Now it was Maureen screaming into the night for my help.
I ran barefoot to hit the electric control to raise the metal shutters. I saw Maureen’s feet step back a bit as the shutters folded into the soffit above the door. Her feet were bare like mine. Even sleep stunned and addled, I knew her naked toes were an especially bad omen.
When the shutters were head-high, I opened the glass-paned french doors and Maureen hurled through. She was sobbing so hard I couldn’t make out what she was saying, just that somebody was gone.
Clutching at me like a drowning person, she said, “You have to help me, Dixie! Please!”
I held her tightly for a few minutes and talked to her the way I talk to agitated animals who need calming. When her convulsive shuddering had calmed to tremors, I led her to the couch and sat close beside her. She wore white gauze pajamas and carried a pouchy brown leather bag. Even without makeup and with her brown curls in a tumble, she was still as beautiful as she’d been in high school. She also still smelled of tobacco smoke.
I said, “Mo, what’s happened?”
Wild-eyed, she choked, “They’ve taken Victor. Oh, my God, Dixie, they’ve taken Victor!”
I had to dig into my memory bank to remember that Victor was her husband’s name.
“Who? Who took him?”
She waved her hand in front of her face as if she were erasing the air. “I don’t know. Somebody who wants money. They say they’ll kill him if I don’t give it to them.”
“When? When did they say that? How?”
“Just now, tonight. They called and told me. They want a million dollars in small bills. They want me to leave it in the gazebo tomorrow night. If I don’t, they’ll kill Victor.”
She spoke as if I was familiar with her private little sunset-viewing house. Actually, I’d only been in it once when she’d invited me to her house for lunch. She hadn’t been married long, and her cook—boy, had I been impressed that she had a cook!—had prepared a tasty little spread that we’d eaten in the gazebo. Her husband had come home while I was there and spoiled it. He’d been stiff and cold and looked at me as if I were a smelly bug. I’d left in a hurry and was never invited back.
I said, “We have to call the sheriff’s department. They know how to handle things like this.”
“No! They said if I called the police they’d kill him for sure. You have to help me, Dixie!”
It occurred to me that Maureen might think I was still a deputy.
I said, “Mo, I’m not a deputy anymore, I’m a pet sitter.”
Her eyes registered mild surprise. “You always were crazy about pets.”
Maureen never had been very interested in what other people did. In high school, that was a trait that had kept her from being nosy and gossipy. It had also kept her from being discriminating.
I said, “Do you know anybody with a grudge against Victor?”
She gave me a round-eyed stare. “Everybody has a grudge against Victor. It’s his business. You know, all that oil-trading stuff is cutthroat. Men in that business make enemies.”
I could tell by the way she said it that she didn’t have a clue what Victor’s business dealings were like, or even how he carried them out. Maureen was sweet and cute, but smart would be the last adjective anybody would use to describe her.
I said, “I didn’t realize Victor was that important. To kidnappers, I mean.”
“In his own country he is. Victor Salazar is a big name there.”
It was creepy to see how quickly she trotted out his importance, as if it justified his kidnapping.
I said, “Mo, I know people in the sheriff’s department. Let me—”
“I’m not going to the cops, Dixie. I can’t take that chance. Victor says this happens all the time in South America. That’s why he keeps such a tight watch on me. He always told me if he got kidnapped to just pay up. That’s what I’ll do too. I have to handle this myself.”
I said, “Tell me exactly how this happened. When did you last see Victor, and when did you get the call?”
She opened her bag and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, then saw the look on my face and put them back.
She said, “I saw him about three thirty this afternoon. He left to go meet some old buddies from South America. Venezuela, I think, or maybe Colombia. Could have been Nicaragua. One of those places. He said they’d come here on vacation and they were all getting together for a five-day camping trip, just those guys, catching up on old times, fishing, boating, you know, guy things.”
For the life of me, I couldn’t imagine Victor out in the woods camping. Or fishing. He had seemed more the type to sit in a deck chair on a megayacht and look at the little people through narrow glasses too dark to see his eyes.
I said, “How long after he left for the camping trip did you get the phone call?”
“I don’t know, several hours. The call came after midnight. I was already asleep, but I thought it might be Victor calling so I answered. When I heard that voice I got so scared I couldn’t breathe.”
“Tell me again what the caller said.”
“It’s still on my machine, I can play it for you, but I played it so many times I have it memorized. It was a man, and he said, ‘Mrs. Salazar, we have your husband. If you want him returned alive, put a million dollars in small bills in a duff el bag and leave it in your gazebo at midnight tomorrow. Do not call the police or tell anybody. We’ll be watching you, and if you talk to anybody, we will kill your husband and feed him to the sharks.’ ”
“And then what?”
She looked confused. “I guess the sharks would swim away.”
“What else did the man say?”
“That’s all. The line went dead then.”
I took a deep breath. It was now after one o’clock. Maureen had got the call, freaked out, replayed it several times, then pulled herself together and come to me.
I said, “What do you know about the men Victor was meeting?”
She shook her head. “Not a thing. Victor never said their names, and they didn’t come to our house.”
“Did he say where he was meeting them? Was he going to leave his car someplace and go with them, or were they going to ride with him? And where exactly were they going to camp?”
I was piling too many questions on her at once, and she waved both hands in front of her face like a besieged child. “I don’t know, Dixie! He just said they were going to hike in the woods and do some fishing.”
“You didn’t ask where he was going?”
“Victor didn’t like to be asked questions about his private business.”
Something about that sentence caused a camera shutter to click in my brain, but I didn’t look at the photo it took. Maureen was an old friend, and my job was to help her, not to analyze every word she spoke.
I said, “When the call came, was there a person you could talk to, or was it all a recording?”
She looked surprised. “I think it was a person.”
I didn’t want to bring up the possibility that Victor had already been killed. But I was pretty sure pros demanded proof the abducted person was still alive before they made any money drops.
I said, “Maureen, this could all be a scam. It happens all the time in other countries. People get a call that their child or spouse has been kidnapped, and they get so scared they give the kidnappers whatever they ask for. Then they find out there hasn’t been any kidnapping at all. This could be a hoax too. We don’t know if the call you got was truly from kidnappers. It could have been from somebody who knew Victor was going to be gone and decided to get an easy million dollars.”
“I think it was real, Dixie.”
“But what if it wasn’t?”
“Then I lose a million dollars and my husband comes home when his camping trip ends. Either way, I get my husband back. I’m not going to nickel and dime when it comes to my husband’s life.”