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Once again, no one answered when I telephoned Tremain’s ex-wife. Once again, nobody answered when I drove there and rang the doorbell. I had assumed someone from C&S had contacted them as soon as the company became concerned about him. If not, I didn’t welcome the thought of breaking the news, but it couldn’t be helped. They, more than anyone, would know his habits and acquaintances. I knocked with no better results than I’d had from the doorbell.
Not finding anyone home at their place for two days in a row bothered me, though I couldn’t say why. I stood on the porch of their pleasant brick-and-stucco bungalow, frowning in thought. Did Mrs. Tremain have a job, and Eve go somewhere after school? Or were they gone? Gone at the same time Gil Tremain himself was gone. Perhaps even with him.
Time to start talking to neighbors.
“Hi, I’m Maggie,” I said when the one next door opened her door. “Is Mrs. Tremain away?”
“No, just at work.”
I saw her curiosity. Neighbors are always curious when you show up asking questions.
“Mr. Tremain’s office needs to update some information. Nobody answers the phone either, so they asked me to check. When does she get home?”
“Five fifteen or half past. Could I take a message?”
“Thanks, but I’ll just write a note and put it in her door.”
I went back to the DeSoto and contemplated writing said note. What I needed to tell her, and ask, wasn’t information to come home to. As much time as I spent away from the office, there was also the problem of reaching me. Sooner rather than later I needed to find money for an answering service.
While I tried to decide my best move, a car drove slowly past. I didn’t think anything about it until it came past again. This time I noticed it slowing as it passed the same house that interested me. As soon as it was out of sight, I pulled into a driveway. The car came by again. Not brown. Possibly the one that had waited at C&S Signals last night, and possibly not. In my rearview mirror I watched it slow, then continue. When it turned the corner I pulled out to follow, but by the time I reached the intersection, it was nowhere in sight.
Returning to my original spot across from the Tremain house, I scribbled a note to Nan Tremain saying C&S couldn’t reach Gil and asking her to contact me or Myrtle Hawes. The receptionist was a pain in the neck, but from what I’d seen she was also a paragon of reliability. I slipped it into the mailbox and since I was on the porch anyway and bothered by the car I’d seen circling, I rang the bell again. As I was turning away I heard something inside.
It sounded like someone trying to yell with a gag in their mouth. A faint thump followed. I rang the doorbell again, then dropped to a crouch. Ducking under the window next to the door, I slid off the side of the porch into a rosebush.
For several seconds I struggled to free my legs from the thorns that had snagged in my stockings. I managed to reach a side window with a Venetian blind and peek up as a shape moved past. A man’s shape. When it passed again, heading for the back of the house, I went the same way.
The back yard was small, bare at this time of year. A picket fence with rounded off tops enclosed three sides. A stoop not much wider than a sofa, and too low to merit steps, led to the back door. The door stood ajar an inch or two. From my position hunched against the corner of the house I couldn’t see in, but I heard voices.
“Just some salesman. Or maybe a neighbor.”
“You sure? What if somebody saw us come in?”
“They didn’t. Now grab the kid and let’s clear out.”
I heard the sound again, definitely a muffled squeal, followed by a smack.
“You try that again and I’ll pinch your nose so you swallow that rag, missy.”
My jaw tightened. It must be Eve Tremain they were talking to. A girl of eleven. They were getting ready to snatch her. If I went in and the men had guns, bullets could ricochet. If they came out they could dodge in opposite directions, one making off with the girl while the other plugged me.
There was no time to plan. The Smith & Wesson came to my hand as though magnetized. Hiding the gun in the folds of my flared skirt, I breezed through the door.
“Eve honey, did you know— Oh, my! What on earth...?”
Two men goggled at me. One, with a hawk’s beak, gripped a brown-haired girl by the back of her collar as she sat in a kitchen chair. Her hands were tied in front of her and a rag was stuffed so far into her mouth it was a wonder she didn’t choke. The other toughie, arm’s reach away from me, had a space between his front teeth. He caught my arm.
I went with it like a good little girl, then drove my knee into the back of his. His leg buckled. He went down, nearly taking me with him. As I broke free and struggled for balance, Hawk Nose brought a hand up and I caught the glint of steel.
The kid was no slouch at thinking. She somersaulted forward, escaping his grip on her collar to scramble under the heavy wooden kitchen table. I heard a shot, shattering dishes, crashing wood, all at almost the same instant I felt the breath of a bullet whiz past. I fired blindly toward its source and heard a yelp. My eyes caught bits of images: The overturned table creating a barrier between the girl and the hawk-nosed thug attempting to grab her. The one who was nearest me, the one who’d fired, clutching his arm. Hawk Nose taking a shot at me as I rolled to the side.
“Run!” yelled the one by the door. “Forget the kid!”
There was too much danger my bullet could ricochet and hit the kid if I returned Hawk Nose’s fire. Unless he shot at me again.
A chunk of plaster exploded out of the wall above the table sheltering the girl as a bullet from the man by the door warned what would happen if I fired again.
“Stay down!” I screamed to Eve Tremain.
But the one with the bleeding arm already was gone. Hawk Nose lost no time following. His gun remained pointed back at the girl.
