The woman gave me her dazzling smile. “Hey, hon,” she said, “you need help finding something?”
“Well, sort of,” I admitted. “Did either of you notice a tall man in here a little while ago? Brown hair, middle age? He was wearing a plaid shirt and a blue sweater and jeans and high-topped tennis shoes? I was, um, supposed to pick him up and I can't find him.”
“Sorry,” she said, “I didn’t see him. They all run together after a while, you know?”
I nodded. “They do, don’t they?” I turned to the boy. “Did you see him?”
He screwed his face up and looked toward the ceiling. “Well, I did see a guy in high tops, which is what I noticed about him? But he wasn’t alone, he was with a lady? She was real dressed up and they didn’t look like they belonged together? But they went out at the same time so I guess they were.”
I thanked them both and left the store. Strains of a relentlessly upbeat-tempo’d “Hey, Jude” followed me into the night. A muddy pickup passed as I stepped off the curb into the parking lot. Bob was not waiting here for me to find him. I could do nothing about him right now. But he had been buying dog food, which meant Jack was hungry. Whatever had happened to Bob, the dog needed to be taken care of. And maybe—why hadn’t I thought of this before?—Bob and the blonde had gone to his house. They hadn't been going in that direction, but they could have circled around. They could already be there.
Thickening fog helped the row of dark evergreen trees hide Bob’s house from the road. I drove slowly down the long driveway that turned off near the Willow Creek. The only glimmer of light came from the small fixture by the front door and a dim glow through white curtains. No gray Mercedes could be seen.
I'd been here a couple of days earlier to take Bob and Jack to the dog park. In the morning sunshine the place had been charming, but now it seemed positively haunted. I expected to hear movie-soundtrack ooohing sounds from the wisps of fog drifting by the gray stone walls. If it hadn’t been for Jack, nothing could have gotten me out of the car. But I heard his absurdly deep bark from inside the house, so I parked as close to the porch as I could, pulled Bob’s keys from the ignition, and climbed out.
Bob had a number ofkeys on his ring. The car key looked like mine, of course, but I had to try several to find the house key. By the time the right one turned in the lock, Jack had stopped barking and was whining and snuffling at the base of the door.
Jack’s gladness to see me took the form of circles: he became a whirling dervish of a dog, bucking as he turned. Five times around and then he stopped abruptly, panting and wagging furiously at me.
“Hey, Jack, how’s the sweet boy?” I knelt to rumple his baggy coat and receive a small kiss on the earlobe. “Any sign of Bob? No? Well, wait just a minute while I get your leash so we can go out.” Oops, I shouldn’t have said the O word. He started whirling again.
Bob kept Jack’s leash on the knob of the back door. I stepped from the tiny entry into the living room, which was dimly lit by a small lamp on the mantel. Dark blue draperies at the big front window were open, but sheer under-curtains held back the night. I walked past built-in bookcases flanking the fireplace, through an arched doorway to the dining room, and into the kitchen. Another light glowed here, giving enough illumination that I didn’t bother to turn on any others. Jack’s behavior convinced me that no one else was in the house.
The light came from the hood over the stove. On the counter nearby I saw a red message light blinking on a telephone with a built-in answering machine. Normally I would never listen to someone else’s messages. Really. But you could hardly call this evening normal. I punched a button.
The caller had started talking before the beep. “…you’re there pick up the phone, I need to talk to you now. Damn. Damn damn damn. Listen, they may have spotted you. I don’t know if someone tipped them off or if it was just stupid luck. Be careful. I'll call later.” The machine beeped, then gave the time of the call as 6:47.
My heart started beating faster. “Who was that on the phone?” I asked the dog. “Did you recognize the voice?”
He wagged in reply, which was not much help. The message convinced me Bob had not left me marooned on a whim. Maybe it would change Officer Johnson’s professional opinion about what had happened. I would call the police station and leave him a message.
I picked up the phone and started to dial 911. Stopped. Was this an emergency? And did 911 calls go to the local station, or somewhere else? Maybe it would be better to call the regular line. I looked around for a phone book. It stood with a short row of neatly arranged cookbooks on the counter, supported by two sturdy bookends decorated with carved wooden owls. I looked up the police station number by the light from the stove hood, and dialed quickly before I lost my nerve.
“Willow Falls Police.” I recognized the deep voice that had so annoyed me a short time ago. He hadn't wasted any time getting back to the police station. Did he do everything down there?
“Officer Johnson? This is Louisa McGuire.”
“Ah, yes, Mrs. McGuire. How can I help you?” I could hear patience in his voice, which irritated me. A lot.
“I'm at Bob’s house. Bob Richardson’s. I came to pick up his dog. Jack. So he wouldn’t go hungry.” I'm babbling, I thought. At least I hadn't burbled anything about not wanting Jack to be forced to pee in the house. Yet.
“Yes?”
“I really do think Bob has been kidnapped. He hasn’t come home, and I found a weird message on his phone machine.”
“Weird in what way? Can you play it back for me?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. I avoid electronic equipment when I can, especially phones. “Will it play while I'm talking on the phone?”
“Push whichever button points to the right.” A suspicion of a sigh came over the line.
I squinted at the machine. “Okay, let me try this.” I pushed a button.
The machine announced in a metallic voice, “Message erased. There are no further messages.”
“Uh oh.” I peered more closely at the machine and saw ‘Delete’ in tiny letters on the button I had pushed.
“What? Mrs. McGuire, did you erase the message?”
“Yes.” I really hate telephones.
He breathed at me. “Can you tell me what it said?”
I swallowed hard. “The—the person said that Bob needed to be careful because someone had spotted him.”
“Was that the whole message?”
“I think so.” I had listened to it only seconds ago but little had lodged in my memory. “They said they’d call again.”
“Was the caller a man or a woman?”
“I couldn’t tell. It was in that middle register that could be either.”
“Did you notice anything about the voice? An accent maybe, or a lisp or something?”
“No, nothing like that.”
“I see. So what did you want me to do?”
I felt my jaw tighten. “I want you to look for Bob.”
“I see.” Didn’t the man know any other phrases? “I can't act on a message that doesn’t exist. You should make sure the message machine is turned on and go home. Or you could stay in case the caller rings back, or Mr. Richardson returns. Personally, I think you should just go home.”
“That’s your personal opinion? Not a professional one?”
“In this case it's both. You’ve had an exciting evening and you should call it a night.” He was speaking slowly and evenly.
Did he think I was demented? Perhaps that I had made up this whole unlikely scenario? Crazed widow fakes kidnapping to get attention? The last thing I needed was any more attention of the variety that might include the press; my experience when Roger died was enough to last several lifetimes.