James Romson opened his eyes to the smell of coffee and bacon. He shook the sleep from his eyes and sat up. His muscles seemed to creak as he stretched. He glanced at the clock on his bedside table and then, startled, looked again. It read one-thirty-eight in the afternoon! He had been sleeping since he arrived home from the police department at five-twenty the previous afternoon! Slowly, he rose to his feet and wandered down to the kitchen where he found his disheveled wife frying bacon and holding a large coffee cup in her hand.
“Hi, honey,” he said. “You look like I feel!”
“Thanks, a lot! Remind me to compliment you sometime, too,” she said as she reached her lips up for a kiss. “Good morning, darling. I think we were more tired than we thought.” She started forking bacon out of the frying pan and broke eggs into the hot grease. “I know the doctor won’t like the grease and cholesterol, but after a day like the last two, I’m not too worried at the moment. I thought breakfast sounded good, even if it is afternoon.” James hugged her and then put bread into the toaster.
“You know, I think we might have goofed turning the phone off. What if Pete tried to reach us with a ransom demand?” James asked, as he scratched his head absentmindedly, his forehead furrowed.
“I think he will call back. I don’t think that will be a problem. I looked at the answering machine, and it’s full. I didn’t think I could take listening to it before I had some coffee in me, though.”
“Mary, I just thought of something. We didn’t call either of our parents last night to tell them! I hope they didn’t watch the news, but I know they were most likely swamped by people at church this morning. We’d better call them right away and apologize.” He turned the telephone ringer back on and picked up the handset. After dialing his parents’ home, he waited just a few moments for an answer. Mary could only hear half of the conversation, which was very full of apologies.
“Hi, Mom. James here. . . . Yes, I’m sorry we didn’t call you yesterday. . . . I know, we should have thought of you. . . . No, we didn’t do it on purpose. We . . . No, Mom, we were at the police department until . . . No, Mom, they didn’t arrest us. . . . No, Mom, the TV people didn’t talk to us. . . . No, Mom, the news people don’t know what they are talking about. They . . . No, we are not suspects, and Jed was not killed. . . . We don’t know. We just woke up. . . . Of course, we slept! We hadn’t been to bed in . . . I know, Mom. We are worried, but . . . Is Dad there?”
Mary put the eggs and bacon on the table and buttered the now cooling toast. She handed James a cup of coffee. He waved to her to go ahead and eat, miming talking in his ear.
“Hi, Dad. Sorry we didn’t call you last night, but by the time we got home from the police department, a little after five, we were totally exhausted and both fell asleep with our clothes on. I woke up not ten minutes ago. . . . No, I don’t know what is going on today. I just woke up. . . . No, I don’t know what the news is saying, and we have not talked with them at all. . . . No, I know they don’t know anything about what happened. We are still trying to work that out. All we know is Jed picked up Pete, our pilot, when they got back from Europe and for some reason went to the hangar. His Bronco is there, but the plane is not. He had Charles’s daughter, Elizabeth, with him. The lock on the hangar door had been blocked with Super Glue or something, and we had to cut the lock off the door. When we left the police had sealed the site. . . . No, Dad, the news people don’t know what is going on either. The police would not have told them, and we certainly haven’t talked with them. Charles was taken to the hospital with chest pains and shortness of breath. . . . No, I haven’t talked with him yet either. I just now realized we hadn’t called you and wanted to apologize. We didn’t mean to leave you out of things; we just had too much going on to think of. . . . Yes, Dad, we’ll call you right away when we hear anything. . . . Okay, Dad. Love you. We’ll let you know everything we find out. Goodbye.” He sat down at the table shaking his head at Mary’s grin. His mother tended to be a little excitable.
Mary picked up the telephone as James started eating. She dialed her parents’ number and waited for an answer. It came quickly.
“Hi, Daddy. . . . Yes, I’m sorry we didn’t call you last night, and you had to hear on the news. . . . No, we really don’t know what is going on. James and I had been up for almost two days, and we basically collapsed when we got home from the police department last night. . . . No, I really don’t know what the news is saying happened. We just woke up about twenty-five minutes ago and realized we had not told you. . . . No, they don’t have any real information. All they know is Jed and Elizabeth are missing . . . . No, we haven’t talked with the police yet today. We’ll be calling them just as soon as I’m through talking with you. . . . Yes, we love you too, and I’ll call you just as soon as I hear anything at all. . . . Tell Mommy I love her, and I hope her migraine goes away soon. . . . Yes, I know the stress is not good for her. . . . Okay, goodbye.”
Mary hung up the phone and sat down at the table with a sigh.
“Well, at least mine went a little easier than did yours.” She smiled at her husband. She loved her mother-in-law dearly, but she was so glad her husband had been the one to call her.
James picked up the phone. “I suppose we’d better call the PD and see if anything new has come up, but I want to call Pastor Shepherd first before he goes to church for the evening service. I know he’ll want to be able to say something about what is going on.” He called the pastor’s home and left a brief message telling what he knew and apologizing for not letting him know sooner. He added that he would be in touch soon and asked him to please ask folks not to call. They had more than they could handle as it was.