Emily had written that little speech and recorded it twentytwo years ago, and the moment came back to her sharply. She remembered thinking of calling the crummy walk-up on Reseda Boulevard the World Headquarters. Phil had hugged her and laughed aloud, and said even the word headquarters was stretching the truth enough.
Emily took the phone from her ear, punched in the voice-mail number and then the code to play back the messages. “We’re sorry, but your code is invalid. Please try again.” Emily stared at the phone and repeated the code. “We’re sorry, but-” Emily disconnected. She considered calling back to leave a message telling Phil to call her, but she knew that idea was ridiculous. He could hardly not know that she was waiting to hear from him. She made a decision not to waste time thinking about the fact that Phil had changed the message-retrieval code. Maybe he hadn’t even been the one to change the code. Maybe little April had put in a new code when she had recorded the new message. It would be just like Phil to not know that a new code would be something Emily would want to have, or that not telling her would hurt her feelings.
How could Ray Hall sleep through eight rings? Maybe he was with Phil. That was the first positive thought she’d had. Then she reminded herself that the ring sound was actually a signal, not a real sound. If Ray had turned off the ring, the phone company would still send that signal to Emily’s phone.
She thought of Bill Przwalski. He was only about twentytwo years old-born about the time when she and Phil had gotten married and started the agency. He was trying to put in his two thousand hours a year for three years to get his private-investigator’s license. Could he be out somewhere working with Phil? He got all the dull night-surveillance jobs and the assignments to follow somebody around town. She looked at the list in the drawer near the phone and tried his number, but got a message that sounded like a school kid reading aloud in class. “I am unable to come to the phone right now, but I will get back to you as soon as I can. Please wait for the beep, then leave me a message.” She said, “Billy, this is Emily Kramer, Phil’s wife. I’d like you to call us at home as soon as possible. Thank you.” Us? She had said it without deciding to, getting caught by the reflex to protect herself from being so alone.
The next call was harder because she didn’t know him as well as Ray, and he wasn’t a trainee like Billy, but calling the others first had helped her to get past her shyness and reticence. She had already called Ray and Billy, so she had to call Dewey Burns. If she didn’t call him, Dewey might feel strange, wondering if she had left him out just because he was black. She made the call, and there was only one ring.
“Yeah?”
“Dewey?”
“Yes.”
“This is Emily Kramer. I’m sorry to call so early.”
“It’s all right. I’m up. What’s happening?”
“I just woke up, and Phil isn’t here. He never came home last night.” She waited, but Dewey was waiting, too. Why didn’t he say something? She prompted him: “I just started calling you guys to see if anybody knows where he is, and you’re the first one who answered.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know where Phil is. He’s had me working on a case by myself for a while, and he hasn’t told me what he’s doing. Have you called Ray yet?”
“Yes, and the office, and Billy. Nobody’s up yet.”
“It’s early. But let me make a couple of calls and go to the office and look around. I’ll call you from there.”
“Thanks, Dewey.”
“Talk to you in a little while.” He hung up.
Emily stood holding the dead phone. His voice had sounded brusque, as though he were in a hurry to get rid of her. But maybe that terse manner had just been his time in the marines coming back to him-talk quickly and get going. He had been out for a couple of years, but he still stood so straight that he looked like he was guarding something, and still had a military haircut. Phil had told her he still did calisthenics and ran five miles a day, as if he were planning to go into battle. Still, he had sounded as though he wanted to get rid of her. And he had said he was going to make calls. Who was he going to call? Who else was there to call besides the men who worked for Phil?
She reminded herself that this was not the time to be jealous. Dewey might have numbers for Ray Hall and Bill Przwalski that she didn’t-parents or girlfriends or someone. But what he had actually said was that he would make a couple of calls. What numbers would he have that he could call when Phil Kramer didn’t come home one night? She hoped it meant Dewey had some idea of what was going on in Phil’s latest investigation, or at least knew who the client was. But if he did, why had he said he didn’t?
There was so much about Dewey that she didn’t know, and she’d always had the feeling Phil must know more about him than he had said. Nobody seemed to know how Phil even knew Dewey. One day there was no Dewey Burns, and the next day there was. He and Phil always seemed to speak to each other in shorthand, in low tones, as though they had longer conversations when she wasn’t around.
There was one more person to call. She looked at the sheet in the open drawer, dialed the number, and got a busy signal. She looked up at the clock on the wall. It said five forty. Had it stopped? Had all of this taken only ten minutes?
She hung up and redialed the number. This time the phone rang for an instant and was cut off. “What?” April Dougherty’s voice was angry.
“April? This is Emily Kramer, Phil’s wife. I’m sorry to call at this hour.”
The voice turned small and meek. “That’s okay.”
“I’m calling everyone from the agency.” Emily noticed that April didn’t ask what was up. How could Emily not notice? She answered the question that April had not asked. “Phil didn’t come home last night, and I’m trying to see if anybody knows where he is, or what he was working on, or if he’s with someone.”
“No,” April said.
“No?”
“He didn’t mention anything to me. I went home at six, and he was still at the office.”
“Do you remember if Ray was there, or Billy?”
“Urn, I think both of them were still there when I left. They were, in fact. But they were getting ready to leave, too.”
“Do you remember what Phil was doing when you left? Did he have a case file, or was he packing a briefcase with surveillance gear or tape recorders, or anything?”
“I didn’t notice. He could have. I mean, it’s his office. He could have got anything he wanted after I left. I think he was sitting at his desk. Yes. He was.”
“Was his computer turned on?”
“It’s always on.”
Emily was getting frustrated. “Look, April. I know it’s early in the morning. I would never do this if I weren’t worried sick. In twentytwo years, Phil has always managed to make it home, or at least call me and let me know where he is.”
“I don’t know why he didn’t come home.” April’s voice was quiet and tense. “I’m sure there’s a good reason.”
Emily was shocked. She had not said anything critical of Phil, but here was this girl, defending him against her. Emily said, “If you hear from him, tell him to call home right away. I’m about to call the cops. If you know of any reason not to, I’d like to hear it.”
“If I hear from him, I’ll tell him.”
“Thanks.”
“‘Bye.” April hung up.
Emily dialed Phil’s cell phone again, and listened to the message. “The customer you have called is not in the service area at this time.” She put the phone back in its cradle. The chill on her feet reminded her that she was still barefoot, still wearing her nightgown. She picked up the telephone and hurried to the stairs to get dressed. On the way, she looked at the printed sticker on the phone and dialed the nonemergency number of the police.