It was now verging on 3:00 p.m., and the place was crowded with a motley assortment of barflies I recognized all too well—the Friday-afternoon regulars, otherwise known as serious drinkers, who show up early and stay for the duration. I found an empty stool and bellied up to the bar.
Todd had sent me a photocopy of John Borman’s driver’s license, so even though the bartender was at the far end of the bar, I knew he was the guy I wanted to see. Bartenders need to be reasonably gregarious, but they’re generally not wild about talking to detectives of any kind—sworn officers and private investigators alike. It’s usually considered bad for business. They do, however, engage in conversations with paying customers, so when the barkeep came my way, I ordered a ginger ale.
“Not a drinker?” he asked as he delivered my alcohol-free beverage.
“Turns out it was bad for my health,” I replied. “You’re John Borman, right?”
“Depends on who’s asking,” he said. “Who are you?”
I slid one of my cards across the bar. He picked it up and studied it for a moment.
“A private detective?” he asked with a frown. “What’s this all about?”
“I’m looking into the disappearance of Christopher Danielson.”
The frown deepened into a scowl. “From Homer, you mean? That’s yesterday’s news,” he said. “Chris disappeared years ago, while we were all still in high school. You thinking maybe I had something to do with it?”
“I’m just trying to talk to people who possibly knew him back in the day and might have an idea about what became of him.”
That was a giveaway. Had Chris and Borman been close, he would have been aware that Chris had already dropped out of school before he disappeared.
“I’m not going to be of much use to you,” Borman said, confirming my initial assumption. “I mean, I knew who he was, but I didn’t really know him. We weren’t friends or anything. We were maybe in a couple of classes together, but that’s it. He was sort of a sad sack. I think something bad happened in his family when he was little, but I don’t know much about it.”
I nodded. “Domestic violence. His dad killed his mother and then committed suicide.” Sometimes you have to give a little information in order to get some.
“I never knew that part,” Borman conceded.
“What did you know?”
“Just that Chris was mostly an odd duck, a perpetual outsider, so it surprised the hell out of me when I heard he was hanging around with one of the most popular girls at Homer High. How does that happen? Then, a while after that, he was just gone. Word was that his girlfriend was pregnant and they ran off to get married. That’s the last thing I remember hearing.”
A customer down the bar caught Borman's eye and summoned him with a wave of his finger. As he walked away, I could tell that although my “unaffiliated boy” theory had come up winners with Bill Farmdale, it was a dud here. Chris had regarded Bill as a friend—someone Chris had turned to in his time of need. John Borman had been Chris’s sometime classmate, but that was it.
When the bartender returned, I dropped a ten-dollar bill on the counter. “Thanks for the help,” I told him. “Keep the change.”
Setting foot outside the bar, I noticed that the sky was once again that weird shade of pink that made it look like late afternoon. Inside the smoke-filled Travelall, Twink assured me that that pinkish glow was what passed for afternoon daylight in wintertime Anchorage.
“Where to now?” Twink wanted to know as she punched the button on the cigarette lighter.
The truth is, I had no idea. Danitza Miller, Bill Farmdale, and John Borman had been the only three names on my Anchorage to-do list. Two of the three had produced worthwhile information. I had already told Jared Danielson that his brother was most likely dead, but I’d had to do that in order to rush the DNA comparison. The next time I spoke to Nitz, I wanted to have a clear answer one way or the other—either the human remains in Harriet Raines’s lab belonged to Chris Danielson or they did not. Until I knew for sure, there was no reason to see her again.
Bill Farmdale had told me about the mysterious woman whose tire had needed changing the night Chris disappeared. She was certainly a likely suspect in my opinion, but would a random stranger show up at his work, lure him away, and then murder him just for the hell of it? No, I was sure someone with motive must have been behind it. The most promising suspect there was an irate father who’d just discovered that his unwed daughter was pregnant. I needed someone who wasn’t Danitza herself to shed some light on her dear old dad. Suddenly it occurred to me there might be another person in Anchorage who could do just that.
I had evidently been sitting there thinking for far too long. “Well?” Twink demanded impatiently.
“Hang on,” I told her. “Let me give someone a call.”
I pulled out my cell phone and punched in Todd Hatcher’s number. “What do you need now?” he asked. I got the distinct feeling he was growing weary of my constantly badgering him for information.
“I’d like the address for a Penny and Wally Olmstead. Maybe it’s Walter instead of Wally. I understand they live here in Anchorage, but I have no idea where.”
In a matter of seconds of rapid-fire keyboarding, I heard an incoming text arrive on my phone. “Sent,” Todd said.
“And received,” I told him. “Thanks.”
I read the address aloud to Twink Winkleman. “Peck Avenue is due east of here,” she said, turning the key in the ignition. “Maude and I will have us there in a jiffy.”
Exactly one and a half cigarettes later, we pulled up in front of a small frame residence in the 8000 block of Peck Avenue. It was a modest one-story tract house that looked as though it had been built in the sixties. There were lights on inside, which led me to believe someone was home. Twink pulled in to the cleared driveway and parked.
“Don’t worry,” she told me. “I’ll wait.”
Chapter 15
Once outside the vehicle, I followed a narrow cleared path from the driveway to the front door. Clearly people in Alaska are serious about shoveling their walks.
After ringing the bell, I waited the better part of a minute before a woman finally came to the door. When she opened it, an enticing aroma of cooking food wafted through the air. All day long my beleaguered nostrils had been assailed by secondhand smoke, both from Twink’s chain-smoked cigarettes and Harriet Raines’s cigar. Whatever garlicky delight Penny Olmstead was cooking up in her kitchen—beef stew maybe?—served as a welcome antidote.
The woman standing in the doorway was tiny, with short blond hair. I guessed her to be somewhere in her late thirties or early forties. If I had encountered Penny and Danitza Miller walking down a street together, I probably would have assumed the two of them to be sisters rather than auntie and niece.
“Yes?” she inquired, staring up at me.
“Penny Olmstead?” I asked.
She nodded. “Who are you?”
I handed her one of my cards, and she studied it for a moment before saying, “You must be that private detective from Seattle. Nitza was telling me about you.”