That tongue was poking around inside her mouth again. It took a break so she could ask, “Has she taken Grace, too?”
I found myself unable to say anything for a moment, then, “I really have things to do.”
“You look worried, Mr. Archer. And you know what? You should be. Your wife has been under one hell of a strain. I want you to get in touch with me the moment she shows up.”
“I don’t know what it is you think she’s done,” I said. “My wife’s the victim here. She’s the one who was robbed of her family. Her parents and brother first, now her aunt.”
Wedmore tapped me on the chest with an index finger. “Call me.” She handed me another one of her business cards before heading back to her car.
Seconds later, I was in mine, driving west on Bridgeport Avenue into the Milford neighborhood of Devon. I’d been past Mike’s a hundred times, a small brick building next to a 7-Eleven, its five-letter neon sign running vertically down the second story, ending above the entrance. The front windows were decorated with signs advertising Schlitz and Coors and Budweiser.
I parked around the corner and walked back, not sure whether Mike’s would even be open in the morning for business, but once inside I realized that for many, it was never too early to drink.
There were about a dozen customers in the dimly lit bar, two perched on stools up at the counter having a conversation, the rest scattered about the tables. I approached the bar just down from the two guys, leaned against it until I had caught the attention of the short, heavyset man in a check shirt working behind it.
“Help ya?” he asked, a damp mug in one hand, a towel in the other. He worked the towel into the mug, twisted it around.
“Hi,” I said. “I’m looking for a guy, I think he comes in here a lot.”
“We get a lot of people,” he said. “Got a name?”
“Vince Fleming.”
The bartender had a pretty good poker face. Didn’t flinch, raise an eyebrow. But he didn’t say anything right away, either.
“Fleming, Fleming,” he said. “Not sure.”
“He’s got a body shop in town here,” I said. “He’s the kind of guy, I think, if he does come in here, you’d know him.”
I became aware that the two guys at the bar were no longer talking. “What sort of business you got with him?” the bartender asked.
I smiled, trying to be polite. “It’s sort of a personal matter,” I said. “But I’d be grateful if you could tell me where I could find him. Wait, hang on.” I dug out my wallet, struggling for a second to get it out of the back pocket of my jeans. It was a clumsy, awkward maneuver. I made Columbo look smooth. I laid a ten on the counter. “It’s a bit early for me for a beer, but I’d be happy to pay you for your trouble.”
One of the guys at the bar had slipped away. Maybe to use the can.
“You can keep your money,” the bartender said. “If you want to leave your name, next time he’s in, I could pass it on to him.”
“Maybe if you could just tell me where he works. Look, I don’t mean him any trouble. I’m just wondering if maybe someone I’m looking for might have been to see him.”
The bartender weighed his options, must have decided Fleming’s place of business was probably pretty common knowledge, so he said, “Dirksen Garage. You know where that is?”
I shook my head.
Across the bridge over into Stratford, he said. He drew me a small map on a cocktail napkin.
I went back outside, took a second to let my eyes adjust to the sunlight, and got back in my car. Dirksen Garage was only a couple of miles away, and I was there in under five minutes. I kept glancing in my rearview mirror, wondering whether Rona Wedmore might be following me, but I didn’t spot any obvious unmarked cars.
Dirksen Garage was a single-story cinder-block building with a paved front yard and a black tow truck out front. I parked, walked past a Beetle with its nose smashed in and a Ford Explorer with the two driver’s-side doors caved in, and entered the garage through the business entrance.
I’d come into a small, windowed office that looked out onto a large bay with half a dozen cars in various stages of repair. Some were brown with primer, others masked with paper in preparation for painting, a couple with fenders removed. A strong chemical smell traveled up my nostrils and bored straight into my brain.
There was a young woman at the desk in front of me who asked what I wanted.
“I’m here to see Vince,” I said.
“Not in,” she said.
“It’s important,” I said. “My name’s Terry Archer.”
“What’s it about?”
I could have said that it was about my wife, but that was going to raise a whole bunch of red flags. When one guy goes looking for another guy and says it’s about his wife, it’s hard to believe anything good can come of that.
So I said, “I need to speak with him.”
And what, exactly, was I going to speak with him about? Had I figured that part out yet? I could start with “Have you seen my wife? Remember her? You knew her as Cynthia Bigge. You were on a date with her the night her family vanished?”
And once I’d broken the ice, I could try something like, “Did you, by the way, have anything to do with that? Did you happen to put her mother and brother in a car and dump them off a cliff into an abandoned quarry?”
It would have been better if I had a plan. But the only thing that was driving me now was that my wife had left me, and this was my first stop as I went beating about the bushes.
“Like I said, Mr. Fleming is not here right now,” the woman said. “But I’ll take a message.”
“The name,” I said again, “is Terry Archer.” I gave her my home and cell numbers. “I’d really like to talk to him.”
“Yeah, well, you and plenty of others,” she said.
So I left the Dirksen Garage. Stood out front in the sun, said to myself, “What now, asshole?”
All I really knew for sure was that I needed a coffee. Maybe, drinking a coffee, some intelligent course of action would come to me. There was a doughnut place about half a block down, so I walked over to it. I bought a medium with cream and sugar and sat down at a table littered with doughnut wrappers. I brushed them out of my way, careful not to get any icing or sprinkles on me, and got out my cell phone.
I tried Cynthia again, and again it went straight to voicemail. “Honey, call me. Please.”
I was slipping the phone back into my jacket when it rang. “Hello? Cyn?”
“Mr. Archer?”
“Yes.”
“Dr. Kinzler here.”
“Oh, it’s you. I thought it might be Cynthia. But thanks for returning my call.”
“Your message said your wife is missing?”
“She left in the middle of the night,” I said. “With Grace.” Dr. Kinzler said nothing. I thought I’d lost my call. “Hello?”
“I’m here. She hasn’t been in touch with me. I think you should find her, Mr. Archer.”
“Well, thanks. That’s very helpful. That’s kind of what I’m trying to do right now.”
“I’m just saying, your wife has been under a great deal of stress. Tremendous strain. I’m not sure that she’s entirely…stable. I don’t think it’s a very good environment for your daughter.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m not saying anything. I just think it would be best to find her as soon as you can. And if she does get in touch with me, I will recommend to her that she return home.”
“I don’t think she feels safe here.”
“Then you need to make it safe,” Dr. Kinzler said. “I have another call.”
And she was gone. As helpful as always, I thought.
I’d downed half my coffee before I realized it was bitter to the point of being undrinkable, tossed the rest, and walked out the front of the shop.
A red SUV bounced up and over the curb and stopped abruptly in front of me. The back and front doors on the passenger side opened and two rumpled-looking, slightly potbellied men in oil-stained jeans, jean jackets, and dirty T-shirts-one bald and the other with dirty blond hair-jumped out.