In Plain Sight

“Have you been to the police?” Alex asked, pulling a pair of tumblers and a bottle of bourbon out of his bottom desk drawer. He poured two fingers in one glass and passed it to Evelyn. She accepted the glass and took a sip before shaking her head.

“I had to come to you, only you.”

“Why only me? There are some very good policemen in this town.”

“None of them are runewrights.”

“Why do you need a runewright?”

“Thomas was a runewright,’ Evelyn explained. “He’s been researching something for weeks now.”

“A new rune?”

She shook her head.

“I don’t know. But he’d been withdrawn and moody. I could barely get him to talk to me. Then he called me two days ago. He was happy and excited, like he used to be.”

“That’s when you agreed to meet for dinner?” Alex asked.

“Yes, and then he didn’t come. I waited and waited, and finally I went to his apartment, but he wasn’t there either.”

“Is there somewhere he would go? A friend maybe?”

Evelyn shook her head. Tears were standing out in her eyes now and Alex offered her his handkerchief.

“When I went to his apartment, it was all torn up. Like there had been a fight. I’m so terribly worried, Mr. Lockerby.”

“Alex,” he corrected. “This rune he was working on, do you know what it is?”

“No.”

“Does anyone else know about it?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “All I know is that my brother is missing. Will you find him for me, Alex? Please?”

“Do you have the key to his apartment?” Alex asked.

She reached into her purse and pulled out a small brass key on a ring.

“I charge twenty-five dollars a day, plus expenses,” Alex said, accepting the key. “I have a very good finding rune but I’ll need to go to his apartment to cast it. I charge ten dollars for the rune.”

She reached into her purse again and pulled out several folded bills, peeling one away from the others. “Will one hundred dollars be enough of a retainer?”

“That will be fine.” Alex tried not to accept the bill too hastily. “I have a lunch appointment, but as soon as I’m done, I’ll go over to your brother’s apartment and cast the rune. Is there a phone number where I can reach you?”

She took his pencil and wrote out a phone number and an address in the north side mid-ring.

Alex stood and showed Evelyn out.

“She didn’t look happy,” Leslie said once they heard the elevator door in the hall close.

“Her brother is missing,” Alex said, holding up the c-note. Leslie snatched it and held it up to the light, looking for print errors.

“It’s genuine,” she said.

“I told her I’d get on it right after lunch,” he told her. Leslie fixed a level gaze on him. He shrugged. “I figured I owed you.”

Her smile lit up the room and she picked up her handbag.

“None of your crummy dog-wagons,” she said, putting on her jacket. “I pick the place.”

“Deal.”

7 The Brother

It was nearly two o’clock when Alex trudged up in front of a red brick apartment building right against the border between the north side, middle and outer ring. Despite being this close to the low rent district, the building was clean and well maintained, and there wasn’t any trash on the sidewalk. The key Evelyn Rockwell had given him had 5C stamped on it and Alex looked up at the five-story building wearily. It was a cinch that a building this far out wouldn’t have an elevator.

His lunch with Leslie had gone well; she’d chosen to eat at the Imperial Table, a Chinese joint with linen napkins and china plates that were actually from China. Alex used to dislike foreign foods, but living with Iggy had broadened his palate a bit.

He waited until they’d finished their chop suey to tell Leslie about the mission and Father Harry. She hadn’t much liked Father Harry, but the news still hit her hard. It’s a strange thing how someone you know can be alive one minute and dead the next, but you don’t feel it. You don’t know until someone tells you, and only then do you understand the things they did that you’ll never experience again. Alex found himself talking to Leslie about his youth in the mission and what Father Harry had done for him. With the Father gone, he wanted someone else to know just how great a man had passed.

Alex pushed thoughts of lunch and of Father Harry out of his mind as he ascended the stairs of Thomas Rockwell’s building. There would be time to reminisce later, with a bottle of bourbon.

Preferably two.

The door to Thomas’ apartment was shut and locked securely. There weren’t any scratches or tool marks that would indicate that the lock had been picked, so Alex inserted the key and turned it. The lock yielded smoothly and he pushed the door open.

Beyond the door was a large room that had once been well appointed. Evelyn had been right, however — the room looked like the scene of a barroom brawl. Furniture had been turned over, lamps smashed, and the contents of every drawer littered the floor.

Someone had been looking for something. Something they wanted very badly.