The Easy Way Out

48

Wearing an exhausted smile, the waitress placed a chicken wrap on the table for Hobbs and a salad in front of Goldberg that could have filled a wheelbarrow.

"That's more vegetation than I eat in a month," said Hobbs.

"Salad." Goldberg sighed. "I'll be hungry by three."

Hobbs checked his phone. "Turns out there's another guy who went missing from Simon's Used Cars."

"Another one?"

"A mechanic named Damon Lindsey."

"That place is like the Bermuda Triangle."

Hobbs bit into his wrap. "About the same time as Blake Gannon and Rachel Ferris disappeared, this Damon Lindsey ends up in a real bad accident. Ran a stop sign, totaled his truck, and winds up in the hospital."

"He ducked out of the hospital?"

"He was discharged. Then, a day or so later he rents a Toyota Camry and takes off. The insurance company representing the other party in the accident hasn't been able to contact him."

"Familiar pattern." Goldberg sawed a piece of chicken in his salad. "So where did he go?"

"That's where it gets interesting. His Camry ends up wrecked and abandoned in a park in South Carolina." He squinted at his phone. "Falls Park. The car got pulled over and then took off when the driver gave the officer fake IDs."

"Hmmmm."

"But the driver wasn't Damon Lindsey." He brought the wrap to his mouth. "It was a young woman who led the cops on a seven-mile chase before bailing out of the car in Falls Park."

"So what happened to Damon Lindsey?"

"That's what the insurance company wants to know."

"And the woman driving the car. Let me take a wild guess."

"A park full of people on a beautiful sunny afternoon, at least a dozen uniformed officers on scene and yet nobody gets eyes on her. It's like she got out of that car and evaporated."

########

She drove around the block of the idle dust-covered town and parked her car at the curb along the railroad tracks, brash sunlight flooding the pavement. When she got out of the car she noticed that her thin veil of a shadow seemed to vaporize, like the street was too hot to hold it in place. Despite being conspicuously dressed in an oversized hoodie on the streets of a neighborhood broiling in the midday heat, she escaped notice. The streets were empty.

On her way across the street toward a blocky stone building, she passed a mud-spattered Kia Soul, its back windows obscured by stacks of books and paperwork. The vanity plate read: ART V DEAL.

She slid the oversized sunglasses down to the end of her nose to read a faded sign inside the front door of the building.

ARTHUR BEAMISH, ATTORNEY, CERTIFIED PUBLIC ACCOUNTANT & PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR - 2ND FLOOR.

The squeaking door apparently gave her away when she entered. A man called from the top of a long flight of wooden steps in a Guidance Counselor's voice, "Up here."

She climbed the steep stairs wondering how anyone could possibly carry furniture up this narrow staircase. Maybe a set of folding chairs and a card table at most.

The man who met her at the top wasn't much taller than she was. He had narrow shoulders, wide hips, and a bit of a paunch. Not the kind of man who looked good in a suit.

"Quite a climb, isn't it?" he said with a warm smile. "Can I offer you something cold to drink?"

"I'm good, thanks, Mister Beamish," she replied, entering his office space.