Case Closed Read Online Free Page A

him?”
    â€œOh yes, but not immediately. In fact, at first, things got worse. When I didn’t hear from Derek after about four days, I became worried. He had stayed away a couple of days at a time, but never longer than that. I thought he was probably especially angry with me, but when he hadn’t been home in five days, I called Harold to ask if his father had been in touch. He seemed upset and said, ‘Sorry to be the one to tell you this, but he’s left you. He’s run off with Marlena Gray.’ ”
    â€œDid you believe him?”
    â€œNot for a minute. Impossible! It wasn’t Derek’s way. Even if he had left me, he wouldn’t leave his company. When Harold told me that he hadn’t heard from him since Halloween, I was very worried. I became quite bold. I looked up Marlena Gray in the phone book, but when I called the number, it was disconnected. There was an address listed for her in the phone book, so I drove over to her apartment. It was in a big building, but I worked up my nerve and knocked. No one answered the door. I kept knocking. Eventually the building manager came by—he was making his rounds and heard me knocking, so he came over to ask if I was interested in renting the apartment. When I told him I was looking for Miss Gray, he told me Marlena had moved.”
    â€œWhen?”
    â€œThat’s what I asked. He said, ‘Halloween. No notice, so she kissed her security deposit good-bye, but I guess her rich boyfriend is going to take care of that.’ He told me that she had left so many of her belongings behind, the place could be rented furnished. Then to top everything off on a perfectly horrible day, he said, ‘Say, you aren’t her mother or anything like that, are you?’
    â€œI was happy to tell him no, but I was thoroughly discouraged. The police later told me that her suitcases, clothing, and personal items were missing from the apartment, and that a neighbor had heard her talking with someone in the afternoon, and the door opening and closing. That further convinced Detective Pointe that she had left with Derek.”
    â€œWhat about Derek’s car? Is it missing, too?”
    She shook her head. “It was found parked near Union Station in Los Angeles, but no one remembers seeing them board a train.”
    â€œWhen did you call the police to report that Derek was missing?”
    She stood, went over to a telephone in a small alcove and opened the built-in drawer beneath it. She brought out three clothbound journals and handed them to him.
    â€œI wrote down everything I could remember about those weeks, from Derek discovering the problem at the company, Harold and Evelyn’s break-in, and so on. I have listed all of Derek’s banking and credit card information, a physical description of him, a list of his hobbies and interests, where his dental records can be found, and even his blood type. I’ve logged all my calls, with the date, time, who spoke to me, what they said, and so on.”
    â€œI want to look through these, but tell me the short version of what happened.”
    â€œEveryone believed my husband and I had an argument, and he ran off with his mistress. The police talked to three friends of Marlena Gray, and all of them said that she had called them on Halloween, excited, saying good-bye, telling them she and Derek planned to just disappear in a way that my ‘fancy lawyers’ couldn’t do anything about. Derek and Marlena wouldn’t leave a trail, they’d just go out of the country, using cash Derek had been squirreling away for years, hoping to escape me. And I would be ‘screwed over,’ as she put it, because I wouldn’t be able to touch his assets for at least seven years, and maybe by then he’d divorce me.”
    â€œWow.”
    She smiled wryly. “Yes. Wow. Harold and Evelyn claimed he’d told them the same thing. Halloween was on a Saturday, and