I t was hard to imagine Dennis Fisher as a sex addict. He was so… ordinary. And he looked so young. Until you got a look at his eyes. Morris was curious to know what kind of sexual behavior the meeting leader was addicted to, but of course it would be rude to ask.
Morris, Jerry, and Fisher were sitting in a cramped office in the basement of the Front Street Methodist Church in Renton.
“I’m sorry, guys, but I don’t know anybody named Sheila Tao.”
Jerry plucked a photo out of his shirt pocket and slid it across the metal desk. “This is her.”
Fisher picked it up, his eyes widening. “This is Stella. She’s the one who’s missing?”
“Her name is Sheila,” Morris said.
“She goes by Stella here, then.” Fisher pushed the picture back. “Not that it’s surprising. A lot of people make up fake names. There’s such a stigma attached to sex addiction. It’s not like other addictions, you know.”
Morris was beginning to see that.
“You must be her fiancé, then? She talked about you a lot.”
“Yeah? And what name did she give me?” Morris asked, bitter.
Fisher smiled sympathetically. “She told me you were a really good guy and she couldn’t wait to marry you.”
Morris said nothing.
“I was happy for her,” Fisher continued. “And proud that she’d been honest with you from the beginning.”
“I didn’t find out about her addiction until about three weeks ago.”
Fisher sat back. “Jeez. If I’d known she’d been keeping it from you, I wouldn’t have been so supportive. It’s one thing to lie about your name-that’s understandable-but lying about the progress you’ve made in your own recovery? That tells me she wasn’t ready to get hitched. So what happened?”
Jerry gave the man a quick rundown while Morris sat and listened. The office was hot and stifling. He tugged at his shirt collar.
Fisher thought before he spoke. “I wish I could tell you I knew she was planning to leave. But she never said anything to me about it.”
“When did you last see her?” Jerry had his notebook in hand.
“Two weeks ago. She came to the meeting.”
“Are you her sponsor?” Morris asked.
Fisher shook his head. “Cross-gender sponsorship is a no-no. She never wanted one, though-not everyone is comfortable with that component of the program. She mentioned she had a therapist. Not that it’s any help to you.”
“Therapists never talk about their patients. This I know from experience.” Jerry scribbled something down in his notebook. “So, was Sheila acting differently that night at the meeting? Anything weird about her behavior?”
Fisher pondered the question, his fingers drumming on the desk. “I can’t recall anything specific, although maybe she was a little quieter than usual. We spoke for a bit before the meeting started. I was impressed she made it in, what with the wedding coming up and all. It demonstrated how committed she was to her recovery, and I told her that.”
Morris turned to Jerry. “We should ask some of the other members. Maybe someone else might know if there was anything going on with her.”
Fisher shifted in his chair. “I can’t allow that. The members value their privacy and we do everything we can to protect it. She didn’t form any close friendships with anyone here that I noticed-and I would have noticed.” He thought for a moment. “There was a new member she talked to during the break.”
“A man?” Jerry’s eyes shifted to Morris.
“Yes. He sat near the front so I got a pretty good look at him. Late thirties, I’d say, around six feet, two hundred pounds.”
“White? Black? Hispanic? Asian?”
“Black,” Fisher said firmly, then added, “but not black black.”
“I beg your pardon?” Jerry’s pen froze over his notepad. “What exactly is ‘ black black’?”
Fisher flushed a deep crimson. He looked at Morris as if to plead for help.
Morris bit back a smirk and said nothing. Good luck, buddy.
Fisher tried to explain. “You know, like he wasn’t really black. Like, I mean, he wasn’t dark-skinned…”
“Like me?” Jerry said.
“Well, no, not exactly…”
“He was light-skinned?”
“Yes, light-skinned. As if he was…”
“Of mixed race?”
“Exactly.”
Jerry’s jaw worked, but he jotted the information down. After a moment of excruciating silence, he said, “Okay, what else?”
“He was very attentive during the meeting, not at all uncomfortable. I got the impression he was either a member somewhere else and had just moved here or was visiting and didn’t want to miss a meeting. I overheard them chatting a little bit. He had a slight limp. And a funny accent.”
