Behind her, in the black water, her victim floundered under the bridge’s arches, the dark blob of his sports bag sedately making for the first bend in the river but sinking fast.
It was well past the appointed time. Dianne sat, nervous and expectant, on the bench. The vantage point she had selected was so far off among the trees of the park that it did not permit her to observe the full breadth of the river, but she had seen the large person in the black jacket arrive and stride out onto the bridge. Now the figure was screened by leafy boughs, and she wondered whether it was her Timothy. Be careful, Evelyn had advised. Well, she was being careful. Heck, she was almost a quarter of a mile away.
A young man strolled by her bench and glanced at her. With short-cropped hair and manly features he was very handsome. His intelligent gaze lingered on her curiously for a moment, and then he continued on.
She was considering the advisability of moving down the slope, getting closer to the river so she could reconnoiter things more closely, when suddenly the large person left the bridge and strode briskly away. Was it Timothy, angry that he’d been stood up? Before she could stop herself, she jumped up and followed.
Evelyn’s warnings still rang in her mind. She let the person maintain a good lead as he made his way to a van that was waiting, not in the public lot, but outside the park gates on the street where Dianne had left her own vehicle. Soon she was trailing the van through late evening traffic.
The van got away from her once, carried off like a cork in the vehicular flow; but luckily — it seemed lucky at the time! — she caught up with it again at the Route 90 on-ramp. Ten minutes of fast driving brought them to an exit that debouched into the elm-lined street of an older neighborhood. Staying close now, Dianne watched the van pull briskly into the driveway of a tall, prewar clapboard house and disappear into a garage. She pulled over, and after several more minutes of wrestling with Evelyn’s cautions and her own misgivings, she got out of her car and approached the front door. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. She knocked twice, but no one answered. Then, as she raised her hand again, the porch light came on and the door sprang open under her knuckles.
Black Jacket stood in the doorway, glaring down at her balefully under the dim porch light. Dianne was startled to find that, seeing the individual close up, she was no longer sure that she was dealing with a male person; somehow the features seemed too effeminate, the skin too soft, and there was the unsettling suggestion of a bosom swelling the jacket’s folds.
“Are... are you Timothy?” Dianne asked, tipping her head quizzically to one side.
Black Jacket said nothing. Not a word. Not, “Oh, hey, you must be Dianne,” or, “Jeez, how come you weren’t at the bridge?” There was no smile, no hint of welcome, only a long, glassy stare with petulant lips slightly parted. The awkward moment passed. The next thing Dianne knew, she was airborne.
The strength of Black Jacket was shocking. It was a man’s strength, enough brawn to haul Dianne Freely’s not insignificant self through the door and toss her into a chair as if she were an overcoat. In the same motion Black Jacket kicked the door shut and bent over her, the flaccid face now just inches away. Dianne couldn’t meet the hostile eyes. She found herself searching for razor stubble and not finding any.
The question came in a ragged whisper, lips pulled tightly back against yellowed smoker’s teeth. “You mean to tell me you’re the so-called stewardess?”
Dianne had some trouble finding a steady voice, but when she was finally able to put a sentence together, she found herself projecting a bravado she did not feel. “I’m not really a stewardess, no. But you really shouldn’t go throwing people around like that!”
The reply was venomous.
“Oh, shouldn’t I? And what should I do about people who spy on me, follow me home — people who stalk me?”
“Stalk you?” It was such an absurd accusation that it left Dianne stammering. “But, but I didn’t stalk you!”
“Oh yes you did! You followed me home. You invaded my—” a large hand waved, taking in the shabby room “—my real space!” With each utterance Black Jacket grew more agitated. Specks of saliva flew from her lips. She flailed an accusatory finger. “You were watching for me, weren’t you? Then you followed me here. You shouldn’t have done it, my little newbie. And believe me, you’re going to regret it!”
Black Jacket jerked open a drawer, dragged out a pair of shiny handcuffs, and rattled them. Frozen with horror, Dianne had to look twice to make sure she was seeing right. Handcuffs? What did it mean? She watched the big woman pin her wrists with one powerful hand. She felt like a rabbit in the grip of a grizzly bear.
The cuffs closed with a metallic snick, and when she looked down at the cold steel binding her, a wave of bitter hopelessness swept through her.
Where the heck was Dianne? That was what they wanted to know.
She hadn’t shown up for work that morning, Evelyn testified, and now here she was pulling a no-show at the card game. They sat around feeling put out and irritated. Winona played solitaire, snapping the cards down with brisk annoyance. By half past eight the chips and dip were gone, and most of the pretzels, and still their youngest member hadn’t appeared.
It was the last straw for Evelyn Culver. Dianne would avoid a day’s work any chance she got, but it wasn’t like her to miss frustration night.
“She don’t answer her phone. All’s you get is that stupid computer asking for a message. I won’t tell it nothing. I don’t trust it. I believe it’s got something to do with this.”
“What’d you say?” asked Mrs. Aird.
“Her computer! Her damn computer! I said the thing’s got something to do with this!”
“Now that,” said Winona, calmly studying her cards through glasses riding precariously on the end of her nose, “is plain ridiculous. Computers are just machines. They’re like VCR’s. TV’s with an attitude. They don’t get up on their hind legs all of a sudden and attack people.”
“Maybe not,” Evelyn admitted, “but their owners might. In fact, computers could make some people more capable of nastiness than ever.” She set her jaw. “I should call the police. Report a missing person.”
“Hoo!” snorted Winona Delmare. “Hoo! Haw! And what’ll you tell them? That a grown woman’s been missing for all of ten hours, that she went out for a walk and the computers got her? ought to get Chief Robideau leaping around. That ought to get him rushing up and down the Interlake waving his magnifying glass around.”
“Well, I admit it sounds silly the way you put it, but I still feel we have to do something!”
Evelyn exhaled loudly.
“We can’t just sit here like a bunch of sofa slugs if there’s a chance poor Dianne’s in trouble!” She strode to the hall closet and rattled her coat off its hanger. “I’m going to her house. Who’s coming?”
“I’m staying right here,” said Winona, stifling a yawn. “You may need me to hold down the fort in case of a total computer attack.”
“You do that.”
“In case,” Winona elaborated, “they come whirring up the sidewalk, a gang of crazed PC’s with their RAM’s and their ROM’s all differing and clacking.”
“And they just might!”
Mrs. Aird spotted Evelyn at the door and came beetling toward her. “I’ll come.” Then she looked baffled. “Where are we going?”
Dianne’s little house on Burton Street appeared tranquil and calm. Porch light on. Door locked. A cosy place awaiting the return of its owner. But Evelyn wasn’t satisfied. She had to be sure Dianne was all right. After beating on the door till her hand was bruised, she fished the spare key out of the hanging bird feeder — she had seen Dianne retrieve it any number of times — brushed the millet from it, and opened the door.