Glamorous - A Grace Bishop Novel - Chapter 18
© Denise Bossarte
Grace heard Billy’s car pull up as she finished bringing in an extra chair from
the kitchen into the living room. She wanted them to be comfortable while
working, but also to have enough space to spread out on the large table. She
had added more leaves to the table and brought all the extra chairs into the
main room. Danny would be remaining “incognito” as he put it and wouldn’t need
a chair.
Grace went back into the kitchen to finish putting out the
drinks and various snacks. She figured Billy would let himself in as usual; she
focused on the job at hand. She wasn’t sure how long they would be working
tonight. But she knew if they worked long at least Billy was going to need some
carbs to keep his attention focused.
Grace was beginning to wonder what happened to Billy when the
doorbell rang. As she hurried out of the kitchen to answer it, she heard Danny
call out as he came down the stairs.
“It’s Billy,” he said.
“And some new guy is with him.”
“Must be Anthony. Prepare
yourself for some major attitude!” she warned as she opened the door.
“Hey, Gracie,” Billy said. He turned to the side to give her a
hug with one arm, his heavy frame dwarfing hers. In the other arm he carried
the materials he and Chris had put together for their work tonight on the case.
After returning his hug, Grace turned to Anthony and
acknowledged him with a nod. “Anthony,” she said with minimal enthusiasm.
“Good evening, Grace,” Anthony responded. “It is a pleasure to
get a chance to see the inside of your home.”
Grace looked at him in surprise, wondering where the usual
snobbish Anthony was for the evening.
Billy nudged her with his elbow.
“Are you going to leave us standing out here on the landing all
night, Gracie?” he asked.
“Oh, sorry,” she said, moving out of the doorway to give Billy
and Anthony room to enter the house.
Grace turned from closing the door to find Billy already setting
up his materials. They included a map of the city which he was unrolling to
take over most of the table. She turned her attention back to Anthony, who
stood in front of her, proffering a bottle of wine.
“It is customary in my family to bring a gift for the hostess
when gathering at someone’s home,” he explained, raising the bottle. “May I
open the bottle for us to enjoy together?”
Grace raised an eyebrow at him. She decided she would play along
with this more amiable version of Anthony, given he was here to help them with
the case.
“I don’t think I have wine glasses, Anthony,” she admitted,
telling herself not to be embarrassed by the fact as she led him towards the
kitchen.
“That is fine,” he said without hesitation. “I can find a
substitute, I am sure.”
Grace motioned him toward the kitchen, still trying to figure
out who this new version of Anthony was when the doorbell rang again.
“It’s DL,” Danny
called out.
“All right, Mr. Know It
All. Get settled somewhere you can see everyone. I want your eyes and ears for
this discussion to make sure we aren’t missing anything.”
“Right-e-o,” Danny
agreed, moving to the table to look over the map.
Grace opened the door and offered DL a wide smile, waving him
into the apartment. “Glad you could make it, DL,” she said.
“I wish we were getting together under better circumstances,
Grace. But I’m happy to be here to help,” DL said as he entered the room,
carrying a plain brown shopping bag with the top rolled down.
“Billy is getting his stuff set up on the table. Why don’t we
get you introduced and you can start reviewing what he brought?” Grace offered.
She led DL over to the table and made the introductions. Billy
and DL shook hands and eyed each other while she left them to go check on
Anthony’s progress with the wine. They would need to figure out how to work
together if they were going to make headway tonight.
Grace popped her head through the doorway to catch Anthony
grabbing a handful of pretzels from a bowl on the counter. She quelled her
desire to reprimand him, catching the “Those are for later,” she wanted to
blurt out.
Instead, she said “We’re ready to start if you want to come join
us in the other room.”
Anthony raised the handful of pretzels in acknowledgment and
followed her, finishing the mouthful of food as they joined the others.
“Anthony, this is my friend Billy, an Officer with the 32nd
precinct. He agreed to help and has information that might help us understand
what’s going on from a broader perspective.”
Anthony nodded to Billy and said “Yes, Billy and I met on the
way here.”
Grace considered, looking
from Anthony to Billy. Maybe that’s why
it took Billy a while to get to the door. Why he rang the doorbell instead of
coming straight inside as usual.
“And this is DL,” she continued. “He’s the one who asked me to
take on this case. His girls are the ones disappearing.”
Anthony shook hands with DL with no outward response to the
tattoos or DL’s stern demeanor.
“My condolences for the girls who were lost,” Anthony said.
DL responded with a simple “Thank you,” and took a seat at the
table.
“I thought you said this
guy was a real ass,” Danny said.
“He always was that way
until tonight,” Grace said, deciding the mystery of Anthony’s change of
character could wait.
“Billy, why don’t you walk us through what you’ve found?” Grace
suggested as the rest of the group sat down at the table.
Billy started with Grace’s request to investigate the disappearance of prostitutes and
finished with the map he had rolled out onto the table.
