channels before I could find somebody who was authorized to tell me.
The service had been terminated at the customer's request, a woman told me, and then asked me to hold the line for a moment.
She returned to inform me further that there was an outstanding final balance in the customer's favor. I asked how that could be; had she overpaid the final bill?
'She never received her final statement,' the woman told me. 'She evidently didn't leave a forwarding address. She had put down a deposit prior to installation, and the final bill came to less than the funds on deposit. In fact —'
'Yes?'
'According to the computer, she hadn't paid anything since May.
But her charges were low, so she still hadn't exceeded the amount of deposit.'
'I see.'
'If she'll supply us with her current address, we can forward the balance due to her. She may not want to be bothered, it only comes to four dollars and thirty-seven cents.'
I told her that was probably low on Paula's list of priorities.
'There's one other thing you could help me with,' I said. 'Could you tell me the exact date when she requested termination of service?'
'Just a moment,' she said, and I waited. 'That was July twentieth,'
she said.
That sounded wrong, and I checked my notebook to make sure. I was right— Paula had paid rent for the last time on the sixth, Florence Edderling had entered the room and found it empty on the fifteenth, and Georgia Price moved in on the eighteenth. That meant Paula would have waited a minimum of five days after quitting the premises before calling to have her telephone cut off. If she waited that long, why call at all?
And, if she was going to call, why not provide a forwarding address?
'That doesn't square with my figures,' I said. 'Is it possible that she requested termination earlier and it took a few days before the order was carried out?'
'That's not how it works. When we receive a disconnect order, we put it through right away. We don't have to send somebody out to disconnect, you know. We do it electronically from a distance.'
'That's strange. She'd already vacated the premises.'
'Just a minute. Let me punch it up on the screen again and see what it says.' I didn't have a long wait.
'According to this,' she said, 'the phone was still in service until we received instructions to disconnect on 7/20. Of course there's always the possibility of computer error.'
I had a cup of coffee and read through my notebook. Then I put through a collect call to Warren Hoeldtke at his auto showroom. I said,
'I've run into a minor inconsistency here. I don't think it amounts to anything, but I want to check it out. What I'd like to get from you is the date of your last telephone call
to Paula.'
'Let me see. It was sometime in late June, and—'
'No, that was the last time you talked with her. But you called her several times after that, didn't you?'
'Yes, and we were ultimately advised that the service had been disconnected.'
'But first there were some calls where you reached her answering machine. I want to know when the last one of those went through.'
'I see,' he said. 'Gee. I'm afraid I haven't got that kind of memory.
It was toward the end of July when we took our trip, and right after we got back we called and learned the phone was disconnected, so that would have been the middle of last month. I think I told you all that.'
'Yes.'
'But as for our last call when we got the machine, that would have been before we left for the Black Hills, but I wouldn't be able to tell you the date.'
'You've probably got a record.'
'Oh?'
'Do you keep your phone bills?'
'Of course. My accountant would have a fit if I didn't. Oh, I see. I was thinking there would be no record of a call if we didn't get through to her, but of course if the machine answered it would be a complete call. So it would be on our statement.'
'That's right.'
'I don't have the paid bills here, I'm afraid. My wife will know right where they are, though. Do you have my home phone number?' I said I did. 'Let me call her first,' he said, 'so she'll have everything at hand when you call.'
'While you're at it, tell her I'll be calling collect. I'm at a pay phone.'
'That's no problem. In fact, I have a better idea. Give me the number of the pay phone and she can call you.'
