”What year she graduate?“
”Nineteen fifty-four, both of us. College sweethearts.“
”How about college friends?“
”Oh, hell, I don’t know. I mean we still see a lot of people we went to school with. You think she might be visiting someone?“
”Well, if she ran off, she had to run somewhere. She ever work?“
He shook his head strongly. ”No way. We got married right after graduation. I’ve supported her since her father stopped.“
”She ever travel without you, separate vacations, that sort of thing?“
”No, Christ, she gets lost in a phone booth. I mean she’s scared to travel. Anywhere we’ve ever gone, I’ve taken her.“
”So if you were her, no work experience, no travel skills, no family other than this one, and you ran off, where would you go?“
He shrugged.
”She take money,“ I said.
”Not much. I gave her the food money and her house money on Monday and she took off Thursday, and she’d already done the food shopping. She couldn’t a had more than twenty bucks.“
”Okay, so we’re back to where could she go. She needed help. There’s not a lot you can do on twenty bucks, What friends could she have gone to?“
”Well, I mean most of her friends were my friends too, you know. I mean I know the husband and she knows the wife. I don’t think she could be hiding out anywhere like that. One of the guys would tell me.“
”Unmarried friend?“
”Hey, that’s a problem, I don’t think I know anybody who isn’t married.“
”Does your wife?“
”Not that I know. But, hell, I don’t keep track of her every move. I mean she had some friends from college, I don’t think ever married. Some of them weren’t bad either.“
”Could you give me their names, last known address, that sort of thing?“
”Jesus, I don’t know. I’ll try, but you gotta give me a little time. I don’t really know too much about what she did during the day. I mean maybe she wrote to some of them, I don’t know.“
”Any who live around here?“
”I just don’t know, Spenser. Maybe Millie might know.“
”Your daughter?“
”Yeah, she’s sixteen. That’s old enough for them to have girl talk and stuff, I imagine. Maybe she’s got something you could use. Want me to get her?“
”Yeah, and old phone bills, letters, that kind of thing, might be able to give us a clue as to where she’d go. And I’ll need a picture.“
”Yeah, okay. I’ll get Millie first, and I’ll look for that stuff while you’re talking with her.“ He hadn’t come right home and done it like I told him. Maybe I lacked leadership qualities.
Millie didn’t look happy to talk with me. She sat at the table and turned her father’s empty coffee cup in a continuous circle in front of her. Shepard went off to collect the phone bills and letters. Millie didn’t speak.
”Any thoughts on where your mother might be, Millie?“
She shook her head.
”Does that mean you don’t know or you won’t say.“
She shrugged and continued to turn the coffee cup carefully.
”You want her back?“
She shrugged again. When I turn on the charm they melt like butter.
”Why do you think she ran off?“
”I don’t know,“ she said, staring at the cup. Already she was starting to pour out her heart to me.
”If you were she,“ I said, ”would you run off?“
”I wouldn’t leave my children,“ she said and there was some emphasis on the my.
”Would you leave your husband?“
”I’d leave him,“ she said and jerked her head toward the door her father had gone through.
”Why?“
”He’s a jerk.“
”What’s jerky about him?“
She shrugged.
