Though but fifty-five, I am an old campaigner in the battle-fields of Love; and, believe me, it is better to be as you are, heart-free and happy, than as I am—eternally racked with doubting agonies!
—PHANTIS, Utopia, Limited
When Fred woke up on Friday morning he could hardly drag himself in to work. He stopped at Dan’s Donuts on his way, putting it off a few minutes more. Dan pumped him for information, but only half-heartedly, as if he no longer expected Fred to know anything.
Just as well, Fred thought, since I don’t. He sat at one of Dan’s tables to munch a sour-cream doughnut and drink coffee.
“So, Lieutenant,” Dan said, as he filled Fred’s cup for the third time, “I hear you went out to visit my old buddy Chris Eads.”
“Where’d you hear that?”
“Oh, word gets around. You know how it is. A little bird told me.”
“We’re talking to everyone.” Why am I even bothering to answer?
“Just routine, is that it?”
“That’s it.” You’re not going to get my goat. See me smile?
“Can I interest you in another doughnut?”
“Nope. I’d better go. Unless your little bird has told you something you think I ought to know.”
“Not a chirp.”
“That’s the trouble with those birds. See you, Dan.” He licked the last bit of glaze off his lips and walked glumly over to the station.
Today he didn’t feel like running up the worn limestone steps. When the police dispatcher greeted him cheerfully, he almost bit her head off.
“Morning, Lieutenant. Your lady friend find you?”
“You want to translate that?” He glowered down at her.
“I didn’t mean anything by it. We logged a couple of calls for you from a woman who didn’t want to leave a message. One before I left yesterday evening, and one just a few minutes ago. I figured it was personal.”
He headed down the hall without answering. He was in no mood to have civilians twit him about his personal life. As for the calls, he’d find out soon enough. Right now he was so down on himself, he didn’t want to have to deal with any woman, not even Joan. Her very cheerfulness would be more than he could bear.
He was walking into his office when the phone rang. He sat down and took a deep breath before reaching for it.
“Lundquist,” he growled. But it was a young man.
“Mr. Lundquist, this is Andrew Spencer.”
“Hello, Andrew.” He relaxed. “What can I do for you?”
“It’s not me, it’s my mom.” Andrew’s voice croaked, making him sound much younger than he was.
“What about her?”
“Zach Yoder just called and woke me up—I went back to bed after breakfast—and said he thinks she’s been kidnapped or something.”
“She’s what?” Fred leaned into the phone.
“Zach saw her in Virgil Shoals’s truck. Virgil was speeding, he said, and Mom looked really scared.”
Fred leaned back. Probably a false alarm.
“You sure he wasn’t just giving her a ride to work? Maybe she was worried she’d be late.”
“No, Zach was calling from a place out on Quarry Road. He told me to call the police.”
“Why didn’t he call himself?” He was afraid he knew the answer already.
“He took out after them.” Oh, great. “But he gave me a description of the truck.” Fred grabbed a pencil and paper.
“Shoot.”
“It’s a blue Ford panel truck with Shoals Construction in white letters on both sides. He didn’t get the license number. Please, can’t we go make sure she’s all right?”
“You sit tight, son. I’ll see what I can find out and call you back.”
“Okay.” Andrew’s voice sounded very small.
First check the obvious. Fred found the Oliver Senior Citizens’ Center in the phone book.
“Mrs. Spencer, please.”
“She hasn’t come in yet this morning,” said a pleasant older woman’s voice. “Can someone else help you?”
“This is Lieutenant Lundquist, Oliver Police Department. When do you expect her?”
“Lieutenant, we don’t know.” Now the voice sounded concerned. “This isn’t like her. She’s never this late. We were about to call her house, in case she’s sick.”
“Don’t bother. I’ll call her.”
“Thank you. Thank you very much. We don’t want anything to happen to our Joanie.” Aha. This was the woman with the topknot and the knitting who liked to tease Joan.
“No, ma’am. Are you all right over there?”
“Oh, yes. The day-care people opened the building, and the rest of us can take care of things for one day. You tell her we’ll be just fine.”
“I’ll do that.”
Now he was worried. Annie—that was her name—was right. It wasn’t like Joan. Did that mean Yoder had it right? He tried to remember the odd thing Joan had said about Yoder and Virgil Shoals. Putnam had bad-mouthed Yoder to Shoals, that was it. She knew them both, and as far as Fred knew, she had no reason not to trust Shoals. He wouldn’t have to carry her off at gunpoint—just convince her she was urgently needed somewhere, or maybe threaten harm to Andrew if she didn’t do what he said. That would get her. But why would he abduct her? It didn’t make sense. Both men were on the spot when Putnam was killed, but that hardly suggested a reason to carry Joan off. Or make up a story like that.
