do you think?”
They dug into their meals. The burger was decent.
“Listen. I think we’re at a bit of a dead end here.” Jerry took a long sip of his beer. “Unless Fisher’s found out something from the other SAA members, we don’t have anything to go on.”
“What are the chances that somebody from SAA would remember someone’s license plate number from two weeks ago?”
Jerry munched on a fry. “Stranger things have happened. We could get lucky. But it’s not likely.”
“What now?”
“I’ll talk to her TA tomorrow, Ethan Wolfe, the one she seemed… close to.” Jerry picked up another fry. He was choosing his words carefully. “He might know something. And Torrance ran her credit cards when he was investigating-I have a contact who can do it again for me. If she’s used them in the last couple of days, we can track her that way.”
Morris didn’t reply, and they finished their food in silence. When they were done, Jerry paid the check.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Morris said as they walked out.
“Don’t worry, you’ll see it expensed in my invoice.”
Morris chuckled, though he doubted Jerry was joking. “What are you doing now? Maybe we should talk to Ethan Wolfe tonight.”
“Nah, I’ll catch him first thing in the morning,” Jerry said. “I don’t want you there, anyway. I’ll call you if I learn anything interesting. For now, go home and rest. Enough excitement for one day.”
Morris stopped when they reached their cars. “What if she’s dead?” he said quietly. The wind was chilly and he shivered under the pale light of the parking-lot lamppost. “What if she had some kind of blackout or breakdown and she’s lying dead in a ditch somewhere?”
“Don’t think that.” Jerry looked at Morris sharply. “You keep that shit out of your head. It won’t help you, trust me. Right now the best thing you can do is stay positive. Remember, Torrance might still be right. In which case, we’ll find her, and you can ask her yourself what the hell she was thinking.” Jerry clapped Morris on the shoulder, then climbed into his Honda and slammed the door shut.
“I don’t know if I want to know,” Morris said after the PI drove away.
CHAPTER 30
J erry sat in the parking lot of the university’s psychology building. The interior of his Honda Accord still smelled like cigarette smoke from the guy he’d bought it off last year, and Jerry’s wife refused to ride in it. Which was fine, since he only used the ten-year-old car for work, anyway. Jerry’s real car, a Nissan Infinity G37 coupe in titanium gray, was sitting in the garage at home, pristine. Annie said the coupe was an extension of his penis and a pathetic attempt to hold on to his youth, and she was right.
His cell phone rang. It was Dennis Fisher, calling to follow up.
“You said to phone if I learned anything new.” Fisher’s voice was tentative.
Jerry had his notebook ready and his pen poised. “Definitely. You never know what might help.” He looked out the window at a pretty coed strolling by wearing jeans so tight he could see the outline of her crotch. What did Annie call that? Cameltoe? Damn, these girls today.
“I talked to a few members last night after the meeting, the ones who are on a friendly basis with Stella-sorry, Sheila -and some of them remembered seeing her talking with that new guy I told you about.” Fisher cleared his throat. “His name was definitely James. A couple of the female members described him as good-looking.”
Jerry smirked. Apparently not even sex addiction therapy could turn off your radar. He scribbled in his notebook.
Fisher continued. “Also, James left in an SUV. Another member saw him in the parking lot getting into something big and black. American-made, he thought. Washington State plates. Didn’t get the plate number, though.”
“Good observational skills.”
“That’s Kenneth,” Fisher said. “He notices everything. He said for you to give him a call, but I pressed him and there’s nothing else he knows.”
“Give me his number just in case.” Jerry jotted it down. “That it?”
“Yeah. Hope it helps. And listen, I’m sorry about that comment-”
“Forget about it.” Jerry thanked him and hung up.
He looked up through the windshield at the old building in front of him. The George Herbert Mead Department of Psychology. Jerry had long forgotten what kind of psychologist George Herbert Mead was, but the man must have made a significant contribution to the field if they’d named a whole university department after him.
In light of her sudden absence, the three courses Sheila was teaching this semester had been divided among her colleagues-none of whom, according to the secretary whose voice had dramatically dropped to a whisper, had been happy about the increased course load. But the teaching assistants for each class were still the same.
Ethan Wolfe kept office hours on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. Jerry was interested to find out exactly what the graduate student might know. The TA’s e-mails were more suggestive than he’d told Morris, and considering his client’s reaction at the restaurant the other day, that was probably a good call. Pulling his lanky frame out of his small car, Jerry headed inside.
The smell of the psychology building instantly brought him back to the four years he’d spent in night school studying to get his bachelor’s degree. That would have been ten years ago now. Pine floor-cleaner and slightly stale air, shiny hallways with thickly painted brick walls. Nothing had changed. The two main lecture halls were in the center with several smaller classrooms dotting the first and second floors. Administrative offices were on the third floor, and the top three floors were reserved for teaching staff.
Jerry rode up the elevator in silence beside a girl with glossy brown hair who couldn’t have been older than twenty. Her jeans were tight, too, and her sweater hugged breasts so high and firm they seemed to defy gravity. Did any of these girls wear baggy clothes anymore? How did the male professors resist temptation? It would be so easy to slip. He wondered if that was what happened with Sheila.