As I started after them, a bullet crashed through the open door. Sticking my nose out invited another that could hit Eve. If I went down myself, the men could come back for her.
From a window over the kitchen sink I watched the two men vault over the back fence, the injured one clumsily. By the time I reached it and looked over, they were running, making for the end of the gravel alley.
***
Eve Tremain was no longer under the table.
“Eve?”
As I moved to one side where I had a clear view of both doors in case the men returned, I caught movement between the far side of the overturned table and the kitchen cupboard. When I got close enough to peer around, she scooted back. Fear bathed her young face.
“Eve honey, I’m not going to hurt you.” I held my left hand palm forward in a gesture of peace, though the .38 I still held in the other one probably didn’t do much to reassure her. “Were there just the two of them?”
After several seconds she nodded. Her eyes never left me.
I tucked the .38 into its holster at the small of my back and crouched down.
“I’m a friend of Miss Collingswood. Lucille. Your father knows her. Do you?”
She nodded more vigorously.
“Would you like me to untie your hands and take that rag out of your mouth?”
For the first time I took a close look at it. A dishrag. A crocheted dishrag that had probably scoured a thousand greasy skillets. It was all I could do to keep from making a face. I took it out. She coughed and spit, then spit again and threw up.
“I can get your hands undone faster if I use a knife,” I said when I’d helped her up from the floor and wiped her chin with a tea towel I found on a peg.
She hesitated.
“There.” She spit the sour taste from her mouth and bobbed her head toward a drawer.
I got the smallest paring knife I could find. It would take longer, but the reassurance was worth the extra time.
“That was smart, upsetting the table,” I said. “My name’s Maggie. I’m a detective. Your father’s boss Mr. Collingswood hired me.”
While I talked, I sawed at the heavy twine binding her wrists. It wasn’t as strong as rope, but the men who’d tied her had compensated by using plenty of it. From the way she was watching me, she was almost as afraid of me as she’d been of them. Even with no experience around kids, I knew asking what happened wouldn’t be smart right now.
As soon as the last of the rope gave way, she jerked back several steps. One wrong blink on my part and she’d bolt.
“Is there a neighbor you’re supposed to go to if you need help?” I asked softly. “Why don’t you go there and ask whoever it is to call your mother. I’m going to sit on your front steps until she gets here, if that’s okay.”
She turned and ran while I was still speaking. I heard her unlock the front door. By the time I stepped through it into a waning day that was colder than crisp, the door of the neighbor I’d talked to was closing.
I sat down and turned my collar up. Then I took inventory. About now I could use an inch of gin. Or the whiskey I’d turned down earlier. The strength that surges to block out feeling in a fight had drained away. I didn’t have enough energy left to straighten the combs in my hair.
What mattered was that Eve Tremain was unharmed. In addition, this attempt to abduct her gave me fresh hope her father might still be alive. It was no coincidence, coming on the heels of his disappearance. Someone wanted the girl to smoke him out, or to use as some kind of leverage against him.
While I was thinking about it, the woman came out next door. Her brown hair was heavily threaded with gray. She stood a moment, looking at me. Then, squaring her shoulders, she started forward.
“I called the police.” The waver in her voice undermined her show of bravery.
“Good. I was hoping you would, but the girl was so scared I didn’t know if I should tell her to ask.”
“She said you claimed you were a detective. Well, those men who broke in told her they were from the F.B.I.”
For half a second I wondered whether they might have been, given the nature of Gil Tremain’s work and the fact his employer had acknowledged it could have military applications. But no, they’d been thugs.
The door behind the woman opened and Eve edged halfway out.
“Go back inside, dear,” the neighbor said over her shoulder. “Your mother will be here shortly.”
“I’m going to wait there where I was,” I said. “I need to talk to Eve’s mother. My name’s Maggie Sullivan, by the way.”
I’d barely gotten settled on the steps again when the first cruiser arrived. Two uniforms went up the walk next door double time. One glanced in my direction as the neighbor let them in.
Another minute passed before a taxi tore up and a woman with shiny brown hair jumped out. She ran up the walk to the neighbor’s house with her hat in her hand and let herself in, calling something I couldn’t hear. No sooner had the taxi left the curb than a second cruiser pulled up.
These would be cops experienced in handling robberies and burglaries. One of the beat cops who’d arrived first opened the door, they exchanged a few words, and all three looked in my direction.
A tallish cop with hair like straw moseyed my way.
“Aren’t you freezing out here, Miss Sullivan?”
“Yeah, but I want to talk to Mrs. Tremain when you’ve asked her all you need to. That’s what brought me here in the first place. You’re Thompson, right?”
“That’s right.”
We’d met a few times at get-togethers where cops congregated.
“Boss said it was okay if we went inside. He and another man will be over directly. He’s getting the girl’s story now. He doesn’t want to push her too hard, after what she’s been through.”
What Thompson wanted was to get my version of things. We were just about finished when the other two other cops arrived to sift through the kitchen. They had questions too. As soon as the boys in blue were gone, Nan Tremain and her daughter appeared from the house next door.
At sight of me on the porch, they halted their approach. Eve spoke to her mother with feverish urgency. Nan’s arm circled her in a protective barricade. She stepped in front of the girl. With a look that warned she wouldn’t put up with much, she strode toward me.