Chapter 4:
"Look at this." Danny pointed at one of his papers and then entered something into his computer.
"Alex has called a Lionel Pearson a couple of times in the past six month."
Elena leaned over Danny's shoulder to see it for herself.
"Have we got anything on him?" She wanted to know.
"Nope, he's clean. That is apart from a case of youthful indiscretion when he was 16. Pestering of a prostitute. But nothing serious and as I said he was 16. Everybody does something stupid at that age."
"So why would he call this guy?"
Danny looked at his screen again.
"Obviously they were working for the same company."
Elena sighed.
"Come on, he could have called him for a thousand reasons then. Doesn't mean he is into something. Or are you suggesting he's gay?" Her last question was an expression of pure sarcasm.
"I really don't understand your derisive comment now. I mean, I'm just trying to consider every possibility." Danny tried to defend himself although he didn't really know why he always ended up defending himself when talking to Elena. She teased him constantly and he could see from her face how much she seemed to enjoy it. But one day he swore to himself it was going to be his turn to enjoy teasing her. He just needed to come up with something.
"I bet you do. I'm going to call Jack and tell him to ask if his wife knows anything about a Lionel Pearson. Maybe he's just a family friend." And with that Elena headed to her own bullpen.
"Bet he is..." Danny said with disbelief and concentrated on his work again.
"Are you alright?" Martin asked when Sam leaned against the wall and closed her eyes.
"Sure." She replied quickly and opened her eyes again. "It's just this damn headache. I can't seem to get rid of it today."
"When we're done here you should try to get some rest. Should I take you home before I go back to the office? I'm sure Jack will understand." Martin made that suggestion although he knew that she would never do this and as he expected she shook her head.
"No, I'm okay. Besides I couldn't rest until we have found Juliet anyway."
Martin could understand that. He didn't know the whole story about Sam's family, but he knew that there was a connection between Juliet Newman and the young Samantha Spade. And whatever Sam must have dreamed that night it had reminded her of the way she had been, the way her life had been and the decisions she had made. Juliet was very similar to the young Samantha, but she had made different decisions and as far as they had learned they have lead her to drugs and prostitution. That's what made Sam wonder whether her life could have been the same if she had been less strong. And that's what always brought her thoughts back to her own family and all that had gone wrong there.
"If you change your mind just let me know, okay? I would hate to see you get worse."
Sam smiled gently at him, but didn't have the time to respond, because someone came up from behind.
"Can I help you?" It was a very skinny, young woman in her twenties with long, dark hair.
Martin and Sam were instantly pulled from their private moment.
"Ah... yeah." Martin said regaining his professionalism. "We're looking for Lucy Hayes."
The woman scanned them carefully.
"I'm Lucy Hayes." She finally responded. "And you're with the police or what?"
"FBI." Sam said showing her badge. "We wanted to ask a couple of questions about the disappearance of Juliet Newman. We understand you live together?"
Lucy searched her pockets for the key to the apartment. When she had finally found it she unlocked the door.
"We do. Come in."
The agents sat down at the kitchen table and Sam took out her notebook.
"Would you like anything to drink?" Lucy asked pouring herself some water into a glass.
"No, we're fine, thanks."
Lucy took a seat at the table as well.
"So you came by to talk about Juliet?"
"That's right. When was the last time you saw her?" Martin took over the part of questioning again.
"That would have been two days ago. We were having breakfast together. Afterwards I had a couple of clients and I didn't come home until very early in the morning. Juliet must have been in bed already. When I woke up the next morning she was already off somewhere, but she must have been home after I went again, because she left me a message."
"May we see that message?"
"Yes, sure."
Lucy stood up to get it. She rummaged through the drawers and finally her face lid up when she pulled out a piece of paper.
"This is it." She explained when she handed it over to Martin.
Hey Lucy,
I'm off on some business. Could take some time. Don't worry!
Love,
JulieMartin handed the sheet over to Sam who read it carefully and then put it into her notebook as evidence.
"We'll need to keep this." She said to Lucy who nodded in return.
"What did she mean by "business"?" Martin continued.
Lucy shrugged as if she didn't really want to talk about it.
"Well, actually that was the thing that surprised me when I read the message." She paused for a moment.
"How so?"
"She's been talking about getting out of business. You know, do something useful, a good job..."
"Do you know what it was that caused these plans?" Sam wanted to know.
"Not really, no. But I know that she also has been to one of those groups. The ones that help you get clean and that sort of thing. She didn't go out for quite a while too and...she didn't drink any alcohol."
Martin looked at Sam, Sam at Martin and Lucy at both agents at the same time.
"Oh my..." Were the only words that left Lucy's mouth.
"You think she might have been pregnant?" It was Martin who asked the obvious question.
Lucy was still a bit baffled.
"I never really thought about it up until now, but it might have been possible. That would explain a lot of things. When she vomited all over this place last week I thought it was just a virus. And all those things she has done to get out of here. But why wouldn't she tell me?"
"Do you see any possibility she might just have run away without telling anyone?" Martin saw the missing person's case fading into another person who simply ran away.
"Not without telling her brother. And he must have been the one who called you."
Sam leaned forwards when she asked another question that was one her mind.
"Do you know of any men with whom she had contact lately? Maybe could be possible fathers of a child assuming she is pregnant?"
Lucy thought about this for some time and suddenly something seemed to come to her mind.
