Chapter 22
We heard a car coming off the pavement late the following afternoon. It was too soon for Lucy to be home from school, so I went to the window and looked down on the driveway from the third floor.
In summer you could not see who was coming until the car burst out of the heavy foliage and pulled into the circle before the house. In late fall, the leaves almost all gone, I got a glimpse of the vehicle as it crested the hill. Two men sat inside a brown and tan late model Jeep Wagoneer. I didn’t know them. By their age and the clothing they wore, I was fairly sure they were not selling religion. In fact, I was fairly sure they weren’t selling anything at all.
Molly and I went downstairs together and met them as they were getting out of their vehicle. I thought cops, though I could not have said why. Maybe it was the way both men locked in on me. Most men noticed Molly first. I offered the standard country greeting,
‘Help you?’
They reached into their jackets slowly at the same time and pulled out badges with picture IDs. I felt no satisfaction in being right. I looked at Molly for some kind of explanation, but she was looking at me. I think we both thought of Lucy at the same time. Supposed to be in school, out for a drive instead: a parent’s worst nightmare.
‘Is something wrong?’ Molly asked, an unfamiliar tremor in her voice.
The older man shook his head, apparently understanding our fear. ‘We’d just like to ask Professor Albo a couple of questions, if that’s all right. I’m Detective Dalton. This is Detective Jacobs.’
As he said this, he extended his badge and ID for me to inspect.
I took a long hard look at his identification, trying as I did to figure out what they might want to talk to me about. Harassment? Stalking? An assault charge from the funeral home? What came next?
Kip Dalton was about average height, pleasantly thick through the middle, with neatly oiled black hair just starting to turn. In his late-forties, I guessed. He had the tranquil brown eyes of a preacher or a psychologist, a confidence I would have associated with a prosperous businessman.
Dalton’s partner, whose identification I just glanced at, was easier to comprehend and less interesting. He was so ramrod straight and uptight he might as well have been wearing a uniform. In his mid-thirties with thinning light brown hair, Detective Jacobs was a couple of inches over six feet and exceedingly thin. His eyes were deep set, small and quick. He had a jaw you could break your fist on.
Molly stepped forward aggressively the moment Kip Dalton announced their purpose. What did they want to talk about? Dalton was reluctant to explain himself in the driveway. It would just take a few minutes.
Molly looked at me as she might have in the old days, reading my expression at a glance. Why not? She smiled at both men, the good country wife who has just remembered her manners. ‘You care for some coffee?’
Dalton said that sounded like a mighty fine idea.
We took them through the back porch and into our kitchen. Molly made coffee while Dalton complimented us on the restoration. He was especially interested in the enormous fireplace where the cooking had originally taken place when the house was newly built in the 1820s.
‘Functional?’ he asked.
I answered with the first lie that came to mind. ‘Oh yeah! A couple of times a year we have people out and cook the meal right there, pioneer-style.’ Dalton, who clearly enjoyed antiques smiled fondly at the notion. I said next time we would invite him. I glanced at Jacobs, who exuded all the warmth of an andiron.
I included him in the invitation as well. Why not? It didn’t cost me anything. As I spoke I was fairly sure Kip Dalton wasn’t buying my line, but I didn’t care.
I continued talking about the old cookware we used and the flavour of coffee boiled on an open fire. I said it was quite a sight to see everyone standing around a fireplace like this all dressed up in early nineteenth century costumes.
Molly, who was used to my nonsense, didn’t bother telling the men I was lying. Usually, she enjoyed it, what I could spin out on short notice, but I expect she thought it wasn’t a very smart thing to do with a couple of detectives. After I had run down a little, Dalton moved about the kitchen, inspecting the old plank board table, the original brick floors and walls, the bric-a-brac on the various shelves.
‘I was out here about ten years ago,’ he said. ‘Place didn’t look anything like this.’
‘It was all here,’ Molly answered, ‘but some fool thought he ought to modernize it.’ She was talking about her father and his ill-conceived attempt to turn Bernard Place into an apartment building.
I asked what had brought him out to the house ten years ago. He had been on patrol, he said. He and his partner had found a party and had run the kids off after putting the fear of the law in them.
Jacobs spoke now, his first words since muttering ma’am at the introductions. ‘Seems like they had a lot of trouble selling this place. Sat empty for years.’
‘That wasn’t the reason. There were two owners, a brother and sister. One wanted to sell the place. The other didn’t.’
Jacobs nodded at Molly’s explanation. ‘A squabble over the family inheritance?’
‘Isn’t it always?’
When she asked them their business with me Kip Dalton pretended it wasn’t very urgent. ‘We got a call from the university this morning. One of the graduate students up there in your department is teaching a couple of courses, and she didn’t show up for her classes yesterday. Some people checked around. The usual. They went by her house, called her parents, contacted the hospitals. She just disappeared.’
Molly looked at me, as certain as I was, I think.
‘Johnna Masterson?’ I asked.
Dalton tried not to look surprised. ‘One of her friends said she was going to talk to you about some kind of complaint she filed earlier this semester.’
‘I haven’t spoken to Johnna since early October.’ I thought about leaving it there, but the instinct for self- preservation saved me. ‘Two nights ago she called here and wanted to meet me in town. I drove in and she stood me up. You mind telling me who the friend was?’
Detective Jacobs stepped on my line. ‘Where exactly were you supposed to meet her?’
I turned toward Dalton as I gave my answer. ‘The Denny’s on Washington Avenue,’ I said. Jacobs had succeeded in upsetting me without doing very much besides staring at me with his arms folded across his skinny chest.
‘What evening was this?’ Jacobs asked.
‘Tuesday,’ I answered, ‘the day of Walt and Barbara Beery’s funeral.’ I wondered what had moved me to tell them about a funeral I hadn’t even attended.
Kip Dalton pulled a tiny notepad from his shirt pocket. Using a cheap ink pen, he wrote down the information. Jacobs asked about times. Molly said Johnna had called at about ten-fifteen. ‘I remember because I was expecting a phone call, and I answered.‘
Molly glanced at me. I took it from there.
‘She sounded upset,’ I told them.
From beyond our intimate triangle Detective Jacobs intruded again, ‘Why would she be upset?’
‘I don’t know. She said she wanted to talk to me about a mutual acquaintance, one of the teaching assistants. Buddy Elder. He wasn’t the friend who told you she wanted to talk to me, was he?’
Kip Dalton answered that in fact he wasn’t. Someone else. He didn’t offer any names. I knew how rumours could float in an environment like that. Pass a story to a couple of sources and it would come back to you as fact within the hour. Buddy Elder was the source of this information no matter where they had picked it up. I didn’t think it was a good idea to press my cause too aggressively. Let them find Buddy on their own, I thought, and they’ll believe he’s involved in this.
‘She didn’t speak to you again?’ Dalton asked.
‘No.’
‘What time did you get home?’ Dalton asked.
‘Around three-thirty.’
They pushed around the edges as if they were not really very interested. How well did I know Johnna?
Was she the kind of young woman who might decide to disappear for a few days? Prone to depression?
