Read The Case of the Sin City Sister for Free Online Page B

afternoon. Remember?”

    Jackson appeared to be counting. “It’s a little over a month,” he acknowledged. “That’s not a long time for her.”
    “I know,” Eve replied. “It’s just that she’s not returning any of the calls I’ve made this week. She may not call us regularly, but she’s always called me back when I’ve left a message.”
    “Are you sure she’s getting the messages?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Doesn’t she change out her cell phones all the time? Isn’t that one of the bills she can never pay?”
    Eve considered this. “Yeah, but why would it still be her voice, her message, if they discontinued the number?”
    “Maybe they don’t turn it off right away; maybe they hold on to the number expecting payment.”
    Eve shook her head. “That just doesn’t make any sense.”
    He waited. “Check the bank records,” he said.
    “What do you mean?”
    “Check the bank statement, see if she cashed the check.”
    Eve sat up. “That’s a great idea. At least that will tell us if she got the money.”
    She hurried into the kitchen and picked up the phone. She had called the bank before to check on outstanding checks. It was an automated system, and even though she didn’t recall the check number, she did remember the date it was written and the amount. She was sure that was enough to see if it had cleared.
    She dialed the number written on the phone book she kept in the top kitchen drawer and pulled out the account information she kept in her wallet. After punching in a series of numbers and having answered more than a few questions, the check numbers werecalled out. They were all in sequence and all of them had cleared. All but one. Check number 2052. The one written on May 14. The one written in the amount of two hundred dollars. The one written to Dorisanne Divine Miller.
    She hung up the phone and walked back into the den.
    The Captain looked up from the television program he had turned on. He didn’t have to ask because he knew the answer just by reading his daughter’s face. He switched off the remote. “We’ll call her boss first,” was all he said.

EIGHT

    “Right now, I’m short three waitresses. One is pregnant, the other got a job at the Poker Table, and Dorisanne with her bum foot. She said it’d be four weeks, this makes the fifth. You tell her to call me when you see her.”
    “Haven’t you talked to her?” Eve asked.
    “She called a week or so ago, just to say she was going to need the whole medical leave, the whole month. At first, she thought she might be able to be back, but she called then to say she was still on the crutches. That was before Jackie and Harriet left me. You tell her I need to hear from her right away.”
    “I can’t get in touch with her,” Eve tried to explain. “That’s why I called you, to see if you’ve talked to her recently.”
    There was a pause.
    “The staff here doesn’t tend to call me just to chat. This ain’t one of those kind of places. I hear from them when they’re pregnant, when they’re hung over, and when they’ve sprained their ankles. They don’t even call when they ask for a transfer to thegambling tables. I get to hear that from the supervisor. So, no, I haven’t talked to your sister since she first called to say she couldn’t come in. She left a message with the bartender a week ago to say it would be another week before she came back.”
    “Did he say she sounded okay?” Eve wanted to know.
    She could hear the sigh pouring across the phone line. “She said she needed another week before she could come back. That was the message. I didn’t get no mental health report.”
    Eve waited. It certainly seemed as if the manager didn’t have any additional information, but she was not satisfied. She still didn’t know where Dorisanne was and if everything was fine with her. “Can you give me his name?”
    “Whose?”
    “The bartender’s. Can you give me his name and maybe I can talk to him?” Eve