We said good-bye after Raoul asked me if I had any idea how to thank someone for saving his wife’s life. “Canada?” I wondered.
“No, Norm Clarke,” he said.
I thought I’d read somewhere that Norm had a weakness for foie gras, but I promised Raoul I’d think more about it and stepped back out to the waiting room to get Bill Miller.
The front door was wide open. The coffee table was tipped over, magazines scattered on the floor.
Bill was gone. Damn. Immediately, I regretted leaving him alone for such a long time.
The winds seemed to have stopped.
68
Huh. What did Bill’s hasty exit mean? Why the overturned table and the open door? Had something happened while I was talking with Raoul, or was Bill making a statement about his frustration with me, or about his annoyance that I’d interrupted our meeting to take a phone call?
My relief that Diane was okay was so strong at that moment that I wasn’t particularly upset about whatever had prompted Bill’s departure, but I was perplexed. Why had he taken off so suddenly?
I was becoming more and more convinced that Mallory’s Christmas night disappearance had been accomplished with Bob’s help. What had happened next? I was guessing that she’d talked Bob into driving her somewhere and I was hoping that she’d somehow made it to Vegas to visit her mother. Where were mother and daughter right then? I didn’t know. Raoul’s story satisfied me that Bill’s boss, the by-then-dead Walter, hadn’t been successful in tracking them down in Vegas.
But where was Bob? If Sam had caught up with him, I was sure he would have called and let me know.
I straightened up the waiting room, walked back to my office, and phoned Bill Miller at his home. No answer. I left a message, and asked him to call me back on my pager. Then I called home. The girls were still out on their excursion. I left Lauren a message that I was going to run a few errands and that I’d be home in time for dinner.
As cold as it can be in Colorado in January, there are always respites, warm days in the high fifties or low sixties when the sun defies its low angle in the southern sky and the blue above is just a little bluer. I was surprised when I stepped outside to discover that the Chinooks had abated and left the day so much warmer than it had been earlier. The seat heaters in the Audi seemed superfluous. I flicked them off and drove east to begin my errands.
I felt the vibration of my pager while I was waiting in line to buy some fish for dinner at Whole Foods. Had Lauren asked for ono or opah? I couldn’t remember. I pulled the beeper off my belt and read Bill Miller’s familiar number. My turn at the fish counter had arrived, so I mentally flipped a coin and chose a good-sized piece of opah before I meandered over to the relative quiet of the dairy department to return Bill’s call.
“We need to talk,” he said.
“I went back out to the waiting room and-”
“I just got a call about Mallory.”
“From whom?”
“The Colorado State Patrol. They found a body, a girl, in a ditch near I-70 west of Grand Junction.”
“Oh my God,” I said. “What can I do?”
“I want to talk to you before whatever happens next. I need to make sure I’m thinking straight.”
“Bill, you just admitted that you’re using the therapy to shut me up. I don’t think I’m the right person to-”
“Fire me tomorrow. Tonight I need some help.” He sounded genuinely frantic. I couldn’t imagine his terror. I looked at my watch. “My office. Ten minutes,” I said.
“I have to be here, at home, if they call back. I can’t leave. Can you come over?”
“I’ll be right there,” I said. I tossed the opah on top of a display of organic butter in the dairy case, and sprinted to my car.
69
Maybe it was the time of day, just past dusk. Or maybe, as Sam predicted, the fierce assault of the Chinook blitzkrieg had scared everyone off. But the media encampment outside the Millers’ home was deserted, the street peaceful. Doyle’s house was dark.
Bill met me at the front door. I didn’t even have to knock.
“Thank you for coming,” he said as he ushered me inside. “Can I get you something? Some tea? I make good hot chocolate. That’s what the kids tell me, anyway.”
“No, thank you.”
His cordial greeting left me off-balance as he led me to the back of the house and a battered oak claw-foot table with some mismatched pressed-back chairs. “Sit, please.” He pointed me to a seat that faced the service porch and the rear yard. “Thank you,” he repeated.
“What can I do to help, Bill?” I wanted to get down to business, whatever it was. I wanted to get home. I wanted to convince myself that I hadn’t made a big mistake by agreeing to this impromptu house call.
“You being here helps.”
It wasn’t what I wanted to hear from him. “Bill, I’m glad you find my presence comforting. But my advice to you is simple: Tell the police everything you know. The journal, everything. If you have new information, they need to know it. Mallory’s welfare is more important than anything else.”
“I appreciate your counsel. You were absolutely right about Rachel years ago. But I’m not sure you really understand the dilemma I’m in. Calling the police isn’t an option.”
“Mallory’s safety is the most important thing. Your legal situation is secondary.”
“I’m her father. She needs me. Both kids do.”
“I’m sure that’s true, but-”
“But nothing. If someone had your daughter, or your wife, or both, you would do anything to get them back, wouldn’t you? Anything?”
Once I had. Once when a madman was trying to break into my house I’d closed my eyes and pulled a trigger to protect my pregnant wife. I’d do it again if I had to. And again after that.
Bill had continued talking through my silent reverie; I wasn’t sure if I’d missed anything. When I tuned back in he was saying, “Like right now, if you didn’t know where your family was, I bet you would do anything to find them, to make sure they were safe. Right?”
“Of course.”
“Do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Do you know where your wife and daughter are right now?”
What? “What do you mean?” I was trying to keep my voice level. I was certain I was failing.
“Your family? Do you know where they are right now?”
No, I didn’t know where they were. “Right now? What are you saying, Bill?”
“Nothing. I’m just trying to describe my situation in a way that might make sense to another father. The desperation I’m feeling. Do you understand the desperation?”
“Are you threatening my family, Bill?”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“Have you done something to my wife or daughter?”
“See? That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Right now? I think you’re beginning to get it. My desperation. That’s good.”
“Answer my question.” I stood up. “Have you done something to my family?”
A creaking sound pierced through the house. The floor? A door? Had I caused that?
“Did you hear that?” Bill asked. He stood, too.
“Yes. Is someone else here?”
“No. Maybe it was nothing. Old houses, you know.”
Was he unconcerned, or merely cavalier? I couldn’t tell.
Another creak disturbed the quiet.
“Then again,” Bill said. “I’m going to check around a little. You want to call your wife and daughter, ease your mind, you go right ahead.”
Bill stood and left the kitchen. Immediately, I pulled out my cell and phoned home. No answer. I tried Lauren’s cell. No answer. I placed the phone in front of me on the table. My heart was pounding. Bill came back into the room.