Cop Hunch

Part 3

Cassy's meeting with Bob Ravenwood was short and unenlightening. Ravenwood was a balding man in his thirties. He had a pleasant demeanor, being somewhat quiet and studious. He had told Cassy that he did not have a meeting scheduled with Derrick Johnson. In fact, he was at his son's soccer game at the time. Cassy asked him if he had any ideas about Johnson's disappearance, but the man seemed as befuddled by it as Mrs. Johnson. He confirmed that Derrick Johnson was a nice guy…no enemies, well-respected and somewhat conservative. Certainly not the type to leave his wife on some whim and certainly not without an explanation.

Cassy left Ravenwood with no more information than she had arrived with. She wondered how Tom's hunch was going.

Tom had arrived at the construction site of the Johnson's new home. He had found it with relative ease, but would have had difficulty were it not for Mrs. Johnson's map. The area was, as Mrs. Johnson had alluded to, rather deserted and undeveloped. The land was nice, but nothing spectacular. It certainly wasn't going to be one of the fastest growing spots on the map. He wondered why Derrick Johnson had agreed to invest in the project and why the Johnson's would choose to put a house here. He exited his car and immediately had to dodge a mud puddle. Evidence of Sunday morning's rain.

A temporary fence ran the perimeter of the work site. A sign on the fence revealed the name of "Harper Construction." Inside the fence was a rough frame of a house and near the house, a rather large hole had been dug? Piles of dirt surrounded the hole. Tom assumed it was for a swimming pool. Being careful to avoid the mud, he approached a trailer located near the entrance, assuming it was being used as the home base for the construction crew. Tom noticed, however, that there did not appear to be anyone working at the site. There was a white Ford 1/2 ton pickup parked at the back of the trailer. The placard on its side spelled the name of the construction company.

At the same time he was getting ready to knock on the door of the trailer, a woman opened it, startling them both. "Sorry about that," Tom said quickly.

"That's ok. I saw your car pull up. I was just getting ready to see what was going on. My name's Pamela Harper." The woman was an attractive middle-aged blonde woman, probably in her mid-forties, Tom guessed. She wore jeans, work boots and long-sleeved Henley. While the clothes may have lacked a certain femininity, she did not. "What can I do for you," her disarming smile focused on Tom.

Tom pulled out his identification. "My name is Sgt. Tom Ryan. I'm with the Palm Beach Police Department. We're looking for Derrick Johnson. I was hoping you would be able to help us develop some potential leads."

"Derrick's missing?" The smile suddenly faded to shock. "I didn't know. Carol must be distraught over this." Pamela had a worried look on her face.

Tom caught the look, "How well do you know the Johnson's, Mrs. Harper?"

"Actually, that would be Ms. Harper, but you can call me Pam. I've known Carol for about six months. I've known Derrick for about four. I met him through Carol when I was looking for an investor for this project."

"You own the company?" Tom was impressed.

"Yeah. My father and I were partners until he died earlier this year. Now it's all mine."

"How did you meet Carol?"

"At a cocktail party…we have some mutual friends," the woman responded simply.

"When was the last time you saw Derrick Johnson?" Tom asked the attractive woman.

"On Saturday. He and Carol came out to look at the project. They wanted to make sure everything was up to spec."

"How was he? I mean, how did he act?" Tom pressed.

"Like he always does. He's a pretty bland guy…doesn't get real excited about anything. This was his wife's project. She didn't like their old home and wanted something new. He basically gave her carte blanche on the project…said that she spent more time at the house than he did so she should be happy with it." Pamela looked at her project, "Look, do you mind if I get back to work?"

"Don't tell me you're building this house by yourself…where's your crew," Tom looked around again, still not seeing any workers.

"Oh, I gave them a couple of days off. We've been working hard on this project over the last few weeks and I thought they needed a rest."

"Nice boss," Tom smiled. "Well, I'm sorry to keep you. Do you mind if I do some looking around while I'm here? Just to make sure that we aren't missing a potential clue to his disappearance?" Tom looked around the work site. The fencing surrounded about two acres of land.

"Hey, no problem…knock yourself out." The woman smiled and walked off towards the pit of the swimming pool.

