“Maybe it’s Bob,” I said to the dogs. They heard the excitement in my voice as an invitation to play and began to tussle with each other. I had to push around them, and before I reached the bedroom, the machine beeped to signal that the outgoing message was over.
“Hey! Lou! Pick up the phone! I know you’re home, you know I know it, you know you can’t hide from—“
I grabbed the receiver. “Kay,” I said to my cousin, “you’re going to wake my neighbors.”
She lowered her voice a trifle. “Yeah, well, they sleep too much anyway. Did you and Bob have fun tonight?”
“He—”
“Anything interesting happen? Did you kiss him yet?”
“No, he—”
“Just because your husband was a lying sleazebag son of a bitch doesn’t mean all men are,” the font of wisdom on the other end of the line continued.
“We don’t have a kissing kind of relationship, and besides—”
“I like Bob, and obviously he likes you, even though you are reluctant about the kissing, which is probably only natural after Roger, and—”
“I think he’s been kidnapped,” I butted in. My legs gave way and I sat down heavily on the edge of the bed. There was a pause, then a snort of laughter.
“That is good,” Kay chuckled. “Space aliens?”
“No. Woman in red, at the grocery store.”
Another pause, longer this time. “Louisa, what are you talking about?”
I took a deep breath. “Bob and I went out to dinner this evening, and afterward he went into the grocery store to get some dog food while I waited in the car because it was raining and I wore my velveteen sneakers and he came out with a woman and got into her car and they drove away and I tried to follow but I lost them.”
“Whoa, whoa, wait a minute! Slow down. You’re not making any sense. You and Bob went to dinner—”
“Right.”
“And then you went to a grocery store? He really knows how to show you a good time, doesn’t he?”
“Kay,” I flared, sitting up straighter, “the Food Right was on the way to my house and he needed to get food for Jack. He said he was going to run in for a minute and come right back out.”
Jack must have heard his name. He appeared in front of me and leaned heavily against my legs.
“Okay, okay. Whatever. He ran in for dog food and came right back out, but he came out with another woman?”
“Yes. And he didn’t have any dog food.” I leaned over and patted Jack’s head.
“I hate to say it but that is pretty damned tacky.” I could tell from her voice that she was wrinkling her nose the way she does when she doesn’t like something. An image of her in first grade faced with a slimy wad of canned spinach on her lunch plate swam up from my memory.
“It would be more than tacky if he did it on purpose.” I sat back up. “And I suppose he could have. After all, Roger—”
“Don’t even go there,” she snapped. “I forbid you to ever compare Bob with Roger, even if Bob did leave you at the Food Right. I mean, ditching you at the store is nothing compared to—”
“Yes, yes, okay,” I interrupted in turn, waving my free hand. “You’re right, Roger was far beyond tacky. But Kay, I don’t think he did it on purpose. Bob, I mean. The woman was practically glued to his side, and I think she had a gun or a knife or something.”
“What!”
“Well, I couldn’t really see her hands,” I admitted. “She was partly behind Bob and she kept one hand in her jacket pocket. But why else would he just walk off with someone and not even look my way?” I chewed my lower lip as I pictured the scene again. “He walked…I don’t know, sort of stiffly. Tense. Not talking and laughing together like you would if you’ve just picked someone up. Or met someone you know. She made him unlock the car door. As though she had to keep her eyes on him the whole time. And they both got in the passenger side, and he slid over behind the wheel to drive.”
“Wouldn’t the transmission get in the way?” she asked.
“The car had a bench seat. I think. It was an old car. A gray Mercedes with the silver thingie on the hood.”
“So at least he went off with someone who had a cool car.”
“I don’t think Bob cares all that much about cool cars,” I said, annoyed.
“True, look what he drives. And don’t get all huffy at me. I know it's just like yours. So what did this woman look like, anyway?”
I described the woman and her red suit and heels.
“Weird outfit for a grocery store,” my cousin said. “Maybe she just ran in for something too and saw Bob and—”
“Decided he was on her take-out menu for tonight?”
