Chapter 7
I HAD some time to kill—hours, actually—before heading out to speak to the night crew at Pickin’s, so I made arrangements with Janice to check out Brenda’s old bedroom at the Sanderson house. It had been months since Brenda had actually lived there, so I wasn’t expecting to find any huge clues, such as a note from her saying something like “Hi! I’ve run off to Reno with Marty Smith from down the street!” One could always hope, though. Since Janice Sanderson hadn’t changed Brenda’s room, at the very least I should be able to get some idea of her personality from her belongings.
The Sandersons lived on what’s known as the near-north side of Meridian Street. The houses there are uniformly huge and have lawns on which one could land a plane. The Sanderson domicile was a rambling, two-story structure with a small tower on one side going up a further floor. Even accounting for dens, studies, libraries or what have you, the house had to have at least five or six bedrooms. With Brenda gone, this left a hell of a lot of space for Ma Sanderson and little brother Kevin. Mr. Sanderson had run off with his secretary some three years ago. If Kevin had lots of friends over, they could play hide and seek and not find each other until graduation.
I worried if I had enough fuel to get my car down the long driveway. I did, although I felt sorry for the poor sap who had to tend to the Sanderson lawn. I couldn’t see Janice out mowing the lawn in her business suit. I parked and went to the front door and knocked.
After a long pause the door was opened by a kid with long blond hair and a sour look. I assumed this was Brenda’s adoring brother, Kevin. Kevin, judging from his long face, was not having a good day. Maybe he really was close to his sister and missed her. Or maybe he’d just lost at Halo.
“Is your mother in?” I asked.
He nodded. The kid looked so morose I wanted to buy him a puppy. Jerking a thumb he said, “She’s in the living room.”
Following the thumb, I came upon a cavern posing as a living room. The kid trundled upstairs, probably to practice for his Up With People audition. Janice Sanderson was seated on a long white couch right under a huge picture window. Her suit today was a dull gray. She had been leafing through The National Review but tossed it aside when I entered. “Mr. Andrews,” she said as if in surprise. As I’d called not more than an hour before to set this up, the surprise sounded false. She stood and offered me her hand. With the grandeur of the room influencing me, I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to shake the hand or kiss it. I shook.
“Thanks for letting me see Brenda’s room,” I said. I didn’t take a seat. I hadn’t been offered one, but the furniture really wasn’t the sit-on-it sort. I’d have felt like a museum piece. I bet Kevin wasn’t allowed to eat chocolate bars on the white couch. No wonder the kid looked glum.
“If you don’t mind, I’ll have Kevin show you her room. I have a few phone calls I need to make.” Janice smiled thinly.
Yeah, I could see how swamped she’d been when I’d entered. An article in the magazine must have reminded her of needed work. I thought of Kevin upstairs. Goodness knew how far away the kid was by now. The house was big enough it could have taken up two zip codes. How the two communicated in the massive house without use of cell phones, or at least an intercom system, was beyond me. I calculated how long it would take to get Kevin back downstairs and nixed the idea. “That’s okay. If you can tell me the way, I’ll find it.”
I did, although I was worried about not having a map. I thought about leaving a trail of bread crumbs to find my way back. No wonder Brenda had bolted. You could have twenty people living in the house and still feel lonely.
Okay, actually it wasn’t that bad. Brenda’s room was just at the top of the stairs, first door on the left. Still, it was too big a place for two people to live in.
Brenda’s room looked like a maid had just serviced it, as did the rest of the house. I hadn’t seen any servants but there at least had to be a housekeeper. The thought of Janice Sanderson shoving a vacuum cleaner over the carpets was almost as comical as her behind a lawn mower. The bed was neatly made and even had a little pillow set on the covers between the two regular pillows. I looked. There wasn’t a tiny chocolate placed there. I’d have fired the housekeeper. No wonder Brenda left.
The room had the bed, two closets, a dresser, a desk, and an entertainment center complete with stereo, DVD player, and television set for perfect viewing from the bed. There was a bookcase, but it was filled with DVDs. No books. I checked out the movie selection. Brenda favored teen comedies, Adam Sandler pictures, and the bloodier variety of horror movies. I had seen only one of the movies in her collection, and I’d hated it.
I turned on the computer on the desk. Her desktop picture was a photo of her and Kevin. Brenda was hugging the boy tightly, and he was hamming it up. Despite his stuck out tongue you could see he genuinely had affection for his older sister. There wasn’t much on her desktop. I clicked open her iTunes. Most of the music listed was bands I didn’t know, but it all seemed to be pop rock. Apparently Brenda was a longtime Hanson fan. She had everything they’d done since their first album. I hadn’t even known they were still around. Hell, the little kids from the videos I remembered on MTV would be in their twenties now. It hadn’t seemed like “MMMBop” was all that long ago. I turned off the computer, feeling old.
I was going through the dresser drawers when I realized I was being watched. I turned to find Kevin standing in the doorway, trying not to look curious. I smiled at him, and he gave me a nod.
“You’re a private detective?” he asked. I guessed he was around fourteen or fifteen, and with his long blond hair he could have been in Hanson, if they hadn’t aged.
I shut the drawer I was working on, not having found anything anyway. “I am,” I admitted.
“And you’re going to find my sister?”
I nodded. “She didn’t tell you anything that would help me out, did she? Like where she went? Because if she did and you told me, this would be one of the shortest cases I’ve ever handled.”
The kid cracked a smile. Morose teenagers loved my sense of humor. “No,” he said, “she didn’t tell me where she was going.”
“She moved out a couple of months ago, right?”
“Beginning of summer. Moved over on the west side with a friend of hers.”
“Have you been to her apartment?” While the kid was in a talkative mood, it seemed a waste not to ask a few questions.
“Once. Just for a bit before we went out for some burgers. Her roommate seemed nice. Really big boobs, but nice.” From his tone I could tell Kevin couldn’t care less about boobs, big or otherwise. I wondered if Janice knew that not only did she have a daughter who was a stripper but also a son who was a gay-in-waiting.
“Did Brenda have any special boyfriend? Some guy she hung around a lot?”
The kid bit his lip in thought. “Maybe the guy we had lunch with. Derek.”
“What was Derek like?”
“Nice guy. Kind of dumb, but nice. Had some tattoos on his arms. A pretty cool cross. He was pretty muscular.” Muscular was a major turn on for Kevin. He almost licked his lips when he said the words. I could see a future twink in front of me who liked rough sex. Go, Kevin.
“What did you guys talk about during lunch?”
He shrugged. “Movies. Cartoons. Cars.”
“Does Brenda talk about Derek much?”
“She doesn’t really talk about boys with me,” he replied, sounding a little disappointed.
“When did you talk with her last?”
“It’s been at least three weeks. Usually she calls me at least once a week.”
“And she didn’t give you any indication that she was leaving or anything the last time you talked to her?”
“No. Everything seemed normal. She was talking about getting a tattoo and how Mom would go apeshit if she did. We laughed.”
“What do you think has happened to her?”
The slight smile faded, and he returned to the glum Kevin. “Seriously? I think she’s dead.”
“What makes you think that?”
“She hasn’t called me. If she could, she’d call.”
I hoped the kid was wrong. A funeral would only make him more depressed, if such a thing was possible, and Ma Sanderson might not have a black suit to wear.