Page 65 of Now or Never

“I’m done here,” I said to Lula.

“Did we learn anything?”

“Zoran sleeps here at least some of the time, but he doesn’tlive here. He lives at the laundromat and at the bars on Stark and someplace else. We have to find the someplace else.”

We left through the back door and walked to the car. I looked up the street and saw the Werly house.

“Call Connie,” I said to Lula. “Ask her to check on Zoran’s financials. Has he used his credit card? Has he withdrawn money from a bank account? I’m going to talk to Mrs. Werly.”

There was a mix of houses on Exeter Street. Zoran was renting a small bungalow. The house next to him was a Cape Cod. The Werly house was a two-story colonial. All of the lots were the same size. Zoran had a driveway but no garage. Most of the other houses on the street had garages. In spite of its proximity to Stark Street, it was considered a safe neighborhood. The Werly house was on the corner. I rang the bell and a woman about my mom’s age answered. She was slim with brown hair going gray.

I showed her the badge I bought on Amazon and told her I was doing a follow-up inquiry on Zoran.

“I don’t know very much,” she said.

“Have you recently seen him in his yard or going for a walk? Lights on in his house at night?”

“I can’t remember the last time I saw him, but sometimes there are lights on at night. I haven’t really paid attention to his house.”

“What about his truck? Have you seen him driving the truck?”

“Not lately. Sometimes there would be a van parked in the driveway. It would be behind the truck. And it was never there very long. It was tan. It looked old. It had a dent in the back, by the wheel.”

“I know about your daughter,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”

“I still expect her to walk through the door,” Mrs. Werly said. “It’s just hard to believe she’s gone.”

“Was she friends with Zoran?”

“Julie was friendly to everyone. She was a special person. Zoran was… odd. He had those teeth that looked like fangs. I imagine he must have been teased in school. And he had an odd way about him. He wouldn’t look you in the eye. I think he was shy. I think he might have had a crush on Julie, and Julie was always nice to him, but she never saw him socially. She made a point of keeping some distance.”

“The police report said there was blood but no body.”

Mrs. Werly nodded, blinked back tears. “From the couch to the back door and out into the yard and then it just stopped.”

I thanked her for her time, left the house, and walked around the corner. The backyard wasn’t fenced but there was a patchy collection of shrubs that gave them some privacy. Zoran or whoever could have zipped the body into a bag, stepped between the shrubs, and dumped the body into the trunk of a car or into the back of his truck.

None of this was helpful in finding Zoran but it might turn out to be helpful in capturing him. I went back to Lula, we got into the car, and I ate another doughnut. I rationalized that it was to settle my stomach, but really, I just wanted a doughnut.

“Was Connie able to find anything on Zoran’s financials?” I asked Lula.

“Last night at eleven thirty Zoran got money out of an ATM on Olcott Street, one block away from Stark. He hasn’t used his credit card.”

“Perfect.”

“She also said you needed to look at the new FTA because it could be easy money for you, and it would make Vinnie happy if you brought him in.” Lula pulled the file out of her tote. “I’ll read the file, and you can drive. It says here that his name is Zachary Zell. People call him Zach. Gives his address as 401 Dorsey Street.That’s not far from here. He’s seventy-eight years old and lives with his daughter. She also put up his bond.”

“What did he do?”

“Armed robbery.”

“Any priors?”

“Nope. Not even a traffic ticket.”

“Call Connie back and ask her if there are any other cars in Zoran’s history. Ask her about a tan van.”

I drove the short distance to Dorsey Street and parked in front of Zach’s house. It was a two-story colonial in okay shape. Two Big Wheels were sitting in the small front yard, which also contained a doll without a head, a kid’s sneaker, and a big plastic dump truck.

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