was left was fancier, like she’d had her hair put up. She wore that one to church and parties.”
“Oooo,” I said. “That’s
“It really was,” Sally agreed. She turned a page in her notebook.
“Why was the wig there, I wonder? That makes it look bad for Mrs. Julius.”
“Yes, it does. She wouldn’t leave without her extra wig, would she? And the wig made the whole scene eerier… like Martians had beamed them up right after they’d made their beds that morning, but before they’d gone down to breakfast.”
“They’d made their beds,” I repeated.
“Yes, unless something happened during the night, before they went to bed but after Mrs. Totino had gone to sleep up in her apartment.”
“And what time was that, do you remember?”
“Yes, I have it here… nine-thirty, she said. She was extra tired from all the activity of the day… the Dimmoch boy coming to visit Charity and help T.C., Parnell coming to pour the patio.”
It was hard picturing that as exhausting since someone else had done all the work. I said as much to Sally.
“Yes, but you see, since her daughter was so ill she’d been doing most of the cooking, the evening meals anyway, and lots of the laundry, I gathered.”
“Maybe that was why T.C. was agreeable to building her the apartment? Because Hope was so sick?”
“That’s what I presumed. I never met him. The few people who did meet him, like Parnell Engle, liked him, and liked Hope, too. The picture I get is of a rigid kind of man, very honest and aboveboard, very meticulous in his dealings, punctual, orderly; of course, some of that might be from being in the service for so long. As far as I can tell, Hope was not a strong person, emotionally or physically, and I’m sure her illness had sapped her.”
“And Charity?”
“Charity was a typical teenager, according to the local kids who knew her for a few weeks. She talked all the time about her boyfriend she’d had to leave behind when she moved here, but most of the girls I interviewed seemed to feel that was a ploy to make her look important. Though since the Dimmoch boy cared enough to drive over, I guess they were wrong. Her grades, if I am remembering correctly, weren’t that good, implying either that she wasn’t bright or that she was more interested in other things; don’t know which. She was an attractive girl, they all said that in one way or another, even though she didn’t seem so pretty in a photo. I managed to talk to a couple of kids who knew her when she lived in Columbia, and they all spoke of her as being a strong girl, one with a lot of adult qualities, especially after her mother got sick.”
I offered Sally another glass of tea. She looked down at her wrist.
“No, thanks. I’ve got to be at a City Council meeting in ten minutes.”
Sally left me with a lot to think about as I put the dishes in the dishwasher. And I realized I’d forgotten to ask her about the aerial search.
After I saw Angel leave on some errand of her own that afternoon, I did something peculiar.
I retraced Mrs. Totino’s movements of the morning of the disappearance-no, the morning the disappearance was reported-as she had told them to Sally. I walked in the front door, looked around, went to the kitchen, went out the front door again, looked in the garage, went between the garage and the house to the backyard. I looked around it, and up at the window of our guest bedroom, the room that had been Charity’s. Then I went in the front door yet another time.
I was certainly glad we lived out in the country so no one would see this bizarre exercise, which netted me exactly nothing but chills up and down my spine.
I called Lynn Liggett Smith that afternoon. Conversations between Lynn and me were always egg-walking exercises. On the one hand, she’d married Arthur Smith, the policeman whom I’d dated and been very fond of for months before he up and married Lynn-who was pregnant. I didn’t care so much about that anymore, but Lynn felt a certain delicacy. On the other hand, we would have liked each other if it hadn’t been for that, I’d always thought.
“How’s Lorna?” I asked. I pictured Lynn at her desk at the Lawrenceton police station, tall, slim Lynn who’d lost all her baby-weight very fast and resumed her tailored suits and bright blouses with ease. I’d seen Lynn at the wedding, but of course she and Arthur hadn’t brought the baby. Since I’d seen Lorna being born, I was always interested in her progress. “Is she walking yet?” I had a very shaky idea of baby chronology.
“She’s been walking for months now,” Lynn said. “And she’s talking. She knows at least forty words!”
“Eating real food?”
“Oh, yes! You ought to see Arthur feeding her yogurt.”
I thought I would pass that up.
“So what can I help you with today, Roe?”
“I wondered,” I said, “if you would mind very much looking in the file on the Julius disappearance, and telling me exactly how the police searched.”
Long silence.
“That’s all you want to know?” Lynn asked cautiously.
“Yes, I think so.”
“I can’t think of a good reason why not.”
The phone clunked as it hit Lynn’s desk, and I heard other detectives talking in the background as the click of Lynn’s pumps receded.
With the phone clamped awkwardly between my shoulder and ear, I wiped the kitchen counter. I tried to decide what I’d wear to dinner that night. Should we take a bottle of wine with us? What if the Andersons were teetotal? Lots of people in this area were.
“Roe?”
I jumped. The telephone was speaking to me.
“Every inch of the house was searched, and the garage apartment, too. No bloodstains. No signs of foul play. Gas in both vehicles, both vehicles running normally… so they hadn’t been disabled. Beds stripped and mattresses tested… yard gone over inch by inch. The fields visually surveyed. According to the file, Jack Burns requested an aerial search but the city didn’t have enough money left in the budget to pay for one.”
“Golly. Since there wasn’t enough money, one wasn’t done?”
“You got it.”
“That’s wrong.”
“That’s fiscal responsibility.”
“I just never thought about police department budgets not permitting things like that.”
Lynn laughed sardonically, and did a good job of it, too. “Budgets don’t permit lots of things we’d like to do. Our budget doesn’t even permit us to do some of the things we need, much less the things we’d like.”
“Oh,” I said inadequately, still at a loss.
“But short of that, the investigation was very thorough. And the search was meticulous. There was a complete search of the house, an exhaustive search of the yard and the field around the house, and a lab examination of the two vehicles, all of which turned up absolutely nothing. Bus stations, airlines, train stations, all queried for anyone answering the description of any or all members of the family. That took some time, since they were all more or less average looking, though Hope was visibly ill. But no leads.”
“Eerie.” I jumped at the sound of the pet door as Madeleine entered. She walked over to her food bowl and deposited something in it, something furry and dead.
“Jack still talks about that case, when he’s had a beer or two. Which is more often-” Lynn stopped, reconsidered, and changed the subject. “So how’s your husband?”
“He’s fine,” I said, a little surprised. Arthur had strong views about Martin, and he had shared them with Lynn, I could tell.
“He is a little older than you?”
“Fifteen years. Well, fourteen plus.”
I could feel my brows contracting over my nose. I took off my glasses-the tortoiseshell pair today-and rubbed the little spot where tension always gathered. Madeleine was waiting for me to come over and compliment
