blond hair and a big smile. She had on a red-and-white tube top that showed a reasonably toned stomach and tan shorts that complimented firm, tapered legs.
“Nice picture,” I said at the time.
What I’ll never forget is how she took the old photo from my hand as if it were a precious crystal and gave it a long, wistful look before carefully placing it back in the plastic enclosure and ultimately, in her wallet.
I’ve seen Mary at what, thirty social events since that day? And more times than not, she pulled that old photo out of her wallet and showed it to someone.
I’m planning a quick drive-by. I don’t want to enter Mary’s house or raise anyone’s suspicions; I just want to see if her car is in the driveway. That’s where it would be, not in the garage, but in the driveway, or possibly on the street in front of her house. This is because Mary and her husband, Parker, are pack rats. Over the years, they’ve managed to accumulate so much junk in their garage, there’s no room for cars. Now in the neighborhood, I’m a block away. It will be easy to drive past the house and see if her blue 2004 Toyota Celica is there.
It isn’t.
My cell phone rings. It’s Karen Vogel. I want to confront her but don’t know where to begin. I click on the call and hear her screaming before I get the phone to my ear—screaming like she’s being attacked.
It takes her a few tries, and her words are interspersed with chokes and sobs, but she finally manages to tell me what’s happened. And when I hear it, I’m convinced she knows nothing about Rachel, Mary, or the gangsters.
“Stay on the line,” I say. “Don’t move. I’m on my way.”
I tear down the road to Karen’s condo. On the phone, she seems to be hyperventilating. She tells me her cell phone is out of power. She’s going to hang up and call me right back on her home phone.
“No!” I say. “Please don’t hang up. I’ll be there in five minutes.”
I hear the click as the phone goes dead. I wait for her to call me back—and wait.
Now I’m pulling into her driveway. I park behind her car. I get out and notice her trunk is shut. I pop it open. It’s empty. I look around but see nothing that shouldn’t be in her yard. It’s the same with the street; everything’s normal. I rush to her front door and bang on it while calling her name.
No answer.
I turn the doorknob, and just like in the movies, the door opens. I continue calling Karen’s name. I get to the kitchen and see her cell phone on the counter. I check to verify that the battery is dead. It is. On the floor by the back door, I see something that concerns me more than anything else that’s happened: Karen’s purse. It’s lying on the floor open, as if it had fallen or been knocked from the chair. Her wallet and some of the other contents of her purse have spilled out of it and are scattered around the back door.
The back door is open.
Chapter 11
On the phone moments earlier, Karen had told me she’d come home to change into a suit for her job. She went into her bedroom and changed clothes and then decided she wanted the lipstick she’d left in the purse in her car. She went out to the car, but found no purse. She knew it couldn’t be in the trunk, but she opened it anyway. … And saw the dead body in her trunk. It was someone she knew, a guy friend—except that her guy friend was an accountant. Only just now, when she’d seen his blood-soaked body, he was wearing a policeman’s uniform.
Like Karen, I was in shock. I listened as she went on and on about how long they’d been friends, how close they were. No, she had no idea how he got into her trunk; she didn’t know how long he’d been in there. She’d left the trunk wide open, run straight into her house, and locked the front door. Her first instinct was to call 911, but she was frightened. Since her friend was dressed as a policeman, she was afraid of who might come to her door. Our plan was for me to come here, and together, we’d call 911. I look around the kitchen for a note or any type of sign she might have left me. Nothing, unless you count the purse. I do.
I pick up the items from her purse and place them on her kitchen table. Then I get her purse and dump the contents out on the table.
I pick up the items one by one: a pink leather Coach wallet containing four credit cards, assorted gift cards, a Kentucky driver’s license, and fifty-three dollars in cash; a small can of TREsemme hair spray; a green plastic Clinique compact; sugar-free Tic Tacs, Paradise Mint flavor; an ink pen; an eyebrow pencil; a pack of moistened towelettes; and a checkbook with no entries written in the check ledger. I check the zippered side section and find three packets of Splenda, some loose change, and three cards with romantic messages she’d received with flowers from yours truly.
I open her cell phone again to see if she made any calls after hanging up on me. She did not. I press the redial button on her home phone to see who the last person was that she’d called. The hotel answers.
I check the digital display for the time of the call: 10:43 am.
Which means someone called her at the hotel from her condo. Someone called to say what? I shake my head to keep myself from imagining all sorts of crazy scenarios. The digital displays on phones, like e-mail time stamps, are notoriously incorrect. She probably called the hotel last night to make sure they charged her for the room. That’s the only way they would let her check in at seven this morning, they’d said. The time signature is wrong, that’s all.
I can’t call the police—they’re looking for
The gangster said sometime soon I’ll pick up the phone, and he’ll be on the line. At the time, I thought he was nuts. Now I’m not so sure. I think he’s got Karen, and I’ll do whatever I have to in order to get her back safely. I’m thinking he’s placed a throwaway cell phone in my home near my computer desk. Maybe I press “one” on the speed dial and he tells me what it will cost to get Karen back safely.
