“I don’t know,” I said. “But regardless, Theo installed them, and he should have been able to spot the difference.”
“You’re impossible.”
“How did you hear about Doug?” I asked.
“He called me. He was so upset. Especially after you’ve been friends for so long, how he saved your life and everything.”
I winced mentally.
“And I told Theo,” Sally continued. “And he was super mad, he kept calling me about it, the last time around one, I guess. So I thought, I better come over here and try to calm him down.”
“And he wasn’t home?”
We’d arrived at the steps that led up to the trailer door.
“No,” Sally said. “But if he’s not here, why’s his truck here?”
“You’ve been inside?”
She nodded.
“You’ve got a key?”
Another nod. “But it was open when I got here.”
“He’s not in there passed out or anything?” She shook her head. “Let’s have a look just the same.”
I swung open the metal door and stepped inside the trailer. It was pretty spacious, as trailers go. I stepped into a living room, about ten by twelve. There was a couch and a couple of cushy chairs, a big-screen TV sitting atop a stereo unit, a scattering of DVDs and video games. There were half a dozen empty beer bottles around the room, but it wasn’t quite a frat house in here.
The kitchen, to the left of the partition as you walked in, was another story. The sink was overflowing with dirty dishes. There were several empty takeout containers littering the countertop, a couple of empty pizza boxes. Theo’s truck keys were on the kitchen table, next to a stack of invoices and other work-related papers. While the place was a mess, nothing looked particularly out of order. It wasn’t like there were upturned chairs and blood on the walls.
I picked up the keys and jangled them. “Wouldn’t think he’d go far without these,” I said, as though they were some sort of clue.
On the far side of the kitchen was a narrow hallway that led down the left side of the trailer. There were four doors off it-two small bedrooms, a bathroom, and a larger bedroom at the tail end. The smaller bedrooms had been turned into storage rooms. Empty stereo boxes, clothes, tools, stacks of Penthouse and Playboy magazines, and others raunchier than those, filled each of them.
I didn’t, at a glance, see any boxes of counterfeit electrical equipment.
The bathroom was about what you’d expect of a single guy. Just one step above an interstate highway gas station restroom. And the large bedroom was an explosion of work clothes and boots and tossed covers.
“You ever stay here?” I asked Sally. It wasn’t a question about her sex life. I just couldn’t picture her tolerating this mess.
She shuddered. “No, God. Theo’d sleep over at my place.”
“When you guys get married, you moving in to your house?” I almost called it her father’s place.
“Yeah,” she said.
“Anything look funny here to you?” I asked.
“Just the usual horror show,” she said. “Where would he go?”
“Would he have gone out with a friend? Maybe someone came over and they went out for a drink or something.”
Sally pondered a moment. “Then why didn’t he take his keys and lock up when he left? He’s not going to want someone to steal his truck.”
“Did you try his cell?” I asked.
She nodded. “Before I came over. And his phone here. Both went to message.”
I thought. “We should give it another try.” I walked back up the narrow hallway and picked up the phone on the kitchen counter. “Hang on,” I said. “Let’s check the history. If somebody called him on his landline, invited him out, we’ll see who it is.”
I found Sally’s number on there, but nothing else in the last several hours. “Just you,” I said.
“Maybe he called somebody,” Sally suggested.
“There’s an idea,” I said, and hit the outgoing call list. It showed not only the last number called, but the last ten.
There were three calls out in the last eight hours. One was to Sally’s cell, another to her home phone, and the third, the most recent, to a number I knew well.
“He called Doug’s cell,” I told Sally. “Looks like maybe an hour after the last time he talked to you.”
“He called Doug?” Sally said.
“That’s right.” I suddenly had a bad feeling. If Theo really hadn’t known those parts he’d installed were bad, and believed Doug Pinder was responsible, he might have been inclined to have a face-to-face meeting.
But then again, Theo’s truck was still here. Could someone else have picked him up and taken him to see Doug? But then we were back to why he hadn’t taken his keys with him. You want to lock up, and you don’t want to leave your keys so someone can steal your truck.
“I wonder if I should call him,” I said.
“Who?” Sally asked. “Doug or Theo?”
I’d been thinking Doug, but if Sally hadn’t tried Theo in some time, it made sense to try him again.
I moved through the kitchen to the door, looked outside, hoping maybe we’d see Theo coming up the driveway.
“Try him,” I said to Sally.
Sally got out her cell and hit a button. She put the phone to her ear. After a few seconds, she said, “Nothing.”
I wasn’t sure, but I thought I’d heard something. “Try it again,” I said.
I went out onto the step and stood very still, holding my breath. Nothing but the sounds of night. And then, off in the woods, I was pretty sure I heard a phone.
Sally came outside. “I tried it again, but still no answer.”
“See if there’s a flashlight around,” I said. I had one in the truck, but didn’t want to have to run all the way down to the road.
Sally went back in, returned a moment later with a heavy-duty Maglite.
“Stay here,” I told her, getting a grip on the flashlight. “Keep trying the number.”
“Where are you going?”
“Just do it.”
I went down the steps, walked across what passed for a yard out front of the trailer, and approached the edge of the woods.
“Did you dial it?” I shouted back to the trailer.
“I’m doing it now!”
Ahead of me, to the right, a phone rang. After five rings, it went off. Theo must have set it to go to voicemail at that point.
I walked through some tall grass, casting the flashlight beam back and forth.
“Again!” I shouted.
A few seconds later, the phone began ringing again. I was getting closer.
There was a cluster of trees to the right. The ringing seemed to be coming from the other side of them.
The phone stopped ringing.
I moved through the grass, continued to wave the light in front of me.
“What do you see?” Sally called to me.
“I think he must have dropped his phone out here,” I called back. “Do it again.”
This time when the phone rang, it made me jump, it was so close. Behind me, and to my right. I whirled around, and the flashlight beam landed on where the noise was coming from.
The phone was probably still in one of Theo’s front pockets. The ring tone must have been set pretty loud,