“Maybe they knew each other.”
“It's possible. I just don’t know. Anyway, they drove off, and I followed them—”
“He left his keys? He must have, I can't see you hotwiring a car.”
“Yes, he left his keys. So I could listen to the radio. And I bet you can't hotwire one either. Anyway I followed, and a Pinto pulled out in front of me and they were getting further away, so I passed it and I was probably speeding a little, because a cop pulled me over and I lost them.”
A little silence played along the line. “A cop?”
“Yes.”
“Not…”
“Yes.”
“Did he know who you were?”
“You mean that I'm your cousin? Oh yes.”
“Did he manage to piss you off?”
“Yes.”
“That figures. What did he do?”
“You mean aside from not listening to me until the Mercedes had disappeared from sight, and telling me that in his professional opinion it made perfect sense for a man to go off in a Mercedes instead of a Honda, especially with a blonde involved? Other than that he pretty much told me to drive carefully and call him if I got a ransom note.”
“Goddammit!” she snarled. I knew she had bounced to the edge of whatever she was sitting on. “How dare he talk to my cousin like that! This is so typical. What a lug he is!”
“Thanks, Kay.” I was warmed by her partisanship. “But to be fair, I was telling him a really weird story, I was driving someone else’s car, and I was speeding. Not a whole lot, it isn’t easy to speed seriously in an eighty-nine Civic, but still. Anyway, after he let me go, I went back to the store to look for Bob. Just in case it hadn’t really been him. But he wasn’t there. So I went to his house to get Jack.”
“No sign of Bob?”
“No, but I found a phone message. I saw the machine blinking and thought maybe he’d called and maybe I should listen—” I realized I was twisting the phone cord around my finger and stopped.
“Anyone would have done the same,” she assured me. “What was the message?”
“Someone telling Bob that he’d been found and should be careful. That was pretty much it.”
“Did you take the tape with you?”
“No, I—”
“That’s what they always do in the movies.”
“Yeah, well, in the movies they have phone machines with tapes in them. This was the digital kind that doesn’t use a tape. But I thought the police should know about it so I called them.”
“Did Kerry Sue Maddock answer the phone? I swear that is the stupidest woman in town.”
“No, your friend Ed had already made it back to the station.”
“Uh oh. What happened?”
“He asked me to play the message for him.”
“Then what did he say?”
“Before I managed to erase the message or after?” I hedged. I shrugged my shoulders to release some tension.
“Louisa! You erased it?” She sounded like she was choking back a laugh. “Of course you did. Why do I even ask?” My track record with electronics is not outstanding. “Then what?”
“He told me either to wait and see if they called again, or go home. He sounded like he was tiptoeing around a nut case. I'm sure he thought I'd made the whole thing up. So I hung up and came home. What did you tell him about me, anyway?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? You never said you had a cousin in Seattle?”
“Of course I told him that. But we haven’t spoken to each other for months, so he wouldn’t know about your more recent history, or rather Roger’s, if that’s what’s worrying you. I certainly didn’t tell him anything about it.”
“Kay, everyone in the world knows about all that.”
“They do not! Geez, get over it!”
“Easy for you to say. But anyway, I got Jack and started home, and someone was driving close behind me soon after I left Bob’s place, and I made a bunch of turns and a car was always behind me. I finally shook it off and came home.”
Now that I'd narrated this madness to another person I felt impossibly tired. I wanted to let my lead-weighted bones collapse on the bed and sleep until all this—whatever it was—was over. Stress takes me that way.
“Louisa, what have you gotten yourself into? This whole thing is so weird,” Kay said. “It will probably turn out to have a mundane explanation, but it is weird.”
“No kidding,” I agreed. “Do you think I should call Officer Johnson again?”
“It's actually Chief Johnson,” she said.
“He’s the chief? You never said you were dating the chief of police. What was he doing out chasing speeders? Shouldn’t he have been at the station telling everyone else what to do?”