“What kind of accent?”
“Couldn’t tell you. He just sounded different.”
“Name?”
“Not sure. John? James?” Fisher paused. “James, I think.”
“Did she leave with this guy?” Morris asked, his throat dry.
“No idea.”
“Anything else you can think to mention?” Jerry said.
“No.” Fisher looked upset. “But you could see if she went to Tony’s Tavern afterwards. She usually did. It’s just down the street. And I’ll ask some of the other members if they noticed or overheard anything. Better I do it than you guys. If I learn anything, I’ll let you know.”
Jerry put his card on the desk. “Just call me with whatever you learn, even if you don’t think it’s significant. You never know what it might lead to.”
Fisher stuck the card in his shirt pocket. “Please keep me posted. Stella was a friend.”
“Sheila,” Morris corrected again.
Fisher’s smile was sad. “She was Stella to me.”
Tony’s Tavern was dimly lit, and it reeked of grease and beer. Morris’s kind of place. He enjoyed his porterhouse steak and his forty-year-old Scotch, but it still came in a close second to a thick homemade burger and a pile of freshly fried onion rings. He and Jerry took a seat at the bar.
A waitress with frizzy red hair approached. “What can I get you boys?”
Morris consulted the menu and ordered the mushroom-Swiss burger with onion rings. Jerry ordered the fish and chips. Both ordered Miller Lites, on tap.
Morris felt a stab of guilt. It was officially the first time in two years he’d ordered alcohol in a restaurant.
“The one thing I love about not working for the department anymore,” Jerry said as he raised his glass to his lips, “is I can drink while I’m working.”
“I’ll toast to that,” Morris said.
The waitress smiled as she wiped the bar in front of them. “What are we toasting, boys?” Her voice matched her face, hoarse and weathered.
“Drinking on the job.” Jerry smiled at her and raised his glass again. “This is Morris. I’m Jerry.”
“Jean.” The waitress shook both their hands. “I haven’t seen you’s here before. You from Seattle or just visiting?”
“We’re locals,” Morris said. “I don’t get down this way much. I live on the East Side.”
“So you’re slumming it.” Jean chuckled. “What, they don’t have pubs on the East Side?”
“Hey, Jean,” Jerry said, pulling out the picture of Sheila. “You ever seen this woman?”
Jean picked up the photo and dug into her apron pocket for her glasses. “I knew you guys was cops.”
Jerry laughed. “I’m retired. I work for myself now. This guy’s my client, and we’re looking for his fiancée. She went missing two weeks ago.”
Jean stood with the photo under one of the small halogen lights illuminating the bar, examining the picture closely. “Yeah, I’ve seen her before,” she said, her eyes crinkled in concentration. “Buncha times. She comes in here a coupla times a month. Always gets the same thing-mushroom-Swiss, Diet Coke. Seemed nice enough.”
“Was she here two weeks ago?”
Jean’s face scrunched up. “Yeah, she was.”
“You sound certain.”
The waitress looked uncomfortable as she passed the photo back. “Well, I remember ’cause she came in at her usual time, but instead of sitting alone like she usually does, she met someone. He came in a little later, went right to her table.”
“What’d he look like?” Morris’s hand tightened around his beer glass.
“I don’t know. It was dark. My eyes ain’t what they used to be.”
“Try and think.” He couldn’t keep the impatience out of his voice. Jerry shot him a look.
The woman bristled. “Well, now, I don’t know if I want to. Not if it’s gonna get her in trouble.”
“Jean, she’s missing.” Jerry’s voice was calm. “Anything you can tell us would be helpful. We’re trying to make sure nothing bad happened to her.”
Jean leaned over the bar toward them, focusing on Morris. “Look, it’s not any of my business what kind of relationship you’s two were in. I’m not one to judge. But this woman you’re looking for, your fiancée, she wasn’t acting like a woman about to get married. They sat right there.” Jean pointed to the table in the center-most part of the pub. “And they were close. Leaning into each other, smiling. I served them. He was a real good-looking guy.” She gave a description that matched the one Fisher had given them. “He wasn’t from around here. He had some kind of accent.”
