'Not if she left in a hurry.'
'She probably would have called in somewhere along the line. But let's say she didn't, let's say she was enough of an airhead to forget it altogether. Why would she leave the machine?'
'Same thing. She forgot it.'
'The room was left empty. No clothes in the drawers, nothing in the closet. There wasn't a whole lot of clutter around for things to get lost in. All that was left was the bed linen, the phone, and the answering machine. She couldn't have not noticed it.'
'Sure she could. Lots of people leave the phone when they move. I think you're supposed to leave the phone, unless it's one that you bought outright. Anyway, people leave them. So she's gonna leave her phone.
So the answering machine— where is it, it's next to the phone, right?'
'Right.'
'So she looks over there and she doesn't see something separate, an answering machine, a household appliance, keeps you in touch with your friends and associates, ends your worry of missing calls, di dah di dah di dah. What she sees is part of the phone.'
I thought about it. 'Maybe,' I said.
'It's part of the phone, it goes with the phone. And, since the phone stays, it stays with the phone.'
'And why doesn't she come back for it when she realizes it's missing?'
'Because she's in Greenland,' he said, 'and it's cheaper to buy a new machine than to get on a plane.'
'I don't know, Joe.'
'I don't know either, but I'll tell you this, it makes as much sense as looking at a phone and an answering machine and two sheets and a blanket and trying to make a kidnapping case out of it.'
'Don't forget the bedspread.'
'Yeah, right. Maybe she moved somewhere that she couldn't use the linen. What was it, a single bed?'
'Larger than that, somewhere between a single and a double. I think they call it a three-quarter.'
'So she moved in with some slick dude with a king-size water bed and a twelve-inch cock, and what does she need with some old sheets and pillowcases? What does she even need with a phone, as far as that goes, if she's gonna be spending all her time on her back with her knees up?'
'I think somebody moved her out,' I said. 'I think somebody took her keys and let himself into her room and packed up all her things and slipped out of there with them. I think—'
'Anybody see a stranger leave the building with a couple of suitcases?'
'They don't even know each other, so how would they spot a stranger?'
'Did anybody see anybody toting some bags around that time?'
'It's too long ago, you know that. I asked the question of people on the same floor with her, but how can you remember a commonplace event that might have taken place two months ago?'
'That's the whole point, Matt. If anybody left a trail, it's ice-cold by now.' He picked up a Lucite photo cube, turned it in his hands and looked at a picture of two children and a dog, all three beaming at the camera. 'Go on with your script,' he said. 'Somebody moves her stuff out. He leaves the linen because he doesn't know it's hers. Why does he leave the answering machine?'
'So anybody who calls her won't know she's gone.'
'Then why doesn't he leave everything, and even the landlady won't know she's gone?'
'Because eventually the landlady will figure out that she's not coming back, and the matter might get reported to the police. Cleaning out the room tidies a potential loose end. Leaving the answering machine buys a little time, gives the illusion she's still there to anybody at a distance, and makes it impossible to know exactly when she moved.
She paid her rent on the sixth and her room was found to be vacant ten days later, so that's the best I can narrow down the time of her disappearance, and that's because he left the machine on.'
'How do you figure that?'
'Her parents called a couple of times and left messages. If the machine hadn't picked up they would have kept calling until they reached her, and when they didn't reach her no matter what time they called, they would have been alarmed, they would have thought something happened to her. In all likelihood her father would have come to see you two months earlier than he did.'
'Yeah, I see what you mean.'
'And it wouldn't have been a cold trail then.'
'I'm still not sure it would have been a police matter.'
'Maybe, maybe not. But if he'd hired somebody private back in the middle of July—'
'You'd have had an easier time of it. No argument.' He thought for a moment. 'Say she left the machine behind herself, not by accident but because she had a reason.'
'What reason?'
'She moved out but she doesn't want somebody to know she's gone. Her parents, say, or somebody else she's trying to duck.'
'She'd just keep the room. Pay the rent and live elsewhere.'