"I heard her arguing with somebody about a week ago. The guy she was discussing with came to see her quite often. I almost would have thought it was something serious. I don't know his name, but he seemed to be pretty upset the last time I saw him. The small bits and pieces I got from their conversation where about something being somebody's fault and about money. I'm sorry, but I thought that it was none of my business so I didn't exactly try to hear anything. And it was obvious she didn't want to talk about it later. Maybe I should have pushed harder. I don't know. Maybe this had something to do with her disappearance."
Martin and Sam exchanged another glance. Things were not lighting in up in the Juliet Newman case. They knew cases like these well enough.
"Miss Hayes we will need you to come with us to the office to identify the man she had that argument with."
Lucy nodded.
"Sure anything to help finding her."
"Mr. Pearson, we understand you and Alexander Rowley had contact within the last six months."
"Who's asking that?" The middle-aged man looked suspiciously over his glasses.
"Special agents Danny Taylor and Elena Delgardo, FBI."
Lionel Pearson rose from his seat a puzzled expression in his face.
"I don't understand. We didn't do anything that could be important enough to involve the FBI. It wasn't anything illegal."
Danny finally had the feeling they were getting ahead with the Rowley case. His guts told him that this guy was the key.
"That will be up to us to decide, won't it? Now why don't you tell us what kind of business you and Alex had to talk about so often on the phone." Danny took a chair standing nearby and a still perplexed Lionel Pearson slowly sank back into his seat.
"Well we've been working on something together about six months ago and all of a sudden his phone rang. It was his wife. Somehow this call triggered something in him. I didn't think it was about anything off the ordinary, but he was in a really bad mood afterwards. I asked him about it and he told me he couldn't go on like this and that his marriage made him unhappy. I was a little surprised to put it mildly, because I didn't even know him quite well and he was quite famous as the henpecked husband round here." Mr. Pearson paused a moment, took off his glasses to rub his eyes and then placed them back on his nose.
"The strangest thing was that after work he began to ask me where people at our age used to go out to get some company. I thought it was just something he said, but when he approached me the next day I changed my mind."
Danny rested his head one his right fist while he listened and Elena stood behind him shaking her head in disbelief.
"So what were you two up to then?" She wanted to know.
"You know, I know clubs where you find company quite easily. So I took him there. And that was about it. He called me sometimes when he wanted to go again."
Elena took some notes.
"To which club did you go?" Danny continued his questioning.
"To the A & B."
"Always?"
"Yeah, I think so."
"And Alex had sex with some of the girls there?" Danny wanted to push this a bit further.
"Well I wasn't with him all night, but I would think so. Actually there one special girl he had met there. He seemed to enjoy her company most."
"And who was that girl?"
"Hell, I wouldn't know that. Alex and I didn't talk about such things. But if you ask me, she was plain. Nothing exceptional. Dark hair, about 5'7" and quite thin."
"Okay. How often did Alex go there with you?"
"Twice a week or something, but he hasn't asked me this week."
"That's because he is missing since yesterday. Any idea where he might be?"
Pearson looked stunned and then shrugged.
"No, I didn't know he was missing. He was a little quieter than usual at work yesterday, if that's possible. I thought there was something on his mind, but I didn't ask."
"Okay, thanks Mr. Pearson. We will come back to you if we need your expertise once more." Danny couldn't hide his sarcasm. He smiled at Mr. Pearson once more and then stood up to leave.
"Miss Hayes, why don't you take a seat? There will be someone with you in a minute to look at some pictures with you." Martin pointed a chair on the conference table.
"Sure." Lucy sat down. She felt a bit awkward being in an FBI office. It wasn't the first time she was involved with the law enforcement of some kind, but she wasn't used to being a witness. She had been caught with drugs once when she was still a teenager and lately she had been blamed to have threatened somebody with a knife. This however had been an act of self-defense and she was set free again.
When Martin and Sam had put some distance between themselves and Lucy they began to talk with low voices.
"What do you think?" Martin asked.
"Maybe this guy Juliet was arguing with was the farther and he killed her, because he didn't want the child. That is if she was indeed pregnant."
Martin nodded slowly. He had little doubt that Juliet was indeed expecting a child.
Cases like these always made him angry. He just couldn't understand why someone would do such a thing. There were so many other possibilities than blindly killing a baby and the mother. He just couldn't grasp which kind of evil must be acting in people like these.
"Lucy also mentioned something about money. Any thoughts?"
Sam shrugged.
"He could have been a client who still owed her money. Or..." She couldn't finish her sentence, because Martin was thinking exactly the same and spoke it out.
"...it was a bribe."
Sam nodded in agreement.
"Assuming it was a bribe then the man we are looking for was probably married and he must have had to pay her quite a sum. Juliet wanted a new living and this could have been the best opportunity to get the money she needed." Sam continued their brainstorming. They had always been invincible in this sort of game, because they were thinking in the same ways. This made them an excellent team.
"You think she might have got pregnant on purpose?"
Sam shook her head.
"I don't think so. I think she didn't even consider the possibility of getting her life in order before she found out she was expecting a child."
"Agent Fitzgerald?" Sam and Martin both turned around to see Lucy was the one calling. The agents walked up to her.
Somebody had already brought her some pictures of men that could be possible suspects.
"Do you recognize anybody?" Martin asked looking at the picture Lucy had held in her hand.
"I do." She said staring into nothingness for a minute.
"Are you sure it's this guy?" Sam tried to call her into reality again.
Lucy focused in them again and then shook her head vehemently.
"No." She said and the agents already let out a sigh of disappointment. "But it's this guy!" She almost yelled pointing at the picture of Alexander Rowley on the blackboard.
END CHAPTER 4...
A/N: Actually I've nothing important to say today... Doesn't happen very often:) So just enjoy chapter 4 and let me know what you think