Hidden things, p.1
Hidden Things, page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
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Hidden Things
Naked Crow Publishing
Hidden Things - © Copyright 2022 - P.Z. Walker
An Emma Nelson Mystery, volume 3.
This is a work of fiction, and as a work of fiction, any resemblance to people, places or things is entirely accidental. The creation of certain buildings and locations is entirely the work of the author to avoid conflict and comparison with existing structures.
General notice.
This work of fiction deals with nudism and will mention nudity. It's sad that this has to be mentioned, as nudity should not be the shocking state that a person can be in that's it considered these days. Note that this means nudity, not sex.
License Notes.
This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to the site where it was purchased and buy your own copy. Thank you for respecting the work of the author.
Coverart.
Cover by P.Z. Walker.
Chapter 1
Emma and Jeff sat in the briefing room, listening to the roll call and the assigned duties for the day. The Dallas adventure was a few months behind them already and police life had reverted to the routine that neither of them enjoyed. Emma wanted to use her abilities, but nothing had come up since they had returned.
"The thrill of street duty," Jeff said as they walked to their police car. "Another day of driving around and eating donuts." They both laughed at the stereotypical image. "Do you want to drive or do I drive?"
"You drive. That way I can kick off my shoes and socks, and wiggle my toes. At least they will be free then."
"You're doing none of that," Jeff said as he unlocked the squad car. They opened the doors and got in. The car was in the shade, which was a good thing.
Jeff's phone rang before he could start the engine. "Now what..." He pulled his phone from a pocket and looked surprised. "Hey Lou..."
Lou? Emma turned to her partner and friend. If Lou called, something was up. She didn't have to punch him in the elbow to remind him that his phone had a speaker.
"for you and Emma to report to my office? Something's come up that might be interesting to the both of you," Lou said from inside the device.
"Sure thing. We were about to drive off. We'll be with you in a few minutes." Jeff hung up.
"What did I miss?" Emma asked.
"Not much. Hello, and also Would it be possible for you, I guess. Let's go and find out what's more important than a day of coffee and donuts."
*
Lou was waiting for them. There were no donuts on his desk, just the usual paper clutter that he never seemed to get rid of.
"Sit down and listen," the man said. Before they actually had sat down, he already continued. "We have a missing person. An elderly gentleman by the name of..." Lou went through the papers, then resorted to the computer on his desk. "By the name of... Come on, stupid thing, I don't want to change my password. I want a name!" It seemed as if he wanted to smack the display. "Right. There we are. Edgar Flanagan. Age sixty-seven. His neighbor called because she's the one administering his insulin shots and he wasn't home in time for his next one, so she called us."
"And you called us," Jeff said. "What do we have to go on?"
"Not much." Lou wrote something down. "This is his address and phone number. Here's his car and license plate. And... damn, what am I doing... It's all there on the screen. Let me print that for you." He fumbled with the mouse, which was too small for his big hands, and a few seconds later the printer on his desk came to life. It spat out two sheets of paper.
"That's what we have. Go look for him. His life may depend on it, so find him. Diabetes is a bad thing to have hanging over your head."
"Right. We'll go have a look at what we can find there..." Emma spotted the name of the neighbor who'd called in the missing person's report. "Miranda Lebecq. That's an odd name. She's from abroad, I guess."
Lou waved a hand. "Figure that out while you're on your way to her. Get going."
*
"Here it is." Jeff parked the car in a spot close to the building. It was an uninspiring apartment complex in a nice area. There was a pretty garden around the building, which was all there was to make it look nice. "I hadn't expected this. It doesn't look that old either."
"I agree. Maybe this was a quick and dirty project to fill up the space, and they didn't have a serious budget to do a better job." Emma got out of the car, straightened her uniform and, together with Jeff, she walked to the front door.
"Safety first, it seems." The door was held open by a small, wooden wedge. Jeff looked at the tableau with names. "Lebecq. There it is." He pressed the button to warn Miss Lebecq they had arrived. When they didn't hear any sound, he pressed it again. "Alrighty then. That seems to be broken." Now the wedge made sense.
The two officers went into the building, checked for the right floor for Miss Lebecq and waited for the elevator which took them to the fourth floor. At least that wasn't broken.
Quickly they located the right door. Jeff pressed the buzzer.
"Edgar? Are you finally back?" a voice yelled from inside the apartment. "What the hell took you so long, you must feel... Ah merde," the woman ended her shouting in French as she opened the door and saw the two officers. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to curse."
Emma made a mental note to look up the word Miss Lebecq had just uttered. "Good morning, Miss Lebecq? Officers Nelson and Connors. We're here to follow up on your missing person's call, earlier today. About Mr Edgar Flanagan."