He called her number.
“Hello.” Andrew’s voice was steadier.
“Fred Lundquist, Andrew. You mom didn’t show up for work, so I’m going after her. If she comes home, you call the station again and ask someone to page me right away.”
“Okay. But there’s one more thing. I just remembered something she said last night.”
“Yes?”
“Rebecca called, and Mom told her she saw something yesterday that made her think she knew who killed David Putnam. She was going to call you.”
Damn! Fred thought.
“She tried. What else did she say?”
“We couldn’t get it out of her. She wouldn’t talk about it until she could tell you.” So, maybe this abduction that looked more and more like the real thing tied in with the Putnam case.
“Thanks, son. Try not to worry.”
Automatically, he filled Ketcham and Terry in.
“This could be the break we need,” Ketcham said. But looking at Fred’s face, he subsided into silence and moved fast. They took a squad car for speed and turned on the lights and siren. Terry followed in another unit with Jill Root.
Flying out Quarry Road with Ketcham at the wheel, Fred had all too much time to imagine Joan in the hands of a killer. She’d be terrified at best, injured or dead at worst.
If I hadn’t dawdled at the doughnut shop this morning, she would have reached me. Then she could have told this creep the police already knew whatever he was afraid she would tell us.
Fred scanned both sides of the road without success for the blue panel truck, but the closer they came to the quarry, the surer he was that it would be there. The abandoned quarry hole, filled with water that hid enormous, unusable quarry blocks, wrecked automobiles, refrigerators, and other large items that rural residents didn’t want to pay a landfill fee to dump, was such a logical place to dispose of a body that he’d been half-expecting something like this ever since he first saw it. The junk and stones on the bottom would make dragging to find a corpse useless. And there were natural injuries every year or so. People insisted on diving into what looked like a beautiful rural pond, no matter how often you warned them they’d probably break their necks—or heads—on the invisible hazards below the water. A body that floated to the surface on its own would be ruled accidental death if it didn’t have an obvious bullet hole or two in it, unless something made the coroner suspicious enough to order an autopsy and the autopsy proved that death occurred before it hit the water.
Something like cops looking for a body before it’s even dead, he thought bitterly. And then hoped he was right about the before part. What was going on out there? Were they already too late?
Traffic was light. About a mile from the quarry, Fred spotted a pickup parked at a schoolbus turnaround across the road and a man standing beside it, waving both hands at them. He recognized Zach Yoder.
“There’s Yoder!”
Ketcham pulled over, and their backup followed suit. When they jumped out, Yoder ran across the road. Terry and Root ran up to join them.
“I got your message,” Fred said. “Where is she?”
“At the quarry.” Yoder pointed a shaky finger down the road. “I followed them there. Virgil’s got a shotgun. I saw her, but he wouldn’t let me talk to her.”
“Was she all right?”
“I think so. She looked scared.”
“Was he threatening her?”
“I don’t know. He wasn’t touching her. I couldn’t hear what he was saying to her. He was aiming at me, so I did what he said.” He shrugged.
“How long ago was that?”
“Not long—I just got here.”
“Did he say he was holding her hostage? Or what he wanted?”
“All he said was to get out.”
“You think he’s drunk or on drugs?” Terry asked.
“Not that I could tell.”
“You have any idea why he’s got her out there?” Ketcham asked.
Yoder just shook his head. “Virgil’s got a temper, but I’ve never seen him do anything like this. He’s come by while I was working at her house, but nothing ever happened. It doesn’t make sense.”
Not unless Joan would have told me she suspected him, if I hadn’t been pigging out on doughnuts.
“You want me to go back with you?” Yoder was asking.
“No,” four cops said at once.
“Call it in,” Fred told Terry and Root. “And don’t let anyone spook him. Thank you, Mr. Yoder. We’ll handle it from here.” They left Yoder standing in their dust.
He heard Root’s voice on the radio: “We have an abduction with a weapon involved at the old Beasley Quarry, on Quarry Road north of Oliver. Lieutenant Lundquist and Sergeant Ketcham enroute with Detective Terry and Officer Root. Request a signal one hundred. The lieutenant’s handling this code two.”
The dispatcher relayed it. The signal killed all chatter and routine inquiries on the police radio frequency until the emergency was over, while alerting every police agency in the area to it, and the code warned them to use red lights only. No sirens.
If he kills her, I’ll tear him limb from limb, Fred thought. No, if he kills her, I’ll never forgive myself. I don’t belong here. I know that. But nobody better stop me. He looked over at Ketcham’s calm face, the sunshine glinting off his glasses as the road curved to the east again. You wouldn’t even think of getting in my way, would you, Johnny?