Hocus

Vince came back in with the coffee. Cody put his ears back and hissed at him.

Reed tried, but for all his former composure, now he couldn’t hide a smile. Vince told him to shut up, and he laughed aloud. He took a sip of coffee, thanked Vince, and got back to business. He repeated some of what I had said about the fight, asked me if that was correct. I nodded. Vince went back to leaning on the door.

“Did Frank tell you anything about what he’d be working on today?”

“No.”

“Did he call or communicate with you at any time today?”

“No.”

“Did you try to contact him?”

“Yes.” I told them about the attempts at paging him.

“He didn’t call back?”

“No.”

“Did he try to reach you?”

I looked away. “Not that I know of.”

“Didn’t page you?”

“I don’t carry a pager.”

“Nothing on your answering machine or voice mail?” Vince asked.

“No.”

“Is that typical?” Reed asked.

“No. But we had been fighting.”

“Is this what typically happens when you fight?”

“Look, I don’t see what this has to do with anything. I’m not sure Frank would want me to talk about our marriage in this way. In fact, I’m sure he wouldn’t.”

Vince acted as if he would argue, but Reed made the slightest of gestures to him, a small movement of his fingers, and Vince subsided. Catching this interaction awakened me to the fact that I had been seeing teamwork all along. Reed was playing a role, so was Vince.

“Did you know that Frank planned to go to Riverside today?” Reed asked.

Still smarting from kicking myself, I said, “I’m not saying another word.”

“What’s wrong?”

“What the hell are you two imagining? That I let someone who might harm my husband know where he would be? That I — that I arranged for this to happen?”

“Of course not….”

“Oh, no,” I mocked. “Of course not!”

Reed shifted in his chair. Vince’s mouth became a hard line.

“Just trying to help Frank, right, Reed? Who sent the two of you out here? Lieutenant Carlson? What about you, Vince? You come into this house and ask me if I had made my own husband’s disappearance a news story?” I was shouting by then.

“Look, we’re just trying to learn what we can about the situation,” Reed coaxed.

“Get out.”

“Listen, Irene—”

“Get out of here. Both of you!”

The dogs were barking, I realized, and wondered if it was because they had heard me shouting. Rachel knocked on the door. “Are you okay, Irene?”

Before I could answer, the doorbell rang again.

I heard Rachel answer it, heard the low sound of men’s voices. Vince and Reed exchanged puzzled looks.

A moment later there was a knock on the guest room door. Vince moved away from it, opened it slightly.

“Step back, Vincente,” she said with a grin. “You boys are in for a surprise.”

He stepped back, and Rachel pushed past him. A short, skinny kid in a suit walked in, carrying a briefcase and rubbing his nose with the back of the other hand. He had mouse brown hair and a baby face and moved with the awkwardness of those who are still growing, although I doubted he was. If he was older than he looked, he was starting the second half of his twenties. His eyes, though, were alert and curious, and as he nodded at me I wondered how often he had been underestimated.

He was followed by a big man, a man as tall as Frank — about six four — but lankier. He strolled in with a slow, easy gait. He had a strong face, rough-hewn but not unpleasant. His hair was cut very short. It had been dark once but now was turning gray. His eyes were slate blue.

With Rachel, Vince, Reed, me, and the two newcomers bunched in there, the guest room was crowded. I wanted out.

The big man spoke first. “Mrs. Harriman?” He drawled it out. Pure Texan.