“Like he wasn’t from Seattle?”
“Like he wasn’t from the USA.”
Morris’s stomach burned. “Did they leave together?”
Jean’s wrinkled face was sympathetic. “Yeah,” she said finally. “They left together. He was kind of touching her elbow, and he was limping a little. She looked tipsy, even though she wasn’t drinking. I figured she was giddy ’cause she’d snagged such a handsome guy.” Jean’s lips tightened. “Truth be told, I was a little jealous.”
“How’d they pay?” Jerry asked.
“Cash, I’m pretty sure. Separate checks,” she said to Morris, as if it would make him feel better.
“This place have a security camera?”
The waitress guffawed. “You’re funny.”
“Any chance you saw what he was driving?”
“Sorry.” She looked around and lowered her voice. “So, what, you boys think this guy did something to her?”
Morris said nothing.
Jerry shrugged. “No idea. We’ll have to find him and ask him. What about a name? Did you hear her call him anything?”
“No, but he told me himself his name was Jack. Or James.” Jean paused, thinking. “Or was it Jason?”
Jerry watched her, his pen poised over his notebook.
Finally she said, “I think it was James, but I’m not a hundred percent.” A bell dinged from somewhere behind her and she straightened up. “That’s your food. Be right back.”
Morris took a long sip of his beer, suddenly wishing he hadn’t come. Maybe it was better to let Jerry handle everything. The private investigator would have filtered this information for him. Right now it was almost too real. Raw.
Jean came back with their order.
“So you didn’t see them drive off together, did you?” Morris said, pouncing on her again. “It’s possible she got into her own car and left separately?”
“I didn’t see what happened when they got to the parking lot.” Jean was beginning to sound exasperated. “But, guys, I work in a bar. I have for most of my life. You think I can’t tell when two people hook up?” She looked at Morris. “I’m sorry. Just telling you what I saw.”
“You okay?” Jerry asked when she walked away.
Morris looked down at his food. “What do you think?”
They dug into their meals. The burger was decent.
“Listen. I think we’re at a bit of a dead end here.” Jerry took a long sip of his beer. “Unless Fisher’s found out something from the other SAA members, we don’t have anything to go on.”
“What are the chances that somebody from SAA would remember someone’s license plate number from two weeks ago?”
Jerry munched on a fry. “Stranger things have happened. We could get lucky. But it’s not likely.”
“What now?”
“I’ll talk to her TA tomorrow, Ethan Wolfe, the one she seemed… close to.” Jerry picked up another fry. He was choosing his words carefully. “He might know something. And Torrance ran her credit cards when he was investigating-I have a contact who can do it again for me. If she’s used them in the last couple of days, we can track her that way.”
Morris didn’t reply, and they finished their food in silence. When they were done, Jerry paid the check.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Morris said as they walked out.
“Don’t worry, you’ll see it expensed in my invoice.”
Morris chuckled, though he doubted Jerry was joking. “What are you doing now? Maybe we should talk to Ethan Wolfe tonight.”
“Nah, I’ll catch him first thing in the morning,” Jerry said. “I don’t want you there, anyway. I’ll call you if I learn anything interesting. For now, go home and rest. Enough excitement for one day.”
Morris stopped when they reached their cars. “What if she’s dead?” he said quietly. The wind was chilly and he shivered under the pale light of the parking-lot lamppost. “What if she had some kind of blackout or breakdown and she’s lying dead in a ditch somewhere?”
“Don’t think that.” Jerry looked at Morris sharply. “You keep that shit out of your head. It won’t help you, trust me. Right now the best thing you can do is stay positive. Remember, Torrance might still be right. In which case, we’ll find her, and you can ask her yourself what the hell she was thinking.” Jerry clapped Morris on the shoulder, then climbed into his Honda and slammed the door shut.
“I don’t know if I want to know,” Morris said after the PI drove away.