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“On what grounds?” I asked. “I don’t have a badge, and I don’t have a ready excuse to show up around midnight asking them if they know where the guy who took their daughter into a janitor’s closet on the daily might be.”
He grunted.
“I’m going to keep looking.” I headed into the living room and poked around. For a bachelor in his twenties, he had a pretty picked-up home. Besides a large TV, he had two game systems and one of the consoles was in the coffee table.
Malcolm joined me, using the dishrag to look under cushions and pull furniture away from walls.
I moved down the hall toward a bedroom empty of everything except for a few boxes. I opened them and found family photos that included a blond boy at various ages and his parents. I found one of the boy as an older teen and handed it to Malcolm. “This Eddie?”
He took it and frowned. “Yep.”
I opened the other box and found more of the same along with old report cards and children’s artwork. The closet had a few coats, including a camouflage jacket. I checked all the pockets and only found a couple of gas station receipts and a gum wrapper.
I turned around and saw Malcolm’s frame filling the doorway, watching me.
“Not off searching on your own?” I asked in a snotty tone.
“No. If I found anything, you’d probably claim I planted it.”
He had a point.
We headed into the bathroom next, which also seemed relatively clean for a twenty-something guy living on his own, but then again, he was a school janitor. Maybe he was a neat freak. Malcolm stood in the doorway watching me as I searched. I only found the usual toiletries and cleaners. I brushed past Malcolm to move into and through the last door.
The door was partially closed. I pushed it open, not surprised to see a full-sized bed with no headboard and a small nightstand on the far side. From the doorway, I shined my flashlight around the room. The bed was rumpled and unmade, but everything else looked neat and clean. The closet had two track doors that were closed.
“He was in bed when they broke in,” Malcolm said behind me.
“Yeah,” I said. “As neat as the rest of the house is, I suspect he makes his bed, or at least tossed the ends of the sheet and blanket up to the pillows.”
I pointed the light at the bedside table, where an iPhone was charging.
“Idiots,” Malcolm grunted. “Who runs off and leaves their phone? They could have at least tried to make it look like he really took off.”
“Or maybe your goons had short notice and didn’t have time to clean their tracks.”
He exhaled in disgust. “If anyone working for me had been this sloppy, they would have found themselves out of a job.”
I was glad my back was to him, so he didn’t see my shock at his admission to criminal activity.
I might not know all the details, but it was clear that Eddie Johnson wasn’t here.
Dammit.
I pushed out a sigh. “I need to find out what Mr. LaRue drives and ask the neighbors if they saw anything within the last hour.”
“How do you plan to do that?”
I felt like I’d exhausted my favors from Louise, but I really needed to know. I ran a hand over my head, trying to make myself focus. “I’ll call Louise. She can look it up.”
“Don’t bother,” he said. I looked over my shoulder to see him tapping on his phone. “I have someone looking into it.”
“Do I want to know who you’re asking?”
He glanced up, a sly look on his face. “Probably not.”
Great.
I searched the bedside table drawers and found underwear and socks, neatly folded. Nothing underneath.