“Hey, it's a small town, they all do everything.”
“Well, anyway, should I tell him about being followed? He already thinks I'm insane. Maybe I should call someone else, the county sheriff or the FBI or something.”
She snorted. “Louisa! The FBI? By the time they figure out where Willow Falls is, Bob could be back again.” Silence. I knew she was rubbing the bridge of her nose as she thought. “Listen, don’t call anyone else tonight. In movies a person always has to be missing for twenty four hours before they’ll start looking for them.”
“You think?” I asked, wanting to believe her. “But what if I delay and something happens to him?”
“Something’s already happened to him,” she pointed out. “But you have no idea if he went with that woman voluntarily. I know you think he didn’t, but we can't be sure.”
“Not being sure is making me nuts. If I knew for certain that he’d ditched me I could just get really mad, or if he was kidnapped I could make someone look for him. As it is I can't do anything.” I sighed and shifted restlessly on the bed, then saw that I was still holding Bob’s keys. “Listen, I just remembered, I left Bob’s car in the driveway and I want to move it into the garage.”
“All right, sweetie, you move the car in and get some sleep. Will you be okay by yourself? Do you want me to come over?”
“I'll be okay,” I assured her. “After all, Emily Ann and Jack are here.”
“No problem then.” I could hear a grin in her voice. “No harm can come to you with those two in the house. I'll be in the store early tomorrow if you need me. Ambrose is having a piece picked up practically at dawn.”
“Did you need me to work tomorrow?”
“No, that’s okay. But if Bob’s not back by tomorrow afternoon we will have to decide who to report his disappearance to. Call me immediately if you hear from him. When you hear from him.”
I hung up the phone and slumped on the edge of the bed. I knew if I let myself lie down, even for a second, I’d never get up again that night. Still, I was about to fall back onto the covers when I realized both dogs had sneaked up behind me and were curled on the bed flank to flank. I didn’t have the heart to disturb them. I forced myself to my feet and out to the garage. My car was far enough to the side to be able to park the other, so I pressed the doorbell-like button that opens the garage door.
The door started up and the overhead light came on. Too late, I realized I was spotlighted for anyone who might be outside. I felt I was in one of those dreams where you’re on stage and don’t know what the play is, let alone what your lines might be. What if someone had followed me home, and here I was armed only with bunch of keys? I didn’t even have the dogs to protect me, assuming that their friendly overtures to everyone they met would be any protection.
But when the door was up, no one was in sight. I quickly moved the Honda inside beside its twin, pressed the button again, and went back into the house. The damp night air, not to mention the fear I'd felt when I stepped out into it, had revived me. I was wide awake again. I sat at the kitchen table to finish my glass of wine, hoping it would lull me enough to bring sleep.
The only sounds were the ticking of the Seth Thomas clock on the mantel and its chime on the quarter hour, and the low hum of the refrigerator. I rolled the stem of the wine glass around in my fingers as I thought of this evening. It struck me that Bob was a watchful person, always looking around him when he was out in public.
I heard a thump from the bedroom. Nails clicked on the hardwood floor of the hall. Jack appeared in front of me.
“Jack,” I said to him, “I'm confused. Bob’s the first guy I've gone out with since my husband died, and I was married for a long time, but I don’t recall having the person you’re with being swept away by a woman in red as part of the conventional dating ritual. Of course, everyone says things have changed since the last time I did any of this, but still, this seems somewhat out of the norm.”
Jack yawned.
“And of course it had to be a blonde. My recent experience with blondes has not been good. I know of one in Seattle…no, you’re too young for that story.”
Jack gave himself a mighty shake, so that his ears made a leathery flapping sound and his lips flew up to expose his shining teeth. He turned and started toward the bedroom, looking over his shoulder at me.
“You’re right,” I said. “Let’s call it a day.”
I leaned over to untie my shoes. They were soaked through and the pattern of silver moons and stars barely showed through the smears of mud. I put them in the trash and went to bed.