"Yes. Oh, sorry, please, come in." The woman led them through a small hall into a living room that was filled with more furniture than seemed possible. As she asked them to sit down anywhere, they had to find their way to a couch. She explained that Edgar was her neighbor and a good friend. "He's so scared of taking his insulin shots, you know, so I do that for him. He's several hours past his next dose, so I'm very worried."
After hearing her out, Jeff asked if she had a key to Mr Flanagan's apartment. "We'd like to take a look there. Maybe there's something which indicates where he went. Would you know, perhaps?"
Miss Lebecq looked worried. Emma felt sorry for the woman. She clearly was very concerned about the well-being of her older neighbor. "Yes. Of course. I have a key to his apartment. As a security, you know." She walked to a cabinet from where she retrieved a key that was in a small box. "Would you please follow me?"
Jeff and Emma navigated out of the very full room, into the hall. Soon they were in a similar hall, next door. It was deserted, compared to the previous one. Where Miss Lebecq's hall had been covered with small paintings and posters, this one only had a modest coat rack with a few jackets and a winter coat hanging from it.
The living room was tidy and set up for comfortable living, but not as overdone as the neighbor's one. A small couch, a comfortable recliner, a small dining table with three chairs, and a television were the most prominent items there. There was a small stack of envelopes on the table, and a handwritten sheet of paper, with numbers on it. Emma suspected the man had been trying to work out a Sudoku puzzle.
Emma scanned the room one more time. "Oh, Miss Lebecq, would you have a picture of Mr Flanagan?"
The woman shook her head. "Sorry. He's allergic to photographs, as he always says." That much was obvious. There was not even one picture of anything in the room.
Emma couldn't understand how someone would live like that, without adding something colorful or worth remembering to a wall. "Did he ever mention relatives or friends? People you should contact if anything happens?"
"Edgar is a man who sticks to himself. I sometimes think I'm his only real friend, officer." Miss Lebecq smiled for a moment, as if to apologize for that. "He's been married but his wife died a few years ago. He talked about family in Ireland, but to be honest, I'm not sure if he ever visited Ireland. As far as I know, he was born here in the States, but he always claimed he was, how do you say, full-bred Irish?"
"Are you from the States as well, Miss Lebecq?" Jeff asked.
"No. I am French, but I came here with my parents when I was just très petite. Very little." She actually bent down to indicate with her hand how small she'd been. "But I have an American nationality now."
Emma smiled. The way this woman talked, with that little hint of a French accent, was adorable. Even when Miss Lebecq probably cultivated that accent to make herself a bit more special.
The visit to this apartment brought them nothing new, so they thanked Miss Lebeqc and left.
As the friendly neighbor l ocked the door, she said, "I will let you know if I hear from Edgar. There's no need for you to look for him if he's back."
"Thank you, Miss Lebecq," Jeff said. "We'd appreciate that."
*
"She's a bit of a trip, isn't she?" Emma grinned at the thought of Miranda Lebecq. "And that house of hers is too full!" She took her phone and started typing. "Oh shit?"
"Shit what?" Jeff tried to keep his attention on the road.
"That's what she said. Merde. It's French for shit."
"Neat. Now we know some French. Better not say that to her. She knows what it means." Jeff grinned. "You should get on the radio and ask that everyone keep a lookout for Mr Flanagan's car. The license plate is on the paperwork somewhere."
"I know that," Emma said, who then spent some time going through the papers before she found the information. "Merde. Who puts that on page one..." She ignored Jeff's snort and got on the radio.
As she was making the call, her phone ping'd. Emma was proud of her professional attitude as she ignored that sign. It had taken her a while before she'd been able to let work come first.
"Okay, all done. Let's hope someone finds it, so we can go there, find Edgar and be the heroes of the day." Emma turned to Jeff. "Do heroes of the day get capes?"
"What? Jesus, you and your ideas..." He pulled over at a coffee shop. "Donut time."
"Finally..."
Leaning against the car to enjoy the weather, Emma and Jeff enjoyed their little break. She also took that time to check her phone. It was a text from Amarika. Emma frowned. She hadn't heard from that woman in a while and she felt good about that. What was this about...
'Need to talk with you. Call me when you can,' the message read, and there was a local phone number.
"Is something off? You suddenly look a bit glum." Jeff didn't like it when that happened.
"It's from Amarika." Emma spoke slowly. She remembered how she'd been unable to say the woman's name, back in Dallas. It came out well, though.
"What does she want?"
"She needs to talk. I'll call her later. After work."
The text from Amarika was still on Emma's mind when they drove off, going after a few tips they'd gotten from fellow officers. A few of them had spotted Mr Flanagan's car, and one of the spotters remembered he'd seen it there before.
"Not yesterday but a few days ago," he explained. "I happened to see it again today. It kinda stands out."
"Why's that?" Emma asked.
