“Whoa! One thing at a time, Mrs. Ives.”
“That’s just it!” I was practically shouting. “If LouElla’s right, we don’t have much time!”
Captain Younger’s voice took on such a soothing tone that I wondered if I’d reached Dial-a-Shrink. “I hear what you’re saying, Mrs. Ives, and we’ll check into it, of course. Your immediate concern is for your family, I know, but I’m certain there’s virtually nothing to worry about. Just in case, however, the minute I finish talking with you, I’ll notify the Annapolis police to be on the lookout for Mrs. Prentice.”
I heaved a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank you.”
“I’ll have to warn you, though, that LouElla Van Schuyler isn’t going to be a very credible witness.”
“I know she’s a little kooky, but-”
“Not just a little, Mrs. Ives. Last year we charged Mrs. Van Schuyler with assault when she got into a brawl with a clerk at the grocery store over the sale price of a canned ham. Both women ended up in the emergency room at Kent Queen Anne’s Hospital. In the hospital, Mrs. Van Schuyler became irrational and kept threatening to kill herself, so we got a court order to commit her.”
I let that soak in. “Commit her where?”
“To the Upper Shore Mental Health Center.”
Just great! I was about to send my family running all over Annapolis chasing the paranoid schizophrenic fantasies of a character right out of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. But for some reason, I believed LouElla, and to my great surprise, I found myself defending her. “But they released her, didn’t they?”
“They did, but who’s checking to make sure she’s taking her medication?”
20
It was still thirty minutes until game time, so while Daddy and Ruth checked the events going on at St. John’s College and the area around the county buildings and the Court House, Paul and I retraced our steps from Maryland Avenue, around State Circle to Church Circle and down Main Street.
Opposite Chick & Ruth’s deli, I thought I spotted Chloe riding on Dante’s shoulders about half a block down Main Street, near Hats in the Belfry. “There they are!” I grabbed Paul’s hand and dragged him down the middle of the street, playing dodge ’em with boisterous clots of teenagers and little families traveling in pods. “Emily! Dante!” But they didn’t hear me. I could see Chloe’s head above the crowds, bobbing farther and farther away.
Suddenly my path was blocked by a giant pink blob with green eyes and a yellow spine. I gasped, then recognized it as an inflatable fish; its fat purple lips swam menacingly in front of my face. I turned and bolted for the sidewalk, yelling for Paul to follow me.
In front of Brown’s Furniture, I collided with a character swathed in red silk, wearing long gloves and a stark white Venetian mask. The sinister figure raised its lantern and peered at me closely in the dim light, scaring the bejesus out of me. Behind it, other faceless figures floated threateningly in robes of green, yellow, purple, and white. I froze in my tracks. “Out of my way!” I shrieked. I needed to keep my eyes glued to Chloe. I could just see the top of her golden head as she crossed the street with her father, heading for the giant Christmas tree at Market Square.
A gap opened, and Paul and I charged through. At last we were gaining on them. “Emily! Dante!” Heads turned, but not the ones we were pursuing. It wasn’t until I had grabbed the back of his blue jean jacket that I remembered Dante had been wearing a black windbreaker and that Chloe would have been sitting in a Gerry pack. The surprised face that turned to me was that of a stranger. “Sorry,” I stammered. “I thought you were somebody else.”
As the couple walked away, I bent over double, my hands resting on my knees as I tried to keep my lungs from exploding. Paul rubbed my back. “OK?”
Still panting, I looked up at him sideways and nodded.
“Where next?”
“Let’s try the juggler.”
Paul and I cut right, dodged the Pillsbury Doughboy and his entourage at the crosswalk, and hurried up Green Street and across Duke of Gloucester to the auditorium at St. Mary’s Catholic School.
“Sorry, it’s full.” The usher offered us second-chance tickets for the ten-thirty show.
I turned to Paul in desperation. “But that’ll be too late!” To the usher I said, “It’s an emergency. Have you seen a tall guy with a ponytail carrying a baby? He’s with a woman. Kinda short with reddish hair and an earring in her eyebrow?”
The usher smiled. “There could be a dozen of ’em in there just like that.”
“He might be wearing a blinking Santa hat.”
The guy shook his head.
“Please let me in, just for a minute. I need to find them.”
Paul pinched the fabric of the usher’s sleeve. “Let my wife look. It’s important. I’ll stay here as collateral.”
Before there could be further argument, I pushed through the doorway and into the auditorium. I threaded my way through the aisles, squinting down each row, practically swimming through the waves of laughter that erupted from the crowd as Michael Rosman fooled around up on the stage with a life-size dummy. I kept a low profile, not wanting anyone to confuse me with a volunteer from the audience and clap a fake animal nose on my face. But in spite of what the usher had said, there was no one in the audience even remotely resembling Emily, Dante, or little Chloe.
We hurried back the way we had come, across Market Space and down Randall Street to the Academy, following a string of revelers through Gate One, several wearing hats made of recycled computer parts. A woman dressed as a parlor maid raced by with ice skates slung over her shoulder. “She’s going to the ice rink,” I panted. “Let’s try there.”
At Dahlgren Hall the public session was still in progress, and DKGB and the Kremlin Crew had settled down into a reggae groove. We took the steps to the second level of the Victorian-era building two at a time and made a quick circuit of the balcony, scanning the faces in the crowd as well as those skating down below. As I leaned over the railing, I half expected to see Dante and Chloe watching from the sidelines while Emily performed mohawks, crossovers, spirals, and simple jumps on the ice-as a faculty kid she’d taken lessons at Dahlgren and had gotten pretty darn good before giving it all up during her Dungeons and Dragons phase. We waved halfheartedly to a few friendly faces, but no one we were related to.
“C’mon, Hannah.” Paul grasped my upper arm and tugged on it gently. “Let’s get over to Halsey in case they make the game.”
I tagged along behind him, still scanning the faces in the crowd. At the field house, we stood outside for a while letting the fans flow around us as they arrived for the basketball game, but there was no sign of Dante and Emily.
Inside, the field house was packed. I wrinkled my nose at the odor of commingled sweat and old tennis shoes.
“Ma’am?”
The door attendant seemed to be addressing me. “Yes?”
“Your shoes.”
I stared down at my feet uncomprehendingly. The peacock blue T-straps seemed perfectly fine to me. “What about my shoes?”
“You can’t wear heels on the floor in there.”
“Oh?” I was too exhausted to argue. I slipped off my shoes and stuffed them toe first into the pockets of my coat, one on each side. “OK, now?”
“Sir?”
Paul sighed, slipped out of his Corfams, tied the laces together, and slung the shoes over his shoulder. Satisfied, the attendant waved us through into…
Cacophony!
The ja-bung, ja-bung, ja-bung of the ball being dribbled down the court. The thrump of it hitting the backboard. The whoosh as it streaked through the net. The sqweep of athletic shoes on the polished floor. Add the shriek of the whistles and the cries of the crowd ricocheting off the hard walls and high, rounded ceiling, and I wanted to cram my fingers in my ears.