A small and isolated business like the Speedy-D would not have a humming trade trade during Christmas week. With the prospect of supermarkets closed for the holiday, people tended to do a comprehensive shopping when they bought their glacially frozen turkeys, so that late errands would be mainly to stores which carried tree lights, bulbs, last-minute stocking presents.
Still, what kind of man would go boldly into a public place, without even an elementary disguise—Beryl Green was sure there had been no actual mask—and abduct a clerk? An estranged husband or a furiously jealous boyfriend—but, according to the evidence so far, neither existed in the case of Ellie Peale.
The effect suggested by a stocking mask, features blurred and slipped, was unpleasant from the outset, and the night was very cold. Where, among the luminarias and windows with silver-hung blue and red and green and gold, the illuminated rooftop sleighs, and the festive gatherings, was a small slender girl in only shirt and slacks? Where, having screamed and struggled, was Ellie Peale?
Teresa Sweet, returning home after delivering presents to her parents and sister and nieces and nephews, heard the telephone ringing as she let herself in, and then her husband’s tense, “Christ!” and, “Where are you?” and, “Stay there,” and something else, quietly into the mouthpiece, which she didn’t catch.
She had brought back reciprocal presents, which she piled in a chair. “Who was that?”
“A friend of mine,” said Sweet, brief and brilliant-eyed and quite safe in this economy; although Teresa was well aware of the source of their extra income, she did not care to know details. He was moving as he spoke, going into the kitchen for his jacket, coming back moments later to write on the message pad beside the telephone.
“Don’t you get mixed up in it,” said Teresa automatically, but Sweet only glanced at his watch. “Call that number in . . . an hour and tell Mrs. Balsam that her mare is loose.”
Balsam was an utterly strange name to Teresa. She began mystifiedly, “How do you know—?”
“An hour,” said Sweet tersely, and was out the door. An exit from the next house coincided with his, carrying called goodnights and a fragment of choir song: “. . . all is calm, all is bright . . .”
Chapter 5
Amanda, with a vivid memory of the hospital room and the intravenous solution, felt callous as she took out the piece of round steak, the mushrooms, and the ripe tomato probably intended for her aunt’s dinner tonight. But she was starving and deprived of her own kitchen, and even the best of refrigerators would not keep food indefinitely.
Here, a whole thicket of worries would spring up if she let it. But Mrs. Balsam was in good hands, the doctor had implied that only time would tell, and in the meantime the Lopezes’ long-anticipated Christmas reunion had been retrieved. Amanda presently carried her plate into the living room and switched on the television set, low, so as not to wake the child in the guest room.
She had missed the first part of the local news, something to do with a downtown fire; there was a play of hoses and then the announcer appeared, promising to be right back. She always watched this man with great fascination because of his moustache, two thick, black downcurving wings which seemed to be attached directly to his prominent nose, creating for both a haunting impression of falsity. Occasionally, as if he had delved deeper into a disguise kit, he wore round steel-rimmed glasses.
When he returned, it was with the now-familiar inset of a young girl’s face, turned and somewhat surprised, accompanied by a stark question mark. There was still no trace of Ellie Peale or the man described by two witnesses, and her parents had received no ransom demand or other communication. Anyone who had seen this girl, or the man who now appeared as sketched by a police artist, was to call the number flashed on the screen.
How casual, thought Amanda when the announcer had removed his preposterous nose and moustache into another period of invisibility: the takeover, and very possibly the taking, of someone’s life on what had all the earmarks of a deadly impulse. Vans had grown in popularity over the last few years and there must be thousands of them in the city, with light colors predominating in a hot dry climate. The one which had been used to transport Ellie Peale could be standing quite openly in a driveway or parking lot.
A slice of bread danced its way across the screen, winking roguishly and piping that it was ready for anything—and, from outside and with no preliminaries, there was a deep commanding bark.
Amanda rushed to the front door, snapping on the outside light, and opened it. The Afghan stood there in the showering gold, silky hair blowing in the wind, ropy curlicued tail going still in puzzlement because this was not her owner.
“Come, Apple. Good girl,” called Amanda wooingly, and Apple ducked her head in pleased recognition and took a prancing step forward and was cut off by the sudden emergence from nowhere of a tall, lean Doberman pinscher so black that it might have been a cutout of the surrounding dark. The two communed briefly and then the Doberman bounded out of the light and was gone, with Apple in his wake.
“Apple? Apple! Oh, you horrible animal,” Amanda cried after her, and slammed the door.
Still, the dog had almost obeyed, and knew now that there was someone here to feed her. Even if she were safely inside, Amanda had decided at some point not to go home tonight. The prospect of waking and dressing Rosie, and then settling her all over again at the end of a fifteen-minute drive, would not have been appealing even in midsummer; as it was, the cold was daunting.
