I sank the wrong ball. "Sounds criminal."
"Heck, no. All aboveboard and honest, I swear. Sometimes I get a bit of contract work, sometimes things come up that are a little longer term, but I never let myself become a cog, you know?"
I sat down and drank beer and watched him make a run of three balls.
"Freelance troubleshooter?"
He tipped his head and smiled thoughtfully. "Pretty much. Got a lot of esoteric information stuffed in my head, so I'm often a better guy for a small but complex problem than a guy with a specialized degree and a ton of specialized experience. Flexible. That's the best thing to be."
"Yeah," I agreed. "Flexible is good."
"Yep. Rigidity is death. Hey, you doing OK? You look about to fall over."
"I'm getting drunk, I think. And I'm tired. I'd better quit and head for home."
"All right." He took the cues and put them away in the wall rack. "Want an escort back to your car?"
"Sure."
I was grateful for the company. I was so wiped out I could hardly tell normal from paranormal, but walking with Quinton to blaze the trail, I just let it wash over me.
We stopped at the Rover. "Are you sure you're OK to drive home?"
"Yeah. I'm just tired, so I'd better get going before I get worse. This was nice. Thanks. Do you need a lift?" No, I just live a few blocks away." For a second he seemed poised something, then settled back. "I'll see you Monday, all right?"
"OK," I agreed, wondering what he'd almost said or done.
He watched me drive out of the parking lot, waving before he turned and walked off.
It seemed like a very long drive home.
I woke up in a mean mood. The bells of the Catholic church next door were bunging away like Quasimodo was having a heart attack.
Down the road, the Baptist and Lutheran electronic pseudo-carillons were giving forth with Protestant zeal. Most Sundays I find the sounds pleasant. This morning I was ready to hunt down the men in charge and tie them beneath their own thunderous devices.
I did the morning thing with bad grace and grumbling and let the ferret out to play while my hair dried. There was only one name left on Colleen Shadley's list, and it had no phone number. I'd be making another drive to the Eastside.
I felt a little guilty for having left Chaos in the cage all day, so I packed up the ferret's traveling kit and took her along for the ride to Bellevue.
There was a mild, intermittent drizzle as we crossed the lake, but traffic was light, so we made good time to the 405. I had to consult a map to locate the address Colleen had provided for her daughter. It was not far from the mall, located in an unexpected fold of land that cut the area off from the business and light-industrial development nearby. The houses were mostly from the early 1950s: small bricks, wide cedar-stained clapboards, and crank-out windows. Sarah's had a small, weedy yard in front. I transferred the sleeping ferret into my purse and started to pick my way up the driveway, around scattered parts of a dismembered motorcycle, to the front door. I heard distant music. I knocked.
Steps sounded inside and the peephole darkened. The door opened to the depth of the safety chain.
"What do you want?" Her voice was bland, wafting to me on the supporting strains of classical music. She didn't show her face in the gap.
"I'm looking for Cameron Shadley."
She scoffed. "He doesn't live here. Who sent you?"
"I know he doesn't live here. I want to talk to his sister. Are you Sarah Shadley?" I asked.
The door closed and the chain rattled against it. Then the door opened again. A thin slice of a thin face peered around the edge. "Why do you want to talk to me? Is Cam in trouble?"
"Cam is missing. Are you Sarah?" I repeated.
She opened the door all the way and stared at me. She could have been a Charles Addams sketch. A little shorter than me, she was skeleton thin. Her dyed-black hair was lank and faded below two inches of blond roots. Even without makeup, her face was glow-in-the-dark white with lavender circles of sleeplessness deepening her eye sockets into pits. But her eyes, unlike her brothers and mother's, were hazel green. She wore a black-and-white-striped tunic over black leggings and bare feet.
She mulled her answer. "I'm Sarah. Who are you?"
"My name is Harper Blaine. I'm a private investigator, and your mother hired me to find your brother. He's been missing for about six weeks. I thought you might be able to help me. May I come inside?"
She stood aside and I walked in. She closed and locked the door behind me and led the way into the kitchen, then pointed to the tiny drop-down table mounted to the wall opposite the fridge. The dried-blood red varnish on her short nails was chipped and bitten. I headed for one of the two chairs by the table and settled myself with my bag in my lap.
She looked at me a moment, gnawing her lower lip, then said, "I was making coffee. You want some?" She went to the sink, pulled the plug and water gurgled away down the drain. The garbage disposal growled, cutting off my reply. She glanced over her shoulder at me, drying her hands on a cotton dish towel.
"Sure. Thanks," I replied.
She reached across the sink and pushed a button on the small stereo on the counter; Vivaldi's Gloria swelled. In a minute, she came back with a small, painted tin tray and dipped like a cocktail waitress to unload it. A garish picture of the Space Needle from 1962 was painted on the inside. Sarah returned the tray to the counter before she sat down across from me. She wouldn't meet my eyes. She took a book off her half of the table and placed it on the floor; then she pushed a mug of coffee in front of me and arranged a neat little barrier of milk jug and sugar bowl between us. She dawdled over mixing her coffee, keeping her head down.
I sipped my coffee black. It tasted like brackish water run through oil-soaked sawdust.
Sarah swished her spoon around in her cup. "So, you wanted to talk to me…?"
"Your mother hired me to find Cameron. I've got some ideas about where he might be, but not why. I was hoping you could help me out with that."
She raised her head and glared at me. "Oh, so 'Mummy' thinks that if something bad has happened it must be Sarah's fault, huh?"
I stared back in silence until she blushed and lowered her eyes. "No. Cam's roommate mentioned that you called a few times and that you two seemed to be close." I let that hang.
She poked at her mug.
"When was the last time you talked to him?"
She heaved her skinny shoulders, defensive and sullen. "I don't know. Sometime in March, I guess. Haven't seen him or talked to him since, so I don't know where he is."
"In March, did you see him in person, or talk on the phone?"
"In person."
"Where did you see him?"
"In a bar."
"Where?"
"Pioneer."
"Pioneer Square?" I clarified.
"Yeah."
"Which bar?"
"Don't remember."
I sighed and sat back in my chair. I drank my bad coffee, then put it down on the table. "This would be a lot easier if I didn't have to play Twenty Questions with you."
Again the glare.
My purse shuddered and Chaos exploded from it, scratching and scrambling to look over the table edge. Sarah started and stared at the furry apparition hoisting itself onto the table.
The ferret poked her nose into my coffee mug and I scooped her up. "Chaos! No."
She sneezed and shook her head in annoyance just as Sarah lit up and reached for her, too.
"Sweet!" Sarah cried. She offered a finger for sniffing. Chaos licked the fingertip after a careful snuffle. "Does it bite?" "No."
Sarah stroked the ferret's head as I put her down again. Then Chaos skipped off to investigate Sarah's coffee mug.
"Don't let her into the sugar," I warned.
"Can it—she—have some milk? Is that OK?"