Tom began to walk the perimeter, looking for signs that the missing man had been there. Nothing. Another blown hunch. Cassy will love to say "I told you so" on this one. Of course, what did I really expect to find? A sign on the fence that said, "Johnson is here." Avoiding the mud puddles was like walking in a mine field. Tom made it to the back of the lot, several hundred yards from the house. He saw the remnants of a car path heading to the south. It cut across the scrub grass and over the horizon. Tom continued to follow the fence line back to the trailer, with the same lack of success.

He looked for Pamela Harper and found that she was sitting at the controls of the bulldozer, pushing dirt into the north end of swimming pool hole. He approached her again. She saw him heading towards her. She shut the bulldozer off and hurried down, a look of impatience on her face. "Is there something else I can do for you?"

"I'm sorry to keep bothering you, but I just had a quick question. There's a car path on the back of the property, heading south. Where does it go?"

"I'm not really sure. No one has used it since we've been out here. I figured that kids were using it to four-wheel on or were having beer parties out there somewhere."

"Makes sense. Thanks for your time." Tom started to approach the swimming pool hole, his curiosity getting the best of him. The woman blocked his approach. "You need to stay back. Safety reasons, actually insurance reasons. I can only let authorized personnel near the hole." From what Tom could see the hole was about fifteen feet deep on the north end and three feet deep on the south. The pool would be about forty feet wide and eighty feet long. "Nice swimming pool," he commented.

"Yeah, it will be. But it's a safety hazard right now. That's why we needed all this fencing. Didn't want trespassers falling in. We'd get sued and it'd shut the whole project down.

Tom frowned for a moment. Pamela had been pushing dirt from the edge of the pool into the north end of the hole…in the deep end. Curious…but then again…what do I know about building swimming pools. Tom shrugged, thanked Pamela Harper for her cooperation and returned to his car. Without paying attention, he walked right into a mud pit about six inches deep. The cuffs of Tom's pants were now covered in mud, not to mention the shoes. Oh wonderful. Wonder if Harry will let me turn this in as an expense. Not a chance. Cassy will tell him I was following a cop hunch and that'll be the end of that.

Tom tried to scrape off as much of the mud from his shoes as possible, but they were still covered. He started the engine and headed back to the main road. Once on the highway, he decided to call Cassy to find out how her meeting with Ravenwood had gone.

Cassy answered her cell phone on the third ring. "St. John."

"Hey Cass. Where you at?"

"I'm at the station going through Johnson's address book as we speak. No one has heard from him so far. He's just disappeared." Cassy was quiet for a moment, "So…how did your cop hunch pan out?"

"It wasn't a hunch Cass…it was just good detective work," Tom replied somewhat defensively.

"Yeah, right…whatever. So how'd the cop hunch pan out?" She repeated.

Tom laughed, knowing he wasn't going to win, "It didn't. It was a dead end. How'd the meeting with Ravenwood go?"

"About the same. He said that he didn't have a meeting scheduled with Johnson last night. So we don't have a clue who Johnson was meeting with," Cassy said glumly.

"I'm heading back to my apartment. I ruined my pants and shoes at the construction site. I've got to change before I come back in." Tom looked at his watch. It was almost 4:30. I can be back at the station by about 5:30."

"Would you mind if we call it quits for today. I just called Michael. He wants to take me to dinner and a movie. We've had to reschedule this two other times because of our schedules." Cassy had met Michael two weeks ago at a seminar. He was a security director for an area bank.

"You mean, The Banker," Tom asked her, trying to get back at her for all the ribbing he had taken earlier in the day.

"Yes, The Banker," Cassy responded simply. She knew Tom was baiting her and she wasn't going to fall for it. "I found out that the Johnson's accounts were at his bank. I decided to call him to see if he could give us any leads. He said there had been no activity today. He'd let us know if anything happened on the accounts."

Tom, depressed he couldn't get a rise out of her, gave up. "Okay, fine. I'll plan on seeing you tomorrow. Let's make it early, though. Harry will kill us if we don't come up with some leads on this case. By the way, has there been any ransom demand?"

"Nope. The officers just left the house. Mrs. Johnson insisted. Said she didn't want them there. She said a friend would be over later to stay with her."

"Okay…well, have a good time tonight."

"You too, Tom."