Reconnections—Parts 14 & 15
14.
Ezra was in his kitchen, about the order some Chinese takeout when his phone rang. He could see it was Grosser and answered immediately.
“The guys assigned to the IRT video spotted something on the Bauman murder,” said Grosser. “There was a figure that was there on the platform every day prior but not the day after. They are trying to see how many camera angles they can find that show this person. Whoever it was seemed to know where the cameras were. They were wearing a hoody and made good use of it. It’s not much but better than a full nothing.”
“Okay, tell them to get some rest,” said Ezra. “Fresh eyes and minds are going to really important. This perp is no slouch.”
“Comprendo,” said Grosser as he signed off.
Ezra walked into his apartment and wondered where Yvette might be. He had noticed the lights were off in Kensington’s unit as he was approaching the building. Then he thought is was better that he didn’t know because he should heed the same advice he was pushing at the rest of the task force.
Thinking more about it, Ezra realized that he actually knew very little about Yvette other than what he learned from their talks. And this bothered his detective’s senses. The motto and theme he had been forced to relearn with this case and others, was “don’t believe anything you haven’t verified.” He sighed and thought, “Okay, I’ll do a little checking at Barnard. Couldn’t hurt.”
He looked in his fridge and saw that the housekeeper had restocked the veggie drawer and freezer. So he whipped up a salad and microwave mac and cheese. He was going to settle in to some Netflix to unwind, but then remembered the elephant in the room. He had died, decided to come back and found he could literally recall and invoke abilities from his past lives.
One thing that he had always wanted to do as a child and teenager was draw. His own opinion, and shared by others, was that he could not even do convincing stick people.
He thought about what it would be like to competently depict images with a pencil, charcoal or other mediums. Then Ezra recalled that there were some sketchpads in a hall closet and grabbed one.
He envisioned Yvette’s face and started drawing with rapid and decisive motions. Shortly he had a wonderful image of Yvette with a coy and sexy expression.
“Score another one for my apparently infinite past.” And with that he hit the sack.
15.
Curious why he had not seen Yvette last night or this morning—getting obsessed, he wondered to himself—on his way out the door, he headed to George Kensington’s apartment down the hall. He knocked on the door but got no answer. He thought “Oh, well” and headed to the office.
When Ezra arrived at the task force’s conference room, the rest of the crew was there and Grosser was coming in the door.
“Hey, I just got a call that there’s a woman here named Lisa Kensington making a missing person’s report.”
That stopped Ezra in his tracks. “What’s the missing person’s first name?”
“George,” reported Grosser. “And before you start wondering about anything else, the address is your building, in a unit down the hall from yours.”
“We need to interview her, RFN, right fucking now,” said a Ezra with a sudden sinking feeling in his gut.” He and Grosser both pivoted and headed to Missing Persons.
There was one detective at his desk. “Where’s Lisa Kensington?” they both blurted at once.
“Just left. Probably already out the front door.”
Ezra sprinted out of the room and down the stair well.
“Get me a copy of the report, pronto!” yelled Grosser as he tried to keep up.
Out on the sidewalk, Ezra saw a typical New York packed sidewalk. He stopped and yelled, “Lisa Kensington!” at the top of his lungs. Half way down the block a woman stopped and headed back towards him.
Grosser arrived huffing just as the woman arrived back in front of Ezra.
She said, “You’ve got information already? That was fast.”
“Sorry, Ms Kensington,” said Ezra. “We’re actually working on another case and had some questions for you. We just this minute heard your had filed your missing person’s report for George Kensington. “
“How are you are related?”
“First of all, it’s Lisa. And George Kensington is my father.”
“Okay, Lisa. Sorry we have not gotten a copy of the report yet. When was the last time you heard from your father?
“It has been nearly two weeks. I was out of town on business in Milwaukee and didn’t have time to check in. I got back a couple of days ago, tried to call and got no answers to phone calls, emails, texts and no answer at his door. “
“Do you have a key to his apartment?”
“I do, but I didn’t have it with me at the time and I was about to head there now.”
“How about my partner and I going over with you? We’ll drive.”
“Can you tell me why the sudden and apparently urgent interest?”
“Not yet. But your permission to enter his apartment will help us a lot and save a bunch of time.”
Lisa thought for a moment and said, “Alright, let’s go.”
Outside Kensington’s apartment, Lisa handed Ezra her key. He and Grosser motioned for her to stand back, drew their sidearms—adding to her apprehension—and entered the apartment.
They cleared the apartment like any other, going from room to room and covering each other. There was no sign of George Kensington. But even more concerning to Ezra was that there was no sign of Yvette Moreau.
Ezra shoved the emotional factor of this absence aside as best he could.
“Grosser,” said Ezra, “this was where that girl Yvette told me she was staying. She said she had a sublet while she was hear attending Barnard.”
“Looks like something wasn’t true,” replied Grosser. Grosser motioned Ezra to the door. Back out in the hall, they shut the door and called for a forensic team.
Grosser answered Lisa’s unspoken questions. “There’s no sign of anything for anyone in the apartment. So we’re calling in a forensic team to sweep the place as if it was a crime scene and figure out what the hell is going on. Once they are done. You can accompany us into the place and point anything that might be missing or out of place.”
Meanwhile a ways down the hall, Ezra placed a call to Barnard College. From admissions he was able to quickly establish that there was no student enrolled by the name of Yvette Moreau.