"I'm not telling you, Officer Nelson. Just drive along Hillcrest Avenue. If you don't see it, I'll call Lou and have you kicked out of the department." Ronald laughed before signing off on the radio.
Jeff drove a little faster. He wanted to see if there was any truth to Ronald's words.
*
Half an hour later they stood next to an old Subaru. Both its front doors showed the Irish flag.
"Flanagan. Of course," Jeff said. "That should've been a giveaway."
Emma peered inside the car. "It's remarkably clean inside." As she stood up again, she looked around. "Where could he be?"
Hillcrest Avenue was known for its old and mostly stately buildings. Some lawyer firms had their offices here, several well-to-do families owned homes here, and a number of the buildings were managed by various organizations.
"He probably is inside here somewhere," Jeff thought out loud. "We should head back to the station and see if we can find out more about him. If we're going door to door, we'll need a picture of him, otherwise we're going nowhere with this."
Chapter 2
"I think I found our man," Emma said after a few hours of searching online.
"Let me guess. Facebook."
"Yep. Did you find him there too?"
Jeff shook his head. He'd been looking on LinkedIn and some other social media. He knew that Emma was much better with Facebook than he'd ever be. "What did you dig up? Anything useful?"
"I think so. Edgar Samuel Flanagan, prefers to go by Eddy. Not many friends on Facebook, but one of them we already know. Miranda Lebecq. And he's a member of a bunch of groups on photography, most of them dealing with old-school things, cameras with actual film in them. Is that still a thing?"
"There will always be people who go for that," Jeff said as he sat down with her. "So that's Edgar."
"Eddy," Emma corrected him. They looked at a man with a wrinkled, kind face. A bit of a granddad anyone would like to have. The kind of man who'd give his grandkids anything. The man had a bit of white hair around the back of his head. In some pictures he wore a baseball cap, and none of the shots really made it clear what color eyes he had, but that was okay. There was enough material for them to work with.
After copying a few images, Jeff sent them to the printer. "At least we know who we're looking for."
"Cool. I'm going to add a bit to our report before we go out again..."
*
With the report completed as far as was possible, the duo left the precinct and parked their car near the remarkable one that belonged to Edgar Flanagan. Again they peeked inside the car, but found no clues as to where the man would have gone, so they started going from door to door, asking the person answering if they knew or had seen the missing person.
Some larger companies at first didn't want to respond to the buzzing intercom, but after hearing that this was official police business, that changed quickly.
Jeff and Emma didn't get anything from all their work, though. The firms they visited didn't look like anything Edgar Flanagan would have any business with. A law firm’s secretary was very helpful in trying to find any information about the man, but she came up empty-handed as well. There were two Flanagans in their files, but they were definitely not in their late sixties.
The lady they talked to in a senior citizens home was also very kind, but she had no idea about Mr Flanagan either. Once they'd left that building, Emma joked that this would have been the perfect place for a man of Flanagan's age to go.
"It looked like a nice enough place," she said.
"True. For when you're old. I wonder if they have walker-races in the hall. There's plenty of space for that," Jeff said, making Emma laugh.
"You shouldn't say that," she then told him, but grinned again at the mental image. "So, what's next? Call it a day? Would you care for a donut?"
". I declare the workday done so we're off duty, which means no donuts, okay? Let's find a nice food place, pick something up and then we'll see what the rest of the day brings."
*
In the evening, Emma remembered Amarika's message. She took her phone and dialed the number that was in the text.
"Emma. Good of you to call." Amarika sounded calm and friendly as always. Emma wasn't certain if that was a good thing or not. You never knew with that woman. Without waiting for any response, Amarika continued, "There is something we need to do, and we need your ability for that. Brody will be present as well. You'll meet a new person, her name is Madison. It's for her that we need to come into action."
"We?" Emma asked.
"Yes. I will send you another message once more is clear, but I thought it would be good to let you know in advance." The woman spoke as if this was a regular conversation, while Emma was well aware that nothing about this was regular. If Brody and she were needed, something special was coming up.
"Okay, I'll see it when it comes in. But I don't want to get involved in anything illegal, okay?"
Her words made Jeff look away from the television. Emma bit her lip for a moment. The way they'd gone about extracting Jo-Anne's son from his guardians hadn't been exactly legal either, but she pushed that memory away.
"It will all be for justice," Amarika said, and ended the call.
"What was that all about?"
There was a sudden tension inside Emma. How much would she be able to tell him? Last time, in Dallas, she'd been lip-locked for a while, which hadn't made things easy between them.
"She..." So far, so good. "She said we might have to do something. Brody and me, that is. For someone called Madison. That's all."
"I see. Then the illegal thing you mentioned makes sense." He turned back to the television.
That went well, Emma thought. She put the phone on the table. "I'm grabbing something to drink. Can I get you anything?"
