Nothing to Lose (J.P. Beaumont #25)(25)

“Yeah, that’s the one,” Hank replied. “Well, Harriet Raines is a whole lot like Hetty. She’s a little bit of a thing, but smart as all get-out, and if you give her any guff or try to pull a fast one on her, she’ll fix you with a cold, hard stare that’ll shrivel your balls. But when it comes to piecing human skeletons back together, no one can top her. If someone turns up in her lab with a banker’s box full of bones, she’s all over it. Those remains are real people to her. They can be a month old, decades old, or a hundred years old—it doesn’t matter. She takes the bit in her teeth and runs with it.”

“So scary but good,” I said, “sort of like my old high-school English teacher. But in weather like this, what are the chances she’ll be in her office today?”

“One hundred percent,” Hank told me. “She’s pretty much a one-woman show, and I have it on good authority that on snow days she sleeps on a cot in her office just in case she’s needed. So you’re thinking your missing kid ended up dead somewhere?”

“Seems like a real possibility,” I answered.

“Well, give Harry a call, then,” Hank said. “I’ll text you her direct number, too. You’re welcome to tell her that I suggested you be in touch.”

When Hank’s texts came in, I added those names and numbers to my contacts list, but I was a little leery about making phone calls. If I’m meeting someone for the first time, I like to take measure of them face-to-face. That’s especially true if I’m going to be asking for a favor. So I got up, went over to the window, and looked out again.

The snowplows had now worked their magic. Traffic was moving slowly on the street below. The traffic lanes were relatively clear, and the pavement had probably been treated with some kind of deicing material. I checked the map on my iPad. The route from the hotel to the university was fairly straightforward and seemed to feature mostly main thoroughfares. If the street outside the hotel had been cleared, most likely the ones leading to the university had been as well. Since my rental came with all-wheel drive and those top-rated winter tires, I figured I was good to go. Donning my new coat and stuffing my even newer mittens into the pockets, I grabbed my iPad and phone and headed out.

Once in the Explorer, however, I didn’t make it far. At the garage exit, I was stopped cold—and I mean that in every sense of the word. The snowplow might have cleared the traffic lanes out on the street, but it had left a six-foot-tall mound of plowed ice and snow blocking the garage exit. Stymied, I went back up to the lobby to ask when they expected to have the exit cleared.

“There’s a crew coming,” the young woman at the desk explained, glancing at her watch, “but they’re a little backed up right now and probably won’t get here for another hour or so.”

That’s when I remembered Mel’s sage advice about my hiring a driver. “Any taxis or Ubers working today?” I asked. “In fact, since I need to make several stops, I’d probably be better off if I could hire someone to drive me around for most of the day.”

There were two people at the desk—the woman I was speaking to and a somewhat younger guy at the far end of the counter who was handling checkouts. “TW maybe?” the guy suggested helpfully.

The clerk working with me sent her partner a disparaging look along with a small grimace of disapproval.

“Who’s TW?” I asked.

“That’s TW Transportation,” the man supplied. “It’s a one-woman operation. Believe me, it’s nothing fancy, but she’ll get you wherever you need to go, regardless of weather or road conditions. Would you like her number?”

“Since I can’t get my car out of the garage, I guess I’d better have it,” I said.

Frowning, the female clerk typed something into her keyboard and then wrote a number on a slip of paper, which she handed to me. I took a seat in the lobby and dialed away. The call was answered on the second ring.

“TW,” a female voice said.

“My name’s J. P. Beaumont,” I told her. “I’m a guest at the Captain Cook. I need to see several people here in Anchorage today, but a snowplow just buried the garage entrance, and I can’t get my car out. I was wondering if you have a vehicle available.”

“Where all do you need to go?”

“The University of Alaska here in Anchorage for starters,” I told her.

Over breakfast I had looked up the addresses on what I still called the “unaffiliated boys” from Homer High School now living in Anchorage. Both appeared to live out in the hinterlands, one on Mount McKinley View Drive and the other in what looked like a subdivision off Potter Creek Road. The squiggles and curves I’d seen on the map had made me rethink the idea of doing face-to-face interviews, but hopefully TW Transportation had the capability to get through any snowbound streets that might stand in my way.

I read off the addresses.

“Sure,” the woman on the phone said. “No problem. I can get you there and back. How long do you think you’ll be?”

“That’s the thing,” I said, “I’m not really sure. Could I just hire you on an hourly basis so you could hang around and wait until I’m finished?”

“Five hundred bucks with a four-hour minimum, nine-fifty for eight hours, paid in advance, cash or credit card.”