“We’ve marked on the map where the ‘missing’ prostitutes
frequented. Each of these areas circled in red marker are ones we have a high
level of confidence on where these women were last seen. Or at least are places
they worked the most often.”
He pointed to several circles positioned at different locations
on the map.
“That’s all we’ve identified in common for the women.”
The circles clustered around
six or seven main areas. The number of circles and some of the locations
surprised Grace. Even though Billy had told her about the number of places in
the city where prostitution was happening, seeing it on a map like this made it
real.
“DL, why don’t you add the information about your girls to the
map?” Grace suggested. “It might let us see if there’s some pattern to the
locations.”
“Is it ok to write on the map?” DL asked Billy, standing to take
the piece of notepaper he had showed Grace earlier out of his pocket, this one
updated with locations.
“Sure,” Billy agreed. “Sounds like a great idea to help us
visualize the whole story. How about you mark the girls’ information in blue
then we can keep the two groups separate?” he proposed, holding out a blue
marker for DL.
“Yeah, it makes sense,” DL agreed, taking the marker and
comparing the map to the list in his hand. “Can you help orient me? Where is
the intersection of St. Luke's and Grossman?”
While Billy and DL worked to mark off the locations for all the
girls on his list, Grace took the opportunity to check in on Anthony. He was
not contributing much to the discussion, yet. He was watching as DL and Billy
collaborated on the map, spending more time appraising Billy than following the
actual work.
Her attention came back to the discussion as she heard DL say
“That’s the last one.”
Grace nodded to herself with satisfaction when she saw all but a
few of the blue and red circles were overlapping each other. She walked around
the table trying to get a view from all angles.
“I was right! They’re
connected, at least by location,” Grace said.
“You sure were, Gracie.
But what does it mean?” Danny asked.
“That’s what I’m hoping we
can figure out with all this brain power in the room.”
“There is a pattern, at least a general one,” she said to the
room.
Billy shook his head. “I didn’t believe you were right, Grace,
even after finding several women matching the profile,” he said, motioning
toward the map with a marker.
“It was great idea to put them on the map, Billy,” Grace said.
“Yep. But adding DL’s information in another color helps. It
shows the overlap well without losing the original information.”
“But what does it mean?” DL asked. “I mean beyond the obvious
overlaps. How will it help us find the guy who’s doing this?”
“I’m not sure, yet, what it all means,” Grace said. “But let’s
take a look at what you brought from the missing girls.”
DL appeared a bit confused by the change of direction, but
reached down to roll open the bag next to his chair and pull a sweater from it.
“This was Sabra’s” he explained, holding the sweater for a
moment in his hands. Then he asked, “Are you going to give it to a tracking dog
or something?”
Anthony finally joined into the conversation. “It is unnecessary
to use dogs for this sort of thing. Dogs are effective for a few hours when you
know where the person of interest was last seen. It has been what, weeks, since
the girl went missing?” Anthony asked, looking at Grace for confirmation.
When she nodded, Anthony continued. “Grace will try and ‘read’
the sweater to find out what she can about what happened to the girl.”
“What do you mean, ‘read?’” DL asked, still not sure of the
conversation.
It annoyed Grace that Anthony was the one to introduce the
topic, feeling DL might be less skeptical if the information came from her
rather than a stranger.
Billy said matter of factly, “DL, they’re serious. I’ve seen
Grace do this sort of thing several times before. She can get a sense of things
from touching objects. She’s used her ability to solve missing person’s cases
in the past by ‘reading’ things that belonged to the missing person.”
DL looked from Billy to Anthony and then to Grace. “You’re not
pulling my leg, are you? You can do something that strange?”
“Yes,” Grace said as Anthony sighed at the statement.
“It is not ‘strange,’” Anthony said making air quotes with his
fingers. “It is what some people do naturally” he said, a slight air of
superiority tinting his remarks.
He glanced over at Grace and amended, “And Grace is one of
them.”
Grace turned to DL, taking over the conversation. “I have a
supernatural ability called clairvoyance which allows me to ‘see’ things when I
touch objects.”
“Grace and I both have this ability,” Anthony admitted.
Billy looked a bit surprised by the confession, but then nodded
to himself as if it now made sense why Anthony was there with them.
“Do you all have this ability?” DL asked, staring at each of
them, one after the other.
Anthony smiled and Billy laughed out loud. “No, DL. Grace and
Anthony are the only ones here who can do readings. I am as normal as you are,
in that respect.”
“Let’s not forget the
ghost in the room isn’t one, either,” Danny added, sounding annoyed.
“Billy’s aware neither of
them knows about you. He isn’t going to put you at risk by mentioning it now in
front of Anthony,” Grace said, trying to keep Danny focused.
“Bah!” Danny grunted
in response.
DL set the sweater into his lap, running his hands over it.
“You’re using this sweater to tell us where the missing girl is?” he asked.
“Yes. Although what I get isn’t always detailed or specific.
Sometimes it’s more general.”
“Then why do we need both of you?” he asked, turning to Anthony.
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