Chapter 13

“I don’t get it,” Danni said from the passenger seat. When she looked over to Norm he was simply ignoring her so, she followed up her thought with, “I thought we were supposed to be looking for these hit men?”

“Who says we’re not,” Norm replied. He then pulled his car up next to the curb on a little run down street on the east side. He then shut the car off and got out.

Danni did not recall him inviting her to join him but, she got out anyway. With Norm, if he did not say no, you just counted your blessings and kept right on. When he joined her on the sidewalk, Danni looked around and said, “what are we doing here?”

Norm walked right into a small restaurant that was squeezed in between an empty store front on one side and a barber’s shop on the other. The inside proved to be as run down as the out but, it did have the virtue of being clean. Danni thought that it did kind of have some atmosphere. The hard wood floors were a nice touch and, while Danni could have lived without the decorations, they did at least look like they belonged here.

The only thing that Norm seemed to have noticed about the place was, “mighty empty.”

A portly looking woman, that was rather conservatively dressed, with a big apron on, came quickly walking out of the back. She moved very quickly for a woman her size and she was all smiles as she breezed by the bar and grabbed a couple of menu’s without even having to look, “just seat yourself wherever you want. We have plenty of room as you can see.”

Norm smiled back at the woman and, to his own chagrin, it was actually a genuine smile. He found it hard not too. For some reason this woman seemed to radiate happiness. Norm almost felt embarrassed when he told her, “ma’am I’m sorry. We’re not here to eat. I’m Agent Scoggins and this is Agent Nguyen. We’re Colonial Ranger’s ma’am.”

The lady did not stop her pace one little bit. She came right up to her guests and began to herd them towards a table, “I will feed you anyway. As you can see things have been quite slow. You just sit and let…”

The woman stopped for a second and thought seriously on some matter that was obviously heavily on her mind. Then she asked her guests, “Colonial Rangers? I didn’t know we still had those. Is this new?”

Norm eyed Danni and his eyes led to a chair. When she sat down Norm did so across the table from the lady. He did not bother with her host’s question though. He simply asked her, “are you Misses Caroline May? April May’s mother?”

That seemed to light up another smile, “why yes I am. She’s my…” Suddenly the lady went back into serious thought and that turned into concern, “she hasn’t been in trouble with the law has she? Oh I do hope she was not arrested. She’s always been such a good girl and…”
Now Norm understood where the daughter got it from. He raised a hand and offered the lady a seat in her own place. He then explained, “no ma’am, it’s nothing like that. April was involved in an incident this morning. She was the victim and, while we aren’t really sure why it happened, I’m just wondering if you know of anybody that would want to hurt your daughter?”

“Hurt her?” Caroline May was quite alarmed as she said that. “Why in the world would anyone want to harm April? She is such a sweet girl. She has never…”

“Friends,” Norm said without waiting for a pause since he did not expect one, “coworkers, family, a boyfriend? Anything you could tell us might be helpful.”

“Oh for heavens sake no,” Caroline replied. “ She… Is she all right? Is she…”

Danni half mumbled to Norm with gritted teeth and in a rhythmic way, “Patsy didn’t call her.”

“She’s fine ma’am,” Norm told her. He tried to stay on track, “has anything unusual happened lately? I mean has she told you anything…”

“She never tells me nothing,” Caroline quickly replied, “and what is a mother to do? She always used to tell me everything but, then one day she acts like she is embarrassed to even be seen with me.”

Caroline then looked Danni over from head to toe and said, “I bet you don’t treat your mother like that.”

Norm stepped in with, “her mother is a special case but, that’s kind of off the point Misses May. Has she said anything to you? Has there been any changes in her life lately?”

Caroline looked less than pleased, “well nothing lately. I mean she has that, you know, that job.” The way the woman said it made it sound like a dirty word.

Danni was a bit confused. The way Danni was used to thinking about it, her mother would be ecstatic if Danni got a job like that, “she does something besides real estate?”

“Real estate,” Misses May replied. “Yes that’s what I’m talking about. What kind of job is that? It was that boy friend of hers. He got her that job.” The woman acted as if she wanted to faint, “I hope to god that April did not sleep with him for that. She had better not!”
Norm got the impression that the boyfriend was one step lower than the job in Misses May’s book. He went with that, “can you tell me about him?”

“Fancy cars and clothes,” Caroline told them, “that is just to trick nice young girls.” Once again Caroline turned on Danni and even shook her finger as she said, “you heed me. You do not let cars and clothes turn a blind eye to what it is all men really want. The next thing you know they’ll be giving you real estate jobs too.”

“Um,” Danni squirmed, “ok.”

Norm was a bit more serious, “so does he work with your daughter?”

“No, I don’t think he works there,” Caroline actually paused to think again, “or maybe he does. Sort of, I’m not really sure. I just know he has fancy car and April likes to ride in it. She should know better.”
Danni was almost afraid to ask but, she did it anyway, “does he have a name?” She left out the part about, “and a brother?”
Caroline May seemed shocked, “you do not want to ride in fancy cars with a man, young lady. You look like such a nice girl. I know a nice girl when I see one and…”

“Ma’am,” Norm put his hand up again and explained, “that’s a part of the investigation. Does he have a name?”

“Yes he does,” Caroline said with a deep nod in the affirmative. Then she added, “and you can write that down. He has a name.”
Danni cautiously shrugged and asked, “and what is it?”

“I don’t know,” Caroline explained defensively. “I can’t be expected to remember everything. I don’t even like the boy.”
Norm sighed and dropped his head. When he finally looked back up he said, “would Mister May know?”

Caroline waived that off and with a slight hint of righteousness she replied, “oh there is no Mister May. April does not even know her father and, personally, I plan on keeping it that way.”

Back out at the car, Danni stopped by her door and looked across the roof at Norm who was pulling out his keys. She noted, “well that was a monumental waste of time.”

“Not really,” Norm replied as he unlocked the door. Once they were both back in the car he said, “information is like a commodity, Danni. You never know when something might be important. That’s why you talk to everybody. It’s like trading anything else, buy low and sell high.”

Danni was not impressed, “ok Norm. Only problem here is, she didn’t give us any information.”

“She gave us plenty,” instead of pulling out into traffic Norm looked over at the young girl and told her, “and one day, when you don’t let people distract you the way she did, you’ll see that too.”

Danni kind of shrunk. She still had no idea what it was Norm thought he got out of that interview. What she did know was that this man always had a way of making her feel really small. He was doing it to very good effect right now. “Um, ok?”

“Speaking of distractions,” Norm said, “what’s the deal with Tammy? Is she staying or what?”

Danni felt even more uneasy now. Talking about her mother always had a way of doing that. She just kind of shrugged it off and said, “she’s working on it. She’s been talking to that charity about getting together enough money to buy a ticket on a starship but, you know how that goes. As for staying here, I mean, I don’t think she can afford that ether. She isn’t going find a job, not the way things are now.”

The last sentence made Norm think very seriously about something. The May’s restaurant did not look like a place that was usually down on it’s luck. For that matter, Misses May seemed to indicate business was abnormally bad. It was just one example in many that Norm had seen over the last couple of weeks. Norm did not have to think very hard to figure out why either.
He sighed, “yeah, a lot of that going around these days.”