“I am your bodyguard,” he said, scanning the area for any sign of the Twelve. “And you are very, very wealthy.”
“No, I’m not. You are. And you can’t be my bodyguard for reals. You’re my affianced.” I rang the doorbell. The Chandlers had a modest house in the Northeast Heights with a well-manicured lawn and lots of nonindigenous flowers. “Affianceds can’t be bodyguards to their better halves. Bodyguards have to keep their distance,” I explained as we waited. “They can’t get too attached to their subject matter.”
“Their subject matter?”
“The body they’re guarding. They have to keep a cool, level head and stay detached, lest they let their emotions overrule their better judgment. Thus, I am pretending – emphasis on the pre and the tend – that you are my bodyguard. I need a Chihuahua with a diamond collar.”
I glanced at my button-down, soft leather vest hanging to my knees, and my boots. I had to wear the knee-highs so I could bring Zeus along. When I carried him out in the open, people hurt themselves trying to get away.
“I so don’t look like a woman with a bodyguard. I look like a bohemian.”
“I like bohemians.”
I glanced up at him. “Are you sure you’re okay? You were almost ripped apart yesterday, and today you seem… off.”
He glanced around again. “I just think we should be looking at the bigger picture.”
“Which is?” I asked as the door opened.
“Twelve angry hellhounds that want nothing more than to rip out your throat and sup on your blood.”
Thankfully, there was a glass door between Mrs. Chandler and us, and Reyes had said those last words softly.
I pasted on my best sympathetic smile as she opened the glass door. She was a pleasant-looking lady in her mid-fifties with short brown hair she probably had done every week at the beauty shop. After digging out my PI license, I explained who we were, introducing Reyes as my associate, Mr. Farrow, and why we were there. I doubt she heard a word we said.
She let us in, her eagerness to find her husband making her desperate. I was surprised at the lack of uniforms. I’d expected a cop to be there or an FBI agent. She sniffed into a tissue as we sat in her pristine living room.
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Chandler,” I said, as she sniffed again. “Was that your husband’s handwriting on the suicide note?”
“No,” she said, raising her chin. “Like I told the police, that’s his handwriting when he’s drunk.”
“He’d been drinking?”
She stood and rummaged through a drawer before coming back and showing us a coin. No, a chip. A sobriety chip from Alcoholics Anonymous.
“This is his nine-year chip. He carries his ten-year chip with him everywhere. He hasn’t taken a sip of alcohol since…” She turned away from me to gather herself. When she turned back, her expression was filled with vehemence. Determination. “He hasn’t taken a single sip in all that time. Then suddenly he’s drinking and suicidal? Just out of the blue like that?”
“Mrs. Chandler, do you know any of these people?” I asked, slipping three pictures out of the file I carried and showing them to her. They were the other three suicide-note victims. Perhaps if we could find a link, we could figure out who was doing this. And why.
But my bigger motivation for being there was her husband. Every once in a great while, I would get lucky and the departed victim would still be hanging out at his old stomping grounds. I glanced around but saw no one. Though I did catch a glimpse of a stuffed shi-tzu on a bookshelf. Stuffed animals freaked me out.
“I don’t recognize any of them, though this one looks faintly familiar,” she said, handing back the pictures and pointing to Anna Gallegos. “Are they involved in my husband’s disappearance?”
“No, not exactly. Did the police tell you your husband’s suicide note wasn’t the first they’ve seen lately?”
“Yes, they mentioned that. They said there was another man and a woman missing as well. Why aren’t they doing anything?” She was starting to panic. “Why aren’t they looking?”
“Mrs. Chandler, they are. That’s why we’re here, too. We’re looking in on the case.”
“A private investigator?” she asked, surprised.
“I’m also a consultant for APD. Has your husband had any problems with anyone lately? Any fights with coworkers or —?”
“He’s an accountant for a law firm. He has issues every once in a while with a lawyer or an investigator billing beyond what they actually worked, but nothing that would explain this.”
I nodded, asked her a few more questions along the same lines, but I got the feeling Reyes was making her nervous. He stood and looked down the halls occasionally. Peeked into her kitchen. Moved aside a curtain to look through the window.
“If you think of anything,” I said, handing her my card as she led us out, “please give me a call.”
“I will. Please find him,” she said, breaking down again. A Buick pulled into the drive with Oregon license plates. Mrs. Chandler ran to the car and hugged the woman getting out of it. They looked like sisters, so I left them to it and walked Reyes to Misery.
“This would work much better if you’d relax.”
“This would work much better if there weren’t hellhounds after my fiancée.”
He had a point.