Sheepdogs: Keeping the Wolves at Bay, Gordon Carroll [howl and other poems .txt] 📗

every dance. My kids attend church regularly. They’re good kids, with good values. My son did not run away.”

I could have told her how many hundreds of times I’d heard the same arguments from parents who swore up and down that their baby would never run away and hurt them like this and how ninety-nine times out of that hundred the kid would turn up an hour later, sheepish grin on his or her face and that would be that. But I didn’t. It wouldn’t have done any good. I let loose with a better argument.

“I charge a five thousand dollar retainer, up front. Five more when I find your son. There’s no day charge or expense fee. It’s ten thou if it takes ten minutes or ten years. Once I start a case I never quit until it’s done, even if you fire me.”

I saw the shock hit her like a hard slap. I thought that would do it.

“Tammy… she said you’d be… expensive. But I had no idea…”

I nodded wisely, feeling like Theodore Cleaver’s father telling the Beav why it was wrong to cheat on a test. “Your best bet is to go home, make a police report and…”

“I made a police report. My husband didn’t want me to, but I did anyway. The officer was nice, but I could tell he was being that way because he thought Shane was just another runaway.”

“Odds are he’s right.”

She looked me in the eye and I saw that same strength of resolution. “My son did not run away.”

I took a sip of coffee, giving her the chance to break eye contact; long stares can be embarrassing. She didn’t budge. “Why didn’t your husband want you to call the police?”

That did it. She looked away, out the window at the small stream of people enjoying the spring sunshine. She gave the ring another turn. “Tom, my husband, and Shane have been arguing lately.”

The final nail in the coffin. Sons and dads, the sons trying to spread their wings, getting ready to fly the nest, the dads trying to maintain control so their boys didn’t go splat on the asphalt.

“Lisa,” I said, adopting the Hugh Beaumont tone again, “here in Colorado, seventeen year old boys don’t get abducted. It just doesn’t happen. Girls, yes, sometimes, and even that is rare, but boys?” I shook my head.

She looked down at Amber, moving her ring back and forth. “Then you won’t take the case?”

“Oh I’ll take it. I don’t tell people how to spend their money. And I’ll find your son. But you’d probably find him yourself in about three days when he comes moping home a couple of pounds lighter, with his tail between his legs. Only that way you wouldn’t have to tell your husband how you blew the college fund looking for a son that just turned up a-ok.”

She snapped open a small, beige purse and reached inside. “I can write you a check for the five thousand. The rest might take a while to get together.”

I held up a hand. “Before you do that, let me ask you this. Was Shane into drugs?”

Her mouth dropped open and she looked at me sharply. “No, of course not.”

“Alcohol?”

“No.”

“Gambling?”

She shook her head.

“Then why are you so sure something is wrong?”

Her hand was still inside the purse. She looked toward the ceiling or maybe heaven as though she might find the right words written out for her. Finally she looked back at me. “I feel it in my bones. Call it mother’s intuition or whatever you like, but I know something terrible has happened to my baby. I know it.”

I drew back my hand, took a sip of coffee. “Write the check.”

4

Lisa Franklin gave me a picture of Shane. On the back she’d written out his vitals; height, weight, clothes, right down to his SSN. She’d also included his Visa account information and his Colorado Driver’s License number. He was a good looking kid, thin like his mother, with bushy blond hair, long eyelashes, light blue eyes and dimples that would make young girls swoon.

I sent Lisa and her sleeping daughter (still sucking her thumb) home, telling her I would be at her house around two o’clock to look over Shane’s room.

Leaving the coffee shop, I walked the three blocks to my office. I’m on the second floor at 20th and Blake Street, across from Coor’s Field. Nothing better than hearing the sound of wood smacking leather and the accompanying cheer from the crowd (except maybe for being there with a chili dog piled high with mustard, ketchup and onions).

The buildings in this area used to be warehouses, but were converted into restaurants, lofts, and office space during the big urban renewal push coinciding with the construction of the baseball stadium. The office is a little bigger than I need, what with it just being me, my secretary Yolanda Jimenez, and my K9s. I used to have a partner, Sam Ponsiago. He was murdered.

Two buildings over is a Greek restaurant named Dimitri’s. The downstairs is fancy but upstairs you can get take out at the register and there are a few tables for casuals who want to sit. The smell of garlic and fresh dough sent my stomach to rumbling. I went to the counter where a nicely dressed woman, about my age, asked me what I’d like.

“A gyro with onions and a Diet Cherry Dr Pepper.”

She rang it up. She had pretty blond hair and a cute smile. I’d seen her here a few times but didn’t know her name. She didn’t wear a name tag. “Are you the guy that works up the street — the private detective?”

I smiled. “Gil Mason. Sherlock Holmes incognito.”

She put a finger to her cheek. “Sherlock, huh? Where’s Dr. Watson?”

“In school of course,” I said.

“School?”

I grinned. “Elementary.”

She laughed. It was easy and natural. “So what’s it like being a private eye? Is it as exciting as being a real cop?”

I held a hand over my heart