And then she heard the wheeze again.
Who could it be? The house was always unlocked, as they mostly were in Roseville, but no one popped in without calling out a greeting as they came through the door.
And no one Georgina knew wheezed. It was a real puzzle. Surely it couldn’t be a burglar or anything big-city like that. And if it was, what did one do?
She picked up the iron. She went toward the bedroom door, but the iron jerked, and almost fell out of her hand. Silly Georgina. It had to be unplugged before she could hit somebody with it.
At the bottom of the stairs, iron in hand, Georgina heard more sounds, from her dining room. Or maybe they came from beyond it, in her kitchen.
“Hello?” she called. “Who’s there?”
Her grip on the iron grew tighter. It was absurd to think she was in danger — not in Roseville — but you never knew. Look at all those murders they covered on those CSIs. Sometimes more than one in a show. She shivered.
“Hello?” she called again.
In the doorway between kitchen and dining room Georgina found an old woman.
The old woman wore a brown fabric coat. A little blue hat sat on her gray head. As Georgina saw the woman, the woman saw her.
“Fredericka?” the woman said.
“Who?” Georgina said.
“Fredericka? Is that you? You look so different.” Some foam appeared at the corner of the old woman’s mouth.
Georgina felt a moment of panic.
“Fredericka,” the old woman said again, but this time there was hostility in her voice, anger. “What have you done with Connie? She’s only three, you know.” And the woman began to move forward, waving the hand that wasn’t holding her floppy cloth shoulder bag.
What is wrong with her? Georgina thought. And then she realized what the problem must be. Oh, the poor thing.
But what should she do about it? Oh God. Oh God!
It was just then that Barry’s car pulled into the driveway.
The old woman peered at Georgina. “You’re not Fredericka,” she said.
“No, dear. I’m not.”
“So what are you doing in my house? Are you collecting for charity, because I’ll tell you now…” And the old woman stopped to catch her breath. “Howard gives at the office.”
With Barry about to come in to help, Georgina felt a wave of confidence and even a protective feeling about this poor old person. Like as not, Barry would call the police, or chuck the poor drooling old dear out on the street. How frightening that would be for her. Georgina sympathized.
She moved forward to put her sympathetic arm around the old lady. It was then she saw a piece of paper fastened with a safety pin to the brown coat. It read, “If you are reading this, then my wife must have gotten out of the motel room. I’m real sorry she’s been a bother. She’s no harm, but if you give me a call or drop her at the Sunset Motel on Danforth Street, Room 116, I’d be beholden.” The note finished with a phone number.
“What have you done with Fredericka?” the old woman asked.
Barry was not in a good mood. He’d been just fine as he left Maxie’s — Maxie treated a man with a bit of respect. But now, to have to make this godawful stop at the Sunset Motel on his way to see Jim Pinney… Who knew what consequences there’d be for his equilibrium, his judgment at the meeting? Never mind that the Sunset was on the very route he took to drive to Fraserton. A man had to be on his absolute tippy-tippy toes to get the better of Jim Pinney.
“Oh, please,” Georgina had said. “I’m sure I can’t handle something like this by myself. And you can just drop her at reception if you don’t want to look around for Room 116.”
Barry looked at the gray lumpy figure in the passenger seat of his nearly new low-mileage Escape. The old woman was staring straight ahead, as she had since being loaded into the car.
Oh well. As long as there wasn’t a problem getting her out. As long as 116 wasn’t empty when he knocked.
They came to the motel and Barry pulled in. For the first time his passenger turned from staring straight ahead. “Lipstick,” she said.
“What?”
The old woman turned back to stare through the windshield.
Barry pulled up in front of Room 116. No need to ask where it was — he knew the layout of the Sunset. He unhooked the old woman’s seatbelt and went around the car to the passenger door. Opening it, he prised the woman out easily. He directed her by a shoulder to the room and knocked, fully prepared to dash away if no one responded.
But a moment later the door opened and a stout, bald old man said, “Gladys! Thank God! Oh, thank you, sir, thank you.”
Barry suddenly felt he’d been needlessly petty. “Not at all,” he said. “It was on my way. Pretty much.”
“Wherever did you find her?”
“On Redfield Drive — halfway across town. She was in the house, frightened the life out of my wife.” Barry nearly mentioned the drool, but decided not to.
The old man’s eyes teared. “I’m so sorry.” He took Gladys’s hand and led her gently into the room.
“Fredrick?” Gladys said. “What’s happened to Connie?”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” the old man said to Barry. “I just don’t know.”
Barry said, “Maybe… get some help?”
“But where?” The old man retreated into the room and the door closed.
Barry went back to his car and settled himself in the driver’s seat. He flipped the mirror down and checked his tie, and his hair. And then he checked the side of his neck.
There was, indeed, a small spot of Maxie’s lipstick.
Ollie Cornbach was late for work. He leapt out of his car, pausing only to straighten his tie and his jacket. He headed into the Sheriff’s Department. Debbie Fry didn’t speak as she passed him going the other way. Stuck-up bitch, Ollie thought.
She was such a sore loser. Not his fault if she hadn’t actually asked him if he was married before she hopped into the sack with him. In fact he’d probably helped her out, in the long run. She’d know in the future not to try to sleep her way to a promotion in the first week of a new job. She’d know next time to wait awhile, wait till she knew how the guys in the hierarchy were fixed. Till she knew the lay of the land, so to speak.
The lay of the land. That was good. Ollie would try to remember to tell it to Lou in the diner mid-shift. Lou, his best friend from Roseville High. He’d gone away for a while, Lou. But now he was back. And maybe when his convictions had expired Ollie could get him onto the force. Maybe in Debbie’s place, if the stuck-up bitch held on to the job for that long before transferring to pastures new.
Ollie strode into the deputy’s office. “Sorry, sorry, Wayne. Last-minute emergency at home.”
“So last-minute you forgot to zip up afterward?”
Ollie looked down and checked his fly.
“Gotcha,” Wayne said, rising from behind the desk. “But I think you just told me more than I want to know about why you were late.”
“A man’s gotta do…” Ollie said with a grin.
“Well, a man’s gotta do a lotta paperwork tonight,” Wayne said.
“Yeah? What’s happened?”
“Crime wave.”
Ollie perked up. Was it his chance to crack a big one at last? He had ambitions to work for the state police, but without a degree he’d be stuck in the slow lane forever unless he could crack a big one.
“Mrs. Parriton had her jewelry box emptied this morning.”
“Mrs. who?”
“And the Larovics lost cash and some kinda old Indian artefaction.”
“The who?”
“And John Baker came home to find some Olde English figurines gone, and his jade cufflinks missing, and a gold Mexican dish vanished. What’s a gold dish? D’ya know?”